Disclaimer: Characters, etc not my property. No profit made. Blah, blah, blah.

Notes/Warnings: I'm a bit addicted now to having Moriarty torture Holmes... So I researched some Schubert songs, expanded my music collection a bit, and wrote this. This is almost entirely Moriarty plotting how he can torture Holmes. There's nothing but evil here, 'kay?

"Another time then."

His own words of a moment ago replayed themselves in his head as Moriarty continued to gaze at the door through which Holmes had departed. He had said the words politely, with a hint of wistfulness, though their underlying meaning was not hope. It was a certainty that the two adversaries would meet again – would play again.

"Another time then."

He rose to his feet, agitated to motion by the implicit promise those words also held.

"Are you sure you want to play this game?"

His gaze dropped to the chessboard and he began tidying the already meticulously placed pieces, anticipating move and countermove. Holmes would no doubt prove as challenging an opponent in a chess match as he had already shown himself in their ongoing battle of wits. As his fingers lightly gripped the black king once more, the criminal mastermind reflected on the inevitability of his dual victory… No matter what the detective thought.

"I'm afraid you would lose."

Another burst of agitation spurred him to move again, sending him closer to the shaded windows as unaccustomed, keen anticipation overflowed the stopper of his rigid emotional control. That arrogance… Besides the thrill of the unparalleled challenge Holmes presented, there was the incomparable pleasure that would come from overcoming it – and simultaneously crushing all that overconfident, prideful defiance.

"I'll be sure to send my regards to the happy couple."

The quickly masked perturbation the detective had shown at that veiled threat… the subtle disturbance in his features as he learned of the late Miss Adler's fate… The slight paroxysm his face had undergone when the professor had hinted at having seen through him before… All those slight delectations had whetted Moriarty's appetite for the moment when he would bring his nemesis low… to his knees.

Glorious… A shiver of excitement minutely shook his frame as he imagined the look on Holmes' face… the defeated slump of his form… And yet… There was something lacking. While ultimate mental victory would be an unmatched, exhilarating sensation, something more… physical was necessary. With such interference as the detective had caused, a truly creative punishment was required – both as a warning to Moriarty's underlings and enemies and as appeasement to the bloodlust he could never quite restrain.

But what is suitable? His eyes dropped to the phonograph player in front of him. Ah. Music would doubtless provide excellent inspiration.

"Give up your foolish trickery."

"This fish you cannot cheat."

With their first (official) exchange of words and its soundtrack echoing in his mind, the professor carefully removed the Fischerweise record from the player, lovingly returned it to its protective cover, and carried it back to his unsurpassed collection. As he fastidiously replaced it on the shelf dedicated to Schubert's lieds (in its place among the other 1826 compositions), he contemplated his next choice of background music. Which piece would be best suited to creative retribution? His gaze moved back and forth across his collection.

Der Tod Und Das Madchen. One finger tapped the cover for his most recent acquisition: "Death and the Maiden." "Go rather, and do not touch me," the maiden sang in her fearful, futile resistance. That theme – and the song's soft, somber melody that would so elegantly contrast whatever violence Moriarty would perform – made it a superb choice. However… "Softly shall you sleep in my arms," was Death's sweet promise. It's much too soon for that. And, in any case, Death and its release held no apparent pain or fear for Holmes.

Gretchen Am Spinnrade. The professor next regarded an earlier, longer work: "Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel." While well-remembered fateful chords repeated themselves relentlessly in his brain, the image of the spinning wheel grew and expanded into a waterwheel. To that imagined wheel, the detective hung bound, bravado crumbling to a mindless struggle for air as he was plunged, with the same relentless repetition, into brackish, blood-dyed water. "I shall never find peace. Never again," sang Gretchen as pride gave way in those moist brown eyes to pure desperation and a wordless plea for Moriarty to please just stop…

Mmmm… but no. He allowed himself one more intoxicated moment to savor that mental picture before discarding it. The torture was far too staged and elaborate – not to mention archaic – and might break Holmes before it was time. Also, the song, despite its relevant references to Faust, was far too restless and emotional for his purposes.

