round 4 day 4, afternoon

[bitofafiction]

Characters: Theta Buckley and Sherry Holmes
Format: prose
This log is: closed
Location: let's start with the gym
Summary: Sherry and Theta investigate the unknowns of her new Ability ring.
Warnings: none at time of posting ...kind of kinky flirting? Also identity issues. And then REALLY kinky flirting.

Originally they were headed to the library, but Sherlock agrees that the gym makes a much more logical destination given the circumstances.

He follows Theta there, hands tucked in his pockets, thinking.

Comments

[ergaleomancer]

She laughs wickedly. "And what, pray tell, should I do with that advantage~?"

[bitofafiction]

"I am sure I couldn't tell you," he says with scrupulous innocence.

[ergaleomancer]

"We~ell," she muses. "I am me. I suppose I ought to press it somehow~~."

[bitofafiction]

He clasps his hands behind his back. "I am without suggestions."

[ergaleomancer]

She starts limping along, carefully pacing back and forth in front of him. "You should stand up straighter, you know~."

[bitofafiction]

"Should I? To what end?"

[ergaleomancer]

"Because you are a ~gentleman~, Mr. Holmes, are you not~?"

[bitofafiction]

"Debatably."

[ergaleomancer]

"Then aren't you ~grateful~ I'm helping you polish up~?"

[bitofafiction]

He cannot seem to stop himself smiling.

[ergaleomancer]

Theta, too, is smiling, perhaps unusually much. She stops and stands still, then carefully balances on her good leg, reaching out with her cane to gently and playfully swat him across the shins. "Didn't I tell you to stand up straighter~?"

[bitofafiction]

"You may have done," he acknowledges.

And yet he isn't.

Contrary bastard.

[ergaleomancer]

"Well. Once more for the record, then," she says, moving to swat at him again, a little bit harder, but still only just playful. "Stand up straighter, Mr. Holmes~."

[bitofafiction]

Is he blushing?

He's blushing.

"If you insist."

[ergaleomancer]

At first, Theta is just smug when Sherlock straightens. Then she sees the blush across his face, and a matching one fades into view on her own cheeks. She looks away as a strange shiver goes down her spine. She's never felt this way before. Why is she feeling this way? What is this feeling? This was just a game...wasn't it? Still...it feels strangely nice, and she can't just stop here while she's too riled up to play it off. So the only choice is to continue.

"And hold your head up..." Her voice shakes just a bit, her composure cracking just ever so fractionally little.

[bitofafiction]

He does. He hardly thinks about it. Something about that tremor in her voice is far more compelling than any amount of persuasion by cane.

[ergaleomancer]

"That's right..." This feeling...the more he obeys, the stronger it gets. It's intoxicating, and it makes her both unsure and more determined at the same time.

"Now you look like someone who knows what he's doing... Instead of a contrary arrogant young fool..."

[bitofafiction]

"Oh, but I am a contrary arrogant young fool," he says cheerfully.

[ergaleomancer]

The spell of the moment is broken, and Theta lets out a heavy breath she hadn't even realised she'd been holding. "Mm, perhaps I'm trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear..."

[bitofafiction]

"I can play the proper gentleman if it's required of me. I don't doubt I can play the proper lady, for that matter."

[ergaleomancer]

Theta starts to say something, then stops short. Her expression goes cold, and she looks away. She's strangely vulnerable like this, not projecting at all the hard edge she wants to think she is.

"Don't play at it if you're not it. It makes people take people like me less seriously."

[bitofafiction]

"If I never played at being someone I'm not," he says softly, "I would not be anyone at all."

[ergaleomancer]

"You're Sherlock Holmes, not Jane Eyre. Play at being whoever you like, but unless you're claiming to be like me, stick to playing men."

[bitofafiction]

"I can hardly claim to be like you if I do not know what that means. Equally, I can hardly know how the role suits me until I try it."

He smiles very faintly.

"And in my long experience with not being taken seriously, my response has generally been to do what I like and to hell with the social consequences."

[ergaleomancer]

She sighed, walking over to a bench to sit down, shaking her head. "No, Sherlock...you don't know what it means. What do you see when you look at me? A woman?" Her tone gave away that that was the wrong answer.