ataraxionlogs | Her Majesty's tears and the pauper's blood

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Her Majesty's tears and the pauper's blood

CHARACTERS: Heather Mason (plus demon) and OTA
LOCATION: the oxygen garden, the kitchen, or just strolling the corridors looking for... stuff
WARNINGS: bad manners, bad language, and possible violence (prearranged she is not going to attack anyone)
SUMMARY: Heather hasn't been out and about much this jump, and when she has she's been with Tillman and probably engaged in what looked like pretty intense conversation ~~or trying to hold his hand under the table at breakfast without anyone noticing~~. Now it's what passes for the wee small hours and she's out unattended for the first time since the jump.
NOTES: Please feel free to grab any of the locations I mentioned or throw in your own! I promised a few people demon interaction, so this is for anyone who wants some :D I'm also cool with prose or action so pick your favourite and I'll follow.

It's been a rough couple of months. That's probably why Heather's been acting a little out of sorts. She's made and lost a dear friend in the space of a jump. Perhaps it's missing Kitten's fashion advice that means she's ditched her own clothes for the Tranquility jumpsuit again, although why she's accessorizing with dogtags instead of her usual ever-present locket is anyone's guess.

But now it's late – or early, depending on your perspective – and she's out and messing with things. Wandering the corridors looking for something to do. In the kitchens with a slight curl to her lip, poking packets of alleged food. In the garden, staring at a patch of dark red flowers she'd been tending near obsessively and looking like she's contemplating ripping them up.

She's obviously bored. Why not say hi?

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That voice also sends a spike of pure alarm down the back of his spine, just as foreboding as the sickening color the sky turns before the North Sea decides to turn her wrath against him.

Too bad he's more scared of the North Sea than he is of her. Whatever happens, she isn't going to be able to kill off a quarter of his people in one awful swoop.

"After we're in Medbay. Promise," he says, just like it's another trade deal, and tilts his head in a nod, a mockery of the sentiment behind 'after you, my lady'. "I don't break promises."

"That wasn't the deal."

She might not be crossroads stock, but you do not fuck around with demons and deals. He may be older and he may be may be more experienced at this sort of thing, but she has nothing to lose. Provided he doesn't know how to do an exorcism, that is - and if he was that clued-in, he'd have been Christo-ing right in her face about twenty minutes ago.

"I'm not setting foot in Medbay until you've given me what you promised."

"I didn't make a promise," he snarls, because first off he needs to draw that line. Promises and deals are entirely different things. Deals are loose trades and loopholes are par for the course. A loophole worked into a promise is a fucking betrayal.

"I said - " and with that, he takes a step closer - "that ya got a fear, every five minutes. You said - I hafta say what. I hafta say why."

And then he stops.

"Did that. If you wanna hear anything else, go to Medbay." The now speaks for itself, right.

Oh. Oh. Craft and trickery, and if she wasn't so mad she'd admire it. If he does die for good one day, he'll make an excellent demon. Of course, he's not family yet. Right now he's an arrogant creature much closer to human than he seems to think he is, and he's holding out on her. So she drops her arms and mirrors his movement, steps closer. If she'd picked a vessel that was a foot taller, she'd be right in his face.

"Make me."

Sadly, some part of him would love honing his negotiation skills as a demon. If he were dead he would take an immediate shine to it.

But hey, she's in his face and providing an entirely different challenge. He could shove her out, sure. He wants to. But at this point? He is not beyond pretending that what he sees is Heather. It's a gross combination of selfishness, denial, and logic, one that he has no idea what to do with.

So he steps just as close, presses line along line, and kisses her. Rather, kisses whoever this is, knowing it might be a "whoever this is". Puts all of his hopes into it, his fears into it, pretends and gives and gives and gives to whoever this is - and kisses show more than tell. He always did suck at the telling part.

And if that isn't convincing enough to distract her from the lift...

Well that's about the opposite of what she expected. She opens her mouth automatically, intending to bare teeth and bite down - how dare he? - but, well. Why should the crossroads crew have all the fun, anyway? And she's bored out here, having invested so much of her time in someone who turned out to be all talk and no trouser.

