Participants:
| Scene Title | All I Want For Christmas Is Him |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Teo wants Felix, Abby wants Robert. Each asks the other to get them their respective men for Christmas, even if they won't be able to wrap them and put them under the tree. |
| Date | December 8, 2010 |
Pollepel Island - Docks
Evening out on Pollepel Island is when things happen outside the castle walls. The boat comes, drops off supplies, shuttles people where they need to go if they're going. They bring messages that no machines on the island can get be it for the better or the worse. The temperature drops even more these days, and below freezing is where mother nature has decided to set her sights this night as Abigail waits for the boat. Little camping latern dark for now, to be turned on later to provide light, she's dressed in her own version of Teodoro Laudani layers, scarf, gloves and absent her own heat today. She'll save that for later in the castle, she's been worried she'll have another incident like with Howard.
It's also quiet out here and she never really has been the one for crowds and the crush of the castle means that if you're looking for her, she's in the infirmary, kitchen, ramparts or hiding outside. When she's not sleeping. Toes wriggle in her boots, keeping up the circulation while she sits perched atop an outcropping, hidden by tree's and waiting.
Daydreaming.
Teodoro is driving the boat, as Teodoro is wont to do. It comes puttering up at the tip of a fluffy V of waves, tires rimming the edge to stave off the damage of scratching up against the pier. Other wind-burned men already swarming the deck, perhaps a face or two that the Beauchamp girl recognizes, preparing to unload the crates and barrels, the tarped packages of blankets. Winter's coming. They're going to need blankets. Pollepel's more than habitable for people now, with electricity and water and other goodies besides, but winter's this whole other thing.
Abby knows, apparently. She probably knows him, too, by the shape of his rangy figure when he steps out of the cabin, rubber-lined cotton gloves grimey on his hands and his jacket zipped and buttoned up sturdily over the banded color of hsi scarf. He probably saw her first; his stride, as steady on-deck as it is on the ground, comes right up to the edge and he waves down at her. "Bon soir, signorina," he calls down as the gangway goes whunk.
"Hello Teodoro! French or Italian, pick, not both!" She calls out lightly, unfolding from her spot, letting blood rush to where it should. Pants, shirts, shirts, sweater, she pops the button on the top of the camplight and starts her own way down to the dock. Others can unhaul stuff, check inventory, dictate where it all goes. "Probably have about four people going back with you. If you're going back tonight. I wasn't expecting you to drive the boat though"
This all spoken when she's on that other end of the gangplank, extending a hand to help him down. Not that he needs it but… it's so she can grab his hand and go up on toes to kiss his cheek. "I'm heading back next week, any word from Francois yet?" She;s oblivious to his temporal dilemma, just still assuming that Hiro had hithered off yon with their mutual friend/lover. Not that Francois is her lover.
Elbows on the railing, and Teo watches then move. Not helping. He drove, after all; that's work, his job. He even has a license, these days. "Four people's good," he says, helping her carefully up, helping her carefully down. "Yeah, we'll be casting away in a couple hours. Enough time for a couple of these to see their lady-friends." A sideways jut of his jaw to indicate, and there's a guffaw of laughter from one of the swarthy men wheeling something as large as a television down on a wooden plank set with wheels. His pallid eyes crinkle slightly, before he shifts his eyes back to his friend, nestling his chin down in the wadded fabric of his scarf. He's more tan now, in early December, than he had been this time last year— working on a boat will do that for you. Doesn't smell different, though, no new brine, just the same mix of sweat salt and simple mint-and-soapmilk hygiene.
Same kiss, too. The one passed to her forehead on his thumb. "No idea about Francois," he admits. "I haven't been talking to them. I'm the little one." That lattermost statement comes a touch awkwardly, like he isn't used to the fit of it. Of course, he'd think he should be the only one. A swinging torchlight sends the shadow of his legs swerving up a crazy angle on the cabin wall behind him. "But they'd tell me if there was. And I'll tell you."
The little one. Her Teo. The one who came before. Not Francois's Teo. They're all her Teo's but this one… Well then, he just gets her arms swinging round to draw him in and hold him tight just a little longer than she might have for the others. "«I know you'd tell me»" She'll let him go, after a few more moment, getting her sturdy legs on the boat. Temptation to go back in the few hours is great but she needs to stay here. Things to do still.
