~ Requiem ~
It was an eternity. A lifetime. A second. No more than a blink of an eye.
The feel of his stitches itching at his skin, too hot blood seeping through the soaked scrubs, colouring them purple. A gasp. Chest crumpling like paper. Something sloshing, thickly, inside. Where it shouldn't. Debatable
He was blind, the lights above no more than a hazy blur of white. But there was no panic. No sadness or fear. John was empty. Hollowed out. Yet he craved something. Something substantial.
Something that, perhaps, he should already have but must have lost.
Tears were burning his eyes, tracking lines down his cheeks. They tasted salty and strange on his lips. John tried to blink them away, but found himself so utterly weak and weary that all he could do was lie there, wondering if he was dead yet.
It was possible. This much pain could only come at a price, and he'd yet to pay in full.
"You look so pretty, Johnny. But you really must stop crying, it makes me look bad." Moriarty's voice was soft, but fake. A little lilt at the end of his words that told of hidden joy and excitement. John let his head fall to one side, away from the other man, but found a hand efficiently pulling him back. Hand on John's chin, Moriarty eyed the small man with dark eyes.
"Not to worry, Johnny, I won't hurt you." He said, and wiped away the tears with the pad of his thumb.
John passed out.
~OO~
Sherlock was still.
It was, he decided, the worst he'd felt in a long while. The drugs coursing through his system made him feel jittery and anxious. Emotions he was unused to, and didn't like. Impatient, yes, annoyed, certainly. But never anxious.
Guilt was tossed in there too.
Lestrade was watching him.
"So, who is it? Who's doing this?" He asked after a moment. But Sherlock remained silent, pensive. "Talk to me, mate, I can't help John is you keep everything to yourself."
Sherlock's eyes darted to the clear window, Donovan could be seen tottering around among the men, her sharp gaze constantly flicking back to Lestrade and Sherlock. But she was ignored. It seemed even Lestrade had grown to resent her, sharp tongue, abrasive-ness and all. It was about time, Sherlock thought to himself.
"Sherlock...?"
"This is all a game to him. If we don't play, John will die." Sherlock murmured quietly, tongue darting out to touch his upper lip. He could taste the drugs, sweet, yet with an undertone of bitterness that left his throat dry and his teeth aching.
"But we can't give in to the demands of a madman. We just can't." Lestrade objected, sitting forward on his chair until it threatened to roll out from under him. He shifted back wearily, and ran a hand down his face. "But what else can we do? He's already almost killed John, simply because you couldn't get to your phone."
Sherlock stood.
"I'm going home."
"But-but we need to figure this out, we need to...to..." It was rare that Detective Lestrade was speechless, he was an intelligent man, and he was a detective for a reason. But this, Moriarty, a man who played by no one's rules and whose took action simply because it amused him, Lestrade would not, could not, understand how a human being could do this to another.
"Call me if anything comes up." Sherlock said, and was gone, his green scrubs and dressing gown flashing out the door.
Lestrade watched him go with a feeling of foreboding. He knew that Sherlock would do anything for John, he might not have admitted it, but John Watson made Sherlock more human, it was easy to see. He made Sherlock bearable. Made him more patient and warm.
But most of all, he made everyone see that Sherlock was not as cold and clinical as he professed to be.
Sherlock took a taxi to Baker Street, slipping out and making his way tiredly up to the door. He was about to reach into his pocket, when he realised he was wearing only the scrubs. He looked at his feet, shivering, and raised a pale hand to knock.
Mrs Hudson opened on the third knock, brow raised impeccably high as she took in Sherlock's appearance. But she did not seem especially surprised.
"What have you gone and done now, Sherlock? And where is John? You boys seem to be always out creating mischief." Sherlock stumble slowly up the stairs, ignoring Mrs Hudson as she continued her questions. Incessant. Annoying.
He allowed her to unlock the apartment door before entering, wishing above all that she would leave him alone.
"And you didn't bother to call, Sherlock, what if I'd been worried?"
He went to the couch and let himself fall lengthways, head cushioned by the armrest. He could smell everything so acutely. The couches familiar, leathery scent. One of his experiments gone bad. Burnt toast from where John had left it in too long again.
"Do you ever clean up, Sherlock? I didn't let you stay here so you could trash the place, and look at this, what is this? It looks like an eye. What are you doing with an eye?"
John's laptop was sitting, closed, on the desk by the bookshelf. One of his jumpers was sitting on his favourite armchair, the cushion fallen to the floor.
"WILL YOU SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE." Sherlock screamed at Mrs Hudson, for the first time losing his patience with her intolerable chatter.
She looked only slightly affronted, but mostly pitying.
"I'll leave you alone to your thoughts, dear, but don't come asking me to make you something for dinner, I'm not your keeper, you know."
Sherlock made a disgusted sound as she left, but was not entirely satisfied when the door clicked closed and he was enclosed with the horrible tension and overwhelming guilt that threatened to choke the very breath out of him. He sat up, stifled in the smell and feel of the scrubs against his skin.
Barely breathing, he went to the shower, stripping of the offending clothes before stepping beneath the too hot spray. He gasped. The apartment was cold. Frigid. The water was scalding, turning his white skin a cherry red. Slowly, he turned the shower off and stepped out, toes curling against the icy tiles.
He went to his room and donned a pair of plum coloured pyjamas, returning to the main room with not one word. He stood there, for a long time. Not even thinking.
But Sherlock was always thinking. His mind never stopped. But now, he was empty.
His eyes hooked onto John's favourite armchair.
He slid into his, curling his arm around his knees and burying his face into the cushion. The smell of dust, and of John permeated his senses. Unbearably so.
John Watson was his best friend. To lose someone who had become such a large part of his life was like sawing off his limbs. It left him unable to function, to move without cringing. His muscles quivered.
It was selfish thinking. Because Sherlock was safe. He was sitting at home. And John was in the hands of Moriarty.
Sherlock sank into a stupor. His skin pricking in the cold and his cheek pressed firmly against the woollen jumper.
~OO~
The room was white, padded, soft. A room for the mentally insane.
John stirred, barely moving on the white mattress as a fly buzzed overhead. He didn't know where it had come from, or how it had come to be just as trapped as he was. Surely Moriarty had not gone out to catch the pest simply to annoy John. But Moriarty had done stranger things...
Thoughts as mundane as this kept John's mind occupied. Heavy lidded eyes following the fly's lazy trails through the air. He wasn't panicking, had already been there, done that. The stain on the padded wall and the ache in his knuckles was proof enough of that. His feet were in no better condition, and he had the sneaking suspicion that one of his toes was dislocated.
Shifting his weight on the bed, John winced, gritting his teeth to keep from making a sound as his wounds pulled and twitched. No longer numbed by the drugs he could only hope to ignore the pain, sweat prickled his skin, ran into his eyes and down his neck.
He could sit still no longer, he wanted to writhe and scream and hit something. It wasn't the worst pain he'd been in, not by a long shot, but it was the lying there. The stillness, that was getting to him.
Even in the war, there had been movement, fear, action, blood. Lying on a cot, a nurse administering the smallest amount of morphine, afraid to use it up when there was worse wounded. He had watched bodies being wheeled in and out. Some moved, shrieked, clawed at the bullets holes riddling their bodies, others did not. He had had to get up, move, because another patient needed the cot. No complaining. No sound.
But there had always been movement.
Now John was forced to lie in the unbearable stillness. There was no night and day. The lights remained on, never flickering, no hint of life. He slept when his body grew tired. Used the toilet when it was needed. Didn't eat. Couldn't bear to eat.
John scratched at the slight beginnings of a beard, but feeling the rough texture on his fingertips was almost too much, and he stopped with a shudder.
It was like a prison. Buried underground. Alone. Deserted.
Oh, and there was the camera. Blinking its devils eye at him from the corner of the room. Too high for him to rip it down. Always there. Watching. Watching. Watching.
John snarled. Moriarty was watching him, as if he were a mouse, running through his maze without any hope of ever finding the prized cheese at the end. John didn't want to play, but he'd long ago learnt that it was useless to fight it. He had no choice. Not really.
This was Moriarty's game.
Seconds. Minutes. Hours passed. Whether slowly or quickly, John did not know. But then the door was opening, where a moment a go there had been no door, and there was suddenly another living, breathing, moving thing in the white padded room.
Moriarty almost seemed too bright. A violet dress shirt and black pants. A smile, pulling barely healed wounds taught. John did not think ugly. He thought scary. Because Moriarty was a monster. And you were supposed to be scared of monsters.
"Want to know what comes next?" Moriarty asked, and John winced. Too loud.
The other man came to the bed and kneeled beside it, not touching, but close enough that John could feel his peppermint breath on his cheek. He came to realise that this was all about power. Moriarty had John, and so he had power over Sherlock. He was the puppeteer. A master in a field of pawns.
"Don't worry, Johnny boy! I won't you use just yet. I have something else in store for Sherlock. Something big and bright and colourful! Because, if I do say so, I am quite fond of dramatics. Makes everything so much more fun!"
John rolled his eyes.
"Do you like this room? I designed it. Its an isolation room, cuts you off from everything, feeling, sight, sound and smell. Just awful isn't it? But quite lovely at the same time!"
Moriarty ran the tip of his finger down John's cheek, wrinkling his nose up at the bristle but not commenting on it.
