Some Things Never Change

Participants:

f_abby_icon.gif f_deckard_icon.gif f_delilah_icon.gif

Scene Title Some Things Never Change
Synopsis Deckard and Abigail still have awkward moments and Delilah sure as hell has Teo's kid.
Date March 31, 2019

Baker Household

Description to come


"Joseph Alexander Baker you will STOP hitting Walter do you hear me!" Abby yells from the kitchen. There's pots on the stove and a roast in the oven that's round about ready to come out soon. Things boiling, steaming, you name it. Dinner in this household is a proper affair and a throwback to an era long gone. Natalie is tooling around at the child gate that cordons off the livingroom from the kitchen, Abigail's paranoid about having her daughter in the kitchen while there's pots on the stove. Back to the table and the cards there with Delilah, the blonde cranes her neck to look in and make sure that Joseph isn't trying to get himself killed. "Your turn" To Delilah obviously.

A card is plucked from the top of the pile, and the redheaded woman sitting at the kitchen table brings it up to join a handful of cards already in progress. Without looking up, Delilah Trafford tacks on a second warning to Abigail's, once it finishes echoing out of the kitchen.

"Walter, stop provoking him. If you hated that first black eye, you'll hate the second more. My god, Go Fish was never this hard before-" Brown eyes flicker up to Abby, then across the kitchen to Natalie at the little gate. One hand plants itself firmly on the edge of her hip, over top the pastel green dress. "What about you? Do you ever win? I think your momma cheats. Do you have any twos?" And back to Abby, and to the background where dinner is still simmering. "Are those potatoes done? Did I put in those chives?"

"Momma doesn't cheat, nosiree, does she Nataleeney seeney bo beanie. Momma'd be a bad woman if she cheated. Yes she would" Natalie's all grins and giggles at the gate, though she's not talking too much yet. Abby slides a pair of two's out of her hand, sliding them over to Delilah. "Joseph gets a bath tonight Delly, Natalie had one already. Bed at seven for him, she might go down a bit later. I'll come pick them up in the morning when I'm done my shift" Pediatrics was getting her at night for the next few days. Ever changing shifts. "Where is Flint, dinner's almost ready. Potatoes are mashed, chives can be added when we're serving up. Roast is ready to come in but I want to let him carve it" Because that's the man's job.

In the year 2019, Deckard actually has keys to places. Including this place, apparently, because his entry through the front door is quiet and involves no shattered glass or lock picks. There's a muffled jangle from thereabouts that direction when he turns to relock the door after himself, followed by a few creaky footsteps while he thumps his briefcase down somewhere out of the way. The keys follow in a metallic jumble, scattered across the nearest piece of furniture that looks to be reasonably childproof.

A few minutes of shuffling through the mail later, he's stepping over the baby gate, black suit pristine for at least the next half second, striped tie still knotted close to his throat. His sooty grey hair is in utter disorder despite some effort made towards a neater trim in recent years, but he's clean shaven, so. He looks maybe three-quarters decent, if somewhat harried. "Hey."

"Ah, yes, the man's job." Delilah rolls her eyes just a little, looking over at the little blonde toddler with a strange expression on her face- but as it stands, its a mocking sort of thing. "What about any fives? Does he never help cook because he always catches things on fire, or do you still feed him so that he keeps coming back?" A snigger is behind the words, but this time it is playful. Flint Deckard, the Stray. Still a running joke, even if she knows that he's never around in the late afternoon because of work.

"Oh, darn- speak of the devil." The hand of cards goes down when he steps into tje kitchen, and Delilah sits up straight. Both hands stay on the table and her eyes zip up onto Flint. Unfortunately, there is an on-cue crash from the next room, followed by a pair of boyish yells. Something about a lamp?

'Go fish" no fives for Delilah. Abby's rescuing the two year old from the gate as Deckard comes clomping through, lest he run over her. "I cook because I like cooking and I'm old fashioned in some ways" Something about how it makes her feel good, to cook for him, iron his shirts, all that domestic stuff that she'd done when she could from the first few times she met him. "Plus he probably would burn the house down. Joseph Alexander Baker!" Another yell at her boy. "Del, can you go see what was broken?" Always moving, she circles with the blonde in her arms to plant a kiss on Deckard's lips as she loosens the tie with one hand, two year old on her other hip. "Roast is ready to come out. How was school?"

