The More You Tighten Your Grip
Harper was weak. /Weak/, and we are better to be rid of her - and Washington? Those things are prizes, real power. The ladder up.
Sometimes one retreats to advance.
=NYC= Second Floor - Hellfire Clubhouse
It's late - a few minutes before midnight - and Sebastian Shaw looks positively furtive as he slips inside the Club. He's dressed in black - white shirt - and his Black King tie tack gleams onyx and gold against the blood of his tie. He is supposed to be meeting with two of the Club's board, trying to shore up support, but one of them (Stephen Apted) went to Emma instead, with the result that no one will be waiting at all when Shaw crosses the foyer.
No one but Emma, that is. Cool eyes watch his progress across the darkened foyer toward the north wing and the rooms decorated toward masculine tastes which are often the preferred meeting places. She waits until he is nearly to the entrance to the wing before moving out from her hidden watchplace at the top of the stairs and slowly starting down the steps. "Good evening, Sebastian."
It's a freeze, sudden worry, and then a brief moment of relaxation as Shaw turns to look up at Emma, a smile sliding into place. "Emma," he says, voice bass. "I have missed you, this last week."
"As I you. You've been away." She turns his hint of accusation back on himself and descends to the staircase's half-way point, where she stops, one hand on the banister, the other curling against the white field of a suit skirt. Almost midnight, and she is still impeccably groomed to do business.
"Have you, indeed," Shaw replies in a low murmur. "Yes, I have - I've been clearing my mind." Accusation across his forebrain - he knows. "Trying to get a little rest."
Emma assumes a reproachful mein. "You work too hard, darling. You should take a vacation." The muscles around her eyes jump as she sets her jaw. "Why don't you come upstairs and let me take care of you." Steel slides coldly under the silken caress in her voice.
"Take care of me?" Shaw says, brief interest stirring. "I have a meeting, dear - and your ministrations..." A pause. "Well, they have been /forward/."
An enticing smile answers him, flickering to life and slipping away in the span of a few seconds. She leans a hip against the rail and looks down at him. "You like me forward, Sebastian. I am neither timid, nor empty, like all of your other... attendants. Besides," she purrs, trailing a velvet touch along his upper most thoughts--obvious, acknowledging. "Your meeting's been canceled."
A sudden freeze, hard and angry, but pleasant enough repartee. "Mmm," Shaw tells Emma, taking a single step up - ascending, towards Emma Frost. "Clearing my schedule for you and I?" A pause. "Positively slatterly, though under the circumstances I can hardly complain."
"I simply worry about your health, my King. So much... bowing and scraping can't be good for you." She doesn't move; she simply watches his first step of the ascent with bright interest. "And we do have so much to discuss, you and I."
The second step, and Shaw is still guarded, wary. "I rather think my latest ill-health has nothing to do with being King," he says. "No," he says - third step - "I understand its origin to be my Queen." A pause. "Enjoy my dreams, my dear?"
"I rather think it had everything to do with being King." Emma straightens and smirks. "I think the more pertinent question is, Did you?"
A twitch, unconscious, at Shaw's mouth. "More when they came to life, kitten - like old and pleasant memories." Another step, closer, now.
"Ah," Emma breathes, egging him on, daring him closer with every nuance of expression and body. "And yet you've kept yourself hidden away for the past week, afraid to face me. Afraid to even come home."
Two steps closes the gap, and Shaw's hand is on Emma's upper arm - gripping, a little hard. "I'm not afraid," he says, taller than her now that he is at last even. He leans closer. "Certainly not of you."
Emma's head tips back to lift her face up, unveiling the both challenge and triumph in her eyes. "Then what are you?"
More confidence in the Black King, now, his lips curving into a genuine smile full of pride and possessiveness. "The point of acquiring power, Emma, is to enjoy it." Hand on Emma's hard squeezes less, holds more, and there is a deliberately provocative move on Shaw's thumb. "I'm /enjoying/, and watching what I have... acquired -" flat possession, there, black and bold intimation of ownership "- do the hard work for me."
Emma drops her weight and leans against him lightly as one perfect brow arches. She does not dispute his implications. In fact, she nearly simps at it. "Then you don't mind that I've taken on more of your work. After all, directing pieces can be so taxing."
Suspicion colors Shaw's mind purple, with that ever-familiar black core. "...more, kitten?" he asks lightly, and his free hand settles at Emma's waist.
Emma hands climb the buttons of his jacket and slither underneath the lapels. "Yes. Managing your Rook. Ex-Rook, I suppose, to be precise."
