Ivan Press

Hilary

In the end, the trip to Port Grimaud -- planned with stopovers in Paris and New York for shopping -- doesn't last very long.

The morning after Ivan brings Hilary home to that cabin on the lake, her car arrives at the lake house proper. When permitted past the gates, a man in his thirties with a sharply trimmed reddish beard and a tailored, just-this-side-of-trendy gray suit steps out of Hilary's Jaguar. Circling to the trunk he withdraws one large and one small rolling suitcase, both of them tan and gold, then a crisp matching overnight bag. These he leaves with Dmitri, and though Carlisle is far younger and from a different House in the tribe, he is possessed of a vaguely similar demeaor.

Quiet. Stoic, even. Respectful. Silently knowing. And somewhere underneath all of it, wryly patient with the better-bred, the wealthier, the people they work for. Perhaps Carlisle is smoother. He is, after all, much younger. Perhaps he is simply a better actor, and acts the way he imagines Dmitri would expect him to. In any case, the exchange does not last long. He has his instructions from Hilary and has no need to ask questions of Dmitri as to the welfare of his mistress or anything else she might need. And when he has handed over Mrs. Durante's luggage, he steps back into the Jaguar and departs.

Later on in the day, Hilary and Ivan wake. They eat. They are stiff and last night left them raw, and they scratch at each other with their words after eating a very, very late brunch. She is wearing a short robe; he is wearing yesterday's slacks. Her things are brought to the cabin and she goes to shower, still locked in vicious silence with her paramour. It becomes less vicious when he comes into the shower with her. Washes her, as though this were aftercare. Holds her, because it isn't. And because he still vaguely remembers the unbelievable: that yesterday she told him, holding him atop her, the truth. And he knew it to be such. Couldn't explain to himself how -- just knew.

On his father's jet from one side of the Atlantic to the other, Hilary takes out a prescription bottle and flicks off the top, setting two pills in her mouth and downing them with a half-glass of white wine. By the time the seatbelt sign is off, she goes in the back and strips off all of her clothes, passing out naked on the bed. She is conscious only briefly back there, her eyes lifting to the ceiling to flick over it, confused and fogged and curious, trying to find something. Some trace. Some clue left behind. Her eyes close again, and she drifts into the blur her mind has become for a little longer. It is the first time he's seen her bother with pills. It is perhaps the first time that she has needed them around him. Usually Ivan's presence -- what Ivan does to her -- is drug enough.

Of course she complains. About the car they take, about the weather, about some grime on this street or another, about how Port Grimaud isn't what it used to be, about the ridiculous food they were served on his jet. And Ivan bears it in either patient or irritated silence, looking out the window. When Hilary mentions a restaurant she'd like him to go to with her, he's a little startled, a little surprised that some other chef passed her muster. She's very dry in response to the comment he makes to that effect, rolling her eyes with that faint exasperation that occasionally translates into affection rather than disgust. He always finds it so hard to tell.

They do go to that restaurant. They go dancing, not at some trendy nightclub like the one where he kissed her the first time, but this strange restaurant where the band has brass and strings and the waiters wear tuxedos. She's so graceful, and strangely, so much gentler with him on the floor than she is in the kitchen -- he leads, but she murmurs faint pointers to him, whispers left, but really it's her body that instructs him, that tells him how to put his partner on display in these strange, old-fashioned twirls around the floor. They do not tango. They are lovely, though, but everyone who sees them expects stars in his eyes, and they aren't there.

Ivan buys her a silk scarf that matches her dress from a street vendor, and she drapes it around her neck, lets it flow down her back. He ties her down with it that night, fucking her brutally, slapping her on her ass, slapping his hand across her breasts, to get her to shut up and be quiet while he uses her cunt, fucking himself into her til he comes, but by then he's felt orgasms ripple through her over and over, and he's mocked her and snarled at her for how much she likes it, what a little whore she is to come like that, what a fucking slut.

Something about that scarf sticks with him. Not the way it looked around her wrists. The way it looked around that elegant, pale neck of hers, fluttered behind her like a pair of wings.

They get bored so easily. And he worries that she grows bored of him. She grows bored with life. She stares out the window at the sea and only blinks every so often, slow and dead-eyed, and Ivan twists inside, not knowing what to do, what to do, what he wants to do. It makes him want to strangle her. It makes him want to prostrate himself and bury his face against her lap, beg her to look at him. It makes him want to hold her, and make her forget, so he does sit beside her and draw her against his shoulder -- it should not surprise him how easily she comes, but it does -- and strokes her hair, as though he could comb away all those dark memories of hers. There was a story about that, but he can't remember it. Something about combing away memories, but he can't remember the story.

So later -- it might be a day, might be two -- he lies in bed with Hilary, one of these strange moments that they almost never have. She's naked and he's naked and his cum is sticky against her inner thigh and his cock has softened but they haven't bothered to leave bed. Her long, delicate fingers stroke his hair and she never does that, but there are bruises on her shoulders where he bit her and scratches on her hips where he pulled her up hard to meet his thrusts, and she seems so tender now, it makes his eyes close and he remembers the thought about the comb, so he tells her about it.

