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Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

Irene had exactly zero memory of the weekend. Wasn't the first time, of course -- she was classy, but you did not become a jet-setting dominatrix famous the world over without a blackout or two in your past -- but she didn't have any ill effects when she woke up on Monday, either. Actually felt quite good, in fact. And Clementine did not appear to have been neglected for the weekend, so between the evidence and what she could glean from radio, Irene was happy to let it lie.

Besides, she had much more important things to tend to. Such as setting up a sex swing display in a corner of the shop, with her puppy in her little puppy playpen nearby (both because she was still quite a young puppy, and also because Irene was completely in love with her, thank you for asking.)

Anyone browsing Dite's today could find her in stocking feet up on a stepladder with her Louboutins discarded nearby, screwing in eyehooks and quietly reading directions aloud to herself. It was important to get it right! For actual safety's sake!

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Marc was pretty much ready to be done with the events of the past weekend. But there'd been one last thing he'd noticed which stuck with him. Possibly it meant nothing. But it was the kind of thing he would've wanted a heads up on in her position so sure, he could stop by.

And then when he entered the shop there was staring, because this was not what he expected to see.

Irene grunted with the effort of screwing in the eyehook with a wrench, to make sure it was tight -- thumbs only got you so far! -- though she was more than happy to give it a rest for a moment to greet Probably Marc? (She was probably going to have fun with this, actually, the game of Is It Steven or Is It Marc?)

"Sex swing," she explained succinctly, waving with her wrench. "Afternoon, dear. Spot of shopping?"

In theory the clothing was a hint but that assumed they hadn't switched after leaving home. Luckily the accent was a giveaway.

"That wasn't it," Marc told her. He indicated the wrench she was holding. "Would've lost the bet on you doing any manual labor. You don't look like somebody who needs to know what a wrench is."

"And that's how I like it," Irene told him, tossing off a wink as she climbed down and moved over to toe her shoes back on. She prided herself on looking like someone who didn't know how to do a lot of things. And she'd been guessing Marc, so she was quite pleased at the revelation of the accent. "Though if it had been a bigger job I might've called in Dwight. He replaced all the light fixtures in here a time back."

Or Amaya, had her beloved blacksmith not stubbornly insisted on turning into a rabbit to get out of going shopping with Irene later this week. (She would not hear otherwise. That was exactly what had happened.)

Marc probably would have preferred turning into an animal instead of going on a clothing shopping trip so the theory wasn't without basis.

Marc flipped through the mental rolodex, as it were. "Dwight the one who attracts bullets?"

Marvel (heh) at how Marc remembered a name. Clearly a banner day.

Irene raised an eyebrow at that being the key detail to remember about Dwight, but confirmed, "That's the one. Big tall burly thing, too, so even if he weren't a handyman by trade I'd likely pull him in for anything that risks my manicure."

Though, notably, not anything that involved the use of firearms.

It was a detail to remember if you were Marc and had made a mental note that you might need to jump in front of the guy if something went wrong. Which in and of itself might be an eyebrow raising detail, if Irene ever knew about it.

"Better him than me," Marc said. Though now he had a mental countdown going until Steven yet again volunteered Marc's services in helping people put together furniture. Only depended on if Steven found out Irene could ever use the help. Marc certainly wasn't going to tell him.

More on the topic at hand, Marc asked, "Were you around this weekend?"

See, Irene would be more likely to shove Dwight in front of herself in a situation of this sort. Sorry, Dwight.

"I don't seem to have been," Irene noted, seemingly unbothered as she moved over to check on her incredibly adorable bulldog puppy, who was, in fact, asleep. "Something wonky seems to have happened with the island, though."

That answered his next question, which was how much did she know about what happened. "Yeah. Some people showed up 20 years older. Or it was a time travel thing. Not sure how it worked."

Marc was pretty much never going to ask how it worked either. Steven was the one who wondered about those details.

