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Catching them is just one more rug pulled out from underneath him. Perhaps one day, nothing will surprise Sherlock anymore. Recently, so much that he has trusted to be true, what he had thought to be concrete facts of his life, had suddenly crumpled. His sensitive mother needs medication and constant close watch: false. His father is an upright scientist who loves his family above all: false. His sister Beatrice is dead: false.
Now, that undead sister is feeling up his best mate as they drink each other down like the first drink after a drought.
Neither have spotted him. If Sherlock were his older brother, respectable, sensible Mycroft, he’d slip away, take a moment to consider his best move, react calmly. Sherlock is not his brother.
“Are you serious?!” he yells, slamming open Beatrice’s bedroom door. They hadn’t even bothered to shut it all the way, this door that had sat sealed for years like a tomb, a door that Sherlock averted his eyes from in a futile attempt to ignore his guilt. They left it ajar, too intent on pawing each other.
Granted, no one else is supposed to be home; Mother had gone out with Mrs. Crowle to run errands, Mycroft was no doubt well occupied arguing with the government, and Sherlock had set off for the Oxford library, now that he was no longer banned from campus. He’d turned back halfway, however, after he realized he’d brought no pens, knowing he much prefers his own to those the library lends out. Of course, Beatrice’s room comes before his in the hall. Sherlock fumes, thinking of earlier, when James had declined his invitation to join him, citing a prior engagement. Clearly, the prior engagement is his sister.
There’s a wet noise as the paramours pull away, Beatrice leaning back in James’s lap to look over her shoulder, and smiling mockingly as she sees who it is. “Shirley,” she drawls, weaponizing the same nickname their father used for him.
Over the weeks after Silas’s death, Sherlock has slowly come to realize, if not precisely accept, that Beatrice is not, and never will be, the girl he remembers. Part of him had hoped that she’d revert back to that girl once she was home, back with her family and away from their father. But she’s lived a whole life separated from them, become someone entirely different while molded by Silas. She is a person that Sherlock neither knows nor understands.
He’s upset with her, unfairly perhaps, but his gaze quickly slides off her to James. He’s furious with James. The betrayal astounds him, though it shouldn’t.
Hadn’t James flirted with Sherlock’s mother, right in front of him? The man has no shame. He hardly lets a lady pass by without a wink, a word, a grin, some sliver of his charm slipped their way. Sherlock has always found the habit mildly annoying. To think his own sister would be spared is a foolish assumption. And here is Sherlock, the fool.
James’s smile falls as they meet eyes. Sherlock feels vindicated for a brief second, but it’s not enough. “First my mother, and now her,” he snaps. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
For once, James has no response. Beatrice, on the other hand: “Don’t be dramatic. It’s hardly any of your business.”
She huffs as James makes to stand, causing her to slide off him onto the bed. “Sherlock—”
He’s so mad that his body is coiled like a snake, tense, eager for a fight. But all the words that come to him are stupid, childish. You’re supposed to be my friend. He doesn’t know how to articulate the betrayal, which troubles him, because Sherlock’s usually good at articulation. “My sister,” he settles for. “My fucking sister.” Not to mention: his recently resurrected sister. His morally ambiguous sister.
He can’t stand to look at either of them anymore and storms out of the room, pens forgotten, library forgotten. “Let him go,” he hears Beatrice scoff.
Abandoning his notebook on the table in the entryway, he lets the door slam behind him as he stomps out of the house into the beginnings of rain. Of course it’s raining, always is in this godforsaken country.
Before he gets too far across the lawn, he hears the door slam twice: open and shut. “Sherlock. Sherlock.”
Sherlock pauses beneath the tree, the one that they always used to sit under as kids, him, Mycroft, and Beatrice, with Mother. He realizes he’s panting like a rabid dog.
James finally catches up to him. “Sherlock—”
“I can’t believe you,” Sherlock spits as he spins to face him, then scoffs, “but I can. Nothing’s sacred to you.”
James gives him an incredulous look, leaning into amusement as he’s wont to do. “Sacred?”
“She’s off limits,” Sherlock snaps. “And, since I have to say it, my mother too. You can fuck around with anyone else, but stay away from my family.”
