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| Scene Title | In The Arms Of An Angel |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Felix wakes up in… heaven? Hell? An anonymous motel room? Thankfully, there's an angel watching over him in the bathroom wings. |
| Date | March 30, 2009 |
So where are you?
You're in some motel room.
You just wake up and you're in…
… in a motel room. There's the key.
It feels like maybe it's the first time you've been here but…
… perhaps you've been there for a week…
… three months, it's…
It's kind of hard to say, I… I don't know.
It's just an anonymous room.
It is anonymous. The walls are painted a wan blue. The carpet is a dirty beige. It was once one of those generic motor court motels, but in the aftermath of the Bomb and its chaos, ivy has crept up, over the railings - its shadows flicker and shift in the dim morning light that comes in through the sheer curtains. The heavy curtains that block light have been drawn back, but the gauzy ones still conceal whoever might be passing on the breezeway beyond.
Fel's eyes are also blue, cloudlessly so. Not innocent, not with the lines graven in his face, but as empty as puddles reflecting the sky. Untroubled, perhaps. He's on his back, on the bed, presumably wearing nothing more than the sheet….and spends a good while contemplating the cracked plaster of the ceiling, before his gaze flickers from one side to the other. That this is a motel is obvious. Who he is, and what he's doing in one? Utterly a mystery.
Also… who's in the bathroom?
There's the sound of a shower running behind closed doors although by the time that Felix's perceptions have sharpened up enough to notice it, the din almost immediately comes to an end. Was it a dream? Hallucination? An echo heard from someone else's room with poor insulation between here and there to blame? Everything about the silence that surrounds him seems suddenly louder without the innocuous cotton cloud of white noise buffering the Federal Agent's precious eardrums against the restless realities of Staten Island life proceeding in a business-as-usual fashion just on the other side of the scuffed and dingy door of his motel room share with… who?
A familiar face — but, not likely the one he might have been expecting in such a set up — belonging to a young woman he once met under eerily similar circumstances as he sought out another anonymous room for the night. She doesn't really have pink hair. Surprise, surprise. Clad only in whatever the place considers to be a 'clean' towel, it's John Logan's lil' whorphan Bebe who emerges from the bathroom, all freshly showered and combed and as neatly kempt as she can be without a full Macy's make-up counter — not that she really needs one to look pretty. It's arguable that she looks much nicer in this natural capacity. Noting Felix's eyes are open when she finally rounds the corner of the bed, she sits down on 'her' side gently, weight displacing the mattress almost imperceptibly, and notes the obvious with a sweetened smile, "You're awake."
His face is a study in puzzlement. He knows her, but he's not sure from where or who she is. It's disturbing, that fog of confusion. Fel sits up, hastily, tucking the sheet around his waist, even as he begins to shiver - goosebumps appearing on the pale skin. It takes him a moment to muster concentration enough to speak. "Who're you?" His tone isn't particularly accusing - it's more uncertain, unhappy. His deathwounds are now silvery scars over his heart and on his flank, as if long, long healed. And then his voice drops, wobbles, on the edge of not quite tears, "Who am I?"
Taking Felix's seemingly strange inquiries in casual stride, Bebe slides on a slightly slyer smile and serves up a somewhat sardonic reply. She really can't help herself. The opportunity to use the perfect hooker line rarely presents itself as often as people might think.
"Who do you want me to be?"
Of course, Bebe's delivery is subtly flawed in the face that she's having a hard time not looking at Felix as if she'd never seen a man half-naked before. She can't keep her eyes off of his chest and even reaches out to stroll a pair of fingers over his new old scars, fingertips tracing ticklish trails around wounds that had, until very recently, been fatal. How fascinating. He's a real, live boy — man, er — Federal Agent. They're their own special species. Homo arrestus.
"I'm Bebe," she finally concedes a bit more silently, lifting her gaze even while she's still got a palm placed on the man's chest. "And your name is Felix."
His face is still open, vulnerable, in a way that few've ever seen. Almost frightened. He looks down, gaze following her hand. He doesn't seem to object, but nor is he reacting as one might expect a naked guy with a nearly naked young woman touching him in a motel bed to react. When she lays her hand flat against his chest, the heart's too-swift racketing can be felt, behind the cage of his ribs. He's too thin, bones and sinews stark at the joints, though he's muscled well enough. His gaze meets hers. That, at least, is the truth. "What are we doing here?" he whispers, as if this were a conspiracy.
