BAD influences /Emilie&Archie

[CHRISTIAN REICHENBACH]

Christian Reichenbach --- ♫ ☠ ♪

Christian Reichenbach had it in his head to gloat, and gloat he shall. He was a precise show boater; he never showed his full hand, and he only shared minute details. Still, the wounds he inflicted were deep and lasting, even if they were quick and nonfatal. Life had suddenly got interesting for the young man, who was so very easily made bored. And if there was one thing Christian absolutely abhorred, it was boredom, thus a cheery whistle escaped his aberrant lips. He liked having so many projects to play with.

First and foremost to mind was Edith. Sweet Edith. No one understood her, not like Christian. No one understood what it was like for people like them to be understimulated. It was his duty to her, as a like minded unknown personage, to remedy that for her. Oh but how? He would have to be clever, for she was a quick one, wasn't she? Christian's love- or the mutation of the emotion- he felt for Dr. Edith Allingham was narcissism at it's most refined level. They were a pair, a set, a match. Batman and Joker, Harry Potter and Voldemort, without one the other was incomplete. They were more puzzles than people, and intrigue flowed through their veins for more potently than blood. Without him to play risk, to do a bout of fistycuffs with strategy, she'd have gone just as mad as he had been going, before discovering how much fun she was.

And then their was Emilie. This project was less fun, and less directed. Christian loathed to wing it, yet here he was, wondering to her room. He loved Emilie in a far different way than he loved Edith. In a far more qualmish and unsettling way. One that made his skin crawl and his temper flare, as much as it dragged out notes of compassion in him. Perhaps that was the name of the game. Kill Christian's Humanity. They played it often, and he'd hate to think she was winning by salvaging it. He'd hate to think there was still some to salvage. It was unlike Adolfo Reichenbach to leave his work so fragmented, yet here his Grandson was, mortal.

Can't have that. Which brought him to his last project, one for simply kicks and giggles. Because it was riotous. He was going to seduce sweet and pure Archibald. Oh yes, Christian was a man of many tastes, though his boudoir partners often had a similar theme. They needed, they were weak, and they were disposable. It was nothing personal, but if you were going to show your hand, you had to expect to be taken advantage of. He had found Archie Boy so lonely, curled up on a bench like a baby mewling for it's Mother's tit. Not even strong enough to let out a demanding cry. Tragic really. Christian had to show him the error of his ways, show him he had to be a bit stronger than that.

So, if Christian could use project two and three to unite in an ensanguined symphony, he most certainly would. And right now, he could. He was going to make Millie Song Bird's skin crawl, make her see that he was in no way dependent upon her. She always liked to play coy, to make eyes. To brush her foot accidentally against his leg under the supper table, or to wear Christian's favorite color. He wanted her to witness him being completely unaffected by her wiles,
efficacious as it was.

Using a key he may or may not have made a copy of in his free time, Christian entered Emilie's room uninvited, pleased to see it empty. My my, her roommate this year certainly... contrasted. Moving over to the comfort of the familiar territory on his song birds side. She had always been fastidious, even in childhood. Gliding along her side of the room, Christian made a point of moving things slightly askew in their homes, where they had surely lived for so very long. Lines, lines, lines. How could she live like this? He liked his order chaotic, personally. Unbuttoning his jacket, Christian tossed it on her chair, before plopping hard into the temperpedic mattress that had been so prettily made.

There was nothing left to do, but to wait for her to return.

[EMILIE SIMONE]

PRETTY MILLIE HAS SOME CLOTHES

Now, as fond as Emilie may have been of rehearsals—even those scheduled at eight in the morning and said to last four hours—there came a time when, quite simply, they ought to have ended ages ago. One could only bare the risers in heels for so long, and there were only so many times it was possible to listen to the same girl slide the same note in the same bad direction before it all became blurred into one horribly long, horribly hateful morning. Now, Emilie was patient. She sang her part and she waited over the rests and listened to the others sing theirs with a slightly critical ear. More than slightly critical, on many occasions. But she remained silent. Even when Janice Matthews sang her solo in the entirely wrong key for the third time of the morning, she merely pursed her lips and waited, glancing at the clock. She'd be home shortly.

One who knew Emilie well might have been able to see she was displeased. Annoyed. Peeved, as always, by others’ lack of perfection in a manner that could only be described as condescending. She’d walked the sidewalk back to the dorms alone, coat cinched tight around her petite waist as she bent her head against the cold, harsh wind. Black heels clicked their way across the pavement and to the dormitory’s door as she opened it, then up the stairs to the third floor and her room. She turned the key slowly, half expecting to find her outrageous roommate dancing to some manner of hideous pop song.

