OPEN POST; [ HERLOCK SHOLMES / TGAA ]

[retroductions]

(( hold you in my dreams ))

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[retroductions]

[It will take a little more for Sholmes to feel the initial effects of the drug seep through him, but he seems all too happy to take his turn after she's done. The taste is familiar, a tang on his tongue that roves languidly into his lungs.

He continues his lean, elbows practically on the trunk, since this is the best he'll manage in terms of reclining for now. He can sprawl on the floor later when he's a bit less lucid.]

Once a scholar, always a scholar, is that not true?

[He continues gazing at her, as though the mystery of how and why he chose to marry this woman might come to light. If there is some affection to be found in how she frames her own likes, dislikes, personality.]

What do you wish to be?

[velluminous]

[ she's a small woman. the opium will have its easy way with her. and she's exhausted besides, sinking down into the chaise as though her entire body leaden.

murmured, eyes on the flame and not his face, though she feels his gaze, ] I want everything. To be... everything. Unravel my world's truths, and then pick them apart. Find weakest points of its inconsistencies and make new realities from those spaces between. Magic without barrier. Knowledge without restraint.

But I am getting... older.

[retroductions]

[Oh. Such dreams. The kind that resounds so lovely to his own ears — unraveling accepted reality, tear away at inconsistencies like chaff to reveal the gem of truth beneath. Magic, he knows nothing about. But knowledge without restraint?

That sounds nice. Sounds like constant mental stimulation, a contentedness he seeks in his own life to fill the listless void, the gnawing of ennui.

He can see... why he might be pulled towards that. (She has a lovely face, too. A wayward thought needling in.)]

Nonsense.

[A more stringent inhale of his pipe, then exhale. He's beginning to feel warm. Good.]

And why is age a barrier to pursuing what you enjoy? What you wish to achieve? Especially when it's... [waggles his pipe] ...When it relies so heavily upon intellect. It does not seem to me like your mind is fading, Ms Sapione.

[velluminous]

[ she pulls harder, too. ]

It is years of work and research to get anywhere. There was fire. I...

[ here, her voice lowers to an unintelligible murmur. ]

[retroductions]

[Oh, having lost physical records of research is a difficult thing. Sholmes oft relies on his mind to pursue his interests, and for him, loss of information is no great thing since he expunges all he doesn't care from his own thought processes. But the scope of which she speaks sounds... grander than going about solving crimes strewn about London. Same appreciation for finding the truth, different application.

Even so, his advice, so simple, does not change. He heats his pipe again, leaning forward, puffing to draw it in.]

Do not give up, my dear. You will feel... unhappy, if you do.

[That, he knows.]

I should hope this is what your husband tells you, too.

[velluminous]

[ beneath low lids, she watches him lean, and watches him work the pipe, and scents the chemical tang on the air. ]

Da. He does. [ he's you. she strains forward on the chaise to heat her pipe. after him, still copying, and sighs. she doesn't know why. ] Call me... dear girl.

[retroductions]

Dear... girl?

[That sounds a smidge closer to the realm of actual affection, and though this should not surprise him, he blinks.]

Dear girl. I've never...

[Called anyone that affectionately. Romantically?? Why would he have? Why would anyone wish him to? Why should-

Ohh. He feels that telltale warmth crawling up his spine, spreading like warm hands caressing outwards. The indulgences are making themselves known. He really leans onto the trunk now, resting his head in the crook of an elbow.]

Do we... [Long, long pause. Word stuck on his tongue.] ...love each other?

[velluminous]

[ in her, too, that warm bloom. paints spreading through water, diluting as it goes, but a little but of it now in everything.

she sets her pipe down, not really meaning to. it slips through her loosened fingers as she thinks, or thinks she thinks. he is so shy... ]

Yes. [ coming out a croak, fingertips twitching. ] I can tell you it is not marriage of convenience.

[ everything about what she is makes their coupling a conscious and irresistible choice. they could never have been any other way. ]

He... you... make me feel like more complete me.

[retroductions]

[Pink blossoms across his cheekbones. Is it the opium or her admission that they were married not out of convenience but out of love? Yes. The drugs, at least, are a perfect excuse to lean on, rather than admit to himself that the notion, fantastical and romantic, makes him feel self-conscious. Tingly and aware.

Herlock Sholmes does not care about the fantastical and romantic, after all. He tells himself this, so sure of his own predilections at the age of eighteen.]

A more complete you. I admit, I'm jealous.

[For he'd only marry if he felt the same, he's sure of it. In that tiny, tiny less-than-one-percent chance the mere presence of a person could make him feel the same way. One more large inhale, and an exhale to match, exuding smoke like the twinkiest dragon she'll ever see.]

I would like to feel that way someday. Maybe with you, along with this detective work of mine, it is not so far-fetched an concept?

[velluminous]

[ her mouth opens but no reply comes. she's thinking: it is more than concept, it is truth—but what if by telling him this, she has altered the indelible? the path may be changed now, and this young Sholmes walking different strides. it's frightening to think about. the drug beginning to wend through her limbs deadens the fear but does not discourage her speculation. she can imagine all outcomes with the selfsame clarity of a sober mind. ]

Mm...

[ at least a minute passes in silence, contemplative at least, while a small furrow appears between her brows. her gaze—iris and pupil and sclera all a deep violet, challenging to track in minutiae—lingers just past his ear. she can see his blush.

she can feel his blush. fizzy bubbles in her chest.

abruptly, frowning, ] Why are you on floor? Room for two up here.

[retroductions]

[He registers the question with a delay, as if unable to see the issue.]

I’ve spent many an evening sprawled on the floor, my d- […] My dear girl.

[Aaa—]

Would you like for me to sit with you? I wanted you to be comfortable.

[Strained attempts at being a host.]

