The Creepy But Fairly Lived In At This Point Mansion, Wednesday Night

[deathsmajesty]

The ballroom was quickly taking shape into something not just usable for a party, but into something impressive and Liliana was getting more and more excited about it. According to the contractor, the ballroom should be ready at the beginning of next week, giving her plenty of time to...do the fliers or whatever to inform people that the party was happening and also get it properly decorated.

Which meant that it was time to focus on the other important aspect of the party: her costume. She was idly going through different ideas now, sketching them out to bring to her modiste in Ravnica. Did she want to be some kind of woodland elf from Llanowar? A ghastly member of the Obzedat? One of Queen Oona's faerie courtiers?

The fire crackled and Josu snored at her feet while Liliana sat back with a glass of wine from Ignis' care basket and sketched out the various possibilities and vague ideas that sprang to mind.

[For the unexpected guest!]

Comments

[chef_chocobro]

Were there laws against drunk portaling? Sometime during the next morning (or, let's be more realistic, afternoon), Ignis would certainly be thinking there should be, but, as it was, the poetry that Liliana had sent him the night before had him stumbling along a deeply thoughtful and morose path that continued on through far too many drinks and jello shots at Summer's party, bringing up spectres of the past from even further back than even all that coffee and brimstone and war. At some point, Gladio had expressed his concern.

"Don't you think you oughta slow down a bit there, buddy?" "No, I don't think I do."

"I'm going to have to carry your ass back to the room later, won't I?" Followed by a long, long pause and a resolute: "I assure you, Gladio, you will NOT."

And that was what led him here, after stumbling his way out the door, hand to the wall to guide him down the hallway as he fished around his for phone, then made it down to the lobby where he felt he could be granted a modicum of privacy to instruct it to pull up the portalocity app and schedule one for Fandom for as soon as possible.

Then out into the wood down, down the now terribly familiar path, until he stopped and ordered his phone again, but, this time, to send a voice text to Liliana's phone, after taking a breath to bolster himself and try to at least keep some of the inevitable slur out of the usual precise drawl of his voice:

"Hello, my darling, it's...well, I'm sure you'll know who this is. But I suggest that you perhaps come to your door, because, wouldn't you know it? It appears I've decided to be terribly uncouth again and come calling at an ungodly hour.

But don't worry. I've also brought wine. I may be uncouth, but I'm not a complete boor."

Yes, he may have pilfered it from Summer's supply at the party, but...well, if she didn't want him enjoying it, then perhaps she shouldn't have purchased so appealing a vintage.

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana was already smiling as she reached for her phone; it wasn't like there was an overabundance of people trying to call her, regardless of her concerns to Summer upon first purchase. Her smile turned to surprise and then to confusion as the message went on.

Ignis? Here? He was supposed to be in New Zealand!

Which was why she was out of the divan in seconds, belting a dressing gown over her diaphanous nightgown and brushing right by her steward to go to the front door. "Ignis?" she called, peering out into the darkness beyond the bright circle of light thrown from her open door.

[chef_chocobro]

Liliana would not have to peer far, because Ignis was right there at the door, one of his hands lifted as if he was just about to knock in all of his restlessness to speak with her. But the door opened well before he could get there, and there was the waft of her scent in the air and the sound of her voice playing at one of his favorite sounds it could make, his very own name, and he smiled, a deep, relieved, grateful smile.

"Oh," he breathed out with a sigh, "hello. There you are. I've decided I don't much care for New Zealand. No...no, that's not it, it's not New Zealand, it sounds like a very lovely country and I'm glad for the opportunity to have visited, it's the company I found I didn't care for too much. Because it wasn't you, quite frankly, and then the poetry..."

His breath staggered for a moment, and Ignis leaned against the doorframe after taking a moment to grope for it and reassure himself of its position. He then leaned toward her, as if being drawn closer by her sheer gravity, and a pained expression crossed his face, but it was fleeting, as he thought I should kiss her and he also thought I should probably never kiss her again...

