thearena | It's Just Sleight of Hand [Closed]

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It's Just Sleight of Hand [Closed]

WHO| Howard and Sherlock, then Howard and Wyatt
WHAT| Sherlock and Howard meet again, Sherlock takes revenge for Joan.
WHEN| Week 3
WHERE| Parking lot in the basement.
WARNINGS| Cruelty, injury, medical treatment.

While Wyatt's out getting supplies, Howard stays in the car. It's a nice-sized SUV, big enough for the two of them to sleep in, with tinted windows that are nearly impenetrable when combined with the low light of the parking lot. For the last few days, it's been a reasonable way to bide the hours, waiting for the intercom announcements that don't seem terribly common.

Seven dead, so far. The voice in Howard's head says only seven. With the Arena off to a slow start, he's sure that the Gamemakers will start doing their best to speed things along. He goes through a mental list - taxidermied animals, the volcano, the tar pit, the roof, the wax figures - trying to figure out what's likely to go next.

And he's exhausted, so after chasing his tail on that for a while, he falls asleep, curled into a ball underneath a dark 'Starfleet' blanket, feeling secure in his hiding location. He breathes deep and only whimpers a little as he rests, skimming the surface of nightmares but never dunking himself in. His fingers twitch in pursuit of some imagined thing to grab.

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The car had changed.

Well, perhaps changed was a strong word, but it had been touched. Sherlock could read it as if it was a beacon, and as he was walking by it to head back to his computer he stopped, narrowing his eyes at it. Someone had been here--

No.

Someone was here.

Silently, he stepped over to the car, the pain in his ribcage throbbing along with his heart beat, the crowbar held tightly in his hand and he leaned in to press his free one to the window.

Howard.

His eyes narrowed, a low brewing storm deep in his chest, curling around his heart and seeping into his lips, turning them up to bar his teeth.

He knocked.

Howard's eyes snap open. Wyatt would speak. He wouldn't knock.

Maybe if he doesn't move, no one will know he's here. He can feel his knife in his pocket, can feel the blanket laying heavy over his body and head. Realizes that it's not enough to hide his feet.

He takes a shallow breath.

"Leave me alone and we won't hurt you!" he says, not sitting up, not sure that a bony lump tangled under a blanket is going to scare anyone saying that. He tries to sound confident.

"Is that so." His voice is as hard as his face, grey eyes sharp as knives as he leans in against the window. He drew in a long breath and let it out--

And then he smiled.

"What a change of heart. How pacifist. And here I was convinced you'd taken a more active approach."

He stood back, pulling out a long piece of wire that he'd bent and misused several times already. A handy, hand-built lockpick.

Howard didn't expect Sherlock. He yanks the blanket off himself and sits up, meeting Sherlock's cold smile with a wild, panicked look of his own through the dark glass.

"Hey, what- what are you doing-" He pounds a fist against the window. "Stop. Stop! Wyatt's going to come back, I have a knife- I already talked to Dr. John about it- don't-"

He kicks the blanket off and scrambles to the front seat, ready to kick open the door and try to run off once the lock comes free. Due to the car being sidled up between a wall and a pillar, he doesn't have many options for doors to escape from.

"I don't care what you said to John, or what he said to you," Sherlock answered with a calm, even and extremely cold voice as he stepped up to the lock. He was standing just off the side enough that if the door went flying open he wouldn't be hit by it.

He would, however, be in a perfect position to slam the door back closed.

"John has a much greater capacity for forgiveness, and I simply do not. Because I do not believe you feel any remorse whatsoever, Howard." The pin slid into the lock and began to wiggle about.

"I don't believe that you care at all about Joan, in the slightest. Perhaps you care about how John sees you, but that is about the extent of it."

He paused, leaning down to make sure Howard could see his face as he smiled.

"But you miscalculated, Howard. Because I don't care about you. And I will not see them hurt. Either of them."

Howard's breath comes hot and fast as how trapped he is starts to sink in. He grabs his knife and scrambles back to between the seats again, like a rat cornered.

"Like you don't care how John sees you. Like he's going to be crazy about whatever you're going to do here."

Rather than swinging open the front door, where he could escape, he throws open the back door, the lock that Sherlock's working on, in an attempt to knock that leering face in and shove Sherlock out of the way.

"He forgave you for Joan's knee," Sherlock pointed out, twisting out of the way as the door flew open. He sprang into action, lashing out with the crowbar to hook the end into Howard's clothes and pull roughly, dragging Howard half way out of the car before he slammed his elbow into Howard's hand, forcing the knife to go clattering to the floor.

"I'm not going to kill you, Howard. I'm going to give you every chance that you gave her."

Edited 2014-02-01 22:33 (UTC)

"Let go!" Howard's voice gets shrill and panicked. He squirms and twists and only manages to get his clothes more entangled around the crowbar, to lose his balance. He tries to get away, but Sherlock's much bigger than him, heavier, has much longer reach. "Let me go!"

His screaming echoes throughout the parking lot.

He doesn't really want the sound. He doesn't really want attention, and noise brings attention, so he'll have to make this faster than he meant. He grabs Howard's wrist, shoving him back into the car--

And then slams the car door down hard on the boy's hand.

Howard shrieks from surprise more than pain. He doesn't stop.

Sherlock's bigger than him. He has him cornered and injured and unarmed. Howard's well aware he can't escape, so his only hope is to be rescued. Even if he doesn't expect to get rescued.

So first he's screaming from shock, and then he's just crying for help, kicking at Sherlock and sobbing. His good hand reaches back, searching, actually, for the seatbelt to help him scramble back into the car, and finds one of the snowglobes Howard's stolen for R.

He smashed it into Sherlock's teeth.

The snowglobe shattered on impact, a dazzling display of glass and bits of fake snow as he stumbled backward, cursing. The rage that had previously been so cold and controlled now boiled over, hot and piercing, and for a moment he knew what it felt like to want to kill someone. To really kill someone.

And it terrified him.

So instead he spit out a tooth and grabbed Howard out of the car, throwing him to the ground as he stamped, hard, down on his hand.

"Don't push me." He hissed, spitting blood again to the ground next to Howard's head. "Don't you doubt for one second that had you killed her, I would be killing you now. Don't you ever hurt them again, Howard, do you understand me? If you ever touch them again I will demonstrate everything I am capable of."

It's not Sherlock standing over Howard in that moment. It's Aunamee. Howard yanks his hand back to himself and scrapes himself bloody as he scrambles under the car, disoriented by the flashes of memory that keep colliding with him now.

He squirms to the back, tears dripping from his face, breath coming impossibly tight and fast. His vision spins. He can't scream anymore, all his lung capacity being used just in staying conscious. He curls up in a ball as far from Sherlock as he can get.

Sherlock's words fall on ears made deaf by terror. It'll be how Wyatt finds him half an hour later.

Enough.

It was John's voice, that he heard, in the back of his mind. Not John's calm voice, not his weary voice. It was that hard command with a real fury beneath, the warning signal he gave just before he snapped.

Enough, Sherlock.

He spat a third time, to get the blood out of his mouth, and finally turned his back. He was shaking, he realised - his limbs trembling with the intensity of - what? What he was feeling? He couldn't even parse what he was feeling, in that moment, though a large part of it was disgust. (And he wasn't even sure which of them he was disgusted with.)

"Enough." His voice, now, though John's echoed in his head.

He turned his heel, and left, and didn't once look back.

Wyatt knew something had happened, that something was wrong, even before he reached the garage.

There was blood in the stairwell - not a lot, but enough for a man with skills such as his. For a man who had tracked man and beast across open ground for days on end. Sparse, slow, the dark spots were spread thin - strides apart - but were still wet enough to smear.

It might have been anyone, anything. But somehow, Wyatt knew. Felt it, like a yawning pit in his gut. Dark and deep and painfully familiar.

He took the remaining stairs two a time, banging into the basement without care of the noise.

"Howard!"

He raced into the shadows, heart pounding as he came up on the car. The shattered glass crunching beneath his feet.

Thankfully for Wyatt, he should be able to hear Howard well before he assumes he's dead. Less fortunately, it's because Howard's still hyperventilating, still gasping for breath between sobs that rack through his entire tiny body.

He's sitting with his back against the wall, hidden behind the car, brutalized hand cradled to his chest like an infant child, staring into space. He jerks at the sound of his name, but otherwise doesn't respond to Wyatt's presence, as if for the moment he doesn't recognize where he is.

"Howard--"

Wyatt followed the pant - and more blood - around the ass-end of the car, crowbar clattering to the cement when he found him. As he crouched and reached for him.

"Howard, what happened?" He could see the gore, peeking through the boy's fingers. He touched him carefully, trying to get Howard to come back to him without hurting him. "Howard... it's alright now, son. I'm here."

Howard doesn't seem to notice Wyatt until Wyatt's hand touches his shoulder, and then it's like a magnetic pole has been activated. He scrambles over to Wyatt's side, finding shelter under his sheriff's arm, grasping with his left hand at the fabric of Wyatt's pajamas.

"Sh-Shhhh." He swallows and tries again, trying to pull himself out of the blur of memory and into the realm of time and language. Remember to blink. "Sherlock."

He tries to focus his eyes and can't, so, safe with Wyatt now, he closes them.

Despite the blood, despite that he knew that Howard was hurt and would need looking after, Wyatt let that be enough for a moment. Was content to give comfort as he himself was soothed.

Whatever it was - whatever had happened - Howard alive. That was all that really mattered.

He patted Howard's back, palm rubbing over the matted fur of his strange rabbit suit and gave the boy the time he needed to get it out. Frowning, when he finally did.

"Sherlock?"

Granted, Wyatt didn't know the man well, but he knew Joan... and she didn't seem the sort to keep company with a man who do something like this.

"What happened?"

There had to be a reason.

After a while - a long while, in which they're vulnerable, in which case they're easy targets for any of their enemies who, mercifully, don't come - Howard starts to breathe normally again. His shaking doesn't still, but it lessens into occasional jerks rather than shivering trembling.

His good hand clutches the necklace Wyatt gave him.

"He dragged me out of the car and broke my hand. I smashed a snow globe on his face. He left after I crawled under the car."

Howard doesn't want to detail it any more than that. He knows in his heart that Wyatt cares too much for him to abandon him over hurting Joan, but right now he can't near the thought even of anger, or of disappointment.

"For no good reason?"

Wyatt shifted then - not away, but reaching gently for the hand Howard was keeping tucked away from him. The injury he was nursing, like a small, dark bird with a broken wing.

"Come on, son. Ya gotta let me see it."

Howard holds his hand out. The skin between his fingers is torn and bloody, and the breaks in his bones are easy to see under his skin. Two of his fingers stubbornly refuse to straighten - the others, when held out, shake. Blood is starting to pool in his palm and at the base of his wrist.

His hand won't be usable for the rest of the Arena, that's for sure.

He doesn't answer Wyatt's question, though. He just looks away, damning as that is.

Wyatt's thumb moved carefully over the back of Howard's hand, following the awkward line of the bone though his eyes stayed on the boy's face for a long moment. Watching the way he turned away.

So there was a reason.

He exhaled a breath, heavy and hard through his nose, but didn't ask.

He hadn't wanted to know with Max, he didn't want to know with Howard.

"...Gunna have to set this," he said after a pause. "Likely won't get any use out of it, but it won't hurt so bad."

"He's angry that I'm close with John Watson," Howard suddenly hisses. He winces as Wyatt's thumb brushes a particularly tender spot, a place already dark red with broken blood vessels. "He's had it out for me ever since."

And even though Howard knows that this isn't the full answer, it is one he truly, honestly believes - that this is about territory and jealousy. That Sherlock is operating the same way Howard would, given an identical situation.

He sighs.

"It's going to hurt when you set it, right?" Anyone else and he might just pull his hand away now. "I'll try not to scream."

Wyatt didn't know who that was, but even if he was the Pope it still sounded like a damn petty reason to break somebody's hand. Chewing over it, he released Howard to rise up out of his crouch and to turn to the car, popping open the back door to grab his bag.

"Ain't likely to tickle," he admitted, setting the bag down and unzipping it. "Here--"

He pulled out the bottoms on the pajamas he'd come in with, ripping at the fabric of one leg until he had a good length of it one hand. He folded it, over and over and over again, and held it out to him.

"Bite down on that." He dug out the medicine kit and pushed the torn pants back into the bag. "I'll be as quick about it as I can."

Edited 2014-02-07 00:04 (UTC)

Howard puts it in his mouth and closes his eyes. He can't bear to watch, knowing that he's tensed enough already. He promises himself he won't cry, won't scream, won't make a sound, not for the purpose of safety but because he wants to show Wyatt that he's alright.

He wants Wyatt to know that the world doesn't crash down as soon as Wyatt turns his back. He knows there's no way to make him believe it.

There's movement - the clasp on the kit clinking softly, the lid hitting the stone floor, rustling... Wyatt preparing before his hands returned to Howard's, warm and rough. Steady, despite the unpleasant task at hand.

"Breathe, son," he reminded him quietly. "One, two--"

And he pushed down hard with one thumb, popping a knuckle back into place while his other hand pulled, jerking one of Howard's broken fingers back into line.

Howard doesn't scream. He manages that. But he does make a strangled squealing sound into the fabric, and a dollop of drool rolls down his chin. He inhales deep through his nose several times before he opens up his eyes.

