if_inconvenient | (no subject)

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So. Alec Carrow.

Sherlock is aware that social boundaries apply to this situation, and that he is currently breaking them all. He doesn't much care. He is wholly capable of discretion, but he is not at all capable of remaining ignorant in the first place.

Start with finding the obituary. Work from there. How did he die? When?

(Tony doesn't know about the conversation with Alyce. Tony doesn't know about a lot of things. Tony has been spending more time than usual ensconced in his workshop with the door locked, hacking Stark Industries records like he doesn't remember that Jarvis won't keep secrets between the two of them. Sherlock is a little surprised that it seems Tony was on the level about arming him more formidably.)

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"No, you did not," he reassures her.

"How have you been?"

"Okay," she says. "I have unexpected free time today."

Birds in the tree above her flutter from branch to branch. Aside from the breeze rippling leaves, that is the only sound.

"Do you like coffee?"

Way to blurt out random questions. She covers her eyes with her hand and is thankful she has no video phone technology.

"I certainly do. Shall we celebrate the former with the latter?"

(Listening from his workshop, Tony wonders when the hell Sherry got this smooth. And who the girl is. And why he doesn't know her already. Maybe he does.)

Alyce laughs.

Sherlock is really good with setting her at ease. Maybe too good?

"Yes, please. Want to meet me at the Espresso Pump?"

"I would," his grin is very audible, "be delighted. What time?"

"I'm about ten minutes away, so anytime that works for you is fine. Maybe thirty minutes?"

"Yes, that would be quite suitable."

For one thing, it will give him a sterling excuse to be out the door before Tony can ask him how the Hell he managed to get a girl to ask him out for coffee.

Maybe it's because he's polite and cute and good with setting people at ease! Well, people like Alyce, anyway.

"Okay," she says, grinning pretty ridiculously.

It's just coffee.

"I'll see you there then."

"Indeed. Until then, Miss Carrow."

Grinning pretty ridiculously himself, he hangs up and directs Jarvis to save the latest researches on Bellatrix Black.

"Sherry," says the intercom, "how the Hell did you manage to get a girl to ask your out for coffee?"

"Tony," he answers cheerfully on his way out of the workshop, "I have to make a forty-five-minute walk in half an hour. Do shut up."

"I'll drive you," Tony offers.

"You most certainly will not."

Alyce takes her time strolling over to the coffee shop. She even stops to pluck a rose from a bush by one of the older graves near the front of the cemetery. She tears off the thorns and tucks it behind her ear.

She's wearing a "fairy dress" today. She has lots of.dresses along these lines. Handkerchief halter top, long flowing skirt - this one is in a soft purple. She has silver rings on her fingers, and a pentagram pendant on a chain around her neck.

She picks a table in the corner once she arrives. She always picks a table in a corner.

Sherlock arrives almost exactly on time. Thirty-two minutes is not bad, considering.

"Good afternoon," he says when he locates and approaches her table. "You look lovely."

He himself is wearing pale grey jeans and a white button-down shirt, the latter somewhat rumpled. But Sherlock always looks a little bit rumpled, so it's hard to tell he jogged part of the way here.

"Thanks," she smiles, and she barely manages to keep from ducking her head.

"So do you." This last is said in such a way that it could be playful (yet sincere) or serious. She is walking the cautious "just out for coffee" tightrope.

"Do you live far from here or close by?"

"A few miles," he admits, taking a seat. He doesn't appear to be walking any social tightropes, but then, he's Sherlock Holmes. It can be hard to read him sometimes.

Yeeeeah.

"Um, so, I think something cold and caffeinated is what I need. You want me to get you something?"

He got her drink at The Bronze, so it's only fair.

"Cold and caffeinated sounds like an excellent plan. Yes, thank you. I have it on excellent authority," by which he means Tony said so, "that the iced cappucinos here are superb."

"Two iced cappuccinos it is then," she says, heading for the counter in a swirl of purple.

She returns a few minutes later with the drinks.

"Thanks for coming. I was in danger of getting bored out of my mind."

This is an exaggeration. It's more that she didn't want to be alone.

"Perish the thought." He flashes her a grin as he accepts his drink.

"I know, right?"

She sips down some of the icy goodness. She loves coffee, but the iced kind? Her very favorite.

"You spend all year hoping for summer, and then it gets here and you have to work to find things to do. For me, anyway. I bet you keep your days filled with excitement."

"Of one variety or another," Sherlock agrees.

"If you thought you needed to, um, do any urgent research about... stuff, then you can take a night off."

Stealthy. That's Alyce.

"Thank you for informing me."

Oddly, he is inclined to trust her word.

Well. Not that oddly.

"I'd want to know. So I figured you should."

"Kind of you," he says without a trace of irony, smiling at her.

"I guess I can be kind if I want to."

She sips through her straw and then glances up at him.

"And I want to. You're not someone who needs... you know."

Menacing, tormenting, that kind of thing.

...He blushes a little.

"Thank you," he repeats.