Chapter Text
In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that layed him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains
-Simon & Garfunkel, "The Boxer"
xxxx
Lestrade wakes to dim lights and dull noises, like the sound of shuffling feet. He cracks open an eye, decides that it isn’t worth the pain, and clamps it firmly shut again.
“Now, now, Inspector,” a voice says cheerfully, and there’s a hand tapping his face. He wishes it would stop. “That’s quite rude, don’t you think? Do wake up, there’s a good man.”
“Fuck off,” he says, and good, the rope around his throat earlier hadn’t done anything to the warning rumble of his voice. He forces as much menace into it as he can, but all it earns him is another mirthless chuckle.
“I really would rather not. You’re much too entertaining to leave alone for long. Did you know it took two of my men to take you down? How delightfully surprising, you are.”
Lestrade finally manages to get both his eyes open, and the cracking is not simply a metaphor - something has dried on his face and over his eyelids, and more likely than not it’s blood. There’s a stinging along his hairline that strengthens his theory.
He sees that he’s in what seems to be an expansive room. The lights are low enough that he can’t see most of it, but going by the way their voices carried - he’d guess warehouse, or something similar. Something remote.
Something isolated.
Lestrade fixes his gaze on the man before him. He’s neither exceptionally tall nor exceptionally short and is dressed impeccably. His has a cruel mouth, and right now it’s twisted into a smirk. Lestrade sighs.
“What do you want?” He tries to sound terribly put-upon, and frankly it isn’t really much of a stretch. He has things that need to be done, and he can’t very well do them while tied to a chair in a warehouse with a lunatic looming over him. He’s much too exhausted to even feel more than a prick of panic. Really, all he feels is annoyance.
“Sherlock has his pet. Now I have mine.”
And that’s when it finally clicks.
“You’re him.” Lestrade licks his lips; tastes copper. “That - Moriarty fellow.”
Moriarty. A name Sherlock had spoken in a tone akin to reverence before the pool incident; a name that afterward barely graces the lips of the residents of 221B. John is still recovering from the wounds sustained that day; so is Sherlock, in his own way, but his aren’t visible to the naked eye.
“But who is he?” Lestrade had demanded finally of Sherlock one day a few weeks back, the two of them holed up in his office, hunched over cups of tea and witness statements.
“He’s me,” Sherlock had said finally, in a surprising - and frightening - show of human insight. Lestrade had been taken aback, and murmured something insufficient along the lines of Sherlock not being one to harm innocent people.
“I take it, then, Inspector, that you conveniently glossed over the part in my statement where I described Doctor Watson wearing the bomb. Perhaps you should go back and read it through more carefully,” Sherlock had replied acidly, and Lestrade had wisely dropped the subject.
The man inclines his head. “Well deduced, Inspector. I see that our mutual friend is rubbing off on you. And in more ways than one, it would seem.”
Lestrade bristles at the insinuation and fights the urge to correct him. But it hardly mattered, really, what the man thought of them; no use wasting his breath on such inane details.
“I’ll ask again - what is it you want?” Lestrade tells him impatiently. He really hasn’t time for this, he thinks. He has cases and paperwork and Christ, he had been expected for dinner over an hour ago.
“I took the liberty of canceling your little appointment, Inspector,” Moriarty tells him, reading quite perfectly his thoughts. Lestrade suppresses a sigh. Great. Another Sherlock. Just what he needs right now. “You won’t be missed for some time.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question, and I’m tired of asking it,” Lestrade snaps as he shifts in the chair. His hands are bound behind his back and his shoulders are beginning to ache with the odd angle. His feet are bound to each leg of the chair at the ankles, and this strikes him as quite odd. Then he realizes that he doesn’t really want to contemplate Moriarty’s reasons for binding his feet so that his legs are spread wide and instead tries to turn his attention to other matters. “You said it took two of your men to take me out.”
The comment is a blatant play for time as he tries the ropes that bind his wrists, and likely Moriarty realizes that but Lestrade can't bring himself to care. Unsurprisingly, the bindings hold fast, but if he could distract Moriarty long enough, he could try to work at them - stretch them out.
It’s foolish, he knows. He’s never been able to outwit Sherlock, not once in the five years they’ve known one another. So how can he expect to outwit the man’s intellectual equal, let alone escape?
