Participants:
Scene Title | A Fire Extinguisher And A Dream |
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Synopsis | Abby finally meets up with Delia, to talk. |
Date | August 30, 2010 |
The Abbey, Soho
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The message had been on her phone for a few days, not deleted. Delia Ryans, sent to Abby and wanting to know if they could talk. She'd replied the soonest she could with an apology for not being able to meet, she was sick but would contact her again. So come Monday, Delia got a call and as Abby had promised, the blonde offered to meet her out in Soho.
In front of a old looking building, slightly gothic in nature, "The Abbey" written across the window, workers come and god while a blonde sits with legs crossed on a couple of crates, flipping through paperwork and filling out forms. Someone that Delia has seen before, along the comments of 'are you old enough to drink' at Mel's bar. A brown dog, just out of rolly polly puppy and into more filled out stage sits at her feet beside a bowl of water and watching people walking back and forth. The afternoon heat hitting just above 30 celcius.
Having only one class on Monday gives Delia ample opportunity to meet between jobs, having been scheduled to work at both today. The trek to Soho isn't a long one from Chelsea, so it's just that much more convenient of a place to stop off at before heading home to get started on school work. School that she doesn't know if she'll be attending past the registration deadline. With the question of whether or not their family is going on the run, she's been late with everything but her homework. Tuition, registration fees, even her loan signatures have all been put off… just until she knows for sure.
Nevertheless, the issue has been weighing heavily on her mind for the past while, along with what she's going to do if she gets caught. The contractors at the tavern are met with weak smiles as she passes through the door and in answer to the question of being old enough, she shakes her head as a negative. "I'm just here to see Abby, my dad sent me." It's possible that she's been heard by the other woman long before she actually walks up to her.
"Hi, I'm Delia… Uhm…" Taking a breath, she gives the other woman a timid smile. "I…" she really doesn't know what to say. "Dad said I could talk to you. About … stuff."
"I got a car we can sit in, with air conditioning to talk" Abigail offers, looking up to Delia when she sidles over. No offer of her hand though, they're kept on the paperwork and pen. "Hi Delia, I"m Abigail. You're fathers told me a little but about you. Don't rightly know how much he told you about me" Workers come and go in and out and the sounds carry on from inside.
A quick nod is given to Abby, whether it's in regards to the car or the fact her dad's talked about her isn't quite clear. "He just said you were someone around my age that— uhm— he thought I could talk to about everything." Delia's smiles a little more and shrugs, casting her eyes down at her feet for a moment before puckering her lips in thought. "I think… Well we don't really talk about much, Dad and I. The place he works for, he— I know he only hunts the bad ones, like the midtown bomber, but I heard other things too. Like people who went to prison."
"It's pretty.. intensive, what your father does. He works for the Company, a subsection of the government, or well, more like a black section, that worked to keep track of evolveds. Some of what they did, in the past, not long ago and even now, aren't very… shall we say… kosher by the public. I met your dad in a library and he told me he'd worked for primatech. Which, to those in the know, is a front, an old one, for the comapny. How many men from the military, end up going into paper right?"
There's a gesture towards the blue SUV, a beep that states it's unlocked and she heads to the drivers side. The buzz from the bar and the world outside are dimmed and silenced once they're inside. "He says you can do what Hokuto did. Go through people's dreams"
After getting into the SUV, Delia waits for a moment and then nods quickly. "Yeah, it's… Not very useful except for exploring… and talking to my patients at the hospital. I like that part, I think they like it too." She gives Abby a much warmer smile and shrugs her shoulders. "I— I don't know if I'll be able to work there after the registration deadline is up… If I'm not registered, that is. Dad doesn't want me to register at all, Hokuto said I didn't have to."
She pauses for a moment and knits her eyebrows slightly, the crease forming between them indicative of great thought. "She said not every special person is on a list, so I think she said I didn't have to register."
"You have to, but there's ways around it. I can give you the name of an officer or two, who if you tell them that a certain person sent you, will be willing to list that the test is blue, not red. That way you can still be seen to comply with the law." Abigail smiles at Delia. "Like mine did this morning." She's Ryans daughter and though she might not be evo loving… sometimes, there needs to be trust. "My name is Abigail Beauchamp. I'm a fire mimic. Almost a lifetime ago, I used to be a faith healer, touch healer, but the lord has some funny plans and now, I just woosh into fire"
She holds a hand up, as if to hold off worries. "I won't be flaming up in the car with you here. I don't do it very often. Your Dah thinks it's a pretty… interesting sight. But a dreamer, is a pretty powerful ability and one that can be really useful"
"Yeah, I got a name of a policeman in New Jersey that I can go to for that. I sort of went exploring on my own about it, originally to get a fake ID." The redhead lets out a little laugh and turns to look at Abby. "Not for drinking, for registering. Figured if I could just get a fake name and all that, I could register and no one would know that dad has a freak for a daughter."
