Sherlock Fic - Reaction, Part Two
Title: Reaction
Rating: R/NC-17
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and am making no profit from their use, more's the pity.
Warnings: Non-con and slash.
Summary: Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme: Before shoving him in the explosive vest, Moriarty fucked John, viciously. John makes it through the whole encounter with Moriarty and Homles via his own badass soldier nerves of steel, but afterwards, when he and Sherlock are admitted to the hospital for minor burns and abrasions and shock, the hospital staff find other injuries on John.
(Title page by birddi)
Part One
In the end, Moriarty raped him four times before John was released and ordered to re-dress himself at gunpoint.
He didn't bother making a grab for the gun - there was no way he'd be able to take it, not in his condition. His whole body felt pulverised, like he'd been run through a meat grinder and then stuck back together. Moriarty seemed to have found as much delight in causing him pain as an eight-year-old did in playing Pokemon, so John was going to count it a victory if he managed to stand and dress without passing out completely.
As he dragged his arms and legs under him, his limbs weak and trembling after being bound for so long, John silently tried to take stock of his injuries. His wrists were bleeding, torn open by the unforgiving edge of the handcuffs, but the wounds weren't deep, and were clotting already. His shoulder was a mass of twinging, throbbing nerves - Moriarty had brutalised the tender scar tissue whenever he felt John wasn't screaming loud enough - and both arms ached from the uncomfortable position they'd been restrained in.
Truth be told, his whole body ached. He'd fought to the very last, even when he was so exhausted and in so much pain he barely had the energy to tug against the handcuffs...he'd still fought. But muscles and tendons weren't built for that kind of long-term strain, and even now John could feel the tight, burning pull of tissues pushed beyond their limits. Coupled with Moriarty's need to make him hurt, to hear him cry out - a need the man had answered with expertly delivered blows in unexpectedly tender areas and some cruel pinches to various nerve clusters - John was rather surprised that his body still worked at all.
He forced himself into a sitting position, his back prickling uncomfortably as the welts striping across his skin began to tighten and sting with his movements. Moriarty had seemed to derive a certain thrill from bruising him, from marking him, and at one point had gone as far as flogging him with what John thought was his belt. He knew some of the blows had broken the skin, and thought at least two of them were wide enough to need stitches.
The bites might need stitches as well. They'd certainly need to be cleaned; the human mouth was rife with bacteria, so much so that infection was practically guaranteed, especially considering that every single bite had drawn blood. Moriarty had never just mouthed at his skin, that would have defeated the whole purpose, after all. It hadn't been about lust or convenience, it had been about power, about demonstrating the extent of his control - it had been about marking John, branding him almost, like a graffiti tag: 'Moriarty was here' - so his teeth had always, always sunk deep into the flesh like a vampire trying to feed.
So, stitches were certainly needed, and sterilisation as well. It felt almost comforting to be able to recite treatments; to look at his body and think of the injuries as a medical exercise, not as something real, not as something that happened to him. It was made a lot easier by the half-numb state he was drifting through, the pain undoubtedly there, present and agonising, but...distant. Removed. As though his brain wasn't quite attached to his body anymore.
John had experienced this state before; it had settled in after he was shot, while he was being hurried back for treatment. In cases of severe, debilitating pain - being shot, having a limb severed or the like - the body produced masses of endorphins in an effort to shut pain receptors down and keep the body functioning. The result was an almost trance-like state, the kind of painless calm that enabled people with broken legs to stand up and limp to a phone to call their own ambulance.
It was that state John had sunk into at some point during the ordeal, though he supposed it could also be the beginning stages of shock.
Lowering his legs to the floor, keeping a wary eye on Moriarty and the man standing next to him with the gun, John tried to stand...
And was suddenly reminded of the one injury he had been doing his best to ignore.
The movement of his legs, his attempt to take his weight on them, the shifting of muscles in his pelvis, it all sent agony shooting straight up his spine like an electric current. He couldn't keep from gasping in pain, clutching spasmodically at the wall as he fought to stay on his feet and not go crashing to the floor.