"I'll let you get freshened up, of course, and then we can watch the fun. Hmm? How does that sound? Good. Okay, come on." Moriarty laughed and ushered John to his feet. He swayed, the sudden change had his head swimming.
He was blinded by the sudden difference in lighting and colour as they went through doors and down hallways. The carpet was scratchy beneath his feet and Moriarty's hand on his arm made his skin crawl. But he kept silent. Not wanting to show weakness.
They stopped abruptly, a bathroom, not unlike the one they'd been in previously, appeared before them, the door wide open. John's hands clenched spasmodically at the scrubs hem. He didn't want to go in there. Could almost feel himself drowning again. The water filling his lungs. Bubbling. Suffocating.
He was propelled forward by a hand between his shoulder blades. John spun just as his feet stepped onto the white tiles. His fist rising to connect with the younger man's chin, although he'd been aiming for his temple.
Moriarty backpedalled, one hand flying to his chin and the other grabbing blindly for John.
But John was already running. Limping heavily, shots of pain sizzling his nerves from toe to thigh. He was lost. He had no idea where to go. But if he ran, it felt like he was actually trying. Not sitting there and waiting to die.
Turn after turn. No one to hinder him. He felt like he was going to run out of air, the room swam around him, yet he kept up the pace. One foot after the other. Run, run, running. Like a mouse in a maze.
John stumbled to a stop, breathing heavily, sweat pouring down his skin and making the scrubs stick to his body. He peered around the corner. No one. He turned to glance back behind him. No one. But neither was there an exit.
A heartbeat of silence.
"MORIARTY." He screamed. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS? WHY AM I STILL HERE?"
There was a chuckle. John jumped, swivelling his head to locate the speakers jutting out of the wall beside the cameras. Red eyes blinking.
"It's a game, Johnny, we can't have the major players dying in the first few rounds, can we? Nope! Come now, don't you want to see what Sherlock's up to?"
Another breath crawled down his throat, burning. His body was trembling with exhaustion and he longed to simply lie down and let everything go. But he was stronger than that, and Sherlock would expect him to fight.
"Wher- where am I?" John asked weakly.
"Good boy. Go back down that hallway, yes, the one you came from, and take two lefts. I'll wait for you there." Moriarty giggled and went silent.
John heaved himself along. Wanting nothing more than to crawl into a hole and die. He could feel the warm trickle of something on his stomach and legs and looked down. His scrubs, already faintly stained, were turning a harsh purple. Blood thickening at the wounds like pus.
He blinked away the dizziness, used one hand to guide him along the walls until his legs gave out from under him and he slid to the floor. John closed his eyes. Heart fluttering. Too fast. Breathing. Erratic. Too hot. Too sick.
Moriarty was suddenly in front of him, pulling him upright and propping him up, one arm over his shoulders. John loathed the contact but could do nothing about it. He kept silent as they walked. Letting his eyes fall closed and his feet drag slightly.
Moriarty jerked a little, and John forced his head up. They were somewhere else, a door was sliding open to reveal a round, business room with a large table, chairs and a flat screen at one end. John was settled into one of the leather chairs closest to the screen. He sank into it gratefully, luxuriating in the coolness of the leather against his burning skin. Moriarty sat across from him, also facing the screen, he looked pleased with himself, and that just did not sit well with John.
"What are you going to do to Sherlock?" He asked after a moment, feeling as if he might fall asleep.
"Oh, you know, chemical warfare, movement activated bombs and deadline. Easy stuff, for Sherlock. But I thought I might begin with something rather...simple?"
"Chemical...if you hurt Sherlock..." John wheezed angrily. But Moriarty only chuckled, pulling a slim laptop from a draw. He opened it and turned it on, propping his chin on the heel of his hand to look at John with a kind of pitying look.
"He said that too, but really, do you not realise that I can do anything I want? You'll never get to me? He'll never get to me, although he'll get the closest." Moriarty typed something into the computer.
"Full of yourself." John commented on a grunt.
"No, simply realistic."
And John huffed.
The flat screen blinked to life, at first John could not make sense of what he was seeing, but then he blinked, and it all shifted into focus. He drew in a sharp breath.
"No..."
"It'll be fun! No worries at all!"
I am so sorry! This chapter is so short and empty! Theres no action! Theres barely any Sherlock!
I'm sorry!
And I still cant believe I've gotten so many reveiws, I always think "Yeah I might get one or two, but more than ten!" *whistles*
Anyway, I'm sorry that this chapter is more than 1k shorter than the rest, but I have a cold. And, you know, life happens.
But I wanted to update because Azaelea always updates when I beg her (check out her story Bed Of Roses , its awesome as!)
When I next upate, I'll try and make it twice as long! Just to make up for this chapter!
-Alerix Slynn