(no subject)
Hellfire Clubhouse - Emma's Private Quarters (#3424RC)
A summons from their Queen brings Bishop and Knight to the halls of the Hellfire Club. Having entered nearly on Travis's heels, as they walk through the front entryway toward the stairs, Adel watches him. He seems uncertain, unwilling to first break silence, but when he does, it is to ask, "Do you know what this about? All I know is that Shaw took Percy and my brother to visit Emma, now this."
"Haven't a clue," Travis comments, pausing to let Adel match step. "Pretty rare she says much over the phone, though. If the three of them have been here, though..." he trails off, with a knowing nod.
Adel's lips thin toward a grimace. "Bahir isn't saying much. We go in blind, then." Fingers stroke the curving handle of his cane as he considers the stairs, his knee, and any illusion of grace. He huffs with vague irritation and ascends at a relatively normal pace.
Travis climbs after Adel, not commenting the other's progress. "Then I guess we'll play it on the fly," he shrugs. "Does he do this often? Leave you in the dark?"
Adel snarls wordlessly. The subject is dropped, unanswered. At the top of the stairs, he pauses, flexing his knee.
File that little fact away. Travis doesn't pursue it further, though. His watches Adel's motions carefully. "We need to compare notes soon as well," Travis comments. "Elsewhere, preferrably."
"Sounds fun," Adel chirps brightly, an assholish sort of cheer that measures the gaze he turns to Travis. He breathes deeply and then strikes off for Emma's office. He calls greeting ahead, sure of /her/ range, if not his: << Emma. >>
Travis smirks slightly as the other turns away, following in Adel's wake down the hallway. Pausing outside her office, he offers his own greeting, quick couple raps on the doorway.
The response is dulled and sluggish, consisting more of an acknowledgement of Adel's greeting than any clearly formed words. A minute later, after Travis's knocks, the door opens and is held at an angle that allows for their passage, and little else. Emma shuts the door behind them and thumbs the lock, planting her forehead against the door for a few seconds before turning around. The office is as Shaw left it earlier. The desk swept clear of paperwork, baring the clean lines of the indentations of his grip, the chair pulled away from it and facing the wall. A tumbler holding half a glass of amber liquid sits on a table, next to the uncorked decanter. And Emma... Fresh from a shower, with hair slicked back and damp, soaking the back of the white silk robe belted tightly around her.
Adel's gaze sweeps the office, first: desk, and chair, and alcohol. His eyes fall to the floor and study it, as if to pull from the carpet the pattern of footsteps that tells what happened. While he looks around, telepathy reaches to wrap around Emma's mind: half-greeting, half-embrace, three-quarters careful and wary appraisal. "Having a party /without/ us?" he says in light tones of mocking disappointment. Much quieter, and far more serious the mental growl: << What happened? >>
Travis's gaze settles on the desk, and without invitation or word, he crosses the room, running a hand along the grip marks. He turns back to face Emma. "As if things weren't exciting enough around here," he comments dryly.
Emma turns, baring the appearance of a clean face to them, free of telltale reddening, if not swelling. A deft and practiced hand with the make-up, yes, thank you, Mr. Shaw. "We of the Hellfire Club turn a blind eye to rowdy members," she replies blandly, eyes flickering between the pair. One arm holds her middle and provides a shelf for her other elbow, and she rubs at her temple. Anger curls like a fog around the ankles of everyone in the room. Anger and stung pride and fear and a darkly deep desire. She answers Adel's query with << Sebastian. And your brother. >> A stab of pain brightens up the telepathic landscape and she points at her desk. "Travis. Pills, in the drawer there, please? The Black King was rather insistent on his arrangement, and he wanted to make sure his point got across."
With one last look over his shoulder at Emma, a look heavy with telepathic resonance (Baffled inquiry; fierce protectiveness -- for her, for his brother, for /himself/; simple concern), Adel crosses to stand next to Travis. He too fingers the marks of Shaw's hand -- and then he turns to sit on the edge of the desk, watching Emma. "Seems a bit too insistent."
Travis circles the desk, pulling open the top drawer and retrieving the pills from it. It doesn't even take concentrated breathing to catch the emotions circulating about--sorting through them is a bit more difficult. He hands the meds over to her. "I could help until those take effect," he suggests.
Emma pops the top and shakes out two tablets, taking them dry. Travis's suggestion is dismissed with a slight shake of her head, and she looks past him to Adel. "Well, you know Sebastian," she says in patently false cheer followed by the clatter of the pill bottle hitting the far wall. Emma grinds her teeth together and starts to pace. "You two are /supposed/ to start reporting to your counterparts in the Black Court, effectively immediately."
Adel looks blank. "My brother?"
