there is always another au

[cagedinflesh]

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[cagedinflesh]

A gala night for the grand opening of the gallery showing Paloma has helped to organise, and which Jekyll has been key in funding, sees both Henry and his twin in attendance.

The key difference is that while one wears a fine suit and is well groomed while giving a speech as an introduction and thank-you to all who made the event possible, the other skulks around, messy and wearing clothing that's just as expensive, but...out of place. Which, when Henry spots him, he tries to at least straighten him out and make him look more presentable. He pulls him off to a washroom to comb his hair and throw a tie on him. But that one mostly appears to grab champagne and harass the waiting staff into slipping into some back room with him.

[gehennawind]

Travel the world, they said. Paid internship, they promised. All expenses paid, they swore. All true.

They never promised a stress-free journey so she can't hold this state of affairs against them. Paloma's responsibilities range from assisting the curator with identifying artifact packages to glorified party caterer, and it has been a total nightmare every step of the way. The girl who survived to make it tonight is a nervous wreck devoting the rest of her energy to seeming just the opposite.

She worries about the food, hides from most social engagements with the grace of a dedicated dancer except to ask a guest if they're having a swell time. Her instincts tell her to stay on the opposite end of the room from their patron's brother. Nothing tells her not to watch him and his fussier, otherwise identical counterpart.

Never seen identical twins in my life. Surreptitiously checking that the backless bra clasps are holding her twins up with the power of magic, Paloma takes many deep breaths to prepare for approaching the one she thinks is Henry Jekyll.

Step. Another step. Keep walking, just keep walking, walking, walking-- there he is back up two steps you almost ran into him. "Mister Jekyll!"

[cagedinflesh]

"Ah- miss Vasquez! Have you found the time to enjoy yourself?" He almost asks how she's doing, but on second thought, it seems obvious that 'not great' is the answer. "You look lovely."

[gehennawind]

The wonderful and terrible part of exhibitions and grand openings is that a packed elbows-to-nutsacks situation is seen as a negative. They don't lack for open space and comfortable breathing room. It is a double-edged sword when Paloma knows a misstep on her part could get noticed by the wrong people and destroy her career before it begins.

Paloma pales imperceptibly, then flushes. Stupidly, stupidly, she tucks her chin to check that he's not emphasizing 'look' because her tits have escaped the clasp. She looks up again, albeit dully horrified at herself.

"Thank- thank you? I am lovely. I mean, I feel lovely. I mean, I wanted to thank you on behalf of Veronica," her boss and the curator in charge.

[cagedinflesh]

The bar the boss has dragged Paloma along to next is definitely the scummiest, and the loudest thanks to the live performance of a sort of grindcore punk group. The stage is doused in red light, with the singer shirtless and plainly sweating buckets from how long and hard they've been playing. And oh look, isn't that a familiar face.

[gehennawind]

Veronica likes a good party. After the private, quiet celebration the night before, gone were the slinky dresses and champagne. Hello torn leather and weathered belts, some she encouraged the poor intern to try on.

Two and a half pubs later: Paloma's only had one pint of English beer, her boss is hammered, and she's in a daze from the grunge band and human funk rising from the crowd. Someone's grabbed her ass on two separate occasions and she wiggles and flops around people, a fish in a lacy halter top and very much out of water. She dodges a flung elbow, consequently getting a good look at the howling animal on stage.

"Oh my God!" No one can hear her squeal.

[cagedinflesh]

As a song comes to an end, he takes a swig from a beer offered by the drummer, who's surprisingly small and cute... "How in the fuck are you people still here?" He laughs, going on insulting the audience and the band both. And yet they seem to like it.

Until he pushes the hair out of his eyes and looks down to see Paloma practically front and centre and points her out. "Hey- hey, hey! Nobody give the American ladies here a hard time, yeah? They're friends of mine, let the bar know I'm buying their drinks, we got a few more songs and then I'm coming down, don't go way now."

It's a good way to get Veronica interested in staying, right? He sure hopes so anyway, so he can wait out his set time before finally coming out to find Paloma. He sidles up to her wherever she may be...

