Braindamaged!Jim

He wakes up. Three years and he wakes up.
Brilliant is one thing he'll likely never be again.
There's no one in the room when he opens his eyes to the sight of a sterile hospital room and a railed bed with an IV line. An acute sense of thirst and hunger overcome him. There's a white pad with a red button on it only inches away from his left hand--he fumbles to move his arm to press it because he has a feeling that he should.
It's only a few minutes before a nurse comes into the room--her eyes widen and she drops her clipboard when she sees that his eyes are open. "Mr. Brook!" She gasps.
...He supposes that must be his name. "Oh my god!" She continues, rushing out of the room. She leaves him in a state of bewilderment that is compounded soon after when she returns, along with a doctor and two other nurses.
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They give him the basket of his things that they got from him when he was admitted. A phone, a coat. A wallet with ID saying that his name is Richard Brook. It doesn't feel quite right, but why it doesn't is something he could never tell. They tell him that he doesn't have an emergency contact, doesn't have any family, and they couldn't unlock his phone.
It kind of makes him sad. He wished he had someone who could tell him who he actually is other than a smiling face on this driver's license. When he asks what happened to him, they say that he was shot. Through the head! Who would have done that to him? They say it looks like suicide.
When they leave the room he picks up the phone again. It won't turn on. He figures it probably is out of batteries. Maybe it's broken. He plugs it into the wall with a charger they find for him, just in case.
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Staring at a blank screen that says 'I am locked' he realizes that even though his phone now turns on, he has no idea how he's going to unlock it. He turns it off.
Turns it on again.
Turns it off.
Turns it on. His thumb jumps to the keypad to press the 's', then the 'h', then and 'e' and an 'r' in succession. The lock screen clears. He makes a happy noise and begins to click through it.
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...This phone is not his. It belongs to someone named Jim who has a lot of contacts and some really odd pictures. But he supposes that he must be friends with this 'Jim' guy, because he has got his phone. He clicks through to the last call and presses 'redial'. It rings for a long time and then, too loud in his ear comes a man's voice:
'Sebastian Moran. Leave a message.' The voice is terse and deep. He doesn't bother leaving a message, but clicks through to the next to last call. Disconnected. He goes to the third to last. 'Sherlock Holmes'. Hm. His password sounds a lot like that name. He hits the redial button and listens to the ringing.

((Put it three years later because that way John has his Sherlock back. XDD))
((I'm going to largely ignore muscle degeneratation. So sue me.))
--------- ((<--This line indicates time passing.))

It had been just over three years since Sherlock Holmes had faced his nemesis Jim Moriarty on the roof of St Barts and been forced to leap to his "death". After three long years in hiding catching up with members of Moriarty's network in Europe, he had finally returned to London with the hope of tracking down Moriarty's greatest assasin Sebastian Moran.

After a shaky start re-establishing his friendship with broken hearted John, and persuading the police force to trust him again after they all believed he was a fake, things had finally started to resemble something similar to normality. Although normaility as far as Sherlock was concerned involved murder, crime, mystery. Anything else was just...well...dull.

He was just approaching the end of one of those dull days when the phone rang. He thought it would be John, letting him know he was on the way home from work although it was unusual...normally he'd just send a text. With a little leap in his chest he thought it might be Lestrade, calling to let him know about a new case he needed help with. Suddenly Sherlock found a new lease of life. He leapt of the sofa where he had been languishing for most of the afternoon and dug into his pockets to bring out the phone. Please be Lestrade....

He stopped dead when he saw the number...a strange choking feeling round his chest....It was a number he no longer had saved in his phone book but he recognised it anyway. Sherlock really had no need for a phone book, he knew everyone's phone number off by heart within seconds of first seeing it. But this particular number he /really/ had no need to store it in his phone. Why? Because the owner of that number was dead. The owner of that number was Jim Moriarty...and Jim Moriarty had blown his own brains out three years ago on the roof of St Barts. Sherlock had seen it with his own eyes. No one could survive that gun shot...Could they?....His heart was beating double time in his chest. He realised he was excited...thrilled...could it be...could something exciting really be happening at last? He pressed the answer button.

