Who: Iris and Micah What: Post-Aaron!trauma (Complete log) Where: 202/206 When: Immediately after this Warnings: Allusions to abuse, mentions of dead!Aaron
Micah had left Cole's, and the first thing he'd done was return to 202 and shower. The water was hot enough to redden his skin, and it still didn't feel hot enough to wash away the horror of what he'd just done.
The sun was still high in the sky when he left 202 dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, his camera slung over his shoulder. He'd gone to a playground first, and he'd snapped pictures there, then the park, then a baseball game. None of it had helped.
In the end, he'd found a makeshift boxing ring in the inner city, in a place where he understood the language, even if the vernacular was a little different. It was a place where the Boriquas were glad to take on the occasional Balsero who wandered into the wrong hood, and where the bets were usually made in white powder and gold chains.
By the time he left a few hours later, his fists were bruised and bloodied, and he'd long since lost his sweatshirt and his camera, but save a few stray punches to his face and ribs, he didn't look any worse for wear. He had a few beers in him, and he was dirty and sweaty, and it had to be the influence of the alcohol that led him back to Bellum Letale instead of to a jinetera, where he could have worked off what was left of his anger at the world.
But he'd climbed the fire escape, and he'd knocked on Iris' window. He hadn't slept since before the moon - going on 40 hours - and he ran the back of his hand under his nose and wiped away blood from the brawl. The sun had dipped low in the sky, and the air on his sweat-slicked skin was cool, and he braced both his hands above her window.
The soft shadow of Iris drifted across the window, but she came quicker than she had before, and when she pulled aside the opaque blinds, the whites of her eyes showed around the shadowed gray, and she pulled the window open immediately. "Micah! What happened?!" She seemed honestly alarmed, and for the first time she put an arm out as if he might need help getting inside the apartment through the relatively small opening. Before, she would take every opportunity to put space between them.
She had come home not very long before, and she had not slept since twenty-four hours earlier, the evening previous. She was still in her work clothes, varying shades of deep sapphire blue, and it made her look young and mysterious, if you didn't look at her face too closely. She caught a whiff of sweat and beer. "Where have you been?"
He looked down at her arm, but he didn't move forward and didn't immediately take the offered help; he didn't actually need it, but her hand looked inviting and the worry in her voice eased his tension somewhat. He wasn't drunk, just buzzed, and he noticed the way the blue ensemble made her look, and he immediately looked to see what she was trying to hide with it. His eyes found hers, and he realized she didn't look like a woman who'd spent the night in the arms of Sherlock Holmes.
The jealousy that reared up inside him at the thought wasn't surprising, but he didn't rise to meet it either. "Beating the shit out of people," he admitted. "Letting them try to beat the shit out of me."
She peered out the window at him. She'd been careful and expert with the soft powders that made up her cosmetics, but there were shadows under her eyes if you knew what to look for, and the vivid blues played up the hint of red blush under the defined cheekbones. She was tired, and she had been trying to hide it.
"Why in the hell would you do that? Come inside and sit down, before you fall down." She pulled back out of the frame, expectant.
When she moved back, he followed, as he was supposed to do. He climbed in the window and into the familiar, if blank, space. The jeans he wore were low on his hips, and he had only a white, sleeveless shirt on, thin and nearly transparent with wear, and all of it was as filthy as the rest of him. He'd been fighting on pavement and dirt, and it showed.
"Watson had a bad night, mamita, and I had an even worse day," he admitted, flopping down on her couch, "Ven y sientate," he told her, not even realizing he'd slipped into Spanish. "Estas cansada."
"You've got blood on your face," she said, sounding disapproving rather than critical or anxious. She had turned to get a cloth or something from the kitchen, but she stopped when he mentioned Watson. She rotated back to look at him, brow shadowed. "What? What happened to Watson? What happened to you?" She didn't even begin to make a move to obey him and sit.