“Your family?” echoes James. “Christssakes, Sherlock, I was flirting with her before you even knew she was your family.”
“Well you didn’t have your tongue down her throat before I knew,” Sherlock retorts. “Or did that make it even better?” he accuses, stepping closer. “Knowing who she really was? Did that give you a thrill?”
James doesn’t back down as the space between them closes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’ll admit, I was wrong before,” Sherlock says. He wants to piss him off, wants to hurt him. “You weren’t trying to destroy my family, you’re just trying to wriggle into it, any way that you can.”
It works. James rears back as if Sherlock had landed a blow, then surges forward to shove him. “Fuck you, Sherlock,” he shouts, accent twisting his vowels. “You dragged me into this Greek tragedy; now the mess’s cleaned up and you want me gone, why don’t you just say so?”
Sherlock stumbles back, sliding a little in the mud, but keeps his feet.
“You think I don’t realize that I don’t belong here?” James continues, still yelling. “That I’m the poor Irish bloke stumbling around your little castle? Your family’s got more wealth in one room than mine. And now you’re tired of your plaything,” he grins in that shielding way he has. “I get it.”
“Plaything,” returns Sherlock, but more subdued. He’s so curious about James’s family, but doesn’t know how to ask. It finally occurs to him how little he knows about James, how much James knows about him. The things Sherlock does know are only the habits James has shown him. Including his easy ways with women. “You would know.”
James drags a hand through his damp hair, sighs. “It’s different with your sister.”
“You mean it’s serious?” Sherlock asks, both incredulous and disturbed. For some reason, this idea bothers him more.
“Not exactly,” James says. “More that it’s mutual. We’re both on the same page. Beatrice is hardly a plaything,” he adds.
Sherlock would like to agree, but he’s not sure he can. Beatrice was their father’s plaything for years.
“Well, I want you to stop,” Sherlock intones.
James stares back at him, jaw working, and Sherlock wonders what he can do if James refuses.
But he says, “Fine.” Then he turns back to the house.
After a moment’s hesitation, Sherlock catches up and falls into step beside him. They’re quiet for a stretch, walking unhurried despite the drizzle. Then Sherlock says, “I didn’t mean it. The bit about — about you trying to get into my family.”
“I believe the word you used was ‘wriggling.’”
“Yes, ‘wriggling.’” Sherlock chews on his lip. “Listen. You’re always welcome here. You’re practically part of the family already, anyways. I was just being…”
“A right piece of shite? An arse? A gowl?”
A smile slips onto Sherlock’s face. “I was going to say ‘vindictive,’ but I suppose any of those might suffice.”
“Has it ever occurred to you,” James begins, his own smirk appearing, “that the reason you’re so mad about all this is because you’re jealous?”
Sherlock stumbles. “Jealous? Of what?”
“My attention, of course,” James replies, turning that winning grin on Sherlock. “You don’t want to share me with the rest of your family.”
Sherlock makes the mistake of looking at James and feels his heart skip a beat. James is as unbearably handsome and charismatic as ever, and Sherlock is concerned to realize that despite being well aware of his friend’s charms, he is not immune to them. James seems to know it, too, smile widening almost imperceptibly.
Sherlock tries to tell himself that his affections, his protectiveness — not jealousy — are simply natural inclinations for his newfound friend. As his mother had pointed out, Sherlock is terrible at making them, so surely it makes sense that this friendship feels so intense. But there are moments like these when he feels off beat, doubtful, suspicious of himself. And after what all his poking and prodding did to his family, he’s a little afraid to pick himself apart, worrying he may unravel in much the same way.
He does like James’s attention, he can’t deny that. But so does everyone who meets James. He has that sort of magnetic quality to him. Anyone would preen at his smile, his wit, his praise. But that doesn’t mean Sherlock has to give him the satisfaction of letting him know.
He forces his gaze ahead. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
But James comes close enough that their shoulders brush. “Is that blush for me?” he crows.
Rolling his eyes, Sherlock pushes him away. He knows James is only joking, but it sounds dangerously close to flirting.
