Disclaimer: I don't own anything and never will.
Sherlock would love to be able to substitute the lengthy analysis process with his own sheer brainpower too, but that's not happening. He has to play Moriarty's game the way it was devised, or someone dies. Bad enough if that someone ends up being the children, but if the bastard goes after John again…no, John is here with him. No need to fret. Need to solve this and find the children, because Jim won't start anything without giving him a chance to win. Only this time there's no obvious deadline, because that was too easy. How much fucking time can that reaction take to complete?
And what did Moriarty mean on his last visit? I owe you? I owe you what? First round went to him, when they were kids. The police just too stupid to ask the right question, unsurprisingly. The previous game, a few months ago…well, that was a mixed bag. Sherlock won the rounds, sure. But he didn't save all the victims, and – if just for a moment – Moriarty managed to make him doubt that John had been toying with him all along. The trial, Moriarty won by a landslide, no matter what the consulting detective said. If one wanted to keep track, Sherlock was the one who might feel as if he was behind in the race, trying to catch up to – or just plain catch – the criminal mastermind.
He really should be more careful about what he actually voices, though. A random thought aloud, and Molly is there to conduct an interrogation of her own. Why is she even here? …Fine, sure, it' her morgue and her tools they're using. But she knows him. She can't fear that he'll mess up and accidentally break a high-powered microscope or something, does she? Because that'd be quite insulting. He's busy now. Off, Molly, off! Think of the children's for god's sake. (This should normally be John's role. Why isn't he stepping in? He knows how to do it gently…and Sherlock cannot afford to chase her away rudely because, how this very moment is proving, her allowing them unrestrained access to everything can prove vital on cases.)
The oversharing on its own would be bad enough. Not that he doesn't care about Molly's family plights, but… talking about dead people, however interesting he normally finds it, is not timely now. And people say he's the rude one! At least he doesn't insert sob stories during crime scenes, and definitely not for lack of them. He even tries to stop her, but she barrels through with her so-called observations – which, honestly, are too much on point for him to be comfortable about them. John is right there, and he might not be looking at them, but it doesn't mean he's completely deaf. What if he overhears something? There is no time right now to dwell on feelings. When has the mousy Molly he counted on been replaced with this still caring, but way too determined one?
She sounds like Mycroft, for God's sake. Telling him what he's supposed to say. Deducing what he wants or not without giving him a chance to speak. Maybe he doesn't want her damn chips in a sexual ouverture way (okay, he deserves it for having been glib with her) but he wants them to, you know, eat. Yes, despite the ongoing case and his convictions. Just to show John that he's eating, and that's what his doctor always insists he should be doing, and maybe he'll get some extra points for that. It makes sense that Molly doesn't want to help him to be more in John's good graces. But still, there's the tiny thing called manners that everyone seems to grumble about when he's the one failing.
The similarity between the attitude of the pathologist and his brother's is so remarkable – the sudden acuity she's displaying striking him, too – that Sherlock starts to consider if he should actually avail himself of her collaboration, rather than just of her tools. She survived dating Moriarty, after all. Sure, he would have been presenting a façade to her, and probably let her go because, like the detective (and honestly how did they overlook what was literally under their noses), Jim saw only a means to a very limited end. And after all, she did just offer…now, if only he could be sure that she would strictly follow instructions. Maybe Mycroft can threaten her into losing this new wilfulness. Huff. As if facing Moriarty isn't complicated enough on its own, she needs to throw extra variables at him. and people say he's the one with the bad timing. (Well, people being John, the only one to whose gripes he bothers to listen.)
And that's the moment John chooses to intervene – finally! Bringing new data, too. True, it's more a taunt than a clue – but it reinforces, in case Moriarty hadn't been abundantly clear (he was; really, who does Jim think he's dealing with? Anderson?) the running theme. It's more than a rivalry. Way more than professional frustration about a few ruined plans – in fact, the consulting criminal seems to consider his job more like a hobbyist, for the fun of it, than a professional. It's a twisted sort of obsession.