He looked up at her from where he was sitting, and his gaze dragged heavy and wanting along her body, but he stopped himself almost as soon as he started. "Sit down, Iris, and we'll talk." He smiled then, dimples in place, but the smile not reaching his eyes. "You look bella in that blue, but you're dead on your feet. Vamos."
That look made Iris wanted to retreat, and she rolled her lip under her teeth, but didn't move. Turning (far more difficult than not retreating, showing her back), she went in the kitchen, ran the faucet for at least thirty seconds until warm water came out, and wet a washcloth. She wrung it out and then came back into the living room, taking a seat on the cheap coffee table facing him. She gestured a little for him to lean forward. "You're filthy."
Luckily for both of them, he was still sober enough to catch the roll of lip under teeth and to attribute it correctly to discomfort with the look he'd given her. It was enough to make him ensure that his expression when he leaned forward was carefully blank. "That happens when you fight outside," he said, and he took the washcloth from her hand, not wanting to make her more uncomfortable than he had a moment earlier; not tonight.
He sighed, and it was a tired, resigned sound. "I was leaving the morgue last night, and the boy, the one that was found in the catacombs dead started knocking on his drawer," he said. If he knew Iris, and he thought he was getting a pretty good handle on the woman, dead Aaron wouldn't be nearly as frightening to her as he, himself, was at that moment.
He rubbed the washcloth over his face. "Tell me about Irene and Holmes."
Iris swallowed her relief and sat back a little as he spoke, though she was left trying to process the impossible. "Go easy," she warned, automatically, when he started taking a layer of skin off. Her thoughts were clearly elsewhere, and she only blinked a little at the mention of Holmes, unwilling to move on from Aaron. "Wait he... he came back? As what?"
He put down the washcloth, and he shook his head. His gaze on hers was steady, honest. "Iris, I need to hear about something else. Please, mamita, just tell me about your noche, si?" he asked, and there was a need in his voice that wasn't normally present, a need for escape that was generally foreign to him. Micah was accustomed to making things happen, and here he was asking her to make this happen for him.
Iris sat back again, palms dragging over her knees, eyes cloudy. Whatever this was, it was bad. "I... they went... out. To a musical." She wasn't hiding it from him, she just didn't know what to say, or what he wanted to hear... or even why he wanted to hear it. "She loved it." Iris shrugged a little, helplessly, as if she couldn't fathom what was there to love in going out to a musical.
He smiled then, at the notion that Irene (at least) had a good night. "Holmes behaved?" he asked, entertained at the notion that Holmes made Eliot go to a musical. He watched her shrug, and he gave her a look that was wrapped in fondness. "Iris, you'd love it if Eliot took you to a musical, bella." He sat back against the couch. "He should. You'd look gorgeous in a formal dress. Do people wear formal dresses to musicals here?" he asked, a little hint that at 'home' they did (or had, once upon a time).
"What about after?" he asked. "Do I owe Eliot a fist to the jaw for anything?" he asked, and it was obvious from the way he looked at her that it was a protective question. He wanted to know if Eliot had hurt her once they'd switched back, and he didn't mean physically.
Iris smiled a little. "I manage. Yes, depending on theatres, you do. Not as stiffly in this country as in Europe, but yes. Irene was more than adequate." She shifted her ribcage over her hips. The corset was incredibly unpleasant compared to what she'd been wearing lately. She admitted to herself that she would rather like being taken out by Eliot. Perhaps he would be flustered and distracted the whole time. That might be nice.
"No. He was just embarrassed. They were... chatty." Iris sighed and pulled at a lock of hair under her ear. She was bone tired and not paying much attention to her body language, which meant she was going to give off signals all over the place. She accepted it.
He watched her, and he listened, and he watched. It was more watching than anything else. She was tired, yes, and she moved in a way that was slightly aching and uncomfortable, but underneath the tiredness there was something good, something that said her night had been a good one. It made him smile, because as much as he would have liked to have seen her enjoying herself, he was glad she hadn't run into him and all his problems the prior evening.
He leaned his head back against the couch, and he looked up at the ceiling. "Can I ask you for something?" he asked, and it was a reluctant question, which promised that the request would be even more reluctant.
Iris, sensing the coming question would not be an easy one, answered with equal reluctance. "Yes?"
"Ven?" he asked. "I won't do anything, won't try anything. Just... ven aqui?" he asked, and he didn't look at her when he asked, because he couldn't quite believe he was asking. Later, he would blame Aaron and the beers. He'd never asked a woman for anything in his life; he'd never had to. Asking for something as simple as this, it was inconceivable. But yet here he was, doing just that.
This was a lot to ask of her; he was aware of that, just as she was, and it made the request mean a little more than it would have if they'd just met. She didn't come immediately, nor did she retreat. She just sat there a moment, looking deceptively serene and cool in the jewel blues. They made her eyes blue, too.
She got up, very carefully, and moving more gingerly than was absolutely necessary, and sat next to him on the couch. Every muscle was strung tight, but she looked up at him with a distant, even tentative, but almost tangible trust.
He didn't move, not at first. Even when she sat down beside him, he didn't shift or even look at her. He knew he was filthy, and he was reluctant to get her dirty. He felt grimy and inhuman enough for the both of them today, and it almost seemed wrong to contaminate her. When he finally did move, it was just to look down at her. She looked so trusting, so scared somehow, and he couldn't bring himself to pull her into his arms. Her need, in that moment, was stronger than his own, and it was enough to be close to her.
He touched her hair, just a few strands that had slipped across her cheek, and he shifted so the outside of his knee pressed against her leg.
That was all he did, just that. He closed his eyes, his fingers still against her cheek, and he was completely silent. He could smell her this close, and he concentrated on that, and he stayed perfectly still.
Her breathing was the loudest thing in the room, something she couldn't seem to keep under control, and while it wasn't quite a pant because she could keep the inhale long, but she felt that he must be able to hear her heart clamoring hard against her chest. It took most of what she had not to pull away from his hand as he reached for her hair, and she wired her muscles even tighter to keep herself from shaking. "Micah?" She wasn't sure what he was doing.
He pulled his hand back within a second, moved his thigh just enough so it did not touch hers, and he stood and put space between himself and the couch, unbelievably sorry for what he'd just asked her for. "Perdóname," he said, and he dragged a hand through his hair, his back to her, shoulders tense and tight.
Iris, confused at why he'd asked for something he didn't want to take, put her arms around her torso and pressed back into the couch without saying anything. She didn't know what else to say, and she wanted to ask him about the boy, but he'd asked her not to talk about it anymore. She didn't know if he wanted to hear about Irene, and she had very little else to tell him that might make him feel better. Iris hadn't ever had to comfort anyone this way.
"His name was Aaron. He'd been dead for days, and he didn't know it," he said, voice utterly monotone as he stared at the blank nothing of the wall in front of him. He didn't add the details of the day, because she was already scared of him; the fact that he could scrub skin off a boy's bones wasn't going to make her think he was any more harmless. "Watson decided he shouldn't take him to Holmes, because Holmes would consider him an experiment," he added, almost talking to himself at this point. "We went to see Cole - he's in 802. The wolf almost bit his leg off last month, and I stitched him up. It was a bloodbath, and it reminded me of being home," he said, not even realizing what he was admitting at this point, so lost in the words that they didn't even mean anything as he said them. "He's a good man, Cole. Trustworthy."
"The boy didn't know?" she asked softly, truly horrified. What would it be like to wake up one day and find out you were dead? To be that young and not have anywhere to go, because there was nothing left to do, nothing left to be? She thought that perhaps Watson underestimated Holmes, and he wasn't as callous as he seemed to be if you woke him up to the situation the right way. That was Irene talking, she realized. She swallowed again to regain her voice. "What did he want? Aaron?"
"Nothing," he said truthfully. "He wanted to know why we'd locked him in a drawer," he said. "He was worried about his dog when he found out, Iris," he said, as if that was the most heartbreaking thing, and his voice broke just a touch on the words, and he straightened his shoulders as if to compensate for the show of emotion.
