Ivan Press

[Lipstick stains] "Like, and... he evar notices my shoes, like evar. Oh-mygod. And I mean, like, I paid a ton of money for them. They are just like the ones I saw Kim Kardashian wearing in People," the bleached orange lack leaned against the counter of the sink in the rest room. In the background of the club, some remix of Technologic was thumping hard. It came through the walls, but true to form the club had done an amazing job at soundproofing the bathroom.

Everything was done up in blacks and brushed steel. Every tile was impeccably polished and cared for. Someone put some thought into keeping this plce clean or, at the very least, making it very difficult to tell if it was going to be dirty.

So, there it was, and the DJ transitioned from Technologic some mashup of Unchained Melody and Around the World. Overall, it isn't completely terrible. No one's listening to the lyrics anyway, they're more concerned if they can get up in each other's business. People writhe and grind and occasionally some neon-painted dancer draws some attention, and the crowd ebbs to allow them space.

They always flow back, though. People are predictable, moreso than the tides.

-----

The blonde isn't blonde tonight. She didn't want to be blonde tonight, so she decided against it and opted for a blue-and-purple wig. Some short little bob action that hits her shoulders. Cordelia's choice in attire (short, sparklie, and entirely too expensive), isn't built for comfort. It's built for dancing her ass off and... well... getting attention.

Part of the point of dancing is the performance aspect. Plus, you know, she can't very well work it in a pencil skirt. It doesn't work that way. The dress is a nice foil to the purse, which is a knock off of a very expensive purse that, quite frankly, Cordelia hated with a passion. But she could carry just about everything in that purse so she brought it with her.

The not-a-natural-blue ducks into a stall to text to her heart's content.

-----

The orange-haired woman looks at the blue, once up and over, and goes back to lamenting to her friend. The young woman she's talking to- a brunette with too much eyeliner and incredibly bright red lipstick- continues to touch up her makeup while her friend just blabs on... and on... and on...

"But anyway, like, what the Hell am I supposed to do? I mean, if he's not going to notice my shoes, he's not going to notice anything. He's only looking at, like, runway models and shet, and I mean, I lost, like thirty pounds for that guy and what? Does he want me to be anorexic or something because, I mean, you-" the not-a-natural-blue is ducking into the bathroom at this time "-I mean come on, like, she's a twig. That is so not healthy. How can he be in to that. Like, seriously, all those lollipops? What the feck?"

Her friend just keeps putting her lipstick on.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] This is one of those clubs so awesome, so elite, so chic that it doesn't even bother having two bathrooms. There are men as well as women in here -- to facilitate bathroom sex, one supposes. There are large, spacious stalls; there are no urinals, but there is a trough along one wall, an inch or so of constantly running water rippling zen-like down its length. Half-height mirrors above it, so you could admire your fine drunk self while you took a piss. Or make eyes at the guy next to you, if that was more your thing.

You're not allowed to smoke in here, but that hasn't stopped several patrons from hitting off a joint. Ivan is smoking too, though it's not marijuana. It's one of his clove cigarettes, Djarum, black paper wrapped around tobacco and spice. He's loitering against one wall between two minimalistic sinks, casually chatting up a pretty brunette until said brunette's angry boyfriend drags her away by the elbow. It leaves Ivan smirking. Cat in cream is the expression.

He notices the not-a-natural-blue, then, though it takes him a moment to place the face. She looks different. Her hair's blue, for one. Her glasses are gone, for another. He looks right at her for a moment, curious, piercing, and then she's in her stall and he's outside and ...

... moments later when she comes out he's still there by the sinks, shifting over one to be beside the one Cordelia picks.

"Hi," he says, and blows smoke out the corner of his mouth at some unfortunate neighbor or other. "Rebelling against the blondeness, I see."

[Lipstick stains] "So, like, what do you think, Nicole? Do you think I should, like, dump him or something?" the conversation continues on, and it continues to be one-sided. The legitimate redhead continues to put on her lipstick, transfixed.

Cordelia inhales, smelling the scent of smoke. And it's an actually pleasant smell, come to think of it. She inhales once, twice, and opens her door in time to find herself looking up at... well... one of the few people in Chicago she actually has to look up at. The person who is stepping out of the stall next to Cordelia's- which happens to be inhabited by a rather attractive (but ultimately petite) young man. He coughs, and gives Ivan a dirty look.

He skulks off to the sink to go wash his hands. Conversation continues on without him.

Cordelia drops her cell phone in her purse and slings it over her shoulder, "hola... and I didn't want to be a blonde tonight. It didn't go with the dress."

Which is funny, because there's not a lot of dress for it to go with. Then again, she is tall, it could just be an optical illusion since she has legs that go on for about a mile.

"Do you spend a lot of time talking to women in unisex bathrooms, or is this a new past time?" The right side of her mouth quirks upward.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] The corner of Ivan's mouth moves upward. "I'm here with Taylor Casey," he explains. "Minor soap star, major drama queen. Ridiculous dreams of hollywood glamour. She won't stop talking about herself. I'm hiding from her. She claims to be allergic to public restrooms, so she won't come in here."

He takes another drag. Ivan's the sort of man that looks good smoking cigarettes, the way silver screen stars looked good. Lean. Elegant. Unhurried in his motions, with such unmistakeably blue blood that the very act of smoking seems to underscore the eternal luxury and leisure he was born to. The Ragabash flicks the last of the cigarette -- a good half-inch or so left before the butt -- in the rough direction of the urinal-trough, then lets go his last breath of smoke.

"Thought you went back to Spain," he adds, looking the not-blonde up and down, "or maybe got mated to that uncontrollable Ahroun boy you were seeing. It's been a while."

[Lipstick stains] [I'm good at lying, I swear!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 6, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [ORLY]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 4, 4, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [-_-]

[Lipstick stains] "That... sounds... how are you going to get out? there's one door, your escape plan is lacking, Señor Press, no es bueno," she shakes her head, slow and sad, like she was going to miss Ivan and his inability to get out of the bathroom meant that he was stuck with a fate worse than death- an evening with a narcissist.


He thought she went back to Spain.


"I did," she says. A moment. "I mean, I went back to Spain. Three weeks," she clarifies, and lifts up three fingers on her left hand; the index finger and her thumb come together, so it looks more like she's making the okay sign instead of indicating three. "Christian's out of town right now, he'll be back, though. He's not big on night clubs and I don't think it would be a good idea to take him out on a full moon anyway."

She says it with such utter conviction that it has to be truth. Whether it's true or not is an entirely different story. As far as anyone is concerned, Christian is out of town, he will be back, and the way Cordelia said it, it just had to be the truth. Just as real as the WMDs in Iraq and the unbiased coverage of Fox news.

"It was nice to be home, though. I didn't realize how much I missed Spain," she says.

The conversation continues at the sink. The orange haired female prattles on, and the male continues on washing his hands. He leaves, and the orange-haired female follows him, though she doesn't follow him out. The brunette keeps putting on her lipstick. Darker and heavier, and it starts to go outside of the lines, covering part of her face.

Her eyes are glassy.

[Lipstick stains] [Cordie: per+alert, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [p/a!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 8, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [WHAT THE FUCK, KAHSEENO. SILVER FANGS DON'T FAIL.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 5, 7, 9 (Failure at target 7)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [..... okay let's try it with PU.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [WHAT. THE FUCK.]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] Someone -- Sartre perhaps -- came up with the brilliant idea that heaven and hell are identical; merely defined by its occupants. There's some merit in that. None finds a narcissist so irritating as another narcissist. Ivan is primarily concerned with himself; small wonder he can't bear the extended company of a woman who only wants to talk about her own minor glories.

"Not at all," Ivan is going on to say. "I'll go back out when it's suitably late that we can retire to her townhouse, where we'll fuck our brains out and not worry about conversation at all. You see? Brilliant."

Cordelia tells some tale about Spain, three weeks, and Christian's absence. There's a big fat lie in there somewhere, but Ivan doesn't notice. It's arguable whether he'd care except on an academic level even if he did. He's not noticing, though, because he's eyeing the brunette now, the one who was not so much touching up her makeup as she was painting her face by this point.

He's a Ragabash, after all. It's his business to notice oddities like that. He notices -- but he makes nothing of it. Who knows what she was on. There are half a dozen drugs circulating in this bathroom alone. Not his business, anyway -- he turns back to Cordelia.

"I can't remember the last time I was in Spain," he says. "You should give me a tour someday."

[Lipstick stains] Cordelia's exquisite lie is wasted on Ivan's short attention span. The brunette at the sink has stopped putting it on her lips and is all but painting her face with it now, around her lips, curving upward into a false, macabre smile. The brunette- Nicole her friend had called her- smiles. And she doesn't... well, her teeth don't quite seem right. They're not as white as they had been, and instead look like, maybe, she'd had some bad luck with some club drugs. Like someone laced her Ecstasy with Meth a few too many times. Odd, because looking at her, she looks like a relatively nice, relatively fashionable young woman.

Ivan's talking to Cordelia, and Cordelia is stepping out of the bathroom stall. She's got a fairly good grip on her top of her purse, and her brows are furrowed. The expression on her face is one between confusion and concern. Ivan's seen that expression before, but probably not on Cordelia. It's the expression horror movie heroines adopt when they're about to investigate something that will, no doubt, end in them getting stabbed or falling down a flight of stairs.

Nothing good ever comes from that expression.

"Did you hear that?" she takes a few steps towards the door. The orange-haired female rounds the corner and seems very interested in her nails. They're long. Surprisingly long. Hadn't noticed that before.

"So anyway, like, Nicole, did you hear about-"
"JUST SHUT UP YOU VAPID CUNT! SHUT. UP. JESUS CHRIST!" the painted, screeching brunette yells. She turns and punches the mirror. The glass shatters under her hand, but surprisingly, it doesn't draw blood.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] "No?" Ivan is mildly puzzled, straightening from his lean against the wall. "Hear what?"

Cordelia doesn't get a chance to reply. The painted brunette abruptly screeches -- glass shatters -- someone lets out a short scream of startlement. Ivan looks startled, too. He's wondering how much crack the woman took. He's wondering if she's on PCP. He's wondering this, and then he notices

her hand isn't bleeding.

Ivan takes a step back from the sinks. He glances around the bathroom, and then he reaches out, his fingers wrapping around Cordelia's. His hand is narrow across the palm, but surprisingly strong -- the skin as smooth as anyone might expect of a playboy who's never worked a day in his life. A playboy werewolf, at that.

"We should get out of here," he says quietly. "Neither of us is a warrior. So if I tell you to run, run."

[Lipstick stains] He doesn't hear it. Cordelia frowns and looks like she might say something. The mirror shatters across the way, and Cordelia, for her part, shrieks. It's not long, but it's enough to say that she wasn't expecting that at all. Her hands come up instinctively to cover her head, but nothing comes of it. Her arm drops to her side, her hand takes Ivan's and she starts looking for an alternative way out. One that didn't involve going around-

"What the feck is your problem, Nicole? I mean, feck, what the feck is your problem? Like, seriously what the feck is wrong with you? Like... oh my gawd, you're so fecking embarrassing me infront of, like, these people-"

Nicole turns, her eyes are wide, and the light catches them just right. Something about them seems catlike. Not in structure, but because the light glints off of them, like she could probably see easily in the dark. She flexes her fingers and she looks between Ivan and Cordelia. Her attention goes back to the other woman, Kim. Her neck cracks, and turns at an awkward angle.

Nicole rolls her eyes.

"Oh my gawd girl, seriously? Now?"
"Now," Nicole replies.

