A/N: Sorry that this chapter is so short, but it was the only place to make a break so the next chapter isn't ridiculously long.
Disclaimer: Sherlock and its characters belong to the BBC, not me.
Sherlock's mind was whirring with thoughts as he ran through the alleys, only keeping track of the mysterious man with great difficulty, as a darker shade of black flashing between shadows and the occasional ghost of echoing footsteps. Who was he? Why was he here? What was his connection to the murders? Why had he beckoned? Questions and answers, equations with numerous solutions, flashed through his mind, webs of possibilities and probabilities spreading out and winding together, connections twisting between them like synapses and linking up to show him pictures of the future and past.
It was a constant process, distracting and unstoppable, maddening. He had no quiet, no peace of mind, ever – not without the drugs, anyway, and Mycroft had made it perfectly clear what would happen if Sherlock ever touched them again. Even nicotine only dulled it slightly, enough that he could float above the twisting, living mess and see where the threads of facts and deductions converged and wound together, thickening. From there, he could plot the courses of people's thoughts and actions, see them as ghosts from the past, work out what they had done and why.
From there, he could see everything, the grand, far-reaching plot rather than just the snippets, flashing behind his eyelids before his mind leapt to a parallel train track. When he had been using the drugs he had sometimes felt like, if he could just reach out that little bit further, find that one last fact to fit into place, he could have unravelled the universe with a thought, bared its soul and its secrets to his inquisitive gaze. His mind was both a gift and a curse – something he hated, but could never bring himself to wish away.
At least the adrenaline of wild, damp, dark race quietened his spiralling thoughts somewhat – right up until the point the chase ended very abruptly in a brick wall. He skidded to a halt, head turning, eyes scanning for a sign of where the other man had gone. They fell on a door, semi-concealed in shadows in a corner, just slightly ajar. A darkly amused smile curved the corners of his mouth, eyes alight with the thrill of the chase; something he'd found himself unable to revel in since Moriarty's death. All the cases had been too dull to merit his attention, but now he found himself engaged in the mystery of the strange man.
He slipped inside the door, pulling it open just far enough to get through, grateful that the hinges didn't screech in protest at the movement. The inside of the building was pitch black, darker than the night outside, a thick, congealing shadow that smothered all of his senses. He stood still for a moment, eyes closed in an attempt to speed up the onset of night vision. When he opened them again, the dark was still there, with only the faintest shadows of walls and objects to help him navigate. He set off forwards, towards the foot of what looked like stairs, one arm stretched out to the side and trailing along the wall.
He failed to notice the black shadow that slipped in behind him and pulled the door shut, pulling a silent bolt across it to lock it in place, which crept up the stairs behind him and followed him into the room at the top.
Sherlock pushed the door directly at the top of the stairs open, wincing at the angry noise it made in protest at the movement. He may as well have just screamed 'here I am' to the empty house. He slid inside as quickly as he could, moving away from the doorway as quickly as he could and into a corner of the room, assuming that his would-be tail would have the same disadvantage as him in the empty house – near-blind, and making tell-tale noises of creaks and squeaks at every turn.
He soon discovered why it was so unnaturally dark in the run-down building. The windows had been boarded over very thoroughly, trapping the light outside. He ran his fingers lightly over the rough plywood where there should have smooth glass. He took a step back from the wall and was about to turn and leave the room when something connected hard with the side of his left knee, knocking him to the ground with a surprised cry of pain as his leg buckled underneath him. He landed on hands and knees, left palm suddenly screaming protest at him as he spread his fingers to brace against the ground. He curled it into a loose fist, clutching it automatically to his chest as his eyes scrunched closed and he sucked in a surprised breath.
Before he had a chance to gather his bearings, a hand fisted itself into his hair and dragged him onto his knees, forcing his cheek against the cold brick of the wall. The other snaked around the front of him, dragging his scarf off and then closing impossibly tight around his throat. He choked, coughing, twisting wildly in an attempt to throw the assailant off, but in vain. The man, for all his short height, was surprisingly strong. He chuckled, hot breath ghosting past Sherlock's cheek as black spots erupted across his vision.
And then, when the blood was roaring past his ears loud enough to drown out all sound and his vision was fading out to black around the edges, the hand let go. He slumped against the wall, gasping raggedly for breath past his bruised throat, and almost missed the soft words that were whispered in his ear.
"Professor Moriarty sends his love, and an invitation to join him in a new game... Sherlock Holmes."
There was something mocking about the way the voice pronounced his name, like it amused the speaker. The words ignited another wave of tension that rushed through Sherlock's body, his eyes snapping open, and a mad, noisy increase to the speed of his thoughts until it felt like there was no space left in his head, and some of them were sure to be cascading out of his ears for there to be enough room. And then the hand in his hair was pulling his head back, and something hard struck his temple. There was a moment of pain, of blinding light searing the insides of his eyelids, and then freefall.
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