thearena | there is nothing more deceptive

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there is nothing more deceptive

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. )

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"Whatever you say. I don't know the intricacies of police position. I'm, uh, how would you say it, extra-procedural law enforcement." Which usually involves breaking plenty of laws in her own right.

She rolls her eyes. "Don't insult me. I can give plenty of story. Just because I care about the packaging doesn't mean I don't put thought into what goes in the box, you know?"

"A vigilante," he prompts. It's not the most solid deduction, but she's young enough that he can't imagine another kind of extra-procedural role for someone who moves, speaks, and acts as she does. If aliens exist, here, then why not someone like that?

"Conjecture isn't insult, unless it's taken that way." Which it often is, and he knows this. He can almost feel Watson behind him, glaring holes into his back. But he shakes off the feeling, nodding in agreement with her last statement. "I imagine that if you give them the genuine article immediately, they'd soon tire of you. Which hasn't happened yet, if you're receiving antibiotics." He pronounces each syllable of that last word individually: an-ti-bi-o-tics.

"Professional superhero. There's a difference." The difference being that she doesn't have to worry about secret identities or taking a second job as a newspaper photographer.

"Maybe I give them the genuine article and they want more of it. I played these Games a while, boy. I know what they're looking for." The antibiotics make her nauseated, so for a moment her lashes lower and she looks inside herself for balance. She's sure he notices it, and she hates herself for that. "Anyway, they like my love story and they think me and Kankri are a good team."

"Undoubtedly." One that he's already thinking about, and all the various implications of. New universes might be the best mental exercise he's had in some time.

He glances at her, notices her condition but doesn't comment on it just yet. Instead, he says, "There are very few contexts in which I prefer to be addressed that way-- this is not one of them. I have no doubt that you're capable-- you're still alive, after all-- but giving up the genuine has a price. Fame is a pack of jackals, waiting to devour you. In this circumstance, quite literally."

"Oh, don't get stuffy and British at me. I call everyone 'boy'. You're probably twice my age anyway." The way she rolls her eyes isn't meant to be hidden, and it's as much for the cameras as it is for him. "And I don't need you to lecture me on fame."

How did Kankri stand this man? Aside from the fact that Kankri seems more forgiving than she would be. She walks beneath a skeleton of a giant whale and raises her eyes to make sure there isn't anyone hiding on top of it. She stops when she notices that there's something - a plastic baggy? - barely visible atop the highest vertebra.

"Someone's been up there. But I'm sure you already knew that."

He shrugs, visibly, but how much of that is affected is open to interpretation. "If your verbal displays of dominance give you comfort, then by all means."

Sherlock moves to the center of the skeleton, tilting his head up to get a better look. He takes in every angle-- the way the skeleton is hanging, the slight motion, the shadow of the plastic bag. It seems balanced enough, and it's immediately obvious that whoever was there is gone, now.

"I did. And they seem a rather resourceful opponent, to get up there."

"It's the way I talk. It's a Southern thing." She doesn't even bother to hide how ruffled her feathers are.

"They got up there recently, too, or I would have noticed them on my patrol earlier." She points to a pipe heading up the wall. "They must have got up that way. So someone in here can seriously climb."

Were she uninjured, she may try it.

"I'm aware. It is a part of your nature, as much as being 'stuffy and British' is part of mine." He can adopt different accents, and does on many occasions. But this isn't one of them. And he can appreciate the comfort of being oneself.

Sherlock turns in a circle, frowning. He hops, a bit, trying to gain some leverage, checking the angles and height. He reaches as far as he can, but he knows he couldn't make it to that height unassisted.

"I'm nothing of an acrobat, but this place takes all sorts, I assume."

"It really does. Aliens, dragons, angels. The place that used to be America is still a big melting pot."

If she sounds patriotic at that moment, it's a misassignment of where her feelings really lie - it's not America (or the land that once was America) that she really cares about, it's the idea of people being both exceptional and commonplace.

"I'm not climbing up there." She shakes her head. "But I don't like someone parking on my turf. Suggestions on how to take that whole skeleton down?"

"Target the wiring," he says immediately. "It's suspended by something, at multiple points to keep it balanced. Cut just one wire, and the entire thing will overbalances and topple. You could even--"

He cuts himself off, looks like a lightbulb has just gone off over his head.

"You should leave it. It's a defense. If you had someone to watch this point, they could topple the skeleton if anyone approached. They'd be trapped, and the way would be blocked off. You and your allies would be safer as a result."

"If I had someone to watch it." She raises an eyebrow (it makes the cut across her face dance slightly). "Which I don't. I could station Kankri here, and do you think he'd have it in him to drop something dangerous like this on someone?"

