asgardmeridiem | JULY INTRO MINGLE

Entry tags:

JULY INTRO MINGLE

Who: Newbies and anyone who wishes to greet them!
What: Getting used to the city
When: Days 474 and forward.
Where: Anywhere in town!
Rating: PG-13 tops! If it gets worse, move to a private log please.

[ Please include your location and the IC day (ex. Day 43 - this can be found in the schedule) in your top-level comment or your subject line when starting a thread! It can be any welcome hall, major attraction, or just out an about in any district. For newbies making a top-level thread, you may include your character's name/canon/house in your subject line if you'd like, to make housemates easy to find! :) If a God is needed or wanted, please ping the mods and depending on availability we might be able to throw them in where asked.

Also, keep an eye on the event schedule for July. If you're ICly introing during an event, make sure you take that into account. Thank you!

Have fun! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hello.

Ellie's not entirely sure how she feels about being right. Especially since Sherlock doesn't exactly seem to recognize her. Ellie cocks her head at him, giving him a serious, contemplative look, trying to decide whether he's innocent or being a giant bucket of jerk.

She bends down and scoops up the bullet, sliding it back into the clip.

"Sherlock, if you're fucking around with me right now, you better stop. I've had a week. I've had a couple of them."

It's just the sort of thing Sherlock would do. She can afford to be hopeful.

He holds the look solidly for as long as she does: she's studying him, and he does so in turn, openly. He's expecting questions about being out at a time like this, about not being seen around here before, about being up on the roof.

And then she says his name.

Sherlock barely reacts outwardly, though he does blink several times before she stops talking. The only thing he can think is -- she knows because the people who brought him here know. They targeted him, could have spread the word...

But there's familiarity in her tone. An incongruous element.

A beat's already passed by the time he speaks up again.

"I'm -- sorry?" It's not the slickest response, but given the circumstances he's earned some right to be confused.

"Why, is it your fault?"

John's not there to quip about it, -- it usually is -- but she tries for a smile anyway, and it clearly falters before disappearing.

He really has no fucking clue who she is.

"Well... shit."

Sharply, she slides the clip back into her gun, sliding it back into her pocket. She is tiny in comparison to him, scarred and coltish and suddenly awkward despite her earlier self-assurance. Annoyed, and trying not to place it on him.

"Oh my god, fuck this place."

He's experiencing that sense he gets when he suspects he's stepped out of some social line. His eyes flick to one side to check in with John... Though of course he isn't here.

This one isn't difficult to work out if he applies himself, though -- at least on the surface. She said his name, he expressed confusion, and now she's disappointed.

But this isn't the sort of situation where you can just pretend to be sorry you don't recall a person's name, and she's a teenager who swears at adults and handles hollowpoint bullets; she obviously doesn't care much for social graces (point in her favour). Anyway...

If you're fucking around with me. She'd expected him to be playing a prank.

There's a short, self-conscious pause after she finishes speaking during which all these thoughts pass, and Sherlock realizes he can make use of the apparent familiarity.

"Think I'll pass."

He lets that response breeze out, then looks down at her, looking for eye contact again. Just a hint of a smirk tugging one side of his mouth, like he's having trouble holding it in. Gotcha.

Ellie almost misses it, thinks it's some bit of sarcasm, but then she catches sight of his face, his eyes, the little smile at her expense.

Relief crashes into her, and she wants to laugh.

Instead she reaches out and gives him a hard shove directly in the chest. She has remarkable upper body strength for such a little thing.

"You dick!" she bursts out, though there's already a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. He's not going to let her forget this, is he?

"Don't you pull that shit on John, he can reach your face."

He takes a stumbling step backward -- doesn't have to force it, just goes with the momentum. She is strong.

The mention of John is almost enough to crack the facade straightaway, but the surprise is no more than a flash in his eyes while he's looking over to one side. Past that, he's grinning through it. The last several hours have been mad enough -- so why not?

"Completely had you."

"Haha, fuck you too."

She points at him accusingly, but already a smile is starting to creep up on her. It's in her eyes, the very edges of her mouth. Ellie doesn't miss people the way the rest of the world does. She accepts that they will leave her as another natural, inevitable thing, whether it's death or something worse.

So Ellie has never spoken of Sherlock since he left, and she will seamlessly accept that he's back.

"You're a tool. A toolbox."

She no longer bothers to hide the smile, but it suddenly turns sly. "Does John know you're back yet?"

He has to go along with it, but the continued insinuation that he's been here before -- that John's been here long enough to want to know if he's back yet -- keeps pressing under his skin.

He can deal with the complete lack of logic once he has a clearer picture of what's going on.

"Not yet."

Enough of an answer for now. Only liars start out making excuses.

Shaking her head, she turns away from him with a grin, starting to lead him down the street. Back towards John's place, likely.

