Johnny Blue-Eyes
Author's Note: This story is rated T for a reason. Part of that reason is in this chapter. I promise I won't go into too much detail, but consider yourself warned. It gets a little darker from here on out.
Chapter 17: Fire in the Mind Palace
After John left, Sherlock spent the rest of the afternoon attempting to make sense of the pattern of sightings of Miroslav Popovic, trying to deduce where he might be staying. It had to be somewhere in the Newham Borough, because here he was walking down Green Street with a coffee in his hand, and here on Cromwell Road carrying a bag of shopping from Tesco (apparently even hitmen needed jam and tea). But he couldn't quite see it, couldn't quite get the pieces to fall together. His task was made more difficult by the incomprehensible reluctance he felt to entering his mind palace to search for locations that fit the criteria.
It was also difficult to concentrate because his mind felt clouded and sluggish, and it didn't help that his phone kept buzzing and beeping with messages and texts. Stupid Mycroft! Of course he wasn't planning to answer the phone, so why did the idiot keep calling him? It was a distraction, and he couldn't stand distractions when he was trying to work.
He picked up the phone and quickly flicked through the messages. Three calls and even a text from his mother (WL U CALL ME PLS?!) (Ha! Not a chance!), four calls and two texts from Mycroft (Please call Mother), a call and four texts from Molly (all variations on asking him to please call and tell her what was going on). It was annoying.
Turning the phone face-down on the table, he tried again to concentrate. He kept going over the same information again and again, but no new patterns emerged. He was frustrated and confused, which was a very bad combination. It was a combination that usually led to him throwing things, especially breakable things. His gaze fell on his violin, still lying on the side table where he had abandoned it when John showed up. Should probably put that away so I don't accidentally throw it against a wall,he thought.
He picked up the instrument carefully and packed it away. After he had snapped the case shut and tucked it in a corner, he went back to the map. There had to be some detail he was missing, some clue in the photos, but what?
As he leaned in, nose practically touching the photo of Popovic carrying a coffee, he noticed something—parts of a couple of letters were visible on the cup, but he couldn't tell what they were.
Sherlock pulled his pocket magnifier out of the pocket of his coat. Sliding it open, he examined the coffee cup more carefully. It was difficult to see because part of the word was obscured by Popovic's hand. He could make out the letters "affei. . ." and on the other side of Popovic's finger ". . .ow".
The first word was obviously Caffeine or a variation thereof, but what was the other word? While he was trying different letter combinations, Sherlock's gaze shifted from the photo to the magnifier in his hand, and his mind suddenly jumped the rails.
A long-fingered hand holds out a package wrapped in bright paper. "I got you something." Sherlock takes the package in his small hands and rips off the paper to discover a rectangular block of black plastic.
"What is it?"
"Look at this." The man's arms go around him from behind, hands over his hands. He slides the block open to reveal a semi- transparent bubble. "It's for examining things, like a detective."
The man's hands show him how to look through the bubble and everything is bigger and clearer. "Do you like it?"
"Yes, very much."
The hands turn him around. A finger slides under his chin and tips it up. "I love you Sherlock." Then wet lips press to his.
Sherlock found himself sitting on the floor, gasping. The magnifier was still clutched in his hand, and he stared at it wide-eyed. He had never thought about where it had come from, he just had always had it. He had spent hours playing with it when he was a child, examining everything: bugs, the carpet, hair, his hands, his mother's hands, grass. It was familiar, an old friend, but now it suddenly repelled him. With a cry, he flung it hard away from himself, then immediately regretted it. Don't break!
The magnifier bounced, skidded across the floor, and ricocheted off the wall, and he scrambled after it, grabbed it up again from where it had landed half under John's chair. The corner was chipped, but it wasn't broken. As he carefully slid it closed, he suddenly felt hands ghosting over his skin again.
Hands slide down his stomach, loosening his belt and unbuttoning his trousers.
"No, I don't want to. It hurts."
"I want to show you how much I love you."
Nails dig into the flesh at his hips. Pain, an intense feeling of violation and shame. Stop just stop please stop. . .
He sat on the floor with his back to the wall and waited impatiently for the internal slideshow to stop and control to return. But when he closed his eyes, the pictures brightened instead of faded. The colors were garishly oversaturated and Lindt's voice was loud in his ear. You're so clever. My little detective. I love you, Sherlock. This is what people do when they love each other.
Stop it stop it stop it stop it! But no matter how much he shouted silently to his own mind, he couldn't force the images to flee. He should be able to control them, but he couldn't. His control mechanism was damaged (damaged, damaged, damaged, taunted Donovan's voice in a sing-song rhythm). His mind did what it wanted and he had to submit. Just as Lindt had done to him.
He wasn't sure how long he sat there with his eyes screwed shut, but by the time he finally felt under control again, it was nearly dark. In the interim, he had ignored almost a dozen alerts from his phone: more text messages and phone calls from everyone and their dog. He supposed it was gone dinner time, but he wasn't the slightest bit hungry, and besides, there was nothing in the flat to eat anyway, as John and Alice had polished off the jam tarts.
He forced himself to his feet and attempted to examine the map again, without the magnifier this time, but he simply could not focus. He kept feeling those hands on his skin, and since his back was to the door, every few seconds he would spin around, sure someone was behind him. It wasn't long before he gave up and dropped into his chair to think. Why couldn't figure out where Popovic could be hiding? At the moment, he didn't dare enter his mind palace to search his mental map of London, because it would mean walking past that door.
