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It's the middle of the night when William gets woken up with noise coming from his bedroom’s window. Immediately, he thinks of an attack or an emergency. He has difficulties sleeping, so his brothers know better than to wake him up for anything less than urgent.
He gets out of bed and quickly makes his way to his window just to be met with the sight of Sherlock standing on his balcony. William tries to think about how the other even made it to his balcony, considering that his room isn’t on the ground floor at all, but he quickly gives up knowing that Sherlock always finds a way to get what he wants.
Annoyed, William thinks about ignoring him but, knowing the other man, he knows that he’ll just keep persevering. He reluctantly opens the window. “Sherlock,” he sighs. “It's three in the morning.”
“I know.” The other replies, a small fond smile growing on his face.
“Why are you here?” The blonde asks in fake annoyance. He'd like to be truly annoyed but he can’t help the way his body reacts every time he sees the other man - no matter how hard he tries to stop it.
“Come with me on the rooftop.”
“What?”
“Come with me on the rooftop.” The dark-haired man repeats.
“I heard you the first time.”
“Then come.” He exclaims enthusiastically with that damn charming smile on his face - still keeping his voice somewhat quiet to not wake up the other people in the house.
“Why?” William asks, feeling hesitant.
“I want us to watch the stars. The sky is really beautiful tonight.”
William's eyes widened in surprise at the other’s statement, he didn’t expect that. A part of him wants to be mad at the other for having woken him up for such a useless reason, but another part of him feels grateful he did. He feels an unexpected warmth that he purposely ignores spreading into him while he grabs his satin robe that is sitting at the edge of his bed - even though it’s summer, the weather during the night is still quite chilly.
That's what William doesn’t like (lies): the way Sherlock acts as if their lives were completely mundane and that they weren’t the lord of crimes and the best detective in town respectively. As if Sherlock wasn’t the one supposed to arrest him.
As they’re making their way to the rooftop, William can’t help but think about how they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t do this, go there. Quite honestly, they shouldn’t even talk to each other. They should be enemies, they are enemies.
So why? Why does he feel like that? Why must the only moments William truly feels alive be the ones he spends with sherlock? Why is there this attraction between them? This feeling that draws them to one another, that feeling he knows is reciprocated.
Ever since he was a kid, William has always been smarter than the people around him. He often found himself explaining certain things to people who were twice or thrice his age, or sometimes even more. He has several degrees in many different fields, his intelligence is renowned. He has the answers to anything he is being asked.
But even with all of that, he somehow still can’t explain this attraction. Why would he feel drawn to Sherlock of all people, the only person who’s able to arrest him? This is dangerous and he knows it. Throughout his whole life, he has never met someone with Sherlock's intelligence, someone whose intelligence could rival his own. Naturally and logically, he should run away from the other man. He should not spend more and more time with him.
Why? He still is asking himself that question when they reach the rooftop and sit down next to one another. Why Sherlock?
William is a criminal, the Lord of Crimes. Sherlock is a detective, the best detective there is. Everything opposes them. Sherlock is the kindest man William has ever had the pleasure to meet, whereas he is a killer - no matter how just his motives are, and no matter how evil those rich people are, nothing erases the fact that he does murder them.
They shouldn’t be together. Sherlock deserves better, way better than him. And Sherlock Holmes is far from being dumb, he must know it. he must know himself that he deserves better. Sherlock may even know that William James Moriarty and the Lord of Crimes that he’s looking for are one and the same person - that wouldn’t surprise William in the slightest. He must know. So why? Why does he keep talking to William? Why does he keep coming to the mansion during the night and asking him to go stargazing on the rooftop? Why.
All of those moments spent together make William crave, crave for more. He knows he doesn’t deserve Sherlock and that he should not give in to everything the other man suggests. He should put a distance between the two of them, he’s sure that Sherlock would respect it if William truly tells him to leave him alone. But even knowing all of that, William still finds himself wanting more. He'd like the current situation to never stop. He’d like to have Sherlock to his side forever, instead of having him on the opposite side of their said justice.
“What are you thinking about, Liam?” Sherlock's deep voice takes him out of his thoughts and brings him back to reality in an instant. Oh yes, the stars.
“Nothing.” He replies quietly but firmly, hoping that it’ll be enough for the other man to drop it. He isn't lucky enough for that, though.
“Don’t lie to me.” Sherlock mumbles before pausing. William can see how he is struggling to continue, seemingly looking for the right words. “We've been here for ten minutes already and you haven’t said anything.” Ten minutes?! He hadn't realized that he had spaced out for that long.
The truth is that William has had the entirety of his plan planned out since the very beginning. No one in his group is aware of it but himself, some may have guessed but haven’t talked to him about it. Once his plan is executed and complete, he will die. He isn’t murdering people for leisure, he is serving a cause. Once that cause will be served, there is no need for him to be here anymore. And he knows that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness after everything he has done, and he doesn’t want to ask for the people’s forgiveness anyway. Dying at the end of his plan feels like a good ending to him. He's prepared for it. Sherlock is interrupting everything. William wasn’t supposed to question his will to die. He wasn’t supposed to have any doubts.
When Sherlock sees that William still hasn’t replied to him, he continues quietly. He uses such an unsure voice that it feels completely out of character - William doesn’t like that. “If you didn’t want to come here with me, you should have just said so. I wouldn't have insisted, you know.”
“That's the problem,” William sighs. “I want to be here with you.” He blurts out before he can even think of stopping himself. He blames it all on the time, night conversations are a trick.
Sherlock smiles softly at him before replying. “I don't see how that’s a problem.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don't.”
“Don’t play dumb with me, Mr. Holmes.” William locks eyes with the other man before continuing. “We both know you’re far from dumb.”
