Recorded (Sherlock)
Title: Recorded
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: When each of the three men screams, all Sherlock can do is listen.
Historian's Note: This was originally written as a standalone story. If you wish, however, you're welcome to read it as a companion to the ficlets "Enclosed" and "Imagined." The story takes place after the Sherlock episode "The Great Game."
Author's Note: This was originally written for the "evil Moriarty, give me chills" prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Offscreen violence, torture, suicidal themes, and possible character death(s), open to interpretation.
Approximately eighteen hours after the most important men in Sherlock's life disappeared, the first text arrived. It contained a link from which Sherlock downloaded a single audio file.
***
Each of the three screamed. Unsurprising, really. To use Moriarty's turn of phrase, that's what people do. Such a natural physical response could only be repressed for so long, even by the strongest of wills.
With concentration enhanced by adrenaline and desperation and multiple nicotine patches, Sherlock strained to listen. He identified the sound of various implements used on or in the human body: the impact of whips and canes and various blunt objects, the hiss of a blowtorch, the throb of naked electricity.
He noted the click of fingernails against readied hypodermic syringes. He imagined the smooth glide of depressed plungers forcing unknown substances into vulnerable veins.
From the acoustics of the facilities, Sherlock could glean little. No additional background noises provided further insights into the men's location.
Cataloguing the data, setting the information aside, he focused on the voices - at first mere grunts and gasps and hisses, but later, much more.
The audio clips, he determined, had been recorded over many hours.
There were growls, rumbling, guttural protests first swallowed, then torn from the depths of a chest. After a time, the sound degenerated into hoarse moans. His detective inspector.
There were shouts, inarticulate and angry, first bitten off, then granted whole fury. Eventually they crumbled into little more than the whistling rush of air in a shredded throat. His flatmate. His blogger.
There were muted howls, imprisoned behind teeth and lips, then escaping as full-fledged cries. As time passed the wails gained urgency and volume, rising in a tragic crescendo. This seemed to continue for a very long time indeed.
Then there came a harsh gasp, and stuttering, troubled breaths, and at last eloquent, vacant silence.
Of course his brother had possessed the concealed means of taking his own life; after all, he was the nation's secret-keeper. How clever he had been to frustrate Moriarty's undoubtedly thorough searches.
But not quite clever enough, it seemed. The recording ended with the echoes of an emergency resuscitation conducted by an efficient staff, followed by the rhythmic beeps of monitors and thrum of a ventilator machine.
Sherlock could deduce what had occurred as easily as if he'd watched the events unfold from inside the very room. Yes, he had resented Mycroft, even hated him at times, and yet envisioning the familiar frame trapped in unwanted limbo, emptied of that magnificent mind, left Sherlock folded over in his chair, shaking.
Such weakness as this was a key reason why Sherlock had sought to avoid personal attachments.
He had failed, however. How badly became obvious to him as he replayed the file and listened again and again to the involuntary sounds of suffering.
***
Moriarty's instructions were clear. If Sherlock left the building for any reason, Mrs Hudson would vanish - and reappear one piece at a time, along with rather vital bits carved from the three captive men.
Sherlock was certain that every method of communication he possessed was now monitored. If he so much as attempted to conduct a simple internet search or text his recommendations to others or summon anyone to 221B to make plans, his actions would only assist Moriarty, mapping for the man the path of his pursuers.
He forwarded the audio file to Sally Donovan and the woman he knew as Anthea, but that was the full extent of his interactions with them. The search had to be theirs alone. Once they had listened to Moriarty's orders, he knew they would understand.
Just as Moriarty understood that helplessness for Sherlock was the cruelest torture of all.
Trapped as he was, Sherlock was dumb and blind. If only he were deaf, as well. But he wasn't.
Another text arrived, announcing a new recording.
***
"If you could say anything to Sherlock Holmes right now, what would it be?"
Jim Moriarty's words rose and fell with false empathy, a camp parody of the quintessential talk show host.
"I'd tell him" - the dry husk of the detective inspector's once-rich voice, now as brittle as fallen leaves in winter - "I've seen preschoolers throw better punches than you."
The file played on as Lestrade's pained chuckles turned to choked sobs.
***
When Mrs Hudson asked why Sherlock wasn't out searching for John and the others, he told her the truth. Her eyes went wide with horror, guileless as a child's.
