For Rossi
Original log: http://xmm-rossi.livejournal.com/94414.html
Date: 9/12/06
Requested by: xmm_rossi
What’s come before: Um… besides the whole mindwipe, and subsequent find out thing? Uh… Not much. We keep throwing these characters at each other just because it’s fun to make our characters uncomfortable. I did this one instead of the other one requested because while I think the other one actually gives a lot more away about Emma, it was also chock full of coincidence demons. If you /really/ want it, Rossi, I could maybe be talked into it. Just call me hot again. ;)
I’m sick and wasn’t going to start this right now, but I read through it and /damn/, but is it better than I remembered.
September 11, 2006.
Five years. Six hours. Twelve minutes.
Forty-six seconds.
The streets of the Financial District are populated, but it is the detritus of mordant holiday that fills the sidewalks, civilians in groups of somber black, of patriotic red, white and blue. Business suits -- the norm, on any other day -- are subdued and scattered through the thin crowds; few take to the streets on such a day, where memorials begin the morning, and services end them. The Secret Service has no sense of humor. New York City, today, has forgotten it.
Most of the uniforms have gone into hiding, shuttled from place to place as badges of honor for the remembering. The set of dress blues ambling down the sidewalk is an island to himself, the flat-topped cap precise under an arm, the hands stripped of the gloves that peep from a pocket. The breeze tugs at Rossi's hair, and touches on the flush of skin. It is a beautiful day.
Does it say something that I’m not sure this is actually the dividing line between Rossi’s set and my reply pose? I don’t remember if the next line was in his pose or mine.
It is always a beautiful day.
For those who lived, and live still. Down this street, cars nudge aside bicyclists and pedestrians, hardly making better time than those on foot. A sleek, long car, hovering between the labels of luxury and limo, glides along with the rest of humanity, shielding it occupants from the press of the plebes. Inside, Emma drops paperwork to her lap and leans forward to peer out of the window, eyes slipping back across faces and forms to settle on the ambling blues. She smiles, and a moment later, the car edges into a firezone along the sidewalk.
I don’t quite understand Emma’s fascination with Rossi. OOCly, I know that I just love the interaction between them, and I think that Icly, Emma is still attracted to him. Not because of his blue-collarness, but rather because Emma has always been attracted to a challenge. And what could be more challenging than a man who knows exactly what you are when you are Emma Frost? I think she actually did enjoy herself a little while she was Amber. She was completely unknown to anyone in the city except for one man. There’s a freedom in that. A permission to not be the persona.
The officer ambles on, pale gaze drifting across the car sliding in ahead of him. His jaw moves, miming the presence of gum that is absent in reality. He has a beat cop's lazy stride, the loose swing of leg that eats up ground without haste or waste. Three, four, five strides bring him to the car's rear; another three bring him to the driver's side. He pauses. Knuckles rap. "Yo," he says, desultory with warning. "You can't park here, buddy. Move it along."
The near rear window lowers with a whisper while the far rear door opens. A harried looking little mouse of a woman pops out of the side and fumbles with pads of paper and pens and phones and such, while a slim arm, covered in a pearl-grey jacket sleeve, unfolds out of the window. "We'll move along momentarily, officer," Emma murmurs, just loud enough to carry to Rossi's ears.
The detective jerks, recognition aborting the immediate retort; attention, split from driver to disembarking passenger, turns to that pale arm. "You," Rossi says without inflection, Brooklyn's accent skinned and scalped for the word. His mouth closes over an epithet, then opens again for a sardonic: "Should've remembered this is your hunting ground."
"I only hunt in the boardrooms here, Detective." The other backseat passenger transfers to the front seat with a resentful glance at the officer, and the arm out the window beckons. "If I give you a promise of safe passage, would you like a lift?"
Hahaha. Emma’s kicking out her assistant so that she can have the backseat alone with Rossi. I adored that little exchange. Hunting grounds of a corporate shark. Or barracuda. There’s the recognition predator offers predator. Even Rossi’s word choice lends to the anamalistic overtones: skinned and scalped.
"How good's your word?" Rossi asks, holding fast to his place in neither retreat nor advance. The jaw works again; the fictional gum works across his tongue, is pressed into the pocket of his cheek, and then is utterly forgotten. Hooded eyes are wary. Watchful. "I'm headed back to the station."
"About as good as anyone's, I suppose. At least you already think the worst of me. How much faith do you have to lose?" Emma teases, withdrawing her arm and scooting back from the door. "It's /just/ to the station, darling."
Emma is amused by his reluctance. She doesn’t need her powers to know that Rossi is still attracted in spite of himself. She knows she’s hard to forget. She also has as little faith in humanity as Rossi professes, yet Rossi continues to prove an optimist of sorts. It’s like all his negativity swirls around until it finds someone to focus on, leaving everyone else clear of it for a while.
Det. Rossi's mouth twists, slanting towards a humor that is only a pale shadow of itself; the mind, reflected in cobalt behind, shares nothing of that leavening. "Not a lot of distance between a living room and a bedroom closet," he points out. "A shitload happened anyway, didn't it?"
<< More than you know, >> Emma breathes, wrapping his mind in warm arms, scented with sweat and perfume and spices. << I don't suppose an 'I'm sorry' would matter? >> "I'm /trying/ to be nice."
And she is! In a really horribly pointed way. She’s playing games with him, yet forgetting the basic rule: Stay outside of the game.
Chris flinches, though the wince is invisible on the harshly disciplined face. "Noted," he says, and takes a step forward. It is guilt that pushes him toward the door, an unrelated tangle of shame and fatigue that has knotted more than one mind over the last few days. "If you're heading that way anyway, I'd appreciate the ride."
The door is unlocked, and inside the cool, dark interior, Emma is a puddle of muted light, misty gray layered over pale pink over pale and blemishless skin. She's pushed up against the far door, turned sideways on the seat, ankles crossed and folded to the side, hands in her lap. "At the ceremony?" she asks, perhaps needlessly, given the date and his dress. She slides a glance over the row of shiny little medals, and tucks a smile away.
I’m not sure exactly why he agrees to the ride, but I’m giving myself a little love here. I liked the visual of a puddle of muted light! I do good every now and then, though more often than not when paired with Rossi. I think Creed pondered if Rossi-player brings that out in other people. He does.
My physical posing is very heavily dominated by my own style of sitting. She looses her heels later because I would. And when sitting in a car seat in a skirt, I’d sit thusly.
Medals!