"You were sleeping," comes Bebe's quiet reply, as if Felix only needed to be updated on the last two minutes of his life that he hadn't lost instead of the previous two days that he had. "I was waiting," she adds, her whispered words punctuated by a semicolon as a few drops of water find their way free of Bebe's wet, combed hair and mutedly make their mark on the sheet currently covering Felix's nearer thigh. She's not exactly the most vivid storyteller in the world, is she?
But then, seemingly out of the blue, she wonders with a genuine shade of care curling off the tip of her tongue, "How do you feel?"
Fear is there, at the back of the blue eyes. All the worse for being indefinable. "I'm cold," he says, plaintively. "Really cold." It takes a long time for the body to warm back up from the chill of north Atlantic water, when all you've got is that internal combustion to help. And some chill lingers. He gropes blindly for the blankets, fingers stiff, to wrap them awkwardly around himself. "I… waiting for me to wake? Why? How do I know you? I know I should. I just don't know how," His voice is very low, hoarse, but he's managing to keep the whine out of it.
"Here. Lay down," she says, making a vague gesture to the bed before she vacates the space she'd been occupying on the edge and begins to pull up the frayed edges of the blanket and then the single-ply comforter until they're both brought up to Felix's shoulders. Aw. She's tucking him in. It's very sweet. Right up until she waltzes over to the other side, lets her towel find her feet and then slips in underneath all three layers of cheap motel linens in order to press her bare skin to his and — HI! Did someone order a little borrowed body heat?
Once she's managed to tuck in and snuggle up, she confesses to his shoulder, "You've been asleep for a long time. I had to make sure you were okay. You've been through a lot recently…"
His skin is still chilly. But that doesn't last long - he flushes, embarrassed, even as she cuddles up, and the shivers calm. No, he's not dressed under the sheets. "What happened to me?" Well, at least she knows. That's enough to iron some of the unease out of his voice, though it goes a little dreamy and vague, instead. "How long was I out? And where are we?" Disturbingly, there's still a faint note of seawater clinging to his skin and hair.
Bebe knows he's naked. It's nothing she hasn't seen before. And the scent of seawater that mingles with the chill of his skin reminds his borrowed hooker guardian of someone else she'd much rather be clinging to than him and it spurs her to curl her fingers just a little bit closer to the place where his rapidly beating heart bangs away within his chest. "You were hurt," she states plaintively, the heat from her breath playing in invisible waves against the side of his neck almost affectionately. "Not long," she goes on to explain, lying in a relative way, as anyone who's been dead for more than a minute has probably been out for longer than they should have been. More than a day? That's a goddamned eternity. "We're in a motel on Staten Island. Don't worry. It's safe." A beat. "You're safe."
Under her hand, his heart begins to slow. Not dangerously so, just the edge of the adrenaline bleeding off. He sighs, and shifts, relaxing next to her. "Do you know who hurt me?" he asks, tone almost confiding. "And why are you helping me? Why are you with me?" It's addressed more to the ceiling than to her, since she's comfortably tucked under his chin.
"Stop asking so many questions," she croons, curling her chin and resting her cheek against Felix's bony shoulder in an attempt to pretend she's cuddling up naked next to someone he isn't. The illusion works better if she can't directly see his face… and if he'd just. stop. talking. "You need to rest." Bebe closes her eyes and breathes deep, feigning a sigh in order to take in what she can of the salty sea lingering in his pores.
He tries. He honestly does. But it doesn't last long, before he grows restless, and sits up. He is tired, by the droop in his shoulders. "Where're my clothes?" he asks, as if it'd just occurred to him. Perhaps it has. "I'm sorry, you can sleep," he says, swinging his legs over to the side of the bed, and sitting there.