[aaaand 3-2-1-inits]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] +7!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [[Nicole+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 2

[Lipstick stains] Kim: 6+
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Lipstick stains] Cordie: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Lipstick stains] Ivan: 13
Kim: 10
Cordelia: 8
Nicole: 7

[Lipstick stains] Nicole:
1a: Launch yourself at the dude
1b: Bite!

Cordelia:
Make a break for the door

Kim:
1a: move
1b: turn off the overhead light.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] -1R to crinos!
1a. tackle kim! (body tackle)
b. use her as shield against chompy nicole! (grapple?)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] Ivan wasn't exactly telling Cordelia that for future reference. As soon as the women -- they're not women -- turn on them, the lean Ragabash shouts:

"Run. RUN!"

It starts a shout, anyway. It ends a roar. Nine feet of silver-white agility fill the bathroom. Now people are screaming in earnest.

[Lipstick stains] [kim: Changing second action to a dodge!

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dex/brawl -2 split!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [ffs kahseeno, STOP SUCKING. also, that should be diff 7]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] b. we're just gonna stab her running ass in the back. +1 diff for action change, -2 for back attack, but base diff is 4 so final diff is 3. -3 split!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 5 at target 3) Re-rolls: 1

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam = str +4(suxx)]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Kim: Ow, betch!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Kim: changing that second action BACK to turning off the light]

[Lipstick stains] Ivan stabs the female in the back, her body starts to collapse, and the force of the blow should have been enough to take her down, but it doesn't seem to work. She gets back up, and she makes it to the door. The bathroom goes dark. Something gleams in the dark.

[Lipstick stains] [Nicole: Launch! Aaaand bite
dex3+brawl3 (I'm a kickboxing instructor)= 6 - 3 = 3, diff 5 (No dark mod, darksight FTW)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Lipstick stains] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [aaaaand poison]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 4, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [WHAT THE SHIT, KAHSEENO!]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [soak vs poison!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 5 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] "Stupid fucking anorexic..." there's a growl. The room is dark. Something hits the ground like a sack of potatoes. A very, very large, well-bred sack of potatoes.

[actions!]
[Kim:
1: try and bash cordie's little head in

Cordelia:
Block!

Nicole:
1a: claw at the downed Fang
1b: try and bite him again

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [stamina vs diff 8 to heal 1L!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [5A, 1L!]

[Lipstick stains] [Kim: bam!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Cordie: Block, +2 diff, because it's dark]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Lipstick stains] (holding those!)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] This is the second time in a month that Ivan has gone down within seconds of entering combat. He's not a creature meant to fight alone. He's barely a creature meant to fight at all.

He has a moment to consider how fucking filthy that floor must be, as immaculate as the bathroom looks. Then he hits it.


A second later, the worst of the wounds close of their own accord. And the werewolf's yellow eyes snap open.

[reflexive: -1WP to resist pain, -1R to resist stun
1a. cut nicole's achilles tendon! [targeted; modified hamstringing?]
b. plant a knife in her while she's down!
c. move the fuck out of her reach
R1. stab in kim's vague direction]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [-3 dice, +2 diff (blind), -1 diff (knife instead of teeth). +WP! KAHSEENO FHTAGN!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 9) [WP]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [str +1 dam]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Nicole: O.O]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 3, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] b. stab her ass again! -4 dice, +2 diff (blind), -2 diff (crippled target)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [oh come on, kahseeno, be good for daddy. str!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [OR NOT.

c. mvmt! getting out of nicole's range, heading toward wherever kim was last]

[Lipstick stains] [and you remember those rolls? Yeah.. uh.. damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 5, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] The knife sinks in exactly where it's supposed to go. Ivan's fairly aware of this. He hears a snap, he hears a harsh cry, and it's followed by the sound something hitting the ground. Hard. Something hits the sheet rock, and there is a familiar hiss of pain.

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: crawl over? or at least try to
1b: Bite? +2 diff, moving es difficult
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 8, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] It's chaotic in the bathroom. It wasn't bright to begin with -- dark surfaces, mood lighting. Now it's pitchblack, the darkness interrupted only in flickers and flashes as panicked mortals stampede the doors, let in the neons and fluorescence that stains the dance floor outside. Every time those doors open a wave of bass rolls in. Every time those doors shut the light dies again.

Flash: and the Ragabash has knives in his handpaws, carbon-fiber wedges, black in his white paws. Flash: and one's tearing across the back of the nearer female's ankle.

Flash: and she's on the floor, her bloody teeth snapping. The Ragabash scrambling fluidly to his feet, his balance surreally perfect even with his side torn open to the bone.

He's next to Cordelia, then, his hot paw grabbing her around the bicep; shoving her at that door. A screaming girl passes them by, brushing against his side. She yells bloody murder when she feels fur, and blood. She doesn't even know why. She doesn't know anything right now, only terror.

"Keep running!" It's a snarl; even that much takes effort. The Ragabash propels the kinswoman toward the bathroom door. "Go!"

When the door swings open again, he's slamming a knife into the side of Kim's neck. The black composite doesn't show blood at all, but his white fur does.

[R1, blind stab! +2 diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [delete roll!]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: damage to ivan!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] (waitwaitwait, hold that!)

[Lipstick stains] [Nicole: FFS!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 7 (Botch x 1 at target 8)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [going back to do that get outta range roll -- dex+ath -5 (splits)]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [seriously, WHAT THE FUCK.]

[Lipstick stains] The bathroom has errupted into chaos. Whoever is left in there is screaming panicked. They don't know what the sound is, and they likely won't remember what made it. They keep hearing that they need to run, that they need to go, and the only remaining people in the bathroom are trying, they're trying, it's down to a screaming girl and a guy who had holed up in the handicapped bathroom, covered his head and rocked telling himself-

this isn't real
this isn't real
this isn't happening
oh god
oh god
this isn't real.

Cordelia isn't sure how many people have touched her, there was a hand in her hair, and the only thing that probably kept her from getting her head bashed in was the fact that she had a wig on. She moved just enough so that Kim had a hand full of fake bllue hair. She gets all of one step forward and there's a to-large paw around her arm, and she's shoved towards the door.

Don't have to tell her twice to run. She doesn't think about the blood. She doesn't think about the destruction or the carnage, but if she could see Ivan right now, she might throw up. She's pretty sure the door is this way. Almost there.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [+8 now - crinos!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Kim: +6
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Lipstick stains] Cordie: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: +5
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: Getting. Over. THERE - crawl over to Ivan

Cordelia: ohfuckohfuck
1a: turn on the light
1b: Unlock the door and GET THE FUCK OUT

Kim:
1a: -1 WP, body expansion
1b: use kin as a meat shield (grapple?)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] 1a. stab kim again!
b. once again!
c. -1 Gn, pop a damn gaia's breath
d. and another!

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] a. -4 dice! still blind, +2 diff.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: O_
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] b. SECOND VERSE, SAME AS THE FIRST!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Kim: >_O
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [c. okay, changing this to a fucking stab too *LOL* +WP!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 3 (Failure at target 7)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [erp! reflexive stam heal roll]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam for c -- with WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: >_
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [d. GB! +4hp --> back to 1A.]

[Lipstick stains] Kim: Becoming the Incredibly Hulk!
1b: Grapple: str+bodyexpandedness+brawl=8-3=5, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] (wait, that's too many, forgot damages)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Cordie: WTF No, resist!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Cordie: turn the light on, FFS!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 8) [WP]

[Lipstick stains] [aaaand Nicole: I'm tryin'!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 5 (Failure at target 8)

[Lipstick stains] The knife hits once, misses, hits a third time, and he feels a sense of satisfaction. His target should be downed soon enough. Until, of course, he hears a struggle, and some string of half-panicked Spanish in the general direction of the door. Bones are cracking. The sound is horrible, snapping and gurgling shudders-

The lights click onward, followed by a hissed "Fuck!"

Ivan is stained red. His claws are red, the knife is red, the floor is red. Everything. When the lights come on, the room is bathed in a familiar clarity that seems to make all of this much, much easier. Nicole's foot is practically useless, and it dangles in a grotesque manner by her side. the front of her shirt is splattered in blood, and those rotting teeth are dripping with the blood of kings.

The other woman is holding on to the blonde in front of her like a security blanket. Cordelia looks more like herself when her hair isn't blue, and that particular wig is chilling out in the floor. The mirror is shattered. A mortal woman has stopped screaming and, instead, has resorted to crying in a corner.

Funny thing is that she won't remember any of this tomorrow.

The other woman, the one with the orange hair, is disgustingly large, now, twice her size, rivaling in size with the crinos wolf in the room. her shoulders are stooped and her her shoulder is bleeding profusely. Ivan notices a distinct lack of neck wound where he knows his blade hit. Frustrating, yes.

Those cute shoes she had been bragging about remain on her feet, though they are shredding at this point. Shame, too, they were kind of cute.

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: SERIOUSLY! CRAWL. OVER. THERE

Cordelia: Headbutt whatever is holding onto you
[aaaaaand spending a WP to not start panicking]

Kim: Reserving actions to use kin like a meat shield.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] The lights are back on so suddenly that even their hot pinpointed glow -- absorbed by the sleek darkness of the bathroom as it is -- is overwhelming. The Ragabash's lips peel back into a rictus snarl; his handpaw comes up instinctively to shield his eyes from newfound light. His side is awash in blood, his fur matted and dripping with it, but all that remains of the wound itself is a faded red scratch.

He pauses when he sees what's become of the orange-haired woman. The white Crinos' golden eyes flick between her and the kin she's got a deathgrip on. There's another one at his back, but he's not overly concerned right now about her. She's still got to get over here, and she's moving so painfully slow.

Almost lazily, the Ragabash rolls a shoulder. He closes in on Kim and her quarry, his center of balance low, movements silent. Slinking. He circles for advantage. For the space of two, three seconds, it's a standoff in this abattoir of a bathroom.

Outside, there's a growing commotion. Shrieking clubgoers have drawn the attention of security, no doubt. A sudden scream from just outside the door: that's all the distraction Ivan needs. He whips his knife across the room at Nicole. In the next instant, he's smashing a tiny clay bead onto Kim's suddenly bulging arm.

[1a. throw knife at Nicole!
b. trapdoor boon on Kim! -1Gn
c. stab Nicole when she gets over here!]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [ignore c!

1a. -2, throwing knife! dex+ath, diff 6]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam +2]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: FUCKING OW
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] b. trapdoor boon! -1Gn, -3dice, +1WP
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 7 (Failure at target 6) [WP]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Kim: 3-2-1 action change, got hungry. Biting kin!
dex3+brawl2=5 - 2 = 3, diff 5-2 (grappled target)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 6 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[Lipstick stains] [damage?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] [Soaking lethal blows.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 6, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Lipstick stains] Cordie: OMG I WANT DOWN NOW, -1
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 7, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 8)

[Lipstick stains] Damage?
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: betch!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: seriously, imma get there
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 9 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: claw at Ivan

Cordelia: contested roll, I want out NOW (also: wp roll to make sure her phobia doesn't go insane)

Kim: SERIOUSLY. MEAT. SHIELD.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] 1a. FINISH HER! stab kim. +2 diff for targeting (since meat shielded)?
b. again if necessary! +2 diff
c. grab cordelia and run from limpy mclimp over there!
-- if he gets to the door, -1R to instashift down to glabro to avoid panicking the entire club
R1. ambush Limpy when she follows them out!