Her backpack is older than the rest of her clothes -- and her clothes are six months old, tops. No time to fray. Bloodstained anyway. The backpack has been repaired with duct tape on the straps. Water damage. There are buttons pinned to it, rusted. An American flag mostly rubbed away. Uncle Sam military promo. A universal hazard sign. Flight wings are embroidered into the top -- it's an American military castoff. A small keychain that looks like a purple fanged monster.

"You've got a new bracelet," she points out, holding up her own. It's a grey-green color.

"I forget which god that is."

Sherlock glances down at his own gold-yellow bracelet. Yes -- the other houses. Could be a pattern to who gets assigned to which. It's something he's going to be on the lookout for.

"Odin, I think." As if he'd only been half-listening when they'd told him.

They pass by one of those washed-out buildings -- one that was damaged in the recent conflict, but is still intact enough to stand. There's movement behind one of the shattered windows, a person going about their life despite the damage. Sherlock follows the building with his eyes while they walk past.

"Odin," she repeats, turning over the idea in her mind. Odin is not a particularly widespread House, but she's grown to appreciate the people in it. They're clever, and usually ruthless in a fight. From what she knows.

"Fire or ice?" she asks, as they move past the building. The person inside seems to still at their passing, and Ellie watches them too, at least until she can see them moving away from the window.

She's careful. Very careful, as if she expects a threat. It's an ingrained behavior, the type that doesn't come with training. It comes with life experience. Apparently, she trusts Sherlock with her back.

Ice, he thinks, and feels the frost start to collect in the palm of his loosely-clenched hand -- the texture of it, though not the right temperature. He's as fascinated by it as he is repelled, because something like that can't happen, yet it is, and there's a vague notion in the back of his mind that once upon a distant time, it would have been exciting.

He forgets he hasn't answered the question out loud. He's looking at the buildings, too: certain details that were obscured by darkness are visible now. Like the lack of scorching that explosives would leave on most materials. Even the largest pieces of wreckage appear to have been simply knocked down.

"No explosives," he murmurs, as unaware of saying it as he was of not saying 'ice.'

A chill wriggles down the back of her neck, but whether it's an answer or just a nervous reaction, Ellie doesn't know. She rubs her skin, looks back over her shoulder at him and catches the tail end of a familiar thought process.

She forgets sometimes. Forgets other people don't have this reality, haven't lived this war. Sherlock wasn't here for the last battle.

Ellie rubs her nose and shakes her head, leading on.

"No. Snow damage. It was a blizzard, and then a lot of fairies, and then she started catapulting these giant fucking ice golems over the walls. Some of them crashed into buildings, tore shit apart. ... the other stuff was us trying to fight them."

Shielding her eyes, Ellie points back towards the far walls, out of sight.

"She had them over there. A team and I, we went out and distracted the fucking things while another team went and found the catapults. It was kinda bloody, but we've had worse battles. Alfheim, for one."

Alfheim had been a goddamn slaughter, and she'd been on the front lines.

The city shows many signs of being rebuilt, from multiple disasters. The repairs are anywhere from hasty to professional.

Words like fairies and ice golems and Alfheim (Scandinavian, fits with the theme) catch on his mind like bits of velcro; it takes some concentration to pry them loose. This many hours on, the fact that this environment persists in its existence is starting to edge out of being confounding and into being irritating. Sherlock runs his fingertips over the patch of frost in his palm before shaking his hand out, dispelling it.

They're going to see John. That fact manages to be simultaneously steadying (John is a fixed point, a known factor, a friend) and terrifying (the last time Sherlock saw him -- the graveyard -- and only a short while since he took the fall, his work isn't finished yet).

They're heading out of Odin's district, and Sherlock reaches the conclusion that going through with the visit is, given the circumstances, the more logical choice. Whatever is going on here, it's completely separate from the work he's been taken from. Worlds away, one might think.

Yet he still finds himself hoping John will be asleep when they arrive. Or not at home.

Sherlock's quiet. Normally, he is only quiet when he's thinking too hard, and Ellie can't exactly blame him. It's a lot to take in, a lot he's been absent for.

"It's daylight, John's probably at the clinic," Ellie offered. "I mean, he probably slept there." It wouldn't be unusual for him, not lately. Seems he has little reason to go home sometimes. "Probably not eating."

Come to think of it-

As they pass the bare, sagging trees damaged by the winter storm, Ellie turns her head towards them. It's the only indication that she's doing anything, willing any of them to life again, but certain plant life begins to go green again as she passes it. Trees, mostly -- fruit trees in particular.

They pass an apple tree. It's blown nearly to matchsticks in the front of someone's yard, damaged by the ice and what looks like the impact of something the size of a car. It's buckled, dying. As they come up on it, the bark knits, the tree springs into leaf, bright red apples dotting the branches.

