Vanessa & Callisto | Tuesday evening

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Vanessa finds Callisto more willing to help her track down a missing kid than she'd anticipated. After a night scouring the tunnels Vanessa offers up her spare room so a grimy Cal doesn't have to drive back to the city.

Callisto was waiting outside. It wasn't that there was anything wrong with Vanessa coming into the shelter to get her - hell, she at least had the sense to fit in in a way her well-meaning colleagues hadn't. But as the time approached for them to meet, she found that her attention to her work was waning, and felt the need to clear her head. A walk around the block had helped, and she'd taken the opportunity to pick up a few hotdogs from her favourite purveyor of terrible hotdogs. She was on her second of four, the others warming her skin through the inside pocket of her worn denim jacket.

Her brain was doing that thing it did where stuff was spinning through it so quickly that she couldn't really catch hold of any one thing to examine it. She was still conflicted about whether to leave Xavier's, and this latest communication, the nebulous request for 'a favour', had done nothing to help.

She'd agreed immediately, of course, as always - she couldn't remember the last time she'd turned down a request for help. But what did it mean? Was this another XFI case? The thought occurred to her that perhaps Vanessa was asking for help with something more personal, and this was, if anything, more confusing, and certainly more nervewracking. But it didn't seem likely, somehow.

Just as she last was when Callisto had seen her, Vanessa was nestled in layers. She had long johns on under a pair of jeans with holes fraying their way into life at the knees along with her hoodie and leather jacket. Black fingerless gloves layered over normal grey gloves and the metamorph pulled her hood up further over her head to stave off the chilled breeze. Some days she considered leaving her hair down would at least keep her ears warmer but then she would have to deal with the hassle of all that hair flying all over the place. Unfortunately, she was also still pink. It was a fact of life Vanessa was beginning to accept, albeit grudgingly. Being stuck as Laura was somehow more attractive a prospect.

As she came around a corner, Vanessa spotted the familiar, slight frame of the woman she was here to see. It was curious to find Callisto outside rather than inside where there was heat, but Vanessa shrugged it off in favor of trying to stamp down the paranoia that cropped up. Was something up? Did something happen? Was being inside somehow not safe? Oi, shut it, she mentally scolded herself and fixed a small, casual smile onto her face. "You were so excited to talk to me again that you just couldn't wait for me to get inside, huh?"


A ghost of a smile crossed Callisto's face. "Something like that," she said, crumpling up her wrapper, pocketing it and reaching inside her jacket for the next. "Hot dog?" she offered, retrieving the object from her pocket and holding it out. "I have another," she clarified.

Glancing down at the hot dog, then up to Callisto's expression, Vanessa broke into a smile and a very quiet laugh. Anyone else wouldn't have heard the sound but the movement of her shoulders was a dead give away. "Nah, thanks." She shook her head. "Do you always produce random food from pockets? Somehow I never picked up on that quality of yours."

"I've usually got something on me I guess," Callisto said with a shrug. "Kane says I've got a fast... metabolism?"

"All you enhanced reflexes sorts seem to. It's like you're bloody wind up toys and your metabolism is the little crank in the back that helps you keep marching about with those little cymbals." She sounded more amused than anything. Mostly because the idea of Callisto with a fez and a pair of cymbals was hilarious. "Anyway, you know the tunnel systems by chance? Not sewer related at all but the old shut down subways and the like?"

The other woman gave another shrug of her skinny shoulders. "If it's under the city I know it," she said simply.

"I need help finding a kid that's disappeared. She was in a group home and took off. Understandably so, but her social worker has a placement for her. A decent one; I checked. And it sounds like she's a decent kid, just frustrated with her lot in life. If I can find her she might have a shot at life not sucking for a while. She's twelve. Word is she mentioned taking to the tunnels where there are homeless communities. You know, something like shelter, warmth, community. Better than what she had at the group home in some ways if harder in others." Vanessa raised an eyebrow in inquiry. "Got time to play navigator for me to try to find her? I can try it alone but I'm not likely to end up anywhere near the right area for days that way."

Callisto made a face. "Not too safe down there for a kid," she said.