Mercifully, she was greeted with no sound louder than her clock’s weary ticking. The lock clicked shut behind her and she turned, bending down to remove the heels from her feet. When she straightened, she instantly bristled. The books on her shelf were tilted, her shoes shifted slightly in their rack, the clock on her nightstand turned entirely backwards, its face now to the wall. You’d have to be incompetent (or truly, anyone but Emilie) not to notice. Her eyes narrowed. Her roommate hadn’t the nerve. There was a very clear unspoken line between them, as was evident by the neatness on her side of the room alone. They simply did not trespass.

Shoes in hand, Emilie’s gaze flitted over the room, growing steadily more cross until she saw it, hiding there in plain sight, that ridiculous, ostentatious, hideous rag of a jacket plopped on her pristine chair. Immediately, her lips grew thin. Him. There, in her bed, as though he belonged there (never mind the fact that just a few weeks ago she’d let him lie next to her with virtually no complaint—it was a forgotten moment, the lullaby he’d sung, and she had no intention of bringing the memory up now any more than to repress it once again).

“What are you doing?” Cross, although not angry. Sharp, snappish was her tone as she crossed the room to the shoe rack, substituting a pair of black flats with the heels in her hand. She slipped the new shoes on and rounded on Christian, eyes narrowing significantly at the sight of just how badly he’d disturbed the peace she so rarely found here. “This is my room,” yes, an obvious enough statement, but when spoken with the cool tone Emilie so often possessed, it carried much more weight. “Get out.”

Her arms crossed tight over her chest—still covered by the coat she hadn’t bothered to remove—as she glared at the boy who was so keen on making her life miserable. Unfortunately, he happened to be brilliant at it. After glaring for a moment, her brow began to raise as a thought came to her, and although her face softened momentarily to one of curiosity, her tone did not change as she was fairly certain the answer would be one she wouldn’t like. “…How did you get in here?”

[CHRISTIAN REICHENBACH]

Christian Reichenbach --- ♫ ☠ ♪

How austere Millie Bird looked, with her arms crossed and her gaze so astringent that it could bend steel. The barely contained animosity looked as though it may bubble over, like a pot too full on a stove too hot. You could see the foamy bubbles rising, the steam curling delicately, the heat emanating off it's seemingly harmless black shell. Why were children so compelled to touch these things, to their mother's vexation. They were not colorful or bright, nor did they make a sound besides a low grumble of simmering food. It was like a haunting song, lulling them into safety and daring. Surely Mother was wrong, surely it would not hurt. But as soon as skin met iron a searing pain would crush the child's life, leaving them duly cautious. Ah, Millie, she truly was the pot calling the kettle black.

But, alas, he did digress.

Casually, Christian offered a idle grin, watching her slowly fume and bubble. If nothing else, Christian could say he was impressed with her abstaining personality. Had he not known her so long, had he not been such a good read, Christian wouldn't have the delight to see what was behind that carefully constructed mask. Beautiful, she was just beautiful. Not just her face, but that rage. He would adore for it to once just escape, for that bird to be rid of her cage for only a moment. It would be a spectacular sight, most definitely. "Don't get your panties in a knot, I'll be gone soon enough." He said, being purposely crude to offend her polite sensibilities.

"I'm very well aware that this is your room, Grosstante. Si ce n'était pas votre chambre, je ne serais pas ici. Aurais-je?" Though he referred to her in German, he finished the sentence in French, his words silken and lilting. There seemed to be no shift between the harsh German tongue and the whimsical French, and to one not educated in language it might have sounded like he was speaking in the same language throughout. It was a good metaphor for Christian Reichenbach way of speaking: queerly puckish, but acrid in nature. A seemingly friendly dog, who was just biding it's time to bite you.

"But I cannot go yet, Millie. I'm afraid I have someone meeting me here, and I daresay I'd hate for you both to be annoyed with me. I may not be the kindest or sweetest, but I am a man of my word. I won't stand up a person." Taking a delicate snow globe from the nightstand, Christian remembered the gift. How could he not? It was worth a pretty penny, and certainly pretty enough. Inside the glass globe was a crystal angel, swimming amongst shaved gold that acted as snow. Rolling the thing in his hand, he watched like a magpie as the flecks caught the light. He had picked it out special, a Christmas gift three years before, and had even gone so far as to pick the song it played. Twisting the knob beneath, Christian listened to the melody of Love Dream by Franz Liszt. "You still have this bauble?" He inquired dryly, setting it back down, and listening quietly to the tune.

