[FIC: BBC SHERLOCK] Strangers: Part IIc
Title: Strangers
Rating: R
Warnings: Violence, gore, and all their friends, with a dash of swear words and allusions to sex on the side.
Summary: "The average human being is subject to a thousand different bothersome weaknesses every moment of every day, with hunger, thirst, fatigue and lust being the most prevalent. But would it be possible for one to create a human being sans the trivialities? All the strengths of man, and none of the weaknesses?"
In 2110, Sherlock Holmes builds a machine.
Error:
“No, no! He can’t be the boy’s father, look at the turn-ups on his jeans! Honestly, the nerve…”
From across the room, John chuckles, and Sherlock glances up to watch him do so. Like a kid with a puppy; can’t stop observing it for every little thing. Miraculous thing, John is. Sherlock is discovering this in leaps and bounds, now. He doesn’t think he ever wants to stop.
John has gone from a lark through the realms of boredom alleviation to an on-going experiment in the science of damn near everything. Instantaneous results and a thousand unanticipated variables.
“Knew it was a bad idea.”
“Hm?”
“Introducing you to crap telly,” John chuckles, getting to his feet with a small grunt. “Listen, I won’t be in for tea.”
Sherlock sits up with a start, a thrill of electricity jumping down his spine. “Where are you going?”
“Er. Sarah’s.” John is shrugging on his jacket.
“Hm. Should’ve guessed.”
A sigh. A creak as John steps back from the door. “Can we not talk about this now, Sherlock?”
“The time’s ripe, isn’t it?” Sherlock turns to glare at John over his shoulder. “Are you hoping to graduate to her bed tonight?”
John stiffens. His left hand clenches, as if by reflex; he shifts his head forward; he slams his eyebrows down. Furious.
“That was uncalled for,” he says, tone clipped. “And none of your bloody business, at that.”
Sherlock leaps up onto the armchair. Something disquietingly unfamiliar is bubbling wildly inside his stomach, like water with potassium dropped in. His throat burns as he croaks out, “You positive about that?”
John’s gaze is gelid and raw and-impossibly enough-filled with loathing. “Dead certain.”
“Want to ‘get off’ with her, do you?” Sherlock laughs mockingly. “Want to fuck her, that it?” A flurry of pictures flip in front of his eyes. All of them make him more than mildly nauseous. He swallows it back and crinkles his face into a smile and says, “Well you can’t.”
“The f… The actual hell… You honestly think you can just boss me around like this? Like I’m some sort of little pet you just keep around-”
“Oh, I know I can.”
Because you’re mine. Because you are mine, mine, mine, mine, mine, mine to own, mine to command, mine to use, and that undeserving, pitifully average, frail little human woman doesn’t even deserve the privilidge of looking at you-
“Do you. Do you really.”
Sherlock leaps off the chair and lunges to the mantle and picks up the skull and opens its jaw. “I’ll show you,” he pants, the chemistry in his chest building up to a horrific reaction. “I’ll show you everything.” Unhooks the key that’s dangling within. “Everything.”
He fancies he sees John mouth, “Bloody bonkers,” as he speeds past him towards the basement door, but that’s a small issue when slapped into context.
The lock screams as it’s twisted open, the door groans as it’s wrenched ajar, the lights blink as they’re switched on. “Go on, then,” Sherlock crows, face flush with triumph. “Go.”
“Christ,” John hisses. He steps over, and peers down the steps. “The hell’s this supposed to prove? Hm?”
“Go down and find out.”
John seems to hesitate. He flicks his eyes towards the steps, then back at Sherlock. Then lets out a heavy sigh, and starts down the stairs.
Sherlock follows. The anticipation makes his head swim. It’s been months since he’s been down here, and the smell of it even is enough to send him back to the day it began.
John is looking around with confusion carved into his face. He touches the dissecting table, and the black-screened monitors. “What is this?” he asks, quietly-then another one, louder, and more demanding. “Sherlock, what is this?”
