Vanessa & David | Monday morning

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

After spending another night with Laurie, Vanessa does something she really doesn't want to do but can't allow herself to avoid. She goes to the medlab.

She hadn't been the first to come down and see David, likely. Being in the mansion itself made Vanessa sort of uncomfortable and squirmy. She came because Laurie needed her and Laurie was family regardless of blood. The medlab, though... The medlab made her skin crawl. It made her skin itch until she wanted to claw her way out of it. Going to the medlab wasn't just difficult. It was like walking straight into a hungry shark's gaping mouth. Maybe, much like a shark's mouth, it would be relatively unremarkable once inside. Once she got past the rows of razor sharp teeth. Vanessa's blatant fear of the place had kept her away for days after David had woken up, yet here she was. To say it wasn't blatantly obvious she didn't want to be there was something of an understatement, but she went for the same reason she had come to the mansion in the first place. You showed up for the people who were the closest thing to family you had.

Vanessa paused in the doorway of David's room, quiet and looking like she was trying to fold in on herself or maybe like she was preparing the quickest exit strategy so she could bolt at any moment. Doors were a problem. Doors that could lock her inside were really a problem. When David spotted her standing there Vanessa forced herself into the room, nails digging into the flesh just above her elbows. "Hey."

“You didn’t have to come,” was the blunt reply as David set down his phone on his lap and studied her, blue eyes clearer than they had been in a long while. Not that he was not happy to see her. But even in his less than stellar condition he could tell that the shapeshifter was uncomfortable. More uncomfortable than he was, even, and he was bundled up in several heavy layers of clothing as a result of a single comment about being the room being cold. “I would have broken out eventually.”

There was still a heavy weariness about the spy, but at the very least the heavy weight of complete exhaustion had been lifted. Sleep did not come easy and he was refused the aid of medication. So he suffered through the nightmares at night, and the concerned coddling in the day, waiting impatiently for the day his body stopped trembling and he was released to lick his wounds in private.

"I was already here." She glanced up toward the ceiling even as her knuckles whitened with her grip on her arms. "Kid sister's having trouble sleeping at night so I'm spending nights here until Ea can get out of the job he's on and come be with her." Vanessa's voice was low, soft. It wasn't out of any respect of the medical atmosphere or some belief that it would be soothing for David. The restraint to not scream or run or claw at her own skin took so much effort that the simple strain of standing there less than three feet inside the room rendered her voice incapable of sounding the least bit normal at any greater volume.

She forced herself to walk further into the room. It was like every step brought a greater pressure closing in around her, tightening its grip. Mid-way, that was her goal. If she could close half the distance between herself and David that would be a win, right? It would be less awkward than her hovering near the door even if it was harder to maintain any appearance of being okay with being in this room. This wasn't about her, Vanessa reminded herself and took another step. It was about her idiot friend. "You know, it's not really an option. When you've got friends as stupid as I apparently have it's in the by-laws that you come tell them how stupendously fucking stupid they are. And you are, really, stupendously fucking stupid. You realize that, don't you?"

Sighing, David shrugged, absentmindedly toying with his phone. “Perhaps,” he replied after a while, perhaps a tad bit too nonchalantly. It was hard to defend himself against something that he had already called himself. He had woken from his coma, disconcerted and shaken. And when he realised that he had nearly killed himself after all he had done to survive and live to see another sunrise, the spy had berated himself for his carelessness. “We can’t all be as brilliant as you, mien liebe.”

Coming to grips with his temporary loss of control – control which had taken him years to develop and perfect – and forced reliance on near-strangers had not been easy. It chafed and it chafed badly. David hated it. So he had ducked behind the tattered remains of his masks and pride, willing his easygoing exterior to take the front for him to appear at least what passed as normal for him and hide his inner turmoil. It was all right that he had nearly died, he told himself repeatedly, there was little keeping him in the land of the living; almost nothing to tie him down. At the very least he had not given in to death’s call while they were still in Genosha and he had immediate responsibilities to fulfill. The soldier in him had protested the line of reasoning, but was swiftly silenced by the man he had become.

