It probably wasn't normal to think about death as much as Sherlock did. He still remembered his primary school teacher's horrified expression when he turned in his project on Jack the Ripper, complete with several graphic illustrations and a dramatic reenactment, courtesy of him and his only school friend – an equally strange boy named Adam.
The school had called his parents and he and Adam were forced through a series of stupid questions. Where on earth did you read about this? The library. What made you think this was an appropriate topic for a presentation? It was interesting. Why couldn't you have done your project on something more normal?
Sherlock had laughed at that, and thrown a suitably snarky answer back at her. It was because he wasn't normal. He never had been. He was trapped between being too different from his classmates and teachers for them to bear him, and too similar to his peers to be seen as his family's equal.
He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, as the saying goes.
Still, for all he contemplated death, he never thought that much about his own demise. He had never been in a situation where that was necessary. And yet, he might well die today.
Of course he followed that man into the taxi. He could practically hear his brother berating him.
Ever heard of stranger danger Sherlock? You idiot. You're too reckless for your own good.
A taxi. Smart really. If he was a murder (and he wasn't, as much as Donovan insisted he was), he would probably have done something similar.
It smelt how most taxis smelt: cheap booze, cigarette smoke and vomit. Not the most pleasant smelling place, but he had experienced far worse. Rotting corpses reeked badly enough to turn even the strongest stomach, and he had seen his fair share of those. There was a sinister undertone to the generic smell though. It was almost metallic, and strangely sharp.
Blood.
He'd smelt blood.
It was lingering in the air, even after the taxi had (presumably) been scrubbed clean. You can never really be rid of the smell of blood. How many people had died in this car? Several, if the news reports on the suicides were anything to go on, and possibly more whose bodies were never found.
And you'll be next.
Piss off Mycroft.
Sure, he was following the lion into its den, but it was the best way to find out the truth. Besides, even animals can be reasoned with, if given the right incentive. Everyone wants something after all. Sherlock just has to find out what this man wants.
He scrambled for something, anything, that he could say, but found himself at a lost for words. Previously, he could rely on his mind palace to supply him with at least a little information about someone, that was enough to build a conversation on.
He had done it when he'd met John; he'd found a detail and build upon it, concocting an entire conversation based entirely upon John's walking pattern. It had been second nature to him, as easy as breathing, and now that it was impeded, he was struggling more than he had anticipated.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked at last.
"You'll find out soon enough," replied the stranger with a dark chuckle, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.
Sherlock tried to keep track of the twists and turns they made in his mind, but everything started crumbling apart after around twenty minutes (he assumed; time had lost much of it's meaning), as he lost his concentration.
His mouth was dry, and his heart was beating strangely quickly inside his chest. A humming's heart rate was 1260 beats per minute at full flight, and he wondered if his heart rate was fast enough to match that.
It was almost like he was nervous.
But he couldn't be nervous. He was a Holmes, and Holmes didn't get nervous. They did not panic. They did not get jitters. They stayed calm, even in the face of death.
He was a Holmes.
You're better than this.
Was that Mycroft's voice in his mind, or his own? Sometimes it was impossible to tell.
"We're here," said the stranger, stepping out of the car. Sherlock fumbled with the handle, and almost fell out as the stranger opened the door for him. How courteous. He could almost believe this man wasn't going to kill him.
"Where are we?" asked Sherlock, pulling out his stick and holding it like a shield in front of him.
"A nearby university. It closed down a few years ago. Come with me."
Sherlock nodded grimly, and followed the sound of the stranger's footsteps into the building.
The hallways twisted and turned, and Sherlock struggled to remember the path to the exit, just as he struggled to remember their route whilst they were driving here. He relied on sound and touch to navigate these uncharted waters.
The sound of the stranger's footsteps in front of him; the owls calling into the darkness outside; his own breathing, heavy and thick, almost as if he was drowning; the feeling of his cane scraping along the uneven floors, marking any hazards in his path, barring the killer in front of him (he spitefully hit the stranger in the ankles a few times with his stick, and played it off as an accident); the feeling of the cracked plaster underneath his fingertips: it all guided him. A fine layer of dust came off underneath his touch, and he resisted the urge to grimace at the texture of it on his skin. Disgusting.
The stranger led him further into the labyrinth, right into the heart of the maze. The room was musty, and the air was clogged with the smell of moulding paper and burnt coffee.
Before he could stop to figure out where he was, the man grabbed him by the arm and shoved him into a chair. There was a scraping sound – jarring to the ears - as another other chair was pulled out from underneath the table, and the man sat down, as if they were merely conducting a business meeting or an interview.
"Have you figured it out yet?" asked the man.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you figured out the game? How I do it?" He was taunting Sherlock now, playing with his prey before pouncing in for the kill.
Sherlock didn't want to let this man know he had bested him, because some small, narcissistic part of his brain forbade it. However, something in his expression must have betrayed him, because the man laughed. "You haven't have you?" he continued. "I'll make this easier for you then."
Two objects clinked onto the table in front of him. Sherlock moved his hands forwards until he made contact with them, and brought them closer to himself. They were small glass jars, around the size of a pill bottle, and both the same shape, likely made by the same manufacturer. The cap was made of metal, which was cool to the touch. Sherlock couldn't discern what type of metal it was though. He rolled the bottles around in his palm, feeling their weight. Identical.
"One of these pills is a deadly poison," explained the man. "And in the other, is a completely harmless antibiotic, like you could find in any pharmacy. There is no difference between them, at least no difference the average human can detect.
"But I have the feeling you aren't a normal man Mr Holmes," growled the stranger, his face so close to Sherlock that he could feel his warm breath in his face, tinged with the scent of something sharp. Alcohol.
Sherlock examined the bottles once more, searching for any minute difference. Both bottles were unlabeled, and completely identical, just as he had deduced beforehand. He unscrewed the cap, and sniffed the pills from the first bottle, then did the same to the second and compared them. It was a bitter chemical smell, which clung the nostrils, but it was the same on both.
He removed each pill from their bottle, and studied their shape and texture. They were both the shape of generic pills, nothing special. They had a gritty texture to them, and they left powdered residue on his fingertips. Identical yet again.
It was an impossible problem, almost paradoxical in it's nature. How could he be expected to solve it?
Unless that was part of the game.
"There is no difference," he said. "They're the same."
He knew, as he said it, that he was right. "You're correct Mr Holmes," said the man. "The next question you need to answer is how do I make them take it?"
Sherlock's mind raced through a thousand and one different options, all as unlikely as the last. He had to buy some time so he could properly think things through.
"I'd like to propose a game," announced Sherlock. "I can't imagine this is much fun for you right now, so let's spice things up a little. I'll ask you five questions and you will answer them. Then, if I can deduce how you do it – how you kill them – you let me go and turn yourself in to the police."
"And what's my incentive?" growled the man. "What do I get from this?"
"Information. You get to ask five questions of your own, and I will answer them truthfully. It will give you, or whoever's employing you, ammunition."
The man chuckled. "That's not a bad deal," he said.
"So, do we have an agreement?"
The man was silent for a moment. "We do."