CALL ME WHEN YOU NEED ME

[diogenesis]

Who: Mycroft Holmes & Irene Adler
What: Irene has some news.
Where: Flyside; Lost Society
When: Givdi, Ceidary 24th
Notes: Closed post.
Warnings: N/A

Mycroft arrives at the lounge at a quarter past nine. He doesn't have the feeling Irene will be early for tonight's meeting; she'd sounded almost transparently exhausted in her message, and although said message arrived more than half a day ago now (and at a ludicrous time of night which was, in reality, a ludicrous time of morning), the fact that it arrived at all spoke volumes.

The Lost Society at half nine tonight. I’ll see you there. So sorry about the timing, dear, but it would have been dreadfully short notice otherwise.

He hadn't responded to her. It wasn't the type of message that required a response. She knew he'd be there; he knew she knew. (It seems to be this way with them often, here. And who would have known? Who would ever have known, back home?)

He settles down in a corner of the Library and orders a scotch while he waits and ruminates.

Comments

[diogenesis]

Mycroft is no stranger to cattiness or disdain, but while in other circumstances he might be quick to join Irene in both, this news sends him in another direction. He slowly closes his eyes, brows pulling together just so; he ends up looking like he has a dull headache. Various items under the header 'Stephanie Brown' reorganize themselves in his mind, and part of the new picture they form doesn't please him.

“I suppose she thought she was doing you a favor,” he says, his demeanor becoming chilly around the edges.

[thedominatrix]

Unexpected, and Irene's lips part as if to shape a question- more really? than why? because she's never too much at a loss to explain why people attach themselves to her. Not like her, necessarily, though that happens a lot- but no matter what people think about her, they think about her.

Of course, his case is unique. Well, they're all unique, when one looks at the small details, and Irene does. People come to her to feel known, sometimes- known and accepted.

"She did," she says. "She acts on impulse, it's all so very vigilante--" She enjoys that word, groans it, then stops and breaks her rhythm intentionally, her smile like the last digit in a passcode no one can crack. As if explaining, answering a question he didn't ask-- "You're angry."

[diogenesis]

Mycroft leans slowly back in his chair and crosses his legs, the undercurrent of ire that had been there a moment ago flowing smoothly into something stern and impersonal. He looks at Irene as though the conclusion here should be obvious.

“Ms. Brown endangered an important business partner of mine. I would not have been pleased to have her... rashness affect our arrangement.”

[thedominatrix]

"Yes," she says, as if he's the one not picking up on the obvious as she's oh so patiently guiding him through it. "Like I said. You're angry." She gives him a smile, the sort of which she's had men hanging on before, and finishes her drink, letting the conversational break as she gestures to a waiter and has another brought over serve as a breath before carrying on her story.

"It's amazing how badly criminals take that sort of thing," she sighs blithely, once they're left alone. "No thanks to Ms Brown's heroics, we weren't immediately taken out back and shot. There was all the traditional pushing and shoving, everyone was beginning to get very skittish- considering I was there with Ollav's blessing, pulling a knife on me was basically pulling a knife on him, just a bit more cowardly considering he's not far from seven foot and once ruined a pair of my handcuffs struggling." She smiles over her cocktail, taking a sip- pausing, probably, to let that image sink in. "We were thrown into the back of a carriage, which is where your falling off the wagon deduction comes in- though I have to protest that we jumped, actually."