Bandwagon

Participants:

deckard3_icon.gif delilah_icon.gif magnes_icon.gif

Scene Title Bandwagon
Synopsis In which past differences are put on hold because Magnes is full of holes again. Koombaya~
Date September 29, 2009

St. Luke's Hospital


a happy early evening for Magnes, he's just in pain, staring at the TV but barely paying attention. There's still little strings tied inbetween the bed rails, mostly to keep him from floating away in the middle of the night, which would hurt in his current physical state, having so many muscles in his body torn, and his left arm's muscles so torn he has a cast around it. Then there's the left thigh that almost got a burst artery from the bullet. Oh, and of course those first two bullet wounds that re-opened…

Yeah, pain.

"Delilaaaah!" he groans, as if expecting her to magically fix it, because it huuuuuuuuurts!

Magnes is just lucky that strings will hold him. It would be pretty awful if theyhad to latch him down with cords- not to mention embarrassing. For now, while other hands are elsewhere and she doesn't have immediate obligations- Magnes happens to be getting the spoiled treatment from Delilah.

She is busy going through a spiral-bound notepad in a chair near his bed, half watching the television and half jotting down things on the paper in her hand. When Magnes' mood boils over into groaning and moaning and bellyaching about the pain, she is sorely tempted to turn the chair around and let that be that. Instead, she sighs, drowning him out. "Magnes. You just got painkillers not that long ago. You're going to get addicted, and then I'll have to take you out back and shoot you."

Deckard probably waited for people to actually answer the door after knocking for the first couple of people he sorted out this evening. Probably. By the time he's made it to Magnes's room and finished having a pair of cops paw over him for the hundredth time this week (this time with the addition of ogling reporters, whom he glares at sidelong), though — two raps of knuckle to door are all they get before he's turning the handle to let himself in. A black booted foot stops the same door's progress closed again when he turns to pull it shut after himself, a flat look exchanged between cop and con through the intervening space until Flint relents and carries on inward with the door left a little too open at his heels.

Not enough to see in or out, but certainly enough to hear when the guards suddenly become preoccupied with fending off the refreshed interest of people with little cameras and notebooks and excitable clicky pens.

"Flint Deckard?" Magnes asks in his usual manner of not being able to say anything but his full name, before he can really respond to Delilah's warnings of getting shot. He stares at Deckard for a while, not sure what to make of the situation, though he does remember the partial healings of himself and Thalia. "You can heal, can you, um, heal me? I know I haven't been the best person to you, and I still don't know what you're up to or what your angle is these days, but I need to be at the top of my game, I can't let myself slip, I have to be healthy so I can continue my work. I'm sure even you can appreciate that."

Delilah closes the notepad halfway through listening to Magnes talk, lifting her eyes to Deckard to either see what he does- or to catch his gaze and hold it for something. "Magnes, hush up." Dee glances over at the boy in the bed, lifting herself to her feet and giving Flint a second once-over. "Don't let my being here influence this- I'd say we've been even for a while, but- y'never know." The redhead seems passive enough now, having not jumped Deckard or pushed him out the window(yet). He broke her wrist that one day! They are so even.

Maybe unfortunately, Magnes has no idea what she is talking about. "So will you help him out?" Dee changes over to hopeful in a few more seconds.

"Yeah," says Deckard, who currently looks more worried about the partially open door than he does either of the ~winners~ in here with him. Brown leather jacket tugged restlessly at his shoulders, he lingers a moment around the foot of the hospital bed, taking in strings and cast and arguments in Magnes's favor all with the same hard stare and flat affect. "Why wouldn't I want another idiot cop to be back at the top of his game?"

Delilah gets a similar look — hers more sideways than straight on only for his attention to tick past her onto the window a few idle and decidedly uncomfortable seconds later.

"I can't do him all the way. There are reporters outside."

Magnes looks from one of them to the other, apparently not very happy about there being some sort of secret, but he doesn't bother questioning it. "Cop is just training for my real work." he corrects, barely above a whisper. "You'll thank me when in ten years, Chinese soldiers aren't commiting crimes against humanity on you. You can heal me all the way, none of my wounds are visible with clothes on, I'll handle how I'm getting out of here. Your cover won't get blown." he assures, rather confident about that, but not elaborating either.

Delilah has wandered to the door, leaning out with a glare at the guard. Moments later the door shuts, while Deckard is peering at the window. The guard behind it mutters something audible about women, which she pointedly ignores. "They'll narrow it down, and you're not the best actor for long term things. Sorry Magnes." Dee comes to a stop near the end of the bed, suddenly nearer Deckard than he is probably fine with- knowing what she's already done. After giving Magnes the apology, she turns her head to Flint, seemingly taking him in.

"I can help you get out without trouble, if you help him the whole way. He can at least stay an extra day to throw them off further, what with all the guests passing through this ward… I don't think he can handle longer, faking it." She smiles apologetically to Magnes in the bed, debating a chance snipe to come up soon.

