Backlash

[Emily Littleton] She'd come home from the market with some Chinese take-away and a few things from the Taiwanese grocer. Emily had put her things away in the fridge and then made her way upstairs to the room she shared with another co-ed. From there her evening devolved into a (too) hot shower, and a cup of tea, and a warm blanket wrapped around comfortable clothes wrapped around a wearied frame.

She had all but forgotten that she had texted Jarod until he got back in touch with her. By then, her evening had gone from bad to worse and folded back on itself to be just... unpleasant. He asked if she was still in Chinatown, and she'd said no that she'd gone home. Emily actually said home in her distraction and headache from the evening. Perhaps it would strike him as odd.

If he insisted on coming by, she wouldn't argue. But when he arrived her hair was braided back, and still damp. Emily hadn't bothered to dress up for him, tonight. She was still in her sweats and a long-sleeved tee when she opened the front door. She looked tired, or possibly just terribly run down. She still smiled softly when she saw him, but she did not have anything witty or wry to say.

[Jarod Nightingale] Emily wasn't the only one who'd been having a bad day, but since Jarod's issues were more in the line of mundane irritations, it could be claimed that Emily's were the worse of the two. Two days earlier, a paradox backlash had bruised his ribs, and he still moved with a slight stiffness that belied an internal injury, but it was very minor, and one would have to be paying attention to notice. Certainly, he wasn't the sort of person to bring attention to it, either vocally or otherwise.

He'd missed the text that Emily had sent to him because he'd been arguing with his sister. And then having a drink and ignoring his calls. Naturally, the first had precipitated the second. In an effort to make up for this, he'd driven out to her home (such as it was) to meet her there, instead. Now he stood at the door in a pair of expensive-looking jeans and a black dress shirt (having left his coat in the car), and he smiled a bit tiredly when she opened the door to greet him.

"You look like you've had a long day."

[Emily Littleton] She didn't know, yet, that he was injured. So she didn't have any reason, beyond their usual reticence and restraint. But it had been a long day, and someone had sat across from her at dinner and told her every gory detail of how a man had been murdered. She had taken one for the Traditionalist team, and no one was going to give her any credit for it in the long run.

"Come here," she said, softly, and it wasn't only an implied request. Emily didn't say hi, or how are you, or any of the other little things that could be come between him and her, and the hug she wasn't going to be terribly shy about wanting. When he complied, because she knew he would (and if he didn't, she'd just go to him) Emily stood up on her tip toes so she could loop her arms around his neck and hold on to him for a long moment. Long enough to feel his warmth against her, to feel something real and comforting and immanent. Something she understood on a visceral level.

"Hi..." she said softly, into the space between them, once he'd slid his arms around her as well. Emily didn't care that the door was still open, or that her housemates were wandering around somewhere in the immediate surroudings. She didn't seem to want to let go of him, now that he was here. After a long moment, she would loosen her hold on him but Emily wouldn't let go, not unless he told her to, or made a move to get away, or... well, it had been a long day, a very long day, and he was here now. And that was about as far as she could process things, right now. Here. Hug. Hello.

[Jarod Nightingale] It was both a welcome and reluctant thing, that hug. Emily said come here, and Jarod did as she requested, taking a step into the house so that she could wrap her arms around his neck and rest her body against his. But there was something slow about the way that he responded, and when her weight rested against his rib-cage, the muscles in his back and torso stiffened, tightening against the inevitable ache that radiated from her touch. (A constant reminder of the price one had to pay for pushing too hard against the rules of reality, but all things considered, it could have been so much worse.)

"Ah...careful," he murmured softly, though he was probably loathe to admit that he was in any kind of pain (that he was anything other than perfect). Still, he let his arms fall around her, and his head rest against her own for a long moment. When he breathed in, the smell of her filled his senses. It was a warm memory, the way that Emily smelled when she'd just taken a shower.

"You okay?"

[Emily Littleton] He asked her to be careful, and Emily eased off a little. She was more gentle, cautious with him, but not less warm. No further from him. Not right now.

"I... had a rather disturbing dinner date," she said, plainly. Emily had been working on being more direct with him, holding less back, hiding less (unless it was necessary). She exhaled heavily, and tried to let the memory of everything Nathan had said flow past her. She couldn't. It got bound up in her muscles and made her tense and knotted up all over again.

