The Inevitable [closed to Kerrigan]

[on_your_nerves]

Good God, he needed a cigarette. Between the world being destroyed and all his friends besides John possibly dying along with it (or the entire thing being a total lie), John punching him and storming off, the talking ponies, the random superhero bringing up his cocaine addiction, and arguing with a space elf over (ugh!) politics and clandestine rebellions...actually, forget one cigarette. He needed a whole carton. Strike that, maybe a truck full.

Reaching into his many coat pockets on an instinctual search for cigarettes he knew weren't there, he found that a pack actually was there. And so was his lighter.

Maybe there was a God. Maybe there was a merciful God, or at the very least, maybe the ship really was as benevolent and merciful as she tried to make herself out to be and decided to smile upon him by snatching up a box of cigarettes with his belongings.

...Probably not, but this at least still was a fine bit of serendipity. Sherlock would take it.

Leaning into the doorway of a building in what he didn't realize was another blind spot in the city, he lit up his first post-end-of-the-universe cigarette and took a long drag from it. To be honest, it wasn't really enough, and like it always did when he least wanted it to, old cravings crawled up in the back of his skull and demanded something stronger.

"Not now."

No, not now, though the way he closed his eyes as he leaned against the door of the building and let out a lungful of smoke, would have made it clear to anyone looking that he was a fair bit more overwhelmed than he could even admit to himself.

It seemed that for now, however, he could be content with causing himself harm with only one cigarette at a time.

Comments

[aboutthatevac]

Kerrigan had followed him since he left. She was good at keeping a low profile. That was her job- or at least it had been until the zerg infested her.

Earlier she had heard his indecision. He was thinking of turning them over to the Council. That wasn't too alarming, she figured that they would know about the rebellion. What was more disturbing was his uncertainty regarding the Daligig. If he went to them- well, that would be much more than bad. Now, however, his mind was moving too fast for her to read him and her head all ready felt like it was split in two.

The tobacco triggered a brief, pleasant feeling in the pit of her stomach but it was soon washed away. Jim wasn't here. With luck he wouldn't ever wake from podsleep. She pushed those memories aside.

"You were right about one thing." She said, coming into view. "They are foolish to trust everyone." As she spoke her ghost suit pulsed orange, capturing her own psychic energy.

[on_your_nerves]

It really wasn't the worst indecision one could have. In fact, it was fairly reasonable to wonder who exactly he should trust, if anyone. Their alien saviors, apparently capable of horrible things, utterly ruthless, but trying to win a war that would be nearly impossible to win, where ruthlessness might be a sad necessity? The elected government, purported to be ineffectual? The two that wanted to branch off and lead the rebellion because of the Council's hesitance or maybe because of their own more personal agendas?

It was all happening a bit too fast for him to sort out, a rare thing indeed, but all Sherlock knew was that he didn't like the idea of his trust being assumed rather than earned. In the end, there was only one person, one single, individual person he trusted in all this mess, the one he always trusted, the one who had trusted and had faith in him despite all odds.

He wasn't even entirely sure John would talk to him again or trust him again, but he certainly trusted John.

Everyone else could go hang.

Of course, those inkling thoughts of pointing out to the Council that Tarrant and Ildraniath were gathering up newly released individuals and explicitly telling them they were working outside the government--just to see what would happen and how everyone here would react (it would be so telling)--were just that. Inkling thoughts. So were his thoughts of poking and prodding at the Daligig to try to discern what they were really up to, to see if they were saviors, deceivers, or something in between.

Just because he was thinking about all the possibilities and actions he could possibly take didn't mean he planned on acting on those little flitting thoughts. Not until he had more facts.

But with a mind that chugged along as quickly as his did, it was likely difficult to tell.

Sherlock took another drag from his cigarette, not leaving his place in the doorway.

"I was right about more than that," he said with very measured arrogance, in a way that made it very clear he was quite comfortable wallowing in his own ego, smoke trailing from his lips as he spoke.

