Between Reason and Delirium

Participants:

daphne_icon.gif kendall_icon.gif magnes_icon.gif

Scene Title Between Reason and Delirium
Synopsis Magnes comes to visit the patients at the Den, and a hallucinating Daphne assaults Kendall.
Date March 25, 2010

The Den


Having come in the evening to check on Kendall, Magnes is wandering around trying to see if some of his other friends were spirited away into this place. He crosses his arms, not really noticing any other open doors, then starts to turn into the other direction of the hall, which is on a course with Daphne and Delilah's room.
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At the far end of the hall, Daphne is sitting on the ground, crutches beside her, arms wrapped tight around her useless legs, head down upon her knees. She's dressed in PJ bottoms and a hoodie, but her feet are bare and she shivers from both the cold and the flu. Now and then, there's a shuddering sigh, though she makes no move to show she hears Magnes' footfalls coming down the corridor.

Kendall was sleeping when Magnes checked in on him, but then someone told him he had a visitor, so after waking up he went off in search for the man. "Hey…" cough cough. He stumbles down the hallway, nearly running into him.

"Hey." Magnes greets Kendall with a friendly smile. "I hope you're doing alright here." He looks back in the direction he was going, spotting the woman he doesn't quite recognize yet, not until he walks a bit closer. He motions for Kendall to follow, then crouches down and smiles at her. "I don't think I've ever seen you looking down before, Daphne."

Daphne jumps when Magnes crouches beside him, her head coming up fast and hitting the wall she leans against. She's pale and sweaty, her pale hair plastered against the side of her face. Looking "down" is an understatement. "You shouldn't be here if you're not sick," she manages, her voice raspy from coughing and weary from exhaustion. There is dried blood in the corners of her mouth. She tilts her head. "Did you see Hiro just now?" she asks, her eyes narrowing as she looks down the hallway, as if trying to see through a dense fog.

Kendall doesn't seem to be in as bad condition as Daphne, but he's not looking too swell himself. "Who's Hiro?" he asks, coming to a stop at the wall and leaning against it. "Yeah, Magnes, you could get sick too, and then no more joyrides." cough cough.

"I haven't seen Hiro since I was in Japan. I didn't know you knew Hiro. I got vaccinated, I'll be fine." Magnes reaches into the pocket of his plain blue jeans for a handkerchief, dressed pretty normally today except for his Venom coat. "Here, let me wipe your head and get you back into your room."

"I won't exactly be coming here everyday, even with the vaccine. I'm gonna start watching kids and I wanna make sure I've got a lot of time open." He reaches forward, trying to gently wipe Daphne's head. "Hiro's a friend, my first mentor."

"You should be in bed, sharkbait," Daphne murmurs to Kendall, her eyes closing as she leans against the wall. When Magnes talks about knowing Hiro, she frowns, eyes fluttering back open. The dark irises look almost black in her eyes, compared to the pallor of her face. "You know him?" Never mind she was just asking about him. "I … I don't know if he was really here. He keeps coming and standing in front of my bed. He's still bleeding… I didn't mean to hurt him. Can you go see if he's all right?" Her eyes are imploring, as she straddles the fence between reason — she knows he's not really there, on some level — and delirium.

"So should you, Storks." Kendall retorts, still managing to stay on his feet thanks to the wall. Oh, snap, he didn't! "Mentor, huh? He teach you how to fly?" he asks Magnes curiously. "What can he do?"

"I'm sure Hiro's fine, but I'll ask around anyway. Can you stand?" Magnes asks innocently enough after taking the cloth back and sliding it into his pocket, then offers her a hand. "He didn't teach me how to fly. I'm pretty sure the government taught me that. And I can't tell you other people's abilities without a good reason, it's bad etiquette."

Daphne reaches for her crutch — perhaps to get up? But no, she throws it at Kendall. She doesn't pull any punches either — if it hits him, it will bruise. She turns to look up at Magnes. "If you see him, tell him I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. It was the Nightmare Man — but I didn't know it then," she whispers. But the talk of the Nightmare Man brings certain issues much too close for comfort and she buries her head in her arms again. "Go away. I don't want anyone I know to see me like this. Why are you here?" This is said accusingly, a plaintive whine creeping into her voice.

Kendall gets hit by the crutch, loses his balance, and falls over, knocking the breath out of him. Why him? He totally didn't deserve that! He just lies there, curled up around his arm which got hit. Owie!

Magnes sighs, reaching out for Kendall to at least soften his fall with gravity a bit. "I'm not helping you up, you teased a sick girl!" he playfully scolds, then turns back to Daphne while still not quite understanding what's going on with her mood. "I was here to see him, he's kind of my responsibility for a while, and a friend of mine. You're my friend too, you don't have to worry about me seeing you sick, everyone gets sick." He smiles, trying to reassure her.

