Ivan Press

Ivan

Ivan knows better than to ask her why she's cooking. Why now, when there are donuts uneaten, coffee getting cold; why now, when they've just come back from that travesty of a nice dinner out.

He doesn't ask. He doesn't talk to her at all. He comes out of her shower smelling like the most neutral, faintly scented soaps and shampoos he could find in her bathroom; he comes out in his slacks, his belt and tie and shirt and socks and underwear folded into a haphazard pile that he leaves on one of her dining chairs.

Her dress is still on the couch when he goes to lie on it. He moves it aside so he doesn't crumple it, stuffs a pillow under his head, and sleeps with his arms folded across his chest.

He doesn't really expect to sleep as long as he does. Perhaps he thought she would wake him. He certainly doesn't think she'd find a blanket to cover him with, but then, he didn't think he would sleep long enough to get cold. When he wakes, though, it's the chill that wakes him - his skin icy on the outsides of his arms, across his shoulders. It is dark in the apartment, and he thinks maybe she's gone to bed, but his instincts tell him this is not so. He knows she's there before he sees her.

When Ivan sees his strange lover, he doesn't understand what she's doing. Sometimes it feels like he never understands her. But he rises, soundless even though his joints are stiff, his left hand aching where it tucked against his bicep too long. His eyes feel gritty. He crosses the room to her, and there's food on the counter but she hasn't touched it, it's cold now.

He's never seen her like this before. He didn't see how she paused in the manufactured darkness of his penthouse bedroom, calling his name into the emptiness. He didn't see how she simply ...stopped in the middle of Tru, when he grew angry at her

-- he always grows angry at her, it's inevitable, she's so distant and he's so capricious, and sometimes every little thing seems to mean she's pulling away from him, slashing at the ties that bind them, leaving him --

and didn't move again until he came back.

Ivan wants to touch her when he's near enough. She seems untouchable, though. He puts his hand on the counter beside hers instead, looks at the plate, looks at the bruschetta, looks at her.

"What are you doing?" he murmurs. He's sleep-foggy, voice blurred. "How long have you been ... sitting here?"

Hilary

The apartment isn't an icebox, but air conditioning circulates within on a regular basis, and as night falls and the thermostat remains unchanged and Ivan's sleeping body drops deeper into its own cycle of replenishment, it gets colder. No blanket comes to cover him while he sleeps. No one told him to sleep on the couch anyway. If he wanted a blanket he could have found a bed, after all.

Those are some of her thoughts. Hundreds of others in the two, three hours that Ivan drifted off into unconsciousness and Hilary just... let him. She doesn't hear him move but she feels him wake all the same, sensing something else moving in the dark that makes her turn her head to glance at him, then back to the bruschetta. There's no response. There's only recognition. He's coming to her, anyway.

To the question -- the second one, at least -- she makes a gesture with her hand, a flick of her wrist that may as well be a shrug. To his first question, there's no answer, because what she's doing is... sitting on a barstool, staring at cold bruschetta.

A moment passes, then another.

"When I went to culinary school," she says, her voice rough from disuse, but still not as charred as his own from sleep, "they taught us how to chop. And mince and cube and slice. Everything has to be the same size, or as close to it as you can get, did you know that?" Her head turns and her chin lifts from her hand as she looks at him, then back to the plate. "It's so it all cooks evenly, gets done at the same time. And because it looks prettier that way.

"We were to practice at home, too. None of the other students had servants or their own cooks, at least not that I know of. I practiced at home anyway. All the onions that needed slicing, all the potatoes that had to be chopped, all the garlic that needed mincing. And I chopped so. Many. Tomatoes."

She looks at the metal bowl containing the red and yellow and flecks of green she made earlier, the crusty gold of the bread. "I made bruschetta a lot. Just to practice."

Ivan

It's a story. It's another piece of her past that he didn't have before. Another piece of her he didn't have before, he thinks, but that's a lie anyway. He doesn't have any of her at all, except what little she gives him sometimes. It might be argued she doesn't have much of herself left to give, regardless.

Still: it's a story, but not one that tells him anything beyond what it is. It doesn't tell him why she's here, staring at cold bruschetta. Why she made it at all. Perhaps it's a sort of meditation for her. A kind of calming ritual, the way some women take scented baths and other do yoga. He looks at the bruschetta, and he looks at her hands. Somehow, he doesn't think she made the food to eat.

"Why did you make it now?" he asks. "You clearly don't need the practice."

Hilary

Hilary just huffs, almost silent. "I'm sure once you sharpen your knives once you never need to again, then? Idiot," she tacks on, which is, coming from her, almost an endearment at the moment.

She closes her eyes. "I am cold," she says, but there's no shame in it, not even remorse. Mere acknowledgement, as though by letting him know yes, I'm aware that maybe he'll stop hurling it at her like it's supposed to hurt. Her eyes open. "It doesn't mean you're nothing to me.

"Sometimes I don't want what you want. That doesn't mean you're nothing to me, either." She turns to look at him, and there are faint circles under her eyes that weren't there before. "Stop taking every snafu as a sign of some greater schism. This is what it is." Hilary exhales, and straightens up a bit, stretching her back as though she really hasn't moved in two or more hours. "That's all I want to say about it."