He was quiet for a moment, and then pulled the note Watson had left in the office from his pocket. He didn't bother to unfold the tiny square. He just held it back to her without turning to look at her.
Iris had to swallow the lump in her throat again. That was truly awful. The poor boy. She couldn't remember ever experiencing life so simply as to be worried about a pet in such a situation. She was still trying to find words when he held the bit of paper out, and she didn't hesitate and was soon upright to pluck the note from his fingertips.
She read it, and sank slowly back down on the couch. "Oh Watson. That was not fair," she said, softly.
He turned then, when she was safely back on the couch, and he crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the wall. "You don't understand, Iris. For him, he comes back every 29 days, and he's alone. He never gets to see the woman he loves, he never gets to be with anyone who cares about him. He's here, and he's lonely, and he aches, and then he's gone. He doesn't go somewhere else where his life returns to normal, and he has nothing here," he said, his voice speeding up as he spoke. "And he spent the entire night with a dead boy who didn't know he was dead, and who he had to tell he was dead. And then he thought he was going to have to kill a wolf or a lion on the stairs. It wasn't a very good night for him."
Iris folded up the note again. "I don't care." She stood up, dropping the note on the coffee table, and took a couple steps in his direction, and then stopped. She squared her shoulders. "This is not your responsibility, Micah. You are not responsible for every horrible thing that happens in this building." Another step, and tipping her head down in an attempt to catch his eyes with her serious ones. "Are you listening?"
He looked down at her, and his eyes said there was something he wasn't telling her, something that had pushed him to bloody his fists and try to drink it away. It was in the haunted look in his eyes, eyes that had already seem war and death every day. The look said he'd just seen worse, done worse.
He almost touched her, almost. His fingers opened, flexed, and then he pressed back against the wall. He didn't want to see fear in her eyes. Not right now. Not today. "Tell me about the theater."
Iris didn't like that look. She knew how to read people--did it for a profession, in fact, and she would have counted herself one of the best in the world if it wasn't for that one colossal mistake--and she knew something was wrong. "What? What is it?" She stood her ground and shook her head slowly when he asked about the theater. No, this wasn't about that.
He closed his eyes, and he fought the desire to reach for her. He was giving away too much in this conversation, he knew. He was too raw and too transparent.
He couldn't help it.
"Cole found his fairy tale," he said, without opening his eyes, not wanting to see the horror on her face. "He died again when the sun came up, but he'll be back next month- Aaron. We spent the day getting his- making sure what was left of him was- Que el pudiera-"
His voice broke, and he went silent. He couldn't tell her more than that; he wasn't sure he could put it into words, not even if he tries, not even if he knew he should.
Iris pressed her hand to her mouth, but it didn't entirely smother the quick inhale of understanding. "He comes back... like he... oh. Oh God." She didn't retreat, just stood there with her fingers against her lips, staring blankly, trying to comprehend what kind of hell they'd ended up in. She took in another breath, this one hoarse and damp, and then tried to gulp her revulsion down. "At least you cared enough to... to bother," she finished, almost helpless, unable to come up with anything better.
When she couldn't see past the pain in his face, she took a very small step nearer and touched his elbow with her fingertips.
He heard the revulsion in her voice, expected it, and so it didn't surprise him. Still, he didn't open his eyes, because he didn't want to see it on her face. "He was a good kid," he said, even though he knew it sounded hollow. He could only think of what he'd just done to that good kid.
He hadn't heard her take the small step closer, and so he was surprised when she touched his elbow. He opened his eyes, and he looked down at her. Iris never initiated contact, and he didn't make the mistake of moving even an inch. In fact, he held his breath and barely breathed. He wanted contact too badly to risk it. He just looked down at her, need and pain visible in his eyes.
