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Are you the kind of girl who prefers to be asked a favor upfront so you can hold the IOU? Or would you rather be wooed with little gifts and lots of begging before even hearing the request.

You don't really seem like the begging type.

Maybe it's a hypothetical.

I like to know what I’m getting into. Plus, I’d be worried about your knees. Hypothetically.

Hurtful.

So there's this guy here. He's from my world. He's dangerous as shit, I'm talking supernatural powers. And I've spent the last month prepping to write a book about him.

He wants to meet up and chat about the book: red flag. But! He's also got a real weakness for beautiful women, and you're the prettiest girl I know. You see where I'm going with this?

( it's actually deeply complimentary to parisa, who wants nothing so much as power, aside from her own freedom. with delight — )

I get to be your bodyguard?

( an old soul and a whore meet a creature in a room. anyone's guess about who is who is who. )

How good is the book? I'm not going to war for mediocrity.

I was thinking more "beautiful distraction", but sure.

It's pretty good. Memoirs of a vampire. Got paid ten million to write it. It'll be my twelfth. I'm not just a pretty face, you know.

It's good to sort these things out, so I know what shoes to wear. No, apparently you're rich, too. ( ten million sounds almost as impressive as twelfth. ) So a vampire is who we're meeting. Do you intend to keep up work on your book while you're here?

Nah. Not without all my research and recordings. But - imagine you're writing a book about Babe Ruth, and then he shows up alive at a party. Some chances, you take.

But then also imagine he might be offended by your book, and is also a known killer.

I can understand the academic pull towards dangerous situations. There's an unsettling intimacy to extensive study — an unfinished story is just a more elegant form of edging. I'll wear something necky. When?

Wanted to ask you before settling that. When are you free?

Now. Or tonight after dinner.

Let's do tonight.

Also, I'm not a multi-millionaire yet. But I'll owe you.

I am going to thoroughly enjoy having you in my debt.

so are you still up to learn how to play the greatest game ever?

Absolutely. In a teaching mood?

for dnd? always i’m gonna kick something off soon, found some manuals that don’t exist when i'm from so i’m playing catch up but i can still make you a master of the basics or a mistress of the basics, i guess

Master is good. I know a little of the basics. When are you from, again?

you don’t wanna be a mistress? 1986

I'm always happy to be your Mistress. You know that. I should've guessed. You have an 80s rocker look about you.

that does make a guy feel special, you know. this time i won’t be on my knees teaching i was one almost long and tragic story

Where will you be? I like tragedy. So much more interesting than happiness.

i could be in your lap or you could grace mine, Mommy well my life happens to be a tragedy

( heheh. cute. )

I'll decide when I'm there. Are you sure it won't distract you from talking about ( suspiciously, her dissertation study did not require a very thorough examination of the rules of dnd. looking for one single reference, ah ) beholders? Most people's are. A human will find tragedy in a vacuum. Take heart in knowing most people are just as miserable as you.

depends? are you going to try to distract me? damn, here i thought i got to be bitter and petty for good reasons

No, I want to learn. But you are a little irresistible.

( annoyingly enough, it's not a lie. )

Depends on what the reasons are. Some people suffer more, that's a fact. Are you suffering?

flattery really works on me, you know just got the short end of the stick in a lot of things i don’t think im suffering now, unless this is all a dream and i gotta wake up

I know. You’re a good boy. You’re enjoying your stay here, then?

far from it but keep telling me that :) it’s better than the meat place better than home too r u?

I’ve met a lot worse. Well ( meat place ???? ) I suppose it’s nice not being hunted. And the free clothes aren’t bad.

( that typo is not one he noticed because MOMMY )

you were hunted before?

Like a deer. America most recently. Japan before that. Not very friendly.

what the fuck that doesn't surprise me about america i'm like... public enemy of suburbia hail satan, apparently

Did you do something horrible?

i play dnd and have the last name munson

Ah. Burn the witch.

( a little weird wait, where parisa battles her self preservation and the awkward instinct to tell eddie something about herself. inconvenient. but — parisa doesn’t make a habit of second guessing herself. )

Want to keep a secret for me?

good old middle america satanic panic only if you want to share it

I’m a telepath. That’s why every government seems to want me dead, because I’m not interested in joining up with them. Freaked out?

like mind reading stuff? i hope you can control it because my head’s a mess ( there is no silence, constant noise and anxiety and spiraling even without the fun presence lurking there in the back )

Yours is actually kind of nice.

( she immediately can't believe she said that, now thoroughly annoyed with herself. )

I've seen worse than messy.

you like chaos? like what?

I like things that interest me.

( a number of salacious tidbits of gossip come to mind, each more cruel and inherently evil than the last. but ultimately, none of it means anything. everyone is a monster, parisa knows that — she knows that better than anyone. the brutal truth, )

Government secrets. Mafia crimes. The real first impression everyone has of you. Imagine the most unforgivable thing anyone has ever said to you. And now imagine everything they didn’t say, but thought about saying.

( imagine being the prettiest girl in the world, with a brother who decided you became a woman when you were twelve. )

people didn’t really filter themselves around me but that’s true… even if they were shitty out loud, they probably thought worse i’m sorry you have to hear it it’s probably… actually awful. when people are are horny and you have to hear it ( he wrinkles his nose, wonders how often she has to deal with being objectified. she beautiful, gorgeous and he’s enraptured but Eddie’s sure his fellow men wouldn’t always think the most flattering of words. )

can you do it over distance?

You shouldn’t pity me, Eddie. You should fear me.

( the endless pursuit: parisa has no idea how evil she’d have to be in order to be seen as anything more than beautiful. libby could probably tell her, but she could probably be defined as a psychopath by someone who didn’t know her. )

Do you want to know what you’re thinking?

( neither a yes or a no. )

who said i pity you? i think people are awful, that's different. you could probably ruin them, couldn't you? ruin me if you wanted to tell me what i'm thinking ( something aches at the base of his skull, a throb like the start of a headache. he winces, frowns and shakes it off and hopes it's not what he thinks that is about to get unpleasant at someone poking too deep. )

Nobody walks headfirst into ruination. You should at least have the decency to make me hate you first.

( eugh. she’s practically smitten. )

If you were less kind, you’d be thinking how stuck up I am, to look how I look and have the audacity to complain. But you’re not, so I imagine you’re thinking about every thought you’ve had in my presence, and how much of an ass you’ve made of yourself, and whether or not I know how much you want me. If it helps, you haven’t thought anything awful that I’ve seen. And I don’t need telepathy to know the rest.

see... that's usually pretty easy for me and i'm also an idiot, parisa. i run straight into danger that's probably too kind a read of it. i do wonder though. if you know? what you want?

Well, could you try a little harder? What do you think I want, if you had to guess?

you'll get to see my shining personality i know you like when i'm a good boy, but given you want to be feared... i'm guessing it's not just that. something about me makes you want to be soft. you don't seem like a woman who's gotten a lot of opportunity to be soft

It’s much better than being dull, you have to admit.

( a brief, one two pause. parisa, taken aback that anyone might think softness of her — she is, by far, largely seen as some kind of ice queen, and she appreciates that role because it means people see her as impenetrable. what tender spot eddie has apparently seen in her, is not something she herself was aware of. worthy of further inspection, at the very least. )

I wouldn’t say it’s a lack of opportunity. ( she is, after all, married. if she wanted, she could be barefoot and pregnant. she could probably grow to love her husband one day. ) I’d rather be something powerful, than something gentle. When your looks are what you are, you aren’t much of anything at all, really.

i'd rather die again than be boring i think i get that. i mean, people judge me for my looks and my last name all the time. i just play into it as a fuck you to them, so they don't get to see the real me deep down i think you can be both with the right people. powerful, gentle. they don't have to be two seperate things

I'd rather you die than be boring.

( not remotely true, but it's the right Mean Girl™ thing to say )

Are you less of a rockstar deep down? Well. You're very cute, Munson. I'll give you that.

you’d come to the funeral, yeah? i didn’t have one last time ( to be fair he doesn’t know if he did or not )

nah, that’s me wanna hear a fucked up story about my brush with stardom

I'd be the first in line to pay my respects. What should I bury you with?

( "last time"? hm. )

Yes, I do.

some weed and my guitar so i was in a band, corroded coffin, can you picture it? me as a guitarist and front man. i wrote our songs. we were a small town band but we were good. good enough that a talent scout had us audition for a big LA producer and everything. there was just one thing... a little catch. take a guess

You just need a porn magazine and a black light poster, and your coffin will be the average American frat boy's bedroom.

( presumably — ) You had to sleep with someone for it?

me? a frat boy? neverrrrrrr gross nah needed money but i was a trailer park kid no one would hire for legit work and then my old man rolled up with a crazy ass scheme to rob a drug lord

do you ever feel like you’re going insane? losing time?

Here? Or in general.

in general i don’t know if it’s a here thing or a last place thing

Honestly, no. I don't. Part of being a telepath is keeping your head above water. Where is this coming from?

i mentioned a problem i was having to someone and they suggested talking to a telepath about it... and you're the only one i know but the only one i'd trust too i think--- well, no. i'm pretty sure something came with me from the last place

( trust?

parisa won't admit to being touched, but it's still there, sparkling and new. most people don't trust telepaths, for what they presume are good reasons, and parisa's never bothered with trying to convince someone otherwise. )

You think something is hiding in your mind, somewhere? ( unwelcome, she thinks of dalton. her exboyfriend. emphasis on ex. ) I've seen something like that before. What was the problem?

it's whole thing — it's goal is the problem it wants me to forget myself. those it happened to... they turned into wraiths before the reapers got to them, only wanted to eat flesh and kill

You're being serious and not talking about DND, right?

unfortunately but wanna hear something really fucked up i found something like the place i was at in a dnd manual here ( he tells her anyway bc he had a crisis about it )

Huh.