Ivan

It's as though that straightening, that stretch of her back signifies something. Breaks some invisible shell around her, makes her touchable again. Ivan puts his hand on her back the way he wanted to when he first came over. It's the hand that was tucked between his arm and his side, and his palm is very warm.

"I know that," he says softly. "But sometimes it's still hard for me to remember how different you are from anyone else I've ever known. That the rules are different with you. That you're ... always here, even if I can't feel it. Other times it's just very hard to want you so badly and not be able to have you." A small pause. "But I suppose if both weren't true, if you weren't different, and if I could have you, then it wouldn't be like this between us at all."

That's the truth, and they both know it. He draws a breath.

"I apologize if I was too aggressive. If I made you feel objectified and harried. It was never my intention to ... degrade you, to treat you like a thing tonight. It was never my intention to brutalize you. I didn't want it like that either."

His hand slides up her back, whispering over the soft fabric of her sleeping clothes to her shoulder. Ivan urges her gently, very gently away from the counter, off the barstool. "Come to bed," he adds, very quiet indeed now. "It's so late."

Hilary

Hilary initially pulls away from his hand, but it's a flicker of that motion, an internal squirm for no reason she could identify enough to satisfy him -- or comfort him. She turns her head to look at him as her spine relaxes, and with a dozen other women there would be apology in her eyes, but a dozen other women wouldn't have instinctively, madly pulled away. It isn't even, it seems, the way he touches her. There's nothing lascivious or demanding about it, nothing overtly comforting or patronizing. There's nothing wrong with how he touches her, and Ivan knows it. There's nothing wrong with touching her, and Ivan knows it.

But still: she edges away for a second like she can't help it, like for one reason or another or no reason at all or everything tonight and over the past week and everything before that, she just doesn't want to be touched yet. Looks at him then, the motion recognized as involuntary, and waits to see him flip out again. Knowing, at the same time, that this time he won't.

Knowing, all the same, that it doesn't mean it won't bother him. And feeling, for all that, that Ivan can simply be bothered. That it is not her resonsibility to repair that, any more than she expects him to repair all the chaos in her that leads to these bursts of irrational instinct,

however much he might want to.

She hears him echo back to her something she vaguely remembers saying once. That she's here. She's always here, and him feeling it or not doesn't change what she is. It's become quite evident that Ivan's ability to simply accept things with her for what they are is tenuous on his best days; he's no more stable or steadfast than she is.

When he apologizes for his earlier behavior, her brow wrinkles in something like bewilderment, gentled by weariness. In the end she simply shrugs it off. She doesn't want to argue about what the Real Issue was, or if there was an issue at all, or a miscommunication, or any of that. She doesn't want to be a couple and Work Things Out. She just doesn't want to discuss it any more at all, and he can sense that withdrawal in her as well. She doesn't even have the energy right now to hate him for tonight, hate him for ruining it. She doesn't have it in her to even remember what it felt like for that half-hour or so that she was happy, plain and simply so, and wouldn't know how to mourn it if she did.

If Ivan did not withdraw his hand before when she flickered away from his touch, she seems to edge away from it again now, sliding off of the barstool to set her bare feet on the bare, cold floor. She stands there, her hands in front of her, one loosely clasping the other, and looks at his toes.

"You should ask," she says, quiet and diffident and almost childish in her territoriality, "if you can come to my bed. I never invited you."

Ivan

Coupled with that flinch away, the second one tonight, her line in the sand frustrates Ivan. Makes his temper flash again in his eyes, though it's so dark in here that perhaps she can't even see. He thinks for a moment it would have been better if he'd just left four hours ago. He wonders if she would have cooked still; if she would have sat in the dark still.

"I'm trying here, Hilary," he says, but when he speaks it's soft; it's not really a rebuke at all. They stand before each other. He asks a moment later, "Can I come to your bed?"

Hilary

The first, she just ignores. Too tired to be irritated with him, flashing anger at her every round of the bend. She, too, thinks about if he had just left four hours ago. Or, better yet, if she hadn't sent him that damn message to start. If she'd never tried to be happy and share it with him at the same time. She just looks at him during that moment instead, and does not tell him

I'm trying, too.

or any of the other things she could say in response. She simply doesn't bother. Doesn't want to argue again, doesn't care to try and resolve this. It is what it is. She doesn't expect change. Her skin crawls, all the same. She shakes her head, and bizarrely says,

"Yes,"

as she starts walking to her room.

Ivan

But he doesn't follow. He's so quiet sometimes, only this time she knows he's not padding silently after her. He simply hasn't moved. The room doesn't stir to his rage, light as it is compared to her husband's. Her first husband's, too.

He asks her a moment later, when she's already halfway across the room, "Do you want me to?"

Hilary

She stops when she realizes he isn't following, looking back at him. Just stands there until he asks his question, and she doesn't have an immediate answer. And she realizes she has to think about that. She thinks about how she would have felt if he had just asked her, without that flash of annoyance. She thinks about how she would have felt if, hours ago, he'd answered Should I stop? with a simple no, no, don't stop.

