[Isabeau had spent many of her days reminding him how much she hated their living arrangements. The degrees of separation between them, the cramped space, the loneliness of a one-bedroom apartment in a city that thirsted for their companionship. Alastair had divested himself of some otherwise ingrained notions about the company they were meant to keep, but not enough to keep himself from monitoring his sister's day-to-day.
He had caved not long after that conversation, foregoing the furnishings he had promised her to instead move to share one dour kitchen, one dour bath. The bed he left for her in spite of all of her protests, with promises that he would seek out something better for both of them within the following weeks. It was a promise, to no one's surprise, that he was having trouble making good on.
The weeks don't yield much, other than compounding headaches. Lycans in the city, and a team of hunters who don't know any better about the wolf in sheep's clothing with his hands on their shoulders. The tension hadn't lessened, and Alastair hadn't softened enough to allow himself much polite company outside of his sister's -- but his boundaries regarding her had softened considerably.
It is why he hardly reacts when he hears her come down the short hall, doesn't bother to close the door while he nurses a strong drink what had been the privacy of his own bath. He'd gone weeks without incident, but his bones ached the longer he went without something to occupy him. False assignments to monitor lycan activity weren't enough anymore.
He only bothers to look up and offer a greeting when she happens to pass by the door on the way to the living room.]
You'd said half past five, did you not?
[Well, not exactly a greeting, but he does manage to smile when he says it. A jest -- maybe.]
[Say what you would about the city of Eudio, at least there was money to be made. Not that she takes to the prospect of working with anything like natural ability, but between teaching piano lessons and manning the counter at the firing range (nevermind keeping tabs on Grayson and his damned rebel queen along with half a dozen lycans roving the bloody streets) she has at least learned how to keep herself busy.
None of these things are why she'd been out today though. She'd cancelled Cassandras lesson for the afternoon - best to let Lucan think her attending to them than otherwise - and had instead spent the day in Mister Wayne's company: walking alongside him in the afternoon sun, sitting near him in the grass, ordering him to lay his head in her lap so she might stroke her fingers through his dark hair and consider the possibility of more.
--For England of course, she thinks even now as she pulls the door to the cramped flat shut behind her. She meditatively removes her earrings and places them in the small china bowl along with her keys. There's a small pinch to her brow, a pressure in her chest that feels both feather light and heavy as a stone; for a moment her hand strays to the clasp of her gorget at the nape of her neck, then she thinks better of herself. Better to leave it be for just a while longer. It's a good reminder for why she's here - something encouraging and solid to firm up the ridiculous butterfly feeling low in her belly. Tea might help too. Hot water and lemon, at least. Shaking herself, Isabeau moves down the short hall with every intention of reaching the kitchen to put the kettle on.
Lucan's voice through the half open door distracts her though. She catches herself up, touching the door and peeking through to the washroom without much ceremony (spoilers: baths are practically an invitation for visitors, even if he really should be wearing a gown if he's going to be entertaining). She sets her cheek against the frame, her hand lingering at the knob.]
The lesson ran long. I should have called.
[Does she smell like that small dusty music shop? Or does she smell like the glow of summer, cut grass and something sweet, the spice of a man's cologne?]
[The smell hits him immediately, over the salts he's chosen for his current bath (something floral, a hint of peach). Years of discipline keep his face straight and calm, though he's quickly bursting at the seams with questions. Who is he? How are his lines? What is his profession? Does he treat you well?
The tell is that he stays quiet for just a beat longer than he ought to, though he manages to keep his eyes on her rather than advert them in some childish gesture of frustration.
She's a grown woman, after all. He supposes he should be pleased it isn't Grayson. That is a scent he would never forget. Alastair pulls his hands up and folds them on his chest, elbows resting on the edge of the bath when he does.]
You should have. We are still chest deep in lycans, Isi.
[Not that he doesn't believe she could protect herself if one of them did decide one day to go rabid, but it helps to keep up appearances. And concerns.]
[She raises an eyebrow in kind, the angle of her chin lifting to such a degree that it might be petulant if not for the daring quirk at the corner of her mouth. Her own thoughts might as well echo his: what, does he think her helpless? Please.] Yes, of course Alistair. Lycans and bath water, evidently.
[Smug AF.]
Have you done anything at all today, or have you determined to simply brine yourself and be finished?
[From the bath, he snorts and turns his head away from her in the most disinterested manner he can muster. It doesn't erase the brief flicker of amusement from his expression.]