The silt of memory answers before Rossi does, both unnecessary and hazed by weariness. "Yeah," he says, climbing in with uncharacteristic awkwardness. Unusual exercise, to conform his larger frame to a larger car. He sinks into the far corner of the seat with unsettled limbs, cautiously stretching over a space hitherto unexperienced. "Three things I'll wear dress blues for. You're looking good." Pedantic courtesy. His look follows the compliment, taking for granted the Frost polish.
And Rossi is free to look all he wants. One of these days I will work that retort into a scene. She’s enjoying his uncomfortableness. It puts him on edge, true, but also keeps him from settling into dislike and sarcasm by habit. He has to work a little harder at it.
"Ceremonies, charities, and...?" She accepts the compliment with a quirk of lip and brow and leans to rap a knuckle on the privacy glass risen between front and back. A moment later the car pulls away from the curb, bullying its way back into the flow of traffic.
"Funerals, weddings and direct orders," Rossi counters, a hint of uncertainty smudging the mind's color while hands search for place to redistribute themselves. On the lap it is, then, the flat-topped cap balanced on a knee. Shoulders and spine set themselves gingerly against the seat back; trapped in luxury, he glowers sullenly at Emma, a wolf in a bow tie. His medals -- all of them -- gleam in the window's light. "More of the first than the second."
Emma refuses to be intimidated by his dark looks. As she leans back, she shifts, left shoulder digging into the seat back, left hand tucking under her thigh, right hand kept still and careful in her lap, left knee pulled up to the seat so her foot (bare foot, heels left on the floor on Rossi's side) hooks behind her right knee. Empathy settles heavily between them, offering nor seeking comfort, merely companionship.
She’s getting comfortable, settling deeper into the seat, stretching out while also subtly invading his space (heels on the floor on his side of the compartment). She’s rubbing his nose in the fact that she is accustomed to luxury. She can be comfortable where he is not. Also, she’s making him more aware of her presence. The presence he hates to admit he’s all too aware of.
Rossi's thoughts are more armored than mere prickles, more jagged than errant. Fractured by the day and the company, his silence is initially a thing wound tight, humming like a string drawn too taut. Empathy erodes the edges, blunting the uneven blades. After a time the stiff shoulders ease; a breath sighs out, flavored with rue. Companionship. Odd. Quaint. Surreal. But companionship, nonetheless.
Emma stretches her leg out, eyes and head dropping to consider her toes a moment before the foot falls back to the floor of the car and she settles deeper into the cushions and peeks back at him, tracing the lines of jaw and shoulder and chest through the veil of lashes, counting the medals hanging there. "How are you?" she asks quietly.
See, we can get along, after a fashion. She can be nice, he can relax (just a little). She can even show concern. What? Too much? Maybe.
The fine-drawn mouth curves again, skirting a smile that is more honest than the last. "You tell me," Rossi says, failing at a sneer. He turns the cap in broad, capable hands, turning the wink of metal up to be smoothed by a thumb's pad. "I'm doing good, all things considered. Been better, but been a lot worse. You?" Awareness of her attention presses against his senses; he glances up to meet her gaze, green eyes hooded. "Still alive."
A clean white line runs up the middle of her scalp, hair smoothed down and coiled into a low-sitting bun at the nape of her neck. She lifts her head to meet his gaze squarely, blue eyes flashing like shattered glass in the sunlight in defiance of his own guardedness. "There's something to be said for that. Survival is an underrated talent." She steals another glance at the rows of ribbon marching across his shoulder, and amusement creeps into her expression. "You never did show me all of your medals."
Ah… there’s the defiant Emma, tossing his own words back at him, still attempting to make him understand she did what she had to. Accusing him of being capable of doing the same, were the situations reversed.
I want to bring extra emphasis to the “Still alive” exchange. If there is one word that I would use to describe Emma, it /is/ survivor. But not just a survivor in the scraping by, barest essentials type of surviving. Emma’s survival needs control, needs the trappings she’s gathered around herself. She wouldn’t consider it survival if she’d married one of the boys thrust at her early on and settled down to steady, safe domesticity. For her, it’s only survival if she’s winning the game. Anything less is failure and defeat.
"You had them. You could've looked all you wanted," Rossi says, flicking a fingernail's crescent against the whisper of ribbon, and glances down. A pang escapes the closed mind, flitting like a small dagger through his ward before being captured and stuffed back behind the eyes. He exhales a sharp, self-mocking snort. "And after all that, I lost one anyway. This one's Vic's. His widow lent it to me for the services."
Emma leans toward him, toward the medals, curiosity peeling away a layer of formality. "Looking isn't the same as being shown. I don't know the stories behind them, for example." Her hands remain, for the moment, safely in her lap and tucked under her leg. She looks up. "Who was Vic?"
The dead man's shape sketches itself in shades of blue, black and green -- the Rossi colors -- before the voice puts a framework of identity around it. "Cousin Vic," Chris says, hand sliding across the little ribbon. "Out in Harlem. Got nailed by a drunk driver hit-and-run while serving a ticket. Walked away, and then had some kind of aneurysm and dropped dead two days later in the middle of dinner. -- They're just bits of metal and ribbon," he adds, veiling discomfort with dismissal. The finger flicks again. Plink. "Shiny. For the chicks."
"For the chicks," Emma echoes dryly, rebuffed mentally and physically. She looks up and away, out of the window to gauge their progress.
For all the venom that Rossi has toward Emma, it is truly odd how open and honest he can be with her. Perhaps he simply thinks she knows it all anyway, so hiding things is pointless. And she is really, truly hypocritical in that she actually gets hurt when people (Rossi, Scott, Warren) just assume she’s violating their mental privacy at all times.
<< For the widows, >> Rossi says in silence, forgetting. "Worked on you," he says lightly, aloud. Plink. He slouches down into the seat, a hand smoothing over the upholstery with a sensualist's pleasure. Grudging. His hand idles at another bit of metal and ribbon, the forebrain automatically identifying by the shape of it under fingers, where sight is turned towards the passing scenery. Purple Shield. Injury taken in the line of duty.
Emma steals a quick glance at the officer as the thought slip free of lowering guards. Then she sits back, both shoulders meeting the same upholstery he fondles, though with much less notice or appreciation. "/You/ worked on me. Your medals were beside the point," she mutters, apparently to the air.
Hee. Fondles. Like he’s done her. Like she wants him to do again. Not because she’s hung up on him, but simply because, as I said, he’s a challenge now.
Amusement is freer for that, spun out of the ashes of his mood into silver thread. "Flattery," Chris says dryly, "will get you nowhere. You've already gotten pretty much everything there is to get. There's nothing left." His elbow settles into the armrest; fisted into its support, his head turns to attend on Emma. "You tell Shaw we slept together?"
