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

[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.

[bitofafiction]

"I am the wrong person to ask," he says wryly. "I see more than I can easily list. But I would not have offered you my hand the way I did if I had not caught on to a certain gentlemanly tendency."

[ergaleomancer]

She smiled at that, but there was a sad note behind it. "That's right. I'm male and female in one, but my body is purely female. People don't take me seriously, don't even understand, and if you're going to play at being female... It devalues all the work I do to be taken seriously as a gentleman. Not everyone is as accepting as you are."

She hung her head, at a loss for words. She never talked about this to anyone, even her parents avoided the topic of gender with her. It felt good to open up to someone about it, but...she hardly even knew how.

[bitofafiction]

Sherlock hesitates briefly, then takes a seat beside her.

"Being taken seriously as Sherlock Holmes is outright impossible more often than not. The best I could hope for at home, from anyone outside my family, was that they might become sufficiently accustomed to at least use my name without laughing. It is rather different here; half the student population seems not to have heard of me and the other half has more important things to worry about."

[ergaleomancer]

"And even I laughed at you at first..." She sighed softly, instinctively scooting closer to him. "I'm sorry...you'd think someone in my position would know better..."

She looked up at him, smiling, though still with that saddened tinge to it. She was unsure of herself, and not used to feeling that way, at all. It bothered her to be so uncertain, and she didn't want to let the feeling linger any longer than strictly necessary.

"I'm sorry. Sherlock."

[bitofafiction]

He smiles, folding his hands in his lap.

"It's all right. You don't laugh now, and that is enough to be going on with."

[ergaleomancer]

Her smile warmed up at that, though she did have to wonder whether the clockwork roaches had relocated to her stomach, nervously flying about at their super speed. "I...rather like you, when you're not being agreeably contrary..."

[bitofafiction]

"And I am likewise fond of you."

With no qualifiers.

[ergaleomancer]

There's that blush again, though it's not as strong as it had been before. "I...think things may become improper if we keep on at this rate..."

[bitofafiction]

"I am Sherlock Holmes. Nothing about me is proper."

[ergaleomancer]

She paused, then spoke with that nervous tremor again. "Do you want me to hit you with my cane again?"

[bitofafiction]

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that my response might be deemed improper."

[ergaleomancer]

She reached over to swat him in the shins with her cane again, a bit harder again, though still careful to not actually hurt him. "When I ask you a question, you answer it..."

[bitofafiction]

"I believe I just did."

[ergaleomancer]

"No you didn't, you blatantly refused to answer." She paused, then her blush deepened. "Unless you want me to make the obvious extrapolation from that... Stand up."

[bitofafiction]

Smiling, he does.

[ergaleomancer]

Her blush deepens, but she gestures with her hand. "Face that way," she indicates, putting him facing off to her left. She passes her cane over into her right hand. "And take a step away from me."

She takes a deep breath, that strange feeling coming back to her. What did it even mean?

[bitofafiction]

If this were Tony...

Well, it isn't.

Sherlock has his suspicions nevertheless.

"Yes, sir," he murmurs.