「ℴphelia → ωilkes」 (primrosepath) wrote in valesco,
@ 2011-06-03 01:54:00

Entry tags:

grayson!
WHO: Grayson, Ophelia + Anastasiya Wilkes
WHAT: AWWWWWKWARD!
WHEN: Midday
WHERE: Wilkes Manor

This all seemed like a very terrible idea.

Her husband was not right. He was simply not well, and that was added on top of all of the not wellness that she had known he possessed since the moment she had first become suspicious that he might have been leading an alter life as one of the Dark Lord's men.

Not that she thought that the Death Eaters were unwell--they had their opinions and beliefs on things, and fought for them; that's how her parents had always taught her to view it--but Grayson... he had always had an intense, mysterious air about him that indicated there was something not quite right brewing under the surface. The way his family spoke of him, as well, indicated something was off about the youngest Wilkes man... So, yes, in a hypothetical sense, she was aware that she was standing in the living room of a man who was going mad on top of already being his own brand of mad.

Ioan was right, probably. She was absolutely bloody crazy, loving a man like this.

She was probably even crazier for bringing her one-and-a-half year old daughter back under the same roof as this man, when she had just a few months ago removed she and her brother from the very same manor for fear of what might befall them if they stayed much longer. Not that she suspected Grayson would harm his daughter--not on purpose. But Ophelia had long ago given up trying to predict just what he would do next, and it was too stressful to worry 24/7 that the next thing would be something they would all regret.

But she was not cruel. She knew he cared for Anastasiya, and she knew that he had not seen the baby girl in nearly three months now. It could not be wildly unsafe, Ophelia thought, to allow him to see his daughter for a short time while she was standing by... and she had business to discuss with him anyway. She had obviously not forgotten her proposition regarding the adoption of Dmitry, and she felt anxious inside to see if it would go over. If she filed for divorce--if; despite urging from her friends and family, it would be a lie to say that she did not hold an ounce of hope, built of love and worry, that he would become better--then she wanted to be certain she had parental rights to her step-son. If his situation continued to be unstable as it had been, she would not hesitate to sue to revoke his rights to be alone with his children. She was too scared of the what-ifs that could become of them with any other verdict.

It was going to be a very tiring day.

Hoisting Anya up higher on her hip, Ophelia left the living room and ventured into the familiar foyer. The place really had not changed at all since she had left--and it was calm. Eerily calm and empty.

Taking a deep breath, she called out to her husband, thinking in that moment that she wished she had notified him that they would be coming first. Then again, Dmitry had gone to a friend's for the day and she had only just decided to make the trip. "Grayson?"

[ooc; Lmao do ... NOT feel obliged to write a tag that long. I used this as a space to give her a sort of personal exploration of what we'd talked about has been going on, to put everything up to date. Also I just kept writing. So. You know.]

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-04 05:22 am UTC (link)

For all that Amery had told Grayson he would eventually have to start functioning like a normal Death Eater, covering his tracks more solidly -- he hadn't believed it until the fall of the Dark Lord. Things had really gone to shit in the last few months, though. With both Bellatrix and Rabastan in prison, he really had nobody to turn to that he could express his baser desires to because he'd started to have to hide things from the rest of the world. Being found out as a Death Eater now would result at the very least in his incarceration; if they traced his wand to some of the crimes that he'd committed, he doubted he would last too many days in Azkaban before receiving the kiss.

His mind had taken it upon itself to start growing spotty. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism, perhaps it was a result of his less-than-stellar mental health record. Either way, it had gotten to the point where it was too difficult for him to coexist with other people in the house. The house elves had taken it upon themselves to stay as far out of his way as possible as well; as a result, the house was spotless.

He hadn't been expecting guests, but Ophelia's voice -- even in his current state -- was familiar. He didn't want to think too hard on exactly why, since he was sure that he must've married a blonde pureblood, but ... well, there it was.

He recognized Anya and knew the girl's name, though. He wondered if Ophelia had brought the girl here to see him. Grayson turned the corner into the foyer. He looked unstable, true, but in large part it was exhaustion that overshadowed that for now. Sleep had been difficult for some time, now.

"...yes?" His gaze slid down over to Anya, watching his daughter. She looked much bigger than she had before -- had it really been so long? The idea was ... unsettling, as he had little recollection of that much time passing.

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primrosepath
2011-06-04 06:54 am UTC (link)

Ophelia did not know what she had been expecting, but... it was certainly not this.

