Disclaimer: Don't own Sherlock.

Warnings: Torture, slight non-con, language.

A/N: Much gratitude to zealousfreak27, KingHerod, wordswhatareinmybrain, Zacha, hjohn302, InsideYourDreams24, Moi, DanceLikeChildrenOfTheNight, magirl0413, SherWatsonLocked, mylia11, Nostalgic Beauty, omgitskirby, Guess, Mzzmarie, and Miss Savvy for your reviews, I love you so much for sticking with this infrequently updated story!

A/N: So, uh, here's the least cheerful Christmas gift you'll ever receive…

~III~

"It's okay to be nervous, Johnny," Moriarty said. "I'm a little nervous myself. I mean…" He gestured expansively at the table. "This is like our first date."

His laugh set John's teeth on edge.

"Of course, I appreciate being watched by a half-naked man strapped to a trolley might be a little unusual for a first date."

He winked at John.

"But something tells me you might be the kinky type, pet, deep down. After all, you were in the army. All those men playing dress up, ordering each other about, polishing their weapons. It's positively fetishistic..."

"Is one of the forfeits listening to you talk, Jim?" Sherlock intoned drily. "It certainly feels like one."

John couldn't help letting out a snort of laughter.

"Very droll," Moriarty said evenly. "But let me assure you, my love, you'll know when the forfeits start."

He smiled at John.

"But enough chatter. Let's eat!"

He gestured to the table.

"Soup de jour! Beef knucklebone, parsnip, and thyme. Enjoy."

John looked down at the bowl warily. True, Moriarty had dismissed poison as boring, but who's to say he was telling the truth?

Moriarty seemed to divine his train of thought.

"It's perfectly edible, sweetness. Watch."

Moriarty leaned forward and dipped his finger into the soup bowl, before slowly licking it off.

"See?"

John felt even less inclined to drink the soup.

"I'm not really that hungry."

"Try," Moriarty said. As he spoke, he casually picked up the bread knife.

John looked back at the bowl, then at Moriarty. He sucked in a breath.

"I just-"

"EAT!" Moriarty shouted, stabbing the bread knife into the table. John jumped like he'd been shocked.

"Amateur dramatics," muttered Sherlock from behind, but John could see the worry in his eyes.

Moriarty ignored him.

"I won't say it again, Johnny." The smile was back, but his tone of voice was dangerous.

John picked up a spoonful and slowly brought it to his mouth.

It tasted… normal.

In any other situation, John might have appreciated the flavour. But with Moriarty watching him, and Sherlock tied down, it felt like cough syrup trickling down his throat.

He was halfway conscious of eating more slowly than usual. Because when he stopped, surely it would be forfeit time.

But he couldn't spin it out forever.

"Well?" Moriarty said, as he took his last spoonful. "How did it taste?"

"It tasted like soup," John said. "You fucking psychopath."

Moriarty laughed delightedly.

"There's that spark again!"

He fixed his eyes on John.

"Do you know how much I'm going to enjoy breaking you, pet?"

John swallowed.

"I'm going to take everything away from you. I'm going to reach inside your head and act out all your worst nightmares. Make you bleed. Make you scream. Put out the light in your eyes. Bring you to your knees, in every sense of the phrase.

By the time I'm finished with you, Johnny, you'll be a human rag doll."

John felt like all the air had left the room. It was only him, and Moriarty's eyes boring into his, and the words he was saying.

He dropped his gaze and the bread knife gleamed in front of him, still stuck hard in the table top.

Perhaps he should end it now. Take that knife and stab it through his own stomach. Better surely, than staying alive to be tortured and… and raped and murdered.

Do it now, then. If you're gonna do it. Get it over with.

John's hand twitched in anticipation.

Now. Do it now. Do it-

"Not going to happen, Jim." Sherlock's voice cut in on John's thoughts, sounding impossibly calm and collected.

"Tell me, Sherlock, in what delusional universe do you have any say in the matter?" Moriarty bit back.

"Interesting choice of words, Jim," Sherlock said casually. "But then, you'd know all about delusions, wouldn't you?"

"Oh?" Moriarty said, in a low voice.

"Shall I tell you my favourite part of your psychiatric report? I learnt it off by heart, you know."

