thearena | Open, Death

Who| Sherlock Open, and Sherlock/Karkat/Cuthbert
What| A chance to chat with Sherlock before he gets himself horribly murdered. Threads already planned will get small set ups below.
Where| candy arena
When| week one
Warnings/Notes| horrible grisly murder and death. sherlock being a prat. the usual.

For Howard and Open:

John's package never came.

Sherlock's mood worsened. He didn't sleep, though he pretended to, and he didn't eat, even after he received food and water from Timaeus. He and Howard set up camp in the mountains and both of them acted like cats - sometimes there, sometimes not, though they checked every so often.

Sherlock had to admit to himself that John was probably dead. If he had made it back to the capitol, there was no way that he wouldn't have sent a package - and the Capitol definitely wasn't holding back packages, or he would never have received one from Timaeus. He was completely furious, though he kept his rage bottled up and blazing behind his eyes. But he'd promised John he'd win. So he would.

For Stephanie:

Night finally fell. Finally. Sherlock had lost track of approximating the time, even knowing that if he had, it would have been impossible. The mind was want to play tricks as it was. By the time night fell, however, he was too restless to sleep, even though the bags were starting to appear under his eyes.

So once he was sure Howard was asleep, he slipped out into the night, to scout.

MURDER: For Karkat and Cuthbert

John was alive. John was alive. The capitol had tried to fool him, tried to break him, but it backfired. Seeing John in the arena relieved him completely, despite how bad the situation was there. It gave Sherlock options.

There was no reason to stay in this hellhole anymore.

Sherlock wanted to laugh, but held it in. There were a few options. One, he could die and end up in the desert. Unfortunate, but at least there he'd be able to make sure John was set up properly, before dying again and getting back to the Capitol. Two, he could die and skip the desert completely, and end up in the Capitol. Then he could immediately start funneling sponsor gifts to John. Three, and the most unfortunate, was that he died and didn't come back. Always a possibility.

So the best way to ensure that was to go out with a bang.

Sherlock made a small package of what remained of his water, food, and fire starting kit, and left it next to Howard. He wasn't too concerned about the boy's welfare - his head wound doing much better - but he made a mental note to ensure him as sponsor gift as well, when he got back to the Capitol. If he got back to the Capitol.

He slipped out again before Howard could wake, and went out searching for his death.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Seems a bit late now," Sherlock said, unable to keep the bitterness from his tongue. His knees draw tighter against his chest, knuckles white. He ignores the sizzling meat, the smell only making him less hungry than he already was.

"If he was in the capitol, we'd know by now." It was the closest he could come to outright saying he was almost assuredly dead.

"Nuh uh. Doesn't make sense that they'd give us a big special with love triangles and "romanceology" only to kill half of us off in the first thirty minutes. This is the Capitol. They like surprises but they also like stories."

Howard would shake his head, but his migraine makes it feel like every sudden motion is sending a knife up his sinuses and through his eye. Maybe he's being overly optimistic, but he hasn't bought into the idea that everyone has died for good.

"You notice the people who died are part of the pairs they set up in the special, right? You and John, Tim and Stephanie, R and Julie." Howard's picked his way through the wreckage of the Cornucopia to identify bodies. "My bet is that they want to do a 'true love will find you in the end' plot twist."

Sherlock's eyes narrow but he bites back the scathing reply.

He watched John die. Again. And the body was never retrieved. (He knew. He went back to look. Mangled. Half eaten. No longer John, but he couldn't deny that it once had been.

"I am not accustomed to judging truths on blind hope," he says finally. He doesn't deny that what John said could be true. That he desperately wanted it to be true. But it was that desperation that caused the burden of proof to be ever that much higher. He was biased - he wanted John to be alive - and he knew it.

"It's not hope," Howard snaps, and then he sneers slightly. "It's deduction."

He pokes at some of the meat and turns it over, wiping some of the juices on his pants. "Look, you may be real smart and all, but I was raised by a television. I know how these sorts of things pan out. If it were one, two pairs? Yeah, they'd off the less-popular half to milk some tears out of us all. But they aren't going to split up thirty pairs of people when they could be making bank off them."

Sherlock doesn't say anything, resolutely keeping his silence even as he comes to terms with the idea that Howard - in this case - is probably right.

"Then why the bodies." His voice is low, and quiet. If Howard is in a deducting mood, then Sherlock would hear his theory on that.

"Duh. You can't wrench proper tears if you know everyone just wakes up on the other side." Howard rolls his good eye - it occurs to him that he has no idea if the other is even capable of moving behind the eyepatch. "They're playing you, dude."

He frowns, but he has to admit the sense in it, even if the jibe at the end makes it impossible to admit to Howard that he may be right.

So he just continues to sulk quietly.

Open, Death

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