[Emily Littleton] It is a cold night once more in Chicago. So cold that the snow refuses to fall and blanket everything in new beginnings. So cold that it bites into her bones and pedestrians turn their collars up against the wind. So cold that the restlessness in Emily cannot keep her warm enough. The fire (ache) in her muscles from running earlier cannot burn enough. There is no quiet, no quiet here in her head, no quiet in the city that slumbers without its bedtime blanket. And as there is no quiet to be found, she seeks out the opposite end of the spectrum.
Emily chose this club for the heavy bass and colored lights, not for any personal sentiment. It is a far cry from Majorca, from Greece, from the sandy-floored open-aired places where she had lost herself before in music and revelry. Where she had drank and danced until her cheeks burned and her eyes were bright and unfocused and she could barely breathe. Until she was too tired to move. She'd indulged in these moments at an age that would have raised eyebrows here, in the States. This place was not those places, but it would have to do.
She checked her coat at the door, slipped a few essentials into the pockets of her jeans, and wandered into the fray to lose herself for a long moment like normal co-eds did. Or, at least, to try to.
You can never go home again.
At least here in the half-light, no one will think to ask how she spent her Saturday night. After a few drinks, even Emily could imagine away the blood on her hands and the memory of a searing, blinding pain behind her right eye. The noise and the press of people and the pulsing (but not stabbing) light flooded all of that out. She'd barely recognized the buzz of her cellphone, picking it up just before it went to voicemail, or realized that she might be hard to hear over the background noise.
She is considerate enough to move away from epicenter of the sound and vibration when she picks up the call. And it is easy tonight, too, to slip past the Orphan's defenses and to get her to speak plainly. Where she is? Answered without evasion, down to a hazy description of the street block. Whether she had gone out alone, or had a group of mates in tow? No... just, wanted some time to herself.
[Jarod Nightingale] [Let's see... does he have a stamina boost today?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 3 (Failure at target 3)
[Jarod Nightingale] [Apparently not]
[Jarod Nightingale] Things had been a little... off, for him today. Changing time zones never helped. Sitting on a plane for hours couldn't exactly be called pleasant or restorative either, even seated in first class. The weekend hadn't unfolded much differently than any of his other overseas gigs (after awhile it all sort of ran together in his head), but he hadn't gotten much in the way of sleep or time to himself. Nor had he really been given the opportunity to stay and enjoy the city. Jarod's dominant memory of the entire affair was himself, in the hotel shower, trying to get every last little speck of glitter off of his skin, which was rather more difficult than one might imagine, given the industrial-strength glue they'd sprayed it on with.
And then, upon arriving home (home? not really, but it would do), he'd collapsed onto the sofa and dug out his phone to check his voicemail messages.
...Emily had called.
Jarod frowned a little, that little crease of worry showing between his eyebrows as they drew together. She needed to talk to him, and generally speaking, those words seldom prefaced anything good. Still, he was surprised to hear the familiar background noise of a club behind her voice when he called her back, and even more surprised when she invited him to come and find her there. After hanging up, he'd taken a few moments to shower and change, but then he was on his way, as requested. The relaxing heat of the hot water had gone a long way toward helping sooth the ache of long-distance-travel that had settled in his muscles, though it had yet to be seen just how long it would take before full-on exhaustion set in.
When he arrived at the club Emily had directed him to (he'd been there before - he'd been to all of them before), he checked his coat and slipped past the milling crowds (they would not be so tightly packed on a Sunday) as he wandered over to the bar. His eyes traveled the smoky, dimly lit glow of the room until they finally settled on the particular target that they'd been hunting: Emily. For a moment he simply stood there and... watched. Then his feet began to move, and he crossed the distance between them to arrive at her side, sliding up to the bar and resting his elbows on the counter as he leaned against it.
"Hello, stranger," he greeted, before gesturing to the bartender and ordering a shot of Patron.
In this light, and in his freshly cleaned-up state, you'd never know that he'd just flown halfway across the world. He looked much too good for jet lag. He looked like he spent half his life in trendy bars and nightclubs like these. The outfit he'd picked for the occasion was a pair of dark blue jeans (new, and expensive) and a black satin shirt that flattered the lines of his chest and shoulders. He'd rolled the sleeves up to the elbows, leaving the tattoo on one arm visible, and left the top two buttons hanging open so that the neckline cut down past the place where the collarbones met.
