Ivan Press

Ivan

Let's go somewhere, Ivan said one day over lunch -- as he does sometimes -- and by afternoon they were boarding the yacht, Anton a few steps behind on Miron's shoulders. Not Krasota but the new one, the Christmas present to his lover that he simply didn't have the patience to wait to give.

It's a catamaran, all sweeping long lines and lean double-hull; soaring white sails, a deck of blonde wood. A catamaran, because he told her he missed the old one and he told her he'd get her a new one, and really she wouldn't be wrong for thinking he bought it as much for himself as for her. Still; she's the one to have named it. She's the one to have broken the customary bottle of champagne, unless of course she didn't want to; in that case perhaps poor Daria was assigned the job because Ivan couldn't be fucked to do the honors, either.

He certainly couldn't be fucked to help load supplies for the journey, either. So between let's go somewhere and actually going somewhere are several frenetic hours of buying, delivering, sorting, loading, preparing. They need fuel, foodstuffs, linens, fresh water; they need changes of clothes, and a ridiculous amount of toys for Anton. One might think they meant to depart for a month-long journey -- and perhaps the staff is not wrong to prepare for the potential.

It is winter, and so the sun is dipping into the sea when at last they push off from the private dock. Dinner in the open air of the cockpit, their wake foaming white behind them, a trail back to their estate by the sea; candles somewhat unsafely lit on the table amongst the glitter of wineglasses, the succulent gleam of seafood and greens. The evening glow turns into the faintest glow of zodiacal lights, visible only because they sail across open water -- though the coastline of the continent is still visible.

Later, when that coastline is gone, they go belowdecks. Their servants clean up. Their servants put their child to bed. They bathe, and indulge in after-dinner drinks, and fuck, and sleep. Sometime late in the night, the staff drops anchor and retires to their quarters to sleep, themselves.

Morning, and there's an island on the horizon. Turns out they've sailed to Corsica. The sails are raised and the anchor drawn up. They skirt southward along the coastline, past naked red cliffs and sunbeaten scrubland. Eventually they come in to port, if it can be called that: a tiny dock near a tiny commune, a humble clustering of low structures. The newer ones are stucco and the older ones are stone, but new is relative here, and old is ancient. On the cliffs above, a crumbling castle from the late middle ages, so weatherworn it looks as ancient as the earth around it. Everything, even now in midwinter, is utterly bathed in warm light.

Ivan, yawning and golden and barechested, emerges onto the flybridge as they approach shore. He hardly glances at the servant who hands him a glass of iced juice, but he's so sure it would be there for him. Sipping, he slides an arm around his lover's waist.

"Which mad, ancient cousin of ours lived here, do you suppose?"

The yacht is a gift. It is the same sort of boat that Hilary's second mate bought her, but it is different: it is newer, and there is more color to it, and more youth. It is different because she sold the one Dion gave her. She cast away almost everything he gave to her, in the end. She slipped his shackles, she shed her skin.

The yacht is not really for her, though perhaps Ivan thought to put it in her name, to make sure she owns it outright, to give her another asset that will protect her in the event of his -- inevitable -- death. It is more for Ivan, because he loved the other one, and he likes to sail, and loving her and giving her presents is a convenient excuse to do things like buy a yacht.

Maybe he comes to visit her and leads her outside and there it is, off the shore where she lives, and then suddenly she has a yacht again. Or perhaps he shops with her; perhaps. Perhaps he discovers another new layer to the strange person Hilary has been becoming: one who seems worried when she realizes she does care about the color of the deck's wood, the shade of blue on the cushions here, the wallpaper in the cabin. One who, once she finds her own opinions, has many of them indeed.

There are accents of brushed nickle rather than shining brass; upholsteries in shades of blue and silver and hints of black. A slightly larger cabin than she had on Cielo. And when it was time for a name to be painted across the hull, she gave it, because she had some time to think of it: Impératrice de la Lune.

Hilary does break champagne across the hull. It is her yacht, after all, even though she never cared if she had one. She marks it. Even the name is there to remind Ivan who it belongs to. Who, perhaps, he belongs to.

