Disclaimer: I don't own a single thing. A. N. Apologies for being late, but July was crazy – everyone in my family had their birthdays, I had some teeth trouble (thankfully they don't hurt anymore even if I still need to have work done on them) and the heat was near unbearable. The mix was not conducive to much writing. Sorry again!
Chapter 50: The end of the universe
If the rules of the game had been different, John was sure that he would have continued blindly beating Jim's dead body for a good long while, so furious he was. But the gaping nothing stole his victim, and he was left kneeling on the Embankment, panting.
Another black hole opened, swallowing a whole house close by, and another. As tempting as letting this twisted universe die out looked at the moment, Moriarty's disappearance meant that he was the last one left, and his own distress shouldn't cause the literal apocalypse. John pointed at a random black hole, yelling, "Stop! Stop it, damn it!" Nothing happened.
Why didn't anything happen? Well, not exactly. The black holes seemed to both widen and multiply. "Stop!" he screamed again. He was useless – completely useless. Sherlock would know what to do. Jim, too – unless he found the destruction fun. Why had anyone ever considered him a fitting god candidate?
"You know, all this self-loathing isn't that attractive a trait. In anyone," Mormor said, suddenly hovering above his left shoulder.
"What do I do?" John asked, turning sharply to the imp. Perhaps the universe could be saved yet.
The little thing snorted at him. "Become God, for one thing. What did you expect would happen, when you just murdered Dyaus? The last threads of causality are unravelling at top speed. To use your words, that's a bit not good."
"I…no, I…Jim," the doctor replied. He wasn't making any sense, but then again the world wasn't, either.
"Jim Moriarty, yeah. And John Watson, perhaps. And so many others before both of you. Why do you think Dyaus was so committed to his mask? You didn't think it was something silly like 'gazing upon him will destroy you', did you? Oooh – you did!" Mormor snickered at him. "Nope. A God can technically renew his might if he proves that he's better than the competition. Don't ask me what's in it for him – the momentary distraction, the morale boost, or maybe someone even higher I don't know gets him extra points. But it works."
The whole rant made little sense to John, but there was a word he latched on. "Perhaps? What else do I need to do?" He dragged a hand on his face. What else did the universe ask of him?
"Don't you listen? Beat the competition!" the imp huffed.
But he had. He did. Sherlock had excluded so many, and then…
Two sodden arms encircled him. "Sorry," a deep voice purred in his ear.
"Sherlock!" the doctor yelled, shivering. He started to laugh. He was having a mental breakdown, wasn't he? Bit not good.
It appeared it wasn't an hallucination, after all, because the consulting detective was rummaging in his pocket. He came out of it with a phone, "I thought you might use the extra data, so I slipped my phone to you. In case we got separated by one of Moriarty's tricks. If I realised what he was up to, I would have kept it and you'd already be God. But – done!"
"Stop!" John tried again. Nothing happened. "What the fuck now?" Don't tell him he really needed to murder all the people they'd spared. What kind of messed up system required literal bloody human sacrifices and not, you know, proof you could kick someone's arse if needed? Which still seemed like an odd requirement in itself, to be honest, but if it was the godly version of an election, he wasn't going to change how the universe worked. Not until he figured out how the fuck he could influence anything at all, at least!
"Breathe, Johnny!" Mormor quipped.
"My name is not fucking Johnny!" he growled. He had no desire for posh-sounding nicknames, but shouldn't godhood allow him the basic respect of not having his name mangled? He was starting to see the point of the third commandment.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry, my point is – relax. Governing time and causality is like playing a fine tuned instrument – they don't like being barked at," the imp insisted.
"He does have a point, you know. Panic never helped anyone learn something new, and that's what you have to do now. Have you ever tried meditation?" Sherlock piped in.
The doctor's withering glare was reply enough. Calming, calming, think calming thoughts, don't panic…how was he supposed to stop being terrified when he'd spent most of his life just one step away from the edge? He'd learned to function on adrenaline, to thrive on it, but never to throw it away – and was he supposed to learn while the universe crumbled? "The universe is fucked." He didn't even realise he'd whispered that.