Hahah. It was sincere, but hell if that’s the last thing Rossi wants to hear. ;) I wonder if this was after the Storm/Rossi log. I think it must be for Chris to suddenly wonder what kind of information is being passed between Emma and Shaw about their sex lives. And /actually/ I think /Percy/ is the one who told Shaw initially. Maybe?
"Not everything," she says reproachfully, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. The coil of hair loosens and slips. Her elbow finds the curve of door handle designed to receive it, and a flicker of discomfort ghosts across her unguarded expression. "Maybe. I don't know. Why?"
"Everything I'm willing to give. I could swear--" Chris begins, slouching into his arm. Even the car's long body is inadequate for that physicality, poked by the reminder of Shaw into febrile, feral life. It yawns; it wakes, uncoiling to stretch. Rossi shrugs, a murmur of aggression like charcoal across his thoughts. "Maybe it's nothing."
Emma opens her eyes to razor thin slits and looks at him out of the corner of her eye, attention drawn and fascinated by the glimpses into the stirring maw, a morbid curiosity tempted into poking, perhaps unwisely. "What?"
Rossi grins into silence, a hard, fast flash as unforgiving as any of Shaw's best. Jehovah's witnesses; a gun and the fear of Magneto. It isn't God, but it will do. "Doesn't matter," he says aloud, masculine antagonism reveling in the demural. Alpha dog hostility. "Never could see what women saw in him. Damnedest thing. --How are you?" he adds, focusing the entirety of his attention -- his interest -- on Emma. Eyes pluck sharply at her polished exterior, discarding it with an unflattering abruptness. "You still worried?"
Emma snorts in sudden illumination and manages to keep the accompanying smirk from her face. She bends her head forward, and looks down at the fingers in her lap. They roll a diamond-pocked tennis bracelet around her wrist. "Of course. It keeps me on guard."
Hahah! Rossi is /jealous/. Or at last that’s what Emma thinks. I love the meta going back and forth, describing Chris’ stretching emotional state, and Emma’s curiousity forcing her to poke at it. She doesn’t get the Jehovah’s witness, not knowing anything about Shaw’s obsession with Rossi. It is kind of funny that a woman who so deliberately provokes the baser emotions in men, who probably is aware of Shaw’s obsession with her on some level, really doesn’t put two and two together.
And I wonder if Rossi believes her on that score. The request still stands though. If /she/ goes disappearing, ask Erik or Shaw.
The dark brow draws together, furrowing -- but it is a token frown, amusement still fanged and heavy-pawed on the earlier thought. "Keeps you entertained?" Rossi asks easily, skimming his wrist over leather (like his lost overcoats, the wistful thought murmurs. Fucking Magneto. Have to buy a new--) on its way to setting the hat on the seat beside him. "Stressful way to live."
What earlier thought? Hee. Rossi played on the wrist thing from her pose. Nice mirror.
"I suppose. It is thrilling in it's own way," she shrugs audibly, turning her head to look at him over the curve of a gray clad shoulder. "No more so than your own line of work."
"Life and death?" and this time the mockery is real, self-directed and sardonic. Rossi digs his foot into the floor of the car, bracing his long-legged seat into the cushions. "What's the point? What do you get out of it?"
Rossi mocks it, and has been affected by it, yet still really doesn’t understand the depth of the danger Emma plays with. And oh, the answer she gives him.
"Safety, power, revenge... You know. What every girl wants," Emma answers, matching mockery with sweet scorn.
So honest. Safety. Dance on top of the elephant, otherwise one is crushed under it. Power allows her that chance, and revenge was the door she passed through to get to where she is now.
Curiosity, rarely far under the surface, bumps against the flatscan discipline to worry at the reply. "Power," says Rossi, who flicks his gaze around the interior of the car. The word echoes in the mind, caustic. << How much is enough? >> "Not the same thing as control, anyway. Nothing's /safe/. Revenge?"
And here, Rossi is reminded of the power she wields, and misinterprets. I don’t think he realized that the attack on him wasn’t motivated by him personally, but rather the threat he wielded at the time by knowing it.
Emma purses her lips, her eyes growing narrow and dark as she tuts. "What do you want to hear, Detective? My tragic history, complete with poverty and perhaps abandonment? My rescue by a savior who turns out to be the devil himself? Perhaps a little bit of the penitent sinner?" she purrs, spinng truth and lie together on an insubstantial merry-go-round. "Or maybe you'd /rather/ I were the 'woman terrible, with justice in one hand and vengeance in the other.'"
Hee. Another “I like my phrasing!” moment. Spinning truth and lie together on a merry go round. It is a little dizzying, the reply she gives him. He might not want to hear that, but oh, so many men do. In fact I do think she thinks he wants to hear that. That it would prove him less a fool if she came so very complete with her own need of rescuing. Or if she were as heartless as he wants her to be.
"You can read my mind." Heavy lids slide to, stained-glass green deepening in turn. "You tell /me/."
Emma brushes telepathic fingers past the cob-webbed interiors of his thoughts, much like a puff of air on the back of his neck. And then she smiles, scimitar-slashed and edged. "Do you always need your women to order you around?"
Stolen phrase! Scimitar-slashed is a Rossi phrase. Hee! Also, isn’t she such snarky fun? Poking at his very evident masculine pride.
Chris flinches. There is no hiding it; the recoil at that light touch proves more than even discipline can hobble. "Fuck you," he says, harsh, and then, blank, "Need -- what? I'm Italian. We like strong women."
"As I recall..." Emma replies, looking upwards in false thought and letting her voice trail off suggestively. Then her eyes swivel back to him, orbs of liquid sapphire in a marble cut face. "I suppose everyone has to have their excuses."
Orbs! And she’s so bitchily dismissive, purposefully jabbing back in a mixture of exasperation, hurt, and peevish delight. I adore Rossi’s reaction to it. Utter and total confusion. It’s an honest reaction, one he lets himself have.
Bemusement deepens, ruffling the foyer of the detective's mind. "The hell?" Chris slaps back, more puzzled than angry. Hostility expires, unbalanced. A leg draws up to become a hatstand to the roving flip of cap. "You're cracked, Frost," he decides -- and then grins, with a moment's rare, unfettered grace. Boyish. Unshadowed. "You like this in the boardroom?"
"Better." Challenge layers and wraps around her tone, echoed in another breath of telepathic power rippling across his mind. She turns away and straightens. "But I told you. You have safe passage. I'll sheath my claws if they're too scary for you."