John knew he'd sustained internal damage - the blood on the sheets (and on Moriarty, before the man had wiped himself off with a tissue) confirmed that much - but he didn't want to think about it. There was no way to rationalise that injury, no way to lock it up in a neat little box and shove it away in the deepest, darkest corner of his mind. He couldn't clinically assess this - this used, violated ache like a long, dull knife inside of him, that changed in an instant into glass-sharp splinters of pain when he tried to move.
“Hurry up, Johnny,” Moriarty taunted, his voice dripping with self-satisfaction. “We have an appointment to keep, and I do feel punctuality is important.”
John's mouth tightened, his jaw clenching painfully as he fought the urge to flinch away from that cruel, viciously smug voice. Instead he squared his shoulders and tilted his chin defiantly, glaring Moriarty down in an effort to say as clearly as possible 'you don't scare me'.
It was a lie, of course - Moriarty frankly terrified John - but he wasn't about to cringe or cower before him. In spite of the nauseous dread and remembered pain curdling in his gut, John held the stare until Moriarty chuckled and shook his head, gesturing to the pile of clothes folded on top of a chest of drawers.
Fortunately it was a very cramped room; John only had to move to the end of the bed before he was in reach of his clothing. He pulled on his shirt and jacket first, wincing as the cloth scraped and rubbed against the welts that decorated his back. Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he then attempted to pull on his jeans without aggravating the incessant, throbbing agony that radiated from his arse.
It didn't work, of course. Several times he had to freeze in place, fists clenching until the knuckles bleached as he fought the pain back down.
Moriarty sighed with impatience, like a child desperate to go to the toy store whose father was lagging behind. “Come on Johnny, no need to moan; it might have been a while but it's not like you haven't done it before.”
It was true John was no stranger to sex with another man, but it had been years since his last foray into anal sex (and he really didn't want to know how Moriarty had found that out), ensuring that Moriarty's penetration had been as agonising as if he'd been a virgin.
And the idea that being raped for hours on end was in any way comparable to his previous experiences had John glaring at Moriarty again. He wanted to tell the psychotic bastard exactly what he thought of him, but his throat was so hoarse from screaming he didn't think he was capable of getting out a single word.
So John settled for continuing to dress at exactly the same rate as before, making no effort to either speed or slow himself, as though he'd never heard the command in the first place. He knew playing deaf was a small and frankly childish defiance, but he felt like he had to do something, had to prove that Moriarty hadn't broken him completely.
By the time John was putting on his shoes, his underwear was already damp - blood, most likely, but probably semen as well. Moriarty hadn't bothered to wear a condom, which John had taken as a boast, a way of saying he knew John's medical records well enough to know he was at no risk of catching something from the doctor, and that they weren't going to find his DNA in any system.
The door opened and another of Moriarty's people - this one a woman - entered, carrying a vest laden with explosives and an olive-coloured parka.
John stared at her wearily, trying to recognise some kind of distinguishing feature, something that might be of use when he got out of here...but there was nothing. Both she and the man with the gun were dressed entirely in black, to the extent that they were even wearing the traditional, bank-robber balaclavas over their face.
Sherlock could probably have deduced their life story from the way they'd tied their shoes, but all John could see was an expanse of black cloth from head to toe, broken only around the eyes and mouth.
“Well, go on,” Moriarty encouraged. “Bombs, first, parka afterwards - I don't want you getting cold, after all.”
John had no doubt the only reason he'd seen Moriarty's face was because the man wanted it that way. He couldn't even gain any clues from the bedroom - it was small, true, but that was about the only distinguishing feature it possessed. The furniture consisted of the faceless, generic items found in the mass-produced rooms of large hotels, the sheets were white (though now streaked and smeared with John's blood), the only window had been thoroughly daubed in black paint so he couldn't catch even a glimpse of the outside world...even the paint scheme was a generic beige!
In short, there was nothing, absolutely nothing John could learn from this; not the identity of some of Moriarty's henchmen, not the location of wherever he was being held, nothing! Well, nothing except that Moriarty apparently dabbled in rape.
In that sudden, crushing moment of realisation, John understood the term 'heartsick'. Because he was sick - sick down to his soul, nauseous in a way that had nothing to do with the body and everything to do with the mind. He'd been hoping he'd learn something, discover some kind of weakness in Moriarty that could help Sherlock...then there'd at least be a reason for all this, something to justify what he'd suffered.
