Room 632, Atlantis Resort, Late Tuesday Morning

[bitten_notshy]

Jack had toured the aquarium and then gone back to his room with the vague intention of finding a swimsuit to finally get to the beach. (He knew that was where he should be, he just ... hadn't felt up to it. There was a lot of malaise in Jack this week, and he couldn't snap out of it despite a general urge to roll his eyes at himself. It wasn't exactly news that vampires were not fluffy puppies, after all.)

He wasn't showing any signs of making it this time, either. After a half-hearted search of his drawers, he'd opened yet another tiny bottle from the minibar and was nursing a scotch as he flipped through a book on criminal profiling. He was sure it would be very interesting, if he could actually focus on the pages.

[OOC: For anyone who might want to track him down.]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

"Why can't we?" Jack asked, massaging in smaller circles. "There's sand, sun, plenty to drink ... you could win money for us at poker."

He almost halfway meant it.

[icecoldfrost]

He did almost-sort-of mean it, didn't he? Curiouser and curiouser.

"Are you encouraging me to use my powers in unscrupulous ways, Mr. Priest?" Emma asked, brushing just along the outside of his mind. Nothing invasive, just a telepathic 'hello'.

[bitten_notshy]

"Isn't the saying that you can't cheat an honest man?" Jack asked. "People who mind losing shouldn't play cards."

He was momentarily startled by the brush of her mind, then -- <<Oh. Hello, you.>> It was more resigned than warm, but he wasn't trying to block her out.

[icecoldfrost]

<<Hello yourself,>> she answered. <<You know, for a man on a tropical island with his lover under his hands, you're positively an Eeyore.>>

<<If you don't want to 'talk' about it, that's fine, but show Emma what's wrong, darling.>>

[bitten_notshy]

<<I'll show you anything if you don't call me a donkey again>>, Jack said, but he seemed more at ease as he kneaded her shoulders. Showing was easier than telling would be. <<You won't hold it against me if you don't like what you see?>>

[icecoldfrost]

<<I will try not to,>> she answered honestly. <<But if you did something horrifically stupid, I reserve the right to sulk at you later.>>

[bitten_notshy]

<<I'd probably deserve the sulk>>, Jack thought at her.

After only a moment's more hesitation, he let himself remember. Pictured the confrontation in Mitchell's office, the phone calls, the horrible moments on the street with Becka and Lauren, the gloomy aftermath. He was brief about it, but complete, and, while he didn't dwell on Mitchell's face, he also made no special effort to conceal it.

"So," he said, feeling curiously lighter when he was done despite his concerns as to how she'd taken it all. "That was -- that."

[icecoldfrost]

...

<<You tried to chat up Little Miss Snacking Psycho? Seriously, darling? I ought to throw the lotion bottle at you.>> Emma was going to focus on the bits she could deal with right now, thank you. Mitchell himself was... something for another time.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack sighed and sat up. "It was the only thing I could think of at the time," he said. "I was worried she'd go after someone else if she wasn't busy."

[icecoldfrost]

"I know. Just..." Knowing it had been the best option to keep Jack -- or anyone else -- from getting hurt didn't make Emma any less freaked-out. "Is it horrible of me, if I'm glad my world does not have vampires?"

[bitten_notshy]

Jack hesitated, but -- "Not unless it's horrible of me that I'm kind of wishing my world didn't have them either."

Wishing Sebastien out of existence. It felt like blasphemy.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma paused for the barest moment before reaching out to slide her fingers along his wrist, dipping down to give his hand a squeeze. "Isn't this where you assure me that some are more housecat than cougar?" she asked quietly.

[bitten_notshy]

"I always knew Sebastien was odd," Jack said, squeezing her hand back. "I wonder now if he's some sort of mutation -- the one housecat born in a litter of cougars. Or if I just don't want to see the cougar there."

If he'd known the slang meaning of cougar, he would have been amused at the double meaning.

[icecoldfrost]

Yes, well, it amused Emma, which is why she used that example.

"Both, maybe?" she suggested. "A cat is still a cat, after all, and who knows what nine lives can do?"

[bitten_notshy]

"And Sebastien's well past his ninth," Jack observed, stretching out and gesturing for her to join him. "Maybe I should just trust the old ones. They seem calmer."

A 120-year-old vampire was positively prepubescent when a 1,100-year-old one was your standard of comparison.

[icecoldfrost]

She didn't need much of an invitation. Emma made herself comfortable; not cuddling, but close enough she could lay on her stomach and trace doodles up and down his arm.

"Well, they've had longer to get used to being around people," she agreed, being nice and not pointing out that meant they also had more experience in hiding bodies. "Although I think you shouldn't really trust any besides your Sebastien, but you know I'm biased."

Someone was going to have a bit of a problem going to class next Monday, yes.

[bitten_notshy]

Well, that would make at least two and more likely three of them. (Possibly four, depending on how Tony felt about it.) Mitchell had an Interesting workday waiting for him.

Jack raised his head slightly to look at Emma. "So you would trust Sebastien."

[icecoldfrost]

"No, I trust that if he was going to snap, you would have provoked him to it already with your shenanigans," Emma answered, rolling her eyes and taking a poke at his ribs. "So I'm rather sure he can keep his control around you and not cause an accident."

Big difference. At least to Emma.

[bitten_notshy]

"Ah." Jack understood the difference, too. "And one of the things that keeps me in his life is that I know he won't cause an accident for anyone else, either."

At least, he thought he knew that.

[icecoldfrost]

And George most likely 'knew' the same about Mitchell last week, but Emma didn't say that aloud. This wasn't about Sebastien's control, it was about Mitchell, and how much the events of the past week had unsettled Jack.

"How long have you known?" she asked instead, regarding him curiously. "About Mitchell?"

No judgment, just curiosity. They both had plenty of secrets they didn't share.

[bitten_notshy]

"Since August," Jack said. "It ... came out while you were sleeping. I hadn't mentioned it to anyone."

Tony knew, true, but Tony didn't hear it from Jack.

[icecoldfrost]

"Ah." Emma shifted to lay on her side and face him, resting one hand on his hip. "And telling me that my favorite teacher was a vampire right after I awoke would have been a horrible idea."

[bitten_notshy]

"Mmmm," Jack said, turning to nuzzle her hair lightly. "He wanted it kept quiet, too, and I don't go around telling secrets about people."

He considered that was exactly what he had just done, and amended, "... unless the circumstances change."

A dead girl was a big changed circumstance, yes.

[icecoldfrost]

"Unless circumstances change," she agreed. And two dead girls -- because that's what this Lauren was, too, -- was definately a change.

She let her hand drift to the small of his back, her fingers lightly tracing circles against his skin. "What now?"

[bitten_notshy]

"For me or for him?"

Jack -- who squirmed lightly under her touch -- didn't know, was the truth. He knew he believed that a vampire with a job, friends and a life among humans was less dangerous by far than one with none of those things, and (lingering loyalty aside) he would have wanted Mitchell to stay on the island for that reason alone. He also knew the only thing that would keep him from yelling his head off the next time he saw Mitchell was the utter futility of the exercise.

"I had promised to take a girl to the beach."