The Snow Queen, she murmurs. And lies next to him, telling him that story again. It feels so Russian that it almost makes him laugh. Hilary tells him about the golden comb the old woman in the summer garden used on the girl's hair, and the ripe cherries she fed her to keep her from going looking for her friend, her friend who was trapped by the Snow Queen, his heart turning to ice. The comb made her forget. The cherries made her not care.

They make love again after that. He holds her wrists down with his bare hands, and covers her mouth with his own instead of making her bite down on the handle of the flogger, or gagging her with whatever is handy. When he washes her later, he heals her, because sometimes he can't bear it. And sometimes he can't bear it, even though he recognizes the flicker of sadness, the shadow of disappointment, when Hilary looks at her body and there's not a mark on her, anywhere. Nothing. No trace. No clue left behind.

They go to Paris expecting to return to Port Grimaud after a night, but they don't, and so someone has to go and collect their things and send them along, because Hilary didn't want to go back. She speaks French to everyone, and at first the waiters and such notice that Ivan does not, and they are irritated and rude at the Americans, annoyed by Hilary's refusal to speak English, but the truth is, her French is impeccable. They realize she is, in some way at least, French, even if the young man on her arm is so decidedly not.

Mostly, they eat. She eats things she could not have while pregnant. Outside of Paris she is hateful towards it, thinks it overdone and the people rude and all the way there she hated it, but once they set foot int he city she may as well be home. Even the sound of her laugh changes. She laughs. She goes shopping and has things shipped -- to Ivan's estate. She does not care what he pays for. She is wearing silk when she gets on her knees in the changing room of a boutique and sucks his cock, and he is leaning his head back, trying not to gasp too loudly, panting and sweating when she swallows him, his hands braced against the wall.

They have so much fun. And later on she seems so exhausted. She's pale and drawn, actually slapping at his hands when he merely holds one out to offer her help standing. They fight. He is frustrated, and she is worn thin, and he says maybe they should just go back, and she won't answer, and he nearly erupts. But he remembers. He's promised half a dozen times by now, hasn't he? Hasn't she told him so many times to just to back off, just stop raking her raw, and he doesn't think that's what he's doing but there she is, looking like he's clawed her soul to ribbons because he had the audacity to want to be near her, connect with her, talk to her like two real people.

But she's hardly a real person at all, most of the time. And all that happiness and champagne and loveliness today and she looks like she wants to die now, exhausted from playing the role of a real, live woman who feels things other than greed and disgust.

They go back sooner than he expected. She does not drug herself on the way -- not to New York, but to Chicago -- and instead curls up beside him and watches whatever movie they play above the ocean. Yuliya feeds them and she -- wonder of wonders -- thanks him. Later she compliments him, even more shockingly. They sleep in the rear, but her unconsciousness isn't just a drugged fog this time. She tucks her wrists underneath his hands, well-protected. Contained. He strokes her hair, thinking of golden combs and magic cherries. Of gentle fingers and bruising teeth and little, magical pills dissolving into her bloodstream.

Espiridion is coming back to Chicago. Only briefly. There are things to be done and taken care of. They have a great deal of time; he won't even dare file for divorce until just before the holidays, after all. He wants to have dinner and 'talk'. Hilary leaves. Ivan does not see her again for a week, but -- here is something worth noting -- he hears from her. Once in that week, but at least he knows she's alive. Dion was suggesting they remain married until after the New Year, but --

Well, Ivan doesn't hear all of this until later. What he hears from Hilary in the midst of that week isn't even really from Hilary. It's an invitation. From her husband. They should have dinner, the three of them. Ivan is welcome to bring a companion, of course.

In fact, Espiridion encourages it.

Ivan

Everything is different about the plane Ivan takes Hilary to Port Grimaud in. Everything is different because he changed everything; sent the old jet back to his father and asked for a new one, reminded his father that he'd sired a son now; wasn't it about time he got a little appreciation for it? And so the jet is new, and the model is different, and the furnishings are different - all sleek and modern and ugh, flashy in Hilary's eyes.

Even so. Everything is the same. It's still the same because Ivan is the same, he's still sleek and golden and there's still a bedroom in the back, there's still his Russian staff, they're still all the same people that flew the child into the east and into the darkness and into the cold. She's still the same woman who abandoned her child. And she's still so empty, so empty.

She takes a pill. He watches her, his eyes flickering with unspoken questions and words. She passes out in the back. When she wakes, dazed, he's not there but someone's covered her, tucked her in beneath light summer comforters. When she wakes it's morning in the south of France, the Mediterranean blue as a jewel, and Ivan is knotting his tie before the mirror, looking at her in reflection and telling her they're arriving in twenty minutes.

Of course she complains. Of course they dine out, and they go dancing, and they buy things with utter abandon and have it shipped ridiculous distances. Of course he fucks her, holding her down or tying her down, and he thinks of old stories where combs and cherries took away cares and memories; he thinks of how she looks with that scarf around her neck and her skin so fair in this southern city where canals take the place of streets and sunlight bathes everything.

Sometimes they part for a few hours. When she can't stand his nearness anymore, or what his nearness does to her. Sometimes she comes back and he's not in the room; he returns twenty or forty minutes later with a new tie or a new shirt, new cufflinks. Once he brought her a flower, not a rose but an orchid, but it seemed to mean nothing at all. Once she came back and he was there, sprawled on the windowseat, his clothes undone and his cock hard in his hand; he was stroking himself off and he looked at her shamelessly, laid out for her, his eyes more naked than his body.

Sometimes in their room, their small penthouse suite on the topmost floor - the attic, really - of a small private hotel overlooking the sea, he fucks her so hard, takes her so far, she can barely sob. Sometimes, afterward, he can't bear it and he heals her, and she looks at her traceless body and looks as though she's lost something she's forgotten she ever had.

In Paris she seems so human he can't believe it. He watches her and he looks for the tell, but he can't find it and so he forgets. Later on she's so exhausted and she lashes out at him, she's so vicious and he's wounded and furious and he thinks of the scarf around her neck and he wants to strangle her, wants to choke the life from her. But he remembers. He remembers his promises and he remembers who she is and he remembers the way she screamed, eyes as hollow as the space between stars, when he forced her to acknowledge more than she could bear.

So he backs off. He gives her her space, and that night he walks beside her without touching her; he sees her safe back to their hotel and then he leaves her be a while, comes back sometime well after midnight when she's already asleep, slips in beside her and folds his hands around her wrists.

Not so very long after that, he holds her wrists like that as they fly back across that dark ocean. When they're back in Chicago her things are arriving at his lakehouse and he has them moved to the cabin, and they make him feel like some part of her is here still. Here now. He likes that. It frightens him that he likes that. Then Espiridion is coming back to Chicago and he hates that, he hates it more than he can understand or rationalize, he's black-tempered and vicious with his staff, he retreats to his lakehouse and prowls the halls in wolf-shape, lifts his lips and snarls at the maids that don't scurry out of his way fast enough.

An invitation comes and they're afraid to give it to him. Dmitri bears it to him personally in the end. He reads it in the kitchen on a Thursday morning, and it's the first time he's been in his man-shape in forty-eight hours. His jaw is golden-bristled. His feet are very dirty. He's tearing into a steak with his hands and teeth, and he reads the note twice, twisting inside. In the end he gives Dmitri a few short instructions.

On the appointed time and date, Ivan is impeccably groomed. His beard is razored clean and his hair is trimmed and his suit is tailored and conservative, even if the shirt beneath is dark, the tie a pale and icy green. His pocket square is an austere, geometric fold. The Bentley is gone, too, so he arrives in a goddamn limousine, because obviously in Ivan's world this is less ostentatious than a Lamborghini. He has a 'companion' with him, and she is lovely and very young, her hair black as night; her blood is faintly Silver Fang, because anything less would be an insult to his elder and an inconvenience to their night. Her spends her days being photographed for various haute couture magazines, and she will very likely despise Ivan by the end of the night.

She's smiling right now, though, dazzlingly, as she emerges on his arm. There are no cameras to flash in her face. Only Dmitri, folding his gloved hands neatly behind his back as he bows from the shoulders.

Hilary

Even on a Saturday night, a limousine driving past the parks that dot the lakeshore of Chicago stands out, and a few people turn their heads and glance over. Could be a lot of things, but when they stop and exit, people all-out stare. Must be some North Shore types down from some party, in town for some benefit, and they look for others, but then they pass on by. No one cares. No one cares at all.

The restaurant is on a corner, spanning three floors, a miniscule footprint of a place that merges on the second level with the lobby of a swank hotel. Two elevators, one for staff and one for customers, but people ignore these in favor of twisting spiral staircases that go from floor to floor to rooftop. There is a waiter standing just inside the door when Ivan and his 'guest' arrive, a young man who got stuck with a strange job. He bows, but it looks awkward, like this isn't what is normally asked of him. He recognizes them on sight, though, and informs them that their party is waiting on the roof, if they will follow him.

The elevator is glass, so if they take that instead of the stairs they can see that on the first and second floors of the narrow restaurant there are bustling tables, semi-loud music, waiters sliding expertly past each other. It is new. It is trendy. The walls are brightly colored, some with sketchy impressionist murals, and the lighting is warm but spare.

The third floor is empty. Silent. There are velvet ropes across the entries to the elevators, across the stairs. There isn't even anyone at the bar.

Their young waiter-slash-guide leads them into a small corridor on the rooftop, an interior party room where the bar and prep station are located -- a wine fridge, et al. But it is a small area, and they go out onto the roof proper. It's been raining all summer, torrents of water that come down intermittently throughout the day. Native Chicagoans -- or those living there for some time -- shrug it off. One imagines a Spaniard like Dion is repulsed by this sort of Great Lakes weather. So: the roof has sprawling triangular sails creating shade from the sun and mild protection from rain, but the night sky is visible all around them, and between the sails. Lights reflect off of the shades and brighten everything. It is the lightest place they've seen in the restaurant so far.

