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→ sweet dreams are made of this.

Who: Irene Adler and YOU YES YOU
What: Uh- work, shopping, drinking, seeing the sights, picking up chicks, going to dinner, anything you like.
Where: The Vault, various boutiques, restaurants, gay clubs, out on the street, anywhere at all. If you can think of somewhere to be, Irene is quite possibly there.
When: Here all week, baby.
Notes: Just pick where you're setting it and say when/where they are in the header. It needn't be somewhere mentioned here! If you think they could run into each other elsewhere, then go ahead- and if you think it ought to be an arranged meeting rather than a chance one, then that's probably fine too.
Warnings: Sex, drinking, kink, the Vault...and Irene.

Irene's life has changed since coming to Baedal.

Technically, superficially, her life has improved, which she doubts happens to many people once are magically transported against their will to a place where you oughtn't to look too closely at, say, shadows, because there's almost always something that's going to lurk there- but since when was back home safe, exactly?

Here, at least, she can work properly. She likes the Vault, even if she's used to being her own boss. It's enormous and extravagant, dirty and debauched and full of people she likes, whether they're her coworkers or her clients- it feels like a home away from home.

Her job, of course, doesn't stop and start with brandishing a whip. No, she'd get bored too easily that way. It's fun, but it's only what happens on the surface. What she does is single out people who interest her, who can give her something- whether that's money or influence or just fun. She knows how to spot public figures afraid of being noticed, tugging at their suits and sweating- she knows which people don't want her and which want her so much they have to pretend that she's the last thing on their minds. She knows whose CiD she wants to look through while they're distracted (panting, eyes closed, unconscious, sobbing, drugged, drunk- whatever, as long as they trust her and she trusts herself). She enjoys her time at the Vault, and watches a number of acts between working, but never forgets that she's there to do her job.

When she's free in the evenings she can go out, a strange feeling for someone who is so used to being on the run. There is, of course, Mycroft Holmes to contend with, but she really can't imagine him sampling the nightlife. She's careful not to become a regular anywhere just in case, though more often than not she's found in gay clubs. She doesn't often go home alone; in the mornings, she's polite and kind but ensures that the women in her bed aren't in her bed for too long, and doesn't make use of any CiD numbers they might leave.

And then there's money, fashion, food, exploration, a whole new world. Irene loves to travel, and it's not really travelling when you're running. Baedal changes daily and she's barely seen half of the city, or that's what it feels like. She dines out often, alone or with some of the connections (friends?) she's made, and she thanks her stars that her job pays well, because she has a whole new wardrobe to build up.

Irene Adler, therefore, is living again. And if she sometimes finds herself alone, with no distractions, and feels claustrophobic, knowing that she is in the middle of the city and there is no world outside of it, knowing that she can't hop on a plane with a faked passport and be someone else somewhere else, knowing that she is trapped-

-then that is a very minor detail.

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"True," Irene says, "but it all comes back down to people, doesn't it?"

She pauses, the waiter coming by to ask if she'd like to order, and she picks a full English.

What? When it comes down to it, she's an girl from England who's been out drinking all night. There are some traditions which even she follows; if she hadn't gone for the fry-up, she'd probably be bound by law to get a kebab.

"The Vault is special, though," she says as the waiter departs. "A safe haven, if you like."

She's not sure she believes her- it's an unusual thing to do, tail your father's possible mistress, though admittedly she would probably do something similar. It's possible, she supposes, and her brow creases in a sympathetic expression. "Ah. I'm sure that isn't easy."

She glances back at the bar. "I did offer a drink, unless you want to carry on with your investigation?"

"It's a bit more acceptable to be xenian there," she observes reflectively, off that last point and after declining anything further for herself from the waiter. It's also worth noting that sometimes that acceptance - the social currency of xenians in the Vault, where they're even sought after - veers further into fetishizing, but given the purpose of the place, that's not anything Ilde finds startling.

There's a fine line between pushing a story too hard and making it believable enough, and Steph is unsure which side she's on right now, "It isn't. I don't know how to convince him to break it off before mom finds out."

She wonders idly how her mom would have reacted if Arthur had ever cheated on her, but that would've required being conscious of her surroundings.

"I think it might be best to leave it for tonight," because it's not just the risk of getting caught by a hypothetical mistress. If Steph gets caught by someone with ties to the militia, she might not ever come back, "But shouldn't I be offering you a drink? I did interrupt your evening, after all."

Now that she isn't focused on the other woman, she's starting to pay attention to Irene, and she seems familiar. Although Steph can't place her, she's curious enough to want to stay.

"Which is nice, I'm sure," she says thoughtfully, "but a kick in the teeth, as well." She pauses before explaining herself, glancing off into the restaurant; they are two of four patrons, neither of whom are talking. It's strange- otherworldly, again. Everything's otherwordly when you're awake at five AM.

And dining with a faery.

"'Be yourself, as long as we can fuck you.'" Hello. She doesn't swear often ~~the BBC would get in trouble for it~~. She sounds almost absent-minded, though, rather than up-in-arms. "Or perhaps I'm a cynic."

"There is that," with almost brittle wryness; it's not an inaccurate cynicism and Ilde has never been the most pollyanna of girls. (Or at home with that-- it was tiresome before captivity and it's nearly impossible in Baedal, when she has this kneejerk bitterness towards people who have anything to go home to.) "The sense of, um, novelty."

This is a conversation that Ilde couldn't have right now if Irene displayed that - that expectation of strangeness, that attitude of default vs the other, the way humans look at her like she exists to provoke them and as though she's something they need to get used to. It's not fair, sometimes, to hate the adjustment period that is in many cases natural and without malice; it's just something that tends to score deep into the scars Prometheus left when they spent five years teaching her that she isn't a person, that she's worth less than a human and that this should be taken as simple basic fact.

That she isn't humanity's biggest fan isn't really the most shocking thing about her, all things considered.

Irene expects novelty from everyone. No, a correction: Irene hopes for novelty from everyone. She's come to acknowledge that most people don't give it. They can be interesting, but rarely surprising. If Ilde is strange and new- and she is- then so much for the better, but all the humans she's liked were strange and new. Putting it down to species would reveal a lack of ingenuity. Her eyebrows quirk up to articulate that- how stupid.

"Not much fun for you, I'm sure," she remarks. She's slightly less put-together than usual; a night of drinking will do that to you. Her lipstick could do with re-application, her eyeliner is no longer the clinically perfect curve that it once was and her hair is threatening to uncoil from its rigid updo one strand at a time. Of course, considering that they've just been discussing removing people's pretenses, perhaps that's fitting. "I like novelty- I'm only human- but it's best when it's mutual, isn't it? Mutual and surprising, rather than sought out and based on assumption."

Which isn't to say she doesn't test people, poking at their limits and trying to get them to think in new ways- but that's different, isn't it? That's a matter of trying to make sparks fly.

"The conversation we have because I'm Ilde and you're Irene, instead of the conversation that doesn't happen when one person is human and the other one isn't." She isn't entirely sure that she's expressing herself as well as she wants to - when she writes poetry it comes naturally if not cleanly, but she falters in conversation and words trip her up, meaning one thing in her head and another when they come out to be interpreted by somebody else's experience - but this is interesting (and, yes, novel-- this is not a conversation that she's had before and she wants to follow it to see where it leads) and post-drunk at some absurd hour of the morning is the perfect time to worry less and say more.

She's always more talkative when she's been drinking, it's just what it does to her.

"When it's that, it's always 'one thing, one not', isn't it? Defined by negative space. And then it isn't a conversation, it's..." A gesture, restless; she pulls back and frowns for a moment while she finds her way through what she's trying to say. "A play script in somebody's head, and everything gets interpreted through that filter."

A moment later-- "And that's boring."

A slow smile spreads across Irene's face. It's utterly genuine. It's always nice to find someone who shares an opinion with you, of course- but more than that, she enjoys how Ilde phrases it. She certainly doesn't think she's tripped up anywhere.

And that word- boring- that word brings her back a bit. Boring. Sherlock Holmes' favourite insult. In some ways, that had irritated her a little- she had always made her way in the world, had always made her own fun, while he lounged around waiting for someone to get mysteriously murdered and called the world boring in the meantime- but she has always agreed that to be boring is a cardinal sin.

"Yes." Emphatic and husky, pleased, strangely proud- you've got it. "A script- I like that. A conversation between archetypes, not people. Tedious and impersonal."

That girlish satisfaction that Irene has already caught a glimpse of is more self-assured, here; reinforcement always does a body good, but it's the assurance that she's been clear that she needed, more than validation. She's confident here, where she'd deferred to Irene earlier on sexuality and exposure, and most of all what pleases her is that her company seems pleased-- it is so easy for her to become invested, that way, and she doesn't always notice herself doing it.

(Sometimes it's hard not to think humans where she should be thinking person, and there's something pleasantly unfettered about a conversation where the distinction barely crosses her mind outside of intellectual speculation. To sit here and not second-guess.)

"I think it doesn't matter what happens or what's said, if expectations are in the driver's seat like that." She considers, turning her fork over in her hands, before she adds, "I think if you always assume you know what you're looking at, you won't ever learn anything interesting. And you're never surprised."

Wiggling her bare toes in the store's fluffy carpeting, Cindy purses her lips to one side just before noticing the dark-haired woman watching her. There's an easy answer to that question and it comes in the form of Cindy ripping off the bow herself and tossing it to the ground.

"As a matter of fact, I do." Hey, she broke it, she'll pay for it. Who's going to argue with her?

"Maybe." She looks thoughtful, tipping her head back. "You're certainly never pleasantly surprised. If you've got a plan in your mind and someone deviates from it, challenges the things you believed in--" She breaks off, shrugs, lets the obvious conclusion hang in the air.

"People get angry when you prove them wrong."

She is no exception- but at least she's aware of it. Her solution, therefore, is to always try to be right. (No, no one said it was perfect). She is, however, usually too good with people to go in with assumptions, or at least she tries to acknowledge that they are assumptions rather than fact. As Ilde's said- you don't learn anything otherwise.

That's greeted not with shock and horror but by Irene throwing her head back and giving a proper laugh, looking positively delighted.

"Much better," she says. "Something to be said for taking matters into your own hands."

(Had it been her, she might have gotten someone else to rip it off and then tried to get a discount due to damage- but that is just Irene being Irene, and she admires the other woman for having the guts and presence of mind to pull it off).

The investment in one's own being right is something Ilde is familiar with - she doesn't carry it as confidently or as expertly, yet, but it's so good to have goals and there are worse ones than striving to stay a step ahead. It requires a lot of examination of the world, a willingness to be always asking questions in one way or another (if not the traditional one--), and the ability to find almost anyone fascinating for at least a little while makes it very hard to get bored.

Prejudice and expectation trip her up more than she'd like (because it feels like a vulnerability, a tell where she doesn't want there to be one, this is what hurt me and now you can see where I'm damaged), but then there's a lot of growing she has still to do, emotionally even if she's never going to be taller than 5'3" in barefeet.

"People are always getting angry about something," she says, reflectively, sliding her thumb along the handle of her knife like she's thinking about something-- else that can be done in response to irritating people, or maybe just to keep her hands busy while she isn't smoking. Hard to say. "You'd think they'd at least have the decency to be more entertaining about it more often."

"Yes we did." Martha smiled a bit, remembering the woman and how she hadn't actually offered her name, and how Martha herself hadn't pressed for it. "It's nice to meet you in person, Irene. How are you finding the city?"

"I find leather more easy than velvet. At least with leather, it's easier to wipe things off before they set in." For Ana, this often means blood under the guise of the Baroness, but she knew that it could be interpreted in more than one way.

The grin was met and matched. "Ana Lewis. It's lovely to meet you, Irene."

There's a change. It's immediate and it's absolute. This may be Odessa's first time in a club like this, but it's not her first time in this sort of setting. Her gaze locks on Irene's and it does not waver. There's no playing at it, no acting like this might not have been what she had in mind all along.

But there's a tension. It coils up her arms, sets her shoulders a little tight, makes her posture a little rigid. The moment is familiar, but the woman is not. "What do I call you?" she asks in a voice that still manages to sound like a whisper over the din around them.

Don lets out a sigh, weary but good-natured. A laugh that's run out of steam. "Any more tired and I'd need help lifting this glass." His smile's slightly abashed and hangs crooked; he wears a white button-down rumpled from the day's exertions, no tie.

He raises his drink to her in a wry toast, takes a swallow. Closes his eyes for that moment when everything starts to ache a little less or maybe just differently. "Not quite," he says, casting a glance at the poster on top of the heap. "These're ads."

No, the shock and horror is coming from the shopgirl over at the register, but this is a pricey boutique. She's been trained to keep her mouth shut about the people who are coming to drop big marks on designer duds.

A girl can't depend on anybody but herself," Cindy muses, turning back to the mirror and ripping off a couple more stray thread. It does look much better. The bow made it seem like she had something to hide at her waistline and well, she wasn't Jack Sprat's wife. It was unnecessary. Also, who said she wasn't going to still ask for a discount?

In her reflection, Cindy can watch the woman inspecting the earring display, to which she clucks her tongue. "Don't buy those here. They're cheaper at the shop on Steper Road in East Gidd." One favor for another?

Jim is half distracted as he walks along the sidewalk, studying the screen of his CiD. There are a few messages, nothing important; he sends one to McCoy to find out if he needs to stop for anything on the way home later, or if his CMO needs a hand at the temple.

He's been out all day, hunting for this, looking into that, chasing leads and rumors. He's hungry. He looks up from his CiD long enough to take a quick inventory of his surroundings: dress shop, salon, empty storefront, office, office--and a restaurant, on the other side of the street.

He crosses, tucking his device away in a pocket as he walks, and he reaches the door just as a woman does. He's an officer and a gentleman--and a charmer to boot--so he holds the door open, gesturing with his free hand, offering a warm but polite, not at all presumptuous smile.

"Please," he insists. "After you."

Irene's lips quirk up. Interesting.

"Miss Adler," Irene says, thumb still against Odessa's lip. "The Woman." She moves her hand, trailing the tip of her forefinger down Odessa's chin and then pulling her hand back. "Your name?" It's a command; she doesn't have to shout it or sneer it to make that clear.

She's got her, she's almost sure- and she's yet to name a price. Which is always the best way to do things. At this rate, it isn't going to matter what she says, because this woman is sold. If not now, then later- if she turns away now, she's always going to wonder...and that's a thrilling power to have over somebody.

Irene is dressed up and taking herself to dinner. She does this often; it's good to treat the most important person in your life to something special one in a while, right? Or more frequently.

A smile flickers across Irene's face as he holds the door for her; it's polite, after all. You could call it patronising, but she decides not to; if people want to do things for her (and they so often do) then she's happy to let them.

"Thank you, dear," she remarks with a slightly sharp-edged smile as she slips by him. "I'm glad good manners haven't kicked the bucket just yet."

Irene laughs, a low, appreciative chuckle. "You'd think, but people in general are just so selfish."

She says it jokingly, but honestly the core philosophy rings true with her. The world, to her, is kill or be killed, and she isn't anyone's prey. It's as simple as that. The only way to fight back against it is to be really good at being selfish.

She's weighing up her voice- vaguely familiar- and trying to match it to one of the numerous voices she's heard over the network. (Not all of them have been addressing; serves her cohort-mates right for leaving the conversation public).

"Not at all," Irene says calmly. "Nothing like a little subterfuge to make a night more interesting."

She smiles, but her eyes are hard. It's intentional; a trick she's fond of. No one who really has nothing to hide worries about things, but a guilty conscience will pick up on every little tell and- hopefully- react accordingly. "I'll have a whiskey sour, though, if you insist."

Irene chuckles, turning to face Ana more fully rather than darting between her and the mirror; here, you've earned my full attention.

"Likewise, I'm sure. I like a bit of leather myself- but I usually prefer it on other people, actually. I think velvet's a bit more me. A bit subtler." A beat. "Of course, at times, subtlety gets you nowhere."

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→ sweet dreams are made of this.

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some restaurant, newdi evening

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