2007-05-30: Picture Not So Perfect

Starring:

Nathan_icon.gif Cass_icon.gif

Summary:

After Jaden's costume party, Nathan visits Peter in the hospital and then stops by Cass' room to cheer her up with some incriminating photos.

May 30th, 2007:

Picture Not-So-Perfect


Beth Israel Hospital

Call it penance. Is that the word? Let's call it that. After a night out that Nathan kind of /doesn't really remember anymore/, he's managed to drag himself out into the real world to go see his comatose brother, even if he'd rather stay in a dark room for the majority of the day. At the very least, he's not going to work, and it's still late in the afternoon when he's finished sitting at Peter's bedside until it feels like it's time to leave. Knowing Pete, the guy will open his eyes when Nathan is at his busiest, rather than when he's catching a break. After partaking in coffee from the machine near the waiting room, he considers just going home. But out of habit, he lingers, and finds himself moving towards Cass's room. He's dressed in dark clothes, as usual, a little more casual than most people would expect of him, and holding a brown envelope in hand as he approaches her door, likely with the intent to leave if he sees she has visitors.

There are no visitors in Cass' room at the moment. Who knows where they may be. Walking about, getting food, either way she's alone in her room. Right now she's just kind of staring at her flowers as if they're incredibly fascinating. Of course, they may just be to a morphine addled mind. Who knows what they may be to the mind that came up with ninjas battling pirates and smurfs on turned off tv sets.

When you're on morphine? You are always busy doing nothing. Nathan knows this well. He moves to knock on the frame of the door, before stepping inside. The dark clothes add to the slight insomniac look about him. The glitter that he hasn't managed to completely eradicate does not, dotting his face here and there with sparse shiny sparkles when the light hits it at a certain angle. He really needs to figure that out in the next few days, there must be a cream or something. "Evening, Cass," he greets, stepping inside.

There's a moment before Cass looks over at Nathan. And when she does, she just kind of stares at him. "You're…glowing." Maybe a bit of an overstatement for a few stray glitters, but everything is enhancing in her head. "Maybe /you're/ the reason the flowers are dancing. I think they hear music that I don't. Is there music playing?" It doesn't sound like there is, but maybe flowers can hear music at a different frequency than people can. The flowers on her table aren't moving, either. They're just chilling out and being flowers as they normally are.

"Well they had Bob Dylan going in the cafe that uh…" Slight gesture that totally is not as informative as he was hoping. "Shares the same building, downstairs, but otherwise, no music." Nathan glances towards the flowers, as if to check, before walking further into the room to sit down. His voice is much rougher than usual, and he brings a free hand up to wearily rub at his face. Then peeks at her. "Glowing?"

"Huh." This doesn't really seem to bother Cass so much. Maybe the flowers just hear it in their brain and are dancing to it that way. Then, as if tearing her attention away from something quite interesting, she looks back at Nathan. "Yeaaah. It's like…I don't know. You're shining somehow." She tilts her head at him. "You alright?" Because even while drugged up she can /kind of/ tell that he sounds off.

Well if she sees the flowers moving, she can see Nathan glowing too. As long as we're not talking Peter-about-to-detonate glowing. This sounds fair. Especially as he glances down at his hands and sees a few sparkles gone loose, and rolls his eyes. Damn that… that… woman in the fairy costume. He kind of doesn't quite recall her name. "Yeah, I'm alright," he says, attempting to dust his hand off of glitter, and fails mostly. "Kind of— " Okay, you woke up on the woman's floor, you don't have a right to dignity from then on. "Hung over. Interesting night."

There may be a lot of things going through Cass' mind and glitter for some reason does not equate to glowing. It's possible that Nathan's aura is showing through, but not that he just had an unfortunate run in with a glitter packet. "What were you drinking?" Which is more important than /why/, supposedly. Who knows why she's asking. Then she adds, as an afterthought (but not because she doesn't care) "Glad you're alright. How's Peter?"

"There was… beer. And then… I think whiskey, and they had these— little… vodka shots…" Jesus Christ, Petrelli, no wonder you feel half-dead. You are not as young as you used to be! Obviously. He arches an eyebrow at Cass, and shrugs his shoulders, kind of 'it's about as stupid as it sounds, yes'. "Peter is still asleep," he says. "I don't get points for going to a party while he's in a coma, making up for it today. Heard of Jaden Cain?"

"Wooow." Even drugged up Cass can tell that's a lot. "That's a lot!" See, she knows. "He'll be okay. It takes a lot to kill Peter." Actually, it doesn't take that much to kill him, but it takes a lot to keep him dead. Which is a very important distinction. "Jaden!" she beams at the name. "I know him! He thinks he's Batman! Or he wants to be Batman. Or…something like that. He's kind of like an excitable puppy. Without the fur. And the barking. And the peeing on carpets." So, not like a puppy at all. "What about him?"