She thinks, as she's been thinking for the past minute or two, about the last and only time they slept in that bed together.

About what the answer was five minutes ago, and what it is now, and how she knows just how to keep him happy with her, what to be and how to act to make sure he is unruffled, craves her, but only to the point just before frustration, and how if she tried and wanted to try she could keep him at that edge almost indefinitely, satisfying him again and again. How she could, if she danced the right steps, never have to deal with his flashes of temper again. Has a vague idea, tonight, or vague assumptions, about which answers would breed which responses.

What she wants tonight, wanted from the moment she all but summoned him up to now, is not what he wants tonight, has wanted tonight, wants now. And that is that.

Hilary gives a small shake of her head, those curls swaying across her shoulders once, twice, swish, swish.

"No," she says, very quiet.

Ivan

"All right."

That comes after a moment, a whisper, as though the reason they slept in that bed together last time were still here; might be awakened by his parents fighting. They're always fighting, it seems. It makes him heartsore, that he keep her happy, that she couldn't see how unhappy he was.

Another question, a little later, and no louder at all:

"Should I stay?"

Ivan

[couldn't. couldn't keep her happy!]

Hilary

That, she had an answer to even before she told him no. Before she realized that no, she didn't want him to come to bed with her right now, she was sick and tired of this, she didn't want to worry about the politics of whether she let him touch her or not, if she didn't want him to hold her as she slept if he would flip the covers back and storm out or ask her what the fuck or if later on she did want to be close to him if he would be annoyed then, too, at the inconstancy, at the change, if there is anything at all she can do that won't lead to him blowing up at her. She knew that only in the last few seconds, realized it as she looked at him that she was just tired, and wanting her bed and her solitude, which she knows how to deal with.

But before that, she knew the answer to that, and was expecting him to just leave but had accepted it. Was not going to fight it. So her eyes flicker slightly with surprise that he doesn't. And that he asks. And what she can read under that, which is also

can I --

Hilary nods. "I'd like it if you did."

Ivan

Sometimes what he feels for her is physical. He can feel it tugging on his nerves - a quick flicker not unlike soreness flashing from his solar plexus and down his left arm, seizing in his palm, dissipating. The shadows on his chest shift as he takes a deep breath.

"Okay," he says. And, "Goodnight, Hilary."

Hilary

There's no line between pain and pleasure for them. Every time they try to draw one, mark a boundary so that the pain stays on one side and the pleasure and happiness stays on the other, it gets broken. Or they realize they drew the line between themselves. Hilary watches him breathe, then gives a small nod and walks to her bedroom. A moment or two later the door closes, the click almost inaudible.

There are two places for Ivan to sleep that are most obvious: the couch where he slept either, though he knows very well there are spots on it where a dash of sugar or glaze caught on the upholstery from the donuts she threw at him. There's the couch where her dress is, but that one is shorter and he'd have to move her dress. They're alone in the apartment -- he'd know if that maid she's spoken of were here, would sense the presence and the breeding and all of it, but that second room on the other side of the apartment is empty. Large, soft bed. A little writing desk. A window to let in more light than the room where Hilary sleeps, that window almost always covered. The floor is concrete, and the only rug is over in the living room. It's not even a particularly soft rug.

He has options. None of them, comparatively, are what he wants. What he's wanted since he came here: her. Since before he came here, since he had to say goodbye to her and she drove off because Dion was coming back to Chicago. All night. And here he is, standing alone in her apartment, because she doesn't want him in her bed.

Not tonight, at least. Not right now.

She just wants him near.

It's dawn. Soon burning, gleaming orange light will hit the corner of the apartment, hit the little square balcony enclosed in glass that she has. Not yet, though; the sky is merely lightening, shadows lifting. He can hear her footsteps coming towards him even if he's asleep -- soft, so soft and light against the concrete, delicate and graceful as all of her movements. Her hand, then, warm from being under the thick comforter in her cool bedroom, coming down on his shoulder, cupping around the flesh and muscle there.

When his eyes open, if they aren't already, she's there, her hair so very dark and so very wild, her eyes the same. "Come on," she whispers. "Come."

Ivan

In the end he sleeps where he's already slept: on her sofa, dusting off the bits of donut and glaze with a sock before stretching out. This time he's a little wiser. He covers himself with his coat, tucking his hands under his arms. He wonders if sleep will come at all. She's close, but she's far -- that seems cliche, and it seems so frequently true.

Ivan does sleep, though. Sooner than he thought he would, though not for very long. The sky is lightening, beginning to burn, when he wakes again. The room isn't shafted through with light yet, but it's coming. It is still midsummer, and the day will dawn hot, but it's cool here, and the air is always circulating. Her hand on his shoulder feels inordinately warm, and his eyes snap open like an animal's, stare without comprehension, with nothing but raw recognition.

Come on, she says. And he sucks an inhale, sitting up, his coat falling away from his chest. The satin liner is warm. He swings his legs off the couch and stands. Come, she says, and so he follows, moving through the early wash of light across the far wall, finding her hand with his if she'll let him.

