Ivan
Now he, too, laughs. It is not a breath; it is a laugh, true and full and clear. "You? Drunk? No.
"Come on. Let's go in. You can curl on the couch while I make us ... something. Eggs and toast. I think I can manage that without burning down the house."
HilaryIgnores him. Her. Drunk. Entirely. So much vodka, so quickly. So much divulged, so many fears placed in a soft, dreamy coma.
"You can't," she insists, and is probably right. "You use the knives but I'll tell you what to do. And for the love of god, put a shirt on."
Ivan"You mean you'll flay me alive with criticism," he corrects, wry. And delighted. Let's admit that. Perhaps she's not the only masochist after all. "I'll put a shirt on after we go inside. And after you sit. Before you fall. Come on," and he guides her doorward.
Hilary"Yes," she says, as though this is both obvious and defensible. She sighs again, how could he not know, what else did he think --
At least she's not cooking, in heels, drunk off her ass, wielding a butcher knife.
Immediately after he begins guiding her, she stumbles. "Oh, shoes," she says, the word as vicious as a curse. Clings to his arm.
Ivan"I don't think it's the shoes," Ivan says placidly. "I think it's your blood alcohol content, and its effect on your brain. Hold on to me."
Which she's doing anyway. And so he guides her, patient and amused, back down that stretch of boardwalk back to the house. It's a sliding door back in to the dining area; the kitchen. He pulls it open, hands her in.
Shuts the door behind them. Seals out the dry warmth. It's still quite dark outside, so he turns lights on: brilliant halogens spotlighting the flawless kitchen. There's no breakfast bar. There is a wetbar. Ivan pulls out a stool there, guides Hilary into it.
"I'm going to put a shirt on," he says. "Don't touch the knives."
Hilary"I am," she snaps, defiant, and digs her nails into his arm just to prove it.
Does not take off her shoes. Walks as best she can -- which, to be fair, is quite good even when off her face -- with him into the house. She goes into the air conditioning and immediately begins to shiver, closing her eyes. She is guided, blindly, to a seat.
"Fine, fine," she mutters, at his insistence that she not try slicing bread, avocados, fruit. Waves him off.
IvanShe sits.
He stands before her a moment. Has his hands on the outsides of her arms; his palms warm as only a werewolf's can be. Like that, he warms her for a moment, noticing her shivering, her closed eyes. Sometimes she terrifies him with her trust. Sometimes she reminds him -- always so unexpectedly -- that she is not a child; not a helpless thing. Has her own mind, her own thoughts, her own opinions and wants and needs.
His lips touch her temple. His hand wraps behind her head for a moment, holding her against that gentle affection. Then he steps away, and she can't hear his footsteps at all. Not when he climbs the stairs. Not even when he pads through the rooms overhead, going to dress.
When he returns, he's put on another article of clothing. It is a shirt, but the material is as light and casual as his pants. The sleeves are short. The buttons are mostly undone. Still; it is something. An attempt, at least, to please her.
He has servants here too. They cook for him: three meals a day, more if he demands it. He could demand it now, but it would take them ten, twenty minutes to get here from the mainland. Besides; sometimes he likes to pretend. That he and Hilary live together. That they have a life together. That she cooks for him, and he for her, and sometimes he buys her worthless trinkets make of seashells, and sometimes they sail across a lake just to spend a little time in a sun-bleached city clinging to the steep waterside hills.
There are raw materials in the refrigerator, the pantry. He opens the former and stares into it blankly; pulls out a carton of eggs.
HilaryStupid, ugly, classless boy, walking around in swim trunks, coming out in lounge pants while she's in linen and silk. Stupid useless warm boy, healer, liar, father of her child. Hilary quiets a bit when he holds her, warmed by him. She settles. She is still cold, teetering on a barstool. So as he kisses her, and as he slides away, she leans forward, rests her strangely hot brow agains the cold marble, breathing in empty and processed air for a while.
Ivan leaves her and she doesn't quite realize it. She drapes where she is, drowsy and listless. Feels like no time at all passes between resting her eyes for a moment and opening them again to see that he is opening the fridge. She exhales, and closes her eyes again.