She carefully hid a quiet gasp at the state of her husband, a man whom she'd never known as anything but intensely controlled and brutally strong-willed. What presented itself to her now was surreal in so many ways. What was most disturbing, though, was that he was different now than when she had last seen him, when she had left those months ago. It was clear that he had gone even further downhill, and not just a little... Merlin, she could have sworn that he looked nearly vulnerable as he was now.

It was an unsettling thought in the least, and one she did not wish to dwell upon. The part of her that was madly in love with him felt terribly, knowing that he was hurting. The part of her that was most important, however, the part that needed to protect Anya and Dmitry, told her that this hurting man was also someone whom posed danger to otherwise defenseless children. Her grip around Anya involuntarily tightened when his eyes drew themselves to her.

It was not long before the barrage of guilt hit her.

Suddenly, Ophelia didn't know why she was there, why she had come at all. What seemed safe before now seemed terribly precarious, and it had nothing to do for once with what she feared was in Grayson's mind.

It occurred to her nearly a full minute later that he had spoken to her... or maybe time was just passing painfully slowly. Again strengthening her hold on Anya--whom had begun wiggling at recognizing her long-lost father--, she forced herself to look Grayson in the eyes.

"I'm sorry for coming." The timidness in her voice was unnatural and unwelcome. "I just thought you should see Anya, and I thought--I thought we should talk."

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-09 11:51 pm UTC (link)

The problem with the spotty memory (or the blessing, considering the things that Grayson had done himself willingly) was that he had no idea what he'd been doing for several hours out of each day. He did know that occasionally he found one of the house elves scrubbing blood off the carpets, though.

Strange, because he rarely had the impatience to maim something where it would leave a stain -- not because it was inconvenient to the elves, but because it was just something he didn't do. If Grayson was foreign to Ophelia right now, her timidness was reasonably foreign to him. Sure, when he'd first met her she'd been -- a little bit quiet, but she'd been insistent and forceful and that had been necessary for him. Having his eyes met focused him, however, and a tiny fraction of their former sharpness returned.

"Don't be sorry. You obviously had your reasons." Most of them, he assumed, had to do with Anya - and he held his arms out for the girl expectantly. He found himself in a difficult situation - the longer Ophelia stood in front of him, the stronger his desire to tell her something became.

It wasn't a good idea. There was a difference, he was sure, between suspecting you were married to a monster and knowing his explicit crimes.

"If you're here about -- the boy," half because he didn't remember the child's name and half because he had no desire to, "I haven't decided."

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 12:34 am UTC (link)

For a moment, Ophelia was truly conflicted as to what to do about Grayson expecting to hold Anya. Of course she hadn't come over to have him not be allowed to hold his daughter, but he was making her nervous the same way he had before she had left. She knew he would not hurt her, but the whole situation--his disposition, the eerie quiet in the house, and the lack of knowledge of what exactly had gone on since she had last been there--made her uneasy.

It was only reluctantly (although she hoped that would not show) that she loosened her arms around the baby and set her carefully in Grayson's outstretched arms. Anya seemed delighted and reached out to grab onto her father, seemingly oblivious to anything off about the scene taking place. After all, she was only still very small... that was one small blessing.

Before she could give into the urge to grab her daughter back, Ophelia forced herself to cross her arms tightly across her chest, fitting well with the thin line her mouth had formed as he brought up her reasons for being there.

"Dmitry," she insisted, for a moment feeling some of her old strength with him come rushing back. Ophelia really did not approve of him referring to Dmitry as 'the boy'. "And yes, I did want to ask about that. I was hoping that a week was enough time to consider, but I apologize if I've been too forceful on the matter." She sighed. "I'm just very fond of him."

Well, it wasn't a lie. Just not the whole truth.

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-10 01:01 am UTC (link)

He scooped Anya close to his chest and let her pull on one of his ears. It was remarkable what he put up with from little girls at the best of times - now he just wasn't up to even pretending to mind. If he noticed the uneasiness falling over Ophelia, he didn't say anything about it.

He arched his brow, watching the way her posture changed. In that moment it reminded him strangely of his very stern mother - he pushed that thought as far down as possible. Speaking to his parents now was out of the question with what had happened with Amery, his father always seemed to know when something was up, so there was nothing for it.

"I am sure that if the only reason you wished to adopt him was because you're fond of him, you would have done it when you were still living in this house," he remarked after a moment, shaking his head and looking down to Anya again. He really did feel very little attachment to that other child, but Anya was ... special. His special little girl.