If he's a detective worth his salt - as he seems, so far, to be - then he should be able to gauge Kankri's personality well enough to see the obvious answer to that.

"If I topple it now, it'll still block off the way. The question's just how."

"It's simple, really. Weigh down one side of it, then cut the strings. Do you have anything sharp?" A question he perhaps already knows the answer to-- he saw her reach for the knife, after all.

"I do." She pulls the knife out, fiddling with it in her fingers, letting it catch the light. "But I'd still have to get to the top."

"Not necessarily."

Sherlock keeps looking up, moving around as he does. He pauses to check angles, and eventually finds himself right under the whale's ribcage. Looking straight up from that angle gives him a clear view of the thin wires.

"Now, if you were a good enough shot, and thrust straight up from here," he mimics the motions with one hand, "you could bring down one side, at least. And from there get to the other."

"Doesn't that depend on what the wires are made of?" She turns the knife in her hand against, then taps the point against her chin. "Pro-tip, there's an ancient weaponry exhibit on the second floor. It's probably a bit picked-over by now, but if you want a sword or a spear or a blowgun or something, they've got it stocked up."

"Unless your Gamemakers have access to something with the relative strength of spider-silk, no." At least, not if she manages to cut through it with the correct velocity. The mention of weapons has Sherlock wrinkling his nose and shaking his head. "I prefer to abstain from the bloodletting."

"God, you're just like Kankri. He thinks knives are only for stabbing, too. You really can't think of anything else you can use a sharp edge for?" She sticks her tongue out slightly as she judges the angle.

"No, but the fact that we stand on a killing field does color the perception, a bit." It's also tempting, which is a horrifying thought. He knows how to theoretically kill, a million different ways. He's only ever seriously considered applying that knowledge once. He doesn't want to be desperate enough to up that number.

"Besides. Should I find myself in danger, I can now hide under the whale you'll soon bring crashing down about our heads. Isn't that right?"

"Well." She raises her eyebrows again, then folds her arms over. "That's awful presumptive of you. Who says I'm letting you stay on my turf?"

"You could attempt to chase me out, I suppose. But sooner or later you'll return to check on young Mr. Vantas, during which time I could return here at leisure. Alternatively, you could kill me, and do away with me entirely. But if you were going to do that you could have done so already." He shrugs, making light of his own potential demise.

"If you left me here, you'd know someone was watching this flank of your 'turf.' And unless any attackers killed me and managed to maneuver around our potential defenses, you wouldn't have to worry about this section."

"Maybe. Or maybe I know that I get more airtime if I have a conversation with someone before I kill them. And I don't trust you enough to make you my sentry." She taps the knife against her teeth. "No offense."

"I had thought more along the lines of a mutually beneficial arrangement." He grimaces, for a moment; he's never been the type to work for someone.

"And if you were playing me for the crowd, you might've made things more interesting."

Venus usually has an agent do her negotiating, and for a moment, the facade of extreme competence falls as she considers if she's erred. It's easy to miss, a slight inhale over her teeth as she breathes tight, but it's there. Enough for Sherlock to catch and enough for her to notice.

She must be falling apart, she thinks.

"You try to be dramatic and captivating after a few weeks eating nothing but dry cinnamon rolls, hot shot." The corners of her mouth tighten. "So your arrangement is what - I bring down the whale, you camp out there, I don't kill you and you come running to me if anyone sneaky shows up?"

"If I was being dramatic and captivating, I'd say that yes, those are my terms, only to turn around in the next moment and stab you in the back, either metaphorically or literally. Perhaps both, for greatest effect."

He looks back up at the whale for a moment, then shifts to scrutinize the angles around them. They are still very much alone, and it's strange to think that despite that, they're being monitored. He's far from ready to put on a show for some unseen force, so after a moment he just lets out a breath, his equivalent of laughing it off.

"You have no reason to trust me, I have no reason to trust you. I'm not sure I'd trust anyone in circumstances like these, save those I'd known from home, and even then the list would be a short one." Watson, Gregson. Maybe Bell, and Alfredo. Maybe.

"It's an impasse. We can choose to trust one another, or claim to, while planning for contingencies. Or we part ways here, and hope we don't meet again before our imminent ends."

"And I have no reason to believe that if any of those people-" and Venus knows there are two Watsons running around- "come around, that you won't just ally with them and decide to try your luck against an injured woman and her pacifist teenage buddy."

Seriously, Venus doesn't want to rely on Kankri to throw a punch.

"I'd rather part ways. I like my luck the way it is now."

there is nothing more deceptive

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