"That was my thought as well. Seems like a good idea to a kid who thinks they've already hit the worst it's gonna get. Then they find out it gets worse than that." Vanessa shrugged a little. "You in?"

Another shrug. "Sure. Just lemme get my stuff from inside. You okay to ride pillion?" she asked then. "Nearest good entrance isn't too far, could leave the bike here and walk if you want..."

"Only if you're talking about a motorcycle. If you're talking about a bicycle we are walking. I ride bitch for no woman unless there is an engine involved."

Vanessa's choice of language apparently giving Callisto only momentary pause, she disappeared back into the shelter, and a couple of minutes later Vanessa heard the not-terribly-intimidating roar of a bike engine as the other woman reappeared from a sidestreet astride a modest little Suzuki Bandit - black, naturally. She'd thrown a leather jacket over her denim one but she wasn't wearing a helmet - she held one out to Vanessa as she rolled gently up to a halt at the kerbside, one long leg stretching out to rest a foot on the ground as she waited.

Nothing could stop the amused but slightly sarcastic smirk that appeared on Vanessa's face. "Such a gentleman." Her tone was more playful than mocking as she took the helmet. Being the one on the back of the bike was an experience she hadn't had in years. It was something of an odd prospect, really. Nevertheless, she swung a leg over the back of the bike and her arms were around Callisto's waist a moment later. "Let's not tell my Ducati I'm cheating on her, yeah?"

"I don't think your Ducati has anything to worry about," Callisto said with a snort, giving the engine a token rev before drawing away along the street.

"I dunno, she's the possessive sort." The amount of faith she had to force herself into having for Callisto's ability to not crash was astounding. Normally Vanessa wouldn't have blinked over it but lately putting her faith in someone else to keep her safe was a nigh impossible task. Or maybe she had just developed worse control issues than she had thought.

That being said, whether by habit or for Vanessa's benefit, Callisto was quite a careful motorcyclist (barring of course her lack of helmet), her sharp senses and catlike balance obviously serving her well on the busy city streets. She had meant it when she said it wasn't far, it seemed, as it was only about five minutes later that they pulled into what appeared to be the back lot of a rather seedy (and currently closed) bar. Once they had dismounted, Callisto took the somewhat unconventional move of lifting the bike (with little apparent effort), and depositing it on the bottom landing of one of the fire escapes that surrounded the lot.

"Parking" the bike was entertaining enough to distract Vanessa from looking around to see where the entrance to the tunnels was located. "That's more effective than a disc lock," she commented dryly with a hint of a smirk. If you couldn't get up onto the landing with enough guys to lift the bike then you couldn't nick it. Suddenly she felt like her own bike was much less secure around the city.

Callisto shrugged - of course Callisto shrugged. The dark haired woman had a wide and finely nuanced paralinguistic vocabulary of shrugs and pouts, of raised eyebrows and furrowed foreheads that completely outstripped her grasp of the English language where the subtler aspects of communication were concerned.

"'Round here they know whose bike that is," she said simply. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her cargo pants. Then she withdrew one to reveal what was now a rather squashed, if (mercifully) still wrapped hot dog. She launched it neatly into the nearest dumpster without comment.

She tipped her chin toward a large metal hatch in the ground, off toward the back corner of the lot. "Access shaft," she said now. "Gets flooded in bad weather so it's off the main drag."

"And that's our in? How fucked am I without a flash light?" She had a lighter but that didn't exactly lend itself to very broad visibility. Callisto's better-than-average eye sight probably gave her an advantage Vanessa lacked in that area. The concern didn't hinder her willingness to go down the access shaft. To the contrary, she was striding over without any hesitation. Vanessa was a lot of things, particularly lately, but she was never one to avoid something simply because it was difficult.

"Oh, uh... huh." Callisto frowned at this, then seemed to come to a realisation. "I think there's one in my toolkit," she said, then, reaching into her jacked and pulling out a small roll of canvas, unfastening it and letting it unroll to reveal a neat portable toolkit (which looked to contain some instruments that looked suspiciously like lockpicks at a glance) before retrieving a little 'mini' maglite out of it.

