tampered | log | in progress [hell hath no fury]

log | in progress [hell hath no fury]

When; Sept. 28th, early morning
Rating; likely PG/PG-13 for Beast's language
Characters; Beast [

lackingbeauty] & Dorian Grey [

nobodyneedknow]
Summary; In typical hot-headed and stubborn Beast fashion, she's gone to search out the gent who made her little sister cry- and likely threaten him to within an inch of his life.
Log;

Beast had always been a stubborn woman. Stubborn and temperamental, able to swing from soft to blazing anger in an instant. But it took more than an instant to calm down after hearing Doll recount the story of her meeting with the man she said was called Dorian Grey. More, because she still wasn't calm or happy. At all.

After all, she'd always been an independant woman herself- she hated to rely on others if she didn't need to, hated to acknowledge her own weaknesses- but one of her values was still family, the few outcasts and misfits that formed the Noah's Ark Circus- and Doll had always been the baby of the bunch. No longer that age, but still the little sister-

Which was why she'd come on her way in to work, turning at the 7th building as instructed, to find the mentioned cafe. Truthfully, Beast hated this atmosphere, this sort of social situation, because she was so painfully unused to it. Gutter trash from East End didn't often end up here, and she hated any situation she wasn't in control or aware of. But she came despite.

Not able to pry a better description from Doll, she set about scanning the few patrons for the one that looked the most well-dressed and arrogant. In her negative view of nobility- that's what a gent was. But at least she had the advantage of the curse's end- she'd never walk in to a situation like this on three legs. One true one, and two crutches. Not in the body of her self from almost ten years past.

No, she stood on two legs to survey the crowd, at least. Even if, with the short leather skirt and crimson stockings, it was somewhat obvious to anyone who looked that it was only a mockery, balljointed knee visible above her boot.

It was enough.

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There is arrogance in beauty; and Dorian has it in spades. It's the arrogance that knows that even if he did hurt Doll, he hadn't don't any harm to her. After all she had come back as much of a maiden as she was when he met her. He had barely touched her.

And the fact that there was a woman who called out his name; well - women didn't scare him. He had received a bit of a fright from Jim, but that had turned out as well as he could please. And nothing really terrified him in terms of physical pain anymore. Despite his tolerance, built up from years of pain at his Grandfather's hand, the main thing that kept him so willfully unheeding of it as nothing more than simple sensation was his portrait.

The woman had been so adamant to meet him, and he wasn't altogether sure why, but on the Network, she she seemed low-class and brutish. Her accent gave that much away. A Whitechapel girl if he ever met one, and Dorian Gray is an expert in such matters.

He sips his tea calmly, unruffled, scanning his network device as though it were a newspaper. The tea is weak but decent enough.

When he looked up he saw her, however - her breasts were massive, and to begin with. But then her ridiculous skirt, and that altered leg...Dorian is a man who knows what he wants. Her wondered if she would charge. She certainly looked the type.

It had to be him. Scanning the crowd, it was him she kept coming back to- young enough, well-dressed enough-

And sizing her up like she could be bought. Oh, that was a look Beast was well-accustomed to. Of course, there were things she did to offset it. On the days she didn't have work, she dressed completely respectably- if not still in clothing that spoke to the lower class of the time- no sense, she told herself, in pretending to be something you aren't. And she had a great deal more morals than the outfit worn for the Circus Carnivore belied.

It was only a few steps further. And to those not experts in such things as the body's motions, she walked perfectly able- only the slightest betrayals of the way she shifted her weight on her hips, how one click of heel was more hollow than the other.

"Dorian Gray?" But it was still amazing how bitter and cold she could sound from the get-go.

She opened her mouth and Dorian reaccessed the situation entirely. This was not a woman who could be bought. This was a woman who thought that her opinion might matter, or who knew it wouldn't but didn't care. He didn't stand. Really, there was no need.

Instead he looked up at her, almost bored with this situation already. He knew where this was going, to a large degree. And it was something that he could handle; after all, what could she really do? She could raise a fuss in public. But a gentleman - and whether or not he was one was yet to really be seen - wouldn't rise to the occasion.

"Yes?"

Thankfully for her, Beast felt no need to dote on a noble's invitation for her to sit- especially because she was used to none ever offering. And so she suitably ignored him a moment, pulled a chair round and sat across from him, legs crossing for something like modesty, fingers rearranging the whip at her hip so that it lay proper beside her.

"Funny," She'd get to it- but she couldn't help herself, sometimes. "Yer voice sounds familiar."