( the implications of That are. worrisome, at the least. it means some nerd managed to breach a parallel universe, come back to this one, and write a globally successful TTRPG about their trauma. or maybe it was a really good guess? crazier things have happened. parisa in particular has a unique relationship to the space time continuum, so she pretty much accepts it as fact and moves along. )

Hopefully you don't find this place in your next DND manual. So. Am I running an exorcism on you, or am I teaching you how to corner and trap this thing in your mind?

yeah, really hoping i don't uh can you like... check i'm not just going crazy and there's something there first?

( ah )

Oh, Eddie. I can. If it helps, I probably would've noticed before if you were crazy.

would you.... know by now?

I'll have to meet up with you. And you'll have to give me some time while I go looking. It could take awhile.

more time in your company? wow, a real pain... i'd be suffering so much :(

Took me a while to figure it out, but is it you that's been trying to snoop around?

[ and not exactly in the 'run the halls and scooby doo the place' kind of way. ]

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I have the wrong person.

( after a little wait, and some sensory brain prodding, )

Louis, your mind is like a jungle gym. Ease up, some of us are nosy.

Parisa, yours isn’t much better. But has a certain signature. Took me a while to find your voice in the many.

What exactly were you looking for?

Ideally something salacious. But I'll settle for something not boring. It wasn't personal, I mean. Unfortunately the mind wanders.

And what would you do if I did tell you something salacious? Why go looking? From a fellow wandering mind.

Oh — the incurable boredom of the day by day, I suppose. What else do I have to amuse myself? Sex in the dungeon? It's not as interesting as some of the secrets these minds keep hidden from view.

Have you tried listening in on the staff's thoughts?

But I understand - a sex dungeon is great but some of us have our own to compare it to. I'm interested in learning more about the people who are here, for one. So I can't begrudge you that.

🆘 🆘 🆘 can you sit with me at dinner?

Nap and a dinner? I'm starting to think you like me.

i do like you. but it's an emergency. i'll owe you a favor. isn't it a nice feeling to know someone important is in your debt?

Any favor? Of my choosing?

i'm trying to piss someone off, so you can't just sit there and ignore me. you have to be present in the moment and invested in me. but yeah, whatever, any favor.

When I give you a footjob under the table, do you prefer heels or bare feet? I know how to be on a date, Moore. Don't worry so much. You have a deal. Who are we pissing off?

heels. it's better when there's a little danger. the president of the united states. you like a challenge, don't you?

I have your number now. High stakes. High reward? ( translation: is this going to get you laid? )

you're lucky your threatening voice is still sexy. the reward would be that he leaves me alone forever and i blissfully forget that he exists. except for when i have to see him at work every single day. do you ever make major life decisions without thinking about the long-term effects? like running for public office?

You're lucky you're pretty when you're being threatened. Like a little lamb. Uh huh. And the likelihood of that happening? I do, actually, but never that major. I'd never run for office, pantsuits are beneath me. Plus I've fucked too many senators, it would be embarrassing for them.

Are your friends always so noisy?

Unfortunately, ( with a mental nudge that suggests, more than says, they’re mad about each other. lol. ) yes. Not a bad visual, though. I know you’re secretly amused.

I would rather have the quiet. [ But he is amused. It reminds him of being in the midst of coven drama. ]

Are you going to join them?

If not tonight, surely some other time.

Interested?

Should I be?

Of course. I'm very interesting.

Do you make a habit of having them both at the same time?

Hm. No. ( more honest: she's never really been with either of them, except a dynamically strange seduction attempt on erik. ) But you can tell a lot about a person from how they behave in a threesome. It's my preference.

Your stamina must be impressive. Or perhaps you simply long to be observed in every moment.

I wouldn't deny either. But if you asked me, I'd say it's more about the other two.

[ Wandering around the edges of her thoughts, trailing his fingers over the bars of her cage. ]

You find pleasure in their pleasure. Very generous of you.

Pleasure in the way of dissecting something to know how it works, maybe. We’re our rawest selves when we’re loving other people.

( the malleable, velveteen pathways of her mind open up — to a memory, a different threesome, a broody man (tristan) and an academic woman (libby) shyly stroking their hands on each others bodies, suddenly pulled taunt together as two strings in a knot by parisa’s blandly gentle, almost professorial hands. they just needed a push to cross that budding line of attraction, and parisa just needed to not be their least favorite person, in case they got any ideas about murdering her. )

Don’t you think so?

[ Intrigued, Armand leans into the memory, lets it surround him for a few moments. He feels those bodies beneath his hands, feels himself hot and wet between his thighs, feels Parisa's remote compassion. She's right; he understands, and he's fascinated by the road she's taken to that conclusion. ]

I believe so. Love is often a harsh light that scours all else clean. How do they feel about your dissection of their moment? Surely some must be unhappy to be denied the chance to provide you with the same pleasure?

Do you imagine most people are so selfless in their fucking? ( not harshly said — just curious about armand, about his thoughts, when so many aspects of him seem to mirror her. ) I'm more of a status symbol than a woman. Most are just happy to be involved, I'd guess.

I imagine many are happy to find someone they can use who will claim to prefer it. [ He's seen it firsthand, the way men will treat those they feel free to exploit. How easy it is for people to cross that line, even those who pretend to be good and moral. His services in the brothel had been bought by priests as well as princes. ]

The eternal truth of humanity: it all begins and ends with greed.

( at least, it's the truth for parisa. armand has been around longer — if he disagrees, she might finally have to admit she's a pessimist rather than an unfortunate realist. )

Since the garden and the fall. The apple on the tree, dripping wet with morning's dew. We are all that heavy fruit, waiting to be plucked and eaten.

How old are you again? You could probably convince me you're one of God's angels.

A black-winged angel, perhaps. Fallen from His eternal grace.

[ Death, darkness. A legacy that stretches back to that same garden, but it begins with the serpent, poison-fanged. A memory of gazing up at grand frescos, the benevolent smiles of saints and cherubs. There's blood in his mouth. Blood on his hands. ]

Not your choice compliment, I take it.

( parisa can't claim to understand the not quite guilt to armand — at least the duality of him makes sense. there is, metaphorically, and slightly literally, a hand in his. blood stained fingers knitting themselves together. )

We have to be especially bad to be taken seriously. ( we: the two prettiest girls in the world. two little knickknacks on two trophy shelves. ) For the record, I think eternal grace seems pretty overrated. Much more fun the other way.

[ Her hand in his is enough to keep him from drifting further into that darkness. He takes hold of the contact, gripping her for a moment with almost feverish intensity, a frightened child who longs to be an angel. Then he subsides a little, acknowledging her words. ]

So we tell ourselves, to make it bearable. [ His awareness slides over hers, worshipful hands on her body, lips against her throat. Remembering the smell and taste of her skin. ]

Will you go to them?

( a perpetual youngest sibling, parisa feels the strangest thing overcome her — sisterly protectiveness. it's not enough to stop her from leaning into him, sensual, but it's enough of a seed to nurture an affectionate little bubble in her brain, armand's name etched over it. she nods her assent, humming. )

Come with?

( an offer more than a suggestion — if he doesn't want to be alone, he has a space with her. a promise: ) Our secret.

Not tonight.

[ He appreciates it and lets her feel that, a warmth that's not completely warm. Remote kindness. A squeeze of her hand before he lets go, retreating somewhat into his own mind. ]

Another time, perhaps. I need to think.

Alright. ( a parting goodbye — her lips briefly on the high curve of his cheek. ) I'll see you soon.

( and a wink. the conversation didn't happen in person, but it's a more dramatic reveal to remember it that way — daniel saying how nice was armand to you? and i wouldn't mind watching you step on him. soon is soon, apparently. )

( some handful of days following this encounter on the World Wide Slutwork, after a brief radio silence on danny's end, he hits parisa's dms with a picture first, then a text: )

guess who. (:

She's hot. Trying to make me jealous?

that depends. you into being tied up? you don't really strike me as the type.

( featured: the most polite way of implying that you totally think someone is a control freak. )

I'm into everything, silly. But I can admit, I'm the one tying the knots most of the time. Is that Jem?

sure is.

( one more, while they're flirting, in video format, date unknown. )

gotta give the old man credit for the idea, though. i was just gonna send you a raunchy shot of my dick like a fuckin' normie.

( dynamics are intriguing to parisa — who, in turn does the math. 1 + 1 = 2, and all that. danny, jem, house. may, may, december. it's not like she's going to pretend it isn't hot. )

I like the creativity. Are you with her right now? Can you give her an orgasm for me? Tell her I miss her pussy.

she's asleep. i'm just playing with her a little bit.

( using her ass cheek as a stress ball, more like, but he'll tuck his chubbed-up dick into bed soon enough. )

you know she's my sister?

Edited 2024-08-11 01:16 (UTC)

No, I didn't.