The thing about James is he doesn’t know when to quit. Laughing, he slings an arm around Sherlock’s shoulders and leans in conspiratorially. “If I’d known how you felt, I’d never have bothered with your sister.”
It rubs Sherlock wrong to hear him joke about this so soon. “That did surprise me, honestly,” he admits, tone innocent. “Beatrice, I mean. You’re usually all talk.”
He feels James’s eyes on him. “What do you mean?”
Sherlock shrugs, still under the weight of James’s arm. “I’ve never seen you successful before. Just didn’t know you were actually capable of getting what you wanted.”
“Oh ho ho,” James slides off his arm and moves in front of Sherlock, stopping them both in their tracks. They’re finally close to the house, and although the rain has not let up, it’s at least stayed blissfully light. “What about you? Shou’an was all over you, and you still let her slip through your fingers.”
Sherlock fails to hold eye contact throughout his response. “I’m not interested in Shou’an.”
James hums. “Come to think of it, you didn’t seem to enjoy that kiss.”
Sherlock’s gaze flickers back to him. James had seen that?
“Okay. So who are you interested in, then?” James presses.
Sherlock shrugs, forces himself to meet his friend’s gaze. “No one.”
For a moment, James seems to accept this, shifting his stance as if to turn around and enter the house. But then he swallows and steps forward into Sherlock’s space, their shoes just centimeters apart. “‘No one’ ’s not a very nice name for your best mate, is it?” he says, tone low, inaudible outside the space between them. That self assured smile curves his mouth.
Sherlock’s heart leaps in his throat, momentarily preventing a reply. He parses the words to try and find a different meaning in them, but as they’ve discussed, the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. More, he wants it to be true, to not be a joke, for that grin to be genuine.
The same grin that’s always directed at every woman they meet. Those lips that just kissed his sister not fifteen minutes ago. James is making fun of him, nothing more. Sherlock really is a fool.
He shoves James away from him. “Should I tell Mycroft to watch out?” he bites out. “That you’re feeling out all the Holmes?”
The color drains from James’s face. “Sherlock,” he hisses, but Sherlock doesn’t care.
He stomps past his friend, swatting away the rising hand, and James doesn’t reach for him again.
As he trudges upstairs to his room and locks the door, he can’t help but replay the scene out in his mind palace, reviewing every painful detail. Watching over and over how easily James reads him: his jealousy, his embarrassment, his… interest.
How can he still like the man, after catching him with Beatrice? After he makes fun of him like this? How?
But the heart is illogical. It cannot be reasoned with.
Good thing it can be ignored.
—
James keeps his promise. It isn’t easy. Beatrice is insistent and unsympathetic and an attractive distraction from the knots in his gut.
He always pushes his luck, but he’s gone too far this time. Revealed too much of himself. Shown too much of his twisted heart that even Sherlock, the kindest man he knows, has stepped on it in his hurry to flee.
So when Beatrice hooks a foot on his ankle under the table, or sneaks into his room, it takes a great deal of restraint to not fall into her, play along. It’d allow him to slip comfortably into the persona he’s crafted: the philanderer. The charmer with a devil-may-care smile.
But instead he deflects. “Don’t tempt me,” he tells Beatrice as he shoos her out of his room. “Or one day I’m bound to fall.”
“That’s the idea,” Beatrice gets in before he shuts the door.
Sherlock’s avoiding him. James wavers between gathering courage to approach him and giving him space. He doesn’t want to cut his losses. For one thing, he’s been staying at the Holmes residence, seeing as his scholarship is very much gone and he can’t afford rent in Oxford. Nor does he have work. But beyond that, he’s not ready to let go of Sherlock.
He thinks, with time, and good behavior — hence his rejection of Beatrice— Sherlock will get over it. They’ll both just forget that moment in the yard when James made a move on him. Not even a move, really; he never even touched Sherlock. Just words are enough to get James Moriarty in trouble.
He could kick himself. He should have just let the conversation go, held open the door for his friend, maybe made some stupid comment about the rain. Instead he ruined everything by opening his big mouth. It’s sort of funny; he’s passed the rare flirtatious remark Sherlock’s way before with no repercussions. He supposes maybe it was implying the feeling was mutual that crossed the line.
