Participants:
Scene Title | He's Not My Boyfriend |
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Synopsis | Elle finally spills the beans on her assignments from the Institute, and finds herself the bearer of the full brunt of Odessa's volatile emotional response. |
Date | August 27, 2010 |
The Octagon - Elle's Apartment
The apartments of the Octagon are among some of the most prime pieces of rental real-estate in New York City. Bright, open, and clean, these apartments are all painted an eggshell white and feature floor-to-ceiling windows that offer a sweeping, unobstructed view of the East River and Manhattan skyline. Hardwood floors spread from wall to wall and through the spacious bedrooms and private laundry rooms complete with washer/dryer utilities.
The open-concept kitchen in the apartment features stainless steel appliances, polished granite countertops, cherry finished cabinets and ceramic floor tile with all the convenience of a modern kitchen. The bathrooms are finished with classic subway wall tile and porcelain floor tile in bathrooms with elegantly designed corner-set curved showers providing more spacious shower area along with porcelain pedestal sinks.
Each apartment comes in two or three bedroom designs, each with spacious walk-in closets with individually controlled heating and cooling. The apartment is also set up with free Cable TV and Internet hook-ups in multiple locations.
Life has been hectic lately. Elle's still been working for the Company all this time, and has been miserable about it the entire time. Add that to the big heap of troubles that the electric blonde has had laid in her lap recently, and it makes for a pretty unhappy Elle Bishop. Some nights she comes home. Other nights she disappears to places unknown— to Odessa, at least.
Last night was one such night. She left for Fort Hero early yesterday morning, and never came back home. At least, not until now. She's wearing different clothes than she was when she left yesterday, too, wearing a billowy black skirt that trails down below her knees, coupled with a soft grey tank top, and an adorable pair of heels as is her style. She also wears a frown and an exhausted look on her face as she sets her purse on the table near the door, which she bumps shut with her rear.
The heels are rather quickly removed and set to one side, and the electric blonde promptly makes her way to the couch, and just…sits. "Oh GOD it feels so good to sit!"
Odessa looks up from the trashy romance novel she's been reading on Elle's couch when the other woman comes in. She pulls her knees up to her chest and stares at the blonde expectantly. "Where the hell have you been? Do you have any idea how boring it gets around here?"
Elle promptly lays back, taking up a good half of the couch as she peers quietly down at Odessa. Moreso, the trashy romance novel. "…How do you even get into that shit? It's so corny." She rolls her eyes, before lifting a hand to rub at them. "I've been working a lot." Well, technically it is kind of work, spending time with Warren. She's the one who has been assigned to keep tabs on him and keep him in line, after all.
"I'm bored," Odessa offers again as way of defense for her choice in reading material. Even if she would read it if she wasn't bored out of her skull. "Working? So much that you don't even come home at night?" A marker is put into the book before it's unceremoniously tossed onto the coffee table and the other girl sits up a little straighter. The White Witch is not buying your shit, Blondie.
The blonde offers a small shrug, crossing her legs and leaning to the side to peer at Odessa with a thoughtful look on her face. "It's an extra special assignment, given to me by Harper himself." She shrugs. "It requires me to not sleep at my apartment some nights." And go on dates, and then accompany a crazy man to things that insane cult leaders do.
"What? Has he got you on a stake out or something? I mean, you could have warned me that I would be here by myself so much. I'd make more effort to go and find other things to do." Within reason. A girl can't do much when she's supposed to be dead. "I just…" Odessa shrugs. "I worry when you don't come home. I worry the Company's found you out and locked you up."
"Hm. In less than a week, Company shit will be over and done with, according to Broome. I only hope these last few days pass quickly. I'm sick of that place. And even if they did find me out, which they haven't, I don't know if Daddy would have the heart to do anything, after…well." She shakes her head. "No, there's no stakeout. I'm kinda babysitting an investment of the Institute's. Keeping him in line. From getting into too much trouble." She rubs the back of her neck, sitting up now and resting the small of her back against the arm of the couch.
"Him?" Now Odessa really sits up to take notice, leaning in toward Elle with keen interest sparkling in her good eye. "You've got a boyfriend assignment?" What other possible reason could there be for sleeping over? Sometimes, Odessa's mind operates rather simplistically.
Normally, Elle is quite good at hiding what she's thinking or feeling. But as Odessa leans in and accuses her of having a boyfriend assignment, the little electric blonde's cheeks flush as she eyes Odessa from the other side of the couch. "He's not my boyfriend…" She doesn't sound quite convinced of that herself. Stupid assignments that require her to spend long amounts of time with men that she inevitably ends up liking a little too much.
"So he's just an assignment boyfriend, then?" Odessa's no stranger to pretending she has feelings for someone to get what she wants. When she grins, it's wicked. "What kind of asset is he anyway? A brainy little scientist?"
A quick nod greets Odessa's question, Elle crossing her legs and peering at Odessa. "Something like that, yeah. He's an engineer type." She eyes Odessa for a long moment with a strangely knowing look. "I suppose they'll be using him to build some crazy machines-o-death or something." She shrugs. "My job is to just keep him from causing any damage. Surprisingly easy."
