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]

"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."

[rhinemaid]

"Here, too, so I'm told." Ilde needed to spend less time with vampires, arguably.

[deservesadaisy]

"I'd be unsurprised." He glanced over at her. "I may get out, but I'm not going back where I came from. So I may as well adapt to wherever I find myself."

[rhinemaid]

"Why not there?" Curiouser and curiouser.

[deservesadaisy]

He laughed, abrupt and still drunk. "I'm dead there. Well, again. Twice."

[rhinemaid]

After a long moment, she suggested, "More dead," quietly, resting her palm on his chest where his heart wasn't beating.

[deservesadaisy]

"Extra dead." He rested his hand over hers. "I didn't expect there to be anything, but then there was this, and I'm still not sure what to do with it, but... here I am, regardless."

[rhinemaid]

"You're drunk." An observation; she doubted he would've said these things to her if he hadn't been. It felt awkwardly like having taken a liberty she didn't intend to, though she supposed if she were as sorry as all that then she wouldn't have stayed as she was, studying him curiously.

[deservesadaisy]

"Yes," he agreed, looking at her, "but I expect I'll live. Christ, it's been decades since I was properly hungover, let's hope this isn't going to break that record."