She froze on instinct to see if he would do anything, but when he didn't she relaxed again, came a little bit closer, hand sliding up just before his elbow and squeezing with the slightest pressure. Reassuring. "It was good of you to take care of him," she said. "I don't think he'd want you to feel bad about it, would he?" Cons were so much easier than trying to do the right thing. Typically, Iris just manipulated people into trusting her so she could dictate their actions. Right now she just wanted him to feel better so he could be jovial, obnoxious, earnest Micah again. This hurting one just wasn't natural, wasn't right.
He remained utterly still, his gaze moving from her face, to her hand on his elbow, to her face again. When he smiled, it was a fond thing, more Micah than anything else in the conversation had been thus far. "He wouldn't want me to feel bad, mamita, but I can't turn that on and off," he said, his smile widening just a hair. "If I feel bad, I stay that way until it works its way out of my system," he said honestly. He didn't go into the ways he normally worked things like that out of his system. Instead, he stared at her, watched her with warm hazel eyes. "How are you holding up, mamita, after yesterday?" he asked, wanting to get her tucked into bed, but not wanting to move away at the same time.
She smiled back, more spontaneous than anything else she'd done. Her hand dropped away, naturally enough. She knew better than to think he would get better over night, and she was surprised at this new vulnerability, especially when she thought of him (as most doctors) to be shielded from that kind of thing by some automatic defense mechanism that wasn't comprehensible to normal people. Finding out otherwise was food for thought. "I am... fine. A little tired." Smiling because she knew he'd see right through that, she said, evenly, "Holmes and Irene had a lovely conversation about the two of us and they didn't seem all that concerned about our privacy."
He looked over her shoulder at her couch, and then he looked down at how filthy he looked. "Climb over to my escape in ten minutes? I can wash up, make you some coffee and you can tell me about it," he said. The words themselves held no significant need; it was only an invitation. But his eyes said otherwise. He yearned for the distraction her story offered, the companionship of a person he cared about and respected. He would have blamed Watson and his too-kind heart, his lonely misery, but that would have been a lie. Micah wasn't fond of lying.
She had followed his gaze to her couch, uncomprehending (she was so slow lately), and so when she looked back it was right into his gaze. A faint glow of surprise touched her expression, and then she nodded slowly once, then a second time, more confidently. "Alright." She didn't have a shift until 10 AM, practically an age. "I--have to clean up too." She had been about to say 'I want to get out of my work clothes' but she caught the second meaning in time and altered the sentence. Slow.
The lack of comprehension in her gaze was a new thing, and it made him smile in earnest. He chuckled a second later, and then he slipped past her and out the window.
Once he was in 202, he cleaned up (and put on a perfectly harmless pullover and jeans). He started a cafetera of coffee, and he turned on his laptop, iTunes shuffling through the songs on his playlist quietly, more background noise than anything more.
Iris tapped a knuckle on the window. She'd taken a little longer than he had, a good twenty minutes in an incredibly hot shower that made her feel better about shaking halfway through it. Residual emotional stress, a shrink would say. The only one Iris had known personally had been a government employee that she wouldn't have trusted to save her from a burning building. It was too bad, really, she imagined that the woman was good at her job.
Her hair was wet and braided up off her neck again, which seemed to be habit when she cleaned up, just like dressing down into the sober colors and soft material she slept in. She looked rather like a yoga instructor in black and white. "Coffee smells good."
He waved her in. He was in the kitchen, slicing chorizo to keep his mind off things, and he gave her a smile that was appreciative. He thought she looked amazing like that, natural and not trying so hard to hide things, and it showed. "Have you eaten?" he asked, remembering he empty refrigerator and mentally chiding himself for not having followed up on his plan to figure out her monetary situation. That he had started to earn a little more money was evident in the fact that (slowly) the items that came with the apartment were being cleared out and replaced with creams and dark browns of higher quality - including the couch.
The pungent aroma of the chorizo, meat and spices, made her mouth water, and she slipped in without a hitch, just remembering to close the window behind her and crossing the living room quickly enough. Her stomach had been aggressively acidic earlier in the day, but it had given up on her when she didn't give it anything. "No," she admitted, readily enough, since she had already been in her work clothes when he'd stopped by.