Travis snorts. "Is that not counter to the concept of my role itself?" He leans back against the wall, watching her movements. "It seems Mr. Shaw could use a lesson in how to play this game. Nicely, preferrably."
Emma's lip curls in distaste. "Percy," is spat at Adel, while Travis at least gets the benefit of a smile. Or perhaps it's not as beneficial. "Indeed, Knight. Sebastian must be reminded of just that. In light of recent events, however, I think it wise to move cautiously. I want you both to do as he said." She stalks to the abandoned glass of liquor and waits for the inevitable protests.
"Oh, /fuck/ no," bursts past Adel's lips without regard for company. His fingers tighten on the silver handle of his cane which he swings in a vaguely threatening fashion. A jab punctuates a, "/No/," and then falls on a "/Fine/," as he bows to Emma's request. Curses tangle in his mind in half a dozen tongues.
"I suppose I could send Linden the third fingers of my next few targets," Travis rolls his eyes. "Help him keep inventory of my actions."
"That's a darling idea. Poor old squeamish Bill...." Emma purrs, ignoring Adel until he calms down. She turns, three glasses (her own filled again) in her hand and she crosses back to the desk and sets them down, pushing the other two across the top. "Play nice, Adel. Play sweet and innocent and /useless/. He wants the appearance of control, then /fine/. He'll have his sham, and while he's fiddling with the ruffles, we'll keep the substance of what we are doing away from his eyes and ears. I'll set Tyanna to tap dance for him. He's /fond/ of her."
Adel bites off a sharp, "/Nice/." His jaw sets, teeth clenching, and he reaches gladly to take one of the glasses. The snarl of dark curses slowly simmers away from the fore of his mind, although reason and rationality are slow to replace it. He takes a deep breath. "Very well." His mind spits over a name: << /Percy/. >>
"Cautious and subversive," Travis nods, pulling his glass the rest of the distance. "Which is business as usual. You want to convey passive acceptance?"
<< If I can stomach Sebastian Shaw's displays of dominance, then /you/ can very fucking well tolerate /Percy/ for five minutes once a week, >> Emma snarls, ducking her head to glare at the other telepath. A hint of the darkest meanings to that roil to the fore and are viciously pushed aside. She nods at Travis. "Yes."
Glare matched from the other side, Adel opaques shields over his thoughts, rendering further bitching unreadable. He nods to her, a short, sharp jerk of his chin. << Said I would, >> he projects back, sullen. "He won't believe it if you roll over. He will suspect."
"A sullen bishop and a near rogue knight errant are hardly 'rolling over,'" Travis comments, playing devil's advocate to both sides as he swirls the liquid in his glass. "We're the wildcards."
She snorts. "Of course he will suspect. He expects my resistance. He won't expect my activity. Get what you can in your encounters with your counterparts." She slides a heavy lidded gaze toward Adel, then Travis. "Your powers give you advantages over them in regards to information gathering."
"Oh, yeah. Rogue. Aren't you a wild one. Whoohoo." Adel scuffs his foot against the floor, the very picture of a child in a fit of pique. Telepathy paints a more flattering picture, but only just: below the fit of temper, a sharp mind slowly kicks into gear to chew at the problem. He looks up at Emma. "You told me once not to use my telepathy on Percy. Is the order rescinded?"
"Given that we're on the same side," Travis says in reply, "I'll not test how well your shields hold against physical sensation." He turns back to Emma. "Ok. So acquiesence. We play them while they think they're playing us. Any other changes to strategy or tasklist we should know of?"
"If he'll sit idly by when I'm attacked, I see no reason not to do the same," Emma replies by way of an answer, leaning over the side of the desk on hands balling against the desk's surface. "Though a degree of discretion /is/ called for," she points out, eyeing him significantly before continuing, "Unless you have any suggestions, then no other changes at this time."
A smile slices across Adel's features -- a scimitar gleam of white. "Of course. Discretion." Darkling glee fades, falling away to reveal curling anger in its shadow. His eyes trace Emma's features. Shrugging, he says, "If I have suggestions, I will get back to you with them. At the moment--" He lets a hint of temper slip past his shields, a telling glimpse of hot fury rapidly turning to cold implacability.
"Not until we've had a chance to see the effects of this," Travis shrugs, downing the last of his drink.
Hellfire Clubhouse - Emma's Office (#3421RC)
"..,just yet. I would prefer to handle this in a more... diplomatic fashion first, if possible. Check into his past. His family. I believe his brother is ill or something," Emma says, flapping her hand before relacing her fingers around the knee folded over the leg propped up on the edge of Travis' chair. She's perched on the edge of her desk, loose haired and still dressed from the day's business head hunting excursion.
