Pinkgothic played:

Dread and Nechku

No fancy dinner tonight. Just a glass bowl, some field salad, onions, the finely chopped fleshy shells of tomatoes, and a simple vinaigrette, all fashioned in quiet introspective thought by herself, in the silence and pleasantly soothing solitude of her domain.

A warm light was set up to flood her living room and spilt as a prominent golden shaft into the kitchen as she turned its light off, fingers holding onto the edge of the bowl, right drifting to nudge the door open those few more inches for comfortable passage, and-

Her heart stopped, as did her motions. The vinaigrette swerved in the bowl from momentum.

In the corner of her couch, right arm draped comfortably across the back of it, sat a black-winged angel in perfect monochrome, ivory skin clashing with those dark brown eyes and black lips, attire like a solidified shadow, featureless but for a silver buckle on that belt. He was staring at her in silence, one leg crossing the other.

She stared back, lips trying to move to speak, to say something, anything, demeanour not quite decided on whether to be one of shock or raw fascination. He was here.

"Thank you, Miss Delaney-Dalca, for inviting me," Dread broke the silence, letting that light smile break into something warmer and broader. "I must say, I hadn't expected something this lavish. Your backup funds have been good to you, I see, very good. Forgive my sceptical curiosity, though - the entire mansion belongs to you alone?" It's like casual conversation between old friends, marvelling at each other's achievements and perhaps mildly jealous in subtext.

"...yes, I," Nechku began, before realising just how pale she must be, struck silent by that. Quietly, her gaze drifted down to her hand clutching that bowl, grip having tightened considerably. 'That's not what they mean when they say "get a grip", Dee,' she found herself scolding herself quietly, then swallowing consciously and dragging her gaze back up to her visitor with an almost childish curiosity. "It's mine, yes." That was much better. Hardly befitting for someone of her reputation, she was painfully aware of that, but still much better.

Dread's expression flowered into a fresh smile and he slid his arm down to pat the palm onto the seat of the couch beside him. "Come, sit down, let's talk, shall we?"

She wanted to take those steps forward, but something primal in her stopped the motion, rendering her as paralysed as before, unbudging, like a deer in headlights. 'He's here. You're already dead, you just don't know it yet.' A morbid excitement knotted in her gut, but she couldn't will herself to move, despite a note of embarrassment creeping into her about it, a nervous glance apologetic in nature.

A chuckle surfaced from the visitor, his gaze briefly jerking up to the ceiling reminiscent of an eyeroll, before settling back on Nechku. A slightly darker pitch of voice remarked: "Miss Delaney-Dalca, I'm already in your head, surely you realise that, there is no physical distance to bridge, we are already as intimately bonded as could possibly be." Pat. Pat. Assertively, but without losing the now somewhat disturbingly broad smile: "Now sit."

That did it. With regained practised grace, Nechku let go of the doorframe with her other hand that she hadn't quite noticed was anchoring her into place and walked across, silent on bare feet, careful in her step, as if there were something inheritely rude about making as much as a sound on her way across. As she slid to a sit, gaze as if glued to her visitor, the bowl automatically set itself down in her lap.

A mildly condescending quirk to the smile transitioned to a motion on part of Dread, leaning forward toward her, resting fingertips against the wrist of her left hand, and nudging it back into a rise, then tugging it across to the glass table, until the bottom of the bowl set down against it with a soft clack. Her hand sagged back into her lap and wide eyes continued to stare at Dread.

"So," Dread remarked, straightening his own posture a bit to look at her much like a parent about to make a stern speech about responsibility or priorities in life. "To get the potential dynamite out the way with, I understand you don't want to trap me for Cyrex, so there will be no kneejerk reaction to that. I even think I have a decent grasp of why you asked me here. But I'd like to hear it from you, thoughts can be so... fragmented and flighty. What precisely it is I can do for you?"

In her mind, the bright glint to his eyes and the grin befit a predator, courteous speech or not, and the knot in her gut tightened impossibly, as if it sought to steal her breath. She did have to remind herself to inhale and exhale, but didn't reflect on it, instead focussing entirely on her visitor with conscious thought. Almost automatically, spurned by the curiosity of how far the illusion went, her right hand rose, and even as she mulled an exact answer, fingertips drifted forward hoping to touch his face.

Dread's left hand slid up and fingers locked about the reaching wrist, thumb pressed against the inside of it, without breaking her gaze. Not a sound. Slowly, canting his head slightly as if to prompt for that verbal answer he was waiting for, he pulls the arm down nearly to the level of his lap. "You should say, you know," he prompted. "I don't often get people wishing to meet me on their own volition, you see." Finally, he let that probing stare drop and latch onto her wrist, shortly followed by the fingertips of his right hand drifting themselves across the inside of her lower arm idly. "You see, I'm not sure if your chronic boredom of life means that you would like me to end it for you..." - his thumb's nail travelled down her arm, tracing a lightly burning line across quietly protesting skin down to the prominent blue sheen of her wrist proper - "...or if you just want to play with fire." Light smile firmly established, he tugged his glance back up to her face.

A part of her was urging her to look away, as if his gaze were somehow hypnotic like a serpent of lore, but she fought it. Fire. As if. This wasn't a fire, it was like the nine levels of hell beckoning with their smouldering depth. "I'm sorry for being quite so speechless, I didn't think my opinion would matter," she found herself saying, so quietly that it could barely even pass as a whisper.

"Oh, au contraire, mademoiselle," he flashed a grin. "I have to know what I'm going to blatantly disregard, after all." Fingernails sunk against the trapped arm's skin just enough to prompt a miniscule jolt through her. His gaze was testing, as if he was trying to find the point when her thoughts would scatter into the nine winds and rational analysis took a hike in favour of a raw, animal fear.

But it wasn't happening yet. Still, somewhere inside her, she felt stupid. She'd not thought it through, of course, her offer. Why would anyone want to submit themselves to the danger of eternal entrapment for the thrill of it that wasn't her? And in many ways, it was so much more real for him, with how Cyrex didn't like him at all. Baby steps? "...if I... convinced Cyrex that you're worth his while, would you want to see the network through your own eyes?"

Without that he relented his grip on her arm with his left hand, his right drifted up to nudge two fingertips against her jaw. The left corner of his lower lip vanished beneath a row of white teeth for a moment of scrutiny. "I'm trying to find a word for you," he mulled aloud. "'Naive' isn't quite descriptive. But you do think a few very stupid, unfortunate things."

"Don't..." she found herself saying automatically, before she had a full sentence to grapple with, jolting back an inch on reflex alone. Breathing normally was hard. "Don't brush me off. Hear me out, please. You're young, I know, you're not bored of your power yet, to the degree I am, are you?" That was rambling, that wasn't good, that could only end badly. Backtrack. "I want to know about you, I want to know why you do what you do, I want to know who controls you, and why, because I want to be able to offer you something you don't have and I don't know what that is." Well. Great. Well done.

Dread's expression blanked. His hand dropped from the vicinity of her chin, down onto the seat of the couch between them. The barest, dangerous hint of venom entered his stare. Slowly, he tugged his hand from her wrist. With a tone that might be resentment or sadness or both, he answered:

"Except I'm not a kindred spirit."