Flashback: boundaries
[April 3, 2001:]
Thought she was different from the others. Better. More suited to this life - the life I gave her!
I was wrong. Won't make that mistake again, and we'll see how she'll regret it in time. Oh, yes, she will. I'll make sure of it, after what she did-
Ungrateful bitch.
5/3/2006 [flashback]
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hellfire Clubhouse - Emma's Private Quarters
White claims this simple suite with a regal decisiveness softened by fine fabrics, lush carpeting, and the suffusion of well-bred taste. The bed stands sleek with satins and down-plumped pillows, its ash-blond frame matching the wood of its paired nightstands and the long, low-slung bureau against one silk-papered wall. Across the room, layers of gauze curtain shield tall windows; a high-backed armchair reigns in a corner there, attended by wide ottoman and neat reading lamp.
One door leads out to the office, another into a large walk-in closet filled with a complete wardrobe, and yet another opens in on a bathroom of echoing design and decor. White marble lies cool and waiting in tub and sinks; the white tile of floor and walls hoards dull reflections. Fixtures gleam silver, like the vanity mirror's frame, and support a ranked rack of towels by the shower stall, the white cloths perfectly monogrammed, fluffed, and arranged for their mistress.
--
The room is dark for being as early as it is in the gathering warmth of the April evening. Humidity lies close in the air, hinting at showers for the May flowers, though not dampening the sounds of the party below. Obligations lie closer, slicing through the heavy air, but not quite reaching the still figure sitting on the floor, back against the side of the bed opposite. The glint of light on glass and the curve of shining blonde hair dipping over it are all that is visible of the WHite Queen who should be presiding somewhere.
And comes a-knocking someone else who isn't where he's supposed to be, but not by /his/ fault: Shaw, still mostly in his tuxedo (the jacket and tie are long gone, and so are a few buttons of his ruffly white shirt), leans his way along the hallway wall until he gets to Emma's door. Victory! He straightens up, blinking rapidly against the fumes dripping off his slovenly form, and pounds a hearty fist into the door's wood. Pauses. Slouches into the doorframe, snickering to himself, then knocks again, louder and with a fair attempt at the rhythm line to Barry Manilow's "Copacabana."
The head jerks up with a released hiss, and Emma narrows her eyes in the direction of the office door before setting her glass down and climbing slowly to her feet. Her feet are bare, a concession to jade-colored silk pajamas, and she doesn't bother to alter her attire for the person on the other side of the door. She's taken herself off-duty and out of uniform, and her passage through the room and to the door pounded upon is swift. She pulls it open and blinks, nose wrinkling fastidiously in the alcohol saturated greeting. A pause, and then a hardly necessary observation of "You're drunk."
"A little," Shaw says cheerfully and sways forward to plant a wet kiss on her forehead. His hand follows for a grope at her breast. "Let me in. You were s'posed to meet me in /my/ room, but I don't mind comin' down." He gives her an owlish blink, then shakes his finger in her face. "Just this once, though." Bubbling and burbling delight in his mind, a good evening, good party, time to celebrate, always time to celebrate--
Emma's step away from that touch opens the path into the room, and she turns away as soon as the kiss is transferred. "I didn't feel like it, Sebastian," she says simply, enunciating each word as if their clarity will assisting in piercing liquor's fog.
<< Like it matters what /you/ feel like, >> Shaw thinks with rude, blunt volume. He's not cheerful anymore, but he /is/ coming through the door after her. Even manages to hook it closed behind him with one of his feet. (The wobble following the maneuver is not significant.) "Come on," he coaxes, running his hands up her silken sleeves, over her shoulders, and swooping down to kiss and lick at her neck and ear. "You always feel like it. Horny as anything when you get goin' -- so much better than the frigid bitches we usually get 'round here . . ."
Emma winces at the projection, her shoulders twitching upward. She steps back and away, throwing up her hands as a shield, growling in irritation as she spins away. "/No/. I /don't/. Not tonight, damn it. I have a headache." She starts for a cabinet set against a wall.
