I'm not sure what happened except that it kind of….got away from me. But there's also feelings and character development,
so…hooray? Yes. Hooray.

Two weeks passed before Molly saw John and Sherlock again.

She suspected this had something to do with three fresh corpses whose mouths she had been barred from examining, and though she felt a bit left out and missed the excitement of the duo's visits, was glad to avoid the awkwardness, which still stubbornly clung to their interactions like the smell of cigarettes on a poorly dry-cleaned coat.

It was a confusing two weeks. As suddenly as her peculiar lust had begun, it had ended, as if the tap had been shut off by an invisible hand. Left behind instead was a curious empty feeling.

She wasn't sure if she missed the strange compulsions or not. True, she had enjoyed every second of it, but the aftermath, not so much.

And yet.

Thankful that she no longer shared an account with her mom, she had binge-watched the raciest shows she could find on Netflix in a subconscious attempt to stir herself, but the celluloid smut just made her want to fill her bathtub with Purell and have a nice long soak.

She had toyed with the idea of going to the gym, take the edge off, but that would have required an actual output of energy, plus the horror that was spandex and facing the gym staff, who she suspected were pod people. Nobody could be that enthused about muscle burn.

In the end she stayed home and gorged on The Dick Van Dyke Show, which contained nothing dirtier than name of its star.

Nothing much happened at the morgue, either, at least not until Tuesday, when, after four days of nothing but corpses felled by coronaries and poor life choices, a new corpse was wheeled in.

When nothing was found on its tongue they turned the body over to Molly, who was honored to be the first one to find the words carved directly into the man's abdomen.

JOIN ME IN A DRINK?

She stared at the words for a moment, debating whether or not her desire to feel included in Sherlock's cases had been wise, then texted John. She knew Sherlock wouldn't respond, he'd just come over, and it always hurt when people didn't reply to her texts.

Sherlock blew in, greatcoat flapping in an invisible wind, with John trailing along behind him looking even more worried than usual.

Sherlock examined the body without a word, something Molly wouldn't have thought possible. He'd show off to a blank wall if given the chance.

She thought of saying something to John, but he was staring raptly at a row of cabinets, and she didn't want to disturb what seemed to be a deep communion of souls. Or soul and scuffed Formica.

Sherlock straightened. "Show her," he said curtly.

John came to life, removing an envelope full of photographs from his pocket. He spread the photos out on the counter and stepped back.

They were close-ups of the tongues of the corpses, including the last three.

DID YOU MISS ME, they read

Molly stared at Sherlock. "I don't understand."

Sherlock sighed impatiently. "Of course you don't."

Normally, Molly would have curled up into a little ball at this, but after the public humiliation on the train, after her own embarrassment with herself, she was damned if she was going to wilt now. If he refused to treat her with respect, he did not deserve hers.

"You didn't understand anything until you got the last three letters, so don't treat me like an idiot!" she snapped back. "I'm a doctor, for crying out loud, not some donkey with water on the brain!"

The corner of John's mouth twitched.

"Then you know who our killer is, I take it?" asked Sherlock. This annoyed her, though she knew he wasn't really miffed at her, he was upset over the situation, which meant that he had a working theory he wasn't happy with. If he was certain of the killer's identity he'd be gloating over his own cleverness, and if he was completely in the dark then he'd be aflame with the intellectual thrill of it.

"Do you?" she asked, refusing to back down. She turned to John. "Has he told you anything, or is he expecting your run around after him in exchange for the thrill of basking in his presence?"

"Is everything all right?" John asked. Sherlock, after a moment of blinking at the sudden and unwelcome withdrawal of her hero worship, was back with the corpse, ignoring them both.

"Is my standing up for myself really so out of character that you think something's wrong with me? Is that really what you think of me?" Heart pounding, she grabbed her purse and headed for the door.

"No, Molly, I just…I do like this new side of you, but after what happ…" John trailed off, dangerously close to referring to the Train Incident of Eternal Infamy.

"Lock up when you're done," she said curtly to Sherlock, Dr. Ryan-Noran be damned, and slammed the door.

She was two drinks in at the pub when John arrived. He slid under the bar beside her without a word and helped himself to a handful of peanuts.

"You know he doesn't mean it," he said.

Molly shrugged, the alcohol having taken the edge off her anger. "He does mean it. But he's not the problem. We are. We enable him. Yes, we," she said when John opened his mouth to protest. "When's the last time he said something nice to you?"

"I'm not a six-year-old. I don't need constant reinforcement."

"But you deserve some."

John looked surprised. It occurred to Molly that he had probably been expecting her to go off on him like she had at Sherlock. As if she would. Dr. Watson had never been anything other than kind to her.

He took a long drink from the beer set down before him by the bartender. Young, hot; probably working here to pay for grad school and his obviously well-used gym membership. (Gym. Ugh.)

