I'd left him dreaming [closed]

[deservesadaisy]

Who: Ivan and Ilde
What: He's making a habit of turning up on doorsteps.
Where: Villa Roassieux
When: Shortly after receiving this text
Notes: It's just a one-night stand. That kept happening. Exclusively. And then he took care of her dog. ...you are no longer fooling anyone, guys.
Warnings: None yet, but give it time.

Ivan is not going to dignify that text with a reply. Instead he turns up, very shortly afterward, on her doorstep, expression closed.

At least he brought her purse with him.

Comments

[rhinemaid]

"I wish I knew what happened," she says, quietly, pressing her hands together in front of her mouth. "I saw things-- I have to tell her, but she's not here--"

Sonja; naturally.

[deservesadaisy]

"You can't do anything about that now," he says, equally quiet, though he understands. There'd been things he wanted to do, to say - to tell Daisy, though he supposed it wouldn't have mattered.

[rhinemaid]

"No. I should figure out where I am with work." ...yes, that seems like an excellent idea right now and completely something that she's in any state to achieve. (Practicalities are comforting; the ability to actually follow through is not necessarily there right now.) "And I have to-- I don't know."

She curls her hands together, tighter. "I didn't call you first because there was a lot of blood."

[deservesadaisy]

"That was probably prudent." He considers her a moment longer, then says, "Come take a bath with me?" It's a gauge, as much as it's a genuine offer; he wants to see where they are, and he thinks it's a good measuring stick.

[rhinemaid]

Warm water and somebody who doesn't ask her a lot of uncomfortable questions, as a general rule, sound equally appealing to her and Ilde leans forward far enough to rest her forehead against his, first. "Okay." She feels like absolute shit, even if she's not readily discussing it; she's too tired and on edge to make much of the usual effort to try pretending otherwise. She isn't sure how to react to being dead and thus far has more or less got by with...not reacting, really. It's a concept she's still circling.

[deservesadaisy]

He lays his hand along her cheek, for a moment. If she initiates touch, he assumes this much is acceptable.

"Come on," he says, quietly, and gets up, helping her stand as well. He's died twice, but has no good advice. Relaxation and company, though, he can offer.

[rhinemaid]

"You're very sweet sometimes," Ilde observes, though it sounds less like a compliment than it does the mildly bewildered remark of an observing scientist witnessing an unexpected development. Ivan is not, it must be said, a person who typically inspires that sort of remark; maybe Ilde is just lucky.

The size of the villa means she has her own bathroom, at least; all of her things in here, the smell of her own perfume. The clean scent of recent scrubbing, to get rid of the bitter vomit smell from last night. There's a scented candle on the vanity, and an ashtray by the bath because of course there is. Running the bath is reassuringly mindless occupation and she turns away from him to do it. Maybe she'll miss it if he says anything, maybe she doesn't have a lot of words to work with just now.

[deservesadaisy]

He doesn't bother responding to the observation directly. He doesn't feel there's much to say about it.

Instead, he follows her to the bathroom, letting her run the bath. He doesn't try to speak to her back, but instead slowly undresses as he thinks through what to do next.

[rhinemaid]

Once the temperature is right and the water is running and she doesn't necessarily need to be watching it go, Ilde's attention drifts; she thinks about what it might mean, living out the rest of her life in Baedal. 'The rest', like it didn't end already, but...it didn't, it just. Also did. Figuring out the terminology she uses here is going to be a mess, she realizes; it must be easier for dead vampires. It's not as though they weren't dead already. The words don't get so tangled.

(They probably care less about the specific meaning of words than she does; there's also that.)

"You should stay," she says, eventually, resting her weight against the rim of the tub. Tonight, she means.

[deservesadaisy]

"If you like," he agrees, turning to her. "I don't have anywhere else I need to be." He's not sure what to do with her; if he'd recruited her, there'd be a form for this, but as there is, nothing quite comes to mind.

[rhinemaid]

Ilde hesitates, like she's got something to say she isn't sure of, but settles on a wisp of a smile and, "Did I miss anything interesting? While I was gone."

'Gone' is a nice, neutral word.

[deservesadaisy]

"Nothing requiring urgent attention. I finally got a friend from home to stop hanging up on me." Ilde will love Daniil, he has no doubt.

"The militia continue to be charming."

[rhinemaid]

Not Mitchell, she surmises, since it seems oddly specific and he knows she and Mitchell are already acquainted. (She wonders vaguely if they've cleared up why he punched him, yet, but Ivan hasn't talked to her about that at all and she doesn't feel anywhere close to being up to pressing him on it now.)

"That's comforting." It isn't.

[deservesadaisy]

"We didn't solve any problems without you," he says, mildly wry as he comes to sit on the edge of the tub.

[rhinemaid]

"It just--" Ilde makes a vague gesture that doesn't really mean anything; it just seems like more should have changed. She knows, intellectually, that she was gone much less time for Baedal than for herself and that doesn't change the fact that she's spent weeks away in an intense situation and the familiarity is in and of itself disorienting. Like stepping back into something she'd come close to convincing herself was gone, and not knowing how exactly to readjust. To fit, again.

...she shuts the taps off, and refocuses on simple things; how much water a bath actually needs if it's going to accommodate two adults, why did she put on a shirt with so many fucking buttons.

[deservesadaisy]

He reaches out, slow enough not to startle her, but fluid. If she doesn't stop him, he helps with the buttons. "It wasn't long, here."

[rhinemaid]

"A few days." It's easier just to drop her hands and let him do it, so she does, resting her hip against the side of the bath. "Cindy told me, when she got me from the arrival room."

She feels strange about having left the razorblades there, but there's not really anything she can do about it--

Well, they have a lost and found--

Does she really want to call about that.

[deservesadaisy]

He's quiet a moment, helping her undress. "I fed your dog," he says, eventually, with a wry little smile - his eyes on his fingers, not her face.

[rhinemaid]

"You hate my dog," she points out, as though he needs reminded; she sounds obscurely pleased, all the same. And she is, generally - Orion is fine, and it's comforting to know he wasn't completely neglected in their absence. She's been fussing about that, quietly, since she gathered herself together enough to start worrying about something other than herself or Sonja.

[deservesadaisy]

"I'm not much of a pet person." It might have been self evident. "But no one else was feeding him."

It would have been important to Ilde, he thought at the time.

[rhinemaid]

"Thank you," she says, kissing him before she gets into the bath, leaning her weight against her hand against his thigh. "I guess I'm glad it was shorter here for him." And for Ivan, and for the others who missed her, but only Orion actually relies on her for care.

[deservesadaisy]

"I'd have probably seen if Hasibe wanted him, eventually." While tacitly adopting him himself, most likely.

Once she's settled, he moves to get in with her.

[rhinemaid]

"I don't know if he and Huan would live together well," she sighs, letting Ivan arrange himself before she resettles against him like a vampiric arm-chair. It's nice, being in her own house with her own things and her own vampire, and she feels like a traitor for it. For being grateful for it. She wants their success in New York, but she doesn't really want to go back.

[deservesadaisy]

He presses a kiss to her shoulder. "It's moot now." He's sorry she had to come back this way, but he's too selfish to be sorry she's back.

[rhinemaid]

"I just...I don't know if Sonja's coming back." Maybe it's selfish to want her to; they'd spent so much of this past year focused on getting out of Baedal, she shouldn't be sitting here wishing for Sonja to get trapped again. She still has a life to live there, and responsibilities that are so much bigger than Ilde.