Chuckling at her question, Christian's leg swung back and forth lethargically, like a pendulum in slow motion, off the side of the bed, and he laughed. "Oh, how I got in hardly matters Grand-Tante... That is the trouble with you. You're always living in the past. Come, join me in the future. Demandez-moi sur ma date de chaud." His voluminous lips curled in a silently obstreperous manner very befitting of him.

[EMILIE SIMONE]

She could say she despised him, but that would be generous and not at all worth the effort. Besides, knowing Christian, he probably wanted to hear it. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. So instead Emilie remained still, jaw set in a manner that distinctly reflected the iciness emanating from her eyes. She blinked when he spoke. Once, twice, three times, and showed absolutely no signs of having taken even the slightest offense to the statement, although it was clear enough by the fact that she said nothing at all. Still, he’d stated worse. She’d deflected those, too, in the same manner—or perhaps differently, with her own prettily-crafted barbed words to match.

Before she had time to say anything—and that was, of course, assuming that she’d been about to—he spoke once more and she found her eyes narrowing further as his speech shifted so subtly into her own native tongue. Oh, how she loathed when he spoke French. It was ghastly, his perfect tone and effortless accent. She could not replicate it in German, and thus never tried. The accent always came out muddled, one word substituted for another at the most indiscriminate of times. Emilie did not touch what she was not good at. Instead, she chose to hate it, just as she chose to hate the boy in front of her now who could so easily speak in her language but lacked the chivalry to drop his own—where she could understand, but not communicate—for the second it took to utter her familial title. Great Aunt. Well, how she hated that too. But that was a common term, and one easily ignored.

“Oh? Pardonnez-moi, petit-neveu, de croire que vous aviez de meilleures choses à faire avec votre temps de s'immiscer là où vous êtes indésirable.” She raised a brow slightly, responding instantly in the same language he’d used to address her, the words no less biting despite the pretty flow of them.

For a moment, genuine curiosity flashed across her face. And then anger, again for a split second before she locked them both up and impassiveness once more reigned over her features. She was just about to ask who exactly he’d had the audacity to invite up to her room—and really, a part of her wasn’t too sure she’d want to know—but was stopped, mercifully, by his hand as it removed the snow globe from its perch. So she would not play his game as he gazed at it, nor would she do more than look at him as he put it back and asked a question she honestly didn’t know the answer to. Or honestly didn’t want to admit.

Instead, she settled her pale gaze on his foot as it swung back and forth, back and forth off the edge of the bed that had been not an hour earlier so pristinely made. The snow globe’s tune filled the air between them as she pursed her lips at his speech, watching nothing more than the steady movement of his sneaker as it skirted over the air between the bed and the floor. When again he turned to French, she looked up. There was curiosity there again, and along with it a well-concealed fury. Only Christian would have the nerve to call one of his whores up to her room—and while she was there, standing not more than five feet away, too. Loathing did not begin to describe what she felt. Had she the temper (and she did, only it was far too bottled up for such things, so perhaps the correct term was nerve), she would easily have strode right over and slapped the smug little smirk right off his face. Maybe stamped it in the dirt, when she was finished.

But she stood still. She smiled sweetly with closed lips and cocked her head in a manner that clearly exhibited genuine, innocent curiosity. “Ne dites. S'il vous plaît.”

She didn’t care what he did. She never had. It wasn’t that she’d been avoiding him in the past few weeks since the party, since he’d sung her a song; she just didn’t care, was all. He could do whatever he wished with whomever he wished it. Just not in her room. That was all.

C'était un mensonge simple, et elle avait toujours dit bien.

[CHRISTIAN REICHENBACH]

Christian Reichenbach --- ♫ ☠ ♪

Christian was very much accustomed to being unwanted. He was the unplanned son of a whore and a spoiled playboy, taken in by a Grandfather who wanted an extension of himself set loose upon the world. His presence was one of importance, only when Adolfo Reichenbach decided it so. The only person who wanted him without question was his Aunt Eliza, the closest thing to a Mother the lonely boy had ever known. Oh, and it was wonderful to be with Eliza, who bought him Turkish Delights, and spoke to him in a flurry of languages. If not for her, he would not have progressed as much as he had. At any rate, he was certainly use to being unwanted by his pretty Aunt, who hated him merely for existing, and had since they were children.

Ah, a young Christian, eager to have a playmate his own age. He had never seen a child his age, before Emilie Simone, who could not even be considered a child, even at that age. She had tricked him, something he had never forgiven, and got him into a great deal of trouble. And while he was receiving the cane, the five year old Christian, with his clear sky blue eyes and champagne locks and disproportionate grin, decided he would have nothing to do with that caring nonsense. Oh, how freeing that was. To merely stop caring about his pain or the pain of others.

