[Author's Note: There are disturbing content and themes in this chapter, if I did my job correctly. Moran is not a nice guy. He is a sadist and a killer, and violence and torture lie within. Consider yourself warned.]
A flick of the wrist and the knife spun across the concrete floor, ending its last lazy turn neatly at Sherlock's feet. "I'm not going to hurt your John, Mr. Holmes." Moran's light green eyes locked on Sherlock's face, as if drinking in his every reaction. "You are."
John bit back a curse, his hands instinctively jerking against the biting hold of the zip ties. They had known this was going to be bad, but...bloody fuck.
John could see Sherlock's face in profile, limned in gold by the construction light. Sherlock's eyes squeezed shut, a shuddering breath escaping him as the import of Moran's words hit him. Then the moment passed and Sherlock lifted his chin haughtily, wrinkling his nose as if the knife personally offended him.
"Why would I do that?" he asked.
Moran smiled, as if he had been hoping Sherlock would ask. "So many reasons, Mr. Holmes. Least of which is because you have no choice. Unless you want me to put a bullet in Dr. Watson's head right now. Or in your brother's. Or perhaps both?"
Sherlock bent gracefully, picking up the knife and holding it in his palm thoughtfully, as if testing the weight.
"You'll kill us all eventually," he said, his voice flat and emotionless. "Now or later, what does it matter?"
John bit his cheek to stop himself from hissing Sherlock's name. What did the mad bugger think he was about? But he trusted Sherlock to play this game with Moran. John knew his role in this. It wouldn't be pretty, but it was one for which he was well-suited.
Moran seemed more alert now that Sherlock held the knife. The muzzle of his gun held a steady, unwavering point at Sherlock's head, even as Moran shrugged philosophically. "Human nature, Mr. Holmes. Hope springs eternal, isn't that the saying? Perhaps I don't want to kill you after all. Perhaps it will be enough for me to break you, to twist this thing between you and leave you both alive, letting it fester."
Moran seemed to read the surprise Sherlock couldn't keep from his face. "Oh yes, Jim knew. He saw what was between you two, likely before you even did. He wanted to 'burn the heart out of you,' Mr. Holmes. A nice turn of phrase, isn't it? I don't think he quite managed it though. But perhaps I can."
He took a step closer, the green eyes eerie in the artifical light. "Maybe it will be enough to know that Dr. Watson will never look upon you again without fear in his eyes. To know that when he wakes screaming in the night, it will be your face that he is seeing, your hands that were twisting the blade into his flesh. Maybe it would satisfy me to know that he will look into the mirror at his incapacity, his disfigurements and blame you for every one of them." The eyes narrowed, Moran's face lit with utter malevolence. "What do you think, Mr. Holmes?" he hissed. "Would that burn?"
John watched as Sherlock's facade of indifference started to crumble, the hand holding the knife beginning to tremble.
Moran smiled in slow satisfaction, his voice growing light and taunting again. "How much pain do you think your Dr. Watson can take? Which of you will break first? Will he beg for you to kill him, or will you break first, and simply slit his throat to end his suffering?" He took a few steps forward, still keeping a careful distance from Sherlock, the muzzle of the gun now pointed at John. "The knife is in your hands, after all. You could stop this any time you like."
John gritted his teeth as Moran pressed the muzzle of the rifle against his skin, his eyes flicking back and forth between what he was doing to John and Sherlock's reaction. The metal of the rifle was still hot from being fired as Moran traced a line from behind John's ear to the hollow of his throat. His eyes tauntingly on Sherlock now, Moran leaned his weight in a little, drawing the muzzle up again and pressing it hard into John's carotid artery for long seconds. John braced himself, but as his vision started to grey at the edges he couldn't help but struggle. Moran kept the pressure up — all fifteen pounds of rifle and even more of his body weight compressing the blood supply to John's brain, and John felt the dizzy rush of lightheadedness.
"Stop! Stop it!" Sherlock's voice was loud even over the ringing in John's ears, and Moran immediately eased back the pressure. John squeezed his eyes shut tight and opened them again, trying to clear his vision, as Moran chuckled.
"I understand you are a bit of an anatomist, Mr. Holmes," Moran said, the sharp eyes steady on Sherlock's pale face. He traced the rifle down John's collarbone now, circling the scar on his left shoulder for a teasing moment before digging sharply in. John hissed in a breath as the damaged and oversensitive nerves flared into life, sending a jolt of pain radiating through his shoulder and down his spine.
"I am somewhat of an...enthusiast...of that science as well," Moran said, sighing with satisfaction at John's response.
"Yes," Sherlock bit out through clenched teeth. "I've seen some of your work."
Moran's head jerked up, surprise showing for a moment, before he smiled again. "Have you?" He traced the muzzle of his rifle up John's chin. In a sudden move he jammed it between John's lips, smashing the muzzle inexorably against his teeth until John opened his mouth. "How...exciting," Moran purred suggestively.