I prepared a meal, picked up the flat, and enjoyed the sun for a few hours. I had thought to share at least one of those activities with you, but once again I am burdened with the mantle of responsibility.
[He lifts his hands in the the most exaggerated and wistful manner he could manage -- which wasn't very dramatic at all, in the end. Poor, stiff Alastair D'Argyll.]
[Were she not standing against the door frame, she might manage a haughty quirk of the line of her shoulders; as it is, she makes do with the angle of her eyebrow and a flash of the top row of her teeth.]
I planned on hot water and lemon. Would you care for some?
[He takes a moment to sink further into the tub, though the idea itself is ridiculous -- he is hardly a small man, and the tub is not even close to being large enough to accommodate him comfortably. As a result, his knees peak over the edge of the water.
His sigh makes some bubbles on the surface, and he adjusts himself to rise out of the water. He's not moping.]
[She all but clucks her tongue at him, fighting the urge to roll her eyes.]
For God's sake, stay put. I'll bring it to you.
[Let the poor man continue to stew if that's what he preferred. She withdraws from the doorway accordingly without bothering to pull the door shut behind her. All in all, it takes her perhaps ten minutes to fix them something. The kettle runs very hot and fast and she's never been so silly as to not know how to cut and squeeze a lemon. Thank Heaven for her place in the Order; she can't begin to believe how pathetic she might have been in Eudio city had she spent her entire adulthood doing nothing but plunking away on the pianoforte and lounging in silks. She orders the cups on their saucers (the first pointed purchase she'd made outside of a new wardrobe), and fetches both bath to the washroom where she fully expects Alistair to still be submerged.
She shoulders the door open and has not even the thought of hesitation much less the pretense of shame as she carries in the two cups and sets one just there on the edge of the bath. She flips down the lid of the toilet and tosses a towel over it, then perches there, fighting the inclination to put her feet up on the tub's edge (her boots are dirty from the park).]
[She misses the brief smirk that appears on his face as she leaves -- its quick to turn somber, as always, but turning Isabeau to exasperation was always one of the more amusing tasks of his life fraught with bloodshed, politics, and death. He stays put -- after all, it would be rude to refuse her, and though her brother he may be, he is her older brother.
The truth is, he's beginning to prune, and the water has stopped steaming. The bubbles still cover a thin film on top of the water, but the red on his skin from the heat has started to fade to gooseflesh. Alastair is careful to reach for his cup slowly, so as to not jostle the porcelain and ruin all of her hard work.]
None.
[He pulls the sauce to his chest and glances up to her with a raised eyebrow as if to ask ever again? He gives it no voice -- wouldn't want her to get the idea that he was going soft, after all.
But he can still smell that aftershave -- more, now that she's so close.]
Forgive me for wanting to spend more time with you.
[Her own saucer and cup she balances on her knee, the fine little flowers and tiny birds circling the base of the cup pleasantly simple and familiar if she squints and pretends they've been painted by hand rather than printed in reproduction. She fetches the cup up-- pauses--
And looks at him, her her mouth faintly pinched and her eyebrows raised by some narrow margin. In any other circumstance - if they were home, for example -, she might make fun of him. But they're very far from it, and she can sympathize with kind of homesickness. With wanting to be near to something or someone who makes sense when so very little else does.] I suppose. Just this once.
[To that, he stays silent for a time. He knows his sister's need to always seem haughter, wiser, stronger than everyone else around her. A thirst to prove herself, a competitive streak that he never really shared beyond an urge to make her happy. He fed her needs just enough to keep her happy, and not enough to exhaust what little reserves of energy he had.
He was endless, but he was tired. Always tired, but determined.]
One day, you'll actually begin to keep count.
[He drinks the water he's been given perhaps a touch faster than he ought to in favor of freeing himself from the chilly bathwater. There is ample warning in how he pulls the plug from the tub first -- but he isn't about to wait much longer than it takes to drain down to his midsection. Alastair stands and steps free of the bathtub, grabbing the towel off the rack to make himself decent before standing opposite of her.]
It isn't so bad, is it?
[It wasn't often he asked questions, but Isabeau's opinion is the only one he really cares for. Their current dwellings were seemingly free of strife, struggle, and filth. Admittedly, its a change -- a big change that makes some of Alastair uncomfortable, even knowing there were others like him lurking about.
But its all the unknowns that keep him from getting too comfortable.]
[She does him the favor of raising her eyes to the ceiling as the bath drains and he extricates himself from it. There's a chip in the paint by the light fixture. It will need to be remedied before the moisture begins to take hold, before it begins to bubble and peel. She'd rather like her security deposit back if they ever have the means to shift out of this little place with its cheap carpets and odd laminate counters--]
Isn't it?
