Work Text:
Society dances on a complicated series of interwoven strings as Jim Moriarty watches. People maneuver through them, get caught by them, not even seeing the nets cast by commercial corporations or the ensnaring webs of social obligation. Pull the right cord, snip the string, and people dance or die.
Jim's job is to see these strings, and to brush right by them. He pulls people from the nets of debt and relocates them to Columbia; he untangles the web of annoying in-laws and has a woman killed for a lover to be free. He plays people like Sherlock Holmes plays the violin, and it sounds as sweet.
Molly Hooper is a string. Like all of the ones Jim plays, hers is delicately wrapped around someone he wants to make dance. He strokes hers like plucking a harp, like he plucks the hostages, and the vibration resonates a lovely sound -- as beautiful as any musician, a song just for Sherlock Holmes. And Sherlock dances.
Molly is the easiest to play. He comments on her nose to make her feel self-conscious and raise her insecurities, so when he shows approval enough of her to ask her out she feels she's earned a place with him. It endears him to her and she comes back for more; a simple cycle. It's so easy.
Jim enjoys the eyebrow coloring and the underwear the most, and the whole performance of "gay" is a new act for him. It's not his usual play. It's been a long time since he's played so close, getting his own hands dirty just a little. Molly likes it as well, giggling and covering her mouth to hide her smile when he talks about make-up on celebrities and the wardrobe of male actors, but if her persistence in their relationship tells him anything it's that she doesn't connect his performance to having a disinterest in her.
"It's okay if you're gay, or if you like both," she told his voice mail after the charade with Sherlock in the morgue. "Just call me."
He doesn't. He's done playing with her. He serenades Sherlock around a darkened swimming pool, and although the whole place goes up in a fantastic blast they all live to play and dance another day. He wonders if Sherlock's seen the strings enough to play his own for the next song. Jim looks forward to playing again.
He reflects on the fun they had. The hostages were a little enticing, setting them up at a distance to be his voice. Molly and John had been even more fun, because he got to play with them himself.
Maybe he can use Molly for the next song too. Jim visits her late one night, over a week after the events at the pool. He loses the suit jacket, untucks his shirt, and rolls his sleeves up -- making himself look more the boy she's accustomed to seeing, but not playing the same part as before. Surely by now she would have heard, either Sherlock or the police would have told her, sat her down and asked her questions until she was exhausted and confused. Maybe she had even tried to defend him.
When she answers her door he shows her paranoia, nervously glancing up and down the street and darting inside past her before she's barely acknowledged who he is. He hasn't quite decided who he'll be for her just yet; perhaps the frantic, wounded boy caught up in something bigger than himself, and desperately needing her help. Maybe she'll be caught up in it too.
There is, of course, no one behind him. The CCTV surveillance on this street has been tampered with and his face will not be captured for the police to view. The police aren't watching her house; he supposes that they've no reason to think he will return for her. Perhaps she didn't expect to see him either.
Her eyes are wide and startled and he shushes her when she exclaims his name. Until this game with Sherlock it's been a long time since he's played any version of himself, preferring to use others to do it for him. There's a thrill in this, knowing she's confused, that she must be trying to understand him and why his current actions and body language contradict everything the police and Sherlock must have told her. The excitement tingles under his skin as he looks into her apartment, checking that she's alone.
"You, you're not..." Molly stutters. Her breathing has increased. But Molly is a string Jim's wrapped around his fingers, as easy to pull and manipulate as anyone he's ever met. It's as easy as the first time he kissed her, with her hair loosely tangled in his hands. She had gasped then, a little surprised because he hadn't waited to be invited. He told her she was pretty before he did it, and afterward he'd teased her about her blush. She had tasted like popcorn and chocolate. He wasn't sure why he'd done it, or put up with Glee, or her her cat, or her rambling on about her parents. He wouldn't have needed to do all of that to get to see Sherlock, and in retrospect a lot of it had probably been unnecessary. For the role of playing Jim from IT.