"Damage? What? Is he crazy or something?" Says the murderous little bitch with only one eye who tried to kill the only girl friend she ever really had over a boy who never loved her in the first place. "Sounds dreadful. Tell me all about it!"
Elle shakes her head, chuckling quietly. "Yeah. He's crazy. Multiple Personalities. It's…quite interesting, really. I've met all three of them. Even though he's still the same guy, everything changes. The way he talks, the way he moves, his facial expressions…" The way he kisses. She shrugs, doing her best not to sound like she enjoys his company as much as she really does. "He adores me, though."
"Multiple personalities?" A delicately arched white brow quirks up over the patch on Odessa's left eye. "Now that's interesting. You mean like Niki Sanders? I've only met one other person like that."
At this point, Elle almost wants to see if Odessa realizes who it is she's talking about. The girl nods. "Yup, like Niki Sanders. Except his sane personality isn't the one in control the majority of the time." She tilts her head toward Odessa.
Odessa missed out on all the moments like this. It's horribly teenage, this gossip about boys. But never has she been in a position where such information would be bandied about in her presence. Never has she actually cared before. "Spit it out, woman! What's his name?" Or names as the case may be.
Elle gets an almost amused grin on her face as Odessa squirms over the lack of a name, snickering softly. Oh it's so fun to to mess with her like this. "Well…" She pauses, glancing to the woman. "Usually, he goes by Warren Ray. The other two personalities don't really come out too often…" She's purposely drawing this out, that much is obvious.
Perhaps surprisingly, Odessa looks relieved. Consequently, her interest seems to wane almost entirely. She leans back against her side of the couch, staring up at the ceiling and draping her arm over her head to dangle languidly. "Nope! Don't know him!"
Elle doesn't seem too surprised. She knows the story behind Warren's new name now, after plenty of time spent in his company. "His other personalities, though…are known as Mortimer and Alex." She waits for it, leaning slightly away from Odessa. She might as well know that she's going to be working with the guy.
Odessa sits up so quickly it leaves her feeling woozy. "Mortimer?!" she shrilly cries. "You mean like Mortimer Jack?!" Instantly, the woman is on her feet, her hand pressed to her chest as she stares down at Elle with a wide gaze. "Tell me it isn't!"
Elle expected as much for this conversation, especially after hearing Warren's opinion of Odessa. "He used to go by Mortimer Alex Jack, yes. Jack renamed himself Warren once he found out that it was his real name." She shrugs, arching a brow up at Odessa, resting her chin in the palm of her hand. Then, she spreads her arms, shrugging. "Harper assigned me to Warren when I first agreed to work for the Institute. He was already very fond of me, even asked Harper for my number. So…I'm keeping an eye on him. Keeping him in check." She tilts her head toward Odessa.
Odessa goes staggers back from the shock of it and stumbles up against the coffee table, winding up tumbling ass-over-tea-kettle onto the floor on the other side. She pops up again with a gasp, coming up with her open hand to flip back the curtain of hair from her face to give way to her incredulous stare. "He- But- Where is he?"
Far from simply bewildered now, Odessa is incensed.
The little blonde arches a brow. "He's in New York." She leans back on the couch, rubbing at her feet. "He's Institute property. I wouldn't mess with him." Elle tilts her head toward Odessa, tapping at her chin. Then, she stands, promptly making her way to the kitchen to pour herself something to drink.
"Where is he?!" Odessa is quick to follow after Elle, her footsteps stomping compared to the blonde's. "I will kill him! I don't care what the Institute has to say about it!" In all her fury, Odessa is only barely able to restrain herself from reaching out to grab the other woman. To threaten physically. It wouldn't end well for one of them.
"No, I'm not telling you where he is." Elle pulls down a glass from the cabinet, opening the fridge and pulling out the lemonade. "And if you were to kill him, I'm 100% willing to bet that they would put you in one of those nice coma coffins. Just like they'd put me in one for losing their investment." She pours herself some of the lemonade, setting it back in the fridge.
Odessa's palm slaps against the door of the fridge just after Elle has turned away from it, shaking the appliance and its contents slightly. "He drugged and kidnapped me, Elle!" She's not quite frothing, but a few flecks of spit did perhaps fly. "He's fucking crazy!" And she may be the utmost authority on crazy in this room currently.
"He put me in this room," Odessa begins to explain, nearing close enough to the other woman to be severely invading her personal bubble. "Somebody took my clothes and put me in this fucking nightgown. He decided that I was just some junkie and that I was either going to tell him why I liked to shoot up so he could fix me, or he was just going to vivisect me instead." Her gaze narrows to a furious sliver and the woman with the white hair leans in close enough for a spark of static electricity to jump between the tips of their noses. She acts as if she doesn't notice. "Do you even know what that word means or should I get the dictionary out for you?"
