#sherlocks

It had started five years ago. Sherlock’s name had started popping up in the papers. A picture or two, once he had solved a case. There was something about his face that you just didn’t like. A smugness to it. This man truly thought that he was the most intelligent man in the world, and yet he was lowering himself to solving petty crimes? What a waste of a mind, and what a waste of talent. He was smart, you could give him that, but was he actually clever? You, only twenty at the time, had sipped at your tea while reading over his latest case and thinking - perhaps you could pose a sort of challenge. See how far he could actually take his intellect. And why not add something on top of it? Why not do it all while right under his nose?

It was easier to orchestrate a crime in this grand city than it should have been. You went missing. You created a trail of very subtle clues and sat yourself down in a loft in the city owned by an executive of a company you didn’t like very much and spent your days following the case on the news. Sherlock Holmes was brought in to consult. On the television, you saw him standing outside of your brownstone, Lestrade with him, waving away the press. To every question asked, they said no comment. That told you a lot.

It took them two total days to find you. You weren’t impressed at all. You thought that Sherlock was supposed to be brilliant, but alas. That’s the problem with trying to meet people these days. Most of them were a disappointment, especially in the intelligence sector. But Sherlock was the closest thing to a match that you had in this city, even if he was still a level below you. As your father said, sometimes you just had to play nice with the unfortunates. It’s not their fault that they’re so ... stupid.

You had more than enough time to anticipate his entrance, and to play it up. You were just a poor victim. You had been taken from your home, tasered, blindfolded. You had the burn marks on your side to prove it. The lengths that you would go to for this plan, the scars were just the beginning. Who took you, Lestrade asked, while Sherlock looked carefully at everything. You had no worries about him finding any evidence that you were just here at your leisure. That a simple hour ago, you had been sitting on the couch, reading a worn out copy of The Iliad, snacking on some goldfish crackers. No crumbs, the book slipped back into the bookshelf, yourself being bound once more and a look of desperation on your tear lined face. They bought it. They absolutely bought it.

You were treated in A&E for the burns, and you watched on the TV that the executive was arrested. Not only for kidnapping, but for all sorts of business malpractices. Money laundering, illegal displacements of funds, all of that very fun stuff that was going to have him tied up in the courts for at least a decade. He pleaded his innocence to everything that he was being charged with, but the evidence spoke for itself, and if he was lying about one thing, who is to say that he isn’t lying about everything? It was the simplest thing in the world. And his reason for kidnapping you? A complete accident, of course, the address of your brownstone was on an Avenue, while the address of one of the accountants was the same number, the same street name, but on a Grove. Easy mistake. They were keeping you around while trying to figure out what to do with you, since you were innocent.

Really, it was all too easy to set all of this up. You just had to act all traumatized, answer the questions, and work your way into Sherlock’s life. How did he find you, you asked. And he was only too happy to explain how ‘easy’ it was, with the eight steps that he took. You attempted to look impressed, you really did. But you couldn’t stop yourself from interrupting during the fourth, “-and those emails didn’t make it clear to you?” You asked,making him pause. That was all that you would have needed, if you wanted to spend your time looking for missing people. “Sorry, sorry,” You muttered. “I’m grateful, I am, I just would have thought - no, never mind.”

“No, go on,” Sherlock insisted. And you explained yourself, how what the email said - written by you through the executive’s account, easy peasy, should have pointed him to look into his other properties. Then they might have been at the door as soon as yesterday. Sherlock seemed to give that some thought. He looked pensive, an amusing expression because it meant that he knew you had a point, a ‘simpleton’ like you. He was gazing at you differently than before now, and you settled into the hospital bed, pretending to have gotten a sort of pain.

