Who: Helen (immaterialed) & Hector (armystrong) What: Helen getting what she wants. When: Around the 10th or so. Where: Seattle, Hector's place Warnings: Sexuality
Those golden locks of hair were bothering her, Helen considered cutting her hair and changing its colour- mostly because she could do that (it would look good anyway) but after sitting at the saloon for hours she had changed her mind and simply had her hair done. Pinned up neatly as if she were going to a party or such (she was not, only heading home- perhaps she could talk Hector into going out). An unlikely scenario knowing the noble prince, then Helen considered that perhaps another act of appreciation would reward her once more with Khaos' attention.
A drug, she wanted more of, it had not been healthy not the first time nor the other night, but she craved it. Sandpaper tongue crawling along her thigh, bite, claw, tear- make a mess of nothing. Paint the walls red- breathe, breathe- Helen put those thoughts away- but they kept coming back to her as she headed home.
Slow deliberate steps, she had a way of walking, how she flicked her hair - glanced- to the smallest movements of her wrists. Power lurked beneath those, deceptively harmless, but Helen was anything but that.
Keys jingled in her fingertips as she opened the door, and she was smiling (to herself, a little half-crazed smile of a woman not really there, but dreaming of more. Battlefields, blood, death).
From his place at the dining table, Hector glanced up at the sound of keys. Of course he knew who it was, but she hadn't come home this late in a while, and he'd been wondering where she'd wandered off to. But Helen was her own woman, especially because they were not lovers (even though she wished it, and he was uncertain about everything), so for him to question her whereabouts like a displeased spouse or father wasn't fair to her.
Unless that was what she wanted: for him to wonder where she was. It would be a Helen thing to do.
He tapped a few windows closed on his laptop and pressed the warm top down, waiting for her to appear through the doorway.
And appear she did, looking much as she did- beautiful in a dangerous sort of manner that a man like Hector would recognize. He was not someone who would be easily tricked by Helen's beauty and words, part of why he was considered a challenge for her. The keys were tossed aside, her coat shrugged off and heels left to the side (neatly compared to the careless way she'd flung about everything else), and then she- and only then- did Helen turn her eyes to him.
It would be a Helen thing to do, Hector was right, but Helen had come to expect nothing from him. No reply to her advances- nothing. So instead, she walked in, offering a quick wave of the hand as greeting.
In return, he gave her a curt nod, leaning back into his chair. "Welcome back." A pause. "Long day?" It was Hector's indirect way of asking 'did you spend the entire day out and is that why you're late?' without really asking it, even though he thought it and had considered, just for a moment, if he should really pry when it wasn't his business.
But now and then, he did want to learn details of her daily life that he didn't see when they were apart. Places she went, people she saw. Was that curiosity or nosiness? Hector couldn't be sure.
His indirectness was met playfully, Helen stopped her path to the kitchen and turned in his direction, walking towards him. (Or more like stalking towards him, because it was a rather predatory way- how she swung her hips and held her head, the look in her eyes. It was there and then off when she came an arm's length away. "Yes, it was a long day. Was yours?" Did you miss me?
Helen would take his questions as 'progress' she wanted his curiosity, nosiness, interest- everything, just moremoremore.
"Relatively short, actually," Hector revealed with a sigh, as if he was disappointed -- and he was. He enjoyed being busy just as much as he enjoyed being free of duty, but restlessness was not something he found comfortable, and so he preferred having things to do.
"Are you hungry?" It felt like the right thing to ask after she'd been gone most of the day, but he had no idea if she'd eaten or not.
"Not happy about a short day?" That would make sense, Hector was so much more, he was not intended to be a gym instructor, he was a prince. Troy may be long gone, but they still remained.
The smile she gave was cheeky, "Yes," And then she was looking at him as if she were planning to have dear Hector for dinner. In actually she was not hungry at all, not for food anyway. "What about you? Hungry?" The paused a little for effect and meaning to sink in properly.
"Now that you mention it, yes." Troy's once glorious warrior stood, with appropriate regality. Not even two feet from her, Hector admired her face in the silence than fell, and with intention rather than instinct, he reached out a hand to tuck a golden strand of hair behind one ear. Regret overcame him the moment he did it, but still his hand remained, hovering at her neck.
If that was the right time to say something deep and meaningful, he missed it entirely.
Helen was not a woman easily caught off-guard, but he managed it, and suddenly her pulse seemed to be racing (against her will, there was nothing she wanted less than to be worked up and unsatisfied like Hector always managed to leave her). For a second she debated being angry with him, then decided that would not do, so instead Helen leaned a little against his hand. It probably was the right time to say something. Anything. Men could be so thick.
So Helen waited for his next move, carefully shielding herself against the inevitable rejection she had come to expect. Sooner or later.
But it didn't come. Not immediately. Instead, Hector pressed his palm to her cheek, thumb skirting over cheekbone once, twice. And when he took a breath, his shoulders rose.
"Helen... I'm sorry for any grief I've caused you these last few months." He spoke quietly, assessing each sentence before speaking. Though he was no poet, he'd come to learn what sort of things Helen didn't want to hear. And what things she did -- or at least he thought so.
"If there was a way I could make it up to you, let me know it."