( impossible to avoid thinking about her own brother, amin. his thoughts developing as she developed, from twelve into a ripe thirteen year old. her pressing lingering kisses on the corner of her brother's mouth, to hint she might be on the same level as him, while secretly planning her escape. then — a rush job wedding to amin's best friend, one week a married woman, and an escape to france to start a new life, under a new name. parisa kamali was born, all because her brother couldn't keep it in his pants.

anyway — danny's not amin. she's not his sister. whatever she feels about him and jem, it's really none of her business. )

I fucked your sister. Hope that doesn't put a damper on things.

Edited 2024-08-11 01:31 (UTC)

i fuck my sister, too.

( hard to tell what she's thinking, or if she even believes him. most people aren't freaky like that when it comes to sibling on sibling incest or anything on anything incest, but then jem and danny don't look anything alike, do they? jem's his little lily white english rose. danny's all-american, all brown, all great basin indian red. mismatched puzzle pieces boiled at the edges to fit together seamlessly. )

hope that doesn't put a damper on things.

It's not my business what you do with your sister, if she's into it.

( key difference: parisa was not into it. parisa loved her brother the way a sister should, and had to bury that love out back with a hatchet and a shovel. the ultimate lesson is that anything that loves parisa will eventually want to fuck her — it's better to fuck out the gate, and leave love to rot with the vultures. )

You guys have different parents, right? Your accents are different. And you're not white, obviously.

i'm a little white, actually. i just ain't as white as her.

( he's what the deep rez kids call a haffer, back home. )

we got different mamas, yeah. but i think we got the same nose. (: and taste in girls.

I see. Oh, you. ( let it be said that parisa can be won over with any amount of flattery. anyway — she feels distantly annoyed at herself for getting even a little worked up about it. danny and his sinkhole brain have never struck parisa as exceedingly normal. you can't go poking around a viper and get mad when it bites you. like it's nothing: ) My older brother used to think about fucking me a lot when I was a kid, because I'm pretty. Not nice thoughts. It's not an issue, it just took me by surprise. All good.

( immediately, like it's also nothing: ) did you kill him?

No. I thought about it, though. A lot.

that's how it started for me, too. just thinking about it. what'd you do instead?

Let him think I wanted it. Then I married his best friend, exchanged marriage and sex for money to take me out of Iran, and started a new life in Paris. The end. What about you?

i stopped thinking about it.

( kneejerk, typed and sent before he can think too hard about it, as natural as blinking or breathing. that's not all he did, of course. killing has always been the climax, the final period at the end of a lengthy paragraph full of horror. he wants to tell her more, in explicit detail — not because it feels good to be honest, but because gnawing at skinny ankles to see who flinches first is another kneejerk habit stamped into his dna.

no one here knows what he is except his family. and louis, too. armand, maybe. luci, certainly, in shades. parisa? a little bit. probably more than she lets on. he craves revulsion like a good orgasm. )

first person i ever killed, actually. i was seventeen, fresh out of juvie.

Was it kill or be killed?

( a very adolescent desire, to root around rocks in the high altitude hills of appalachia and think you actually have a chance at finding a fossil. just because she didn't kill her brother, doesn't mean parisa hasn't killed. it doesn't mean she's vehemently against killing, when she's seen the greasy inner workings of minds that would do the world a favor if they just shut up forever.

still, she thinks about callum's soft, empathetic voice convincing military ops to kindly turn their guns on themselves, the point of it buried in the futility of living at all. he did the same thing to parisa, who jumped off a building — she worries danny would do the same thing to her, and she might not make it out a second time. mentally speaking. )

Did they deserve it?

nah, though i used to wonder if that would've made it better. like, more right than not.

( more moral, more acceptable, had danny's father been awake instead of asleep the morning that danny decided to kill him. idle thoughts for a tiny seventeen-year-old brain, more child than man, self-appointed orphan missing his daddy the very second he stopped fucking breathing. )

but he deserved it.

Was it memorable?

( telepathic curiosities — she can't go anywhere in danny's mind without rushing through a mesh strainer into darkness. she'd think he didn't have a memory, or was diseased by something flesh eating and thought stealing, if she wasn't talking to him now. )

( danny buries a damp sigh into the naked slope of jem's shoulder, and then his spit-sloppy dick into her warm cunt, past his thumb pinning the soggy microscopic strip of lacy fabric that passes for her panties taut against her thigh, stark white like a bridal garter. )

sometimes when i really need to cum and can't for whatever reason, i think about his blood in my mouth and it rocks my shit every time.

have you ever killed anyone, parisa?

Yes. It's not the question you should be asking.

( she thinks about the exact amount of pressure it took to stab her jimmy choo heel through the cheek of a man who tried to kill her. parisa is not a fighter, really — not interested in an excessive amount of gore or violence. but. the sick moment of penetration, the compulsory and almost childish pop of someone's cheek giving way under 1k of designer heel, that second of satisfaction, of standing over someone and taking their life away because they had the audacity to think they could take yours —

well, parisa is addicted to the drug of power. she is five feet nothing of minuscule strength and little talent for violence, but she's always fought in her small, unimpressive ways to be free, safe, and strong. it's easy to say she killed someone, that they would've killed her first, that she was justified, that they had it coming.

what's more important: did you suck on his blood and cum to the memory of his pathetic death later? did you like it? )

( multitasking isn't exactly difficult for danny, who is convinced his dick could find jem's cunt in pitch black, through a hundred million bodies, like a heat-seeking missile. he respositions them anyway: danny rolled halfway onto his back, jem cushioned on top of him, her throat caught in the lean v of his arm until he snags her bottom lip with his thumb, tucks inside to give her something to suck on as he fucks her, unhurried, lazy.

across the twin peaks of her firm little titties, he rests his wrist and the phone, screen glowing white, and blows her hair out of his face. a phone call would be a thousand times easier. he holds off. )

did it make you hot? did it turn you on? ( the real real question: ) do you hate that it turns you on?

Yes.

( three questions all sharing the same answer, unfortunate as it might be. she wants to be better — she exist living in an air of unearned superiority, simply because it's what people expect from her. the truth is that she's worse, she doesn't morn her enemies, she doesn't feel empathy for devils, she isn't so disgusted by a murderer fucking his sister to not text him back. )

But we aren't the same.

god forbid.

( a long lapse while he's distracted, texting fingers put to better use, lower between jem's wet thighs. after a while: )

but just 'cause you ain't me don't mean you ain't fucked up, too.

( what if we just changed the subject! )

Why is your brain like a black hole? Did something happen to you?

ain't heard that little number in a minute.

( not since kovacs, probably, drilling john about his special little boy. )

maybe it's 'cause my daddy used to beat my ass raw. or maybe it's 'cause i was taken by some fuckin' eldritch spider god and skull-fucked into submission until my brain turned into swiss cheese.

alternately, cutting the bullshit: i'm just special. (:

Hmmm.

( she has a little experience — not with spider gods or abusive fathers, but with the action of breaking a mind down into little component parts in order to hide something, making your own little patchwork design of a human neural network. who knows if that's what's wrong with danny? parisa is inclined to believe he came predamaged, a little genetic fumble. )

Usually thoughts reach out towards me, but yours are more like a suction — a whirlpool, or something. It seems like a really bad idea to go shuffling through your thoughts.

( And Yet. she still poked at dalton's, who also turned out to be a murderer, or something close to it. at least danny's upfront with being terrible. it makes him more likable. )

( that sounds about right. )

jem always thought my head was really quiet.

( her safe space whenever she didn't want to be alone with her own noise. danny never understood it because his head has never been quiet for him. fat grey matter cranium full of wind tunnel shrapnel, screaming freight train, never shuts up, never shuts off except when he's too fucked up on coke and bottom shelf whiskey to think. how many times is he going to play russian roulette and lose to his own fucking brain? )

but it only seems fair. ( he can't get out of his head, so why should anyone else? fuck 'em. nothing escapes the event horizon. can't fight physics. ) misery loves company and all that.

you kind of make it sound like you wanna shuffle through my thoughts, parisa.

I'm good at bad ideas.

( said with the same textured inflection as a hapless shrug — apologetic, almost. parisa likes a project. danny has holes in his head that perfectly fit the diameter and length of her fingers. 1 + 1 = 2. )

If you were going to kill me, how would you do it?

( been a minute since he's heard that, too. it feels right.

danny's settled in jem, no more idle fucking but idling for the sake of idling, swollen dick gloved in her insides as he stares into the dark at parisa's last text. he maneuvers them again — back onto their sides, coiled snakelike around her, with his thumb still occupying her sleep-pouty mouth. no more texting. now he calls, waits for parisa to pick up. )

You ain't my normal M.O., but I'd take my time with you. ( this late, danny's all grit and rasp; his voice scratches like a needle over a record into the line, vibrating through jem's spine. he noses into her shoulder, teeth clipping the collar of her t-shirt. his t-shirt, several times too big on her. ) Figure out your patterns, your habits. Wait 'til you're alone, then take you somewhere.

( she shuffles embry over on his side, but the gin drunk sleep is enough that he only murmurs something with the vague inflection of a swear as parisa separates from him, a perfect dichotomy of actual platonic interest from danny's relationship with his sister. when she swipes to answer his call, it's after she's lifted embry's shirt up and over her shoulders, padding into the bathroom and checking out her naked body in the mirror's reflection. discerning, one twist of the hips from the next. in the low light of midnight, she can't see the gray hair in her hairline, but she still knows it's there. old age is a physical disease. )

I see.