"And you have not been too forceful, but I have still not decided." He couldn't help letting his eyes flit over to Ophelia's face. Even with the stern tilt to her mouth, she was looking well. That was good, at least. "It is not something I had considered as a possibility." He'd just assumed that eventually the boy would grow up and go to Durmstrang or Hogwarts, and he'd not have to deal with him any longer.

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 01:51 am UTC (link)

Ophelia felt a hint of a smile nudge at her lips as she watched Grayson interact with Anastasiya, but fought it down for the sake of the situation. Truthfully, though... watching him was difficult without reminiscing about the life she remembered having, the husband she remembered having before all of this had happened. In many ways, living alone was liberating and an true growing experience, but she missed being home. Not the way she had left it, but the way things had been before all of this crap had hit and Grayson had turned into someone she no longer knew.

Seeing her husband and daughter together like old times was... not easy, to say the least. But she had to push that off. Today was not the day to be thinking about how much she wanted to come running back.

Turning her eyes down to the wood floor under her feet, Ophelia listened to him carefully and forced herself to focus.

"I did think of adopting him before." Again, not a lie. "But I didn't realize it mattered to me so much until now... nor did I feel it was necessary until I became the only parent he is around much of the time." She turned her eyes back upwards and swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. "Even if we are to come home, I do think it would be helpful." And especially if they were not.

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-10 01:58 am UTC (link)

"And much more so if you do not," he muttered, letting Anya half-climb him while making sure that he didn't let go of her enough to have her be a danger to herself. Grayson was not sure where he stood on the topic of Ophelia returning home - he recognized that it was what he should be demanding at the moment, but he did care about her, and he was vaguely aware of the fact that having memory lapses was probably not good when combined with his unpredictable outbursts of anger.

He wanted to keep them both here, honestly. Locked away in a room where they'd be safe from anyone looking to seek revenge on a death eater; he was confident in his ability to protect his family when they were under his roof, but he didn't trust Ophelia's brother to keep her safe while she was living on her own.

He brushed back a bit of Anya's hair. "You know I have no attachment to the boy. It merely implies that you are welcoming him into the family fully," and Grayson didn't know if he liked the idea of that one bit.

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 02:09 am UTC (link)

She chose to ignore his muttering as if she had not heard it. Yes, that was the real reason behind everything, but it wasn't something she would acknowledge outright, even knowing that he had to know what a good chance there was at this point of her staying away permanently. It was really just an uncomfortable subject and as prepared as she was to consider the possibility, it was not a decision she was willing to definitively make.

Yet.

"I already have welcomed him into the family as fully as I possibly can," she shot back, although not meaning to put quite as much passion in her tone as it had carried. It was just a topic that she had never been fine with, especially when it came to Grayson's insistence on barely acknowledging his son's existence.

Forcing herself to bring it back a notch, she merely frowned at him. "By all means, I consider him my son in everything but law, and you should know that is very much in part because his father refuses to do so," she said pointedly. "Any attention I show him beyond what I show Anya is much due to feeling a need to make up for what you won't give him."

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-10 02:40 am UTC (link)

Well, if she wasn't going to admit that it was the reason she wanted to adopt the boy ... he didn't have to make any moves to consider it more seriously. Truth be told, he thought that if he signed over Dmitry to Ophelia, she'd have even less reason to come back and visit him. She'd -- be more likely to leave indefinitely, and that wasn't what he wanted. He knew at least that much.

"It isn't my problem that he is not wanted." All that Dmitry did was remind him of the foolish things he'd done before getting married. Thinking about that brought up his guilt over Amery, and all the problems he hadn't been dealing with for the past few weeks started to snowball up from there.

He bounced Anya absently on his hip. "And if this is all you are here to speak about, I would suppose this is going to be a short visit."

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 02:57 am UTC (link)

"You know it upsets me when you say things like that," she muttered. Ophelia pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, trying quite determinedly to ward off the headache she felt coming on at his response.

Yes, it had been worth a shot, hadn't it? Maybe it was the time away that had made her believe she could pull off her scheme with minimal issue, but whatever it had been had lead her false... Now that it had, it seemed so very Grayson to push off the topic of his son, just as he always had. If this went over, it would likely take much longer than she had anticipated.

