~xXx~
"John?" Sherlock whispered. "You have John?"
"Have him?" The puppet hummed thoughtfully. "We could argue the semantics of it all day, Mr. Holmes, but all it boils down to is the fact that he's where I want him to be, when I want him to be there."
Sherlock scowled. Semantics or not, he didn't like it. The idea of John being manipulated in any manner set his nerves on edge. "So then, this is one of those 'do what I say or John gets hurt' scenarios?" Suddenly, Molly's voice was ringing in his ears—who do you think they'd go after first? Sherlock shook the words away.
"Hurt may be a bit of an understatement."
"How unoriginal."
"I'm more concerned with the end, Mr. Holmes, not the means. That being said, will you walk or not?"
Sherlock bit his tongue against the scathing words that were burning in the back of his throat. This was too simple. What was the point of taking him to John? If only he could read the letters—
"Mr. Holmes?"
"Why won't you face me? Afraid to look the reason for your master's death in the eye?"
"I know well enough what you can do with your eyes, Mr. Holmes, and I'd prefer that you know as little about me as possible during the short course of our relationship. Now. Walk."
Pursing his lips, the detective began walking forward. The man trailed after him, making sure to keep at least five feet of separation between them at all times—he'd obviously done this before. Sherlock had no hope of stealing the pistol with such a gap between them.
"So have you enjoyed the case so far, Mr. Holmes?" the man asked, almost conversationally. He sounded like he was smiling.
"I didn't know it was meant to be enjoyed," Sherlock retorted.
"Mr. Moriarty always takes your enjoyment into consideration."
Takes. Present tense. Interesting, if not accidental. The word enjoyment, however, was chosen with purpose. It was meant to have a dual blade. Personally, Sherlock was rather of the opinion that torture and enjoyment were synonymous in Moriarty's mind. He'd said once that he liked to watch Sherlock dance. Well, dancing was one thing…and falling was another entirely.
"You know why I'm here, don't you?"
Mud squished under the heels of Sherlock's shoes as he trudged along. He glanced up, noting that the trees were beginning to thin. "You've been instructed to make sure that I've figured it out."
"And have you?"
"Of course I have," Sherlock snapped. "I'm sure you've noticed that he's gone out of his way to make it glaringly obvious."
"I think he just wanted to make sure the message hit home this time."
Sherlock snorted—this man and his double edged words were beginning to annoy him. "It was you that day, wasn't it? That day at the pool."
The puppet laughed. Apparently he found the memory humorous. "It was. The laser-sights were mostly for dramatic effect though. Mr. Moriarty has quite the flare for the dramatic."
"And now he's dead. What a thorn that must've left in your side. No one to get your hands dirty for anymore." It was a goad—an attempt to wheedle his way into the other man's head without actually having to see him. Hit a soft spot. Break his guard down. Sherlock waited and listened…but there was nothing. His steps didn't falter. His breathing didn't change.
"There's no harm in a man wanting to serve another man, Mr. Holmes. Especially a great man, and Mr. Moriarty is as great as they come. I'm honored to be at his bidding. It's something Mr. Watson and I have in common I think. He basically said as much when I was strapping that vest of Semtex on him."
Anger rocketed through Sherlock like a bolt of lightning. "He's nothing like you," he hissed, every muscle in his body coiling.
"You forget that you don't know anything about me, Mr. Holmes."
"I know enough." Sherlock couldn't help the snarl that marred his lips. "And it certainly doesn't take much to know that you and John don't even belong in the same sentence."
"You really have figured it out haven't you."
"Are you—" Sherlock cut himself off as the line of trees broke. They found themselves standing on the outskirts of the cemetery, just below the dip of a hill. The air smelled of wet grass and stone, and silence seemed to cling to the place like the grip of death. Sherlock's gaze swept across the grounds, taking in everything, and he felt his body stiffen as his eyes locked on to a lone figure standing in the distance.
John.
"Stop," the man said.
But Sherlock already had. He couldn't have taken another step forward if his life depended on it. His heart was pounding so hard he thought his ribs would crack, and his breath seemed to be caught somewhere in the back of his throat. John's body was hunched over a tombstone, which Sherlock immediately realized must be his, and even from this distance the detective could tell that he was crying. He looked so small…so impossibly small…
"Look approximately thirty-eight degrees northeast."