[cagedinflesh]

Jekyll's prompt in picking her up right at six, and the restaurant is one that has such delicacies as truffles. A nod to her guilt over the meal the night before, to tell her it's fine. Which also means it's the sort of restaurant with a strict dress code. Men must wear suit jackets.

Their first noticed of his brother's date crashing is some slight commotion of a hostess chasing after him with a jacket and demanding he put it on or leave.

[gehennawind]

Veronica wasn't so hungover as to miss an opportunity. This time, she'd told Paloma the next day, THIS time they're getting her a dress. After the curator declared it a thank you for the hard work in management and catering, she was helpless.

Thus it's the first time in a formal setting Jekyll has seen her wearing anything that fits like it's supposed to. No fear of her tits spilling out, the hemline is modest, and she got to use the magic bra cups again! Not that he'll know. Yet? If it goes well...

Seeing how nothing on the menu even has a price tag next to the items, she's gnawing her lip and pondering the delicacies when they hear trouble crashing in. "Shit," Paloma whispers just barely loud enough for Jekyll to catch. "What do I do?"

[cagedinflesh]

It makes Jekyll pale, hearing his brother's voice. Why does he have to be like this, why can't he mins his own business. Did he somehow accidentally imply permission last night? Is this his punishment for incest?

He gives Paloma a look that's between a plea and an apology. "Edward, what a surprise, what are you doing here?" The second half is more of a demand, as Hyde pulls up a chair and sits himself down.

"I just came to check in on you two..." He grins, taking Paloma's hand to kiss it.

Not wanting to draw attention, Jekyll keeps his voice down, "That's very nice of you but I think we had intended to spend a private evening together."

[gehennawind]

Paloma had changed her mind about staying the night the very same instant she realized her lack of something basic: clothing. Bizarrely, requesting to borrow Hyde's shirt embarrasses her a good deal more than looking him in the eye after-- congress.

Unnatural silence weighs on her over an hour into everyone arranging in bed. Henry Jekyll to her right, his hungry brother Edward to the left. The way their bodies lie even feels wrong and controlled, although perhaps in comparison to Hyde's lack of anxiety about sharing the closest quarters there could ever be... it's frozen, and she's floating in a heat wave of quiet when finally she slips off to dream.

A dream of wool suffocating her nose and mouth that peels away to cool vacancy and then slippery pushing, pulling. A boot's flat, rounded sole edging over her ribcage, and far lower. Paloma curls lengthily outward, like a kitten.

[cagedinflesh]

Hyde's arm was curled around hers, and the repositioning disrupts him enough to wake him from like dreams. There's Jekyll in his nice silk pajamas, initials embroidered on the pocket, and then there's him, in nothing but undies. Maybe if Paloma hasn't needed his shirt, it wouldn't be that way, but it is, and it means his hard on pokes out from the waistband.

When he turns to her, he watches for a moment, until his hands start to roam, starting with her belly.

[gehennawind]

Nobody held him at gunpoint and forced him not to wear a replacement...

Her sleep is heavier than his apparently was. She doesn't register the tickling, where if she'd been awake it would warrant instant wiggling. What Paloma does is smile faintly, sigh, and murmur unintelligibly. The bed is like a furnace of bodies.

[gehennawind]

They'd carefully curated a film to watch without any sex scenes or subject matter that would definitely excite an excitable young man, which sort of felt like she and Jekyll were adults selecting a movie for some teenaged menace. Tea, biscuits, and a post-wank lethargic Hyde made for a comfortable pileup.

At ten in the morning, having overslept her text-the-boss time by an hour, Paloma's eyes crack open to a face full of shaggy blond hair. Even after resting in uncertain wakefulness for a minute she's unsure of where she begins and Edward or Henry end; whose knee is under her butt, who has their hand on her ribs, and whose foot is wedged between hers?

Her escape looks less likely by the second. She attempts to sit up and groans, the soreness in her snatch very pronounced. New and foreign activity.