She’s knocked him off balance, and she loves it. One of the things that has always appealed to me in playing this character, is the ability to layer innuendo into words. It’s the form of flirting I think I personally enjoy the most-it’s cerebral, it’s witty, it’s fun.
She’s also being truthful. She’s the best in the boardroom. It’s how she’s gotten where she has. It’s not /all/ unfair telepathic advantage. This is a woman who knows how to read people, knows when to push and when to back off. (Theoretically, anyways.) She’s pressed him, pressed the tease, and now she’s backing off. Playing hot and cold. She’s not cracked. She’s playing a game.
This time the detective manages not to wince, but it is a close thing; old scars throb under that touch, blossoming back to ugly, remembered bruises repressed by will. "Woman of your word," Rossi says, smile fading with the too-short second of peace. Eyes glitter. "Nothing to see here. Move along, Frost. You'll find more interesting brains in your high-powered meetings -- but then again, you have a taste for blue collar cuisine, don't you?"
"Interest is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?" she snips back, tugging the hem of her skirt to straighten the line running across her knees, then smoothing away a crease.
For a span of heartbeats, Rossi makes no reply. His thoughts slip like silver fish through speculation, interrogation, the currents of logic and cynical experience. "I don't get you," he admits at last, gaze settled thoughtfully on the delicate, graceful profile. "What's your story? Most people I can figure out, eventually, but you're -- what gives?"
Phrase stealing, only this time Rossi stole from me. Silver fish. Hee! Anyways, this is the first time that Rossi has really expressed an interest in understanding her. At least with the appearance of being willing to listen. And as the next pose says, Emma is delighted. Both in the fact that she’s gotten him to admit the confusion, and that he’s interested. Her reasons are laid out very plainly. Most men of her acquaintance don’t care to know her. Just to have her.
Emma laughs, merriment bubbling on the breath of exasperation. "I'm an enigma? That is a rather lovely thought. Most men don't take the time to try and figure /me/ out. Just how to get me," she replies, dancing around the question.
"Already had you," Rossi points out, before amending with a twist of accent, "Or did you have me? It count if I thought you were someone else? You keep popping up. What do you want from me?" Exasperation meets exasperation, without the buffer of humor.
What does she want? She wants him. Why? Well, beyond the challenge of it, I don’t know.
Emma shrugs. "Doesn't count, I think, for either of us. And there's the typical man I knew was lurking in there. Automatically assuming 'getting' someone has sexual connotations." She looks askance and shakes her head. "Is it important to know?"
Chris says, "I don't like questions without answers." And tacks on with mordant accusation, "You know that." << --know /me/, >> trails the unhappy, uneasy realization. Shoulders hunch under the finely seamed uniform. Medals blink.
A bit of the shell cracks, and Emma simply blinks at him before turning to face out of the window, frowning deeper as she shifts to lean her weight on her elbow. "I didn't plan today," she says sullenly.
Again with the sullenness at having motives ascribed to her, as if she doesn’t deserve the mistrust. She’s trying a different tack now… that of being honest and transparent. Well, transparent for her. *snort*
"You stopped," Chris points out, sitting forward to pin his elbows on his knees. The hat shuffles down his lap, pinched between torso and thigh, a jaunty wedge for the lean frame. Hands fold under the jut of chin. << Weird, >> he says then, fumbling after old lessons to mold unfamiliar speech. << I always thought -- when I thought about it at all -- that telepathy would be ... honest. >>
Hahah.
<< It is. It's the people that disappoint, >> Emma snaps back, driving the words home with an ungentle force composed of resentment and bitterness. "Go find Grey if you want a saint, Detective. I don't aspire to the job."
He’s not honest, she’s not honest. No one is. She’s pissed now because he’s accusing her of not being honest with herself, when he lies to himself just as much.
Scars crack and bleed at that roughness, thin skin stretched too fine and tight to yawn further. "Fuck," Rossi breathes, inhaling a shaky lungful of air, and white rims green -- but he is a stubborn man. << Saint, >> the bloodied reply carps, tired. << I don't know whose expectations you're trying to disappoint, Frost, but they're not mine. >>
<< Of course they're not yours. You don't have any of your own, >> Emma accuses, a flash of his face, his voice totally at odds with any memory that she /should/ have, flares brightly, then fades. Emma hunches defensively in her corner, staring stubbornly out of the widow as they turn onto the street the station is located on.
I’d forgotten that this was after Rossi had come to ask Storm about Emma, only to find Emma-in-Storm’s body. She’s accusing him of letting his opinions be formed through the information passed on via Xavier’s lot, and /that/ is too much. She resents them greatly. Resents them because of Jean’s hypocrisy, the idea of a different life that Xavier had dangled before her, the pressure they had put on Scott and Warren because of her. And he had gone to them for an opinion?
Silence fumbles with the tatters of imagery, tentative with his voice through other people's ears. Familiar unfamiliarity. << Expectations I got, >> Rossi manages at last, tracking memory to its source. << You want me to be fair? I can't. So I went for a second opinion. >> His mouth curves, edges thinning to a passing rue. "I should've asked Chuck."
"Xavier." Emma snorts. "/He/ is the worst one of the lot. He rather enjoy being the reluctant hero."
"And what are you?" The spoken word, flat and blunt. "The villain of the piece?"
"Don't you know darling," Emma positively purrs, looking across the seat at him. "The villain is always the most interesting one." The car slows and begins to negotiate for a piece of clear sideway.
It’s true! It is also a role she can and will play to the hilt if it is forced upon her.
Lips twist askew, gaze smudging dark. Rossi glances out the window; reclaims his cap and places it, straight, on his head. "I'm not your victim, Frost," he says, knuckle sliding thoughtlessly across its curved brim. He glances aside to meet blue eyes with green. "I'm not your hero, either."
"I would have thought /that/ was obvious, Chris," she replies tartly, granting him his name at the last.
She earns an honest smile for that, a tarnished reflection of the younger man banked in Storm's memories. Untouched by sin, by cynicism and by pain. Emma's gift. Oh well. "Thanks for the ride, Emma." The door opens to a draft's gust, spilling in city air and street noise. Rossi touches his cap in salute. "Stay alive."
Emma inhales sharply, and he exits on a look of confused nostalgia, surprised out of her by the association she hadn't realized was buried so deeply in shared experiences untouched and avoided in a cranny of her mind.
Hee. Storm memories! Hi, Storm!
He, at any rate, does not see it. His attention is turned outward, forward, back to the station that waits for his return. Straight-backed and settled, rearmored and rearmed, Det. Rossi climbs the stairs to his home and disappears inside.
Date: 9/12/06
Requested by: xmm_rossi
What’s come before: Um… besides the whole mindwipe, and subsequent find out thing? Uh… Not much. We keep throwing these characters at each other just because it’s fun to make our characters uncomfortable. I did this one instead of the other one requested because while I think the other one actually gives a lot more away about Emma, it was also chock full of coincidence demons. If you /really/ want it, Rossi, I could maybe be talked into it. Just call me hot again. ;)
I’m sick and wasn’t going to start this right now, but I read through it and /damn/, but is it better than I remembered.
September 11, 2006.
Five years. Six hours. Twelve minutes.
Forty-six seconds.
The streets of the Financial District are populated, but it is the detritus of mordant holiday that fills the sidewalks, civilians in groups of somber black, of patriotic red, white and blue. Business suits -- the norm, on any other day -- are subdued and scattered through the thin crowds; few take to the streets on such a day, where memorials begin the morning, and services end them. The Secret Service has no sense of humor. New York City, today, has forgotten it.
Most of the uniforms have gone into hiding, shuttled from place to place as badges of honor for the remembering. The set of dress blues ambling down the sidewalk is an island to himself, the flat-topped cap precise under an arm, the hands stripped of the gloves that peep from a pocket. The breeze tugs at Rossi's hair, and touches on the flush of skin. It is a beautiful day.
Does it say something that I’m not sure this is actually the dividing line between Rossi’s set and my reply pose? I don’t remember if the next line was in his pose or mine.
It is always a beautiful day.
For those who lived, and live still. Down this street, cars nudge aside bicyclists and pedestrians, hardly making better time than those on foot. A sleek, long car, hovering between the labels of luxury and limo, glides along with the rest of humanity, shielding it occupants from the press of the plebes. Inside, Emma drops paperwork to her lap and leans forward to peer out of the window, eyes slipping back across faces and forms to settle on the ambling blues. She smiles, and a moment later, the car edges into a firezone along the sidewalk.
I don’t quite understand Emma’s fascination with Rossi. OOCly, I know that I just love the interaction between them, and I think that Icly, Emma is still attracted to him. Not because of his blue-collarness, but rather because Emma has always been attracted to a challenge. And what could be more challenging than a man who knows exactly what you are when you are Emma Frost? I think she actually did enjoy herself a little while she was Amber. She was completely unknown to anyone in the city except for one man. There’s a freedom in that. A permission to not be the persona.
The officer ambles on, pale gaze drifting across the car sliding in ahead of him. His jaw moves, miming the presence of gum that is absent in reality. He has a beat cop's lazy stride, the loose swing of leg that eats up ground without haste or waste. Three, four, five strides bring him to the car's rear; another three bring him to the driver's side. He pauses. Knuckles rap. "Yo," he says, desultory with warning. "You can't park here, buddy. Move it along."
The near rear window lowers with a whisper while the far rear door opens. A harried looking little mouse of a woman pops out of the side and fumbles with pads of paper and pens and phones and such, while a slim arm, covered in a pearl-grey jacket sleeve, unfolds out of the window. "We'll move along momentarily, officer," Emma murmurs, just loud enough to carry to Rossi's ears.
The detective jerks, recognition aborting the immediate retort; attention, split from driver to disembarking passenger, turns to that pale arm. "You," Rossi says without inflection, Brooklyn's accent skinned and scalped for the word. His mouth closes over an epithet, then opens again for a sardonic: "Should've remembered this is your hunting ground."
"I only hunt in the boardrooms here, Detective." The other backseat passenger transfers to the front seat with a resentful glance at the officer, and the arm out the window beckons. "If I give you a promise of safe passage, would you like a lift?"
Hahaha. Emma’s kicking out her assistant so that she can have the backseat alone with Rossi. I adored that little exchange. Hunting grounds of a corporate shark. Or barracuda. There’s the recognition predator offers predator. Even Rossi’s word choice lends to the anamalistic overtones: skinned and scalped.
"How good's your word?" Rossi asks, holding fast to his place in neither retreat nor advance. The jaw works again; the fictional gum works across his tongue, is pressed into the pocket of his cheek, and then is utterly forgotten. Hooded eyes are wary. Watchful. "I'm headed back to the station."
"About as good as anyone's, I suppose. At least you already think the worst of me. How much faith do you have to lose?" Emma teases, withdrawing her arm and scooting back from the door. "It's /just/ to the station, darling."
Emma is amused by his reluctance. She doesn’t need her powers to know that Rossi is still attracted in spite of himself. She knows she’s hard to forget. She also has as little faith in humanity as Rossi professes, yet Rossi continues to prove an optimist of sorts. It’s like all his negativity swirls around until it finds someone to focus on, leaving everyone else clear of it for a while.
Det. Rossi's mouth twists, slanting towards a humor that is only a pale shadow of itself; the mind, reflected in cobalt behind, shares nothing of that leavening. "Not a lot of distance between a living room and a bedroom closet," he points out. "A shitload happened anyway, didn't it?"
<< More than you know, >> Emma breathes, wrapping his mind in warm arms, scented with sweat and perfume and spices. << I don't suppose an 'I'm sorry' would matter? >> "I'm /trying/ to be nice."
And she is! In a really horribly pointed way. She’s playing games with him, yet forgetting the basic rule: Stay outside of the game.
Chris flinches, though the wince is invisible on the harshly disciplined face. "Noted," he says, and takes a step forward. It is guilt that pushes him toward the door, an unrelated tangle of shame and fatigue that has knotted more than one mind over the last few days. "If you're heading that way anyway, I'd appreciate the ride."
The door is unlocked, and inside the cool, dark interior, Emma is a puddle of muted light, misty gray layered over pale pink over pale and blemishless skin. She's pushed up against the far door, turned sideways on the seat, ankles crossed and folded to the side, hands in her lap. "At the ceremony?" she asks, perhaps needlessly, given the date and his dress. She slides a glance over the row of shiny little medals, and tucks a smile away.
I’m not sure exactly why he agrees to the ride, but I’m giving myself a little love here. I liked the visual of a puddle of muted light! I do good every now and then, though more often than not when paired with Rossi. I think Creed pondered if Rossi-player brings that out in other people. He does.
My physical posing is very heavily dominated by my own style of sitting. She looses her heels later because I would. And when sitting in a car seat in a skirt, I’d sit thusly.
Medals!
The silt of memory answers before Rossi does, both unnecessary and hazed by weariness. "Yeah," he says, climbing in with uncharacteristic awkwardness. Unusual exercise, to conform his larger frame to a larger car. He sinks into the far corner of the seat with unsettled limbs, cautiously stretching over a space hitherto unexperienced. "Three things I'll wear dress blues for. You're looking good." Pedantic courtesy. His look follows the compliment, taking for granted the Frost polish.
And Rossi is free to look all he wants. One of these days I will work that retort into a scene. She’s enjoying his uncomfortableness. It puts him on edge, true, but also keeps him from settling into dislike and sarcasm by habit. He has to work a little harder at it.
"Ceremonies, charities, and...?" She accepts the compliment with a quirk of lip and brow and leans to rap a knuckle on the privacy glass risen between front and back. A moment later the car pulls away from the curb, bullying its way back into the flow of traffic.
"Funerals, weddings and direct orders," Rossi counters, a hint of uncertainty smudging the mind's color while hands search for place to redistribute themselves. On the lap it is, then, the flat-topped cap balanced on a knee. Shoulders and spine set themselves gingerly against the seat back; trapped in luxury, he glowers sullenly at Emma, a wolf in a bow tie. His medals -- all of them -- gleam in the window's light. "More of the first than the second."
Emma refuses to be intimidated by his dark looks. As she leans back, she shifts, left shoulder digging into the seat back, left hand tucking under her thigh, right hand kept still and careful in her lap, left knee pulled up to the seat so her foot (bare foot, heels left on the floor on Rossi's side) hooks behind her right knee. Empathy settles heavily between them, offering nor seeking comfort, merely companionship.
She’s getting comfortable, settling deeper into the seat, stretching out while also subtly invading his space (heels on the floor on his side of the compartment). She’s rubbing his nose in the fact that she is accustomed to luxury. She can be comfortable where he is not. Also, she’s making him more aware of her presence. The presence he hates to admit he’s all too aware of.
Rossi's thoughts are more armored than mere prickles, more jagged than errant. Fractured by the day and the company, his silence is initially a thing wound tight, humming like a string drawn too taut. Empathy erodes the edges, blunting the uneven blades. After a time the stiff shoulders ease; a breath sighs out, flavored with rue. Companionship. Odd. Quaint. Surreal. But companionship, nonetheless.
Emma stretches her leg out, eyes and head dropping to consider her toes a moment before the foot falls back to the floor of the car and she settles deeper into the cushions and peeks back at him, tracing the lines of jaw and shoulder and chest through the veil of lashes, counting the medals hanging there. "How are you?" she asks quietly.
See, we can get along, after a fashion. She can be nice, he can relax (just a little). She can even show concern. What? Too much? Maybe.
The fine-drawn mouth curves again, skirting a smile that is more honest than the last. "You tell me," Rossi says, failing at a sneer. He turns the cap in broad, capable hands, turning the wink of metal up to be smoothed by a thumb's pad. "I'm doing good, all things considered. Been better, but been a lot worse. You?" Awareness of her attention presses against his senses; he glances up to meet her gaze, green eyes hooded. "Still alive."
A clean white line runs up the middle of her scalp, hair smoothed down and coiled into a low-sitting bun at the nape of her neck. She lifts her head to meet his gaze squarely, blue eyes flashing like shattered glass in the sunlight in defiance of his own guardedness. "There's something to be said for that. Survival is an underrated talent." She steals another glance at the rows of ribbon marching across his shoulder, and amusement creeps into her expression. "You never did show me all of your medals."
Ah… there’s the defiant Emma, tossing his own words back at him, still attempting to make him understand she did what she had to. Accusing him of being capable of doing the same, were the situations reversed.
I want to bring extra emphasis to the “Still alive” exchange. If there is one word that I would use to describe Emma, it /is/ survivor. But not just a survivor in the scraping by, barest essentials type of surviving. Emma’s survival needs control, needs the trappings she’s gathered around herself. She wouldn’t consider it survival if she’d married one of the boys thrust at her early on and settled down to steady, safe domesticity. For her, it’s only survival if she’s winning the game. Anything less is failure and defeat.
"You had them. You could've looked all you wanted," Rossi says, flicking a fingernail's crescent against the whisper of ribbon, and glances down. A pang escapes the closed mind, flitting like a small dagger through his ward before being captured and stuffed back behind the eyes. He exhales a sharp, self-mocking snort. "And after all that, I lost one anyway. This one's Vic's. His widow lent it to me for the services."
Emma leans toward him, toward the medals, curiosity peeling away a layer of formality. "Looking isn't the same as being shown. I don't know the stories behind them, for example." Her hands remain, for the moment, safely in her lap and tucked under her leg. She looks up. "Who was Vic?"
The dead man's shape sketches itself in shades of blue, black and green -- the Rossi colors -- before the voice puts a framework of identity around it. "Cousin Vic," Chris says, hand sliding across the little ribbon. "Out in Harlem. Got nailed by a drunk driver hit-and-run while serving a ticket. Walked away, and then had some kind of aneurysm and dropped dead two days later in the middle of dinner. -- They're just bits of metal and ribbon," he adds, veiling discomfort with dismissal. The finger flicks again. Plink. "Shiny. For the chicks."
"For the chicks," Emma echoes dryly, rebuffed mentally and physically. She looks up and away, out of the window to gauge their progress.
For all the venom that Rossi has toward Emma, it is truly odd how open and honest he can be with her. Perhaps he simply thinks she knows it all anyway, so hiding things is pointless. And she is really, truly hypocritical in that she actually gets hurt when people (Rossi, Scott, Warren) just assume she’s violating their mental privacy at all times.
<< For the widows, >> Rossi says in silence, forgetting. "Worked on you," he says lightly, aloud. Plink. He slouches down into the seat, a hand smoothing over the upholstery with a sensualist's pleasure. Grudging. His hand idles at another bit of metal and ribbon, the forebrain automatically identifying by the shape of it under fingers, where sight is turned towards the passing scenery. Purple Shield. Injury taken in the line of duty.
Emma steals a quick glance at the officer as the thought slip free of lowering guards. Then she sits back, both shoulders meeting the same upholstery he fondles, though with much less notice or appreciation. "/You/ worked on me. Your medals were beside the point," she mutters, apparently to the air.
Hee. Fondles. Like he’s done her. Like she wants him to do again. Not because she’s hung up on him, but simply because, as I said, he’s a challenge now.
Amusement is freer for that, spun out of the ashes of his mood into silver thread. "Flattery," Chris says dryly, "will get you nowhere. You've already gotten pretty much everything there is to get. There's nothing left." His elbow settles into the armrest; fisted into its support, his head turns to attend on Emma. "You tell Shaw we slept together?"
Hahah. It was sincere, but hell if that’s the last thing Rossi wants to hear. ;) I wonder if this was after the Storm/Rossi log. I think it must be for Chris to suddenly wonder what kind of information is being passed between Emma and Shaw about their sex lives. And /actually/ I think /Percy/ is the one who told Shaw initially. Maybe?
"Not everything," she says reproachfully, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. The coil of hair loosens and slips. Her elbow finds the curve of door handle designed to receive it, and a flicker of discomfort ghosts across her unguarded expression. "Maybe. I don't know. Why?"
"Everything I'm willing to give. I could swear--" Chris begins, slouching into his arm. Even the car's long body is inadequate for that physicality, poked by the reminder of Shaw into febrile, feral life. It yawns; it wakes, uncoiling to stretch. Rossi shrugs, a murmur of aggression like charcoal across his thoughts. "Maybe it's nothing."
Emma opens her eyes to razor thin slits and looks at him out of the corner of her eye, attention drawn and fascinated by the glimpses into the stirring maw, a morbid curiosity tempted into poking, perhaps unwisely. "What?"
Rossi grins into silence, a hard, fast flash as unforgiving as any of Shaw's best. Jehovah's witnesses; a gun and the fear of Magneto. It isn't God, but it will do. "Doesn't matter," he says aloud, masculine antagonism reveling in the demural. Alpha dog hostility. "Never could see what women saw in him. Damnedest thing. --How are you?" he adds, focusing the entirety of his attention -- his interest -- on Emma. Eyes pluck sharply at her polished exterior, discarding it with an unflattering abruptness. "You still worried?"
Emma snorts in sudden illumination and manages to keep the accompanying smirk from her face. She bends her head forward, and looks down at the fingers in her lap. They roll a diamond-pocked tennis bracelet around her wrist. "Of course. It keeps me on guard."
Hahah! Rossi is /jealous/. Or at last that’s what Emma thinks. I love the meta going back and forth, describing Chris’ stretching emotional state, and Emma’s curiousity forcing her to poke at it. She doesn’t get the Jehovah’s witness, not knowing anything about Shaw’s obsession with Rossi. It is kind of funny that a woman who so deliberately provokes the baser emotions in men, who probably is aware of Shaw’s obsession with her on some level, really doesn’t put two and two together.
And I wonder if Rossi believes her on that score. The request still stands though. If /she/ goes disappearing, ask Erik or Shaw.
The dark brow draws together, furrowing -- but it is a token frown, amusement still fanged and heavy-pawed on the earlier thought. "Keeps you entertained?" Rossi asks easily, skimming his wrist over leather (like his lost overcoats, the wistful thought murmurs. Fucking Magneto. Have to buy a new--) on its way to setting the hat on the seat beside him. "Stressful way to live."
What earlier thought? Hee. Rossi played on the wrist thing from her pose. Nice mirror.
"I suppose. It is thrilling in it's own way," she shrugs audibly, turning her head to look at him over the curve of a gray clad shoulder. "No more so than your own line of work."
"Life and death?" and this time the mockery is real, self-directed and sardonic. Rossi digs his foot into the floor of the car, bracing his long-legged seat into the cushions. "What's the point? What do you get out of it?"
Rossi mocks it, and has been affected by it, yet still really doesn’t understand the depth of the danger Emma plays with. And oh, the answer she gives him.
"Safety, power, revenge... You know. What every girl wants," Emma answers, matching mockery with sweet scorn.
So honest. Safety. Dance on top of the elephant, otherwise one is crushed under it. Power allows her that chance, and revenge was the door she passed through to get to where she is now.
Curiosity, rarely far under the surface, bumps against the flatscan discipline to worry at the reply. "Power," says Rossi, who flicks his gaze around the interior of the car. The word echoes in the mind, caustic. << How much is enough? >> "Not the same thing as control, anyway. Nothing's /safe/. Revenge?"
And here, Rossi is reminded of the power she wields, and misinterprets. I don’t think he realized that the attack on him wasn’t motivated by him personally, but rather the threat he wielded at the time by knowing it.
Emma purses her lips, her eyes growing narrow and dark as she tuts. "What do you want to hear, Detective? My tragic history, complete with poverty and perhaps abandonment? My rescue by a savior who turns out to be the devil himself? Perhaps a little bit of the penitent sinner?" she purrs, spinng truth and lie together on an insubstantial merry-go-round. "Or maybe you'd /rather/ I were the 'woman terrible, with justice in one hand and vengeance in the other.'"
Hee. Another “I like my phrasing!” moment. Spinning truth and lie together on a merry go round. It is a little dizzying, the reply she gives him. He might not want to hear that, but oh, so many men do. In fact I do think she thinks he wants to hear that. That it would prove him less a fool if she came so very complete with her own need of rescuing. Or if she were as heartless as he wants her to be.
"You can read my mind." Heavy lids slide to, stained-glass green deepening in turn. "You tell /me/."
Emma brushes telepathic fingers past the cob-webbed interiors of his thoughts, much like a puff of air on the back of his neck. And then she smiles, scimitar-slashed and edged. "Do you always need your women to order you around?"
Stolen phrase! Scimitar-slashed is a Rossi phrase. Hee! Also, isn’t she such snarky fun? Poking at his very evident masculine pride.
Chris flinches. There is no hiding it; the recoil at that light touch proves more than even discipline can hobble. "Fuck you," he says, harsh, and then, blank, "Need -- what? I'm Italian. We like strong women."
"As I recall..." Emma replies, looking upwards in false thought and letting her voice trail off suggestively. Then her eyes swivel back to him, orbs of liquid sapphire in a marble cut face. "I suppose everyone has to have their excuses."
Orbs! And she’s so bitchily dismissive, purposefully jabbing back in a mixture of exasperation, hurt, and peevish delight. I adore Rossi’s reaction to it. Utter and total confusion. It’s an honest reaction, one he lets himself have.
Bemusement deepens, ruffling the foyer of the detective's mind. "The hell?" Chris slaps back, more puzzled than angry. Hostility expires, unbalanced. A leg draws up to become a hatstand to the roving flip of cap. "You're cracked, Frost," he decides -- and then grins, with a moment's rare, unfettered grace. Boyish. Unshadowed. "You like this in the boardroom?"
"Better." Challenge layers and wraps around her tone, echoed in another breath of telepathic power rippling across his mind. She turns away and straightens. "But I told you. You have safe passage. I'll sheath my claws if they're too scary for you."
