More Jan Logs
Autumn Lights Apts #510 - Travis(#2937RCA)
As you step through the doorway you see a rather spacious apartment. In a word, minimilistic. In two words, chrome and minimilistic. The living room boasts bare pinewood floors, one lone couch along one of the walls, a small television along the other, an end table tucked in one corner, a standing lamp in the opposing quadrant. The only other furnishing of note is a small sound system that is placed in the center of the remaining wall. The kitchen in set off to the side of the main room and it is adorned with many polished metal surfaces and a giant metallic fridge. The bathroom is fully tiled and has a toilet, shower, and a small jacuzzi, maybe enough room for two. The master bedroom does contain several small shelves and two large chests, in addition to the king-sized bed that dominates the room. In the spare room is a respectable weight set, a large floor mat of the gymnastic sort and yet another large chest, also locked to the inquiring mind.
From the hallway, a set of sharp, rapid knocks burst against the door in machine-gun fire. On the other side, Sabitha, standing tall and straight and leaking carefully controlled anger in wisps of emotion. She drops her hands to tuck them into the pockets of her coat and stares at the door.
It's enough to leak through beneath the door by the time Travis finishes drying his hands and reaches it a minute later. He glances through the peephole, lifting an eyebrow at the visitor--her presence, moreso than her emotional state, which could only be expected. The door opens halfway, with Travis standing in the gap. "Sabitha," he comments, adding a dry, "Quite the surprise."
Sabitha steps forward to plant a hand hard against his shoulder, pushing backward. Not enough to carry him inward if he really doesn't to go, but more than enough to make her point. "I shouldn't be," she answers sharply.
Travis steps aside after the shove, though not opening the door any wider. "Care to come in, then? Or is this a conversation to be held in the safety of the hallway with your bodyguard two doors down?"
Sabitha enters without care for Travis's question. Her anger flares, bright and blinding, for a moment before she forces it down again. It's only once she's inside that she turns to fix flasing eyes on him. "Do you want to tell me what the /hell/ you thought you were doing?"
Fully ignoring her anger, Travis closes the door behind her, then slowly crosses the room, settling down onto one of the recliners before responding. "I thought it obvious," he says dryly. "Testing for special healing abilities. Alas, I have none, to disprove the the hypothesis."
Sabitha follows after him, arms cross hard over her chest as she stares at him. "Has this tactic worked well on me before? Is there something that makes you think that I'm not fucking /serious/ here, Travis?"
Travis returns an unblinking stare of his own, countering with "Is there something that makes you think I should explain my actions to you?"
Sabitha watches him for a long moment in quiet. Her hands drop to her side while she does, standing otherwise motionless.
Travis lets the silence hang there a moment, then settles back into a more comfortable position, unperturned by the encounter. Apparantly. After a moment, he continues. "You were saying?"
"I want you to answer my question," Sabby replies evenly, drawing out her words in perfect patience.
"And I want to know why I should."
"I suppose fucking /courtesy/ is too much to ask," Sabby answers tightly. Her eyes flick past him and track out an end table. A table leg smolders, sputters, and begins to burn with tiny, curling flames. She looks back at him with anger in her eyes. "Did you think that you could slip mutational roofies into my air and I wouldn't /notice/? Or were you just hoping that Matt was as prone to running away as some boys I've dated?"
Travis eyes the rising smoke silently, ignoring her comments as he stands and crosses the room to the kitchen, returning a moment later with sopping towel which hisses as it touches the table leg. "I find it extremely amusing that you come into my apartment and speak of courtesy while proceeding to mutationally ignite my furniture," he finally replies, tossing the towel on the tabletop before taking his seat back. "And quite frankly, I couldn't care less if you noticed or not. I had /thought/ we were past antagonistic and bitter attitudes and at least on professional interaction. And I had thought you above such pettiness. Apparantly, I thought wrong."
Sabitha steps forward, a single fast, hard step. "Are you fucking /kidding/ me?" Disbelief smolders in her voice. "You walk into Matt's apartment and start pumping emotion into the air, you /kiss/ me, on his /couch/, and you're sitting here talking to me about /professional interaction?/" The table leg goes up again, with more force. "About /pettiness/? Who the hell /started/ this, Travis Reed?"
"I suppose you're /trying/ to have the alarms call the Fire Department," Travis says coldly, a quick motion, slapping the cloth back over the leg. "Matt must be on duty, no? Who /started/ this? You rtally are coming into my apartment with your self-righteous attitude and pretending you have no responsibility for any of this? Drop the act, Miss Golden Globe. Over 8 million people in this city, likely half of them male, and you just /happen/ to shack up with the one two doors down from me? Shame the ones on either side of me wouldn't work, but the one's vacant and Ismena wouldn't tolerate your little games. So Matt it is, hmm?"