Suspicion colors Shaw's mind purple, with that ever-familiar black core. "...more, kitten?" he asks lightly, and his free hand settles at Emma's waist, black overtaking purple in wariness with a hanging stormcloud of ugly.
Emma hands climb the buttons of his jacket and slither underneath the lapels, heightened awareness and anticipation cloaked in languid indulgence. She pulls on his lapels and backs up, climbing the step behind her. "Yes. Managing your Rook. Ex-Rook, I suppose, to be precise," she murmurs, eyes sharp and calculating beneath lowered lashes.
"Harper." Shaw's hiss is flat, and his hands, still on Emma, take on a distinct sort of violence in the Black King's mind. "This isn't Percy, Emma," he says. "I am not /trading/ her, bad as piece as she is." A beat, slow and low and a little cruel. "If you want her," he says carefully, "you are going to have to protect her from me. I cannot tolerate treachery in a Rook, not for the same of the pawns."
Emma hisses and falls back down the step, thudding against him. "No, it's not Percy. Percy was my /friend/ when you took him from me, and threatened war if I retaliated. You've not given your Rook even that much acknowledgement. It's not that I want her." Her voice lowers and her hands move to grip his arms in a matching embrace as she tenses. "It's that she doesn't want /you/."
Shaw's smile is positively mean. "Percy was your friend, and so you did not retaliate - but I have someone to take Harper's place in my bed, Emma Frost." A pause. "And she is the Rook. I have to react." He takes a breath, and there is the shifting of gears in his head as he weighs the balance of power. "...with suitable encouragement," he says, voice a stiletto in silk. "Suitable - what's your word? - 'management', I could be convinced to make that reaction only what is required and not what is desired."
"I'm not going to sleep with you to protect Sal Harper, Sebastian," Emma replies, her breath the only thing soft escaping her face. In contrast to her words, however, she presses close and lifts up on tiptoe, sliding upwards to catch the underside of his jaw in a kiss.
"You're going to sleep with me to keep me happy," Shaw replies softly, his head tipping down, his lips finding Emma. "To distract me, kitten, from plotting the next turn of the glass. You're going to bargain with me to protect Harper." He smiles. "I'll only take her company if you promise me the Cabinet," he murmurs. "I know Richards is your creature."
"You believe Harper's life is worth the Cabinet?" Emma replies in between kisses slowly growing in intensity. "Hardly. Haper without her company is a pawn in anyone else's game."
"I own enough of her company to ruin the rest," Shaw says, and lips force a certain silence from him. << Your room? >> he wonders. << Mine? >> A breath, and, "She signs over the entire thing. She's chief executive under my ownership, and this is presented as bought and paid, like Percy."
"No." Emma pulls back. "You get the same compensation package I received upon the loss of my Bishop. A promise not to use her against you. She's already defected, Sebastian. If she's not in my service, she's free lance. Better to have her where you can keep an eye on her, at least?"
"If she's not in your service," Shaw says, "she's dead." A beat. "She hates me because I'm a killer, Emma." << Among other things. >> As he tugs Emma closer, insistent, "I'd hate to disappoint." He smiles, seeks a kiss, but before he does, "Give me want I want in Washington - State and Defense and Homeland Security - and give her to me for an evening," he says. "I promise you she will heal."
Emma's breath escapes her in a thready hiss. "And she didn't know this upon entering your service," she attempts to tease, grabbing at seconds to process the ramifications of the request. "I cannot guarantee you anything in Washington, but I will use my influence," she ticks off and inhales deeply before looking directly at him in a show of bravado and leaning up into his kiss. "It's not her that you want to have to heal."
The hand on Emma's arm finds Emma's hair, destroying a salon-perfect coiffe in the brief violence of a kiss. << You're not an example to the pawns, >> Shaw says. << She is - and an example /has/ to be made. She's not my Bishop, Emma. She's my Rook, and /she/ /will/ /heal/. >>
<< /NO/. >> The answer explodes in a wash of frustration and resentment. "/No/, Sebastian. If you want to split us, the Circle, then take your petty vengeance out on her."
Lips an inch from Emma, Shaw says, "You would split the Circle to protect her?" It's echoed by a, << You would split us? >>
<< I would split the Circle to protect any of mine. I'll not let you make another Jason. >>
Shaw's eyes close, and he answers again with anger and violence and lips and lips - and a grudging agreement. << Washington, >> he accepts. << Washington and my prize. >> Feet and hands move monarchs, Black and White, away and together.