So instead, he lifted up the bottle in his other hand and held it forward. "This," he informed her, "is for you. I've tried some." About half the bottle, in fact. "And it's very good. A nice red. Very rich, very sweet, almost like velvet, would pair excellently with a glazed meat or chocolate. I think you'll like it."

[deathsmajesty]

"Oh!" Liliana said with a small laugh, amusement mixed in with relief as all concern and confusion washed away. "Oh my darling, you're positively foxed, aren't you?"

She took the bottle, barely glancing at it as she passed it backwards to her steward, and then stepped forward to wrap an arm around his middle - less an embrace and more a stabilizing force to draw him away from her doorframe. "You...you're here, halfway across the world from where you're supposed to be, because you found a wine that I might like?"

Though, in fairness to him, it did sound like an absolutely delicious vintage, one she looked forward to trying just as soon as she got him sorted and settled.

"But yes," she added, giving him a soft, merry smile as she tried to tug him upright. "Here I am. You've found me."

[chef_chocobro]

"No," Ignis said, far too honestly and too far gone to think any better of it, but she was there, and now he had physical confirmation, leaning into her and ducking his head toward her neck to breathe in even further confirmation. "The wine is just pretext. I am here because I found that I might like to be with you and only you tonight. I don't know if you've noticed, but I am quite fond of you, perhaps a bit too much, it can be just a bit distress--"

You should really stop talking.

"We need glasses," he decided firmly. "For the wine."

[deathsmajesty]

He was drunk! Very drunk! And fondness...well, 'too fond' could mean anything. Any number of things, even! Like deciding on a drunken whim to return home to her the island. And that was why her heart had suddenly started beating faster when he'd said that, amusement at him being absolutely drunk. She hadn't realized he'd be a chatty drunk, it was all rather delightful.

"My steward will fetch us glasses," she said, shooing him away with one hand when he stepped forward to help. With a groan, he turned to fetch the stemware while Liliana and Ignis made their way into the parlor.

"With me and only me tonight?" she asked, turning her face up to him. Barefoot and without her headdress, the two inches separating their heights felt much more pronounced.

Or perhaps that was simply because everything suddenly felt almost...portentous right now. For no good reason, clearly.

[chef_chocobro]

"With you and only you," Ignis repeated, because it was important, it was everything right now, and, oh no, his hands had found her hair now and made haste on getting lost in it. "For as long as you'll have me."

And the faint ache in his voice at the end of that statement made it clearly he spoke of well beyond (hopefully) just tonight, and that ache meant he could no longer keep himself from kissing her, hungry, desperate, with a mouth tasting of chocolate and cherries and a hint of cinnamon sweetness along with that sweet velvety red wine, those few inches between them an unfathomable distance he could not allow any longer.

[deathsmajesty]

It was...good...that he was kissing her right now. Because then she could pretend that the ache meant something else, or perhaps that she didn't hear it at all, that the intensity was just from the wine and whatever else he'd drunk, that the For as long as you'll have me just meant that he was worried she'd kick him out tonight for being too intoxicated, too uncouth to stay.

It meant she could pretend like her heart wasn't crashing against her ribs when he said that, that his words hadn't stolen her breath, that they didn't make her ache like something broken deep inside her, so long now it was foundational, had shifted a little closer to mending.

Mending had never done anything good for her, though, had it?

Because under all those things lurked fear. So much fear. And not even all of that fear was selfish. Some of it was fear of hurting him, fear of ruining something precious - not even what they had but what he was, because that was what she did, she ruined precious and important things.

Just ask Jace.

And if she faced those fears, admitted that she had reason to face them, she would have to take steps and she was far, far too selfish to do that and so she pretended. She pretended he hadn't meant and she hadn't heard and certainly neither of them felt-- And she kissed him back with all the same depths of hunger and desperation, tasting like sweet white wine and candied fruits and rich, dark berries. Her hair was raw silk that curled and clung to his fingers, like it was also trying to tangle him deeper, further, and she molded herself against his body until air could barely pass between them.