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] 1a. -3 diff!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 7 at target 4) Re-rolls: 3

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam +6!]
Dice Rolled:[ 12 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 7, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: Parry?
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: Soak?
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Kim: X_X

[Lipstick stains] Cordie: Don't panic roll! -3
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 3, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] b. moving this up: grab and run! -4 dice!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: Oh goddamnit. pursuit
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 8)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] c. slow-shifting: -4 dice. JUST ... NEED ... ONE ... SUCCESS.
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dammit. okay, -1R to downshift to glabro at the door.]

[Lipstick stains] The larger fomor falls, crumples, and bones break and snap and she all but drops the kinfolk. She bleeds, she arches, she groans and finally falls into a state of un-being. Her eyes stare blankly off into space, clad in those cute designer shoes while the rest of her clothing remains in tatters.

Cordelia stares at the bloody mess, her hand goes almost immediately to her neck. She applies pressure. Her fingertips are shaking. She's lacking in color and she will. not. look. at. Ivan. Whatever composure she has is forced at best. Held tenuously.

"We need to go, we need to go, we need to go," she just keeps repeating it like that's what's keeping her anchored.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] Nothing's gone as planned. Nothing ever goes as planned in combat; part of the reason Ivan bloody hates getting into an all-out throwdown like this. So much easier when he can control things. When he can disappear into the shadows; lure the prey in by a hint dropped here, a scent left there. When he can all but control where they'll look, how they're turn, how they'll expose their defenses -- how they'll fall when his knives slip in between the ribs.

This is different. This is a mess. That bloody trapdoor boon never took. He had to end that the hard way: a knife driven into an eyesocket, a brutal crunch of bone as the back of the orbit collapsed inward and the brains behind it turned to mush. Then he's grabbing the leggy no-longer-bluehaired kin up and half-carrying, half-shoving her toward the door; busts out behind her, puts his back to the wall,

suddenly a size smaller now, but still a good six inches taller than she remembers, and heavier. As solidly built as her Christian, though still so much sleeker. He'll never have the raw strength of an Ahroun, or their staying power. He's panting, sweating, his skin pale from blood loss that he's yet to fully regenerate.

In the strobing, flashing lights of the club he doesn't look anything like himself. He looks hairy, unkempt, that pretty lean face of his low-browed, heavy-jawed, bloody. No one's noticed the blood in the chaos yet, but there's confusion all around; Delirious mortals flailing for the exits, dancers shoved rudely aside, bouncers wading through the crowd to see what the fuck the commotion is about.

"Go," Ivan tells Cordelia. "Run into the crowd, go. If I don't contact you in thirty minutes, find Katherine and tell her what happened here."

[Lipstick stains] This, officially, the first time she's seen Ivan Press in over a month. The last time she'd seen him, things hadn't been so hot, either. This time, however, she isn't yelling at him or flirting with him or going through the motions other than... well.. how she's functioning right now. She'll panic more later. She's not going to die, though.

She's probably just going to go home and sit in the shower before she realizes that she needs to google how to dress bite wounds.

She looks at him, wide eyes and distinctly not herself. She nods once, twice, keeps a grip long enough to process what he wanted her to do. No one's noticed the blood in the chaos, but it's all she can look at (I'm gonna be sick, I'm gonna be sick, oh god oh god this isn't right) She nods, and there's an okay after every major point. Go, okay. Run into the crowd, okay. Find Katherine and tell her what happened, okay.

And she doesn't waste time.

The female hauls ass. People get shoved, she ducks into the crowd, and she's easy to lose, all things considered. There's a bloody bathroom to deal with, though.

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] Behind her, Ivan stays where he is. He puts his back to the wall, side to the door. If he listens hard he can hear -- he can convince himself he hears -- Nicole's painful, dragging progress. Her heavy, furious breathing.

He takes a few breaths of his own, slow and center. Little by little, he allows himself to become inconspicuous.

[blur of the milky eye on!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 6, 7, 7, 7, 8 (Failure at target 8)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [...SILVER FANGS. DO NOT. FUCKING. FAIL.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 9)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [annnd a stealth roll for ambushing nicole, whenever she drags her ass to the door! dex+stealth. this should be resisted by percep+alert, diff +1.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: ARG! YEAARHJKGHSJKGB!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 9, 9 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [FUCK ME I HAVE A TOTEM. +1 to that stealth roll!]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [wait! rolling to see if we lose the fucking totem. diff 4 with 1 die in the pool.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 4)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [all right! back to that ambush roll. dex(glabro) + melee +2 die ambushing. +1 from totem. flanking! let's put a WP on this too. *goes all in*]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 5, 5, 6, 7, 7, 7, 7 (Success x 5 at target 3) [WP]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [dam +4]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: FUCK!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] init +7!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: +5 RAR!
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] 1a. targeted strike: stabbing up under the sternum!
b. again!
c. once more!

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: SERIOUSLY. BITE THIS DUDE.

[Lipstick stains] Bite!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Lipstick stains] damage
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 7, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] and poison sucks
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] 1a. stab! +2 diff, -3 dice
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] glabro dam +1
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] ...and 2 more from targeting!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [also a soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: >_O
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] b. stab again!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] dam +1!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] Nicole: Soak
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] c. last stab!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Lipstick stains] By the time Nicole makes it to the door, Ivan is waiting for her. He waits, and she doesn't expect it. She breathes and seethes with anger, but not rage. no, no Nicole couldn't be that blessed. Ivan, however, was. And he was blessed with patience, such patience. The humans scurry in a panic. They don't know why, but something isn't right.

Each hit with the knife chips away a little, her sternum is steel. Her bones are unbreakable. This bitch did her fucking cardio on a daily basis.

There will be time for fighting. There will be time for all sorts of things, but not now. He melts upwards, bones crack and pop and shudder and he holds onto his knife a little more tightly. Humans scream. They panic and run away in terror. The humans don't know what to do with themselves, and the knife comes down. She claws. It comes down again. And again.

The battle shifts back to the bathroom.

Nicole is nothing but a bloody, pulped mass. Ivan takes a second to walk to the shards of mirror, looks down. There's enough clean mirror that he knows how to get across. The gauntlet is thick.

It parts, snaps, and the Silver Fang is no longer there. Inexplicably, no one can remember how all that blood happened. They'll blame the media. they'll blame the schools. They'll blame club drugs. But really, at the end of the day, no one will remember what happened that day.

It was another Thursday,

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [annnd it's a wrap!]

[Ivan Resplendent-Dusk] [thanks for STing, mindy!]

[Resplendent Dusk] The guest bedroom's shower isn't quite so spacious and luxurious as the one in the master, but it's still a cut above your standard household fare. A very large cut above your standard household fare. This isn't the first time Hilary's spent time in one of Ivan's guest suites, but this may be the first time she's been aware enough to look around. To see the neatly folded towels and toiletries; the pristine, impersonal state of the bathroom that may as well be the bathroom of some luxury hotel.


The water is hot, though, and the bath gel smells faintly of citrus and spice. After she's been in a while, when the mirror is fogged over and swirls of steam drift under the hot, bright lamps, the frosted glass door of the tub slides back and Ivan steps in without comment. There's still blood on his skin from earlier, as much his as the twisted things'. He doesn't touch her until he's rinsed himself off, washed, soaped, shampooed, bathed.

Then he turns to her. His hands on her are the same as ever: dexterous and firm; without any learned skill, but with a certain talent and subtlety. He kneads down her back and over her shoulders. He lingers a moment over the brand-new skin where that nasty bite had fallen and healed, and then he draws her back against his chest and wraps his arms around her, lowering his head, holding her a while with his back to the spray.

Moments pass. The shower beats down on them steady as rain, an unending, unfaltering wash of warmth and wetness.

[Hilary Durante] Absolute fury. From the street while Tomas lay dazed on the ground, through the brief drive to Ivan's building, and to the gallery of his penthouse, that's all she's known from him. Rage that she didn't run, how dare she have a wrong estimation of his abilities, don't you ever do that again, you stupid bitch, go to the guest room --


I'm leaving you behind.

Ivan was thoroughly displeased with her, that much was clear right from the start. And right from the start, right when he jumped into it, she shut him out. Closed herself off, unable to weather that much blame and recrimination from him, unwilling to tolerate it from anyone. But especially from him. Especially Ivan, who she wants so badly to please, who she places a rather sick amount of faith in, who knows where her weaknesses are and could, at any moment, strike right at them.

The truth is, they just got back from Lausanne. He was with her for two weeks in Europe and it was easier not to notice the slight swelling even in that amount of time. It's harder to notice what's gradual. It would be different if he didn't see her for three months and suddenly she was there, ripe with pregnancy, visibly reminding him without nudity or touch that she doesn't belong to him, that she's carrying another man's child. Not his. Not his. Never really his.

The truth is, she believed that was the last time he'd bother with her. Come back from Switzerland and be finished, done, over. Tired of her, disgusted by her, ready to put her away until a couple of months after the baby's born, and she'd better have lost all the weight by the time he deigns to see her. The truth is, Ivan knows how vigilant her sense of blame is, how insane her sense of rejection is.

So when she walked away from him: I nearly died for you.

And that, and her answer, sapped some of the anger. Brought her back, a step or two, from how far she'd gone away from him. Not enough that she forgot, with his nuzzling and his asking her to please, next time, run, that he'd sent her to the guest room. That he might care, but that didn't mean he wanted her. Or even wanted whatever else it was they found belowdecks on his yacht before they ever left Chicago: things like that admission that his resistance to truly hurting her wasn't just avoidance of risk to someone else's pretty bauble, but a genuine ...care for her.

It's unfair how easy it is to break Hilary's faith, destroy that feeling he gives her that she's precious somehow. But there it is. It's in her blood, and infecting her mind, and there's little chance that this late in the game there's anything close to an escape from it.

Not no chance at all. But it's so thin, that thread. It's so hard to see in the blinding light of day.


It's hard for her to believe him when he tells her that all his reasons for pushing her away were practical, rather than burgeoning revulsion or holdovers of anger. She doesn't have any reason to think he's going to do what he does, which is come up to her while she's still showering. It's a long, luxurious thing, letting herself tip her head back under the steaming water long after the blood has been rinsed off and drained away. Multiple showerheads, of course; she would laugh if even Ivan's guest rooms only had the one.

Her clothes are on the floor of the bathroom as he walks in. Hosiery, the dress she had on under her coat, her shoes, the clip from her hair resting on the counter, jewelry laid atop a soft towel. Her body is the way it was the last time he saw her naked, the last time they fucked,

which was on the plane from Lausanne to Chicago. Which was slow, and hard, grinding, facing her away from him and pulling her back onto him by the hip, her eyes closed from sensory overload, her hands grasping at a pillow, his teeth bared as he told her to take it, fuck, that's it, take it. Which was followed by the way he held onto her afterward, panting, and the way she clung to the pillow and the sheets as though if she could hold onto the damn bed it would somehow keep her from losing something much more important.

Which was followed by landing, and civil goodbyes, and no mention of when they'd see each other again.

Which was less than 48 hours later, outside the ballet, before they were attacked by fomori.


Her body, naked, is the same. Or seems like it. Logically he knows better. Every single day there's some new internal change going on. Every single day it's growing inside of her, that thing that could only possibly be his if fate is cruel, and will only be Garou if Gaia is. But that thing that could, possibly, be half-created by his part in that strange, unexpected, poignant fuck

in his bed. Because he wanted her in his bed. Needed to have her there, right then, damn the consequences.

There's a noticable but not robust roundness to Hilary's midsection now, notable because he's known her to be so slender. People who have never met her before don't guess. But he knows. And he can see it, and feel it when he pulls her against him, after he's rubbed her back and touched the scarless flesh where she was wounded. He knows, as he holds her, and Hilary closes her eyes.

She doesn't tell him she wants him. She doesn't tell him anything at all. She just closes her eyes and leans back against him, turning her head so that her cheek touches his shoulder. Somewhere else in the penthouse they've gotten Tomas mostly cleaned up and they're giving him this pill that will make his head stop hurting, they promise. Your stepmother told us to give it to you. Just swallow it, you otrodʹe. Somewhere else in the penthouse, the reason Hilary couldn't run even when it became apparent that no, she really should, is falling into a drugged sleep, where he will have angry nightmares.

Her hands lift, and covers his hands where they cup her shoulders or lace together. She rests her fingertips between his knuckles, the way she did so many times during the two weeks they were together, so recent it's still as hazy as a dream.

[Resplendent Dusk] Ivan's hands are clasped over Hilary's middle. Over her abdomen, in fact, where even that faint swelling of her body is unmistakable because he knows what she was like before and he knows how she is now. Perhaps that discomfits hers; perhaps she barely notices as she puts her hands over his and rests the pads of her fingers between his knuckles.


He stirs at that. He kisses her temple, shifts his hands. He holds her a while longer, quiet now, breathing steadily.

Sometimes it's hard for Ivan to understand Hilary. She's such a creature of apparent contradiction. Her deep, black core of rage manifests as emptiness; a lack of all emotion. Her fear of the unknown, the uncontrollable, the dark forces that shape and warp her life at their meaningless whims leads somehow to her need to submit, to give up all control. Her insecurity, her belief that she is something broken and shattered and bad, bad, shows itself as aloofness and exclusion.

And sometimes, the more she needs him, the more she wants him, the more she goes away into herself.

After a time, Ivan unwraps himself from around her. He turns off the gleaming showerheads. Water beads on the dark polished stone that lines the shower space; the matching dark tub in which their bodies are glowingly fair. The shower doors are sheer, clear panes of glass that slide easily open. He guides her out and wraps a towel around her, soft and rich and white as cream.

He draws her close. And he kisses her, softly, slowly, the way he sometimes seems to need to and the way she almost always seems merely to tolerate. When it's over he rests against her for a moment.

And whispers, "Do you think you can stay quiet if I fucked you?"

[Hilary Durante] His affection bewilders her. It does not bother her. Sometimes that distance, that boredom, is simply an attempt to try and understand him. That he should be so very, very tender with her, like they're old lovers and better friends. When Ivan holds his hands over Hilary's abdomen and kisses her temple, holding her under the water without any apparent desire to let her go -- or go any further -- one would imagine the way he likes to fuck her is


lovemaking, his arms clasping her to his chest, their mouths meeting over and over again, neither of them making much sound beyond aching gasps and moans of one another's names.

They've fucked like that once. And it terrified her. Changed her.


Such a creature of contradiction. That he should like so very much to hold her down and fuck her til she's screaming, that he should have once upon a time enjoyed hurting her to the point that he sickened himself, wanted to run away from her. This. Himself. That he should be so angry, so volatile, so selfish, so brutal with her

and so tender, so gentle, so endearing, so wanting for her attention and affection. Whatever it is they seem to have, it's built on those contradictions. The ones in Hilary draw him to her. The ones in Ivan draw her ever deeper into him, bond her closer to him. He understands the rage, even if he doesn't understand the blankness it turns into. He understands the connection between having no control, and giving all control up, even if he doesn't understand how that connection works. He understands how broken she feels, how filthy, even as her coldness drives him mad.


He likes to be rough with her when he fucks her, because she comes so very hard, so easy, and the way she screams is -- to borrow a phrase -- lovely.

And he rubs her back when they shower, soothing her sore muscles. Heals her friction burns and her bite marks and her bruises. Holds her close in his arms as they sleep, nuzzling her neck and kissing her shoulder, whether he's tied her down into his bed or not.


Tonight it wasn't Ivan who hurt Hilary. Not physically. Still it's him who healed her, who wanted to bring her home, who rubbed her sore muscles and laid his hands across the fragile form that holds that unmentioned, unmentionable fetus who could have been lost with a well-placed blow, with enough damage done to Hilary herself. It's Ivan, unlikely and unofficial guardian, who helps her step out of the shower and wraps her up in one of those thick towels, covering her and keeping her warm.

Hilary is like a doll in some ways. She's silent, and beautiful, and watching him with dark, unfathomable eyes as he takes her hand to guide her from one place to another. She's still and quiet as he wraps her up in a towel and then his arms, lifting her face to his when she senses he wants her mouth, parting her lips for him when he starts to kiss her.

"No," she whispers, watching him through her still-damp lashes, a faint smile curling coyly at one corner of her lips, as though all the stress of the night has been forgotten, as if he never yelled at her, as if none of it happened, none of it matters. "Do you think you can, if you have to cover my mouth?"

[Resplendent Dusk] A flicker of a smile, fading into something a little darker, more intense. When he kisses her again it's different: there's a note of dominance in it, firm and unyielding, possessive. When their mouths part he kisses her on the brow as though in blessing.


"Go wait for me in bed," he whispers.


He takes time to brush his teeth after that. To shave. To towel off the last of the water from his body, until all that remains is the dampness in his hair. When he opens the door his shadow casts across the opposite wall; and then that's gone, too, the bathroom lamps clicking off, the only light that which seeps past the closed shade on the glass wall.

However she's chosen to lie in bed, he comes to kneel naked over her. He turns her on her back, arranges her as he likes: turns her on her back and undoes her towel. Lays that open like wrapping paper, like she's a gift; looks at her, running his fingers lightly, admiringly over her skin, shoulder to side to hip. When his hands reach her thighs he opens her thighs to either side of his hips. Sets her feet soles-down on the bedsheets. Reaches between her legs to stroke her pussy open too, his fingers sliding between her lips, pressing against the mouth of her cunt.

"Sweet," he whispers. "So sweet, such a sweet little slut."

He smears her wetness on her nipples. Bends to her like an animal, hands on either side of her; bends and licks at her, sucks at her, laps at her tits slowly until all that remains is the clean taste of her freshly washed skin. Her nipples are hardened by then, so he sucks at them a little longer, flicking them with his tongue: one to the other, back again, holding her down by the wrists if she tries to fold her arms around him.

When he's satisfied -- when he's had enough of those shapely little breasts, and not before -- he shifts over her. He grasps her wrists in one hand, reaches down with the other. He's erect, hot and ready and wanting; she felt him hardening against her belly, her thighs, as he sucked at her breasts. He guides himself to her cunt now, teasing her, stroking the head of his cock slowly, slowly over her slit, whispering all the while that she was sweet, so sweet, so good, such a sweet, good little cunt that he was going to fuck hard and slow and filthy; he was going to make a good little whore of her and fill her up with cum

just like she likes it.

"Beautiful," he's whispering when he's finally done teasing her; when he's finally sliding into her, stretching her out, fucking into her. "You're so fucking beautiful."


It turns out he lied to her. It's not slow like he promised; not that first stroke, at least. When he's past her lips, he grasps her by the hip; holds her stretched between her wrists and her hips, holds her down and slams his cock into her hard and ferocious, knowing it'll make it her cry, clapping his hand instantly over her mouth when she does. Then he's pinning her hands with his, pinning her hips with his, covering her mouth with his fingers still tasting faintly of her slick, his precum, muffling her as he starts railing her.

"Yeah, that's it," he pants in her ear, snarling on every stroke, "take it. Take that cock for me, you filthy, pretty little whore."

There's no mercy in it at all, and very little caution. A lesser bed would creak; a lighter headboard would bang on the wall. A less drugged stepson next door would hear them. Might still hear them if he didn't gag her with his hand like that, keeping whatever sounds she might make firmly in her own mouth.

[Hilary Durante] In the closets of the guest suites there are clothes for all manner of shapes and sizes of women, all styles. Dresses for dinner, workout clothes, shorts and tops for sailing. The household staff rotates them depending on season. There are neatly, individually wrapped toothbrushes in the drawers, single-use sizes of various toiletries. It's all very luxurious, of course, only the finest. They make his guests feel pampered, taken care of, their needs anticipated, but they simultaneously seem almost engineered to keep those same guests from feeling at home.

Home is -- no matter how good he looks here, how elegant and how beautiful Ivan seems in this lofty penthouse -- not here.

Home is closer to the side of him that hasn't forgotten he's a wolf. More than a wolf, more than a man. Instinct wars there with madness. It's a den by the water, dark and warm and comfortable, hidden away by a long winding driveway and lots of trees. It would be a good place to bring mate. Bring cubs. Keep them safe, keep them close to him.

And some other part of him, wild from staring too long at Helios and Luna, twisted with ancestry, shrieks as though being cut with glass at the very thought. Retreats. Blurs into nothingness, to fight another day.


This can't last. Not the way he held her in the shower, his hands over her middle. If he felt protective then, of her or of her baby, he didn't show it. She doesn't guess.

Ivan's almost always followed her into the water, since the beginning, since those summer afternoons in hotels up along the north shore. When he wanted to leave her, when he hated her, there he was, stepping into the showers with her and wrapping his arms around her. Holding her, or finding her turning into his arms. Rubbing her back, touching her without lust, touching her with some other feeling neither of them could or would put into words.

This time he didn't grow hard as he stood behind her, and she didn't rub against him, but to some degree their sex almost always begins with a pact. A deal. They know what they're getting into, even if not a word passes between them concerning the matter. And if he wanted her as he stood there, if he knew that she wanted him, it didn't show. Not til he asked her, and she so playfully answered with a question,

if they could be quiet.


They can't stay playful forever, or tender. What he is, what she is, what they are when they come together, isn't built to last. It can't go on. She knows, even now, that this is only going to get harder. A few months, he said, as though that helped. I'll find another way to get to you, he said, as though he's capable. As though she could stand to be near him, knowing he doesn't want her. As though, however well he thinks he could handle it, it's something he can fairly ask her to deal with.

They can't keep doing this, and she knows it. She puts her hands on his face when he kisses her like that in the bathroom, firm and ferocious, and it's such a rare thing for her to do it might startle him. She kisses him and it parts with a soft gasp, her eyes still closed but flickering, as he kisses her brow.


She brushed her teeth before she showered. She doesn't stay long, to comb or dry her hair. It's still soaking wet, not even towel-dried, and she doesn't bother. Hilary pads softly out the bathroom while Ivan stays behind. The towel he wrapped around her is lying on the floor between the bathroom door and the low, expansive platform bed, and she's lying on her side, her back to him. She could be asleep.

She could be the way she's always been. Not pregnant, not drifting away. She could be the way he once saw her, not so broken, not so vulnerable. She could be anything he wants, anyone. If he weren't a wolf, he could close his eyes or fuck her in the dark and forget who she is, but the scent of her fills the air when he lowers himself to the mattress and comes closer to her, and he knows her.

Hilary.


Her skin gleams, pale, when he touches her shoulder and rolls her onto her back. There's nothing on her to cover her, keep her warm, and her nipples are hard from being so wet and then being exposed to the air. Her skin is cool when he touches her the way he does, slow and light. She watches him, her dark eyes distant and impossible to make out in the lack of light. Ivan moves her and she's so pliant, so forgiving, so easy for him. So dangerous, really.

The first time she reacts to him is when he strokes her between her legs, dipping his fingertips into her to feel how wet she's become for him. Her slender back arches and her lashes fall to her cheeks, her long-fingered hands grasping at the bedspread beneath her. She's lying on a cold, wet spot from where her hair soaked the fabric, but she hasn't complained. She moves her hips once, aching for him, always aching for him.


Hilary is watching him as he licks her breasts after that, drowsy-eyed, adoring. His mouth warms her nipples til she's moaning softly under him. The insides of her thighs stroke, silky and cool, across the outsides of his hotter, firmer body. She doesn't try to hold him, draw him nearer,

keep him.


But he holds her down after that, and Hilary is looking up at him with her arms stretched over her head, pinned to the pillows. She whispers his name, but it's a movement of her lips, barely audible. They could be in a cave, they could be buried a hundred miles in a canyon, they could be lost to the rest of the world forever.

Ivan't hasn't touched her cunt since he parted her legs and flavored her breasts with her own arousal. When he finds her now with his cock she's wet as he always remembers her, wet enough it seems like she'll come if he just rubs himself against her, if he just teases her enough, if he mutters in her ear that she's such a fucking slut

which he does. She's growing taut under him, shivering with want, whimpering as though he's hurting her. She's on the verge of tears from longing, trying to move her pussy against his cock, his flat abdomen, his thigh, his hip, his wrist, whatever he gives her. Please, please she says, while he promises to fuck her,

and she's not being very quiet.

Her mouth opens to cry out, ragged and overcome, when he calls her beauti--

when he fills her cunt with his cock. He covers her, holds her down, hushes her screams with the palm of his hand even as tears start to leak from the corners of her eyes. The sounds she's making don't stop as he starts fucking her, the cries and the aching moans for more, the shuddering responses she gives when he tells her to take it. Take it. For him.

They fuck. Like they always do, like it doesn't even matter if he holds her down or if he hurts her or if she cries. Like for a brief stretch of time she's laid out for him, open to him, and if he wants he can sample everything there is of her. He can have her, just like she tells him.

His. Every time.

It's hard to tell if she's coming as soon as he enters her, as soon as those tears start, as soon as he starts to fuck her against the mattress. It's hard to tell when it begins, if it ever ends. He can feel her bucking under him, squirming as though she doesn't actually want to be held down when he knows damn well just why she's having an orgasm so fast, so soon, so goddamn hard like this. Just like he knows that if he keeps going he can make her come again, and again.

She might tell him now that she doesn't want him to stop. That she never wants this to stop. That she wants to be his, that she'll do anything, just give her this. Just keep her. Just love her. For fuck's sake, just love her. Instead, Hilary gasps against his hand, and she comes down from one orgasm before he's even quite hitting his stride of thrusting into that slick, hot center of her. Instead, she starts to fuck him back, wrapping one leg around his lower half for leverage so she can tilt her hips and take him a little harder, a little deeper.

Her lips press a soft kiss to his palm, because even if he let her go, she could never find the words to tell him how she feels about him right now, which seems to be the only time she can really feel anything.


In another room, Tomas sleeps the sleep of the exhausted, the drugged, the wounded. He sleeps as though he's within the grasp of the death he barely eluded tonight. He is bitter because he did not protect Hilary, angry and resentful because someone else did. He is overcome with guilt and revulsion that she took up a knife and had to use it. He hates her for being pregnant with his father's child, hates his father, hates himself, hates the world, doesn't realize for a second that he's only one of many lives she's ruined, many souls she's wrecked by touching them.

And he doesn't wake up, doesn't hear the muffled groaning, the gasping, the way Ivan fucks his stepmother. He doesn't know that when Ivan pins her down like that, gagging her cries with his hand, that it's because Hilary begs for it like that. He doesn't know that there's more to it than that, more to it than sex, that Hilary holds Ivan in her heart like a gem, precious and shining and cutting. He doesn't know that Ivan is the 'friend' she went to Europe with for two weeks, coming back and telling him she's pregnant.

He sleeps while Hilary fucks Ivan again, their naked bodies entwined in the dark, her hair drying in tangles and twisted locks as those sounds she makes when she comes are held tightly behind his palm.


They lie together afterward for awhile, and Hilary -- her wrists still locked to the bed by Ivan's half-idle grip -- kisses and licks her taste off of each of his fingers, her lips making tiny, soft sucking sounds against his flesh. She sighs, as soundlessly as she can, when Ivan covers her breast and kisses her neck, hard, coming so close to marking her without quite bruising her vulnerable, tender throat.

They don't talk. There's nothing to say that will help. That will change what happened tonight, what almost happened, what's going to happen after this.

As she does so, so rarely, Hilary eventually slides her body on top of Ivan's. She kisses him, his hands sculpting her out of the darkness, and as that kiss grows deeper she touches him, strokes him, gasping into his mouth as he grows harder as though she's the one being pleasured, the one being caressed. Just when he comes close to groaning she seals their mouths together and swallows the sound he makes when she mounts him, taking him inside herself again. She gives him her own whimpering, trembling moan, her hands moving into his hair, her body moving over his.

They've had sex something like this once. It isn't that she's in something like a dominant position. It's that he doesn't roll her on her back, pin her down, fuck her with snarls and mutters of filth in her ears. It's that she doesn't ask him to. It's that she doesn't wait for him to. It's that she kisses him like she does, fucking him slowly and with the luxury they couldn't afford the night he took her to his bed. It's that she doesn't, this time,

get so scared after the fact that she doesn't know what to do.

She buries her moans in his shoulder this time when she comes, gripping his arms and the bed under him, shaking so forcefully it seems she might just fall apart. It's that intense. It's that good. She's sweating, panting when it lets her go, still moving gently on his cock as though she can't quite bear to stop feeling him move inside of her. She draws back just enough to look at him, to find his eyes, and she kisses him again.

Softly, this time. Slow.

[Resplendent Dusk] That second time --


That's what he's starting to need from her. He never knew he wanted it the way it was the first time until he met her. He never knew there was something in him that craved that sort of roughness, that vicious dominance, that control

until she let him lay her out in that hotel room and spurred him on, on, always onward until he was doing things he hated himself for.

And later -- understood her for. Wanted for himself.

And he's only ever fucked her like that, so far. But the truth is there's any number of women out there who get off on a little kink. It doesn't have to be her. She's not the only one, the only source. It's not that he needs from her. It's this.

It's the feeling, when she rides out her pleasure on him like this and holds onto him like she'll fall off the face of the earth if she lets go, that he's the only one who's ever reached so far into her. It's the feeling that he's the only one who's ever reached her at all.

It's knowing she sees him. It's knowing for certain, which is so very hard with Hilary, that she's

right here

with him. She's his.


So he doesn't say much, that second time. He doesn't pin her wrists down or flip her on her stomach to pound her from behind. He doesn't do any of the things he can, and has, and knows will set her off like a roman candle; drown her in pleasure so intense she loses herself.

He holds on to her instead. When she starts to shake, he wraps his arms around her and holds her closer, tighter, their chests pressed together, the lean cords of muscle in his stomach flexing against hers as he flexes into her, fucks her like that, so slow and sure and deliberate, panting on every stroke. He fucks her until she's grasping at him, shuddering all around him.

He fucks her while she's falling apart, pulling her mouth to his shoulder to bury her moans while he bites into her shoulder to bury his own. When it's over she can't bear to stop moving, and he's gasping on every slide and lift, every grind. His mouth is searching for hers when she kisses him again -- it's soft on her end, but he meets her so firmly. Like instinct. Like something deeper than instinct -- intrinsic nature, mysterious and inexplicable, like iron to lodestone.


In the end, it's his love she seems to need: plainly, simply, agonizingly. She needs him to adore her, to love her, to think of her as good and beautiful and worthy because she's incapable of thinking that of herself.

And he is capable of that. In brief, searing moments, he is capable of looking at her and seeing true beauty. Not her fine skin or her lovely bones, but something deeper than that: the shattered pieces of light and beauty and personality and whatever good is within her, drifting in that endlessly angry void. He is capable, sometimes, of reaching out and catalyzing some change in her, sparking some reaction that fuses the pieces however briefly, however transiently, into this woman,

warm, undone, wet-cheeked from the pain of giving birth to herself,

that he holds in his arms right now. That he needs to hold in his arms, to see whole and coalesced and aware of him, knowing him, the way she needs to be seen through his eyes.

The rest -- that he is not capable of sustained commitment, that she is not even capable of sustained emotion, that they will never belong to each other, that she will never love him -- none of that seems to even matter. That's not what they need from one another, after all.


After a while he puts his hand gently on the back of her neck, and he kisses her again. He flexes into her, so slowly and gently that it seems the result and reaction of tidal forces at work. When he relaxes he settles his arms around her again, sighs an exhale.

"I do care for you so," he murmurs -- as though he were recounting some statement, some argument long since made by his body, hers, the wordless language between.

[Hilary Durante] They don't talk much in terms of what Hilary does to Ivan. She asks him to fuck her, and sometimes it sounds like she's hardly even a participant as much as a receptacle. It's a lie. It's an illusion to actually believe that's what it's like when they come together. No matter how many times he murmurs in her ear, mutters for her to take it, no matter how dominant that might sound, in the end it's always been like she's stealing something away from him. She's sucking his soul out from his mouth every time they kiss, vampiric and needful. Hungry. It's felt rare that she's given anything to him.


Her affection. Her tenderness. Her fleeting, elusive warmth. It's felt rare that she's had anything to give in the first place, much less the desire to give it to him.

But it's there. Care for him. Devotion and adoration that are more than just the fallout from her utter submission to his will. It doesn't feel safe, it doesn't feel comfortable, to stroke his hair back, smile at him, tell him she likes him, show him she wants to know him. It feels easier for her to lay her head on his thigh as she sits on the ground, and through that somehow hope he understands she does

love him. In her way. As much as she can.

Which is really, and here's the bitter truth of it, never going to be enough. Never enough to satisfy the need he has for it, and never enough to outweigh her madness, and never enough to change what he is at his core. The man can't even follow a totem or join a pack that isn't fated for dissipation. He needs an out. Hilary, wild-minded but no fool, knows this much: it wouldn't be safe to give Ivan all of herself anyway, even if she could. He would run. He would leave her behind.


Right now, though, her hands are gentle on his cheeks. She's tracing the bones of his face, those fine structures that make him both rakish and boyish, depending on the angle of his smile and the presence or absence of sunlight. She's kissing him softly, slowly, over and over, her lips caressing his mouth, grazing over his jawline, capturing and then releasing his earlobe.

There's no telling now what sort of woman she'd be if she hadn't been so shattered in childhood. Not even wounded, not just traumatized, but broken. She's barely even human sometimes. She's barely more than a monster. They can be thankful she wasn't born to Change, twice as mad as the kin of Falcon usually are and ten times as violent. They can mourn that she's going to be responsible for raising another generation of their twisted, fucked-up kind.

Or they can have this. Her kisses, and her skin turned warm from sex, and her submission evolving into something entirely different. No questions of what he's capable of, what she's capable of, what either of them really have in them to give or if they would want to give it if they could. None of that. Just his arms around her, and Hilary briefly human as she smiles at him so, so tenderly in the dark,

as though they'll see each other after tonight. As though Tomas isn't nearby. As though they could sustain this for longer than a few hours at a time. As though, no, they don't really need that from each other. Or anyone.


"I know," Hilary whispers back to him, and seems to mean it. She lays her head on his chest, his shoulder, closing her eyes. She could sleep like this, but she knows dimly that he has to leave. He can't stay here all night, fucking her in his guest bed, never quite sure when her stepson is going to wake up in a strange place and come looking for him.

Her breath passes like a ghost across his chest as they lie there, for some time, breathing together. He softens inside of her, and her body lies languid and relaxed, molten, atop his. She is staving off the inevitable for the longest time, and then she kisses his chest.

"I've decided to go to our estate in Mexico," she whispers, and it's hard to tell if this means she decided just now, or if this is something she made up her mind about sometime between his jet landing in Chicago and seeing him outside the ballet. "I don't want to be apart from you," Hilary goes on, staring at the way her palm lays on his naked chest, her skin even fairer than his. "And I'll miss you."

That confession stands alone. She doesn't talk of the agony, doesn't try to explain how when she's not near him she can hardly breathe, but that when she's with him she wants to run away from even the potential of his inevitable revulsion. Just: she will miss him. Ache for him.

"We'll spend Christmas there, but I'll be staying behind." She doesn't need to tell him til when: til it's born. Til this whole wretched pregnancy is over.

Her eyes close, and she breathes in deep, resting her brow against his right pectoral muscle. "Do not hate me."

[Resplendent Dusk] When her lips touch the smooth, hairless skin of his chest like that -- faintly sticky with sweat now, and salty -- Ivan's eyes open drowsily. He thinks perhaps she's about to curl into him to sleep. Or perhaps tell him he can't stay here, he can't sleep here, what if Tomas sees,


but it's not that at all.

His eyes snap fully open when he hears what it is she's really saying to him. His chest rises sharply, but the breath is silent. He too is silent, and still, until she's finished. Until she rests against him again.

"Don't go."

Those are the first words out of his mouth. He wasn't aware they were even there inside him. A few seconds of silence go by; then --

"I don't want you to go."

[Hilary Durante] Strangely, it makes her laugh. Not with delight, not even with humor. Not at him. It's a grieving sound, tugged out of her as though letting even a single breath of it go hurts. That breath shudders slightly in her chest as she holds him.


And she is holding him, resting against him, as though she was indeed going to sleep with him just like this. She's holding him as though she isn't quite ready for him to leave her here, doesn't want him to go

even as she's telling him she has to.

"I can't bear it," Hilary goes on, whispering still. This is a secret. All of it, an awful secret between them. That they are even capable of this much warmth, this kind of sweetness. Longing. Perish the thought that anyone else should know they are more than they seem.

"Wondering every time you touch me if it's going to be the last time. Wondering if you're already growing repulsed by me, wondering when it's going to start feeling like pity. Knowing that it's coming, even if that isn't how you feel yet." She rests her face against his shoulder, her breasts soft on his chest, her back still lean and smooth under his hands. "I can't stomach it, over and over, every time I see you."

[Resplendent Dusk] "It's not about the sex." It's all in a rush, a sort of helpless exasperation. "It's not about your body and whether or not I want to fuck you. There's more to what I feel for you than lust now.


"I want you. I want you to stay. You told me once that sex is the only way you know how to feel ... "

-- there's no additional adjective to add there. In the end he leaves it at that, " -- you know how to feel. And not just sex, but the sort of brutal, rough, masochistic sex you seemed to need.

"But not so long ago you told me that you wanted it the other way, too. The way you used to be bored by, and were still afraid of. But you were willing to try. You were willing to admit this was moving beyond just my cock in your cunt, that what we have is going beyond the sex.

"So why are you still anchored to your own sexuality? Why is whether or not you stay here, with me, in Chicago, still totally dependent on whether or not I'm going to fuck you?"

[Hilary Durante] Certain words punctuate the air between them -- a small amount of air, still heated by sex -- as Ivan speaks, and it feels as though something fragile is trembling, cracking between the seams, threatening to simply collapse in on itself. Don't hate me, she asked him, wanting only that. Let me go. Don't ask me to cope with this when I can't. Don't despise me for --


being weak, maybe. Or being different. Being what she is.

Hilary turns her head away. He tells her again, like he did weeks ago, that it's not about her body, that her body isn't her, or whatever it is he means. She keeps her eyes closed, her hair half-dried and scattered across his chest, heavier than it is when it's that soft, silken veil he's run his fingers through so many times. His cock, her cunt, why are you, totally dependent,

fuck you.

She cringes, slightly. It's a small thing, and more just a drawing into herself as she lies there with him, wishing she'd just followed her first thought and gone quietly away. Sent him a letter, something. Not told him. Not broken what they had just second ago by asking him to accept something he doesn't want.

It doesn't make her capitulate. It doesn't make her go back and say well, if you want me to stay, alright. It doesn't make her feel wanted, doesn't fulfill the terms of some test she didn't reveal she was giving him. It just aches.

"You don't understand," she exhales, finally. "You don't have a body, you are a body." It almost sounds like she's quoting something. Almost. "And you have no idea how it feels to swallow the knowledge that your body is hateful, and frightening, and filthy. Every day. So you can't know how it feels to have relief from that, even for a little while. What that means to me. What that's like."

Hilary pulls back a little, looking at him again now. Her brow is furrowed, deeply. "It's not that I can't bear to be around you and not having sex with you. It's not that I don't understand how much more there is to it than that. It's that I can't stand knowing you don't want that part of me. That it's hateful, and unnerving, and disgusting to you.

"Why don't you understand what that does to me? What I'm afraid it's going to do?" She swallows, her throat moving in the shadows, pale skin in the dark like fish under the water. "I hate that I'm pregnant. I don't want this. My body isn't mine anymore and it's sick and it's scary and you have no comprehension of how this is what I always feel, multipled. Only now every escape I used to take from it is blocked to me." Hilary breathes in, a bit raggedly, and her forehead descends to his chest again as though she's exhausted herself.

She sounds exhausted.

"I don't want you to see me like that. I just want to go away until it's over."

[Resplendent Dusk] No denying this much: Ivan is angry. And it's so very easy, especially for her, to see that anger directed at herself. To see it as hate: of who she is, what she is, what she does to him.


It's not that, though. When she cringes, when she turns away, he shifts. He draws her closer. Holds her: not roughly or hurtfully, forcing her to look at him, but --

tenderly. Gently. Pleadingly, as though asking without words for her to stay. Stay. Don't be so fragile and brittle and angry; just stay.

"I won't force you to do anything you don't want to," he says at last, softly now. "I can't, anyway. And I do understand that ... it's not just the sex, but it is the way I might look at you." A small pause; a bitter admission, "The way I probably will look at you soon.

"I do understand that you can't bear that sort of ... rejection. Not when it looks so much like revulsion. So if this is something you have to do, then I accept it.

"But please, please understand. I don't hate you. I don't think you're disgusting, or filthy, or ... any of the things I might have thought once when I didn't understand you. Or what I felt for you. Or what you made me feel when we're together. Hilary..."

His hand at the cheek, then. His hand stroking back her hair, stroking back until he raises himself on his elbow and finds her eyes with his.

"Hilary, there's no one else like you. And if I'm angry now, or if I'm resistant, it's because I don't want to be without you -- so suddenly, so inescapably."

[Hilary Durante] "I know," she murmurs again, as she did when he told her -- confessed to her -- how much he cares for her. So much.


Funny, that he tells her he can't force her. It's a truth, a profound one, and not one either of them -- or Hilary, at least -- have ever had to question. As much seeming trust and faith as she puts in him, as much power over her as she hands over to Ivan, it's possible an outside observer or Ivan himself might have gotten the wrong idea of what submission is.

It isn't the state of being coerced. It isn't surrender.

"I know you don't hate me," Hilary whispers to him, her cheek curving into his palm, her dark eyes their own deep pockets of shadow in this room, lost in her face. Only a little light glints there while she looks at Ivan, intermittent proof that she's alive. That she has a soul, somewhere in there

like fragments of shattered glass, falling so slowly they seem not to move, catching the moonlight as they turn.

"I know," she repeats, leaning towards him, kissing him again. It's a slow rush, a wave overtaking him, that kiss. As it ebbs she drifts away enough to whisper against his lips, her eyes still closed. "Take me again," she murmurs, her hands splayed over his ribs, against his sides. Her hips roll, moving him slightly inside of her, moving her body on top of his. "Ivan --"

[Resplendent Dusk] Beneath her hands, his sides are lean and taut, his ribs impressions of hard, arcing strength beneath a sleek sheath of muscle. That musculature flexes suddenly as he leans up to her -- catches her mouth even as she bends to him.



He remembers the first time he kissed her. The way she waited for him in the dark stairwell with the bass and the faceless humans all around. The way her chin lifted; her eyes so black. He thought she was fearless then. He didn't understand until much later that it wasn't fearlessness; it was emptiness, a hollow shell that he would only ever be able to crack so rarely, so rarely. To split asunder in seconds and instants and moments so that a lifetime's worth of emotion,

of sorrow and pain and anger and care,

could pour in through the cracks and overwhelm her, set her to tears. It was so long before he truly understood why she weeps like that when he fucks her like this. He didn't understand, that first night, that first kiss, when she looked at him and issued a wordless challenge, not a dare at all but something more sophisticated, more treacherous by far:

well?

And he kissed her then like he kisses her now.


Which is to say: slow, and deepening. But warmer this time. The same, and not the same. Nothing like the same. He moans into her mouth as she moves on his cock. He turns her under him, her back to the sheets, her hands sliding past his ribs to grasp at his back. Wrap around his neck.

He presses her into the pillows and he's lowering his head, sucking at those pretty little breasts, making himself harder with every passing second. He's never even withdrawn from her. They're still messy from their last round, and the round before that. Sticky and wet. Sweat, semen, the slick of her cunt: these base, primal, primitive things, the inescapable detritus of life on this planet that Hilary so often seems immune to, untouched by, above, like an angel or a saint or a stone cold statue.

She's not cold now. She's not stone at all but glass, fractured, always breaking. He pushes his hands through her hair, wraps his arms around him. He clasps her to his chest and his mouth finds her again, swallows that sound she makes when he starts to move inside her. Swallows the moans, the cries, the way she sounds

when he fucks her past the point of no return, takes her over that precipitous edge after which there's nothing but rawness, pleasure, overwhelming. When she comes under him he doesn't pin her down at all. Not her wrists, not her shoulders; he wraps her closer, grabs her hip, pulls her onto him, grinds into her, makes her ride out that orgasm, come on his cock, shatter around him, run molten, fall apart.


After that he's still for a while, which he rarely is. So often he fucks her right through her orgasm, right past it, on and on as though tearing his own pleasure from her. This time he stops. He lets her have that orgasm, and the shattered silence behind it. He kisses her softly as she trembles and gasps, grinds into her in slow, pulsing thrusts, and only when she's regained some semblance of coherence does he

wrap his arms around him, hold her firmly now as he starts to fuck her again, starts to fuck her in earnest, fucks her until he's groaning into her shoulder, biting into her shoulder to muffle his own grunts, gasping and moaning as he comes inside her. Fucks his cum into her. Takes her again. Marks her again. Makes her his again,

one more time,

before she goes away from him.


He's shaking a little after that. His back is wet with sweat. He kisses her neck and her face, her mouth: small, soft kisses that suck gently at her skin.

Eventually:

"Will you call, at least? Or write?"

[Hilary Durante] The first time Ivan saw Hilary, the first time he spoke to her, the first time he kissed her, the first time he undressed for her, she was a diversion. Intriguing. Something he wanted, familiar enough to know the steps, novel enough to be interested in dancing them. She was someone, as he said later, he figured he could fuck around with and have a pleasant evening with otherwise, someone discreet enough not to get his head taken off by her burly Galliard husband or the Silver Fang Elder of Chicago. A new playmate. Mutual usage. That's what he thought he was getting into, and would sooner or later get bored with and walk away from.
- Hide quoted text -


Except now he's here, hoping the baby isn't his and hating that it isn't his at once. Now he's holding her in his bed and kissing her slow, deeper, remembering her mouth tasting faintly of plums and vodka, their bodies not so much as touching them even though they're utterly entwined now.

Hilary and he roll together, the blankets rustling under them again, as he stretches her out into the warm depression his own body left. She strokes his back, wraps her arms around his neck, moans softly into his mouth as he shows her

yes. He's going to give her what she wants. He's going to take from her what she does, in fact, give him, even if it's the last time.

Especially.


Hilary's gasping softly, a disembodied voice in the shadows, by the time his mouth descends to her nipples, engulfing each breast in its turn in the wet warmth behind his lips. She tries to keep quiet, and holds onto his well-toned arms tighter and tighter as he grows harder and harder inside her pussy.

The mess of their sex is inescapable. The room smells like it. She feels him in her, all around her, his hands tangling her hair and his mouth leaving trails of saliva on her tits and her skin sticky, his cock making her wet every time he grinds his hips into her, kisses her a little harder. The reminder of her own physicality is at once intolerable to her, and yet unthinkable to live without.

She's never hated him for bringing her so ultimately, so deeply, back into her own body. She's never hated him for grabbing her wrists and pulling her hands forward and forcing them to build that bridge between mind and flesh, soul and bone. She's never hated him, for a moment, for this.

Making her feel filthy. And making her feel, at the same time, utterly sacred.

Precious.

Beloved.


Once. Only once, playful and half-coy, he held her down and covered her mouth and fucked her hard against his bed, grunting in her ear as he came, slamming his pleasure out into her as she came again and again on his cock. The way he takes her now is no rougher than the second time, no harder than the way they had sex when Hilary was brave enough to let herself get on top of him, even if she wasn't quite riding him. Ivan doesn't pin her down. He doesn't cover her mouth or capture her wrists.

And she arches her back when she comes, no long string of mind-blowing, mind-altering orgasms but fully embodied, inescapable pleasure taking her over. Hilary opens her mouth to moan and he swallows it, covers it, covers her, keeps her, all of her,

even her joy.

Don't stop, she whispers, mere heartbeats after she begins to come back to herself. Her lips move against his, half-kissing him still, as she urges him to start fucking her again. Don't stop, she gasps again, her hands free for once and holding his hips, rolling her own in counterthrust to bring him deeper into her again. To fuck her again, the way he's holding himself back from a she gives her those few fragile seconds to come back down from orgasm. She's still clenching around him, quivering, when he starts to go at her again.

Holds her while he does so, the way he has from the start, from the moment he came up into the shower with her. Holds her like he did when he muzzled her screams and fucked her, holds her like he did when she moaned her pleasure out into his shoulder, holds her like he means it when he says he can't stand losing her like this, letting her go like he knows he has to. Holds her while he groans into her flesh, tattoos his ecstasy into her skin with his teeth, the force of his thrusts moving her bodily on the bed.

She holds him, too. Her palms shockingly, frighteningly gentle on his cheeks when he starts to come back down, her temple resting against his, the smell of her hair in his nostrils, the world coming back to him in fragments beginning with the knowledge of the way she's touching him, the way she's holding him like a lover this time, the way she's whispering something in elusive French, nonsense or dreams, kissing him

as he kisses her.

It's a long time, it seems, before she answers, as though it takes her a long time to realize he said anything, or realize that it needs an answer. She nods, nothing more, pulling his face down to kiss her again, to seal them together again.

[Resplendent Dusk] This is the first time they've seen each other since Lausanne. The lean creature smoking the Djarum out behind the ballet theatre is now the rangy, longlimbed monster in white and red, stalking amidst the remains in unmistakable agitation. Anger. His hackles are up. His tail lashes like a cat's. He checks the fomori one by one, ascertains they're dead, finishes one off when it doesn't seem to be getting there fast enough on its own.

Hilary's gratitude seems to fall on deaf ears. Only when he's finished does the Ragabash rise. His knives vanish back into his flesh and fur. He looks at the unconscious young man for a second, and then

he's a young man himself, bloodied, ghastly to look at. He seizes Hilary by the shoulders and gives her a single hard shake. This is the first honest thing he's said to her since Lausanne, the first thing that wasn't some elaborate, smirking mask:

"Why the fuck didn't you run when I told you to?"

[Hilary Durante] This is the first time they've seen each other. This is the first contact they've had, period, since she was dropped off back at her car, with three times the luggage she left with. It doesn't seem to have much bearing on the current conversation.

She doesn't roll her eyes and scoff at him. She shrieks when he grabs her by the shoulder, his hand clamping onto the bloody spot there that is not just the remainder of the fomori she was stabbing at, not just splatter from its wounds, but something deeper its fangs left behind. She shrieks, and her pale face goes stark white, til he realizes she's wounded and lets her go.

Hilary takes a shaken breath. "What... a useless question."

[Resplendent Dusk] That realization sets in instantly. There's that to be said, at least: Ivan is nothing if not alert. If not aware. He lets go almost the instant he grabs her. Something in his face changes - the whitehot fury cooling to something else altogether.

"Christ," he hisses between his teeth. Some black, angry part of him flares: wants briefly, horribly to grab her shoulder again, wrench it, ask her if she liked that since she seems to like pain so much. The very thought of it revolts him, turns his stomach. He searches his pockets and comes up with a healing talen; crushes it between his hands and applies it.

All the while, snapping at her still: "It's not at all useless. It's a very interesting question, and one I'm rather keen to hear the answer on. I mean. Help me understand here, Hilary. Did you think I was making a joke, perhaps? Or putting on some macho show of heroism for you? Did it occur to you that maybe I needed you to run away so I could get away myself. Did it occur to you for one second that I was outmatched and that I, amazingly enough, knew myself well enough to know it?"

The last of that wound has closed. He saw to her before anyone else: before himself, certainly before her stepson. Maybe that means something. Maybe not. He's a fucking Garou. He'd heal in seconds if he hadn't bothered to take on this form for added convenience in chewing her out.

"You almost got me killed. You almost got us all killed. Does that mean anything to you?"

[Hilary Durante] There's nothing in Hilary to indicate she likes this sort of pain. That this time, Ivan crushing a gourd over her frustrates her, takes something away from her. But she does scowl at him for a moment, a look that suggests she's taken aback. She exhales, and bends down as Ivan's ranting at her, and puts a cold hand on Tomas's neck to check for a pulse. There's no sign that she's listened to a word out of his mouth.

"Not," she says flatly, once she gauges that he's alive, "at the moment. Stop bitching at me and heal him, or at very least stop shouting while I call someone."

She's getting her phone out of her pocket then, refusing to look at Ivan.

[Resplendent Dusk] [EMPAFEE]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Resplendent Dusk] A sharp stare; a silence. "Unbelievable," is all he has to say to that.

When he crouches, the motion is fluid, animal. Like Hilary, he puts his hand to the boy's neck; then to his head, searching amidst the blood-matted hair. Whatever he finds there doesn't compel him to instantly pull out another gourd. Instead he grabs the back of Tomas's coat in one hand, a limp leg with the other, and -- with some effort -- heaves the boy onto his shoulders like an injured calf.

"He bumped his head," Ivan says. "He'll be all right by morning. I'm not wasting my talens on him, but I'll take him home and let him recover there. You can ride along or you can follow me."

[Hilary Durante] She isn't so protective of the boy -- if that's even part of her reason for bending to him in the first place -- that Hilary doesn't get out of Ivan's way. She rolls her eyes when he talks of not wasting talens, and opens her mouth,

and bites back a reply.

On the way to Ivan's car, she has nothing to say to him.

[Resplendent Dusk] Some ballerina somewhere is going to be disappointed tonight. She'll come out of Joffrey Ballet's annual production of the Nutcracker expecting a late, expensive dinner; some late, expensive drinks; late, expensive sex up in some penthouse that overlooks the whole damn city. Ivan won't deliver. She'll feel stood up; it'll be weeks before she lets him touch her again. That's what Ivan is thinking about on the way back to his car, because thinking about that keeps him annoyed, keeps him from thinking of the way Hilary flinched when he grabbed her unthinkingly by the shoulder, keeps him thinking of how close that wound fell to the major arteries of the neck.

She's silent. He's fine with that. It's the Lamborghini, which of course means it's a two-seater, which of course means he more or less dumps Tomas on his stepmother's lap. He's not even polite enough to let it go without a wisecrack: "Play the Pieta for me, will you, darling?" Then he's getting in on the driver's side, pulling the door down, starting the engine.

"Do you need to call your people?" His penthouse is mere moments away from here.

[Hilary Durante] There were no pills waiting on Hilary's nightstand when she arrived back at the estate after leaving Europe, flying back to America on a private jet, driving herself home in a Jaguar. She couldn't numb whatever it was she was feeling with a semi-pleasant floating experience. She couldn't drink herself into a stupor, either. She closed her eyes and told the fetus in her womb over and over, silently, how much she hates it. How she wishes it would just go away. How it's ruined everything.

Hilary's not so insensate to what real humans are supposed to feel that she didn't know it was wrong, that she didn't feel a stab of something like guilt for loathing her own child so much. She knows that's not how mothers usually feel. But she couldn't drug herself into oblivion to get away from that reality, either.

That she's a monster. That she's not really human, after all. Like some ballerina too talented and driven to be insipid, proud enough to refuse to let Ivan Press touch her because he stood her up, smart enough at playing the game to have even a background role in The Nutcracker this season, in Chicago of all places. Whatever else that girl is, she's at least human. She at least feels angry because some spoiled rich-boy jackass stood her up, and not just worn out and annoyed by someone yelling at her.

Feel something, Ivan always seems to be saying. Care. Show me you give a damn.

And she wants to say, I can't. I don't care. I'm tired and you're boring me. Leave me alone.

But even saying that seems exhausting; Hilary keeps silent as the three of them get into the car, and when Ivan puts Tomas into the front seat with her, she knows damn well the boy is too heavy for her to hold on her lap. She shifts aside and puts her back towards the driver's side, laying the passenger seat down a bit. Tomas takes up most of its space; Hilary lounges rather unsafely on her side, propped on one elbow, watching her stepson's face.

It makes them look, though clothed and bloodied, like lovers. Like she's waiting for him to wake up. Like the way she looked that one morning in Meillerie, her hand on his naked chest, her breasts just inches from his face as he opened his eyes and found her staring at him, so drowsy with something like affection or growing lust or adoration

which is one of the last times he saw her, before this.

"I will when we arrive," she says simply.

[Resplendent Dusk] Meillerie. Lausanne. It all seems a million miles away now. A million years ago. Another life. He can barely remember what it was like to wake up to her day after day. To spend hours strolling streets that were laid down hundreds of years ago; to buy things ninety-nine percent of the world couldn't afford; to exist in a city where he didn't understand what anyone was saying, and where no one knew who he was.

He can barely remember that suite they had now. Or that little room overlooking the lake, on the opposite shore. The color of her skin in the morning. The way she felt, letting him into her body, drawing him into her arms, sighing in his ear, yes, yes, always yes.

He wonders if it's his imagination that even in those few days they were apart, she's grown larger. More gravid with another man's child -- or perhaps his own. It hardly matters; in either case, it divides him from her, though he may or may not acknowledge that to himself.

Very little conversation fills up the rest of that car trip. He calls his 'people' instead; he has a brief discussion with them in two languages, and if Hilary cares to listen she can piece together that he's telling them to prepare the guest rooms, telling Dmitri to get the first aid paraphernalia ready. Then they're pulling into the garage under his building, through the locked gates into the private penthouse parking. There's his Bugatti, and there's his Ducati, and there's one of the Escalades his servants drive.

He helps Hilary with her stepson again, carrying him awkwardly, with difficulty, to the elevators. "Get my keycard," he tells Hilary. "It's in my pocket. Other pocket -- yes. Slide it through -- "

and up goes the elevator, Ivan leaning his burden against the wall to take some of the strain off himself.

[Hilary Durante] It's probably his imagination. Her coat hangs in such a way that it would have to be his imagination if she seems larger. Fatter, is the way she put it. Not 'the baby is growing' or something like that. There's no way for him to tell, unless he opens her coat and slides his hands in to touch her, the way he did so many times in Switzerland, drawing her up and into his arms and kissing her, feeling her lashes brush his cheek as her eyes closed.

A million miles away. A thousand years ago.

During the drive, Tomas wakes briefly, his eyes opening with struggle. He sees Hilary looking down at him and his hand lifts, then falls in exhaustion. He tries to lift his head, goes green when the car takes a turn, and Ivan -- eyes on the road -- doesn't see her put her finger to Tomas's lips. Quiet.

He sinks back into unconsciousness, perhaps gratefully.


When Ivan opens the passenger door he sees her face again, bloodflecked, and its lost some of the paleness it shot towards when he grabbed and wrenched her wounded shoulder. She's as hard to read as ever, as distant; the way she almost always looks to him. Tomas groans as he's picked up again, and Hilary murmurs to Ivan as they walk towards the elevator: "You may want to have him sedated."

No explanation for that. She gets his keycard out without argument and rolls her eyes as he tells her how to use it, exhaling in irritation as the doors slide open. Tomas is trying to move. It's useless, but he's difficult.

Hilary's jaw clenches, but she says nothing.

[Resplendent Dusk] "That," Ivan replies crisply, and just a little acidly, "was always the plan, believe me."

The elevator comes to a smooth, swift stop. Dmitri and Evgeny are waiting in the foyer, and Ivan rather gratefully lets them take up the burden of the unconscious teenager. "Hit his head," he tells them. "Clean him up and put him to bed. On the off chance that he's bleeding into his skull, I'll check on him later."

He turns to Hilary, then. "I can offer you the other guest suite," he says. "You can get cleaned up. Have a hot meal or a cold drink. Sleep the night here. We can discuss your failure to run tomorrow morning if you'd like. Alternatively, you can just listen: if we're attacked again and you don't run when I tell you to, I'm leaving you behind."

[Hilary Durante] Tomas is taken, and Hilary doesn't even look after him being helped away. Supposedly he'll be put to bed, given something by injection to keep him unconscious for awhile. Maybe Ivan actually will check on him. What a good, loyal, dutiful member of the tribe, that.

Hilary watches Ivan, and just shakes her head slightly, giving a small shrug. "Whatever you like," she says, and starts to walk towards the stairs, taking her phone out.

[Resplendent Dusk] "Perfect, then."

And she's walking away toward the stairs -- that weightless, suspended spiral arcing up to the second floor -- and Ivan lets her go some handful of steps before he calls after her. His tone is very nearly conversational:

"Hilary," he says, "has it even occurred to you that you nearly died tonight? That I nearly died for you tonight?"

[Hilary Durante] The way she walks is, has always been, surreal. So controlled. So efficient, at times, and otherwise so luxurious. So light on her feet, as though she's not quite walking on the hardwood or concrete but on air itself. She walks in a way that suggests that any moment she's going to take a step upward and rise into the air by sheer grace.

She doesn't, though. She turns and looks back at him. There's blood on her face, her shoulder, her coat is torn, her fingertips are soaked in the blood that ran down the inside of her sleeve. There's a long moment where she just watches him. Absorbs him.

"Why do you think I picked up your knife?"

[Resplendent Dusk] Like a work of art, Hilary is easier to appreciate from afar. He can see her in her entirety like this. Her grace; her control. The fine shape of her face and form.

He comes closer, though. He follows her, and if she waits for him, he catches up to her where the gallery opens up into the unrestricted space of his living room. That soaring ceiling. Those vast glass walls -- the hot halogen lighting reflecting back in now with the world dark outside.

Ivan says nothing. He puts his hands on her shoulders -- gently, ironically enough, now that her wounds are entirely healed away -- and he draws her forward to kiss her brow, nuzzle her temple. It's a slow, feral sort of affection. Perhaps that's why he doesn't speak: there's nothing he could say.

Except this, drawing away, quieter now, "Run next time. Please. Okay?"

[Hilary Durante] Even in this form, the smell that fills Ivan's nostrils as he kisses Hilary's brow and nuzzles her is not her perfume, her shampoo, even her purity. All of it is marred, tainted, by the fomori blood and her own blood that all but leaves a taste on his lips. He can smell the thing that was moments away from killing her, that she hurt by sheer luck.

The truth is, she doesn't really remember anything he ranted at her on the street awhile ago. She wasn't listening. She was blocking him out, like she'd ignore a tantrum from a child. She was thinking about what would happen if Tomas was seriously injured and not immediately, instantly cared for. He is, thus far, Dion's only son. Regardless of whether he's trueborn or not, no matter if the thing in her belly is male or trueborn or even Dion's, that matters. It matters, perhaps, even more than she does.

But Tomas is being cleaned up and soothed to sleep by chemicals right now, and she's glad of it. She stiffens slightly as Ivan is kissing her brow, nuzzling her, and then -- naturally -- drawing away. "Goodnight, Ivan," she says, making no promises, and extricating herself from his hands. There's color high in her cheeks, bright red against her pale skin. "I'll tell Antony not to arrive too early tomorrow morning to pick us up. I'm sure my husband will be very grateful to you for protecting us, when he hears of this."

[Resplendent Dusk] Of course she draws away. Of course. He expected as much; is unsurprised.

It still stings. And in response he hardens, grows cold and cynical and formal, the corner of his mouth quirking up in that slow insincere smirk.

"I'm sure he will," he echoes. "Goodnight, Hilary."

[Hilary Durante] Of course he offered her the second guest room. Of course told her to help herself to a hot meal, a cold drink -- use his home as her own. Stay the night,

but not with him.

So she draws away, because already she's too repulsive for him, and Ivan sees resignation as rejection, mistakes hurt for dismissal. It's often this way, and little they can do about it when neither has the skills to sit down and calmly or clearly say what they're feeling. God forbid they acknowledge they feel anything at all, beyond I nearly died for you and why do you think I picked up the knife.

Hilary is, in the end, as blind to Ivan feeling stung as he is to realizing why she's drawing away from him like she is. So she walks away, making a quiet phone call as she ascends the stairs, each step measured and careful. Goodnight.

[Resplendent Dusk]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Resplendent Dusk] All in all, Ivan isn't a master reader of men. He's passingly good. Good enough to know what this starved swan wants to hear, or what that starved swan's damage was. Good enough to know how to get into a pair of panties, in short; not good enough to understand the inner workings of a person just by looking at them.

Usually, anyway. But sometimes he sees Hilary so clearly. Sometimes it seems he's the only one who sees her so clearly. That's part of the hurt, too -- and it is hurt he reads, hurt and not rejection, not refusal -- that he of all people, after all that's happened, is sending her away again. Telling her go away. Stay away from me. You disgust me.

"Hilary."

He hardly raises his voice for that, but there's an echo in this spacious room. He waits for her to turn -- when she does, he follows, closing the distance again. As much as he likes the lake house, as much as that is his den and his retreat, it can't be denied that he looks right here. He looks like he belongs here in this pristine world of warm wood and cool glass, stone, space, style. Even bloodied, there's unmistakable balance to him. Grace. Hauteur. His footsteps are, as always, soundless. Even here, they don't echo.

"I gave you the guest room," he says, "because I don't want Tomas waking up and wondering why his stepmother is in my bedroom. Contrary to popular belief," a hint of wryness here, "I don't typically keep a vault of controlled and/or illegal substances in my home. We'll be giving him one of Yuliya's sleeping pills, and that's hardly foolproof."

[Hilary Durante] He says her name and there's enough steadiness to it, enough saturation to it, that she responds to it almost as if she has no other choice, no option but to respond somehow. She stops on the stairway and looks to him. With a murmur across the phone and a press of a button she mutes -- or maybe even ends -- the phone call. Watches him as he approaches her, and takes a step down off the stairs when he comes near enough.

It's been so long since they've been at his lake house. Or anywhere, together. It feels that way, at least. Her brow isn't furrowed as he speaks, and she doesn't instantly wrap her arms around him, go to him, exhale as she relaxes her body against his. Trusting. God, she can be so trusting. It feels terrifying and thrilling and a dozen other things when she's like that against him, pliant and warm and -- not like she is now, really.

There is a part of her that wants to ask him what Yuliya's taking. Eszopiclone, Ramelteon, Zolpidem? Triazolam, maybe? It's a bizarre curiosity of hers, which would immediately reveal just how much she knows about prescription sleep aids, which would lead to a discussion on how much she knows about prescription sedatives and possibly a joke about the housewife and her Valium.

"And if he weren't here," Hilary says quietly, "you would have sent me home. Maybe held me in bed, at most." Her jaw flexes slightly and she glances away, then to him, trying to sound reasonable

when they both know how very, very mad she is

"I don't need to be reminded that you don't want to touch me," she says quietly. "It would have been kinder if you'd just finished yelling at me while we waited for Antony to pick us up, and not brought us back here."

[Resplendent Dusk] There's a moment where he's at a loss; uncertain of how to respond to such fatalistic certainty. How to answer these charges without seeming like he's appeasing her. Without injuring her pride, pinging her wariness of his pity. When he does speak, it's as quiet as it was. They're both speaking so quietly -- as though they had to, to prevent shattering some shaky truce. To prevent the world from shaking apart.

"If he weren't here," Ivan says, "I would have kept you with me as long as I could."

A pause.

"If you don't believe me," he says then, "you're free to call Antony and go home, if you feel you'll be more comfortable there. I'll send Tomas along in the morning. But if you do believe me, then go upstairs. Clean up. Eat something and go to bed. I'll come to you after I've let the appropriate parties know what's happened. And I'll stay with you as long as I can."

[Hilary Durante] It was happenstance, all but sheer luck, that Tomas was with Hilary tonight. Bad luck, for him. He's injured now, beholden to someone he's barely been introduced to and yet utterly loathes. Now Ivan is telling her that if Tomas weren't here tonight -- nevermind that she knows on some calculating level that Tomas served, at very least, as a distraction to the creatures that would have otherwise focused their energy on her alone -- he'd keep her. As long as he could.

After yelling at her, of course. After venting... whatever it was he was feeling in the park at her, with whatever choice of words, in whatever tone of voice. Gaia knows she would have probably ignored it, which is not the same as tolerating it. Ignoring it allows her to go to him, be with him, after he's stopped ranting.

Sad, that their truces must be so shaky.

"I can't leave here without Tomás," she says, as though this should be painfully obvious. The Durante family is not like him. The Spaniards and Italians who populate their staff are not like Dmitri and Evgeny and Yuliya.

Otherwise she has no answer. And she goes upstairs then, unmuting her phone to finish the conversation she started before. She's not instantly warmed to him, relenting, trusting. It shouldn't surprise him; she so rarely is. But she goes upstairs, and after while -- he's likely on the phone by then -- his well-trained ears prick to the sound of water turning on, rushing near-silently through his well-insulated pipes.