The days were beginning to melt together. They lose track in the darkness of the cell, only clues to time passing the opening of the door, the input of food and visits from Moriarty. There's a bucket in the corner they are given to use a toilet and by somewhere around hour five after it's arrival, it smells to high heaven. Moriarty doesn't comment when he visits though. The man seems to take perverted pleasure in tormenting them; hinting about the search, threatening John with a repeat performance, giggling like a maniac when John is reduced to throwing up during one of these visits. And then there's the other sort of visits. The visits when Moriarty walks in accompanied by Moran, who holds John down without saying anything, often adding kicks and punches to make his wishes clear.
Moriarty, Moriarty, damn him to hell, will smirk until John gives up and goes limp.
Then he'll turn to Sherlock and hold out a single medical grade needle.
This sort of visit happens at least once a day. John isn't sure of time anymore. Even measuring by Moriarty's visits and the delivery of food was a fault ridden system. He had lost count of the cocaine highs he's coaxed Sherlock through. He gave up trying after twenty five. At least twenty six, if he included the high that happened before...
His mind skipped past that.
He couldn't think about it. Thinking about it made the pain come back, the embarrassment reflood his system, his skin turn clammy. Even when they'd finally given him his clothes back, he couldn't shake the feeling of being horribly exposed. Especially when Moriarty would turn and give him that same smile he had upon seeing John curl up in bed, knees to his chest despite the agony it caused him. Even now, just sitting on the concrete floor, safe as he could be in the complex, clothed and mildly warm, he could feel those eyes sliding over him.
"Jawn. Jawn."
He lifted his head, having to blink several times before he could register that he wouldn't be able to make anything out anyways. Sherlock's voice was hoarse with need and loud with want. The withdrawal voice, John knows. That horrible voice that signals an end to Sherlock drug induced high and the beginnings of something worse.
At least when he's high, Sherlock seems relatively himself. Annoying and loud, yes, but still himself. Still deducing John, whoever comes to drop off food, even Moriarty on the one time he visited during the cocaine high. Sherlock's senses are dampened by the chemicals, but his mind is still sharp. John, in a fit of self anguish he quickly regrets, hoped that Moriarty would given them enough drugs for Sherlock to stay high. As high as a kite, able to fly free of the prison walls.
"Jawn, you got any of the stuff? Good stuff. Seven perrrrrrcent. Need some of that."
"Sherlock I don't have any. Which is good, because you really don't need any."
"Course I do."
"No you don't. So even if I have some, I wouldn't give it to you."
Wouldn't he, a small voice in John's head asked.
"I know you can get me some."
"I can't Sherlock. I'm sorry."
Sherlock falls silent again. John can't see him, but the scuttle of a boot against the floor hints that he's in the corner opposite John. The return to silence comes as a relief. He hates hearing Sherlock like this, sentences rough and unfinished. If there's a sign that their time as captives is hurting Sherlock worse than John, that voice is it.
He feels something against his cheek. Crying, John realizes with a jolt. He's crying.
"Please God." His voice is a whisper in the darkness. Sherlock doesn't need to hear this, John doesn't want him to hear this, but he has to say the words out loud for them to mean anything to himself. "Let him live."
x~x~x
Moriarty comes in, John has no clue how long later. It feels like an hour, but it could very well be five minutes or five hours. He might go mad soon, trapped in the darkness of the cell with only his imagination to fill the passage of time.
Moriarty stands in the doorway, hands in pockets with his dramatic smirk on his lips. The light comes in from the hallway, thankfully illuminating Sherlock for the first time since he started his latest drug rush. He's dishevelled and sunken eyed, but not as badly deteriorated as his voice had John believing.
"Johnny. Care to take a walk with me?"
Moriarty says the words like a movie star, one of those old period pieces where a gentleman comes to court his lady love. This unexpected tone confuses John enough that he doesn't answer it with a no right away, just stares at Moriarty. The criminal returns his stare with an even wider smile. "Come on, Johnny. It's just a walk." And he actually holds his hand out. Like he's going to help John off the floor.
"Jawn, don't go."
Strangely enough, Sherlock's voice is enough to prompt John to his feet. His bad leg tingles with pins and needles when he put weight on it, though it's nothing more than a limb coming back awake after a long time in the same place. "Just walking, and that's all."
Moriarty nods, his eyes not leaving John's face. "And talking."
Sherlock mumbles something before the door slams shut being John. It sounds like he's asking for more cocaine. That, or for John to bring Mycroft. Either one is bad enough, so John focuses on the smile now decorating Moriarty's face like a cheshire cat. It's easier to think just about that, standing in the hallway of some unknown facility with a man he hates.
"You don't hate me, Johnny."
"What?"
