Victorian weenie au

[cagedinflesh]

 Melodica playing in the distance

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[gehennawind]

Paloma touches his shoulder, so gently.

"Society. Do you see how naked I am?"

[cagedinflesh]

...Oh, that's right. He flushes, sitting upright bit averting his eyes from her bare breasts. "That is largely my own fault as well! I shall find you something to wear immediately!"

He jumps to his feet, which might be a mistake with how much he aches.

[gehennawind]

"No, it was my wish to beat him with my dress, do not blame ...!"

Ah, no!! Quick as a wink she shoots upright to catch him, so carefully. Practically a babe in arms. Their faces inch closer together not for lascivious purposes but to study his condition. "I gave him what he wanted by becoming so base, I am sorry. Where can I take you?"

[cagedinflesh]

"It's alright, no need to worry, a little rest will do the trick." Well, he should probably bandage himself in a few places too, but he doesn't want her to worry. He's a doctor, he can take care of it. Please don't call any of his other doctor friends.

[gehennawind]

She responds by lifting and cradling him, bridal style. Despite being filthier and more desperately in need of a good cleaning than Jekyll, caring for him seems to be no strain whatsoever. Paloma braves a smile. Shaky, but there.

"To your lab ...? I would stay, as long as you have me."

[cagedinflesh]

"Ah-!" This is...strange. He blushes deeply - shouldn't this be the other way around? On the other hand, he let himself get fucked like a woman, maybe it's only appropriate, he hardly counts as a man anymooooreeee!!! "Really, it's quite alright!"

He wants her to stay. But maybe she wouldn't want to stay if she saw his lab at the moment.

[gehennawind]

But she insists and therefore gets exposed to the rude shock of his lab's state.

Higgledypiggledy corpses in various states of undress, blood high and low. Destruction of expensive lab equipment and chipped tables. When Paloma can move again, glass crunches up and into the soles of her feet. Her lips purse at the distant pain. "Ah. Ah ... you must need to hide these?"

[cagedinflesh]

He doesn't know what to do when she starts going to the lab anyway. She knows, but he still doesn't want her to see something so shameful. He might not be able to pretend, even to himself, that he's a good man if someone actually sees it. He's supposed to help people. When they step inside, he keeps his eyes low, staring at her shoulder rather than look at these things he's done.

"Yes, something needs to be done about it..."

[gehennawind]

Paloma clings tighter, like he's a teddy bear and not a grown adult who should be getting medical attention. Was it an orgy gone wrong? She won't ask yet.

"My first bodies were not very long ago." Oh, that's her voice all casual and conversational. Is she speaking? Must be. "In America. There was a night event, a festival open to everyone that likes a dance."

Nothing else follows for an awkward while, and then: "Where do I sit you?"

[cagedinflesh]

"I don't want to see it," he mumbles. Avoidance is the key.

Another awkward silence. "Is that the reason you came here?"

[gehennawind]

He should see it, Paloma thinks but does not say for the moment. To spare him the sight of wrongdoing she fetches a chair to some table hardly marked by rutting or killing.

In letting him down, her lips brush past his temple.

"Teach me to help you, you are unwell." And she's utterly forgotten her nakedness. Praise be for bloomers and that lone stocking. "Yes, that is why he took me here. Fear can be so terrible as hatred. I did not, and will never know who I killed."

[cagedinflesh]

"I am absolutely fine, really! A little sore, that only needs a bit of time, a good sleep." It's more like he's mentally unwell, haha. Crazier by the day. "You need clothing."

He doesn't say that he thinks it's better she doesn't know who she killed. That won't sound good, no matter how he puts it. But he feels for her. "It wasn't your fault."

[gehennawind]

Ah ... he sure isn't wrong about clothes. Those should happen. Paloma at least is embarrassed enough to cover herself with one arm while her free hand cups his shoulder.

"Carlos would disagree," she says with false lightness. It can't be anyone else's fault, that is definite. Her mouth quivers. "I cut your lip very badly."

[cagedinflesh]

"Carlos is gone." And how he wishes he could have killed the man. His lip, though - oh. He'd hardly even noticed, but now he raises a hand to dab at it, and it does seem to be flowing quite a bit, doesn't it. More than quite a bit, it might need stitches by the look of it. "I suppose I need a needle and thread, then."

[gehennawind]

She smiles tremulously in return, vanishing to hunt for the supplies.

It's a short trip, even with a detour to take a discarded skirt and tie it across her chest. All of the other scattered clothes have ... dubious stains, dirtying them beyond salvation. Paloma huddles up close to his side to place down needle, then thread, looking hopefully up at him. "Do you really wish for me to go?"

