thearena | Sunrise on the Watsons

Who| Joan Watson and John Watson
What| Survival skills (and getting rid of heavy felt armor)
Where| Desert arena
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| idk, awkward partial nudity? Will add more if it arises.

Joan is convinced that whoever decided to send her into a desert in heavy felt armor is a special sort of sadist. The damn thing is even reflective, and doubtless will alert people a mile away to her location. The sun is finally rising in the arena, and if it's going to be anything like the last day, it's going to last for a very long time. She's got to take the armor off.

Luckily, one of the things Joan got at the cornucopia was a chador. It would be perfect for the desert, keep the sun off of her skin without boiling her alive underneath.

Joan begins tugging at her armor, examining it, trying to find buttons, a zipper, laces, something. No luck. Apparently the top half of her costume was sewed on her. "Great," she mutters. She grabs her folding knife and heads over to John.

"Hey," she says. "Can you help me with something?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

John looked up from the slightly laborious task of making a careful mental inventory of all the items they'd managed to salvage- what was left after the strange creature had attacked them, what they'd found at the cornucopia, what they'd been sent and so on. It was much, much easier to do in the daylight.

"Depends what it is," he said, half-teasing. "Here, look. I found that missing bottle of water in the sand- we must have lost it during the attack."

"Oh, great!" she answered. "The more water the better. So, yeah. I need you to help me cut my clothes off."

Joan was usually this direct, but in this case it came with the added bonus of seeing John's expression.

John stopped short, thankful for once for the sunburn over his cheeks- it was far easier to pretend you were being stoic and so on when your capillaries weren't betraying you. He wet his lips and tried for a careful did-I-really-just-hear-that expression, definitely more dubious than hopeful.
He hoped, at least.

"You want me to cut your clothes off," he echoed, slowly. "Right."

That certainly got his attention.

"Apparently whoever thought it was a good idea to put me in a desert wearing felt also thought it would be a good idea to sew it on me instead of using a zipper. I can't get out of it without destroying it, and I'm not flexible enough to do it myself. And if I keep wearing it? I'm going to fry."

He nodded, slowly. He'd managed extremely well, he thought, lasting this long without thinking too much about how strange and wonderful and bizarre it was that his alternate universe double was a really, really attractive woman, but she was making continuing that trend exceedingly difficult.

"Right. And... you have, ah, something. To put on, afterwards?"

He had managed well enough that Joan hadn't noticed any overt interest. And any indication of interest at that moment, she was chalking up to a reaction anyone would have helping someone remove their clothes.

"That black cloth I used to carry the supplies out of the cornucopia? It's a chador. Kind of like a burqa without the face veil."

Ah. Well, he'd seen one or two of those, in his time. He nodded. Perhaps if he concentrated on the uses the material could have once it wasn't covering his attractive counterpart...

"Right. So. Did you just want me to cut your costume straight down the back? We should probably try and save as much of it as possible."

"That will work."

It also meant that she'd be facing away from him when she was topless. Probably for the best for everyone involved, considering she didn't exactly relish the thought of being naked in front of someone she just met. Even if he was her counterpart, and even if she already pretty much trusted him with her life.

"Here."

She opened the folding knife and held it out to him.

He accepted the knife surprisingly gingerly.

"Joan, I should warn you, in case they didn't already tell you. This- all of this, the entire arena, it's all televised. Maybe if we used the tent, we could save you a little privacy?"

She blinked, then sighed, shaking her head. She'd think living with Sherlock and his extensive surveillance system would make this easier to come to terms with.

"You know, I totally forgot. Thank you. Yes, the tent is a great idea."

She glared up at the sky before turning and heading to the tent.

John followed her, hoping against hope that Effie, if and when she saw this, wouldn't think he was doing anything untoward. She really had to put up with a lot from him, considering, and although it wasn't his fault, exactly...

Well. Face locked into a suitable expression, he resettled the knife in his palm.
"Ready?" he asked.

She knelt in the tent, facing away from him, the chador sitting next to her. She reached up and pulled her hair to the side, settling it over her shoulder.

"Ready."

It was odd, really. Any number of other people in this situation might have thought it a perfect opportunity for a fairly easy kill- and it was, it really was. She was completely vulnerable, and he had a knife in his hand-- but he would have had to have been a different man altogether to take that opportunity. Carefully, he began to cut the fabric, doing his best not to nick her skin.

The thought never crossed her mind. She trusted him with this, just as she trusted him not to slit her throat while she slept. Not trusting him would have only left her vulnerable to the desert instead.

She stayed very still, feeling the cool metal of the blunt edge of the knife sliding against her skin.

"I heard last time they dressed everybody up in silk and hoopskirts and stuff. Are they always so creative?"

"Just wait until they take you to one of their parties," he warned grimly, though he couldn't quite help the smile. "I don't know if you had Lady Gaga where you're from, but trust me. She'd fit right in here. There- uh, do you need me to do the side, or can you pull it up over..."

She smiled a little at the thought. "Yep, we've got Lady Gaga."

She reached back and peeled the heavy felt away from her skin. Her skin was smooth and pale, and she sighed with the relief of feeling the air on it.

"So, is that how they dress us?" she asked as she pulled the stiff material from her chest, peeled it from her arms. "Or is that how everybody dresses?"

John looked away and very firmly thought of Effie, her extreme wardrobe and her elaborately styled hair, different every time he saw her. At least, he thought it was her hair- it could well be a wig, he supposed. He'd never seen her without make-up, come to think of it.

"For parties? Worse, sometimes. Did they tell you which District you're with? It depends on the stylist. Mine's not too bad."

"They pretty much just sent me in here without telling me anything," she said, frowning as she tugged at the cuffs, trying to get them over her hands. "Dammit," she swore softly, pulling the felt back up to cover her chest. "Could you hand me the knife? These sleeves are really tight."

She reached a hand back without turning around.

Sunrise on the Watsons

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