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The gala lasts for most of the evening and well into the night. Inference dawdles by the window for most of it to watch the blistering sun sink. Darkness creeps up the horizon, swallowing it whole, washing away the orange of the gloaming before it can fade into pink; when he exhales, clouds of gray spill over the paned glass, rolling like fog to obscure what vision remains and present him with a distorted reflection of himself. A grimacing face stares back, unfamiliar from under slicked-back gel-crunched hair, gold plated glasses. He’s forgone his hat for the night, though hardly by his own free will, and his scalp feels cold and exposed.
The music floating through the hall has long since died down; the quartet of musicians, buzzing with the same sportive electricity as the rest of the merrymakers, already laid down their instruments to join the festivities after one or two hours. This isn’t his kind of scene. The last opportunity he had to attend one of these events was nearly a year ago when he’d been waist-deep in an investigation of the Mélodis affairs. He’s never been to anything like this simply for the pleasure of it, if there’s even any pleasure to be had here. It’s crowded, loud; before retreating to the loneliest corner of the room, he was shoved aside and had his shoes trampled over at least ten times within as many minutes.
Everything is luminous and covered three times over in a sheet of gold: brilliant lights, polished marble floors, gilded wallpaper. It’s beyond ornamented and crosses well over into the territory of gaudiness. Inference’s back aches and he wonders with a throbbing temple how anyone can stand the artificiality of this lifestyle.
His pipe’s gone out. He considers relighting it, already reaching down to his pocket, but the matches aren’t there. Inference gropes with chilled fingers for a long moment before sighing in defeat, letting his hand drop to his side and knock against his thigh. He can’t even bring himself to be surprised anymore.
“Looking for this?”
Or perhaps he simply hasn’t learned to withhold hasty assumptions. Inference stands up straight, heart jolting at being addressed so suddenly. The sharp movement sends a twinge of pain up his knee, hooking uncomfortably into the base of his spine, and he stamps his cane against the ground hard enough to attract the attention of a few of the partygoers in closest proximity, though they lose interest after a few seconds and sweep on by. “Don’t do that,” he grouches through his molars even as he reluctantly accepts the matchbox.
“Sorry.” To her credit, Ronald does sound about halfway sorry, which is, he supposes, the best he’ll get out of her. She drapes herself over the windowsill to set down her glass of champagne and her dress moves with her, hugging her hips and flowing over the ground behind in a train of silk. “You left it on the mantelpiece. Knew you’d go looking for it eventually.”
Inference hums a gravelly pitch at the bottom of his throat, neither confirming nor denying, and taps the box to slide out a match. He lights his pipe and pinches out the budding flame, taking his time with it, feeling the way Ronald’s eyes bore into him as he does. “Been keeping yourself busy?” he asks, mumbling around the briarwood.
He doesn’t mean to sound accusatory, but it comes out a bit like that anyway and he doesn’t bother trying to cover it up once he realizes it. It isn’t that he’s particularly offended by the fact that Ronald disappeared from his arm nearly the instant they arrived, nor that he’s been left to his own devices without catching a single glimpse of her ever since; he does, however, find it rather irresponsible to drag him to something so far out of his usual zone and then abandon him without another thought. He’s disgruntled about it, that’s all.
The corner of Ronald’s dark brow creases, but the rest of her face remains staunchly still. “Suppose so,” she says, mumbling too, even though she hasn’t got anything in her mouth. “Some European geezer . Interested in becoming my patron once we’re back in Paris. He was very...” She trails off and bites the corner of her mouth. For a split second, her teeth show and bright lipstick threatens to smear over the white. “Tenacious,” she decides at last.
“I see.” Inference continues to smoke, passive, and blows away from Ronald. “Only one this time?”
She laughs, bitter. “No.”
He reaches for his hat with an automatic clench of his fingers and remedies his mistake by feigning adjustment of his blazer, crinkling the midnight blue of the silk. “Do you want to leave?”
Ronald thinks about it- pretends to think about it, eye sliding from side to side and nearly rolling in its heavy-lidded socket, all the while dragging her fingers down the fur collar of the coat draped over her elbow. “Yes,” she says only once she’s allowed enough time to pass between their words, “let’s.”