In their way.

--

So it's there, and they have never taken Anton on a sea voyage, but they do now. He is old enough, though Miron never lets him out of his sight, keeps a life preserver on him constantly, follows within arm's reach of him all over the yacht.

Anton's mother was amenable to a trip. Ivan has not had such whims for a while. He has stayed close enough, never too close, not too far for too long. And when he wants to go somewhere, he seems to mean all of them: at least, the ones who matter most. Hilary of course, and Anton and Miron. Elodie and Evgeny. Darya and Dmitri. A maid or two, and so on. There is another cabin for Anton where Miron stays as well, and the rest hole up in the servants' bunks.

As it turns out, Anton is very excited about the boat. He runs all over, sending Miron's heart racing, examining everything, climbing on cushions, looking over the bow, pointing at the sails, asking questions in a bizarre blend of the three languages he is growing up with. When they leave port it takes him time to get his 'sea legs' and he does throw up a bit of his dinner, but that doesn't matter to Hilary and Ivan, because Anton is eating below deck. They are out in the open air, sipping wine, eating together and watching the stars. Hilary is wrapped in a soft silver pashmina, her hair loose, shorter than he likes it, but beautiful as always. She is softened with wine, pliant, and when he takes her downstairs to fuck her she is obedient and whimpering, molten in his arms when he pins her wrists above her head, sinks his teeth into her shoulder, drives his cock into her cunt.

--

Though she sleeps easily and trustingly in his arms that night, when he wakes he's alone. The shower in their cabin still bears steam from her washing. Going to the flybridge he finds her, dressed already, holding Anton, who is wearing a pair of sunglasses. So is Hilary. They almost match. Anton is eating a dense little muffin, and Hilary is sipping a mimosa from a flute. He is in a life preserver, and he is a growing toddler now, but no one would dare tell Hilary he is too big to be held now. So she holds him at her side, on her hip, and they observe the oncoming shoreline together.

She has no idea where they are. She has not asked anyone; she has not seemed to care, though she seems curious enough to look. She sips. Anton turns his head at Ivan's presence a half-heartbeat before she does; it is almost simultaneous, his mate and his progeny turning towards him as they sense him.

Juice appears in his hand. Anton watches him as he always does: unblinking, staring, at once deeply curious to the point of fascinated and yet also wary, careful, vigilant.

Hilary permits him to touch her, embrace her, and even turns her cheek to him so he will know he should kiss her good morning.

Empress of the Moon.

She blinks, but it's invisible behind her shades. "Where are we?"

Thus bidden, he does indeed kiss her: his lips pressing against her smooth, cool cheek. He shaved this morning. He showered; he's wearing a splash of some fresh, spicy scent. His teeth graze her ear a moment after that kiss, as though he cannot hide his true nature for long.

"A little town called Osani," he answers. And, having ignored his son long enough, deigns now to graze the boy's cheek with the back of a curled finger. "On the west coast of Corsica. I thought we could be islanders for a little while."

Beneath the yacht, the rich blue of the Mediterranean is transitioning to a jeweled, clear turquoise. A single pier, long and thin, extends out from the shore. This is where they moor themselves, the sails overhead folding, the maneuvering motor humming deep belowdecks. A gangway is extended. Their people start unloading their luggage.

"We could go to Italy if you get bored," Ivan adds. "Or perhaps Carthage. I must say, it never ceases to amaze me, how old your part of the world is."

Her cheek is cool from the air, flushed from the champagne. Anton frowns when Ivan kisses his mother. He chews on his muffin and wiggles, trying to get her attention. Unfortunately, she does not give it to him as he wishes: she sets him down on the deck, because he is a big boy now. He is heavy. He stands there by her feet in their delicate little shoes, leaning a bit on her leg. He has adapted quickly to being on the water, but still holds to her a bit, and for once she seems unbothered, not annoyed.

She lives with him now, and seems... better. In some ways. She rests her hand on his head, and he is calmed by this. She may let Ivan kiss her, but she has not forgotten him. He eats his breakfast, leaning on her knee.