"No, apparently you can't," she agreed, her voice getting even quieter now that she was planted about six feet from David's bedside. "Though I suppose it's too much to expect people to not simply walk into Death's arms for a bit of a snuggle. Of course, I'd been under the impression you weren't really one for cuddling." There was a sharp, scolding note underlying all that softness she spoke with. Vanessa wasn't quite sure if she wanted to scream because of her own baggage with this place or if it was because David had all but begged to be taken to his grave. Maybe it was because losing Mike was still raw despite the two years since his death. Maybe it was that Garrison and Adrienne had both been kidnapped. Vanessa sort of wanted to throttle the German.

"If you ever do this again, I will kill you, scumpete," she warned, voice more laced with worry and exhaustion than any intimidation. "And should you try and succeed I will find a way for someone to bring you back so that I can kill you. I do not have enough friends, dragoste, for you to be expendable. Do you understand? I refuse to lose someone to some stupid suicidal urge or flat out unthinking carelessness. You want to get killed? You do it legitimately, in the field. Not like this." Vanessa had not really slept in the past few days and she had not slept much for the week or so before she had been found in Genosha's prison. The exhaustion was doing nothing to help her control her emotions and that alone was irritating the living hell out of her. She had heard her voice begin to shake near the end which is why she was now shutting up and trying to get herself under control again.

Blank. His expression was blank. His heart was hollow. His mind was empty. David did not know how to feel or how to react to someone else’s emotions, but that was only normal. Struggling for a response, however, was not something that happened on a regular basis. So he kicked the blankets off his lightly trembling legs, and swung them off the bed, getting to his feet with minimal trouble as he walked barefoot towards the tray Tabitha had shown him to contain hot water and bags tea and coffee. He made Vanessa a cup coffee to give her time to get her emotions under control before shuffling over to her with the peace offering of sorts.

“Don’t worry,” the German man informed her, voice pitched low in an even cadence but tone still deceptively light. “If I ever want a snuggle, I promise I’ll look to you, Kamerad.” The casual smile belied his sincerity, despite the abyss that were his blue irises. It was not a term he used lightly, and his promises were not given or broken easily – they went against his vow to abstain from attachment. But Vanessa looked so tired and worried that a sliver of guilt made its stubborn presence known. She obviously hated the medlab.

And she obviously genuinely cared.

The abrupt realisation caused an involuntary shudder that crept up David’s spine and spread across his shoulders.

Realizing she was staring at the cup of coffee, Vanessa shook her head in an attempt to clear it. Taking the cup meant her hands had to stay steady enough to hold it. She wasn't entirely sure she could do that while being here in this place. Of course, if she didn't take it he wound up standing there shivering with the cup. And it was sort of rude. So was shaking so badly you spilled hot coffee all over yourself. Not to mention the string of expletives that would no doubt follow.

Very slowly, the metamorph peeled her fingers back from where her nails had dug into her skin. Some left pink little half moons, others had opened skin enough to let little beads of blood rush to the surface. Vanessa took the cup and her grip on it was just as ironclad as it had been on her arms. She was actually just sort of mildly trembling, which was pretty good all things considered. She sipped the coffee, which was black and bitter but it seemed better that way, sharper. She sure as hell needed something sharp to keep her alert once she left here anyway.

Her tired, bright blue eyes came up as her lips pulled away from the cup and caught David's. "If you ever come looking for snuggling I will start investigating the possibilities of shapeshifters, brainwashing and lobotomies as possible reasons for your clear break from reality." At least the casual, dry tone was back.

Snorting, David shifted on his feet and quirked a brow at her. “There goes my plan B,” he faux grumbled. He could not help but note the similarities between the two of them, right down to the shaking and moon-shaped marks in his palms and on her arms. The older mutant had to resist the urge to bury his face in his hands so that he could deal with the influx of emotion without letting it translate to facial expressions. Instead, he rubbed a palm against the top of his shaved head and turned back to his bed, perching on the end of it so that he could, at least, lift his bare feet off the floor.

“Then again,” he mused, propping his chin up on his palm, “I’m sure some alcohol and the promise of breakfast in bed…”

"You don't do beds, ursuleţ," Vanessa pointed out with a very, very faint hint of teasing creeping into her voice. "Unless the confusion I suffered in Genosha was more prevalent than I have thought, you are dedicatedly a couch sort of bloke. And you don't stick around for breakfast, even if you cook it." She sipped her coffee again, the corners of her mouth tilting up as she did. "So, I have to say, if there was both a bed and your presence for breakfast involved I may still have to consider the aforementioned possibilities. And while I promise to search for you should it be a shapeshifter, I hope you won't hold it against me if I keep your doppleganger around for a bit." She was still tense, freaked out and shaking, but at least she could tease him.

“Oh, you think you know me so well, Kuschelbär,” David raised his brows for just that hint of suggestion, shifting so that he could tuck his feet under him and bury his hands into the sleeves of the jacket that hung from his too-thin frame. It looked like it had once been worn by Hank McCoy, actually. Which suited him just fine, since it was donned in more of an effort to hide his weakness than to keep him warm. He knew better than to suppress the involuntary shaking now and it was starting to die down. “But I suppose I would not fault you for replacing me so easily, even if that person would look just like me.”

"If my beliefs about you are so erroneous I welcome you to correct them," Vanessa invited. Normally there would have been a decidedly - and, quite frankly, blatant - flirtation in her voice when she said that, but she clearly wasn't up for it. Given the denial she was hoping to slip back into living in once she was out of the medlab, Vanessa was blaming the sleep deprivation. Hopefully once Ea got here she could convince Callisto to hang around the flat all day and play pillow so Vanessa could finally get some real sleep, not the naps she had been stealing during the afternoons. "Though I appreciate your understanding about the doppleganger. After all, if a girl can't have the real thing..." she trailed off, hand waving lightly through the air.

“She’ll settle for second best?” He smiled, though it was a little off-colour and humourless. David shook his head and rolled his neck to ease out the kinks now that the overt tension and high-strung emotions had died to a simmer. “Well, since I’m stuck in this bed for several more days, I’m sure I could get used to sleeping in one soon enough. And I’m perfectly capable of cooking breakfast and leaving it by your bed for your enjoyment without my hampering stupidity.”

Then, since he was sharp enough and knew her well enough to know that she was trying to hide her discomfort behind their attempts at their usual banter, the recovering addict hauled himself to his feet and hunted around for the pair of slippers someone had considerately loaned him. “I’m going for a walk. If you’re not headed back into town yet, you play this old man’s stroller.”

"Are you allowed to leave? I have it on good authority they don't particularly take well to potentially high risk patients wandering about the place." Or maybe Vanessa had just been special to get the lock in treatment. The thought made her cringe and shiver. "But I suppose if they will let you out of their sight I could be amenable to pushing my favorite geriatric about." That earned him the half-smirk he knew so well from working with Morgan. Whose expression it was certainly wasn't lost on Vanessa, but her ongoing questions about her inner recesses had waited this long. They could stand to go uninspected for a good deal longer still.

“They never said I couldn’t,” David waved off the concern with a careless hand gesture, which may have looked ridiculous given that he was bent over at the waist to get at the slippers under his bed. “If I were high risk, I’m sure they would have shackled me to the bed and kept a rotating watch on me.” Besides, they had to know better than to leave a field operative in a room by himself and expect him to stay still in one place. If they did not, well, David was inclined to think that they deserved him running out on them.

Slipping on the elusive slippers, he held out an arm for Vanessa to take, returning that familiar half-smirk with one of his own, already pushing away the resulting thoughts from his earlier revelation. Some things could only be mulled over in private. Or better yet, not thought about at all. For now, he would be glad just to bring Vanessa out and away from the place that was clearly doing a number on her psyche.

Setting her cup down, Vanessa moved to take his arm. She was sure putting him in a wheelchair was the best idea but the odds of convincing him to be wheeled around were negligible. She'd work on it. "I like the hair, by the way," the metamorph commented as they finally walked out into the hallway. It was like someone had released the pressure latch and suddenly she could breathe again. A bit twitchy and tense, sure, but she was calming with every step away from his room. Vanessa even reached out and rubbed his fuzzy head. "You'll have groupies in no time."