it's solace. [ian]

Ian
It isn't long since Ian arrived home. He spent the day in the Rockies, free-climbing on a peak that he hadn't been on in nearly a year. At that elevation, the temperature had dropped to below freezing and there'd been both ice and snow to contend with, along with the wind. One could argue that he'd been tempting fate a little. And... well, perhaps he had been. But the landscape was beautiful, and there's something to be said for the visceral thrill of conquering something so much greater than yourself with nothing but your own hands and stubborn will.

Standing atop that peak, staring at the cloud-blanketed sky while snow fell in tiny biting crystals against his skin, the world seemed both vast and small.

(I am not here to seek the crazy wisdom; if I am, I shall never find it. I am here to be here, like these rocks and sky and snow, like this hail that is falling down out of the sun.)

He cut his hand on the rock-face - a jagged scrape that now runs down the side of his palm. There was a thought towards healing it when he got home, but it isn't deep enough to need stitches and something about it feels like a reminder. He may yet fix it later. As of now it's been cleaned and bandaged with a strip of soft gauze.

He's tired, his muscles aching in a way that reminds him he's still human. Shortly after getting home, he took a hot shower and changed into a fresh set of clothes. Now he's sitting barefoot on the sofa with a cup of jin hou cha tea, watching a Wong Kar-Wai movie. This is a ritual he's been repeating for a quite a few years now, on his birthday. When he got home, there was a present from Emma sitting in front of his door - a bottle of his favorite wine and a book she thought he might like. She also texted to remind him that he didn't have to be alone (implied but not stated: that he shouldn't be alone.)

There are certain times of the year when being alone becomes a habit.

KiaraIt isn't something she does a lot.

Showing up like this, unannounced. Without even so much as a text to ask if he was busy or, even more reasonably, home. She honestly had no idea if he would be but her aimless navigation of the city streets had wound her back to a block from Ian's apartment and somehow, relentlessly, her mind wouldn't let her rest from the idea of going there.

Being here.

There were a lot of things her mind wouldn't let her rest from lately and almost all of them stemmed from her own apartment. She could feel the lingering manifestations of it in her walls, bleeding from the floorboards - the residue of the Artist's presence; the blood that had been spilled because of him. Talking to Grace had proven to be unexpectedly unhelpful; her skin still carried that vague itch beneath it. As if it were pulled too tightly across her bones, constricting her.

The truth was: she didn't want to go home.

So, Ian's on the sofa and there's a ritual that is his on this day, a private reflection and then:

(Does he feel her? Like a conjuring perhaps to go along with Emma's words, you don't have to be alone and suddenly, the tingling, familiar sensation of vitality, life renewed nearby)

There's a knock at the door. It's not hurried or desperate but - precise. Not a wrong number, not a neighbor who had misplaced their keys. Standing there on his doorstep with her hands buried in the pockets of a zip up jacket, hood half drawn over her features is Kiara. Her dark hair loose and wild where it spilled out from beneath that hood and her expression, when she lifts her chin, troubled.

She looks pale, even as the edge of her mouth draws up in greeting.

Ian[awareness]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )

IanWhen he hears the knock, the first thought he has is Emma. There are not many people in Denver who know where he lives, and even fewer who would think to visit him today. He pauses the movie and glances at the door. Considers, briefly, not answering.

Because as much as he appreciates Emma, he doesn't really want to see her right now. And if it's almost anyone else, he wants to see them even less.

But it isn't Emma. He realizes that about ten seconds later, while he's debating whether or not to answer the door. He's sitting there with his tea mug warming the skin on his palms, his body quietly motionless, when he feels that whisper of life seeping in past his door. It surprises him enough that he tilts his head and lifts an ear as though in suspicion of his own senses.

Then he sets the tea down and gets up to answer the door. When it opens, there, indeed, is Kiara - standing in the hallway with her hood up and her hair a little wild. Ian takes in the sight of her (the expression in her eyes) and his brow creases with concern. "Hey. Is everything alright?" He steps aside to allow her in, closing the door once she's past the threshold.

[Empathy]

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )

KiaraHe's seen the glimpses of trauma lingering on her before. The physical signs of reality taking offense to something she's conjured (or attempted to). He's seen the traces of exhaustion etched into the circles beneath her eyes, too. It feels a little like a pattern, now. The way it stained Kiara, seemed to manifest as a physical drain on her inner vitality, that bright spark that was spun around the Verbena.

Something was very far from alright.

He can see it in the careful way she lets herself into his apartment and holds herself, hands in her pockets, only leaving to shake back her hood. As if she were tentative about the idea of touching him - or anything else. There's traces of that same antsy, uncertain energy that had been there the other night when he gave her his mother's necklace.

KiaraIt isn't Emma.

In most circumstances the surprise visitor at his door would probably have been cause for relief (or happiness). Which wasn't to say that she didn't seem pleased to see him, when he pulls open the door there is that little half smile that surfaces but it's brief and seems muted by whatever it is that's brought her to see him tonight.

