Participants:
| Scene Title | Prisoner Of War |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | That would be the little girl that Phoenix kidnapped. |
| Date | December 3, 2008 |
A SECRET PLACE
If you've been there before, you'll know that this Ferrymen facility took a page from Primatech when they picked the place to hold people. Coincidentally, it also bears all of the earmarks of an old psych ward: long hallways, rooms large enough to house people in, too many bathrooms, external windows barred and internal ones located across all of the walls and the windows, though their curtain rails and rings hang conspicuously empty now as they have for months, if not years. Little dust has accumulated in the corners, but the paint's gone in places, in dashes and fragments that imply either mice or the interaction of a particular chemical composition with oxygen and age.
Munin's new home, specifically, is below ground floor, cut off from sky and sunlight if not — they have no way to tell — entirely from her avian friends. Her matchstick limbs and ragged coat hang off the basket of Teo's arms, dwarfed by the size of the man who carries her.
She looks like she might be sleeping, but none of the three who arrive with believe that, and the single Ferryman who greets them is quick to spot the blood on her jaw, the smudges on Teo's sleeve, even if Alexander's state sort of steals her thunder. Teo kicks the room's door open and lays her on the cot. Her thin wrists and ankles tumble one over the other. "Is Abby here yet?" he asks, looking at the Ferryman. The answer is a nonverbal no.
Abby's broken out the scooter, this isn't something she has time to just walk there or bus it. As the Vanguard member is being carted down the stairs, the healer is puttering into the appointed place, paranoid as hell about who all might be outside. That and paranoid about anything in the air that resembles a bird.
A Brian copy is waiting outside for Abby. Blood is dried on his chin. His grey eyes moving up slowly when Abby arrives. "Hey." He greets quietly, if not sadly. "She can control animals." Brian says softly. "I think. She had a buncha birds rip Alex's eye out." He gives a 'eww' face. "Follow me." The young man directs before going to take Abby to the rest of the group.
Other Brian keeps taking looks at the woman in Teo's arms. His gun is gripped hard in his hand. He tries to avoid looking at Alexander. That makes him wanna throw up. "She's here." Brian says softly. "I'm bringing her down."
Alexander is certainly a candidate for a horror movie. His face is torn to hell and back, that wounded eye is covered by nothing more than a bloodstained bandanna, and he's moving painedly. Teo can carry Munin, by his lights - he's not interested in helping. His lips are set in a thin line, and he's got that whiteness around the nose that betrays the pain he's in better than sobbing aloud. He says nothing, but merely looks for somewhere to sit.
"Already know about the birds" The scooters been tucked away, someplace not visible. Wouldn't do for the place to be come down upon by something, someone. "I told Teo about the birds. Who's hurt worse, Alexander or Eileen" Already she's saying the prayers in her mind so she's not wasting time for when she's finally downstairs. Scarf comes off, hat comes off, gloves come off, requisite gold cross dangling around her neck. 'And if your hurt, don't take off"
Teo doesn't have it in him to take his temper out on a little girl who got her ass knocked out trying to defend herself so he doesn't, not even after he's let go and Eileen's lying there, her face motionless and drawn. His eyes stay there for a protracted moment, his mouth a white line, his eyes so hard the fluorescent light off the ceiling seems to shatter on contact— a convenient illusion of constricted pupils and pale irises. They'd checked her for weapons, or he'd do it now, just to have something to do with his hands.
"Fuck," he mutters, turning back to his comrades. Nods at Brian, stares at Alexander for a moment, his expression louder than his voice.
"Ferryman, mi diaspace— what's your name?" Doreen. "Could you get coffee, Red Bull, anything with caffeine down here? Healer's going to need it." He walks off the floor and out the door, expecting the others to follow more for lack of alternatives than any other reason. There's a bench in the hallway, bolted to the wall: to avoid patient riots, once. "Al. Sit?" The question-mark is there, albeit barely.
