RP:Little Fires Everywhere
Part of the Through A Glass, Darkly Arc
Summary: Thanks to Lanara's Rose Quartz skull, Alvina learns the truth: Hudson didn't sleep with Candice. He was drugged at Kanze's party and set up. Upon hearing the news, Hudson sends his right hand man, Milo, to pick up Candice. He intends to kill her for bruising his ego (by not actually wanting to sleep with him) and putting his relationship with his wife at risk. Alvina, having witnessed more than just the situation with Candice, fights against Hudson's decision because of Aubree, Candice's daughter. In the end, their power dynamic remains unchanged, but Alvina resolves privately to find Candice first.
Landon Seaside Apartment
Hudson and Alvina’s rendezvous was pre-planned. Marge and E.L. (Hudson’s mother) would stay with the children. It was Hudson’s idea. He just wasn’t confident about what his wife would or would not see. As fate would have it, Alvina didn’t know what she would or had seen either. Their carriage had waited outside while Alvina spoke with Lanara and when they were done, it whisked Alvina back to an apartment building overlooking the beach. It was quiet this time of night. She paused, lost in thought as she steps out of the carriage and stares at the double doors being manned by hotel porters who are, as of now, holding a door open for her. They looked like Hudson’s men. With a frown, she steps away from the apartment building itself and waded out onto the beach. The wind whipped her crimson curls violently against her face and shoulders. Alvina hugged herself against the chill of night air, her eyes following a boat leaving Cenril’s port. It bobbed lamely away as if carried by the flow of time, unable to turn back and cut another, cleaner path through the resistant waves. She knew Hudson was waiting for her but she needed this moment alone to grapple with what she’d seen. What Lanara had seen with her.
Out on the beach, Alvina felt strangely naked. The wind openly tugged at her clothes and hair, possessively snagging her coat. Did she want to shirk all of her clothes and responsibilities? Jump head first into the cool water? Her mind felt like a hamster in a wheel - unable to see the beginning, middle, or end. It all blurred together like sunlight through stained glass. Each color bleeds into the next. She wondered guiltily, not for the first time, if Hudson had ever considered using Lanara’s skull to see instances of her own interactions. She’d tried to distract herself by saying ‘this is a special circumstance’ but was it really? They shared the same reservations; neither of them wanted to watch the less flattering details of what took place. She had to hope that was enough to keep all those things where they belonged; rightfully lost to memory and time. Purged from the pages of history, not unwritten but elsewhere. Alvina couldn’t re-write the flow of time. Couldn’t go back and make edits where it suited her. She’d made mistakes, everyone made mistakes, and had to do their best to move forward and hope to learn from them.
Alvina’s ears prick at the sound of another pair of shoes shuffling out over the uneven sand. She feels a hot shock of anxious electricity eat up her spine until the hairs on the back of her neck are at attention. Her arms cross her chest and she stiffens, hoping it’s Hudson and trying to steady her breathing. She wouldn’t look frazzled. She refused. But when the muted footfalls stop, it isn’t Hudson that’s beside her. It’s Milo, adjusting his tie uncomfortably.
“Boss is upstairs.” He offers this illuminating fact with uncertainty. “Rest of the building’s clean.” As in no reporters, no magical bugs to overhear. Milo waits, side eyeing Alvina for signs of life. Alvina holds her breath and stays unnaturally still. After a beat she exhales and lets Milo lead her upstairs without another word.
Hudson had gone back and forth on whether he wanted to know the day Alvina would visit Lanara and access the truth surrounding what happened between himself and infamous actress Candice Snow the night of Kam and Kanze's party. In the end, they made arrangements like a bomb was about to go off in their house. They even agreed to meet elsewhere, at their place downtown overlooking the ocean. He's there now, killing time by reading some reports on his front business, a new real estate venture at the outskirts of town. Not that much is absorbing, his eyes move across the page without really registering the words printed there. He re-reads the same paragraph several times.
Had he really turned Candice down?
... And would his wife think so?
"She's on the beach," that's Milo, letting himself into the apartment. Hudson turns to meet his #2's gaze and, after sucking in a breath, nods.
"How's she seem?"
