aftercare

[riding_crop]

She texts him at half past noon, so that he's had time to sleep in if he needs it, but will probably be awake.

What channel are we watching, Sherlock?

Because he'd laughed, so she considers it a promise.

Comments

[riding_crop]

She puts her own phone on speaker as she heads upstairs, abandoning the television in favour of moving to dress. Jeans, a blouse, simple 'real world' clothes she normally disdains.

Irene won't actually charge Baker Street until his voice is back on the line. Dealing with bottom drop when you've accidentally blurred a boundary, it's important to ask for permission before further inserting yourself in your play partner's life, but Lord, he makes her want to storm the place, with his silence.

She doesn't actually know just how bad it is on his end, but she's imagining the worst.

[seesobserves]

He moves to the fridge once the worst has passed. It's not empty. Milk, cold chips, leftover Chinese. A foot in a plastic bag. Sherlock grabs the chow mein. The silverware drawer rattles.

He sets himself down in the chair again and calmly flips the phone to speaker.

"I'm here."

[riding_crop]

"Could you stand a little company? I'll bring something delicious. I can answer any other questions you might have."

Snatching the phone back up, switching it off speaker and pressing it to her ear. Irene is careful only to let the tiniest bit of worry creep into her tone, though the fact that she's calling at all should be indication enough.

"Only if it wouldn't make things worse."

[seesobserves]

Sherlock sits there and chews cold noodles while the tears dry on his face and the wife on the television barks a half-censored diatribe at her husband.

God. He's pathetic.

"You're the one with experience in these matters," he reminds her, and stabs a shrimp. "Tell me your interpretation."

[riding_crop]

"I'm out the door."

It slams shut behind her with haste. She hails a cab, directs him to Baker Street, and settles in to her seat.

"I know you're not much one for physical contact, but it's the best solution I know. If you're half as bad as I was my first night, I don't envy you this step. I bawled my way through a full box of tissue. Thankfully, it generally only improves, provided it hasn't scared you off."

[seesobserves]

Needing other people is not a new phenomenon to Sherlock's life. Acknowledging and accepting it is. Coming right out and asking for help, even when he's like this? That's a bit beyond him still.

All told, he isn't having the worst possible reaction. Instead of the fridge, he could have gone for the hollowed-out leg of his bed. Sherlock manages to pull himself somewhat out of feeling pathetic - for this particular moment.

"So I'm experiencing a perfectly anticipated psychological reaction." He sniffs. "Emotional distress, uncertainty. Tea hasn't been enough to stop it, neither has the crap telly. Well, why not," he goes on, the bitterness creeping back in. "Let's try a hug."

[riding_crop]

"I love it when you get all snide." Sighing into the phone, propping her feet up up against the back of the seat, sliding down a little bit. "I'll tell you all about what happened when I get there, but there might be a dreadful accident if I go into detail right now."

The man is already glancing at her suspiciously in his rear view mirror. She ignores him, thinking idly about his Study in Pink adventure, of being stuck in the murderous man's cab.

"Why don't you tell me if there was anything you enjoyed about yesterday? Not to fish for compliments, but focusing on the good will help you refocus."

[seesobserves]

Sherlock runs his tongue around the inside of his mouth, picking out tiny noodle remnants, and puts himself back there. There's a great deal he could mention, but one detail jumps out straight away.

"The -- electricity on my scalp."

[riding_crop]

"Good sensation? Or intellectually stimulating?"

She checks, trying to keep her questions most cab appropriate, trusting him to see what she means, though. There's a difference between liking a feeling and liking to be forced to feel something painful.

[seesobserves]

He sets aside the food and shuts off the telly. Too much residual noise.

"Call it my earthing system." It had been the last thing to still feel good when everything else had become pain. Something to reference and return to. Without it he might have got overwhelmed - 'shorted out' - given up too early.

[riding_crop]

"I'll remember that."

If only because it's such a Tin Man thing to say, referring to himself as a an electrical system, even in terms of such intense feeling.

"You know, it's possible to play strictly by numbers. Easy stimulation, abrupt escalation, then again at a slightly lower setting. Level one, then level three for a moment, then level two, then level four for a moment, then three again, but sustained, to produce specifically timed waves of endorphins. I think if you confine yourself to such an approach, you risk losing the psychological complexities, but it is important to keep in mind. And, of course, one man's one is another's eleven..."

[seesobserves]

He does wonder whether that would be too predictable - but the last thing she says catches his attention.

"Trial and error. You would need to test me in order to assign my - numbers." And oh, that's an interesting proposition. He can already picture it in the abstract, like some kinked-up version of the Periodic Table. If you apply this tool in this area with this much force, and then if you mix up the elements to invoke the proper reaction...

"Sadomasochism as chemistry. I imagine the process would take some time."

[riding_crop]

"Well, of course. You'd need a formula that would include not only location, but intensity and duration. Give me just a moment-"

The car pulls to a halt, and Irene has to lower the phone for a moment to pay the (incredibly curious, but too invested in his tip to be any more nosy, coughs like a chain smoker, didn't sleep well last night) cab driver. Outside, a car door shuts.

"How's this sandwich shop? Anything good on the menu?"

