Participants:
| Scene Title | And In This Moment I Am Happy |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Teo invites Abby over because Sonny wants to give her publicity advice. He finds about her tattoo, the empath pumping her full of artificial happiness, and Linderman's recent interest in her. She finds about his visions. Sonny feeds them lots of meat, which is not a euphemism for anything. |
| Date | April 29, 2009 |
Chinatown — Connor and Teo's Apartment
A shag pad furnished with remarkable humility, if you know anything about Connor Kinney at all.
Crazy men in garbage can's, asking after her on behalf of Daniel Linderman. It's enough to make the redhead shake said head and pick up her scooter before making for the address she was given over the call. Come over, Teo had said. He knew she was done church, and finished work. She could occupy a guest room for the night. So she stopped long enough to grab a pyjama's, determined to be back in her apartment in the morning once curfew was lifted.
Eventually the Healer was lucky in that there was someplace safe to put her scooter and lock it up and someone was coming out the door of the building so she managed to slip in and head up to the appropriate floor and door. There's a sharp rap on the door with her pale knuckles, announcing to the occupants that she is there.
There's a drub-drub-drub of running feet inside the apartment, which Abigail is perfectly used to by now, even if it's been absent from her own home for several months now. When Teo is slightly buzzed and privileged to visitors, he tends to gallumph about like an overgrown retriever pup. Right on cue, there's an audible, clothy thump of his shoulder meeting the door and his eyeball stopping just short of the peep hole, and then a clack-clunk of locks, before he pops the door open.
It smells like grill outside. It smells even more like grill inside, though not overpowering, a pleasant redolence of charcoal heat and burnt sweetness. "Buona sera, ragazza," he says, his features immediately splitting into an enormous grin and he steps back, pulling ingress open. "Come in. Sonny's doing the cooking right now."
"Does he know how to cook? He's good with a needle and a rubber band, but I don't know if I trust his cooking skills" Abigail retorts, the few lines around her eyes denoting that she's exerted her ability in some fashion quite recently. "At least i'll be here to heal our food poisoning" That's spoken quietly and as a lark, even as hesitantly she's wrapping her arms around the other man and giving him a hug before she pulls away - when he lets her - so the door can be closed behind her.
The embrace is taken with one arm, careful as Teo is always wont to be around his young friend. The strain that shows on her skin bothers him, and he manages to let that on without making overmuch ceremony of it; one could say that his default lack of tact is another form of expressiveness. He's glad to see her. He suspects that the Doctor's advice is direly needed, and a night away from routine might be just as well.
"I don't know," he answers, a quaver-beat belated. He reaches to get the woman's coat, casting an eye back across the space of kitchen and living room, out to the balcony. The palatial cage of lovebirds stands in the middle distance, having been moved in paranoid care for its occupants' health. Teo's voice is equally humored, but mild as the evening overhead. "He said he knows how to use a grill. I did the salad and made some pasta, so…
"We can excuse ourselves to that if we wind up with slabs of oily black carbon from him." His feet squeak bare across the floor, the cuffs of somebody else's three-hundred dollar jeans scratching gently against varnished wood. "How are you holding up?"
Sonny is not, thankfully, in an obnoxious 'kiss the cook' apron. In fact, he's not wearing an apron at all. A dishtowel tucked into his belt serves as one. As it's still a bit chilly outside, he's also wearing a jacket and the sliding door is closed. He waves a pair of tongs at Abby when he spots her entering, gives her a big grin and swallows from a beer.
For some reason, he looks oddly pleased with himself. Ignore the billowing clouds of stuff coming from the barbecue.
"Pasta and salad. That's on his list. Greasy carbon, not so much" But she'll give SOnny the benefit of the doubt. "It's down to I think a tabloid writer in front of the apartment, but I think that she'll be gone by tomorrow. The interview helped a lot. Oh! you have more birds?" Abigails peeling out of her sweater, having temporarily subscribed to the Teodoro method of heat management for the last week. There's a wave back to sonny as the tongs make their circumnavigation of the air above his head. "Any word on Al?"
