lostcarnival | [Open] Aftermath

Entry tags:

[Open] Aftermath

Who: Sherlock and you!
What: In which a slightly off-kilter Sherlock deals with the fallout of being turned into a chameleon including that tongue thing
Where: Cookhouse, because it's warm
When: Late night, D39ish-40 (up to right before the Agents arrive)

It was really lucky he wasn't in a small spot, say inside a cupboard or under the bunk when Sherlock transformed back to--well, not exactly normal...whoever and whatever he was before. At the very least, he was no longer a tiny lizard. Though the small cardboard box he'd holed up into in his trailer was now obliterated.

I'm back! Ha ha! He frantically patted himself down, just to be sure. No wacky tail or weird bug eyes. No more eating bugs--now that he was back to 'normal' the thought was uncomfortable, even if they did taste pretty great when he was a chameleon. No lasting side effects? He scrambled in and ran to the bathroom. He looked the same as before, right? Scales, whatever.

He was absolutely ecstatic. He could speak again, he could move quickly, oh, was it his birthday? No one ever realizes how much they miss things when they were gone. He was--he whirled around. Hungry. He was really famished. To the cookhouse!

Sherlock practically flew in, his coat flapping behind him and he looked slightly wild with unbridled frantic energy. Maybe being transformed amped his appetite, maybe that collection of roaches he'd snacked on now sitting in his stomach wasn't enough for a proper meal now he was much larger, how did the physics of being turned into something else even work!?--

He grabbed a tray and loaded up, and went to go sit down at a table.

That pudding looked excellent.

"It really issss a lovely--"

THWWAAAP--

Without warning, his tongue shot out towards the pudding on his plate, which naturally sent most of it flying in globs everywhere. SNAPPPP--it retracted like a lightning bolt, and he almost choked on the small amount of pudding he managed.

Oh no.

He grabbed a spoon after doing his best not to aspirate on pudding, and opened his mouth. This was not a welcome development! He stuck out his tongue slighty--

THWWAPP--stuck to the spoon.

"NMMYMMGH--" a growl of frustration as he tried to unstick it. Oh, brilliant. And ouch. He yanked the spoon away and tried to look at his tongue again, but it was long enough to actually see with his own eyes--and forked. Like a snake. It seemed to be a hybrid between a snake's tongue and a chameleon's.

"What in blazessss--"

His good mood had turned quite foul as he turned back to his food, trying to figure out how to eat it in a civilized manner.

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Jimmy cannot laugh. He will die. Sherlock will hear him, and then Jimmy will be a small, bloody smear on the cafeteria floor. Even if trying to keep from laughing at the spoon stuck to Sherlock's tongue was going to kill him on its own.

Although seeing him go slightly cross-eyed as he contemplated his new tongue was amusing as well, seeing him try to figure out how to eat wasn't. There's only so much of he can stand, though, before deciding to try and brave the wrath of Sherlock. "Hey. You okay?" Offering a clean dish towel if Sherlock wants to try and wipe off some of the pudding.

Edited 2017-01-11 11:21 (UTC)

Oh. Oh, fantastic. Someone saw that?

Sherlock did need to clean a bit and snatched the dish towel.

"Do I look okay?" he grumbled. Between the tongue and his pointy canines his mouth was quite full, and his words were slightly garbled.

"Well, you're not wearing the chocolate pudding anymore, so that's something." It's a token effort at trying to brighten the mood, but there's not a lot of ways to really do that.

"No, you don't look okay. Which is why I'm over here asking." Another round of glancing around and slipping into the opposite seat. "Is there anything I can do to help? With 'Please go die in a hole somewhere' as a perfectly viable option." It has to suck. And if Sherlock wants Jimmy to leave him alone, he can do that. "Or if you'd prefer trying something else, we've got a pretty serious blender in the kitchen.... Or I can box you up something to go."

Edited 2017-01-12 05:05 (UTC)

Sherlock stared at him for a long moment. Sort of out of shock and surprise than anything. His blue eyes still remained stubbornly human, though who knew how long that would last. He was starting to feel like there would be little that was recognizably human about him left soon.

"Why do you care?"

He spits it out, but the malice is turned inward. It's filled with self-loathing, not anything cruel towards Jimmy. He genuinely couldn't understand why he was being nice, when Sherlock was anything but.

