If the best laid schemes of mice and men go often awry, then perhaps they are not quite as well-laid as one may assume them to be.
In fact, if the best-laid plans of mice and men culminate in suicide by gunshot, then one may reach the conclusion that perhaps the badly-laid schemes of mice and men aren't all that great, either.
Of course, one should also take into account that that had not actually been part of the plan originally. At least, he didn't think it ever was. It must have been an afterthought, he had concluded. A sort of insurance. A last resort, a fleeting "better-bring-it-just-in-case" thought. Because leave it to Jim Moriarty to consider suicide a reasonable backup plan.
What if Jim hadn't brought the gun with him? Would he have jumped instead? Grabbed Sherlock's shoulders and sailed off the side with him, like the two lovers of a Shakespearean tragedy?
No. He wouldn't. He had wanted Sherlock to kill himself. He had wanted it more than anything in the world. Well…almost anything.
What if one thing, one tiny, minute, seemingly insignificant detail had been different? What would have happened? What would be different now?
There was never a chance. He knew this. Sebastian never could have stopped Jim from doing it and he was fully aware of this. He wasn't stupid. He was the second-most dangerous man in London.
And now he's the first.
No matter what happened on that rooftop, the end result would always have been the same. Jim Moriarty would do what he wanted to do, and what he wanted to do was destroy Sherlock Holmes. And Sebastian Moran knew, probably long before Moriarty ever did, that the only way to do that was to destroy himself.
What he had always wondered about the most, however, was exactly what Sherlock Holmes had said to him. What it had taken to push him to the point of no return. What combination of 26 measly letters managed to make the spider, the king of the criminal world, decide to blow his priceless brains out with a handgun and die with a smile on his face.
And to do this knowing exactly who is watching it all through the scope of a rifle.
He was such a bastard. Really. A genuine, one hundred percent, all the way to the bone, utter bastard.
Sebastian hated him.
He hated him and he hated what he had done and he hated himself because no matter what happens, he could never bring himself to really despise Jim Moriarty. He never could and never would, and he knew this for a fact, knew this with a bitter, pessimistic confidence that stuck in his mouth like a bad aftertaste. And even though he liked to believe that he gave Jim the unmitigated hatred he so thoroughly deserves, Sebastian knew, deep in the recesses of his psyche, that if there ever was any hate inside of him for Jim, something else had long replaced it.
Insanity, most likely.
People who get close to Jim Moriarty generally do end up in that direction, if not death. The latter, of course, is much more frequent, if not all-encompassing.
Except for Sebastian, of course. But Sebastian is not really a person, not according to Jim. It had been a compliment, a strange sort of compliment.
He had hated people. Moriarty. And to consider Sebastian apart from them, a separate entity from the vacuous, thoughtless creatures that inhabit this godforsaken planet...it had been the ultimate compliment.
And why wouldn't he have said that? Moriarty doesn't play with the ordinary people. He especially doesn't hire them.
Sebastian was his. His sniper, his soldier, his right hand man. He wasn't ordinary and he knew this. Oh, he knew how pompous and narcissistic it was to think this way, but it was undeniably true. He was one of the top snipers in the entirety of the British Armed Forces and a decorated soldier and blah blah this and blah blah that.
He had enjoyed. He wouldn't lie. It had felt good, getting medals pinned to his chest, being a leader, being stared at reverently by naive cadets. It felt really good. Every high ranking officer knowing your name and the distance you can shoot, not in that order, of course. Priorities.
Being respected. Yes, that was what had been nice. Very nice.
But it had not been enough. He had wanted something more, something he had not been able to understand at the time, but definitely did now.
It had been the dishonorable discharge that changed a lot of things.
He did not much like to lament about it. It had been a regrettable consequence occurring due to regrettable things he had done, and there had been nothing he could do to redeem himself. What he had done had been done and that's it.
Oh, everyone had been heartbroken. They did not really care about him, of course. They did not care about what he had done or what he deserves because of what he had done. All they saw, inside their heads, was the distance and accuracy with which he could shoot. Meaningless numbers and what a damn shame that the army'd be losing its best sniper.
