Sherlock collapsed in his arms from pure exhaustion. John sat rooted to the floor, eyes widening in shock and his mouth hanging open as the situation slowly dawned upon his racing mind. So disturbed was he by the situation that he was completely oblivious to the creaking sound of the opening door, nor see the light pouring inside as it opened, nor hear how the old floor moaned loudly under the weight of several men entering the room. He didn't even smell the reeking odour of salty sweat mixed with heavy alcohol and the stale smell of dried blood.
He did, however, feel a terrible chill run down his spine when a familiar, maniacal laughter resounded through the dark room.
"Look at what we have here, boys…!"
John sat motionless for several seconds, his heart beating so hard against his chest that it was clogging up his ears. Then, slowly, he forced himself to turn around and back up against the wall, rather clumsily, as he was dragging with him the limp body of his friend whose arms were still tightly secured behind his back. He gently placed him in his lap and moved his right hand under Sherlock's neck, supporting his head, tracking his weakening pulse as it pumped through his main artery; the other hand he tucked around Sherlock's body. It took what felt like half a century before John had mustered up the courage to face the intruder. His knuckles turned white as he clutched the lifeless body closer to himself. John looked up.
Strong light from outside the room silhouetted Moriarty's face; the contrasting shades made him look even more borderline crazy than usual. Three men had surrounded him, one of them so big that John was able to diagnose him as a heavy steroid addict, even in the dull light the man was standing in. He clutched Sherlock closer to his chest. John turned his focus back on Moriarty again.
"Mrs Hudson?" John asked with a stern voice, but failed miserably at hiding his unease.
"Oh, fine, just fine," Moriarty replied casually, rocking back and forth on his feet, his hands neatly tucked inside the pockets of his Armani suit.
"And— and how do I know that you're not lying?" John cast a worried glance at the stairs partly visible behind Moriarty's entourage.
Moriarty's face gradually fell into darkness as he slowly lowered it. The words he silently uttered next came out deadly as poison:
"Because…. I said so."
Then his voice snapped back to its gleefully self: "Besides, I only came back to collect my prize," he continued and smiled maliciously, revealing a set of pearly whites, "—the thing you're holding onto so dearly," he said hungrily, black eyes fixated on Sherlock's limp body.
He raised both hands and made a square with his thumbs and index fingers and looked down at John and Sherlock through it, squeezing his left eye shut.
"You two make such a cute couple!"
"Came back?"
Moriarty let his hands fall disappointedly down at his sides and rolled his eyes dramatically.
"What do you mean, ca—?"As the scattered pieces of the puzzle came together in devastating clarity, John's stomach turned into a heavy lump of ice.
"You've been here before, haven't you?"
"Ding! Ding! Ding!"
"Why? What have you done to him?" John demanded.
Moriarty shot him a dark look, making John regret his sudden outburst, but then his features softened. He'd changed his mind.
"Well, you see John, I couldn't just kidnap you again, could I?" John swallowed hard as the images of his last encounter with Moriarty flashed before his eyes.
"I don't like repeating myself," he continued in a low whisper and started pacing back and forth in the room, narrating more to himself than the others.
"Though, I have to admit, I did underestimate Sherlock's brilliant mind. Yes!—" he barked in disbelief at John as he noticed the confused look upon John's face. "He is gifted with a far more superior mind, making him stand out amongst all the boring little peasants. And that's what's makes the chase that much more… interesting." Moriarty let the unnerving sincerity of the last words linger in the air before he began pacing back and forth the room again.
"I've always been the genius between the two of us; Sherlock gets too attached to the people around him. Attachment weakens the mind. Your judgement. But Sherlock did have that single weakness I didn't take into account. I'd already tried out one," he stopped for a second and looked down at John, eyes glinting malevolently. John felt his fingers clutch harder around Sherlock's trembling body.
"And then there was the other weakness; his little admirers at the police, so desperate at trying to frame their little helper as the loony fraud – oh come on! What better way is there to degrade a police force as an incompetent band of stuck ups than to constantly point out their utter usefulness? Of course they wanted to put him back in his place. That's another of Sherlock's many faults in character: he just doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut."
John felt Sherlock's body stiffen in his lap and Sherlock's eyes fluttered open, clearly distressed as he tried to find a familiar face for help. Then he opened his mouth wordlessly and began to cough; slime had clogged up his windpipe and was clinging to its sides, refusing to let go. Sherlock desperately tried to force it out and John rolled him over to his side, hitting and massaging his back flat with his left hand and letting Sherlock rest his forehead in the other. Sherlock was gasping heavily between each fit, his eyes beginning to water.
