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i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

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TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Dec 22, 2022 5:06:35 GMT

Elisabeth Fiorelli likes this

BARNABY FINCH was not known to be a patient man. Not with most things, anyway. His work was one key exception. He was methodical, in a way; a pragmatist at heart. And because his work dealt so much with interfacing with people, well, he’d learned to have the patience of a serpent waiting to strike.

Now was no different. Barnaby allowed Elisa to seize hold of his chin, her nails digging into the flesh there until it bled. One’s reflex might have been to pull away in that moment, but not his; instead, a steady hand raised to clench her wrist. Tight.

Barnaby didn’t want her to get away, either.

He maintained her hard eye contact without flinching, his next words spoken through gritted teeth:

“You speak of cruelty as if you are the only one in the world who has endured horrors.” Said with all the venom and accusation of a serpent’s hiss. “Don’t assume to know my scope or belittle my lived experiences.”

His grip tightened as his words took on a harder edge.

“What I did - out of my obligation to Rocket - was tame in comparison to the sorts of cruelties I’ve suffered. So no, I do not think I treated you badly.”

If anything, this exchange revealed how little Elisa knew about BARNABY FINCH. Now that she understood the truth of his identity, however, would Elisabeth Fiorelli choose to break things off here, at the precipice of true friendship?

A moment passed and within that short time he could feel his earlier exhaustion begin to seep into his bones. He sighed, heavy and forlorn. Slowly, his body leaned forward and, with his hand still on her wrist, Barnaby touched foreheads with Elisabeth Fiorelli.

In a softer, wearier voice, he asked of her:

“I never wanted to hurt you. Can’t you see that, Elisabeth?”

Why else would he still be here? He could have walked out the door so many times, left her wallowing in her misery on the floor, but he’d stayed.

Unlike the liars and the cheats and the abusers, he had stayed by her side at one of her lowest moments. Was that nothing in her eyes?
Elisabeth Fiorelli
☉

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Scarlet

Lisa Bortiforte

She/Her

August 30

Camphrier Town, Kalos

Bi/Heteroromantic

Bioterrorist

Underboss

5'9" / 175.26 cm height

Bury me in the roses and rot; I'll come back thorned.

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TAG WITH @elisabeth

POSTED ON Dec 22, 2022 5:39:31 GMT

BARNABY FINCH likes this

[nospaces]

[attr="class","elisatest"]

[attr="class","elisatestbody"]

The fastened grip on her wrist locked her in place as conflicting desires fought for dominance in her; part of her wanted to leave, but another part of her desperately wanted him to make her stay.[break][break]

"I know," she said brusquely, enduring the venom of his accusation with a stoicism of her own. "I'm not special in that way."[break][break]

Elisabeth didn't doubt BARNABY FINCH had suffered. Most people had. It was why she so rarely shared her own suffering in this way, as she had now, with him.[break][break]

Suffering was the great equalizer of humanity; not everyone knew love, but everyone assuredly knew hardship, in some form or another.[break][break]

His forehead pressed against hers and Elisabeth's heartbeat quickened, mind racing with confusion and frustration at his sudden proximity. It would be easier if he were trying to fuck you, she thought despite herself, his eyes staring through hers with unsettling intensity. You would know what he wanted. You would understand what all this means.[break][break]

He acted as if the abusers had always been cruel.[break][break]

As if the people who had hurt her most had never once cherished her, had never held her close and whispered to her sweet lies, apologizing for things that could not be undone, promising impossible things that she wanted to believe more than anything in the world.[break][break]

As if they had not ever been people she had loved.[break][break]

Moments like this -- the moments where her raw pain was laid bare, naked and exposed -- were when she left herself most vulnerable to that manipulation.[break][break]

When she trusted, only to be betrayed.[break][break]

When she forgave, only to be wronged again.[break][break]

Couldn't he see, how dangerous the things he demanded of her were? How weak they made her?[break][break][break]

“I never wanted to hurt you. Can’t you see that, Elisabeth?”

[break][break]

She ached to believe him.[break][break]

"You've suffered, too. So why do you care about my suffering?" she asked instead, the wounded rage faltering into a subdued whisper. "Why do you care what I think about you at all?"[break][break]

She'd believed what she'd said to him before:[break][break]

I am not special.

[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH[break][break]

NOTES

- Outfit.[break]
- Post-DotDD.

[attr="class","elisatestpkmn"]

[attr="class","elisatestcredit"]

MADE BY GUNSMILE

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Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

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TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Dec 28, 2022 18:56:29 GMT

Elisabeth Fiorelli likes this

She was special. Barnaby would not have wasted his time and wit on someone unworthy of it, after all. In his eyes, Elisabeth Fiorelli had always shined above the tides of mediocre ROCKETs. But he'd already said his piece, explained his view on her strength. He wouldn't continue to beat a dead PONYTA.

She'd have to come to that decision on her own, in time.

In terms of her questions to him - they were valid. Just minutes ago, Barnaby had confessed to coming here as a mere distraction from his own pain and confusion.

So why did he care about her suffering?