"I can see it. In your eyes, I can see it plain as the colour of your shirt. You don't hate me, despite all that I have done to you." John was aware he had to be staring in some mixture of shock and horror, since that was what he felt, he just couldn't separate himself from his emotions enough to change the expression on his face. "You can't bring yourself to hate me. You try, but Johnny, you're too much a good doctor for that."
John felt like he had been frozen in place. Moriarty's arm was reaching out, John closed his eyes against his own helplessness, and Moriarty's fingers closed around his. The touch wasn't much different from any other time John had held hands, not in the actual sensation of skin and sweat against skin and sweat. It felt different in John's in, with the full wrongness of standing there and letting Jim Moriarty intwine their fingers together. It felt wrong because in John's head it should feel wrong.
"Johnny. Johnny, look at me." Moriarty's voice was a lot closer now. John slowly opened his eyes, fighting his urge to slam them shut again. "You can't see me as a monster, something you can hate. You really can't. You only see me as human."
"You're not human."
John's choked out words bring a chuckle out of Moriarty, who takes several more steps forward. John backs away until he feels the smooth bricks against his back and there's no where else to go. Just Moriarty closing in on him. "What I did to you was human as human can get, Johnny." He was so close now, the dip of his head to bring his lips against John's ear wasn't much of a movement at all. "I loved you in every sense of the term. Love is the most human of emotions. How can you even try denying that I am human?"
John shivered. "You didn't love me. What you did, raping me, that wasn't love." His words bring back the memory of those terrible hours chained like an actor in a bad porno, at the mercy of Moriarty's sick whims. Even the simple act of saying the words makes his backside twinge as if he were back in the be, cuts reopened and bruises once more fresh. "It wasn't love, and you can never make it love."
Throughout his little speech, Moriarty is smiling at John in an excessively patronizing manner. The smile of a father looking at his daughter and saying, you're cute and oh so wrong. "There's so many sorts of love," he drags out the word, "Johnny boy. You and me, you and Sarah, you and Sherlock."
"What? I don-"
"Let's cut to the chase, Johnny boy. You love him. You love the pathetic, little Virgin. You'll do things for him, things you would never consider doing if little Sherlock wasn't in danger."
John was sweating and quivering at the same time. Much in the same way that Sherlock could make you trust him after just a few simple words, Moriarty was making John pay attention to every action, every turn of his lips, every brushing his thumb on John's knuckle. John tried to look away and found his eyes simply drifting back up to Moriarty's.
"What do you mean?"
"I'll let you save the man you love Johnny, because I love you." John still doesn't understand. He opens his mouth to say as much, but Moriarty pressed a single finger over his lips. "Ah, ah, ah. Good pets listen to their masters." John grunts out the beginning of a reply, and Moriarty pinches with his nails. John falls silent. "That's better." A moment passes before Moriarty continues speaking. "I'll let Sherly go if you stay with me. Return my love, pet, and I'll give Sherly the life he wants." Moriarty was so close, John could feel his breath bouncing back of their faces. "That's all I ask. Isn't that simple? A life of obedience, no questions, everything you need as long as you listen to me, all for the freedom of your lover. What do you say?"
Moriarty stopped pinching John's lips, but John didn't open his mouth to say anything. He didn't know what he could say.
They remain like that, John pressing against the wall with Moriarty standing over him, for an inordinate amount of time. It felt like being strapped into a roller coaster, being handed a list of historical battles, and told to memorize the list while doing backwards loop-the-loops and upside-down spirals. Entirely impossible to think about the colour of the sky, much less remember what he was supposed to say when the ride came to a halt.
Perhaps the confusion is why Moriarty breaks the silence. "Though I know what you're answer is, I'd like to hear it in your own voice. Makes the moment sweeter, gives me something to hold onto later on." The lick of his lips speakings volumes to John. That Moriarty will hold him agreeing to the arrangement over him for however long it lasts. Use it as fuel for Stockholm Syndrome. Record it and send it to Mycroft or Greg or heavens forbid, Harry.
"I'll do it."
The grin that takes over Moriarty's face can only be described as insane. It involves his whole face, eyes wide and gleaming, cheekbones highlighted by the sudden new peaks of a smile so wide John can see the end of Moriarty's teeth, eyebrows eye and everything screaming christmas for the psycho.
"Let's seal the deal with a kiss then, Johnny boy."
In the end, what other choice does he have? Deals with the devil certainly weren't that uncommon, not when it comes to Sherlock Holmes. Maybe John had gotten off easy. He certainly felt lucky, when Moriarty stopped holding his hand and held his waist instead. John doesn't turn the slightest degree away when Moriarty dips his face in. His mouth is limp, though a few moments of pressure from Moriarty have him pushing back just so he can breath. When their mouths break apart, it's with John's hands on Moriarty's hips and name on his breath.
"Oh please Johnny. Call me Jim."
It's the best kiss John's had in ages. He doesn't even think before leaning once more for a second kiss.
After all, how many thoughts does a broken man have?