"I have to admit I'm a touch surprised at your choice of a meet-up location." Though the tone of his voice did not seem in any way displeased. Frankly, he could use a drink and a night of distraction, although... the tone of Emily's message had left him wondering if that was indeed what was happening here.
[Emily Littleton] When he found his quarry, she was perched on a barstool near the end of the room, running her fingertips around the rim of a glass of ice water. Her shoulders were rounded, and her loose curls spilled to the bottom of her shoulder blades. She wore blank tank top with very thin straps, and over that a thin ballet sweater that covered only her upper arms and her bust. A low tumbler, empty, sat beside her water glass.
In the moments while he watched her, Emily chatted with the bartender and was oblivious to his presence. She laughed at something, lifted the water glass in a half-voiced toast, and shook her head a little. The movements were familiar but skewed. She was not the same person here, now, that she was with him.
When Jarod moved in beside her and ordered, Emily covered the mouth of the empty tumbler with her fingers (no mas).
"It's good to see you," she said, and her usually muddled accent was even less clear tonight. She has had a while since he called to sober up, and her eyes are still a little too bright and diffuse. Her cheeks and nose are pinked. Her smile, as she sees him, a little too unguarded.
Noticeably absent is the thin silver chain around her neck and the steady thrum of Home. He has never seen her without it, but Emily chose tonight to leave the bauble elsewhere.
[Jarod Nightingale] After the bartender poured him his drink and he handed over a credit card to pay for it (and any others that might come along as the night went on - it was hard to tell how long they might sit there), Jarod lifted the shot glass up to his lips and let about half of the contents disappear down his throat. Tonight he didn't bother with salt and lime wedges (because he wasn't really in the mood), nor did he seem overly hurried to flush his system with alcohol. Patron wasn't the sort of tequila that you just knocked back, anyway. It left a trail of warmth in his mouth that reminded him rather strongly of Texas, for good or ill. Luckily, he wasn't prone to slipping into familiar accents, the way Emily could be. She'd likely find it rather amusing to hear the Dallas drawl escape his lips, if such an event ever occurred.
"Mm," he pursed his lips together and nodded thoughtfully. "You too. I see you got a head start on me." By this, he meant the empty tumbler and the slightly glittering, out-of-focus tint to her eyes. With a lazy smile he leaned in and kissed the soft skin just beneath her earlobe, brushing back her hair with one hand so that he could gain access to the sensitive place.
When he pulled back, he finished off the tequila and asked, "Everything okay?"
[Emily Littleton] "I didn't think you were coming, when I started," she said, letting the words amble slowly across her tongue. They tasted odd, and she was trying to pull back from a course she'd committed to earlier in the evening, when he was still half a world away.
Emily's eyes fluttered shut when he brushed her hair aside and kissed her neck. Her breathe caught in her throat, and for a moment she wasn't thinking about anything else. Not about the things she was trying to forget, or how she wished she was a little more sober right now. There was his mouth, her skin, the pulse of the bass and the alcohol numbing away everything else.
It took her a long, languid moment to open her eyes again. To lift the glass (water [no hangover tomorrow, please]) to her lips and drink deeply. Only then did she respond, in a somewhat wistful and complicated way.
"Is every thing ever really okay again? After this...?" Emily's mouth twitched, wryly, and she turned her body toward him. She rested an elbow on the bar and leaned her head into her palm. She tapped the fingers of her free hand against the bar, watched him thoughtfully. "If I just tell you, no run around this time, will you let me stay near you (with you) tonight?"
So no, it was not okay, and no she was avoiding their usual cat-and-mouse game either out of necessity or simplicity.
[Jarod Nightingale] The bartender walked by, and Jarod pushed his glass out and made a little come here gesture with his hand, asking for a refill without ever saying so or, for that matter, even looking the man in the eyes. The act wasn't so much intentionally dismissive as it was an afterthought to the conversation and the company he was currently keeping.
For all the accusations Nick had made about him, and for all that Jarod himself had easily admitted to being more than a little promiscuous, he didn't seem inclined to look for other flirtations when he had the best of them seated right there in front of him. Had he wanted to, he could easily have smiled at the red-head down the bar who was actively making eyes at him, or moved out onto the dance floor to leave himself open to the wandering hands of attractive strangers.
