ArchivedLogs:Acclimation

Acclimation
Dramatis Personae Alice Lambton, Parley	2013-03-28 Old faces. New places. (Part of Prometheus TP.)
Location <NYC> Hellfire Clubhouse - Upper East
Monochrome elegance at its finest: the Hellfire Club plays home to New York's elite, and has spared no expense in making that clear. Black and white marble tiles the floor, the pattern distinctly that of a chessboard. Rich wood paneling lines the walls, and the alcoves of the entry hall hold statues reminiscent of chess pieces. Meeting and dining halls provide plentiful space for the club's members to congregate, whatever their needs. The Hellfire's library, while far smaller than its ballroom in size, is far more prized in content. Hundreds of volumes line the meticulously tended shelves, the rarest kept carefully in climate-controlled cases under the watchful eye of the mansion's librarian. High-backed leather chairs and plush couches provide quiet reading spaces beneath soft lighting, and tall windows look out to the mansion's gardens beyond. The main ballroom of the mansion is vast and opulent, its ceiling vaulted and the balconies above curving gracefully away from the grand staircase -- an ideal place from which to Make An Entrance. The hallways that branch off from the staircase run in opposing monochrome: the stark white court's quarters to one side, the dark black court's quarters to the other. From the view of the balconies above the ballroom, the guests roil and swarm below like exotic little fish in a deep, opulent tank, swishing skirts displaying for the females, the signifying dark blues and blacks and creams of well cut tuxedos and waistcoats marking males, broken up by the little drifting shapes of attentive servobots. Parley stands above it all, indulging that inevitable curiosity to explore this world above the stairs. A chandelier hangs just beyond him from the vaulted ceiling, large and scintillating with warm yellow lights; big as a spruce and /dazzling/. By comparison he is a small shape, cast semi in silhouette against the glizt, arms crossed and a hip leaning against the railing. Leaning forward, he watches the orchestra from above, mouth slightly open. Not all of the ladies have decided to play. Or at least, some prefer more subtle methods of catching the eye. Alice is here. Up here, on the balconies. Amidst the flurry of activity, of light and color and sound, her presence is not a loud one. She's here to observe more than to celebrate, more to analyze than indulge. She's in midnight blue silk, a knee-length sheath with folded architectural details under a matching jacket. Her hair in a chignon that serves for either business or galas, her green eyes cool within a ring of dark liner. How long has she been watching Parley? She isn't going to tell. But finally observation slides into approach. She's there at his elbow with two flutes of champagne, one offered to the young man for the taking, the other held close. Her eyes are on the ballroom below. "Quite the spectacle, isn't it?" With eyes downcast to the gleaming ballroom below, the movement of Parley's eyes is seen subtly through the surface of his lowered eyelids, fixing for a long moment on a single point. And then: a few random darts, left, right, suddenly upward at the chandelier to catch a glint of twinkles in his dark eyes and then down to the champagne. His hand moves independently from the rail, slipping fingers around the glass's slender neck, "That's the point of it, I suppose." Standing at his side, the ridge of hackles and softer fur down his neck could be seen rippling as though some slight muscle were shifting beneath it, and then he turns up his gaze slowly to her face. His mouth is smiling /hard/, compact, and a rush of air pushes through his nose unrelated to his low-even tone. "Do you attend these types of functions often, then, miss...?" Alice's eyes lower slowly to his mouth and lingers there. From any other woman, it would be a seductive sort of gaze, especially when her own lips curl ever so slightly. He might wear the spots but she is ever so please to see the angle of his smile, to hear that push of breath. Crystal chimes when she touches the shaft of her flute against the one given to Parley. "Ms. Lambton. But please, Einen, call me Alice. It /is/ a party and parties aren't meant for formality. You've been quite the busy boy, haven't you?" One slender hand cups her elbow, helping to keep the champagne raised at a festive height. "I enjoyed your piece in the Huffington Post. Particularly the title they attributed to you. Communications consultant. How..." She draws a breath of her own as she considers the best adjective. When it's found, it's spoken with a certain relish. "Fitting." With his set stare meeting Alice's eyes from just below the ridge of his brows, Parley is silent for a breath. His lips part slow enough that a very mild suction between them is broken, and as they do his head is falling back, eyes closing. And he laughs. Just three short breaths, and then tosses his head to shake a hank of black hair off his eyebrow. "--/Parley/," he says as though it were a word to /savor/. It also sounds almost like he's asking /for/ parley, turning to slide his hip up onto the rail, above the far drop to the dance floor below, looking for a moment as though on the verge of leaning /back/ before dipping down his head behind his champagne, "If you would. I prefer 'Parley', now. It's," he explains, even-cool and drawing open the scope of his empathy like a great eye, dilating in the dark, "'A conference between opposing sides'. I'm honored you've read my article. It's been," he sides a finger around the rim of his glass, "a while since I've done any writing." "I haven't been in New York for very long. There's so much to catch up on." The laughter, even abbreviated as it is, causes Alice to raise an eyebrow and tilt her head slightly. That smile tugs at an angle. <<(Amuse you?