moritat | Victorian weenie au

He's as good at confusing her as she is at causing his color to rise. Paloma tries not to worry overmuch about the change, a task and a half by itself. She's an insatiable worrywart.

"We shall have triumph over dance tonight," she declares, lifting her arms high for effect. They lower enough to be guided into position, and all the while she steals s peek. In a small, small voice: "If we are fools, that is well."

"I hope so." Taking her hand and waist, he begins to guide the first steps of the dance. Even without music, being so close to her promises to be good. Although he shouldn't, he should stop himself, he should go coop himself up somewhere that he can't make things worse with her. "You tend to make me quite the fool, after all."

Saying that is probably proof.

"Then I do not feel terribly alone." Pieces. Not whole truths, not complete forthrightness, but pieces of honesty are a beginning. Paloma glides along with him to no music at all, musing that she prefers losing these masks of virtue early on. It's part of why she possessed the nerve to come back.

And then she does a rude and mischievous thing by stepping onto his foot, balanced there like a ballerina.

He laughs, taking hold of her waist with both hands to lift her as if it really were a ballet move. When he sets her down it's still on his foot. "Just as good a way to learn as any! I stood on my mother's feet as a boy."

Laughing vividly, her other foot finds his to teeter onto as well. Her heels, mercifully, don't touch him.

"Really? We do not have so many-- drastic differences. Mamá sometimes put the flowers on me and we would swing, Harry." She's bright-eyed from the excitement of nearly flying. "Can we spin? Like this?"

"Absolutely!" Once again Jekyll takes her by the waist, but this time spins her around in the air, two full circles (while carefully stepping so as not to bang into anything).

By the time he's set her down again, it's against a wall. He presses against her, one hand remaining on her hip, the other against the wall, as he kisses her. It certainly isn't a simple thing either, heated and insistent. If it wasn't for her unnatural strength, there would be no room to break it off or squirm away.

How wonderful! To feel weightless. And so important, even precious. It's a little intoxicating, and slipping out from girlish glee into the well-fitted glove of a Beast is no trouble at all. Natural as eating. Paloma is welcoming of Hyde as much as he's caught her unawares.

Truly unawares. Who says this couldn't be another rash impulse from Henry? Why shouldn't he be allowed, greeted and provoked? Paloma's missed it. Missed him.

Someone's got to breathe eventually and it won't be her, but after a heavily disheveled minute of too many hands to keep track of -- her cheek turns, dodging any kisses with her mouth puffy and bruised. "Really, I meant only the waltz! This is not why I came!"

"Did you? You came to my house in the dead of night, with your neckline like that, and that isn't at all the reason you're here?" He kisses her neck, then her ear, the hand on her waist moves up to said neckline, over her breasts. "It's been so long since we were together. I want you."

God damn you, Samantha, she knew the collar was overdoing it!! Now look!!

What Hyde may not know is that their appetites at present do not align. He wants to get her dress off, reasonable enough for a randy bastard. But Paloma is exercising a lot in the way of restraint to keep from feeding. She hasn't used the blood magic to divert the Beast's hunger.

Still, she does like kissing for kissing's sake. It doesn't save him from the dainty hand like wrought iron gripping beneath his jaw in instinctive threat. She stares at their chests, bewildered.

"You know I cannot walk when there is sun! A-and my friend gives bad advice! And you are not yourself!!"

"Oh, you asked advice, even? That does sound like you had ulterior motives. I bet that fake husband didn't even fuck you, what a waste."

What she doesn't know is that he would welcome her feeding just as readily. Or how much more exciting that threat is. And yet at the same time, "If you even think of harming me, I'll throw you into that fire. You'd better make sure you kill me in one blow if you do anything at all!

"Ah, and I'm perfectly myself, I'll have you know. One hundred percent."

She falls beyond confusion and into a chasm of pain, blood surging in chills and crackling out in a wave that starts at her huge, huge eyes. Paloma can't feel her hands, and drops them from him to hang doll-like at her sides.

His eyes. They've gone that ugly red, monstrous in a face too hideous and beautiful to take. Even recognizing them, his poison drips through her ears, corroding at the little confidences she'd tried to build. There's the fire, the fire, but Carlos, how could he--

"He had me when he killed me and never again. And he is gone, so do not talk of him!"

"That's why it's a waste! So come on, here I am, you fantasise, don't you! About us, about that night in the tavern!" And he laughs, too. Her hands dropping from him - did he strike at something tender? "Did you think it was still Jekyll? Well, I suppose you have seen that side of the good doctor."