Instead, she kisses back. It's equal parts fuck you and fuck me, teeth and tongue and anger and need and a thought spared for that little part of her, buried deep, that still needs something warm. Needs it enough that she's pawing at him, clawing at him, and not paying nearly as much attention as she ought to be.

For the barest second after he knows he has her attention - one second longer than the logical part of him says that he should waste - he honestly puts it out there and kisses her back. There's something cathartic about confessing, and something shameful in doing it all the same. And then there's something that makes him want to get rid of all of it and start over. After all, he was the one to help rip away everything, from the icons to the organs to the goddamn confessional lattice, right out of his own churches.

One second, he indulges; the next has him shoving her straight out into the hallway, with far more force than he would normally show a human. If something happens, well, they're going to Medbay anyway.

She's not expecting it - sloppy, lazy, stupid - and the shove sends her flying, human body weak and timid with out her actively telling it what to do. It's a hell of a shove, too; hard enough to send her into the opposite wall, head smacking metal with a sick thunk.

For a moment, she slips. Snarls outright at him, and for the briefest beat - so fast that it might be a trick of the light - her eyes flash black-in-black.

"Strong," she hisses, drawing herself up and brushing off in every sense, curling her mouth into a smirk. "You've been holding out on me."

And she wants to see how strong, so she rushes forward to test it the best way she can think of - with a fist aimed right for that kiss-happy mouth.

Whoa - something about that snarl makes him take a step back, sends all of his alarms blaring, get out, get out, get the fuck out.

Even through the alarm, he's surprised by how fast as she is, and has no time to block it. Her punch hits home, sends his head straight back and makes him stumble a few steps, but he's quick to get his bearings again, mostly because he has to.

He's clearly shocked, and it delights her. Please her to the point of recklessness, and instead of darting back like she ought to or trying to land another blow as he stumbles, she pauses to sneer.

"Where's all your chivalry now? Your courtly graces? Shall we dance, or would you like to throw me into another wall first?"

He's not about to bother with banter - she's dangerous enough to leave him tasting blood, and he doubts she'll let him turn around and stroll away at this point. But mostly, he's pissed.

She's no lady, and his answer comes in the form of a fist.

She's not fast enough to dodge it - barely has time to turn her head so the blow lands at the side of her head where she can hide it instead of making a big, difficult-to-explain mess of her face. She is, however, a little more prepared. Instead of puddling to the floor unconscious like she certainly should she staggers briefly under the force of it and simply turns her face back to glare at him. Not as effective as she'd wanted it to be, having intended to just stand her ground, but the challenge is still in her face.

"Still trying to help me into Medbay?" They're well past that now, and she does wonder if he's still kidding himself. "That's about to get tricky to explain, don't you think?"

That punch isn't nearly as effective as it should be, damn. This could get ugly. But apparently she underestimates his penchant for idiotic, pigheaded stubbornness if she thinks he won't try to drag her ass to Medbay the second he has an opportunity. Which would happen to be while she's standing there blabbing and glaring.

"Not help," he grunts, and shoots a hand out for her wrist, like he's gonna drag her there like she's an overgrown toddler throwing a tantrum and not an overpowered psycho bitch.

"To what end, precisely?"

When his hand closes on her wrist she jerks it back, trying to pull him in. He wants to get all touchy and up close? Fine. It'll make up for her shorter reach.

"I'm healthy, I'm lucid. In fact, all they'll find wrong with me is that somebody just hit me in the head hard enough to give me a concussion. And if you think for a moment I can't turn on the tears and tell them I don't know why you did it but I'm just so scared you're a bigger fool than you look."

Dumb, but he lets her pull him closer, frowning down at her and trying to decide whether she's bluffing or not. And then he decides that even if she isn't, he doesn't really care - so he continues with the plan of trying to drag her ass down the hallway.

"So they'll throw me in the brig."

