Victorian weenie au

[cagedinflesh]

 Melodica playing in the distance

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[cagedinflesh]

He gazes at her a moment, and shortly, is on his knees before her. Even as he carefully takes hold of her foot in both his hands, he looks up, into her eyes. Until her shoe is taken off, and stocking slid down. Then he bends down and does exactly as he's told, places a kiss on each toe individually.

[gehennawind]

She feels sick, and yet it's not enough. Paloma needs him to understand humiliation.

Jerking her foot out of his hands, she almost trips over the stocking in stepping back, and rights herself with a scowl.

"Perrito. That is your name. Good little dogs roll over for master. And you are a good little dog, nothing else is so important. Do it for me, and say 'woof!' ten times slow."

[cagedinflesh]

"Woof!" he gets back down on the floor and rolls over. "Woof!" A pause. "Woof!" More enthusiastic. "Woof!" He looks up at her. "Woof!" Perhaps it's for approval. "Woof!" Is she happy? "Woof!" Is he a good little dog? "Woof!" Yes, he thinks he's a good little dog. "Woof!" But what matters is that master does! "Woof!" He'd be wagging his tail if he had one.

[gehennawind]

Paloma giggles with a tinge of actual hysteria, feeling even more ill but unable to remain stony-faced when he makes such a good puppy. Disturbing, too, however.

Tasting blood, she holds out the foot still clad in a boot. He's allowed to unlace it most of the way before something else in her pulls taut.

"No. No! Face-- face the fire, you want to sit on your hands close to the fire. Not within, but so close it will start to hurt if you stay. Do you wish for death, perrito?"

[cagedinflesh]

Ah, the fire, yes, he likes it, it's very nice, and warm. The Jekyll part of him finds it comforting, the Hyde part likes that it's dangerous and static. He sits right in front of it, the heat makes his eyes dry, and he has to blink repeatedly. And it does start to hurt, particularly on exposed bits of skin, mostly his face. Like being burnt by the sun, only in closer proximity.

With the question, he frowns, sobers as if the thought truly saddens and frightens him. "No, no I don't ever want to die. Not even in old age. I want to live for ever as the man I have always been meant to be." Horrifically truthful.

[gehennawind]

Ah.

A believer in destiny. She'll remember. For now, the cool imprint of her boot and heel rest against his lower back. The threat of kicking him into the flames seems very close to reality.

"You must beg me for mercy and to let you go. It is your life."

[cagedinflesh]

Not so much destiny as having always felt those Hyde things and pushed them back - feeling he has been untrue to himself. Since that's gone on so long, he should at least get to make up for that time, he needs an extra twenty years or so added onto his life. Although he is certainly a believer in destiny all the same - at least, Jekyll is.

He startles, chest tightening as he stares into the flames that seem already to be closer. He can hardly breathe, and it takes a moment to force out speech because of it. His heart pounds frantically, and although he tries to fight it, he's soon in tears with the prospect of dying here and now. "Please - please, I can't, I've hardly lived yet, I just want to exist! I don't want to die - I would do anything for it-- please, please please please, please, please-!" At some point it becomes all he can say, with no end in sight.

[gehennawind]

One of the most horrible men she's ever met, whether more or less so than the monster who stole her, Paloma cannot say. With a sound not unlike a cry herself, she reels away from him as he weeps, and lets go of his mind.

Paloma turns and rubs her arms as though shivering, pacing back and forth. Bootlaces trail behind. "Enough!"

[cagedinflesh]

All at once his breath seems to return to him, in one sharp inhale. He sits back from the flames, trembling still with fear.

But adrenaline also kicks in, and he grins to himself. He faced death and won, even if it was grovelling for mercy. Edward Hyde can be free to exist and be nothing more than himself for ever, as it always should have been since his birth. He turns his head to her, surprised. "What?"

[gehennawind]

Not facing him, not looking at her handiwork casts more shame over Paloma, adding to the weight of what she's done to him. Whether or not he'd earned the lesson, she ... for satisfaction only, not to eat ...

So her back remains a curved, hunched-over wall between them.

"Enough. You now know to take care with something like me."

[cagedinflesh]

....She degraded him. Now he realises. Those weren't his thoughts and desires, but things she made him do. That's punishment all the more to him, having his freewill tampered with. That is supposed to be the one thing he can keep, freewill is everything that he is.

"You--" The realisation fills him with rage, but he feels so exhausted, too much to go after her.

[gehennawind]

Temper rising again, Paloma whips around in full snarl. "Me! Who is the toy, perrito? You, or me? Tell me! Show me!"

Letting the distance stretch on seems like an admission, she thinks irrationally, and so advances.

[cagedinflesh]

Absolutely not him. He isn't anyone's toy, he isn't something to mess with and he won't stand for it. He won't be looked down upon, especially. That is the worst offense anyone could make against him. So despite that exhaustion, he jumps to his feet, fingers already threatening to tear anything they come in contact with. Whether it's fabric or skin. As soon as he's close enough, he grabs hold of her throat, squeezing with all his might, though he knows she doesn't breathe. It's just something to take aggression out on.

