Open Post 002

[2020mod]

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musebox • rules • character list

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[viced]

He didn't even take his fucking book. Yeah, that's what he dwelt on, of all the fucking things. He hadn't even taken his book with him. Rude. It was easier to dwell on that than it was to deal with anything else that was running through his brain. He could set it all aside and deal with one thing at a time. Compartmentalize, really. He'd always been extremely skilled at compartmentalizing. It was how he managed to deal and continue on, even when fear and guilt and sorrow should cripple him and leave him only a waste of a human being.

So he finished his cigarette, pointedly not thinking of it, and went back to the signing, holding the book in his hands, as if it were nothing. He did the whole song and dance for the rest of the afternoon, smiling, signing, talking with all the young poli sci students with stars in their eyes, all the professors and intellectuals and pseudointellectuals, everyone who came. Even the young newspaper reporter with a short cut that reminded him far too much of someone from his past. He gave her kind words and something for her article, despite the uneasiness in his stomach.

But when it was all done, he had the matchbook still, and he had a hotel room with his laptop. It took really only a quick google search to figure out what he was looking at, and an even shorter time to pop painkillers to dull the pain from signing, dress, and head back out. He had a coat this time, with a hood, his shirt hidden underneath, although he'd stripped off his tie. He found what he was looking for, the shop, and hovered outside, caught outside the light of the streetlamps, before he hesitantly reached out for the door, the signed book still in hand.

[deductives]

A friendly bell jingled as Mitch stepped inside, belying the far more sophisticated security measures in place over the rest of the building. Glass cases full of the memorabilia Sherlock had mentioned were all over the shop floor, illuminated by fluorescent lights and cushioned on delicately laid cheesecloth. Bond's suit was there, as promised, with a pair of Zatanna's fishnets nearby. Both outrageously priced, both equipped with alarms.

Other things set out like shrines included batarangs, full quivers from both the Hawkeyes and the Green Arrow family; anything the imagination could find. The displays even ranged to the slightly macabre with supposedly authentic troll horns, samples of Dr. Hank McCoy's fur, while fenders and mufflers hung on the wall claiming to be parts of KITT and other transformers.

Posters and photographs and press clippings also stood proudly on the wall, framed for posterity. Many of them captured both the good and bad deeds of imPorts. Documentations of skrull sightings, political rallies and signs, and of course, a large Hundred/Nygma campaign poster sticking out among the rest.

The shop owner smiled cordially enough at Mitch when he noticed him. He leaned over his counter top full of cheaper items, gesturing to another corner of the shop.

"Ah, Mr. Trevelyan said he was waiting for somebody."

Sherlock doesn't turn to look to see if it even is Mitch. Instead, he continues to stare up at a clothing exhibit, displayed fully so passerby could catch all the details. There were two coats, one long, black and woolen, the other a black leather shooting jacket. Both were riddled with bullet holes. Directly next to them, a newspaper clipping proudly prolclaimed: "HOLMES AND WATSON OUT OF PUBLICATION -- famous detectives gunned down for continuously refusing regisitration."

[viced]

His eyes traveled the room, looking this way and that. It was sad, really, to see everything they amounted to here for purchase. Even his posters, from the second campaign. They hadn't won. There had been a hell of a shock that went through the community then. He'd thought to pick things up, move forward and up. There had been a senate seat he'd been eyeing, or maybe the Governor's chair. Either one, and maybe if he hadn't thought he had time, maybe if he hadn't been slowed down by living in the City, he would have been able to stop things.

Maskin didn't intend to move slow. He knew what a junior senator could do, because even if he hadn't won, he'd come fucking close, and if the president (in his world) hadn't had his name to back them up, it could have easily gone in the wrong direction.

He walked slowly, feet moving on the wood flooring, stepping behind him to the coats, the clipping. He remembered when that happened. He wondered, for a moment, if the guy was a fan, or if this was really him. He didn't dare think it, because Maskin couldn't be held liable if he hadn't known. There were cameras in the shop, he could hear them. If it went south, he wanted the surprise on his face to be genuine. He wanted it to be authentic. Above all, he wanted to be able to pull and dump it to where the government could find it, even if they didn't know the source.

