highfunctioning | T-plus 50 hours

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pc:sherlock

T-plus 50 hours

Sherlock had been among the first to leave the customs area, due in part to the fact that he didn't announce this plan to anyone. Just tried a door -found it unlocked. He didn't have time for decision by committee, nor for continuing to listen to them all snivel about being homesick.

The ship was dark and, just as the room he'd left, untouched for a significant length of time. He trawled in semi darkness and tried every door he bumped into with no success. He wasn't able to walk far enough in one direction to guess at the shape or size of the ship, which was incredibly irritating.

At last, a door yielded to him, and he walked a few steps into a room before cracking his shin on an unseen piece of furniture.

Oh bloody hell goddamn son of a bitch fuck!

As he reached out to see what needed to die, he bumped quite accidentally into the safety torch [so it seemed to him, having no buttons or sharp edges] which blossomed to light at his accidental graze. It gave him a good enough look at the room.

Welcome to outer space, furnished by IKEA. He for one didn't plan on staying, and as such wasn't all that interested in checking out the space loo. He grabbed the torch and moved on.

---MANY HOURS LATER---

Snarling and beginning to look damn rough around the edges [two days unshaven] Sherlock sat in a pile of debris in the hall outside one of the bedrooms. Space forks, space ottomans, and space chairs lay all around him, the discarded tools of his would-be breaking of the panel opposite him. It had seemed more likely than the ones in the customs room, but had rebuffed him thoroughly.

He had long since ditched the hooded shirt [it was part of the pile] and was gathering his strength for another go at the wall. Capitulation was not an option.

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"Oh." That was all. One word, when Amy walked into the hallway.

Wide eyes. Surprised - well, of course she was surprised. "Need some help? With something. I mean, if I... can." What was he trying to do anyway? "Amy Pond." She opened her mouth to say something else, then closed it, looking over at the pile of things, and then back at him.

He reminded her - no words spoken, mostly sight unseen - of the Doctor. For some reason.

Klaus had refused to sleep for as long as possible, in case they needed to reinject him to keep his powers at bay, but it seemed that he was a lot more easily tired, along with weaker, slower, and all around more human that had plagued him since his arrival on Proserpina. He had finally fallen asleep, and only just now been awakened by repeated thuds coming from somewhere close. He got some blood from the food-providing machine, once again wished for a proper drink (be it alcohol or actual live blood), drained the damn IV bag and discarded it before heading out to track down the origin of the sound.

And who did he find in the hallway but one Sherlock Holmes. He'd watched Mycroft after their release from quarantine, and there was no doubt in his mind. Sherlock Holmes, dirty, scruffy, sitting in the middle of... cutlery and furniture, it seemed, not all of it in tip top shape.

Of course it put a smile on Klaus's lips, never mind that it had roused him from sleep. It was something to behold, and so he paused a few feet from the detective, hands in his pockets, and leaned his shoulder against the wall to watch the show, ankles crossed in the most nonchalant of postures.

It took Sherlock a few minutes to realize he wasn't alone. Well, that there was a spectator to his grudge match with the wall. His head rolled to one side, and he looked without much interest. There were one or two things that struck him as odd immediately, but he was too drained to dwell on them.

"Do you want something?"

"The sun, to be back with my sister, a nice single malt," Klaus offered with a half-smile, not in the least deterred by the abrupt tone. "In no particular order, but since that's all out of reach, I'll settle for watching you try and beat a wall down. They've done worse entertainment than that in reality TV - by far."

And they say I don't pick up social cues.

Sherlock hadn't wanted an answer, of course, just for the gawker to leave. The reference to crap telly made him think of John and Mrs Husdon, which didn't improve his demeanor.

"Well. Glad to be of use and now if you wouldn't mind. I'm working."

Sherlock's eyes only rolled toward the Scot. An odd, painful childhood looked back at him, but he was too tired to tell her all about it.

"Yeah, thanks. If you could just pop that panel off for me, I need to check the guages."

"Oh, not at all," Klaus assured him, without moving. "Please go on."

It wasn't every day that one was face to face with Sherlock Holmes, after all, even if it was a more modern version than the one he had read of. Not that anything in this man indicated it, but Klaus's time with Mycroft had left no doubt as to the matter.

Social cues were only worth anything when you care about them, after all.

Sherlock was basically talking to himself when he spoke again.

"Don't know what I was thinking anyway. It's not as though I'm going to lift off the panel and it's going to say 'Made in Myanmar' on the back."

Lady Grantham exited her room, torch in hand and aimed at the floor ahead of her. It was slow going without her cane, and slower still without adequate light to guide her. The intermittent light from overhead was vexing and the wily nature of the beam of light in her hand was enough to drive her to distraction. She missed the ambient glow of candlelight and the illumination of the sun and moon. The electric hum, while nothing like the loudness of the electricity at Downton, was nonetheless nerve wrecking. She had hardly slept through all of the noise.

But Violet did not go far enough to exit the overhead light before she spied a gangly, unkempt, young man sprawled on the floor with debris all around him.

"Good gracious. What on earth is all this mess about. This place is quite filthy enough without your help, young man. What is this about?" Violet lectured, quite unsure whether the state of the man or of the floor was worse.

For all those who ever wondered about the fact, the truth was now sitting admidst piles of what could have no other name but space debris; yes, Sherlock Holmes did grow facial hair.

Mycroft walked up to the piles, vaguely amused. "Reminds me of Montague Street," he mused, referring to the detective's flat before Baker Street. He one he had to abandon due to... what did he call it? 'Differences' between himself and the landlord.

"Do be careful. The rest of the ship's passengers would be thankful if you could keep the few thing that are functioning, in working order."