"OKay.." Brian says to Abby's statement of knowledge. "The Emperor Penguin can reach up to five feet in heighth." Betchya didn't know that! Even in this gravest of situations, Brian finds the strength to joke. A vague glimmer of Brian before his death coming to surface. "She kicked me in the chin." Brian murmurs to Abby, pointing to the obvious blood on his chin. "But it's okay. Save your strength. I can just absorb into other me. No problem!" A feigned cheery smile. "This way."
The Brian down with Teo stays with Eileen. His copy can join Teo and Alexander, Brian himself will watch the girl with his gun still ready in his hand. "She's young.." He comments idly, arching a brow.
Alexander sits down, rather heavily. He nods mutely at Abby, and closes his good eye, wincing. "Old enough," he says, voice flat. "I don't know how bad off she is. Tossed her into the wall when she went Hitchcock on me."
No need for the Red Bull, there's about five cans in the backpack she's carting, as well as a thermos filled with coffee, and some stay awake caffeine pills that she took the moment she was off the bike. She doesn't know, it could be bad, and she needed to be prepared. Abby's steps are quick, and soon enough her booted feet are seen coming down the stairs into the basement. Teo and Alexander seen. "You never answered me though" But she'll get it enough. The Lord's prayer running through her mind. "Teo. Alexander. Him, or her first?" Very few words and they're short. Not because she's angry, not at all. But because it's less energy spent talking.
Turning at the sound of footfalls, the Sicilian inclines his head to greet the young woman who comes down the stairs accompanied. "Her, please, ragazza," he says with audible difficulty. "I'd like to get you out of sight before she wakes up. I already feel like an asshole dragging you to this location, but I think there's enough of that to go around." And he flinches almost visibly at his own choice of words, then, his conscience sagging unattractively under the knowledge that he stayed in the fucking car and now Alexander's eyeball doesn't look like one anymore. "Thank you for coming.
"She's already covered," he adds, directing that final remark down the hallway at the figure of the departing Ferryman. Who pauses, turns, acknowledges this with a nod, but continues onward: reporting to someone, probably. Grace, Hana. Teo doesn't know who, knows both will know soon. He fights down the urge to apologize to the redhead, and glances through the window where Brian stands guard over Eileen.
The Brian who accompanied Abby down gives a long hard look at Alexander. And he it takes all his will not to double over and unload everything he's eaten throughout the day. Inside the room, the other Brian opens the door for Abby, though he is ready to point that little gun at Munin should she suddenly awake. "Hurry Abby." Brian intones softly.
Al remains stoic about it. No whining, no fainting. He got hurt worse in Iraq, after all. So he doesn't protest the order of treatment, merely keeping that bandanna pressed to the wound. The good eye is leaking tears of pain, however.
"I'll be back Al, just, hang in there okay? Fast as possible." Abby tosses a concerned look at the guy, somewhat thankful for the bandanna across his face, but she can see the signs of pain. Her hand trails across Al's, warmth and tingling for a moment at the touch but fades as she drops the bag outside the door. "Brian, you'll not tell me to hurry. God work comes as it will, Slow or fast. If she sees me.. then I have an out. Don't worry" Which ends with Abby kneeling beside the cot. She digs her hand, warm, in against Munins neck. Eileen. Cafe Eileen. Teenager not much younger than her. Just the other day she was feeding pigeons and smiling with the girl. The healing's called and as her palm contacts skin the gift starts wending from healer to girl. Find out what's injured, fix it. Knit it all together.
On his mental catalogue of things that really hurt, Teo thinks this goes somewhere above being dragged twenty feet facedown and bare-chested on a bad road and a notch below getting your head stomped in by an infuriated Samoan. Watching Alexander. He switches to watching Abigail through the window for a moment, and needs a moment or three to realize he's grinding his teeth before he can make himself stop, with effort that makes his jaw hurt and the cords in it stand out like strung-up canvas and works on keeping his breathing even. His hands flex at his sides, spasmodic. He's glad that Eileen's asleep for now. He wouldn't know what to say to her.
Making a little tsk sound. "God wants us to act Abby. Don't get all pluralistic and apathetic on me. Don't talk to me like an old church woman. I've been loving God, just as long as you have." The young man remarks with a little frown. "You need to hurry." Brian insists this time. His voice falls silent as he issues a silent prayer. "But let's not argue theology now."
Aw, innit cute? Al gives Abby and Brian a patient stare, like a cat about to be dislodged from its space before the heater. But then, he's an ex-Baptist, so clearly the piety cuts no ice with him.
"No, Brian. I can't hurry. You don't understand and I don't expect you to and no, now is not the time to argue. I'll do what god set me to do and you'll just sit, and hush and do what your to do. Stop telling me to hurry. I know that Al's in pain." Abbys' words are clipped, but then she's silent, her hand sliding from Munin's neck to somwhere around her skull, where head connected with wall. There, closer, less energy expended. "I'll have you fixed in no time Eileen" Murmured quietly to the woman. SHe will. Just a concussion it seems.
If rolling your eyes made a sound, Brian's could be heard for miles. Abby's back is towards him so that is the only reason he makes a motion as if he was going to strangle the woman. After he chokes out the imaginary Abby. He seems to feel better and goes back to relaxing against the wall. He tucks a hand into his pocket and says nothing else to Abby. She's so argumentative. Unf.
Outside the little room, Brian looks over to Alexander again. "So.. Does it hurt?" A joke? Or maybe just something to break the awkward silence.
"Lahk hellfahr," Al says, entirely deadpan. "Ah think ah may have to shoot someone," Eileen does not get a significant look, happily. Brian, however, gets a positively maniacal grin. Alex is having a glorious day. "I swear, every day from now on, I'm gonna kill me a pigeon."
Teo opens his hands and closes his hands, his right arm chugging pointlessly in place before he shoves it into the pocket of his work pants. Brian's question makes him look at Brian for a moment, no particular expression on his face and he listens to the answer without adjusting that particular condition in any visible way. Then, abruptly, "There anything I can do?" His head snaps around to look at Alexander, almost brusque with his suddenness and the absence of much in his tone; all the annoyance of a young man who's more used to being able to do something.
Pull her hand back, gather herself. "Eileen's done. Just a hit to the head, she'll be fine so long as no one shoots her" Likely would have been fine without Abby coming, but better safe than sorry. Wouldn't do if she's been bleeding into her brain. Dead hostages make poor hostages. Brians not given a look as she passes Brian, stalking out to leave clone one with the hostage and with determination, comes to sit on Alexanders free side. "I'll need to put my hand to your face. Your not going to bleed out if you remove the bandanna will you?" The same caution and care given to Al that Eileen got.
Brian stares at Alexander for a long moment. "I have no idea what you say when you talk." It comes out genuinely. Not an insult this time, the plain honest truth. He glances to Teo, then back to Alexander. "You guys are weird." He comments with a little sigh as he goes to take a seat.
As Abby leaves the room, Brian gives a little smirk. "Hurry up." He grins and then closes the door after her to avoid her wrath. Though he momentarily forgot that his copy is on the other side of the door with Abby. Crap. Anyways, he goes back to watching Munin sleep.
"No, doll," Al says, a little more gently. "It's clotting. It just looks like hell. Y'all with delicate stomachs look away," He snorts at Brian. "Honey, you got no idea how strange it can git."
Having nothing relevant to volunteer, Teo merely stays on his feet, his shoulder braced on the wall and a scowl squatting on his ostentatious Sicilian brow like a gargoyle. Partly, it's for Brian. Partly, it's for the entire situation, which certainly warrants some scowling at. He pushes upright after a moment, balancing himself on his feet. Leaving the healing to conduct itself, he winds around the corner and back to the door to Munin's room. Sets his head against the cold metal and looks at her through one bright eye.
Abby nods. Brian's pointedly ignored. Now's not the time to be getting riled up. There's more important things in the world than brian at this moment. "Sorry," comes quietly from Abby. Not for the state he's in and how he got there. It's sorry that she's about to make him hurt more before she makes it better. "It'll be better soon enough, I promise" She's careful, placing a hand near the back of his jaw, the other by his temple and then creeping in. More our fathers, though proximity to Alexander's ear, he'll hear the barely spoken whispers and the plea that accompanies her voice.
Ew. Honey. Brian falls silent. Both of them. Pfft. The Brian outside hugs his knees to his chest as he watches the other three idly. Inside the little room, Brian meanders over to the side of Munin's bed thing. He lays the gun down by him, giving Munin another once over. A soft sigh, he pushes one arm out, leaning back somewhat. Lounging a little bit next to the unconscious young woman. A little 'pop' emits from his mouth and then a 'tss'. And then the pattern repeats itself. He beatboxes when he's bored. Nothin' but a thang…
He calls everyone that. Al winces - it's not so much painful as just weird. No prayers from him, but nor does he ask her to cease. As it feels like she's done, he lowers the scrap of cloth. His face beneath that is a mask of clotted blood, but really, he's whole.
Almost whole, outside of the eye, jagged flesh mending itself before one eyes. A blink, and there's less injury, sight slowly filtering back into Alexanders eye blurry vision paving way to sharp vision as the eye is restored. One moment more, two, a few minutes having passed and satisfied, Abby draws her hands back, wiping it on her jeans, surveying the work before she takes the Bandanna and starts to wipe away the clotted blood, get a real good look.
She's not happy that there's claw marks. But she's done the best she can and vision is better than none. Abby rises from the bench, but instead of going for her bag, Abby makes her way to the Brian clone. It's a stare, as if inwardly deciding what to do. Her hand balls into a fist, but that's it. The healer just turns. "Your not worth it Brian. I don't know whats happened since one of your others died out there in the ruins. But .." She shakes her head, going for her bag now. "Your not the only one to loose someone and before this whole thing is done, your going to loose more. But don't you dare treat me like that, ever again. Teo's risked much more than you can fathom, to bring me down here. Teo. I'm going home. Brian's jaw will heal by itself. Unless there's someone else hiding for me to tend to?" She tired, the bag doens't sit so high on her shoulder and maybe that's why she didn't do whatever she had thought to do to Brian.
A tremor at the tip of Munin's twitching fingers is the first sign that she might be rousing from her Alexander-induced stupor. She inhales sharply through her nostrils, the color flooding back into her face as her eyes snap open — all pupil, with only a sliver of gray-green iris appearing as a silvery ring around its very edge. It takes a few moments for the world to come into focus, and when it does the corners of her vision are still so blurry that she can only vaguely make out Brian's watchful shape. One small hand reaches around to the back of her head and comes away sticky, long strings of hair matted with blood coming away between her fingers. There's a somewhat bewildered expression on her face as she brings that same hand in front of her face and examines the mess, though there's no time for her to wonder why it doesn't hurt. She's more preoccupied with the fact that she isn't alone. Slowly, gradually, the events that occurred back in Chelsea creep their way back into her addled memory, and her look of confusion twists into one of blind terror.
"Ethan—!" The girl's voice comes out in the form of a low, quavering bleat. It's a gut reaction, one born of pure, unadulterated fear — a child crying out for its parent in a moment of desperate need.
Brian looks up at Abby, and his expression is one of sincere confusion. "Not worth what? What are you talking about Abby?" The young man asks. He gets to his feet raising his hands out. "I was joking. Shit." He says harshly in response. "Treat you like what?" Now his expression looks irritated. "That offended you? It was a joke Abby. Lighten up. I didn't mean to severely mistreat you. God." And then his eyes go wide.
Inside Munin's room, 'pop' and 'tss' have been quite the common occurrence. But then.. ETHAN. His hand darts down for the gun and he is quickly on his feet. His eyes wide and his expression a little fearful. "Woah, woah. Calm down." He sticks the gun in the back of his pants. "Easy, we're not going to hurt you." He could say that easier if she didn't have blood on the back of her head. "Calm down.." He says, trying to say it in a soothing voice.
Back outside, Abby is temporarily forgotten. "She's awake."
"There isn't," Teo says, pulling his head off the door. He tilts it off its axis, walking sideways two steps to bring healer and recentmost beneficiary into view. The corner of his mouth chances a jig upward, brief and small, despite that what Abby says is entirely true— the risks they're running, the probable retaliation to come. Munin awakens, and her outcry goes through him like an electric jolt. Eyes wide, he turns back to the door.
And he's there before Brian's calling out warning, his face in the window, fogging the glass with the condensation of his breath. Behind that translucent layer, he hesitates for a moment. "See you at home, Abby. Hide your face, a'right? Buona notte." All other quarrels, petty or of principle are discarded as he leans on the door handle and enters, with the eagerness with which he'd cross a mine field.
What's this 'we' stuff, white eyes? Al returns, bloody rag in hand, face now clear and clean of the ravages of Munin's avian minions. He doesn't gloat aloud, or threaten, or even glare. He just looks…..irritated and tight-lipped. No longer so pained, but not much more happy. There's a weird deadness in the air around him, as he overcompensates for anger's effect on his power, clamping down.
"I don't joke, not right now, not over this" But Abby stiffens. The cry running through her too and despite Teo's warning she doesn't move quiet yet. But before he can enter abbys' voice might stop him. "We're not Monsters Teo. We're not them. Don't make me regret coming down here" It's simply spoken, a glance to the room, unable to see the girl within. 'Treat her like a human. Do unto others Teo" He's the most level headed one in here. She turns on her heel to start heading out. "I won't tell Felix."
Abby has left.
Munin shrinks back away from Brian, away from Teo and the door, until she feels her back pressing up against the wall. She doesn't have enough confidence in her balance to rise, but she doesn't stay put either. She buries her nails in the cot's blankets, fingers curling, tiny hands balling into even tinier little fists — knuckles white. The blood leaves a dark red stain on the fabric, though she seems not to notice, never mind care. "Stay away from me," she hisses through her teeth, lips curling back into a soundless snarl that's more feral than it is human. "Don't you fucking touch me."
Outside Brian's face goes somewhat red at Abby's words. Abby gets a very irritated glance. "Well I apologize for having a sense of humor, Abby. I'll ask God not to make me that way next time." Brian murmurs. Looking over to Alexander, he bites his bottom lip for a second. "Al, bro, can I talk to you over here, for a second?" The young man asks, taking a few steps away from the source of commotion. "Please, man, over here?" His tone doesn't contain his usual sass. It's a genuinely pleading voice. He steps forward to lay a gentle hand on Alex's elbow, trying to ease him away from Munin's room.
Inside the room, Brian gives the girl a sympathetic glance. "I'm not going to touch you.." He says softly. "Just calm down, alright? These guys are kinda pissed at you. You almost took his eyeball out." He murmurs looking over his shoulder, then he looks back to her. "Just settle down, please? I'll do everything to make sure no one hurts you, you just gotta promise me you'll keep calm."
From Teo's perspective, over by the door, it doesn't look like the small, dark girl looks like she's in the mood to commit to promises of anything, particularly not where restraining her own sentiments is concerned, and especially not to the man who'd tried to slap chloroform over her little face. Nevertheless, he doesn't add any corollary or objection to Brian's way of doing things, his expression the same subtly neurotic attentiveness which had characterized his reaction to Abby's last-instant admonitions, or lack thereof. If it hadn't been impossible for him to not have heard her, one might think he hadn't. He doesn't touch her, though.
He stays over here. And, after a moment's internal equivocation, chooses to seat himself on the floor. His back aligns with the wall and his shoes marr the otherwise spotless linoleum with traces of dirt. His gaze is steady on her elfin face as he tries to think of what to say. "We're Phoenix. I'm sorry we hurt you, but we don't kill kids." Words catch for a quaver-beat, as if he sincerely considers this rude. Then, "That would be your friends."
