“You are no viper,” he finally said so softly, it was a little hard to hear him. Sherlock’s brow furrowed but otherwise, he made no moves towards her or away from her. “And if you were, then you’d be met with an expert snake-charmer.” It was a boast in nature but not in delivery, wariness permeated his words. He was used to vipers, spiders, wolves of all sorts… even daemonic hounds. But this wasn’t Baskervilles. This was truly inexplicable, well, so long as he didn’t admit to what the mountain of evidence staring him in the face revealed. She probably could have easily crushed his throat if she desired to.
“And I…” his hand trembled as he brought it from his chest down to a fist in his lap. “Need to know how you did… what you just did. It should be physically impossible. In self-defense, a smaller opponent can thrive if they use their larger opponent’s weight and speed against them. But that wasn’t self-defense.” He knew she knew, but he was speaking to himself for the most part at this point. “That was… effortless for you.”
Sherlock felt like his strength had been sapped from his body and his gaze almost begged her for something. For an answer he could accept. Or not. He wanted the truth. He just wanted the truth to be something else than it was. In fact, he nearly needed it.