Who: Iris and Ian What: A Vegas Reunion (aka Surprise, I'm not Dead!) Where: Ian's rather large estate When: The same night he finds her on the journals, and as this Warnings/Rating: Their relationship is skewed and she's unstable. That being said, nothing bad happens here. It's actually sort of sweet if you ignore the creeper factor.
She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know what she was doing. She was in a hired car, having given the driver the address that Ian had given to her, on her way out to Summerlin. Her hands hadn’t stopped shaking since she heard his voice over the line. It couldn’t be him. She’d felt him die under her own hands, the blood slick and sticky between her fingers. She knew that he was dead. But she also would know that voice anywhere, the way that it reached down into her and grabbed a hold of something very vital and pulled her toward him. So she found herself in the car with only a few second thoughts. Even when writing to Louis during the ride, she still knew that she wasn’t going to reveal the address she’d been given. And she wasn’t going to postpone. She needed to know if Ian was really real.
Or as real as her brain could handle.
The car was allowed into the gated area, and paused in front of the house, the driver waiting for Iris to get out. She didn’t immediately though, instead staring through the car window at the building. It seemed somehow very Ian, Ian in the desert, with warm sandy colors and a richness that couldn’t be ignored. Minutes passed as she stared, and finally, slowly, opened her door. Her progress to the house’s front door was slow, her legs beneath her thick stockings were bruised and sore from the strangeness that Death was experiencing through the door. Iris hid her limp though, clutching her purse in her hands, and trembling for another moment before very softly knocking on the door. Barely loud enough to be heard.
He knew when she had arrived, when her car pulled up to the drive right outside of his house, but he made no effort to meet her, not yet. No, Ian spent the time observing, watching as she approached the front door, the weakness in her gait, the look in her eyes, and he couldn't help but smile at the sight. His darling, precious Iris, the one who had taken him by surprise so many years ago, who had turned into a strength and a weakness in the same breath. There weren't many people in his life who had caught his attention like Iris had, and most who had were for wholly different reasons. Business, an advantage, but rarely personal. No, she was special, and he would make sure that she was his once more, no matter what her family wanted to believe.
Moments after she knocked on the door, Ian pulled it open, a warm expression painting his face, the picture of a man in his prime with the tailored slacks and soft cotton shirt, thin and cool for the desert heat. "Iris," he said in those same tones as before, a caress of words as he reached forward for her, one hand extended, palm up and waiting. "Won't you come in?"
In the seconds between her knock and the door opening, misgivings and fears flooded Iris’ mind. What if it wasn’t him? What if she had imagined the journal entry and the phone call and whoever opened the door wouldn’t be him. And on the other hand, what if it would? She was worlds away from where she’d been the last time she’d seen him. And yet, so very much the same. She had been hopeful and even optimistic before, and the memory of that helped to hide some of the other memories, the ones that were less positive and masked by the years of prescribed drugs and instability in between. But she remembered one thing: that she wouldn’t, she couldn’t disappoint him. And so, though her entire body trembled in reaction, she stood and waited.
And when the door opened, she held her breath. Her eyes were low for the first moment, looking down toward the ground, and then tracking upwards, over clothing that she could tell was comfortable but expensive, and up to a face that she’d never seen before. She simply stared for long moments, waiting, wondering, feeling inadequate in her own outfit. It was the same sort of soft knit dress she’d been favoring of late, grey and knee-length, sleeves ending between her elbows and wrists. Her socks were thicker than the Vegas heat called for, but she was loathe to give them up. She hadn’t changed before calling the car, and in the face of this strange man, she almost wished she had. Even if it wasn’t Ian, she felt out of place at the door.
And then he spoke, and she knew it was him. The shock hit her then, and her purse was dropped with a thump as it hit the doorstep at her feet. Her hands were loose, her expression the same, mouth open slightly as her breathing caught and skipped.
Ian remembered their time together in Seattle, the time before things had fallen into shards of pain, and he remembered her disability then, the lack of sight that had allowed him some measure of freedom in her presence. So as she took him in, Ian said nothing, letting her look for as long as she wanted, and he took the opportunity to return the gaze. A sweep of his eyes, the knit dress, the thick stockings to conceal the skin of her legs, she was still very much his Iris, the one who had become important to him some years prior.
The corner of his mouth lifted at the drop of her purse, and stooping, he gathered it up in one hand, reached for her hand with the other, and with a gentle tug of his fingers, pulled her over the threshold, mindful of the shock she must have been feeling. "I must apologise for the abrupt meeting," Ian was saying, placing her purse on a table just inside the front door, his hand never releasing hers, strong fingers and a firm grip. "But I simply could not wait any longer to see you, Iris. I do hope you'll find it in your heart to forgive me." Ian turned towards her then, searching out her gaze to hold it, possess it. "You are just as beautiful as you were in Seattle, perhaps more so if I can be honest."
Stunned she may have been, and those few passing moments were far from enough to clear her mind. She didn’t even realize that she was holding her breath until her pulse throbbed around her vision. She pulled a gasping little breath, the air shuddering in her lungs and not quite chasing away the shock and breathlessness. She hadn’t known what to expect, what he would look like, but somehow his appearance seemed exactly as it should. Even so, she longed to touch, to map his features under her fingers as she once had. But she couldn’t take that step, far too forward when she was still so unsure. She felt his eyes on her, the assessing gaze that she was certain had always been there, but that she’d never experienced before.
His gaze, his touch, his words, they all brought a flush to her cheeks, staining the pale skin there. She had no choice but to follow the tug of his fingers, answering his summons with no hesitation other than the heavy steps that her shock brought. She shuffled to a stop in front of him, over the threshold of the front door, her steps uneven with the ache that spread up her legs. His eyes were overwhelming, and she found she couldn’t hold them, dropping her own gaze to the floor when he tried to make her look. It was the scrutiny and the statements that she found so hard to believe that made her shake her head. She wanted to protest, to tell him that he was wrong, but she couldn’t find the words. Her voice stayed silent, her fingers trembling nervously in his grip.
There were some ways in which the years had been good to her, but the timidness, the hesitancy, the way she kept her voice silent, it pained him in a way he hadn't been anticipating. Ian wasn't one to accept that sort of behaviour, and if she would not give him her gaze, preferring to hold it to the floor, he would take it from her. A curled forefinger caught her beneath her chin, urging her to lift her head and her eyes in a slow motion. "Never drop your eyes to the floor, Iris," Ian bid her softly, his words carrying a quiet power. "Do not disappoint me like that."
He held her gaze for several beats of his heart before his hand fell away. A step took him to her side, a hand against her back to urge her forward, further into the house and away from the door which might prove a tempting escape. The house was expansive and luxurious, hardwood floors and warm lighting, tastefully decorated with an eye for style. There were some signs of someone living there, the smell of food hanging in the air, a set of keys on a side table, soft music in the background that remained unobtrusive. "Consider my home your own," he said quietly, leading the way to a living area, all cream coloured leather and dark woods, inviting in its warmth. One hand gestured to the couch, inviting her to sit. "Can I get you something to drink, Iris? Coffee? Something stronger?"
His touch to her chin, his capturing of her gaze even though she still tried to shift her eyes away, it was somehow so familiar to her, even though she’d never been able to look at him before. The threat of his disappointment made her shiver with guilt and fear, but his command, his step close to guide her and move her where he pleased, was in some way a comfort. She followed without question, without needing to fight the apprehension herself because he was doing it for her, and she sat carefully at his invitation, perched on the very edge of the couch’s seat, body still tense with nerves. Her hands folded in her lap, fingers twining tightly together until her skin turned white with the pressure.
She didn’t know what to expect from the meeting, from the man who had come back from death, but it wasn’t the offer of something to drink. She couldn’t even focus on the offer of his home, still trying to study him without looking directly at him. She had been silent until this point, but when she opened her mouth to answer his question, what came out instead was a soft accusation. “You’re dead.”
No matter what he said or did, everything seemed to come back to that point. Yes, Ian Russell was supposed to be dead, but he had thought his physical presence would be enough to make that a point not worth discussing. A soft sigh escaped him as he dropped down onto the couch beside her, a strong hand covering her folded fingers, urging them to relax as he took one in his own, fingers curling over hers. "I think it's quite apparent that I am not, Iris," Ian said softly, turning towards her, covering her hand with his other, clasping both gently. "But I didn't invite you here to discuss that. The details are rather boring, and I would prefer to keep our conversation to the things that truly matter." Such as her. Such as them. But he left that unsaid, releasing her hands a moment later as he settled back against the couch, drawing an arm around her shoulders and pulling her in against his side. "I'm here, and isn't that what matters most?"
Her hands shook when he eased them apart, her fingers trembling as she tried to fold them within his, and she shook her head. She didn’t want to argue, but her mind - so close to being pulled apart at any given moment, could only think of the feel of his blood on her hands every time she looked at him. And he was there, yes, but so many other things had been “there” in her mind, and then their presence negated by her doctors. And with not having been on any medication for weeks and weeks, she was terrified that all the hallucinations had started again. Surely he would know that, whether he was real or a vision brought on by her own mind.
But even if he was a hallucination, he was warm and steady, and a part of her that had been unmoored for so long yearned for that stable port that he offered. So she tried as best she could, to put aside the fact that he was a ghost (hadn’t she thought herself a ghost at one point?) and moved to follow him on the couch, pressing against his side with a shaky exhale and then pulling her feet (shoes slipped off to keep them off the furniture) to tuck under herself. She felt very small and he felt very strong, and though she wanted to cling, all she did was close her eyes. “...I don’t know,” she murmured.
Ian could only start to guess at the things that were going through her head, and while he had an inkling of an idea as to the things she might be thinking, his concern was mostly on helping her to move past that, to let the past go. When she pulled her legs up beneath her and actually pressed into his side, Ian felt a small measure of victory. "Then let me worry about those things," Ian murmured softly, turning his head to press his lips against the crown of her head, nose nuzzling against the soft blond strands for a brief moment. "And you can simply relax. Let me take care of you, yes? Just like I always promised I would."
It was the most tempting, the most seductive thing she’d heard in such a long time. To be taken care of, by someone that wanted to, and that didn’t see her as an obligation simply because she was family. If he was real, he’d come back to find her, to care for her. Even after he’d been away from her - had escaped that obligation. He’d come back, and was offering exactly what she’d wanted for so long. He wanted to be there, and he wanted her there too. To not have to worry, to not have to fret about anything - it was freeing. And so with that little nudge, she let go. Just a bit. Just enough to hand some of everything over to him. And so she nodded.
That quiet acceptance, the simple nod of her head and the way she seemed to ease back further into his arms, it was enough to draw a smile to Ian's lips. "Good," he whispered, lips still pressed against her hair, eyes closing as he simply took in the feeling of her so close to his side. This was what he had come back for, what he had come to Vegas for. Iris, in all of her perfection and imperfection, as though she had come into being just for him. "Stay with me tonight," Ian asked softly, his voice whisper-quiet. "Stay with me as long as you want, Iris, and I'll make sure everything is taken care of."
With another small shift, she rested her head on his shoulder, tucked up as small as she could make herself. A part of her insisted that she should stand on her own, to show him that she didn’t need help, that she was an adult that could care for herself. And yet... it was only a part. The rest of her was almost shuddering in relief at his returned presence and his promises. How could she even think of saying no to him?
It was only her family that made her hesitate. “I need... Sam and Louis. They’re worrying. I should... tell them it’s fine.” Her words were murmured directly into his chest, soft and uncertain. “...I should go home?” It was obviously a question. She knew what she should do, but she also knew what she wanted to do, and what she wanted was to not move for a very long time.
His hand lifted to slide through her hair at her murmured words, shushing her with a soft breath. "You should stay here for the evening," Ian urged her quietly. "It's late, and no one would fault you spending the night here. Tomorrow, you can talk to whomever you wish, make whatever plans you desire." His lips pressed another kiss against the top of her head, and then he leaned down, brushing a kiss over one pale cheek. "No matter what you decide, I will be here for you. The decision is yours, Iris. Yours." And then Ian kissed her at the corner of her mouth, undemanding, a gift given without a request for anything in return.
Her concerns delivered to him, and an answer received (an answer that made sense to her, that she wanted to accept), she nodded just a little, enough for him to feel it against his shoulder. “...tomorrow.” The kisses made her tremble, made her look up at him with wide, surprised eyes, but she didn’t pull away, and after that first moment of shock, she relaxed against him again. “Mine.” It was confirmation, it was a claiming she didn’t even realize (and would have never thought she had the right, had she realized it). But she was already relaxing again, her body going heavy against his. She hadn’t realized how tired she was until there was somewhere warm and safe (in her mind) to sleep. Her breath came out as a sigh and a content, soft sound. And for a while, the world faded away.