bakerstreet | Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

SECRET relationship;

The fact that you're in a relationship with this person isn't public knowledge. Actually, no one knows about it except for the people involved. Maybe you guys are just private like that; on the other hand, it may be a necessity to keep things a secret from others. Maybe you're both team mates, and others on the team would give you grief, or you're not suppose to be dating, or you're not the type to usually date and you're only testing the waters. Perhaps it's the combination of you two, possibly an odd couple, that would bring some controversy or some teasing. Or, you know, you could not want to deal with friends and relatives being busybodies. Your reasons are your own.

Are you content with stealing moments to be together as a couple? Do you want to make your relationship known and the fact that you can't drives you batty? Remember, there are lots of benefits to dating in secret. You can be yourselves completely, away from prying eyes, and get to know each other better as potential longterm romantic partners. In a way, it's ideal.

...still, do you ever wish you could scream from the rooftops how much you care for your significant other?

how to play.

★ Comment with your character, preferences, and information.
★ Reply to others.
★ Play out stolen moments (◡‿◡✿), secret dates (◕‿◕✿), secret handholding (⊙‿⊙✿), and secret kissing ( /)w(\✿)!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Martha wasn't a spy, but she decided that she too could act normally, that she could get through this simple elevator ride, and then to a place where the two of them could talk. It was simple really, her focus at the moment: this moment, and the next, and maybe one more after that but never more than five ahead, because then she might give away some of the questions that were rushing through her head on her face.

Had he only done it because he'd thought that she was frightened? Because he'd too thought that the world above them was ending? Or had she just been misinterpreting the looks that they'd been giving one another? God, she hoped not. Of course this would be her pattern: caring for someone who didn't care for her in return. But the touch of his fingers made her look down and smile a little bit, just the corners of her lips reaching upwards.

She too grumbled about Abigail as she brushed her fingers back over his own, using her body to shield the movement from the cameras and anyone else who was in the elevator. When they reached the floor her room was on, Martha looked over her shoulder at him expectantly. Her room was where the liquor was, after all.]

[He distinctly felt the absence of her touch now that she was moving off the elevator, and that affected him far more than her touch itself had done. This was a familiar sensation, a scale model of his life until now: a feeling of drifting further and further away from something - someone - that he wanted. The absence of her, rather than the presence. He recognized the feeling of being bereft, though he had no memories to attach to the sensations. Déja vu.

It was unsettling enough to chase him out of the elevator, though for all intents and purposes, he carried himself as calmly as anyone else. He wanted to close that distance between them, to flee from the horror that welled up at the thought of her turning a corner without him now that they were testing these new boundaries.

Oh, if he took the time to analyze his reactions, certainly he would know what was causing them. Just because he couldn't remember Lily didn't mean he didn't know about her.

But he wasn't taking the time now. He was concerned with Martha, with the invitation in her smile and the promise of a drink in her room instead of a long walk back to his own where the only promise was that he would be alone.

By the time they reached her door, he had shaken off the gloom that had tailed him in the elevator, and now that they were out of earshot of most, he put a hand on her elbow. His voice was low in a way that conveyed more than just discretion.]

I could go.

[Or stay. He didn't know what staying would really mean, but he knew he wanted that far more than the alternative.]

[Martha already had the keycard out of her pocket and ready to open the door to the room when he caught her arm. His fingers felt warmer on her elbow than they did on her fingertips, but she knew that was just her mind filling in the gaps because it was a place that was more intimate, and more visible, than the hidden brushes of fingertips that there had been until this moment. It was a simple touch, and nothing more, but it made Martha's stomach burst into the sensation of butterflies.

And she knew that they should be discrete, Martha could read it in his eyes, but the idea of him leaving without even talking about this made her feel a dull ache in her chest. This was something that they needed to talk about, if nothing else. Of course, the fact that they needed to talk about it could be bad for both of them, if they weren't on the same page, and all of the sneaking about that they were doing might have been for if her and Severus couldn't work together any longer.

Without pulling away from his touch, Martha swiped the card and the door unlocked, and she pushed it open a bit. It wasn't much, but she didn't want to break the distance between them again as she had done in the elevator, even though she knew that she probably should, given everything. They should get somewhere more private, or they should stop. So, Martha kept her voice equally soft when she responded:]

Or you could stay.

[He had watched this woman train with the other Sentinels. He had seen her annoyed, frustrated, happy, and in what he had decided was her bedside manner. He had seen sides to her that intrigued him, but none so much as this, when her voice softened the way it had just now. He hadn't heard her speak to anyone else like that. Just him.

He let his hand linger just a little too long on her arm, enjoying the thrill of upsetting the order of things, and on a much larger scale, of being welcome to touch her (because she clearly hadn't moved away, had she?). Then, at last, he echoed her response back to her.]

Or I could stay.

[There was a finality there, an agreement, and with it he took a step back to allow her to continue on into her room with the tacit understanding that he would follow her in. Not for a moment did he wonder if this was a mistake. Thus far, it was only a drink - and perhaps a much-needed conversation about the touches and looks that lingered, and that tone of voice she seemed to reserve solely for him. How could a conversation be a mistake?]

[Never before had Martha been so glad that their rooms were visited by maids every day; she didn't have the sharp thought of concern about whether or not she'd left her knickers out, or if there were towels on the bathroom floor, or if there was any of the sort of embarrassments that she might have had if she'd brought a date home to her flat without thinking about it.

Of course, this wasn't a date; this couldn't be a date given the world that they lived in right now. But that didn't stop her from thinking about what she was wearing below her shirt and her trousers. At least she was still dressed when they'd sounded the alarm for all of them to go down into the bunker. She pictured his face when he saw some of the pajamas that she wore as she followed him into her room, and there was a smile on her face that only the shelf where she kept the whiskey and the glasses was.

There was a sitting room between them and her bedroom, and she was glad of that; this didn't seem to be the sort of discussion one had while sitting on their bed! Busying herself by pouring a small amount of the liquor in each glass before she turned back to him and handed him one with a smile, thinking they would both need it for the conversation that they were about to have.]

[[Moved to our sandbox.]]

Keep it secret. Keep it safe.

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