Vanessa & Callisto | Wednesday night

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Callisto conveniently needs somewhere to crash for the fourth time in the past week, though both women know it's not exhaustion that's keeping her from driving back to the mansion for the night.

Callisto wasn't a slow waker. She was one of those people who opened their eyes, and was immediately completely awake. On this occasion, she woke with a crick in her neck from her position, slumped on the couch, unable to shift for fear of waking the figure currently... 'nestled' was the only word, really... against her. She closed her eyes again, wondering what the more attractive option was - for Vanessa to remain asleep and condemn her to a night of uncomfortable near-wakefulness in a non-horizontal position, or for her to wake now, partway into the night, as she had last time, and the time before that, and...

Swallowing, Callisto shifted her gaze, trying to keep her head still, to look down at the figure resting against her.

Sleep didn't come easily for Vanessa anymore. It had once and though she had been a light sleeper her sleep had always been restful. Now she had to fight and beg and pray for sleep to come on only for the nightmares to advance quickly on slumber's heels. Her brain would shut down just long enough for snatches of memory to mix with whatever horrific scene her subconscious had dredged up. It all went into a blender and exploded in technicolor upon her inner eye. It would seem to stretch on forever while she tried to claw her way out of the terrifying vision and Vanessa would awake...only to find that she had slept for no more than two hours and half of that was likely nightmares. Rest wasn't something she obtained on her own.

This was the fourth time Callisto had crashed at Vanessa's. The metamorph didn't mind and she never called the brunette out on what was really going on. If she did that then she would have to admit how obvious it was. How very not okay she was on a daily basis. For whatever reason Callisto had decided she wanted to help Vanessa sleep and the metamorph needed sleep badly enough that she let the elephant hang out in the room while both women pointedly ignored it. Because she was damn near desperate for sleep and letting Callisto pretend to need somewhere to crash rather than make the trek back to the mansion was an easier pill to swallow than asking Garrison to come spend the night or waiting for their weekly take out and marathon television date.

Vanessa also liked to pointedly ignore that every time she woke up she was partly wrapped around the slight brunette. Even now her head was against the other woman's stomach, chin propped up on the arm that draped over Callisto's stomach. It was about as comfortable as Vanessa got on the couch, though she would inevitably wake eventually.

The light hum of the television, only the slightest of sounds to normal human ears, was beginning to irritate Callisto, now. She'd muted it earlier on, leaving just the flickering screen in a sort of token gesture of 'falling asleep in front of the television'. As Vanessa had dropped off and Callisto grew tired she'd put it on stand-by with the remote, but she now very much wanted to switch it off properly, and that meant moving. And moving wasn't an option. In spite of herself she felt her muscles beginning to tense, first her arms, then her legs, then her stomach, the loud whine of the electronics much more annoying that it had been earlier when she was a little more tired.

The tensing stomach beneath her head drew Vanessa's attention, pulling her a little closer to consciousness. And then something about that movement brought images of something clamping down around her head to hold it still. In the real world the beginnings of her struggling was little more than her arm tightening around Callisto's waist, her shoulders tightening. But then there was the needle headed straight for her eye. She fought with her mind, trying to remember if this had happened or not. Thinking past the sharp tip of metal drawing closer and closer was night impossible. Soon she was struggling in earnest, body tense as if it was held in place in the real world as well.

Vanessa's heart began to race and just as the needle was about to make contact she shot upward. Her head narrowly missed the other woman's chin thanks to Callisto's reflexes.

"Hey, hey..." Callisto's voice was quiet, but it still seemed loud in the large, open room. She shifted, a gentle hand cupping Vanessa's shoulder, then elbow, as she let her sit up by herself. Something instinctive told her that even if she was inclined to impose an embrace upon the other woman (she wasn't) the gesture would not be welcome, but she didn't move her hand, keeping that light contact against Vanessa's arm as though trying to ground her. "It's okay," she said now. "You're safe. Everything's fine."

Closing her eyes wasn't really an option. Vanessa knew the image of that needle would be imprinted on her mind's eye and pull up the moment her eyes were closed again. Instead she dropped her gaze and fixed it, oddly, on Callisto's knee. For some reason all she could think was that it seemed like the other woman's knee should be bonier, sharper. She was so skinny, and yeah, on the bony side and why wasn't her knee more...angular or something?