Shaw straightens up with a scowl and with his hands, emptied, clenching at his sides. More blinking leads him to say slowly, "A headache. Well, isn't that convenient?" His expression darkens, starting with the eyes that sink into tight, baffled slits in his hardening face. "Don't sound like some -- some Fifties housewife, Emma," he cajoles, following again. "We can make you forget all about a headache. Like that time in the elevator, remember?" He does, mentally, loudly, and pornographically.
Emma's shoulders twitch again, and one hand flies up to her ear in an aborted attempt to cover them against his words. His thoughts are not so easy to keep out. "Damn it, Sebastian," she grinds out, reaching the cabinet and yanking it open to reveal rows of bottles. One is pulled out and the cap flipped off before dumping brightly colored tablets into the palm of her hand. "God. You're worse than the brat-pack. Why don't you go find some maid to pin to a wall? I've spent all day playing patti-fingers with drooling old men, and I'm tired and I have a /headache/." The bottle is slammed back into place on the shelf, and the pills tossed back dry.
"Because I want /you/," Shaw snarls back and grabs her shoulder to spin him towards her -- pull her to him, press her against him. His hands are hard but slippery with sweat against the jade silk; he keeps trying to catch and re-catch his hold on her arms while he pushes her toward the wall beside the cabinet. Alcohol seethes in his breath and his mind alike. "'Sides, you're a telepath. If you have a headache, /fix/ it."
His difficulty is compounded by the fact that Emma is most definitely not cooperating as she stumbles backwards under the press of his advance in a flurry of arms and pressing hands. "/Why/?" she protests angrily, finally stopped and caught in place against the wall at an angle to him, her arms folded up across her chest and her hip jutting at a defensive angle against him. "You're so drunk you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
Shaw gives up and just leans in after her, height and weight being a better hold than slip-sliding hands any old day. His hair's coming loose from its ponytail -- big surprise -- and looping forward for Medusic kisses over her cheeks. His eyes are very close and very wide now (and that breath! The kitchens have apparently outdone themselves in the Gorgonzola-and-bratwurst department, by the smell). "Not that drunk," he enunciates firmly, "or I wouldn't be here at all. We have a deal, girl. Haven't I been upholdin' my end? Remember my help with your father, say?"
Emma sputters in wry, dry amazement. "Help with my /father/? You didn't lift a /finger/ there, darling. Remember?" her chin lifts and scorn melts down her face as she shifts against him, sliding her hip to the side and opening herself up to his weight. Her hands drift down to press fingertips against the wall behind her.
Visibly, and mentally perceptibly, Shaw does try to remember, but his clumsy shuffling through thoughts doesn't come up with much. No matter: he's got the bit between his teeth and is charging ahead. "Yes, I did!" he shoots back with the surety of the powerful and the inebriated (and powerfully inebriated). "With that business, between the two of you -- and what about when you were locked up? Huh?" He shoves a hand into the wall and leans even closer on its brace toward her, all but nose to nose now. "What about /that/, my pretty doll? I /remember/ a phone call, and you beggin' for help, and I provided it, indeed, I did."
Emma frowns for a long considering moment, tipping her nose down to add space between them and his breath. And then she smiles brittly and lifts her hands to his shoulders, threading her fingers into and under the heavy black mane curling around their faces. "Yes you did," she purrs, suddenly soft and yielding.
Shaw's mind doesn't exactly caper and shout, "Hurray!" but he eases into her acceptance on a beamed smile and a finger chucked under her chin. "There's my girl," he approves and slops a kiss on her mouth, his tongue lolling like a fat wet slug between his lips. << Good girl, my girl, knows her place, /good/ girl, mine, all mine. >>
And her mind doesn't exactly heat and melt in a rush of passion. In fact, Emma retreats from her awareness of the sensations of his hands on her, his mouth and tongue and teeth. She clings to him, strokes him, practices the familiar patterns of advances and retreats upon him, dancing him around and around in intimate circles.
Happily, Shaw mumbles and gropes and urges her toward the bedroom, as imprecisely eager as a bull in rut. Between kisses, he even grants her, "Promise not to bruise you this time. Want it rough, fucking /God/, yes, I do, but no bruises on that sweet, soft skin of yours."
Emma shudders, hiding the reaction in the apparent throes of passion as she weaves a band of power around his thoughts, collecting them loosely in her insubstantial grip. Mental image takes on form under his hands, replacing reality with illusion, and Emma extracts herself, smiling grimly as the dual images of Shaw's fumble with thin air and illused ardor overlap in her mind's eye.
Shaw falls onto the bed with her (with her?) and wallows for a few messy moments in trying to get his clothes off and then hers (hers? But she's not--). He gives up on the former, anyway -- trousers pushed down to his black socks and shoes will just have to be good enough -- so he can flail to his feet, nearly fall over on his reddened nose because of those trousers around his ankles, but right himself and go in the direction of the nightstand. "They're still here, right?" he asks the bed, the empty bed, and starts pawing in the drawer he yanks open. "Not the ropes, the chains -- ah!" He comes up with a pair of cuffs jangling like steel jewelry in each of his hands. He swings them at the bed, beaming and leering, then pounces onto it to start locking up his lover.
No, not with /her/. Not with her, not tonight, not like this. Emma edges around the bed, keeping one eye barely on the scene playing out on the bed and in his mind. The abandoned wineglass left on the floor is bent and reached for, and she downs in great gulps as she plays along, giving him what he wants, letting the illusion take shape and substance. The cuffs rattle against her figment's efforts, providing background noise to the grunt and puffing that-- Ah. Whoops? An unpracticed shift of her powers turns out the lights on the scene, at least for the eager participant in the bed. Emma weaves in place, then turns and stumbles for a chair, sinking into it under the influence of mental exertion, wine, and medication.
Once he has her where he wants her, Shaw doesn't need much more time: two pumps and a tickle with his willing illusion, and it's all over but for the mess plastered between his dress shirt and the bedclothes. In his drunken contentment, the man doesn't notice, or care, but collapses right then and there, face-down on the bed with an arm flung over a woman's body, still locked up, present only in his mind. After a few minutes, there's even snoring.
The figure in the chair in the corner stares broodily at the sodden lump in her bed, time passing without notice, minutes marked off only by his snores. Sleep creeps close, grasping at her eyelids with tiny, insistent hands until common sense, paranoia, are lulled and she draws her knees up to curls into the chair and turn away from the rest of the room, face hidden in a padded chair back.
When Dawn with its rose-tipped fingers comes poking those fingers rudely into the room, Shaw groans and bats feebly at them, at the clear, early light. It doesn't go away, so he buries his head into the pillows and reaches his arm across the body of-- His arm stops. His head lifts. Bloodshot eyes stare blearily at the empty space beside him and then, after a small eternity of grudging thought, at the handcuffs still looped and locked around both headboard posts, but with no slender, graceful wrists inside them. "What the--" He flips over heavily onto his side and stares with wide eyes at the rest of the room, settling quickly on the chair . . . and its inhabitant.
Emma is settled as primly as a curled cat in the chair, having stirred during the uncomfortable night only to prop her head up on a palm, elbow supporting hand, knee supporting elbow. She jumps awake at the exclamation, though focus is much slower, painfully slow, in coming.
"You bitch," Shaw rasps. He hitches his weight higher on his elbow; a thunderstorm is brewing behind his clouding expression. "You /bitch/. What did you do to me?"
Emma swings a heavy head toward him, blinking the haze from her thought and memories. What /did/ she-- Memories slide into place with the cool weight of cocked certainty, and she stiffens and drops her feet tot he floor, hand tightening on the chair arm.
