fandomtownies | Selkie Cove/Lake, The Rocky Bits, Thursday Evening

Jack tilted his head back, looked up and along the cliffs. "I wonder if I could climb those now," he mused. "Sebastien could."

He pushed his hair back, reminded himself it wasn't a contest.

"How was Hank?"

"Hank-like," Emma replied with a shrug, picking her way along the shore. "He offered to examine you, if you wanted, but I told him that you were done with poking and prodding for a bit."

Jack looked first alarmed, then profoundly grateful.

"I respect him," he said gingerly, "but I doubt he could do anything anyone hasn't already thought of. Or at least, nothing I'm up for quite yet."

"If it is an induced mutation, he could probably come up with some sort of genetic therapy for it, given time," Emma pointed out. "But everything other people tell me makes me hate magic even more." Sorry, Karla.

"He also offered to come out with you some night, in case you want someone bigger," and already bestial, "to scare off anyone you don't want to deal with." Beat. "I think he possibly wants to play tag."

For all the telepathic therapy Emma had done with Hank, the furry-man was still very much five, sometimes.

[Sorry, ended up working until NINE instead of six. Bah.]

Jack kicked a rock hard, watched it skitter away towards the water. His sense of humor was perhaps one of the things that had been left on the pavement in Paris.

"Yes to having someone watch," he said. "No to playing tag. It took four people with guns and chopping its head off to bring the thing that bit me down, Emma, and that was just a ghost. If I hurt Hank -- or anyone -- I couldn't go on."

Edited 2012-01-13 14:30 (UTC)

Emma stopped and turned to look at him. "Jack, I believe you. I understand how deadly the beast was, I do. I peeked. You, Sebastien, Lady Garrett, all of you. Telsa, too." It had given her a headache, trying to sift through the population of Paris telepathically to find the man, but she had done it. And he could be mad at her all he wanted.

"Believe me when I say that if Hank decides you aren't touching him - or anyone - that you will not. He's far more capable than he lets on."

Jack glanced over. He believed she believed what she said about Hank, but that was a far cry from believing it was true.

"I'm surprised you looked and didn't go mad," he said quietly, and without any anger. He couldn't think much about the beast without his throat tightening in panic. "I don't suppose you got any insights about the creature I might have missed?"

Edited 2012-01-13 15:51 (UTC)

"If I were going to go mad, Mr. Priest, I would have done so a long time ago," Emma replied quietly. "I am more than slightly furious on your behalf, and sickened, but I am afraid that Don Sebastien made it quite clear I was not allowed to mentally vivisect any Russian spies."

...which wasn't to say Emma wasn't going to do it later, but she knew better than to try and give a vigilant vampire the slip. Besides, she hadn't wanted to leave Jack's side, and the things she wanted to do required laying-of-hands to work best, or at least close proximity.

"There may be more than base instinct to the creature," she continued, turning over the question of insight in her mind. "It did not attack until provoked by Mrs. Smith shooting at it."

"No, leave Kostov," Jack agreed. "Much as I'd slaughter him myself if I had half a chance, he might have something useful -- about the beast, if not about the Russian empire."

He frowned and bit his lip at the rest of what she said. "I didn't notice that in the moment, but you're right," he said. "So if it -- if I -- stay in places where there won't be provocation, I might not attack."

That felt like a very slim hope, but it was what he had.

Emma gave him a pout. "I could leave him incontinent for a month without damaging his mind," she sulked. "Just his sense of self-esteem." It would also have the nice side effect of punishing whichever French authorities were dealing with him for forcing the case off on to Jack.

Even a slim hope was a hope, however, and she would nudge him towards that. "Somewhere with a fence, maybe?" Emma suggested. "A tall one... with no trespassing signs."

"I've been thinking about it," Jack said. (Well, of course he had.) "I could buy a wooded lot a few hours from some city. Besides the fencing I'd hire someone to ward the property line with wolfsbane."

He considered it, wondered if that was enough. "I wonder how hard it is to buy a small island?"

Wolves, as he was finding, did not like water. But he probably wasn't that well off.

"You are not allowed to live on an island and become a hermit, Jack," Emma said, rolling her eyes. "You'd be miserable living all alone."

"But an island might be cool," Jack said, before relenting and smiling. "No, you're right. I may have to find someplace to be a hermit three days a month, but the other 25 are mine -- if I can figure out what to do with them."