"Ah. Best not to think about how it works too hard. Sometimes," Irene shared, "the island does the reverse. I purchased a mace last November as a nine year-old."

And now she even knew how to use it!

But it was interesting, now that she knew the timeframe. Perhaps there was no Irene that far in the future.

Not surprising, really.

Which was why Marc had stopped by, in fact! Look at him being something resembling nice.

"Might mean nothing," he said, "but I didn't spot you. Not that I was looking hard. We had our own shit to deal with. But figured I'd give you a heads up, considering."

Considering that Irene had said she was using the island as a safe hideout, so if there was no Irene that could imply things had stopped being safe.

Aha, so he had also followed that conclusion to its logical end.

Though Irene knew herself pretty well. It was less likely the island had gotten unsafe, and much more likely that she had gotten bored and gone somewhere she shouldn't have.

"I appreciate it, Marc," she replied, actually sincere. "I remember nothing from the weekend, so it sounds like I...simply didn't exist."

Which was a delicate way to put things, really.

"Was it fun shit that you had to deal with?" she asked, genuinely curious.

Marc gave a shrug in response to the thanks. Common courtesy among people who understood each other, he figured.

"Could've been worse," he said. "Didn't know what the fuck was going on so mainly checking in with people."

Not that Marc cared of course.

"You yourself didn't age?" Irene checked. "You and Steven, I mean."

...could one of them change without the other? An interesting question.

"Stayed the same," Marc confirmed. He gave a wry grimace. "Got to hear a lot about people's futures."

Not his of course. That one had obviously been a fairy tale.

"Theoretical futures," Irene pointed out, smiling. "Nothing is written in stone, from what I understand. There's another weekend where children we might have turn up -- and let me tell you, the son who visits me every year is never happening for many reasons."

Hamish still made her a little sad, though, impossible though he was.

"The same kid shows up each time?" Marc asked. Oddly that seemed worse to him.

"I've gotten Hamish twice," Irene said, nodding. "It seems some people have recurring children," Zephyr had also seemed like a rerun, "and some are new every year. And then some eventually end up being born, I suppose, but not most."

It probably said a lot that even Marc couldn't hide the look in his eyes that said "that's horrifying" instead of "oh how cute." Not for a lack of trying on his part, however.

"I knew about the kids, didn't know about the repeats," Marc said. "Don't suppose that's what's coming up at the end of the month?"

"Usually we don't get warning for things like that," Irene noted. "Though certain things do seem to stick to a pattern, timing-wise. Unless you mean the welcome picnic, which just means that a few more teenagers -- and, hopefully, some new teachers -- are coming to the school."

She liked the teenagers, but new adults would always be more interesting to Irene.

"I heard end of semesters got weird," Marc said. "If it's just a welcome picnic, well that's easily avoided."

Did you want Steven to drop you off in the middle of a social event without warning, Marc? Because that's how you got Steven to drop you off in the middle of a social event without warning.

"Free food and people-watching," Irene pointed out with a lift of her eyebrows. "I usually make a point to attend, even if I haven't taught in years."

Also, he had a point that it had been a little while since anything really strange -- or even dangerous -- had happened. Maybe they were due.

"Steven can keep you company on that one," Marc told her. Assuming either of them went. "He says to say he's sorry by the way."

He wasn't saying it literally that second, but he'd insisted Marc pass this on if he was visiting Irene that day.

"I suspect you and Steven watch people differently," Irene commented. Though people-watching (and butterfly-watching) with Steven had proven to be an absolute delight in the past, Marc also had an eye like hers. "And he has nothing to be sorry for. If anything, I ought to apologize."

She wasn't really sure which one of them she ought to apologize to, really -- probably both?

Mind, she was not apologizing. She was just saying she probably should.

Saying she probably should put her way ahead of Marc on these matters, since his method was to sort of say vague words around the topic and assume that counted as saying sorry. There were, as always, a lot of reasons why he was currently single.