The coat goes on and she takes his arm again, more to keep up appearances than anything, as if it isn’t too late to play the part of another stupidly infatuated couple drunk on the affected magic of luxury. When they go out on the steps and take the back path towards the street, they see two women canoodling under the shaded arch of the patio who hastily break apart with flushed cheek and heaving breast to watch them pass. Ronald looks at the ground and Inference stares straight ahead. As they turn the corner, they can hear the girls speaking in gentle tones, further hushed by the heat of the summer evening.
Inference drives them back to the flat and only glances over to the passenger seat twice. Ronald’s hair blows in the wind as she looks out at the rows of stately houses and then the flickering lights of the clubs and restaurants and theaters once they reach the downtown district, an unseeing gaze that focuses on some indeterminate point between herself and the endless end of the road. It is fully night by the time they arrive at the other side of town and they’ve passed so many windows bright with jewelry, mink coats, feathered hats, beaming golden light onto the sidewalk in irresistible invitation, that the glow seems imprinted in her eyes and leaves amber under the thick line of her lashes.
The flat is nothing impressive. It came for an average price, nothing too elaborate nor too derelict and well-suited for a month-long trip to America, but it seems nothing more than a poor man’s shack with peeling wallpaper and cracking floorboards after the disgustingly stark wonder of the mansion. Ronald floats through it like a ghost, as if having abandoned all of her pomp and grandeur on the steps of the party, and Inference follows at her heels, pondering on how little she fits into the modesty of the mild home.
The click-click of her Mary Janes takes them into the bedroom, where he watches her struggle to reach back to the clasp of her dress for at least half a minute, hears the stiff joint of her shoulder crack and pop, and then steps forward, not at her side but not behind her either. They both fit just into the width of the mirror, maybe cropped out a little at the edges so that the corner of Inference’s shoulder is missing. It’s always him at the border, Ronald in the spotlight. He wouldn’t have it any other way; he isn’t keen on attention, never has been. He’d rather go entirely unnoticed than receive even praise that he’s due.
The metal of her zipper is cold. He imagines it burning into his skin, wiping away his fingerprints and leaving him as another nameless, faceless do-gooder, trying to make a difference in a world that’s determined not to change. Ronald smiles at him through the mirror and her lips are red, red, red like the blood that stains both of their hands. She lives for this. The applause, the validation, the reassurance. She craves it in a way that Inference could never relate to, but it still makes sense anyway when it comes to her. He wonders if it’s ever enough to satisfy her. Something tells him it never is.
“Think I might have jammed it earlier.” She shimmies her way out of the dress, shoulders coming first out of the thin little spaghetti straps cutting white lines into her tan skin. “These copies, they’re- they’re… horrible, very low quality anyway.”
“You must have enough by now to afford an authentic item.” Inference watches as her arms follow, one at a time as she squirms. The silk fabric sticks to her lines and curves and drags smooth over her wrists.
“These do the job. In public.” She blinks a few times, eyelids heavy, trying to be sultry, failing. It doesn’t work on him .
The dress comes down the slope of her back- this is what she really doesn’t want the world to see, the worst of the blast marks that pit her side all the way back to her spine and over her hip. Inference remembers seeing it when it was fresh and raw like animal’s flesh, something distinctly not human. She was screaming, over and over, sounding like an animal too, and he watched, because she wasn’t supposed to be that way- not her, not Campbell, never. He still hears her screaming when he’s alone. He can’t stand the sound of her voice sometimes.
But she’s still talking, silver tongue curling barbed wire into his ears. “Aren’t you going to sit down?”
No, Inference wants to say, but he knows her well enough that he reads through the question to the second question, Won’t you please sit down, you’re making me nervous, so he does, sits on the edge of her bed and feels sick as it sags under his weight. This is expensive. Good mattress, good sheets. He knows better than to assume she spent her own earnings on this and wonders which suitor, if any, was the first to toss her down on it.
