capeandcowllogs | The mate to a key and lips to a secret.

The mate to a key and lips to a secret.

WHO: SKRULLOCK HOLMES, TONY STARK, EDWARD NYGMA, NORMAN OSBORN, DR. JOHN ZOIDBERG and YOU!
WHERE: The Quarantine Room.
WHEN: February 22nd (evening) to February 24th (afternoon).
WARNINGS: None necessarily? Bickering doesn't merit a warning.
SUMMARY: Skrulls in the dungeon. Well, one anyway.
FORMAT: I'll introduce the setting in paragraph, but you choose what format you prefer.

The area for the quarantined is spacious and clean. Although technically under police custody, the room is established in a large auditorium of City Hall. There are five walled 'dividers' that offer the quarantined the semblance of privacy. Never mind that every inch of the room is taped on camera -- cameras that Mitchell Hundred can control with a word. Never mind that there are armed guards on the other wise of each exit. Never mind that the communicators of the quarantined have been disabled from encryption capabilities.

They were allowed a bed. Access to any bathroom was to be monitored. Meals would be provided. They were handcuffed but not leglocked. If any of the number disagreed with their situation, heavier imprisonment was negotiable.

The quarantined were to be questioned by those in authority, or those who were experts on Skrull detection. Or those who thought they were.

ooc || begin a thread with your character name in the heading. anyone can tag into your thread, including other quarantined individuals.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Can't without Sherlock."

And that was that. He watched N'cho's face for a moment, considering. He'd said he didn't care about anything else- which was true, comparatively, but if he was to find Sherlock he'd need to start trying to think like him.

--which, if he was honest, had never worked out that well for him in the past- but he had little choice.

"There is an invasion, then."

People didn't like answering questions. But they loved contradicting. Sherlock had taught him that.

He made a low noise in the depths of his throat. He'd already said too much.

"My mom's going to kill me." Deflection. Or was it? "After my dad. If I ever see them again." He sighed, closing his eyes. "I've managed to screw up pretty royally."

There was a long pause. "... Don't wait for him, John, don't look. You won't find him. Just go, now."

"No-one's going to kill you, and I am not going to leave Sherlock behind," John told him quietly, letting those two statements of fact sit together on purpose as he stored the young skrull's words for mulling over later.

"He's a good man, N'cho. ...you know that, probably, and for my faults, I believe-- He's a good man, and I am going to find him. Somehow."

He looked up at that, face falling slightly, and he crossed over to the divider and put both hands out flat against it, frowning.

"... You're a... You're a good man, John. We should have been brothers." The frown deepened. "But please believe and heed my advice when I tell you to give up this quest. You won't find him, you can't."

Edited 2012-02-23 08:10 (UTC)

"So, what. I'm supposed to give him up for dead? You really think there is even the slightest chance--"

He cut himself off, balling his hands into tight fists at his sides.

"He dies. All right? Back home. He doesn't know that, but I do. I saw it happen. And if you think that after seeing that I can do anything other than rip this whole damn city apart if I have to to find him, you don't know either of us as well as you think you do."

"... We die?" His eyes were wide, and that was all he caught of the entire speech, his long ears drooping slightly.

"Not even 15 months back home, and we die?" His voice was very quiet, suddenly, and he turned his head.

For a moment, John wished that N'cho was still wearing Sherlock's face. For all intents and purposes, this was the closest he would ever get to being able to talk about Sherlock like this, with someone who might understand. His best chance at saying goodbye, the kid with the green face who had lived his best friend's life so seamlessly, who had spared his life when he could have very easily chosen not to- and with Sherlock's words, too. Run.
He smiled, slightly.

"We get fifteen months. Great months. Cases and cases, and he just... blazes through them all. I even manage to convince him to be a little kinder to Molly. He-- he plays the violin less when he knows I need to sleep for work. We watch Die Hard and he even manages to compliment some ridiculous part of the plot because he knows I like it. Occasionally he burns marks on the table when he's doing one of his experiments and leaves them there on purpose to remind me that he's not going to be nice, and they-- they make me laugh-- and then he..."

He shook his head, eyes flicking up. Wet his lips.

"He tells me to watch as he throws himself off a building. Which... Which is why-- if there is any way you can help me, any clue you can give me, anything..."

But he did shift, as John spoke, because they weren't words for N'cho and it didn't make sense, with this face, and Sherlock's was a second skin.

He doesn't have those memories. He only has Sherlock's, but he can feel that they would be true. He can extrapolate.

The end, however, doesn't make sense. The rest, yes, but not the end. He can remember falling, of course, here. He can even remember the way his - Sherlock's - bones ground against each other. How the blood blossomed behind his head. But that's a different memory, a city memory, and he didn't jump.

He wouldn't jump.

He shakes his head - Sherlock's head - and even his voice is back to the low baritone.

"No. That's impossible. We would never do that."

John bit his lip, unable to meet the not-really-Sherlock's eyes-- and it was worse, actually, somehow, knowing his face, his voice, all of that was right there, faked so perfectly.

Sherlock had tried to convince him he was a fraud once before, and he'd never been able to convince himself to believe it.

"I saw it with my own eyes," he clarified, swallowing hard. "He was on the phone. He tried feeding me a load of nonsense, wouldn't listen- and I couldn't stop him. He fell."

"Then your eyes were wrong." His voice was slightly hard and he didn't look at John, glancing back at his bed instead. Anywhere else. His fingers curled against the divider.

"There's nothing I can tell you about that, John. I don't have those memories." He paused, sighing. "I'm sorry."

"I hope they were," he agreed quietly. "I really do. Sorry. I know you don't. Don't really know what I'm doing, actually, treating you like my bloody therapist..."

He smiled, weakly.

"Should get one, shouldn't I. One that isn't part of a body-snatching alien invasion force come to wipe us all out, probably, if I can find one."

And the body-snatching invader pressed his forehead against the divider and then shifted, shrinking, again, his forehead sliding down until it came to a rest at his previous height. N'cho once more.

"Leave, John. I can't help you. And I can't help you find him."

There was a certain military stiffness to his shoulders as he watched N'cho shift from the form of his friend into the little green teenager. He should go. He really should. But he had nothing solid to go on, no idea where to start, no clue as to who he could trust.

"I'll fix this," he promised. "Somehow. There's been some kind of... misunderstanding, somewhere, and I'll find it, with the others who haven't completely lost it. I've done war. I'm not doing it again."

"There's no misunderstanding." His eyes turned up and they were firm and piercing.

"You-- John. You're different. So I'll ask you again to leave, and find somewhere else. Somewhere safe."

He took a breath, and his face hardened.

"But understand that I have absolutely no qualms in watching every single last one of the rest of them burn."

"Why?"

It was a simple enough question, delivered with genuine curiosity and helpless bewilderment.

And he closed his eyes firmly, letting out a long breath.

"You can't understand. And you won't. I won't try."

And then, almost pleading, "Just go. Please."

"All right," he said quietly. "But you'd be surprised what I can understand, okay? Just... bear that in mind."

And he turned to leave, parade-stiff.

".... Goodbye, John."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The mate to a key and lips to a secret.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject