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

[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."

[seesobserves]

"I have two options." His voice stays level and calm, as though he's talking about nothing more dire than the weather. His free hand unwraps his breakfast and starts deconstructing it, separating it out into its various parts as well as he can with it balanced on his lap. "Every day. Sometimes every hour. I find something I can focus on, something to which I can apply my mind's energy... or I find a way to make it stop."

Or he shouts at John. Always a viable option, especially when it keeps him from more self-destructive behavior.

Sherlock lets out a soft, derisive sound before continuing: "Mycroft hovers over me like a stealth helo, like I'm some sort of - time bomb." Perhaps he is. He just doesn't appreciate being reminded of the fact. "When the truth is I haven't touched anything more narcotic than a sleeping pill for the last three years."

[riding_crop]

"Well, for one thing, I promise never to inject you with anything again." Dry humour, because she doubts he would appreciate her pity, or any softness from her now. She watches him, with something rather like admiration in her expression.

Because it wouldn't do to assume anything unduly.

"And this experience brought some of this up for you?" It's a bit of a strange response to 'will you want to play again,' and while she's mostly sure she's following, assuming with him would be a mistake. "I really was wrong about that self-control of yours."

[seesobserves]

He can't hold back the ghost of a smile at that, one that comes and goes in a flash.

"I found that silence again yesterday, and I hadn't gone looking for it. In fact, it is something I have worked very hard not to go looking for."

He hasn't looked directly at her for the last minute, but now he does, and his emotional state wobbles on its base yet again. She should be able to feel it burning toward her through his eyes. He's angry.

[riding_crop]

"How funny. I hadn't pegged you as the type."

She admits, greeting his anger with a slightly lifted eyebrow of her own. Tacitly challenging him. Does he think he's going to cow her?

"Generally, my clients are one of two sorts. There are the ones who are shut off, either because they're intense introverts or they exist struggling to process the rush of it, retreating defensively from sensation. They need the pain to reconnect to themselves physically, as a sort of stimulation it's impossible to ignore, like a hot needle over numb skin. Then, there are the ones who are there for oblivion, for the peak of the scene when the world fades to crushing silence and all thought, all responsibility, all of it is simply gone."

She would have guessed that for him, it would be the first. Right now, it sounds to her like it might be a bit of both, but she should really stop speculating about him, since she hasn't been particularly good about it recently.

"And whether, having tasted oblivion again, you'll be able to confine yourself to chasing it in ways that are safe. Or if you're off to stick cutlery in electric sockets."

[seesobserves]

"Don't joke." Everything about him goes tense on the emphasized word. No, he doesn't expect her to be cowed, but the feeling has to go somewhere, and after all, she's the one who did this to him.

"You came here in your professional capacity. Be professional." Tell me what I'm supposed to do.

[riding_crop]

"Everything except for the electrical socket was completely serious, Sherlock."

She informs him, sharply.

"From what I understand, one of the most gratifying things about what happened yesterday was finding a silence that you'd only been able to pursue through substance abuse. Is that what you mean? Because if it is, my question still stands."

Sipping her coffee, in order to force herself to slow down and think about what she's going to say next.

"I'm going to tell you what I tell my clients who confess a history of self-harm. You can't overdose on BDSM. You can't get- well, you can't get addicted to it the same way you might anything else, but what you're feeling now is probably as bad as any symptom of withdrawal will get. You'll court risks, especially if you dance into edgeplay as completely as you seem inclined to, but the risks are manageable. But only you can answer if this is a safe thing for you to do psychologically."

[seesobserves]

That's the big question. Sherlock takes a sip of his own drink, playing back the roller coaster he's been on all morning.

"I don't think my judgment can be entirely trusted at the moment," he concludes with a sniff. "It's as you said; the - emotions are volatile. I'd liken it more to a series of aftershocks than a withdrawal."

[riding_crop]

"There's that, and the fact that you may find most scenes don't actually take you to that headspace. They can be rewarding in any number of ways, but it isn't a simple matter of inserting a quarter and arriving at the destination twenty minutes later."

She admits, sipping her coffee again.

"Think about it, that'd be my suggestion. I always advise a two week waiting period after the first scene. For... processing purposes, shall we say?"

[seesobserves]

A nod. 'Processing' is his language, after all.

Given the way this conversation has gone so far, Sherlock thinks it's best if he takes time to do a bit of processing right now. He stays silent for the next minute, eating and drinking, lingering in the calmer wake of his last outburst. The irritated skin under the nicotine patch still stings.

[riding_crop]

"One thing I would like to do today is go over a few basic safety concerns."

She says, at length, once she's half done her own food. The coffee is lukewarm so she sets it aside.

"If you do go forwards with this, I'd like you to have the tools to self-advocate."

[seesobserves]

While the rest of his face stays neutral, Sherlock's eyebrows do an amused jump.

"More to it than traffic lights, then?"

[riding_crop]

"Astonishingly, yes. You have a good enough sense of human biology to know that someone beating your ass with a billy club is rather different than taking the same blow to the kidneys."

Smiling delicately.

"But if a top makes that mistake, it generally means they're out of control, and you should exit a scene before you're too far gone to safeword."

[seesobserves]

"Know the difference between recreational torture and the real variety," he says in other words. He fancies, however, that he'd be able to spot that scenario coming from miles away.

"I can tell when a person is more likely to lose control."

[riding_crop]

"Yes. And, a slightly more different variation to spot... The most genuine, soft-hearted, protective of tops can sometimes try to play slightly out of their own range of fluency. They'll listen to you safeword in a heart beat but don't know that rope cutting across the upper arm in a suspension can lead to nerve damage if you're not careful."

Much more difficult to recognize on sight. And many of them are probably a great deal more emotionally safe than Irene herself, but she's scornful of them nonetheless.

"Like trying water torture with someone who doesn't know CPR, for example. No one ever actually intends to drown their submissive, but the experts are prepared for the eventuality of one ill-timed inhale."

[seesobserves]

Alright: point. However:

"I don't go for soft-hearted." And - though he's not prepared to say this out loud - there are few others he would put himself at the mercy of apart than her. The process involves too much exposure. Better to keep that circle small.