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James Moriarty, genius, consulting criminal, born with a sentence etched on his wrist and in his mind, waiting, looking for that special someone, for these words that would accompany his last instants.
You didn't have to die after meeting your soulmate, some, very rare but still real, even managed to be happy with them their whole lives, and so every parent told their children fairy tales about love and completion.
His mother wasn't like them though.
Jim's mom didn't recount pretty stories and embellished tales, she spoke of death, of betrayal and hatred, of loss and anguish, of helplessness and agony.
Jim's mom didn't tell him everything would be alright once he found his soulmate, didn't reassure him with meaningless words and empty promises.
"Don't look for them. " she would say "There's no use looking, you already know you will lose them. "
People looked all their lives for someone they were bound to lose, fading away in their search...
Wouldn't it be better to just find someone nice and settle with them, living happily ever after?
The boy had smiled.
He didn't want someone nice, they wouldn't be able to get him, understand him, they could be kind, they could be virtuous, but what was the use of these qualities if they didn't fit the hole in his soul?
Happily ever after sounded boring anyway.
And perhaps she had known just what he thought of the whole thing because she hadn't tried to convince him to give up his soulmate, just to abandon the pointless search.
"Everything. " she had breathed out once, looking out of the window, her mind wandering into unseen places and faded memories.
"Everything is resumed in that single second, your life, dreams and aspirations, nothing matter at that moment because this is the one second where you are truly whole. "
I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
The words sounded the part at least, dramatic, final, the perfect ending to their story, and Jim couldn't help but wonder just what was etched on the other's wrist.
Maybe it was something like the sentence on his mother's forearm, normal, common, painfully ordinary.
See you.
It was the last thing his father had said to his wife before taking the car that would lead him to his death, and she hadn't known, hadn't truly comprehended what had happened until the pathologists had told her the words carved on his skin.
There had been a pause, filled with bitter truth and painful memories, but ultimately, his mother had smiled, that sad smile which made her eyes look like two empty opals.
"Don't let them leave Jimmy. Don't let them die. If someone has to feel the loss, has to live through it, make sure it's not you. "
He had nodded, accepting the sentence like a fundamental principle.
Even if the words weren't the last his soulmate would breathe, it would be the last Jim would hear...
But wouldn't it be so much more beautiful if they both died, complete at long last?
----------
When his mother was younger, saner, before her soulmate's death became too much and she swallowed a bunch of pills to drown the pain, she used to tell him fairy tales.
It wasn't the pretty ones with which normal children grew up, in her stories, the prince fell in love with the princess before discovering, just as he was slaying her, that the evil witch was his soulmate, the ambitious King discovered the man attempting to kill him was his as the blade dug into his heart, the princess lost her fated spouse in her childhood and let herself wither away in a crumbling tower.
Things never ended well for the characters of her stories, heroes and villains alike, they lived, talked and fought, hated and loved, yet in the end, nothing they did ever mattered.
They died, and it was the end.
That was it, the final dot, that black point that ended worlds .
When all of the children around him dreamed of happy endings and never-ending love, Jim knew just what the ultimate denouement was, what was the only thing it would ever be.
Death .
And so he dreamed, of hands wrapping around his throat, of a knife digging into his skin, of an edge and a fall.
I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
There was only one thing that could follow such a sentence, and Jim accepted it, like he had accepted the concept of soulmates all these years ago.
----------
Most of the times, people recognised their soulmate by their handwriting.
It happened pretty often between people who already knew each other, and Carl Powers had been one of these happy fews.
Jim had been in his class when it had happened, when he had seen the blond steal some girl's essay and just freeze as he caught sight of the familiar handwriting, shock etched on his features.
He had yelled, waving the paper in the air, revealing his wrist for everyone to see and asking to see the girl's skin.
The handwriting had matched, with Carl's penmanship, an unreadable scribble, a childish 'I will'.
Have fun.
I will.
Those were destined to be the last words they would ever exchange, and yet, after learning them, they started throwing them around in all of their conversations, repeating the sentences almost every time they spoke.
Apparently, it was a way to ward off evil, to push back the inevitable, like saying it over and over again would make their ultimate demise less real.
Have fun.
I will.