"Hasn't been used so the battery should be fine," she said, tossing it in Vanessa's direction before crouching to find some purchase on the edge of the metal hatch.

Vanessa caught the maglite as its arc swept down toward her. "Brilliant. Apparently I should talk you into coming 'round with me more often when I may be ill prepared for a situation." In truth, she had been planning on the flash light but not on Callisto coming with her immediately. Vanessa had taken into account the possibility that the other woman would have other things to do before she could go off scouring the tunnels with her potentially. Apparently she had underestimated the brunette's willingness to help.

As Callisto's fingers found their way beneath the lip of the hatch and pulled it open Vanessa tested her light. It would do well enough. She glanced around the alley again before looking back to her companion and the now open hatch. "After you, tunnel guide of mine."

With a smirk at this, Callisto stepped out into the hole, immediately disappearing, feet first, from sight. Vanessa heard a slightly damp thud as the other woman presumably landed at the bottom of the access shaft. "You're gonna wanna take the ladder," came the call from below - the sort of line that might be smug if it wasn't so matter-of-fact. After all, what was a simple enhanced human compared to a metamorph? Simple being the operative word.

"If I was still wearing Laura you wouldn't be such a show off with your jumping down access hatches," Vanessa grumbled, though wasn't particularly upset about it. She knew people who could fly, who could teleport and who could jump down a hatch without injury. She was none of those things and that was fine with her because she could technically be any of those things if she planned ahead. At least if she ever got a handle on her powers control again she could.

She grabbed onto the end of the maglite with her teeth and made her way down the ladder, closing the hatch behind her. Once her feet hit the ground Vanessa took the small light into her hand and pointed it at the ground in case there was anyone or anything not particularly fond of light hanging about. The tunnel was pitch dark beyond the glowing circle of light at her feet. Somehow she couldn't help think that under different circumstances her eyes would have been glowing faintly. My actual eyes, anyway. She shrugged off the thought and looked toward Callisto at the edge of her visibility. "How many different areas down here are there in terms of established communities someone would go to?"

She couldn't tell in the low, dim light of the tunnel, but she would happily have laid odds that Callisto shrugged. "Dunno," she said. "Guess we'll find out."

"Our first date," came the dry reply, "how exciting."

As they moved through the tunnels Vanessa kept close enough to have a faint outline of Callisto within sight, but far enough away that if anything or anyone sprang out at them both women could react without accidentally striking one another. One hand rested on the handle of the knife hanging off her belt all the while, ears straining to keep track of every scuttling, sloshing, whistling sound around them. In a lot of ways this was an exercise in whether or not Vanessa could trust someone else. Callisto was at a clear advantage in the tunnels but Vanessa had no reason to distrust the woman. That wasn't usually enough of a reason to take a chance on someone but Vanessa had little hope of accomplishing her goal here without the brunette.

They managed to find one encampment down in an abandoned rail line tunnel but no one had seen or heard of Melanie, Vanessa's twelve year old run away. They were nice enough to point the women in the direction of another tunnel-bound community after grilling the pair in an effort to be certain of their motivations. The women plunged back into darkness and walked on for another forty-five minutes in comfortable silence until Vanessa whispered, "What are the odds they were lying and gave us incorrect directions to throw us further away from the communities down here?"

Callisto sighed, the sound echoing slightly down the dank passageway in front of them. Looking around herself, she seemed to decide that a particular spot of the tunnel wall was more appropriate than the rest, and moved over to it, flattening herself against it in a way that must surely be impregnating her shirt - and half of her hair and face - with tunnel-grime. At least it wasn't a sewer.

After a long moment in which it took a few seconds for Vanessa to notice that hers was the only breathing and stop, the other woman stood back, and jerked her head off to the side. "We need to find a connecting tunnel going east," she said. "Should be one up ahead somewhere."

Vanessa sighed. "I knew I should have questioned that sooner," she muttered, sure Callisto would hear her despite her voice not carrying. The metamorph started off up the tunnel again, light sweeping along the ground so she could avoid any rodent carcasses or other more interesting things as they went searching for a tunnel. "I understand why someone wouldn't trust an outsider when they are so used to outsiders doing nothing but harm to them," she continued in that same low, quiet tone. "What I don't understand is how to convince them I will gut those foster parents like a fish if they hurt the girl. Where is a handy telepath when you need one?" Usually the threat to gut someone was something of an exaggeration. Vanessa was almost entirely certain it was something of an underestimation today.


