kore_logs | [day 151]

Entry tags:

[day 151]

Who: Watson and Open. (with a thread for Sherlock)
When: Day 151
Where: Kitchen and various.
What: John has found his footing a bit, but more puzzles have arisen.
Warning: none.

[for sherlock; kitchen]

John was making tea. It was something of a ritual, in fact. He found something different to look at every day he was here, but in the end, tea was always there for him. John was rather fond of tea.

There was someone else he suspected that he was rather fond of, though he couldn't say exactly how it was so. It was something that he needed to discuss with Sherlock.

Sherlock.

Everything else faded a bit when he thought about that too. Well. Now that John was able to think of his friend without wanting to crush his tea cup he thought maybe it was high time to actually see the other man, so he sent a short text, informing Sherlock of his location. Whether the infamous consulting detective would show? That was anyone's guess.

[open]

At some point in the day, John thought it might be nice to stop by the Hydroponics Lab and visit with Meja. She was a nice woman and one could never have enough of those in one's life. Until then, John's feet led him in search of another nice woman. The one that was unforgettable. Only, John seemed to have forgotten her.

He wanted to know why these memories were missing. She was a mystery. Not the kind that could be solved like a case. But.. the kind that took a lifetime to unravel. Here he was thinking thoughts that had no business being tied to strangers but.. well, John was a man of particular quirks of his own. Getting attached far too fast and far too easily was the very least of those.

In the meantime. He looked out for a door with Mary's name on it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The text finds Sherlock deep in thought, sitting cross-legged on the bed in his room with his palms pressed together, forefingers tapping against his lower lip, tactile counterpoint to the meander of his mind. Tap, tap. The muscles at one corner of his mouth twitch and he sucks in a deep breath as the alert sounds. Nothing. Nothing useful anyhow, a stretch of non-Euclidean hallway that even Sherlock can't seem to hold in his mind properly. Circles intersecting circles within circles. A möbius strip, a klein surface. The tone, at least, is concrete.

If only the intention behind the words were so transparent.

He pushes himself to his feet, the texture of the bedclothes making him grimace. On its own it's not unpleasant, but this place is, and that colours the rest, from the washed-out white of the halls (which normally might almost be refreshing) to the improbable cleanliness of his room to all the little traces of the people both strange and familiar who inhabit this place, left behind in public spaces for Sherlock to find and notice and from which to learn nothing of any real value at all. Despicable, if anything, how life goes on.

The kitchen is worst of all, really, and yet there his feet guide him without much hesitation, though he feels there ought to be some, under the circumstances. Things are... complicated. A nasty tangle. Best if John didn't know he were here at all, perhaps. Best they'd never ended up here, obviously. Best of all he hides himself away until it ends and he can go back to work, without risk.

Sherlock cannot, of course, say no to John Watson. Not for long. He couldn't leave him here on his own, either. And so it seems the path down which he has already started to wander is the best one: maintain distance. Impose isolation. Say no more than needs saying and do no more than needs doing. If only that felt like the best thing to do. Even as he slips through the door, an inexplicable worry gnawing at the edges of his mind, he can't quite bring himself to really believe it.

"Took you long enough."

He had, somewhat thoughtfully, set out a second cup.

There was something pleasant about this kitchen. Alright, so a lot of the building had a kind of downtrodden, left behind sadness to it. But the places where there were people. They were at least a little lively. John had the good fortune (and the mixed blessing) of meeting several interesting sorts on his first day here. He expected that trend to continue for as long as this unexpected and involuntary holiday took effect.

But the kitchen was full of things. Edible things. Which was not such a common place occurrence that the sense of novelty had worn off yet. When living with Sherlock, of course, their kitchen had been an extension of the ongoing efforts of personal science. Body parts in the ice box was something that John more vehemently did not miss.

Food, on the other hand, well, there was a reason that John Watson was a confirmed bachelor. He could manage a few things out of sheer necessity, but food had fallen into the category of things most easily thrown together in a microwave.

But an industrial kitchen practically begged for more creativity than that. John wondered if anyone else in the building had a mind to test out these ovens and stove tops and see what could become of the effort. Then again, the idea was probably just that, a half romantic notion in the fancy of John's head. Where imagination was too fertile by half and emotions colored the landscape.

"I was upset, Sherlock. That sort of thing tends to happen when one's friend is a complete ass."

Sherlock didn't approach the facility in terms of sadness. Sadness wasn't remotely the emotion he'd associate with the place, nor with his previous stay here. Crippling boredom, maybe. Loneliness, if he were more inclined to be honest with himself about the nature of that particular beast. Now, though, if he saw anything like abandonment or weariness in it it could only possibly have been parsed as dangerous, as misleading, as the grandest lie this place had ever told. Sherlock isn't fond of lies when he's not the one telling them.

"No it doesn't. I nearly always am and you only get angry about it when you think you're right about something that you're not." The bitter irritation in Sherlock's voice had a source, of course it did, but he wasn't inclined to be forthcoming. Instead, he curled his fingers around the spare cup of tea and stared down into it with no great enthusiasm.

Completely inexplicable, of course. How could he possibly go about explaining being dead? The time this detour will take away -- but not take away at all -- from finishing the work, from finally ending it? How awful it really is to be swept away, then sent back, then stolen again before so much as having had the chance to come home? So much had happened in the interrim that even Sherlock had lost the thread of it, lost the willpower to do anything more than stare down into this mug of tea with no particular desire to do even that, much less anything else.

It would have been better to retreat into silence. Better he were on his own. He was tired.

It really was a wonder that Sherlock could manage to slip into and out of roles so easily for an investigation, and yet, when it came to the daily life of them. John and Sherlock. He managed to remain clueless on the etiquette of apologies. Namely, the part of the party to the first (being the one who committed offense) to refrain from insulting the party to the second (being John. Obviously.)

"Excuse me? I'm not in the right on this?" They vast gray spectrum of the world eluded John as much as differentiating tobacco ash. He was sure of everything, until Sherlock saw fit to pull rugs out from under him. A bad habit that somehow or another, continued to be part of that daily life thing.

"Would you care to enlighten me then? Because pouting certainly doesn't suit you, and if I were still mad, I would have found your room and rearranged it."

In the late morning, before she could begin her rune experiments, Meja was easily found in the lab. There were new seedlings coming up and, as a nice surprise, they hadn't tried to take over the lab as the mistletoe had. The little green stalks were just peeking over the top of the dirt, and it was hard to tell what they were going to be. Too early, yet.

She glanced up when the door opened, smiling at the familiar sight. It was always a sort of lottery, around here.

"Hei hei, John," she greeted him. "How are you?"

This sort of visit would probably become all too familiar to Meja, as John settle in and worked himself into a routine of sorts. Depending on daily circumstances, there really wasn't much else to do but socialize. It was a strange sort of status quo that the doctor was tempted to call 'peaceful' except that really, it hadn't been anything of the sort.

"Can people wind up missing chunks of their memory here?"

Watson sighed, offering a slightly apologetic look for skipping across the pleasantries.

"Sorry, that came out quick. What I meant to say was 'good morning, Meja'"

Meja grinned a little, laughing to show that she wasn't in the least bit offended. "Good morning. And yes, they... certainly can."

Whether it was coming or going, the Center seemed to enjoy tampering with the minds of its inhabitants. She was certain that to those who had been here the longest, it was going to end up all too normal to deal with.

"Do you seem to be missing yours?"

He relaxed a little. Good to know that she had a sense of humor. Not that he suspected otherwise, John had just... been surprised by a few people in the past few days. He found the current company a welcome relief from all of that.

"Either that, or someone is deliberately lying to me." Not that it had been the first time.

John moved to help with some of the plants. He didn't really know what needed to be done, but he hoped proximity would give him some hints.

Seeing him hovering, the Valkyrie offered him a mister. Most of the plants seemed to enjoy it. For some, it was all the water they wanted.

"Is there someone from your world here?" she wondered curiously. "Or was it something from an acquaintance?"

At least he understood the general idea of a mister. That was a step in the right direction. John grinned a little and went to work.

"Two people," His world, that was a funny way to put it. But the more that John turned the phrase over, the more it seemed to ring true.

"One that seems to know me well, even though I've never met her."

"Hmm." Meja considered, trying to think back on all of the conversations she'd witnessed around here. "Well, if they are telling the truth, then they could be from your future. From what I understand, this place seems to grab at random. Time doesn't seem to be an issue."

It was only thanks to her exposure to the Aesir, and their way of looking at things, that made her comfortable with that statement. Time was a funny thing.

John's reality was a fixed thing. Except that.. it had occasionally been shattered. By his own experiences in the war, and by his best friend who, just happened to be here where he wasn't supposed to be.

Believing in the facts seemed to be a thing of great convenience sometimes.

"I'd like to think they are. It would.. be nice." Because the idea that someone was there. For him.

Well. Who wouldn't want that?

"If they do know you from the future, I'm sure they'd like to get things straightened out," she noted reasonably. "It might be painful for them, you not knowing them I mean — but the sooner you do know, the sooner you can both move along."

If she were a more jealous person, she would probably feel a pang of jealousy about someone from his world being here. No one from the Nine Realms — her Nine Realms — was here. No Eloise to lift her spirits, no Fenrir to pass on his wisdom, no Muninn to banter with. She liked those she'd met so far, John included, but it wasn't precisely the same. There was a tiny void in her where her friends and comrades had been.

It was helpful advice and John nodded. He'd have to think about it, but eventually Meja's words would drive him back on the search for Mary's door. So they'd see what happened.

In the meantime. He is happy to shift along, misting the plants and marveling at the differences in them. John's never really been a plant kind of person. It's all new to him.

"What are these ones?"

Meja comes over to see which plant he's misting, and smiles at the younger plant. It's one of the more recent that she and the others have germinated.

"I don't know," she has to admit. "It's not from my world. But the leaves are sort of fragrant. Almost like perfume, don't you think? When it's a little older, I'm going to see if it's edible."

It was a natural instinct, but John leaned over to sniff the plan when she asked him about it. "Yes, actually." Though he couldn't quite place what perfume it reminded him of.

Possibly something that his sister wore, or something she'd once worn.

"Going to run a few tests on it?" Or was she the type to just nibble and see what happened?

"If I knew how the technology in the labs worked, I probably could." That did, on the other hand, come with the idea of using it. And she wasn't sure any of it was safe, alongside not having much of a head for it. "But no, I was just going to eat some, probably. I'm..."

How to phrase it?

"...much more durable than a human being," she noted, cautiously. Now that John had been there for a while, maybe he wouldn't find it alarming that she was no longer truly human.

"Ah."

It wasn't alarming, though it was a bit of a surprise. He'd come to expect strange things from the people here, but Meja was different. Mostly likely because she seemed to be the most open. Of course, John realized that they were all thrown into something of a survivalist situation.

He offered her a soft grin. "Well, as your doctor- did I tell you I was a doctor?" Regardless of her other humanness, John was still going to weigh in with is opinion. "As your newly appointed doctor, I'm going to have to recommend some lab tests first."

What was the point of having strange scientific equipment if they couldn't use it after all? And it might give Sherlock something to do to keep him from a state of irrational bored behavior.

Meja laughed softly. It was probably safer to wait, she supposed, even if that meant waiting for someone else to crack the labs.

"All right, then, Doctor Watson. I'll try to remember." She took note of the surprise on his face and added, "I was human. This is how I looked, when... well. I'm a Valkyrie. We're resurrected after death, when we... die to save others. We're soldiers, more or less."

It was a lot to swallow, but now that John appeared to be slightly more settled with his environment, she felt no need to hold back the truth. Better that he know, in case he ever needed assistance.

More or less a soldier was something that John knew very well.

"Like the mythology?" It was far fetched, but then again, what about this place was actually sensible or normal, a lot of nothing, that's what. John had encountered a very friendly dog-person-boy from another world not so long ago.

A woman who was potentially from his future, and a snide and tricky man with a penchant for pulling disappearing acts (not Sherlock, but that too).

"That's right." Meja smiled in an encouraging manner. She'd grown up on the mythology herself; she knew how strange it likely sounded. But the real thing wasn't exactly like the stories. "Mostly, at least. Have you read them?"

"Not in a long time." But he remembered some of the basics.

John shifted to the next row of plants in potential. "What is it really like?"

He wasn't a mind reader, he was just a curious man who had to find ways of dealing with the impossible. Asking seemed like the best way.

She hrmmed quietly, trying to find the right words to describe it.

"It's a little more gritty, I suppose. Not that the Norse myths are idealized, quite the opposite, but it's all there, you know. Nine Realms on the branches of a... well, sort of a giant tree. Most people see Yggdrasil as a tree, but not all. Dwarves, elves, giants, dragons. When I first woke up as a Valkyrie, it seemed impossible that nine worlds could be small. But they're jam-packed with all sorts of life. It's almost relieving that I was simply relegated to one of them."

Garrett's mother had always told him he's got a streak of the devil inside him. Days like this, when he was restless and bored from inactivity, it was the honest truth. He was puttering around the halls, idly following old scent trails.

When he saw John coming towards him, he stood up a little bit straighter, a grin on his brown face. His staff, which had been held loosely in his hand, was pointed at John. "Name 'n place where you are from before you pass."

He spun his staff around from his left hand to his right. It was a movement designed to be flashy rather than threatening. Plenty of time for that later on.

John stopped for several reasons, not the least of which was the fact that this was the first time someone had actually demanded anything of him.

And this person looked... a bit different than the rest of those he'd met.

"London, and John." In whichever order he preferred to take that.

Garrett leaned forward on his staff, adopting a more casual pose. His ears cocked to the side in a curious fashion. This newcomer spoke with the same sort of accent as a some others he had talked to.

"And where is this London? On Earth?" With each question, he hopped forward a little bit, closing the space between them.

"Well.. where else would it be?"

He was almost afraid to ask the question. John wondered if the answer he'd hear was something he would be able to accept. It wasn't a fear of disbelief, but one of acceptance that he might be all too comfortable with an idea that should be absolutely impossible.

The rapidly decreasing personal space has John nearly stepping back, but it was just a moment of indecision. He held his ground and offered a helpless kind of smile.

"Another world. There is more than just one, you know," he said rather casually, the way he might similarly mention that his favorite color was blue. He'd been amazed when he'd first arrived at the Science Center to discover other worlds, but he'd accepted the fact without too much fuss. Living in a world with magic had given him an open mind to impossibilities.

He mirrored John's grin. "I am Garrett." There was a slight pause, then he added, "Not from Earth."

Hardly the damsel in distress, Mary has been making her rounds about the halls trying not only to find John and Sherlock, but also a means of escape. She's had no luck in either endeavor and is returning to her room when she comes upon an all too familiar form.

Her steps falter for a moment, her eyes tracing the curves of his shoulders and his posture. Even if he doesn't remember her, he's curious. Which also goes to explain why he's only feet from her door. She takes a deep breath, letting a smile surface before she steps forward.

"I was looking for you, but it seems you found me first."

The funny thing is.

John really didn't put too much time or energy into the idea of escaping. Oh, he would like to, he planned to. But whether he was in a prison of life he didn't understand here, or whether that life was back in London, it didn't seem nearly as important as the promise of something that he'd heard in Mary's tone.

"I never could resist a mystery."

He wasn't the kind of man to be surprised by much. As John half turned to offer her a smile, he was more struck by the way she seemed to see him. Recognition was a difficult thing to fake, or so John would like to believe.

She gives a soft chuckle as she draws closer to him. Truer words have never been spoken, even if he doesn't realize it. "Then you must be loving this," she teased.

He looked a lot like how he had when she'd first met him. Except of course he wasn't carrying the weight of grief as heavily. Not with Sherlock here.

"Maybe it's best if we just start over. Mary Morstan." She held out her hand. "Pleased to meet you."

It helped. Even if the situation wasn't ideal.

Knowing that Sherlock was alive was like getting his own second chance at life. Or third, or more, but John hadn't really been counting. Right now, Sherlock was the furthest things from his mind. Other than the fact he'd had tea with the man none too long ago.

"John Watson." She already knew that. Somehow. "Pleased to meet you too, Mary."

He kept her hand longer than was strictly polite.

She glanced down at their hands and then back up at him, her eyes bright.

Oh, John.

She nodded towards her door. "Care to come in? I've got nothing but water to drink, but I do have answers to some of the questions that must be going through your mind." She paused. "Even if they all seem entirely mad."

"I'm.. used to a little unusual in life."

He may just follow her everywhere. John Watson was a bit like a puppy in that respect. He was happy to trail in and look around. Nothing about the room seemed any different than the one he'd woken up in.

"Who are you Mary Morstan?"

And why doesn't he just know. He feels as if he should know.

Oh, that was a loaded question if she'd ever heard one. Mary had been quite a few different people in her lifetime. In fact, Mary had just been a name until John had made it something more. Now she wasn't sure if she ever wanted to be anyone else.

"Well, that's the complicated part, isn't it?" She said, handing him a bottle of water. She twisted off the cap of her own bottle, sitting down on the corner of her neatly made bed. "If my suspicions are correct, given that the people here seem to be from different times and places and my own vanity about being able to make a lasting impression. I suspect that I may be from your future."

She paused, glancing over at him and trying to determine if he thought she was mental yet. She raised her eyebrows and gave him a small smile. "Spoiler."

He opened his own bottle of water and raised it to his mouth, but didn't take a sip yet. He lowered it back down for a moment.

"I've been here for a few days, and I've seen some... very strange things."

Angels? Dog people? Things that had no rational explanation and yet, John could detect no signs of a trick. He had idly hoped that Sherlock would have an easy explanation at hand, but that hadn't happened either.

"What I mean is. I believe you."

Then John did take a long sip of water. Wondering what his policy on spoilers should be. Did he want to know? Or should he wait and learn.

"As have I," she said with a small nod. This was by far the strangest set of circumstances she'd ever found herself in. Made all the more confusing by the fact that there was no visible enemy. Escape was imperative, but she wasn't about to do it without John. Or... Sherlock.

She hadn't been lying when she'd told John she liked him.

She gave a small laugh when he said he believed her. Leave it to John to swallow this completely impossible story, despite it being true. "Good, I'm glad one of us does, because I'm not quite sure I believe it myself."

She fixed him with a kind smile. "Go on then. I know you have questions."

Edited 2014-02-03 09:23 (UTC)

Currently, he didn't know that Mary had a fondness for the other fixed feature in his life. It would be a good thing, in the long run. As much as it might cause John to actually worry about Mary's own sanity.

No one but the desperate actually liked Sherlock Holmes. Kindly do not take that out to it's logical conclusion, even if it was the truth of the matter ten times over when it came to John Watson.

"No. Nope." The popping sound of the second word is accompanied by a very boyish smile.

"I'm just going to hope that someday I'll have the same memories that you do, and in the meantime.. make new ones. If that doesn't sound too assuming."

That was a valid concern and not one that she was likely to hold against him. But well, the three of them all had eccentric tastes and a unique draw to danger. It was how they'd found each other, after all.

That boyish smile was hard not to return with a bright one of her own. She nodded, a sign that she'd follow his wishes and try to keep things as spoiler free as possible. She tucked her hand beside her, discreetly removing her ring. She would still wear it, of course. But close to her heart, at least until he was ready to give it back to her.

"It doesn't sound assuming at all," she said, holding his gaze. "Though, if I could offer a word of advice? If you feel the sudden need to grow a mustache, know that it's just a phase."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[day 151]

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

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

no subject

no subject

no subject