thecapitol | Coffee and conversation

Entry tags:

Coffee and conversation

Who| Joan and Sherlock
What| Their daily coffee summit
Where| A coffee shop
When| Before the Thicker plot
Warnings/Notes| Nada

Living under constant surveillance never really gets easier. Joan is more used to it now, but she still has to catch herself before saying too much where she can be overheard. Ironically enough, it's when she's in "private" with Sherlock that they're most in danger of being recorded, so they have gotten into the habit of going out for coffee every morning.

The coffee shop is nothing special, a little outdoor place between the 4th and 5th capitol districts. The coffee, or what they call coffee, is passable, but the real draw is the crowd. It's flocked with customers in the mornings, lots of people milling around and talking. Perfect noise to mask their conversations. This morning is no different.

Joan takes a sip from her coffee, letting the cup warm her palms.

"It can't be much longer until the next arena."

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Though he understands the measure as necessary, the crowd had at first bothered Sherlock constantly. He can't help but listen in on other people's conversations for snippets of anything useful, and even when a person isn't talking Sherlock is drawn to detail. The Capitol is entirely too populated, too rich with color and sound and flavor. There's too much to take note of.

But the weeks have become months, and he's growing accustomed to it all if not comfortable. So while he sits stiffly in his chair, he's more at ease than he has been. He barely touches his own drink, but he lifts it occasionally to keep up appearances.

When Watson speaks, he nods curtly.

"They don't keep the timings exact, do they. To keep us on edge, no doubt."

"Pretty much. They'll talk it up beforehand, of course. Get the citizens excited about it. But none of us will know anything about what the Arena will be like until they put us in there at the Cornucopia."

She takes another sip of her coffee.

"We might want to talk strategy at some point."

"It's a shame they discourage suicide," Sherlock remarks flippantly. It has been his first thought, when he'd heard the parameters of the arena. Much better to take his own life, than anyone else's. But that might mean risking the Capitol's wrath, and letting his punishment fall to those around him. It's cowardly, in short.

"There must be some sort of back door we haven't yet considered."

The idea of him committing suicide makes her stomach turn uncomfortably, an instinctual reaction. She got the sense that it was a non-zero chance that he might have at some point in his despair over Irene and the addiction.

"Back door. You mean, out of the Arena? I think if there were, someone would have found it by now, in the past 75 years."

"Fear and desperation do strange things to a person, Watson. It is not inconceivable that no one would have been in the state of mind to find the solution."

He refuses to believe that there isn't a solution.

"In 75 years."

It's typical Sherlock, of course. Thinking he will be the one person who succeeds where every single other person has failed. It isn't entirely unwarranted - he did manage to catch Les Chevalier after all. So maybe it was possible.

"We can look. Although I'm not sure where we'd even start. I'm pretty sure they airlift the victor out of the arena."

"Which means that their outer limits don't extend to the sky." He says that easily, though anyone would be hard-pressed to find a way up in the midst of an arena.

"I refuse to go into that situation without at least an inkling of a plan. There must be something."

"We know that the gamemakers control the Arena from the outside. Which means chances are there are signals controlling everything. Signals that we could possibly build something to pick up. Assuming the Arena has electronics that we'd have access to."

It's along the lines of what London Sherlock had been attempting in the previous arena, although she's not about to share that information.

He pauses to think about that. The last arena had been full of technology, but it was used against as a rule. Sherlock supposes that, had he not been so jarred by being there at all, he might have been able to get into the intercom system or the elevators. But he hadn't had the presence of mind to even try.

"We can assume nothing. Unless we find a patron willing to get us supplies, which I very much doubt."

"Which brings up something else we should talk about. How much we want to try to appeal to sponsors."

Joan hasn't really been trying, because she couldn't see any way she'd act different for the sake of the cameras.Sherlock being here...it presents some possibilities.

He blinks. An unusual feeling comes over him as he realizes he doesn't automatically know what she's getting at.

"What would you suggest?"

"I think there are two reasons why we'd want to. The more we appeal to sponsors, the more stuff they'll send us in the Arena, and the more likely they'll keep bringing us back. As to how we do it, it's all about the narrative."

It's a sound option, of course. It's also the advice Sherlock has been peddling to everyone else-- to play the game, to survive. He doesn't want anyone else to suffer at the hands of this place, especially if he tries to take a risk in finding a way out. He'd probably prefer Watson to play the game, too, if only for her own sake and his peace of mind. But him? He doesn't know if he could do it.

But doubt has never been a good friend of his, so he lifts his chin and scoffs. "You want to craft a fairytale for the masses, is that it?"

"It's not like it's something we don't do all the time, anyway," she answers, responding to his scoff with impassivity. "Everybody wants certain people to see them in a certain way."

She could give him examples, of course. He spends a lot of time pretending to be someone he's not. But she'll leave it to him to fill in the blanks.

"This is just on a really large scale."

He'd probably argue that point-- people see him as they want to, and clearly he doesn't care one way or the other. But perhaps he recognizes the lie in that, and that's why he doesn't contest the point.

Instead he sits back and rests one hand against his chin, pondering.

"It would be a way of using their exploitation of us against them," he agrees finally. "They savor outpourings of emotion-- either violent or passionate."

He doesn't know that he could fake either particularly well.

"Exactly," she answers, sitting back as well. "They also want to pigeon-hole us. It's human nature anyway; here it's just taken to a pathological level. They don't want complicated people. They want archetypes. And we can play into that."

"So if I were to pigeon-hole you, I'd cast you as the nurturer. The former doctor, who doesn't condone violence." That might be wishful thinking, on his part. He thinks, selfishly, that if it comes down to violence in the arena he will be the one to enact it.