"Because what happened/is happening to you sucks. And if I can do something that can make it suck less, then I want to." There were a whole bundle of things Jimmy wasn't saying, mostly because he didn't want Sherlock to think he was crazy, but that was the gist of it. Jimmy just wanted to help.

Sherlock pauses for a long moment. And then, after what was probably ages to himself, wrestling with introspection, a nod.

"That's...uh. Thank you."

He really didn't know what to say other than that. He wasn't good with people, and he had no idea to navigate through waters such as these. Someone being kind of the sake of being kind wasn't really a thing that happened to him much, save for Mrs. Hudson and John.

Jimmy smiles, shaking his head. "Don't worry about it." He gives Sherlock's new dental work a look and hms. "But seriously, is there anything you want me to do? A smoothie might be more convenient in the short run. And I can put you together something for later in a box?"

"Or I could leave you the towel and some privacy." It's not 'go die in a hole', but if Sherlock wants to be left alone, Jimmy can do that too.

"I'll have to get used to it eventually," he says with a half-shrug.

Should he be alone? He usually hated people being around, but Jimmy had actually gotten on his good side and he didn't mind so much. He shrugs again.

"I don't care either way."

He tentatively tries to eat his food again, sending his tongue zipping at the meatloaf. Fortunately it only sent a few pieces flying, which was an improvement.

"Well, good thing I have a break coming up. Probably." Another glance around before he slips into the seat opposite Sherlock. Breaks were kind of flexible, depending on the rush, so best to sneak one in when it was slow.

"Yeah, you will have to get used to it." Not really wanting to add 'until something else gets changed'. Jimmy gives the table another go over with the towel while he tries to put his thoughts together. "But you.... I don't know. It looks to me like you're throwing yourself in off the deep end and getting pissed at yourself when you don't swim like an Olympic champion."

When Jimmy decided to take a break and sit into the seat opposite Sherlock, his brows went up, but it wasn't a look of annoyance, but one of surprise. Jimmy's kindness never ceased to surprise him.

"It can't be that hard, right? It's just...just changes," he spits the word like it's disgusting. "I should be able to handle this just fine. What's so hard about it?"

Jimmy looks at Sherlock with a complete lack of surprise before bringing his hands together into a sort of 'T' shape, that most American sports fans will recognize as the gesture calling for a time-out. "Okay. I'm going to stop you right there." He puts the towel in his left hand and leaves the right free to do a little more gesturing for emphasis.

"Was it twenty-four hours ago? Forty-eight? You were a lizard. Not some weird skin reaction to spray tanner. You were about a foot and a half long, sans tail, and eating flies around the buffet table." He pauses with a meaningful glance at Sherlock's mouth. "And not all of it got turned back. I think you are seriously shortchanging yourself on 'Things I am allowed to not be okay with."

"I think it's great that you're trying to suck it up and deal, but I think you are putting some extremely unrealistic expectations on yourself too." Not that Jimmy's any better in the 'Why am I still having problems with this?' department, but getting turned into a chameleon for a few days had to seriously mess you up.

Sherlock blinked, Jimmy's exposition was, in fact, really, really quite correct. He'd practically blocked out the emotions of horror that were boiling just underneath the surface. He shouldn't be okay with it, he shouldn't have to be. His body and mind were twisted and changed against his will, and there were bound to be side effects from that merely in and of itself. Plus, like Jimmy pointed out, not all of him got turned back. Though back was relative, considering he was still covered in scales.

The detective's hands were shaking. Well, now that he unlocked his emotions they were threatening to all break through at once.

"You're right...I'm not okay."

Now Jimmy's done it. He hadn't expected to knock everything apart like that, even though he probably should have. And leaving Sherlock alone is another no-go. ".... Give me two minutes, okay?" He gets up, snags the tub and heads back into the kitchens proper. There's a little more than two minutes before he comes back, sans apron or tub.

"Going to be exhausted tomorrow, but I'm free for the rest of today." He'd promised to trade Hinawa a double today for a double tomorrow. He'd be a zombie by the end of the day, but eh. Jimmy's done more with less. "Do you want to stay here, do you want to go back to your trailer?" His prediction is 'retreat to the trailer and have a meltdown in private', but at least Sherlock won't be alone if he doesn't want to be.

"Okay."

