Hi, lovely readers! Your kind comments have encouraged me to try something a bit out of my comfort zone-a dark, angsty Sherlock fic. The title is a quote from Sylvia Plath, and the beginning dialogue as well as the characters are not mine. I really like the idea of John fighting because he so fervently believes in Sherlock Holmes, but slowly realizing that Sherlock might be lost forever.

Review and leave suggestions-I haven't finished the story pre-upload, so suggestions and ideas are welcome!

"I've given you a glimpse, Sherlock, just a teensy glimspe of what I've got going on out there in the big bad world. I'm a specialist, you see...like you..." Moriarty's Cheshire grin glinted a soft blue in the light of the pool, making him seem as ephemeral and eerie as a ghost. The easy smile, the echoing chuckle, the long-dead eyes-they all contributed to the sense that Moriarty wasn't really there.

If Sherlock was scared, he didn't show it. His aim remained steady as he sneered, "Dear Jim...please will you fix it for me...to get rid of my lover's nasty sister? Dear Jim, please will you fix it for me to disappear to South America?"

Moriarty only smirked boyishly. "Just so."

John noticed it then, out of the corner of his eye. Out of all the fear and adrenaline pumping in his veins and chlorine smell bouncing off his senses, he saw what Sherlock did, because John Watson always notices what Sherlock Holmes does.

Sherlock simply smiled lightly to himself, breathing in hushed admiration. "Consulting criminal. Brilliant."

"Isn't it?" Moriarty grinned back. "No one ever gets to me... and no one ever will."

"I did." Sherlock couldn't suppress the smugness, the pride-somehow, he'd been the only person on earth to get this close, and oh, did that tickle him. It was his birthday and Christmas all wrapped into one homicidal package. The frailty of genius-Sherlock had an audience now.

John groaned inwardly. Don't be a git-now's not the time to brag, Holmes.

"You've come the closest," Moriarty conceded. "Now you're in my way."

"Thank you."

"Didn't mean that as a compliment."

"Yes, you did."

"Yeah okay, I did. But the flirting's over now, Sherlock, Daddy's had enough now!" Moriarty relished the eccentricity, making his voice sound like a whale just to put them off. "I've shown you what I can do, I cut lose all those people. All those little problems, even thirty million quid just to get you to come out and play. So take this as a friendly warning, my dear-back off." At this, Moriarty smiled to himself again, all boyish charm after a decidedly fatal warning. "Although I have loved this, this little game of ours, playing Jim from IT, playing gay. Did you like the little touch with the underwear?"

Sherlock blinked, and John saw it again, the dreaded spark of something he never wanted to see in his friend's eye: interest. Sherlock was interested. He licked his lips once and continued, "You like games."

"Oh, only when they're fun. And I've never had so much fun as I've had with you, Sherly. Playing games with ordinary people, oh..." Moriarty clicked his tongue in annoyance. "They never get my jokes. And I'm always sooo clever, too, so it's quite a shame. But you get the jokes, my dear."

"It's not like you make them especially difficult," Sherlock replied with an eye roll, and John's skin began to crawl. Something was wrong now. Sherlock was no longer in control. Sherlock was enjoying this, on some level.

John cleared his throat to speed up the negotiations. "Right. Well. This has been a wonderful chat, Moriarty-we get the message. If you could just call off the snipers and get rid of this nasty bomb, we'll be out of your hair."

Jim didn't even bother to glance at John. "Do you like games, Mr. Holmes? Your daft older brother doesn't... Pity."

"I am not," Sherlock seethed, "my brother."

"No, I'm getting that now," Moriarty mused. He took a few steps closer to Sherlock, who kept the gun trained at eye level, only a few feet away from Moriarty's brain. "No, I think you're a bit more fun, indeed. You haven't done the obvious thing, which is intriguing."

"You're wondering why I'm not threatening to shoot you right now? Why I haven't already done it?"

"Go on, impress me."

Sherlock gave him a withering look and gestured around the pool carelessly with the gun. "Doesn't matter if I shoot-I'd be dead in seconds, and so would John. In fact, the shock from the bullet into John's vest would cause this entire pool to blow up." He chuckled quietly to himself. "Bit of a waste."

"Good." Moriarty nodded and stood directly in front of Sherlock, only inches away from the taller man's face but not a bit perturbed. Sherlock let the gun hang in his hand by his side. "Now, dear, do you see why I'm at a bit of an impasse?"

"You want to kill me," Sherlock reasoned, "but that's...obvious."