Sherlock turned his head but kept his eyes fixed on John. He'd already seen the sniper hidden amongst the brush, ready and waiting for whatever signal had been arranged between he and the puppet.
"I'm going to ask you a series of questions now, which you will answer concisely, promptly, and accurately. No quips. No retorts. And no proposals. I trust you understand what will happen if you break any of these rules."
The detective swallowed thickly. "How do I know you're not bluffing?"
"Does Mr. Moriarty ever bluff?"
"You're not him."
"No," the puppet was smiling again, "but I'm as close as you'll ever get now."
For once, Sherlock didn't have a response.
"Alright, let's get on with it then. What was the nature of Mr. Watson's relationship with each of the four people you found?"
"Sylvia Yaskoff was his professor and mentor at St. Barts, the Afghan was the sniper who shot him, Bill Murray was the nurse who tended to aforementioned shot, and Mike Stamford was an old friend from school." He blew out a quick breath. He could do this. If he could just spit out the words fast enough, maybe he wouldn't have to think about them. Maybe he could block it all out…
"And who did each of them work for?"
"Moriarty."
"What did Mrs. Yaskoff convince Mr. Watson to do?"
"Join the military and go to Afghanistan."
"Which did what to his psyche?"
"It awakened his preference of danger over normalcy."
"Why was he shot?"
"Moriarty," Sherlock struggled for a moment. The words were beginning to seep in through the cracks. "Moriarty needed him back in London."
"And why did Mr. Murray patch him up the way he did?"
"John needed to be able to be active but with some sort of hindrance to overcome first. It takes a great deal of pain and a significant trauma to cause a psychosomatic limp. Murray could've avoided its occurrence with a bit of morphine and some proper muscle therapy. The limp served to weaken John's resolve."
"And why was Mr. Stamford in the park that day, seated along a route that Mr. Watson was known to frequent?"
Sherlock watched as John leaned forward to place his hand on the tombstone. "Someone needed to introduce him to me at the right moment."
"Very good, Mr. Holmes. Very good," the puppet said, his voice rumbling like thunder. "Now, tell me what it all means."
No, he couldn't. He couldn't say it and allow it to be true. The repercussions were too great. He'd come so far hadn't he? He'd grown to feel so much—so many things that he'd never even thought possible for himself. But then again…wasn't that the entire point?
"I'm not a patient man, Mr. Holmes."
"It means…it means that Moriarty handpicked John to be my partner—my companion. I'd never been able to sustain a lasting relationship with anyone, and it hindered my work. So he created a fail-safe. He placed in front of me someone he knew would be perfect—who he'd cultured to be perfect. And I was naïve enough to believe it was coincidence. He needed me to be able to work, so he…" Sherlock broke off, choking on his own words.
"There's more," the puppet insisted.
Sherlock shook his head. He couldn't. His chest was hurting so badly he couldn't see. It was like he was back on the roof of St. Barts, his toes hanging just over the ledge and the wind roaring at his back.
"Come now, Mr. Holmes. Where's that famous cold façade? Tell me the rest."
"It means…" Tears, hot and stinging, welled up in Sherlock's eyes. This was it. The fall—the real fall. This was the end of everything.
"Tell me the rest, or John dies."
"It means that everything I thought was mine was never actually mine. It was Moriarty's. He was the one in control the whole time. He gave me John. He gave me a way to do my work. He gave me my heart, and with the pull of a trigger he can take it all away. It means that I never beat him…because I was never really playing. It was his game—his board, and I was just a piece on it."
The puppet gave a short breathy laugh. "There, that wasn't so hard, was it?"
Tears spilled over Sherlock's cheeks as he watched John straighten and step back from the tombstone. His lips were moving, shaping words Sherlock wished he could hear.
"As your reward, Moriarty will give you one final night with him. I trust you'll be able to track him down easily enough."
But there was one more thing—one more thing that he needed to know. In the end, it was the only thing that really mattered to him. "Did John ever know?"
Silence was his only answer. And when Sherlock turned, the puppet was already gone.
