A/N: I took the liberty of adding in yet another OC in this chapter: John's Scottish grandmother. I have a short fic in progress that's John telling his Gran about his new flatmate Sherlock Holmes, but it's In Progress. Hopefully, I will post it one day soon. But for now...Know that I'm making up heap big backstory for John. This is an AU, so I feel it's ok. (Winces) Hopefully.
Anyway, enjoy.
~Essie
.-.
Sherlock: Suits
December 16th
The Kearns Investment Corporation Annual Christmas Gala was a sparkling affair held in Pete Kearns' personal penthouse, with dazzling gowns, black tuxedos, soft music, and flute glasses of champagne served by waiters in white tails. Very posh. Just the sort of occasion that used to keep John gritting his teeth all evening, as he tried to keep Sherlock's manners (or lack thereof) under control. Tonight, though, Sherlock was on his best behavior. He needed to get to Kearns, needed to find out what the man knew about Moriarty and his web.
It didn't take long—and it wasn't exactly as Sherlock had planned, either.
"Please come with me, sir." One of the waiters took Sherlock's elbow in an easy but insistent manner.
"Come where?" Sherlock deliberately set his champagne down on one of the small standing tables that dotted the large, elegant room.
The man's eyes were dark and expressionless. "Please do not make a scene, sir."
"Hardly." Sherlock tugged his elbow free, but followed the waiter—or whatever he really was—out one of the smaller side doors that led into the private areas of Kearns' opulent living quarters.
The man took him down a narrow corridor illuminated by elegantly recessed lights and lined with artwork of minor fame. Sherlock was not an expert, but he knew a good bit about art—as it applied to crime and art theft anyway—and recognized several of the pieces as stolen works. None of them were particularly valuable, but almost every single one had disappeared within the last twelve years.
"A nice collection," Sherlock commented.
The waiter didn't reply. He led Sherlock to a door at the end of the hall, opened it ceremoniously, and gestured the lanky detective through. Wary and alert, Sherlock stepped inside.
The room was small—a study of some kind—and there were no lights other than the bluish glow that shone from a computer screen on a desk in the center of the room. The computer was connected to some sort of video-calling network, and displayed onscreen was the smug face of one Jim Moriarty.
Sherlock felt his heart rate take off like a rocket from its launch pad, but deliberately kept his face emotionless. He stepped closer to the monitor, and a light flipped on above his head, illuminating his face.
Moriarty's expression lit up. "Oh, there you are, Sherlock," he exclaimed, as if he were the host of a gathering and Sherlock was late in arriving. "I half thought you wouldn't come."
"And miss out on the hors d'oeuvres?" Sherlock slipped his hands laconically into his suit pockets.
Moriarty gave a small laugh. "Oh, I've missed this," he admitted, leaning back from the webcam that distorted his face. "Leaving January alive was a good idea after all."
Sherlock's eyes scanned the room behind the criminal mastermind, but there was little to deduce. It was a hotel room, to be sure, but it could have been any hotel room almost anywhere in the world. Flowered bedspread, cheap floral painting on the wall above the headboard, manila-colored lampshade over a brass lamp that illuminated a small black alarm clock and a telephone.
Moriarty waved his hand over the room. "Oh, I'm in New York," he said. "But I won't be here long. I've got people to see, business to direct, governments to topple…" he grinned, and his shark-like black eyes glittered in the reflected light of the computer screen. "But that's not why we're here, Sherlock."
"It's not." Not a question—Sherlock knew that Moriarty had something up his sleeve.
"Hm." The suave villain on the other side of the screen tilted his head and considered Sherlock. "Something's…changed about you, Sherlock," he said. A grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You're dangerous. I like it."
Sherlock said nothing.
"Oh, do tell me this isn't about your pet," Moriarty continued, rolling his eyes. "Really, Sherlock, I didn't know you had it in you."
"You killed him."
"No, you killed him." Suddenly, Moriarty was all business, every hint of a teasing tone in his voice gone—snuffed out like a candle. "If you hadn't insisted on trying to change the rules of the game with that Adler woman—"
"This is not a game!" The words—the same words Mycroft had said to him—came out with more force than Sherlock intended, and he took a steadying breath.
"It has always been a game, Sherlock Holmes. It will always be a game until one of us is …finished. And it is a game that you will continue to play—I know you." Moriarty shrugged. "I know you better than you know yourself and I can promise you one thing, one thing that would be true even if your entire world was to explode into a nuclear holocaust around you: you will continue to play."
"Why should I?"
The taunting smile was back. It was eerie how the man could turn his different personas on and off like that. "Because I have this." He held up a small, leather-bound book, like a pocket planner.
Sherlock frowned. "And what is that," he asked. "Your playbook on taking over the world?"
Moriarty laughed—an honest-to-goodness laugh, not an affected one. "Exactly! Because all consulting criminals write down our step-by-step plans. They teach us that in World Domination 101." He shook his head. "Honestly, you really don't recognize this?"
Seven by twelve centimetres, brown leatherette binding, worn on the edges, obviously kept in a pocket and used often—coat pocket, not trousers. A man's book, a planner, something one would take notes in…oh. Sherlock had seen that notebook a thousand times. John's notebook.
"How did you get that?" Flat voice, no inflection. How did he get John's notebook.
