(no subject)
Got to visit Melcross in peace and quiet at last. Third time's the charm. Awake and sober, both of us. Took her for a walk around the hospital. She'll be okay. Got her to laugh about Lazzaro maybe being in that damned calendar. May not be Yamaguchi, but I got game.
Got to wash that image out of my head. Bad enough knowing Tucci'll be pasting up pictures of himself all over the station. All in a good cause. Right.
Have to call Julia and find out what's going on with Canto. Wonder if she even has a clue. Julia's a good friend in hard times, but first you have to nail her down long enough for her to notice.
Alyssa. Have to talk to Grey.
----
Lennox Hill Hospital - Hospital Ward
This ward is used to keep recovering, and non emergency surgery patients. The ward is split into private, semi-private, and shared rooms, 1 bed, 2 bed, and 4 bed rooms respectively. The same white walled, and black and white checkered tile pattern carries on from the waiting room, giving the whole area a cold, sterile feeling to it. Long, flourescent lights line the hallway, that runs between rooms, set along either side of the hallway. Near the entrance to the Emergency room, there is a nurse station, with several nurses always on call behind the desks.
[Exits : [W]aiting [R]oom, and [E]mergency [R]oom ]
[Players : Sabitha ]
Sabitha is dozing lightly, with her head turned into the raised bed and an angsty teen drama buzzing on the television in the background. Bets seem good that she slipped off /before/ it came on the air. The chair next to her bed is empty - Percy's been sent out for something or other.
For the man who pokes his head in, bypassing the objections of nursing watchdogs, the scene's tranquility aborts any more energetic entrance. Chris Rossi, clad in jeans for the casual touch (and be damned to the suit coat and fine blue shirt) pads on silent feet into the room to take up roost in Percy's emptied seat. Hands knit loosely across the slouch of stomach; the black head cants skeptically at the television before being deployed to better purpose: oh, look. Cosmo. 'How to find your O.'
Sabitha's sleep is light, and by the time Chris is settled into Percy's chair, she's blinking and yawns and lifting a hand to run it through sleep-mussed hair. She studies him solemnly for a moment, as sleep evaporates away, and then smiles. "You're not Percy," she notes.
"What gave me away?" adds the blue-collar baritone, warmed over an answering smile and the tipped glitter of eyes. Chris shifts, hooking a leg over the seat's arm; over it his own loops in an easy curl, paused over the flipping of magazine pages. "How you doing, Melcross?"
"It was the posture," Sabby reveals seriously. "Percy lounges. You slouch." She straightens a bit herself, sitting more fully and adjusting the lay of blankets and robe and hair-tucked-behind-ears. "I'm ok. Never slept so much in my life, you know. Does a body good." A pause for her brows to edge up a bit. "Percy said you stopped by again the other day."
The magazine flips a page, reveals a half-nude woman /lounging/ in the glory of jewelry and silk, and is presented as a solemn object lesson. "Like that? --Yeah. After the ... thing." Apology curls around Rossi's voice, tucking vowels into rounded gravitas. "Sorry I ran out on you like that. There was a situation. Ended up back at the hospital anyway, though, so I figured I'd check up on you."
Sabitha snorts quietly at the picture. "Probably if someone asked him to," she agrees, and lifts a hand to wave off his apology. "It's fine. Your job, right?" Her hand drops to her lap, smoothing out brown and cream silk. "Back at the hospital doesn't sound good. Was it bad?"
"Could've been worse," Chris says, pausing just long enough to admire the model -- on a purely aesthetic basis, naturally -- before tossing the magazine aside. Attention thus made completely Sabitha's, he offers her a swift grin to soften the sharp-eyed inspection of her face. "We got there too late to be useful, anyway. Lazzaro's fine. You dress like that more often, Melcross, I'll take over your buddy Percy's all-nighters."
Sabitha rolls her eyes pointedly. "I'll try not to be offended that you're hitting on my robe, Chris. Mostly because it /is/ a very nice robe." Far better than the hospital fare. "Sent him home last night, anyway. It cannot be healthy to stay in that chair for more than four days running." She nods toward Chris's seat, and then asks, hesitantly, "Vincent's ok, though? He looked really tired, when you guys were here earlier."
Dry amusement trips behind Rossi's face, tugging at the even line of his brows. "He's fine," Chris assures, resettling to rest his elbow on the chair's back and fist his temple. "It's been a bad couple of months. You know how it is. Mutantland's been a little wild. City must be doing something to attract stupid people. Or else they're just attracted to each other."
"Yeah," Sabby agrees in a quiet voice. "Leah was saying that, too. Said she met a Brotherhooder in a bar." She watches Chris for a moment, on a quiet pause, and then ventures curiously, "/She/ looks really tired, too."
"It's going around," Chris says after a moment, curiosity chasing amusement. "The tired /and/ the Brotherhood meeting. I need to look her up. It's been a little busy, lately. She came by?"
Sabitha nods briefly. "Yesterday," she shares. "Brought me Thai food and everything. Didn't stay very long, though. I think she's busy, yeah."
Chris begins, "She say anything about her-- never mind." One hand waves dismissively. "I'll ask her when I catch up with her. How long have I been here? And we've barely talked about you." The expressive mouth hooks into a smile, lazy under the more quizzical regard. "So you're getting sleep. What the hell happened?"
"About her what?" Sabby pursues with a curious tilt of her head. A moment's thought prompts her to add, "The job?"
"You're changing the subject," Rossi informs. "Yeah, the job."
"You changed it first," Sabby points out, and lets her head loll back on quiet sigh. "She did, yeah. Didn't get it. She was pretty..." There's a desperate search for the appropriate word before she settles on "Upset."
The cop grimaces horribly, reverting a childish mannerism that briefly erases the signs of well-worn maturity. "Shit." Chris slouches further into his chair, splaying his head-bearing hand wide to rub through his hair. "That sucks. I'll look her up tonight or tomorrow. --Forget that for now. Tell me what happened."
Sabitha lifts slim shoulders in a shrug against the supporting bed. "What'd Leah tell you?" she asks.
"Your heart stopped. During exercise. Not the weirdest thing I've ever heard," Chris admits, blinking at Sabitha through a disordered fan of black hair, "but that's pretty up there. You got some sort of condition?"
Sabitha shakes her head quietly. "Not that I know of. I mean, they haven't found anything." Her expression edges uncomfortable and vague. "I just /passed out/ during exercise," she corrects. "The.. uh. The heart was in the ambulance."
"Why?"
"I don't know," Sabitha answers, bordering on defensive. "Stressed and tired, they said. I hadn't been eating well. Or sleeping enough. That sort of thing."
"You have high cholesterol?" wonders the cop, pursuing the thread with the narrowed, bloody-minded focus of his calling -- before he blinks, refocusing on Sabitha. "Sorry. Christ. If it's just what you said, then half the cops in this city would be on pacemakers right now. Well," Rossi amends ruefully, "the other half. Which makes the entire NYPD."
Sabitha looks uncomfortable for a moment, and then dismisses it with a slow shrug. "They're running tests," she hedges, and turns her gaze toward the quietly chattering television with a frown.
Eyebrows arch, quirking upward toward the settled brace of Rossi's hand. Silence. Then, mild, "Glad they were around to catch it, then," he offers. Lines deepen around Chris's eyes, the prelude to a smile's as-yet unshown creep. "New York's more interesting with you in it."
Sabitha glances sideways to Rossi again, and there's an internal struggle to improve what is an increasingly sullen mood that results in a thin smile. "Well. I do prefer to stay in it," she agrees.
"Then we're agreed about that, at least," Rossi says, bemusement surfacing for a second's white-limned breath. Down again, down again: into the chair, head sunk back to prop on the seat's back, legs sprawled long and wide so his weight settles on the bowed spine. "How much longer you stuck here?"
Sabitha's smile curves a bit broader, in chipper thought. "I think they might send me home tomorrow. They said Sunday or Monday, but I have to meet with the cardiologist, first." She wiggles adjustment of her seat, slanting herself sideways toward Chris. "Never thought I'd be so anxious to see that apartment, y'know?"
