Participants:
| Scene Title | Here's Some Ice Cream, Don't Die Inside Please! |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Ice cream, bombshells, a dress, and spaghetti. All is right with the world. |
| Date | September 1 2009 |
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.
It's been a while since he visited Delilah, except maybe the occasional call to see how she's doing while he's busy. But today, later in the afternoon and one lost friend later, Magnes wants to show his appreciation for another friend with something he's been working on for a while. He has one of those long white clothing boxes again, and a small white bag from the supermarket in the other hand, leaving the bag floating for a moment to knock on the door before grabbing it again. "It's me, Magnes, at a reasonable hour."
There is a rumbling 'woof' from the living room, but otherwise Samson seems to approve; Delilah opens the door after a moment, idly clicking a pen in her other hand. "Hey!" She greets him rather loudly at first, eyeballing the stuff that he has with him. Stepping aside, the redhead waves a hand for him to come in. "How's it going?"
Samson, though having made a noise, does not want to move a muscle. He is lying sprawled on the recliner, head and hind feet dangling.
Briefly smiling at Samson, Magnes turns his gaze to Delilah and holds the stuff up in both hands. "Got shot again, flashed the President in live TV if you didn't notice, but other than that, I'm doing pretty fine. I've been wanting to hang out with you, I've just been a little busy lately. Police work keeps me from late night visits."
"You what?" No, she hasn't noticed; Delilah just gives him a very bizarre look before glancing over to the dog as if he might have an answer. He doesn't. "And what? You got shot again? My god, Magnes." With that, she shuts the door behind them. "Did you swallow an acme magnet?"
"Humanis First shot up a courthouse, shot this girl I know, so I went to grab her so I could fly her to the hospital, and the guy shot me in the back, right through the lung. Deckard was there so he healed us both as much as he could so I could get us to the hospital." Magnes explains as he heads for the couch, taking a seat after sitting the bag and the box on the table. "As for the President, well, I went to a FRONTLINE press conference with Tracy Strauss, I was sitting up there in the row of seats where the President sits. No one was asking an important question, and there were only two left, so I stood up, lifted my shirt, showed my bullet wounds, and said Humanis First did it and what are they gonna do about it. President was right there, like five feet away. Cat said it wasn't bad, so I guess I'm proud of it, even though I pissed Tracy off, that's my only regret."
Delilah's face goes through a few stages when she sits down beside him, one knee over the other. Anger, shock, surprise, relief, triumph- it runs the gamut. "That's not flashing the President, Magnet, that's brilliant shock factor. What'd his face look like?" She grins brightly, scooting closer. Samson watches them, and so it looks almost as if his eyes are rolling back in his head.
And for a bit Dee backtracks. "Oh man. I'm glad you're alright. Holy sweetcakes."
"I'm being more careful, training more, I'll be fine. I just need to be more subtle and improve my ability to make tactical decisions. I was also at the Ball when Humanis First attacked. I didn't have a gun, so I had to take guys out with gravity enhanced table cloths, meatballs, and things wrapped in bacon." Magnes laughs, still finding the entire situation to be a bit crazy, not really letting on just how terrifying it was. "And I'd say the President was shocked, and they shifted the topic and ended the conference as quickly as possible."
"I hope it keeps him up at night." Delilah huffs, very huffily, trying to not show her own shakiness in finding out about all of these shenanigans. "Meatballs, you say? Was it like the sorcerer's apprentice, where the brooms come alive?" She puts a finger to her chin when she looks to him. "Oh, that reminds me, I have spaghetti leftover from last night if you're hungry.." When in doubt, dote.
"If you want to learn tactical, learn to deflect bullets, gee."
"So far I seem to be able to survive getting hit with a slab of concrete, but bullets still hurt like crap. I need to start diving for cover like a sane person more often. And I could go for some spaghetti, I love your cooking." Magnes leans forward, grabbing the plastic bag. "Oh, crap, I forgot, I bought a gallon of fudge brownie ice cream, maybe you should put it in the fridge. I got some chocolate chip cookies too." He pulls the gallon out, offering it. "You can put that in the freezer."
"Oops. Yes. That needs frozen." Delilah's eyebrows lift up as she takes the ice cream in both hands and slips off the couch to take it to the fridge. For a second there it looks like hot potato, and then she disappears over into the kitchen with it. Samson has rolled off of the chair to see what the excitement is, shaking himself out with a great whipping around of his body.
There is the click-click of the stovetop, and then the clink of a pan onto the top. "And yes. Dive for cover when people shoot at you…" She says this as she comes out, one hand going to the long sleeve of her thin sweater, fingers on her left forearm. Now that she draws attention to it, it does look as if she has something on underneath.
"What's that?" Magnes curiously asks when she touches her forearm, then suddenly there's a flashback to convention day. "I mean, not that I'm asking you to strip or anything, I just mean, what you're wearing— alright there's no way I'm saving this sentence."
"How does that even relate?" Dee chuckles, perplexed for the few seconds after. She decides to humor him with a bit of her own adventures. "You weren't the only one shot at recently. I wasn't shot, but he probably would have if I hadn't knocked him off." Which she assumes he will take as 'fought back' and not 'I killed the bastard'. "Humanis First too."
She sits back down, tugging up her sleeve to show him a white bandage on her outer arm. A finger lifts to pick up one side, and he'll get a glimpse of a five inch line of stitches; it appears to be a gash, as if from a knife.