"He thinks he should've told you," Marc said. He held up his hands to disclaim any connection to this thought process. "I'm just the messenger. If I didn't say it he'd be on my ass for not doing it."

Steven nagged like a professional. It was best avoided.

"Well, if he'd told me I might have spared the dramatics," Irene noted, which was a vague concession that she'd come down pretty hard on Marc last week. "But it's noted and appreciated, even if I really think just about everyone's entitled to their secrets, if they want to keep them. You two just have the bad luck of having -- well. Suspicious-seeming secrets, unfortunately."

And Irene was nosy. She was more than happy to let people keep their private affairs private -- she just wanted to be in on all the secrets.

Marc hadn't felt Irene was that bad at all, considering. "I'll make sure he knows. Still trying to figure out if we need a new game plan here. You're not wrong about people figuring it out without us telling them."

Especially people with powers. Jon had been the first but he probably wouldn't be the last. And there was no guarantee the next one would be a friend.

"I don't care about me," Marc said, which was another one of those understatements of the century. "But Steven doesn't deserve to get shit because of any of this."

"You don't, either," Irene said firmly, but she wasn't going to dwell there, either. "There aren't many people...like me around, from what I can tell. Or like you."

Hopefully that clarification helped narrow down that Irene did not mean that there was a dearth of petite brunettes with posh accents. (Though there was.) But the number of people who seemed observant and opportunistic in the ways Irene was seemed very, very small. There was Margo. And she'd always had a feeling she ought to watch Dr. Lecter more. But the list wasn't long at all.

Honestly the "like you" was kind of refreshing. People looking at Marc like he was some nice person was like an ill fitting suit. It didn't sit well with him. Someone who took it as a given that there were darker layers there was a relief. It was part of why he didn't mind talking to Irene, or doing things like giving her a heads up about the weekend.

Or, in this case, comparing notes. "Konshu tells me about the worst of the worst. It's why I know whatever shit you've done can't be that bad. Haven't gotten any pings on this place. A few things to watch out for but nothing I've been told to handle."

Though the radio silence from the god on anything Marc needed to handle was getting unnerving.

You know, it probably wasn't appropriate that Irene was vaguely insulted that her villainous misdeeds weren't villainous enough to rouse the interest of an Egyptian god. But you know. There she was, vaguely insulted.

"Most people around here are so nice it's disgusting," she told him frankly. "When bad things happen, they tend to be imported, so that makes sense. Though supposedly there is a kraken." So, you know. Maybe he could handle that? Feel like fighting a sea monster, Marc?

"Do they get imported often?" Marc asked. He was guessing no, if the kraken was the best thing on offer. Which he would fight if he had to. Though while not thinking too hard about what the water would do to the suit. Probably give Steven something to be smug about that his version didn't have a cape.

"Whoever told you to expect something roughly once a semester was right," Irene commented. "And then between the big scary things, we get smaller...whims of the island. Twenty year flash-forwards, random children, sex pollen. And so on."

"That last one's just a Groupon for this place," Marc said, because sometimes he did in fact try to make jokes.

"It's the only one of these stupid things I actually like," Irene admitted. "Bit of a bright spot in the spring, usually. Oh -- sometimes the island compels us to tell the truth all day. Just -- be on the lookout."

It had gone well for her last time, but it was still the absolute worst.

"Good to know," Marc said. He was unaware they'd already lived through that one and both of them hadn't noticed because Steven had been in charge that day. "You know not for nothing but if your particular trouble gets imported in, feel free to call. I know my own way around a wrench in that case."

That earned him a tiny smile. "Knock on wood, but my particular trouble believes I was beheaded in Karachi a decade ago. But I'll keep you in mind if anything comes looking for me. And -- same, for what it's worth. I'm more resourceful than I look."

Even wrenches aside.

"So pretty damn resourceful then," Marc replied, with the slightest eyebrow quirk. For him this passed as saying "thank you." "Anyway I'll get out of your hair. Have fun with your sex swing."

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Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

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