"I didn't talk to her, but maybe quiet," says Milo. "You want to go down there?" Hudson gets to his feet, approaching the luxurious floor to ceiling window that frames a beautiful view of the ocean. His gaze sweeps the white sand until it finds his wife. She's looking away, toward the waves. He feels his heart contract violently, as if squeezed in a fist. "Ask if she'll come up," he says, without turning around, feeling a sudden need to assert himself over the situation. If she obeyed, what would that mean? And if she didn't?
"Will do."
The click of the door closing follows. Hudson slips his hands into his pockets, doesn't budge from his post by the window, watching Alvina as, some minutes later, Milo crosses the sand to meet her. She doesn't seem to say anything, but follows Milo as if in a daze. Only when they leave the view of the window does Hudson take a step back from it. He finds himself in the kitchen, numbly going through their ice box, when she lets herself in. Hudson doesn't turn immediately to face her. He waits for the door to close behind her, for Milo not to follow, before letting the latch to the icebox drift closed. No drink obtained. His brow furrows as he tries to appraise her expression. "Hey," he greets her, posing the word uncertainly between them.
Milo holds the door to the apartment and lets Alvina in. She stands in the foyer, studying the flashy, upscale decor inside as if seeing it for the first time. Using the skull drained her, and muted Lanara for the next hour, as the witch had warned. Alvina suffered no such consequences but she almost wished she had. It would give her more time to think about what to say. Hudson’s there waiting, not directly at the door but in the vicinity. An excitable puppy that wanted to maintain the air of indifference. Eager for the judgement call, no doubt. Alvina’s expression is withdrawn, thoughtful, but there’s no outright anger or disappointment apparent on it’s surface. She manages the ghost of a smile and asks him for a drink. They had wine here, probably.
In the entryway, she tugs off her heels, moving further in to drape her coat over the back of their couch. No cat hair existed here so it was safe. She’s projecting a bubble of silence. An air of needing space while also wanting to reassure Hudson she was here. That whatever she’d seen wasn’t so bad that she never wanted to see him again. It couldn’t go that way anyway, they had a family to run together. There’d be no such thing as ‘never seeing him again’. He reappeared in the living room, the windows a black backdrop that he shined against. She didn’t want to ever say that she didn’t want to see him. Never wanted to feel that way. She takes the glass he hands her and thanks him quietly, tasting the wine and confirming it was expensive. Perfect for a good (or bad) occasion. He’s looking at her, waiting uncertainly for her to start the conversation. And after a long sigh, she does. She’s only slightly paled by the gesture.
“Lanara was very gracious about helping me,” She starts, because it’s easy. “Have you ever used that skull before?” She’s quick to jump ahead with or without an answer. “It’s surreal, being in the room with someone you can’t interact with. Like the simulation but more removed. You feel like a ghost haunting someone’s dreams.” What if what she’d seen WAS just a dream? A dream of how Hudson WISHED he’d reacted to Candice?
“Anyway,” She reflexively tries to smile at the floor. “You were nice to Rijanna, she seems sweet. I hope I can meet her some day.” Her voice was low but endeared. “It was really cute, honestly, and she had no idea who you were.” She recalls the game of Kiss, Marry, Kill, and doesn’t even find herself jealous that Hudson objectified Uma. She knows he wouldn’t do anything with her, their arrangement was strictly business.What she’s uncertain about is his response to marry Candice. How is Candice anything like Alvina? She wants to ask him but doesn’t know how clearly he remembers the night. He’d probably just say it was the polite thing to say, since Rijanna was the more chill of the two. Thinking of Candice kissing Hudson sours her stomach again. He knew it happened, she knew it happened. She didn’t need to repeat it with accusation. “I saw Candice...kiss you but you pushed her away and...tried to leave.”
Hudson goes into the ice box for wine, the task taking on a certain heft the longer she says nothing of substance. He uncorks a bottle and pours them both drinks while she settles herself. The wolves are deathly quiet, a fact that is unsettling because it's rarely the case. They already know whatever it is she will tell him, the bond assures them a certain amount of emotional leakage, Hudson tells himself as he follows her into the living room and hands her a glass. The wolf would feel sadness and fear and anger if she knew she were leaving him. Plus, she's here. That's something too. He just has to be patient.
