Birthday Gift for Cheryl~!

[fyrefly]

Title: Small Mercies
Fandom: Sherlock (BBC)
Rating: Teen

A rough draft but she has been waiting so patiently I thought I would put up this preview.  Will clean it up at some point and put on AO3 for the sake of putting everything I write in one place.

 

Old habits died hard and a dominatrix trying to lay low without the rich and powerful found it very difficult not to miss her old life.  Irene Adler’s gift of conversation brought her plenty of work, particularly as a bartender where plenty of lonely men wanted to believe the beautiful woman with the blue bedroom eyes cared about their problems.  Every once and a while she secured a place on the arm of a wealthy man who needed someone on their arm for a date of some kind – be it a wedding or a corporate banquet.  Presents from such men – gold chains, handbags, earrings – they were pretty enough but it didn’t stop her from missing her wardrobe, her townhouse, her power.

Perhaps it was inevitable that she be drawn back into that life, no matter how important it was that she stay away.  Her hair had been scarlet at the time, her eyes obscured by a pair of black-rimmed glasses (naughty librarian – it was always the delinquents that went for them, wasn’t it?) when a heavily muscled man with a familiar face and a slight drawl slid next to her in the diner and asked how would a woman like her like to make some quick cash that evening making someone like him look respectable?  Sebastian Moran should have been the last man she wanted to see – one of the few that even had an inkling of what she had turned over to Iceman Holmes.  But still…with Jim Moriarty dead was there really a danger?

The society dinner for some charity bigwig that evidently was not giving his money to the right people ended with Sebastian (“No darling, call me Seb,”) making a quick trip to the loo followed by screams and police sirens and Irene barely caught a glance of blood mixed with water pooling out from the men’s room before he was pulling her away, walking pressed together for all the world like a pair of newlyweds into the black cold night.

She let him take her to bed that night, still trying to decide if she felt giddy or sick (had he washed his hands first?).  The deception was worth the fancy dinner and a stay in a posh hotel at any rate, and she was confident in her deception until came out from the shower with a towel around his waist and saw her playing with his mobile phone holding it an a careless manner so familiar to him he finally remembered why her voice reminded him of Jim.  The Woman.

Sebastian raised an eyebrow and held out his hand.  “I’ll take that, thanks.  And I thought you were dead.”

A shrug.  “Sorry, no.  Old habits die hard I guess,” she dropped the phone into his waiting palm.  “So what are you going to do?  Turn me in?   Slit my throat?”

He opened his mouth, shut it.  Went to the rooms’s minibar and poured himself a whisky which he promptly dispatched before filling the glass again and sipping slowly.  “Ah, hell.  You don’t look like you’ll give me a reason to.”

“I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Good enough for me.  I hate killing women.”

Irene brushed past him and began rummaging through the selection of alcohol.  “What will you do, then?”

“Seems to me you have a talent.  I guess there ain’t much point in keeping you from the details so how about we just continue as we are?  You owe me a hell of a favor and I’m not getting the feeling you like whatever it is you’re doing now.”

She glanced at him sidelong through her lashes.  “Maybe.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow.  Usual spot at 6.  We can see how well you can get into our mark’s hotel room and fetch me a flash drive.”

 

The mark was flabby and lonely, the flash drive the work of moments and one text later Seb had the fire alarm blaring and they were gone.  She would never admit to him that in its own way, it was kind of fun.  But they worked well together and one job turned into another, apparently having someone along to provide an ornamental distraction made his work easier.

After two weeks she was given a set of keys and an address which ended up being a beautiful flat overlooking a park with a fountain which stayed lit up at night.  He visited several nights a week, usually bringing details of a favor he needed.  Sometimes they fucked, most times they didn’t and he just talked, often loudly, and she couldn’t begrudge him the need to let off some tension with the only person left on the planet that knew who he needed.

She knew the stages of grief, and old habits did die hard.  The second time she played with his phone it was easy to spot how slow it was.  A little harder was figuring out it was due to the larger memory card he’d installed in it.  The one that hadn’t been designed for the phone and killed its speed but left him room to keep current business messages alongside thousands of texts from ‘JM.’