But there was nothing, only the blood that dampened his thighs and the searing, merciless burn of his torn body, ripped apart for a maniac's pleasure.
The woman shoved the bomb-vest on him as though she were helping him into a coat, and for a moment John's dazed, fragmented mind was reminded of when he and Sherlock were investigating the smuggling case, when he'd barely gotten into the flat before Sherlock was shoving his coat back on his shoulders, long fingers flipping the lapels against his chest.
For a moment, John wanted to throw up. It just seemed so inherently wrong - these people didn't get to remind him of Sherlock, they just didn't.
He looked down at the bomb, at the packages of Semtex tangled amid the wires and blinking lights, realising that something felt...wrong. He took a deep breath, hoping it looked like he was resigned, but really to test the weight of the vest against his body.
As he'd thought - it was too light. It wasn't by much, but John had handled Semtex before, and knew that whatever was strapped to him was just a little too light to be Semtex. There was something funny about the wiring as well - nothing he could pin down (John had been a doctor, not a sapper, after all), just a subtle instinct telling him that it wasn't right.
Either the supposed bombs were nothing of the kind, or Moriarty wanted to give the impression that there was much more Semtex on the vest than there actually was.
Sherlock might have been able to make something of that, but John's mind was too preoccupied - too busy quelling any sort of reaction and pretending not to be scared - to think on it for long.
John brought a hand up to touch the hard plastic at the back of his neck, the ear piece nestled out of immediate sight, and wondered why. Why had Moriarty bothered to kidnap him when surely another random bystander from the streets would have served his purpose just as well?
“Why?” John's throat was so raw and his mouth so dried by the gag it emerged as a whispered sigh.
He didn't actually realise he'd spoken the question aloud until Moriarty raised his eyebrows, then gestured at the woman. She departed as silently as she'd arrived, coming back only moments later with a plastic cup half-filled with water.
It was only when she held it out to him that John realised Moriarty intended him to drink it. For a moment, he was suspicious - was he about to be drugged? But it would have been pointless to refuse; John desperately needed to moisten his aching throat, and there was no need for Moriarty to be so subtle about it - if the criminal wanted John drugged, John was sure he'd simply have his henchmen hold him down and inject him with something.
With some effort, John managed to contain his shudder of revulsion at that thought of being held down. He took slow, measured sips of the water, concentrating on the relief of the cool liquid wetting his mouth and throat in an effort to distract himself from that ugly thought.
There was a satisfied gleam in Moriarty's eye as he watched John drink, one that puzzled the doctor at first, until he realised that giving him the water was just more proof of Moriarty's control. Moriarty dictated when John was in pain and when he was not, when he suffered and when he was given respite.
“What was that you were saying?” Moriarty enquired, his voice a study in gentility as John drained the cup.
John knew he was being given an opportunity to retract the question, but didn't bother. He wanted to know why Moriarty had kidnapped him, not any of the dozen easier targets that must have been wandering London. He wanted to know what was so important about this last 'pip' that the criminal had deliberately taken someone with a personal connection to Sherlock.
He just wanted to know why this had been done to him - if Moriarty even had a reason in the first place.
“Why me?” he asked, swallowing against the pain in his abraded throat.
“Because you're special, Johnny-boy,” Moriarty smirked.
The tone in which the man said his name and the gloating, satisfied smile that accompanied it made John's stomach knot and bile tingle at the back of his throat. He tightened his jaw and forced it down, determined not to show weakness in front of the monster staring at him.
“Doctor John Watson,” Moriarty went on, his voice reflective. “The man who showed a freak what it was like to have a friend...the man who taught a sociopath to care.”
There was something almost hungry in his voice, and every muscle in John's body turned to stone at the expression on Moriarty's face.
It was desire. Not mimicked lust or false excitement but honest, overt desire, his gaze flickering over John as though he wanted to dissect him. To pull him apart layer by layer to see how he worked.
John locked his knees to prevent himself taking a step back, his chest suddenly as tight as if it had been trapped in a vice. Somehow, that greedy, covetous gleam in Moriarty's eyes was far more terrifying than any threat.
Then Moriarty blinked and it was gone, his sneering, slightly contemptuous mask back in place.
John was actually rather relieved, but did his best not to show it.
