the inestimable irene adler . iris thorpe (nightmrholmes) wrote in bellumlogs, @ 2010-05-10 18:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | dr. watson, irene adler |
Who: Iris and Micah
What: Just a chat. Because pining is fun.
Where: Le Croquembouche, Iris' current place of work.
When: Later in the day Peter comes in.
Warnings: Mature topics under discussion, but good and mild.
Micah was distracted.
He was on his way home from work, but his thoughts were scattered, and he didn’t even notice himself walking in the direction of the coffee shop.
He’d spent most of the day working on the ear Cole had dropped off for him, but he didn’t have much more information than he had at the offset. Female, young, likely dead when the ear was severed. He wouldn’t have DNA back for a week, and she could match countless missing persons in the greater New York area. The one informative thing in all that was that she was likely dead.
It didn’t make Micah feel any better about anything.
And then Oliver had contacted him via the forums regarding his tale - John Seward - and he’d spent his entire lunch hour obsessing over the fact that by locking up some of the tales, they were going to inevitably be in danger. Van Helsing and John Seward would, no doubt, go after the vampires, and he didn’t want to be responsible in the case of such an eventuality. Javert and Valjean or Eponine could easily end up in a faceoff. And the entire building might try to take down the Phantom of the Opera. Short of confining everyone for the moon, he was starting to doubt there was any way to keep the entire populace of the building safe.
And none of that addressed his true concern, which was the non-moon days. He was so lost in all of these things, that he was in front of the coffee shop before he even noticed it. He looked inside, of course; he couldn’t help himself.
Iris didn’t want to see him, but that didn’t change how he felt about seeing Iris.
It was the transition hour when the shifts changed, on a weeknight where foot traffic was slow, and Iris was alone in the shop again. She had a library book on the counter in front of her, and the lights of the coffee shop made her auburn hair warm against the soft velvet browns and forest greens of her scoop-collar shirt. Her eyes, however, were not on the page. She must have been daydreaming, perhaps, or staring outside the window, because she was watching him the moment he looked up and through the window.
She tilted her head and straightened slowly up from her round-shouldered lean forward. Pressing her lips together, she tipped her head back toward the kitchen in a tentative gesture of inquisitive welcome. Come in?
He noticed her as soon as she noticed him, and still he hesitated at her obvious invitation. He was so surprised by it, in fact, that he looked over his shoulder to ensure she was directing the invitation at him. He looked back at her, and he gave her a quiet, thoughtful look, and then he went inside.
His shoulders were tight, and it was obvious he’d had a stressful day. He didn’t try to hide it, just like he didn’t try to hide the surprised expression that crossed his face. He didn’t ask why she’d invited him in, however, and he was careful not to let his gaze linger on the soft waves of her hair or the scoop neck of the shirt she wore.
“Iris,” he said, carefully avoiding pet names or words in other languages that might make her nervous, that she might interpret as intimacy. You see, he’d finally gotten the picture; he made her uncomfortable, and he didn’t want that for her. “Quiet day?” he asked, looking around the shop, staying a few feet away from the counter and busying himself by looking up at the menu-board. “Can I get something decaf?” he asked, catching her gaze as he looked away from the list of drinks with long names and confusing flavorings.
Iris noticed the difference in demeanor right away. She thought it might have been something to do with his work or his efforts toward community activism, but after he stopped so far from the counter and uncharacteristically avoided giving her a long stare, she realized he was changing the way he acted around her. She was so surprised by this courtesy that she blinked several times in succession and took her hand off the book that she was holding open.
“Weeknight,” she replied, almost automatically, but readily enough. She thought she should apologize somehow for being so angry at him for things he couldn’t help--Micah was Micah--but she didn’t know how. “Are you working late?” She left the book where it was (the print was big and it wasn’t very thick: Around the World in 80 Days) and moved over to the espresso machine.
He glanced down at the book, then at the machine (anywhere not to look where he really wanted to), and he grabbed a chair from the table closest to the counter and sat down. The coffee house was empty, so he didn’t worry about raising his voice a little to be heard, and he couldn’t see her behind the espresso machine. Perfect.
“I’m done for the day,” he said, and he rubbed his eyes. “Busy worrying about the mess I’ve gotten myself in for the full moon, especially when there’s no way I can be around for it,” he said. He hadn’t explained the skeleton situation to Iris, but he wasn’t thinking clearly enough to remember that right then. He was tired, and he was stressed, and he was trying not to act like himself around the woman in front of him; all that meant he forgot that re-assembling Aaron wasn’t on the list of ‘To Do’ items that Iris was aware of.
