11/6/07 - Emma
>' [Emma]'>---
'Personal,' he told the secretary, and personal Chris Rossi is, lacking the stamp of officialdom in his attire. There is no badge gleaming on the leather overcoat that hangs heavy to his knees; under it, no suit, tie or gun, the uniform of the street detective. Simply clad in a dark green dress shirt open at the collar and a pair of black slacks, he makes a less formal visitor than Frost Industries' illustrious halls are accustomed to seeing.
Hands shoved in his pants pockets, he wanders his way to the secretary's desk and parks himself in front of it. "Chris Rossi," he says. The deep, rough voice is hesitant, for him. "I have an appointment."
The pretty brunette with the sleek pony tail clicks a few buttons, types in the name, then looks up in veiled surprise. "With Ms. Frost. Yes, sir." He must be /somebody/, despite his clothes. Unless he's one of the charity people she meets with occasionally. Yes. That must be it.
"Take the elevator to the penthouse. We'll unlock it for you." The indicated elevator gleams coolly. There isn't much warmth anywhere in this building. Twenty-five stories,a nd he has to ride through everyone. The doors open onto a cavernous room, with deeply piled carpeting and aluminum furnishings. The desk outside the large double doors leading into Emma's office is empty, but the door is open and another assistant is exiting. "Mr. Rossi? Please, go right in. She's expecting you."
The ride up is disconcerting; the cold luxury that surrounds it, likewise. Mr. Rossi -- the title twitches across his skin, fitting poorly -- slouches almost sulkily through the motions of achieving Emma Frostness. A wordless mutter turns in a mobius strip through the hollow mind: bad idea. /Bad idea/. And yet! "Thank you," he manages with some semblance of grace for each flunky in turn, and then he is at the gates of hell, and then he is inside.
He pauses at the threshold. Insofar as salutations go, he is a master. "Yo," he says. "Frost." And that is all.
Across the room (and it is a large room), behind the executive desk, a chair turns and a slender hand lifts in both admonition and invitation. Emma is in no hurry to finish her phone call, preferring to let Mr. Rossi twist in the wind just a little. Eventually, it does end, however, and she presses a button and pulls an headset from behind her ear. It catches in her hair and she has to pull the golden strands loose before releasing it to the desktop and moving around the desk's edge. "Christopher," she greets, matching informality and bluster with formality and precision. Her smile is almost amused. "This is unexpected."
Bluster -- not so much, though it is true there is a slightly unhappy cast to the shallow surface of Chris's mind. The inelegant slouch does not rearrange itself for Emma. He pushes himself out of the entrance into the office itself, hands still in pockets; there is enough room here for restlessness of body to express itself. It prowls the perimeter to hunt down the windows, in stark contrast to the quietude of mind. That, for a change, is peaceful. For him. "I scheduled an appointment," he points out, casting a brief glance at her before turning his attention elsewhere. Furnishings. Decorations. "Bad time? I can--" prefer to, whispers the thought "--come back."
"Oh no." That avenue of escape is cut off. Emma leans back against her desk and watches the prowling with quiet bemusement. "You did make an appointment. I'm all yours for the next..." She leans back, and the hem of her skirt creeps up with the movement, to look at a calendar on her desk. "Twenty minutes. Thirty if you need the time." She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks back at him, narrow-eyed and predatory.
Well, goody. Chris pauses beside the wall of windows to look out at the panorama of the city stretched out beneath them. It is, comes the vagrant thought, beautiful. Grimness reflects back at her in the glass, a flattening of angles and planes, and--
He is open to her, suddenly. The frail barriers and careful discipline of obstruction taught and practiced to protect a flatscan's mind melt away. "I don't need the time," he says, looking down at ants on the streets below. "Last time I saw you, I asked you not to do anything for me. For the--" His hand flicks up to gesture towards his head, unnecessarily.
Emma leans back and tips her head curiously, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance to her telepathic senses. "You did," she confirms, giving nothing away. We're not making this easy for the poor fellow, nooo.
"You did something anyway." The flatness of the voice is a statement of fact, rather than question. It lies; trailing ghost fingers of uncertainty cling to the reply. Did she?
"What are you asking me, Chris? If I pulled a few strings? Maybe. If you are asking me /why/, you will have to ask a little plainer." Telepathy slides in to unshielded thoughts, heightening awareness and attraction-- it is subtle, nearly unconscious. Habit.
Awareness is already there, cactus-sharp and brittle. Attraction -- is a quieter thing, dormant under the heavier weight of other concerns and other attachments. Aesthetic, rather than sensual, though it needs only a touch to wake that other side. "'Maybe.'" It is answer enough. Chris turns away from the window to regard her, a dark silhouette framed in the filtered light of day. "Why did you do it, then?"
Emma pushes off the desk and drifts to the window, a few feet down from Rossi. Her hands clasp behind her back and she too looks out the window. But she sees nothing, concentrating both on him and his question. "We both know I can't give you a straight answer," she says quietly, then turns her head to look at him. "Not if you already know it."
"Straight answers aren't your thing," Chris says, watching her approach before shifting his gaze elsewhere. Back to walls, now, the city trapped in a cocoon of glass behind him. Frost's toy. "I remember that much. Give me an answer, then. Any answer." Husky with disuse, snagged on the shoals of memory, the private voice of the mind adds, << A true answer. >>
Emma turns toward him, impassive faced, cold, masked. And then starts toward him. Scent, proximity, then touch--a hand to his arm, his shoulder, his jaw. "I like your gratitude," she murmurs, eyes focused on his lips. Her mind, however, whispers a different answer. << I owed you. >>
The first touch evokes a flinch. It scalds raw nerves, contact. The second, he is prepared for, braced. He permits the last. Behind the eyes that meet hers, intelligence weighs the silent answer against the balance of experience, and fits it into the mural of experience. "Gratitude," he says aloud. Curiosity slips like a flaying knife across his thoughts. << You're repaying your debts? >>
<< Maybe. >> This time, the telepathic response is deliberate and tinged with coy amusement.
The coyness does not rouse irritation, though the shadow of it stirs and grumbles in the antechambers of Chris's mind. It returns to its doze, uncalled for. His hand reaches up to close around hers, leaving it where it is; the warmth of his fingers is dry and callused, strong without exerting pressure. "I had the weirdest thing happen to me the other night," he says inconsequentially. "I almost got shot in the head. That would've been ironic, right?"
"If it were anyone but you, perhaps," Emma laughs, taking the touch as invitation and stepping in closer. She tips her chin up, then slides her eyes down while her free hand trips up to smooth a wrinkle in his shirt collar away.
Whatever Chris is, whatever his mood, he remains a sensualist. The scent, the warmth, and the feel of her mix a heady incense across memory, obscuring the backdrop of replay. The bullet, though, is etched in clear, sharp lines across vision: frozen in time and space, caught in magnetism's grip. The details of it are vivid, down to the small grooves that stripe its sides. He dreams about that bullet. "I got a life," he says wryly, releasing her hand to rest his on her shoulder. "You wanted gratitude."
That bullet is a dark, deadly thing against the bright whiteness of the present as well. "Not necessarily. You wanted an answer." Not that gratitude is a bad thing, mind. Emma's hair tickles the back of his hand--soft and thick with just enough curl to give it life of its own.
"I wanted to live," Chris says in notes of mild wonder, still probing the taste of that reality-shredding moment, now two nights gone. He touches her cheek with that warm hand, the briefest of caresses. "I didn't ask for your help. I don't owe you anything." And under it, soundless: << Thank you. >>
Emma pushes up, past the cheek caress, past his shoulder touch, past his guard to kiss him. It is just a fleeting as his thanks, and just as sincere. "Of course not, darling," she breathes as she rocks down and back. A secretive, smug smile creeps into place. "Your pride is safe with me." If anything is.
Chris's eyebrow rises, but the time for exposure is over and done. The edifice of protection begins to raise itself again, obstructing entry -- over it, the reflection off stained glass lances vibrant color to the mind's eye -- with a siege wall. "We're even, then," he says. His shoulders ease, shifting under the leather jacket. "Both of us. Nothing owing." It is almost a question.
"Of course. Perfectly equitable positions." A burst of wind-driven snow dusts the top of his fortification, then is gone as she steps back and away. Her reinforcement is almost physical as she smoothes her face into a more characteristic smirkingly bland mask. "Seventeen minutes. Very good, Christopher," she says, laughing over her shoulder at him while she moves back to her desk. He knows the way out.
