Participants:
| Scene Title | Graft |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Despite Magnes and Teo's stepping in, Delilah has yet to get Ol'Blue out of her house. |
| Date | January 27, 2010 |
Village Renaissance Building: Delilah's Apartment
Just entering the apartment, it gives of a feeling of comfortable homeliness; light colors, pastel shades, floral designs, clean and sweet smells, and only accents of dark where it most fits. The front room leads to a den further on, with a large sofa in a coffee cream color sitting opposite a similar chair, and a wooden table in between. There is only an almost retro-looking television off on the other side, but the things hooked up to it show that it is not as old as it seems. Nothing is, really.
To the far end is the kitchen, which always seems to smell like something recently cooked there; the appliances and counters are squeaky clean, but obviously used on a regular basis, and the leftover anything in the fridge can attest to that, as can a perpetual dish of cookies on the table. The bathroom is also squeaky clean, and it seems as if anyone coming out smells significantly nicer than when they had gone in; there is a closet within where the washer and dryer stay. There are two bedrooms, but one is emptied and instead made into a big rainbow-colored sewing and storage room, complete with fabric bolts and racks on wheels centered around a masterfully ordered sewing machine and table.
The actual bedroom is based in those mainly soft colors, yet the lower walls have at least two long, cluttered tackboards home to pictures, clippings, seemingly random crafts, and generally quirky things. A desk in a similar state sits in the far corner by the closet, opposite a low, wide, fluffy-looking bed swamped in pillows and comforters. At least half a dozen stuffed animals peek out from various points.
The night started with a phone call, a suggestion, and an arrival at Dee's doorstep. There were hugs and cheerful smiles, and Helena's excited display of the listings for Columbia's 2010 - 2011 school year program. Samson was given his due of scritches and love, there was fun kitchen time in which Helena lured Dee into helping her make butterscotch fudge, and after changing into her 'chiks rule' jammies and their shared indulgence of some kind of horror movie/chick flick hybrid, they started going through the class listings. Helena went off to go find a writing implement, and Dee suggested she go nick one off her desk in the bedroom.
Butterscotch alone makes things better- put it with fudge and it's just an excuse to give oneself sugar shock. Though she hasn't really progressed that far, it seems like Delilah has taken a few handfuls as it is. Samson wanted some, but all he could do was stare at the girls, waiting. Delilah sits on the sofa with her feet up on the dog, who is vegetating in front of the coffee table. "So do you have to pick some filler courses for ah- science credits and things?" The redhead is in her nightshirt and a pair of cloth pants that seem to have seen better days.
Delilah's bedroom looks disorienting like it always does, clutter-wise, but everything has a place, even pens- there isn't one on the desk, as the girl supposed, but there is a pencil drawer.
"I've picked a major." Helena calls back. "Poli-sci. Rickham's going to be beside himself." No pens on desk, no pens in cupholder, no pens on bookshelf, aha! Maybe pen in drawer! "Do you think it's wierd that - "
The words abruptly cut off.
Helena stares down at the glowing blue liquid laying so innocuously in its syringe, unable to do anything for a second but process that it's there. The urge surges up, and the need, and she sways a little in place, her hand lifting, reaching, touching the vial and pulling her hand away, bringing it to her mouth as she were the child who touched the stove burner after being told it would burn her because she just needed to know.
Delilah's footstool seems to have walked away after a moment to follow Helena; he isn't really visible at first, peering around the corner of the door, cropped ears pricked up. Sometimes he seems like he knows much more than he is letting on, especially for a dog. Or perhaps he just knows that Delilah keeps treats in places besides the top cupboards. Either way, dark amber eyes find Helena almost expectantly.
"I wonder what he thinks of the mayoral race. Oh, that Lockheart, I hope she falls down a flight of stairs. Think it's weird what?" Delilah's voice muffles a little as she picks up a glass from the table to drink the liquid in it, eyes roaming cluelessly towards her bedroom.
Helena looks down at Samson, and then down at the syringe. Back and forth, as she speaks. "I think it's weird that I'm going to go to the school where in another reality, I got blown to itty bitty pieces." she says. She's still audible, but her tone is much more subdued.
Samson edges back out of the room when she looks over at him, either trying to pretend he wasn't there, or possibly content to know she is not hiding food or something like that. "Well, there isn't a lack of schools here. But Columbia seems to be the one that has handled the post-bomb years best. It's weird, sure, but not unexpected." Delilah flops back down, tapping her heel on the carpet to try and get Samson to wander back. He just sits down at a halfway point, tail thumping on the floor.
Like she's about to handle uranium, Helena reaches out and picks up the syringue. The urge to plunge it into her inner arm is maddening, but Helena's been tortured, shot, and imprisoned, and she knows her own addiction when she feels it raging to the surface. With careful, deliberate steps, she walks out into the living room, the little glass vial and slender needle and plunger placed precariously in presentation across the span of her palm.
If Samson could look smug, he might. Delilah pauses in mid-motion when Helena comes out of the bedroom, eyes going from the other woman to her hand, and back to her face. There's something about Delilah's visual response- a tweaking brow, a slight frown- that marks the presentation as one that Helena wasn't supposed to know about. It's her own fault that there was no pen, but she doesn't quite realize it. This is on par with peeking into a diary as far as she is concerned.
"You shouldn't get into my drawers like that." The incident with Teo and Magnes yesterday did quite a deal in upsetting her temptation for trying Refrain, but for some reason part of her kept it- and so it turns into something she has to defend. Again. No matter how much she wanted to toss it, it is still in the apartment like an unwanted gremlin.
"I was looking for a pencil." Helena says, "But that's not the point. You - did someone give this to you? You didn't - you wouldn't buy this stuff, would you?" Helena's fingers curl around the vial. "Where did you get it?"
"Some party. From some girl that knew what I was because that is what she did." Delilah's lips flatten slightly, like she's waiting for something. "I didn't buy it, she gave it to me. I haven't used any of it." Yet is implied, but it comes off as a poor implication.
"What did she do?" Helena asks, in a strange sort of calm. The weight in her palm is taking on a surreal sort of feeling. She knew what you were because that's what she did?" The syntax doesn't make sense.
"I mean her power was to see who else has them. Like a metal detector." Well, she supposes. Delilah lifts up to her feet to cross the room and hold a hand out for the vial. "I've already gotten into a fight with Magnes and Teo about this, so I don't exactly need another one. I just have it because- I'm not sure why I still have it. In a practical sense I know I should get rid of it, but the temptations and reasons are there."
"I only know one person who is a woman and a power detector." Helena says, fingers closing around the vial tight. The one who tried to call the cops and turn me in the day we both got kidnapped by Humanis First. There might be hundreds in the city, but the one I know is named Wendy Hunter. She was there," she swallows, and continues, "She was there when my father pumped me full of this shit until I was almost comatose on it. Do you understand how addictive it is? Do you get that I'm standing here holding it and trying not to stick the syringe in my arm? As long as I don't see it, I can avoid the sensation of the addiction, but right now…" Helena shakes her head. "Did you know that people who've taken Refrain are more susceptible to the Nightmare Man's manipulations?"
With visible difficulty, Helena walks to the coffee table and sets the syringue down, having to focus effort on letting her fingers release it. And with her eyes still on the blue glow, she says in a bitter tone, "Go ahead, Delilah. You tell me all about the temptations and reasons. I'm sure they're better than the ones I gave you not to. I got Refrain forced on me, and you want to fill your veins with it for a lark." There's no hiding the disgust, the sadness in her voice.
"It wasn't a lark." Delilah's eyes are already reddening out of frustration, and she lifts up her hands to cup them on the front of her face, fingertips rubbing under her eyes as they move away. "I know all about it- it's just- it was never about the fun. I didn't take it from her because I wanted a fun time. I just want to remember things I've forgotten. …Important things." This is all the same from yesterday, it feels like. To have to try and sort out why she even has it here. She didn't have much of an answer before, and still doesn't.