The smile wanes, to nothing and the young woman takes a deep breath and shrugs once again. She reaches up to take take hold of the string tie of her hoodie and she rolls it gently between her fingertips. "Sorry, not that you're a freak… " A fact that she's only changed her mind on recently regarding the evolved. "I don't want to be registered. A guy at the hospital said the database is public. That people use it to find us. There's this woman in a coma— "
"You'd be.. a zero, at most maybe a one. A zero, their name isn't up anywhere public. There's only an accounting, that you are a tier zero. A tier one, I think, it's just what borough you live in, and that's all. It's when you hit a two, that, your picture and your name are there, but you're hitting people who's ability can be very harmful to people. I was registered, as a tier 0. I had an incident that happened, but that was from.. circumstances that wouldn't be happening anymore. The person who gave my information to someone, got killed. He was also a really corrupt cop and was leaking information. It doesn't happen that often at all, is my understanding"
The keys are put in the steering column, turned to get the A/C going. "You're not gonna be the last to say it, but it'd probably feel a lot better in the long run if you stopped calling yourself a freak? Maybe.. different, or gifted or… special? I know quite a few thinks it's a curse and when I done poofed up into fire, let me tell you, it was not a party I was having. THe thing is, your options are register, even if under false name, or someone who can falsify that it's blue, not red. You can do it both, false name, false result right? there's not registering, and getting caught, something that even I didn't want to do. Or there's… going on the lam, living a less that legal life. My opinion? I like my life, I like my work, and i'm going back to school for my paramedics license. So."
The redhead listens intently to Abby as she talks, nodding at just the appropriate moments, smiling when the blonde tells her to stop calling herself a freak. There's a little bit of a blush to her cheeks and she nods, "Yeah… I already stopped, sort of. A lot of things changed while dad was gone. I talked to someone, a couple of people, I went exploring… it's not so bad."
That string gets rolled around between her fingers and twisted into a little ball, only for Delia to let it go to spring back to its original shape. "I'm a little more comfortable now, it's just hard to practice." A deep red blush covers her features and doesn't die at all, not even when she looks away. "I have to be careful at the hospital, because if I get caught… like I did the other day… I could get fired."
"You have to be near a person, or can you do it from afar?" Abby inquires, getting comfortable. "Don't practice at work, it's not worth your job, it really isn't. I think Hokuto used the people who came into her store, that needed help. Hokuto helped me, I don't know what made her pick me to visit one night, but she did and she helped, a great deal. If you need help practicing, I'll gladly offer up my own dreams. You're Benjamin's daughter and that means something. I might be able to find some others who'd be regular guinea pigs.. and.." Abby whets her lips, thinking. "When someone else I know, ever surfaces again, he should be someone interesting to dig around with. He's a bit of a dreamer walker himself"
"I have to touch them, actually. So… I don't get much practice." The redhead admits sheepishly, her blush still in full bloom on her cheeks and nose. "I practiced on a guy when he was sleeping on the train… He came to find me later. I got stuck in this girl I work with's head… but she let me out again. I've been a bit too scared to try it on a stranger since then."
The offer of help though, that gets a visible reaction from Delia by way of widened eyes and a little bit of a jaw drop. "Really? You'd let me? I— I'd like that… The patients, I'll have to tell them that I can't come back. They can't talk to anyone else… comas, you know. I think it really makes them feel better to know someone's there with them."
"It's the least, that I can do Delia. We all need people to help us, and.. it would do me as much good as it would do you. How about, I help you, you, trade for helping me. I'm still working on my own control issues, and sometimes, I don't have someone to come with me and help hose me down with a fire extinguisher or just watch my back when I'm turning myself on and trying to turn back off. There's a part of staten island that the government doesn't go near, won't venture past. I try to practice there or midtown, and my midtown spot days, I think, are soon to be over"
"I could do that," Delia laughs a little, the thought of the other woman spontaneously combusting and trying to stamp her own flames out while lighting more with every step keeps the amusement going. "So, you're sort of like that comic character then? Hot Stuff?" Except she doesn't look like a little devil. "Or like that guy from that movie? The 'flame on' guy?" She's got so many more questions, especially since she's just starting to get used to all of it.
"What happened to the guy that you were talking about? What do you mean surfaces again? Does he just hide a lot or is he in trouble?" The words are tinged with a little worry, there's even a frown on the young Ryans' face. Focusing on others, it helps more than dwelling on herself.
"Sorta, only, without the flying, of you know, the flame. Right now it's just sorta… reactive. Though I did do it on purpose, I change a lot faster if I'm willfully doing it, and I go through a disgusting amount of clothing. Thank the lord for Old Navy sales right."