[She says it without thinking, dropping her attention back to him. Even when she has a moment to consider what's just left her mouth, she isn't surprised by it. --Maybe she's just surprised by him asking.]
To be sure, the air here is cleaner and there's rather less blood in the streets if that's your sort of thing, but-- don't you miss it? London? Knowing exactly the role you were meant to play.
[Christ, she does. Even the part of her that had longed to be done with the Order, to remove herself and be married and have children and manage a house and grow old, misses it. She misses Westminster. She misses dark catacombs. She misses her arc gun and the short sword on her back. She even misses their Father who could unarguably be a cold old man, shackled by tradition (but by God the man had earned the right to be ornery?)
But certainly that isn't why he's asking. That can't be all he wants to hear from her. She does her best to give him that - not just because she somehow owes it to him, but because she wants to. He's her brother and she loves him as terribly as she misses the way things used to be (before poor Mallory had died).]
But I will admit this place affords certain allowances that I wouldn't have otherwise. Namely, that I get to be in your company so often. I've also learned to make a fairly good cup of hot water, you know And-- [Well no one would be astonished if she were to sometimes make her bed elsewhere. No that she has. Not yet, but--] And the people are very kind and sweet.
Sounds like you miss the blood in the streets the most.
[His smile is a flicker, at that. Oh, to be young. His position was privileged, certainly, compared to most lycans. But blood in the streets? That's what he was hoping to avoid. In comparison, this city is...nice, in a way that feels strangely toothless, in a way he still isn't sure how to approach. A place where he doesn't have to fight.
A place where he can finally enjoy a family again, in a way he hadn't since before he could remember.]
I miss my routine.
[And--yes, that was it, really. He couldn't miss father, especially as of late. Not when everything was so rapidly beginning to bear down upon him, not when soon, he would be forced to subjugate him or kill him. And, knowing his father, it would not have ended cleanly or kindly.
At the mention of the people, his tone changes. From his brotherly tone, to his Knight-Commander tone.]
[She sniffs and takes a sip of her hot water. It's not like that at all. She could happily trade away the lycan hunting, but isn't she allowed to miss what had come of it? How close they once all were - bound by some common purpose and truth. The fact that it was broken before they'd even come to this place doesn't escape her of course, but everything about Eudio serves as a bitter reminder of it.
Luckily Lucan is more than capable of keeping her from becoming too terribly grim. No one else would know it, but the man's sense of humor isn't so dead as it seems. She makes a short noise, rolls her eyes.]
For conversation? Of course. There are two or three perfectly interesting people to talk to in this city. Occasionally I told their hand while we do it. [She raises her cup and arches an eyebrow. God save the Queen and all that tosh.]
And you? Don't tell me you're staying so fit just because you prefer it.
[Truthfully, Alastair was about as interested in what he believed the aims of Eudio to be as Isabeau likely was. Perhaps even less -- to sire another lycan would be to willingly curse his would-be bedmate. The idea was appealing because it was an idea. In practice -- well. He had other things to be concerned with. And what was the point, if not to build a family?
He'd bet on a more prosperous future, yet here he was.
But he'd spent many years telling stories that were not his own, so Isi gets another brief flicker of amusement across his face before he offers her his reply.]
Would that be so unbelievable? You've seen more lycans in a fortnight than I have in almost a year's time. I would grow a belly in short order. Who would hold my hand then?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dont ever say i didnt do anything for me i mean you
[Isabeau had spent many of her days reminding him how much she hated their living arrangements. The degrees of separation between them, the cramped space, the loneliness of a one-bedroom apartment in a city that thirsted for their companionship. Alastair had divested himself of some otherwise ingrained notions about the company they were meant to keep, but not enough to keep himself from monitoring his sister's day-to-day.
He had caved not long after that conversation, foregoing the furnishings he had promised her to instead move to share one dour kitchen, one dour bath. The bed he left for her in spite of all of her protests, with promises that he would seek out something better for both of them within the following weeks. It was a promise, to no one's surprise, that he was having trouble making good on.
The weeks don't yield much, other than compounding headaches. Lycans in the city, and a team of hunters who don't know any better about the wolf in sheep's clothing with his hands on their shoulders. The tension hadn't lessened, and Alastair hadn't softened enough to allow himself much polite company outside of his sister's -- but his boundaries regarding her had softened considerably.