For her part, Hilary breathed in when he scraped his teeth over her ear. She set Anton down because of this, too. Ivan is whispering cryptic things to her: Osani. Corsica. Islanders. She huffs a small sound, almost but not quite a laugh. They've been islanders before, but briefly. She sometimes seems to enjoy it. She likes warm places. She likes flowing fabrics. He likes it when her hair is undone, wavy, textured with salt air.

He touches Anton's cheek, and Anton looks up at him, curious and perhaps a little startled. But there's something in his eyes that may very well unease Ivan to see: longing. Still mixed with a healthy dose of wariness, but sure enough, there it is: a desire for his attention. His interest. His affection.

Hilary does not notice it. She is stroking the top of her son's head, covered in that fair hair that so clearly marks him as his father's child.

The yacht is being unloaded. She takes a breath, thoughtful: "Where are we staying while we're here?"

A beat. The words catch up to her: "My part of the world?" She gives the smallest laugh. She seems to have forgotten she was ever... not American.

That poor boy, Anton. If Ivan had more insight, more awareness of the needs and desires of those outside of himself and Hilary -- that dark gravitational center of his universe -- he would see how his son craves his attention, his approval, his love. He would see the damage he was inflicting with his indifference. He would see the age-old conflict between that desire and the strange jealousy and competition over the love of the mother that lies at the heart of so many father-son relationships. He would see, too, the damage Hilary inflicts with her swings between frustration, withdrawal, and sudden overwhelming adoration. He would see the sins of his own parents -- and hers -- sketched out in their own actions; a spiral of madness that pulls on every Silver Fang.

Though, then again: her parents killed each other. And his exist so far on the outskirts of his orbit that he barely thinks of them at all. So perhaps, compared to that, they're not doing so poorly after all. Perhaps.

--

Ivan's fingers brush Hillary's as he, too, ruffles the boy's hair. Then he straightens, his arm uncoiling from around her waist. Stepping forward to the railing, he looks down at the activity below. The dock is small, but there are a handful of other pleasure crafts there -- mostly power yachts, a few sailboats. Nothing so gloriously sleek as the Imperatrice. Nothing so exotic, so fine, so breathtakingly expensive.

"Europe. France," he replies, smiling. "And before you remind me of your actual upbringing, do allow me to remind you of the insufferability of vegetable puns. As for our lodgings, I thought we'd take a car and drive until we find suitable accommodations. What do you say?"

Below their sphere of attention, Anton has both of his parents gently stroking his hair, ruffling it, touching him. It isn't that he goes without touch, without affection: the servants give him quite enough. Miron and Elodie, mostly, as affectionate and tender as any parent could be. Even the big scary ones like Dmitri are kind to him. Even Polina's arms sometimes wrap around him, nevermind if they are accompanied by an exasperated sigh. But they are not his parents. These idle, thoughtless touches seem to soothe him differently. He does not stray from them.

Above him, Hilary is tilting her head at Ivan. He steps away, watches their people scurrying about. Hilary remains where she is, one hand on Anton, one holding the slender stem of her flute glass. She sips. She does not get the joke, or reference: vegetable puns? She does not ask, either, because she cares very little.

"Why don't you do that inexpressibly boring task, and we'll visit the town until you fetch us?" she retorts lightly, the 'we' apparently indicating her person, her child, and whatever members of her entourage are necessary to her.

Not for the first time -- and certainly not for the last -- Ivan finds himself unexpectedly stung by his lover's casual cruelty. That's not even accurate; it's not cruelty. It's simply carelessness, callousness, a near-total lack of empathy. Yet this time, for no reason he can easily name, he doesn't react with casual, cutting cruelty of his own.

He pauses. Then he turns, comes back to her.

"I thought you might have an opinion on where you might like to stay," he says. "That's all. If not, I'll have Dmitri book something and spend the day with you."

It wasn't meant to be cruel. Or even... careless. It doesn't occur to her that he would just want her company, that sending him off on a 'boring' task while she plays with their son might sting him somehow. In this, it isn't even her callousness that spurs the words or invites them, but ignorance. Obliviousness. A fundamental inability to reliably connect with others. In this way, she's always been something of a flickering light, one whose brightness or warmth simply can't be trusted. She probably always will be.