Sometimes one retreats to advance.
=NYC= Second Floor - Hellfire Clubhouse
It's late - a few minutes before midnight - and Sebastian Shaw looks positively furtive as he slips inside the Club. He's dressed in black - white shirt - and his Black King tie tack gleams onyx and gold against the blood of his tie. He is supposed to be meeting with two of the Club's board, trying to shore up support, but one of them (Stephen Apted) went to Emma instead, with the result that no one will be waiting at all when Shaw crosses the foyer.
No one but Emma, that is. Cool eyes watch his progress across the darkened foyer toward the north wing and the rooms decorated toward masculine tastes which are often the preferred meeting places. She waits until he is nearly to the entrance to the wing before moving out from her hidden watchplace at the top of the stairs and slowly starting down the steps. "Good evening, Sebastian."
It's a freeze, sudden worry, and then a brief moment of relaxation as Shaw turns to look up at Emma, a smile sliding into place. "Emma," he says, voice bass. "I have missed you, this last week."
"As I you. You've been away." She turns his hint of accusation back on himself and descends to the staircase's half-way point, where she stops, one hand on the banister, the other curling against the white field of a suit skirt. Almost midnight, and she is still impeccably groomed to do business.
"Have you, indeed," Shaw replies in a low murmur. "Yes, I have - I've been clearing my mind." Accusation across his forebrain - he knows. "Trying to get a little rest."
Emma assumes a reproachful mein. "You work too hard, darling. You should take a vacation." The muscles around her eyes jump as she sets her jaw. "Why don't you come upstairs and let me take care of you." Steel slides coldly under the silken caress in her voice.
"Take care of me?" Shaw says, brief interest stirring. "I have a meeting, dear - and your ministrations..." A pause. "Well, they have been /forward/."
An enticing smile answers him, flickering to life and slipping away in the span of a few seconds. She leans a hip against the rail and looks down at him. "You like me forward, Sebastian. I am neither timid, nor empty, like all of your other... attendants. Besides," she purrs, trailing a velvet touch along his upper most thoughts--obvious, acknowledging. "Your meeting's been canceled."
A sudden freeze, hard and angry, but pleasant enough repartee. "Mmm," Shaw tells Emma, taking a single step up - ascending, towards Emma Frost. "Clearing my schedule for you and I?" A pause. "Positively slatterly, though under the circumstances I can hardly complain."
"I simply worry about your health, my King. So much... bowing and scraping can't be good for you." She doesn't move; she simply watches his first step of the ascent with bright interest. "And we do have so much to discuss, you and I."
The second step, and Shaw is still guarded, wary. "I rather think my latest ill-health has nothing to do with being King," he says. "No," he says - third step - "I understand its origin to be my Queen." A pause. "Enjoy my dreams, my dear?"
"I rather think it had everything to do with being King." Emma straightens and smirks. "I think the more pertinent question is, Did you?"
A twitch, unconscious, at Shaw's mouth. "More when they came to life, kitten - like old and pleasant memories." Another step, closer, now.
"Ah," Emma breathes, egging him on, daring him closer with every nuance of expression and body. "And yet you've kept yourself hidden away for the past week, afraid to face me. Afraid to even come home."
Two steps closes the gap, and Shaw's hand is on Emma's upper arm - gripping, a little hard. "I'm not afraid," he says, taller than her now that he is at last even. He leans closer. "Certainly not of you."
Emma's head tips back to lift her face up, unveiling the both challenge and triumph in her eyes. "Then what are you?"
More confidence in the Black King, now, his lips curving into a genuine smile full of pride and possessiveness. "The point of acquiring power, Emma, is to enjoy it." Hand on Emma's hard squeezes less, holds more, and there is a deliberately provocative move on Shaw's thumb. "I'm /enjoying/, and watching what I have... acquired -" flat possession, there, black and bold intimation of ownership "- do the hard work for me."
Emma drops her weight and leans against him lightly as one perfect brow arches. She does not dispute his implications. In fact, she nearly simps at it. "Then you don't mind that I've taken on more of your work. After all, directing pieces can be so taxing."
Suspicion colors Shaw's mind purple, with that ever-familiar black core. "...more, kitten?" he asks lightly, and his free hand settles at Emma's waist.
Emma hands climb the buttons of his jacket and slither underneath the lapels. "Yes. Managing your Rook. Ex-Rook, I suppose, to be precise."