"Go easy on 'em. If I were them, I'd've lied too," Callisto said matter-of-factly, picking up the pace a little to match the other woman's. "These people are at the very bottom of the shit heap. Like, literally. They've got no reason to help anyone. If you wanted to know that badly you'd've been better off roughing 'em up."

"I wasn't going hard on them," Vanessa pointed out placidly. "Just wishing I knew how to get them to cooperate when I really do want to help someone. I don't rough up people that haven't done anything to deserve it. Suspicious and uncooperative hardly constitute being worthwhile for injuring someone."

Callisto didn't seem to have an answer to this - or perhaps she just didn't have one she felt able to convey properly. In any event, she didn't say anything else, just continuing her silent, graceful lope by Vanessa's side. "Off to the left, just ahead," she said eventually.

Needing a bit of levity, Vanessa replied, "Aye, captain." She kept to Callisto's side, veering when the brunette did and following her down yet another tunnel. They continued on, falling into companionable silence once again. Vanessa followed the brunette and Callisto followed her hearing until light began to bleed into Vanessa's line of sight far up ahead. "Have any spectacular ideas for trying to convince them to help us that don't involve violence before we get to them?" she asked in another whisper. Vanessa shut off her maglite and slipped it into her pocket where she kept her hand to cover up the knife hanging off her belt.

Squinting into the distance, Callisto nodded. "Actually, yeah," she muttered. "Think we might've got lucky."

As they approached, Vanessa began to realise what the other woman meant. It became clearer the closer they got to the group that they were unlike the previous community they'd found - this group was at least partly made up of mutants. And not just that, but apparently mutants who had some cause to know the woman who approached them.

"Callisto?" The tone of the greeting was not unconditionally friendly, but it was at least curious, and Callisto responded to it with an answering tip of her chin before standing aside a little to include Vanessa.

"We're looking for a kid," she said now. "'Bout twelve, ran away, you seen her?"

Vanessa held out her mobile with a picture of Melanie on it. "She's not in trouble and we're not going to drag her off anywhere if she's here and doesn't want to leave," she promised in the most docile tone possible. With her eyes diverted toward the ground, shoulders slumped over a bit and her chin tipped down the tall woman was mostly shadowed and uncharacteristically submissive looking. She looked like little threat unless someone figured out how many weapons she had on her and took it the wrong way.

The person to whom they were speaking, an old man who looked as though he was either mostly blind or had some mutation that whited his eyes over, waved to one of his companions to come and look at the picture. The rather bedraggled looking women, who also carried with her a particularly strong odour, took a long look at the picture before shaking her head, "No kids around here. But you might check over by Evergreen, under the cemetery, the gangs run there a lot."

Nodding, Vanessa frowned and slipped her phone back into her pocket. "Think there could be anywhere else kids usually end up that we should check? Underground, I mean. She said she was headin' for tunnels."

The woman shrugged. "Anywhere round that part of the tunnels - the kids like being near exits, they want to go back and forth. They're not like us."

"Thank you." There was an intense sincerity to Vanessa's voice. Regardless of the skin she wore, the woman could act a part. "The help means a lot to me."

"Yeah, thanks Mag," Callisto said, gaining a broad smile, presumably for knowing the woman's name, despite her rather more off-hand tone. Then she turned her attention back to her companion. "You fit for a run?" she asked as they made their way on past the enclave, back into the darkness beyond it. "We're a bit away from Evergreen."

Vanessa grinned and pushed her head back off her head. "Aye, if you think you can keep your fancy I'm-faster-than-you genetics in check enough to not leave me in the dust. How many miles?" She pulled the maglite out. She'd need to deal with the dodgy visibility while they ran. What was the worst that could happen, she sprain an ankle? It hardly seemed worth being bothered over considering what she had just recovered from months ago.