Shaw's voice drops lower, rougher, carrying a snake's warning rattle. "You used your powers on me. Against me." He starts to pull himself together, past the pounding headache that vibrates the very aether, past the aches that twist his face and pop a couple balky joints, until he's sitting upright on the bed amid the mute betrayal of last night's evidence. "What do you have to say for yourself?" he asks softly.
Emma lowers her chin until she's watching him through a shieled of lashes, belated caution and wariness tensing her frame as she sits with toes pressed to the floor, heels turned out, knees turned in. "I did," she answers slowly, carefully. "I told you I didn't feel like it. I told you I had a headache." The evenness of her tone is a scourge of prickly accusation.
"You've said that before. You've never done /that/." Flat anger slaps at her accusation, and behind it, below it, seethe the nervous prickles of unease. Shaw sets his jaw stubbornly, though, and meets her eyes without quaver or qualm. "You won't do it again. That's an order."
"I've never done a lot of things before I met you," she slides back, silky, sickly sweet in voice and expression. "You will respect my boundaries then," she adds, gripping the curve of the chair arm tightly.
Shaw laughs harshly. "Or what?"
"Or I'll continue to do it."
Shaw shoves himself off the bed to untidy standing. "Oh, will you." He clenches his fists loosely at his sides, and the mental thunderstorm is closer. Louder. "I don't like this rebellious streak you're showing, Emma. Think it's time for a refresher course in who's in charge around here."
"You're in charge, Sebastian," she murmurs, keeping her eyes on him as he approaches, but otherwise not moving. "You're in charge, but I'm not powerless any more." A feeling like fingernails up the back of his neck is the first warning indications of her powers being brought to bear on him.
It stops him some few feet from the chair. One of his fists twitches as if to touch his nape, but Shaw forces his arms straight, as stiff as his spine (and that neck!) as he glares down at her. "Does this mean," he asks on a different tack, one of saccharine-sweet inquiry, "that you won't lend me a hand in our work in this club anymore? Because it violates one of your precious /boundaries/."
"Of course not. Neither does it mean I won't lend you a hand elsewhere. It simply means that when I say no, I mean it." She straightens, drawing her heels closer together, assuming a poise that reeks more of superiority than supplication.
Shaw sees it, recognizes it -- flares hot outrage (belly-cold nerves) at it. "Good," he grates out and snaps a sharp gesture at the rest of the suite. "Then get some fucking clothes on, already. We've got a meeting at ten, unless you forgot that along with your manners. Breeding /will/ tell."
Temper answers in the flash of eye and press of lips into a sharp slit, but she rises, the motion fluid and smooth. "It already has," she snipes, then moves for the closet.
A small victory, pyrrhically weak, but Shaw takes it with head-high aplomb. He grabs her arm in passing and holds her in place beside him. "And wear something nice," he advises, back to cloying and petting in voice if not touch (iron-hard fingers digging into flesh) or mind (angry, blustery mood). He slashes out a sleek, cruel grin. "You know how Messrs. Peterson and Yarrow like to drool over your cleavage. Might get us the final advantage this time."
Emma curls her lip in a near-snarl, looking down at the hand, then sweeping it back up to him. "I do know how to manipulate them. They are only men, after all. They like to drool over it almost as much as you."
"Watch your mouth," and the hand rises flicker-quick to slap the offending orifice. Shaw makes contrite eyes. "Hope you won't have to use too much makeup to cover that up. Sorry."
Her head turns under the force of the blow, and her own hand takes the place of his, pressing cool fingers to its edge. Again the prickles warn of danger tensing and curling about his mind, and again they fade away, this time as she turns on an angry heel to escape his reach.
Shaw lets her go, a mocking thought sneering after her (away, prickles, away!). "See you there!" he calls in baleful friendliness and imagines a blown kiss, sloppy with venom, to send on its way, too. "And /thank/ you for such a good night. I've never had better, not even with you."
[Log ends.]
Thought she was different from the others. Better. More suited to this life - the life I gave her!
I was wrong. Won't make that mistake again, and we'll see how she'll regret it in time. Oh, yes, she will. I'll make sure of it, after what she did-
Ungrateful bitch.
5/3/2006 [flashback]
Logfile from Shaw of X-Men MUCK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hellfire Clubhouse - Emma's Private Quarters
White claims this simple suite with a regal decisiveness softened by fine fabrics, lush carpeting, and the suffusion of well-bred taste. The bed stands sleek with satins and down-plumped pillows, its ash-blond frame matching the wood of its paired nightstands and the long, low-slung bureau against one silk-papered wall. Across the room, layers of gauze curtain shield tall windows; a high-backed armchair reigns in a corner there, attended by wide ottoman and neat reading lamp.
One door leads out to the office, another into a large walk-in closet filled with a complete wardrobe, and yet another opens in on a bathroom of echoing design and decor. White marble lies cool and waiting in tub and sinks; the white tile of floor and walls hoards dull reflections. Fixtures gleam silver, like the vanity mirror's frame, and support a ranked rack of towels by the shower stall, the white cloths perfectly monogrammed, fluffed, and arranged for their mistress.
--
The room is dark for being as early as it is in the gathering warmth of the April evening. Humidity lies close in the air, hinting at showers for the May flowers, though not dampening the sounds of the party below. Obligations lie closer, slicing through the heavy air, but not quite reaching the still figure sitting on the floor, back against the side of the bed opposite. The glint of light on glass and the curve of shining blonde hair dipping over it are all that is visible of the WHite Queen who should be presiding somewhere.
And comes a-knocking someone else who isn't where he's supposed to be, but not by /his/ fault: Shaw, still mostly in his tuxedo (the jacket and tie are long gone, and so are a few buttons of his ruffly white shirt), leans his way along the hallway wall until he gets to Emma's door. Victory! He straightens up, blinking rapidly against the fumes dripping off his slovenly form, and pounds a hearty fist into the door's wood. Pauses. Slouches into the doorframe, snickering to himself, then knocks again, louder and with a fair attempt at the rhythm line to Barry Manilow's "Copacabana."
The head jerks up with a released hiss, and Emma narrows her eyes in the direction of the office door before setting her glass down and climbing slowly to her feet. Her feet are bare, a concession to jade-colored silk pajamas, and she doesn't bother to alter her attire for the person on the other side of the door. She's taken herself off-duty and out of uniform, and her passage through the room and to the door pounded upon is swift. She pulls it open and blinks, nose wrinkling fastidiously in the alcohol saturated greeting. A pause, and then a hardly necessary observation of "You're drunk."
"A little," Shaw says cheerfully and sways forward to plant a wet kiss on her forehead. His hand follows for a grope at her breast. "Let me in. You were s'posed to meet me in /my/ room, but I don't mind comin' down." He gives her an owlish blink, then shakes his finger in her face. "Just this once, though." Bubbling and burbling delight in his mind, a good evening, good party, time to celebrate, always time to celebrate--
Emma's step away from that touch opens the path into the room, and she turns away as soon as the kiss is transferred. "I didn't feel like it, Sebastian," she says simply, enunciating each word as if their clarity will assisting in piercing liquor's fog.
<< Like it matters what /you/ feel like, >> Shaw thinks with rude, blunt volume. He's not cheerful anymore, but he /is/ coming through the door after her. Even manages to hook it closed behind him with one of his feet. (The wobble following the maneuver is not significant.) "Come on," he coaxes, running his hands up her silken sleeves, over her shoulders, and swooping down to kiss and lick at her neck and ear. "You always feel like it. Horny as anything when you get goin' -- so much better than the frigid bitches we usually get 'round here . . ."
Emma winces at the projection, her shoulders twitching upward. She steps back and away, throwing up her hands as a shield, growling in irritation as she spins away. "/No/. I /don't/. Not tonight, damn it. I have a headache." She starts for a cabinet set against a wall.
