ArchivedLogs:Overreaching
| Overreaching | |
|---|---|
| Dramatis Personae | |
| In Absentia
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2013-05-05 ' |
| Location | |
With an open floor plan, vaulted ceilings and windows everywhere, the first impression of this apartment upon entering is one of clean, bright space. The second impression is that its occupant prefers a minimal approach to decorating and why not--with a view like that one, intricate furnishings would just detract from the effect. The floors are gleaming hardwood, the walls a crisp white. The living room has black leather furniture arranged around a thick pile rug. The kitchen is full of granite and steel, fully stocked and spotlessly clean. To the left, beyond simple white pillars, is a hallway that leads to an immense bedroom and bathroom. A marbled glass wall separates the two. In the bedroom, the bed is a king-sized affair piled high with pillows and fresh white linens. The wardrobe is a similar style, though the vanity with mirror looks out of place--older, made of rich chestnut wood and cluttered with a woman's daily beauty accessories. The bathroom boasts a huge step-down tub with water jets, as well as a glass-walled shower with multiple nozzles. What decoration there is comes in the form of plantlife: a line of potted orchids on a side table, ferns in the corners, potted topiary trees in the bedroom. Their soft pastels and vivid greens are brilliant against the rest of the apartment's cool, sleek and modern design. The package had been small, a sleek black box with designer logo tastefully stamped small on the bottom, left at the front desk for Alice Lambton. It is not an arrival by mail, it was hand-delivered, permitted to undergo full inspection for threats and turning up nothing but its apparent contents. As a necklace, it's very simple, elegant in a manner that could be called economical. A single well-cut peridot in the shape of a perfect little square. It's set in a silver finding that is frost-brushed, polished but not sharply sparkly. A subdued gray, entwined around the gem as a small pedestal to support it from a hair-thin slender chain. The note coming with it says only: 'Fitting?' - P. An hour after the delivery of the box, an email arrives. To: colloquy@gmail.com From: a.lambton@gmail.com Subject: Overreaching We should discuss that. 704, One Sixty-Seven, Upper West Side. -A Alice had not set a time limit on the “invitation” but when Parley arrives, the doorman appears to be expecting him. The door is held for him and he isn’t stopped on the way to the elevator. The hallways begin and end with floor to ceiling windows, flooding the way with light. Turning left from the elevator brings him to 704. The door is held open with a small bronze doorstop in the shape of an elephant, in East Indian style. Her living room is visible through that gap, showing a space that is likewise full of natural light. A hidden speaker system is playing Claude Debussy’s “Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun”. Alice isn’t immediately evident, being at the island counter in the kitchen. She has a vase before her, and is clipping the stems of roses to arrange them with wide leaves of green. Parley does arrive, in due time. Perhaps another hour and change after the email has been sent, he climbs from a cab, tips reasonably, and enters. He's dressed in a mandarin-collared charcoal gray shirt with three-quarter sleeves (slit another inch up to the elbow for maximum mobility), black slacks, brown loafers. He comes empty handed, hopping up the curb and moving quietly but with a touch of slowly developing energy from steady walks and days at the gym. If he's met Alice there before, she might have noticed. His light-quick movements still evade casual attention, though he makes a point to gain it at the desk, to announce his presence, to make his journey higher and higher. Business-casual is an embodiment of his expression, his posture - spine straight but shoulders hung loose. And yet, so slightly, above his collar is the hard pulse of his jugular, so subtly accelerated. He finds her, after a slow exploring stroll through the interim rooms, touching nothing but running his eyes over each corner, window frame, kickboard. He stands silently at the window, gazing out; against the resplendence of the bright sky, he is a shadow haunting the wide open spaces, empathy pushed out to its farthest limits in search of minds intent on harm. Finding nothing doesn't rush to put him at ease, though his voice