There are four other people in that prep area that their young man greets, though: a chef, and her aide, the bartender, and the waitress. She is in her late twenties, has been a server since she was sixteen, and the chef owns the restaurant, but Ivan and his companion aren't told that. It hardly matters. They stay behind as Ivan and his guest are taken to the lone table out on the roof. The others have been cleared. Music is playing; they cannot discern where from.

The Galliard is sitting to Hilary's right at the round table, spacious enough that they won't be fighting for elbow space. The chairs are black and glossy, comfortably cushioned. Dion rises when he sees them, the young man who got them up here hanging back and then retreating. Ivan can see Dion's eyes flick over the young kinswoman and he can see clearly, too, the shadows of surprise and recalculation in that flick. A woman.

Well of course. In public. The surprise fades, but the recalculation doesn't.

Hilary does not rise. She is a lady, after all. Her hair is swept up, rich curls spilling behind the crown of her head, a few tendrils framing her cheeks. There is a gold comb pushed into the thick of the updo, laying against the top of her head, a half-moon of gemstones the only spot of light in the darkness of her hair. Her dress is long, strapless, and rich red, embellished along the bodice and the side of her leg with embroidered roses -- no. Cherry blossoms, as deep red as the dress, but hanging from thinly-worked black branches.

They are drinking red sangria, and there is a carafe of it in the center of the table beside a carafe of white. Hilary gives one of her brilliant smiles to Ivan and his guest after Dion has greeted them and they've all been seated again. It's all very friendly. She shakes his guest's hand across the table and allows Ivan to take her hand and kiss it, as Dion does with Ivan's guest, if indeed Ivan reaches for her hand in the first place.

She's wearing her engagement ring, her wedding band, the diamond anniversary band. All of Dion's crystalline-cut claims on her body are there on her fingers. As usual. She looks well.

Their waitress emerges a moment later, and offers to pour sangria for Ivan and his friend, or get them anything else, then is off again, and the stars twinkle and the music plays and Dion is ignoring Ivan's guest entirely after greeting her politely, initially. He insisted that Ivan sit beside him. It is against the rules, he said with falsified laughter in his voice, but this way no one talks over each other. It makes it obvious why the 'guest' was encouraged to be brought along: to entertain his wife. To keep her busy so she doesn't get bored while the men -- the Garou -- talk. He is such a thoughtful husband.

His cufflinks are rubies. Red as drops of blood on his pristine, precise white cuffs.

"It has been some time," he says, by way of overture, as though they are old friends. His accent is as thick as ever. "We would have met at the -- ah -- funeral," he says, with a glance at Hilary, who is not talking to Ivan's 'friend' but examining her napkin, "but it was during your atonement."

Right. The atonement to Falcon. For failing to keep Hilary healthy enough. For failing to keep Dion's son alive.

"No remains," Dion says, irritation flaring so suddenly that Ivan's friend tenses. "Pendejo doctors ask this woman, drugged and grieving woman, what to do, what do you think she is going to say? Of course she's going to say no, no, say quiero que le cremar." He waves his hand, exasperated and dismissive, his chest moving with elevated breathing, his eyes flashing. "I do not blame you for approving it. Your wishes are her wishes. You are not a god, and only a Cliath."

He picks up his sangria; drains the half-full glass like the wine is water, like he doesn't care. Hilary is staring at him sidelong, but he isn't looking at her at all.

Ivan

Apart from the occasionally-appearing waitress, they are the only creatures out on the rooftop proper. The night is comfortably warm. The stars have not been drowned by city lights. When Ivan's guide retreats, he takes an imperceptible instant to prepare.

The most difficult thing about lying is not conceiving the lie but maintaining it. It is not difficult for Ivan; he's a born liar. He runs through the fiction he presented to Dion nearly a year ago. He remembers it all with absolutely clarity. But it's more difficult to remember not to look at Hilary overlong, not to stare at her and hate her for looking vivid and glittering and claimed. He knows Dion is leaving her. He knows that, but it hardly seems to matter; those markings of territory are still on her, and the male is still with her.

The last time he dined with her, they had already made up their mind to return to Chicago the next day. They didn't bother finishing dinner. She was tired; she wanted to retire. Later that night she said his name like it was the only word she remembered, or ever knew. He still remembers the way she sounded. He still remembers everything, and it was so much easier to lie before he cared. He wonders if that was the only reason he was ever any good at all; if ennui predicted mendacity.

He steps out onto the rooftop, into Dion's view. The Galliard rises, and Ivan looks at him first. Then his wife. Then back to him, and now they're shaking hands, and Ivan doesn't overdo it; he doesn't let his touch linger and he certainly doesn't attempt to stroke Dion's palm or anything so absurd. He takes his hand back a touch too soon, as though scalded. "Rhya," he murmurs, and then he is brushing his lips to Hilary's knuckles, helping his date into a seat.

The males sit beside one another. The females are left to entertain one another, and the younger is staring at Ivan and wondering what is it, really, about the way the Ragabash is acting that makes her wonder if she's completely misread him. She's not comfortable here; she's not happy at all, and the night is just beginning.

More sangria is ordered. Atonement, Dion mentions. Ivan's eyes barely twitch with a wince. He draws half a breath and then swallows whatever he might have said. The girl turns away and wants to make some polite, artful little comment to Hilary, but she's examining her napkin. Anger flashes from the Galliard like sheet lightning and she tenses, but Ivan's hands never cross the table to reassure hers.

No one, it seems, is looking at anyone else's eyes. Hilary is staring at Dion, who is looking at Ivan. Ivan is looking at the tablecloth, his jaw tense with repressed -- what? Shame? And the girl is looking unconsciously for a way out, an exit. Beats of silence go by. Then:

"It is no excuse." Ivan's eyes lift, flick to Dion's for a second and then rest on his cheekbones. "I have failed my tribe and elder utterly, in every way conceivable. I wondered that you would dine with me again, Rhya, but if it is your intention to exact retribution, then I welcome it at your hand."

Hilary

Dion makes a noise. It is as angry as his eyes were a moment ago, his hand flashing again in dismissal. "That is not why you are here!" he snaps, as though this is exactly what he wanted and the exact opposite of what he wanted, at once. He stews a moment, and Hilary looks like she would like to reach over and touch his hand, but she withdraws it an inch or two away from Dion's skin.

Her gaze slides only briefly to Ivan. They didn't go back to Chicago and go to the lake cabin together. Carlisle picked her up at the airport, loading her baggage and her extra baggage into her car before driving her back to her apartment downtown. It was the last time he saw her, and even before they disembarked he could feel how she wasn't... his anymore. She was drifting away from that intensity, that bond built when they're alone and away. It always happens. Every goddamn time. And it twists a knife.

Every goddamn time.

She looks away again, this time to Ivan's nameless model, and inquires as to how she spent her day. Her weekend.

Dion is talking. Snapping again, lower, under his breath, as he twists his glass of sangria on top of the tablecloth: "You are not a god," he repeats. He looks over at Ivan, his eyes dark, glowering because of what he is. Because it is night and he is a wolf. "What would you have done, eh? What?"

Halfway through the originally facetious question, it becomes serious. What, indeed.

Ivan

The nameless model --

her name is Liselle. Or rather, her name is Liselle now. It used to be something far plainer, but Americana is out now with the flagging dollar, and her agency recommended, which is to say demanded, a change to something more exotic. And so she dropped the last name and changed the first name, and now she spends her days gracing magazine covers and lying Ragabashes' arms on the way to her honorable fucking mateship to some honorable fucking psychopath

-- does not really want to talk about her weekend. She came here because Ivan said he was having dinner with some friends of his, and in her experience his friends were models and directors and the occasional investment bankers, socialites and heirs and the glitterati. Young, beautiful creatures who had whatever they wanted in life or took it if it wasn't already theirs to begin with. She's too intelligent to think she has a chance of wresting anything close to devotion from Ivan; too intelligent, in fact, to want it. But she thought she might meet someone through him, thought she might network through him, thought she might use him while he was using her, only not quite the same way. She thought, at least, that she'd have a little fun.

That she'd survive the goddamn encounter.

She cannot understand how Hilary is so calm. She is a pretty thing, but the truth is her blood is thin and the tribe has not allowed her near her betters very often. She is not accustomed to Rage. She is not comfortable with it; no one ever is, but Hilary simply seems ... unaware.

Liselle's answer is very short. Her eyes are on Dion. She says something about attending the opening of some new club-slash-restaurant. There's always a new one popping up somewhere.

What, Dion wants to know. Ivan doesn't have to act confused. His brow furrows; he gives a single shake of his head.

"I apologize, Rhya. I don't quite grasp your meaning. What would I have done -- in regards to what?"

Hilary

Liselle's answer is short, and Hilary's sigh is a touch irritated, her eyes rolling elsewhere in boredom while she picks up her glass to take a sip of her own sangria. Their waitress drifts by out of nowhere and refills Dion's emptied glass, and -- sensing tension -- does not ask to take their orders. She'll be back.

Dion is staring at Ivan, waiting for the waitress to depart before saying: "You keep saying oh, oh, I failed, I failed. Well: what would you have done differently? What would you have done that would change the outcome?"

Ivan

Again Ivan's eyes flick ever-so-briefly to Dion's: mutable green to implacable black. His tone is cautious, "I believe ... I should have sought aid beyond that of humans and physicians. You say the problem lay with impurity of blood. Well, your blood is pure, Rhya, and the Theurges of the Tribe are resourceful. Surely that counts for something. Perhaps they could have cleansed the child, if not the mother. Saved him.

"Or perhaps," he adds a moment later, "the best thing I could have done was to have acknowledged my own lack of experience. Given the care of your mate and child over to someone more capable than myself."

Hilary

"My blood is pure," Dion says, like he came up with this statement himself. "Your blood is pure," he adds, with a nod to Ivan. "Hers," he says, jerking his head at Liselle without looking at her. "We come from unfallen Houses."

