[Emily Littleton] She'd come home from the market with some Chinese take-away and a few things from the Taiwanese grocer. Emily had put her things away in the fridge and then made her way upstairs to the room she shared with another co-ed. From there her evening devolved into a (too) hot shower, and a cup of tea, and a warm blanket wrapped around comfortable clothes wrapped around a wearied frame.
She had all but forgotten that she had texted Jarod until he got back in touch with her. By then, her evening had gone from bad to worse and folded back on itself to be just... unpleasant. He asked if she was still in Chinatown, and she'd said no that she'd gone home. Emily actually said home in her distraction and headache from the evening. Perhaps it would strike him as odd.
If he insisted on coming by, she wouldn't argue. But when he arrived her hair was braided back, and still damp. Emily hadn't bothered to dress up for him, tonight. She was still in her sweats and a long-sleeved tee when she opened the front door. She looked tired, or possibly just terribly run down. She still smiled softly when she saw him, but she did not have anything witty or wry to say.
[Jarod Nightingale] Emily wasn't the only one who'd been having a bad day, but since Jarod's issues were more in the line of mundane irritations, it could be claimed that Emily's were the worse of the two. Two days earlier, a paradox backlash had bruised his ribs, and he still moved with a slight stiffness that belied an internal injury, but it was very minor, and one would have to be paying attention to notice. Certainly, he wasn't the sort of person to bring attention to it, either vocally or otherwise.
He'd missed the text that Emily had sent to him because he'd been arguing with his sister. And then having a drink and ignoring his calls. Naturally, the first had precipitated the second. In an effort to make up for this, he'd driven out to her home (such as it was) to meet her there, instead. Now he stood at the door in a pair of expensive-looking jeans and a black dress shirt (having left his coat in the car), and he smiled a bit tiredly when she opened the door to greet him.
"You look like you've had a long day."
[Emily Littleton] She didn't know, yet, that he was injured. So she didn't have any reason, beyond their usual reticence and restraint. But it had been a long day, and someone had sat across from her at dinner and told her every gory detail of how a man had been murdered. She had taken one for the Traditionalist team, and no one was going to give her any credit for it in the long run.
"Come here," she said, softly, and it wasn't only an implied request. Emily didn't say hi, or how are you, or any of the other little things that could be come between him and her, and the hug she wasn't going to be terribly shy about wanting. When he complied, because she knew he would (and if he didn't, she'd just go to him) Emily stood up on her tip toes so she could loop her arms around his neck and hold on to him for a long moment. Long enough to feel his warmth against her, to feel something real and comforting and immanent. Something she understood on a visceral level.
"Hi..." she said softly, into the space between them, once he'd slid his arms around her as well. Emily didn't care that the door was still open, or that her housemates were wandering around somewhere in the immediate surroudings. She didn't seem to want to let go of him, now that he was here. After a long moment, she would loosen her hold on him but Emily wouldn't let go, not unless he told her to, or made a move to get away, or... well, it had been a long day, a very long day, and he was here now. And that was about as far as she could process things, right now. Here. Hug. Hello.
[Jarod Nightingale] It was both a welcome and reluctant thing, that hug. Emily said come here, and Jarod did as she requested, taking a step into the house so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and rest her body against his. But there was something slow about the way that he responded, and when her weight rested against his rib-cage, the muscles in his back and torso stiffened, tightening against the inevitable ache that radiated from her touch. (A constant reminder of the price one had to pay for pushing too hard against the rules of reality, but all things considered, it could have been so much worse.)
"Ah...careful," he murmured softly, though he was probably loathe to admit that he was in any kind of pain (that he was anything other than perfect). Still, he let his arms fall around her, and his head rest against her own for a long moment. When he breathed in, the smell of her filled his senses. It was a warm memory, the way that Emily smelled when she'd just taken a shower.
"You okay?"
[Emily Littleton] He asked her to be careful, and Emily eased off a little. She was more gentle, cautious with him, but not less warm. No further from him. Not right now.
"I,,, had a rather disturbing dinner date," she said, plainly. Emily had been working on being more direct with him, holding less back, hiding less (unless it was necessary). She exhaled heavily, and tried to let the memory of everything Nathan had said flow past her. She couldn't. It got bound up in her muscles and made her tense and knotted up all over again.
