ArchivedLogs:Rough Drafts

Rough Drafts
The starting of little unfinished things...
Dramatis Personae Emma, Parley
In Absentia	2013-03-22 Seeking aid. Giving fish. (Set just before the debut of Parley's pro-Oscorp opinion piece.)
Location Emma's Apartment
To: efrost@hfc.org From: colloquy@gmail.com Subject: A question Would you like to buy me a computer? Sincerely, Parley To: colloquy@gmail.com From: efrost@hfc.org Subject: Re: A question Why on earth would I buy you a computer, Parley. What do you want it for? How does it benefit me? Come on and try a little harder than that. To: efrost@hfc.org From: colloquy@gmail.com Subject: Re: A question I need one for work. I want to write an opinion piece about Osborn's little gathering while the media is still frothing and it feels inappropriate somehow to write it on a library computer. Have a heart. Before two weeks ago, my sole possession was a set of bloodstained mulberry scrubs. I'll trade you. To: colloquy@gmail.com From: efrost@hfc.org Subject: Re: A question I appreciate your situation, but I'm not running a charity with unlimited funding. What will you trade? So far, you already seem to be in my debt. To: efrost@hfc.org From: colloquy@gmail.com Subject: Re: A question I could cook for you. Fetch your slippers. Warm your lap. I've been told I'm rather soft. To: colloquy@gmail.com From: efrost@hfc.org Subject: Re: A question How about you just come over and use mine? Sorry, Parley, I don't really have the cash to be throwing around at new computers. To: efrost@hfc.org From: colloquy@gmail.com Subject: Re: A question Clearly I will need to make you some. I accept your invitation. Do you eat sushi? To: colloquy@gmail.com From: efrost@hfc.org Subject: Re: A question I do indeed! To: efrost@hfc.org From: colloquy@gmail.com Subject: Re: A question Give me your address, then. And expect me tomorrow night. Parley arrives this evening in considerably more casual attire than his previous meetings; gray t-shirt, a dark blue and gray flannel, jeans and loafers. Carrying a black plastic tray atop his fingertips like a waiter, lidded in a transparent dome to show off the bright colors of sushi hugged by masago artfully arranged within, mingling with sashimi strips in bright salmon pink, vivid crimson tuna, browned eel and delicately curled purple octopus tentacles. He offers it to Emma wordlessly the moment he’s through her door, reaching up to unwind his scarf. “I might have gotten presumptuous about what you would like.” Emma opens the door looking very much like she just walked in herself, still dressed in a suit and her heavy wool coat. She smiles a little and pulls the door open, quiet and distracted for once. “Come in. You’ll have to give me a minute to unwind. Things were still kind of up in the air when I left and I’m still there mentally.” As a telepath, this could mean more than it normally does. Emma’s apartment is a one bedroom apartment in the East Village, the walls left their pristine, off-white that makes apartments more easily marketable, with a white sofa and armchair. The apartment seems sparse and newly inhabited, more so than her spartan office. She settles into a chair by the door and peels off her shoes, small red marks where the straps wore just a little too long and pressed just a little too hard on her pale skin. She shrugs out of her coat and leaves it in the chair as she stands up and starts unbuttoning her suit jacket. She gives Parley a small smile as she starts striding toward the door leading to the bedroom, the only other door leading to a closet of a toilet room with a sink. “I’ll be right back,” she offers as she disappears, closing the door behind her. She’s back a moment later, almost absentmindedly, bringing with her a shiny aluminum macbook with her. She leaves it on the sofa. “You can get started if you like, otherwise, I’ll be back for sushi in a sec. Make yourself comfortable.” Parley lurks discretely beside the door, standing on one foot then the other to removes his own shoes while roving the stark interiors with his eyes - that then snap back to Emma when she sets out the laptop. It's like a LURE to draw him deeper into the apartment, "Take your time." His eyes have gone rather Big and Curious when he slips the mac off the cushions and rushes to silently tuck himself into the far corner of the couch, pulling up his legs into a lotus-style desktop upon which to set up his little personal office. He moves slowly to open it, and while his fingers flicker lightly over the keys with a returning familiarity, it's a very light tapping, hungrily looking over the screen to read… every. Single. Word. He'll eventually get around to opening TextEdit, absentmindedly pulling a small spiral notebook out of his breast pocket and gripping it in his teeth as he familiarizes himself. Emma reappears a few minutes later dressed in noil silk pajamas, in a soft off white, the fabric looking as comfortable as cotton. The pants hug her hips well and hang more loosely about the knees. She wears a tank top under a bathrobe of charmeuse that looks heavily inspired by a kimono. Her hair is down and soft around her neck and her face has been washed clean of makeup. She strides barefoot toward the kitchen and finds a couple plates, and some glasses. “What would you like to drink?” Her computer desktop lacks icons on it, and the dock has few programs in it or active. If pressed, it’s obvious that Emma’s created a guest profile for Parley to use that severely limits access to the rest of her computer programs. With a browser open to a few news sites - and a wiki - Parley is typing faster at more of a rhythm now, hunched over and absorbed in the light of the screen. “Mh?” He looks back and forth from some notes scrawled on his spiral note pad and then at the text in the document. “Um. Whatever you’re having. You seem to have a fondness for the color white.” “It’s simple. I have other things to worry about rather than color choices. Most people in my position choose a palate of the basic black. It just doesn’t look as good on me.” Emma moves around in the kitchen quietly, making preparations without disturbing Parley too much. When she does enter the living room, she has a tray with plates, glasses of water, two small, empty glasses, and two small chilled bottles of sake. She sets the tray on the floor and sits down next to it, resting her back against the couch. She then pulls out her tablet to work while Parley is busy. They work for a while in mutual silence, Parley eventually shrugging out of his flannel and draping it over the back of the couch and shifting from cross-legged sitting to lounging on the side of his hip with an elbow draped over the arm, computer balanced on a knee. And then, setting the computer on the ground, he stretches his arms and drapes longways across the couch to murmur over Emma’s shoulder, “Hand me mine?” “Water or sake,” Emma asks quietly. “I don’t care,” Parley admits. “Water first, then.” Emma picks up a glass and turns to hand it back to him. Parley chuckles and accepts it, turning over on his back to support the glass on his chest like an otter with a clamshell. He runs his eyes along the ceiling, “What was it that drove you to work for Osborn?” “Drove me to work for Osborn?” Emma laughs dryly and shakes her head, picking up her glass of water and sipping at it. “I didn’t choose to work for Osborn. I chose to work for Hellfire. My position there assigned me to work for Norman Osborn. The club won’t refuse him as his family has been members for decades, so I can’t refuse him without losing my position.” She is reading still, her eyes scanning the page open on her tablet, news articles, mentions of Nox in the past. “To be honest, I think I’m only sticking with this to stay under his threat radar until I can figure out something else.” “Hmhm,” Parley’s eyes close as Emma speaks, though the occasional rotation of his water glass and a moment of lifting head to sip from it assure that he hasn’t dozed off. “He has a way of inspiring the people working under him to want to /please/ him. What’s he like, inside? You promised you’d show me.” “Oh. Yes.” Emma is decidedly uncomfortable with this. She takes a deep breath and stretches in preparation, trying to work out a stress knock in between her shoulders. Then she closes her eyes and focuses on Parley’s slippery little mind, making sure that he is paying attention before showing him the eyes in Osborn’s darkness, letting him hear the shrill cackle of it’s laugh, and it’s seeming awareness to her presence. The whole thing comes with the childish demands for her eyes even though Emma tries to hold it back. It’s too intrinsically linked though and breaks through, like flood water. “Hssss...” Parley turns over, pressing his nose and mouth into the inward bend of his elbow. “--ngh.” His mind is difficult to pinpoint, but he pulls it together cooperationally to make the connection easier, forming a funnel down which the pour of information might channel. The feedback he offers for it is... concentrated, but smoother, cleaned over of personality, so that only neutral synapses are responding to stimuli beyond emotional or intellectual stress to cause them. It’s a jolting, unfair variety of high and he uses it to wash out the gritty taste left over - it /almost/ masks the shudder - and doesn’t mind offering it to Emma to do the same. He sets his water glass on the floor and lays a delicate hand over Emma’s shoulder from behind, pressing his thumb into the knot in her back muscles, “Well.” He’s trying for flippant, and it mostly manages, only slightly frayed, “The man is a challenge. Would you like to see what I’ve written? It’s been a while since I’ve tried my hand at persuasive papers.” “Oh, Sure,” Emma is a bit distracted, what with the mental feedback and the back massage. She is quiet for a while and not exactly motivated to turn and take the laptop from him. Eventually, the curiosity of the mind wins out and she turns halfway to start to take the laptop from him. Aid comes to transfer custody of the laptop from couch to Emma’s possession, but it’s distracted. Actually, even the idle tissue massage of Emma’s shoulder is absentminded, Parley’s brow subtly furrowed, eyes directed across the room. Curling in his mind to something harder and more tangible, he allows surface textures to form, gauzy-transparent and silky-frictionless, he’s thinking rapidly as though running a complicated obstacle course. Frustrated, determined and a sort of reckless-indulgent /appreciation/ of... so many things. Emma’s smell in his nose from his position behind her and the words he has yet untyped, the feeling of Osborn’s hand staying gripped around his own for slightly too long, the sense of a hunt -- even if he is the one to /be/ hunted -- winding and wending for each small break as it comes. It’s a sort of high-flying departure, a sudden rapid ascension into the atmosphere, leaving behind (cells)small rooms with (guns)trite little worries far below like a shed skin. “I think the ending line is strong,” he adds, mildly. << My, my, you are flourishing,” Emma notes idly, her mind occupied mostly