Chapter Text
Thought returned slowly but it did return, the puzzle pieces swirling through Sherlock's brain until they could begin dropping into place. There were two different puzzles here, two different problems to be solved. It was a mathematical way of looking at things and these days math only meant one thing to Sherlock. Liam. He was the heart of both problems, the puzzle that Sherlock was really trying to solve, and maybe that made them one in the same but for now at least it was easier to think about them as two separate problems, if only so that he could put the more dangerous one aside for another moment. The man in the hall, the one with the voice he couldn't quite place, Sherlock would get there eventually, but for right now he'd focus on that scarred arm and the three pinprick marks where a fork should not have been.
They were small, those marks, small enough that Sherlock had only seen them when he'd examined Liam’s hand up close. That in and of itself told him much. The wound had been a straight in and out with no struggling involved to widen the incisions. Sherlock bit his lip in discomfort. That tallied with the wound being self-inflicted, just as Liam had said, but the thought that Liam really had been telling the truth, that someone had put the child he'd been in a position where his only way to protect his brother had been by stabbing his own hand, angered Sherlock on a level he didn't even have words for.
He tried to push the feeling away, to take comfort in analytical thought. The size of the scars told him one other thing, the fork which inflicted them must've been perfectly clean, if it had not been infection would have widened the area of scar tissue. That implied that the fork was the property of a nobleman. Why would a nobleman force the son of another nobleman to stab himself all in order to protect his younger brother?
His brother….
Sherlock frowned as the image of glasses rose before his eyes. His hair was of a slightly different shade then Liam’s and he held himself completely differently, but those were superficial things. Thinking about it, there was no way Sherlock could look at the two of them and not see them as brothers. He’d assumed, when he bothered to think about him at all , that glasses “adoption” into the Moriarty family was really just an excuse for the late Lord Moriarty to take in a bastard of his own getting. That might put glasses in a precarious position, but why Liam?
Liam.
Sherlock rolled onto his side so that he could survey the blonde. Liam was lying on his back with his head tilted to one side and his arm slightly spread, his whole body relaxed in a way Sherlock had never seen it before. He’d pulled the blanket halfway up his chest and the detective paused for a moment, just watching it rise and fall with each soft breath, watching the beautiful mystery that was Liam. His eyes were closed and his breaths were deep and even but Sherlock could tell that the other man wasn't asleep, just relaxed in post sexual ease, and for a moment Sherlock wanted nothing more than to leave him that way, to kiss him and hold him and allow him to rest, but the thoughts spinning and twisting themselves through Sherlock's mind could no longer be kept back even by the enchantment of Liam's proximity. At least this was a gentle way for him to start.
“Liam, about your brother,” when Sherlock spoke he was unsurprised to hear his voice come out low and still a bit rough with the memory of all that had passed between them. Liam said nothing, he didn't even open his eyes, but, from a minuet change in his breathing, Sherlock could tell he was listening. “Glass_er Louis, he isn't adopted is he?”
It'd been a soft question, an easy starting place, its answer all but guaranteed, but to his utter surprise Liam shook his head.
“He was?” Sherlock levered himself up on one elbow so that he could study Liam's face more closely.
“He was,” Liam confirmed and Sherlock frowned. He didn't think Liam was lying to him, but he also couldn't imagine a situation in which Liam and glasses weren't related by blood.
“You've got it the wrong way round.” Liam's voice was soft and he still hadn't opened his eyes.
Oh.Sherlock stared as the meaning of the professor’s words hit home, his eyes widening as he began to understand the scope of what he was being told. Then softly he asked, “what's your real name?”
Nothing in Liam’s body language showed any surprise at the question, he simply lay there with his eyes still closed, but after a moment a small smile curved the corners of his lips. “Does it matter?”
“Yes, it does. I want to know it.” Sherlock was a little surprised to hear the urgency in his own voice. Who are you, Liam? Who are you really?
Liam seemed to think about it for a moment and then again he shook his head. “No, it doesn't.” His voice was soft and, as it trailed away into silence, Sherlock frowned, considering.