[gehennawind]

For her part, Paloma grapples with the absurd conflict of wanting to do grievous harm and knowing she cannot, under any circumstances, even against Edward. She hisses, a truly infuriated and oversized cat with too much strength in her hands.

Rrrrrrrip! Damn him and damn the collar, she's tearing it off her neck and shoulders to make a go of stuffing into his filthy mouth.

[cagedinflesh]

It's a good thing she's so much stronger than he is, because his next instinct is to hold true to his word and try to push her into the fireplace. "Go to hell, I swear I'll kill you, monster." But that fabric starts getting stuffed in his face, and he can't keep shouting at her...

[gehennawind]

That was a silly threat, wasn't it?

Paloma's not nearly done. Feet planted -- not going anywhere NEAR the fireplace, thank you, sir!!! -- she pries his fingers off from around her throat, for no apparent reason other than to begin popping off all of her dress's buttons. Every single one. And bouncing them off of him.

"I see you in Hell first, dog! Rake!" She'd learned that one recently. Her accent has gotten thicker to the extreme, and her English suffers for the upset. "Or send me there, and I drag you with me!"

[cagedinflesh]

"That's right, that is exactly what I am, good work!" But all he does is laugh as he grabs hold of her hair instead, and yanks. "You won't harm me, you wouldn't kill him!"

He does like where her dress is going, though. Off of her. Yes, he thinks he'll do the same, prying at his waistcoat with his free hand.

[gehennawind]

If she hollers let her go, didn't anyone tell Hyde that rhyme. Paloma belts out a good one when her hair comes under fire (thankfully not literally as threatened). Twisting under his hand like a stricken banshee, she hops in place, yanking the last boot off to beat him repeatedly around his legs.

"You know I can make you forget! Little toy man! You hold on me? Time will come and you wish I never come!!"

[cagedinflesh]

Somewhere inside him, Jekyll thinks that fading English is really cute.

Hyde, however, doesn't hesitate to grab a lamp from the table and smash it into her face! Just playing around. And still he laughs for being beaten with her shoe, and every little thing. It's all incredibly amusing, it's all so much fun. "No, I never want to forget, no one else gives me such a fight! I feel much more alive this way - thank you!"

[gehennawind]

The blood on her face doesn't mean a thing to Paloma when she was already seeing red, figuratively speaking. The shards in her skin, the blood slicking them enough to encourage their sliding out and falling, it goes ignored.

She screams at him outright in fury-laden bewilderment. Denial, more like. Another massive tear, this time from around her waist and baring the corset. That follows immediately, as it has a harsher solidity when slapping upstart monsters upside their idiot heads. "DO NOT THANK ME!!"

Paloma gives up on English completely and reverts to a rancid stream of curses from her native tongue.

[cagedinflesh]

"Thank you, Paloma!" He says it purely to spite her.

It's all so wonderful, it's perfect, such fun! He never wants it to end. And by the time they've smashed into and broken a bookshelf, and toppled over onto the pieces of it, the room long ago became a shambles. And even locked together, using anything to do her harm, he steals a kiss. It's all the better.

[gehennawind]

A screech from the abysses of Hell rewards his spite.

With only a single stocking and some bloomers to boast of, having long ago slapped him silly with her gloves, Paloma manages to wallop him in the back of the head with a finely crafted globe. She doesn't know where it came from. Somewhere in their wreckage of wood, shards, and the remains of her dress.

She yells into his mouth, too, and gives two unkind welts from her fangs in his lip. None of the pleasure or paralysis for him, but then ... well. Her eyes burn him. "Rotten! You ROT!"

[cagedinflesh]

With that crack, he feels as if his skull must be bleeding, but he can't tell, and isn't about to take a hand away to check. The room is a mess, everything is broken, he's in pain, she's nearly nude and bleeding too. But just as he starts to think about how funny it will be when Jekyll sees the place, he howls, worse than in reaction to anything Paloma's done to him. Between exhaustion and thinking about his other side, it starts to seep through. He latches onto her all the more as his very bones seem to contract with the pain of it, until he's left dazed and hurting all over, but not the same monster.

[gehennawind]

The abnormality of his pain caused by something other than herself gives Paloma pause. Her chest heaves not from exertion but solely from rage and rage alone.

She clutches at him in turn, holding on as though he's a lifeline and not the bane of her unsteady existence. It shatters the mood they've built utterly. Only the destruction is left.

In a state of shock, her head drops back, neck bare. "What ...?"

[cagedinflesh]

It takes Jekyll a moment to fully realise he's won, but he hadn't quite anticipated the pain he would be in. Still, more importantly he all but squeaks out, "I'm sorry..." His face lands in her bare titties, but he either doesn't notice, or can't bring himself to care at the moment.