PAS DE DEUX: VARIATIONS (Closed)

[Jacob Dalton]

(This thread takes place immediately after the events in “Pas de Deux: Adagio,” on a stormy Friday night in early January. Actual locations are all over Pilot Ridge, and will vary from post to post.)


*RAGE!*

Dalton staggered through the fresh-fallen, slippery snow, falling more than once in its powdery fluff. Dress shoes were made for rugs and polished wood, not braving the icy elements. Dress slacks and shirt, now ripped: and as he tripped on the edge of the pavement hidden in the snow he came down hard on hands and knees on the asphalt drive and slid, scraping both unmercifully. But between the intoxication and numbing cold, he barely felt his wounds.

Tricked! She had deceived him, relied on his charitable and amenable nature to go along with her every whim, then sought to seduce him through meta powers attacking his mind: that, and such intoxication as to drive a man mad.

The gate was open. How had he been so fortunate? Had it remained closed he would surely have been trapped on her grounds and captured within minutes. He staggered through, feet sliding along the icy pavement, waving his hands wildly for balance.

*OLD FOOL!*

He had fallen for it, never suspecting even though he had already been warned. And why? He had allowed his thoughts to slip from charity to desire, though he would never have admitted or even realized it until now. Turned by a pretty face: a femme fatale nearly as iconic as any matinee idol.

Which way? Away from here, that was certain. Another home, another light? Downhill, both towards the town and because in such shoes he could hardly do otherwise.

Never mind that this had been her intent all along, and that she had gone to extravagant lengths to draw him in. Had he not lost twenty years to one such wench already? How could he have been such a fool as to react to her trap at all?

He had to find someone, and fast. Surely they were pursuing him, and each minute would count. Brick walls and iron fences: every mansion a fortress of solitude unto itself. Surely there must be a gate?

In the haze of his increasing intoxication (he had just gulped down two cups of her heavily spiked tea moments before his dive from her balcony), his thoughts were rapidly fading from sense to inarticulate fury. He struggled, groped for words by which to keep his thoughts coherent.

*TWICE BETRAYED!*

“Frailty, thy name is woman!” he growled, popular Hamlet coming most easily to mind. But for the treachery of betrayal not by one woman but two, and now facing the fury of the winter storm, only King Lear could express his wrath.

“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!”

Yes, the rage of the storm was upon him, to be clinging to sanity by the words of a man gone mad…

[Anastasia van Drakke]

How dare he? How DARE he? She would kill him, she would rip his heart out and feed it to him! Anastasia screamed out over the grounds, her fingers white as they gripped the iron of the railing tight enough to leave deep imprints on her palms. She screamed until her legs started to shake in the cold she couldn’t even feel. Her skin felt too tight, it was going to split open and all she had inside to spill was blood boiling <RAGE>.

She swept back into the ruined room, hardly sparing a glance for the shards and scraps that remained of her room, of her plan, of every bit of faith she had in ever finding someone who wasn’t so fucking malleable. It had been a lie, of course it had. She had planned it, she had known what she would do, and how it would go and what it would mean and she had still lost him. Even when she was controlling every single fucking element she couldn’t make him stay.

The blonde woman glanced without interest at the pizza box and dvds left on her floor, pulled open the doors and slammed them close behind her. Her footman was still there, obviously drawn to the sound of screams and shattering and cursing. He was greeted by the sight of a small woman in white lingerie, face twisted and eyes blazing as she looked at her feet, hair wet with melted snow.

“Ah, Miss van Drakke, are you...”

Anastasia looked up slowly, looking almost curious. <fear/terror/leave/getAWAY> The man’s eyes widened and he turned and ran, without really knowing why he was suddenly convinced he had just seen death. In her underwear. Watching blankly as the man ran down her hall, Anastasia threw open the doors to the parlor and looked around for a moment. The furniture was wrong... It wasn’t hers.

A new home. “You like it?” as she rested against his shoulder. He had just smiled slightly and kissed her hair. Their home.

With a snarl that befitted a crazed animal, not an elegant socialite, Anastasia swept her arm over the surface of the table. The tea pot and the tea spilt over the carpet, but it was not enough. With surprising strength the enraged empath flipped the the table, the antique wood splintering easily under her hands.

Jezebelle, was she? He considered himself luck to escape her ‘clutches’, did he?

Blood never came out, not really. Anastasia had sighed and pointed out he had plenty of other shirts he could have been wearing, but he had just finished cleaning his knife as she started to peel the soaked fabric off. None of it was his.

With a scream of frustration, Anastasia hurled a table leg at the painting over the fireplace. It wasn’t one of his, why was there a painting that he hadn’t painted?