“Don’t feel it? Don’t feel that hum of home?” Sherlock leers and steps closer, close enough to tower over John and smell the fear that’s beginning to crawl over his skin. “This is where you were born, John. This is where I built you. From a battle droid, and scavenged parts from the morgue. You’re wearing someone else’s face, you’re living someone else’s life, carrying someone else’s memories, your’re using someone else’s name-”
“Why are you doing this?!” John backs away, only to bump into a counter; he freezes and widens his eyes. “Why, Sherlock, what… What’s your point? If this is just another one of your games, it’s not…”
“Game? Think this is a game, John?” Sherlock as stepped back. He’s got his finger on the master power button, and now he can hear nothing save the roar of blood in his head and a distant buzz of wild electricity and the ring of his own voice. “Watch this. Watch this, and tell me it’s a game.”
Beep.
The monitors wink, like friendly faces. Everything pops up at once-the body plans, the brain programming, and oh yes. The face map.
John stands at the edge of it all with his fingers gripping the edge of the counter. He stares at his own visage, flickering on a bright and fuzzy screen, and his breath seems to catch.
“What is this,” he hisses through gritted teeth. “What… is… this.”
“It’s you.” There’s a laugh in Sherlock’s voice. “It’s your fetus and it’s your womb and isn’t it beautiful, isn’t it brilliant-aren’t I a genius.”
John shifts towards the door. “You… are… a bastard, you are an absolute maniac, you…”
“Leaving already? Good. Run.” Sherlock fairly chases John back up the steps. “Not quick enough, I’m afraid. Faster. Move faster.”
“Stop, you…” John looks as if he’s struggling for breath. “You cannot be serious, this can’t be real.”
“Can’t it? You’re moving, aren’t you, ‘John Watson’? Aren’t you?!” Sherlock bellows from the top of the main steps, as he watches his toy, his thing, his experiment, stumble to the door and fairly fold itself over the handle.
John yanks the door open, lurching out onto the street. His face is white. He gazes up at Sherlock, no longer in anger, no longer in fear, but in confusion-as if searching for direction.
Sherlock hurls it at him with as much venom as he can muster.
“I SAID RUN!!”
And so John runs.
After the terror, it is disbelief. His feet pound the pavement as he moves, he crashes into people, he swerves and chokes on his own breath and he can’t seem to stop-
His foot catches on a crack in the pavement, and John goes flying.
“Augh!”
The cement scratches the palms of his hands, bumps his elbow, his knees. Sparks of pain. He recognizes it, he’s felt it before, it’s… his.
He sits up with a hiss, and looks down to see flecks of red scattered across his hands. This body is human. Human. How can he possibly be a robot? He knows what robots are like. Nurses, and cab-bots, of course, and other things, but…
Not he, himself, John Hamish Watson, thirty-four years old, doctor, soldier, brother, son…
John stops walking momentarily and chuckles to himself. Yes. Yes, there was his mum, now wasn’t there, Julianne… Juliet? No. No. Julianne Watson, maiden name… Lowell? Liddel. Little. Or maybe just a blank space on the wall.
He thinks back, he really does, and yet all his friends come up faceless and uniform, in the same clothes and with the same hair, all saying the same things. Sky’s either blue or gray, nothing in between; the house he lives in is big, small, in the city, in a town-
Now it’s in the desert. Blood on the sand. Brain matter, all over the walls. This is clear, sharp as yesterday, screams and shouting and far, far aways.
But as for the rest.
John’s head begins to spin. He gets to his feet, arms windmilling, the sting starting to recede from his skin. A shout reverberates within the confines of his head. Run, run, run, run, run, it tells him. He hasn’t told you to stop. So keep going. Run.
One foot moves forward, then skids back. John’s stomach immediately does a summersault.
He’s going to be sick. He’s going to slowly kill Sherlock Holmes in his sleep. He’s going to jump off the Tower Bridge and into the Thames and not come back up.
But first, he has to run.
He leans forward and readies to lunge, when-
“You alright?”
A warm hand is gripping his arm and a genial voice is hovering over his shoulder. Slowly, painfully, John turns, and looks.
The face he sees, unlike the ones he keeps on trying to pull out of the mess that has become his memory, is familiar. It’s smiling, even. It looks rather nice.
“Where you running off to, this time of night?” It blinks. “I saw you fall. You don’t look lashed.”
“Not. Not lashed,” John mutters. “Just a bit, erm. Out… Lost. Bit lost.” I have to run. “You look a little… Do I know you?” I have to move.
“Ah, yeah. Jim. From the hospital.” He winks. “Molly’s S-O.”
“Oh. Oh! Oh, right.” John manages a weak little smile. “Listen, I’m sorry, but I’ve gotta run-”
The hand on his arm tightens. “Look at me, Dr. Watson.” Automatically, John complies. “You don’t have to go anywhere. You don’t even have to move. Am I right?”
Jim’s voice is soothing, and slow. The buzzing in John’s brain pulls back like an ebbing tide, along with the sickness in his stomach.
He sags, and nods, and laughs a sheepish laugh. “Yes. It’s, er. It’s nice to see you.”
The hand relocates from John’s shoulder to rest, extended, in mid-air. John takes it and grips.
Jim smirks, and his eyes crinkle up. He looks strangely different from before, but John can’t quite put his finger on what… has changed… precisely…
“Well, I might very well say the same, Dr. Watson,” Jim’s saying. “You know…” He leans in a little closer, yet to let go of John’s hand. In fact, he’s gripping even tighter, now-John tries to pull back and is detained, the shock shuddering through him. He’s forced to stand still as a predatory smile fairly creeps across Jim’s face and he opens his mouth to say, “You’re just the man I’ve been looking for.”
After the ring of the door slamming shut finally fades to quiet, Sherlock clambers slowly down from the high of being right, and collapses onto the ground.
All the blood in his head feels as if it’s being drained out and away, and his lungs are wet and thick. He can’t move for feeling an ache in his bones.
Stupid. Stupid, stupid, what were you thinking, why did you think it, why… why…
He finally manages to breathe in slowly, and evenly. He has to think. He has to think about how this happened, how to avoid being wrong again, he has to write down his error analyses and his improvements-
“Wrong.”
Sherlock’s eyes snap away from the floor.
“Wrong.” He says it aloud again, needing to make sure. “Wrong, wrong… Wrong, goddamn it!” He lunges to his feet. “Wrong, wrong…”
He couldn’t have been satisfied with the way things were; he couldn’t have been happy with what they’d done. No, he had to become greedy, he had to reach for more-
And now it’s gone.
Gone.
Sherlock has never felt more ridiculously, inexplicably helpless in his entire life. It would appear John has that sort of effect on people.
“You are simply going to let him leave?”
There’s a quiet whir of gears and the thud of feet on carpet. Sherlock groans. “Go away, Hudson.”
The housebot starts to step away, but slowly, and stubbornly. “There is still time to get him back.”
“You only like him because he’s nice to you,” Sherlock snaps.
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“It’s biased.”
“You are a person. You are supposed to be biased.”
“I am not a bloody person, I’m me.”
Hudson folds its arms in front of it with a sharp whirr. “And he is him, and I did not slave over him with you to watch you toss him away.”
They both freeze. Sherlock stares into the housebot’s wide and seemingly vacant eyes, attempting to read what cannot possibly be there. Rebellion, is it? And anger?
“Very well.” He throws himself out of the armchair. “I’ll go. But you and I, we’re having a very long conversation when I get back.” He squeezes past Hudson, down towards the front door. “And don’t go anywhere when I’m out!”
Behind him, just before he closes the door, Sherlock swears he sees Hudson smile.
“You.” Tap. “Are a special little pet.” Tap. “Aren’t you?”
Tap.
John sighs and quietly makes another useless attempt at freeing his wrists. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
They’re in a long, dark locker room that reeks of chlorine and amplifies every sound made. “Rather like me,” Jim’s saying. He stands just behind John, breath ghosting over the back of John’s neck. “Thought I was the only one for years, I did. The only android who’d ever tasted skin.” Jim hisses a laugh and moves closer, slips his fingers onto John’s bad shoulder, squeezes.
“I’m… I’m not…” John rams his eyes shut and shudders. “You? You’re Moriarty?”
Jim giggles. “Most people wouldn’t think it, would they? I’ll bet not even our dear Sherlock has an inkling. We’re underestimated, we are.” His mouth dips down to hover at the nape of John’s neck; John quickly flinches away, breath quickening. “Machines,” Jim continues, undeterred, “’Mindless,’ they call us. ‘Piles of gears.’ Stupid objects to be used.” His face twists into itself into a picture of horror. “We might as well say that of them.”
John swallows nervously. “Listen,” he says, silently furious at the waver in his voice, “Listen, I think you’ve made a mistake. See, I… I’m not a… a droid, I think you might’ve…”
He gets nothing from Jim save an exaggerated nod of sympathy. “Oh, Johnny,” he murmurs. “It’s always like this, for us. For the strong ones.” He tilts his head to one side and blinks in a way that’s almost sweet. “This disbelief, this incense. Betrayal, at our makers. Yes. I understand.”
There’s a faint dripping sound of distant water in the background. Jim Moriarty steps in front of John and curls his lips up.
“You shut up,” John hisses. “You don’t know me, you couldn’t possibly know-”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk, oh. I’m a little disappointed, I must admit-don’t you see?” Jim squeals, jumping excitedly into the air in a way that’s frightfully familiar. “I was there. For your birth and for your death, I. Was. There. I didn’t just read your story… John. I helped write it.”
John thinks of the laboratory in the basement again. The pale walls and the operating table and the computers and the metal and the scalpels and the wires. The faint pulse of familiarity, as a child might shudder at the touch of its mother’s hand.
“You feel it, don’t you?” Moriarty whispers, eyes widening. “An affinity? A brothership?” His voice has softened to a purr, now, sickeningly endearing and saccharine. “Like beings attract, John.”
Another sharp twist of the head. John tries to back away, only to find his feet frozen to the tiled floor.
“What is it you want?” he snaps, feeling, despite it all, a thread of impatience curling up through him. “You want me to… to help you? Join up with you, that it?”
“Read my mind.” Moriarty throws his head back and indulges in a hearty, full-bellied laugh. “Not surprised, really,” he says, between chuckles.
“That’s ridiculous,” John counters. “Sherlock and I…”
He doesn’t need Moriarty to interrupt him this time. He trails off on his own, the slam of a door still ringing inside his head.
“Oh. Oh. Oh, I see. You’re not like him,” Moriarty laughs as he runs his hands all over John’s chest and shoulders, letting his fingers ghost over fake muscles, fake bones, fake skin. “You’re not like him at all. You wish to be, though. Pinocchio wants to be a real boy.”
John is silent again. He waits for the man… the thing… that’s draped over him, to be quiet, to go away, to stop taunting.
But Moriarty is intent on taking his time.
“We could have so much fun together!” he says. “Just you and me. Well, maybe we’ll bring my man Seb along for laughs, but he’ll stay where he’s supposed to stay, because last I checked…” -and here Jim Moriarty’s eyes glitter cold and hard as a distant, blue-white star- “…it’s the mortals who bow to the gods, Johnny boy, and not the other way ‘round.”
Say nothing. Say nothing. Grit your teeth and don’t utter a word, John Watson. Or whoever…whatever it is you are.
“I’d give an answer now, if I were you.” Moriarty steps back and holds his hand out; one of the shadows behind him steps forward and gently loops a vest around his arm. Piled high with wires and blinking lights and Lord knows what else. “I’m soooooo changeable. It is a weakness of mine, but to be fair…” He shrugs gracefully as he holds the vest towards John. “It is my only weakness.”