It's just easier said than done. He must look at her with a certain jagged intensity because she sighs and finally breaks the seal on the silence that had been building. He shakes his head in response to her question about whether he's ever used the skull before. He hadn't even exactly been aware it was a skull per se, just that it had been an item of great magical power. It makes sense that it would be one of the skulls. "Weird," he says to her description of the sensation.
He decides to sit down on their couch and beckons that she do the same. He's grateful to be busy doing something when she mentions Rijanna. He drinks from his glass. So she'd seen that. Mildly embarrassing. But then again, she knows that he has always had a harmless crush on the entertainer. 'Really cute' are not words he likes to have applied to himself, but he'll take it, considering the rest of that particular scene had some elements that might have upset her. He's thinking of the game in particular -- hadn't he been a little flirty? And hadn't it been immediately after, the others had cleared out, and Candice had tried to kiss him? "Everyone was a little drunk but it was chill," he says carefully, and finds that this response on his part stirs her to speak again, to mention the kiss. Gracious of her to mention that he tried to leave, perhaps another version of his wife might have mentioned that he'd probably flirted with Candice, focused on that, not the part where he attempted to stop whatever was going to happen. Even with her kindness, he still has the sense to look apologetic, and he heaves a slow sigh. "It shouldn't have gotten even that far, honestly." He looks into his drink. "I got really tired after that," he adds, quietly.
The sensation -was- weird. Using the skull gave you a high definition view of a complete situation. Any slight of hand, any gentle tilt, all the angles were open to interpretation. So when Candice hovered on the edge of the hot tub and Hudson turned to talk to her, she felt her face flush with embarrassment. In her mind, he’d drunkenly stroked her leg, been too comfortable with ‘friendly’ touches. But the real scene, if she’d seen it in a flash, would still paint him as flirty. Just not as flirty as she’d expected, believe it or not. Not as flirty as he had been with Val in the bar, on the beach...She bit her lip to avoid crying. This wasn’t about the witch. It was about Candice. Here, she finds herself trying to protect him from his guilt. He hadn’t convinced the actress in any way. Didn’t pursue her at all. SHE leaned in to kiss him, SHE sat on the tub’s edge, knowing he’d have to look up and see her body. He’s brushing the situation away, claiming it should have ended long before that but Alvina could see how it didn’t. She didn’t like it, but she could see how. Hudson’s mention of getting tired sparks another wave of stiffness in her shoulders.
She lets his words melt out into the room, dissipating like a cloud of smoke, before she speaks again. “I saw…” But then she sighs again. She wants to rush into his lap and tell him the fast truth but she’d veered off the road with Lanara. They’d gone beyond what they said they’d do and Alvina was no better for it. Worse, if she had to pick. It wasn’t Candice’s actions with her husband that set her on edge or his actions with her. Alvina rolls the stem of her wine glass carefully between her fingers and stares at her knees. “She brought you a drink.” His wife’s words were slow, painstakingly so. “And you tried to get your clothes but were stumbling.” Her teeth snap shut, face hot with anger. “She helped you to the bed...and you passed out.” It’s what comes after that they’ve both feared seeing. His whispered grunt at Candice not to snuggle him is a knife through the heart. A relief. She’d broken down, legs collapsing beneath her when it happened. Wept madly in front of Lanara, watching Candice hover over him on the bed. And then the first vase crashed to the floor, the table nudged over by her bare foot. Her smile afterwards was the most vile, disgusting expression she’d ever seen a human being wear. Worse than Cayl, worse even than Vuryal. Desparrow even did not compare. “She destroyed the room. Broke...everything…” While Hudson was in bed, mumbling Valrae’s name with a furrowed brow. Candice destroyed the room like a destructive force of nature until everything’s shattered or shuffled. Then she hauls Hudson’s body further up on the bed, under the sheets, and kicks his clothes into the floor beside the bed. Shucking her own clothes, the actress climbed in beside him, brushing hair out of his face when he whispers Valrae’s name again, in irritation. Candice doesn’t care. She sinks down into the mattress and curls herself around him, grinning even as she falls asleep."
"Kanze had come back in the room, she notices, before they left, and saw Hudson with Candice and tried to wake him quietly. “Bro,” their neighbor hissed but Hudson wouldn’t stir. “Kanze tried to get you out but you wouldn’t wake up.” The scene plays back in black and white, red streaked only by the things Candice touched, as if her hands were covered in blood. “You talked about Valrae...while you were...asleep.” And that’s where she has to stop, heart heavy like stones and sharp as glass. They were so good. She’d seen him NOT cheat on her. But Valrae’s existence was a thorn on the rose of the truth and it bit much harder than it ever should. Alvina sets down her wine glass to cover her mouth. Her other hand reaching to find one of his and squeeze it tightly. "You didn't sleep with Candice, Hudson. You were drugged."
Hudson grinds his teeth as Alvina slowly picks through her words, his expression slowly growing shadowed in anger as the truth unspools between them. He is very still, his body rigid like a stone, staring ahead at an unfixed spot on the wall. He imagines Candice calculating just how to stage the scene, the straining look on her beautiful face as she pulled his much larger body around on the bed to get him just right, before falling asleep herself in the final finishing touch the scene needed.
It's humiliating. Not only had she never wanted him at all, but she'd played him so easily, and he'd never seen it coming, her long game. He'd assumed that of course she'd want him, but the truth is she'd used his own vanity against him.
And hurt his family in the process. Hudson knows what the conclusion to this story is before Alvina says the words. A searing itch skitters up the length of his forearm, a violent conflagration that spreads to his chest, grips his heart like a fist and squeezes the air out of his lungs. He barely registers her hand on his, looking only belatedly downward, as if it confused him. "I ..." he tries to say, his brow furrowing, and then suddenly everything is snuffed out, and the full weight of him slumps onto Alvina, the step of his wine glass connecting with the edge of the couch and spilling its contents.
Alvina watches Hudson stiffen while she chokes out the last bit of what she can say. It's great news that he didn't do the thing but she still feels dragged over glass about it. Their family didn't fall apart so Candice's plan failed right? In her mind anyway. She keeps her eyes down, on their hands, waiting for Hudson to say... Anything. Alvina did the hard part and would like to be consoled now please. Hudson starts to speak and she braces herself against several possibilities, unprepared for his weight to sag down on her this way. At first, she wonders if he'd hugging her out of relief. If he's fallen into her, at long last, to admit his shame and fear and grief... But then wine spills into her lap and she struggles to juggle Hudson off her and into the floor. “Hudson,” she panics frantically. “Hudson?” With no response she calls his name again and stares numbly at his unresponsive body... And screamed.
In the end, it's Milo that helps turn down the master bed and drag Hudson off the couch. Alvina’d taken a step back - letting Hudson's man take the brunt of the work. It feels like she's watching it happen to someone else. This situation. It would happen to Josleen or even Emily but not Alvina. Nope. Milo fans Hudson's body out across the bed. It's so ridiculous,“He needs to go to the clinic!” She barks but Milo's telling her Hudson just needs a minute. Frustrated, she reaches out to Little Miss and finds no panic in her wolf, only underlying currents of a deep violence. Hudson was breathing, alive just not conscious.
Hudson wakes with a jolt in the master bedroom, feeling himself jerk upright and gasp for air as if he had been drowning. "Alvina," he gasps her name, and his initial confusion quickly yields to anger, the feeling once more teeming inside his bones. Milo is in the room, and although moments ago had been an especially fragile one between himself and his wife, it's his second in command that Hudson now addresses: "Pick up Candice and hold her somewhere."
"Boss--?"
"Now," barks Hudson.
Milo shifts his weight uncomfortably, glancing at Alvina. "Aubree?"
Because Candice, after all, was a single mother, and Aubree was her young daughter. Hudson doesn't flinch. "School will sort out Aubree. Pick up Candice."
"If the papers pick up she's missing--"
But Milo's reservations are cleaved by Hudson, who roars: "PICK. HER. UP."
Milo doesn't linger, after murmuring his assent. Incandescent now with his rage, Hudson knows that his hands are shaking, and he hides them under the duvet as he looks at Alvina, saying nothing but breathing hard, his expression turned to stone. "I am not angry at you," he says stiffly, though the words are serrated like knives. Glancing around him, he realizes, at this point, that he hadn't been in this room before. "I guess I passed out," he adds bitterly, finally slicing his gaze back to her. "I'm going to kill her," he announces, like a threat. "She's done. I do not _care_ how it looks."
Alvina jumps when Hudson whirls to life beside her. She echoes back his name with boundless relief before she's halted by Hudson's sharp instructions. “Hudson,” she starts, in a dissuading tone but he doesn't miss a beat. Nor does he respond to his wife. Alvina catches Milo's eyes with the same worried expression. She shook her head very slightly, eyebrows folded in concern. Her face read ‘Don't. He's angry. He doesn't mean it.’ The dark secret was that they all knew he did.
“Hudson!” She paws at his shirt urgently when he brushed off Milo's inquiry about Aubree. “No-” Then to Milo “-No-” but Milo can't stand against Hudson's unfiltered anger and cracks, leaving as quickly as he can. “Milo! Don't-” Alvina calls after him before the front door closes and rushed footfalls bleed into a thick silence. Hudson's face is pinched with heat, flushed with condensation. Her wolf bristles, fearfully. She realizes, in the moment, she's terrified of him. “Hudson-” she tries again, lamely, before he cuts her off with boss intentions. She knew enough about handling temperaments like this from their children, Bryce especially. He had an unquenchable rage in him when he wanted to. Telling Hudson he couldn't would only increase his desire to show her (and everyone else) that he could. He was Hudson frickin’ Landon and could do WHATEVER he wanted. Duck Uma. Duck Cenril. Goose Candice.
“You did pass out,” she offers as inconspicuous proof he should calm down. The wine stain is still damp on her lap. “Babe, please, just take a minute.” His breathing is labored like his lungs were too full of rage to let air in. Her face is paler than wax, nearly translucent. She can feel the bed trembling, watches the duvet over his hands twitch. He's never been more serious, or deadly, about anything she's ever seen. He needs to sleep this off. Shit. She has to do something...Little Miss slumps down in immediate compliance to Hudson's rage, proving to be no Ally to Alvina now. “Hudson-her daughter…” Would be an orphan. Candice told him Sterling was dead and if he killed the actress, Aubree would be left behind. A testament to Hudson's blind power. “Uma, our children…” She tries but feels these things fail to stick, like water on a duck’s back. “Don’t...Hudson!” She sighs. “Something's wrong, you passed out, you -have- to calm down or you'll pass out again..”
Hudson hardens his jaw at Alvina's careful admonition about coming down. "I don't care," he interjects flatly when she mentions Aubree in an apparent plea for clemency. His mind easily processes her mentions of Uma and their children. Surely whatever the blowback in the papers can be managed, like anything else, because that's what he does. He manages mischief, like Candice. Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing though if he didn't completely squelch the truth either. Maybe he's tired of people messing with the Landons and wants to make an example out of what happens if you do. No, he doesn't care about Aubree, not at all. If only her mother weren't a--
Alvina pleads with him to calm down, interrupting the progression of that thought, and he gives her a virulent look. "I'd think you'd be on my side, considering," he says, with withering conviction. He is still quaking with rage, the wolf a black whorl of fury and snapping teeth inside his skin, but he forces himself to his feet, ignoring any protests that he shouldn't, and walks past her into the kitchen. He pries open the ice box and gazes into it as if it were the abyss itself.
Alvina's footsteps signal her arrival behind him seconds later. "It's not up for debate," he says without looking at her. He doesn't know what he's looking for. Nothing. It's just a thing to do. "It's a decision I'm taking as head of this family." Saying the words aloud restores his sense of power, and he draws in a steadying breath. He reaches into the ice box and removes a jar, which he delicately poses on the counter, turning at length to face Alvina. "Don't fuss over me, I'm fine," he tells her, his hands wringing the jar's lid until it pops. He reaches bare handed inside and plucks loose a pickle, which he goes about eating while a silence spills out between them.
Alvina flinches back a step. “I -am- on your side,” she reassures him as they move into the kitchen. She stands there, facing his back while he roots through the ice box, helplessly. Of all the things she knew he did, this was one of a great many she couldn’t stomach. He’s making declarations about their family hierarchy and she can’t fight back. The wolves recognize the power dynamic, the people play along instinctually. Alvina wished she could be Harper and tear into him ruthlessly over this thing, she’d felt so much relief that it was a farce. She thought they could curl up in the master bedroom and fawn over one another before it had to be dealt with. Alvina wants to take back the knowledge, keep it safe, tell Hudson a lie about how he’d slept with Candice. As much as Alvina hated what Candice did, it could have been so much worse. They could have separated over this incident. But they rode out the waves she caused. They could ride this one out too, if Hudson didn’t flip the whole boat. “Hudson-” she tries again but he dissuades her.
The silence gnaws at her skin and bones. Drips off the tip of her nose, each delicate strand of crimson hair and even her fingertips pulse with awareness of the amount of distance between them. With a sigh, she moves to the door as if to leave. “Okay,” She says, relenting to his decree as Lord of the Landon Castle. But is she, really?. She just needs to get downstairs to stop Milo. She can, right? But then Milo would suffer the consequences of Hudson’s embarrassment. Hudson wouldn’t hurt Milo...but she can’t be sure. She can be sure he wouldn’t hurt their children. She’s sure he wouldn’t hurt her, unless she fought back against his orders. Milo…
Alvina never wished for Hudson’s operation to prove fruitless. She never wanted the Cenril police to show up one day and drag him out into the yard in a shock collar. She never wanted to use the tunnel they talked about building under the house. Never wanted bombs in their house or Hudson’s business burned down...but she hopes beyond hope that his men can’t find Candice. Alvina hopes that this snake of a woman is in hiding, with her daughter, out of Hudson’s reach. If it was just Candice, Alvina wouldn’t care as much. But it’s Aubree that makes this difficult. It’s not Aubree’s fault her parents were scum of the earth. Candice had to know Hudson would come for her, one way or the other. She’d practically told the papers herself with the blind refusal. So how does Alvina interject appropriately? Without flaring Hudson’s wrath or endangering anyone else? Alvina stares at the closed door to their apartment, eyes boring a hole through it’s slick paint. ‘Don’t find her, Milo’.
“Just, catch her.” Alvina’s voice bulldozed through the quiet. “Catch her, make her recant her statement to clear up the situation with the papers. Kick her out of Cenril, I don’t know, cut off her hands or something.” You can still be a mom without two hands, Emilia was living proof and the gensai had THREE children! “This isn’t your style. This isn’t smart, it’s not methodical, it’s just...you flopping your...whatever on the table and daring for someone to challenge you. What happens when they challenge you Hudson?” She moves back into the kitchen to stare at him. The air is still electric and smells of brine from the pickles. “There will be more bombs in our house from sources we can’t track down. There will be more rumors about us. It’s not going to end anything, it’s only going to look like a weakness. That you buckled under a woman’s trick...that you let her get the best of you.” And that’s what she’d be doing. Candice would have the last laugh, even if she died, because Hudson’s reputation was further ruined. A mob boss? Sure. Mayor of Cenril? Why not? Desperate and blind? That’s how this is going to look. And the more Alvina thinks about it, the angrier she gets. “And after all that’s cleaned up, and she recants and ‘leaves’ to Rynvale to join the rest of her family, THEN you can kill her. Then, it looks like you have control over the situation and aren’t just acting blindly.”
Hudson is still eating the pickle when Alvina moves to the door, as if to leave. He doesn't follow. He feels a pulse of anger in gazing at her, a natural offshoot of his rage. Must have been easy to believe that he did it. And even though he didn't in the end, she probably still feels as if he did. She's not angry like he is. Or maybe she is angry, except with him, .. except she knows that right now is a bad time for her to feel that way. He studies her, visibly weighing whether she should stay or go, with laser focus. Hadn't she mentioned Valrae's name earlier? How does Valrae always find a way to reappear between them, like an infection that never quite clears?
Alvina is talking about cutting off Candice's hands, and Hudson, now free to speak, laughs at her. What a ridiculously brutal suggestion from his normally gentle wife. "I'm not cutting off her hands," he says matter-of-fact, about to continue, to explain why this particular situation has underscored one of the most important lessons in gangster game theory: if you come after someone, don't leave them strong enough to ever come after you. But instead she goes on, crudely characterizes his reaction as himself putting a certain anatomical part of himself on the table. He snorts derisively: she's not wrong, but that's how it works in this 'industry.' Alvina, apparently no longer keen on fleeing the scene, advances on him with a fury and begins to rattle off the things they've faced in recent memory. She'd forgotten to mention her arrest, but no need because with that list he remembers it on his own. Though she's 'trying to help,' there's also a not very subtle undercurrent that he doesn't like, an ancient argument that they're both having but not having because they'd just be reading from the same tired script, and nobody has the patience for that right now.
