Participants:
| Scene Title | OopsDee Daisy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Whoopsie. Felix has a brush with Toad-Girl. |
| Date | March 25, 2009 |
The Nite Owl is a survivor from ages past - one of those ancient diners with huge plate glass windows, checkerboard linoleum floor, and a neon owl over the entrance that blinks at those entering. Inside, there's an L-shaped main counter, complete with vintage soda fountain and worn steel stools. All of the cooking is done on the ranges ranked against the rear wall. The outer wall is lined with booths upholstered in cracked scarlet vinyl, tables trimmed with polished chrome. Despite its age, it's been lovingly maintained. The air is redolent with the scent of fresh coffee, vanilla, and frying food.
——
This is a dark day, when someone in the NYPD has killed a child. Yes, in the context of a riot, when things do get out of hand. But Fel looks cadaverous and grim when he comes stalking into the owl. His hair is cut considerably shorter than when Del last saw him, a nearly military buzz, and he lacks his glasses, so he looks a little different. He drops into a seat at his usual booth, having hung his overcoat on the hooks at the booth's edge, and doesn't even bother to glance at the menu. He just angles it before him, in the 'I know what I want' manner.
"Get out here! You've got customers." The cook behind the counter says this soon after Felix comes in and seats himself, sticking his face past the door at the back of the kitchen space. In about 0.4 seconds, Delilah is back out of it, almost hitting the poor guy in the face. She seems tired, though not particularly worn. Didn't sleep well. After checking her uniform pocket for that telltale little pad, she makes her way over to Felix.
"Hey there. What can I get you?" Delilah takes note of the unopened menu, but doesn't reach for it yet.
It's an odd hour. Later than most have dinner, earlier than the 'this is one of the few places open 24 hours rush,'. Fel doesn't seem impatient, scrubbing at his face and jaw with a narrow palm, eyes sunken. "Coffee, decaf. A bowl of whatever the soup of the day is." He pauses and eyes her, playing an inadvertent peekaboo, before he lowers his hand to the worn Formica, and cocks his head. Where do I- must be from you working here. "Please," he tacks on to the end, gruffly.
"Right." Delilah gives the man her usual smile, slipping the menu off with her after she tacks down his order. It takes her all of half a minute to fetch the decaf pot from its machine, taking it over to fill one of the everpresent mugs on the tables for him. Before he has another chance to really pause with her there, she's off again to get the soup. It's not his fault that she's not opening her mouth about something- Delilah just finds herself to be more demure today.
Soon, she does come back with his soup; creamy chicken and potato. Effective for rainy weather and downtrodden spirits, really. The plate under it even has a thick slice of homemade bread tucked beside. "Is there anything else? I can come back in a bit if you'd like."
"I think that sounds good," he says, finally, still eyeing her as if his head hurt - there's that uneven blinking. "Thanks," he adds, again. Manners are always in short supply in New York, clearly. The skin around his eyes is tight, musing.
In that few seconds she's been standing there, her own face has the slightest fidgets of inner thought. There's something funny going on here. Brown eyes blink innocuously back at blue ones.
"…have we met before? You look familiar." The last time those words came out of her mouth, it was with Abby. Does this mean it's going down the same road?
"Possibly. I've been coming here for years," Fel says, mildly. He's in a suit, under that overcoat, long fingers fidgeting restlessly with the silverware. "How long've you worked here, if I may ask?" His tone is polite, formal, but the blue eyes are intensely curious.
Delilah opens and shuts her mouth a bit. "A few months. That must be why. I've probably seen you in here." Her hand flutters at the air beside her, and she lets out a tittering noise. "Lately I've been so blonde." And with that, the redhead pokes herself in the temple as a gesture of cluelessness.
Felix lets his eyes half-lid, amused. "A too recent dye-job?" he suggests, tone innocent.
"'Scuse me? This is a natural red, thank you very much." Delilah scoffs playfully, one hand flicking at her hair while her chin juts out proudly for a moment. "I've been told my inner child is more of a strawberry- that's where my blonde comes from." All in good fun.
Felix concedes the point with an inclination of his head. "My mistake," he says, unable to keep a chuckle from threading through his voice. "I'll add a half a turkey club to my order, if that's okay?"
"You got it." Delilah lifts her eyebrows as her smile grows, and her feet turn on their heels to go put together the second part of Felix's order. Polite strangers make her happy. It is only fair that she meet some kindred spirits once in awhile, right?
If only luck were ever that kind. Fat chance. Fel watches her go, still with that faint line graven between his brows, desperate to remember. And then it clicks into place, and his eyes widen. He looks away, abruptly, transferring his scrutiny to her retreating reflection in the window.