Dion doesn't follow that thought any further; he does not insult Austere Howl or Hilary any more blatantly. He does lean across the edge of the table, right into Ivan's space, his voice low and harsh. "But you see. You see, Resplendent Dusk," and he reaches, gripping Ivan's hand suddenly, forcefully. "You. Are not. A god. No Theurge can bring back to life what never lived." His is almost whispering now, but Hilary and Liselle are dead silent, staring, they can't miss a word. "It never lived."

Oh, He's an 'it' again.

"Just a black tumor inside her." Suddenly he releases Ivan's hand, leaning back, reaching for his glass. "They say we are not having any more. None that will Change, yes? No more cubs for the Fangs. Did you know that? That is what they are saying, the elders and the elder Galliards. Perhaps you've heard rumors."

Everyone has heard those rumors. Ten years ago, everyone had heard those rumors. Dion sips. His eyes glitter. Hilary is staring at her empty plate.

"Perhaps that is the next step. There are no more cubs of Austere Howl. Perhaps any with their blood must die. No -- must not even take their first breath." He dashes his hand through the air like he is sweeping everything in front of him to the ground, breaking it all. Shattering everything. "What could you have done? What could any have done? Come to me in a dream five years ago and warn me. Look, here -- I will come to you in a dream, Cliath." He leans forward again, whispers, and his voice is rich and full as only a Galliard's can be, silky and rough all at once, ancient and stirring:

"Do not take a mate who is not young, who has been taken before. Do not take a mate from a fallen House. Do not eat fruit that has dropped from a withered tree."

Sudden again, he shakes his head. "This is not why we are here. We are here to dine, we are here for me to show you my forgiveness, there is no ill will between our families, you are absolved. Drink with me, to that." He gestures at Ivan's glass. "Drink, drink. We will drink to peace between Durantes and Priselkovs."

Ivan

[ok, WP roll!]

Dice: 6 d10 TN8 (5, 5, 6, 6, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )

Ivan

The women are dead silent. One is staring at her empty plate and the other is white, aghast. It is possible after tonight Liselle will do her very best to avoid the Garou of her tribe. It is entirely possible she will avoid her tribe, period.

The men --

The wolves. One is aflame with his own certainty, his wrath, his outrage at how he has been cheated and duped and saddled with such tainted fruit. The other is like ivory, is like smooth and polished stone, and as silent. There is rage flickering beneath his skin, and his hand beneath Dion's is surprisingly hard, a fist. Ivan's blood is pounding in his ears. It takes time, and it takes effort, to hide his anger. He doesn't know why he's angry. He doesn't quite know how to hide it; if he's hiding it. He keeps his eyes down.

He thinks of Hilary telling him once, a very long time ago:

I'm always told how precious I am.

The wind touched the lake. The lake rippled to shore. She stood at the terrace like something out of an old movie, an old painting. He wondered then if she went to the terrace because she liked the lake, deep and black and cold, or because that was what was expected of her. The woman on the balcony, beautiful and mysterious and solitary.

You actually make me feel that way, she said. Sometimes even when I'm not doing something to make you happy.

The glass of sangria is before him, wine adulterated with honey and fruit. Rather appropriate, given blood is the crux of dinner conversation tonight. Dion wants him to drink now. Ivan reaches for the glass; then his eyes rise.

"I would gladly drink to that, Rhya, and just as gladly would I accept your forgiveness. But tell me, please. If this matter is between you and I, why have we brought our women?"

Hilary

For all that Dion's words set a fire in Ivan that he doesn't even understand, Hilary seems bored. She looks towards the waitstaff hanging at the rooftop bar area, giving a silent sigh. Liselle hardly seems to know what alternate universe she just stepped into. Hilary just looks detached. But then, she is. It isn't an act. She isn't hiding some deep-seated pain at the words her husband is saying, and she isn't thinking about anything particularly deep or interesting. She's just waiting for this farce to be over. Her fingertips twist around the stem of her fork.

Dion calls Anton -- her son, Ivan's son -- a dead, black tumor. She doesn't react to that, either.

The Galliard gladly tips his glass against the side of Ivan's. Liselle and Hilary are not offered the toast; neither lifts their glass to try and join it. Though that is when Hilary looks back, turning her head to give her attention -- what is left of it -- to the two men. Peace between the Durantes and the Priselkovs. An alcohol-sealed promise that he's not going to come after Ivan one night. Or challenge him in the circle and take the dishonor just because he doesn't care anymore, he lost his son, who wasn't his son, who wasn't lost.

Dion's eyebrows flicker after he drinks. "Because we are only here to dine, Resplendent Dusk. To be at peace. Because I could not offer you that at funeral. Come. Call the girl, the food is good here."

He lifts a hand, beckoning to the waitress.

Ivan

Of course she's bored. Of course Hilary isn't hiding some deepseated pain; of course she isn't lashed to the bone by those words. She doesn't care about Dion. Strange that Ivan is the one biting back his anger, wondering that Dion doesn't see it any more than Hilary seems to feel -- well. Anything. Strange, but Ivan has made her so much angrier than this with the things he says. He's hurt her so much more.