He paused to think, to consider the gravity of her words. And after a moment a realization came to him, which he vocalized in that same weary tone:

"You and I both know that life is too cruel to endure it alone forever. Let me shoulder some of your suffering," His fingers loosened on her wrist. "And you can shoulder some of mine."

Barnaby leaned away so that he could get a clearer look at Elisa's face…

"I know I can't have your trust immediately…"

…then leaned in once again, placing a light, meaningful kiss to her forehead.

"But this is me trying to make a start."

Finally, with a gentle hand, he attempted to pull her into his arms. As they embraced, he'd whisper into her hair, "I'm sorry for deceiving you, Elisa. I really am."
Elisabeth Fiorelli
☉

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Scarlet

Lisa Bortiforte

She/Her

August 30

Camphrier Town, Kalos

Bi/Heteroromantic

Bioterrorist

Underboss

5'9" / 175.26 cm height

Bury me in the roses and rot; I'll come back thorned.

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TAG WITH @elisabeth

POSTED ON Dec 28, 2022 22:59:41 GMT

jayden cross and BARNABY FINCH like this

[nospaces]

[attr="class","elisatest"]

[attr="class","elisatestbody"]

Kindness unmoored her.[break][break]

Lips brushed gently against her forehead as Bee's grip relinquished hers, pulling Elisabeth instead into an embrace that nothing in her understood.[break][break]

Is it me that's broken? The quiet thought dragged her into melancholy, the fires of indignation extinguished with its solemn observation. Am I just so used to sharp and jagged things now, that I can't believe in softness?[break][break]

When had it started? This rewiring?[break][break]

A memory came to her suddenly: a small Tepig whimpering, as if afraid of being struck, while her husband watched it with bored affectation. 'You shouldn't hit them,' he'd chided his staff, the low timbre of his voice rumbling with disapproval. 'They learn to fear you that way, and when they're grown, they'll turn on you.'[break][break]

He spoke that day as if his wife was not present.[break][break]

But Lisa Bortiforte watched what her husband did with his swine. Rewarding them for their good behavior. Teaching them to rely on him for food, for shelter, for affection. And she learned about the man she married, too, when those pigs misbehaved. How he isolated them from those comforts. How his kindness was only given as a reward for the things he wanted.[break][break][break]

"Je ne suis pas un de tes putains de cochons."

[break][break]

She would not turn gentle and soft in her husband's arms if he simply said the right words, or apologized for the right things. She would not be clay he could mold, she told herself, into some version of the perfect wife he had intended for her to become.[break][break]

But she had changed, in the end, hadn't she? In a different way. In a way that man had not intended her to.[break][break]

For a moment Elisabeth lingered here, immobile and frozen in Barnaby's arms, before the heaviness of the past weighed her down at last. Her head drooped low onto his chest, eyes fluttering shut as she curled close to him the way a child might seek warmth. The champagne's residue pressed to his clothes and skin, its sweet scent overwhelming as she drew near.[break][break]

"I don't understand you," she said again, but there was no fight left in her words. Fighting BARNABY FINCH had left her only more at a loss; nothing he said or did was what she expected from him, or what she thought he expected of her.[break][break]

Here, as his heartbeat rang loudly in her own ears, Elisabeth glanced up at this man she thought she had trusted and known.[break][break]

"Who are you, then? This person I'm meant to trust. Bee?" she asked. "Or Barnaby? Which part of you was real?"[break][break]

If any part of their friendship was real at all.

[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH[break][break]

NOTES

- Outfit.[break]
- Post-DotDD.

[attr="class","elisatestpkmn"]

[attr="class","elisatestcredit"]

MADE BY GUNSMILE

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played by

Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

awards

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TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Dec 28, 2022 23:43:39 GMT

Elisabeth Fiorelli likes this

"..." Her questions had struck a chord; unearthed a seething conflict that had been brewing in the recesses of Barnaby's psyche. At first he couldn't find the words to answer Elisa. And when words did finally come, they were anything but certain. "Sometimes I don't even know completely."

His voice was detached, hollow, sounding as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. No, actually, perhaps not that heavy... but at least the mass of three lives hanging, deadweight, in his mind.

Would Elisa be able to feel the way his body stiffened around her? Everything inside him screamed for Barnaby to stop, to not divulge, to continue to hide away his true self. To share the truth was to make oneself vulnerable. And yet...

"I've done undercover work for a long time now... years. Both Bee and Barnaby Finch are covers of mine. One identity hides the other."

Not all those in ROCKET could be trusted entirely. They were criminals, after all, and betrayal or even forced admission of information were some of the more mundane things that happened in their ranks. So, Barnaby took on the moniker Bee to better protect his journalist persona.

How to even begin to explain this to Elisabeth Fiorelli? To excuse his behavior?

He decided to start with a piece of personal information - an olive branch - that almost no one knew about.

"My given name is Barnaby L'oiseau. Finch is just a pseudonym I adopted when I began my career as a journalist."

When was the last time anyone called him by his real name? Let alone someone he cared about?

He couldn't even recall.
Elisabeth Fiorelli
☉

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Scarlet

Lisa Bortiforte

She/Her

August 30

Camphrier Town, Kalos

Bi/Heteroromantic

Bioterrorist

Underboss

5'9" / 175.26 cm height

Bury me in the roses and rot; I'll come back thorned.

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TAG WITH @elisabeth

POSTED ON Dec 29, 2022 0:46:10 GMT

BARNABY FINCH and ollie morales like this

[nospaces]

[attr="class","elisatest"]

[attr="class","elisatestbody"]

L'oiseau.[break][break]

"I know you," Elisabeth murmured suddenly, her emerald eyes sharpening with focus as she turned to him from the confines of his arms. "I... knew you."[break][break]

Not in the way they knew each other now, barriers falling apart to reveal naked truths exposed. But in the way that you could not miss the knowledge of the Silphs and the Stones of Hoenn.[break][break]

The L'oiseau men had sat across from her dinner table, having idle conversation with her husband regarding business deals, discussing ways that this powerful Lumiose City family might positively influence the growth of Bortiforte Industries through its multimedia conglomerate.[break][break]

There had been an underlying tension to those conversations that Elisabeth herself had caught onto, despite playing the part of observer in the background: a shift in power dynamics that left her husband on the backfoot, rather than in a position of authority.[break][break]

Barnaby possessed blood so blue it made Elisabeth's own appear diluted, dirty in comparison -- a paltry thing watered down by tradition and infamy, burdened by ambitions too great for either of her families to bear on their shoulders. The Bortifortes had strived to emulate houses like the L'oiseau, seeking to achieve even a fraction of the respect that this older house held within the region's capital.[break][break]

How close her husband had come to achieving that, before Elisabeth had burned that legacy to the ground.[break][break]

"We did walk in the same circles, back then. We were in the same rooms."[break][break]

Had she spoken to him, even once? Danced with him at one of those countless events and galas? What version of her might he have met back then? The shy, uncertain girl from the countryside, wide-eyed and innocent? The stoic, aloof CEO's wife? Or the mad woman in the manor, given leave only with strict supervision?[break][break]

A thought came to her like lightning: had she even slept with him, on a night like this one had almost been? Was he one of those nameless figures she had used in her spite as a weapon against her late husband?[break][break]

It horrified her, for a moment, that she didn't know.[break][break]

"I think I know what it's like," Elisabeth said softly, and this time her words were hushed. "What it means, to be more than one person. To live multiple lives."[break][break]

A hand gingerly raised itself to him, hesitant and unsure, before it mimicked the gesture that had rendered her defenseless for a moment. With a strange tenderness, she brushed aside the dark hair from his face to look into his eyes.[break][break]

Cobalt eyes met emerald, and when she looked into the fathomless sea of blue, it felt like for the first time she'd really seen him -- Barnaby L'oiseau -- as he truly was.[break][break]

"I want to trust you, mon oiseau."

[break][break]

BARNABY FINCH[break][break]

NOTES

- Outfit.[break]
- Post-DotDD.

[attr="class","elisatestpkmn"]

[attr="class","elisatestcredit"]

MADE BY GUNSMILE

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played by

Dove

Admin Bee

He / Him

April 12

Lumiose City, Kalos

Pansexual

Broadcast Journalist

Admin

6'0" / 183 cm height

i fell for your magic. i tasted your skin. and though this is tragic, at least i found the end.

awards

2,223 posts

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part of

TAG WITH @barnaby

POSTED ON Dec 29, 2022 2:40:30 GMT

Elisabeth Fiorelli and ollie morales like this

"Yes. I thought you might."

Barnaby loosened his embrace so that she could better twist around to face him.

"Just like I recognized you the first day we met. And not just because of the tabloids," He was quick to add with a soft interjection.

"But because of your family, too." Was he speaking of the Bortifortes or the Fiorellises? Perhaps a little of both. "Like I said before, we have more in common than you might think, Elisa."

It hadn't been pure speculation before when he'd said it, but now she had more context in which to view that statement. It seemed to soften her some, at least.

She admitted to knowing him. To commiserate with his lot in life. To understand, on some level, the way he walked between the lives of three separate men.

And Barnaby - Barnaby L'oiseau - was grateful for it.

He felt seen in a way he'd never felt seen before. Exposed to the basest level. And as Elisabeth Fiorelli took this vulnerability in hand, instead of crushing it, she whispered life into a man that had been shadowed for too long by the façades thrust onto him by ROCKET.

"Then trust me, mon fleur."

Where her fingers brushed strands of hair away, Barnaby once again took hold - this time pressing her palm to his cheek.

"Because I want to trust you, too."
Elisabeth Fiorelli
☉

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played by

Scarlet

Lisa Bortiforte

She/Her

August 30

Camphrier Town, Kalos

Bi/Heteroromantic

Bioterrorist

Underboss

5'9" / 175.26 cm height

Bury me in the roses and rot; I'll come back thorned.

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4,420 posts

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part of

TAG WITH @elisabeth