John whispered comforting words as Sherlock's fits were getting louder and louder, his whole body twisting in contorted motion.
An irritated sigh escaped Moriarty's lips and he turned around to address the largest of his three bodyguards.
"Shut him up will you? He's ruining my moment."
John hardly got a chance to react before the brawny man had crossed the room and roughly yanked Sherlock up by the restraints, flinging him across the floor like a ragged doll. John had screamed in protest and clung onto Sherlock's robe, but the slippery, thin, silk fabric had disappeared from his fingers like water. He'd only staggered halfway to his feet when something hard impacted with the side of his head, sending him flying into the wall, the room spinning in front of his eyes. One hand clutching the side of his head, he braced himself against the wall, wobbling to his unsteady feet, and saw the man, now kneeling beside Sherlock's wreathing body as he tried to free the passage down to his lungs, shove a large piece of cloth down his mouth. For the first time in John's life he saw complete and utter fear etch itself upon Sherlock's face.
"NO! No, stop it!"
He stumbled forward, the world still surging to and fro before his reeling vision. The man got up and crudely showed John into the wall and pinned him there with his massive body, taking advantage of John's momentarily weakened self-defence. He closed his thick, clammy hands around his neck.
"Stop it, you idiot! What the hell is wrong with you?" he bellowed, clawing at the mans constricting hands. "Can't you see he's bloody chocking?"
Sherlock was now fighting for his life on the dirty floor. With his hands still tied up, he tried to push the cloth out with his tongue, but it was made even more difficult every time he coughed, as his stomach would make his whole body stiffen and contract itself. By now his eyes were bulging and his face was turning into an alarming shade of blue. Tears were streaming down the sides of his face, his nostrils flaring as he tried to fill his oxygen deprived lungs.
"Make it stop! Please!" he pleaded, looking at Moriarty's expressionless face as he beheld the tortured man writhing on the floor next to his feet.
"Please!"
Moriarty strolled over and stood beside Sherlock's trashing body, his back facing John. Then he gradually turned around and met John with a twisted, ugly expression upon his face. John froze, realizing what was about to happen.
Moriarty turned back and sat his right foot a bit further behind him, bracing himself in a mocking, melodramatic fashion. Then, without warning, he lifted it up and rammed it as hard as he could into Sherlock's jaw; his head snapped roughly to the side as the painful smack of the ferocious kick emitted throughout the room. Sherlock remained motionless on the floor.
"Sherlock…" John whispered in disbelief and felt his body weaken, his whole spirit draining away. The man let go of his neck and took a step back as John descended to the floor, dragging his back against the wall.
"Sherlock…"
"There, I stopped it. Happy now?" Moriarty asked in a nonchalant, slightly irritated voice, pointing at his unconscious victim. John looked at him, mortified.
"What are yo—? I didn't mean—"
"THEN WHY DID YOU SAY SO?" Moriarty roared, making John flinch back. Moriarty glared at him, looming threateningly over John as his whole body fumed with anger. John didn't voice another word, stunned by Moriarty's unpredictable and sudden outburst. They both scowled at each other, Moriarty challenging John, patiently waiting to see if he would dare speak back and break the deafening silence.
Content with his skilful way of reducing John down to a more… subjugated state, he stepped back and admired his handiwork, a smug grin stretching his lips.
"As I was saying," Moriarty carried on, eerily unaffected by his eruption mere seconds before. "Our little friend here doesn't inhabit the necessary skills to avoid unwanted attention." He turned right, addressing Sherlock:
"Don't you, Sherlock?" He waited for Sherlock's reply. John looked over to the inanimate form on the floor, and was overwhelmed by relief when he heard a muffled sound make its way out of his gagged mouth, followed by a vast inhale of air. Sherlock rolled over to his back, slightly arching it to make room for his tightly secured hands.
"Ahh! Look who finally decided to join the party!"
"Sherlock!" John had barely got on his feet before he was thrust back again, his head smacking hard against the wall, and then fell to the floor.
"Good dog, Alistair." John didn't need to look at Moriarty's face to see the smugly, satisfied expression display itself on the pale surface of his skin.
Moriarty turned his attention back to Sherlock and crunched down next to him, giving John a perfect view of Moriarty's distinct profile as it hovered mere inches over Sherlock's defined, angled features.
