singillatim | A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

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A beautiful fiction I invented to keep out the cold

Who: Chloe Frazer & others
What: Catch-all; open prompts
When: March and April
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Self-injury content related to the echo effects. Descriptions of canon typical violence and murder. Talk about hunting/eating animals.

Chloe doesn't trust Methuselah as far as she could throw him, and a trip through a mine where she's forced to rely on the goodwill of a bunch of cop types does not sound like her idea of a good time. Also, sticking around Milton when most of the people who 'patrol' (imagine her air quotes) are away is a great opportunity to snoop in people’s houses.

Anyone who remains in or returns to Milton may find her either doing her usual wild running in the woods, checking her snares for snacks, or sneaking around newly empty locations to see what's been left behind.

Aurora nights are a different thing, however. Chloe likes to think that she's done her best to do right by the people that she cares about, but the truth is she's cut a few throats in her day, stepped over others to make sure that she would wind up on top. Something about the aurora this month brings every one of those memories roaring back. It has her running faster, drinking until she can't see, and doing risky climbs onto (and jumps between) rooftops, trying to escape the feeling.

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Chloe stuffs towels around the door as best she can, as well as a few other areas that she knows air gets in.

She doesn't really know what to do about the fireplace aside from hope that the rising heat keeps the fog out. Seems like they're in this for the long haul.

"Hey," Lalo says, handing over a silver ream of duct tape when he catches up to her. "This is my house. You know that, right? You can't just tell me what to do in my own house!"

Chloe shrugs, taking the tape to hold towels along the door’s hinges. “If you want to match my pretty face, be my guest.”

An appeal to his vanity is certainly enough to spook Lalo into reasonableness. "...okay, okay. No, no, I'll do what you say." He cannot help feeling that they've turned yet another corner here and he's not sure that's a good thing.

He's almost certainly sure it's not, in fact.

But he starts ripping off pieces of tape too, taping down towels to keep the air out.

“You're lucky I was here, you know.” Questionable, but Chloe believes it. “If you’d been sleeping you wouldn't have noticed this shit getting in.”

The familiar discombobulated feeling starts to come back. It's disorienting, but not all together unpleasant. There's something nice about it. However, it fills him with a sense of indignation and irritation, too. He'd been gloating to himself about the power he now held over her; how she was going to think twice about messing with him after this; how she owed him...

Now he's thinking about how what she's saying is true. Her being here did save him, in a sense.

There's a not-totally-unpleasant little twist in his chest that Lalo can't place or name.

He does start to re-find his footing after a few seconds, though. Like hell he's just going to make this easy for her. Lalo grins. "Me? Ayyyy, I don't think so! You're the lucky one. What if I'd just kicked you out into the green shit? Then what would have happened to you?"

Chloe can't deny that when he’d first put his arm around her, what little part of her could think had expected that to happen. Throwing her into the fog, or forcing her to do things she wouldn't like much in exchange for treatment. She can't exactly thank him, but she is lucky.

“I wouldn't have let go. You'd have to go out in it too if you wanted to kick me out.”

It's like she’d said before, she bites back.

Lalo is now, of course, wondering why he didn't just throw her out into the fog. If she thinks the blisters on her face look bad now, just imagine what they would have looked like if he'd thrown her out! It would have served her right!

How many times has she made him look like a fool now? It's infuriating! And embarrassing, too. Worse than that, it reminds him he's vulnerable here, in a way he's never had to worry about before. If she can get in, who else can? Nobody, Lalo tries to reassure himself, but deep down he's not sure if nobody else has gotten in simply because nobody else has tried.

And he's still thinking about what she said earlier. What would have happened if she hadn't broken in? He probably would've woken up on his own, anyway, unable to sleep through his own coughing. But what if he hadn't?

Anyway, she's here now and they're stuck with each other. Something about her had coaxed out something more nurturing out of him, something gentler. Something that remembers she'd taken care of him, or maybe just something that doesn't want the game to end.

Her smart remark draws an irritated huff from Lalo, who fights not to allow a smirk onto his features. "Bullshit!" he says, shaking a finger admonishingly at her. "You think those weak little girl arms could hang onto me if I wanted to shake you off? I doubt it." He offers her own an arm, like he wants to test it. His eyes glitter mockingly.

Kind of unbelievable that he’d challenge her on this after she’d held him against the wall during the bad aurora, but men do have their pride.

“These weak little girl arms could break your neck if I wanted them to.”

Lalo's eyes glint. He does remember the bad aura. How could he forget? It left an impression. But his pride won't let him back down.

"Bullshit," he says, laughing. Teasing her.

Chloe rolls her eyes. “Do you really want to fight now? Seems like a waste so soon after I saved your sorry ass, but I will.”

