[Holo] [Arrival] this is the first day of the rest of your life

[kings_fool]

[Maybe 20 minutes after Johannes eventually leaves the arrival room]


Another new arrival, as shown by the holographic image being broadcast to the tablets of everyone in Taxon, as usual. However, this man is lying on the floor of the arrival room, tangled up in a blanket, curled half-around a body pillow. He is snoring. And maybe drooling a little.

After twenty seconds or so, the chill of the hard metal floor starts to penetrate the sleeping man's consciousness. He grimaces, shifts around as if trying to get comfortable, and then slowly cracks an eye open.

"Whussat?"

Eyes squeezed shut, unshaven face squinching into a grimace. Man, what the hell... 's cold, and hard, and this is not his bed, he's pretty sure he went to bed in his bed last night, and yeah, he was doing shots pretty heavily, but he's pretty sure he did not drink to the point of passing out on a sidewalk, or... He risks opening his eyes again.

Definitely not the Strip. Not anywhere he knows. Fuzzily, Jeremy Fischer sits up, blanket falling down around his waist, showing that he's not wearing a shirt. He is still clutching the body pillow to him like a protective talisman. The holo shows a man in his probable late thirties, extremely scruffy, with an enormous amount of untamed curly brown hair and a stocky body.

"Uh...." He looks around him at the steel walls, the weird thing overheard, the utter alienness of his current surroundings. He runs a hand over his face, through his shaggy curly hair, and scratches at his head.

"The fuck...?"

Then he starts laughing. "Okay. Nice. Good one, Charlie! Not sure how the hell you got me here without waking me up, but seriously, nice one. Lunch is on me. It might be our last, right?"

There's a few beats of silence. He shivers a little in the coldness of the room and pulls the blanket up over his shoulders, grin slowly fading.

"Charlie?"

***

Sometime later, Jeremy is outside. This is a problem, since he's wearing his underwear, socks, and a blanket wrapped around himself, and it's freaking cold.

"THIS IS BULLSHIT!" Jeremy hollers at anyone who might listen, trying to avoid the patches of snow on the sidewalk as he looks around the Bazaar for clothes.

Or shoes. Shoes at least would be a great fuckin' start.


eta to add in alternate run-in location of Jeremy at the Bazaar

Comments

[Location: Bazaar]

[infinitelystranger]

"Don't bother," says Sherlock: even he thinks better of relieving new arrivals of their petty cash, having at one point been a new arrival himself with terribly petty cash. He neglects to elaborate on his contradictory request, though; instead, as if taken by a sudden whim to an encore, he turns away and raises his bow again. He's smiling, though. Positive attention always has the same effect on him, even if he's not always good with responding to it.

This is a good context for him, though. He's never been good with thanks, he has no idea how to receive a compliment gracefully, but he's a performer in many respects and he certainly knows how to play on.

"In all fairness I've done Take Me Home Tonight before," he says. He leaves off in university, a long time ago. My friends loved it: one of them got up on a fountain, the lip of a stone fountain. I don't remember if he was dealing to me then. "Not the Skynyrd. Do you know Lynyrd Skynyrd are white supremacists, sort of? Spoils it, doesn't it?"

So he's learned the basics, more or less, and that saves Sherlock a bit of trouble. He can use his tablet better than Horst Brauer can (which is good, as he doesn't have Horst Brauer's excuse), Thank God, and that saves Sherlock quite a bit of trouble. His mind wanders back to the man's place and time. Lucky enough, there's a very convenient way to find out-- "Gotye's on probation," he remarks. "Fun.'s right out. You're lucky to find me now. Last year I was insisting on classical."

[kings_fool]

Jeremy, fortunately, parses the language of performer-- how can he not? and the smile serves more eloquent than a vocalized 'thank you' in some respects; the willingness to play another song for no payment speaks louder yet.

He lets himself stop dicking with the tablet, instead shooting a crooked half-smile up at the other man with his words on Skynyrd.

"Dr. Dre beat the shit out of a TV host," he offers with a twitch of his shoulders to signify the world's fucked, man. "Got off with a $2500 fine."

He nods a little at the band names, not objecting to their blacklisting. Man with the instrument gets veto rights, that's fair by Jeremy.

"I'm down with Amadeus, man. But, okay, let's see-- Black Keys?"

[infinitelystranger]

"The Black Keys without percussion? Might as well play Die Zauberflöte without strings," says Sherlock with a slight, feline smile. The Brit's rich, all right, though perhaps not any more, now that he's taken to standing on streetcorners with a violin--which he loves very much, it's obvious. It's in mint condition. "All right. You can beatbox, can't you? Beatbox for me, I'm not playing half a song."

He's busy with mental arithmetic on the subject of the American, so while he plucks out the opening chords of Lonely Boy on the bridge of his violin, he says, sharply, "Nevada, isn't it?"

[kings_fool]

Jeremy laughs, easily. He does see things like the really nice violin-- violin's not an instrument he's ever tried, guitar was as stringy as he ever got, and Jeremy'd be the first to admit his guitar playing is about adequate but nothing that'll ever get a record agent (or anyone else) to sit up. Someone whipping out impromptu violin covers of rock songs? That shit should be on Youtube, if not signed.

