Dina rubbed her eyes. Today's video had been one of the worst yet. Apparently, James hadn't heard that trepanning* had been outdated thousands of years ago. Still, he had seemed to relish placing the metal band around Sherlock's head, and placing all sorts of metal objects…from ice picks to cork screws, and drilling holes into his skull. After a while, Sherlock stopped screaming. He'd left the band around Sherlock's head for a long time, tapping at it, pulling at various metal handles, twisting a few in deeper. Dina made careful notes about where each device was inserted, and about how far. She went to find John and Lestrade as well, to see if maybe James had made a note of it in the journals. Lestrade had the journal describing it, but it only said that he'd twisted metal objects into Sherlock's head, some likely delving into the brain itself, but that he had been healed afterward. There was no mention of how deep things had gone, or if it had messed up Sherlock's brain.
She made note of it anyway, passing the information along to Mycroft, and Sariel. It might be useful.
Sherlock struggled to regain consciousness. "What's that pet? I didn't hear you," whispered a voice close to his ear.
"Pins," he mumbled. "Pins in my head."
The voice laughed. Cold, cruel, and absolutely gleeful. "Yes dear. Pins and pipes and huge needles and corkscrews and we had such fun, didn't we?" Sherlock groaned, and was rewarded with a hard kick straight to his groin. His body instinctively clenched in on itself, but the pressure on his cock didn't go away after the kick. The foot stayed there, and pressed down. Sherlock gasped, trying to breathe, trying to scream, anything. The voice was saying….something, just what, Sherlock had no idea. Then the foot was gone from his groin, concentrating instead on kicking anything else it could reach. Stomach ribs, and then there were more feet, where had they come from? Kicking at his back and kidneys and legs, stomping on his knee caps and then there was a stiletto through his hand and he screamed.
The feet all disappeared, though the stiletto stayed stuck, straight through his hand. It shook, blood welling up, spilling to the floor. The shoe was lifted, bringing his hand with it, and it might have slipped off, except a gloved hand grabbed the end of the heel, and yanked him up, hard, by the shoe. He screamed again. He was slammed backward into the wall, one of his wings getting slightly caught, bending painfully. He panted, trying to get at least a little control back. James grinned, running a finger along Sherlock's jaw. "Shh," he whispered. "That's it. Just….shh. Isn't this nice?" Sherlock glared. Then, as the finger brushed his lips, bit it. James yelled and slammed his injured hand into the wall, driving the shoe in clean to the bottom.
Sherlock's head jerked back, slamming into the wall. His vision swam, but he managed to notice, for the first time that the heel of the shoe was made of an angel blade. Not tempered in hell fire, just a regular blade. That explained the glove he supposed. He sucked in a hissing breath. "You keep fighting me Sherlock," James whispered. "I do like it." He twisted the shoe before pulling it out. "But please stop being boring about it." He jammed the shoe into Sherlock's shoulder. It was getting harder to bite back the screams. He clenched his teeth, and whimpered slightly. James clicked his tongue against his teeth. "I want to hear you scream Sherlock," he said, and twisted the shoe. Sherlock did scream, and the shoe was removed and tossed away. "That wasn't so hard, was it?" He stepped away, and Sherlock fell to the floor, cracking his knees hard.
He glanced up, and he was alone. He sat, back against the wall, and curled his wings around him as far as they would go, arms around his knees, brought tight against his chest.
He didn't get to rest for long. An hour later, the cage door opened again. He stood as fast as he could, scrambling to his feet. It wasn't fast enough and the wraith was upon him, hands clutching at his neck. She laughed, and Sherlock fell into another dizzying nightmare.
Dina paused the tape again. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. She would just make Mycroft take a turn, she thought. It was only fair, she'd been watching these for a month now. She'd watched seven months worth of footage. She knew enough that she was aware of what was coming when the wraith attacked. Sherlock didn't say as much to James anymore. He still spat biting comments at him sometimes, but a threat to John was enough to make him stop talking.
The wraith though…she might not have been in Sherlock's mind for the nightmares, but she could get a good idea of what he went through from the things he yelled. She'd started fast forwarding through most of the hallucinations now. She'd pause every so often, to see if there was anything new. There rarely was. Sometimes he'd start hurting himself, throwing himself against the walls, the bars, beating his head against anything he could find, clawing at his wrists until they went bloody…and she was tired of watching it. Mycroft wanted the tapes watched so badly, he could watch them.
Mycroft's face was too big. Too close. Sherlock closed his eyes. Maybe it would go away. He opened his eyes. It was still there. Further away now. Drifting toward him once more. Why couldn't he see? He whimpered a little. There was a hand on his shoulder, and he flung himself backward. No, not…he couldn't finish the thought, couldn't remember what had been the problem. "Sherlock!" that was his name, he knew that, that was…good, that he knew his name and…he was pressed into the corner, Mycroft coming close. No, no, he didn't want Mycroft near him, why was he moving toward him? He moaned, trying to fit himself further into the corner. It wasn't working, why? Why couldn't he make himself smaller? The buzzing in his head…there was a buzzing, and it wouldn't….stop. There was a banging now, why….buzzing changed to banging, buzzing to banging buzzing to banging, banging, banging, banging….
"SHERLOCK!"
The voice was loud and invasive and arms were tight and…Mycroft. Why was Mycroft holding him. He was in the corner. His head hurt. There was a dent in the wall. A bit of a hole. He shivered, and slumped, energy spent. He was shaking. No…that was Mycroft. Maybe both. Both of them? The buzzing had stopped when the banging started, he remembered that. But the banging had stopped and the buzzing had come back and….why? He hated the buzzing, he knew he hated the buzzing. He groaned. He flung his head back. BANG.
"No, no, Sherlock, you must stop, stop." Mycroft talking again. There was a choked sob. Mycroft? No. Not Mycroft. Him then. Why was…he didn't know. Couldn't remember. He couldn't remember anything. The buzzing was too loud. Getting louder. He had to make it stop, had to make it stop. He couldn't, nothing…hands to his head, twisting, his hair was buzzing, he had to make it stop buzzing, couldn't Mycroft see? The buzzing was driving him mad, and it was in his hair. Bees? Bees in his hair, he had to kill hem, had to get them out, why was Mycroft shouting, why was he not letting him kill the bees? He tore at his hair, he had to get them out of his head, twisted, slammed his head against the wall, screaming, screaming, and then there was no wall, only arms, too many pairs of arms and he was struggling, but he couldn't get free, and he was trapped, and he couldn't see, and the buzzing…darkness claimed him.
Sariel swallowed. They'd done too much and not enough. Sherlock had his strength back. Just as strong as Mycroft was. It had taken three of them to subdue him. Mycroft looked shattered. Sherlock was unconscious again. It seemed the only way to make sure he didn't hurt himself. "I think it will be fine," said Mycroft, voice calm. "Thank you for your assistance." He wondered what more could be done. They'd healed his body, but…Sariel felt useless. He could do nothing for what tatters remained of Sherlock's mind. He felt his stomach sinking slightly. What if things didn't get better? He felt a warm comfort spreading through him. He looked over, surprised at Isda. She gave him a soft smile.
"We'll figure it out," she said softly.
Notes: *Trepanning, if you didn't know, was the drilling of holes into people's skulls to release evil spirits that were thought to cause disease. So...I made it worse and drilled LOTS of holes. Um...so I have some torture, some crazy Sherlock...and yeah. Maybe some more Sherlock and John next chapter?