"Right."

"And dull."

"Oh, especially so."

"If I don't die tonight, you and I will fight each other to the very end. Entertaining, at least for a while, but eventually distracting and on the whole, rather unenjoyable. So, one solution, then." Before he spoke, Sherlock swallowed and his blue eyes flickered to John's, who had been trying to keep his breathing in check during this exchange. Aim the bloody gun, John thought angrily in Sherlock's direction. Aim it and blow his brains out before he hurts anyone else, you idiot!

If Sherlock could gauge any of that from John's glare, he didn't let on. Instead, he gave a disinterested sigh and said the last thing John Watson ever expected, ever wanted, him to say.

"What's the point of fighting, then?"

John breathed, "No," nearly about to run to Sherlock and pull him away, and even Moriarty blinked in surprise.

"Sorry?"

"The amount of entertainment we can enjoy from an intellectual battle pales in comparison," Sherlock said, licking his lips again, "to the...fun we can have...if we join forces."

Moriarty's eyebrows nearly reached his hairline. "Are you proposing, dear? Oh, this is all a bit sudden, isn't it?" He chuckled loudly, echoes of his malicious laugh chilling John to the bone.

John shook his head once to himself, his entire brain a mess of can't-be-happening-Sherlock-no-no-NO, and tried to focus. Losing his head in a crisis like this wouldn't save anyone; had he learned nothing as a soldier? He focused his eyes on Sherlock, who was gazing coolly down at Moriarty, not a single hint of falseness on his face. He looked simply curious, intrigued...and on the edge of his gaze, John could see something, even in the low light of the pool. Something burning and deep, and...impossibly dark.

Darkness. A curious darkness, swallowing up Sherlock's irises and making his lips curl in an amused sneer. John had seen glimpses, of course, when Donovan's insults verged on the slanderous side and murderers taunted him. Peeks of anger and frustration and blackest rage, but nothing a cuppa wouldn't fix, or some crap telly. John recognized these signs and managed them, as he always had. "Sherlock," he said firmly. "Sherlock, what are you doing?"

"Call it an experiment, John. Or write it off as one of those crazy things the Freak does. I'm sure Anderson will agree with you." Sherlock's eyes never left Moriarty's smirking face.

"No," John argued. "You're not a freak, I've never said-I've never said that. You're brilliant and a pain in the arse, sometimes, but never a freak. You have an obligation."

"To what, John?" Sherlock asked, finally tearing his eyes away from Moriarty's, and John couldn't help but jump back a little to see the anger that seized his pupils. "To a societal code that I have never understood, to a system of ethics I didn't choose to abide by? All my life..." Sherlock swallowed and looked past John's head, out somewhere none of the men could imagine. "All my life, I've been different. Better. More. But everyone, everyone I knew, everyone who should have tried to help a boy growing up alone with a dizzying intellect and ability to see what others cannot, told me to shove it. Told me to hide, John. Told me I was a freak and worse, told me to lock up the weird bits and be a good little boy and maybe, just maybe, one day I'd be normal enough for everyone else. Well, Johnny-boy," Sherlock repeated Moriarty's earlier pet name, "perhaps it's time I stopped locking myself up."

Moriarty's smile widened by miles. "Delicious. A tempting offer, Holmes, but how am I supposed to believe that you're willing to give your pretty pet and everything else up? If we band together, you're mine, and we work together on everything. That's going to include a bit of crime."

"That's where all the fun is, isn't it?" Sherlock said nonchalantly.

"I'm making sure you're not too queasy around murder. Lots of it."

"I told you, I'm quite finished with rules." Sherlock's gaze flickered back to the man in front of him. "Jim. I want to let go. I want to...be like you. I've been trying for years to be as normal as I can be, and all I've received is hatred in return. But you know, if you can't make them love you..." Sherlock grinned and discarded the gun. "...You can always make them fear you."

John broke at that. He was too scared to move in the bomb-suit, but he raised his voice and yelled, "You DIDN'T get hatred from me, Holmes! When has there ever been a time that I wanted you to be less than what you are?!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "I suppose John's right. He never hated me, did he? But he did try and put me into neat little boxes, packaging all my oddness away. Making me a better flatmate, a friend," he scoffed.

"I didn't try and put you into bloody boxes, I was trying to help you tap into your human side! The good parts of you, Sherlock, I know they're in there! You can't seriously be-" But then it dawned on John.

It was all part of the game.