"You think I didn't know that, Odessa? I spend way too much time with the fucker. He is crazy." Elle's eyes narrow, and she does just that, sending a spark from her nose to Odessa's. "That sounds quite like him. Experimental surgery on a living specimen." After a moment of a staredown, the electric blonde promptly steps around Odessa, making her way into the living room. "But then you slept with him, right? Or were you going to tell me about that part?" She asks this in a rather nonchalant voice as she sits down on the couch once more, sipping at her lemonade.
Odessa is positively seething when the other woman steps past her. "He raped me!" she screams at the top of her lungs. "He was going to cut me into pieces! What was I supposed to do? Lay there and let it happen? I did what I had to to get out of there!" No doubt Warren Ray has a completely different version of the events.
"He grabbed me and started dragging me down the bed and the nightgown hiked up and he suddenly backed away and said he couldn't break his vow." Odessa's shaking as she tells the story in its entirety. Something she didn't even do when Teo and Francois wondered why she was covered in bruises, and sobbing. "I saw a way out. I told him I would lay there and I would let him if he would just let me go." Fat tears well up in the woman's eyes, spilling down one cheek. "I didn't want to. I just didn't want to die. It was rape, Elle. That son of a bitch raped me."
While Odessa missed out on things like girl talk and the like, Elle missed out on emotional matters. There is an almost deer in the headlights look that passes over her face as Odessa screams that little factoid out, a rare glimpse into her thoughts: what the hell do I do now?
As the tears begin to fall, Elle frowns, setting her drink on the end table. Then, she raises to her feet, and almost awkwardly attempts to wrap her arms around Odessa in a hug. Her voice is softer as she speaks this time. "Look…'Dessa…" She frowns, stumbling over what to say.
"What he did to you was horrible…and god damn if I'm not going to beat the shit out of him for it…but I don't want to see you in a coma coffin, just as much as I don't want to be in one. This is our second chance, 'Dessa, and I'm not going to let Warren ruin that." She sighs, leaning her head against Odessa's. "I promise, Warren Ray will never come near you again, so long as I have anything to do with it. I promise."
Odessa wraps her arms around Elle's thin frame and sobs into her shoulder. Her own body shakes violently from the emotion as it just pours out of her, like blood from a freshly opened wound. "And the next time I ran into him, he said I deserved it!" Her fingers curls against and ball up the dark fabric of Elle's shirt.
"I can make it look like an accident," Odessa whispers against the side of Elle's neck. "They would never know. They would never, ever know. We'd be safe, and he'd be dead."
Elle frowns, squeezing Odessa as the girl sobs. How do people do this whole consoling thing? The electric blonde really isn't quite sure what to do in this situation. For a long moment, she's quiet, her brow furrowing. "Please, Odessa…I can't. They know I don't really like this job, but I have to keep him safe. They'd blame me, I'm sure." Whether this is true or not, she doesn't know.
What she doesn't tell Odessa is that she rather likes the insane man's company. That's not something she needs to hear right now. That would likely be poorly received. "Please, I promise. He won't come near you ever again. If he does, then it's completely out of my hands, but don't go out of your way. Please?"
Odessa lifts her head slowly, a hiccup making it bob slightly as she reaches up to wipe her tears away. They're quickly replaced by fresh ones. "Fine. But if he crosses my path, all bets are off." Tipping her chin up, trying to give herself more dignity than she feels she has right now, she informs Elle, "I think I'm going to bed now," and starts toward her room at a slowly shuffling pace.
"That works for me. Thank you, Odessa." Elle stands there for a moment, fidgeting, before looking down to the ground. "…Sleep well, Odessa. I'm sorry if I spoiled your evening." An apology? From Elle Bishop? The world certainly must be coming to an end. After a moment, she pauses, tilting her head toward the woman.
"Odessa…before you go to bed, I was wondering." Elle runs a hand through her hair. "Did you hear any of the things I said when I found you? When I was waiting for Harper to come?"
The weary woman stops in the doorway. For a moment, she considers pretending she never heard the question, or just ignoring it entirely even if it's obvious. Instead, she turns and looks over her shoulder with a shake of her head. "No. I… didn't hear much of anything until Doctor Stevens was telling me that he essentially brought me back from the dead. Or from the brink. Or whatever it was." Odessa rakes her fingers through her hair and wipes away a fresh wave of tears. "Why?"
A somewhat sad look is cast to Odessa. For a moment, she considers brushing it off. Instead, she decides to reply. "…I'm sorry for setting your bed on fire. And I'm sorry for telling you that the ribbon you got me for my birthday was ugly. I still have it…I wore it when I was looking for you, and when I found you." She looks down to the ground. "I'm sorry I didn't see through Daddy's lies and manipulation sooner."
For what seems like forever, Odessa just stares at Elle. She isn't quite sure how to react to the other woman's apologies. "I… I'm sorry, too," she murmurs softly, unclear if she means for Elle's mistakes or her own. "Good night, Elle."
It felt rather good to get that off of her chest, after so many years. Now just seemed like a fairly good moment to do so. Elle picks up her lemonade, flopping back down on the couch. "Good night, Odessa. Sleep well."