Experience agrees, wryly, "Hospital rooms get really old, really fast. Unless there are drugs. And they have to be pretty heavy drugs. Need a ride back to your apartment when you go? --Or does that guy Percy drive? Interesting man," Chris tangents, idly admiring the fall of Sabitha's robe. (Chocolate.)
"I haven't had very many drugs," Sabby shares mournfully, and then ponders his question in thought. "I... don't actually know. He must drive. Surely he drives." She nods, then, in firm decision. "I think he drives. Did you talk to him very long, when you were here?"
"A few minutes," Chris says, though uncertainty hitches the guess, explained away by: "I was pretty tired, and it was pretty late. I don't remember. Guy speaks Italian," he reveals, as solemn as any child presenting his mother with his brand new, sewer-acquired pet frog. "He didn't say anything about a car. Anyway, call me if you need a ride."
"I will." Sabby grins suddenly. "Italian, and Russian, and French, and Spanish, and Arabic," she confirms. "And a lot more, but I don't know what." Curiousity lights green eyes, slanting toward Chris. "You speak Italian?" And then fast on the heels, corrects, "No, nevermind, I've heard you speak Italian before. I forgot."
The hint of a smile tiptoes back into Rossi's expression, and he turns his head in its halo of chair-tangled black, brushing Sabby with nostalgia's warmth. "Spent almost a year in Italy when I was a kid," Chris admits. "Stayed with relatives. Back when I thought I was going to end up a priest. Liked Italy," he muses. "The women were hot."
Sabitha basks in that warmth, vicariously wistful with a quiet smile. "Where were you, in Italy?"
"Rome, mostly. Did the tourist thing for a while." Rossi grins. "American in Italy. Christ. It's amazing I didn't get thrown in jail for half the shit I pulled."
"Rome," Sabby repeats, and her smile spreads to match Rossi's grin in span. "Like what? Tell me your wild Italian stories, Chris," she requests.
A hand spiders wide across Chris's face, the pads scrubbing at chagrin. "Stupid stuff, mostly. Especially at the beginning. Teenage hormones and no parental supervision, and a few cousins the same age. Not to mention a problem with authority, and a really bad grasp of the language. The fast talking Sante had to do to get my ass out of trouble--" The flash of a grin. "Can't tell you, Melcross. You'd lose all respect for my badge."
Sabitha snorts quietly. "You think I have respect for it anyway?"
Amusement. "Leave me my illusions, Melcross. It's all a guy's got."
Laughter, quiet and dry, echoes from the bed. "See any of the sights?" Sabby asks, moving on. "I always wanted to see the colleseum. Forum. Y'know. Usual shit."
"Only a few things, really," Chris admits. "Then again, I've never seen half the shit that tourists come to see in New York. Except on the job, or when I was a kid in school with the damn field trips. You should go, Melcross. See some sights." Green turns, hot across humor's skip. "Take your guy Percy."
"Someday when I'm rich and not employed," Sabitha allows, smile dismissive before brows curve upward and amusement twists into her features. "Not /my/ guy," she corrects. "But I think he's already been."
"Then make him take /you/," counters Rossi idly, shifting his gaze away to inspect the ceiling. White. How nice. "You sure he's not your guy? Not a lot of men -- even gay ones -- who'll spend days and nights in a hospital for someone they're just friendly with."
"Still not rich or unemployed," Sabby reminds, and watches Chris curiously as she confirms, "Yes, I'm sure. We're friends. He..." There's a brief pause, and a twitching smile before Sabby repeats what she told Leah. "Has too much money and not enough friends. Puts up with me." And then, on afterthought, corrects, "He's bi, not gay. And he's not hitting on my friends anymore, thank god."
Rossi's baritone layers into a laugh, sinking rich color into the admission: "Not on me. Said I screamed 'straight guy.'" The black head pops up from its repose, and Chris grins at Sabitha before allowing magnanimously, "One of the nicer things ever said to me by a gay guy. Or bi, whatever. Works for me. Not a big fan of getting hit on by men."
Sabitha laughs shortly. "You kinda do," she affirms, with a teasing once-over that traces limbs and form before returning to meet Chris's eyes. "He's nice. Good guy. Sat here and read half a book to me while I was under, I think."
Amused satisfaction from Chris at the assessment; ego, stroked, bares itself in unabashed arrogance for the aftermath of his grin. "Above and beyond the call of duty for a neighbor," he opines, meanwhile. "Seems like a good guy. Sounds like you're set."
"Yeah," Sabby agrees for the first, quietly thoughtful, and then she flashes a short smile. "Won't lack for chocolate cake, anyway." She slants an amused gaze at him. "Is there something about me that says 'feed me, please?' Every person who's been in has brought me food instead of flowers or balloons."
"Flowers and balloons go bad," Chris points out with a squint, "and at least you get some good out of food. And hospital food--" No need for the adjective. His expression is description enough, learned on the backs of hot dog vendors throughout New York. "You want flowers? There's a gift shop downstairs."
"A thousand daisies," Sabby confirms in easy tease. "I was going to accuse you of being practical, but then I remember the tiara."
Rossi informs, owlish, "I give good presents. --I haven't seen you in a while. Well. Yesterday, but." Pfft. One hand erases the occasion, marking its irrelevance, and belated guilt prods at: "Should've kept in touch. Sorry."
Sabitha's laugh sounds suspiciously like a giggle as she slouches down into her seat on the bed. "I'll wear it around the house on bad days, to make me feel special," she offers, and then, more serious, shakes her head. "It's been busy. Don't worry about it, Chris. /I/ didn't call, either."
"Doesn't call, doesn't write," Chris mourns. "I'm always getting dumped by chicks. --If you wear your tiara while you vacuum, take a picture. You vacuum naked? Or in the robe?"
"Use your imagination, Rossi, dirty cop," Sabby instructs dryly.
"Pictures help," Rossi informs, and gleams at Sabitha, managing an effect more mischievious than lascivious.
"Your imagination's probably better, old man," Sabby tosses back, and shakes her head. "The reality is ratty jeans and tshirts. And vacuuming is not the sexiest of activities."
Chris sighs, sinking into the chair still further. Two more inches and he will be flat on his back. "Too much Leave It To Beaver when I was a kid," he advises with patent sorrow. "I'll never be right in the head."
"You have weird kinks, Christopher Rossi," Sabby informs him solemnly, and then eyes his posture. "That /cannot/ be comfortable."
"Not really." Green eyes roll up, regarding Sabitha with matching solemnity. "I might be stuck."
Sabitha adjusts herself sideways and snorts quietly. "Wanna take me for a walk, then?" she asks, and smooths hair back with a hasty hand. "They took the IV out today, so it's easier to go. And I think my legs are starting to shrivel up from disuse."
From the base of the chair, Rossi's voice lifts in a quiet chuckle, and a shift and stretch later he is standing, one hand thrust in his pocket, the other offered palm-up and -open. "Which one of us wears the collar?" he wants to know. "Yeah. Where we heading? I could take you outside, but in that outfit you might cause a riot."
Sabitha rolls her eyes upward. "Chris. It's just a robe. I'll grant you that it's a /nice/ robe, but it is not, in fact, a harem costume or a french maid's outfit." She edges her way down the bed to swing her legs free, and nods toward the door. "Just around the floor, I think. The elevators make me light-headed still."
The arm Rossi offers is strong, and practiced; the chair he nudges out of the way with a foot, setting it skidding into the wall. "I was building your self-esteem," he explains with quaint encouragement. "You want to put the tiara on first? --I tell you I'm back on the job? Active duty."
Sabitha echoes out quiet laughter. "It ruins the attempt if you tell me that," she points out, and latches onto Chris's arm to lever herself up and stand for a minute. Just to catch her balance, make sure everything's where it ought to be. "I think I'll pass on the tiara, but I wouldn't mind the slippers. There?" She nods toward the side of the room, and then responds, "No! You didn't. No more desk work?"
"Seemed kind of pointless after the other night," Rossi quips dryly, hesitating the heartbeat required to determine Sabitha's stability before ambling to retrieve the slippers. (Good dog.) "Rescheduled the doc's appointment yesterday and got cleared. Back on full duty yesterday, because I got crappy timing." The footwear slaps onto the floor, and are rearranged by a thoughtful foot.
Sabitha edges her feet into the slippers and then claims Chris's arm again so they can start out. "At least we take turns being invalids," she answers quietly, amused, and then asked, "So what /did/ happen the other night?" A pause, and then she ammends, "I mean. What you can tell me."
"The night we took off on you?" An eyebrow arcs down towards Sabitha over the reined, restrained pace; outside the door, nurses flit passing glances and smiles at the invalid, approving behind the distraction of their duties. Baritone drifts in their wake, pitched to casual indifference. "Mutant attack nearby. Hit the news, I think."
Sabitha's pace falters just a bit as she tilts her head up to Chris. "Shit. /That's/ where you went? Leah told me about it. Couple of Brotherhood kids leveling a city block or something?"
The detective's face settles into remote lines, oblivious to Sabitha's glance: a faint nod and smile turns purely perfunctory flirtation towards a young nurse. "Yeah. Didn't get there in time to catch them," Rossi says, regret riding his accent. "By the time we got there, it was just cleaning up and calling the docs."
Sabitha catches that smile, and a look of extreme patience settles in on her features. Honestly, now. "But everyone's ok?" she prods, questioning.
"One vic," says Rossi over a slight frown, adding: "Well. One girl got injured. She'll be fine, I think. No deaths." And there's frustrated bewilderment in that, too, moved around the obstruction of a gurney.
Sabitha watches Chris around this answer, with an occasional glance forward to watch their way. "Hurt bad?"
"She's not critical," says Rossi, pausing them for a geriatric wheelchair being wheeled with more enthusiasm than care through the corridor's junction. "Got checked out and released for a private clinic the same night. Could've been a lot worse," he repeats, and /that/ is heartfelt, at least. Brows twitch. "Could do without the Brotherhood."
Sabitha's arm tightens round his, and she nods firmly. "Could do without a lot of things. But them in particular." Her voice drops quiet. "I'm a little bit glad that they were gone when you got there," she admits.
The cop's jaw tightens, drawn on a hard line. "Not sure there was much we could've done even if we'd gotten there in time," he admits, flatly. "Hate letting them just ... waltz off like that, though. Fuck. Makes me wish we had a mutant or two in the NYPD."
Sabitha is silent for a long minute, with a jaw set tight enough to twitch once or twice before she answers, "You had one once. It'd take a hell of a person to stick it out through all the bullshit."
"Cassidy," says Rossi. Almost a question.
"Is that his name?" Sabby asks, and adjusts her grip on Chris's arm as the hallway bends to the right. "I just remember the news. Big deal. NYPD cop, outted."
Rossi steers them gently: around a rolling cart loaded with toilet paper; around a nurse arguing patiently with a recalcitrant and feisty old patient; around a spill being eyed with more pride than remorse by a small boy and his specimen cup. "Sean Cassidy," Rossi says, voice neutral. "Beston says he was a good cop. He's back in town."
Neutral says enough on its own, when coming from Chris Rossi. Sabitha looks up at him. "Is he going back on the force?"
"No. Don't blame him," Rossi admits with innate honesty, pausing to allow the janitor's irritated rumble of mop and bucket to pass. Eyes glance down to Sabitha's look, and prove themselves wry and thoughtful. "NYPD isn't what you'd call the most open-minded group out there. He's probably better off. Hard to work with a guy when you don't know whether to trust him at your back, y'know?"
Sabitha meets his gaze steadily for a moment, and the moves it ahead. "You talking about him, or everyone else?"
Rossi shrugs. "In general." Evasion at its most blunt and unsophisticated. "Got a great-uncle, says it's like the fifties again with the race wars. Keep telling him it's never stopped being the fifties. Just different kinds of races."
Sabitha's grip tightens again, and then she forces her fingers into looseness. "Yeah," she answers. "I guess so. Always looking for something to label different." Her tone falls quiet. "I just wish it they weren't sending you out to deal with people who could... I mean, who /knows/ what they could do."
"Who else would they send?" asks Rossi, almost cheerfully. A hand slides over Sabitha's, warming, (soothing?) in its assurance. "You got no faith in my abilities, Melcross. One richochet, and my reputation's toast. Man. Could've happened to anybody shooting at a guy made out of rock."
Sabitha is silent again, and her fingers twitch quietly under Rossi's hand. After a moment, she requests, softly, "Please don't joke about that."
Chris blinks down. Dampens, slightly, that black humor. "Sorry." Silence, down to the end of the hallway and through the double doors that swing open: pediatrics, carpeted and painted with acid-drop gaiety. Then, tentative, "Better me than some poor schmuck who doesn't know what he's getting into. I signed up for this, Melcross. Lazzaro, too."
"I know," Sabby answers, and quirks a forced smile for Rossi and bears bearing balloons on the far wall. "And I get the joking. I think I'm just feeling the mortality lately, and I don't particularly like it. Give me a couplea weeks, and we can toast to danger over beer, if you want."
"Living on the wild side," says Rossi, tacking onto that a remorseful, "Yeah. Should've thought. Didn't mean to touch a nerve. I'm crap with sick people. Better than Julia, but still."
Sabitha makes a dismissive noise. "You're here, aren't you?" she points out. "And hell. Not like I didn't /say/ something. We're the honest sort, aren't we, Chris?"
Chris lips a curiously feral grin. "Everybody lies, Melcross."
"Yeah," Sabby admits easily. "But some more than others."
"We the honest type?"
"Mostly," Sabby answers. And then, after a pause, amends, "Not with everybody."
It begs the question. Rossi pauses them for a step to look down at her and ask it, eyes quizzical over the half-quirked lips. "With who?"
Sabitha laughs suddenly, and lifts her eyes to him as he stops. "The funny thing about this question," she notes dryly. "Is that whatever I say, you haven't got a clue if it's true or not."
"Yeah, I know. One thing you learn, though. What people say when they're lying sometimes tells you a lot more than when they're telling the truth." Humor ruffles baritone, burring its dry timbres. Rossi nudges them back into motion. Slow and easy.
"Can you tell the difference?" Sabby questions curiously.
"Sometimes. You get an instinct for it." Dogs driving choo-choo trains. Rossi casts a faintly incredulous glance at a giraffe wearing pearls and bearing a wicker purse before moving them past pediatrics altogether. "Part of the job. Or else you won't be doing it very long."
"I think I'm crap at telling the difference," Sabby shares after awhile, with an amused sweep of her gaze down the painted hall. "Or maybe the liars I know are just very good. It's hard to tell."
Chris points out, "You work in politics. Professional liars. Most of the ones I got passing through interrogation are just morons, scared shitless because they got caught. So what's the answer?" he wonders, moving their aimless, wandering path past open and empty doors.
"To what?" Sabby asks.
"Who're you honest with?"
"Oh. Sorry," Sabitha apologizes, half-distracted, and then considers this. "You, mostly," she decides. "And Percy, about a lot of things. I guess no one, entirely. It's more... categories of honest, y'know?" She tilts a glance at him. "What about you?"
'Categories.' Rossi turns his spare hand to an idle scrub, washing the lower half of his face behind the palm and fingers' spread. "Probably the same," he admits slowly, around the wrinkle of a frown. "Julia and Mikey get almost everything, but ... they're family. Beston gets all of it."
"Does he?" Sabby questions, and she seems happily satisfied with that answer as they pass by a nurse's station and her free hand smooths down a silk-clad hip, checking the hang of the fabric. "Good. I mean, it's good to have someone, right?"
"At least one," agrees Chris, humorous. And swift on the heels of that adds, "Wonder if Canto has anyone. You two are close, right?"
Sabitha hesitates long and hard. "I don't know," she admits after a moment. And then clarifies, "I don't think we are, really."
An eyebrow arcs up and is turned askance in mute question: explain.
