The Great Game [Reader Insert]

Finale

     (The original title of this chapter was: Me: *Can't Swim*)

     You were a bit nervous being back here.

      At the pool Carl Powers met his demise in.

     It probably didn't help that the last time you were here, you were investigating his murder. Sherlock had been doing the same thing, which made you wonder now if as a child you had seen him, not knowing who he was. 

     You padded along the side of the pool cautiously. "Brought you a little getting-to-know-you present," you called out, flipping the flash drive into the air and catching it. "That's what it's all been for, isn't it? All your little puzzles. Making Sherlock and me dance. To get to know me! To break the ice." 

(To clarify, not dance together. Well, actually, yeah, you were dancing together in this metaphor. Idek.) 

     You were trying to draw the bomber out. For all you knew, though, you could be talking only to the clock on the wall. You shot a glare at the ticking circle. 

     Its repetitive tick-tock of the clock was interrupted by the sound of heavy doors opening and closing. You whirled around and saw the last person you'd expected to...

     John. John Watson, standing there with a snow jacket, its hood rimmed with fur. 

     He looked at you with dark and tired eyes. "Evening." His tone was dead.

     You stared right back.

     "This is a turn-up, isn't it, (Y/N)?" (Omigosh I'm listening to What I've Done by Linkin Park and the instruments all just jumped into the song just as Sherlock in this scene saw John and was like WTH and it was perfect timing and wow)

     "John. What-" your voice faltered. You imagined your expression was one of a mixture of emotions, the least of them not confusion. 

      "Bet you never saw this coming."

     You took a few rushed steps toward him, but then stopped, perhaps held back by your own fear. You didn't understand. It wasn't possible that John... That John was the serial killer, was it? That he was the bomber? That he was... Moriarty?

     He sighed and pulled back the sides of his jacket like he was some kinda drug dealer (Hey kid? Wanna buy some pixie sticks?) and understanding flooded down over you like a waterfall. Wires were strapped against the jacket, all joining in a makeshift bomb hidden within two traffic cones. Freaking traffic cones. Traffic cone bombs.

     "What... Would you like me..." as John spoke, a red laserpoint floated over the bombs and hovered there. "To make him say next?"

      You felt sick to your stomach. John was his hostage this time.

     "Gottle 'o geer, gottle o' geer, gottle o'geer." John recited flatly. The way his tone was bounded by the same dead notes showed that he was more fearful than he was letting on. It was his way of coping, and it was making you want to shoot the guy who was making him do this.

     "Stop it," you said softly, almost begging as the red laser dot danced across John's bomb-wrapped torso. "Stop."

     "Nice touch, this," John's answer was. Or rather, Moriarty's answer. "Where little Carl died. I stopped him." John winced. "I... can stop John Watson, too. Stop his heart."

     "Who are you?" you demanded, turning around as if you expected him to be right behind you, lingering like a haunting ghost. "I heard a name. Moriarty."