Liam, and whatever his real name might be he would always be “Liam,” was glasses biological brother and had been adopted with him, so how did a child from the streets come to assume the identity of a dead noble? The answer had to be somehow connected to the fire. Sherlock had researched Liam and the Moriarty's in general after their first meeting on the Noahtic, it was how he'd been able to put a name to glasses’ face when they met for the second time on the train to London. During his research he had, naturally, read the police report concerning the fire at the Moriarty estate which had resulted in the deaths of both Moriarty parents, as well, seemingly, as the original William James Moriarty. Sherlock could easily see why taking on the identity of the dead nobleman could be appealing to, well, anyone, but not why Albert, the quite living first son of the Moriarty family would allow such a thing. Then there was the matter of Liam’s injuries, injuries inflicted in a noble household...
Sherlock felt the speed of his heart beat double even as it also felt as though icewater was being poured down his spine. Suddenly the pieces were all falling into place, the two puzzles becoming both one and whole at the same time.
Sherlock's breath caught in his throat. He wasn't sure how to feel. Excitement was uppermost in him for a moment but then that was quickly drowned by something more painful, something that felt a lot more like fear. Slowly, carefully, he let the breath out again, and then softly he asked the question, the only real question. “why do you want to die, Liam?”
At first Liam made no response, he didn't even open his eyes. Only a slight hitch in his breath told Sherlock that his words had even been heard.
it was the only answer, the only way the puzzle fit, the only answer to the final problem.
If he was an adopted commoner then that explained how someone could get away with such abuse and also made it much more likely that the abuse came from someone within the Moriarty household. Knowing what he knew of the fickleness and false kindness of the nobility, Sherlock could picture it easily, and yet… And yet suddenly it all changed, suddenly the abuse stopped, it must have otherwise the scars wouldn't all be from about the same time, the abuse stopped and the mansion burned and the second son of the family's body was passed off as Liam’s own while he went on to become the heir to a noble house. There's no way that's a coincidence.
When trying to catch a serial killer, you look at their earliest crimes, back before they perfected their craft, back where they’re most likely to give themself a way, by targeting their abusers for example…
The fire which claimed the lives of the elder Moriarty's hadn't been an accident, it couldn't have been, not with the way Liam had both benefited from it and taken advantage of it. Liam was a killer. As a child he’d constructed and perfectly executed a plan to kill abusive nobles all while making it look as though it had been an accident. That was an MO he'd seen before, an MO he'd been chasing, and he'd met Liam on the Noahtic and only after that had his name been left in blood at the scene of yet another such crime.
Then there was the other puzzle, the puzzle of that familiar voice. Liam hadn't wanted him to meet those two men, had wanted to avoid it so badly that he’d distracted Sherlock with a kiss. Yet his willingness to do so proved that he wasn't at all concerned about the reactions of the two men to the sight of him kissing Sherlock. If they had been nobleman who happened to be visiting the manner then Liam would instantly have become the center of a storm of gossip and speculation, but his total lack of concern and the way in which he waved them off, suggested that they held him in too high a regard to go telling tales, or that they served him, or both. Yet Liam didn't have any servants, and the teenager who met Sherlock at the door certainly wasn't one, so who was he? And who were the men in the hall who had been talking about target practice and marksmanship? Again Sherlock thought back to that moment in the hallway, again he heard the man Bond’s voice, again he was sure he knew it. But where? “Good night Mr. Holmes.” And there it was, the final piece of the puzzle, the string that Liam knew Sherlock only had to pull to make the whole thing unravel.
“Does it matter?” Those same words again, again spoken in a voice echoing with exhaustion, but this time there was something new in Liam’s tone, resignation.
“Does it matter?” Sherlock echoed incredulously, biting back a laugh completely devoid of amusement. “You told me that he, that you, wanted to die, and you're seriously asking me if it matters why?”
“Yes.” Liam sighed, the sound carrying so much exhaustion in it that it made Sherlock's heart hurt just hearing it. “If you know that much then you also know the rest of it.”
“I do, of course I do, did you really think I wouldn't figure it out?”
Liam sighed again. “No, I didn't.”
“Yet you attempted to distract me anyway.”
“I did.” Liam's tone was neutral, without either guilt or apology. That was fine because Sherlock wasn’t looking for one but he couldn't help voicing his other question, the one nibbling around the edges of his mind.