They glare at one another.
"You wanna be a gangster, Alvina?" he asks her in a low tone. "You want to let Candice know that we know she's an enemy? And then you think Candice will trust that I'll just ... let her go to Rynvale. After coming at my wife." He pauses, his eyes grow. "It's not like it was a misunderstanding. She faked a whole scene and spoke to the papers to try to destroy our marriage! And that wasn't even the first time she tried something. If you were Candice, do you think I'd let you just go to Rynvale?!" He cocks his head at her. "Come on, no way is she going to Rynvale. No, she's going right to the papers and the guard, Alvina. Then it's going to be, We had passionate affair and now that we were found out I'm threatening to kill her and her young daughter." He fixes a solid stare at her, waiting for her to contradict him. "There's no Rynvale plan. This is curtains for Candice Snow. You know those actresses, they do love their drugs and alcohol."
Alvina is out of her depth. Suggesting solutions to problems in an industry she didn't understand. What she did understand was her husband. She'd seen him ruthlessly angry before, watched him kill... At least two men. “You can play by the rules.” She grits her teeth, shoulders tense with something akin to fear that she can't place. Uncertainty? He'd been able to hold it together publicly after she was arrested, why not now?
He starts down the list of things Candice tried to accomplish. “But did she?!” Alvina shouts, takes a step back, startled by her own frustration. “She had a perfectly executed plan, Hudson, and we didn't capsize. That should be a -relief- to you. It answers your questions about ‘how you would never because you didn't. You didn't sleep with her. You were drugged and went out of your way to tell her not to touch you.” Didn't he understand how monumental that was for them? For her? “I was so relieved, I cried like a baby in Lana’s arms. This didn't just affect you, Hudson. It embarrassed me too. It hurt me too. I want a say in how we deal with her.” We. As if she's an active member of his cartel. She's never gotten her hands dirty for his work. “I will meet her. I'll take her to Rynvale, I'll get Aubree with her family and then I will kill her.” Alvina sounds unnaturally serious. This was a grocery list for dinner not a rough murder outline. She was a werewolf, Candice wouldn't overpower her or dissuade her. “I'll make her write a note.” She continues with eerie confidence. “Talking about Sterling and not wanting to ‘do it’ anymore. Confessing to drugging you, being unfit to be a mother. Ambiguous enough that they won't be looking for a body immediately.” Hell, Alvina didn't know. “Then it would make sense that she arranged her daughter to go home.”
“She doesn't know we know. We have the upper hand here and will, for as long as we keep it together.” Who was she to lecture him? He must think she's lost her mind. “What she tried, failed, even before we knew the truth.” She wouldn't say she was AS embarrassed, because she didn't have a wounded male pride over being helpless and still not...I mean, forced into any sexual acts. He goes on about actresses and drug problems and Alvina bauks in disgust. “Stop it,” she says, her voice shaking with fear. She hates this ruthlessness. Hates that he had a million second to decide what to do and he jumped to murdering a mother. She's slumped against the kitchen counter, looking pale and worn. Little Miss was holding her back, despite her own untamed wrath. “You should be relieved.” she swallows, “And we should take time to think about what to do.”
Now they're having an absurd shouting match wherein Alvina screams at him about how he DIDN'T cheat on her, weaponizes the truth they'd both wanted. He feels his skin hiss with the wolf's itch, a desire to change, to become something other, to control the conversation that's now gotten away from them, and beyond that control his mate who is stepping very much out of her lane right now.
"You, and your plans, are INSANE," he informs her, taking the same tone he does when one of their children's misbehaved. "Do you hear yourself? You're not killing anyone, you're the mother of our children. You're not supposed to ever, and I mean ever," he raises his voice, "be implicated in any of this!" A beat here, while he gestures at the room at large. "I shouldn't even be talking to you about it, making you a co conspirator!" he roars. He takes a second after that to remember the sound proofing spell they have on the apartment, and to hope that it works like the mute button he needs it to right now. Or at least that any neighbors aren't home. He braces himself against the kitchen island and emits a strangled, very frustrated grow before setting his jaw. He considers her. For all her posturing, there'd been a tremor in her voice, if he's honest, and he knows: this conversation needs to deescalate.
