Author's Note: Direct and implied violence, torture, knife play, oral rape. If this turns you off, read no further. You have been warned. As always, I do not own any of these characters. Also, reviews and feedback are lovely. Enjoy.
The sudden crunch of boot on concrete got his attention and Sherlock wheeled to face his stalker, a sly smile hovering at the corners of his mouth.
"Isn't lurking about in the shadows a touch dramatic even for you, Moriarty?"
The figure moved from dark to light and the smile slipped from Sherlock's face. Not Moriarty.
"Evening, Holmes."
Sherlock barely had time to register the shark-like smile of pearl white teeth and choke out a pained wail of "John!" before the Taser hit him just below the ribs. He burned and fell.
Life began to slowly return to his limbs, painful synapse by painful synapse, until finally he was able to raise his head and focus.
"Back with the living?" The man asked casually. "Wonderful. I was beginning to get annoyed. Almost shocked you again just to watch you twitch."
"Who are you?" No answer, just lips pulled back over that row of blindingly white teeth. Sherlock struggled in the chair. "You've bound my hands and feet."
"Well, you don't miss a thing, do you?" he chuckled. "I heard you were good. What a privilege to watch the brilliant mind of Sherlock Holmes at work. Next I suppose you'll be waxing poetic, telling me all about how the sky is blue and grass is green." He rolled his eyes. "Really, go on, I'm most impressed. It's amazing to see how a few volts and a fraction of some amperage can reduce even the greatest minds to soup."
"Who are you?" Sherlock ground out again through clenched teeth.
"Not important."
"Moriarty?"
"Sir will not be joining us. However," he held up Sherlock's mobile and shook it, "your pet will be here soon." He tossed the phone to the concrete and smiled. "Not much time to play, I'm afraid. So, let's make it count."
The hard punch to the jaw made Sherlock see stars as his head lurched back, rocking the chair on its heels. The man grabbed him by the shirt to keep him from toppling over backward and pulled the man/chair back to rights. The blade came from nowhere, a vile, curved thing, and Sherlock hissed in pain as it made a fiery slice across his chest.
Shallow. Just painful. Not fatal. He forced his mind to keep working. Hair. Short. Efficient. Stance. Alert. Confident. Comes prepared. Military. Interrogation? Most likely torture.
"Still bitter about your discharge?" Sherlock asked breathlessly. "Excessive force? Conduct unbecoming?"
The fist to the abdomen knocked whatever wind he had left right out of him.
"The fog clearing then? Good. Much more fun than beating on a sack of meat."
Sherlock spat blood onto the ground as his brain began to deduce the situation and extrapolate where it was headed.
Oh, God. Don't come, John. Don't come. Decide you can't be arsed to chase after me. Just this once. Don't come. And yet he knew John was on his way. He closed his eyes and swallowed, letting the fear turn on itself, somehow writhing into anger.
"Hardly a fair fight with me trussed up like a turkey," Sherlock glared.
"This is not about fair, Holmes." Another crack to the face and Sherlock felt his eye swell shut and fire radiated through his cheek. "This is about pain. I'm very good with pain."
"You're insane." Pain was indeed spreading throughout every corner of his body, flaring in places he never knew existed.
"You're confusing me with Sir. He's a little….unbalanced, but I assure you, I am perfectly sane. I'm going to enjoy getting to know your threshold. Fascinating stuff."
Two more quick slices, one on each bicep. Sherlock howled.
"Now we're getting somewhere. And those aren't even deep. Wonder what sounds you would make if I just pushed," Sherlock felt the tip of the blade just under his ribcage, slipping beneath bone into soft tissue, "here?" The knife jabbed deep and he screamed as the flesh burned and gave way. The man laughed again, "That's not really a fair question. I know exactly what I'm doing. I probably have a better knowledge of human anatomy than the good doctor."
Sherlock struggled to breathe, each gasp shooting white-hot jolts of fire through his body. "If Moriarty isn't coming, then what do you want?" he hissed.
A fist bunched in his shirt, pulling him closer until they were nose to nose. Soulless eyes. Like ghosts. Blank of feeling and emotion. Like eyes he stared at in the mirror. Behind the black he saw the working of this man's mind, calculating (how much pressure, degree of knife rotation), cataloguing (pupils dilated, breathing difficult, blood flow acceptable), understanding. The void in those cavernous orbs enveloped him. Sherlock went cold. He could feel the blood seeping from his arms and torso, warming patches of skin that had suddenly turned to ice.