by the words on the page but still taking in the input around her. She pauses and focuses harder, her lips moving in silent rehearsal of the words on the screen, considering and rereading once she has finished each paragraph. She purses her lips and then lets her fingers run across the keyboard, first turning on correct recording, then changing a few things here or there. It’s not changing his point, but tightening up some of the lingo into a finger point. “What do you think of this?” Emma leans back a little more, resting her head more fully on the cushion as she allows Parley to read over her shoulder rather than handing him back the laptop. Parley watches Emma’s changes, leaning down his head with eyes squinted. And then having to lean further with a subtle... frustration twinging in his mind for a difficulty to see at a distance. Before it all dissolves and the moment of mental sharing fades. His voice is mild, pitched up to an appreciative, “Ah. That is better, thanks. Mh! I missed a comma there.” He reaches over her shoulder to point at the screen. “My dear, Parley. You need glasses.” Emma is surprised at this for some reason, but recognizes how ridiculous this is and dismisses her surprise. She leans in appreciatively mentally, now that she’s been stirred from intellectual affairs and more cognizant of the fact that she is receiving the efforts of his sharing, rather that just her simple gleaning. She also adds the comma where he indicates. “I do like the piece. It’s very good.” “I need many things,” Parley sets his chin on Emma’s shoulder, re-reading again for possibly the thirtieth time. The slight mental lean he feels from the woman finds first just a mercurial drift of consideration; private, not /cold/ or unwelcoming but so neutral it feels more like a waiting room than a mind. And then, gradually, it reforms with the first and foremost thought: I need an ally. Inwardly, he’s spikier, bristled, the calm outer behavior showing little of the grim /acceptance/ that he’s in over his head and is only wading out deeper. But the purpose for it -- this is yet obscure. Hidden deeper beneath the depths, where something dark chuckles. And gazes far, far into the future. And hunkers down to weather the storms. And waits patiently. “I’m trying to start with a more passive voice,” he admits. “I can become more staunch if it gains traction and feels natural, but at the moment I don’t know what he’s planning.” << (we all do our damage control, it seems...) >> The touch of his mind is delicate as spider feet - but it’s active. Drifting along the edges of Emma’s mind, sniffing at any such holes that may exist. << (does this bother you?) >> Emma feels the feet touch and exhales. Her mind is calm and put together well, or at least her shields give that impression. The truth will not be known. The only openings are the ones she allows and she has a couple open to communicate with Parley. Reflexes twinge and tickle to close them up and shut them down, but she satisfies herself with only allowing him certain information. << I need allies, too. >> she confesses, quiet, calm and concerned. << I have no power, no plans, no plays. I could kill him, but would likely die in the process. >> There is nothing Emma cares about enough that would drive her to self-sacrifice. She turns her head and leans her cheek against Parley quietly, inwardly enjoying physical touch. She thrives on it, but rarely finds suitable partners with like minds. She judges Parley’s suitability briefly (no ties, low lechery, pure physical enjoyment, willingness to be receptive to the other person’s body), but doesn’t push. She is hungry right now, and desirous, but other things come first. Physical hunger comes first. Emma makes one last correction and sets the computer aside. “Parley, you promised me sushi and now you’re just teasing me. It’s really rather terrible. I should have asked for payment up front for the use of the computer.” “What,” Parley supports the lean of Emma’s head to his with a closing of eyes, “Did you want me to feed it to you? Have I not been good on my word so far?” He then withdraws and sits up, sliding down onto the ground beside her and pulling the sushi tray into his lap. The lifting of the lid greets them with a very fresh smell of rice and fishflesh and avocado and sesame. Opening a set of chopsticks, he begins mashing a bit of wasabi into a small dish of soy sauce, exploring these small concessions Emma trades to him in the center of their no man’s land. << (your mind)(is exquisite). >> This doesn’t feel phrased as a compliment; his expression of ‘exquisite’ very nearly could be interpreted as ‘intimidating’, or ‘fascinating’ in a very clinical way. The numb-neutral feel of him makes for a curious laboratory-scented setting inside him, and he channels her deeper with a ripple of inner fur. Inviting her into his permeable inner sphere. He dips a california roll into the wasabi-soy sauce concoction with his chopsticks and then raises it towards Emma’s mouth. Intent, his eyes remain half-lidded and mild in their watchfulness. Emma reaches out to cup her hand under the proffered morsel, understandably paranoid of the soysauce dripping on her lovely white pajamas. Lips part as she attempts to see both what is coming at her mouth and Parley’s hands and sometimes his face, as the feeding process is very strange after one has left infancy. Soon enough, there is a California roll on her tongue and her mouth closes around it gingerly, giving Parley lots of room to remove the chopsticks. << I could get used to this, >> Emma