There's a twist of Teo's mouth that functions as a summary as his feelings on the whole thing. The Al thing, the birds, the interview, the muck-rakers, the grill. Life in all its complexity. "I feel optimistic." About all of it. He fiddles open a narrow closet in the wall, sequesters her coat away on a hanger that is actually made of wood, courtesy of somebody else's sensibilities.
"I— we do have new birds. Sonny got them the other week. The other half of the cage was for Pila, but I'm thinking these two could use more room as it is," he says.
He spares a second, more furtive glimpse into the recesses of closet, confirming that Abigail's gift hangs within easy reach and graceful segue of the garment she had come in with. He shuts both jackets in together, and is left blinking as she begins to shed her own onion layers. "I got a vision from Pastor Joseph. God's word: he and the others will be back. Don't know how or when, but I believe it."
The patio door cracks open and Sonny lets a whiff of charcoal breeze into the apartment. "Hey Tay, can you hand me the other plate of meat and the barbecue sauce?" He already took a plate out there, but given the smoke coming from the barbecue, that was only a 'test batch.' Hey, it's been a long time and it's a new grill!
"Hi Abby. How's it going? I put some fresh coffee on if you want it and there's lots of beer and stuff in the fridge."
Test Batch. She can forgive a test batch. Nice to have the money to spare for a 'test batch' of meat. Abigail shoo's Teo to go get the meat for Sonny. "Really? God show'd you that?" Seeing as half of what she saw came to pass, Abigail smiles at that. "Hey Sonny. Learning to Barbeque?" The leather jacket goes unseen as she unloads her messenger bag and the overnight bag so she can go see to the birds. "I'll bring Pila over in a few days since you have a spot for her. Scarlett's been looking at her funny lately. Probably safer. I'll be in next week Sonny for more poking."
Oddly enough, it's news that Pila will be joining them that gives Teo pause, and little to do with news of Scarlett's appetites. He had phrased his initial explanation that way for a reason, but not one that he feels any real urge to get into now as his lover tramples in on a gust of grill fragrance and fresh accomplishment.
"Non problema." He grins, lopsided, pads off to snare the plate of cut meat from where it perches on the counter beside the square-shaped bottle of sauce. The latter, Teo picks up too, swings easily between forefinger and middle, in idle syncopation with the gait he takes over to the balcony.
A quick survey will show the healer that there is, indeed, a lot of 'beer and stuff.' Some of it is no longer in the fridge. a few empty bottles lined up on the coffee table. The premises are otherwise tidy, if not clinically so, having found that fuzzy point of balance between Sonny's OCD and Teo's being just some guy, albeit one used to a relatively Spartan shortage of personal possessions and small spaces.
There's an odd dichotomy at play here. The furniture and paint are of good quality, minimalistic but not particularly rakishly so, matte, with a little interest in interior design or personal style, at odds with the giant birds' home and the extra window pane propped up underneath the counter that divides kitchen from living area, covered in absurdities of Sharpie scribbles. It's all the evidence of a home being broken in for the first time by young men who haven't really tried doing that before.
"Poking?"
"I've done it before!" says Sonny with mock-defiance. He takes the tray of meat from Teo and the sauce. "Thanks, babe. Uh, the first few got a little crispy. This is a new grill and uh, I had it up a little high. The next set will be better, promise." He sounds so sure. Gotta give him points for enthusiasm.
"Sure thing, Abby. How're you feeling? Hold that thought. Ugh. Gonna make the whole apartment smell like charcoal if I don't close this door. Wind's blowing right against this side of the building."
He moves back out onto the patio. Although he can't really be heard over the grill and with the somewhat soundproofed pane of glass, he's whistling. Seems Teo and Abby will get a little more privacy as they talk about the big guy upstairs and prophecies.
"Blood. Vampire. I vant to take yer bloooood" She's perky, Abigail is. One could swear just like pre-staten island without a real care in the world. Pre-Kazimir even as she watches Sonny continue with his gastronomic experimentation out on the balcony. The lovebird eye'd, happily and then she turns back to Teo. "It looks nice here. It looks like.. you both live here. I like it. uhmm, How'd you like the interview on TV the other night?" Testing the waters so to speak even as the other italian segregates himself out with the meat.
