as_damaged | ☤ twenty-seven

[The vista in the apartment is currently a tiny, tiny girl ably pinning down a struggling doctor.]

Eden, I've got to get the door open before they turn the axe on each other. I've seen them get close. Eden...

[And he stops struggling, looking heavenwards, if heaven weren't blocked by a whitewashed ceiling.]

Baby, please. Just let me check on them.

[There is silence for a minute]

Oy! Shut yehr yammerin'!

[Her eyes narrow tho]

I'll check on 'em. Yeh sit tight here.

[And she hauls herself up]

[She drives her shoulder into Angela's, trying to knock the other woman out of the way and take her place at the rough window. At this rate everyone's going to get splinters; well, as long as no one gets shot.]

I didn't just hear that, [she practically snarls.]

You better be talking to me, Robert, unless you don't want to walk straight for a week.

[Baby? Somebody's going to get hurt today and it might not be any of the women in this mess. Angela's pissed now, enough to slam her shoulder into the weakened door that falls over like a domino and right onto Eden, effectively knocking out one of her opponents in one shot.

Two bird, one stone.]

What's this baby bullshit?

I'm talking to... one of you.

[Whoever's nearest to the axe. Chase is really, really fond of walking straight. And still half sprawled on the floor when Eden goes down. That spurs some action.]

Christ.

[Lifting the door off her doesn't take Herculean strength, there's not much left to it. Surely this has to snap the others out of the frenzy?]

She's out cold. I need to get her on the couch.

To me I hope.

[It would really be best for his health, after all. Bursting in after Angela, she turns a glare on the other woman.]

What the hell did you do?

[As much as Eden represents a common enemy, sympathy is her natural reaction. Also-- as a calculating, cursed part of her mind is aware-- she'd rather be on Chase's side, since that puts Chase in her corner.]

[The look Angela throws to Cameron is the same one she'd give her if Cameron asked if the sky was blue.]

Got her out of my way. Wanna end up like her too?

[Even with her natural competitive streak, Angela is only this vicious when cursed from head to toe. Well, then and not too long ago with Cameron herself. Either way, in her normal state of mind, she would be horrified at what she's done. ]

Cut the concerned crap. You weren't concerned about her when you were playing Larry Lumberjack. [She turns to eye the only man in the room, kneeling over Eden.] Right, honey?

[Chase has several tells when he starts getting pissed off. A certain tightness across the shoulders, tension rendering the corners of his jaw into sharp angles. And he's not feeling particularly amused right now.

Yes, this is a curse, he's not taking it as a variant of anyone's standard behaviour, but until midnight rolls around he doesn't feel like pandering to petty violence. Gathering Eden up against himself, he ignores Angela and nods to the other doctor in the room.]

Can you help me support her head, please?

She was the one shooting at me. [This is accompanied by a little sneer, though her derision doesn't go any further than that. Because cursed or not she is a doctor. And Chase won't like her any more for letting Eden die. So she does as requested.

And shoots Chase a reserved, calculated, compassion-filled smile as soon as they get the girl settled on the sofa.]

Exactly. I'm not about to help somebody who tried to kill everybody just so she can take what doesn't belong to her.

[Later, if it ever becomes possible, Angela will not show her face to anybody out of shame for the longest time. Curses like these she hates. She already paid into forgiveness six times. This time will cost a lot more.

Watching them cart Eden off to the side, Angela rolls her eyes when Cameron pulls her off proper beside manner act. Oh, please.]

Now that she's safe, can you please tell Cameron you don't want her and that her act isn't working as well as she wants it to because you're already mine?

[And now she flashes her own saccharine sweet smile. Two can play this game.]

Thank you.

[The gratitude is half under his breath, Chase not wanting to give Angela an audible excuse to take a door to someone else. He's still checking Eden's vitals when his girlfriend pulls a move of her own, and this time he's got to look up and acknowledge it. At least it's not the first time this has been said aloud. With the way tonight's going, it may not be the last.]

I'm dating Angela. [He trots out obediently.] Maybe we could have cleared that up before either of you broke the door down? You nearly gave Peter a coronary.

[Peter. Riiight.]

Chase.

[It might be the first thing she's said quietly, verging on pleading, reaching out to grab his wrist. A far cry from breaking down his door, but closer to honest. Still deluded, but less so.]

Marry me.

[And as quick as the smile appeared on Angela's face, it disappears, leaving a scowl in it's place. It takes everything she's got to restrain herself and just tug--not slap--away the other woman's hand.]

Excuse me,Cameron. I don't think you heard him when he said he's dating me. Me. Not you. So, no, he won't be marrying you or your axe because he's marrying me.

[This was not what Angela had in mind when she told Cameron to break the rules. Break every rule but this one, okay? Oh, and forget about that annoying business about those two other guys back home. Yeah, them.]

Edited 2009-11-14 04:01 (UTC)

[Cameron has never, never used that tone with him before, and Chase thought he knew her range by now. Cursed or not - and he knows this is part of the curse, he was too quick to mock others in the same predicament before it happened to him - he still can't look away, blue eyes ocean-wide and startled.]

