moritat | Victorian weenie au

"No--" he searches for the words to explain himself, but finds only that desperate plea. "No, that is not - it was not me."

He can feel his mouth drying out, throat tightening. What can he do. Finally he steps back inside, closing the door behind him. But is sure to sit on the bench opposite, bands folded in his lap, held tight together.

She doesn't believe a single word.

His distance stings as much as the dishonesty. The hat, veil, and gloves remain on the floor between their feet in testimony to what occurred with herself and Hyde. Paloma looks nowhere else.

Once he's sat: "What changes, that you sit so far?"

"Shame," he says it plainly at first, but, no, that isn't quite it - "I have." He still wants to kiss her, he still wants her, that might be the worst part of all.

"I am not myself." More than anything, though, he doesn't want to talk about this or look at that evidence on the floor.

Paloma opens her mouth and realizes she cannot ride the high horse here. Not with what almost happened. Not after what did happen. She tastes blood.

"And I am a sinner. As you saw tonight." Shaking hands smooth over her rumpled skirt. Something he helped with. "I wish you had not lied about where you are."

"I told no lie - not until a moment ago." Which was...also not entirely a lie, technically? As for whether she is a sinner, if so he already saw it before when they slept together. Certainly worse than a kiss, no matter how...intense.

Naturally, he won't remember her teeth in him. Best not.

She sags backward and gazes at the cab's ceiling without seeing any of it. Why is this starting to feel like it has meaning? It was supposed to be empty. But here he is, the man she'd nearabout convinced herself didn't matter. "You are Mr. Hyde, and Mr. Hyde also is you. You-- he-- said you had gone to the docks. Other places."

"No, no, I am not Hyde, Hyde is not me." He is very firm on this matter. Hyde is someone else entirely. Largely he knows this to be a lie, that they are two sides of the same man, but it's what he wants to believe, especially now that he's been caught. Hyde is not a part of his own soul, he is a product of the drug, that is what he exists in. "I can take no responsibility for anything he has said or done, that is entirely upon his own shoulders.'

She cannot think of a reply to that, but Paloma takes the dislodged pins from her hair in stiff, jerky movements. There aren't many. Setting them aside, she leans down to snatch her gloves up and put them each back on.

The hat, too. She situates it back in place and lets the veil fall to hide her hurts. Her message in putting more barriers up is clear.

"How can you claim no responsibility?" At least it's a whisper.

He bites his lip, trying to think of something to say. It's clear he's hurt her, the way she straightens herself out and hides from him.

"I know it is difficult to comprehend, however, Mr. Hyde is not some character I play, he is another man other than myself!" It's desperate, hushed tones, frantic to get everything out.

Their poor driver. Sitting out there cluelessly, wondering what in the Hell is wrong with his riders.

She'd forgotten to re-pin her hair. Curses. Well, whatever. It's hidden away in the convenience of full mourning. Paloma's grateful for the comfort of the veil and brim of her hat obstructing her face from view. "You grew small, then big again when," when I held you, "Help me. Help me comprehend, doctor."

"Precisely!" Yes, they look different, that should prove his point! Even if Hyde really just looks like a younger version of Jekyll. "He is...I do not know what he is, only that it was all a terrible accident!"

A terrible accident that he's encouraged. That he keeps revisiting willingly.

Her bones creak from the force of her hands' grip around themselves. Under the gloves her knuckles have gone white. Paloma closes her eyes and tries to quell the Beast's rising tide of fury. Push and pull.

"If that is all you can say, I ask no more." Don't trust, don't trust, don't fall in with someone in such a frightful state of affairs. He could afford to follow that advice, too. "Then he lied in regards to where you were."

She harbors doubts yet about his degree of responsibility.

"Yes. To make you leave, to dislike me and to never come looking for me again. Simply to be cruel." That much is truth. Until Hyde decided he wanted her himself, of course. But still, to forsake Jekyll. "...It was he who had been to the docks, earlier." As if that might improve things.

It really, really doesn't .............

"I am not sure if I dislike you." She could. Maybe. Paloma's telling the truth-- she can't decide. "And I am not sure that you want me to look for you."

"Nor am I." He looks up, almost reaches her eyes, then quickly darts back down. "...I told you, and you saw for yourself, I am not a good man." But because he isn't good, he can't be so selfless that he can entirely push her away. It would be better for her not to have anything to do with him, but he wants a lot to do with her.

For a long while she gives no reply. But then, in an unsteady voice:

"When I sin, I think-- I am not a good woman. I am a creature most terrible. When I think this, I say, I cannot help it. I did not mean to, do not cast stones and fire at me. And still I feel that it could be a lie to help me sleep."

The gloves protect her palms from bleeding under pressure from her nails. Her heart is in her throat and eyes. Lucky that he hadn't looked to them.

Rushed, "Dr. Jekyll I wish to know you and for you to know me."

Part of him would like that.

The other part finds the idea to be the most frightening thing in the world. She's seen him all kinds of awful, but it could still be worse, there are still plenty of things she doesn't know and it would be better for everyone to keep it that way. He tries to answer her properly for what feels to him at least a full minute, but somehow when he speaks he says only, "I really must go." Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Paloma swallows her heart back down, or tries to. There's a rejection if ever she heard one.

"Please be kind and tell me first if I should keep away from your eye, I meant, if you do not want to see me again. The door is unlocked, also."

Jekyll closes his eyes, clasping his hands together - something to keep himself occupied against having to think too hard on it. "I wish to see you, Mrs. Vasquez, too often. Only I think that you should not see me."

HE'S A PROBLEM MACHINE

LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE COULD STAND TO WEAR A SHAME CUSHION

She can't pin down what her conflicting emotions are up to. Frustration at the complicated truths he says? That fluttering feeling of jubilant innocence?

The rush of a shared secret?

Cautiously, she lifts the veil, pulling it back to speak face to earnest face. "My husband? Because you are a bad man? Mr. Hyde?"

He can't help but smile a little in repeating her wording, "Because I am a bad man." Hyde should be included, but foolishly, he doesn't fear anything about Hyde yet. It's fascinating, and horrible, but it is something he can choose to do or not, it's controlled, and while Hyde isn't exactly looking out for Jekyll, he is more or less on his side, at least. There's been no sabotage. "Thrice have we met now, and look at the things you have seen."

In what probably counts as progress, she allows the veil to stay folded back above the brim of her hat. One barrier down.

"Seen and done," Paloma reminds him with gentle quietness. "Do you think I am a good woman, when I do these things with you and Mr. Hyde?"

"...That isn't for me to decide." He hadn't thought about it, but to be entirely honest, he would have to say no. But that's rude, and there's so much that is good about Paloma. Maybe she can be forgiven it, due to the situation with her 'husband'. She may not be in the right state of mind because of it...and that would make it even worse for him to take advantage of that!

"I am not good," she declares, solving that question neatly. "You cannot make me impure when my soul already is in rot."

The idea that his impurities should disqualify their knowing one another makes her simultaneously incredulous and-- again-- conflicted. But if she's anything, she is stubborn.

But it isn't just for her that he thinks she should avoid him. Well no that's the reason she should, but the reason he wants her to is for himself. "No. But I do not know how I shall be able to live with this evidence against me - your having seen me."

Victorian weenie au

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