Sweater Weather (Bjorn)

[Emerson (DELETED 8699)]

The thought of being attractive was far, far from Emerson’s mind as Bjorn looked her over. Instead, his eyes on her meant that he was noticing how stupid her outfit was for the weather (seriously, who in their right mind wore a cropped shirt in the snow? Granted, she did have a jacket zipped over it, but the material was thin), that he was picking out one of the hundreds of ways he could absolutely take her down like she was nothing, that he was regretting texting her and getting involved with her and not letting the Fadebeast actually rip her in half. Of course, none of that was true. Probably. True or not, it didn’t matter. With the not so welcomed interaction with the guy at the store and the barely there but there all the same exchanges with the other passengers on the bus and now this, things were just piling up and Emerson’s mind was going absolutely wild. When Bjorn made eye contact with her, it was all but for a split second before she looked away, gaze on her wriggling toes through her white sneakers and fingers pinching at the hem of her jacket so she could at least have a grip on something.

Emerson only looked up again when Bjorn continued to speak because it was the polite thing to do and she was half-heartedly able to convince herself that him looking her over could’ve been completely innocent - which it was. She followed his motion to the bag beside her own, nodding in reply. Her owned weapon was not exactly something exchanged for cash, so she understood that others would be in the same kind of boat. Although, in either case, was that considered stealing? Emerson didn’t think of herself as a thief. When she’d picked up that gun on her way out of possibly the worst part of the city ever, no one had stopped her and no one had really noticed. And if once upon a time there were weapons here, in a training center, wasn’t that just indicating for someone to use them? To take them? Her train of thought was in a far off station and Emerson gripped the bottom of her jacket a bit tighter in hopes to bring herself back to the situation at hand.

“Good?” she repeated, as if she hadn’t heard him the first time. “Um, yeah. I'm okay.” At that, she released her coat and smoothed out her hands against her legs, putting a smile on her face. “Whatever you’ve got planned, m’ready to go.” Because anything that was going to distract her from thinking about being picked apart was welcome. Totally, totally welcome.

[Bjorn]

Bjørn had made no concrete plans. Sure, he’d taken into consideration their need for weapons and a safe space in which to spar and, well, not much else.

“Didn’t plan much—”

He admitted while reaching up to scratch his jaw, expression thoughtful. Perhaps he should have taken the time to put the new razor blades to the test. Setting up the camera would have taken far too long however, and shaving blindly in front of an empty mirror would have been counterproductive... He’d deal with his appearance later.

Sliding his hand down to his nape, Bjørn shifted his weight as he widened his stance. His gaze settled on the rucksack, though he was looking beyond them, the gears of his mind visibly turning. Emerson gave off a vibe he could not place, which threw him off considerably. Was she naturally a nervous person? Or was she bringing out the nervous in him?

“You rather do hand-to-hand combat, swords, or try to hit me with a long stick?”

[Emerson (DELETED 8699)]

When Bjorn informed Emerson that he didn’t have much of a plan, her first instinct was to panic. And that was silly, she realized, because this was just a casual thing. There really was nothing to panic about, but she liked to fall back on a plan, on a schedule, no matter how loosely strung together it was, at all times. Since this wasn’t possible for her current situation, she decided to just go with whatever was thrown at her. That was, more or less, how most of her Saturdays went anyways. Surely things could just work themselves out.

Three options were given and Emerson was required to choose one. It should’ve been easy enough, but things with the young brunette were never easy, especially so when it came to decision making. Emerson took the time to weigh the pros and cons of each option - how good she would be at it, how beneficial it would be to her. It was quickly pinpointed that she would fare the same skill in all three since she wasn’t exactly aware that she could do slightly better in one than in the others. She didn’t exactly own a sword, and even though she could probably swipe one up somewhere or another, or put her paycheck towards a fund to purchase the particular type of weapon, it seemed impractical. For now, at least. Emerson couldn’t see herself carrying around a sword casually or being able to stuff one into even the largest pocket of her backpack. Hitting someone with a stick was the same type of deal. She wouldn’t be carrying one around, but it would be useful to learn if certain circumstances landed her in the midst of a nearby stick when she was lacking a weapon. Maybe later. Then, she was most focused on trying to defend herself against two males that were, as far as she could tell, very human. If they ever did approach her, running away could come easy, but as Bjorn had said - **** happens. And that left her with the last option.

