My boy builds coffins for better or worse
Some say its a blessing, some say it's a curse
He fits them together in sunshine or rain
Each one is unique, no two are the same
- Florence + The Machine - My Boy Builds Coffins -
It was a long couple of weeks. Both of them slogged through their required meetings with their therapists, and Sebastian fought off the urge to trace his words, though the further they healed the harder it got.
Finally, two days before they were to go back on duty, they woke up to the news that they were going to be released. Neither of them dawdled, and an odd half hour later, they were both staring at the elevator door, waiting for it to arrive.
"Christ, am I glad to be leaving this place," she breathed, running a hand through her hair, which was finally beginning to be truly healthy again. She'd made good progress towards getting her weight back to what it was. The nightmares had gotten better, and some of the sessions with the therapist had even been... slightly helpful. She'd been able to describe some of the things done to her that she'd never want to inflict on Sebastian. That had helped her make progress.
He nodded in agreement, rubbing at his bandaged arm absently, as had become habit. The cuts were almost completely healed, but still he wound the bandages tightly in place. Otherwise the impulse to cut into them again became nearly overwhelming. "I was starting go more mad than I already am, staring at those fucking walls all day."
"I'm right there with you. It will be good to see home, again, too. I've missed liquor. And windows." She stepped into the lift with a sigh of relief. "Hell, maybe the flat will bring back those last few memories, too."
He nodded a little in agreement, stepping in with her and reaching for the buttons, before pausing to stare at then for a while, thinking. Eventually he sighed and shook his head, motioning for her to make the selection.
She pressed the appropriate floor button without making a fuss; things were still coming back to him, one piece at a time, and spending the time verbally correcting something that was best done without words was detrimental. When the lift dinged open she stepped out with a bit of a spring to her step. "C'mon, let's get ridiculously drunk."
He smirked a little and shook his head, but followed after her, taking in the hallways with a sense akin to deja vu. She stopped outside a door and he waited for her to key in, following slowly behind her.
She walked into the flat nearly as slowly as he did; it'd been a long time since she'd been there, and it was weird to finally be back. Home. As strange as it was. "I'm going to get into some more comfortable clothes," she sighed, heading for the bedroom. "Then its whiskey time."
He nodded just a little, walking around the room slowly, taking it in, mapping out the strengths (there were many) and weaknesses (very few) in its defensibility.
She returned five minutes later, decked out in a soft hoodie and sweatpants, and headed for the liquor cabinet in silence, letting him adjust to the room. She grabbed a bottle of whiskey and then sat down on the sofa, throwing back a swig as soon as immediately possible, and letting out a quiet hum of contentment.
He looked over at her, the bottle clicking something together that had gotten lost in the haze of memories. "We shouldn't... get too drunk. Bad things happen."
"That's only in public. But... you're right. We'll take it easy," she murmured, then held out a hand to him, beckoning him to sit.
It was two months later that they dragged in Charles Augustus Magnussen. The man who had indirectly set her back on the path that would lead her to DeWitt. She and Sebastian were much healthier now, in all fields. She didn't flinch from his touch anymore, or jump when someone raised their voice. Her injuries, for the most part, didn't trouble her, and most of it had scarred well.
So as she waited outside the basement cell for Sebastian to arrive, she didn't feel trepidation. She would not cower before Magnussen's gaze. She would enjoy watching him die.
He walked into the elevator, full of confidence as he punched the button for the basement and leaned back against the wall. He was mostly who he had been, memories still falling into place every once and awhile, but if prompted he could remember almost anything. His body was free of bandages, the fresh scars standing out pale pink against his skin. Moriarty's marks no longer drew attention.
He strode out of the elevator, every breath filling his lungs and sending a new drive of energy into him. Magnussen. Charles Augustus Magnussen.
His hands itched to be bloody, crawling with energy begging to be released.
He saw Lorna at the door, her gaze as hungry as his, and smiled. Feral.
"Thank god you're here. I thought I was going to start crawling up the walls if you didn't arrive soon. Come on, then, I want to make the bastard pay," she laughed, holding out a hand towards him. "If we get a little bloody in the process I won't weep any tears, either."
He took her hand and gripped it for just a second before he straightened, taking a slow breath. Then he dropped her hand and reached out to unlock the door, slipping into the dim room and observing the man tied up in the center of it. "Hello, Charley. Nice to see you again."