"Hey."

She sweeps her hood down when he steps aside to let her in and the brunette's hands return to the pockets of her jacket, her dark eyes taking in the paused film on the screen, the steaming cup resting on the coffee table. "I didn't mean to interrupt your plans - " she seems upset, if distracted, even as she says as much, swinging back to face him; dark eyes briefly meeting his before they dart off, to the side.

To the floor.

Her heart-rate is elevated, beating with a sort of built up freneticism, as if she'd been talking herself into a fine frenzy all the way to his apartment. "I was just in the area and I thought maybe - but if this is a bad time, I can go. I just, um - " She steps closer to him and her hands finally emerge from her pockets, reaching to touch the edges of his clothing, to breathe in the clean scent of him.

"I missed you."

IanThe bandage on his hand isn't the only evidence of injury. There are bruises, too: dark little rorschach marks here and there on his arms. They aren't especially dramatic-looking, but it's clear he was doing something physical earlier in the day - something that left him a little banged up. Whatever it was, it doesn't seem to be causing him any concern. He's dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt. His hair is getting a little long on top, falling loosely to one side of his forehead.

The apartment smells like tea. Ian smells (and looks) like he just took a shower.

She didn't mean to interrupt his plans. There's a tilt of his face at that, a softening to his expression that flirts with gentle amusement before falling back to concern. The agitation and anxiety in Kiara's voice is evident. The tension in her expression. The way her eyes dart here and there (hyper-vigilant.)

I missed you.

"You didn't interrupt anything." (Truth is, he could practically recite that movie from memory for all the times he's seen it.) "And it isn't a bad time." She's close to him now, hands reaching out to make contact, and he leans into it a little, lifting his arms to wrap them carefully around her shoulders. If there's any sign the contact is unwelcome - if she flinches or steps back - he'll lower them again. But if she allows it, he'll pull her closer, pressed in to his chest in a quiet embrace.

He exhales softly. "I missed you too."

It still surprises him sometimes. How much he means that.

"What's wrong?"

Despite mounting concern, he keeps his voice calm. Keeps his energy banked in this quiet, supportive way. Though of course his thoughts aren't quite so peaceful. There are any number of very real, very dangerous circumstances that could be causing Kiara's distress. He tries not to let his imagination run wild with them before she's even had a chance to speak, but... some of the tension shows in his eyes.

KiaraShe'll be angrier in days to come.

Find it takes root inside her mind along with the dreams. Discover she's capable of feeling disgust with herself for not being near to okay with everything that's recently happened. Days, it's only been days and as of now the paranoia and the lingering fear is yet to give way fully to that anger and repressed, half buried truth.

That despite all she'd survived - she'd been altered. That glimpsing the depths of a Nephandus' intent and feeling the cold creep of its presence had been enough to harden her somewhere, deep inside. Hollow her spirit out until she became the same empty husk Michael's past incarnation had become. But right now everything still feels too raw, too fresh and tender to have deepened into anything but glimpses of clear distress.

He gathers her close and she's stiff for a moment before she bends into the embrace; before her fingers scrabble for a grip that's just this side of too tight to be sweet, too desperate to be romantic. Pressed against him, he can feel her heart, beating wildly through layers of clothing.

What's wrong?

She's still for long enough that the dread of it settles, thickens like syrup in the wake of it before she breathes out against him. "I need to tell you something. Something that I thought I'd be okay with and I think that I should be okay with because Grace sure seems to be and I just - " She pulls back, her hands sliding to his hands, taking stock with a sudden shift of focus, of the bandage. Her eyes dart back to his, there's concern and query in that.

She draws it against her chest, his hand. The bandage.

"Last week Michael came back to see me. The - he'd woken up in New Jersey and seemed to believe Alice, this past life of his that was manifesting, had taken him there. It was a lead, you know? It was something. So we decided to try and reach Alice again. To - help her come to terms with the fact she was dead." She lets go of his hand, then. Begins to move around his apartment as if remaining stationary while she recounted this was an impossible feat.

Her dark eyes are bright. "And I did it. I found a way to connect with her. To help her remember. So she could let go. But the Artist - the Nephandus. He noticed." Kiara's arms curl around her body and she rubs them as if she's suddenly, abruptly cold. A quiet tremor threaded through her voice. "I felt him, Ian. He took control of Michael's body and if I hadn't cast precautions before we started - I - " Kiara's mouth flattens, twists. She drops her chin.

"He had my knife." Quiet. There's a little pause before she adds, eyes closed. "He meant to kill me and when he couldn't, he stabbed Michael instead. All I can think about is those eyes staring at me. I can't stop seeing it."

 Ian
His grip around her tightens when she presses into him - perhaps a little more than he intends to - a subtle blossoming of some irrational instinct to keep her close (protected.) He releases her when she pulls back, but not without some small, lingering reluctance.