"I'm glad you're here," she said, and that much was honest. Emily pulled away from him enough to close the door against the cold outside. It left them standing in the entryway, but she didn't move to change that just yet. "I mean that... it's, it's good to see you, Jarod," she said, speaking his name fondly. Gently.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Well I'm glad that I can provide a point of contrast to your otherwise unpleasant evening. It's good to see you, too. " Ever charming, ever pleasant... when it suited him to be so. This, despite his mood and his injury. Despite possible worry over Emily's well-being. A great deal had been asked of him, of late, and he hadn't complained once. He also hadn't been terribly open with himself. Not with... anyone. A defense mechanism, and one that he could be good at hiding, but only with those who never bothered to know his emotional character to begin with.
Emily... was a different story. But then, of course she was. And even if he spoke as if nothing at all was the matter, even if his eyes said that he was fine, the way that he'd held her, so honestly and so gently, and for such a long time... it spoke more honestly than the rest of him did.
"You know, you could have just left, if he was bothering you so much." The dinner date, that is.
[Emily Littleton] "No," she said, gently pushing that idea aside. "No, I couldn't have. Jarod, he was aching and terrified and bitter and ... scared. I've been there, too often of late. I've been too close to as fucked up as he was," and she didn't have another way to say it, so Emily let the impolite words cross her tongue without much hesitation. "But I've had you, and you've wanted or just been willing to pull me back from those moments. I... I don't know what I would have done, otherwise. But I don't think he has anyone to go home to, or even to look to."
Nathan hadn't said this to her, but the way he spoke to her, the way he'd lumped her in with everyone else in Chicago's Awakened community. Emily took a step back and lifted one of her hands to press against the back of her neck. It was something she did when her head ached or she felt light-headed or nauseated.
"He needed to talk to someone, and there was no one else there." She shrugged a little. This was the part in the conversation when Jarod usually told her it wasn't her responsibility. It wasn't hers to bear. "And while I really didn't need to know every single detail he remembered I... can understand why he needed to get it off his chest, or share it with someone outside of that moment. I couldn't walk away from him once he started ..."
Emily's features pinched a bit, then she tried to will them to smooth out. It didn't work. Instead she took a shaky breath and exhaled slowly, calmingly. "It sounds like it's over, though. This thing with Dylan. I think it must be over, now."
[Jarod Nightingale] Maybe she expected him to tell her that it wasn't her responsibility, but Jarod wasn't the sort of person who felt the need to constantly repeat himself until his point was made. Advice could be given, and if Emily chose, she could reject it. Whether she was right in doing so or not... it didn't really matter. Her life, and her choices, were her own to make. (And for all of Jarod's flaws, he'd always seemed content to let Emily be her own person.) Perhaps she was a better person than he was, because it was likely that Jarod would have simply walked away if he hadn't wanted to be someone's shoulder to cry on.
So he didn't correct her, or interrupt. He just listened.
"I think you would have been alright, without me. You're stronger than that." After a long pause, during which he paced slowly toward the living room, and then back (because the ultimate destination of the evening hadn't been concluded, and he was loathe to actually sit down on any of the furniture here besides Emily's bed), he added. "It's over. Alice and Ashley told me what happened. Well, not really. They just told me he was dead."
[Emily Littleton] He paced, which let Emily move in her own agitated patterns. She watched him carefully, though. Emily was upset, and therefore he was not getting let off the hook for that careful earlier, or how long he held her. She knew, she knew something was wrong. She wasn't sure what, or how to get at it, but Dylan was dead and a stranger had mistaken her for someone emotionally accessible and now... this.
"You're hurting," she observed, and it was not a question. It was a segue, however unartful. Emily said it plainly, but there was open concern and compassion in her tone. It worried her, and she did not try to disguise it (could not disguise it after tonight). She did not ask, directly, if this was Ashley or Alice's fault, but if Jarod felt inclined to draw that question from how she'd lined up her inquiry with his admission... so be it.
"You're hurting and I'm ranting at you in the entryway." She frowned, but this was directed at herself. "Do you want to go upstairs? Marissa is not home." Though upstairs was only Emily's fouton, folded up as a place to sit or laid out as a bed for one on the ground.
[Jarod Nightingale] "It's nothing serious," came the obvious reply, when directly questioned about the stiffness he held in his torso. The way he moved with just slightly less grace than usual. And from the casual tone in his voice and the lack of emotion in his eyes, one would imagine that he was telling the truth. Really, it was not serious.
(But yes, he was hurt. And he admitted it rather than lie, because it was Emily.)
