everybody hates me for the night before; the man you saw wasn't me

[incaptivity]

Who: Hal & Ivan
What: A Talk.
Where: The Valhalla Inn
When: Ambiguously backdated sometime after this.
Warnings: None yet!

When he'd said Ivan could find him at the Inn, he hadn't intended for it to be an absolute certainty, but in the days that follow the swap meet he rarely leaves his room, let alone the building. He'd been slipping since he first found himself in the arrival room; after the events of the party, he could feel himself falling another rung lower, then another—Ilde had been one thing, but the thought of facing Mr. Snow was quite another—and the only way he knows to stop it is the way Leo had taught him: isolation and routine.

This evening, he's ventured so far as the library, where he has taken up a chair and a table in the corner, apparently the only guest keen on exploring the wonders of 1st century Roman plumbing.

(It was next on the shelf, all right. He has a system. Better this than letting his mind wander, even for a second.)

Comments

[deservesadaisy]

"Nor reminisce over old times, no." He watches Hal carefully, though his manner is easy. He's still not sure how this will go, and he hasn't put "pear-shaped" out of the question yet.

"I said the other night we should have a chat."

[incaptivity]

"You did." He eyes Ivan a second, then puts a slip of paper between the pages of his book and sets it flat on the table. "You hadn't said what about."

He could guess, but he's rather hoping he's wrong.

[deservesadaisy]

"I have no doubt you intend to remain on the wagon indefinitely. I will not insult you by bringing up past history to suggest why I'm skeptical of that assessment. Regardless, I felt it fair to given you warning that Ilde - her neck and other parts of her - are off limits to you."

He's very calm about the whole thing.

[incaptivity]

"It's not as if I had designs on them." Ilde or her various parts, apparently. The calm and the general lack of attempt to insult do a lot to keep this from going south as quickly as it could, but his feathers are a little ruffled by the implication nonetheless.

"Rest assured, if I have anything to say about it, I'll not be in the same room with her again, let alone in close proximity to her jugular."

(...But then, the more pivotal factor is of course whether he has any control at all.)

[deservesadaisy]

"If you had designs," he says, adopting Hal's word, "it would be a different conversation. But I respect you enough to make sure there are no misunderstandings on the subject. Her best mate considers vampires prey, and would love an excuse."

He leans forward very slightly. "I know what the blood's like, mate. Mitchell tried to set up a twelve-step bloody program in Bristol after Herrick was gone. I saw." He shakes his head. "I can only imagine fifty years."

[incaptivity]

"You really can't." Imagine, that is. There have been reasonably tolerable periods, whole days and weeks in which he didn't feel like crawling out of his skin, but lately it's more like the effect is compounding instead. He's poorly grounded and irritable and doesn't especially like being warned off by someone he used to be able to wipe the floor with if it suited him. It's a reasonable warning, though.

A beat, then: "There are creatures here who hunt us?"

...So his ego hasn't gone anywhere, wagon or no.

[deservesadaisy]

Ivan's face darkened a little. "Sonja's not the one you need to worry about on that font. I think we've ripped out most of that problem by the root, but I wouldn't lay money that it's entirely gone."

Ivan leans back, and adds, "I don't recommend being maced with holy water, and that was probably one of the milder incidents."