"Dunno, never been good at guessing games. Tell you what," Callisto went on with a dry smirk. "I'll go slow, and if you get tired I'll give you a piggy back, yeah?"

"Well, when you're making a girl an offer like that how could I refuse?" Vanessa's dry return held just a hint of her characteristic flirtation. A moment later, though, she was picking her pace up to a jog and waiting for Callisto to lead the way before she broke into a run.

The distance, by Vanessa's reckoning, was about four miles - long enough that she was feeling the burn by the time Callisto slowed back to a walk but not so long that she had any trouble keeping up with the modest pace she'd set. The air was most certainly fresher in this part of the tunnels, though there still didn't appear to be any natural light. They hadn't seen a soul since they'd left the last enclave, but Callisto was moving purposefully along the tunnel, now, seemingly having at least some idea of where they were headed.


As tempting as it was to begin stripping off layers now that she was both hot and sweaty, Vanessa somehow resisted. She couldn't use a weapon if her hands were full of clothes she'd taken off. As she walked a half step behind Callisto the metamorph took deep breaths to help bring her heart rate back down. If she were someone else she would have used that little trip as an excuse to not go running at the crack of dawn tomorrow. As it was that was unlikely. "There's a culture difference, isn't there?" she eventually asked as they walked. "Between the people who want to be able to go up to the surface easily and the ones that don't?"

"Sure. I guess. Maybe just takes a while before they want to... commit. To being down there." Callisto's tone was at once a little preoccupied and a little sharp, as though Vanessa might be skirting close to something both personal and too complex to explain mid-mission.

"It's hard for anyone to let go of something familiar for something new." Her comment was meant just as much for Callisto as it was the situation she was inquiring after. "People are conditioned to believe society and people within it function a certain way. You live in houses or apartments, you get a job, you buy food. When things go pear-shaped one way or another you need to re-adjust. The tunnels may be safer and better but a harder option to accept as a way of life. It goes against everything we're taught to expect growing up. Generally, of course. Everyone's upbringing is different but on a societal level for the majority of people living in tunnels is something a kid may dream of as being fantastic, much like they want to be pirates, but the reality is so far removed from their fantasies that it is understandably hard to accept. It's no surprise children, who have a harder time letting go of idealism I think, would want to stay within easy reach of the surface." As she spoke her voice was gentle, holding no judgment one way or another about the things of which she spoke. Vanessa was more interested in understanding why people chose to do things than she was in passing judgement about those decisions.

Callisto turned to look across at her, though in the dark and with the torch trained on the tunnel ahead her expression was unreadable, the silence between them giving absolutely no discernable clue as to what her thoughts actually were on the topic upon which Vanessa had been musing. "Sure," she said eventually, tone neutral, almost flat - even for Callisto. Then, "Whatever." Then, "There are people up ahead."

Sore subject, check, Vanessa thought. She wasn't that surprised, though she had hoped Callisto would unruffle a little when she realized Vanessa wasn't trying to be a bitch about the people who chose to live down here. Then again, she supposed they all had subjects that were sore for them. Callisto simply didn't go through the effort to disguise it like most people did. Rather than pressing the topic further Vanessa killed her tiny flashlight and followed the sense of the woman near her more than anything to guide her. "Let's hope the third time's the charm, aye?"

* * * * *


Callisto had been all for just heading back to the mansion for the night, tunnel-grime and all, but Vanessa had insisted - she had a spare room and the least she could do, after their hours' trek in the tunnel followed by a deeply frustration and prolonged negociation with a rather scared and kind of obnoxious pre-teen, apparently, was to see Callisto into a hot shower and a warm bed as soon as possible.

The dark-haired woman seemed to do only a cursory visual sweep of her surroundings as Vanessa let her into the apartment, immediately moving over to the window to look out, presumably out of some sort of habit.

Keys were tossed on the coffee table after Vanessa locked the door behind them. Her fingers itched to set the alarm as well but she managed to resist. The last thing she needed was Callisto to leave and set it off. "It's not exactly what one would deem a killer view," she commented when she realized the brunette was at the windows in the kitchen. She came up behind the other woman and pointed out a lit up window across the street a couple floors up. "Though it allows Lucas to keep tabs on me easily enough. Or so I suspect he is." She shrugged and headed off to the fridge. "Anyway, I've Chinese leftovers and more frozen pizza than any person has a right to have if you're hungry. Bathroom's over there," she pointed to the open door without looking. "And there's probably clothes that will fit you somewhere in my mimic closet."

Never one to turn down food, it wasn't long before Callisto had settled (if 'settled' was ever a word that could really apply to someone like her) on the couch with a generous helping of leftover Chinese food, hair still damp from her shower, clothes from Vanessa's 'mimic closet' hanging off her lean frame.

Vanessa had taken the opportunity while Callisto was showering tunnel grime off herself to inspect her apartment. Windows were untampered with, jars were unmoved on windowsills, weapons were all in their places on the walls and no one was hiding anywhere inside the place. She'd put her gun away after the inspection as well as the combat knife that hung on her belt but she kept the hidden knives on her still and opted to not change just yet to cover that fact. Quite conveniently, she was sitting in an armchair that afforded her a view of the entrance and the wall of windows while she flipped through channels. It was becoming a distressingly habitual thing. "I give up," she suddenly declared and tossed the remote Callisto's way. "Your turn.. or shut it off, either way."

Callisto picked up the remote and looked it over for a moment before pointing it at the television and pressing 'mute'. Then she went back to her food in what was now complete silence, the only sounds that of Callisto's steady eating, and the occasional traffic outside, the television flickering away colourfully to itself.

Just as the situation began to ease from 'mildly awkward' into 'distinctly uncomfortable', Callisto finished, pushing her dish away from her and slumping back in her seat, her gaze shifting to survey Vanessa frankly for a long moment. Eventually, she spoke.

"You live alone now, huh?"

"Hm?" Vanessa's eyes snapped up to fix on the other woman. She'd been lost in thought and trying to ignore the gaze, though it easily could have been mistaken for being focused on reading if one hadn't noticed the lack of page turning. "Yeah, I do. Bit odd, actually. I'm used to people being about all the time, and not just from the mansion. It's quiet, though, which counts for something."


"I guess." Callisto's sharp eyes slid around the room - did she notice the strategically placed 'burglar traps'? The jars and bottles on the window sills, the strategic arrangement of the furniture, the way that Vanessa had sat in a place where she could see as much of the room as possible? If she did, it was hidden behind her usual mask of disinterest. But she did pipe up then with a "Thanks, by the way. For letting me stay tonight. Wasn't looking forward to the ride home after all that."

The metamorph shrugged in a throwaway gesture even as her eyes darted toward the windows and the sound of something breaking out on the street. "It's cool. I've done that commute late at night and if given the chance between doing it or doing it after sleeping I'd generally choose the latter. You're only still out here, most likely, because you agreed to help me out. Seems only fair I feed you, let you steal my shower for a bit and give you somewhere to crash." Callisto had also helped her find the kid, though, which meant the other woman would eventually come back to her suite at the mansion to find a check for her troubles. Vanessa didn't bring that up. She didn't like talking about money in general and something about the brunette made her think it would have been a worse idea than usual.

Callisto just nodded, pursing her lips, eyes scanning her surroundings again. "So shit was pretty rough, huh," she said vaguely.

In truth, Callisto had heard little of anything at all. She tended to avoid news and gossip as much as possible - perhaps it was because she had a tendency to hear things by accident, and so she felt the need to level the playing field. But one way or another, Callisto's keen senses and rather blunter intelligence had discerned that the other woman had been through the wringer.

Vanessa shrugged. "I recently had a period one would classify as astoundingly 'unfun,' yes." The fact that Callisto knew something or other was hardly a surprise. In fact, Vanessa tended to assume most people connected to or in the mansion knew at least part of the story anyway.

"That why you're still pink?" Callisto asked bluntly.

"Maybe. Haller thinks it's in my head but related," she admitted with a small frown. Haller wanted her to talk to someone, anyone. Garrison wanted her to see a shrink. Vanessa just wanted to get through a day.

