multiversallogs | → I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook.

Entry tags:

→ I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook.

Who: Irene Adler & Sebastian LeMat.
What: Insomniac chatter.
Where: A late night diner in Flyside.
When: In the wee hours of Shundi.
Notes: We are transplanting from a meme BECAUSE WE CAN.
Warnings: None as of yet.

I believe you," Irene says, admiring the picture once more and then looking at Sebastian with a slightly strange smile, her eyes thoughtful. Her expression is almost smug- got you- but it's also rather sweet. She likes a love story- not that Sebastian's exactly got hearts in his eyes, but there's more than one type of love, isn't there? And the way he says her name has something bright and lovely in it, no matter if it's romantic or not. "Lucky girl."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"She is and, even better, she's happy." Luck is all well and good, it'll get you through all manner of trouble, but what's the point if you're miserable? "Last I heard, she was working on, I think the best translation would be as a sort of zoologist, specializing in the more outlandish sorts of creatures. A cross between Jane Goodall and David Attenborough."

Irene believes you make your own luck. It's sort of a cycle, isn't it? Get lucky once and you'll have the resources to be lucky again and again.

"We've all got a metier. So many people don't find theirs, is the problem. Outlandish for your world or mine?" Irene asks, chin on her hand- she's all questions tonight, but she's always all questions, just sometimes less openly. "Bearing in mind that mine isn't magical." And she's assuming from the diary that Sebastian's definitely is.

"Both. She would talk about all sorts of things that not even other wizards would believe existed and, in return, I read 'Alice in Wonderland' to her." It's a good memory, and if she doesn't mind, he'll flip through the book until there's another series of pictures of Harry and Luna. This set is clearly the two of them laughing in a shopping mall photobooth, each wearing deelyboppers. Sebastian's match the sticker that someone has placed in the center of a square gauze dressing peeking out from under his shirt collar.

"Good arrangement," Irene grins, sitting up slightly to sip her coffee and watch the pictures, fingers drumming on her coffee cup.

It's strange, sometimes, seeing things she's played at being reflected in other people's real lives. (She has never played that eccentric, but it's an aspect she's incorporated). "And let me guess, the headgear was her idea?"

"No, they were mine." It may be difficult to reconcile the thought of quiet, self-contained Sebastian as a young man who would willingly, gleefully wear light-up deelyboppers. If pressed, he would simply say that in his youth, he was a very different sort of boy when compared to the man he's become.

"When I was home, she'd still send me pictures from time to time."

Irene tilts her head, trying to imagine it- it would be difficult, if not for the slightest hint of something in his smile when looking at those pictures. Or perhaps that's just nostalgia.

"Did she ever find the things no one else believed in?" she asks.

"On more than one occasion. When we were younger, she was pretty much the entire staff of the only non-state run paper. Luna could talk maddening rings around anyone she met until they'd say that shocking, unbelievable thing she could take for a headline." With her mild as milk expression and baffling love of radish earrings, who would've seen it coming?

"Oh, yes, I've seen that technique." And her voice is rich with amusement, too. "Baffle someone enough and they get frustrated, frustrate someone enough and they'll start snapping or getting defensive, and they do the rest themselves."

"I've never understood how she could see through others so clearly and yet so few people really saw her," he says with that particular sort of affection relegated to past partners. "She's married now and they're so well suited that I can't even bring myself to be as sickeningly jealous as I might like to be."

"Oh, dear. I hate that. Having to be happy for people." That's wry, but not without a bit of seriousness. "I have a bad habit of finding things inconveniently heartwarming. It's probably more healthy, but it's so much less satisfying."

"It's entirely appalling. Just shy of an atrocity." Which means he really is happy for them and their collective and complementary madness. "I try not to let it be too unsatisfying."

Sebastian makes a valiant effort to be a legitimately Good Person. It doesn't always go as planned, but he wants it very much. For a while, he wanted to live a quiet, uninteresting life as well as a good one, but that bit of nonsense has been pushed to the side.