“Why thank you.” Sherlock replies smugly, the glimpse of a smirk on his face.
William just rolls his eyes in annoyance before turning his head to go back to staring at the sky. Sherlock didn’t lie, the sky truly is beautiful tonight. There are so many stars and thanks to the summer weather, there are no clouds so they can see all of them.
Seeing that William isn’t planning on replying anything, Sherlock starts to speak very quietly, almost whispering - if there were a tiny bit less close, William wouldn’t be able to hear him. “Liam, look at me please.”
William closes his eyes for a bit before turning his head slowly to the dark-haired man. He doesn’t reply verbally, but he nods so that Sherlock knows he’s listening.
“I’ll stop playing dumb , if that’s what you want,” he starts, mimicking quotation marks as he’s reusing the other’s words. “But please tell me what’s on your mind. What’s wrong?”
At that moment, William hesitates. Should he be brutally honest with Sherlock, or should he lie? Usually, he doesn't have any issue with lying to people about his true motives and even his true identity, but Sherlock isn’t people. William has never been able to lie to the other man. The only reason he hasn’t admitted being the Lord of Crimes is because Sherlock hasn’t directly asked him if he is.
He decides that honesty is the way to go. If he ends up losing the other man tonight, it’ll just be earlier than what he had expected, but he knew he’d lose him one way or another. He guesses it’s better that way, with no yelling or violence involved.
“Okay. Let’s stop playing dumb.” He starts before turning his whole body to the other man and locking eyes with him. “Let's stop pretending you don’t know who I am.”
Sherlock's eyes widened in surprise at that. But he quickly regains his composure and states simply, “I know who you are.”
There's a moment of silence between the two men after that. A few minutes pass before William finally speaks. “Then why are you here, with me? You shouldn’t.”
“You said earlier that you wanted to be here with me. Well I want to be here with you too. That’s why.” Sherlock replies, as if that statement was the most obvious thing ever.
“But I shouldn’t want anything. I can't. You-” He stops himself and sighs longly, as if giving up.
“What about me?” Sherlock asks, looking softly at William with an expression one can only translate as hope.
“You make me want things I can't have.” William whispers softly, both voice and expression showing his defeated state.
He nips at his bottom lip, not daring to look at the other man. The silence between them is heavy, loud .
None of them dares to talk and William starts to regret the way he just acted. He shouldn’t have voiced his thoughts. He should have just used a poker face as he usually does. Oh how he hates how Sherlock always has this power over him, a power that makes him want to be honest and true to himself.
After what feels like forever, Sherlock moves a bit so that he’s sitting even closer to William than before. Their sides are now touching and they’re both staring at the sky.
“I told you I know you, right?” Sherlock finally speaks.
William just hums, not trusting his voice right now.
“I don’t think you understood what I meant.” He looks at him and William knows his confusion must show on his face with the way he’s frowning. So Sherlock continues, “I know you as a person. I know your true feelings, William. You have a terrible poker face.” Sherlock chuckles at his own statement. “I know that you have a kind heart, that you love your brothers deeply and that you’d do anything for them. I know that even though you act annoyed, you aren’t most of the time. You’re very easy to read, William.”
Oh. William is trying to find what to reply to that but he has no idea, so he ends up opening and closing his mouth uselessly. He must look like a fish.
“I know who you are.”
He doesn't know how to act, what to do; he has never felt this way before. He closes his mouth after hearing the other man repeating that statement. He tries to collect his thoughts as much as he can before replying. “That's not what I meant and you know it.”
“Yes. I know. But that doesn’t matter.” Sherlock assures. “I don't care about your name, nickname or whatever. I care about you . Your feelings don’t change whether you’re William James Moriarty, or whoever else.”
William notices how Sherlock doesn’t pronounce his status of the Lord of Crimes, even though the allusions are evident. He notices how Sherlock talks so that William doesn’t have to confirm nor deny it.
Once again, he doesn’t reply. He doesn’t know what to say. It's the first time ever that someone has been able to read him as well as that. He's sure that even his brothers have noticed less things than Sherlock has.
“So don't say that. Because you can. You can have those things, Liam. If you’ll let me, I’ll make sure of it.”
William hasn’t realized he is crying until he feels Sherlock's hands cupping his face and his thumbs on his cheeks, trying to remove the tears flowing there.
“You deserve to be happy, Liam. You deserve to live.” Sherlock says, staring at him so intensely that William feels the need to lower his gaze. He is sure that Sherlock can see right through his soul, and he finds that he doesn’t mind it. He’d willingly give Sherlock the access to his soul without a single doubt.
He smiles and, as they both turn their heads back to the sky, a shooting star passes. William holds his breath unconsciously, and he hears Sherlock doing the same.
“Live with me, Liam. I promise I'll make it worth it.” Sherlock concludes his speech, still staring at the blonde even though William isn’t looking at him.
He doesn’t know what to reply. He shouldn’t. What about his plan? What about his death? What about Sherlock's reputation once the words spread that he’s with the Lord of Crimes?
Sherlock's voice once again takes him out of his thoughts and brings him back to reality. “Stop thinking and listen to your heart for once.”
He breathes out and closes his eyes. “Okay,” he whispers. “Show me.”
Sherlock doesn’t reply. He just takes his right hand, intertwines their fingers, and rests his head on William's shoulder. William notices only then that he had been shaking. He rests his head on Sherlock's in turn and tightens his grip on his hand.
“I will.” Sherlock replies simply after some time. They are both smiling, still looking at the sky.
Saying that William isn’t scared would be lying. He doesn’t know what to expect but, for some reason, he thinks he’ll be okay.