Sabitha shrugs mutely and waits another few steps before she answers, "We're friends. We just don't talk about much, is all."
"Shit. Well." Chris shrugs, lapsing into wry humor down the home stretch. "We don't talk about much either. Yeah, I get you. I'll look her up," he says again. "Maybe call Julia. See what's up."
Sabitha nods, silent encouragment, and then offers, "She seems really tired. Even Percy picked up on it." Nevermind phermonal reads - anyone half observant could've seen it.
Lips twitch. "'Even Percy'? I dunno, Melcross. Your guy Percy strikes me as pretty observant."
Sabitha grins briefly. "I think you're pretty observant," she acknowledges.
Chris grins back. "I bought a clue at Wal-Mart," he informs. "They were on sale. How're you feeling?"
"I think you've asked that already," Sabitha reminds him, and then halts their progress in the hall to consider this question fully. Tilts her head a bit, testing. "Honestly, not bad," she shares after a moment. "Hardly dizzy at all."
"We've been walking a while," Rossi observes, casting his glance down the hall on either side. "Don't need to lie down or anything, do you? I can carry you back to your room," he informs, brightly. "If you need a ride, that is."
Sabitha rolls her eyes upward and paints an expression of extreme patience over her features. "Does it make you guys feel manly or something, to offer that?" she questions, and then shakes her head. "I can walk. Although... going back might be nice."
"It really does," Chris assures. Curves a crooked smile, warming his expression. "Puts wax on the pecker."
"Thanks for the visual," Sabby responds dryly, moving again. "I can sleep soundly tonight, now."
Rossi pats Sabitha's hand. Fondly. "Anything to help. Need any other dreams? I got a calendar's worth."
"I think your calendar goes the wrong way, Chris," Sabby points out, dry. "Bring it over, though, and I'll let Percy have a go at it?"
"You got a dirty mind, Melcross," Chris informs. Around the corner we go. "NYPD puts out a calendar every month. So does the FDNY. Fundraiser. Should get you one to hang up on your wall. You meet Tucci? He's in it this year."
Sabitha breaks into laughter, shaking her head. "I think I'll survive without. Do they make you guys strip down and place badges in strategic places?"
"Hats," says Rossi, wry. "I'd pay /not/ to see Tucci half naked. /Christ/. I wonder if they're putting him on a horse? Fuck."
Sabitha is laughing hard enough now that breathing is a tiny bit difficult. "Oh, hell. /Hats/, Chris. You ever been in one?" A pause, and she adds, "'s Vincent?"
Chris pauses to allow Sabitha her hilarity, and watches her with tolerant patience. Until: "Hell, no. I haven't been. And Lazzaro's not in the ... Holy crap." Rossi blinks quickly, a trifle awed by the image. "I honestly don't have any idea. He might be. They were talking about putting someone from MA in."
Sabitha clings to Chris's side in quietly undignified giggles. She has to stop for a moment to catch her breath. "We have to ask him," she declares. "You have to ask him!"
"/I'm/ not asking him," protests Chris. "You're the girl. /You/ ask him. It's in a good cause," he adds at random, haphazardly informative. "Shelters and shit, that sort of thing. They wouldn't put him on a horse. Maybe on a ... squad car? Something?"
Sabitha controls her giggles long enough to begin again. "/On/ a squad car?" she asks, with amused delight at the prospect. "With a strategic hat? Lounging?"
Rossi regards Sabitha doubtfully. "Can't picture Lazzaro lounging, somehow. Then again," he admits, "can't see him doing a calendar, either. Tucci, on the other hand--"
"C'mon, Chris!" Sabitha exclaims. "Don't tell me your imagination is failing you /now/. /I/ can imagine it."
"You're a girl," reminds Rossi. "I'm not gay, no matter what Lazzaro says. --Holy shit." Which simply goes to prove even straight men have wayward minds. A hand cloaks Chris's eyes. "Goddammit, Melcross--"
Sabitha giggles again, and edges her elbow teasingly against Chris's side. "C'mon. Next time I see him, I'll get him to imagine /you/." This is, according to expression, a delightful prospect.
"Sometimes," informs muffled baritone, "they don't use hats. They use /guns/."
Sabitha has to stop again. She just /has/ to. She is, in fact, having a quietly spastic breakdown of giggles in the middle of the hospital ward, with no hope for control outside of that arm of Chris's. She turns to bury her face against his shoulder, muffling as she laughs.
Morbidly fascinated, Rossi has to wonder: "If it were Lazzaro, I wonder what kind of gun they'd use? Not the glock. I mean, that's a handgun, and even Lazzaro's probably got more to cover than --You okay, Melcross? You drop down dead in the hallway, the nurses won't ever let me visit again."
Sabitha claps a hand against his shoulder, and leaves her face buried there for a moment until she feels she can breathe and pulls it back again. "You," she announces, with barely-mangaged solemnity, "Have just pondered the size of Vincent Lazzaro's dick."
"You /want/ me to puke all over you, woman?" Exasperation, growled through mock annoyance. Fingers threaten Sabitha's skull, perfect for the thwapping, and Rossi nudges them into motion again, past the amused interest of nurses at their station. "I'll make sure to sign you up for a complimentary copy. On Lazzaro."
Sabitha spins out to walk with Chris, and lifts a shoulder half-hearted. "Might be worth it, just to watch you growl at me," she responds cheerfully. "I'm going to ask him, next time I see him. Maybe I can get /him/ to speculate about /your/ spread."
The word 'spread' expands into all its possible meanings, and Chris -- brave, manly, courageous Rossi, who charges into danger without hesitation -- cringes. "If I'd had better aim, I wouldn't have had to /have/ this conversation," he despairs. "God fucking hates me. This your room? I'm all turned around now."
"It's a wonder you put up with me," Sabby responds happily to the detective on her arm, and then squints at the number pasted on the door. "Oh... yeah. Look, we made it back alive and everything."
"Barely," counters Rossi, popping the door open with a straight arm before guiding Sabitha into the room. "I think my masculine dignity's in shreds, dammit. Guys have beat up women for less. C'mon. Let me put you in bed before you get me thinking about what's under your buddy Percy's pants."
Sabitha lifts a hand innocently. "Your mind went there, Chris, not mine," she points out smoothly. Grins. "Know how I know you're gay...?"
"Know how I know you're going to shut up?" asks Chris with grim humor, retrieving the Cosmo to threaten Sabitha's rear end with its rolled-up weight. "C'mon, Melcross. In bed." For all the bristle and bark, the arm that aids Sabitha towards bed is strong and steady; the hands that help remove the slippers, gentle. From his one-kneed crouch on the floor, Rossi regards the woman with thoughtful attention to detail, searching: for weariness, for pain. "You set?"
Sabitha is tired, but it's a contented sort, and while she allows the help with a grateful eye, she's got enough energy to adjust the lie of robe and blankets and tuck herself back into position in her bed. "Won't die," she responds cheerfully. "Thanks, Chris. I needed that." Whether she's referring to the visit, the walk, or the laugh is unclear. And insignificant, really.
Chris rises, dusting off his knee with one absent-minded brush of his hand. "Anytime, Melcross," he says, easily. "I've got to get going. Have a few things to take care of before I head home. --Call me if you need that ride."
Sabitha lifts a hand toward him, a silent request for a squeeze or a hug before he goes, and nods. "I will. Thanks. Try not to get yourself injured again, now that they're letting you prowl the streets again, huh?"
"Didn't you know? The Rossis are immortal," says Chris, answering the request with a generous hug, demonstrative Italian that he is. A kiss brushes her hair at the end of it, and Rossi untangles himself to grin his farewell, eyes alight. "Later, Melcross." And off he prowls: to the streets of New York, to uphold liberty, freedom, and the American Way. And not, dear Lord, to think about Lazzaro's /piece/....
Sabitha smiles into the hug, with a responsive squeeze of her own, and she lifts her hands as he goes. "Later, Chris." And then she's slumping down again, reaching for the television remote to occupy herself until Percy appears again.