That line of thought is regrettable, makes him uncomfortable, because he knows she isn’t that kind of person anyway, not really, but Ronald’s smile is more relaxed now- so he thinks that he can handle it just fine, really, he’s a grown man with enough experience of his own. The dress pools at her heeled feet and she steps out of the pile of red (red, again, red dress, red shoes), completely bare now except for her undergarments, stockings, and garters, before holding out a hand. Inference stares at it for a shamefully long moment, tracking the uneven lines on her palm, before it clicks in his mind what she’s waiting for. He reaches over to the other side of the bed and passes her the nightgown draped there.
This feels more intimate than any of it; Inference forces himself to keep his gaze straight ahead- not shying away nor particularly staring- as she pulls it over her head and ties the belt, loose but still tight enough to cinch her waist. Then she sinks down to the bed next to him, stretching out all of her long limbs in front of her and hunching her shoulders. Auburn waves kiss the back of her neck. Inference remembers when they were blacker than the night sky. Shorter, then, too, and probably coarser; he wonders what lavish product she uses now to make it look so soft, or if it naturally stems from a healthier diet than in the old days.
“You must be tired,” she says quietly, eyes lowering. Her hands clasp in her lap, as if she’s about to pray, but neither of them have been religious for years now.
“I’m not the one who was.. mingling with fools all evening,” he’s quick to point out, not too worried about offending her. She won’t take it personally.
“Those fools are the ones who keep all of this going.” She slides her hands up over her bare arms, hugging herself, and casts a glance around the room. It bounces off of each wall and lingers for a second longer on Inference. “.. Regrettable as it is.”
“You could stand to keep things up by yourself, you know. You don’t need them.” He’s blunt, but it’s nothing she isn’t used to. She grins again, just for a split second, and then her teeth are worrying at her bottom lip and her brow creases and he feels her shying away again. There’s an edge to her now, something she can’t cross. She was never like that before. Before- before the war really started, even during it, she was reserved, cautious, but still willing to strike out and try. After the war, it’s always been there and it’s never gone away, some deep-rooted hesitation. Fear.
“…I know.” She leaves it at that, so he does too.
There’s a draft hissing its way through the room, leaving goosebumps in its wake over his collarbones, and Inference suddenly realized how overdressed he still is in his button-down, jacket, and slacks. Ronald is holding herself still, back hunched; impulsively, he shrugs his jacket off and slings it over her instead, tucking it over her shoulders. She looks up, lips parting slightly in surprise; he wills her not to say anything.
She doesn’t. Instead, she reaches for him. Her fingers are shaking slightly, the way they always are; it’s why she always wears gloves, trying to hide everything that can be hidden. He watches as they approach him, entranced and suddenly unable to move at all, knowing he should want to flinch back but entirely unable to even summon the urge. The slender fingers undo each of his buttons, moving with as much efficiency as their owner can muster, until the shirt hangs loose and open.
Ronald looks at him through her curled lashes- at his body, not his face; at the scars she’s seen before, just as he has with hers. Her single good eye follows the long line from his collarbone diagonally down his abdomen; the starburst bullet wound in his shoulder; the white streak over his hip. Inference takes the time to look at her too. Her arms are still strong from the military training, but they’re more toned now, less rugged, after years of repose. Her jaw cuts a line up the slender column of her neck, and her eyes hold a certain quality that’s so sad , almost mournful, when she isn’t making an effort to hide it. She’s beautiful, and that , more than anything, makes him want to look away.
“You’ve changed,” she tells him, whispering. Like it won’t be true if nobody else hears. Like there is anybody else to hear, in this lonely house on the outskirts of this lonely city, a little speck on the lonely world.
“How so?” He doesn’t think he has so much. Not on the outside, anyway. Maybe not on the inside either.
“I don’t know.” She rocks forwards and backwards. “.. Just different.”
“Different,” he echoes, reflecting on it. “So are you.”
It makes her laugh, though that isn’t his intention. “That’s true, isn’t it?”
Ronald looks away then, lips flattening into a thin pale line. For an actor, she isn’t very good at hiding her expressions in private, or maybe that’s just the sort of effect he has on her. He tries not to think about it too much; whether she truly is so comfortable with him that she forgets to keep the mask between them, forgets her hours of practice in front of the mirror in this very room, as if this is his home too.
“It’s been years,” he realizes, says it out loud as he does... “Nearly a decade.”
“Hell.” She rubs her forehead, just over the sharp bridge of her nose. “You’re going to make me feel… old.” Her voice cracks on the last word and she lowers her head. Her hair hides her face in an uneven curtain. Inference can’t see her eyes anymore but he can hear her breathing, gentle and slow and hitched just at the very edges.
“You aren’t even thirty-five.” Even as he says it, he knows that the things she’s seen and experienced go well beyond her years. “If you’re old, what does that make me?”
“Positively ancient .” She looks serious as she says it and it makes him believe her, recalling him to the ever-present ache deep in his bones. “How many gray hairs have you got now?”
“Enough,” he grunts, one hand rising reflexively to his forehead and ghosting over the coarse hair at his temples. “I don’t exactly make a habit of counting.”
“Of course you don’t.” Ronald pats over his head, hooking her index finger into the hair elastic and letting it fall loose down his shoulders. She picks through the strands a bit, almost like a bird attempting to groom him; he abides it for nearly a minute, which he ought to be applauded for, and then ducks away with a scowl.
She laughs at him, breaking the hushed bubble, and reclines across the bed, still laughing, one hand thrown haphazardly over her waist, looking up at him through eyes that crinkle at the edges. The sound is contagious- ugly, nearly a cackle, with no regard for poise- and it makes him snort, turning his face away. “You’re ridiculous.”
“You enjoy it, in a certain way, don’t you?” When he looks back at her, she’s propped herself up on one elbow, staring him down with the kind of smug satisfaction that he couldn’t argue with if he tried. Inference heaves a sigh from the hollow of his chest, gesturing for her to move aside; she does, half-rolling, half-squirming towards the edge of the bed. He sinks down beside her with a grunt and she turns back over to face him, only a few centimeters away with how small the mattress is.
He doesn’t know what makes him do it. Perhaps it’s nothing more than nostalgia, a callback to the old days when they’d curl together for warmth and safety. Perhaps he could blame it on the moonlight streaming through the window, highlighting the angles of her face with tantalizing silver. Really, though, the only thing that makes him lift his hand to her cheek is the sudden desire to touch her, to feel the whorls and lines of scar tissue, to stroke under the milky white of her blind eye. Her breath catches audibly and at first she’s stock-still, frozen under his light fingers; then she leans into the touch, closing her eyes. His heart clenches and for a moment he’s taken by panic, beating against his ribcage, at the corporeal evidence of her trust in him. He needs to leave. He can’t do this- not to her, not to himself.
Her hand slides over his cheek, his jaw; settles at the crook of his neck and bare shoulder to hold him secure. “Yes,” she mumbles, slurs over the vowel so that the word is barely distinguishable; burrowing her face into the pillow, an answer to something that was never uttered. She doesn’t say stay , she surely can’t bring herself to; she doesn’t say please , she never would; but he hears both as clearly as if she has.
For his part, Inference says nothing at all; there remains not a word to be said. Slowly, he closes his eyes. It reminds him far too much… yes , of the field- of the terrifyingly close sensation of danger, death, just around the corner- but in the end, that is something that’s never left him in the first place, something that brings the ghosts knocking, invites them into his room, his body, his mind. Ronald’s lingering hand and the vague sweetness of her breath from the sparkling wine are what ground him now, dragging him from the dubiety of solitude. She serves as his pillar, just as she has before, and he suspects that he’s rather the same to her, whether or not he’s warm to either of those ideas.
Her breathing has already settled down into a slow rhythm. All night, it’s been plain to see how exhaustion weighed on her by the minute. Inference nearly considers begrudging how easily she sleeps, but that would be a fool’s endeavor. He turns his head to the other side of the pillow, well aware of how her breath will sour come morning, and finds, somewhat to his alarm, that there really is no need for envy at all; he’s overworked himself, especially as of late, and Hypnos is quick to catch him in an embrace that smells terribly and wonderfully of champagne.