A/N: Don't hate me. I myself practise the Great Game on a regular basis.

Moriarty was real. I believe in Sherlock Holmes.

And yet I can't help but play with the what-ifs, so here you go. What if Sherlock wasn't lying? What if he really was a fraud? Didn't turn out the way I wanted. I'll probably revisit this idea. The condition is, in fact, medically called Pseudologia fantastica. Enjoy, reviews make my day.

-for you!

Don't kid yourself: he is smart.

He's been playing this game for most of his life, so he's as close to infallible as it's possible for one man to get, and anyone who challenges him will get trampled underfoot. Not that anybody would challenge him, to see him exuding such confidence; and a man who looks so much like an angel must at least be on their side.

To assume Sherlock Holmes is anything other than he appears would be a dangerous undertaking. His lies are shrouded in so much truth that to tell one from the other would be impossible; but the truth is that Sherlock Holmes is the most intelligent person anyone will ever meet, a harsh, abrasive breed of sociopathic genius.

His mind is simply bent to a different strain of thinking. It always has been. As a child he wanted to be an actor, but as a teenager the stage wasn't enough; he wanted to insert his act into reality and see how many people he could fool. When he realised he could fool everyone, Sherlock Holmes was created.

That's not his real name, but it doesn't matter. That's who he is and who he has always been. He's in it so deep he denies to himself he was ever anyone else, and there isn't a person alive who knows the truth.

Well, there wasn't. Everyone's got to have a weak spot.

It's intoxicating, living such a wild lie, a constant adrenaline high, pumped up on self-belief and ego. It's an addiction. Like cocaine, only a million times stronger and not as clinically dangerous. Actually, there's a name for people like him, but he deleted it years ago. The people he shared it with all got caught: Mark Whitacre, von Munchausen. He was always better than them.

He'd like to tell you it's not just a game but he'd be lying: it's the game, the Great Game. He's been playing all his life but it's just as blinding, just as intoxicating. He could never stop, or life would become a heart-monitor with no heartbeat, one solid tone with no ups or downs, no excitement. Just staying alive, just existing. No longer living.

When it becomes impossible for him to sustain his lies with the torrent of press activity – there's always got to be someone who suspects, and he perhaps gave the pawns in his game a little too little respect at times – his weakness becomes apparent. The one person who'd stuck with him and believed in him even when the truth was staring him in the face. Why did John Watson believe in him, even when he heard the truth from his own lips?

The truth is, it probably would have been easier to simply become a genius. To solve other people's problems instead of inventing his own. The likes of Sally Donovan probably didn't think about just how much effort actually goes into creating clever crimes and incredible chains of reasoning that could plausibly, if a little incredibly, lead to solving them. It takes just as much brainwork to invent these things as it does to actually, genuinely use them. It's a pity no-one stopped to think about the genius of his fraud, really. He would have loved it; at long last, the spotlight, the appreciation he deserves.

Rich Brook was a lucky find. There are so many out-of-work actors that are extremely vocal; he supposes it was just fate intervening that he happened to be sitting next to one drowning his sorrows at a bar in Islington with a specialty of chilling villains. Someone up there had been on his side.

Of course every man has a price, especially an out-of-work actor. He should have expected that to go both ways. Apparently he hadn't been throwing enough money at the actor for him to keep his mouth shut. Maybe he did get a little carried away, swept up in the whirlwind of his own creation. It's hard not to be overwhelmed by the brilliance of it all.

The people in Glasgow hardly notice when the stranger moves in. He looks a bit like someone who's been in the news recently, but the hair's different, and he doesn't dress as nicely. And besides, the person on the telly's dead, isn't he? They said it on the BBC.

When his hair grows out dark and curly they don't pay too much attention. They keep themselves to themselves mostly, and this particular stranger even more so. The first murder turns a few heads, especially when he solves it through the tiniest of clues and a positively incredible bit of logical thinking. Is it possible to have a memory like that? But within weeks, life quietens down. Humans in general have a ridiculously short attention-span. The police remember him, though. What was his name? John somebody. John Watson, wasn't it?

He's quiet most of the time. One of those faces that sort of fades into the crowd if you look too hard. Most of the spinsters like him, so clever and all, and still single at his age, it's almost a crime. Well, that's what he does, isn't it? Solve crimes?

He's in London with the police when he sees the graffiti. For a moment he thinks he's dreaming, or imagining things. But when he blinks hard enough to hurt and looks back, it's still there, larger than life and twice as electrifying, written in blood-red spraypaint on a subway wall in Southwark.

Moriarty was real. I believe in Sherlock Holmes.

When he looks again the message is everywhere, written in hashtags over the internet and shouted from lampposts and graffiti all over the city.

He stares at the graffiti for hours, a slow smile spreading over his face. When the sunlight starts to fade, he casts off the disgusting tan leather jacket and re-dons his long black trench-coat.

He heard once that nothing is ever truly dead as long as there is one person alive who believes in it.

He thinks he knows where to start.