A Viper in the City [Elementary Fanfic - Joan x Moriarty]

I

Equality in any relationship is a fallacy. She has known this for many years. One party always has more power, more control, over a situation. Perhaps they do not hold all the cards, but they possess enough to consider the deck stacked. The exchange of equals is not something that happens very often at all, in her experience.

Because even then, the exchange is hardly ever equal.

"You're quiet." Jamie starts, knees aching as she tries to hide it in a slower, more languid stretch. She's not fooling her companion, her breath coming in foggy clouds before her.

"My apologies, I was under the impression that every word out of my mouth was a lie and you did not wish for me to speak."

They are sitting in a freezing car in a mostly abandoned parking lot. It is a concession that Jamie did not make easily, the exposure is not to her liking. This was what was negotiated, and she won't walk away from another chance to continue her study of Joan Watson.

The remark has hit a nerve and Watson shifts, tugging her scarf up over her mouth and huddling back further into her jacket. She's only wearing leggings, Jamie thinks that she must be freezing.

"You could tell me more about who we're looking for."

"Why Joan, I thought you knew the case forwards and backwards and certainly didn't need my help."

Watson exhales steamy breath and fidgets. She looks uncomfortable and Jamie feels a small, vindictive smile curl at the base of her stomach. She lets it drift across her face. She likes being right.

"Well, I did until we got a call from Agent Matoo saying you knew the people who were doing this."

Jamie considers this for a moment, and then dismisses Watson's supposition. They had known nothing about the killer, the real killer, before Jamie had caught wind of it in Sherlock's most recent letter. She'd had to intervene - they were operating blind and no one was allowed to kill them but Jamie. She'd thought she'd made that abundantly clear when she'd murdered Devon Gaspar. Evidently, she'd been wrong and Sherlock had stumbled into the crosshairs of one of the most dangerous assassins that Jamie had ever made the mistake of employing. "It is a very unique way to assassinate someone, letting a number of extremely aggressive exotic snakes into their apartment." She'd contacted Agent Matoo, offered to help, even though they'd released her months ago.

"You know who did this." It's said flatly, resigned.

"Only by reputation." She will not tell Joan how the job she'd hired him for had come apart at the seams, and how many snakes she'd had to kill before the man had given up his vengeful quest to eliminate her, irritated that she continued to mail them back to him in pieces. He knew better than to test her patience, and had stayed well out of her way after he'd learned that lesson. Jamie knew he would try again. It was only a matter of time. "The viper has his own set of morals, if you will, the job I offered did not align with them and I was turned down. That is, incidentally, how I met Sebastian Moran. All the better in the long run, one supposes."

"You had him so scared that he killed himself."

Jamie regards Watson blankly. "Of course I did, Joan. He was a liability, Sherlock knew his face and he knew mine, well, he knew Gaspar's. Not that I suppose that matters much anymore."

Watson turns away, her breath a cloudy huff. "This is why I don't want to do this."

"We aren't doing anything."

"The longer I spend with you, the more sociopathic you seem."

She tuts, low on her breath. She's never liked that comparison. "Not a sociopath darling, just better than most everyone. But even the best are allowed to make mistakes from time to time."

"And what, threatening to murder Moran's sister if he didn't off himself was your way of correcting a mistake?"

Jamie's lips drew up into a thin line. She does not want to have this conversation. She wants to go back to flirting with the idea of Joan Watson, the beauty and the all-consuming force of her. This is too real. "Not a mistake," Jamie sighs. "I liked Sebastian. He was good at what I wanted him to do. It is never easy to terminate the employment anyone you've worked well with."

"It's just business to you, isn't it, destroying people's lives."

"My business is power, Joan. I play the game and I play it to win. "I'm better, more evolved. No one sees me coming until it's too late." She exhales, tilting her head to one side. Watson is beautiful in the dim light of the car. Jamie lets her eyes flutter shut, looks down, embarrassed at her weakness. "No one, save you, Joan."

"If this is your idea of flattery..."

"You'd know if it was." Jamie smiles, small and genuine. It feels odd on her face, just another mask she puts on.

Watson lets out a harmph of air, sitting back in her seat, arms crossed over her chest. "I'm freezing," she says, changing the subject. Watson always shies away from who Jamie really is. It means that Jamie can never let her forget it. That is the game Jamie plays with her.

"You could have worn trousers."

"These are thermal leggings," Watson replies. Jamie raises an eyebrow, all challenge at the logic of not wearing trousers when the temperature is hovering well below zero. "And I have warm socks on underneath them."

"We could move to the back seat, if you're cold." It's a daring suggestion, the part of this that they don't openly acknowledge to anyone. Sherlock may have seen it, but Jamie will be damned if she admits it to him.

"That's a very bad idea, we're supposed to be on a stakeout."

Jamie blinks innocently. She wasn't proposing that they go snog in the back seat like teenagers, merely that they could be closer and closer meant warmer.

"Your assumptions as to my integrity are heartwarming."

"I wasn't aware you had any at all."

Jamie leans forward, eyes narrow and hand catching Watson's shoulder so quickly that Watson has no time to react. "I keep my promises Watson. Surely you know this by now." Watson is warm beneath her jacket; Jamie wants to curl into that warmth. Anything is better than this hellish car.

Watson looks away, gloved fingers curling around Jamie's and removing them from her person. "I do." Jamie wonders what it must have cost Watson to admit that.

"There is chemistry here." It's a gamble.

Watson shifts, scarf falling from where it's been covering her mouth. She looks as cold as Jamie feels, fingers curling back into the sleeve of her jacket. She doesn't say anything for a long time. Jamie watches her breath fog the space between them, watches how it dissipates and curls, warm and dewing, against the windows. A perverse part of her thinks them teenagers, embracing the cold night and sharing body heat. But they are not, not really.

Would that even be a possibility?

"We work... well together." Watson licks her lip. Jamie finds herself, caught, fascinated by the motion and the way that the saliva glistens on Watson's lips, lingering, drawing her attention away from anything but those lips. She wants to see them swollen, red with kisses, parted in release. She's seen it before, just once, and has been looking for an excuse for months to see it again.

"We do." Jamie shifts, elbow digging into the arm rest between them. They've come very close together now, arguing and shivering in the cold December air. Jamie could touch her, if she wanted to. Jamie could have her, but that is not how this should go. To have Watson is to let her think she's in control. To submit to that lie, to lead her from her knees.

Jamie would do it, too.

She wants to see if Watson would go that far again.

Watson is leaning in, her breath warm on Jamie's cold cheek, her eyes half shut.

Somewhere, far in the distance, a clatter and then the rumble of an explosion can be heard. Watson jerks away, a hissed curse at her lips. She tugs her cap down over ears and glances at Jamie, licking her lips once more. "This conversation is not over."

"I'm sure." A wry smirk tugs at Jamie's lips. She'll have Watson yet.