Disclaimer: Sherlock and John belong to ACD's grey cells, and each other in that order... Although the B.B.C. version receives full credit for inspiring me to put a pen to paper.
Summary:An AU, where John is Jim Moriarty's fiancé. He finds out about Jim's job and agrees to testify against him, and is put into protective custody as a result, under the alias Victor Trevor. Sherlock meets Victor, sparks fly. Written for a truly unique prompt on the shkinkmeme; so credit for inspiration goes to the OP.
Author's notes:This was something I was working on before Reichenbach happened and temporarily derailed it. The story is now on the verge of completion. This will be a multi-chaptered fic and I will be posting atleast one part weekly. My first real attempt at S/J, so please be gentle.
A special mention and a million thanks to my amazing new beta, lady_t_220 for her patience in going though the story, correcting my frankly disastrous punctuation, and plugging plot-holes, which I hadn't even noticed. You're a gem.
Jim Moriarty was in his element. He was conducting an orchestra like no other and the music was building to a sexy finish. One flick of his metaphorical baton was about to change everything. It was going to break Sherlock Holmes and allow Jim to pick up the pieces. It was too bad that his vantage point didn't let him see Sherlock's face as he watched his brother's head explode into tiny pieces, the same brother who had just offered himself up to save Sherlock's life.
His games with Sherlock had hitherto been impersonal but this was changing the status quo. Sherlock was too brilliant to be wasted on the Yard and sundry. Jim wanted to be the sole focus of that magnificent brain. He was creating his biggest enemy. Sherlock would never forgive him for doing away with both his brother and his pet in the span of one game. Jim was craving for the centre-stage in Sherlock's mind.
Of course, if the consulting detective ended up too broken in the process, well, Jim had never been particularly careful with his toys anyway.
The overture from Gioachino Rossini's La gazza ladra built to a spectacular virtual crescendo in his head as he instructed John to take the shot.
That was the moment when the control room along with all the monitors sputtered and went pitch black and the music in his head squeaked off to an undignified finish.
It was a testament to his genius that even as he felt possessed by the grip of an overwhelming fury, he knew exactly what had gone wrong and was already calculating probable outcomes. His built in programming would ensure that the data on the hard drives would self-erase with such an intrusion. His mobile phone was next. He dropped the hand-set and stamped on it to force the casing open. The small custom built acid-pockets within the body of the phone would do the rest.
Note to self- Take Moran's suggestions a bit more seriously in the future.
Those maggots at the Yard had no idea who they were dealing with, or the price they would pay for this interruption. His nails had dug bleeding half-moon crescents into his palms by the time the emergency generators brought one of the two systems, the one which was not dependent on the Cray, back on line.
He was greeted with the view of the ceiling with a panicked but very much alive Mycroft Holmes, hovering against it as his camera was dragged along the ground.
Oh, dear, dear Johnny boy! Was it a wonder that he had almost married him?
He knew he had less than three minutes before the place would be swarming with incompetent policemen. To be arrested by the likes of them was unacceptable.
But he couldn't help himself. He threw his head back and roared with uncontrollable laughter.
John waited with his eye glued to the barrel and heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the government man drag Sherlock to safety, though the fallen Detective himself was out of his line of sight. This was surprising as he had assumed that a typical politician would bolt for his own safety and call the police. He went limp as he realised that Sherlock was now well and truly out of his line of sight.
He tensed as Moran's heavy footsteps drew nearer. He smiled secretly, unseen, as he realised that though he was probably about to die in retaliation for his disobedience, he didn't really care. Sherlock was safe and that was far more than he had expected to accomplish.
Moran was a sniper, a huntsman with unlimited patience who had learned to never underestimate his prey, however weak it may appear. But when he approached the kneeling ex-soldier slumped over the rifle, he was expecting a broken man, a man with a lifetime devoted to caring for strangers who'd just been forced to murder one against his will.
So John had the advantage of surprise when he whirled and attacked. Moran may have been nearly twice his size but his reactions were slow and the gun in Moran's hands skittered to a corner as a vicious elbow found its way into his solar plexus. John's feet were still bound but he had flung himself bodily, using his entire weight like a projectile, making Moran lose his footing and fall backwards, his body cushioning John's fall. The sniper's head hit against the fading marble floor with a resounding crack, and John held his breath hoping it was enough to have at least stunned him even as his fingers scrabbled for purchase on the bull-neck to render him unconscious.
