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keep_countingCharacters/Pairings: Mycroft Holmes, Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes
Rating: PG13
Warnings: AU, selling of souls, a bit blood, dead people, temporary character-death, resurrection
Genre: Crossover/Drama/AU
Word-count: 1,576
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
A/N: Crossover with Supernatural, though it is not necessary to have watched the show: I am merely using the mythology to fill a plot-bunny made by
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fueschgast and me: the wonderful banner is also made by her!Summary: Summon a demon by the crossroad, and get all your hearts desires. For a prize, of course
Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five // Part Six // Part Seven
Mycroft
I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one.
~
Moriarty’s grasp on Sherlock’s hand is firm, unyielding, but it is gone almost as quickly as it came.
“Thank-you,” he says, right before the gun is in his mouth and he is pulling the trigger.
~
“My older brother knows everything,” A six-year old Sherlock announces to his teacher, and he isn’t wrong. He isn’t completely right either, but to say that he is wrong in that statement would be like saying that it only rains on Sundays. It is a sentence neither here nor there.
You see, Mycroft Holmes does not know everything, but he does know everything about everything that is worth knowing about.
Including the intricate hierarchy and designs of the deepest, darkest pits of Hell. Really. If he can find out the secrets of the Royal Family, Hell really isn’t that big a step from there.
The demons mistake, of course, was in never stopping him from attaining this information.
The first text shows up rather unexpectedly while he’s at the Diogene’s Club.
Figure out where that Devil’s Gate is yet, Mr Holmes?
The sender’s number is playfully set as 666.
“A Devil’s Gate,” Sherlock informs him, though he already knows. “A gateway set on Earth, usually placed in a cemetery, that if opened is a door directly to Hell.”
“If one has the key to open it, that is,” Mycroft says and they don’t speak of it again.
It’s not that he’s interested per se. No, what Mycroft is interested in is running the country, and unfortunately, that also means assisting the hunters of the supernatural out there making sure that there is a country to run.
The thing with the Devil’s Gate – Stone Henge, of all places – had given him the misfortune of drawing attention to himself from, shall we say, the ones beneath.
The texts are few and far in-between, until Sherlock starts really involving himself.
It is even more frustrating, because Mycroft had explicitly told him not to: therein lay his mistake, as forbidding Sherlock from doing something was almost always a fail-safe way to ensure that he did it.
Argentina, Mr Holmes? You can do better than that.
Love the tie, Mr Holmes.
Met Holmes 2.0 today. He threatened me. Very rude, Mr Holmes.
Got hold of a very interesting item today, Mr Holmes.
Want to know what it is, Mr Holmes?
If I so Marco…?
Honestly, it’s like you’re ignoring me on purpose, Mr Holmes.
My feeling are hurt, Mr Holmes.
Oooh, guess what your brother did today. Tehee.
Do you feel like selling your soul as well, Mr Holmes?
Enough is, as they say, enough.
“I am so pleased to finally meet you,” Moriarty does look pleased. He looks like he wants to jump up and down and clap his hands, but thank-fully he doesn’t. If he had, Mycroft might have had to amend not carrying a gun around with him at all times. He’s starting to see the appeal of shooting things.
“Well, I would want to say I felt likewise, but I would rather not choke.”
Moriarty raises an eyebrow as he sits down across from the politician. “How cruel of you to say such things, Mr Holmes. And here I thought we were on better terms.”
“Never,” Mycroft says and pours tea for him.
“I’m hurt.”
“You’re a demon.”
“You’re just getting that now?” he leans back in the chair, looking as comfortable as ever. His suit isn’t dark this time, it’s a light grey, setting off his eyes in a way that is deeply unsettling, despite the lack of red Sherlock had described. His cuff-links are shaped like skulls and he looks bemused and bored all at once.
“I believe you already know why you’re here.”
Moriarty smiles widely. “Mayhem, darling. Mayhem.”
Mycroft stifles the urge to sigh in irritation. “No, why you’re here.”
“Oh, that’s easy,” Moriarty says, waving his hand in a nonchalant gesture. “You’re here to try and weasel your brother out of that deal.”
“Exactly,” he says. “My brother can be very rash in situations such as these.”
“You don’t say.”
“And I believe…”
“No,” Moriarty says, now sprawled in the chair as if he has always belonged there.