Long fingers closed on the folded metal edge of the sliding window-door, Teo helps usher the patio door sealed again. He turns around with his other hand up to fan the smell of barbecue either into or out of his face. It isn't nearly unpleasant, honestly. He squints at the makeshift redhead for a protracted moment, and decides that isn't unpleasant, either, discerning physical fatigue from emotional. "Thanks.
"I think it's nice too," he agrees without looking entirely embarrassed, looking around despite that he knows what it looks like, from the beer bottles to the exact orientation of the coffee table, parallel and perpendicular to the walls. "It's reminds me of our old place up in the Bronx, a little. In all the good ways." He gestures at the couch, inviting, before he swings a long leg over the coffee table in question, stepping over it to reach his proper seat on—
The floor, naturally. Other things haven't changed. "I liked it a lot. I think the shifter was inspired by equal parts kindness and vanity to do it," Teo says, frank as a baseball bat taken upside the head. He takes the yet-unfinished beer off the table, leans against the couch cushions to regard Abigail's halting speech with curiosity. "You okay with that?"
"Little uneasy. Wish I would have known then I could have hidden in my apartment and not have been in the bar when he did it. Magnes thinks it's pre-recorded, Huruma clued in because you can't lie to.. her" She almost said Empath. "Richard, I don't know what he thinks, but I'm pretty sure he knows it was someone else. If you see him, tell him thank you, It helped, a lot. But I don't think we need to tell him what the giving away tell's were" She takes up the couch, laying down on it on her stomach, socked feet up in the air. Still so very care free. "Daniel Linderman.. sent someone to the Bar. What do you know about him?"
The Sicilian's shoulders square, easing a creak out of the fabric behind him. "You can't lie to a lot of people, signorina," Teo points out a little resignedly.
His ruddy mouth tilts into a smile that fails entirely to phrase that as censure, and he throws an arm back over his head to root around for a remote control. He finds it, offers the slender device to Abigail in case she'd like to have something on in the background for ambience. "I already told him, but I'll tell him again. He was happy to do it. Speaking of him, and the other thing—" a squint over his shoulder. "Be a good subject to skirt, if and whenever you talk to law enforcement, si?
"Liz being my eternal exception." He releases the television doohickey, takes a pull of cold beer. His fingers drag melting bars of condensation down the convex surface of the glass. "Powerful businessman, crimelord. Kain Zarek is one of his men— you met him a long time ago, I think. He dropped off a few thousand dollars' worth of explosives and rifles on Cameron's behalf when PARIAH was still intact. Big fish in a big pond with representation on most levels of the food chain.
"Probably an asshole," he decides, eyes thinning thoughtfully at the dim screen of the television. "Why?"
"So far, i've been claiming that it's me. Everyone else thinks it's me" Abigail points out to him, a hand waved to pass off the controller. She doesn't care about the ambience. "Except those who know that I don't wear black and that I always have my cross and did I mention that, you know, I wouldn't have done a TV interview? I guess what really makes me worried is that.. he.. can copy me"
But that's all the worry she'll give, not that she looks at all like she's worrying. "He sent someone to the bar, to see if I really did work there, and if I really did heal. The guy shot himself in the arm, because he wanted to have proof for Daniel Linderman that I was. He said I had angel wings, and then begged me not to come for him and promised not to touch the other angels if he sees them. something like that" Kain, wrack her mind. "Southern. Gentleman. I brought the shotgun with me"
Teo nods his head, up and down once or thrice which ends up planting his skull backward on the couch below her shoulder. He lolls it sideways because eye-contact is polite, despite that his gaze is unfocused, seemingly a million miles away. Teo isn't very good at hiding what he's feeling unless he's trying to lie. "Southern," he confirms. "Comes off like a gentleman, anyway. Guy shot himself in the arm?" As if he hadn't heard right the first time, though he had. "Fuck. I— don't know. Maybe he wants to hire you onto staff or something. He seems to have some decent people around him, nothing involved with crime or shit.
