The night was still and the flat was quiet.
Sherlock took a deep breath and picked up his violin. He drew out a long, unwavering note. It hung in the air of the room empty of anyone but him for a few long moments. After a moment of hesitation, the bow was to the string and he was playing. He accessed his mind palace and opened the one door he kept locked for everything except when he played: The door for emotions and imagination.
Fire flew from the tips of his instrument, resonating off the walls, crumbling them. Sherlock closed his eyes. The walls of reality came crashing down. Shards of crystal danced in the air as the colour of his music came to life. The space around the musician stretched out into a vast, never ending space. He played on, the only thing he knew being his music.
The notes rode up and down, being fast and intense then suddenly perfectly melted into a slow melancholy. He let it flow through him, coursing through his entire body. His bow moved faster over the strings, the notes becoming tense and terse over the strings. Images and memories flashed before his eyes, he translated them into sound.
John, the sound was rich and sweet, but there were spikes of intense high notes when he pulled on the string.
Irene, melodious and classy, but a complicated melody, underlying tones wove through it. He played underneath the melody a hauntingly familiar one he remembered composing one time before.
Moriarty was surprisingly easy; the notes were always flat or sharp, always too high or too low. The melody was slow but there were many points where he would almost scrub at the Stradivarius with how fast he would work his bow.
He was alone in the dark, every though of logic, he allowed to wash away. When he pulled out wailing high notes, it satisfied him, the air around him rose with high energy. Sherlock kept playing. The melody melted away from people and into general ideas. Sherlock scraped the music into unpleasant screeches, furrowing his brow as he did so, until the screeches finally melted into an angry series of quick notes only punctuated by scrapes. These notes became cleaner until they were an adventurous melody that also spoke of danger.
The notes rose around him, like water and dust and silver, coming up in an impressive rise, coming to crash down above his head. The music rose to a crescendo and reached a climax. His instrument was wailing out notes of silver-blue flames. Everything got louder, faster, more intense. His emotions piled up in those last few seconds of song. Every feeling he had to shut away swarmed into the music, crawling up and wrapping their way around his song. It was so much, he couldn't… Just couldn't. He lifted his bow and pulled down its length over the strings in a loud, high wail. And he stopped.
Reality seeped back in, the walls in 221B, and the window at which he stood. The silence that had taken hold just seconds ago when he ceased playing. Hesitantly, he shoved away all the imagination and emotions and shut and locked the door. He found that a single tear had fallen. He took a deep breath, swallowed, composed himself and lowered his violin. The instrument was put delicately back in its case and he checked the time. He had been playing for two hours. His whole body ached from standing and playing non-stop for that long. But Sherlock was Sherlock.
Before letting any more racing thoughts back into his head, the musician ran a hand through his hair and went back to his room. He shut the door softly and tried to sleep.
When the morning came, John commented that he had been up in the night, playing for hours on end. Sherlock pretended to care little.
"I felt like playing." He offered. And said nothing else.