"Remember what happened that time, on the beach?" The headache. The nose bleed. "This is the same." No one else seemed to be within earshot. He'd already checked, but an inner sense of paranoia caused him to look again, and to lower his voice before continuing. "Alice... would have died. Maybe even at a hospital. She was pretty far-gone. So they called me, and I helped her. There's always a price to pay for those things." He wasn't speaking in specifics, but by now Emily knew enough that she would understand what it was he was telling her. Hopefully, in any case.
He said he'd helped her. But what he'd really done was nothing short of a miracle, in the eyes of some. Jarod didn't believe in miracles. He believed in himself. And in the power of life to heal and adapt, to be all at once fragile and strong. Alice's body had wanted to live. And so, it had been made whole again.
Jarod glanced up the stairs that led to the bedroom Emily shared with her roommate. Then, he nodded. "Better than standing in entrance-ways. And you won't need to worry about me corrupting you with my wicked ways, since I'm fairly useless for anything interesting at the moment." There was a little wry humor in that comment. That fact, in itself, was some indication that being here was easing some of the tension he'd been feeling.
[Emily Littleton] She regarded him thoughtfully, fitting the bits and pieces she knew together in unsettling ways but not yet sharing those insights. Emily chewed on the inside corner of her lip a little as she listened, as she thought, and as she worried, retroactively, about something she could not change.
"Still..." she said, somewhat cautiously (cautioningly). "You should tell that good for nothing apprentice of yours to take better care of you," her nose wrinkled a bit and the set of her mouth was almost wry enough to be joking. Anyone over hearing them might think that Emily was none-too-fond of this understudy of his.
And with that, she set to moving up the stairs. Emily looked back over her shoulder enough to make sure he was following (no, she wasn't concerned that he couldn't handle the steps). Her room was neater than before, probably because the vaccuum had made forcible ingress into Marissa's side of the room (likely Emily's doing). Her fouton was already unfolded into a bed, but she had folded the blankets up again before going downstairs to meet him. Her laptop sat open on the small bookshelf at the foot of her bed, open to an email program of some variety. Beside it sat a pair of notebooks: one open to a page of intimidating physics homework; the other closed and underneath the first, its bright red cover and the corner of a Cubs logo just peeking out at one corner.
[Jarod Nightingale] That... actually made him laugh. It was an honest thing, in its spontaneity, and that was rare for him. It was good that he laughed, too, despite the flash of pain it caused his tender ribs, because it meant that the icy veneer he'd been holding in place was starting to melt. Still, it did hurt, and he cut the laugh off a bit more quickly than he otherwise would, putting a hand up to touch his chest reflexively, as if somehow that would ease the wound.
"You don't need to take care of me. I don't recall that being a part of the job description." And he didn't need taking care of, of course. He hadn't needed that for a long, long time. Wouldn't have gotten it, even if he had.
He followed Emily up the steps, taking them a little slower than usual, but not to a noticeable degree. When the two of them entered her room, he moved to sit down on her futon. That made the pain a little more obvious, when he had to flex the muscles in his core, and it made him stop breathing for a moment. But he nonetheless refused to hold himself as if he were some poor, wounded creature. (Really, this was hardly the worst injury he'd ever gotten.) Letting go of his breath, he sighed and leaned back a little to rest his weight on his hands. That made it hurt less. And it looked casual.
[Emily Littleton] He can look casual all he wants, but she is not buying it. Not tonight. Emily does not even pretend that she is being fooled by his pretending. And whether he needs to be taken care of or not is not what is at question here. It is whether she should, as someone who cares for him (perhaps more deeply than she's letting on).
It's possible that he would remember why she is so patently unfooled, remember seeing the scars in her pattern left by fractures along her own ribs. They had healed long before he'd met her, but the memory of that sort of pain did not completely take its leave from one's mind. He didn't have to carry himself like a wounded bird to bring back a keen awareness of it in her mind.
"I have some vicodin, from when I got those stitches. Do you want it?" she offered. Emily hadn't taken any pain medication (willingly), and she didn't expect he would take her up on the offer either. But she still tried. "Or dinner? I brought home leftovers: mapo dofu, steamed fish, and some bok choy. I can heat something up for you, if you'd like."
She knelt beside him, but didn't cross into his space. The more Jarod assured her he was fine, the more Emily seemed to fuss. She was, after all, his good for nothing apprentice (for lack of a better term). Emily smoothed her hands down her thighs, fidgetting in a less obvious fashion.