The state of Sherlock was that bad that he just sat there and said 'okay' quietly, like he wasn't the usual bristly off-putting detective but instead, a lost and troubled human despite all his extraordinary talents.

He looks at Jimmy for entirely too long, like he's not really seeing him.

"...trailer."

What he wouldn't give for something to completely wipe away his memory of the past weeks. There were things that could do that temporarily, but he wasn't going to get those here in this Carnival, maybe. And he doubted the Ringmaster would be much more merciful to him if he spent the rest of the year doped up and out of his mind.

Edited 2017-01-22 15:06 (UTC)

"Okay. Let's get you back to your trailer." Jimmy stands, moving around to offer Sherlock a hand up if he needs it. He really, honestly hadn't intended to make Sherlock blue screen like that, even though shutting down and going on auto-pilot made sense as Sherlock's immediate reaction to trauma.

"If you don't want to eat now, that's okay. We can get you something else later. Right now, let's get you back to your trailer and.." He can't really say 'Somewhere safe', since the Ringmaster's magic has been quite able to find them just about anywhere on the Carnival. '... where it's quieter."

"Do you have a roommate?" Either way, Jimmy's not just going to dump Sherlock to sort through this on his own, or dump him on his trailer-mate with no warning.

There's a nod as the detective takes his hand to be helped up. There's a tremor in it, before he takes it back and sort of just stands there looking at something behind what he was staring at. He shakes his head to clear it.

A nod.

Where it's quieter, indeed.

"Gon...don't know if he's in." He didn't care much either way, he was planning on hiding in his bunk for the next 282910303 days. It seemed like the fight had gone out of him, at least for the time being.

"Alright. If he's in, we'll worry about it then. For now, let's get you back there." The shaking hands is worrisome, but one step at a time. Jimmy's very careful to keep it slow, and take the long way around to avoid crowds and the main thoroughfare. No idea if Sherlock will react badly, but better safe than sorry.

"If I'm going the wrong way, say so." Jimmy's flying blind, but he figures that 'safe, quiet, and eventually fed' can't hurt anything, at least.

Sherlock simply nods, he follows Jimmy and looks more like he's sort of lost in a daze.

The hands continue to shake, and he balls them up into fists.

The flat's likely empty, and probably dark. Sherlock only looks up once they get closer.

Jimmy's taking Sherlock's reaction as a good sign, or at least not a terrible one. "Yeah. We're almost back to your trailer, and it looks like nobody's home."

Which is also not terrible, as Jimmy's pretty sure that Sherlock would absolutely not want anyone to see him this helpless. "Okay. We'll get you inside and go from there. Sit you down, get you warmed up and something to drink." Yeah, he's babbling a little and he knows it, but Jimmy's more than a little out of his depth and his chatter is reassuring for himself, at least. If Sherlock can hear it, well, it's confirmation that Jimmy's still here with him.

"Good," Sherlock fumbles to open the trailer door and stumble inside. It's dark too, and it's a mess. Poor Gon had to deal with this packrat. He kept little bits of everything. It was all probably very important. Or he was a hoarder.

Sherlock vaguely appreciated Jimmy's assistance, but he's not really looking at him. He's kind of lost in his head. The barrier and dam he'd built up to bury the emotion and horror had cracked open and it was definitely Not. Good.

Magic was magic, but it wasn't like in the whimsical children's stories. It wasn't like poof, you're a dog, have fun. The sensation of a human mind being crammed into a tiny lizard's brain was...horrible. He was frightened he was going to loose parts of himself, the lizard's mind had bled over into his own. Thought patterns were probably even still there, considering he was still sort of a lizard even now. Being tiny was also...difficult to comprehend. His body twisted and forced into a weird shape. He could still feel it. Still wanted to climb trees. It was a shape the human brain was not equipped to handle or had the muscle memory to. But the lizard brain did, and it bled into that part of his mind. Having a tail. Those weird sideways claws. Also eating bugs, while he wasn't really that off-put by it, he way he did it-snatching bugs with his long tongue--a tongue he still had...

Edited 2017-02-08 04:02 (UTC)

Sherlock quiet is bad. Well, okay. This is bad quiet for Sherlock, as opposed to 'I'm thinking. Hush.' quiet.

