Author's note: I have been somewhat pressed for time in the last few days, so let me elaborate on the dedication.
As I said, UsagiRyu is the best friend I have made in this fandom. If I need soemone to bounce ideas off of, or if I just want to rant, she's there. I cannot thank her enough for it. And this was her idea; I'm just playing with a plot she gratiously bestowed on me. I hope you like it, my friend.
Sherlock stopped with his experiment and carefully put down the cup. His hands were shaking. What had happened? For a moment, he had thought – it had felt –
He couldn't describe what he had felt. But it had been wrong. Like many other things, these days.
He didn't feel like himself anymore. It was not a thought he had ever expected to have, but it was true. Something had changed, shifted inside him.
Even his mind palace was different. He went to it rather seldom – far more seldom than he had before it, whatever it was, began – but it was – there was –
He hadn't been alone. In his own mind, he hadn't been alone.
It was impossible. There was no one but him walking through his mind palace, even if it was no longer the calming and clean place it had once been.
The dreams were another matter. Instead of dreaming of John or his other friends dying, as he had before, he suddenly dreamed about memories he had repressed, when he had felt lost or sad as a child, and the pain was just as acute as it had been then. He could easily reason that the situation of being lost in a supermarket had not warranted being upset when he was awake; but in his dreams, he was five years old again and Mummy had left him in the store and he was never going to see Dad and Mycroft again.
He woke up with tears in his eyes and hated himself for it.
When the nightmares had first started, the feelings they created had only lasted as long as it took him to wake up. But in the last few weeks, they had lingered. He was always upset or sad or scared.
It reminded him of being dead to the world and dismantling Moriarty's web, but it had been easy to deal then. There had been so much to do, and he had had a reason for being upset.
But he was home. He was working. He had John. He had Greg and Molly and Mike Stamford. He had beaten Moriarty. Why would he feel these things? It made no sense.
Maybe that was what scared him the most. His world was built on sense. On deduction. On proof. Not on feelings he couldn't explain, moods he couldn't dispel.
He had got better at hiding them, and because he was forcing himself to rest longer than he usually would, he seemed well-rested despite the nightmares, so John suspected nothing. For a while, the doctor had been worried, based on the glances he threw Sherlock when he thought he wasn't looking and his emergency meeting with Greg. Apparently a little effort on Sherlock's part had been enough to convince him that nothing was wrong.
As long as Sherlock didn't know what was going on, he would believe it. He would not give his friend data that made no sense; he refused to panic about something he could not explain yet.
During the last few weeks, he had struggled with the idea that he might be developing a mental illness. But his symptoms fitted none he had researched, and he functioned just as well as he always had, even if he was constantly on edge.
He hoped he was right and that he simply wasn't too terrified of losing his mind that he refused to see it until it happened and he was irrevocably locked away.
No; he would keep watch. He would be careful. Neither John nor Mycroft – for once he found himself grateful for the constant supervision – would allow that. In fact, he was relieved that Mycroft had not yet reacted to his altered state of mind. If his brother didn't notice, whatever was happening couldn't be as dramatic as he made it out to be.
He hoped.
Before his mind had changed, before he could no longer feel safe in his mind palace, he would have scoffed at the simple suggestion of "hope". With his thoughts askew, he had to rely on feelings, hunches. In his work, he had several times done that, but never without a reason. He had no reason. Only that he felt – wrong. He felt wrong and he couldn't explain it, and his world built on reason was slowly crumbling.
And now that – presence. He had been filling the solution in one of the cups they didn't use anymore because the handle had broken off, when he had had the distinct feeling that he was no longer alone, causing him to put the cup down and looking around, only realizing that no one was there after he had been staring blankly at the kitchen for several seconds.
It had seemed so real. Someone had been standing behind him, looking over his shoulder. Standing very close. He had believed that John had come back from the store without him noticing, as he was wont to do when he was concentrating on an experiment.
But he was alone.
It was crucial in his work that he always knew when someone was around him. Many times, criminals had tried to sneak up on him and had failed because they had announced their presence with too heavy breathing or other small signs, and eventually he had developed a certain sense of whether or not someone was standing behind him. He should know. He should be able to tell. He had been able to when he had been destroying Moriarty's web – otherwise, he wouldn't have been sitting here. It had been dangerous work, and he had done it all alone. He would not have succeeded if he had been –
Like he was now. Unable to realize that he was alone.
What was going on?
He waited for ten minutes, his hands never ceasing to shake, but the feeling didn't come back. Against his better judgement, he made sure that no one had ever entered the flat; it was obvious that it was so.
He had been alone with a mind he could no longer control. It was the only explanation.
Sherlock was scared. The fear permeated through the mind palace. Apparently he had noticed something after all when he'd looked through his eyes. But he would never come up with the right explanation. It was too impossible.
He would not have believed it himself. Then again, maybe he would have. He was always glad to believe something entertaining.
Sherlock being aware that something had happened instead of blissfully ignorant made the game more interesting. He had grown somewhat careless since he had found that he was not immediately spotted when he left his cell during Sherlock's waking hours. It had grown a little boring, to be honest; what was manipulation without a challenge?
But sensing Sherlock's fear, he almost danced back to his cell. Sherlock knew something was there. He might not believe it, but he had sensed it.
His enemy finally knew they were playing. He felt like the day he had sent Sherlock the letter, fondly remembering forcing the woman to write it. The wait for the consulting detective's reaction had been delicious in itself.
It was tempting to make himself known, but until he had located something of Sherlock's conscious mind that he could attack at once, instead of running around in his mind palace and hope for the best, it was too dangerous. He didn't want a fight that he could win effortlessly, but he also didn't want a fight that he would lose to begin with.
If he lost, he lost. But he wanted a chance. He needed a chance. He had never been one for desperate measures – well he supposed his suicide could be called desperate, but really, he had been bored – and attacking after he had done everything not to be noticed yet...
No. It also would take away the fun of having Sherlock doubt his own mind, as doubt it he must. He had always wished for things to be clever. He wouldn't be able to tell how clever this way of fighting him was until the first great attack – and if that wasn't clever enough for him, it was not his enemy's fault.
He could not wait to see if he could access other sensory organs too. It had been a long time since he had tasted tea or heard music, other than in his or Sherlock's memories, and despite the details the consulting detective put into them, he was always left feeling unsatisfied. Perhaps he had always drunk a little too deep out of the cup of life to be limited to memories only. Sherlock really should have thought more carefully about what he was putting in his mind palace, so carefully constructed and guarded.
It was of no use now, though. Now he was here and he was playing.
And if he could follow the fear to its source, use it to navigate through the darkness of the subconscious, to Sherlock's innermost thoughts, the place where his conscious sprang from –
Fun times were ahead.
Author's note: Please review.