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Um... yes." He replied in response to the answering voice. "I'm, um. Yes. This is going to sound really off, but do I know you? I mean, are we friends? I'm Richard Brook..." Nervousness pooled in his stomach--it felt like nausea. There was silence on the other end.
"I--please don't hang up! I swear I'm not pulling your leg! I don't...I don't know who..." That sounded ridiculous. "I'm not quite sure what's going on here." He finished lamely.

That unmistakable Irish lilt reverberated round Sherlock's ears, mocking him. I'm Richard Brook. His head started spinning, the room was a blur, a thousand questions and answers all running round his brain. Jim Moriarty. Alive. For a moment he couldn't speak. For possibly the first time in his life he was lost for words.

Then the shock was replaced by anger, hatred, rage. How dare he come back after all this time, still touting the same old Rich Brook rubbish, acting like he didn't know what was going on.

He was playing with him again, Sherlock realised. He was having fun. Suddenly the adrenalin kicked in, the thrill of the chase, the excitement, the danger. The game was on. His heart was racing but he forced himself to stay calm, take a deep breath.

He cleared his throat. "Where are you?" He asked coolly.

The voice on the other end was unemotional. But they seemed to know him, if they were asking where he was.
"Um, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital." He replied, recalling where the orderlies had said he was at. "They say that I seem...fine... they say I was shot. Did you know that?" He asked, feeling foolish, "You were, um, in this phone, that's why I called you. Sherlock is your name? I'm sorry, I don't remember." His voice wavered for an instant. Silence fell on the other line.
"They say that they can release me in three days, if I want to go? Although they don't recommend it. But I want to leave. Do I have...somewhere I could go, do you know?"

Sherlock couldn't believe he was acting like this...the audacity of it amazed him so much he actually felt like laughing. I mean...why bother after all this time? Why bother keeping up the pretence? Who was he trying to kid? Or maybe he thought he could just make a reapparance as Brook and continue to ruin Sherlock's reputation by claiming everything he did was a fake...including now, conveniently, his own death...the papers would love that, he thought ruefully. 'Sherlock Holmes is brilliant at faking...not only did he fake all the crimes, he faked his own death too.'

"Stop it Jim," he said finally into the phone. "Just stop this. If you are where you say you are, I'll be there shortly. I think we have a lot to talk about."

He didn't give Jim any time to answer. He just hung up the phone, grabbed his coat and scarf, and headed straight out, jumping into a taxi just outside 221B.

He stared at the phone. Wh...what had just happened? 'Jim'? Must be the same Jim who owned this phone, which must be why this fellow thought he was Jim. He started to scroll through the texts. When Sherlock Holmes got here, as he said he would, they would sort out this misunderstanding and perhaps he could find out something about who Richard Brook--who he--was.
Jim certainly had a lot of texts. Most of them were to and from this... Sebastian Moran person. A lot of rest were to Sherlock Holmes, but those never had replies. Perhaps...Jim and Sherlock Holmes weren't very good friends? That might explain the man's response.
Surely everything could be fixed, though. It wasn't as though he had done anything to make Sherlock Holmes mad. Actually, he hadn't done anything for three years.
Odd. He wasn't in Jim's contacts. Why, then, did he have Jim's phone?
He rifled through the contents of the box again.
The phone was the most interesting thing here. He called in the nurse again.
Told her he was having a visitor soon.
Then he waited.

Sherlock arrived at the hospital and approached the front desk.

"I'm looking for a patient....name of Jim Moriarty." The receptionist tapped away and a moment later he was informed there was no one under that name currently residing at the hospital. Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Try Richard Brook." Are you a friend or relative? she asked him. He grinned bitterly. He wanted to say 'arch enemy' but was pretty sure it wouldn't go down too well. "I'm his closest friend." he replied instead. Closest thing he's got to a friend.

He took the steps two at a time and raced up to the ward, turned the corner and into Jim's room. He stopped in the doorway, regarding the sight of the man sat propped up in the bed. It was unmistakably him. Same dark hair, black eyes, thick eyebrows, just a little paler and with a white bandage wrapped round his head. Sherlock slowly stepped into the room and approached the bed feeling a mixture of exilerhation and trepidation at seeing his old enemy again after all this time.

"Jim Moriarty...I never thought I'd see you again."

