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The knowledge that family reputation would mean more to Mycroft Holmes than his brother was not anything surprising at all for Jim Moriarty. Yet when he had used his considerable might, not of his own physicality but that of the police force, to remove Sherlock's rather determined terrier from Jim's own body it had come as quite the surprise.
There Jim was, in the grasp of the very men that so recently had been searching high and low for him and yet now, with the fate of the Holmes' reputation hanging in the balance, it was Sherlock's dear Watson who was escorted away by the gendarme. It was most certainly an interesting turn of events.
It took three keys to unlock the door, pausing to enter the security key quickly. While the officers might be escorting John home, it would not be long before the tenacious little thing was on his trail once more. The need for silence that drove Mycroft to leave Jim to his game seemed to be driving the good doctor further round the bend. That alone left Jim in the most precarious of positions.
Sherlock’s transformation was not complete. He was progressing so well, yet he was not to the moment of wishing for his fate, rather than giving in to it. To push and rush him could well end in disaster, including him rebelling against the pleasured touches that Jim was working so hard for him to crave and even the possibility of him outright attacking Moriarty in a fight of hunger induced panic as he desperately sought what he had accepted he needed but had yet to truly embrace wanting.
Yet, with John Watson quickly becoming a liability rather than a tasty threat to be dangled over the pet’s head, Jim had to balance the reprograming he was working so hard to achieve with the quickly draining hourglass that could ruin it all if he allowed it to run dry before he was done.
Setting his phone down on the desk, he opened the top drawer and removed a single syringe. The doses were all carefully measured now, a better knowledge of amounts and tolerance making it easy to prepare ahead of time. It also meant that should anything go wrong, he could easily give Sherlock what was needed to keep his compliance.
Sliding the needle into his jacket, he headed down the hall to the locked room where he left Sherlock while he was away. The nurse would be gone for the day by now, having seen to Sherlock’s necessary needs and administered a plate of biscuits and sugar cubes as well as tea. Later they would share a dinner, with the delightful consulting detective at his feet, taking tidbits from Jim’s fingers like the well-heeled pet he was quickly learning to be.
Except that the door to Sherlock’s cell was not quite closed. A small gap, no wider than the palm of a hand, showed between the jamb and the edge of the door, the wall beyond only slightly paler. Alone he might well have thought the woman a fool without a pair of brain cells to rub together, except for one glaring detail that left a seemingly icy hand clutching at Jim’s heart.
That of the scuffed and marked bottom of a crepe soled shoe. Just such as those that the nurse wore while attending to Sherlock.
Shoving his shoulder against the door, something resisted the effort. He shoved again, gaining precious few inches though enough for his lean form to slide past the door and the inert form of the nurse.
Already preparing to race from the room, Jim was stunned to find Sherlock still in the room. For a moment an entirely different scenario played through Moriarty’s brain. One that had little to nothing to do with Holmes escaping and everything to encompass the nurse having an accident – fatal or otherwise he didn’t know and really didn’t care enough to check at that moment – and not having been caught unaware by a brilliant man with an addiction.
Sharp eyes darted over the room. Holmes still chained with the shackle snug around his ankle that stuck out from under his blanket, though the rest of him was tucked in beneath the covers. Despite the prone body, he was still locked in the room, safe and sound. He was pale, breathing exceedingly shallow, and for a moment Jim wondered if he himself had misjudged the dosage that morning before he’d gone for his walk.
Right until he saw the broken dish that littered the edge of the bedside table, pieces of it scattered on the floor.
Grabbing at the edge of the blanket, he jerked it away. Something wet and sticky splattered across Jim’s face.
“Sherlock!”
Everything went cold, even the beating of Jim’s heart seeming to slow to near nothing as he grabbed at the sheet, trying to tear it into strips. His hands shook, the fabric catching at each spot of sickly wet blood that kept the fibers from tearing. It wasn’t enough to stop Jim, finally managing to get two long strips to bind his arm above the cut.
Just one cut. That was all he had managed with the sharp edge of the broken china.
“You bloody bastard,” he snarled, pressing the knotted and torn fabric to the cut, applying pressed with the hell of his hand. “And you!”
He lashed out with his foot, realizing where the tea mug had gone, nearly dust on the floor, mingling with blood from the cut on her brow. The picture was coming together. Holmes lashing out, stunning the nurse and then slitting his own wrists. Unless she was dead, it was likely not long since the attempt was made. It boded well for saving him.
Lashing out with his foot, delivering a sharp blow to the woman’s ribs with the toe of his loafer.
“On your feet, woman! Move!”
A low groan and a muttered curse and she rolled to one side, vomiting on the floor.
“I’ll have none of that,” he snarled, heaving the pillow at her. “On my desk. Get my phone and dial three. Tell whoever answers that I need them here. Not in an hour but now. Go!”
Picking up a piece of dish, his body contorting to continue abusing the woman even as she scurried from the room. The piece of china fell with a clatter and Jim bent over Sherlock, his own cheek near to the other man’s mouth as he held his own breath to assure himself that Holmes was still breathing.
“What were you thinking,” he snarled in a low growl, working to tighten the tie on the arm while maintaining pressure. “You don’t get to choose when this ends. This is my game, my house, and you will stay with it as long as I want you to!”
Jim’s voice was raspier than usual and his look was just as dark as the nurse came rushing back in.
“Maintain pressure,” he barked, waiting until she took over before moving to Sherlock’s chest.
Fingers that trembled violently tugged at the consulting detective’s shirt, pulling it open to reveal the pale line of his chest. Barely moving, the tiniest of rises and falls showing he was breathing albeit a bit shallowly. Ignoring the constant shaking, he tried checking for a pulse, finding the constant watery thud of his own heart racing in his head, through his body, so loud that he could hear nothing but his own panic surrounding him.
Beyond that sound there was nothing. Nothing but the heavy weight of a needle in his breast pocket and the brilliant, painful sheen of deathly white skin lay bare before him. The room spun, a voice calling out to him and then hands, stronger hands than the nurse, were pulling Jim back and away from his pet.
“I bloody well can’t see to him if you’re standing in the way,” the criminal mastermind’s right hand man muttered, shoving Jim to one side even as he shucked his coat and tossed it into the corner. “Take yourself back to your little ivory office,” Moran muttered, glancing back at Jim with sharp eyes and a confused wrinkle on his brow. “I’ll find you after I’ve seen to your little toy.”
He wanted to argue, to fight the command and tell Moran he would be dead by morning but if the man could bring Sherlock back from the verge, then perhaps Jim could afford to be magnanimous.
It would all hinge on whether or not Sherlock lived, he thought, closing the door and finding himself unable to move further. Slipping the needle out from within his jacket, he stared down at the liquid within and trying not to think about how moot of a point so much would be until the fate of his very own Schrodinger’s cat was revealed.