"I'm dealing with this," he informs her in a tone that suggests the conversation is over. He jabs a finger at his chest for emphasis. "I am. It's horrible no matter what, but it's my mess." He draws in a breath, steadying his tone, "And we're not fighting about how I didn't cheat on you anymore. This is stupid."
Turns out there’s not ‘we’ in how Candice Snow would be handled. There’s only Hudson. His declaration that her plan was insane yields a startled, wide eyed glare. He might as well have slapped her hard across the face. “It’s too late!” She bites back, too loudly, teeth gnashing in weak rebellion. Hudson takes his moment of silence and the quiet buries itself in her ears palliatively. This plan, involvement or not, didn’t exist without compunction for her. -Candice was a mother-. Buried under this moral discontent is the wolf’s instinctual need to yield. Her insubordination only served to feed her unease. Alvina stretches her fingers nervously. His eyes feel like searchlights, scanning her for weakness. Is he wondering if she would or could actually kill Candice? It didn’t matter, in the end. He resolves, insistently, to handle the matter himself. Alvina bristles at his dismissal of the fight. It is stupid, she agrees, but bucking him now won’t solve the issue. The issue is Candice, not Hudson. And Alvina, his wife, was ready to betray his wishes in favor of her own. “It’s not just your mess.” Her voice is low, almost warm. “I wish you’d stop acting like you’re the only one touched by this.” That he’d let her in, especially now that she’s a co-conspirator. Alvina sighs, looking over her shoulder, down the hallway at the foyer.
She knew, but wouldn’t say, that she wasn’t mad at Hudson. Not even Candice, for planting this seed of doubt in her. It was her own nosiness that was corroding her patience. The high bell like sound of Val’s laugh in the bar. She wanted to kill Candice, to snuff out her insurgence, while imagining she was the dominant female force in his life. To watch the light dim in Candice’s eyes until her body slumped heavy in death. It was the wolf that wanted this, but Alvina didn’t fight the delicious fiction where she felt vindicated. “You’re right. This is stupid.” She agreed, sounding tired and small. They should have been celebrating instead of trying to exact vengeance. He should be relieved but he isn’t. He’s angry, and his fixation on his own feelings and wounded ego is what’s fueled her disobedience. She shouldn’t be calming him down. She’d had to watch the damn thing. He should be treating her like glass instead of hitting a high note in the hopes she’d shatter. “I’m going home.” She announces, as a way to draw his attention away from Candice. “If you’re going to pout all night about being played, I don’t want to be here for the pity party.” Her words, even with their sting, were quiet and chase. It wasn’t an attempt to re-ignite the fight. It was a fight she knew she wouldn’t win anyway. She’d just have to go behind Hudson’s back and kill Candice herself. Finding her would be the hardest part. Hudson’s men had a firm head start. She stares at him, eyes sweeping his tense jawline. “This isn’t why we wanted to know.” She reminds him in a whisper. “Come home when you’re done, I guess.”
Hudson can only glare at Alvina when she doesn't take the hint and simply yield, like he wants her to. This is his house, she's supposed to do as he says. Maybe other couples do it differently, but this is how they do it. And though at the end of the day, Alvina wants to get a word in, she knows when they've hit the breaking point. But rather than simply lower her proverbial weapons, she tosses them at his feet. Her parting shot lances any relief he might have felt. His expression remains unchanged, fixed in stillness and fury as she excuses herself. The hairs on his arms are on end, crackling with a primordial element, the skin beneath them searing with the wolf's need to turn. In the moment she isn't his beloved wife, mate, and mother of his children. She is only a person trying to stand in his way, refusing to yield to his authority the way she should. His thoughts are a violent tidal force, and he braces himself against the counter as they go black around the edges, threatening to take him down again. He recognizes the protective spell that prevents him from doing violence to her and their children, and knows that without it, it would be a different scene between them. He bares his teeth at her when he replies: "Do your job, I'll do mine."