"All this running away, running around in circles, what are you going to do when it catches you? Mm? You don't have to fear it. You don't have to run away. I won't hurt you, no, not now, too late..."
Vital systems shutting down. He feels himself beginning to go cold, the chill seeping in through the walls and between the bricks, twisting its way up his arms and legs like vines. Blood pressure bottoming out. Pulse failing; the heart tries its best, but it just can't make it all work, he doesn't have time...
"Too late."
His hands fumble with the straps; they aren't shaking any more, they've stopped trembling and now they're just stiffly failing to respond. But the buckles open up readily, belts snaking through when they're loosed. Sherlock had given escapology a great deal of thought while in school; it was a worthy diversion and had made him feel better-equipped to deal with being tied up in his own coat-sleeves and locked in the gym closet. Helping someone else escape, even James Moriarty, is strangely therapeutic. It requires him to concentrate on something besides himself and lets him martial his mental powers to the service of setting something loose. No more gnashing teeth and lunging. Jim's singing to him, stay, stay, stay. It's no longer a question of staying alive.
His enemy shakes himself loose from the stiff cloth of the straitjacket, working out a kink in his neck with one sinuous motion. His eyes glint with sudden lucidity; for a flashing moment he's not Moriarty the madman, nor hapless Jim, underneath all of it he's the man he was the day he unfolded his plan, his problem, his game.
Sherlock is dying. Moriarty is winning. His abrupt smile is white in his grimy face.
"Thanks for that, mate. Much appreciated."
"You're very welcome," he mumbles. Somewhere, a dozen floors above them, his bloodless lips are trying to form words and all that will come out is damp rapid breathing.
All that's left is the ugliness. And the crying, of course.
"Now, then, you promised, no more running and no more fighting. Stay with me and let it happen, let it pour down over you. It won't even hurt."
"This is the end for both of us, isn't it?" Sherlock emits a weak spasm of a laugh. Out of everything in the vast vaults of his dying mind, it's Jim he comes back to when he needs it most badly. He sinks down beside him and gives up, lets his mind palace do the work of arranging itself around him.
The oxygen isn't reaching his heart, isn't reaching his brain.
Jim's raw-scraped hands are gentle; they take his pulse in his neck, or else they're cupping his face, he isn't sure. His thumb brushes against his mouth, in a moment of sentimentality that ends with ruffling his dark curls and pushing him down against the dirt floor of this oubliette.
"You know me, Sherlock," he says coyly, "would I really want it any other way?"
Sherlock's body grows slack and heavy; his arms are much too heavy to lift, but Jim raises one of them just a little and lets it fall bloodlessly against the dirty floor. He works his grip underneath him and lifts him up. Madonna and offspring, how original.
"Ssh, ssh, ssh. I lied, it's going to hurt. I'm sorry. I really am. But you don't have to let it bother you," he says, with the sardonic loopiness of a bullied child.
Vision is failing him; the dark is tugging him under, insipid and inescapable, and he knows resurfacing is just a dim dream, more than his strength will allow for him. His head falls back and the last thing he sees before the flood of blackness surges over them both is that face, those drug-calm dark eyes surveying him.
He has been kissed, but never like this. He offers himself up to the touch, ghost-lips against his own and a bruisingly dedicated locking of mouths, as if he's making to draw forth his soul. It isn't a comforting kiss as such, as Moriarty's arms tighten around him and draw him up closer, but it connects them.
He tastes swimming-pool chlorine and Semtex, comes up out of it blinking tears from blind eyes. Jim's hands worry through the curls on the back of his head.
"Won't be long now. Carl Powers, that boy, remember him? You be good now and sit tight, and I'll tell you how I really did it..."
fill: "a seance down below", Sherlock/Moriarty (kind of) [major character death]
Vital systems shutting down. He feels himself beginning to go cold, the chill seeping in through the walls and between the bricks, twisting its way up his arms and legs like vines. Blood pressure bottoming out. Pulse failing; the heart tries its best, but it just can't make it all work, he doesn't have time...
"Too late."
His hands fumble with the straps; they aren't shaking any more, they've stopped trembling and now they're just stiffly failing to respond. But the buckles open up readily, belts snaking through when they're loosed. Sherlock had given escapology a great deal of thought while in school; it was a worthy diversion and had made him feel better-equipped to deal with being tied up in his own coat-sleeves and locked in the gym closet. Helping someone else escape, even James Moriarty, is strangely therapeutic. It requires him to concentrate on something besides himself and lets him martial his mental powers to the service of setting something loose. No more gnashing teeth and lunging. Jim's singing to him, stay, stay, stay. It's no longer a question of staying alive.
His enemy shakes himself loose from the stiff cloth of the straitjacket, working out a kink in his neck with one sinuous motion. His eyes glint with sudden lucidity; for a flashing moment he's not Moriarty the madman, nor hapless Jim, underneath all of it he's the man he was the day he unfolded his plan, his problem, his game.
Sherlock is dying. Moriarty is winning. His abrupt smile is white in his grimy face.
"Thanks for that, mate. Much appreciated."
"You're very welcome," he mumbles. Somewhere, a dozen floors above them, his bloodless lips are trying to form words and all that will come out is damp rapid breathing.
All that's left is the ugliness. And the crying, of course.
"Now, then, you promised, no more running and no more fighting. Stay with me and let it happen, let it pour down over you. It won't even hurt."
"This is the end for both of us, isn't it?" Sherlock emits a weak spasm of a laugh. Out of everything in the vast vaults of his dying mind, it's Jim he comes back to when he needs it most badly. He sinks down beside him and gives up, lets his mind palace do the work of arranging itself around him.
The oxygen isn't reaching his heart, isn't reaching his brain.
Jim's raw-scraped hands are gentle; they take his pulse in his neck, or else they're cupping his face, he isn't sure. His thumb brushes against his mouth, in a moment of sentimentality that ends with ruffling his dark curls and pushing him down against the dirt floor of this oubliette.
"You know me, Sherlock," he says coyly, "would I really want it any other way?"
Sherlock's body grows slack and heavy; his arms are much too heavy to lift, but Jim raises one of them just a little and lets it fall bloodlessly against the dirty floor. He works his grip underneath him and lifts him up. Madonna and offspring, how original.
"Ssh, ssh, ssh. I lied, it's going to hurt. I'm sorry. I really am. But you don't have to let it bother you," he says, with the sardonic loopiness of a bullied child.
Vision is failing him; the dark is tugging him under, insipid and inescapable, and he knows resurfacing is just a dim dream, more than his strength will allow for him. His head falls back and the last thing he sees before the flood of blackness surges over them both is that face, those drug-calm dark eyes surveying him.
He has been kissed, but never like this. He offers himself up to the touch, ghost-lips against his own and a bruisingly dedicated locking of mouths, as if he's making to draw forth his soul. It isn't a comforting kiss as such, as Moriarty's arms tighten around him and draw him up closer, but it connects them.
He tastes swimming-pool chlorine and Semtex, comes up out of it blinking tears from blind eyes. Jim's hands worry through the curls on the back of his head.
"Won't be long now. Carl Powers, that boy, remember him? You be good now and sit tight, and I'll tell you how I really did it..."