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"She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: Something to be admired from a distance, not up close."
-Good Omens, Pratchett and Gaiman
The hard thing, the very hardest thing, about getting dressed is the feeling of suffocation as the clothes slide over your body. At least, Irene believes this is true.
She has never been one for petticoats that accentuate her already graceful curves, or bustles that attempt to decorate her modest breast, or elaborate corsets that force her waistline to a point that looks almost unnatural. Oh yes, she will dress up when the occasion calls for it; being a seductress by nature and a temptress by right, she has long since learned that the key to getting what she wants is to distract and dissuade, which she has used to her advantage several times before. She has a natural affinity for the practice; a calling, one might say.
It was just that, concerning the one man to whom it really mattered in cases of distraction, she finds herself powerless, and him immune. And so she has given up trying.
After all, why fight what you know you can't win?
The sheets are rumpled, the pillows lumpy, the coverlet draping halfway to the floor from the corner of the bed. Not a sound is uttered, aside from the gentle, steady tempo of his breath as he sleeps beside her, half his face tucked away in dream, the other turned to the light of the awakening day. She is stretched out on the bed next to him, half tangled in the sheets, her bare, perfumed skin pale, even in the burgeoning daylight, her reddish curls spilling across the crème pillows below. She looks like a Ruben-figured goddess, curves perhaps less pronounced and limbs thinner and lankier than any ever painted by the old master, but ethereal nonetheless. Even in the daylight, she glows.
She watches the figure beside her with hungry eyes, for once off his guard in her presence. It is a rare enough occurrence, to be in the same room as the Great Detective himself and to not be watched suspiciously at every turn, every move that she makes and every twitch of her fingers carefully analyzed. He glues his gaze to her as she fiddles with his possessions or tampers with her clothes and she keeps her eyes on his movements just as much, if not more so. It is almost a dance they perform with each other, cautious and caustic and oh, so delicate. Sometimes the dance becomes so treacherous that it is a wonder they both don't slip from their tight wire and crash to the floor, like the porcelain figurine she most closely resembles.
Irene Adler has always been one for straightforward matters. But then, so has Holmes, at least with her, in any case. And so, when he came to her, when he demanded that she accompany him to the train station so that he could see her off, away from the danger that she knew she was getting herself into, she hadn't wasted any time in letting him know what she had thought about that idea. It was a bitter struggle, right from the very beginning; he didn't trust her and she was finding it increasingly difficult to confide in him, due both to her precarious position concerning her employment to Moriarty and the feelings she keeps harvested deep in her breast concerning him, her only equal, the only man she finds impossible to con. But lately, she has found that she doesn't want to con him any longer. Instead, she finds that she wants him to stay.
The fight had been bitter and short; he had insisted that she go, she had evaded the questions he had asked and ignored the requests he had made, and somehow, they came to an impasse. For her part, she had been adamant about not leaving. He snapped at her and grew caustic, stated that she was stupid to stay and that she was courting danger by allowing herself to remain in London. She had nearly lost herself at one point, had nearly broken down and allowed him to lead her away, back to America, safe by both his hand and his helping wit, which had done her favors in the past before. But somehow, she had found a way to stay strong, to argue back, to insist on her continued tenure in London. And in the end, he had realized that he had no power over her. A memory of a soft kiss and then her hand tucked into his as she pulled him closer, nearer, never quite intimate enough to satisfy. She can remember whispering something to him, something soft and pathetic and so unlike her that she feels sure he doesn't really believe she said it. She flinches slightly at the thought, but brushes it off as best she can. In the end, they had both gotten what they wanted.
She lies now, in the early hours of the morning, with her hair in a halo of reddish haze about her face, her pale limbs wrapped around the sheets, and her eyes glued to the man beside her. He looks tired, she thinks; his dark hair is disheveled, more so than usual, and his face has a rumpled, ill sort of look to it; of one who has pushed himself too hard for too long, chasing the mysteries he lives to solve. But she knows that the minute he comes to alertness, that look will fade; Sherlock has never been anything if not resilient.
A ray of sunlight, stronger than the soft, dampened rays of the previous hour, falls across the room and she lets out a quiet sigh, almost belying the sadness she feels underneath her sense of bravado. She is so comfortable and she feels so safe, she wonders if it isn't worth it, to simply stay in this bed, with him, and allow him to lead her to the docks as soon as he awakens, to send her back to a land she has no desire to see.
But she knows that she cannot let this happen. There is too much at stake.
And so, with one last look at Holmes' exhausted face, at the angle of his body in the hotel bed and the cut of his limbs against the stark white sheets, Irene Adler slips from beneath the sheets and walks, with an airy grace that hides perfectly the weariness that she feels in her limbs, toward the bureau, where her clothing resides. Slipping into the voluminous garments, she feels as though she is putting on a second skin, one that hides the true woman beneath and which will, eventually, suffocate her with their purpose and their meaning. This pair of gloves, given to her by the Prince of Bohemia as a token of his undying love; this brooch, stolen from her last husband as a souvenir, or given to her as a token of his affections, she no longer knows which; this pin, taken from the study of an eclectic detective and missed shortly afterward. They all mean something, these trinkets and tokens, and they all make up a part of her façade: the Irene Adler known to the world.
She is dressed in what seems like only a matter of minutes and Holmes' resting figure hasn't stirred once, his chest rising and falling as steadily as it was when first she awoke.
And so, without another glance, she exits the suite at the Royale, leaving nothing behind her but the sweet fragrance of femininity and the mischievous, brokenhearted guile she has so long attempted to protect. Who knew that one night could so utterly destroy her sense of self?
She keeps her face passive as she makes her way down the early London street, ignoring the beggars and the thieves she encounters on her route to the train station, to meet a man who is like Holmes in so many ways, and yet so very different, a pale imitation of the original. He isn't as brilliant, nor as quick, and not nearly so bizarre. And yet, he has a steady hold around her neck. Irene wonders what this could say about herself, whether she has simply lost her touch or whether she has submitted to Moriarty in the same way she has never submitted to Holmes. The thought makes her ill.
All she knows for sure is the words she spoke to him the night before, just before their tumble into oblivion.
"You'll miss me, Sherlock."
And his mouth pressed to her ear, his thumb, lightening quick, brushing the tear from her face. "I know."