"«Robert has Pila. I don't know if you want to get her or not, take her back to wherever it is that you are staying. But she was doing good a month ago. As good as a bird her age can do»" She hasn't practiced her Italian in ages, rusty with it's usage, delayed in getting some words as she searches for them. "«I'll be heading to Canada at some point, get out of the country. Wait for things to… settle down and Robert to come get me. How are you? Have you seen Walter yet or are you not going to see him?»" He isn't after all that Teo's son. He's one of the others. She doesn't know how that exactly works out with them all.
"«They're pretty good at things, the two of them,»" Teo says, his Italian familiarly cadent, same register. He speaks it more than the other two do, even when he isn't throwing random cups of granulated French in, less like Ghost, who decided to burn all bridges behind him, not like the hybrid, who doesn't own any of it; not really. And less now even than he had before. "Fuckin— uh," oh, he remembers how she is about cursing. "Ninjas," he finishes, with a grin that shows white against the color of his beard. "«I'm good.»
"«I haven't seen the baby, but I think about it sometimes. I think it would be confusing though. It's confusing to everybody else, including me.»" He bends his arms behind himself far enough to pop his vertebrates briefly, relaxes his shoulders under the dense padding of coarse jacket and visibly closes his fist against the automatic urge to grab a cigarette. "«When are you going to Canada?»"
"«When Hana can build the rest of the ID that I'll need. After christmas I think" It'll be longer than that, when it all comes out what has happened to Hana, if it comes out at all. "<She's going to build it up for me so it's not just a shell. I have a birth certificate and drivers license right now. You're looking at Martha Ranier»" Abigail pulls off her toque with a gentle tug, no long waves of blonde falling out but short shorn brown, barely long enough to tuck behind her ears.
"<When I'm in the city, I have brown eyes. It's worked so far, no one recognizes me but I don't go where I usually went»" The baby though. She can understand why he doesn't go. "<He's beautiful. He'll be big, he's a sqwualler. Makes me wish I could have babies, I'd have a barrel of them. Dee will raise him right, do you proud. Are you coming in or are you gonna stay out here? I can squirrel you into the kitchen and get you some coffee, or I can stay out here with you and keep you warm»" She misses this.
Teo grunts a monosyllabic excuse— smoke. As he digs out his cigarettes, he opts to go padding around on the pier a bit, never straying too far out of her radius, like a housecat who's clingy but too proud to admit it, listening and considering. The seawater slaps up giggly and damp on the barnacled legs of the pier, sparkles faintly where their shadows leave it room to refract the workers' electric lights. There's no alarm in him when she mentions Hana, either. He doesn't know what happened. Wireless is very private people, after all. "«Those are good provisions to make, considering your situation. Caliban should be able to help you get a false identity, as well. He should have good contacts.
"«Under the 'pros' column, for being a mafia man,»" Teo says, stopping near her and angling her a crooked smile. He still hates that shit, of course. Mafia. Where he grew up, that word was inculcated into the mass subconscious as a caricature of a truth as ugly as 'mutant' or 'terrorist' or 'Evolved' is in New York now. He's rational enough to appreciate there are benefits to being married to such a man, though, especially for a woman in her situation. After a moment, his smile fades. When he exhales, the scent of nicotine thickens for a moment. "«I look just like his father. I think: I must even have his DNA. What will I tell Walter? That I'm his uncle? The brother to the man who made love to his mother? Or his cousin?
"«It'd be lies. Too complicated. I have no more reason to love him than I do Mike there.»" A jerk of his head at the big burly black man rolling along a bundle of linen that had fallen loose. "«He wouldn't be able to begin to understand for ten years, at least. By then, God knows who will be around or what to him.»" He hikes his shoulders up uncomfortably under his ears. "«When I joined» PARIAH, «I knew my life would become strange, but I didn't think it would become this strange.»"