remains even, "You're not going to search me for weapons?" His eyes quickly dart around the kitchen's interior, though for now he lingers in the doorway - watching the picture frame perfection of woman, blossoms, the masculine power of the hard granite kitchen. There’s nothing--no mind but hers, lulled by the simple and pleasurable task of flower arranging, nothing out of place but the wink of green fire that is the necklace in its open box, on the living room’s low table. All is as it appears to be. Woman, blossoms, granite and Sunday sunshine. And, of course, her inevitable surprise when he makes his presence known. Alice’s eyes flash at him, darker than the peridot but no less cool. <<(that does not endear) (you to me)>> Then her smile is there, clear as glass, letting that brief spike of irritation wash away. “Really, Einen? Are we going to begin this way?” she inquires. The vase, now arranged to her satisfaction, is lifted between her hands to be carried into the living room. The space lacks a television but there is a mantle over a decorative fireplace. She sets the roses there, a splash of brilliance in the otherwise naturally hued room. The slightest constrictions pull tight in Parley's face, subtle but there when his real name is invoked, and he lowers his head slightly. He follows her with his eyes, remaining in the kitchen entrance with his arms lapped over his abdomen, back resting on the portal frame, "-- you didn't like it then?" “Quite the contrary. It is a beautiful piece, and shows a great deal of taste.” Alice lightly adjusts several leaves, fanning them out to provide greater contrast to the petals. She is dressed as casually as Parley has likely ever seen her--even counting jaunts to the gym. Both pants and top are a loose brushed cotton, cut generously but fine enough that it drapes against her body in shades of soft grey and petal pink. Her hair, for once, is down. It slithers over her shoulder when she turns her head to look at him, a smile tugging at her lips. “Have a seat.” It isn’t a request. “Would you care for anything? I’ve an excellent scotch, if you’re the sort to indulge.” "Do you intend to?" Parley slips into one of the black leather seats. Her curious informality is entrancing, and he resists the urge to lean forward in his seat to watch her -- for too long. The view outside is suiting enough. He'd slipped off his shoes at the door, and curls his bare feet up on the seat along with him. The answer comes when Alice crosses to the sideboard, where a decanter rests on a tray, surrounded by crystal tumblers. Two are set upright and filled with a finger’s worth of the amber liquid. She carries them to the couch and takes a seat beside him, offering one. “I frequently drink alone,” she tells him, “but it’s better with company. Cheers.” And so, with a sardonic twist in her smile, the diplomat chimes her glass against his and raises it for a taste. It is very good scotch. “Now,” she sighs as she settles back against the couch, an arm draped loosely atop it. “You can tell me why you sent me such a pretty little gift.” Parley accepts the handed glass, unmindful in any visible plane when their fingers brush for the exchange. "Do I need a reason?" he asks, holding his drink still but otherwise missing the cue to raise to in formal crystal meeting - the chime is quite lovely, though it silences when his second hand joins the first, curling around its rim. "It put me to mind of you." He takes a small sip, then a second, seeming very intent for a moment on the experience of it, opening up in the backmost wall of his sinuses and warming in his stomach when swallowed, leaving that slightest sweetness along the roof of his mouth. And adds, more flippant, resting his head back against Alice's arm, "You could throw it away if you like. Or drop it from a car window. Mnh or - smash it with a hammer?" This last seems to find a touch of humor in him. "I don't think many people hit things often enough as they should." It is quite the lovely scene. The late sunshine, the music, the scotch...but beneath it all, from Alice, there is a subtler hum. Normal people wouldn’t notice it; their more sensitive cousins might interpret it as tension. Telepaths and empaths would recognize it for what it is: the non-mutant’s only line of defense against those capable of prying. Trained shielding. Simple enough to pierce, for those with experience. It makes her mind a serene pool of green glass, each melted grain a recited word blending into another. The taste is of fairy