Chapter Text
It was almost insultingly easy to lift the folded slip of paper from James's pocket. James had been thoroughly distracted—by the adrenaline of the cave explosion, by the intoxicating rush of achieving his goal, and by the satisfaction of Beatrice's smile. His certainty of victory had made him careless.
Carelessness was a mistake Sherlock rarely failed to exploit. Long ago, he had turned sleight of hand into a masterful art form.
Now, standing alone in the quiet of the room, the formula rested in his palm. He unfolded the parchment, his eyes darting over the ink. It was fascinating, really, how a mere sequence of letters and numbers on a fragile sheet of paper possessed the potential to bring unimaginable destruction to the world.
He held his hand out over the warm fire, opened his fingers, and let the paper fall.
It drifted down into the flames, the edges curling and blackening, slowly erasing the physical proof of the weapon's origin forever.
"Sherlock?"
Sherlock didn't flinch. He turned to find James standing in the doorway. His clothes were still dusted with soot from the caves, looking frazzled but wearing his ever-present, charming smile. But as James's gaze shifted from Sherlock to the dying, glowing embers in the fireplace, the smile froze. His hands clenched.
He knew then. Exactly what was missing.
"Sherlock," James said, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "What did you just do?"
"I'm sorry, James," Sherlock said quietly. "But I cannot let the lives of millions be the price of your ambition."
And he truly was sorry. He knew, with absolute certainty, that James would never forgive him for this. But Sherlock also knew how fast the cave had collapsed. James wouldn't have had the time to study the paper; he would have been too busy searching for it, running from the blast, and checking over everyone else. And he never would have risked taking it out in another person's sight. So he wouldn't have been able to memorize the equations.
For the first time since they had met, Sherlock watched the smile completely vanish from James Moriarty's lips.
For a week, James did not speak to him. He didn't even look at him properly. He was always around, but his attention was exclusively diverted elsewhere. He spoke charmingly with Mother. He flirted endlessly with Beatrice. He needled Mycroft. Sherlock, alone, was starved of his presence.
Perhaps it was because they were no longer speaking that Sherlock resorted to watching him; he needed to get his fill of James somehow.
But watching James garnered him an entirely new problem.
Sherlock found himself cataloguing details that ought to have been irrelevant. The precise shape of James's smile. The way one corner of his mouth lifted slightly higher than the other. The dimples that appeared when he was genuinely amused. The tendency of his dark curls to fall across his forehead whenever he spent too long outdoors. The intensity of his gaze whenever he was flirting with one of his poor victims.
He began noticing James everywhere. Across rooms. Reflected in mirrors. At the edge of crowded conversations. His attention seemed to seek James automatically, as though some part of his mind had decided he was a problem worth monitoring.
And then came the sweltering afternoon where Sherlock found himself fixated on a single drop of salty sweat as it slid from James's brow, down to his chin, tracking down his neck, and disappearing beneath his collar. Sherlock didn't know why he couldn't look away. But James must have somehow invaded Sherlock's mind and known, because for the first time that week, James caught his eye and watched him back.
After that, the game changed.
If James had avoided him the week before, he was now determined to be inescapable. First, it was only his presence. Having dinner? James would sit by Sherlock's side. Heading to the market? James would walk not even a foot away. Reading on the sofa? James would crowd him, leaving his foot resting casually against Sherlock's ankle.
Then came the fleeting touches. Brushing their shoulders when walking side by side. Hand lingering on Sherlock's own as he handed him his coat. A forearm pressed deliberately against Sherlock's at the dining table.
James knew exactly what he was doing. James was naturally freer with physical affection than Sherlock, but his charm was a weapon he constructed and wielded carefully. It was never mindless.
Which meant Sherlock noticed every touch all the more keenly.
And then came the afternoon James was leaving the manor for some unknown errand (he'd been going off to a lot of these lately). He bid farewell to Mother with a kiss on the cheek, and Beatrice with a kiss on the lips. Usually, Sherlock received a cheeky remark. This time, James paused, leaned in, and pressed a deliberate kiss to Sherlock's cheek.
It caught Sherlock so entirely off guard that he could only stare at James like a newborn foal. Seeing exactly the stunned reaction he no doubtedly wanted, James smirked and left.
It all culminated the night James found Sherlock alone in the living room, reading. James leaned over the high back of Sherlock’s armchair, his breath hot against Sherlock's ear.
"Ah," James murmured. "Dorian Gray?"
Sherlock did not take his eyes off the book, desperately trying to calm his beating heart. "Yes."
"You have excellent taste." James’s voice dipped lower, amused. "You really can't get me off your mind, can you?"
Sherlock turned his head to argue, but James was already there. He closed the distance and kissed him—a single, firm peck on the lips.
Sherlock was rendered entirely incapable of speech. James was smiling ear to ear.
"What are you doing?" Sherlock finally managed.
James tilted his head, the (fake) picture of innocence. "What do you think I'm doing?"
"Are you sleep-addled? Confusing your Holmeses now?"
James smiled, dark and low. "I'm quite aware of which Holmes I just kissed."
"You’re sleeping with Beatrice."
"Sometimes, yes," James said smoothly. "We share mutual interests."
"Right. Yes. Mutual interests." Sherlock dragged a shaking hand through his hair, his skin burning where James's lips had been.
James pushed off the back of the armchair, his footsteps muffled against the rug as he circled slowly around to the front.
"You jest with me, then," Sherlock snapped, his eyes tracking the movement. "Retribution for ruining your plans. A psychological tactic to unnerve me. Well, congratulations, I am appropriately unnerved."
