[log] Event: Howl [open]

[snowblindmods]

Characters: everyone
Location: The sort of location M.C. Escher wishes he'd thought up.
Date: nights 211 & 212
Summary: I hunt for you with bloody feet across the hallow'd ground
Warnings: potential for violence, death, and psychological horror; please note in subject lines if any specific warnings come up!

like some child possessed, the beast howls in my veins
I want to find you tear out all your tenderness

Comments

[howdull]

[Conflicted is definitely the word he'd use if he had to describe this moment. There's an overwhelming sense of affection and relief, not just from the strange connection to the other side of this bizarre monster hunting team, but there's also guilt and fear that threaten to choke him.

It leaves him uncharacteristically silent as she helps him up to his knees. There are no bandaged injuries to find, just evidence of malnutrition.]

Mary...

[agravating]

[When he speaks, the relief is strong enough to leave her extremities momentarily numb in the emotion, her knees sinking into the snow as she wraps her arms around him. At first, she's holding him loosely. He's not hurt, and she's supposed to keep her knowledge of the video she'd sent him under wraps. If she knows about it, knows he'd seen it, knows he'd acted on it--then her Bakerstreet Boys will know that she knows of her death.

But she can't quite help herself. Her plan worked too well. She'd not only gotten the infamous John Watson invested, however buried in grief he'd been--she'd dragged herself along for the ride, despite how far away she'd been.

It had been such a good plan. She just was supposed to be entirely dead for it.

Regardless, she grips him tighter, forehead against his shoulder. Her heart is racing, and she wonders if he can feel it through the layers of fabric between them.

Don't let him know. He can't know that she remembers the video. He can't know that she knows. Her words are chosen carefully, regardless of how true they are.]

You are an idiot, Sherlock Holmes. After the Joker? You're lucky you didn't get yourself killed!

[howdull]

[His heart wrenches in his chest and, for a moment, he's nothing more than a man who missed a dear friend as his arms rise up and he holds her back. It's only for a moment, though, before deductions begin to swim through his mind without prompting. He can feel the bump of rings on her fingers, two of them, so she's after her wedding. There's no swell to her belly, no enlargement to her breasts, so she's not pregnant... good, very good.

She's not dead.

The evidence of that last one is stupid, because it's not evidence at all. She could very well be dead where they're from, but she's not here, and he can feel the truth of her warmth and life in his arms even if he can't see her. He smiles, even chuckles, though it's choked up.]

I was bored, Mary, what else was I supposed to do?

[agravating]

Something that doesn't involve trying to get yourself killed might be a start. [Mary sighs, sinking back as she loosens her grip on him to survey him fully. She hears the choked laugh, and concern runs through her, separate of the demand of the strange instincts of Andromeda overlaid on her own. She rests her hands against his shoulders, gentle but leaving him no opportunity to pull away, and uses her shoulder to dab at the tears pooling in her eye.

She hadn't realized, while traveling, that she'd miss the world's only consulting detective quite so much.

Regardless, she imagines that his response is so tied to her presume death at home, but his emotion still catches her by surprise and she finds herself concerned.]

What's gotten into you? You're upset.

[howdull]

[He might not be able to see her, but he can feel the gentle tremble and the motion of her head to the crook of her elbow that tell him that she's crying. She knows, she has to know, she's far too clever not to have figured it out.]

I think you know exactly what, Mrs. Watson.

[He's not going to outright state it, but he's going to make sure that she knows that he knows that she knows.]

[agravating]

[She feels panic welling in her stomach again, a whirlwind of anxiety overtaking any sense of focus she'd had, the aching sadness she'd been feeling finally having a real and definite cause.

She pulls away from him, a gloved hand covering her eyes as her breathing grows increasingly quick.]

I'm dead, aren't I?

[howdull]

[It's almost a blessing that he doesn't have to see her expression, though he hears the way her breathing picks up. It makes him reach out to put a hand on her shoulder, the pressure light.]

The future is a dangerous subject to discuss.

[agravating]

[She crumples under his hand, the tears quiet but audible. It wasn't the dying part she particularly minded--it was what death did to her John. Her Rosie. To the man in front of her, confirming that her attempts to protect her unusual little family had failed.]

Tell me that John and Rosie are safe. [It's not a question, but a request. That her past had caught up with her and her alone, that her husband and daughter walked out the other end uninjured.]

...oh God--tell me it's not my fault they end up dead. That you end up dead. Please, Sherlock.

[She barely gets the words out this time before she can no longer speak, choking on sobs.] Please, please,--

[howdull]

[He cannot resist pulling her in close and winding his arms around her for a hug. It's not a natural gesture for him, but some occasions simply warrant the unnatural, and there's no hesitation.]

Hush, Mary, you know that you would never allow that to happen.

[Of all the people involved in this disaster, this is not her guilt to bear.]

Rosie and John are well, none of us have died as the result of your actions.

[agravating]

I didn't want to leave you. [Mary tries to restrain her sobs, head burrowed into Sherlock's coat and hands absently grasping the lapels of his coat.] Any of you.

I thought running--I thought maybe you'd be safe--

[She coughs, sitting back to wipe her eyes. A few moments more and she's able to catch her breath, the tears slowing to the occasional hiccup. Even as she grows calmer, she stays wrapped in his arms, slipping her hands free and wrapping them around him in turn.] I'm sorry, Sherlock. I'm so sorry.

[howdull]

[The worst part of this, is that maybe she would have been safe? Maybe bringing her back to London had been what killed her, so she could be there when Sherlock made his stupid deductions to a woman on the edge.

He continues running a hand almost carefully down her back.]

You have no cause to apologise. We found you, your decision to run has nothing to do with what happened. You have caused no harm to your family.