→ take me to wonderland.

[thedominatrix]

Who: Irene & guests.
What: Birthday drinks.
Where: Syriac Well.
When: 24th Shadri.
Notes: An outfit.

Birthdays are busy when you maintain a variety of different social circles. There's the enormous, lavish, exclusive party she throws, where she stays stone cold sober and pushes drinks on everyone else, to fascinating results- there are numerous private one on one dinners for the people who all need to feel like they're her favourite, like they're getting the special treatment, poor things, and that's almost fun just because of how dishonest it is except the boredom tends to negate that. But then there's this, which is play and not work, Irene inviting people because she likes them rather than because they need to feel invited, and because when she likes people she has to insert herself into their lives and demand as much of their attention as possible.

The surroundings are incredibly sumptuous, of course, stirred by a slight breeze from the open balcony doors. The atmosphere is intimate, private, slightly heady and unreal, urged on by some excellent wine (far from the only thing on offer, of course, but particularly notable) and Irene's languid charm, her usual society persona toned down ever so slightly as if to say well, you all know the truth, which is a very insidious sort of lie that she can still have fun telling. She's being very attentive to her guests- an uncharitable observer might suggest, in fact, that she pounces on them as they arrive.

But they wouldn't get an invite.

Comments

[diogenesis]

Mycroft arrives like clockwork precisely at 9, dressed in grey and gold and accompanied by Alan Shore.

It's unusual for Mycroft to go anywhere with company—he keeps very tight schedules and can't abide the unpredictability that traveling with others often involves—but he'd decided to try it this time, since ignoring the fact that Flyside was directly on his way to Syriac Well would have made no sense. In the end, any worries he might have had were rendered moot as Alan proved to be both on-time and, as ever, pleasant company.

Entering Irene's flat brings with it an instant curiosity. This is a place that's been closed to him for some time, now, and although no one plays the waiting game like Mycroft Holmes, he's not above feeling pleased and even excited when an opportunity to learn something new finally presents itself. It's a kind of thrill he knows Irene also enjoys, a fact that had been on his mind when he'd finally settled on a suitable gift.

Speaking of the gift, it's nowhere to be seen.

[thedominatrix]

"Oh, hello," Irene says, sounding positively rapturous- her usual promise that there's absolutely no one in the world she'd rather see than the people right in front of her. It's all so overdone that on someone else it might be embarrassingly false, tawdry even, but when she does it it works. It might be because of what lurks beneath the surface of everything she does, something predatory; it makes everything seem more real- or at least more interesting.

"Don't you look dashing- both of you."

She's got a glass of wine in her hand, and her expression suggests that she rather thinks Alan Shore would go well with it. "Mr Shore. Gosh, just look at you. What an thrill to finally meet you with all your clothes on." A glance to Mycroft, eyes wide and innocent, expression who me over her wine glass, soft and flattered--

"Though honestly, you needn't have wrapped him."

[alan_shore]

For Alan, the thrill (as if there's one, as if the evening can withstand only that solitary frisson) is in Mycroft's treating, suddenly, the world outside his library as something more than mere inconvenience. It's in arriving, with Mycroft's vaguely maniacal punctuality, at a party of all places, and in the illusive luster the word “date” (a word he's danced not around but with, as assiduous a two-step as ever there was) casts over the excursion.

Which isn't to say the woman of the hour's appearance doesn't inspire a certain anticipatory excitement; nor is it to say Alan shies from flattery at the ever-capable hands of an expert. He breaks off smiling to adopt, fleetingly, an expression of mock-chagrin at his fully clothed state, and goes on to watch, with a blend of interest and undisguised amusement that's the closest he'll come to approval, something pass between his two companions.

"It removed the temptation to play with me on the way over,” he says, his innocence false and raffish as a gold tooth. He looks—in the event there was any doubt—unspeakably pleased with himself.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft is in the middle of nodding and smiling with droll sarcasm in response to Irene's teasing when Alan decides to add his own commentary. Like an interrupted circuit, the flow of Mycroft's nonverbal dialogue is stopped short; his eyes flick over to the lawyer in two stuttering, surprised movements, as though he's not quite sure from whom the quip originated.

There's a quick, bright swirl of reactive thought upon hearing the words—a brief vision of Alan's face, relaxed and healthy, every detail burning so real (every color, every eyelash, the sound of his voice)—which momentarily flavors Mycroft's expression with a subdued (but honest) kind of astonishment. He's shortly transforming that astonishment into something perceptibly facetious in order to play along with the joke, and the transformation is smooth enough that in most other company it would go completely unnoticed.

He's aware, of course, that Irene and Alan are far from 'most other company'.

“Putting aside how tempting Mr. Shore may or may not be,” he says, allowing himself to remain vaguely scandalized, “he is unfortunately not your gift, Ms. Adler.”

[thedominatrix]

Irene watches them, reacts to them not just in words but with her whole body, like the conversational current is something she's quite literally being swept up in; when Mycroft stills, she raises her chin, eager, a soft smile on her face, and stills too. He looks stopped short, while she opts for satisfied, holding still simply to suggest that she can afford to sit back and enjoy the show.

Offhand to Alan as if they're best friends already, stage directions aside, she says quite calmly- as if there's no possible way Mycroft could overhear them, as if she's even lowering her voice at all, "You know, I don't think it did." Mycroft, of course, gets the full force of her predatory smile. "Are you going to make me deduce, Mr Holmes?" she asks, as if it's a euphemism.

[alan_shore]

Alan, of course, has his own reaction ready—a smirk spread out like a blanket awaiting the liberation of a midday feast from the depths of a picnic basket. Or perhaps it shares more in common with the inevitable parade of ants, sure and brazen, over the potato salad. Regardless, the delight he takes in confounding Mycroft is evident and unadulterated—save for a momentary qualm so fleeting he scarcely has time to blink before it's vanished, a mood alighting with such delicacy he gains little sense of it.

“I am wholly in favor of a spot of deduction,” he announces, as though somebody had asked. He smiles at each of his companions in turn—Irene first, then Mycroft. “So long, that is, as I'm permitted to watch.”