The kiss – sudden, deep and demanding – stole his breath and sent his brain to a screeching halt. His eyes fluttered shut. A moment later, John's instinctive keen of loss, finding himself cruelly abandoned, overlapped with Mormor's gagging noises. "What…the…fuck?" he groaned, when he managed to make sense again.
Sherlock shrugged. "Meditation develops serotonin and oxytocin, that's why it works brilliantly against stress. Another source of the same hormones is kissing. It looked quicker than giving you a yoga course." Despite the offhand tone, he was finding a pebble by his right shoe positively riveting.
"Yeah, I'll believe that when you can look at me while you say it. Look, I'm not angry. Just…warn a dude next time, maybe?" John retorted.
That got the sleuth's eyes to snap back to him. "The next…" His voice trailed off.
"Honestly!" Mormor screeched, his voice thin and high-pitched but his tiny body all aquiver with rage. "I've had to endure Jim's idiot pining for too long, can we get back to the matter at hand, please?"
John breathed in. Breathed out. Tried to remember that he wasn't here to kiss Sherlock, but to unravel…well, ravel back, but you had to know how to unravel them first… time and causality. He was God. The imp would have told him if he wasn't yet, wouldn't he? The little thing seemed invested in this after all. He could do this.
Chasing the kernel of an idea, he took his phone out of his pocket. Maybe…no. Nothing. Not his blog – of course, without the late Dyaus powering it – but not even a convenient Excel app to calculate entropy or anything of the sort.
Not until he willed it, maybe? …No, it didn't work like that. If it was like playing, he needed to find the strings, though. If he just concentrated enough…wait, maybe – there was something – nope. It slipped away before it could reach his conscious. He'd closed his eyes, trying to focus, and now he opened them back to Sherlock's expectant face. "Would you mind…?" he asked.
"If you're going to keep playing around, I'm outta here," Mormor huffed, disappearing in a disgusted puff of dust.
"No, I really…I think I'm almost there, so if you could help me – maybe I need just an extra boost to get to unblock –" John mumbled, looking at the expanding nothingness and not at his friend.
Sherlock kissed him again, without waiting for the end of his justifications, much gentler this time but just as intense. The fledgling god's eyes closed again, and he let himself be swept into it. Deep… he only had to let Sherlock lead him and reach deep…deeper…no anxiety, no anger, just listen. It was there.
This time, when his eyes opened, it was still mid-kiss, and he allowed it to continue for a handful of seconds, before lack of breath stopped them both. "I think I have it!" he exclaimed, pointing at a black hole, and then, without a word, with no more than a finger's gesture – but he believed he'd become better at it, and not even need that – reality knotted back into place. "Fuck, the universe is a mess," he breathed. Actually feeling everything that was going – or not going – on, he was all too aware of exactly how bad the situation was. "What if I can't put it back into place?"
"You don't have to," the detective replied, shrugging.
"Sorry? I thought that was the point of me becoming god," he retorted.
"This is Moriarty's universe. Possibly, Moriarty's twice over at least, given that now we know a god can gain his place back. You've met him, John. Do you really think that any universe under his thumb would make sense? There is a reason we all yielded to you and not him. The problem is not knotting it back where it's pulling apart at the seams. Your universe is the one I – we – chose to live in. Don't be afraid of using your powers. You. Can. Do. That," Sherlock said.
"Yeah, but apparently not alone. Don't worry, I won't request anything as drastic as before –" John's voice ended in a mumble. But wait, did his friend look…disappointed? "But I was thinking – if it's a serotonin question, and it has to be long-term, because this is going to be hard work, maybe…bit of a cuddle?"
"Whatever you need, John. Always."
If Mormor had decided to pop by again, he would have found two once-lonely men, cuddling quietly on a quay bench. Huddled together to build their universe.