Emerson glanced down at her hands and curled them into small fists. There was no way she could throw a good punch, but maybe she could learn. Her legs were on the shorter side (as was the rest of her), but she had successfully kicked the Fadebeast when she’d needed to. There was potential in her, however little in amount. Given the right motives, the girl could probably end up surprising both Bjorn and herself. Probably.

“Hand-to-hand combat. To start?” she asked, head cocked to the side like a small puppy. “If that’s okay. I mean, I think it would be my go to if I ended up being any good.” Emerson pouted. “I don’t think they had swords, so.”

[Bjorn]

Bjorn glanced over his shoulder to make sure that the banged-up bokken were still where he’d last seen them. Somehow, he doubted anyone looking to steal a weapon would pick the wooden stick over a forged katana or broadsword.

With Emerson taking her time to make a choice, he turned on his heel and shrugged his jacket off. The opposite training mat was equipped with a wooden dummy at its centre, which he turned into a makeshift coat rack. While he could see the point of the structure as a training device, he also found its stiffness as misguiding. Enemies moved, often times faster than one self. Sentient beings could use the element of surprise where as a dummy remained firmly in place.

“Alright. Come over here. And who’s they?”

Bjørn had a feeling she wasn’t referring to the fadebeast.

As an afterthought, he reached into his pocket for the phone, and tucked into his jacket.

[Emerson (DELETED 8699)]

They. Who were they, exactly? That was a good question Emerson didn’t have the answer to just yet. However curious she was to get some more information on the pair that seemed oh so very involved with her and her whereabouts, the girl didn’t want to think of what she’d have to do in order to achieve that. She had a bad, bad gut feeling about them. It was probably only a matter of time until they approached her. They’d watched her for long enough that they’d know where she’d run to.

Emerson gave a small shrug of her shoulders as she made her way over to Bjorn. She mentally decided that she’d take her jacket off when she needed to. It wasn’t going to get in the way of anything, and she was still a bit chilly from her journey here. “There’s, like, two guys. I think I mentioned them before?” Had she? Emerson paused, trying to recall the instance in which she told Bjorn specifically, or anyone, for that matter, but none of her detailed memories from that night were particularly clear. She blamed that on the knock of her head.

“I dunno,” she continued. “They just seem super interested in me - like, everything about me - and I don’t know why. And I have no idea who they are. I mean, they could be people I just don’t remember…” she trailed off, only then noticing that she’d gone on for a little longer than she’d meant to. “I dunno,” Emerson repeated again. “They’re just big and tall and if they’re gonna try and grab me, I wanna be able to get away.”

[Bjorn]

Bjørn expressed his uncertainty with a faint grunt.

“Oh yeah. Yeah, I remember now you said something about it. Sorry,” he said as he patted down his empty pockets to ensure they were, in fact, empty. Emerson had told him about having a problem with memory, and he was not intent on making life any more confusing or complicated for her due to his own oversight.

“Have they approached you? Spoken to you at all?”

If it appeared he was giving her a wide berth, circling around her in a large arc, it was because he was doing exactly that. There was no point beating around the bush, and he wanted to catch her off guard, to see exactly what her instinctual reaction might be. Glancing out the wide window that looked out onto the indoor pool, he brought his hands to his back, fingers loosely hooking around one another.

[Emerson (DELETED 8699)]

“Sorry?” Emerson shook her head. Why was he apologizing? Had she made him feel inclined to? That was far from her intentions. And sure, she’d said something about it in their last meeting, but only fleetingly so. The information had tumbled out just as she’d stumbled herself into that situation with Bjorn - suddenly, without thought, without the consideration of consequence. In fact, that was how most of her decisions were made and how most of her end of the conversation went. Without some type of guidelines, the young brunette was lost and unintentionally reckless. “S’okay,” she told him. “Not your fault, or anything.” Not the memory loss, not the men following her, not anything.

As Bjorn presented her with two more questions, the girl was shaking her head again. Loose strands of hair fell into her face from doing so, and she moved to tuck them away behind her ears. Did she have a hair elastic? A quick once over at her wrists proved that to be negative. She’d have to deal with it, and hoped it wouldn’t prove as a distraction. After evaluating her own skill, little room was left for anything else that would interfere with her success. “Nope and nope,” she sighed. The sigh was not of disappointment, because she was rather happy that the pair of males hadn’t done much more than follow her around like a predator did prey, but rather, the sigh was of slight frustration. Because, seriously - what did they want? The paranoia that welled in the girl’s chest only increased every time she saw them out of the corner of her eye. It was like she couldn't live her life anymore.

