PSL Post

[thelastvictim]

For blindstrike



Jeannette hated coming in to Hell's Kitchen the way she did. Alongside the bottom-feeders and brutes who inevitably come streaming in to fill a power vacuum. It was dirty, and unseemly and above all else, she strove to avoid getting her hands dirty, literally and figuratively.

So her first actions in the borough were legitimate enterprises. She needed somewhere to operate, and turning her single hotel and casino in Las Vegas and beginning the process of making it a small chain by opening the first of several new locations, buying up several properties on the edge of Hell's Kitchen to build the Hotel Nocturne New York.

Reported crime in the direct vicinity of her shiny new 4-star location dropped significantly. Especially after a well-known local pimp staggered into the ER, bleeding from his ears and in a catatonic state, with multiple broken bones.

The banshee had first met the Kitchen's mysterious Guardian Devil on the docks, after she'd crushed the throat of a particularly horrible man before the Devil had a chance to stop her. She'd laughed, and tossed the body into the river while bleeding from at least two bullet wounds at a much slower rate than she should have been.

Tracking her down hadn't been difficult. Her voice was distinctive, and her heartbeat inhumanly slow and faint, and she smelled of moss, damp earth, tastefully faint, and likely exorbitantly expensive French perfume.

Her private suite, difficult but not impossible to sneak into (especially via the roof) had no expenses spared and was a feast of textures. Silk velvet, the softest of leathers, and the enticing, almost vanilla-like scent of old books. The carpet was plush underfoot and absorbed the sounds of footsteps almost completely.

"I normally turn uninvited guests away, my darling demon," came a voice. "You're lucky I'm feeling patient tonight, and willing to entertain." Her accent, French by way of somewhere in Eastern Europe was strong, wrapping around her words without distorting them.

"What can I do for you?"

Comments

[blindstrike]

Even with the aftershocks, Matt still has it in him to feel that familiar sense of anger threatening to boil over. On his knees, she says. The arrogance of it would’ve bowled him over if her visions or whatever you wanted to call it didn’t already do that for her. He’s still struggling to catch his breath, giving the mutant all the time in the world to keep talking. She wants to toy with him. That’s what it boils down to. She’s bored, she has a life span that he didn’t think was possible if those flashes were anything to go by, and now he gets to entertain her.

“Remove them in any manner I’d prefer, you say,” he repeats after her. His chin lifts, too late to jerk away from her touch, and it’s more like he’s gasping into the floor because when she loosens her hold, his thighs can’t keep him upright. Matt manages to catch himself with his hands before he smashes his face pitching forward. First he gets himself on his elbows before he leans his weight back, sitting against his heels. “What’s that suppose to mean? Try to jump you so you can hit me with that thing again?”

She has to know his methods. Normally that would get people talking but now he has cold hard proof she isn’t most people. Hell, he isn’t even sure if she can even count as “people”. Matt struggles to force himself to his feet, his knees wobbling before he manages to lock them so he doesn’t tip over. Jumping her now doesn’t look like it’s possible. His head swims, pressure clamping down on his temples as he focuses on keeping upright.

It's with dread bubbling over that he starts to wonder what she means by "actions of her own".

[thelastvictim]

She takes a breath, though one does have to wonder if her breathing is just for show. It's remained incredibly even.

She picks him up- surprisingly gentle, and sets him down in a chair- the source of some of that leather smell, buttery soft against the skin, and plush under that. She opens a bottle and pours out two drinks into glasses over waiting ice-water. It smells strongly of alcohol and herbal notes, and an almost syrupy-sweet hit of licorice- or, more accurately, aniseed.

"I'm very sorry, I really should give you a moment after what I shared with you. I know I crave a strong drink when certain memories creep back." She brings her own glass to her lips, as if to prove it isn't poison. It isn't, save for a staggering alcohol content, hence the ice water.

"I wasn't offering you myself. I'm no criminal mastermind- what you saw at the docks was self defense. The man meant to kill me, I fought back. But you mentioned his friends. He was part of a prostitution ring that has attempted to use my hotel for it's... higher-paying clients. I will not allow that in my establishment. Especially not after the state my staff found the poor girl in afterwards. I've kept her, and several of the others, under my protection for several days. I will give you the information on these men, and the madam who runs them."

Already, the sound of pen-scratching on paper. "Which I believe was that information you meant to beat out of me when you came here, non?"

