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Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

Packing materials were such a bitch sometimes.

Irene had ordered a limited stock of beautifully-sculpted glass dildos and plugs, which, as befitting their quality, were nestled in their shipping box in just mounds and mounds and mounds of shredded paper.

Which wouldn't be a problem, had Irene not accidentally knocked the damn thing to the floor with a careless hip and sent the material everywhere.

She'd gotten a lot of it up, but the rest was going to take hoovering and that actually was a level she wouldn't stoop to, so -- mind the little bits of paper occasionally tracing their way along your shoes, any would-be sexy shoppers.

[open omg]

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Look, it wasn't that Marc needed to check in with a not-a-friend. He just happened to be in the neighborhood is all.

Was he looking around to check if Irene or her store had sustained any damage last week? Of course not. Don't be silly.

"Hey."

And lo and behold, Dite's -- and its proprietress -- had remained standing through the chaos. (Or, well, Irene had mostly remained on her sofa, but semantics.) A fact which Irene almost regretted, but also appreciated in light of how little work she now had to do this week.

"'lo, Marc," she replied brightly. "You look well."

By which she meant he didn't look visibly injured or anything, so last week must have gone well for him as well.

"Everything's relative," Marc replied. And since of course he hadn't been checking at all he obviously didn't do anything like give a nod of acknowledgement or look in any way like he was glad she was all right. Again, don't be silly. "Is the paper a new kink?"

What? Some people had weirder.

"The paper is me refusing to get on my knees without good incentive," Irene quipped, moving over to shake the offending box at him. "I cleaned up a lot of it but I'm not doing more when I pay people to take care of these things. And so unnecessary, too, if you don't throw shipping boxes around for sport to see whether they really mean' 'fragile.'"

"But what else am I gonna do for a new hobby?" Marc asked. Then rolled his eyes at himself when he remembered he apparently wasn't possessed of as much free time as he'd thought.

"Still. Play your cards right and some of your customers might pay you to clean this up."

Irene probably didn't need to be told that but it was Marc. Credit is given for him trying to do something resembling humor at all.

"It's been ages since I've found a client like that here," Irene told him with a sad tsk. Her only real client had left (died?) years ago, and the little arrangement with Jon didn't count. "But that's a fun thought. See if I can pull in someone by just leaving messes around and seeing who'll call me mistress for the privilege of tidying up."

She cast a glance over him, a little more critical this time. "You lot were out of town last week, weren't you?" Not that she kept tabs on people or anything.

"Back in London," Marc said. Then, be he'd offered to let her tag along on one of those trips if she wanted, added, "Quick business thing. Not worth tagging along for. Just catching up on some shit."

Irene waved that off, though the idea of tagging along didn't sting the way it had used to. (It still suggested that it might hurt to see her city, of course, but the idea itself didn't make her want to weep.) "Good shit? Or the bad sort of quick business thing?"

Marc leaned against the counter to make himself comfortable. His expression indicated that Irene had asked a good question. "Some stuff to get Watts set up to be a person in our world. Guessing you know what that's like. Then some shit of my own. I talked to Khonshu."

Was Irene one of very few people on the island Marc would share that with? Yup.

"Does our friend the detective need anything else in that way?" Irene asked, brows knitting together a tad. "I've got my resources, too."

Obviously.

"And how's everyone's favorite nosy birdman?"

"Dunno?" Marc admitted with a shrug to indicate Irene could check with Watts about it. Especially since there might be things Watts didn't want to ask Marc for.

"And turns out I'm crazier than I thought."

"That sounds both promising and perhaps a touch dramatic," Irene replied, looking intrigued in spite of her slightly-teasing tone there. "How so?"

Marc shrugged again. He sort of took being crazy as a given, so the level of it was mostly academic for him.

Mostly.

"Been blacking out more than I thought," Marc said. "Apparently I've been doing work for Khonshu this past year. Had no clue."

"You weren't already concerned about missing time?" Irene asked, frowning. "He told you after the fact what you've been up to?"

Though, honestly, with the way she herself missed some of her old work -- she would possibly welcome such a discovery for herself.