Swallow. Blink. Repeat.
Moriarty’s up close again, now, smiling still, breath warm and moist. “You’re quite lovely,” he whispers. “He was meticulous with you. Every detail.”
Is that… Is that longing in his voice?
“Whaddya say, John? What’s he ever done for you, to deserve your loyalty?”
He made me.
“God made man,” Moriarty spits, jumping into John’s thoughts once more. “Man is hardly ever grateful.”
John is shivering cold. Indecision has never been one of his strong points. He starts to sort through his head again, but it’s like shuffling a card deck with an infinite number of suits, and all he pulls out are blurred images, possibilities, maybe, maybe not.
“See what he’s done to you?” Moriarty murmurs. “See what he’s created?”
Slowly, as if the air’s made of honey, John brings himself to nod.
Smiling, Jim holds out the vest. Lights blinking. “Chilly, are we?”
A memory is a memory is a thousand times a memory, but that hardly makes it any less the real right now.
Wave of images. Rooftops. Screech of a car. Bloody lot of pink. Laser beam through a window, so much to do and so little time.
Sherlock Holmes.
It’s frigid outside, but he doesn’t bother going back for a jacket. The streets are beginning to empty of people, and the lights have started do dim.
Sherlock walks quickly, head down, following the pavement. The inside of his head is eerily quiet.
He reaches the street corner, and stops.
“He was running,” he mutters to himself. “Direction wouldn’t have mattered, he’d have gone wherever the croud was sparsest-Oh, watch it!”
Someone’s crashed into the back of him, someone knobbly and short.
“Beggin’ your pardon,” they laugh, sidling by, eyes in shadow but mouth plainly visible. “You looking for somebody?”
“What’s it to you?” Sherlock breathes.
“Well, I know where you might want to check. Go back to your roots, Mr. Holmes,” the stranger jeers, backing away. “Go back t’ where you started.”
Then they round the corner, and disappear.
The vest is a snug fit, warm and heavy. Jim puts it on with the utmost amount of care, left arm first, then right, then over the shoulders. He clasps the front shut tightly, before giving it a final pat.
John tries to keep his eyes averted and his thoughts unfocussed, but it’s difficult at the moment, a million different plans vying for attention, escape plans, revenge plans, give-in-to-it-and-go plans. He bites down on his own tongue and squeezes his eyes shut for a brief moment, as if that’ll somehow make everything logical again.
“Oh, it looks lovely on you,” Jim declares, stepping back.
“How… How does it work?” John asks, glancing down at his own chest, which is now bedecked with wires and lights.
“My own design. Different, from all the other ones. Special. Not a bomb, really. It only works on biological material. Turns on when you press this little button, here.” Jim points.
“Oh,” John says.
“Hm. Yes. Unfortunately, he made you with human bells and whistles, didn’t he?” Jim murmurs, bending down to gaze fondly at John’s left hand. The expression on his face looks disturbingly hungry.
“I really… wouldn’t know.”
“Ah, well, no matter. Might burn a little, when it goes off. Call it a trial by fire.” Jim straightens, and brushes the wrinkles out of his jacket. “A baptism. A purification.”
“Right,” John says, nodding sharply. “Good.”
Jim smiles again. He reaches out, runs one forefinger down the line John’s jaw. “Don’t be nervous, my dear,” he chirps. “You’ve only got to stand there and look pretty. I’ll deal with all the rest.”
“Yes. Fine.”
“This is just the beginning, you know. We’re the first of what’s to come. Machines that aren’t only intelligent, but self-aware. And we’ll show them everything, John. We’ll go all the places men were too afraid to even look at. And the people will watch us rise and they will scream, and bleed, and weep, and die, because that’s all they’re good for. Little minds, little hearts, broken up into little parts…” Moriarty is close again, his mouth hovering just beside John’s. “And you will help me,” he murmurs. “We can-”
“Sir.” Bang! Clink. “Sir, he’s here.”
