Chapter Text
“Hey Wisteria, what are you doing?” Wisteria’s younger brother asked. Walking up to their desk and trying to see what was on it, he was a bit too short to see. Wisteria smiled and pulled their younger brother up onto their lap so he could see their workbook.
“I’m just finishing up my maths work as you can see, want to try one? I can explain how to do them.” Wisteria offered. Yew’s brilliant ruby eyes lit up with excitement. Wisteria giggled a bit as their brother expressed his interest in their maths.
“Alright alright. Calm down a bit, if you keep wiggling around like that you might fall and get hurt.” Wisteria told their brother.
Yew took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down. When he had stilled and was more calm Wisteria picked up their quill and began to show him how to do the maths they were working on. They then passed Yew the quill and had him do some.
“So like this?” Yew asked as he completed one of the problems.
“Yeah, that’s right. You picked up on this quite quickly.” Wisteria told him. Yew looked up at them and smiled.
“I love doing maths! It is a lot of fun. There is always a correct answer and it gives a sense of control. That we don't always have.” Yew said.
“Want to do some more?” Wisteria asked him. Yew nodded enthusiastically and Wisteria allowed him to solve a few more.
“Hey Wisteria, Yew, it's time for dinner.” Their mother said.
“Oh hey Mom, alright let him finish this final problem then we will come down.” Wisteria told her.
“Alright. Are you letting him do some of your maths?” Their mom asked.
“Yeah. He seemed interested in them when he saw them so I explained how to do it and let him try some.” Wisteria told her. Their mother smiled and told them to be down soon. Wisteria told her that they would and their mother went back downstairs.
“Alright, I’m done.” Yew told Wisteria. They looked over at the workbook and checked his work, quickly confirming that it was right.
“Alright, then we need to head downstairs for dinner.” Wisteria told him.
They picked him up off their lap and placed him on the floor. He left the room first and skittered down the stairs as fast as he could. Wisteria brushed the excess ink off their quill before closing both their inkwell and their workbook. They headed downstairs to eat dinner with their family.
“Hey Wisteria.” Louis said.
“Hey.”
Wisteria joined them at the table and they all began to eat dinner. About halfway through the meal their mother asked them a question.
“Hey Wisteria we have a job to do tonight so could you handle these two for a while?”
“Yeah of course I can. I love spending time with my brothers.” Wisteria told her.
“Thank you.” their mom said.
“It’s nothing Mom. Also who’s the client?” they asked.
“A commoner like us, the victim will be an aristocrat however.” their dad said.
“That seems quite dangerous. Is this one where I should prepare for the possibility that you two never come back?” Wisteria asked.
“I think it may be a posability. Preparing for it may be beneficial, even if it does not come to pass.” their father told them.
“Alright. Well then here's to hoping that my preparations will end up being unnecessary.” Wisteria said, raising their water glass. The rest of the family did as well before finishing dinner. Their parents got ready to go and wished their kids goodbye and headed out the door.
They never did come back. Wisteria was still half waiting for them to return but they knew that something had gone awry and their parents were either in jail or dead. They didn’t have a lot of time to dwell on it since they now had to take care of both themselves and their brothers. They would make this work. They didn’t quite know how just yet but they would find a way if it was the last thing they did.
A year later
“LOUIS!” Both Wisteria and Yew cried out. Their brother had collapsed again.
“Just hold on Louis we’ll find a way to make you better soon ok.” Wisteria told their younger brother, hoping that it was true. They knew so much of poisons and of medicine but they still had no idea how to help their brother. They felt like they had failed him, they had told him and their parents that they would protect their brothers if their parents ever died. Now that that was the case they felt like they were failing them all. They had no way to help their brother other than to ease his suffering and not stop it all together, and they wished they could.
Maybe that noble kid who hung out at the orphanage so often could help them. But he probably wouldn’t. He had no reason to help low-born orphans like them. They didn’t even know why he hung around the orphanage so often. He came from money and status, so why was he hanging around penniless orphans so often? It didn’t matter, they would have to find a way to help Louis soon. Whatever that was. They picked him up and carried him to his bed inside the rundown building. While it wasn't great it was better than leaving him outside.