Moriarty made no additional demands. Sherlock's repeated texts asking what Jim wanted, what would make this stop, remained unanswered.
***
"If you could say anything to Sherlock Holmes right now, what would it be?"
"I'd warn him" - this time John answered, his words emerging high-pitched and reed-thin from the wreckage of his throat - "that the milk in the fridge has probably gone off."
He paid for his cheek with fresh agony, just as Lestrade had done.
Each man had bought a brief respite for the other. Purchased time. But where was rescue? Where was Mycroft's staff? Where was Scotland Yard?
***
Too late, Sherlock discovered that Mrs Hudson had listened at the door to John's ordeal.
***
The next recording took its time in appearing. As it played, Sherlock added page upon page of new information to those mental files he maintained as a matter of habit on John Watson and Greg Lestrade.
Odd, that he would learn such things only from afar, through the distortion of tinny speakers, as each man struggled to retain some kind of sanity in the face of torment.
John spoke two languages and could muddle along for a bit in a two more, but he could curse emphatically in eight. Lestrade's curses came mostly in English, but with a creative infusion of street slang and several idiosyncratic local dialects.
As blows fell and blades cut and wires burned, each man found a temporary escape in his memories until lucidity deserted him. An imperfect comfort, but a worthy show of non-cooperation, nonetheless.
Lestrade recounted the aliases and personal histories he'd used in his younger days on undercover assignments, the set lists of concerts he'd attended as a teen, and the details of the first three murder cases he'd worked that eventually went cold and remained unsolved.
John recited the medical terms for various parts of the human anatomy, the nicknames of mates on various rugby teams, and the full names and ranks of wounded soldiers he'd tried and failed to save in Afghanistan.
Unsolved cases. Lost patients. Sherlock paced as the recording continued, wondering that both men should carry their perceived failures so closely, remember them so keenly.
As the two fought and floundered, Sherlock tried to focus.
Each man knew of the other's pain.
This was evident first in Lestrade's outrage as he called, "Get off 'im, you sick bastards!"
Later, it was obvious in John's cold fury as he ground out, "You'll kill him if you don't stop."
Against his own wishes, Sherlock's mind filled in the silences between the vile sounds, reconstructing the details of what had taken place, what horrors and violations each man had experienced simply because he'd allied himself with the consulting detective.
Sherlock's makeshift kitchen laboratory disintegrated around him as he shattered and smashed everything breakable at hand.
The audio file ended much as the first had done, with the beeping and whirring of medical equipment, the very presence of which measured the absence of Mycroft Holmes.
The silence, when it followed, was thunderous.
***
Every face outside of the windows seemed to watch the flat with malignant intent. Figuratively, if not literally, Moriarty was breathing down Sherlock's long neck. Laughing, even.
Sherlock could not sleep, he would not, but after so many hours - days now? - his body grew disloyal, collapsing, shutting down for minutes at a time like a computer in hibernation mode. Once, when he came back to himself from this unintended rest, slumped over his keyboard, he realized Mrs Hudson had been in the flat.
He found her downstairs, sitting on her bed, dressed in her finest silk pyjamas and favourite dressing gown. The glow from her herbal soothers shone high in her cheeks. She held John's service pistol in her hands.
"I don't have enough pills to do the trick," she explained with something like pity. "And I don't trust myself to do things properly with a knife."
"No," Sherlock said.
"Don’t fuss, Sherlock. I've had a full life. Those brave men are young enough to be my sons. They need rescuing, you know."
She patted his cheek as he knelt before her. "It's my choice, dear. This way, I can't be used against them or you - or hurt, for that matter. Go on now, please. No need to watch."
Sherlock felt himself fraying at the seams, unravelling in all directions.
Even if Mrs Hudson hadn't been threatened, even if he'd been free to hunt, he had next to no data on which to base a search.
Moriarty had made certain the recordings were antiseptically devoid of almost any clue. John and Lestrade, both of whom might've succeeded in smuggling random information to him in their babblings, stubbornly had said nothing that might enable Sherlock to risk himself on their behalves.
If Sherlock saw no leads, how could he expect the Yarders or Mycroft's minions to find any on their own?
But no, not Mrs Hudson.
Not her, too.
"No," he repeated.
It's this caring lark, Sherlock thought, prying the gun from her firm grasp. Too many emotions, too few thoughts.
Observe, you fool, don't feel.
Despite his self-recriminations, the moment ended with Sherlock still on his knees, his head on Mrs Hudson's lap and her hands in his curls like a benediction. The last time he could recall shedding tears from pain rather than for subterfuge, he had been a five-year-old boy with a broken arm.
Even then, he hadn't felt so powerless.
***
The cavalry did not come. Another recording did.
Moriarty's voice sounded positively gleeful. Perhaps he'd already pulled the plug on the British Government.
Sherlock swallowed.
"You've had some time to think of a better response than your last, Detective Inspector," Moriarty said. "If you could say anything to Sherlock Holmes now, what would it be?"
Lestrade's breath escaped in uneven, ghastly wheezes. Broken ribs, certainly. Other more severe internal injuries, as well.
"I'm proud," he panted, "of the work" - a shallow sip of air - "we've done together." So exhausted, he sounded. Every lungful was obviously a herculean effort. "And proud of him."
Sherlock turned in place, looking for… anything. Nothing.
Lost.
"And what would you say, Johnny Boy?"
"Goditwas…" John's faint words slurred. Serious blood loss. A concussion, too, most likely. Shock. And more.
Apparently John had to gather his failing strength even to finish the thought. "Worthev'ryminute."
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut.
Wavered on his feet.
"So very touching," Moriarty cooed. "But was it, Sherlock? Was it worth it? Are you proud of yourself?"
I am going mad, Sherlock thought.
John's gun was a reassuring weight in his hand, cold and present and heavy with promise.
Brutally wet coughing stole the air from Lestrade's chest. John murmured, as if trying to offer comfort, but his fragile syllables bled together, unintelligible.
Sherlock listened with his whole heart, and it burned.
THE END
Note: Read kiwi_jam's terrific "Alternate 'Cop Out Ending'" for this story here.
Vital Stats: Originally written in August 2011.
Originally written for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.
Author: Morgan Stuart
Fandom: Sherlock
Disclaimer: This universe does not belong to me; I'm just an appreciative visitor. I make no profit from this fan work.
Description: When each of the three men screams, all Sherlock can do is listen.
Historian's Note: This was originally written as a standalone story. If you wish, however, you're welcome to read it as a companion to the ficlets "Enclosed" and "Imagined." The story takes place after the Sherlock episode "The Great Game."
Author's Note: This was originally written for the "evil Moriarty, give me chills" prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.
Warnings (Highlight to Read): Offscreen violence, torture, suicidal themes, and possible character death(s), open to interpretation.
Approximately eighteen hours after the most important men in Sherlock's life disappeared, the first text arrived. It contained a link from which Sherlock downloaded a single audio file.
***
Each of the three screamed. Unsurprising, really. To use Moriarty's turn of phrase, that's what people do. Such a natural physical response could only be repressed for so long, even by the strongest of wills.
With concentration enhanced by adrenaline and desperation and multiple nicotine patches, Sherlock strained to listen. He identified the sound of various implements used on or in the human body: the impact of whips and canes and various blunt objects, the hiss of a blowtorch, the throb of naked electricity.
He noted the click of fingernails against readied hypodermic syringes. He imagined the smooth glide of depressed plungers forcing unknown substances into vulnerable veins.
From the acoustics of the facilities, Sherlock could glean little. No additional background noises provided further insights into the men's location.
Cataloguing the data, setting the information aside, he focused on the voices - at first mere grunts and gasps and hisses, but later, much more.
The audio clips, he determined, had been recorded over many hours.
There were growls, rumbling, guttural protests first swallowed, then torn from the depths of a chest. After a time, the sound degenerated into hoarse moans. His detective inspector.
There were shouts, inarticulate and angry, first bitten off, then granted whole fury. Eventually they crumbled into little more than the whistling rush of air in a shredded throat. His flatmate. His blogger.
There were muted howls, imprisoned behind teeth and lips, then escaping as full-fledged cries. As time passed the wails gained urgency and volume, rising in a tragic crescendo. This seemed to continue for a very long time indeed.
Then there came a harsh gasp, and stuttering, troubled breaths, and at last eloquent, vacant silence.
