bakerstreet | (no subject)

How come I end up where I started?
How come I end up where I went wrong?
Won't take my eyes off the ball again
You reel me out then you cut the string

Joan would like nothing better than to throw away the key. Let Moriarty sit in jail and marinate in her defeat. In her helplessness. In the tattered strands of her once great web.

But Moriarty's web had been wide, and many of her machinations were still in motion even after her downfall. Even then, Joan would rather they ignore Moriarty entirely and solve these cases without feeding her the slightest bit of power. But time is of the essence in this one, and Joan had agreed to go along with this plan on one condition.

She would question Moriarty. Not Sherlock. Sherlock wouldn't even be watching the cameras.

So here she is, in Sing Sing, waiting for the guards to bring the Woman in.

"My first visitor," Moriarty greets Joan with a prim smile, looking far more smug than anybody with arms chained behind their back has the right to be. "What a lovely surprise." She looks at the escort expectantly when they reach the table, then makes a show of rolling her eyes before using her foot to pull out her own chair. "Men these days," it's a throwaway statement, busy filler as she takes her seat and scans the room before her gaze finally settles on Joan.

"You're looking good, despite the circumstances," she laughs, imitating the tone of old friends chatting over a cup of coffee. She thinks to ask for one to complete the scene, but the cheap bitter sludge they'd bring her, likely topped with spit, wasn't worth the effort.

"Wish I could say the same for you," she answers, leaning back in her chair comfortably, something Moriarty is obviously not able to do. "But orange really isn't your color."

She notes how the woman looks around the room, figures she's doing what Joan would expect Sherlock to do: locating cameras, listening devices, weaknesses in security. She has an escort, of course, who is standing silently against the wall. That said, Moran had an escort as well, when he had summoned Sherlock to speak with him. An escort whose neck he proceeded to snap. So Joan isn't letting her guard down, despite how calm and collected she may appear.

Moriarty's smile almost reaches her eyes when Watson follows through with the setup, leaning forward as the other woman leans back. "It's a ghastly shade."

The lack of Sherlock isn't surprising, although a twinge disappointing, but Moriarty has come to accept Watson as an acceptable alternative in her own merit. A far shinier, newer toy. "So which of my little piggies are you wanting to take to market?"

"That's part of the problem," Joan says with a very slight smile. "They're not your piggies any more. You may have committed every felony known to man, but I have to admit, you knew how to keep your people in line. With you out of the picture, they've gone off the rails. In most cases, that's meant that they've made themselves easier to find. But not in all cases."

"Every felony," Moriarty repeats with pride, bumping her foot suggestively against Joan's underneath the table, expecting to be kicked away swiftly because Joan was five shades of uninteresting and predictable.

She hardly looks perturbed at the apparent downfall of her empire, already well aware and not even hinting to Joan that they're not all as out of line as she'd like to think.

"As much as I'd love to help you fry the bacon, Ms. Watson, I do have some recreational towel folding to get back to." Which of course meant she had no intentions of helping at all, unless Watson quickly gave her whatever incentive she undoubtedly came prepared with.

Joan blinks and raises her eyebrows when Moriarty's foot touches hers. She pulls her foot back instead of kicking Moriarty's away. She could almost swear the woman was hitting on her, and that's not what Joan was expecting.

"Towel folding," Joan repeats. "I can't help but think that someone with your mind would find that a little stifling. And that someone with your pride in your work would want the name you've built for yourself sullied by some rogue agents."

Moriarty takes in every detail of Joan's reaction with amusement, wanting to push and prod and look for answers, not liking that the woman seemed to have a better insight into her than the other way around. But she wasn't one to ever complain about unfair advantages, and it did make Joan all the more intriguing. "Domestication never did suit me," Moriarty admits with an awkward shrug barely allowed by her restraints. "Prison feels how I always imagined marriage would."

Then her expression becomes harder, more focused. "But Ms. Watson, I don't want to make the mistake of underestimating you once more," she begins with a short, unimpressed sigh. "So please up the ante, because that can't be the best you've come to waste my time with."

"Somehow, I doubt this is wasting your time. I know they're keeping you isolated. For someone as connected as you were, it must be a special sort of hell to suddenly have next to no contact of any kind. Work with me on this, and you'll know the details of the case. You'll know what we're doing, when we're doing it. And you'll have some influence over how it turns out. Different from not even having influence over what they serve you for breakfast."

"So you think you've figured out how to take what I want and use it to get what you want. Is that it?" She lifts her head to appear unswayed, unimpressed by the selling of the offer. "As much as I know you want to spend more time with me, because I am charming and irresistible," Moriarty chuckles, glancing off to the side for a long, deliberate pause. "No, I'm not going to help you just because I'm bored and you have a pretty face." It was tempting, but Moriarty refuses to be caught by this woman again so easily. On principle.

She needs the arrangement itself as something Joan needs and not what Joan is giving her, to keep leverage. But she's not going to set the bar too high, isn't going to ask to see Sherlock because he'd be there as the bait if such an offer was even on the table. No, she now knows enough about Watson that the woman will keep herself firmly planted between them.

"I'll make it easy for you, because I'm so generous. Just ask what I want."

She almost gets up right there, walks out. In truth, she doesn't care what the woman wants. Joan herself wants to leave her here to pay for what she's done to Sherlock. But the prevention of more deaths is worth dealing with this devil.

"What do you want?"

"Just a sketchbook and some watercolours," she delivers her overly simple request with a sinister smile, certain Watson hadn't anticipated that. And somehow that's become the most important part, not wanting to give Joan any sense that she can read and predict her now. She refuses to be the first to bring up Sherlock, doesn't want Joan to feel any validation of being right. "Would you believe they won't even let me have a pen?"

It isn't what Joan was expecting, no, but it also doesn't surprise her. She knows Moriarty will be manipulative, that she won't give straight answers, or expected answers. So Joan remains placid, her face expressionless.

"I wouldn't let you have a pen, either. A crayon, maybe." She tilts her head. "I get you a sketchbook and watercolors, and convince the warden to let you keep them. What do I get in return?"

"You flatter me far too much," Moriarty croons at the distrust of her handling basic objects, finds it amusing that everyone's too suspicious to give her even the smallest allowance. Entirely justified as it is. The more they deny her, the more empowering it is, feeds her ego by being too dangerous for them to handle without the highest precautions.

She's not going to promise full cooperation- only wants to be as helpful enough to require Joan to keep coming back for more, but not unhelpful enough that it's no longer worth the trouble. "An exchange of information, isn't that what you want? The more details you provide to me, the more I'll offer in exchange," she negotiates the terms calmly, doesn't want to show just how eager she is for involvement. "I was rather pleased with your work on the previous case I had you pursue." She says you to avoid saying Sherlock's name still, and it's probably more revealing.

She knows that Moriarty is pointedly excising Sherlock from her conversation, and Joan is fine with that. She'll gladly do likewise.

"I doubt that," she answers. "If you had been pleased with my work, you might not be here right now." She wouldn't have underestimated her, and would have been that much harder to ensnare.

"A sketchbook and watercolors, information, and my company." Because that hasn't escaped her notice either. "And you'll give me the answers I'm looking for. "That's fair. it's also fair that I tell you that if I get the least bit of suspicion that you're not keeping up your end of the bargain, I will have the sketchbook confiscated and you won't see me again."

"Apparently you know everything about me, what makes me tick." Yet Moriarty still knows very little about Watson, doesn't quite understand the way she sees the world, wants to pry and choke the answers out of her. It's as frustrating as it is intriguing. In a way Watson is a far more interesting opponent. After all, Sherlock wouldn't have managed to catch her alone, she still considers him a game won. "So tell me, what would I possibly have to gain from lying?"

Moriarty's not even the least bit embarrassed about being called out for wanting the woman's company, has never bothered to hide her desires. "Traditionally deals end with a handshake, but," Moriarty indicates her condition with a shrug of her shoulders, "you'll just have to scrape the barrel and take my word." She can imagine precisely how good her word is to Watson, but enjoys that she's come to her anyway. How long had they held off before it was deemed necessary?

"I know enough," Joan says. She really doesn't know everything, and doubts that she ever will. She doesn't deny that Moriarty is brilliant, that her mind is complex in its depths. She was just able to recognize the woman's weakness. That she would take a chance, expose herself to swoop in and save Sherlock when he was at his weakest.

"I don't expect you to lie to me. I do expect you to try to manipulate me. I don't blame you for trying. I'm just telling you now, it won't work."

She looks up at the man guarding them. "Maybe next time they can handcuff you to the table, and then we can shake on it. For now your word is good enough." As much as that means. She doesn't trust Moriarty as far as she can spit her, but if she can help them save lives, then she'll give this a try.

"Manipulate you?" Moriarty's smile is completely sincere in its insincerity. "If there was anything else that I wanted, I would have asked for it." Or at least nothing that wouldn't have been shot down before she'd finished saying it, and she suspects that list is quite short.

"But I'm not answering any of your questions until you make good on your end of the bargain." She's not worried that any of this will redeem her, but who would have guessed that saving lives would be the least boring part of her day?

"I'll have the materials to you by tomorrow morning, and we'll talk again tomorrow night."

She nods to the guard who has been standing silently by the door. "I think we're done here."

(no subject)

Joan Watson | Elementary

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