RP:We’ve done our share of pretending

Part of the Laugh Now, Cry Later Arc

Summary: Hudson and Valrae meet again, this time at a safehouse belonging to his organization, to discuss a mutually agreeable solution to the political opposition she has been creating to Mayor Uma Abelin’s handling of the zombie outbreak: Valrae will run for mayor.

A Warehouse Safehouse Belonging to the Landon Organization, Cenril

With her legs crossed demurely at the ankles, Valrae looked out of place in the ill-lit warehouse office. The walls were grey and dirty from years of unwashed hands and piles of traffic swept dust collected on the brown stone floor. The desk she’d sat behind was littered with inventory logs and empty cups of coffee. She’d crossed her hands delicately over themselves in a small empty space in front of her. Her white coat was too bright against the dullness around her, wrapped around her tightly to ward off the chill that lingered in the room. Her hair was pinned back, delicate stray curls framing her face in a way that suggested she’d just crawled out of a warm bed and pushed it away thoughtlessly as she’d left her home. Her bag was at her feet, a large black leather purse that could carry a small library and matched her heels. As she pretended to wait patiently, she picked at a spot on her red polished nails and attempted to look very bored.

Hudson had been held up from this meeting, but he is here now. This warehouse is one of many properties he owns in connection with his real estate development empire. It’s for storing and transporting construction materials … and anything else that might need transporting. He’d chosen this venue to make it less of a scene, them meeting, both with the general public but also among his people. “She’s in the office, boss,” his second in command, Milo, tells him, as Hudson pulls loose a tartan scarf, already heading that way. He lets himself in without knocking, the door is ajar in any event, and she’d have heard him coming, the shuffle of his boots in the dust. “Hey,” he greets Valrae, crossing the room to a cabinet, which he opens, retrieving a decanter of whiskey and two crystal cut glasses that are cleaner than everything else in the room. He approaches and, standing close, sets them on the desk, in front of her. “Nice to meet you,” he says, a smile in his evened tone as he pours for them both, generously, “I hear you’re the witch I need to talk to about getting stuff done around here.” There being only the chair she’s seated in, he pulls up a milk crate and sits on it, his camel coat trailing on the floor. “I’m Hudson Landon.” He cants his head and, reaching for his glass, offers her a devil may care smile that hasn’t aged. “You look nice.”

Anything she’d thought she might open the conversation tumbled out of her mind the moment Hudson spoke. Confusion flashed across her face quickly, like street lamp light across carriage glass, before her lips tilted into a playful smile. “Valrae Baines. The pleasure is mine, I’m sure.” She replies, settling back into the chair to cross her legs after taking the drink he poured. The witch takes a careful sip, watching him through hooded lashes as she does. The warmth of it spread from her throat to her chest. “I’ll have to thank whoever has been whispering that in your ear, Mr. Landon.” Valrae tilts her head then, her fingernails tapping on the side of the crystal glass. His familiar smile sent small flutters through her, the kind that reminded her of day drinking and sandy beaches and secluded water fountains. The kind that had always led them both into trouble. “Thank you,” She accepts his compliment and it warms as quickly as the whiskey. She watches him for a handful of heartbeats and basks in the quietness of the moment, wishing not for the first time that things could be as simple as the first hello. But it had to end, didn’t it? Valrae takes her second drink before placing the glass back down on the cluttered desk. “Read anything interesting lately?”

Valrae plays along with the pretense and Hudson likewise lifts the tumbler to his mouth. It’s expensive whiskey, he gave up beer when he gave up his family. Only the harder things take the edge off anymore. He drinks and then smirks, glass in hand, at Valrae opposite him. And just as he expects the spell will break, Valrae addresses him as Mr. Landon. He laughs an easy laugh. “I could listen to that from you all day,” he jokes, falling silent as a familiarity settles in the atmosphere around them. He’d known her when he was just a kid. A different person. The penalty for mistakes hadn’t been then what it is now. And all he’d wanted to do, back then, was make mistakes, and come to her to be absolved of his sins. Unburden himself to this woman who with her quirky independence, seemed to want nothing from him or anybody else. Had he seemed likewise to her? Devil may care, content to let the world pick up for him the things that he dropped. Not the kinda guy who plays high stakes political chess with his ex-mistress. Hudson cocks his head at her question. Only Valrae would be this cheeky to him. Only Valrae would take aim at him in the papers, criticize his influence on the city, the mayor’s independence from the shady Landon real estate empire. “You ever think about,” he asks her, “how if you and me hadn’t been you and me, you might be hesitant to stand up to me? I think about it all the time. How I’d deal with you if you weren’t you.” He snorts faintly and considers her. “You want to cut to it, Val? What am I going to do with you?”