Well, Sherlock’s accused him of being a fool on more than one occasion. He supposes that now is as good a time as any to start living up to that assessment.
Moriarty flashes Lestrade a thin smile that cuts through the air like steel. “Correct, Inspector. Don’t worry, though; I have plenty more.”
“And what makes you so sure that they won’t end up the same way?” Lestrade asks.
“Oh, feeling confident, are we, Lestrade? Wonderful. I do so love the half-witted ones. You’re all so much fun, in the end.” Moriarty reaches out and touches Lestrade just on the temple, and the stinging intensifies for a moment. His fingers are dark with blood when he draws them away. “You should be careful, though. I wouldn’t want you to get more...damaged than you already are. Well – I don’t want you damaged at another’s hands, at least.”
“I’d spend less time worrying about me and more time wondering what you’re going to do once I finally get my hands on you,” Lestrade tells him smoothly. Damn. That blow to the head seems to have done wonders for lowering his inhibitions. “I’m a patient man, Moriarty, but I don’t take kindly to being manhandled. Now, where’s Sherlock?”
“Oh, you are a feisty one, aren’t you?” Moriarty croons with delight. “I was expecting to be disappointed - you seem quite dull, you see - and here you’ve gone and surpassed all my expectations before the fun has even started! Excellent.”
“Where’s -”
“Yes, yes, Sherlock,” Moriarty interrupts, turning away and waving a hand impatiently. “He’s perfectly safe, I assure you, as is his little plaything.”
“What are you going to do to him?” Lestrade demands.
“Nothing.” Moriarty smiles. “This is all about you, Inspector. As I’ve said, I’ve grown weary of not having a pet of my very own. Sherlock makes it look like such fun. I do hope you’ll be as amusing to me as dear Doctor Watson is to our little detective.”
“Well, if all you’re looking for is someone to follow you around saying, ‘Fantastic!’ you could have just said so. The ropes really are overkill.”
He feels an instant pang as the words come out of his mouth because that’s not John at all - he’s so much more; he grounds Sherlock in a way that no one (not even Lestrade) can - but Moriarty doesn’t know that. He’s not capable of processing - of comprehending - such things.
“No, not at all, Inspector. I know my work is extraordinary. No, all I want from you is a little entertainment - a scream here, a bit of blood there. Inconsequential, really, and I’m so hoping that you’ll indulge me.” He rattles his list off cheerfully, as though he were asking for a bit of tea.
“Oh, is that all?” Lestrade asks weakly. He’s suddenly so very tired.
“No, not quite.” Moriarty whirls on him and grabs him by the collar of his shirt, slamming him into the back of the chair and twisting the fabric in his hands so tightly that it begins to cut off Lestrade’s air supply. He leans down, lips brushing the shell of Lestrade’s ear, and whispers, “Because when all that’s done - I’m going to break you, Lestrade. You will become unrecognizable. And then - then I’m going to return you to our friend. I think it’d be a most delightful present, don’t you? Sherlock and I will share everything.”
He traces a line down Lestrade’s jaw with his finger. “Absolutely everything. I’ll know you as intimately as he does. I find that rather exciting, don’t you? And I’m sure - quite sure, in fact - that Sherlock will, as well.”
Lestrade almost laughs at the absurdity of the statement, because that’s not it at all - that’s not what he has with Sherlock. But the more time Moriarty spends with him, the less time he can spend on the rest of the world at large; the less time he can spend devising ways to torture the detective. Lestrade swallows back his correction and replaces it with a reasonably-frightened sounding, “Please, don’t.”
He has picked up a few things from Sherlock over the years, whether the detective intended it or not. The ability to adopt a mask - on a whim - is one of them, and he developed that more out of self-preservation than anything else. He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he should be frightened. He should be terrified. And maybe he is, but he’s channeling it into this grim-faced determination. He’ll take whatever Moriarty decides to dish out, because him having to endure it is a thousand times better than Sherlock having to otherwise. He’ll distract the man for as long as he can.