But Moran's eyes flickered open and his hooded gaze was that of a striking cobra. John tightened his hands. Moran looked at the man attempting to pin him down and instead of defeat and desperation saw a barely hidden fierce triumph etched in every line of the weathered face. One look at John Watson and Sebastian knew that Jim's supposedly foolproof plan had gone incredibly wrong.
Moran jerked his head forward sharply, smashing it into John's face and breaking his nose with the impact. Head spinning, the doctor still held on grimly, but he didn't have a prayer against Moran's strength, especially not when his feet were bound. Moran flipped him over like a rag doll and returned the favour as his enormous hands unerringly grasped John's throat in a stranglehold.
"What the hell did you did you do?" Moran hissed as his grip tightened. John gasped, his bound legs flailing as his lungs screamed for oxygen. His fingers, which had been around Moran's neck, now clawed weakly at the hands crushing his windpipe. "WHAT DID YOU DO?" Moran screamed.
John coughed as black spots eclipsed his vision. He knew that there was no point in taunting a man on the verge of killing him, but he forced his eyes open through sheer force of will as he spat out. "He's safe…You… Jim can fuck off!" As if to underline his words, the sound of approaching sirens rent the air and Moran gave a snarl of rage as he grabbed John's head and smashed it to the ground again. As John lost consciousness, his last thought was that the abortive attempt had been totally worth the fury on Moran's face.
Moran scrambled to his feet and tugged and gun away from the window, before he barred it. Then he calmly dialled Jim only to be met by static…twice.
So, things hadn't just cocked up just at his end then.
He retrieved his gun. It would be a matter of minutes before the SAS personnel summoned by Mycroft Holmes narrowed the location of all the buildings the shot could have come from. He still had plenty of time to complete his job and walk away. But as he aimed his gun at the limp form, he hesitated.
Jim's game had gone to pot. Mycroft Holmes was still alive and Sherlock was beyond Jim's clutches, at least for now. If he killed John Watson, he would be destroying Sherlock Holmes' one and only weakness, for nothing. He had his orders, but instinct was telling him that the doctor needed to live if only for them to have any leverage over Sherlock in the future. Somehow he knew that Jim wouldn't have as much fun playing with Sherlock the second time around, if the doctor was dead.
Also Moran could grudgingly admit that a part of him was badly itching to kill the ex-soldier in a fair fight.
"Next time, Captain," he addressed the fallen man as he holstered the gun and calmly left the room.
The task force that should have taken days to assemble only took hours because Lestrade was smart enough to use the name 'Moriarty' to barrel his way through the red tape. Smarter still to have not mentioned 'Sherlock Holmes' at any point, and it had motivated his superiors into surprisingly quick co-operation.
They had followed procedure and silently surrounded the building, cutting off the mains power-supply to all the apartments before storming the top floor. All the exits and entrances were covered. Moriarty and Company, if they were still in the building, were trapped.
Or so they had thought.
As Lestrade waited for the go-ahead from the alpha team, he was surprised to discover that deeper than his desire to finally arrest Moriarty was the wish that they find Sherlock unharmed. Not that the cocky bastard didn't deserve to learn a lesson for going off after a crazy mass murderer on his own.
But this was Jim Moriarty and, just like Sherlock, he proved himself to be in a class of his own.
When they finally stormed the top floor, all that was left were two still-warm bodies of what appeared to be guards. They had been shot cleanly in the head. There was hastily scribbled note attached to the door of what appeared to be some sort of control room. Lestrade just stopped himself from slamming his fist into the wall as he read it.
Better luck next time. If there is one!
It would be one more day before they discovered the body of the lift attendant lying at the bottom of the lift-shaft.
Needless to say that no one had looked twice at the small, shaking, dark-haired lift-man who was escorted out of the building along with the rest of the staff before the charge began.
The last time Sherlock had come closest to feeling this lost in his own head was when he had overdosed on cocaine. He knew he was dreaming and still couldn't bring himself to resist.
"How could you spout all that to the police and not get arrested on the spot as the murderer?"
"They are not that dense, Victor. They have a penchant for coming to the obviously wrong conclusion. They predictably did accuse me and hold me under suspicion of murder."
