different levels of the devil's company.

[oleanderknife]

Hasibe, as she informed the internet at large she would, has spent most of the day indoors (that is, unless trips out onto her balcony to people-watch count), but now she is quietly winding down for the evening.

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[twofoldbeing]

He makes almost no sound when he walks, although she may be able to tell he's there anyway. On some levels he would like this; attuned as he is to her. But in other respects, the element of surprise is invaluable, and he has gotten so good at picking locks.

Wednesday's rain returned briefly earlier this evening, so he smells more like ozone than blood, but something is immediately strange - as if the appearance of another person when one is alone is not in and of itself disorienting - the shadows in the mirror are liquid, black, and the whole and flesh and blood but no less dark. He stands in the doorway, head tilted, just watching her eyes in the mirror.

"Aren't you a vision." Such ...flat affect, like he's half-asleep, or just inhuman.

[oleanderknife]

One hundred, and a voice slices through her reverie.

She can feel him, in fact. And yet, she is startled - jumping, briefly breathless and wide-eyed, hand going to her collarbones as if to catch her heart from flying up into her throat. She sees him in the mirror, and settles, but- not completely. She remembers she told Henry she'd break it off, and she isn't sure how exactly to do that, but she does plan to figure something out. Since now would seem an appropriate time, particularly. Hasi sets the brush down, hands flat on the edge of her vanity table.

"Thank you," she murmurs, automatically, watching his reflection instead of turning around, "but how many times have I asked you not to break in here?"

How many times has he failed to care, more like. Something does seem off, but she can't put her finger on what immediately, so she stays contemplatively watchful, the strap of her camisole slipping over one shoulder, as her tops often do.

[twofoldbeing]

"One less time than it will take." The way he moves is briefly jittery, camera static flooding and then dissipating like he exists only in halves, one minute here and the next not, crossing the room in waves rather than steps.

Her reflection seems to pull him; he watches the Hasi behind glass rather than the Hasi at the little table, moving close enough to touch her. He slides the errant strap up slowly, left-handed and ritualistic, like a religious rite performed backwards - in the mirror it appears on the right side. There is blood under his nails, but they're cut short enough that it's not easy to tell even from this distance. "Have you missed me?"

While she's been away.

[oleanderknife]

The way he moves has always puzzled her, but it was one of the ways she immediately sensed he's not quite normal, more than human. Maybe mixed with something, who knows; the hybrids happen in the strangest places. She shifts under his hand, like she's not sure whether she wants to move into it or away, and looks up at the question. Her eyes don't betray anything, because she is so good at that, but her heart-rate might.

"Yes," she admits, because it's true, and it doesn't change anything.

Hasi watches him for a moment longer, the quietness and the stillness to him. When he's soft this way it means either he's been- sated, if only very very temporarily, or something is going on under the surface. Maybe it's a little bit of both, she can't say.

"Is something wrong, Hyde?"

[twofoldbeing]

He's quiet at first, still watching the mirror rather than the woman, her nebulous movement and what sounds to him like her heart has misstepped in its marching rhythm, a stumble in the dark. The fingertips on her shoulder spread like a spider, crawling along her collarbone and fanning out at the base of her throat like her own hand a minute ago; they slide up sideways, tilting her chin up without any kind of real bruising force, but heavy with that possibility.

"Is there, Hasi?" His eyes in the mirror flicker when he leans in, inevitable, something old and paper-thin but implacable, as pitiless as stone. "Those are beautiful flowers, by the way."

[oleanderknife]

There's a soft inhalation when he does that - the edge of something ragged to it, just barely audible. She can't tear her gaze away from their reflections, from his hand stretched out over the expanse of her throat, from how easy it would be for him to do more. Normally she likes this, when he touches her there; it's a thing for her. This is- different.

"They're azaleas," she says, voice steady because she's making it steady, "And I can't think of anything that's wrong."

Her nerves scream that this is wrong, that this is frightening, but it is rapidly becoming very apparent that tonight is not the night to end a damn thing. It would be so easy to sink back into him and oblivion, to forget, but not like this. (Did he come to find her, in those days she was at Henry's? Is he angry? He obviously suspects...)

[twofoldbeing]

"Oh, there must be nothing, then." The hand at her throat shifts, relaxes, strokes idly down over her pulse, a touch now nonchalantly more risque, but infinitely less dangerous, as if he ever is.

"I should send you flowers." He sounds like this first and foremost amuses him, but not really like he's joking. This is something more brittle, like a thread stretched so tight it would sing if plucked. "Roses, maybe, although it's a little ...traditional for my tastes. They have all kinds of interesting meanings, I've been learning. Like the yellow ones."

In the mirror his eyes go right to hers. "Do you know what yellow roses mean?"

[oleanderknife]

She can't tell if this is a warning or he's toying with her, but either way the message is swiftly becoming very, very clear. They've never discussed what the boundaries of their relationship are, but Hasi is now thinking it might have been wise to bring it up before. Hasi's eyes flutter closed, halfway there, when his fingertips touch her pulse, and then open again when he asks that question. She suspects he knows she'll know already - Hasi doesn't do much by halves, and when she does...well, isn't this proof of how dangerous it can be?

"Infidelity," she remembers, meeting his eyes now, "Jealousy. Betrayal."

Nothing she wants to inspire thoughts of, certainly. Especially not right now, her hands on the edge of the table, his hand on her throat, fear tracing its cold kisses up her spine. Yes, he could hurt her. He still might, and she has to convince him not to do that. Hasi knows, now, that she is in over her head, but there is no surface in sight, and she's going to have to swim.