I--

[Saved by the crazy cursed girlfriend, if their relationship is anything solid enough to call Angela that. He's not sure it is. What's certain is that he doesn't walk down the aisle before the third date.

And with his first captor unconscious, Cameron's quick fingers around his wrist got there next.]

Not that I'm not... flattered. But, don't you think it's too soon? [He'll have to move to salt lake.] Either of you?

Soon? [She laughs, a little despairingly, and doesn't reach for him again once rebuffed.]

We've known each other for years. [Pause] We could elope.

[There's a confused half-rational memory of Chase's adventures with House-organized debauchery, after all.]

Umm, hi, hello? I'm still standing here.

[Whacked out as she may be, Angela realizes that Cameron does have the advantage of knowing him longer than her. But that's okay because there's still a warm body not too far away down the hallway just listening because he can't do anything else but listen in his current condition.]

Oh, to hell with this. Take her, Robert. When she Lorena Bobbits you with
her axe, don't come back to me because I found somebody else.

[Stepping off to the side, Angela sets her eyes--and quite possibly her claws--on that somebody else.]

Peter. Peter Petrelli!

Where are we going to elope to? It's all one city.

[Chase catches himself answering Cameron's question rationally, and knows he's in trouble. He doesn't feel cursed, it's just getting increasingly hard to say no.]

I guess soon would be...

[Wait. What? Who? Eden's passed out on the couch, Cameron is smiling at him, and the girl he's meant to be with is heading down the wrong side of the hallway. Chase laughs uncertainly, glancing across at Cameron.]

She's playing games. She'll be back.

Then we won't elope.

[She'll have the grace-- or maybe just the single-mindedness-- not to notice her adversary's departure. In her current state Cameron is convinced that she's the girl he's "meant" to be with, and no one's going to tell her otherwise. Especially not Chase.

Come midnight she'll hate herself for this, though really it's the City she should hate, for giving her all these glimpses of things she can't have. For now she just takes a step closer to him, a coy look on her face as she reaches and leans in to put her arms around him.]

She forefeit.

She's not actually interested in Peter.

[Chase explains to deaf ears, straining to hear what's going on down that corridor for himself. Though Cameron and her delicate smiles and the alignment of her arms are distracting as hell, and it makes him wonder if he likes being tortured this way. It's a bloody longwinded means of working through a carrot-on-a-stick complex. Sure, right now she's too close. Tomorrow it's back to too far, and there's no middle ground that keeps everyone happy. Still, his hands settle over hers around his waist.

Just until Angela gets back.]

Are you taking my name? House'll want to give us numbers.

A forfeit is a forfeit.

[They fit together comfortably, and she isn't shy about cuddling up against him now, head on his chest, eyes half-shut with pleasure that's only half motivated by acquisition. He'll have housework to do if she gets him out of here, make no mistake-- but she's always happy to be with him. It's just less of a secret now.

Tomorrow she'll go back to thinking it's best if she disappears.]

I don't know. I thought it would be easier if I didn't. [She pulls back enough to beam up at him, guileless.] Do you want me to? I love you.

[It's not the first time she's said it, though it's the first he's heard it. Chronologically. Complicatedly. She wouldn't, if she weren't cursed, or he weren't; that doesn't entirely make it coercion. But you can't trust someone on a curse day, either.]

[He knows how well they fit. A little too well for comfort when the other person whose contours he knows as closely is taking a very long time to come back and tell him she's joking. If he can just keep up the small talk with Cameron, as he did with Eden, let her think he's compliant...

If only he wasn't oddly compelled to comply.

If only she hadn't just cut off all possibility of smalltalk along with the rest of his powers of sentient verbal communication. It's the first time he's heard that. From anyone. In years. At least the marriage proposal seemed ridiculous enough to laugh off. This.

It's just impossible. She's voided whatever game he was trying to play to get through this, the look he gives her in return for a moment too open and unguarded to hide the vulnerability behind the shock.]

No, you don't. You're cursed and you don't know what the hell you're talking about.

[His tone, still belied by his stare, grows almost petulant.]

If you were in your right mind, you'd kill me for taking you at your word.

You're the one that's turned me down, now. Twice.

[Her fingers drum along the back of his neck once, softly. Only teasingly reproachful, she smiles again.]

But I'll forgive you. Come home with me?

Okay. What?

[He's questioning himself, the agreement having slipped out through what feels like instinct, or habit. Her arms were round him, staking their claim, and there's some kind of rule to this. Some rule from some fake holiday in country he's not even native to, with dubious reasons for cross-pollenating into this place. He was the slowest runner, or she was the quickest in pursuit. Reason wars with responsibility, and compromises through delaying tactics.]

Okay. Just, let me call someone to come check on Eden. And I'll have to tell Peter where I'm going.

[He'll have to tell Peter a few things, when he realises his room mate is headed for the next apartment over. Peter might be blind, but colourful language is an art appreciable by all.]

Call for Eden. Peter's fine. After, we can go.

[Her words carry a tone of unwitting command, though she's completely casual about it, stepping back to free his hands while remaining too close for comfort.]

☤ twenty-seven

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