Sherlock twisted his head to face Moriarty.

"'Patient exhibits grandiose delusions and inflated sense of own achievements. Most likely employs malignant narcissistic tendencies as cover for low self-esteem, social inadequacy, and feelings of inferiority stemming from developmental years.'"

Sherlock smirked.

"Or, in plain English, poor little Jimmy pretends to be the big I am because he never got enough love in his childhood. Tragic, really."

Moriarty had gone very still.

John sucked in a breath. He was half proud of Sherlock for goading Moriarty, and half furious at his friend's lack of self-preservation.

He risked a glance at Moriarty and found his face unreadable. But then the man rose to his feet.

"Do you know what, Sherlock? I think it might be time for forfeit number one."

The lips were curved, but Moriarty's eyes were ice cold.

John felt his whole body tense, but Sherlock didn't flicker.

"I thought I'd theme the forfeits," Moriarty said, walking over to a corner table half hidden in the shadows of the room.

He picked something up. Sherlock craned his neck to try and glimpse it.

John could already see it.

A claw hammer.

"To go with the food, you know? So… John gets knucklebone soup, and Sherlock gets…"

Without warning, he brought the hammer down on Sherlock's left hand.

An explosion of stars. The shock of impact jolting all the way up his arm. The split second of numbness.

Then.

The pain was unbelievable. In his lifetime, Sherlock had broken almost every bone in his body at one point or another, but never this many at once. Never in such a brutal manner. Never when he had no hope of retaliation.

Despite his best intentions, Sherlock cried out.

John leapt to his feet.

"You fucking bastard!"

Forget the consequences. John was ready to do as much damage to Moriarty as he possibly could.

But Moriarty skipped out of his reach and made it to the other side of the trolley. He held the hammer aloft above Sherlock's right hand.

"Sit. Down." He said.

John froze. He looked at Moriarty, then at Sherlock, then at the hammer.

Then he sat down.

"You've got a short memory, Johnny," Moriarty said silkily, turning the hammer over in his hand. "Need I remind you of the rules of the game?"

"Fuck your stupid game," John growled.

"Perhaps there's one I didn't mention. If you attempt to interfere… the forfeit is doubled."

Sherlock's face whitened slightly. John felt something horrible clutching at his heart.

"Wait…" He started to say.

But Moriarty shook his head. Suddenly he raised the hammer again and brought it down.

Instinctively, John shut his eyes as it fell, not able to bear seeing the pain on Sherlock's face the second time.

But instead of a sickening crunch of bones, John only heard a loud clang.

He opened his eyes.

Sherlock's hand was intact.

Moriarty was still holding it where it had struck the trolley, mere inches from Sherlock's fingers.

"This is me being nice, Johnny." Moriarty walked back to sit at the table. "I can assure you it won't happen again."

He reached out and gripped John's hand, crushing it beneath his own.

"So, behave, hmm?"

He didn't stop squeezing until John nodded.

~III~

The main course was steak.

"But not just any steak, pet. This is Kobe beef, from tajima-ushi cattle raised in luxury in the mountainous regions of Japan. It's the rarest - and most delicious - beef in the world."

Moriarty shrugged.

"Or so the chef I kidnapped told me. God, he was a talker. It was a real relief when he finished cooking so I could finally shoot him."

John bit his lip.

"What's the matter, love? Don't tell me you're vegetarian," Moriarty snickered.

"He's probably just wondering what kind of ham fisted forfeit you've concocted to go with Kobe beef," Sherlock drawled from the trolley. "Some kind of Japanese torture? Trampled to death by a herd of cattle? Or perhaps you're going to force me to eat a Big Mac?"

Moriarty curled his lip.

"If you're so eager to get started on your forfeit Sherlock, all you had to do was ask."

He retreated back to the table in the shadows, and John's heart sank.

"And in answer to your questions, no, no, and no. I've decided to keep it simple this time. So John gets a steak knife to carve up his meat, and I get a steak knife to carve up… you."

Moriarty spun on his heel, brandishing the blade.

Sherlock kept his face blank.

"Mundane, Jim," he said lightly, over the thumping of his heart.

"It is a bit, isn't it?"