"I want to bleed you. I want to cut open the very core of you and watch it slip through my fingers. I want to rip it out and shove it in your fucking face. I want to take everything that you love and devour it right in front of you. I want you to know that I hold your heart in my bare hands and hear you scream as I sink my teeth in." Those eyes bore into his and Sherlock was powerless to look away, frozen in the blackness. "I want to taste your anguish on my lips and rejoice in the sound of your soul breaking like a choir of angels." Sherlock began to pant as the knife slowly began to twist, tearing and rending. "You'd best be remembering your prayers, Sherlock Holmes. The devil has come to call."
Another twist and Sherlock screamed in agony. "Oh, just get on with it, why don't you?" he hissed.
The man let out a low whisper. "I was so hoping you would say that." The knife was removed quickly followed up by a stab to the other side, then several hard punches to the open gashes. Sherlock's vision went black as garbled grunts fell from his lips.
The man pulled back and looked to the exit. He smiled. "Ah, I hear something, Holmes. Methinks the good doctor doth approach." He retrieved the Taser and went to the door. "Call to him, Sherlock. Make him heel." The man disappeared into the shadows.
"JOHN! NO!" Sherlock yelled. "NO, DON'T!"
"Sherlock?" John's voice was panicked as he ran inside. He made it halfway before the Taser flashed. John grunted as he collapsed into a twitching heap. The man on the other end stepped into the light, an amused smile on his face.
"Like Pavlov's dog at the bell," he smirked. "I expected nothing less."
He walked over and reached down, curling long fingers into John's sandy locks, dragging him by the hair across the concrete into the darkness opposite him.
"John! John!" Sherlock called.
"I'll just shoot him now, if you don't shut the fuck up."
Sherlock closed his mouth. He heard the crack of knuckles and then John's trainers landed at his feet, one after the other, followed swiftly by socks, jeans, boxers, and jumper. John and the man were concealed in the inky blackness and Sherlock was unable to discern the outline of bodies no matter how hard he focused. He simply couldn't see. Blooming pain and fear took over, leaving his imagination to conjure the worst.
John's bare legs suddenly flopped into view, normally tanned limbs looking pale in the filtered moonlight. The legs flopped again as John was rolled to his stomach and then to his back, and Sherlock could hear the nauseating crack of John's skull as it met concrete. What was he doing? Everything within Sherlock screamed in rage, but he made no sound, biting down on his lip, already split and swollen, slick with blood, to keep quiet.
There was a splash of water and a shuddering gasp from the darkness. John was revived. More rustles of fabric, as if more clothing was being removed and Sherlock felt his heart stop. An echoing rush thundered in his ears and could only stare in shock as his mind wrapped around what was about to unfold.
Oh, God, John. No, John. God, hold on.
Sherlock worked frantically at the plastic tie-wraps at his hands and feet, flailing and bucking wildly, to no avail.
John sputtered and moaned, "Sher…Sher-" The doctor's voice was slurred. "Sher….lock?" The pitiful question cut him a thousand times deeper than any of the oozing wounds on his body.
The dam broke and Sherlock cried out, "JOHN!"
Heavy thudding noises, like fists on a punching bag, echoed in the air, and John's grunts matched each blow. The hiss of a blade through flesh mocked him and suddenly, a small trickle of blood emerged from the line of darkness, the tiny river moving toward him at a crawl. He heard the tearing of fabric and the man appeared, clad only in jeans that were open at the fly, his erect cock bobbing as he moved. Bare feet slapped through John's trail of blood, but the man paid it no mind as he came toward Sherlock with a blood-stained strip of fabric fisted in bloody, raw hands.
The scent of John filled his nostrils as the gag was forced into his mouth and secured tightly around his head. John's shirt. He could taste the blood. John's blood. It was everywhere. In his mouth. On the floor. All over-
The man wiped bloody hands across his bare torso, smearing John's blood on his chest like paint on a canvas. Again those eyes found his and glared daggers into Sherlock.
"You know how to pick them, Holmes. Your boy's built like a fucking tank under all that wool. Don't tell me you haven't noticed. Tell me, will I be the first among us to breach the good doctor's defenses?" He patted Sherlock's cheek and then slapped him sharply. He spoke again, voice low like the growl of an animal. "Whatever you think is happening, let me tell you, it's so much worse. So much worse." He backhanded Sherlock once more and retreated to the dark.
Sherlock's mind blew apart with every depraved scenario he had ever come across or bothered to dream up. Hot, stinging tears burned his eyes and bit back a sob.
Oh, John. I'm so sorry.
John's limbs disappeared altogether, swallowed by shadow, followed by a muffled gag from John and a deep groan from the assailant.
"Ah, Christ, Holmes, he's got a throat as long as the damned Channel." Another choking gag and one of John's arms flailed out into the light.
Sherlock closed his eyes, frantically shaking his head back and forth, howling into the cloth gag.
A shot rang out, narrowly missing Sherlock's ear, and there was a surprised cry from the dark. "That was a warning, Doctor. Bite me, and the next one is a bullet to his brain. And then I'll make you fuck the hole."
More hurried groaning and flailing. It went on for an eternity. The beating. The cutting. The groaning. A glimpse of John's arm, elbow, ear, hand, foot. They moved in and out of the darkness almost in strobe, as if time had sped up in Sherlock's head. More kisses of steel into soft tissue, followed by the gruesome sound of wet flesh against flesh, and the crimson river at his feet became a flood.
"God, Holmes, how have you not fucked him? He's got a mouth you would die for." Another satisfied rumble of pleasure. "And I so want to give you the chance."
Sherlock's stomach rolled and bile rose to the back of his throat, the acrid taste burning in his esophagus. He choked it back down on a sob and strained his eyes, searching for any signs of John's face, wanting desperately to see his eyes, needing to communicate with him, aching to see any trace that John would be okay. There was nothing but blackness and that deafening wall of hideous sound. The sound of violation at its basest.
More blood, more pounding of fists, John's muffled voice reduced to whimpers and sobs.
Suddenly, the door banged open with a crash and Jim Moriarty strolled inside. Time stood still, all the life in the room snuffed out like a candle in an instant.
"COLONEL MORAN!" he bellowed. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?"
He heard the clatter of a knife hitting the ground, and Moran ambled stiffly out the shadows. Sherlock suppressed a gasp, while Moriarty sucked in a deep breath and growled, "Holy hell!"
The Colonel was covered from head to toe in streaks of bright blood, smeared across his body like finger paint. The nine millimeter pistol dangled in his right hand. He watched in silence as the man called Moran stepped closer to the Irishman, stopping directly in front of him to look him straight in the eye, neither bending nor stooping to show any sort of deference. Moran's voice was cold.
"Sir."
In a flash, Moriarty snatched the gun from Moran's hand, bringing the butt of the gun up to smash into the side of his face, pistol-whipping him to the ground. Moran landed on the concrete with a grunt, and Moriarty crouched beside him. In the quiet of the room, Moriarty's whisper traveled.
"Let's take a moment to reflect, Colonel. I am offended by your hubris. I believe I pay you well enough to disregard such things." The Irishman's tongue darted out to swipe across his lips thoughtfully. "There will be no more of this. NOW GET IN THE FUCKING CAR!" The last sentence was a roar, shaking them all.
Moran shuffled to his feet and headed for the exit, blatantly turning his back to the Irishman, who merely smiled with sinister eyes.
There was another shuffle, deep in the shadows, the struggle of a man rising to his feet. John.
"Ah, yes, Dr. Watson," Moriarty grinned as he moved to Sherlock's side, pistol still in hand. The shuffling stopped. "Terrible thing, isn't it Sherlock, when the pets get off their lead?" A hand came up to remove the binding across him mouth, then travelled upward to lodge in his hair, pulling his face back into the light. He raised the gun and aimed at the shadows where John stood. He lowered his lips to Sherlock's ear. "We'll have to be more careful in the future. With ones like ours, if they meet again, they're liable to kill one another. While I don't mind watching, it's not quite what I had in mind."
The gun lowered and Moriarty called out, "Take him home, John. Take him home and lick his wounds." The evil little smile returned and he bent down and swiped the flat of his tongue from Sherlock's jaw to temple in one slow pass. He called out again, chuckling, "Better yet Doctor, take him home and have him lick yours. Ta!" The hand released him and Moriarty was gone.