Moran pushed harder, making John choke and drool around the unyielding metal of the threaded muzzle brake. John closed his eyes, fighting back his panic, tasting gunpowder residue and mineral oil, bitter and slimy against his tongue as Moran shoved the muzzle to the back of his throat until he gagged on it.
Finally Moran jerked the muzzle back, wiping it on John's jeans with a grimace of distaste. John sucked desperate gasps of air into his burning lungs, unable to even wipe the saliva from his chin.
"Your brother must have given you those files," Moran said to Sherlock. "I'll have to thank him."
"Wait!" Sherlock cried out, but in a few quick steps Moran was at the railing again, smoothly lifting the rifle and firing off another shot with a deafening crack.
Unable to see Mycroft from where he was trapped in the metal chair, John had to watch Sherlock to try to figure out what had happened, seeing the flash of terror on his face fade to a grim determination. Another flesh wound, John thought in relief. Moran was determined to toy with them all, for as long as he could.
Moran lounged by the railing. "It's almost flattering, knowing that an expert like yourself has had time to appreciate my work," he smirked. "And so convenient, that you would know just what I like." The smirk faded, Moran's jaw clenching tight. "Best get on with it, then, hadn't you? Show me how clever you are, Mr. Holmes. Show me what I did to those girls."
Sherlock stood, his posture unusually hesitant, as he looked back and forth between John and Moran, the knife still held loosely in his grip.
"Now!" Moran suddenly barked, making both John and Sherlock flinch.
Sherlock took a few steps until he was standing in front of John. Slowly he raised his eyes, and the pain and panic John saw in the stark grey depths made something twist in his chest.
"Oh god...John..." Sherlock breathed.
"Sherlock," John whispered in warning, his voice hoarse and thick. "Pull it together. You know what you have to do."
"I — I don't know if I..."
"Stop it. You have to." John sucked in another deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Do it," he gritted out.
Sherlock nodded sharply. He closed his eyes tight, and when he opened them again John could see the difference. The grey eyes were cold now, detached. The trembling in his hand stilled, his grip firming on the knife.
Sherlock turned his head, his grey eyes pinning Moran. "You start small. Bruising patterns indicate injury several hours pre-mortem," he said, his voice suddenly cold and crisp, all traces of panic gone. "They were all working girls, so they knew what they were about. They would have fought right away if you pulled the knife — over too quickly."
Moran's face gave away nothing, and Sherlock's pale eyes turned back to John, the icy gaze stripping him bare as Sherlock shifted the knife to his left hand. "You start with a few taps...a slap here, a knock there. Enough to make it seem like just rough sex."
"Show me." Moran's voice was thick with excitement.
Even knowing what Sherlock had to do, the first slap caught John by surprise. His cheek immediately started to burn. A cuff to the side of his head followed. It would hardly have affected John on any other day, but now — his heart racing with panic and still slightly dizzy from choking — it made his head swim nauseatingly.
John swallowed hard, forcing himself to look away from Sherlock's coldly assessing gaze. Sherlock began speaking again, his voice distant, almost meditative, as he recounted Moran's pattern of assault. "You savor the anticipation. Watching their confusion grow. Waiting for the moment when it slowly dawns on them what is really going on. What you really are."
Moran took a step closer. "And then?"
"Then you start in earnest. Face, ribs, kidneys. You keep them stunned, but still no blade." Sherlock's eerie, clinical gaze swept John's body again. "Hope springs eternal. At this point they still think they might survive with just a beating, and so they take it."
"Yes." Moran looked enthralled, his eyes gleaming, and in that moment he reminded John so much of Moriarty it was like looking at a ghost. The madness those two must have shared. It was no wonder Moran had gone around the bend when Sherlock outwitted Moriarty. "Go ahead," Moran hissed, with a creepy reptilian tilt of his head. "Make it good. I'll know if you don't."
Sherlock placed the knife carefully on the floor, and moved a step closer. John saw his hands curl into fists, and then the next thing John knew was a blur of movement and a blossom of pain over his ribs. His breath grunted out of him, and he barely had time to gasp in another before the next blow hit him, a sharp left hook to his jaw that snapped his head back and filled his mouth with the copper sting of blood.
John turned his head and spat in Moran's direction, blood and saliva staining the dirty concrete floor.
Moran licked his lips, taking another step closer as if drawn against his will. "More," he rasped.
The next few minutes were a blur of pain. John tried to move with the punches, not brace against them, but tied to the chair as he was he had almost no choice. Sherlock's strikes were swift and brutal, sharp jabs knocking the breath from his lungs again and again, heavy clouts to his face making his head ring.