"So, does he have any working theories?" she asked when the silence grew oppressive. The hooting from the group of footballers in the corner didn't count, and the music wasn't as obnoxiously loud as usual, instead playing oldies at a volume likely not to do permanent ear damage, with the game on the TV muted instead of blaring. Doubtlessly a mistake on management's part.

John glanced down at his beer. "Nothing he'll share with me. He ran off while I was in the gent's."

Without thinking, Molly reached out and rubbed John's arm briefly. He really does deserve better, she thought, and was thinking of a non-sappy way of saying that when the door opened and Sherlock strode in.

"You aren't answering your texts," he said to John by way of preamble.

"I do have a life, you know," said John. "After the sixth SOS to buy more toilet paper, the urgency wears off."

Molly bit her lip to hold back a smile.

"He's here," said Sherlock. His cheeks were flushed, Molly noticed, eyes bright, but there was a nervous vibration beneath his agitated–but-still-unflappable exterior that suddenly made her uneasy.

"Who's here?" she asked.

"Him," he said, and by the way he said it she immediately knew.

"But he's dead," said John, sliding off his barstool. "You saw him do it, Molly examined the body—"

"I don't know how he did it, but he did it!" snapped Sherlock. "Molly, you need to leave here immediately—"

Molly was wondering if getting out of there made sense, as she was a doctor and not an ex-soldier or a suicidally curious consulting detective, or was cowardly because—well, she wasn't quite sure why, but she had some vague feminist idea against it and besides, she didn't like the idea of leaving her friends—when John blurted, "The door's gone!"

"Impossible—"

But it was.

As were the windows.

The door to the bathroom was still there, and to the manager's office, but everything else was gone. The music had stopped, the TV frozen on a single jiggling frame.

The bartender dropped the glass he was drying. "What the hell?"

Sherlock just stared, orderly, logical mind seemingly more thrown than the rest of them.

"There must be an explanation," he said, and then began to speak rapidly. "Drugs in the beer—no; I did not eat or drink all day. Gasses in the air, something to make us susceptible to hallucinations? Shared hallucinations….that would imply a measure of suggestion. By whom? By him? I cannot imagine he would want me impaired; that would ruin his bragging rights if he won…the places the walls and doors were seem to be solid; no hallucination, then, unless we are in a full-on shared delusion….perhaps a physical illusion, then? A magic trick… If so, then perhaps…" He continued to speak, and Molly exchanged glances with John. His gun was out, and Molly picked up a plastic spoon from the dispenser and held in front of her like a knife with her back to the bar.

"My dear Molly, are you going to scoop me to death?" came a voice. A familiar voice. An impossible voice.

A shot rang out, followed by a cry as John's gun turned to a snake in his hand. He dropped it to the floor, and it slithered towards his target and up his leg, melting into the fabric of his trouser leg and fading away.

All eyes were on them now, but the figure seemed to relish the attention, relish the footballers' fear as they recognized him and the impossibility of his presence sank into their alcohol-soaked little monkey brains. How he had missed this! Fear was just another form of admiration, was it not?

"Moriarity," breathed Molly.

"Is that any way to greet an old friend?" asked Moriarity, shaking his head at John. He wore his usual dark suit and tie, but had added a skull-topped cane that looked like something out of the witch doctor aisle of a Halloween shop.

Sherlock stood as if transfixed, then crossed the room with what seemed like one stride and came to stand before Moriarity.

Moriarity smiled, his same old dead-eyed smile. "Did you miss me, Sherl?" he asked. "I missed you."

"But how?" Sherlock asked, somewhere between sputtering and sharp, and his discombobulation frightened Molly more than the appearance of Moriarity himself. "How? I saw you die!"

"I did die." Casually, Moriarity crossed the room and hoisted himself up onto the bar, drumming his heels against the wood. The bartender tried to inch his away over the knot of customers, who were slowly starting to realize that the doors and windows were gone, but was frozen by a single look from Moriarity. "And now I'm back. Did you figure it out, or did I win? Did you? Did you? Did you? Did y—"

"Shut up!" barked John.

"Ah, he speaks. I hope Sherlock's been feeding you a good brand of kibble, doctor."

"Prove you're real!" Sherlock demanded. "The doors, the snake, this is all some kind of mass hallucination—"

"Sorry, Sherlock. You lost. That's all there is too it. You confused the impossible with the improbable. A good life lesson, not that you'll be needing it for very long. You won't take losing well. A few months till you go mad and kill yourself, I'd think. Still, don't say I never did anything for you." He winked.

"I don't understand," said John.

"You never do, do you? I'll break it down for you: magic is real. Everyone got it? You there in the back?" He glanced over at the footballers beating at the walls and waved his hand, cutting off the sound of their laughing and hooting as if they were trapped inside an invisible bank vault. They were too tipsy to stay scared long, and were treating things like a trip through a haunted house. "Now, on to the entertainment portion of the evening." He tapped at his phone, and the TV screen went black, coming back to life with cell phone footage of—

Oh, blast it.

Molly wasn't sure what was worse: that Moriarity was back, with magical powers, of all the insane things, or that the supposedly destroyed footage of her pleasuring herself on the train was playing on the TV.

Moriarity froze it just as the TV-Molly was fumbling for her breast. The front of her dress was open, but she was still wearing her bra, at least. Still, Molly marveled that sex tapes were actual things sane people wanted to do. She could only imagine how ugly the rest of the footage would look, and, despite the craziness of everything, was reminded of the episode of Friends where Ross and Rachel watch their sex tape.

Really? That's what you're thinking of now?

John coughed.

"Delete that!" Molly demanded, finding her voice. Rachel Green wouldn't have stood for this. "Delete that at once!"

"I will. Eventually. If you all play along." Moriarity winked again. What a repulsive man. Not physically, of course, but his smarmy reptilian aura ruined whatever charms he may have had. "Sherlock, spin around in a circle."

Sherlock stared. "Spin in a—"

Moriarity cocked his head like a vulture examining a dying wildebeest, and suddenly Sherlock was spinning.

Sherlock hadn't wanted to do that, Molly could see. He had not been doing it do pacify the madman on the bar. He had done it because—

She thought of the train, of the umbrella, and had to bite down on her first to keep from gasping.

It was him, it had all been him—magic was real, it was real, and Jim Moriarity was a—a witch—

"What do you want?" Sherlock demanded. He had stopped spinning and stood rigidly, as if the pub were rigged to blow and slightest movement would send them shooting towards the sky in fragments.

"It doesn't matter what I want," Moriarity said, leaning back on his one of his palms and sighing dramatically. He pointed the head of his skull-cane at John. "It matters what he wants. Go on, John. Do the thing you've always wanted to do."

John frowned. "I beg your pardon?"

Moriarity wriggled. "Oh, come on. It's obvious. Off you go."

John blinked. "I—I—" He swallowed and glanced over at Sherlock. "Sherlock, this is not something that I—"

And then he was standing before Sherlock.

Molly held her breath as John suddenly reached up, grabbed Sherlock by the lapels, dragged his face down to his level, and pressed his lips to his.

No. More like stuck his tongue down his throat.

Molly gasped.

Sherlock didn't move.

John pulled away.

Sherlock still didn't move.

"Sherlock, I'm sorry!" John blurted. "I—it was that madman—"

Still nothing.

Molly was suddenly glad she had never tried to kiss Sherlock, despite the temptation over the years. It would have been satisfying to be the cause of his consternation after years of him being the main cause of hers, but she never wanted to feel the dismay she saw disfiguring John's pleasant face.

"Well!" said Moriarity. "Isn't that a surprise!" Another wink. "That all, John? Come up here! Attaboy! That military training is really coming in handy!"

Molly watched in silence as John scrambled up onto the bar, seemingly in a daze. She felt like she should be doing something, but wasn't sure what.

Her phone! Text Lestrade—

But her phone was dead, even though it had been working not ten minutes ago.

She settled for hoping Moriarity kept his attention on Sherlock and John. It felt a bit selfish, but she had already paid her dues, and perhaps this way she could…catch Moriarity off-guard or something…

She looked around for a blunt instrument. The liquor bottles. Duh. She had seen what one of those could do to an unprotected skull, thanks to her job. If she could only work her way around the bar, grab one, sneak up behind Moriarity—

But she was directly in his line of sight. Dammit.

Moriarity had been talking while she was thinking, and now John was on all fours on the bar and Sherlock was up there beside him, both still fully clothed.

"All right, then," said Moriarity, holding up his phone, the red camera light on. So his phone was working. "Good luck, John. I hope it's everything you dreamed it would be, because I don't see you two ever speaking after this, so I don't anticipate a repeat performance." He shook his head regretfully.

Was that his game? To break up Sherlock and John, rob Sherlock of his sidekick, level the playing field?

No. Moriarity would never admit, even to himself, that he needed an edge—probably rightfully so. The destruction of their friendship was nothing more than sadism and petty revenge.

"Do you normally 'make love' with your clothes on?" Moriarity asked Sherlock, and John mechanically reached down and unzipped his trousers and undid his belt, though he made no move to do anything else. "Sherlock? I'm waiting. We're waiting—oh, dear!" He clapped his hands. "Is this your first time? How lovely! And with the added bonus of an audience. They can critique your performance, help you do better next time. A gift from me to you. Is this what Santa Claus feels like?"

Sherlock darted a glace over at the goggling footballers over by the vanished doors and down at John, who was staring fixedly at the sticky bar top.

"All right, then," sighed Moriarity. "Just do your best. No pressure." He nodded at Molly, who felt a chill of revulsion at the touch of his empty black eyes on her skin, and dropped his voice conspiratorially. "Don't want to make his first time traumatic, do we? Think of the damage that might do!"