[seesobserves]

The sound of the car door drives home the reality of the situation. Sherlock has to rally himself - not so much she'd notice, not over the phone. It manifests outwardly as a turning of his head to one side, a measured breath while she's still talking.

"Stay away from the tuna, otherwise it'll do." A sudden impulse. "Their breakfast is best, actually." And served all day, as luck would have it.

"Cabbie stayed quiet. You must have tipped well. Either that, or he was too tired to bother."

[riding_crop]

"A generous tip. And he kept trying to glance down my blouse in the rear view- excuse me, two of the breakfast, thank you dear, and a coffee and cocoa, please, to go- mirror."

As she digs through her purse one handed for a wallet. Setting the plastic card on the counter, phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. This time, they're saved from commentary by the sheer boredom of disaffected cashiers around the world.

"It was probably very educational for him, all things consider. Although there's a great deal more to go over."

[seesobserves]

"Mmn," is the only answer Sherlock's giving to that. It'll be a few minutes before she gets upstairs. He takes the opportunity to return the Chinese to the fridge, drop the fork in the sink. He takes the phone with him so that she can hear he's puttering around, not just sitting silent.

He considers using the last moments to slap on a nicotine patch. It might help calm his nerves - or it might fry them further. Difficult to say.

[riding_crop]

She interrupts his decision making, to say;

"I'm putting the phone down to carry all this. Come let me in."

And then she clicks the mobile shut and drops it in her purse, picking up their breakfast-for-lunch and thanking her (still disinterested) cashier, before heading back out into the street, heels clicking neatly on the concrete as she makes it up the stairs to familiar front door of 221B.

[seesobserves]

Snap decision, then. Sherlock decides on 'yes.'

Ten seconds (to walk to the bathroom while rolling up his sleeve, locate the package extract a patch), then another ten (applying the patch, pressing it flat against his skin). She should be at the door by now.

Just another ten seconds. Washing and drying his hands, heading for the front door while replacing his sleeve. He makes his steps quick and light.

"Afternoon." He steps back, opens the door wide to let her in.

As if she didn't already have a clue what he was going through, she'll be able to see some signs on him. Slightly red eyes. A certain tension in his frame.

[riding_crop]

"Hello, dear."

Her own appearance is just as telling. Jeans and high heels, blouse with nothing underneath it, purse and her hair down around her shoulders. She came running. And she won't comment on his tears, if he doesn't comment on her rushing to dry them.

And she brought breakfast, a paper bag in one hand, a tray with her coffee and his cocoa in the other. The bag, she presses into his hands as she saunters past him, as though she owns the place.

"I'm not sure I've ever been through the front before. I typically come in the back or through a window. Do we have the place to ourselves?"

[seesobserves]

No comment. They both know why she's here; no need to belabor the point.

"Everyone else is out." The door clicks shut, then he's following her up the stairs. "John's gone to the clinic. Mrs. Hudson is out on one of her lunch dates. Should be a while yet."

[riding_crop]

"Good. I wouldn't care to accidentally out you to your peculiar little family."

Climbing the steps gracefully, with a slight hesitation on the one that creaks, she shows herself into his rooms, then toes off her heels, still balancing the tray. No armor needed here. They're a bit past that now.

"If this is even an aspect of yourself you're interested in exploring, which is a choice you get to make." And not something she's taking for granted. If he decides he's had enough, the earth shattering realizations of the day will be minimal. It would, in many ways, be easier. She glances over her shoulder and up at him. "You decide whether or not to continue, and you decide with who. Although I'd like to do a hundred other despicable things to you, I can also provide a list of good, safe practitioners."

[seesobserves]

She can speak for herself on the topic of armor. Even if his, the 'outdoor' clothes even though he's not going anywhere, are more for the off-chance of John coming home early... there's still something guarded in the way he reaches across her and over her shoulder to pluck the cocoa from the tray.

The kitchen table and computer desk are both, as usual, covered with clutter. Sherlock returns to his usual chair, sets the paper bag down on the floor and extracts one of the two styrofoam containers along with a napkin-wrapped set of plastic utensils and one-use packets of sauce. As he sits back, he nudges the paper bag closer to the chair across from his, with his foot.

"You'd done your research on me, the first time we met." It's a prompt - Moriarty had had the tools to tell her almost anything about him. He's never known just how much.

[riding_crop]

"Yes, I did. But I didn't come across anything that might be pertinent here. He guards some aspects of you quite jealously."

She makes a little room on the table, shifting a jar of something and setting the cocoa down within his reach, stooping to pick up the bag and moving to curl up in the chair opposite him. That same bad habit of balancing things on the arms of the chairs serves her well here. She sets the bag down, so she can thumb open the mouth on the plastic lid of her styrofoam cup.

Irene concentrates on opening her sandwich, waiting for him to continue.

[seesobserves]

"Did he tell you about the drugs?"

Because hell, there's no reason to drag it out, is there? He's got himself under control, the nicotine is buzzing through his skin (although burning a bit on one thin line left over from the violet wand). He takes a small, scalding sip of cocoa (it exacerbates the mark on his tongue, but the flavor is soothing). He's okay.

[riding_crop]

"No, he didn't."

She admits, eyebrows going up a touch. It isn't surprising, considering what else she knows about him. Or considering what some of her play partners and clients seek her out for.

"Go on."