"Which are both true. And in line with what I've done up to now. If I were to pigeon hole you..." She tilts her head a little, regards him. "Unpleasant exterior hiding someone loyal and protective."

He cocks his head to one side and gives her a flat look. "Should I be grateful you wouldn't cast me as a sociopath?" It's what the arena wants everyone to become, after all. And he can see how aspects of his character could be shaped that way, despite what he'd want for himself.

"So we'll be a bastion of virtue in a savage land, is that it?"

"We need to keep things as close to the truth as possible. I wouldn't cast you as a sociopath because you're not one."

And she hopes he's able to keep this place from turning him into one.

"The two of us against the world. It's something people might be able to get behind. Make 'Sherlock and Watson' lunchboxes. Write terrible tie-in novels about us."

"And how would that extend to other alliances? In order to sell the story, we couldn't risk anyone else jeopardizing it. We couldn't risk having to put someone else above one another."

Even as he says it, he thinks about the people he's met here and how he wouldn't be able to walk away from them. But given a choice between two lives... he'd have to pick one or the other, wouldn't he?

"I don't see why that would be a problem. Everyone has alliances, even the people that the viewers have conveniently paired off. I don't think we'd be acting any differently than we would anyway."

She says it mildly, as a matter of course. Of course they would prioritize each others' welfare.

He considers it for a long moment.

"Alright," he says, and sets down his mug once more. But it's after another few seconds that he says, "That doesn't get to the heart of the matter. If we aren't aiming to win, then we're waiting to be killed."

She shakes her head.

"No. We're not killing anyone. That doesn't mean we can't win. You win by not dying. There have been a number of cases in the past when Victors have won in other ways."

"True as that is, we can't plan for those circumstances." They've mostly come by the machinations of the Gamemakers, after all.

"But we can test the limits of the arena itself."

"Other than standard survival skills. "Food, water, shelter."

She takes up her coffee for another swallow as he talks about testing the arena.

"You mean like looking for some way out."

He nods. "We may not find such a thing. But if we could, even if we didn't use it, it could provide a certain level of insight. And leverage."

"Okay. We can have that be a goal. Along with not getting killed."

She leaned forward a little again.

"You've watched the beginnings of a few arenas, right? You know about the Cornucopia?"

He nods. He's watched everything available, logged all the date as he would with any other unsolvable case. And he also knows what had happened to her, at the last one.

"They want us to play their game. To bet on the odds, however predetermined they may be. But both of us don't need to take that risk."

"I'd rather not try for it. It's stupid, but I think I'd be too hesitant."

Too afraid that Howard or someone else will injure her or worse.

"Do you want to give it a shot?"

"Testing the odds couldn't hurt." Except that they can, but he continues without acknowledging that thought. "If nothing else I'll be able to see what's available, and what people come away with. And that may give us a clue as to what the Gamemakers might send our way."

"It does," she agrees. "The arena before last was in a jungle. Everything was poisonous, and our first tip-off was the huge amount of food at the Cornucopia."

She touches her mug with the tip of her fingers, looking at it as she thinks.

"I'm going to need to get clear of the Cornucopia. We need to decide how we're going to meet up. And how I'm going to get to you if things go wrong and you get hurt."

It's simple enough to think of a solution to that.

"We'll have no idea of what the landscape is like until we arrive. I'd suggest we look for high ground-- if it's a single building, the roof; if it's an external environment, the highest point. If I haven't made it to you in a manner of hours, you should find a point by which to observe the Cornucopia without getting close. I'll find a way to signal you."

"A matter of hours is too much. What happens if you're wounde? Two arenas ago, John got his leg ripped open at the Cornucopia. Last time, I had to be dragged off. Depending on the injury, it could be a matter of minutes whether you live or die."

She shakes her head.

"No. I can't go that far from the Cornucopia. I think we should pick a direction and I'll find cover a certain distance away."

"North," he says, after a moment's thought. Depending on the arena itself, it might be hard to gauge direction. But if there's anything magnetic around either one of them could make themselves a compass. "Don't come for me until you're sure the hoard has cleared, if it comes to that. Which it won't. I don't intend to fall so easily."

"Mmm," she says, considering that. "I'm not sure we'd be able to tell which way is north. It might be better for me to go directly away from wherever I start at the Cornucopia. They usually put us in a circle or semi-circle at the start, so we should be able to see each other. Look for me, and remember which direction I'm in. I'll go that way."

He nods, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands.

"I suppose this must be part of their strategy. We can only plan so much." The rest is all unknown, and even if they do make plans they'll have to be flexible, able to adapt to any environment. For all they know they could end up underwater with scuba gear, or in an environment without gravity. Sherlock is beyond underestimating the Capitol.

"Pretty much. Our surprise and confusion probably makes for good TV. And just surviving what the Gamemakers throw at us is as important as surviving the other tributes."

She thinks about the last arena, the confusion at the Cornucopia, not being able to see Sherlock and John. Hopefully those circumstances won't be repeated this time.

Edited 2014-05-15 19:15 (UTC)

As much as he's enjoyed studying television, using it to get a better read on people in general, he finds the extents that the Capitol takes that to distasteful, to say the least. But it's worth understanding, if only so that they can use that perspective to their advantage.

"Interest, suspense, payoff," he muses. "You do something to capture attention, you run that story as far as you can, and then you end with a twist. Thereby proving that you're interesting enough to keep around."

"Exactly. Do you think you can do that?"

"Careful, Watson. I could almost imagine that you doubt me."

"Just almost?"

She's teasing him, though.

"Regardless, I guess we'll find out soon enough. How well we can make this work."

"As well as we need to," he assures her. "Failure is hardly an option."

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Coffee and conversation

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