( for someone who generally lives life scraping and clawing and lying her way towards the next day, it seems a pretty shitty question to ask. she still feels that very real pang of fear in her gut, white hot and bottoming out, a blade already in her stomach. still, it's nice to know the method, the thought process. it's nice to imagine dying again, after being killed by callum. )

Methodical, with intention. ( isn't danny just a little boy scout? parisa smiles, skirts her hand down her stomach, into her panties. she's disappointed by not surprised to find herself wet. ) I'm glad I wouldn't be a rush job, though there is something a little romantic about a crime of passion. What next? I'm in your scary white van, I'm locked in your cage. The stalking is slow, but what about the death? Quick, painless? Would you enjoy it?

I always enjoy it.

( that goes without saying. he's silent for a second, straining to hear her through the phone, little scuffling footsteps, a door creaking traitorously. is she on the move? )

How I kill you depends on if you would enjoy it, too. Are you touching yourself?

( her hand moves back up, abruptly called out, scraping her lower teeth across the pad of her middle finger, tasting the guilty essence of herself. )

I thought about it. I thought ... ( she twists in the mirror's reflection again, watching herself at all angles. theoretically pretending like she isn't imagining danny playing with his sister's unconscious body. there's a psychological fact that your mind will sexualize its biggest traumas on something like a survival instinct — parisa imagines that's what it is, imagining a brother fucking a sister, a real thing of nightmares. ) I thought I'd walk into the bathroom and watch myself listening to this, and maybe I'd find something disgusted in my expression. Or at least something normal.

( thoughtful pause. then, ) I've already been killed twice. Want to hear about it?

Sure. ( it sounds like a bedtime story, even. the time parisa was the little lamb with her little lamb neck on the altar, twice. ) Twice ain't nothing to cough at. Was it here or before here?

Before. ( rustling sounds as she moves from the bathroom to her room, voice instinctively dropping lower even if embry's out cold. there's a balcony she lets herself out on, next to naked and freezing in the night wind. ) I jumped off the roof.

( it doesn't exactly sound like a murder attempt, but it was. empaths know the way to make you do anything, even trick you into thinking you want it — callum was nothing if not thorough. parisa steps up on the stone railing now, the soles of her feet conforming to the curve. one foot lifts, painted toes moving en pointe, and she forces herself to balance, or die mid phone sex/murder. it's too humiliating of a death to allow. )

And, my ex-boyfriend stabbed me with a corkscrew. In the gut. You can imagine, the twisted metal. You seem more the latter than the former, Danny. Do you have a favorite?

( that just leaves him with more questions, like: how did she come back the first time? did she come back the second time? but when a lady asks you a question, you answer. danny's mama lived long enough to teach him that much, at least, before she choked on her own vomit in a gas station bathroom off i-80. )

I like it slow.

( romantic. indulgent. danny sighs into jem's sweaty nape and rocks his hips once, leisurely. )

Last place I was at — before this place, I mean — I killed my boyfriend. Pretended to be something I wasn't for six months, then took him out into the woods one early morning and Old Yellered him. He cried.

( danny cried, too, in the aftermath. dug him a grave and laid with him, humped his fucking corpse until he came in his trousers. )

That's probably the most fucked up thing I've ever done, and I did it 'cause I loved him.

Loved him so much you didn't want to lie to him?

( most people would probably argue danny isn't capable of love. it seems the general consensus on sociopaths.

regardless, it's a for purely egotistical reasons that parisa is more or less at ease with that admission. things she knows: it's easy to kill, would probably be easy to keep finding bodies if that was a particular itch you needed to scratch, a deadly void you needed filled. death could mean absolutely nothing, in the grand scheme — but at least danny makes it a point to make it special, when he loves someone enough, when it counts. letting out an oof sound, parisa takes a seat on the stone banister, back pressed against the wall, one leg dangling above 18th century stone, the other above foggy, misted oblivion. her hand goes back in her panties, fingers pressed up against her cunt. )

Is the mask because you're ashamed? ( her fingerpads rub in light, gentle circles around her clit. she pants into the phone's speaker, unsubtle. ) Or is it purely tactical?

Edited 2024-08-15 14:00 (UTC)

Nah, the lying is the easiest bit.

( it was the sharing, which danny couldn't tolerate. it was the knowing quentin would never want or love him as he was, because he couldn't, because why would he, why would anyone, and most importantly why had that mattered at all when it hadn't mattered for the twenty-four, twenty-five years danny lived and breathed without quentin smith possessing one whole half of his mind. fuck, he hates him. fuck, he loves him more than he hates him, still, still, and he cried the day that he killed him but it wasn't because he was sorry, then, now, or ever. he's only sorry he didn't get to kill him twice, really nail the point home.

fuck, he misses him.

no time for that. no room for it, either, between jem throbbing warm and velvet on his dick and parisa panting warm and velvet in his ear. danny's a hateful fucking whore before he's a romantic. speaking of, breezily bald-faced: )

I really like attention. Like, a lot of attention. Must be the childhood trauma. ( he's not just any prolific serial killer; he's a serial killer with a narrative, the most insufferable kind of serial killer. he drops his phone into the crook of his shoulder and tucks it tight against his ear, freeing up his hand to skate under jem's t-shirt. ) 'sides, the mask is kind of hot, right? You looked good in it.

( though danny suspects she'd look good in absolutely anything, and just as prepared to let you know it. )

( parisa huffs out a chilly laugh, her breath fogging in front of her face. ) I like attention. Childhood trauma.

( she'd certainly rather have nothing in common with danny. unfortunately, her wry amusement won't let her see anything but the places where she mirrors and matches a blatant, and not at all apologetic murderer. what does any of that say about her? nothing good, probably, but then she doesn't consider herself a good person — doesn't live in a world where "good" is a binary you fit into or sit outside of. )

I didn't realize it — belonged to a scary killer. ( she pushes her fingers inside her. wishes she had the foresight to bring a dildo out here or, failing that, wake embry up to act the part. of course, she could always go inside — but then she wouldn't have the death threat of falling twisting her insides, making her hot. ) I thought it was a kink thing. I liked wearing it. ( moaning thoughtfully, ) You should wear it for me sometime.

[ few days after Danny: ]

the next time someone sends you a picture of my bare arse could you send me a picture of your tits 😔😔🙏🏻

Sooo I don't owe you a backlog for ass pics of the past?

i’m feeling generous and also ✨ desperate ✨
the only tits i’ve seen in the last three days are all flatter than my own

Well, I'm not sure how much help I'll be there. It's been awhile since I've seen yours. Hold.

( incoming a minute or two later — tiddy pic (nsfw), from someone who was apparently also feeling generous. )

What's the verdict?

🥰🥰🥰🥰
unrelated, can i come over soon

You know you're my favorite slut. You can come over whenever you like. Wanna play in Otherworld sometime?

can’t wait to tell danny that!

yes, obviously. just for u 💖

He'll agree if he knows what's good for him. Then again, I'm not sure he does. Oh, you. 💜

he’s contrary and annoying but he also simply CANNOT resist calling me a slut, so!

how do you want to play with me? i like 2 prepare 🥰

Well, he's not wrong. How do you feel about being a little sub slave? There's this itch lately I've been meaning to scratch.

[ A beat. A moment of consideration, nails chewed on and her anxious, hamster-wheel brain going around in circles. Months ago she'd have said yes without a lick of hesitation, but months ago she'd been a different person. ]

i need a safe word

( she doesn’t. what she actually needs — a safe thought. parisa might be flexing her dominant toes like a kitten in a midday sun nap, but she doesn’t have any inclination to push the envelope further than necessary. it’s still reasonable to keep safe, and if jem hasn’t been made aware of her telepathy, then there’s no point to telling her just yet. maximum drama = maximum fun. )

Choose one. Hard limits?

bunny.

if i say it, you have to stop. that’s - that’s all.

I won't think less of you if you tell me you don't want to do something, Jem. There's no need to be so brave. Plus, I have nothing to punish you for. It'll be all fun, I promise.

thank you

i don’t have any hard no’s except that :)

Hey. Kinda ruined your panties, do you want these back?

[ not actually why he's messaging, he wants to talk about armand agreeing to turn him, but it's a disarming opener. ]

Ruined in a cummy way, or a ripped in half way?

In a I-don't-know-how-to-get-vampiric-blood-jizz-out-of-satin way.

Oh, you know. It's really hard, because I was so emotionally invested in those panties, but I think you better toss them. Unless you're the sentimental type? Then you can keep them.

Great.

If we were somewhere else I'd say I'll buy you a new pair, but I'm not sure I can do that here. But I owe you one. Which I know is your favourite thing to hear.

You're certainly raking in the IOUs. I'll have to start cashing in, so I don't forget. Did you just want to talk underwear with me?

No, actually. Armand's turning me into a vampire this week, so if you wanna cash in while I'm human time's ticking.

Oooh. Feeling left out of the bloodsuckers club?

I'm not getting any younger. And my neurodegenerative illness isn't getting any less fatal.

Ah.

( "i'm not getting any younger." a painfully familiar thought. if parisa could bottle and preserve herself as she is right now, she'd probably do it too — even if, sometimes, there's nothing she wants more than to die. in fact, the only thing she constantly wants, is to not get older. so, she understands the appeal. )

How long would you have, without the bite?

