ataraxionlogs | when all of your wishes are granted

Not sure, but it seemed unlikely that she was going to die. What was that look?

[You know. That one.]

[That one, yes, he knows, but--]

What? This is just my face.

[Which is a sound defense, and sounds nearly convincing. Except, this is Ivan, so...]

Mate. You can tell me to fuck off if you want, but I know there was a look.

[He knows the difference with that thing Mitchell's face does.]

It's--

[Nothing, maybe, but no, it's definitely something, the way that it always is. Mitchell would rub a hand over his mouth if he could, a nervous, reflexive action--or he'd go for his cigarettes, or turn away--anything to buy himself time. Tied to a chair, his options are more limited.

He thinks again of the teeth, white in the dim red light of the hallway. Something twists in his chest.]

Look, it doesn't matter. Why are you here?

[A little more hostile, several drastic shades away from the near-friendly way that he'd greeted Ivan.]

I was about to offer to untie you, but...

[Ivan is patient, and while Ivan is not terribly kind, he opts for something in the general neighborhood of honesty, under the circumstances.]

Look, you're the only person I really know at all here, and my fucking mural was a mess and I just needed something in shouting distance of normal for a moment, alright? So don't do that thing where you pretend we don't know each other after all this bloody time.

[Sincerity, honesty--they aren't exactly expected. Mitchell's hands fall open, loose, where they're tied. He should stay hostile. He should end this.

Instead, he looks over at Ivan again, his shoulders sagged a little.]

This isn't easy, yeah? It's-- Christ. All right. [Giving up, sort of. It happened too fast, but it's not like he's very good at being angry with Ivan in the first place, not when he's actually faced with him.] Untie me. At least it'll feel more like a normal conversation.

[And he still doesn't want to talk about teeth, so he adds--]

What happened t' your mural?

[Ivan notices the dodge, but doesn't press yet. They can circle back. Instead, he gets up to oblige.]

Nothing extra, as far as I know. I watched it appear though, which was fucking unnerving.

[He works at the knots for moment, then adds quieter,]

At least I doubt too many people could identify it. Wasn't much of my face to work with. It would slightly undermine my attempts to appear to be a good upstanding citizen.

[It won't occur to Annie and George to check the ropes, to see if the knots match the ones that they did. Mitchell thinks that with a measure of real guilt, and then he puts that thought away.]

Yeah. That was mine too.

[Like he can even pretend to be an upstanding citizen anymore. The ropes loosen as Ivan works out the knots; gratefully, Mitchell flexes his hands. The gesture is more habit than anything else. There's no rush of blood, none of that pinprick feeling of good circulation.]

There were others here before. Other vampires. They didn't pretend--where they were from, everyone knew about them, so they didn't bother with it here. [Arseholes. He's too tired to articulate the insult.] Everyone says it doesn't matter. I'm surprised you're not signing up to give up the act yourself.

It's not that simple.

[When has anything ever been, with their sort?]

Some people know. I haven't been lying about my species, except occasionally by omission. I don't think it would work very long if I tried, regardless. I didn't exactly keep in practice blending in at home for more than an hour or two.

[One of the perks of his nomadic lifestyle, which predated Daisy by decades. No one human had enough experience of Ivan to notice anything odd, assuming they survived the encounter at all.]

I've been skating by on what they give me at medical. It isn't ideal but I'm managing because it's a closed system and what else am I going to do. I wouldn't stop if I started. [Mitchell knows he's not exaggerating much, if at all.] ...that said, I think it's... something changed. I don't know if it was the ship or what happened right before but the craving's not quite as bad as I'd expect.

[If he'd ever been clean for a stretch, he'd know that it was like that - the craving pushed aside, ignored to the extent it could be. But he'd never tried, and his humanity is so far away he doesn't remember that especially well.]

[Mitchell works his arms free of the ropes as soon as he's been unbound, and sets to rubbing at his wrists and forearms, anther compulsive gesture that would be more necessary to a human with a realer and more necessary bloodflow. It's all so very distracted, because his primary focus is on Ivan.

Christ. Ivan drinking bagged, and Mitchell tied to a chair. What a pair they make. He doesn't say it, but the wry smile that twists across his face sort of says it for him.

What's strange is Ivan's lack of craving. Having just come down from a round of feeding live, the like of which he hadn't been steeped in since--but no, he stops that thought there. The real point to be made is that Mitchell's own memory of sobriety seems hazy at first, a little like it happened to someone else. It's funny (not ha ha funny) that his good memories are the ones that seem more false, where the bad ones he has no trouble remembering and claiming ownership of.]

What d'you mean, it's not quite as bad. How much are you actually drinking?

[I wouldn't stop if I started is so honest. That's the thing about Ivan, he's right. He doesn't try to blend in.]

The ship can't change something like that. Not with us.

Less than I would if it were fresh.

[He goes to sit again, once Mitchell is unbound completely.]

I don't know. It isn't gone. I'd go back to normal in an instant if we were in a place with a bigger population where I could come and go properly. But since I have to... it's as if I'm farther along than I should be. It's distracting, all the time, but it isn't immobilizing.

[He doesn't say 'yet,' but it's understood. Ivan hasn't seen anyone go clean indefinitely. He doesn't believe it's possible. But people have managed it at stretches. Mitchell, yes, but also Carl. Hal, even. What Ivan doesn't know is what he's hoping will happen. What he's holding out for.]

[Back to normal, just the way that any vampire would. Right? If there were no consequences, if you can come and go... It's only when they settle down that things get difficult. Or that's what they believe, generally, that's what they tell each other.

It can't be true. Things are better for Mitchell when he's clean. Or is that the lie? It goes around and around and around again. And here's Ivan, telling him that he's basically--]

If it's manageable-- [It doesn't put them out of the woods. But Ivan, with his appetite curbed--surely that's something to be thankful for? It does the work that Mitchell could never do. Get someone like Ivan--someone as old and as established and as happy in the life steeped in blood--get him to go more or less clean. It's fucking impossible. But here's Ivan, saying it's been done.] So carrying that woman, with her face all blood. You're tellin' me you could manage even that? Or was that nearly too far?

[Absently, he shifts, digs his cigarettes out of his pocket. A precious commodity, with all resources limited, but whatever. One for himself, and he holds the pack out to Ivan. It's a little less than half full.]

[He takes one, with a fervent,] Christ, ta for that.

[He knows he isn't physically addicted to nicotine, but that doesn't mean the sensation of running out of his own cigarettes was a pleasant one.]

It's not something I'd volunteer to do again, [to answer Mitchell's question.] But she's a tiny thing, I carried her like a child. Can you imagine that? [The Ivan he'd known, carrying a bleeding person to safety?]

It's madness, and it can't last, but there it is.

[He smiles, a little, as he flicks open his lighter and holds it out to Ivan for a light.]

You know, I can't, somehow. Carrying her to safety.

[Like a child. No offense, Ivan, but that doesn't fit. He lights his own cigarette once Ivan's got it, and tucks the lighter away, with a quick inhale and a stream of smoke with his exhale.

Almost off-handedly, as he exhales again:]

Maybe it can last.

[Ivan releases a stream of smoke with a skeptical expression.]

Let's not get carried away.

[And then, naturally enough that maybe he'll take Mitchell off-guard:]

What was that look, a minute ago?

[Can't blame a man for trying, and Mitchell shrugs, with a little smile that says as much.

But speaking of sobriety not lasting--]

You were talkin' about seeing that mural of yours. [Ivan's told him so much, confessed so much. The least he can do is reciprocate a little. He sought Mitchell out because he's someone that gets it. Of all the people on this ship, even if they don't always see eye to eye--] I saw mine. Fangs, and all. [Obviously. He flicks the end of his cigarette, knocking ash from it, and looks away.] I tried getting rid of it, just-- scraping it off the wall. It didn't work.

...so you tried on someone else's?

[It's not such a jump to make, given that he'd seen what were left of Ilde's teeth.]

She's not a vampire, you know. Jesus.

[He actually flinches at that, looking quickly away.]

I know. I wasn't-- it wasn't clear. Nothing was clear. I wouldn't have done anything, if I'd been thinking, but I wasn't.

[More defensively, now:]

And I didn't know, what would happen.

Just a suggestion, but I wouldn't lead your apology with that. [He doubts it would go over well.]

[That, at least, gets him to look around at Ivan again.]

Apologise for-- I can't apologise! Didn't you hear, what I just said? Can you imagine how an apology would go?

I heard. What's your alternative plan? Wait until someone else figures it out and comes for you? I think "I didn't know that would happen" isn't going to sound any better then, frankly.

And who's to say anyone's going to figure it out? It's not like I signed my fucking name.

[Which, even as he says it--he feels like shit about it. Like it doesn't matter what he's done to her, only that he didn't mean to do it, not really--not to her, anyways.]

She's all right, yeah? So let her be all right. There's enough going on, on this ship.

Do you listen to yourself? You know, you'd have injured her less if you drank her blood, as long as you'd stopped in time.

[Yet one more thing Ivan doesn't understand about Mitchell's guilt: the wildly inconsistent rules of its application, in his view.]

Don't--

[Tense, suddenly--or at least more visibly tense--Mitchell shoots Ivan a look before he hunches forward, pushes his fingers through his hair.]

I'll take care of it, all right? It's got nothing to do with you.

That's well and good until someone asks me what I know - which is going to happen, I carried her into medical. I cover for you and all my good citizenship is on the line which is... that's a great deal of effort for nothing.

[A bitter little smile.]

It's not as if I have anyone assuring the rest of the ship they'll build a rabbit hutch for me.

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