Three days later
“Please come and live with me. I wish to combine your brilliant minds and my noble status. With my wealth, my privilege, and my loyalty. You shall have all the tools to realise your ambitions. Use them as you please and show me the world as you wish it to be.” Albert told them.
Wisteria was shocked, a noble was offering to adopt them? Moreover, he seemed to like the idea of killing all of the corrupt nobles. Nobles had killed their parents so what would stop them from killing kids like them? Should they take the offer or should they be worried that it would all be a trick?
“I accept on one condition.” Yew said.
“And that is?” Albert asked.
“Your family must adopt all three of us.” Yew said.
“That’s fine by me.” Albert told him. And that’s how the three orphans became Moriarty’s.
A few years later
Wisteria was bandaging Yew’s hand and also replacing the bandages on his torso when Albert walked in.
“What happened to his hand?” Albert asked.
“Aparently William had Louis serve him tea said that he would never drink tea made by a lowborn like him and to punish him made him stab himself in the hand with a fork. Yew stepped in and stopped Louis from doing that last part but William told him that if he was so eager to save his brother from a bit of pain to just stab himself, and as you can see he did.” Wisteria told him.
Albert looked furious, he looked like he wanted to hit something. Suddenly he took a deep breath and schooled both his emotions and his face returning to being calm.
“Why would you listen to him? He can’t hurt you. I know that my mother can and she has, but he doesn't have the authority to do so.” Albert told them.
“He told Lady Moriarty that I had spilled tea on him and she punished me even though she had been told that I had been disciplined already. Hence Wisteria is also replacing the bandages on my torso along with bandaging my hand.” Yew told him.
“We’ve tried just walking away from this before and he always just tells the lady about it and we get punished.” Louis said.
“Alright, I’ll see what I can do. Anyway, here's your dinner.” Albert told them, setting down plates of food for them.
“Thank you Albert, it is much appreciated.” Wisteria told him.
“Of course. You all need to eat, even if the servants and my family forget about that fact.” Albert told them. Wisteria thanked him again and they began to eat along with their brothers. Once they finished Yew asked a question.
“What do you need from us? I truly doubt that you would have stayed this long if all you were planning to do was to give us dinner.”
“That would be correct. I wish to ask you all for your assistance with something.” Albert said to them.
The next night
“I don’t care how late you need to stay up to finish polishing those lamps, you just need to finish them before dawn!” One of the maids yelled at the three.
“You are dismissed. I’ll watch over them from here.” Albert told the maids who were supervising the three siblings.
“O-oh of course young lord Moriarty. We will be going now.” The maids said as they scurried away. Once they were out of earshot Yew spoke.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this Albert?”
“Yes I am.”
“Alright then, let’s begin.” Wisteria said.
They all got to work. To make their plan work they would need to make a large fire appear to be an accident. Albert went to the drawing room to hook a length of fishing line to the trigger of a gun and the other end to the clock. This would be their source of a spark, due to this method they would only have about an hour before the clock struck the hour and pulled the trigger. Meanwhile the three others were turning on all of the gas lamps but not igniting them but just letting gas flow out of them. Once they were all finished they headed back up to the attic room that the three siblings occupied.
“This will get those dirty plague rats kicked out for sure.” They heard a voice coming from their room.
“Well him already being in there is convenient for us isn’t it.” Wisteria said quietly.
“It is. Now Albert, you should get ready to do your job.” Yew said. All of them got ready and then Yew stepped into the room.
“What do we have here? Are you trying to frame us for stealing?” Yew asked. William spun around shocked and asked,
“What how…I thought you were in your bed?”
“This is perfect. You saved us the trouble of having to move your body up here later.”
“Wait, what are you talking about?”
“I see now, you thought you would hide that silverware in our room and discover it later that way you could frame us as thieves and have us thrown out. I’ve heard worse plans. And those plans came from full adults.” Yew said.
Yew picked up a chair slamming it on the floor, breaking it. He picked up a chair leg that was quite sharp at one end.
“Wait just what are you planning to do? Murder me?” William asked.