[Log ends]
Rossi goes to visit Sabitha in peace and quiet, and they discuss mutants, friends, and the strategic placement of accessories over a naked Vincent Lazzaro.
Got to wash that image out of my head. Bad enough knowing Tucci'll be pasting up pictures of himself all over the station. All in a good cause. Right.
Have to call Julia and find out what's going on with Canto. Wonder if she even has a clue. Julia's a good friend in hard times, but first you have to nail her down long enough for her to notice.
Alyssa. Have to talk to Grey.
----
Lennox Hill Hospital - Hospital Ward
This ward is used to keep recovering, and non emergency surgery patients. The ward is split into private, semi-private, and shared rooms, 1 bed, 2 bed, and 4 bed rooms respectively. The same white walled, and black and white checkered tile pattern carries on from the waiting room, giving the whole area a cold, sterile feeling to it. Long, flourescent lights line the hallway, that runs between rooms, set along either side of the hallway. Near the entrance to the Emergency room, there is a nurse station, with several nurses always on call behind the desks.
[Exits : [W]aiting [R]oom, and [E]mergency [R]oom ]
[Players : Sabitha ]
Sabitha is dozing lightly, with her head turned into the raised bed and an angsty teen drama buzzing on the television in the background. Bets seem good that she slipped off /before/ it came on the air. The chair next to her bed is empty - Percy's been sent out for something or other.
For the man who pokes his head in, bypassing the objections of nursing watchdogs, the scene's tranquility aborts any more energetic entrance. Chris Rossi, clad in jeans for the casual touch (and be damned to the suit coat and fine blue shirt) pads on silent feet into the room to take up roost in Percy's emptied seat. Hands knit loosely across the slouch of stomach; the black head cants skeptically at the television before being deployed to better purpose: oh, look. Cosmo. 'How to find your O.'
Sabitha's sleep is light, and by the time Chris is settled into Percy's chair, she's blinking and yawns and lifting a hand to run it through sleep-mussed hair. She studies him solemnly for a moment, as sleep evaporates away, and then smiles. "You're not Percy," she notes.
"What gave me away?" adds the blue-collar baritone, warmed over an answering smile and the tipped glitter of eyes. Chris shifts, hooking a leg over the seat's arm; over it his own loops in an easy curl, paused over the flipping of magazine pages. "How you doing, Melcross?"
"It was the posture," Sabby reveals seriously. "Percy lounges. You slouch." She straightens a bit herself, sitting more fully and adjusting the lay of blankets and robe and hair-tucked-behind-ears. "I'm ok. Never slept so much in my life, you know. Does a body good." A pause for her brows to edge up a bit. "Percy said you stopped by again the other day."
The magazine flips a page, reveals a half-nude woman /lounging/ in the glory of jewelry and silk, and is presented as a solemn object lesson. "Like that? --Yeah. After the ... thing." Apology curls around Rossi's voice, tucking vowels into rounded gravitas. "Sorry I ran out on you like that. There was a situation. Ended up back at the hospital anyway, though, so I figured I'd check up on you."
Sabitha snorts quietly at the picture. "Probably if someone asked him to," she agrees, and lifts a hand to wave off his apology. "It's fine. Your job, right?" Her hand drops to her lap, smoothing out brown and cream silk. "Back at the hospital doesn't sound good. Was it bad?"
"Could've been worse," Chris says, pausing just long enough to admire the model -- on a purely aesthetic basis, naturally -- before tossing the magazine aside. Attention thus made completely Sabitha's, he offers her a swift grin to soften the sharp-eyed inspection of her face. "We got there too late to be useful, anyway. Lazzaro's fine. You dress like that more often, Melcross, I'll take over your buddy Percy's all-nighters."
Sabitha rolls her eyes pointedly. "I'll try not to be offended that you're hitting on my robe, Chris. Mostly because it /is/ a very nice robe." Far better than the hospital fare. "Sent him home last night, anyway. It cannot be healthy to stay in that chair for more than four days running." She nods toward Chris's seat, and then asks, hesitantly, "Vincent's ok, though? He looked really tired, when you guys were here earlier."
Dry amusement trips behind Rossi's face, tugging at the even line of his brows. "He's fine," Chris assures, resettling to rest his elbow on the chair's back and fist his temple. "It's been a bad couple of months. You know how it is. Mutantland's been a little wild. City must be doing something to attract stupid people. Or else they're just attracted to each other."
"Yeah," Sabby agrees in a quiet voice. "Leah was saying that, too. Said she met a Brotherhooder in a bar." She watches Chris for a moment, on a quiet pause, and then ventures curiously, "/She/ looks really tired, too."
"It's going around," Chris says after a moment, curiosity chasing amusement. "The tired /and/ the Brotherhood meeting. I need to look her up. It's been a little busy, lately. She came by?"
Sabitha nods briefly. "Yesterday," she shares. "Brought me Thai food and everything. Didn't stay very long, though. I think she's busy, yeah."
Chris begins, "She say anything about her-- never mind." One hand waves dismissively. "I'll ask her when I catch up with her. How long have I been here? And we've barely talked about you." The expressive mouth hooks into a smile, lazy under the more quizzical regard. "So you're getting sleep. What the hell happened?"
"About her what?" Sabby pursues with a curious tilt of her head. A moment's thought prompts her to add, "The job?"
"You're changing the subject," Rossi informs. "Yeah, the job."
"You changed it first," Sabby points out, and lets her head loll back on quiet sigh. "She did, yeah. Didn't get it. She was pretty..." There's a desperate search for the appropriate word before she settles on "Upset."
The cop grimaces horribly, reverting a childish mannerism that briefly erases the signs of well-worn maturity. "Shit." Chris slouches further into his chair, splaying his head-bearing hand wide to rub through his hair. "That sucks. I'll look her up tonight or tomorrow. --Forget that for now. Tell me what happened."
Sabitha lifts slim shoulders in a shrug against the supporting bed. "What'd Leah tell you?" she asks.
"Your heart stopped. During exercise. Not the weirdest thing I've ever heard," Chris admits, blinking at Sabitha through a disordered fan of black hair, "but that's pretty up there. You got some sort of condition?"
Sabitha shakes her head quietly. "Not that I know of. I mean, they haven't found anything." Her expression edges uncomfortable and vague. "I just /passed out/ during exercise," she corrects. "The.. uh. The heart was in the ambulance."
"Why?"
"I don't know," Sabitha answers, bordering on defensive. "Stressed and tired, they said. I hadn't been eating well. Or sleeping enough. That sort of thing."
"You have high cholesterol?" wonders the cop, pursuing the thread with the narrowed, bloody-minded focus of his calling -- before he blinks, refocusing on Sabitha. "Sorry. Christ. If it's just what you said, then half the cops in this city would be on pacemakers right now. Well," Rossi amends ruefully, "the other half. Which makes the entire NYPD."
Sabitha looks uncomfortable for a moment, and then dismisses it with a slow shrug. "They're running tests," she hedges, and turns her gaze toward the quietly chattering television with a frown.
Eyebrows arch, quirking upward toward the settled brace of Rossi's hand. Silence. Then, mild, "Glad they were around to catch it, then," he offers. Lines deepen around Chris's eyes, the prelude to a smile's as-yet unshown creep. "New York's more interesting with you in it."
Sabitha glances sideways to Rossi again, and there's an internal struggle to improve what is an increasingly sullen mood that results in a thin smile. "Well. I do prefer to stay in it," she agrees.
"Then we're agreed about that, at least," Rossi says, bemusement surfacing for a second's white-limned breath. Down again, down again: into the chair, head sunk back to prop on the seat's back, legs sprawled long and wide so his weight settles on the bowed spine. "How much longer you stuck here?"
Sabitha's smile curves a bit broader, in chipper thought. "I think they might send me home tomorrow. They said Sunday or Monday, but I have to meet with the cardiologist, first." She wiggles adjustment of her seat, slanting herself sideways toward Chris. "Never thought I'd be so anxious to see that apartment, y'know?"