[velluminous]

[ without looking away from him, Sprezzatura feels for her discarded pipe, bumps it, and brings it, languid, to her lips. sprawled on the floor? but why?

(she thinks idly of Sholmes, decades older, knelt on a ratty motel room floor, dressed like her, and she in turn dressed unlike herself, holding her foot nestled close into the vee of his groin)

furrows her brow again... ]

Hurm.

[ low, sable, a little raspy.

he can stay on the floor, and she on the chaise lounge. as she considers it, she brings one leg up and tucks it along the length of the cushions, as though only now making herself at home. he's right. it is more comfortable like this. ]

You look stern but behave kind.

[retroductions]

[It’s apparent that she wants to take the stretch of the chaise, so he allows himself to relax further against the trunk. Slump, even. Slumpier. Easy to do when he can feel the drug starting to properly sink in; through his muscles, now it tries to cloy itself deeper into his bones.]

I am a gentleman. As I have been… raised to be.

[Debatable. Has he not expressed a desire to live beyond the rote and obligatory? So, maybe she’s not wrong. Maybe he tries to be what he isn’t, and maybe he’s a bit unhappy — but he’s not unkind.]

Anyone would give his own wife the chaise lounge.

[velluminous]

[ for the first time, thoughts like: who is his mother? what did his father do? wonderments Sprezzatura Vaux rarely cares to make. whoever they were raised Herlock Sholmes to be a gentleman and stifle his mind in the daily doldrums of bureaucracy. ]

Do you believe I am your wife?

[ as he slumps, she drapes her arm out to set the pipe down... and pick up a lock of pale hair, combed primly back behind his ear. though that won't last, with the slow way the tapered claws of her nails splay open and glide towards his nape. she barely seems aware of doing this. ]

[retroductions]

[The keen sensation of her touch, the tickly sharpness of her claws, starkly contrasts against how he's begun to feel all over: slow and warm. Soon, he'll be practically liquid, and though he brings the pipe to his mouth once more for a pull, he barely lifts his head to do it. Half of his face is nearly smushed against where it rests against his arm, and he looks at her from this angle, taking in the color of her dark eyes.

Smoke reams out of every word.]

You are not impossible. [Improbable, he thought. But not impossible.] Yes, I do.

[And maybe that's more his detective's instinct speaking, as accurate as his logic and reasoning.]

[velluminous]

You do not think I am mad? Or lying?

[ he draws; she watches with something like hunger, though far, far more indolent. the idea of smoking holds more appeal than the effort of letting go of him and picking her pipe up again. she's comfortable just like this. her heart is nearly slow again. ]

[retroductions]

[Isn’t that what’s nice about this? That everything is a comfort.]

We’re all mad here.

[Ha. Alice in Wonderland.]

But no. I don’t believe either of those apply. I believe you, Ms Sapione.

[His turn for his pipe to gently thunk against the trunk.]

Strange as it is, this is nice.

[velluminous]

I am so lucky it was your brother's window I found myself beneath.

[ she pulls her nails in across his scalp, then out again, a slow and pleasant scratch, as one might massage at a loyal dog's ruff. there, behind his ear. creeping towards his nape when her fingers extend to their furthest.

slowly, but surely, her own face has begun to weigh to one side. cheek to arm to tufted couch cushion. she stretches her thumb next and draws it along the shell of his ear. ]

We are said to be bad luck. Tieflings.

[retroductions]

[If they’re married in the future, then her stumbling across him must have been more than a coincidence. Perhaps she was drawn there on purpose, by whatever means brought her here in the first place.

That’s about as far as his analysis goes, though. Her touch, that faint massaging, trailing down to his nape… it feels very good.]

More nonsense. You… have proven yourself a blessing in disguise.

[Without thinking, his other hand reaches up just to touch her wrist. For no reason other than she’s warm, and the opium has a tendency to make one seek roving, physical touch. New is the situation in which he can fulfill that desire though. Subtly.]

[velluminous]

[ soft skin. his. ]

Are you saying to me that you are lonely here? In your house of papers and baubles?

[ and no daughter. no partner of any kind. ]

[retroductions]

[No partner. No daughter. No family from across the sea. No wife.

Well.

One of those, now.]

Lonely?

[Is he that? He only ever believed his boredom to stem from a lack of direction, simulation, an outlet. His mind, an engine running itself into the ground if it can’t e rush forward.

But even talking to her, it feels… less so. Is it the opium’s doing?]

You know me as I am in the future, with someone to share my space with. What do you think?

[velluminous]

You are happier. With... more life within these walls.

[ shouldn't a place like this feel bursting with it? as chaotic as it is? yet it all seems so devoid of the true pleasure of it all.

life... ]

Hand me my pipe, lyubimy.

[retroductions]

[Happier? She seems so sure of it. The pink of Sholmes' cheeks deepens; to imagine a life like that, he truly is jealous of his older self. But to have a facet of it here, speaking with him now, lends to a strange self-awareness that transcends even the fog of the opium.

For a little bit, anyway.

Reaches for her pipe, his own hanging from his mouth lazily, and offers it just as clumsily to her. His other hand is still holding onto her wrist. She's... warm. Several degrees higher than what he would have expected. Is that normal for a devil woman?]

Lyubimy... [.......belated realization:] You speak Russian?

[velluminous]

Rashemi. [ her hand feels heavy and slow as she reaches for the pipe, and when her fingers touch his, she stays that way for a few seconds longer than she needs to. ] This... "Russian"... everyone else says this is what it is called, but for me, it is Rashemi.

[retroductions]

[And that extra small point of contact is just as noticeable as his fingers wrapped around her wrist.]

Rashemi.

[Idle curiosity. His thoughts becoming more stream of consciousness than much else, like someone pulling out long strands of taffy.]

Say something? In Rashemi.