She does notice his pause. She does not consider its meaning, or implication.

She does seem pleased when he comes back to her. Not with a smile, or even a smirk, but some softening of her features, a keenness in her eyes on him that is, all the same, hard to see behind her shades. She likes it when he comes back. She lifts her hand from Anton's hair and uses it to touch Ivan's cheek, like she has a right to him somehow, like he is a piece of art she purchased partly so that no one could ever stop her from touching it at will, absorbing its beauty through her fingertips.

His beauty.

He is not a thing.

Sometimes she has to remind herself that none of them are just things. It is sometimes easier, these days.

"You know what I like," she tells him, which is only partially true and a point where she often strays as though contrariness is as much a part of her nature as madness. "Have Dmitri do it. Come with us. Lunch by the water. You can buy me presents."

Her touch brings a long, languid blink of his eyes. His eyelashes catch the morning light; then his eyes, too, the golden flecks in his irises glittering.

He turns into that touch. Kisses the heel of her hand, then covers it with his own. Takes her hand in his own, those long elegant fingers of theirs interlocking.

"I know what you like," he confirms, even though it is only partially true. He does not think of that right now: with a Son of Falcon's inborn and unquestioned confidence, he is certain of his certainty. "I'll have Dmitri see to it. Far be it from me to leave you present-less.

"Come on; let's go ashore."

This, too, Hilary permits: his hand on her hand, his mouth on her skin. There is an air of noblesse oblige about her acceptance of his affections, his stares. So: some part of her must know how fascinated he is with her, how taken.

What pretty, calm ways to describe what is between them. All the darkness. All the bright, searing flashes of connection, which is the only form true connection can take for creatures such as they. They don't use words to describe what is between them often, and when they do, it is in dark whispers, or aching declarations torn out of them like bones ripped from ribcages, or -- most often -- fancy turns of phrase, pale in comparison to the truth.

Ivan is 'taken with' Hilary. Hilary finds him 'charming'.

Hilary is the collapsed star at the center of Ivan's life, his world, his unraveling sense of time, his inevitable yet eternal destruction.

And Ivan

is Hilary's god. Hilary's soul. Cornerstone, lifeline, heartbeat. Savior.

Some part of her must know that he loves her. Perhaps sometimes he knows how desperately she adores him.

--

He says they shall go ashore now, and she steps from him, and from Anton, who makes a noise, questioning. She just looks at him, not understanding immediately and not putting much effort into understanding. He starts to follow her, and she permits this, but scarcely a few steps have been taken by any of the Fangs before Miron slips onto the deck, scooping up his charge so he doesn't follow his parents to the gangway, peer over the edge, and go toppling into the water.

Hilary glances briefly at Miron, but does not comment. She finishes her mimosa and leaves it somewhere for a maid to take care of.

She is holding Ivan's hand, their long fingers loosely linked. He is still shirtless; no matter.

Miron has, over time, grown quite good at anticipating where and when he is needed. He hears footsteps on the flybridge; he knows Hilary and Ivan will soon be disembarking. He is in the middle of a hurried breakfast, and toast-in-mouth he bounds up the stairs to --

-- see that Ivan has, shock of shocks, scooped his son up himself when Hilary stepped away. It happens so rarely, and yet there it is: the boy held in the crook of Ivan's free arm, his little brow furrowing as he tries to decide whether this is good or frightening; something to tolerate or something to wail over.

"Ah, Miron," Ivan says, spotting the young man, "go fetch me a shirt, would you? Something short-sleeved."

Miron blinks. He casts Anton a wary glance, as though trying to estimate the chances of Ivan dropping the boy or simply losing him somewhere in the next two minutes. In the end, docility and obedience win out; he bobs a quick nod and disappears down the stairs again.

Ivan follows, scarcely more careful with a toddler on his arm than he would be alone. At the bottom of the stairs, he does turn and extend his hand to Hilary, courtly. He is always so careful with her.