Kiara thinks she should be okay, and Ian almost says something there, but there's a delicacy to these kinds of moments. Listening to someone unveil their fears. So he doesn't interrupt (doesn't do anything that might derail her.) When she notices the bandage on his hand, he gives this faint, dismissive shake of his head - as though to imply that the injury was a matter of no consequence.

He lets her take his hand though, watching the way she cradles it against her chest.

Then Kiara tells the rest of her story. She lets go of his hand and begins to pace around his apartment. The space isn't much good for that kind of nervous energy, truthfully. The floor space is small, and it's a little too easy to bump into things - to upset the order of the pictures and the furniture. But Ian just lets her move, listening with a dark, worried gaze as she speaks. As she heads further into the apartment, he follows her with silent steps.

"Did Michael survive?"

He's never met the Chakravanti, which makes him feel more theoretical than real, at this point. In truth, his concern is as much for Kiara - on the impact his death might have on her - as it is for the man himself. Ian is standing by the bedroom at this point, and he reaches forward to set his hand carefully on Kiara's arm, drawing down the length of her sleeve until his fingers reach her own. He doesn't grasp her hand so much as linger on it. "Take off your coat." He tips his head toward the bed. "Come sit with me?"

He releases her hand and climbs onto the bed, moving to sit with his back against the headboard.

KiaraThere's a way that she cups the side of her neck in the aftermath of all that, a certain stillness that becomes her that speaks of twined relief and the sudden settling realization of it being spoken - of it being out there, shared between them. As if any moment the phantom memory of the Artist would gather momentum and draw itself into some sentience again.

Would drag all the air from her lungs and slowly suffocate her.

She means to ask about the cuts and the bandage on his hand, it feels like a selfishness to allow it to go unvoiced but the dragging exhaustion (the heaviness) in her whole body lets it be - lets him touch her wrist beneath the sleeve of her jacket and ask her to remove it. Unzips it with a jerky motion that almost reads frustration at the realization there too, that it was still on her body.

That she'd neglected even to take it off before launching into a retelling of all that had happened.

"He's okay. We managed to patch him up and from what Grace told me, he and his students took care of the Artist. He's dead." There's a flatness to that last, as she crawls onto the bed in his wake; beneath her jacket there's a simple white v-neck shirt, twin chains glittering around her neck.

He'll recognize one, he'd put it there only the other night.

She sits there, for just a minute, on her knees, looking across at him. Drags her fingers over the covers of his bed before she joins him, twisting to situate herself in the cradle his body formed. He can almost feel the tension in her slender frame when it settles down in front of him, the strength of it emanating from her. Kiara had always been very good at pushing down on her needs, when she had to.

Apparently, if her current levels of agitation were any indication - she'd done more than tamp down on them, she'd buried them deep and they were bubbling to the surface now in a wash of uncontrollable hysteria.

"I guess that means we won."

 Ian
The cover is soft beneath her fingers when she slides them over the fabric. Ian's winter comforter is thick and deep navy blue with a slight sapphire sheen where the light hits the fabric. High thread count, like his sheets (those are silver-grey.) The bed smells clean - like fabric softener. The frame is heavy and mahogany-stained, the headboard solid behind Ian's back where he rests against it.

Kiara pulls off her jacket like she only just remembered she was wearing it. Drops it somewhere before climbing on the bed with him. Ian has to work to contain the impulse to reach out for her again - to not just grab her and pull her into his arms and hold her there until evening turns to morning and morning into evening again. It says something about her state of mind that she doesn't think to remove her shoes. It says even more about his that, at first, he doesn't even notice.

Michael is okay. Grace is okay. The Artist is dead.

I guess that means we won.

Ian frowns softly when Kiara says this, though relief is evident in his eyes. He shifts a little to make room when Kiara crawls forward to nestle herself against him. They've sat like this before. It brings back memories now - of putting his hands on her back; of watching an eclipse in the park; of countless other quiet, intimate moments. His chest feels warm against her back: firm muscles and strong ribs and the deep, steady drum of his heart. He presses his legs in against the outside of her hips and thighs and leans forward to rest his face against the side of her own. His hands find her shoulders and slide down the length of her arms, slowly. Get to her hands and overlap them, curling them beneath his own, locking their fingers together.

"Life isn't a game where people win or lose. Things just happen. You survived. You're here. And you stopped other people from dying. That matters. But the way you feel right now... that matters too. Everything you went through. You don't have to just... be okay with it. You shouldn't. Because it wasn't okay." There's a pained note that rises in his voice at the end - something he can't quite manage to keep contained.

"I'm sorry I didn't... I should have been there."

Kiara"No, it wouldn't have helped if you had been."

She admits softly, breathing out against the feeling of him, wrapped around her, legs and chest and fingers, twined together. She leans her head back against his shoulder heavily, turning her face into his neck, her nose brushing his skin. "Alice was ... very angry. She'd been targeting men every time she took control of Michael. I think if you'd been there - " She turns her face just slightly to sight their fingers, to move hers against his.

