lostwithoutmyblogger

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There are very few entertainments the dead can afford, particularly in an age of information. He was more recognizable in London, of course, being that the tabloids were rather enamored with their local celebrity, but even abroad Sherlock has been careful. Avoiding casework entirely, dodging police forces and the odd tourist, and keeping well away from funny hats had become daily routine.

He devotes himself to research, and to travel, filling his expansive mental database with further tidbits about a poison only produced in certain obscure parts of Nepal, distinguishing factors of fiber residue from the wools of various beasts of burden, and the workings of several Tokyo crime syndicates.

And as for Miss Adler? Well, of course he'd spared a thought or two for her in the time since he'd saved her life, but it doesn't occur to him to seek her out until a pattern emerges. By now, he's studied her delicate touch, come to better understand her methods (in a political sense, not a personal one) and can spot her deft touch a mile away. Child's play, to tail her latest client and wait for their next appointment, to watch her without her knowing, and to wait for the opportune moment to (rather inelegantly) pick the lock on the back door, duck one booby trap, and put on a pot of tea.

Which is how Irene will end up coming home to one lanky, supposed-to-be-dead, potentially-a-fraud detective sprawled out over her sitting room armchair, teapot on the table, reading the paper.

It isn't nudity, but he hopes it'll do.

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Irene was exhausted. The last client she worked with was absolutely idiotic in every sense of the word, but he still wanted to be beaten within an inch of his life before she could let him go. And he was not a small man, so her arms were worn. And then, to nearly be caught by the police as she was heading to market for something to eat---she missed the days where she had willing women to do her buying for her or to clean her house after her excursions with clients. Still, living alone was for the best, Sherlock had said.

Sherlock. She stopped at her doorway and put a hand against the frame. She'd seen the papers, of course. Seen everything that the news had said about him, about Moriarty. Irene met Moriarty. She knew he wasn't an actor. Very few men could put a chill in her bones like he could. They were lying. It was all lies. Didn't anyone see that? Apparently, Sherlock didn't. The pain that hit her chest was something she was slowly becoming accustomed to.

She turned the doorknob and stepped inside. Turned back to lock the door, then again to look into her sitting room. And gaped, as inelegantly as possible. She shut her jaw and swallowed.

"Speak of the devil," she breathed, her voice just a shade higher-pitched from surprise.

"The devil?"

He murmurs, folding the paper and leaning forwards to pour her a cup. That had been rather cruel, he supposes, but he can't bring himself to stop smiling.

"Is that the latest headline? I haven't been keeping up." Every few days, a new 'sham' in uncovered, a few new invectives thrown at the Holmes name. It might bother him, except he's enjoying himself far too much right now.

"Come, sit down, you've had a bit of a fright."

She's surprised to find that her eyelashes are wet. She is not going to cry, especially not in front of Sherlock Holmes. That's weakness, and Irene is not weak. But---god, she's got the opportunity to do anything in front of Sherlock Holmes again. That's something she didn't expect.

"And you're just letting the press say those things," she says. "Calling you a fraud, a liar. And you're all right with that?"

"It doesn't matter to me what they say." He insists, standing, moving to put his hand on hers. He hadn't meant to make her cry. "They were small-minded fools when they were charmed by the man in the silly hat, they are small-minded fools still now that they hate him."

"The difference is that if I'm not dead, they'll go after John. Until I can neutralize what's rest of Moriarty's organization, a disgraced corpse I shall remain. Besides," a small chuckle, "celebrity never suited me. I have been informed that I am not particularly personable."

"So he knows, then," she says. "Good. That post on his blog had me more than a bit worried."

She knows he can fake deaths, she knows he can do it well, but she wouldn't have believed it, not for a second, until she saw what John had written.

"You two are very good when you work together."

"He doesn't."

He admits, quietly. This seems to twist at him. His smile falters.

"If they suspect for a moment his grief is inauthentic, he'll be killed. Mycroft has staved off more than one attempt as it is."

"He doesn't know?"

The surprise is evident on Irene's face. She crosses the room to stand next to him.

"Sherlock, this life, it's life, and I'm grateful for it, but you have people who care. You can't---you can't just do this on your own."

"I'm not alone."

He assures her, right away. There had been Molly, and even Mycroft, over-eager to make up for his mistakes. A few other people along the way, and;

"I'm here, aren't I?"

"You are."

She steps forward and reaches out a hand to take his wrist. She feels terribly vulnerable---all underdressed in her sweater and jeans---but right now, it doesn't matter. Sherlock Holmes is alive, and that means something. It means a lot of somethings, all of which she can't really express to him.

"And I can't be the only one who didn't believe the rubbish in the news."

"Moriarty is dead."

He murmurs, stepping in close, looking down at her. He thinks, sentimentally (addled by the time difference, he'll tell himself) that he likes her best looking like this.

"I saw him shoot himself in the head less than a foot away from me. I came to tell you that Mycroft aside, your exile from our country is over, if you wish it to be."

"And what about you?" she asks, taking in his closeness very like a sponge might soak in water. "Where will you go? You don't want to become the Elvis of London."

The thought of going back does excite her. She's missed the riches she'd acquired in London, all of her misbehaving. But then again, she's found some sort of---if not peace, a sort of tranquility in simply being Irene Adler, instead of the Woman. The dominatrix.

It is lonely, though.

"Perhaps you can recommend a country?"

He teases, taking in a deep breath and permitting himself a moment of singular boldness. His hands settle on her hips, and he starts to back her up, towards the door.