Emily asked him a serious question in a tone that was deceptively wry. His own expression was a little more contemplative (and maybe a little sad) when he responded. "To be honest, I'm not sure it even makes that much of a difference, ultimately." Human nature was what it was. The state of the world was what it was. Awakening just brought it all up to a different level. "But I understand what you mean. And, yes... if that's what you want."
He picked up his refilled glass and finished off another swallow of Patron, and even as he did this, he free hand found its way to Emily's own, resting atop it with fingertips lightly tracing over her knuckles. When he looked at her again, his eyes still seemed focused. (Concerned?)
[Emily Littleton] When the bartended returned with Jarod's tequila, Emily lifted her head off her hand and tapped the rim of the empty tumbler. There was a moment when the bartender paused, caught her eye, and then took the glass away to be refilled. It was the sort of moment that passed between people when someone was on the edge of having had too much, or had already surrendered their keys for the evening. But Emily had company, now, and the barkeep wasn't as worried as he might otherwise have been.
"Yes," she said, exhaling the word carefully as she nodded once. "I think that's what I would like." And then she waited until the bartender brought her back her gin, not her first or second of the evening, and she sipped at it. The warmth slid down her throat and Emily's eyes closed appreciatively for a moment. (I need this. [I need you.]) Then she set the glass down, again, and toyed with its rim again.
It was an idle thing, but it seemed somehow ritualistic here. It pulled her away from the people who passed behind them, lingered and twisted and writhed on the dancefloor. It distracted her from the pulse and pull of the bass. It almost distracted her from the feel of his hand covering hers, almost but not quite, and that brought a faint smile to her otherwise oddly somber features.
"I was Called," she said, but not because the word had any higher meaning to it. Emily only knew so many ways to explain the world they both flirted with, hung at the margins of and this was the best word she could offer him here, heady and warm with drink, heavy with sadness and solemnity. "I was in the lab, working on something entirely mundane, when it came over me and I ... I couldn't. fucking. breathe. I thought..." her voice faded somewhat, then returned, "I thought I was dying. But it was just this pain, and this voice, and this vision, of a house somewhere in the city. Over and over. And a need. I had to there, even if it didn't make any sense at all."
She hadn't looked over at him while she spoke. Emily took another sip of her gin and set it down again with a barely audible rasp.
"So I went..."
It seemed like a good place to pause. To let that sit, and see what he might have to say. Whether he had any questions for her, or would just let her talk. Emily knew that she sounded crazy. She felt insane for saying these things, aloud, where others might hear them.
[Jarod Nightingale] Jarod let his hand fall back to his side, and somewhere in the midst of Emily's story, he finished off the rest of his second drink. This time, he didn't ask for a refill. Partly because he was already tired, and partly because he needed to be awake and aware for what Emily was telling him, and he'd had enough now that it had loosened the muscles at the back of his neck and left him feeling just a little bit heady.
Just enough to feel relaxed. Not enough to be uninhibited. That was the usual rule, with him. He didn't like to let go, or leave himself vulnerable to... anything, really. The last time he'd gotten genuinely wasted was on Christmas evening, with Dana, trying to forget all the ghosts that his home and his family brought back from the dead.
So he finished his drink and settled in on the nearest barstool, leaning one elbow on the counter and acting for all the world as if the two of them were having a perfectly normal conversation. Luckily, the lack of pressing bodies and the pulse of ambient music that flowed over from the dance floor meant that they were likely safe from anyone trying to listen in. All the same, Jarod's eyes flicked briefly up to scan the nearby faces and reassure himself of this fact, before they came to rest again on Emily.
She talked, and he listened quietly. Reserving comment for the end, most likely. For the moment, it was difficult to tell what he was thinking.
[Emily Littleton] So far so good. Jarod's inscrutable expression was a godsend in that moment, because Emily did not have to be aware of his anxities on top of her own. It offered no absolution, no judgement. It was enough, and that was better than she had come here hoping for.
Emily went on, describing a house she barely knew but could remember in sharp detail. Its image was tatooed to her memory, so it was easy to recall the picture to mind. Easy, but not comfortable. As she talked about the Chantry, she reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. To let her fingertips press into her temple, chasing away some phantom ache (echo).