Yeah, like he'll give any fucks about that. It's a jail, not a motherfucking Waterhuis.

"You'd better hope they do," she says. Her voice is suddenly soft, intimate, suited to their physical proximity and completely at odds with everything else.

"If by some stroke of freakish good luck you get me to Medbay, I will cry and snivel and let them shine a light in my eyes, and then I will come and kill you in your sleep."

Well, if that doesn't pause the proceedings, just brings everything he's doing right to an abrupt halt.

"You're kiddin'."

She's not, he knows she's not. He's not even looking at her and he knows it. But it's still so bizarre.

"I'd kill you just to see if it stuck if there weren't so many... potential complications." Her laughter is low and warm, and her smile is utterly cold. "You might want to think twice about giving me any semblance of an excuse."

She twists her hand to grip his wrist, mirroring his stance, her free hand clenching into a fist.

"What are you planning on telling them, exactly? Help, the girl I've been fucking isn't in awe of me anymore, there must be something terribly wrong with her? I imagine that will earn you an appointment with Crane to discuss your narcissistic tendencies."

Okay, he does look at her again, as much as he hates to. He'd rather live without the image of that damn smile committed to memory, but it's too risky not to keep his eye on her. And he can't decide if what she says means that she would or wouldn't do her worst...

Either way, he's stuck for now, even if he leans away a bit on instinct, lips thinning as he considers her words. Why the hell would he tell her what he's planning on saying? It'd only give her more time to think up something, a counterargument.

"I dunno," he mutters, and it's a half-truth - he doesn't know exactly - then tries to continue dragging her on along. He hates wasting time just as much as he hates being trapped, and this is close to both.

She steps back slightly, inclines her head before looking up at him.

"Would you like some more time to consider?"

And with that, she aims a kick at his knee, clearly intending to jar it and give herself enough of a headstart to get out of his reach.

As soon as he feels resistance he lets out a huff, right down at her upturned face. What.

He's about to spit out some version of "no" when she kicks him. And yeah, it hurts like hell. It also brings forth that strange, nasty combo of a threatened, vengeful nation and a pissy football player that only shows itself during personal confrontations between Nations and the odd World Cup.

She barely gets the chance to react - his gaze goes cold at exactly the same moment his snarl meets the air and he rams his entire self against her, shoulder first, not caring if he slams himself into the wall so long as she gets it worse than he does.

There's a heartbeat or less in which she's pleased, intrigued by the look on his face and wanting to comment on it, but then she's slammed into the wall and there's a distinct pop and crack of breaking ribs, and she screams in rage. It hurts, and that's not something she's endured for going on a hundred years now.

"You filthy, crawling stain! You putrid little scab!" She struggles against his superior mass, furious at both his actions and her surprise. "I'll tear your guts out!" And she means to make good on that, but for now she's twisting and trying to sink her teeth into the flesh of his upper arm.

Teeth and claws don't mean a damn thing right now. He's pissed. Pissed. His face might be a little bloody at this point, split lip already dribbled and dried between his teeth, but he's made good on his deal and she's done nothing but act like the shitstain she claims he is.

All the reason - the humanity - he usually has? Right out the window. This is the ruthless, awful shit that empires are built out of, and it's all too easy to sink back into those habits, when push comes to shove. Normally he'd be horrified with himself. At the moment, he's just trying to make it out of this hallway on top.

He backs up only long enough to jab his good knee right into her stomach, with his full weight and full force behind it.

The knee knocks the wind right out of her - sadly for him, she doesn't need to breathe. She coughs, an involuntary quirk of the shell she resides in, and reaches up to close her hands around his throat. She's trying to climb him, a foot planted on that injured knee for sheer spite as she hikes the other leg up to catch around his waist.

No, no no no no nonononono, the choking makes him panic enough to send both hands up in an attempt to rip her arm away from his neck - except as soon as she puts weight on his knee, it buckles and the both of them topple to the floor, the back of his head hitting with a disturbingly loud crack.

Her Majesty's tears and the pauper's blood

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