He loves her, after all. Quite profoundly, though they do like to mask it in frivolous, fancy terms.

Anton doesn't quite know what to do with himself when Ivan picks him up. His brow wrinkles, and he draws back a bit -- partly to see his father better, blinking at him behind his little toddler-sized sunglasses. There is a crumb of muffin on his lip, but he eats with better manners than he once did. His hands are a bit messy, but he doesn't go pawing at his father's face, as he might have when he was much smaller.

Hilary is watching them. She looks thoughtful, more than anything else, but... pleased. It hurts her somewhat, to see Ivan giving Anton any affection at all, any attention. It hurts her in the middle of her chest, piercing and tight, and she does not pay Miron any mind at all.

They disembark. When she takes his hand, she holds it tightly. Anton appears to have decided this is nice, that his father is warm and not biting him, and he is being carried, which Miron and Polina and even Elodie don't do very much anymore because he is A Big Boy Now.

Hilary's hand grips Ivan's with all the ferocity of feeling that she has, but cannot name or express.

Anton is talking to him. "Where going?" he says, pointing at the port town.

Perhaps it's best that Anton doesn't paw at Ivan's face. Nothing would have made him put the boy down or hand him off faster than a grubby little hand jammed in his mouth, up his nose. As is, the boy just stares at him while he ... well. Pays very little attention, to be truthful.

But then Anton speaks. And of course he knows his son is talking now; he's not completely insensate. He knows there have been words, sometimes in English and sometimes in Russian and sometimes in French; he knows Anton is actually becoming a regular little chatterbox with Miron and especially with Elodie. He almost never talks to Ivan, though, and one can hardly blame him: Ivan never talks to him either.

Until now. Now, suddenly, there is the expectation of a conversation. Ivan flicks a frown at Anton; then at the little town. He almost never utters placeholder syllables, but he does now: "Uh. To the village." Every sentence gets simpler. "Ashore. On island.

"Fun place," is where he lands, eventually.

Hilary talks to him sometimes. Hilary even listens to him sometimes. They both have about the same grasp on Russian, though Anton is learning it faster than she can keep up, and she prefers to speak French with him, or even bits of English. They don't speak often. When she is with him, there is usually someone else. She likes to watch him; she is not good at playing. Luckily, he is of an age where he is generally content to explore and play on his own, only occasionally bringing her something to look at that he found, saying a few words about it. And Hilary looks it over, maybe says a few words, too. And then he takes it back, and walks away again, and right now, this is perhaps the healthiest their relationship has ever been.

Ivan never speaks to him. Ivan rarely acknowledges him but for a stroke of his hair or the like. Anton asks him a question, though, and Ivan seems a touch disgruntled, and then...

behind him, Miron presses his lips hard together.

Beside him, Hilary just laughs at him. There's of course an edge of mockery, but it is light -- especially for Hilary, who does not avoid cruelty. She almost sounds delighted.

Anton has no idea why his mother is laughing, but it makes him grin. He thinks he has done something very good, and that is why she laughs, and he wiggles a little, bouncing in Ivan's arms, but not very much. He has been well trained by Polina that if he wiggles too much when he is held, well then he can damn well walk, can't he?

"Vijij?" is what he says back to Ivan, because the 'L' sound is still just beyond him. "Fun pace," he adds, repeating it, like he's sealing that away in his small, developing brain.

"We are going for a walk, mon plus petit faucon," Hilary says, stepping closer to both her lover and her... cub. "Your father will buy us presents, and we'll have lunch, and you can have ice cream." She smiles. One imagines it is how the white witch smiled at the boy in the story, to get him to betray his entire family for a tin of candies.

Behind them, Miron presses his lips together for an entirely different reason now.

Her finger extends, and she strokes Anton's cheek, which is fascinatingly soft even now, when he is no longer quite a baby. "It will be lovely," she says, like she's casting a spell.

"Wubee," Anton repeats, and: "Icekeem." He cannot help it: he bounces again, wiggling happily.