If anyone has asked Jim, he would have easily been able to tell that the handwriting carved on their wrists was childish, still uneven, meaning that one of them would die or permanently leave before they had gotten better at writing.
No one asked Jim though, and even if Carl had, he wouldn't have said anything.
----------
If something was a taboo in almost every society, it was the words written on your skin.
You told them to no one, except your soulmate if you so wished, but most importantly, forcing someone to show their wrist, to bare their very soul to the world, was just something you didn't do.
There were laws that heavily punished that action, but even then, it was just so inconceivable for most people that no-one was ever trialled for that crime.
Carl Powers didn't care though, didn't care for the law no one seemed to apply, didn't care for the pain he could inflight with his actions, didn't care when he should have, and so he did what no one should ever do.
He pushed Jim to the ground like he often did after hitting him, held him down and read the words out loud in front of his friends.
They laughed when they heard the sentence, there was nothing funny but maybe it was to them, so they laughed, and each chuckle felt like a drop of poison falling into his heart.
If anyone had asked Jim at that moment, he would have strangely been able to foresee how the five boys would die, how one would burn alive in a crashed car as his friends slowly bled out in the back seats, how one would get stabbed during a robbery gone wrong and how another would fall off a cliff.
If anyone had asked Jim, he would have told them how he would steal Carl's eczema cream and poison it while they were in London for the swimming completion.
If anyone had asked Jim, he would have told them Carl Powers would drown with a sharp smile, but no one asked Jim, so no one ever knew these five deaths were linked.
----------
Carl Powers was dead.
It was something that was always bound to happen, that had been decided the moment the words had been etched on his wrists, and yet, people cried, screamed, refused to understand.
"Have fun! " her soulmate exclaimed as he got ready to jump into the water, not knowing that the poison was already seeping into his skin, and he had turned around, grinning as cockily as he always did.
"I will."
He had dived into the pool, swum for two seconds precisely and then started seizing, hopelessly reaching for something that wasn't there, like he was hoping that someone, anyone, would see his pain and help him.
At first, everyone was too focused on the race to notice the boy lagging behind, and when the teacher finally saw, he waved it off, saying that his student must have been annoyed by his loss and tried to find an excuse to disrupt the competition.
Seconds passed, those precious seconds that could have saved him, and when finally someone became aware that something wasn't quite right, it was too late for him.
Carl Powers was dead.
If anyone had asked Jim, he would have been able to precisely pinpoint the instant it became too late to save him, that turn point moment where everything had yet to be decided, that precise second where he still had some chance to survive.
If anyone had asked Jim, Carl Powers could have been saved.
No one asked Jim though, and even if someone had, he would have just smiled and continued to watch the show.
----------
I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
Years had passed, seasons had flashed evenly one after another until he had left school and his tiny town behind, until he had finally joined the big bad world, and yet, he still didn't know who his soulmate could be.
The words sounded like a threat, a confession, and in his dreams, Jim saw a faceless man pushing him over the edges, watching as he fell to his death, flying, drifting, but never quite landing.
The boy turned man liked to jump down the stairs, skipping steps, tasting death on his chapped lips, his dreams splitting, fragmenting until the only thing left were the words.
Maybe he would be the one to kill them though, kill him, hear those fateful words, smile and put a bullet between his eyes, watching as he fell backwards.
And yet... He couldn't bear the thought of leaving incomplete, fragmented, missing the other part of his soul for all eternity after finally finding it.
No.
This just wouldn't do.
His soulmate couldn't be a comma, a period, only parentheses in his life.
Jim would need to die, and if his soulmate didn't do it then he would press the trigger himself, writing the final dot at the end of their story.
---------
Sebastian Moran.
Former sniper in the military, forced to go back to London after a dishonorable discharge, smart, loyal, the perfect henchman a consulting criminal could ask for.
Jim had hired him for a few jobs at first, nothing really important, a few tests to see his skill, but quickly enough he had met the man in person.
The other hadn't known just who he was facing of course, he had been told he would need to guard one of Moriarty's associate for the night and that was all, but he had still acted respectfully while still making some tactful comments.
Jim had immediately liked him.
I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
It was a possibility wasn't it?
The criminal would discover Sebastian was a traitor, confront him, accuse him of being on the side of the angels, and the other would only answer...