Her eyes moved over the couch as if she did not see it, but if Iris knew anything, it was money and how it was spent.
The couch was worn Italian leather, and it looked decidedly male. He liked it. It was comfortable and it didn't have even one flower on its surface. He didn't notice her 'not-perusal' of the couch, and so he was oblivious. He had put on a sauce pan with cumin and onion and olive oil, and he tossed the finely chopped chorizo in. "Keep me company while I cook," he said, pouring her a coffee and setting it on the end of the counter from where he was working. "And tell me about Irene and Holmes," he urged. His shoulders were already starting to loosen, and he looked in his element in the kitchen. That he'd cooked before was obvious, and he shook the pan with the chorizo (without thinking or worrying) as he looked at her.
Comfortable in the curling smoke of cooking sausage and the thick smell of coffee, she pulled her cup close over the counter and settled over it. With the kitchen counter between them and no one behind her, she was far more loose as well, and the athletic curve of her arms relaxed. "They're like two teenagers," she said, sipping. "They went to the theatre and had too much wine, and then they walked back to the building. They saw Wicked." She gave him a bit of a grin. "It was extremely entertaining, actually. She even liked the music, most of it, and she's very discerning."
Micah smiled as she relaxed. He'd been around women his entire life, and yet none of them were quite like this one. When she grinned, he felt like he'd accomplished something, and the very notion made him chuckle as he drained garbanzo beans and added them to the mixture in the pan. He started making rice as she talked, and he looked over when she finished. "Watson would be glad to hear that. He thinks Holmes works too much, doesn't relax enough, has too many issues," he said with another laugh. "It's almost parental," he admitted. "But he'd he happy to hear that Holmes behaved himself. I think Watson feels that if Holmes just got married, he wouldn't be such a mess."
"What do you think?" he asked, spearing a spiced garbanzo bean on a fork and handing it to her.
"I don't think they're the marrying type," Iris said, fervently hoping she was right. She took the fork, and for the first time, ate something he'd intentionally offered her. Probably because she'd watched him cook it. "Mmm," she said, approvingly, flipping the fork over her fingers the same way she did that knife of hers, and offering it out to him without pause. "He certainly didn't do any work last night. She was surprised." Iris folded her arms behind her cup and shifted her shoulders up around her neck, stretching a little.
"I don't think he can marry her for one night out of the month," he said, taking the fork back. He caught the way her wrist moved, and he had the passing thought that he suspected she'd be exceptional in combat (if she didn't panic). Her wrist had distracted him for a moment, but he was back on his original train of thought before he'd even set the rice to heat. "They had less time esta vez. Do you think it'll be less next time too?" he asked thoughtfully. "And why, Iris? Why us? Why now? Why here?" He turned down the heat on the pan. "It's not like we can do anything by being them."
Iris waited through all the questions, but she didn't think through any of them. "I don't know." Iris didn't see any way those questions could be answered, and because there was no rational explanation, she felt looking for one was counterproductive. She was just trying to get through the next day. "They don't either, by the way. They talked about it."
Micah always looked for answers, and in this he was no different. He pulled two beers from the fridge, set one in front of each of them, and then he served them both on plates that were expensive, but plain white and unmarked - simple. He didn't suggest they sit down; he was a bachelor, and standing and eating a good meal was just fine, as was drinking the beer from the bottle. "What else did they tell each other?" he asked, leaning back against the opposite counter and lifting his plate, holding it while he took a forkful.
Iris was sitting, and pleased to be doing so. She was even more pleased to be eating, and she pulled her plate toward her without hesitation. Micah, she noticed, was moving up in the world. She wondered what brought that on, and if his position at the hospital had changed before he showed her that badge, or after. She examined her feelings on the subject, and other than the usual "cut and run" scenarios, it made no difference. This pleased her. She started eating, and made sure she didn't do it too quickly.