Experience agrees, wryly, "Hospital rooms get really old, really fast. Unless there are drugs. And they have to be pretty heavy drugs. Need a ride back to your apartment when you go? --Or does that guy Percy drive? Interesting man," Chris tangents, idly admiring the fall of Sabitha's robe. (Chocolate.)
"I haven't had very many drugs," Sabby shares mournfully, and then ponders his question in thought. "I... don't actually know. He must drive. Surely he drives." She nods, then, in firm decision. "I think he drives. Did you talk to him very long, when you were here?"
"A few minutes," Chris says, though uncertainty hitches the guess, explained away by: "I was pretty tired, and it was pretty late. I don't remember. Guy speaks Italian," he reveals, as solemn as any child presenting his mother with his brand new, sewer-acquired pet frog. "He didn't say anything about a car. Anyway, call me if you need a ride."
"I will." Sabby grins suddenly. "Italian, and Russian, and French, and Spanish, and Arabic," she confirms. "And a lot more, but I don't know what." Curiousity lights green eyes, slanting toward Chris. "You speak Italian?" And then fast on the heels, corrects, "No, nevermind, I've heard you speak Italian before. I forgot."
The hint of a smile tiptoes back into Rossi's expression, and he turns his head in its halo of chair-tangled black, brushing Sabby with nostalgia's warmth. "Spent almost a year in Italy when I was a kid," Chris admits. "Stayed with relatives. Back when I thought I was going to end up a priest. Liked Italy," he muses. "The women were hot."
Sabitha basks in that warmth, vicariously wistful with a quiet smile. "Where were you, in Italy?"
"Rome, mostly. Did the tourist thing for a while." Rossi grins. "American in Italy. Christ. It's amazing I didn't get thrown in jail for half the shit I pulled."
"Rome," Sabby repeats, and her smile spreads to match Rossi's grin in span. "Like what? Tell me your wild Italian stories, Chris," she requests.
A hand spiders wide across Chris's face, the pads scrubbing at chagrin. "Stupid stuff, mostly. Especially at the beginning. Teenage hormones and no parental supervision, and a few cousins the same age. Not to mention a problem with authority, and a really bad grasp of the language. The fast talking Sante had to do to get my ass out of trouble--" The flash of a grin. "Can't tell you, Melcross. You'd lose all respect for my badge."
Sabitha snorts quietly. "You think I have respect for it anyway?"
Amusement. "Leave me my illusions, Melcross. It's all a guy's got."
Laughter, quiet and dry, echoes from the bed. "See any of the sights?" Sabby asks, moving on. "I always wanted to see the colleseum. Forum. Y'know. Usual shit."
"Only a few things, really," Chris admits. "Then again, I've never seen half the shit that tourists come to see in New York. Except on the job, or when I was a kid in school with the damn field trips. You should go, Melcross. See some sights." Green turns, hot across humor's skip. "Take your guy Percy."
"Someday when I'm rich and not employed," Sabitha allows, smile dismissive before brows curve upward and amusement twists into her features. "Not /my/ guy," she corrects. "But I think he's already been."
"Then make him take /you/," counters Rossi idly, shifting his gaze away to inspect the ceiling. White. How nice. "You sure he's not your guy? Not a lot of men -- even gay ones -- who'll spend days and nights in a hospital for someone they're just friendly with."
"Still not rich or unemployed," Sabby reminds, and watches Chris curiously as she confirms, "Yes, I'm sure. We're friends. He..." There's a brief pause, and a twitching smile before Sabby repeats what she told Leah. "Has too much money and not enough friends. Puts up with me." And then, on afterthought, corrects, "He's bi, not gay. And he's not hitting on my friends anymore, thank god."
Rossi's baritone layers into a laugh, sinking rich color into the admission: "Not on me. Said I screamed 'straight guy.'" The black head pops up from its repose, and Chris grins at Sabitha before allowing magnanimously, "One of the nicer things ever said to me by a gay guy. Or bi, whatever. Works for me. Not a big fan of getting hit on by men."
Sabitha laughs shortly. "You kinda do," she affirms, with a teasing once-over that traces limbs and form before returning to meet Chris's eyes. "He's nice. Good guy. Sat here and read half a book to me while I was under, I think."
Amused satisfaction from Chris at the assessment; ego, stroked, bares itself in unabashed arrogance for the aftermath of his grin. "Above and beyond the call of duty for a neighbor," he opines, meanwhile. "Seems like a good guy. Sounds like you're set."
"Yeah," Sabby agrees for the first, quietly thoughtful, and then she flashes a short smile. "Won't lack for chocolate cake, anyway." She slants an amused gaze at him. "Is there something about me that says 'feed me, please?' Every person who's been in has brought me food instead of flowers or balloons."
"Flowers and balloons go bad," Chris points out with a squint, "and at least you get some good out of food. And hospital food--" No need for the adjective. His expression is description enough, learned on the backs of hot dog vendors throughout New York. "You want flowers? There's a gift shop downstairs."
"A thousand daisies," Sabby confirms in easy tease. "I was going to accuse you of being practical, but then I remember the tiara."
Rossi informs, owlish, "I give good presents. --I haven't seen you in a while. Well. Yesterday, but." Pfft. One hand erases the occasion, marking its irrelevance, and belated guilt prods at: "Should've kept in touch. Sorry."
Sabitha's laugh sounds suspiciously like a giggle as she slouches down into her seat on the bed. "I'll wear it around the house on bad days, to make me feel special," she offers, and then, more serious, shakes her head. "It's been busy. Don't worry about it, Chris. /I/ didn't call, either."
"Doesn't call, doesn't write," Chris mourns. "I'm always getting dumped by chicks. --If you wear your tiara while you vacuum, take a picture. You vacuum naked? Or in the robe?"
"Use your imagination, Rossi, dirty cop," Sabby instructs dryly.
"Pictures help," Rossi informs, and gleams at Sabitha, managing an effect more mischievious than lascivious.
"Your imagination's probably better, old man," Sabby tosses back, and shakes her head. "The reality is ratty jeans and tshirts. And vacuuming is not the sexiest of activities."
Chris sighs, sinking into the chair still further. Two more inches and he will be flat on his back. "Too much Leave It To Beaver when I was a kid," he advises with patent sorrow. "I'll never be right in the head."
"You have weird kinks, Christopher Rossi," Sabby informs him solemnly, and then eyes his posture. "That /cannot/ be comfortable."
"Not really." Green eyes roll up, regarding Sabitha with matching solemnity. "I might be stuck."
Sabitha adjusts herself sideways and snorts quietly. "Wanna take me for a walk, then?" she asks, and smooths hair back with a hasty hand. "They took the IV out today, so it's easier to go. And I think my legs are starting to shrivel up from disuse."
From the base of the chair, Rossi's voice lifts in a quiet chuckle, and a shift and stretch later he is standing, one hand thrust in his pocket, the other offered palm-up and -open. "Which one of us wears the collar?" he wants to know. "Yeah. Where we heading? I could take you outside, but in that outfit you might cause a riot."
Sabitha rolls her eyes upward. "Chris. It's just a robe. I'll grant you that it's a /nice/ robe, but it is not, in fact, a harem costume or a french maid's outfit." She edges her way down the bed to swing her legs free, and nods toward the door. "Just around the floor, I think. The elevators make me light-headed still."
The arm Rossi offers is strong, and practiced; the chair he nudges out of the way with a foot, setting it skidding into the wall. "I was building your self-esteem," he explains with quaint encouragement. "You want to put the tiara on first? --I tell you I'm back on the job? Active duty."
Sabitha echoes out quiet laughter. "It ruins the attempt if you tell me that," she points out, and latches onto Chris's arm to lever herself up and stand for a minute. Just to catch her balance, make sure everything's where it ought to be. "I think I'll pass on the tiara, but I wouldn't mind the slippers. There?" She nods toward the side of the room, and then responds, "No! You didn't. No more desk work?"
"Seemed kind of pointless after the other night," Rossi quips dryly, hesitating the heartbeat required to determine Sabitha's stability before ambling to retrieve the slippers. (Good dog.) "Rescheduled the doc's appointment yesterday and got cleared. Back on full duty yesterday, because I got crappy timing." The footwear slaps onto the floor, and are rearranged by a thoughtful foot.