"—Hheeey," Deckard tacks on after the initial greeting, ruffled head turned a little awkwardly after Delilah, whose presence explains why there are three miniature skeletons crashing around the house as opposed to the requisite two. Unexpected company, maybe? He doesn't look unhappy to see her, merely caught off guard when Abby circles around tug at his tie and kiss him. The latter is reciprocated with a bit of a hitch for the fact that they have an audience, but his right hand lifts to assist in the loosening of his own tie with a natural cross of fingers over fingers. Curiously enough, at close range his breath smells very strongly of mouthwash. "Educational. Did you know they make bras with little cutouts where the nipples go?"

The moment that something crashes, Delilah is already on her feet, both hands in the air for a few seconds. "On it." One hand drops to pick up her skirt over the baby gate, and then she is out into the den. "Boys!" From the next room.

"I din' do it!"

"Liar!"

"Am not!"

"You're stupid."

"No you!"

"OW! Mooooommmmmm- lemme go! Yer messin' up my face!"

"I'll mess up more than your face, Walter- both of you get away from that. You'll cut yourselves."

"He broke it!"

"I did not, Joe, you're seein' things."

Oh, oh he still knows how to make her face go red. It's still red, as she catches faintly the smells of spearmint. Knowing blue eyes look into the x-ray ones. There's no disapproval, but there's that look he knows well. 'Be careful' No falling off the wagon uhhmmmkay? She's not a nag, she never really has been. Natalie's moved around as she slips past Deckard, leaving him be so she can put the young girl in her high chair, get her ready for dinner. "I have shift in four hours, I thought we might go out, go to your place. Delilah's going to watch the kids and give me a rest before I go in" She's letting Delilah deal with the boys. Not like the woman doesn't know where everything is in the place.

"I'm fine," murmured past Abby's ear when she turns away, Natalie in tow, Deckard manages a half-smile for the sticky-fingered creature Abigail spawned while he unwinds his tie the rest of the way from around his neck. Hi. His footsteps track over to the card table, both hands lifted and examined before he draws in a breath and raises it to be clearly audible in the next room over in resigned, vaguely, passably, reluctantly fatherly fashion.

"I saw who did it on my way up the walk, and if they don't confess I'm going to tell on them." So there. A couple of Delilah's cards are exchanged with a couple of Abby's, to the latter's benefit, and he folds both hands back down as they were. "Sounds like a plan."

There is a collective gasp from two little pairs of lungs when Deckard threatens to point fingers. A gasp on that end, and on Delilah's- she lets out a triumphant laugh.

"See- now you're stuck. Who was it?"

"Joe." "Walt."

"Or not."

"Fine, it was me. But I only bumped the table. I didn't hit it or nothin'."

"That's coming out of your pocket, Walter. Get in the kitchen, both of you…"

Delilah appears in the kitchen doorway again, leaning over to unhinge the gate from one side. She sighs. "Where do you keep your dirt devil? I forgot. I can clean that right up, Abby." To one side of her, two little implings push around the edge of her dress and past one side of the doorway. One with bright red hair and freckles. "Flint! Flint!" Zip.

Walter seems to gravitate immediately toward Deckard. He looks semi-angry. As 'betrayed' as a miniature man can get. "What was that? Bros before hoes!"

Gee, I wonder who taught him that idiom.

"Walter Alexander Trafford! You'll not use that language in this house!" any other house, even in the yard, but not within hearing of Abigail. The blonde shakes her head with a scowl. "Hall closet Del" bro's before hoe's?" Joseph is a bit smarter than to go complaining to Deckard. The boy beelines out of the kitchen and to the small bathroom attached, wash his hands before dinner then zip quick as a flash to his seat. The one with the phone book on it. Plop goes his ass on it, waiting for Abby or someone to push him in. Likely Deckard as Abby's starting to transfer things to the table and about to open the oven and pull out the side of beef. "Next person to say that in this house gets soap in their mouth"

"I've also said not to believe everything old people say just because they're old." Deckard's typical delivery suffers no downsizing for a shorter audience in the case of Walter, though he does lean down slightly to depart a more subtle, "I didn't see a thing. Should've stuck to your guns," with grey-touched brows knit in a mockery of the poor kid's state of semi-betrayal.

"Go wash your hands," tacked on more audibly for Abigail's benefit, he reaches his right hand up to scrub over his face even as the left reaches over to grate Joseph's chair in beneath tiny seat and phone book. Oh god, his life.