He hasn't even lifted the glass, but Dion tips his glass against it anyway. He accepts the toast only belatedly, lifting his wineglass as Dion is already drawing his own back. Large glass. Red wine. Grapes and pineapples and mangos floating within, half-lost in the murk. Ivan pauses a second and then drinks.

"To peace."

The girl comes, and of course Ivan lets Dion order, giving his opinion only if asked. It's entirely likely he is not; if he is, it's surely only out of etiquette and courtesy toward a guest.

When the waitress departs, Ivan clips the napkin from his place setting, smooths it over his lap. It's all so automatic as to be thoughtless, fluid. He takes a moment to pretend attention toward his unfortunate dinner date, refilling her sangria though she's hardly sipped at it, inquiring if she was all right, if she was cold. She forces a smile, pleasantries. She's relieved when he turns back to Espiridion.

"If it's not too forward of me, Rhya," he says, "might I inquire what your plans are now?"

Hilary

It isn't cold on the rooftop. A breeze blows occasionally but it's welcomed; this time of summer the heat during the day is nigh unto unbearable. At night it's still humid, oppressively warm, the air thick with water and reserved sunlight. Hilary's bare arms and bare collarbone show no sign of marks he's left on her over and over again. They fought once while they were traveling because she wanted him to use that flogger on her, strike her across the thighs and her back, leave a fiery burn crawling across her flesh, and he wouldn't. He wouldn't. He couldn't. That night she barely spoke to him when they went out. She told him she was cold, and did not curl against his side when he put his arm around her.

Ivan left her alone for awhile after that. There was little else he could do. She was drifting away regardless. Like she seems to be now, looking out at the city rather than at her husband, her lover, her supposed companion for the evening.

Dion orders for all of them. Tapas, mostly, a table-ful of small plates for them. He looks at Ivan when the other inquires as to his plans, and lifts an eyebrow. He takes a drink of his sangria, and Hilary's dark eyes bore into Ivan's jawline from across the table for a moment. Dion considers.

"I go to Guatemala tomorrow," he says, his voice darker than a moment ago, though it has run the full spectrum tonight. "My wife will be living in the city while I am gone." He waves a hand dismissively before Ivan can ask: "Your arrangement remains the same, if you will."

Pre-mealtime discussion is, thereafter, rather dull. Hilary notices a lull and stirs herself admirably to talk about something she saw at the Joffrey Ballet. She tries valiantly to get Liselle to talk, to fill the air with something other than shadows, even if the three older occupants of the table do not care a whit what she has to say. Hilary tries, in order to get Liselle to entertain them, to get her drunk.

Ivan

That's not what Ivan meant. He wanted to know what Dion's plans were for Hilary. Maybe she knows that: her eyes are burning holes in his cheek. He wanted to know what must not be allowed to live meant. He wanted to know when the fuck Dion would finally give her up. He wanted to know --

much more than Dion tells him, really. But he knows better than to press now. The moment is past, and it wasn't ripe to begin with. He nods and he's dutiful, he's sycophantically determined please his elder, so of course he'll ward the wife while the wolf is gone, even if she's fruit of the tainted tree. By then she's bestirred herself to do what Dion thinks she does best, which is to say, behave like a very well-trained, very expensive marionette. She talks about the Joffrey Ballet. Ivan contributes some comment about the Martha Graham dance company; a recent performance in New York. They're coming to Chicago later in the summer, he mentions. Perhaps Liselle would like to accompany him.

Liselle doesn't want to talk. She tries, because she too is a very well-trained, very expensive marionette, but the air is so thick with the emotional storms that have battered past barely moments ago. She can't dredge up delightful commentary. She desperately wants the night to be over. She drinks, and their tapas come, and Ivan mentions to Dion that it's a lovely trip by sea from Puerto Barrios to Cancun, and

little by little their tapas disappear, are replenished, are finished again. Liselle is quite drunk, though she's trying to hide it. When she rises to excuse herself to the powder room, she sways a little, grips the back of her chair to stabilize herself. Both the men rise out of etiquette so deeply bred it may as well be instinct, but it's Hilary she asks to accompany her.

In the restrooms, Liselle reapplies her lipstick, touches up her eyeliner. She takes a long time, and it's not because she's inebriated. She wears makeup so well, so subtly, so practicedly, that she could do this blind. When Hilary comes to the sink beside her, it becomes apparent why she's taking so long. Her eyes find Hilary's in the mirror, and she blurts:

"How can you bear it?"

At the dinner table, Ivan muses over the spread before spearing another cilantro-lime calamari ring. And eating it, his eyes discreetly on his own food, he speaks:

"When I asked of your plans earlier, I was in fact inquiring whether you were intending to take another mate. If you are, my family may be able to assist. We have many acquaintances and friends amongst the Clan Crescent Moon. I cannot come to you in a dream five years ago," a hint of wryness here, "but perhaps I can help smooth the way forward."

Hilary

Hilary leaves to go with Liselle because it will look rude if she doesn't. She sweeps upward with the grace of a dancer, because a dancer is exactly what she used to be. She does not offer Liselle her arm to walk her to the bathroom; Liselle leans on her anyway, unsteady. Hilary stands near the door to wait for her, and when she grows weary of waiting she goes to find the girl at the sink, swaying and gray and blurting out that pathetic little question of hers.

