lostcarnival | In a new light

Entry tags:

In a new light

Who: Sherlock and OPEN
What: New changes and video game munchies
When: Very late Day 97
Where: Cookhouse
Warnings: Mentions of drugs, suicide.

Dying made one hungry.

Sherlock was prone to being over dramatic, and would gladly tell anyone who inquired that yes, he was killed three times in the game and yes, for a second there he really thought he was going to end up nullified or actually dead. Being quite pleased that he wasn't a digital slug or dead, he found himself famished and in the mood for something dreadfully unhealthy and/or sweet.

Toby was exhausted and fell asleep back at the trailer (or was mad at him for thinking he really did die), so Sherlock was alone when he went to the Cookhouse.

He went to grab a basket of chips (fries) and a milkshake when it hit him. He'd noticed something strange with his vision when he came back, seeing faint blotches like if he'd looked in the sun for too long or something, but he assumed it had something to do with being in the game, some lingering side effect. He would only be worried if it remained for any length of time. What he didn't expect was a blast of orange and red when he looked into the kitchen.

He shut his eyes immediately, confused, and was shocked that he could still see it. He could see shapes of people, registering as different shades of red and orange, fading to yellow and green. The walls only mitigated some of it, he could see through them, too. It extended nearly as far as his natural vision, but faded into blank nothingness further on. It was heat. Obviously. He couldn't exactly see objects that didn't give off heat. But any heat residue left, was visible, like quickly fading handprints.

"Fascinating," he muttered, opening his eyes again. The effect was fainter coupled with his ordinary vision, giving a slight glow to anything that gave off heat. It was disorienting and off-putting and, quite frankly, neat.

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Helen nodded as he spoke, letting him do so uninterrupted until it all came out. She looked him in the eyes and took his free hand, her fingers closing around his up until the webbing as if she could share her own fortitude. The silence was long as she sat there taking a moment, taking three.

"Nothing you have said is stupid," Helen said, her voice almost a whisper. "I was not the only one who took the blood. My fiance at the time was John Druitt, James Watson, Nigel Griffin, and Nikola Tesla all partook. John gained teleportation, James gained incredible intelligence, observation - not unlike yourself, Nigel was able to bend light around himself, rendering himself invisible for good or for ill."

Her eyes found Sherlock's again where they stayed.

"Nikola," his name came out with a slight catch. "Nikola's transformation was the most violent, painful, and it was done, he was a vampire. I sat with him through all of it as I worked with the others as well but for a long while, he saw only the monster in the mirror, the long daggered claws, jagged teeth, the hunger for blood, as beastial as any. But together, we found a way through it."

Helen laughed very, very softly.

"Nikola Tesla is a brilliant man, yes. But if anyone is an emotional idiot, it is him, not you. The man once attempted to revive sanguine vampiris, who, mind you, enslaved my earth for thousands of years. This on the ridiculous notion of ushering a golden age of peace. Both of us nearly died putting that plan down and blew an underground vampire city, population, queen, and all straight to hell."

She closed her eyes and shook her head.

"My point is that you and I will get through this together and if I have to extend my contract I will." Helen cocked her head slightly and offered him a wry smile.

"Ah. Your question." Helen brought her other hand around his free one and smile edged wider. "I am 275 years old."

His fingers clutch slightly around hers, he was still impressed she did so freely, without any measure of hesitation. He wouldn't blame her if she had been repulsed.

The coincidence of the name 'James Watson' and intelligence/observation isn't lost on him, but he accepts the flattering statement regardless. He filed away the information in case it became relevant again. And he was familiar with Nikola Tesla, it was odd and slightly amusing to hear an account of him in this manner. Much less him as an actual vampire. He listened with rapt attention, focusing on her story completely.

"Agreed, that was a fairly idiotic move."

He was about to remark more on the matter when what Helen said next caught him off guard. He stared for a long moment, his great brain short-circuiting. After he'd recovered, he cleared his throat.

"Y...you'd do that...for me?" He sounded incredulous. Why would anyone do that for him? John might, but then again, John would want to get back home to Rosie, and Sherlock would not blame him.