-Celebration?-Overconfidence?)>> "Parley," she says to taste the name, following it with a sip of champagne. The bubbles are lighter on her tongue, the bite of alcohol, the light flavor. Alice shakes her head after that sip--<<(demands always demands but humor him)>>--and then returns to studying the young man on the railing. "It seems all the rage now, to choose one's own name. But I can't say that it doesn't suit you. You've come far, Parley. So very far." It takes no great effort to discern that she is properly impressed. But wary too, and watchful. Not unlike a cat who's been nipped by the mouse it had thought to pin, and has now raised its paw to see if its prey will run. In this case, the paw is her glass, which she slowly sweeps out over the turning dancers. "Have you enjoyed this?" This. Freedom. "Fhhhhh," Parley pushes his fingers through his hair and runs them down his nape, leaving his hand hooked here off the back of his neck. The sides of his eyes flex and crinkle and for a single moment, there's something in his gaze that broils like a gnatswarm, a coasting numb-gray momentum. He tracks eyes to the left, where a serv-o-bot is jettisoning past with a tray of caviar and capers, "The food is nice." His eyes snap back again, as if so distracted by these small morsels he'd forgotten her. And now he isn't smiling. He isn't anything, exceptionally, "It's a warm welcome to the city. I do wonder, though, if I'm missed back home sometimes. I feel," he turns his head to look down at the dancing, only barely sipping from his champagne, "they've been trying to call lately." "Have more," Alice urges, dipping towards him and lowering her voice, "for you've earned it." Her hand releases her elbow and sweeps up to touch the flared bottom of the crystal flute he holds, pressure applied to lift it again. Then her fingers wander towards his neck. It's a woman's gesture of tidying, of /neatening/. From a distance, it might even seem fond, the way she tries to nudge his hand out of the way so her thumb can run freely along the inside of his collar to sort it properly. Then she withdraws, her smile piqued. "Perhaps you had better answer them, to find out. Before they simply...show up on your doorstep. Suitcases in hand." Lax, Parley's fingers are loose and permissive to Alice's nudge, seeming unaware of her touch where his face has gone very still. Glass raised, it hovers at his mouth; beneath her thumb, his fur is soft, save hackles that flex responsively to her, almost as though rising to greet the contact. His breath rolls out, eyelids twitching, and opens up wider. Takes in the room; swallows up the warm-muzzy slur of a red-faced man shaking hands with a friend, the sense of their familiarity echoing in ripples when they clap each other on the shoulder; swallows in the cold-sharp attention a woman on the security staff radiating like a dry socket that pinched somehow in his teeth; takes in this woman. Alice Lambton... And rolls his neck /deeper/ into her hand, filling up her palm with the rigid mess of spikes that crumple harmlessly into her palm, letting his head tip to the side, "Mmh. And if I did, I wonder?" Alice knows what hackles are. Alice knows what it means to feel them bristling. Alice knows other things as well, such as the tender, silky hollow just behind the ear where the pad of a woman's thumb will fit perfectly. Hers does, while her palm turns to smooth down the spikes, to press them firm against the nape of his neck. She takes a half-step closer. "Parley," she chides, "do you think I don't understand what you are doing? Appearing here, writing your article? Making yourself known. Making yourself /valuable/." The word is stressed less through emphasis and more by rolling it from her tongue, equal parts breath and voice. It suits her accent well. "You can't help but meddle, can you? You see all of those dancing threads and you just have to reach out to pluck them, mm?" She dips in a little closer, pale eyes seeking his. "This is all going to go up in smoke. All of it. Soon. Do you want to go with it?" "Here or there," Parley's whisper has developed a very light strain, rasping along the top of a tone that is otherwise twitched to a humorless-smiling casual, tipping his head to fit her knowing thumb into the tense-snarled knot of tendon below his ear. Each shallow inhale is made in sync with her movements; each shallow exhale forcing himself to gentle to her touch. "It's all the same," he's looking into her eyes, flat, feverish, intent. "I'll give results. And I'll stay interesting. And when I fail to do so," his smile returns, like a knife in the dark, "the problem will solve itself. You've made a /mistake/, Ms. Lambton." <<(Not amusement-not overconfidence-not celebration. Survival. Acclimated. The word is acclimated.)