He was silent.
Hit after hit. Threats, pain, kindness, it made no difference to him. He was unbreakable. Perhaps because he was already broken.
There was one thought in his head, and only ever one. A beautiful, different thought. The type of thought that left him with the will to live, to explore.
There was another like him.
The man came in and told him stories. He loved those stories. The door creaked open, slowly. A smile slowly spread across his face. Only the man opened the door with such hesitant responsibility.
"Do you like Für Elise?" He rolled the words off his tongue. He hadn't spoken in a day, his voice cracked and rigid from the lack of use. "You know, people suspect it used to be under a different title, written to amaze a different girl. Funny, isn't it?"
The man entered the room, his hands folded neatly behind his back. The look on his face was a delicious one, of complete and utter disgust. His smile got a little bigger, his tongue sliding across his chapped lips. "The fanciful idea of love amuses me. The attention span of humans isn't long enough for it. We get bored, Mycroft Holmes, we get terribly, awfully bored."
The man stepped closer, his eyes shattered. He knew, day by day, he was slowly killing the man. He was forcing him to give up his younger brother for the sake of his country.
"Is Mycroft Holmes a good man?" he continued, leaving behind his previous topic. He closed his eyes, letting out a stream of air through his nose.
The man came over and grabbed him by the hair, pulling their faces inches apart. He opened his starving eyes again. They feasted upon the emotion peeking through the cracks in the man's eyes.
"No," the man answered finally. "Mycroft Holmes is not a good man. Is Jim Moriarty a good man?"
"Oh heavens no," he purred, shaking his head. The bruises on his neck groaned in protest to the movement, but he didn't care. "Jim Moriarty isn't even a man, let alone a good one. What about Sherlock Holmes?"
The man flinched ever so slightly. "Yes, he's a good man," the man decided, sighing. The man let go of his grip on his hair. "He's a very good man. He makes me..."
"Proud? Unworthy?" he suggested, scanning the man for emotion. "Regretful?"
The man hummed in thought. "Perhaps." He shuddered suddenly, a delight playing at the edges of his mind.
"Tell me again."
The man turned his profile to him, taking a step to his left, observing the room for the hundredth time. "What?"
"His name..." he licked his lips again. "Tell me his name, and I'll tell you something too."
He was destroying the man a little each time he asked for the name. "His name is Sherlock Holmes, and he is just as brilliant as you, if not more."
"My name is Jim Moriarty and I like bubblegum," he coughed. "I don't like the men here though. They're ordinary. You're rather ordinary as well. But you don't try to act better than me. I like that. Your heart is unfortunately humble."
"Unfortunately humble," the man repeated. "what an interesting description. I don't think I've ever been called that before."
"I'm going to kill him," he said suddenly. "I'm going to kill Sherlock Holmes one day."
The man looked down but regained his composure quickly. "Good luck with that, you're never leaving here."
"I'm going to crush his resolve, I'm going to find his weak spot, and I'm going to ground him into dust," he bit his lip in mock thought, making a face. "I'm going to pop his heart like bubblegum."
He clicked his tongue to make the sound of gum popping. The man might've answered, but a different man told him he had a meeting. So the man left, sparing him one last passing glance that said 'I'll be back.'
"My name is Jim Moriarty and I like bubblegum," he mused to himself one last time before the next men came in, ready to try beat him into submission.
He was silent.
