I'm leeeeeaavi--arriving on a jetplane!

[amar_dulce_vin]

Who: Ivan Braginski and Ion Sollomovici
When: September 29th, late afternoon
Where: Le airport
What: Two cousins reunite. One is jubilant tolerant. The other...not so much.

Comments

[amar_dulce_vin]

In his head echoed a long string of mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa in a high-pitched shriek, filling his mind with television snow and static and deafening him for a bare moment as the sea rose in his eyes. He craned his head around, pasting on what he hoped was a cheerful nothing-is-out-of-place sort of smile. He prayed the smile disguised the tears forming from both terror and the pain now arising from his scalp and neck.

"Ах, двоюродный брат Ивана! Как приятно видеть тебя так хорошо! Он был долгое время, не так ли? Я не был ... ждет вас. Это очень любезно с вашей стороны прийти и приветствовать меня. Я не был ... гм ... не ожидал вас. На всех. Не то чтобы это плохо! Я просто--"

He was babbling.

He knew it, and he knew that Ivan knew it.

He choked down a whimper as he was slowly slowly dragged back in, more effort devoted to keeping the smile on his face and pretending that Nothing Was Amiss.

He could only pray that nothing would be.

((ooc: "Oh, cousin Ivan! How nice to see you so well! It has been a long time, hasn't it? I wasn't...expecting you. It's very kind of you to come and greet me. I wasn't...um...wasn't expecting you. At all. Not that it's a bad thing! I just--"))

You just called Ivan "Ivana"... ;D

[das_vedanya]

"Очень приятно видеть вас слишком~" Ivan purred in what to his ears sounded sincere, but to the Maldivian's sounded like nails on a chalkboard. A few heads turned; Ivan kept his hand tight around the split ends of Ion's hair until his cousin's wrist was within grasping distance. When his family member turned to face Ivan, the Russian smiled something sinister... then he noticed their height difference. Nonononono... this won't do; the last time the two saw each other, Ivan was still a teenager. Ion was a few inches dwarfing Ivan, and he would often remind him of this by placing his hands atop Ion's head and bearing all of his strength down on him to keep him that way. Obviously his methods had not worked.

His grin turned fouler, his teeth stationary and clenched hard together as his lips formed words between the white-as-snow stalactites protruding from Ivan's gums.

"Принеси вашей сумке. У нас есть много, чтобы наверстать," he ground out in a voice sweet and slow as honey, but with the equal promise of a bee sting should he be tested.

((ooc: "It is nice to see you too~ // Go fetch your bag. We have much to catch up on."))

GT fail. To be fair, you just called a Moldovan a Maldivian. Tropics on the brain~?

[amar_dulce_vin]

As soon as he was released, he had to fight down the instinct to flee, flee far away and as quickly as possible. Besides, he'd never been able to evade Ivan for long. It was one of the world's inalienable truths, and it was impractical to try and deny it its plausibility.

Ion Sollomovici could never escape from Ivan Braginisky.

It was a tactical impossibility, a strategic improbability, a logical futility.

So it was with a heavy heart that he awaited his bag at the luggage carousel, looking for that familiar old carpet bag with the scraps of blue, yellow, and red fabric tied around the handle to hold it shut. It finally slid into place down the chute to join the rest of the baggage on the conveyor belt. Ion let it circle as many times as he dared, taking the brief moment available to him to bite down harshly on his wrist through the sleeve of his coat to muffle his whimpered screams and compose himself.

When he felt he could put it off no longer, he seized his bag and pulled it off the carousel effortlessly. It was light; he didn't own much. But there was something almost too humbling about being able to fit all your worldly possessions into one not-very-large broken bag. He lugged it easily to where his older cousin awaited him and stopped short, eyes staring fixedly at the ground.

Добро пожаловать в ад Действительно...

He's Russia. Tropics are /always/ on the brain.

[das_vedanya]

Ivan couldn't help but wonder just how terrible Ion's eyesight was to skim over such an iconic bag amidst a sea of black and navy not once, but thrice around the conveyor belt. Ivan watched Ion skitter around the luggage like a mouse who wanted cheese but did not want to be caught in the mousetrap. Twice around was amusing, but thrice tried his patience. When his cousin returned, bearing the obnoxiously colored bag, Ivan dropped his shoulders in a tired sigh and motioned the Moldovan toward the airport exit to signal a taxi.

He made sure to remain a constant physical presence, gripping Ion's arm, as he escorted the newly turned-American citizen into the back of the mustard yellow car. After the car pulled out from the metal canopy into the express lane, rain began beating hard against the window; one could scarcely see the silhouette of the distant city through the fog.

"Как тетя и дядя?"* he finally broke the silence with a bitter attempt at small talk, yanking off his black gloves and stashing them into his pockets.

((*how are aunt and uncle?))

...ironically, the chips I'm eating are sunchips. Made with sunflower oil. Chew on that.

[amar_dulce_vin]

Ion had always attributed Ivan with a strange talent.

For as bleached and pale as the rest of him seemed, those strange eyes of his seemed to leech the colour out of everything they looked upon. And the more he took perverse pleasure in whatever he gazed upon, the duller everything seemed to become.

Ivan was something like a black hole, constantly taking in light, absorbing it, trying to fill himself with something insubstantial, something that fueled only the vibrancy in the violet of his eyes.

The interior of this shoddy cab was completely gray.

The seats, the ceiling, the silent driver, the smoke leaking from the end of a cigarette whose end had gone dead. The very air outside was gray, spreading like a miasma beneath a sky of billowing and wrathful storm clouds, screaming their rage out in the form of torrents of frigid water that came down like burning needles.

Ion's chest grew tight as he felt the colour bleeding out of him under Ivan's icy stare. His spine became rigid like a steel pole, lungs barely able to draw breath as Ivan pulled his gloves and stowed them away. Ivan with bared skin was so much more unsettling than anything he could've concealed beneath those voluminous layers. To be able to see the interplay of tendons and muscle beneath skin, to see proof of just how strong he could be if he chose--

Ion drew a quick, shuddering breath.

"Я не знаю. Они переехали в Румынии несколько лет назад с моим старшим братьям. Мы не ... много говорить."

((*I don't know. They moved to Romania several years ago with my elder brothers. We don't...speak much.))

[das_vedanya]

At least in the car their torsos were of similar height. Years and years and years of pressing down on Ion's head did nothing for him, as the Moldovan was now of considerable height, and more importantly, an inch taller than Ivan when standing. At the very least, Ion looked significantly smaller when he cowered against the opposite door of their taxi.

He'd have to keep him in that position.

"Они называли меня к себе забрать вас, потому что я ваш единственный родственник в Америке." Ivan responded with a slight adjustment to the button on his wrist cuffs. "Я всегда своим любимым племянником."

(("They called me to come pick you up, because I am your only relative in America. I always their favorite nephew."))

[amar_dulce_vin]

He flinched almost imperceptibly at the words spoken, at the underlying meaning, the implication that he could not be a favorite anything, because bad luck trailed behind him, his shadow's shadow.

As always, it was impossible to interpret the true meaning behind Ivan's words because of the placid way he delivered them, seemingly innocent but still barbed-wire sharp with that same peculiar trait of being able to stick to you.

"Ах. Да. Они всегда были очень люблю тебя. Я извиняюсь... они должны были неприятности Вам понравился этот. Я знаю, вы не хотите возиться..."

(("Ah. Yes. They were always very fond of you. I'm...sorry they had to trouble you like this. I know you'd prefer not to be bothered..."))