"I didn't need the time," Chris says, his hands shoving back into his pockets. Something very like a grin skips across the gap at Emma, bidding farewell with the same informality that began the conversation. He prowls out of the office, already slipping out of personal into official, making those small adjustments of thought and attitude that push arrogance and authority ahead of him like a tidal wave.
[Log ends]
An oddness in reality. Chris goes to visit Emma on personal business, and all debts are paid in full.
John is waiting for him in the boat he calls a car. Abuse of authority means it is parked in a no-parking zone, blatant in its defiance. He has city plates. Chris steps out into the sunshine and is startled to find him there, leaned against the passenger side as though he has been waiting for some time.
"It's supposed to be your day off," he greets as he nears the older man. John's off-duty clothes are interchangeable with his on-duty, both consisting of faded suits loose enough to be disreputable.
John shrugs, popping open the door for his partner. "Yours, too. Figured you could use backup outside." His gaze trails up the concrete and glass edifice of the tower beside them. "Just in case," he adds.
Chris's mouth twitches in amusement. "You thought Frost was gonna eat my head?"
"Wouldn't be the first time."
The reminder sobers him, somewhat. "Yeah, well." He hitches a shrug, and gestures: witness him, head uneaten.
John's mild gaze is uncritical. Neither is it reassured. "I'll just tag along today," he says, "in case you need a hand with anything."
"Jesus, John--"
"I'm driving."
There is no arguing with that amiable, immovable bulk. Chris glares his exasperation, much of it false, and backhands a thump against the other man's chest. "Great. My own fucking babysitter."
"There will be no fucking," John says, and circles around the front of the car to the driver's side. "Where're we going?"
Chris hesitates, then gives in to the inevitable and tells him. John pauses, his hand on the roof, and simply looks at him. He can say a world of things with a look. They have been partners a long time. After a while, partners can grow closer to each other than to their wives.
You sure?
I'm sure.
John's brows twitch together; he shrugs, though there is something like satisfaction in the sleepy face. "C'mon, then." He pops open the door. "We can pick up flowers on the way."
'Personal,' he told the secretary, and personal Chris Rossi is, lacking the stamp of officialdom in his attire. There is no badge gleaming on the leather overcoat that hangs heavy to his knees; under it, no suit, tie or gun, the uniform of the street detective. Simply clad in a dark green dress shirt open at the collar and a pair of black slacks, he makes a less formal visitor than Frost Industries' illustrious halls are accustomed to seeing.
Hands shoved in his pants pockets, he wanders his way to the secretary's desk and parks himself in front of it. "Chris Rossi," he says. The deep, rough voice is hesitant, for him. "I have an appointment."
The pretty brunette with the sleek pony tail clicks a few buttons, types in the name, then looks up in veiled surprise. "With Ms. Frost. Yes, sir." He must be /somebody/, despite his clothes. Unless he's one of the charity people she meets with occasionally. Yes. That must be it.
"Take the elevator to the penthouse. We'll unlock it for you." The indicated elevator gleams coolly. There isn't much warmth anywhere in this building. Twenty-five stories,a nd he has to ride through everyone. The doors open onto a cavernous room, with deeply piled carpeting and aluminum furnishings. The desk outside the large double doors leading into Emma's office is empty, but the door is open and another assistant is exiting. "Mr. Rossi? Please, go right in. She's expecting you."
The ride up is disconcerting; the cold luxury that surrounds it, likewise. Mr. Rossi -- the title twitches across his skin, fitting poorly -- slouches almost sulkily through the motions of achieving Emma Frostness. A wordless mutter turns in a mobius strip through the hollow mind: bad idea. /Bad idea/. And yet! "Thank you," he manages with some semblance of grace for each flunky in turn, and then he is at the gates of hell, and then he is inside.
He pauses at the threshold. Insofar as salutations go, he is a master. "Yo," he says. "Frost." And that is all.
Across the room (and it is a large room), behind the executive desk, a chair turns and a slender hand lifts in both admonition and invitation. Emma is in no hurry to finish her phone call, preferring to let Mr. Rossi twist in the wind just a little. Eventually, it does end, however, and she presses a button and pulls an headset from behind her ear. It catches in her hair and she has to pull the golden strands loose before releasing it to the desktop and moving around the desk's edge. "Christopher," she greets, matching informality and bluster with formality and precision. Her smile is almost amused. "This is unexpected."