Depends. Physically, could be a full decade before my body would start to fail, maybe even longer with good treatment. But most people with Parkinsons lose their mind before then. Dementia, memory loss, hallucinations. There's a reason I write everything down.

( it could be different, if she could pick a hole in a ward and take daniel home with her. parisa has done it before — nothazai is a biomancer doctor, capable of healing any illness, any disease, like a miracle worker. but he can't heal death, can he? the theory: he could give daniel time, long years in an aging body, but they could be good, happy years. oncoming death does things to the psyche no religion or philosophy can, because nothing is more humbling than one's own confrontation in mortality. he could bond with his daughters in a way he never has, spend his last two decades of life living for them, for happy little piebald grandchildren with fat chubby cheeks and the genetic thumbprint of half bleached brows, going on trips to disneyland, eating dolewhips with a spoon. he wouldn't have to lose his mind, possibly the most precious thing to a journalist. but.

his children and his ex-wives and his readers aren't here. armand is, and armand is like her: selfish. immortality is selfish. he'll ruin his life just to claim it for himself, and parisa can't even blame him for it. there's never been anything she's loved so much in the world, that she wouldn't burn it all down if given half a chance.

still, it's not parisa's job to fix daniel's life. it's not even her job to be part of it. no one comes to her for a pulse check in reality — they want the fantasy. )

I get the context of your net post, now. What's the verdict? How are you spending your last day alive?

Gonna spend a day outside eating so much food. Might go to the club in the evening and dance. I dunno. Nothing changes in the short term. It's the long term where it gets fucked up.

I'm pretty sure your diet changes in the short term. Plus, the bloody cum. Not sure if that was an invitation, but I'll come dance with you. You have to go out in style.

Thus the eating and the clubbing.

Don't you know you're always invited, Parisa? I've gotta check Koby's document about what colours are safe to wear.

[After annoying Parisa sort of on purpose about pie and cake on the network, Gideon feels like he should, perhaps, make a peace offering. So when he receives the pie Carmy made for him he decides that, obviously, he should share it with Parisa.

There is a chance, of course, that she may find being offered pie now, after arguing about pie, is annoying in its own right. But Gideon decides it doesn't matter and will be worth it because he really doesn't want to eat a whole pie on his own.

So he shows up that afternoon at Parisa's door. He doesn't knock or otherwise announce himself, because he figures she will know he's there anyway. He just waits there, figuring she will receive him eventually. Hopefully before he falls asleep and lands face first on this pretty pie.]

( in fact by the time he pauses outside her door, parisa is already opening it, eyeing gideon with a bland look of complete (enforced) disinterest. as luck would have it embry's out right now, which is lucky, because she would otherwise have to introduce them together and admit — what? there are other people from her world, she knows them, they are borderline if not unarguably a little bit friendly. impossible. kill her first. )

Dreamer. ( she nods a greeting, looking down at his proffered pie, huffing to avoid laughing because gideon is cute, a looking back at him, arching a brow. ) Don't be annoying. Come in.

( she gestures him inside, her room a total mess of girlie and feminine things spilled on the floor and draped around chairs, flopping on her bed and patting the spot beside her. anyone else would probably take it for an invitation for more than just pie, but this is gideon. he has cotton candy and cloud fluff for brains. parisa isn't worried. )

[He answers sleepily as he steps inside:]

I haven't even had a chance to be annoying yet.

[He only just arrived, after all. Unless of course, she just finds him existing with a pie annoying. Which he realizes is possible, but isn't inclined to take offense to it. He suspects annoyance may be how Parisa shows affection.]

[ speaking of guys who make pie ]

is there like

an opposite of praise kink?

[ having apparently come around to praise kink's existence. ]

Edited 2024-08-30 01:55 (UTC)

Humiliation kink is what you're looking for. Curious? It's a favorite.

like

i know this isn't tindr or whatever i've just never talked to a girl about this shit

but yeah, i think that would
does
work for me
idk

You can talk to me. I'm a girl, and also a good teacher.

( she loves it when guys do the work for her!! )

It works for me, too. Doing the degrading I mean. We should try it out sometime, if you feel like experimenting. We could try it out right now.

[ Immediate stomach-flipping interest. Trying to keep it cool: ]

where?

Is the sex dungeon in the basement a little too on the nose?

[ Immediate thoughts: I'm too busy; that's too public; I don't even know what she looks like. ]

yes.
omw

[ The basement. He's never been down here, and he hits the Otherworld landing at speed and sends another text not long after. ]

theres a password?

( wow, a newbie. this gets better and better. )

"Land of the Ever Young." I'll see you when you walk in.

( the otherworld is a spot where parisa can get unfettered, unrestrained attention for exactly however long she likes. naturally, she's here a lot, stirring up a frenzy with the folk — dancing a little off beat on a dancefloor, watching people alpha dog over who gets to dance with her and tangentially, who gets to take her to bed.

the answer is none of them, once carmy walks in. luckily his cousin (or not cousin, as some shallow internet sleuthing has informed her) shared a picture of him, so she knows who she's looking for and what to expect. parisa's in a short, midnight blue dress, no lipstick, and she lifts a pinky wave in carmy's direction once they lock gazes, parisa nodding him over to a nearby bar while she disentangles from all the sweaty, dancing bodies in her vicinity. )

Hey. ( vaguely accented french/farsi combo. a girlish, possessive hand on the small of his back. parisa offers him a small, viper's smile. ) I'm Parisa.

[ Outside the kitchen Carmy pretty much always wears a clean, expensive white tshirt and high quality blue jeans — there's no fucking way he's letting anyone put lipstick on him, though. He was too enthusiastic, didn't shower, so he smells a little like baked goods and dish soap and his curls are a little sweaty. He feels kind of self-conscious about it when he looks at her, because Parisa... Parisa is a goddess, by any metric. She's the kind of girl people kill to be with — he's pretty sure some of the guys she was just dancing with are trying to glare a hole through his tshirt, right above where she's put her hand. Small. Warm. Forward. She's so fucking beautiful and confident. It's gonna be really hard not to make an idiot of himself. ]

Carmy. Hi.

[ He knows Richie sent her a photo of him, like some kind of asshole matchmaker. Speaking of Richie, his phone is going nuts; he turns it off in his pocket without reading the messages. Attention completely on Parisa. But like, how could it not be. She looks like a Bond girl. One of the scary ones. ]

So, um. You seemed pretty ready to just get down to it.

[ He thinks maybe he should offer to buy her a drink, but money is so meaningless in this place and he doesn't drink, himself. He's done this before, very immediate encounters, but they weren't usually at a bar or a club, more kind of an alley or bathroom situation. And that was sex. This is... probably also going to be sex, but he isn't sure. It matters less that he gets his nut than that he works out if Richie making him feel shitty and small works for him because of the Richie factor (the continuing motherfucking problem of the Richie factor) or the ... humiliation kink thing. If that's what he's got. ]

Do I seem desperate to you? ( she gives carmy an arched brow look, eyes pointedly sweeping from his shoes up to his eyes. ) That's more your style. You burned rubber trying to get down here.

( which is honestly very flattering and cute, and if the direction of the night hadn't already been laid out in cement, she would've told him as much. as it is, parisa has a thumbprint on his psyche, a little toe crossing the boundaries between minds ( something to be careful of, because in this place even chefs with degradation kinks can have mental training ). necessary to make sure carmy doesn't get more hurt than he wants to — equally necessary because parisa can't turn it off, this whole club a cacophony of varying desires that spool from one end of the kink spectrum to the other, with a soft, vanilla center. carmy, luckily, interests her. there's just something about a mouse willing headed to the trap that speaks to her, perhaps profoundly, on a relatable level. carmy has a mind like an avalanche in perpetual motion, this exhausting cycle that never slows down and never lets up, enough that even this much inaction is likely making frenetic energy build up inside him, a ticking time bomb waiting for the countdown's permission to blow.

in this case, she's the countdown. she scrutinizes carmy with a cloying kind of meticulousness, her focus entirely on him, play acting for his benefit. parisa already has his number, but there's a purposeful balance act between humiliation and her obvious absorption in him, necessary so he knows it's a kink, and not just parisa being a bitch. sliding her palm around his waist, heeled feet step between him and the bar, her fingers falling into the loops of his jeans, putting him in taunt to her. )

You're just a silly little boy, looking to get his dick wet. ( parisa mock pouts at him, pitying. ) And you thought I'd make it easy for you. Well, maybe. Is it — I don't know, really big? ( her knuckles run over the front of his jeans, pity deepening in her sulking face. ) Aw. Not that, then. Maybe you're just so talented with women, that's why you think you can fuck me. ( her chin tilts, tugging on his jeans suggestively. ) Kiss me. Let's see if we can find something you're good at.

Edited 2024-09-01 16:46 (UTC)

No, I... not desperate. Fuck.

[ There's a scar that curves across Carmy's palm, thick and waxy, more than a year healed but still pink and ugly, distorting all those lines that are meant to be his heart and his life. The day he got the news that Mikey died - maybe even the minute, it's a haze now - he reached out and put his hand right on the white-orange coil of the burner. He tells people it was a saucepan he didn't know was heated. But it's there, in his mind, when she gently opens him up and eases in somewhere he wouldn't want her to go. How much does Carmy want to hurt? How much has she got.