Today's gain for tomorrows pain, so long as the gain carried on to the future. He had grown quite adept at that.

He smiled at her attempts to be blase, her azure eyes sparkling with delicious antipathy. Emilie had gone the opposite route of Christian, who did as he pleased when he pleased, and became puritanical in her life doctrine. Even her clothing was something made for tea parties at two, not for a teenage girl in class. The strange way of dressing did make her quite appealing, mind you. Far more attractive than if she were wearing low riders and tube tops and... stickers. Christian had never seemed like a boy, and Emilie had never seemed like she belonging in this era. It was the curse of their raising, something they accepted with no apologies or hard feelings.

When she requested he say nothing, Christian took it to mean the opposite. Oh, Millie Song Bird, always forgetting that Christian knew her, and her officiousness, better than anyone ever could. "A virgin, Millie. You know how I love those. There's something poetic about it, I think. A conquest, which no one else will be able to indulge in but me." Propping himself up on his elbows, he grinned devilishly. "But you see, this one is work. A real challenge. A kindling bandy, which I'm quite excited for. Far more interesting than that silly opal ring society nonsense. This one has no idea what will happen until there is no other option. Until it is an inevitability. I do love inevitability." His grin twisted around the corners, laying back, and texting Archibald Kensington.

'Ready when you are. _C'

"I daresay, this might even shock you. I know how much you like that... to be genuinely surprised. Tell me, are you anxious to see my little project, Song Bird. Don't lie now." He looked over at her, eyebrow arched, smirk in place.

If he was so unwanted by Millie Song Bird, than he would merely show her he was not unwanted by all. He would gloat, he would become a poppin jay. He would show her.

[EMILIE SIMONE]

He could have done this anywhere. Quite literally wherever he would have wanted. She needn’t have known of this particular escapade, or the next, or the one after that, or any of the others before now, truly. It wasn’t a lie to say she made no effort to find out. Then again, she typically didn’t need to. He was a fan of gloating, after all, and particularly when she was within hearing range, especially when she had been speaking to him from the beginning. He knew she found it disgusting. He was disgusting. Sick. Vile. Putrid. All the worst words for the worst things in the world wrapped up into one blonde-haired, blue-eyed bundle, and that was Emilie Simone’s outside view of Christian Reichenbach, and one of the few bits of herself she didn’t bother to lie about. At least, no one had called her out as lying. Then, she’d always been a wonderful actress.

A steady stream of apathy flowed off her face as she watched him, listened to him with the same blank (although not vacant) expression and resisted the urge once again to show him he might have gotten himself a reaction on any other day. She was tired, but not tired enough to stop the game. It was what gave her energy, after all, this little feud they had. She couldn’t even remember when it’d officially started, although she felt it safe to assume the answer lay in their first ever meeting.

“Oh, yes. Undeniably poetic. I’m sure that’s what they think of it too, when given the opportunity to—what was it you said?—indulge you.” Her words were smooth and silken, though he would no doubt be able to spot the barbed waspishness that hid behind their cool exterior. She watched him with slightly raised brows when he lay back again, unable to hide the displeasure in her glare at his current position on her bed. Still, she could hardly walk right over there and shove him off. No, best for him to think she’d given up minding. Oftentimes, it was true, Emilie had found indifference to be a much better weapon than anger, never mind the fact that she’d never made it a point to explode.

“You know,” she continued smoothly as though entirely unbothered, “One day, you’re bound to be disappointed by one of your ‘conquests.’ It’s an inevitability.” Offering him nothing more than a very small, sweet smile and a few blinks, she turned on her heel to move back to her closet, undoing the buttons on her coat as she did so. Once the piece had been removed and hung in its proper place, she turned back to him, petite arms crossed over her chest.

“No.” Simple enough. Calm, casual as though he’d just asked whether or not she liked the rainy weather. “However, I am curious. You see it’s just surprising, is all, that you’d bring them here, of all places. Surely you have other nooks in which you’d rather be. And then there’s the question of if I’d been entertaining…” she let the word roll off carefully, innocently, as though entirely unaware of all the implications of its use. Still, she watched him. “And how impolite that would have been, if you’d walked up here and let yourself and your little toy in, only to find your dear Auntie busy.”

She watched him sweetly for a moment, condescending in the most coy of ways when she continued. “So tell me, Christian, why show this one off? And why here?” There. Perhaps a little curiosity wouldn’t hurt.