Hotel Room *handwavy*, Monday Morning

[bitten_notshy]

Jack hadn't expected much from Emma after their run-in with Adrienne. He'd stayed with her, taken her shopping, talked of nothing. He assumed she'd tell him more about her sister when she felt like it, or never.

His curiosity about the Frosts was itching at him. Sometimes, even when it was important, it was hard for him not to treat people he cared for as potential witnesses.

Perhaps especially when it was important.

She'd stayed in his hotel room that night, and now it was morning. He stroked her hair, trying to decide if they should go off the island again today.

"Are you awake?"

[OOC: For one, NFB.]

Comments

[icecoldfrost]

Emma shook her head. "She seems convinced I'm still crazy little Emma," she said bitterly. "That was perfectly clear. If she was a telepath, I doubt she'd think I was insane."

[bitten_notshy]

"Then she has spies," Jack decided. "Or something. She -- knew about Sebastien and Effy. It sounded like she wanted to throw that at you."

[icecoldfrost]

Emma was too mentally exhausted to hide her wince at that news. "Spies," she bit off. "I'm not surprised. I've gotten lazy."

[bitten_notshy]

"You had no reason to expect it," Jack answered, with compassion. "You're just trying to live your life. You shouldn't have to dye your hair and change your name to do that."

He leaned back against the headboard. "Do you have any idea who might be tipping her off?"

[icecoldfrost]

"The squirrels?" she suggested, at a loss for any other ideas. "Adrienne mastered the art of bribery by the time she was six, if not sooner."

But reclining Jacks were made to be leaned upon, and Emma moved over, placing her head on his shoulder for support. "I did cut my hair off when I first ran away," she shared. "I did it myself with an old pair of scissors; it wasn't my most flattering look." Which had rather been the point, actually.

"She's going to tell Winston where I am."

[bitten_notshy]

"The squirrels wouldn't have known about Sebastien, though," Jack said, running his hands through her locks. "... I can't imagine you without your hair."

[icecoldfrost]

"I looked like an absolute urchin," she replied, offering him the mental picture of her with ragged short hair. "I let it grow out again, later, but it made me feel safer to look different. It sounds silly now, but I was so angry about everything that it was almost therapeutic."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack managed not to laugh at the incongruity of the picture. "Poor bedraggled little Emma," he said. His hands weren't leaving her hair. "You're right, you were the perfect urchin. Funny to imagine it."

He was still bothered by how Adrienne knew what she knew, but it was a problem he'd mull privately for the moment.

[icecoldfrost]

"I can hear you," Emma reminded him, amusement lurking under her tone. "You're trying not to laugh at me."

[bitten_notshy]

"Can you blame me?" Jack asked. "It's not as if I don't tell you you're pretty often enough, when you have your hair."

[icecoldfrost]

"Well, the point was not to be pretty," she admitted, stretching out beside him. The hands in her hair were nice and relaxing, to be honest, although Adrienne's intentions still grated against raw nerves. "But I'll never do it again. I like my hair long."

[bitten_notshy]

"I do too," Jack said. (He liked men who looked like men and girls who looked like girls, and, my, he was getting rather far from the topic at hand. He wrenched his train of thought back onto track.)

He sighed. "Can I ask you something that may make you uncomfortable? It's something I think Adrienne will use against you."

[icecoldfrost]

Just when they were getting on slightly more relaxing topics than Emma's bitch of a sister, too!

"What?" she asked, slightly wary at the way he phrased it. "She uses everything against me, it's not like she has any new ammunition to fling, other than the fact I can become shiny."

[bitten_notshy]

"She's going to say," Jack said, holding her closely as if to cushion the blow, "that you were ... overly free with your affections, and that Alex and I both chose someone else instead of you anyhow. I think if you react it'll be a weapon against you. Don't react."

What he wanted to ask, of course, was whether she thought it was true. It wasn't, at least on his side.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma went very still, so quiet Jack could probably feel her heart beating in her chest. Then;

"It's not a weapon if I already know that. It's hardly breaking-news."

The wallpaper on the other side of the room was utterly fascinating.

[bitten_notshy]

Oh.

Jack hated himself on her behalf a tiny bit. He couldn't leave Sebastien; he was determined to outlast the courtesans who had dallied with him a bit in centuries past and fluttered off to mortal life. But that tone in her voice --

"It shouldn't be a weapon," he said evenly, "because it's not true. not the way she'd mean it."

[icecoldfrost]

"Of course not," she agreed, voice deceptively mild. "I wasn't an option to start with."

Emma had known she'd lose from the start, so she kept telling herself that she hadn't ever actually wanted to be a candidate. Most days, she even believed that.

"Anything else you're worried about Adrienne throwing at me, darling?"

[bitten_notshy]

She wasn't but saying that would be salt in the wound.jack wisely considered the subject closed.

"Nothing I don't think you can deflect with dazzling wit and the sure knowledge you're the prettier sister and the better person," Jack answered.

[icecoldfrost]

Emma snorted. "I'm hardly the prettier sister or the better person," she replied, shaking her head. "I'm just not as annoying."

[bitten_notshy]

"What on Earth makes you think you could possibly be a worse person than her?" Jack asked, genuinely mystified. Prettier he'd leave up to her. "You're brave. Loyal. I know you can be ... flexible, in some ways, but the world is one where you have to be."

This was Jack code for 'lacks telepathic morals', yes.

[icecoldfrost]

"I could be just as ruthless as she is, if I let myself," Emma answered. "I have been, before, and I can do it again. There's not that much difference between us."

Emma was far more loyal to people than Adrienne had ever been, true, but she also saw it as expanding her network.

[bitten_notshy]

"You could say that a million times and I wouldn't believe it," Jack said stubbornly.

He meant it. But he also wouldn't want Emma as an enemy.

[icecoldfrost]

"Mmmm...I've got you bamboozled, then," Emma replied smugly. "Excellent. With a Jack, I could take over the world."

Distract and repress! Emma liked those options.

[bitten_notshy]

"You and the eldest Wiggin," Jack said wearily. "I think I'd rather you were in charge, though. I'd have more power in your regime than in his."

[icecoldfrost]

"Oh, you met Peter too? Interesting fellow isn't he?" Emma asked. "So much that he doesn't say, but it's all right between the lines. If shook the right way, it might all fall out. Like pocket change."