Moriarty looked regretful, before brightening.

"Still, I'll just have to be inventive in the way I use it…"

John's stomach was twisted in knots. He could not - could not – sit here and watch Moriarty use that knife on Sherlock.

Distract him. Offer yourself up instead. Do something. Do anything!

"Moriarty-" John began in a low voice.

"I'm hearing talking," Moriarty sang out. "When I should be hearing eating!"

John opened his mouth again, when he caught Sherlock's eye. His friend gave him an unmistakeable shake of the head.

John remembered what happened last time he tried to intervene, and closed his mouth again.

He picked up his knife, and began slicing off a corner of the meat, eyes locked on Sherlock all the time.

"Good boy," Moriarty trilled. "Now, Sherlock, my love. Where do I begin?"

With terrifying speed, Moriarty stuck the knife between his teeth and vaulted onto the trolley to straddle Sherlock. He removed the knife from his mouth, slowly.

"Such a perfect canvas…" he half whispered, running his hand over Sherlock's bare chest.

"Get on with it," Sherlock said curtly. He tensed himself in preparation. Jim would not take him by surprise, as he had with the hammer. This time there would be no crying out, no matter what Jim did to him.

Jim started small, experiment slashes on his shoulders and his arms, watching in fascination as the blood dripped down Sherlock's forearms.

It was painful, but bearable. Sherlock blocked it out, reduced it in his mind to a mere pinprick. He sorted data in his head, added and subtracted figures, reflected on loose ends of cases gone by. Jim was but a background irritation.

But then Jim began in earnest. The cuts became deeper, the knife lingered longer, the serrated edge dragging on his skin.

Sherlock bit his lip, tried to suppress any expression of pain. It was getting harder by the second.

He had a vague idea what Jim was carving out letters of some kind, but he refused to engage with what they might be.

He didn't look over at John, but he could feel the other man watching him.

Don't make a sound. Don't do anything to worry John further.

But he could no longer ignore what was happened. The sting had become a searing pain. His broken fingers were aching. He was aware that his body had begun to shake, but he couldn't control it.

Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Don'tmakeasounddon'tmakeasoundon'tmakeasounddon'tmakeasound.

Then, just as the tension in Sherlock's body reached an unbearable level, Jim stopped. He held the knife in mid-air, admiring his work.

"Can you read that, my love?" he said softly.

"No." Sherlock managed to spit out.

"Johnny," Jim called, not taking his eyes off Sherlock. "Be a dear and come over to read this for Sherlock, would you?"

Sherlock heard a chair scraping on the floor, then a few slow heavy steps. Then John's face loomed into view.

Sherlock briefly reflected that John looked ten years older than he had yesterday.

He watched as John looked down, and physically recoiled at what he saw. His fists clenched and he turned to Jim with hate in his eyes.

Jim simply smiled.

"I take it you approve? Read it out for the whole class, then."

"No," John said.

Jim pretended to look worried.

"Oh dear, is it not legible enough? Do I need to go over it again?"

Sherlock watched as John hung his head in defeat.

"It says-"

"A little louder, pet."

"It says… 'Property of Jim Moriarty'"

Sherlock felt nothing.

He looked at the utter misery in John's eyes and half smiled.

What did it matter, anyway?

"What do you think, Sherlock? Little vulgar, maybe?" Jim grinned. "But you can't deny its accuracy."

He caressed Sherlock's cheek.

"You're mine now, love. Why not make it official?"

Sherlock looked for his mind palace, and for the first time in his life, found it wasn't there.

Jim got down from the trolley, and turned to the table.

"Johnny! You didn't finish your meat!" he cried. "Did it not taste good? Did it need more salt? I can fix that."

He swept the salt shaker off the table and doused John's half-eaten steak.

Then before Sherlock could blink, he swept the lid off the salt and tipped the remainder over Sherlock's bloody chest.

Sherlock couldn't help it.

He screamed.

~III~

"Pudding time!" Moriarty clapped his hands. "And this final round has a name. It's called 'Just Desserts'."

He paused.

"Get it?"

"Hilarious," John intoned, reaching for the chocolate mousse even as Moriarty was talking. He wanted it all over with as quickly as possible.

"Not so fast, sweetheart."