The other woman pursed her lips, giving Vanessa a long look, her expression fairly blank. But then, Callisto wasn't exactly a symphony of facial expressions - she pretty much had Scowling, Sarcastic, Awkward and Neutral. So of the options available, neutral was probably the most welcome.

"I'm sorry," she said simply. And then, "I liked the blue. You must miss it."

"Aye," Vanessa replied with a small nod and a shrug to match. "More than I thought I would, actually. I'd wanted to be back to my own coloring for ages. This is close and it's sort of bizarre looking in a mirror. But it's strangest being stuck. I haven't been stuck since I was a kid."

"Helps you... blend in, I guess," Callisto offered carefully, her tone not betraying whether she considered this to be a desirable thing.

"That it does." Vanessa's tone didn't make it clear where or not she found it favorable either. On the one hand blending in made her job as a PI easier, on the other hand blending in could also make getting mutants to talk to her harder. She could no longer just drop the mimic to show she was really one of them. She couldn't pick the face that would get her farthest with a potential information source. In some ways her hands were tied and Vanessa was forced to re-think how to go about things she already had easy answers for normally.

"That must make you feel... safer," the brunette suggested now, her gaze suddenly drawn away from Vanessa and out of the window - or perhaps to the sharp objects littered along its ledge.

An eyebrow quirked and Vanessa gave the other woman a curious look. "How so?"

Callisto shrugged. "Not standing out, I guess? You can just... throw on a hoodie, and fade into the background. I mean, not that you couldn't before."

"I could be anyone before," Vanessa pointed out. "I could fade into any background any time at my choosing. All I needed was the means for grabbing a body that would work for my needs. I am both armed and dangerous. Being blonde is not more useful than those things. I can take care of myself whether or not I blend in." Whether she was trying to convince Callisto or herself was unclear, though Vanessa was convinced it was the former.

"Okay, yeah. Sorry." Callisto frowned, pushing to her feet and stooping to pick up her plate. "Sorry, I'm not exactly the sharpest tool in the box," she said. Then, "Where should I put this?"

"The sink's fine." Something about being told she must feel safer itched at Vanessa in a way she didn't like. She wasn't sure what it was but it sort of made her prickle all down her spine. Like maybe it meant something she wasn't acknowledging. That was stupid. Yet she couldn't ignore that nagging feeling. Didn't someone else bring up something like that? David maybe? Or Haller? Too many people were analyzing Vanessa for her taste.

She heard the clink of the bowl being put down gently in the sink, and then the tap running, and for a moment it seemed like Callisto might be about to do her own dishes, perhaps to avoid the other woman's gaze. But then the skinny woman just bent down and dipped her head to the stream of water briefly before straightening and turning, wiping her mouth. She gave Vanessa an almost guilty look. "You can look however you want," she said now, though whether she was referring to the blue, or this new pink-and-blonde, was anyone's guess. "It doesn't matter. How you look, I mean. It's not important. I'm sorry. Shouldn't've brought it up."

"It's fine." Vanessa brushed the whole topic away as if it was nothing. She ignored how irritated the topic had made her, how grating the idea of her being pink because it was safe had been. "Everyone does it. It's just...a point of frustration for me at the moment, that's all. I've rarely found any sort of circumstances that precipitate being able to shift back to my default, natural form so that I can shift at will." She wasn't going to bring up that falling asleep on Garrison was the sole circumstance she had found that allowed that.

Callisto's brow furrowed again, and she approached, rather hesitantly, sitting nearer Vanessa this time, turning toward her. "I really mean it," she said now, in a tone that was at once somehow gentler and more intense. "It's not important. How you look. I guess..." the line between Callisto's brows deepened. "I can't speak for anyone else, but I guess when I talk about how you look, I'm wondering how you feel."

There was something almost uncomfortably intimate about the way Callisto was talking, about the way she was looking at Vanessa. It took all her self-control to meet the other woman's eyes without squirming. Much. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that you're tough. You're really tough. And I wouldn't know how to begin to ask you how you were doing. So I ask you why you're pink now instead." Callisto made a face. "Sorry, I'm still working on this... disclosure... stuff. Counselling training doesn't really stick too easy with me."

