Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jim Moriarty had long since accepted that the destruction of humanity would come at the hands of an invading alien species. The Kaiju attacks were nothing of interest, until the Jaegers were created to counter them. He followed the development of the classified science and machines behind humanity’s pioneering defense with rapt attention and curiosity that could only be satisfied via being a member of the research teams themselves or computer hacking; and he had no intention of helping anyone ‘save the world.’

Of course, it was not so much the robot part of the Jaegers that had intrigued Jim, but the mind-melding technology. He read every study and interview regarding drifting that he could get his hands on. Numbers had always been easy for Jim and he had followed one physicist’s work with particular interest.

It didn’t matter that the doctor’s work was mostly done with chalk. As old school as the German was, he still had to run a simulator (easy enough to hack) and submit typed reports (which few understood). Nor did it matter that those reports were classified or that his work was highly contested by another long-suffering scientist, a xenobiologist. (Jim thought they were both right.)

But then the higher-ups had the not-so-brilliant idea that they’d do better to hide from the problem behind walls (which fall, that’s what they do) instead of fighting the monsters head on. The termination of the Jaeger program spelled the end of civilization as they knew it (okay, sure, there was the Resistance, but with depleted funding and no replacement pilots, there didn’t seem to be much hope). It was the last days of 2024, the odds were no longer in humanity’s favor, and Jim had one last thing he wanted (needed) to do before he died.

They hadn’t been in touch for a few weeks. Jim had disappeared into his re-review of kaijubreachjaegerdrift research and Sherlock.... seemed to be playing hard to get, refusing to message him. Which may or may not have been Jim’s fault after sending him a crime, which had a wicked curve ball, that embarrassed Sherlock in front of half the Yard when Watson, once again, pointed out the obvious. No matter, when Jim put the offer on the table there was no doubt in his mind, that any and all annoyance would slide away, replaced with only voracious curiosity.

Jim was certain Sherlock would want to drift with him, however actually doing it was a different matter. Obviously, the detective wanted to know more about the criminal, but the impulse to unravel all of Jim’s threads was a double-edge sword. Once Sherlock ‘solved’ the criminal, then what would he do? That was the only reason Jim could see for the detective to hesitate in sharing a drift with him, and even that hesitation was not insurmountable, mainly because Sherlock had a habit of jumping into things with the criminal regardless of the consequences. Which was why Jim felt confident approaching the detective with such a proposition on the eve of the apocalypse.

Sherlock didn’t know how Jim got the pons. Moriarty could have stole them off a scrap Jaeger or he could have made them himself. Neither would have surprised the detective.

It didn’t matter anyway. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. Not the drifting itself, there was an underground market for that experience, he could have done it ages ago, if he had been so inclined. Sherlock hadn’t because he’d never had anyone he was compatible that he’d want to Drift with. There was Mycroft, of course, but like hell that would happen. Sharing a mind with Moriarty however was a fancy he’d considered at length, something to mull over fondly, before shoving aside with annoyance at the unlikelihood of it becoming a reality.

It had never been a question that he and Moriarty would be drift compatible. Over twenty-years of shared history, it was preposterous to think they wouldn’t be. However, Sherlock could never work up the nerve to suggest it. They hadn’t spoken of drifting or even the Jaegers, though the Kaiju had been mentioned in passing. The whole apocalypse thing wasn’t high on their priority list what with being on the other side of the world. While everyone was affected by rationing and inflation, but when your home city wasn’t threatened weekly by a giant alien monster, you tended to loose touch with the problem at hand.

But here Jim was offering what he’d always wanted: a chance to get inside the greatest mind he’d ever known.

Of course Sherlock agreed, if a bit too enthusiastically. He attempted to gloss over his excitement by posing the question of where they wanted to undertake this venture (as they’d already mutually agreed time was of the essence). Not that hiding it would really matter in a few hours. Not that it really mattered now. Jim could always see through his charades.

