Meow. 12.6.06
To: "Sydney" [needham@frostenterprises.com]
From: "Frost" [**secure**]
Subject: real estate
Search holdings. Find something reasonably private and secure. As isolated as possible as well.
Furnish minimally and get me the keys. Also, put out a litter box.
~EF
12/06/2006
The elongated car, nearly a limo but not quite so ostentatious, slides to a running stop at the gates to Emerson University while the driver checks the flow of traffic for an opportunity to merge. In the back seat, privacy screen raised, Emma leans her head back and slides her heels off. One hand sits on the door's elbow rest, the other wraps around a bottle of water balancing in her lap. Sebastian's Research Center is another step closer to reality.
The door on the passenger side of the car, in Ms. Frost's section, is suddenly tested. The acute mental senses of the woman within will likely pick up the man beyond's delicate entreaty for entrance. << Open the fuckin' door before I rip it off and throw it into traffic.>> Victor Creed, his manners as honed and proper as ever, gives the door another, firmer yank.
Emma startles to attention a half-second before Creed's attempt at entrance. She sits up, the bottle of water tipping over to spill down skirt, stockings, and floorboard. "Oh, /shit/." The driver's impatience with the lack of available openings is measured against the possibility that the door could withstand a concentrated effort by the man standing on the other side, and Emma narrows her eyes as she reaches for the door unlock mechanism. << You could have made an appointment with my secretary, >> she points out blandly, appearance at odds with the rise in her heartrate.
The door swings outward and the hulking form of Sabretooth fills the opening as he shoves his leatherclad form into the back of the car along with Emma. Car doors are not so much designed for men of his stature, and his tattered coat creaks alarmingly, as if he were in danger of bursting out of it. "I could have, but then I'd have to find a tie and shit. You know me and business casual." A crass grin shows his teeth as his nostrils flare, black eyes focused on the wetness along the front of Emma's skirt. "Did you piss yerself for my benefit or is that the new fashion?"
Emma's lips tighten into a sour grimace and she leans forward to pick up the mostly empty bottle from the floorboard while brushing droplets from her skirt with the other hand. "I wanted to give you the welcome you deserve. Kittens are afraid of water, yes?" she answers him sweetly, holding the bottle aloft and shaking the little remaining liquid inside it.
Victor's laughter is harsh and loud, "Shit, water, sure. Kidney water, though?" His grin is likely going to be permanently written on his face after this one. "Look, your case of the tinkles aside, I got business I need to take care of. You're just the pants-pisser I need to see." Perhaps he isn't willing to put it aside yet.
Emma ignores it for him. She settles back in the seat and drops the bottle into a cup holder in the door before folding her arms across her chest. "What do you want, Creed?"
"I need a place to crash." He crosses his arms over his broad chest, monopolizing a large portion of the back seat. "I know damn well you gotta own at least a couple of buildings around this hopeless fuckin' hellhole." Creed's grin turns to a nasty little smirk. "Gimmie an apartment. You owe me."
"The kind of places /I/ own would sooner have you as a throw rug than a tenant. I don't owe you a thing." She shifts in her own seat to maximize the distance between them.
"The hell you don't, bitch. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to spend weeks in a refrigerator?" His brows lower over his black eyes, his expression turning menacing. "Look. I'll pay whatever damn rent you want, Frost. You know money isn't a big thing."
"I /thought/ you were smelling a little less ripe," she replies, dismissing the comment as irrelevant. "I don't need your money either, Creed. In fact, most of it /I/ probably paid. Go find some roach-motel. You'd be more comfortable among your own kind."
Victor closes his eyes for a moment, doing his damnedest at shoving flashes of pain and frustration, the horrendous anguish of being trapped, to the fore, to show Emma what their last business arrangement cost him. "Look, bitch. I need somewhere out of casual view to crash. What'll it take to get you to at least talk business?" His grin turns nasty again with his humor. "You want a thirty minutes or less guarantee on yer next delivery?"
Emma pales under the onslaught of images and some of the arrogant disdain is leached from her demeanor. The plastic of the water bottle cracks under the pressure of her grip. "I..." she stops, then tries again with a small shake of her head. "I could perhaps find something," she says lowly once her shields have strengthened sufficiently to dampen the flow of his projections. Her lips twitch and she looks across at him coolly. "But only if you keep your presence... discrete."
"I'm askin' you for a favor. I'll be a professional about it." Creed's tone makes it sound like this is something she is clearly deficient for not having understood from the beginning. "I'll be a model fuckin' tenant. I won't even gut any of the neighbors if I get bored late at night."
Emma closes her lashes over the roll of her eyes and her face turns away again. "You are so very reassuring, kitten. Stop by the usual box in two days. I'll see what I can find." She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. "I will get back with you about rent as well."
Creed takes that as a prompt to try to unnerve the icy woman. He closes the distance between them, putting his face within an inch from her ear and lets out a snarl low in his throat. He's close enough that the exhalation from it, and his charming breath with it, are pushed against her skin.
"I'll be waitin' with baited breath to hear from you," he says in a tone of voice to match the snarl. Then with that, he slaps the door on his side of the car open and withdraws. "You might want to change your clothes before your next meetin', toots," Creed calls back in mockery, before planting a boot against the car's door to send it swinging shut violently.
Emma can't control the shudder that raises goosebumps on her arms and lifts her shoulder defensively against the breath crawling up her neck and into her ear. And then Creed is gone, and she can collapse back against her seat and stare with disgust at the indentation made in his vacated spot. This vehicle will get moved up on the list to get rotated out of service.
Victor's string of reunions continue. He makes arrangements for a place to stay and Emma Frost DOES NOT wet herself. Exactly.
In a couple days, the keys and a map to a condo in a suburban neighborhood appear in their established PO Box.
From: "Frost" [**secure**]
Subject: real estate
Search holdings. Find something reasonably private and secure. As isolated as possible as well.
Furnish minimally and get me the keys. Also, put out a litter box.
~EF
12/06/2006
The elongated car, nearly a limo but not quite so ostentatious, slides to a running stop at the gates to Emerson University while the driver checks the flow of traffic for an opportunity to merge. In the back seat, privacy screen raised, Emma leans her head back and slides her heels off. One hand sits on the door's elbow rest, the other wraps around a bottle of water balancing in her lap. Sebastian's Research Center is another step closer to reality.
The door on the passenger side of the car, in Ms. Frost's section, is suddenly tested. The acute mental senses of the woman within will likely pick up the man beyond's delicate entreaty for entrance. << Open the fuckin' door before I rip it off and throw it into traffic.>> Victor Creed, his manners as honed and proper as ever, gives the door another, firmer yank.
Emma startles to attention a half-second before Creed's attempt at entrance. She sits up, the bottle of water tipping over to spill down skirt, stockings, and floorboard. "Oh, /shit/." The driver's impatience with the lack of available openings is measured against the possibility that the door could withstand a concentrated effort by the man standing on the other side, and Emma narrows her eyes as she reaches for the door unlock mechanism. << You could have made an appointment with my secretary, >> she points out blandly, appearance at odds with the rise in her heartrate.
The door swings outward and the hulking form of Sabretooth fills the opening as he shoves his leatherclad form into the back of the car along with Emma. Car doors are not so much designed for men of his stature, and his tattered coat creaks alarmingly, as if he were in danger of bursting out of it. "I could have, but then I'd have to find a tie and shit. You know me and business casual." A crass grin shows his teeth as his nostrils flare, black eyes focused on the wetness along the front of Emma's skirt. "Did you piss yerself for my benefit or is that the new fashion?"
Emma's lips tighten into a sour grimace and she leans forward to pick up the mostly empty bottle from the floorboard while brushing droplets from her skirt with the other hand. "I wanted to give you the welcome you deserve. Kittens are afraid of water, yes?" she answers him sweetly, holding the bottle aloft and shaking the little remaining liquid inside it.
Victor's laughter is harsh and loud, "Shit, water, sure. Kidney water, though?" His grin is likely going to be permanently written on his face after this one. "Look, your case of the tinkles aside, I got business I need to take care of. You're just the pants-pisser I need to see." Perhaps he isn't willing to put it aside yet.
Emma ignores it for him. She settles back in the seat and drops the bottle into a cup holder in the door before folding her arms across her chest. "What do you want, Creed?"
"I need a place to crash." He crosses his arms over his broad chest, monopolizing a large portion of the back seat. "I know damn well you gotta own at least a couple of buildings around this hopeless fuckin' hellhole." Creed's grin turns to a nasty little smirk. "Gimmie an apartment. You owe me."
"The kind of places /I/ own would sooner have you as a throw rug than a tenant. I don't owe you a thing." She shifts in her own seat to maximize the distance between them.
"The hell you don't, bitch. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to spend weeks in a refrigerator?" His brows lower over his black eyes, his expression turning menacing. "Look. I'll pay whatever damn rent you want, Frost. You know money isn't a big thing."
"I /thought/ you were smelling a little less ripe," she replies, dismissing the comment as irrelevant. "I don't need your money either, Creed. In fact, most of it /I/ probably paid. Go find some roach-motel. You'd be more comfortable among your own kind."
Victor closes his eyes for a moment, doing his damnedest at shoving flashes of pain and frustration, the horrendous anguish of being trapped, to the fore, to show Emma what their last business arrangement cost him. "Look, bitch. I need somewhere out of casual view to crash. What'll it take to get you to at least talk business?" His grin turns nasty again with his humor. "You want a thirty minutes or less guarantee on yer next delivery?"
Emma pales under the onslaught of images and some of the arrogant disdain is leached from her demeanor. The plastic of the water bottle cracks under the pressure of her grip. "I..." she stops, then tries again with a small shake of her head. "I could perhaps find something," she says lowly once her shields have strengthened sufficiently to dampen the flow of his projections. Her lips twitch and she looks across at him coolly. "But only if you keep your presence... discrete."
"I'm askin' you for a favor. I'll be a professional about it." Creed's tone makes it sound like this is something she is clearly deficient for not having understood from the beginning. "I'll be a model fuckin' tenant. I won't even gut any of the neighbors if I get bored late at night."
Emma closes her lashes over the roll of her eyes and her face turns away again. "You are so very reassuring, kitten. Stop by the usual box in two days. I'll see what I can find." She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. "I will get back with you about rent as well."
Creed takes that as a prompt to try to unnerve the icy woman. He closes the distance between them, putting his face within an inch from her ear and lets out a snarl low in his throat. He's close enough that the exhalation from it, and his charming breath with it, are pushed against her skin.
"I'll be waitin' with baited breath to hear from you," he says in a tone of voice to match the snarl. Then with that, he slaps the door on his side of the car open and withdraws. "You might want to change your clothes before your next meetin', toots," Creed calls back in mockery, before planting a boot against the car's door to send it swinging shut violently.
Emma can't control the shudder that raises goosebumps on her arms and lifts her shoulder defensively against the breath crawling up her neck and into her ear. And then Creed is gone, and she can collapse back against her seat and stare with disgust at the indentation made in his vacated spot. This vehicle will get moved up on the list to get rotated out of service.
Victor's string of reunions continue. He makes arrangements for a place to stay and Emma Frost DOES NOT wet herself. Exactly.
In a couple days, the keys and a map to a condo in a suburban neighborhood appear in their established PO Box.