LIGHT THE MATCH

[diogenesis]

Who: Mycroft Holmes and ~*you*~
What: An attempt to learn about the City in the most casual way possible.
Where: The Library of Blessed St. Brian
When: Veerdi, Kavadry 3rd
Notes: This is an open post! I have certain things I want to accomplish here, planting certain seeds and so forth, but anyone should feel free to come and poke the antisocial bear.
Warnings: Spoilers for Sherlock S2E3: The Reichenbach Fall.

It has been a long three days.

When Mycroft had first appeared in the small, tiled waiting room at the Inn, his first theory had been that he was dying. Perhaps I'm already dead, he'd thought.

Even now, having had hours of solitude to think it all over, he can't rule it out—there is no absolute way to disprove the existence of an afterlife—but his memories of the moments before he'd arrived here are so clear, and he feels certain he wasn't ill or in the process of being attacked. Surely, there would have been a moment just before unconsciousness, even the smallest moment, that would have allowed him to notice a twinge of pain, a blur of movement, the feeling of disorientation, the sound of a gun going off.

But all he knows is that he blinked, and he was elsewhere.

His chair from the Diogenes Club had taken the journey with him, making the fiasco even more mysterious. Mycroft hadn't even been near the club at the time; he'd been in 10 Downing Street. He can't deny the fact that having something familiar nearby has helped, in a small way, to soothe the burn of such a sudden transition, but in the end it is a single sandbag in the face of a hurricane. Not only has Mycroft been torn away from decades of work in a job only he could do, but his brother, Sherlock, is relying on him for resources and protection more than ever after being forced to fake his own death by the late James Moriarty. Mycroft's level of worry is unspeakable. None of his usual centering techniques have helped to focus his mind. He's beginning to fray at the edges.

This is why, despite the fact that it seems dangerous to go outside what with the City's residents capable of breaking the laws of physics and performing magic (not to mention the place being some version of a police state), Mycroft is at the University's library today. Three days trapped in his own mind was too long (felt the warning signs start to creep in, too much like Sherlock, can't afford that now, have to be alert now). The order of the day is fresh air and fresh knowledge. He needs to learn more about this place, whether it's all in his mind or not.

After all, if he is in a coma, he could be here for quite a long time.

Comments

[diogenesis]

Once Mycroft finishes reading the introduction, he considers it for a moment. Personally, if he were researching his own heritage, he'd find this text a bit too subjective as a starting point, but he doesn't know what type of material Ilde has gone through before now, and she might be looking for this kind of writing specifically. He'll give her the benefit of the doubt.

"It's not quite neutral, but is this the kind of thing you're looking for?" he asks.

[rhinemaid]

“Not really,” she says, studying the words - her gaze shifts, picking out the ones she knows the meaning of, going back over his translations in her head, trying to pick out the new, unfamiliar words from it. The grammar structure trips her up and her frown deepens, but it's barely there in the first place; she's still shaking herself out of the lull she had to try so hard not to slip into while he was reading to her.

Her split focus had been clear-- she'd been torn between watching his mouth for the words and looking back down at the page for the corresponding German text (but she can only look at one at a time and she'd nearly missed whole sentences letting herself try to flick back and forth), and the murmur of his voice, indistinct but having the soothing steadiness of recitation, had been a third distraction entirely, something that made her want to close her eyes and rest, a little. She hasn't been read to since she was a child.

She isn't a child any more, she reminds herself.

“Thank you, though,” after a beat, as if she's just now remembered that he's sitting beside her and deserves continued acknowledgement. It's not that she doesn't realize it's a bit awkward, the way she sometimes disappears in her own head, after all.

[diogenesis]

Mycroft, having noticed Ilde's partial deafness from their first verbal exchange, had chosen to continue speaking verbally due to Ilde's proficiency at lip-reading and the assumption that she could hear him in some capacity (her study of music would seem to attest to that). Additionally, she wouldn't ask someone she didn't know to translate a book aloud if she wouldn't be able to understand them. However, it seems she's having more trouble than she anticipated, intent as she is upon trying to watch Mycroft's words and learn the German at the same time.

It's not a sure thing, but Mycroft may have a solution.

"Do you speak BSL?" he asks in British Sign Language. "Or ASL?" This in American.

[rhinemaid]

Almost in spite of herself, Ilde's unhappy little moue - she'd have liked not to have been wasting his time and hers, with that book - dissipates, replaced by something subtler and warmer and pleased. It is, admittedly, not that difficult to make this happen - though it's fainter than her displeasure was, like disappointment is just more familiar. Everything she does, regardless, comes with a sharp edge.

“ASL,” she confirms, with careful gestures; she's less confident with this than she is lip-reading, less practised, but evidently somebody's quick study. (Remy LeBeau, who has been so good to her.) “I know a little. I'm still learning.”

[diogenesis]

Mycroft's expression warms slightly in return, satisfied to have taken a step in the right direction. He's still not sure why he finds himself feeling more invested in Ilde's mood than he does in those of most strangers (read: not at all). From where he's sitting, any physical familiarity she may have to someone Mycroft knows or knew can no longer be seen, and he can't place who he'd been about to connect her to earlier. Also odd, since things rarely slip his mind. It has truly been a long three days.

Her demeanor remains eerily familiar, though, and it's both unnerving and calming. Furthermore, the more he looks at her, the more he wants to look harder—her colors are so rich, her textures seem to leap out at him. Even the movement of her hair draws his eyes as though it means something. All the while Mycroft's been sitting here with her, he's grown tense continually reminding himself not to stare.

He endeavors to put that all aside for the moment.

“It's a very useful language for anyone to know, I think,” he signs, keeping his motions clear and slowing them down a bit (but not enough to make things patronizing). “I thought it might be easier this way if you could focus more on reading the German on the page while you watch the signs for the English in your peripheral vision, but if you are still learning ASL, this probably won't be ideal.”