Dynamics
Moriarty admires Holmes, after a fashion. That's why he wants to take him apart and see how he works.
Dynamics
When they drag the detective into the room he is utterly unconscious, limbs flopping, and Moriarty allows himself a moment to admire the sight. From across the room he inhales deeply through his nose. The sharp scent of medical soap and the mustiness of old brickwork are dull beneath the crisp exhilaration of imminent victory. "Wake him up," he snaps.
Holmes comes back to himself with every ounce of cocksure bravado intact, neatly evading the question of who received his telegram. "My horror at your crimes is matched only by my admiration at the skill it took to achieve them," he says, stonily, and Moriarty takes it as the compliment that it is.
"Who was it sent to?" he repeats, suppressing a smile.
But Holmes only lays out his conclusions about Moriarty’s acquisition of the arms factory. His quaint indignation that an intelligent man might profit by his mental superiority is amusing, the deft way he has slotted the puzzle pieces into place considerably less so. And Moriarty is not accustomed to being ignored. In this instance, however, he finds that his fury is tempered with satisfaction. Holmes would be an infinitely less compelling opponent without his defiance and his dangerously penetrating insight.
He will confess to a certain fondness for that mind: an aesthetic appreciation for its unpredictable sharp angles and the poisoned-knife-blade care with which it must be handled. It is numbingly rare that he encounters anything like a challenge, and Holmes puts him in mind of the Dynamics problem. Fiercely intricate and diamond-hard. He has a hopeful fancy that, like the motions of an asteroid, discovery of the precise delicate equation for splitting him into component parts will render Holmes still more striking, rather than less.
He doesn’t want the detective to tell him. Not yet.
As he speaks about Schubert, a thrill of anticipation coils low in his stomach.
The mangled remainder of a deep-throated scream that manages to struggle past Holmes' clenched jaw when the floor vanishes beneath him sends a searing bolt of heat through Moriarty's brain. He holds himself in check, savours the frantic muffled sounds as Holmes attempts bring himself under control. It's not often that he indulges himself in this way. He likes the deference of his peers, the wide-eyed reverence of his students, the sharp obedience of his ruthlessly competent colonel, but he likes this kind of power still more. The squirming breathlessness in a proud voice choking out information it never meant to divulge. And Holmes is proud, ferociously so. His stifled grunts of pain and shock trail off into ragged panting with impressive quickness. Moriarty admires his self-control. It will be that much more rewarding to shatter it.
But first, the pride.
He sets up the speaker system quickly. Let Doctor Watson hear him scream; let him know Doctor Watson can hear him scream. The first rippling notes of Die Forelle flash out. He follows Holmes hungrily in the mirror, white-faced and wide-eyed but still calculating, glancing warily around the room. He can't wait to watch that composure unspool. He starts to sing.
Moriarty keeps a keen eye on the detective's struggles, suppressing a chuckle around the throaty German syllables of the song, enjoying the full shape of the words on his lips. Holmes' grip on the hook is so tight he is quivering. The rope creaks as he sways; he tries to arrest the motion, using his legs as counterweights, his spine flexing just like a fish bucking against a line. Still fighting. It might be amusing to allow him a taste of success before proceeding, but Moriarty decides that he has drawn out the pleasure long enough. Light on his feet, he skims across the floor and gives Holmes a gentle, straight-armed push. Holmes goes rigid. His body transcribes a graceful slow arc, up and back down, with just the faintest sideways motion to create an ellipse like a planetary dance. Breathtaking. Holmes starts jerking at the end of the hook - short, futile, angry movements that only make him twist in dizzying circles. If you insist, Moriarty thinks.
He locks both arms around Holmes' calf and spins on his heel.
Holmes screams, finally: a raw incoherent sound that hits Moriarty like a blaze of strong wine on an empty stomach, leaves him aflame with desire for more. It is bitten off too quickly, and so he presses his advantage until Holmes is keening, out of all control. The mindless animal shrieks clawing their way out of his throat are loud enough to drown the music, and Moriarty marvels at how quickly he has reduced that sparkling intellect to this. The basest of thrashing, pleading instincts. He feels his own blood-hot thump of pride at the accomplishment.
