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Beatrice has left.
She never stayed, for that matter. And he has no complaints about it. Not as though her absence has ever inflicted anything upon him. Or the other way around. For she is, in fact, using him for a specific purpose — entertainment and whatnot — only, and perhaps he is doing almost the same. Just not exactly. To be direct: not particularly cold or harsh, somewhat of a replacement. For a thing he could be risking too much to have, on so many levels.
The heat is unbearable tonight. With all the sweat and other varieties of secretions. Moriarty finds himself not unattracted to the idea of a bath.
One finds oneself repeating that admiration for a man of ambition as grandiose as Silas’s. Out there, in the streets of the great city of Constantinople, its lowly citizens may be fighting and killing each other over clean water. Here, inside the grandeur of an opulent palace of his own creation, there is a private bath dedicated to every bedroom — the guest room James occupies amongst them.
He fills the copper bathtub with fresh water, pours some Turkish rosewater in for its sweet scent, and folds his tall frame inside the tub.
He submerges himself entirely, holds his breath, and his rather unyielding newest fixation begins to diffuse through the water.
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s nothing.’
The way Sherlock seemed intrigued by the idea of displaying that key to him was as mysterious as it was alluring. That boy knew he would be losing his mind trying to figure out what secrets the key held, what damned door it opened. But what he had not the slightest awareness of, was how tempting he himself was while doing so. How those big, rounded blue eyes gazed at James with wonder and curiosity. How he toyed with his patience, and inflicted upon him an ache that Beatrice could never have done.
He drowned himself for an extra second beyond the usual capability of his lungs before resurfacing with a large, roaring gasp for air.
“Ah! Thought I’d find you here.”
Sherlock exclaims, rather pleased.
James raises his eyebrows, just briefly. A wee bit of surprise, since their last conversation had ended dryly and he had felt his best friend’s subtle tendency to take a step back from their relationship.
“As you’d find me at any place, and any time, regardless of my need for some personal space.” He complains softly, almost to himself, cutting it with a somewhat sardonic smile.
“You should have knocked.”
He wipes water from his face, ruffles his dark curls — shaking them just enough to splash some water over Sherlock, who is still in his full attire.
“In fact, I did knock.” He claims, a little distracted by the droplets of water now on his suit. For he could sense instantly that it is rose-scented. Still, he rambles on.
“But you hear me not because you were under water for so long. Were you trying to commit suicide by drowning? I can assure you, theoretically, it is not a pleasant death.”
James wraps all his thoughts and feelings into an audible sigh. A huge one.
“You seem irritated. That is, to say the least.”
Sherlock bends down and sits on the edge of the tub. The fabric of his trousers tightens as a result, emphasising the shape of his thighs and hips, directly before James’s eyes.
Now that is enough.
James suddenly stands to his fullest height, forcing Sherlock to scramble aside — not before part of his trousers has soaked up the splashed water. Those doe eyes widen — bothered by the messiness of his lovely suit rather than the fact that James is fully naked before him. And that obvious indifference lands no small blow to his ego.
“What do you want, Sherlock?”
He beams a childish smile. “Almost thought you’d never ask me that.
He gives a quick look over Moriarty’s physique — rather an act of observation out of habit than anything else, and James notices that. Then he grabs the towel on the hook at the wall, shaking it out before handing it to his friend, who has stepped out of the tub.
James dries his face with it before wrapping it around his waist.
He walks through the bath door, followed by Sherlock, towards the bed. Knowing that Sherlock’s eagle eye will surely notice how thrashed the bedsheets are after an activity that involved far more movement than one person’s tosses and turns, he pays it no mind — not trying to hide or tamper with the state of it.
James sits down at the end of the bed. “What is it?”
Sherlock sits beside him. His back straight. Legs pressed together. All neat and proper, except for the large wet spot on his trousers caused by James. He is all covered up, suitably attired, while James has only one fabric protecting his most private part — and yet James is the one swallowing the heat.
He wonders if it is something about the key. Perhaps Sherlock has changed his mind, decided to let him in on it.
