Which Pages

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danko3_icon.gif helena_icon.gif

Scene Title Which Pages
Synopsis Helena stops in at Grand Central to see Danko.
Date November 7, 2009

Grand Central Terminal: Holding Cell

Brick wall makes a solid square of this room, and though it's wide, its low ceiling and hard edges give it a claustrophobic feeling. The ceiling and floor are both a sickly grey cement, and fluorescent light burns brightly from a caged light bulb in the center of the room. A cot has been pulled in, its metal frame squatting low to the ground, and remains the only semi-permanent feature of this stark space. A thick iron door is the only way out, once painted a neutral teal and now stained with rust, paint flaking to reveal blanker grey.

The air is always chilled, and there's the sound of running water somewhere beyond. Occasionally, foot steps will echo above or from a distance away. It's impossible to keep track of time, here, without clocks and without access to sunlight, sleeping and waking dictated by the flick of a switch. This place should, by rights, be only very temporary. If it's not, then its purpose is clear - imprisonment.


It's 20:50 under Midtown Manhattan and the light in Danko's cell is on, spilling sallow light across grey bricking and cement floors. The contrast it plays of his soot-smudged brow is sharp against the shadows pitched black into the sockets beneath, one darker than the other.

He's laid out flat on a low cot, slender wrists cuffed down to the metal rigging on either side of the bed's supports. Fresh bandaging crinkles papery under the fitted black of his shirt with every slow breath, and while he's been left the dignity of his fatigue pants and socks, his boots have been stripped from him. So has most everything else.

So far as it's easy to tell, he's asleep, or pretending to be, arms forced away from his sides and buzzed skull tipped back against a flat pack of a mattress that's seen better days. Pale near to the point of translucence, smeared with every shade of ash, grit and dried blood and in dire need of a shower, Danko's here, safe and secure under the watchful eye of a light-eyed gent filling in for Joseph with a golf magazine at the door.

Like a ghost, Helena drifts into the outer room of Danko's prison. The nod she gives to the man watching is perfunctory as she continues onward, silent, to be permitted access to Danko's cell. She is healthier than she was at the end of her little visit with Humanis First, at least physically; any urges she has for opiates or even Refrain don't seem apparent just by looking at her. Those eyes are a bit flat, though. Once allowed inside, the door is closed behind her. She stays in that catty-corner near the door, the air thick and heavy around her like a tremulous storm building. Is she just coming to stare, like he's an animal in a zoo? To gloat? To interrogate him? Most immediately, the answer is not apparent.

There's a longer drawn breath at the sound of the door clicking closed after soft footfalls, too stiff under fractured ribs and crisp bandaging to qualify as lazy or languid even if it wants to be. Otherwise, beyond that and a slight curl at his left hand when his wrist turns against its cuff, he lies still. Doesn't open his eyes, doesn't say hello. Whoever it is doesn't smell like food or antiseptic or soap and he doesn't have to piss. Therefore at this point it's probably safe to say he isn't interested.

Helena expects this will be quick. She doesn't expect that Emile will offer up much information, but then again, it doesn't help anyone he'd want to assist, so one never knows. "My father." Helena says, her voice steady. "I want to know how he came into contact with you."

"Helena Dean," surmised at an unenthusiastic croak without further ado, Danko swallows against the rank patina clagged down the back of his throat and pulls in a breath still deeper than the first. If he's worried, he doesn't look it. If he's otherwise bothered, he doesn't sound it. There's a metallic rattle when he turns his wrist yet again, then the slow sift of a sigh while he blinks hard and tries to stir himself back into a state of semi wakefulness. "Is there any reason you can think of why I should care enough to answer?"

Because you take pleasure in my pain." Helena says, after a long, silent moment. "I want to know about my father and what he did for Humanis First. And we both know the information is going to hurt for me to hear." She's silent again for a moment, and then shrugs, pushing off the wall to reach for the door.

"Live rats burrowing through the stomach walls of lost children taken hostage; anger issues. Ego. Never washed his hands on his way out've the mens room." Details relevant and not are delivered in the same drifty absence of caring, and Danko concedes to cant his brows at the ceiling mottled grey overhead. "If you took a few pages out've his book you'd probably get more done."

"Which pages?" Helena prompts, folding her hands across her torso, shivering from the dank and dark. "He had a way of charming people." One that she knows was more than natural charisma, but Danko might have only suspected, not known.

Danko's silent for a moment.

A long moment, actually.

Focus bleeds into the silver around dilated pupils only to fog out again before it can gloss lucid against yellowed light. The bulb's probably in need of replacing. In any case, Emile has taken to looking faintly baffled under its sickly cast, brows twisted towards a dubious knit and mouth slacked partway open.

"Bill Dean's your dad, right?"

Her expression becomes uneasy. "Yeah?" She doesn't like how confused he looks, like he thinks she missed something obvious.

"…Six four, sucks nacho cheese off his fingers when he's out've chips, pisses in the shower Bill Dean?"

Helena lifts her brows. Wherever this is going, she's decided not to let it lead to the inevitable end. Wordlessly, she pushes off the wall and starts to reach for the door. She already regrets coming here.

At the absence of an answer, a slant winds up into the corner of Danko's mouth near automatically through murky confusion and muggy indifference. Whatever uneasy tension might have started to coil in his shoulders loosens out lax and he lets his eyes drift closed, content in a way he really shouldn't be.


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