Slowly, ever so slowly, Sherlock removed his gloves and greatcoat, unbuttoned his fitted silk shirt, unbuckled his belt, and, even more slowly, pulled his cock free.

Molly's heart jumped, even though the cock was limp and about as terrified-looking as a cock could be without sprouting eyes and a mouth.

To think he's a virgin, I could have been his first if I'd only made an effort, instead he and poor John—that madman—this—

But it was the thought of poor John more so than poor Sherlock gave her the courage to inch around the bar, creeping quietly—

And then her feet suddenly stopped moving and she fell forward, slamming her hip into the wood.

"Now, now," Moriarity chided her. "We're just getting started."

John closed his eyes.

Moriarity snapped his fingers, and a tub of butter from the small popcorn machine in the corner floated across the room.

"Another gift," he said. "Is anyone keeping track?"

Sherlock dipped his trembling fingers into the butter and wrapped his hand around his cock. It was a nice cock, Molly could tell from her far-too-good vantage point. She was no cock connoisseur—or was it connoisseur of cocks?—but she knew what she liked. It was large, but not obscenely so, straight and thick even while flaccid and with a well-shaped head. Nothing fancy. Clean and classic. Like a classic sport car, one painted a modest blue instead of flashy red with lightning bolts down the side.

She was too entranced-slash-horrified to think about whether that metaphor worked or not.

She forgot to feel guilty as she watched Sherlock run his hand up and down his cock, moving faster and faster, struggling to pump himself into full hardness. It grew almost magically in his hand, but it was only halfway there, like a classic car with a rebuilt engine still topping out at 50 mph.

"Really?" asked Moriarity. "That it? I can't say I'm impressed, Sherlock. I know this is perhaps a tad stressful, but I expected better from the world's leading consulting detective. To be honest, I'd think half those boobs in the corner could do better. Or even him." He pointed at the bartender, who was still fused behind the bar, looking very confused.

Sherlock didn't make eye contact, but his voice was as arrogant as ever. "I am not most people."

"Give it a shot, why don't you…Molly, lend him a hand?"

Molly glanced at Sherlock. He gave a brief nod, the muscles in his throat standing out sharply.

Molly knew she should be horrified, knew she should be humiliated by the many eyes on her, but she couldn't keep her crotch from setting itself on fire as she reached for Sherlock's cock, wrapping her fingers around its slippery warmth. Somehow it surprised her that it was warm, that he was capable of an erection at all. She would have expected his skin to be cold, his cock something along the chaste lines of a Ken doll's.

This entire situation was insane. She may as well enjoy it, right? John certainly was. A prominent bulge was pushing through the front of his plaid boxers, and his face was creased with something that was decidedly not disgust. It was exactly the same look she had on her face on the frozen TV, the look of someone pushed so far into lust that they didn't care about anything else but slick, sloppy gratification.

She ran her hand up Sherlock's cock, relishing the velvety warmth on her palm, the weight in her hand, the growing firmness and rising veins crisscrossing the surface—not too many, like a body-builder's arms, but enough to add just a touch of manliness that appealed to the cavewoman in her. The kind of cock you might ask to help you move.

Sherlock closed his eyes, forehead creased like her and John's, but without the same eagerness behind it, face white instead of pink.

"Don't worry, Sherlock," she whispered. "It's not so bad. Really."

The edges of his mouth jerked into one of his rare smiles of gratitude, and without thinking she leaned forward and licked the tip of his swollen pink cock, lapping up the beads of precum dripping from the tip.

She longed to do more, to sink her mouth down on it and suck as hard as she could, feel it brush up against the back of her throat, fill her mouth with meat and cream, but she stepped back and nodded.

It was only then that she realized that Moriarity hadn't used his compulsion on her.

She would know. She'd been in its thrall for weeks.

Moriarity winked at her. "Our secret," he said.

Oh, dear heaven.

"Go on, Sherlock," Moriarity said, and Sherlock took a deep breath and tugged down John's trousers and boxers, just enough to allow entrance. He trickled butter over John's waiting hole, murmured something to John that Molly couldn't hear, and plunged his cock deep into his friend.

"Yowzah!" cackled Moriarity.

John cried out in pain, and Sherlock, who was wincing at the tightness, froze.

"I'm sorry, I'll stop—I don't know anything about—this—"

"No, please don't—it's fine—move, you have to move—"

Sherlock slid most of the way out, then in again, then out, then hesitated.

"Keep going!" John moaned. "Don't stop—please don't—you have to keep going—"

"But—"

"Don't stop!"