"Jim Moriarty...I never thought I'd see you again." Slim, tall, and pale, the man who must be Sherlock Holmes steps into the room. Dark, curly hair frames his face--which, though not classically handsome, does have a certain attractive quality.
"Um...I think you might have the wrong person. Are you...Sherlock Holmes?" He asks, weakly smiling in the face of what seems to be a very upset person. "I'm Richard Brook, I think we spoke, on the phone?" The other man merely stares at him.
He feels very, very stupid. And very, very small.
"Er." His voice came out in a squeak as he tried to break the heavy silence as the other man examined him. "I'm. Um. Why are you calling me Jim Moriarty?"
Silence.
"I do have his phone, at least I think I do."
More silence.
"Do you...do you want to see it?"
The stare was penetrating and the eyes felt like they were boring through him.

((Er, not to be a perfectionist here, but he probably doesn't need the bandage. It has been three years. ><))
((You are fantastic this is amazing ignore me))

((lol so true, ignore the bandage...I just got a little too over dramatic there))

Sherlock just stood there for a while...listening to Jim babbling on, finding it hard to believe that he was keeping up this charade despite them being alone together. He glanced around him. Yes, they were definitely alone. So who was the performance for? Despite himself, he started to smile. This was all part of some big game to Moriarty. He probably had a hidden camera placed somewhere. He searched the room with his eyes, looking for potential places, then let his eyes rest on his nemesis once again...a question forming on his lips he was dying to know the answer to.

"How did you know I was still alive?

He sat there, silent, puzzled by the question.
"W...why would you be dead?" He asked. "Look, um, I'm sorry? I don't know who...who you are. I don't remember anything. S-should I have called someone else?"
Maybe he was Jim? This man seemed to think he was. Maybe...he had a brother or some such? That might explain the phone. And how he'd known the password. Muscle memory, he thought with a jolt. That wasn't something one normally got from one's brother. Besides, didn't they say he had no family? And Moriarty wasn't the name on this ID.
But why would he be carrying around an ID with his picture on it that said 'Richard Brook' if he wasn't Richard Brook?
Seems Sherlock Holmes had been a poor choice of someone to call.
He was only becoming more confused.

Now even Sherlock was beginning to get puzzled by Jim's act. He'd seen him pretending to be Richard Brook before, but this was different somehow. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"You know who I am Jim," he said patronisingly. "I'm Sherlock Holmes remember, the guy you forced to commit suicide or maybe you've forgotten."

He registered the blank look on Jim's face. It seemed genuine. "Maybe you've forgotten." He said again, suddenly starting to wonder if that was really the case. "How long have you been here?" He asked. "What have they told you?"

Oh, thank god. He understood.
"I have forgotten!" He said, eager to ensure that the other man believed him. "I don't remember anything past about an hour ago." It all came pouring out, everything they'd told him, the amnesia and the gunshot and how strange he felt and why did he have this phone, it clearly wasn't his and--
Silence, from the other.
Thoughtful silence. But silence nonetheless.
He started to wonder what the whole first bit was.
"Do I, um, actually know you? If I do I'm sorry I don't remember, but like I said I don't really remember anything, so... I guess we must have known each other, since you..." he trailed off. Confused. As usual.
"Sorry. I. Um. Yes. What were we, exactly?"

Sherlock was amazed. He'd stood and listened to Moriarty's ramblings. He'd taken in every word, digested it, mulled it over. He finally came to the conclusion that he believed him. Jim Moriarty genuinely had lost his memory. The thought of it brought a wry smile to his lips. It serves the bastard right.

"We were..." once again he stopped himself saying 'arch enemies'. "We were friends, of a sort."

Suddenly an exciting thought occured to him. "May I see your phone?" he asked, and without waiting for an answer he made his way over to the dresser and picked it up. His heart thumped loudly in its chest as he realised he held right there in his hand every single one of Jim Moriarty's criminal contacts. He scanned through the phone book, exilherated...seeing many recognisable names - thieves, snipers, blackmailers, murderers. This was absolute gold. He took out his own phone, set up a Bluetooth connection between the two, and began transferring all of Jim's numbers over to his own.

"I hope you don't mind..." he offered by way of an explanation. "I lost my phone recently and you've got some of my friends numbers..."