Sherlock clearly hasn’t mentioned the incident to anyone — Cordelia treats James as warmly as ever, and in passing Mycroft will still share a wry joke or two. Only Beatrice seems to notice their conflict, but she still assumes she is the source of the problem — which she finds endlessly amusing.
“Poor Shirley,” she says, pouring herself a glass of whiskey. They’re in the sitting room downstairs after dinner. Cordelia has already retired, and Sherlock made an excuse to leave as soon as their meal finished. “He takes everything so personally.”
“He doesn’t like it when you call him that,” James says, though he is certain Beatrice already knows. He swirls his own glass where he sits in the nice leather chair near the fireplace. Obviously, in the warm weather, there’s no fire, but he prefers the seat regardless. How odd, to have a preferred seat in a house that is not his own.
“Why do you think I call him it?” Beatrice smirks, confirming his suspicions.
“I think you find it hard to accept affection,” James replies. “It’s been kept from you for too long. So you’re careful to keep everyone at arm’s length, to avoid it.”
Beatrice’s smile persists as she strides towards him, drink in hand. “Look who’s talking.”
James smiles back, shaking his head. “On the contrary, I’m the opposite,” he tells her. “Crave it. Soak it up like a sponge. Wring it out of the most unlikely of places.”
He realizes a beat too late the possible flirtation in the final sentence. Habits are hard to rise above.
Her grin widens, and she stops before his chair a breath before she’d be on top of him. “It’s why we match so well,” she says, then keeps him waiting as she downs half her drink. “I’m a giver. You’re a taker.”
James considers this. He’s a taker, he can’t deny it. Sometimes he’s even proud of it. Sometimes it makes him drink faster, like now. Is Beatrice really a giver? It’s not the first, or second, or tenth word he’d use to describe her, but then, he hardly knows her. The only thing he really knows about her — the new her, not the her Sherlock has told stories about — is her relationship with Silas. And in that relationship, she was certainly the giver.
When he meets her eyes, she crawls into his lap.
“Beatrice,” he protests, hands up and away from her, one still clasping his near empty glass. “I can’t.”
“Sure you can,” she says, looking at him through her lashes. A hand comes to grip his chin and hold his gaze after he tries to turn away. “It’s what you’re good at,” she whispers. “So take.”
His ironic grin, his only shield, stays plastered to his face. Take. That’s what he’s been doing, isn’t it? Taking the Holmes’ hospitality. Taking Sherlock’s friendship, and when that wasn’t enough, trying to take more. Taking from Beatrice because he can’t have what he really wants.
Feeling vaguely nauseous, he pushes Beatrice off him. Before he can compose a reply, however, he spots the ajar door over her shoulder, Sherlock standing in the doorway, a glass of water in hand. The last time, fury had contorted his features. Tonight, Sherlock stares through him with an empty expression, takes a sip of his water, and turns to leave.
“Sherlock,” James calls as he stands, every curse he knows, Irish and British alike, rattling through his head. He bolts across the room.
“This dance again,” Beatrice mumbles behind him, ice clinking in her glass as she tips it back.
“Sherlock,” James repeats as he chases after his friend up the hall, but for his apparent indifference, Sherlock has disappeared fast. James barely catches him returning to his room and just manages to slot his foot between the door and jamb.
“Let me explain,” James pants, a little winded.
Sherlock refuses to turn around, though his hand retains pressure on the doorknob. “There’s nothing to explain.”
“There is,” James insists. This moment feels critical, like letting go of it means letting go of Sherlock for good. “Let me in. Please, Sherlock,” he adds after a second.
Sherlock lets go of the doorknob and paces further into his room. Hastily James steps through, shutting the door behind him.
“Nothing happened. She instigated a little; I put an end to it. We haven’t done anything since you found us. I swear it,” he vows.
Sherlock’s back remains to him while he sets his glass down on his desk.
James’s silver tongue fails him. He doesn’t know how to appease Sherlock. Still, he tries. “I’ve done what you asked, I swear. Come now, don’t hold this against me forever, Sherlock,” he says, but he’s not really talking about Beatrice anymore.