"Well then, Mr LeMat, you're a better man than I," she says, deadpan with her eyebrows up, hiding a smirk behind her coffee cup. She's joking- it's hard to tell sometimes what she's serious about and what she isn't- but at dreadful o'clock on a night like this she tends to get a little more absurd than anything. It might be a need to sleep, or it might just be that she's exhausted all her other ways of interacting with the world apart from the ones she prefers to keep firmly locked away.

"I wouldn't lay odds on that, but I can graciously accept it as if it's a compliment." A little late night absurdity is something that always goes over well with Sebastian. He's had many years to grow accustomed to it and often feels bereft without the occasionally late night/early morning discussion.

"I once stole a village."

A beat. Irene slowly lowers her coffee cup, staring at him with a look of deep concern and confusion which might be in earnest or might be a joke.

"Well, did you get away with it?"

Priorities.

"I returned it after a long weekend." Even if it's true, that may not be the most reassuring thing to say.

"When I was young, I was in a very different sort of business."

Irene doesn't need reassuring, she needs entertaining. And she's getting that. She's smiling, eyes wide, leaning in.

"What, black market village dealing?" The implied image, of course, being that of Sebastian ushering people down dark alleys and opening a coat to reveal a number of small hamlets for his clients' perusal.

Three AM: a strange time indeed for mental images.

She's determined to ask every question but how or can we start from the beginning of this story, simply because that would be the obvious route to go down.

"Something like that. Why take just the market when you can have the whole village? Lock, stock, and post office." Sebastian's smile is the sort of bright and easy kind that comes before an absolutely brilliant idea. It's also the the sort of smile that would send Hermione into a preemptive tizzy. "For a whole host of reasons, I don't do it much any more, but if you want, I can show you something?"

"Put your hands up like this," he says, demonstrating the way he'd like her to cup her hands, as if she's cold and about to breath onto them. "And, er, you'll have to let me talk into them."

Irene's eyebrows go up, but she can't resist her own curiosity. Still, she pauses for a few moments to avoid the impression of jumping at every promise of new things that comes her way. "Alright," she says, slowly but with an expectant smile, cupping her hands as demonstrated and watching with hungry fascination.

Leaning forward, Sebastian whispers something in a quiet, hissing language into Irene's cupped hands. As he speaks, she might start to feel an almost imperceptible fluttering against her palms.

"You can peek in or pull your hands apart to get a look, but if you go too far, it'll leave and fade." There, twisting about in mid-air is a small, but brilliantly shining blue-white snake. "It's a nightlight. Harmless, but sweet."

Her eyes widen slightly when she feels the snake brush against her palms, but then she opens her hands slightly to look--

"Oh," she breathes, eyes glinting. "It's gorgeous." She's a bit of a magpie; give her something glittery, something bright, and she's sold. She keeps her hands cupped, but raises her eyes to his face with a smile. "Alright, fine, bait taken; you're- a magician, a wizard? Forgive me any mistakes, my home world doesn't have magic."

"I was a wizard, but I cut out and sold my ability." It's far easier to talk about his history with those that have no frame of reference for his actions. "I recently bought it back. Sort of."

Cocking his head to one side, he takes in Irene's expression before waving down a waiter and asking if he can buy an empty water glass. Once that's been negotiated, he'll keep up the conversation while writing something around the edge of the glass in grease pencil. "If you like it, I think I can stabilize it. If not, I can promise that it won't explode or anything too messy."

Irene doesn't really pass comment on the question of him cutting out and selling something like this; the idea of doing business (as he makes it sound) with that kind of ruthlessness sits just fine with her.

"Well, I can hardly ask for more than that," she notes, slightly dryly but with a smile which negates the effect somewhat.

"That's very good of you." Amused, Sebastian licks the pad of his thumb and runs it along the rim of the glass testing for something before he seems satisfied.

"Now, I want you to very carefully, as if you were moving a butterfly, put the little fellow in this glass. It should hold him." Should. Probably. In theory.