Bluster -- not so much, though it is true there is a slightly unhappy cast to the shallow surface of Chris's mind. The inelegant slouch does not rearrange itself for Emma. He pushes himself out of the entrance into the office itself, hands still in pockets; there is enough room here for restlessness of body to express itself. It prowls the perimeter to hunt down the windows, in stark contrast to the quietude of mind. That, for a change, is peaceful. For him. "I scheduled an appointment," he points out, casting a brief glance at her before turning his attention elsewhere. Furnishings. Decorations. "Bad time? I can--" prefer to, whispers the thought "--come back."
"Oh no." That avenue of escape is cut off. Emma leans back against her desk and watches the prowling with quiet bemusement. "You did make an appointment. I'm all yours for the next..." She leans back, and the hem of her skirt creeps up with the movement, to look at a calendar on her desk. "Twenty minutes. Thirty if you need the time." She tucks her hair behind her ear and looks back at him, narrow-eyed and predatory.
Well, goody. Chris pauses beside the wall of windows to look out at the panorama of the city stretched out beneath them. It is, comes the vagrant thought, beautiful. Grimness reflects back at her in the glass, a flattening of angles and planes, and--
He is open to her, suddenly. The frail barriers and careful discipline of obstruction taught and practiced to protect a flatscan's mind melt away. "I don't need the time," he says, looking down at ants on the streets below. "Last time I saw you, I asked you not to do anything for me. For the--" His hand flicks up to gesture towards his head, unnecessarily.
Emma leans back and tips her head curiously, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance to her telepathic senses. "You did," she confirms, giving nothing away. We're not making this easy for the poor fellow, nooo.
"You did something anyway." The flatness of the voice is a statement of fact, rather than question. It lies; trailing ghost fingers of uncertainty cling to the reply. Did she?
"What are you asking me, Chris? If I pulled a few strings? Maybe. If you are asking me /why/, you will have to ask a little plainer." Telepathy slides in to unshielded thoughts, heightening awareness and attraction-- it is subtle, nearly unconscious. Habit.
Awareness is already there, cactus-sharp and brittle. Attraction -- is a quieter thing, dormant under the heavier weight of other concerns and other attachments. Aesthetic, rather than sensual, though it needs only a touch to wake that other side. "'Maybe.'" It is answer enough. Chris turns away from the window to regard her, a dark silhouette framed in the filtered light of day. "Why did you do it, then?"
Emma pushes off the desk and drifts to the window, a few feet down from Rossi. Her hands clasp behind her back and she too looks out the window. But she sees nothing, concentrating both on him and his question. "We both know I can't give you a straight answer," she says quietly, then turns her head to look at him. "Not if you already know it."
"Straight answers aren't your thing," Chris says, watching her approach before shifting his gaze elsewhere. Back to walls, now, the city trapped in a cocoon of glass behind him. Frost's toy. "I remember that much. Give me an answer, then. Any answer." Husky with disuse, snagged on the shoals of memory, the private voice of the mind adds, << A true answer. >>
Emma turns toward him, impassive faced, cold, masked. And then starts toward him. Scent, proximity, then touch--a hand to his arm, his shoulder, his jaw. "I like your gratitude," she murmurs, eyes focused on his lips. Her mind, however, whispers a different answer. << I owed you. >>
The first touch evokes a flinch. It scalds raw nerves, contact. The second, he is prepared for, braced. He permits the last. Behind the eyes that meet hers, intelligence weighs the silent answer against the balance of experience, and fits it into the mural of experience. "Gratitude," he says aloud. Curiosity slips like a flaying knife across his thoughts. << You're repaying your debts? >>
<< Maybe. >> This time, the telepathic response is deliberate and tinged with coy amusement.
The coyness does not rouse irritation, though the shadow of it stirs and grumbles in the antechambers of Chris's mind. It returns to its doze, uncalled for. His hand reaches up to close around hers, leaving it where it is; the warmth of his fingers is dry and callused, strong without exerting pressure. "I had the weirdest thing happen to me the other night," he says inconsequentially. "I almost got shot in the head. That would've been ironic, right?"