"275 years old," he repeated. It made sense obviously, if Nikola Tesla was involved. He glanced down at her hands with his and back up again with a cheeky smirk. "Well, you certainly don't show your age."

"Of course I would do that for you," Helen said, "I'll stay until you're ready to leave, though who knows what either of us will look like then. I'm game." Her blue eyes were definitely teasing. "Besides, someone has to keep you mentally engaged, after all."

It was a challenge to that smirk of his.

"Actually," Helen said wryly, "one day, my ageing simply slowed to a crawl."

He seemed frozen, though he was simply touched by her kindness and unused to people reaching out to him with compassion. He did have a few people in his life that did, it was just a very rare thing, especially with someone he'd only recently met.

"To be fair, I'm not the easiest person to get along with. I'd hate for you to be stuck with me on purpose."

A sad sort of smile, from someone that was clearly used to rejection or had come to expect it. Even though things were good with John now, there had come several points where the man had refused to see him after Sherlock had made particularly grevious mistakes.

"Convenient. When exactly were you born?"

"If it's my choice," Helen replied, nudging him with a gentle bump of her shoulder against his, "then you are just going to have to be stuck with me, which honestly, could be one hell of a challenge." Her eyes found his and stayed there for awhile as she thought.

"Arrogant, stubborn, closed-off, throws herself headlong into danger," she said as if listing off a patient's notes, "extreme micromanager with a tendency to tell no one about her activities - I suppose that sums me up and yet still doesn't manage to do me justice all at once."

She shook her head a little and shrugged.

"I was born in 1850 when Victorian England was humming along with all its bright promise. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't a man. Then again, unfortunately for England, I didn't care."

Another smirk. "I think that wouldn't be a problem. I do the exact same thing. Except manage. I don't like managing anyone."

Except his homeless network, but he usually just let them do their thing and picked up information from them afterwards.

"Challenge accepted." A rare, honest smile.

Brows raised. "1850. Well. Did you disguise yourself as a man? Was that common? What was it really like to ride in hansom cans? What did it smell like on the streets of London, was it as egregious as everyone says? Was Scotland Yard as notoriously bad as they are today? Was telegrammimg tedious? Have you ever been to Baker Street?"

The rapid fire questions came excitedly. He wanted to know if he'd gotten it right, in his Mind Palace simulation. Emilia Ricoletti, the Case of the Abominable Bride, where he'd imagined he belonged in the Victorian era.

"Only facts, people are distracting, too loud," she murmured almost absently. And there were the questions, those made her smile. "Ah, no but I wore pants at Normandy in a tank, sometimes but not in polite company until much later on, bouncy, terrible shocks, horrible more often than not - sewer systems were fantastic when they went in so yes, quite so, not really, and surprisingly, no."

He was incredibly pleased she was able to answer his questions just like that. Most people told him to shut up.

"Fascinating," he was genuinely curious, his eyes alight with the want of more knowledge. "What's it like to live for so long? Containing all those memories? Does it get overwhelming? What was it like experiencing the advent of modern technology, the world wars...the sixty-odd years from the Wright Brothers to landing on the Moon?"

He could scarcely imagine it. So much to see, to know, to learn. And all the murders and mystery she would have seen...

"Lonely. Intensely, incredibly lonely." Helen pauses for a long while as if looking back through Sherlock to the woman she had been as she shakes her head. "I manage, with help and without as the years pass. The advent of modern technology, as a scientist, was thrilling, inspiring. The world wars were horrifying, dangerous times, so much suffering. It was absolutely fascinating to watch the aviation industry from its infancy to the space race. How could it not be? So much progress in such a small amount of time, comparatively speaking."

She refocuses with the last question and can see his mind churn with so many questions his questions had questions about his questions, which lead to more questions until it became a flood of infinite questions and-- Helen takes a breath and cups his face between her hands as gently as possible.

"Hush, you're thinking too loud," she says, her blue eyes amused, "slow it down. Just because I can keep up with you doesn't mean its a race to the end of the universe. Hm? I'm not running anywhere."

