Closed RP - Backbiting, Betrayal and Porn (Lezard/Steff/Amaranth)

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

Normally, Steff didn't care much about whether Amaranth had company. The two of them were sharing a room in Hufflepuff, so when Steff needed to get something, she simply walked in.

Today, though, she found a scene that arrested her completely.

Amaranth was lying naked on her bed, on top of the covers. And beside her, head pillowed on one of her breasts and equally naked, was Lezard.

Steff crossed her arms over her chest and glared at the two of them. "Hi," she said, rather loudly. "I wasn't interrupting anything, was I?"

After several months of Steff and Lezard making out, Steff had never seen him naked. And here he was, naked as the day he was born, in Amaranth's bed. Even though she told herself Amy was just being nymphly, a not inconsiderable frisson of jealousy shot through her. She had to grit her teeth and remind herself that Amy was her best friend, and therefore she shouldn't try to vivisect her, which was what she really wanted to do.

Comments

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Had this sordid little scene played out at Magisterius University, it would have been prelude to a threesome. MU was a magical place indeed, a jardin sauvage if the Savage concerned was Dan. There, anyone worth anything was Good, Giving, and Game, and if they weren't yet, they'd spend a few months being berated for their prudery before they finally learned to embrace pleasurable shame.

Hogwarts was many things, but it was not MU.

As it happened, Steff was not interrupting anything. There was nothing to interrupt, because Amaranth hadn't actually succeeded in her valiant attempt to cheer Lezard up by judicious application of sex. He was out of sorts, and not particularly in the mood. He'd allowed himself to be cajoled out of his clothes and into bed, and then he'd proceeded to sulk and generally demand unsexy attention. Lots of whining was happening, but no sex.

And there definitely wasn't going to be any sex now that Steff had shown up. Far from welcoming this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a nymph-and-half-elf sandwich, Lezard sat bolt upright at the sound of Steff's voice, and immediately reached for his cloak.

His cloak, which had been hanging on Amy's bedpost. Oh, the symbolism, or something.

"Do you believe you are interrupting something? If so, what would be the proper course of action?" he growled. The way he was holding the cloak over the front of his body, it somewhat resembled a Slanket.

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

Amaranth sat up, dismayed by the reactions of her friends. Had this been MU, she might have actually succeeded in bringing about a threesome, but Lezard waqs clearly not having any.

"Oh, honey, you didn't interrupt anything," she said.

Steff completely ignored her, focusing her attention on Lezard. "Khersus, you're pissy," she groused. "It must have been good, whatever it was. And why the modesty? Gods, you're such a fucking prude."

This was a familliar argument, but she was ready to have it again. It wasn't fair. Amy could have had anyone else in her bed, and Steff wouldn't have cared, but she was bothered by the intimacy Lezard was showing someone that was not herself. She never would have admitted, even to herself, that she was jealous, but she clearly was.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was a familiar argument. It was perhaps the argument. Lezard's refusal to let Steff past the barrier of his magely garb had come to represent all the other things he denied her, some of them quite intangible and subtle, others ... not so much. It was a familiar argument and an old one, and up until now, he'd mostly been winning it -- partly because allowing the argument to surface openly was in itself to allow vulnerability, so the matter was rarely verbalized.

Lezard chose not to engage with that subject at all. He redirected the criticism. "Would I do better to follow your example? There may be some professors, or some strangers in the Sorting Room, who have not yet tasted all your charms." What, jealous? Lezard? Of course not. "As it happens, I have recently suffered a loss, and was discussing this with Amaranth. You would not understand."

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

"Well, at least the professors and the random guys in the sorting room aren't fucking prudes!" Steff shot back, much louder than was perhaps necessary to make her point. "And what kind of tragic loss have you suffered that you couldn't just magically fix?"

She was completely oblivious to the fact that Amaranth was looking uncomfortable and was eyeing the door, clearly planning her escape.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Lezard, too, was oblivious to Amaranth. His focus was wholly on Steff now. Not in a good way, alas. "If you truly care to know --" implication: she couldn't possibly have genuine concern for his loss -- "some time ago, I won a sizeable collection of artwork, in a game of chance against an odd little dwarf. The dwarf is now popcorn, and his sources are unknown to me. Someone, or something, has stolen (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1893786.html?thread=105846426#t105846426) the entire collection, and it is quite valuable, not in monetary worth but in aesthetic merit. I am inconsolable."

