"That's what love is like: mother of the greatest bliss, and stepmother of the most tragic misery."  -Stefanos Livos

    The workings of the common human mind would never cease to annoy you if not perplex you. 

     What was considered consciousness was a motley cumulation of instinct, pains, conversations, and emotions, things considered human by all aspects. Even love was often viewed as some external, uncontrollable force; and it was, but it couldn't be attributed to some magic mystic forces of the soul. It was the result of instinct affected by childhood impressions, role models, and hobbies, all compiling into one large heap of habituated neurons which led to chemicals which led to physical reactions. Love might have been uncontrollable to some, but it was prognosticable in all cases of--

     "I'll get it, shall I?" came the tetchy grumble of John, snapping you out of your rambling (you preferred the term philosophizing or researching, but I didn't, and I'm the writer) and back to reality. You and Sherlock were sitting at his chair, Sherlock sitting like a normal person and you adjacent to him on his lap, wearing a purple-button up shirt. Neither of you were doing anything beyond the realm of your minds-- Sherlock was in his mind palace, and you had been researching (efference copy) before you drifted into your own mind.

     "Get what?" you asked John. Sherlock beside/underneath (both) you tensed, though not in a tense way, just in an awake away that was just enough to let an attentive person (*ahem* YOU) know he had departed from his mind palace.

     "The phone???" John glared pointedly at the device where it lay on the table. "It's been going off." Right on cue, it beeped again. John huffed.

     A short silence progressed, but was shortly broken at the sound of a beep. Again.

     "Well?" said John.

     "I thought you said you were going to get it."

    He groaned and stood from his place by his computer, getting the phone. After taking a moment to read the lock screen notification, a frown crossed his face. John tossed it your way, which was unfortunate, because you were visiting your thoughts again and also happened to be facing the opposite way. Sherlock caught it with a flick of the wrist, unlocked your phone (it took him two tries; you laughed when he got it wrong the first time), and held it up so the two of you could see the contents:

Come and play.
Tower Hill.
Jim Moriarty x.

(A/N:

sis guess who got best actor award and stood frozen for fifty years and then slowly walked up and stood there mortified struggling to manage even a painful smile because social anxiety? this boiii. on the bright side there were three other ppl who won best actor so its not like i was standing up there alone because i wouldve started crying if i was 

ALSO SIS GOT DETROIT BECOME HUMAN??? LIKE YES?? and also played the spiderman game (see below) (aspis is me)

At the Tower, our resident villian was being arrested by Geoff and Sarah or George and Summer or whatever names came before Lestrade and Donovan, but he didn't seem all too upset by it. There was a knowing smile on his face, almost as if he had a plan. Almost as if this was all a part of his own little game.

He was detained, Lestrade (and Donovan) gathered evidence, and within thirty minutes you were on the scene. You and Sherlock. And John. And Mrs. Hudson but that was just for like two seconds because you guys had to borrow her car to get there quickly and she didn't want y'all to drive so she did it herself, which proved to be more life-threatening than the hound of Baskerville case. 

"That glass is tougher than anything," Lestrade said, gingerly, as if wary that the subject of this case was a touchy case. He was right. About the touchiness, not about the glass, as Sherlock would soon prove. The whole of you all were crowded in a small security room, examining evidence.

"Not tougher than crystallized carbon," Sherlock said, leaning over you to look closely at the screen that the whole group peered at. On it played the security footage of Moriarty's crime. "He used a diamond."

"That makes sense," you agreed.

"Of course it does. I said it," Sherlock replied. He reached over for the keyboard and switched the screen to play from the perspective of a camera on the other side of the glass. With the click of a button (f19, to be exact), he also sent it into reverse.

The screen played the shattered glass rising, and Moriarty pulling the fire extinguisher from the glass (also dancing, but that didn't really interest you, even though John let out a little snort, sort of like an amused piglet). 

"Pause," you commanded suddenly. Sherlock reacted so quickly it was well possible he was going to pause it anyway. You leaned forward and stared at the screen. Scrawled across the glass, backwards from Moriarty's perspective but not from the camera's, were the words:

GET

(Y/N).

With a smiley face instead of a period. Utterly sinister.

"The Papers are going to have a field day," you muttered.

And they did. Oh, they did. Headlines streamed out with such titles as "Scotland Yard calls Upon the Nation's Favourite Detective in Moriarty Trial" ("The favorite?" asked Sherlock) "A Twist Worthy of a Conan Doyle Novella: (Y/N) (L/N) Called To The Stand" ("Who cares about Collin Dolly?" muttered Sherlock) and "Serial Killer Loose Again in London (no comment from Sherlock there).

The information to be gained by you, dear reader, is that you were being called to be a witness at the trial of James Moriarty the very next day(s) (it took three days) (terribly inconvenient system, I know, go bring it up with the Queen).

-+-=-+-

This should be fun, you thought, checking yourself in the mirror. You didn't actually care how you'd look in court, but formalities, formalities. Since John and Sherlock were accompanying you, (John as a witness, what with the whole pool scene, and Sherlock as an expert, what with his expertise in being an expert, though it did take a quick word with Mycroft to have him allowed) they were both getting ready.

     Was there a way to be ready, though? For Moriarty? You'd run all the possibilities through your mind library, written book after book with potential ending, but you still weren't confident. There were so many unanticipated variables, from weather to plot twists on Moriarty's part, to the fault of the human body's physical limitations. And then there was the biggest variable of all: emotions, something that you were still struggling to understand.

    You felt someone watching you and instinctively looked up to see Sherlock's reflection staring back, his hands which were busied buttoning his shirt suddenly stilled. He didn't look away when you caught him, but a movement in his lips attracted your eyes. Despite yourself, you had to stifle a laugh. "Did you just bite your lip?" you asked incredulously.

    Sherlock's eyes widened and a blush crept up his neck as he finally averted his eyes. "Did I?" He cleared his throat. "I don't... recall... that."

     "For sure? Well that's a shame. There goes all the things we could have been doing if you had been biting your lip." You watched Sherl's distraught reaction closely. "That's okay, I'm sure you wouldn't have enjoyed it; it was just you... and me... and a little bit of-"

    "Shut up," Sherlock blurted, looking as if he definitely didn't want you to.

     "Make me," you answered.

     "Gladly."

     "Ew. Please, not here," John begged. "I nearly threw up the last time."

    Sherlock rolled his eyes forcibly in John's direction.

     "We should get going," you admitted. "The sooner the better, before more press have the opportunity to show up."

     At the mention of the press, all eyes turned to the door down the stairs. On the other side would inevitably be a large crowd of desperate journalist, eager to make distasteful articles about gross rumors. The rumors themselves didn't bother you much, (though nowhere near the same could be said for Sherlock and especially not John) but publicity overcame privacy, and that none of you were grateful for.

     Still, anything for the game.