Sherlock-brilliant Sherlock-was just calming Moriarty down. Oh, this was perfect. Lestrade would be here in minutes to capture Moriarty, the snipers would be taken out, this bloody vest would be off-all he had to do was play along.

Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant actor. No wonder he hadn't betrayed anything to John, not a single hint: it had to be believable. Well, John Watson wasn't a bad actor, either. He could fake his way through the next few minutes as the disbelieving flatmate. He coughed. "You can't seriously be considering this! You have a life back at 221B, with the Yard, with Mrs. Hudson, with...me!"

Sherlock chuckled. "Why not? What is even remotely interesting at 221B, besides boring, infantile old cases and a flatmate who objects to everything? You know, I bet Jim would let me keep body parts in the fridge..."

Moriarty laughed. "Now, now, children. Daddy loves you all equally...well, except Worthless over there."

"I don't believe you. You'd never go over to the dark side," John said, trying to hide the faintest traces of a laugh. Dark side? Oh, he and Sherlock were going to have a great time telling this story... He searched Sherlock's face for a clue, the slightest idea that they were on the right track.

Sherlock looked him over with a glance of disgust that someone would give a rat or cockroach. "And I suppose the next thing you're going to say is how much you 'believe in me' and how I have to stay with you, for your sake, because you've grown to care oh-so-much..."

John frowned. That wasn't part of the game. "Sorry?"

"Don't be dull, John, it's written all over your face. Worse, it's plain to see at every party and every outing when someone makes a joke about us and you throw the old litany out: 'not gay, not a couple, not me, I'm Captain Heterosexual Watson over here!' Everyone can see the pathetic way you look at me and do whatever I want and follow me around..."

"Sherlock."

"...and you claim you're not gay. You know what, Watson-you're right. You're just hopelessly in love with your flatmate and it kills you-"

"Sherlock, that's enough!" John didn't like this game anymore. Suddenly the lies pouring out of Sherlock's mouth were too close to the quick, cutting too close to the actual wounds, and he could feels walls going up, walls that Sherlock had denounced as his defense. 'Not Gay, Not a Couple, Stop This, Sherlock, Stop Talking...'

"-to think that you've been wrong about yourself and you've been reduced to living as the PA of a brilliant man who will never feel for you the way you feel about him, and you're afraid if I actually take this chance," Sherlock said with a breath of malicious triumph, "that you'll lose your little live-in boyfriend who doesn't require any fancy jewelry or explanations to your family or effort on your part."

"Sherlock, stop-talking!" John yelled, forgetting the bombs and the snipers and charging at Sherlock full-force, letting Moriarty duck out of the way before smacking into Sherlock. "Take it, back, Sherlock-it's not true, not a word-"

"You know what you are, John?" Sherlock smiled lightly while John pummeled uselessly at him with his fists. "You're a pet. And I almost feel sorry for you."

At that, John's arms dropped to his sides and his head was left spinning, breathless and confused. Moriarty whistled and clapped slowly as John released him, letting Sherlock brush off his shoulders and stride toward Moriarty. "That was amusing to say the least, my dear. So, is that it, then? Little Sherlock wants to join Daddy in the big leagues?"

"If you'll have me," Sherlock agreed raggedly. "You're a smart man. Deduce it for yourself if you can't already see my intentions. I think I'm quite done being an angel-I've been destined for hell for so long, I might as well do a thorough job of getting there."

"No," John whispered to himself. This was still the lie, the trick... Any minute now, Lestrade would walk in and arrest the spider and they could go home, and Sherlock could apologize for the stunt he'd pulled.

Moriarty laughed softly at John's refusal to believe him. "What should we do with the pet, then? Is death too delicious?"

"Yes. I'll expect him to do the honorable thing and try and find a way this all works. He assumes it's a game, that I'm lying to save our skins, and he's going to try and prove it now." Sherlock smirked. "Adorable. Well, almost. Desperately trying to save the good name of the man he loves. Poetic, don't you think?"

"Nearly. Could be interesting-no point in a game if you don't have an opponent, and it will be so fun to watch him try and fight us!" Moriarty said gleefully. With a wave of his hand, the snipers' marks disappeared and there was nothing but the same stink of chlorine and sound of two men walking on the tile floor to the exit. "All right, then, we'll let Worthless alone for now. What did you have in mind to start us off, darling?"

"Oh, I have a game, Jim. And when it's over, if John's still floundering about, I'll even let you do the honors."

"This sounds like the beginning of a beautiful arrangement, Mr. Holmes."