my identity by itself causes violence [an elementary fanfic]

This was written to clear out about half of the prompts in my inbox on tumblr. They are as follows:

- Joan protects Moriarty

- Moriarty leaves Joan coded messages in artwork.

- Moriarty perusing Joan's ipod (also should be noted that I ignored the 'Ms. New Booty' lyrics that went along with the prompt)

- sassy Moriarty and annoyed Joan

song lyrics from Untouchable by Dragonette (arguably the most Joan x Moriarty song ever), title from n.w.a.'s Fuck the Police.

--

Oh and I want to believe

You don't know what you're doing

When you open the door

To the devil you know

New York in the summer is a drag, always. The days seem to push together and the sheer mass of humanity and cars that the city contains pushes the temperature up and up until Joan wants to spend the days sitting in a kiddie pool full of ice and very water like she used to do as a child. It is too hot to think, too hot to even move.

Work is unusually slow, and without an excuse to linger at the brownstone, Joan has found herself, for the first time in years, without anything to do. Marcus has been busy preparing for an upcoming trial with the district attorney and there haven't been any cases that interest either of them in weeks. Sherlock, naturally, used this as an opportunity to look for something else to do with his time. What he found a private consulting gig for a local gallery looking into a series of attempted and then successful break-ins. Joan thinks it's a bit beneath them until she starts to actually listen to the guy they're currently interviewing. It's something to do though, and it keeps them working - working together - through the complicated and chaotic waters of their relationship as of late.

The consulting work that Sherlock had taken on with MI-6, his desperate attempt to make things right with Mycroft, had dried up, shriveled like the leaves of the plant that sits in the window of Joan's tiny apartment. They told him that there was nothing they could do for Mycroft, that they had to leave the Milieu group - proven by Sherlock to be an old Corsican mafia family - in place, for the time being, and that it might be better if Sherlock went back to New York. They'd get what's coming to them, MI-6 had promised Sherlock, but Sherlock had protested as was his nature until they said something to him to ensure his cooperation.

So back he came, arriving on Joan's doorstep at seven in the morning as she was heading out for a run, asking for forgiveness and understanding. He'd offered her the world that day, held it up on a silver platter and had offered to make her its queen. Joan had almost taken it. It had been tantalizing, but she'd had to remain firm. She needed this more than she needed him. And her own space -- god, having her own space was amazing. Being able to sleep in was amazing, being able to sit and mope and feel angry at herself for ever getting involved with Mycroft Holmes in the first place was amazing. Privacy was amazing.

Yet it was an empty feeling of contentment, an ache where something was missing that could not yet be defined.

She'd destroyed a good thing, getting involved with Mycroft and leaving as she did, but she wasn't the one who'd lied.

Joan sits across from Will Beaufort at the small tea shop that he owns, taking in the man's tea and sweat stained t-shirt and faded jeans. He's rough around the edges, hard at the mouth and eyes, pushing forty but still trying to keep up with the rapid gentrification of the area with cut off jean shorts and coke-bottle glasses that slide down his sweaty nose in the heat of the midsummer morning.