Mycroft blinks. “No?”
“Whatever you offer. Money, power, your own soul. I don’t want it. Really,” he leans forward slightly. “None of it. Because guess what, Iceman?”
“What?”
“This is too sweet a deal to pass up.”
If Mycroft had been a lesser man he would have been shaking now under the gaze of this creature, this demonic villain who did nothing but kiss and kill every single day of its existence. If he had been a lesser man he would have said ‘alright’ and backed out now.
Mycroft Holmes was not a lesser man. On the contrary.
“You don’t mean that,” he simply says, tone honed to be sugar-sweet and he is rewarded for his patience by the quick flash in Moriarty’s eyes, not of red or surprise or anger, but out of sheer glee at the chaos around him and the pristine man sitting in the middle, sipping his tea.
“I don’t?” he grins, folding his hands.
“Professor James Moriarty,” Mycroft says as if reading aloud from a paper of information, penned down in a hurried hand: he has it memorized. “Born May 1859, died July 1930. Mauled by a bear or other large animal. Died with a smile on his face.”
“And he never stopped smiling again,” Moriarty simply says, tilting his head to the side. “You think I’ve never been threatened like this before? That you’re the first one to dig up a little back-story, sniff around and think that knowledge will give them the upper-hand?”
“But knowledge has given me the upper-hand,” Mycroft interrupts. “You see, I know. How bored you are. I see it in my brother as well – that’s why you so want to keep that soul. But there is something you want more.”
“Oh, I love this, it’s like a soap opera,” Moriarty giggles, and this time Mycroft doesn’t refrain from rolling his eyes.
“You want to stop being bored.”
The tea-cup is placed back on the tray with a small clink, the skull-shaped cuff-link shining in the light from outside. It almost looks like it is laughing as well, a grin of the devil beckoning the world closer.
“Correct,” Moriarty whispers, eyes shining.
“So, if my brother can accomplish that, what do you say? He and Molly Hooper goes free,” Mycroft casually reaches down to twirl the umbrella resting against his chair, noticing Moriarty’s restless eyes darting to follow the movement. He had been in politics long enough to know when there was a fish on the hook, and this one seemed to have been hooked for a while.
“Deal off?” Moriarty whispers, and he looks like his body is practically thrumming with excitement.
“Yes,”
The demon laughs. “Deal.”
~
It’s when Sherlock pulls out the knife that Moriarty knows he made the right choice.
“Now, where did you get that?” he whispers, licking his lips and staring at the curved blade.
“America.”
“That does seem to be the place that is a’rocking these days, doesn’t it?”
“It can kill you,” Sherlock simply states. “I won’t go to Hell. If I kill you, the deal is off.”
And Moriarty laughs.
“Thank-you,” he says and pulls the trigger.
~
Two days later, Mycroft Holmes is standing under his umbrella, smoking for hours as he waits in the pouring rain. It is about an hour before a shadow appears next to him, a small man in stature, standing just in the shelter of the umbrella. The part of him that isn’t, is curiously dry though, as if the rain doesn’t want to fall on him.
“Hello, Mr Holmes.”
“Hello.”
“I was wondering,” Moriarty says, leaning against the wall behind them, stretching his arms over his head. “If you had something to do with Sherlock getting hold of that knife?”
“I am proud to say that I did not.”
“There is only one of them in existence and he just happened to have it when he needed it?”
“I believe he got it because he needed it. I can say many things about my brother – and I have – but he is no fool, even if he does sell his soul on occasion,” he turns around slightly then, watching the demon out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve got a question for you.”
“Figures,” Moriarty says, yawning as he does. “Skip ahead, could you? I’ve a busy day in front of me, people to kiss, souls to collect, all that jazz.”
“How did you survive? We checked and it was the real gun, with the bullets meant for demons.”
“See, this is why I like your brother better. You lack imagination.”
“Enlighten me, then.”
“You see,” Moriarty says, kicking at a stone by his feet, watching it soar through the air. “It is not as easy as that to kill the King of Hell.”
Mycroft tries to suppress his surprise. “King of Hell?”
“Oh yes,” he says, teeth gleaming through the grey London-weather. “Self-appointed, of course. But still. You should see me in a crown.”
Mycroft throws his finished cigarette to the ground and when he turns around again, he is alone.
It keeps raining. For a long while after that.
FIN
