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

[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."

[arenaria]

Shell presses a tiny tentative kiss to Sherlock's neck and sets about trying to fall asleep.

She succeeds. Eventually.

She still talks in her sleep. The words still come without grammar, without correlation to any visible emotional state pervading her unconsciousness, without rhyme or reason.

The word selection is a bit different than Bell's.

"Dark. No - Voice. Someone. Hurts."

[sicaria]

[arenaria]

Left to her own devices, Shell will sleep and murmur worrying words for many hours.

She has not had anything to wish to be awake for in many years.

[sicaria]

Then Sherlock will cuddle her, and watch over her, and wait.

[arenaria]

Quite apart from the murmuring, it's plain that Shell has nightmares. She doesn't lash out in her sleep, but she shivers like she's dying of cold, and between words there is the occasional high mournful whine.

She doesn't wake up during the nightmares. This has not been an effective strategy to make her experiences less nightmarish for many years.

[sicaria]

"I love you," Sherlock murmurs, kissing Shell's forehead.

[arenaria]

Shell wakes up.

"Oh," she sighs. "Oh, you're still here, I'm so glad."

[sicaria]

"Yes," she says. "I am still here."

[arenaria]

"That's good. Did you sleep too?"

[sicaria]

"A little."

[arenaria]

"That's good." Shell seems very comforted by the fact that Sherlock can sleep with her in the room, still.

[sicaria]

She smiles very slightly.