Jack's Room, 33 Apocalypse Ave., Sunday Morning

[bitten_notshy]

After he got back to the island, Jack spent most of the day Saturday parked in front of intentionally bad TV. It was easier not to think about what had happened in Beacon Hills if he was staring at Kardashian Kleavage. He went to bed early, fell into a dreamless sleep.

Sunday had promised more of the same until he checked his school email and realized his midterms were during the coming week. He groaned and turned on his laptop. Werewolf angst could wait: Right now, he had to pull a half-decent paper on the Bayeaux tapestry together if he had any hope of passing the last class for his major.

[OOC: Open to visits, calls, etc.]

Comments

[bitten_notshy]

"I think everyone I've ever known and liked has been a bad influence, yourself included," Jack said wryly. "It's one of the ways I'm cursed."

He was kidding, but he wasn't.

[icecoldfrost]

"Lies and slander," she retorted cheerfully. "I was a Nice Girl before I fell in with you."

No you weren't, Emma.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack snorted. "There are nice girls who manage on their own on the streets of New York for months and months? I'd like to meet one. She probably knows the tooth fairy."

[icecoldfrost]

"Have you seen Hank's teeth?" Emma joked. "With fangs like that, he is definitely the tooth fairy."

[bitten_notshy]

Jack snorted out a laugh. "You're right. Obviously you are a perfectly nice girl."

Feeling more comfortable, he went on, "Can I ask you something a bit serious? Or is it time for you to chatter about your classes?"

[icecoldfrost]

Dammit, why didn't telepathy work over phones? It would make life so much easier.

"You can ask," she answered, keeping her tone light. "I can't promise a completely serious answer."

[bitten_notshy]

If telepathy worked over phones, Jack wouldn't need to ask the question.

"I was talking to Derek," he said, and hesitated. "About love and sex and how they're hard to tell apart, and ... do you think it was wrong for Sebastien to be with me?"

It was one of those questions you ask when you've thought something through, and don't like the answer you've come to, and want someone else to tell you you're wrong.

[icecoldfrost]

"Please hold," Emma said pleasantly, setting down the phone.

With Jack's werewolf-enhanced hearing, he could probably hear her walk across the apartment and bang her head against something wooden a few times before coming back and settling back on her bed.

"I never made a secret of the fact I felt it was inappropriate," she said, being as openly honest as she was capable of being. "It didn't matter how mature you were, or that you honestly, completely adored him. Or that he loves you in whatever manner vampires can love. He was hundreds of years your senior, your guardian, and you were in no condition to give consent."

"That said," she continued before he could interrupt, "--was it wrong for all of us who were doing the Bedroom Ballet? None of us knew the difference between love and sex, and were - and still are, mostly, - damaged as hell?"

"Which is the long way of saying it wasn't his best idea ever, I still don't approve of his choice and probably never will, and he's very very lucky that things didn't explode in his face," she finished.

[bitten_notshy]

Well. Jack should have known that was coming. He bit on a knuckle to center himself before he spoke. (To be honest, for years he'd thought Emma was snarky about Sebastien for the same reasons he'd been snarky about Peter Bishop: Simple jealousy.)

"I had a choice too, you know," he pointed out, because he had to. Because otherwise this would completely undercut the story he'd told himself for years and years and years.

"But the rest of it -- that's what I thought. He'd raised me. That's not at all like when you and I and Alex and Effie and Rose were acting like characters in a French farce." A pause. "And you're welcome to call me an idiot for taking this long to figure it out, or for making you spell out ... everything you just said."

[icecoldfrost]

Well, jealousy had also played a large part of it, but Emma wasn't ready to admit that yet. No one said she had to be completely emotionally self-aware or healthy.

Emma sighed and rubbed at her eyes. "Of course you're an idiot, but you're not the only one," she replied affectionately. "You are male, after all."

HONESTLY.

"And of course you had a choice. If he had approached you and you'd said no, he completely would have respected it. I don't think he planted the idea in your mind or any nonsense like that, and if it had been me in the same circumstances, I might have done the same as you. He'd taken you in from a horrible situation and raised you with love and care."

"And while I get that vampires see time and age very differently than us mere mortals for obvious reasons... he was your everything at that point. Could you have refused if he had asked?"

[bitten_notshy]

"If he'd asked," Jack said, after a pause, "I would have felt guilty for making him ask. That I should have offered before it got to that point. Devotion does that, you know."

[icecoldfrost]

"I wouldn't know," Emma said dryly. "I have issues with adult male authority figures and devotion."

Look, she could make a joke at her own expense. It's just that other people didn't get to mention her trauma.

[bitten_notshy]

Jack managed a weak chuckle at that. "Then it's a good thing I know I'm not the one in charge here, hmmm?"