Shaw straightens up with a scowl and with his hands, emptied, clenching at his sides. More blinking leads him to say slowly, "A headache. Well, isn't that convenient?" His expression darkens, starting with the eyes that sink into tight, baffled slits in his hardening face. "Don't sound like some -- some Fifties housewife, Emma," he cajoles, following again. "We can make you forget all about a headache. Like that time in the elevator, remember?" He does, mentally, loudly, and pornographically.
Emma's shoulders twitch again, and one hand flies up to her ear in an aborted attempt to cover them against his words. His thoughts are not so easy to keep out. "Damn it, Sebastian," she grinds out, reaching the cabinet and yanking it open to reveal rows of bottles. One is pulled out and the cap flipped off before dumping brightly colored tablets into the palm of her hand. "God. You're worse than the brat-pack. Why don't you go find some maid to pin to a wall? I've spent all day playing patti-fingers with drooling old men, and I'm tired and I have a /headache/." The bottle is slammed back into place on the shelf, and the pills tossed back dry.
"Because I want /you/," Shaw snarls back and grabs her shoulder to spin him towards her -- pull her to him, press her against him. His hands are hard but slippery with sweat against the jade silk; he keeps trying to catch and re-catch his hold on her arms while he pushes her toward the wall beside the cabinet. Alcohol seethes in his breath and his mind alike. "'Sides, you're a telepath. If you have a headache, /fix/ it."
His difficulty is compounded by the fact that Emma is most definitely not cooperating as she stumbles backwards under the press of his advance in a flurry of arms and pressing hands. "/Why/?" she protests angrily, finally stopped and caught in place against the wall at an angle to him, her arms folded up across her chest and her hip jutting at a defensive angle against him. "You're so drunk you wouldn't be able to tell the difference."
Shaw gives up and just leans in after her, height and weight being a better hold than slip-sliding hands any old day. His hair's coming loose from its ponytail -- big surprise -- and looping forward for Medusic kisses over her cheeks. His eyes are very close and very wide now (and that breath! The kitchens have apparently outdone themselves in the Gorgonzola-and-bratwurst department, by the smell). "Not that drunk," he enunciates firmly, "or I wouldn't be here at all. We have a deal, girl. Haven't I been upholdin' my end? Remember my help with your father, say?"
Emma sputters in wry, dry amazement. "Help with my /father/? You didn't lift a /finger/ there, darling. Remember?" her chin lifts and scorn melts down her face as she shifts against him, sliding her hip to the side and opening herself up to his weight. Her hands drift down to press fingertips against the wall behind her.
Visibly, and mentally perceptibly, Shaw does try to remember, but his clumsy shuffling through thoughts doesn't come up with much. No matter: he's got the bit between his teeth and is charging ahead. "Yes, I did!" he shoots back with the surety of the powerful and the inebriated (and powerfully inebriated). "With that business, between the two of you -- and what about when you were locked up? Huh?" He shoves a hand into the wall and leans even closer on its brace toward her, all but nose to nose now. "What about /that/, my pretty doll? I /remember/ a phone call, and you beggin' for help, and I provided it, indeed, I did."
Emma frowns for a long considering moment, tipping her nose down to add space between them and his breath. And then she smiles brittly and lifts her hands to his shoulders, threading her fingers into and under the heavy black mane curling around their faces. "Yes you did," she purrs, suddenly soft and yielding.
Shaw's mind doesn't exactly caper and shout, "Hurray!" but he eases into her acceptance on a beamed smile and a finger chucked under her chin. "There's my girl," he approves and slops a kiss on her mouth, his tongue lolling like a fat wet slug between his lips. << Good girl, my girl, knows her place, /good/ girl, mine, all mine. >>
And her mind doesn't exactly heat and melt in a rush of passion. In fact, Emma retreats from her awareness of the sensations of his hands on her, his mouth and tongue and teeth. She clings to him, strokes him, practices the familiar patterns of advances and retreats upon him, dancing him around and around in intimate circles.
