Chapter 31: Merciless Monsters.

"I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit hole—and yet—and yet—it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life!"

-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

John woke up, jolting into a sitting position with a gasp. There were hands on his shoulders and a low voice speaking, muttered words that he couldn't quite make out. Muscles tensed to fight, breath harsh in his throat, he turned his head to one side, and met dark eyes. He relaxed slightly, still on edge.

"God, Jim, you scared me."

"Did I?" The other man sang liltingly. "How terrible." His lips were curved into a smile that seemed wrong on some level, twisted somehow. Something deep inside of John clued in to what was happening, but he wasn't entirely certain what was going on.

"What's happening?" he asked warily. Jim's hand on his shoulder pushed him down, and his head hit the pillow. His eyes flickered down, and that was when he realized that Moriarty was holding a knife. "What are you doing?"

"Just watch me," Moriarty grinned, swinging one leg over so that it pressed against John's stomach, keeping him down.

John wondered if he had done something wrong, something to drive Moriarty to this, but he couldn't think of anything. First last night, and now this, and he wanted to say something, but didn't know what to say, what to ask.

"Jim, I-"

"Don't talk to me," Moriarty hissed, suddenly furious, and the knife came forwards, cold metal resting on John's throat. The ex-soldier closed his eyes and hoped he wasn't about to die.

"Okay," he said, and that word just added to his helplessness, made him aware of how little he could do. He couldn't fight, couldn't move, couldn't speak, and he had no idea what was going on, whether he was going to die, or live, or be hurt.

"I don't think you've been completely honest with me, Johnny boy," Moriarty said calmly. "I think you've been lying."

"No," John said simply, feeling the sharp edge of the knife press against his skin, two centimetres away from ending his life, one second away, impossibly close.

"Alright, then, why don't you tell me why you're here?"

"Because you asked me," John answered, bewildered. "You asked me to move in."

"And you said yes," Moriarty shouted suddenly. "I didn't capture you, I asked you. That's no answer at all." John could see him clearly, even with his eyes closed, see the black eyes and white-knuckled hand on the knife.

"I don't know, alright? It just, it just happened!" John shouted back, and the knife dug a little bit into his neck, not quite enough to draw blood, but enough to make him freeze where he was.

"There, that's how you're lying to me. I know there's a reason, everyone has reasons for everything they do. Are you working with the Iceman? Planning to turn me in?"

"No, god no," John managed against the knife. "Jim-"

"Why do you pretend to care?" Moriarty screamed at him, and John saw him through closed eyelids, his face twisted into an exaggeration of disgust, like an actor, like all of this was just a movie, and he was just playing the villain.

"I do!" John shouted back, and then flinched.

"Oh, really? So Sammy's right, and you like me?" The word was spat as though it was blood in the consulting criminal's mouth.

"Yes," John answered reluctantly, the word a confession and a curse and everything else that was wrong with him.

There was suddenly a body close against him, and lips at his ear, words whispered against his skin, breath ghosting over his cheek. "I find that hard to believe."

"You're good company. You make me laugh. You tell fascinating and dark stories, from your imagination or your experience. You're unpredictable, I never know what you're going to do next. You're great with kids. An unexpectedly good cook. A fantastic co-parent." John gasped each word, doing his best not to move, still feeling the cold threat of the knife against his throat.

There was a long silence, and John finally dared to open his eyes. Moriarty was looking at down at him with wide eyes, surprise hidden somewhere inside of their depths. Then he started to laugh.

"You actually do care! How sweet." His voice was viciously sarcastic, in a way that John had never heard before. "You've forgotten who I am, John."

"I haven't," John said. "I've seen Jim, and I know Moriarty, and they're the same person, I never forget that."

"And yet you like me," Moriarty grinned, and then his voice dropped. "It's stupid of you."

"I know," John said simply, the vibration of his voice travelling through the blade and into Moriarty's hand.

"You're an idiot for caring. For seeing anything good in me," Moriarty said, still smiling. But it wasn't a real smile, not the amused smirk or the Cheshire smile, not anything that John wanted to see on that familiar face. It was dark, the sort of smile that was private and ugly.

"I never claimed to be a genius," John managed.

"Shut up," Moriarty growled, and put a little bit of pressure on the blade, the coldness becoming hot pain, and John fought the urge to cry out. He felt several drops of blood roll down his neck, and clenched his jaw. "I'm not an anti-hero, Johnny boy. I'm not anything savable, or salvageable. So don't even try."

And then he was gone. The doors slammed behind him. John lay there in bed, blood slowly dripping onto his bed sheets, and stared blankly at the ceiling.

He felt like there was something he was supposed to think, or do, but he couldn't remember what it was. There was something on the edge of his mind, a realization of meaning, some sort of key to the universe, but just wasn't reachable. So he stared into space, and waited, drifting in a lack of thought, drifting in nothingness. He and Jim were like planets, caught in each others' gravity, pulling closer, but only shattering apart when they finally collided.

He pushed himself up, and went into the bathroom. There was a very shallow cut on his neck, barely through the skin. It was still bleeding, though, so he washed it and put on a couple bandages. He wondered if he should text Jim, or just wait. In the end, he put his phone into his back pocket and decided to leave it for now.