tales, something read to children. Whimsical things, now used in an attempt to block his perception. Alice watches him as he finally drinks. Her smile has the expectation of pleasure in it. “Of course you need a reason. As I recall, I /am/ part of the big bad organization that stole a good portion of your life. Jewelry is typically not the gift one expects in return. What do you want? Parley. Tell me that and then you can put it on me.” "Oh, dear," Parley sips his brandy again, taking the experience at his leisure, "Tell me you're not suddenly having a bout of conscience. I can act colder if you like. Do you have a fetish for it?" On a seeming impulse, he shifts his legs and settles onto his back, the back of his head laying over Alice's knee. His eyes close, "Your shielding is lovely. Do you want me to test it?" “My goodness,” Alice murmurs, “someone appears to be feeling his oats.” To be fair, he has won a less stern sort of surprise from her. Bemusement as well. She looks down at the head that has appeared on her knee--and then sighs. “Parley. Dearest. If I didn’t know better, I would say you were making a /move/.” But surely she does know better. Surely. She transfers her drink to the hand resting on the back of the couch, then reaches down to play her fingers lightly through the lock of hair fringing his forehead. “You are also in dire need of a haircut. Mmm...it is not conscience, but I hadn’t realized we’d vaulted from congenial to... “...cuddling.” One of Parley's eyes reopens, watching Alice rearrange the fringe of his face with one dark pupil slowly constricting in the natural light. "Have you considered that I might be bored?" he suggests, buffing a faint smoky-gray shadow of awareness along the outsides of Alice's mind like a tongue. She might feel it as a responding delicate humm, as he grooms, evens, streamlines her mental boundaries. "Am I making you uncomfortable?" Those boundaries are all the better for this grooming. It is a courtesy she can appreciate. Perhaps Alice intends the way her fingers curl through his hair, nails running over his scalp, as reciprocation. She applies just enough pressure to scrap against his skin, mussing and smoothing his hair all at once with each stroke. “Not at all, dear,” she says quietly, her tone soft, warm. Even maternal. And that is when she gathers his hair into her fist and turns it just enough to draw that grip tight. /Very/ tight, pinning his head against her knee. “However, I do not appreciate being approached as a toy or tool to alleviate someone’s boredom. I am /not/ a post on which you can sharpen your claws, Einen.” Both of Parley's eyes are opened /alert/ now, trained up on Alice's face - the sideways light of the windows catches the slight bowl of one iris, faintly defining the dark brown threads knitted beneath the black. With his head tipped back, his pulse is visible against the press of his collar, slow, steady throbs - but /thick/. "No." He breathes at length. Rigid for a moment, he begins to ease, sinking back into the couch, "You're really not are you." As he eases, he tips his head back further, "I owe you an apology." Alice maintains the stinging grip on his hair for a moment longer. The intent is clear--she wants to be certain the message has been received and processed /clearly/. Then she returns to sorting his hair into neatness but only briefly. Once she’s finished /that/, she leaves him as he is and turns her head to enjoy another sip of scotch. “That you do.” The tip of her tongue briefly appears, taking fermented sugars from her lips. “Go ahead, then.” It tries to be hidden, but the slight exhale of relief when Alice's grip eases can't be squashed entirely - not with Parley's head at the angle it is. His any breath transmits small messages through the ribbed surface of his trachea. Once he she leaves his hair to its own - shaggy, indeed in much need of trimming - he gives his head a small jerk to knock it back off his forehead. His eyes snap back to her face, a hair wider, "What. Now?" One elegant black brow is arched at him. “Are you in the habit of delaying when you know that you owe an apology?” Alice inquires, sounding so very...British. "Douzo," Parley murmurs, lowering his head, eyes closing again. "Gomenasai, Lambton-san." The translation is there, allowed passively to be taken should she so choose. 