"Oh. Um. No, sure. Go ahead." He had the oddest sensation that he shouldn't say that. A niggling feeling that there was some reason he shouldn't let the other man download his contacts. But as he couldn't put his finger on it, he supposed that it wasn't important. And anyway, Sherlock Holmes was his friend...of a sort, or so he'd said. "What did I, um, call you? Sherlock's a very interesting name, did you have a nickname or something?"
"Mmn. No. Sherlock." The other man said, staring at his phone. There was a pause.
"Do you know whether I have somewhere I could go, you know, after they let me out of here?" He asked, "Did I have, I don't know, a girlfriend or something?" He didn't remember a girlfriend. But then, he didn't remember anything. And surely they would have been his emergency contact if he had had one. "Do I have a best friend or someone? Who should I... what do I do?" He had no idea what to do, how to go about this. Missing three years of his life had severely thrown him off. Actually, right now he was missing twenty-some years of his life, which was complicating it.
He needed some guidance, he needed this man to tell him what to do. He was, so far, the only link to this confusing past life that he seemed to have had.

Sherlock grinned to himself...his downloading of Moriarty's contacts complete. This really was turning into quite a special day. He was vaguely aware of Jim speaking to him, and realised he was asking for help...did he have any friends, somewhere he could stay? Sherlock tried to stop himself from laughing. He couldn't wait to tell John all about it. The thought crossed his mind to invite Jim back to his house and have him stay at Baker Street for a while, purely for his and John's amusement, but he thought better of it. Even in his current state, Jim Moriarty was still a dangerous man, liable to snap at any minute...and who knows if and when his memory might come flooding back.

In answer to Jim's question, he flicked through the man's phone book until he found the name he was looking for...then flipped it round and showed it to Jim.

"Try this guy. Sebastian Moran."

"Um. One more thing, I think you're in a hurry?" A short, affirmative nod of the other's head gave him the go-ahead to ask. "Am I Jim or Richard, or..." God, this question hardly made sense. "I mean, this ID says, but you thought..." He went silent again, conscious of the other man's foot tapping silently in impatience.

Sherlock was torn. He couldn't decide whether to just tell Jim everything or keep him in the dark. The nervous shy man he saw in front of him now was a completely different person to the psychopathic murderous genius he had to deal with on the rooftop of St Barts. And yet...they were one and the same. Maybe Jim Moriarty really was scizophrenic, he mused to himself whilst contemplating what to do. Sherlock always believed in "being yourself", so finally he stopped thinking and just let the words come out...the words he'd been dying to say. He spoke quickly without stopping to take a breath.

"Your name is Jim Moriarty and you're an international criminal mastermind; Richard Brook is an alias you made up to try and trick the world into believing I was a fake. You kidnapped my best friend and strapped a bomb to his chest; you hired three snipers to shoot three of my friends unless I threw myself off a rooftop. Luckily for me I'd anticipated your moves and made prior arrangements to help me fake my own death hence why I stand in front of you now. Whilst on that rooftop you shot yourself in the mouth and I presumed you dead. Clearly not. You have a web of criminals at your fingertips all ready to do your bidding at the drop of a hat, a web of criminals which you very kindly let me copy into my phone and which I will now proceed to destroy. I cannot even begin to tell you how good it is to see you again and I cannot /wait/ to see the look on your face when I...burn...you."

He made a move to go but paused in the doorway, remembering one last thing.

"Oh and by the way...Sebastian Moran. He's your best sniper. The best in the world perhaps. You might want to think about calling him. Tell him you just met Sherlock Holmes. He knows where I live. I'll put the kettle on."

Sherlock swiftly turned and disappeared down the corridor, pulling up his coat collar and grinning.

He watched the other man disappear down the corridor, his mouth, he felt certain, hanging open. His brain was about two steps behind everything Sherlock had said. Criminal...mastermind? How could he be? And how could he have done the things Sherlock said he did? He didn't feel nearly intelligent enough, nor did he feel, well...evil? He assumed to do things like that you'd have to be absolutely unhinged, and he didn't feel unhinged. He wasn't, at least he thought so, particularly evil either.
His mind whirled. What, what, what...
Much as he hated to think it, it fit. It fit.
Was that...him?
Sebastian Moran. He needed to call Sebastian Moran.
He dialed the number Sherlock had indicated.
Don't go to voicemail, don't go to voicemail.