The writing blogs he found once sneaking around John's search history insist all that every villain considers himself the hero of his own story. Which kind of person sees himself as the villain – in society, another's story, a bloody fairytale – and embraces it? Still, he can recommend a good therapist to Moriarty once he has caught him. Now, kids.
The analysis is finally finished – it took ages – and Sherlock is unleashed. He doesn't need to stay still and wait – never been so good at waiting. If it depended on him, he'd just rush to find the children, but Lestrade wouldn't forgive him for doing things properly, and as much as John is brilliant at comforting people, they would have to bring them to the ambassador, and the last thing he needs is more contact with stuck up pricks. He barely tolerates Mycroft as it is, and he's seen too much of his brother lately.
Distasteful, but with the consulting criminal on the move, he needs a plan. John almost died last time. Sherlock is not going to take risks now – but to have a countermeasure for anything Jim can imagine requires resources. Luckily – tragically – Resources could as well be his brother's middle name. Moriarty can blather about owing him things, but he's the one who'll end being up to his neck in his brother's debt. And Mycroft will undoubtedly pick the most inconvenient time to collect his due. But not taking every possible precaution and then some, exposing John again to the madman's whims, is not an option.
So next stop is the Yard. Lestrade worked himself into a tizz, far less able to ignore Moriarty's teasing. Then again, he couldn't even pretend he was doing anything about the case. Sending people to look for anything, since he has no idea what they should be searching for, doesn't count. As usual, Sherlock has to explain everything to him, step by step, and stopping the man from fixating on exactly the most useless detail of the ones they have. Seriously, how Scotland Yard solves anything without him is a mystery.
They're in a hurry, though, so instead of waiting for the policemen out there to actually start whittling down where the children could be held, the sleuth uses his own informants. If only Lestrade had enough sense to employ them, too, the London homeless would get some extra money and even cases too dull to speak of would be solved faster. But of course bureaucracy won't allow that.
That is a question for another day, anyway. Right now, we have to rescue Hansel and Gretel…oops, not their names, but the plot is similar enough. Disused sweet factory is as close to a literal gingerbread house as Moriarty could get in the real world. And while they're not treated like future fois gras, they do have free access to food – poisoned food. The more they eat, the sooner they'll die. Their fate has never been in Sherlock's hands – not entirely.
If they decided to gorge themselves, they might have died, no matter how fast his deductions were. For example, he's pretty sure that if Moriarty had kidnapped his brother, the sleuth would be calling a funeral home right now. Of course, the longer they were trapped, alone and terrified…and, obviously, hungrier, the higher the chances that they'd die, so his work hasn't been entirely in vain.
The plan has a beauty to it. Half chance, half effort, all a slight variation on a known theme. If it was music, or poetry, people would fight for a chance to enjoy the fruit of Moriarty's creativity. He doesn't even realise he's complimented the plan aloud, but John's immediate anger shushes him. Seriously, how can the man be so blind? Has he never appreciated the complexity of an especially gruesome wound, or debilitating illness?
From a purely academic standpoint, Jim Moriarty is the best thing that could happen to crime. If one wants to consider sentiment, Sherlock won't have a minute of rest until the consulting criminal is behind bars and he's personally thrown away the key, or better yet, walled him in. Poe did have some interesting ideas. But sentiment would have to wait.
Everyone's sentiment needs to take backstage until the danger would be gone. Not just danger to these two innocent children that Moriarty has picked as victims and pawns in the game whose rules he dictates. He should have chosen more gluttonous ones, though, because while the little boy is being attended by doctors (considering that they know the poison and the child's father, Sherlock is confident that he'll be saved), the girl is well. As much as anyone who's been kidnapped can be well, at least. Her kidnapper ran – the sleuth won't be surprised if his body turns up in some skip soon, if Jim decides he's outlived his use – but she can still give them clues. Clues that hopefully the criminal mastermind hasn't accounted for.
The detective doesn't think that Jim would have visited her just to chatter – he's not a Bond villain, and the girl isn't Bond, in the first place – but to find a spider, any strand of the web can be a good lead. The only problem is that Lestrade will never ask the right questions. He's the one who needs to interrogate her, and he'd thank everyone else for trusting him. he knows how to deal with people. He just doesn't bother most of the time, because there's nothing to gain from it.
…Fine, he's not getting any additional clue. The scream was unwarranted, though. He turned down his collar! Honest, he barely breathed in her presence before she went berserk, and his best attempts at deescalation were useless. Why have they let her out of hospital, specifically the psychiatric wing?
Lestrade tries to cheer him up, but that's useless. He's not upset, in the first place. He's annoyed at the stall in the investigations, not because Moriarty had the cleverness to pick a kidnapper somehow similar to him. Honestly, the DI's jokes are more maddening that the child's reaction, because unlike that, they feel fake. Forced. Sherlock would have never thought that he'd prefer Donovan's brand of back-handed compliments. At least she's coherent. When Moriarty's plan will undoubtedly twist the situation in front of him, some honest hatred is relaxing.
Speaking of relaxing – or focusing, and in this case weirdly the two coincide – he needs to get away from John. Because he needs to think right now, and it's terribly hard doing that when John is around lately. His brain keeps deviating to what John might be thinking in general, his current opinion of the detective, and how he can curry more of his favour.
He seems to always have the worst timing, though. For once that he's determined to just work, and not let feelings get in his way… Moriarty picks him up. With the exact intent to…rile him up? Threaten him? Subject him to the worst homemade videos in history? Make him so furious his own reckless stupidity has him killed?
The last one almost succeeds. He's left alone, useless, recriminating that he could have finished their cat and mouse (but who's the cat, and who the mouse?) game at once if he only observed as he always boasts. The dead body at his feet is just one more evidence of his failure.
John is going to have a heart attack. His day apparently wasn't bad enough just being shunned by Sherlock. Honestly, as if by now he isn't capable or willing to accommodate whatever the man requires, most often without him having to ask! Fuming as he was, he's not taken the next cab, thank you very much, preferring to stick around and see if he can possibly get through their shocked witness. That would be brilliant. He's on the sleuth's side, always, but sometimes the git needs a reminder that other people have qualities too. Fine, he hasn't managed to – yet – but she didn't play banshee upon seeing him, at least.
Lestrade is off somewhere, trusting him not to create more trauma, so it's a tall, ponytailed sergeant he doesn't know that comes to him saying that there's been a shooting, and Sherlock was involved. Panic seizes him for a moment. He knows that Sherlock hasn't stolen his gun, for the good reason that it's in his pocket right now. What does involved mean? Someone shot him? Killed him?
He doesn't stay to ask the details. He gets the address – his captain tone on, which might be unwarranted, but he'll realise only long afterwards – and runs to the crime scene. Thank God, the detective is completely unhurt, if shaken. Not by the dead body, obviously, or even having witnessed his death. No, what has the detective physically twitching is the mystery. Not knowing why a random stranger – and only a random, helpful stranger – would be gunned down.
Thanks to Mycroft, the blogger is much less upset about the event. The helpful stranger is one of their new assassin neighbours. One less for John himself to worry about. Sure, why would the man save Sherlock instead of throwing him under a bus is not clear, but John isn't in the habit of questioning good luck. Maybe Moriarty will pay them only if they murder the consulting detective themselves, and not if his own idiocy (really, they need to have words about that) does him in. Yeah, a competition about who can kill Sherlock…not first, otherwise they'd both be gone before Mycroft could warn them, but maybe more stylishly? That seems to fit with the criminal mastermind's level of insanity.
Or not, of course. The 'Moriarty gave me something that the snipers want, and they don't want to risk any of the competition having it' makes sense, too. Okay, more sense. But that's why Sherlock is the sleuth out of the two of them.