God, what had she done?

She screamed again, hands clutching at her temples as her fingers twisted through her hair. That paltry excuse for a man had still managed to get into her head... had she left herself that open? Where was Ivan, where was he why had he left her whywasshealone? The woman was sobbing now, even as she tore down the painting and put her foot through the canvas. The frame was broken under her heel before the distraught woman moved her attention to the vases, the ornaments, everything. It had to go. It ALL had to be destroyed. With ragged nails and bleeding feet Anastasia set about tearing and stamping and ripping the room apart, eyes streaming and throat sore from screaming.

A dull sound broke the symphony of destruction, high pitched enough to be maddening. Anastasia dropped the corner of the dresser she had been pulling over and looked for the source, rubbing a hand over her eyes and grimacing at the wetness there. On her chin too; she’d bitten her lip bloody. There. Jacket. Get it. Stop it.

Her hands were shaking horribly as she knelt and patted the jacket down, finding the brick of a mobile quickly. Looking at it blankly, it took the empath a moment to realize what that caller ID meant. Her mind started flicking into gear as she stared at the lit up phone... unsalvageable, the mission was a failure. But some things, some things could still be done to even the scale.

”Jake Dalton’s phone, Anastasia speaking?”

”I’m not angry,” don’t go, don’t leave,
”But be careful,” no, no, no, I don’t care if the humans win, they can’t have you,
”And take your coats. It’s freezing this time of year” I can’t, I can’t, Ivan don’t go.
”Come back in one piece” don’t do this, I need you
”Kiss me goodbye, please.” can’t let go, won’t.

It hurts, oh god...

[Clarisse Prideaux]

Clarisse wasn’t quite sure why she was nervous, but she certainly was. Not that terrible worried nervous, but the giddy, laughing nervousness that came for no reason whenever she wanted to speak with Jake over the phone. She never quite liked the phone, since she always felt she’d muck something up: her accent tended to seem increased ten-fold via telephone. Yet to date, Dalton hadn’t had any trouble. Shaking her head and chuckling vaguely at her foolishness, Clarisse snatched up her apartment phone and punched in Dalton’s cell number from memory.

He hadn’t provided an apartment phone, and the French woman could only assume it was because he didn’t have one. She vaguely recalled him mentioning it was only a temporary place of residence until he could find someplace more comfortable to settle down in. The phone began to ring and Clarisse smiled fleetingly, leaning against the kitchen counter and twirling the chord nervously around her finger.

She’d heard of a permanent Norman Rockwell exhibit in Vermont. It’d be a pretty drive and (needless to say) a wonderful exhibit. Clarisse had planned to make a day of it for herself, but the thought occurred to her that she’d much rather share it with someone. No, not someone; with Jake. The phone rang again and Clarisse hopped a bit to sit on the counter, her legs crossed sweetly at the ankle, waiting for him to pick up. Her excitement was mounting. She hoped he would like the idea!

”Jake Dalton’s phone, Anastasia speaking?”

Clarisse arrested herself when it wasn’t Jake’s smooth, familiar voice on the other line but an unknown woman. “Anastasia…?” She parroted stupidly. She almost continued with Anastasia who?, but didn’t, instead laughing nervously. “Ah, Sorry. This is Clarisse Prideaux. Is Jake available? And may I speak with him please?” She asked politely. No reason to assume the worst. Jake and Clarisse hadn’t spoken about families yet (mostly because Clarisse avoided the subject like the plague) and it was just as easy to assume that “Anastasia” was a distant family member or a friend than it was to assume that something was amiss.

Her face had fallen, however. It was unlike Jake to keep his phone anywhere but in his jacket pocket where he could reach it and it wouldn’t be far from him. While Clarisse usually tried to assume the best of everyone, something was a little odd about a strange woman answering Dalton’s personal phone.

[Jacob Dalton]

“I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness…”[/i]

The wind and snow and sleet cared not whether Jacob Dalton thought them unkind, pelting him alike both before and after his diatribe of forgiveness as he staggered along the glazed sidewalk, his torn and bloody shirt and pants now both glistening and stiff from ice.

There seemed to be no end to this wall: no gate to the mansion behind it. In frustration he crossed the street, hoping perhaps to find more luck further down the hill.

“You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers…”[/i]

The howling gusts were perhaps enraged at being called “servile:” at least one might think it so by their ferocious moans. His ears and face were bright red and burning from this assault, his hair brittle and cracking at each touch from his fingers seeking to brush loose the clinging clumps of frost and snow. He shuddered constantly, his teeth chattering uncontrollably as he fought for breath and sanity.