There's the sense of the brunette turning memory over in her mind, dislodging tendrils as if they were stones to be shifted and replaced; broken apart and reforged.

" - I wouldn't have been able to focus if I thought you were in danger. She - I had to send her back. To the Shadowlands. To the place where the dead belong."

He can feel the little shudder that runs through her at that. "It was the only way to break the hold the Fallen One had on Michael's body. She did horrible things, killed people but I wanted her to find peace. She deserved that much. At least, the girl she was, once. Before the Artist got to her did." A beat, she sighs. "I didn't want to do it that way but I had no choice."

Perhaps that is the crux of it, beneath all the buried emotion, the rubble of the emotional deluge: she'd had no choice, in the end. The Nephandus had been the one to force things. To stripe the Verbena of any option but to seek to destroy that which sought to destroy her first. Blood for blood. There was something ancient and ferocious and fitting to it, in the most maudlin sense: the fury of a witch. The scorn of one. Still, there's nothing to the brunette in his arms right now that lends to the idea she was full of that much naked vengeance.

Glimmers, perhaps. Here and there. A certain gleam that surfaced in her eyes at moments, a hardness to her expression when roused to it but - only faint stirrings.

"What happened to your hand?" It feels sudden (is), the way she asks, after a moment, cradling it and opening his palm up to slide her fingers over the bandage.

Kiara(to strip, not stripe. Ahem.)

Ian[Oh let's just deal with this. Life 2, vulgar, diff 6 -1 (personal instrument) -1 (going slow)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 7, 8) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

Ian[and he takes 1 dox, wee]

IanIt wouldn't have helped if he'd been there. The news should offer some relief, but it doesn't. Instead there's just this useless feeling of impotence. That for all his strength and skill, there are still things he cannot protect her from. Burdens that he cannot take from her.

There's a moment when she speaks of the dead when Ian's brow creases - this expression of quiet thought (disagreement, maybe.) But then her body shudders against him and he exhales, squeezing her hands tightly enough that it makes his cut ache beneath the bandage.

"I'm sorry," he offers again, remorse evident in his voice. For a moment he starts to say more, but then... doesn't.

She asks about his hand.

"I cut it while I was climbing. You don't need to worry about it." After a moment of consideration, he retracts that hand carefully from her grasp, biting into the bandage to rip it free of his palm. He tosses the used gauze into the waste basket in the corner, leaning over briefly so he can reach across the bed to get his aim a bit closer. When he settles again, he flexes his hand. The wound cracks a little at the seam, reopening to allow a little well of fresh blood to surface. He brings it to his mouth and bites it. There's a brief flare of pain, and more blood.

That's all part of it though. The healing. He licks his tongue up the length of the cut slowly, tasting the familiar copper-salt tang and closing his eyes as he focuses. Feels his body. Listens to it. Tells it to mend.

And it does. Bruises fade. Flesh knits together. He catches the last traces of blood with his tongue as an afterthought.

(Like a cat, cleaning.)

He didn't need to do it, but he didn't like her worrying about him. Not right now. "I drove up to Longs Peak this morning. Only just got back an hour ago." He slides his arms around her again, this time wrapping them around her waist.

KiaraThat is, of course, the poetry of humanity: to live hard, to love long and to suffer at the hands of both. Living and loving. The exchange was not equal nor would it ever be fair. Nor would it, for either of them, be any less hard to bear the thought of because they could exert their will into the world and shape reality, curve it to suit their needs the way Ian does with his injury.

If anything, the magick made the feeling of helplessness worse.

Kiara had already learned that lesson once: that all the power nature had to offer would not necessarily spare the ones she loved from the hands of those who merely wanted to invert the world. There was no room for color in the monochrome spectrum of the Technocracy. There was barely room for shades of grey. She watches him closely, as he bites at his hand. She makes this little reflexive noise at that: the sight of the blood, the coppery smell of it.

In this, their beliefs were alike: that blood had the potency and strength to fuel magicks.

Some might have turned their faces at the brutality of it, biting down on the split flesh, the gore that was inherent to it but not the Verbena. Not the pagan, she watches as if hypnotized by the manner in which he instructs his body to heal. There's a very focused sort of way she stares at his hand after he's done. Her fingers smoothing along the mended skin with this slight furrow of her brows.

She twists slightly in his arms, then, turning far enough that she can bring their faces together. Far enough that she can kiss him and taste the lingering traces of his blood there on his lips, in his mouth. Kiara's fingers find the edge of his jaw as they often did when she kissed him; cupping it and tracing along the length of it.

Her thumb stroking across his skin.

There's this quiet sound of pleasure when she pulls back, just far enough to speak, her head turning to rest back against his shoulder. "I'm glad you're alright." A pause, then: "I don't think I can go back to my apartment tonight." Her fingers sweep over his arm. "Can I stay here?"

