there is nothing more deceptive

[costing]

Who| sherlock holmes & open.
What| an arrival, an exploration, perhaps more than one encounter.
Where| the basement & fourth floor.
When| the beginning of week 5.
Warnings/Notes| to be added as needed.

His first thought is that the entire situation is ludicrous. The outfits, the setting, the very premise. After entering the arena, Sherlock’s first thought is to wrap his head around the entirety of the situation, but that proves easier thought of than done. He takes to rubbing his forearm where the tracker had been implanted, a gesture he knows comes off as a nervous tick but one that he can’t help.

The need for cover doesn’t seem real to him, yet, but he bets on the fact that the explanation he was given was true. So when he finds an overturned car in the basement, he ducks around it for a moment. He tries to take stock, listens carefully. If he hears anyone approach, he’ll try to observe them before making himself known. He isn’t much of a runner, but he’s counting on his ability to distract if it comes down to it.

--

A little while later he can be found at one of the doors to the staircases. He knows that the elevators would be faster, but they’re also more easily controlled. He doesn’t have any of his lock-picking tools with him, but he’s good at improvising. So for several long minutes, Sherlock toys with the locks with bits of thin rubble, trying to rig them open.

He looks as though his concentration on the lock is absolute; he doesn’t turn his head or even pause. But his senses are acute, trained to notice if anyone comes at him. He knows of his own tendency to get lost in his own head, and so tries his utmost to be as alert as he can.

--

And finally, he’ll grow tired of the door’s lock and abandon it. That’s a tough pill for him to swallow—failing at something—but compared to all else going on around him, it’s the smallest on his list of grievances. Instead, now, he turns to the elevators and picks a random number once he’s inside.

He ends up on the fourth floor. He lifts a brow, as he prepares to exit the elevator. A museum. He supposes that’s fitting, given the atmosphere of the arena. A museum is a place of past spectacle. They’ve just now combined it with a live, present one. It’s almost too fitting, in a campy way that makes him feel like he’s being mocked. But he takes a deep breath, rubs at his arm again, and prepares to explore.

( ooc: feel free to encounter him at any point; i'll edit things if anything major occurs. i have a permissions post for deductions here, if there's anything you think i/sherlock should know. and if you'd like any more specific scenarios or want to plot a bit further, please let me know. )

Comments

[privilegecheck]

Kankri is dozing in the little cafe he and Venus have claimed - she's gone out, and of late he just doesn't even ask as long as it isn't too often - when he hears the ding of the elevator just down the hall, and that wakes him up instantly. It's always made him tense, but since Signless's death it's been so much worse. He still doesn't know who would do it, who would kill someone so gruesomely, and now he wonders if every stranger he sees might be the one responsible.

He clutches his crowbar close and tries to keep his breathing calm and quiet, just barely peeking out from the side of the counter so he can see if the newcomer will make for his hiding place or move on. He fervently hopes it will be the latter.

[costing]

He knows that pausing could potentially spell the end of him—at least, in theory. But that doesn’t stop Sherlock from taking a long look around, mentally cataloguing the area in front of him. He’s decided that the knowledge he’ll grain from his normal mode of observation will far outweigh the dangers of standing still for just a moment longer.

It takes him a moment, but he senses someone watching him. It’s a relief, in a way—he’d rather face the situation head on that keep wandering around, aimlessly. So if he sounds a bit cavalier when he calls out, he thinks he may be forgiven.

“If you’re planning on firing a projectile weapon, I’d recommend coming out from behind the corner. The angle will be horrible, and you’ll waste valuable ammunition.”

He’s nothing if not helpful.

[privilegecheck]

Kankri freezes. Shit, shit, shit, how did he know? Is he using one of the masks? Does he have strange powers? Or is he really that awful at hiding, even after all this time?

