maskormenacelogs | six feet under, she gon' kill me for that paper

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six feet under, she gon' kill me for that paper

WHO: The Countess and James PATRICK March
WHERE: The Hotel Castile
WHEN: backdated to before the blackout
WHAT: JPM returns and feels a familiar presence with his presence feelers
WARNINGS: normal AHS shit

Dusk is falling and the creatures of the night -- and by extension, the hotel -- are rising. Her nose to the dressing table, the Countess sniffs up her evening high and then breathes out a sigh of satisfaction as she looks up to the mirror and begins gently brushing her hair up into a chignon.

The TV plays softly in the background, the news of the day that she's missed while sleeping. Just inside the door is her nightly 'breakfast', the tray they leave in the hall until she brings it in for herself.

She sips at a tumbler of vodka on the rocks. One of the first things she did upon returning was ban absinthe from the hotel. There are some levels of pettiness that are completely satisfying to sink down to.

With her dressing gown still half open, she reaches up and begins to slide bobby pins into her hair.

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He's been out on business. Actual, legitimate business that left him tense and tired. He walked back home, as home as he had now, with his cane tapping louder and his jaw set at an angle to suggest he'd rather yawn than yell but he was prepared to do either as he saw fit. This only served to further the front desk worker's stress, but she couldn't imagine the news would be so relieving. After the initial first shout, that is, he changes. Tension vanishing, smile returning...March also vanishing.

He has somewhere so much better to be. He has, however, learned his lesson from the last time. He knocks! With his cane. Loudly and more times than necessary, but they both enjoy their pettiness.

"Room service!"

The most excited room service that has ever happened if his voice is anything to go by.

It is, in a way, unfortunate that they've spent so long together. It sort of takes the surprise out of these things when you can recognize each other's voices and mannerisms through walls and doors. The infuriating sound of that stupid cane. She has half a mind to throw it in the incinerator the first chance she gets.

The resignation hits her like a brick and she huffs, her first thought about how she's going to have to find a new room to store things in. It would have been so fitting to be able to keep all her extra belongings in 64, and now he's robbed her of that.

Countess stands and sweeps to the door, swinging it open with a look that is of distinctly annoyed disappointment.

"I would never order you."

The enormous smile on his face does not diminish or disappear when he's met with the usual beautiful cruelty. In fact, her words only seem to make him even happier. Dude has issues.

"This delivery came from the gentleman down in Room 64." Gentleman. There's a joke. So is this strange feeling like he wants to reach out and...hug? Hug? Absence has certainly messed with him. "He's been without you for an age. Can you blame his surprise?"

Please let him in. He is a good boy.

His reaction is expected; she knows it takes far more than a simple insult to actually upset him, particularly when they've been apart. She's been gone from this world, so she half believes that she'd have to actually fall in love with another man right in front of him, right now. Which would be weird and inconvenient, so she just walks back into the room and leaves the door open behind her so that he might follow.

"The gentleman and I obviously have different tastes," she says archly, sitting back down at the mirror. She runs a makeup brush over her cheek as she looks at his reflection. "You've been gone. I even brought you a present, but you weren't here so I gave it to a man who was."

Weird and inconvenient for everyone, yes. Obviously the next course of action in that moment would be for James to murder said man. Nothing else would make any sense. Then she'd be upset with him, and he'd have to start the whole cycle of not ruining her potential semi-happiness long enough she would spend more time with him...

The gentleman locks her door and follows like she knows he will, leaning his cane against a nearby table and coming to stand behind her, eyes torn between the sight of her back and the sight of her in the mirror. Hands clasped behind his back, he does look the part of a gentleman. Even at the last of that he only raises an eyebrow.

"Did you now. Might I inquire who this gentleman was? I can only hope he deserved whatever present you'd been intending for moi."

It could have been anything, really, but whatever she had chosen was certainly not the usual token from wife to husband.

Really, the timing is just all off. She'd have to be expecting him in order to have previously recruited a good-looking jawline to fall for. Oh well, just another plan to file away for a rainy day.

"Mhm. It was a head, I even wrapped it. I thought it would be a nice gift for you to see the fun I had without you, but you left the Castile alone. The gentleman I gave it to was someone who works here. I have reason to believe he was going to eat it. Or maybe have sex with it." She sniffs and then gives a wry smile. "He thought you were my lover."

Clearly she finds this to be quite the humorous idea.