Frustrations aside, Emerson focused on the present. She watched Bjorn’s movements with careful eyes as she continued. “I think they come close to it sometimes,” the brunette admitted, “but m’always on my feet.” Always on the move, that girl. From cafe to work to shop to home and back again, her life was, after a few months of wandering, in constant, steady motion. “And I’m not usually anywhere that’s crowded, but there’s enough people around to notice if something happened. They’re probably going to try to catch me on my way home. I’m usually alone, then.”

[Bjorn]

Emerson’s frustration and determination resonated with him.

During the months that followed his siring, the telepath had lived as a vagrant fledging left to his own devices in a world that had been turned on its head. Uneducated in regards to the masquerade, he had unknowingly brought attention to himself and stirred the wrath of the vigilant due to his repeated indiscretions. He’d been assailed by hunters on a weekly basis, and attacked by other vampires without knowing what rendered him a target. It was a life with no safety net, no connections, no means to defend himself other than instinct. With his desire to survive put to the test more times than he could remember, he had had numerous opportunities to improve himself. Experience had shaped him into good fighter— one that was not successful on every occasion, but always prepared. It had also taught him what it was like to live in constant fear.

There was no telling what the men wanted from Emerson. There was no telling when—and if—they would strike. Within that uncertainty lay a range of possibilities that spanned from underwhelming to fatal. In any case, it was best to prepare for the worst; better to be relieved by facileness than overwhelmed and possibly dead.

Without notice, the telepath closed the distance between them. He grasped at her shoulder and spun her around, pulling her much (much) smaller frame flush against his body into a headlock.

[Emerson (DELETED 8699)]

The first thing Emerson wasn’t expecting was for Bjorn to just jump her like that, without warning, but in a way, it made sense. If this were a real life situation, if one of the men were to sneak up behind her in the dead of the night, she wouldn’t be getting a warning. No one would be around to notice, to shout out and help her, and it’d be up for Emerson to react under a limited amount of time before the second man was joining in. There was no room for thinking up a plan, for trying to talk herself out of the situation. There was only room for reacting.

The second thing Emerson wasn’t expecting was for the hold to feel so ******* familiar. The spin was so quick that it left her dazed, only the feeling of his arm around her neck and his body against hers bringing her back to reality. Or, a sliver of reality. The action caused something to burn in her chest and something else to spark in her mind. She ignored both instances, disregarding their importance for anything more than fuel to her next move. The girl had been too caught off guard and wasn't alert enough to try and tuck her chin down, and thus, trying to spin her body to the side was hopeless. Bjorn was much stronger and much bigger than she’d anticipated, and her hands came up to grip his arm and uselessly attempted to pull it away. Blunt fingernails did nothing to aid her escape.

The third thing Emerson wasn’t expecting was for the panic to rise in her throat so suddenly. Because she was a vampire, she didn’t have to breathe anymore. Technically speaking, it wasn’t a requirement, just like having a heartbeat wasn't, but taking in oxygen was a force of habit and she still did it anyways. It acted as the final tie to her previous humanity. However, since it was such a force of habit, there was something about not being able to breathe that made Emerson absolutely terrified. Her already present anxiety all but heightened. As a last resort, the brunette sidestepped the male just barely and didn’t realize what she was doing until one of her hands were coming down in a fist to meet Bjorn in the groin.

[Bjorn]

Bjørn hadn’t considered the effect the lunar cycle might have on him until Lancaster had mentioned his own limitations some time ago. Over the course of the weeks that had followed, the telepath had come to realise he too was restricted when the moon was absent from the heavens above. In fact, he’d learned (the hard way) that he had little more than his physical abilities to rely upon on nights such as this, the dark moon acting as a stopper to any skill telepathic in nature. Instead of feeling robbed of his abilities, he accepted the challenge. It was why this—the training—was as valuable to him as it was to her. What if he had come across the fade beast when there’d been on the night of a new moon? What if he’d been unable to predict the beast’s movements or project various versions of himself to confuse the creature? Fine tuning his body to better respond to threat was imperative. And it would seem that he was off to a good start.

Bjørn didn’t dwell on how he had managed to avoid her fist, but he was glad he had. Action demanded reaction however, and he instinctually grabbed her wrist in an attempt to further restrain her.

“How’s that air you’re breathing? Useful?”