IanThere's a sound that he makes when she kisses him - it feels a little like something coming undone. He kisses her back harder than he means to, pushing forward to claim her space, her heartbeat, the vital realness of her that was so close and yet so precariously easy to lose. His arms tighten around her form, grasping at the fabric of her shirt with his hands (digging a little into the muscle underneath.) There's a slight edge of desperation to it, the way his body betrays his feelings.

He doesn't want to put that on her though (his fear.) Not now. So when she pulls back, he does too. He takes a slow breath, releasing his grip on her in these slow, sliding increments until his arms hang loosely around her form. His hands refuse to be still though. They make these circular little motions - tracing patterns over her hip and her abdomen.

Can I stay here?

"Of course." He dips his head to kiss the edge of her jaw. He lets his hands slide over the length of her thighs, mapping down from her knees until he finds her feet. Then he says, with this subtle note of humor, "After you take your shoes off."

There's dirt on his comforter where her feet were. He can see it now, but doesn't draw attention to it beyond that one remark.

"Give me just a second." It's reluctant, that. The way he finally allows himself to pull away. To walk the short distance into the living room to turn off the TV and grab his tea and his phone. In the interim, if Kiara glances at the kitchen, she might notice an expensive-looking bottle of pinot noir sitting on the bar, tied with a curling red silk ribbon. There's a book next to it, laid atop a folded piece of silver wrapping paper. He didn't think to hide them before letting her in.

KiaraThere's this little surge of amusement that surfaces at his comment about her footwear, her eyes drifting down to take stock of it; her sneakers against the high thread count of his comforter; the smears of dirt left in their wake where she'd climbed over the sheets. She pushes herself to the edge of his bed and is in the process of unlacing one sneaker as he moves to turn off the TV.

To reclaim his no doubt cooling tea left to stew when she knocked.

There's a tiny stirring of guilt again as she watches him, then drops her eyes to pull her trainer off, to repeat the motions with the second and set both to one side. It's as she straightens, sweeping back and twisting the heavy fall of her hair over one shoulder that she glimpses the bottle of wine on the bar with the ribbon around the neck. The first inclination the Verbena has, as she slides to her feet and pads across the room to investigate it, is that Ian had been given it as some sort of early holiday gift.

Or a belated Thanksgiving token.

She tips the bottle back and studies the label, then lightly lifts the cover of the book, her fingertips tracing over the edge of it. "What's the occasion?" She doesn't lift the book to glimpse the paper beneath, but there's curiosity in the way her eyes linger on both before shooting back to him.

It feels simpler, like this. Focusing on anything that isn't what her world has been (is) at present. Ian's apartment (his presence) is comforting; familiar. It doesn't remind her of dark, fathomless eyes staring out at her from within the bounds of magick-infused barriers; his walls don't echo with the phantoms of anguish and festering and twisted black, ancient rage.

She twists the bottle on the bar. "Somebody evidently thinks highly of you. This is a great year." A little tick of her eyes back over him, from beneath her lashes.

IanThe book is a paperback copy of In Paradise by Peter Matthiessen. It has no accompanying note - neither in the book itself or the paper wrapping. The wine, however, has a little square card hung beneath the ribbon. Inside it says simply:

Happy Birthday

-Love, Emma

Beneath these words, elegantly scrawled in Emma's precise penmanship, is a tiny sketch of an orchid. Kiara misses the card at first, as she busies herself inspecting the book. That's when Ian wanders back and sees her looking at it. There's a particular quality to his expression when he stops still and hesitates - this faint register of guilt, that might give the impression she's just found something he didn't mean for her to see.

"Emma left those for me. It's... technically my birthday."

Technically.

He crosses back to the bedroom to plug his phone in, leaving it and his tea on the nightstand next to the bed. "I don't really celebrate it though. She only found out because she got it off my license."

Kiara"Technically." Kiara echoes, with this neat little smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

Almost strained, most certainly, for a long moment while she stares across at him, one hand still curled around the bottle, stained with regret (and laced in there somewhere, this tiny stirring of anger). "I wish I'd known. I would have - " She breaks off, because would she have? Or rather, would she have not - spilled all the details to him about what had happened last week?

Overshadowed the day with news that she knew would upset him, would drive him to worry more than he already did about her safety.

About all of their safety. There's this little curl at the edge of her mouth as she twists the bottle once more and then leaves it be, crosses instead back toward him. Stops short of touching him and roves his expression carefully with her dark eyes, her hands at her sides. "Done something cliched like cook you dinner. And I probably wouldn't have shown up unannounced and dropped all my baggage at your feet."

Her mouth twists, eyes dropping away. (The guilt again).

She reaches out, tentatively and slides her fingers through his. Links their hands and draws herself in closer to his body, lifts her eyes up until they meet his and then lets them drop to his mouth. She studies it for a beat, the generous curve of it, the shape of it. Looks, for a long moment as if she means to kiss him there but instead her mouth very gently finds his cheekbone.

"Happy Birthday," it's a murmur as she squeezes down on their linked fingers. Then, close to his ear: "I love you." That, she imparts like it's its own gift. And perhaps, coming from the brunette, under the circumstances, it's exactly what it is.

IanHe watches Kiara as she approaches, and his expression now is difficult to read. She says she wishes she'd known, that if she had she wouldn't have shown up like this. Wouldn't have dropped her baggage (as she puts it) at his feet, and that gets a pained look from him.

"Then I'm glad that you didn't." There's a punctuating certainty to his voice when he says it, as though the alternate possibility was untenable to him. "Though dinner does sound nice. Another day, maybe. When things are better."

She nearly kisses him, and his lips part just slightly as she looks at them (as though in anticipation.) But the kiss is deposited on his cheek instead, along with a murmured Happy Birthday. This much he expects, and he responds with a soft smile. What she says next though...

It renders him very still. He has to remember to breathe.

It shouldn't be as much a surprise as it is.

His eyes fall shut for a moment. When he opens them, he turns his face into hers and kisses her the way he thought she was going to kiss him, bringing his hands up first to cup her face, then to trace his thumbs down the sides of her throat.

"I love you," he repeats against her lips, delicate and whispered. He moves to the bed, pulls back the covers and slides them out of the way as he climbs onto the mattress. There's a pauses as he crouches on his knees, contemplating what he wants to do.

"It's just a day. I don't want you to feel bad. This, right now. You. That's what I care about. I don't want you to pretend to be okay. I don't want you to be anything other than what you are." He moves aside to allow her space to rejoin him on the bed. "There's massage oil in the nightstand. Would it make you feel worse if I touched you?"

He doesn't mean just what they've been doing. He's thinking of the live-wire tension she's been carrying in her muscles. Of the way sometimes, having someone lay their hands on you at the wrong time can make things worse instead of better.

KiaraIt's not an easy thing for her to say, Kiara.

In truth, it may be the first time in their shared history that she's been the first to say it in an exchange. It's a heady little moment and the brunette's expression when he turns his face and does kiss her, does cup her face and keep her close in the moment is proof of it. Her eyes sliding shut and she returns to gripping at him the way she had earlier.

Holding to him as if the mere act of it would will away the memories chasing after her.

It takes the brunette a minute to let him go, to relinquish her hold on his clothing long enough for him to move back to the bed and draw the covers back, to invite her back to join him. She does, after a moment. A moment where she bites at her lower lip and her eyes skim back to the bar - to the bottle of unopened wine with its red ribbon and tiny note.

There's a low exhale out and then: "I have no idea what I am right now." There's so much raw honesty there, as she climbs onto the mattress and smooths her palms down her knees that it's almost a little hard to digest. The haunted flicker in her eyes when they move to the nightstand, the hesitation in her (almost a kind of resistance) before she nods, just once, this barely perceptible motion with her chin and crawls forward to settle down on her stomach, folding her arms beneath her chin.

The burden of being the one others looked to for healing was it became harder to accept it for yourself. Any sort, even the seemingly mundane variety he was offering.

The live-tension hasn't fled, even after they'd stopped discussing it, after she'd changed the subject, the lingering stress of it is still there in her shoulders; weeks of distraction and uncertainty, bone deep fear. The human body had a means of communicating when it needed to, a manner of speaking even without its owner's permission through aches and bruises and spasms.

The Verbena's entire body speaks for her, now. Even the tiny breath she expels against the pillow as she turns her face.

Ian[Life 1 (magick enhancing abilities, woo) diff 4 -1 (surpassed instrument)]

Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 7, 8) ( success x 4 ) [WP]

Ian[Int+Medicine -3 diff]

Dice: 4 d10 TN3 (3, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 4 )

IanShe doesn't know what she is right now. Ian gives a subdued nod, accepting her response without challenge. Sometimes a person can be many things. Or none of them.

Kiara makes herself comfortable on the bed. Ian gives her a moment to breathe before he kneels over her waist, knees pressed in at her sides as he leans over to open the drawer of the nightstand. The bottle of massage oil is new. He doesn't tell her that he bought it when she started coming over. That usually he doesn't think about keeping things like this in his apartment because he so seldom has cause to use them. In that same drawer, there is a half-empty box of condoms that is not new and which, in fact, he hasn't touched in months.

Not since she started being the only person he slept with. Which was never really a decision that he made so much as something that just... happened. Like so much about their relationship.

The bottle is small and frosted, and when he opens it the scent that permeates the air is a familiar one: jasmine and sandalwood. First, though - he sets it down and grasps the hem of Kiara's shirt, sliding it up and over her her shoulders. She'll have to move a little to accommodate the removal, and when he's got it off he tosses it at the end of the bed. Next he undoes the clasps of her bra and slides the straps free, pulling it out from under her.