"Was that it?" He spits the cloth out. "I was all psyched up for something real painful."

He tries to laugh at that. It's too weak, so he starts to get up so they can crawl back into the car.

"I'm sorry."

Wyatt said it both for the pain Howard had already endured, and for that which he still had to suffer. Holding Howard's hand with one of his own, the other reached out and squeezed his shoulder -- guided him back down to the pavement.

"It ain't done yet."

One of the boy's fingers was still hanging at a strange, sad angle. He still had to reset it. Still had to clean the cuts, still had to bind the fingers together. A split, to keep them stiff and steady, wouldn't be remiss, but they'd have to make due with what they had at the moment.

Howard lets himself be guided, trusting Wyatt even while his body recoils at being forced back down.

"Goodie." He grabs the cloths off the ground with his good hand and sits back against the bumper of the car. "Okay. Just- make it fast."

He holds his mutilated hand back out to Wyatt.

Wyatt looked at him sadly, wishing he could have told him anything else, and waited for him to put the cloth back in his mouth.

If he could have taken the pain for him, he would have.

"Ready? One, two..."

He pulled again, bone popping, a sickening crunch and crack as the second broken finger snapped straight.

Howard bites down on the cloth again. This one's worse, now that he knows what's about to happen; his muscles are tensed in anticipation. He's shuddering after the fact.

"Okay. Okay. I'm okay." He breathes deep from his nose. "I don't have a medical kit anymore. I gave it to John and Joan."

"The worst's done," Wyatt promised, checking Howard's fingers carefully, his rough hands surprisingly gentle - trying to spare Howard any further pain. "It's goin' to be alright now. I got some supplies left in mine, we'll get it taken care of."

Though Howard's words only raise further question. If he'd helped Sherlock's friends, why had he done this? He hadn't read the man that wrong had he?

(A strange bird, he'd give anybody that. But not a malicious one, he'd have said.)

Edited 2014-02-08 18:38 (UTC)

Howard swallows and nods. His breath tastes like adrenalin and bile. His lower lip is trembling.

"He knows we're here. We need to find a new hiding place. I don't want- don't think he'll come back, but I need-"

He needs to feel safe again, as impossible as it is in the Arena. He knows the only way he'll really feel like that is to stay stapled to Wyatt's side, and that's not possible.

He can't ask Wyatt to just stay with him the next few hours. No matter how much he wants to.

"Nobody's goin' to hurt ya while I'm here," Wyatt told him, a firm, steady promise, still holding Howard's injuried one with one of his own while the other reached for the nearly empty tube of ointment. "Nobody."

He wrestled one-handed with the tube and flicked off the cap.

"I'm gunna clean this up, an' then we'll go. We'll someplace safe for the two of us."

Nothing had changed in Wyatt's mind. He was going to get Howard out, whatever it took.

"The gem room, maybe. It's dark and has a natural cover for sound. Doesn't echo much." Howard will need to see the layout more. He holds as still as he can as Wyatt applies the ointment, eyes focused on Wyatt's mustache, on the way it's slightly bedraggled after three weeks here.

"Thanks. I'm not meaning to be ungrateful." As if it's some personal failing that he's reacting with pain and not appreciation to having his broken hand mended.

Three weeks in, it wasn't much of a mustache anymore. He kept it under control as best as he was able, here in the face of death, but the shadow was overtaking his face. It grew up along his jaw, over his chin.

Before long he'd be able to give Max a run for his money.

"That room's already taken," Wyatt told him quietly, dotting cool, sharp-smelling gel where the glass from the snow-globe had bitten into Howard's hand. "Shepard's in there with her group."

He didn't think she'd kill him, not yet anyway, but he wasn't convinced of Howard's safety if he tried to take him there and that's where Wyatt's priority lie.

"An' I didn't say ya were." He looked up, meeting Howard's gaze for a moment before reaching for the bandage roll.

"Damn." Howard doesn't know Shepard, and that automatically disqualifies that area. "We'll need to find something. Somewhere."

His free hand grapples around for the hem of Wyatt's pajama leg. He crinkles the fabric in his fingers and holds it.

"We will." Another promise Wyatt hoped he'd be able to keep.

Holding the end of the roll against Howard's finger, he began to bandage the two broken one's together, wrapping the cloth round and round.

"Between the two of us, we'll come up with somethin', I don't doubt it." Howard's smarts, Wyatt's brawn, and a dozen arena's between them - the odds were fair, so far as that went. They knew what to look for and what to avoid.

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It's Just Sleight of Hand [Closed]

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