downside

[arenaria]

Voice lets her go.

Shell doesn't know how long it's been. She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know how to get home, or if she has one.

She stands on Voice's doorstep. She blinks slowly at the brightness.

She walks in a random direction.

Downsiders aren't big on charity. It's not like it's going to kill her if she doesn't get help. It's not like she's unfamiliar with the effects of dehydration and hunger; Voice didn't always remember to take good care of the pet in the basement. Shell walks, and when she's tired she lies down on the ground and sleeps, and when she wakes up she walks, and every few days she curls up on the ground, waits to torch from thirst, and then gets up and goes on.

She doesn't count the number of times this happens. It doesn't matter.

She walks. She has nightmares. She walks.

On an unremarkable day on an unremarkable street after unremarkable stretches of years, she feels herself cross a telltale threshold of dizziness and headache: she cannot make significant forward progress towards Not Where She Is Currently Located until she torches or (less likely) someone gives her a lot of water. It's possible she'll be able to sleep through this torch. She sits. She leans on a wall. She should probably pick up the next sharp object she finds. Maybe a piece of broken glass will present itself. Then she can skip these parts.

She sits, and she closes her eyes, and she waits. If the buildings around her would ever have seemed familiar, they don't now.

Comments

[arenaria]

Shell doesn't notice. She's too busy pressing herself against Sherlock like she expects this effort to eventually yield a sufficient closeness to turn them into some kind of hybrid being.

[she_sells_seashells]

[Let's leave 'em be,] Bell suggests to Tony, turning to go.

[ferratus]

[Deal,] he says, taking her hand and following.

[arenaria]

"You're important," Shell mumbles into Sherlock's neck. "How do I convince you, tell me."

[sicaria]

"I don't know," she murmurs back, helplessly.

[arenaria]

"Why don't you believe it? I do. Bell does too. We're smart. And she's also sane all the way through so it's not just because I've gone a little off. And Tony agrees with us!"

[sicaria]

"It is not wholly a factual matter."

[arenaria]

Nuzzle, nuzzle, hug, sigh. "Why isn't feeling it contagious?" she asks plaintively.

[sicaria]

"I don't know," she says. "I'm sorry."

[arenaria]

"I love you, I love you, I love you, I missed saying that," sighs Shell.

[sicaria]

"I love you too," Sherlock murmurs.

[arenaria]

"I want to go cuddle properly. In a bed? Can we do that?"

[sicaria]

"Yes."

[arenaria]

Once they have been transported to a bed, proper cuddles ensue.

"I had all these elaborate fantasies of you rescuing me when Voice had me," murmurs Shell. "You'd take somebody's sentence for the contractor immunity - on the first try, I bet, even without the magic, just because you're - you're good at not letting things be in your way when something needs getting - and you would find me no matter how long you had to look - and you'd knock Voice down till they were scared of their own shadow, and take me away from there and hold me and never let me go..."

[sicaria]

The holding her and never letting her go part, Sherlock can definitely do.

[arenaria]

Oh, good, because that is exactly what Shell needs.

Bit by bit accumulated tension melts and she sinks into the snuggles.

Someone's footsteps in the next room fall in a too-familiar way and undo all of that and wind her up into a clingy shivering mess again, but she quickly assesses where she is and who's got her and slowly slowly slowly relaxes again.

[sicaria]

"I love you," Sherlock says helplessly, cuddling her some more.

[arenaria]

"I looooove you," sighs Shell. "I'm so glad I'm home and soon I can fold back into Bell and everything'll be okay and we're gonna tear Downside apart and put it back together nice and I love you."

[sicaria]

Sherlock hugs her and kisses her and loves her.

"What are we going to do about Downside?"

[arenaria]

Shell thinks, then says, "We should let Bell figure it out. My ideas are mostly the same thing with different people getting hurt. I'm not quite myself. I'm sorry."

[sicaria]

"Who gets hurt?"

[arenaria]

Shell shrinks into herself. "The people who hurt me. That's what knock down means. When torturers get into fights in what passes for politics Downside - they can't kill each other. They just hurt each other till someone's done and stands down."

[sicaria]

Sherlock cuddles her.

"I love you. It's all right."

[arenaria]

"Oh, good," sighs Shell, muffling her voice by pressing her face into her girlfriend. "I wished for a lot of things I shouldn't and I'm so glad you love me anyway."

[sicaria]

"Of course I do."