Voicemail

[icecoldfrost]

"Hullo, darling, you've reached Emma. Leave a message at the tone, and if I care, I'll get back to you."

[BEEP]

---

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Comments

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"I don't know," Jack answered. "I might have appreciated your response to Alex. The one I got gave me a night of wondering whether the fact you were asking about hinting was some sort of hint."

It had made him sulky.

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"Naughty, darling, I don't kiss and tell," Emma chided. "Besides, the majority of my response to Alex was 'do you want Effy to kill me in my sleep?'"

"But no, I wasn't hinting to you by asking about hinting...or however that would work. Or does asking about my answer to Alex mean you're hinting that you want to do that next time I'm over? ...It almost makes my mind hurt."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"I don't think Alex would lend you his desk to bring to me just for that," Jack said, ducking the question a bit. "No, it's more that I was wondering if you were trying to make me jealous somehow by pointing out I really couldn't say anything if you did take Karla to bed. Which I couldn't, and I know it" -- and was, apparently, defensive about it -- "but it made me wonder if you wanted to change our arrangement in any way. Which isn't a question if you weren't trying to call me to start with."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"I promise I have no intention of sleeping with Karla," Emma swore, keeping her tone light to soothe his defensiveness. "Especially not now, when the pants rule is no longer in effect. I think Warren would get vexed with me."

Here, Jack, have gossip you didn't ask about, and probably didn't want to know!

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

Jack groaned. There had been a question in there that wasn't about Karla, but he was too proud to repeat it -- especially when he'd misunderstood her so thoroughly to start with.

"Why do I know so much about Karla's sex life?" he wondered. "I love her as a sister, but I wouldn't ask my sisters about the pants rule either..."

Jack, your sisters were Victorian.

"I'm sure Warren's happy."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"Jack, your sisters are Victorian. If you asked, you'd probably get a pan dumped on your head for your troubles, if you were lucky," Emma teased. "And if I have to know, you have to know. I will not suffer alone."

Jack's question had totally gone right over Emma's head; it wasn't a deliberate avoidance. "Besides, you'd be cross with me if next time you came to visit, everyone knew but you. I know better than to withhold information from you, Detective Priest."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"The state of the queen of Glacia's hymen is her own affair!" Jack protested. "Besides, don't you feel like Karla is terribly young some of the time? Not in years, but just in how she reacts to things?"

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"Sometimes. She reminds me a little bit of my younger sister, when Cordelia was three or four, and not yet bent on hating everything," Emma replied wistfully. "She loved to explore, to get her fingers into everything she could find."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"There's that, and she's so utterly certain about the things she knows," Jack said, filing away the comment about Cordelia for another moment. "I get frustrated sometimes. I try so hard to understand wherever I find myself, and she just -- floats."

He shook his head. "Anyhow. It makes it harder for me to think about what she gets up to with Warren, silly as that is."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"You've adopted her. I think you're picking up a habit of picking up strays, Jack," Emma laughed. "She does, doesn't she? Float, I mean, and not just by using her magic. It's like she looks at everything as if she's seeing it just now for the first time, and is utterly delighted."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"But strays are the most interesting," Jack laughed. "Not that she'd see herself that way, of course. I think she'd say she's adopted me."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"Yes, well, you are horribly biased towards those of us without a fixed address, but in the best ways," Emma retorted cheerfully. "If she tries to argue that she wasn't a stray little waif, we can always point to the way she used to dress. Someone had to clean her up and feed her, and that means we adopted her."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"I keep finding myself in makeshift families," Jack mused, hand resting on his stomach. "If I were a different man, I might find it touching."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"As long as it's the good-touch and not a bad-touch," Emma replied, grabbing at a blanket so she could curl up while they chatted. "Since you're not a different man, how does it feel now?"

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

A long pause as Jack decided to be honest.

"Like it'll go away anytime," he said softly. "Because the man I am is a bit ridiculous about that."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"I don't know if you've noticed, Mr. Priest, but Karla clings worse than a burr and I'm far too fond of you to simply let you wander off into the sunset," she answered, her tone gentle and honest, but still a bit amused. "Besides, I can find you anywhere with my brain."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"I'd not like to test you on that," Jack said lightly. "That would lead to me flying off to Istabul just to see if you really could."

A pause. "I'm not letting you go, either. Either of you."

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[icecoldfrost]

"If I find you in Istanbul, you'll pay for it by going on tours with me, and shopping, and spending long hours waiting for me to come out of the Hamam," Emma retorted cheerfully. "I dare you to try it."

Come on, Jack. Didn't a vacation sound lovely...?

Re: Once the phones are fixed...

[bitten_notshy]

"I wonder if it's sunnier there than in London," Jack mused, glancing out his window. "Don't tempt me, Miss Frost."

Dare accepted.