Sherlock slammed into John so hard that the bar shook, over and over again, the only sound the rattling of glasses, the creak of wood, the obscene slapping sound of skin on skin, the slurping wet squish of cock in ass, John's moans of pain and pleasure—

"Go on, you two, do what you want," said Moriarity to Molly, and Molly grabbed the bartender and tore his shirt off. He was wearing suspenders, because he was a grad student working in a bar and so of course he was, but she got it off eventually. He ripped her blouse open and freed her breasts from her bra, pressing her back against the liquor shelves so that she had an even better view the action on the bar top, and began licking her nipples like a starving dog at a bone.

She thrust his hand down into her soaking wet knickers and cried out as he fingered her, keeping her eyes on Sherlock as he pounded John with reckless abandon. The consulting detective's creased face was inscrutable, but he was doing his best, and John was taking enough pleasure in it for both of them. The doctor's face was slick with sweat, his cock engorged cock hanging fat and full beneath him, splattering precum on the counter with every jarring thrust from behind.

Molly wasn't quite sure when it had happened, but she was suddenly on the barkeeper's cock, and she hadn't gotten a good look at it but it felt like she had an Arizona iced tea bottle inside her, plunging deep into her core. Despite her limp legs, the barkeeper's muscular arms kept her upright against the shelves, and she cried out in pleasure as he fell into Sherlock's rhythm, and she could pretend it was Sherlock fucking her, that it was Sherlock's huge dick hammering her—

No, she thought with what was left of coherent thought through the blaze of white-hot lust. Fuck Sherlock. But not literally. Enjoy the Gym Rat.

She came at the same time as the bartender, something that had never happened to her before, but it wasn't enough. He was spent, but she needed more—

Later she was a bit hazy on how she got the footballers over behind the bar if they couldn't hear her from where they were taking turns punching the wall, but she did, somehow; that much was obvious.

Whether or not they were under Moriarity's compulsion was less clear, but she didn't care. One held from behind in his brawny arms and stimulated her nipples as the second thrust deeply into her, hard and fast, pulling out to stripe her crotch with thick ropes of cum. She orgasmed again in middle of the third faceless footballer, and lost count after that. She suddenly was on her back on the bar, the wood still groaning beneath Sherlock and John's frantic, supernaturally long coupling; a thick cockhead dribbling precum on her cheek; another plunging deep inside her pussy; another in her hand, both hands, hot and wet and pulsing, squirting her with salty white wetness—sex was all around her, the feel of it, the scent of it, the taste; pure sex, pure animal lust stripped of all higher functions—she was on her knees, being fucked from behind, the burn so good, as another footballer rubbed her nipples and another lapped at her clit from an impossible angle.

She came for the last time just as John finally did, his cry startling her with its ferocity. Enough cum to drown a horse gushed from his cock, staining the dark wood white. He flopped down on his stomach in the mess, knee bent just enough to prevent him from crushing his twitching cock, and lay there gasping for breath.

Molly lay still, heart pounding, and closed her eyes, luxuriating in the blissful post-multiple-orgasmic haze.

Damn.

That was all she could think. Damn. She wasn't sure if it was a good damn or bad damn. All she knew was that she would have stayed like this forever, if it were possible, and if Moriarity weren't…

Moriarity. She groaned and turned over on her side, completely wrung out and yet feeling…right, for the first time in a long time, even "righter" than after her previous Moriarity-influenced incidents. Lighter. Emptied out, but in a good way.

The bartender sat huddled under the bar, but the footballers were gone. Where were they? Had they ever been here? They had to have been. Their cum was everywhere, in her hair, on her clothes, on the bar, the wall, the floor—

No, there wasn't. She was clean, and so was the bar.

She was slightly disappointed. While she knew logically that having cum on your face should have been humiliating, she had enjoyed it so much that the very thought of it being humiliating was ridiculous. Well, if not ridiculous, wrong, at least in this case.

She sat up and buttoned up the front of her miraculously non-sticky shirt, tucked her breasts away, and looked around. John lay still on the bar, catching his breath, while Sherlock was sitting back on his heels, a queer look on his face. He hadn't come, that much was obvious by the look of his cock, though it was softening now that he was no longer rutting into his best friend. Molly would have offered to suck it, had it not just been in John's arse. Or perhaps a handjob. It seemed ludicrous, given what she had just done, but she wasn't quite sure she was ready to blow someone just yet.

Well, anymore than I've already done tonight. I wonder what it would be like to have Sherlock come in my mouth? It would make him so uncomfortable! She smiled at the idea, then remembered that Moriarity was not a benevolent sex god but an evil mastermind who, on a list of people who had humanity's best interests at heart, ranked somewhere between Attila the Hun and Pol Pot.

Or was that idea disrespectful to the people those two tyrants had killed? Ugh, she needed to stay off Tumblr. It was warping her thinking. Everything was offensive nowadays, which reminded her both of Fahrenheit 451 and of her well-meaning kindergarten teacher singing Kumbaya, bringing up lots of conflicted feelings.

Like this is the time for that?!

All Moriarity's fault. She was often like this post-orgasm, her mind easily flitting from random thought to random thought.

For example, she hadn't had turkey in a long time. When this was all over, she was going to the nearest deli and getting a turkey club. With coleslaw. And extra pickles.

You've had quite enough pickles for now, don't you think?

She spoke, because John was still lying on the bar and Sherlock was staring at the beer tap as intently as if it were the Eighth Wonder of the World.

"Was that all you wanted to do?" she asked Moriarity. "Humiliate us? Because I don't think that really worked. At least two out of the three of us had a fantastic time."

"But it's the third of you I'm concerned with," said Moriarity, and he no longer reminder her of a reptile or vulture, he reminded her of a wolf. "You I like. Glad you enjoyed it. You're welcome for the clean-up job. And him—" He eyed John derisively. "Couldn't care less. Was about Sherlock, not him. And I think I succeeded in that department."

Molly reached out to take Sherlock's hand but he pulled away, sliding down off the bar. She wanted to follow him, but she found that Moriarity had frozen her in place again.

"What do you want?" Sherlock asked Moriarity harshly. His rich voice was even deeper than usual, rougher, face even paler. "This is about the footage, isn't it?" He pointed at the TV. Molly had completely forgotten about it. "Blackmail."

"In a way. And in another way, it is very much about something else." Moriarity grinned and spread his legs, clucking, then hopped off the bar and leaned back against the rail. "I sense a trace of arrogance in you still, Sherlock. I'm doing you a favor by excising it. A favor for your friends, too. I'm not sure how they haven't strangled you in your sleep yet. Go on, now, and I swear I'll destroy that footage."

"What?" said Molly.

"You must be joking," said Sherlock.

Moriarity winked again. Molly thought she would scream if he did that one more time. "I'm a man of my word." He placed his hand over his heart and assumed an exaggeratedly solemn expression. "Please me, and I shall free your friends. No more tampering with their minds. And all compromising footage will be erased. Clean slate. How about it?"

"No!" said John, sitting up, red-faced and disheveled, but with his old intelligence back in his eye. "Don't do it for me!"

"Or me," Molly added.

"Don't be a fool," said Sherlock. "If any of it got out, your careers would be over."

"Yes, but…" She trailed off. The old Molly would have insisted on effacing herself for him, but she was not the old Molly.

"Please let me do this for you." He looked at John. There was no trace of shame in his face. "And you."

Molly suddenly understood that this was way of…apologizing for the past few years, hundreds of apologies all at once. Sherlock glanced at both of them again. I can't be what you want me to be, he seemed to be thinking, but at least I can do this.

John must have understood as well, because he started fixing himself, not looking at Sherlock. He seemed to be as glued to the bar as she was.

Well, she could move her arms. She grabbed Sherlock's discarded greatcoat and gently draped it over John, who had begun to shiver. He looked surprised.

"Delightful, Sherl!" Moriarity was clapping again. "Have at it, Mr. Holmes."

Sherlock got down on his knees in front of Moriarity, and Molly could see how agonizing the gesture was, even after the humiliation he'd just been though. He steeled himself and tugged at Moriarity's zipper. Moriarity held one finger up to his lips and winked at Molly and John.

All right. The next time he winks I don't care if I can't move, I get over there and slap him—

That the best you can think of? Slapping him?

Sherlock got to his knees.

"Attaboy, Sherlock."

Sherlock reached inside Moriarity's boxers—dear lord, he was wearing white boxers with hearts on them, because of course he was—and Moriarity's cock sprung out eagerly.

It was already half-hard. Molly wasn't sure if he, Sherlock, John, and the footballers were all particularly well-endowed, or if her previous boyfriends had been wanting, but she couldn't help but appreciate Little Moriarity, though if she had a choice she'd have chosen Sherlock's graceful cock or John's no-frills, workhorse cock. Moriarity was long and thick, with aggressive veins and a large head. Perhaps the Batmobile to Sherlock's classic car and John's…truck? Truck seemed to suit him, in attitude if not size.

Sherlock leaned forward.

The head of Moriarity's pressed against Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock took a deep breath, parting his lips slightly. Molly wasn't sure if he was gathering courage or somehow wanted to inhale Moriarity's scent. She wasn't sure why he'd want to smell the madman, but tonight was nothing if not full of bizarreness.

He tilted his head down slightly, Moriarity's cock dragging up over the bridge of his odd nose, pale lips still parted, and Moriarity impatiently grabbed a fistful of the other man's dark curls and pulled his mouth forward onto his cock.

Sherlock gagged, grasping at the sudden intrusion, eyes watering as he struggled for breath.

"Just relax, Sherl," said Moriarity, fingers still deep in his hair, his thumb reaching down to stroke Sherlock's forehead. "Just relaaax."

