đ” đ đž đ« đ·đ¶ đ» (jukejoint) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-04-09 01:33:00 |
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Entry tags: | christine daae, sherlock holmes |
Who: Sam and Elias
What: Lunch and worrying
Where: Burger Bar -> Bellagio
When: Recentish
Warnings/Rating: Language. Drug triggery things
Sam was pissed at Elias, but it was the kind of pissed that didnât go beyond a few well placed shoulder shoves and a kick to the shin. But he sounded so pathetic on the journals that she blew past pissed off and settled somewhere around crankily sympathetic before the conversation was even over. And, truth was, she missed the fucker. He was easy to talk to and, as far as she could tell, he didnât expect a damn thing from her. It was a nice change, and maybe she could forgive him for having a grabby British asshole in his mind - maybe.
Getting off work was a breeze. A Katie Scarlett (Because, yeah, even Sam had watched Gone with the Wind) hand pressed to her forehead, a sway that indicated dizziness, and a migraine right there behind one eyeball. Afternoon off, with pay, and a cheeseburger. Alright, she could get past cranky too, if the universe was smiling on her that way. By 12:15, she was sitting on her portable MIG on the sidewalk, waiting for Eliasâ cab to pass by. Her hair was in a messy bun, something held in place by chopsticks from the local Chinese joint, and she was wearing blue work coveralls over thick, steel-tipped workboots. She was little girl lost, the cuffs of her coveralls rolled up at ankle and wrist, and she was sucking on a lollipop one of the other workers had given her.
Someone strayed too close, got too fresh, and she kicked the battery back-up on the MIG with her boot, and reached for her torch. 1 down, she thought as he skittered away. Yeah, not a bad afternoon so far.
Even people who were familiar with Sherlock often missed the signs that he was coming apart, and the man had his own unique way of handling things. Usually he did well enough coping, as he was brilliant enough to take action on almost everything that was bothering him. Not so here. All evidence destroyed, John Watson withdrawn and almost nonsensical, the assailant likely so altered as to be untraceable and unrecognizable--Sherlock was obsessed and, simultaneously, stumped. The spectre of Moriarty had faded into the background, the multiple plans and contacts Sherlock had been exploiting left to languish. The forced inaction worked on Sherlock as if the man had been locked in a five foot square room, and when Elias came through the door he felt like he was jonesing for a needle and he hadnât touched anything in more than a decade. Sherlock was no help, to the point of suggesting several places where it would be simple to acquire a hit.
Elias went back to his hotel at the Bellagio and started moving furniture and spreading out red-toned HahnemĂŒhle Velour paper. He stuck with soft charcoal because he was almost sure he wasnât going to be able to come up with anything worth keeping, and if he didnât put his mind to something, he was either going to OD or let Sherlock drive them both mad.
After he woke up out of the work daze, he was out of paper and very hungry. He took himself in and out of a shower, but he got distracted again working on the things heâd done, making small edits, turning papers over to try to find better renditions, and when he woke up a second time, he almost fell over. He knew from long experience that he did better when he had company in this kind of state, so he got on the journals. Sherlock surfaced, but only for a very short while to talk to Micah, and that was all. Elias felt Sam was probably good, someone inherently harmless (to his mind) and likely only to give him shit about work, money, and Sherlock, three things he could manage.
Elias didnât like cabs, they felt uselessly expensive and anonymous, but Samâs job was too far out for him to walk. It pulled up across the street and Elias pushed open the back door of the cab with one foot. He didnât get out, he just leaned and caught her eye.
Sam wasnât the kind of woman who expected a greeting that came with hugs or kisses, and she liked that Elias didnât play at pretending she was that kind of woman. She saw the cab, saw the foot that opened the door, and she grabbed her MIG in one hand and her torch in the other. She crossed the street dangerously close to a coming car, but what the hell, theyâd be the ones paying for her to retire early if they hit her. She banged the cabâs trunk, and she tossed her gear in when the cabbie popped it. A second later, she was crawling over Eliasâ leg - none of that push over shit for her - and she settled on the seat beside him, her knees draped over his. âYou look like shit,â she said, because he did, and she knew what jonesing looked like, even though sheâd never been hooked. She leaned closer, pushed dark hair off his forehead with a hand (Personal space? What was that?), and got a better look at his eyes to see if he was straight. âHash House,â she told the driver, who turned the cab around without needing to ask for directions to the place.
Elias was tired and wrung out, but he still wasnât expecting to be quite that easy of a read. He leaned back and he would have moved over when he figured out she was coming in that side, but he was too slow, and she was already warm limbs scrambling over him. He blinked at her as she spread out in the seat next to him and he considered pushing her knees off his lap, but he didnât quite get there. He gave her a surprised look when she leaned close into his face. Lack of sleep had left dark thumbprints under his eyes, and his jaw was rough while his cheeks were hollow. He smelled like bleak charcoal and hotel soap, but for once, not like cigarettes, not yet. Elias didnât know the place sheâd mentioned, but the name rattled him. He jerked an arm up away from her and toward himself in a most bizarre movement, like a strike but in reverse. âWhere?â his voice went up a little in alarm.