"You saved my ass?" Lalo shoots back incredulously. "I don't think so. I saved you." He stumbles backwards dramatically, deliberately and loudly coughing. In a high-pitched falsetto, he imitates her with deliberately inaccurate hysteria: "'Water, water, oh help me, Lalo, pleeeeease, I need water!'" He catches himself against the wall and leans against it, on arm propped up.

He stops long enough to grin at her. "And hey, tell me what you think we should do to pass the time! We'll be stuck in here for a while, from the looks of it."

Chloe scoffs, offended. “I did not say please. Should have left you to melt in your bed.”

Lalo, delighted by her ire, dissolves into further laughter. Any notion of fighting her physically is completely forgotten.

"Yes, you did!" She didn't, but accuracy is less important than annoying her. "You were begging," he says. "'Please, please, help me! Save meeeee, Lalo! I'll do aaaanything!'" He mimes batting his eyelashes before dissolving into a second round of chuckles, folding an arm lightly around his waist when he finally stops before looking at her, eyes shining with amusement.

“Okay, I know I didn't say that.” 'I’ll do anything' is a blank cheque Chloe avoids writing if she can help it.

"Yeah, maybe you wouldn't. I might." He winks at her and stands up, pushing himself off the wall. Still grinning that ridiculous Chesire cat grin. "Thank you for saving me, Miss Chloe. How can I ever repay you? I'll do anything."

Chloe snorts. It still hurts a bit from having inhaled the fog earlier. “Yeah? That's what you're into?”

"Maybe. Wouldn't you like to know?" Lalo crosses over to her. Closer. He doesn't touch her, but he does stand over her. One hand halfway in his pocket.

"Looks like you're stuck in here with me. Again. Might be a while. So how do you wanna pass the time?"

Really it's too bad that they can't go for a round two of aurora pain. Chloe really thinks she could win it this time.

“Ohh,” she says, like she's talking to an upset kitten, “are you hungry? I don't know if you'd like the kind of stuff I do.”

Is she talking to him like...? Lalo almost doesn't register it, but when he does he can't help feeling surprised and a little indignant. Hey! Nobody has talked to him like that since he was in the single digits, age-wise.

"Try me," Lalo says.

Edited 2024-04-19 17:40 (UTC)

“If I'm playing for fun, I'm in complete control or I won't play at all.” She tips him a wink, smarmy as he had been earlier. “That 'Miss Chloe' thing is a good place to start. You pick that up from Louis?”

Having his own wink thrown back at him tips Lalo off his game a little. He stares at her. He's not accustomed to being on the receiving end of this kind of attitude, and it shows.

His jeans are a little tighter too. Determinedly, he doesn't acknowledge that, and he hopes she won't either. A voice in the back of his head tells him to pump the breaks, but he doesn't. Lalo is too curious about where this is headed to stop so soon.

He says only, "Si, Miss Chloe."

Chloe laughs, a quiet little sound in the back of her throat. She’d been expecting a fight, not this. What fun.

“Oh, look at you. Good job.” She gives him a bit of a knowing look, but doesn't draw attention to how much he's clearly enjoying this. “Did you like it before, when I told you to touch me?”

That little laugh is so sexy. Hnnngh. Normally, it would annoy Lalo to be laughed at like that, but right now, that tiny twinge of irritation inside him only makes this hotter.

For reasons that have more to do with self-preservation than pride, Lalo has never done this before. Had someone in charge of him like this before. He's wondered what it might be like, sure, when he was the one in charge and had someone handcuffed to his headboard or moaning underneath him, but actually trying to find out for himself seemed like a good way to get killed while he was tied up.

And, okay, sure, maybe there's some pride there too. What would people think if they knew someone had Lalo Salamanca in such a compromising position?

But Chloe has had ample opportunity to hurt him. If she wanted to kill him, she easily could've just snapped his neck when he was sleeping in her lap. But she didn't. And she's seen him in much more embarrassing situations than this.

And everything about her urges him to be a good boy. The praise. The soft, 'look at you'. It ignites something primal inside of him. The knowing look makes him want to squirm a little but - grateful she's not saying anything outright - he resists the urge, and stays standing where he is.

Lalo smiles faintly, and answers honestly, of course after deliberately taking his sweet-ass time: "Si, Miss Chloe."

There's a slight reddish hue, barely noticeable, on the shells of his ears.

Edited 2024-04-20 05:27 (UTC)

Chloe laughs again but it's not forceful - barely more than a self-satisfied hum. The whole image here: the red pyjamas that aren't letting him hide anything, the blushing, this new good-boy demeanour, are unexpected but not totally unwelcome.

She gives him a speculative once-over. “Would you like to touch me again?”

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