"Write. " Jim had asked, shoving a notebook with various typed sentences on the table.
Most of them were gibberish, words added one after another without making any sense, but he would just need to cut everything and put it back together in the right order to make the complete sentence.
I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
Sebastian hadn't asked any questions, he was smart like that, and he must have understood anyway, so he had simply lowered his head and started writing.
Afterwards, Jim had pieced everything back together and his heart had skipped a beat when he saw the final result.
It was similar, how so very similar... But only that. Similar, a pale look alike, a copy.
With a faraway glance, it was possible to confound the two handwritings, but a bit of focus made the differences painfully clear, the shape of the L, the way the cursive was ever so slightly tilted to the side, the lack of dot.
Maybe that was the most striking difference ultimately, the missing punctuation, the lack of finality, the taste of death missing from his lips when he read the words.
Jim had smiled and settled on the couch next to his tiger, humming softly, and the other hadn't added anything, hadn't asked.
---------
Sherlock Holmes.
William Sherlock Scott Holmes.
Consulting detective, the one that had discovered just what Powers' death had been, brilliant, radiant, with a dramatic flare and a half-veiled haughtiness-
perfect .
Annoyingly enough, even if he wrote a blog, he didn't seem to write by hand very often, so Jim hadn't been able to get ahold of his handwriting yet, but he knew.
He just knew.
It had to be him, the man walking among the angels without being one, the impossibility, his illogical copy.
I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them.
Jim became obsessed, there was only this word that could really describe the state he entered when he discovered the other, he threw everything away for him, connections and money alike.
Everything, as long as he had his attention.
They met, or at least Sherlock met the very quiet and very gay Jim from IT, and his belief was strengthened thousand fold.
It had to be him, it simply had too.
The detective's actions were simply perfect when they met in that pool, and the way they moved back and forth, easily understanding what the other meant without meaning to say it out loud, they didn't speak for long but are least on Jim's side, it felt like they had exchanged their lives stories...
And yet, it wasn't enough, he needed more.
The criminal left the pool, left Sherlock behind and glanced at the glowing screen of his phone, at the MH etched at the top of the text conversation.
The last message he had sent was a taunt, an invitation and a riddle all at once.
-Come and get me Ice Man, we have to talk don't we? -JM
---------
"I can tell you who that little terrorist cell will kill next if you want. "
There was a beat, a silence, the Ice Man leaned closer, into a stance that would have been uncomfortably close for anyone else, but the criminal didn't show any reaction.
It was all part of his plan afterall, get caught, refuse to talk under the torture and just exchange some part of his web for informations about Sherlock.
"And what do you want in exchange? "
'We both know what I want.'
Jim smiled.
"His handwriting. "
'Why?
What was the use when you already knew?'
The thought were between them, permeating the air, but neither men voiced them.
The criminals wrist was bared, artificial light casting harsh shadows on the thin limb, the reflect giving him an almost eerie glow.
There was no secrecy in here, and maybe they had thought it would break him to see them ignore something as private as this, a part of his very soul, but he simply didn't care anymore
There was something strange shining in Mycroft's eyes, beneath all the ice, as they flew over the words, and Jim would have thought it was pity if he had been with anyone else.
"Alright. "
The man brought a piece of paper covered in black ink, and it fit, it fit so perfectly, like the missing puzzle finally finding its place in his mind.
The way the cursive tilted ever so slightly, the dramatic flare in the curves, the final dot.
Jim smiled before slowly looking up.
"I think we are done here. "
---------
"You need me or you're nothing... Because we're just alike you and I, except you're boring, you're on the side of the angels. "
He waited with bated breath for the other's answer, for the familiar words, dark mirrors scrutinizing blue seas.
And yet...
It didn't come.
Too early, just another comma, a dash, a period.
Sherlock picked up his cup and stirred his drink.
"Got to the jury of course. " he simply said like the criminal hadn't been about to bare his very soul in front of him.
Jim smiled, answered and bided his time.
"I want to solve the problem, our problem, the final problem. "
'Don't you get it? '
He left letters carved in the apple since he couldn't hear the ones etched on his wrist, and in that instant, he remembered skipping down the stairs, dreams of flight and death.
"Because I owe you a fall Sherlock, I... owe... you. "
---------
Here they were, on the roof, above the lab where they had met for the first time.
