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Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

Irene had had a fabulous time in France, thank you for asking. It had been entirely too long since she'd visited Paris on her own time, the pastoral everything else had actually caught her interest more than she would have figured, and -- that was it. Those were the things she'd liked about the trip.

Food was good too, she supposed. And it was nice to stock up on perfume and shoes, while she was over there. Shopping always soothed her spirit.

(And the room party, and the wedding, but Irene felt like if she dwelled on what she had liked about those things, she might somehow sabotage it or -- you know. Accidentally send fifty-seven unsolicited texts, or something.)

So, anyway. Back to the grind, as it were. And the grind, in this case, was the business of making sure that anyone who really loved this time of year was...well-equipped to really love this time of year.

Enter at your own risk -- the display at the front of the store is...thematic, once more.

[I don't have to tell you those links are NSFW, do I? open!]

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Morning meant Marc could be awake for hours before Steven needed to worry about that class of his. So it was a Marc who was dressed in his own clothes who stopped by the shop. He did pause at the front to take in the displays.

"Guess that's one reason for those things to taste bad."

"I've got some pumpkin spice lube on offer to counteract that," Irene noted, glancing up from where she was -- naturally -- very busy scrolling on her mobile. "How are you, Marc?"

"The usual," Marc said. Which was his emotionally constipated way of saying better than he was the last time Irene saw him. "You?"

"I spent the last week in France, so a bit better than usual," she replied easily, smiling over at him. "Were you and Steven stuck here, pining without us?"

Irene had been a school-holiday-piner in the past. It did not suit her.

"Steven was in Portugal with Watts," Marc said. He smirked. "I stayed out of it."

Irene made a sympathetic little face, sticking out her tongue. "As well I would think you should. Poor third wheel," she decided. "Bit of a holiday for you, too, then? Like a long sleep?"

Honestly, Irene had pretty much slept away at least one full day in France, between spa treatments and the on-holiday of it all.

"They hit museums and shit," Marc said. The horror, Irene, the horror. "And yeah. Course now he's on my ass about being social like he's got to make up for it."

Marc would've come by to say hi to Irene regardless though. Not that Marc considered her a friend or anything. Don't be silly.

Irene herself would deny that she even wanted or needed friends until she was a very pretty shade of blue in the face, so. Peas in a pod, really.

"Has he given you a quota?" she suggested, finding this fairly amusing. "'Talk to X many people or I'll force you to look at an antiquity again'?"

That nearly got a laugh out of Marc. "Don't give him any ideas. He's annoying enough to try it."

Though that did remind Marc of something he meant to ask her. "Did meet someone new yesterday. You run into that Arthur guy? Got a cast on?"

"Isn't that the bloke who was stuck in the clinic for the past month?" Irene asked, rifling through the neatly-kept index of her brain and turning up a vague, Does he just live there now? errant thought from a week or two back. Holiday muddied the waters a bit there. "Suppose the cast might fit with that. He seems nice, then?"

Irene had been around long enough to know that sometimes newcomers brought with them the likes of murder carnivals and evil monkey's paw retail establishments, or, minimally, dangerously inaccurate ideas of how to write an erotic novel. But hopefully Arthur was the nice sort!

"Trying to get a read on him," Marc told her. Then, since it was Irene, he actually gave useful information like, "Konshu said there might be some bullshit. Doesn't necessarily mean him though. Could be someone he knows."

Seriously, so much easier just to be told to kill people. There were no puzzles with that.

"What sort of bullshit?" Irene had to ask, instantly much more interested.

People who might be associated with some bullshit were automatically more interesting than nice people. (Though the two conditions were, of course, not mutually exclusive.)

"Something bigger than him," Marc said. He shrugged. "That's all I got. 'Larger forces." Which is a pain in the ass because normally he's more direct."

Again, just telling Marc to kill people. Very clear when it was that on the menu.

"There's someone else around here like that," Irene offered thoughtfully, unwilling to just fork over Jon's name if Marc didn't already know who she meant. "Haunted, like. D'you suppose it's something like that? I'd have to imagine he'd just come out with it if this Arthur has superpowers or magic or something, since that's half the damn town."

Marc did know who she meant and had similarly not been forking over the name. Funny, that!

"Maybe," Marc said. "Last time Konshu brought it up around here it was somebody connected to some weird ass god."

Again, Marc was never one for paying attention to the lore.

"Course last time it was a guy named Arthur he was trying to kill millions of people," Marc said. "Don't think that's this guy, though. But he is weird. Can't put my finger on it but weird."

"Weird for here or weird in general?" Irene asked, hopping up to perch on the counter with an amused smirk. "Most people here are what I'd consider weird in general."

Even, and perhaps especially, some of her favorites.

Present company included?

"Weird in general," Marc said. "He's from the 30s so that's weird for here. Some place in Massachusetts I've never heard of so also weird for here. But something about him is just - I can't put my finger on it."

Which was one of the many reasons he was mentioning it to Irene. Not only did he know she liked knowing things, he figured if anybody could figure it out it'd be her.

It was hard to be weirder than, say, Jon, or even Amaya and Octavia in their own ways, but yes, present company absolutely included.

"I'll see what I can pick up when I run into him," Irene offered, accepting the figurative investigative baton with a smile. "Chat a bit about the marvels of...color television and the polio vaccine. Poor thing -- the thirties. Just modern enough to have a taste of things, just ancient enough to be thrown by mobiles and the internet."

Wait until she met Eddie, really.

"Wonder if anybody mentioned that world war coming up," Marc said. "Oh - he used to work as a PI. Least that's what he said."

Trust issues, Marc had them.

"Could be a cover," Irene observed thoughtfully. "PI's a good answer for why one might know all sorts of things they oughtn't, or looking into things that aren't their business. Even if he's legit, that's something to watch."

Private detective issues. Irene had them.

"Good point," Marc said. This was why it was useful to hang around with smart people. Not be friends with them, of course. But know them and rely on them and not mind their company. Totally different. "Plus he's got trouble back wherever he came from. His leg didn't break itself."

No, no, never friends. Just -- smart people solving a problem (that they might well have invented, actually, but that wasn't going to stop Irene!) together.

"Broken leg's a bit showy for most folks who'd just want to make a point, in my experience," Irene noted, glancing to Marc. "If it was broken on purpose, that is. We can't rule out that he might just be exceptionally clumsy."

But he probably wasn't.

In Marc's defense he had a god telling him to pay attention. A god annoyingly lax on details but still.

"Did look like a stiff breeze would knock him over," Marc said. "Though he was asking about getting a gun so maybe some experience there."

"If he had much experience, don't you think he'd have one already?" Irene pointed out, lifting an eyebrow.

"Could've been taken off him by whoever broke his leg," Marc pointed out. "Disarming's the first thing I'd do."

Then he'd break the leg. Which he'd also done on numerous occasions.

Irene considered that, and then lightly inclined her head towards Marc in an acknowledgement that that was a very fair point she hadn't considered.

"Sounds like the luckiest thing that's happened to him recently is ending up here instead of worse off than broken-legged," she commented, worrying her lower lip thoughtfully. "Unless he brought whoever's so angry at him along with, which would be bad news for everyone."

Again: murder carnivals, evil stores. They had been a thing before.

Marc thought about it. "If it was immediate Konshu would've said something. He doesn't beat around the bush if it's something easy to take care of. He just said keep an eye on it. So my guess is could be a problem but not yet."

That was one thing in Konshu's favor: he wasn't for punishing people who didn't deserve it.

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Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

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