whatofthewarts | (no subject)

"She informed them that I did, and she didn't."

He corrects, simply, still watching the play of firelight over the ceiling.

Another bee materializes, and drops stone dead to the floor, head severed. Another failure.

"She had reason to believe that you did."

Irene is--was--arrogant, and often wrong, but she didn't base her assumptions on empty air.

There's no answer now. He's climbing to his feet again, eyes back on the door.

"We're not done yet."

Knowing this about Irene has stoked new fascination.

"Show me the scars."

"Go to hell."

He informs him, tiredly, already know what's coming next.

"What I can't understand is how you act defiant, when you aren't truly helpless. What are you railing against? And why?"

He says it so Sherlock understands the reasoning behind Holmes slamming his heel against the back of Sherlock's knee.

He staggers, but manages to fall with more grace this time, although one wrist gives sort of messily when he lands on it and sends searing white through his eyes.

He kicks out hard, this time at his head.

He hadn't expected it, but is tall enough that when he jerks back away it splits his lip open, rather than knocking him flat.

He hooks his arm around Sherlock's leg, and brings his own foot down on the other man's groin. He pulls it, at the last second--there's contact but it's not brutal. He wants to see how Sherlock takes to someone holding back on him.

...Well. That, and he's struggling valiantly not to retaliate out of anger.

It still hurts though, and he's scrambling wildly away, wheezing for breath, keeping his legs between them. Elbows braced defensively on the floor, he'll mule kick him if he comes closer.

"Had you done this to begin with..."

He has to point that out.

"Now show me the scars. This is scientific curiosity."

"Piss off."

More crude, now. He's not giving him that.

"No need to be difficult."

He's not keen on getting near those long legs again. Doing so would escalate this beyond what he's prepared to do.

"Although 'difficult' seems to be your default state."

He makes a mistake (probably) and scrambles to his feet.

"Really. It's so unreasonable that you not know the entire truth?"

"You, of all people, should know the answer to that."

His tone is clipped, a little bewildered.

"A man cannot have privacy from himself."

"You are nothing like me. Not in any way that matters."

All but spitting at him.

"I hope that is so. I would hate to be a man who simply accepts what is given to him, without real complaint or question."

"You have no concept of how crippling it is to suddenly be living the impossible. Warp time itself to save John. Go on, I dare you to understand it, to try to conquer it. I'm beginning to. Two more years work, maybe three, and I'll make it home. You are not a resource, you're here to fight. I put every waking minute into this, I avoid the other questions, because unlike you I care more about him than I do myself and my own petty little distractions."

Informing him, vitriolic and tight.

"You have no idea of what I will and will not accept."

This is a side of Sherlock that Holmes is aware he also has. He, after all, is willing to die for Watson. To kill for him, or worse. And if it was for Watson, he would take torture without a fight. He has.

And he loosens the top buttons of his own shirt, and pulls it aside to show the gruesome scar in his shoulder.

"Oh yes. I do."

And that is all he says, before he assesses what he needs to do to get Sherlock by the throat, pinned to the table, where he can tear open the other man's shirt.

Buttons scatter, and Sherlock chokes on a groan, bent back over the wood suddenly and bare. He has slightly fewer scars, only by virtue of his age, but a few nasty ones. A close call with a serial killer, the fall off the roof, a gunshot graze, a thousand other close calls.

Irene's beautiful, symmetrical circles, each the size of a small pea, dotting up his back like wings, in vampire-teeth pairs of two from the puncture marks of the hooks.

Scars shouldn't be so perfect. So beautiful, in their way, like abstract art. Holmes's fingers touch each one, two by two, as intently as if Sherlock was just another crime scene to examine.

He uses Sherlock's shirt, twirled into a narrow rope, to tie the man to the table. He wants both hands as he examines him, because some of these scars...some of them are also his.

And more of Irene's handiwork, carved into the top of one shoulder, SLUT, in case Holmes was under any illusions that the relationship was healthy or happy or remotely playful.

In case he wanted ideas.

He's still again, forehead against the wood, ashamed to find himself tearful with frustration and fury.

"This," fingering the word, "Wasn't done for John. Did you enjoy letting her do this to you?"

"Yes."

He answers, which is an oversimplification. That was after Reichenbach. He'd needed to suffer.

He's not sure what 'slut' means in the future; if it carries the same connotation it does now. But given what he knows about the circumstances, and the location, and the way she had carved it...it's very probable that it is the same.

"You aren't this. She chose a word that has nothing to do with your typical behavior. Why?"

"Her precise words at the time were that I would be, if I could make people stand to be near me, but that my personality got in the way."

Maybe it has something to do with the little hitch when he retells the story.

"Colourful reasoning. The point was the debasement."