Moriarty gestured magnanimously to the door. “After you, Johnny.”
Walking was absolute torture, but John was determined not to so much as whimper, and instead clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might crack. Still, in spite of the pain, he almost laughed when he made his way out of the bedroom.
He was in a mobile home - the kind some people drove around Europe or America in. No wonder the bedroom had been so cramped. It just made the whole kidnapping seem somehow absurd; John had expected to find himself incarcerated in some kind of secret underground base worthy of a Bond movie. Instead, he'd been tied up in a caravan.
John was exerting every particle of his considerable willpower not to let his mind stray into what else had happened in the caravan only minutes ago. He couldn't afford to crumble, not now. He just had to stay strong until he was somewhere far, far away from here...he just had to hang on until it was over.
“Zip up the parka,” Moriarty instructed, with just a tinge of frustration in his voice, like he couldn't believe John was really this slow.
John glanced down at the vest, wondering if it really was a bomb he was wearing and if so, how much pressure it could take before it went off.
Moriarty sighed, sounding pained. “Do give me some credit, Johnny-boy.”
It somehow didn't surprise John that Moriarty knew what he'd been thinking. He did as he was told, his left shoulder twinging as he hid the bomb from view - anyone looking at him would think he was just out for a midnight stroll.
“Perfect,” Moriarty said, and he looked so gleeful John was almost surprised that he wasn't rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. “I must admit, Johnny, I can't wait to see dear little Sherlock's face when he gets a look at you.”
He was all-but wriggling on the spot, and John thought he finally understood why Moriarty had taken him.
It was all about Sherlock, as it had been since the whole mess began. It was about getting Sherlock's attention, about getting a reaction...even the rape had been about Sherlock, albeit in a very twisted, very disturbing way.
In that moment, John made a split-second decision. It probably wasn't very smart, and he didn't know if he'd be very successful at it...but he had to try.
Moriarty had raped him simply to get a reaction from Sherlock, but John was going to do his level best to deny him that.
John was going to do his best to ensure Sherlock never found out.
AN: Again, unbeta-d, so feel free to point out any and all mistakes!
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve
Rating: R/NC-17
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, and am making no profit from their use, more's the pity.
Warnings: Non-con and slash.
Summary: Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme: Before shoving him in the explosive vest, Moriarty fucked John, viciously. John makes it through the whole encounter with Moriarty and Homles via his own badass soldier nerves of steel, but afterwards, when he and Sherlock are admitted to the hospital for minor burns and abrasions and shock, the hospital staff find other injuries on John.
(Title page by birddi)
Part One
In the end, Moriarty raped him four times before John was released and ordered to re-dress himself at gunpoint.
He didn't bother making a grab for the gun - there was no way he'd be able to take it, not in his condition. His whole body felt pulverised, like he'd been run through a meat grinder and then stuck back together. Moriarty seemed to have found as much delight in causing him pain as an eight-year-old did in playing Pokemon, so John was going to count it a victory if he managed to stand and dress without passing out completely.
As he dragged his arms and legs under him, his limbs weak and trembling after being bound for so long, John silently tried to take stock of his injuries. His wrists were bleeding, torn open by the unforgiving edge of the handcuffs, but the wounds weren't deep, and were clotting already. His shoulder was a mass of twinging, throbbing nerves - Moriarty had brutalised the tender scar tissue whenever he felt John wasn't screaming loud enough - and both arms ached from the uncomfortable position they'd been restrained in.
Truth be told, his whole body ached. He'd fought to the very last, even when he was so exhausted and in so much pain he barely had the energy to tug against the handcuffs...he'd still fought. But muscles and tendons weren't built for that kind of long-term strain, and even now John could feel the tight, burning pull of tissues pushed beyond their limits. Coupled with Moriarty's need to make him hurt, to hear him cry out - a need the man had answered with expertly delivered blows in unexpectedly tender areas and some cruel pinches to various nerve clusters - John was rather surprised that his body still worked at all.
He forced himself into a sitting position, his back prickling uncomfortably as the welts striping across his skin began to tighten and sting with his movements. Moriarty had seemed to derive a certain thrill from bruising him, from marking him, and at one point had gone as far as flogging him with what John thought was his belt. He knew some of the blows had broken the skin, and thought at least two of them were wide enough to need stitches.