"I actually met one under an alias. Zoe Porter's the psychometer who actually gave us that first lead when you went missing. Real sweetheart. She saw John Logan's van." Remembering that particular chapter of history isn't easy by any stretch of imagination. Sort of the greatest understatement of all time. Teo scowls, rests the cold glass butt of the beer bottle on his forehead. "Even she was paranoid as fuck helping out, though. Came with a bodyguard, pointed out Linderman has dangerous enemies.
"I don't know. Maybe that's the kind of support you could use?" Pallid eyes turn sideways on her.
One of them, anyway. The bottle, balanced on his face as if he's some trained seal at a carnival or aquarium, blocks out the other. Still blithely occupied by barbecue, Sonny's silhouette wobbles back and forth behind the curved glass and distance to the patio. "I think you have to worry a lot less about the Sylars and John Logans of the world now, but there could be benefits. He's been good to Brian so far. At the Lighthouse. No tangible strings."
"I don't know what he wants. His company was the one that spoke up about demanding channel 4 apologize for using my name" Maybe nothing will come of it. Who knows. "Another person who wants my healing maybe?" There's no end of those. "Police have started paying me. Whether I like it or not. It's a pittance, but it's something. I give it to the Church cause I won't keep it." But enough about her, Blue eyes look over at him. "How are you? How's things with Sonny, have they settled down any?" She reaches over to tap her fingers on his shoulder and then ruffle his hair without care for the fact that she's actually touching him. At the same time reaching out with that ability and a prayer to see if he needs any touching up in the healing department.
Teo is in bizarrely good health. Thinking about it will probably jinx it, so he doesn't do that; instead, he thinks about her, despite the fact that she dismissed the subject of herself out of hand. The smile that her church donations had evoked fades slightly, into curiosity. "You're in a really good mood," he observes, straightforwardly. "I'm glad. 'S a little surprising, though— I'm being anal retentive or something. Sorry."
Teo worries. She knows how he is.
"I think so. I'm not a rotted lump of shit sulking in the corner anymore, which makes him feel better too. The vision helped. So did the birds. More shit is happening— there's always more shit happening," he acknowledges, wryly, staring at the ceiling. "Some friends are going through shit. Deckard, Eileen. Other old friends." A blast from the future, unbelievably. "I think Sonny's double-life thing is catching up to him and he doesn't even know it yet. I dunno. It's the same old shit, though. Every week he spends at the trailer park or in Phoenix" or with me, " is another seven-day window for shit to happen on one front or another."
"I'm in a good mood because there's an empath at the bar who keeps.. doing something. Though he found out that I'm gifted and I don't think we'll see him at the bar again. He has a thing against.. them" his words, not hers. It explains a lot. "I think I'll be back to normal in a a day or so. I like being happy though. I didn't.. realize that I miss it" She'd gottne used to being always in some level of confusion and worry and then a chemical equilibrium. "Flint showed up, at the bar."
Deckard, tall, scruffy. "We weren't yelling at each other but he couldn't meet my eyes. He followed me out to the alley when I was heading home but.." But life is life. "Didn't realize how much I missed seeing him, he's like.. an uncle, that you know is the black sheep, but you still like seeing him because he brings all the best presents. The ones your parents won't let you have" She still rubs her hand over the short stubbly hair, enjoying the velvet texture of it against her palm. Back and forth she goes. "He'll get use to it Teo. Sonny that is. It's not his world, it wasn't my world till you all started showing up in the diner. Just.. be there for him"
Them at the damn diner. Teo can remember. He doesn't go there often anymore. He turns his eyes up to the ceiling for a protracted moment, tries not to make too constipated faces at the idea of an empath diddling his friend's brain. Deckard wouldn't have liked that either, he's sure. He's rarely sure what to do with Deckard these days, himself. Muttering something inscrutably Italian under his breath, he takes the bottle down for a pull, his throat working the beer down until he stops with a liquid clink.
"Uncle," he gruffs out a laugh under his breath. "Poor fuck would hate to hear that. Not that there's a lot Flint likes to listen to, I guess. He just— listens for the Hell of it." Teo exhales against the back of his hand, watches the man on the patio out of his peripheral. "I'm glad Deckard got his shit together enough to see you. Being alone so fucking much isn't good for him."
"He's twice my age, Teo, he's as old as my father likely" But that's neither here nor there. For all intent purposes Abigail has and always will remain outside of the selection circle for any male, until she decides to do otherwise. "But i'm glad he visited" Abigail lifts her head, peeking out at Sonny who seems to either be talking to the meat and pleading for it not to burn or maybe he's singing, really, it's a toss up and the redhead lays back down. "Oh. So."
"I got a tattoo."
There's a grunt from Teodoro, half amusement and half annoyance. "He's almost as old as mine. You don't see me roping him into my family. And I sure as fuck don't see you as a sister, and that's nothing unflattering or lewd intended, signorina. Friends are in a different category.
"Flint's my friend." There's a little too much of a fade on that lattermost conclusion, a drift of tone that indicates a drift of thought; some diaphanous skein of memory of seaside confessions and alcohol-stinking misery ripped loose and blowing over the present, and somewhat worsened by the fact that drinking and nerves are impairing his judgment somewhat. After a few seconds, he puts down his beer. A few seconds after that, his hearing retroactively snaps back into focus, and he articulates his shock with two peaked eyebrows.
What. "What?" He sits up, twists his bristly head. "Where?"
"Back. My shoulder blade. I was with Richard, he was getting one on his chest and we were waiting for Magnes to show up so.. " So she got one. Abigial shifts, taking her palm back from the velvet texture of his head to maneuver herself with a little effort, place her back towards him and peel off her cotton shirt. Leaving her in the tank top beneath and below that the inevitable support garment that most women wear. But peeking from behind the straps is her tattoo. the stylistic simple black cross with it's two circles and the blue and yellow aura near the center. "You can touch it."
Fascination knots Teo's forehead even before the cant of his head illuminates to him the peculiar qualities of the mark drawn across the woman's skin. Tipsy curiosity overrides the default caution and empath's special warning note that would otherwise have stopped him from invading his friend's physical proximity. He lifts a long hand, puts his fingers against the smooth plateau of her scapula just around the edge of the fabric.
It's as he had suspected! Oddly enough, and like no tattoo he's ever seen before. "There's no scarring," he says, elaborately surprised. "That's weird. All mine— this wasn't done with needles was it?" His finger drags slightly to the left, verifying the consistency of texture across the uncolored part of her, before he retracts his hand and sits back to study this from a slightly greater distance, as if an explanation will magically piece itself together from a different vantage point.
"Merda. That's really cool."
Annnd what an interesting time for Sonny to struggle with the patio door and enter with a platter laden with far too much food. There's sausages, burgers and a few steaks. A few are a little charred, but it certainly doesn't look like it's inedible. It does however, look like enough to feed four or five more people.
"O-kay kids! Dinner's on. Come and get it."
"Pigmentation of my skin is changed. It'll never fade. It'll be like that forever and if I don't want it anymore…" Well she'll just have to ask. Sonny can't see the back, that's to Teo, so there's only the front of the young redhead, smiling at the doctor. "Smells good Sonny and your question earlier, i'm good. I'm really good. Dr. Yee's helping a lot. I'm not jumping every time someone thumps a glass down on the door and a few other things. So. Anything special I was brought here for dinner" A glance over her shoulder to Teo as she curls her shoulder inwards then straightens them, make the tattoo shift a little to make him puzzle more. "I got a tattoo, sorta. He's staring," explained for sonny's benefit.
Heey. Teo's eyebrows ladder higher on his forehead until the skin there ruches up like actual rungs, the likes of which would probably make Sonny's inner plastic-surgeon and beautician cringe if he were paying attention. The next instant, his features relax around a bright grin. "That's awesome. Sonny can kind of do stuff like that," he adds, even as he lurches upright, one hand gripping the edge of the coffee table, the other the couch. "I asked him to do a tattoo for me once. I don't have a pattern in mind yet but how cool would that be?"
His balance is still perfect, naturally. He used to drink a lot more than this when he went out to fight to the death at sixteen years of age. One learned to navigate narrow streets, outmaneuver police, and aim fists and broken bottles with accuracy despite that one could no longer feel the shattered cartlidge inside one's. Promptly, he scoots over to help with Sonny's armload.
"Abby suspects," he tells the other man, blandly.
"Suspects what?" Says Sonny. It's almost innocent-sounding. He glances past Teo towards Abby. "A tattoo, huh? So that's why you were staring at her bare back. I was wondering." His lips twitch. "C'mon. Before stuff gets cold. The sides and stuff are all finished, right?"
The good mood must be infectious or something. He's fairly proud of himself that he managed to cook something edible. Although, perhaps that remains to be seen.
"M'glad, Abby. Dr. Yee's good people. Been keeping up with your diet?" A beat, as he looks at what they've prepared for dinner. "Uh, though…maybe not tonight…"
"Ninety nine percent of the time. But there's also pasta and salad so really, i'm not off it tonight" When she's not suddenly taken up another habit instead of caffeine. "I have a house guest who's adoring it too. He's vegetarian and he loves the drinks. As for suspecting.. Sonny and I are oil and water unless it's talking about poking me with needles or what I'm supposed to eat" She accepts this, she's comfortable with it. "So you probably have something you need to tell me and are skirting around the issue" The cotton T-Shirt is slipped back on, her face disappearing from view for a few moments before she re-emerges like the proverbial turtle poking it's head from it's shell.
The dining table had to be budged a few feet so that one didn't have to concern oneself with the possibility of getting bird poop particle matter or dander on one's meal, but the new distance is nothing unmanageable. Teo begins to help offloading the fruits of Sonny's hard work onto the table, pausing to stick his beezer down into the columned vapors that rise. "I like oil and water," he volunteers helpfully, pushing forks and knives around to their proper configuration. He cranes himself back upright and shuffles off in search of glasses to fill with— "Water? Swamp sludge?"
It's left to Salvatore, evidently, to make his proposal on his own timing and terms.
"It's not swamp sludge. It's spirulina, spinach and kelp with banana, passionfruit, OJ and yogurt. It's called a Mean Green or something else to that effect." Sonny lifts a shoulder and then seats himself at the table. "Grab me another beer, will you, Tay?" Apparently he doesn't practice what he preaches. At least not at the first barbecue of the season.
"So, uh…Abby. How's…things been, publicity-wise? What with the press and the interview and all?" He starts to load up his plate. A steak is pulled off the pile of meat. Medium-well. Hmm. Not perfect, but good enough.
"Something bigger came along, so they've taken their things and gone elsewhere. Was telling Teo that I think there's just a tabloid in front of the apartment. I had to sneak out the back door and then climb in through Izzy's apartment to get to work after a day or two. Hid out in chinatown with Xiulan. Because only a stupid reporter will go into the heart of the flying dragons" It's a hot dog for Abby, eschewing burgers and steaks. "But.." A glance to Teo and she looks at Sonny. "Someone pitched in and helped and it got them to leave me alone. I'll have to send him flowers as a thank you. I was going to ask you what to do but, there's no need for me to do anything anymore I guess. Thank heavens for other small miracles. DId your receptionist choke on her lunch when she saw it?" Never let it be said that Abby doens't take some malicious glee in things.
Glee of any stripe is welcome for Abigail Beauchamp but the malice is a little weird to look at. Insofar as that it's mock-malice, and it's mock-skepticism that Teo shows the young woman. It lasts a quaver-beat, fades into a crooked smile while he assembles a burger with deft hands. "Fucking journalists," he offers, helpfully, with the legendary animosity that all football hooligans default to. He places a palm on either piece of bread and compresses his masterpiece. There is a quiet squelch of oil, sauce, meat and lettuce, before he closes his fingers around it and bites in.
"Ah, well, she might just be more polite to you next time she sees you," says Sonny with a grin towards Abby as he forks a bit of pasta salad. "Still. I doubt that's going to be the last you hear of it. Take it from someone who's used to being in the public eye. I don't think it's the press you have to worry about so much. It's desperate or dangerous people coming to you now that they know what you can do."