It is humorous but in ways James refuses to acknowledge and certainly doesn't appreciate. A hand comes from behind his back to move aside some of her wayward hair—an absolutely adoring sort of gesture she receives whether or not she's just been super mean.

"Jack is his name. He has a taste for human flesh. I must admit that makes things rather convenient for me on occasion." Did her husband keep a human eating guy around as a means of disposal because it worked out? Yes. Should she be surprised? No, he delivers this information like one would discuss a mutual friend's new spouse, new child, new pet...new mundane thing. "Sally has her eye on him. An eye. You know how Sally can be with pretty faces and dark hearts."

Kinda like Countess herself, maybe; someone not in this room would have to point that out because like hell is coming from Jambo.

She doesn't even stiffen when she feels his skin graze her. Doesn't react at all. Like he didn't touch her at all.

"I can imagine. I figured as much the second I realized he wanted the head so badly." But she can't hold back a harrumph at the mention of Sally, giving his reflection a sharp look in the mirror. "Yes, she did so well with your little detective, didn't she? Tell me, does it benefit you if Jack believes himself to be losing his mind? Running around the hotel, all bloody and bare as a newborn?"

"Hardly! Jack's embraced himself as he is already. He doesn't need my help in that department. Or Sally's."

He pulls his hand back as he speaks, withdrawing a pack of cigarettes from his jacket and placing one in his mouth before sitting them before Countess. Just in case she didn't want to reach further for hers. He's just so accommodating. What a prize husband she has, now changing gear from Sally because...

"You remember that scrawny magic man and his footed chest? Luggage, he calls it. You missed it in its glory, my dear! Jack had attacked the little fellow and Luggage promptly ate him. I saw it with my own two eyes. Scarfed him right up!"

Can they adopt it already?

"I would consider Sally more of a hinderance than anything else."

She takes a cigarette from the pack and waits for his light, opening a lipstick in the meantime and just examining the still-fresh tip. Unworn, there has been no dulling of its edge.

"Good. Hopefully he's learned a lesson about attacking little darlings like that. Is Jack dead then, or did Luggage merely get sick upon eating him?"

Like Bartholomew with bad meat.

A light she gets without wait, delivered with great flourish. So dramatic. He leans against her space, an easy sort of invasion without it being too close.

"The latter, I suppose. Jack was not away from us too long. He's also unaware I watched him get a taste of his own medicine." The hunter became the hunted, the eater became the eaten, of course March didn't step in. Jack was learning a lesson, just as she said. He wouldn't learn said lesson if March stopped it. "Did you ever meet Lord Baelish? He's the ambassador of our fair city now, and he is a friend of our establishment."

He takes a puff, pleased. Making connections, powerful connections, and yet always Countess is the one trusted the most with secrets. Isn't she just honored.

"I hope he brought back more of those lovely towels from wherever it was he went while he was eaten." The idea of Luggage making a snack out of Jack seems to warm the very cockles of her tiny little heart, as Luggage does in general. It really is so similar to the angel, the miracle she calls her son.

With a slow drag, she considers the name, matches it to an old face she's still knocking the dust off of in her memories. "I met him once, before I left. He was just becoming someone at the time. Clearly he's done well for himself. But whether or not he's a real friend depends more on what the office of the ambassador actually does, I think."

The air with which she says it is expectant, waiting for James to leap in with the benefits of trusting such a person. Of why Baelish is worthy of knowing what kind of world the Castile is recreating.

He sits rather than leans and scoots backward just a hair. He's perched before her, charmingly boyish about it all. He likes Petyr Baelish and makes that very very obvious.

"Darling, I wish you could see his aura. Beautifully dark. He is a fantastic beast and he holds a seat of power!" James has nothing but heart eyes for the man. His legs swing a bit. Ugh. "He works with business, charities, aims to improve the community. You know true improvement does not come without sacrifice. So does he. The more he establishes himself as a benevolent presence, the more pull his word would have should we ever need it."

Should they ever come under investigation. Which he doubts, but like. Just in case.

He takes a long drag.

"He's called on my services before. I enjoy the man."

She considers this, eyeing James as he gushes over one of his many little crushes. It's not so much that she doesn't see the use in liking Baelish, but more that she doesn't see the link as clearly this time. Corruption is plentiful in the world, and James always looks for something more than that.

But an ambassadorial type, that seems more like the sort who pays others to make and clean up messes. Hardly the same as being willing to take the leap and commit the nastiness himself.

Rising slowly, she places a hand on the counter next to him, leans close, just a few breaths from his face. "What does he know, Jimmy? How much?"

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