It is why he hardly reacts when he hears her come down the short hall, doesn't bother to close the door while he nurses a strong drink what had been the privacy of his own bath. He'd gone weeks without incident, but his bones ached the longer he went without something to occupy him. False assignments to monitor lycan activity weren't enough anymore.
He only bothers to look up and offer a greeting when she happens to pass by the door on the way to the living room.]
You'd said half past five, did you not?
[Well, not exactly a greeting, but he does manage to smile when he says it. A jest -- maybe.]
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None of these things are why she'd been out today though. She'd cancelled Cassandras lesson for the afternoon - best to let Lucan think her attending to them than otherwise - and had instead spent the day in Mister Wayne's company: walking alongside him in the afternoon sun, sitting near him in the grass, ordering him to lay his head in her lap so she might stroke her fingers through his dark hair and consider the possibility of more.
--For England of course, she thinks even now as she pulls the door to the cramped flat shut behind her. She meditatively removes her earrings and places them in the small china bowl along with her keys. There's a small pinch to her brow, a pressure in her chest that feels both feather light and heavy as a stone; for a moment her hand strays to the clasp of her gorget at the nape of her neck, then she thinks better of herself. Better to leave it be for just a while longer. It's a good reminder for why she's here - something encouraging and solid to firm up the ridiculous butterfly feeling low in her belly. Tea might help too. Hot water and lemon, at least. Shaking herself, Isabeau moves down the short hall with every intention of reaching the kitchen to put the kettle on.
Lucan's voice through the half open door distracts her though. She catches herself up, touching the door and peeking through to the washroom without much ceremony (spoilers: baths are practically an invitation for visitors, even if he really should be wearing a gown if he's going to be entertaining). She sets her cheek against the frame, her hand lingering at the knob.]
The lesson ran long. I should have called.
[Does she smell like that small dusty music shop? Or does she smell like the glow of summer, cut grass and something sweet, the spice of a man's cologne?]
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The tell is that he stays quiet for just a beat longer than he ought to, though he manages to keep his eyes on her rather than advert them in some childish gesture of frustration.
She's a grown woman, after all. He supposes he should be pleased it isn't Grayson. That is a scent he would never forget. Alastair pulls his hands up and folds them on his chest, elbows resting on the edge of the bath when he does.]
You should have. We are still chest deep in lycans, Isi.
[Not that he doesn't believe she could protect herself if one of them did decide one day to go rabid, but it helps to keep up appearances. And concerns.]
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[Smug AF.]
Have you done anything at all today, or have you determined to simply brine yourself and be finished?
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I prepared a meal, picked up the flat, and enjoyed the sun for a few hours. I had thought to share at least one of those activities with you, but once again I am burdened with the mantle of responsibility.
[He lifts his hands in the the most exaggerated and wistful manner he could manage -- which wasn't very dramatic at all, in the end. Poor, stiff Alastair D'Argyll.]
What's a brother to do?
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[Were she not standing against the door frame, she might manage a haughty quirk of the line of her shoulders; as it is, she makes do with the angle of her eyebrow and a flash of the top row of her teeth.]
I planned on hot water and lemon. Would you care for some?
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His sigh makes some bubbles on the surface, and he adjusts himself to rise out of the water. He's not moping.]
I suppose.
[Ok, maybe he's moping a little.]
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For God's sake, stay put. I'll bring it to you.
[Let the poor man continue to stew if that's what he preferred. She withdraws from the doorway accordingly without bothering to pull the door shut behind her. All in all, it takes her perhaps ten minutes to fix them something. The kettle runs very hot and fast and she's never been so silly as to not know how to cut and squeeze a lemon. Thank Heaven for her place in the Order; she can't begin to believe how pathetic she might have been in Eudio city had she spent her entire adulthood doing nothing but plunking away on the pianoforte and lounging in silks. She orders the cups on their saucers (the first pointed purchase she'd made outside of a new wardrobe), and fetches both bath to the washroom where she fully expects Alistair to still be submerged.
She shoulders the door open and has not even the thought of hesitation much less the pretense of shame as she carries in the two cups and sets one just there on the edge of the bath. She flips down the lid of the toilet and tosses a towel over it, then perches there, fighting the inclination to put her feet up on the tub's edge (her boots are dirty from the park).]
There. Now I expect no more complaints.
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The truth is, he's beginning to prune, and the water has stopped steaming. The bubbles still cover a thin film on top of the water, but the red on his skin from the heat has started to fade to gooseflesh. Alastair is careful to reach for his cup slowly, so as to not jostle the porcelain and ruin all of her hard work.]
None.
