finalflight | OPEN POST; [ HERLOCK SHOLMES / TGAA ]

[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.]

[ 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.

[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.

[ 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. ]

[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.]

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. ]

[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.

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.

[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.]

[ 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. ]

Edited 2025-02-22 04:52 (UTC)

[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?

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.

[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?

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.

[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.

Hhm. [ a deep pull on her pipe, set languid between her lips. she holds the smoke then lets it all out in a long, slow sigh—angled gently towards Sholmes' face. ] Mne nravitsya eta muzyka.

[Oh, he inhales that, happily, and exhales with a laugh.]

Fascinating…! The language sounds the precisely the same…

[His turn for another pull, and each word is articulately just-so to blow his own smoke right back.]

It’s Beethoven. A very famous composer in this world.

[ she isn't sure she likes the common refrain of "your language sounds just like this other one you've never heard of", but she cannot begin to verbalize way. her brow simply knits for a moment, while she takes in his exhaled smoke with sensuous deliberation. ]

You have said before this name to me. [ the weight in her elbow, now having settled in with the languid high, may begin to feel as though it is pulling him in, towards her, by his nape. she still seems not to note it. ] ...It does not sound exactly exact, hm?

[He sits up straighter, though this takes a great effort when each limb feels heavy, but it is all for the sake of putting on a performative enunciation of a Russian accent-]

Perhaps not exactly the same, but certainly close enough to make the accents indistinguishable from each other!

[Oh, he sways a little… in the direction she tilts him in. Sholmes doesn’t even think about it: he scoots closer so he can lean properly against the bottom of the chaise.]

You are teasing me.

[ that moment, just now, is the closest to her husband he has come yet. not the first time he has mimicked her. well, chronologically perhaps it is. time gets so finicky like this.

eyelids low, she exhales her next lungful of smoke across his mouth, bare inches from her own. meant to tease, too. ]

You need to speak more slanting.

[He tilts his head back just enough to get comfortable, and that’s precisely when she blows smoke at him, and Sholmes’ mouth falls open to reply and take it in, but…

She’s suddenly quite close, isn’t she?

Needless to say, the teasing works. He is pulled in two directions at once: the drug dictating that this closeness be consummated with further closeness and touch, and the young, baffled part of him that doesn’t really know what to do.

Heat rising properly to his face. His hand squeezing. His other… bringing his pipe to his lips.]

…Ah. Slanting.

[help]

Slanting.

[ soft and matter-of-fact. the faraway awareness that he has tightened his fingers around her wrist and the lacking of any desire for him to stop. appearing once more is that pinch in her brow.

he doesn't know what she means by slanting. she can't explain it, either. it's the knowing of the mother tongue. she would have made an awful professor.

ahh. but he's blushing sincerely now. this close, the delineation between her iris and her sclera visible—if one knows to look. she roves his face, falls to his lips as he raises the pipe. then... the pretty line of his jaw up to where her fingers bury behind his ear.

she needs another toke.

slow with clumsiness, she pulls her hand from his hair, and in so doing, from his hold on her wrist, as well. bringing her lips to the pipe more so than her pipe to her lips, she snaps the fingers of her free hand beneath the bowl and conjures... a flame. ]

[Slanting. He will have to listen more carefully to her speak to differentiate it — and that should be easy to do, he thinks, because his focus is so thoroughly bound around her presence right now that it should come naturally.

For instance, Sholmes is always observing. The faint difference between iris and scalera, he sees it. The fine lines in her lips. How each strand of hair falls to brush against her shoulders.

He frowns when she pulls away, feeling like he’s been deprived. Drops his hand to the edge of the chaise, instead, opening his mouth to protest in sound more than words, but then a small flame appears in his periphery. Summoned by a snap of her fingers.

Eyes widen. !!]

How…?

[hfdghff reaches for it]

[ she has turned halfway onto her back, to hold the pipe and the flame more easily. in her periphery, his reaching hand.

slides her gaze towards him, but doesn't put out the light or stop his reaching. he's a grown man. if he touches fire, he shouldn't be surprised of its heat. ]

Abracadabra.

This magic of yours?

[The flame flickers against fingertips as he brushes them through it, but the heat is expected and none too painful for a man who puts out candles with forefinger and thumb when he’s feeling impatient.

He doesn’t linger, anyway. Instead, with great effort and clamping down on his pipe with his teeth, he… straightens again. Gets in his knees. Turns, very wobbly, and leans forward with his elbows… against the edge of the chaise. Or her body, depending on how close she is.]

Show me how.

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