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Kismet

Summary:

1986.

Mycroft Holmes entered his private study and found a newspaper accompanied with a slip of paper on his desk.

It wasn't any newspaper though, it came from 25 years in the future and announced his brother's suicide.

The words etched on the paper slip?

'Find James Moriarty. '

Notes:

This is already finished and I will post a chapter every two/three days so I hope y'all are ready for a ride!

Beta-ed by Cindertail!

(https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cindertail/pseuds/Cindertail)
------------

kismet
/ˈkɪzmɛt/
noun
destiny; fate.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Find James Moriarty

Chapter Text

If you could go back in time, just once, just for a few minutes, what would you do?


Nothing.


That had always been Mycroft's answer, because surely nothing was important enough to risk space-time continuum, and yet, that didn't explain the impossibility sitting on his desk. 

He was in his private house in London, the one watched over by more cameras than even he could count, inside his hidden study, and yet a newspaper had made his way to this room.

It wasn't just any newspaper though...


The Sun.


Usually, he wouldn't have spared it another glance after seeing that name but this time, maybe because of the place where he had found it, maybe because of the fresh blood splattered on the clipping, he had read on.


Suicide of fake genius.


It was written in big, bold, white letters, taking most of the page and leaving only the right bottom corner for the picture.

The man staring back at him, with his face half hidden beneath his deerstalker hat and his lips twisted in annoyance was strangely familiar and his brain scurried to remember where he had seen those features before.

After a second, a single face, a single name came back to him, a dark-haired boy with glaring blue eyes, younger, softer, but unmistakably the same.


Sherlock.


Fraudulent detective takes his own life.


Sherlock Holmes.


It didn't make any sense, the headline, the picture, the date, nothing of it seemed even real.


2011, 25 years in the future .


Sherlock would be framed and either kill himself to clean his name or be murdered by the one accusing him, because Mycroft knew his brother, and there was no way the other would ever become a fake.

There was another piece of paper, lying next to the newspaper article, half crumpled, half torn, the handwriting twisted but still unmistakably his. 

An intricate pattern, lines intertwining and crossing, next to three words.


Find James Moriarty .


Without that symbol, he would have certainly been unsettled by the documents yet wouldn't have acted on them, but seeing as it was there...

Mycroft had created it when he had been 12, he had just finished a book about a time traveler leaving hints to his past self but failing to change the future as his previous incarnation never believed the warnings, and so he had decided something like that should never happen to him.

He had created a sigil, keeping it hidden deeply inside his mind palace, never allowing himself to draw it anywhere for fear that someone might guess its function and use it against him.

Kismet, fate, the letters twisted and mixed until they were unrecognizable. 

It would be bad if someone ever learnt it as he had promised himself he would believe anything accompanied with that sigil, no matter how outlandish it seemed. 

He was the only person to know it after all, so if he saw it anywhere, it was either from the future or something that he had been forced to forget.


Find James Moriarty.


The words suddenly stopped, like the person- himself he knew but refused to think - had meant to write more but hadn't had the time.

Find him, and then what?

Was that James supposed to save his brother? Or doom him?

There was no way to know, but if his future self had only written that, it must mean that he believed in his own judgement...

Maybe HE had to be the one to decide whether that person would live or die, whether they were an ally or a threat.


'Find James Moriarty' it said, so Mycroft did.


---------


The fact that he only held 'a small position in the government' meant that even if he was still young, he had access to every files in the archives as long as they weren't classified.

The problem however, was that ordinary people had no reason to be in here.

But apparently James Moriarty was no ordinary man... Or more precisely, he was, but he worked for the government so he had a file in here.

His search took him a few days worth of snooping, but he ultimately found a promising lead, a James Moriarty living near Dublin, a seemingly average middle-aged man mayor of a small Irish village.

The next day, he was taking his first holiday leave since his entrance in the government and waiting for his train to arrive in Dublin.



-----------



"You are here on the behalf of the government? Why? Is something wrong? "


Mycroft forced himself to smile, plastering a pleasant expression on his face.

He had arrived at his destination an hour ago and had easily gotten an audience with one James Moriarty in his large house near the outskirts of the village.

James Moriarty was... Normal.

Normal in everything he did, said or tried to hide, normal down to his bones, to the organs that kept him alive, to the very blood that flowed through his veins.


'Find James Moriarty. ' his future self had asked, but Mycroft really couldn't fathom what he was supposed to do with the man now that he was here.


"No, nothing is wrong Mayor, I was just tasked to inspect the town but I am afraid the reason why is classified. "


Like the dull, ordinary man he was, the other blanched and became as quiet as the goldfish he was emulating, looking quite unsettled by the thought of something 'classified' happening around his town.


"I see... Then how long will you stay? Do you already know where you will sleep? "


'Long enough to understand why I needed to find you, and is there really a need to ask such questions? '


"A few days, and thank you for your kind offer Mr Moriarty! "


"I-" the man gaped, are loss for words.


Mycroft didn't allow his smile to sharpen, but he had the feeling his icy eyes were more telling anyway.


"I look forwards to staying in your company! "


There was nothing the other could say to refuse that wouldn't sound horribly offending...

And no one wanted to offend one's superiors, however young they looked.


"Of course. " the older man ultimately said with a smile, the expression painfully plastered on his face "I will prepare one of the guest room. "


And with that his first conversation with one James Moriarty was over.



-----------


When Mycroft came out of the room, he didn't think he would come face to face with a little eavesdropper.

He opened the door, hearing the characteristic sound made by crumpled fabric and immediately looked in that direction, catching a mop of black hair before the intruder scurried off.

Not one to let go that easily, he slowly approached the corner where the other had disappeared and saw dark eyes shining in the dark, a young boy half hidden beneath the staircases.