The machine started hissing and as soon as it went quiet, Iris started rattling around cups and saucers, and there was a flash of movement behind the pastry case as she took something out and put it in the microwave, which started humming. “Is this a special mess, or is it the same mess everyone else is having trouble with?”
He picked up the small pot of creamer from the table, and he spun it carefully, concentrating on not letting anything spill as he spoke. “If we lock up the vampires, how do we keep the vampire hunters from killing them?” he asked bluntly.
The microwave beeped, and she actually came around the opposite side of the counter, appearing all at once with plate and cup. “I guess you’ll have to lock up the hunters, too,” she said. She stopped a little ways away and put both down at his elbow. The cup was a Viennese espresso and from the smell of it, there was some cinnamon and clove in it. The plate had a piece of coffee cake and she smiled apologetically when he looked down at it. “That’s all that’s left today.”
He nodded to the chair across from where he was, across the safe expanse of the table. “Have a minute to sit?” he asked her, even as he pushed the coffee cake across the table to where (he hoped) she would be sitting. She’d cut him off, yes, but he hadn’t stopped worrying about her. If he wasn’t so sure that she wouldn’t accept charity, he would have taken measures to make sure she was taken care of. His salary had started coming in, and he had plenty leftover after the rent.
He lifted the coffee cup, and he passed it under his nose, inhaling the scent of cinnamon and cloves. Coffee always reminded him of home, and home made him feel better (as long as he didn’t think on it too long). “Sit down, Iris,” he repeated.
She straightened and looked around the empty coffee shop. “I think I have a minute,” she replied, at the end of the breath, still smiling a little smile that she left on one corner of her mouth even as she turned back toward the counter. “One second.” She went behind the counter then, and poured herself some hot water into a cup, put it on a saucer with a piece of coffee cake (cold). She put it down in front of her opposite him, and held the back of the chair as she settled back into it, knees together, with a little packet of earl gray in one palm. Deliberately, she pushed his plate (warm) back toward him, and pulled hers into its place. “I get all the leftovers after the hour,” she said, not looking at the clock. “I don’t think we’re going to sell it all in the next five minutes.”
He took a sip of the coffee thankfully, and a bite off the warm coffee cake, and he was quiet for a moment. He looked down at the plate, and didn’t look at her immediately. “How do we lock up the hunters? The entire building, every tale, has an agenda,” he said, though he didn’t add that theirs did not - because really, even Irene and Holmes did seem to have an agenda, even if it didn’t involve murdering anyone. It would sound petty and jealous if he said it, so he he refrained.
He looked up at her then, and he grinned, tired and dimpled. “You’re getting better at this coffee thing.”
Iris broke off pieces of the cake with her fingers. She had peculiar hands, which were a little broad for her size, and the fingertips tapered off from fine bones practically exposed all the way from wrist to unpainted fingernails. “I’ve had lots of practice.” Then, after a moment of sober thought, she said, “Then maybe everyone needs to be locked up. It depends on if you think the people we are on the full moon have a right to freedom during that time, or not.” The brown made the gray eyes warm and soft under the auburn, and her tone was neutral enough that her own opinion on that subject was impossible to discern.
He knew his answer to that question; he didn’t even have to think on it. “How do we keep from having a building full of vampires, Iris?” he asked.
Micah was used to finding answers to things. Things that had happened - crimes, attacks, mysteries, murders, suicides. He wasn’t accustomed to being the leader of insurrections (despite what Iris thought), and he wasn’t a strategist. He was, he thought with a laugh, Watson. Except the only person interested in being Holmes in this instance was Luther - a man who he liked and trusted, but whose tale he wasn’t certain about. He had never made it through Les Miserables, but he’d seen the movie, and he didn’t think it boded well for the person holding the keys to everyone’s fate.
It made him uncomfortable to think of Iris - no, Irene - under Luther’s control, and that was enough to make Micah question their plan on gut instinct alone.
“I don’t know, Micah. Society has been trying to balance individual good with the good of all for as long as we’ve existed.” She lifted the tag of the tea bag and let it bob up and down on the surface of the steaming water, leaning forward a little so she could feel it on her skin and smiling, absolutely unconsciously, at the simple pleasure of a very small thing.
Her response frustrated him, but her reaction to the tea made the frustration move to the back of his mind. The look on her face as she leaned over the cup, the smile on her lips (which he was fairly sure she didn’t even know was there) made him sit back in his chair, made him relax. It struck him as odd that one such look from this woman could have such a profound effect on him, and it brought to mind (unbidden) images of peaceful moments like this in a more intimate setting.
For someone like Micah, who had always been concerned with taking a woman’s clothes off and little else, it was a significant realization.