Finally, Sherlock deigns to break his silence. “I need you to be honest with me.” He turns around at last. “I know what you’re like; I can deal with it. But I just need you to be honest.”
James nearly flinches. I know what you’re like. Not just a taker. One with unnatural inclinations. Still, he says he can deal with it. James manages a smile, like his heart has not migrated to his stomach to wreak havoc there. “I’ve always been honest with you, Sherlock. Even when it discomfits you, if you recall,” he points out, referring to his accusations of Silas.
“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, “but in other matters, you’ve been… less forthcoming with the truth.”
Now James musters some indignance. “I know nosy is your natural state of being, Sherlock, but some things really aren’t any of your business.” Until James had mistakenly made it Sherlock’s business, but that was besides the point.
Sherlock’s brow wrinkles, apparently with confusion. Then, it smooths out. “Well. Other than the… Beatrice matter, I just mean—” His face colors. “I would appreciate it if you’d stop treating me like another one of your playthings.”
James knows they’re tiptoeing around it, but this is ridiculous. “Playthings?” he echoes. “What are you on about? Christssakes, Sherlock, you act like I felt you up,” he snaps. “I got the message. I may not have your blessed genius, but I think I can figure a man’s fancy when he shoves me off and starts cussing me out—”
“What are you talking about?” Sherlock interrupts, confused again.
“I’m not gonna jump you, Sherlock,” James tells him, exasperated. “You don’t have to hide. I can control myself, handle a little rejection — keeps me humble, you know,” he adds, aiming for levity.
“Rejection?” Sherlock says.
The two stare at each other. James is not sure how to respond to the fragmented question.
“What do you mean, ‘rejection’?” Sherlock asks, apparently wanting an answer.
“I’m not sure what else you would call your reaction the other day,” James snarks.
“But ‘rejection’ implies there was a proposition to begin with,” Sherlock says.
“I’m familiar with the definition,” James retorts. “What’s your point?”
After a moment, Sherlock seems to regather his dissipating anger, face flushing. “My point is, if you want to flirt with everyone you meet, that’s fine. But don’t do it with me. Don’t mess with my feelings.” He steps forward, jabbing James in the chest. “You have some nerve, to tease me right after tussling with my sister. You could leave a man a little dignity.”
“Feelings? Dignity?” spits James, smacking Sherlock’s hand away. “Mine don’t count, I suppose?”
“Are you joking?” Sherlock scoffs. “Yours are always perfectly intact.”
James falters. A part of him had thought that Sherlock, with his heightened observation and all the time they spent together, might have done a better job figuring him out. Isn’t that what every well wrapped, carefully hidden person secretly wants? For someone to at last unravel them?
He starts to withdraw. He shouldn’t have been vulnerable with Sherlock before, and he definitely won’t be again. “You’re right,” he says with a grin. “You’re always right, Sherlock.”
“And you’re always unserious,” Sherlock snaps.
“No, you never take me seriously,” James says. “There’s a difference.”
In the silence, he turns for the door. He has his hand on the knob before Sherlock says, “Wait.”
James knows he should just leave, but even now he finds it hard to refuse his friend. “What?” he allows, still facing the door.
“Say what you want to say.” Sherlock crosses the room, hovers behind him. “I’ll listen.”
Slowly, James lets go of the doorknob. “You want honest?” he asks, turning to meet Sherlock’s gaze, barely a breath away. “You want serious?”
Sherlock stares back at him, brow furrowed in that familiar expression. He’s trying to puzzle James out, hear his words before they’re spoken, read his moves before they happen. But although James thought he wanted to be discovered, he’s suddenly stricken with the truth: Sherlock obsesses with the unknown. As soon as he figures James out, and James ceases to be an enigma, what interest is he to Sherlock?
How can he be honest? How can he be serious, with what is at stake?
“I’m a taker,” James says, snagging hold of Sherlock’s collar, and doing what he’s good at.
Sherlock’s first instinct is to fight, pushing at James’s shoulders, then clawing at the hands on his shirt, but James doesn’t let go, pressing his lips against his friend’s a little harder. He’s selfish. Desperate.