“I need… some clarification — or rather an explanation that requires your exquisite specialisation of a particular skillset, James.”
“Well, go on.”
He leans back, taking off the towel and casually drying himself with it while listening. Sherlock would not mind this anyway. For he evidently has not the faintest capacity for, nor discernible awareness of, sexual attraction — toward him at the very least.
Fuck. That stings.
“I may have, recently, participated in some sort of activity…”
“You may have?”
Sherlock clears his throat. “I have. In some sort of activity that requires two people…”
“Jesus, Shirley. Did you sleep with Xiao Wei just before she departed?”
“I did not. No.”
He strongly denies the allegation, quite stirred by how James blurts out that premature conclusion. “Why did you think that, James?”
“Well, ‘activity that requires two people’? You sitting here all curled up, rubbing your feet like a young lady while beating around the bush by a hundred miles is not the smallest clue.”
“I’m not—“ He pauses. Breathes when he catches his voice flying a little too high. “I am not rubbing my feet like a young lady.”
James puts the towel down on his lap and sits there in silence, judging him.
“I’m not. And I’m not beating around the bush, I just don’t know how to explain it. I’m not you, James.”
His voice pitches a wee bit higher again and James adores it a great deal. Of all the things in the world that Sherlock can educate himself on by books or — more often than not — mere observation, this sort of thing is not his territory at all.
That initial thought might have just opened some door for James. A dangerous one, but not to him.
Nevertheless, he needs to tread carefully.
“So what is it? Wait, you mean to talk about that barely-a-kiss at the balcony between you two?”
Now he is agitated. “How do you know?”
“That’s not the most closed space to do it, was it?”
Well, on that, James does have a point.
“Now, now, what did happen after? It was too boring — I decided sleeping was a more exciting activity to attend to.”
Sherlock presses his lips together. “Nothing.”
James rolls his eyes up to the top of his brain. “Nothing.”
“Nothing. Then she went to bed.”
“Ugh. Why did I even bother to ask.” Of course he already knew — nothing of that sort would happen between them.
And he might go as far as admitting that hearing the certainty of it does not fail to bring joy to his heart. Or worse.
James shifts and sits leg crossed. Looking at Sherlock, rather teasingly.
“And what explanation exactly that you require my exquisite skillset to clarify?”
“How was I supposed to feel?” Sherlock stares back. Curious.
“What do you mean?”
“I felt nothing. When I kissed her. I want to know what I was supposed to feel.”
Now, that is a heavy question, is it not?
Even a man as eloquent as James Moriarty who holds himself in high regard on that matter, lost his voice, surprisingly. He may or may not have it in him to explain in words, if it were not Sherlock asking.
For he does not want Sherlock to ever know how he is supposed to feel kissing Xiao Wei. Or kissing any other woman. Or any other man— if it would possibly come to it.
He does not want Sherlock to feel anything toward anyone.
If it cannot be him.
James falls into utter silence and Sherlock, very unusual of him, does not rush him to answer. He still sits straight like a student in a classroom but his hands rest beside his thighs. James can see, at the edge of his vision, that their hands are not an inch apart. The warmth of Sherlock’s skin is in the heated air. The innocently sweet scent that Sherlock carries overcomes his own rosewater-bathed skin entirely.
He wants what he cannot have, and it is making him lose his mind.
“I cannot tell you that.”
“Why not?”
His question is merely a resistance to James’s saying no to him. He is childish and stubborn. Intense. Yet James would have it all for this man, should the odds not be against him.
But he does not play a game he cannot win. To begin with.
“Because you’re supposed to feel it, Sherlock. Not explain it.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“How to what?”
“How to feel. What you people can…” tilting his head, he sighs sharply “…easily feel.”
James takes a beat. Strokes his lips with the back of his finger absentmindedly. “Or maybe…”
“What?”
“Maybe your assumption was wrong in the first place. And that has led you to the wrong conclusion. Your experiment—“
“—was not controlled.”
Sherlock follows right away.
“And so there was no comparison.”
“No way for me to know the different between variables.”