âThat burger joint on Sahara,â she replied as he jerked away. Sheâd already decided he wasnât rolling or high, and he didnât smell like drink. Tired, mostly, as far as she could tell, the thumb-smudge dark circles a dead giveaway. She didnât make the connection to the name until a second later, and it only took as long as it did because she wasnât used to thinking of him as a user yet - no, ex-junkie, probably. She glanced down at his arms, which were bare but covered in ink, and she looked for any new tracks on the skin. Tats were a good way to hide tracks, but even heavy users didnât tat their ditches. Even if they did, tats didnât pass the touch test. She ran two fingers along one, on the arm he hadnât yanked back, looking for anything more than smooth skin. âBurger Bar, Mandalay,â she corrected, even as she dragged her fingers against skin.
He let her take his arm again, relaxed into the seat, and didnât bother putting energy into appearances. âOh.â Elias hadnât used in a very long time, and even the scars had smoothed under the inked lines that traveled at an angle up his arm, wrapping around the limb and traveling up toward his shoulder. The lines were distinctly geometric in nature, drawing the eye up rather than close. They made his skin look darker and his arms look longer, and many years ago they hid scars he didnât want anyone to see. The only scars that remained to the touch were all thick skewed slashes on the outside of his arms, not needles but blades. Elias folded his fingers into his palm and every muscle flexed as she ran fingers over the inside of his elbow, which was sensitive by nature. He gave her a sideways look that was transparently worried at her reaction.
There was very little of the world that Sam hadnât seen in one way or another, despite her relative youth. Ok, correction. Very little of the underbelly of the world, and she knew the blade scars for blade scars from the first pass of fingers. No tracks or pits, which said something about the drug use, marking it as old or (though she doubted it) hidden in other places - between toes, or armpits, or inner thighs. The scars from the blades, though, those remained and she wondered if they were self-harm or gang marks. Could be either, she knew, because the streets of New Jersey were soaked through with gang violence. Sheâd been lucky in that regard, a family of brothers that all knew how to load a glock. She sat back, but she didnât move her legs from their comfortably familiar position on his thighs, and she dragged her fingertips along the scruff that lined his jaw. âYouâre taking a fucking nap after lunch,â was her unlikely statement, once she finally spoke.
Elias wasnât sure how he felt that she wasnât disturbed, or that she knew how to recognize the signs of someone who, after over a decade, shouldnât have any fucking signs. The fatigue made him totally transparent, and most thoughts moved slowly over his face. He put his head back against the seat and avoided putting his charcoal-stained hands on her legs. He was already leaving black streaks on the shirt heâd put on to come here--to join the streaks heâd already left just getting it on before he went out the door. Sharp-edged bone and roped muscle stood out under the weak material. âProbably. Letâs hope I get out of the restaurant before I do.â
âI can keep you awake,â she assured him, and she didnât care about the streaks his fingers left behind. She was in work blues, and they were covered in dust and welding black, along with a few melted away sears of fabric along the long sleeves. Her hands were clean, but that was only because her gloves took the brunt of things when she was at work. With her art, the detailed work was too delicate for gloves, but that wasnât the case when you were welding a support beam ten stories above the city. She did notice those thoughts playing on his face, and she grinned. âRelax. I grew up in one of Jerseyâs most ghetto towns,â she told him, her accent making it unnecessary, but still. She didnât add that she dealt, on occasion, when there wasnât enough for rent. And she didnât add that her roommate was a heavy Vegas dealer - and not the kind that dealt cards. âSo, howâs the guy? The one Sherlock was freaking about?â
She didnât need to add those things. Elias had Sherlock fucking Holmes in his head, and the first thing the depraved son of a bitch had suggested was to go pay Samâs âroommateâ a visit. Elias had turned to art instead, which was what he did, as Sherlock sometimes turned to the violin and really fucked up crime scenes. âTorn up. Someone went at him with a knife. Sherlock thinks he was raped, too. John was a woman at the time, which makes it more likely... statistically,â Elias said, eyes unfocused and fatigue making his speech slightly slurred. He wasnât paying much attention to what he was saying. âThey got to Lestrade first, or maybe Micah, but Sherlock doesnât think they knew they were related, says it was too random. Heâs obsessed and he wonât stop thinking about it. I feel like my headâs going to split. All he wants to do is find this guy and hurt him, and barring that he wants to get high and âfocus.ââ Elias gave the last word a sardonic twist.
Sam didnât have any personal experience with rape, which was surprising given her neighborhood of origin. But, again, growing up in a family of elder brothers had helped, and by the time sheâd even started thinking about sex her father had already promised her off to the landlord, who was three times the size of anyone in the neighborhood. Needless to say, no one messed with her. It sounded like hell, whatever happened to this guy at the party, and she felt a twinge of guilt for her own behavior that night. But, hey, it wasnât like she had any control over herself, and maybe this bastard was the same way. She didnât know any of the names he said, because she wasnât a reader, not unless the reading involved MMORPG quest text or what items she needed to find in some hidden objects game. So Micah, Lestrade, they both could have been Sherlockâs buds, for all she knew. In the end, she focused on the reality of the situation, because that was her. No point in any of the rest. âIâm guessing you turned into something harmless,â she said of his experience at the party. âI didnât. I turned into some cannibalistic slutbag fairytale. Point is, I took a pretty good chunk out of someoneâs neck with my teeth, while yanking on his dick. So maybe you arenât looking for someone who looks like a villain. If they have some deep anger, they could be anyone. We all have some of that, baby,â she said, tugging on his hand as the cab stopped in front of the Mandalay, where the burger joint was in the stone corridor beyond the monorail dock.