“If that first kiss was a distraction than what about the rest of it? What was that?”
Liam laughed quietly, “an indulgence.”
Sherlock frowned. “Did you think your distraction worked?”
Liam shook his head silently.
“Then why..?”
“In the moment I thought it was worth a try. Even then I thought there was a slim chance it would work, but slim was better than none and there was a more pressing issue. If I couldn't stop you putting it together, then I had to stop you from doing it that close to Moran.” Liam’s voice was still soft but his tone was matter-of-fact, as though he was laying out a logic proof in one of his math classes.
“Moran?”
“The Colonel’s a good man and a good friend but can be quite …protective. Depending on your reaction you might have ended up in danger yourself.” Sherlock stared. You were protecting me? Of all the possible reasons he had considered for the professor's actions, he’d never considered that. “Afterward I knew that it was already too late, that it was only a matter of time until you put it together, so I figured, how much harm could one single indulgence really do?” Again that quiet laughter.
Sherlock's stomach churned. He hated hearing Liam like this. He sounded… He sounded broken, and that was wrong, more wrong then he could possibly put words to. Liam was supposed to be smug and arrogant and smiling and even when he couldn't be that he shouldn't be this, he shouldn't be broken.
“Why, Liam?” Sherlock's voice rose in agitation. Why did you end up like this? Why are you doing this to yourself? Why do you want to die? Why? He needed to know, needed to understand, needed to…
“There's a gun in the nightstand.”
“What?” Sherlock stared.
“There’s also my cane. It has a rapier inside of it.”
Sherlock swallowed convulsively and his voice rasped as he asked, “why are you telling me this?” He already knew the answer but he wanted to hear Liam say it, he wanted to hear Liam say that he was wrong.
“Because I am the Lord of Crime. I am the criminal you've been chasing. I'm a murderer who's been taking advantage of your feelings to kill right under your nose, and I still pulled you into bed with me to lead you off the scent. Aren't you angry?”
Sherlock stared at the other man for a long moment. He was still lying still, his blonde hair trailing across the pillow to create a picture so beautiful that it almost hurt to look at, and he still hadn't opened his eyes. Slowly Sherlock reached out to touch his shoulder and was relieved when the blond made no move to shrug his hand away. Sherlock extended his arm further, wrapping it around Liam’s shoulders and pulling the other man close against his bare chest. Liam gave a startled gasp but otherwise said nothing and he made no move to extricate himself from Sherlock’s embrace.
“Do you truly want me to kill you that badly, Liam?”
Liam sighed, “I suppose I shouldn't yet, the plan isn't ready to reach an end yet.”
“What plan?”
“It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I'm a killer, and I'll keep on killing until someone stops me. You know you're the only one who can catch me, so can you do it Sherlock? Can you kill the Lord of Crime?”
Sherlock’s eyes widened and he pulled back until he could stare down at the man in his arms. “Now? You finally use my name now? When you're asking me something like that?”
Liam said nothing but one corner of his mouth twitched, turning up in a crooked smile.
“You're a fool, Liam.”
“What?” That, finally, was enough to force the professor’s eyes to open. They blinked up dazedly at Sherlock, there stunning crimson clouded by confusion.
“you’re the most brilliant person I've ever met but you're also a fool.” Sherlock leaned forward again, burying his face in Liam's neck and shoulder and whispering his next words with his lips pressed to the softness of Liam's skin. “Don't you understand? The puzzle I've been chasing all this time, it's you, Lord of Crime. I told you, don't you remember, that I wanted it to be you.” Then, so quietly that, if the detective had been any further away, Liam could not have heard him, Sherlock whispered, “I love you.”
Liam’s breath hissed as if caught in his throat, his body going statue still in Sherlock's arms and the detective pressed one soft kiss to the side of the other man's neck before he leaned back. Liam’s eyes were fully open now, wide and staring and incredulous. He took a shuddering breath and then another one, licking his lips as though trying to remind them how to speak. All the while Sherlock's heart drummed in his chest, beating out a melody of mingled uncertainty and fear. The uncertainty was for himself, for the way that his declaration might be taken, but the fear, that was all for Liam.
