FIC: you may be my lucky star (Sherlock Holmes (RDJ movies), Sherlock/Irene, R)
TITLE:you may be my lucky star
RATING:R
FANDOM: Sherlock Holmes(RDJ movies)
PAIRING:Sherlock Holmes/Irene Adler
SUMMARY:They’re not dead, but still, heaven is a tricky thing.
AUTHOR’S NOTES:Set primarily post- Game of Shadows, though the timeline does wander here and there. Written for the Het Swap 2017 for turtlebook. Title from the Madonna song, “Lucky Star.”
Sherlock’s funeral was a week ago, but now he is sitting at an open air table outside Button’s. Instead of drinking his tea, he has his eyes closed, focusing on deducing the origins of today’s coffee selections from smell alone. Behind him, the legs of a chair scrape over the stone, and then the whisper of crinoline brushing over it, a moment after, and soon Sherlock is smelling something rather sweeter than the Turkish blend, and more familiar.
At first, his mind stubs on the information, because it’s impossible. But it isn’t just the oriental perfume-jasmine, pepper, rose, and labdanum-but the scents beneath it, olive oil soap and sooty kajal, and the milk and cinnamon scent that is intrinsic to her, like it is sewn into her skin.
He doesn’t turn as he speaks, because, for all his mental prowess, he does not know what he will do if, this once, he is wrong.
“You’re supposed to be dead, Irene,” he says.
In his mind’s eye, Sherlock can see the way her mouth turns up at the corner, enjoying the parry.
“You, too, Sherlock,” she says.
Sherlock turns to face her, and finds her facing him, side saddle in the wrought iron cafe chair. She is wearing blue, her cheeks are pink, and she is definitely breathing. She’s looking at him, too, and her brow rises slightly, a challenge. Your move, darling.
He tries for witty, but cannot manage it. “Where have you been?” he asks.
Her eyes sparkle. “The great beyond.”
“Honestly.”
She considers a moment. “Marrakesh,” she says finally. “And you?”
“Switzerland.”
“Hmm. I like the weather in Morocco better.”
“In those skirts?”
“In your dreams.”
“Irene.”
She looks at him for a long moment, the way he’s been looking at her-like she is in a menagerie, seeing for the first time in flesh an animal she’d only seen in pictures.
“Did you miss me?” she asks finally. She waits for him to speak, and when he doesn’t, she says, “I missed you, too.”
***
They walk the streets of London with no clear destination. Sherlock offers his arm as they step off the curb.
“Did you enjoy my funeral?” he asks. Her fingers curl around his arm, and even through his coat he feels their touch like brands.
“Not as much as you did, I’m sure.”
“Well, attending one's own farewell is a rare pleasure-”
“And me,” Irene says as though not listening to him at all, “I didn't get a funeral. You'd think a woman like me would deserve a funeral.”
“There are no women like you, Irene,” he says, but then she's looking at him in such a way that a lump condenses in his throat so he coughs and says, “Besides, you were dead, so-”
She rolls her eyes. “That is traditionally for whom funerals are given, Sherlock. The dead.”
Sherlock thinks of the last time he held her handkerchief to his face, how her smell faded just moments after he threw the little linen square into the sea. Maybe things were easier that way.
If one thing can be said about Sherlock Holmes, it is that he has no use for easy.
He has not risen to her bait, and so she is looking at him expectantly. She looks half like she's waiting for her chess opponent to fall into her hidden trap, and half like a child waiting for her father to pull a present from his pocket. Sherlock remembers her just as this as she slipped open the jewel case at the British Museum and brought out, dangling from her fingers, a necklace chunky with intricate gold filigree and encrusted with emeralds and rubies.
“Mughal Dynasty,” she said, and Sherlock started; he had been sure he had evaded her detection, but-as he would learn-nothing much got by Irene Adler.
Sherlock stood (no use crouching if not hiding) and made his way to her.
“Excellent clarity,” he said, watching the low light glint off the gems, “and of course it's a priceless piece-”
“Everything has a price.” She held the necklace against her, as if modeling it in a store glass. “Do you think it suits me, Mr. Holmes?”
Sherlock swallowed his shock that she'd found him out again, and pretended to give real thought to her question.
He had planned on saying something about sapphires, but then he noticed the way the necklace lay over the topography of her body, flat at the clavicle and then gently curved where the jewels rested over the tops of her breasts. In the light coming in from the street, her skin was pale as cameo shell, and he could imagine the soft, supple feel of it as easily as he could conjure the smell of bay laurel, or recall the composition of gunpowder.
“I can't imagine anything that wouldn't suit you, Miss Adler,” he said, and she smiled.
“Are you here to fetch me for Scotland Yard?” she asked, turning her back to him so he could fasten the necklace around her neck.
He locked the clasp, the pads of his fingers for a moment lingering upon the warm, bare skin above the collar of her dress.
“I was simply collecting information for the constabulary, but now that I've lost the veil of secrecy, I find myself without alternative recourse.”
“I see,” she said, and turned to look him in the face, her expression far from fearful; she looked amused, if anything. “Shall we just sit here and wait for the police to chance upon us, or would you like to talk terms?”
“Terms?”
“Yes. The details of our negotiation.”
“I do not negotiate, Miss Adler.”
She smiled. “Everything has a price, Mr. Holmes.”
He had had to explain the thief's escape to the Inspector, but in all fairness, the necklace looked far better on her than in the display case.
Irene looks at him like her mind has followed his, that for a moment they both marinated in the memory of that night years ago in the Indian wing of the British Museum, their first meeting. Then he realizes she's still waiting for him to say something clever, but instead he asks where she is staying, and follows her there.
***
It would not occur to Irene to lay low anywhere other than an exquisite hotel, but then, Moriarty is dead. She is safe, as safe as she ever is. Sherlock hovers by the table waiting to be offered a drink, but Irene walks right past him. She is undoing the long line of buttons down the front of her coat, and after a moment regards him peevishly.
“I would prefer if you'd help me with this,” she says.
Sherlock Holmes is amazingly perceptive, except when it comes to picking up on the emotions of others, but this is a clear indicator that she wants more than help with her jacket.
The coat comes off, and Sherlock’s palms run over the violin curves of her ribs to her waist to her hips. Her hands are in his hair and his mouth is on her throat as he unlaces and unwraps her, his hands cupping her breasts and taking in the vibrations thrumming through her chest as she purrs. Irene pulls him to the bed and he lets her. Her knees press against his ribs, her fingers scratching across his chest, her teeth on his neck. Everything is sensation and nothing is analyzed; Sherlock simply receives. He thinks of the daze of the drugged wine, falling, Irene’s hands around him and the taste of stardust in his mouth. It’s like that. It’s always like that.
Irene guides him in, and arches her back, her head back and her neck bared, an uncharacteristic vulnerability that she trusts him not to exploit. For a moment her eyes close, and he could snap her neck without her seeing it coming, but she trusts him not to. She never trusts anyone for anything, but here and now she trusts him with everything.
He kisses her. She is the comet, a rare and dazzling event that changes everything. He is a stargazer, making calculations and plotting movement across the sky and then forgetting all his math and logic, forgetting everything else but the star shooting across the night sky.
Despite rumors, neither of them is dead, but-at least for this fleeting moment-they both touch heaven.