It's perhaps a tribute to Brian's tone that Al doesn't argue or disagree. His expression is all cold hauteur, but he does follow, eyeing Brian with clear expectation of sort sort of explanation for all this. No question, just a raised eyebrow.
It was either exactly the right thing to say, or exactly the wrong thing to say. As soon as the words have left Teo's mouth, Munin completely shuts down — her eyes close, squeezed tight, and her hands shift from the bedspread to her hair, fingers tangling up in the blood-soaked curls. She lets out several long, shuddering breaths through her nose, shoulders heaving. No tears. Not yet. "Phoenix— " There's venom in her tone, though it isn't necessarily directed at Teo and Brian, or even at Alex, the one responsible for the clumps of gore stuck to the back of her head. "PARIAH. You can't— You can't blame everyone for the actions of a few."
Inside Munin's room, Brian folds his arms, taking a step over to the wall. He'll allow Teo do the talking for now. He doesn't know much about PARIAH or Phoenix, or whatever. He peers deeply at Munin. He gives a sympathetic look to her.
Outside, Brian releases Al's elbow. Putting one hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I was being a dick earlier." He says, offering a small smile to the older man.
The fact that the introduction actually gets through to Munin tells the man who made it that she isn't in hysterics. She ought to be. Any tiny waif, telekinetically grabbed, thrown into a wall, beaten about the head and abducted to an unknown location ought to be inconsolable, he thinks, and that isn't one bit chauvinist; he'd be out of his mind if he were her, and he must have at least seventy pounds on her. It makes a man wonder what else she's been through. Would have had to be something, if the first name she called out was the one on the top of the 'we're going to kill everybody' crew roster.
"In light of that little high school going up in fucking flames under the wrong name, I really don't feel like blame is a word that we ought to be throwing around lightly." His expression flattens momentarily, before reanimating with a slight shake of his rumpled skull. "We aren't blaming you for anything. Just hoped you could make sense of this for us. That was an accident." He points to the back of his head, in sympathy to the spent ooze on hers.
"Apology accepted," Alex says, after a moment's pause, and a searching look of Brian's face to see if the multiple man was just fucking with him. "And sorry if I've seemed like a bit of a prick myself," he adds, surprisingly ungrudging.
Munin, rail thin and probably as frail as some of the birds whose company she keeps, can't have gone through too much — she'd break. If it weren't for Abby, she'd still be out cold, bleeding into the pillow while her brain continued to swell, pushing against the dome of her skull, and although she clearly isn't out of her mind, it's becoming increasingly obvious that the longer she stays here, underground, the closer she gets to reaching that point. "It wasn't an accident." Just like her assault on Alexander wasn't an accident. Self-defense, certainly, but never an accident. "The bank accounts," she mutters thickly, voice strained with exhaustion stemming from a source that's both mental and physical. "That was you, wasn't it." It isn't a question. "You're making a huge mistake."
"You have." Brian assures with a small smile. "But, water under the bridge." He brings up his hand and gives Alexander another pat on the shoulder. "Just don't call me honey alright? I only liked to be called Honey by waitresses." It's true. He tips them better, too.
Inside the room, Brian tilts his head, then looks back to Teo. He won't speak just yet. He gets in trouble for speaking sometimes.
"No." It's the truth, though Teo neither needs nor expects the small woman to believe that. Looked at, he looks back at Brian, as uncertain about what to do with his face as he is about the rest of this bizarre scenario. This really isn't what he signed up for. He hadn't signed anything, and he's still pretty sure he can't just go. He'd take economy class. Smoking section, if they still have those. He could use a smoke right now. His eyes open and shut once, then he turns his head back to Eileen. He isn't utterly dense: he knows the longer she's in here, the worse it will be.