“I’m not a leader, Iris, and now I’m stuck,” he admitted.
Iris licked her lips and lifted the cup to them, eyes shifting up at the same time to regard his expression. She was relaxed, too, and it showed. The last twenty-four hours had been very good for Iris. She didn’t even look tired the way she usually did, and it was obvious because she wasn’t tensing in the right places to hide fatigue. “I know what I said about getting involved,” she said, slowly, “and I still think it’s dangerous. But it also seems like you’ve been a leader since you got here.”
“I don’t have a hero complex, mamita,” he said, slipping into Spanish and words of endearment without any true realization of it. “Just because I hate seeing unfair things and dangerous things, it doesn’t mean I always want to be the person to fix them,” he explained. “And Watson is even worse. He’s kind and he wants companionship - the comfort of the people he cares for and a soft chair. He was miserable last month, and with every day that passes I worry more about how he’s going to handle next month.” Again, he didn’t mention Aaron.
“Contrary to popular belief,” Iris said, softly, after a moment of silent sympathy for Watson, “not all heroes have a complex.”
He went quiet after he finished, but not because he didn’t have anything more to say. While he’d spoken, he’d been watching her, truly allowing himself to focus on her for the first time since he’d walked in. “You’ve been sleeping better,” he said, an observation based on the fact that she didn’t look as tired as she normally did.
She smiled at him. “Yes. I think the building is--” she cleared her throat, embarrassed, and pulled her eyes down to her cup with manufactured casualty, “--helping with... with that.” Because it would be anathema to mention the word ‘nightmare,’ apparently.
His eyes narrowed intelligently. “How?” he asked. It was one word, but the tone said he didn’t trust the building; not when it came to dreams or anything else. The ear had been the straw that broke the camel’s back for Micah. The building, once an escape from everything bad back home, an escape from memories and a new start, had become something dangerous and uncontrolled. He didn’t understand if people who were dangerous just happened to move in, or if the building made people dangerous. Either way, he didn’t like it, and he didn’t like the building doing anything to Iris at all.
Iris pulled at the tea bag. “It changes them,” she tried, at first, and then she said, “No, that’s not right.” He had to wait another few seconds as she extracted the tea and expertly wound it around her fork to squeeze the last of the tea before putting it down on the saucer. “It puts other people in them, and then it... it deviates. You know, usually they... it... it just plays, like a... movie.” Iris almost never cut her sentences up, she was the kind of woman that tried to put what she wanted to say together and get it out in one perfectly formed piece. Obviously, this was a different kind of topic.
Micah didn’t dream (or he didn’t remember it, if he did), and it was something he was always thankful about. He saw the dead bodies of his parents in his mind’s eye often enough without having to relive their deaths when he slept. “I don’t remember my dreams,” he admitted, though he knew that wasn’t the case for her. He knew enough about PTSD to know that the dreams that accompanied the disorder tended to be a replaying of the trauma, and her description of dreams as a movie wasn’t surprising to him. “Who did it put in your dreams?” he asked, because he didn’t like the sound of that either.
Micah wasn’t, by nature, paranoid. He wasn’t a pessimist, and he didn’t automatically assume the worst was always going to happen. But by his count, there were seven violent assailants in Bellum Letale at this point (that he was certain of): The animal-like attacks, The exsanguinations in the park, the bow-tied intestines, Aaron’s killer, the person who attacked Ella, the person who attacked Nick, and now the person who sent Cole the ear (which he was absolutely not telling Iris about). That didn’t even account for the two deaths in the catacombs before he moved in or the suicide on the tenth floor. All in all, that was too many attacks and too many deaths. He didn’t like the thought of any of those people ending up in Iris’ dreams.
There was no way Iris was going to get from day to day thinking about all the horrible things in that building, or about how she could not escape them due to the same deal that kept that horrible little tracker in her purse behind the counter. She got through each night and the next morning by telling herself that everything about the life she lived right now was only temporary. Partly, this was why she was so resistant to change, be it in the apartment on the second floor, or anywhere else in her life that wasn’t absolutely necessary.
“Peter,” she said, pressing her hands down on the cup. “From 1104.” She paused. “Do you know him?”
“Not yet,” Micah said, and it was evident that he was going to remedy that as soon as humanly possible. “He’s the one whose wife left him for Dracula, isn’t he?” he asked, as if such things didn’t matter to him at all. Micah kept his jealousy of Eliot well in check where Iris was concerned, but it was because he trusted the other man without question or reserve; he honestly thought Eliot would take care of her, and he knew she loved Eliot. This Peter in 1104 was not going to get the same courtesy.