[twofoldbeing]

"Mmm. Snapdragons are interesting too - presumption. And something about grace too, which I didn't really understand, but...who am I to question." The flat affect resurfaces briefly, like the surface of water in a dead calm.

He lets go of her entirely and steps back to sit on the edge of the bed, hands loose on one knee. She could move if she wanted; if she went quickly she could probably even get past him, but he can see the place his hand was on her throat even if there's no mark, and that's the point. This is the first time he's actually looked at her and not her reflection, at her profile and her invisible bruises. "I'm sorry, I'm being rhetorical at you, aren't I? Would it be more clear if I just said I have a very vested interest in anyone who might be so close to you, someone who'd send you flowers? Azaleas. Someone who thinks you're ...fragile

[oleanderknife]

The silence that follows is one in which she thinks Henry, I'm sorry, I tried, and she might have wanted to, but she is in too deep to simply close all connections with Hyde. Like he's some boyfriend, like he's one of those many guys she spun around her little finger and discarded -- no, this goes deeper than that, and he has informed her of the rules. Her lips part, like she might speak, but instead her tongue touches the corner of her mouth, eyes lowered, staring, frozen, at nothing in particular on the flat top of her vanity.

Hasi takes a breath, inhaling, exhaling. Her posture becomes very good - shoulders back, spine straight, chin up, and she meets her own eyes in the mirror. You made your bed. It's never as simple as you want it to be."Yes," she says, and braces her hands against the vanity so she can stand up

[twofoldbeing]

He sits back a little further where other nights he might have sprawled, for much the inverse of the reason she's still upright and they're not tangled together like two sparks fighting to be the last one to burn out.

"Did I upset you?" It's almost gentle; surely she is used to this category of questioning from him now, with his head locked in that familiar tilt. Do I scare you, do I make you sad, do you need me do you miss me because I need you, I always miss you and if I scare you I don't really mind. There is no move to touch her, not yet, but the proximity between them hums like power lines. "It's not that I mean to, just that I need you, and I can't let anyone get in the way of that."

[oleanderknife]

It's just that I need you and she knows what he's doing, she knows this game, and her fingers curl into her palms leaving little half-moon crescents in her flesh, pink and tender, not enough to draw blood. Not yet. Not tonight. She knows what he's playing, and still it draws her in, almost softening her eyes. So she looks away from his face, fixing her gaze on his the bedspread.

"There's no one in the way," she says, acutely aware of him sitting on her bed like he's always been there, every night, instead of just a couple weeks of strange, heated trysts, "I hope you're not planning on going after every client I see, though. I'm supposed to start escorting soon."

She doesn't think she told him that, but he will find out sooner or later if he doesn't know already, and she would really, really prefer not to have any more incidents like this. Maybe some appearance of forthrightness will help.

[twofoldbeing]

"I don't care about that." He sounds almost surprised, like he didn't think about how he was answering at all, and for a second there's Henry Jekyll again in there somewhere, the man who was startled into blurting out how enchanted he is by Hasi's height (the shape, the line of you). "That's ...that's a package. It's something you sell, it's not you."

It is fairly unfortunate for all parties involved that this is a conclusion he has come to instantly; it doesn't bother him at all, these other men and what they want. They don't see her, so they can't really have her. In his particular mind set, as warped as it is, this is negligible and so he's the one who gets it first, Edward Hyde in all his infinite wrongness

[oleanderknife]

She is glad, at least, that he understands that part, because if it began interfering with her job she'd be upset. (And even then, she isn't sure what he'll say if she ever gets a call and he's here. Hasi suspects she would have to reschedule, and that doesn't mean she'd be rescheduling Hyde. Their time together is often so limited-seeming as it is.) Her gaze drops to his hand, permitting this even though she's not sure she should.

"'Just,' like it's some small thing. You're right that all I give them is- a fantasy, but other than that, my heart is the whole of me."

Heart and fire and hunger. It's a dangerous combination, but possibly that's why she's here with this man, why she lets him touch the places she's almost injured herself on her palm.

[twofoldbeing]

"I know." He shrugs again, that bare trace of movement that ripples through his shoulders like light through water. "And that's all I want."

Surely it's not too much to ask, not when he needs so much, not when he's made her the center of everything. It isn't fair, it's too much weight for anyone; Atlas couldn't stand up under this. "Everything in me is cold except where you touch, you know."

The examination of her palm slows, becomes an imitation of tenderness, a rough soothing sweep of the pad of his thumb. The way they usually are is so much more combustible, but he still touches her the same way on this scale, like there is something he wants to draw out of her skin.

[oleanderknife]

Damn him, Hasibe thinks, distracted by even that smallest touch; he scared her earlier, and she so seldom allows anyone near enough to rock the foundations of who and what she is, to touch her in any way that could burn her first. Her voice is thick like smoke when she speaks, hazy, soft-edged, like it gets when they're in another state entirely and he's got her against the bed or wall or whatever -- but this is another context, of course.

"Do you want me to touch you, Hyde?"

She should pull her hand out of his and--

And what? Make him apologize? He'd never mean it even if he said it, and he'd make the words into scars. She looks at him, heavy-lashed, eyes bright like amber in the muted light of her bedroom. Outside, in the distance, she hears an ambulance - fire trucks - sirens - and though they sing louder when they cross by a few blocks away, they cannot cross the barrier of her open door, and they do not touch the heat in her eyes when they meet his.

Damn him.