"Leverage," Travis contemplates, making mental note. One hand toys with the button of his left shirt sleeve as he walks through the information. "Ok, from what I know already and what you've just said, There's enough bargaining chips to sway his decision. Give me until Monday, and I can tell you how long it will take to have concrete details." (re)
Emma snorts lightly. "If you can give me concrete assurance that he won't try to play the noble hero, I might have to give you a bonus for your work." She straightens and uncrosses her legs, dropping them to the floor. "Once he is out of the way, then we will be free to deal with our leak."
Sabitha is not a familiar face at the Hellfire Club. Neither, though, is she entirely unfamiliar, and it doesn't take much wheedling at the desk to gain entrance. The bag slung over her shoulder is the sort carried by college students - left over from her own days as such. She jokes, she smiles, she leaves the entryway with a wiggle of her fingers and flirtatious wink for the man who gaurds it. She doesn't open the bag until she's traveled through semi-familiar hallways and stairwells, footsteps far surer than she feels and hands clenched until her knuckles are bleached white, She stops at the top of the stairs. When she kneels to unzip the bag (so loud, so harsh in her ears! how far can that be heard?), her hands shake. When she lifts a helmet (not purple, and far more stylishly cut) and settles it over her head, her breath comes in a tremoring gasp. Whatever unease might be trickling from her mind, whatever dire intent, is cut off abruptly. Mental silence. Sabby's fingers curl around a gun (black metal, stolen from a mercenary, unfired in the year and some months since), and she rises. She leaves the bag lying on the ground.
"When you put in as many years to get where he is," Travis comments, flipping the sleeve back down and looking up at Emma, "You find loss of a profession a significant motivator. Aspiration, after all, is much higher a human ideal than even, oh, say, love or loyalty."
"How long is it since you have dealt with the purely noble?" Emma asks, stepping past the chair, but letting her hnad catch at his shoulder and trail along his back as she moves behind him. "This... /boyscout/ practically comes complete with his own white charger."
"Nobility is a misguided notion that was disproved two centuries ago," Travis comments, craning his neck to one side until it gives a satisfying pop. "Still, it's something the ignorant cling to. And white chargers simply makes their tarnishing all the more pleasing."
Sabitha's breaths shake her shoulders as she steps forward, shuddering in and out with desperate determination. Her entire frame quivers when she pauses outside the door to Emma's office, eyes pressed closed, to listen. The gun feels cold in her hand, although the metal has warmed to her touch. Inside, familiar voices speak indistinguishable words: Travis. Emma. She blinks her eyes open slowly and lowers her other hand to flick the safety off. Her movements are unhurried and smooth, trancelike. As if moving through thick mollasses. She extends her hand to Emma's doorknob and turns it, pulls it open, in the same swift motion, and when her gun raises to meet those inside, the world rushes back with sudden and abrupt clarity. It rings loud in her ears, so loud that she can't hear herself when she steps forward and swings her aim around to point the gun's barrel directly at Emma Frost and growls, "I am /tired/ of being your plaything." She does not hesitate. She does not turn to afford Travis any attention. Her finger tugs on the trigger - a hair, no more - and a bullet flies in hurtling anger. "Leave Chris Rossi alone."
Emma's head turns back, looking over her shoulder, telepathy already reaching to discover who is daring to enter her office unnoticed and unbidden. Her claws are blunted against the device, scrambling for purchase against a mind that has no form for her. And then Sabby's hand raises, and no telepathy is needed. Emma turns to dive, but her foot gets tangled with the chair leg. *re*
There's a moment where Travis is just sitting there, amused at the person to his back. The next, an explosion. Then a stab of pain as the missed bullet still finds a wayward target where Emma was, but Travis still is. One hand clinging to his shoulder makes his leap from the chair much more clumsy than it might otherwise be. "What the HELL, Sabitha?" is shouted as he hovers on the other side of the piece of furniture.
Sabitha's aim wavers, gun tracking her line of sight as Travis's shout distracts her. Her eyes are wide and wild, her finger tight on the hairline edge of the trigger. "Stay back, Travis." It's meant to be a firm order - or maybe something screamed in raging anger. What comes out is a hoarse whisper, barely audible as it scrapes along a raw throat. She doesn't wait long. Her gun swings back to fix on Emma, shaking in her hand. She squeezes the trigger with frigid fingers. Metal glints across the barrel, and the bullet goes flying toward Emma's chest.
"Sabitha! /Don't/!" Emma manages to say, trying to reinforce ineffectual telepathy with simple command. The effort dies in a wave of red-tipped darkness the explodes from the direction of her chest, cutting off breath and control and awareness. The chair tilts at a crazy angle before falling, it's coasters sliding out from under it, when Emma does.