>> Alice's touch, in turn, is surprisingly gentle. Her thumb strokes down, lifts, strokes again. Her eyes, watching his, are those of a clinician's. The way he fits himself to her hand--<<(he can't enjoy that)>>--is worth study. How long? How long will he tolerate it when she rolls his scruff beneath her palm, just shy of gathering it the way a queen might her kitten's. "Everyone makes mistakes, Parley. Even I do err on occasion. But it is my job to see mistakes and correct them." Her smile is as soft as his is not. "The mistake here is not that you are out. The mistake is in how you were handled." Parley pulls in a thin slice of air, eyes fluttering closed, and then closed /harder/, forming a frown between them before he opens them again. And eases back the frown with slow breathing. He delicately navigates his flute to the rail beside him, setting it down with a quiet 'ting'. Half sitting on the rail, with the long drop into the golden-bright room below just a few inches behind him, he places the palm of either hand softly over his knees. And leans back against her hand. His face has gone pale, but is calm, his scruff loose and inviting; the sides of his neck harbor a savage pulse. "I was next to be terminated." 'Terminated', a dispassionate word with so many tricky syllables to enunciate. His eyes raise to the ceiling, "And I'd been so cooperational, too." With his eyes closed, he will not see the way Alice's eyebrows raise. Both, this time. He's earned that as well. But there is ample input to sift through--empathic conduit, she knows, she /knows/, she is intrigued, how does it work, is he simply giving her what she wants, indulging, "clarity unclouded by ego" but everyone possesses an ego. Where is /his/? Her fingers roll against loose skin, massaging, shaping it, holding him suspended above the throng. "I would not drop you," Alice murmurs, response to his pulse. <<(Drop-terminate. Mistake. Such a mistake.)>> She's stepped a little closer, warmth against his knees. "You were on the wrong side. You are on the wrong side still." Her thumb teases behind his ear again--and then draws away, hand to his shoulder, slipping down his arm. His seat on the rail is steadied and secured. Then she lets him go. "But I suppose you'll hear quite a lot of that, now. You are such a coope/rational/ little tool. Always in the thick of things, carried along on the current. I hope you enjoy this one." Parley returns to the safer end of the fulcrum, the slight knuckled /fists/ his hands had formed into on his lap loosening. A ragged breath of air slides through his teeth and he leans, gripping either knee and locking elbows to make two struts of his shoulders, between which he can hang his head. "I don't think I believe in a /right/ side," he admits, hair fallen over one eye. The other is raised, set on Alice's with no challenge in it. Only quiet watchfulness, measuring as he's measured. "There's just sides, Alice." He looks down at the world just beneath him, the drop gulping and unobstructed and thick with people dancing. He watches their footwork, the touch of their hands on one another. "Many different sides." His eyes flick back, their edges drawn and papery but turning up with a narrow, hard smile. "And they all need to talk." "Oh but there is, dear. You need only look at the larger picture. Which, admittedly, I know you tried to do. As I said...mishandled. An issue soon to be rectified. One among many." Alice presents him with her profile as she looks down in the color-filled tank of the ballroom. Her smile lacks all sense of amusement when her gaze lights on one black-clad man circulating to glad hand the tourists and donors. "So much to do. It's a shame...I was looking forward to working with you. I'll have to enjoy your work from afar." Her eyes turn back to him and now her smile shades kinder. The champagne she still holds is lifted to him. A toast. "To your health, Parley." "It will probably bore you," There's a blank look dropped against the elevated toast, Parley in nice clothes, but Parley /inelegant/ all the same, against Alice's fine polish, smiling back, "How much could I possibly do?" Numb fingers ensnare the throat of his own glass. And with a flex of muscles in bicep, tricep, forearm, he conveys the appropriate signal to raise it in turn, at the end of his fingertips. "To moderation." Alice tilts her head, smile curved to chide him. How much indeed. Then she touches crystal to the rose of her lips and drinks to both toasts before simply turning to stroll away from him. "And Ms. Lambton?" Parley says behind her, slipping loose the hook of his hip to turn, putting his back to her and folding up his arms along the rail. "Yes?" This time only the one brow is arched when Alice pauses to turn back towards him. "I'm sure you would be able to find my email address," Parley says, dropping each word into the crowd below. "If you needed to." "Need is /such/ a strong word, Parley. I very rarely ever /need/ anything, much less someone." A drifting waiterbot is waylaid to take the flute Alice holds. She brushes her fingers together afterwards as if the pristine crystal might have sullied them. "Let's see what you can do first, mm?" And on that optimistic note, she completes her turn to seek out the balcony stairs. There's no further answer. As Parley hears the tell-tale 'tok-tok-tok...' of Alice's heels recede into the din of the party, he sets down his glass. And he presses a palm /hard/ against the front of his mouth, eyes closed. The slight rocking motion his head makes is that of a man counting down from ten. Nine. Eight... When he hits zero, he pushes away from the railing to go find the nearest restroom. To splash water on his face, fix his hair, smooth his fur with a small shallow curry comb in his breast pocket. Osborn's announcement will be coming soon. And he will like to be ready.