(no subject)
10/19/2007
It has not been the most restful of nights for the Inner Circle. It never is when one of their own requires (or earns) a bedside vigil. The hospital is muted and quiet and cool, with the staff too involved in their own duties to notice the passage of a slim figure shrouded in white making her way in rubber soled shoes to the door of a room marked private. Emma finds the security detail hanging discretely around and announces her intentions with a nod, then enters the room. Erik is asleep in a chair.
Erik is asleep in a chair, right arm curled lax up into the bed at his side, left in his lap, with the dampener loose in his palm. There is an empty glass at his feet, and he is snoring, however quietly. The position he's in cannot possibly be comfortable.
Emma doesn't approach him immediately. Her first movements are to the monitors and readouts of the equipment hooked up to the patient in the bed, also asleep. She muddles out what she is able to decipher, brushes a light stroke of telepathy across Zenith's unconscious mind, and then moves to Erik's side to wake him with a press of fingers to his upper shoulder. "Erik."
The muscle there is knotted stiff by the forward pull of his neck, but by some stroke of luck that probably has to do with the whiskey, he does not snap to violent alertness at her touch. He lifts his head and groans against the immediate *pop* that settles between his shoulder blades -- then another pop when he tilts his head aside and knits his brow. Being old sucks.
Emma wouldn't know. She lowers herself into a squat by his chair, sliding her hand down his arm until her fingers fall off and onto the chair arm, then looks over at Zenith. "How is she?" Loose fitting knit pants pool over her tennis-shoe heels, and an over-sized man's dress shirt is unbuttoned provocatively low. Well, provocatively for someone who appreciates such things. A tight, low slung ponytail completes the late-hour casualness.
Magneto settles stiffly back once he's had a moment to test the worst of what's knotted into his back, eyes closed and brows knit while he attempts to find a more comfortable angle of slouch. He is similarly dressed -- from the waist up, anyway, in a pinstriped dress shirt that could stand to have some buttons done up around the collar and cuffs. Below that, the usual undershirt, slacks, and boots. "Asleep," is the obvious answer.
Emma rolls her eyes in exasperation, pinching her lips into a frown. "Obviously. I was referring to her condition. Injury-wise," she adds before another obvious answer can be provided. His discomfort pricks and irritates like heat rash at her increased sensitivities and she straightens to step behind him and pinch his neck between cool fingers. "Was she able to tell you what happened in any greater detail?"
There is another muffled crack when he sits up enough to push his neck back into the work of her hands, but otherwise, he seems to be leaning towards the more "awake" end of the spectrum himself. "No. It sounds as if she was incapacitated. Then he proceeded to beat information out of her."
Emma rolls his skin loosely around the muscles of his neck, feeling for the knots and pressing her fingers deeper into them. His words just make her fingers pinch a little harder. "Incapacitated. But not drugged? Bahir indicated it was something else."
"I don't know." A tired wince stretches long after the increase in pressure, and Erik holds his breath to release it in a drawn out sigh. "She wasn't very coherent. Bahir may know more than I do."
"Hrm." Emma draws the thoughtful sound out long while she turns her attention back to Zenith's still form. Her fingers continue to move in absent-minded circles from hairline to shoulder while she dips into the inky pool of injured unconscious. Quiet minutes pass before she pulls away from the cacophony of images that swarm close to her power, clambering for attention and response.
Magneto has little to say into the silence, his own thoughts brooding, unpleasant, and only crudely sheltered behind ragged shielding. He focuses upon forcing some of the tension in his shoulders to relax.
"The search for Mr. Fitzroy is underway. We should decide what we intend to do with him once we have located him," Emma says into the quiet.
"We could set him on fire," comes Erik's mild suggestion, broad shoulders rounded and rolled back before he deigns to close his eyes again.
"We could." Her thumbs move from neck to the junction between neck and shoulder blades and dig. "He is a very powerful young man in his own right, however. We cannot simply make him disappear as easily as we have others." Her voice remains as smooth and cool and antiseptic as the room they inhabit.
"Grrmph," says Erik to the shift, another wince sharp enough to prompt a slight pull away. /Ow/. "She should not have been pressured to take this assignment." Subject change!
"She wasn't /pressured/," Emma protests, looking down and lifting her hands slightly as if finally aware of their actions. "She was asked. It was /supposed/ to be an easy assignment. Something well within her... demonstrated experience."
"And if she had refused?" Finally lifting carefully away from Zenith's side, Erik's right hand rises to grasp at the place where Emma left off before he pushes to stand. "Surely you of all people must understand the significance of pride."
