moritat | Victorian weenie au

Paloma's mind tricks her body into thinking it can still suffer disease. Her breathing accelerates and the fresh blood in her veins, from the same man he carries with them, seems to boil nauseatingly.

Miraculously she keeps from vomiting onto the shoes he neglected to take off for bed. With tunnel vision, Henry and the dead gentleman are all she can see ahead. A dark light at the end of a long, long tunnel.

A small fist knots into his sleeve, not stopping him, just latched on as though she's afraid to lose sight of him. "C-Carlos promised. I lost myself and he will kill me again."

Again.

Again. "If it is 'again', it cannot be as bad as all that - not murder, at least." Although with her fear, perhaps it isn't much better, he might beat her, this might be a language problem. "However, I will not allow it. No one...no one needs know."

This is murder. This is her failure. Fail me once, he'd sworn. Fail me twice and I'll give you an unkind Final Death.

She keens. His clothes are stained. "You do not know, I say it before, he is a danger. I can go nowhere but here. Please, he-- he cannot find me tonight."

But still, he couldn't have killed her before, here she stands. Although he won't deny there could be a possibility of it happening now, if he's as dangerous as she says. Jekyll leads her through the courtyard, stopping now and then to adjust the body, keep the weight spread out. "As I said, I will allow no such thing. You will stay here, there is a bed, I will send for fresh sheets. You are safe."

Safety?

Beyond the most she hopes to deserve after her weakness.

Paloma cries prayers in Spanish for the length of time it takes to cross the courtyard again. Even though most of it's inevitably lost in translation, anyone raised among churchgoers recognizes the calling upon of Jesus Christ and the Lord.

At last, "I never talk of you to him. He does not know I would run to you."

Truthfully, he doesn't know why she would come to him, even though what he does now should be explanation enough. But she has seen a terrible part of him, she should want to steer clear, but somehow she comes back. Some of her prayers are repeated in English, he is, after all, devout. Or anyway tries to be.

Once in the lab, he almost wishes he hadn't overhauled the place from the surgical theatre it had been to the previous owner. That would have finally served a purpose for him. As it is, Jekyll drops the body onto a table. It hangs over the sides, but he's too tired from carrying it all the way there to bother with anything else. He leans against the table with his hands on it and rolls his neck. "I will deal with it, no one will find either of you here, but you had best rest."

The dead man used to be handsome. Still is, as even death couldn't ruin his striking features as it's ruined his jugular. A wild beast of some sort must have done this. Nothing else could lay claim to that ferocity, that savageness.

Paloma can't bring herself to separate from the only person in London she dated to hope would help. "No. Thank you. No. I did this to him, I cannot play to be human anymore, I cannot be so much a monster and turn away from ..."

Blood on her tongue, thick in her belly and drenching her hands. He'll want to replace his shirt or take drastic measures. She can't stop crying; wheezy, gasping, quiet sobs.

"This does not affect your humanity." How is he to know she means it literally. Who would begin to think that. "It will be alright." Hand on her arm, he tries to lead her to a chair, at least. Sit down if nothing else, just breathe.

She's docile as a lamb to the touch, going wherever he leads her, barely conscious of sitting. Paloma can't be dislodged from him, however. As if she's afraid of what may happen.

Her eyes are huge and wet and starkly frightened. Turned up to Jekyll like this, the blood streaks over her face look like someone hurriedly (sloppily) tried rubbing them off. "Doctor, Harry, this is not my first dead man. Look. Look at me." Paloma's grip slides to his wrist, pulling it closer to her fangs so that they cannot be ignored. "He was right, I am only his childe. And I failed again."

"I dont- I don't understand what you are saying." He wouldn't admit it, but this is not his first dead man either. But those fangs are another thing, he jerks his wrist back reflexively. Not out of her grip, but away from her fangs.

Paloma lets him go the instant he moves, bending fully in half where she sits to weep violently into her knees. She wraps both arms tightly around herself and can't bear to mark the look in his eyes.