He was drunk, of course. Drunk and had missed her, and he'd mentioned poetry. He was clearly all mixed up, sublimating all of that raw emotion raised by the poems she'd sent. And that was good, yes. Safe. Nothing to fear.

And she was...careful. In control. Pleased he'd returned to her, pleased he was so securely wrapped around a finger, to dote on and adore her.

And better yet, this time, no one holding her strings had set her into this man's path to manipulate and betray him. So even if--

She stopped that thought in its tracks by kissing him even harder.

"I'm here," she whispered, in the space between one bruising kiss and the next. "Stay."

[chef_chocobro]

"Well, I certainly didn't come all the way here just to turn right back around again."

It had literally been the press of a button or two, but okay, Ignis. Still, that kiss and the intensity there, the pouring of everything he had in him, ignite that spark of dry humor in him again, and it came put almost as a hungry growl against her lips. Abandoning her hair for a moment, Ignis's hands dropped to Liliana's hips, distracted for a moment (maybe longer than that, his perception of time right now was not the best, before wrapped his arms around her and started to awkwardly bring her with him as he stepped backwards, feeling around for somewhere he could sit and pull her in with him.

"Good luck getting rid of me."

But already the bravado had faded, tempered by the oppressive knowledge that she easy could and not even break a sweat doing it.

[deathsmajesty]

The divan stretched out invitingly, a mostly-empty wineglass to the side of it and a sketchbook open to some fashion sketches (for men and women, curious...), both of them easily moved out of the way if necessary.

"Welllllllll..." Liliana said, drawing out the word. "Lucky for you, I'm not in a ridding kind of mood this evening, so I don't believe I'll be using any luck for that at all." She kissed him again, easing him gently backwards onto the low slung couch.

"...I'm glad you're here," she murmured to him, tempted to elaborate but already certain she'd said too much. Except her traitor mouth apparently didn't receive the stop order in time. "I like that you chose to come to me."

[chef_chocobro]

Oh, the soft whimper that escaped Ignis at hearing her being glad he was there...was like a floodgate bursting that washed away any last thread of smug repartee away from him, and he buried it in another kiss that longed to distract from it, only it was too deeply rooted to do anything but emphaize it.

"Hardly any choice in the matter..."

[deathsmajesty]

Darling, you were far too drunk to be smug about anything at the moment.

Though, it was that whimper that saved him, underscored that his lack of choice was poetic, not literal, calmed the hackles that had almost started to rise. She was perched across his lap, one of his arms braced behind her back, the other across her hips while she twisted slightly to twine her around his neck.

"What a glorious compulsion I have woven," she teased, kissing down his jaw, "and without any mana to do it with, either. So tell me, my bound darling, what is it about tonight that made it impossible to ignore?"

Was it the alcohol? Liliana was betting alcohol.

[chef_chocobro]

The hand at Liluana's back started to move, fingers massaging lightly as his brain tried to peer past the muddled fog of the alcohol, grasping for an answer. A few things surfaced, almost came out, then retreated back, his previous candor and babbling held back as each answer was deemed insufficient before it could even escape him, until there was only one thing that finally slipped out.

"Everything," he said, his usual eloquence muddled and reduced to a single word. "Just..." The sigh was heavy and resigned and overflowing with worship, " everything."

[deathsmajesty]

Liliana pulled his glasses off, set them aside, and placed gentle kisses on each eyelid. "Well, now you're here," she murmured. "And if everything caused you to come here to me, then there's nothing that can make you leave again." She stroked his hair and let his head come rest on her shoulder.

And that sounded pretty good to her.

At least for the night, which was all she'd let herself think like this about.

Later, she would help him upstairs to bed, and text Gladio to make sure he knew where Ignis was and that he didn't have to worry. Later she would softly caretake and come up with reasons to assure herself she wasn't caretaking at all and if she were, why it didn't matter.

For right now though, all they had to do was stay.

Just stay.