"And it was the only thing about which I needed to speak with you," she continued. "But I will not be leaving without Anya, so I suppose either we can go, or find a better topic of conversation."

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-10 03:07 am UTC (link)

He felt an unfamiliar surge of panic at the idea of having Anya leave so soon. He glanced down at the little girl and then frowned.

Yes, he knew that it upset her when he said things like that - but he was sure that many things he did upset her, and she'd stayed with him through those. Now he had apparently done something to make things bad enough that Ophelia had left, which was one of the most confusing elements of this little problem he was having.

"You know that I'm certainly not a conversationalist," he said after a moment, bringing a hand up to mirror her action by pinching his own nose. He was tired, and even this brief interaction was problematic. But he'd be fine, he just needed a little more time to himself.

"Unless you would like to talk about the weather, of course."

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 03:21 am UTC (link)

She barely put off the action of rolling her eyes.

Some small part of her so wanted him to try... To come up with something, just to prove that he was willing to keep them there a little longer. But that wasn't Grayson's nature, she reminded herself, and maybe in the end it would all be for the better. There was still another part of her that did not want the extra guilt of knowing.

She had always drawn quite a line of reason between what she knew in her gut, and what had been said and proven. It was exactly that which allowed her to ignore the less-than-wonderful things she knew were true about the man in front of her enough to marry him, after all.

Ophelia took a deep breath. "Then I suppose we should be leaving," she said after a long pause, and reached her arms out for her daughter and attempted to ignore the little girl's reluctance at the idea.

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-10 03:31 am UTC (link)

He was trying. He hadn't done any yelling or shouting - oddly enough, he did not often find himself resorting to that with Ophelia. Grayson made no moves to hand the girl over to Ophelia, but neither did he restrain her further - he simply continued to stand where he was, and think suddenly about things that he could possibly talk about. He supposed he could ask about her brother, but he was quite sure she'd see through that. It had always been a sore spot, his dislike of her brother - but the man just rubbed him completely the wrong way.

"You know none of this is because of either of you," he managed after a moment, "And it is going to get better." Some of his old confidence was back in that statement, if only because it was something he had to believe. He cleared his throat and gave Anya a quick kiss to the forehead before moving to pass her back now that he'd at least said -- something.

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 03:44 am UTC (link)

She hadn't expected him to say much of anything, much less something like that. It took her off guard for a beat, causing her to pause in securing her arms around Anya--which didn't seem to matter anyway, as there was no way that child was going to sit soundly in someone's arms now unless it was her father's.

Ophelia fought with the squirming girl for a moment before giving her up and allowing her to stand on her own. She kept a cautious eye on her as the child toddled around the familiar foyer, wondering for a moment if she did so in some attempt to delay their departure by getting herself into something.

"It's been a long time, Grayson," she finally said with a deep sigh, eyes still darting frequently in Anya's direction as she spoke. "And whatever it is about doesn't seem to be going away. I don't really know what to do or where this is going... I just wish I had any idea when this supposed getting better is supposed to occur."

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glovesmandatory
2011-06-10 03:49 am UTC (link)

Grayson had certainly rubbed off on his daughter whether any of them knew it or not. That would be something he'd have tried if he thought it would help and not appear entirely juvenile. He frowned again, refusing to sigh even if he was frustrated with the situation and he could feel himself starting to dissociate from the conversation.

Fortunately for Ophelia, the house elves had kept most things that were easy to get into out of the way - for Grayson's sake now, and for Anya's before - because Grayson had flayed more than one of the elves over his daughter's safety before.

"I don't have any answers for you." Actually, that was part of what was frustrating him the most -- he didn't have answers even for himself. "So I suppose you two should be on your way."

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primrosepath
2011-06-10 04:09 am UTC (link)

And that was just what she planned to do.

Despite wanting to be able to talk this out with him, she knew better than to pretend that such a thing was an option, especially after the way he had taken trying to talk it out just a few months ago. He didn't show as little lack of control as he did then, but she was smarter than to think that he wasn't having to fight to keep himself contained.

That was not a situation she was about to get into with him when Anya was present. But not before--

"You know, I'm willing to talk about this when you find something better to say to me than that," she said, although her voice was not entirely devoid of compassion. It was just... tainted with frustration. "I didn't leave because I was worried for myself."

Coming up behind Anya, she quickly looped an arm under the girl's stomach while she was distracted, causing some sounds of protest in the process but leaving her able to do little about the unfortunate situation. "So until then, we'll be going."

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