…Though the leap from 'logical' to 'apparently downright insane' is immediate. With anyone else, John would be observing very carefully to see if the line to 'involuntary commitment is recommended, stat' is ever passed. But he trusts Sherlock. So he can only offer sympathy to a brusquely summoned Mrs. Hudson faced with ramblings about dust. Sure, you can't put dust back…but it's one thing to break in 221C, and quite another to literally hide anything in their own home, surely? Moriarty has no access in here, and even if he did, they would have bloody noticed. Wouldn't they? Then again, how else would the consulting criminal make sure his nemesis had anything?
Ookay, they have cameras in the flat. Well, no, it's not okay. It's bloody well not okay, especially if they're airing for the pleasure of Moriarty and his goons. John doesn't even watch Big Brother UK – mostly because the name reminds him of Mycroft, but also because he's simply not interested in people trapped in a house where nothing interesting happens. No, some amount of cheating and nervous breakdowns don't count. That feels too close to his life BS (Before Sherlock). He very much doesn't want to star in a rough equivalent. And neither would Mrs. Hudson, it seems. Even if it's a bit adorable that her main worry isn't 'there are fucking cameras in the flat' but rather 'my attire is improper'.
At least there will be no more cameras from now on. Sherlock is dismantling them one by one, stretching and jumping on furniture and John *really* shouldn't be entranced by the play of his musculature right now, but without an immediate danger his brain wanders. He would happily help, if nature hadn't been so stingy with him in the height department. Some cameras are so well hidden that even the lanky sleuth has trouble reaching them. John…well, he'd rather not make a show of himself by taking a tumble. Especially if there are people with popcorn ready to laugh at him.
Greg comes round at the very moment, which John welcomes with relief. The DI will help them. Possibly he has new clues to offer. And even if he's only here to beg help, his presence alone will keep the blogger from letting his feelings be too obvious.
If Sherlock's snappish tone is any indication, he doesn't appreciate the interruption. At all. Is it because he's embarrassed to let Greg know that the flat is bugged? They're all working against Moriarty here. The inspector needs to realise how much the madman can manipulate the situation.
Maybe John is the one who doesn't realise how far the consulting criminal can reach. Going to the Yard is no trouble – they do it every other week at least – so why the sleuth's sharp refusal? It makes no sense.
Only…Greg looks as uncomfortable as he can be. John assumes that it's because the DI has heard how out of sorts Sherlock is today, and despite that, he comes knocking – and pleading – because they are completely useless at their job. At least when Moriarty is involved. But it seems that John is completely off base – and that he's the one who needs to understand how deeply the consulting criminal's plans can reach.
Lestrade can't suspect Sherlock, can he? He bloody knows his longer than John has. He's solved too many cases to count with the sleuth's help. And now suddenly, he's considering the sleuth a suspect? Come on! What does he consider himself, then? A bigger idiot than he's ever been accused to be?
At least Greg has enough sense to hightail out of the flat. What scares John, though, is Sherlock. Cases are never like this – they make him (them, okay) come even more alive than usual. The consulting detective in full swing is nothing less than incandescent – and his blogger a very happy moth.
Right now…there's a tiredness in his – his Sherlock, okay? It's his Sherlock. And he looks resigned. Defeated. And that's not okay. They aren't just going to roll over and let Moriarty's plans destroy them, no sir. John bitterly regrets not having murdered him before. True, he'd be dead himself if he tried, no doubt, but Sherlock would be safe.
There must be something he can do. Nobody to shoot this time round, true. But at least he can talk some sense into Greg, surely? If the man is drugged, has a sudden ictus, or what, John will just have to remind him that he. Knows. His consultant. And there's no way that their own madman is involved in any crimes. Not even because his moral standards are so rigid, though they're not nearly as vague as some people would make them to be. Because Sherlock would be bored to death 'solving' anything he concocted.
Does he like praise? He's human, so yes, he does. Would he start such an elaborate, drawn out scheme for the sake of publicity? A thousands time no. Heck, half the time John needs to bribe him into behaving at press conferences! So how can people that have known him longer than John has suddenly forgotten everything because a child screamed? A traumatized child, to boot, that could have been triggered by anything. John wishes he didn't know, but triggers can be really fucking random. For all they knew, the kidnapper wore the same brand of shoes.