"<Robert can't help me, better if he doesn't, or he would have already. He can help me by staying alive and I can help him by staying alive and doing what he told me to do which was to run and run far and keep running when I wanted to stop. He's my Husband and so I'm going to obey him. Besides, the only help he could give would be to find some linderman face changer and I don't think that I could live with someone elses face on mine, or in the mirror>"
But lies, what to tell Little Walter. That dad has three clones all sperate that don't merge and that even though only one is his father, all three of them could technically stand in at any given time. "<Then you stay away and you live your life Teodoro>" For all that any of the workers might actually know what they're saying, Abigail's not speaking Italian to be rude and keep them from eavesdropping. She's doing it to make him feel comfortable, because she learned the language for him.
"<I don't think that any one of us knew when we signed up for anything, that it would end up like this. You with with two other copies running around, still swearing up a storm. Me with a husband I can't go near and a holy fire in me. So what are you going to do for now? Where are you staying? You're welcome to stay here in you like. There's always room. Kasha is here, you could make faces and sing Italian songs to her"
Hesitation on his big boy-self. A slight shake of his head, pale eyes coasting sideways, righting out with a blink. "«Thank you, but I have a place,»" he says. "«It's on Queens. It was going to be a safehouse, but it didn't end up happening— anyway, it's easier to get to work from there. I'm with a shipping company. Short hauls up to Roosevelt, some other places. The screening process was fucking murder getting in. All that 'clean slate' that going to Ryazan was supposed to get us? Only takes you so far, these days.
"«You'd think the DoEA would have real ninjas to chase after.»" There's a crease faint in his brow when he says so, and someone grunts from the side— fucking DoEA. The most discreet of many acronymed and 'The'-prefixed evils, nevertheless an evil. "«But maybe I'll drop by more often,»" he adds, after a moment, tipping a pallid stare down to study the familiar delicacy of her features. Holy fire in her, and she still looks like sweet Southern peaches and cream. "«If that's okay. Made a lot of new friends?»"
"Not many. I got a few people upset at me. Fried someone who's ability doesn't like mine when I lost my temper. I'm too busy either killing deer, cooking or in the infirmary to really make friends. I have Kasha here, but I don't know for how longer. I think Brian's looking to take the lighthouse kids somewhere else" She's switched back to English, watching the people work like ants to get things off the boat quick as possible. Efficiently as possible.
"You know me, keeping busy to keep from breaking down, or keep from thinking too much. Used to have work to do that, now…" She gestures to the castle. "But you know me. I never turn you away. You're my Teodoro, I'd go to the end of the world and back for you. You and a few others" Him and many others. "Can I… can I ask you a favor?"
The shift back to English brings no howling recrimination from the Sicilian, who is, in fact, fluent in English and arguably less of a prick than his magical analogues. He wants to ask about Deckard, for instance, but he thinks the better of it. Not that he thinks the old man's a bad subject, but that some subjects go bad when Teodoro talks about them. He twists his shoulder slightly to make the sit of the gun under his arm fractionally more comfortable. "Kasha sounds like an achor," he says. "Like Pila was for me." He still doesn't ask about having her back, though. Maybe he doesn't have trouble staying put anymore, or he enjoys the drift.
People change. It's the birds that don't, poor little hen. "You can," Teo says, flicking little ashes into the sea. "Of course. If something's mine to do, I'll do it. What do you need?"
"Rent me a room in the corinthian? Not under your name, close to christmas, not under my name or even my fake one. I have the money, money isn't a problem and no one will think twice about Robert staying there, not when his wife is missing or she's… left him, I don't know what excuse he's using for me not being at the Condo"
She looks sheepishly to the side, a heat rising to her cheeks that has nothing to do with her ability and everything to with her sensibilities. "I wait for him to come home, when I'm in town. Hide somewhere near, a roof, an alley, I watch him get dropped off and go in. Sorta.. a Christmas present, before I have to go. A… wedding night"
And then she's moving on to less embarassing things than asking your best friend, best gay friend and former roommate to help you arrange to screw your husband. "I guess she is. I'd take her with me but I don't think brian would let her go and… maybe some day I'll get to adopt her, when the world doesn't want to hang us by our toes or the government doesn't consider us kill on sight and what I can do won't make adoption agencies snatch any child out of my reach" Such faith she has, when really all she'd need to do is just take Kasha at this point.
