Open to irene_adler (BBC's Sherlock)

[mmkaternater]

Whenever feasible, Sherlock Holmes preferred to travel Europe by train, rather than by aeroplane.

This predilection, to which Dr. John Watson was only enlightened as he attempted to squeeze two valise cases into the overhead compartment of a sleeper car (Holmes did none of the lifting), had several sources. Holmes was particularly sensitive to the idea of airline security in a post-9/11 society, where a man who could identify who you were sleeping with (just by looking at the cuffs on your sleeves) attracted a worrying amount of attention from border agents. (Holmes had once been stuck in a holding room in Lisbon's Portela Airport for thirty-six hours merely because the pilot's shoelaces had been of a particular interest.) Holmes also approved of the thrift of the railway system and, in spite the success of Watson's blog and the celebrity it attracted, preferred a private train car to a noisy, elbow-to-elbow aerorplane cabin.

They had taken a lightspeed rail from Charing Cross and reached the southern tip of France in just under three hours. After breakfasting in Céret, they had boarded another, hardier train for the one thousand mile journey north to the provincial town of Lille where they were to begin their latest investigation. Watson had settled down almost immediately, sinking into the plush seat like a winter bird fluffing its feathers. Holmes had gravitated toward the smoking car (itself in danger of becoming an anachronism in an increasingly anti-smoking society) which he found blissfully unoccupied. He spent most of the northward journey with his back to the window, watching the passengers as they traversed up and down the corridor. He did not smoke. He seemed merely content to be in a position to do so if he chose.

Their present commission had been set to them by a doctor named Roubaix, a noted physician and medical celebrity, whose latest research seemed to indicate that he had found a cure for all forms of malignant neoplasms -- cancer. He was mere weeks away from making a formal announcement when he discovered that his research notes had been stolen from a locked safety deposit box, itself protected by a two-foot-thick steel vault door in the city bank. The security cameras had recorded nothing of the incident; no alarms had been triggered and none of the employees had access to the safety deposit boxes, save the manager, who had been away on holiday in Nice.

"These papers are priceless, Mr. Holmes," Roubaix had pleaded, wringing his hands as he sat in the sitting room at Baker Street two days earlier, "the police launched a formal investigation but turned up rien, nothing. You must come to France. I do not want to be melodramatic, but the future of the human race may depend on it."

"Never let it be said that I did not do my part for humanity, Watson," Holmes said as they stepped onto the platform at Lille, the steam of the engine swirling around their ankles.

"Oh yes," Watson replied dryly, "Sherlock Holmes: our last great hope."

Holmes narrowed his eyes shrewdly. "You're irritated with me."

Watson dragged the last of the two cases down from the train and heaved them onto the platform, puffing for his effort. "No, no, not at all. I'll just get these heavy suitcases myself. What have you got in here, cement bricks?"

"Safecracking equipment." And he set off across the square at a brisk walk.

Comments

[mmkaternater]

Sherlock raised his eyes to the ceiling, as if in divine placation. "If there is a point, Miss Adler, please feel free to come to it."

[irene_adler]

Another minute step and she was in his immediate space, her chin lifted to regard the sharp features of hos face. Her smile was brighter in the candle flame.

"My point, Mister Holmes, is that I hope John Watson enjoys explicit adult literature, as that's what he'll be reading in the notes. The owner of the flat is, after all, a struggling actor and writer. Who was kind enough to allow me to share his lease until I secured my own accommodations."

[mmkaternater]

Sherlock's eyes closed momentarily. In the palace of his mind's eye he had come back to the mental file of her he had created, whizzing through reams of minutiae until the edges of the problem came into sharp relief. He opened his eyes. His pupils drank in the candlelight.

"Of course," he murmured, half to himself, looking just past the diamond chip earrings in her ears, "old habits die hard. You would never place your valuables anywhere where you could not find them; where they were not immediately accessible. You wouldn't risk stashing the notes in your flat. You would expect Tyche to come in and do the necessary rough and tumble in order to get them back; I wonder how that sat with your landlady."

His foot slid forward, closing more of the distance between them. "You take your security precautions very seriously. You would want to keep the notes...close."

[irene_adler]

"Oh, Sherlock." An amused laugh touched the edges of her voice and made the candle flames quiver. He was circling the truth with a quickened pace, coming closer and closer but still so far away. It could be a dance between the two of them, some kind of tango, if she were moving as well. But Irene was standing still, her eyes fixated on his face.

"It isn't even my flat. If this were a game of hot and cold, your search would have landed you in the arctic."