His hands make a slow exploration of her back, sliding softly over muscle and bone; mapping the patterns of her tension as he focuses. Opens his senses. Keys himself into her body the way they so often do. It's like a kind of muscle memory now, this awareness of her. Sometimes when he's alone (when she isn't there) he feels like a part of his own body is missing.

The oil goes on his hands first - so he can make sure it's warm. Then he presses down at the base of her spine, making a slow sweep up the length of her back. His thumbs glide over her skin where they push (carefully) against knotted muscle and sinew. He isn't a healer the way that she is. Doesn't have that kind of training. But this kind of touch is not unfamiliar to him. Especially not with her. And he is so terribly careful at first - the way he presses at the pain - drawing out the tension in measured increments. Gentle at first, feeling the way her body responds and then adapting to it. Once he's started to work through that initial sensitivity, he pushes deeper, working at the knots with focused pressure until he feels them gradually unwind.

It isn't a cure. It isn't going to chase away Kiara's demons or make the world less heart-breaking. And he could, if he chose, help her in other ways. He could whisper something in her ear and banish her anxieties (for a time, at least.) But he doesn't offer that, for the same reason he didn't offer it to Elijah the last time he watched the Hermetic try to confront his fear of water.

Because people have to feel what they feel.

But he does what he can now to alleviate at least the physical pain. To tell her body with his hands all the things he wants to say: that she is safe here, with him. That she is loved.

When he's done, he leans forward and kisses the back of her neck, sliding his hands down to her hips.

"Okay?" he murmurs. And he doesn't mean are you okay in the deeper sense because he knows that the answer is too complicated for her to really articulate (and that it is also probably: no.) What he means is: are you okay right now? with this?

 Kiara
It doesn't chase away her demons.

It won't prevent the brunette from waking up later on, in his bed, in his arms, with a sudden jolt of awareness. A half formed gasp wrung out of her throat, heart pulsing wildly in her chest as she came back from the depths of her dreams.

The gleam of a knife in the dark, the relentless pursuit of a tall figure across her apartment, black eyes boring straight into her as if they could sense her fear and feasted on it, grew stronger and quicker and gathered momentum as a result of it. He could stop them, if he chose to. Could delve into her mind and push the tendrils of lingering fear and anger aside. Wash them away for days or weeks or longer.

However long he chose.

But the subconscious had its uses. It was the healing process of the mind left to its own devices. The scab that formed after the wound. And these are not and most likely will not be the worst nightmares the Verbena ever has to face as a result of the lives they lead.

The decision not to run but to stay, but to fight. She does surrender to it, though. Lets her muscles loosen and her eyes slip closed against the pillow that smells so strongly of him and lets his fingers and the jasmine and sandalwood scented oil do their work. She's so quiet throughout that when he leans over to kiss her neck he may think her asleep, lulled into it by the surety of his touch but she stirs, stretches a little like an animal awoken from a nap and issues a tiny hm.

Turns her face a little and he can see the smile that ghosts across her mouth, the careful, almost testing way she breathes out slowly, letting her chest expand and retract before: "Yeah. Thank you." And he hadn't meant it in the deeper sense but she does, the way she carefully shifts a little, half rolls beneath him until she's looking up at him, her dark hair spilled across his pillows.

Her eyes say it, even as she doesn't: thank you for tonight, for being here.

IanYeah. Thank you.

Ian mirrors Kiara's smile: subtle, ghosting. The warmth of it hits his eyes for a moment and bleeds into the sadness lingering there, until it all gets wound up together. He's balanced on his hands, biceps taught and fingers making divots in the sheet as he looks down at her. After a beat, he draws one hand down to touch the bare skin on her stomach, splaying his fingers to map the curve of her abdomen with his palm. Pressing just - a little. Until he gets to her ribs. The pads of his fingers skirt over the line of the lowest one before coming to rest at her side. There's still enough oil on his hand that the touch glides effortlessly.

Then he sits up, resting his weight on his heels so he won't press down too hard on her hips.

"Mhm." It's short, quiet. This low, hummed reply. He sets his hands on her again - this time slides them up with his thumbs making a path from the line of her jeans to the base of her sternum.

"You can always come here, you know." He's quiet for a moment. The motion of his hands comes to a rest sliding back toward the mid-line of her stomach. "My dance company's going on tour in December. Part of me doesn't want to go."

(Doesn't want to leave her, he means.)

KiaraHe can feel her breathing, like this.

Skirting his hands over her abdomen, the cage of her ribs when she inhales against his fingers movements, the sharp point of a hipbone. Naked from the waist up, there's nothing modest about the female that lounges beneath him; the tilt of her face against his pillow, the way her chin drops down slightly. Her fingers find his hands on her skin and she curls them around his wrists, just - leaves them there, feels the rhythm of his heart beating against the underside of one.

(You can always come here).

"I know."

It arrests her a little, what he says next. There's an abrupt stillness, a line forms between her brows. Dark eyes ticking up to find his; searching through his expression as if to gently dislodge the meaning that she senses laying dormant beneath the surface. "Part of me wishes you didn't have to." A little smile, it situates itself crookedly into the edge of her mouth then softens, dulls a little with: "But you need to. I'll be okay."