"Please, let me attend to him," John pleaded silently once more, but was ignored by Moriarty, who was now utterly mesmerized by the awakening man below; his black, beady eyes exploring the interesting little details in Sherlock's skin, hair and lips; the bruise forming on his jaw, the little droplets of sweat running down the sides of his face. He was entranced by how the lines would engrave into his delicate skin as he narrowed his thick brows closer together, and how the light would dance off his piercing eyes, creating a collision of colours ranging from dark blue to a pale, enticing green. He leaned forward towards Sherlock's face, nearly touching him. John saw how Sherlock tried to back away, pressing the side of his face into the floor, his pale eyes still locked upon the scrutinizing examination by the man above him. Moriarty laughed insultingly at Sherlock's reaction as he completely violated Sherlock's comfort zone.
"You see, darling," he continued in a low, expressionless voice. "Having friends has never benefited you. Never. You see… little John here knew all too perfectly well that he couldn't just throw away all that snow, crack, booze and all your other intoxications. Oh no, because he knew that if your little friends at the police found it, they would turn against you and leave you, all alone, with your hands tied behind your back. No pun intended," he added tauntingly. Sherlock's eyes narrowed angrily.
"So what better way to make sure I had the upper hand than to keep providing the only thing you couldn't dispose of? And lucky for me, that one thing proved to be the single dirty pleasure you couldn't keep your sticky, little hands away from… I've been providing you for months!" Moriarty exclaimed, "And for all this time you never once raised suspicion?"
Moriarty roared in laughter as he saw the miserable truth gradually present itself in full glory in Sherlock's sedated mind. Sherlock had never felt more ashamed in his entire life. The feeling of remorse laid so heavy in his chest.
"You really are a greedy little bastard, aren't you?" Moriarty whispered darkly and leaned in so close that Sherlock felt his warm breath upon his cold, damp skin. "So blinded by your thirst for the next hit."
Sherlock couldn't even bring himself to face him. He felt so guilty. So gluttonous and weak.
"You see, Sherlock, not all friends come with benefits. Had they found the drugs, they wouldn't hesitate one single second to brand you as a delusional drug addict with a perversely need to prove yourself better. And then they would throw you away in a dark, damp cell, only to leave you there to rot away."
Confusion furrowed itself into deep lines on Sherlock's forehead and he turned around.
"Yes, yes! They would! Don't you see? They don't really need you—"
"Sherlock, don't listen to him, he's lying—"
Moriarty grabbed hold of Sherlock's chin and forced it back as he tried to look over at John. Sherlock winced and moaned against his gag as Moriarty's finger dug painfully into the red mark he'd produced on Sherlock's strong jaw line.
"They only used you so that they didn't have to do all the dirty work. You are nothing more than a tool to them,"
"Sherlock—"
"; — a tool that they can use when convenient, and then toss it away when they don't need it anymore."
"Sherlock, he's lyi—! OOOF!" The bulky man had sent another vicious kick at John, this time his foot had crushed into his abdomen. John groaned in pain, and fell over, unconscious. Sherlock desperately tried to get a look at him, but Moriarty's strong grip held him locked in place. The feeling of complete disorientation made Sherlock's heart race. He never lost control. Never. Focus, Sherlock, focus! … John?
"And they aren't the only ones, darling," Moriarty venomous silver tongue continued, making Sherlock snap back to reality. An intensifying eagerness underlined Moriarty's voice. Though he spoke at a slow pace, making sure Sherlock's sluggish mind registered every single word he said. "Oh no, John's exactly the same. I've read his blog; always complaining, whining, criticizing – about you. He feels overshadowed, overruled, undermined, dominated, disregarded, controlled."
Hold on, there are too many words, I can't—
"And you know it, Sherlock. Deep down you know he feels this way about you. You hear him complain and bitch about it every day, don't you?"
Yes, that's true, but—
"There's always something wrong about you; a gesture, a remark, something you did."
Yes, but—
"You're never good enough. Your relationship was dead even before it started.
You know this, Sherlock; you've known it from the very beginning. How could anyone care for you? How could anyone love you? You, with all your faults. All your weaknesses. Who would ever want to live with you? Even Mrs Hudson can't stand being in the same room as you any more, can she?"
Moriarty smiled yet again as he saw Sherlock's drugged brain try furiously to suppress this forced input of observation, devouring his lethargic mind, as it slowly succumbed to Moriarty's toxic words.
"He never loved you, Sherlock. He's using you. Mocking you through his little blog, showing the world how abnormal you are. Unnatural. How… strange. You don't fit in his world, never will…"
Sherlock gawped at him as he started to grasp the true meaning behind it all.
"; — And you know this. He doesn't want you anymore. Doesn't need you. Never did. He only wanted to use you for his own, personal gain. Expose you like some sort of extinct animal. His little science project.