Meanwhile, while Hilary is thoroughly enchanted by the little tableau unfolding before her, Ivan is frowning again. "Why can't he pronounce things right?" he demands: first of the air, and then of Miron, as though the poor fellow should have all the answers. "He's nearly three, isn't he? Is it a speech impediment?"

"Er -- " Miron looks taken aback. "Well -- "

This upsets Hilary. She frowns at Ivan, but she doesn't look angry. She looks... almost afraid. But that also looks like anger.

Anton senses the sudden shift in both of them and tenses up in Ivan's arms.

"He's not three until spring," she says, and because Ivan is frowning and Anton looks like he's about to start crying and because Ivan is a wolf and she is sometimes driven by something deeper than her insanity --

call it instinct --

Hilary puts her hands on Anton's sides and pulls him right out of Ivan's arms, turning him to herself, holding him. "He speaks three languages, all of them better than you," she says,

which is... not quite accurate by any measure, but she's ruffled that he's making her happy baby look wary and unnerved when he was just babbling about ice cream.

And with that, since she does not know if Anton has a speech impediment or not and Ivan has sent her into a spiral of worry as well, she continues down the gangway and onto the dock, muttering to Anton in French.

Poor Miron is still trying to explain -- stammering some comment on child development and the time it takes to fully acquire language -- when Hilary simply confiscates her child and sweeps off the yacht. Even Ivan looks taken aback. Miron just gives up explaining and hurries after her.

It's Polina, dry and blunt as ever, that finishes the explanation. She's just emerging from belowdecks, eating a bowl of utterly generic cereal out of one of the lovely bowls stocked in the galley. "She is right," she opines. "He is not even three. How many languages you speak at age three, hm? Babies do not speak proper until age four."

Ivan mutters under his breath. He presses his half-finished orange juice into Miron's hands and -- shirt forgotten -- jogs off the yacht after Hilary. And his apparently non-impeded son.

Miron is a protective, nurturing, genial young man who -- rather wisely -- fears both Ivan and Hilary, though primarily for what they might do to inadvertently or carelessly harm Anton, and secondarily for the fact that Ivan may one day snap in a rage or Hilary might pick up a knife in a fit of pique. He is respectful and careful with them, for the sake of his charge, and for the sake of the rest of the staff.

Polina, on the other hand, is zero percent intimidated by the Silver Fangs she ostensibly works for. She respects Dmitri, shows deference out of necessity and self-interest to Max and Miranda, considers Miron her peer, Elodie her junior but their ally, and nearly everyone else as someone who probably is not doing their job very well. In her mind there is a strict hierarchy among the servants who, technically, serve three separate masters. While she knows that Anton will one day be her boss, and while she is very aware that Ivan and Hilary are creatures to be wary of, one thing has been and remains painfully true, at least in her thinking:

they need her more than she needs any of them. By a mile.

So, lacking deference, lacking wariness, she explains to Ivan that his son is not three years old, that he is multilingual, and that he is still a baby.

Miron of course is having a mild anxiety attack in the midst of all this, but no one notices. After all: this is at least a weekly occurrence.

--

Hilary is not going terribly fast. She is carrying a heavy toddler who is talking to her, but not very much. He wants to get back to this conversation about presents and ice cream, and Hilary is all too happy to oblige him, because his daddy is stupid and mean.

His daddy is coming up to them, and Hilary looks at him as though she is waiting for something.

Obviously an apology.

Long-limbed and graceful, Ivan lopes up to them easily enough, dropping back to a stroll as Hilary turns expectantly to him.

It is not quite an apology she gets, but perhaps it is close enough: "Polina tells me children aren't expected to speak clearly until they're four years old or so. So I think we've nothing to worry about. Hm, Anton?"

Deft and gentle, he boops the boy's nose with the very tip of his finger. Miron, meanwhile, is trying to look invisible.

She is expecting an apology. A reassurance that Anton is perfect, from the tips of his white-gold hair, to the depths of his nearly black eyes, to the wiggling toes inside his toddler-sized Puma sneakers. Ivan is to say that he was wrong, and he needs to tell Anton he's sorry, and then beg Hillary's forgiveness.