Of course his brother had possessed the concealed means of taking his own life; after all, he was the nation's secret-keeper. How clever he had been to frustrate Moriarty's undoubtedly thorough searches.
But not quite clever enough, it seemed. The recording ended with the echoes of an emergency resuscitation conducted by an efficient staff, followed by the rhythmic beeps of monitors and thrum of a ventilator machine.
Sherlock could deduce what had occurred as easily as if he'd watched the events unfold from inside the very room. Yes, he had resented Mycroft, even hated him at times, and yet envisioning the familiar frame trapped in unwanted limbo, emptied of that magnificent mind, left Sherlock folded over in his chair, shaking.
Such weakness as this was a key reason why Sherlock had sought to avoid personal attachments.
He had failed, however. How badly became obvious to him as he replayed the file and listened again and again to the involuntary sounds of suffering.
***
Moriarty's instructions were clear. If Sherlock left the building for any reason, Mrs Hudson would vanish - and reappear one piece at a time, along with rather vital bits carved from the three captive men.
Sherlock was certain that every method of communication he possessed was now monitored. If he so much as attempted to conduct a simple internet search or text his recommendations to others or summon anyone to 221B to make plans, his actions would only assist Moriarty, mapping for the man the path of his pursuers.
He forwarded the audio file to Sally Donovan and the woman he knew as Anthea, but that was the full extent of his interactions with them. The search had to be theirs alone. Once they had listened to Moriarty's orders, he knew they would understand.
Just as Moriarty understood that helplessness for Sherlock was the cruelest torture of all.
Trapped as he was, Sherlock was dumb and blind. If only he were deaf, as well. But he wasn't.
Another text arrived, announcing a new recording.
***
"If you could say anything to Sherlock Holmes right now, what would it be?"
Jim Moriarty's words rose and fell with false empathy, a camp parody of the quintessential talk show host.
"I'd tell him" - the dry husk of the detective inspector's once-rich voice, now as brittle as fallen leaves in winter - "I've seen preschoolers throw better punches than you."
The file played on as Lestrade's pained chuckles turned to choked sobs.
***
When Mrs Hudson asked why Sherlock wasn't out searching for John and the others, he told her the truth. Her eyes went wide with horror, guileless as a child's.
Moriarty made no additional demands. Sherlock's repeated texts asking what Jim wanted, what would make this stop, remained unanswered.
***
"If you could say anything to Sherlock Holmes right now, what would it be?"
"I'd warn him" - this time John answered, his words emerging high-pitched and reed-thin from the wreckage of his throat - "that the milk in the fridge has probably gone off."
He paid for his cheek with fresh agony, just as Lestrade had done.
Each man had bought a brief respite for the other. Purchased time. But where was rescue? Where was Mycroft's staff? Where was Scotland Yard?
***
Too late, Sherlock discovered that Mrs Hudson had listened at the door to John's ordeal.
***
The next recording took its time in appearing. As it played, Sherlock added page upon page of new information to those mental files he maintained as a matter of habit on John Watson and Greg Lestrade.
Odd, that he would learn such things only from afar, through the distortion of tinny speakers, as each man struggled to retain some kind of sanity in the face of torment.
John spoke two languages and could muddle along for a bit in a two more, but he could curse emphatically in eight. Lestrade's curses came mostly in English, but with a creative infusion of street slang and several idiosyncratic local dialects.
As blows fell and blades cut and wires burned, each man found a temporary escape in his memories until lucidity deserted him. An imperfect comfort, but a worthy show of non-cooperation, nonetheless.
Lestrade recounted the aliases and personal histories he'd used in his younger days on undercover assignments, the set lists of concerts he'd attended as a teen, and the details of the first three murder cases he'd worked that eventually went cold and remained unsolved.
John recited the medical terms for various parts of the human anatomy, the nicknames of mates on various rugby teams, and the full names and ranks of wounded soldiers he'd tried and failed to save in Afghanistan.
Unsolved cases. Lost patients. Sherlock paced as the recording continued, wondering that both men should carry their perceived failures so closely, remember them so keenly.
As the two fought and floundered, Sherlock tried to focus.
Each man knew of the other's pain.
This was evident first in Lestrade's outrage as he called, "Get off 'im, you sick bastards!"