'And so. I am sorry.' He shifts in his legs, moves to sit up again, "--I have been wondering. With all of this talk of registration surfacing again - will humans also have to register? Or perhaps only the most naturally gifted in their fields?" When Parley vacates the space beside her legs, Alice draws them up and tucks her feet beneath her. It is a distressingly casual posture. “Thank you, Parley.” For the apology. Perhaps, also, for laying a card on the table. Her smile has an almost tender curl to it, pleasure and amusement both. “The most naturally gifted are, in their own ways, already registered. We like to keep a close eye on our talent, as well as our threats. Do you know what occurred to me, when I received your gift?” The diplomat tilts an idle gesture of her hand towards the box right there on the table. “I thought...here is a sure sign of a young man wishing to clearly declare his intentions. Or rather, that is what I wanted to think. Because if it /were/ the case...ah.” Alice lifts her glass, studying the sheen of the liquid within the crystal. “The possibilities. Drink your scotch, dear.” Parley does so; in the course of his lounging, the little glass had rested over his abdomen, but now raises to sip once more. "Mmh. Do you know? 'What do you want' seems to be the question I'm asked most by people? And yet I don't think a single time has there not been a right and wrong answer. I should get a chocolate every time I hear it." "My intentions have not changed, Ms. Lambton. I've been more honest than you may think. I know a fair number of American youths racing to get their education in before laws requiring that they declare it if they happen to carry the X-gene are passed." He tips up his drink towards Alice pointedly, adding, "/Myself/ included. You make it difficult to see an advantage in helping you. What of education, then? Have your friends set fire to Mr. Osborn's school plans yet?" She listens to this in silence. Studying her scotch, sipping from it, closing her eyes as the music reaches a crescendo. When they open again, Alice looks at him without the diplomat’s smile in place. Her arm extends and her hand curls beneath his chin to turn his face towards her. “I have no doubt you have been honest. In your way. To the rest of us, Parley, necklaces must be /translated/.” She’s silent for a moment more. WIth that touch of her hand comes a thousand smaller touches--the faint echo of her steady pulse in each fingertip, the small twitch of muscle that most people never notice as their hand adjusts to hold a burden steady and still, the passage of warmth from her skin to his. Then, musingly, against the backdrop of the cool hum of her mental fairy tales, she asks him, “What do you know about Cambridge, Parley?” "The university?" Parley moves responsive to Alice's touch, with such organic ease the movement could be rehearsed, habitual. His jaw is sharp-boned in her hand, a tendon knotted in a snarl not in response to to the touch; it simply lingers there steadily, teeth gritted beneath the smooth facade. There are new scars peppering his skin; they're light and healed but existent. "I know it's one of the highest ranked schools in the world. And one of the oldest." His chin fills Alice's hand as he speaks, shifting under her fingers. Thoughtfully, he shifts his face to the side. Pressing his cheek to her palm. Watching her face with dark unreadable eyes, "I may have applied to it after I'd graduated. I don't remember now." Alice’s hand remains relaxed, a cup in which he is free to rub and stroke chin and cheeks. She’s smiling at him again, a small affair with slightly pursed lips. Thoughtful. “1231. Imagine the way that would feel, Parley. To touch a stone quarried in the 11th century. To feel the history trapped within it. All of those centuries of sunshine soaking into the rock. The conversations it has heard. The hands that might have touched it as yours would,” she murmurs. As she speaks, her fingers shift. They’re withdrawn at first, so she can lean towards the table and set down the glass of scotch. Then she returns to him, gently framing his jaw with both hands. Her thumbs stroke along the bone felt beneath his skin. Her fingertips rub gently beneath his ears as she makes a lullaby of her voice. “I went to Harvard. You probably know that already. But before I decided on Harvard, I visited Cambridge. I met a man, a visiting professor. He was the one who swayed me to consider the United States, with its lesser history, for my years in university. He was the one who helped me become what I am now. He’s at Cambridge again, you know. Lecturing, occasionally. Mostly he tends his garden and calls me once a month to lament the lack of brilliant minds in