bakerstreet | throw it out the window

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throw it out the window

The Defenestration Meme
...it seemed like a good idea at the time.

dēˌfenəˈstrāSHən
noun
the act of throwing a thing or especially a person out of a window: the defenestration of the commissioners at Prague.

- Post with your character.
- Reply to other characters.
- If you need a prompt, hit up the RNG and...

1. You are about to defenestrate yourself. Is this a suicide attempt? Is it merely because you need a quick exit and fortunately the building is only one or two stories tall so it's not that much in the way of defenestration? Well. Either way, you're about to throw yourself out of a window and somebody caught you in the act.
2. You're defenestrating your/someone else's belongings. Is it because it's a messy break-up? Is it a fit of rage? It doesn't matter, because unless someone actively stops you you'll end up defenestrating the contents of the entire room.
3. You're defenestrating/defenestrated a helpless NPC! Or maybe they're not so helpless. They could be an assassin or something.
4. You're defenestrating the person who replied to you! (In the event that person happens to be your long lost brother, your beloved mother, your one true love, or someone equally close to you, you may assume that mind control was involved.)

(...it feels kind of weird to only have only four RNG prompts, but there's only so many ways to throw something out of a window. I mean, really.)

- And kick ass and take names.

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[She'd rolled him, and he'd rolled a bit further, carried by weight and momentum and muscle memory, on his own. A short distance away he would up on his back, gun clenched instinctively close to his chest so he wouldn't lose it, as for a long beat he stared dazedly up at the sky.

It was a nice day. Warm. Bright. Though the skyline was awfully grey rather than blue. But then, such was often the case in big cities.

We're still alive, he thought flatly. And then, That actually just happened.

And then he caught her thoughts and he sat up, trying to get to his feet, flashing her an annoyed grimace.]

I might not be you, Jessica, but I'm not made of glass. I'm fine. [He grumbles, then glances down to confirm it for himself belatedly. He's scuffed and there's a mild scrape across one set of knuckles. Otherwise he's perfect.] ...I'm fine.

[He can keep shooting her all the glares he wants, because she's coming over, moving to smooth her hands down him, feeling for blood or anything out of place.]

I told you, you idiot, I'm not bulletproof. Neither are you.

[But that panic was settling as she realized that he was, as he'd said, fine. She looked at the gun he was clutching, jaw clenching for a moment.]

You didn't tell me you brought a gun.

[He glanced down, dubiously, at her actually feeling him over. She's really that worried? He's not used to being fussed over. He wasn't expecting this level of concern. Even after what they were forced to awkwardly admit to one another.

Before he could think to speak though she'd noticed the gun. He looked from it to her face, taking in that expression.]

Yeah well, thought there might be trouble.

[With nonchalant expertise he looks away from her to check the clip, putting the safety back on.]

What you know about me, are you really gonna be all that surprised?

Surprised, no. But it didn't do much good, did it?

[Guns had never been her thing. Of course, she didn't even know how to fight properly, so apparently nothing was her thing. She turned to look back down at the street, knowing that the assholes who'd shot at them wouldn't have seen them jump up here. She was, conveniently, ignoring that rhetorical question, because she didn't want to have to answer an affirmative.]

Come on. We need to get out of here before they think to look up. Or start a search.

What, are you rubbing it in? [Sardonic quipping. Mentally he counters, unintentional, Could have done, if we'd stayed and fought. Not gone flailing over rooftops like a couple of wankers.

He still can't always filter out what he wants to pass on, or stop his thoughts from coming, clearly.]

All right. [He starts walking quickly, because even in a bad mood he can see sense. Survival's more important.] What's the next move, though? We calling this another dead end?

Yeah, and then they'd be even more pissed. You shoot that group or kill someone's grandson or whatever, that'll make it personal. You break in? They can get over that.

[She answered aloud the mental question, moving to go over to the door that led to the stairs downward from the roof.

Only wanker here is you, Sherlock. This isn't the OK corral and one gun against a handful or more of assholes isn't going to do shit. Say thank you for saving my life and let's get the fuck out of here.]

[You didn't strike me as the type that needed the ego boost of thanking.

He's being petty and snippy, because he doesn't like her disparaging his actually having done something to be useful. It's a cheap shot maybe but neither of them is a full class act, so.]

They've already tried to kill us. You got in their way, and they beat me over the head until my thoughts literally started pouring out of my ears. [He stows the gun and gestures to his temple, snappishly.] How worse do you think it's gonna get?

[She stopped, turning around and stepping up to him, getting right up in his face, finger pointed at him as she did.]

You dead is a hell of a lot worse in my books than you with a pissy attitude. I can handle you being a little shit. I'm not handling you dead, you hear me? Don't push your luck, Shaw.

[You mean something and you know it, so stop being a dick or I'll smack the shit out of you and sit on you until you calm down.

She sent that last bit intentionally, keeping contact with his eyes as she did before she turned quickly, then went to jerk open the door, anger making her pull the knob off as she did.]

Fuck.

[That had her having to kick the thing open, twisting the cheap metal before she pulled it out of her way. That was oddly cathartic.]

[He has to stare at her, at that one bit. It feels different when she's trying to get him to hear her mind - not quite like she's shouting, but the words become clearer and over-emphasized. It's disorienting.

By the time he shakes his head and walks it off she goes to town on the door.]

That's subtle.

[He glances around. As if somebody else is hanging on the roof to hear. Ugh. This day, honestly.]

Fuck subtle.

[Door open and in a broken mess, she stepped over it and started down the stairs.]

We'll call that a bust. Though, at least we know to be a bit more careful going in next time. They'll probably be expecting us.

[So that was a little bit of information they hadn't had before. Hey, it was almost a win.]

I thought you said these guys were nobodies. That all they were running was girls.

[Girls kidnapped into human trafficking, but whatever. Like this is anything he hasn't heard about before.

He scrambled after her, moving to keep up. Raising his voice slightly in the silence of the stairwell.]

So do they have more fire in them than you expected, or what? Even if they knew we were coming, what could they possibly be hiding?

That's all they were supposed to be. But things have been kind of messed up since Fisk and the Hand. Too many empty shoes to fill and too many people trying to fill them. Between the drugs, the prostitution, and just the heavies, it's kind of a clusterfuck of who's who at the moment. Nature abhors a vacuum, or some shit like that.

[She stomped down the stairs, pissed off despite the fact that they'd gotten out of there relatively unscathed.]

I have no idea, and that's the part that bugs me. I don't want to stumble into more of this blind.

No kidding. [Though his concerns might be slightly different than hers. She wants to do the right thing - he just wants to get the job done.

Before he...changed, like this, all he wanted to do was whatever she asked him to, and if anyone got hurt along the way, he didn't care. Now though it's personal. Or it might be.

He waits until they're at street level to speak.]

Jones, wait. We have to talk about this. [He glances around, but there's no sign of their assailants. No sign of anybody.] We need to get this straight here. Now are these guys acting this way because they're covering, and it's just all bad luck on my part? Or do they somehow know about that, and that's part of it?

[Because that kind of makes a huge difference to him, motivation wise, at this point.]

[She slowed when he called her name, looking around when he did, then giving him a confused look.]

How the hell am I supposed to know? I know as much as you do at this point. Hell, probably less. I honestly thought they were some low-level assholes I could use as a goddamn excuse. Now they're running who knows what and I'm out of my depth here. I'm a PI. Not an evil mastermind. I push and break shit until someone comes to tell me to stop. That's my method. I'm not subtle.

[Well what bloody good are you, then.

It's one of those absent angry thoughts that people just have. Ranting inside of their heads, meaningless. Private and quickly forgotten.

Except he no longer has that luxury, now does he?

He freezes and looks back at her.] ...I didn't mean that.

Yeah, you did.

[And she can't even fault him something like that. What good was she? She may not have been the reason he was the way he was now, but she wasn't helping him. On one hand, she wasn't going to cry that a little mind-reading may have saved his life, but on the other hand... well. It was a shitty power to have. Especially when it seemed to just work with her for the moment. Her mind wasn't something anyone should have access to, if only to avoid having to hear a barrage of curses.]

No. I didn't. Don't tell me what I mean and I don't, all right? Just because you can hear me right now, it's not the same as...

[He is getting angrier though. She's no fun to argue with, she never is, because they always both wind up feeling like shit.

With a repressed sound that's almost a growl he drags both his hands down his face. He wants this to just be over with, already. But there's no end in sight.]

As what? Go on, macho man. Tell me how wrong I am in a sea of wrong, floating along being a big fucking pile of wrong-trash while you're up there in your boat of righteousness.

[Okay, so, maybe she was getting tired of having to monitor her thoughts too. It was draining, either because she had to stop thinking personal things, stop thinking terrible things, or stop thinking horny things, all things that she liked to think about and now couldn't because she had no fucking privacy.]

[He stared at her flatly. When he finally responded it was with a hint of a sneer.]

Do you even hear yourself when you talk?

[He really wanted to hit something, or maybe shoot somebody. Maybe that was the real reason he'd been so irritated at her for throwing them both out the window like that and ending the fight.]

Don't glower at me. I give better pissed off before I'm even awake. Save it for someone who's capable of being afraid of you.

[Because that sure as hell wasn't her. For him, yes. Of him? Not likely.]

[A mental snort in response, unthinking:

Guess she hasn't guessed how many of those people I put in the ground.

That makes him tense again, unsure what reaction that might draw. They go to a lot of effort these days to talk - and think - around the morality differences between them.]

[She turned to give him a one-shot glare.

Still not afraid of you.

Then she kept walking, opting to take this argument, discussion, or whatever the fuck it was, out of the line of the building they'd just tried to break into.]

[Moment passed, he scowled, shoving his hands in his pockets and ducking his head with shoulders raised in tension as he stomped along after her. Not sure where they were going, back to her place or somewhere else, but no choice but to follow along. For now. For the indeterminable future, really.

This was getting so old, fast.

It had been a few days. Enough time for them to stop stealing awkward glances at each other out of the corner of their eyes, enough time that the shocking revelation the pair of them actually had one whole feeling towards one another had felt like it settled. They could work around it. Live with it. Maybe.

Some blonde chippie, a friend of Jessica's - her adopted sister, she hadn't had to tell him because he'd "heard" - had swung by at one point and Owen had gone for a walk to give them some privacy. No idea what they'd talked about, but there were clear signs Owen had been staying there, sleeping on the couch sometimes and the bed others. So she probably had question. Though who knew what Jessica told her. He didn't ask, out loud or otherwise.

The pain in his head had stopped and he hadn't any more nose bleeds, but the two times he had tried leaving her apartment and heading into a more crowded area that static in his head came back. Not as intense, though maybe that was only because he was being careful. He wasn't getting any better at guarding his thoughts - or not listening to hers. It wasn't wearing off, or maybe it was too soon to tell?

He hoped it was the latter. Or at this rate the very thing that'd forced them to acknowledge their feelings for one another was also going to tear them apart.]

[And that was the thing of it. It might not be so bad if either one of them knew how to build mental walls worth a damn. If they could ensure there was one tiny corner of their minds that was theirs, where they could think what they pleased and curse and yell and be afraid if they wanted. It was the mix of being raw and open as well as feeling it that just frayed on their nerves. They were both private, locked up people. Even if they were willing to admit a few things, they needed... room. They could probably both work in close proximity with others for as long as needed, but with this added layer stripped away, it was like having a conversation all the time. And neither of them were chatty people.

She'd tried to work out some of it with Trish, which is why she was willing to be more open about how she felt with him. She couldn't hide that so she didn't bother trying. That didn't make it easier to handle.]

I need to make a stop at the store before we go back.

[It was a mess. An ironic mess, all around. They both hated sharing, admitting they had emotions, letting themselves care. But look where these "gifts" had landed both of them. She wanted to be left alone, refused to let herself be thought well by others, but few people could do what she did and so they were beating down her door and trying to get her to play hero.

And him? He never wanted to be anything so much as hard, ruthless, in control. He didn't want to understand other people's feelings, didn't want to see them as anything but parts he could use. Telepathy was possibly the worst ability he could've had with his personality. Now he couldn't keep his own secrets, put on a true showing of strength. Couldn't keep them out and at arm's length.

He looked up at her when she spoke, the expression on his face no less grumpy.]

Yeah, all right. Getting necessary supplies, right.

[It's a petty dig at her near-alcoholism, and it's neither as if he cares or is really judging anyway. But right now it's all he's got to work with.]

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sneaking in a round of tags for the day

bless your heart. my literal birthday present

aw, well, happy birthday \o/