"Apparently Eliot doesn't dislike me as much as I thought," she admitted to her plate.
Despite her care not to eat too quickly, it was obvious that she was hungry. Another thing he'd worry about later; things to focus on were coveted right now, and setting his mind on bettering her condition was imperative. In fact, as he watched her, a thought came into his mind, which he shelved (for now).
"I told you that. I told him that. I've told everyone that, but no one listens to me," he said, finally smiling a dimpled smile that legitimate and true. "That hijo de puta is head over heels for you, just like you are for him," he said with knowing smugness, because Micah might be jealous, but he wasn't selfish. If Eliot could make her happy, he'd be the first person kissing her on the cheek at the wedding. He'd also be the first person beating Eliot's face in if he hurt her.
Iris stopped herself from scowling at the last minute. "He did not say that," she said, disapprovingly. "He said he doesn't hate me. We have a rather long history, and not very much of it is pleasant. I can't think of any reason I've given him to particularly like me," she said, flattening her expression into benign interest and focusing on her food again.
"You're gorgeous, and interesting, and amazingly intelligent, and smarter than him," he said with a grin. "That makes you sexy, mamita."
She made a little sound of doubt. "I think that I would have found out before now if that was so." She grinned back, the first mischief making, eye sparkling, dangerous smile yet. "You might find it hard to believe, but I am not always so subtle."
He laughed openly, and it was evident he didn't believe that for an instant, and his gaze lingered on her face and went no further, though it was obvious he fought to keep it where it was. "Oh, really?"
She lifted her cup, still smiling. "Really. The man must be made out of stone." She sipped.
"You'll forgive me if I don't believe you, mami," he said, hazel eyes darkening a smidge, the disbelieving smile not leaving his face.
"I forgive you," she said, diplomatically, with a hint of the tease in the way she checked to see how he took the imperial hand wave. "You just didn't know me then." There was such a thing as professional pride, after all.
"I'm supposed to believe you used your considerable charms on Eliot, and he managed to resist you?" Micah asked, and he didn't hide how utterly improbable he found that concept. Eliot wasn't a bad looking guy, but he was as uptight as the day was long. Micah doubted the man ever loosened up enough to get laid, and his opinion on the matter was printed all over his face at that moment.
Iris laughed, an event worth noting. "He knew I was just trying to get under his skin. It was great fun, but I never succeeded. It was impressive, in a way."
"But you weren't just trying to get under his skin," he said with smug knowledge. Then his eyes narrowed intelligently, and he paused. "Or you were at first, and then he got under yours."
"Not really." She tried to keep her expression casual. "He didn't do anything different. I hardly think he could. He's very much himself. Stubborn about it, too." Deflect, deflect, deflect.
He laughed warmly. "Iris, a veces people get under your skin without ever trying to," he said, and then he pointed his fork at her. "Como tu."
"Me?" she asked, innocently, most happy to turn the conversation from Eliot in almost any direction.
He shook his head slowly. It's not going to be that easy, mamita, the look he gave her said. "When did you realize it?"
Iris, who realized that her previous behavior, particularly the bad nights, already gave more than she could possibly tell, sighed. The plate was empty so there wasn't any food to push around. She put the fork down. "Oh, I don't know. A few years ago, when I noticed I kept coming back. I don't even like New York." She sounded faintly annoyed about the whole thing.
He put his own plate in the sink, and then he grabbed a plastic container from above the counter and scooped out the rice and beans and chorizo that was left, and he closed the top and slid it over to her nonchalantly; he hated leftovers. At least that's what the casual smile he gave her said. There wasn't even a microwave in sight.
Her annoyance at herself made him smile. "You can't control el corazon, mamita," he told her knowingly. You couldn't, no matter how much you wanted to.
Iris took her plastic container without complaint, putting her palm over the top, which was quickly warming. She didn't thank him, she just took it. She wasn't going to turn down leftovers that good, but she probably would not have taken it if she'd had so much as a hint he had any other motive than to just get rid of it.