She’s knocked him off balance, and she loves it. One of the things that has always appealed to me in playing this character, is the ability to layer innuendo into words. It’s the form of flirting I think I personally enjoy the most-it’s cerebral, it’s witty, it’s fun.
She’s also being truthful. She’s the best in the boardroom. It’s how she’s gotten where she has. It’s not /all/ unfair telepathic advantage. This is a woman who knows how to read people, knows when to push and when to back off. (Theoretically, anyways.) She’s pressed him, pressed the tease, and now she’s backing off. Playing hot and cold. She’s not cracked. She’s playing a game.
This time the detective manages not to wince, but it is a close thing; old scars throb under that touch, blossoming back to ugly, remembered bruises repressed by will. "Woman of your word," Rossi says, smile fading with the too-short second of peace. Eyes glitter. "Nothing to see here. Move along, Frost. You'll find more interesting brains in your high-powered meetings -- but then again, you have a taste for blue collar cuisine, don't you?"
"Interest is in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?" she snips back, tugging the hem of her skirt to straighten the line running across her knees, then smoothing away a crease.
For a span of heartbeats, Rossi makes no reply. His thoughts slip like silver fish through speculation, interrogation, the currents of logic and cynical experience. "I don't get you," he admits at last, gaze settled thoughtfully on the delicate, graceful profile. "What's your story? Most people I can figure out, eventually, but you're -- what gives?"
Phrase stealing, only this time Rossi stole from me. Silver fish. Hee! Anyways, this is the first time that Rossi has really expressed an interest in understanding her. At least with the appearance of being willing to listen. And as the next pose says, Emma is delighted. Both in the fact that she’s gotten him to admit the confusion, and that he’s interested. Her reasons are laid out very plainly. Most men of her acquaintance don’t care to know her. Just to have her.
Emma laughs, merriment bubbling on the breath of exasperation. "I'm an enigma? That is a rather lovely thought. Most men don't take the time to try and figure /me/ out. Just how to get me," she replies, dancing around the question.
"Already had you," Rossi points out, before amending with a twist of accent, "Or did you have me? It count if I thought you were someone else? You keep popping up. What do you want from me?" Exasperation meets exasperation, without the buffer of humor.
What does she want? She wants him. Why? Well, beyond the challenge of it, I don’t know.
Emma shrugs. "Doesn't count, I think, for either of us. And there's the typical man I knew was lurking in there. Automatically assuming 'getting' someone has sexual connotations." She looks askance and shakes her head. "Is it important to know?"
Chris says, "I don't like questions without answers." And tacks on with mordant accusation, "You know that." << --know /me/, >> trails the unhappy, uneasy realization. Shoulders hunch under the finely seamed uniform. Medals blink.
A bit of the shell cracks, and Emma simply blinks at him before turning to face out of the window, frowning deeper as she shifts to lean her weight on her elbow. "I didn't plan today," she says sullenly.
Again with the sullenness at having motives ascribed to her, as if she doesn’t deserve the mistrust. She’s trying a different tack now… that of being honest and transparent. Well, transparent for her. *snort*
"You stopped," Chris points out, sitting forward to pin his elbows on his knees. The hat shuffles down his lap, pinched between torso and thigh, a jaunty wedge for the lean frame. Hands fold under the jut of chin. << Weird, >> he says then, fumbling after old lessons to mold unfamiliar speech. << I always thought -- when I thought about it at all -- that telepathy would be ... honest. >>
Hahah.
<< It is. It's the people that disappoint, >> Emma snaps back, driving the words home with an ungentle force composed of resentment and bitterness. "Go find Grey if you want a saint, Detective. I don't aspire to the job."
He’s not honest, she’s not honest. No one is. She’s pissed now because he’s accusing her of not being honest with herself, when he lies to himself just as much.
Scars crack and bleed at that roughness, thin skin stretched too fine and tight to yawn further. "Fuck," Rossi breathes, inhaling a shaky lungful of air, and white rims green -- but he is a stubborn man. << Saint, >> the bloodied reply carps, tired. << I don't know whose expectations you're trying to disappoint, Frost, but they're not mine. >>
<< Of course they're not yours. You don't have any of your own, >> Emma accuses, a flash of his face, his voice totally at odds with any memory that she /should/ have, flares brightly, then fades. Emma hunches defensively in her corner, staring stubbornly out of the widow as they turn onto the street the station is located on.
I’d forgotten that this was after Rossi had come to ask Storm about Emma, only to find Emma-in-Storm’s body. She’s accusing him of letting his opinions be formed through the information passed on via Xavier’s lot, and /that/ is too much. She resents them greatly. Resents them because of Jean’s hypocrisy, the idea of a different life that Xavier had dangled before her, the pressure they had put on Scott and Warren because of her. And he had gone to them for an opinion?
Silence fumbles with the tatters of imagery, tentative with his voice through other people's ears. Familiar unfamiliarity. << Expectations I got, >> Rossi manages at last, tracking memory to its source. << You want me to be fair? I can't. So I went for a second opinion. >> His mouth curves, edges thinning to a passing rue. "I should've asked Chuck."
"Xavier." Emma snorts. "/He/ is the worst one of the lot. He rather enjoy being the reluctant hero."
"And what are you?" The spoken word, flat and blunt. "The villain of the piece?"
"Don't you know darling," Emma positively purrs, looking across the seat at him. "The villain is always the most interesting one." The car slows and begins to negotiate for a piece of clear sideway.
It’s true! It is also a role she can and will play to the hilt if it is forced upon her.
Lips twist askew, gaze smudging dark. Rossi glances out the window; reclaims his cap and places it, straight, on his head. "I'm not your victim, Frost," he says, knuckle sliding thoughtlessly across its curved brim. He glances aside to meet blue eyes with green. "I'm not your hero, either."
"I would have thought /that/ was obvious, Chris," she replies tartly, granting him his name at the last.
She earns an honest smile for that, a tarnished reflection of the younger man banked in Storm's memories. Untouched by sin, by cynicism and by pain. Emma's gift. Oh well. "Thanks for the ride, Emma." The door opens to a draft's gust, spilling in city air and street noise. Rossi touches his cap in salute. "Stay alive."
Emma inhales sharply, and he exits on a look of confused nostalgia, surprised out of her by the association she hadn't realized was buried so deeply in shared experiences untouched and avoided in a cranny of her mind.
Hee. Storm memories! Hi, Storm!
He, at any rate, does not see it. His attention is turned outward, forward, back to the station that waits for his return. Straight-backed and settled, rearmored and rearmed, Det. Rossi climbs the stairs to his home and disappears inside.