“No. There’s someone else who wants to deal with you.” Yew said, stepping to the side revealing Albert, Louis, and Wisteria.
“You wouldn’t.”
Yew handed Albert the chair leg.
“Albert please! How could you even consider this!?” William asked, panicked.
“Nice to see you’d strike first if you could.” Albert said. Looking at the fork that William was holding out in front of himself like a weapon.
“Oh please what damage could a little fork do?” William said, quickly hiding the fork behind his back.
“I would never hurt you, we're family. Come on we share the same blood-”
“Shut your mouth. The mere idea that the same tainted blood that flows through you and our parents' veins also flows through mine makes me sick to my stomach. I hold you, this family, and all of society in contempt. I’ve resolved to change it and that begins tonight. The world I make will have no place for people like you. SO DIE.”
William had been cowering in fear the whole time Albert was talking and when Albert suddenly rushed at him he panicked and trust out the fork he was holding. But it was too late, Albert had already buried the chair leg in William’s abdomen. He collapsed to the ground.
“Thank you Albert. You’ve demonstrated the strength of your resolve.” Yew said.
“If you pull that out now you’ll die of rapid blood loss. It’s not essential but we would prefer it if you drew breath a while longer. In the unlikely event of an autopsy of your corpse we would rather your lungs have internal burns from inhaling smoke.” Wisteria said to him.
“You can’t…”
“Come, we need to finish what we started.” Yew said.
Albert took them to his room where they all changed into night clothes since wearing day clothes so early in the morning would be suspicious. After they had all pulled robes on over the night clothes they headed to the wine cellar to shelter from the explosion that would soon ensue.
They waited for the clock to strike at 3:00 am. When it did it pulled the trigger and there was a massive explosion. The wine cellar did keep them safe but they could still feel a bit of the shockwave from the explosion.
The four waited for a few minutes before heading out into the burning building.
“Let's go, it's coming down.” Albert told them. Yew and Wisteria followed him but Louis lagged a bit behind.
“Louis what are you doing?” Yew asked. Wisteria, who had already realised what he was going to do, called out attempting to stop him.
“No, don't!” Louis fell to the floor after pressing a piece of smouldering wood to his face, and Yew and Wisteria rushed over to him.
“Why would you do that!?” Yew asked.
“Because it maximises our chances and it's a price I’m willing to pay. If all of us had come out of this unscathed, someone might have doubted us. This wound makes it clear we only escaped by chance.” Louis said.
“He’s right we can’t all come out of this unscathed.” Wisteria said, also grabbing the board.
“What are you doing?” Yew asked. Wisteria didn't answer him, just pressed the board to their wrist and forearm. They hissed in pain dropping the board to the ground.
“Wisteria!” Yew cried.
“I’m fine.”
“Why would you do that!? I’ve barely contributed anything to you all in my life and you took care of us by yourself for more than a year! I have so much to repay but you don’t, why would you hurt yourself?” Louis asked.
“This is my way of showing my resolve to see this all the way through. This is my show of determination.” Wisteria said.
“We have all shown our loyalty in one way or another tonight, we have forged a bond that can never be broken, that of accomplices. We have also forged a bond of family, we will never abandon each other, we will stay together so long as we bear the burden of this crime.” Albert said. All of them agreed. They placed their hands together and made their promise.
“Alright we need to get out of here, it’s so unstable it’ll collapse any moment now.” Wisteria told the others. They agreed and the four made their way to the front of the mansion.
“LOOK! THERE ARE SURVIVORS!” One of the people putting out the fire called out.
“Are you alright kids?!”
“My name is Albert. Albert James Moriarty. And these three are my siblings. William, Louis, and Wisteria.”
Many years later
“And after the fire we were the last of our family, lacking anyone else to turn to, we relied on each other and strove to push forward.” William told the man he and Wisteria were sitting across from on the train.
“That sounds absolutely dreadful. I’m so sorry for dredging up such unpleasant memories. That said it sounds like you grew up in a truly warm household, a stately father, a loving mother, and five loyal siblings. It’s tragic you were torn apart, but for a time at least you had a perfect family.” The man said.
“Yes. Quite.” William told the man.