chef_chocobro | MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

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MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

Even though it seemed like this week had provided copious examples of attempts to the contrary, it turned out that Ignis actually couldn't spend all his spare time with Liliana and would, in fact, spend time with other people, too. Well, with the other person he spent all of his spare time with. He certainly wouldn't want to overstay his welcome, and they were both clearly the sort of people who had lives beyond the blissful bubble of each other's company that they'd come to discover and had other things to do that day...

...Well, it seemed Liliana did, anyway. Ignis...had a make-up training session to attend to to appease his roommate, after which there was to be take-out because he was quite frankly a little exhausted and wanted to unwind a little with food made by someone else for a change and a glass of wine. And to at least make a marginal attempt to distract himself from wanting to be somewhere else and in different company again already.

No offense, of course, to Gladio.

"So," said Gladio from the couch, no doubt already leaving dusting of rice from his take-out container around where he sat, "what should I put on? Cooking shows to make you mad, or sports shows to make me mad?"

Okay, he took that back. Some offense to Gladio, after all.

[[ for those who know who they are and with some helpful little morsels of OCD like the rice Iggy'll find in the couch cushions later; CW for someone almost fucking dying ]]

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Honestly, up until this last month, Ignis had been feeling dreadfully bored since arriving back here, really...

And while he couldn't exactly look back, he did feel the turn of her head and her eyes now on him and turned his head toward her in kind.

"Well," he stated, plainly, simply, he felt perhaps even a little obviously, "it would certainly be better than you trying to go up against them all by yourself."

It had clearly gone so well for her this time, after all.

Liliana huffed. "He didn't even have the chance to touch me," she informed him. "I left him in ashes around his gaudy throne room and he the most he could do was beg."

She'd nearly been taken out by friendly fire, thank you very much. Or whatever the Chain Veil was.

*Vessel of destruction...*

She was ignoring you, stupid spirits.

She also very nearly subjected Ignis to a frosty few moments, but her curiosity outweighed her displeasure. "And what in Phyrexia is Stark?" she snapped. "When he offered to help, I didn't know he meant with dying!"

Edited 2023-10-08 15:30 (UTC)

The light kiss now against Liliana's shoulder at the start of that potential frosty few moments was an apologetic one, and it became even more so with her question.

"I don't know," he admitted, shaking his head lightly. "I'm sorry. If I had had any idea that that was what he meant, I would have never..."

And he was still terribly unclear on what had happened, but, with the wide gaps in his perception of the event, Liliana had still managed to actually recover somehow, and for that, even if he didn't understand it, he was grateful.

That had once again been Liliana taking care of herself, thank you. She'd been doing it for two hundred years ~~and it had only gotten her enslaved by four demons~~.

"I should hope not," she sniffed. "Doesn't he work at the clinic?"

See? She had been absolutely right not to go.

"He sat down and took off his mask and glowed at me and at first it felt comforting. Soothing. Like my m--" She stumbled over that and then pretended that she hadn't, like a cat that had fully fallen on its face but wasn't going to acknowledge it. "Like warmth and softness. But rather than healing, it was just... telling me that it was okay to let go. To move on. That he'd help me pass. And then..." She stopped and just shuddered.

"Bad," she managed to say. "Then it got bad."

And she'd been so weak, so helpless. Everything she'd fought for two centuries to never feel again.

The intake of Ignis' breath at the words for how Stark had been apparently trying to help--to move on, to help her pass--matched the tension that suddenly caused the stiffness in his body, tension and a dull reminder of pain burning over his scars.

Then a long hesitation before he ventured, "Bad how?"

A long breath, and then said with the same lightness he'd heard that morning, when she'd dismissed their conversation about perfection, "Like something was trying to drag me down, slowly by inches, but inexorable." A sigh, like it had been all so very tedious, "And it was choking me, so I couldn't breathe. Or speak. Lying there--" On his lap "--unable to even whisper for help, even if I'd wanted to."

Which she had. Desperately. She just wasn't going to say that. For reasons.

Edited 2023-10-08 19:14 (UTC)

And him, the whole time, able to feel that something was going terribly, horribly wrong, but unable to do anything to actually help. In fact, having made it worse in his desperate attempts to find any help at all.

Ignis didn't say anything, at first. What could he say, besides an endless litany of apologies that wouldn't do anything to go back in time to change anything? An endless march of apologies for which he could only even half-heartedly feel because, even if he didn't understand how, it had lead to her here, now, better...far from good, but at least not nearly lifeless and helpless on his living room floor.

He didn't say anything still, not knowing what to say, but he did lift one of her hands in his, and, feeling the slight echo of something she's said not too long ago that felt like it had been ages when their fingers had been similarly laced--Happy. Perfect day.--to kiss her fingertips in lieu of the words currently failing him.

He couldn't even reassure her that it was over now, at least. Not when she'd still had three more to look forward to.

"So I lifelinked us," Liliana said softly, deliberately turning her mind away from that moment. And exactly what it had reminded her of.