Oblivious, Delilah goes about giving the other order to his bill, the cook doing his work. Her attention has grazed away, and flickers back across the diner when Felix turns his eyes out the window. In a few minutes, when the club he ordered is finished and rang up for her to take, the redhead stacks away something in the register before taking it over. "Here you are. Bon appetit."
Felix puts a hand out to stop her, not quite pinning hers with his own. "You don't have another job, do you? Something in Chinatown?" No, it honestly wasn't a proposition. But Fel's eyes are keen, watchful.
At first, that might be what she thinks it was. Judging by the googly-moogly eyeballing that Felix gets. "Um. No, I don't. Not in Chinatown." Her answer is spoken in earnest, head tilting down at the man with his hand to hers. "I do a lot of things. I have to keep money in my pockets."
"Not in the market?" he persists, though. "Selling….some sort of food. Bread, or something," Clearly groping through memory. "You were there when that woman with the gun started freaking out."
True to form, Lilah reacts when he touches on the most recent public 'accident' she had. Her nostrils flare just enough to be noticed by someone trained like Felix, and the insides of her eyebrows wrinkle in worry. "I was buying. I- and? what do you want?" Her mood and tone decides to go from a frozen tongue to a questioning whisper. But as of yet, she has denied nothing Felix has said. Delilah just has no idea how to handle this. Her skin is not quite at its breaking point, nor has she moved her hand away from his.
Felix's tone is equally quiet. Not threatening, but still intent. "Was that you? Someone dosed her with some strange chemical. I figured it was an Evolved, deliberate or accidental, rather than an actual poisoning," he suggests, still watching her. It's not a comfortable sensation.
Shit, shit. She should have asked one of her many new friends for ways to handle this. Cat and Abby would know. Teo might just have told her to grab the nearest large object, throw it, and run.
"I- that-" The hopelessness of not having an answer strikes her, and little by little, the skin that Felix touches with his own will soon be accidentally absorbing that same chemical. Dee is right back at that deer in the headlights feeling. "It was an accident." She swallows and mutters, brown eyes still fixed on his. "I swear. I'm trying to take care of it- I just-" Suddenly, she gasps sharply, yanking her hand away from him. It's too late, obviously.
Felix lifts his hand, realizing what he's been doing, as well. "It's okay. If you need help learning to deal with it, a teacher can be fo-" Teo, had he advised that, would have been wise. Too late, indeed. He should've been expecting that. Perhaps, unconsciously, he was. He's up out of his seat with an uneven lurch, heading for the door after pulling way too much cash out and leaving it in lieu of going to the register to actually deal with his bill. He doesn't dare use his power, lest it only speed up what's happening now.
He doesn't so much open the door as shoulder through it, balance already starting to go. The next action is to fumble the gun out of its holster and hastily discard the magazine in the gutter. That should keep him from shooting Joe Random Civilian when he puts on the face of one of Fel's nightmares. It clatters to the pavement….but reholstering the gun now requires more hand eye coordination than he actually has available, and he simply stuffs it into a pocket, where it makes the suit sag out of shape. His actual coat's still hanging by the booth he was in. The sight of the gun has the nearest passers by all more or less fleeing. Crazy and armed, just what the world needs, especially after the riot. He turns, trying to make blurring vision resolve, and totters a few paces towards the entrance to the subway.
"Fffffffeck-" Delilah only realizes that he's dispatched himself when he shoulders his way out the door. Glancing to his coat, the food, then the coat again, Delilah scoops the former into her arms before bolting outside after him. Someone inside yells something about 'where are you going?' but the girl doesn't stop.
When she gets outside, however, there he is- unloading a gun's ammo into the gutter. Why does he have a gun? Jesus! Someone's going to beat his head in- "Hey! No! Wait!" Unfortunately, Dee has zero experience dealing with drugged individuals. "Come back!" This time when she speaks, Delilah starts after him at a trot, trying to move in front of Felix to block him from going any further. The last thing she needs to do is run away again. Every time that she does, things spiral out of control.
Sound is too loud, distorted, and there's a wind-tunnel roar in his ears. The tidal rush of blood, the susurrus of breath, deafen. His gait has gone comically uneven, all colt's wobble and scuff, though the sidewalk is perfectly clear. "Unnhh," he says, looking for something to cling to to keep himself upright. "Undo this," It's a curt order, as if she could. "I…." His pupils have whorled down to pinspots, and he crumples to one knee, and puts out a hand to the side of the bustop, just before the diner.
Even though the bustop is sturdy enough, Delilah feels that she needs to crouch down and make sure that Felix does not actually fall over and bash his head off the concrete. If that means helping him to actually sit down on the bus stop bench, so be it. She'll be watching that her hands and arms stay away from skin contact, however, and one is even tucked safely under his coat thrown over one arm.
Felix is light enough that she can at least assist him in directing himself, if not actually pulling him up onto the bench. Either way, on the concrete or on the bench, Dee is trying to make him sit down. "I can't." Her apology is in her voice, virtually right by his ear. "It's a drug. It'll go away- I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was happening." And right now, Lilah is doing her best to not freak out any more than she must. Doing well so far.
"I have a gun. I need you to reach under my arm and take it out," he says, quickly, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes. Vision is going weird, too. "Point it at the ground and rack the slide. Make sure there isn't a round in the chamber. Do you understand?" He finds the bench mostly by touch, slumps down, puts a burning cheek against the chill of the glass.
She knows he has a gun, and that is one reason this makes her nervous. There is a slim layer of secretion on her skin, but visibly she looks no different. Just careful. Delilah listens as closely as she can, putting a hand around Felix's side to find the firearm. "Yes. I got it." Curling her hand around the grip, the girl pulls the gun free and points it to the sidewalk. Passerby pretty much scatter at this point.
Despite the obvious flight of crowd, Lilah pulls the slide back to check the chamber, and ends up knocking out the remaining bullet. It clatters over the concrete and into the gutter. "Don't fall asleep. It'll take longer." Her voice starts with a waver, but solidifies as it goes.
"Good," he says, hearing the chime of the bullet on the pavement. "Keep it for now," he says, struggling for calm, even as fear starts to rise - each intake of breath becomes a strained hiss, and his finger gropes blindly over the glass of the side of the bus stop shelter. Only to have the nails of his hands suddenly screech on it, as he convulses in pain, nearly toppling off the bench. "Ah, god," he says, between clenched teeth.
Having nowhere else to put the empty gun, Dee stuffs it under the edge of her uniform apron. "People are freaking the fuck out, mister- oh!-" Delilah reaches out again to steady him onto the bench. "Shit, shit- try and breathe-" She should take a class or something on how to handle drug addicts. It would probably help, because right now all of her first aid is doing very little. "What hurts?"
Delilah's drugs, what's already in Felix's system, and his own bizarre brand of hyperadrenaline combine….and Felix has abruptly punched through the tempered glass of the bus shelter wall as if it were tinfoil, with that cobra's swiftness of motion. And then he turns on Lilah, with nothing but red rage in his face, and an utter lack of recognition. "You," he says, shoving her back, though this time, happily, there's no superspeed involved.
"What the-" Delilah stumbles back when he punches through the glass, eyes wide and on his fist that seemed to come out of nowhere. When Felix turns on her, however, those brown eyes bug wider. "I didn't- it was an accident- god!" She is helped by the fact she is now trying to hide herself behind the other wall of the bus-stop, only keeping her head showing as to keep her vision on Felix. "Are you gonna be okay? Can you even hear me?"
He looks for a moment as if he intends to attack. But then he's recoiling in fear, boots crunching on the shattered glass of the shelter's wall. There's a little blood on his hand, but not much, as he lifts them, trying to ward her off. "Please, no," he says, voice gone low, pleading. "I did what I could. I need….."
She really did a number on him, didn't she? First he was raging, and now he's coiling up away from her very presence. It gives her enough confidence to move back out from behind the wall, facial features demanding. "Do you have a phone?" Dee even starts digging in the pockets of the coat she still has, asking again, louder and hopefully enough to get through just a little. "Phone?! God damn." Her words hiss through clenched teeth, all at herself. "I don't want to have to run inside and leave you here."
That sinks in during a short, lucid moment. Or else he's terrified enough that he wants to appease her. A moment or two of clumsy fumbling in his coat produces not another gun, but a phone, which he offers her with shaking hands. "There's a number in there, under 'Lee'. Call it. If no one answers, reverse directory it, get the address. Send me there in a cab, if you can."
Good man, Felix Ivanov. With help fumbling through the coat, Delilah snatches away the phone with her ears perked, flipping it open. He'll need to probably wipe some waxy-looking substance off of it later, but that will flake away easily. Lee. Okay. Yes! Her faces pulls into a triumphant smile, and she bashes at tiny buttons with her thumb. Is it ringing? Yes. Will someone answer? ___.
One ringy dingy. Two ringy dingy. There's a fumble, the sound of a car horn and then a gruff, "Daubrey. Whatcha want, Ivanov?"
Not Fel on the other end, alas. Felix himself is stumbling away down the street, as if pursued by something only he can see, holding a bloodied hand before his face as if the light were too bright. Nevermind that it's night time.