"Like hell I will," Travis growls. He kicks at the fallen chair between them, not with enough force to actually have it hit her, but with enough to prove distraction as he dives atop the desk, rolling off behind it and yanking open the top drawer. One hand scrambles around within, fumbling for the gun he knows that it contains. Hand finds the barrel and pulls it down to his position. He spares a moment to check the safety, grit his teeth against the burning in his shoulder, and to send out a wave of calming scent. "Drop the gun, Sabby," he says, voice tightly controlled as he slowly stands, gun trained on her.
Sabitha's gun wavers wildly. She staggers back a step, counterforce to Emma's tumbled fall as if struck by the blow in reverse. Her breath rushes inward in a desperate gasp, and when it shudders out again, it's nearly a sob. Lost, uncontrolled, frantic. Sabby stands with tear-bright eyes, arm lifted in rigid aim at Travis. The barrel of her gun quakes with tiny tremors. "Aren't you tired of being her plaything?" she chokes in question. "Aren't you tired of this, Travis?"
Primary red spreads in a slowly seeping tinker-toy's perfect red circle through the expensive fabric of a white suit jacket, the lines marred only by the wrinkle of clothe caused by the arm raised over a chair leg.
"You can't play a player," Travis says calmly, a small forced smile appearing, along with forcing as much of the emotion into the air as he can manage. "Put down the gun, Sabitha." His eyes are glued to her finger, watching for any sign of tension there. He takes a step toward the other end of the desk, where the phone is. "We need to call an ambulance," he says, allowing his eyes a momentary flicker towards Emma before they lock back on Sabby's gun.
"I'll shoot you, Travis," Sabby promises uncertainly. "I will. Don't /MOVE!/" The last finally frees her voice, a hoarse, piercing scream that rises and breaks as her gun tracks him. Her eyes flash once, and the phone's on fire. Plastic sputters and bubbles and then melts onto the desk beneath. Another moment's glance sets the desk ablaze with vengeful fury.
"You're not going to shoot me," Travis says slowly, freezing in place as the office begins to light up between them. He looks over the flames at her, his own finger tensing on the trigger pointed at her. "This isn't what you want to do. Put /down/ the gun, Sabby."
"You always were so full of /bullshit/." Sabby's voice spits across the distance between them, and the wall behind Travis's shoulder goes up in flames. They dance, crackling, toward the ceiling with eager glee. "This isn't what I want? /What/ isn't what I want?" The desk is blazing in earnest now. Papers curl up at the corners, charred and blackened before they burst into merry flames. "To be this? To be /here/? Hell right, it's not what I want. This is not who I was supposed to be, Travis!" Her arm remains stiff, voice ragged as she shouts at him.
"And you always called me on it," Travis says slowly. His eyes are beginning to water as he takes in the deteriorating situation--the blood spreading across Emma's chest, the flames behind him, in front of him. "You are who you choose to be, Sabitha, whatever others say. That's a lesson you haven't ever learned. One last time. Put. Down. The. Gun."
Sabitha's laugh is jagged and desperate. The breathy sound is pitched too high - it carries into her words. "I made my choice when I walked into this building, Travis. I'll fucking destroy it." Flames jump up from the back of the chair Emma's tangled in as Sabby chokes, "Who the hell have /you/ chosen to be?" Her eyes are glowing in earnest now, flame-bright sparks reflected off tears that well uncontrolled in the corners. The barrel of her gun steadies. Her finger tightens on the trigger.
The gun in Travis' hand explodes at the first sign of her hand moving. He stands there a moment, staring at her through the fire. "Who have /I/ chosen to be?" he finally chokes out as he steps around the desk. "Your fucking knight in shining armor."
Sabitha jerks back with the force of it. For a frozen moment, fixed amid the slow dance of flames, she's stunned motionless. Her eyes lock on Travis's in a instant's glimmering disbelief, and then it's gone and she's falling heavily to her knees. Metal clatters to the floor a bare instant before she does. She sprawls heavily on her belly, and the force of it makes the gaping wound there gush angrily. Her cheek hits the floor with sickening force; it's already sticky-slick with blood.
Blood is in great supply, spreading out across the floor and painting everything in its path with it's coquettish color. The fire crackles and builds, nearly extinguishing the sound of Emma's labored breathing, growing wetter and more gurglish by the minute.
Travis stands there amidst the heat a moment, gaze traveling between the two fallen women. "Aspiration..." he finally mutters, before kneeling beside Emma and scooping her up, wincing as the added weight reminds him of his own injured arm. He pauses a moment in the doorway, a muttered "I'm sorry," dying on his lips. A moment later, he's in the hall, shouting for assistance from the /faithful/ pawns.
And in the midst of flames of her own making, the unfaithful pawn remains. There are no last words, no dying breath. There's simply the labored breathing of several moments, pained and desperate while blood pours from the wound in her stomach. And then there is not. It does not take long for the blaze to close in around her. The fire, at least, is a last warm embrace.