The arbitrary fixation seemed to help her calm down a little, though, and eventually Vanessa nodded slowly. "Okay. Okay. I'm...I'm okay." Well, she thought she was okay for now. She was still doing her damnedest to not close her eyes though. Even blinking was to be discouraged.

Callisto nodded, a flicker in Vanessa's peripheral vision. She sat forward a little, her hand at Vanessa's elbow moving to rest on her back, behind her shoulder, warming even through the material of her top. With her metabolism, Callisto always ran a little hot. "You want some... hot chocolate, or something?" she offered lamely. After all, what else could she say - Oh, were you having another bad dream about being tortured? Want to tell me about it?

Vanessa shook her head. "I don't even own cocoa. Just...I dunno. Water might be good. Or tea. Or something. I think there's herbal relaxing sleepy something or other in the cupboard." Hell, she couldn't even remember if she was the one who had put it there. It might have been Laurie or Adrienne or even Lucas when she wasn't looking. She was still trying to figure out if it was a memory or just a fucked up dream she'd just woken from. Maybe she'd talk to Hank about what inserting a needle in someone's eye might do to it in terms of the trauma it would leave behind. Maybe he would come out to the city to look at her eye for her. Just in case.

"'Kay." Callisto pushed to her feet, padding over to fill the kettle and set it on the stove before beginning the hunt for some sort of beverage mix, opening the kitchen cupboards in turn.

Figuring that there was only so much in the cupboards of someone who rarely cooked anything that didn't start off in a box or as a frozen something or other, Vanessa didn't bother to direct Callisto. Instead she concentrated on breathing and bringing down the heart beat that seemed to be pounding against her temples."You ever have those dreams that you're not sure if they're dreams or memories?" she asked quietly and somewhat hypothetically.

"Nope," Callisto said simply, without turning around. "I don't remember my dreams." She said it as though it was as much a decision on her part as a chance occurrence.

"Lucky you," Vanessa muttered rather unhappily. She hated not being sure if something had happened or not. She had been sedated pretty heavily at times while locked up and discerning fact from pure nightmare could be something of a challenge.

Callisto didn't speak again until she'd finished making the tea, and even then, she just returned with the mug, laying it down on the coffee table in front of Vanessa and offering a simple, "Here you go," before taking a seat next to her again.

Tea came in the midst of Vanessa stretching her back in an attempt to get the crick out of it. Clearly her body was not too happy with falling asleep on the couch all the time. "Thanks." The word was barely audible to her own ears as she took the steaming mug from the table. She almost wanted to make a joke about how at least she hadn't woken screaming but Vanessa wasn't really finding her terminal inability to sleep too amusing for the moment. So she sipped her tea and said nothing. Her companion for the evening didn't seem to displeased by this state of affairs, and waited patiently, reclining back on the couch in silence while Vanessa drank the hot beverage.

When the other woman put the drink aside, she was on her feet again in a moment, reaching to take it back over to the sink. It seemed that she was in ultimate utility mode at present.

A small, barely there laugh followed Callisto's exit to the kitchen. "You don't have to play maid, you know."

"I don't mind. I like being useful." Callisto quickly rinsed the cup, placing it on the draining board by the sink before turning and approaching the couch, though she didn't sit this time, just jamming her hands into her pockets.

"Well, thanks. You are." She wasn't talking about playing fetch and carry for the tea and they both knew that. Every now and then it wasn't bad to acknowledge the elephant's presence in the room in a roundabout way. She didn't think there was any real need to give it more attention than that.

Vanessa stretched and got up to head over to a bookshelf. "I need books that are more boring. Dull things to lull me off to sleep. Or perhaps picture books. Wake up in the middle of the night and turn to Dr. Seuss, maybe."

"I don't really read," Callisto murmured, but she wandered over to where Vanessa was nevertheless.

"How come?" Vanessa assumed, despite Callisto's years in the tunnels, that she could read on a at least the level of a graduating senior. While quiet, the brunette had never struck Vanessa as stupid. "Just not a fan? It's all I used to do. Out in the field TV and the like aren't readily available so you've got books."

"Yeah, just never got into it. I'm better with my hands than at. Y'know. Thinking."

A small half-smile appeared. "Under different circumstances I would be giving you an entirely different response to that. You left yourself wide open there." A corner of her mouth pulled up higher and then the smile was gone. "I think you think just fine, though. Maybe you're not a philosopher but there's nothing wrong with your brain."