“Don’t bother him,” she said, showing alarm for the first time. The only thing she liked less than the idea of Micah squeezing every last drop of information out of Peter about that dream, was Micah showing up in it himself. In fact, at that thought, she lost a shade of color from under the careful layer of face powder.
He sat back in the chair, giving her more space. “Iris, I’m not going to torture the guy, and I’m not going to punch him in the nose, and I’m not going to ask him anything about your dreams,” he said calmly, assuming one of those things had made her panic. He rubbed his face, looking tired in that moment (as tired as he’d looked when he’d come inside). “I worry about you,” he said honesty. “I would never hurt you,” he added, and he looked into her eyes when he said, the truth of the words evident, even with the distance between them. “I think somewhere along the line you got the wrong idea about me. I wouldn’t bother him.”
She looked down when he talked about having the right and wrong ideas, staring into her tea and losing most of the tension she’d acquired in the last thirty seconds. “He helped,” she said, quietly, pushing her tea cup around on the saucer. “Like you would. He just picked me up and took me somewhere else.”
The color came back into her skin, and now she looked sad and awkward about how to handle it. “I am... sorry about the way I act. It is very hard to be around... men... and you are very...” She picked her chin up and smiled at him. “...You are attracted to me. And the last time a man was attracted to me it just didn’t go the way it was supposed to go.” When she said it like that, it sounded like she’d been on a bad date with a loser and she’d had to call a cab.
He knew she was talking about the abuse, and he knew she was intentionally downplaying it for his sake (and possibly for her own). It made him imagine the worst thing he possibly could, and his fingers clenched into fists, which he quickly lowered to his lap so as not to frighten her. “I’m attracted to you,” he agreed, because there was hardly any point in denying that. “But I will never lay a finger on you,” he said, and it was very much a vow. “You could come over here, and you could touch me in any way you wanted to, and I wouldn’t touch you back. I want you to understand that, Iris. It doesn’t matter how much I want you; I want you to feel safe more.”
She turned the cup another quarter turn. She was well aware that most of the male population--hell, anyone that she had ever known personally--would just wish her well and help her out the door with her issues. She tried to decide if it would be better to tell him all of it or if that would just make it worse. She couldn’t tell. She just wasn’t as good at judging men as she had been before, she realized. She took a deep breath. “I understand. But it is hard to make that feeling go away. The good is all mixed up in the bad. I can’t...” she let out another thick breath and looked at the ceiling, clearly having difficulty putting it properly in words. “I can’t want without worrying...” Iris was not embarrassed about the things she wanted; she never had been. That was not the problem. “Without feeling the rest of it.” She made a sharp little gesture with one hand, as if that would encompass all of that pain and violation in one quick acknowledgment.
He hid every bit of anger he was feeling (or he tried to). The fact that she was so frightened, so traumatized by what had been done to her that it made her scared to feel made him so angry that if he knew who had hurt her, he would have hunted them down right then, right there. Micah, for all his training, wasn’t violent. A good boxing match, a workout, a trip to the shooting range was enough to work just about anything out of his system. Nothing would be enough to work this out of his system. It wasn’t even like the death of his parents, which he could blame on himself. This was, in his opinion, inexcusable (no matter what Iris had done).
“How about if I promise you that wanting is perfectly safe? If I assure you, mamita, on my life, that I won’t ever put my hands on you?” he asked. It was a serious thing, an offer, a promise; a million things all rolled into one. If she could trust him, it would help her trust other people (like Eliot, who she was clearly in love with), wouldn’t it?
She smiled at him. She knew how much that would cost him. Part of the reason Iris had so much difficulty around Micah specifically was that he was extremely physical. Even when it wasn’t sexual, he was just naturally louder, friendlier, nearer than most people. It was the same as most other cultural differences; Japanese people, for example, had a very different cultural norm when it came to personal space than most other cultures. The average American man would not come any closer to Iris than perhaps three or four feet unless forced to by some outside situation, like the subway. It was just the way of things.
“Micah,” she let out a low breath, “Oh, Micah. It is not your hands that are the problem. I just... have to work on... on hands, in general.” She smiled again, but it was a very fragile thing, more fragile than the rest of her.
He held his hands up in mock surrender, and then he clasped them behind his back. It was an offering, one he was letting her know would stand whenever she needed it. And no, it wasn’t an easy thing for Micah to offer. He’d grown up in a culture that touched as much as it laughed, that hugged and kissed as often as it talked, that comforted physically and that wasn’t at all reserved about affections or sex. Being physical was as much Micah as being a doctor was, as being Watson was.
None of that mattered right now.