And as expected, he kept in touch. You had planted the seeds of interest inside of him. He was intrigued by you, and you - well, you appeared to be eager to learn. He took you under his wing, so to speak. Minute by minute, the amount of rage that he caused inside of you grew larger. He was so sanctimonious. So smug. So fucking holier-than-thou. And then you met his brother Mycroft and saw how much that ran in the family. His parents must be entirely insufferable. And then there was John. Poor little John Watson, always bring dragged into these dangerous situations, and puffing out his chest like a hero as he wrote them out on his blog, as if he had been the one to save the day. As if. It was usually some off-hand comment by you, or some comment made innocently that had put Sherlock on the right path. You weren’t made for the role of a hero. It was infuriating.

Your plotting began the first moment that he invited you to help him with a case. It was hard for you to admit, but you became obsessed with the idea of taking Sherlock down. Of wiping that stupid expression off of his face for good. Villains were always monologuing before a kill, which meant that the hero had time to escape and save the day, hurrah hurrah, so you wouldn’t be able to give him the full experience of pointing out all of his wrongs, unfortunately. It was so temping though. He really just assumed that he was always the smartest person in the room. You were giving yourself an ulcer putting up with it.

You were always one step ahead. You might have a bit of an ego but you couldn’t put it at more than that. He was close to being your match. And you hated him for it. You loathed every second that you were around him. You hated how slow he could be, how it took him an additional day, an additional hour to catch onto something in a case that you had noticed right away. There were times when you had to innocently bring up a fact just so that he would have a chance to catch up. Just so that there wouldn’t be an innocent death on your hands, or an additional murder out there. You might not have much of a conscience but you did have a care for those that couldn’t always help themselves.

God, how you hated him. And how you couldn’t express it around him. He probably thought you worshiped him, the narcissistic pig-face. You couldn’t murder him too quickly, no, you had to play it cool, learn every facet of his life to use it all against him. He had his walls built up castle size, however. It was hard to get even the slightest bit out of him without him catching onto you. That’s why it had been taking so long. Years. Years of your life wasted but the fall was going to be the most beautiful thing in the world. You already started to make your moves - Moriarty was becoming more well known now, and you pushed forward an actor who knew nothing about you save for the instructions you sent him from afar, just to throw off more blame from you.

Five years. Orchestrating from behind the scenes. There was no satisfaction that you had ever felt more strongly than that when Sherlock was stressing out over what Moriarty’s next move was going to be. You learned how to keep control of your facial features to the point where you deserved every award out there. Give you an Emmy, give you an Oscar, the Academy should be worshiping your feet.

But there was one thing that you did not foresee. Someone else wanting to get to Sherlock as much as you do. But they took the quick and easy route, rather than the concentrated long-game that you did. It wasn’t even some mastermind that did it either. It wasn’t Magnussen. It wasn’t even Culverton Smith. It was just some run of the mill murderer. Some guy with a gun who was trying to get away from Sherlock and Lestrade. The stupid Holmes, he wasn’t even supposed to be a part of physically catching the murderer. He was just supposed to stay inside of Baker Street, come up with the killer, phone it in and wait. His stubbornness was going to get himself killed before your plans came to fruition.

The man had a gun, a pocket pistol of sorts. And he was turning around to shoot Sherlock, his coat flinging away from his torso as you watched in slow-motion. He whipped it out like he thought he was some sort of action star. Lestrade was running too hard, too fast, to start to take out his gun properly. He was fumbling while trying to get it out of his belt. Sherlock was trying to stop, but his momentum was too fast. He was thrust forward, nearly falling to the ground. And John, poor limping John, had nearly crashed into a postbox. It was up to you at this point. You were closest, having been told to try to cut him off from the side street. A mere two meters. You could let him shoot Sherlock. It was an easy shot. He wouldn’t get away with it. You could claim that you were too far away to stop him.

But no. That was letting him get off way too easily.

Your knife was easier to get out of your pocket than any weighty gun was. Just the push of a button on the handle and the blade came out, sharpened just that week. It glinted in the streetlight, right into the eyes of the murderer. It distracted him but only for the narrowest second. He tried to blink the glare out of the corner of his eye and by that time, it was too late for him. You reached him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and thrusting the blade right into his gut. And with a sweeping motion, you slid it through the flesh, through the shirt, and tore it out of his side, blood rising to the surface. In his pain and his panic, he fired off a shot. It hit a no parking sign, and ricochet, going through the windshield of a car that was breaking that rule. Then the murderer started to fall towards the ground, slowly, slowly, everything still in slow motion for you as your brain worked quickly.

Stabbing someone is not as easy as one would make it seem. You had to push it through layers of skin, all pushed together. Organs as well. It wasn’t a thin little pork chop. It took strength. It took determination. And it took a real sharp knife. Even wrenching it out, covered in blood, was rough. Your biceps were sore just from the motion, but your adrenaline was rushing, making it hard to notice or focus on.

There was so much blood. You didn’t typically get your hands dirty like this. It was so sticky and so messy. It was like glue from elementary school. When you pulled out the knife, and let go of the man as he started to fall, you realized that it had spilled over the handle as well. It had gotten onto your coat. It even got onto the trousers that you had just picked up from the dry-cleaner the night before. And it looked like he wasn’t even going to be around to foot the bill to get them re-cleaned. You looked down at his body, while still holding the knife over him, and noticed how it was more than just blood that was coming out of the large gash that you had made in him. An intestine was spilling out, looking like a limp snake.

You knew exactly what you were doing. There wasn’t any shock to it, there wasn’t any trepidation or regret afterwards. It was a simple annoyance. As was everything that was going to come afterwards.

Back-up finally started to approach, sirens coming from the top of the police cars. Sherlock and Lestrade finally caught up to you, the policeman looking at the body and Sherlock looking at you. “Are you hurt?” The lank man asked - as if he had thoughts of anyone outside of himself.

“I don’t think so,” You said, knowing perfectly well that you were fine. Not even a nick. Not even a bruise. Just the work out from going through those layers and layers of epidermis. “He was going to kill you.”

“Yeah, he was,” Lestrade said, kicking the pistol out of the way, and then dropped down to the ground. Two fingers against his neck to test his pulse. He shook his head. “Dead.”

Too quick. That was annoying. You could have spit. Anger was making you start to shake, but Sherlock took it as you being in shock. He put a hand on your upper arm and you flinched away - the audacity of this skinny bitch. He muttered to the back up police that you were in shock. You braced yourself. You knew what was coming. There was no way that you were going to kill someone in public like this without getting cuffed.

And that’s where you were now. Sherlock was yelling in your defense. John was trying to explain to an officer what had happened. Lestrade was promising you that he’d meet you at the station and everything would be cleared up. Surprisingly, you felt alright. You had a calm and level head now that the threat had been eradicated. The only thing that was possibly upsetting was the fact that the victim wasn’t the correct person. You didn’t offer any trouble to the officers, to your credit. You could have broken out of these cuffs easily. They all had a weak spot, but you didn’t. You allowed yourself to be taken to the station. You allowed yourself to be fingerprinted. To be put into an interrogation room.

Just because your plan was being forced to change didn’t mean that it was off. You just had to take a different approach now. It was the perfect time to break Sherlock’s little heart. To let him know that all of the trust he had put into you over the last couple of years was misguided. That he was not smart enough to see this coming.

--

You were waiting in interrogation for an hour before Lestrade, Sherlock and another officer came in. “This is just a formality,” Lestrade explained, looking annoyed at the other officer. “We just need your statement and then we can process your release. It was clearly in self defense. We’ll have this sorted in no time,” Greg assured you. “Can we at least remove the cuffs?”

The officer acquiesced, coming around to your side of the table and undid the cuffs around your neck. You rubbed at where they had irritated your skin. Such barbaric little things, these handcuffs. A rope with a good knot was much more effective, but you know how men are. They love the look of metal. You smiled at Greg thankfully, since you honestly had nothing against the detective. He was a good man. Not smug. A little confused sometimes, but it was adorable in it’s own way. “Can you tell us what happened?” He asked.

And so you went through the story. You told him about the case. How you had come to hear about this killer. How he had the gun out and how you pieced together his intent to kill Sherlock Holmes.

