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 Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 11:26 pm
For such a pale and distinctive figure, Lawrence had learned to hide very well when he had to, in addition to this America's house was well trodden and learned territory, he'd had months to memorise its layout, months to learn the places where he could get close enough to almost hear what went on within and months to test vantage points for a view. Regardless, it was not the dorms, there was a limit to what was feasible without being spotted, even with careful planning, but today it was close enough to hear the ruckus that went on inside. Horace had gone after America just like he said he would, and Lawr was not surprised that it appeared in the end to have come to blows. He did not intervene, despite the fact that engaging in combat with America was as close to betrayal from Horace as he could experience. Part of him had almost been hopeful that it might make him angry, that it might strike a spark on something in him the way such things seemed to in others. It had not. All that had occurred was that certain important factors had altered in Horace's mental classification, numbers moving on a spreadsheet.
He'd watched Jack arrive, and - shortly thereafter - leave again with Horace alive and in tow. Still he'd stayed put.
When they vanished from veiw, he did not pursue them, simply listened to the sound of the wind in the birdless trees, paying attention to the lingering scents of blood and the house itself, waiting until the faint trails had faded and things were once again deceptively peaceful.
Finally certain the way was clear, he rose and let himself in, moving quietly through the building with the practised grace of a habitual stalker, taking his time and savouring this select opportunity, trailing his fingertips over the walls and over the scattered objects which had made this place so important to her, the shape of a home and a sanctuary. Literature had assured him that people shaped their places of habitation around themselves, that where they lived spoke secrets about their nature and their innermost desires, she was writ large here, every possession an echo of her values and what she sought.
It was beautiful to behold, yet at the same time incomprehensible to him in the same way as the sensations he experienced through his fear. For the moment all of it was an alien language he could not begin to decipher. He looked on it regardless, committing it memory for later study. In privacy he could pick over the threads and try to find a way to unravel the mystery of the thing. He would record and he would look for the patterns that would unlock the meaning.
In the quiet, the slosh of water from the bathroom was distinctive and as if pulled by an invisible thread he moved in that direction, speaking only when he approached the door, his voice soft. "Ah just couldn't say no missy." he said, and the smile was audible in his voice. "Even when ya go roughing up my property."
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Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 11:43 pm
Where the lower floor of the house was messy and in a certain disarray, the second level was much more as it usually was. The bathroom was large and indulgent with tiled floors and bright light during the day, and at its center was a great old clawfoot. Bubbles nearly obscured her completely, towering above the rim of the tub and spilling over the floor. "Your property still needs some training if you don't want it getting a bit roughed up." She tossed a handful of foam at him and it broke apart well before it could reach even his shoes. "Wash my hair."
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:00 am
"What's the fun in training them?" he said idly. "It is the things they do with just a simple little nudge in the right direction,the spinning off into destructive crashes with others, the spikes of emotion, the mysteries that are the satisfying parts." He smirked. "If you had hospitalized or killed him, it might well have been more interesting."
He did not object to the command and moved nearer, leaning on his injured arm. "Rude as ever." he said. "Demands and treating me as if I wasn't an invalid, as if I wasn't human." But regardless of his complaints, he reached out to touch her hair, a gentle brush of his fingertips as if they were gauntleted talons, somewhere between doting and the flourish of a hand before one samples an appetiser.
"Perhaps if you direct me to the shampoo." he said idly, remembering the way that she had so expertly utilized hiding places for all manner of things when he'd first run into her but had to assume that these days with such a little sanctuary to call her own, it was no longer necessary.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:06 am
"Cabinet behind you," she answered even as she gravitated toward his proximity. There was a loneliness, in not being touched since she'd awoken. Horace had filled some of that with his violence and Dawson with his urge to care for her, but those felt off...just slightly to the left of what she wanted. "How'd you rather be treated, Mister Cowboy? You want me to play the meek slave girl like in that dream? Only enough to obey you while hating it, right?" She giggled at the thought of it.
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Posted: Fri Jun 19, 2015 12:21 am
There was a reluctance as he moved to get the shampoo, a moment's hesitation before he stood where he touched her hair again, pushing away the desire to summon his claws and seize it, without the jungle between them any longer, with nowhere for her to run. There was a certain satisfaction in the hue her hair took on when it was wet, like paint which only hinted at its final dry colour when applied to a canvas. Everything about her was sensations, fractured fixated instants and impressions and it made no sense.
He had not taken his eyes off her as he returned and knelt once more, unthinkingly summoning one lethal set of claws to hold the bottle in his left hand, nimbly using it to dispense into his other. Butch enjoyed the moments where he was useful, keening and crooning and generally making pleased sounds the entire time, repeating his incessant mantra to himself that he was a good, good dog.
"Well I should be treated as the divinity that I am. Horace understands, at least partially, but he is only human and he errs frequently in his etiquette. You though. I would be lying if I said I knew how I wanted you to behave, even that future was somehow imperfect and unsatisfying, it did not feel correct. It would be a world bereft of those moments, the instants when your anger would bubble over and for a moment I would be part of it. There has only been one time I can ever remember where I found the vigor of the restlessness which sometimes runs in my bones and in my thoughts evenly matched with an equal."
He clenched his hand against her scalp and set about meticulously lathering. "It left me rather scuffed up in more ways than one missy."
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2015 4:37 pm
"Y'know...sometimes you're kinda like a creepy old Ariel, like from the Little Mermaid," America observed, tipping her head back to meet his gaze, throat vulnerable and exposed. "Tell me about that time, Mister Cowboy, n'go a little lower."