Noticing that there was no way to escape now, the child stood up, flicking invisible specks of dust away from his jumper, staring at him as if daring him to say anything.


"You played him. " he ultimately said after a second, prompting Mycroft to smirk ever so slightly.


"Oh? What makes you say that, Mr...? "


Even though he had trailed off, obviously waiting for a name, the boy didn't provide one.


"You wanted to stay here all along, it's obvious, but what I don't get is the reason why. "


"If you give me your name, I might just tell you my reasons. "


There was a silence and then a scoff accompanied with rolled eyes.


"Might? That's not a good bargain. "


'Oh, he had caught that? '


His eyes sharpened ever so slightly, but his smile, now more innocuous, stayed on his face.


"Alright, I will tell you then. "


The child seemed to consider his offer during a few, interminable seconds, and then grinned broadly before speaking again, the name rolling off his chapped lips and drifting in the air between them.


"James Moriarty. "


Find James Moriarty .


"It's a pleasure to meet you Mr Moriarty... As for the reason of my visit? You of course. "


And during that instant, Mycroft knew more than he had ever known anything else that the message was about the son and not the father. 


-------------


'You of course. '


It sounded improbable, impossible, and yet, those were the words that had just left the stranger's mouth.


"Me? What do you mean? "


Jim didn't know who that man was, but what he did know was that he had gotten exactly what he wanted from his conversation with his father...

That in itself wasn't that hard, but it was the first time he saw someone other than himself do it.

The other shook his head, tutting disapprovingly.


"Now now, I answered your question already, I'm afraid I already upheld my end of the bargain."


What?


"It was a pleasure to meet your Mr Moriarty."


And just like that, he turned away and left.

Jim wasn't the kind of boy to give up so easily though, and so he quickly followed him, walking a few meters behind him, out of notice, as he crossed the streets and spoke with the shop owners. 

The man didn't seem very interested in his conversations, he entered the various buildings, smiled and talked for a maximum of five minutes and then left-


"If you were this curious, you could have just asked."


The boy scowled, defiantly meeting the pair of light eyes.


"I did. "


'You didn't answer.'


The other smiled, unbothered by the accusation.


"I told you, I am here because of you James... Because you are special and so am I. "


Special?


"You're not a goldfish. "



----------



Mycroft watched as surprise flickered on the boy's face, soon replaced by confusion and just the slightest hint of anger.

The boy certainly didn't seem amused, he even looked a tiny bit murderous beneath his calm exterior.


"What are you playing at? "


"I'm not playing Mr Moriarty... " he sighed, the gears of his mind turning at full speed, trying to find a good explanation for his presence here. "I have made it my goal to find gifted children and help them access education like I had the chance to access it. "


That, contrary to his expectations, didn't seem to placate the boy and he only looked more suspicious, his childish face twisting in distrust.


"Why would you do that?  What do you want in exchange?"


Mycroft let the silence settle between them like a soft blanket, waiting, pondering, and when he spoke again, his words rippled through the silence, breaking the stillness.


"I am simply bored. "


It was simple, too simple perhaps, he hadn't used pretty words and prettier lies, yet, the child smiled like he had never smiled before.

Maybe it was because it was the truth, maybe it was because he had recognised himself in the explanation, but James accepted it... Accepted him.


"Alright. "



----------



After that conversation, Mycroft stayed at the Moriartys' manor, still acting like he was conducting some kind of important business while starting to work once more from afar.

It was quite annoying to not be able to directly talk to someone when he needed something do, but that gave him the opportunity to observe James Moriarty Jr, the way he acted, how he looked when he came back from school, how he lived through an ordinary day.

In more ways that he had thought possible, the boy was like Sherlock.

He was smart, too smart for his peers, making absolutely no effort to fit in, unlike Mycroft, and he flew through different obsessions in the span of a week while still ultimately coming back to a particular discipline.

For his brother, that discipline had always been chemistry and crime solving, experimentating for hours upon hours with chemicals in a corner of his room.

For Jim, it was mathematics, and anything that could somehow be linked back to it.

The boy saw the world, even people, in equation, everything, from a leaf to a complex thought pattern, from a line of code in a computer to a flying butterfly, absolutely everything, could be deconstructed into numbers.


'Find James Moriarty. ' that piece of paper had said, and now he was beginning to understand why.


That boy was destined for Sherlock, wasn't he? He was his reflection, his mirror image, and Mycroft didn't doubt, even for one second, that they would get along splendidly well.


'Either that or tear into each other. ' whispered a voice in a dark part of his mind, but he ignored it, pushing it back as far as he could.



It should have been obvious though, that a genius like him would seek the work of other geniuses, and it should have been evident that he would find the books written by the Holmes matriarch at some point...

But for some reasons, Mycroft hadn't thought that he would, and he certainly hadn't thought he would send him a letter.

When he learned about it, he was furious.

He didn't hit the boy, of course he didn't, but his words stroke the younger like a slap, sharp and unexpected.



"Do not contact my family James. "



The child looked up with wide, shocked eyes, obviously trying to understand what was the problem with his behaviour.



"Why? I just wanted to discuss one of the formulas a bit! I didn't mention you or anything-" he started to defend himself only to be cut by an icy voice and icier eyes.



'Why? ' that dark voice repeated from its hiding spot in the back of his mind 'why keep him from Sherlock when you ultimately plan to push them together? '



The boy wasn't ready yet, Mycroft needed to mold him, shape him into a man that would match his brother as well as anchor him.

If they met right now, their fires would mix, feed on each other until the world was a blazing inferno...

At least that was what he told himself.


"Do. Not. Contact. Them. "


There was no explanation, no justification, just an unbreakable wall crashing right in front of the boy.

Jim bit his lips, still lost.


"Why? "


He did not get any answer that day or the days that followed