“I’m rather afraid that I can’t do that, Inspector. I do get so frightfully bored, you see. Now then.” Moriarty turns away. There’s a small table to Lestrade’s left, just on the edges of his periphery, and he hears Moriarty plucks something from it. Balancing the object tenderly in his hands, he turns back to Lestrade. His smile is anticipatory. “We’ll start with this, I think.”
xxxx
It isn’t so bad, Lestrade reflects as the riding crop bites into his skin, even through his layers of clothes. Yes, well, it does hurt, he’ll grant that. And he’ll have some interesting-looking welts across his chest when this is all over. But, in the long run -
“Shit,” Lestrade hisses in spite of himself - he’d been so good at keeping quiet up until this point - as Moriarty suddenly changes his target area and whips the riding crop across his cheek. He tastes the tang of copper immediately, and the corner of his mouth has been split wide open; he can feel blood begin to trickle down his jaw and snake down his neck, curling around to lick at his collar bone.
“Have your attention now, do I?” Moriarty drawls. “I was beginning to think that I’d lost it. You seem - preoccupied.”
“Just - thinking about all the paperwork you’re keeping me from,” Lestrade replies as coolly as he can manage. “D’you think you could hurry it up? I have things to do.”
“You’re bold, Inspector. I like that.”
“Do you? How fascinating. Please, tell me more.”
The smart remark earns him another violent crack with the riding crop, but damn had it felt good to say.
“I grow tired of your insolence, Lestrade.”
“Yeah, well, I grow tired of listening to you talk. Since we’re both in agreement, why don’t you release me? I can be a hell of a headache if I put my mind to it, and I’m sure you have better things to do.”
Moriarty draws the tip of the riding crop down Lestrade’s cheek, and he spends several long moments considering his captive. Lestrade meets his gaze unwaveringly, and it occurs to him that it’s an interesting parallel. The riding crop is one of the more eccentric tools that Sherlock uses at Bart’s. He wonders if Moriarty knows about Sherlock’s odd preference for it, and then realizes it’s an idiotic question. There’s very little, Lestrade imagines, that Moriarty does without a reason. He's so very much like Sherlock in that respect, but Lestrade doesn’t like making that connection and quickly pushes it from his mind.
“No, I don’t think I’m going to do that,” Moriarty says finally, and the riding crop comes to rest against Lestrade’s clavicle. It rests there, quivering as though it’s vibrating with energy, ready to strike at any moment. But Moriarty does nothing further; he’s simply watching, now, as though contemplating his next move.
Lestrade shifts slightly under the unblinking gaze and winces as the rough fabric of his shirt is dragged across his abused skin. He can feel the bruises beginning to form on his chest and he wonders, absurdly, if they will look like those that form on Sherlock’s corpses. The detective will want to study them, Lestrade knows, when this is all over.
The image floats unbidden across his mind - Sherlock, curled up next to him on the bed, elegant fingers tracing the welts that crisscross Lestrade’s chest, murmuring something about the speed at which the riding crop hit him; the force with which it was applied. He’d probably deduce from that Moriarty’s shoe size or what he had for breakfast that day. It’d fascinate him, and Lestrade can see him, piercing eyes wide with wonder and lips parted ever so slightly, drinking in the scene before him. Lestrade, vulnerable and quiet under his probing fingers, his body a road-map of Moriarty - oh, yes, Sherlock would find that fascinating indeed.
“You’re thinking about him, aren’t you?” Moriarty says in an almost-tender voice that sends chills up Lestrade’s spine.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Lestrade says impatiently, and moves his head away from the riding crop. “And get that out of my face.”
The next crack stuns him momentarily, the blow having been landed across the side of his head.
“I’ll do with this what I like, Inspector,” Moriarty whispers. “Now - tell me about our friend. I’m ever so curious.”
“He’s no more your friend than he is mine,” Lestrade retorts.
“Now, come, Lestrade - I know you’re a bit dim, but do you really think you can pull one over on me? Especially with something as blatant as that. How long have you been sleeping with him?”
Lestrade laughs aloud; this time, he can’t help it. “I’m not.”
“You know, if there’s one thing I can’t abide, my dear, it’s lying.”
“Then I’ll be sure not to lie to you, won’t I?” Lestrade tries to again shift imperceptibly in his chair; the ropes are biting into his skin and he’s beginning to lose feeling in his legs. “Besides, you’re the genius - you tell me.”
Moriarty smirks, and a moment later he slams his fist into Lestrade’s nose. It begins bleeding instantly and Lestrade makes a choked noise in the back of his throat - a grunt of pain that he manages to swallow back in time.
