icecoldfrost | The Hellfire Club, Emma's New York, Friday Evening.

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The Hellfire Club, Emma's New York, Friday Evening.

The message had only said that Jack required distraction, and so Emma had gotten them seats for the most distracting thing available: The Annual New York After-Dark Burlesque Review, hosted at - of course - The Hellfire Club. Because if you were going for decadence, you needed the perfect backdrop.

This wasn't the usual 'gentleman's club' section of the Club, either. New York's finest burlesque artists (and visual artists) were the ones throwing this party; meaning it was utterly gorgeous and equal oggle-tunity for everyone, no matter your personal tastes.

[OOC: For one & SP]

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Jack raised his eyebrows slightly as they came through the door. "You never do things halfway, do you, Ems?"

The truth was this was what he'd needed. Something so far from Fandom that he could pretend none of the horror of the dungeon had been real.

"Well," Emma quipped, hanging on his arm and throwing him a wink. "You wanted distracting, and it was this or Broadway. No one else is throwing parties tonight, and I refuse to get sucked in to the tourist trap."

"Besides; telepath. I am genetically incapable of doing something halfway. It is perfect or nothing."

"You're going to have to explain that one to me," Jack quibbled, bumping her shoulder with his own as he looked for the bar. "Why does being a telepath make you a perfectionist?"

"Because if I do it wrong, I remember that fact forever and it itches at the back of my brain," Emma answered melodramatically. "The joys of an almost-perfect endemic memory." Also, she was still a Frost. Being Imperfect was basically the cardinal sin.

She leaned in to nuzzle at his neck once they reached the bar. "Hank says it's not uncommon for telepaths to have perfectionist traits," she continued quietly, "it's just how we're wired."

"Now--" Emma pressed a quick kiss just below his ear. "May I buy the gentleman a drink?"

"You may do whatever you like to the gentleman, oh almost perfect one," Jack teased. (He wasn't certain Emma was quite as perfect as she thought she was, but he was hardly in the mood to challenge it.) "But a drink is a good start. How's the Scotch?"

"Ridiculously addicting and worth every drop," Emma promised as she gave the bartender a slight telepathic nudge to simply bring the Scotch immediately. "--and you had best watch those promises, Mr. Priest. Saying I can do 'whatever you like' is like giving me the keys to the candy store."

"I thought I did that a few years ago," Jack bantered in return. "Sadly, my ... candy shop is yours even if you smash the chocolates, rob the register, and mix the black jelly beans in with the purple ones."

The last was, of course, the most evil of them all.

He sipped at the scotch when it arrived, cocking an inquisitive eyebrow at Emma. The bartender had served them rather quickly, hadn't he?

Emma just beamed at him angelically as she raised her glass. "I would never smash chocolates," was her answer, "I'm not a heathen! Really, Jack."

"...Besides, candy stores offered up while in the Hellfire Club tend to lean towards a more..." Emma, don't look at Jack like he's a piece of meat, it's rude. "...thorough pillaging than other shops."

Jack coughed a laugh into his fist. "I think you may have confused candy shops with some other kind of store," he informed her, and gestured vaguely toward one of the dancers. "Though I wouldn't mind a good rummage through his sample bins, so to speak."

Emma just laughed, and let the bartender top off her drink as she glanced over to the dancer Jack had indicated. "Well," she said, "Let's go pick one of the little tables for two, where we can enjoy the show."

And eventually he might tell her why he needed the distraction, or he might not. Emma was fine with either.

Then the dancer did a back-bend, and Emma fanned herself. "Wow. Those are some nice goods in his sample bin."

"Mmmm. Big, but I have a feeling it might just be pumped up with air," Jack said lightly. He sipped his drink again, enjoying the burn of it as he sought out a table.

"How's that one?" he asked, pointing. "Close enough to watch the chocolates being made, so to speak, but not so close we're likely to be put to work."

"Put to work?" Emma asked, disbelieving, as she started towards their selected table. "Believe it or not, I've never been to a burlesque show - how on earth would they put us to work?"

"Maybe it's something they don't do here," Jack said, halfway apologetic. "At home the tables near the stage are the ones where the dancers try to make you part of the show. I'm not in the mood."

"Good, since I was planning on saving my strip-tease to be a private event for you," Emma answered cheerfully, not really caring if anyone was listening. It was the Hellfire Club, after all. Everyone was talking about similar activities, or something equally debauched. "I'm hoping to get a few ideas for this weekend, but I'd rather not be on display."

"I earned a strip-tease?" Jack asked equally unbothered by the fact they were in public. Really, if someone at Hellfire had nothing better to eavesdrop on that wasn't his problem. "I'm touched. And glad you aren't upset the island kept me out of touch for a week."

"Oh, I'm furious that I couldn't get through for a week," Emma admitted. "But yelling at you is usually counter-productive to getting what I want, so I'm going with bribery."

Jack pouted at her, looking up from under his lashes. "You'd yell at someone who was in a dungeon for a week?"

"Is this one of those, 'Oh look, a mysterious place, I am going to show blatant disregard for life and limb and explore' wandering into dungeons, or an accidental 'Emma I didn't do it' dungeon?" she asked. "And I didn't hear from you for more than one week - we last spoke when you were getting a rash from all the honesty."

She hadn't been worried, that would be tacky. Except that she knew graduation and its typical nonsense was coming up, so, yes, she had been worried.

Not that Emma was going to say any of that here.

"So don't you pout at me, Mr. Priest. I may not yell, but that doesn't mean I don't have other tricks up my sleeve."

"It's been that long?" Jack looked genuinely surprised.

And then he remembered he'd opted not to call during sex pollen week because phone sex had felt like a cruel tease, and then he'd been ... otherwise detained.

"Sorry," he said honestly. "The island's been in a mood. The dungoen collected us all overnight."

"Any injuries, aside from the usual mental trauma?" she asked, sotto voce, as they reached the table. "Should I keep you in bed and feed you soup all weekend?"

"Well, I was hoping you'd keep me in bed all weekend," Jack said lightly. "But no, no injuries. The thing was just a compilation of the worst of Fandom. I got to play tourist on the version of the island full of vampires."

If anyone was looking closely, they'd see Emma's grip on the chair tighten, her nails shifting from normal to diamond and back again.

Someone still had residual trauma, yes, and the chair gained a tiny crack.

"My first and most unfortunate of the Fandom Traumas," she said lightly, taking a seat and forcing her powers under control. "I hope you didn't run into any of the locals."

"Only saw them from a distance before I took off," Jack admitted. "Didn't seem like the right time to go courting a messy death."

He glanced to her hands. "I'm sorry. I wasn't telling you to upset you."

"Startled, not upset," Emma said, taking a sip of her drink to steady herself. "It's not a place I hear referenced often; you caught me by surprise, that's all."

See, Jack! She was trying to be good and stay out of your head! Emma totally deserved a cookie for this.

"I'm just glad that you decided to go in the other direction. You didn't meet the other-me, did you? She's rather unpleasant, even by my standards. I'm rather sure she hates people even more than I do."

Jack shook his head. "I didn't get that far. Barely did anything, really. Walked into the park, caught a glimpse of a group feeding, found another place to be."

Intrigued, he added, "Did you get to talk to the other you? Or do you have her memories?"

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The Hellfire Club, Emma's New York, Friday Evening.

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