Chef David Fields leaning in behind him as he works. Telling him he has a short man's complex. Say, Chef, I'm so tough. Carmy beat off to that every night for the rest of the week. He'd be dead on his fucking feet, about to fall asleep in his day clothes, and Fields would slide into his head and his hand would slide into his briefs. Low, masculine whisper: You are not tough. You're talentless. You should be dead.

He's gonna carry that with him forever. When the people who love him, his ex-girlfriend Claire, his not-cousin Richie, tell him he's good, tell him they're proud of him, it's meaningless bullshit. He doesn't buy it.

The only thing that's real is this: a beautiful woman's hand on the front of his expensive jeans, feeling out where he's already chubbed up for her, and finding it wanting. He flushes - it's an embarrassing bullseye, he knows he isn't like, big. His blue eyes are so dark in the low light, and he's getting it, he's picking it up, it's exactly like Fields at Empire: he's expected to follow orders, give one hundred and ten percent, and then she's gonna say this shit that makes his insides curl up like a dead spider and his dick so hard he can't think straight.

Good.

Carmy doesn't half-ass it just so she has an excuse; he kisses her like he means it, one hand on the dip of her waist and the other coming up to rest a thumb at the line of her jaw. He kisses her hot and slow, the pulse of his dick translated into the needy hunger of his mouth. There's a brief thrill of being, you know, the guy, the one kissing the most beautiful woman in the club in front of everyone. The high point of the roller coaster before the next drop. ]

( perfect little victories: he does know what he's doing, a man on a mission, parisa's toes curling against the straps of her expensive shoes while he kisses her, fingertips dipping under the hem of his shirt to stroke the taunt bit of muscled belly skin just above his waist. she swallows up a moan forming there in the back of her throat, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of hearing it, because she has her little finger dug into the broken, rotting part of his overripe tomato brain and understands him between one hungry stroke of his tongue and the next. he is driven by the chase of praise, but uninspired by the reality of it — there's mold in his psyche where self-preservation should be, eating away at the part of his brain that's supposed to enjoy the success of a job well done.

parisa almost laughs at how off the mark his cousin was. almost.

instead, she has a frown marring her mouth when the kiss breaks, her pitying look back in place — a bleeding expression that mocks the boy who actually believed himself capable of pleasing her, that says is that really it? with a tut of her tongue. one hand lifts, cups his handsome cheek affectionately. ) It's not your fault. Some people are born completely worthless.

( the fact of the matter is, parisa is only so convincing in her brutality because she honestly believes it. you can't live life as the most beautiful woman in the world, reading everyone's thoughts that they broadcast into you, without coming out jaded on the opposite end of puberty. she's in her thirties now and has yet to feel impressed with what humanity has to offer — life is one constant string of disappointments, as long as you have brittle, useless hope to lose. ironically, that bloody, broken, hangnail of a thing carmy has in his brain is the exact thing that gives him some value in parisa's eyes, and yet, value is the one thing she can't offer him. the ouroboros of self-flagellation. )

Don't you want to apologize to me? For wasting my time, and my air. ( cruelty is a little addicting, she finds. she's been mean before, but not like this — poison comes easy to her, because it lives inside her, too, a snake with venom glands and fangs to pierce. the hand at his waist pops open the button of his jeans, palm sliding under his boxers to cup his cock, to feel it squirm and flinch and leak. she squeezes, meanly. ) For being a bad kisser with a small dick. Apologize.

[ The hand in his pants is exactly the right move; Carmy was just about to slip off to some elsewhere place where her words wouldn't hurt him anymore, more dissociation than subspace, and then suddenly there's a woman's fingers sliding over his sweaty, vulnerable skin. His dick is so fucking hard, trembles and weeps under her touch.

Not Carmy, though, whose tears are tightly turned off despite the absolute crushing inevitability of his failure. There's a brief flicker of his ego attempting to protect him before he just gives in and believes her completely, hungry for the devouring, for having all his worst fears about himself validated. He's nothing. He's useless. ]

I'm sorry.

[ As immediate as the way he'd raced down here. Still trying so painfully hard to please: it's real, though, he's breathless and strained with how humiliatingly real it is. Enough that he doesn't need a call and response of correction to say it properly. ]

I'm sorry for being a bad kisser with a- small dick.

[ Voice cracking on that second bit, pitching close to misery, even as the small dick in question pulses hard on the very same words. This hard, fat in her hand, it's more obviously only slightly below average, but like his height he's got a bit of a complex about it, grew up around too many rowdy guys. He has to close his eyes for a moment, flushed and ecstatic, his hands dropped useless at his sides as he stands in the public club and tries not to come too fast. ]

I...

[ Is he allowed speak anymore? He isn't sure, so he stutters like he's nine again, has to swallow it. ]

I can make it up to you.

[ He doesn't know how, but he can try. Maybe he'll earn her mercy - he doesn't otherwise expect it. ]

( men and their cocks. parisa knows it's a bit of prideful concession, an admittance that cuts a little deeper than skin, but the words give her goosebumps like a whisper trailing up her spine — someone cutting themselves down to size because she told them to is like bathing in the sun, like burning a candle in her cunt making everything warm and wet. power is this amorphous thing that exists in her, because she has it, she knows she has it, but she only has it because someone has given it to her, because people clock her societal value the first time they look at her. she's five feet of raw sexuality hiding a decomposing corpse inside, but she's never the strongest person in the room. at the very least, that honor belongs to whoever she opts to give her attention to.

not that carmy is walking like a tall man. he goes into that bad night with intention, pulled by the strings of his self worth, or lack thereof. he doesn't act like he's humoring parisa — in fact, he seems to believe it. yes, this pipsqueak in a short skirt with sex in her eyes owns me. i'm a worm.

that, more than anything, makes carmy parisa's new favorite person. )

It's okay.

( forgiven for all the sins of his shortcomings, which are numerous and vast, but not anything she's listed so far. that was bullying. the butter soft pad of her thumb rubs against his cockhead, complimented by the brief pain of her manicured nail across his slit. she draws her hand out and presses that thumb to his mouth — soft, pouty lips, an expression like a dog waiting to be put down. )

Yes, you will. We've got all night. ( promise — carmy's not going to hit and quit this one. she gives him a playful slap on the cheek. ) Come somewhere more private with me.

( parisa slips aside and makes a heading towards one of the curtained rooms for private entertaining. carmy will have to deal with his jeans himself. )

[ She puts her thumb to his lips and it tastes like his precum, a bloom of marine salts across his palate. He closes his lips around it for just a second, licks it clean, just because she wants him to. It doesn't matter that he doesn't really know her, she's everything and he's just Carmy.

Then she's going, and he races to get himself all buttoned up again, doesn't look across at the bartender watching him knowingly. He's so hard from the waves of humiliation that he has to limp a little.

Carmy doesn't know shit about programming or the law, but it feels like he's found an exploit in his brain. A loophole, a way out of the Catch-22 of his trauma. The rules that say: Carmy doesn't deserve to experience pleasure, and if he does he has to stop before it gets taken away or twisted around on him, or disappoints him the way that every good thing disappoints him. Carmy is a piece of shit who ruins everything he touches, he's toxic fucking waste. But this isn't pleasure. It isn't a good time, right? It's humiliation and cruelty, the way he deserves. It's okay if his dick gets hard for that. Parisa can see what he is, and he doesn't have to worry about existing in the right way because there will never be a right way. He's already failed.

The private room has like, gear and shit, the kind that he's only seen in Twitter videos he bookmarked guiltily. He's watched a lot of weird porn on Twitter; his favourite is realistic medical play, disinterested doctors in latex gloves trying to work around the boner of some embarrassed patient. Giving clinical handjobs. But he wasn't lying that he knows was CBT is.

He hovers awkwardly, waiting to be told if he should stand or sit or kneel; take his clothes off or leave them on. ]

( one look over her shoulder — more like condemnation than consideration, a king turning her thumb downwards, off with his head. parisa idles in a way about the room like it belongs to her, knowing where to go to find what she needs. what she needs, as according to the inner workings of carmy's self-flagellating mind: latex gloves, a cock ring. she debates carmy's skin tone for a second before grabbing the gold. )

You have one rule. That's it. Even you can follow one rule, right?

( the gloves snap against her wrists as she pulls them on, stepping back up to him with a cocky twist to her mouth, pinching his chin. he really does have a pretty face — eyes so blue they're luminescent, mouth so pouty it's like it never smiled a day in its long, tiresome life, connected to a man you prefers slaps to kisses. )

You don't come until you beg for it. If I feel like making you feel good, I'll let you. ( pressure on his chin forces him to nod once, twice. ) "Yes, ma'am." Now open.

( she presses the cock ring into his mouth, left there like the bit on a tamed horse, which is not a completely inaccurate portrayal of this dynamic. parisa's own mind is full of thoughts of carmy on the blood red sheets, pale and perfect on the backdrop, covered in his own cummy humiliation, blushing, apologizing for fucking up. addictive. stepping back, she takes a seat on the cuck chair, crossing one long leg over the other, head tilted. )

Strip and kneel in front of me.

Yes ma'am.