[aboutthatevac]

"Perhaps." She couldn't speak for the rest of her conspirators. Honestly, she didn't really care as long as they got the job done.

True, Sherlock had John. But Kerrigan? She trusted no one, especially not herself.

"But less than you give yourself credit for."

[on_your_nerves]

"Do explain the situation to me then. Supporting evidence of why I should listen to you, or them--or anyone on this ship--would be illuminating as well."

To be honest, if it wasn't for the fact that the last people that tried to run off and escape the war had apparently nearly been tortured, he'd take John, learn how to fly a spaceship, and just leave. Saving the universe he could do, if he it meant he could quietly continue doing his work where needed. But politics? Espionage? Figuring out people and the lies they told and why they were telling them? Not really his area unless they were the motivations for a crime or the ways they were trying to deny they'd done it.

Sorting out alliances and loyalties was something he'd given up doing in primary school. That was Mycroft's line of work.

[aboutthatevac]

Kerrigan closed her eyes. She took a deep breath and focused. All her memories were set aside. Everything except for the little she remembered of the Daligig's experiments on her. Once she had those thoughts clear in her head she reached out and focused on Sherlock. She sent those images, and even worse the feelings.

Her memories were vague. What was clearest about them were her emotions- a blinding, impotent rage, a sense of overwhelming vulnerability and terror.

She awoke naked and restrained. Everything about her was laid open and dissected, including her mind. One by one her defenses were taken from her. She couldn't strike them. She couldn't even touch their minds. For the first time she had no idea what anyone was thinking. There was no connection to anyone. But after her lobotomy they didn't stop. The experiments continued. The pain was not only physical but psychic and nearly unbearable.

[on_your_nerves]

There was a moment where the detective was just going to wander off--he did, after all, still have an appointment with Nightwing, to secure his place consulting with Security--but then Kerrigan invaded in his mind.

The cigarette dropped from his hand to the asphalt and then he was down on his knees, and then on on all fours, collapsing to the ground in a wretched little ball.

Rage. Rage and rawness and fear. Rage. Some of it his own, directed at her for doing this to him, vulnerability (she was in his mind, how was she in his mind, how was she doing this to his mind, how was she making it not his own?) The terror was real. It was his own terror at having his mind tampered with, at not being able to trust his senses, at having someone else's imposed on him. It was terror at the overwhelming doubt he felt now that he realized his mind could be tampered with so casually.

And pain the pain so much pain pain like he'd never felt before all in an overwhelming rush.

For anyone, it would have been an intense experience, even traumatic, but for Sherlock Holmes making him feel a rush of terrible feelings, feelings that weren't his own, feelings that he could only feel because the sanctity of his mind had been compromised, it was pretty much the worst thing anyone could possibly ever do. Forcing such intimacy on him when she was a near stranger, it was something that was unforgivable in his eyes.

He couldn't process what he wasn't used to having to process.

Sherlock retched and the only reason nothing came up was because he hadn't eaten yet since podpop and nothing was in his stomach.

His mind overwhelmed, his senses torn asunder, there was only one thing he could think of to do, like a dying man might call out for his mother on the battlefield, and that was to call out in a plaintive, slurred voice, "Jooohn!"

It wasn't that he thought his friend was anywhere nearby, able to help him, it was just instinct. Instinct that, finding himself in terrible pain, he call for the person he was closest to.

[aboutthatevac]

Kerrigan watched and smiled.

"You asked."

Kerrigan felt no sympathy for this man. She didn't know him. She didn't care about him. All she knew was that he had insulted her. He questioned her judgment. He dared to ask what the Daligig had done. It was his time to pay for it.

Her heart pounded as she stared at this small, simpering creature. Her mind fed off of his terror. He knew his place now. And she? She felt alive.

[on_your_nerves]

It was all over as quickly as he'd begun, and the terror had gone, the rawness was still there, and the rage was even stronger than it had been.