He's going to die. Venus is going to come back and find him in a heap on the floor and all his struggle to survive this long will mean nothing and he's going to lose all their supplies and he doesn't know who's going to take care of her infection because he knows she won't and she needs to and-

"They don't give us firearms," he calls out, soft enough so that people aside from this stranger shouldn't hear it. "As long as you don't come any closer, you don't have anything to fear from me. So just move along and I won't bother you."

He tries to sound brave and tough, like someone who would be capable of bashing a person's head in with a crowbar. As it is, he sounds pretty much like the terrified, exhausted teenager he is.

[costing]

That is child’s voice, Sherlock realizes. Or more accurately, an adolescent’s. That surprises him, momentarily. He doesn’t normally have many dealings with children. (He realizes that mentally labelling is a bit inaccurate, but it sticks all the same. Perhaps to drive home the sheer depravity of the situation.)

Of course, it would be an ingenious strategy for one to feign youth and fear. It would be a way of mentally disarming an opponent. Sherlock gets the sense that whoever he’s talking to isn’t playing that sort of con, however. He gambles on that assumption.

“Would I have something to fear if I did come closer?” It’s a bland remark, but he actually does wonder. The voice doesn’t sound like it’s up to much threatening. And Sherlock needs time and space to collect his thoughts—moving forward into the unknown does not seem like the best plan, not indefinitely.

[inhumanity]

Drawn by the man at work at the lock, Christopher approaches with curiosity. The man looks to be in deep concentration, so Christopher approaches in silent steps, his hands in his pockets. And he says, "Hello. I happily embrace your metaphor for the fight of all against all we have engaged in. I don't have any wires on hand. Would a piece of glass work?"

Christopher lifts one of his hands—for a moment, the faint outline of some shape is visible against the sleeve when he moves—and then a glass shard, close to the shape of a blade, appears in his hand. He holds it out to Sherlock as if without any fear of giving a potential enemy a potential weapon.

[costing]

“Perhaps you mean malaphor,” Sherlock suggests lightly. He hasn’t turned around just yet—a part of him actually consumed with his task—but he’s tensed, ready to move if need be. “Glass is a rather popular one choice, in that regard. Glass houses, glass jaws. Care to elaborate?”

He’s not sure what to make of Christopher, at all—and isn’t that a unique experience—but there’s something about the man’s presence that is familiar. The heightened sense of danger, urgency that comes as a response to the other man. Yes, Sherlock’s more than familiar with that.

He turns casually, doesn’t reach out for the shard but looks at it closely. “I suppose it’s a bit small to hold a Grecian army. But I’m still particular about gifts.”

[inhumanity]

Christopher laughs warmly at the reference and promptly drops to the floor, crossing his legs. Not the ideal position to rise up and attack someone, but then, he did fluidly drop into it in the first place. His smile, sharkmouthed through it is, is serene and friendly. "Alas, all of my gift-wrapping materials at home. Well, I say that, but Ricardo and I have joined America's numerous vagrants. Travellers have no room to store wrapping paper. It isn't poisoned or anything. They probably have poison somewhere, but personally, I don't think it's any fun at all to take someone else down without a real fight."

[costing]

“Ah, yes,” Sherlock agrees, eyes scanning Christopher, taking him all in. “It is about the fun, isn’t it?”

It’s a classical sociopath’s response to murder, and he of course would know. He crosses one arm across his chest and leans the other against it, one hand against his chin as he considers his new acquaintance.

“Should I ask why you haven’t taken the opportunity now?”

During the lockpicking!

[polyturtle]

He was almost done. Don almost had the trap finished, but he needed that elusive power source. Well, rather he had the wall, but he wanted a back up one, just in case.

It was during his search that he spotted the newcomer. He had to be new, as he hdn't heard the elevator since he'd come down. And said newcome was one who...looked unusually familiar. Like he'd been around earlier. But Don's mind simply couldn't place where. Or what. All he knew was that this man's back was turned, and he didn't see him.

He hoped that, at the least. His stealth had been shot to shell this whole Arena. At this point, as he quietly began to tiptoe, towards cover, hoping that the man might, perhaps, not notice, maybe give up on the lock and leave.