"I'm calling the police," Molly finally insists and almost darts away from him down the hall, but he catches her. She twists, surprised in his hold, until he says:
"Molly, I need your help."
She stills, looking at him uncertainly.
"What happened?"
It should be easy then, once she shows she's open to his explanation, to play on her sense of reality. Her understanding of the events is limited and she only saw the more boyish side of him, the part he wanted her to see. She's emotional, insecure, not very social, hasn't watched the shift of strings and manipulation in life enough to realize exactly how he does it to her. It's all around her, every second, every moment, everyday, weaving through her life. He slips.
Jim pushes her against the wall and she yelps in surprise. His hand wraps around the side of her throat and he tempts the idea of squeezing. "Why can't you see it?"
Tears squeeze from between her tightly-shut eyes. Her body shivers beneath his hand but she's otherwise not resistant. Meek and subservient, good little Molly, to be twisted however he likes. He doesn't yet know how he wants her.
"Jim." Her voice is strained between suppressed sobs and her breathing shakes. She doesn't beg. Maybe she doesn't realize her life is just a single thread that he can snap with a quick jerk of his hands. "Jim... please, I don't... I don't understand."
"No," he whispers -- exasperated, angered, and he doesn't know why. He shuts his eyes, concentrating, pressing his forehead to hers in barely-restrained frustration. "No, you couldn't."
She is still, and she waits for him to say more. Maybe she can't speak. Fear takes people differently. Perhaps for her it is paralyzing. Or perhaps she really trusts him. The thought makes him restless when it shouldn't; this has been his work for years and he's has always slept soundly at night, never agitated when someone doesn't keep up. He's never expected anyone to be able to. Something is wrong with him tonight. He needs to go.
"Molly." He taps his fingers to the pulse on her throat in time with his words. "Molly, Molly, Molly...." He opens his eyes to see a sheen of fear and sweat on her skin. "Molly, you can't tell anyone I was here tonight."
He gives her a moment to process that and decide on a response. It takes her a few seconds but she says, "all right," sounding uncertain.
"Bad things will happen if anyone finds out."
She shakes beneath his hand, and he knows she's acknowledging the threat in some deep, broken part of her. He's aware suddenly of her vulnerability, of the shiver in her body, and of the space between them. He presses against her and she shakes.
"Okay."
He lightly traces the side of her face. "I don't want anything bad to happen to you."
Her hair is down, and he slides a hand up behind her head, threading the strands through his fingers. He twists his hand, gently wrapping her hair around. He likes the feeling of her like this, and he uses the hold to angle her head slightly. The hallway light is dim and catches her face in an odd, non-flattering angle, emphasizing the odd twist of her lips and the bags of sleeplessness under her eyes. He sees in her face of week of hell and uncertainty, and knowing he'd influenced that makes him smile.
"You're so pretty."
He kisses her, and it's just like the first time: though the soft gasp is perhaps more like a whimper, and instead of chocolate and popcorn she tastes of the salt from her tears. He presses the kiss harder and she lets him. She even moves her lips against his, but that might be more out of personal comfort to not be crushed.
Her hands eventually, clumsily, find his shoulders and push against him. But perhaps she is too afraid to upset him because doesn't struggle very hard. The tears come harder instead. Jim lets it linger on for another moment, taking the sweet taste of salt and fear and helplessness on her lips, before pulling away. He likes the control, he always has, and the greatest control of taking a life is as easy and snipping thread. But he makes limits for himself sometimes, for fun, and for this play he doesn't fancy himself the type of man to take her entirely by physical force.
Even as he leaves her shaken and crying quietly, he knows he'll never need to. He's always known how to find the right strings to play, to pull, to pluck, to break. Molly's is delicate, and Jim remembers – perhaps not fondly, but curiously – the soft feeling of her hair tightly wrapped around his fingers as he kissed her. He looks forward to doing it without needing to hold on.
*
[End]