“I think about it.” The witch leans forward a bit, long hair slipping over her shoulders in a golden cascade. “I think about a lot of things.” Her smile was sweet but her dark eyes twinkled with mischief. It wasn’t as if Valrae didn’t know exactly how dangerous Hudson could be. She’d been close to pushing him too far before. Once over something as simple as a misunderstanding. But he’d never gone through with it, had he? Val recalls the time he’d helped her escape Larket’s eye after her return to the living and her part in sending another woman to a death that was meant to be her own. He’d told her goodbye then, as if it would be the last time they ended up somewhere like here. The memories flash through her, darken her eyes for a moment and bow her lips into a small frown. “But I am who I am.” The witch pushes her hair back and shrugs. Her hand finds the whiskey glass again but she doesn’t raise it to her lips. “Do you remember that night we turned that girl into… Me. For Larket?” She watches him closely now. “Do you remember what you said?” Val waits a beat, finally bringing the glass to her lips for a long drink. “You said ‘I’m glad we’re on the same team’. And we are. So, you’ll do whatever you think you need to do with me,” When she sets the glass down this time it’s empty and she’s smiling again. Maybe they had both changed. They were beyond the day drinking, the strip clubs, or playing cards with his friends. The mistakes they made now cost lives. “But I’ve always been on your team.”

I think about a lot of things, she says, her voice like velvet smoke. Hudson gives her a weighted look and drinks again from his glass of whiskey. It's not so simple as the feeling of her body bending against his, her golden hair against his cheek, the cloud of lavender as he lay there beside her in her bed, though sometimes he's there too in his mind's eye, when he rolls the tape on his life's choices that have led him to this loneliest path. It's their little game to pretend it's that simple. Because many other memories haunt the two of them too. She brings up the Larket mole whose light he'd snuffed out in her stead, and all he can think is how he sometimes turns over the memory of himself in her kitchen, eating cereal, seconds away from crushing her throat in his hands. One of his worst moments. He had a few of those with Alvina, too. Times he'd become Other.

It was easy to blame the Wolf. But the thing was ... many men were werewolves. Not all of them killed. Not all of them who killed, liked killing. This was the man he was, too. The man had a taste for violence, too.

So did Valrae. She was always the one baring her teeth, unashamed, taking what she wanted. Like a mermaid. (Oh, that's embarrassing. Had everyone solved that but him?)

The same team, she says. He finishes the whiskey in his glass and sets it down beside hers. "I want you to run for mayor against Uma," he tells her, "Let's put on a big pretend fight. Then you're going to win."

When he sets his glass beside hers she reaches out. It was only a flash, a quick brush of warmth as skin met skin, before she leaned close. Close enough that he would smell the sharpness of whiskey over the sweetness of her breath and the familiar lavender she wreathed herself in. They would never know how parallel their thoughts ran. Even still, Valrae’s eyes met his and she wondered for the millionth time if the reason they were drawn back to each other was the aching, bloodthirsty sameness that seemed to drive them both toward certain ends. The witch had always guarded the small, dark place in her heart that would always be the starving street girl from the South end. The girl who went to bed hungry and cold and yearning down to her marrow for the shining, Sven touched life of the Upper end. The hidden part of her that seemed only matched by the man who had been born to a life she could have only ever dreamed. The only man who had seen it and not turned away. At least, he’d never run from this part of her.

“We’ve done our share of pretending, Hudson,” She wasn’t smiling now. “But I won’t be faking my fight now. I’m going to win because I need to. Because I’ve earned it.” The statement was loaded, maybe she hadn't fully earned it yet in the eyes of Cenril at large. But she’d earned it here, with Hudson. For all of her want, for all of that endless need, she’d never even begin to ask of him for much more than he could give. Until the night he chose her life over Larket’s need for her blood and the delicate safety of their home, his family. She was asking for that again now, in her way. And he’d given her his answer. And for all that she was asking, for just a heartbeat of time Valrae wished for more still.