#ensembllle

Dimitri rolls his eyes, though not with bad nature - his lips break into a dreamy, almost-hungover smile.

"Terrible! Terrible, terrible... is relative."

He grabs a champagne flute from a passing waiter.

"---You... look... thirsty."

It’s unfortunate that she finds him charming. She shouldn’t. He seems like your run-of-the-mill rich fuckboy with more money than he has morals. Not exactly someone she would want to bring home to her father.

Nonetheless, she’s charmed by him.

She watches that champagne flute like a hawk honing in on a rabbit. Her eyes don’t leave it until it’s safely in her hand. As she takes a sip, she smiles coyly at him over the rim.

“…Am I?”

He leans in conspiratorially, with more than a hint of incredulity in his voice. Well-behaved? Sounds fake. Though, he does sound relatively lucid. Maybe.

“—I’ve not been up to anything. Ever! That is… slander.”

Dimitri moves in closer, however, tone dropped almost to a whisper, his lips ghosting Violette’s ear, jabbing a finger gently into her shoulder.

“—You… you are not well-behaved.”

Just like that, the biting retort Violette had prepared for Dimitri is whisked away by a sharp inhale. His breath is warm -- it’s gross, but it tickles. She shudders, giving rise to goosebumps on pale flesh. She swears she can feel the hair standing up on the back of her neck.

“I... am perfectly well-behaved,” she hisses, firmly laying a hand on his shoulder. There isn’t much space left for him to invade, but she’d at least like to feel like she’s preventing him from getting closer. It helps, somewhat. Her throat feels less tight. She can almost breathe.

[from: felicity] you are ridiculous.

[from: felicity] and utterly stupid.

[from: felicity] you owe me a kiss.

[from: ira] ???

[from: ira] but I gave you one already

Even in the throes of passionate impulse, Sidney remains hesitant. He seizes the opportunity so gently, so... lacking in force or conviction. His touch is gentle against Alessio’s jaw, no more of a suggestion to please turn towards him. When their lips meet, his kiss is chaste -- not a demand, but a gentle request for something more.

Reciprocation is the last thing he’d expected -- the first thing he’d hoped for. He nearly jerks away, but steels himself against the urge at the most crucial of moments. It’s... gentle. So gentle. In their short shared moment, Sidney melts into him. And when it’s over, he readily presses his cheek into Alessio’s palm.

He doesn’t mind the cool metal against his skin. It calms him, snaps him out of the anxious feedback loop that makes him want to hide.

“I... have my moments,” he says simply. It’s a product of his frontal lobe damage. Impulse for the sake of impulse, consequences be damned. He doesn’t feel that he can give himself credit for this, but he does anyway.

But he does notice, in a way. Not visually -- his glasses are off, robbing him of his ersatz peripheral vision -- but spiritually. The energy Alessio carries is distinct. When he draws near, Sidney knows that he is near. He doesn’t quite trust that instinct yet, but all the same it makes it difficult for the man to sneak up on him.

He doesn’t immediately look away from what he’s doing. He’s busy adding another layer of eyeliner. It’s not too dramatic, but it’s the heaviest makeup Sidney has ever dared to put on. Thick eyeliner, a touch of silver on his lids. The only thing that has carried over from his usual makeup routine is a streak of red along his waterline, just to bring out his eyes at a distance.

“A bit,” Sidney murmurs, giving himself one last look-over before he replaces the cap on the liner. He sets it on the dresser, then leans back against it. In spite of the shirt being his choice, he’s still self-conscious enough to cross his arms over his chest. 

When he looks at Alessio, there’s a glint of apprehension in his eyes. A leftover from the permanent cloud of shame that hangs over him at all times.

The thought of Alessio leaving is troubling, but it's an inevitability that Sidney was aware of from day one. He considers himself lucky to have even met him. Anything beyond that was more than he could have asked for.

"So you are," Sidney affirms, reluctantly sitting up from the nest of blankets he had pulled around himself in his sleep. He doesn't even spare a glance towards the clothes on the floor. He isn't ready.

"I'll miss you. I wish this... wasn't the end."

Felix chuckles - well, not so much, that would imply he's capable of anything like mirth - a fleeting, dark smirk running through his lips. Ivan has stumbled into a trap, and he's finally realised it. Eve was right: the boy is blithely lacking in any intelligence.

Trust seems like such an unlikely reason for this situation, but on some level, Ivan must have trusted Felix enough to find himself here, in his apartment. The spider's web.

Now the game is up; Felix can't play-act for too long.

He approaches gradually, and yet swiftly all at once: taking strides toward him, slamming a palm hard against the other’s ribs and pinning him to the wall.

"---I'm sorry, Ivan." He is not sorry.

A second later, there's a flannel full of chloroform covering Ivan's mouth and nose.

Ivan isn’t stupid, but his track record with making intelligent decisions leaves a lot to be desired. He shouldn’t have met Felix alone. He especially should not have met him in such a private setting. He didn’t tell anyone who could have protected him; they would have stopped him from going at all.

This meeting, though dangerous, was important to him. He wanted to deal with the problem at the root, try to flex his underdeveloped muscle as the heir to his family’s organization. But playing mob boss and being a mob boss are as different as night and day.

He only realizes this in hindsight, as he’s slammed backward against the wall -- as his lungs deflate and he gasps for air.

“No-- no--!”

A rag, sickly sweet, is pressed over his nose and mouth. He knows what it is without having to think too hard about it. Instinct tells him not to breathe, but he hasn’t yet recovered from the prior impact. It’s a struggle to resist. His lungs hurt.

[from: alessio] i saw you faint in the crowd. but security say you had woken up and left? call me back.

an hour later-

[from: sidney] hey. sorry. i’m sorry.