angels and moths

[deservesadaisy]

Who: Ilde Decima and Ivan

What: something stupid

Where: a flat in Mafaton

When: a couple nights after the missions in (let's say Veerdi?)

Notes: they make the best decisions

Warnings: Mention of past abuse. Will almost certainly include sex and blood-drinking, though likely not explicit. Also, Ivan may be drunk later.


Ivan found, after dying twice, that one's sense of caution was somewhat eroded. Not completely, of course - years of habit and innate temperament saw to that - but really, what was the worst that could happen? He was strong enough in nearly all cases to make it a matter of letting him walk away or killing him. If the latter... well, he wasn't suicidal, but he was curious. Maybe the afterlife would be city on city, like nesting dolls. Maybe it would be better, or worse. Maybe it would eventually be oblivion.

But in the meanwhile, he may as well take a few risks and enjoy himself.

He sat on the balcony, smoking, and waiting for Ilde to arrive.

Comments

[deservesadaisy]

"Well, I'm not a vibrator, love, but I still think we managed a rather satisfactory evening this time." He let her compare their hands, watching her idly.

[rhinemaid]

"You lack tentacles," she sighed, which wasn't actually a change of subject. The things you could find in this city, it was truly amazing sometimes.

[deservesadaisy]

"I hope that wasn't too strong a complaint," he said, laughing.

[rhinemaid]

"Only an observation." Still, his earlier thought- maybe it was worth being slightly more cautious about, now that she knew. Just because she could always run and hide behind Sonja if she started a riot by accident didn't mean that she should go around starting riots. Probably.

[deservesadaisy]

He ran his fingers down her side. "Well, I'm certainly not going to tell anyone." He wasn't fond of concepts like "sharing." Granted, they were nothing to one another that he had grounds to be jealous about, but on the other hand, there was no reason he had to make her more desirable to anyone else.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde curled her hand into a fist against his palm, sweeping her mass of hair out from beneath her neck and shoulder on the pillow with her other hand as she glanced at him; she looked as if she might quite like to pick apart the things in his head that made him tick, but seemingly made no attempt to actually do so.

"Certainly," she granted, after a moment.

[deservesadaisy]

"Though I shudder to think the damage you could do to my dignity if you wanted," he added, half-teasing, but only half.

[rhinemaid]

"What dignity?" That was more like it.

[deservesadaisy]

"Horrible woman." He reached for his jacket to retrieve his cigarettes.

[rhinemaid]

She rolled over onto her stomach with a faint laugh, shifting gingerly to avoid jostling the bandage with her thighs too close together, resting her head on her arms. "That's right." A few moments later, "I'm an interior designer, did I tell you? My employers are insane."

[deservesadaisy]

He lay back on the bed, offering her a cigarette. "You're joking. You go from the end of the world to picking out endtables?"

[rhinemaid]

Waving him off - the smoke wouldn't make her throat feel any better, she figured - she almost laughed, "Money is money." She couldn't just be Sonja's housewife forever, after all, and there weren't a lot of things she felt at all qualified to do. "Refereeing rich men isn't so new, anyway."

[deservesadaisy]

"Is there a lot of call for your services? I haven't ventured into the city's glamorous upper end as yet."

[rhinemaid]

"I just sort of fell into a job with Mr Luthor and Mr Veidt," she shrugged, touching the back of her neck where her hair was, just above the bruises. "I'll have to find something else to do when it's done."

[deservesadaisy]

His fingers ghosted over the bruises on her torso (or his memory of where they were). "Besides wandering off on suicidal missions, which probably doesn't pay very well."

[rhinemaid]

"I didn't wander," she said, her shoulders drawing up when he touched her, "we had a truck. Luthor drove."

Well, when she put it that way...

...it still sounded pretty insane?

"The fogtraders' guild paid us for the betting they ran on our survival for the first trip. And there was a boon from the gods for this one." Insanity did pay, to a degree.

[deservesadaisy]

"Well, as long as it's well-paid." He rested his hand on her hip. "No progress getting out, then."

[rhinemaid]

"Not yet." Despite sometimes mixed feelings on the subject (more and more it seemed as though something here might have been able to give her what she wanted, and she didn't want to leave without it if there were a possibility-), Ilde's certainty that she and Sonja would leave was unwavering, unshakeable. "The boon was a letter home."

[deservesadaisy]

"Interesting. Assuming you believe them." He considered her face. "I suppose there are few reasons they'd offer something like that deceptively." Few, but not none.

[rhinemaid]

Her expression betrayed nothing in either direction- she had a knack for a self-protective blankness that she fell back into far easier than she found alternatives, and her choice or instinct to withdraw was sometimes telling in its own way.

"I could sell it." If she didn't believe them. If she didn't want to write to anyone. If.

[deservesadaisy]

"I would. But then again, no one is expecting word from me, so it would be a bit of a waste, even if it's true."

[rhinemaid]

It had been a long time. It had been the fucking apocalypse. In all likelihood, the only person she wanted to write to that badly wasn't expecting anything, either. (Would he have given up? She'd never given up on him. He owed her. Fuck him, he owed her-)

"Do you even have friends?" she asked, after a moment, instead.

[deservesadaisy]

He thought, briefly, of the handful of people who might mourn him.

"I have had them. Past tense. Why, are you feeling sorry for me?"

[rhinemaid]

"Not even slightly, no." A pause. "Everything is past tense, with you."

[deservesadaisy]

"So far." He looked up at the ceiling. "Wait long enough, and most everything is."