Elias, like any breathing man, winced at the picture her description painted, and shifted his knees together. He still brought his eyes open, bloodshot ink-brown, and gave her an incredulous look. âYou? A fairytale?â Elias seemed to think that was hilarious, because humor blossomed on his face and he made a bid at suppressing it far too late. It was much better than the strange, humorless smile that touched his face when she suggested that he was something harmless. He let her drag him out of the cab, stood there a second before he realized he needed to pay, and took out a battered leather wallet to extract a twenty from several other bills and hand it over. âI know he probably looks like something else, but Sherlock thinks that much sadism probably isnât hidden that deeply. Thatâs why he thinks heâs relatively young. Says heâd be locked up for doing something by now, otherwise.â Eliasâ long fingers were cool despite the desert heat, and he blinked in the sunlight as if it hurt.
She grinned when he laughed, comfortable enough with the joking of siblings to not take the comment (or the laughter) personally. âRight? Red hood, sharp teeth, way the hell off the path to Grannyâs house,â she admitted, and there was a little unease with that, because she hadnât really liked Neilâs interpretation of events when it came to what it all stood for. Fuck that. She wasnât looking for anything, and certainly not a decent guy. Sure, sheâd found a thirty-year-old virgin recently, but decent men were still unicorns, in her opinion. âOk, so not harmless,â she said, reassessing based on the look on his face. She let Sherlockâs observations wait, because maybe it was better not to make him think too much about that right now, especially when it was all heâd had for days. Instead, she tugged the cool fingers until they were walking down the row of brick walls in the Mandalay, and a few minutes (and a wink at the waitress) later, they were seated in the quietest booth at the back of the burger joint. âSo, not harmless, what were you?â
Elias took his booth seat and slumped down in it the way he had when he was a kid and he didn't want to be seen there--or anywhere. He ran the stained fingers over the metal basket holding sauces and seasonings, almost idle, and then looked again at her. "We just looked harmless. But we weren't. That's what he's like. Maybe me too. But I tell you what, Sherlock doesn't solve crimes out of the goodness of his heart." He ordered whatever she ordered, doubling whatever she told the waitress while he looked down at the paper placemat. He dragged the side of his finger along the white, watching the line he made with the leftover charcoal. "You too. With the harmless thing. You don't want to be the fairy tale about to get eaten."
She kept it simple. Burger, fries, a good bottle of imported beer, and she watched his finger on the white placemat before reaching into the front pocket of her coveralls and unclipping the welding pencil there. She handed it over to him, knowing the thick tungsten tip would remind him of his charcoals, and then she rested her feet on either side of his slouched legs across the booth. âYou trying to tell me youâre a wolf in sheepâs clothing, Elias?â she asked, obviously entertained at the possibility. Sure, maybe once heâd been more wolf than sheep, but she didnât see it these days. âYouâre saying you donât like this guy, the one in your head?â she asked, because even her dislike of Christine came with a strange kind of fondness (even if she didnât admit it). âIâd like to see someone try to eat me, Elias,â she added with a grin, and that grin said she meant it. She had confidence in her ability to do more than break someoneâs nose, if it came to that. No shrinking damsel, not for her. That wasnât her hangup. Her hangup was what to do if she actually wanted something; that was turning out to be a problem.
He made a quiet sound of something that approximated gratitude and took the pencil. It was horrifically uncooperative. He started positioning his figures, working a triangular figure with tiny strokes until a crystalline structure started spreading out of the paper. He added tiny whorls, and the structure became a chandelier; imaginatively so, because one was looking down on it as if from above.
Elias let out a short laugh. "Me, a wolf? No. But I'm not what I look like, and neither is Sherlock." He hesitated, working the pencil through his lined fingers and delicate knuckles. It turned as if weightless. "Neither of us are the type to like people the way you mean. Do we get along? Sometimes. That's good enough for most of the time." The pencil started working in the details of people, heads and shoulders, mostly, and in one case, a long wing, or set of wings. It was hard to tell, because the waitress put a plate on it a second later. Elias didn't appear distressed. He just blinked and twirled the pencil again in his fingers.
She paid attention to the triangles and the whorls, the structure of the chandelier from overhead, the wings, which she only recognize as wings after the fact. The way she looked at the images made it obvious that she was watching more than listening, envisioning this twist to a piece of stainless, or that curve on an iron wing. Her expression, when she was watching him draw, was entirely different than it normally was, and her fingers traced an arch on the table, the path of a wing, to memorize it with fingertips and bruised knuckles.