“I could bring all of it over to Baker Street this afternoon,” Jim threw out. The criminal sounded like a kid who just opened his Christmas present to find it was the toy he’d dreamed of for the whole year and now all he wanted to do was go play with it. Sherlock could hear Moriarty stand and move about whatever room he was in on the other end of the line. He had a brilliant thought.

“Or I could come to where you have them now,” Sherlock suggested. The detective would be correct in thinking that Moriarty had them at his flat. The fact that the detective had never been there had led to some consternation on his part. Compared to what Jim was offering him now, visiting where Moriarty lived was a drop in the proverbial jar, but still something he wanted and would finagle to get out of the criminal, if at all possible. “That way you wouldn’t have to worry about messing the wirings up during transport.”

“Do you really think the equipment I’d use would be so precarious?” the criminal threw back but Sherlock could hear him considering. It was only fair after all, Jim had come to call on Baker Street more times than Sherlock could count (but he’d make an approximation at 270 over the past year).

Sherlock made a non-committal noise. It wasn’t like he wouldn’t see the place anyway.

“Alright,” Moriarty decided, sounding elated again. “I’ll text you the address.”

“Then I’ll be right over,” Sherlock ended the call and refused to suppress the grin that broke out over his face.

Jim’s flat was just the right distance away so they wouldn’t ever accidentally run into each other. The top floor of some nondescript penthouse on the other side of the Thames, which could have been called swanky; only if one ignored the piles of rows, stacks, and racks of computer bits and technical rubbish he kept in the corners and against some of the walls. The place was clean, no dust but still most surfaces were cluttered with papers, mechanical bits, and sweet wrappers. In other words, lived in.

Jim didn’t offer to give him a tour and Sherlock didn’t ask for one. There had been some nerves before Sherlock accepted Jim’s invitation, but with the expression of desire out of the way they were now more than a little eager. Jim took Sherlock’s coat and scarf before leading him to the living room where the criminal had the pons laid out.

Sherlock took the head sets in, all the wiring and computers which would form their neural bridge. It would be just them, no one would know what happened to him if this went wrong.

“I trust you have some failsafe in place in case one of us chases the rabbit?”

“I’ve added a program that will pull us out if we fall out of alignment,” Jim answered easily. Sherlock sat on the left side of the leather couch lifting the wire cap from the coffee table. Jim settled next to him.

They didn’t need spinal clamps or all the receptors that went into a drive suit, as they weren’t piloting anything. Sherlock was glad for that, it allowed them to focus their undivided attention on what was really important.

“Set?”

“Yep, let’s shake hands.”

Jim initiated their first neural handshake.

The memories went by in a blurred blue haze. Jim’s tiny hands holding Carl’s impossibly large shoes. Mycroft Holmes thinner and tall over a young Sherlock with a grim expression and a shovel. Jim sitting alone in a dark room typing code furiously on a computer. The rush of anticipation as Sherlock’s long fingers holding a syringe, injected the liquid cocaine into his system. Jim staring at some schematics. Greg thanking Sherlock after he assisted on the first murder case they solved together. Jim spying on Sherlock. Sherlock standing on the cabbie’s injured shoulder, demanding a name. Jim’s perspective of the pool.

They were pulled out of the blue when the neural bridge stabilized. They were both in each other’s brains and still sitting in Jim’s living room. They’d each agreed not to poke around the other’s memories; the first drift was for basking in the other’s presence.

“I want to see a deduction,” Jim says, first to break the silence.

The criminal didn’t need to open his eyes to know that Sherlock was preening.

After taking off the pons, Sherlock was shuddering; his faculties somehow slower with residual aspects of Moriarty’s added brainpower. It was disconcerting and his gut reaction was to pull the pons on and crawl back into Jim’s brain.
Sherlock’s mind was a well oiled machine, efficient and precise, but in those moments of post-drift he had no reasoning for why his hand clambered over to Jim’s side of the couch to grab the criminal and drive their fingers together.