He watched her move, and watched her fidget with her whip. He, in the meantime, took a sip of his tea. He wondered briefly why she was attempting modesty in that costume, but if it pleased her, then why would he argue? Dorian wasn't one to advocate the need of restraint, after all.

"Does it?" he asked dryly, his accent smooth and proper. "I've also told my face is quite common."

That was a bit of a truth and a bit of a lie. He had been told that he was the most beautiful man in London, by more than one party, that his beauty was unique, and rare. But here there was another man who shared his face. Dorian was still unsure of what to do with that information, except to watch Caspian from afar.

She snorted softly, still rather unladylike, but everything about her- with the exception of her body itself- was hardly feminine, most times. Growing up in East End did tent to do that to one, though. Father had tried to teach them something of proper speech, writing too, and while Beast could affect a better accent if she tried, could read, albeit slow, she never fell naturally too it like their leader had.

But that was why Joker was the good son, Joker, who could speak like a proper aristocrat if he tried, and if it weren't for that arm he was missing, they were all lacking somehow, maybe he'd have made it.

"Yeah, bet all the ladies 'ave done told you that." Sarcasm, it was never subtle with Beast- nothing was really subtle with her, too easily read, too easily roused to emotion.

And to the look of disdain on her face.

Dorian had met women like her before - in theory. He hadn't spent much time with them, however, and so she was a new experience for him. At her comment, his lips curved slightly into the smile that Basil once told him made him look like an angel, and he simply waved the idea away.

"No. They don't say that at all," he said, as if he really needed to elaborate. She looked so annoyed at him that he couldn't help but be entertained. It was rare that people looked openly irritated at him, and it was something else new about this place. Normally his looks, his charm, his demeanor could smooth over even the angriest people.

She clearly was not about to be assuaged.

"Yeah, well I don' know what they do say-" Obviously, she did. What else could he be implying, and what else could it be, when he looked like that, dressed as if he had money like that-

Beast herself may have possessed more prudishness than a circus performer normally ought, but that didn't mean her innocent or foolish. She'd grown up with the sounds of prostitutes and their johns as normal background noise, and she worked a circus, where many of the women did indeed offset their meager incomes.

She wasn't blind- she just chose not to look.

"But what I'm sayin' 'ere to you, is that I catch you round my sister again, you won't have nothin' for a woman to compliment you on." Ah, so that was it. Even if there was nothing in the slightest for resemblance among them.

Dorian's smile fades, and he feels himself getting cold from the inside out. He does not take kindly the threats, especially after the incident with Jim. He narrows his eyes, just a bit. "I'm afraid," he says, crisply, "I don't know what you're speaking of."

The fact that there was no way that she could disfigure him - none at all - was completely beside the point. She could whip him for days, years, and he would always remain perfect.

"But if you're eager to use your whip, I'm sure something could be arranged." There. Said as bluntly as he could, in public.

Beast had always liked to think that her prudishness was a useful virtue- she needed at least one, when you worked a job like that, did those dark things for Father...

But it was really a handicap in situations like these, when she opened her mouth to tell him just how much she thought he did know about that...

And instead, froze a moment, before she stiffened up, shoulders drawing together and flushing in embarrassment for the implication, only managing to grit out,

"Excuse me?"

Dorian wasn't smiling, but now at least he had the upper hand, and so he was calmer, more at ease. He nodded to the whip that she had been fingering earlier. "I'm sorry, I would hate to be unclear."

He leaned forward, just a bit, still far enough to be out of her reach, "I said, if you would like to use that whip, I'm sure we can arrange a time and place."

Maybe it was cruel. He knew very well whose sister this woman was, and he knew very well what the subject of the conversation was about. But frankly, Dorian didn't care. Implying that she might be a whore, using this as a cover, was much more entertaining.

Far enough out of reach if she remained in her seat, anyway. But Beast had always been a woman with... an explosive temper, to be kind. And she stiffened further, flushed further, for his insinuation, until she abruptly hauled forward out of her chair, one hand slapping down on the table and the other aimed at his face.

If he didn't pull back quick... Beast's slaps were a bit akin to Beast's punches.

He saw her move and he did pull back, and abruptly he stood, himself, pushing his chair back and pulling his waistcoat down. "I hardly think," he snarled, the beauty in his face transforming into something ugly, raw, "that assault is necessary."

He made sure that there was a good space between them. "If you wish to have a conversation with me, I'd much prefer if it you did it with some display of civility."

He knew he had almost not power in this City, except the power that had been bestowed to him by simple virtue of his appearance, which according to Wotton, was great. "I should ask you to take care."