âWhat do you think you look like, baby?â she finally asked, even as the waitress put the plates down. She popped open her beer, and she took a long swallow, the kind that came after too long a work shift in the Vegas sun. She pressed the cold bottle to the back of her head a moment later, and then she nodded down toward the placemat. âIs that proprietary?â
Elias had been told to watch himself around liquor, but sometimes he had a beer. Now was not a good time for one, and he eyed it a moment before finally turning his attention to the burger. He picked up the whole thing, paying little attention to the mess and not even noticing what was in it or not in it. He took a big bite, chewed, swallowed, and blinked at her. "Is what?" he asked, not understanding the nod, thinking he needed to connect dots between subjects that didn't exist. He licked grease out of the corner of his mouth. Reviving somewhat, he pushed a fry into his mouth a second later. "I don't know. Not anything I am."
He didnât need to worry about his beer, because she finished hers and grabbed his within a few minutes. The burger got her entire attention for a few minutes, because it wasnât something off the $0.99 menu. âThe placemat,â she said, pointing at the artwork that was covered by the burger plate. âIs it proprietary?â There was a tip to her mouth that said she was asking for a reason, not out of some idle need to be annoying, and she say back and chewed on a fry as she considered his cryptic comment about not looking like anything he was. âI see a guy who grew up hard, probably in a gang, ex-user, someone who dragged themselves out of that gutter.â She reached for his charcoal smudged fingers and pulled on the tips. âAn artist, before anything else. Temper, but not at the surface. How am I doing?â A grin.
Elias tipped his head to stare at the placemat as if he had never seen it before. "Oh, that. Don't take that, it's awful." He was quite serious, and proved it by pushing the plate back over it and ignoring ketchup and grease drippings. Now halfway through, Elias reached out for the sauces and tried one at random. The bottle had a picture of a chili dancing on it, and the sight made him smile. "I didn't drag myself out of shit. Better people than me gave a damn." He shook the bottle, but nothing came out.
âThe curves are solid,â she said, tugging the placemat out from beneath his plate before he could get anything else on it. She folded it, and she stuck it in the open pocket sheâd pulled the pencil from. The smile when he looked at the chili made her feel better, like maybe he wasnât going to lose his shit all over the place thanks to this Sherlock asshole, and she settled in to consume as many fries as she could before the waitress brought the bill over. âDoesnât matter who gives a damn. If you donât want to be dragged out, if you donât make it happen, no one else can either. Donât give me that crap.â She blew a blonde strand of hair out of her eyes, and she nudged his knee with her boot. âAnd donât let Sherlock push past your breaking point. Itâs not worth it, and he can just drag that guy heâs worried about through the door and let you babysit him, her, whatever, on this side.â
Elias made a face when she took the placemat, not liking that it would be floating around out there as if it was something worth keeping, but hardly of the type to take it away from her if she wanted it. He pushed the bottle away after nearly dropping it a second after her suggestion. "Fuck no. I don't want to be responsible for anybody. I don't know what the hell I could do." Deeply uncomfortable with the thought, Elias dragged a fry through the mess on his plate. "And if I could stop Sherlock from doing anything, we wouldn't be having this conversation." Another fry, more venomously this time, soaked in the red sauce. The waitress came by and Elias asked for two more beers and another order of fries without looking up.
She didnât worry about the face he made. Itâs not like she was going to be putting the placemat on display, or talking about it in a best seller about her lunchtime burger outing with the famous artist. She tended to think of Elias as being pretty damn capable, and so the reaction to having to take care of someone was surprising. But not as surprising as the request for the fresh beers. She didnât say anything about it, though, and she just grabbed one of the beers and popped it when it came. âI canât do anything about Christine, the teenage Victorian virgin either, but I think I got the better end of the deal there. Canât this John guy keep himself in one piece next time? Maybe some self-defense?â Which was victim blaming, but Sam had grown up in the kind of town where you had to take care of yourself. Even her knuckles, bruised and red around the beer bottle, proved that hadnât changed, not significantly.
Elias took a drink of the beer without real enjoyment, but he bristled with unquestionable anger at her last comment. "John shouldn't have to 'keep himself in one piece,'" Elias said, with a flash of that temper she had been predicting for ages now. Sherlock wasn't even paying attention, lost in his own ineffable thoughts, and it was Elias who was angry. "And, by the way, he can. As if any of us could really defend ourselves at that fucking party." He took another drink, then two, throat working, and pushed the bottle aside to poke at the remains of his burger with yet another fry. He was brooding about Clare. The woman was probably a wreck. She couldn't even get through a conversation, much less something like this.
Sam didnât react like most people would to his anger. She barely blinked, which was telling in its own right, and she just took another sip of the beer once he was done. âIt was just a suggestion, Elias. Self defense is usually a good way to make people feel in control after bad shit happens to them.â Which was another lesson learned hard in the hood. If someone knocked you down, you found someone to help you learn how to stay upright. She watched him poke the burger, wondering what kind of man he was when it came to that temper. If it burned hot and petered out, or if it simmered endlessly. She preferred the former, personally. âWe canât be victims, Elias, not with the crap thatâs going down around here. Christine almost ran headfirst into an inferno, and if some old guy hadnât stopped her then we wouldnât be having this conversation. We canât let them keep putting us at risk, and we canât just keep taking it.â And, ok, maybe that was more than she intended to say. Whatever. She finished the beer in one swallow.
"Nobody wants to be a victim, Sam. That was a stupid fucking thing to say. John is probably one of the most capable people Sherlock knows, and he's not easily impressed. They were bad fucking circumstances, that's all. Nobody is letting anybody do anything." Elias, let his fingers slide down the dark glass of the bottle and then he picked it up and finished it. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder, put the bottle aside, and intentionally forgot it was there. The second order of fries came, and Elias picked up another bottle, this one the creamy white of "secret sauce" Thousand Island.
âDid I say he wanted to be a victim?â she asked. âI didnât, but youâre tired and worn out, and you want something to bite at. Fine, bite,â she offered, impervious. Whatever his John was, it hadnât done him a lot of good, and that fucking worried her. It was one thing to be someone else half of the time, and another thing entirely to have that other thing not be as capable as it normally was. Not that it pertained to her, because the only thing Christine could do was wield a bitching aria - not very useful in a fight. âBut that isnât going to change anything, and Iâd rather be proactive about shit when I can. Or, you know, break someoneâs nose.â She smiled, dipped one of her own fries in the sauce on his plate, and chewed on the end. âNext volley, baby. Go on.â
Undeterred, Elias scowled. "You said we can't be victims, as if he had a choice in the matter. He didn't. He will pull through because he's John and he's stronger than anybody thinks he is, but that doesn't mean there was anything he could have done that he didn't do."
âDidnât say there was,â she replied, just as calmly. âAnd I did say we canât be victims, because we are right now. Itâs just a fact, baby, and you getting angry isnât going to change that. Before all this, we didnât have masquerades that yanked us places against our consent and turned us into crap we couldnât control. Victims.â She ate another french fry, and she wondered if letting him lose his cool would help at all. Maybe he needed to get it out? Maybe it was her version of unsafe sex or jumping out of a plane. Might be.
He glared at her. "If being what we are makes us victims, there's nothing we can fucking do about it." Elias threw himself sideways unexpectedly and tapped the waitress on the arm with the very tips of his fingers. He didn't grab her, he just managed to stop her before she rushed off. "Check." And then remembering himself: "...Please." He got himself back upright and shoved his elbows onto the table, pushing his plate back with a clatter. He pushed his fingers into the hollows where his eyes met his nose. "Christ, I need to sleep."
âYeah,â she agreed, watching the tap to the waitress and his movements to become upright again. She stood, even as he waited for the bill, and she leaned against the outside of the boot, arms crossed lightly, without any anger. âYou can glare at me all you want, you know. It wonât change my opinion about shit, and I wonât back down because of it.â It was said with the same ease that she said mostly everything else, and any hint of her youth was shoved somewhere out of sight, where it couldnât see the light of day, at least just then. âBut giving up? Yeah, thatâs not me. So, I donât think thereâs nothing we can do about it. I think we just havenât found it yet.â Shrug. No big deal.
"I'm not giving up," Elias said, though his tone didn't support the meaning behind the words. The waitress, rightfully annoyed by this time, came by with the check, eager to be rid of them. Elias left several twenties without counting them and then pulled himself out of the booth with a nearly forced movement. The haphazard way he usually walked and moved was not in evidence even with the fatigue; he seemed to be taking extra energy to get all his limbs to cooperate. "Come on." He forgot her pencil on the table, and he was flexing his hands over and over, so hard the tendons up his arm quivered under the ink. "God, I need a smoke. Which way is out?"
She didnât answer him with words. Instead, she just closed her fist around the front of his shirt and tugged him toward the doors. âYou donât need a smoke. You need a cold shower and some sleep,â she said, having seen enough jonesing fits to know that nothing calmed them like some ice. âAnd then, if you still want it, a smoke.â She grinned over her shoulder at him, expression annoyingly playful. âSorry, baby, donât think Iâm your type, or Iâd offer another suggestion to get that adrenaline out of your system.â And he wasnât like Neil; scaring him half to death wasnât going to work with Elias, not with his upbringing. And drugs? Well, she had them in spades, but he wasnât getting them. âYou usually work, huh? When it gets like this?â she asked of his art, and that she understood.
"You don't need to yank me everywhere," he grumbled, still twitching somewhat and looking back in time for the waitress to pocket the tip she didn't deserve. "I just had a shower. I can't be having shakes, it's fucking ten years later." He sounded nervous, even afraid, that this was not the case, and he was looking for an out. Without thinking he tried to put the brakes on and slow her down. "Yeah... I work. Unless I have a girlfriend at the time." His eyes came back from the panicked dart and settled on her. He smiled a smile that was nearly apologetic.
"Ten years later for you, but maybe not for him," said the voice of experience, because Sam knew perfectly well that this thing with the people in their heads wasn't a well defined line in the sand. There was blur, for some more than others. "Either way. Cold shower, sleep, and then something new to work on that doesn't remind you about shit through the door," she said, and she didn't stop tugging, not even when he tried to put on the brakes. Her smile, over her shoulder as she pulled him out into the sunlight, wasnât hurt or upset, and she just smirked a on knowing smirk. "Chill, baby. I'm not interested in putting a ring on it," she promised. "I have a girlfriend." Which normally didn't count for much of anything with Sam, but it easier than explaining the shit that was going on in her head. Door blur, it was a bitch.
"Yeah, I know," Elias said, forgetting that he didn't advertise the conclusions that Sherlock drew about the people around him. "Are we going back to my hotel? It's... messy..." From his faint frown this was an understatement, but he didn't really care all that much, because a taxi pulled up and he stood there, obviously waiting for her to get in. He was trying to get Sherlock to talk to him about how long it had been since he used, and the man was being abnormally recalcitrant. "He won't talk to me," he said, sounding surprised.
Yeah, no, him being around Clarissa would be bad news, and not just because Clarissa tended to be crazy jealous. "Your place," she verified, messy or not, at least it didn't come with drug deals and stashes, and she crawled into the cab before him. She'd get him in a shower, then to bed, and she was counting on his place being sweet enough to nab a nap on a couch that was softer than the spring-riddled futon in the dry-heat of the apartment she shared with Clarissa. "His jonesing," she said decisively, explaining the detective's silence. Yep, door blur. She rubbed the back of her head, and she closed her eyes and sprawled out with her legs on his lap with a stuffed, contented sigh. "Just bleeding over and making your old wants go nuts. Plus, stress always brings that shit back."
Elias was sitting before he realized it, and from his expression he was not all there. Sherlock was completely withdrawn, it was like talking to a steel wall. "You son of a bitch," Elias said, angrily, startling the taxi driver even as he pulled away for the mere ten minute drive to the casino less than a quarter mile away. There was the temper, a flash of dark eyes and a starkly physical readiness to hit someone that didn't even exist. "I want a cigarette," he demanded, turning the sullen eyes on her in the obvious expectation she had one.
She could deny him one, but why? She'd seen him smoke, and she was sure he had smokes at his hotel, so what the hell. She tugged a pack of cheap, unfiltered generics out of her pocket and tapped one out for him. She handed a plastic Bic over a second later, and she waited for the cab driver to pitch a bitch about the smoking. Elias would shut him up with a twenty, she figured, and they'd be at the Bellagio before the car could even stink too badly. And that temper? Oh, that shit was like being home for Sam, no big deal, and nothing to be scared of. She'd just hit back, if it came to that, which she didn't think it would. Whatever Elias thought he was, Sam knew the man had left the ghetto way behind, even if it didn't feel like it just then.
He eyed the unfiltered cigarettes, taking the chosen in his fingers, which were now clean to the first knuckle and charcoal stained from there to his palm. He turned the paper tube over in his fingers in the same movement he'd used on the pen in the restaurant. He was thinking loudly, swearing at Sherlock and still simmering, hunched forward without a belt and watching the road go by. He shook his head at her plastic lighter and rolled a hip over to take the silver one she'd altered out of his front right pocket. "Got mine." He wouldn't hit her unless she was a real threat, and it was obvious Elias didn't think of her as a threat at all. The driver didn't have time to complain, because he was pulling up the drive and Elias was out and lighting up a second later. He felt around for the wallet to pay him after that, obviously sunk in his thoughts--or Sherlock. He was still angry, and it was rolling off him so much that the people at the doors were watching him for trouble.
Sam followed him out of the cab, and she edged past him into the glass-ceiling Bellagio. The fact that people looked at him like he might combust, that was no big thing to her. She had the work MIG and torch in her hand, retrieved while he paid the cabbie, and people ignored her entirely, assuming she was someone from the staff. She didnât give a shit about them either, no, her attention was on the ceiling, which sheâd walked far enough to stand beneath. Blowing glass wasnât as easy as blowing metal - at least not for her - but she was awed by it all the same, and her expression took on an almost respectful quality. He wouldnât know it, but it was much like Christineâs reaction to music, especially Erikâs, and it was the one reason Sam could understand the sopranoâs obsessive reaction to the composer. She glanced over her shoulder, looking for the growling artist, and shifting the MIG in front of her, so she could hold onto it with both hands.
Elias moved through the doors, catching the end of one of the automatic rotations and avoiding touching anything or anyone as he stepped forward with long strides, trailing thin ribbons of white smoke like a steam engine. He didnât notice the looks people were giving either of them, him with his stained shirt and her with the awkward equipment, but the employees in the lobby knew him on sight and, with only the security keeping an eye on him to see if he was armed or walking straight, he progressed through the lobby. He took detours around clusters of tourists and their furniture without looking to either side, appearing not to notice their presence, and he took a hard right from under the glistening glass lights, pursuing a path through the casino and obviously assuming that she would follow.