"Mr. Moran," Magnussen smiled, as if he wasn't tied to a chair that was bolted to the floor. "So nice to see you doing well again. I hear you hit a bit of a rough patch not so long ago," he sighed mournfully, then brightened up as Lorna entered the room behind him. "Oh, and Ms. Harrison. I don't think I've had the pleasure."
"No, I don't think you have, but you've influenced her significantly and she's been eager to meet you," Moran purred, still smiling. "Now, I want you to know that there is nothing you can do or say in the next... however long we decide to play that will make your life any easier. This is good old-fashioned revenge. Nothing else."
"Oh? There's always something that can be done," he replied, focusing his gaze on Lorna. "What would your brother thin-" He was cut off rather suddenly as she punched him in the face. When she'd put on brass knuckles wasn't quite clear.
Sebastian grinned, an odd sort of glee inflating his chest as blood spurted out of Magnussen's broken nose. "Beautiful," he sighed. "You know, Lorna... We always need people to talk. I so rarely get to practice dentistry."
She laughed, dropping the bloody brass knuckles in their captive's lap with a dull thud as he groaned in pain, bending forward. "You're right; this is a perfect opportunity. I think there's pliers in here somewhere."
"I'm certain of it, in fact," he said, walking over to the space of wall he needed and scanning his thumb, the cabinet popping open. He pulled out a drawer and tossed a pair of pliers at her feet, returning with a set of his own. "You really need to get down here more. Some of these cabinets are fucking fantastic."
"Maybe I will," she chuckled, bending to grab the tool and then pulling the man's head back with a handful of thin hair, looking down at his pained face with dark eyes. "I'm looking for a new position, after all. Do you want to go first, or shall I?"
"Go ahead first," he said, smiling. "You deserve a little close personal contact with Magnussen. I've already had the pleasure."
She just smirked, a dangerous, vindictive look, and forced Magnussen's jaw open, nails digging into his skin, her own teeth bared in a gleeful snarl. He didn't make a sound until she jammed the pliers in his mouth, got a hold of a molar, and yanked it out with a sharp twist, and then he screamed. "You should have given more thought to sending my own brother after me. You'll pay for that."
Sebastian watched her, eyes switching between her face and Magnussen's, giving the man a few breaths to recover, before walking forward. Magnussen clamped his mouth shut, trying to breathe through his mangled, bleeding nose, but that didn't last long and he choked, his mouth opening for a split second. Moran was on him instantly, pliers in place, closed around one of his front uppers, pulling it with an eager yank, part of the tooth breaking off in the process. Magnussen screamed again, but Sebastian was already sighing, apologizing. "Sometimes they break like that. Don't want that, though. That isn't nearly so painful." He immediately shoved the pliers back in, digging around for the remainder of the tooth. "I might need needle nose..."
Lorna tossed the pliers to the side and returned to the cabinet, looking through the contents within while Sebastian rooted around Magnussen's mouth. She came back a moment later with a short, thick knife, and stood off to the side, looking thoughtful, though intensely interested. "I want to carve something up, you know? Hm... maybe I'll leave my initials in him.." she muttered, then stepped forward, slipping around and under Sebastian to kneel on their prisoner's lap, tearing open his shirt, and slowly, deliberately, with all her weight behind the knife, began carving her initials down his sternum.
Magnussen screamed and writhed, biting down on the pliers and tossing his head, trying to get the knife away from his chest.
"Easy there, darling. Hold still," Sebastian chuckled, gripping the man's throat and holding him forcefully in place, even as he yanked at the restraints.
"If I'm naughty you gonna tie me up and call me darling, too?" she hummed, adding a slow, deliberate curl to her L and then moving on to the H, a little deeper than the first letter, eyes raptly watching the blood well up from beneath the skin.
"Only if you beg nicely," he shot back, smiling as Magnussen gagged on blood again and spat, trying to clear his throat.
"What, begging and manners? Somebody's full of themselves," she smirked, pausing her carving as Magnussen coughed blood onto her cheek, looking at him thoughtfully. "I don't think he's bleeding nearly enough, do you?"
"They never are," he chuckled, eyeing the knife hungrily, fingers itching for it, curling and uncurling. He could retrace his words...
He shook his head a little, clearing it, and walked over to the cabinet to grab another knife. If he couldn't carve them himself, why not on Magnussen?
She slowly finished the H, then sat back a little, admiring her handwork, before taking his chin in her hand again and holding his face still as she started slicing parallel lines down his face as he groaned and shook. Revenge. This particular dish was served so cold it almost didn't taste like anything anymore, but hell, a couples torture session? How could she have ever said no?