James came to a halt directly in front of the armchair, casting a shadow over Sherlock. "I'm not a jester, Sherlock."
“Then this makes no sense!” Sherlock snapped. “You’ve spent the past week barely speaking to me, and now suddenly you’re—”
James took a slow, deliberate step forward.
Sherlock stopped speaking.
“I’m what?” James asked softly.
“Cruel,” Sherlock said immediately.
Something unreadable flickered across James’s face. “Cruel?” he echoed.
“You ignored me for a week and now suddenly you’re determined to remain within arm’s reach at all times. You kiss me without warning and act as though this is perfectly rational behavior.”
James advanced another step, stopping just short of Sherlock's knees.
“And it never occurred to you that there might be another reason?”
He looked at James—really looked at him. The relaxed posture, the confident tilt of his chin. James was a predator who had just cornered his prey. The ambition wasn't gone at all. It had simply changed tactics.
"Oh," Sherlock breathed, his brow furrowing as a flawed logic clicked into place. "You don't believe me. You don't think I could get rid of my father's work.”
James’s smile sharpened into something lethal.
"You are wasting your time," Sherlock said firmly, "The formula is gone, James. I burned it."
"I know you burned it," James replied softly.
Sherlock frowned.
James stepped fully into the space between Sherlock’s parted knees, planting his hands firmly on both armrests.
"But I never actually saw you do it," James whispered, leaning down so his face was level with Sherlock's.
A flicker of unease ran down Sherlock's spine.
"Tell me something, Sherlock," James murmured. "Did you look at it before you destroyed it?"
Silence. In that single, damning heartbeat, Sherlock realized the exact magnitude of his mistake: he had never actually destroyed the formula.
James smiled slowly.
Sherlock forced himself to scoff, pressing his back flush against the upholstery. "Curiosity is hardly a crime."
"No," James agreed. "But I don't think curiosity is why you memorized it."
Sherlock’s throat tightened.
“The paper was folded inside my pocket; you had no need to open it, to see it, to memorize it," James continued softly, his gaze dropping to Sherlock's mouth. “So why did you read it, Sherlock, if not to give it to me eventually?”
"Your hypothesis has a rather glaring flaw," Sherlock snapped. "I burned the formula specifically to keep it from you."
"And yet you memorized it."
Sherlock's jaw tightened. "Accidentally."
James laughed. "Sherlock."
Sherlock glared fiercely at him, refusing to concede the point.
James remained entirely unfazed, his eyes glittering as he looked down at him. "You want me," he said simply. "And now you possess the one thing I want in return."
Sherlock let out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. "So what? You're trying to seduce me into giving you the formula?"
"Depends," James murmured, stepping fully into his space now. "Is it working?"
Sherlock opened his mouth to retort, but his throat had gone painfully dry. He closed it again.
James laughed quietly—a sound that was victorious, warm, and terribly dangerous all at once. "God," he whispered. "You truly have no idea what to do with this, do you? Consider it a barter, Sherlock. I give you something you didn't even know you wanted... and you give me what belongs to me."
Sherlock let out a sharp laugh. "You cannot possibly believe I would make that trade. I don't want this."
"Don't lie to yourself, Sherlock," James shifted his weight, abandoning one of the armrests to bring his hand up, curling his index finger smoothly beneath Sherlock's chin. "You want me.”
Sherlock grabbed James’s wrist, his fingers digging into the fabric of his sleeve. He didn't push the hand away, but he held on tight, trying to ground himself. "Even if I do, wanting and acting on it are two entirely different things," Sherlock argued. "I have self-control. Unlike you."
James let out a low, dark chuckle, tilting Sherlock's head up further so he had no choice but to look into those endless black eyes. "Sherlock," he started softly. "Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation? I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires strength, strength and courage to yield to."
For one horrible moment, Sherlock understood exactly what Wilde had meant.
"I told you, you can't get me off your mind," James whispered against his lips.
And then he leaned in, stealing any remaining protest from Sherlock's mouth.
That night, James taught Sherlock a great many things. He taught him how kisses felt pressed deep into his skin. How honeyed, wicked words could draw a helpless whimper from his throat. How the simple, deliberate work of a hand could bring a terrifying amount of pleasure. Sherlock didn't remember falling asleep; he only knew that when he woke up, the bed was cold and James was gone.
In the morning, Sherlock attempted to avoid him entirely.
He spent breakfast staring rigidly at the newspaper, informing himself—firmly and repeatedly—that the situation had been an isolated lapse in judgment. An unfortunate convergence of exhaustion and James Moriarty’s deeply aggravating talent for persuasion.
James, infuriatingly, was speaking easily with Mother, acting as though nothing unusual had occurred at all.
Which was fine. As It would not happen again.
And then James smiled lazily at him across the table, his dark eyes raking slowly over Sherlock's frame, and Sherlock nearly dropped his teacup.
So whilst Sherlock would like to say that was the only time it happened, he would be lying if he did.
Because he did not resist when James slipped into his bedroom two nights later and pushed him back against the mattress.
He didn't come every night. That was part of the cruelty. Some nights, Sherlock would lie in the dark, his chest tight, listening to the faint creak of the floorboards in the hall, unable to stop himself from tracking whether James's footsteps would pause outside his room or continue toward Beatrice's. Sometimes he would hear the click of a door even as his own remained closed.
So how could he resist on the nights James did walk into his bedroom—eyes black, shirt open, and a knowing smirk on his lips?
Sherlock had once believed temptation was a simple thing. A matter of willpower. Logic triumphing over impulse.
Evidently not.
Dorian Gray had said: The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.
Sherlock yielded. He yielded every single time.