“Listen,” she said, finally, pushing the half-eaten coffee cake away. “Will you help me with something?” She waited for his assent before standing up, slowly, brushing crumbs off her lap and very intentionally settling her shoulders back.
He watched her, surprised at the question and at the subsequent movement, but he nodded easily. “Lo que quieras.”
“Okay.” She was steeling herself for this, and took another breath. She made a little gesture for him to stand, and then with the same hand she put her palm up under her chin. “Okay,” she said again, softer this time. “Just... don’t reach this way.” She indicated her throat without actually touching fingers to skin. “Okay?” As if for any reason on earth he would reach for her throat, but... she had to ask.
He stood when she wanted him to, though he didn’t move toward her. When she made the comment about reaching for her throat, the only indication he gave of any anger he felt toward her assailants was a quick flash in his hazel eyes, there and then gone. He stayed where he was, and he nodded. His hands he kept clasped behind his back, and he wasn’t standing at his full height (in an effort to be less intimidating). His thighs were slightly spread, knees slightly bent, shoulders slightly hunched; if Iris hadn’t been accustomed to standing near him at his full height, it would have been almost imperceptible.
She was distracted enough from her attempt to acknowledge his, and she gave him that little fragile smile again after letting her eyes move from shoulders down and back up. She took a short step forward and put her arms around his waist. She gave him a very brief squeeze, and turned her head against his chest the way she had when he brought her home the first time. “Thank you for understanding.”
He wanted to embrace her back, to wrap his arms around her and reassure her that everything would be okay, that he would never let anything happen to her; he didn’t He wanted to slide his hand up her back and cup her head, let his fingers trail through that auburn hair; He didn’t. He stood completely still, careful not to make any move that might startle her, any move that might make her feel trapped against him.
Instead, he talked to her. “Mamita, no me tienes que dar las gracias,” he said truthfully, adding. “I want to hug you back, but I won’t.” No matter how much he wanted to, he wouldn’t.
She smiled a little bit, and stepped back. “Next time,” she said, truly pleased her heart wasn’t trying to strangle her in her chest, “You can. Just... make sure you let me go afterward.” The smile got stronger for him, and then she turned to pick up the dishes.
He let her go, even though it was the last thing he wanted to do. When she slipped away and picked up the dishes, he stepped back to give her some room, and he did his best not to let his gaze trail over her body when her back turned. “Next time,” he agreed, his voice warm and low.
She wondered if maybe this way was more cruel than just sending him on his way as she had before, but Iris had been using people for a very long time, and she hoped that using Micah for his friendship might be a relatively small thing on the grand scheme of it all. In the back of her mind, she knew it was just as selfish as the lying and the stealing, though. Even Irene would agree. When did she start acquiring morals?
Left with this troubling thought, she put her mug on the empty plate (leaving his since he hadn’t eaten the whole cake nor drunk all of the decaf espresso) and moved off toward the kitchen. The words trailed out behind her as she went, uncertain: “Would it be better for you if we stayed apart? I don’t like asking you to be something you are not.” She looked down to balance the dishes rather than look at him.
“No,” he said said, even before she finished her thought. Whether it was better for him or not was irrelevant. She needed him, even if she didn’t realize it, and he was going to keep her safe. Nothing else mattered right then.
Iris didn’t respond, because she took the answer as firm enough that argument would be pointless. “Do you want something else to eat?” she asked instead, putting her dishes down into a sink and pouring herself some more hot water.
He looked down at his plate, and then he stood. “I’d rather something real for dinner, mamita, and I hate to eat alone.” He said it easily, casually. Not a date or anything significant. “No one eats alone where I’m from.”
She stood up on her tiptoes to look over the machine at him, as if tying to understand his purpose, and then her eyes disappeared again as she settled back on her heels. “I’ll be done in a half hour when Tom comes in.” Tom had preceded Iris on the coffee shop payroll, and to many he was practically part of the decor. She sipped her tea again and then left it on the counter next to her book while she rinsed the dishes in disinfectant.
He went outside to wait. He had a cigar in the bag he carried to work every day, and he dug through the bag until he found it. He passed the unlit tobacco under his nose, and then he cut off the tip with the clip he kept on his keychain. It was a process, lighting and smoking a good cigar, and he figured a half hour would cover it.
He leaned against the stone wall at his back, as he lit the cigar, as he took quick puffs to light the embers. New York was nothing like home, and Iris was nothing like women at home. His mother would have disapproved of her thoroughly, he realized, and his father would have been outraged. It made Micah smile to think about, because they had spent most of his life being outraged and something or another he was doing.
The sun dipped low in the sky, and he longed for home. Then he smiled; he knew where he was going to take Iris for dinner.