“You felt nothing kissing Xiao Wei did not mean you will feel nothing kissing—“
“Other women.”
“Or men.”
That male prostitute who approached him in Paris surfaces briefly in Sherlock’s mind. “Quite so.”
“You see…” James draws closer, placing his hand on Sherlock’s shoulder. “There are so many possibilities, with so many ways to know them.”
“Are you suggesting I should kiss more people?”
“Are you a whore? No. Jesus.”
James suppresses his thrill. His other hand pats Sherlock’s attired chest. The touch lingers, perhaps a little too long.
“Maybe, if you can just find some control group to rule out what doesn’t feel right for you, you may have your answer.”
“And how do you suggest I find that?”
“Well…” He drags a dramatic pause. Closes his mouth. Another gentle pat on Sherlock’s chest and then he turns away. “…never mind.”
Sherlock frowns. “James?”
He acts uncomfortable. Reluctant. “Nothing. It’s a bad idea. Forget it.”
“What? I need all the ideas I can get now, James, don’t be ridiculous.”
“If you want to rule out the possibility that you may prefer men to women, perhaps you can test it right here, right now and conclude it for good.”
Sherlock raises his eyebrow. “You mean… I shall kiss… you?”
James puts both his hands up as though waving a white flag — a withdrawal of an offer. “I did say it’s a bad idea.”
Silence. Racing heartbeat. The end of the world that they know.
“Actually, that is a good idea, James.”
Not today. James supposes. The Empire shall not fall today.
The restraint extends to even just a sigh. James controls his breath. Looks Sherlock in the eyes to find out whether he is being sarcastic or truthful.
And those doe eyes are as innocent as they always are. “Why haven’t I thought about that.”
James chuckles, almost bitterly. “Because you don’t trust me anymore.” His voice toneless, not even rising at the end to signal a query.
It is simply a statement.
“I do trust you, James. What are you talking about.”
Sherlock says that in the most normal way. With a normal voice. But his eyes cannot lie. A slight glimpse of doubt reflects the chandelier light and pierces right through his heart. And for once, he will admit — he should have been more discreet about breaking off the group and following Malik in those tunnels. He should have known Sherlock would notice and used his penetrating powers of deduction to figure it all out without lifting a finger.
“As you said, by now I should know you better than to ever question you. And I realise now that I do.”
Sherlock smiles.
The sweetest.
“I know who you are, James.”
But it is nothing, except a lie.
“I’m glad you finally come around.”
They are — nothing but two liars. Sitting in the same room. Playing two chess games all at once.
“Can we kiss now?”
James bursts out in laughter. He can forget from time to time how determined and direct Sherlock can be, should he set out to do something. That mind of his just works so differently from the rest of humanity.
“Right. Show me what you did with her again.”
It was a result of a long game he has laid out quite a number of turns ago that has led him to this move. Simple strategy: keep your distance, push but never too hard, encirclement manoeuvre works always — let your opponent thinks by himself that he is beating you rather than the other way around.
The most effective trap is the one lying still, in plain sight.
Sherlock draws himself closer as James sits and waits in his own spot, until their knees touch. The tiny towel hanging on that lap, barely conceals anything. For the first time, one can visibly detected that Sherlock, in the most subtle way possible, reacts to him wearing almost nothing.
“Aren’t you cold, James?”
He lifts just the corner of his mouth. “Not at all.”
He leaves out any further explanation he could provide: the heat. That way he may also conceal the true intention behind it. He watches as Sherlock leans in. Those big, rounded blue eyes gradually close. Eyelashes thick as a magpie’s feather. Heart-shaped lips press together softly.
Before they press on his.
Gentle as a butterfly’s legs.
Barely there.
And flies away in just a blink of an eye.
"And… that’s it.” Sherlock whispers against his lips. Drawing his face back.
It was the leaving that has left James breathless.
“Got to say, you are such an embarrassment there.”
Aching for more.
“A little harsh.” Sherlock raises his chin slightly. Lips pouting. All too forgivable.