Edited 2009-09-27 18:59 (UTC)

"It's not assault yet, boy." She'd full on hissed it, low and full of promise, still leaning forward over the table, quivering in anger. It might have been ironic to a passerby who took care to notice. She was a beautiful woman, Beast, but she'd been told she looked most beautiful angry. And he, well- that was not a lovely expression on his face.

But it didn't scare her at all, merely tugged a corner of her crimson lips in to a sneer for his decorum, the tug at his waistcoat.

"Fer someone demandin' civility a me, you sure like to insult based on whose bitch of a mother married a man with a title 'r money." Perhaps that might sting- she'd no idea how people felt about their mothers, considering hers had abandoned her to a workhouse early on. Maybe it would- but even if it did, she preferred a harsher sting, like her palm across his face at the least.

"No, and neither was what I did to your sister, so we're quite even, aren't we?" The mask of civility settled over his features.

The problem with attacking Dorian's mother was that he could recognize a weapon when he saw it. "I'm afraid you'll find it was the other way 'round in my family," he told her. "And I don't particularly like to speak ill of the dead. But on the subject, did yours forget to teach you any kind of manner at all?"

Edited 2009-09-27 19:23 (UTC)

Beast hated when this happened- and it happened somewhat frequently, when her temper got the best of her and caught her in these verbal exchanges... tch, this was a troublesome place. In the Noah's Ark circus, most all knew not to mess with her, one of the main members in a place where your power was how much of an audience you could attract, your performance...

It was very different here.

"Wouldn' know, she didn' stick around after I became a freak." Spat back, and that in and of itself was a whole other issue- that she had a lot of trouble hiding. She'd always been too easy to read, even by strangers, but it wasn't an odd thing to think one might find shame in, only have a third of a left leg left to you- especially in London.

"But yer mother an' my mother in't the issue 'ere- I never said you done assaulted 'er, but I'm tellin' you if ya come round again, I'll still treat it like you had."

Dorian filed this information away. It was his own kind of pleasure, to know these things - that this woman's mother had abandoned her, abandoned Doll, with her hideous eye. It was Dorian's world, this kind of thing, and he didn't mind a bit.

The fact that she was so easy to read made it all the more interesting. "You sister is sufficiently ugly that I don't think that will even be a question," he told her, casually, taking his seat once more. Now that she had calmed down a bit, it seemed safe enough, and he didn't feel like staying on his feet, in any case.

It might have been a little pathetic, that of all the things that had been said, the look on her face, barely covered still with anger, but betrayed in subtle things, like eyes and mouth, that comment just now had wounded her the most.

Doll had always been the baby of their group, come to them when they were already older- Jumbo looked it, but Wendy and Peter were the eldest, with the bodies of their that had never truly grown, Dagger was still a boy, but she and Joker had counted as old enough for use, when Doll had joined the group of gutter trash at maybe half a decade old. She'd always be the one their group protected most fiercely, and this brat-

"Don' you say things that'll get you hurt, gent." She couldn't actually sit back and say she was not- to anyone but their misfit group, the burn scars on Doll's face were ugly, just like Beast's stump of a leg, scarred and mangled at the end now cradled in a prosthetic, was repulsive to view. But, still-

"I don' care what's likely 'r not, 'r what you plan to do 'r not. It's a warnin', and it's the only one yer gettin'." She couldn't stand to sit with him, even in mockery of civility, maintaining her stance almost over the table, glaring at him as she spoke.

Dorian could see that it was hurting, and part of him wondered if perhaps he had gone too far - but that bit of him only managed a moment of argument before it was subdued by his crueler, more dominant side. "Don't be so sensitive," he told her. "There's really no need for it."

He took another sip. The entire conversation was almost entirely beyond his caring. "Is that all, then?"

"Tch," One more moment she stood there, contemplating a nice image in her mind of what he might look like after a good round with her- using the whip in rather not the way he'd implied. But it was only a brief entertainment of the mind, before she nearly spat, standing up and extricating herself from between the chair and table, tossing her head dismissively, sending curls and crimson decoration whirling briefly about her face.

"It's all." She'd wanted to say more, threaten him more- but he'd backed her in to a corner, there, that if she continued, she would seem the fool.

So she turned her back on him instead.

Dorian went back to the Network without another word. He had people to watch - this was far better than any society folio. "Good," he said briskly, watching her in his peripheral vision, just to make sure she wouldn't decide to attack again, but otherwise letting her be.

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log | in progress [hell hath no fury]

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sob why am I enjoying this so much /)_(\

Because it is fun 8D?

sob yes

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