Happily, Shaw mumbles and gropes and urges her toward the bedroom, as imprecisely eager as a bull in rut. Between kisses, he even grants her, "Promise not to bruise you this time. Want it rough, fucking /God/, yes, I do, but no bruises on that sweet, soft skin of yours."
Emma shudders, hiding the reaction in the apparent throes of passion as she weaves a band of power around his thoughts, collecting them loosely in her insubstantial grip. Mental image takes on form under his hands, replacing reality with illusion, and Emma extracts herself, smiling grimly as the dual images of Shaw's fumble with thin air and illused ardor overlap in her mind's eye.
Shaw falls onto the bed with her (with her?) and wallows for a few messy moments in trying to get his clothes off and then hers (hers? But she's not--). He gives up on the former, anyway -- trousers pushed down to his black socks and shoes will just have to be good enough -- so he can flail to his feet, nearly fall over on his reddened nose because of those trousers around his ankles, but right himself and go in the direction of the nightstand. "They're still here, right?" he asks the bed, the empty bed, and starts pawing in the drawer he yanks open. "Not the ropes, the chains -- ah!" He comes up with a pair of cuffs jangling like steel jewelry in each of his hands. He swings them at the bed, beaming and leering, then pounces onto it to start locking up his lover.
No, not with /her/. Not with her, not tonight, not like this. Emma edges around the bed, keeping one eye barely on the scene playing out on the bed and in his mind. The abandoned wineglass left on the floor is bent and reached for, and she downs in great gulps as she plays along, giving him what he wants, letting the illusion take shape and substance. The cuffs rattle against her figment's efforts, providing background noise to the grunt and puffing that-- Ah. Whoops? An unpracticed shift of her powers turns out the lights on the scene, at least for the eager participant in the bed. Emma weaves in place, then turns and stumbles for a chair, sinking into it under the influence of mental exertion, wine, and medication.
Once he has her where he wants her, Shaw doesn't need much more time: two pumps and a tickle with his willing illusion, and it's all over but for the mess plastered between his dress shirt and the bedclothes. In his drunken contentment, the man doesn't notice, or care, but collapses right then and there, face-down on the bed with an arm flung over a woman's body, still locked up, present only in his mind. After a few minutes, there's even snoring.
The figure in the chair in the corner stares broodily at the sodden lump in her bed, time passing without notice, minutes marked off only by his snores. Sleep creeps close, grasping at her eyelids with tiny, insistent hands until common sense, paranoia, are lulled and she draws her knees up to curls into the chair and turn away from the rest of the room, face hidden in a padded chair back.
When Dawn with its rose-tipped fingers comes poking those fingers rudely into the room, Shaw groans and bats feebly at them, at the clear, early light. It doesn't go away, so he buries his head into the pillows and reaches his arm across the body of-- His arm stops. His head lifts. Bloodshot eyes stare blearily at the empty space beside him and then, after a small eternity of grudging thought, at the handcuffs still looped and locked around both headboard posts, but with no slender, graceful wrists inside them. "What the--" He flips over heavily onto his side and stares with wide eyes at the rest of the room, settling quickly on the chair . . . and its inhabitant.
Emma is settled as primly as a curled cat in the chair, having stirred during the uncomfortable night only to prop her head up on a palm, elbow supporting hand, knee supporting elbow. She jumps awake at the exclamation, though focus is much slower, painfully slow, in coming.
"You bitch," Shaw rasps. He hitches his weight higher on his elbow; a thunderstorm is brewing behind his clouding expression. "You /bitch/. What did you do to me?"
Emma swings a heavy head toward him, blinking the haze from her thought and memories. What /did/ she-- Memories slide into place with the cool weight of cocked certainty, and she stiffens and drops her feet tot he floor, hand tightening on the chair arm.