Are we. Talking about the same Jaden Cain?! Had Nathan actually known the guy, he'd know they were, but he does not, and can't imagine Cass knowing him and she /is/ on morphine… but then again, we're all connected, aren't we?! It could happen. "Right," Nathan agrees, sort of humouring her. "Well it was this costume party of his, went with a friend." In matching costumes. Totally not subtexty at all. The envelope he's holding gets opened, and he shuffles through the photos inside a little. Selective photo searching, he's not about to hand anything incriminating over, because oh yes, there are /very/ incriminating photos in there, ones he must destroy. Just not all of them. Some? He needs to make /copies/ of.

Nathan extracts a few, hands them over for her to look at. They're entertaining, even if she (or so he believes) doesn't know the people. Hospital life can get boring, after all. There's a Heidi-lion, looking indignant even with the full mask on and everything. "That would be my wife," he says, with a flicker of a smile. Underneath that is a photo of one Jack Derex in full 80s regalia - bushy as heck blonde wig, cherry police hat /thing/, halter top, and a sequined crotch-heart. He appears to be dancing. Or. Fighting the air. Hard to say.

Possibly! But Jaden Cain has many faces. Everyone is connected, it would seem. Or knows someone that is connected to someone else. It's a very large web they've all found themselves in. "He had a costume party?" Cass seems devastated that she missed it. Costume parties are always fun. She starts flipping through the photos she's been given and pauses at the Heidi-lion, but since she's wearing a full mask she can't identify her properly. The next picture of Jack almost makes her choke (despite not drinking anything) because it is completely ridiculous. And because Nathan made it sound like Jack was his wife. "/JACK/ is your wife? I thought! But! I /met/ your wife! She was sweet and gave me a beanie baby! Is…" she waits and then gives the glowing man a horrified look. "Is /he/ who you cheated with her on?!" She can't imagine Jack going for that. But, maybe power is his thing.

First synapse firing: What, Cass knows Jack? Second synapse firing: …! Nathan looks briefly horrified. "Is Jack who I— no. That's— no. The /lion/ is my— give me those back." He reaches out to remove the photos from her hand, glancing at the glossy surfaces, just a tad flustered, and holds up the lion picture. "Heidi, she dressed as a lion. Jack was just the friend I went with."

Cass does indeed know Jack. And she's quite put out when Nathan takes the photos right out of her hands. Hey! She was looking at those! Very intently! Because Jack wearing a crotch-heart isn't something she will ever see again. She's not sure if that's because she wants to or not, though. "Heeeeeey," she whines a little and then folds her arms. "I liked those." Then, she looks attentively at the lion photo and nods her head, sort of understanding. "She looks fierce." As that's what lions are. "Jack looks…" she has no word to describe it. So she just let's that trail off.

Nathan narrows his eyes at Cass, considering, then hands the photos back over for her to study at will. As long as we have no /misunderstandings/, here. He. May feel the need to defend his manpoints since last night. "Correct," he says of Cass's trailed off statement with an amused smirk. "It was definitely an interesting party. Any party is, I guess, if there's blackmail to accompany it the next day." Photos, for instance! And a certain filmed moment of beglittering, but we won't go into that.

"Yay!" Yes, Cass literally just said yay when Nathan hands the photos back. She's like a kid in a candy store except for looking at pictures of lions and glitter and Jack as a disturbing 80s man. A little disturbing, actually. "Blackmail is the proof of a good party," she nods as if imparting great wisdom upon Nathan. "Can I keep them?" These photos are definitely ones she wants to frame somewhere. It would be something good to be able to tease Jack with later. Once she knows how to do so. And it would also prove to her later that this is definitely not part of her morphine induced visions. She did not imagine the glitter. Right?

A moment of consideration, then Nathan shrugs, gesturing towards them. "They're all yours." Proof this wasn't a hallucination. Jack-as-Poison is about as up there as ninjas battling in the hallways, after all. The envelope is folded shut again and pushed into a pocket, and he stands to leave. Likely she'll have some /actual/ friends come to see her any moment now, after all. "Long as you promise to tease him mercilessly." Nathan has a weird way of having friends, alright? With a fleeting smile, he heads out the room.

Beaming at Nathan, Cass keeps a hold on these photos. She'll probably keep a hold on them and stare until Lachlan or her father comes to visit again. "Thanks!" Because, it's true. Jack as Poison is just as odd as ninjas and pirates. Or, well, perhaps less so knowing Jack. "Oh, I will." While the woman loves her friends, she's not above teasing them about embarrassing things. Much like Elena in the chicken costume. "Thank you for stopping by, Nathan." She doesn't need to be told that about him, considering the way they became friends - since that's what she considers him now.

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