multiversallogs | ( closed ) lovely cases without jewels, lockets without relics, emptier and deeper than you are

Who: Lucius Malfoy & "Vanessza Bernát"
What: The chilling moment when the woman you've just slept with comes back with scissors.
Where: Benny's Syriac Well apartment.
When: Coardi evening.
Notes: A polyvore, it's essential.
Warnings: References to sexual activity; anything else and I'll edit it in. LMK if I miss something.

Jewelry boxes and books occupy the shelves attached to Benevenuta's bedroom mirror, the surface of which has been subtly dulled and criss-crossed to lower the danger of such a large installation of reflective surface; the room smells faintly of her perfume, on the vanity beneath a necklace hanging from the edge of one of those shelves, and of a pungent tea she keeps in a cupboard downstairs. The clothes they were wearing earlier are abandoned and tumbled on the low, cushioned sofa piece at the end of the bed; only one of her high heels, one still out on the landing or maybe the stairs. Earlier there was wine, and dinner that she made, and an invitation that didn't come as much of a surprise; in private, the false front of Vanessza Bernát, youthful philanthropist prodigy comes down, more, allowing her to indulge that sense of almost being contemporaries that she'd been careful only to permit hints of before he'd found her knitting herself back together on a stone street. Her ostensible inner sanctum offers little in the way of revelation there, besides an evidently marked preference for fine things and older fine things, at that. Lamps at either side of her bed give off a warm, pleasant light that contribute to a wonderfully serene backdrop to the image of the woman in question framed in the doorway of the attached bathroom, holding a pair of scissors.

She crooks her finger. “You have split ends.”

--and whoever she really is under there, she's a bit bossy, it turns out.

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Lucius has to wonder whether he'll ever completely feel at ease again. This is verging on close to it, but there are too many cases of faulty wiring for him to ever simply settle and enjoy a thing. As far as he can ascertain, Vanessza has left his own business up to him, which he grudgingly must admit is for the better, but for a time, he isn't completely consumed by some variation of self-loathing.

Which is nice.

But some fresh concern is known when Vanessza opts to introduce-- scissors?-- into the scenario, Lucius regarding her suspiciously from his recline on her bed, where he does sort of look out of place. Everything is very neat and prim. It is not an affect he specialises in.

"I beg your pardon?"

“You have split ends,” she repeats, as if saying it again will somehow make it clearer what she intends by this. After a moment, as if conceding to the fact he looks as if he's going to clutch the bedsheets protectively against his chest at any moment, she says, in a slightly conciliatory tone, “I want you to let me fix your hair, tidy your hair. A little trim, a deep conditioner. I have very gentle hands.”

--which was not strictly true about an hour ago. By the way.

“I know what I'm doing, hm? Let me look after you a little bit.”

More. There may be a joke to be made here about the fact their acquaintance grew largely out of her treating his scrapes; Benevenuta doesn't make it, but she does seem pleasantly aware of its potential presence.

Said scrapes have faded into history, by now. The wounds of the preternatural have left a couple of marks that Benny's careful hands and his own tonics and concoctions hadn't help -- white scar tissue writes into his arm, as if to make up for what, to him, is a notable absence on the forearm of the other, all clean pale flesh where there had been cursed ink dug into his skin. All that's left are the rune marks of his prison sentence printed crossways over his jugular, the sort of thing that Baedal shares in barbarity.

Her words are accepted, tested, fingers curling into palm in lazy consideration. A little bit does have humour. Slothful and with an air of great resignation (although a quick glance belies this with some irony), Lucius levers himself out of bed, sliding aside sheets that he'd only begun to consider as a flimsy sort of safeguard between himself and the lady with the sharp object.

There is frequently a small hint of self-satisfaction to her smile whenever she gets her way, which is also frequently and thus perhaps now familiar to him, as she steers him toward a cushioned stool in her en suite, near the mirror. She has, at some point, picked herself up a small hair-cutting kit - combs, scissors, clips to separate, a spray-bottle of water and conditioner - and it's set on the vanity, so it's a safe guess that she might have had this in mind a while.

Some people might find that unsettling, and that-- would probably be fair. She does have her moments where the awkwardness of distance makes itself apparent, and when she doesn't quite hit the appropriate interaction mark the way she'd like to; it's ways like this, mostly, where that undercurrent of out of step intensity catch her fumbling and trying to take a step back and promise that she didn't mean anything untoward, or uncomfortably obsessive, or-- it's only that she takes an interest, you see. Curiosity or care, either way.

(Though she has apparently learned at some point that her small eccentricities are usually more tolerantly received if she demonstrates them when she isn't properly dressed.)

“I will do my best not to take very much length,” she promises.

A sheet is taken with him. Whether or not Lucius is given to wandering around sans clothing is ultimately irrelevant when other people are holding sharp objects.

By nature, Lucius is somewhat used to compliance under the correct stressors, for all that he is rigidly stubborn in many other aspects. A glance is cast to tools set out, but he sits, only makes a sound at the back of his throat at her promise to keep its length, as if such a thought hadn't even crossed his mind!! (It had, immediately.)

"You've given this an alarming amount of thought. What happens when I am sufficiently presentable?"

“What would you like to happen?” she asks, knotting her short robe at the waist and beginning to draw the comb through his hair, detangling with care as she goes. It's a question moderately worrying in its open-endedness, but with every indication of amiable and sincere curiosity - and mischief, just a little. Just enough, warm and light and choosing not to falter over 'alarming amount of thought' since he's in the midst of conceding to her over it, anyway. “Call it- fantasy, not plan.”

Benevenuta's fantasies are weird, film at eleven.

Sometimes ~Vanessza~ is too French; Lucius too English. He stares straight ahead and puzzles at her question as she fusses with his hair, that slightly tense posture he adopts in these moments that is equal parts formality and, well, just tension that has very little to do with her. Silver is shiny and threaded with white-blonde, and it's been a while since physical nearness has connoted much in the way of affection as opposed to unpleasantness. Getting laid helps. Relaxing is a work in progress.

Wry; "Well, naturally, you'll be given to touching it more."

Her free hand touches his shoulder briefly, familiarly, the back of his neck briefly as she sections his hair. The intimacy involved is a casual thing, which he could probably put under the heading of 'too French' as well, if he's so inclined. Benevenuta wouldn't mind.

(She still hasn't told him her real name.)

“You make a good point.” Damping his hair, she measures an estimate with her fingers for how much she should be taking off to clean up his ends. “And,” holding her comb between her teeth, a little muffled, “I am very agreeable, when I am having my way.” Getting. 'Getting' would've sounded a little less like an innuendo.

It's genuinely hard to tell whether that was intentional or a side-effect of her English.

( closed ) lovely cases without jewels, lockets without relics, emptier and deeper than you are

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