There were so many things he'd told her that just passed by, unnamed and unremarked upon, but this was the sort of thing she could do something about. Something nominal, but still measurable. This was unlikely to cause either of them great emotional distress if she tried, in some small way, to demonstrate her concern and affection. If all else failed, Emily would at least have tried to be there for him, to show some semblence of reciprocity. That had to count for something.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Emily, I am fine. I don't need medication, and I don't need food. Just try not to punch me in the ribs for awhile. Besides, I came over here to check in on you, remember? And don't think I didn't notice how you changed the subject back there. I'm an expert at that sort of thing. I know a subject change when I see one." He smiled ruefully, though, because her attention wasn't entirely undesired, even if he did offer protest.
"And speaking of willful distraction," because he'd tried to do that himself downstairs, to absolutely no avail. "You, my dear, are absolutely terrible at flirting." There was a note of warmth to his playful admonishment. It was not meant to insult so much as tease, but then, saying things like that to people in any form tended to make them irritated. (But this... this was a good thing. A few minutes ago he had been near-silent. Cold. His guard had been up. Now he was relaxing. Teasing. A step in the right direction, for all that they had both had such serious, unpleasant things to deal with that weekend.)
[Emily Littleton] She pressed her lips together, drawing them into a thin, pale line for a moment and then squeezed her eyes shut in annoyance. Perhaps at what he'd said to her, or perhaps at some other nuance of her evening that was as of yet unnamed and unnoticed.
"Bother," Emily said, softly, and much more to herself than to him. It was a little annoyed sound, and paired with her annoyed expression, it was quite difficult to miss that something had irritated her. At least in passing. Because she sighed a little, and it did pass. Emily did not admonish him for ... for any of it.
"I am fine, too," she said, when he tried to turn this back to being about her. Two could play this game, and they were both quite good at it in their own ways. So that was that. He clearly didn't have to worry about her, either. Unless, of course, they had differing definitions of "fine."
"You are ... insufferable upon occassion," she added, in response to his chiding remark about her inept flirtations. She hadn't been trying to flirt with him, after all. Though that was, quite possibly, the problem.
[Jarod Nightingale] Jarod was the kind of person who turned flirting into an art form, if such a thing were possible. In the right set of circumstances (which he seemed to find himself in frequently), he could spend an entire evening doing just that. Words could taunt and tease and flick just the right sorts of buttons, without ever having to so much as touch someone. And he played it like it was a game to be won or lost, because for him... it was. And it was a game that Emily never really seemed to want to play, but then, perhaps Emily wasn't terribly fond of games in general.
On impulse, Jarod shifted his weight forward a little and reached out with one hand, to run the backs of knuckles down the side of her upper arm, affectionately. "I know," he said quietly. Because many people had told him this. Then his mouth curled into a partial smile. "Anyway, it's not like I don't still find you infinitely intriguing." Despite the aforementioned lack of flirtation. "So I suppose it doesn't matter if you humor me or not."
More seriously, now. "And you aren't any more fine than I am. But if you'd rather not talk about it... we don't have to."
[Emily Littleton] There were many things that Emily wasn't any good at. Apparently flirting was one of them, and Nick had suggested another (the endgame to those flirtations) not too long ago. That he found her intriguing despite herself was of some confusion to Emily, and in this unguarded place it was easy to see how the confusion (just shy of hurt) rode her features for a wary moment. And so it was with some wariness that she watched as his hand reached out to touch her, affectionately.
It was not the time, tonight, to revisit any of that, though. Not the time to ask him about another's insinuation. It would never be the time to wallow in the insecurities that Nick had brought forward.
"You keep saying that," she observed, a little sadly. Perhaps just seriously. It was difficult to tell. Emily's eyes found his, held his for a moment. They were clouded and muddied with too much to sort out in that moment's time, save to acknowledge that she was deeply perturbed, thoughtful. "And then we don't talk about it. There's already been so much that we don't talk about, it just goes by in footnotes and ... I..."
Emily shrugged a bit, uneasily. "I don't know what to make of that. If it's all the same, I'd rather not dump every last detail of my bad days on you, not like that guy did at dinner tonight to me. But... there will be times when it is important to talk to one another, maybe not tonight. Maybe not about this. You can't always leave it at if you'd rather not... I won't always have the presence of mind to know what's best, or what's right, or even what I want. You likely will not either. Not always."
No, she wasn't fine. Emily wasn't sure she was supposed to be fine. Not after this Winter. But she wasn't really upset, either. Her words flowed into each other without hurrying one another along. They were shaped with the same oddity, same foreignness, that her tongue always held. She was thoughtful tonight, and those thoughts were not limited to the madman on the mile, or the greater implications of paradox and magic. They were far reaching thoughts, tangled up in thoughts of what she wanted and who she was becoming and how to get from where she was to where she would some day be.
They were tangled up in him, too, and those were the hardest thoughts for her to voice. She'd called herself his apprentice in her worrying over him. She'd used that word like a shield, to separate herself somehow, from the vulnerability of caring for him. She'd used it to distract him, if only momentarily, from caring for her.
Some day one of them was going to have to push the other. Emily hoped it wouldn't break them.
[Jarod Nightingale] Emily hoped that a push would not break them. But depending on how you looked at it, Jarod either could not be broken or was already as broken as he could get. (It certainly seemed that way, anyhow.) At some point in his life, his emotional baggage had hit critical mass, and since then... he had changed surprisingly little. In ten years, and through countless dangers and discoveries, he had remained, more or less, the same person. More mature, and more experienced... but at the heart, the same. That he was able to take on a variety of moods and situations merely spoke to the complexity of his character.
But one's ability to survive trauma did not make one immune to its effects. Maybe he wouldn't break, but he could still feel pain (despite countless efforts to the contrary.) Talking, though? Was that traumatic? It rather depended upon what one decided to talk about, didn't it? Jarod let his hand fall back to the futon, and he remained perched as he had been, in that casual but slightly tense pose, as he listened to Emily and watched the hints of expression on her face.
They were of two different minds on this subject. Maybe that was a part of the problem. Emily spoke of the things they did not discuss, and for her, it was like treading carefully around the perimeter of a minefield. When Jarod heard this, he found it slightly... odd. That there was this elephant in the room, and only one of them had been aware of its existence. But that isn't to say that he didn't know that Emily was upset, because clearly... something was bothering her. Perhaps many things. And that was more than enough reason to tread carefully.
"I'm not going to force you to do anything, Emily. You're an adult, and you know your own mind. But if you want... if you need to talk, of course we can talk. I never asked you to keep things bottled up if they were bothering you. That's not healthy."
[Emily Littleton] She chuckled a little, and it was a lighter sound than he might have expected. Given the supposed pachyderms lingering in the already too-small space.
"Of course you didn't ask me to. You didn't have to ask me to. Not talking is what I do best," she rolled her eyes a little and smiled. It was an easy thing, slightly self-chastizing but honest. Emily shifted so she was sitting indian-style near him, instead of kneeling. "I don't usually stick around long enough to form talking relationships, and when I don't want to talk about something with Gregory -- who I occasionally tell important things -- then I simply don't pick up the phone."
Avoidance. It's what makes the world go 'round, in certain circumstances.
"I ... don't know what is or isn't healthy, or what we should or shouldn't talk about. That I'm still here, in Chicago, and nothing has called me away yet is almost... fascinating, on an academic level." She'd said at Christmas time that she was leaving, and there had been a sense of futility to it. She'd mentioned many times before that she was used to having to go, right when she'd started to form attachments. And yet, she was still here. An oddity. Intriguing. And utterly confusing.
She shrugged a bit, and let her hands rest in her lap. Her shoulders were rounded, now, and she slouched a little bit. Emily wasn't usually this lax about her posture, but it was possible that she was merely thoughtful.
"It's not that I want to tell you my whole life history -- which is not that interesting, and involves a lot of plane flights and endless car trips, dreadfully boring, I promise -- or that I need, necessarily, to tell you any particular thing. I just don't want to end up keeping things from you out of habit that maybe I shouldn't. And I don't know where that line is, or should be. I have no reference for it, and neither of us seem the type to ask, or push, or pester."
This was a good thing. She was not complaining. Instead, she was putting it out there, between them, as a thing to talk about. Just a thing noticed, remarked upon, and perhaps there would be no change to make. Perhaps it was perfectly fine just as it was.
Emily looked over at him, and she did not seem particularly uspet. She didn't not have a particular elephant to call out and parade between them. She'd had a long day, and she wore that weariness on her features. And something had set her to rambling, which happened when she was tired, or scared, or overly-thoughtful. But there was nothing overtly wrong, nothing too terribly aching in her eyes, nothing weighing down the corners of her mouth all that bitterly.
"What I do know," she said, raising one hand out of her lap and holding up her index finger. (One thing.) "Is that I don't like seeing you hurting. And that you are an amazing human being." This is said with a quiet sense of Reverence, not unlike her developing resonance. "That you, knowingly and willing, sacrificed of yourself to help another person, after everything you've alluded to that has happened in your past? That is amazing. And I'm not raising you up or thinking you the martyr in any way. Just that you've seen some dark places, and you still seek better than them. Without losing your sense of self, or making it some sort of crusade. That is something I could believe is worth Waking Up for."
She paused, looked down at her lap and smiled quietly. "And that is the sort of thing I shouldn't just let go, unsaid. You are truly remarkable," a small pause, and a wry smirk overtook her mouth again, "And occasionally insufferable," another pause, and she looked over out of the corner of her eye, "But don't let it go to your head, ne?"
[Jarod Nightingale] It's funny how someone with as much seeming ego as Jarod possessed could be made so suddenly and excruciatingly uncomfortable by a compliment. But that was the odd thing about Jarod: he seemed equally likely to praise or criticize himself in the same breath. Anyone who spent a lot of time with him eventually came to understand that neither of these was a matter of self esteem. He simply looked at himself with the same razor sharp gaze that he did everything else. But despite that, perspective still colored his point of view. Certain qualities were placed higher on the spectrum of achievement than others. And some... well, some were not qualities that he desired to share with the world at all.
And perhaps that was why, when Emily suddenly and completely against expectation began to praise him for qualities he would have never thought to associate with himself, his head tilted to one side, and one eyebrow cocked upright in an odd and curious expression. After she was done talking, he was... strangely silent. Then, finally, he gave a soft little laugh, which ached (of course), but not intolerably so. "Emily, I... think you're reading too much into things. I'm not a particularly nice person, nor am I ever likely to become so. The fact that I'm capable of doing things for others, on rare occasions, doesn't mean that I'm not ultimately selfish. It just means that I'm not a complete bastard. Or that I'm making a small sacrifice in order to gain something in return... which is frequently the case."
Though not always, but naturally he was more comfortable with the usual unsavory assumptions, because they were mostly true, and because in the world he lived in, self-sacrifice was a weakness. He didn't address her insinuations about the dark things he may or may not have seen, because that was a subject best left for... never. Shut down in his own head before he even had the time to think to reject it.
"The only thing remarkable about me is that I'm still alive. And that I was born with exceedingly good genes."
[Emily Littleton] She regarded him quietly for a moment, and then closed her eyes and shook her head. Just once, back and forth, before opening her eyes again.
"Just take the compliment," she said, with a raised eyebrow of her own and unwavering bluntness. "I'm not putting you forward for sainthood, and I'm not saying that you're not an ass on occassion. But there's more to you than an incredibly attractive exterior and tenacity."
Then Emily sighed a bit, shifted and stretched a little. "And I had a truly awful evening being regaled by the gory details of how Dylan died. So forgive me if I'd rather highlight your finer qualities this evening, but I will not be dissuaded."
She settled again, and they were neatly stepping away from whatever topics she had alluded to. At the end, there, her tone was a little more light-hearted. She was digging her heels in, but almost playfully. Emily didn't flirt, but they occassionally sparred verbally. Maybe that was as close as she could get to playing his games.
[Jarod Nightingale] Neither of them were likely to bend on this matter, so... they would have to agree to disagree. Still, Jarod found Emily's tenacity in this regard a little endearing, and he smiled in spite of himself, if only to give credit where credit was due. For a brief moment there, she'd reminded him a little of Dana, which... well, that wasn't surprising. One had to possess a stubborn streak in order to deal with him for any prolonged length of time.
"You're right," he intoned dryly after she teased him. "I also have an amazingly talented tongue." And stated so matter-of-factly, he could have easily been touting the skill with which he mastered foreign languages, but since this was Jarod, after all... that was probably only one of many skills he was attributing to that body part.
"I regret that it won't be of any use to alleviate your anxiety, in this case." He sighed a little. "And I'm sorry... about your evening. Though in fairness... that sort of thing is likely to happen a lot. I wish I could tell you otherwise, but I'd be lying, and I don't believe in padding the truth just to make it more palatable. I... did not have the greatest day either. Or, weekend, really. Bruised ribs make posing rather difficult."
[Emily Littleton] "There," she said, apparently pleased enough by his compromise to smirk and not argue the point with him further. It wasn't a clean victory, but it would suffice. For now. And he was smiling, which brought a warmer (quieter [reserved for a select few]) expression to her features.
"Ah, but you're here. And we're talking. And I feel better already," she said, when he lamented that his tongue (talented [quite]) wouldn't get put to good use tonight. She did, feel better that was. Perhaps not all better, or completely calm and relaxed. But things were better with him here, even if he was injured and they were both cantankerous in their own ways.
She winced when he mentioned modeling with his aches and pains. "Eesh. I'm surprised you worked like that," she said, but she wasn't really all that surprised. Jarod wasn't likely to let backlash slow him down in any measurable way. Tenacity had its price.
"I was out of commission for weeks," she said. And immediately thought the better of it. There was a little faulter, mostly imperceptible, when she realized her folly. Most people wouldn't notice it, or the way she glossed right over it to say "I hope you feel better soon," and smile gently. But Jarod was not most people, and they did not often tread so near hallmark sentiments, even when Emily was feeling particularly complimentary.
[Jarod Nightingale] "It'll get better. I'd have healed it myself already if I could, but paradox doesn't appreciate being ignored." Naturally, he brushed off her concerns. But since this was hardly the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life, it seemed to him a matter barely worthy of note. "Anyway, it's not good to cancel when you agree to do something, in the fashion business. Very good way to lose a lot of future employment. Realistically speaking, I've probably only got a year or two left at this, so I need to take everything I can. Gaia forbid I have to give up the penthouse and move into a normal-sized apartment without a hot tub in the bathroom."
He was at least partially joking, there. Though it could be hard to tell, because he teased with such a dry tone most of the time, as if he thought that anyone not quick enough on the uptake to figure out for themselves what his intention was... simply didn't deserve to know.
"Or maybe I'll have to downgrade from the grand piano to an upright." But oh, that actually made him grimace a little in distaste, so this was probably not the first change he would make to his lifestyle, if indeed a decrease in funding was in the future. Then, because he hadn't missed her comment, and he knew full well that Emily had experienced the discomfort of injured ribs in the past, he paused and said, "A shame I wasn't there. When it happened to you. Multiple weeks is a long time to be out of commission."
[Emily Littleton] A shame I wasn't there.
Emily had a witty retort all lined up for that one, Jarod could see it cross her features and get just to the gateway of her teeth before it died and faded away. It took effort to still her tongue, to keep from putting up that fluent and fluid barrier of words and misdirection between them. She struggled with it, looking down and away, nodding softly.
She started to say something, but realized that it was likewise inappropriate and closed her mouth again. The only thing she could seem to settle on was, "Mmm. I suppose things might have been different, had I known you then."
"Have you given any thought to what you might do, when you're not modeling any more?" she asked. It was a casual question, just a curiosity. It shouldn't have held a slight quaver to it.
[Jarod Nightingale] Emily was better at avoiding her instincts than he was, in this regard. She bit back witty retorts in the effort to keep the conversation... more meaningful, perhaps. But Jarod was feeling surprisingly... at ease, after everything. And when he was comfortable, he tended to be a little playfully wicked. That may or may not have been an appealing quality, depending on one's point of view. What was made plain, however, was that he did not view it as inappropriate. Sometimes a distraction, sometimes merely a preoccupation. But then, he had nothing weighing on his mind, just now. (Well, nothing immediately applicable, in any case.)
Maybe he was too used to things like death and Marauders and pain, and the world being generally shitty.
"Suppose I could always go into the escort business. I know a woman in Beijing who keeps trying to tempt me into working for her." Again, his humor was understated here. Cool and aloof to the point where he might have actually been serious. But he destroyed his own disguise when he looked directly at Emily and let one corner of his mouth curl into a knowing smile. "Don't worry, I'll manage. I always do."
And that wasn't really an answer, but it was the most she was going to get.
[Emily Littleton] "Oh, I'm sure you will," she agreed readily, what might have been too readily if not for the equally knowing smile curling at her lips and the chuckle that followed her words. And then she seemed to give it some thought, and reasoned that Jarod could probably do fairly well for himself in that venue. So the cheeky expression shifted to something more thoughtful, on through mildly appraising.
"In the meantime, is there anything I can do to make your evening better? There's a scant few hours left for redeeming our weekends, but I'd like to return the favor," she offered, and it was likely the first time she'd asked him so openly what he'd want. (I want to give you something...). It sounded very quid pro quo, but there was far more warmth underlying it. Warmth and uncertainty because, as she'd said before, all of this was new to her on many levels.
[Jarod Nightingale] Be mindful of offering things to people who are known to be both selfish and manipulative. This particular situation was rather evocative of a mouse asking a cat if it wanted anything to eat.
Except that Emily was far from a mouse, and Jarod seemed remarkably disinclined to abuse his relationship with her, as he sometimes had in the past... with others. (One of whom Emily had met.) So while he probably could have come up with any number of witty or scandalous replies to that offer, instead he chose to take it at face value and simply shrugged, lightly. Then he eased himself back onto the futon, until his upper body was cushioned and he could relax the muscles that had been holding themselves so taut all evening.
"You had a terrible evening, and you're asking if you can do something.. for me?" Jarod chuckled gently as he gazed up at the ceiling. "Shouldn't this be the other way around?"
[Emily Littleton] "The man wants for nothing," she says, feigning (mostly) exasperation and looking up at something beyond the ceiling as if to say, I told you he was difficult to an unnamed party. But the smile on Emily's mouth was still affectionately warm.
"Yours wasn't stellar either, from what you've said," she chided gently (your obstinance is showing). "And you drove across town to see me." Putting the tally of good deeds done clearly on his side. Besides, one of these days doing something nice for someone else was going to be as rewarding as Emily remembered it could be... and wouldn't leave her holding the tatters of her sanity in her hands.
Emily felt the muscles in her core unclench a little when he finally laid down. Her muscle memory for some aches was unfairly clear at times. She shifted to bring the edge of her leg against his. Touching, but not in a way that would upset his aching torso. There was something about being close enough to touch him that made most things better.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Oh, I want for plenty of things. But most of them involve my direct participation. And sadly, the universe has decided that I'm supposed to be boring and mortal this weekend, all because an overly cocky tradition-mate decided she could take on a marauder almost entirely by herself. Frankly I'm not sure what annoys me more, the fact that I had to go save her, or the fact that she succeeded at something I failed at."
That was a surprisingly honest utterance, especially for him. Maybe he was letting himself get just a little too relaxed. Still, once he'd said it, he made no attempt to take it back. Once one chose a path, it was best not to bother contemplating regrets.
"She got very lucky."
(Alice could be dead right now. And then he'd have that on his conscience as well. If indeed he even had one.)
A moment of brooding, but it passed when Emily's leg touched his. Surprising, how easily he was stilled by such things. Being touched tended to draw his focus, in whatever form that contact came in. He rolled his head to one side, and his eyes flickered down to their knees for a moment, then back up to Emily's face. He pursed his lips together thoughtfully, then released them. One of his hands found its way to her thigh, and brushed the backs of fingers lightly against the side. It was a familiar touch, and one that happened more out of instinct than anything else.
[Emily Littleton] "Probably a little of both," she offered, helpfully. It was precisely the brand of helpfulness that didn't feel particularly useful, but Emily managed it without being too abrasive. Likely because Jarod himself was rather pragmatic about observations, most of the time.
"If it helps, it doesn't sound like she did it alone. Ashley and Wharil were there, and three, maybe four, others. At least two people shot at him, after Alice had been injured."
Emily reported this somewhat impassively, pulling the pertinent details out of what Nathan had told her earlier that night. She also shifted, bringing more of the length of her leg along his, resting her hand on the inner edge of his knee. It was habit for them, falling into the closeness of physical contact. Her eyes didn't focus on him while she spoke, but they softened somewhat when his fingers grazed her leg.
[Emily Littleton] After a long pause, Emily's brow furrowed for a moment. Thoughtful. Followed by a quiet (gruesome) epiphany. She added:
"Oh, and also a shotgun." Beat. Barely time to draw a little breath. "Maybe that was Ashton...?" she added, chewing on her lip a bit as she considered that last bit.
[Jarod Nightingale] Jarod's response to all of this was to make a small, noncommittal sound somewhere between his throat and his chest.
"Doesn't really matter. It's over now, and we can all go back to waiting for the next big disaster."
And sadly, that was pretty much the way that it worked, for them. Still, the urge to complain had waxed and waned, and now Jarod was content merely to lie there in the comfortable glow of Emily's proximity. And maybe they'd keep talking, or maybe one or the other of them would fall asleep at some point. Eventually Jarod would rouse himself and go back to his own apartment, but not for awhile yet.
