moritat | Victorian weenie au

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."

"You need pretend nothing. I will make it to appear a simple crime on the street, and that will be truth so far as all but we are concerned." He wants too to tell her not to return to Carlos, if he's so terrible for her, but how can he say that.

How can he when she's convinced this protects them both, is the only protection it gives them?

"I owe you a debt forever," Paloma tells him, unable to look away. "Harry, if I go back, if he cannot know what I have done, there will be no hunt for our blood. Mine for the murder, your blood for seeing it."

She pushes off the chair, to her feet again. "Where can I wash?"

"Ah, yes, I will draw a bath for you, in the house." He chooses to ignore the rest, it's better not to worry about that. Pretend they won't be found out at all. He stands as well, gesturing back to the house.

He doesn't bother to call on any servants to do the job, although Poole may still be awake from Paloma's arrival. Instead he readies her bath himself, and returns to his own room to wait to escort her to where she may sleep.

His commitment to secrecy does him credit.

She almost spends too long in the bath. Feeling submerged comes with a sense of safety, of envelopment, of an embrace. How regrettable that she's got to scrub, to scourge her skin of fop's blood.

Paloma hesitates to rinse the inside of her mouth, too enamored of the taste of a well-fed man.

The water's left a ripe pink. She rises to her knees in it when the absence of a drying cloth is remembered. And replacement clothes. With caution-- vampiric reflexes do nothing when every inch of her is slippery and dripping-- she emerges entirely. Puddles follow her to the door, and she knocks in chagrin. "Harry, Harry? I have no clothes."

Hearing the knock, he goes to the door, but stops short of answering it when he hears no clothes. Oh. Right. Hers are covered in blood. Weenie that he is, Jekyll panics. What is he going to do. She needs something, she can't wear those and if she sits around waiting for him to find something proper, well no, that really isn't an option.

"One- one moment," he calls out through the door. When that moment's up, he opens it, producing a shirt - but very plainly averting his eyes while he does. "I will look for something more suitable immediately...!"

Good thing he averted them eyeballs! Wouldn't want to see that bare, glistening shoulder or the slick expanse of Paloma's neck.

Horror of horrors, their fingers touch as she accepts the shirt. She's smiling distractedly to see him so concerned with modesty. "Thank you, I am afraid I am very wet. I mean to say--!" Ah, ah, uh. "Wetting your floor!"

Between hearing that and accidentally looking to her for a flash of a second in surprise, Jekyll turns positively beet red. And then his eyes are on the ceiling again.

"No, I apologise, I had entirely forgotten- nor do I know where such things are kept, I now realise! Ah- a blanket, there is at least that." How about the one right off his bed.

She sees him look because of course she does and immediately produces a nervous, girlish giggle. They've both forgotten the disrobed terms of their ... second meeting.

"Thank you very much! That will help me!" Bravely, Paloma deliberately touches his hand on the next pass, and disappears behind the door. For a long half-minute she leans with her back against it, staring at the ceiling. Lacking the capacity to blush, still her nerves buzz.

It's good that he can take those few moments alone fetching the blanket to gather himself. Maybe stop being so nervous about having a naked woman standing outside his door. He's a doctor, he's not embarrassed by the human body, nor is it inherently sexual. But it has to be in the right situation. This is not the right situation.

When he returns, Jekyll holds the blanket right up so it blocks his vision entirely, and so that he can wrap it around her shoulders.

"If you would like to wait inside, I may have something you might wear, elsewhere." And leaving her to his room, he rushes off.

Witnessing the thing he's done to avoid looking at her forces Paloma to stifle a hysterical laugh into her fist. His respect for her privacy endears Jekyll to her. Feeling safer than she ever had in the bath, she turns and steps backward into the blanket, drawing it loosely around.

The instant he's left, Paloma falls into a crouch and pulls his gift over her face. Partly to enjoy its scent, partly because the obscenity of that enjoyment reminds her of the sin she committed tonight. He'll find her crying again.

Crying is the last thing he expected, and when he returns up the stairs with a dress in hand, he is quickly crouched down by her side, hesitating but finally placing a hand on her shoulder. "Are you alright?"

Luckily, it's a weaker cry, not long for this world. Her face isn't twisted in agony or terror like before, and she turns very abruptly-- the blanket slides-- and locks around Jekyll in a horribly needful embrace.

"I wanted to be good."

The dress lies on the floor beside them, while the blanket is brought back to her shoulders. Of course that does nothing to cover her front, still. His heart races, cheeks seem to burn, but he tries to ignore it to simply hold her without worrying over anything else, placing a hand in her hair to hold her close. "You are."

Lie, a lie, how could he believe that with what she's shown him?

But she wants to hear it. She wants pretty words and his hand tangled in her hair, like so, wants the closeness of his wild heartbeat. Paloma's greedy, and selfish, and frightened of what's waiting if she leaves. "Am I? Am I? How can you know?"

"I think that you are." And that's what matters. If she sincerely wishes to be, then why shouldn't she, that wish in itself and trying to fulfill it, even if she fails at times, is enough. "It's alright." He kisses her crown, and refuses to let go until she's okay.

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