#i never forget #i always wonder where that aborted gesture was headed #he probably didn’t know himself #the desire to touch in some capacity overcame the telos of the gesture #and i love how he reconsiders this #he doesn’t simply want to touch - he wants the touch to be reciprocated #i find the prevalance of non-con in fic for them so fucking odd honestly #moriarty gives sherlock ample opportunity to back out of the game - to not play #if sherlock didn’t willingly consent to the ‘game’ moriarty wouldn’t have interest in him to begin with#he gives him the chance to quietly and safely back out #sherlock’s consent is important to moriarty #even here you see that - in such a benign little gesture still he stops himself #and extends his hand outward instead so sherlock can respond rather than be simply acted upon #omg i can’t with these two #not now #not ever
Non-Con for them boggles my mind. Nevermind the fact there’s nothing they can’t get from the other person that their intellect can’t access in a more clever way, their relationship is defined by distance - both physically and spiritually. It’s only in that last meeting, when the wall between them (which was emphasized in that jail scene) starts to come down, that you see a shift in the physical distance by circling each other, and getting in each other’s faces, and Sherlock slightly brushing up against him while purring ‘so do you’ in his ear when he thinks he’s on to something. They’ve invaded each other’s spaces before, but even then, it’s all consensual. Look at the “Woman In Green” reference with the stairs and the violin. Moriarty breaks in, starts to go up to the flat, but Sherlock hears him and they both stop. Then Sherlock starts up again to let him know ‘Bro, it’s cool. Come on up.’ and then Moriarty continues. “Most people knock”, but he’s not most people. There has to be some level of unorthodox in everything he does, and I don’t think he would have gone up if he thought Sherlock wasn’t okay with the way he picked.
So the moment in this gif is really no different. They joke quite a bit about this metaphorical relationship that they’re in, even going as far as defining the type as ‘erotic’, but it’s all an illusion. They’re in love and yet they’re not. They’re together and yet they’re not. They’re having the most literally mind-blowing sex with each other and yet they’re not. They’re not interested in these things as they are, but can’t help but come up with their own make-shift version of what normal people have, because there’s an underlying curiosity of ‘what if…’ that’s managed to keep itself at teasing and flirting levels between them thus far. This is what they’re drawn to in each other. That undefined space that neither of them with all their genius and intellect can predict or suck all the enjoyment out of by instantly coming up with the answer. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn’t, they don’t know and that’s the best part. It doesn’t have to be romantic, in all likelihood it wouldn’t, but just ‘What if we were together in some context that’s not what we have now?’ What if we could be friends? What if we both could be criminals? What if we both could be detectives? The type of equality and alleviated loneliness you get from being in a relationship had never manifested itself in to something tangible outside of the mind game it was constructed in for these two, and they’d never allow it to do so under any ordinary terms for fear of how boring it might be. Existing in the ‘what if…’ kept it interesting. So when he goes to pat him on the shoulder or give him a hug or whatever, he almost - ALMOST - shatters the illusion that they’ve built up for so long and does something without his consent. The gesture would have been one-sided, and that physical closeness means nothing if a mutual agreement hasn’t been reached. They have this profound, almost telekinetic bond between them, but a physical handshake is a visual representation of that. The exchange of consent that has always passed between them is once again initiated by Moriarty, who has to wait for Sherlock to even notice all of this is going on omfg, and Sherlock accepts and reciprocates this gesture with a warm and gentle response. None of this violent, angry, hate-filled non-sense that often gets interpreted between the two of them. Even when Moriarty pulls his hand closer as he shoots himself, everything about him becomes more heightened than usual, and speaks more of the intensity of desperation he was under than the malice that runs through him.
Everything about this moment is so agonizingly human for people who are frequently described as “sub-human”, that I almost can’t believe it happened. Almost.
germansingergirl
dailybridgerton
jbbartram-illu
titsay
baratheonpilled
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