Holmes is still clinging desperately to the metal embedded in his flesh, trying to take the weight off his tortured shoulder. His forearms are vibrating with the effort. Moriarty wrenches his right arm downward and rotates it forcefully in the socket while something as light and intoxicating as champagne bubbles in his veins, prompting him to spin playfully beneath the other man in a parody of a waltz. Holmes nearly sobs. His face is buried in his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut, lips twitching, and when Moriarty releases his arm he jerks it back to his chest with a wounded sound. Trembling, he tries to return his fingers to their former position around the hook, but they flutter against it like helpless moths. Moriarty steps back to observe. Holmes is losing his grip with the other hand as well, starting to go limp. Even the excruciating pain he must be in seems unable to prevent his muscles from slackening as he falls toward unconsciousness.
Moriarty doesn't intend to allow him that sort of reprieve. He motions to the guard, who drops the rope immediately. Holmes plummets to the floor, strikes with a cry and a jarring crash, and then crumples in on himself.
His limbs sprawl open helplessly when Moriarty kicks him onto his back. Holmes' hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat; he looks up at his conqueror with eyes gone half-lidded and dark with pain, the lashes fluttering wildly as he struggles to draw breath. The effect is curiously languid. Like a doe-eyed maiden. His jaw is slack with the sort of pain that makes the body disbelieve its own signals, throws higher mental processes into confusion. Sherlock Holmes, stupid with agony. It's delicious. He could not be more vulnerable if he were stripped to the skin.
Moriarty meets his gaze and deliberately grasps the rope, the softest of threats.
"Let's try this again, shall we?" he says, employing the same gentle tone that he uses with all errant students who have not yet mastered their lessons. "To whom. Did you send. The telegram?"
Holmes' chest heaves. "To m--"
The mumble drowns in pain and Holmes collapses, panting. His neck lolls. The man is still making a pathetic attempt to get himself under control, swallowing over and over, eyes juddering behind closed lids like a man in the midst of a nightmare. Holding his composure like water cupped in crushed palms and broken fingers.
Moriarty considers whether this hesitation merits another round, but he does require the information, and he's not certain whether Holmes will remain coherent if he's suspended from the ceiling again. More's the pity. With a sigh, he lowers himself to his knees. Wraps his hand tenderly around the hook.
With a brutal tug he drags Holmes roughly across the floor, savouring the moan he fails to choke back, clamping a hand around the wrist on the uninjured side. As he covers Holmes' body with his own he recognizes anew that the detective is a small man, so much smaller than the force of his personality might lead one to believe. It's a curiously gratifying thought. He squeezes the trapped wrist until he feels bones grinding. Holmes' fingers twitch weakly.
He waits with his ear to the man's lips, feeling every stutter and hitch in Holmes' breath.
"To my brother Mycroft," Holmes says. "Care of - Her Majesty's secret service." His eyes fall shut. With shame, possibly.
Moriarty smiles. He can't resist giving the hook a short, gouging twist that makes Holmes whimper and spasm against him. With a stab of incongruous fondness, he lays two fingers at the hammering pulse point in the detective's neck. Feathersoft. Holmes shudders and shrinks into the cold floor, turning his face away.
What to do with him now. Moriarty wonders how long it would take for Holmes to bleed out, if he were to simply string the man back up and leave him. Some time, probably. Then again, there is nothing to prevent further testing of the limits of his pain tolerance.
Idly, he regrets not instructing Moran to take the doctor alive. It might have been amusing to catalogue Holmes' reactions if Dr. Watson were subjected to the same process; he suspects that the detective would squirm even more compellingly than he is doing now. Moriarty wonders how quickly Holmes would fall to begging.
He gets to his feet so that he can looks down at Holmes - pale grey and shivering - from his full height. The man still isn't broken. Unravelled, yes, splayed in a quivering heap, but there is something of determination yet in the detective's eyes, something relentlessly calculating behind the glassy haze of shock. Moriarty is glad of it. Broken men do not care for humiliation or failure, not as long as it makes the pain stop. But there is enough of Sherlock Holmes left to be tormented by the knowledge that he has lost. Moriarty intends to make the man acknowledge it before he ensures that Holmes can no longer speak for pain.
"I've just got one more question for you," he says, and he is breathing more heavily now, too, hot with the satisfaction of it. "Which one of us is the fisherman, and which, the trout?"
There is a groan like rending metal. For a moment he believes it is the crashing beat of his own pulse, and then--
Dynamics
When they drag the detective into the room he is utterly unconscious, limbs flopping, and Moriarty allows himself a moment to admire the sight. From across the room he inhales deeply through his nose. The sharp scent of medical soap and the mustiness of old brickwork are dull beneath the crisp exhilaration of imminent victory. "Wake him up," he snaps.
Holmes comes back to himself with every ounce of cocksure bravado intact, neatly evading the question of who received his telegram. "My horror at your crimes is matched only by my admiration at the skill it took to achieve them," he says, stonily, and Moriarty takes it as the compliment that it is.
"Who was it sent to?" he repeats, suppressing a smile.
But Holmes only lays out his conclusions about Moriarty’s acquisition of the arms factory. His quaint indignation that an intelligent man might profit by his mental superiority is amusing, the deft way he has slotted the puzzle pieces into place considerably less so. And Moriarty is not accustomed to being ignored. In this instance, however, he finds that his fury is tempered with satisfaction. Holmes would be an infinitely less compelling opponent without his defiance and his dangerously penetrating insight.
He will confess to a certain fondness for that mind: an aesthetic appreciation for its unpredictable sharp angles and the poisoned-knife-blade care with which it must be handled. It is numbingly rare that he encounters anything like a challenge, and Holmes puts him in mind of the Dynamics problem. Fiercely intricate and diamond-hard. He has a hopeful fancy that, like the motions of an asteroid, discovery of the precise delicate equation for splitting him into component parts will render Holmes still more striking, rather than less.
He doesn’t want the detective to tell him. Not yet.
As he speaks about Schubert, a thrill of anticipation coils low in his stomach.
The mangled remainder of a deep-throated scream that manages to struggle past Holmes' clenched jaw when the floor vanishes beneath him sends a searing bolt of heat through Moriarty's brain. He holds himself in check, savours the frantic muffled sounds as Holmes attempts bring himself under control. It's not often that he indulges himself in this way. He likes the deference of his peers, the wide-eyed reverence of his students, the sharp obedience of his ruthlessly competent colonel, but he likes this kind of power still more. The squirming breathlessness in a proud voice choking out information it never meant to divulge. And Holmes is proud, ferociously so. His stifled grunts of pain and shock trail off into ragged panting with impressive quickness. Moriarty admires his self-control. It will be that much more rewarding to shatter it.
But first, the pride.
He sets up the speaker system quickly. Let Doctor Watson hear him scream; let him know Doctor Watson can hear him scream. The first rippling notes of Die Forelle flash out. He follows Holmes hungrily in the mirror, white-faced and wide-eyed but still calculating, glancing warily around the room. He can't wait to watch that composure unspool. He starts to sing.
Moriarty keeps a keen eye on the detective's struggles, suppressing a chuckle around the throaty German syllables of the song, enjoying the full shape of the words on his lips. Holmes' grip on the hook is so tight he is quivering. The rope creaks as he sways; he tries to arrest the motion, using his legs as counterweights, his spine flexing just like a fish bucking against a line. Still fighting. It might be amusing to allow him a taste of success before proceeding, but Moriarty decides that he has drawn out the pleasure long enough. Light on his feet, he skims across the floor and gives Holmes a gentle, straight-armed push. Holmes goes rigid. His body transcribes a graceful slow arc, up and back down, with just the faintest sideways motion to create an ellipse like a planetary dance. Breathtaking. Holmes starts jerking at the end of the hook - short, futile, angry movements that only make him twist in dizzying circles. If you insist, Moriarty thinks.
He locks both arms around Holmes' calf and spins on his heel.
Holmes screams, finally: a raw incoherent sound that hits Moriarty like a blaze of strong wine on an empty stomach, leaves him aflame with desire for more. It is bitten off too quickly, and so he presses his advantage until Holmes is keening, out of all control. The mindless animal shrieks clawing their way out of his throat are loud enough to drown the music, and Moriarty marvels at how quickly he has reduced that sparkling intellect to this. The basest of thrashing, pleading instincts. He feels his own blood-hot thump of pride at the accomplishment.
Holmes is still clinging desperately to the metal embedded in his flesh, trying to take the weight off his tortured shoulder. His forearms are vibrating with the effort. Moriarty wrenches his right arm downward and rotates it forcefully in the socket while something as light and intoxicating as champagne bubbles in his veins, prompting him to spin playfully beneath the other man in a parody of a waltz. Holmes nearly sobs. His face is buried in his shoulder, eyes squeezed shut, lips twitching, and when Moriarty releases his arm he jerks it back to his chest with a wounded sound. Trembling, he tries to return his fingers to their former position around the hook, but they flutter against it like helpless moths. Moriarty steps back to observe. Holmes is losing his grip with the other hand as well, starting to go limp. Even the excruciating pain he must be in seems unable to prevent his muscles from slackening as he falls toward unconsciousness.
Moriarty doesn't intend to allow him that sort of reprieve. He motions to the guard, who drops the rope immediately. Holmes plummets to the floor, strikes with a cry and a jarring crash, and then crumples in on himself.
His limbs sprawl open helplessly when Moriarty kicks him onto his back. Holmes' hair is plastered to his forehead with sweat; he looks up at his conqueror with eyes gone half-lidded and dark with pain, the lashes fluttering wildly as he struggles to draw breath. The effect is curiously languid. Like a doe-eyed maiden. His jaw is slack with the sort of pain that makes the body disbelieve its own signals, throws higher mental processes into confusion. Sherlock Holmes, stupid with agony. It's delicious. He could not be more vulnerable if he were stripped to the skin.
Moriarty meets his gaze and deliberately grasps the rope, the softest of threats.
"Let's try this again, shall we?" he says, employing the same gentle tone that he uses with all errant students who have not yet mastered their lessons. "To whom. Did you send. The telegram?"
Holmes' chest heaves. "To m--"
The mumble drowns in pain and Holmes collapses, panting. His neck lolls. The man is still making a pathetic attempt to get himself under control, swallowing over and over, eyes juddering behind closed lids like a man in the midst of a nightmare. Holding his composure like water cupped in crushed palms and broken fingers.
Moriarty considers whether this hesitation merits another round, but he does require the information, and he's not certain whether Holmes will remain coherent if he's suspended from the ceiling again. More's the pity. With a sigh, he lowers himself to his knees. Wraps his hand tenderly around the hook.
With a brutal tug he drags Holmes roughly across the floor, savouring the moan he fails to choke back, clamping a hand around the wrist on the uninjured side. As he covers Holmes' body with his own he recognizes anew that the detective is a small man, so much smaller than the force of his personality might lead one to believe. It's a curiously gratifying thought. He squeezes the trapped wrist until he feels bones grinding. Holmes' fingers twitch weakly.
He waits with his ear to the man's lips, feeling every stutter and hitch in Holmes' breath.
"To my brother Mycroft," Holmes says. "Care of - Her Majesty's secret service." His eyes fall shut. With shame, possibly.
Moriarty smiles. He can't resist giving the hook a short, gouging twist that makes Holmes whimper and spasm against him. With a stab of incongruous fondness, he lays two fingers at the hammering pulse point in the detective's neck. Feathersoft. Holmes shudders and shrinks into the cold floor, turning his face away.
What to do with him now. Moriarty wonders how long it would take for Holmes to bleed out, if he were to simply string the man back up and leave him. Some time, probably. Then again, there is nothing to prevent further testing of the limits of his pain tolerance.
Idly, he regrets not instructing Moran to take the doctor alive. It might have been amusing to catalogue Holmes' reactions if Dr. Watson were subjected to the same process; he suspects that the detective would squirm even more compellingly than he is doing now. Moriarty wonders how quickly Holmes would fall to begging.
He gets to his feet so that he can looks down at Holmes - pale grey and shivering - from his full height. The man still isn't broken. Unravelled, yes, splayed in a quivering heap, but there is something of determination yet in the detective's eyes, something relentlessly calculating behind the glassy haze of shock. Moriarty is glad of it. Broken men do not care for humiliation or failure, not as long as it makes the pain stop. But there is enough of Sherlock Holmes left to be tormented by the knowledge that he has lost. Moriarty intends to make the man acknowledge it before he ensures that Holmes can no longer speak for pain.
"I've just got one more question for you," he says, and he is breathing more heavily now, too, hot with the satisfaction of it. "Which one of us is the fisherman, and which, the trout?"
There is a groan like rending metal. For a moment he believes it is the crashing beat of his own pulse, and then--