jokes quietly, presenting the mental image of someone feeding her grapes, as they are less messy and fit well with the idea of being in the sun and being fanned... but it’s just a silly picture - as there are no real details provided by hours of study. She straightens up as she chews and puts aside her tablet as she closes the laptop, turning to the important task of eating. She selects some chopsticks for herself and starts looking over the offerings, selecting a slice of salmon sashimi next, dredging it quickly in soy sauce and cradling that to her own mouth. She is not at all shy about eating; while she is polite and well mannered about it, she is /hungry/ and she will eat now, quickly until her stomach stops bothering her. Blue eyes look up after a piece of octopus, a light perspiration breaking out on her temples and the tip of her nose, indicating that the wasabi might be getting to her. She smiles. “Thank you, Parley. This was excellent compensation. Perhaps - a little more than a little computer time was worth.” “Not really,” Parley sets the tray of sushi down in front of them within both of their reach equally. Though taking small bites and chewing, he has a rushed, uncouth ravenousness to his eating, closing his eyes /tightly/ at the moment of each bite. “You still have to buy me a computer.” Emma lets out a peel of laughter as she settles back against the couch, shaking her head. “Oh come now, Parley. Do you really think this sushi dinner is worth a computer? You’ve got great taste in sashimi, but computer worthy?” She shakes her head and starts fishing out a piece of nigiri. << You can do better than that. >> “Not yet,” Parley allows, licking a thumb. He eases his shoulder against the side of Emma’s, shifting his legs around to draw them up to his chest, ankles crossing. It’s the sense of tucking in, his mind an obscure, tightly-packed bundle against the far corner of hers. He loops his arms around his shins. << (give me time). >> “Is there something else you would like me to do?” Emma shifts her arm to wrap around Parley’s shoulders, her hand moving to gently scritch at his scalp. Her next California roll is delivered to her mouth without sauce due to the lack of free hand. “I don’t have anything right now. I’m sorry. This party is sort of dominating all of my free time and energy.” She ruffles his hair as she chews the morsel, thinking quietly in a low hum of activity throughout her brain. << You have a magnificent brain and you’ve already proven you’re willing to do whatever it takes to see your point through. Rather than running to extremes (which is sometimes necessary to enter a game like this one), I’d like to see your strategies in longer term scenarios, in subtler connotations. I’ll be blunt. I don’t want to work with a one trick pony who is going to burn out or die after his first move. >> Emma leans her head tiredly against Parley’s straightening her legs and crossing them at the ankles. << but more practically? I need to know more about Osborn’s anti-telepathy and who his researcher is -- and a blueprint of its design - or a piece of it if it is small. I am not prepared to risk anyone for this information yet, but if you think it can be acquired without risk, I would pay dearly for it and would take very good care of you. >> Ugh. Parley’s mind partially wrinkles inward, his signal given to discord like ripples twisting through a reflection on the surface of a pond. << (burn out.) >> He mimicks Emma’s choice of words and can be felt turning inward. Pondering the nature of his own future as though he hadn’t bothered before. What he sees specifically is difficult to take shape, conceptualizing some brief suggestion of a spider’s web, but there’s a blandness in the way he handles it, as though it were a mealy apple rather than his own mind - this could just be the numb-vague mistiness of his texture. God forbid he be /helpful/. And he drops it back into the dark. << (maybe you’re right). >> /Maybe/. Mental fingers are drumming pensively while, in body, he dips his head under the scratching of Emma’s fingers, permitting himself the simple satisfaction of sensation. His hair is so slightly /coarse/ to the touch, not so prickly as the guard hairs that line up down his spine but enough to maybe account for some of the insistent spikey messiness. Mmm. << (prr.) >> With a roll of shoulder muscles beneath a rather loose layer of skin beneath Emma’s arm, he stretches out and shifts a hip to drape into her lap, arms folded with chin set atop them. << (i will keep an eye out for an opening.) >> << Good boy, >> Emma replies, looping some of the feedback she gets from him regarding simple pleasures and adding her own enjoyment on top. She continues to run her fingers through his hair, messing it up further before letting her hand stray further down to his neck, finding the grain in which his fur points and strokes with it, gently, massaging his neck muscles underneath. Movement ripples beneath Parley’s closed eyelids, his fur shifting under her fingers in a prickle, an easing. So, too, rolls his mind, stretching out under her deft touch in a full return, cycle perfected. Porous, easing in a liquid slide very much like the muscles of his shoulders, he lets her enjoyment pour in, concentrate through little heated points in his mind and then rushed out again in mutual expression. Cleaner. Sharper. Content. To massaging, his loose skin is easy to gather up in a handful of scruff, and he lets out a slow breath of air through his nose. There’s work to do. Fortunately, that is what /later/ is for.