[ Gold like his stupid little chain - unlike Richie, he doesn't actually wear a crucifix anymore, but it's still a heavy weight in his soul, the kind of upbringing that makes kneeling and penitence familiar. He tongues the silicone, tries not to think about where else a toy in the public kink club might have been. Nose wrinkling just a little.

He really, really wants to be good at this, though — to hold her attention for as long as she's give it to him, even if (especially if) it's demeaning. The fact that he has no idea what he's doing kind of only adds to it, Carmy's bratty arrogance only kicks in when he's confident. Right now he's out of his depth and she's the only guide he has.

He strips out of his tshirt, jeans, briefs, folds them all neatly, dick bobbing between his legs as he puts them down. Comes back and kneels for her, right in front of her dangling stiletto. Hands open palmed on his muscular thighs because he doesn't know what else to do with them. Like a horse he's fit and beautiful and mostly oblivious to it — he works out because he has to in order to survive his own thoughts, ans because it makes long hours in the kitchen easier.

He looks at her a little quizzically, anticipatory, but he still holds the cockring in his mouth, with his teeth at the moment, so he doesn't try to talk. Still, he's wondering why she needs the gloves, filthy possibilities playing through his mind like a porno on fast forward. ]

[ before, when they’d spoken, he hadn’t really been feeling like himself; now, when he extends a thought to her in the middle of the night (prime waking hours for him), he sounds a bit steadier. ]

How many minds can you sense at once, if you put effort into it?

( thoughtfully, )

All of them, in a range. If it's crowded I'd have to focus, but I can count, shockingly enough.

You don't have a range, do you?

Beyond the barriers that seemingly keep us here, but I imagine the same holds true for you?

[ and he has tried, only to earn a bleeding from the ears for his effort. ]

None of the other minds intrigue me so well, though.

Of course. But my range isn't the size of this house. I have to piggy back off other telepaths if I want to reach past floors.

The way to a girl's heart is through her brain, Monsieur Lestat. I like flattery.

You can channel someone else’s power to use as your own? Does it require sharing the same space as them?

Well, I don’t believe in empty flattery. Women so often see through it, regardless. The truth is a much better weapon when wielded.

They just have to be in my range. You’re doing all the heavy lifting in this telepathic connection — I’m just on the ride.

Are you saying you can’t compliment me and be truthful?

Edited 2024-09-10 13:23 (UTC)

Fortunate, then, that you picked up when I called.

I’m saying when I compliment you, you’ll know it’s the truth. For instance, I very much enjoy having your pretty voice in my head.

I don’t make a habit of brushing off interesting men.

It’s the French accent, isn’t it?

I’d say it’s a nice reminder of home, but my feelings toward France are more complicated as of late.

Though you’re more than welcome to speak in any tongue you like.

Complicated in a butter and carbs diet way?

Hm. ( considering that for a bit, thoughts turned over like the spin cycle on a washing machine. ) Do you know other languages?

Complicated in that it's been many years since I found myself with cause to return.

Passable in Italian. [ he has his mother to thank for that, but now seems like the wrong time to mention gabrielle. ]

I think I might not return, either.

Ah, bellissimo. I had in my mind that all you ancients and immortals just sat around on Duolingo all day.

( was his vampirism a secrets. oopsie. )

It seems you know a little more about me than you may have initially let on, bella.

Make yourself free this evening.

[Sorry, Parisa, but there's no easing in to it this time. Barely any warmth in his voice, even. Someone is doing his best to tuck his anger away, but failing miserably. So if he can't do that, clearly the best option is to overwhelm it with a whole new emotion instead. And with Parisa, there's no risk of him overstepping her boundaries in the process. Not when she can give as good as she gets.]

( who says parisa doesn't like a man on a mission? )

Not feeling very social, I take it. Alright. Where would you have me?

Now isn't that a loaded question.

[Because it's a few images then. The chair he's claimed in the library, the look of indifference on his face as Parisa kneels between his legs. One of the booths in The Otherworld, her shirt the only thing preserving their modesty as she rides him right there for all to see. The maze, a balcony, the dining room. It's image after image, both a threat and a promise rolled in to one. And every single one of them is underpinned by an aggression that Charles has barely even hinted at before.]

Lady's choice.

( well, well. that's new. it's startling enough to give her pause — charles is almost gentlemanly to a fault, with all the regal charm of a well bred englishman sucking clotted cream from a silver spoon. the abruptness? it's not not a turn on. in fact, it's indecently hot. it obviously comes from somewhere, and you wouldn't need to be a telepath to sense the heat of anger roiling off charles like thick beads of sweat — parisa can tell prodding him isn't the right move, at least not right now, when he's searching for an escape.

parisa, the ultimate wet dream, is only too happy to provide. )

I'll meet you in the library, Professor. ( suggestively, ) To start with. The night's young, and I have a big appetite. You know that, don't you?

i know you’re not there and fuck— just fuck i really miss you, p my phone buzzes and i keep hoping i want to know who did it i want to make them pay even if they’re saying you didn’t fight

( i want to know if you wanted it, he doesn’t send. people are dead and here he is hoping she had control. but she’d said she didn’t want to die. she didn’t. )

i really just— i miss you i’m sorry fuck whoever and whatever did this you didn’t want to die

Edited (sent too soon) 2024-10-10 17:31 (UTC)

i'm just sorry it wasn't me.

the telepath thing, does it turn off? or, i don't know, maybe there's a volume setting or a filtering system?

fuck, i wish you weren't dead.

[ Matt stayed awake at the party exactly long enough to figure out what the ritual was and that it didn't need his continued participation to succeed. Then he put himself to sleep with a spell and took a little stress siesta.

Now it's a few days later, and Matt has spent most of the intervening time in Harry's room, working on their scale model of the manor. It's peaceful work--it requires attention to detail, gentleness with small pieces, and it precludes speaking to most human beings. But he does carve out a little time to text. ]

Hey. I'm sorry I missed your big return. I hope you're doing okay.

I wanted to say thanks for talking to me. I don't know if you remember, but it helped.

I remember.

( distantly, like a dream. all was death and unconsciousness — and then there was matt's voice, disembodied and strange, but comforting. deeply familiar. )

Was it strange, speaking to the dead?

( it serves parisa's point: people with the power will never let the dead rest. naturally, parisa doesn't bring this up. there's no point in upsetting him over something she isn't mad about. )

I was sad, [ Matt finds himself admitting. Reading over what he's typed, he feels a spike of dread at the revelation, but he hits send anyway. ] It was the first time I'd ever lost somebody I cared about ... and it was a lot of somebodies at the same time.

The speaking to ghosts part was actually fairly normal. I talk to spirits a lot back home.

I have your purse.

You have expensive taste.

No, that's you. I was given the purse for free. It had your phone in it.

Edited 2024-11-17 18:15 (UTC)

(

)

Ah, from when I died? I see. Did you look at it?

Yes. I did. Nice lockscreen.

I hate you. I'm changing it.

ok. we can take a selfie together and you can use that.

I'm cropping you out.

are you sure you wouldn't miss my face?

[he absolutely learned this kind of teasing from nico.]

No, I wouldn't. And — even if I did, it's not my fault you look adorable when you're sleeping.

[how does one go about reaching out to the woman who bit you and drank your blood while you kind of read her mind and then also you fucked her?

Hyunsu isn't sure, but he's making an attempt. It feels like an asshole move to just ignore that it happened.]

how are you doing?

[did he do it right?]

Edited 2024-11-17 21:22 (UTC)

Hyunsu.

( oh. Joy. hot guy you dumped all your trauma on is actually as nice as he seemed to be while you bit at him like a starving, caged animal. )

Well, I'm alive. C'est la vie. How ( are you?, someone normal would ask. ) is your neck?

[he honestly doesn't notice that's not a normal question. such is his life.]

it's fine. i heal fast.

[so he's like, the ideal vampire meal, actually.]

Edited 2024-11-17 23:13 (UTC)

You know, I did notice that.

( there's the very natural urge to take her own discomfort in being Known and throw it into pissy irritation, say something like you're not going to get clingy now, are you? which is up there with the worst things you can possibly say to someone whose virginity you just stole, alongside well, i thought it'd be tighter. parisa doesn't, possibly just because they're over text and she has enough common sense to realize she's being a brat. it's not hyunsu's fault — it's hers. she knows how to play the part of doting lover, which hyunsu deserves, because even after eating away at all her internal boundaries, he still let her jump on him and gnaw his throat to bloody gristle. he's a good guy. )

I didn't go too hard on you, did I? I'm normally a much more gentle lover.

no it wasn't like a normal bite.

["normal" bites as though being bitten is a normal thing for him, because it sort of is.]

it didn't hurt that much. it kind of felt good.

[Though on the other hand this is coming from a guy with stupid high pain tolerance, but still.]

I noticed that, too.

( put parisa in a room full of people, and she'll sniff out the gluttons for punishment like a pig with truffles.

similarly, she's never found a pink elephant in any room she didn't feel the need to name, outlier to the experiment. therefore, )

That's quite the little trick you have. With the mind reading. It took me a full day to build my mental wards back up.

[oh right. well in a way he's glad she brought it up because he had no idea how to broach the subject or if he even should.]

sorry. it only works with monsters and i can't always control it. i didn't mean to break anything.

[he knows nothing about mental wards, but if she had to build them up again, then that implies he broke them, right?]

Edited (formatting) 2024-11-20 02:50 (UTC)

Oh, don't spare my feelings now.