[costing]

The sound is barely noticeable, and anyone other than Sherlock probably wouldn’t have picked up on it. But he is, as he so likes to remind those around him, exceptional in that regard. So when he hears those faint steps, he turns around three-quarters of the way. He’s not sure what his plan is, precisely—his most confident side believes he could incapacitate any attacker, but his confidence is often mislead. The one thing he’s always been able to do is knock people off balance. So he calls out casually, conversationally. As if the situation was as normal as it could be.

“Nesting in a garage doesn’t seem the best option,” he says.

[polyturtle]

Don had managed to slip behind a car, though when Sherlock spoke, he had the feeling that the other might have seen him. He frowned at the response, however.

"I'm not female," he finally managed to say, in response, frowning at the inherent ridiculousness of the idea. "I'm not down here on a permanent basis, anyhow."

fourth floor!

[aintyourdad]

He's not sure how long it's been, exactly, since the intercom announcement of Aunamee's death. He'd been on the sixth floor, and he'd taken out his frustration on some display cases, the crowbar smashing them in some very satisfying ways. Even if it had opened up some of the blisters on his hands, necessitating a rather painful and awkward change of bandages, and setting back his healing a bit.

There are two sides warring within him now. Is Ellie alive? Hawkeye had been convincing enough to at least put doubt in his heart, despite years, decades, of secure knowledge that the dead stay dead.

He's crouching down among the fossils on the fourth floor now, fingering the note he'd received with those last food rations. Don't do anything stupid, her voice whispers in his mind, and Joel knows that either way - he doesn't intend to die just yet, if he can help it. Either way, it's not what Ellie would want. Not after all she went through to keep him alive in Colorado. He won't spit on that, either way.

The man he spots is a new face - not surprising, though, given most people Joel sees are unfamiliar at this point, having only just arrived a few weeks ago. But he's nearly out of food, and he needs more, and the cafeteria has been destroyed. There's a lot of cover here, to creep up on someone unawares, and grab them from behind. Which is what Joel attempts to do now.

[costing]

He steps gingerly through the exhibit, his head turning this way and that to take in every detail. He has mentally mapped the general layout of the floor—knows that the cafeteria exists, knows that he’ll likely run into more than one Tribute there. But for now, he remains in the exhibit. It’s not remarkable, in any academic way. He’s seen more exciting fossils designed for children’s field trips. But those are idle thoughts, one that take away from his overall focus.

So that may be why he misses the figure moving under the cover, at least at first. He gets too close, before realizing.

[aintyourdad]

Joel doesn't go for the kill, this time. Don't do anything stupid, he hears in his head, over and over again. A quick grab, hand over the guy's mouth, that's all he intends.

"I'm not gonna kill you," he growls in his usual Texas drawl. "You're makin' an easy target of yourself, though."

basement;

[wronglychosen]

He chose the basement, purely because he was hoping that no one would come all the way down here. Strategically, it wasn't the best place to be, since the only way out was up, and the staircases were out of the question. But he needed some space and some desperate rest for his injuries.

When he exits the elevator, Zelos doesn't even try to go for cover because his ribs are killing him, and crouching and running isn't likely to make them heal any faster.

Still, he keeps his eyes and ears open, because he still refuses to go down easily, if at all. If he's getting taken out, he wants it to be done while making some kind of last stand, to show the audience that he's a fighter, and that they should continue supporting him. To that end, he clutches the crowbar he received last week in his good hand.

When he catches sight of someone darting behind some upturned object (landship?), he takes a deep breath and leans slightly on an upright version of the object, partly for support and partly to emphasize how not-dangerous he is right now.

"Hah, don't bother, I'm in no shape to be going after anyone. Although, if you were going to attack me, come out and do it like a man!"

[costing]

“Women make up a higher percentage of the more successful assassins, currently,” Sherlock says. “If I were meaning to attack you, I’d perhaps do better to emulate them.”

But he doesn’t sense any immediate danger, so he leans out from behind his makeshift shelter and gives Zelos an once-over. His gaze catches at different points, as if he’s making assessments. But when he continues, it’s with little hint at whatever he’d assessed.

SO SORRY ABOUT LATE midterms orz

[wronglychosen]

He catches the look Sherlock gives him, not entirely sure what he was making of him, but he deflects.

"Really? I know a woman who's an assassin and she's about the worst one you can find," Zelos replies, putting emphasis on 'worst'.

"I didn't think I'd find anyone down here."

[celebrityskinned]

Venus finds him while she's patrolling. She's been doing so less this week than she did the last, despite the fact that her leg is no worse now than it was then. She's just finding herself low on energy, which she knows but isn't about to tell anyone is the result of coming off of a hypomanic episode. It's much easier to blame her fatigue on stress and the fact that she hasn't had anything but stale pastries and popsicles to eat for the last four days.

Still, when she gets up and goes, she walks confidence that masks the limp. She cases the entirety of the east wing of the fourth floor. She stops at a water fountain and looks around, and puts her head against the wall so she can hear where people are walking around upstairs. About that point she hears Sherlock.

"I'm not looking for a fight," she says, rote with how she's announced herself to plenty of people before him as she turns a corner and sees him. Thirty-something white guy, a bit gangly, maybe athletic but certainly not bulky. Her nose wrinkles and tugs at the stitches across the slash on her face as she decides if she thinks she could take him in hand to hand, and decides she likes her odds if she has to. "But this is our territory."

[costing]

He’s just left Kankri a few minutes ago, working his way further into the territory of this floor. The things he’s learned, by now, would alarm most anyone—but Sherlock finds himself processing them from a distance. Resurrection seems improbable at best, and his mind is constantly supplying alternative explanations. The dominant one, at the moment, is that the deaths aren’t deaths. That the Tributes are incapacitated, but then retrieved before the life actually slips from their bodies. Everyone he’s spoken to seems convinced that the murders are actually occurring, but Sherlock justifies that they don’t have as much practice with doubt as he does.

These thoughts circle around in his head, but he still notices Venus a moment or two before she announces herself. At a glance, he can see her injuries—knows that’d be where he’d want to aim a strike, if he was feeling particularly homicidal. But he isn’t, and her words tell him something more interesting than her appearance. Our territory.

He holds up his hands in what would be an innocent gesture if it wasn’t so mocking. “I’ve already met one person with that claim, today. If he’s your ally, then you should know that I’ve left him quite alive. That’s a show of good faith, is it not?”

[celebrityskinned]

The flash of fear in Venus' eyes is unmistakeable. She doesn't turn her head, but she looks down the hall to where Kankri is, realizing that during her patrol there's a few minutes where she leaves the gap near the elevators open. Kankri wasn't asleep, he could have screamed, she would have heard him...

"You'd better be telling the truth." Sherlock may find that to be a show of good will, but Venus takes it as a threat, as a reminder to where she's vulnerable. Her hand slips into her pocket, where there's a knife she only intends to use if things go south.

But Sherlock has no candy-red blood on him, doesn't appear to be laden down with food - and honestly, the location she and Kankri have taken is good enough that anyone who killed Kankri without knowing who she was (and how dramatic her kill count was) would probably keep it. Would wait for her in turn. Would stake out the pantry and wait for Venus to come in looking for her ally.

"If not, I'll just let you know right now that I'm not the kind of person you want hunting you down."

fourth floor

[sleeplessinalternia]

Ever since Terezi left them, Karkat's developed a habit of going off on his own while Bert sleeps. He doesn't feel too bad about it. Susannah's there to keep watch over him and she's got those ring things of hers that kill people quick, so Bert ought to be safe.

And... it's kind of awful, but Terezi said in her letter that part of the reason she'd left was so that she wouldn't have to watch Karkat die. And he's kind of realized he doesn't want Bert or anyone else to see it either, that maybe it would be easier for all of them if he just went out and didn't come back.