“And you stabbed him in defense of Mr. Holmes?” The officer, who had conducted the interview asked you.

“Of course,” You said, leaning back casually against the chair. “I couldn’t let him do such a thing. Not after everything that I had planned. I’ve had to modify it now because of the current circumstances, but what can you do? Even simpletons can disrupt the best laid plans. I know now to try to accommodate discrepancies.”

“Beg your pardon?” Lestrade said, leaning forward, his face confused. But what you were looking at was Sherlock. He looked utterly bewildered for just a couple of seconds before he regained control. He hated to be caught unaware. It was satisfying to see.

“What I’m saying, Greg,” You reiterated. “-is that the real reason I killed this man, whatever his name is, I can hardly remember now, is because I wasn’t going to let him take the kill away from me. Since I had met Mr. Sherlock Holmes here, I’ve had this craving to be the one that wipes his smugness away from the world. I satisfied myself for a time on the fact that he really isn’t as smart as everyone, including himself, thinks that he is. Why, he never even caught on that meeting one another was a farce. I wasn’t kidnapped by anyone. I set it all up myself as a test to him, to compare intellect. He did pass it, but I thought he would catch on a lot faster. Seemed he never had,” You smirked over in Sherlock’s direction. He was starting to get flustered. An angry kind of flustered. “These last couple of years, Sherlock, I’ve helped you so many times. It was so ... so infuriating watching you take the credit when I handed you the answers. Did all of you really think that he solved all of those cases by himself? Not a chance. See, we’re very different, you and I. While you thought you were grooming me, I was playing you the entire time. I had this ... this beautiful, extravagant plan made up that would destroy your life before I took it, but it seems I’m going to have to go another way because of this. I’ll make sure that the detour is worth it. I will take your life with my own hands, and I will enjoy every second of it. That is my statement. I won’t fight against the cuffs officer, so if you please, you can take me to prison now. I admit full conspiracy to murder, and second degree murder for that poor killer. I look forward to making some new friends.”

Lestrade was in shock, because he had considered you a friend. He had considered you to be an asset to Scotland Yard. The other officer was more unbiased, and hurried to put the handcuffs back on you, to hoist you up. He was acting rather roughly with you, showing anger and disgust, which was ever more amusing because this man, this random officer, was never going to be on your level. Before you left though, you couldn’t help but say some last minute words to the tall man who was starting to stand, hands slightly trembling.

“Oh, and Sherlock” You said, making sure his eyes were on yours. You had one more blow to deliver. “If it’s any consolation to you, your brother didn’t figure out that I am Moriarty, either. And he’s of far better intellect than you are.”

If anything was going to leave him more angry than your betrayal, it was that blow to the ego. You saw those words hit home, gave a little wave with your fingers, and allowed yourself to be lead out past a bewildered John Watson, Lestrade and Sherlock following and talking amongst themselves until you were out the door.

--

Two weeks. That’s all that it took. Two weeks and you were out and about in London once more, and not in the prison cell that you should have been in. You even beat the timing in the show Prison Break. In another life, you might have been able to make a fortune in pointing out the weaknesses in the prison structure, in the timing of the changing of the guard, of blind spots from the cameras that even the guards didn’t know about.

And now, you were casually scrolling through a phone that you had stolen from some teenager in the park, while watching Sherlock being put into a black cab by Lestrade to be taken to a safe house. News had emerged of your grand escape. Of the riots that had happened in your name back at the prison. You hadn’t escaped alone, of course not. You brought some people out with you, the ones who had taken the fall for the Moriarty name.

You stepped out onto the sidewalk, and started walking to a car that was idling in wait for you. You got into the passenger seat, eyes still towards 221B. Mrs Hudson was standing in the doorway, looking worryingly out after the car Sherlock was taking off in, the one that you and your actor would be tailing at a distance. Poor dear. You always did like that woman. She knew her place. And that place was making the best cuppa that you ever had.