That's right, he just declared I am inconsolable!

And yes, he was talking about Tyrion's naked wizarding-pix of Cersei.

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

Steff laughed bitterly. "Inconsolable. Right. So who's idea was it for you to get naked and drool over Amaranth's boobs? That's not really how this is supposed to work." Steff was such a hypocrite. She did not care.

"Hey, some people think porn is very important," Amaranth offered helpfully.

"Porn? Wow... And here I thought this couldn't get more pathetic."

Amaranth finally decided she'd had enough. "I'm just going to leave you two to work out your issues," she said. "I really wish I could help, but I think you've got to deal with this on your own."

Steff was still ignoring her, at least until she caught a flash of metal and found herself looking down at Amaranth's legs as she left. She caught a glimpse of the same anklet Lezard had given her on Amaranth's ankle. And since Steff was wearing her own... well... that meant only one thing.

"So how many people are you fucking?" she asked once Amaranth had gone. "And how many did you feel the need to give presents to?"

She was in a towering rage, and was pissed that there weren't a sufficient number of objects to throw at Lezard. Not that that would do much good, but it would make her feel better.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Lezard did not have time to explain how the collection was not pornography but erotic artwork (sure), and how it was irreplaceable by virtue of its provenance and nature (one did not find obsessive, incestuous dwarves around every corner, and of those, how many had exquisitely beautiful blondes for sisters?) Steff had already found something new to be angry about.

"My number of conquests can hardly hope to rival yours," he retorted. "I can at least count them. It must be that you take exception to my generosity -- but you have always known I am generous." Whether people liked it or not, whether they agreed with his idea of generosity or not. "Should I shower you with gold? Would that please you?"

Oh, Lezard, did no one ever tell you what a golden shower was?

Meanwhile, he was totally missing the point. In fact, he went on to make it worse (as usual): "There are persons to whom I've given gifts without expecting a carnal quid pro quo. Indeed, if you insist on using such crude language, should I point out I have never fucked you?" Bad words sounded stupid when Lezard enrobed them in cheesy prose. "Or do so many encounters run together indistinguishably in your memory?"

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

"You are so fucking dense," Steff cried, slamming her fist onto the dresser for emphasis. It did not help. "The point isn't that you give people presents. It's that you had the gall to give me and Amy the *same* present. At least I'm open about the people I'm fucking, and not trying to be such a gods-damned sleazeball about it. How many other people have those anklet things? And have you fucked them, too? Is it just me you won't touch?"

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Lezard frowned. It was dawning on him that Steff had a point in re the giving of identical gifts, but he was not presently disposed to admit error. "There are three of those anklets, in all. Technically, I have only attempted coitus with one of the recipients. The others are yourself and a young lady of whom I've become fond. Does this satisfy your curiosity?"

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

"What's the other one's name?" Steff demanded harshly. "Can you at least fucking tell me that?" Probably it would not be a good idea, because in Steff's present frame of mind, she was likely to decide choking a bitch would be a good use of her time.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Lezard was growing increasingly uncomfortable. The questions Steff asked were easy enough to dodge or repurpose into barbs; rather, there was a different kind of probing that Lezard feared. Michael Scott's warnings nagged at him. He would have to teleport out of this room, or dematerialize entirely, to protect himself from the inchoate danger Steff represented.

"I could tell you that, but I see no reason why I should," was his terse reply; then he vanished to the relative safety of his rooms. He was bargaining that Steff's rage would preclude any kind of systematic search for his whereabouts, and further gambling that his rooms would be the last place anyone might look for him (it being the most obvious place to go).

He certainly had no inkling of what Steff would do.

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

Steff left her room in a torrent of rage and upset. A part of her was wondering why the hell she was even bothering. Obviously, though Lezard was fun to make out with, and though they did share similar interests, she could do so much better. Maybe she should concentrate on that... cultivate her relationship with Professor Harkonnen more, or something.

But the more she thought about it, the more she decided that what she actually needed was revenge.