The worst part is that none of it is lies.

She can't accuse him of cruel dishonesty, although the 'cruel' bit can be argued; Paloma stares at him in silent agony with her eyes welling up, in true waif form. None of the fight seems to be left in her.

They know how appearances can deceive, however. "Yes. I thought you were Harry. I danced with him, not you."

Edited 2016-01-03 08:33 (UTC)

"That's right. And now you can dance with me." You know, the horizontal tango. "But it's all the same, there's no 'him', only 'I'. Allow me to show you what my other half truly thinks and wants. How I dream of your body still. Thought of sneaking off to fuck you against a wall in some hallway at that party. It's all very licentious." Naturally he accents it by pressing their bodies closer.

'Licentious' is a word she's encountered less in her linguistic development, but it's far from a mystery with their hips pushed together.

Paloma turns her face from him, not wanting to look anymore, albeit having gone beyond revulsion. He's being ugly. "Do you believe that is evil? It is not. I found evil and I let him in."

Should he move to see, her pupils have gone grotesquely large.

"You are such a bad man."

"No, I don't think it evil. Or bad. I think it's what people like you and Jekyll would call those things, but that's wrong. I'm not a bad man, only an honest one." That's alright, she can turn her face away, but he'll still bite her ear. "I'm here to help, really. Someone has to make sure Harry gets some rocks off. Won't you help him out, if you love him so much?"

It gets a twitch out of her, that bite, and she bares the fangs that slid out in reaction. Cause and effect. Bite and get bit.

Might be more effective if she showed them to him and not the floor, but it is Edward Hyde under discussion. See him sexily bite a forehead or hair, anyway!

"You use 'I' and 'him' where it makes something easy for you, I think, you are not the same! If this is for him, then give Harry back!" Paloma says nothing of love. What could she say? She knows nothing of love or what it's like.

"I can't. I don't know how long this will last, perhaps until he cares enough to fight. And that may be a long way away, after all, I exist to do the things he is too afraid to do as himself, to believe he isn't guilty of those acts. I'm here now because he's allowed it." He'll gladly bite anything he can get at, though!! It can be the upper tip of her ear. Or her nose. There are little nips here and there, and always hands upon her body.

Liar, liar, Paloma does not want to believe he'd allowed this cruelty. To take her to bed again, yes, but to let this ... this hound loose?

He'll discover his hands flying out to each of his sides quicker than he can shout 'sorry'. Then, his back hits the carpet with a fair amount of violence. She remembers to cushion his head only because the body belongs to Henry, riding him into the ground with her skirt pooled around them. The creature hunkered over him has tossed aside passivity.

"I am not your doll for toying with."

Hyde's face lights up, letting loose wild, cackling laughter. His hands tear at her skirts, full of the same violence, but with a great passion for it. Clearly he does think she's his doll for toying with, as it all seems to be great fun for him, a game. "You could just say so if you wanted to be on top!"

"Perrito!"

This dress was beautiful before he got to it. Enraged, she first pins his wrists on either side of that maddening insolent grin. No tearing for him. No touching. No gratification. To make matters worse, her ankles dig into the flesh above his knees to pin them, too.

Bringing her pretty little set of fangs very close to his face, incidentally. Paloma's breath must smell faintly of copper. "We will stay like this, if you will not listen!"

"Withholding satisfaction, is it? That has its own excitement to it!" He laughs again, even with the pain. He likes it. She should probably be able to tell easily, from where she's perched... He's a nasty boy.

Downstairs, the servants are gathered together in the kitchen for a last bite to eat before bed. It's a good thing they've been instructed not to worry or come looking if they hear strange noises, ever since Mr. Hyde started staying in the house. He's eccentric and our work is taxing, he'd told them. Otherwise they'd definitely come running about now.

"You ...!!" Disgusting, awful, horrible, wicked man! He'd played her that night, and he plays tonight again? When all she'd wanted was to share a waltz with the other half of him?

Something equally or more wicked stops her dead. Paloma releases his arms and slumps a tiny bit back from her seat, aghast at and questioning herself. What an unforgivable thing it is that she's thinking of. It chills her.

And yet.

"Yes?? Did you think of something?" He grins away, and now that his hands are released, they slide up, under her skirts, across her thighs. "Do tell."

Paloma shudders a little away, and steels herself. Iron in her spine, and in her voice. She ignores the touch on her thigh, flattening a palm against his chest in case this doesn't work.

"You want to help me stand. Gently."

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject