Where does this mean world cast its cold eye?

Who's left to suffer long without you?

Erik stared at the assignment waiting for him on his desk and then looked around at the rest of the office, waiting for someone to give some kind of sign that it was a horrendous practical joke. Any second Janos would struggle to keep his giveaway grin under check, or Jennifer would give Haroum a conspiratorial glance without thinking. But there was nothing. Everyone was busy with their own affairs: Janos was hissing angry things at his boyfriend through his cellphone (adding to their already uncountable number of breakups, it seemed), Jennifer was obviously nursing a hangover at the coffee counter, Haroum was fiddling with the thermostat while Jennifer wasn't looking.

Erik turned back to his assignment, this time trying to wrap his head around the fact that Emma was serious.

He had been working at the Avalon Daily News under Emma Frost for the past seven years, and taking her seriously had never proved difficult before, but today, with this assignment, it was a painful stretch. Starting as a trainee journalist and then eventually taking over the Local Affairs segment, which mostly meant Local Gossip, he couldn't say this was the best job for a journalist in the entire world, but until now it had seemed mostly okay. He tempered the dullness of the job with his own personal pieces that Emma either shot down immediately or grudgingly allowed, depending on his level of unprofessional vitriol. In addition to his weekly assignments and personal campaigns he was expected to cover any assignments she deemed him fit for. Most of the time Erik was able to do his job sanely if not contently, but at the moment he regressed, and railed against his decision not to apply for a serious traineeship with BBC or Reuters or something, travel the globe as a Serious Journalist, covering the war in Afganistan or political intrigue rather than Shauna Malwae's new baby or Mulligan's run in with the food inspector.

As always though, this hardship didn't push him to move to the City and take up a start-up job in the International Affairs Bureau like his father constantly suggested, but instead pushed him to vent his frustration on Emma, an exciting task but not an overly productive one.

He wouldn't be able to get her to change his assignment, he knew: this story was absolutely going to get written, more than written: obsessed over. And he rather suspected that he wouldn't be able to get her to shove the job off on another reporter, even a freelance one: she wasn't one to back down or change her mind. But he had an inkling that he could make this situation so uncomfortable for her that she quivered at the thought of making him a part of the media frenzy this article was going to start off. And that was enough for him.

Jumping to his feet, he stalked angrily to his editor's office, ignoring any curious gazes that latched onto him, and threw her door open and then loudly closed behind him.

"What the fuck is this?" he shouted, liking the way it made her eyes narrow. She refused to wince at his tone, but she couldn't help the narrowing. It was the only sign he was going to get that he was succeeding in making life annoying for her.

"You know damned well what it is. Now get back to work before I replace you, you ingrate," she growled menacingly back at him, going back to her work, slashing whole paragraphs with her dreaded red pencil.

He glared carefully at her perfectly painted face, pale and austere, her stupid fucking white-blonde hair, strictly curled and determinedly flawless, even her expensively manicured nails, and took a deep breath to break her out of her complacency.

"You're out of your fucking mind! It's ridiculous! It's beneath my journalistic integrity!" he accused, watching her eyes narrow with each thrust of his shouts.

"Your last article was about the Finest Swine Pageant last week!" she reminded shrilly, eyes flaming.

"Yes but pigs exist!" he rebutted, shaking the assignment at her wrathfully.

He was shocked when Emma actually rose to his ire, snapping down her pencil and lunging up to a daunting stand in her five-inch heels. Her color was rising now, coming out on her face in angry red splotches that let him know that, somehow, he'd gone above her ability for composure.

"Let me tell you something, sweetness," she snarled at him. "As far as your readership is concerned, this crass shit is as real as pig pageants, and for as long as that's true you'll fucking do as you're fucking told, do you fucking understand me?!"

Shock dropped him into a nearby chair, staring widely as he tried to get his mouth back into action. Emma never took the bait. She was always coldly calm and collected, downright smug in the face of fury. And she never, ever cursed.

In the silence his surprise afforded, Emma sighed heavily and collapsed back into her seat, rubbing her temples weakly. She didn't apologize for her outburst, but she did explain herself, which was as much of an apology as she was capable of.

"This story, silly as you may find it, is important, Erik. I know you don't think so, but as far as 90% of this town is concerned, the Ash Creek House is haunted as all hell." Erik winced on her behalf even though Emma didn't realize her mistake. No local called it the Ash Creek House—it was always the Gone-Away House. She continued without noticing, head practically in her hands. "Now we have Charles Xavier and the Discovery Channel showing an interest for Ghost Trackers. It's not a show you watch, or that I watch for that matter, but it's a serious television program to be played on national TV, and that's big news for this town, and it's our job to cover big news, ridiculous though it may be. If we don't snap it up, Moira MacTaggert will, and I refuse to be bested by that woman—again."

Erik was surprised. This was as close as Emma had ever come to mentioning her rival at The Sentinel's snooping out a national news story right out from under her. It wasn't every day a prostitution ring was uncovered in one's town, and when that town was dowdy old Avalon the odds went even further far afield. Emma hadn't shown her face in the office for nearly a week. Erik was fairly certain one could either be fired or shanked for saying "Hellfire Club" within her hearing.

So Erik knew not to say that, but he wasn't sure what he should say, so he ended up grumbling a sort of uncomfortable, "Jeeze, Em," while glancing wistfully at the door.

He'd come in there to make her uncomfortable enough to not want to put either of them through this again, but now that the tables were turned he was eager enough to make a wash of it and take his assignment with only some serious grumbling. Instead, the woman kept talking, and since this scenario had never happened to him before, he didn't know what to do but sit and take it.

"If you had any idea the sort of underhanded, clever things I had to do to get us an inside track with this stupid ghost-hunting, you'd—" Emma stopped herself, shaking her head almost wearily. "This is a big deal for us, Erik. The sort of thing that's going to keep Moira playing catch-up with us for the next six months. While she's sitting over there on Ashton guessing her way through article after article, quoting fucking press releases, we're going to be running this show with facts, quotes, insider information." She glared at him heatedly, icy blue eyes gleaming. "You will put your personal feelings aside and give me the story I want. The story I deserve, Erik."

Erik glowered at the arm of his chair, and Emma seemed to see this as a cue to go on.

"You are going to pick him up at his hotel tomorrow morning. You are going to take him to the House, you are going to watch everything he does. You are going to give this town exactly want it wants. I want ominous. I want terrifying. I want to have to write a disclaimer on the front page warning people with heart conditions or weak constitutions against reading your article. Do I make myself very clear?"

Erik shifted his glare to the demanding woman instead, but she just smiled with satisfaction.

"I see that you do. Now, get out of here. And if you please me very much, I promise to give the story to Janos when the film crew comes to town."

"No."

Emma's face, just lowering to get back to work, jerked back up to stare at him dangerously.

"Keeping me out of this mess when it hits the fan? That earns you me writing a decent story that doesn't offend the town to the point where they come firebombing your door. An amazing story, the story that's going to shove Moira in the dust for six months? That's going to cost you."

"Oh Erik," the woman sighed, sitting back in her chair and eying him over steepled manicured fingers. "This must be why I'm so in love with you."

"Must be," he grinned back. It wasn't the case that Emma was in any way in love with him, he wasn't sure she was capable of so human an emotion, but he would admit that he was closer to her than he was to most women, and she was closer to him than she was to most mortals.

"All right, all right," she beamed evilly. "You'll get your just desserts."

Erik was in a pissy mood after work, even though he'd shirked ghost-duty all day long, preferring to look busy by starting an article of his own devising about workplace abuse. As the day progressed, Emma was getting more and more anxious, and thus more and more demanding. Meanwhile, the news had broken on the article and the rest of the office saw this as an opportunity to quell their midday boredom by teasing Erik.

He'd dealt with a wallpaper that kept changing to Casper, prank calls of the Ghostbuster's theme, and even a little ghost doll sitting at his desk when he returned from the bathroom. Janos was the only one not getting in on the fun, but he hadn't made the day any more pleasant, apparently hoping to seduce him into making his (ex?)boyfriend jealous. Erik knew better than to get involved with a coworker, especially one as dramatic as Janos.

"Get a good night's rest," Emma demanded as he was putting on his slicker in preparation for the torrential downpour outside. "I want you fresh-faced for the ghost-hunter tomorrow." She gave the air that she'd be over to check on him to make sure he was following orders.

Erik decided then and there to get blinding drunk that night. He called Mark, his only friend and crush, to join him but the man was busy consoling his twin that night.

"She's pre-tty pissed that Fross stole this story out from unner her. I think she might wan' me t'rrest your boss. Or you. Or whoever it takes to steal the ghost-hunner back from ya." By the hushed tones, Erik guessed Mark was hiding his call, possibly in the bathroom based on the slight reverberations of the man's grassroots accent. If there were one thing Erik could change about Mark, besides his distressing heterosexuality, it was damnable accent. It wormed its way into every local, a stark demarcation between the towner and tourist. It, along with his penchant for expensive suits, was the main reason even seasoned Avalonians sometimes mistook him for a visitor, despite the fact that his family had been living there practically since they got off the boat.

"Yeah well, take her advice. I'd rather be in your lockup all day than follow that dolt around for a full minute," he sighed back over the phone as he scoped out acceptable Scotch at Liquor Supercenter. They had a 20 year old Glenkinchie but it was $200. He kept looking.

"I wouldn' have time t'rrest you—Fross would kill ya."

"I think I might prefer that too. I've got to pick him up at his fucking hotel at nine in the fucking morning and chauffeur him all around town or whatever he wants. It's ridiculous."

Mark's tone took on a hushed, awed air. "So it's really him? I mean, the lead guy? Charles Zavier? Not one-a the side-crew, I mean, but like the main guy?!"

Erik tensed uncomfortably in his dripping slicker. He'd had his fingers crossed for years that Mark would wake up and decide to at least give cock a try, and if this miracle came true just for Mark to waste it on some TV-hoaxer, Erik was sure he'd go on a killing spree.

He pushed the ridiculousness aside and grabbed a bottle of Famous Grouse.

"Emma said his name was Xavier, so if that's the main guy..."

"You don't know?!"

"Emma gave me an information packet but I haven't opened it on principle and don't plan to."

"Well are you gonna at least watch the show 'fore you go out there with him?"

"Not likely. I've got Scotch Whiskey in my hand and Poltergeist on my DVD shelf. I'd say I've got the night pretty much full up. Unless you were feeling like coming over, of course…"

"No thanks, Casanova. I got a sisser to talk down from murder, especially when she finds out they gave the gig ta you."

"I can't help it if she doesn't like me."

"The choke-hole may-a bin a bit much."

"It was my first cat-fight, I didn't know what I was doing."

"Here's a hint for the next time Moira and Fross get inta it: don't put nobody in no choke-hole."

"I'll make a note of that."