Participants:
Scene Title | The Cup Runneth Over |
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Synopsis | In a land with no Starbucks, basic Nick can't even Delia. |
Date | August 27, 2018 |
Elmhurst — Their House.
There's a yellow post-it on the door. No words on it — simply the pale yellow square in the middle of the front door. It's a subtle note to Delia that Nick's home and inside, in case she enters and sees the unexpected silhouette of a man in her home after many weeks or even months away. It's for both their sake — so she doesn't get surprised and scared by a sound in another room where there shouldn't be anyone — and so he doesn't get shot by accident because she thought he was an intruder.
Once she steps inside, it's no hide and seek game to find him — he's lying on the sofa, fully clothed. A few work files sit in front of him next to his laptop, and a black duffel sits still full at the
It's a struggle and abit of a juggle, Delia's hands being a bit full when she enters. Not full of anything good, just an awkward sized box full of hand-me-downs that she's managed to scavenge from various flea markets. Scarves, sweaters, wool socks, jeans without holes in the knees, and maybe an assortment of nifty t-shirts, because it's time to update to a fall wardrobe. She drops it, unceremoniously in the front entry and shoves it off to the side with a booted foot. Before she wedges them off using opposite feet.
For Nick, there's a wide smile.
"Hey Stranger," she chirps, "I see you've found the office. Pretty convenient, hey?" A joke, because she hasn't actually rebuilt a room in the home to be used as an office yet. Next year, when the budget isn't tight. Her own papers, catalogs, and spreadsheets are scattered all over the place between where he's sitting and the kitchen.
She flops down beside him and lifts one of the files, to sift through it. "What are you working on?"
The thud of the box dropping has him up, rubbing his arm across his eyes, before swinging his legs to the ground so he's sitting, instead of sprawling. When she picks up the file, Nick laughs, plucking it out of her hands. "Nothing you're supposed to read, czerwony," he says lightly, though not with any sort of anger.
"Hi," is added, more softly, as he tips his head to greet her with a soft kiss. "Just work." There'd been time taken off to try to solve the problem of Sibyl and Eileen and Gabriel, but somehow the leads he's chased and roads he'd traveled in that endeavor resulted in empty hands and a lot more worry for both versions os his sister, and little else. 'Work' isn't a lie — The file does hold CIA work, but it's for a longer term project that doesn't require travel just yet. "How are you?"
"Read now, fish out of your brain later, it's all the same to me," Delia grins as she takes over Nick's previous position and lays back on the sofa, propping her legs across his lap. "I'm … eh…" She doesn't immediately answer, but her expression changes from a happy one to a bit more neutral. "Will you be around for a while? I mean, could you be around for a while?" Sister(s) aside, there's a bit more trouble in their corner of !paradise, at least on her end.
"I mean, if Gabriel doesn't drag you off. If he does, then that's a bit more important." Tugging at a bit of her hair, she tucks it behind her ear and stares up at the ceiling, considering the color. It's a thing she does when she's avoiding thinking about other things, superficial over consequential.
The file is set aside, the joke levied with a look, but his hands come down to run his hands along her calves with gentle, affectionate caresses. His brows lift at the shift in her expression and then the question — the answer to that one is always a complicated one.
"What's-" he begins, but Gabriel's name cuts off the question. "Did you find him?" he asks, before shaking his head, circling back almost visibly to the question he'd been about to ask. "What's wrong? You're important."
"It's Dad," she croaks, the heavy lump forming in her throat makes it impossible to sound nonchalant or even normal. Clearing her throat loudly, Delia takes in a deep breath and holds it for a bit before letting it out slowly through her nose. "He's got a tumor and it's not good." She stops looking at the ceiling long enough to study Nick's face.
"I could use a drink," it's an admission she rarely ever makes or even requests. Mostly because she rarely drinks, least of all to avoid problems. "While we discuss Gabriel and Eileen." Meaning, she's avoiding the Ryans family conversation in favour of the Ruskin family conversation.
The answer she gives is not the answer he was expecting. Nick is wordless as he stares at her, clearly floundering for what to say. "Del," he says quietly, his brow furrowing with worry for her above almost all else. Ryans, he respects, but it's Delia he loves.
"I'm so sorry," he says, reaching out to cup her face. "Does Benji know?" he asks, lifting her legs gently so he can rise and go get them glasses and the bottle of whiskey he keeps in the kitchen.
Delia shakes her head, "No, not unless Lucille told her… which…" is possible? Callous but possible. "..would be rude. I mean, it should come from me or Dad."
She sits up, in preparation for taking her glass. While he's gone, her gaze meanders to the files on the table again, though she doesn't open any of them. Just reads the classified stamps on their covers, noting the different patterns in the ink used. "I'll find her and tell her, and Calvin, maybe after we have a plan for Eileen?" It's a casual segue into a different conversation, one that might hold a brighter promise for the both of them— even though the dreamwalker is still a little bit bitter at the realization that it was Eileen puppeting her sleepy strings.
There's a grim look thrown across the space between sofa and kitchen at the mention of Calvin, but Nick doesn't comment on it, simply gathering glasses and pouring whiskey, and bringing all three back to where Delia sits. His is fuller than hers, because he fully expects her to remember halfway through that she doesn't like drinking.
"I don't know what the plan is except to find Gabriel. I imagine with whatever arsenal of powers he has, he can figure out something. My goal is to help both… both Eileens. However I can do that. And Sibyl needs to be protected. She's an innocent. None of this is her fault." He lifts a shoulder, before tipping back his glass in a hard swallow. "I don't know how to do all that and protect all three of them."
