A/N: It all comes down to Sherlock in the end. Quote by Napoleon Hill.
Samael
The Angel of death and the Prince of the air.
"Action is the real measure of intelligence."
Destroying Sherlock Holmes is a slow burn. Every year since he dispatched Carl, Jim has learned what makes Sherlock tick. Just as long he has dreamed of how to enact it, the plan that forms to forge a devil like himself.
Sherlock is a smarty-pants, a clever boy who barely grows up psychologically much to Jim's delight. The game doesn't grow old with him, it matures and evolves, becomes more of a draw. There's a lot of other games to play, less dangerous ones, but he wants to win this one. This one means something because Sherlock is something else entirely, something else much like Jim but not yet.
Various people push Sherlock, not recognising they push him away instead of where they want. Each time it plays into Jim's strategy. The trouble starts when Sherlock finds people who pull him, who have Sherlock coming back for more – the DI, the morgue assistant, John bloody Watson. At first he'd figured they were spoiling his fun, but then he'd realised they were a bonus. Sherlock had liabilities. Seeing the look on his face when dear John tried to save Sherlock at the pool. Priceless.
The game changed. No devil to be initiated but... angels can fall. Figuratively. Literally.
Evil is seen to be evil, simply existent, but the good turned bad are to be reviled. Their failings are everyone's failings and it's the old self-hatred turned outwards that compels the mob.
Belief is something Sherlock Holmes doesn't get. There is the power in John and Molly and Lestrade - believing Sherlock can be a good man. And the plebs believing he is a righteous knight, protecting them. Sherlock doesn't appreciate their belief because it hasn't been presented as logical. Belief is for him about religion and self-denial. Jim decides the sweetest thing is to show him what life is like without it, with doubt replacing it and the old belief reborn into one that goes against him.
"Do you believe in angels?" Jim had asked his Sunday school teacher once. They'd fobbed him off with metaphors and he'd felt anger because if there were no angels how could there be devils. Where's the fun when a war is one-sided?
It doesn't matter anymore. Everything burns. The metal in his mouth and the shock in Sherlock's eyes.
The body includes the heart and Sherlock has to forfeit his for his friends. It's a five for the price of one really; he'll burn their hearts as hard and fast with grief as the bullets threatening them. Jim has his win there, exactly as promised. He's a man of his word and he has so many; it's been a real treat to spin them into this masterpiece.
It doesn't matter anymore. Create and destroy. Everything burns, no room for regret. Play the tune, fingers tapping it out on a trigger as easily as the chair, his throne in victory at 221B. He smiles around the inevitable blast.