whatofthewarts | (no subject)

"You don't like me, you aren't going to help me, and I don't believe you."

He informs him, in short order, though he's at least looking at him now, still faintly wary.

"Wrong on two of three counts. You do such shoddy work, it's a wonder you're still alive."

He smirks at him, smug and superior this time.

There it is once more, the moment where his breathing stops.

It's Mycroft, he realizes suddenly. He sounds like Mycroft, who Sherlock has resolutely not thought of since this began.

He's back in his papers with a slow turn of his body.

That wooden stirrer reaches out, slowly, slowly and begins to pull the papers away from him.

Because Holmes does get so irritatingly childish at the drop of a hat.

Fuck you, Holmes, in that case he's out of the chair and headed for the door.

If he won't leave, Sherlock can.

Except for when that stick digs into that nerve at the top of the back of Sherlock's thigh, deep enough to make the leg go dead.

"I do hope I'm not so thoroughly unpleasant as you are. Perhaps you'll grow into someone more like me."

He starts to stagger again, panic constricting tight in his chest. This is bad, his brain supplies, and his body twists and lashes out, less in control this time as his leg gives.

He takes a flailing hit across his cheek, in exchange for getting an arm around Sherlock so he can pull him back against his chest. His leg slides between Sherlock's, and he uses that as a guide as he twists Sherlock off balance and takes them both to the ground. He grasps Sherlock's wrists and holds him as if with a straightjacket, while the taller man's legs are splayed out in front of them.

"There is a very curious thing about this position. Can you guess what it is?"

Bad, bad bad, and he thrashes, wrenching one shoulder rather badly, legs fighting, scrabbling against the floor.

Whatever he's supposed to be guessing, he knows breaking away isn't going to happen. So he stills, and then moves again, a fresh wave of adrenaline propelling him into another massive jerk forwards, wrists grinding, protesting down to the bone.

"You can get out of this! Think!"

Holmes snarls, staying with him as stubbornly as a terrier. Panic can lend inhuman strength, and so he takes a quiet split second to calculate. To predict, to plan. He wants to push Sherlock, and he's not going to make it easy on him.

He's still, but not for thought, yet, just gasping for a lungful of air, then another, waiting for Holmes to move, for a chance to break free.

Despite the advantage of knowing Sherlock's mind, Holmes can't actually tell if he is still panicking or beginning to work through it.

He wonders if he was ever really this young (he was worse, if Watson was to be believed).

"What is the one thing that will get you out of this?"

He doesn't hear a word of that. His whole body is starting to shake from the adrenaline hit, skin like ice where his wrists are being held. He's pliant, now, and still. Very nearly submissive.

He's decided how he'll proceed from here, and it gives Holmes a different sense of power. He relaxes his hold on Sherlock's wrists, just to see.

The degree of freedom seems to worry him more, somehow, shifting uneasily against the space, clear that he oughtn't to bolt, but still shaken badly.

But still, for the moment.

"Is this how you would escape imprisonment? Through model behaviour?"

He chides him, not moving.

"You aren't a prison. You're a sadist."

Sherlock informs him, through chattering teeth.

"Then so are you."

Logically.

"The difference is that you don't know how to get to the position of power. You take what is done to you to save your life."

"No."

He informs him, simply, echoing with reason and belief, though the words of explanation aren't coming. He doesn't need them to. He doubts it's more than another of his cruel stabs.

Although he supposes John would disagree, after the Baskerville case. Without meaning to, the thought of John sends him thrashing again.

He's finally doing something, and so Sherlock allows him to break loose. Not that, with his loose grip and Sherlock's renewed energy, he could have done very much to prevent it.

He ends up sprawled back on one hand, so he kicks out, intending to knock Sherlock onto his side.

He hits the ground hard, losing his breath with a sound like a scream, but twists, intuitively, to get his legs between them, even as his mind threatens with corners of black.

Part of Holmes is aware of how cruel he's being. But Holmes is often cruel for the sake of experiment, and he's certain Sherlock is, too.

He isn't injured, so he's up fast, and he opts to punch Sherlock across the cheek--not quite hard enough to fracture any bones, but enough he hopes to stun him out of the panic. It's hard to say for sure how far gone Sherlock's rational mind is.

It sends him sprawling, wrenches a sound out of him, and there's the other problem. Masochist. He's all limp and good for him again, breathing stuttering, mind swinging wildly between roll over and run. He's still blindly terrified, wouldn't know his own name if asked.

"This isn't going to get you out of anything."

Holmes finally does straddle his stomach, to have better leverage as he digs his thumb into the hollow of Sherlock's shoulder, so deep he might be trying to put his finger through the floor.

There's a moment of uncomprehending eyecontact, and then his eyes roll back and he's thrashing, pinned, battering himself between Holmes and the floor, pinned by the one shoulder.