"It does what it does," Callisto said with a shrug. "I just sorta bailed on school. Sometimes I think I should study, help me understand the mechanics stuff better instead of going by sound and feel. But... I just never get around to it."

"Pretty sure Scott knows a lot of the technical stuff about that," Vanessa offered. "And God knows he loves being a mentor or having minions or whatever. Maybe kinda arrogant about it some of the time but he's fine the rest of the time. Maybe he'll teach you. Sometimes it's easier and keeps your attention longer to learn from a person."

The other woman shrugged again. "I'm doing less and less there anyway," she said. "Most of my work's in town these days."

"So, what? You basically sleep there and teach defense? Seems like a bitch of a commute for free room and board." Vanessa pulled a random paperback off the shelf. She wasn't even sure she remembered what this was about or why she had bought it. It seemed like something of an LSD trip version of a circus, though, so why not?

"I guess. I mean, I still do a bit of maintenance, but... they don't really need me on self defense either, really. Not any more."

Vanessa's eyebrows furrowed. "But they need a second teacher for demonstrations and to minimize the skeeviness of a guy showing teenage girls how to do grabs and stuff. Is someone else filling in?" Or was Callisto just losing interest in the position? A couple months back Vanessa had offered her a job and been turned down in part because the woman was working at the mansion teaching self-defense and doing vehicle maintenance on top of her time volunteering at the shelter. "Are you thinking of resigning from Xavier's?"

Callisto made a face. "We don't always teach together, anyway - you can just get them to demo with one another. I'm..." She shook her head. "Maybe. I dunno. I know they'll keep me around as long as I want to be there, but... I feel a little like I'm still just... hiding out." She glanced across at Vanessa, now, making brief eye contact. "Y'know?"

Vanessa? Hiding? What could she possibly know about that? It wasn't like she didn't take on as many cases as humanly possible and hole up in her apartment if she wasn't in the office or beating the heavy bag at the gym to death. Nah, Vanessa wouldn't know anything about that. "Yeah, are you ready to stop hiding out? That's always the point, innit? Some people never stop hiding because they are too terrified of it. Some people are never ready. The rest just hide until they can deal with being out in the open again. The question is, are you?"

The other woman turned back toward the bookshelf, now, raising a hand to run her fingers through her hair and round to scratch the back of her neck. "After the massacre, I hid for a real long time," she said eventually. "I mean. Part of it I didn't have much choice, I got shot like four times, I thought I was dead. But even after that, I just... dropped out. I'm pretty good at disappearing when I need to. This is... maybe a different kind of hiding. I dunno."

Book in hand, Vanessa turned to look at Callisto more fully. "Of course it is. The mansion's an hour away from where you spend most of your time, sounds like. It's gated, it's got security measures, it has a vigilante super hero team on premises. Hell, it has the guy with the biggest, most bad ass brain around there playing Big Brother if he wants to. It's safe and it's separate and no one's going to get close enough to shoot you while you're there. But you also totally abandon your life while you're there. It's like Xavier's is this little world on its own. And you don't have to deal with anything outside of it while you're there if you don't want to. And because of that it makes it easier to keep on not dealing."

"I'm not scared of getting hurt," Callisto countered immediately - and she clearly meant it.

"There's more hurt than just physical hurt to worry about," Vanessa pointed out. "But if you don't need to keep hiding and you're clearly not enthusiastic about teaching self-defense then what are you doing there still? I'm not trying to be a bitch, it just sounds like you're sort of over it and ready to move on. Whether or not you will, though..." she tilted her head and shrugged. "That's up to you."

Callisto frowned, now, looking a little like a stubborn child. "I didn't bring it up for a lecture," she said, sounding a little sullen. "I was... fuck it, never mind."

"It's wasn't a lecture. It was mostly a question. Why are you still there if it feels like hiding and you're not scared of being hurt?" Vanessa tried for something like patience but her tone was a bit more like a challenge. "If it's ties to people who are there then that's fine. I just...don't see the point if it feels like hiding and you're not interested in hiding out anymore. Unless you are. And that's cool, too."

"I guess I just..." haven't had a home in a very long time. And I don't know how to make one by myself. "Look, I was gonna say that if you wanted someone around for a while, I probably have a few months' worth of rent saved up, and with me only really needed at the mansion a couple've days a week..." Trailing off yet again, Callisto shook her head. "Anyway, whatever, it's a dumb idea. Forget it."