the world today.” It could be a play of murky water currents; Alice's words ripple in the still quiet of the room, over the soft music. Open spaces, high ceiling, it makes sound richer, less confined yet more private; a secret glade in which Parley's eyes slip closed. His breath shortens - hitches - when her fingers dip beneath his ears and then exhales shortly through his mouth. And slowly, the clench in his jaw eases as voice and hands bathe over him. "--what do you want from me, Alice Lambton." “I know how badly you want to play this game, Parley. I know how it gnaws at you, I can picture you lying awake at night /tormented/ with the thought that there are things happening that you have no control over. No fingers set aside for that pie.” One of her hands works towards his nape. Her fingers and palm roll together, compressing loose folds of skin in slow rhythmic squeezes. Ever so gradually Alice guides his head towards her knee again. “I can make a call for you. Just one call and you would be on a plane for England. You would have your own stewardess. She would bring you champagne and strawberries. A hot towel scented of lemon. Whatever else you wanted. And once there, you would begin to develop the potential you have always known you possess.” She runs her thumb over his cheekbone and smiles. “What do you think I would want in return for that, Parley?” There's an honesty in flesh, an instant visceral understanding in small shivers and one rabbiting reflex-spasm that jumps under Parley's loose skin. The further back Alice's hands creep, the further his head stoops down, allowing - with a tensing, then an easing - his head to guided back to this strange bed. Once lain out, he opens an eye, unable to resist a wry, "Are you going to pull my hair again if I guessed /forgiveness/?" And yes. He laughs at this, breathy and through his nose. His hands curl loosely, ankles crossing and he slowly picks at threads - "I can do things for you." A simple fact, but it serves as a foundation. "Things that you cannot. And go places you wouldn't be able to." He is quiet for a moment. “No.” Alice allows that wryness, the amusement that follows. The hand not occupied in kneading him into true relaxation lifts to trace fingertips over his lips. “I think I already have that. No, Parley. You should know by now that I do not play in half-measures. Things. Places. Trinkets. They’re what you have right now, and I don’t begrudge the attempt. But...” She bends over him, curling close, wrapping him in the faint lilac scent of her perfume, the clean traditional smell of almond oil soap. Alice caresses his cheek and murmurs to him as she would her own child. “I want everything. In return, I can give you everything that you’ve ever wanted to fight for. It will be a fight, too. But that’s half the fun, isn’t it?” Broad strokes speared through with sharp thrusts; Parley's boulder-clustered shoulder muscles ease, but not smoothly. All throughout his torso, in his abdomen and encasing his ribs, there are clenches, constrictions that pull hard and then drop loose with a slow acclimation to this touch, this smell, this small world of body heat and forgiving cushions. He contributes a scent less civilized; something subtly frank and primal, the smell of clean fur pelt and skin - His breath is warm and filters around Alice's fingers, mouth softening - and then so lightly, reflexively, they compress. Only soft, no teeth, just a graze of lips at fingerpad. "It can be." After a long moment of soaking in this world... "I'm listening." Alice dips a little more--almost near enough for her lips to graze his ear. Certainly close enough that she can offer the gift of breath feathered against skin as well. Her fingers curl and her nails work softly against the nape of his neck. “I want Norman Osborn. I want him ruined. I want him removed from the board,” she whispers. Gaze directed outward from Alice, enveloped in soft deadly words skimming the fine baby hairs of Parley's inner ear -- and that water-torture /lack/ of mental feedback to accompany it, unnourishing fantasy giving nothing he can sink mental teeth into, Parley's ribcage rises, fills with air. Releases. Mindful of where his elbows might jut amidst shifting, he turns onto his back to look up, sideways-angled, into her eyes from below, like a pool into which she might pour. "...Made you angry, has he?" “There are certain rules to this game.” Alice doesn’t immediately elaborate. She waits until Parley has settled himself, and then rests her hand cupped over his