He walked back, and couldn't help bending to nip at the back of her neck as she worked, smiling. "He looks brilliant," he laughed, walking over with the scalpel he'd found to start working his words into the inside of Magnussen's arm. They flowed perfectly out of his hand, a rush, a release.
She grinned, not bothering to hide the shiver that went down her spine, her next line down his face just shy of a straight line. She met Magnussen's eyes for the first time, and she was thrilled to see disgust in them. "I'm sorry, are we too gross for your, frankly, vile sensibilities?" she purred, resting the blade just under his eye.
Moran laughed as Magnussen squirmed again and spat "Forgi' me if I'm not 'hrilled wi'h you car'ing into my fa'e."
She pressed her fingernail into one of the cuts with unrelenting pressure, watching as he flinched under her, another gush of crimson rolling down his face, off his chin, onto her knee. It didn't look like she'd heard him. By now she'd accepted that living with Sebastian was not really all that conducive to keeping this part of her under wraps. And if she was going to resign herself to that fact, she might as well enjoy it. She leaned back a little, running her fingers along the bloody knife, and sighed. "All the things I want to do to him would kill him. I hate when that happens."
"Hmm?" he asked, looking up from where he'd just finished his words, blood welling up to stain Magnussen's arm crimson. "Oh, come on, I know you're creative. I'd been considering amputation but that leaves us with less canvas."
"I'm creative, but there's not a lot that can substitute being elbow-deep in someone's rib cage," she said neutrally, looking thoughtfully down at Magnussen, her head tilted just a little. It felt a little like an itch she couldn't scratch, seating at the nape of her neck. "What do you think about scalping?"
He sighed, standing up and licking the blood off his fingers. "Head wounds bleed like crazy. We'd have to cauterize it."
She made a face. Even though the burns on her back had been healed for quite a while, she still didn't like to go near things that put off heat. She buried her knife in his arm for safekeeping and climbed off his lap to stand by Sebastian, bloodied hands on her hips. "Alright, fine. You just do whatever the hell you want to, and when you're done I'll cut him open like I'm really dying to. I'll just watch and maybe admire your arse a little."
"Christ, you're impatient," he laughed, walking over to kiss her, giving her a taste of the blood on his lips. "You don't want to leave him to fester for a week or two?"
"Honestly, I just don't give that much of a shit about him," she smirked, her pupils dilating as the taste of copper spread over her tongue. She hooked a finger in one of his belt loops. "Sue me if I want to get to the really fun part."
He laughed, nudging his hip against hers before he walked back over to Magnussen. "Guess you're mine for a few minutes, then," he said with a smile. "She's bored without open chest cavities."
She leaned back against the wall, arms crossed, a smirk on her face. Magnussen cleared his throat, spat a little blood, which only went as far as his chin before giving up on momentum and deciding to just make a mess of him instead. "'Harming couple. 'Ust ge' on with it."
He laughed, walking over to the wall and opening a new cabinet. "I'd use a hotknife but Lorna wouldn't approve, so you can thank her for that..." he muttered, thinking before pulling out a set of long, thick needles. "This is more what I'm looking for."
His eyes stayed carefully on the needles, caution and confusion present there. Whatever Moran was about to do to him, he had no idea what was coming. He was beginning to regret going after Jim's top employees, so, so many months ago.
He started to walk over, putting one of the needles up to his lips and blowing, confirming that they were hollow. "I love these things," he said with a laugh. "Great for under fingernails, but that isn't what I'll be doing with them today." He walked up to Magnussen and set most of the needles aside, his fingers tracing over the man's bloody chest, counting ribs. A moment later, he drew a fist back and slammed it down against Magnussen's chest, driving the needle into his lung.
He didn't so much scream as gasp, jerking against the restraints, clawing at the arm of the chair beneath him. Lorna watched from the side, biting her lip, entranced. Years ago she'd thought she was pretty hot shit in the torture game, but Sebastian was something else.
"I'm guessing that probably hurt, and I'm going to let you adjust before we keep moving," Sebastian soothed. "I'll take this one slower." He held up another needle and started slowly pushing it through Magnussen's chest on the other side.
This time Magnussen did scream, though it couldn't have made the process any more bearable, but by the time the needle had punctured his lung he was just panting for breath, skin glistening with sweat, eyes wild and frantic. Pointlessly so. There was nothing he could do to stop it.