Sherlock made a conscious effort to steady his shoulders and pulled back slightly, gasping in air. He tilted his head and licked the side, running his tongue over the pattern of veins, and Moriarity sighed.

"That's better," he said. "Start small. You'll get the hang of it. Amateur little cockslut; you ought to write me a thank-you note after this."

Sherlock moaned at the word cockslut, a tiny, barely-audible moan, but Moriarity felt the vibrations on the sensitive skin of his dick, and grinned delightedly.

"You like that, whore?" he asked. Sherlock winced but kept licking at his cock like particularly delicious ice cream on a hot day. "Ladies and gentlemen, we may have stumbled on a winner here!" He pressed the front of his black boots against Sherlock's crotch and was met with a responsive bulge. "I see. My greedy little cockslut, why didn't you say so sooner? I'm more than happy to oblige. It's something of a specialty of mine."

Sherlock closed his mouth around the Moriarity's tip and bobbed his head up and down, slowly, almost as if—and Molly knew this was her imagination—was relishing the thick hot meat in his throat, heavy on his tongue, stretching his lips.

"Go on, Sherlock, suck the tip. Get every drop of precum out, paint your lips with it, let it dribble down your throat and paint your insides with me. You need me to tell you what to do, don't you? Dull creature, brutish slutty swine, too stupid to know what to do his own-"

Sherlock groaned, grasping the base of Moriarity's cock as if have it halfway down his throat was not enough, as if he needed more skin-on-skin contact, as if merely having Moriarity filling his mouth was only part of what he needed.

Moriarity was still stroking Sherlock's forehead. "Good boy. Go on. You like the weight of me on your tongue? The idea of me blocking your mouth, controlling the window of your brain to the world, your means of impressing people with a deluge of clever-sounding words, now just an empty hole for me to fuck?"

Sherlock sucked frantically at Moriarity's cock, face almost buried in Moriarity's stomach. Moriarity sighed again and stretched back, rocking his foot into Sherlock's groin, propping his cell phone up on the bar.

"Go on, my eager little rutting pig," said Moriarity encouragingly. "Go on, dog. Do it."

Sherlock looked too far gone to remember where he was, that his two best friends were watching. He obediently grabbed his swollen, painful-looking red cock and began to work it in what seemed almost like a frenzy—

"Uh uh uh!" chided Moriarity, sliding his foot out of his boot. He wore soft-looking black socks. "I've got a perfectly good foot, and you go for your hands? How pedestrian. How classless. How like a dirty, overeager whore."

Sherlock didn't bother protesting, just went straight for Moriarity's offered sole, humping it like a dog in heat, while he continued to see how far down he could swallow Little Moriarity without choking.

Molly was touching herself again. She couldn't help it. But John looked almost sad, not just sad for Sherlock, sad for himself.

We can discuss it later, Molly thought, and ground herself onto a nearby beer tap. Moriarity must have done to her what he'd done to Sherlock while he had sex with John, because though she should have been rubbed raw by then, she felt the beginnings of her umpteenth climax fluttering low in her crotch.

"I want you to swallow," said Moriarity. "I think you'll like it. Suck me dry, let me mark your stupid, slutty insides, I'll brand your throat for days—"

Molly came at "Suck me dry," but Sherlock came at the word stupid, of all things, splattering Moriarity's perfectly-tailored trouser leg with cum, and Moriarity twisted sharply at his hair.

"Did I tell you you could come?" he snarled, holding Sherlock's head still and fucking his mouth harder and faster, making Sherlock gag and choke on the hot fat flesh blocking his windpipe. "You don't come until I say so! Do you hear me, whore? I control you now!" His eyes blazed, the madness he could so easily hide at will flaring up in his dead black eyes. "Who controls you now?"

Sherlock tried to respond but gagged harder instead, his throat constricting around Moriarity's cock. Moriarity climaxed at the waves of pressure, spurting his semen deep into Sherlock's throat and pulling out just long enough to cover the consulting detective's face with a mess of sticky whiteness.

He planted his foot on Sherlock's chest and shoved him down to the floor. Sherlock moaned and licked at the cum dripping down his face, then got back on his knees and passionately lapped at Moriarity's cock, cleaning it with his tongue.

Moriarity reached down and petted Sherlock's hair, resting both hands on him as if he were blessing him.

"That's my good little cockslut," he said almost softly.

He leaned forward to wrap his fingers around Sherlock's throat, whispering something she couldn't hear through Sherlock's raspy breathing. And suddenly Molly found that she could move. It took effort, but his climax had weakened Moriarity's concentration, and there was his phone, unattended on the bar.