That was his mind. His mind. Violated, why? Because he'd questioned people who wanted his trust? Because he'd questioned whether or not he could trust her? With apparently very good reason?

"You're...you're still lacking that supporting evidence I asked for," Sherlock nearly snarled, as he drew himself up shakily to his feet.

[aboutthatevac]

In the back of Kerrigan's mind a part of her asked why she was doing this. Why derive such pleasure? The man had only just woken to learn his world was gone. Kerrigan's reaction had been far worse.

"They confessed their actions. They also broke the bones of my body for confronting them. And if you want to see what this ship is capable of view the recording of Punishment and know that that was what they were about to inflict on two teenagers who dared to leave this ship.

"You ask for evidence, you can search for it yourself. You will find it."

[on_your_nerves]

"Why in the world wouldn't I make absolutely certain I was taking the right course of action by getting facts from multiple sources? Even if the Daligig are what you say they are, why shouldn't I question the leadership on this ship when they're all strangers, and demanding trust from strangers?"

The words were ground out, viciously, his own anger temporarily overwhelming what little self-preservation instinct he actually had.

"You are so stupid. More than that, you're psychotic. Were you a psychopath before you were tortured or was that just the result?"

[aboutthatevac]

Reason, compassion, basic human decency- everything Kerrigan had worked so hard to rebuild, all gone in the blink of an eye. Because that was all she needed. A fraction of a moment and she had grabbed her knife, then she grabbed Sherlock shoulder. Her thumb dug down in the pressure point between his collarbone. Even if his reflexes were fast the pain would immobilize him.

She stabbed.

"I used to be human." She hissed.

And stabbed.

"I was the Queen of Blades."

And stabbed.

"Now I'm nothing!"

She had never been anything. She had never meant anything. She was a tool, something to be used until it broke and then discarded. Once the tool was found again it was rebuilt but not repurposed. Always a weapon, only a weapon, only to destroy and she did. She destroyed. She killed until there was nothing left inside of her. Broken for the last time.

Sherlock's blood flowed down her hand, onto her arm and now it was soaking her body. She kept stabbing.

What are you doing, Sarah?

Her teeth ground together. She thrust the knife inside of Sherlock once more.

Sarah, what are you doing?

She pulled Sherlock forward into the hilt. She felt his breath. She smelled the tobacco. In the end, a cigarette saved Sherlock's life. Instead of her own voice she heard Jim's.

Sarah.

Sarah Kerrigan gasped. She released the knife, eased the grip on Sherlock's shoulder, and stepped back.

[on_your_nerves]

Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Military bearing, clearly unhinged. Weapon at her side. Willing to inflict horrible pain on his mind--and the ship hadn't stopped it. A blind spot. He'd been too angry to see, despite his vast powers of observation, he'd seen it all but he hadn't observed because he'd been so angry over what she'd done to him. Because it had hurt in ways he was unable to cope with.

Stupid.

John had already been furious at him, but at least that was something Sherlock could forgive himself for. Even if he'd hurt his best friend, John had been alive to be hurt because of it. Even if John decided to never speak to him again, he could live with it (albeit miserably) because at least it meant something.

This was meaningless. This was him having been stupid, brazenly stupid. Running off his mouth in an unfamiliar situation with strangers, not realizing the danger in his surroundings, letting himself get lost in his own head and overwhelmed by his new situation on the ship so that he wasn't thinking straight or being properly cautious when someone approached him. He was so used to just being able to flippantly say whatever he wanted and get away with it that he'd fallen into the habit here when it had the potential to be deadly.

John was going to hate him for dying like this and he had every right to. Sherlock hated himself for it, especially knowing how much more completely avoidable pain this was going to cause his friend. And this time he wouldn't be alive to watch John at his grave to see it.

Sherlock Holmes was as far from infallible as someone could get. He acted impulsively at times, he let himself by led in circles when a challenge was dangled in front of his nose, and for someone that claimed to have divested himself of emotional influences, he sometimes let things like anger or pride override what little self-preservation he had. This was, after all, a man that had been willing to take what was possibly poison to prove how smart he was, without considering that both pills were poison and that the man across the table had simply taken the antidote beforehand.