GASP. Walter opens his mouth, shuts it, and opens it again. Traitor. But then Abby speaks- "No soap!" He turns and practically runs squealing into the bathroom once Joseph gets out. "Last time it tasted like the dentist-" Something something something, can't hear the rest behind the door.

Delilah meanwhile, has been listening to the entire mess from the other room before she makes quick of the cleanup. Porcelain and glass get wound up by the dirt devil, and eventually the redhead brings the biggest pieces into the kitchen to put them into the trash bin. "You and your soap." Dee gives the blonde a 'high five!' glint from her eyes.

When Walter comes back out of the bathroom to find his seat on Joseph's other side, the first thing he does is pick up his spoon, run his tongue over it, and wedge it over his nose. Why? Why not?

Thankfully Deckard's only going to be subjected to the children for the period of the meal, before he's granted absence from them and left with just Abby. His life is thankfully only like this in little chunks of time. "Lie, lie, lie, and when caught, deny" Plop goes the roast from the pan to a plate on the counter for Deckard to carve. Put those muscles to work. That done and other stuff on the table, it's time for folks to start sitting as she starts getting drinks for everyone under 5 feet and for one over 5 feet. Coke with some rum for Deckard. Too many kids, something for the nerves. Joseph is soon imitating Walter, little copycat that he is, Natalie fiddling with her little round kid version of cutlery and watching. "Where did you want to go after dinner?" Is asked of Deckard as his drink is pushed where he can reach it and there's milk poured for the kids in colorful cups and one hot pink safety cup. "Del, who's working tonight?" Soap. Cleans out a dirty mouth.

"…Like the dentist?" Deckard looks a little sideways at Delilah — what kind of evil institution uses stuff that tastes like Dial — but fails to intercede in typical Flint fashion. Walter's back soon enough anyway, spoon to nose, mouth in the clear, with Joseph content to follow suit. Neither of them appear to be suffering any notable brain damage for the whims of their respective abusive dentist(s). Perfectly normal spoon nose dangling kids. A glance out of the corner of his eye takes silent note of rum's addition to Coke. Again, rather than intercede, he sticks to business and crosses to the counter to take knife to meat, sawing his way through while squinting to resist the inevitable temptation to keep track of his progress in a way that might irradiate everyone's dinner.

"I dunno. Some place grown up and boring. Yoga class, maybe. We could go shopping for wallpaper." Saw, saw, saw. He stops long enough to sip the offered drink, then finishes carving enough to carry the roast over to the table proper so that he can drop down opposite the kids.

"Angelica, Chandra, Isaac, Gianna- I think George is in the kitchen. He wanted one of these Tuesdays off a few weeks ago, but I forgot which one." Pulling her skirt down under her, Delilah pulls up a seat beside her gingerling. Her hand lifts up to pull two spoons off of two noses and put them back down. "I don't know why soap would taste like the dentist. Sometimes I swear he tastes things completely differently. Once told me that his applesauce tasted like lima beans. Does that even make sense?" The woman snorts the air coming out of her lungs. "Wallpaper and a new lamp. I cannot for the life of me see you going to a yoga class, Flint." Dee stares over at him for all of three seconds, her expression disbelieving.

That's a frown on Abby's face. That was not at all what she had in mind with a few hours before work and someone with the kids instead of her with her children. Milk cups are dispensed, then food, into various plates fo the kids, letting Delilah take care of her own son. A slab of meat pilfered from the platter between slicings and cutting it up for Natalie and helping Joseph cut up his. They'll both be through their own food before Abigail sits down to even eat her own. Company's over, Deckard is over, Prayer at the dinner table is abjured in favor of the company, much to Joseph's delight. "Wallpaper and lamp I can do tomorrow" She's not subjecting Deckard to that, lest he have one of those 'times' and come to her with another bullet hole and lying about it being a drive by.

It doesn't take Deckard long to get started on the actual eating despite the delays prior. Ten years in he's gotten a hell of a lot better about how he eats at a dinner table with other people, but some manners have yet to stick. "So I strike you as the type that would want to spend four hours looking at floral wallpaper, but not the type who wants to be in a room with a bunch of improbably flexible women?" is asked around a mouth full of roast that he's only halfway through chewing, if Delilah is spared a helping of see food by a timely lift of his fork-wielding right hand. Abby gets a kind of level-browed why-so-serious~? look across the table in turn when he reaches for his drink.