It was a few moments before he realized the buffeting had stopped. His head was hanging limply, blood and sweat stinging his eyes, every breath rasping through his throat as if he were breathing sawdust. The individual points of pain had blurred together into a throbbing thrum of agony.
He raised his head. Moran had moved even closer, only a few steps away now as if magnetically drawn towards John's suffering. His eyes were dark, pupils dilated as his gaze hungrily devoured John's injuries. John spat again, splattering blood at Moran's feet. He shifted his gaze to Sherlock. He was panting, his knuckles scraped raw, his shirtsleeves spattered in blood. His eyes were blank.
"Now the knife," Moran urged, his voice avid and breathless.
Sherlock looked down at the knife as if he had never seen it before. He wiped the blood and sweat from his right palm on his trousers before picking it up, his grip on the hilt practiced and firm. When he spoke again his voice was gravelly, but his tone still remote and clinical.
"This is when they realize. You are always looking at their faces, watching for that moment. You want to see it in their eyes — that flash of utter clarity, when they finally understand that they are in the last few hours of their short and pitiful lives. That nothing but pain and death awaits them."
"They want to fight now," Moran said, low and confidential, as if Sherlock were his confederate — his accomplice. He moved a small step closer. "But it's too late. They are weak, bound...beaten. I put my hand on their throat. I hold their faces still, so they watch me cut."
"Where?" Sherlock asked dispassionately.
"Start with the scar," Moran said greedily. "Put your own mark on that flesh."
Sherlock pressed the edge of the blade to John's scar. John pressed his eyes shut tight, trying to bite back his whine of fear. Oh god.
Sherlock's hand was suddenly in John's hair, pulling. John allowed his head to be tilted, forcing his eyes open, watching the first trickle of blood snaking down from the edge of the blade.
"This is the height of your pleasure," Sherlock said to Moran. "Watching the knife cut through flesh." The blade pressed in deeper, searing through the damaged nerves, making John's whole aching body tense, wrists straining heplessly against the plastic ties. He couldn't stop the muffled scream that escaped him as the knife cut even deeper, carving a careful path through his scarred flesh.
"It's almost beautiful, isn't it," Sherlock said, his voice sounding distant through the haze of pain and lightheadedness washing over John. "The way the skin yields so easily to the blade. The rush of blood, so red and alive." A twist of the knife sent another blaze of pain through John's whole body, making him scream again.
Moran was close now, as if compelled to smell and taste the blood himself, his eyes transfixed by the slow welling of red underneath the serrated edge of the blade. "Beautiful," he breathed.
Suddenly, a distant clatter snapped Moran out of his trance. His head jerked around instinctively for a moment, and he took two quick steps toward the railing before he wheeled back to look at Sherlock and John. His hands tightened on the rifle, his eyes losing their lust-drunk haze as he pulled himself to full alertness.
"Step away from him," he ordered, and Sherlock took several deliberate steps backward. Keeping the rifle trained on Sherlock, Moran edged backwards toward the rail, crouching slightly. He glanced down at the factory floor, and then took a longer look, the muscle of his jaw clenched tightly. He took a few steps toward Sherlock.
"Where is he?" he barked.
Sherlock simply stared at Moran in silence.
Enraged, Moran took a few steps closer to Sherlock. His back was to John now, the muscles of his shoulders and arms flexing under his t-shirt as he aimed the rifle at Sherlock's forehead. Sherlock stood against the wall, arms at his sides, hands slightly obscured behind the legs of his trousers. "Who took..." Moran bit off his words as he seemed to realize something. "Show me your hands," he snapped. "Where is the..."
"Drop it!" a voice called from the gallery across from them, and Moran instinctively turned to face this new threat.
He fired the rifle and John lunged forward, the knife in his right hand where Sherlock had pressed it after cutting the zip ties in Moran's moment of distraction. Moran wheeled back toward John and John sliced upwards, feeling the knife blade catch and drag, sliding between Moran's right wrist and the stock of the rifle, the serrated edge cleaving tender skin, artery, and tendon.
Moran shrieked, the rifle wobbling as he instinctively cradled his limp right hand against his body. John grabbed for the stock of the rifle but Moran was faster, swinging it like a club and crashing the full weight of it onto John's right hand. The knife flew from John's hand and John threw himself at Moran, sending both of them crashing to the ground.
Moran tried to head-butt John but John jerked away, managing to draw his knee up hard under Moran's ribs. Moran's breath wheezed out of him, rank against John's face. John scrabbled back and then stomped hard on Moran's ribcage, feeling the crunch of fractured bone under the heel of his socked foot. Moran curled into the injury, gasping in a burbling breath, and John brought his heel down again on Moran's thigh, snapping the femur with a sharp crack.
"John!" Sherlock's voice pulled John out of his haze of rage and adrenaline. Sherlock held the rifle now, smeared with blood, pointed at Moran.