"Now, I want you to understand what's going on here, while I do it, alright?" he walked towards the cabinets again. "What I am about to do is fill your lungs with water." He opened a cabinet full of tubing, flicking through rolls until he found the right grade, and pulling a small pump out with it. "I'll let you drown for a bit, then drain them again. We can do that as many times as we like. Like waterboarding, but much more fun." He chuckled slightly.
Perhaps he would have tried to beg for mercy, if he'd been able to get a decent breath in - as it was he was struggling to compensate, his panicking not making it any better. Lorna was smirking at the wall, eyes flicking between the two of them with a hungry sort of amusement.
Sebastian walked over, sliding the tubes onto the ends of the needles and connecting them to the pump, grabbing a bucket of water from the corner and walking over to pour it in. "This water isn't really clean, but you don't care, right? You're not going to live that long anyway. I could piss in there and it really wouldn't make much difference. Might do that, now that I've thought of it... we'll see."
The effects were near-immediate. He started coughing, then gasping again, arching away from the chair, sputtering, watery breaths the only thing that managed to leave him. Lorna walked forward, finally unable to keep herself back, running her nails lightly down Sebastian's back.
He arched slightly under her touch, trousers tenting slightly as he hummed in pleasure, looking over his shoulder at her, eyes black and wild, teeth bared in a wide grin. "We should do things like this more often."
"What part? I don't know about you, but I think the simulated drowning should be saved for major holidays," she smirked, tugging his shirt out of his belt while Magnussen drowned a few feet away, stepping to his front so she could start to unbutton the article of clothing.
"How conscious do you want him when you start ripping into him?" he asked, reaching out to turn off the pump with the toe of his boot, watching as Magnussen managed watery half breaths between his body's attempts to cough the stuff up.
"He doesn't need to be conscious. I just want his heart to be beating," she hummed, leaning up to kiss his collarbone, nails biting into his side.
He tilted his head back with a soft groan, his hands running up her sides, tracing her curves and pulling her tighter against him, erection nudging at her hip. "I'd like to play with him just a little longer, if that's alright..."
"Well, if you're going to ask so nicely..." she smirked, leaning into him a little harder for just a moment before stepping aside with a wink, her eyes going back to Magnussen with a predatory intensity.
He smirked. "That's the only time I'm going to ask nicely for anything, so remember it well," he said with a laugh, walking over to the pump and turning it on reverse, which was no more pleasant for Magnussen, creating a vacuum in his lungs that forced him to inhale far more than felt natural while his lungs still tried to cough the water away.
She didn't retreat completely this time, standing only about a pace back from him, thoroughly enjoying watch Magnussen gulp like a fish for air.
The water that poured back into the bucket was tinged red, and Sebastian smiled. "Christ, I wish I had some hotsauce handy. I'd dump a whole fucking bottle in there," he chuckled, giving Magnussen about two full breaths before he reversed the pump again, sending the water back in.
She turned for the cabinet, rummaging around for a bit before coming back with a tub of salt, handing it to him wordlessly, just looking amused. If Magnussen had enough air in his brain to be paying attention to them, he probably would have started to thrash a little more.
He laughed at that, pouring it into the pump. It took a few seconds, but then Magnussen let out a gurgling scream of pain, thrashing a bit harder before his movements started to slow and dull, eyes slipping shut. Moran reached out to reverse the pump, watching with interest as Magnussen's lips pulled in with the pressure before something unclogged in his nose and air whistled through. "He's all yours," he said with a smirk.
"Oh, good," she replied pleasantly, stepping forward and retrieving the knife that she'd left in his arm earlier, immediately taking the blade to his chest, carving a slab of flesh from the left side of his rib cage, emulating the way Sebastian had killed her father, a good long while ago. "I've never gotten to kill anybody this way," she said conversationally, readjusting her grip on the handle as the warm liquid poured over her fingers, an unsteady ooze, dark red and sticky.
He walked over to stand beside her. "The ribcage is the real bitch. Outside of that it's mostly just fun," he smirked.
"Yeah," she sighed, resting the knife on the unconscious man's thigh and giving the bone structure an experimental push before standing up straight, taking a short step back, and giving a sharp kick to the exposed bone with a sickening crack. She stepped forward again, curled her fingers under the edge of the bottom rib, and pulled hard, until a good section of it broke off in her hand. She dropped them in his lap. She didn't want them. And then she was utterly still for a moment, just observing what that had done to his body; the lung, struggling to inflate, blood practically pouring out of his chest cavity, just the edge of his heart peeking out from behind the intact bone. She picked the knife back up, and slowly, deliberately, shoved it up the hole she'd made, scraping past bone and lung. She knew when it hit the heart; it jerked in her hand, and a water-balloon's-worth of blood gushed onto her fingers and coated her arm. She waited until the knife stopped dancing in her hand to let go of it, still embedded in the chunk of muscle, and withdrew her arm with a squelch, only just realizing how hard her heart was pounding in her chest, how every nerve in her body seemed to be firing at once. "I think that was worth it," she murmured.
"Next time, you should try ripping it out," he said quietly, stepping up behind her, body pressing up against hers, hands sliding over her blood-soaked arms. His lips found the back of her neck. "Feel it pulsing in your hand as you reach for it, squeeze it..." His hands squeezed her arms and pulled her tighter to him. "Feel them die..."
"I thought that I ought to try and do something different from that kill you did," she bit her lip, rolling her hips back into his, lifting a hand to cup the back of his neck, smearing crimson across his skin. "But I'll do it next time. You're welcome to tag along and watch."
"I just think it's a little more intimate that way," he smirked, biting the side of her neck, hard, his teeth breaking skin, tongue tracing the wound.
She gasped, nails scraping the back of his neck, her brain half shorting out. "I don't know, I think this is intimate enough to make up for it," she laughed breathlessly, grinding back against him again, her free hand slipping around behind herself and between them to start undoing his belt. "Speaking of which, I'm pretty sure that door's unlocked, so we better get a move on."
"Do you know how much I don't care if someone walks in on us? It's an astronomical amount," he muttered, grinning and shifting his hips back a bit so she could get at his belt more easily. "Is it safe to say your shirt is ruined?"
"It's ruined," she agreed, snorting, completely aware of what he was going to do next, and just kept working one-handed on his belt. "But really? You, who never wants to be caught off guard? With the proverbial pants down? Christ, you must be harder than I thought," she smirked, finally getting his belt undone and pulling it off to throw against the wall, stepping back to rub against him like a cat again.
"I'm fucking aching," he muttered, tearing her shirt slowly but steadily down the side and working it off, tossing the bloody cloth to the side as well. "And if someone walks in here while I'm naked and bloody, who do you honestly think is going to have the advantage of surprise? It will be me."
"I'm not arguing," she chuckled, turning to face him so she could push his already-unbuttoned shirt off his shoulders and start kissing a line down his muscular chest (the two of them were not quite where they used to be in terms of weight, but they were close).
He smiled, sighing quietly under her lips, his hands finding the waistband of her trousers and pulling her against him firmly.
She scraped her teeth across his skin as she started to unbutton his trousers, then leaned up on her toes to kiss him, biting his lower lip with a barely-hidden smirk. She loved trying to rile him up.
She was succeeding. He shifted his hands to push under her waistband, grabbing two handfuls of her arse and grinding against her as he kissed her back solidly, his tongue chasing after hers.
"Fuck, you're hot with blood on you," she gasped between kisses, finally getting his trousers down and taking the opportunity to palm him through his pants, and groaned. "Christ, Sebastian."
"I told you," he half muttered, half groaned. "Do you know what it fucking does to me, watching you rip someone apart like that?" He moved his hands forward again, finding the fastening of her trousers and working quickly to undo it.
"I gotta do that more often," she mumbled, kissing down his throat, biting hard where it met his shoulder, then soothing over the mark with her tongue, all the while stroking him through his pants. Honestly, if anyone was unlucky enough to interrupt them right now, she thought Sebastian might kill them.
"Yes, you do," he breathed, finally getting her trousers undone and letting them drop. He rolled his hips slowly against her hand, hands tracing down over her pants-covered arse and between her thighs, then back up over the small of her back, leaving behind streaks of blood. They continued on up to her shoulders, and one lifted, fingers tangling in her hair and pulling her head back so that he could kiss her again.
She let out a quiet groan against his lips, dragging her nails down his side, kicking off her trousers and sliding a hand into the waistband of his pants -
Jim had been busy with some inane work, sending contracts to be filtered out among his employees, but he couldn't completely pass up the chance to see his former business partner beaten and bloodied in his basement. The walk from the lift to the holding cell was quiet, and filled with good daydreams and colorful details of blood and tears. When he opened the door however, he was, to be completely honest, a little bit surprised to find Magnussen dead, and Moran and Harrison mostly naked, bloody, and about two seconds from fucking. He was more surprised to find that his first reaction wasn't contempt, and it wasn't anger. It was arousal. "Well, helloo."