The Adventure of the Glass Hearts

[not_a_hero]

Who: Sherlock Holmes and James Moriarty
Where: The Roof
When: July 5th
Rating: R
Summary: Moriarty has targeted Sherlock's heart and now it's time for Sherlock to respond.
The Story:

It was hard to decide at first where to put John’s body. John had his own room with a bed he could be laid upon. The mess he was in, Sherlock was more than slightly tempted to burn him to ash. He’d already experimented with spontaneous body regeneration on the mechanical girl; there was no risk that John would not come back if he rid the world of his corpse. It wasn’t as though John was tied to the broken flesh in any way. It was a place holder and not even a necessary one.

But Sherlock still took the body to his own room and set it down on his couch for the time being. He’d rethink on what to do about it later. His head was too empty and his chest too full and it was all the wrong way around making him sluggish and dumb.

That was when he saw them—the macabre gifts. One glance told him what they were and it was hardly a deductive leap to assume whom they belonged to. Hearts—Evelyn’s and John’s in glass containers. Oh, he’d known it was a personal attack but this… This isn’t a game; this is revenge, anger.

Moriarty knows.

His hand are almost shaking when he takes his communicator out and sends out a private message.

“The roof. One hour. –SH”

He needs the hour to collect himself--not to prepare any magic tricks this time. If he goes as he is, he’s assured to lose even more than he already has. Calm. Cold. Collected. Caring is not an advantage.

He does his best to close down on the pain and wait for a response.

Comments

[willfixitforyou]

Nothing about this move was appropriate for their game Moriarty knows this, but chose all along not to care, the moment he'd heard his confirmation from the Daisies and felt something cold and vicious clogging up his windpipe and making the blood pound in his ears. He'd broken something, something living from the closet and he can't even remember what, once he'd run away to his room in the mansion at a slow and measured pace. It doesn't matter. Didn't matter then, either. Once he was actually thinking again, filling his mind with equations and things that made sense, it was really only logical that he had to make good on his end of the bargain.

And hadn't that been just so easy?

So when he recieves the expected summons, he smiles, though it is cold and without humour, because some part of him is still coldly viciously seething. And yet he's at the roof in 45 minutes rather than an hour.

"How nostalgic. -JM"

Because it is, isn't it? Except it's barely been months for him, and really, he'd rather not shoot himself in the head this time. It isn't an olive branch, his being mostly unarmed for this meeting, but either way, slacks and shirt and vest can't hide a gun.

[not_a_hero]

Sherlock lets him wait there. He's in no hurry. By the time he does arrive he's collected himself almost completely into a simple mask of indifference with only enough humanity showing to prove they are as different as they are the same.

"What gave it away?" he asks. He's figured it all out by now. He just wants to know how he managed to fail them all.

[willfixitforyou]

"Oh, I suspected since the event with the wizarding school." Jim turns, slowly, and approaches Sherlock only because he can't bear standing still. "You did well, keeping your little secret, but the Garden spilled it readily enough. It's nothing you could have prevented."

Just barely his mouth kicks up at the corners, pretending satisfaction. There's none, not really, as much as he'd like it to be there because what he's done does not, in fact, fix anything. But it hurts Sherlock back, and that's enough to let him pretend.

[not_a_hero]

"So what now? They'll all be resurrected by tomorrow. Death is only an inconvenience here. Do we do this all again next week? Make a sport out of it?"

He can't keep the bite from his own words, fueled almost more by pain than by anger. Because more than anything the futility of it all makes him tired. He can't live like this. Not here.

[willfixitforyou]

It's the bite that makes the smile take shape on Jim's face, at least for a moment. "An exercise in futility, I'm sure you would agree. No, once is plenty."

More, he's certain, would dull the edge of it. He had a point to make, and make it he did. Surely, Sherlock had warned the sheep that were the general populace by now, and further slaughter would only open him up for retaliation more than he already had been. A mindless killer - and he was certainly the latter, but never the former.

[not_a_hero]

Sherlock stares hard into him. He has a much different idea of what their current scores are.

"I owe you for this, Jim."

[willfixitforyou]

"Do you." Jim meets his eyes. "Did you really think I wouldn't do it? I told you, exactly, what the stakes were."