You have nothing, Sherlock. No one. You are completely alone in the dark, always have been. In his eyes you are a freak of nature. A freak."
Moriarty reached down and gently pulled out the piece of cloth, never lowering his gaze; he was relishing at how Sherlock's world gradually turned upside down in stunning clarity, bit by bit, vividly being portrayed upon his horror-struck face. He gently pulled Sherlock in an upright position, their gaze interlocking for a long time as they sat opposite each other. He saw how little droplets of tears twinkled in the corners of Sherlock's eyes, his face depicting such sorrow and disbelief. Moriarty couldn't help but grin. Sherlock ashamedly let his gaze drop to the floor.
"I can't… I can't believe I let myself… Everyone?" he whispered, aghast.
"Everyone Sherlock."
Sherlock began to sob weakly.
"Oh, come on now," Moriarty said and leaned forward. He cupped Sherlock's face in his hands and lifted it up.
"It's not that bad now, is it? Don't be such a sour puss."
Sherlock whimpered, pressing his face tenderly into Moriarty's hands.
"Hey…" Moriarty whispered affectionately and pulled Sherlock towards him. They were so close that Moriarty could count all the little twinkling stars in Sherlock's tears.
"You couldn't have known better, you didn't know what you were doing. It wasn't your fault. Well, not all of it, anyway." He used his thump to gently brush away a tear on Sherlock's face.
"You're not one of them, Sherlock. They don't see you as I do. They never will, so you could just as well stop trying. It's useless. All that hard work, such a waste! No matter how relentlessly you try to convince them, you'll always be a grotesque malfunction. Not even a human being." Moriarty spoke softly and looked into Sherlock's mournful eyes.
"We all make mistakes," he whispered. "Don't we?"
"… Yes," Sherlock blubbered weakly into Moriarty's hands and closed his eyelids, tears falling down his cheeks a he let his gaze drop again to the floor. He sat there, sobbing quietly, his hair falling forward, framing his face like a heavy curtain of shame.
Then he looked up into Moriarty's triumphant eyes and whispered darkly:
"… and you just made your biggest yet."
With one swift move he whacked his head in Moriarty's dumbfounded face, the sickening crack of a breaking nose sounding loudly, almost like a gunshot. The impact of the brilliantly calculated faceplant had sent them both tumbling in opposite directions, and as Sherlock had expected, all three bodyguards jumped atop of him, pinning him down, the mere pressure knocking out all the air in his lungs.
He tried to update himself on John's mental and physical state, but before he'd even had the chance to get a good look, he was hoisted up on his feet again, and held tightly underneath each armpit. It wasn't after he felt the burning pain in his stomach that he registered the barbaric punch to his gut. The force of the strike sent him toppling over, but was quickly pulled back up again, gasping in agony.
Now real tears were messing up his vision, and he blinked rapidly, and saw Moriarty clutching the bridge his nose, looking up at the ceiling, the blood pouring down his chin. He tried to direct the blood flow with his other hand to avoid it soaking his already blood stained designer suit.
Sherlock cracked up; the baritone laughter filled the little room. Moriarty looked at him with murderous black, little eyes, the only expression he was any good at simulating.
Sherlock braced himself for the second blow he all too well knew would come after his joyous reaction to the utterly humiliated Moriarty, and he toppled over again, hanging a bit longer as he tried to catch his breath. The gorillas at his side pushed him down to his knees, and a pair of polished, black shoes materialised on the floor within his peripheral vision, stopping half-a-metre in front of were he was kneeling. His head was yanked back by his damp hair, exposing the vulnerable skin on his neck.
He smirked when he saw how Moriarty had to physically restrain his emotions; he was so furious that Sherlock was afraid his eyes might pop out of his skull from the overwhelming effort he was putting into controlling himself.
Blood was still oozing from his nose, the whole lower part of his face coloured in a vibrant shade of scarlet red. He was breathing so hard through his clenched teeth that hundreds of little droplets of blood sprayed Sherlock's face and neck as the red fluid flowed into Moriarty's mouth.
Sherlock chuckled again, his Adam's apple bobbing teasingly up and down.
Moriarty twisted the hand holding his hair, uncomfortably ripping out strands from the back of Sherlock's scalp.
"You think this is funny, don't you?" Moriarty asked in a strained voice, still trying to harness himself.
"I think it's hilarious."
"Oh, you wait. You just wait. You haven't seen hilarious yet."
Sherlock drew a sharp breath as he felt the prick of a needle being inserted to the side of his neck and he came crashing down. Once again he found himself falling into a dark, dreamless sleep.