She described the others, as much by how they (felt) as what they looked like. There was Ashley, who Emily knew well enough to call by name. And someone named Jon, about whom she appeared to have some certainty as well. The others were a guy with a shotgun, and someone named Ashton, who felt very cold. Another, about whom she could remember very little, except that he hid well. These people were grouped together in her memory as Us, in sharp relief against the Them she would describe later.
"We all got there around the same time," she said, slipping back to the stilted narrative. The words tumbled out of her, and Emily wasn't sure she could stop them if she wanted to. Her eyes had gone a little colder, more removed and resolute. Her expression was somewhat serious, somewhat sharper. She had not had enough to drink to dull whatever it was she needed to tell him. "And something had been... working?... inside. It felt wrong. Twisted and perverted some how. Evil, if that's not going a bit too far."
Emily thought for a moment, turned her memories inside out looking for the word one of the others had used. "Ashley called it Qlph.... Qlipp..." Emily scowled at her inability to pronounce the odd word, then focused very carefully and spat out: Qlippothic.
Satisfied that she'd find mastered the odd word, Emily took another sip of her gin. If he let her keep talking, she told him about the fight on the front lawn. About hiding behind a parked car. About the two men (Them) who died that night, and about the horrible scene in the living room. She spoke with a detachment and callousness that was not her own. It was borrowed from another time, a younger self who had needed this hardness once (to survive [to mend]).
The last thing she said to him before she fell completely silent was: "And I helped carried their bodies to someone's jeep. Like refuse. To be disposed of. I helped cover it up, all that blood and death..." She shook her head, and the hardness broke. Emily slung back the last of her drink and let it burn on its way down.
She sat back from the bar and rolled her shoulders a little. Emily could not look at him. She couldn't look down at her own hands, so she closed her eyes. It took a long moment for her to settle enough to open them again.
[Jarod Nightingale] [Man+Sub - let's please not freak the poor girl out +1diff for alcohol intake]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[Jarod Nightingale] There was a moment there, when Emily attempted to say the word Qlippothic, where he could have interrupted her to make the correction himself, but somehow it felt important not to break her train of thought. To simply let her speak, and to let the details of the event spill as they needed to from her lips. Sometimes, simply being able to talk about something helped to make it more palatable. It might also bring demons to the surface, but as painful as they could be there... they were also more easily controlled and expelled.
Recently, Jarod's emotions had been a little closer to the surface than usual when he and Emily were around each other. He could hardly have been called open, but there was more in his eyes and his voice than the usual elegant and enigmatic veneer of perfection. The ability to put on that mask never left, though. It was far too ingrained: like the tattoos on his arm and the back of his neck. The impulse behind it tonight was different, though. It wasn't hiding, so much as sparing.
(Or maybe that was just what he told himself it was.)
Whatever the reason, he was completely placid as Emily told her story. Completely unreadable. And when she was finished, he continued to look at her for a long moment before he allowed himself to react. Sliding down from his seat, he stepped forward and put his arms around her. And here may have been the one moment where he let a little emotion slip, after all, because he held her... tightly.
"You shouldn't have," he said softly. "You didn't need to do that. It's not your responsibility."
[Emily Littleton] She clung to him in that moment, held fast to him (fiercely) as tightly as he held her. This was different than running into Dylan on a street corner. Emily had been frightened, for her own life and for others. She had been touched more deeply by this incident and could not laugh or let it just slough off her like water.
"I had to," she said in a small voice. "I had to do something. To help somehow."
She took a deep, steadying breath, pulled the warmth and scent of nearness of him in. Her arms loosed around him and slid away, but not until that moment had lingered long enough to pull some of the hardness out of her features, ease some of the tightness from her shoulders.
[Jarod Nightingale] Almost, he started to point out that at her level of ability, being of use was something of a null point anyway. But that wasn't the world's most reassuring thing to say, so it died on his tongue. Instead, he pulled back slowly from the embrace and lifted a hand to tuck some of Emily's hair back behind her ear.
"I understand how you feel. But you need to... not push yourself. It's okay not to be ready for something. And it's okay to run away, if you're in danger. Nephandi are... very dangerous. They corrupt everything they touch. Yes, they need to be dealt with, but not by you. Not yet. You shouldn't feel like... like you're obligated to try and clean up a mess like that, when you're still just trying to wrap your head around everything. I'm not saying you should lock yourself in a closet somewhere. You need to learn, but... not like that. Mostly, right now, you need to just... take care of yourself."
