love's around you

[scalpedsociety]

Who: Tamara and you
What: A (Valentine's) Day in the life of one of Pride's most notoriously attractive women.
When: February 14th
Where: Various Places (See comments/prompts for more details.)
Warnings: None, but things might happen. (It's Aramat/Tamara and Valentine's Day, what do you expect?)

It's February 14th, and Tamara knows she's in for a busy day. There's checking the bag of letters and other things sent to her for the holiday. (No doubt some fans might want some things signed.) There's lunch with Squalo at Jeanne's at around noon. Sound check and the small Valentine's Day concert she's got planned at her old Gothic haunt, Club Lunacy. She'll be singing a few covers, as well as songs from Kairos. (Whether or not a certain Scarred Fellow will take the stage with her is a question on everyone's lips, but Tamara said anything could happen.) Last but not least, she'll be spending the rest of evening with Jecht in a romantic dinner and who knows what else?

Comments

Later Afternoon | Club Lunacy | Concert - "Raining Blood" (Spectators Welcome)

[scalpedsociety]

"So any of you folks familiar with Slaughterer?" The crowd practically roars in response. Tamara giggles. "Some of y'all seem to be. Guitar and drums are fine and all that, but here's my twist on it. Raining Blood."

Tamara spends another Cover Song at Mary-Rose, this one possibly even more disturbing than the last, keys foreboding and discordant as hell and the band being her backup in the long slow aural road to hell. She can't explain why, but those horrible visions appear in her head again as she plays the music. And this time... they aren't so bad to her. It seems perfectly natural to want to take someone apart, see how they work then leave them as bloodied husks. No, it almost seems correct...

Raining blood
From a lacerated sky
Bleeding its horror
Creating my structure
Now I shall reign in blood!

Yes, the world never wanted her or her ladies, but they will reign over their own world, with their own rules with the blood dripping as easily as water... they say the rain cleanses, but shouldn't blood showers?

After the songs done, Tamara looks about as offput as her audience.

"Sorry, I got a little too into my song..." The audience cheers and roars and whistles anyway, leaving Tamara terrified by her own thoughts.

Re: Later Afternoon | Club Lunacy | Concert - "Raining Blood" (Spectators Welcome)

[psyvampexperiment]

She might spot a familiar pale face in the audience, perhaps close to the stage, listening, wrapt, but with a perturbed look in his good eye, a white silk patch covering the other.

For a moment, something odd slipped into his mind: an odd image of a blood red moon. Maybe a vague memory of a lunar eclipse, maybe something from a stage production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck, nothing more, but the image seems to fit the song well.

Still, he snaps back to himself at the end of the song, a nervous if crooked smile crossing his face as he joins in the applause. "Bravo, milady!" he calls out.

[scalpedsociety]

Tamara may disappear for a while to the club's backstage. If one tries to follow her, she'll be in a corner of her dressing room smoking a cigarette nervously.

She can't explain why she got so wrapped up in the song. During practice it just felt normal, but it made no sense for that to happen...

[psyvampexperiment]

Her bandmate might enter the backstage, looking a bit shaken himself, his good eye perturbed, though his usual quiet half-smile quirks the corners of his mouth.

"Raining blood... reign in blood... quite a play on words there," he muses, not quite meeting her gaze, as it's clearly affected him deeply. "I'd heard the original, but... yours had a deeper effect, just for its quiet alone."

[scalpedsociety]

Meanwhile Tamara is just sitting in her chair, mind so consumed by the thoughts the song gave her the cigarette in between her fingers just burns, her mind numb to the praise she's being given.

You might have to bring her back to terra, Sariel.

[psyvampexperiment]

The cigarette might have started to burn perilously close to her fingers, but even still, on noting it, Sariel moves in, kneeling down and taking the cigarette from her hand, crushing it out.

"Tamara? Are you all right? Did your own performance disturb you?" he asks, concerned.

[scalpedsociety]

"Who are you, you tall pale beast? And why are you calling me that old name? Say it again and I will take out the other eye."

She scowls at him for a good moment but she comes back. When she comes to, she stares straight at him with a blank face.

"Huh?"

[psyvampexperiment]

That reaction causes him to back away slowly a little ways, his good eye wide with surprise and a hint of apprehensive concern. "Are all right? You don't seem yourself... literally, I'm afraid," he says, with no trace of any teasing or word play. From his tight, wary posture, he's all serious.

[scalpedsociety]

Tamara doesn't even seem aware of what she said. "What did I say to you?" She asks.

[psyvampexperiment]

"Just now? You called me a 'tall, pale beast' and you asked me why I was calling you by that old name. And you also warned me that if said it again... you'd take out my other eye," he says, warily on the last bit.

"I'm wondering if this is a case of a walk-in..." he adds, clearly trying to parse all this and turn his fear into curiosity.

[scalpedsociety]

"I don't know... that song was too much." Tamara sighs.

[psyvampexperiment]

"It was intense... the most intense thing I've heard you sing," he says, his gaze turned away from her. Then looking to her, he adds, "Would it worry if I said it... spoke to me? That while you were singing... I had a mental image, a waking dream, even, of a moon in full eclipse, blood red."

[scalpedsociety]

"Wait... you can see these sort of things too?"

Now she's concerned.

[sharktrash]

Oh definitely. The rain cleanses, levels the battlefield and leaves no survivors in its wake. Blood rain sounds appropriate, doesn't it?

Squalo hadn't really planned to spend more time on her than the lunch today, but he finds himself curious... plus, his teacher did attend his own show yesterday, it only seems fair to do the same and maybe offer some feedback in return.

He's at the front, in the VIP section, so close that he can rest his elbow on the stage as he looks up at her with a grin. Hopefully that means she'll hear him over the roar of the crowd.

"Don't be sorry. It was excellent." He's grinning, something almost sharp glinting in his eyes for a moment. "You can't deliver a song like this if you don't believe every word."

[scalpedsociety]

It's comforting to see him and know that he doesn't object to the performance. But Tamara can't shake this feeling she has, it almost feels like dread.

"Do you mind if I come over there for a little while? I may need a break."

[sharktrash]

"Not at all."

He can tell something has shaken her, even if he doesn't quite understand what or why. It's just a song, right? A song that... feels way too real. Like his performance yesterday.

[scalpedsociety]

In minute, she'll be there in the vip section. She sits down almost hugging herself, frankly still perturbed by that performance. "Squalo... while you're performing have you ever had something take over, something great and terrible yet familiar to you?"

[sharktrash]

He'll helpfully put an arm around her, though he seems to tense at that question slightly. Then he turns to give her a long, blank look.

"Yeah. Just so we're clear, I had no plans to writhe around the stage begging for that guy's dick -- oh, I'm sorry, gun."

He sounds slightly disgusted with himself. Anyone who heard him yesterday had no doubts he was being 100% earnest at that time, though.

[scalpedsociety]

His arm is nice, comforting. If allowed she might even lean into it. At Squalo's answer she nearly wanted to say: 'I can't really blame you if you wanted to.' She's seen Xanxus' dick. It's like him, amazing and a bit terrifying.

"The stage makes us musicians do strange things..."

[sharktrash]

Everyone's seen Xanxus' dick. It was all over news a few months back. And it's not that great. Too big and attached to a jerk.

But there's more to him than that. His voice, his forcefulness, the way that man's presence feels just like a fire - warm but destructive, capable of reducing everything to ash. There's just something about him --

He'll let her lean in, but not move to further comfort her himself.

"I don't want to talk about it. Half my friends now think I'm putting out for him." A small pause. "I can't fucking believe you've gone recording with him."

[scalpedsociety]

For a brief moment, Tamara looks at Squalo. Her face the very picture of hurt but it quickly goes away to something more indifferent. "I liked his voice and we have a chemistry together when we play." Among other things. That voice, his eyes, those rough hands... his presence. It's like being near a flame, close enough to where you can touch your fingers to it but you might get burned. Thing is, she might not mind it too much.

Mutual mother-son thirst is a bitch.

"Why are you angry about this? I don't know what is exactly going on with you two, but he's your enemy. Not mine."

She records with whoever she wants.

[sharktrash]

"Chemistry? Do you have any idea --" He grits his teeth and goes silent. Does he or doesn't he tell? She's got a point, it's not really his business. But... she is someone important to him. And she could get hurt.

What the fuck is he supposed to do with this?

"You're supposed to show solidarity," he finally grumbles. Ah, to hell with it. "You don't know what kind of a guy he is."

And he does.

[scalpedsociety]

"Solidarity is one thing, but I should be able to form my own opinions on people." And she narrows her eyes at that.

"Then tell me how he is... since you know him so well."

[sharktrash]

"Sooner or later, he'll hit you," he replies almost instantaneously. "Doesn't matter if you're a man, woman or child, he'll beat you up and laugh as you bleed, no matter how much of your heart you've given him."

...doesn't this explain so much? Including most of Squalo's behavior, regarding his apparent attraction but refusal to accept it (again)?

[scalpedsociety]

"You're pretending like me and Xanxus have something going on. We don't, it's just music." It's kind of lie, but it dawns on her. The reason why there was hardly any men in those visions. And the few ones that were... sounded a lot like what Squalo described. They aren't to be trusted...

But soon that anger and distrust goes toward Xanxus. "Did- did he hit you?"