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Ivan is asleep when it happens, but the captain knocking on his door gets him up quick enough. "What? Where's the fire?" Ivan asks. This was supposed to be a quiet posting. Well, the posting on Earth was supposed to be quiet too, cultural, etcetera, but Xerxes is supposed to be downright boring. Ivan is not supposed to be awakened from his eight hours unexpectedly.
"Murder, not a fire. You're cousin to Lord Mark Vorkosigan, aren't you?" says the captain.
Ivan has to think for a second. "...Yes?"
"Security vid picked him up within radius of a murder. This is the first we knew of him being on the planet, but the locals want us to bring him in so they don't have to it themselves and risk mishandling a Vor lord. Seemed worth consulting you on him - the file on him's really something."
Ivan blinks. "You need to arrest Mark."
"Yes."
"...Sir. Uh, give me a while to try doing it myself. He's... I'm not positive I can succeed but I am pretty sure I can survive trying, and unless he's in a cooperative mood I'm very uncertain anybody else can say the same thing."
"He may have just killed a man."
"I'm aware. He likes me. He doesn't know you from a hole in the ground, or anybody else within fetching distance, sir. Give me his last location and a few hours? Please?"
"By yourself?"
"He wouldn't know anybody you could send with me from a hole in the ground."
The captain chews his lip. "None of your shenanigans, all right?"
"Sir, I'm not the shenanigans one, it's just contagious when m'co- my other cousin's around. I'll see if I can find him, if I find him I'll try to bring him back."
The captain eventually acquiesces. And that is why Ivan is tromping around downtown, debating whether or not to call "Mark? Mark?" like he's looking for a lost dog.
Ivan has to arrest Mark
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middlingalong
unmarred
"I," he says, "don't like lots of people. Well - in one way, I like almost everyone. In another... not that many. About two. Two and a half."
unmarred
"Linyabel. She's all right, I just... don't quite know her that well, I guess. Maybe 'know' isn't the right word. I don't exactly know you that well either, it looks like. Not well enough to guess you'd be angry about this."
middlingalong
"Being upset that you stalked me for weeks without my noticing is not a weird Ivan quirk of some kind, Mark. It is very normal."
unmarred
"I... don't really know either," he says. "I have a very narrow range of usefulness, apparently."
middlingalong
"Your usefulness isn't in question. When you decide to be useful you accomplish it very handily, just -" Ivan waves a hand, lacking a necessary word.
unmarred
"Just, I have a very patchy sense of what people are going to think of the things I do?" he suggests.
unmarred
"I might leave the planet. I might stay nearby and just not look for you unless I hear someone's kidnapped you again."
unmarred
"I know. It might very well not happen again for years, or for the rest of your life. I still—" He breaks off, shaking his head.
middlingalong
"What in the hell did I do to deserve a deranged ghost for a devoted guardian angel?" Ivan mutters. It's probably a rhetorical question.
unmarred
"I don't think I was assigned to you by fate in retribution for past crimes, Ivan."
middlingalong
"I don't have nearly enough past crimes to account for it." He sighs. "Would it make you feel better about my safety in comparison to nothing whatever if we got lunch a couple times a week, or - something that doesn't involve ghosting around after me all the time?"