Sabitha edges her feet into the slippers and then claims Chris's arm again so they can start out. "At least we take turns being invalids," she answers quietly, amused, and then asked, "So what /did/ happen the other night?" A pause, and then she ammends, "I mean. What you can tell me."
"The night we took off on you?" An eyebrow arcs down towards Sabitha over the reined, restrained pace; outside the door, nurses flit passing glances and smiles at the invalid, approving behind the distraction of their duties. Baritone drifts in their wake, pitched to casual indifference. "Mutant attack nearby. Hit the news, I think."
Sabitha's pace falters just a bit as she tilts her head up to Chris. "Shit. /That's/ where you went? Leah told me about it. Couple of Brotherhood kids leveling a city block or something?"
The detective's face settles into remote lines, oblivious to Sabitha's glance: a faint nod and smile turns purely perfunctory flirtation towards a young nurse. "Yeah. Didn't get there in time to catch them," Rossi says, regret riding his accent. "By the time we got there, it was just cleaning up and calling the docs."
Sabitha catches that smile, and a look of extreme patience settles in on her features. Honestly, now. "But everyone's ok?" she prods, questioning.
"One vic," says Rossi over a slight frown, adding: "Well. One girl got injured. She'll be fine, I think. No deaths." And there's frustrated bewilderment in that, too, moved around the obstruction of a gurney.
Sabitha watches Chris around this answer, with an occasional glance forward to watch their way. "Hurt bad?"
"She's not critical," says Rossi, pausing them for a geriatric wheelchair being wheeled with more enthusiasm than care through the corridor's junction. "Got checked out and released for a private clinic the same night. Could've been a lot worse," he repeats, and /that/ is heartfelt, at least. Brows twitch. "Could do without the Brotherhood."
Sabitha's arm tightens round his, and she nods firmly. "Could do without a lot of things. But them in particular." Her voice drops quiet. "I'm a little bit glad that they were gone when you got there," she admits.
The cop's jaw tightens, drawn on a hard line. "Not sure there was much we could've done even if we'd gotten there in time," he admits, flatly. "Hate letting them just ... waltz off like that, though. Fuck. Makes me wish we had a mutant or two in the NYPD."
Sabitha is silent for a long minute, with a jaw set tight enough to twitch once or twice before she answers, "You had one once. It'd take a hell of a person to stick it out through all the bullshit."
"Cassidy," says Rossi. Almost a question.
"Is that his name?" Sabby asks, and adjusts her grip on Chris's arm as the hallway bends to the right. "I just remember the news. Big deal. NYPD cop, outted."
Rossi steers them gently: around a rolling cart loaded with toilet paper; around a nurse arguing patiently with a recalcitrant and feisty old patient; around a spill being eyed with more pride than remorse by a small boy and his specimen cup. "Sean Cassidy," Rossi says, voice neutral. "Beston says he was a good cop. He's back in town."
Neutral says enough on its own, when coming from Chris Rossi. Sabitha looks up at him. "Is he going back on the force?"
"No. Don't blame him," Rossi admits with innate honesty, pausing to allow the janitor's irritated rumble of mop and bucket to pass. Eyes glance down to Sabitha's look, and prove themselves wry and thoughtful. "NYPD isn't what you'd call the most open-minded group out there. He's probably better off. Hard to work with a guy when you don't know whether to trust him at your back, y'know?"
Sabitha meets his gaze steadily for a moment, and the moves it ahead. "You talking about him, or everyone else?"
Rossi shrugs. "In general." Evasion at its most blunt and unsophisticated. "Got a great-uncle, says it's like the fifties again with the race wars. Keep telling him it's never stopped being the fifties. Just different kinds of races."
Sabitha's grip tightens again, and then she forces her fingers into looseness. "Yeah," she answers. "I guess so. Always looking for something to label different." Her tone falls quiet. "I just wish it they weren't sending you out to deal with people who could... I mean, who /knows/ what they could do."
"Who else would they send?" asks Rossi, almost cheerfully. A hand slides over Sabitha's, warming, (soothing?) in its assurance. "You got no faith in my abilities, Melcross. One richochet, and my reputation's toast. Man. Could've happened to anybody shooting at a guy made out of rock."
Sabitha is silent again, and her fingers twitch quietly under Rossi's hand. After a moment, she requests, softly, "Please don't joke about that."
Chris blinks down. Dampens, slightly, that black humor. "Sorry." Silence, down to the end of the hallway and through the double doors that swing open: pediatrics, carpeted and painted with acid-drop gaiety. Then, tentative, "Better me than some poor schmuck who doesn't know what he's getting into. I signed up for this, Melcross. Lazzaro, too."
"I know," Sabby answers, and quirks a forced smile for Rossi and bears bearing balloons on the far wall. "And I get the joking. I think I'm just feeling the mortality lately, and I don't particularly like it. Give me a couplea weeks, and we can toast to danger over beer, if you want."
"Living on the wild side," says Rossi, tacking onto that a remorseful, "Yeah. Should've thought. Didn't mean to touch a nerve. I'm crap with sick people. Better than Julia, but still."
Sabitha makes a dismissive noise. "You're here, aren't you?" she points out. "And hell. Not like I didn't /say/ something. We're the honest sort, aren't we, Chris?"
Chris lips a curiously feral grin. "Everybody lies, Melcross."
"Yeah," Sabby admits easily. "But some more than others."
"We the honest type?"
"Mostly," Sabby answers. And then, after a pause, amends, "Not with everybody."
It begs the question. Rossi pauses them for a step to look down at her and ask it, eyes quizzical over the half-quirked lips. "With who?"
Sabitha laughs suddenly, and lifts her eyes to him as he stops. "The funny thing about this question," she notes dryly. "Is that whatever I say, you haven't got a clue if it's true or not."
"Yeah, I know. One thing you learn, though. What people say when they're lying sometimes tells you a lot more than when they're telling the truth." Humor ruffles baritone, burring its dry timbres. Rossi nudges them back into motion. Slow and easy.
"Can you tell the difference?" Sabby questions curiously.
"Sometimes. You get an instinct for it." Dogs driving choo-choo trains. Rossi casts a faintly incredulous glance at a giraffe wearing pearls and bearing a wicker purse before moving them past pediatrics altogether. "Part of the job. Or else you won't be doing it very long."
"I think I'm crap at telling the difference," Sabby shares after awhile, with an amused sweep of her gaze down the painted hall. "Or maybe the liars I know are just very good. It's hard to tell."
Chris points out, "You work in politics. Professional liars. Most of the ones I got passing through interrogation are just morons, scared shitless because they got caught. So what's the answer?" he wonders, moving their aimless, wandering path past open and empty doors.
"To what?" Sabby asks.
"Who're you honest with?"
"Oh. Sorry," Sabitha apologizes, half-distracted, and then considers this. "You, mostly," she decides. "And Percy, about a lot of things. I guess no one, entirely. It's more... categories of honest, y'know?" She tilts a glance at him. "What about you?"
'Categories.' Rossi turns his spare hand to an idle scrub, washing the lower half of his face behind the palm and fingers' spread. "Probably the same," he admits slowly, around the wrinkle of a frown. "Julia and Mikey get almost everything, but ... they're family. Beston gets all of it."
"Does he?" Sabby questions, and she seems happily satisfied with that answer as they pass by a nurse's station and her free hand smooths down a silk-clad hip, checking the hang of the fabric. "Good. I mean, it's good to have someone, right?"
"At least one," agrees Chris, humorous. And swift on the heels of that adds, "Wonder if Canto has anyone. You two are close, right?"
Sabitha hesitates long and hard. "I don't know," she admits after a moment. And then clarifies, "I don't think we are, really."
An eyebrow arcs up and is turned askance in mute question: explain.
Sabitha shrugs mutely and waits another few steps before she answers, "We're friends. We just don't talk about much, is all."
"Shit. Well." Chris shrugs, lapsing into wry humor down the home stretch. "We don't talk about much either. Yeah, I get you. I'll look her up," he says again. "Maybe call Julia. See what's up."
Sabitha nods, silent encouragment, and then offers, "She seems really tired. Even Percy picked up on it." Nevermind phermonal reads - anyone half observant could've seen it.
Lips twitch. "'Even Percy'? I dunno, Melcross. Your guy Percy strikes me as pretty observant."
Sabitha grins briefly. "I think you're pretty observant," she acknowledges.
Chris grins back. "I bought a clue at Wal-Mart," he informs. "They were on sale. How're you feeling?"
"I think you've asked that already," Sabitha reminds him, and then halts their progress in the hall to consider this question fully. Tilts her head a bit, testing. "Honestly, not bad," she shares after a moment. "Hardly dizzy at all."
"We've been walking a while," Rossi observes, casting his glance down the hall on either side. "Don't need to lie down or anything, do you? I can carry you back to your room," he informs, brightly. "If you need a ride, that is."
Sabitha rolls her eyes upward and paints an expression of extreme patience over her features. "Does it make you guys feel manly or something, to offer that?" she questions, and then shakes her head. "I can walk. Although... going back might be nice."
"It really does," Chris assures. Curves a crooked smile, warming his expression. "Puts wax on the pecker."
"Thanks for the visual," Sabby responds dryly, moving again. "I can sleep soundly tonight, now."
Rossi pats Sabitha's hand. Fondly. "Anything to help. Need any other dreams? I got a calendar's worth."
"I think your calendar goes the wrong way, Chris," Sabby points out, dry. "Bring it over, though, and I'll let Percy have a go at it?"
"You got a dirty mind, Melcross," Chris informs. Around the corner we go. "NYPD puts out a calendar every month. So does the FDNY. Fundraiser. Should get you one to hang up on your wall. You meet Tucci? He's in it this year."
Sabitha breaks into laughter, shaking her head. "I think I'll survive without. Do they make you guys strip down and place badges in strategic places?"
"Hats," says Rossi, wry. "I'd pay /not/ to see Tucci half naked. /Christ/. I wonder if they're putting him on a horse? Fuck."
Sabitha is laughing hard enough now that breathing is a tiny bit difficult. "Oh, hell. /Hats/, Chris. You ever been in one?" A pause, and she adds, "'s Vincent?"
Chris pauses to allow Sabitha her hilarity, and watches her with tolerant patience. Until: "Hell, no. I haven't been. And Lazzaro's not in the ... Holy crap." Rossi blinks quickly, a trifle awed by the image. "I honestly don't have any idea. He might be. They were talking about putting someone from MA in."
Sabitha clings to Chris's side in quietly undignified giggles. She has to stop for a moment to catch her breath. "We have to ask him," she declares. "You have to ask him!"
"/I'm/ not asking him," protests Chris. "You're the girl. /You/ ask him. It's in a good cause," he adds at random, haphazardly informative. "Shelters and shit, that sort of thing. They wouldn't put him on a horse. Maybe on a ... squad car? Something?"
Sabitha controls her giggles long enough to begin again. "/On/ a squad car?" she asks, with amused delight at the prospect. "With a strategic hat? Lounging?"
Rossi regards Sabitha doubtfully. "Can't picture Lazzaro lounging, somehow. Then again," he admits, "can't see him doing a calendar, either. Tucci, on the other hand--"
"C'mon, Chris!" Sabitha exclaims. "Don't tell me your imagination is failing you /now/. /I/ can imagine it."
"You're a girl," reminds Rossi. "I'm not gay, no matter what Lazzaro says. --Holy shit." Which simply goes to prove even straight men have wayward minds. A hand cloaks Chris's eyes. "Goddammit, Melcross--"
Sabitha giggles again, and edges her elbow teasingly against Chris's side. "C'mon. Next time I see him, I'll get him to imagine /you/." This is, according to expression, a delightful prospect.
"Sometimes," informs muffled baritone, "they don't use hats. They use /guns/."
Sabitha has to stop again. She just /has/ to. She is, in fact, having a quietly spastic breakdown of giggles in the middle of the hospital ward, with no hope for control outside of that arm of Chris's. She turns to bury her face against his shoulder, muffling as she laughs.
Morbidly fascinated, Rossi has to wonder: "If it were Lazzaro, I wonder what kind of gun they'd use? Not the glock. I mean, that's a handgun, and even Lazzaro's probably got more to cover than --You okay, Melcross? You drop down dead in the hallway, the nurses won't ever let me visit again."
Sabitha claps a hand against his shoulder, and leaves her face buried there for a moment until she feels she can breathe and pulls it back again. "You," she announces, with barely-mangaged solemnity, "Have just pondered the size of Vincent Lazzaro's dick."
"You /want/ me to puke all over you, woman?" Exasperation, growled through mock annoyance. Fingers threaten Sabitha's skull, perfect for the thwapping, and Rossi nudges them into motion again, past the amused interest of nurses at their station. "I'll make sure to sign you up for a complimentary copy. On Lazzaro."
Sabitha spins out to walk with Chris, and lifts a shoulder half-hearted. "Might be worth it, just to watch you growl at me," she responds cheerfully. "I'm going to ask him, next time I see him. Maybe I can get /him/ to speculate about /your/ spread."
The word 'spread' expands into all its possible meanings, and Chris -- brave, manly, courageous Rossi, who charges into danger without hesitation -- cringes. "If I'd had better aim, I wouldn't have had to /have/ this conversation," he despairs. "God fucking hates me. This your room? I'm all turned around now."
"It's a wonder you put up with me," Sabby responds happily to the detective on her arm, and then squints at the number pasted on the door. "Oh... yeah. Look, we made it back alive and everything."
"Barely," counters Rossi, popping the door open with a straight arm before guiding Sabitha into the room. "I think my masculine dignity's in shreds, dammit. Guys have beat up women for less. C'mon. Let me put you in bed before you get me thinking about what's under your buddy Percy's pants."
Sabitha lifts a hand innocently. "Your mind went there, Chris, not mine," she points out smoothly. Grins. "Know how I know you're gay...?"
"Know how I know you're going to shut up?" asks Chris with grim humor, retrieving the Cosmo to threaten Sabitha's rear end with its rolled-up weight. "C'mon, Melcross. In bed." For all the bristle and bark, the arm that aids Sabitha towards bed is strong and steady; the hands that help remove the slippers, gentle. From his one-kneed crouch on the floor, Rossi regards the woman with thoughtful attention to detail, searching: for weariness, for pain. "You set?"
Sabitha is tired, but it's a contented sort, and while she allows the help with a grateful eye, she's got enough energy to adjust the lie of robe and blankets and tuck herself back into position in her bed. "Won't die," she responds cheerfully. "Thanks, Chris. I needed that." Whether she's referring to the visit, the walk, or the laugh is unclear. And insignificant, really.
Chris rises, dusting off his knee with one absent-minded brush of his hand. "Anytime, Melcross," he says, easily. "I've got to get going. Have a few things to take care of before I head home. --Call me if you need that ride."
Sabitha lifts a hand toward him, a silent request for a squeeze or a hug before he goes, and nods. "I will. Thanks. Try not to get yourself injured again, now that they're letting you prowl the streets again, huh?"
"Didn't you know? The Rossis are immortal," says Chris, answering the request with a generous hug, demonstrative Italian that he is. A kiss brushes her hair at the end of it, and Rossi untangles himself to grin his farewell, eyes alight. "Later, Melcross." And off he prowls: to the streets of New York, to uphold liberty, freedom, and the American Way. And not, dear Lord, to think about Lazzaro's /piece/....
Sabitha smiles into the hug, with a responsive squeeze of her own, and she lifts her hands as he goes. "Later, Chris." And then she's slumping down again, reaching for the television remote to occupy herself until Percy appears again.
[Log ends]
Rossi goes to visit Sabitha in peace and quiet, and they discuss mutants, friends, and the strategic placement of accessories over a naked Vincent Lazzaro.