Die Bürgschaft – "The Hostage," as its name was sometimes translated. The good doctor. Holmes' one true weakness apart from his overconfidence. The slightly menacing tones of part of the piece painted a wonderfully dark picture. "He will be impaled in your stead, though the penalty be intended for you." The horror in the detective's features as Moriarty slowly executed Dr. Watson before his eyes, driving a knife into the man's gut and gradually angling it upward and in… The anguish in his voice as he begged senselessly for their tormentor to take him instead…

But the cheerful, triumphant resolution of the song and its story intruded. That will never do. Besides which, associating Holmes with the self-sacrificing hero of the ballad was ennobling him far too much. As for using John Watson as leverage against his friend? If Moriarty's current scheme succeeded in being more than a convenient distraction and warning, then that was over with (pity I will be unable to witness it). For his next plan, he wanted something more direct… more hands on…

Prometheus. "Ah," he sighed aloud this time at the delightful images that name suggested. There was Holmes bound in perpetual suffering like the titular god as the professor cut into – dug into – his flesh repeatedly with a knife. There was the blood flowing from those wounds and from the tortured man's lips as he bit them to stop himself giving into the pain. There were the tears and the agonized screams when he at last succumbed… while Moriarty bathed his open wounds with brandy in false promise of healing before breaking the snifter and using its jagged shards to deepen those same cuts…

Yes… the professor's mind hissed malevolently as he licked his lips at the prospect. "No," he said aloud, regretfully. The song, unfortunately, had nothing to do with Prometheus' punishment and its defiant lyrics would call up entirely ill-suited imagery.

Heidenröslein. "The Little Heathrose," with its light, spritely sound, seemed at first a completely incongruous choice. He nearly dismissed it as soon as his eyes slid over the title, but then a brief refrain caught at his memory. "I'll prick thee so thou'lt remember me," the rose of the lied's title promised the boy who wished to pick her. So might Moriarty prick his adversary, stabbing him here (the hands that had sought to catch him) and there (the eyes that had observed his every move) with a stiletto, leaving lingering scars that would constantly, endlessly remind Holmes of the great mistake he had made in going against Moriarty.

Tempting… but in the end, the heath rose was picked by the boy. An entirely inappropriate analogy.

Erlkrönig. The title seemed illuminated by the filtered light in the room. Ah, yes. The tale of "The Erlking" might almost be too apt a comparison. There was the boy who saw the Erlking and the danger he presented and there was the father who saw no threat at all… until the boy lay dead in his arms. The professor's heart raced to the pace of the song's tense hoofbeat triplets as he imagined Holmes' face overspread with the child's terror.

How…? Poison – perhaps like the altered disease with which he had infected Adler – seemed suggested by the mysterious death in the ballad… Something slow-working and localized…. "Father! My father!" the boy cried out in pure dread as the Erlking beckoned and threatened. To whom would the detective scream as Moriarty used a horse needle to inject painful venom (a spider's perhaps, after all) in each limb? As he began stabbing the needle at random across his face, his torso, his thighs… caressing it along the trembling, sweating intervening skin… Then standing back to watch the venom spread throughout his victim's wracked, shaking form…

Gestalt… Gevalt… The rhymed German lyrics from his favorite couplet rang in his mind as his respiration matched speed with his rapid pulse. "I love you. Your beautiful form entices me. And if you're not willing then I will use force," Erlkrönig sang out as the professor's mental hand stretched out to grasp his imagined prey and –

"No." The word came out harsh, preceded as it had been by a swallowed gasp. He expelled his breath slowly as he willed his heartrate slower and pushed away the… disquiet from that last fancy. Something not quite as busy, I think. Maybe a lied with a more demeaning analogy…

Die Forelle, "The Trout." Of course! It would expound on the fishing imagery that Holmes had already introduced and turn it against him. "He watched with blood most cold, the fish swim to and fro." Moriarty would coolly, conversationally tell the other man his fate in the fish's story. "The squirming fish was hooked." And he would play – no sing – the incongruously cheerful tune for the detective… as the captured man writhed on his own hook. It would be elegantly sadistic, wonderfully painful, and supremely… delicious.

Smiling in anticipation, he pulled the record off the shelf and carried it to a stack of books that had not yet been packed for his journey. "Das arme fischlein an," he sang softly as he ran a finger over the cover. The poor little fish.

Bonus scenario.
Additional warnings: Sexual content. An LJ friend wanted Moriarty masturbating while listening to Die Forelle and fantasizing about torturing Holmes. That's all this part is. Starts with an alternate version of the above last paragraph.

Smiling in anticipation, he reached to pull the record off the shelf. Smile and reaching hand were frozen, however, as motion brought to Moriarty's attention the fact that he was considerably aroused. How… inconvenient… There would be no working until he resolved the matter.

With a sigh, he completed the act of withdrawing the phonograph record and he took it to the player. He placed it on the turntable, set the needle, and sat down in his desk chair. He closed his eyes in preparation for exerting his will over his body, but for once, his mind betrayed him. Ah… the heat in his groin intensified, inflamed by the remnant images of Holmes, bound and bleeding.

"Moral insanity."

The words echoed in his memory as the first cheerful glissandos sounded from the player's horn. Distantly, as he opened the front of his trousers with forcedly steady fingers, the professor wondered if the detective included masturbation in that category. If true moral insanity is what he wishes… As the recorded tenor began singing, Moriarty pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and, with it covering his hand, he withdrew his erection from its confines.

Mm… He brought the image of Holmes into greater clarity while his right hand started caressing his member in long, slow strokes. In his mind, he moved closer to his bound, half-naked captive, a large barbed hook gripped behind his back. The motion of his real hand sped up fractionally and his breathing acquired a slight hitch at the imagined confusion in the detective's wide eyes as they tried to follow the movement of Moriarty around and behind him. "Hmph," the professor loosed a muted grunt when his hand tightened spasmodically on his arousal in response to the scream Holmes gave in his mind as the hook was driven hard and fast into his flesh. Shoulder… he decided abstractedly, relishing the image of the blood running down the detective's bared torso… the pain-twisted rictus of the man's face….

While the singer resumed his melody after a pause, Moriarty pulled harder and longer on his arousal, using both hands now. In time with those strokes, his mental grasp pulled the rope that was attached to the hook, each tug drawing another wonderful cry from Holmes (and an answering catch in the professor's breath). Heat spread from his groin to his limbs and up to his head, setting it spinning even as the image of his captured prey span and squirmed on his hook. His shoulders hunched forward and his hands struggled to keep the rhythm of the music. Feverishly he jerked at his erection as the detective danced on the end of the line… back, causing the barb to tear at his flesh and more lovely, crimson blood to alluringly paint his paled flesh… forward, pushing the hook back in, deeper and deeper… His weakening cries still rang louder than the final verse of Die Forelle and drove Moriarty's hands faster and harder still, lost to rhythm and finesse.

"Fischlein," he repeated the song, mockingly giving Holmes that name in vision and reality. In his mind, he dropped wounded man to the floor where he landed in a pathetic huddle. As the last decrescendo of glissandos sounded from the phonograph, the professor, winded but exultant, moved over his landed fish. His hands tightened on himself again as his imagined hand grabbed at the hook, again, plunging it still deeper into Holmes. His other hand squeezed at the fallen man's throat demanding submission from those wide, tear-filled eyes and trembling, bloody lips. The body beneath him writhed against him and those lips parted…

"Ah!" Whatever surrender the detective voiced was drowned out by the gasp Moriarty made as, with another spasm that spread from his hands to his entire body, he ejaculated into his silk-shrouded hands. He slumped back in his chair, left hand dropping to his side and right lazily stroking the last of his passion from his slowly softening member. Excellent… He basked in the afterglow and after-images as his mind slowly stopped its reeling. Distantly, he registered the repetitive scratching of the phonograph's needle against the record's label. Most excellent...

…But in need of polishing. As heat dispelled, cool logic was able to reassert control. This is clearly not a one-man job… and it lacks something in elegance… He started refining his plan, considering practicalities and staging, as he set about tidying himself. With a rueful twist of his countenance, he dropped his soiled handkerchief into his wastebasket.

The smile, however, became entirely genuine as he rose and went to the phonograph player. He gave the record's surface the hint of a caress before he slid it back into its cover. Then, he set it – and his images of his plans – aside for the time being.

The poor little fish, indeed. A rare sound akin to a chuckle escaped him as he returned to his work.