His lips purse into a frown. "I…have been used. By the government. And my ability isn't as useful as yours. I think you should avoid healing anyone high-profile. And I want you to consider letting me set you up with a publicist. They'll be a barrier between the public and you. A good one will watch your back. And I just happen to know some good ones."
He swallows a mouthful of beer and then considers Abby levelly. "They'll teach you how to talk to the press and help you set up a relationship with respectful and reputable journalists who won't fuck you over. So stories about you get handled competantly."
He glances to Teo and his meat masterpiece. "How's the burger?" It's maybe a tad dry, but by no means inedible.
"Didn't you know? I have /?Gabriel Gray// as my publicist" It's a joke, really. No one wants Gabriel as their publicist. "If you think I need one then fine. I already have dangerous people coming to ask me for healing. I probably have a bunch of letters in this box at work. But I haven't the heart to open any of them" The hot dogs slid into a bun, mustard and only mustard added, salad, the pasta, making herself a plate of food and sitting down. She needs to replace what she used up healing Mortimer. "What do you know about Daniel Linderman. I asked Teo and he said he's okay. Associated with some not nice people, but.. he sent someone to see if I work at Old Lucy's and whether I really do heal"
Teo extricates one hand from the side of his sandwich, and gives Sonny a beatific thumbs-up. Clamps down on it again, before anything comes falling out, and shakes his head with a gesture toward his mouth to indicate he can't comment. It is a tad dry, but nothing he won't eat himself into a coma with, given there are fresh vegetables included. He squints thoughtfully at Abigail when she replies with neither enthusiasm nor disagreement; wonders what she's going to think tomorrow.
"With friends like that…" murmurs Sonny. No, he's not a Catholic. He's not going to forgive easily. Gabriel Gray still gives him a very bad feeling, despite all of his supposed good deeds. "A publicist will insulate you from all of that. It'll make your life easier. Trust me," the Mayor's son flashes a Hollywood grin. He doesn't really mean to - it's kind of a reflex after he asks for trust. He got that from his politician father.
"Ah. Linderman. Yeeah. Tread carefully. Dad goes nuts trying to figure out that man's agenda." His Hollywood smile turns into a more human frown. "He's kind of like the dog trained to guard the house. Sometimes he'll let you pet him, and sometimes he'll try to bite." At least, that's how Daddy Bianco sees him. "Sometimes he's got your back, but you never know when he might turn on you."
He cuts into a piece of steak and dips it in a little sauce. Given that he bought butcher-quality steaks, it's pretty hard to make them inedible. "There is…always the option of me changing your face, you know. For awhile. Nothing has to be permanent. I…" he glances to Teo and hesitates before spilling the beans. "…I'm a lot better than I used to be at reverting people to their true faces." He'll leave out the part about easily (and sometimes unintentionally) duplicating people for the moment.
"So treat him like every other sociopath who comes to me for help" Abigail chews on her lower lip for a moment before forking some pasta into her mouth, listening carefully. She would once again have a frown on her face, but Aaron.. so it's a smile as she shakes her head, red hair flying this way then that in her polite refusal. "Would disrupt too much. Work, class, Dr. Yee. Going to the hospital. I thank you for the offer Sonny, I know you don't make it lightly and I'm not afraid you couldn't turn me back. Lord knows I trust you with a great many things, including my life but they're leaving me alone, I can get back to normal. I'll go to the publicist now, because your right, I probably will need it in the future. Good lord willing I won't, but…" At the rate things go. "At this rate between appointments, class, and emergency's I'm not gonna find time to work."
"Well, you know, if you ever want a vacation," Sonny lifts a shoulder. "Tell people you're going out of town. Then frustrate the hell out of reporters when they can't find you." Ah yes, he does delight in teasing the press. He's done similar tricks before.
In the future, maybe he'll open a 'travel agency.' A vacation from your life without ever leaving home.
"I'll ask around, see who might be willing. I have one in mind who I'm sure would be happy to help." And it goes without saying that he's going to foot the bill.
There. His ulterior motive for the evening is out in the open. He glances towards Teo, brows raised. That went all right.