"Don't fire," John rasped. He wiped his forearm across his face, trying to smear the blood and sweat from his eyes. "The barrel's bent."
The knife gleamed up at John from a few paces away, and he walked over to it on unsteady legs. He wiped the palm of his right hand on his filthy jeans and bent over to pick it up, ignoring the pain that blazed through his torso at the movement.
"Bloody hell." Lestrade appeared in the doorway, taking in the scene, lowering his gun slightly once he realized the threat was neutralized. Anthea was at his back, her own firearm at the ready.
Sherlock ignored them both, his pale grey eyes locked on John. "John, give me the knife," he said, his voice deadly calm.
John squinted. "No, Sherlock."
"John, give it to me." Sherlock repeated.
"No, Sherlock." John heard the whipcrack tone in his own voice. He met Sherlock's eyes for a long moment, letting him see his intent, waiting until it registered in Sherlock's face. Sherlock's silver eyes widened, and John nodded. "I'll do it."
Keeping his body oriented to where Moran lay curled and wheezing on the ground, he turned his head to look at Lestrade. "Turn around, Greg."
Lestrade had been watching in confusion, and John saw the narrowing of his eyes as the penny dropped. "No, John." he said firmly. "He's incapacitated, we'll take him into custody now."
"Turn around, Greg," John said again, his voice low and fierce. He could see the struggle on Lestrade's face, eyes darting from Sherlock to John to Moran. Almost unconsciously, Lestrade raised his gunhand halfway — not pointing at anything, just getting ready.
John shifted his eyes minutely over Lestrade's shoulder and nodded. He saw Lestrade's eyes widen in realization, his body barely starting to pivot, but Anthea was quicker. She dealt him an efficient yet solid blow with the butt of her gun and Lestrade crumpled.
John moved forward, crouching before Moran. Moran met his gaze, his breath rattling wetly though his chest. The green eyes were vivid with virulent hatred, defiant to the end. John felt Sherlock move to stand close behind him, the warm touch of his fingers on John's bare back grounding him. His left hand pinning Moran's chest down firmly, John slid the knife in his right hand under Moran's sternum, angling up and then twisting.
Moran coughed, a viscous splatter of blood, and then stilled. John's left hand slid up. The last few beats of Moran's pulse thumped erratically against his fingertips, and then it was gone.
Leaving the knife in place he tried to rise, wobbling as his legs started to buckle under him. Sherlock's arms were there, lifting and steadying him, pulling him back from the corpse into a warm embrace.
They stumbled backwards until Sherlock's back hit the wall and then Sherlock sank down, bringing John with him into his lap, bracing him against his chest. Sherlock's whole body was shaking, his hands unsteady as he tore at the sleeve of his shirt, ripping it free and pressing it against John's bleeding shoulder.
John whined in pain as the press of Sherlock's hand sent agony searing through his nerves again. Sherlock's face was smothered in John's neck, and John felt his lips moving against his skin. He took a steadying breath, and when the haze of pain had receded a bit he realized what Sherlock was mumbling.
"I'm sorry...I'm so sorry...God, John, I'm so sorry..."
With a groan of pain John turned, stopping Sherlock's words with the crush of his mouth. Sherlock met the kiss, still trying to sob apologies into John's mouth, frantic and shaking. John managed to get his right hand up, tightening in Sherlock's curls, gentling the kiss.
"Shhh. You have nothing to apologize for. You did exactly what you had to, Sherlock."
Sherlock shook his head in denial, his eyes shut tight.
"Sherlock," John snapped, forcing those beautiful eyes open to meet his. He managed a smile, nuzzling wearily against Sherlock's cheek. "It's over."
He saw some of the horror fade from Sherlock's expression. "Over," Sherlock repeated, as if trying to make sense of the word.
"Yeah." John kissed Sherlock again, chastely, before finally allowing himself to collapse back into the warmth of his embrace. "Over."
He let the haze of pain and post-adrenaline crash make the world fuzzy around him, distantly hearing Sherlock quiz Anthea on Moran's confederates (apprehended) and Mycroft (spirited away to the caring hands of Molly).
Greg started to stir, sitting up groaningly. "Bloody hell," he griped again, and John felt the first hysterical giggle start to shake him. Fuck, but that hurt, and he tried to stifle it, but then he felt Sherlock's chest shake in his own low, rumbling laugh, and it was hopeless.
He alternately winced and giggled, finally collapsing back against Sherlock's chest, closing his eyes against Greg's entirely unamused gaze and letting the world get even more distant. He concentrated on the feel of Sherlock, safe and warm and vital all around him, caring for nothing else as the police and paramedics started to arrive.
[Please review! One more chapter to go, I think, with the promised happy ending. Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me on this unexpectedly mammoth adventure! :-D]