[mmkaternater]

She was not as cryptic as she thought herself to be. No one was, Sherlock thought to himself, watching the amused smile as it crept across her face. She had, admittedly, tested the capabilities of his mental instrument with the affair in London. To her credit, she was the only adversary (if one could call her that) to have bested him. In the end it had been his understanding of her heart (if one could call it that) that had led to her ruin. Now Sherlock set himself to systematically applying that knowledge to their present circumstances.

"The notes aren't in the flat," he said. "They never were. You were too careful. Too exacting. Too --" the corner of his mouth bowed slightly "-- paranoid, to let your great gamble out of your sight for very long." The hand that was not in possession of the wrapped wine glass unspooled its long, tapered fingers and hovered in the air above her hip. "I said close."

[irene_adler]

The air between them was electric, or maybe it had been that way all along and she had simply been too preoccupied to notice. Sherlock was not to be underestimated, but neither was Irene. There had been errors on her part before, but that didn't mean she'd allow the same to happen again.

"I'm always too close."

She moved then, and an upward sway of her hips brought his fingers in contact with the fine black fabric that concealed her.

[mmkaternater]

They were getting stares from the other patrons. The house manager looked if he were torn between intervening and attempting to pretend that this sort of thing happened all the time.

Intimate conversations. Stolen fingerprints. Veiled threats. It was all another evening of fine dining.

Sherlock's face betrayed no reaction at the contact. What was there to be embarrassed about a human hip? Perhaps she had thought to upset his balance by the sudden contact; to parry his some-time-ago revelation that deception with words and deeds were no good, so long as your central nervous system was in control. This was curious. She still sought to intimidate him. Still viewed him as a threat to her way of life.

I was just playing the game.

"Not this close," he assured her. His hand did not move from her hip.

[irene_adler]

She hadn't expected a shocking emotion across his face, but maybe there had been some intent with the touch. Or maybe she had simply meant to acclimate him, slowly, to the way she felt beneath his hand. Maybe there were other, deeper pursuits in mind that had nothing or everything to do with intimidation.

Maybe.

"Oh, closer then. Well, Mister Holmes, for that, you will need to follow me."

[mmkaternater]

"You'll forgive me when I say I don't trust you, Miss Adler." His thumb brushed the fabric of her hip; the strong, downward slope muscle, tightened and toned from days spent on pointe in preparation for her latest role on the stage. A gentle gesture, but not particularly an intimate one.

He was looking for something.

[irene_adler]

"Oh, I'm not asking you to trust me, Mister Holmes. I'm telling you that if you want what you're looking for, you'll have to follow me."

If his touch made her react at all, she showed no outer sign of it. Instead her own fingers began to mimic his, ghosting a similar touch across the fabric of his coat. So light that if he weren't paying attention he might not feel it.

[mmkaternater]

"And what if I don't?" he queried. He slid his fingertips across the small of her back, meeting a ninety degree angle at the base of her spine. The dress was cut as close to her body as possible while still leaving room for her to breathe. He suspected that she had selected it especially for their meeting. It was an echo of some of the things she had worn in her tenure in London; a scratch to his memory by one of her long, red-painted fingernails.

"What if I turn this matter over to the police right now? End your game before you have a chance to put all of the pieces on the board."

[irene_adler]

It was the closest they had been, and she increased that nearness with an upward trespass of her own hand. Now the same red nails found the line of his collar, flicking a touch to warm skin along his jawline.

"What makes you think the police aren't pawns themselves?"

Her voice was a whisper and it had to be, given the topic of conversation and their proximity.

[mmkaternater]

"Hmn. You have been busy."

His pocket chimed. Immediately Sherlock lifted his hand from her lower back and fished his fingers into the interior of his coat, withdrawing a small mobile phone. He read the display. "Do you mind if I take this?" he asked, in the manner of one who has had to interrupt a business lunch to take a phone call.

[irene_adler]

"Please."

Answered in the same manner and with a miniscule tilt of her head. Irene had a vague idea of just who might be on the other end of that phone call, and just how their disposition might be. It was something she wouldn't mind watching.

[mmkaternater]

"John." The one syllable greeting, even and unperturbed, set a counterpoint to the exasperated voice on the other end of the line. Holmes listened intently, then told the good doctor that he would be sending him something -- the wine glass -- by way of special courier. Surely the delivery boys in this town were immune to Miss Adler's greater charms.

"What are you doing?" his companion asked. Sherlock could hear both eyebrows as they edged ever higher on Watson's forehead.

"Reconnaissance," answered Holmes, then ended the call. He turned to Adler, his expression neutral, though crackling excitement jumped across the back of his neck. Interesting...very interesting.

"Well, Miss Adler. Shall we?"