He headed into the hospital wing, to check on the surviving five out of seven snipers that had been shot over the last two weeks. That took up much of his time. Chatting with nurses, going through the charts, making sure he knew everything about his patients and the treatment they were receiving. Several hours later, he was just talking to one of the men who was awake, seeing if he remembered anything about his shooter. As always, there was nothing.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out.

Do you remember yet? –JM

There was a file attached to it; a picture. John excused himself from the conversation, and made his way into his flat, then sat down on the couch and hesitated. He opened the picture, and then closed his eyes, hiding the image that he had just seen, giving himself two full seconds before he really saw the photograph, and understood what it meant.

He opened his eyes and reaffirmed what he had first seen, eyes travelling over the tightly woven pixels and the story they were telling him. He was suddenly very happy that he had opened it alone, knowing that he wouldn't have been able to make it into his flat before he reacted.

The picture was a work of art, all white and black and red. White sheets, white walls, a dark bed and white sheets. Pale skin, a white dress, a white lab-coat, hair dark with liquid. And over all of it, there was the blood. Soaking the sheets. Arcing over the wall. Smeared across pale cheeks like war-paint. And traced on the wall into letters, letters forming words forming a message. 'Salvage what you can'. Not savable. Not even salvageable.

Framing the scene were two hands, covered in latex gloves that had once been white. There was no doubt in John's mind whose hands those were.

Jim had done all this, to prove a point, to make John stop caring about him. He had murdered an innocent girl, a woman, for no reason except that. The worst part was the person he had chosen. Close enough that John felt like he should be in shock, or rage, or tears. But far enough that he felt calm consideration, sorrow for a life lost, but nothing for himself.

He distantly wondered who would do the autopsy. Although it was silly, he'd always pictured Molly doing all the autopsies, all over the world, because he knew no one else who did them. It seemed such a strange idea, that someone else would have to do her autopsy, and report her legally dead, and write up a cause of death. Such a strange idea.

He was still staring at the picture, his eyes drifting over the words, and the blood-splattered gloves, and the paleness of Molly's skin.

Jim and Molly had dated once, he remembered. Not long enough to make Molly really upset when she found out that he was a criminal mastermind of world-wide proportions. But long enough that she would recognize him, when he showed up at her door.

She had been alive for most of the cuts, John noticed, his eyes tracing the splatter patterns on the wall, reading the story that they told. This picture held dates and movements and memories, all in its simplistic stillness.

Within its grainy pixels, he could see the first cut being made, how Molly had been standing beside the bed. She had stumbled back and fallen, and the knife had cut across her abdominal wall, making it near-impossible for her to get up. He saw the second cut and the third, how she had twisted, how Jim had held her down by her wrists, cutting deeper when she tried to push him away.

He saw the final cut, made only minutes before the picture was taken, the one that had opened her throat the same way John's had been threatened. It had made the biggest arc on the wall, elegant droplets forming uneven lines.

He could see Jim's fingers dipping into the hollow of the dead woman's throat, swirling in the blood that had pooled there, reaching up to write his message to him, only for him, a death for him, a scene for him, his fault, his.

John threw his phone away from himself blindly, just wanting to get the picture away from him, just wanting to get away. He couldn't do this, he couldn't live like this, no one could, what was even happening to him? Why was Jim doing this? Why did he care if John cared?

Wait. There. That was an answer.

Jim cared.

He cared whether John cared, and that was something. What it was, John wasn't sure, but it was something. He thought that John had forgotten who he was, that he was blind to the fact that Jim and Moriarty were the same person.

No, he had never forgotten. That picture, with the blood and the corpse, they were always lurking behind those black eyes. Not actively acknowledged, but never forgotten. John closed his eyes and saw the picture again, saw Molly's closed eyes and all the blood that had once been inside her. That was Moriarty's work, that was what Jim did every day, to so many people, all over the world.

Had John forgotten?

Had he really simply pushed that away and pretended it didn't matter?

No.

No, John realized, he had never done that. He knew who he was healing, when he dug the bullets out of Jim's snipers. He knew that the men would go out and kill innocent people. He knew who he was laughing with, when Jim made a joke. He knew that the consulting criminal would leave and torture people to get an answer, to assuage his boredom, to create a game with the world. He had always remembered, he just hadn't let himself consider it.

He pushed himself up, and picked up his phone. The red-black-white stared at him, and he stared at it. He stared until he knew every second of what had happened, and knew what time Molly had died, and which cuts had been angry, and which had been surgical and careful. Then he clicked the 'X' in the top right corner, and moved his fingers over the screen.

I remember. Come home, Jim. –JW

He took a deep breath, and hit send.

A/N:

Wow, that was super-intense to write. Did I surprise anyone? Does anyone hate Jim now? Or me?

Okay, here's a quick note, because I feel like I have to say this as a disclaimer. If anyone ever hurts you, threatens you, or kills someone else, then you get away from them, you do not invite them home. This story is pure fiction. Relationships like this don't have a happy ending in real life; sometimes people really are unsalvageable, and you have to let them go. Do not stay with someone like this. Ever. Your safety is always more important than their emotional state.

On a much less serious note, guess what? A HUNDRED REVIEWS! Triple digits, people! That's really big, especially for a Johniarty story! Thanks so much to all of you who have reviewed. 16 chapters left now! Ten for the non-Johniarty readers, if they're still out there...