"If it were anyone but you, perhaps," Emma laughs, taking the touch as invitation and stepping in closer. She tips her chin up, then slides her eyes down while her free hand trips up to smooth a wrinkle in his shirt collar away.
Whatever Chris is, whatever his mood, he remains a sensualist. The scent, the warmth, and the feel of her mix a heady incense across memory, obscuring the backdrop of replay. The bullet, though, is etched in clear, sharp lines across vision: frozen in time and space, caught in magnetism's grip. The details of it are vivid, down to the small grooves that stripe its sides. He dreams about that bullet. "I got a life," he says wryly, releasing her hand to rest his on her shoulder. "You wanted gratitude."
That bullet is a dark, deadly thing against the bright whiteness of the present as well. "Not necessarily. You wanted an answer." Not that gratitude is a bad thing, mind. Emma's hair tickles the back of his hand--soft and thick with just enough curl to give it life of its own.
"I wanted to live," Chris says in notes of mild wonder, still probing the taste of that reality-shredding moment, now two nights gone. He touches her cheek with that warm hand, the briefest of caresses. "I didn't ask for your help. I don't owe you anything." And under it, soundless: << Thank you. >>
Emma pushes up, past the cheek caress, past his shoulder touch, past his guard to kiss him. It is just a fleeting as his thanks, and just as sincere. "Of course not, darling," she breathes as she rocks down and back. A secretive, smug smile creeps into place. "Your pride is safe with me." If anything is.
Chris's eyebrow rises, but the time for exposure is over and done. The edifice of protection begins to raise itself again, obstructing entry -- over it, the reflection off stained glass lances vibrant color to the mind's eye -- with a siege wall. "We're even, then," he says. His shoulders ease, shifting under the leather jacket. "Both of us. Nothing owing." It is almost a question.
"Of course. Perfectly equitable positions." A burst of wind-driven snow dusts the top of his fortification, then is gone as she steps back and away. Her reinforcement is almost physical as she smoothes her face into a more characteristic smirkingly bland mask. "Seventeen minutes. Very good, Christopher," she says, laughing over her shoulder at him while she moves back to her desk. He knows the way out.
"I didn't need the time," Chris says, his hands shoving back into his pockets. Something very like a grin skips across the gap at Emma, bidding farewell with the same informality that began the conversation. He prowls out of the office, already slipping out of personal into official, making those small adjustments of thought and attitude that push arrogance and authority ahead of him like a tidal wave.
[Log ends]
An oddness in reality. Chris goes to visit Emma on personal business, and all debts are paid in full.
John is waiting for him in the boat he calls a car. Abuse of authority means it is parked in a no-parking zone, blatant in its defiance. He has city plates. Chris steps out into the sunshine and is startled to find him there, leaned against the passenger side as though he has been waiting for some time.
"It's supposed to be your day off," he greets as he nears the older man. John's off-duty clothes are interchangeable with his on-duty, both consisting of faded suits loose enough to be disreputable.
John shrugs, popping open the door for his partner. "Yours, too. Figured you could use backup outside." His gaze trails up the concrete and glass edifice of the tower beside them. "Just in case," he adds.
Chris's mouth twitches in amusement. "You thought Frost was gonna eat my head?"
"Wouldn't be the first time."
The reminder sobers him, somewhat. "Yeah, well." He hitches a shrug, and gestures: witness him, head uneaten.
John's mild gaze is uncritical. Neither is it reassured. "I'll just tag along today," he says, "in case you need a hand with anything."
"Jesus, John--"
"I'm driving."
There is no arguing with that amiable, immovable bulk. Chris glares his exasperation, much of it false, and backhands a thump against the other man's chest. "Great. My own fucking babysitter."
"There will be no fucking," John says, and circles around the front of the car to the driver's side. "Where're we going?"
Chris hesitates, then gives in to the inevitable and tells him. John pauses, his hand on the roof, and simply looks at him. He can say a world of things with a look. They have been partners a long time. After a while, partners can grow closer to each other than to their wives.
You sure?
I'm sure.
John's brows twitch together; he shrugs, though there is something like satisfaction in the sleepy face. "C'mon, then." He pops open the door. "We can pick up flowers on the way."