Frienemy

Our worst enemies were almost always once our dearest friends--they know our every strength and weakness, and love is so easy to turn to hate. For Holmes and Moriarty, if one follows some hints in the Doyle canon and especially the Steven Spielberg theory in "Young Sherlock Holmes," this is definitely the case (as I've said before). They're frienemies.

Think about it--how would you like your soul mate to be the person that you most hate??? That would be a hideous situation. Excluding Irene Adler, Moriarty is the only person that really understands Holmes (in any version of the Holmes-verse on the most intimate spiritual and intellectual level.)

So this is a 10-minute doodle for another fanfic (don't hold your breath, all, it will be a month or so before I even get to it ) chronicling my ideas about what happened about 2 years before the events of Young Sherlock Holmes--with the Sherlock Hound/Meitantei Holmes characters plugged into the roles. Yay! In short, it's implied in the film that Sherlock's father had an adulterous affair behind his mother's back, and when Holmes employed his deductive skills (ironically for the first time) and walked in on daddy dearest in the throes of...erhem...you know what...with the adulteress...he got himself kicked out and sent to the boarding school/prep school where Moriarty (who has his own bitter past involving being the abandoned bastard son of a British soldier and an Egyptian woman) served under the pseudonym of James Rathe as a young, renowned mathematics professor (and private fencing tutor, as you YSH fans are aware ). Soon after, Sherlock's mother died--whether it's by suicide or not, I haven't yet decided--and he became virtually an orphan when he received word of his disinheritance and his father's refusal to claim him at the end of the schoolyear (although his older brother Mycroft and younger brother...um, I believe it's Sherrinford??...still received acknowledgment of kinship to their father). To make a long story short, Moriarty/Rathe, who took an immediate liking to the boy, consorted with Professor Waxflatter, Holmes's other mentor, for plans on how to keep the boy financed on scholarships etc, and even more importantly, invited Holmes to live at his home estate (Knupfel calls it "Heaven's Gate") and become something of an apprentice, learning complex mathematics theorems and helping Mori/Rathe with his formula writing and bookkeeping. Holmes is also allowed to visit Waxflatter and help him build his "flying machines" (again, you have to see the movie). It soon becomes clear to Mori/Rathe that Holmes is a mind to be reckoned with. Unfortunately he has enough evil underworld operations going on with the Rhamme Tep (yes, see the MOVIE!! ) that he begins to see Holmes as less of a surrogate son and more of a threat--and here we pick up on the movie.

The boy, so abandoned by his kin, and at this point roughly 13 or 14, is so touched by the Professor's kindness (ironic, isn't it?) that, in this little doodle, he breaks out into tears and sort of plops his preteen head on Moriarty's chest. Note how the poor, infinitely emotionally constipated Sherlock is so embarrassed by his own emotions that he is unable to even fully hug his benefactor. Moriarty seems surprised but also willing to hug the boy back. Aww. It's kind of sad when you think of how many betrayals are in store between those two.