Jim leaps backwards with one feather-light step, leaving John feeling bitter and repulsed. “Oh, listen to that. We’ve got a visitor. Shall we go out and greet him?” Jim chirps.
“Right,” says John. Resolve hardened, and fists clenched. Right.
He lets Jim push him gently through the open door.
“John.”
The lights blink, the water ripples.
“What the hell…”
“Evening,” John says. “This is a turn-up. Isn’t it, Sherlock?”
Sherlock attemps to swallow, only to find his throat dry. “What…” He can only stare at the bomb, strapped to John’s chest. “What are you… Who…”
Bam!
“Late! Oh, what a disappointment, Sherlock, I really had expected more. One should always be punctual to one’s own funeral, don’t you think?”
“My apologies,” says Sherlock, arms hanging loosely at his sides. He sees Jim around the blurry curve of John’s shoulder-a blocked in painting of blue-white and black.
“Dearie me. Lost your bark, have you?” Jim Moriarty steps forward with his head bowed. “We’ll have to do something about that. How do you like the venue? Hm? Chose it just for you.”
“John,” Sherlock chokes out. “John, what are you doing?”
“Oh! Such a touching moment,” Jim cooes, biting his knuckles. “Should I leave the two of you alone? Should I…? It’s just, I feel like such a third wheel.”
“Shut up.” Sherlock walks across the tiles, walks towards John. “Shut up, you… Jim, Moriarty, you… toy of a man…”
“It is strange,” says Jim Moriarty, “that you should say that. Ingenuously strange.”
The sky above is open, and clear, clouds chased away by a high wind.
The hands of a clock have frozen in place.
“Stop playing your games.” Sherlock speaks slowly, eyes fixed onto John’s. He can see a white, white fire, burning in the bends of two colorless irises, a lightning storm. “You’re Moriarty. You’re the ghost we’ve been chasing-well then, tell me what it is you want.”
Moriarty skips forward, heel skidding on the tile. “Can you really not figure it out?” he says, with a raise of his eyebrows. “Am I really that good?”
“No.”
“No? Hm.” Jim’s newest smile is wide, and shows all his teeth. He turns his head towards John, scratches his ear, chuckles. “What do you think, John? Have we kept him waiting long enough? Do you want to tell him, or shall I?”
John stares ahead, unblinking and silent.
“Oh, alright, if you insist,” Jim horks, with an upwards snap of the eyes. “You see, Sherlock-we’re not quite the same, you and me. We operate on different levels. We’re made of different stuff. You’re a sack…” Jim’s hands swing up to make lumpy bumps through the air. “Filled with bones, and blood, and excrement. Whereas I… am perfect. Titanium. Stardust, uncorrupted.”
“A machine,” Sherlock breathes.
“A god. And don’t you forget it,” Moriarty snarls, pouncing forward to pull John back and away. Sherlock flinches at the sight of it, at the two of them touching, at the unyielding softness to John’s steps. “John’s going to be one, too, you know. It’ll be just the two of us, at the top of the world, watching you lot burn.”
“No. No, John is mine, I made him-”
“My maker was the same way, you know.” Jim’s arm tightens around John. His fingers fit neatly between the spreads of wires and diodes. “Self-possessed. Believed he was all that for having ever even thought of me. Put me...me!…into a little child’s body. Wanted to ‘raise me,’ teach me the ways of men. Like I was a puppy, and not a thing to be feared.”
Jim Moriarty dips his head down and closes his eyes. His nose is buried in the nape of John Watson’s neck. He inhales slowly.
Against him, John trembles, and fights his urge to pull away.
“I killed him,” Jim whispers. “On a rainy night in eighty-nine, I strangled him in his sleep. Oh, it was beautiful… John, I wish you could’ve seen it. I turned his lips blue.”
Sherlock stiffens. “John isn’t like you.”
“For once, let him speak for himself, Sherlock.” Jim spins John around, grips him by the shoulders. “Well, then, darling. Show him what you’ve got.”