"Percy could have found someone else. Or /I/ might have undertaken it..." Emma's voice trails off as she glances at the bed, then away from it quickly. She looks up to Erik as he stands, resting her fingertips against the vinyl covering of the vacated chair. "What are you accusing me of, Erik?"
"An unproductive rivalry. And an unnecessary risk. I am equally guilty of the latter." Chilly displeasure hardened into the tired lines around his face, Erik looks to the bed. "I cannot stay here, or I will be useless in the morning."
"Unnecessary, but not intentional. Though maybe not so unnecessary after all. His actions tonight proved he was both more dangerous and more intuitive than we had given him credit for." Her grip on the chair tightens and she leans into it, biting back a fatigue- and anxiety-induced response just as unproductive as the rivalry. "She is being monitored. Go get some sleep. You'll be notified the moment we have him."
"Someone without a history of victimization would have come to the same conclusion." Disinclined to waver on that point, Erik looks back to Emma and nods. Without further argument, he turns for the door.
By the time he's gone, there are crescent-shaped holes dug through the vinyl of the chair--two sets of four, spaced evenly apart.
10.19.07 - Boo, Magneto.
10/21/2007
Zenith is apparently feeling better enough to be bored, today. She's on a laptop, but not really paying much attention to it, idly clicking through random websites, and ending up on arcade games, eventually. But she shifts her position constantly under the machine on her lap, unable to get comfortable and still pale and bruised. The absence of her usual dancer's grace is rather glaring.
The door opens without warning, but in a hospital, it's not that unusual. What is unusual is that the person who enters is not in scrubs. Emma's footfalls make less noise than usual--they are dark, rubber soled loafers, and she is dressed in shades of gray. A bag dangles from her hand and is deposited on a nearby table before she speaks. "Hello, Zoe," she greets quietly, gravely.
Zenith looks up, flinches, and wordlessly shuts her laptop and sets it aside on the table beside her. She clenches handfuls of blankets in her laptop, sets her shoulders, and waits for Emma to say what she's come to say. In her thoughts, roiling in reaction to having to deal with someone with power she has felt to toy with her before so soon after her ordeal, are split between expecting gloating over her weakness, over anger over the information she revealed. But she waits in silence, a good little pawn.
Zenith's mind is let alone this time. The purpose of this visit is galling enough without wading through whatever emotions the other woman is directing her way. The silence stretches for a few moments, and Emma wraps her fingers over the edge of the bed's railing. No mindless small talk here. Her nostrils pinch as she inhales. "I'm sorry about assigning you to Fitzroy. I did not think..." She trails off, then forces herself to look (if without seeing) at Zenith. "Well. I didn't realize Sebastian would have bred so truly."
Zenith folds over her lap, taking tighter hold of the handfuls of blanket she has. "Sebastian's--?" She gives a half sob of a laugh. "That's fucked up." She takes a deep breath. "I'm sorry that I told--" She grits her teeth. "I /tried/--"
Emma looks down and aborts a reach to comfort. Her hand settles back on the railing and squeezes, and Emma shakes her head. "It is not your fault. I want you to know that. We are dealing with him. We've found him and he will pay for this. I want you to know that as well."
Zenith looks up quickly, trying to find the catch in that. After a moment of silence, she brushes her hair back out of her face. "Good." Then, ajusting to the idea-- "/Good/," more savagely.
Emma turns her head slightly to look at Zenith out of the corner of her eye. She is quiet for a moment as well, then continues, "If you need anything... /want/ anything, simply ask. There are some devices in there--" She gestures at the bag, "to entertain you, hopefully."
Zenith looks at the bag in surprise. "Thanks," she says, still a little soft while she tries to figure out Emma's motives. She smooths her hands over the blankets for a moment, and then reaches over to investigate the bag. "I'm--" She lets out a slow breath. "I'm not as good at dealing with that kind of thing as some people, I think." It's trying to be a plea not to make her do it again, but doesn't quite get there.
"I realize that now. I'm sorry, Zenith." Emma's voice is equally quiet, her expression almost unreadable. "It wasn't supposed to be like this. I didn't mean for this to happen."
.
"I mean, I'm not--" Zenith stops with a DVD case in her hands, from the bag, and presses her hand over her eyes.
Emma straightens and lifts her chin, pulling away from the bed and half turning. She pretends not to notice the woman's words. "As I was saying. If you need anything at all, all of our resources are available. Feel better, darling."
"Thank you," Zenith murmurs automatically, and then frowns after Emma, almost relaxing after the lack of buttons pushed.
10.21.07 - Awww.