thefinalsolution | (no subject)

He's had some time to settle into this new domain of endless possibility and do you know what Moriarty finds? He finds wondrous things. He finds messages passed along hotel stationary and he sees doors that lead to countless other universes and he watches people and knows there are certain ones he ought to make acquaintances with.

One of them isn't a potential client.

One of them is far more interesting than that. Joan Watson. How can it be? And how can he have not had something so brilliant in his life before? Joan Watson! Which surely means there's a Sherlock out there to serve as consulting detective, which means there might be some kind of solution to the final problem apart from putting all his hopes and dreams on his Sherlock. Possibility and potential. It warms a villain's heart.

He needs to make the meet. He's taken to orchestrating potential meetcutes where she might pass by, accumulating little props to help his little charade as John Holmes. His new wardrobe consists of cardigans and reading glasses over well-fitted jeans. He's found himself spots in the bar, the lobby, and the restaurant, and he'll wait until Ms. Watson graces him with her presence.

It will happen. Moriarty knows it will happen and when it does, he'll have something new to play with, finally.

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"Well," she said, after a moment. Did she enjoy case files? In a way. They presented a puzzle for her to solve, much like diagnosing a health issue used to be when she was practicing. But it was true, she still found a lot of things chilling. "I work in that field. I consult. So I read a lot of them, but not before I got into the business. They aren't exactly light reading."

"No, they're not," Moriarty agrees. The heaviness weighs on some people like a thick shroud and buries them into the ground, but on others, it sits like a comfortable blanket. "What did you do before you consulted, then? It's not something you've always done? And why get into it, then. It's not light reading, as you said."

Joan laughed. "You know, you might not realize it, but you talk like a journalist," she said. "I don't think I've answered this many questions about myself in months. I don't think I'm that interesting."

Still, he'd asked a question, and it would be rude not to answer, even though she felt she as a topic had been exhausted enough. "I was in medicine," she said. "A friend of mine introduced me to casework. It just sort of found me, I guess." To proclaim that Sherlock was an addict who she helped through recovery would have been treading far beyond the line of patient privacy than she was comfortable with, so she skated around it.

"What about you? How did you start writing? A friend of mine is a journalist."

"I'm a curious man," Moriarty replies with great honesty. After all, the mark of a great liar is being able to spin what exists as a truth into something just off the mark. John Holmes may be a creation of the imagination, but he is purely based in truth. This is what people believe. You build the lie with the blocks of the truth. "If ever I get into any kind of medical trouble, you'll be my first call, now," he says, catching her gaze to sustain eye contact as he says the words.

"It sort of happened by chance. For a while, I wanted to write children's books. Don't laugh," he pleads. "I really thought I had it in me. Sadly, that career failed, but I picked up a few freelancing jobs on the side, so now I write about anything that pays the bills, but my personal blog is for me. It's things I find fascinating."

Curiosity wasn't a crime; she was guilty of it herself. "If you like," she said, smiling. "But I'd have to insist that if you want a proper diagnosis and treatment to go to someone with a current license.

"There's nothing to laugh about over children's books," she said, smiling. "Do you like kids, then? Because the hotel just got a baby." It was a bit interesting that someone who wanted to have a career related to children also found it equally interesting to dig into complicated murders.

"I don't think I've ever heard of a group baby before," Moriarty remarks, eyes wide with genuine puzzlement as he wonders whether people actually hear themselves sometimes. To him, this is often the sounds of goldfish swimming around in their little bowls with their mouths open -- blub, blub, blub, how's Mike and Karen, how's the job, blub. He stares at her for a moment long before he blinks and reels himself in. "I don't know that I'd be a good father, myself, only that I liked the idea of writing books for them."

"No, no, I meant..." Joan trailed off, then laughed, slightly, mostly at herself, and waved the statement off with her hand, nose wrinkling slightly. "Never mind. Thinking aloud." To tell the whole of the story would, after all, be too much like gossip to her, now that she thought about it.

"Are you just a writer, or did you want to illustrate them, too?" she asked. "I know some people do both."

"I'm terrible at drawing," Moriarty confesses, had to his heart to swear that he's telling the whole truth. "I would have to hire someone to do that for me. That is, if I ever turn out a finished product," he adds, because that's meant to be all writer's challenges, isn't it? Writing is hard, just as life is hard, just like living is hard, and impossible, and it stays, it just stays with you.