[Emily Littleton] White was the night. The city slumbered under a blanket of snow, made new again and again by the lightly falling same. Each shape, clear cut and defined in summer, had been rehewn, softened, rendered indistinct by the blanketing of winter. The eddies and whorls of coldness swirled the falling flakes, bit into exposed skin, called bones to aching, added years of weariness to the soul.
By all accounts, Emily should not have been out in the near midnight by herself. She should not have answered the call of the small hours and strayed away from warm halls and hearths. She should not, should definitely not, have wandered off without telling anyone where she might be found. Emily should not... but she had.
Her footsteps trailed behind her, dark like ants on an autumn path, tell tale markers of her has-beens and indications of her will-be-soons. Over time, the wind and the snow would fill them in again, erase her passage here. It felt poetically apt to be so transiently disconnected.
[Jarod Nightingale] There were a great many places within Chicago that Jarod Nightingale could have been right now, any number of which would have been both warmer and trendier than Grant Park in the middle of the night just after a snowstorm. He could have been dancing at a club. He could have been at a late-night sushi bar with Nick (who had, in fact, called to invite him to one earlier.) Hell, he could have even been at home. (He could have been having sex. But then, there was seldom a time when he didn't have the option of sex if he chose to look for it.)
Instead, he was here, enduring the delicate bite of tiny snow crystals against his face as the Chicago wind blew around what had been piling up last night and part of today. It was almost post-card beautiful, if you happened to like winter. But most people preferred to look on from the safety of their cars and homes, not trek about in the cold. And it was cold. Not the breath-stealing unbearable cold of mid-January, but definitely getting there. It wasn't safe to be out in this weather without the proper clothes.
Sane people did not enjoy this kind of cold. But Jarod did. It was home. It was familiar. It was cleansing. Even if it was a little painful, too. By now his body had adjusted, and he didn't feel the need to shiver or put on another layer. What little skin was exposed had gone faintly numb, and the core of his body (the important part) was kept regulated by his expensive coat. It didn't precisely look it, but the layer of soft fake-fur on the inside kept out the biting wind quite well.
Emily was walking. Jarod was sitting on a bench. One might wonder that he would freeze that way. Snowflakes had caught in his eyelashes. If he held very still, which is precisely what he was doing at the moment, someone might mistake him for a statue.
[Emily Littleton] Having the proper clothes was key to surviving winters in the midwest. Emily, however, simply layered what she did have and made do. Tonight it meant she kept moving, kept walking, rather than sat down in quiet repose. Her fingers had long since gone numb, but weren't too cold to move. That was the marker of when she'd spent too long out in the cold. When her hands hurt to move, it was time to find warmer places, fumble with the keys in the car ignition, run the heater until she started to unfurl.
She saw a figure on the bench up ahead, but the sillhouette didn't register just yet. She was too tied up in the whatever thoughts had tangled up her inner monologue. Her hair was down, serving as a poor replacement for a proper hat, keeping her ears warm(er).
Her trajectory took her by the bench, nearer to the only other soul she'd come across in the dark. Emily moved to the distal side of the path, preparing to give them wide berth, protecting their reverie. It was too late to be social, not the time for how-do-you-dos. It wasn't until she was almost before the bench that she noticed a familiar shape to the man sitting there.
Her footsteps slowed, and the cold caught up with her. Emily came to a stop, and shivered slightly.
It was too late to be out in the too cold of midnight. It was too late to be out alone. Perhaps that was why the Universe put Jarod along her path, again, once again. Perhaps he was as surreal as he seemed, imagined, Immanent. Even the cold failed to touch him...
[Jarod Nightingale] It wasn't that the cold failed to touch him. It was that he was very good at focusing his attention away from the discomfort. An acquired skill, especially for someone from as warm a city as he'd grown up in (but oh, we don't talk about that place these days.) All the more evidence that he'd never really belonged there. Clearly he took to cold weather like a native, now. He'd had plenty of practice since turning 18. The primordial piece of him required moments of frozen meditation. It didn't need to make sense logically. It made sense when you looked at him and saw how absolutely at peace he was.
When Emily approached, his eyes caught upon her, and for a moment his brows went up slightly. Likely, just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. The wind blew a light gust of scattered snow in their direction, and it wasn't until after it had died down that Jarod spoke. "Not exactly optimal weather for a midnight walk." Said the pot to the kettle. And then, with a tilt of his head (a curious expression, almost animalistic), he asked, "... Is everything alright?"
[Emily Littleton] Endurance. Midnight in the snow was about something other than peace for Emily. It was about the struggle to keep warm, the acutely focused attention that came from whiting out her other senses and only being able to sensibly handle one, immoveable truth: It was cold. The air tasted cold, her ears rang lightly from chill wind whispering into them, her skin stung, her bones ached, the city was subsumed by winter. It all came down to a hyper vigilant moment. Emily was one, entirely, with being cold, and in that unity she could think more clearly about everything else.
It quieted her, but that quiet was not peaceful.
She closed her eyes against the gust of wind, shivering again as it pushed through her. Cold stuck its frozen fingers through all the pulled threads, missed stitches, worn places in her layers and tickled her ribs. She blinked her eyes open, but failed to dislodge the tiny crystals that clung to her lashes. They were bright against the dark of her lashes, her hair. In this low light, her eyes were simply dark, bereft of any hue. Monochromatic; she was quieter in visage as well.
"You seem well enough..." she said, softly, answering his remark about the cold. If it was warm enough for Jarod, then it was warm enough for her. Some such nonsense. Emily's voice barely carried across the space between them.
At his question, she looked away and down for a moment, shifted her weight a bit, looked back to him -- all in one fluid shuffle, one (fine, thank you) perfectly Emilyesque denial. "I'm just taking a walk," she said, as if it was the most normal thing ever. Strolling Grant Park in a light, midnight snowing.
"You?" The question turned, artfully redirected toward Jarod. Now it was Emily who looked at him with a mild curiosity (concern?). Perhaps it was not Jarod whom the Universe sent out to find Emily. Perhaps Emily had been sent to find him.
[Jarod Nightingale] Perhaps they'd been sent to find each other.
But that sort of thinking was nowhere near the range of thought-patterns that occurred in Jarod's own mind. He was an Awakened soul who didn't believe in fate. Or any of that sort of nonsense. People made their own realities. Perhaps that was why, sometimes, he preferred not to be around people at all. Even trees had more sense. More grounding. They did not imagine a make-believe life made of plastic and wires. They simply were. The very basic essence of life. (But now we're getting ahead of ourselves, and if indeed that was what Jarod thought about, then he was a study in contradiction indeed.)
He took in a breath, and the air ripped the heat from his lungs. Frozen. "I felt like being alone. The cold helps me think." It burns away everything that is not necessary. Still, he stood up after saying this, absently brushing the stray bits of ice out of his hair and off his jeans. "But I suppose I've been alone long enough, now."
[Emily Littleton] "Are you sure?" she asked, leaning a little away, looking back down the pathway along which she'd come. In the small hours of the night, each interaction seemed more precarious. Fragile. "I could away, and leave you to your thoughts."
She swayed a bit on her feet, just to keep moving, just to keep her legs from tensing too much against the night chill. Emily was only half here, trespassing on his need to be alone, and she could shift out of frame and be gone just as easily as she could stay. They could forget that they'd come near enough to nearly touch, two spheres of alone-ness kissing in the frozen air. She could turn around to go, and if he waited long enough it would be as if she'd never arrived.
She could away -- that sweetly foreign tinge to her voice, her syntax, it gave her away as something familiar but not quite yet known.
Emily swayed, like a pendulum caught between two outcomes, waiting even as he stood, brushed away the crystalline encasements of idleness, became animate and less reposed.
[Jarod Nightingale] I suppose I've been alone long enough, now.
The words resonated strangely, crawling up his spine. As if he'd given them more meaning than had been his intention. This dislodged him momentarily from his place of perfect repose, and a slight frown touched at the edges of his expression as he glanced away, down the cement pathway that had been completely hidden by a layer of snow.
They could forget that they'd come near enough to nearly touch.
"We should both get indoors, I think," he finally answered, without really answering. But then he looked at her, and he reached out to put both of his gloved hands on either side of her face, pulling her into a kiss that was a bit more heady and intense than would be expected so soon after greeting (and in such an inclement environment.) His lips were ice cold. A shock to the senses. But underneath it, there was warmth left in his body yet, and it thawed the ice when he breathed.
When he wanted, it was all-encompassing. And he wanted... something. What that something was... was likely a bit more complex than initial appearance.
"You're freezing," he added, perhaps with some irony (although it wasn't evident in his voice), and then he kissed her again, harder, as if he could chase away the cold, before pulling away and beginning, without waiting, to walk back towards the underground lot where his car was located. "Come back with me?"
[Emily Littleton] You're freezing... She was every bit as cold as he, and with the thermometer shortening with every moment it was no time to quarrel over whose nose was colder, whose lips number, whose shoulders more dusted with wayward snow. Their outmost layers were frigid, cold enough to register pressure before heat, to tingle uncomfortably at the press of something warm and humid and ...
"Mmmm..." Emily's first reply was a low, resonant sound that curled up from the back of her throat as he pulled away just enough to speak. Her eyes had not yet opened, her lips remained slightly parted. Something within her warmed, but could not yet unfurl against the cold. She was... distracted. The carefully hewn attention, lost. Loosed. As if it had never been honed, refined, studied.
When he pulled away, Winter rushed back in to fill the void. It was cruelly cold in comparison, and she shivered more than she'd meant to. Emily looked after him for moment, perplexed, but Jarod didn't wait. Soon she could see little bits of snowfall between them. Her brow furrowed, and her mouth pursed, then Emily hurried after him, trying to make up lost ground without slipping on the snow-slicked path.
"I..." she started, closing the distance between them. She shouldn't, was what she meant to say. She couldn't, would have also worked. She shouldn't have been out in the near midnight, and she shouldn't go home with strange men, and she... but she.. The objections fell away and she fell instep beside him. Emily snaked one of her arms around his. (Okay...)
[Jarod Nightingale] His actions could be described as slightly manipulative. Selfish, even. But then, pretty much everything he did was ultimately for selfish reasons (and if they weren't, he'd pretend that they were), so this was hardly unusual. Hopefully Emily had enough perspective to have already noticed this about him. And yet... as she'd already surmised, he was also prone to contradiction. (Or maybe that was only when in her presence.) Regardless, he behaved as if he knew that she would not mind his kissing her, and that she would ultimately follow along at his request. If he had wondered, he would have waited before starting off. At least, that was the logical conclusion.
And Emily had objections, and maybe he was aware that she probably would. Maybe he was also aware that she would let them fall away. (As he had his own.) When she fell in beside him, he didn't look at her until she reached out to tuck her arm around his own. Then he glanced down, as if he found this slightly surprising, but ultimately he neither commented on it nor made any attempt to dislodge her. Mostly because his thoughts were a murky haze of instinct and desire, and he wanted her close. Closer.
(It was a wonder he could even have such thoughts on his mind when his body temperature was so low.) But there it was. (And if the weather had been more amenable, he might not have wanted to wait to get inside.) Despite the slickness of the ground beneath them, Jarod sped up his steps slightly. His footing was very sure. Perfect. An uncanny sense of balance. His eyes were darker than usual. Nearly black, with only a slight ring of deep blue surrounding enlarged pupils, and he took in another deep breath before leaning in and nuzzling at Emily's neck, through the wall of hair and snow. "Mmm," his voice sounded quietly as he breathed in the smell of her. "I'm pretty sure I can think of a few ways to warm us up."
And then they were crossing the street towards the parking garage, and Jarod had to pull away to look where he was going.
[Emily Littleton] She had no perspective, whatsoever, on Jarod. Part of why she'd come out into the cold, away from everything familiar, away from everything comfortable, part of why she was courting the small hours was to gain some perspective on things like Jarod. The new and fantastic things that had swept into her life and left everything unsettled, upturned. Chaotic.
Emily did not like the chaos of unknowing. She didn't like the unsettled nature of going too long without some introspection. Even more than that, she could not bear the feeling that she might be, in some small hopeful corner of her mind, forming an attachment to Jarod. It was something she couldn't sustain, not for long. Emily was never around long enough to let these feelings linger, flourish, develop into anything more than a warm body, a few meaningful conversations, a budding friendship... then it got nipped off, trampled, somehow and she was off to start anew.
So there was a feeling of finality in the (freer [fading]) quiet laugh the welled up from her center when he nuzzled her neck, and murmured in her ear. "Oh really?" There was something almost sad hidden beneath the delectable curl of her mouth (wryly [tempting]), something futile in the way she gave herself over to him.
Emily was going to have to leave. It was coming. She knew it, deep in her bones, the way she knew the cold. It was as sure as Jarod's footing in the slick street, as certain as any law of moving bodies.
These were thoughts she would be happy to leave to the cold, to lose in the flood of sensation rushing back in and over her, to forget about, quickly, before their resident sadness could color anything he might notice.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Yes, really."
It was a good thing that Jarod didn't try to read her mind, at this precise moment. So he might remain blissfully unaware of how close they both tread to some kind of precipice. There might be pain there. Inevitable. Pre-determined (but he didn't believe in fate, right?). All of this, such as it was... was fleeting. Experiences and intimacies that drifted by on the wind and then were gone. Perhaps that was the most that either of them could ever hope for. (Perhaps that was all the more reason to enjoy it while it lasted.)
Or maybe all that he wanted was meaningless, casual sex. Except that Jarod never had meaningless, casual sex, even when he was doing what most would assume to be precisely that. He didn't even like to use the term. (If it's casual, you aren't doing it right.) Just because love (did that emotion even exist?) wasn't involved, and all the supposed rules that went along with it, did not mean that what Jarod did with near-strangers in his bedroom (and various other assorted locations) was... meaningless. Forgettable. No.
And somehow in the midst of all of the subtext and memories and repressed thoughts, the two of them ended up beside his car in the parking lot. And despite the fact that there were cameras, the moment they got there, he turned and pushed Emily against the side of the passenger door. Not hard enough to be construed as overly-aggressive, but enough so that it might have come as a surprise. And before she could say anything (if she had the mind to), he melted against her body (heavily clothed though they both were) and kissed her again.
And it was a proper kiss this time, and it lasted... for a long time.
[Emily Littleton] This illustrated exactly how different their worlds were. There were cameras, but Emily didn't even think about them. They were there to record what happened when things happened that weren't supposed to happen. When people transgressed on others' property, or acted outside of the societally agreed upon lines. Emily did not consider that their might be camera eyes pointed toward them, because her life had never risen to that level of interest (intrigue). Cameras didn't waste their time with (Orphans) white noise.
Jarod, however, was nothing near white noise. It was possible that, at that moment, some fisheye lens was pointed at the strikingly lovely man and his homely (prey) partner. It was possible that Jarod's infamy was enough to draw them both into scrutiny. Possible, but unlikely that anyone would focus on the (lucky [willing?]) girl pressed against the car in this scenario.
He had surprised her, caused a sharp inhalation (cold [biting]) and a widening of her eyes. It was warmer here, perhaps only by degrees, shelter away from the worst of the weather, pressed between the frozen lines of his car and the warm, inviting lines of his form. That tension passed, flooded out of her as her mouth met his. She shuddered against him, moreso from the cold (now) but also from their closeness (later).
She kissed him back. (I shouldn't keep seeing you...) With more intensity than their first night together. (I can't afford to fall for you...) A little less cautious, a little less guarded.
[Jarod Nightingale] (Don't fall for me, then. I could only ever hurt you, in the end.)
Because he was broken beyond repair. There was a fantastically fractured person hiding underneath that perfect exterior. He was a lie. Everything about him was a performance. There was nothing close to perfect here.
But cameras couldn't see that. They only saw a beautiful man kissing a woman the way that most women (most people) would want to be kissed. They saw that he did it well, and that there was enough feeling (wanting) behind it to make it mean something.
He felt... warmer, now. His lips had reddened slightly by the time he pulled away and looked intently into Emily's eyes. And, because it was easier than almost anything else he could think of doing, he kissed her again, once, quickly, and breathed "Fuck..." quietly but intensely, as if this somehow explained everything that he was feeling in that instant. (Maybe it did.)
Then he pulled away reluctantly and walked around to the driver's side door to unlock the car and let them both inside. And if he had, for the briefest of moments, been slightly unsettled, it was gone by the time he turned the key in the ignition and glanced over at Emily with a knowing smile. (All sultry confidence once more.) Then they drove off into the snow-covered night, to find whatever temporary solace they could from the cold.
