"You don't need to look as though I'm here to escort you to your execution," Ash says teasingly as they step in and close the door behind them, their Dancer to their side, with the exact same tone they might have in any normal conversation. Like they didn't just threaten to stalk and ambush her explicitly against her will, with every indication they were serious about it.

(They were. Maybe not incredibly serious, because 'if John finds out about this, would he be displeased' is a meaningful level of cognition that's running interference here so that Ashton doesn't immediately default to the most asshole move possible, but Jinx? Jinx would make for a good project, if they really wanted to make her paranoid about it.)

"I do really just want to talk."