There's a little pause, her thumb finds and traces the line of his wrist, plots along the paper-fine skin beneath it. "Besides if you didn't go, I think Emma might actually kick your ass. She seems fully capable." There's an affection to the way that's offered, a curling warmth. A deliberate little reminder of the anchors in their lives.

The other side of the mirror.

"I'll be here." It's a promise that, in days to come, she'll have to break but - not here and not now. Here and now it feels like a soft promise, a quietly voiced determination: yes, I will be here because I say so. Because I must be.

IanHe wants to tell her it's not true - that he doesn't need to go. There are different kinds of need, after all. In this case, no one will die for his absence. The world will keep going much as it had been. But the production will be gutted, and he will lose his job. He doesn't need to divine the future to know that. Neither does Kiara. There are those in Denver who could weather that kind of loss with relative ease. Ian is not among them.

Still, he would stay. If he thought Kiara was in danger. Something in the way he looks at her says as much without him really needing to say it. Which is probably why Kiara tells him to go (tells him that she'll be okay.) It doesn't do much to reassure him, but he doesn't argue with her.

She thinks Emma would kick his ass if he stayed. Ian huffs out a brief laugh. "There are a number of things Emma could kick my ass at. Chess. Poetry. Pointe, probably. I wouldn't be surprised if she was hiding a secret identity as an underground martial artist, but... even if she was, I think I might put up a good fight."

His expression sobers as he watches Kiara. She's touching the inside of his wrists, feeling his pulse beat muted and delicate beneath his skin. Her thumb traces over the place where his scar used to be. (He still hasn't told her that story. Another day, maybe. Not now.)

"If you need anything while I'm gone, call me. I don't care what time it is or how busy I am." There's a hesitant delay before he adds, "Or if you just want to talk. I'll be stuck on a bus half the time anyway."

He starts to move his hands again, sliding them upward at a deliberately slowed pace. "Do you want me to let you rest?"

KiaraShe's not good at needing people. It's a strange thing to be deficient in, the idea of possessing too much independence to the extent it makes reaching out harder. Makes the walls that are built over time and reinforced with experience that much trickier to traverse, to bring down.

It's probably why it took both of them as long as it did to admit what there was between them.

She's making attempts at getting better at it, though. Reaching for him. Allowing him to feel the depths of her behind those carefully constructed walls. Tonight is one of the better attempts she's made - the unexpected appearance on his doorstep, the open vulnerability written in her eyes when she recounted what had happened, the willingness to let him set his hands on her body and lull her tired muscles into some semblance of ease.

It's not a cure. it's no solution.

But it is solace. It is a balm laid over her wounds in a way that matters.

Do you want me to let you rest?

There's a flicker of some returning trepidation, there. The surfacing of that same troubled light that had been in her eyes when she'd met him at his door. She's hesitant to close her eyes for the monsters lurking inside her own mind; pooling there in her memories. "Will you stay while I do?" She slides her fingers along his arm and then twists, turning onto her side and coaxing him behind her; his arms around her body.

"Just - hold me for a while?" A beat, then, heavier, her voice seeping through with weariness: "It helps, knowing you're here."

IanHe isn't much better at this than she is. There's a reason why his kind of healing often takes the form of touch, and it isn't only because he's good at it (touching people [fucking them.]) Somewhere along the way, something made him believe that the things he had to offer other people did not include emotional intimacy. They didn't include things like holding someone all night while they tried to wrestle with the nightmares brought on by trauma.

Maybe part of him still believes that. But when Kiara looks at him and asks him to stay, there isn't any hesitance in his response.

"Of course."

He shifts to allow her room to roll onto her side, letting her guide him to where she wants him to be. Before he settles in, he pulls his shirt off. Then he slides down to lie stretched out at her back. She coaxes his arms around her, though it isn't really necessary because he's already reaching - wrapping his upper arm around her rib cage until his hand lies flat against her heart. One of his legs tangles up with hers. His grip around her is tight enough to feel protective. Guarding. His chest is flat against her back and when she breathes he does too, matching their exhales in a steady rhythm. There's something calming about that - and maybe subtly influential (maybe she starts to match his breathing too.)

He only gets up once, after that. After Kiara's breathing has slowed and he can feel her pattern settled into a restless slumber, he uncoils himself long enough to shut off the lights, and when he climbs back into bed, he pulls the covers up over them both.

He has a hard time falling asleep. Even when he does, he's too keyed into her responses not to wake when her pulse starts to climb. And when that happens, he does something he hasn't done in a very long time...

He sings to her. Or rather, hums. Murmuring these half-coherent lullabies into her ear. Things she probably wouldn't recognize even if she woke up long enough to be cognizant of what he was doing.

It's not a cure. But it is solace. And he doesn't leave her side again until morning.