[He pulls the sauce to his chest and glances up to her with a raised eyebrow as if to ask ever again? He gives it no voice -- wouldn't want her to get the idea that he was going soft, after all.
But he can still smell that aftershave -- more, now that she's so close.]
Forgive me for wanting to spend more time with you.
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And looks at him, her her mouth faintly pinched and her eyebrows raised by some narrow margin. In any other circumstance - if they were home, for example -, she might make fun of him. But they're very far from it, and she can sympathize with kind of homesickness. With wanting to be near to something or someone who makes sense when so very little else does.] I suppose. Just this once.
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He was endless, but he was tired. Always tired, but determined.]
One day, you'll actually begin to keep count.
[He drinks the water he's been given perhaps a touch faster than he ought to in favor of freeing himself from the chilly bathwater. There is ample warning in how he pulls the plug from the tub first -- but he isn't about to wait much longer than it takes to drain down to his midsection. Alastair stands and steps free of the bathtub, grabbing the towel off the rack to make himself decent before standing opposite of her.]
It isn't so bad, is it?
[It wasn't often he asked questions, but Isabeau's opinion is the only one he really cares for. Their current dwellings were seemingly free of strife, struggle, and filth. Admittedly, its a change -- a big change that makes some of Alastair uncomfortable, even knowing there were others like him lurking about.
But its all the unknowns that keep him from getting too comfortable.]
Aside from Father's absence, of course.
[Also: fuck him.]
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Isn't it?
[She says it without thinking, dropping her attention back to him. Even when she has a moment to consider what's just left her mouth, she isn't surprised by it. --Maybe she's just surprised by him asking.]
To be sure, the air here is cleaner and there's rather less blood in the streets if that's your sort of thing, but-- don't you miss it? London? Knowing exactly the role you were meant to play.
[Christ, she does. Even the part of her that had longed to be done with the Order, to remove herself and be married and have children and manage a house and grow old, misses it. She misses Westminster. She misses dark catacombs. She misses her arc gun and the short sword on her back. She even misses their Father who could unarguably be a cold old man, shackled by tradition (but by God the man had earned the right to be ornery?)
But certainly that isn't why he's asking. That can't be all he wants to hear from her. She does her best to give him that - not just because she somehow owes it to him, but because she wants to. He's her brother and she loves him as terribly as she misses the way things used to be (before poor Mallory had died).]
But I will admit this place affords certain allowances that I wouldn't have otherwise. Namely, that I get to be in your company so often. I've also learned to make a fairly good cup of hot water, you know And-- [Well no one would be astonished if she were to sometimes make her bed elsewhere. No that she has. Not yet, but--] And the people are very kind and sweet.
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[His smile is a flicker, at that. Oh, to be young. His position was privileged, certainly, compared to most lycans. But blood in the streets? That's what he was hoping to avoid. In comparison, this city is...nice, in a way that feels strangely toothless, in a way he still isn't sure how to approach. A place where he doesn't have to fight.
A place where he can finally enjoy a family again, in a way he hadn't since before he could remember.]
I miss my routine.
[And--yes, that was it, really. He couldn't miss father, especially as of late. Not when everything was so rapidly beginning to bear down upon him, not when soon, he would be forced to subjugate him or kill him. And, knowing his father, it would not have ended cleanly or kindly.
At the mention of the people, his tone changes. From his brotherly tone, to his Knight-Commander tone.]
Have you found someone to your liking, then?
[So he can
gutscreen them.]no subject
Luckily Lucan is more than capable of keeping her from becoming too terribly grim. No one else would know it, but the man's sense of humor isn't so dead as it seems. She makes a short noise, rolls her eyes.]
For conversation? Of course. There are two or three perfectly interesting people to talk to in this city. Occasionally I told their hand while we do it. [She raises her cup and arches an eyebrow. God save the Queen and all that tosh.]
And you? Don't tell me you're staying so fit just because you prefer it.
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[Truthfully, Alastair was about as interested in what he believed the aims of Eudio to be as Isabeau likely was. Perhaps even less -- to sire another lycan would be to willingly curse his would-be bedmate. The idea was appealing because it was an idea. In practice -- well. He had other things to be concerned with. And what was the point, if not to build a family?
He'd bet on a more prosperous future, yet here he was.
But he'd spent many years telling stories that were not his own, so Isi gets another brief flicker of amusement across his face before he offers her his reply.]
Would that be so unbelievable? You've seen more lycans in a fortnight than I have in almost a year's time. I would grow a belly in short order. Who would hold my hand then?