He leaves the living room behind without a glance -- the site and nexus of that strange and bewildering night. He's not used to seeing her bedroom in the dawn. It was overcast both times he was here before, and the last time he slept here he left before the dawn. The light seems too red. He's used to the blue, and he's disoriented by this coloration; disoriented by the hour, disoriented by waking. He stands there, uncertain, his hand in hers.

Hilary

Thankfully, her room is not touched much by dawn's early light. The single window in the room is all but blacked out, as though Hilary doesn't even want the stars and the moon watching her when she sleeps. The blue glow is as pale as it was when he went through here to shower. She's wordless at the couch, her hand slipped under his coat to touch his shoulder. When he rises she takes his hand, the jacket falling and sliding off the couch to the floor. Hilary leads him all but soundlessly to her bedroom, shutting the door and walking him to the bed. She doesn't move to take off his slacks for him or to unbutton her own pajamas; Hilary simply crawls back into the bed she slept in for perhaps two hours at most and gets under the comforter again, curling up beneath it.

Ivan

What she gives him isn't much, but because it comes from she who has so little to give, it's enough. He follows her, and she gets back into bed, and he's the one to draw the comforter back up, tucking her back into the warm hollow her body made. As cold as she is, as cold and stone-hewn as she can seem, she's human after all: her body is warm, her skin is soft.

He steps out of his slacks on the other side of the bed. He gets in under the covers, and the sheets on that side are cool and smooth. The bed is unbelievably luxurious after half a night on the couch. He looks at her a moment where she lies beside him, eyes closed again most likely. He turns on his side toward her. He doesn't reach for her.

Hilary

And the truth is, if he had reached for her then, she wouldn't have resisted. But he can't see that truth, wouldn't expect that truth, and Hilary is neither expecting him to touch her nor expecting him to turn away from her. Hilary is, in fact, going back to sleep quickly and silently, as easily as if she had never woken at all. There is no telling, in fact, why she woke in the first place. Or why she came to get him. She just drops off again, the steadiness of her breathing a telltale sign that she's gone again in moments.

Now it is fifty-nine minutes after the sixth hour. At this very moment, Darya Pasternack is standing outside of Hilary's apartment door, looking at her watch. It is a plain black band with a large round face with big numbers.

Now it is seven a.m. sharp, and at this very moment, Darya Pasternack is turning the key she already put in the lock and doing so very, very quietly, twisting the handle and slipping inside as silently as she can, which is not very silently at all, but she does try, the poor dear.

There is a red gown on the couch, and a man's jacket on the floor, and donuts on the floor, and little white stains on the coffee table oh please oh please oh please no and a platter of bruschetta on the counter and scattered sugar all over the upholstery.

Darya looks at the ceiling. She sighs, and walks to the living room to start cleaning it up.

Quietly.

Ivan

They are such careless, messy people. They make messes of their own lives, and of everyone else's lives around them. They leave messes everywhere and they never clean up, of course not, there's always someone there to do it. Darya. Dmitri. Maids, servants, people whose only job it is to make sure they never have to worry about the annoying little details everyone else on the planet worries about. People. Things. Creatures.

Small wonder they don't know how to cope when they make messes of one another. Small wonder she doesn't want to discuss it, she doesn't want to work it out like a real couple; she just wants him to stop being so selfish, don't ruin it for her, just stop. Small wonder he doesn't understand her, can't understand her no matter how many times she tells him; can't see it from her point of view, can't make it work.

And yet here they are. And her girl, who's not really a girl at all, is cleaning up for them in the living room, being as quiet as she can. And they're sleeping in the bedroom, and Hilary is sinking back to sleep having brought Ivan back to sleep beside her the way she brought Anton to sleep beside her that first, last and only night. He watches her a little longer, her face or the sweep of her hair, her face or the slope of her back, whichever is facing him. Eventually, he draws the comforter up a little closer, tucks her in a little more. He lets his hand rest on the mattress close to her, as close as he can get without touching her, and he too closes his eyes.

Some time later, when Hilary wakes again, Ivan is still in her bed. He is on his back now, facing the ceiling. His eyes are open. He's been awake for some time, but then -- he slept earlier. Didn't stay up half the night cooking, and watching food cool, and --

doing whatever it is she does when she just ... stops like that. He never stops. Even when he's languid, even when he's lazy, even when he's stretched out on his yacht taking in the sun or sprawled in a low lounger on the balcony of some mediterranean city, he's alive, he's vital, he's there. He's here now, turning his head to look at her waking. He's barely touched her since she asked him if she should stop,

and he wanted to say no, don't stop, why would you even ask that, can't you see i need you,

and then she stopped.

He wants to say something to her. Something profound, or at least meaningful; something about last night, or what happened, or why he behaved the way he did, or -- something to make her happy again, maybe, or at least so she knows he wants her to be happy. Nothing comes to mind. Nothing at all. He just looks at her a little longer.

Then, whispering, "Will you come closer?"

Hilary

Except Ivan doesn't get that far.

