open | prompt five | ENDINGS

[wrens]

prompt five | E N D I N G S dressing-room style. start your own thread. tag others. wash, rinse, repeat. open to all.

 

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[selling]

[ Women (sometimes men) like Emily are easy, no pretty words about how what they offer will make them as strong as a queen (or a duke). They already know what they want from the Brokerage and, well, he's a means of getting to it. He moved on, he had another buyer and- won't you excuse me, Em, I have to run, every so often he'd send a message her way (I'm in Paris, they're too dead for my taste. I'm in Vegas, saw a showgirl who looked like you. I'm in NYC, the duke is an idiot.) Always a little teasing asking her to tempt that luck just for him- just once. (I'm in Bangkok and you left while I was drooling. Good girl.) It's the most he's stayed in contact with someone like her and well, they have reputations to protect.

Emily goes for neutral and Levi, as always, choose a more sardonic approach, a smirk on his face with his head cocked in the opposite direction. (It's not mocking, but-) ]

Sounds like I do, doesn't it? Selling a person on the finer points of making an ending with me. That actually might be a challenge. Course, you know me better than that, don't you, Emily? That sound like something I'd bother with?

[surfaces]

[ Almost before he's done speaking, she's rolling her eyes, not quite exasperated but something close (the slight curve to her lips gives her away), one hand reaching into her purse to produce a gold cigarette case. Inside is a neat row of Sobranie Cocktails, from which she picks one.

(She would tell him lies — sorry, I'm on the other side of the globe _ but he knows that she doesn't travel quite as much, centered as she is on the Circuit. So instead, she says they may be dull but their pastries could wake the dead; was she pretty?; he's a terrible drag; and if it helps any, you're terribly handsome even when you're sleeping, each message signed with a neat xo, em, the only indication that she'd ever consider staying.) ]

You never bother with anything you don't think is worth your time, [ she says easily, which isn't a direct answer, but the closest thing he's going to get. ]

[selling]

[ His expression doesn't change on the outside (on the inside he's practically beaming- look at me thawing out that ice queen heart) but he does tilt his head back to a normal position. He watches her pick a cigarette and after a moment fishes his own case out of his suit pocket (he's more of a social smoker, and seeing Emily smoke always makes him smoke one of his cigarettes). There's only two Sobranie Black Russians in case and he picks one before lighting it.

(Thing is, he might have believed those lies if there was something in it for him - you're on the other side of the globe now, but how about meeting me for drinks in Moscow soon- but she probably wouldn't have agreed for all he knows. When she leaves her messages, he replies back speak for yourself, I must have run into the worst pâtissiers (he makes sure that's on a voicemail); she was pretty, but the breasts were fake; literally or metaphorically, the outfits make me wonder and I'm sure you say that to all the men, but I'll let you in on a secret, you look as gorgeous as an angel when sleeping. His messages on paper always end with a yours truly, Levi, which is not an indication that he likes her any more than he likes the others but it's the only time he ever means those words.) ]

Sometimes I do, the occasional hopeless cause to give me a chance to gloat to everyone. A bit of charity work too, [ he answers taking a long drag from his cigarette. He's not calling her a hopeless cause, but she's hard to crack when it comes to this. (He thinks he wants her, does she want him.) ] It's part of my charm, you have to admit. Part of yours too.

[surfaces]

[ Emily smiles around her cigarette, the reaction instinctive and one that she tries to hide as she breathes out, the smoke obscuring her features. (Door will give her an earful for this, she's sure. He's the only other one for whom her smiles are involuntary and that, at least, isn't quite so strange considering that he's quite literally a part of her.) With a slight sigh, she crosses her arms, cigarette balanced neatly between two fingers.

(She never lets their conversations go on for too long. She cuts them off before they can dig any deeper than the surface, before he can find the cracks. He would, she knows he would. Because that's what they're good at: finding people's weaknesses and exploiting them to their own advantages. And she wants him, of course she does, but to have him presents a risk that she isn't yet willing to take. So she runs, instead, pausing only just long enough, every now and then, to say maybe, baby, maybe, and somewhere, if he's looking carefully enough, sorry. There isn't a person in the world, after all, who enjoys being led on. But, at least, she isn't saying never.) ]

You might be giving me too much credit, [ she tells him, almost amused in tone. ] Your charms may outstrip mine in that particular department.