M is for Moriarty

Chapter 2 - To Abandon

Sherlock Holmes does not do romance. The concept of two people sharing intimacy, proper intimacy, bores him.  It's not to say he doesn't understand the ideology of love, or romance.  It is a repeated interaction with one person that develops emotional weight that turns into significantly heavier weight on one's life. He gets that, it's the reason, honestly why John is still around even after Mary died and there is a wee bundle of energy in the form of a little girl Mrs. Hudson takes care of down stairs living there. 

After Mary, he assumed John would find another woman at some point. He knew the next wouldn't be as interesting as Mary, and had prepared himself to have to smile his way through idle banter for John's sake. But instead over discussing a case John told him that he loved him.  Sherlock had been speechless for sixty seconds and John had simply walked away.  It had been one of the few moments in his life he hadn't a clue as to how to process, let alone proceed with the information. 

Of course a sane person would have gone after him, talked it through over a cup of tea or something stronger.  But he was Sherlock and before he made a move he wanted to be sure it was right.  Five hours later John returned, he had still been at the window lost in thought and John had gone again.  It was silly, it was confounding, and he was grateful for Moriarty's summons through his usual methods of trickery and murder to Reichenbach Falls.  Time moved without him paying much attention to it. Sherlock had focused on the interconnecting clues and dead bodies across England. Hours became days and John no longer offered idiotic insights, he just was there quietly observing Sherlock. He quietly did the same to John, as if John would make the next step for him and would willingly do whatever that was.

Now he stood here, in his own bedroom looking down at the man he had tried to hate, did hate, but at the same time found just as confounding as John but for different reasons.  What they had almost done at the Falls played in his mind now like a needle had been dropped on a record and as it played he couldn't not experience it. Their haphazard fighting, fists hitting flesh, snarling and sharp words being thrown.  Who had started that mess of a kiss, he didn't remember.  He remembers those strong hands on his throat closing around his long thin neck. His full bearded lips open gasping for breath and then it being shoved into his mouth along with a thin wet sinful tongue. Their mouths moved like dogs in a fight, in a sort of frantic tandem spurred by lust. It hadn't mattered they were outside, in public. The rest of the world fell away under the moonlight as hands explored skin beneath shirts.

"How long are you going to stare? It's very horrifying with that face you're wearing," James' soft deep voice cut through his revelry. 

"Sorry I wasn't aware I was." Sherlock replies as he blinks and clears his dry throat. 

"Right." James says before closing his eyes again.  Sherlock ran a hand through his recently cut by John, short dark hair and scratched at the back of his head causing strands to stand in haphazard little spikes.  He felt feelings now he didn’t understand, had never in his life felt.  Sherlock reasoned it to something close to mourning a death.  But then came the thought, was it the death of a opportunity?

The presence of the “Consulting Criminal”’in his flat, let alone in his bed, was sending heat through his cheeks.  Looking at James caused an incredible tightness in his chest.  This wasn’t like him, that’s what he wanted to say to himself. But after Irene, after John, he knew on some level this feeling and his inaction in response to repeated human contact was like him. A profound disappointment in himself grew as the heavy silence stretched between the two of them.  Sherlock watched the bruised face of James, he had wanted to do so much more to Moran. 

When he had come down the hotel hallway, the coppery scent of blood had been all he could percieve.  The crimson drops on the carpet were a macabre trail of bread crumbs leading him to turn of the hallway.  The loud claps of thunder he knew as gun shots did the rest.  Seeing the bloody body of Moriarty had incensed him with such a rage it was as if his veins were filled with fire ants.  But he bit down on his lip and ignored the unconscious giant of a man and scooped up Moriarty, the man felt heavy in his arms, but he didn't care. He had to get him to safety, in that moment there was nothing else he could do.