"Are you fucking /kidding/ me?" Sabby's hands clench angrily at her sides and then scrabble at the table to come up with a coaster that goes flying, fast and hard at his head. "You think that my choice of dates has /anything/ to do with /you/? You fucking egotistical /ass/."
"Yes, Sabitha," Travis says, head darting to one side, letting the coaster bounce off the chairback. "Yes, I do. I think you're nursing some perceived insult, whether from recently or from when we were together, and have concocted some elaborate scheme at revenge. And I have to praise you for that--you're a damned good actress. Until you showed up here with him, you had me completely fooled, thinking things were fine. Me /and/ my 'mutational roofies,'" he adds sarcastically.
Sabitha stares at Travis as he speaks. Anger gradually fades to give way to complete and utter disbelief. She steps sideways, back, and drops down to slouch into his couch. "You are telling me," she begins carefully. "That you believe that I have been nursing some sort of grudge for months. That I sought out your neighbor. That I have had the patience to date a man for a month. That I have slept with him. In order to accomplish /what/?" Her eyes flash over to him briefly. "Am I supposed to be grateful that at least you chose to do it in his apartment, where things couldn't go too far?"
"You tell /me/, Sabitha." Travis crosses his his arms, daring her to deny it yet again. "But a one in four-point-five million chance is just too coincidental for my liking. So yes, do tell me. What /are/ you hoping to accomplish? Because I certainly can't figure that one out."
Sabitha leans forward, sharp and sudden. "I /like/ Matt," she snaps at him. "He makes me feel /happy/."
"/I'm/ not the one you have to convince," Travis says, in quiet counter.
"You're the one who walked in and started messing with my mind," Sabby shoots back.
"I beg to differ with you there," Travis says, his eyes narrowing. "The first attempt came from your court. Failure doesn't negate a counter attack."
Sabitha's hands fly up, frustrated. Her gaze simmers as it rests on him. "Travis. I stopped trying to get you to care about /anything/ I did /months/ ago. Matt isn't, and never has been, about /you/. I met him in a fucking /bar/."
Travis says, "'It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them,'" Travis quotes, mockery evident throughout the words. "Say what you will, Sabitha. Go on with your little charade. I'm glad you feel happy with Matt. You might actually convince yourself it's true. More power to you. But know that it's not affecting me. In the months since you 'stopped trying' I stopped caring. Because believe it or not, I did. And am the weaker for it."
Sabitha stares at Travis from her seat on the couch. Pointed. "And you therefore messed with my emotions and made out with me on my boyfriend's couch because...?"
"Retribution," Travis says, barely moving a muscle with the response. "You screw with me, I screw with you. That's the way of the world, Sabitha."
Sabitha stands, bracing a hand against the couch arm to push herself up. "Mess with me again," she answers evenly. "And it will not be your table leg going up in flames." She tucks her coat around her, firmly. "Or maybe I'll have a chat with some cops I know about technical definitions of date rape." Buttons are done up, one by one. "Or maybe with a few friends I have who..." She trails off and smiles, quiet and small. "Don't fuck with me, Travis. Matt is not about you. Nothing that I do is about you anymore. But it can be, if you push it." She turns for the door.
"Last I knew, distruction of property also ranked fairly high among misdemeanors," Travis says, standing and snatching the rag up in a single motion. "You have friends in high places. And I can bring any one of them down. Even the senator that pays your rent. And don't forget how you got that job in the first place. Don't test me, Sabby. You've earned truce; be content with it. Because I guarantee you, that's a fight you won't win." He lets the words hang there a moment. "I'll trust you to see yourself out," he concludes, striding into the kitchen.
"You always did underestimate me," Sabby answers on a murmur, and a glance over her shoudler sends his end table shooting up in flames that aren't going to be quelled by a towel this time. She leaves.
When you own your own business, you can keep your own hours. When you own Frost Enterprises, you don't have to keep any. At least in theory. But paperwork always has to be signed, deals made, partners soothed. It's been a trying few hours already, and Emma escaped after handling the crises, saving the emergencies for later. She keys an entry code and sails through the unlocked door, shedding gloves and coat immediately.
The room is still semi-dark, but after a moment, a voice carries out of one of its corners, followed by Travis' figure. "I was hoping you'd be back soon," is his accompanying comment.
"SHIT!" Her purse goes flying in the direction of the voice, and she stumbles backwards in the direction opposite.
Just like that, Travis steps out fully into the light, one hand snathing the purse from its freefall. "My apologies, Ms. Frost," he offers, extending her purse back. "I didn't intend to startle you as such. Just to...prove or disprove a rumor."
"Hell, Travis," Emma gasps, blinking and inhaling a series of deep breathes before reaching for her purse and aiming a whack at the back of his head. "I didn't think the rumors were /that/ detailed yet," she says bitterly.
"Not to the general public," Travis assures, letting the hand connect without comment. "I thought we should talk," he says, stepping around to settling in the chair facing her desk. Let her take the position opposite or not, if it helps the control issues.
"I don't want to talk. I'm /tired/ of talking," Emma complains, moving to her desk--to stand beside, not sit behind.
"Unfortunately, for people like us, our desires can't dictate our actions," Travis comments. "So you grit your teeth and force out a half-smile, while I tell you what I have learned of Jean Grey."
Emma lifts a hip onto the edge of the desk, her left hand steepling on its top for support, the other resting on the top of her lifted knee. And she smiles, a horrid, forced affair.
"Better," is all Travis comments before plunging ahead. "It is all for the appearances for Jean Grey. She continues on her routine, her work at the hospital and lab haven't suffered. Indeed, for /appearances/ it would seem the only change was a decision to return to her apartment." He pauses a moment. "Indeed, the only unexplainable action in her very normal routine are regular detours through Hell's Kitchen." Pause. "And if you're to believe some of the rumors coming from that corner of our city, that can't be coincidental. It seems Jean Grey may have adopted the mantle of vigilante."
"And? Unless she starts flying through the sky in a shrieking fireball, there's very little bad publicity there. Or is there?" Emma wonders, arching a brow.
"Well, it certainly spits in the face of her entire platform," Travis explains. "Jean Grey, proponant of mutant rights through diplomacy, peace, mutual understanding and law, and yet she has decided the NYPD is apparantly inadequate in dealing with the city's problems and has taken matters into her own hands. Assuming I'm correct, of course. It's not a light meting of justice. The miscreants...well, let's just say the sex offenders won't be in danger of unwanted offspring. Ever. And the city of New York will be paying medical bills for John Doe-Thug for the next ten years as every bone is reset and casted, not to mention the rehab bills."
"Mmhmph," Emma articulately replies.
"It is mine to gather the facts," Travis says cooly. "Yours to determine a course of action. Unless you are considering revising the arrangement. Or the White Queen has admitted defeat," he adds, a touch of barb to the last.
Emma rises to the challenge, predictable and imperfectly controlled. "I'll take it under consideration, White Knight," she informs him, tones clipped and cool. "/Our/ arrangments are unaltered. But Jean Grey is also in a dangerous state of mind. I was already aware of her activities in Hell's Kitchen. Gather your evidence, and we'll /wait/."
"So be it," Travis comments, a mock bow from his seated position. "Although I've never known Emma Frost to stay her hand at retribution, no matter the strength of opponent. She took something dear to you. I expected nothing less in return."
"Have you ever known me to be /stupid/ either?" (Don't answer that!) Emma pushes off the desk and crosses the short distance between them to lean in front of him, hands on either chair arm. "If you have any ideas, speak. Otherwise, you'd do well to remember that I've had a /supremely/ bad few days."
"Jean Grey may feel herself invincible. She may be at that, where she is positioned at the moment," Travis says, fully ignoring any irritation in Emma's voice. "But she has things near and dear to her. Relations might drive her to blood rage, but... there /is/ her car... Acts of vandalism are quite difficult to trace. Even when they occur to notable persons, they rarely even make a newsline. But quick retribution, and instilling a sense of... vulnerability to the invulnerable."
Emma eyes him, the choler receding into a vague thoughtfulness. She nods, not moving from her position trapping Travis in the chair. "Do it."
"Consider it done," Travis says. "There will be nothing to trace. Her mental acuity will not read anything from dented fenders or smashed glass." He crosses his arms, watching her movements or lack thereof. "Were my services needed for anything else..." he asks after a moment.
"Unless you have any other suggestions," Emma bandies back, straightening, lids lowering lashes veil. She folds her arms in front of her and shifts her weight to one hip.
"I know two hundred and three ways to take your mind off your problems," Travis says, his voice not wavering a fraction of a soundwave.
"Too bad you don't know as many to take the problem off my mind," Emma murmurs, then leans over and presses a kiss to his cheek before moving past the chair and around the other. "Good afternoon, Mr. Reed. You can see yourself out, I'm sure."
"All in good time, Ms. Frost," Travis stands, brushing a bit of chair lint off his jacket. "One battle at a time." And with that, he's gone as silently as he came.