For a moment, Sherlock stills, then teeth dig into James’s bottom lip, hard. He gasps, jerking back, loosening his grip slightly. He feels a bead of blood slip down his chin; he grins when Sherlock’s eyes trace its descent.
“You—” Sherlock starts, breathing heavy. There’s a smudge of red on his tooth. James’s blood is in his mouth. James feels delirious, feels his grin slide into something madder.
As usual, James Moriarty has chosen the option that makes everything much, much worse. He has effectively jumped his friend, which he explicitly said he would not do, proving himself a liar. Indeed, he’s stomped on the chance for honesty, for sincerity, clinging to another riddle instead. To the unexpected. But he can stand to lose Sherlock’s affection. James cannot bear the thought of boring him.
“What are you playing at?” Sherlock whispers, gaze darting between James’s eyes. The quiet plea is a second chance: Tell the truth.
But James would never dream of making things so easy for Sherlock. “Oh, you know,” he drawls. “I’m just wriggling my way into your family.”
Sherlock slams him against the door with enough force to knock the wind out of him. James isn’t sure if this is a precursor to a kiss or a punch. He finds himself excited by both prospects.
But then one of the hands digging into his shoulders comes up to cradle his face, and James is so shocked by the contrasting gentleness that his lazy smile and easy demeanor both fail.
“One day, James, I’ll figure you out,” Sherlock promises softly, but James knows it’s really a threat.
That will never happen, he thinks, but before he can say it, Sherlock kisses him.
There’s no urgency, no fury, no desperation in it. Sherlock kisses like they haven’t been arguing for the past several minutes. Like he knows James won’t try to escape. Like they have time. The hand on James’s shoulder drops down to his chest.
James’s own hands have loosened even more, barely grasping Sherlock’s shirt. It takes him a moment to realize he’s leaning into Sherlock’s touch, head tilted just slightly into the palm on his cheek. Sherlock softens him. And ruins the person he’s so carefully crafted.
It’s too sweet, too kind; even as a taker James cannot survive it. Sherlock is too good a giver.
He jostles his friend back, taking a discreet but shuddery breath.
Sherlock’s smiling, pleased with himself. “Not what you wanted?” The hand on James’s face shifts to trace a thumb over his lip.
James is painfully aware that Sherlock can surely feel the racing pulse beneath his palm. He searches for some quippy reply in his distracted brain. He finds a barb and wields it with a smirk: “Certainly different than the last kiss I shared with a Holmes.”
The effect is immediate: those lovely hands slip off him, the smile fades. James almost regrets it, jaw clenching, teeth grinding to keep his own grin in place, to hold steadfast to the casual cruelty he’s chosen. This will always be between them, now. My sister. My fucking sister, Sherlock had yelled. Any time one of them needed a weapon, wanted to drive a wedge between themselves, here it was. When James had first encountered Beatrice alone, it had been the easiest thing he had done. Thoughtless. Almost inevitable. Because at his core, the thing Sherlock would find, if he could stand to believe it, was that James was destructive. Selfish. Empty.
“I see,” Sherlock says, mustering another upturn of his lips. “Not to your taste.”
James only wishes it wasn’t. “I didn’t say that,” he allows.
At last, he lets go of Sherlock’s collar. It’s wrinkled to hell. Of course. Ruined beneath his touch. And James likes to see it. His mark. His presence.
Sherlock doesn’t respond, just looks at him for another moment before shaking his head, dropping his gaze.
With Beatrice, rejection is nothing but controlling his own desires. He can see the disappointment she hides, but it doesn’t move him, barely catches his notice.
Sherlock makes it painful, like the organs in James’s body are being stretched. It’s not that Sherlock is less capable of hiding his disappointment — well, he is. But it bothers James to see him upset, to know he’s the cause.
He loses his grip on his indifference, allows whim and sentiment to lean him forward, speaking lowly into his friend’s ear: “You’re the Holmes I’m here for, Sherlock.”
Then he ghosts a kiss on Sherlock’s cheek, the contact so brief it’s deniable.
When James pulls back and sees Sherlock’s heated expression, he almost tips over the precipice. Tries to repair the damage he’s done. Lets himself soften.
But it’s against his nature.
“James,” Sherlock says, but he’s already slipping out the door.