"I know. Call you up, let you do your magic. For now I'll just let you keep stabbing me with hollow steel and following your diet. I promise Sonny" And she'll keep it. She's that kind of woman. Not making such things so lightly. "So that was why you asked me over? To offer a publicist in case something ever crops up again?" Now she delves into the hot dog - food glorious food - and she seems, from the look on her face, to be truly enjoying the hot dog. A hand coves up to cover her mouth after the too large bit. "Is gud"
Now Teo looks faintly guilty, possibly because he thinks that sounds bad: inviting a girl over to give her advice. Is— that doesn't sound bad, probably, but his face is so used to folding up around that shape it's the first thing he thinks to do, after his equally quizzical gaze shifts away from Sonny's.
"Wanted to see you," he chimes in, wiping his thumb on a napkin. "Show you the apartment and the birds. Also needed a guinea pig and a diversion for this stronzo's cooking." Said thumb jerks glibely toward the other man's curly-cropped head. "Just in case. Everyone knows I have too many tells." Teo is comforted by the fact that her artificially enhanced mood isn't accompanied by entirely flippant indifference to the reality of her situation or the dire consequences of misstep. Beating up an empath sounds like work.
If Sonny screwed up hot dogs, he really would be hopeless. Abby gets a thumbs up. "What he said," he grins at Teo and kicks at the other's foot gently under the table. "Sides, you're the only person other than this guy who knows all my secrets. Despite our differences, y'know, I can relax with you here." And coming from Sonny Bianco, that's a fairly high compliment.
"Also, insulting my cooking doesn't sting at all because I freely admit that I'm terrible at it." Grilling however, he's adequate at.
"And surprising, I haven't told anyone yet" Proof still that she doesn't always spill secrets. "So lets eat and … forget that everything happened. There's a man who's going just have a cast around his ankle for the next few weeks, but that's better than being dead, and… that we're here, and having a good meal and the world is still turning yes?" Abigail looks between the two.
Proof and reproof abound. "I take it back," Teo says, waving sticky fingers. His burger is gone by now. Soon, he must either compile another or attempt one of these slabs of standalone cow. "You're both great providers and keepers of secrets. 'M grateful. Honestly." He grins briefly. There is a little something stuck between the teeth on his upper row, a thin trace of green lettuce of which he remains cheerfully ignorant.
He picks up the napkin from beside his plate, smears the trace residue of savory slime off his palm and the flats of his fingers and contemplates the small mountain of other options on the plate. It's been said: his metabolism is monstrous. "Sounds like a plan.
"Except I have no idea who the fuck the guy is that you're talking about and that sounds like an interesting story, so maybe you should tell it." Teo raises his eyebrows and expectations, picks up his fork in order to purloin the next piece of his meal.
"Surprising?" Surprising, what? Sonny tries to hide the fact that he's a bit alarmed at Abby admitting she's not good at keeping secrets. The ones she knows about him could very neatly destroy his career and his father's if word got out. He'll pretend he didn't hear that and just sip his beer instead.
The doc does have a touch of OCD, so the spot in Teo's teeth makes him twitch a little. After a moment, he can't take it. He reaches over and catches the Italian's chin. With a deft, almost unthinking motion, he uses his thumbnail to pick the bit of green free. He withdraws his hand and goes back to eating like nothing happened.
Yeah. They've been together awhile now.
"It's like your married" Abigail murmurs, watching Sonny's actions with that blindingly endearing smile on her face. "The man? Well" And with that, Abigail launches into the central park incident, and the man, all of it. Her heroic act, Magnes's exhibition in his attempt to draw attention from her and the meeting up with the man later after she'd woken up to see what else she could do.
Teo misses the beginning of the story, doing his best inadvertent impression of a self-consciously suspicious chipmunk rubbing at his nose and mouth. Wonderfully, the self-consciousness is less because of the painful social awareness that they have an audience— that's commenting, no less— than a short-lived effort to Sherlock Holmes whatever the Hell it was he had stuck in his mandibles. To no avail. "Wait," he says, refocusing two sentences in. "No no, go back. He was doing wha'?"
The sky resembles a backlit canopy,
With holes punched in it.
I'm counting UFOs,
I signal them with my lighter.
And in this moment I am happy,
Happy.