"These people… we really need to do something or we'll all be dead. I plan to train with Gillian soon. I'm not sure how viable it'll be, but I plan to make myself into a secret weapon. I don't know what I'll do, and I can't really say in what way I'll be a weapon, I don't know myself yet. If Gillian's ability works the way it did on the scale we tested, on a larger scale, well, you know how last resorts are." Magnes isn't exactly being light-hearted about the topic, in fact, seeing Delilah's stitches brings back a familiar mood he had the night he suddenly showed up at her place to sleep.
"I bet I'd turn into a toad monster around her." Delilah leans into the cushions, and Samson strolls past with something fuzzy and yellow in his mouth. He lifts it up to Magnes and squeezes it. It honk-quacks.
"Maybe we could poison them after all." Hahaha. "They're like ticks or something."
"Purple galaxy stuff like in those space photos come out of my skin when Gillian uses her ability, and I think I saw little Kirby dots. It was like having an extra limb or something, but I was afraid of trying to do anything because I was pretty sure we'd go right through the floor or the roof. We plan to train somewhere safe soon." Magnes smiles, leaning down to take the fuzzy yellow thing from Samson's mouth, then lightly tosses it, sending it floating just a few feet off the floor. "I don't think we should just kill anyone, but I have to be prepared, I have to have a weapon, and I have to be ready to make a last resort choice if we run completely out of options. We're in a war, and eventually I have to get blood on my hands…" he says this almost regretfully, but as an accepted fact, staring at the figurative blood on his palms.
"It'll happen. But you'll have me to talk to when it does." Delilah explains, watching as Samson chases the duck and stops when it floats there. He peers at it and leeeeeans forward to take it. "This is a war, yes. I thought I was ready. Not really." She sighs heavily. "But people I know are. Were. So I try to learn from them."
"Don't force yourself." Magnes moves a hand to gently take Delilah's chin inbetween his fingers, looking into her eyes. "I don't ever want you to force this innocent look out of your eyes. No matter what, don't force yourself to be anything you're not, alright? You're the last person on Earth I wanna see die inside, I've already seen it happen too many times…"
It's sad, really, but she can't lie to his face. Especially not that he's touching hers. Her brown eyes do not lose their shine, but there is a steely glint down there. Not unlike when Abby began her anti-protection crusade; nothing like that comes, however.
"I've killed three people, Magnes."
Magnes just stares, his hand lowering to his leg, finding himself trying to process yet another bombshell by another woman in his life. What's he supposed to say to that? "I don't know what to say. I mean, you had a good reason, I know you had a good reason, I'm not even going to think about asking that, but… how do you feel?"
"It was kill or be killed, trust me. I didn't go out those mornings saying 'I'm going to kill someone today'." She assures him, lowering her gaze enough to be serious. "I feel fine. I empathize with the fact, but I find contentment in that they would have hurt me or my friends. I'm finding myself just short of saying they probably deserved it. But I won't say it, cause they were just misguided people." Dee chews slightly on her lower lip, glancing down to the seat and pulling the last page from Allen Rickham.
"It's not an easy thing to have to do or try and get over- I just have to remember my reasons. And they were all for people I loved, or my own wellness. I find defending those the same as defending my home from a burglar."
"It's alright, Delilah. You're still you, just, don't let it destroy you, alright? I'll always be here, I hope, so, just, please stay you?" Magnes almost pleads, leaning forward to wrap his arms around her, a chaste hug, comforting. "Every time someone dies inside I feel like they're gone even though they're there, and it hurts, a lot. I believe you did the right thing, but if you need therapy or anything, I know someone, alright?"
"You're not the first to offer. I've got someone. Multiple someones, I should say." Dee hugs back, arms looping under his with hands onto his shoulders. "I won't let it destroy me. I have far more important issues to take care of." Somehow, she feels as if Magnes has more of a problem than she does. Ah, well.
"Alright, Delilah. Oh, crap, I almost forgot!" Magnes says on a lighter note, gently pulling back from the hug to take the clothing box and place it into her lap. "i've been working on that for weeks, it's finally done." Then, pulling the top off, he pulls out a frilly navy blue dress, transparent but with another dress under it. "I thought you'd like it. I've been working on clothes when I'm trying to relax."
If anything brings cheer back to a room, it is stuff like this. "Ohhh, I feel like a Barbie doll with meat on her bones." Dee puts her hands together and bats her eyes over at Magnes before cracking and just smiling. "It's very cute." Her hands land inside to pick it up carefully from the box. "By all means, work on clothes while you relax." He's getting better! She even stops to examine some of the inside stitching- habit.
It's clear he's had his share of screwups on the inside stitching, but Magnes seemed to make a pretty sturdy dress, and made sure it looked good on the outside. "Since all my future convention costumes are done for a while, I just thought I'd focus on dresses and things for you and Claire. Can I see you in it?"
"Sure." If it is for the sake of free clothes- She may as well. As she gets up to move to the next room, Delilah nods towards the kitchen. The spaghetti should be heated up again by now. There should be enough for both of us, I think." And with that, she practically sashays off to try it on. Sure, Magnes can be creepy like that, asking girls to try things on- but maybe he's just being inherently curious instead.
Magnes is indeed curious! He wants to see his work, because he is actually not creepy enough to try the dresses on himself. He heads into the kitchen, grabbing two bowls, then starts serving the spaghetti while she's getting dressed. "Let's eat ice cream and watch a movie after this." he suggests, and indeed they will!
