Room 222, Monday Evening

[bitten_notshy]

When Jack decided he was going to do something, he usually made it happen, and the sheer perversity of technology be damned. And so it was that he came to spend Monday night relaxed on his bed, Count Orlok playing on a portable DVD player propped on a pillow in front of him.

It wasn't so different from the films he'd seen at home, really. Just .... longer. Longer and darker and who could possibly think vampires looked like that? But the plot was easy enough to follow once he recognized Stoker's novel. A tad ridiculous, but still easy to follow, and not much like Darkest Night at all.

He idly scratched notes on a tablet as he watched. He might claim they were for Mitchell or for Sebastien, but mostly they were for himself. The door was cracked so he could see people coming and going in the hallway, even though he had no reason to expect visitors.

[OOC: Open room post, yep. Nosferatu being out of copyright is WIN -- unless you're one of Murnau's heirs, of course.]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

Not 'go away' at all. Jack shrugged, but there was a smile around the corners of his mouth. "It's very similar," he said. "They simplified the story and changed the names, but it's the same story. Would you like to sit and watch?"

[icecoldfrost]

"Having girls sit on your bed? Are we being scandalous again, Mr. Priest?" Emma asked even as she took the offered seat. "Between that and your professor's excellent taste in films, it's an offer I cannot refuse."

[bitten_notshy]

"Entirely scandalous," Jack acknowledged. "But it seems as though girls here let me into their bedchambers without fear of a ruined reputation, so I may as well return the favor."

He restarted the movie. "It's good to see you. I wasn't sure..."

He trailed off, not certain what he wasn't sure of. Wasn't sure they were friends? Perhaps.

[icecoldfrost]

"What good is a reputation if you can't ruin it?" Emma teased, making herself comfortable and laying down on her stomach. It might get a bit cozy, but it they could probably manage.

"If you aren't sure, you could always find out," she continued, watching the subtitles. "Do we want to do funny voices, or take it seriously?"

[bitten_notshy]

"I'm afraid I'm terminally serious about vampires, Miss Frost," he teased, nudging her lightly so there'd be enough room for him to lie down beside her without too much physical contact. "Though if you have to do funny voices, you should. I won't stop you."

[icecoldfrost]

It was almost too bloody hot for any physical contact, so Emma didn't mind scooting over, even if she did make a face at him. "I promise to be good, no funny voices," she sighed. "Are you a horror fan, then?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Something like that," Jack said absently as he turned his head to look at her. "If I tell you something strange, can you tell I'm not lying?"

Emma trusted him. This was his way of returning the favor.

[icecoldfrost]

"I can, if I peek. Or if you're a bloody bad liar," Emma answered, glancing at him. "Although you might be surprised how few things I think are 'strange.'"

"Why?"

[bitten_notshy]

"Because this is strange."

There was a little laugh in Jack's voice.

"My guardian is a vampire."

[icecoldfrost]

Well, at the very least, he wasn't a bad liar. Still, Emma resisted peeking, wanting to see if he was going to start laughing at her.

"So, when you get the 'I'm older than you and I know better,' it's not just a load of nonsense?" She paused and gave a small shrug. "Well, still nonsense, but at least half-true?"

[bitten_notshy]

The unexpected reaction made Jack laugh.

"He's over a thousand," he said, once he'd recovered. "He often does know better than I do."

Not a bad liar at all, but he wasn't lying.

[icecoldfrost]

"A thousand?" That wasn't a 'you're a moron' laugh, so Emma stuck out her tongue at him. "I think your guardian beats my friends for strangeness," she returned. "I don't think we have vampires."

Still, she sent out just the barest brush of power. He'd invited her to peek, and considering how badly it had gone last time, Emma was perfectly happy to show that she could usually control her talent, and only look where she wanted.

She kept the touch light and brief, not bothering to hide it, and her eyebrows lifted slightly. Well. That was interesting. "Hence your interest in the genre, I suppose."

[bitten_notshy]

"Hence," Jack agreed, swallowing any reaction to the brush of power. If he knew what she was doing, he could accept it. "Mostly to see how ridiculous the fictions are. He's not a killer and he doesn't turn into a bat or sleep in a coffin."

[icecoldfrost]

"Well if he was being so tacky as to sleep in a coffin, we might have to stage an intervention," Emma quipped. "What else do they get wrong? Hopefully the horrible accent."

She wasn't quite sure how you could be a vampire and not kill anyone, but asking at this point would be rude.

[bitten_notshy]

"When he's traveling sometimes he has to stay in one to keep the light away, but other than that, no. He doesn't sleep," Jack quickly explained, not thrilled with the word choice 'tacky.' "His accent is ... well, no one speaks his first language anymore -- some dialect of Latin, I can't quite pin it down -- and he's passing as a Spaniard."

Which, in Jack-speak, meant he didn't think Sebastien's accent was flawless, not like his own English one, but it seemed to stand up to most scrutiny.

[icecoldfrost]

"Having a real accent is one thing, but over-done fake ones for effect are another," she giggled.

Then her eyes widened as the first part of what he said sunk in. "Wait, he doesn't sleep, and he has to..." She didn't have to fake the shudder. "God, that must be horrible."

Emma had slept in her fair share of small, cramped places over the last year - they made the best hiding spots - but to be awake and trapped in a box? She wouldn't make it an hour without screaming her head off.

[bitten_notshy]

"I can't say anything about fake accents," Jack said, letting himself slip into his native cadences. After a decade of speaking mostly English and Spanish, his Czech accent wasn't especially innate anyhow.

He narrowed his brows, resting a hand on her back. "I suppose so. It doesn't happen terribly often and -- I never thought of it that way."

[icecoldfrost]

"I suppose if he's gotten to be this old, then he's well-practiced at avoiding things like that," she mused, giving him a small smile. "Or maybe he doesn't mind, and just takes a book along."

This was... nice. An odd topic, perhaps, but still nice. Emma shifted into his hand slightly, making a pleased sound. "Tell me about your vampire, then?"

[bitten_notshy]

"He tries to avoid it. He doesn't like the cliché," Jack said, keeping his hand precisely where it was. "And there's no light to read by."

"Sebastien?" he asked, a kind of fond impatience in his tone as he considered the question. "He's a detective -- you know that. Intelligent, but, more than that, he's had the time and the leisure to read about everything that interests him; sometimes it was a bit like being raised by an encyclopedia. Observant. Given to being ridiculously morose sometimes. Very good at keeping secrets."

[icecoldfrost]

Someone had a bit of a crush, and Emma didn't even need her telepathy to notice it.

"A thousand years old, and has read everything," she repeated, a note of jealousy in her voice. "It's no wonder he's drawn to detective work, then, with all its puzzle bits and things to discover."

[bitten_notshy]

It went beyond a bit of a crush; someone was in love, though he'd never say it.

"I think it's one of the few things that never bores him," Jack said, not free of jealousy himself. "And he's good at it. The enhanced senses can make a difference."

He tilted his head to catch Emma's eye. "Who did you live with before you came here?"

[icecoldfrost]

"Myself, mostly," Emma answered with a shrug. "I met Hank a few months ago, but before that I was on my own."

"Hank is... different," she continued slowly. "Brilliant, but something happened to him, and he's very scattered. He's like a puppy that can solve quadratic equations, but can't put them in context."

[bitten_notshy]

"How did you manage?"

Whether Jack meant on her own, or with Hank, was unclear even to him. It was hard either way.

[icecoldfrost]

"I learned how to use my powers very, very quickly," Emma replied, keeping her tone bright. "Sneaking into parties with free food is pretty easy if you can make the bouncer think you're on the approved list." Or to steal from the hot dog stand, which was still Emma's main source of food when she was broke, or just wanted the challenge.

"With Hank, well, we compliment each other. He looks out for me, and I take care of him and run his errands on the surface."

[bitten_notshy]

"Eyes and ears in the daylight, as Tony's program would have it?" Jack asked.

He ... was a touch obsessed with that phrase.

"And now we're both here."