Warning: Angst. Character Deaths (yes, plural). Dark!Sherlock.

Perfect Murder

Sherlock had always thought that if he were to kill a man, he'd commit the perfect crime: no body, no weapon, no evidence, no motive and therefore no murder.

He was probably the only one who could have pulled it off. One only needed to be calm and rational about it. Plan in advance, prepare an alibi, leave nothing behind. Be careful, considerate and collected.

Detached.

He hadn't considered the human factor, the world's most powerful motivator: love. Because he had a heart too (only, he had buried it much deeper than everyone else).

It was when it smashed that Sherlock realized it had been there all along, filled with the emotions he had tried to squish into submission, too afraid to let himself go.

And now it was too late.

It was too late, his heart destroyed, and all the love he had hidden and stocked inside it had gushed out, thick, red and hot like blood, leaving him cold.

All that remained now, in the blackened shell of his burned heart, was black as well. Despair, pain, loss, a cold and pervading sorrow he didn't even have a name for. Then all he could think of was revenge.

He chased Moriarty across the globe and finally back to London, where the criminal felt safe because no one would have thought to look for him there, where they started, in the most dangerous place for him.

No one but Sherlock Holmes.

And when he finally killed the son of a bitch, it wasn't the perfect crime. It was messy, unplanned, impulsive and as clear as day that it had been him.

Sherlock even called Lestrade himself afterwards.

It took Lestrade no effort at all to close both his eyes and not hear the confession that poured from Sherlock's lips as soon as he arrived on the scene, but then it took all his strength to grab a blanket, wrap it around Sherlock's shoulders and order him to shut the fuck up because he was in shock and didn't know what the hell he was saying before finally sending him away from the crime scene.

Even Anderson not so accidentally compromised a piece of DNA evidence that was due to the lab.

It proved a test even for Mycroft's strings, but they were sufficiently strong and extended far enough, so in the end the result was the same.

Even with a body, DNA, bloody fingerprints everywhere and Sherlock wearing the murder weapon around his neck, there was no case, no murder and he walked back to his apartment in Baker Street a free man, but dead inside because there was no one there to wait for him.