[cagedinflesh]

His heart leaps into his throat. No, he definitely doesn't want her to go! He wants her to stay, preferably forever. That he can't say. But if she still wants to stay after all the things she'd heard and seen tonight, then...? A hand finds hers, and lays overtop of it. "No, I wish that you would stay." There goes his face again, and that pounding heart. He can't look at her, but not for the same reasons he normally would, it isn't shame or fear, or because she's undressed, just shyness. "...I love you."

[gehennawind]

Theirs is the most romantic scene. Fresh bodies lying here and there, some whole and others less so. Glass lodged in her feet. A missing person's skirt moonlighting as a shirt for Paloma. Him with a possible concussion.

She quiets. Desires so badly for that to be true; her face shows everything going on in her head, especially a mire of doubt and hopelessness. They block elation's path.

"I do not know how you could." Or, hey, anybody could. "I am frightened of how badly I want to stay by you, stand by you."

Looks like she's afraid to come out and say love, too.

[cagedinflesh]

"I swear to you that it's true. Although I understand your fear too well. I want nothing more than to have you here with me, and your visits, no matter the circumstances, make me feel like a child. Excited over much, positively giddy." Even speaking of it, he starts to get himself worked up, smiling wide, lighting up despite the flush in his cheeks. And it does make him look more childlike - at least, more innocent. Almost too innocent, especially with their surroundings, and what transpired only recently. Surely not someone capable of it at all, he is young, sweet and pure, if his face is to be believed. "How could I not, when you are not only beautiful but too kind to me. I feel at one more vulnerable and exposed, yet secure with you."

[gehennawind]

In striving to understand how to root out her fear, Paloma hears herself in what he says. She hears what she felt for Carlos in the weeks before he grew impatient and bored with her, until the Embrace broke what feeling left. She'd thought it was love.

I am not Carlos, she resolves, bowing over their hands to press against the pale back of his. I will not be like him. This will not be like before.

"But, Harry, I am not too kind. You opened cuts I gave to you, smiling at me so." To Hell with crying, now it's just excessive. Repeating that over and over doesn't stem the tide. "It is uncommon that I believe I have claim to, to beauty, to a thing that is good. In your home it is so easy for me. I am afraid for that ease, and for you."

[cagedinflesh]

"You are. You have seen unspeakable things from me, and yet always accept them - even claim they are not so bad at all! I was infatuated when first we met, and it becomes more true every day, it seems." He bends to kiss her head, burying his nose in her hair. It isn't just that he seems young, rather, he finally seems his own age. Rather than the way he normally carries himself at what must seem an age twice his own, playing the part of a mature gentleman when it wasn't so long ago that he reached adulthood. If asked, he would likely say it's for having lost his parents young, the need to 'grow up' fast. But it isn't. "There is no reason to be afraid, certainly not for me. I am the greatest danger to myself."

[gehennawind]

His youth restores a bit of hers. Like losing one's parents young does to some, the death of the girl Paloma was started with a man's teeth in her neck. And she had every right to believe that girl was six feet under; but little by little, the dirt in that grave churns, and she shakes loose more filth. Here they are, one kiss closer to a real revival.

"Not in these nights, mi amor." Gingerly, Paloma turns to curl her arms behind his head and pull him to her throat. "We have done unforgivable sin, and I cannot-- reject you and then pretend I do no crime. Murder, stealing, enjoying it so with the blood inside me. You are... more home to me than mine."

[cagedinflesh]

"My home is always open to you. Or myself." He's glad to rest against her, to tangle his fingers in her hair. "Still, even if you are so able to graciously accept all the sin I show to you, even if ours overlap, I wish that I could be a good man, worthy of you."

[gehennawind]

"Graciously!" A watery giggle for that. "You must know I am rather selfish. And I think that you will try."

And needy. She plants a kiss to the outer shell of his ear with none of the licentiousness Hyde boasted. If he hadn't torn out the flowers on her crown, she'd share one with him.

"I can help you to wash."

[cagedinflesh]

Though about to reply to what she says first, to deny that she's selfish, he's cut off before he can begin. Because what she says next is too much. He positively sputters with the idea of Paloma bathing him! "Th-that is quite unnecessary...!"

[gehennawind]

Failing a hot blush at her own audacity, she squirms out of their embrace and flattens her palms against the ruin of his shirt.

"It is only that I worry for what I have done to you!! Not ...!!" Like yeah she's filthy-minded but not at present. Father, forgive this 'Loma for she has sinned, gravely.