chest. As if her palm could capture his heartbeat. The movement is every bit as casual as her posture upon the couch, as if the young man were an extension of the furniture. Then, settling comfortably back, she tells him, “Let’s say he’s lost his right to play.” Though her shielding remains, there is a cant to her smile that threatens glaciers. Parley's legs maneuver, knees folding to point towards the ceiling with shins crossed in a loose X, toes curled in; the repositioning requires the small of his back arch up from the cushions while he shifts. "Mmh." The taste of arctic bite awakens his heartrate, leaping like a battle to meet Alice's hand in a caged-bird wrestling. There is no squirm to conceal it; his narrow hand rests over hers, pressing it harder. It grows more rapid, in contrast to a loosened exhale. "I'll see what I can do." That smile changes. A small, subtle shift--no less cool, but now tempered with a touch of spring. It smooths the edges of Alice’s ice. Her hand tenses, fingertips pressing more firmly in a ring around that trapped rhythm. Once, twice, a third time. Trapped above and below, she sets the cadence regardless. “My little daredevil.” She studies him for a time. “Would you like to fasten the necklace for me?” "-hh." hidden ribs jump once in reflexive protest, while Parley's heart is tamed into the rhythm set. The weight of his own hand grows lighter, resting like a temptation (to grip harder? to throw her touch off?) over the woman's knuckles. "... yes." His hand slips loose, freeing Alice. His abdominals constrict to sit up. He’s allowed that, at least. To sit up, to escape. Her hand slips away without hesitation, as if she were losing nothing by releasing him. As if she were confident of his return, jessed bird to glove. Alice shifts forward on the couch and reaches up to gather her hair, twisting it into a sleek rope of black and silver. Once secure, lifted off of her nape, she lowers one hand, shoulder dropping, and then directs a seemingly idle smile at her visitor. “You do have a good eye for jewelry.” "Would you have told me if you didn't like it?" the box is relieved of its one glittering endowment, and Parley's words can be felt in warm tickles of breath at Alice's nape. There's a shift of movement in her peripherals and the cool tumble of the small silver pendant against her sternum. The fine chain slides over collarbones, positioning its burden in the scoop hollow between them. It holds still for a moment, resting with just a whisker's pressure at the base of her throat. -- "We're at the stage of an arrangement where you indulge and flatter me now, aren't we? -- The chain eases when Parley locates the finding clasp and joins the ends. Setting it on the delicate vertebrae bone at the back of her neck. Alice lowers her head slightly. A fraction of an inch of adjustment, exposing that vulnerable hollow at the base of her skull, the small ridges that mark the beginning of her spine. She rests calm and relaxed while the necklace is arranged--waiting through that breath of tension. When it eases, she lifts her unoccupied hand to toy with the sparkling pendant. Her smile is hidden now, present only in the smooth, elegant of her cheek. “Too obvious,” she murmurs, keeping her chin lowered. “Though a natural assumption to make. No, I think this is quite fetching. Would you prefer I flatter?” Her head turns slightly, that slice of visible cheek joined by the fan of dark lashes, almost whispering against skin. “Or are you asking if you can indulge?” There's a sound of shifting from Parley, a quiet velvety noise on a couch far too well made to creak in springs. "I think," the lightest touch along the fine hairs at the back of Alice's shoulder, where it slopes gracefully into her neck; nearly imperceptible with a blush of warm air blossoming outward from it. "You should do whatever you feel like." The patch of warmth grows cooler. Maybe breath is held. Or maybe, it already is moving away. Alice chuckles. Just that--a soft roll of breath and voice. Then she rises from the couch to stroll back into the kitchen. There is leaf debris and clipped stems still on the counter. These are gathered together into a thorny bouquet. “Go home, Parley. I’m sure I’ll see you at the gym. Perhaps we might have another fencing lesson, mm?” Parley chuckles too. Or possibly, it's Alice's own chuckle reflected through him, growing quiet again shortly after. There's no moment to mark him staying or leaving - but at some point, if she looks, he'll be nowhere to be found. | |
