Survival

[formersurgeon]

Who| Sherlock, the Watsons, and OTA
What| Like it says on the tin
Where| The jungle
When| End of week 1, early week 2
Warnings/Notes| Sherlock, John and Joan are all available here to thread with, one of them, two of them, or all three. Just specify who in the subject line!


Surviving in the jungle hadn't been easy on the three of them. Among them, only John had any real outdoor survival experience prior to the Arenas, and that had been for deserts, mostly. Sherlock had plenty of theoretical knowledge on the subject, but not much practical experience beyond the previous Arenas. And as far as survival techniques went, Joan was the most useless of the three.

Regardless, they were making it work. They had picked a decent spot to set up camp, managed to keep their supplies passably dry, and took turns scouting or keeping watch while at least one of them stayed at the camp. That one was frequently John, since he had to stay off his injured leg as much as possible. Joan checked his stitches every day, and so far there hadn't been any major problems.

It was a relatively comfortable setup, but Joan knew it couldn't last. They were already running low on food, and eventually they would have to worry about the wrong type of person finding them. The kind of person who wanted to win. If they could only hold out a couple more days, until John's wound is sufficiently healed...

Comments

[alldeduction]

It was Sherlock's turn on watch and he'd already alerted himself to Howard's presence long before the boy spoke, though he acted as if he hadn't. He might have tensed, at first, fingers sliding around the knife in his pocket - but they'd released when he'd put the data together and figured out who it was.

Howard wasn't a threat. Not to them, at least.

When the boy spoke, he turned his head.

"It's clear, Howard," He spoke into the trees.

[formersurgeon]

Joan was adding some wood to the fire, hoping she wouldn't kill it in the process. When she heard the voice from the trees, she looked up, at first startled and worried. Sherlock's response helped her place the voice, though, and she relaxed. She wasn't sure about Howard, that he wouldn't hurt her. But if Sherlock was sure enough about him to invite him closer, that was good enough.

[drpsychosomatic]

John stirred at the sound and Joan's sudden stillness- he'd been snatching sleep where he could while the others kept watch with relative ease despite their predicament, something he seemed to have less trouble with than either of his compatriots. Soldiering would do that to you, he supposed. He registered Sherlock's lack of tension before he recognised Howard's voice (though the recognition wasn't too far behind the instinctual response to trust Sherlock's danger assessment), and sat up, looking for him.

"Howard?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

He slinks into their encampment in his usual cattish way, placing each foot as if trying to step past the idea that it's going to land on a trap door. He waves a hand in a mockery of a greeting.

"How you guys holding up?" He gives Joan a long look, then flits his eyes back to Sherlock and John, silently asking she good?.

[alldeduction]

"As well as can be expected, thanks to Joan's quick handiwork," Sherlock says gesturing vaguely at John's leg; half as an answer to Howard's spoken question, and half as an answer to his unspoken one.

"Found any bomb making materials, yet?" He asked, surprisingly chipper given the fact that they were in the middle of an arena. He was better off in this one than he had been in the ones previous, and it was apparent.

[formersurgeon]

Joan blinked and raised her eyebrows at that look. It made sense for him to be wary of her too, of course, but he was apparently looking to Sherlock and John to get their opinions of her, so she was sure he would likely come to be okay with her at least as much as she was with him.

When Sherlock mentioned bomb building materials, she blinked again, this time in surprise, shifting her glance to him.

[drpsychosomatic]

John smiled and nodded in Howard's direction, eyebrows raised as if to say yeah, I know, the leg again, isn't it ridiculous? - but despite the attempt to hide his very real frustration and annoyance behind the joke, it was fairly obvious he was genuinely pleased to see the kid.

"Looks like I've got someone to do the doctoring for me," he explained wryly. "Shouldn't brag about my double too much though, everyone will want one. You alright?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"What, you think I make it to the finale every season by playing pattycake?" he says, responding to Joan's look. "But nah, no bomb-making materials. Yet. But maybe if I ask nicely the Sponsors will send me a junior chemistry set and I can really get cooking. No injuries yet."

He saunters over and takes a seat next to John, plopping himself down now in a way that seems almost spitefully territorial in Sherlock's direction. "But I did find velociraptors."

[alldeduction]

Sherlock prickles a little, Howard's territorial all too effective. He doesn't move, however, frowning as he listens.

"Velociraptors," he repeats as if he had never heard the word.

Dinosaurs weren't exactly a necessary subject of knowledge when it came to crime solving.

[formersurgeon]

Joan glanced at Sherlock, frowning. He couldn't seriously not know what velociraptors are, could he? Maybe they call them something different in England.

"You've seen Jurassic Park, right? Vicious and intelligent dinosaurs. If tyrannosaurus rex was the sledgehammer of the dinosaur world, the velociraptor was the scalpel."

[drpsychosomatic]

John decided not to mention some of the other gaps in Sherlock's knowledge- but he was completely unsurprised to find he hadn't dedicated much brainspace to extinct megafauna.

"Well, that's new at least," he sighed, rubbing at his temples and offering Howard a wry smile. "Dinosaurs. Have to admit, I'm glad we got that spear, now."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

Howard actually twines his fingers and cracks his knuckles, his grin betraying exactly how excited he is to show off that he knows something Sherlock doesn't (very). And he sidles up a bit closer to John.

"Actually, to be totally correct, I'm pretty sure they're Utah raptors. About ten feet long, big hooked claw on each foot, hunt in packs of five to seven. More closely related to birds than they are to lizards." He gives Joan's statement an approving nod. "They're big trouble. They run way faster than a human can and they're smart as hell."

He smirks at Sherlock. He's got to find an upside to being stuck in a gladiator ring with carnivorous dinosaurs somehow.