Moriarty picked the mousse up.

"I said it was called 'Just Desserts,' didn't I? So, in this round, you and Sherlock both get exactly what you deserve."

"Yeah?" John said wearily.

"And, I think what you both deserve is… no last forfeit!"

"What?"

"I'm withdrawing the final forfeit, Johnny, because you and Sherlock have been such good players. So all you have to do is eat the mousse, and the game is over!"

"And the catch is…"

"No catch!" Moriarty giggled. "I'm being nice again, Johnny! So… tuck in!"

And with that, Moriarty spun around, and upturned the bowl on Sherlock's chest.

"Ta-dah!"

John was once again struck by the mad urge to laugh.

"What is… what…" He trailed off, too exhausted to even finish the question.

Sherlock barely seemed to have registered the mousse that was now covering his torso.

"Just desserts, pet! Not only do you get the mousse, you get to eat it off Sherlock. It's all your fantasies come true!"

John briefly considered objecting, then decided against it. If that really was all he had to do, they were getting off lightly.

"Up you pop," Moriarty said, gesturing. "Onto the trolley."

Moriarty clearly wanted John to straddle Sherlock as he had. John climbed up gingerly, careful not to brush against Sherlock's scars.

Though it was difficult to make them out under all the chocolate.

"You okay?" he said quietly.

Sherlock nodded.

John could see he was still slightly dazed by pain.

He looked at Sherlock's left hand and winced at the shattered fingers.

He felt Moriarty's eyes boring into him, and remembered the task at hand, reaching out a hand to scoop up some of the mousse.

"No hands!" Moriarty sing songed from behind. "In fact…"

And suddenly John felt his arms being bound tightly behind his back.

Right. Mouth it is.

Not wanting to make a bigger production out of it than it already was, John dipped his head and began licking up as much mousse as he could.

Moriarty had come round to Sherlock's ear.

"Is it just how you always imagined it, Sherlock?"

"Seems rather more like your fantasy than mine, Jim." Sherlock's voice sounded hoarse.

"Still pretending, love? I'll get it out of you, you know. One way or another…"

John kept licking. He couldn't look at either Sherlock or Moriarty.

"He's got a fantastic tongue, doesn't he?" Moriarty mused. "I can't wait to put it to proper use."

"Dream on." Sherlock said, his voice clipped.

John had the sickening realisation that he was lapping up Sherlock's blood along with the pudding. He gagged slightly.

"You had enough, darling?"

John looked suspiciously at Moriarty, like it might be a trick. He had expected to be made to lick until Sherlock's chest was completely clean.

He nodded.

Moriarty tugged him down from the trolley. John found his balance awkwardly, hands still tied behind his back.

"That's it, then. Game over." Moriarty affected an upper class English accent. "Jolly good show, chaps, and all that."

Could it really be over?

Moriarty began to loosen the straps on the trolley. Sherlock attempted to rise, then paled, and lowered himself back down. Moriarty cocked his head sympathetically.

"Careful, love. You've lost a bit of blood."

He clicked his fingers and a henchman re-entered.

"Help him back to the cell," Moriarty said dismissively.

But then he turned back to look at John and held up his hand.

"Wait." He was staring at John's mouth. "Johnny, you're all sticky from the mousse. Shall I clean you up?"

Like in a nightmare, time slowed as John watched Moriarty approach and then start to… lick him.

Moriarty was licking him, all over, working his tongue all around John's mouth, pushing it in between his lips.

And Sherlock was watching.

John made an involuntary movement, but with his hands bound he was helpless.

Let's face it. You're helpless with your hands free. Helpless and weak and pathetic.

John lowered his eyes.

"When I get my hands on you Jim," Sherlock said conversationally. "I think I'll cut your tongue out."

Jim broke away from John's mouth to smile widely at Sherlock.

"You should really know your place, Sherlock. Especially since I carved it on your chest."

John let his eyes go out of focus, concentrating on the dining table until Moriarty became fuzzy and blurred.

For some reason, the single red rose was all he could see.

~III~

So, er, happy Christmas! Hope you liked it anyway. And here's some genuine festive news, next chapter sees the first appearance of Mycroft and Lestrade. Huzzah!