"They can't just…what the hell! What happened then?" He looked worried and indignant on Sherlock's behalf, a near-complete stranger worried about the two days Sherlock had voluntarily endured a prison cell. No one had ever worn such a look on his behalf. He was familiar with fear, anger, hatred, exasperation, adoration…even pity (Lestrade was especially fond of that one), but he had to create a new section in his mind palace to classify the way Victor was looking at him right now.
"Sherlock?"
"Huh…well, (Oh God, now he was mumbling like Molly Hooper), it was just for a couple of days. Lestrade was a Sergeant then. For some unknown reason he followed up on what I said and found the murderer and the evidence exactly where I had said it would be. And just like that, I went from being a suspected psychopathic killer to a Consultant for the Yard."
"You are…that was incredible."
"You do know that you are saying that out loud."
"And yet every time I say it, you look like you want to pinch yourself. And that's just wrong. I meant every word I said. 'Cause I know it's true."
"You are forming erroneous conclusions based on incomplete data, making me out to be some sort of a hero. I'm far from that, I'm not even a good man, Victor."
"I'm not naïve enough to believe that, Sherlock. For argument's sake though, with your ability you could have done anything, but you choose to help-"
"Immaterial! I don't care about the victim beyond the fact that they're a tool, a puzzle to be solved. That's all I care about. The harder the puzzle, the happier I am. That's all the victim is to me-a map, nothing more, nothing less."
"Alright, that's fine too."
"And just because you see me as some- what do you mean? You can't be serious? You really think its fine that I'm at my happiest when presented with an especially gruesome corpse?"
"No, I think its fine that you have convinced yourself that you don't care. It's fine if not letting yourself care is what lets you do what you do. The shortest route to a destination is a straight line, but people don't like straight lines. You see the world as nothing but- and you don't hide that- that's amazing. It's fine that you're an annoying prick half the time because at the end of the day, whether or not you want to, you ARE doing the right thing. And that's all that matters."
The memory fluttered off as thin as a wisp of air, as Sherlock struggled to hold on to it. He was on the brink of consciousness and for some undefined reason, he was terrified of waking up. That was strange. He usually loathed sleep. A strange faraway beeping reached his ears, and in what felt like the next instant, tendrils of sleep tightened their hold on him again. A part of his brain was screaming for him to fight, he was forgetting something very important. He ignored it. He was so tired.
Besides, with dreams like these, why would he wish to wake up?
John had not expected to open his eyes. He had, in fact counted on not waking up ever again. So regaining consciousness was the first unpleasant surprise. For a moment, he felt surprisingly woozy as the room swam in and out of focus. It took another few minutes for his memory to kick in and remind him that he had no idea where he was at present, and that he had been moved to an unknown location when still unconscious.
It was a plain, brightly lit room with a couple of plastic chairs off to the side of the bed but there weren't any other identifying features. The only reason why John was reminded of a hospital room was because of his railed bed, the plain white sheets and the i.v. stand with its bag of saline and the line trailing down to his hand- which he now saw was handcuffed to the bed-rails.
For a terrifying moment, he assumed he was back in Jim's clutches. Jim was sadistic enough to want to kill him slowly for his 'mistake'. The handcuff rattled ominously as he struggled to get up. He had already made a preliminary assessment and concluded that, other than a ringing headache and an assortment of bruises that he must have acquired during his grapple with Moran, there was nothing wrong with him. He took a deep breath and pushed himself up.
Only to be interrupted by a cool voice, "It would be highly inadvisable to do that, Captain Watson. You're not going anywhere for the time being."
It is not often that a sniper got to meet his intended target face to face. So it was a second most unpleasant surprise to find that the voice belonged to the man he had been expected to shoot; the stuffed coat public official. For some reason, he remembered how Jim had referred to the man in front of him as 'not very nice'.
But his body couldn't help but give a very visceral reaction to the fact that somehow he had escaped Jim, at least for now. He slumped back on the bed with a relieved sigh. He didn't want to speak to this stranger but desperation over-rode caution and he had to ask, "Sherlock… Sherlock Holmes, the man who was in your house… is he alright?"
The man continued to study him with a face that seemed to be carved from stone, for all the expression it was giving. He stepped closer, lightly tapping his umbrella to the floor but not taking his eyes off John even for a moment. "I'll be the one asking the questions for now, I think. Besides, it hardly seems appropriate to discuss Sherlock's condition with the man who shot him."