The wife of the Adren rolls her eyes. "Grow up," she says, without much investment, rancor, or any sympathy at all. She waits for her to leave, though. It wouldn't look right if she walked out alone, and Liselle later.

The women leave, and Dion goes on eating, drinking, with all the carefully refined rapacity of a predator in human skin. Ivan brings up the question again. Presses, again, and this is a bad idea. Bad idea to show up with a female companion, though forgivable -- Dion may be a Renewalist, but he's still a Silver Fang and he's still from an older world. He would rather Ivan stay closeted.

Ivan asks his question about mateship. And he knows very well that Dion is going to divorce Hilary, but no one else does. So when he asks about whether or not he takes another mate, goes so far as to offer to help find one from his own House, Dion shoots him a look that lasts longer than comfortable and is darker than anything he let show with the kinswomen nearby.

"What a strange question to ask," Dion says, his voice rough with wine and dangerous as a growl. His eyes glitter with drink and suspicion. "And a private one."

Ivan

Even before Dion pins him with that look, Ivan knows he's misspoke. He can sense it, the way any good liar can sense a badly spun tale: that moment when the listener closes down, turns hard and hostile. By the time Dion speaks, Ivan is already backpedaling. Or he would be, if he weren't who he is. What he is. As smooth, as confident,

as fucking hateful of this creature before him,

as he is.

"I apologize," he says instantly, because he's not a goddamn Ahroun. He doesn't punch whatever he dislikes. Hatred has rarely gotten between Ivan and good sense. Hatred has rarely gotten into Ivan, period, "if I've overstepped my boundaries. I only wanted to offer whatever assistance I could -- on account of your rank, and on account of our friendship."

The words are carefully chosen there. The tone. All of it just a touch too close, not because Ivan has no inkling of where he stands with Dion but because that's exactly how he wants to come off. Too eager. Too adulatory, too fawning, too quick to seize any opportunity to spin this passing acquaintanceship into something of benefit to himself, his family. He does this well, this sort of lie, this sort of falsehood; most days, he does it perfectly.

Perhaps not quite tonight. Too many emotions at play. Unease, dislike, wariness, anger. Lying is as much a discipline as anything, easily put astray by passion.

Hilary

At that moment, while Hilary is rolling her eyes at Liselle in the bathroom and Liselle is reacting however she reacts, ignored by Hilary,

Dion is recalculating again. He doubts, now. He sees Ivan's eagerness in different lights. He wonders. No, it isn't so far as to jump to the conclusion that Ivan is fucking his wife, has been fucking his wife, got her pregnant, whisked away the child to Russia, is still fucking her, wants her, is a bundle of insatiable wants and rage and calculations of his own as he sits there with his sangria and his tapas,

but he is wondering now why Ivan asked if Dion was taking a new mate, when no one has said a word of what is to become of the one he has. He is wondering how Ivan knew anything, he is thinking Ivan must know something to that effect. He is looking at the door when Hilary exits it, walking back towards the table with Ivan's Silver Fang supermodel of a 'companion'.

Hilary, being Hilary, meets Dion's eyes without terror, without open effort. She doesn't have to force herself to meet his gaze, and the truth is,

despite everything he said,

Ivan can see how that causes a spark to go off in Dion's gaze. Hilary flicks her eyebrow at Dion as thought to demand some kind of explanation for how he's staring at her, what on earth must he be thinking, as she sweeps into her seat. And Dion remembers, as she sits beside him, that this nearing-forty waste of life let his son die when she should have been giving him life.

"We will not talk about it anymore," Dion says to Ivan somewhere in there, gruffly, picking up his fork to eat a stuffed mushroom. There are ladies present.

At the end of the night, which comes sooner than it would if Ivan had done his job and taken Liselle to some party or nightclub or dinner where the people were a little closer to people, Dion pays. He does not allow Ivan to contribute, he insists that Ivan and Liselle are his guests, no, no, he never gets to give things to his friends, please. You cannot eat at his table and refuse his hospitality.

A flash of fucking Ivan across his bed after making him dinner, the Ragabash quite literally holding her down and mounting her, using her like he had a right to her, flickers through Hilary's mind. The corner of her mouth smirks outward.

They say their goodbyes, and they go to their cars. Dion's driver has brought the Maybach, and Hilary is helped into it by that driver rather than her husband. There's no moment when she can take Ivan aside, or vice versa. No moment to catch his eye and communicate anything. It was like she wasn't even there. Except he got to see her, from the moment he walked out on the roof to the moment she was settled into the car and the door closed on a flash of her red dress. Saw her, kissed her knuckles, watched Dion lust after her in a single second that may have seemed to Ivan to last longer -- somehow -- than all of the moments he spent deriding her.

Twenty minutes after the door to the gleaming Maybach closes, Ivan's phone chimes.

I'm home now. I just wanted to say it was lovely to see you again.

It's code. Of a sort.