"We went the two of us to an event close by here. I was hungry, and this ... man, he found me in the garden. Far from any other. I was not to eat at the event, I was to wait, and hurt no one. He took me by the neck and I lost myself again. Ah, God, María, ahh God no, please."

As much as a part of him tells Jekyll he should be too afraid to, another part pushes him forward to kneel beside Paloma and lay a hand over hers.

It should all start to add up by now, the fangs, the marks in the man's neck and the blood on her mouth, speaking of eating, but he is a man of science, he can't begin to entertain such a notion...right? "Please, it's alright."

The Masquerade, for Paloma, is a fanciful term for common sense. Should wolves howl when they creep among a flock? No.

But she's out of her mind, out of control, full of feelings she can't define; doing sin with no earthly name. How could he hold her hand while she brings a corpse and disaster down on his head?

She cannot yet look at him. "Please forgive me, I-I tried, Carlos, I tried very hard. Harry, I cannot stay."

"If you do not stay, where are you to go? Remain here, I beg it of you." Just let him help. She's seen terrible things of him and kept his secret, it's the least he can do in return. "And please, do not cry."

"Oh," Paloma cries and laughs, trembling, "please do not beg me, I cannot bear that."

Why--

Four times I met you.

Why--

You show me a new face every time.

Why--

You disappoint and then excite me. Her discolored palm turns over to align with his. Their fingers thread together, and she's not wearing gloves. "I have been gone not very long, but when he calls for me and I do not answer he can hunt me. To here, to you."

Wearing many faces is his specialty. None are any less true than another, not one is a lie, and yet they can contradict and spring up so quickly.

"I doubt he will get into the place easily, or, as you said, think to look on my property at all." He can't help but blush for the intimate gesture, or notice that there is also something thrilling about the blood.

This poor man. This unsuspecting beautiful man who could have a long life ahead of him free from ever hearing the words 'Kindred' and 'kine'. Paloma turns her blurred eyes to him, trying to put every piece of Jekyll to memory. If Carlos devours her, she wants her last thoughts to be of kindness.

"I-- I bent your gate getting in. He will do horrible things. Harry, I made you fall into this sin with me, I am so sorry."

"It...is not the first time." As close as he will come to saying the truth, that he has hidden his own bodies, people he murdered himself - well, Hyde murdered. He can still pretend there's a difference. At least Paloma's seems to be a mistake. But wait- "-How did you manage that?" Bending the gate.

Crying slowly, she shifts to fit both of her hands around Jekyll's waist. She stands and lifts him above her head.

.............OKAY MAYBE RETHINKING THE VAMPIRE IDEA. Maybe.

He gives a startled noise, but doesn't dare to even try to move, lest he fall. And yet, it doesn't seem likely that he would, with the stability of her grip and outstretched arms.

His weight appears to be a thousand times less distressing than the event bringing her to his bedroom door tonight. Actually, it's helped her begin to regain a modicum of composure, excepting the trickle from her eyes.

"Please do not run," she pleads, and sets him gently on his feet. Paloma makes a study of his shoes and forgets to remove herself from his waist. "As strong as I am, he is stronger, Harry."

He doesn't intend to rub, but he is speechless. And in some horror for the possibility he must now entertain, or rather, begin to believe. Something supernatural. It starts to become the only option.

"I- I don't understand."

To take up less space, she sits again, hands sliding off and away into her lap.

"We are monsters. And I am young and weak in my head, so I deserve to be killed by him."

Monsters don't exist-- but isn't he a monster too, now?

All he can do is stare. "You could never deserve to be killed. You are at least safer here than elsewhere, and how is he to know you have made this mistake if he sees nothing."

If that isn't good enough, a possible sort of decoy comes to mind.

It isn't the condemnation she feared. Paloma hears his sincerity and because of that her whole self crumples inward. She sags, looking like a beaten ruin of a tiny woman.

"I-- sometimes I want to be killed, I have so much fear and so little in my life that is warm or good. But I ran to you instead of my h-- Carlos."

That must mean something. It was never supposed to, but here they are and here she is. God damn her rotting wants. "If I bathe and return to him, it may not be too late to pretend."

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c:

you...............

C8

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