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Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2015 6:08 pm
Though he was indifferent to the comparison to a Disney princess, something about his posture did nevertheless freeze perceptibly at the word old. He met her gaze blankly with his own, expression dropping to that blank mask that lay beneath the personas and off to his side the gauntleted hand tensed, grating its talons together audibly. But like a glitch the hesitation was rapidly smoothed over and he returned to his smiling openness, moving with an elegant enthusiasm to gently rest those same claws on her shoulder, the talon of his forefinger resting against the point where her throat met her body, gently and dotingly brushing the razor edge against her skin, imagining he could feel her pulse there. Simultaneously he was all business with his other hand, massaging her scalp with surprising gentleness, and - when requested to - moving down further, using the lethal thumb of the gauntlet along with his normal one to massage the muscles of her neck and shoulders. "I suppose," he said idly. "That there is something of a parallel. Little Ariel was willing to give up whatever it took, and so am I. You cost me a hand already, what else will you cost me before all of this is over?"
The clink of the chain wrapped around the gauntlet as he moved was a reminder of just how simple it would be to throttle her and became temptation itself as he worked. The only thing that kept him from acting upon the impulse immediately was the fact that it might interfere with more significant gratification down the line. It did not stop him from testing the reach of his grip around that slender neck as he worked.
"Well." he said. "And I ain't anything special in the story department, but I remember it, I would be a - ha ha - liar if I said I didn't. " He closed his eyes, immersing himself in the recollection of it, a well trodden mental path which was walked so often for leisure and study. It was in many ways the place where he had decided that there was something about America which he had never encountered before. He wasn't surprised that she might well have forgotten, it was just like her nature.
"We were out gathering minipets to replace the ones that were gone. You were a dead thing. When you woke up though, something was off. Something was different, you pulled me into the closet. It wasn't a fight, it wasn't affection, it was both and neither. I have never read anything I can equate to what it was. It was not simply rough, I am very familiar with control in its various guises within the bedroom and relationships. It reached into me while seeing what I was and what I am."
He set his mouth in a thin line and his touch became less soft, the accent almost gone from his voice as he stated grimly. "I felt something." He didn't know what it was, but it had been magnetic, a flicker of something raw and tangible, something understood and therefore apart from the scattered and hopeless snapshots he received though his weapon link. He'd wanted to delve into her, to seek that spark and hear it properly but had found himself severed from the source all too soon.
His nails bit, just a little into her skin before he deliberately relaxed them and reached down further to where he knew the treble clef scar had been, looking for the top loop of the symbol, Butch still harmless but firmly fixed at her throat. "You did this to me. Everything that has happened, to you, to Horace, to Melvin and everything that will happen is your fault missy. "
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:44 am
Closing her eyes she went quiet for a bit and then shifted in the water with a pleased hum, "Oh, I most assuredly do remember that, Mr. Cowboy." She rose a slightly as his nails over the scar, back beginning to arch into the contact. With a grin she dismissed the accusation, "Not my fault I'm too much for you to handle." Eyes flickering open, she drawled, "Just the littlest bit of feelings and you get all whippy and cray. You sure you can take more of me?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 1:08 am
He repositioned himself a little, separated from her only by the barrier of etiquette and damp clothing, both of which grew more and more flimsy in the face of the way she moved. He wasn't sure why he was so satisfied by the fact it was still there, covered over but there, like private braile under his seeking fingers. For the first time since cutting off his hand he regretted the lack of sensation in his left, unable to feel out the swoops and curves he'd carved in that perfect body. He was perfection but she was the opposite, something else, something carnal and human but just as worthy of reverence. He had wondered if the spark he'd seen in her was gone, but it was not, simply reshaped somehow, a different direction but the same source.
"I am surprised you would, given all the things you've no doubt done since then missy, I'd thought you'd have forgotten lil old me." He pressed his palm flat against the treble clef, or as flat as it was possible to get nestled as it was amongst the natural curves of her body.
"And it makes no difference to me if I can "handle" you." he leaned in closer to her, resenting the way the shampoo masked her natural scent, the perfumed fragrance sharp and tinny in his over-sensitive nose, stroking her jaw with a long blue talon. "What is the worst thing that could happen if I could not? Death? I am hardly afraid of that, you know that. I should die a thousand times if it meant I could get my claws into that spark, that feeling one more time. I need it to understand and it took you a long time to appreciate just what I will do for it."
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 1:33 am
Her mouth slipped open into a little "o" as he stroked her jaw and she tipped her head back still further. The smile crept back in at his words. "And what are you gonna do for it right now?"
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 8:37 am
He looked thoughtful. "Perhaps maybe hold off strangling you long enough to lift you out of that bath and look for it. All generous like."
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 11:42 am
The claw would slide over her cheek as she slipped out of his grip and under the water. For a moment she stared up at him with a smile and then the islands of bubbles and lather of her hair obscured the view.
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:15 pm
Butch was desummoned for an effortless instant as he shrugged off his coat, setting it aside politely, all decorum and grace, like a butler folding their master's clothes. The claw was summoned again and he pushed up his sleeves and turned back towards her and her shroud of bubbles. There was something predatory and reptilian in the blank way he eyed the water, before - with a complete disregard for his usual pernickety aversion to mess or damp - he moved to pounce and with a feline turn of speed plunged his arms into the water and lift her out, all while being none too careful with the talons on his left hand.
She had a shield, after all.
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:19 pm
Slender, soapy limbs shot out and grabbed at him, trying to drag him under. The water began to turn pink.
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Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 12:24 pm
Already off balance and expecting resistance rather than an assault on his person, his feet slipped on the splashed water and light and fragile to begin with, there wasn't much he could do against her grip. He did however, summon his other set of claws, and set about - with absolute calm despite the very immediate risk of drowning - fighting back even as he was hauled off balance completely.
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