When Hilary wakes it's not seven sharp, it's closer to noon. Her maid likes days like this. She is in the second bedroom at the desk, reading a book, listening to music but one earbud is out so she can hear if her mistress calls her. She is not the sort of maid Ivan has. Darya is eighteen, and cannot afford college unless or until she works very hard and saves up a great deal of money, because according to the federal government and several other organizations, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl with both parents living and a family history of great wealth and status does not need that much assistance, no matter how far their family's star has fallen since they left Russia.

Darya, like so many who come from madness and who are surrounded by madness, who feel it encroaching even on their own minds at times, wants to study psychology. The book she is reading is called Games People Play. The chewy protein bar she is eating is very nearly a candy bar. She lives living in this building. She likes living with Miranda in the two-bedroom apartment next door that is much smaller than the penthouse-style apartment Hilary has. She likes Carlisle, and she likes running errands in Chicago, even when they're bizarre. She doesn't mind cleaning up strange messes. She doesn't even mind Hilary very much -- the woman is not very mean, and at times has a childlike vulnerability that Darya is more afraid of than her moods.

What Darya does not like about this job are those awful black moods that Hilary gets sometimes. So far -- and it's only been a few weeks, really -- nothing's been thrown at her and her job hasn't been threatened, but the woman makes her uneasy. Something about her isn't right.

Darya turns the page in her book, trying to understand the vagaries of the human mind, wondering what extra games should be written in for the kin of wolves, the children of Falcon.

Hilary wakes around noon, and as soon as her eyes drift open, she breathes differently, and twists around under the covers, draping her arm over Ivan's chest, her leg over his thighs, using his shoulder and part of his chest as her pillow. All her dark hair spills over his bicep. She breathes against his skin now, closing her eyes again, drifting in the hazy half-sleep that presaged her movement.

Ivan

So he doesn't get so far as to ask her to come closer. She wakes, and she twists, and she rolls over and suddenly she's spilling over onto him. It's warm under her comforters -- how very Fangly, after all, to burn the air conditioner in the middle of summer just so one could sleep under thick, soft bedding -- and she's so very warm, her body sleek and her skin unbelievably soft where it touches his.

Something in him stirs fitfully toward anger. How dare she do this. Run hot and cold as she pleases, want him one way one night and another the next, give him no warning and little indication of the changes to come. What gives her the right, why does he always have to follow her lead, why is he always bending to her will --

but then he remembers. He remembers they are not the same, and sometimes he simply can't recognize what she's trying to do. He can't recognize all the ways she tries to let him in, share with him, make him happy.

He remembers, with little reason and little prologue, the way she all but begged him once: please don't be so sad. please be happy. Sometimes he wants to beg the same of her.

His chest expands, then releases. His arm secures around her slender back, anchors her to his side. He kisses her brow, and outside saner people than they are getting on with their day, have been up for hours already. In here it's still dark. The shades are drawn, the day is barred. The lighting is very faint, a deep and benthic blue.

Hilary

Maybe one day there will be another woman Ivan will realize he is invested in, and realize that she changes her mind and moods and sometimes there's no warning. That she will want him to touch her one night and recoil another, that sometimes there will be warning and explanation and he'll see it coming, he'll know Something Happened and it will all make logical sense and then

sometimes it won't. Sometimes she won't be able to tell him, or simply won't want to tell him, and maybe some woman will one day tell him he has no right to demand these things, warnings and explanations and predictions of what is happening inside of her, what she is in the trenches going through. Maybe one day there will be another woman that Ivan wants to spend more than a night or two with and he will learn that he is just the same, that his moods also change, that he also has no obligation to explain or justify himself, that all he can hope for is someone there who claims to care for him

letting him be what he is, when he is it. Letting him know this is okay and this is not okay without the sky falling and the entire tenuous hold on each other collapsing. Maybe there will be another woman one day that he cares for, and he'll begin to understand that is simply how people are. People who are not people, even. Mad people, and sane people, and all of them, each one adamant that no one needs as much patience from othrs as they do.

But then, there's no one else like Hilary.

But then, Ivan is still so young, and his life so short.

Hilary holds him in her sleep, utterly unaware of her anger, and perhaps entirely unthinking of her own whims, her own wish suddenly to be close to him, to hold him and be held by him. He puts his arm around her, the satin of her pajamas slinky and warm against his forearm, the inside of his wrist, against the pulse of his heartbeat. She is very slowly waking, drifting towards the surface slower than most people because she has no reason to rush back to waking life. Many, many reasons not to.

Her mouth opens and she licks her lips, swallowing. "I'm hungry," she says softly.

Ivan

As Hilary resurfaces, Ivan closes his eyes again. The wash of irrational anger has faded. He holds her now; he's found something a little like peace for the first time in all these long, strange hours. His arm is a steady weight across the back of her shoulders. Her pajamas warm so easily to the heat of their bodies. His thumb strokes gently, hypnotically across her shoulder and upper arm, and when she stirs to words, finally, he shifts a little. Nuzzles his jaw against her forehead.

"Me too," he replies. Neither of them speak loudly.