“I’m afraid that’s not how this works, Lestrade. Look at me.” Moriarty seizes Lestrade by his lapels and pulls him forward, forcing him to sit up straight. “I ask the questions, and you answer them. Are we clear, my dear?”
Lestrade sniffs back a bit of blood and says, “This shirt was new, you know, and I was actually rather fond of it without the blood down the front. I’ll be sending you the bill, you can be sure of that.”
He gets a blow to the gut for that one, but it doesn’t stop him chuckling even as a shadowy corner of his mind begins to wonder how much longer he’ll be able to keep it up. For Sherlock, he hopes long enough.
xxxx
The rope is next, and that quickly stamps out Lestrade’s grim mirth.
Moriarty doesn’t speak through it all - doesn’t need to. He’s working, Lestrade realizes, and he can’t be bothered to interrupt the art he is creating with something as pedestrian as talk. It’s another comparison to Sherlock that he has to push forcibly from his mind.
Moriarty stands behind the chair, where Lestrade can’t see him, and loops a rope around his neck so that it’s pressing gently against his skin, just below his Adam’s apple. For a while - twenty seconds, thirty seconds, perhaps a minute - he lets it rest there. And then he pulls.
It’s slow, agonizingly slow - the rope digs carefully into Lestrade’s skin and his heart grows increasingly louder in his ears. Blood pulses in his neck, beating against the rope, and his breaths grow increasingly ragged. He quells the panic for as long as he’s able, forcing it down, willing his heart to slow - but then comes the point when even ragged breaths become nonexistent and he’s flaring his nose and nothing is coming through.
His chest strains and burns with the lack of air and he thrashes against his will, straining against his bonds as much as he is able, trying to escape the pull and only making it worse for himself in the end. The panic is difficult to mask once all oxygen stops flowing into his lungs, and all other thoughts flee from his mind. Sherlock, Moriarty, the dank room - all of it is irrelevant as the world around him fades to a single point.
Moriarty pulls him to the brink of oblivion more than once, waiting until Lestrade’s vision starts to tunnel and his movements become jerky and erratic before releasing him. Lestrade falls forward, slumping in his bonds as he drags great gulps of the warm, damp air into his lungs. He’s allowed a brief reprieve while Moriarty runs the rope through his hands, reverent; caressing it as he would a lover, and just as the world around him begins to clear the rope makes another appearance around his throat and the ritual begins again.
The third time it happens, a weak protest slips out - more a sound than an actual word, but understood in any language - before Lestrade can catch himself. He feels Moriarty smile, but the man continues to say nothing as the rope tightens its grip once more. He knows Moriarty has no intention to kill him just yet - but, each time, as the rope closes around his abused windpipe, he can’t help wondering if it’s the last.
“I can keep going, you know,” a voice whispers in Lestrade’s ear just as his chest is beginning to burn. His head is tilted back and he’s slammed his teeth together so hard that they feel about to crack; he hears, distantly, muffled by the pounding in his ears, strangled whimpers that skitter up the scale until they are indistinguishable from a child’s. It takes several moments for him to realize that they come from his own throat and he clamps down on them furiously, drawing on the last of his reserves to grind out a sentence because it is infinitely better than the plaintive noises that are alien to his ear.
“You won’t.”
“What was that?” Moriarty’s grip slackens, and Lestrade sucks frantically at the air, taking in as much as he can before it’s denied to him once more. His head surpassed the point of throbbing ages ago - it’s pounding so loudly now that he’s surprised Moriarty hasn’t yet commented on the noise.
“You - won’t,” he grinds out between gasps, “kill me - yet.”
“Oh?” Moriarty is coiling the rope through his hands again; Lestrade can hear the tell-tale sound of (burlap) running over skin. “Please do enlighten me; I would love to hear what brought you to this amusing conclusion.”
“Because,” Lestrade lifts his head up, staring out across the darkened room, forcing his words forward even as he’s still gasping, “I amuse you. And - if you don’t have - me, then Sherlock won’t come - for you. That is what you want, isn’t it?”
He snaps it out as viciously as he can, but it just sounds weak to his ears. Moriarty chuckles and moves away. Lestrade hears the rope being set down on the table and, against his will, he feels his heart unclench ever so slightly.