"Eggs, a tomato, green onions -- those are the long, thing ones. They're..." she makes a motion with her hand that is absolutely how her hand looks when she's jerking him off, which she's done perhaps never --
"Tubular," is where her brain lands, for describing green onions to a man she does not expect to recognize what a green onion looks like when it is not already part of his meal. "Salt, pepper, paprika. Milk. Butter. Whatever cheese you have -- you'll need a grater. Do you have gouda?"
Hilary sighs, heavily and deeply, her head still on the marble. "I wonder if you have ham."
IvanShe earns herself a brief, ironic glance when she takes it upon herself to explain what a green onion looks like. One can hardly blame her, though; he was staring blankly at the fridge a moment before. And besides, look how obedient he is, taking out a tomato, a bunch of green onions. Going to the cabinets, finding salt and pepper, hovering his fingertips over the spice rack until he identifies the vial containing paprika.
Milk, too. Butter. She demands gouda; he looks through the cheese drawer and comes up with a rather frightening-looking gorgonzola. She wonders about ham. He finds a slab of unsliced bacon.
In Dubai.
All these ingredients he sets out on the counter. Then he departs the kitchen for a moment, not bothering to specify reason or destination. Soon enough it becomes apparent. He returns with a throw and a pillow from the couch. Gives her one, wraps the other around her. Takes down a pan from the overhead hooks, sets it on the stove, and finds a mixing bowl... somewhere.
"Well, then. Command away, mademoiselle."
HilaryHilary has her eyes closed. Does not see gorgonzola, does not see bacon. Oh, well. She hears Ivan leave but doesn't lift her head. She drowses, makes a humming noise, and finds herself wrapped in a light throw blanket that should never, ever be necessary in this part of the world. Ivan's fingers slip coolly beneath her head to lift her slightly, and she sits up a bit, curious. Then she sighs and lays her head back down on the little pillow, without so much as a thank-you. She has forgotten why she wanted to lay her head down in the first place, which has something to do with how nice the marble felt on her skin, but she assumes that Ivan knows what he's doing
when it comes to her comfort, at least. Her body. Certainly not how he should dress to show her that he has respect for her, that he wants to romance her, that she matters to him, that he does not take her for granted. And definitely not when it comes to cooking, because he's rather hopeless there.
"Madame,," she corrects, and goes on. "Beat six eggs with milk, very thoroughly. They must be a consistent texture before you will stop. Show me the bowl when you think you're done."
And so on. Through egg-beating and then vegetable-dicing and cheese-crumbling, bacon-chopping, butter-melting in the pan, through her realizing that gouda will be gorgonzola and ham will be bacon -- followed by her sighing in resignation. She snaps at him for the first time when he won't add as much butter as she insists upon. She instructs him step by step, having no idea if he has ever made an omelette before, and is at her gentlest when he is swirling, swirling the pan, cooking the eggs slowly. She lifts her head to inspect the almost-cooked eggs and nods -- time to add crumbled cheese and diced tomatoes. Cheese and vegetables stick and then she talks him through sliding the omelette onto a plate, folding it at the end.
Then she eats. Thoughtlessly and rather greedily, while he... makes himself an omelette, perhaps. Or whatever he does. She's still quite drunk, and very very hungry, not even complaining that the gouda really is what she wanted, that the saltiness of the gorgonzola is overpowering the bacon and that his ratios were off or that the edges are overdone and she thinks he put too much milk in the eggs. She just eats, scarfing down animal protein while wrapped in a blanket, all but hunched over the kitchen island.
Halfway through, she does pause: "Might you have any coffee, my love?"
IvanIt is, so far as Hilary's cooking instructions go, rather gentle. Perhaps she's too drunk to be cruel. He is appropriately dutiful; remorseful, perhaps, that she thought herself unvalued, taken for granted, disrespected.
He beats the eggs. He shows her. He beats some more. He cuts vegetables very badly, because he can skewer a kidney in pitch darkness and cut a throat without blinking an eye, but he has no idea how to slice, chop, shave, or peel. The tomatoes are half-mashed; the chunks are uneven. The cheese smushes as much as it crumbles, but
in the end there is an omelette, too salty but hearty, and she is eating like it is acceptable and he, turning to start on a second omelette for himself, feels something like pride. Accomplishment. Fancy that: he's made something. He's accomplished something besides lying, stealing, cheating and killing.
--
Coffee comes from a Keurig, which is probably unacceptable, but the only simple option. He joins her when he has food and coffee himself, pulling up a second barstool at the kitchen island. The east is beginning to grow light outside. He yawns; thinks he might take a nap before they go to the city.
And eats.
And sips his coffee.
And speaks, rather out of the blue, his eyes on the thoughtlessly precise movements of his fork, the eggs: "I think you worthy of respect, you know. I think you're worth everything."
HilaryIvan feels a sense of pride in his creation of an omelette that, perhaps, never occurred to him to feel when Hilary gave birth, and the child was as white-skinned and fair-haired as he had been upon his own entry into the world. He made something then, too. With her.
But you know, you can eat an omelette. They're a little more immediately useful than children.
--
Hilary refuses to drink the coffee that is available, upon seeing the contraption he's about to use. She demands tea then, instead, and sips at it, eating her omelette, finishing -- more or less -- long before Ivan does. She drinks her tea, made from a bag, sipping softly and slowly. She already seems better, better than she should, but then:
she's half wolf. And he's never seen her drunk before. No idea how she bounces back.
Her eyes are out the window, on the horizon, to the east. Perhaps she'll watch the sunrise.
Ivan speaks, and she does not turn to him. She's quiet for a while, as though she hasn't heard him. But then:
"I do feel... taken for granted. Sometimes."
IvanThis grieves him, and so little grieves him. He leans toward her; drops his brow to the curve of her shoulder. Lifts his face and kisses her where his forehead had pressed a moment later.
"Why?"
HilaryHe's sitting so close. She doesn't love that; she doesn't mind long tables, long separations, most of the time. But she doesn't know quite where she sits right now: between the freedom and emptiness of intoxication or her normal shut-away self. It's unsettling, and the tea can only help so much.
Ivan rests against her, kisses her shoulder where the blanket over her shoulders has slipped aside.
"I just do," she murmurs, helplessly. "You wouldn't dress for me," she says, weakly, struggling for examples, explanations, ease. Her hand, warm from the mug she holds, covers his fingertips. "I've been with you longer than most," she whispers. "I suppose I miss... being... won."
IvanCuriously, that makes sense to him. Resonates, albeit in an odd fashion: he understands the thrill of the chase. The game, the winning. He understands it from the other side of the board, the other face of the deck, but he does understand.
Beneath her hand, his turns over. His fingers thread between hers. Start to; and then he stops, picks her hand up instead, her fingertips curled into his palm. He kisses her knuckles, only half-playing.
"What else do you miss?"
HilaryHilary watches him, her limbs seeming as soft as her skin -- but that is only an element of her grace. She sips her tea.
"The things I told you outside," she says. A pause: "Not being bored."
IvanThe corner of his mouth moves a little; rueful. "I remember," he says softly; and he does. "I just wanted to know if there was anything else."
Hilary"I can't think right now."
She shakes her head, and slides off the barstool, her feet touching lightly, soundlessly on the floor. The blanket slips but she touches it, holds it at her clavicles like a cloak. Holds out her hand, her palm down, like a queen.
"Sunrise," is all she says. "Then sleep. Then the city."
IvanFor a moment longer he lounges on the barstool, pivoting to face her. He looks at her hand; takes it in his. There are no callouses on his fingers. His palm is smooth and strong as marble.
"Will you let me kiss you?"
HilaryThere's a flicker through her brow as he pivots toward her, but she doesn't speak of it, nor pull away. He takes her hand. He asks to kiss her.
Hilary's eyebrows lift. "Perhaps when you learn to stand when a lady leaves the table, you'll be more deserving of her favor."
Her hand closes more securely to his. "Come. Sunrise. You're missing it."
IvanA quick-coursing smirk flickers. He stands, uncoiling off the barstool as her hand secures to his.
"I learned a long time ago," he says, following her, "just not well."
Hilary"Clearly," she scoffs, dry as paper. Lowers their hands between their bodies, lacing their fingers. Walks outside with him again, to some... bench. Some lounger. They will sit.
He will hold her, covering them both with that blanket. Watch the sunrise, as if this is normal. As if anything between them is normal.