"I'm fine." The words came so easily now, she said them so often. It was like an automatic program launching in a way. Someone asked how she was and she immediately told them she was fine. "I'm just...pink. Which is irritating. But I'm fine." It was amazing, even to Vanessa, that she could sit here and insist this even though it was obvious she wasn't. She wasn't sleeping unless Garrison was here, really, she was booby trapping all her windows, she had an alarm installed, she was twitchy and watching everything all the time until she was so tired her brain couldn't keep up with it. Vanessa was pointedly not okay. But hell if she was going to say that.

Calliso sat back slightly, blinking. Unbidden, her eyes slid back to the windows. She sighed, rubbing a hand across her face. "Okay," she said, slumping back a little in her seat. "You're fine. Fine."

For some reason that piqued Vanessa's frustration again. "What do you want me to say? 'I'm not fine'? For fuck's sake, Callisto, everyone has been telling me how not fine I am. How I need to see a shrink, how being pink is all in my head, how I look like hell every bleeding day. And even when they're not saying it they're still saying it with that look like they're afraid I will fall over and break. You have any idea how fucking infuriating that can get? Everything is not how it was before, but it is what it is. I can't do anything about it so why should I fixate on it like everyone else is?" Especially when all she wanted to do was get some bloody sleep for once.

The other woman didn't look round at this, but Vanessa didn't miss the slight flinch as she rose her voice. For a long time, Callisto didn't say anything at all. When she eventually did, her tone was more detached. "I'm sorry," she said, a third time.

The flinch calmed her rising temper instantly. Vanessa even felt a little bad about it. "No, it's okay," she said, voice lowered just like her head was lowering. "You're worried, I get it. Everyone's worried. It's just...there's nothing anyone can do. Including me. And it's frustrating. And Jesus Christ, I just want to be able to sleep, you know?" The metamorph rubbed her eyes. They burned with their exhaustion and that, no doubt, was only adding to how short her fuse was. "I didn't mean to snap at you. It's just...everyone wants answers. And I don't have any."

Jaw clenching, eyes still in front of her, Callisto nodded stiffly. After another long silence, she cleared her throat. "You can't sleep."

Vanessa shook her head. Then she took a deep breath and admitted quietly, "Not unless Garrison is playing pillow. And even then...I usually wake up anyway. But four hours and waking up and getting another couple hours is more than I get any other day."

Callisto nodded again. "I didn't know that you and him..."

"Me and Garrison?" The words cut in as if they were trying to stomp on any words that may follow from Callisto. "No, no, no. He's a mate. He's only a mate, I am resoundingly not his type and the lack of interest is quite overwhelming. I just fall asleep on him watching whatever stupid tv show he has chosen to subject me to this time 'round is all." Lack of interest on his end anyway.

"Huh." Again, the other woman fell silent, as though after every short burst of conversation she had to pause to let her mind buffer so that she could continue. Eventually, she said, "I'm a pretty shitty... pillow. I mean," she went on, "I'm kinda bony, and I don't really... touch people. Usually. And I'm not Garrison. But." She cleared her throat again. "I'm here. And I do want to help."

There was no way to help the amused little smirk that played across Vanessa's lips. "Are you offering to be my very bony pillow?"

"You might wanna... use a cushion. Or something. But um. Yeah, I guess."

This was so uncharacteristic of her. She wanted to help and Vanessa appreciated that more than she was willing to say. The metamorph was hilariously bad at asking for help when she needed it - something she was sure would eventually earn her a beating from Adrienne - but here was Callisto, a bit awkward and trying to offer help. A soft, fond smile appeared only to vanish a moment later.

Casually Vanessa grabbed the remote and tossed it into Callisto's lap. "Alright, I'll get pillows and you find something to bore us into sleep without being totally unendurable."

Callisto pulled her lower lip between her teeth, stared down at the remote on her knees as though it might have some sage advice for her. She had been working up to offering to rent Vanessa's spare room - she easily had enough saved up to afford it for a bit, and after all, her duties at the mansion were slowly giving way to her work in town.

The irony of the fact that this much more fleeting, one-off 'human pillow' commitment was considerably more daunting was not lost on even Callisto.