The bites might need stitches as well. They'd certainly need to be cleaned; the human mouth was rife with bacteria, so much so that infection was practically guaranteed, especially considering that every single bite had drawn blood. Moriarty had never just mouthed at his skin, that would have defeated the whole purpose, after all. It hadn't been about lust or convenience, it had been about power, about demonstrating the extent of his control - it had been about marking John, branding him almost, like a graffiti tag: 'Moriarty was here' - so his teeth had always, always sunk deep into the flesh like a vampire trying to feed.
So, stitches were certainly needed, and sterilisation as well. It felt almost comforting to be able to recite treatments; to look at his body and think of the injuries as a medical exercise, not as something real, not as something that happened to him. It was made a lot easier by the half-numb state he was drifting through, the pain undoubtedly there, present and agonising, but...distant. Removed. As though his brain wasn't quite attached to his body anymore.
John had experienced this state before; it had settled in after he was shot, while he was being hurried back for treatment. In cases of severe, debilitating pain - being shot, having a limb severed or the like - the body produced masses of endorphins in an effort to shut pain receptors down and keep the body functioning. The result was an almost trance-like state, the kind of painless calm that enabled people with broken legs to stand up and limp to a phone to call their own ambulance.
It was that state John had sunk into at some point during the ordeal, though he supposed it could also be the beginning stages of shock.
Lowering his legs to the floor, keeping a wary eye on Moriarty and the man standing next to him with the gun, John tried to stand...
And was suddenly reminded of the one injury he had been doing his best to ignore.
The movement of his legs, his attempt to take his weight on them, the shifting of muscles in his pelvis, it all sent agony shooting straight up his spine like an electric current. He couldn't keep from gasping in pain, clutching spasmodically at the wall as he fought to stay on his feet and not go crashing to the floor.
John knew he'd sustained internal damage - the blood on the sheets (and on Moriarty, before the man had wiped himself off with a tissue) confirmed that much - but he didn't want to think about it. There was no way to rationalise that injury, no way to lock it up in a neat little box and shove it away in the deepest, darkest corner of his mind. He couldn't clinically assess this - this used, violated ache like a long, dull knife inside of him, that changed in an instant into glass-sharp splinters of pain when he tried to move.
“Hurry up, Johnny,” Moriarty taunted, his voice dripping with self-satisfaction. “We have an appointment to keep, and I do feel punctuality is important.”
John's mouth tightened, his jaw clenching painfully as he fought the urge to flinch away from that cruel, viciously smug voice. Instead he squared his shoulders and tilted his chin defiantly, glaring Moriarty down in an effort to say as clearly as possible 'you don't scare me'.
It was a lie, of course - Moriarty frankly terrified John - but he wasn't about to cringe or cower before him. In spite of the nauseous dread and remembered pain curdling in his gut, John held the stare until Moriarty chuckled and shook his head, gesturing to the pile of clothes folded on top of a chest of drawers.
Fortunately it was a very cramped room; John only had to move to the end of the bed before he was in reach of his clothing. He pulled on his shirt and jacket first, wincing as the cloth scraped and rubbed against the welts that decorated his back. Taking a deep breath to steel himself, he then attempted to pull on his jeans without aggravating the incessant, throbbing agony that radiated from his arse.
It didn't work, of course. Several times he had to freeze in place, fists clenching until the knuckles bleached as he fought the pain back down.
Moriarty sighed with impatience, like a child desperate to go to the toy store whose father was lagging behind. “Come on Johnny, no need to moan; it might have been a while but it's not like you haven't done it before.”
It was true John was no stranger to sex with another man, but it had been years since his last foray into anal sex (and he really didn't want to know how Moriarty had found that out), ensuring that Moriarty's penetration had been as agonising as if he'd been a virgin.
And the idea that being raped for hours on end was in any way comparable to his previous experiences had John glaring at Moriarty again. He wanted to tell the psychotic bastard exactly what he thought of him, but his throat was so hoarse from screaming he didn't think he was capable of getting out a single word.