Like something out of a fairy tale.

One is almost low enough for Ellie to reach. She stops under it, reaches up a hand, jumps as high as she can. Her fingertips barely tickle the underside of it. Her sneakers slap down on the sidewalk, and she whispers a curse.

It takes him a moment for it to dawn that it's her. His eyes are caught by the changing colours at first, the unfurling leaves and blossoming flowers. When he catches the way she's looking at the trees, that expression of quiet concentration, his eyes flick toward her. To the grey-green of her bracelet.

Then she jumps, reaching for the apple. Sherlock, still a pace behind her, lets a quiet smile pull at his lips. He steps up to twist it loose from the branch, turns the apple over in his hand before passing it to her.

"Plan?" Since she's in the lead here. Implying that she can't expect him to simply walk through the door.

Ellie takes the apple from him, pulls a face, but it's not long before a smile gets back to tugging at the corner of her mouth. She stops and turns to walk backwards, polishing the apple on the front of her shirt -- long-sleeved, even in this heat.

"I come in, tell him I found a stray on the street and he followed me home."

The tiny smile turns into a grin, and she tosses him the apple.

"You give him that and try really hard not to look punchable." Even her smile says she knows that it'll be an ultimately useless effort, if John's of a mind.

He catches the apple neatly, and frowns at her smile. Punchable for what, specifically?

"Hardly my fault." He gives the apple a light toss in the air, catches it again mid-stride.

"Maybe not this time," Ellie agrees reluctantly, shrugging her shoulders before she sweeps back around, picks up the pace. She's short, but fast.

"But he did miss you."

She says it like it's a given.

Nearly there, Ellie turns off to lead them into the clinic itself, making her way past the front desk as if she does this all the time, heading to the back where they're most likely to find John.

She knocks on the door.

It's become enough of a habit of Ellie's to stop by whenever she feels like it that it's actually one of the thoughts that passes by. Could also be someone who wants to talk to him for some medical reason, or ... whatever else. The point is Ellie should maybe consider scaling back on that because this is a clinic. Really.

Not that she does it all that often either, but still.

When John opens the door and sees it is indeed Ellie, he gives her an unimpressed look.

"Ellie, you can't keep barging in ..."

Wait.

There's someone with her, and he lifts his gaze to come face to face with Sherlock.

"Ah. Right. I can forgive that." He'll just step aside for the two of them, because that's all he can think of to do while he tries to ... think of what to do.

Because there's a problem. A common problem in Asgard, but one that he personally hasn't been faced with all that much. Does Sherlock remember? He came with Ellie but ... Hm.

Can't drop the act around -- Ellie (cheers John, that saves him the trouble of asking you later). Hearing John's voice brings to mind the graveyard, and the words Sherlock had managed to hear from that distance, including three very distinct ones: Don't. Be. Dead. But he packs that away behind a placid expression, just in time to have John look up at him.

He breezes through the doorway, gives the apple another little toss before setting it down on the nearest raised surface.

"She told me not to look punchable." He turns toward John again, holds that for a second before lowering his eyebrows, giving him a sidelong, querying look. "How's it going?"

Ellie swings her arms around, extending her fingers, presenting: Sherlock. It's enough of an explanation for John, and she finds the back of his desk chair, clutches it to casually lean against while she waits for them to properly settle.

"He followed me home," she adds, tilting her head at John.

"Can we keep him?"

"You always look punchable."

And just like that, everything is as it should be again. The world falls back into place. John attempts to go for an expression that's on the dry side, but he ends up with a wide smile. Sherlock is back. He has more time, before going back home to ... Well. Misery, honestly. Thinking Sherlock is dead, for a couple of years.

But there's no point in thinking about that now. He looks at Ellie, and purses his lips.

"I don't know ... As long as he doesn't make any messes."

Sherlock gives a sideways nod at John's first statement, his lips pressed together -- nothing for it, he supposes.

The smile he comes up with is only slightly strained. All else set aside (set aside, if not forgotten, and only temporarily)... it's good to see John again. It almost seems simpler. Sudden kidnappings and faceless women and ice powers, but here in this room, this is something he can handle.

As far as messes go: "Depending on how long it's been -- probably some things in the fridge I should have a look at."

Ellie grins at them, pleased to find that John's more happy than upset. It's nice when she's wrong. She rocks in place a moment, shakes her head.

"Totally hopeless," she sighs, then jabs a thumb at the doorway, idly tottering towards it.

"I'm just gonna leave you dudes to do... dude things."

She frames them with her hands, puts a hand on the doorknob. Seems to suddenly remember something, and abruptly gets serious.

"Hey, uh, Sherlock? Ask John to show you the MRI. I wanna know what you think."

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