Of course, that rant is a bit too long to give voice too, especially when the detective already feels stretched thin. So John just offers to talk Greg down. Somehow, this translates into Sherlock thinking he shares the other man's suspects. Not his most logical deduction to date, but he gets a pass, what with being possibly on the verge of a nervous breakdown. John aches to just hug him. Maybe that'd work to ground him down. He's not sure how the other would react, though. Unusual behaviour might not be the best idea right now.
Quips, though – quips are good. Sudden gushing wouldn't fit; especially because he's tense himself, and neither needs him to slip in an impromptu assurance of devotion, and the subsequent inevitable estrangement between them. Not freaking now. But he's earned a smile – a hint of one, maybe, but sincere – and that's brilliant. A tiny reminder that they're still them, and there's no freaking way that Moriarty or…anyone else will manage to destroy them.
Still, when the bloody consulting criminal plays the law (and the law couldn't wait to fuck Sherlock up), what can you do? John tries to speak up. Especially when people are being assholes on purpose. If Mycroft wasn't Mycroft (and probably kidnapped every officer his little brother so much as talked to), the doctor has no doubt he'd be witness to police brutality like in the worst – and thank God, rarest nowadays – of news.
As it is, people just make things as uncomfortable as possible, despite the sleuth not resisting with his words, with everything he does or fails to do. John won't swear about thoughts, and if his brain goes straight to that one fervent Catholic girlfriend he had in college (more shortlived than most) and her religious guilt trips, it's because Sherlock looks terribly like a martyr at this moment. His blogger wants to rip him from these fucker's hands, but that'd be a bit not good. If only because it wouldn't help anyone. If the detective is in custody, finding Moriarty and making him regret being born falls to him.
Or, well, it should. Until the freaking superintendent has the gall to come in and – despite a fretting Mrs. Hudson – insult Sherlock to their face. It's a thing when Donovan does it – she's still a sergeant and notoriously makes the worst choices – but that the bastard, who should be the most 'political' of all them, thinks he can bully them in their own home? Fuck him. Fuck them. Fuck everything.
The next thing John knows, his hand is smarting very satisfyingly, all the quivering rage inside of him has found an outlet, and he's been arrested. Being by Sherlock's side actually relaxes him. Maybe he won't catch Moriarty personally, but he's where he should be. Frankly, if the cops didn't arrest him, he might still be breaking more than just the superintendent's nose. And he wouldn't regret it one bit.
Someday, he'll have to thank Greg for 'not wasting another pair of handcuffs' (between all the officer present, John would surmise that they don't have a dearth of these) and just cuffing one of his hands to one of Sherlock's. As if Mr. 'I have actually written a monograph about different locks and the way to pick them' having one hand free would me so different from his being completely unbound.
Probably, Greg expects their daring escape and agrees that yes, they might as well, because he's not going to catch the consulting criminal by himself. Or maybe he's just annoyed at the rest of his colleagues's awful behaviour and wants to make the process as frustrating for them as possible.
Anyway, John has never been happier to have a gun at his temple. Of course Sherlock won't shoot him, he might have issues with how deep their connection is supposed to be, but he's not the fucking psychopath these morons make him to be. But they don't know. So, if their own idiocy allows their flight, John will happily feel the steel against his skin.
Sherlock takes his hand. For practical reasons, he'd say, of course. With his damn long legs and the handcuffs, he risks dragging around John like a sack of potatoes, being slowed down, and hurting both their wrists if he just rushes away. This way they can actually run like human beings. Okay, maybe like children, but – Sherlock has taken his hand, and it's the first time it's more than a momentary contact. Obviously, it's not like John needs to be guided around or there's any sensible justification. Still, running for their freedom, and more – if they know Moriarty, for Sherlock's life – John's heart sings.