Later, it was obvious in John's cold fury as he ground out, "You'll kill him if you don't stop."
Against his own wishes, Sherlock's mind filled in the silences between the vile sounds, reconstructing the details of what had taken place, what horrors and violations each man had experienced simply because he'd allied himself with the consulting detective.
Sherlock's makeshift kitchen laboratory disintegrated around him as he shattered and smashed everything breakable at hand.
The audio file ended much as the first had done, with the beeping and whirring of medical equipment, the very presence of which measured the absence of Mycroft Holmes.
The silence, when it followed, was thunderous.
***
Every face outside of the windows seemed to watch the flat with malignant intent. Figuratively, if not literally, Moriarty was breathing down Sherlock's long neck. Laughing, even.
Sherlock could not sleep, he would not, but after so many hours - days now? - his body grew disloyal, collapsing, shutting down for minutes at a time like a computer in hibernation mode. Once, when he came back to himself from this unintended rest, slumped over his keyboard, he realized Mrs Hudson had been in the flat.
He found her downstairs, sitting on her bed, dressed in her finest silk pyjamas and favourite dressing gown. The glow from her herbal soothers shone high in her cheeks. She held John's service pistol in her hands.
"I don't have enough pills to do the trick," she explained with something like pity. "And I don't trust myself to do things properly with a knife."
"No," Sherlock said.
"Don’t fuss, Sherlock. I've had a full life. Those brave men are young enough to be my sons. They need rescuing, you know."
She patted his cheek as he knelt before her. "It's my choice, dear. This way, I can't be used against them or you - or hurt, for that matter. Go on now, please. No need to watch."
Sherlock felt himself fraying at the seams, unravelling in all directions.
Even if Mrs Hudson hadn't been threatened, even if he'd been free to hunt, he had next to no data on which to base a search.
Moriarty had made certain the recordings were antiseptically devoid of almost any clue. John and Lestrade, both of whom might've succeeded in smuggling random information to him in their babblings, stubbornly had said nothing that might enable Sherlock to risk himself on their behalves.
If Sherlock saw no leads, how could he expect the Yarders or Mycroft's minions to find any on their own?
But no, not Mrs Hudson.
Not her, too.
"No," he repeated.
It's this caring lark, Sherlock thought, prying the gun from her firm grasp. Too many emotions, too few thoughts.
Observe, you fool, don't feel.
Despite his self-recriminations, the moment ended with Sherlock still on his knees, his head on Mrs Hudson's lap and her hands in his curls like a benediction. The last time he could recall shedding tears from pain rather than for subterfuge, he had been a five-year-old boy with a broken arm.
Even then, he hadn't felt so powerless.
***
The cavalry did not come. Another recording did.
Moriarty's voice sounded positively gleeful. Perhaps he'd already pulled the plug on the British Government.
Sherlock swallowed.
"You've had some time to think of a better response than your last, Detective Inspector," Moriarty said. "If you could say anything to Sherlock Holmes now, what would it be?"
Lestrade's breath escaped in uneven, ghastly wheezes. Broken ribs, certainly. Other more severe internal injuries, as well.
"I'm proud," he panted, "of the work" - a shallow sip of air - "we've done together." So exhausted, he sounded. Every lungful was obviously a herculean effort. "And proud of him."
Sherlock turned in place, looking for… anything. Nothing.
Lost.
"And what would you say, Johnny Boy?"
"Goditwas…" John's faint words slurred. Serious blood loss. A concussion, too, most likely. Shock. And more.
Apparently John had to gather his failing strength even to finish the thought. "Worthev'ryminute."
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut.
Wavered on his feet.
"So very touching," Moriarty cooed. "But was it, Sherlock? Was it worth it? Are you proud of yourself?"
I am going mad, Sherlock thought.
John's gun was a reassuring weight in his hand, cold and present and heavy with promise.
Brutally wet coughing stole the air from Lestrade's chest. John murmured, as if trying to offer comfort, but his fragile syllables bled together, unintelligible.
Sherlock listened with his whole heart, and it burned.
THE END
Note: Read kiwi_jam's terrific "Alternate 'Cop Out Ending'" for this story here.
Vital Stats: Originally written in August 2011.
Originally written for this prompt at sherlockbbc_fic.