No one cared about the cigarette in the ching and ding of the casino lights, and he only remembered to look up and back for her when he had already arrived at the smaller lobby that gave entrance to the elevators to the hotel. Again, recognition on sight, and he didnât have to show his room key to anyone within a hundred feet. They had him in a suite, obviously with express orders not to clean, and it was halfway down the hall before he even noticed what she was carrying. âYou need help with that?â
âYou going to lug it around for me every day on the work site?â she asked, which was obviously a no, though it came with a grin. She stared at the hall as she walked, wondering if the new âthingâ in her life was going to be visiting really disgustingly expensive hotel suites, because, yeah. She didnât think Elias would have any cufflinks for her to threaten to steal, and she sure as hell wasnât planning on getting herself off on his bed, but the rest seemed to be a theme. She noticed, of course, that he nearly forgot about her as he crossed to the elevators, but it was no big deal. He was a junkie trying not think about a fix, and sheâd seen plenty of those, knew what they were like. Clarissa, like all dealers, gave out freebies and lowballs to get her clients hooked, and Elias very much looked like one of those poor schmucks that walked through the door after a few hits on the cheap, only to learn the price had gone up to something they couldnât afford - distracted, needy. In a word, jonesing.
Eliasâ education in common manners had been present but limited, mostly from the women of his neighborhood that would carry shit if they damn well pleased, and now he just shrugged and let her keep the thing as he pushed the card in and opened the door heavy door for both of them.
He hadnât been exaggerating the mess. All the furniture in the living room and foyer that could be moved had been hauled or pushed out of the way, most of the chairs and small tables piled in one of the two bedrooms off to either side. The room beyond was circular, presenting an astonishing view of the Strip over green palm leaves, a view obscured by the white veil of automatic curtains that ran the whole length. The ashtrays were all hidden, the room was too well-ventilated to smell of smoke, the wet barâs untouched contents were hidden, and evidence of a bachelor unaccustomed to cleaning up after himself was layered under a recent artistic blizzard that snowed paper the color of red brick.
It would have been a lovely place to sit and have a drink, except that there was no place to sit and no surface to make drinks. There was barely even a place to walk as pieces of red-toned paper three times the size of a notebook were distributed in every spare space. Some were crumpled, all were torn, and discarded water bottles and brown-wrapped charcoal pencil were everywhere. The paper barely showed the black lines and intricate shading except under close inspection under much better light.
Still smoking with bleak relish at the blatantly self-destructive act, Elias kicked some of the papers aside and walked over others on his way to the couch. He just brushed them out of the way to find a seat, too angry at the world in general and strained by the wire-tight wraps around his spine to be embarrassed by the mess. âJust... sit anywhere.â
If she was expecting Neilâs picture-perfect suite, it didnât show on her face. She dropped the MIG and torch by the door, and she glanced at his progress once - head up, then down - before turning her attention to the squares of paper on the floor. She walked between them, not stepping on them like he did, and it was obviously very intentional, because she made multiple passes across the room to walk past them all at least once. The ones he kicked aside, she nudged back into formation, and she ended up in front of the huge windows, where she crouched down to take in the squares of red, independent of what was on them. Her forearms rested on her knees, and her hands clasped in front of her, and the way the sun hit the squares made the colors look different depending on how much charcoal heâd put to them.
She pulled the box of cheap smokes from her pocket, and she lit one with the cheap lighter, and she sucked in a long drag of nicotine, before exhaling out the corner of her mouth. She looked up then, glancing around the room for metal, but pretty sure she wouldnât find jackshit to work with here, at least not anything that wasnât that fake, hollow crap that passed for metal these days. It was a shame, because the strange symmetry of the red squares made her fingers itch for some copper, which she could strike through with some iron. But- no, some of those old red watering cans, worked down paper thin and-
She looked up at him then, remembering heâd spoken, and she took another drag on the smoke. âThatâs not the shower,â she said straightening, and she wove her way through the squares of red again, intent on finding the bathroom. âGet your ass in here,â she called, whistling as she went. The place might be trashed, but it was still sweet, even if the rooms were a jungle gym of crap and furniture.
In the time that Sam had become temporarily mesmerized by the designs that littered the floor, Elias too had become distracted by the things heâd been working on before. The cigarette was in the corner of his mouth now but he barely noticed it, thin trickles of smoke working their way through the short length of his hair as he tipped his head to examine one of the red papers. It was more of what he had started on the placemat, and in most of them the chandelier was recognizable, from various angles and in a style closer to Rothko than van Eyck. The charcoal renderings were all very rough, most of them focusing on different styles of light, darkening with the charcoal to fill in shadows.
âOrder room service,â he said, not looking up and obviously not hearing what she was actually saying. Heâd bent from the couch to pick up another of the drawings, and he was assembling some that he liked away from others that he did not. He found a stub of pencil that barely fit his fingers and he was making short stabs at the paper, assembling a few that were geometric and edged in flavor, like the lines on his skin. The more realistic renderings, the impressive gleam of metal and crystal rendered in shades of black and red, were crumpled and tossed aside. He stabbed the cigarette out on one heâd put off to the side and now concentrated on about five he arranged on the floor tiles in front of them. âI need watercolor. Fuck. I hate watercolor.â He stared at the drawings a little longer, then tipped his head sideways and sighed. âWatercolor. Shit.â He looked up and around, remembering he had a visitor. âSam?â
The left bedroom from the door was obviously the one Elias occupied. The bed was unmade, and there were more clothes here than anywhere else. It smelled like him, not just cigarettes and acrylic (there was a heap of supplies on the floor before the closet) but him, distinctly male. The towels were thrown over the bar to try to keep them usable, and he shaved with cheap but sharp blades that were left next to the lone toothbrush. If he had valuables, they werenât present.
âWe just ate,â was her response to his command to order room service, and it came from down the hall and in that left bedroom. Still, she picked up the phone, and she ordered a bunch of junk (that could, questionably, be considered food), and by the time he was calling her name, she was running her hands over the myriad of tiny squares that made up the bathroom tiles. âI said get your ass in here!â she called, louder, toeing off her shoes as she took another drag from the cigarette between her lips. âIâll order you some watercolors while you sleep, but youâre sleeping, whether you want to or not, baby.â Because he needed it. Sure, the art was awesome, but the fucker was going to go crazy if he didnât rest, and a cold shower would get his mind off everything else. No relenting. Anyway, maybe she could find some metal while he crashed. It was possible, and she had her supplies. Yep, shower and sleep. âNow, Elias,â she added, the tone the kind she would use with her older brothers when they didnât give her what she wanted - which was never, if she was going to be honest.
Elias appeared in the door of his bedroom. He still had the tiny stub of pencil in his hand and he had his other five fingers sunk in his hair. He looked even more distracted than he had been before, filled with colors in front of his mindâs eye and his shirt pulled against one side of his neck. âI told you, I donât need a shower. I have... I have supplies.â He started moving toward the closet, leaning over and rooting through the box of acrylic tubes and then pushing the door open to reveal not clothes but stacks of canvases and more pads of paper. Here was where Eliasâ money was, apparently. He stopped short when he saw her shoes in the middle of his room in between the bed and the bathroom, and the sight of it apparently arrested his attention. âWhat are you doing?â
âTaking my shoes off. Theyâre steel toed, and heavy as stones, and get your ass in the shower.â The way he asked the question made her shrug, though, and she was slipping her feet in the heavy boots once more. âHave it your way,â she said, changing her tune, because she was only the type to push so far. If he didnât want to shower or sleep, she couldnât do shit about it, and she wasnât going to mother him; that crap never worked with men, and god help you if it did. âIâm crashing on the couch until the food comes,â she added, which really meant she was crashing on the couch until he passed out, which he would do eventually, even if he was working. She moved past him, and she straightened his collar as she went. âCalm down. Iâm not that kind of vixen.â Which she wasnât, as was becoming glaringly apparent to her in recent weeks.
Elias caught her arm as she went past. It wasnât a dangerous movement, just something he did to get attention when he wanted it, as he had with the waitress. Elias just didnât have tells before he moved, nothing that precipitated anything he did, not a tensing of muscles or a shift of his eyes. He just thought and moved, and it was almost as if it happened all at once. It was uniquely him, and had nothing to do with Sherlock, art, or anything else.
âThatâs not what I meant,â he said, avoiding harsh but serious all the same. âTake your shoes off if you want to. You can take the bed if you want.â He looked at it, seemed to note its appearance. â...Or thereâs another one in the other room. I think thereâs a chair on it, but you can move it.â He let her go and smiled suddenly. âI donât think youâre a vixen.â
She wasnât expecting the movement, because movement came with advance warning in her world. Something drove reaching out and grabbing for someone, and she didnât sense any of that motivation in him. And, so, his hand on her arm got a glance, before her attention turned to his face. âIâm going to sit on your couch,â she repeated, all arched brows and defiance. âYou think I want to get you in the fucking shower. I donât,â she promised, stretching against his side and kissing the corner of his mouth, more talking than kissing, since it lasted only a second before she spoke against rough skin. âIf I wanted you in the shower, Iâd be naked by now.â And ok, maybe she was that kind of vixen. But shoes? Yeah, no. Too subtle. She moved away.
Elias blinked twice. At least it was something to think about that broke the pattern, and his smile became much more relaxed, less tense, less apt to break. He liked the prospect of a naked woman as much as the next man, and even if Sam was right (she wasnât exactly his type, whatever that was--perhaps not so young, or not so pretty, or not so... something?) he wouldnât kick her out of the apartment for it. âOkay,â he said, gamely, trying not to smile too much since women hated that. He hadnât actually thought she was going to jump him regardless of the fact that heâd got her up to the hotel room (heâd only just now thought of that), and the new prospect was interesting but not exactly on the game plan. Elias rubbed his face. His thinking was muzzy. He needed sleep. If he didnât know better, heâd think Sherlock already was asleep. Temporarily forgetting the search for supplies, he sat down on the end of the bed heavily and scraped one shoe down the heel of the other to dislodge it.
She didnât say anything when he sat down, or when he toed off the shoes, because she wasnât stupid enough to question a good thing. She just watched him a second longer, to make sure he was going to fall back onto the bed, and not go looking for trouble in some closet or drawer. She leaned in the doorway, pulling on the cigarette that was between her lips and, after a few seconds, she turned and walked back down the hall. Shower would have been nice, but she wasnât going to risk waking him with the water. Instead, she just flopped down on the couch and stared at the squares of red until she was done with the smoke, which she tapped out as the food arrived. She told them to put it on the bill, and she promised a tip later, and then she set the food somewhere cool, where he could hit it once he woke up. Which, with any luck, wouldnât be for hours.