For all he tried to be some sort of intellectual god, he was, in the end, just a man.

Sometimes he forgot that.

As far as reminders went, Kerrigan's had been...effective.

The man stood there for a moment, clearly in shock, then calmly shrugged way from her, shrugging off his coat. It was a Belstaff coat. It had cost over £1300 and given the fact that Earth, Britain, and Belstaff were gone, it was effectively irreplaceable. Funny the things the mind focused on when you were in shock, when you were dying. His eyes wide and a little lost, he cast the coat aside, out of the way, where it wouldn't be bled on.

Then he looked to Kerrigan, and said quietly, "You...you could have just said 'piss off.'"

With that, he collapsed to his knees and to his side on the ground, knife still sticking out of his abdomen, laying very still, bleeding and starting to breathe more and more slowly.

[aboutthatevac]

Reading thoughts was now a challenge for Sarah but feeling emotions was not. Especially these, in the final moments before death- so strong. He was terrified and so overwhelmingly sad. Just as she had been, just as she had felt before the zerg...

"Don't talk." She bent over him, scanning his injuries. There was so much blood she couldn't tell how many times he'd been stabbed. How many times she had stabbed him.

There was no time to use the omnicomm. The comm rings were telepathic and worked just as well.

«Medical emergency in the city. I'm not far from the hub. I'm taking him to Med Bay I need a doctor to meet me. He's lost too much blood.»

He was dying. Sarah couldn't stop the bleeding but she could limit it. She reached for his coat.

[on_your_nerves]

Confusing. Very confusing. But then she was possibly entirely unhinged. Was that regret perhaps on her face and in her voice?

"Don't," he said when she went for the coat.

Maybe he'd guessed she wanted to staunch the blood flow and didn't want her to touch him after hurting him? Maybe he thought he was too far gone?

"That...is a £1300 coat. Its maker--doesn't even exist anymore. I took it off--for a reason."

Priorities, woman! You'll get blood on it!

"Give it to--to my friend John. He'll probably look like a flasher in it, but..."

You know, he'd look like a very stylish flasher with expensive tastes. John would want his coat, Sherlock thought.

[aboutthatevac]

"It's your coat or your life." She pressed the £1300 coat over his stomach where most of the stab wounds were. She put her arms around him and lifted him up.

"Now shut up and save your strength."

Once she had him properly balanced she set out as fast as she could- not quite running but close to it- for Med Bay.

[on_your_nerves]

He'd let out a groan of pain as she moved him, though she'd done a good job of stabilizing the knife and carrying him so it wasn't jostled.

Still, he'd lost too much blood too quickly. He wasn't going to make it to the Hub, let alone the Medbay, not unless there was something that could help along the way.

"My friend. John Watson. No omnicom yet, he won't--"

He would be hard to get a hold of.

"Tell John. Sorry."

Sherlock's gaze grew more distant, his eyes blearily rolling back in his head.

"I'm sorry, John."

The sadness she'd felt earlier was stronger now and it ran so, so deep.

[kaya_waterwave]

Covering up Howard's shifts and where Haruka was gone was no picnic, but Kaya was not one to shirk responsibility, and chances were, this being a ship and so recently after pod pop that something was going to happen. She was glad for the eventual time off in these instances though, so she made the most of it. The city was pretty much where she always resided, and would be here more than anywhere.

So the bleeding man who seemed to be delirious was now the focus of Kaya's attention. She had him lying down instantly while she was walking to the W.I.T.C.H. bus, applying pressure to the wound and scanning for what she could use.

She was all business now.

"What happened?"

[aboutthatevac]

Kerrigan hesitated. She knew she would have to turn herself in and she fully intended to do so but a confession now could delay his treatment. On the other hand withholding information would make her suspicious and distract her anyway.