Sebastian was at his flat when his phone started ringing. When exactly had been the last time he had a phone call? A while ago. He couldn't even remember.
He dragged himself off the couch to go answer it. He wasn't really bothered to but he was curious to see who exactly would want to ring him.
He picked it up off the table and stared at it.
Jim Moriarty.
Jim Moriarty?
He blinked twice to check the name was still there. And sure enough, it was.
It couldn't be. This was surely a joke. He was dead. Sebastian was quite aware of his mouth hanging open but he couldn't make himself close it.
Before he had time to think about it, he pressed the answer button and held the phone to his ear. He could hear breathing on the other end. It didn't look as if the other person was going to speak any time soon so it looked as if he would have to.
"H-hello?"
His hands were shaking now, he didn't know what to expect. He waited on the reply, pretty sure this was some kind of practical joke. And it wasn't very funny.

"Um, is this Sebastian Moran?" He asked when the man he'd heard on the answering machine message picked up. "I was, well, I was told to call you." His voice shook a little, his head still whirling from the things that Sherlock had said.
He had about a hundred questions for the person who was his 'best sniper', if that was a thing that you could have a 'best' in. He didn't remember! He didn't remember!
Everything was so confusing... it was probably so much easier to be in the coma he'd fallen into for three years. He needed some clarity, he needed something to be cut and dry, and that something was clearly not going to be his name or what he'd done or his personality... or how he'd gotten here.
"This is...Richard Brook, or Jim Moriarty?" He said weakly into the silence that followed his first sentence. "I don't actually know and I was hoping you could...could tell me?"

It was him. Just the accent gave him away. It really was him.
Three years. Three fucking years.
What the hell was he playing at? This wasn't even funny.
And he was still keeping up the whole 'Richard Brook' charade?
Maybe it wasn't him. It still could be someone playing a practical joke. It failed to amuse him. It was the same Irish accent he knew so well. And he had to admit, he missed it.
For so long he had believed him to be dead. He was hallucinating, this wasn't right. How exactly did Jim survive something like that? Impossible.
"Who are you and what do you want?" he asked, his voice breaking slightly. He couldn't help it.
Three bloody years.

Oh. Um.
"Could you, um. I don't actually know what's going on, at all. I'm sorry, I don't remember you." He paused. He sure was pausing a lot today. "Were we...what were we exactly? Someone told me that you were...a sniper. But I can't, I don't remember anything." The man on the other end had the voice of a smoker. He sounded...broken.
Confusion took over his mind again.

((Feel free to imply or even say MorMor. Jim's practically a different person so it's unlikely to be happening, but that doesn't mean it hadn't happened.))

Sebastian laughed nervously, not sure what was going on.
It really was Jim. He couldn't deny it.
But what was the matter with him? He couldn't seem to remember anything.
Probably another joke of his, he did love to play games.
"I... uh... worked for you. Is this really Jim or some person playing a joke on me? It really isn't funny. I don't care who you are or what you want. Just stop this, you're not fooling anyone." He paused, listening to the breathing on the other end.
It could have been someone just imitating Jim's voice. Someone that had found out about him. Sebastian still had no idea, his mind was racing. He inhaled deeply before speaking again, hoping his voice wouldn't break.
"Wh... where are you?" His voice had broke again. Dammit. Just calm down.

"Chelsea and Westminster. Hospital." He said, for the second time that day. The other voice sounded... hurt. As though Jim had...had done something to him. Why did none of these people think he was telling the truth?
Oh, right. If he was really the criminal that Sherlock had said he was, lying was probably a habit of his.
"I'm not, I'm not joking." He added, desperate for the other man to believe him, for something to begin to clear up. "Am I Jim?" He asked, "I have...I'm Jim, aren't I?" Sebastian Moran. It was almost familiar.
"Mr... Mr. Moran?" He asked. If he'd worked for him they were probably on formal terms, but the other man was addressing him as Jim... Why, why couldn't anything just be simple? "If you're coming in, I'm registered as Richard....Richard Brook. Why do I have an ID that says Richard Brook if I'm Jim Moriarty?"