Because She Can

Participants:

cat_icon.gif deckard_icon.gif helena_icon.gif

Scene Title Because She Can
Synopsis After doing business with Deckard, Cat intends to go home and play guitar.
Date June 16, 2009

Somewhere in New York City


She's here, with Helena. Her splinted arm is easy to spot as the most pressing injury to treat, and Cat has money. This is Deckard she's dealing with, after all. She has alcohol too, remembering very well what he drank from the time when he was her guest after she along with Teo, Claire, Hiro, Claude, and that guy with Claire who made the blue flames sprung him from a one way trip to the Utah desert.

As she makes her entry to the place, taking off the splint and grimacing some as she works the bone in her left arm to make sure it's aligned properly for this undertaking, Cat asks Helena "How'd he come by healing, anyway? I was under the impression he could see through doors or had really good hearing." Because he stared at the door to his safehouse room and Delilah just happened to have been spying on the other side. "Tyler Case, right?" Her eyes roll.

Helena confesses at last - and because Abby finally gave her permission - "Case got to Abby, and swapped her out with Deckard. Once he fixes you, we can put him into contact with Delphine." Helena's got her fingers laced into the handles of a fourpack of Red Bull, and Cat had seen her shove an envelope get shoved into one of Helena's pockets before going over. "Hopefully it'll go better than it did with Elle."

Deckard is the last to arrive, which is probably not unusual or unexpected in the big scheme of things. All iron rails of bone and roadkill muscle drawn stringy and taut, he's sporting shadows around his eyes that'd shame a coon and a few days worth of stubble over his normal bristly quota. Grey and white are thus more distinct than usual in uneven patches on either side of his chin, making him look even older than he already does when he shoulders in through the door, hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Hey."

"Mr. Deckard," Cat greets in reply as the man comes into view. "It's a number of broken glass cuts on my back and the left arm. Broken at the ulna, halfway between the elbow and wrist. I set it myself, it feels like the placement is even enough." She pauses then, looking down at that injured limb, before offering "Thank you for coming."

"Hey, Deckard." is Helena's easy greeting. She tugs the envelope out of her pocket and holds it up. "For your trouble." she says, "After you've healed Cat." Other than that, she seems content to keep her mouth shut and herself out of the way.

Chilly blue eyes scrape over the arm in question, marking carefully over cuts and swelling and general badness with a sidelong pull at the corner of Deckard's mouth. Ow. He looks to Helena next. Then at the envelope. Then wearily back to Helena. He's slow to look away and slower still to nod, jaw worked into a subtle clench while he draws his hands out of his pockets and holds them out away from himself, turned up and open as if wet. Or waiting on permission to get grabby.

She's wary at this moment, with hands about to be laid on her. Cat remembers so very well her own cautions about not letting anyone make physical contact, it could so easily be Arthur. But she also realizes she no longer needs to fear Arthur's touch; he already took her ability. It's unlikely he'd seek to steal it twice. If this is actually Arthur and not Flint Deckard he'd simply slay her on the spot and he hasn't tried to do that. The odds, thus, are much in favor of this being the real Deckard. "Bastard threw me out a window and burned Father's house down," she remarks as to the source of these injuries. "More cuts on my back, some on legs too. One way or another, he'll look much worse when we're done with him," she promises with her jaw setting.

"It's Abby's ability." Helena points out. "It'll go where it needs to go. At least that's how she explained it to me once." She takes a few steps back, watching them both with care and uncertain whether one or the other or even both might collapse from the effort.

Deckard doesn't look like he's about to slay anybody. Mostly he looks tired. Maybe hungover. When he steps closer, he doesn't smell all that much like Arthur either. Kind of stale, like maybe his clothes haven't been washed in a day or two under the warmer leather scent of his coat, whiskey and cigarette stink riding tell-tale under mintier mouthwash on his breath. Neither of them says to touch, but neither of them says not to touch, so he crosses the two or three steps necessary to offer his hand out, fingers splayed, lead and cigarette staining brushed yellow across the rough of his palm. "S'long as the bone is aligned it should be fine."

"It is," Cat assures as she places her arm under Deckard's hand. Her eyes rest on Helena, and musing in a confused way takes place. "How did he and Abby get on Tyler Case's crap list in the future?" Her head shakes, finding it hard to fathom such a thing. And there's guilt, self-castigation to some degree. "I tried to find Tyler before the police and Primatech got to him. But too late. And they took all his memories away. So much he calls himself John Doe. Doesn't even remember his own name."

It's with a slow shake of her head she puts that aside to ask of another matter. "What happened with Elle?"

"Her injuries were too old and fargone." And it might have just been too delicate for Deckard to manage. Helena doesn't mention that, though. "Less talky-talky! Let him work!" she chides Cat.

If Deckard has any actual skills relevant to this situation, not talking is probably one of them. He lets the bony rest of his hand curl around the offered arm, sighing to himself in the second or two before contact. It's gentle when it's finally there, soft despite the coarse ridges in his hands and the frown lines darkened in fuzzily around his mouth. The sensation is both familiar and not exactly the same. Something about penetrating, buzzing, comforting warmth with Flint Deckard as the source lends a certain impurity to the process — more like the flush that follows one drink too many than divine grace. The break is solidified first, bone creeping in an uneven push before the ability focuses itself elsewhere, knitting and pulling at deep slices without particular regard for rhyme and reason.

Her eyes close as the healing begins, the sensations of bone fusing together and cuts closing up an enjoyable one, no matter the source. Cat's is, also, a generally very active mind. Deckard's manner is compared with her impeccable memory of Abby's. The absence of prayer from the man is not at all a surprise, she'd long believed that was simply a mental block on the young woman's part, her mistaken belief in needing to speak with a deity for it to work.

None of these mental meanderings are spoken of. She is silent until the process is complete, after which her eyes reopen and the fingers on her left hand flex, she tests the limb. "Thank you, again," she quietly offers. There's a brief thought of perhaps in the near future doing some arms dealing business with the man, to obtain a sniper rifle, which also goes unspoken. After the healing, her most prominent thought is of playing guitar.

Just because she can.

Helena plucks one of the Red Bulls out of the fourpack and holds it out to Deckard, leaving the others on a nearby surface. "This always seems to help Abby." she says with greatfulness for his efforts.

"Mnh," Deckard mutters unintelligably, contact broken of with a twitch of a rankle at the join of brow and the bridge of his nose. Maybe there is a language somewhere within which this qualifies as a, 'You're welcome.' Every lean muscle in his neck lines out when he swallows, breaths deep and slow when he reaches to accept the offered Red Bull. Crack. Fizz.

The envelope is laid on the table next to the four pack of RedBull. When Deckard gets a chance to check out the contents, he'll find a thousand dollars, cash. "Are you looking to get your own ability back?" Helena asks Deckard. "Because there's someone we can make an arrangement with who would likely be willing to help you. I don't know, you might be finding this ability um, lucrative." she shrugs.

Not really in any condition to be shotgunning anything, Deckard manages to swallow down a fair portion of the can in one go nonetheless, free hand scrubbing automatically after the grizzle at the corner of his mouth on its way to reach for the envelope. His movements are slow and deliberate, like a reptile kept in a cold room, with a certain absence of life to the dull knife of his eyes down after the envelope's contents once he's pried it open. "Make sure Abigail gets it back first." He hooks a thumb in to rifle through green bills, variably crisp and rumpled, and tosses the lot of it back onto the table with the remaining energy drink to head for the door. "Then maybe we can talk."

Helena blinks in surprise when Deckard refuses the payment. Well, she's not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. "She's on the Santa's Nice List for getting her powers back." she tells Deckard as he leaves. "I'll let you know when she's back on track and feeling like her old self." With that, she won't stop him and looks back at Catherine. "Okay," she breathes. "Home again, home again, jiggety jig." Money and fourpack are taken. Hey, if Deckard don't want it, she'll re-absorb it back into Phoenix's funds.


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