[Emily Littleton] It was better that he had rethought his position and avoided calling her useless to her face. Emily was struggling, now more than ever, with this new Awakened world, and having a sense of purpose -- however misguided -- had been what got her through the latter half of that night. What got her home, in one piece, and kept her going until she could check in with the Awakened she knew better and trusted.
"Okay..." she said. Emily didn't quarrel with him, and perhaps that acquiescence spoke more than her story had to how much the weekend had upset her. Maybe she was too tipsy to put forth a clear argument, or too shell-shocked to try and make a case for her own usefulness. Instead she nodded, and chewed on the insider of her lower lip for a moment.
She took a smaller, purposeful breath, and the set of her jaw and shoulders shifted. Emily was tidying all of this up in her head, pushing it back and away, getting ready to move on to lighter topics. As if this was something they could just set down and walk away from. As if she hadn't just told him the Chantry had fallen and its guardians were missing (not that she knew what that meant [beyond bad]).
"I don't want to be useless, or helpless," she knew they weren't the same thing. "I need to be able to take care of myself." Which she hadn't been, that night. But that was the last Emily said of it, unless coaxed into saying more. Otherwise she was tamping it down, pushing it into the place where other unhappy and unbidden memories were kept. Away.
[Jarod Nightingale] "You aren't either of those things, Emily. We all run into situations that we aren't equipped to deal with. Even me. Unfortunately, our world has a habit of constantly confounding what we think we already know about it." And despite the fact that yes, he understood probably better than she did just how bad this was, he leaned forward again and rested his head against hers.
Just to remind himself that she was still whole.
"I have no doubts that in due time you will be a force to be reckoned with. And if you like, I can try and help you with that."
When he pulled back, it was only a little, so that he could look her in the eyes again.
[Emily Littleton] Jarod had a wonderful way of making her feel hale again, making her seem like enough even when she was ineffectual or ill-equipped. As much as he rests his head against hers to assure himself that she was whole, he calms the anxious pieces of her that could not sleep, could not sit still, could not stop smelling blood whenever she washed her hands.
Emily does not question this effect tonight. They are both too tired for her to fight a good thing. This is two weekends in a row that someone has come back from far away to find the other shaken. Twice now that they've found some solace in each other (perhaps it is more that she takes shelter in him [but there is solace, too, in giving shelter]).
"I would like that," she said, coolly. Level. But it was deep than a would like or a want. Emily needed to make tangible progress in this strange new world, rather than to continue feeling buffetted about by the storms. All the same, her voice was calmer, gentler.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Just so long as there are no self-imposed wounds involved, this time."
He grinned a little at that memory, in spite of everything. Not, of course, because he liked to think of her hurting herself, but because somehow that night had come to represent a lot about Emily to him. That she was stubborn and daring enough to try and force herself to learn something in one day that had taken him years to understand. That she felt surprisingly comfortable nestled against him on the couch.
And that her heart had a particular rhythm to it which he'd come to memorize. (At first listen, the same as any other, but there were minute peculiarities that made it hers. Like a fingerprint.) He could tap it out from memory.
"You know, normally I would love to entice you to dance with me, but I think maybe we've both had a pretty long night. So I'm going to entice you to come back to my apartment instead."
[Emily Littleton] "I've already promised you that," she said, softly and with an uncharacteristic fondness when he chastized her, again, about her overzealous attempt at self-healing. There was a warmth to that memory, for the both, however convoluted and misguided the surrounding circumstances had been. She has had too much to drink tonight to hide the emotions that slide across her memory (mouth [eyes]).
There is a small moment between this reply and the next. Just long enough for her mouth to curl upward in a shadow of their usual wryness, levity. Her eyes, dark here in the half-light and too bright, lit momentarily with mischief.
"I thought you'd never ask," she said, lightly. Because the quip was easier, on them both, than a thank you. When the mischief slid away, though, there was affection and appreciation in its place.
Soon the alcohol would fade from her system, and she would be a little more guarded once more, nearly as inscrutably as he could be. For now, he could see much of what she'd told him several nights ago, just beyond the front porch of her rented house: that she felt safer when he was here (that he made her happy).