“You what?” Liam's voice was hoarse in a way that Sherlock had never heard it before.
“I said I love you.”
“But you know now, you know everything.” Liam shook his head a little as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.
Sherlock nodded. “I do, and don't get me wrong, I don't approve of what you've done, but none of that changes who you are, and I love you.”
“So you won't do it then?” Liam asked the question quietly, his eyes downcast as though he didn't want to see the answer clearly written on Sherlock's face.
“Kill you? No way in hell. Let you die? Not happening. Don't get me wrong, Liam, I do intend to stop you, but my way not yours.”
“And what way would that be? When you find the evidence are you planning to hand me over to Scotland Yard?”
“Like hell I am. I told you I'm not going to let you die!” Sherlock couldn't quite keep the note of anger from his voice, or the note of fear either, as his all to active imagination showed him flashes of Liam in a prison cell and with his head in the hangman's noose.
Liam laughed a little. “No? Not even when I want to?”
“No.” The word was gritted from between Sherlock's lips and it was all he could do not to squeeze the other man to him as he imagined what that world would look like, a world without Liam.
The blonde sighed and then his shoulders relaxed, the tension going out of his entire body as he leaned forward, burying his head against Sherlock's collarbone and murmured, “I love you too.”
Now Sherlock did tighten his arms around Liam, pulling the other man as closest skin would allow, Liam's arms rose to wrap around Sherlock’s back, one hand threading its way through the detectives unbound hair. He could feel the blond shaking slightly, and so he leaned down and buried his head against Liam’s ear and whispered, “don't leave me, please don't leave me.” He knew that he was begging but he didn't care.
After a few moments the shaking stopped and Liam raised his head and Sherlock saw that his eyes were damp. Sherlock untangled one of his hands from where it had somehow ended up in the hair at the base of Liam's neck and brought it to the other man's face, using a gentle thumb to wipe the tears away. Liam took a shuddering breath, blinking slowly, and then, just as slowly, he nodded, and whispered, so quietly that Sherlock almost didn't hear him, “I'll try.”
“Promise?”
Liam hesitated for a moment and then, again, he nodded. “I promise to try.”
It wasn't good enough, it wasn't anywhere near good enough, and Sherlock wanted to demand more, wanted to demand that Liam swear that he would never even think about leaving him, not in that way at least. But he knew how much of a step even giving this much was, and so rather than demanding anything else, he leaned forward and brought his lips to Liam's, kissing him with all the force of the things he wanted to say and the demands he didn't dare to make.
Liam hesitated for only a moment before he kissed Sherlock back, his lips as fervent and as desperate as the detective’s own. They kissed until there wasn't any air left in the world and even when the need for oxygen forced them to break the kiss Sherlock refused to pull away, sliding his lips from Liam’s to draw breath against the other man's ear and then kiss his way down the softness of his neck. Liam’s breath hitched as Sherlock's tongue ran across skin he had left bite marks in only an hour before and the muscles of the blonde’s hands tightened and flexed, pulling at Sherlock's hair.
The detective paused his re-exploration of Liam’s neck to raise his head and eye the other man thoughtfully.
“You said one indulgence.”
“humm?” Liam blinked up at him and Sherlock’s heart soared as he saw that belovedly familiar smug smile again just beginning to curve the corners of Liam's mouth.
“You said that's what this was, one single indulgence.”
“I suppose I did.” That smile grew a little more, and was that a note of teasing making its way back into Liam's voice?
“Is there any reason why it has to be? Just one I mean.”
Liam frowned in mock consideration and Sherlock could have laughed at the sight of him seeming so much more like himself again. At last he shook his head, lips still drawn down in the appearance of a frown but the spark of mischief was returning to his eyes.
“No, I don't suppose there is, can you think of one, Mr. Holmes?”
“Sherlock.”
“Hum?”
“Enough of this Mr. Holmes crap, call me by my name, Liam.”
Liam tilted his head back so that he was better able to meet Sherlock’s eyes, and Sherlock saw clearly both the light and the challenge that had returned to them as he said, “make me.”
Sherlock grinned. “You'll regret that.”
“Well I?”
“You will.” And Sherlock leaned forward and kissed him.