Finally, thoroughly frustrated, he dragged himself out of his chair around eleven and put himself to bed on the sofa. A sleepless night was catching up to him, leaving him leaden with exhaustion. He didn't feel he could face walking all the way down the hall to the bedroom, which at that moment felt like it was on a different continent. He put his phone in "Do Not Disturb" mode. He was tired of trying to ignore the incessant buzzing. He certainly wasn't going to answer the phone, so why even have it ring?
When he woke up from a nightmare, several hours later, it was pitch dark in the flat. Someone had turned off the lamp and tucked a blanket around him (Damn Mrs Hudson!). He kicked at the blanket until it fell off in a heap on the floor, then flopped back on the sofa with a groan. His heart was pounding and he was uncomfortably sweaty. Images from the nightmare still flooded his mind; he pressed his hands against the sides of his head as if he could push them out that way, but they persisted.
He needed to process this logically. He had to open that door and deal with what was inside. He had been putting it off all day, but it was time. He wasn't a child any longer. He was in control of his emotions. The body was just transport. What did it matter what had happened to him over thirty years previous?
Sherlock took a deep breath to compose himself. Not enough. He took another, and then another. By the time he let out the third exhalation, he felt ready to enter his mind palace. He lay back on the sofa. Visualize the mind palace intact and the door repaired, he told himself. You are in control.
With a final deep breath, he closed his eyes. Immediately he was confronted with an image of the door, still shattered and hanging half-off its hinges, with the front hallway dark. Still damaged, dammit. Definitely not good, but he pressed on anyway.
He attempted again to conjure up a strong torch, but again his mind only supplied an infuriatingly dim candle. It would have to do. He stepped around the broken door and entered the hallway with the candle held up to light the way. He tiptoed (tiptoed! In his own mind palace!) down the hallway, past the camping door. He almost would have preferred to enter that door than the one he was heading to.
As he turned the corner, he was confronted again with the blank gray door, now tightly shut. This time he could hear no music behind it. Behind that door lay the source of the confusing and frightening images that he had been plagued with for the past several days. He knew he had to put that room in order, so that he could process what had happened and move on, but he was struck again by an urge to chuck it all and go find Redbeard instead.
No, he had to face this. He had to deal with it. He would be the master of this situation, not the other way round. He held out his hand (never mind that it was trembling) and reached for the knob, only to have it suddenly start to grow, upward, higher and higher until it was level with the top of his head. Not just the door had grown, he realized. The ceiling was twice its usual height and the entire hallway was enormous. Oh, no—the hallway wasn't bigger; he was smaller.
Sherlock tipped his head back and glared up at the doorknob. This door was not going to defeat him. He would open this goddamned door no matter how big it got. He wrapped both his small hands around the doorknob and turned it. The door stuck at first, but when he applied a bit more pressure, it suddenly popped open, startling him. He recovered quickly and pushed the door the rest of the way open. It was dark inside, and cold. He held the candle up, but still couldn't see anything inside. He would have to enter blind.
He tried to listen but he couldn't hear anything over the pounding in his ears. Cautiously, he took a step into the room. The candle's light gave a dim impression of the contents of the room, but he could make out no details. He took another step, then another until he was fully inside the room.
A sudden gust of wind blew the candle out and left him in near total darkness. The door slammed shut behind him, trapping him inside the room. Frantically he conjured up another light source, a lantern this time, because his mind still didn't seem up to producing a torch. He held it up and peered around at the dim room. To his left, a small boy sat in a wooden chair, facing away, with a violin across his lap. Was that a smaller version of himself he was seeing? No, the boy's hair was a surprising shade of ginger.
He turned to his right and suddenly found himself face to face with a man in a brown suit—Mr Lindt, as he looked thirty years previous. He was huge and much too close.
Sherlock stumbled back a step, tripped over the chair, and fell backward into something soft. When he twisted around to look at it, he discovered he was leaning against an enormous teddy bear wearing a red uniform with gold trim, and a tall black hat. One eye was bigger than the other, curved glass, and in it he caught a reflection of his own frightened face. Behind him, he spotted Mr Lindt looming over him with a terrifying smile.
He spun around with a strangled cry just as Mr Lindt's lips pulled back to reveal vampire fangs, dripping with blood. Sherlock's cry died on his lips from lack of oxygen. Dropping the lantern, he grabbed for the door, heaved it open, and sprinted down the hallway toward the front entrance, where he could see a sliver of light from the outside.
Halfway down the hall, his flight was impeded by a figure standing directly in his path: the boy who had been sitting in the chair, wearing a green jumper, slim and ginger-haired with a cowlick that caused his fringe to stand up in the middle. "Why won't you help me?" the boy accused him in a high-pitched voice. "You could have saved me!" Who was this boy and what was he talking about? Sherlock didn't have time to try to puzzle it out; he was too busy trying to get away.
He shot a glance back over his shoulder—the vampire was only a few paces behind, drops of blood glistened on his fangs in the pale light. Sherlock attempted to grab the boy to drag him out the door, but the vampire snatched him from his grasp. Sherlock kept running. Behind him he heard the boy's voice raised in an unearthly shriek, "HELP ME!"
As soon as his foot hit the front step, Sherlock's eyes popped open and he discovered that he was lying on the floor between the sofa and the coffee table with no recollection of how he had gotten there. He carefully picked himself up off the floor and sat gingerly on the sofa. What had just happened? Well, he knew what had happened—he had just been chased out of his mind palace by a vampire. Even now his heart was thumping and beads of cold sweat ran down from his fringe. Perhaps this processing thing was not going to be as easy as he had thought.
His mind felt hazy, like it was wrapped in cotton wool, or possibly full of smoke. He wondered if his mind palace was burning down. He had dropped a lantern in there, after all.