James chuckles, looking delighted — by design “I can barely process a thing, Shirley. Again. Try holding on longer this time.”
Sherlock straightens up, taking it seriously, for he would hate to lose this game. He adjusts his waistcoat. His hand strokes past the pockets to feel the key inside one of them. He did not come seeking advice on some topic that holds no interest for him — he has come here for a reconciliation. After all that they have been through, all the times James has thrown himself in the line of fire for him, Sherlock still wants to believe he has not lost James to the other side.
That he is somehow redeemable.
Whatever the costs.
James can hear the salt wind not blowing through the window as loud as his own heart rate, as Sherlock presses the fullest of those plump lips against his. Entirely. Seamlessly. Too tender and mellow. Far softer than he had imagined. The naive pressing, inexperienced and too pure for the world, takes his breath away. The holiness — sinlessness — wreaks havoc upon him, cursing him with this aching appetite to corrupt and taint it. Defile it with his lustful act of crime.
He scarcely holds him self together.
But manages, somehow. His shaking inhalation achingly absorbs the sweet scent of a boy, untouched by any hand. He breathes him in. Once more. Harnessing every strength he has inside just to hold back on shoving himself upon him.
His hand grabs that throat, gently but firm, as he withdraws.
“That…” he whispers, “…was just two pairs of lips touching.”
He waits. Patiently. Suffocatingly. Giving Sherlock a decent period of time to flee. But Sherlock stands his ground.
“This… Shirley.”
He stares deep into those eyes of a deer, starry and challenging — and curious. Always, with the curiosity.
“This is what you call a kiss.”
James takes hold of those tempting lips, rather fiercely. Strong hand on his throat now traces past the side of his neck through his nape, pulling his head slightly backward, forcing him to open his mouth and let James in.
Sherlock feels all the pulling and the soft-sucking against his lips. And he is beginning to float. A stream of burning heat runs all the way to his stomach as though James has poured whisky down his throat. He jumps in his own skin as hot tongue invades his mouth cave, but then James suddenly becomes far more tender, as if begging for forgiveness — and so he calms down, embracing it. He needs more information for the experiment to work anyway.
For now, one thing has been proved: this is not nothing. Xiao Wei made him feel none of this. Kissing James burns from the start, from the ‘lips touching’ — he was just masking it successfully enough that it went unnoticed.
This, though, cannot be masked with ease.
Sherlock pants into James’s mouth and James pants into his. And before this, he could not have expected that a kiss would be so… mouthful. That tongue roams all over his place, at one point his cheek pushed out like a balloon. When he totally cannot breathe anymore, James loosens their lips just enough for air to go in through the crack, and then he is back at it again.
Greedily.
The other hand James wraps around his waist and holds him even closer. He grips it hard as though restraining his own hand from slipping away somewhere else. For he must not scare this poor boy any further. It has not occurred to James that he should be more gentle with Sherlock until he is made aware by the hand now clutching the towel against his thigh. He innocently grabs the closest thing he can, to beg him — not realising how cruel it is to James, who would naturally be aroused by that touch.
He smiles against those sweet lips, playing it off. A light chuckle escapes through his nose as he, reluctantly, drives that hand away and helps it land on Sherlock’s own thighs. “Keep it to yourself, will ye?”
The teasing whisper finds its mark. His cheeks flush — he must be quite agitated. But then, after making sport of him, James apologises so nicely. With the tenderness of his hand he cups his cheek, warm touch soothing him a great deal. And the kiss continues in such a sweet manner. Pressing softly, nibbling at times. His tongue now feels far less an intrusion and more an affectionate, cuddly puppy.
Melting him away.
Yet Sherlock could not have known how hard James tries to be nice — when he is already half-hard and it aches so much he could die.
Especially when he does such a good job and Sherlock moans, intoxicated, through his throat.
You love it, don’t you?
Before he knows it, James has led him lower and lower until his back is against the waves of the bedsheets, and he gets on top of him — lips sealed together, tongues entangled, their mouths turning sweet as honey from Apis mellifera.
And Sherlock feels as though there are thousands of wings fluttering inside his stomach.