"I attacked him." Kerrigan was reluctant to let go of Sherlock. She didn't see how this girl could help. "What can you do?"

[thisclinchesit]

The low roar of an engine could be heard coming closer to the area - it wasn't more Medical staff, though - it was Security.

With some reports of hostilities at podpop and Kang's warning about another dragon - well, a vague report about someone losing blood was probably worth checking out. Shoutarou could only hope the trip would be for nothing.

Rubber skids on the asphalt as he pulls to a stop, then pulls his helmet off and replaces it with a fedora while dismounting. He jogs up, and there's a definite shock on his face at the blood and the situation - as well as what Kerrigan said as he got within earshot. "...hope you're not planning on doing so again," he comments, regarding the hold she had on the wounded man.

[on_your_nerves]

Sherlock's eyed focused just enough to look at Shoutarou.

"She ruined my coat."

Yes, Sherlock, clearly that is the most pressing matter at hand. Not the fact that you still have a knife sticking out of you or the fact that your blood is all over the place in much the same way spaghetti sauce is all over the place after a toddler eats spaghetti.

No no, don't worry about that whole dying thing. No, the coat. That is clearly the aspect of this situation that deserves the most focus at the moment.

[kaya_waterwave]

Kaya was all business here. Granted, she was really curious about the way this had played out, including why his coat had played such an important part, but that was for after he was on the mend. She had her waterskin out already and was already starting to quickly strip him of his shirt, so she could get a better look at the wound and how bad it was.

"If that were the case, she wouldn't have brought him here to begin with," Kaya said. What sense would that have made. "He'll have to go to med bay soon, but I can at least heal some of this up."

She looked over at Sherlock, since she sometimes had this issue with people. "Do you hear that? I'm going to heal you a little, with waterbending. This might feel a little strange, but it won't hurt."

[aboutthatevac]

Kerrigan stepped away but kept watch over Sherlock.

"Once he's at Med Bay I'll turn myself into custody." Her voice was hollow.

"Who is John?" She asked. "He called his name." She said, turning to Shoutarou. "Someone needs to tell him what happened."

[thisclinchesit]

There's a sigh and an adjustment of his hat at Sherlock's comment. "It's a nice coat, mister, but there's bigger things to worry about right now," he answers, then turns to Kerrigan. At least she wasn't running off, and was willing to cooperate from the looks of things.

"Someone he knows, I'd assume. Let's worry about getting him to medbay once water-girl here does her thing - so that this is the only thing we have to tell this John about."

[kaya_waterwave]

At this, "water girl" looked up, narrowing her eyes.

"It's Kaya, thank you. I'll be a few more minutes. This will make sure he isn't in too much pain, and med bay will finish him up."

Really, how rude.

[on_your_nerves]

Sherlock only vaguely heard Shoutarou but he was too out of it to argue about his coat (which he would have done) his eyes rolling around in his head. He was trying to stay conscious but it was no easy task and there were moments that his eyes rolled back in his head before they rolled forward again as he tried to focus.

If he'd still been properly awake and conscious, he would have complimented Kaya on knowing not to just yank the knife out right away. Quite a few people didn't know that made the bleeding worse with stab victims. Her healing around it and trying to stabilize him first so it could be extracted safely was the right thing to do, and it was indeed helping. His breathing was evening out, his pulse was picking up again, and his color was getting better, no longer a waxy, unhealthy gray. The bleeding was slowing down to a trickle.

Eventually, he was stable enough that he could probably be moved to Medbay.

He was still out of it, still in shock, but now that he wasn't wavering in and out of consciousness, he was with it enough to look over at Kerrigan, then to Shoutarou and say in a quiet, weak, absolutely furious voice:

"Get her away from me."

Why yes, he was slightly resentful that he was laying there on the ground with his shirt open, with multiple stab wounds. (Ten? Twelve? He couldn't even tell.) In time, he might consider the absolute insanity Kerrigan's torture had caused her, but for now he was just slightly on this side of hacked off.

Mostly about the coat. Ruined.