"Being a woman of extensive experience."

The boldness surprises her. Not nearly as much as finding Sherlock Holmes in her sitting room, mind, but it does surprise her. She takes in a startled breath that's just a tiny bit tinged with arousal. She lets herself be led towards the door, and raises up her hands to his shoulders.

"Prague is good if you like the weather this time of year. I'd recommend Hong Kong, if only for how easy it is to vanish in a city with so many people. Though you can't beat the night life of Paris."

She stands on her toes and leans in to brush her lips against his jaw. "You can speak French, Mr. Holmes?"

"Mais oui."

He answers, tilting his jaw up obligingly, baring his throat to her, with a touch of an impertinent smile. His hand rests on the small of her back now, letting her lead the way.

"Although I'm not sure I'm much one for nightlife, Miss Adler."

She nips at his skin. Oh, she'd like to slap that face of his, for the pain he's caused her, but that would mean admitting to that pain, and that won't ever happen. Still, since they're here already, and her back has suddenly found the flat door, she'll give him a little pain.

"About twenty minutes ago, I didn't think you had much of a life at all." She traces her nails---still lacquered, but this time in a dark shade of purple rather than her customary red---across the front of his shirt.

"Just because you can't solve a basic puzzle-"

He taunts, positively daring her to make good on that threat. He ducks down, pressing their foreheads together, taking a deep breath and reminding himself that she is real, giving her a moment to recognize it too.

They had all those grand plans, he recalls, and no chance to make good on them.

His forehead is pressed against hers. His forehead, warm and real, with just a hint of sweat from the weather. Not bloodied and cold, as the headlines had said. She can smell his skin and feel his hands at her hips and she thinks about all of those things they planned to do. Leaving cyphers on the blog, meeting in secret locations. It was going to be brilliant.

And then he was dead. She didn't grieve, but she would walk the streets near her new home thinking about it.

She felt a sob threatening to pull its way up her throat. The sudden force of that made her pull away from him without warning and step into her sitting room.

"I'm sorry-"

He says, because for once, he understands without wondering. He has been exactly where she is, only when it was his turn, they barely knew each other, they'd never held each other, kissed, fought off small terrorist cells or showered together. But he does understand.

He doesn't hesitate to chase her, arm tangling about her and pulling her in tight.

"I will never let that happen again, I swear to you. I know it's absurd, but I'm here for as long as you'll have me."

She doesn't fight his embrace, but she does fight the war raging within her. She will not cry in front of Sherlock Holmes. She will not cry, she will not be that weak. She will not be that relieved to see him. Irene Adler is stronger than this. She controls situations, she manipulates them and holds onto them and misbehaves and does not cry.

But having him holding her and promising never to leave, it makes her think she's having a particularly cruel dream. A dream where things turned out right. A dream where she didn't have to hurt deep inside and make herself incapable of showing it. Where Sherlock Holmes may have had difficulty feeling sentiment, Irene felt it thoroughly, but trained herself not to show it.

And it was threatening to come out.

"They said you'd killed yourself, Sherlock. Jumped off of a building."

"I did technically jump off a building."

He confesses.

"I just didn't hit concrete, or fall nearly as far as they reported. I do have a new scar to show for it, though."

His voice is low and even, the tone he has perfected for the difficult interrogations, where he simply can't come in like a bulldozer.

"I, at least, offered you the illusion that I had been murdered," she says. "Suicide is---it's a far more unbearable death."

She feels, suddenly, very pained for Sherlock's other friends. The ones he hasn't come back to yet. Irene left Kate believing she was dead, but Kate would find someone else and, really, only liked Irene for the prestige she felt she gave her. Sherlock's companions, though, they loved him for him. No masks or false armor. In many ways, Sherlock was the only one who had seen Irene like this. And probably would be the only one who ever would.

She turns in his arms, slowly, so she could face him. "Of course, I haven't been composing sad music."

"Did I ever play that for you?"

The strad is locked up tight in a box in 221B, probably suffering for disuse, but he's sure he could send for it from Mycroft, or find some passable replacement here. He has money to spare. Playing that comment over in his head again, he isn't sure if she was teasing, or if she knows that she did actually drive him to composition.

"There was never any suicide. Moriarty tried to drive me off the ledge, but even if he had, it would have been blackmail, not genuine despair."

Irene considers this for a moment. Blackmail, of course. "He threatened to kill the people you care about," she says, sounding more than a little relieved, of all things. She prides herself on knowing people, or knowing some people, at least. And she never, not in a billion years, would've imagined Sherlock Holmes for someone to fall into despair enough for suicide.

But there it was, in the papers. And there it was, on John's blog. But then here he was, telling her he'd stay for as long as she'd have him.

She reaches up and twists a lock of his hair around her finger. "You should play it for me," she says. "Soon. But not right now."

He lets out a soft sigh of relief at the mild tug. He's no good at being comforting, not really. Seeing her this precarious is making him feel quite close to guilty, especially considering Lestrade, Mrs Hudson and John, left back home without any idea of the truth.

"No, not right now."

Nipping her ear.

She lets out a low groan at his mouth against her ear. The arousal is back, spiked by the relief of him being alive. She wants to continue to be angry at herself for the vulnerability, but she can't right now. She just wants---she wants to feel him. She also wants to punish him, more than a little bit, for how much he's misbehaved. Of course, doing that in a sweater and jeans seems a bit silly.

She grins. "And here I thought I was back to being done with men," she purrs.

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