[cagedinflesh]

Hyde's the one with his head on her stomach, clinging to her like a teddy bear. Jekyll's the one letting her nestle into his neck and end up with hair all over. As she pulls away, each of them have to fall away too. But one whines and complains loudly about waking up too early.

His brother sughs though, having heard it all plenty before and preferring a leisurely quiet wake-up. "Oh quiet, it's the first day you haven't been hungover in weeks, you can't feel that bad."

[gehennawind]

Her hair must resemble a nesting flock of birds more than anything which belongs on a human head. She blinks the sleep out of her eyes after wincing clues her in to just how crusty they've gotten.

"Hydrated," she croaks helpfully to back up Jekyll's scolding. It does not yet strike her that they might be initially surprised at a third bedmate.

[cagedinflesh]

Tonight Jekyll's a bit busy with appointments, he's promised to come later but for now it's Paloma and Hyde, in another dingy green room. Hyde half naked and a little high, sprawled on the couch and once again trying to coax her into sitting with him. "I got a headache, rub it?" The most pathetic voice.

[gehennawind]

As the sober half, having Jekyll here to counter his brother would keep things under control, but she is just as capable of not screwing without him present. Besides the fact that Hyde might not even be able to get it up.

She sips water from a cheap paper cup and surveys him in all his half-naked sad glory. Through the walls they can hear the bass line as a distant pulsation kept mostly in check by attempted soundproofing of this green room. At least she tucks into the cushions beside him, softhearted and willing to probe around his head for the tender places.

After all, tomorrow morning she flies out, and somehow Paloma doesn't think his attention span extends to girls out of the country. Have to use the time left.

"Self-inflicted?"

[cagedinflesh]

"Nah, some cunt threw a fucking spoon." He leans into her touch, even more if a dog than usual. In fact he thinks he should be a lap dog.

"You want to sleep over tonight?" He grins up at her for rhe obvious implications.

[cagedinflesh]

Neither of the boys want to drive this time, since it would mean the other gets to sit in the back and cuddle up with Paloma. They finally agree on a cab and put Paloma in the middle to hold onto her hands. No one's been more upset to stand in an airport lobby.

"Will she be meeting you at the gate, or...?"

[gehennawind]

Such a harmless way to be fought and squabbled over leaves a guilty glow in her heart, and although she interjects to mention Hyde’s horrifying driving technique, the solution is a happy one. The driver can’t see their joined hands, just her contentment that disguises her anxiety over cutting them out of her daily life.

Only in person, she thinks again strictly. They discussed this.

Her lashes lift, already watery. “Yes. She likes to avoid rushing.” Smart lady.

[cagedinflesh]

Good. Then they don't have to be more restrained. Still a little, being in a public space, but still.

Good thing that's easy too since they're British. Do you have everything?" Maybe they need to go back and get something she forgot! That would be good honestly.

"Or you could just stay. You wanna stay?"

[cagedinflesh]

Hyde didn't want to let Paloma go to work, because why should she have to do something dumb like that?

Good thing she could slip out while he slept like a rock in another room.

It does however, mean he was left to his own devices and having no entertainment at home and an inability to even cook for himself, naturally he had to go out into the city.

In the late afternoon she gets a call on her cellphone from the local police department and an officer asking if she really does know this idiot white boy. The officer speaks Spanish of course, while Hyde can be heard muffled in the background demanding to know what they're both saying.

[gehennawind]

With Vanessa's errands wrapping up for the day, Paloma has time enough to answer and then feel very small.

She huddles away from a chatty client as they're distracted with inventory, cupping the mouthpiece and hoping she's just misunderstanding the situation. "I hear him," she says faintly. So much for looking forward to seeing him in an hour or two. "What has he done, sir?"

[cagedinflesh]

"He was causing a public disturbance trying to make an illegal purchase." You know what that's thinly veiled code for. Lucky for them, the officer has more or less taken pity on his dumb ass. Or maybe more so on Paloma for being the one who has to deal with him.