But yes. He notices the violin is nice, he notices the clothes are nice, can guess at rich kid education (not like his own was exactly cheap, as Dad's fond of reminding him). Jeremy accepts all that with mild curiosity, but every guy playing on the Strip's got a story, even displaced British rich guys. (Jeremy's favorite is the one-armed SpongeBob Squarepants who hangs out before the Tropicana.)

A slow smile spreads over his face at the demand to beatbox. He raises his hands to do just that, then pauses at the equally-demanding question, staring at Sherlock.

"--yeah," he says after a second. "I mean--"

Okay, are they in Vegas or not? Everyone keeps talking about Taxon, and the only person he mentioned Vegas to was Metody, and... how's he know that?

"What, do I have glitter stuck to my face still? Oh shit, I don't have a fresh tattoo saying Fabulous Las Vegas on my forehead, do I?"

He's joking, but only halfway, because seriously, how's the guy know that?

(Of course, if Jeremy knew the full extent of the things Sherlock has already deduced about him, he'd be even more slack-jawed.)

[infinitelystranger]

"Not on your forehead, anyway," Sherlock answers with a chuckle; Jeremy's caught him more in his element than he ever is in Taxon, really, playing for an audience and one more interested in his tricks than most, at that. He's odd, of course: there's no mistaking that the man is definitely odd. But who isn't, around here?

Or around wherever-this-is, anyway.

He snaps his fingers a few times to set a time for Jeremy to keep, indicating he'll answer him once they're done with their odd little impromptu jam session: then they launch into the Black Keys. Sherlock improvises well, more like a jazz musician than a classically trained one, and at times it's doubtful how classically trained he is at all. He's wandered far from the fold, that much is clear. At one point he shoulders his bow and plays the strings of his violin like a shrill little acoustic guitar.

"You live somewhere out West, everything you say tells me that," says Sherlock when he's finished. "You haven't your whole life. I think that's a little New York or New Jersey I hear, though. You say water like wooter, don't you? Anyway--you're a performer, though I'm sure that's not all you are," the wink he gives Jeremy seems to have a mildly sinister meaning, but also carries an edge of I won't tell, "but the only sorts of performers they take in Los Angeles are pretty and specialized. You're plain and you're charming. You'd be a bust in LA. But you're in a city, I know it: I suppose after you left school you went for Sin City? It was London for me. The closest we've got is Brighton," he says conversationally, "and believe me, if you had Brighton, you'd go to London too."

He turns up his coat collar against the wind. "And I think that's a few more credits you just got," he adds, "for performing with me. Congratulations, Jeremy Fischer, is it? You're gainfully employed."

[kings_fool]

"But--"

The music takes precedence, so Jeremy bites back on the questions and goes with it; yeah, he can beatbox, and scuff his foot against the sidewalk to add in an additional noise (if only he had a plastic bucket at hand), and he doesn't shake his head externally but he's sort of doing a rueful smile to himself because, again, he speaks performer, and that's what England here is doing, alright; the tease, the ah-ah-ah-you-have-to-wait-for-the-reveal (or the punchline), and Jeremy gets it.

Anyway it's a hell of a lot of fun to accompany him on the song. Their efforts draw a few of the not-quite-there people to stop and nod along with the song, which Jeremy will take. An audience is an audience, even a disquieting one. And England's good.

When they finish, the audience almost immediately disperses, but he's more interested in looking at the other guy with the wristband and getting the answer-to-the-trick. Which Sherlock provides.

Jeremy's face is pretty easy to read as a rule, and he's certainly not bothering to hide his state-of-being-impressed with the explanation.

(Plain-and-charming. He'll take that as a compliment, thanks.)

"Jesus," he breathes when Sherlock's done. "You could make a fucking mint doing psychic readings on the Strip. --aww, come on, man, how do you know my-- wait, wait, I've got this one," he says, holding up a hand quickly as if to forestall another smug explanation. "The magic iPad! The map, you read my name off that, ha! --right?"

He'll process the job thing in a tick. This is more fun.

[infinitelystranger]

Sherlock grins brightly back at him, first at Jeremy's delight and willingness to play along, then at his inference about the map: by the end he's nodding as if to say, yes, yes, that's it, you've got it! What has he become, he wonders shortly, someone who's desperate for a scrap of an intelligence from a stranger? Or recognition? Is that what this place has reduced him to?

But then again, has he ever not been? It's cold and Sherlock's flat has moved of its own volition and he's been comatose for weeks pinned to a table, and on top of all of that everyone has forgotten about him. He can't help but return to that, even knowing as it does that it happens to everyone: forgotten. It's put him in a low mood, when he's not in the Adventure Zone putting off his moods like creditors calling him again and again. He hasn't had a meal with another person in at least three weeks.

Whoever Jeremy Fischer is, even if he turns out to be a werewolf himself, or a ghoul, or the bloody Tooth Fairy herself--Sherlock doesn't care. There's a word for how Sherlock is feeling right now; he dismisses desperate for too pathetic and inaccurate besides, and it is. This is a bit more grey. He settles on melancholy. The correct word is lonely, but it does not occur to him.

"I don't do tricks for money," he answers Jeremy after a moment, leaning his violin against his shoulder. "I do tricks for my own amusement." And sometimes other people's. "So do you, don't you? It's all right. No one starts out in this for the money--there isn't a great deal of money in it, I don't even need to look at you," he nods to Jeremy up and down, "to tell that. And--it's Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is the surname. Sometimes there's confusion."

He hesitates as soon as he says it, as it occurs to him: Jeremy is not overtly magical. Nor is he overtly historical. There's a substantial chance that they may be from the same time and place. If he's heard of me-- His mind goes back to John Watson and James Moriarty, but no, there's no use in that, not yet. Instead he tilts his head and asks, "Obama wins his re-election, doesn't he?"

[kings_fool]

Jeremy offers no argument to the economic realities of being a street performer. It is definitely not something done for the money. Sadly for Sherlock, Jeremy doesn't offer any glimpse of recognition at the name Sherlock Holmes. It's just another slightly unusual name, fitting in with 'Metody' and others.

"Sherlock Holmes," he echoes, eyes dancing with genial amusement. "Alright, Homes."

The question is-- unexpected, off-as-everything-else is, like-- who doesn't know that? Jeremy doesn't answer right away, the amusement fading from his face to give Sherlock a long look that isn't confused so much as trying-to-ascertain-why, trying to make the puzzle of everything since he got here make sense. So far, he's not yet found an explanation that makes everything work.

(A sane explanation, that is. Yeah, he read the little file. He knows what it says. It's not even a very good joke/hoax thing, if you want aliens, have green guys in flying saucers, not dudes with violins.)

"Yeah, he wins," he says after several seconds. Jeremy lifts a hand to scratch at his jaw, squinting at Sherlock, who, well, aside from the guy having his mind-reader shtick, registers less on his scale of something-is-mildly-off than Metody had.

"--so-- so is this all some giant performance art installation or what?"

[infinitelystranger]

"I don't know," says Sherlock. It occurs to him that six months ago he might have said no with more certainty, or something with more certainty, at any rate. Today he just levels Jeremy Fischer with a frank, serious look. "It could be. I think it's virtual reality, but I don't have a fine enough understanding of programming," he waves a hand to indicate, or whatever you call this, "or neurobiology, for that matter, to know if that's feasible or how. It's very realistic. Not entirely, but extremely. And you'll find things that--"

He hesitates to say break the laws of physics, because he loathes that phrase. The term 'laws' is misleading in the subject of physics: people are always gleefully talking up the possibility of 'breaking' the laws of physics left and right when of course, there's no such thing. Any observed violation of physical laws only proves that they were in error, or that your observation. Sherlock tries to remind himself of that: either they were in error or you were. No one is incapable of being tricked, not even you, Sherlock Holmes.

He summons a smile, an ironical, chilly one--if nothing else, he can make a show of good humor for this American. "You may find it all a bit new," he says.

It's getting colder as the sun dips lower. Sherlock has noticed that the Extras are thinning out for the day. Prime busking hours are over. He kneels and starts to pack up his case. "Can you cook?" he asks Jeremy, apropos of nothing.

[kings_fool]

Jeremy's brows furrow and he looks around at the broad concourse, the people heading home, the buildings and the lights and the beginning-to-set sun.

"VR? All this? You're shitting me," he says, tone incredulous more than argumentative.

Jeremy absorbs that ominous-kinda statement and turns once in place, staring up and down and around until he is back facing Mr. Britain again.

"I met a chick in body armor who says she's from somewhere so polluted that it's gotten into her freakin' B.O.," he offers much as he'd offered the factoid about Dr. Dre. "'s a pretty weird-ass video game."

Train of thought gets derailed by Sherlock's question, which may have been the intent, who knows. "--hm? Yeah, I do okay. Why, do I get video-game points for that?"

[infinitelystranger]

Video game's as plausible as anything, really. The main thing separating Sherlock from that theory is the lack of any discernible game logic in Taxon: no achievements, no incentivizing, no progress. Not even grinding. Gaming isn't about making the player's life easy, it's about making it ever so gradually more difficult. He shrugs in response, with a slight smile and no comment at what he imagines is Jeremy's description of Metody Green--explicating Metody's gender identity is neither Sherlock Holmes's concern nor his business, and explicating his/her world is entirely beyond him.

He addresses the only question of Jeremy's to which he's suited at all. Buckling his case, he pulls it up over his shoulder before he answers. "Not really," he says. "I've got groceries. I don't know how to cook. You don't have groceries." He tilts his head to one side as if to say, QED.

[kings_fool]

"Why do you have groceries if you don't cook?" Jeremy asks smiling, but he accepts the implicit bargain being offered, by a practical stranger at that, without so much as a blink. Such arrangements are pretty standard in the drifter lifestyle Jeremy's elevated to a lowbrow art form.

He pulls the hood of his hoodie up against the dropping temperature and rising wind. "Take- me- to- your- groceries- Earthling. --you like omelettes? Cuz I could kill for one of those right now."