He'd never been a good person. He sold it, sure.

But he never had been.

"Latin might be a dead language, but it isn't exactly the hardest thing to navigate," he mentioned, rounding a touch closer. "I'm afraid, that while this is interesting, it isn't exactly something I can afford. Memorabilia is nice and all, but the small collection I have is plenty."

Small collection meaning the few things he'd managed to take with him. A few preserved documents, his signed autograph of superman, his comm, and his gun he'd built. Everything else had been destroyed-- torched in the Gracie Mansion vault, before anyone had been able to get their hands on it. There had been recordings, everything, in case of an emergency. It looked, now, like he had been unprepared, but really, he hadn't been willing to let anything surface.

[deductives]

Sherlock didn't acknowledge Mitch at first. If he had any reservations about this really being Sherlock Holmes, the subtly forlorn creases in his face as he gazed at the coats might have partially addressed them. More than once, Sherlock had made plans to steal them back, but it would raise too much suspicion. Not even the best tailor could have patched those holes, anyway.

He turned to face Mitch, cocking his brow at him. The former mayor didn't need the facade anymore. Still, Sherlock understood the desire to hold onto a cover that kept him safe for so long. It was a feat among their kind, really.

"Well, that's lucky. If anyone tried to buy this, I'd probably snap all of their fingers." Sherlock's tone was pleasant, but just cutting enough to mean it. It was extremely lucky for whoever had sold the coats to the shop that he didn't have time to hunt them down.

"If you're worried about Douglas, don't be. He lost his hearing years ago. He can read lips, but poorly." Sherlock stamped his foot on the hardwood floor, using the vibration to catch the shopkeep's attention. He snapped up from reading a catalog at the counter and bustled over to the two men.

"Ah, thinking of finally dropping a dime on those, huh?" he asked, his voice a bit too loud, though not on purpose.

"Afraid not, old man. Just have a new member of the history club I want to show our fallback meeting place."

After a moment's contemplation to make sure he got the gist of what Sherlock said, Doug nodded emphatically.

"Right, right. I know the wife hates it when you spring meetings on her. I'll unlock it for ya." He headed for a staircase at the back of the shop that lead to an empty apartment on the floor above.

"No security cameras up there," he muttered to Mitch and made his way after the old man.

[viced]

He followed, nodding silently to the guy, but not saying a word. It wasn't that he didn't believe the person who was mute, but that he didn't want to take a chance. He was starting to believe the guy was Sherlock Holmes, but he wasn't sure. He couldn't take a chance, even as he moved.

His hands in his pockets, he walked the stairs, taking them one at a time, footsteps silent, until they came to the apartment. He looked around drinking it in, listening more than anything else. He wanted to be sure, be 100% certain that he had an out.

He didn't even trust his friends anymore. Not after what Edward had done. Certainly, he knew the stakes, and he'd forgiven him, but that didn't mean he was going to be stupid again. He listened for every out, to find the escape routes just in case. He'd become paranoid.

"So," he said, once the doors were closed, and they were alone. "I'm not sure I know what this is about."

[deductives]

Once the shopkeep was gone, Sherlock's whole body tensed. He forced it to relax around natives to keep up a casual show, but in privacy his nerves were always on edge. It was just one of the reasons to take up smoking again. He leaned against the table in the middle of the room, shaking his head. If Mitch knew him, he had to know he wasn't a bloody idiot.

"For God's sake, My--"

Sherlock practically gagged on whatever word that was. Christ. He almost called him Mycroft. Luckily the slip didn't really sound like a name, but he still pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Sometimes, he feared that his mind was taking more of a beating from all these years than he realized. Still, the similarities between Mitch and his brother were disturbingly numerous. The dedication to whatever his secret plans were, and deciding that the rest be damned stuck out in both of them like a sore thumb. After nearly a decade, it still left a bitter taste in Sherlock's mouth. Maybe that's why he was trying to get through to Mitch; a misplaced sense of filial piety. What an awful thought.