Naturally, she never gets what she really wants, and Ivan doesn't do any of it, because he's terrible.

However: he tells her that Anton is not broken. He doesn't have a speech impediment. He's fine. And he looks at Anton, addresses him, touches him fondly.

Something wound tight in Hilary uncoils to hear that nothing is wrong with Anton. He isn't delayed, or stupid, which is what she thought Ivan was saying. He's perfect.

Ivan does not apologize, or beg forgiveness, or even admit fault. He breezily says they shouldn't worry. He pretends that this was a joint concern, and not the horrible accusation on his part that it was. In her mind. This time, Hilary chooses to let go of her fantasy about the conversation because it feels more comforting to shift to Ivan's projection, instead.

But he is nice to Anton again. He pretends, again, perhaps all for her sake, to love the little boy. This is one of the only things Hilary has ever really asked him for. It is hard for her to pretend it is automatic, or thoughtless, or not done partly -- if not primarily -- for her benefit. Her happiness. Her comfort. It is hard, even for Hilary, to pretend that she doesn't know that this is a way Ivan makes peace with her.

Loves her.

Anton is still a bit confused at all the paternal attention he's receiving, but he laughs a bit when his nose is booped. He reaches towards Ivan's face.

Meanwhile, Hilary is watching Ivan closely, deciding not to ask Miron is that true this time. Deciding to believe that Ivan isn't lying to her about Anton, because he never has, because it is too important to her, and he knows it. Ivan has never lied to her that she can recall, and she knows that, too.

Whatever else is true about them, they are both patently, consistently, reliably honest with one another.

"Of course not," she says, kissing Anton's cheek while he is trying to boop his father's nose back. "He's perfect."

It's not that Ivan hates his son. He feels a certain benign affection toward the boy; he is, after all, beautiful and golden and fair and wrought in the image of his beautiful, golden, fair parents. Sometimes, rarely, when the night is dark and the moon is full and all the world seems still, it runs deeper than that; all the crystalline and filigreed layers of Ivan's sleek persona seem to align just right, and the light can shine in, and what is deep and dark and primordial in him can awaken. Sometimes, rarely, he feels attachment deep and raw to that which was born from his blood; he feels the urge to protect, ferociously, this tiny strange family he has somehow stumbled into.

Those moments pass so quickly, though. And most days it is like this, or less: a few glancing interactions, a moment of two of indulgence when his son reaches for him and he doesn't lean away or, worse, fail even to notice. Anton's little hand baps his nose, and he laughs, catching it. Some of the infantile pudginess has already begun to leave the boy, and that hand is becoming sleek, longfingered, graceful. Still so small, though; the fingers curling around Ivan's thumb.

"Of course," he says. "Just perfect."

He lets go of Anton's hand, then, and takes Hilary's instead. His grasp is loose and easy. He is whimsical again; swings their joined hands gently as they walk down the long wooden pier.

She has to catch her breath, in that moment. It hitches; Anton touches his father and Ivan doesn't shove him away, drop-kick him off the dock, any of that. He laughs. He catches Anton's hand and Anton laughs too and Hilary cannot breathe, she is so happy. Anton grips his father's hand, fascinated and delighted, momentarily loved and so: adoration pours out of him, almost visible despite the brightness of the day.

Perfect, he hears from one parent, and then the other. Perfect, he will hear over and over. God knows what that will do to him, what sort of creature he'll become.

Behind them, Miron and Polina see all this, and both know it cannot last. Ivan swinging his lover's hand as though they could ever truly be carefree. Hilary trembling with pleasure as she walks towards shore. Anton held in his father's arm, laying his head on his father's shoulder, thinking about ice cream.

It cannot last.

It never lasts.

But no one moves to intervene. It's unlikely that it's truly just pity for them: how rare Ivan's capacity for this is, how desperate Hilary's happiness can be, how fragile Anton is in the face of his parents and their madness. But perhaps that's part of it: to hang back, and let them have this moment. They are all three of them happy, gentle, familial right now.

So they are left alone to it. However long it lasts.