Deep down, Helen could never predict Hector- respect him, admire him, even understand him and know him yes- but he could do things and create chaos without intention. It was mostly wonderful, and that feeling caused her to press her cheek against his palm.
Though in a way, Helen thought his offer far too generous - no less than she deserved, of course, but still. "You know how." Grief, had he really caused her grief? More like discomfort, nothing as deep as grief. Never, no man touched her that deep.
Her hand rose to rest on his, drawing his palm across her cheek, jaw- so she could kiss it. All the while she kept her eyes on him wanting to see his reactions.
Although little emotion flickered across Hector's face, he could feel it inside, stirring uncomfortably in his gut. There was no way to tell for certain what it was, but it was enough to have him leaning forward, his hand still pressed to her face as he stepped closer, eliminating much of the space between them. Rather than kissing her lips, her touched a kiss to her forehead, resting there for a moment or two.
"You ask so much of me, Helen."
The urge to stab him was there, the need to pin him against the couch and devour him whole- but Helen did neither, instead closing her eyes a sorrowful expression crossing her fair face. How much of it was real? Little. Maybe not so little. Helen was still Helen and would break that armour of his (even if unknowingly it broke her own in the proccess).
"Is loving me such a terrible thing?" Of course it was, she brought death with her, Helen didn't love (maybe she could not) but this was perhaps as close as she got... it was truly difficult to tell, what she was now- everything and nothing. Khaos- no order.
"Do I disgust you that much? Do you keep me out of pity for what happened? Out of duty for your brother?"
The very mention of his brother had Hector tightening his jaw. Evidently, it was a sore topic, one that he hadn't expected to turn up -- but how could he have doubted it would? This was Helen, after all. She was once Paris' love.
"I love my brother as I always have, but he will always be young at heart and foolish. Had he thought with his head instead of his heart, perhaps circumstances would have been different."
He dropped his hand, fingers curling into a fist.
"I owe Paris no duty. And I do not keep you here out of pity, nor do you disgust me."
Very purposely flinching when he withdrew his touch, Helen looked at him- confused, and perhaps just a tiny bit of true anger behind that. "Then out of friendship?" That was the easy way out, claim friendship, the road Helen expected him to seize. It would be disappointing but life was made of those.
Life was also so very long at times.
"Loving me is so terrible and difficult for you?" A rhetorical question, Helen knew that to be true, but she wanted him to say it so she could strike him.
Maybe that was what Hector needed: a good slap. Perhaps it'd set his head straight, at least for a short time.
"Helen..." He smoothed a palm across his forehead, feeling a headache slowly coming on. Arguing over such petty things was such a chore. It was within his best interests to end it soon.
"It is not that I don't love you. I have always considered you a sister, as much a sister as Cassandra is to me, so it has never been an issue of not loving you at all." His hand fell. "It is that I can't love you the way you wish me to." A pause --
"I can't give you what you ask of me."
She slipped her hands up, cupping his face so very gently when he spoke those words, "I see." Such deceptive calm, such delicate little fingertips creeping along. Oh how precious he was- this prince, who resisted her like no one else. It wounded something deep in her- it wounded her pride, there was someone out there who defied her- who denied her what she wanted. Then again Hector was not the last man on Earth.
She lifted up for a kiss, playful, maybe to prove a point.
And he gave her that, that one kiss, as though it'd be the last one he'd ever let her take. Hector met her halfway, already regretting the action as his lips touched hers, because this meant defeat. Maybe it even meant that the words he'd spoken were a lie.
But resisting Helen hadn't always been an easy task. Now less so than ever.
And she took it as if it were the last kiss they would share, slipping her hand in his hair. He had met her halfway and that was all the permission she needed to deepen it, twisting herself against him. It was pleasant, he was warm and she liked being warm, held and loved.
Except he had told her, he did not.
Hector, in turn, trailed hesitant fingers along the slender column of her neck, allowing them to curl around the back so that his thumb could settle along the line of her jaw. Though he felt incredibly conflicted, he couldn't find it within himself to stop. The affection, the warmth, the closeness to someone -- he'd craved it like the worst addiction, but was it for Helen, or was it for his wife, who he so longed to be reuinited with?
For the moment, it didn't matter as he continued to reciprocate, all thoughts of Andromache cast from his mind.
Boy, would Helen not be pleased at the comparison, but those thoughts were unknown to her and so she very gently press closer, soothing him with deft fingers. She was happy to let it build, as long as he kept meeting her halfway she would not stop. There was something sad and ironic, that he told her no and did it. Something Helen found perfect, not because it amused her but because actions spoke louder than words- especially with Hector.
She gave him what he wanted (because it was what she wanted too)- to lay with the most beautiful woman, most wouldn't hesitate- most would kill for the place- but Hector fought it. Helen smiled into the kisses, the more he reciprocated, the less she wanted to stop.
Like the hypocrite he was, Hector coaxed her away from the table, still unaware of what it was exactly that he wanted (needed?) from the blonde beauty. Actions did speak louder than words, surely, but these were actions that whispered rather than spoke -- and he was struggling to hear what they were saying. Instinct and shame battled fiercely within his headspace, one carrying him away while the other wished to keep him rooted on the spot --
-- and so instinct came out the victor, leading him deeper into temptation so that he would have every opportunity to despise himself in the morning for this.