#constrictdr

One of you needs to take one for the team and have your muse marry this motherfucker for either practical/convenience purposes, so I can do a thread where he needs to actually act like someone's husband for once.

I need this man to experience a stroke from trying not to say anything fucked up during a dinner party. I need him to get roped into going to a work function for them and having to navigate NOT being allowed to just stab people who piss him off.

TIME LAPSES BY, DARKNESS THREATENING TO SWALLOW HIM WHOLE. his body presented against the cool floor of pandora like an offering to the city that started it all. he can hear movement, action, a flurry of activity, but they drift to him like his head's underwater. unable to bring himself to tune in properly, to help. a failure rotting away mere seconds from completing the mission. then there's a pinch against his arm, and life is returned to his very being like a sharp gust of air to the lungs. things move quickly after that, his request for answers momentarily forgotten in the face of a still alive VICTOR GIDEON.

the lower levels of the facility beckon them as the platform loses its passengers, it's destruction a cascading chorus of shrapnel and skin and bones; he and grace separated for the time being, so it seems.

a preference, truly. she's safer on the outskirts of what this is proving to be.

𝐋𝐀𝐓𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒 / @constrictdr

             grace  had  been  laying  on  the  couch,  head  in  victor's  lap  after  a  few  too  many  to  drink.  not  that  it  took  many,  grace  was  a  lightweight  at  best  because  she  didn't  drink  often.  it  was  too  easy  of  a  thing  to  get  addicted  to  when  it  helped  calm  down  her  anxiety  -  so  she  restricted  herself  severely.  but  once  in  awhile,  as  a  treat,  she  let  herself  imbibe.

but  once  he  spoke,  she  got  up  on  her  elbows  and  looked  up  at  him  with  a  pout  and  offended  look  on  her  face.  how  dare  he  say  she  couldn't  say  what  she  wanted?  even  if  it  was  true,  it  was  rude  to  point  out  and  had  she  had  a  sock  nearby,  she  might  have  shoved  it  in  his  mouth.  or  at  least  attempted  to.  but  be  it  that  it  was,  she  was  drunk  and  he  was  stronger  than  she  was  -  it  likely  would  have  ended  with  a  sock  in  her  mouth.

                         rude.

this  imaginary  scenario  only  made  her  blonde  eyebrows  furrow  more.

she  sat  herself  up  on  the  couch,  grabbing  the  cushions  to  keep  herself  steady  as  the  world  spun  around  her.  ugh,  now  she  remembered  another  reason  not  to  drink.  everything  always  went  funny.

“  y-y'know  wha'  victor  tha's  so  rude  -  i  c-can  say  whatever  i  wanna!  ”  she  declared,  half-glaring  at  him  through  pale  lashes  from  the  other  corner  of  the  couch  now,  arms  crossed  over  her  chest.

“  an'  right  now  i  want….  ”  she  paused,  thinking.

she  wanted  a  smooch  and  an  apology,  but  that  was  a  losers  words.

“Yeah… I think we are.” She scoffs, looking about the space and trying not to let her blood pressure spike just looking at him.

Wrenwood had always been sleepy, even back when she still lived in Arklay, but this place had only ever been spoken about in rumors. Rhodes hill always had an air of mystery about it, but all these years later it somehow hung onto that spooky haunted house vibe… And if this man was the director and lead physician, that just sealed it.

She keeps her hands in her coat pockets, the harsh sterile smell irritating her nose in a way that left her on edge for even more reasons… It reeked of T-virus, and she couldn’t find the exact source no matter how hard she looked. It was as if the whole building was bathed in it. But she was here chasing a lead, and she had a feeling she wasn’t about to find it without some kind of confrontation.

A hand comes up to idly scratch at a small patch of eczema on her neck before she continued.

"Because I'm charming and funny and decently average looking? Or because of the 'sentient mold' thing?" The smile Ethan goes for is 'self assured and suave', but what ends up on his face is better described as 'nervous animal'. "It's because of the mold thing, isn't it?"

It really IS all her fault, isn't it?

Originally, she DID blame this man for all the misfortune that has fallen upon her during her time at the care facility. As time creeped forward, it became abundantly clear that SHE is the one who has caused the suffering of those she has come to care for. She cut ties with Leon in attempt to SPARE him for a worse fate. As for Emily . . . Oh, how she failed her SPECTACULARY.

Grace swallows hard, finally lifting her head so her eyes can lock onto the doctor instead of staring holes into the helicopter's window. If the FBI agent simply accepted that she's somehow SPECIAL and stayed put to be DRAINED, would that little girl still be ALIVE? Her heart pounds in not wanting that to be answered whatsoever. That's when she forces herself to FOCUS on the conversation that Dr. Gideon started.

He almost reminds the Doctor that there was no other option: that despite all his extensive search and sifting through the hundreds of contacts he'd kept over the years, not a single one besides The Connections had offered any prospective options. Almost.

When he sets the case down that he was asked to bring to the Doctor, he is deliberate about being just a bit too heavy-handed. The thunk it makes provides some noisy reprieve from the awkward standstill he forces between them by refusing to answer Victor.

"When I am asked to perform a task, I do it." A rather simplified answer, but the truth. Even if he speaks with all the charm and warmth of a striking hammer. Stepping away from the desk, he turns his head slowly towards Victor. The lenses of his mask provide an uncanny red hue to the air around him. "You make it sound like you needed company. Desperately, if you're talking to me."

"Complicated in some ways, but exquisitely simple in others."

The Duke places two large squares of butter into the cast-iron pan over the fire and tilts it to one side, letting the little yellow shapes sizzle and shrink and slide down the pan, melting and pooling at the bottom. With his other hand, he takes a spoon and scoops the resulting liquid over the meat cooking within. No gloves on either hand, of course- the heat barely bothers him. He puts the pan back down and reaches into the fire itself- among the hot coals are foil-wrapped potatoes and parsnips that need turning.