John really, really had thought he'd got it all to work this time.

He'd taken Jefferson Hope out (it turned out you couldn't not, Sherlock was absolutely up his own arse at that point in his life and was 100% going to take that pill.)

He'd kept her brother from murdering Soo Lin Yao (that had always bothered him so much, and it bothered him even more after Mary, another woman running from her past who John couldn't save.)

He had not retrieved the Bruce-Partington plans without Sherlock's help (at least two occasions of being shanked by Joe Allen had turned him off of that route.) But he had phoned in an anonymous tip that had saved the lives of that poor blind woman and eleven of her neighbors.

In all, quite a successful go-round so far, John thought smugly on the way to Sarah's, before turning a corner and getting a needle stuck in his neck.

Now this wasn't fair. He'd personally returned the missile plans to Mycroft, and the pool bit was supposed to happen two full days ago! John mumbled, "You know Sherlock's bluffing too, right?" but he wasn't sure if it'd been comprehensible.

In the event, here he was, groggy, Semtex-clad, coming to on the filthy floor of a community swimming pool changing room, staring down the barrel of Seb's gun.

Again.

Colonel Sebastian Moran was what Sherlock had described as a dissolute and dangerous son of a very notable family, a master marksman, with no fear and no conscience. John, not that anyone ever asked him, would have described him as the sort of upper-class toerag who probably took ears back in the 'Stan.

He glared up at the older man. Fucking Morans. At least three of the family he'd met were shitheads, murderers or terrorists, and every iteration of Sebastian in particular was an absolute wanker.

"You'll go out there when you're told," Moran said in his posh colonial-imperialist drawl, "You'll say what you're told. And if you do that maybe I won't trim the wall with your brains and blow you and your buddy to kingdom come."

"Yeah, yeah," John said, climbing to his feet and brushing off his coat, "I know, I've got it, fuck off."

Moran angled his head curiously, but said nothing more. They waited, and he heard Sherlock's voice echoing in the empty pool outside the door. Moran gestured with the gun and John walked out.

Through the earpiece, Jim Moriarty, murmured, "Evening, Sherlock. This is a turn-up, isn't it?"

"Evening Sherlock this is a turn-up isn't it," John repeated dutifully.

"John," Sherlock stammered, "What the hell-?"

"Bet you didn't see this coming," Moriarty whispered.

"Bet you didn't see this coming," John repeated.

"Now unzip your coat. Let him see the bomb," Moriarty chuckled.

And John decided: Nah.

"Yes, it's true. All this time John Watson, your unassuming flatmate, was in fact… I, Moriarty, the Napoleon of crime," taking his hands out of his pockets and holding them out as if to acknowledge the applause of an audience.

There was an extremely gratifying silence, in the pool and in the earpiece. John grinned, and kept going.

"I get that it seems sort of weird… I mean, most multinational crime lords when faced with you interfering with their operations would realize that the point is to make money and then just kill your arse but no, not… Moriarty. I climbed right out of my metaphorical spider's web and just decided to spend all my time trying to fuck with you. Because that's how I roll."

Sherlock stared at him, mouth slightly open, and said hesitantly, "John, I don't… I don't understand?"

"Really? I thought what with me being the kind of guy who meticulously preserves the shoes of my murder victims as a happy memento of my teen years-"

"Wait, you would have been a young man, not a teenager at that poi-" Sherlock interrupted.

"SHUT UP SHERLOCK. And you being the kinda guy who stores heads in the fridge and gets hard at crime scenes I really thought you'd, yanno, get me… but I just couldn't quite work up the nerve to ask you out on a date. So I had to threaten to kill a lot of people in my mincing little voice-"

At that point Jim kicked the door open and stalked onto the pool deck, glaring at John.

"What the hell are you saying?"

"And who are you?" Sherlock asked.

"I'm Jim Moriarty," Jim spat.

"Ignore this miserable prick, Sherlock," John replied, "I'm Moriarty, he's an actor called Rich Brook. I hired him to seduce your girl. But he was kind of shit and over the top about it, no BAFTA for you, sir!"

"Oh, fuck you, I was amazing, he had no idea," Moriarty shouted.

"And he's only got the one testicle."

Moriarty stood stock still and took a gun from a holster at his back.

"Who told you that?" he asked, in a quiet, lethal voice.

"Molly."

Moriarty sneered, and aimed the gun at John.

"She wouldn't know."

"Told you you sucked at your job. She must find it out at your autopsy. There's nothing to be ashamed of, it's a reasonably common birth defect. Funny as balls, though. Well. Ball."

In a cartoon there would have been steam coming out of Moriarty's ears. Sherlock was seeming to catch on to the fact that something was the matter and warned, quietly, gesturing to John's chest, "John…"

John glanced down at the red laser mark and rolled his eyes.

"You know that isn't how real snipers work, right, Sherlock? Lasers go in straight lines, bullets go in curves."

He walked past Sherlock and stared up into the dark void of the balcony that surrounded the pool. More red pinpoints appeared on his chest.

"Oh, come on, they're playing us, Sherlock? You see this? Right here?" John gestured at the swirl of laser points covering his body, "It'll be the hot Christmas decoration of 2015, you mark my words."

"Sebastian," Moriarty pronounced, "Kill me this bastard."

"And in fact," John roared, not really paying attention anymore, just pointing up into the dark balcony, "Anybody who needs a laser scope to make this shot on a still target from twenty paces away, Moran, is no master marksman but in fact shoots like a pissy little bi-"

BLAM.

John awakened from dreams of the war, in sheets rank with his sweat, his leg in agony. Psychosomatic or not, the pain always felt real when you were in it.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, John sat up and pulled his cane over towards himself, in preparation for the problem of standing.

"Really need to work on the temper," he said, to nobody in particular.

Notes: This fic is from an extended multi-author AU called John Watson's Groundhog Days. If you would like to submit a prompt, claim one, or write a fic... you are welcome, regardless of rating, POV, or ship. Head over to AO3 (where I'm also "Quarto"). The link to the collection is in my profile.