No wall on this side of the street: nor any houses, either. Amidst this massive frosted greensward towered the tortured white trees, their branches bowed and cracking from the same weight of sleet and snow as his battered body. Yet some slight shelter they might offer a man in such desperate straits as his.

He stepped off the pavement onto the icy grass that sloped down into the vale that curved gently towards the center of town. Boots would have found no purchase on so slick a surface: his dress shoes took flight, and he landed hard on his side. His body became a toboggan, sliding rapidly down the slope. Sheer vertigo caused him to curl into a ball, and his precipitated decent stopped only when under the shelter of the trees he struck ground not covered in frost. He rolled, snow and ice flying from him like water off a shaking dog.

He hurtled into a mulberry bush with an effect like dropping a talcum-coated crystal chandelier. As the cacophony from the splintered shards of ice settled, he collected what little remained of his dazed senses. It was not enough: he lay in a stupor as the mad reverie continued.

“Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these?”[/i]

A cloaked figure suddenly overshadowed him. The reek of unwashed sweat, stale cigarette smoke and whiskey assaulted his nostrils.

“Lear? Hey, English! That you, your Lordship? You done pissed somebody off, and be in the doghouse now…”

[Anastasia van Drakke]

Voices could be so deceiving. Anastasia took a moment to think of an adequate reply, then said in a clear, slightly amused tone, “Sorry darling, you just missed him. He’s gone racing off,” a small laugh, without even a touch of hysteria, ”I think he forgot he didn’t drive here, poor boy had had a few too many,” Flinty hazel eyes flicked to the shattered tea pot and her lip curled.

”If you see him before I do,” she said finally, hammer poised over the last nail in the coffin, ”could you be a dear and tell him not to make such a total wreck of my bedroom? It’s going to take ages to find everything,” another laugh, even as her fingers tightened around the phone and risked snapping the fragile plastic. ”And let him know as well as his coat, he’s left his cufflinks somewhere in the bed.” There was a chance they were still up in the room, under the many shards of wood and scraps of mattress left there.

”Thank you, sweets. Take care now,” Anastasia snapped the phone close before she could hear a reply. People’s words without their emotions were just so much noise; pointless. Her own was the special kind developed by Hollywood and years of interviews and having your own words thrown back at you. It was easy to sound carefree and amused, sitting amounts the ruins of her parlor. God, she would give anything to have felt Clarisse’s reaction to her words, to know she’d pieced that french bitch right through. Someone else was going to hurt for this.

The call done, the woman hurled the phone at the wall and watched in satisfaction as something snapped and it fell to the floor in pieces. Without moving from her position sprawled over the carpet, Anastasia closed her eyes and cupped her hands to her temples. Her head was pounding, and even sitting down her legs were still shaking under her.

”Ivan, I’m feeling better. I’m getting up,” Anastasia called out, sighing in annoyance as her head span as she pushed herself up. Ivan was in the room within moments, arms crossed over his chest as he raised his eyebrows. Anastasia glared at him for a moment, then sighed and fell back against the pillows. Still, she had to smile as he wordlessly handed her a glass of water and an aspirin, his other hand touching her forehead.

She was so angry her stomach was rolling, so furious her head swam. Everything hurt, and while she was hurting everything within reach it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t fair, none of it was fair... the usually perfectly poised woman sobbed into her hands as the world swam in red fog around her.

She had lost her heart/soul/mind, she’d make damned sure others had to suffer for it too.

[Clarisse Prideaux]

Clarisse opened her mouth to respond, but it simply hung open. When the line went dead, Clarisse replaced it as if in a dream. What an…an odd thing to say! And how…terrible of her! To insinuate that Jake-- but what if? Could they? Clarisse hopped down off the counter, laying a hand over her chest. It hurt to think that Jake was out with another woman, but from what this Anastasia woman had said…

Jake was out. Drunk (presumeable) . Without a coat of any kind.

Clarisse looked out her window. The wind beat against them like a prisoner in a glass box, causing them to groan and creak in protest. It was practically a white out. She quickly jogged to the window and peered outside. It was a mess; a winter storm for the record books. She couldn’t just leave him out there, wherever he was.

And if that Anastasia woman seemed as foul as she did over the phone…Well Clarisse wasn’t putting it past her to be doing something sinister. More sinister than stealing him away? She thought. Clarisse closed her eyes and leaned her forehead on the window, squeezing her lids against each other for a moment. That was a terrible thing to think. She wouldn’t hesitate anymore to say that Jake had captured her heart rather stunningly, but Clarisse tried very hard never to grow jealous. It was a useless emotion.