Edited 2017-05-18 10:01 (UTC)

There's a deep sympathy in his eyes when she says the word lonely. Being the kind of person that he was, being a genius, it was incredibly isolating. And he developed a personality that was equally isolating. He knew what it meant to be lonely. He could only imagine the isolation that longevity brought. Especially when outliving those you cared about. He truly felt for her. She must have lost people, friends, family...Everyone said that Sherlock Holmes was cold (and temperature-wise he was now), but that was just his armor. His problem was he felt too much, and sought to protect his heart by building up a wall. But he was more willing now to let people in, to let himself care.

He hung onto her every word, wanting to ask her about everything. The wars, the technology, the social standing of being a woman in those times--but she cupped his face in her hands and surprisingly, it helped to calm him down.

"It's been a long time since I met someone could keep up," he said, a wry tone. It was clear evidence of how his mind really was like a racing engine.

"I know," she said with an odd sort of smile. "It's in the way you jump from question to question until it's a tangle no one should be able to sort out, not one among the room but you. So, you talk to yourself and forget them because you know they can't see it the way you can."

Helen blinked at the intensity of it for a moment and pulled away but not away. She gestured lightly.

"I'd say this is a multiple cup conversation. Tea?"

Her smile wavered a little but she smiled nonetheless.

"Shall I call you Mr Holmes or Sherlock?"

Edited 2017-05-18 12:48 (UTC)

"...spot on," he said after a second, shrugging one shoulder. But it was good-natured, none of his usual barbs and insults. Those still came, even with people he cared for, but for once he liked being able to show off and have someone actually keep up. He was clearly a bit starved for intellectual conversation.

A look down at his cup, and another smirk, before he looked back up again.

"Sherlock, please."

Helen took a mock bow for her minor mental feat but she could tell it was appreciated. Will would keep up with him as well, perhaps in a different manner. His ability to see the hidden in what might seem an ordinary world littered with red flags was extraordinary.

Sherlock it was.

She was bringing him tea after the milkshake, to warm him back up, and more for herself. Helen did the honours and brought cream and sugar out of habit before fixing her own cup.

"How is your vision, now?" she asked.

"Thanks." He could see the glow of the tea, drifting up like an orange mist in the steam, fading into green, faintly overlaid in his vision.

"Better, actually. I think my brain's catching up."

Which wasn't necessarily a good thing. It could mean his brain just got more snake-like. It would probably just further cement his beastial instincts, or add new ones. Snakes were simple creatures though, but that simplicity was his downfall. He wasn't necessarily afraid of losing his intellect, his memories were fine, and the veterans here didn't seem to have a problem. He just didn't like the idea of something, even if only subtly, influencing him.

Of course, this also was a man who called himself an addict, so...

"It's still odd, though. Everything warm has a glow."

He didn't really have much of a glow. It was kind of disconcerting, it only further served to remind him how different he was than most everyone else.

Edited 2017-05-19 04:39 (UTC)

"It's normalising then, for the most part," Helen surmised, mostly to keep a list in her mind, herself. "With infrared, it would, with it trailing off in cooler tones the further away from the heat it gets."

She settled at his elbow as she had before and leant back in her chair to enjoy her tea properly, without hurry or care, as if nothing outside their conversation really mattered at all. Helen took a breath and then smiled after a moment or two of contemplation.

"It sounds beautiful, Sherlock, but I find that most odd things are."

A sad sort of smile. Indeed, it was, in its own way. He looked at her, watching the colors shift as she moved, the heat of the tea drifting into the air.

He reached over to take the sugar for his tea, but he was distracted by the infrared glow of the kitchen, when the oven was opened. He knocked the cubes over with his hand and sent them flying across the table.

In a split second, his forked tongue shot out, catching the cubes in mid-air and yanking them back.

Whoops--embarrassed, though slightly pleased at the speed--he spat the cubes back into his tea and furiously tried to sip it like he'd totally meant to do all of that.

"Sorry," came a mumble.

"Don't be," Helen said as if there was nothing out of the ordinary about the fact that he'd just snatched sugar cubes out of the air with his, ah, the chameleon incident, that's where the tongue had come from. She half hid her smile in a sip of tea and then let out the tiniest half-laugh, almost a giggle.

"We mustn't waste the sugar cubes, after all."

He still looked down and sipped his tea as if it was some sort of defense, but her laugh set him off, and he almost choked on it as he snorted.

"To be fair, flies are much more unpredictable than the trajectory of sugar cubes," he said, though another snort. He couldn't help the cascade of giggles, mostly from the sheer absurdity of it all. Of course he'd just snatch them out of the air with his tongue, because that was a perfectly ordinary thing to do.

Edited 2017-05-19 09:23 (UTC)

"Sugar cubes," Helen said while trying not to laugh anymore and really not succeeding, "are inanimate," she set down her tea lest she spill, "...let's hope they don't grow wings and prove us wrong."

"With all that I've seen lately, I wouldn't be surprised if they do," he said mockingly darkly. "Though if they do, they will not escape my clutches."

Snake or not, he still had a serious sweet tooth. His tastes had fallen towards meat products, but he still enjoyed anything sweet. And chips, of course.

"Ugh, what wouldn't I give for tea from home. Whatever world we go to next, we must remember to pick up some tea."

Edited 2017-05-19 10:49 (UTC)

"If I ever need your tongue, I'll let you know. Especially if I see any winged sugar cubes," Helen said with a grin. He definitely a sweet tooth and that was something she'd remember.

"Ah, Sherlock," she added, "I did manage to find some Royal British Breakfast. It's back at my trailer if you can't wait, but yes, I agree completely. Tea should be acquired at any stop, really, and in sizable quantities."

"You'd be surprised how useful it is for a lazy person," he said brightly, like it wasn't weird to have a chameleon-slash-snake tongue. And it really was. He'd lie in bed and use it to grab stuff from far away. And he could be infuriatingly lazy at times, a stark contrast to the times when he was on a case and bounding with energy.

"Mm, that would be lovely, but it should be rationed. Perhaps when we're feeling ridiculously nostalgic," he said, even though his tone was amused, it was still slightly sad. He didn't really like being away from London all that much. Maybe someday, if he ever got too old (if he made it to old age, which he doubted, but who knew), he perhaps would move to the country and keep bees or something. But he wondered if that would be too boring.

Maybe not when it came to bees. They were never boring.

"There's no such thing as ridiculously nostalgic," she said after a very, very long pause. "I should think I'm the expert on that one." Helen's eyes and the slight shift in her expression, the way her cup came up, and perhaps the slight tightening of her fingers around the cup said that sometimes, possibly too often, there was something beyond that.

"Not when you can remember the sights and sounds and tastes of things you haven't had for years already. In the end, it's not the tea that really matters," Helen said and if a voice could be bittersweet, hers was, "it is who you're sitting with."

Her sip of tea was a little longer this time but still not hurried.

"I'll make a pot as we've two wholly different Londons to discuss."

"Well, if you're the expert," his teasing was good-natured, and the smile in his eyes was reminiscent of what he used to look like. "I shall have to take your word for it then."

He looked down at his own cup when she said that, suddenly quite missing John, and even Mrs. Hudson. Molly Hooper, Lestrade... Even Mycroft's annoying voice would have been quite welcome. He had built his own little family...somehow, and even though it certainly didn't compare to the pain of hundred-year-old memories, he still missed them.

"Indeed," his baritone voice said, more sympathetic than he'd expected it to sound.

He raised the cup a little in acknowledgment. "London. Have you been there recently?"

"Everyone misses home," Helen said quietly, "and the people they have become attached to in their lives, no matter how long it has been. They are as much a part of who you as your founding experiences, after all. Without them, I find that life itself has an entirely different melody. I miss them all in their many absences."

Perhaps she should have made another pot. She shook her head a little at how quickly time could pass. All those proteges, all of her friends, the people who had come and gone in her life, so many of them. But enough of that, Sherlock had a question.

"I have been to London on and off throughout the years but not as recently as I now wish I had. I am not entirely sure when I'll get back there as events have rather pushed me in a new direction," she said, her tone thoughtful.

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