Work Text:
Joan knocked twice, then she let herself into the darkened loft. Moriarty was as drunk as Joan expected, though this time at least the consulting detective wasn’t passed out flat on the floor. Instead she was slumped as best she could on a minimalist leather couch, her legs splayed, her head back, her arms flopped. She looked at Joan through eyelids at half-mast and said, “You simply can’t stay away.” Even at her drunkest, Moriarty never slurred. Joan dropped the keys she wasn’t supposed to have on the table by the door, shed her coat, and tossed it over a useless little stool that guests were supposed to balance on. Without looking back, Joan could feel the other woman’s eyes on her. “You’re not my sober companion anymore,” Moriarty said, the words as sharp as if her teeth were whetstones. “Mummy dearest doesn’t pay you to babysit me any longer.”
"I’m not here as your sober companion," Joan said. They were separated by only the glass coffee table, the one that cost more than most people’s cars. How many evenings had the two of them spent spreading case files across the frosted glass, using cold cases as coasters for mug after mug of tea?
"You’re not here as my apprentice either." Moriarty reached to the floor and lifted a bottle of whiskey that she raised to Joan in toast. "When Joan Watson quits, she’s done forever."
"I never quit." Joan’s words could be sharp as well. "And I was never your apprentice. I told you I wanted space and you told me to take as much as I needed because I couldn’t come back."
Moriarty shrugged a shoulder as she sat up. She took the time to neatly pour her whiskey into a glass before she gulped with an urgency that belied her desperation. “And yet here you are. Back. Tell me, can you leave without—” Moriarty stopped herself with another hurried drink. She glanced away as she did it, with an expression Joan would unequivocally call shame if it had graced any other face.
"Without what?"
"Dramatics." Moriarty said this as if it had been the answer all along, but she dropped her eyes. Joan expected the original had been something like, fatalities. Moriarty had thrown that in Joan’s face occasionally, in the ancient early days of their relationship. She’d known within moments everything Joan was ashamed of, and she’d needled those spots with cruel precision. Now, Moriarty silenced herself with alcohol instead. She dug the heel of her free hand into her closed eye, looking so weary Joan’s body ached in reluctant sympathy. She crossed past the table and sat on the couch, her end of the couch, where for ten months she’d had a glimpse into the work of the greatest living detective. Moriarty’s eyes were red, though whether it was drink or tears, Joan couldn’t tell you.
"I don’t do dramatics," Joan said. "That’s your department."
Moriarty smirked, but it was a watery one. “Hardly, Ms. Watson. You should see how I’ve settled from my wild youth.”
Joan nodded at the bottle on the floor. “Looks like you’ve settled back into your wild youth.”
Most addicts looked away when you confronted them about relapse. Some burned their shame as righteous anger. Moriarty was one of those, normally. In the three and a half years Joan had worked with her, Moriarty had specialized in finding new ways to fall off the wagon. She’d swapped heroin for cocaine, heroin for alcohol, and heroin for prescriptions. Each time Joan had confronted her, in the defiance that came before she could let herself feel shame, Moriarty would always say, with a laugh and a hair toss that she never otherwise would do, “Well, it’s not heroin, is it?” As if addiction was a system she could game.
Moriarty didn’t laugh tonight. Her head lolled to the side looking away from Joan, out to the massive windows that overlooked the New York skyline. “Well, it’s not heroin,” she said softly, in a voice that knew every long step of recovery she’d have to rewalk.
Joan scooted closer to her, until their knees bumped. Moriarty looked back at the physical contact, her eyes not quite focusing on Joan’s face. “Why are you here?” she said, like Joan’s presence was yet another thing to be endured. But she didn’t move her knee. And when Joan reached over slowly, gently, and worked the glass out of Moriarty’s fingers, she didn’t fight that either. Her skin was too hot, her fingers too sweaty. The glass practically slipped out.
Joan put it on the table, the clink of glass against glass echoing through the too sparse loft. “I heard about Holmes, about Sherlock. I was worried about you.”
Moriarty didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything for so long that the fear that had brought Joan here, at two in the morning, after the worst fight they’d had, after three weeks of radio silence, coagulated into terror—the still kind she’d often felt as a surgeon looking down at a broken body before her. The incident was over, but the damage was spreading. Joan reached for Moriarty’s hand; otherwise still, Moriarty drew it back. Her face was unreadable in the shadows and the city light. Her mouth twisted. “Jamie,” Joan exhaled.
Moriarty raised her chin. Shut her eyes. “Do you think this is a surprise?” she asked. The words were measured but shaking, stepping out across marble in new high heels. “Sherlock got what he deserved.”
"Ja—"
"What he deserved," Moriarty hissed. She jerked upright, leaned in, until her face was inches from Joan’s so each word slapped her across the face. "He relapsed, he died, that’s nothing remarkable. That is the risk we run, the price we pay. Sherlock paid his debt, that is all." Moriarty was shaking with, what, rage? Yes, rage, perhaps, on the surface at least. Rage was the easiest for her deal with now. Joan knew the anger of addiction well enough, but she’d met Sherlock only once, had helped arrest him on that brief occasion. As callous as it sounded, his death was that of a stranger’s, regrettable in the abstract. Moriarty was her—well, Joan knew Moriarty, that was probably the safest way to put it. Moriarty was who Joan cared about now.
As Moriarty panted with rage, Joan kept her breath steady. Soon Moriarty’s slipped into matching Joan’s, until they were both taking calming breaths in and calming breaths out. Now when Joan reached out to rub Moriarty’s arm, the other woman let it happen. They didn’t say anything. They just breathed and touched, just one point of contact because Moriarty wouldn’t stand anymore, and maybe they stayed like that for thirty seconds or maybe it was an hour.
"I see him," Moriarty whispered. She was looking at Joan but not in her eyes. Her gaze was lost somewhere in Joan’s freckles. "I see him in the corner of my eyes. In the shadows. In slates of light across the empty floor."
"He’s not there," Joan said softly.
"I know," Moriarty said, and she sounded like herself for a second, offended at the idea that someone would try and educate her on something about which she was familiar. "But I see him." Joan said nothing to that. After another long moment, Moriarty filled the silence. "I have so few peers in the world. None, I might have said some years ago. Now I have one less. And he was a criminal and I a detective, which always suited me well. If he had been a detective, I would have been the criminal, and we would have chased the other way. We could have taken turns. Like a schoolyard game. First he’s it, then me, then him. You as referee. The world as our playground."
"I don’t think the world could stand it. I know I couldn’t," Joan said. Moriarty’s smirk frightened her a little. Excited her as well. That was Moriarty. She was the feeling in your stomach as you slide your finger along a blade. Then she leaned forward and Joan wasn’t breathing steady anymore, but Moriarty dropped her head to Joan’s shoulder. She nuzzled her face against Joan’s face neck, her skin soft and hot and sweaty. Joan kept her hands at her sides. Moriarty didn’t like hugs. If she wanted one now, she’d no doubt move Joan’s arms herself. She didn’t move Joan’s arms. But she did drop her hands to Joan’s thighs, and grip her tight.
"My dear Watson," Moriarty said, her mouth pressed against Joan’s skin, each word sending shivers. "As always, you underestimate yourself."
Joan could not think what to say. Then she felt the hot wetness against her skin, and as Moriarty started to pull away, to hide her weakness, Joan wrapped her hands around her wrist and said, “No. Stay.”
And after a breath, Moriarty raised her arms, Joan still holding on, and arranged them into an embrace.