And right now, it wasn’t going to keep him safe. Not at all.

Clarisse opened her eyes, her hand pressing against the window to feel the biting cold. With sudden, quick movements she rushed about her apartment. She gathered her coat, her gloves and scarf, as well as a hat and donned them all while gathering up a pillow and several blankets. Snatching up her car keys, she zipped out the door, rushing down the icy steps in treacherously high heels for the weather.

Snow storm or not, Clarisse was going after Jake.

She pulled out slowly, crawling down the streets with her window down and the brights on. She turned on the heat, but it wasn’t helping. Clarisse was looking out the window and front wind shield, the window rolled all the way down. Her voice barely cut through the air as she called out into the night:

“Jake! Jake? Where are you?”

[Jacob Dalton]

“English, I dunno whether you were in desperate need or just plain dumb, but either way: what the heck were you thinkin’, coming out on a night like this dressed like that?”

The cloaked figure grumbled, running fingers through Dalton’s ice-coated hair, tearing loose the frozen mat along with a stray lock or two. “Gonna freeze your brainpan, boy, if we don’t get a cap on you! Danged if I have one, though.”

Dalton still swam in a sea of intoxicated delirium. He fought for words with which to express himself, but forming an original coherent sentence was quite beyond him at the moment. Still, the words of the bard spoke eloquently for him when his own could not.

"Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin: so 'tis to thee;
But where the greater malady is fix'd,
The lesser is scarce felt."

The cloaked man had opened his coat, pulling out a sheaf of newspaper that had been wrapped around him to keep warm.

“Hmmm… not thinkin’ too straight at all, are ya, your Lordship? If it weren’t for those lashes on yer back, I’d think you just wandered off: but ‘in vino veritas.’ Ya know that one, English? It means ‘drunk men don’t lie.’ I’ll take it you got somebody pissed: thinkin’ some boyfriend or husband, from the looks of it.”

He smoothed the sheaf of paper flat, folded it over, folded two corners in, then the rest back, and with a few more folds suddenly had something that looked much like a peaked hat, complete with ear flaps: a simple bit of origami on a slightly larger scale than usual.

“Literature can be a wondrous thing, your Lordship. Shakespeare’s great for pondering the tragedies of life: for this little bit of survival gear, you can thank ‘Curious George.’”

He pulled the cap in place on Dalton’s head, being careful as he snugged it down over the freezing man’s ears. Then came a plastic grocery bag, which he simply pulled over Dalton’s head, cap and all, and tied the handles under his chin. With the plastic taut across Dalton’s face, the man made a tiny tear just under his nostrils.

“If you can hear me and make sense of it, breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth: got it? Let your breath warm your face a bit. Now we got your head covered, lemme see what we can do for the rest of ya.”

He had dragged Dalton up next to the shelter of packed snow he had made for himself, but not yet taken him inside. There would barely be space for the two of them, let alone any for the other steps he had yet to take. He stepped away from Dalton for just long enough to snap a branch loose from an evergreen and bring it back, whipping it briskly back and forth across the other man’s frozen pantlegs. The makeshift broom knocked loose large chunks of ice and snow, revealing the original pants and shoes under their white coating.

“Dress shoes and slacks? You get chased away from some party, English: flirted a bit too much with some sweet young senorita?”

It was too far off base for Dalton not to protest, even if it was too close to truth not to sting. He reached up, catching his companion’s arm.

“I am a man more sinned against than sinning,” he growled with some conviction.

“You so certain as all that, English? Just trippin’ along through the daisies, along came the Big Bad Wolf? The wolf comes on us in the forest, English: and pride goeth before a fall.

“Tremble, thou wretch,
That hast within thee undivulged crimes,
Unwhipp'd of justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand;
Thou perjured, and thou simular man of virtue…

“So certain you had nothing to do with all this? Nothing to learn from it? Didn’t get just a wee bit careless, did we?”

Dalton’s hazed mind was beyond such considered musing at this time, but he sensed perhaps more truth in the words than he cared at the moment to admit. He offered no more protests.

“Aah: what am I doing? Nagging a poor soul who for certain needs shelter right now a whole lot more than moral counsel. Shut yer mouth, Old Tom, and give the boy some rest.”

He switched off the snow and ice from Dalton’s shirt as well, then drew the professor’s knees up against his chest, scooted him into the shelter and then followed. Outside the storm continued unabated.

