A/N: Warnings – torture and gore. Sorry for the late chapter, I was horribly ill for a bit. Not fun. Please review, and send love. We'll get through this chapter together x
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"Time to come and plaaaay, Johnny boy!"
John drew himself up from the vexatious bed of his cell and glared with hard eyes at the Irishman; his jaw snapping shut in a defiant reaction. His back unfurled and straightened as far as the searing throb of his shoulder would allow. The creases in his loose, ill-fitting clothes Sherlock had viewed him in but hours before had deepened; his blonde hair was dishevelled and sticking up in tufts. All in all, he had seen better days.
But that didn't still the look of contempt visible in Moriarty's sneer.
"Come on dear, we haven't got all night." When John withheld from moving, Moriarty stroked the door absentmindedly. "Moraaan? Put Watson in handcuffs. He's being annoying again."
The sniper appeared in the doorway of the cell; his face set in nonchalance, and wrenched John off the bed with unnecessary force. He turned him and secured his wrists in thick metal bands behind his back.
With as much subtly as the man could muster, Moran's lips brushed John's ear as he murmured, "I spoke to him."
A fission of anticipation shot through John's spine, almost jolting him visibly. "And?" He hissed in reply.
"You should see his face when he talks about you, man." Moran continued, checking the tightness of the handcuffs meticulously. "His whole face lights up like you're his fucking world."
John huffed a breath of relief. So Sherlock still had some feelings for him. Moriarty hadn't broken that bond. Good. That left him a degree of hope for when he eventually ended up on his knees, begging Sherlock to take him back. John knew he was no actor. Sure, he could spin out a few lines of Shakespeare if he was so asked, but he was too honest a person. Lying was never his forte. His surprise at the bank raid was genuine; the facts of the nearly the entire operation had been passed over him to leave him feeling as helpless as he looked. No need for acting that way. He could bluff it out, Moran had instructed him. Poker face. Pretend it's all a game.
Except… it wasn't.
His feelings were real. The way his heart fluttered in his chest and his eyes went soft at the mere thought of Sherlock smiling was real. Instead of pretending he'd loved Sherlock, he'd damn well, inexplicably, heart-on-sleeve fell in love.
And he hadn't even gotten the chance to tell the man.
The door of the cell was pushed shut with a deafening clang as John was led through the generic grey corridors of the holding house. Moran's grip on his bound hands was weak, sympathetic to the pull the handcuffs were causing on John's shoulder. His back tensed unintentionally at the memory of the fury of Moriarty when John's injury was apparent. It was in no way Moran's fault; he hadn't been told John's location in the Humvee – how was he supposed to know John lay directly in the bullet's path as he took out the driver? Still. His ignorance had not allayed Moriarty's orders to have Moran's trim hips lashed with a whip. 20 lashes. He'd had to count them.
Moran knew for a fact three of John's comrades had survived said attack. Moriarty's acerbity over the bullet wound John received had blinded him to the retreating soldiers on the ridge but yards from them. The Apache helicopter Moran's men had subjected to RPG found them two miles south at the secondary LZ; the mysterious fabricated documents they had been ordered to deliver inexplicably forgotten. But Moriarty had only wanted John. All other incidents were irrelevant.
The room John was lead to was as foreboding as the smile plastered over Moriarty's pale face. It was grey on three walls, with a huge mirror obscuring the forth which John guessed was two sided. In the middle of the room were a table and two chairs, which sat facing each other. On one side of the table, two cuffs were secured to the surface, one for each wrist.
It was only when John's hands had been freed from the handcuffs and reattached to the cuffs on the table did he see the array of tools on a trolley behind the door. Moran turned to leave, hovering by the door fleetingly to leave John with a final message. He'll find you, he mouthed, before shutting the door behind him, leaving John in the hands of the world's only consulting criminal. And a trolley of objects designed to hurt.
"You know, I haven't had a phone call yet." John drawled, trying to dull the fear he knew was evident in his eyes. "I'm pretty sure I should be allowed a phone call."
"So you could call that doe-eyed detective of yours? Oh no, no, no, I don't think so." Moriarty jeered. The Irishman turned his back to rake his eyes over the cluster of sharp, metal tools, dragging a finger thoughtfully over the tip of a needle-sharp scalpel. "I suppose I should ask… Do you know what happens if you don't join my organisation. To you?" His voice was scathingly low.
"Oh, let me guess," John sighed theatrically, his heart thundering inside his chest. "I get killed."
To his surprise, Moriarty let out a sudden, high pitched giggle. "Kill you?" His fingers played over the collection of hammers, "No, don't be obvious. I mean, I will kill you anyway, some day... I don't want to rush it though. I'm saving up for something special. No, no, no. If you don't join me…" Finally, his restless digits settled over the blowtorch that sat inconspicuously at the back of the trolley. "I'm going to burn you."
Shit. John squirmed restlessly in his seats, suddenly quick to test the amount of constraint on his wrists.
"But then… you never have cared for your own pain, have you dear?" Moriarty mused quietly, his gaze straying from the blow torch and over his shoulder to capture John's eyes. He pouted. "The broken army doctor. So touchingly loyal… so… easily moulded."
"I fulfilled my contract." John seethed, panic coiling deeper in his gut. "The deal was that I would make Sherlock fall in love with me, and then I would get my father back."
"You've fulfilled nothing." Moriarty spat, his head oscillated to face John, and his body soon followed. He stalked forward, half aggravated at having to repeat himself. "Your job was to manipulate Holmes' feelings for you, not succumb to them."
Oh, but how that dry tone spiked anger in John's heart. The way Moriarty spoke of Sherlock's feelings as if they were nothing more than shit on his shoe made John want to wrap his hands around the bugger's neck and squeeze.
"You're sick." John shook his head in disgust, nose wrinkling.
"You're only just getting that now?" Moriarty's thin lips rose in a half smile. His hollow, dead eyes roamed John's body with apparent delight. "I'll forgive the fact you're slow just this once. Not everyone is a genius like me."
John coughed out a ragged laugh, "Genius? Is that what they call psychos these days?"
In a whirl of movement, Moriarty twisted back, grabbed a thick hammer, and in the same second brought it down on John's secured hand with horrific accuracy. It connected with his right forefinger with the sound of cracking bone and the splatter of blood.
"Fuck!"John screeched, the shock of pain firing through his veins. His finger now sat at a grotesque angle, bent back on itself over the back of John's hand. Blood trickled from the wound with the beat of his heart.
"When will you learn, Johnny?" Moriarty tittered, eyes perusing the broken finger with bored disregard.
"Learn what? How to address a fucking maniac?" John bit, wheezing through the pain.
The hammer came down a second time on John's middle finger, and then again. Bone, stark white, peeked through the flesh of John's digits through the mess of blood that pooled around the appendage. John bit his lip enough to break the skin, trying in vain to suppress his cries of agony.
"Stop- being- BORING!" Moriarty roared, punctuating each word with another sick strike to the broken flesh of John's mangled fingers.
"You are my toy, John Watson; you are here for my pleasure. I control you. I own you. You are mine to play with. Mine to break."
The hammer was placed down with contrasting gentleness of the table. Moriarty regarded it as he spoke, his thin lips pushed outwards petulantly.
"I could have treated you so well, Johnny. It was all going so well. I was going to have you made head of an entire division of my organisation. But no…" The smooth ridge of Moriarty's nose wrinkled as he grimaced morbidly; his eyes blazed like cold fire.
"I- I don't want anything to do with you," John rasped, forcing his tear-stained eyes open to glare accusingly at his captor. "You might as well kill me."
At that, horrid, empty mask of emotions fell across Moriarty's face. He became blank. Unreadable. "Moran said that." He said, devoid of emotion.
There was a pause, just a fraction of a second of silence, but it was long enough for John to realise he was supposed to have reacted in surprise. Suddenly, acting classes seemed like the best fucking idea he'd ever had.
"I knew it. He told you." Moriarty ground his jaw, head tilting and oscillating once more. "Another pathetic soldier acting for the greater good. Isn't it hateful?"
"He told me because he had to," John stuttered, desperate to cover up his mistake. "People have died."
"That's what people DO!" Moriarty bellowed, once again breaking from his blank mask. John's eyes shot open in alarm. Moriarty's palms slapped vehemently against the table and he leaned forward, his eyes glinting evilly, until John could feel the man's breath careening his worn face.
"You disappoint me." Moriarty stated, grimace deepening. "Honestly. I'm almost surprised. This, all this, is down to your pathetic father. If he had of followed my orders and handed over the military plans Camp Bastion was safe holding then you wouldn't be here paying off his debt."
"W-what?" John blinked furiously in surprise. "What are you talking about?"
Moriarty tilted his head, amusement gleaning his expression. "What? You don't know about this? Oh this is too gooood! John Watson Junior, completely obvious to the fact his father was a terrorist. Oh, it's Christmas!"
The words hit home with a crippling thud to the heart. Suddenly, the pain in John's hand was replaced with pain in his chest.
"My dad was not a terrorist," John spat the word as if it was poison. "You sick fuck, you say that one more time and I'll-"
"You'll what?" Moriarty drawled with contempt, pulling away, "Breathe on me? Say nasty things? Oh, you wound me." He rolled his eyes. "Your daddy dear was working for me the entire time he was in Afghanistan. You wouldn't believe the secrets I got from him… He was so desperate to please me."
"Stop it." John spat, knowing he was revealing a weakness, but unable to stop himself.
"All those men that died when we came for him, all those men that died when we came for you…" Moriarty huffed a giggle. "You Watsons really do know how to spice things up."
"My dad was a good man," John replied scathingly, more to himself than to the Irishman. "He would never work for you. Ever."
"True. Not unless he had an incentive…" Moriarty straightened his back until he practically towered over John's crumpled form. "I'll admit he was strong – stronger than you anyway. But everyone has their breaking point…"
John's eyes flickered upwards to catch Moriarty's expression in unknowing submission.
"You were his, dear." Moriarty smiled ruefully. "All we had to do was threaten you and that sister of yours and he was on his knees before you can say, 'Suck my dick'."
Thoughts were blurring and twisting inside John's mind, hazed in pain and fatigue. Why was he fighting again? What was the point? His dad had given in, killed countless people to do Moriarty's bidding. Why not follow the family tradition? Moriarty wasn't going to give in until he gave up his soul…
Moriarty watched on, reading the vivid emotions playing across John's face like a book. There is was. That familiar flicker of uncertainly that would grow until John was left with no option but to accept Moriarty's way. And what a moment that would be. Finally breaking John Watson…
"Just say the word and all this will stop, Johnny boy." Moriarty murmured, his voice lowering to a tender a tone as he could manage. "I know you're confused… but I can make all that stop… Just say you'll join me, and everything will be just fine… Come on… Let go…"
John narrowed his eyes, teeth grinding together. No. No. He would fight. Even if it damn well killed him. He was fighting for love. And there was no stronger power than that.
"I will never join you." John hissed, eyes burning. "You piece of shit."
Just like flicking off a switch, the compassion fell from Moriarty's face. He turned and gripped a thick handle poking from the mass of tools. "Well then…" He pondered for a moment, before wrenching the handle upwards as if he was pulling a sword from its sheath.
"I guess we'll have to start with the riding crop."