[alldeduction]

Sherlock's face twisted - an emotion somewhere between disgust and annoyance. The fact that he did not have the knowledge necessary to survive bothered him on a very deep level. From Joan, he could at least allow himself to be ignorant, but from Howard?

He bristled, visibly.

"Oh good, ancient creatures where all our knowledge about them comes from movies and bones. Absolutely no possible way you could be horribly wrong and get us killed."

[formersurgeon]

She narrowed her eyes at Howard when he smirked like that at Sherlock. He was taking pleasure in Sherlock's ignorance, and Joan's opinion of the kid slipped another notch. She turned back to Sherlock.

"Except that's all the gamemakers have, too," she pointed out. "They made these things, right? Their assumptions about how they work probably aren't much different from ours."

[drpsychosomatic]

"Well, that and they tend to make the animals in these arenas act differently than they normally would, anyway," he agreed, remembering the piranha from the first arena he'd been in. "Seems pretty safe to assume we want to stay the hell away from them, too. How did you get past them, Howard?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"Movies and science!" Howard snaps at Sherlock, face screwing up into a flash of actual upset. He remembers getting 'deduced' clear as day, and his loathing for Sherlock stays only beneath the surface. He takes a deep breath and shrugs his shoulders to calm down. His eyes lift to the trees, then down to John's leg, then back to the trees.

"I been staying up in the trees. They don't climb, at least not as high as I been staying." But since that's not going to be an option for John, he racks his brain to think of something else. Location. "Their territory is east, I'm pretty sure. I ran into way more tracks and kills there. And they avoid low territory and the caves and all those places that flood, so I'm betting they can't swim."

He pauses. "Don't try scavenging from them, either. Whatever's in the plants here is in the meat, too. The Gamemakers are starving us out."

He swallows and a panicked shudder runs down his left arm, probably invisible to anyone but John.

[alldeduction]

Sherlock glares openly at Howard even as Joan and John cut in with comments that of course make sense but only serve to make him angry (because he is growing more and more frustrated with the fact that nothing here makes sense and that the Capitol seems geared towards nothing making any sense and all he wants, just for a moment, is for the logic to line up and not be dependent on the whims of creators that don't actually care for logic or reason) and his mind spirals down that way for a long moment before he manages to make it snap back into place and Howard is already going on about the dinosaurs.

"They don't climb," He repeated, eyes snapping to Howard's face as if he'd finally said something important.

And then he looked abruptly past him, into the distance where just the barest hint of the fence could be seen.

"But can they jump?"

[formersurgeon]

There was clearly some bad blood between Sherlock and Howard. Joan remembered how Howard spoke of John with some fondness, and then with Sherlock with quite a bit of dislike. She wondered what had happened to cause that (apparently mutual) dislike, and wondered if Howard's interest in John had something to do with it.

Now was hardly the time to ask, though, so she just looked at Sherlock and waited for him to explain his query about jumping dinosaurs.

[drpsychosomatic]

John stayed very still, very steady- breathing in and out in a slow, measured rhythm. Howard's flash of panic was all too obvious to someone used to them, but the last thing he was going to do was point it out to anyone else- or, indeed, make things worse by forcing Howard to focus on his fear.

"You mean the fences," he said, carefully. "Right? I don't think they could clear those, but I wouldn't want to bet on it."

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

"I haven't seen none jump." Howard shakes his head, but he doesn't want to give the illusion of safety. He may not give a shit about Joan and may actively hate Sherlock, but he cares about John - and possibly more importantly, John's forgiven him for the disaster last Arena. "But I read a book when I was a kid that said scientists think they could do six feet vertical."

He stands up, brushing imaginary dirt off his pants. He gives a little mock salute to John, then a nod at Joan. "Good seeing you, Dr. John." That he doesn't name Joan or Sherlock, especially Sherlock, speaks as loudly as words would have.

[alldeduction]

"Fences are more likely to electrocute them than a tree," Sherlock pointed out. It was a long shot, but it was still a shot. He was about to say something more when Howard abruptly stood up and made to dismiss himself.

He raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything: he was more than used to being hated, after all. He was more annoyed that Howard was being rude to Joan, but all the better - maybe if John saw how annoying he was the man would be less inclined to be fond of him.

So he said nothing, and pointedly pretended to be much more interested in the treeline.

[formersurgeon]

Joan blinked, more taken aback at that moment than offended. If Howard knew anything about John, he must have also known that the chances John would ultimately side with anyone but Sherlock were extremely low. Joan could possibly see John chiding Sherlock for being rude...it's what Joan would do, after all. But Sherlock wasn't being particularly rude. So Howard came off to her as not only rude himself, but also incredibly short-sighted when it came to his relationship with John.

She didn't say anything, since she wasn't addressed, and answered his nod with a tilt of her head and a narrowing of her eyes that translated to a really?

[drpsychosomatic]

"Thanks for the tip, Howard," John offered, a little awkwardly. Maneuvering around the egos of both Sherlock and Howard was a delicate task, and not one he felt he was getting much better at. He glanced at Sherlock, at Joan, sighed and turned a smile in Howard's direction. His choice of words was, at first, very deliberate.
"We appreciate it. Don't-- Look, come find me if you need me, alright?"

[iselldrugstothecommunity]

His eyes meet Joan's, equally unyielding. Yes, really. Then he looks back at John.

"Yeah. I will. And I ain't setting up traps like last time. Nothing that can kill." He grabs his pack again and scales up a tree before disappearing into the jungle.

[alldeduction]

"You really shouldn't encourage him, John," Sherlock said, a little bitterly and with a tight sniff once he was absolutely sure that Howard was out of ear shot.

"He's insufferable enough as it is, without thinking he has any sort of chance with a man over twice his age."