Seb never mentioned a thing when she started talking to him more harshly, had her hair restyled short and black, shifted her wardrobe to white-black-grey, the cute tailored menswear-inspired outfits so in fashion nowadays, but occasionally she caught a look of gratitude when she browbeat him after a visit when he was feeling particularly down.  Her apartment swelled with clothes and jewelry in her absence and fat wads of cash tended to appear on her bedside table.

He valued her input.  There was a lot of restructuring to be done – men and women that had respected Jim but doubted his abilities needed to be put in line, and those that didn’t see the wisdom of new management replaced.  She was invaluable inserted into a casual dinner, able to read their expressions and predict who would fall into line.  After ignoring her input once and losing a shipment of currency inks to a competitor under “mysterious” circumstances, he took to running any new higher-ups by her first, particularly given how quickly strange portions of the organization kept dropping off the face of the earth.  He needed to know his top people were his men.
 

Irene was actually quite surprised it took as long to arrange a lunch with Roger.  Seb had been singing his praises for going on two weeks.  Apparently the man had the social abilities of a rock but could hack into damn near anything, a resource they had sorely been lacking up until now.  She was left waiting in the café for several minutes before Sebastian entered accompanied by a man in dreadlocks and a hooded sweatshirt.  Seb had warned her the day before, told him the hacker was a bit stuttery and had a somewhat unpleasant smell, but it wasn’t like he was ever going to be talking to customers, was he?

As was their custom he introduced them (her smile and offer of a handshake was met with a withdrawing of shoulders and a mumbled “hello,”) and then went off “to use the gents” while she got a few minutes to interact with the newcomer on her own.  Roger was a twitchy thing, he kept tugging at his stubbly beard and looking around distractedly through thick glasses so filthy that she wondered how he could even see out of them.  Well, filthy kind of described the rest of him, to be honest.  Seb hadn’t been lying about the smell.  She rather hoped he was exceptionally good at his job because she’d just as soon leave him in an office and look at him as infrequently as possible.

“Alright, come on then,” she finally said, “Why not tell me a bit about yourself?”

He looked up at her then, and it was a good job he had the quick reflexes to catch her water glass before she knocked it entirely over.  A woman who used makeup to the degree she did knew when highlights and shadows were being created where they didn’t exist, and the most talented makeup artist in the world couldn’t cover the contours of those cheekbones.  The pale eyes were barely visible behind the glasses but she could feel them boring into her.  She knew, he knew, they both knew each other knew.

He was supposed to be dead.

Seb would be back at any moment.  Her stomach twisted painfully.  His presence here, it threw everything into sharp focus.

Bad luck with key lynchpins which led to this whole vetting process in the first place – the important people just kept defecting or screwing up or dying.

A text she saw going through Seb’s phone.  If Sherlock doesn’t jump, kill Watson.  xoxo JM

Sherlock Holmes had died for John Watson.  It was highly probable he had killed for him.  If she said nothing, it was only a matter of time before Sebastian Moran as she knew him would cease to be, eliminated completely either by arrest or death.  If she gave Sherlock away, she could go back to building her life with Seb, secure in power and influence, no longer the plaything of anyone, living in fear of no one.

If she remained silent, an army doctor in London who claimed he wasn’t in love would get a second chance.  If she spoke, she would remain a pale shadow of the man Seb never could replace.

Irene Adler licked her lips and imagined a harsh dry night in the desert with a scimitar in her hands and the weight of it was so heavy.  What did it take, to look someone who had wronged you in the eye and stay the sword?

He had shown her mercy.

The restaurant had gone blurry and she realized belatedly it was tears.  She quickly brought up a napkin and blotted her eyes dry.  Moments later Seb returned to the table, face relaxed in that easy smile of his she had been seeing so much more of lately.

“Well, how are you two getting on?”

Sherlock/Roger said nothing.  His eyes never left hers.  She swallowed the lump in her throat.

“I’ve asked Roger where he’s worked before to be so good as his little tricks and he’s being far too modest.  He won’t answer me at all!  You must make him tell me, Seb.”

The eyes sharpened, reminding her of that night when he whispered for her to run.  Then they softened, just fractionally, into something she might have taken for gratitude on another man before sliding back into Roger’s vacant, distracted stare.

That night Irene Adler revisited the emergency escape bag she had packed the first night in her new flat and began sewing her jewels into its lining.  She couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

~fin.