when: june 1st, evening where: a restaurant close to mont hq status: closed for @lamprius
He brought with him to Verona a plethora of feelings, packing them up tightly and storing them away to be examined and processed at a later date, later being entirely undefined. In the hours between the phone call, purchasing a one-way ticket for too much money, and feeling the space of the plane closing in around him, all Boris had felt was contempt. A little anger. Terror, first and foremost, the kind which wasn’t easily recognizable on any kind of surface level.
Now, two months later, settling slowly into a routine that is thrown every other day into chaos, all Boris seems to be able to summon up is the feeling of dread. A greater level of anger, too, somewhere in the neighborhood of simmering, but not quite.
He rises with dread. He speaks to others with the grey of it coloring his voice because they know and he knows they know and it’s a fucking mess, and then -- the sharp, precise snap of bitterness. Because he did this to himself, and has no one else to blame, and the year he’s spent working his ass off in New York has yet to show fruition even if he knows it eventually will. Bitterness, because he has to do it all over again in an entirely different city just to prove he won’t stab them all in the back at the first opportunity he gets.
He’ll prove it, sure. It just won’t mean anything.
He leaves his conversation with Calina Sokolova feeling something bloom just beneath his ribs that he is hesitant to identify because calling it what it is (blind rage, not at her, more at the way things are, built upon by the discussion of a man dead and knowing she hates him in a way he can’t talk his way out of) would give it more power than Boris tends to enjoy with feelings. So he leaves the library intent on grabbing something quick to eat, and then he’ll return and pore over year-old files and stacks of paperwork and notes that need to be discarded or tucked away. Further reminders of his insolence, incompetence, arrogance, and his desire to try it again just to see if he can get away with it this time.
This is what he is brewing on while he waits for his food at the bar, intending on skipping a drink and waiting his meal out -- it’s late, even though he called and placed an order ahead, because life is unkind and cruel to Boris and only Boris, melodramatic fool that he is. At least he doesn’t have to tip like he did in America, because if he did, he wouldn’t leave one.
He’s staring at a text message from Heloise on his phone that he thinks is vaguely referring to Tomas Sabello, debating on whether he should grace this one with a reply in the thread of fifty marked as read but given no other acknowledgement, when someone sidles up to him. It’s late. The place is crowded, it’s a casual sphere, he’s intending on getting in and out and not in the mood for conversation and Boris fully intends on looking up and saying so.
And, of course, because life is unkind and cruel to Boris and only Boris, as previously stated, it’s Lucien. He didn’t think his mood could get any worse, but this must be a special sort of evening. He feels his mouth press into a flat line on reflex, expression falling back on the pleasantly neutral face he uses whenever he has to deal with difficult clients. “Lucien,” he greets, “how are you?” It’s not quite a here to kick me while I’m down? But it’s close enough to it that he almost feels a little guilty.