In ten years, when Chinese soldiers aren't committing crimes against humanity on him. Still at the foot of the bed, Deckard's back to eyeing Magnes in the time it takes Delilah to cross for the door, narrow jaw clamped hollow and wiry muscle strung taut through his neck. Dee's sudden nearness post door shutting doesn't help there either — tension creeps in through his sides and shoulders knotted stiff under the shabby drape of his jacket.

Trust is at a minimum, here. His attention focuses slooowly down and aside on Delilah standing too close without him actually moving away to counter that closeness, eyes too blue and the hood of his brow too hard to be easily mistaken for friendliness where the rest of his face reads of cool neutrality. "Why difference does it make if I don't finish it?"

"Faking won't be a problem, if I just fly out the window I can say I went to a healer I knew. Who are they to question it?" Magnes asks, shrugging, clearly figuring it's the most obvious solution before Deckard starts talking again. "Because I don't wanna waste any more time healing at all. Do you have any idea how hard it's been, training with two bullet wounds? Now I have torn muscles, and there's no way I'm waiting for those to fully heal before I can start training again and get out on the street. I have too much work to do, I'm one of the few people paying attention to China, and I still have leads on Refrain to take care of, among other things."

He shakes his head, just straining to offer his hand. "Just do whatever you're willing to do, I won't complain. Some healing is better than none, anything that gets me out of this stupid bed and back to work. I shouldn't have gotten myself in here in the fir-" His gaze shifts to Delilah, then he shakes his head, knowing he's not supposed to be complaining about his mistakes anymore.

If Deckard isn't doing a thing, and neither is she- as far as Delilah can tell she has no reason to stop standing there. A fan of immersion, perhaps. Her brown eyes jump up to meet his blue ones when they cast over to her again. It's a vaguely animal situation, when one includes the expressions of their eyes. His are distrustful, while Delilah's remain mostly warm.

"Very little. I was just hoping that if given the opportunity to get away clean-" She pauses, glancing at the floor and up again, chin still up. It is a fake look of passiveness. "-that you would do it out of your own goodness. Or even a favor, come to it." Delilah's head turns off to Magnes again, unsure of which man to lock herself onto. "Please do what you can, but if you do all that you can, Flint-" Making sure to use his name, not his surname. And put her eyes on him again, finally. "-then I'll help get you out of here without incident."

"Just the police. …And the media." NBD right? But Deckard's quiet past answering that much, overlarge ears attuned to explanation and defense and reassurance in turn. It takes him a minute. Maybe two, for him to remember to blink so that his focus can shutter back to Magnes from Delilah. In the end, "Va te faire enculer," is the sum total of his recommendation, apparently for both of them. But when he moves to sidestep away from Delilah, it's to Varlane's bedside rather than the closed door and his right hand lifts to grasp firm at the one up on offer.

"Delilah… You don't have to talk that way." Magnes says with a bit of a sigh, though doesn't elaborate on how she's talking. When Deckard takes his hand, he just lays back against the elevated bed and lets him go to work. "I've been shot four times now. I'm not sure why I'm still alive other than someone wanting me to do something. I just hope my next move doesn't turn out to be a mistake… but I trust Eileen."

"Alright." Delilah answers, but it is only a few moments after Deckard happens to finish. So in this case, it is hard to tell if she was replying to the first- or to the second thing. Either way, she is still looking at Deckard, forearms now crossed over her middle. She shrugs at Magnes when he talks to her, now deciding that perhaps she should just sit down and see what happens- which is what she does, tucking her skirt under as she perches back in the seat she was in when Flint arrived.

Deep breath. Slower out than in while Deckard rolls his eyes shut and attempts to focus past the murmur of conversation ongoing just outside and the irritation buzzing hot around in the back of his skull.

Healing starts as local warmth from the bind of is grip around Magnes's wrist. It floods outward from there at an unsteady trickle, rainwater licking unpredictably across a car window until it seems to fill everything and a kind of sluggish, lazy comfort sets in. For Magnes, that is. Deckard persists in looking like he isn't sure he wants to be here, chilly glare turned out on the window once it's open and alert again.

"This is just like when Abby used to do it…" Magnes idly notes, relaxing in the feeling as various memories flood just as abundantly as the healing. "I should really visit her more, but I'm so busy lately. I barely find time for Claire Delilah and Gillian. And Abby has her school schedule and all…" He looks up at Deckard almost apologetically. "Sorry, I'll be quiet, I remember Abby thought it was harder to heal when I talked."

Maybe out of understanding, Delilah puts her hand over her face as Magnes starts into making another fool of himself. "Magnes…" She sighs, knotting her fists on top of her knees and looking over to watch Deckard. It's not fair, really, that Abby would lose all of this and he got it. Nothing she can do, but at least her headspace can hear her; Dee now watches with an increasingly interested look that falls only on Flint.