"You know perfectly well who I am, and that I know who you are. You honestly didn't expect to come back here in person and have no one recognize you?" Well, with that good of a disguise, no one else might have, but Sherlock didn't want to compliment him. He drifted over to a minifridge against the wall and took out two beers, setting one on the table.

"I'm not asking you to trust me. That would, frankly, be idiotic of either of us. But you can drop the act now. It's not necessary."

He didn't offer Mitch the other beer. It was left on the table as his to take or leave, just as he could with this entire encounter.

[viced]

Mitch never took the beer. He'd been painfully paranoid, perhaps too much so, but the fact of the matter was that if this guy even suspected that he wasn't Adrian Maskin, he had reason to worry. He had a desperate need to keep his eyes open, and to keep himself save.

"I see. So you think I'm an import?" he hedged cautiously. Too cautiously, maybe. After a moment, years of keeping himself in line seemed to melt away. He'd only been himself around a handful of people over the years, Katurian, Edward, that was it. It was a sad state of affairs when you'd even gone out of your way to deceive your own bodyguard for as long as you could, if just to keep himself safe.

"Alright, Sherlock. What the fuck do you want?"

The implication of the swear said enough. It wasn't that Adrian Maskin didn't swear, but instead that he wasn't Mitchell Hundred when it came to them. They didn't have to worry and hover over the dump button just in case he lost his temper, or just had enough.

He crossed his arms, staring Sherlock down. He didn't think he'd call him here just to make sure he knew that he knew who he was. That was too contorted. If Sherlock wanted to do that, he could've done it a million times differently. As it was, there was something he wanted, Mitchell knew it.

[deductives]

"Not to kill you. That's probably a start."

A small, triumphant smirk crossed Sherlock's features when Mitch finally let himself go. There was a degree of satisfaction in being right, as there always would be, but the ex-mayor was right-- Sherlock wanted more than to simply prove that. He wanted answers. That was his ever present desire, which seemed simple, but with Sherlock Holmes, nothing ever is.

"I'm curious as to why you're undertaking this massive task of winning over the population again in a new name without any help whatsoever." Sherlock gazed at Mitch, not drinking his own beer either. "It's not like politicians to burn bridges."

Sherlock didn't mind being a lone wolf himself. However, in this hostile world, imports needed some modicum of brotherhood that even he couldn't deny. One person, he was certain, couldn't change the whole world's opinion.

[viced]

"Without any help?" he tipped his head, staring him down like he couldn't believe that he was asking that. His lips pursed, even while he shifted, his arms still crossed even while his eyes narrowed slightly.

"Look, I don't think imports are going to be able to help much, do you?" he asked. It was true, too. They were in a sad state of affairs, throughout the country. Bad, actually. They were dropping like flies, and fast. He couldn't expect their support, and he couldn't chance moving for it.

"I have the help I need in contacts through the country. It's not conventional, but it's something that I needed to build, if I want to get anything done for us."

[deductives]

Sherlock's brow furrowed at Mitch's explanation. There was no point in disagreeing that all of them were scattered, plenty were in custody, and others were simply useless.

"Then what makes you so different?" he asked, with more than a little venom slipping into his voice. "There's resistances cropping up all over. I should know, I've been feeding them information all this time. But I suppose you've been forced to denounce all of that behavior."

A hard sigh pressed out of his nose, almost like a bull's snort.

"It's been seven years, and you're just coming back to the City now. How long do you expect to get your throne back, then? Another decade? Maybe then there might be three or four of us left to appreciate it." As far as he was concerned, for now Mitch had lost the privilege of using the collective noun for them.

[viced]

He didn't even bat an eye at the unspoken accusation. The idea that he was no longer one of them. Even if, even if he could convince the government to overturn this, even if he managed to make things better, he would never be able to be one of them again. He wasn't an import anymore. He'd gone fucking native.

It was the sacrifice he'd made. He'd given it up, on purpose, because he'd needed to. Because imports needed him to.