Suspicion colors Shaw's mind purple, with that ever-familiar black core. "...more, kitten?" he asks lightly, and his free hand settles at Emma's waist, black overtaking purple in wariness with a hanging stormcloud of ugly.
Emma hands climb the buttons of his jacket and slither underneath the lapels, heightened awareness and anticipation cloaked in languid indulgence. She pulls on his lapels and backs up, climbing the step behind her. "Yes. Managing your Rook. Ex-Rook, I suppose, to be precise," she murmurs, eyes sharp and calculating beneath lowered lashes.
"Harper." Shaw's hiss is flat, and his hands, still on Emma, take on a distinct sort of violence in the Black King's mind. "This isn't Percy, Emma," he says. "I am not /trading/ her, bad as piece as she is." A beat, slow and low and a little cruel. "If you want her," he says carefully, "you are going to have to protect her from me. I cannot tolerate treachery in a Rook, not for the same of the pawns."
Emma hisses and falls back down the step, thudding against him. "No, it's not Percy. Percy was my /friend/ when you took him from me, and threatened war if I retaliated. You've not given your Rook even that much acknowledgement. It's not that I want her." Her voice lowers and her hands move to grip his arms in a matching embrace as she tenses. "It's that she doesn't want /you/."
Shaw's smile is positively mean. "Percy was your friend, and so you did not retaliate - but I have someone to take Harper's place in my bed, Emma Frost." A pause. "And she is the Rook. I have to react." He takes a breath, and there is the shifting of gears in his head as he weighs the balance of power. "...with suitable encouragement," he says, voice a stiletto in silk. "Suitable - what's your word? - 'management', I could be convinced to make that reaction only what is required and not what is desired."
"I'm not going to sleep with you to protect Sal Harper, Sebastian," Emma replies, her breath the only thing soft escaping her face. In contrast to her words, however, she presses close and lifts up on tiptoe, sliding upwards to catch the underside of his jaw in a kiss.
"You're going to sleep with me to keep me happy," Shaw replies softly, his head tipping down, his lips finding Emma. "To distract me, kitten, from plotting the next turn of the glass. You're going to bargain with me to protect Harper." He smiles. "I'll only take her company if you promise me the Cabinet," he murmurs. "I know Richards is your creature."
"You believe Harper's life is worth the Cabinet?" Emma replies in between kisses slowly growing in intensity. "Hardly. Haper without her company is a pawn in anyone else's game."
"I own enough of her company to ruin the rest," Shaw says, and lips force a certain silence from him. << Your room? >> he wonders. << Mine? >> A breath, and, "She signs over the entire thing. She's chief executive under my ownership, and this is presented as bought and paid, like Percy."
"No." Emma pulls back. "You get the same compensation package I received upon the loss of my Bishop. A promise not to use her against you. She's already defected, Sebastian. If she's not in my service, she's free lance. Better to have her where you can keep an eye on her, at least?"
"If she's not in your service," Shaw says, "she's dead." A beat. "She hates me because I'm a killer, Emma." << Among other things. >> As he tugs Emma closer, insistent, "I'd hate to disappoint." He smiles, seeks a kiss, but before he does, "Give me want I want in Washington - State and Defense and Homeland Security - and give her to me for an evening," he says. "I promise you she will heal."
Emma's breath escapes her in a thready hiss. "And she didn't know this upon entering your service," she attempts to tease, grabbing at seconds to process the ramifications of the request. "I cannot guarantee you anything in Washington, but I will use my influence," she ticks off and inhales deeply before looking directly at him in a show of bravado and leaning up into his kiss. "It's not her that you want to have to heal."
The hand on Emma's arm finds Emma's hair, destroying a salon-perfect coiffe in the brief violence of a kiss. << You're not an example to the pawns, >> Shaw says. << She is - and an example /has/ to be made. She's not my Bishop, Emma. She's my Rook, and /she/ /will/ /heal/. >>
<< /NO/. >> The answer explodes in a wash of frustration and resentment. "/No/, Sebastian. If you want to split us, the Circle, then take your petty vengeance out on her."
Lips an inch from Emma, Shaw says, "You would split the Circle to protect her?" It's echoed by a, << You would split us? >>
<< I would split the Circle to protect any of mine. I'll not let you make another Jason. >>
Shaw's eyes close, and he answers again with anger and violence and lips and lips - and a grudging agreement. << Washington, >> he accepts. << Washington and my prize. >> Feet and hands move monarchs, Black and White, away and together.