[irene_adler]

Now her expression changed, her features moving into a curious, albeit pleased smile. Maybe she had thought he would deny her (but who could? ) or she would have to implement another tactic (she had more than enough). But regardless, Irene nodded her head with a slow, pleased smile.

"Of course."
Patrons and maintainers alike attempted to dissuade their attention from the pair. Only the young man at the hostess stand was addressed with a cool tilt of her head.

"Miss Katerina?"

"If you would call for my car."

"As you wish."

[mmkaternater]

Sherlock entrusted the glass with the house manager, informing him that an associate would be by shortly to retrieve it. The manager side-eyed Adler for a split second, but then agreed to keep the glass in his safekeeping. Sherlock collected his coat from the back of the chair and slid his long arms through the sleeves. He waited for her to make her arrangements: that cool, detached figure in the long overcoat with the eyes that missed nothing.

It was the chase that got him. The case. As they stepped onto the cold sidewalk, Sherlock was seized by the palpable, drug-like rush of adrenaline that came with the near culmination of an investigation. He was certain he would have what he was looking for by the end of the evening. His mental faculties were at their sharpest when he was close to the finale.

[irene_adler]

A sequence of keys was tapped on her phone, a message sent to Irene's assistant, the one who anything worked for. In five minutes the other woman would arrive, introduce herself as Mr. Holmes' associate, and the fingerprints of Irene Adler would be whisked away.

"Your car, madam."

"And my gratitude. "

Irene tugged leather gloves onto her fingers, then turned to Sherlock. A tilt of her head and they stepped into the night.

"Before we go anywhere, allow me to see your phone. Unlocked, please. I won't take it past your sight. "

[mmkaternater]

Sherlock knew the glass was lost the moment he stepped away. It was no matter. Crystal was one of the easiest materials to print, but Sherlock was resourceful. When John arrived at the restaurant to collect the glass, he would realize the fool's errand anyway. It would, at the very least, give the doctor a breadcrumb trail to follow. Miss Adler's envoys were not as cagey as their mistress; even John could be an effective tail if the situation called for it.

"Allow me to see the notes," he parried. A beat. A single raised eyebrow. "To make it worth my while."

[irene_adler]

Bemusement crossed her pretty features, and a smile blossomed as its result. A gift to some and a curse to others, to make Irene Adler smile. It could mean the very good or the very bad.

"Sherlock, you have no bargaining chip, " she said. "You want the notes. You believe I have them. If you want what I have, it must happen my way. Your phone, please. "

[mmkaternater]

"I know that you have them. I have seen that you are the fastest conduit to their recovery, but I assure you: I will retrieve them, regardless of the situation. What I am proposing is simply a matter of mutual assured security. Mine and yours. The phone -- for the notes."

Her driver emerged from the sleek vehicle and came round the back, popping open the passenger side door with a deferential smile. Sherlock observed -- mid-forties, depressed at work, compulsive eater, failed marriage, two failed marriages, recent haircut -- and turned his focus back to the woman.

"Or haven't we learned to trust one another yet?" he asked.

[irene_adler]

It was a fair point, the one of trust, though Irene possessed a degree of confidence that the notes would remain hidden if she chose them to be so. They were insurance to her at this time, and her insurance was something she valued closely. After Sherlock's last deception of her, she was more guarded with her secrets.

But quid pro quo, after all.

"Come closer to me."

[mmkaternater]

It was a game of who will budge first?. For Sherlock knew that she distrusted him at least as much as he distrusted her. In their short acquaintance they had danced around one another, teasing commiseration, but fully aware that they were not the type of breed to give it.

And so Sherlock's pale gray eyes kept their requisite caution, even while he moved his body out of the wind.

[irene_adler]

Her hand rose and her fingers encircled his wrist, thumb brushing against the back of his knuckles. Little bumps there, and indentations in between each that she could nest her touch in. She chose the second one to make a small resting place with the pad of her finger, and then a slight tug drew him closer.

Closer, to guide his hand to return to the small of her back. The curves of her body pressed in closer and against his, in what would have looked a lover's embrace to outsiders.

[mmkaternater]

To others, a lover's embrace. To Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler, a negotiation. His left hand slipped beneath the edge of her coat and traveled the seemingly infinite plane to the small of her back: fingers across the outside of her ribcage, the juncture of her spine and hip. He did not linger in one place for longer than necessary.

And then -- ah.

"I said close," he repeated. "Thank you, Miss Adler." He lifted (rather than slid) his fingers away from the small of her back and produced his mobile from an interior jacket pocket.

"And I am a man of my word," offering her the device. "I trust that deactivating the GPS feature will give you a feeling of reassurance. Albeit a temporary one."