Delilah sets up herself and Walter's plates, the latter coming first and at least one protest about eating potatoes 'because the Irish need them'. "Oh, I thought we were talking about you doing yoga. If that's not the case, then yeah, I can see you doing that." She peers at him for a moment over her shoulder as she cuts up the chunk of roast on her son's plate. He waits, silverware vertically in hand. "Chew with your mouth closed. You're a man, not a cow."

"And this is not a barn," Abby finishes for the redhead, making sure the kids are fine, reaching over to help Natalie with her food. Her own plate dished out but barely touched. It's how it is in the house. Her children first at a meal. Deckard's look is ignored for now. "Maybe I'll call Martha in to take my shift. We can go over to your place Flint. If I can impose on you Del, if I'm not working" There. big hint. His place. No kids. There's only one reason they go to Flints place. Where there's no trace of toys or the sweet smell of freshly washed kid. No yowl of the old black cat that maneuvers around the house. "Yoga's tomorrow, pick up more sludge while I'm at it" There's a glance between the two adults at the table with her, waiting to see if there's approval or no. Playing hooky at work. What has the world come to.

Deckard's chewing slows down a little at the correction from both of them, but he does close his jaw the rest of the way to finish. At least until he swallows. Then he's free to be a smartass again. "How can you be so sure without genetic testing to confirm?" If Walter can remember that one for future harassment, he's smarter than he's given him credit for thus far. Coke and rum sipped quietly through talk of various work arrangements and shift changes, he lifts his brows a little to himself at persistent mention of his place. Why yes, he is familiar with its general usage. He falls quiet as a result. It's a behaved silence rather than a disapproving one. If anything, he lifts a brow over at Delilah to see if she's going to say anything that might result in Junior over there across the table reciting a whole new flavor of limerick for his friends in the coming days.

"No problem. I can keep them." Delilah finishes cutting the boy's food, and he pauses for a few seconds before stuffing the biggest piece into his mouth. Yes, Deckard, Walter is Very Smart, despite the outward appearances of who was directly involved in his brand of Tab A to Slot B. Smart enough to be quick on the draw. Smart enough to also know(mostly) where babies come from.

"So when am I getting another cousin?"

"Not anytime soon." That's Abby's reply. Not even a look to Deckard. Not. Anytime. Soon. "Eat your pea's" It's group parenting at the table. 'Thank you Del. I think I need a break, too many shifts" give Deckard a break from the endless Stepford routine. Means he can go out and get the crap beat out of him and she'll be there, patching him up and sleeping it off while he sleeps something else off. There's a smile for Deckard, coming to light on her face as all those thoughts shuffle through her mind, and a sippy cup is offered to Natalie after she herself takes a sip from it and makes a silly face.

"There's taser in my briefcase if you think you'll need back-up." The offer sideways over to Delilah is politely, irritatingly over sincere. So much so that it veritably punctuates the absence of his answer to the same question. His fork pokes a little too deliberately into his roast, and he fails to look up to catch the absence of a look from Abby's direction, pale gaze similarly evasive on the subject.

Delilah looks at Walter now as if she might set his hair on fire. Not counting that head of hair she already gave him, of course. He just chews on another piece of food, light brown eyes watching his mother. "What?"

"No need for a taser. I'll shock him later." Nice work, spawn- you made dinner awkward. Walter goes a little wide-eyed. Wait, wait. What? He starts to stuff a mountain of peas into his mouth, and a couple roll across the table towards Joseph, who flicks one back at Walt, beaning it off of his temple. In response, Walter leans over and stabs at a piece of Joe's food and sticks it in his own mouth.

Natalie's erupting into giggles at her brother's antics and Walter's even as Abigail is getting up from the table. Time to clean off the younger of her spawn and set her loose since all she's doing now is just smushing pea's and most of the food consumed. Yes Walter, thank you for making dinner even more awkward than it already was. Off goes Natalie, into the living room with a squeal, moments later a screech from the cat. "I'll go make that call. Joe, finish your dinner, then wash your face. Listen to your Auntie Del."

Mmm, peas. In true infantile style, Deckard has saved his for last, and is now pushing them around his plate with a reluctance that manages to outshine any of the efforts the kids are putting forth in a similar vein. Except maybe Natalie, who's doing a pretty good job with her smushing. A much-delayed glance upward takes note of as much. He takes his first bite only after Abigail has stood to cart the girl off, presumably to torment the cat. "I hear she turns kids who misbehave into—" We'll just assume one of the two more responsible adults in the vicinity cuts him off before he gets to that point.


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