Delilah puts her palm over her closed eyes now, thumb rubbing at her temple.
"There are other ways. Safer ways. I'd tell you to find a telepath you trust before resorting to this." Helena has to walk to the other side of the room. "What you want is not worth the cost of what this will do to you, Delilah. Believe me, I know. I don't know if Magnes or Teo have ever touched the stuff, but I'm speaking from experience. Please get rid of it." There's a pause. "Did Wendy Hunter give this to you?"
"I have nobody like that- Kaylee's too inexperienced, and there are things about her that still make me wary. -I don't know who she was, she just told me to call her Fish, so I used an alias too- nobody names their kid Fish." Delilah rubs at her cheek when her hand comes down again, eyeing the vial on the table before moving to pick it up, the blue glow disappearing between her fingers. At times like these, she is only left to wonder how she could be so stupid about something. They are all right- Magnes wanted to help, Teo got out of line in his wanting to do the same, and even Helena is looking at her like she just broke a hundred life rules.
"Please don't take it?" Helena's not going to order her not to. She doesn't have the right. "Please? If you could feel how I feel when I'd look at it, you'd know it wasn't worth it."
"I'm such a fucking idiot. Some fucking loser that can't remember faces and I'm trying to do this. You were all right- you and the guys." Dee's response is to hiss at herself angrily, voice crumbling out of embarrassment and frustration; she turns away and is then practically stomping off towards the bathroom. Her hands fumble a moment with disengaging the vial from its syringe, but after pausing to take a breath between glowers, the girl pops it apart.
Helena puts a hand to her mouth and breathes out a sigh of relief. She walks toward the bathroom, wanting to watch the follow-up there. "Listen. Matt Parkman still owes me a favor, maybe I could track him down and ask him to help you."
The blue vial is studied for a few moments, Delilah's tongue running along her teeth. "Isn't he some homeland guy? Why would I want him in my head? Maybe I'm just not supposed to remember." The redhead goes to the toilet, cracking open the vial and spilling the blue into the water. It's almost glistening with a life of its own, invisible hands grabbing at the side of the bowl before Delilah lifts a finger to press down on the lever.
The sound of the flush is the sweetest sound Helena's heard in a long time. "I'm just saying, I'm willing to help you - and I'm sure Cat would be too - if you want to find out more about your memory gaps in a way that isn't," she waves toward the toilet, "This. Thank you for getting rid of that stuff." She really does sound relieved. The temptation's gone for her, too. She'd had thoughts, entertained for only seconds, of how she could sneak in the middle of the night and inject herself.
"They're not really gaps." Delilah drops the porcelain lid down again, sidling back through the open door. "Just- faded things. Blurry. But important. They feel important. Like there's something I should be remembering, but I can't. I'm sorry you had to fix my problem, Helena. I'm sorry you had to find that. But thank you for saying something." Otherwise she may have just kept it around. She lifts a thumb to wipe at the corner of her eye.
Oh, Delilah will find herself hugged, and Helena murmurs, "Don't be sorry. I'm just glad you're safe. I'm sure we could find a way to help you if you wanted to let us." With that, Helena tries to lure her into the kitchen, murmuring, "We can forget about this right now. Come into the kitchen, yeah? Before Samson tries to steal the fudge off the counter."
Having just enough discrepancies between them, Delilah rests her cheek on Helena's hair as she embraces the other girl back. The luring away is a prelude to Delilah making a half-hearted attempt to clasp a friendly palm around Helena's when she takes a step. Even if it's just for the length of a squeeze. "He could have if he really wanted to." He's a good dog. Like how she has all of these good friends- even if things come between, right?
Helena curls her fingers around Dee's and tugs her along. "True, but he'd have left it half eaten and licked all over, and eww." The night's conversation will remain light and positive, unless Dee feels a particular need to get serious, in which case, Helena will be a sympathetic ear.