Moriarty comes around to the front of the chair and bends at the waist, far too close for Lestrade’s liking - close enough that the DI catches a whiff of fresh soap from the man’s hair, and the scent is jarring. Moriarty, consulting criminal, madder quite possibly than even Sherlock and the man who recruited unwilling suicide bombers because he was bored, deigning to take something as human as a shower. His eyes fixate on Lestrade’s neck for some moments - seconds or minutes, he can’t tell - and he runs the tip of his tongue across his lips, reminiscent of a snake.
Lestrade jerks his head back as Moriarty reaches out a hand but the man only touches his neck, running a finger along the lines that have been cut in there by the rope. His thin lips pull into an appreciative smile. Lestrade can only imagine the state of his neck - deep bands of purple and pink burnt into the skin, overlapping one another until it looks like a collar made of bruises.
“Beautiful.” Moriarty traces a finger around the outside of Lestrade’s ear once his examination of his handiwork is complete, and the hairs at the base of Lestrade’s neck stand on end. “That is what Sherlock calls you, isn’t it? Beautiful.”
“You clearly don’t know him at all if you think he’s one to go in for such...endearments,” Lestrade whispers back, voice reminiscent of a record after the strain of the rope - rough, with an underlying hiss in the background.
Moriarty continues as though he hasn’t heard. “I wonder what he’d think if he could see you now - d’you think he’d like it? I do so hope he will.”
“Seeing as he doesn’t make a regular habit of choking me, no, I can’t say that he will.”
“But he does like to keep you in your place, doesn’t he? That’s simply all I’ve done here. Kept you in your place like the dog that you are. Now, Greg - it is Greg, isn’t it?”
“Surely my first name isn’t something that’s slipped your surveillance. If so, well, I would think about getting a new career.”
“I don’t recall asking for commentary on my methods, dear. And yes, of course I know your name is Greg. But is that what they call you?”
“What business is that of yours?” Lestrade retorts, and earns himself a crack across the jaw. That one stings and there’s a soft click just below his ear as he works his mouth, making sure that it hadn’t been broken. Pain blossoms up the side of his head but he can still move the joint; so, nothing broken.
“I also don’t recall giving you permission to ask the questions,” Moriarty whispers.
Lestrade bites the inside of his cheek and finally mutters, “They call me Lestrade.”
Moriarty smiles and pats his cheek; Lestrade flinches. “Good, good. See, now, that wasn’t so bad. And is that what Sherlock calls you?”
Lestrade doesn’t answer; Moriarty grabs him by the chin, yanking his head forward.
“Answer me,” he growls, charm vanishing. “What does he call you, Lestrade? I’d rather not get it wrong, you see.”
Incompetent. Foolish. Imbecilic. Moronic. And, on one memorable occasion, sycophant, which John had discreetly looked up on his phone while Sherlock raged. Lestrade has come to realize, over the years, that the angrier Sherlock gets, the more obscure his vocabulary becomes.
But - well, there are always exceptions to the rule, especially where Sherlock Holmes is concerned. At the crime scene, on the phone, at the Yard, he’s called “Lestrade” by the detective. Once in a while it becomes “Detective Inspector,” but on Sherlock’s tongue it’s mocking more than anything else. He’s shortened to “L” in text messages.
And now and again - in the first moments after sleep, when they are wrapped lazily in the last vestiges of night and half-concealed from one another; in the hospital, when one of them is full of painkillers and the other is drugged on worry; in the aftermath of the nightmare - he becomes “Greg.”
No. Moriarty can’t have that. He can take everything else - and likely he will - but that name belongs to Sherlock.
It’s too late - Moriarty has taken his silence for confirmation of his first guess and is drawing back, a slow smile beginning to bloom on his face.
“How dear. The world’s only consulting detective - and the only person on planet who uses your first name. Isn’t that right? Oh, how wonderfully cliché and so very Sherlock. It’s not good enough for him to simply follow - he has to lead. Forge his own path.” Moriarty draws closer. “Now you see, Greg, why he and I are so similar. Why he would ever waste time on someone as unremarkable as you - well, when I’m done with you and he’s seen my work, he’ll be wondering the very same thing.
“So, Greg, what shall I do to you next? What do you think Sherlock will like?” There’s a clatter on the table, and a moment later Moriarty says, “I’m a bit partial to this, myself.”
Something is pressed into Lestrade’s neck. It’s only when he feels the sharp prick of his skin and sees a glint out of the corner of his eye that he realizes it’s a knife.