Partners In Crime: Beginners Luck - A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction [COMPLETED]

Chapter 32: The Queen of Crime

TRIGGER WARNING: REFERENCES AND FLASHBACKS TO SEVERE PAST PARENTAL ABUSE. PLEASE DO NOT READ OR AT LEAST READ WITH CAUTION IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED. I love you guys! Stay safe!
Disclaimer: vid isn't mine.
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"I'm not perfect. But I love you. I really do. And I promise to be your best friend, your partner in crime, and your lover.
Forever."
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James Moriarty's proposal to Lizbeth Constance had not been planned. He hadn't gotten down on one knee in front of a water fountain while the sun was going down. There was no diamond ring sneakily slipped into a champagne glass at a restaurant. He hadn't even thought of proclaiming his love to her while fireworks boomed in the background, and the moon hanging high above them.

No. Not even close. Not at all.

It had been so much more darker than that.

It had all started with a storm.

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It was pouring outside, with the rain pounding against the windows, and the thunder nearly shaking the house at times. A flash of lightning would illuminate the huddled figure in the bed, curled into a ball, shaking. The figure would flinch with every sound. Every clap and boom of the thunder nearly scared him out of his mind.

That figure was James Moriarty.

Oh god. He couldn't stand these storms. They reminded him of when he was just a little boy. Hiding from his parents in the fields outside of his childhood home with his big brother hiding not far away. Yet he could still hear the fighting. The terror of when his father found him, and dragged him back inside.

No. He couldn't think of it. He couldn't. It would be the death of him. He had gotten out of those days a long time ago, and he was safe.

Yet there was another boom, and he screamed, this time laying flat and burying his face into his pillow. When he was 7, that was what he thought he could do in order to hide. He would lock his door, and hide. Under the bed, or simply shove his face in the pillow and pray to every god and deity out there that he would live.

And he did. Up until he was 12, he didn't live. No, that couldn't have been called living. It had been surviving. Simple as that.

That was 15 years ago. Yet the memories still haunted him with every single sudden noise that he heard. Usually he could repress it. Hide it down. Or maybe even occasionally expect it and be ready. But with thunder and storms, the constant noise drove him insane at times.

There was lightning, and he braced himself for the thunder.

Nononononononopleasenopleaseicantpleaseicantnononononononononononononopleasedontgodpleasedont...........

BOOM!

James screamed, horrified as tears came to his eyes, and flowed freely down his cheeks with wet sobs. He wanted to wipe them away, yet he couldn't. He was too terrified. He was petrified where he was. Yet he still managed to curl back up into a safe, protective ball.

More lightning. And a clap of thunder. And he went over the edge.

"Father, I-"  he was cut off by a fist in his gut. He doubled over, his little 11 year old body screaming for help.

"Shut up!" his father was pulling him out of the field by his hair. Into the house. Past his mother, who was carelessly smoking her cigarette. Up to his room. He struggled to get out of the strong grip, yet the hand in his hair only tugged harder. He couldn't scream. No. Father would get angry. Then it would get worse. His brother, who was 15, had been hiding in a tree, and had somehow escaped their father's wrath. He'd come for James in an hour, and tend to any wounds he had. They were both dreadfully scrawny for their age, with sunken in cheeks and dark circles under their eyes. They were too weak to fight back. No, they would get beaten into a pulp. Until they had a weapon, they were defenseless.