"I shared a part of my death with you, mon diable. You have experienced the most terrifying, dehumanizing thing done to me. And your mind is intact. Not many can say that."

"I do have to ask. The memories you felt. The woman on that platform, before the crowd. The one you were for that moment. Did she deserve that death?"

[blindstrike]

[Could you timeskip us to Matt getting overwhelmed with his first attempt/smutty?]

Getting picked up like he weighs no more than a child drives the point home. He gets parked into a chair, gently as if he hadn’t broken in and tried to intimidate her, and he’s still adjusting to that even as the smell of tea – cocktail? He can’t place it exactly – fills the air. He sits there, slumping over as he struggles to find the energy to sit up straighter like that makes any difference considering the circumstances, the mutant making herself comfortable. She chats away like they’re old friends catching up, playing the perfect host. Matt gets one armrest gripped as he pushes himself up, a grimace crossing a face that’s gone several shades paler under the mask after his run-in with Jeanette.

“No,” Matt says. He could have done without those memories; even if he’s now sitting in a chair that borders between comfort and aesthetics, his head swims, the floor seems to bob under the thick soles of his boots. His fingers tighten on the armrest as the phantom memory of the crowd laughing. “But you got in my head and I’d have no way of knowing if all of it was true, you know.”

It felt real, terrifyingly real. The glass remains untouched, not just because he’s unsure about its but also because he doesn’t think he could stomach anything right now.

As for the rest of what she said, he intends to check up on her intel if he can get out of here in one piece. The fact he can’t read her through her heart sets him back, makes her much harder to predict. Most people he hunts down like this, they wouldn’t have treated him like a guest – at best they would’ve called the cops. At worst; well, he guesses he wouldn’t be showing up to the office ever again.

“What would happen if I tried to leave, right now?” Something tells him it won’t be that easy.

[thelastvictim]

[Sure, I was going to drop you a PM to see if you wanted that, actually, and feel free to drop me one if you have specific requests or ideas.]

She lets him try. Takes from her own glass while she watches him stumble, sets it down, then returns him to the chair. Her face stays close to his, enough he can probably taste the traces of sugar from the candy, laced with the boozey licorice and herbs of the absinthe still on her lips.

"I don't think I should let you be leaving right now, mon diable. It would be irresponsible of me." She touches the tip of her finger to one of the horns on his mask. "And you've piqued my interest. There are many stories of mysterious strangers charming their way into a household, only to be revealed to be the Devil in disguise. Usually after seducing a chaste young lady." She laughs a little.

"I think we have a lovely reversal of that, non?" she leans over him. "Or is there something wicked about you?" she asks, obviously rhetorical.

"I think, perhaps, there is. Something more than the usual wickedness of all men," she puts a hand on his thigh and squeezes, to get the point of what she means across.

"I'd like to see the man who chooses the devil as a disguise. But I will not take off your mask." She leans in further, lips to his. "Stay, and I swear not to take another life in this city, I will swear to that."

[blindstrike]

Irresponsible. That's what she calls herself. Matt could think of some other words - arrogant, inhuman - and none of them make it to his lips as he tries and fails to walk out. He doesn't even have the energy to jerk his head away as Jeanette comes in close enough to almost kiss, her lips brushing against his in a way that sends a shudder up his spine. He can't tell if it's some kind of animal instinct at...whatever she is or he's just remembering what it felt like when she showed him some snapshots of her life.

He settles back against the chair, his head lolling slightly as he resists the urge to flinch away, show Jeanette how she's unnerved him. Thank God the mask's in the way.

"I'm not something out of one of your fairy tales," Matt makes a solid effort not to slur, each word clipped with barely controlled anger. "You don't know me."

Her hand against his thigh speaks volumes. The touch isn't chaste, it's assuming intimacy as if there’s ownership involved. There’s a slight squeeze he can’t ignore, nor hide the way his jaw stiffens. She says she won’t kill anyone. Right now he has no idea if she’ll stand by that or it’s for show, more of her type’s way of acting like they’re honorable, above it all. Matt’s mouth parts as her lips tease against his in the bastard imitation of a kiss, trying to ignore the vague, wordless feeling of his breath being stolen away. She’s a mutant and maybe he can’t explain her. It doesn’t mean she can keep him holed up by telling him something she thinks he’d want to hear.

“No,” Matt breathes the word out low, harsh, wondering if he’s about to make a big mistake. “You don’t get to keep me hostage here no matter how you dress it up.”