open;

[alldeduction]

WHO| Sherlock and OPEN
WHAT| Sherlock wakes up in the capitol, a week and a half late
WHEN| Now
WHERE| District 2 Suite, elsewhere*
WARNINGS| Depression, possible mention of suicidal thought

((OOC: *I'm totally willing to use this as a catch-all post for threads with Sherlock over the next week or so, just pm me or hit me up on plurk and I'll make a new opening for you in the threads.))



He was late.

It wasn't that he knew it. Not reasonably, not intellectually. He could just feel it, as if he'd missed time and felt the hole it left. So when he opened his eyes and he was back in this room in the capitol, he knew in that very second that he was later than he'd ever been. He sat up, and the pain was gone. He'd lived with that endless pain for weeks, and here he was, brand new. Impossibly perfect.

Except that he wasn't. The scars where just invisible, criss-crossing deep under his skin where no one could see them.

He scrubbed his face with both hands before peeling out of bed, and immediately froze.

"Joan."



Later

He walked mutely to the closet so dutifully curated by his stylist, and picked out an outfit that was the least atrocious thing he could get his hands on. Something simple and black, high necked, long tailed. Everything he put on was black, he didn't feel like colour.

He wasn't supposed to be alive.

He stepped to his door and opened it. Emblazoned across it read the word Sadist in big, angry, spray-painted letters. He knew immediately who it was from, and reached out to touch them with a kind of muted disdain.

Disdain for himself, not the word. He had to work with the available evidence, and the evidence was giving truth to the statement.

Comments

[alldeduction]

"Not if we share more than a name, no," Sherlock agreed, pulling the sheets back so he could step out of bed. They'd dressed him in his pajama pants, but nothing else, and he reached for his robe that was still thrown over his chair from when he'd left it.

As if nothing had happened.

"I'm sorry. For failing to reach you in time."

[formersurgeon]

"There was nothing you could have done. It was Orc. He wasn't himself, though...I think he'd been bitten by R.. He rampaged past, and I just happened to be in the way. You couldn't have saved me afterward, and if you had been there, you just would have been killed, too."

[alldeduction]

Sherlock did not look so convinced as he pulled on his robe, each arm carefully through the sleeve.

"I am quite sure I could have done something," He said lowly, almost a growl. Not because it was true, but because he needed to believe it.

Finally, though, he looked up at her.

"... And you're fine," He stated, as close as he could come to asking after her.

[formersurgeon]

He was wrong, of course, but she knew him well enough to know that he was aware, and that he needed to believe the lie. She wouldn't take it from him at that moment.

He asked after her, in his way. "Better, now that you're back," she answered, lifting her eyebrows in emphasis.

[alldeduction]

"Didn't intend to alarm," He murmured, though in reality he simply hadn't meant to come back at all.

He had plenty of questions, all of them petty, all of them dealing with feelings, so he left them unasked as he walked to the window. He pressed his finger tips against it, peering down into the city, even though he knew that even this was just a projection.

What was there to say? He hadn't expected to wake up at all, let alone a week and a half late.

[formersurgeon]

"Another thing you have no control over."

She followed him to the window, standing just behind him and slightly to the left. She was silent for a moment, then spoke softly.

"It can't be easy, meeting Sherlock. Especially like that. How do you feel about him being here?"

[alldeduction]

His fingers twitched against the glass, tightened into a fist and then fell to his side before he turned towards her.

"Nothing," he lied flatly. "Why, am I meant to feel something? Is it meant to matter? It was only a matter of time."

[formersurgeon]

"Mmm," she said, noting all of it, his hands, his tone, his clearly untrue words.

"It must really get to you. Because you're usually a much better liar."

[alldeduction]

"As you and John are so quick to remind me, I'm a terrible liar," Sherlock pointed out primly.

"It doesn't matter, Joan. I thought it meant the Capitol wouldn't resurrect me, but obviously I was wrong. Beyond that, my feelings on the matter are entirely moot."

[formersurgeon]

"Pretty sure they're not. Your feelings do matter. Because they matter to me." She took a small step closer. "I don't know why the Capitol brought him here, but you need know that he's not a replacement. You didn't take his place in my life. And he doesn't take yours."

[alldeduction]

"Joan, I am well aware that one of me is more than enough to attempt to put up with at any given time," He said a little tensely.

"If you think I feel jealousy," which he did, "Then you are wrong." She really wasn't. "I have unique experience, and as I told him in the arena, I know how much he needs you, better than I think he does, considering that he's never had to go without you, since he met you."

Sherlock, on the other hand, had spent several months in Panem before John had arrived.

[formersurgeon]

Another step closer. "How much he might need me isn't the point," she countered, her voice a little tighter. "This isn't about my relationship with him. This is about you and me. I'm not 'putting up eith' anybody. You're my friend. And that's not going to change."

She had seen their encounter over her body. Seen how Sherlock reacted to his counterpart. Knew full well his claim to not feel jealousy was a lie.

[alldeduction]

"I don't have friends!" Sherlock bit out, more viciously than he meant.

"I pitied you," He lied, and the words ground through his throat like glass, but he knew he needed to get them out. Knew that he needed to put the distance between them, even if she didn't want it. "I pitied you, for having lost him, so I took you in, in the meantime. Because who wouldn't be drawn to this mind? Who would be able to give it up? But he's back, now, so I don't have to pretend. You have who you wanted."

[formersurgeon]

She went very quiet, very still, and looked down, trying to hide the hurt in her eyes. He was lying. Of course he was. He had to be. Because it was a lie that he didn't have friends. John was his friend. And Sherlock needed John.

And Sherlock lied to John. Pretended John was something more to him than he actually was. So why wouldn't he pretend this? For whatever reason?

"No." she said, low and very, very quiet, as if she didn't trust her own voice. "You don't pity people. And if it were true, if you were just humoring me? You wouldn't have broken Howard's hand like you did."

She was quiet again for a moment before lifting her face to meet his eyes, the pain still there.

"I hope John comes back," she said, her voice still quiet, but steady. "You need him."

She turned and went for the door.

[alldeduction]

The pain in her eyes was surprisingly painful, and for a moment it nearly broke the rouse - for half a moment the desperate child in him, the one that yearned to be loved, wanted to scream out after her, to tell her that he was sorry and he didn't mean it.

But he hadn't listened to that hardened part of his heart in a long, long time.

"I simply don't like people touching my things," He said, talking about Howard, figuring he should phrase it in the worst way he could manage.

He would hate him for a while, he figured. But it was necessary. There wasn't meant to be two of him in the world. He had always meant to be singular. The world's only consulting detective.

But now there were two and he couldn't pretend that Joan was his anymore.

And couldn't believe that anyone would honestly consider him a friend, in the end.

He turned his back after her comment about John. There was nothing left to say.

[formersurgeon]

He was far from the first person to try to drive her away, try to make her hate them. Sherlock, her Sherlock, had done it, when they were new to each other. It still hurt, but she knew how to absorb it. Carry it quietly until the pain faded, and return again to keep trying.

She would return. But right now he needed space. And after he lashed out at her like that, so did she.

She opened the door, and looked at the paint there. She might have brought it up, had their conversation gone differently. Might have told him that of course he wasn't a sadist. But after this?

She went out, closed the door without a word, and left him to it.