The sound of Kendall falling gets a little snort of laughter from Daphne, but then she's coughing into the arms she's buried her head in; her shoulders shake with the violence of the cough. She wipes her mouth, then groans, leaning her head back on the wall once more. Her face gleams with sweat from the exertion. Her eyes stare down at the blood on her hands before she wipes it on her pajama bottoms, smearing it on lavender stripes. "Hiro keeps bleeding… and the blood keeps coming back. No matter how many times I wash my hands," she says solemnly to Magnes.

"Well she teased a sick guy, and knocked him off his feet." Kendall whines. "And you're not getting sick, so I don't know what this everyone you're talking about is!" He gets to his hands and knees, then shoves himself back up to his feet using the wall as a brace.

"I got a vaccine, and when you were staying with me, I was very careful. And she seems sicker than you, you're not coughing up blood." Daphne can feel her body suddenly lightening a bit, and he reaches out to gently take her arm, not wanting her blood to get on him. "I think you're hallucinating, Daphne. You're coughing up that blood, Hiro's not here. Come on, let me help you back to your room."

"I need the crutches," Daphne whispers, reaching for the one she didn't fling at Kendall's head. Lucky for him she doesn't have much of an aim, having never played any sports for obvious reasons. "You need to help him. He's bleeding. He needs to go to the hospital," she tells Magnes, her dark eyes wide. "I'd bring him myself like I did last time but I can't walk."

"Not right now I'm not, but I do that too." Kendall tells Magnes. "And sometimes I can't even move." his gaze goes resentfully towards Daphne. "Not quite like that, but yeah." hmmph, she threw a crutch at him. That hurt.

"Hiro's not here, Daphne. You're hallucinating." Magnes repeats, trying to help her up and hold the crutch with his mind until she can get a grip. "Kendall, you know where her room is?" he asks, just in case she's hallucinating a tad too much to know herself.

"I need the other crutch…" Daphne says, pointing to the one closer to Kendall with a scowl. "Just because I'm hallucinating doesn't mean he's not here. If he's dying and I can't help him, it'll be my fault, Magnes. I didn't mean to kill him… I … he was just in the way, and then he was bleeding and I can't get him to the hospital if I can't walk," she says, her voice rising with urgency with every word she speaks. "We need to find him and help him." Whatever rationality she had is slipping — fast.

Kendall points to the proper room, suddenly gasping from exertion like he just ran down the hall. "She sleeps in there. And… I'm going back to bed." pointedly leaving the crutch where it is, he shuffles off to his own room.

"Good night, Kendall." Magnes flicks a finger, bringing her thrown crutch to his hand, then offers it over. "Did the flu do this to you? I could probably make it easier with my ability…"

"Life did this to me," Daphne snaps back. "I'm like this. This is me. Before I was special, I was special ed." She snorts at her little joke which is horribly un-funny but true. She plans both crutches against the floor, then slowly begins to inch her way up the wall. Her feet don't seem to want to bear her weight, and her legs seem to turn or buckle of their own volition, rather than do what she intends them to do.

"And you thought I'd think less of you because of this? I didn't have a problem before I had my ability, but I've become so dependent on it, when it's off I topple over if someone pokes me with a finger." Magnes knows he can't quite relate, but he clearly doesn't want him to think he sees her any less than he did before. "Daphne, you were incredible before and you're incredible now. Besides, this flu is gonna pass, you'll get your ability back. There's no such thing as a flu that destroys or completely alters DNA."

"It might not take out the gene but it might damage whatever turns it on or off — it's turned it off now, right?" Daphne says, rationality seeping back into her. "It's karma, Magnes. I got to be extraordinary for a time, and that time's up. It was borrowed time, anyway. I think," and she drops her voice into a confidential whisper, "I think it's because of what I did to Hiro… I think I'm being punished." She finally manages to stand, her weight on the crutches rather than her bare feet.

"You said it wasn't your fault, right? And Hiro's not the kind of person to blame you for something like that, I know Hiro. He's kind of like me, in a world with abilities and stuff, these things happen. Besides, I've had my ability suppressed before, it came back. Your ability will come back." Magnes continues smiling reassuringly, being completely confident in his hope. "I promise you Daphne, somehow, some way, you'll be running around again. And if you think this is a karma issue, then when you get your ability back, why not do something good with it? Couldn't hurt."

"It … it was my fault. He told me to stop… he was trying to save me. I think." She frowns. It's still unclear, even knowing what she knows now about the Nightmare Man. "But he keeps coming around and I can't undo it." She begins her strange walking of the crutches — one stays stationary while the other moves forward a step, and then the opposite. It's awkward and probably painful to watch. She reaches the door that will lead to her room, pausing to glance back. "Tell Sharkbait I'm sorry I threw the crutch at him," she adds, leaning her head against the door jam for a moment. "Night."

"Just get some sleep, Daphne. Call me in the morning, if you can. I'm around if you need anything." Magnes offers one last smile, sliding the handkerchief into her pajama pocket, then nods. "Good night, Daphne."


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