For all of them. "They say you're trying to kill the Evolved of the world. That seems like a bigger mistake," he says wearily, measuring the size of one mistake to the other, between forefinger and thumb. Phoenix's mistake is only an eighth of an inch in size. Prospective genocide weighs in at around five inches: he has big hands.
Al flashes a grin at that. The scars have left the lid on that eye a little heavy, giving him something of a conspirator's air whether he means it or not. "Gotcha," he says, clapping the other man on the arm, once, before heading back into the room where Munin is, that piratical swagger back in place. He's got his own version of the cop mask on as he re-enters, but Teo seems to have things in hand, so he's silent.
"They're wrong." And that's all Munin has to say on the subject. With a sense of finality, she turns her head away from Teo, fixing her gaze on something that's easier to look at — the wall. She draws her lips into a thin line, saying nothing more, though it isn't clear whether she's doing this to protect the people she's working with, or simply because she doesn't have enough energy in her for explanations. The tears streaking down her face and mingling with the smudges of kohl she wears under her eyes might give them a better indication, if not by very much. Her skin glistens in the faint light, and she reaches up to wipe the moisture away with the palms, leaving both her hands and her cheeks smeared with an ugly mixture of blood and soiled make-up.
A light frown. Kill all the Evolved. That's extreme. His brows arch, though the other Brian outside steps away. Aww.. Tears. Folding his arms over his chest the young man looks sympathetic and concerned. Looking back to Teo then Alexander the young man gives a little shrug.
A few moments later, outside Brian arrives at the door. Nudging it open the copy hands his items to the other copy. The young man brings in a small cup of water and a little cloth. He offers them gingerly towards Munin. "Here. It's not poison. Promise."
Never been good around crying girls. Girls, in any lasting or general sense. Teo stares at her until he can't, reaches into his jacket to extricate a box of cigarettes, bypassing the little lump her cellphone has made in its lining. "I hope they are. Sylar should maybe work on his fucking punchlines: he and Ethan are making everybody around here pretty fucking nervous. We'll get someone to bring you enough water to wash up and give you some privacy." Given the observation window doesn't reach all the way to either end of the wall and the window on the door is perfectly transparent, she is afforded that much reassurance. In the meantime, he has a headache of some type to cultivate, he thinks. Standing up is a more onerous process than it ought to be; he gives the Brian in the room with him a crooked salute. "Don't be long," he requests.
"What exactly are they playing at, then?" rasps Al. All out to ruin the mood, the bastard. "What's the point of all this violence?"
A flicker of acknowledgment crosses Munin's features, first at Teo's promise, then at Alexander's question. Still, she does not speak — it isn't likely they're going to get anything else out of her tonight.
Brian, at least for the moment, goes ignored. She doesn't know what they did to fix her head, but she isn't about to unwittingly accept any more charity than she already has. The last thing she wants — or needs — is to feel like she owes these people something after they almost killed her only a few hours ago.
With a little frown, Brian places a cup of water on the side of bed. Dropping the towel on her lap. "I'll bring you breakfast in the morning." Brian mutters. "I swear it's not poison." He reaffirms. Then looks back to Teo. "I'll hammer up some sheets over the window." He says. "I'll have 'one' stay here." He informs him before turning around and going for the door. "If you need anything," He says over his shoulder. "Just ring the imaginary bell, and I will be here in an imaginary minute." Whether it makes sense or not, those are the words Brian chooses to part with.
"No sheets," Teo contradicts ruefully, even as the door swivels open for him. "Leave the room when she asks you to, and our friend outside will keep both of you as comfortable as she can out here. See you two later." He passes out of the door, one shoulder and then the next. In a moment, his long shadow flickers off the window's narrow metal sill and the rest of him appears, for all intents and purposes, gone with it. Appearances deceive a little: he's paused outside the observational portal a moment, though turned away from it to look at Alexander. "Hey," he says, shaking a cigarette loose. "Now I can call you a butt-pirate and it'll almost be a pun at the expense of your face."
 December 2nd: Kidnap the Girl, Save the World |
 December 3rd: Blank Slate |