Even when he'd gone days without sleep fueled by mysteries or drugs, Sherlock had never hallucinated his Mum before. Of course, his mind could never fabricate something as awful as these athletic uniforms, so logic stated she had to be real. The fact that this woman was absolutely the picture of his mother was discomfiting, but not supernatural.

Besides, she smelled wrong and the hair didn't match at all.

"Sorry about the mess. Just trying to find a way to save our lives."

Highly unlikely, but wouldn't it be a lovely twist, Klaus thought. He didn't feel like answering something that hadn't been aimed at him, but there was something else.

"No, but break into the wall and we might eventually be able to catch whatever keeps making these skittering noises." Some of them were inside the walls, after all, and perhaps the slowest ones? He highly doubted that anyone was going to manage to break into the wall with pieces of chairs and ottomans, however.

Klaus doubted that finding out about the critters would change much in the great scheme of things, but far from being frightened by the noises, they made him curious. And he did love to indulge his curiosity.

Occasionally when John was in a snit about Sherlock's household neglect he still thought fondly of Montague Street. It had, in fact, borne a striking resemblance to the pile he was in now. Perhaps with a few more forks and a thousand cigarette ends.

Yes, he was attempting to tamper with the ship's functionality, but with good reason; no one knew how long it would last. If they never gained control of the systems they were at their mercy. Besides-

"They won't miss a little furniture when I find a way to send a message."

"Space food not to your liking?"

It was mildly amusing to think of everyone having reverted already to a hunter/gatherer society, stalking the space rats for food.

That's what his mind had decided to call them, anyway. Their scratching seemed epidemic throughout the areas he could access, but not of any real importance. He felt certain they were not in charge, numerous though they may be.

"Oh, the space food is most decidedly not," Klaus agreed, amused by the irony of Sherlock's words, much as he was far from ready to stoop so low as to drink from animals. As he had told Mycroft, that was one difference between his family and that of Lestat; no one in his drank from rats.

"How do you know that there're gauges? And d'you have a crowbar or something?" She moved closer, looking at the pile of rubbish that Sherlock had amassed. "Who are you? That's usually how this goes. I say my name, you say yours, I try and give you a hand, and hope that whatever's skittering about doesn't decide we look delicious."

She turned the flashlight in her long fingers, her brows furrowed into a frown, but she moved closer to the panel anyway. "Have you been beating up on this? That's not going to help you, with how hard you're hitting it now. You don't happen to have a hairpin or a screwdriver or anything at all? Just a chair."

Sherlock fixed her with a look that John would have recognized instantly: you've said something insufferably stupid.

Asking if he had thought to use anything before the chair was like asking if he'd considered using a boat to cross the Channel.

Nah, thought a chair made more sense.

Actually, the Watson-esque simplicity and helpfulness was mollifying, so Sherlock was able to reply rather than bark at her to bugger off.

"Screwdriver? Of course. It's just by your foot; the one with the tines."

Sherlock nodded, mocking the idea of total alignment between them.

"Well, I'm just in the process of addressing the kitchen staff, as it were, if you wanted to give me a hand with that panel."

"All of this for a good meal," Klaus answered, his smile as sardonic as his tone, and pushed off the wall to come closer. "Actually, let me have at it."

Sherlock Holmes did not seem to be a very strong sort of man, from his build alone; it would be a good test of exactly how strong Klaus was now. He picked up one of the sturdiest looking bit of furniture he could find, waited until Sherlock had moved off, and started to hit at the wall right by the panel, so that a hole might make it easier for them to pry off the panel cover.

It took him quite a few attempts, but there was soon a significant dent in the wall. However, Klaus was also out of breath, which he was not used to, and did not enjoy in the least.

Sherlock was on his feet as soon as he saw the progress this suddenly-less-annoying fellow was making. He'd abused the wall for an hour and hadn't made more than a really mild dent. He wasn't the most athletic person in the world, but he wasn't exactly out of shape either. This man had to be quite freakishly strong.

But that was a point to consider later. For now, Sherlock was too enthralled with the newly exposed wiring and blinking lights, which he commenced immediately to studying.

...

He didn't recognize a single component. Nothing looked even the slightest bit like anything he'd seen before.

So he did what seemed to make the most sense, and started randomly fiddling with wires. It only took a few minutes for him to cross a pair that knocked him on his arse and killed the power to the hall they were standing in.

"Well," Klaus let out, standing in what seemed to him like half-light. His sight was not what it was once, but his eyes still acclimated better to obscurity than a human's, much as he did not realise it. He held a hand out to Sherlock, expecting him to see it and take it so he would help him up. "I don't think that's going to improve my diet any. Remind me to be more discerning about helping you in the future."

I get that reaction a lot.

Now in total darkness, Sherlock tried to feel his way back to the torch he'd been carrying.

The villagers will probably be pretty irate if this is a widespread blackout. Though he doubted it from the strength of the shock he'd received -not enough juice there to power the whole ship, anyway.

And now Sherlock was crawling away from Klaus's offered hand. That made him frown, a frown which cleared when he noticed that Sherlock seemed to be feeling his way across the floor, as if he could not see a thing.

Oh yes, his frown cleared. He might not have his usual eyesight, but he still had better eyesight than a human. That was certainly good news, after his little show of strength.

Now that he'd realised the problem, he pulled a flashlight out of the pocket of his hoodie and turned it on. "Here."

"Ah!" Mycroft exclaimed, sarcasm dripping from that one sound. "You're sending a message. Any success?" He asked, knowing the answer.

Sherlock's fist tightened.

At least I'm doing something productive.

"Have they elected you leader yet? Who's got the conch?"

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