"And through that," Ignis guessed, his voice reflecting hers in its softly, "you were able to pull yourself back?"

"He wished to use his glow to kill me," Liliana said, voice resolute and unforgiving. "I decided to use it to stay alive, instead." Then, in a drawl. "I am aware of the irony, yes."

"I much prefer your application," Ignis stated firmly, letting it be known for the record where he was going to stand on the matter.

"I was...tempted," she murmured. Or, well, had been tempted. "To do that. Earlier. Before he arrived. But I wasn't sure--" She idly rubbed a washcloth over her leg, a moment. "When I've done that before, it was until either they were dead or I was completely healed. And this seemed like a poor time to experiment."

There was a long, long pause after that, so long that maybe Liliana might have started to suspect that Ignis might not say anything at all, but then, he did.

"You would have only been doinv," he said, his words very slow and steady and chosen with heavy, deliberate intent, "what needed to be done."

"I likely would have," she said, looking dead at him, making no bones about it. She was who she was, Ignis. And you should know that. "Rather than dying. But then Stark tried--and I no longer worried about if I could stop."

She was who she was.

And Ignis was who he, and she should know that by now, surely. It was a combination that did not bode well for him any way you sliced it, and yet he found it impossible to actually care.

If he'd known...

...but it would seem his ignorance actually had worked in his favor for once, and he had a hard time feeling bad about that, too.

He hadn't even asked; he just assumed...

He'd gotten off easy.

"Come on," Ignis said, speaking after enough time that it got caught in his throat a little, as he shifted around a new complicated tangle of emotions that was going to be quite the task to unravel, "let's get you put of this quickly cooling water and into some nice, warm clothes, on a good soft bed..."

Liliana let him help her out of the bath, wrap her in a towel, and lead her into his bedroom. Silent and thoughtful, but also absolutely exhausted. Sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for him to hand over pajamas, she said, almost too quietly to be heard - well, by anybody but Ignis anyway - "I would have asked. For you, I would have asked."

Gladio, too. Depending on how desperate she'd been. But that was more out of enlightened self-interest than because she actually cared for permission.

But Ignis, she would have asked.

Ignis' hands, shiftinv and searching through a dresser drawer, stopped at that. The pause lingered, before his head turned her way. Just for a moment, and he turned back, selecting a pair of silken pajamas with, almost purely out of coincidence, a deep purple paisley pattern on them.

"You wouldn't have had to," he said, probably unnecessarily, "but I appreciate that.

"These," he then said, handing the pajamas out for her, "have always fit a bit snug, so I'm sure they'll be a suitable enough fit."

Don't encourage her worst instincts, Ignis. That was how Darkfire happened.

Liliana stood, letting the towel fall from her body, and reached for the pajamas. Look, even if Ignis couldn't appreciate it visually, Liliana was a woman of drama and aesthetics. "Such quality," she murmured with clear approval. Again, their fingers brush, her fingers much warmer than they'd been before the bath. "Thank you," she murmured. "I didn't--" Again, that pause, but this time she pushed on and made herself finish. "I didn't know where else to go. Other than to my house, but I would have been alone."

Oh, worry not. The effect was not lost at all; Ignis could greatly appreciate that soft, subtle sound of the towel hitting the floor and pooling at her feet.

And his fingers lingered against hers as much as they could, appreciating that newfound warmth in them even more than the touch itself.

His head shook lightly. "I'm glad you came here," he said. "I'm glad I could be here for you."

Even as utterly and dismally ineffective and unhelpful as he may have been.

The whisper of silk being drawn over skin, and then she stepped forward, cupping his face and brushing her thumbs over his cheeks. "I am not used to having someone to whom I could go." She pulled his face down for a soft kiss, first his mouth and then his forehead. "I'll try not to overstay my welcome."

"Impossible," Ignis insisted lightly, resting his forehead against Liliana's as he brushed a hand through her hair at her shoulders, as if arranging it a little so it fell just so, just right. "You're welcome for as long as you need...

"Or as long as you want, anyway," he amended. "It'll only be a matter of time before my roommate attempts to drag you into early morning runs."

"Absolutely not," Liliana declared, her hands falling to his shoulders. "Before noon, you know I cannot be held responsible for my actions."

Don't make her move back to her place to 'sleep in' until the construction started.

"Just promise me one thing," Ignis said, smiling for what felt like the first time in a while, still a faint light thing, because it was still Ignis, but warm and calling up the those halcyon hours of their actual morning. "Promise you'll escape before he gets the opportunity to talk to you about Cup Noodles^TM."

Edited 2023-10-09 01:28 (UTC)

"He eats his noodles in cups?" Liliana asked from a position of enviable innocence.

"I've already said too much," said Ignis, the kiss on Liliana's forehead an apology of sorts. "But yes, he does. He makes them in that cup, and calling them noodles is being kind."

MHA #18; Saturday Evening [10/07].

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