"There's always some missing time with us," Marc said. He pointed to his head. "It's like Swiss cheese up here. But never that much. This'd be like... two days at least to get something done for Khonshu. That I'm not fond of. Normally I've got a handle on it."

There was a deliberate pronoun choice there, for anyone paying attention.

"And it's not that he's been tapping Steven for help, instead," Irene checked, tilting her head. "You'd know, between the two of you."

Interesting. There seemed to be an obvious answer here, and yet it was also so very obvious that Irene immediately dismissed it.

Funny how that really obvious answer just kept slipping by, wasn't it?

"He doesn't ask Steven for anything if he can't help it," Marc said. "Not saying it never happened, but nah. It'd be me. Especially for the kinds of things Khonshu normally asks for. Not exactly Steven's wheelhouse, you know?"

Marc sighed. "Could be that we got more fucked up last year than I thought. Yeah we share more, but maybe we forget more too."

"May I ask a personal question?" Irene asked, and the very fact that she was even hesitating and giving him that buffer was a testament to her respect for both him and Steven. "You're welcome not to answer, but I'm curious."

Now Marc was curious what she had in mind. "Go for it."

He definitely reserved the right not to answer though. But he did that for any question people asked him.

Irene chose her words carefully, not wanting to offend. "Aren't you ever -- I think I would be resentful," she said slowly. "Of Steven. How you do the -- dirty work, shall we say, and he...doesn't."

And instead, Steven got to live a rather pleasant life, from what she could see. Loving partner, fun museum job, cute holidays to Florida and such -- while Marc stayed quiet and did Khonshu's occasional bidding.

The new blackouts would only amplify the resentment of being pushed aside and sublimated, she thought.

Marc looked as puzzled to be asked the question as if Irene had similarly asked him why he didn't have a unicorn horn growing out of his head.

Actually, since they were in Fandom, maybe he would've considered the unicorn horn question not as weird.

"No," he said. "Steven - he's not a killer. Even before all this with Khonshu. That's why the original deal was he stays out of it. I never would've agreed to this current thing if so much wasn't on the line. Steven's supposed to have the nice, happy, normal life. As much of my bullshit that doesn't cross over into that, the better."

"But aren't you also supposed to have a nice, happy, if not normal life?" Irene prodded, staying gentle about it. "Steven gets to faff about town with Detective Watts and have a wonderfully pleasant time on the day-today, but you've got to make do with a visit to the former dominatrix for conversation and then it's back to sleep unless there's a job to do?"

Irene, how dare you. He also went to the gym for a sticker and to the bar on Thursdays. Keep up!

He even went to the diner before it burned down! There should've been extra stickers for that!

"I had ten years with Layla," Marc pointed out. This was easier for him to explain since fuck knew he'd been trying to get Steven to understand it whenever he freaked out about if he was spending too much time with Watts. "Steven didn't exactly have a ton of luck in his personal life thanks to me. Even if I was looking for a relationship - "

Which, for the record, he wasn't. Looking at you, Steven, when giving that reminder.

" - he's due," Marc said. "The job, the boyfriend, all of it. I've fucked his life enough."

"Doesn't leave much time for you," Irene observed softly, tilting her head at him. "Fuck the relationship bit -- you deserve time to...I don't know, watch football or play Call of Duty or just stare at the walls, if you wanted. I think I'd resent that, the lack of...time that's mine."

And that was why the blackouts would make it worse. Further robbery of her precious, limited time.

"I have some time for that," Marc said. It was baseball season after all. "But I don't need much. I worked. If I'm not working I'm good, and other than Khonshu right now I'm not working."

Of course little did Marc know that later that evening Summer would be making an argument for his right to take up his old job again.

Irene totally had Summer's back on that argument.

"Work," she said slowly, "is not a life, Marc."

And that was really what she was getting at, here: Steven appeared to have a life. Marc was gifted moments.

"I don't need one," Marc said. "My original plan once I was free of Khonshu was to let Steven take over. I'd disappear - " Marc made a vague gesture to indicate the nebulous concept of how could someone like him disappear at all " - and Steven wouldn't have to worry about me or any of this shit again."

Layla had been thrilled when she'd heard about said plan, by the way. After all, not like she had any opinions about Marc being in her life or anything.

