Participants:
Scene Title | Locked In The Pantry |
---|---|
Synopsis | It is the way this story ends. |
Date | April 23, 2010 |
Staying in one place is more helpful as of late; though Delilah has had her misadventures to and fro, to various places like the snow desert that is the park, and to Francois's place to make dinner- it is a relief to be able to have a place to stay when she needs it. She hasn't quite been able to make it to her own home, though perhaps that is partly her own doing. Samson is off somewhere in the house, possibly bothering Alicia, leaving Delilah with Else trying to get as warm as they can possibly get. The sitting room has turned into an ocean of bedding, it looks like. Blankets, pillows, little gas heaters. While cooped up again, Delilah has brought back quite a bit of reading material that she is currently hiding under her blankets to browse through. Currently, she is going through the yellow pages; the tome is opened up to the O section, here and there a circle mark.
"Some of these names- oh my god- there's a Doctor Richard Kuntz."
Snowshoes. Fucking snowshoes. That's how Alex's getting around these days. He's frozen, teeth chattering, shoulders hunched, as he comes in, hastily shutting the door against the arctic cold. Miserable telekinetics are miserable, and he's issuing a stream of profanity under his breath. With the weather being what it is, of course his breath steams as he speaks, making it look as if the words themselves are smoking.
Else is dancing, this is unusual.
Flouncing down from the second floor in a fashion that only the willowy blonde could, she is bouncing to a rhythm only she can hear, stringy blonde hair swishing from side to side as she shakes her head, a plastic cup of Jell-O pudding in one hand, spoon in the other, a little smudgeof brown on her bottom lip and large headphones seated atop her head and an iPod tucked into the back pocket of her jeans.
"So let me hold you tight and share a— Killer, diller, chiller," Else walks backwards into the living room, bare feet scuffing across the old and worn carpet as she sort've kind've tries to moonwalk, "thriller here toniiiiight!" Turning around and about to bounce head long into the livingroom, Else stops immediately when she sees not only Alexander but Delilah downstairs as well. It's not Else's fault she only just woke up at this retarded house, but it is her fault for being a complete boob at times.
Immediately whipping off her headphones to reveal the tinny noise of Thriller pounding over the earmuff headphones, Else just stares blankly with wide, dark eyes at the pair of ginger ninjas that apparently snuck in when she was sleeping thorugh the day.
"Ah! You look like an orange popsicle-" And apparently Else has been fighting the cold by dancing. Delilah's train of thought derails for the most part when Else stops after her instance of crazy dancing and pudding-eating. The redheaded girl gives the older one a squint, glancing over at Alexander a moment. "Nice. I guess there's pudding here, do you want some?"
Delilah snickers, fluffing up her blankets around her and reaching out one bundled arm to the air, offered to either or both of her friends. "So who wants to share? I've got room in here if someone's chilly. Cozy under here if y'ask me."
Alexander looks like Bergman's version of death, as he lowers the hood on his hoodie. His pokerface is absolutely flawless, especially now that he's back to his pallid, redheaded self. He just lifts a copper brow at Else. Not scolding, not stern, but very definitely demanding that she Explain Herself. "Sure," he says in that honey-slow drawl, glancing to Delilah.
"There's— no more pudding." Else stumbles out the epxlanation, which is to say; I ate all the pudding judging from her guilty expression. Reaching down one hand to turn off the iPod in her back pocket, she also tucks her cleaned spoon away there and offers a nervous, brown-eyed stare at Alexander before toe-stepping across the floor over to where Delilah's made herself queen of the sofa. There's a look to the basement door, then back to the couch.
"S'like ten degrees warmer upstairs," Else notes with a wrinkle of her nose, "but pro'ly 'cause we gots like, six space heaters goin. Joseph's got his big four-legged heater runnin' round 'ere too, I make sure to let 'er warm the feet've my bed every night, s'wonderful, if not a bit furry."
Else's accent is inscrutably European but awkwardly difficult to place. When she offers a look to Alexander, there's a furrow of her brows as she takes a step over to the redhead, offering out her free hand. "I don't think we've had the chance t'meet," Else notes with a tip of her head towards the telekinetic, "Else, Kjelstrom." The latter of which is added softer, because celebrity is sometimes a bother.
"I apologize for th' puddin' crisis, Lette's not been back with supplies on account of getting herself all shot up, so the supply chain's a bit slow. Well," Else grimaces, "weather too can't be helpin' much. Weather'n bullets."
"That's something I know I won't be allowed to do anymore. I was never too good at the ninja stuff." No more ninja for Dee. She smiles at the mention of Joseph's dog, briefly wondering where hers went off to. Samson doesn't have much in the way of fur, but he's big enough that it hardly matters. He's probably off planning a coup with Alicia. "I can't believe you ate all the pudding. At least you'll gain some weight, you're like a skeleton sometimes." Delilah admonishes Else for that because it presents itself well with the pudding shenanigans.
"I happen to like body heat more than heater heat. It regulates better. …Or something."
"It's comforting," Alex says, quietly. "Humans are pack animals." He's done unstrapping hsi snowshoes and they are set by the door, before he advances towards the singer, offering a pallid hand. Hey, he's trying to act like a real human being. "I'll forgive you for the lack of pudding," he adds, deadpan.
"Or yer jus' a li'l hussy snugglewhore," Else quips teasingly, dark brows lifting and head waggling from side to side in a mn-hmm motion with her lips pursed. "S'olright though, we all got's our vices, yeah? Better t'be addicted t'lanky gingers than the blue fairy or somthin' right?" Waggling her brows, Else paces around the coffee table and towards her favorite recliner, even if she had a bleeding coniption-fit in it when infected, it's still her favorite chair goddamnit.
"Oh hey!" Else nows as she throws herself down into the chair, swinging long legs over the arm, "s'this the da' of your little parasite?" The blonde playfully asks, squirming when she realizes that the awkward pain jabbing her in back is the coupling of a spoon and an iPod in her rear pocket. Pulling them both out she tosses the spoon noisily with a clatter onto the coffee table, then adds the empty pudding cup before looking up to Delilah, scrolling through her iPod with a furrow of her brows.
"If'n e'is, I bet you the kid's are gonna' come out os ginger they burst in'na flames." Very helpful, Else.
Delilah is on Al's blind side- making vague gestures at Else when she starts taking about dads and parasites and ginger children bursting into flames. First it's the universal shaking her hands in front of her, and then at one point she cuts a gesture across her throat at the blonde. IX-NAY ON THE EGNANCYPRAY.
It's too little too late, in any case, and it leaves Delilah covering up her mouth and kneading her eyebrows to look at Alexander, waiting for his reaction, if anything notable at all. He might just look at her funny! Who knows.
Wait. What. What? Alexander -stares- at first Else, and then Delilah, like the former just started lecturing him in Ancient Assyrian. "…..you're pregnant," he says, in tones of utter incredulity. "….." He's opened his mouth as if to ask further questions, but they're apparently just jamming up at the back of his throat. All that issues forth is a croak like the death rattle of a tree frog.
"Oh hey y'know wot," Else bubbles out with as she slithers out of the chair, circles behind it like a shield and starts slinking towards the kitchen, "I'm— goin' t'check th'pantry for— pudding!" There's a toothily awkward grin on the blonde's lips as she walks backwards through the living room and away from Delilah and Alexander before heading into the open-concept kitchen, still quite in plain sight, then scuffs bare feet over the peeling yellow linoleum before opening the pantry door, stepping in and closing the door soundly.
It'll be much harder for Delilah to kill Else if she's hiding behind the baked beans.
Delilah squeezes her eyes shut, running palms over her face. Uuuuugh. Not how she wanted him to find out. Her hands cup at her cheeks, and brown eyes meet Jesse's with a sigh. "That's not how I wanted to let you know." She tilts her head, apologetic, and then glares somewhat angrily into the direction of the kitchen. Oh, that Else. Meddler!
"Nonetheless, it's how I did," Alex says, about as expressive as a marble bust of a pharoah. He doesn't seem angry. Not yet, anyhow. "Not that it's any of my business. You gonna keep it?" he asks, oh so casually. Not 'who's the father', not 'Congratulations'.
"Yes." Delilah raises a bit of a brow at Alexander, though her embarrassed features don't quite leave. "I had a plan to tell everyone- I wanted to tell you next time I saw you- but not like that." She scratches at her neck, glancing around before meeting his gaze again. "Wanted to sit my good friends down to tell them." She meant to do it well, though now his seeming apathy isn't helping her frame of mind much.
"But, yeah, I'm keeping him. I'm a bit over ten weeks now. Found out when I got better, cause I was still sick. Morning Sickness." She laughs a little at that.
The telekine nods. He….really isn't mustering up any of the pleasantries he should. Just not. "Who's the father - do you know?" It….it's not meant as meanly as it sounds.
It sounds worse than it is, of course. Delilah gives him a small skeptical look. But, as he is him, she gives him the benefit of the doubt here and blames it on shock. "Teo." Perhaps the thing he least wanted to hear- and perhaps he had an itching feeling about this situation anyway. He's too hard to read, even if Delilah knew every story.
"Good news!" Comes the noise from behind the pantry door before it opens, and Else come stepping out wavign a can around. "We're fresh out've puddin', but I've discovered a can'a halves pears in syrup behind a jar've I'm not sure but it's red and lumpy so we might— " Else pauses there, in the doorway, staring out at Alexander and Delilah before she raises her dark brows slidly, slides her tongue across the front of her teeth and wordlessly backs into the pantry again, closing the door behind herself.
Al was already pale. But now he's just -blanched-. Paper aspires to this shade. And without another word, he's heading for the door. It's damn near impossible to storm out when you have to stop and strap on snowshoes, so he's not stomping. He's just silent. There's not even the faint hum of power that means he's clamping down.
"Jesse-" Delilah can't seem to formulate much more than that in calling out for him, and she can't exactly jump up to go after him- He is silent in his moving away, so it makes her pleading tone all the more clear.
The door opens, admitting a gust of icy air, and then closes gently behind him. And Al's just gone.
Somewhere between the baked beans and the cream corn, Else is wishing that she'd seen this coming. Some prophet she turned out to be, maybe she can write a cryptic song about how bloody sorry she is, here, in the dark, on a napkin.