It wasn't often that Vanessa got a curve ball from Callisto, but that certainly was one. And now she felt a little bit like an ass knowing that was the point the brunette had been trying to make. "You wanna rent my other room?" She tried to keep the surprised tone down but it was hard to when she wasn't prepared for that proposition in the least. "No, I mean... It's not a dumb idea. If you want the room it's yours." Maybe she should have thought that through a bit more first.

On the one hand, it was harder being so crazy when someone was around to witness it so much of the time. Maybe Callisto wasn't one to be home much. That was possible. But it was also possible Vanessa was making it a lot harder to cover up how completely deranged she was as well. A distinct uncomfortablness settled into her frame as she stood there, but she wasn't sure she should retract the agreement. Friends were worried about her. Lucas watched her from his window across the street. Garrison and Haller both wanted her to talk to someone, a shrink in one case or anyone in the other. Maybe they'd worry less. Maybe she'd get more sleep. Maybe forcing herself to pretend to be more sane more often would trick her brain into thinking she really was more sane.

"I wouldn't mind having someone else around."

Callisto's face was impassive, now - though Vanessa was well-versed enough in her small range of facial expressions by now to know this could mean anything from mild hunger to all-out panic. Eventually she sighed, ran a hand over her face and once more through that perma-touseled hair. "C'n we just go to bed?" she said. Then she seemed to catch herself. Blinked. Shook her head. "I mean..." Now you've done it. That's one of the things we Aren't Talking About. Remember?

Right. Bed. Bed of the obvious and looming inevitability they weren't addressing. Except for how Callisto had just addressed it. Aloud. Directly. There wasn't even any skirting the issue. The fact that someone she wasn't dating who wasn't a really close friend was asking to just go to bed with her... well, that wasn't lost on Vanessa either. Because this was obviously the state of concern she had put people in. This was the state of desperation for sleep she had come to. Once Vanessa would have killed to get this woman in her bed and there definitely wouldn't have been any sleeping involved until they were both far too exhausted to do anything but succumb to the need for sleep. And yet now... the fact that she would actually manage to sleep some with Callisto as her bony pillow was all she could think of.

Vanessa walked over to the couch, picked up the remote and turned the television off properly. "Aye, we can just go to bed." Somehow it was easier to address that than the potential roommate situation. Maybe because bed was the simplified version in some ways. Oversimplified, Vanessa hoped.

Looking somewhat relieved, as though she'd accidentally flipped the switch on a bomb only to find it wasn't wired up after all, Callisto trailed behind like a loyal pet, stooping to grab her bag from the floor by the couch as she followed the other woman into her bedroom. Her own pyjama bottoms were a feature as of night three, along with a spare teeshirt, although she tended to sleep in the one she'd worn through the day, presumably a habit she'd formed in her eternally solitary lifestyle and it hadn't occurred to her to break on sharing a bed with someone else. Fortunately, although her appearance at times suggested the contrary, she never smelled of anything more unpleasant than the faintest hint of engine oil behind her own, mild natural aroma. Callisto, assaulted at all times by a mishmash of every scent on the air, probably didn't even notice.

It was oddly comfortable, despite how much the women didn't speak of it, to have Callisto following along behind her. The few lights that were on got switched off on the way into the bedroom courtesy of a panel just beside her bedroom door. Vanessa worried, sometimes, about the ease with which she found herself with Callisto. Had she become some exasperatingly needy person since her time as a science experiment? Was she just that eager for human contact that anyone would do without the slightest reservation? Or was it because of the unassuming, undemanding air that came with the brunette. She expected nothing from Vanessa so there was nothing to lose.

Her book slid onto her bedside table to rest under a lamp. Vanessa had no doubt she would need it at some point, though she held out hope she would manage to fall back asleep easily this time. It was never easy. Sometimes it was sooner than other times but usually it involved a lot of tossing and turning or reading. With someone else in bed with her Vanessa would rather read with the dim light than do her best fish out of water impression. She climbed into bed, her hope and ever present sense of dread hanging over her even as she pulled the covers back on what she was beginning to quietly think of as Callisto's side of the bed.

The other woman was shedding her jeans, now - quite unselfconsciously, pulling her socks off at the same time as each pants-leg in a practised method of avoiding that unfortunate 'bare legs with socks' look that suggested that for all her hermitude these days, Callisto had once upon a time been fairly used to having an audience while undressing. Once her thin cotton pyjama bottoms were donned and hastily tied, hanging loosely from her hips, though, there was that slightest hint of hesitation returning, and Callisto climbed rather gingerly into bed, as though she thought that at any moment Vanessa would change her mind, perhaps realising how odd the situation was, and decide she'd rather brave sleep alone.

While Callisto changed Vanessa was moving the sheathed knife that lived under her pillow a bit further underneath. She didn't think it would faze the other woman in the least, but it was still enough to give most people pause. It probably didn't reflect any more favorably on her that it was a habit that had preceded her European vacation last year.

As the brunette came into bed there was a moment of tensing up. Something about proximity made Vanessa twitchy and she tended to work up to it over the course of being near someone. She had been asleep on Callisto all of fifteen minutes ago or less, yet that reflex was still there. Despite that, she didn't pull further away to teeter on the edge of the mattress like she wanted to. Vanessa forced herself to stay right where she was, laying on her stomach with a hand wrapped around the knife handle below her pillow. Just in case. Part of her wanted to thank Callisto for staying, for not minding, for helping...but Vanessa figured it went without saying. At least she hoped so. So she flashed a faint smile in the other woman's direction and wondered how long it would take to fall asleep this time.

Callisto settled onto her back, as seemed to be her wont - she barely moved at all when she slept and frequently woke in the exact position she'd been in at the beginning of the night. It was, as always, a little disconcerting how heavily she weighed down the mattress given her size - it felt almost as though there was a well-built six foot man lying next to Vanessa rather than the slight, lithe brunette.

The weight on the other side of the bed was actually sort of reassuring. It helped reinforce the idea that someone else was there. Vanessa wasn't alone. In a weird way it was sort of like someone had her back. Not that Vanessa thought that was really an accurate portrayal of the situation but...it was good to have someone else there. It was calming, in a way, and calm was something she needed in a big way.

How long Vanessa laid there, staring at her pillow, headboard and the window in turn, was unclear. The metamorph concentrated on small stupid things, like the soft sound of Callisto's breathing and the cars that drove by on the street below intermittently. Minutes blurred together until everything got fuzzy maybe a half hour or an hour or three hours later. She wasn't sure. What she did know was that when she woke with a spike of panic her arm was draped across the other woman and her head was down by the brunette's shoulder. Figuring it was just an inconsequential sound that caused the reaction she settled again, knife handle still in her grasp. And she fell asleep almost as easily as she had woken.

Vanessa knew eventually the nightmares would come. She knew when they did she'd wake them both up when she couldn't figure out why her leg seemed to be tangled up with something. Only the something it would be tangled with, invariably, would be Callisto's leg. Her starfish impersonation wouldn't go unnoticed by either of them but it wouldn't be commented on. And when Vanessa tried to sleep again after the nightmares she would simply silently wrap herself around the slim women beside her without any outward acknowledgement of it just as she had the last time Callisto had stayed the night. Whether it was because the nightmares had already come and gone, because it was so near daybreak by that point anyway or because the contact was that much more reassuring, when the metamorph was wrapped around the other woman she slept more soundly. And she would get through the rest of the night until her body reminded her it was time to get up and go running.

Callisto could sleep, or at least rest, through just about anything - with hearing like hers there was always some background sound, but over the decades she'd become very good at subconsciously distinguishing genuine threat from random sounds. Having another figure attached to her like a limpet was... unfamiliar, certainly - even back in the days when she peppered her experiences with casual encounters she wasn't accustomed to sleeping the night with another person. The first time she'd woken with Vanessa wrapped around her, leg and arm lying over hers, she'd fought the instinct to wriggle out from beneath her. Tonight that urge had given way to the instinct to turn from her back to face Vanessa, further entwining their limbs, or away from her to tessellate their bodies in a more natural fit. It was an instinct she ignored, remaining flat on her back, only moving her limbs to make Vanessa's own position more comfortable.

Perhaps if Callisto had any concept of metaphors or of sea-creatures, she would equate it to the fact that she was, of course, not the limpet, but the rock it clung to. Instead, she just had the gut feeling that to do anything other than simply lie there would be crossing some sort of imaginary line, shifting the situation from one that was too strange to be spoken of to one that could be framed in more common parlance, and could accordingly no longer serve its purpose. Callisto understood one thing for certain: That's not why you're here.