The after-effects of the drift weren’t necessarily anything new for them. Sherlock and Moriarty had always been able to sense the other in a way, but now that ability were hyper-aware and definite. Well, for a few hours anyway, till the drift side-effects wore off. Sherlock was not sure how he felt about experiencing two sets of emotional responses, but Jim seemed to cope with it fine.

They didn’t have that moment of clarity so many people who drift for the first time came away with, the finally knowing what their partner was thinking. They had always thought they knew what the other would say. The drift had simply given them confirmation they had been right. When they were in each other’s heads they could just finish each other’s thoughts faster than ever. For Jim, it was proof that he had been right to hope that Sherlock was like him, just like him.

They drifted again the next day and the day after.

When they finally let themselves chase the rabbit, really fell headlong into the other’s mind and came out on the other side; the memories, and subsequent accompanying emotions, were a lot to process, for the both of them. Thankfully Jim was just as fastidious in cataloguing and examining the detective’s memories as Sherlock wanted to be with the criminal’s.

Though Sherlock now felt a vague interest towards exploring inter-dimensional travel, something which pre-drift he’d had absolutely no interest in. He even started spitballing with the criminal about how one could attempt to open another rift, a musing he’d seen in Moriarty’s mind.

Days after their first drift, Sherlock still hadn’t left Jim’s flat and it was plastered all over the news feeds that the Breach was destroyed and (hopefully) closed forever. The detective knew from their drift that Jim hadn’t exactly thought the Resistance would fail like he had led Sherlock believe before they drifted together; Jim had held a cautious hope that the scientists would find a way to neutralize the threat. But neither did Moriarty think the Kaiju were gone forever.

Every time they initiated the neural handshake, new memories slide passed them. Jim laying on his back looking at a million stars. Sherlock tasting honey for the first time. Jim limbering out in front of a wall of mirrors, eyes on the smooth wooden floor. Sherlock taking first in the science fair searching for his parents, but not seeing them in the crowd. Jim looking at his diploma from Trinity College impassively. Sherlock smoking that one cigarette when he thought the woman was dead. Jim looking over the edge of an incredibly tall building, tired and so close to done.

The biggest side-effect for them was the desire to be close physically. While there had always been a draw between them, Sherlock really never had the urge to hold another person’s hand or snuggle close to them while on the couch. But after drifting together, he needed to be close to Moriarty. Everything was out of sorts if they weren’t within arms reach. The light buzz of anxiety that would run in a loop in the back of his head when they weren’t touching immediately calmed if Sherlock took Jim’s hand. Even sleeping, the second night the detective stayed at Jim’s the criminal had insisted they sleep on a real bed and sometime during the night they had curled themselves together. Seemingly their bodies’ best solution to their minds not being close enough.

Destruction by an invading alien species that attacked Earth from a portal they created under the Pacific Ocean, he’s not going to a deny that would be a pretty good way to go. Really it would have been a fine way to go. But he couldn’t say he was sad to be able to see the world continue, and that had a lot to do with Moriarty and their game.

It seemed like it was more than just a game now though.

When Sherlock finally left Jim’s flat an entire week later, it was with great reluctance. There was something so wrong about leaving his drift partner. Something so wrong about choosing to put space between them. But they couldn’t live in each other’s head for ever, not for fear of getting bored but they were both of them getting antsy. Jim hadn’t spent this much time with someone else in quite literally years and Sherlock could feel it wearing on him. Each of them were becoming more choleric; they needed a break.

In that last drift, Sherlock felt the echoes of a new con building itself in the back of Moriarty’s beautiful mind. They would keep playing their game. Jim would keep making Sherlock offers to work together (he knew how much the detective liked it when he asked), which the detective would keep declining. They would keep playing their game, but it would evolve.

Needless to say, he would be in Sherlock’s brain again sooner rather than later.