So John settled for continuing to dress at exactly the same rate as before, making no effort to either speed or slow himself, as though he'd never heard the command in the first place. He knew playing deaf was a small and frankly childish defiance, but he felt like he had to do something, had to prove that Moriarty hadn't broken him completely.
By the time John was putting on his shoes, his underwear was already damp - blood, most likely, but probably semen as well. Moriarty hadn't bothered to wear a condom, which John had taken as a boast, a way of saying he knew John's medical records well enough to know he was at no risk of catching something from the doctor, and that they weren't going to find his DNA in any system.
The door opened and another of Moriarty's people - this one a woman - entered, carrying a vest laden with explosives and an olive-coloured parka.
John stared at her wearily, trying to recognise some kind of distinguishing feature, something that might be of use when he got out of here...but there was nothing. Both she and the man with the gun were dressed entirely in black, to the extent that they were even wearing the traditional, bank-robber balaclavas over their face.
Sherlock could probably have deduced their life story from the way they'd tied their shoes, but all John could see was an expanse of black cloth from head to toe, broken only around the eyes and mouth.
“Well, go on,” Moriarty encouraged. “Bombs, first, parka afterwards - I don't want you getting cold, after all.”
John had no doubt the only reason he'd seen Moriarty's face was because the man wanted it that way. He couldn't even gain any clues from the bedroom - it was small, true, but that was about the only distinguishing feature it possessed. The furniture consisted of the faceless, generic items found in the mass-produced rooms of large hotels, the sheets were white (though now streaked and smeared with John's blood), the only window had been thoroughly daubed in black paint so he couldn't catch even a glimpse of the outside world...even the paint scheme was a generic beige!
In short, there was nothing, absolutely nothing John could learn from this; not the identity of some of Moriarty's henchmen, not the location of wherever he was being held, nothing! Well, nothing except that Moriarty apparently dabbled in rape.
In that sudden, crushing moment of realisation, John understood the term 'heartsick'. Because he was sick - sick down to his soul, nauseous in a way that had nothing to do with the body and everything to do with the mind. He'd been hoping he'd learn something, discover some kind of weakness in Moriarty that could help Sherlock...then there'd at least be a reason for all this, something to justify what he'd suffered.
But there was nothing, only the blood that dampened his thighs and the searing, merciless burn of his torn body, ripped apart for a maniac's pleasure.
The woman shoved the bomb-vest on him as though she were helping him into a coat, and for a moment John's dazed, fragmented mind was reminded of when he and Sherlock were investigating the smuggling case, when he'd barely gotten into the flat before Sherlock was shoving his coat back on his shoulders, long fingers flipping the lapels against his chest.
For a moment, John wanted to throw up. It just seemed so inherently wrong - these people didn't get to remind him of Sherlock, they just didn't.
He looked down at the bomb, at the packages of Semtex tangled amid the wires and blinking lights, realising that something felt...wrong. He took a deep breath, hoping it looked like he was resigned, but really to test the weight of the vest against his body.
As he'd thought - it was too light. It wasn't by much, but John had handled Semtex before, and knew that whatever was strapped to him was just a little too light to be Semtex. There was something funny about the wiring as well - nothing he could pin down (John had been a doctor, not a sapper, after all), just a subtle instinct telling him that it wasn't right.
Either the supposed bombs were nothing of the kind, or Moriarty wanted to give the impression that there was much more Semtex on the vest than there actually was.
Sherlock might have been able to make something of that, but John's mind was too preoccupied - too busy quelling any sort of reaction and pretending not to be scared - to think on it for long.
John brought a hand up to touch the hard plastic at the back of his neck, the ear piece nestled out of immediate sight, and wondered why. Why had Moriarty bothered to kidnap him when surely another random bystander from the streets would have served his purpose just as well?
“Why?” John's throat was so raw and his mouth so dried by the gag it emerged as a whispered sigh.
He didn't actually realise he'd spoken the question aloud until Moriarty raised his eyebrows, then gestured at the woman. She departed as silently as she'd arrived, coming back only moments later with a plastic cup half-filled with water.
It was only when she held it out to him that John realised Moriarty intended him to drink it. For a moment, he was suspicious - was he about to be drugged? But it would have been pointless to refuse; John desperately needed to moisten his aching throat, and there was no need for Moriarty to be so subtle about it - if the criminal wanted John drugged, John was sure he'd simply have his henchmen hold him down and inject him with something.