( "monster." the irony is that parisa probably ordinarily would like being called a monster thanks to the inherent presumption of strength in the name. not right now though, when she looks about as monstrous as she feels. )

It was impressive. Since you can't control it, does that mean you've never been trained? Did you go to school for it or anything?

[???]

no i've only been able to do it for about a year.

( > has only been able to do it for a year
> is already outmatching parisa, the best telepath still alive in her world )

Well. You need to be trained, then. Don't you think? Or are you just going to avoid presumed monsters.

i can't do that, i live with one.

[not that Eunhyuk seems prone to biting, but Hyunsu does want to stab him sometimes. However:]

who would train me?

( forgone conclusion: )

Me, naturally. And Professor Charles Xavier — do you know him?

no i've never heard of him.

He trains people with powers. He calls them mutants, I’d call them magicians, you’d call them monsters. Same difference, as I see it. He’s also a very talented telepath, like me. If you didn’t know, that’s why I’m so intrigued by you.

i think there might be some difference. most of the monsters from my world aren't like me. he won't mind you volunteering him? he doesn't know me.

Well, that’s expected when you cross hairs in the multiverse. You really don’t know the Professor if you think he’d mind. He always wants new pupils. And anyway, just having me as your mentor wouldn’t be so bad, would it?

i guess not. i've never really had one before.

Technically, I’ve never had a pupil either. I’m not exactly the teaching type. But while we’re here, I figure why not? When in Rome.

this is england.

Right. So when you say you’ve never had a mentor, does that mean you’ve never been to school? I don’t need to teach you timetables do I?

i dropped out of high school. but i had a normal korean education before that.

Oh, good. We can skip right to the fun part. When are you free?

i'm usually free.

[Unless he's hanging out with Eunyu or being bossed around by Eunhyuk, but this isn't like Green Home when he had to regularly patrol or go on errands. There's a lot of downtime.]

there isn't a lot to do here when they aren't making us play shitty mafia games.

I was dead for most of it, so in that way, I don't think I've ever had more free time. But noted. We're starting from the ground up, so it'll be hard work. But by the end of it, you'll hopefully have some control over it.

i guess we'll find out. when do you want start?

Hanging in there?

Always, Erik.

( it does not feel like always lately. maybe it's been obvious if erik can pick up on. then again, maybe it's charles. )

And you? I've noticed a lack of metal-themed destruction lately.

I've tempered myself, for a moment.

[ He's been too pussy-whipped. ]

You can take a peek, if you'd like.

How can I resist such a generous offer?

( frankly, it's not often she's welcomed into peoples minds, let alone invited, but erik is uniquely adjacent to the bigger populace of people, so she doesn't even try to hide her telepathic footsteps on entry. this is all old practice anyway — finding charles hanging out somewhere in the back of her mind and piggybacking off him, to find erik. the familiarity of erik's mind is like a blanket, warm and comfortable.

in his mind: )

I heard you got married. I can't believe I wasn't invited. I would've worn the most devastating dress.

[ It's warm, and familiar, and Erik basks in it. There's the little feeling of Charles, settling in his mind and keeping him company - but something else, too, a thread linking him with Pierce that is shoved somewhere into the back of his mind for him to ignore. When he feels Parisa make herself at home there, there's a gentle flush of something warm; he clearly cares for her. ]

It wasn't a planned affair, otherwise you would've been the most beautiful bridesmaid.

Have you managed a honeymoon here? However you'd like to define it.

( parisa's preference: marathon sex and being fed by the hand, presumably. )

Not in the technical sense, no, but we've had our time together. Are you feeling curious?

Infinitely.

( she goes where erik's mind pulls her. ordinarily she's far more interested in what someone doesn't want to show, but forgetting that erik's mind is one of the most open place she's ever found, she also likes him, and what's worse, respects him. it doesn't feel right to go prodding through the tender bits. )

[ Inside Erik's mind is the 'wedding night'; unfortunately, he's still suffering from the hex thanks to Pierce, so he's a little out of action, but what can be felt is Charles' expert plucking of his body, his nerves, erogenous zones, making him feel the pleasure that comes hand in hand with orgasm without his body being necessary. ]

hey, this is Cellar wanted to thank you for helping me during the earthquake

[ 'earthquake' we love a euphemism ]

Hi, Cellar. I’d say "anytime" but I wouldn’t want you to make it a habit. How are you?

yeah no kidding good a lot better actually found someone who helped me heal so at least there's that you?

I'm alright. I was down a pair of shoes but the house restocked me. I was pretty fascinated by your ( hmmmm ) shadows. That was a fun trick. Anything to it, or just something you can do?

oh sorry about the shoes yeah they're a gift a pretty useless one apparently they usually keep me from getting totally wrecked

You can owe me if you feel that bad about it. I like when people owe me things. I'm not a doctor or anything, but I do think they saved your life. I've never seen magic like that before.

then i owe you you're used to magic then?

Mhm.

( if it were less close quarters in here, she'd be less inclined to spill her secrets. but, well. it is known, so it's not like she con control the knowing of it. so, )

I'm a telepath. Well, that and a bit of a physicist, but I won't win any awards at it anytime soon. I don't know anything about creating matter, really. Is that what you're doing? Illusions, sure, I know all about them. But yours was physical. Very fascinating.

[ blush ]

i know a couple of telepaths! they're twins actually but idk how it works exactly i just take shadows and make them physical ig i feel like that might break a regular physicist's brain though what can you do?

Two's a party.

( translation: i'm Very sorry about that. telepaths are notably very annoying to have around. )

Nothing spectacular. Bend the ground to catch me if I'm falling, concave a room to make it like a basin. It's very clumsy. Would you show me your shadows sometime? Unless you're upset with them.

wait what that sounds so weird but in like, a cool way can i see or would that break everything? i can show you my shadows no prob though

( off camera preening, kicking her feets, giggling )

I can show you, too. I'll be grateful none of the physicists from the Society are here, or they'd make my talents look like parlor tricks.

well, none of them came to my rescue so how good could they possibly be

[ Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house... one particular vampire was spening his "day" (night) trying to beat Saltburn's tendency to make it difficult to get where you wanna go, so as to drop off gifts.

Daniel isn't looking to get waylaid in the awkward thanks of a direct handover, especially since he's pretty sure most of these people won't have gotten him anything in return. (Don't feel bad. He's also the kind of boomer to mail out Christmas cards to his nephew and dentist and old friend from college.)

So while he'll slip into the rooms of people he can hear are asleep (or can't hear at all), fellow night owls will get the servant who opens their curtains and announces breakfast also bringing in the gift left on the doorstep.

The gift is neatly wrapped and tagged with a generic Merry Christmas label that says From: DM. It contains five boxes of expensive lingerie resting delicately on soft tissue paper, Elias Faas' blood red lipstick, and a version of the coke spoon cross necklace made infamous in Cruel Intentions. ]

[ What to get the woman who seems to have everything? On the one hand, Emmrich doesn't harbor any illusions as to the fact that this place encourages its guests to be liberal with their romantic attentions, but on the other— well, he's old-fashioned, and Parisa's attention, if flattering before, has taken on a somewhat new shape and tenor, one that brings a slight flush to his face as he leaves a trio of boxes outside her door on Christmas Eve, each wrapped in brown paper and twine, with a paper rose adorning the pile.

— In the first box, a leather-bound notebook with her initials embossed in gold on the cover.
— In the second, a fountain pen and an accompanying pot of black ink.
— In the third, a ceramic lipstick tube, the shade inside a deep red.

A letter sits next to the lot, written in neat, looping script: ]

My dear Parisa,

How fortunate I am, to be caught in the sun of your attention. There are few things in this world as pleasurable as the company of a clever woman, let alone one so self-possessed. But let me not trip over my feet — in writing, no less — in declaring my own affection for you. Rather, let me say simply that I hope these gifts please you, and that I look forward to stealing away some more of your time in the coming year.

Yours,
— Emmrich Volkarin

[Alia’s gift is wrapped somewhat clumsily in brown paper, likely taken from the kitchens, and taped excessively to ensure it’s secure. Inside, resting in sparkly, star-studded tissue paper:

A suitably vampiric set of lingerie.

A smooth-polished rock from the lake (yes, everyone gets a rock) with the gift-receiver’s initials carefully carved into it (with what? Don’t worry about it.)

A business card for Sol & Scroll, because if you aren’t patronizing it, you should be.

There’s also a note, scribbled on notebook paper stolen from Alina (sorry, babe):]

Parisa -

I feel your mind in this place like a rumble in the desert. Should you wish to enact your rage again on another, you may find me.

- Alia

[ Erik is by no means a Christmas man, but he has some people he cares for, so he leaves a little gift for Parisa:

🧲 Two pairs of very fancy, very see-through lingerie, with a note saying he would very much enjoy a modelling session.
🧲 One ankle bracelet, that seems to have been hand-crafted, as it were.
🧲 Various bits of make up that he had peeked at during his time in her room and therefore decided to replenish for her - lipstick, eyeshadow, etc.
🧲 Another piece of jewellery - a necklace, with a hidden clasp at the back, shaped to look like various flowers and vines twisted together.

There's no note. ]

ic inbox.

un: dm

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text — un; freak

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cw: implied csa

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cw: cannibalism

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text — un: stein

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— to voice (telepathy)

perma-telepathy.

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