The phone was unlocked, still recording. And nobody noticed Molly. Nobody ever noticed Molly…

She closed the camera app without saving the video and texted Lestrade, then opened the gallery, hoping to find the footage of the Train Incident of Eternal Infamy, but there was nothing but hundreds of selfies, a close of up what seemed to be a Beanie Baby, and what looked like some kind of Pintrest-worthy altar, with a sheet of paper on it reading—

Oh, dear heaven. She sent it to Lestrade, just in case, opened the camera app again and started a new video, and put the phone back just as Moriarity was straightening up—

Sherlock was up as well, back to them. He removed his greatcoat from John and swung it around his own shoulders, scrubbed at his face with a cocktail napkin Molly was certain one of the vanished footballers had already marked, and turned back to Moriarity. There was some suspicious white stuff stuck in his lashes and the glossy hair at his temples, but this was not the time to mention it.

"The footage," he said.

"Ah. Yes. I'm a man of my word." Moriarity touched something on his phone, and the image of Molly disappeared from the TV. "Another service I've done for you tonight. Is this what it feels like to be charitable? I'm giddy. Giddy!" He slipped his shoe back on. "All right then, chums. Till next time, shall we?"

He snapped his fingers, and the windows and doors reappeared. Seconds later a full police team poured in.

This seemed to delight Moriarity more than anything else that had happened that night.

"All this, for me?" he chortled, hands over his head. "Lestrade! Good to see you!" He winkled at Molly, and this time she did slap him across the face, a good satisfying slap she didn't care was done in full sight of a dozen police officers. It seemed to amuse him. "Sneaky bastard, aren't you? Good for you." Cuffs snapped shut on his hands. "See you soon. You in particular." He stopped in front of Sherlock and ran his tongue over his lips, to be jerked away by an officer.

Lestrade stood staring after Moriarty, the criminal mastermind's phone in a plastic evidence bag in his hand. "Sherlock—"

"Take our statement tomorrow."

"But—"

Sherlock waved his hand dismissively. "Tomorrow."

"How about I wait outside."

Sherlock rolled his eyes and disappeared into the bathroom, with John following into the ladies' room, seemingly unable to fully articulate words yet.

Molly sat at the bar, staring at the wood, mind almost a complete blank.

They came out at the same time, looking much better.

John coughed.

"Sherlock, I think Molly and I want to—thank you—"

Sherlock nodded. Molly instinctively knew this was all that was going to be said on the subject.

"Magic is real," said Sherlock, mussing his damp hair. "My entire worldview needs to be completely recalibrated."

"And you mocked my horoscopes," said Molly, just to say something.

"No, those are still rubbish."

John rolled his eyes, but she found herself smiling. Her horoscopes were rubbish.

"The police won't hold him long," said Sherlock. "He appeared in here, he can disappear there...if only there were some place to start preparing…"

"I found a picture of some kind of spell on his phone," Molly offered. "I sent it to Lestrade."

"Excellent! Good job. That gives us something to work with. Now, I need to think. Moriarity must have a source of power, a charm, something that can be destroyed. I must see the picture, I must think, I must track him down—" He strode off to stand by the counter, eyebrows bunched tightly together.

John shifted uncomfortably.

"I was thinking of getting a turkey club after all this," Molly said.

John looked up, looking wan. "I beg your pardon?"

"Dinner." She suddenly remembered the bottle of water in her purse, and pushed it over to him and waited while he drank it.

"Thank you," he said as an afterthought.

"Well? Would you like to come?"

"Not tonight. I need a shower. A dozen showers. But…" He hesitated. "We ought to go out for a drink sometime. Not this pub, of course."

Molly looked over at Sherlock. He stood leaning against the counter with one hand in his trouser pocket, almost posing. No, definitely posing, making sure everyone knew just how deeply he was thinking. He'd enter his mind palace when he got home, but right now he was still reveling in the theatrical phase of the case. She wasn't sure if he was completely blocking out what had just happened, or if he was like her and…well….she didn't exactly regret things.

John's view of the night was also uncertain. But at least he seemed to have come to a healthy realization about Sherlock.

"Just the two of us, I mean, getting a drink," John continued. "We ought to give him a few days to wallow in nicotine patches and coffee."

Molly tore her gaze from Sherlock and looked at John.

He wasn't Sherlock.

John looked at Molly.

She wasn't Sherlock.

But they were the closest they'd ever come to him, and they both knew that. Sherlock was simply not capable of giving what either one wanted or needed.

John was.

Molly was.

"I would like that," said Molly, quietly.

John nodded, his usual brisk, military nod.

Sherlock strode over. His eyes were shining, and it occurred to Molly that despite everything, he looked happier than she'd seen him in a long time. The thrill of the hunt, the joy of the chase, and perhaps the promise of…more of whatever the hell Moriarity had been able to give him that she and John could not.

He smiled, not his usual patronizing half-smile, but a full, genuine smile. Moriarity had been wrong. He would not be broken by being beaten, so long as he won the final round.

And he would win the final round.

"The game is afoot," he said.

Notes: Thanks to all for your interest and patience! I know you all must have been in an agony of suspense ; ) I can't believe it took this long. Comments are extremely welcome : )