He hated them. He hated those people, all hypocrites with their dull thoughts and dull lives and dull priorities.
What are human beings, he had always wondered, other than aimless, ignorant, simple animals crawling across the face of this Earth in search of meaning that isn't there? And how unfortunate, how utterly unfortunate, is it, that he had been condemned to be one of them.
And Jim Moriarty...he understood this. He understood better than anyone ever had, understood this better than Sebastian ever had or ever could. And sometimes he had thought and he had wondered if perhaps Sherlock Holmes had been right all along.
Jim Moriarty is not a man at all. No...he is better than men.
An odious, loathsome little tick, but better than men nonetheless. And Sebastian couldn't deny it. He had been proud to call James Moriarty his boss.
And when the spider died, he had left behind a web that needs tending to. The second most dangerous man in London had been doing the best he could, and his best was indeed quite good.
Three years and Sherlock Holmes still hadn't managed to arrest him. Not too shabby, he had thought. But, of course, he had to look at it from the opposite point of view, as well.
Ah, the best laid schemes of mice and men. Because for three years he had not been able to put a well-deserved bullet in Sherlock Holmes' head. For three years he had waited, alone.
But not anymore.
He fingered a pack of Marlboros in his pocket. Later, he decided. His smoking habit had waned. Jim had never liked it. Almost got him to quit. Almost.
People stared, every now and then. Not stares of reverence, not anymore. Sebastian understood. His facial scars were eye catching, if not in an especially good way.
The night grew darker and the air colder in Hyde Park. The number of people decreased, a steady stream turning into a trickle, and finally into utter desertion. True solitude.
He sat on a bench, lighting a cigarette. The smoke rose in opaque swirls. It was a cold day. A cold, dreary, foggy day, and the lit tip of the cigarette was the brightest thing in the park.
He glanced up and saw, looming in the fog, walking towards him, her dim silhouette.
His source and Sherlock's traitor.
"You're late," he remarked.
She said nothing and handed him the papers.
He glanced at them. Soft snowflakes began to float in the air and landed soundlessly on the duo. They did not speak to each other. They barely looked at each other. They were a duo in only a technical sense, working together to a common goal, but they both knew that they had their own desires. Their desires were separate and independent and their decisions were separate and independent and they were separate and independent but in a way, they were still one.
The traitor sat on the bench next to him. Snow landed on the papers and Sebastian flicked it off with his trigger finger.
The traitor watched and smiled. She knew things he didn't, and this always made her feel good.
Sebastian put the papers down. "If these are true—"
"They are," she interrupted casually.
"If these are true," he said, gritting his teeth slightly, "then he should be on his way to Berlin International Airport as we speak. Correct?"
"Of course."
He glanced at her face and saw nothing. Unreadable.
The traitor. No, that wasn't the right name for her.
"That is all, then?" She stood up and glanced around briskly, as though she would much rather be anywhere but here. "Anything else?"
He blew smoke at a snowflake in midair. "No." It melted instantly. "You still won't tell me your sources?"
She smiled. "Naturally not."
"And I am still supposed to blindly trust you." It was not a question. It was an accusation, a tacit one.
The traitor laughed. "You could always take your chances with someone else. That is, if there is anyone else who knows what I know about Sherlock Holmes."
Sebastian reached the butt of his cigarette and tasted filter. He put it out on his shoe and stood up, brushing snow off his coat. He looked down at the traitor. She looked up, the most imperceptible of smiles on her face. A smile that hid something.
"Sorry about dinner," she remarked, and walked away.
And Sebastian simply stood and watched as his source and Sherlock's traitor disappeared into the fog and snow, red lips probably stretched into a cheeky grin, heels probably clicking.
That was not the right name for her. No, that was a perversion of her true title, a title that tacitly implicated much more than it seemed, appropriate for an enigma such as herself. She was not "the traitor".
He clenched the papers tightly in his hand and thought of the number of people who have ever beaten Sherlock Holmes.
Only one came to mind.
The Woman.