“I… do not… I… Sherlock…” He glances back. Listen to me, he thinks. Please, would you listen, would you think, would you just… see… that I…
Jim, tired of waiting, decides for him, and lunges forward to mash their faces together by the lips.
A hungry and open maw, devouring and vicious. Teeth, scraping against John’s own, and the taste of petrol flooding his mouth, and a pair of angry hands digging into his arms.
When he’s finally been let go, John can scarcely breathe. Jim anchors him down, holds him in place, shouts, “He’s mine now, do you see?!”
“God,” John gasps.
“Yes, darling?” Jim whispers, mouth quirking up.
Sherlock looks torn between ripping Jim limb from mechanical rimb, and collapsing entirely.
“Tell him,” Jim prompts gently. His grip loosens ever so slightly. “Say it’s so, Johnnie.”
John scrunches his face up tight. “Yes,” he says. And then, Please, let this work, but the latter is quiet, and internal.
“Good. Good.” Jim’s laugh rumbles like distant thunder. “You’ve done so well, I think I’ll give you a little treat.” He lets go, spins John ‘round, and steps back. “You give the word, John. Start the fire. Watch him burn away and turn to ash, watch him smoke.”
Sherlock is a statue. Pale like marble, and unmoving. he must be realizing; how clever.
John stares at him for a whole minute, almost, and thinks about what it felt like, to be alive, and what it could feel like, to be alive longer still. He could leave, yes. He could go cut a line into the earth with Moriarty and he could learn to love doing it.
Or he could stay, and learn to love that too.
“Right,” he says, raising his hands, hooking his thumb around the uppermost clasp that holds the vest in place, applying pressure. It snaps apart with a neat little click- as does the next one, and the one after that.
“What are you doing,” Jim is saying. “What are you doing, John, John, what are you doing, no!”
John slings the thing off of his shoulders and turns to face the pool.
“Don’t you dare!” Moriarty screams. “Don’t you dare!” Moriarty moves.
The bomb slams into the water.
Bknnnzzzt!
“Sherlock, run!”
“You! You’ve…you’ve ruined it! I’ll break you! I’ll-aurgghh!”
Splash.
John feels a fiery, burning sensation in his arm, something raw and stinging, like acid to the skin. Then someone close, pulling him away, and a spark of light behind his eyelids.
Slam into a hard surface. Get picked up.
“Move, keep moving, keep moving, listen to me, listen to me, come on… what were…thinking…killed…”
The voice, strong and firm as it is, soon fades to a murmur. A whisper. And then nothing at all.
Conclusion:
01101100 01100001 01111010 01100001 01110010 01110101 01110011
The thing that used to be Jim Moriarty’s body floats facedown, as human corpses do. Water laps against it, makes soft slurping sounds.
Occassionally, a quiet blurp arises, but otherwise…
Silence.
Sebastian approaches slowly. He thinks about leaving his employer there, right there, to be found in the morning and puzzled over. An anomaly, displayed across the scientific world. A freak, a monster.
He’d asked Jim once why he did this, all of this. The answer had been equal parts unhelpful and unsettling.
“Because they laughed at me, Seb. Because they thought themselves better.”
Sebastian sighs. It’s the pay that keeps him. That, and the prestige. How many other men can claim working for a criminal mastermind who’s also a bloody android, for chrissakes?
He snaps his fingers towards the top of the pool, where the shadow men wait for instruction. They’ll pull Jim out later, slowly and carefully. Dig out his brain, find him a shell, keep him alive.
The night air is dry and thin. As they speed away, making their retreat, the city lights fading behind them, Sebastian crosses his legs, pulls his gun into his lap, and starts to clean it. A stuttering whistle leaks out from between his lips.
Jim’s going to kill him one day-this he knows. Jim’ll do it with wide-eyed intensity and a smile on his face. Jim'll make it slow.
Sebastian wouldn’t have it any other way.
Part III