Getting inside the trailer is the easy part. The hard part is finding an open chair, or barring that, Sherlock's bunk. After a quick glance of searching for a spot that isn't occupied by stuff, Jimmy defaults to the bunk. He gets Sherlock sitting down, pulls the blanket up around Sherlock's shoulders and moves around into his line of sight, crouching a little so he can be seen easily. "Sherlock? Is there anything you need? I'm not going anywhere, so if you need anything, just let me know."

Sherlock blinked again, suddenly realizing he was in his bunk. How'd he get here? Was it..ah yes. Jimmy.

"I..."

What did he need?

He really didn't know.

"I...I don't know."

He felt stupid but this was all beyond him.

"It's okay. Don't worry about it right now. We'll figure it out later." Jimmy finishes getting the blanket around Sherlock's shoulders and carefully moves a few books to sit himself down.

"Hinawa's covering for me today, so I'm not going anywhere." Even if she wasn't, Jimmy would not want to leave Sherlock alone right now. He attempts to be be reassuring and smile, but he's too worried to be convincing. "If you decide you want something later, just let me know."

"Okay."

A nod. Sherlock wasn't really focusing on Jimmy, he was just sort of staring into the distance. His hands were trembling and he tried to hide it under the blanket. The fear, anger, rage, anxiety...all of it was boiling in him at once, and for someone who actively surprised his emotions--negative ones, mostly--this was a bit of a shock coupled with the already existing shock of being a chameleon, that he'd pressed down and refused to acknowledge.

He didn't like being vulnerable around other people, much less people he didn't know all that well, but if it had to be anyone, Jimmy was the best choice here.

Strange had absolutely no idea that the frantic man was the same lizard he tried (and failed) to turn back to a human. All he knows is that he had been sitting down at the table, idly eating some soup, thinking about something or another when this man sat down and shot out his tongue at some pudding...which then proceeded to splatter everywhere, including some landing smack on Strange's face.

He can't help but feel a little undignified as he takes his napkin to wipe off the pudding now on his face and hair. Greatest magician of the age, now slightly covered in pudding. So naturally, he takes it out on Sherlock.

"Can't you eat more carefully?" he fusses, giving the other man a frown.

A glare from the green-scaled man in a coat. He was still miffed that Strange couldn't change him back.

"Oh, I'm sssso ssssorry," he said as sarcastically as he could muster. Annoyingly, his words were slightly mushy and garbled as he wasn't used to this tongue. "I'll try to eat more carefully."

With the same sour look on his face, he petulantly and purposefully started eating more of his food with his tongue, trying to hit it as hard as he can to splash more gravy and pudding out.

Strange is ready this time. He puts up his napkin to block most of the food flying his way. Some still gets on his sleeves and hair, of course, but at least he's spared most of the carnage.

"Honestly, you're acting like this is your first time eating!"

Which, with all the changes people go through, technically it might be, but that only briefly crosses Strange's mind before he flinches away from a stray glob of pudding flying in his general direction.

Really?

Really!?

Sherlock doesn't stop eating in this, the messiest way possible. More globs of food shower the general vicinity.

"Nope, thisss isss the normal way I eat," he said sarcastically, trying to aim the globs in his direction.

Strange still continues to try and hide behind the napkin as much as possible

"Couldn't you have practiced in your trailer first?" he complains. Granted, he's assuming that Sherlock knew about his tongue before arriving here. The fact that this might be his first time trying to figure out that new body part doesn't enter his mind.

Sherlock looked at him pointedly again. He was also ignoring the fact he'd splattered stuff everywhere on him too, but he hardly cared at this point,

"Hmm. Actually no. I couldn't have."

He wonders if his tongue can reach that napkin he was hiding behind. At this point Strange certainly didn't deserve Sherlock's abuse, but he was an easy target.

THWWWAPPP--

He sent his tongue flying towards it anyway.

It hits: Sherlock's tongue sticks right to Strange's napkin, yanking it away from the magician. He looks indignantly at Sherlock for a moment. What gives?!

"I needed that!" Strange exclaims, with a huff, as he just attempts to reach across the table to yank his napkin back, not really understanding that now it's probably slimy and wet. After all, a bizarre lizard tongue is still a tongue. He knocks over a set of salt and pepper shakers in the progress, giving Sherlock a glare as he just tries to yank back his napkin.

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[Open] Aftermath

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wow I could have sworn I tagged this, feel free to ignore if it's too late!