"I'm glad you're here," she said, and that much was honest. Emily pulled away from him enough to close the door against the cold outside. It left them standing in the entryway, but she didn't move to change that just yet. "I mean that... it's, it's good to see you, Jarod," she said, speaking his name fondly. Gently.

[Jarod Nightingale] "Well I'm glad that I can provide a point of contrast to your otherwise unpleasant evening. It's good to see you, too. " Ever charming, ever pleasant... when it suited him to be so. This, despite his mood and his injury. Despite possible worry over Emily's well-being. A great deal had been asked of him, of late, and he hadn't complained once. He also hadn't been terribly open with himself. Not with... anyone. A defense mechanism, and one that he could be good at hiding, but only with those who never bothered to know his emotional character to begin with.

Emily... was a different story. But then, of course she was. And even if he spoke as if nothing at all was the matter, even if his eyes said that he was fine, the way that he'd held her, so honestly and so gently, and for such a long time... it spoke more honestly than the rest of him did.

"You know, you could have just left, if he was bothering you so much." The dinner date, that is.

[Emily Littleton] "No," she said, gently pushing that idea aside. "No, I couldn't have. Jarod, he was aching and terrified and bitter and ... scared. I've been there, too often of late. I've been too close to as fucked up as he was," and she didn't have another way to say it, so Emily let the impolite words cross her tongue without much hesitation. "But I've had you, and you've wanted or just been willing to pull me back from those moments. I... I don't know what I would have done, otherwise. But I don't think he has anyone to go home to, or even to look to."

Nathan hadn't said this to her, but the way he spoke to her, the way he'd lumped her in with everyone else in Chicago's Awakened community. Emily took a step back and lifted one of her hands to press against the back of her neck. It was something she did when her head ached or she felt light-headed or nauseated.

"He needed to talk to someone, and there was no one else there." She shrugged a little. This was the part in the conversation when Jarod usually told her it wasn't her responsibility. It wasn't hers to bear. "And while I really didn't need to know every single detail he remembered I... can understand why he needed to get it off his chest, or share it with someone outside of that moment. I couldn't walk away from him once he started ..."

Emily's features pinched a bit, then she tried to will them to smooth out. It didn't work. Instead she took a shaky breath and exhaled slowly, calmingly. "It sounds like it's over, though. This thing with Dylan. I think it must be over, now."

[Jarod Nightingale] Maybe she expected him to tell her that it wasn't her responsibility, but Jarod wasn't the sort of person who felt the need to constantly repeat himself until his point was made. Advice could be given, and if Emily chose, she could reject it. Whether she was right in doing so or not... it didn't really matter. Her life, and her choices, were her own to make. (And for all of Jarod's flaws, he'd always seemed content to let Emily be her own person.) Perhaps she was a better person than he was, because it was likely that Jarod would have simply walked away if he hadn't wanted to be someone's shoulder to cry on.

So he didn't correct her, or interrupt. He just listened.

"I think you would have been alright, without me. You're stronger than that." After a long pause, during which he paced slowly toward the living room, and then back (because the ultimate destination of the evening hadn't been concluded, and he was loathe to actually sit down on any of the furniture here besides Emily's bed), he added. "It's over. Alice and Ashley told me what happened. Well, not really. They just told me he was dead."

[Emily Littleton] He paced, which let Emily move in her own agitated patterns. She watched him carefully, though. Emily was upset, and therefore he was not getting let off the hook for that careful earlier, or how long he held her. She knew, she knew something was wrong. She wasn't sure what, or how to get at it, but Dylan was dead and a stranger had mistaken her for someone emotionally accessible and now... this.

"You're hurting," she observed, and it was not a question. It was a segue, however unartful. Emily said it plainly, but there was open concern and compassion in her tone. It worried her, and she did not try to disguise it (could not disguise it after tonight). She did not ask, directly, if this was Ashley or Alice's fault, but if Jarod felt inclined to draw that question from how she'd lined up her inquiry with his admission... so be it.

"You're hurting and I'm ranting at you in the entryway." She frowned, but this was directed at herself. "Do you want to go upstairs? Marissa is not home." Though upstairs was only Emily's fouton, folded up as a place to sit or laid out as a bed for one on the ground.

[Jarod Nightingale] [Pause!]