[Anastasia van Drakke]

”Ivan, I can’t learn to defend myself,” Anastasia complained as she crossed her arms, “if you refuse to attack me so I can block!” The woman stamped her foot, the soft, loose harem pants she’d bought for the self defense lessons hanging limp. Looking up at Ivan, she sensed his <amusement> and it only irritated her further. With a cry she tried one of the strikes he had taught her and gasped as he grasped her wrist quickly. Not hard, but enough to stop it.

“No, Eva,” he said simply but firmly, pulling her towards him, her back to his chest, and wrapping his arms around her. “I’m not going to hit you.”

“It’s just pretend,” Anastasia sighed, the fight gone out of her as she lent back against him. “Can’t we just try? I have no intention of playing damsel in distress again.”

“No, Eva,” Ivan had rumbled, his still present <amusement> spiced with <anger> at the idea of her in distress, pretend or otherwise. Anastasia tried to argue again, but Ivan had swung her around and was intent on muffling her mouth with his own.

Reality was not as kind as her memories, and Anastasia opened her eyes with obvious reluctance. The room was destroyed, everything in it broken, torn, shattered. Nothing left for her in here now. Pulling herself to her feet, the woman looked around her with empty eyes, then looked down at herself and grimaced. What was she wearing?

Slowly, sluggishly, the woman pulled herself up the master staircase and staggered into their her room, pulling off the scraps of white silk and lace and slipping into the black nightie lying ready on top of her bed. The mural on the wall opposite stared back at her, dark figures with long arms surrounding a woman in white. It would be threatening, if she hadn’t known they were protection.

”Ivan,” Anastasia called out mildly as she lent out of the wardrobe, “Not in the Armarni, please.”
Ivan glanced down at the designer pants he was still wearing, then at the paint smears already over his arms.
“Sorry, I forgot,” he said and started pulling them off. Eva covered her mouth to hide a smile, and dropped the dress she had been holding against herself, then pushed the straps of her slip off her shoulders and stepped out of it, leaving a dark red circle on the floor.
“You can finish it later, I think,” she suggested, smiling as Ivan’s <amusement/want/love> washed over her even as Ivan traced a streak of white paint across her chest.

It took all her self control not to throw something at the painted wall, but she ground her teeth and yanked open the draw beside her side of the bed. Little orange jars looked out like small eyes and Anastasia's hand hovered over the white lids, thinking. Valium? Oxycodine? Hydrocodone? Ketamine? Morphine? Uppers or downers or just knock outers....

Too many choices. Anastasia hugged a pillow to her chest and started at the lamp beside her bed. The open doors and broken windows downstairs were letting in frigid air and her legs were going numb. It didn’t bother her. Perhaps Dalton was freezing to death in a ditch somewhere.

It was cold... Anastasia flipped over in the bed and stared beside her, hazel eyes empty.

It was too cold.

[Clarisse Prideaux]

Pilot Ridge wasn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but on this night it seemed endless. Clarisse had no idea where to look or even where to start. Judging by Clarisse’s luck thus far, it wasn’t going to be an easy hunt. She was driving the short route between her loft and Jake’s apartment, hoping to find him somewhere between her departure point and his home. He couldn’t be so drunk as to not know to head home, right?

Clarisse’s body shook with the notion that it was possible he could be so far gone that he didn’t know where home was.

“God…” She whispered, biting her lip to keep it from trembling. This was terrible. She’d made it all the way to downtown pilot ridge before she could no longer stand the blistering wind in her eyes. Her throat had grown sore, but she knew she couldn’t stop long. She pulled the car into a parking lot and jogged over to the lot’s attendant in the booth.

Her heavy breaths crystallized in blossoming clouds in front of her face. “Excuse me, Sir?” She prompted, swallowing the frog in her throat. “Have you seen anyone coming through this way on foot? I can’t find my…” My what? Clarisse blinked. Jake and Clarisse were really too old to put labels on anything, and they hadn’t ever really talked about it. Clarisse shook her head. “The man I love is somewhere out in the cold. Without a coat, and inebriated.”

She worried her hands against each other, her leather gloves making tight squealing sounds against one another as she did so. The lot attendant only shook his head. “Anyone out in this is insane. And so are you lady.” She bit back tears. Taking a shaky breath, she leveled her green eyes against the attendant’s. “Insane or not, he’s out here somewhere. If you find him, please call nine-one-one.”

After some fumbling in the booth, the attendant took down her number as well and promised to call if a man of Dalton’s description showed up. He left her with more thinly veiled cynicism. “Ma’am I sure hope you find him before it’s too late.”

Clarisse pulled her coat around her chest and nodded. “So do I.” She whispered back, entering her car again to begin the search anew in the outskirts of Pilot Ridge.

“Jake! Can you hear me?”