[not_a_hero]

"I took the fall like you asked. The papers ran with the story of my suicide: fake genius takes his own life. I'm dead in every other possible way. Only I think you'd prefer it my way. Because while I may be alive, I get to watch as the people I cared about mourn for me. And eventually they will all move on and live their happy little lives while I am forever in the shadows alone. I improved on your plan just by thinking I could find a way out of it. I am dead. More so now than ever. More than you and your gun can achieve." He leans up, using his full height to his advantage. "I upheld my end of the deal. This was uncalled for. You owe me."

[willfixitforyou]

Jim gives the barest shake of his head, not approving of having his words twisted around. What Sherlock says rings true enough. But he can, eventually, return, if he does it cleverly enough, and isn't he always oh so very clever? It is a possibility where it shouldn't be.

"No I don't." And he feels disinclined to explain his reasoning. Shouldn't have to. Sherlock, please, surely you can still keep up. Or is your burnt heart getting in the way? "But you're so clever, I'm sure you'll think of a way to collect the supposed debt. You've already killed poor Rich Brook, I saw. Warned all those little people of me."

[not_a_hero]

"You murdered Evelyn. She's not even from our world!" He didn't mean to snap but the cold, gleeful nature of the other man was making it hard to focus on feeling numb where he was ice cold and burning hot.

[willfixitforyou]

"You think that would come into it? Here?" The humour dropped from his voice as if it had never been there, leaving cold and spite. He had both of those to spare, in amounts that would've surprised him, had he spared it a thought.

[not_a_hero]

"So I'm meant to walk away, am I? Walk away and just.. let you have killed them."

He hates the thought of it. He prefers justice; he believes in it. There is a hollowness in him at the thought of allowing such crimes to go uncharged. It's letting Evelyn down. It's letting John down.

It probably what will same them both if it's what Moriarty wants.

[willfixitforyou]

"No matter what you do, it won't make it unhappen one way or another." He can't, honestly can't make himself care what Sherlock does. This is playing pretend. Pretending that there is still something that matters, when there's really not.

He's just staying, again, with all that time and no way to pass it.

[not_a_hero]

Sherlock grabs Moriarty, shaking him in the direction of the roof's edge. He could kill him. It would be so easy. It wasn't as though he'd never killed a man; never attempted to. They wouldn't be even anymore but maybe Sherlock didn't want to wait a day. Maybe he'd rather just die as well, throw them both off in a swan dive like the true fairytale said.

[willfixitforyou]

Moriarty grabs the front of Sherlock's shirt, not willing to go down alone. His hand is trembling, and he can't bring it not to, realizing with a bit of surprise how livid this mess still makes him. He thought he'd left that behind. Wrapped himself in vacancy and cold empty calm securely enough.

"So what will it be?"

It's a dare, but it's empty. Now, he has nothing to threaten Sherlock with. Not really. Just variants of what's been done already. "We're both waking up tomorrow anyway."

[not_a_hero]

Sherlock shoves him but not towards the edge. He just wants him away. Far away.

"You have made a Mansion full of enemies. You will never recover from this. I hope it was worth it."

[willfixitforyou]

So he stumbles back. Glances over his shoulder, contemplating the drop for a second, before he looks at Sherlock again.

"You think I had anything to lose?" Incredulous. Because he didn't, to his knowledge - Sherlock could have turned them against him at the drop of a hat, on a whim, and Jim's never cared about a single one of these people.

[not_a_hero]

"Yes. And now you've lost it."

He lost the chance to let the past rot there. He lost any chance to engage with Sherlock in any civil matter ever again. It was a contest, a game, and it was meant to be played by equals. But now Sherlock can't stand to even look at James Moriarty.

[willfixitforyou]

At least his hand stops trembling. Something slips into place like a solved equation, a fulfilled expectation. Of course, after pretending to have honoured the deal with his semantics, he considers Jim fulfilling his end of it and doing exactly what he told him he'd do horribly uncalled for. Of course he doesn't, in fact, play on his level. It was silly of him to think so.

"Then I suppose we're done."

[not_a_hero]

Sherlock turns away from him. He hates to let him live but... for the sake of ending it, he will. He will accept this.

But he won't ask the others to be as accepting as he.

"Yes. We are."

He walks back towards the roof access.