Event: Consolidation Theory, Part Six

[snowblindmods]

Characters: the marked, the unmarked, and their rescuers
Location: ???
Date: Morning 356
Summary: Time to get out of here.
Warnings: gore, psychological horror, warn for specifics in the subject lines

Part Six OOC Post

Comments

[howdull]

[i: closed to John]

[Everything hurts.

It's a bone deep ache that seems to be coming from nowhere and everywhere at once, and it's just prevalent enough to stop him from being able to concentrate properly. And he desperately needs to concentrate properly, he needs to use his brain and find a way out of here before anything else goes wrong.

This is what he does, isn't it? He solves the puzzles and keeps anyone else from being hurt.

Think, Sherlock!]

[ii: ota]

[Now that Sherlock has been given back clarity, he's moving like a force possessed. It's so much easier to turn the disquieting fear of having his mind turned against him into anger, into motion, into action. He's striding up to anyone who still looks as though they're trapped, jaw set.]

Come on, get up.

i

[jumpthegun]

[Sherlock is the first one John goes to. He has to. As soon as he's out, as soon as he's steady enough on his feet, he leaves Royce's company and heads for where he can see his best friend.

It might look like John's walking through the wall. He's still sweaty from the fever and mildly dizzy, but he tries his best to focus on Sherlock, coming over to place a hand on the other man's shoulder.]

Sherlock, it's over. We're in a big empty room with mold. No cells. People've got in from outside.

[howdull]

[He looks up sharply when he feels the hand on his shoulder, though his eyes dart between John and the teenage Mycroft off to one side.]

How did you come to this conclusion?

[He's not outright refuting it yet, and the question is asked just like any other time he's asked John to make his insights on a deduction.]

[jumpthegun]

Royce walked through a wall to get me. Not just the forcefield, the actual wall. D'you need me to do the same? It's like clipping out of a video game.

[howdull]

[John looks calm considering their situation, he's making good eye contact, it's a fairly safe deduction that John isn't hallucinating this.]

Yes, I need to see it. If my senses are hoodwinked, I need the logical data to refute that.

[jumpthegun]

[John's in military mode. There's a mission to carry out here and he's good under this kind of pressure. The kind where he has the ability to act and save people. He nods smartly and moves over to roughly where he remembers the walls being in his own cell. And then steps through one, and back.]

Nothing here, mate.

[howdull]

[Sherlock watches intently as John disappears through a wall and then reappears without any effort whatsoever, and that's certainly a good indicator that John's telling the truth about this.

He stumbles to his feet, dizzy and nauseous, and strides over to one of the walls. He sets his hand on it and it feels solid, cold and hard.]

Perhaps you're the hallucination, not the cell.

[jumpthegun]

[John has to think about that and how he can convince Sherlock otherwise. He moves over to his friend again, trying to think of something useful through the fog.]

How d'you usually distinguish between hallucinations and reality? Doesn't do much to tell you I'm not a hallucination.

[howdull]

It's very unusual to experience a hallucination that stimulates both a physical and auditory response.

[He waits for a second before holding his arm out.]

Touch me.

[jumpthegun]

[That's easy enough and to, hopefully, circumvent expectations, John not only takes Sherlock's arm, he gives it a hard yank to pull the man into a hug.]

If this doesn't work, we're not talking about it again. [Even if it does work, they're not talking about it. The 'power of friendship' is a little too saccharine sweet to discuss as actually pulling someone from a delusion.]

[howdull]

[A simple touch to the hand would have sufficed to prove he was solid, but now apparently he's being hugged. He's still for a moment, before he awkwardly winds his arms around John in return.]

Yes, yes, you're real.

[A beat. Will came to him with worries about how close John was to cracking and his apparent need to do it, Sherlock thinks he knows better. Of course John is cracking, but a breakdown isn't the way he'd be helped.]

About time we got out of here, I've been thinking and I have some ideas on what we can do to show our gratitude for such hospitality, and I'll require your help.

[jumpthegun]

[John clings a little longer than he might otherwise, wanting to cement that Sherlock is real and still alive, as well. It's still not very long, in general, before he lets go.]

Okay. I've got Nathan up and aware, too. Think most people are covered at this point. What did you have in mind?

[He'll help his friend up if he needs it, but otherwise just follow along with Sherlock, per their usual walks together.]

[howdull]

[The whole place has shifted in perspective, the walls gone and the way out so obvious. He glances around to make sure that others are being dealt with, before striding off with John in tow, ignoring the tug of his wounds.]

A bomb.

[He flashes a smile at John.]

Similar to a nail bomb, but filled with rubble instead. We'll put it in one of the narrower sections of tunnel and wait in that area for a few days, patrolling it up and down, until we're 'unlucky' enough for an anomaly to attack. We know that rubble can hurt and repel anomalies, but what if a bomb full of rubble could actually kill one. Imagine what we could learn from that.

[jumpthegun]

[John's brows rise.]

Have you got all the supplies we'll need already?

[howdull]

Everything except the salt, but we know where there's a ready supply of livers if we can't find an alternative.

[Explosions, possibly fighting back against the monsters, surely that has to perk John up a little.]

[jumpthegun]

[It does, indeed, perk him up for the moment.]

If we're in the same place where we were taken from, we there's that garden with bodies in the northeast corner of the Industrial Zone. We can check around with the Ocean Eye App on the sealed building while we're over that way.

[howdull]

Excellent plan.

[That's sorted, then.

He's not sure whether to address John's mental state or not. Perhaps not, he'll just carefully observe over the next few days as they travel and then determine if he needs to intervene further or not.]