Shaw's voice drops lower, rougher, carrying a snake's warning rattle. "You used your powers on me. Against me." He starts to pull himself together, past the pounding headache that vibrates the very aether, past the aches that twist his face and pop a couple balky joints, until he's sitting upright on the bed amid the mute betrayal of last night's evidence. "What do you have to say for yourself?" he asks softly.
Emma lowers her chin until she's watching him through a shieled of lashes, belated caution and wariness tensing her frame as she sits with toes pressed to the floor, heels turned out, knees turned in. "I did," she answers slowly, carefully. "I told you I didn't feel like it. I told you I had a headache." The evenness of her tone is a scourge of prickly accusation.
"You've said that before. You've never done /that/." Flat anger slaps at her accusation, and behind it, below it, seethe the nervous prickles of unease. Shaw sets his jaw stubbornly, though, and meets her eyes without quaver or qualm. "You won't do it again. That's an order."
"I've never done a lot of things before I met you," she slides back, silky, sickly sweet in voice and expression. "You will respect my boundaries then," she adds, gripping the curve of the chair arm tightly.
Shaw laughs harshly. "Or what?"
"Or I'll continue to do it."
Shaw shoves himself off the bed to untidy standing. "Oh, will you." He clenches his fists loosely at his sides, and the mental thunderstorm is closer. Louder. "I don't like this rebellious streak you're showing, Emma. Think it's time for a refresher course in who's in charge around here."
"You're in charge, Sebastian," she murmurs, keeping her eyes on him as he approaches, but otherwise not moving. "You're in charge, but I'm not powerless any more." A feeling like fingernails up the back of his neck is the first warning indications of her powers being brought to bear on him.
It stops him some few feet from the chair. One of his fists twitches as if to touch his nape, but Shaw forces his arms straight, as stiff as his spine (and that neck!) as he glares down at her. "Does this mean," he asks on a different tack, one of saccharine-sweet inquiry, "that you won't lend me a hand in our work in this club anymore? Because it violates one of your precious /boundaries/."
"Of course not. Neither does it mean I won't lend you a hand elsewhere. It simply means that when I say no, I mean it." She straightens, drawing her heels closer together, assuming a poise that reeks more of superiority than supplication.
Shaw sees it, recognizes it -- flares hot outrage (belly-cold nerves) at it. "Good," he grates out and snaps a sharp gesture at the rest of the suite. "Then get some fucking clothes on, already. We've got a meeting at ten, unless you forgot that along with your manners. Breeding /will/ tell."
Temper answers in the flash of eye and press of lips into a sharp slit, but she rises, the motion fluid and smooth. "It already has," she snipes, then moves for the closet.
A small victory, pyrrhically weak, but Shaw takes it with head-high aplomb. He grabs her arm in passing and holds her in place beside him. "And wear something nice," he advises, back to cloying and petting in voice if not touch (iron-hard fingers digging into flesh) or mind (angry, blustery mood). He slashes out a sleek, cruel grin. "You know how Messrs. Peterson and Yarrow like to drool over your cleavage. Might get us the final advantage this time."
Emma curls her lip in a near-snarl, looking down at the hand, then sweeping it back up to him. "I do know how to manipulate them. They are only men, after all. They like to drool over it almost as much as you."
"Watch your mouth," and the hand rises flicker-quick to slap the offending orifice. Shaw makes contrite eyes. "Hope you won't have to use too much makeup to cover that up. Sorry."
Her head turns under the force of the blow, and her own hand takes the place of his, pressing cool fingers to its edge. Again the prickles warn of danger tensing and curling about his mind, and again they fade away, this time as she turns on an angry heel to escape his reach.
Shaw lets her go, a mocking thought sneering after her (away, prickles, away!). "See you there!" he calls in baleful friendliness and imagines a blown kiss, sloppy with venom, to send on its way, too. "And /thank/ you for such a good night. I've never had better, not even with you."
[Log ends.]