They are not the honeybees’.
Closer to butterflies’.
Is this what he is supposed to feel, kissing someone?
Feeling butterflies, thousands of them, flapping their wings inside him.
Butterflies?
‘The Kaiser-I-Hind.’
‘Oh, the swallowtail.’
No.
‘Yes, the monographs you wrote on butterflies, I was telling James, he’s rather interested.’
No, no, no. Not this.
‘Killing butterflies is hardly our mission, sir.’
‘Indeed general, quite so…’
“…Sherlock?”
‘When the butterflies stop beating their wings, when they die, do you enjoy it?’
“Sherlock?!” James is rather stunned as Sherlock suddenly pushes him away in panic.
And starts breaking down before his eyes.
“No, no, no, no. Not the butterflies. Not the—“ He swallows hard. Almost chokes on his own tongue. Sweating all over his face.
“I’ve got you, got you…” James quickly props him up against his chest, tilting his face up to see those deer eyes wide open — staring vacantly — like he is elsewhere.
What is happening?
“Can you hear me?” James tries to get some response but something undoes Sherlock entirely. He buries his forehead against James’s bare chest, his hand claws at James’s upper arm, mumbling absently “There are butterflies, James…”
Hearing his name falling out of Sherlock’s mouth gives him some relief. He is still here, with him.
“What butterflies, Sherlock?” He uses the calmest voice he has ever used with any human being, soothing the boy, giving him peace.
Sherlock, having been on the verge of crying and hyperventilating, begins to breathe normally again. But when he thinks of the answer, tears are once again overflowing his eye sockets, weighing down those long lashes of his.
“Silas…” He repeats. “Silas’s butterflies… I think.”
“But… how?”
“They’re in my stomach, James.” He stutters, “They are— Th… They’re beating their wings…”
For a moment, James cannot help but see Cordelia Holmes, when she was not herself and rattling on about things that were not there. What Silas had done to her was evil. What he had done to Sherlock was evil. And he might be gone but the wound he had left in Sherlock is still very fresh. That much he can conclude.
But something is off.
“Can you describe them to me, Sherlock, these butterflies…” James caresses his sweaty hair rather gently. “Are you seeing them?”
Sherlock shakes his head softly, “I just… I just feel them, James.”
“Yes?”
“Thousands. Fluttering their wings.”
There.
“And you feel like you’re going to float with that fluttery sensation, perhaps?”
“Yes…” Sherlock looks up at him. “How do you know?”
“Good news is, you’re not going to die, Sherlock.” James smiles. His hand still running through Sherlock’s hair, comforting him.
“You’ve just experienced some chemical flood. Some… intense rush of pleasure.”
He tries to explain by science — terms Sherlock would understand more deeply than the words like wonder, or falling in love.
“Pleasure?”
“You see, I am — as you said — exquisite in my specialisation.” James deflects into his usual whimsicality.
Sherlock sits up straight right then, drawing away from being inside his arms. The underlying fact that James’s kisses have undone him completely, does not give him much comfort. He would rather feel nothing, as he did with Xiao Wei, than feel as though he were going to die. Why would anyone want to feel that?
“But those memories… Silas…”
And James just sits still, as the warmth of the body that was just right here has now become the cold, freezing his heart to death.
“That’s the problem with your astounding power of deduction and your overactive imagination, Sherlock. Your body thinks ‘butterflies’ and your brain, I suppose, links it to your most rigorous memories about it.”
“Well, thank you, James.”
Sherlock wastes no time getting out of the bed. He adjusts his wrinkled attire, avoiding — is an understatement of his active denial of — looking at James.
“This has been quite a lesson.”
His smile rather awkward and quick. As quick as he walks across the room to the door.
Leaving James.
In cold blood.
He lashes out at the pillow, the closest thing to his hand, strikes it across the bed, landing on the floor. He gasps for air heavily, loudly and pathetically. What actually drove Sherlock away is a true mystery to him. He calculated every move, chose deliberately every word. Still he is not winning.
Fuck it.