He smiled at her, tucked his hands into his pockets. "You'll probably be happy to hear I've ruled out returning to Paris for any length of time."

"You're hardly one to sit idle," Emma pointed out. "You have the rest of the semester off school, don't you? You can do a world tour if you feel like it, visiting all the finest museums and libraries."

"Your whole life is still yours, you know. Just...with a few new allergic reactions."

"It won't be the life I'd planned for," Jack said, stepping a bit closer to Emma as they rounded a large stone. There was almost a sulk in his voice.

He squared his shoulders, bearing up. "But I like the thought of travel," he said. "I was thinking about going to Moscow. There's one last favor I owe Sebastien."

This time -- and this thought was very close to the surface -- he would ask her to come.

"I am starting to think that none of us get the life we originally plan for," Emma agreed, giving him a faint smile. "In my case, at least, I'm getting something better."

"As for you - you owe Sebastien nothing, Jack, and I am rather sure he would say the same," she stated. "Especially nothing in Moscow. Nothing reputable ever happens in Moscow."

"But that's what makes it fun," Jack said, with a wheedling smile. "Maybe I don't owe it, but I want to go. We were there when I was sixteen, and Sebastien left a courtesan there. I'd like to see if she changed her mind about travel."

This was ... only about sixty percent about running away. Jack did feel some duty to replace himself in the tiny court: Better Irina Stephanova than someone he didn't know.

"You could come with me, if you wanted."

Edited 2012-01-13 20:40 (UTC)

"You would set me loose, in Russia, in 1902?" she asked, arching an eyebrow. "Scandalous, Jack."

"How would your Miss Irina Stephanova feel about me showing up in your wake?" The name was, after all, at the top of his mind.

"Believe it or not, I thought 1898 Russia was the most scandalous place I'd ever been," Jack said loftily. "You'd manage fine, once you got around not being able to read anything."

He aimed a quick, nervous smile at her for plucking the name out of his head. "I don't know. I can't imagine she feels much of anything for me anymore. I'm not sure she ever did."

"I am rather sure that would be impossible." Whether Emma was referring to Russia as the most scandalous, or Stephanova not feeling anything for Jack, well, she was not in the mood to elaborate. "When did you want to go?"

Jack looked at her, surprised. "That was a yes?"

She never made things this easy on him. Perhaps he should get himself almost killed more often.

"It is a 'maybe,'" she informed him, picking up a rock to skip off the flat surface of the lake. "Depending, of course, upon my academic schedule and the usual random bout of Fandom Crisis."

Maybe still wasn't no. Or are you completely out of your mind?, which is where Jack would have put his money. He couldn't quite keep a delighted smile off his face.

"Early next week," he said, and picked up a rock to join her in the stone-skipping. "I need to go see Mitchell and George first. Can't tell them over the phone."

Edited 2012-01-13 22:31 (UTC)

"Oh, I completely think you're out of your mind," Emma informed him, almost cheerfully. "You want to go to Russia, when you know they're in-bed with England, and who knows what other mad sorcerers they have running around?"

"Someone must keep an eye on you, however, and I am uniquely qualified."

Jack smiled more wryly at her. "You aren't even pretending not to listen today."

But she was right, and he knew it perfectly well.

"We shouldn't have to stay terribly long," he added. Just however long it took to find Irina and ascertain whether she would consider rejoining the court, and maybe a few extra days for Jack to get his head straight. "If that helps with your schooling plans."

"Why bother pretending?" Emma asked, picking up a few more stones. "This is one of the few places I don't have to pretend to be less than I am, and you already know what I'm capable of doing."

"Either way, my classes don't start until February. I have time."

"As long as we can put up with each other and your school is still closed, I'd like you to stay with me," Jack admitted. "Not -- every second of every day, I'm not a child or an idiot, but the company helps."

It kept him from falling into his head and not coming out. He was a long way from okay, and Emma knew that better than most people.

"Speaking of not pretending."

Edited 2012-01-14 03:38 (UTC)

"You could have an abundance of company, if you wanted," Emma pointed out, selecting the flattest of her stones and running her thumb over it before tossing it out over the water. One...three...five... "Or rotating company. There's no reason for you to be alone if you don't want to be."

She knew. Jack had been one of the people that had come for her when she was the farthest from 'okay' possible; she would not leave him behind either.

"There isn't," Jack admitted. "I could even get a job on the island, stay here for a bit."

He wasn't sure he wanted to do that -- he was an urban creature and had never truly liked Fandom -- but it was an option.