Sybeileen isn't her favorite duo in the world, innocent or not. "I'm not sure how that's going to work," Delia intones, matter of factly. "The Eileen inside of Sybil needs to go somewhere and wherever she goes… well… someone is going to get hurt." She takes a sniff from her glass before taking a sip. It burns. By the expression on her face and the hiss in her breath after swallowing, it burns. "This is the grossest, Nick. Why can't you be a normal Englishman and just like warm beer or something?"
Back to the matter at hand. "Eve said the Eileen in the Eileen body is the bad one," not that Delia's met her. "She's wrong?"
Nick's eyes slide away. "I know," he says about the sister that's inside of Sibyl's mind. "I'm not sure how it'll work. I'm prepared to say goodbye to her — I already had. I don't think she'd want to live at the expense of someone else. Kaylee says she's fading away — I don't know if that's a bad thing. Sibyl.. the girl… she deserves a chance to live."
He finishes his glass, reaching for the bottle to pour more into it. It's a sloppy pour, but it's not wine, so it's fine. "Warm beer's disgusting," he adds, before shaking his head at her question. "She's… I don't know. She's hurt. Angry. Has Kazimir Volken's power. It's still her, though. Bad is relative. She's dangerous. I told her she's an interloper. She told me she loved me." He closes his eyes, scrubbing a hand over his eyes and forehead. "There's a solution. We just need to find it."
"It's a bad thing," Delia says grimly, "You should know it's a bad thing."
On the subject though…
She falls silent for a bit, risking one more sip of the whiskey before shuddering violently and then putting it down on the table. After which she shudders again. "Maybe.. between Kaylee and I," she doesn't sound certain but he wants to save them all. "Maybe I can hold her for a little while, like you held me. I can stay asleep for as long as I need to, until we find a body to put her in." Dealer's choice on that. "You'll probably want someone that's not going to ever wake up, alive of course… if you're looking." She takes a deep breath and shrugs her shoulders. Then she flops back down on the couch.
"The two of you are a bit weird, have I ever told you that? You tell her she's an interloper, she tells you she loves you… I hope you at least told her you love her back. I don't know what I'd do if … well if I said that to Brad, Lucille, or Ingrid and they didn't say it back." Pippa is not included because she's too young for those reindeer games.
"No," he says flatly when she offers to hold her within her. "It may not be safe, Del, and you can't just sit there in stasis waiting for us to find a solution. That's taking away from your life. I love my sister, but at some point…" His voice cracks and he gets up, raking hands through his hair and staring up at the ceiling.
"It's not the way lives are supposed to be lived, Delia. And the other one can feel it, can sense it. If it wasn't 'a problem,'" the interloper's words, not his, "then they could coexist, but they can't, and if we put the one in you, then you'd be the one in danger. That and we don't even have Sibyl to do this with. We need to get her out of Eileen's hands." The other Eileen. He rolls his eyes at the absurdity of speaking of two versions of his sister, and turns back to look at her.
"Sibyl said to find Gabriel. That's what I need to do," he says.
"Gabriel said he was going to hunt for her," Delia replies, "Eve told him to take you but…" The rest of what she was going to say is filled in with a simple shrug. The thought of Nick not meeting the wolf that could quickly turn into a nightmare doesn't seem to bother her too much.. but it's Nick's sister.
"Of course they can't co-exist," the mirth in the statement isn't completely lost on her. "Have you ever tried living with yourself? I would drive myself crazy.. especially if I was stuck with a teenage self. Now self wouldn't be so bad, I mean, I've managed to keep you around on and off for almost a decade." He gets a wink for that one.
Then she sobers.
"I can help with finding a spot to put her in," the redhead offers. "I thought maybe the Eileen body, until you said she told you that she loves you… that changes things a little. Maybe a lot."
Nick gives her a look when she asks about trying to live with himself. "The only time I've been near another version of myself, I tried to kill him." He hadn't told her that story, of course. It's not an easy story to tell.
Regarding the other Eileen, he shakes his head slightly. "It's not right to take away one at the expense of the other. She's not from this world, but she shouldn't die, Delia. She's not… she's a human being. As is Sibyl. The one in Sibyl…" He looks away again, fingers interlacing on the back of his head as he looks up. "I don't know," he whispers, closing his eyes. "Gabriel might have an idea."
He turns to look at her, his expression one that could only be described as lost. "I won't — I can't — kill her. The kid is my priority, because she hasn't had a life of her own and she deserves one. I think the Eileen inside of her would understand that — I think she's just trapped. But we're not killing one to put the other inside. That isn't right."
"I'm not saying kill any of them Nick," Delia says while breathing out a deep sigh of exasperation. "I'm saying… find someone in a coma or something.. someone who is gone and won't be coming back again." She pauses for a second and then shrugs again, "Hell find someone who should be in a coma and never wake up again and let me or Kaylee or Gabriel do the rest."
She stops there and looks down at the drink on the table, watching the condensation pool around the bottom edge in a little puddle. "I can't just let her die," she says quietly, "even if she did already… I can't just let her go." She turns to look over at Nick and clenches her jaw to flex it before continuing. "She's important to Benji."
"But you sort of just did," Nick says, tone cool. Flat. "Whether she said she loved me or not isn't what changes things, Del — she is my sister, if from another world. If to another me. I want the other Eileen, the one in Sibyl, to be alive and well, but the truth is, she isn't. She doesn't have a body and that's something you need to live, truly live, in this world, yeah? I'm not going to harm one to save the other, and you and Eve and Kaylee, anyone who's planning to do that, I'm not helping. And I may try to stop."
Nick shoves a hand through his hair, his other hand tapping at his leg, old anxious habits that still haunt him. "Don't do anything stupid like inviting entities into your body that you don't know you can get rid of while I'm gone, all right?" he say, suddenly, before moving toward the door. "I gotta go run some errands."
The laptop and files at least indicate he should be back.