"I cannot believe you!" John shook his head, walking Sherlock out of the precinct his one hand firmly clenched in the higher shoulder of his coat. "You are lucky Lestrade didn't formally charge you!"
Sherlock sniffed, pulling away from John's grasp, and he ruffled his hair a little as he came to the sidewalk at last. "It would never have held up."
"You would have still been stuck in a real cell!" John objected sourly, "I can't talk you out of a criminal charge, Sherlock!" He threw up his hands when the detective shrugged, storming back in the direction of Baker Street, and he ignored Sherlock's order to wait for him. "WAIT FOR YOURSELF!" He ignored Sherlock entirely, even when a taxi rolled along beside him and the messy black head poked out of the window.
"Get in the cab, John."
"No." John picked up his pace, glaring straight ahead. He felt himself falling into his soldier's march, his shoulders back and his pace measured to the millimetre.
"Get in the cab, John!" Sherlock's face was screwed up beyond his cool composure; it was rare to see him all riled up like this.
John refused adamantly. "I can walk perfectly fine, thank you very much!"
"You left me in a holding cell overnight, John!" Sherlock hissed, "The least you could do is stop making a scene and get in the car."
"I'm not the one making a scene!" John growled, "You got yourself in that cell! I told you to get off their backs! I didn't have anything to do with any of that!"
"Exactly!" Sherlock got out of the cab, nearly giving the poor cabbie a heart attack because they were still in motion. "You... you-"
"I'm not dealing with you!" John threw up his hands and turned his back on his flatmate, hunching his stiff shoulders. Since three o'clock that afternoon, he had gotten all cleaned up, eaten something, worn off the tranquilizer's side-effects, and run down to Scotland Yard to bail the detective out of custody. It had been another two hours filling out paperwork, mostly on the side of Sherlock, and John just wanted to eat and have a real night's sleep. Tomorrow, he needed to be in the clinic for at least twelve hours, and setting up for the 'personal physical', which would be quite a trial in itself.
"What are you talking about?" Sherlock demanded, gabbing John's shoulder. He was surprised by the ferocity with which John shook him off and, with a final fierce glare, took off running down the side street like a trail of bullets was nipping at his heels. Sherlock fell into a stalled pursuit, his shock falling away in cold deduction as he stalked the doctor through the pulsing streets of London. He cursed when he lost sight of the shorter man, a crowd separating them, and when they cleared John was gone.
Clicking his tongue agitatedly, Sherlock turned right and kept an eye out for his doctor.
John couldn't have gone too far.
When Moriarty crawled into bed that night, his gangly little limbs were shaking as if an earthquake in his bones rattled them. His slender fingers were icy and stiff, and his legs were weak like jelly; whining, he shivered underneath the covers and struggled to pull them up to his chin.
"Sir?" Someone came in and cleared their throat, "Is something wrong?"
"Cold..." Jim choked it out, struggling to speak as his tongue deadened in his mouth. His shivers were slowing down as the ice worked its way up his legs and Moriarty hissed wordlessly as foul play became apparent.
"Oh dear," Smiling, Moriarty watched his practicing physician stroll in casually, a bag in one hand and a wide grin spreading across his face. "you don't look well, sir. Let me give you something for that... I have just the thing."
"Touch me, and it will be the last time you use your hands, you filth." Curling his legs in close, Moriarty hissed curses and threats through his chattering teeth, feeling an uncontrollably-primal fear build in his gut. The physician was very much bigger than him, and some deep-rooted feminine instinct told him to run.
"Is that a hint of fear, I see?" Teased the looming figure, his eyes keen.
"Drown in hot steel,"
"Oh, it is!" Gleeful, the physician approached and opened his bag on the end of the bed. It barely moved when he kicked it and, quick as a snake, Moriarty's ankle was in his grasp. "And there it is again. I love that look on your face, Jim. I just adore it…"
"Sebastian will kill you slowly." Moriarty snarled and spat, unable to hold his glare when the taller man pulled out a tiny syringe of translucent fluid and flicked out bubbles of air. "He'll take strips off your hide and make me a set of leather boots."
"That's nice."
"He'll rip open your chest cavity and wave your intestines into the hangman's best noose!"
"I can't wait."
"He will kill you before you kill me, and I'll have him throw your loathsome corpse in the Thames like garbage!" Pausing, the hulking tower of a doctor looked at him with strange emotion in his eyes. It was a silence pregnant with tension, and suddenly he a smug smile grew across his lips. Moriarty scowled suspiciously, "What?"
"Oh, Jim dear," He sighed, "you're already dead." And the puny syringe pricked the tender skin between his toes.
The world went black.