"Oh, he's a he now, is he?" she asks, apparently ignoring the fact that they're doing something which could result in explosions (because when else do you promise someone no explosions?) She moves her hands very, very carefully, slipping the snake slowly into the glass...

"Or a she. I haven't asked."

The snake hisses a bit before sliding into the glass, doing a few laps around the edges, and settling down. It still emits a bright, blue light. "I think he'll dim during the day, but I can't swear to it."

"I can't tell if you're being flippant or not about asking." Irene leans down slightly to smile at the snake, the blue light illuminating her face sharply. "Hello, darling. Will he need looking after?"

"Shouldn't need much, but a name'll help him stabilize," he says before taking a careful drink of his coffee. It's a point of pride that his hands aren't shaking. "Although, usually the more attention you pay him, the more 'real' he'll become. Magical artifacts tend to grow personalities with age."

"Not quite up to nicking a hamlet, yet." What should be a simple charm leaves him a big wobbly, as if he's a newborn foal. It ought to be embarrassing, but he can't feel much beyond being so very pleased that it worked.

"I can lavish attention with the best of them," she assures him, stroking a finger over the glass and glancing up to smile at him almost wickedly. "I'd call him Hamlet, but I'd hate him to start moping."

"Best avoid the tragedies all together. Could be a Beatrice, if you think a star danced at her birth." His knowledge of Shakespeare is limited, but Sebastian has put some effort into knowing the basics of who's who and from which play. "I'm really rubbish with most of his work that wasn't made into a movie."

"I studied drama; I've had his work drilled into me, for better or for worse," she says with amusement; it's not the work itself she's really referring to, but adaptations. In her experience, being a drama student and keeping company with the same leads to seeing some- interesting versions of Shakespeare's plays, to say the least. "I do love Beatrice. She speaks poniards and every word stabs- mm, I think it suits her."

"Then she's named and yours." Naming a magical construct affects it, but in what way remains to be seen.

"I've never seen Shakespeare live, but I suppose there's bound to be a company somewhere in the city. If I'm taken up by the desire to change that."

"I'll take you," she announces, ignoring that if in favour of charging ahead and not really implying that he has any choice in the matter. She's feeling fond of him, and what she does when she feels fond of people is drag them about according to her whims.

Anyway, she's got to hear more about the village.

"Baedal's theatre scene is, ah...indescribable." Take from that (and her barely suppressed smile) what you will.

"I can only imagine." It's true. He's paid a little attention to the handbills put up around town, but it's not really been anything that he's focused on.

"I suppose it's a bit silly to say this, but I think seeing something live would be a novelty."

"Good. I like seeing people do new things." She's finished her coffee now, flicking a piece of hair behind her ear (her updo not as pristine as usual) and presenting him with a smile half way between challenging and (God help him) perky. "You're going to like it."

"I know I will, but you'll have to tell me what I ought to wear." He could trust his judgement or ask Malfoy, but might as well be honest with Irene and admit his ignorance.

"The particulars depend on where we go," she points out, though with Irene, chances are the dress code is always 'up to the nines'. She says as much, adding airly, "But I'll be dressed up, and you'll be on my arm, so something suitably sharp, unless you want to be branded as my bit of rough."

"I've never looked rough for the sake of it and I think going to the play will be novel enough," he says entertained by the thought of ever being a 'bit of rough'.

There's a carefulness to the way he presents himself that has been practiced and pulled on as a disguise for so long that it's almost natural. Even so, once he gets talking, there are flickers of who he was and still is. It's more than likely that Irene can surmise that at one point, Sebastian was very rough indeed.

Irene is good at seeing those layers of disguise and reality- though layers isn't precisely the word she'd use for them. They're more intricately linked than that; there is more overlap than people think, sometimes.

"Then I can trust you to come smartened up," she says expectantly, mock stern before she breaks into another smile.

Perhaps a more apt metaphor would be 'filters'; at heart, Harry is the same man, but he can been seen through various lenses and each alters the viewer's perspective.

"I think I can manage that." He seems pleased by this outcome and decides that it was worth the fit of insomnia.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

→ I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject