[Ashley McGowen] The drive from Boston to Chicago is supposed to take seventeen hours. With the way Kage drives, it only took thirteen and a half, but that is still far too long a time to spend in a car for one day, as far as Ashley is concerned. Particularly since she'll be boarding a plane early in the a.m., trapped aboard for another twenty hours.
She would still rather be doing that than be in Chicago over the new year.
Zane was in dire need of a walk when they got back - he's a big dog to be crammed in the back of a truck's cab for most of a day - and Ashley was happy to stretch her legs, cold outside as it is. Jarod got a call when she got back, a thanks for the present, and somehow he's coming over here. Ashley supposes she can sleep on the plane; she's going to be on it long enough that she'll be happy to have a way to fill up the hours. Besides, now that Kage has gone home and the apartment is quiet, she doesn't really want to be alone.
A shower helps wash the travel off but not her exhaustion. It's been a long weekend. By next Monday, it'll have been a long week.
By the time Jarod arrives she's dressed and looking over the baked goods Morgan and her father deposited in her kitchen. The notes from her happy apprentice and her happy father. She's close to the door and so it isn't long after he knocks that it opens; Zane, evidently, is so tired that he hasn't even gotten up to run to the door tonight. Ashley, dressed now in a pair of jeans and a clean T-shirt she threw on (dark green, advertising a Boston pub) holds the door open and offers him a half-smile. "Hi," she says. "How was Christmas?"
[Jarod Nightingale] As much as Jarod loved his daughter, there were times when he caught himself longing for the simpler, untethered lifestyle he'd grown used to over the years. When he could bring complete strangers back to his flat and fuck them all night without having to worry about how much noise they made or, hell, if they were in the bedroom or the kitchen. When he could ensconce himself in the study and spend hours pouring over a book (for work or for pleasure) and not hear the oh-so-familiar rapping of a small fist against the door at periodic intervals. When he could store whatever he wanted in the various closets and drawers without needing to put a lock on any of them. (Ilana was one of those clever, independent and hyper-curious children that seemed to get into everything.)
Christmas break could be taxing for parents, after awhile. Logan had been over today, and he and Ilana had decided to play some permutation of tag-and-tackle which had almost resulted in a smashed coffee table and potential hospital-trip. By the time Ashley called, Jarod was more than happy to invent an excuse to get out of the house and leave the child-care duties to his long-term holiday guest of honor.
So it was that he now found himself at Ashley's apartment, being greeted by the sight of a travel-weary Hermetic. He eyed her shrewdly as he removed his coat and shoes. Beneath the outer layer, he had on a pristine-white henley and a pair of jeans. (They were both having a casual day.) "Not bad," he mused. "Very relaxed, which is exactly how I like it. What about you? You seem like you had a long trip."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley leans against the wall next to the closet while Jarod removes his coat and shoes, reaching up to lock her arms behind her head and pillow it against the wall. It's a very casual pose, particularly for her, and likely something she's doing to attempt to relax herself rather than because she feels relaxed already.
She casts a look over him too, perhaps aware that he must be tired and perhaps not; she, after all, is not a parent and has no frame of reference. The closest experience she has is that with her apprentice, and she was not here with Morgan over the holiday; she was instead making sure that Morgan got to see her actual father, someone she hadn't been around in almost a year and thought she might never see again.
"It was your first Christmas with Ilana, wasn't it?" she asks him, because she's relatively certain he didn't have the girl with him last year (though, given how well he hid Ilana for a while, he might have.)
Mention of her own trip makes her raise her eyebrows. "Yeah," she says. "Kage gets pissy when she's been driving for a while. Some acquaintances of mine dropped in unexpectedly. I think everybody in Boston knows I'm studying with you guys now." There's a wry twist of her mouth, though she doesn't seem irritated. It's gentle ribbing, if it's anything. "I'm getting on a plane to go to China tomorrow. I figured I can sleep then."
[Jarod Nightingale] He nodded when Ashley asked if this had been the first Christmas he'd spent with his daughter. She was correct in her assumed timeline. One could probably infer, from this, that his period of absence over the last year had coincided with her coming to live with him. There was probably a story there, but if so he hadn't ever mentioned it. Not even to Emily. (And no one had yet to ask.)
"She said she missed Toronto, but otherwise I think she had a good time. She even admitted that she liked not having to go to church." He smirked a little as he sat down on the sofa and made himself comfortable, tucked into the corner with one knee up and leaning an elbow against the back cushion. One might imagine that this was something of a personal victory for him - watching his daughter gradually pull away from her Christian upbringing. In truth, she probably would have done this on her own at some point - perhaps in a few years when the teenage instinct to rebel and redefine oneself might instill the need to question the things she'd been taught - but Jarod's influence had certainly sped the process along.
(She had something else to believe in now. Something that a child might find entirely more wondrous.)
"It seems I continue to be a thorn in your side, even when I'm halfway across the country." His tone and expression shifted to something that contained notes of both apology and amusement. "China is a long flight. I used to make it almost every weekend." He eyed her then, one eyebrow lofted. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather rest? I can go if you're tired."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley seats herself on the couch after he does, dropping her head onto the back cushion. She leans the ball of one foot up against the leg of her coffee table, leaving her heel braced against the ground. It's a posture that is simultaneously weary and relaxed, screams Glad To Be Home even though she won't be home for very long.
Ashley rolls her eyes when he mentions that Ilana likes not having to go to church. "I can imagine," she says. When he mentions Toronto that confirms her suspicions that he'd left to go and get her - he'd mentioned going there after he came back, when she met him at the restaurant. Often as the emotional states of others can escape her, Ashley remembers very clearly the things people say, and she's more than intelligent enough to connect all the dots.
There's a brief hesitation, and she doesn't raise her head but instead lets it fall a little to the side so she can look at him. "Is her mother in Toronto, or something?"
When he casts another look over her she just shakes her head, and the slightly wistful tilt to her eyebrows that appeared when he mentioned China fades. "I'm sure. I wanted to see you, or I wouldn't have invited you over." She's like him in that regard; generally she doesn't tolerate someone's presence if she doesn't want to or if she doesn't see a reason.
[Jarod Nightingale] He didn't answer her question at first, choosing instead to let the focus of the conversation redirect back to Ashley and her New Year's plans. When she mentioned that she wanted to see him, he smiled a little and left it at that, assuming correctly that the Hermetic wasn't likely to lie to him about something that trivial. Silence settled in for a moment, and he glanced toward the kitchen, noting the light scent of Christmas that always accompanied gifts of baked goods at this time of year. He seemed thoughtful.
"Her adoptive parents died in a car accident last year. But yes, she grew up there."
He did not mention anything about a biological mother. Given Jarod's own age (if one did the math, then he had to have gotten Ilana's mother pregnant when he was only 18 - barely even an adult,) one might assume that perhaps the story here wasn't all that different from plenty of other teen parents: that Ilana had probably been an accident, and that neither of her birth parents had been equipped to deal with raising a child at the time. And this was essentially the truth, even if the details didn't quite fit.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is used to having her questions dodged, at this point - Kage is particularly masterful. She doesn't always notice when they have been, but the way Jarod deliberately avoids mentioning anything about Ilana's biological mother suggests that he doesn't want to talk about it, found a different way to answer, and Ashley seems satisfied with that; were it a different situation, if he were a work associate and it was about something work related or correlating to her responsibilities as the administrative dean, she would press the subject. As it is right now, she does not.
It's patience, though, not disinterest. But she has done the math; it is probably like most teen pregnancies.
She raises her eyebrows at the mention of the car accident, though. "Sudden, then." In a manner she can sympathize: she's ended up almost totally responsible for Morgan. Morgan's a bit older, granted, which is certainly helpful - not as many restrictions - but it's not a role she was really prepared for.
Ashley drapes one arm over her head, stretching for a few seconds and then letting it curl around the back of the couch. "Is Dana the friend you said was staying with you?" Curious tonight, evidently.
[Jarod Nightingale] Ashley was curious, but she didn't press. Tonight she displayed more patience and sensitivity than she sometimes might, and these things tended to be rewarded when talking to someone like Jarod, whose aloof nature only intensified when he felt as if he was being pushed. Ashley commented that this new role seemed to have been thrust upon him rather suddenly, and Jarod nodded. "It was." (Honest, for once.)
Then a question about Dana, and a flicker of a smile passed across his face as he watched Ashley stretch and make herself comfortable. "She is." After a pause, he elaborated. "We've known each other for a long time. Since we were kids, actually. She decided on something of a whim to spend the holidays out here, so she'll be here through the New Year. I think she's secretly starting to like the snow, despite numerous complaints to the contrary." This comment was further evidence (if Ashley needed any) that Jarod's friend was not local to Chicago - or even the Northern part of the country. Unlike him, she'd always been easy enough to identify as a Texan.
Ashley had draped her arm over the back of the couch, and Jarod let his hand find hers, tracing a fingertip lightly over her knuckle. "I hope you're not horribly disappointed in the lack of sex toys included with your present."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley looks back up at him when he tells her about Dana, who she had guessed was not from Chicago - she has a good ear, or did, and that extends to accents; she placed where Dana was from even though she hadn't heard her speak at length. She smirks, after a moment, when he mentions the snow growing on his friend. "She seemed fine with it when I saw her," she says.
Ashley hasn't kept in touch with anyone she knew as a child, or as a teenager. The person any of them knew was effectively gone. Her brows knit together for a moment before the touch of his hand on hers brings her eyes back up to him, and after a brief delay she smiles. "No. I like the knife a lot, actually." There's a way the corner of her mouth snicks up a little further, takes on more of an amused overtone. "I'm guessing Scandinavian make wasn't coincidental. Am I that obvious?"
She considers him for a few seconds and then edges closer in against his side, leaning her head back against his shoulder. Her eyes flick away after a second and she adds, with a wry tilt of her eyebrows, "Sex toys for Christmas would've definitely been a first, though."
[Jarod Nightingale] Indeed, Dana had seemed to be enjoying herself on the day she and Ashley had met. Like many Southerners, her experience of real winter tended to shift between polarities of delight and misery, based primarily on whether or not it happened to be inconveniencing her at the time.
When Ashley mentioned the make of the knife he'd given her, Jarod grinned enigmatically. "It just seemed to suit you." In truth, he couldn't have really pin-pointed a precise reason why he'd been drawn to it. Something about the simple practicality and the brutal effectiveness. It was a primal tool for a primal person. (And the Norse, well... they liked their blood magic.)
She shifted to lean into him, and there was a comfort to having someone else's warmth and weight tucked in against his side. He let his inside knee drop so that it wouldn't be in her way, and let his arm rest along the top of the sofa behind her head. It was strange to think that only a couple weeks ago, their relationship had been close to severed. Tonight they'd fallen easily enough into intimate familiarity. That tended to happen when two people spent enough time together, doing the things that they often did when in each other's company. For a moment Jarod looked distant, but his attention returned to their conversation quickly enough, and he chuckled softly. "I seem to get them just about every year."
[Ashley McGowen] When he says it seemed to suit her Ashley is quiet for a moment. She too seems a little distant in spite of having initiated contact, or perhaps just pensive, just a little preoccupied with occasional thoughts of what her weekend is going to be like. But she seems to desire the closeness nonetheless, or at least to be more open about wanting it.
After that thoughtful pause she glances up at him again, still with that faint, wry smile touching her features, and she says, "I actually used to get a lot of dreams to that effect. I had one about hanging from a gallows when I woke up and having my eye and ear ripped off by crows. I thought I was going crazy. Then later I just figured it made me a bad Hermetic." More amusement, then, "You're good at guessing, I suppose."
Ashley is used to making people angry. There have been plenty of occasions where she's had fights with someone that verged on brutal, that were hurtful, and it hasn't ended the friendship or relationship. She believes in conflict as a driving force, and that it happens, so when it does she can be surprisingly quick to forgive or forget, in her way. She doesn't notice the way Jarod grows a little distant for a moment. "Somehow it doesn't surprise me that people would give them to you. They seem kind of impersonal for a gift, though. I mean, at that point why bother."
Maybe it's odd that she thinks of a rather personal gift as impersonal; Ashley doesn't seem to have thought about it.
[Jarod Nightingale] He didn't actually appear to be listening any more closely than usual when Ashley described her dreams to him, but these were things that were both interesting and noteworthy (the information was personal, and probably not something that she admitted readily to any other magi who happened to cross her path,) and it was a fair bet that he placed some significance on it. In his entire life, Jarod had only spoken to three people about his Awakening. Two of them had since died, and the third knew only vague and fractured details.
He considered Ashley's assessment that adult gifts were impersonal, and didn't entirely disagree. "Any gift can be personal or impersonal, really. It depends on the details. But I have to admit I don't often keep them. A lot of people would be sorely disappointed to find out how infrequently I make use of props in my sex life." (Said the man who'd had hidden hooks bolted into the wall behind his bed. But then, some props were more useful than others.) He put a finger to his lips as if to say: shhh, don't tell.
"And of course, I pretty much already have anything I could possibly want. Including the diamond-studded vibrator, which always struck me as ridiculously ostentatious."
[Ashley McGowen] They're not details she tends to offer up readily; Ashley has told more people about her Awakening than he has, but it still isn't very many at all. A handful, really, and like him, some of the people who knew are dead now. It's rare for her to divulge entire stories in one sitting, besides - Kage, for example, pieced everything together slowly, as Ashley was comfortable giving it, and at this point the Orphan knows her better than anyone else she knows. But it is unlikely that she would bring it up at all, or offer anything forward, if she weren't comfortable with offering more - that just isn't how she operates.
She might have had a quip to offer forth until he mentions having anything he could possibly want, and then she just offers him a flat stare. "Like actual...no, you know what, I don't want to know," she says, with the quiet huff that, for her, sometimes passes for a laugh.
"It kind of seems like it would get boring after a while." There's no judgment in her tone; it's not reproving. Just thoughtful. They do, after all, approach these things very differently.
[Jarod Nightingale] "Having everything I want, using props, or just sex in general?"
One could make a case for any of them, really. When something became rote and commonplace, it no longer held the same allure that it might once have had. Jarod smirked, letting his hand slide down from the back of the couch to curl around Ashley's waist and pull her into his side. She was a lot shorter than him, so he had to slide down a bit and bend his head in order nudge playfully against the side of her neck. His lips brushed her skin, and he kissed her slowly beneath the corner of her jaw. "Sex is never boring, for me."
And if a situation proved less-than-enticing, then he simply didn't participate. It was a very straightforward and matter-of-fact approach, and one that probably a fair number of people could stand to emulate. There was far too much boring sex in the world.
Jarod pulled back a bit and looked at Ashley, one eyebrow lofted curiously. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Having everything you want." Then again, the idea of having everything she wants is so entirely outside Ashley's own mindset that it's likely she couldn't even begin to grasp it even if she were good at imagining herself to be someone else. It's always in her to want more (though maybe it wouldn't have been, if life had gone a little differently.)
Ashley's hardly been unreceptive in the past but there's something that seems welcoming, today; she tips her chin back when his lips touch down beneath her jawline, and some of the languid sleepiness falls away. It's the dead of winter, nearly a year from the day she found herself immersed in death, encountering horror she can barely stand to recall in her waking hours, and she'll be marking that day by visiting the ashes of someone she'd been growing close to. She's found methods of coping with these things.
When he pulls back, though, it isn't entirely unexpected, and she looks back at him and raises her eyebrows, expression somewhere between bemused and wry. "I'd say it directly if I was," she says. At which point she curves an arm around him and then shifts into his lap, knees on either side of his hips. She offers him a half-smile (and still has to look up). "Just trying to get it, I guess. But no. I'm not bored."
[Jarod Nightingale] There'd been a moment, a few days ago in Grant Park, when Jarod had looked at Ashley and Ilana standing next to each other and realized with some discomfort that he'd been sleeping with someone who was only slightly larger than his eleven-year-old daughter. If Ashley had been younger-looking - one of those people cursed to appear child-like even in maturity - he might never have slept with her at all. But there was really no mistaking her for a child - or even someone who was particularly fragile. And it was true... she'd never exhibited a tendency for passive-aggression, but of course he'd only been teasing when he'd asked this.
She climbed onto his lap, and his other hand joined the first at the small of her back. They slid up the arc of her spine, then back down to settle onto her hips. He looked at her for awhile, quietly contemplative. "I don't have everything that I want."
Of course he didn't. Nobody did. He'd been using the words in a superficial sense earlier, and Ashley probably knew that. Material possessions were easy enough for someone of his income level to acquire. Certainly there were things out there that Jarod couldn't afford (his own private island, perhaps,) but he was lucky enough to be one of the few people in the world who never had to worry about money. To someone like Ashley, who was surviving on the meager income of a college grad student, this concept probably seemed all at once fascinating, unattainable, and suspicious. But no... he did not actually have everything he could possibly want. Far from it, in fact.
There'd been a note of regret in his voice when he'd said that, but he didn't (and wouldn't) elaborate on it. Instead, he slipped back into wry flirtation (because there was a woman on his lap, and this was something that deserved attention.) His mouth turned up at one side, and he rolled the edge of his lower lip between his teeth. "Anyway... you don't have to buy someone a gift to make them happy."
[Ashley McGowen] Jarod speaks with regret, and Ashley, who is becoming the embodiment of all its forms, hears Hunger, and when she understands people at all it's because that desire ties her to them. The look she gives him is not as shrewd and calculating as one might expect her to give someone on the rare occasion she experiences some sort of insight (or, indeed, as she might have given someone else had it come during the expression of a different sentiment.) Ashley is an Adept, arguably one of the few thousand most powerful beings left alive on Earth, promising and politically prominent; she's a broken prodigy, and sometimes people have everything but the things that matter. She gets that.
But far be it from her to go so far as to express it; her moments of quiet understanding tend not to linger long. Maybe she just doesn't let them. She smirks, playful almost, and says, "What do you want that you don't have?"
Maybe she isn't expecting an honest answer; it's hard to tell with her sometimes. If she's just choosing to skim by it, ignore it, it wouldn't be inconsistent with the rest of what other people have seen her do in her dealings with others, or with the perspective on people she claims to have. When Jarod's tone shifts again she raises her eyebrows and says, a touch flat, "Yeah, that's probably lucky. I skid off of people all the time."
What she doesn't tell him is that he'll likely wind up with a present anyway, some random day of the year. She doesn't say that; instead she lifts a hand and curves it around the back of his head, sliding her fingers into his hair and leaning in to kiss him once, lightly. When she pulls back a little it's to glance at the clock on the wall over his shoulder. "My cab is supposed to get here at two-thirty in the morning," faint displeasure, "but until then I'm yours."
[Jarod Nightingale] What do you want that you don't have?
He could have given many answers to this, but ultimately he chose not to voice any of them, leaving Ashley with only her own musings as insight. It didn't matter, really. She hadn't been expecting a real response, and it didn't take Mind magic to understand that a person like Jarod probably didn't get to be the way that he was because he was happy.
Her cab was supposed to get there at 2:30, but she wasn't interested in sleeping. Instead, she kissed him lightly and offered up a few hours of time to whatever whim happened to catch them. Of course, because it was Jarod and Ashley, that impulse was almost invariably one of hunger. Hunger could take many forms, but with the Verbena's sensual influence in the mix, sex was a fairly definitive conclusion. He quirked a brow and looked at her with interest. Perhaps he'd found her word-choice intriguing. It seemed a bit... un-Ashley-like. As if she were making an offering of herself.
"Mine, hmm? Are you sure about that?"
He could just as easily have been referring to the impending international flight she was about to take as he was insinuating the fact that he might be inclined to take her at her word when given an offer like that. As if to illustrate this, he lifted his hands from her hips and took hold of each of her arms, pulling them gently to lock at the wrist behind her back. He pulled in a breath when he came in to return her kiss, catching her bottom lip with his teeth.
[Ashley McGowen] The word choice was not unintentional: she'd intended it to be an offer, of sorts - and it is atypical, which is why it is an offer, something she wouldn't usually give over. Of course, she hadn't really anticipated him taking to it so readily, though she probably should have. Her muscles tense when her wrists lock at her back, just for a few seconds, before they uncoil once more.
Ashley was attacked during sex once among other places and times during the year of her initiation, one she looks back on these days with pure relief. It's been an inside joke between her and Bran since (and he'd never been happier to be Flambeau), though it and other incidents instilled in her something that wasn't necessarily a paranoia, but an understanding that she should always be ready. Tytalan culture is brutal, and it makes brutal people.
Still, after that initial moment she seems comfortable, even if perhaps it's only because of her own confidence. She doesn't make a verbal reply but after the kiss breaks she nods, once, a movement he can feel as much as see or hear.
[Jarod Nightingale] Ashley didn't need to explain to him why she'd tensed, just then. He understood that kind of constant vigilance, and the level of trust that was required in order to give up control to another person. Some people gave it easily. Others were more protective - more guarded. It wasn't only about safety. Ashley, after all, was an Adept, and could cause harm to another person without even lifting a finger. Some people simply didn't deserve to be given surrender. It was something he himself would only ever offer to someone who'd earned both his trust (at least some measure of it) and his respect, and that combination happened very, very infrequently. Ashley probably felt rather similarly.
Which made it all the more alluring when she offered it to him now, but he was also aware, on an instinctual level, that someone like Ashley never really surrendered, completely, and that he'd probably do well to remember that. (Like catching a tiger by its tail - or maybe a dragon.)
Jarod glanced at Zane, asleep on the floor nearby, as if in silent debate. When his eyes returned, he smiled a little, and released his grip on her wrists so that she could slide off of him when he stood up. A moment later he'd led them into her bedroom and closed the door, flipping on the light if it hadn't been on already. Once there, he grabbed the hem of his shirt and lifted it off and over his head in one smooth motion, dropping it on the floor. He did the same thing with Ashley's t-shirt, then put a hand on her chest and pushed her back gently onto the bed. As he climbed after her, he put a hand on her shoulder and indicated that he wanted her to roll onto her stomach. When he'd unhooked her bra and slid the fabric out of the way, he ran his hands along the bare skin of her back and kissed the nape of her neck. One of his hands slid into her hair, running short strands between his fingers, and when he kissed the back of her neck a second time, it was a little more possessive; a little more hungry - almost a bite.
There wasn't enough time, but he'd use whatever he had. And if Ashley seemed resistant to what he had in mind, then he'd easily adapt, because for all the illusion of control, this was still an entirely mutual exchange. But if she didn't resist, then he'd happily take advantage of the rare moment of free-reign that she'd given him, and somewhere in this there was probably a hint of rebellion, because she'd insisted, not long ago, that he'd been made to do her Will, and while he would never make similar claims over her, there was a last vestige of stubborn pride that would not let this false claim go unanswered. Hers was not the only Will to have survived and strengthened from adversity.
But there was also a kind of intimate affection that touched his actions, and that ran a little deeper, and resonated longer. And when 2:30 drew near, there was some reluctance in the way that he untangled himself from her. But he did, because he wasn't the sort of person who clung to things. And before he left, he wished her a safe trip, and told her to call if she needed anything, because China was something of a second home to him, and he was well acquainted with both the pleasant and less pleasant aspects of visiting that country.
He also wished her a happy new year, though he suspected from the somber tone she'd had when speaking of the trip that it may not be a particularly joyful occasion for her.
And then he'd leave, and eventually end up back in his own bed in Wicker Park. And there wouldn't be any more thoughts, for awhile, of the things that he didn't have.