His remedy, obvious enough, is to drown himself in whisky, of course. He has acquired one lavish bottle, if not more, from the kitchen. He puts on his nightshirt and returns to bed, pours whisky directly from the bottle, and keeps flooding his mouth with the sweetly burning taste of it — which reminds him of those lips.
Another round.
Still there.
And another.
Still not washed away.
“…”
Then it occurs to him that Sherlock, while sitting here, knee to his knee, readying himself to try another kiss, actually touched his waistcoat pockets — one of them must have been carrying the key from earlier, is it not?
This was never about the kiss.
Or his specialisation of it, or the need for Sherlock to understand how it is supposed to work.
He was here to make amend.
He needs him to help figure out what secrets lie behind the lock that key opens.
Was he not?
“Ahh!”
James roars deeply, half-in half-out of his throat. Closes his eyes, exhausted, as he falls back into the bedsheets where the warmth, the sweat, the tears, the presence, and the absence of Sherlock are all too present.
Besides the ache that he has inflicted upon his heart, his mind, and torturously, his body. His desire unfulfilled.
Hungry beast. Unfed.
“Will you not give it to me, James?”
He opens his eyes and there, again, Sherlock. Uninvited. Unannounced. Roaming around him so free — all because he lets him.
“What?” Why are you here, again.
Sitting beside him. Back straight. All neat and proper.
“The remainder of Malik’s equation.” Sherlock glances at him. “And I’ll let you in…”
James gulps, audibly.
“…on this.” He takes out the key from his pocket.
James rises from the ashes. The chandelier light flickering in his dark, impish eyes. Sherlock looks at him. “What do you say?”
James laughs, darkly in his throat, “What if I say I will give it to you, but I want something else in return, instead?”
“Very well.” Sherlock smiles. “Name your price.”
“Anything?”
“Anything at all.”
For once, James needs to see Sherlock chokes on his own childish smile. It would serve him right.
For all the unspeakable things he has done to him.
“Get on your knees.”
“James?”
“Get. On. Your. Knees.”
Sherlock, confused, still obeys. He does not think for a second that this is the end of it. James has no hunger for destroying human’s dignity. This is just the beginning, he foresees that — but of what he could not figure out.
“What are you doing, James?”
Sherlock asks, voice trembling. As James wants it to be — as he seizes, through his nightshirt, the unfed beast underneath. Stroking along its length. Fondling it. Waking it up.
“Open your mouth, Shirley.”
“James—” He stutters. Freezes. Unable to flee. “This is… n-not what I—”
“Oh, yes it is.”
James lifts the hem of his nightshirt, drawing it back to the very beginning of his thigh. Revealing the beast. Now fully grown. Hard. Aching.
“Please, James, I don’t—”
“Open your mouth.”
He has been overly patient enough all night. He will not be, now. No more.
James grabs Sherlock by his nape and his throat with each hand and seizes his plump lips rather savagely. The kiss is everything it never was when he was still playing the game — it is raw, honest and innate. It is him. In his most vulnerable state of mind.
Not hiding from the world.
When the kiss feeds enough appetite, summons enough honey inside Sherlock’s mouth cave to come out, he shoves his face down between his thighs. Telling him, without a word, to take it.
Take it all in.
“James? James!”
“What!”
Fuck!
James blinks. And all the light in the room changes. For it is early in the morning. And the knocking on the door has interrupted his overactive imagination.
For Sherlock is not the only one with the mind palace.
And in his, there are no rules.
But still he cannot have it his way, even in his own fucking dark corner of the mind.
And the one who does always have his way, is Sherlock.
Who is banging on his door, after leaving him rather high and dry, alone in his bed. Unknowingly making him drunk, and pathetically imagining the whole scene up while jerking himself off.
“Train leaves in an hour, you should be up by now.”
That childish smile.
He can see it even from the voice.
With those innocent doe eyes.
All too forgivable.
“Let’s go home, James.”
Too forgivable.
James sighs. “I’ll meet you downstairs, Shirley.”
First, I have to finish what you started.
fin.