But what happened, to the guy. "He's somewhere, I think. There's a long story involved, that's not mine to tell. But if he comes around, I'll let you know. He's a close friend, a good friend and he's got some issues these days that he's working through. But I trust him"
Nodding a little, Delia plucks up the string on her hoodie again and twists it up into a tight coil. "I don't know what I would have done if I'd… manifest… Manifested? Yeah, manifested into something that could hurt people." Her jaw clenches and she grinds her molars for a second or two before turning to Abby, blinking rapidly for the span of a couple of seconds. When she finally does say something, it's said with a grimace on her face, her voice very glum. "I think if it wasn't for everything Hokuto did… I probably would have jumped off a bridge. And as it is, I can't do anything really good."
"You're dad ever tell you, what Hokuto did for me?" Abigail inquire softly. "Next time you see hokuto" In whatever form it seems that the bodiless dreamer has now taken. "Ask her what she did for me, and you tell me, if you think, that if you could do that, with others, whether you think what you have isn't any good. because I could spout it from the rooftops, I bet, but you may or may not think it. Self esteem is a pretty tricky boat"
"Dad doesn't talk about his work a lot, I didn't even know what he did for the longest time." It's not a difficult concept to believe, a company man keeping so much from his family. Delia smiles a little and lets loose a very long sigh. "He really just told me a little while ago, when he found out I almost died." The day her ability first showed itself.
"I don't know when I'm going to see her again," the redhead intones quietly, reaching up to scratch at the side of her ear with one slender finger. "I don't know if she meant for me to … I don't know. She sent me to the book store, and I got a job there. But I don't know what I'm supposed to do from there. Lydia's great and everything… but except for reading romance novels, I don't know what I'm supposed to do there."
"Bookstore's open again?" Surprise. She had known that after Hokuto's passing it wasn't used. "I'll have to stop by some time. I miss it. I was a good place to get some odd books. I woudl surmise that you're supposed to sell books, but I guess the traffic isn't that great still. School work. Hokuto, get this, used to be asleep all the time, when I came in. You'd find her flopped over her counter or curled up on it, fast asleep"
That gets a big laugh out of the redhead, "Kaylee must have learned it from her then, because that's what she was doing yesterday." Then she fishes a makeshit paper card from her back pocket, it's a little wrinkled, so she takes the time to smooth it out on her knee before pulling a pen from her hoodie. Turning it over, she scribbles a couple of numbers on the back, one labeled home and the other labeled Alley Cat.
"I don't have a cell phone, I need to get one still. Here's the numbers to the store, my house, and the courier place I work at. Maybe when you get a minute," a wary glance is cast toward the bar before she gives a little smile and shrugs, "between school, your job, and this place… We could get together to practice? Either one… I can hold a fire extinguisher like no one's business."
Need a cellphone?
"Just a second" And Abbys' crawling over the center of the front seats, past the furry beast of a dog that's been gnawing on a bone and eyeballing Delia the whole time. The upside to being in the Ferry, disposable cellphones. You never know when you'll need one. She pulls a black one back, two ten dollar phone cards taped to the package from a small box of stuff in the back. Emergency stuff, to grab and run it seems.
"Take it, I have more where they came from. Takes a phone card you can just get from walmart and the like"
Kaylee just dropping asleep, there's a roll of Abby's eyes. "She needs to sleep more often. her.." Abby taps her forehead. " It runs her ragged sometimes." Abby trades numbers though, once she's back in her seat, plugging Delia's into her iphone to be memorized later. "I gotta sleep sometime Delia, maybe it'll be a matter of you staying over some nights. Maybe you can fix what Hokuto made for me."
"I— " Delia's eyes are wide at the gift of a phone, it's not that she can't afford to get one of her own, she just hasn't bothered replacing the one that broke in the cold. "Thanks," she breathes, unwrapping the package and taking the little phone out. Placing it all back in the box, she cradles it in both hands while turning to Abby with a sheepish grin. "Thanks a lot, I don't know if I can do anything close to what Hokuto does… but I can try? I mean— Depending on what you need me to fix." There's so much that she can't do.
She shuffles her feet on the floor mat a couple of times. A few little rocks bounce up from their hiding place in the carpet as her tennies run over them. "I should get going though, I don't want to waste too much of your time. I have to check with both jobs to see if they need me today… and then I have to head to Jersey to see that cop."
"Go, shoo, get on with you. I hope, I hope this has helped. Tell your dad when you see him that I'm okay" They'd parted ways at Estonia. "And… go easy on your dad. It's not easy, being who he is and having to make up with and live with you've done in the past. He's a good man and he cares about you. Even if you're a little different in the genetics"