Surprise etches itself into the sculpture of Teo's brow for a moment, then fades away into a slight squint. He grunts. "Right," he says. "Of course. It won't be a problem. I can do that— easily." Wouldn't appear to want to, though, and it probably has less to do with the probability of government goons swooping down bristling rifles and kevlar and Pokeballs calibrated to Abigail's DNA, more to do with things he doesn't discuss in polite society, and she's long since become that, even if she is asking him for help to get laid inside the dubious confines of her marriage. "I have a little saved up. You can pay me back for it later."
He puts his cigarette back in his mouth long enough to a suck a long draft out of it, shrivelling a segment of ash up the thin scroll of paper, before the exhale looses off a sheer plume of particulate to blow sideways and skyward on the wind. Below the pier, the sea gives a lurching gurgle and eats up the flecks of white that come shedding downward. Teo thinks about Kasha for a few long seconds. "Kasha's lucky to have so many people here for her," he says, after a moment. "You and Brian must count for at least two apiece. Is she Evolved, do you know? Was there a test?"
"She is, or she wouldn't have gone to the orphanage, and Huruma and I would have had to drop her off somewhere else. She's a very lucky baby" She's studying him, studying the cigarette that he's consuming with a bit of a frown. Cigarette's are bad for you, she doesn't say. Along the same lines of Teodoro stop hitting your head against walls, you don't have that plate in your head anymore.
"I have money. My money and not the stuff that Richard frittered into my bag or Felix gave me with no questions asked. Liz too. Enough that i"ll be comfortable in Canada if I husband my money for a handful of months and don't be wasteful"
"Is there anything I can do for you? I mean you you and not.. the other you's that is. WHat do you want for christmas?"
He's very quiet for a few seconds. Not just the kind of quiet that comes of him shutting his mouth and listening to what other people are saying, but — quiet all the way through, an unflinching absence of movement, carcinogens gathering short-lived lines of pallor on the creases of his clothes before the wind blurs them away. She has money! He could ask for lots of things. More ammo? Pila back — she'd offered, she'd like that, if he asked for the bird. White wine or dinner with the both of them, her and Caliban; he imagines, obscurely, that apart from the reflexive pang of jealousy, he'd even enjoy that. Getting to know her beau.
But he says instead, and it comes out like a feeble question: "Felix?"
Felix. The corner of her mouth comes up at the oh so quiet request and she leans in so that she can press a kiss to his temple. "I'll ask Santa to see what he can do" She knows someone who knows Felix and has seen him recently. "And I'll pray that you get what you want for Christmas" If he'd asked for dinner, even that might have been arranged. Felix is a bit more difficult but…
She'll try. "Come on, lets get you something hot to drink or some alcohol before you have to go back out on the boat. It's too cold out here and you're sicilian blood can't take it. I don't want you freezing or body parts falling off"
"Thank you." This Teo still believes in the poooower of prayer, so there isn't even the faintest hint of sarcasm to that. He smiles at her beatifically, straightening slightly, and then he drops his cigarette. Clamps it down under his boot before the wind can thieve it away. It's terrible for the environment, probably, but Eileen isn't here to come after him with a rolled-up newspaper, and Abby just kissed him on the cheek, so even if she does, it'll be like hennish pecking, no intent to inflict— harm, or whatnot.
He grins at her suddenly but briefly, and there's a sincere kind of falseness to it. Teodoro always made a point not to smile if he couldn't mean it, but occasionally, acting the part invokes sentiment to back it up. "Okay," he says, despite that he doesn't know what he'd do with himself if Delilah came down the stairs with the baby in her arms, isn't sure what he'd say to Eileen, doesn't want to explain to anybody else who knows the other two. His cigarette has the shape of his boot smeared flat in it when he starts after her.
Eileen knows he's here already. Birds everywhere. Delilah is asleep, and little Walter is likely sucking on his soother in his sleep and this late at night, only people who are here to make the transition of supplies to castle easier. He'll have to keep an eye out for dive bombing swallows or owls. For now, for now, she's sliding her arm around his elbow, the lantern lowered to her other arm and she swings it gently back and forth as she starts to guide him towards the castle. With luck and some key glares from Abby, Teo, frinkle, will be left alone to the brunette before he will inevitably be returned to the boat, little richer in the pocket for the favor she asked of him.