He has options to deal with that hunger: he can tell that maid of hers to make something. He can call in his own people. He can call some local five-star establishment and demand food to be delivered to their door. He can feed himself, feed her, in just about any way with a snap of his fingers.

What he says, though -- whispering it, almost shy with the absurdity of it: "I know how to make an omelette, if you want."

Hilary

"Oh, good for you," she murmurs with what passes for dry sarcasm when she's just woken up. But she's tender, at least physically, curled against his side as she is. She doesn't say anything else. She stares at the wall, at the edges of light around the blackout over the window. Her eyes close and open once, and he feels her eyelashes brush his chest. She doesn't mean to be cruel. She doesn't recognize this as cruelty or meanness.

But she is cruel. And she is mean. Simply because she is heartless.

Still, she's also no fool.

"You sound like you would like doing that very much," Hilary says quietly, a moment later. "Do you like cooking with me?"

Ivan

"Yes, I would."

He says this nakedly, without equivocation or hesitation. He's rarely as honest as he is now, bare in her bed, not so long-ago awoken himself.

"And yes, I do. I even like it when you snap at me to stir slower. Chop more evenly. No, the other way." There's a gentle, tender little strain of mimicry in his tone. Then it subsides, and he's a little wistful: "I like almost everything we do together."

Hilary

There's a low, dark chuckle to that. Hilary closes her eyes and her fingers curl inward a little bit atop his chest. She holds her breath a moment, then exhales it slowly over him. "Okay," she says after awhile.

Hilary stirs, and begins to draw upward, pushing herself to curve her spine, lift her upper body in gradual preparation to rise from bed. "I suppose you can handle an omelette by yourself," she also says, placing a little bit of grudging faith in him, since he can't even arrange a fruit and cheese platter without intervention, it seems. "You can ask Darya for assistance, if you need to. She's quite obedient."

Ivan

That draws a faint smirk across his mouth. Ivan pushes up in bed as well, bracing himself on his hands, flexing his shoulders upward in a tensile, static sort of stretch. "So glad to have your blessings," he says wryly.

Then he's getting out of bed, bending to pick his slacks up where he dropped them last night. "I suppose Darya doesn't know about me yet," he muses. He steps into his pants, draws them up and buttons and zips. "I won't need to justify my presence, will I?"

Hilary

"Have I ever had to justify myself to your maids?" Hilary says briskly, already settling into her regular persona as she pushes the covers down with her hands and her legs, kicking them away before twisting and putting her feet on the rug beneath her bed, thick and furry and protective of her dainty, ladylike soles. She rises, beginning to unbotton her pajama top. Her lingerie is still scattered where she dropped it last night as Ivan showered. She doesn't go pick that up, either.

Looking over her shoulder at him, she goes on unbuttoning but asks: "She is, however, the most flappable of my unflappable little staff. Try not to scare her too much."

Ivan

There's a faint, asymmetrical little smile on his face when she looks over her shoulder at him. She can see him looking at her back, looking at her body as she reveals it by degrees. He doesn't come to her, though, and he doesn't put his hands all over her. Try to take her, have her.

Ivan gives a little bow of acknowledgment and acquiescence instead. It's mocking, but not of her. Then he flips his edge of the comforter back up on the bed. Leaves the room.

Hilary can hear him outside, if she listens. Likely she doesn't. All the same, he strolls through the living room like he has a right to be there. He greets Darya the same way he greets his own servants: familiarly, but always with that subtle sense that his friendliness only goes as far as his whim.

A little later, cupboards open and shut. Ivan beats a few eggs, chops -- badly -- a small green pepper and a smaller red pepper. He sends Darya to get some sausage from the corner store. He cuts that up, too, and soon enough the smell of egg omelette is filling Hilary's apartments. It's likely this is one of the very few things he knows how to cook himself. It's entirely likely he doesn't even know how to make instant noodles. What Silver Fang would have to, anyway?

Hilary

While Ivan strolls out of the bedroom, Hilary drops her pajamas and goes to take a shower, finally, to wash the hairspray and the curls out of her hair, to wash off everything from last night, all the fingerprints, all the weariness, everything.

The contrast between the dim bedroom and the impossibly sunny living area is dazzling, shooting flares of light into Ivan's eyes. The glass is tinted enough outside to offset some of the blinding quality, but all the same, it doesn't compare to the darkness in Hilary's room lit only by a soft blue glow. He doesn't see Darya immediately, but he can see her presence clearly: the apartment is clean. Everything is as it was when he first arrived last night. The coffee carafe is even polished, the stainless steel free of fingerprints.

When he sees the maid, it's after the first real sound he makes in the kitchen, the fridge opening and closing. Then she comes out of the second room, her footsteps quick and quiet. It's evident that she expected to see Hilary and was presenting herself in case she was needed, but then she stops when she sees Ivan. She watches him only for a second or two, and then straightens her sweater and stays out of the way, only introducing herself if Ivan makes that overture. He does not, giving her only a nod, perhaps saying her name, and she remains quiet.

Goes out when he tells her to, and is back not in seven and a half minutes or anything like that, but closer to twenty. It is not a log of sausage in a plastic wrapper but a half-pound of it wrapped in butcher paper from a nearby market. She sets it on the counter when she brings it back and explains quietly: "Ms. de Broqueville prefers ...quality ingredients," with a tone and posture of apology before nodding her head to him and getting out of his way again.

And Hilary, bless her Fangly, broken, shriveled little heart, does not emerge from her bedroom until a full forty-five minutes have gone by, enough time to shower, and shower luxuriously, enough time to dry and straighten her hair, to apply the barest minimum of makeup, to dress herself in a pair of tailored white slacks and a sleeveless, rich purple blouse, a pair of gold-toned kitten heels and bangles on her wrists, rings on her fingers as though she's going out, but this is just how she looks. This is how she looked when he met her.

As though nothing at all has changed. By then the omelettes are more than done, and Ivan is still walking around in bare feet and yesterday's slacks, and Darya is out of sight, out of mind. Somehow she managed to make fresh coffee while Ivan was cooking, almost as stealthy as he is, before vanishing again. Which is itself a challenge: it's not a quarter of the size of Ivan's penthouse.

"I do really need to find a larger place," Hilary muses. "This has been nice, but something's not quite right about it." She hmms thoughtfully as she walks over to a small round table by the windows, rather than the barstools at the counter. There is a bud vase atop this little round table with flowers in it, and that wasn't there last night, either. She sits down, looking out the glass as though expecting to be served. Which, given that she has a maid, doesn't necessarily mean she expects Ivan to do so.

Ivan

Although Ivan snorts as Darya explains her tardiness -- quality ingredients, indeed -- it's probably for the best. When Hilary emerges forty-five minutes later, the omelette is still waiting in the pan, covered, and has managed to retain enough heat to be reasonably palatable. Is only very slightly scorched on the bottom, besides.

And Hilary takes a seat by the windows, waiting to be served. Her maid is in another room. Ivan doesn't bother calling the girl, who is even younger than he is, even younger than the girl he took to dinner last night, though perhaps cut from a similar cloth. A little less ambitious, though. Or perhaps she simply hasn't gotten there yet.

Never mind: he serves Hilary himself, regardless. Perhaps he likes that, in some strange way. That said, it's not much service: the omelette scooped out of the pan and folded over once, a mild cheese melting between. He cuts that in half, splits it between two plates, grabs a few napkins and a pair of forks. A carafe of whatever juice Hilary keeps in the fridge. Some cups.

This is what he brings to the window by the glass, setting each piece down with a quiet clink. She'd mused on a larger place a few moments ago. He looks out the window, then back to her.

"Dmitri worked with a very capable agent when he found the penthouse for me. If you'd like, I'll have him send your people the contact." Sitting across from her, he pours juice, filling her glass first like a gentleman. Then he hands her a fork. "Be gentle," he quips. "I'm inexperienced."

Hilary

The mild cheese is simply called 'Brick' and it is not terribly unlike cheddar, but paler and a bit softer. It melts extremely well. It was the first thing that came to Ivan's hand when he met the onslaught that is Hilary's cheese drawer. There's a bit of orange juice and a bit of cranberry juice and that was another thing Darya managed to do behind his back, setting out two glass carafes as though to hint at him what he should do without coming out and telling him what to do while still trying to do what Hilary wants her to do, which is sometimes very exacting.

Like buying sausage at the fresh market and not from a corner store, and buying lean sausage and buying sausage that's infused faintly with sage and not buying too much at once because meat, really, should be absolutely fresh, don't you think, Darya?

Hilary glances up at him when he arrives with their breakfast, two plates of omelettes with not a sprig of garnish at all and not a single thought paid to plating it attractively. She gives a small sigh of acceptance, and takes the fork when he hands it to her, eyeing the slightly scorched 'lace' on the exterior of the omelette. To her credit, she does manage to suppress whatever grimace might rise to the surface. A part of her wants to snap that this is why she wouldn't hire an inexperienced cook or go to a restaurant with an inexperienced chef, but he said to be gentle, and she knows from last night it isn't entirely a joke.

But first, Hilary stops him from pouring her glass more than half full. When he has, she fills it with the other juice. Half cranberry. Half orange. There's almost no pulp whatsoever in the latter. She lets the red and orange swirl together in the glass while she lifts her fork again and cuts off a corner for her first bite, deftly stretching the melted cheese without getting it everywhere before it snaps, and closes her mouth around the bite consideringly. Hilary chews slowly, tasting the food in its entirety, thoughtful but silent as most of her breakfasts are. When she is done she looks over the table at him, reaching for her juice glass. "Palatable," she says, and lowers her fork. "Too many peppers. At least it isn't runny." She takes another bite.

Ivan

That makes Ivan smile, suddenly and irrepressibly. It's not because he's somehow mistaken this for praise. He hears it for what it is - a critique, a review, as though this were a fine dining establishment, he a young chef, she a food critic. He smiles because - well. He likes cooking with her. Or for her, it seems. He even likes it when she scolds him.

"I'll take that into consideration next time," he says solemnly.