Maybe the pool would have been more symbolic but there was no way their story would end where Carl's had too.
"I am you, prepared to do anything, prepared to burn, prepared to do what ordinary people won't do-" Jim paused for an instant, his eyes searching the other's face, but Sherlock wasn't finished "-you want me to shake hands with you in hell? I shall not disappoint you." he hissed fervently, his blue eyes burning like they had never burned before, and yet, as he looked away, the criminal couldn't bring himself to care.
So what?
"Naaah you talk big... Naaah you're ordinary-" the disappointment was clear in his voice, but when his gaze met the detective's, his expression stilled, cold emotionless, and he repeated "You're ordinary-"
I may be on the side of the angels...
"-you're on the side of the angels. "
But are you one of them?
The words left his lips without his consent, rolling off his tongue and tumbling out, and Jim knew before Sherlock even spoke.
"I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them"
He blinked, once, twice, waiting for the world to magically start again by itself, waiting for the rest, for the next chapter, for the end of the story.
Jim had known, he had known ever since he had first seen Sherlock Holmes' name etched on one of his files, known even before he had seen the other's handwriting, known that no one else would ever be his like the other was.
Soulmate.
Soulmate .
There was only one way this could end, there was only one thing that would put the final dot at the end of their tale.
"No, you're not ordinary... You're me. "
The words came out breathless, exalted.
There would be no 'happily ever after' for them.
"You're me! "
His eyes shone in excitement and he smiled.
There couldn't be.
"Thank you. "
Thank you for making me whole.
His life had always been a fairy tale but Jim had always known he wasn't the hero of his own story, it had always be him, Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, high functioning sociopath, fighting against the evil criminal James Moriarty, the villain, the kind of monster that hid under children's beds.
The other was his, of course he was, but since when did anyone ever have a happy ending in real life?
He remembered his mother's words, the tales she has repeated endlessly, the pain in her eyes, the pills lying on the ground.
"Don't let them leave. "
Jim went to touch Sherlock's shoulder, yearning for an embrace, longing for completion, but he pulled away as soon as his hand touched the fabric of his coat.
"Don't let them die without you at their side. "
He held out his hand, an invitation, a call.
"Sherlock Holmes. "
He shook slightly as the other's fingers closed over his, a minuscule, imperceptible shiver, and he liked to imagined it was caused by their souls connecting.
"Thank you. "
No one would leave that rooftop, not alive at least, and the criminal had known this would happen as long as he could remember.
Another comma, another period and then the final dot.
If Sherlock wasn't the one to kill him then Jim would do it himself.
"Bless you... As long as I'm alive, you can save your friends, you've got a way out. Well..."
There was a pause, a beat, then-
"Good luck with that. "
The other gaped, his mouth falling open, and in the second it took his hand to reach for the gun and pull it to his lips, he knew Sherlock had understood.
Jim smiled as he pressed the trigger, smiled as the bullet went right through his brain, smiled as he laid, dead on the rooftop, blood and brain matter splattered around his head like a crown.
He smiled because he knew that Sherlock would join him, that they would be finally united in death like they could never be in life.
That was just how fairy tales ended after all, even sad ones.
The man fell to his knees, took his wrist, read the world and seemed to be falling apart, crumbling bits by bits.
Yet, after a few minutes, he pulled himself back together, stiched all of the sharp edged fragments together, his mind bleeding when he tried to hold all of the cutting shards, but even then he stood up, taking out his phone and typing.
-Lazarus is a go-SH
James Moriarty was dead, his story had ended, but the thing was, even if their souls had been linked, his story had never been completely Sherlock's, or more accurately, Sherlock's story had never only consisted of Jim.
It was the difference between them, the only crack in the otherwise perfect copy, the one thing that truly mattered in the end.
The criminal had no one, had never tried to connect with anyone, he had fully relied on his soulmate, on the fact that someone would truly fit him.
They had both been extraordinary, but the detective had still connected with people, almost against his will, so his story was Jim's, sure, but it was also Molly's, Mycroft's, Lestrade's, Mrs Hudson's... John's.
Sherlock Holmes left the rooftop, left his soulmate, he walked away unscathed but fragmented, abandoning a part of his soul on the other side, simply adding another comma to the book of his life.