Bastard! John shut his eyes against the throbbing headache as he replied mulishly. "Well, I'm not talking to you either. You want my co-operation, you'll only get it if I can talk to D.I. Lestrade. And I know that you probably won't believe me but you can take these off-" he clanked his bound hand against the rails. "As you pointed out, I'm not going anywhere. I don't really have anywhere to go."
The suited man eyed him speculatively before moving forward and unlocking the handcuffs. Now that John could study the stranger at close quarters, he marvelled at how much a photograph could lie. He had judged this man as seemingly ordinary, practically invisible. Up close however, he was forced to re-evaluate his opinion. There was this air of menace about him that was impossible to miss. Not the in your face 'I can blow you to pieces' presence that Jim had, but something more subtle. Something dangerous that said 'I can make you disappear and even you won't understand what hit you.' John swallowed reflexively as he flexed his newly freed fingers.
"He's just out of Surgery," came the calm reply and John's head shot up so fast that it was wonder that it still remained attached to his neck. "That's not right… My shot should've gone through and…"
The man interrupted pointedly, "The glass on my window was specially reinforced and tempered. It affected the trajectory and the velocity of the bullet. It was supposed to do that in event of an actual kill-shot. It should have stopped the bullet altogether but you had quite the upper-hand when you used a rifle over a relatively short distance. Fortunately, you didn't miss by much. The Doctors have assured me that barring unforeseen complications, Sherlock should make a complete recovery."
John exhaled the breath he had been holding. "Good… That's good." That's when he realised that he had missed a crucial piece of the explanation- tempered glass on the windows of his house. What the hell had Jim gotten him into? He couldn't help but blurt out the first question that came to his mind. "Who are you exactly?"
"It's unimportant."
"Right!" John snorted.
In response, the man sedately dragged a chair forward and sat down upon it, fixing John with steely brown eyes. The gaze filled John with dread.
"You, on the other hand, Doctor Watson, are far more interesting than me." He flicked open a small notebook, which John was certain was merely for effect, as manipulative as the gesture of unlocking him had been. Something about the man told John that if he so wanted, John would never even see the inside of a court-room. Calm down, he told himself.
"Let's see, a war-veteran and a doctor in a self-confessed relationship with the known criminal bomber, James Moriarty, for nearly half a year. One fine day, you turned yourself in, claiming that you had known nothing about your-" a pause as one eyebrow was raised mockingly in John's direction, "-prospective fiancé's illicit activities and offered to give evidence against him in court. Then conveniently, just a day before the Yard's planned sting, you disappeared, which led to the entire operation being scrapped."
The feeling of dread had formed a shard of ice in the pit of his stomach. It was a wonder John was able to find his voice, "When you put it like that…"
"I'm not finished."
John wisely shut up.
"I have no idea when your path crossed with Sherlock Holmes the first time, but I have reliable information that two days ago, you accompanied him home and spent the night at 221B Baker Street. And of course, today you shot him."
The book snapped shut with a finality that had John cringing inwardly. He instinctively defended himself. "I only met Sherlock two days back. He had a concussion. I spent the night to make sure he was okay. That's all."
"And in the space of the two days since meeting you, the world's only consulting Detective collaborated with a known criminal and terrorist bomber to steal highly classified defence documents. He was willing to shoot me to procure said files and as far as I have determined, the only leverage Jim Moriarty could have had over him was your continued survival." Mycroft leaned forward, his eyes flashed, "He almost paralysed himself to keep you safe, Captain Watson. And you claim to have met him two days ago. Shall we expect a happy announcement?"
John didn't know what to say.
"From where I'm standing, either you are completely innocent but an unprecedented fool to have been taken in and used by Mr. Moriarty to his own ends…or you were in on it with him from the beginning. I just wanted to say that if I find any evidence at all to support the latter, you will very sorely regret it."
Mycroft had smoothly swept to his feet and was almost out of the door, when John found his voice. To his own surprise, it was pulsing with the anger he had managed to hold back during Mycroft's little speech. "YOU were the primary target, you arrogant sod. You were supposed to die. But Jim had Sherlock and if you had any idea what he could have…" John shut his eyes and shook his head to bring his breathing and his voice under control and to banish the mental image of Jim toying with an unconscious Sherlock. "I shot Sherlock because it was the only alternative, the only way to make sure that he was out of Jim's reach. I wish I knew why I'm still alive but I would never have hurt anyone like that… much less Sherlock," he ended helplessly on a much lower note. But when he opened his eyes, the man in the suit was gone.