He picks up his own fork, then, picking a bit of sausage out of the omelette and eating it first. He drinks his juice unmixed, all orange, looking out the window as he eats. It is no longer early. It is midday, and the city is very bright, the lake beyond the buildings as blue as a jewel.

"I don't think we've gone sailing together a single time this summer," he says. "Well, no, there was that daytrip we took in Port Grimaud. But not here." He folds a piece of omelette over on itself, eats it. "Out of curiosity," this is a subject change, unapologetic, "why are you learning Russian?"

Hilary

That gives her pause. She is on her third, then fourth bite, then fifth. She did not respond to mention of finding a new penthouse, or the talk of sailing, though there's still plenty summer left to sail in. She still has her yacht. She won't be divorced for some time, after all, and the financial separation hasn't begun yet. Hilary is hungry, and eats with slow chewing but with a steady advance across her plate, making up for the ten or eleven hours since the last time she had anything to eat. A donut or two. The sort of thing most skinny women would be obsessing over, because that is the only way a woman stays as skinny as society wants her to be, that is the shameful truth, you cannot be that skinny and remain 'healthy' without being obsessive, and you cannot be that skinny and avoid obsession without merely going the route of utter and total deprivation, which is mentally less taxing.

Hilary is not obsessing. Hilary is not mortal. Hilary heals at twice the pace of a human being, and that is without supernatural aids like the one Ivan used upon her when they cut Ivan's child out of her uterus. Hilary is eating something with loads of fat in it -- red meat, egg yolks, cheese -- crafted by the hands of a man who could eat half a cow and not have much impact on his physique. Hilary has a personal trainer and a Pilates coach and if she ever feels like mixing with the plebs she can just use the gym here. Hilary isn't thinking very much about two donuts and a fatty omelette and oh my god, how many minutes on the treadmill will that be.

Ivan asks her why she's learning Russian, and Hilary pauses, and then refuses to answer. She takes another bite, her eyes on her plate.

Ivan

[EMPAFEE]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )

Hilary

[1: THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE! GET OUT! GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!

2: Also, my goodness, she's quite hungry, isn't she? Let's just have us a nice, calm breakfast at 1pm and pretend you just never asked such a silly question.

3: Twisting, writhing, black chaos-balls of rage.]

Ivan

There's no answer to that question. In truth, Ivan hadn't thought it a loaded one. There's a gingerness to this breakfast, just under the surface of their ever-so-privileged languor and polish. It wasn't a good night. It was strange, and unpleasant at times, and sometimes they very nearly melted down entirely.

So when Hilary doesn't speak, Ivan looks at her for a moment. Whatever he sees makes him decide not to pursue the matter further. He lets it drop, and then there's a silence broken only by the quiet sounds of their eating. The omelette doesn't last very long for Ivan. Soon enough he sets his fork down, wipes his mouth with the napkin and lays it over his emptied plate. Then he leans back in his chair, finishing his juice. Yawning.

It'd be easier for them both if he just went home. If they just separated for a while, came back together when their nerves weren't so raw, when they could tolerate each other better. Or perhaps not at all. He doesn't want to go home, though. And when he asked her last night, genuinely not knowing the answer, she wanted him to stay.

Hilary

There's every chance that the only reason Hilary brought Ivan to her bed at dawn was so that he wouldn't be startled awake by Darya's entrance, or put a knife to her maid's throat and cause all manner of ruckus. There's every chance that this morning she felt him there and curled close, stayed near, and for the first few seconds didn't even think about the last time they were in that bed together, or how she'd woken alone,

completely alone,

both her newborn son and his father gone across the sea as though they were never more than ghosts.

For a few seconds at least, maybe one or two, she managed to lie there with Ivan and not think about that. To think only of various mornings in various countries, waking like that and just sleeping as though they are not who and what they are, doing what they keep doing.

For now, Hilary goes on eating her breakfast and drinking her juice. As hungry as she is, and given his last question, she has no further comment on his culinary aptitude or lack thereof. He doesn't throw down his napkin or clank his dishes in annoyance that she doesn't answer him, and she appreciates that, but she doesn't say a word. She pretends, quite well, that he never asked that question at all. Her hair shines in the sunlight. She eats slower than he does, though, and she's still eating, pausing between bites, when she looks over and asks him, "Would you like to go sailing today, then?"

Ivan

There's a bit of hesitation, which he hopes she doesn't fault him for. "I don't know," he answers honestly. "I want to be with you. But last night was hard. And I don't know if you want to, or can stand to be with me.

"What do you want to do?"

Hilary

She looks over at him still, her eyes steady. "I just asked you to go sailing," she says, as though he's missed something painfully obvious. "If I couldn't stand you, I would have told you to leave last night." She puts her fork back into her omelette, going for another bite. "I almost did," she goes on, unexpectedly, "several times. But I didn't... really want you to go."

Hilary chews and swallows before looking over at him again, reaching for her juice glass. "Last night was hard," she says then, with a sort of forced levelness, as though she needs not to get too invested in thinking about that, and remain above it all, floating rather than diving. "But today doesn't have to be."