She kept herself from clearing her throat with a careful application of will. "Micah. This is not some... soap opera. Despite your assumptions, I am not interested in pursuing Eliot. That would be a very bad idea." She emphasized the last two words.
He leaned on the counter in front of her, and he grinned, and he didn't say anything at all. To say it was a disbelieving grin would be an understatement. He was waiting to see if she insisted, and he looked utterly entertained by the entire affair.
"Micah," she said, warningly. "I'm serious."
He reached across the counter, and he tapped her nose with the tip of his finger, the smile still firmly in place. "So am I, mamita," he said, feeling better than he had since Watson had inhabited his body. Still not himself, no, but getting there.
She leaned back, but not in that automatic, deer-like reaction to his reach. Her expression went even more serious, and earnest as well. "Micah, you know why that's not a good idea. It wouldn't work anyway." She didn't even want Eliot to know she was human, much less that she had such a thing as a problem.
"You're underestimating him," he said perceptibly. It was the first indicator of how highly he actually thought of Eliot, that he'd even suggest the other man could handle Iris' problems, but Micah wouldn't have asked him to keep an eye on the woman if he didn't trust him.
"Underestimating what?" she asked, forcibly. "That he could find out all about it, historically and clinically? No. I just don't see what good that would do." It was obvious by the look in her eyes that she thought that would cause quite a lot of damage.
"No, Iris. That he could deal with you. That he could be with you," Micah explained, reaching forward and brushing a hair back from her face, one that had slipped loose. "I wouldn't let him near you if I didn't trust him, mamita. Not even on the moon."
Iris pulled away again. She was trying to impress upon him that he did not need to be dictating who she could trust. She was handling it very well on her own, thanks. "I don't want him to 'deal with me,'" she returned, with a steely aggression she used when she didn't really want to argue.
He quirked a brow at her. Really?
"Maybe then. Not now." She took a breath and slid off the stool.
"Right. Y que quieres ahora, Iris?" he asked, still not moving, even when she slid off the stool.
"I just want to get through the next few months in one piece." She took the time to take her container of leftovers off the counter.
He walked around the counter, and he leaned his side against the edge, his elbow on the surface, and he watched her. She was close enough for him to grab, and had it been anyone other than Iris he would have done just that. He would have grabbed her, pulled her tight and tugged her hair free of that ridiculous hairstyle.
But this was Iris, and so he didn't.
"We'll get you through the next few months fine, Iris," he vowed. Strong despite the simplicity of the words.
"If I get through it, there's not going to be a 'we.'" It was a cruel thing to say, but she had to get him to back off of this, or it was going to end very badly for all of them. She couldn't afford to move.
"We'll worry about that then," he said, and despite the casual stance, the easy way he was learning against the counter, his hazel gaze was intense, fierce almost. That he meant what he was saying was unmistakable. He wouldn't get her in the end; he could live with that. But he'd be damned if he was going to let anything happen to her before now and then. He didn't trust Eliot to keep her safe the way he could. He trusted Eliot with her, but at the end of the day, he trusted himself more than he trusted anyone else.
Iris didn't like that look. To her, it spoke of possession, and that much emotion directed at her was not something she felt she could control. What she could not control, she instinctively wanted to avoid. Rather than arguing, she set her jaw and moved off toward the window. At least it seemed that he felt better... she still preferred a stubborn, slightly frightening Micah to the one from earlier that night.
"Go dancing with me," he called out, not moving. He fully expected her to turn him down, but it was his new parting shot; she might say yes one day.
Not today. She opened the window. "Goodnight, Micah." And, bending with very little trouble, she stepped over the sill and out onto the fire escape for home.
He walked to the window, and he climbed onto the escape, and he watched her until she was safely on her own escape. He watched a moment longer, ensuring she'd gotten into her apartment safely (knowing full well that she knew he was there and watching her), and then he turned and closed his window loudly enough for her to hear if she was listening.