He tossed the stone in his hand, watched it skim the surface of the water before sinking.

Emma shook her head. "You don't even like Fandom," she pointed out. "Oh, you enjoy the people well enough, but you don't like it here. You even resent it, a little, I think."

"If you wanted to travel a bit, I'm sure there's more than a few of us who wouldn't mind tagging along for awhile."

Jack -- a bit embarrassed -- laughed at the truth of what she said.

"It's too small and too strange," said the boy who'd been raised by vampires from the age of five. "And you can't predict it, and sometimes it's just cruel. Though if the last few months have taught me anything, it's that anyplace can be cruel. But travel ... travel has potential."

Edited 2012-01-15 19:36 (UTC)

Emma went with the oh-so-mature option of sticking out her tongue at him. "Small, I'll give you," she quipped, "but calling it strange is rather like the pot calling the kettle black, Mr. Priest."

Jack chuckled over his grin. "All that I'm saying is that for all the oddities in my world, it never rains pastries there."

"Tasty pastries," Emma corrected. "So it could be far worse."

It could be cruel, and they both knew it, but so was the rest of the world.

"Any thoughts on where you want to go, besides Russia?"

Jack shook his head. "I know not 1902," he said. "Either I'll get drafted into some army there, or the Irish will find a way to make me a weapon on that side. At least my world's not actively at war these days, and they pretend to believe in supernatural civil rights."

As far as it went, anyhow. David had convinced them both his modern world could be far from a tolerant place.

"Probably I'll end up back in London eventually -- at least, 25 days a month."

"They will find a way to do what?" The look that she shot him was sharp; Emma had been listening, yes, but not peeking. And Jack was saying this as if there had already been an attempt.

Jack looked sheepish. He hadn't been intentionally keeping it from Emma, but it had been easier not to mention it.

"Murphy," he said. "Head of the Paris resistance paid me a visit just before Ronan stepped in. He tried to sell me on being their attack dog, then suggested their sorcerers might make it happen if I didn't fall in line. I told him to leave."

The whole thing still left a terrible taste in his mouth.

"And you kept this from myself, however unintentionally, and I shall assume Sebastien as well," she stated, and her fingers curled reflexively in anger. "I suppose it did not occur to Mr. Murphy that making a nebulous bluff means someone may call you on it eventually."

Jack glanced over, more curious than alarmed. "What would you do?"

He supposed he should defended Murphy, but honestly he had a hard time caring that much. In the unlikely event it came up, the man probably deserved a good scare.

"Simply remind him that there are more things in heaven and earth, Mr. Priest, than are dreamt of in his philosophy," Emma paraphrased, although her smile was not kind. "And a reminder that things that go bump in the night bite back, when disturbed."

Jack's eyes ... probably shouldn't have lit up at that the way they did.

"Better your kind of bite than my kind of bite," he said. "Thank you."

"If he is so eager for a dog, perhaps your bite would be kinder," she demurred, even as she made a mental note to drop a discreet letter to Jack's Sebastien. If they had already threatened Jack, perhaps it were best for his vampire to drop out of sight for a bit, too, before they decided to weaponize him as well. "Then he could do his own dirty work."

"My 'bite,' while terrifying in its own right, is a subtler shade of cruelty." Perhaps she'd take his mother's name, and leave him forever grasping for it. Or the sound of his sweetheart's voice. Emma liked to get creative when it came to flexing her powers.

"Although you needn't worry about him here," she decided. "Or anywhere else. Should he be stupid enough to follow you to Russia, we can drop him off a train somewhere in Siberia."

"Christ, if I did that and this passes the usual way there'd be dozens of new revolutionary werewolves spreading across the continent by the end of the month," Jack said, and threw his next stone more than he skipped it. "It's bad enough that's what I seem to be, without giving it to anyone with ideals."

And he was seeing all too clearly why Sebastien hadn't liked him to play at politics.

He smiled at her, a bit. "Should we be afraid of each other now?"

Edited 2012-01-17 21:11 (UTC)

"Don't be absurd," Emma answered, rolling her eyes. "I'm no less dangerous than I was when I came here in the first place, and I'm not afraid of you in the slightest."

Afraid of what his curse might do to him, physically and mentally? Yes. Concerned about catching it? Maybe. Afraid of Jack?

Never.

Selkie Cove/Lake, The Rocky Bits, Thursday Evening

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