With some effort, John managed to contain his shudder of revulsion at that thought of being held down. He took slow, measured sips of the water, concentrating on the relief of the cool liquid wetting his mouth and throat in an effort to distract himself from that ugly thought.
There was a satisfied gleam in Moriarty's eye as he watched John drink, one that puzzled the doctor at first, until he realised that giving him the water was just more proof of Moriarty's control. Moriarty dictated when John was in pain and when he was not, when he suffered and when he was given respite.
“What was that you were saying?” Moriarty enquired, his voice a study in gentility as John drained the cup.
John knew he was being given an opportunity to retract the question, but didn't bother. He wanted to know why Moriarty had kidnapped him, not any of the dozen easier targets that must have been wandering London. He wanted to know what was so important about this last 'pip' that the criminal had deliberately taken someone with a personal connection to Sherlock.
He just wanted to know why this had been done to him - if Moriarty even had a reason in the first place.
“Why me?” he asked, swallowing against the pain in his abraded throat.
“Because you're special, Johnny-boy,” Moriarty smirked.
The tone in which the man said his name and the gloating, satisfied smile that accompanied it made John's stomach knot and bile tingle at the back of his throat. He tightened his jaw and forced it down, determined not to show weakness in front of the monster staring at him.
“Doctor John Watson,” Moriarty went on, his voice reflective. “The man who showed a freak what it was like to have a friend...the man who taught a sociopath to care.”
There was something almost hungry in his voice, and every muscle in John's body turned to stone at the expression on Moriarty's face.
It was desire. Not mimicked lust or false excitement but honest, overt desire, his gaze flickering over John as though he wanted to dissect him. To pull him apart layer by layer to see how he worked.
John locked his knees to prevent himself taking a step back, his chest suddenly as tight as if it had been trapped in a vice. Somehow, that greedy, covetous gleam in Moriarty's eyes was far more terrifying than any threat.
Then Moriarty blinked and it was gone, his sneering, slightly contemptuous mask back in place.
John was actually rather relieved, but did his best not to show it.
Moriarty gestured magnanimously to the door. “After you, Johnny.”
Walking was absolute torture, but John was determined not to so much as whimper, and instead clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might crack. Still, in spite of the pain, he almost laughed when he made his way out of the bedroom.
He was in a mobile home - the kind some people drove around Europe or America in. No wonder the bedroom had been so cramped. It just made the whole kidnapping seem somehow absurd; John had expected to find himself incarcerated in some kind of secret underground base worthy of a Bond movie. Instead, he'd been tied up in a caravan.
John was exerting every particle of his considerable willpower not to let his mind stray into what else had happened in the caravan only minutes ago. He couldn't afford to crumble, not now. He just had to stay strong until he was somewhere far, far away from here...he just had to hang on until it was over.
“Zip up the parka,” Moriarty instructed, with just a tinge of frustration in his voice, like he couldn't believe John was really this slow.
John glanced down at the vest, wondering if it really was a bomb he was wearing and if so, how much pressure it could take before it went off.
Moriarty sighed, sounding pained. “Do give me some credit, Johnny-boy.”
It somehow didn't surprise John that Moriarty knew what he'd been thinking. He did as he was told, his left shoulder twinging as he hid the bomb from view - anyone looking at him would think he was just out for a midnight stroll.
“Perfect,” Moriarty said, and he looked so gleeful John was almost surprised that he wasn't rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. “I must admit, Johnny, I can't wait to see dear little Sherlock's face when he gets a look at you.”
He was all-but wriggling on the spot, and John thought he finally understood why Moriarty had taken him.
It was all about Sherlock, as it had been since the whole mess began. It was about getting Sherlock's attention, about getting a reaction...even the rape had been about Sherlock, albeit in a very twisted, very disturbing way.
In that moment, John made a split-second decision. It probably wasn't very smart, and he didn't know if he'd be very successful at it...but he had to try.
Moriarty had raped him simply to get a reaction from Sherlock, but John was going to do his level best to deny him that.
John was going to do his best to ensure Sherlock never found out.
AN: Again, unbeta-d, so feel free to point out any and all mistakes!
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven
Part Twelve