"Ah, now I've got the tiger's tail." Moriarty waved the little volume. "You should see the stuff in here, Sherlock. All sorts of notes and observations on your little cases, doodles—quite good, too—and quite a few pages filled up with some sort of gibberish that even I can't make out. Some kind of shorthand." He grinned, his white teeth shining like a predator's. "That's the juicy stuff, I'm sure."
"How," Sherlock repeated through clenched teeth, "Did you get that?"
"You'd think," Moriarty said, flipping through the small book and pretending to examine one of the pages, "That after that little incident with the DVD in your flat, you'd train your landlady to be a bit more careful about who she lets in."
Mrs. Hudson…
Moriarty might have been a mind reader. "Oh, don't worry." He snapped the book shut and laid it down on the desk in front of him. "The old lady's fine."
"What do you want?"
A look of pure concentration and certainty came across Moriarty's face, and he leaned close to the webcam, the small camera distorting his features. "I want you to keep playing," he said in a low, low voice. "I want you to come after me, to chase me from country to country and game to game, until you crack under the pressure—until you break into a shriveled, sniveling mess of the man you think you are—until you burn out into a hollow husk and there's nothing left of you but what you once were."
There was no more teasing in his tone, no more laughter in his eyes. For once—perhaps the only occasion in the entire time Sherlock had known him—Moriarty was telling the plain, unadulterated truth.
"And if I don't? If I don't want to 'keep playing'?"
Moriarty shrugged, and sat back. "Then I break this code and figure out exactly what it is John Watson thought was so important," he said.
"I highly doubt he wrote down any state secrets; anything that would help you." But they both knew that's not why Moriarty wanted the codes broken. The thought of that…snake rifling through John's most private thoughts disgusted Sherlock. The murderer had no right to know anything about John Watson.
"Let's make a bargain, you and I, Sherlock." Moriarty tapped the notebook. "I'll give you ten months. You play my game for ten months, and I will not even peek—not the tiniest bit—at old Johnny's little code. If you're still alive in ten months—or if you find me—" he added the last in the same tone one might say 'or if you fly to the moon,' "—then I'll give it to you. No charge."
"Why should I believe you?"
"I swear on my mother's grave."
"You probably killed your mother. If she's even dead."
Moriarty smiled a knowing smile. "That's for me to know and you to not bother your pretty head about. But it's a promise. And Jim Moriarty always keeps his promises. I promised to burn you, didn't I?"
He hit a key on the computer, and Sherlock's screen went dark.
Sherlock tugged his suit straight and turned back to the door he had entered through. The waiter who had brought him there was nowhere to be seen, but a door down the hall was open, and the cold night air blew in from outside. It brushed Sherlock's face and chased away the cobwebs of Moriarty's mind games. Feeling more awake and alive and downright angry than he had in months, Sherlock strode out the door and into the Chicago night.
He was back in the Moriarty's game.
._.
._.
John: Ties
December 16th
Gran,
John stared at the paper before him and tapped his nose with the pen in his hand. How do you tell your one living—and caring—relative that, sorry, I'm not dead after all, but I am on the run from the British government and I can't come home?
He sighed, and just started writing.
This isn't a hoax, I promise. I can't explain everything, but I couldn't contact you any sooner than this. It really is me—I'm not dead, and I'm sorry you had to think so. It wasn't my idea.
I have to help a friend—he's chasing down the man who tried to kill me, and I can't come home. If you need anything, contact Cameron Jackson at this address. Whatever you do, don't tell anyone you heard from me. Especially anyone from the government. Don't even tell Harry. I just wanted you to know that it was a lie, and I'm fine—really.
I love you.
~John
"Do you really think this is the best idea?"
John looked up to see Cam standing in the doorway, looking pointedly at the letter.
John shook his head. "It's not fair to her," he said. "She has a right to know."
"Can she keep quiet about it?"
"She's…she's my only family. Other than Harry, that is, and Harry and I…we don't get on. We don't talk much. I'd be surprised if she even went to the funeral."
"But will she keep it a secret?"
"If I ask her too, she will." John's grandmother was a full-blooded Scotswoman and as stubborn as they come. He'd bet on her against Mycroft and all the power of the British government any day.
Cam held out his hand. "Give it here, then," he said resignedly. "I'll post it this afternoon."
"Have you heard from Mike yet?" Mike Waldron was the last of the Vipers to report in. Henry Green, Gordon Thomas, and the two American brothers, Kevin and Leroy Stone had all said yes, they'd help. John tucked the note to his grandmother into an envelope and licked it shut, handing it up to Cam.
Cam shook his head. "Got his answering machine again. He's an airline pilot now, though. He works odd hours. Plus he's in the U.S. It's what—four hours earlier there?"
"Six."
"Six, then."
"It's been a week," John said, standing. "He's not going to answer."
"He was the one hurt the most when you left, John," Cam reminded him. "He thought the Vipers were in it for the long haul. We all did."
"You know it wouldn't have lasted," John protested, "Even if I hadn't left. Sooner or later, one of us would have been transferred out, or gone home, or, or…" he waved his hand. "It wasn't meant to last."
Cam shrugged. "We were the closest thing Mike had to a family, John."
Family. By blood or by bond, family ties were the strongest thing John had ever found. That was why the Vipers were reforming. That was why he had written to his grandmother.
And it was why he had to help Sherlock. Family was family—and family never gave up on family.
"I'll try calling Mike again," he said at last. "Maybe if he hears me on the answering machine…"
Cam shrugged. "Worth a shot, I guess," he said.
"It's always worth a shot."