Sometime after Marc’s visit, there was a Watts.

“Afternoon, Miss Adler.” As per usual when he visited her shop, his hat ended up somewhere wildly inappropriate.

"Detective! Fresh from overseas, I hear," Irene greeted him, kicking an errant bit of paper off one shoe delicately. "How was your holiday?"

“Quite enjoyable, overall,” Watts said. Yes, the paperwork business had been a little nerve-wracking but it was all in support of eventually building a life there, so net positive. “It’s always interesting to see how much has changed between m- in the last century or so.”

Irene caught that little stutter and frowned a little, but moved on. "Marc's offered to let me tag along sometime, and I've always been torn -- it'd be a good fifteen years removed from my London, too, from what I've given to understand."

It would be like seeing an old friend, but she also wasn't sure whether she could bear to see how her friend had changed, or to say goodbye again.

“Ah, yes. You’ll note I’ve not yet set foot in modern-day Toronto,” Watts admitted.

"It's lovely, but I understand better than most," Irene assured him, and her look turned a little more -- knowing. "Speaking of things I know better than most -- Marc mentioned helping you with some modern-day things?"

Things was so deliberately vague.

“Mmm,” Watts nodded. “A friend of his and Steven’s got me the basic paperwork last year- passport and the like. This trip was all about setting me up financially. Bank accounts, that sort of thing.”

"Should you need anything of that nature and don't wish to make a whole trip of it," Irene ventured, making a careful, casual study of her fingernails for a moment, "I might know someone who's had to reinvent her own identity a couple times over and could assist, as well."

Someone.

"Is that so?" Watts said. "I shall- keep that in mind. It is a most generous offer."

"Just a matter of a phone call or two," Irene replied, smoothing a hand along her skirt and lifting her eyes to smile at Watts. "Some of us haven't returned to our home versions of our universe for reasons beyond sentimentality. There's a number of people who'd be quite surprised to see me standing."

And twice over, even!

"I figured there was a reason Marc would invite you to the London in his world specifically," Watts acknowledged. Calling it Marc's London seemed not-quite-right, as Marc acknowledged it had never been home for him the way it had been for Steven. Just a place to exist.

"Irene Adler has been dead in my London for -- oh, just about twelve years, now?" she replied, calling it hers with just as much deliberate choice as Watts had used to not call it Marc's. "At least, on paper. So, yes, there's a reason I've been invited to not-my-own-London, specifically."

Which was also a helpful hint as far as Irene's bonafides regarding those contacts she claimed to have, wasn't it?

“I’ll not ask what it is that got you into that particular situation,” Watts said, because he had a few ideas, all of which involved the sort of activities that he officially was meant to disapprove of.

You wound her, Detective! An innocent babe in the woods like Irene?

"Got me into it twice," she replied, holding up two fingers unrepentantly. "But anyway, that's actually all why I'm here and not there, and should you ever need, say, a misleading line of credit...."

There was a certain tightness about his expression at the mention of a line of credit, but as the offer was meant to be helpful, he smiled. “Then you will be at the top of my list to call. Of course.”

That tightness didn't go unnoticed, but Irene was also attributing this all to how a detective was probably doing her a bit of a favor by not being more curious about her past misdeeds.

"I'd imagine Marc's got it quite handled," she added with a nod, "but just to say. There's a reason he and I get on."

There were several reasons, really.

Edited 2023-05-03 21:24 (UTC)

“Oh, I’d imagine so,” Watts said, in the tone of someone who had absolutely no illusions about what it is Marc used to do. And apparently still did, albeit with less regularity.

Jon came in, looked around, and immediately started picking up the paper one tiny piece at a time. "It looks as though a package exploded."

"No, no, stop that," Irene scolded, waving at him. "Already tried. It's madness. You'll be at it forever. And it didn't explode so much as -- suffer an attack of...knocking-over."

A rare bout of clumsiness from Irene. For shame.

"Oh, it's, um. It's fine." He picked up another piece. "Unless you don't want me to."

Look, he cleaned when he was nervous, and he was often nervous. "I hope you've been well."

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Dite's Decadent Delights | Wednesday

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