He'd been a man to give up everything once already. He would do it again and again and again if it meant he could save the planet. Hell, if there was a chance of saving the planet. "You're joking, right? Sherlock, I'm not going to make this slow," he explained. He didn't offer more than that, of course. He couldn't. Not which cycle, not which office he had his eye on. Saying that he wasn't making it that slow was too ambiguous, too little for him to go off of, while still contradicting him.

He'd learned so much, even from being Maskin, at being the consummate politician.

[deductives]

These days, Sherlock would willingly, maybe even gladly, admit to the fact that he had no in-depth knowledge of American politics, nor did he want any. They clearly hadn't done much for him. Because of this, or maybe in spite of it, Mitch's ideas only sounded delusional.

"You're willing to gamble like that?" he asked with a shade of incredulity. They both understood there was far more at stake if he didn't make it anywhere than if it were under normal circumstances. "A few bestsellers are hardly a guarantee of office." He put his unopened beer aside with a pointed clank and began to pace the length of the meeting table.

"People don't want us to be human. Even if they're in favor of us, they want a bloody spectacle, not our rights. You saw it downstairs. It's like a colonial trading post; next they'll have our shrunken heads for sale. That old fool loves imports, he says. We're profit, not people." Sherlock paused in his walk, drumming his fingers on the table top.

"And if you get anywhere, and they find you out? What then?" He sighed. "Government officials certainly aren't as sharp as me, but give them a few more years of having you under a microscope. Even the best disguise doesn't last forever."

[viced]

"I have been under the fucking microscope, asshole!" he threw his hands in the air, launching into a pace that was all Mitchell. "How the fuck do you think I've survived? It hasn't been just from being careful! I know how to pretend to be human because I've been doing it for a lot longer than most of you assholes."

And that was the truth of it, the centerpiece. Mitchell was an oddity even in his world. If he'd had no superpowers, and come to the City, he probably would rely on them more, and be unable to hide it. In his world, he could shut down a city with a word, or even worse, mentally command a good portion of New York City without a whisper or a word.

Nobody knew how far his powers went, because he'd never spoken about them. He refused to speak on them. It'd been a recipe for disaster, and yet now it was his savior.

"I know exactly what I'm doing. Do you think I'd risk my skin if I didn't think the payoff was worth it?"

Mitchell had always been the sort to go balls to the wall with his gambles. They paid off, most of the time, but it meant he was risky. He mitigated all risk he could, but sometimes he really, honestly, truly was kind of a dumbass about it.

[deductives]

Sherlock, for once, couldn't quite argue with that. At home, he'd certainly been an outcast, but not to this level. Not because of anything supernatural. And most of them, he knew, had horribly great potential within them that the natives feared. Sometimes he marveled at the fact that more of them didn't use it. Some deeply hidden moral code inside the majority of them, however, kept that from happening. Or maybe it was simply their lack of organization.

Mitch's outburst, though, was actually refreshing. It proved there was still a fire in him, something that Sherlock watched more than a few imPorts lose over time. It didn't make his plan look any better, but it at least relieved Sherlock regarding his motives.

"This system has abused us for nearly a decade. I don't think trying to make it fall on its own sword is going to happen at the beck and call of one person." He gives Mitch a cold, level look to contradict his fire. "If you at least had help from those working against it, you wouldn't have to be such a damned martyr."

[viced]

"I'm not trying to--" he sighed, stopping mid-sentence. He looked at Sherlock, running a hand through his hair to pull back more of his black hair. It wasn't out of place, but it was a nervous habit he'd picked up over the years.

Particularly when agitated.

"I can't, Sherlock. I can't accept fucking help. Not from the import community, at the very least. Do you know how much that can fuck me over? I can't take it. I'd love to, but I can't."

And then he sighed, holding his fingers on either side of the bridge of his nose, looking all the politician he used to be, even if he pretended he wasn't Mitchell.

"Look. I can't accept help publicly. When the time comes, I'm sure the campaign could use every hand we'll get, but I can't-- I cannot know about it."