sicaria | (no subject)

(no subject)

The door to Milliways opens and... Sherlock walks in: hair braided back neatly, dressed in a simple shirt and trousers and her brother's second-best boots.

She freezes immediately, scanning the room for threats. The door shuts behind her, but she ignores it; anyone with the power to lock her in has the power to catch her if she runs.

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Her chin lifts slightly at 'male version', and for a moment after he speaks her expression is flat and cold and remote.

"Noted," she repeats, with a hint of a smile. Nothing of that moment remains in her voice; she is quiet, reserved, but friendly. "You say 'teaches' with such horror. Ever killed a man with your bare hands, Jim?"

(They were some of the first words he said to her. She echoes his cadence—that much is the same between them, even though this one's accent is beyond bizarre.)

He looks positively insulted.

"Of course I have."

What kind of Moriarty does she take him for?

She laughs.

"You're perfect," she declares.

"The Jim I know is a mentor, but you'd like what he teaches, I promise you."

The insulted expression drops from his face as soon as she speaks, replaced with a relaxed smile.

"With you as a student, I expect I would."

"Your star pupil, thank you very much," she teases, drawing out the word into a Capitol mockery of itself with the v softened halfway to a w.

"Oh, I have no doubt."

He leans forward on his elbows, folding his hands together and propping his chin on them.

"My world is boring, tell me about yours."

"What do I say? I've no idea what the differences are."

She leans back in her seat, looks up thoughtfully at the ceiling, down again to meet Jim's eyes.

"I've seen you kill eight people on video. You were amazing. Sixteen years old and you went through them like a vicious little bullet. The world had just about forgotten your name by the first one, but they fucking well remember it now."

(His first kill is an image she still enjoys: bruises purpling on his throat as the older boy's hands fell away, dancing behind him and taking the knife from his pocket easy as you please, wrapping a hand in his hair to pull his head back and with one stroke severing three major blood vessels in his neck. Arterial spray painted the dirt in a ten-foot range; the camera made sure to trace its path and linger on the final drops.)

Televised serial murder.

The lack of that sort of thing is precisely what he means when he says his world is boring.

"The day I show up on camera is the day I've done something very wrong," he remarks. "Tell me more about that."

"Your name was drawn for the Hunger Games," she says. "Nationally broadcast teenage gladiators, twenty-four at a time once a year, a boy and girl from every District. One winner. The victors from every District teach those who come after; I volunteered at seventeen, two years ago."

Sherlock is oh so very well-read.

"The country is called Panem."

"Now that sounds like fun."

He's going to be even more aware of the boredom inherent in his own world's failings for days now. That happens sometimes after a Milliways visit.

"It has its moments."

She near fretted herself to death when Tony came up last year, and when he won she got thoroughly intoxicated and kissed him in front of Jim. Oh well; it's not like he hadn't known before then. And there weren't any cameras.

"My kill count was twice-and-a-half yours, but I never made it into art the way you did. You still tease me about that."

He's well aware of the utility of simple, unremarkable mass murder, but still:

"There's no point if you aren't going to make your mark."

"Shortest Games in history," she says. "I was efficient. No, it was my brother who disappointed you."

Not with his performance, no—he did things to and with the arena that no one else could have done—but afterward, when he cried for weeks. Jim lost patience with this after thirty seconds; Sherlock stood by Tony all the way through.

"Actual brother, or progenitor?"

He can't tell if she's a clone or not. Too many variables.

"Actual brother. Identical twin, yes, thank you."

It's common knowledge back home, but she's not sure how he spotted it so quickly. Then again, Jim. She can't say she's surprised.

"Of course," he says. "There are patterns to these things. You'll start noticing them."

He sits back in his chair again, reflective.

"What did you say your brother's name was?"

They both know perfectly well she didn't.

"Tony," she says readily, smiling a little.

"Now tell me how you know me."

Tony again. Where does that name come from? Why not Mycroft in this case or some version of it in the other? Character names are among details most likely to remain consistent in the translation from original text to adaptation.

With so many differences, "adaptation" is rapidly becoming an unsuitable explanation.

He was briefly distracted by his thoughts; now he focuses back in on her.

"Which of you?"

"The one you just barely didn't mistake me for."

"Through here, of course."

Well, if she's going to ask stupid questions.

"Do you have an older brother?"

"No. We're the only ones. What do you mean, through here? Do you not know a Sherlock Stark at home?"

His gaze sharpens with interest.

Truthfully: "No."

She cocks her head; smiles.

"Explain."

"Sherlock Holmes," he says, pronouncing the name with care and clarity, lingering over the L in Holmes. "You're the only one I know of with the different surname."

Likely it lines up with the name Tony. He'll have to look into it.

He wishes, not for the first time, that Milliways had an active Internet connection.

"And yet one of those is so close you nearly mistook me for her," she murmurs. "And you're as near to my Jim as makes no difference, except for the accent. What a fascinating puzzle."

She's awfully casual with that my.

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