"Is that his name? Last name- oh, wait-" This is… not Felix. A female voice, and obviously from across the pond. Holding the phone away, she can be heard yelling, and the noise of a foot chase can be heard. "Come back here! Where are you going?!" Delilah tries her best to yank him back to the bus stop with one arm, or possibly just make it so he will fall on his ass.
Her cheek muffles against the phone before she speaks to Lee once again. "Your friend is sick. He's seeing shit and he punched out a glass window."
There's silence on the other end. Then, "What? Who is this?"
Fel yanks himself away, damn near backing into traffic. Glorious. Superspeed won't save you from being hit by a bus. But he slips and does fall on the sidewalk, not doing a terribly good job of breaking his fall with his hands. The drug's apparently shifted tactics, because he doesn't rise - he remains, and curls down, as if around a wound.
"A waitress. Is this Lee? Your friend- Ivanov? He's sick, and he keeps freaking out. 'E told me to call this number." Pause. "Is he on any medication?" She knows that sometimes drugs conflict- and the small dose shouldn't be getting this bad so quickly, unless something was helping it process. But who the hell knows what he is on?
As Felix curls up, Delilah crouches beside him and tries to but coat-covered arm onto his back, hand between his shoulders. People are still watching, but hesitant because of the gun's appearance before. "We're in Chelsea. Do you know the Nite Owl?"
The silence on the other end indicates hesitation on Lee's part. "Yeah." Hard to tell what that's in response to. "He's on something, yeah. I know." A sigh. "Nngh. I'll be there soon."
Fel's begun to convulse - it starts as small twitches, but swiftly turns into the sort of full-body spasm that makes his spine crack unpleasantly, muscles out of control. It hurts, but it's as if he can't even get enough control of the muscles of throat and mouth to protest, or whimper. There's just a sort of strangled sound.
She also knows enough to help with seizures. Delilah lets out a strangled noise of her own, trying to make sure that Felix does not bash his head off of the ground, nor roll over and choke on his tongue. The phone is pinned between her chin and shoulder now. "Does he have seizure meds? Jesus-" Clatter. The phone slips away and skitters onto the sidewalk, and from there, Felix's trouble is plainly audible- the seizing, twitching, gurgling- it sounds bad.
"Call a fucking ambulance." Leland bites his tongue to stop from calling her something insulting. And to make sure she does, the phone goes dead.
Lucky for the both of them, he goes limp in her grip, still panting for air. Under her hands, his pulse is impossibly fast, but he doesn't seem to be going into cardiac arrest.
Forgive her for doing what the guy who punched through tempered glass asked her to do. Besides, her common sense still has some growing to do. The moment she picks up the phone, it's hung up- but luckily that was Lilah's next plan anyway, and she dials into 9-1-1. It's basically a repeat of what she had said- a customer went bonkers and into seizures, and he needs help. At this point, Leland just might get there at the same time as the EMTs.
That racketing heartbeat begins to slow. There's a little span of time where it looks as if he'll come back to normal - the blue eyes begin to track, more lucidly, and he offers her an apologetic smile. But he sinks further, not even attempting to get up again….and his eyes flutter, rolling back into his head. It's not quite a faint.
Delilah leans over to peer into Felix's eyes right before they flutter back to problematic. "I'm sorry." The apologetic smile that he gives her makes the tingling nervousness in her brain subside just enough. "You'll be okay." She does her best to wipe her hands on the sides of her uniform to make sure there's nothing left on it, then reaching out to pat softly at his face, nudging the rest of him around so the man now lies on his side.
Leland beats the paramedics, but that's only because he wasn't that far away when the call came in. A black sedan comes to a quick stop a half block away. Then there's the sudden approach of slapping footfalls as a tall, broad-shouldered man with slicked back hair and a gray suit comes into view. He screams cop as if he was excreting it from his pores. "What the fuck happened?" Delilah should recognize the rough, Southie-accented voice from the phone.
Fel is as limp as a sleeping puppy, only orders of magnitude less adorable. He looks… comatose, honestly, curled on his side on the cracked sidewalk. Like he just found a really awesome new place for a wonderful nap, though he's gone that unpleasant shade of greenish-gray that promises a nauseous awakening.
The redhead almost yips in surprise when Leland practically barks at her. Well, hello, mister Law. Dee has kept her hands on Felix's arm for the interim, still not moving when faced with Lee's question. "He was in the diner, ran outside and starting going nutty. He's out of it now, and I think he'll be fine. Good thing he hadn't eaten already…" Or he'd have probably upchucked all over them both at some point, had he. Ick. And sure, she's lying about what really happened- but she's not going to just say it out loud.
Leland squints at Delilah. Somehow he doesn't believe that's the whole story. But he's not so much of a jerk that he'll let his friend roll around on the sidewalk while he investigates. He drops to his knee by Felix and reaches out to lightly tap a calloused mitt on either one of the Fed's cheeks. "Felix, Felix, buddy. Wake the fuck up." Such a ball of sunshine.
Not, perhaps, the wisest idea. Because it's angry hallucinating Felix that's dragged out of unconsciousness to literally lunge for Lee's throat, swearing at him in Russian. He's weak, happily, and clumsy, and thus nowhere near the danger he might have been.
"Ack!" Delilah doesn't try to pin Felix down this time, letting Leland see for himself the extent of this nuttiness. Here, there- you see? He's crazy. And apparently Russian. Which she makes a note of, privately.
Leland is quick, though his movements lag a bit owing to the fact that he wasn't expecting Felix to attack him. In a few quick movements, his fingers close around Felix's wrists and he gently pins the Fed back against the sidewalk. "Felix, Felix, it's Lee. Calm the fuck down before I fucking knock you out, all right?" Believe it or not, these are concerned words. "Hey girl, where the fuck is that ambulance?"
Crazy and Russian. Possibly that's redundant, who knows. Felix is panting in fear, staring at Lee with that utter lack of recognition. He asks a question in Russian, no doubt to the effect of 'Who are -you-?'
"Don't look at me! I called the damned thing, but I can't make it fuckin' teleport here. There's a thing- it starts with a 't' and ends with a 'raffic'." Delilah furrows her eyebrows over at Lee. Has he met his match on accident? Maybe.
"What the hell happened in that diner? What did he eat?" Leland can't quite keep the accusation out of his tone as he looks up at Delilah. Then his gaze drops down to Felix. He stares the other man in the eye. "Speak English, Commie. Snap out of it." All he can think to do is order the Fed back into sanity.
A match made in Heaven. Aw. Felix's breath is rattling, uneven with fear. Lee gets a blank stare, but no further struggle. If anything, he seems to be fading back into unconsciousness, going limp in his old partner's grip, again.
"Nothing. I brought him his food, and he asked me something about how long I'd been working there. He didn't even pick up his spoon." Delilah glares down for a second as her arms cross. Behind her, there comes a sudden flashing of red lights down the road.
"Listen, I have known this man for years. He's not the type to fucking flip out. There has to be a reason. So you think hard, all right?" He grits his teeth and narrows his eyes at her. It's the kind of look that makes hardened criminals squirm. He doesn't really mean to give her the full 'Angry Daubrey' look, but he's worried.
He looks back down at Felix, hovering in his field of vision in case he snaps out of it and recognizes the face of his old partner. He does visibly relax at the approaching ambulance lights.
Felix is all but drooling like a basset hound in Lee's hands. At least he isn't putting up much of a fight. Rather abruptly, he smiles, and chuckles. Like all of this has been a huge practical joke.
Delilah has had her share of angry males- she knows the posturing when she sees it, but the girl still leans backwards as if he were going to leap over Felix and bite her. "There wasn't an-" She looks down at Felix when he starts his moment of glee. "…" Glancing over her shoulder at the lights, the redhead springs to her feet, leaving Leland without another confirmation and instead waving down the ambulance.
At first, Lee thinks that Delilah is running away. There's a half-second when he nearly gives chase. But then, she's just flagging down the ambulance. He returns his attention down to the raving Russian. Ugh. Drool. "Goddamn it, Felix. Did you slip some fuckin' speed or something?"
Apparently someone flipped the switch to 'euphoria'. Felix is still chuckling to himself, not even looking around with curiosity at why he's lying on the sidewalk. He reaches up to touch Lee's face, fondly, still utterly relaxed.
Delilah is watching that part with a smirk that can barely be restrained, and a hand goes to cover her mouth. A fake cough comes soon after. She stands back again when the EMTs pull up near the sidewalk, and a duo of uniformed men pile out. One hovers over to Felix and Leland to take the former's vitals, and the other one opens the back hatch to get at the the stretcher.
"What the hell, buddy?" says Lee. He's confused more than anything, by the touch, by Felix's condition. He pulls back to let the EMTs in to heft Felix up. He stands and rocks back a step to stand by Delilah. "What's your name?"
"Delilah." Is her only answer, promptly holding out Felix's coat and phone towards Leland. Here, take this. And with that, she is done with this mess, and turns on her heels to go back to work.
 <date>: previous log |
 <date>: next log |