Sighing somewhat defeatedly, Bebe props herself up on her elbows and cranes her head ever so slightly in order to glare balefully at Felix's bare back. Despite this, her voice sounds remarkably benign when she says, "Second drawer." The first drawer holds only a copy of the Gideon Bible. Having somehow managed to trade places with the man she's supposed to be minding, she issues a slightly softer plea, "You don't have to go…"
That painfully thin back - despite the muscle, the bones of the spine are apparent, like a string of beads. He pulls the bible out of the drawer, snorts at it, and puts it back, gently. He pauses in rummaging in the second drawer, to eye her guilelessly. "I…." And it's then he realizes he's not sure where he -could- go, and his shoulders droop in defeat. "I know I don't live here," he finishes, lamely, even as he pulls a pair of pants out of the drawer. Jeans, which prove a little too loose when he dons them, making him tug at the waistband impatiently.
Apparently, death makes for a great dieting technique. It's a great way to instantly shed excess water weight. Ha. Aha. Ha. Ah, yeah, anyways…
"Maybe you should stay until you get your memory back," is the only sort of suggestion that Bebe has to offer. After all, she doesn't have a clue where he lives, either. They're both in the same boat there.
His own reflection catches him, with an oddly childlike interest. So many scars, and no meaning to attach to them. Felix touches them, gingerly - arm, shoulder, the star over his heart. "Those are gunshot wounds," he murmurs, frowning. "I…." He lifts an arm, cranes to look at the saber cut over his hip. He turns back to her. "Will you help me?" His voice is an uneven rasp, and the fear is there again, welling up like dark water, making him tremble. "Why don't I remember?"
God. He's so pitiful. Bebe isn't jaded enough to hide behind any armor cast over her own heart. With one arm hung against her chest, shielding her bare skin from the air and Felix's blue eyes, more out of respect for his modesty instead of hers. Sliding out from under the sheets and slipping back beneath the towel she'd discarded earlier, Bebe again slinks in to the bathroom to reclaim the clothes she'd left neatly folded on the floor between the toilet and the sink. No need to embarrass them both by continuing the parade around naked.
Bebe's brows relax from their fret and she tries to console him with hollow words, which sound oddly all the more insincerely when delivered from within the echoing depths of the bathroom with the door only left open an inch. "You will. It'll just… take some time. A day. Maybe more…" She doesn't honestly know for sure and Mu-Qian didn't precisely provide a chart to reconcile memory loss in accordance with time served to the Reaper before the Fed entered her care.
He's hardly in any condition to make much by way of advances, no matter how toothsome the little one roaming around that motel room. She's not his to touch. He tugs on a t-shirt, and a hoodie over that, with no self-consciousness. Nevermind that he'd never be caught dead in one of those, back in his real life. "Thank you," he says, humbly, though he doesn't sound terribly reassured. When she re-emerges, he's sitting on the bed, awkwardly.
When Bebe finally does find her way out, she looks startlingly mundane and not at all like a card-carrying member of the hooker hostel crowd; a blue ringer t-shirt that proclaims STOP WARS in a silkscreened fashion font purposefully meant to be reminiscent of a certain space opera movie that debuted in the 70's, fashionably faded jeans, and petite bare feet.
"You're welcome," she replies readily before claiming the space about three inches over on his left-hand side. "Look. All I know is… your name is Felix. Ivanov." First name, last name, carefully enunciated. "If you head back over to the mainland, see if you can't find a cop. They should be able to help you find your way home."
Felix Ivanov. He mouths it back to her, as if committing it to memory. "I'll try that," he says, uncertainly, and pushes off the bed, before stooping to lace on his boots. Stained, but cleaned, and still his. "I should go," he says, awkwardly. "Try and ….I don't know."
"…get some sleep?" It's not precisely the most helpful of suggestions but it does seem to be the most sensible one Bebe might be able to make at the moment. Otherwise, she just sort of stands there, shoulders curled up around her ears, both hands tucked awkwardly into front pockets, looking every ounce as lost as Felix does.
One last thought occurs to her before she feels confident enough to just let him walk out of the motel room unescorted. Directions. "You need to go down to Fresh Kills and find yourself a ferryman. Ask around for a man named Jack. Tell him Bebe sent you. If he's not available, make sure you get on a boat that's got other people goin' ashore, too, okay?" The unspoken implication is that bad things happen to men who might be inclined to travel alone. In fact…
"On second thought, I'll just go with you. Let me grab my jacket."
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