Warren Eliot (deductively) wrote in bellumlogs, @ 2010-04-08 16:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | irene adler, sherlock holmes |
[Log] - Iris and Eliot in the library with...
Who: Iris Thorpe and Warren Eliot
What: Unexpected library run-in.
Where: The nearest branch of the New York Public Library, and a coffee shop across the street from it.
When: About a week after the fables plot.
Warnings: Eliot being a dbag, as per. And length.
Iris was not typically a great fan of surprises. If she was surprised, that usually meant she miscalculated somewhere, and in her line of work, miscalculations generally meant mistakes, and mistakes could get dangerous. Once she dragged the rectangular object into her living room and took off the wrapping, however, she was placated to discover that this particular surprise was not meant to be alarming at all. She stood there for a while, studying the piece, and came to a strong solid decision that she had never been to that city before. The palm trees indicated a tropical location, which narrowed things to a small extent. The prominent Italian dome was misleading and contrary to the flora, so she dismissed it temporarily and concentrated on the rest of the image. A waterway that was not strongly eroded by tides; that eliminated most of the California coast, which she was familiar with, and the architecture eliminated the rest of the tropical edge of the Pacific coast. She contemplated a while longer, then, leaving the frame propped up against the wall of the living room, she went out into the city.
She dropped her bag over the opposite shoulder to confound amateur pickpockets, made sure anything of real value was secured deep under her plaid coat, and boarded public transportation. She headed to a branch of the NYPL she didn't work at; it was a larger branch and had a decent linguistics section, and she wanted to confirm her suspicions about the image before she decided where to hang it. As she idly watched the crowd flow through the biting cold, she wondered if Micah intended to weigh her down with belongings in an attempt to ground her at Bellum Letale. Even before he saw the apartment, she found that course logical, and she was not of Holmes' opinion that rational thought must be unbiased to be correct.
At the library, she found what she was looking for under call number 972.91. She studied the photo for a while, then smiled. She had never been to Cuba or Havana, and had no associations, good or bad, with the skyline. She decided to hang the painting in the small hallway to the bedroom. It would take up the whole wall, and she did not have to look at it if some day she decided she didn't want to, while on the other hand, she could turn her head and see it every day if she chose. Very good.
She stepped out of the history section onto a wide marble balcony to get her bearings and locate Dewey Decimal 414, smiling to herself while she thought of how many worthless pieces of art she had hung on walls that she had later sold for fifty times their worth, and how this one might contrast.
Eliot flipped through the pages of the history book in his hands, his eyes seemingly skipping from page to page as he quickly flicked through them. He had come to the larger branch of the New York Public Library early that morning, first to go through old newspaper clippings, and then any writings about the part of town Bellum Letale was in. Knowing well the Library's policy on drinks and cigarettes, he had downed several cups of coffee before even coming in, so that despite it being several hours later, there was still probably more caffeine pumping through his veins than blood. He had known that the work ahead of him would be pretty cut and dry, as far as research went, but Eliot was used to long hours of diligence for very little reward.
That was what private investigation was, in the end. Hours and hours of poring over pointless minutia. What made one investigator better than another was his ability to sift through the junk, and join the tiniest dots until finally a picture emerged. And Warren Eliot, one of the best in the field, was very, very good at connecting the dots.
His search on the history of his apartment building had turned up very little so far. A couple of police reports, completed investigations, nothing out of the ordinary for a building in the middle of town. If anything, Eliot was struck by the lack of dark business, no building that old could be that clean.
Eliot exhaled and stood up from the table his books had been spread out on. Once he was done with this book, he was going to take his long since earned cigarette break. Leaning a shoulder against a bookshelf, he stretched his neck and skimmed what seemed like the umpteenth article on the architectural history of New York City. He caught the hint of a familiar figure out of the corner of his eye, and his head snapped to attention just as his stomach plummeted.
Iris. What the hell was she doing here? The fact that she could just have been using a public facility the same as he was never occurred to him. He had learned over the better part of a decade that nothing was accidental when it came to Iris. No, it was far more likely that she had followed him here or heard that he was in the library, and come to harass him in her usual, thoroughly irritating manner. Eliot set his jaw but remained as he was, leaning coolly against a row of books, glaring daggers at the woman in front of him.
Iris didn't need to feel the gaze. She too was thoroughly aware of her environment at all times, though in a slightly different manner than she had been in the past. Certain events and times had made her cautious, and when her spine prickled in just that way, she turned smoothly as if to walk on her way, then paused when she got a clean look of Eliot's scowl coming out of the shadows between two stacks. She paused to accommodate the slight flutter under her sternum, then flashed a jeweled smile at him and moved his way.
Both Iris and Eliot studied body language, disguise and expression techniques that focused on the impression one human could give another. Iris generally made a point of forcing Eliot to study hers. There was a serpentine jaunt to her hips, a mild curve to her smile, a set to her posture and an absolutely unmistakable come hither that she indulged mostly because he knew he would resist just to be stubborn. She got close enough so that unidentifiable perfume of hers reached him and then said, "How's the investigation coming?"
His brow furrowed as he raised his chin, effectively dismissing the offer Iris's every move had been making. Eliot did this without thinking, as though the practice of brushing off the suggestive advances of beautiful women was all in a day's work for him. While it may not exactly be true, Eliot did have practice as far as Iris was concerned, and if it not for the events of that strange day right after he had moved in, he would have simply turned around and walked away.
As it was, something held him glued to the spot, a memory of her he very much wanted to forget, a feeling in his stomach that Sherlock Holmes had brought with him when he had taken over that day. That stupid detective's crush was making life very uncomfortable for Eliot, and the sooner Eliot figured out how to completely compartmentalize his fictional counterpart's residual emotion, the better it would be.
"Thrilling," he finally replied flatly, his voice betraying nothing of his actual feelings on the subject. "You come across anything helpful?" He asked, quirking a brow as he snapped the book in his hand shut. He didn't bother hiding the title as he crossed his arms in front of him. For one thing, the book was useless. For another, Iris knew what he was looking for and had probably caught enough of a glimpse of the cover to find it later, even if he had wanted to keep it secret. Eliot wasn't actually expecting Iris to be of any help, but engaging her in conversation seemed like a better option that a glare match.
Not that he hadn't tried his fair share of those in the past.
Yes, though Eliot liked to glare, Iris liked being looked at, so that didn't much help him in the long run. Willingly she moved a little closer, the layered skirts that clung a bit close from the knee up making soft swishing noises as she made an accompanying alto hmmm in the back of her throat. She tipped her chin up sideways, making a show of reading the title, then settled back on her heels (one-and-one-half inch, comfortable but utterly, devastatingly feminine). "I didn't do any research on the building when I moved in," Iris said, brushing her hair back behind her ear that revealed the swan line of her neck and the curve of her collarbone. She preferred to assume he meant resources on his mission here, not hers. "I'm afraid I can't help you. Did you find any frightening ghost stories?" Iris tended to acquire a bit of a Londoner's accent around Eliot. She did it both to taunt him and to worm into that subconscious of his.
Eliot's lip twitched as the back of his mind noted the change in speech. With the events of their last interaction still emblazoned in his memory, the hint of the London accent made him slightly uncomfortable, even if he could not exactly pinpoint why. The rational part of him (which was essentially all of him) knew that Irene Adler was American and so the accent should make no difference, but logic and reason had little do with what had happened during those twenty-four hours. Unwilling to let Iris get the upper hand on him, Eliot showed no reaction to anything except the words themselves. Iris wasn't the only one who could play their cards close to their chest.
His eyes followed her fingers as they pushed the hair behind her ear, bringing to mind the time Eliot had done the very same thing. Damn the woman, she was doing this on purpose. She knew he was trying to forget what had happened and was trying to prevent exactly that. This was a day like any other where she tried to bait him, except chances were that she knew as well as he did just how much harder it was for him to fight temptation today.
"Nothing in the last few decades." Being thorough took time, which meant Eliot had barely gotten past the eighties in his research. "How about the tenants? Anything you left out...?" his voice died before it got to the words 'that night?', but they didn't need to be said out loud to be understood.
If Iris knew how damn well it was working, she would have backed off, as hard as that was to believe. Eliot was a bit too good for her though, and aside from the fact that she was getting to him, she didn't realize how quickly his mind started making connections--she was too busy with her own facade. Irene would find the whole conversation very engaging, and Iris felt the same. She made that soft humming noise of thought again in response to his quick answer, then to the next question she said, "That depends." Smiling like the Queen of Sheba on a particularly hot day, she moved closer still and took his elbow with her as she turned. "Buy me a latte, and we can gossip about our neighbors all you like." She was wearing a touch of gardenia to accent that intoxicating aroma of hers. It made the dusty air warm around her.
Eliot froze in place when she pulled on his elbow, the muscles in his stomach and lower back clenched. The severity of the reaction stunned him. It wasn't as though they had never touched before. He stared at the side of her face as he considered his options. Pulling her hand off of him and walking away would be the easiest of options, and it would give him to figure out what the hell was going on with him. But he needed to know about Bellum Letale, and he doubted he'd find a better source than Iris anytime soon. The woman had spent over half her life studying and analyzing her surroundings, and was probably as likely to notice the minutia as he was. He knew her well enough to know that she would not be making the offer to share what she knew again any time soon, and he either had to take her up on it now or resign himself to other sources.
"Fine." He exhaled sharply, pulling his elbow firmly out of her grasp. If he was going to have to suffer through the emotional upheaval that bastard in his brain was bringing on, he was damn well not going to go through it while touching her. Eliot dropped his book on the table and sped towards the balcony, making sure to keep some distance between Iris and himself. "I don't have all day," he said crankily, crossing his arms as he waited for her to catch up.
Iris did a fine job of hiding her hurt and disappointment--mostly because she saw it coming a mile away. She entertained the idea of a grumpy but grudgingly willing Eliot escorting her as something equivalent to a child's fantasy, a misty castle in the clouds padded by waterfalls and accompanied by plucking string music. She hardly attempted to detain him (force was not the way to deal with Warren Eliot) but she forgot to drop her hand until several seconds later when he paused. Covering it with a smooth shift of her weight like a ballet dancer in a pirouette, she stepped out onto the marble behind him.
She did not hurry. There was the sway again, the swish of skirts audible even under the soft background noises of the library, the click of her heels the strongest step within hearing. "Yes you do," she said, in a soft teasing voice, the musical quality not at all affected by the pseudo-rejection. "I doubt there is anything much higher on your priority list than banishing Mr. Holmes." Significant pause. "Though why you should want to rid yourself of the influence of such a brilliant, rational mind, I do not know." Without giving him time for an immediate answer, she turned and descended toward the marble stairs and the double doors that led to the street.
Eliot was not surprised by Iris's slow pace; if anything, he had expected it. She would slow down when he was in a hurry just to be contrary, just to be Iris freaking Thorpe. His mouth drew together tightly at the mention of Mr. Holmes. For her to say that so calmly, he must be doing a worse job of hiding his discomfort about the man in his head than he had thought. "I don't need another brilliant mind," he said matter-of-factly as she walked by him, without a trace of smugness in his voice. If there was one thing about himself Eliot was certain about, it was his intellectual prowess. "This one was good enough to catch you, wasn't it?" He couldn't help adding, quickly descending a few stairs until he was caught up to her.
Obligingly she matched his step to his, leaning close as they maneuvered through the busy New York sidewalk so that she might as well have taken his arm. The limp was almost unnoticeable, and while she was mostly healed (to be in those heels, she must be) she wasn't at one hundred percent. It was not worth the excessive measures to avoid revealing that weakness to Eliot, so she didn't try. Instead she just watched her step without looking down, and smiled mistily over the heads of the people in front of them. "Where would you be without me around to affirm your superiority, Warren?" Something about her tone seemed to imply that catching wasn't as easy as he thought it was.
Eliot cast her a sidelong glance as they made their way through the crowd to the coffee shop. "Don't flatter yourself, Iris. There's plenty of other con artists out there waiting to be caught." She was smart, yes, but she wasn't any different from the rest. Eliot told himself. Once they were the requisite distance away from the entrance to the library, he fished in his cigarette case and lighter out of his coat pockets and gave himself the nicotine fix he so badly needed to make it through the rest of the conversation. He didn't bother offering Iris a smoke, as he was familiar enough with her distaste for them. It took less than fifteen seconds to light the cigarette and take a long drag, the fire in his lungs soothing his nerves instantly.
"I notice you're not doing any catching," she returned, smooth as silk. His dismissal of her own skills didn't bother her. Iris was not possessed of an excessive ego, and if she had arrogance it was only an acknowledgment of her own skills to get the job. She didn't need anyone else to acknowledge them, unless it was to force Eliot to notice her. It was all very preschool playground. It amused her the way a game should and engaged her heart the way a game should not, a dangerous combination. "In fact, I notice you're not doing much at all. Researching an apartment building? Really Warren." The scolding sounded British enough that she raised a brow at the cigarette as if he was patching up a bleeding wound.
Iris stopped abruptly to prevent him from continuing forward, rotated ninety degrees with a turn of her heel, and presented a cafe with green umbrellas. "Here we are. You'll want to put that out." She smiled at him.
Of course she had caught on. Eliot didn't bother denying the accusation. Iris had seen him at his most determined, his most passionate, and the difference between then and now would have been obvious even to the non-observant. "What happened has something to do with the building," he shrugged simply, taking another drag. "And stop calling me that." The only person who was allowed to call Eliot by his first name was his mother. Even his father had stopped the practice years ago, sticking to 'son' whenever his wife was in earshot, and Eliot when she was not. Eliot had essentially appropriated his last name as his first years ago, and only the most stubborn people refused to acknowledge it as such. "You sound like my mother." Hopefully that would dissuade her.
Iris was the definition of stubborn when it came to Eliot. Otherwise she would have given up a long time ago, and left him to his own self-destructive devices, and gone to cheat people out of their money on the other side of the planet. "It is your name. It's a very nice name," she said, as if he was just ashamed of it, and like a little boy, needed soothing on the issue.
Eliot took his time, inhaling deeply and intently. It had been hours since his last smoke, and he'd be damned if he would put this out before he had to. Nodding quickly to Iris to acknowledge her, he continued to puff on the cigarette, until it was almost down to its filter. "Alright," he finally said, putting the butt out on the ashtray on top of a garbage can, "let's get you that latte." There was no excitement in his voice, simply resignation to a fate he could not avoid.
Iris stood her ground. "If you're going to be rude about it, I can make coffee at home, and keep my own counsel," she said, with a hint of steel.
Eliot looked at her incredulously for a second, before pulling the door open for her. The expression on his face asked Better? He sighed as he gestured for her to go inside. This was going to be a long conversation, especially if she kept threatening to leave every two minutes.
"Listen, Thorpe," he began hesitantly, "how about we make a deal? I'll try to stay civil, and you stop threatening to walk out after everything I say." Warren Eliot was trying very hard. He really wanted the information she had.
It amused her how he was so carefully using her last name, and how well he managed with the door and the irritation she knew he felt. She moved past and inside, where the familiar scent was largely overtaken by ground coffee and steamed milk. She stood in line, brushing her fingers idly over the seam of her handbag, avoiding looking at him so that he didn't become so irritable that he exploded in addiction-deprived temper.
She shot him a look of surprise, hardly one that was uncontrolled but honest surprise nonetheless. "We have a deal," she said, gamely, unable to quite suppress a smile this time. "I want one of those." She pointed at a chalked sign by the door that showed that day's feature, a raspberry confection of more sugar than coffee and a lot of repeating Italian syllables.
Eliot's eyes grew wide when he saw the drink she was pointing to. Whatever the hell the abomination was, it was not coffee. Shaking his head slightly he headed towards the counter, ordering four large black coffees and one of the frou frou contraptions Iris claimed to want to drink. Once he had fished the necessary amount of bills out of his wallet to pay the barista, he led Iris to a table by the window.
The drinks would take a few minutes to be prepared, and Eliot was at a loss for whether or not to jump right into what she knew about Bellum Letale while they waited. "So when did you meet Braden?" he asked casually, fingering the napkin dispenser on the table. He had wondered about their relationship when he had seen them interacting at the hospital, but hadn't had the chance to ask Micah for more information. His curiosity wasn't of a jealous nature, but more of an idle one.
Iris took the seat by the window so the sun was behind her. It made her dark hair auburn and made it slightly more difficult to look her in the eye and examine her expressions. It was entirely instinctual and she caught herself arranging her skirts the way Irene would sweep her dress. Deliberately, she put her hands on the table, relaxed her fingers, and settled back in her chair. The curve of her neckline was absolutely cheating. "I fell down the stairs," she said, seriously. "Someone brought me back to the second floor, and he stopped by to look at my ankle. You noticed, of course." She raised her eyebrows at him.
The sunlight didn't bother Eliot. It would make facial cues a little harder to read, yes, but it certainly wouldn't be the first time Iris had made things harder for him. A brow shot up when she told him what happened. Every move the woman ever made (as far as he knew, at least) was predetermined and deliberate. The odds of her just falling down stairs were almost non-existent. "How did you fall?" Was she having trouble with the neighbors already?
"Down," she said, smiling. Iris leaned forward a little, quite generously considering her neckline, and said in a lowered voice, "I do have accidents sometimes, Warren. Human, after all." She lightened up on the London accent for him on that one, and her cat's smile as she leaned back said it was intentional just for him.
The corner of his lip tugged upwards in a half-smile. She knew as well as he did that he had noticed. For years now, they had made it a point to notice everything about each other. "Would've asked earlier, but had other things to worry about." Such as how the hell she got out of the can in the first place. "Lucky you, meeting the... spirited young doctor accidentally." It was impossible to tell whether he believed her or not.
"It wasn't an accident. I mentioned it on the forums and he stopped by. He's very persistent." Iris said this in an informational tone, as if he didn't know this intimately. "And extremely intelligent. You'll want to watch yourself around that one, he's not going to fall for your--" her musical voice went even more sing-song--"'leave me alone I am a vicious person at everyone who looks at me twice' act."
Eliot leaned back in his own chair, forcing his eyes to not drift from her face. He was acutely aware of exactly what the cut of her blouse was revealing as she leaned towards him, but he would not give her the satisfaction of being distracted by it. A part (albeit a small one) was actually glad that despite what had happened the last time they had coffee at a table, she still remained classically Iris. Not that he would ever describe her as predictable, of course.
"He's smart, yeah, but he's also way too damn pushy." Eliot couldn't be sure whether the Micah he knew was the one she did; he had seen many men act out of character when Iris was involved. "And what do you mean by act?" Eliot's name was called out before Iris could have a chance to respond, and he got up and brought over the tray from he glass counter. Once he had placed the unnaturally pink drink in front of her, he pulled off the top of one of the coffees and began to drink it as it came - black as night and blisteringly hot.
Iris got her amusement under control by the time Eliot returned, and she set the straw to her lips like a hummingbird for a few moment before picking up the thread of conversation again. "No one gets anywhere with you unless they are pushy," she pointed out fondly, looking down at the row of coffee cups and saying much with her silence.
Eliot's twisted into something that was halfway between a pout and a grimace. He could hear her non-words loud and clear, and he didn't want to hear it. Eliot was well aware of just how addicted he was to caffeine without needing to be chastised for it. Trying to kick the smoking habit was hard enough; he would never make it without his daily dose of coffee. "They would as long as they didn't try to pry into my personal affairs," he said simply, without any significant look to give her a clue as to whether he was talking about Micah or her.
"My dear, you are about as private as a bar. You're on public record or the front page. Only your thoughts are private, and you're stingy enough with those." She turned her cup in place and let the melting ice puddle underneath it.
He took a final swig from his first cup before responding. "Not all of my work is public record." Eliot eyed her as he pulled the top off another cup. "But you're well aware of that." He leaned slightly forward, placing an elbow on the edge of the table as another thought struck him. "Speaking of private thoughts, how are you dealing with that? You don't find his constant queries... intrusive?"
Iris' gaze came up. She was fortunate to have that blue-gray color easily altered by contacts and makeup, but now they seemed dark and opaque with the light so bright behind her. "I don't know," she said, with a light air he must find patently false despite how well her voice and expression matched it. "It's been a long time since anyone cared about my private thoughts."
"Not that long," he said with a half smile, "not even two years yet." Eliot had spent the better part of six years trying to figure out what went on in the head of he woman sitting across from him, which in his book, was pretty much the definition of caring about her private thoughts. "Still," he pressed on, not wanting to stray from the topic, "you have no problems with him trying to find out what makes you tick?" His tone was obviously disbelieving, but there might also have been the smallest hint of jealousy behind it.
She did not smile back, only looked enigmatic in her halo. "I said 'care,' not 'find out.'" Iris clearly differentiated between the two, and she would sit patiently until he connected the two wires and understood what she was saying. After a moment's consideration, she put the straw between her lips again and sucked, idly waiting for a reply.
"Your thoughts mattered," he said flatly, taking a swig of coffee in an attempt to keep civil. "How is that not caring?"
Now she smiled, though behind her careful, flawless facade, she could not have been farther from amusement. A moment later she sat back in her seat, abandoning the cup while she folded her arms over her ribs. "So, who would you like to gossip about, hm?"
Eliot missed the fake smile, his attention once again diverted by his coffee. The abrupt change of topic caught him slightly off guard, and it took him a moment to collect his thoughts. "Right." Where the hell should he start? What he really wanted to know was why they had all had their minds invaded by fictional personae, but that would also mean delving into Holmes's feelings once again. No, that was better left for later. Gruesome murders were much better a jumping off point. "Our neighbors. Any of them as dangerous as rumors make them out to be?"
"There was great animosity between the man in P4 and the one that once lived in 804," Iris said, with the air of a storyteller speaking through the smoke and snap of a campfire. "Considering that it is 804 who is dead, and P4 who lives, that says much." She paused a moment. "The rumors of 601 date back several months. The wolf sightings from the other night seem to confirm these. No one else jumps out as being overwhelmingly dangerous, but one never knows." She raised both eyebrows.
Eliot nodded, as his brain quickly wrapped around the facts she was spouting. P4. It always came back to P4. Eliot was definitely going to need to do undercover surveillance on the penthouse occupant before this case was through. He had already decided to go through the man's previous records once he had thoroughly researched the building, but he might need to up the priority on matter. "So you actually think we have a shape-shifting werewolf of sorts in the building?" Eliot managed to keep incredulity out of his voice. Until he had cold hard facts to deal with, he was still going to be unconvinced.
Iris only smiled again.
"I'm sure there are plenty who count as dangerous, but let's just focus on the possibly homicidal right now."
"Then there is someone else who seems to be terrorizing the place. It is theorized this person is male, and made his first appearance during a black out not long ago. He's made no public appearance since, but I strongly doubt that he is gone, judging from the amount of fear he stirred up and the subsequent rumors. However, I'm not even sure said person is a resident, only that he has access to the building." She shut her eyes--or took a very long blink. "That covers the homicidal we know of, I believe."
Eliot nodded and swirled the cup in his hand, wondering if perhaps this mystery person could have been the one responsible for the bow-tie incident. "Makes you wonder why anyone would stay in the building." Every tenant of the building seemed to have experienced the same type or personality shift for those 24 hours, which meant it could be possible they could all be experiencing compulsions to stay in the building as well. What other reason would there be to live in a building with such allegedly murderous neighbors? Even though Eliot relied on the power of gossip only when strictly necessary, he was not unaware of the stock other people put in it.
"Why are you still here?"
Ignoring the direct question, she said, "I think the phenomenon we experienced would be more likely to keep people here than run them off. It doesn't seem to matter if we were actually in the building, and leaving won't solve anything if that's the case."
Eliot furrowed his brow as he stacked his newly emptied cup inside the first one. "Older tenants didn't seem as surprised as we did about all that happened. I think the only way to figure out if anything changes when someone leaves would be to actually find someone who has moved out and ask." He paused, cocking his head to the side in amusement. "Provided they don't just think we're insane and chuck us out." He was so preoccupied by the imagined astonishment on a former tenant's face that he didn't notice his word choice, how he was unintentionally including Iris in whatever it was he had planned.
"Somehow I doubt they would, but I imagine you're accustomed to people not liking your questions." She smiled affectionately at him, and then slurped at her drink again. She had absolutely nowhere that she'd rather be, and fortunately work had called in to tell her she wasn't needed, so she had all day to sit here and watch Warren Eliot scowl as he pondered a problem. After a moment she said, "From the posts, it sounds like R1 left for several weeks, but it didn't make a difference. He's still here, and from the sound of it, quite fuzzy." A flash of white teeth was added to the smile.
"But as you said, he's back," Eliot pointed out good-naturedly. He was feeling much better, now that there was hot caffeine pumping through his veins again. Sitting across the table from Iris wasn't the worst thing in the world anymore, and even the memories of that night had been pushed away by thoughts of his current case. "There might be a difference between leaving temporarily and checking out for good." He shrugged and leaned back in his chair, stretching out his arms before crossing them behind his head. "Hopefully we won't have to deal with that... situation again." Eliot did not like having his brain taken over by another persona, and if it happened again, might just end up moving out to test the theory himself.
Iris let her slim brown eyebrows slide up a bare centimeter so she could let her eyes climb up Eliot's torso in one carefully coordinated movement of lashes. Her smile became a little different. "I wouldn't count on it."
He looked at her straight in the eye. The sun behind it made it slightly more difficult to land his gaze, but when he caught hers he held it. Eliot didn't know why the smile had changed, but it made him uncomfortable enough to bring his hands back down on the table. "Is that a guess, or do you know something?"
She kept her eyes up to meet his proper. "Just a guess." She stood up, abandoning her cup, and shouldered her bag. "I have to head back before the library closes. You let me know if something knew comes up." She closed one eye in a deliberate wink. "I'll do the same." She stepped around the table and wriggled a little to straighten her skirts. "You should do something about that caffeine addiction of yours, Warren."
Of course she would have to leave now, just as he was starting to settle down. Iris wouldn't be Iris if she stuck around when he wasn't fidgety. But at least the day had not gone to waste. He now had more useful information about the building than he had gathered from the books all day, and all it had cost him was some face time with Iris Thorpe and a coffee.
"Sure thing," Eliot said with a half grin, both of them completely aware that he would be doing nothing of the sort. "See you around, Thorpe."