After some inquiries, she ended up in the austere quarters of Olympia Binewski, who perpetually had a cauldron of polyjuice potion brewing for her own purposes. Steff wasn't bothered by Oly's dwarfishness, and, after the exchange of some witty banter, not to mention a small amount of cash, Steff had what she was looking for.

She wasn't sure what sort of person she should be looking to transform herself into, but inspiration struck in the Great Hall, in the form of Cathy Dollanganger, who was at the moment admiring herself in a mirror. It was the work of a moment to slip up behind the woman, yank some of her hair, and slip away, with Cathy none the wiser.

Steff affected the transformation in a nearby girls' bathroom, and studied the effect critically. Not bad, she decided, if a bit old. Now to find and corner Lezard before the potion wore off.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

By then, Lezard would have supposed Steff had found something better to do. He assumed her style was limited to immediate and violent reprisals; he had no notion she could actually, well, plan anything. She seemed to him a creature of impulse and poorly-restrained appetite.

Much like himself. Which should have clued him in that she could plan and plot just as well as any other obsessive and maladjusted necromancer. It was kind of an occupational necessity.

When "Cathy Dollanganger" found him, he was lounging around in the Little Green Apple, reading some Muggle quantum physics, which he found droll beyond imagining. At his side was a Black Magic (http://cocktails.about.com/od/vodkadrinkrecipes/r/black_magic.htm), scarcely touched. He'd ordered it for the name, but decided it tasted girly.

He did not expect to see Cathy here. Though anyone in the school could go to the Little Green Apple, it seemed to him he mostly saw Slytherins here. Ravenclaws and Gryffindors tended to frequent the Ravenclaw bar, and Hufflepuffs could go either way depending on their proclivities; then, too, Hufflepuff had its own ... "foodlibraries"... now. Cathy was what, a Tootsitramp? In a way he envied her the breathing room. Tootsitramp was a House of exceptionally sparse population.

Though her presence was unexpected, however, it was far from unexpected. He rose and bowed to her. A beautiful woman took precedence over Muggle physics any day.

Hm. There might be a good pickup line in that. Chemistry over physics ...? Keeping track of the Earth words for sciences would be a necessity for that, however. Regretfully he shelved the idea, and said only, "Lady Catherine, what a delightful surprise. Would you join me?" He offered her the Black Magic.

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

((Excuse the lack of Cathy icons. I've still been too lazy to upload one. XD))

Steff had to resist the urge to scowl. Oh, so Lezard knew this woman, too. Had he fucked her, too? Given how self-obsessed she was, she was probably a skank, and so the answer was probably yes.

"Why, thank you," she simpered, hating herself even as she did it. She took the glass and sipped delicately. "Golly-lolly, that looks like heavy reading." She batted her eyes coquettishly, even as she hated herself for even thinking the phrase "golly lolly" much less saying it out loud.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Lezard smiled at her -- smiled a wholly uncomplicated and appreciative smile. She was pretty and she thought he was smart, and these were good things. And he knew her, not well but well enough; he'd met her before, and felt positive she wouldn't turn out the way Yukimura had. (Never again would he pick up a beautiful stranger in the Little Green Apple. He had no appetite for kimono surprise.)

"This world does not yet know enough to combine 'science' and 'magic'. What the wizards call 'dark arts' come closest to approaching a true understanding of matter and energy. But I am not a theoretician; my work is more, hmm, hands-on." He set the book decisively aside. "How have you been taking to Hogwarts? I hope you have found occasion to enjoy the small gift (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1887052.html) I was able to offer when last we met."

[steff-is-a-girl.livejournal.com]

Gift? He sent this skanky bitch gifts? Probably it was another of those tacky anklet things.

"Oh yes," Steff simpered. "I liked it very much. It was very thoughtful of you, and highly original." Subtle pwnage, thy name is... clearly not Steff Johnson.

[arrogantmage.livejournal.com]

Thoughtful and original! Of course he was. But how few people had the wit and grace to see it! He found himself warming to Cathy.

"It is my pleasure to please you, even in such small ways. I do regret that I have been occupied so thoroughly as not to permit more frequent conversation. I hope the school has become more congenial to you. Envy causes ordinary people to behave so cruelly. Have you been very lonely?"