"She probably just said that so you would shut up," muttered mayhaps a little heartlessly, Deckard doesn't tighten his hold on Magnes into a twist against rent muscle fiber that is only just beginning to bind itself together again, so. That's something. Bullet holes are the first to fall under, fresh flesh expanding slow fill and cinch at disrupted tissue and perforated skin. He doesn't look at Delilah again until a prickle at the back of his neck suggests that she's looking at him. Eye contact is brief if he manages it at all, searching as it is ill-tempered.

Magnes frowns at Deckard's words, and, well, kind of feeling like being like a prick right back, for a split second Deckard's world view turns upside down and right back to normal. "I'm grateful for this, but, watch how you talk about Abby's personality."

Then again, it might not be fair- but he could do worse. He could not use it! He's trying, right? That's what really matters. It is at this point that Delilah, leaning her face on one hand- realizes that he's looking back over at her, and in turn she realizes that she spaced out just a little bit. When Deckard glances over, she twitches out of that cloudy look and meets his gaze again. Dee has been warming up to him, it appears. In the span of just a few minutes, no less. There's some good there, or else the Ferry wouldn't want Flint doing much at all with them! Such conclusions come swiftly, but maybe a bit late- as she has already got into fisticuffs with Deckard twice.

But then, past the thought that he is actually helping people these days, the teenager lands on something that she sees fit to say. "You know what…" Lilah's voice is somewhat quiet now. "What I said at the docks. I take it back." She'll refrain from saying 'sorry I called you a fuck-up', lest the word act as a trigger again. But Dee is fairly certain he can guess what she means. Not that she expects him to magically go 'It's all cool, Delilah!'. But she offers it nonetheless. And then it is Magnes' turn. Oh dear.

"I think technically it was a compliment. Unless you agree that wanting to be nice to you denotes a serious flaw in cognitive capability and judgment." Voice flat, Flint flicks a speculative glance down sidelong at Magnes's face while Abigail's ability does its thing well past the point of no return.

In slow, steady succession, holes close up entirely and shredded muscle fiber thickens back into its bind from joint to joint. Nicks and bruises at the surface are the last to go, blotches fading out as shadows bleach away from bright light. And then he's done. Completely done, that is. There's no pain left to creep in after hazy warmth once he's shaken his hand away from the bedside and stepped off a ways, eyes hollow in his head, muscle hatched wan through the sink of his jaw. He's too distracted by white fuzz and static in his ears to answer Delilah immediately, but a delayed glance indicates that he probably heard. Probably.

"Thanks."

Magnes doesn't comment, he instead lifts his hand up, opening and closing it with a bright smile. "I feel better than I have in months. Another year like this and I'd be dead." He suddenly raises from the bed, floating with his sheet wrapped around him so he can head for the window. "Thanks, Flint Deckard. Delilah, tell them I said I was going to visit a healer I know, that way the complications are more or less eliminated, or at least they are for him."

"I'll spin a tale for you, yes." Delilah rises when Magnes starts floating, the strings holding him down rather useless now. Magnes is okay, which is a blessing in itself- though Deckard isn't looking quite so whippish anymore, which has drawn Dee's further attention. "You go, before someone hears you bobbing around." As if it might work, one hand shoos at Magnes a little, as the rest of her moves a few steps forward. Not so near Deckard, but not as far. And he gets to be the next person she speaks to, though less sharply than Magnes, and even going through the trouble of tilting slightly in question.

"Abby always wanted something to eat or drink after- what about you?" Delilah implies all at once that she'd probably feed him herself given the chance, but- well- maybe he'll just say no and clam up.

"Not hungry," says Deckard, which is a lie, but one that requires less conversation than an affirmative. Anyway, Magnes's making like Peter Pan isn't doing much to alleviate the weary drag at his shoulders — especially not once he's looked back to the door.

"They aren't going to let me go until they get confirmation from him that he isn't dead or otherwise fucked over."

Magnes, still floating there, gives it a moment of thought when Deckard says that. Alright, he can work with this. He moves to place a hand on Deckard's shoulder, and if the man lets him, his feet will start feeling as if they have lead weights. "I decided to go out and find a healer, you tried to stop me, so I made your feet heavy. It'll wear off in a half hour, I'd have called and cleared everything up by then."

Master plan explained, he goes flying back to the window and starts lifting it, getting ready to exit.

Deckard looks so tired all of a sudden that Dee is having a hard time entirely believing him. "That's the same face my cousins make when I'd fill the plate with vegetables. But I know they are. You're not doing that too, are you?" Less conversation? Not really. Delilah could talk about a stain for an hour. "They do have a cafeteria-" She pauses when Magnes seems to try something, eyeballing him like he just started talking in a helium voice.

"Great." Now he's Mr. Heavyfoot and Delilah is talking to him about cousins and vegetables and he can't physically run away from her. Rather than attempt to walk, he stands where he and watches Magnes work the window latch in vacant silence for longer than it can possibly be interesting.

"…Can you drag one of the chairs over here?"

"I'll make it up to you and burn some Matlock DVDs!" Magnes assures, figuring all old people like Matlock! And then, whoosh, he's flying out the window and into the night.


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