So he's out walking, not really caring where he goes among the remaining fossils, the only concession to self defense being the sickle he carries in his dominant hand.

You might notice, Sherlock, that he looks enough like the alien boy Kankri you met earlier as to be his younger brother.

[costing]

The fossils don’t interest Sherlock, in and of themselves. They’re plebian at best, and probably fake, though he doesn’t waste time examining them too closely. He’s more interested in how his fellow Tributes are interacting with their environment. It’s not the same watchful, hungry gaze of the Capitol; instead, Sherlock’s interest is academic. He’d do well to apply his knowledge to his own survival, considering that he’s been only lucky so far. But he hasn’t gotten to that point, yet.

When he spots Karkat, his mind starts filling in the blanks based on pattern. He knows how to trace lineage through a human’s physical appearance, and so he subconsciously decides that the same rules might apply to… whatever these new people are. So he takes into account horn-shape, height, the pallor of the Alternians’ skin. Kankri had not been a threat. But genetics are not a hard and fast rule, in the test of homicidal tendencies.

He’s leaning against one of the fossil exhibits, almost too casually. He waves, too, entirely at odds with his circumstance. “Is your weapon a criticism on capitalism or an announcement of your occupation as a cropper?”

since karkat actually interacted with the panem au of cbslock when we had him...

[sleeplessinalternia]

"What the fuck's a cropper?" Karkat retorts at whoever it is that's decided not to kill him yet. Then he sees the guy and blinks. "Wait, I know you! You're that guy who used to Mentor Bert's district--Panem Sherlock Holmes or whatever. Fuck, last I heard they'd sent you back to rehab or some shit like that. What the fuck are you doing here? I didn't think this was a Victor arena."

Look, the guy was identical to you, Sherlock. It's a real easy case of mistaken identity.

fourth floor;

[titansnack]

The fourth floor is the strangest one to Eren - he's no stranger to giant skeletons, but these bones are solid. They aren't steaming away, they aren't absurdly light like the bones of titans, and they're in bizarre shapes. He can't possibly imagine what the creatures with these bones could look like, and he finds the diagrams to be more than a little unbelievable.

But the fourth floor is where he spends most of his time, and so far it's proven to be a good place to observe. Plus after the third floor was destroyed, it seems much safer than some of the other floors. Though, being safe in a game of life and death probably isn't the most spectacular strategy, but Armin and Jean are dead and Eren's not a sit and plan things out kind of guy. Going against his gut hasn't proved to be very good to him before.

And it's because of his gut that he's taken note of Sherlock. He doesn't remember seeing him before, in the mad dash for weapons or from the time in the Capitol before hand. Is it possible for people to be brought into the Games halfway through? It doesn't seem like it would be the wisest thing to do, but...That's probably why they'd do that, isn't it? He clambers down from where he's crouched in the rib cage of some monster called a "tyrannosaurus rex", not at all bothering to be subtle. If Sherlock is surprised, then, well, it's not his fault.

[costing]

His first impression of the fossils is that they must be fake. Complete skeletons of pre-Cretaceous creatures simply don’t exist in these numbers. And the entire environment of the Games is rather like a Potemkin village—perfect at a distance, even beautifully detailed, but ultimately fake. It’s the general assessment that he’s carried with him through his exploration, and he’s yet to doubt it.

When he sees Eren approach, his first thought is threat assessment. He looks for weapons, he looks for intent to harm in Eren’s eyes and the set of his jaw. Sherlock isn’t a slouch, when it comes to defending himself, but he largely relies on mind games and unorthodox tactics. He can throw a punch, if push comes to shove, but he doesn’t particularly revel in hurting other people. Especially not lately.

So instead of moving first, he pauses in place. He lifts one hand, palm out to show he’s not holding anything, and rests the other against his chin like he’s thinking over something important.

“I hope they don’t bring school tours here,” he comments mildly. “The conventional education system is shoddy enough without second-tier museums.”