Participants:
| Scene Title | Blessed are the Doomed |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Abby leads Deckard to her apartment to heal him. He's so grateful that he ransacks the place while she watches. That's what happens when you bring in strays. |
| Date | November 14, 2008 |
Abby's Apartment
A quick getaway, away from the Nite Owl and the gunshot that rang out again from within as they were leaving. That she didn't see it, doens't make the Abigail flinch any the less with the knowledge of what might have just happened. "Are all men so… chilvalrous? Whatever happened to just opening doors?" Rhetorical as that may seem. Abby's old apartment wasn't far and with the vain hopes that colette hadn't gotten around to turning her in, or that it was a bluff, Abby is guiding Deckard to her old place. It's a place she can trust, she can patch him up and familiar to her and easy to get away, on the offchance that she might need to. Through the front door, up the stairs to the third floor, step around that questionable pile of something in the hall, and abby's unlocking the door to the bachelor pad and ushering Deckard in.
Deckard is not talkative. He's wet. It's cold. He keeps his arms folded across his chest and his head down, eyes focused dimly on the passage of gum-studded concrete underfoot through the fog of his breath. "It's not chivalry. It's stupidity." A shoulder is rolled back against the kinking in his back, and then it's back to scowling.
"That too. Sometimes the two mix nicely" Abby closes the door behind them, motioning for him to go to the couch, or the bed, and she heads for the radiator. Througha acombination of kicking, twisting and audible prayer, the equiptment givesa groan, but it's going to start spilling out heat to warm the room up more than it is right now. "I need skin. Your hand, arm, your neck, anywhere where I can touch you. And while i'm doing that, you can start speaking, and the truth Flint. That determines whether I help you or not"
After taking a moment to peer between the two, Flint slouches down into one corner of the couch. "I can't tell you the truth." That said, he lifts a bare hand, long fingers splayed in hollow offer just in case she wants to fix him all the same. "You wouldn't like it anyway. Trust me. Long story, very boring."
Her pale fingers slide between his, palm to palm and then it's covere by her other palm, as if to warm his hand between hers. She closes her eyes, coming to sit on the edge of the couch and from her lips spill a prayer. At the start of that, is the warmth and tingle that he knows at least twice now. When the prayer ends, the healing continues but she looks up at him. 'So, you came to the Diner, hoping to find me, were going to pull a gun on me and….?"
"I was just going to ask you a few questions. As things are, I think your friend Brian answered a few of them already." It's nice to be sitting down. Now that the heat's kicking in, he sinks a little deeper back into the couch, left hand kept out and up for easy access. "He didn't want to give me your number. Nice guy, until there were four of him."
"What did you ask Brian? So i'm not left in the dark. As for the four of him" Abby nods. "Useful. I can say it, now that you know it" She flex's her heand every now and then, looking into his eyes, touching any visible wound to get a judge of whether she needs to try and push, or just let the healing for once, seep at it's own natural pace. "How come, every time I run into you.. i'm healing you. Except for chinatown"
"I didn't have to ask him anything. He went postal." Feeling that might not be explanation enough, Deckard flexes his sore jaw open and shut before he elaborates. "I was your age once. I hung out with people your age. When it comes to people who ask awkward questions, most of them don't have impulses to beat the ever-loving shit out of them and demand to know who they're working for." His brows adopt a cynical level, and his fingers relax somewhat against hers. There is bruising of various depths and breadths across the sides of his rib cage. His jaw is bruised, his nose is messed up. Loose teeth, strained muscles, etc, etc. Crappy couple of days. "People like to hit me. I just have one of those faces, I guess."
'Those that rob graves, I suppose, aren't well loved. You'll feel better soon, I promise" She thinks though, over his words, her blue eyes trying to stay locked on his. "Whats your gift from god?" Her thumb strokes against the length of his, down towards the wrist, then chafes it gently between her hands. "I don't hang out with anyone. I work, I sleep, I breath, I heal. All in the name of the lord, and pulling my share"
"God hasn't given me anything. He's a dick. And you're either a liar, or crazier than I thought." Snipey again, Flint tenses against the movement of her thumb but remains seated. "Are all of you like this? In your twenties, making pancakes to pay the bills?"
"Some are more inclined to believe i'm crazy. Now, they'd call me evolved" Despite his narcissism, she doens't stop. "Brian, I don't know, just met him. He came into the diner and he managed to get a job there. I don't work there anymore. As of right now, I am without job and.. despite that we are sitting in it. Without apartment. Someone threatened to report me and so.. but yes. Flipping, serving, working. Trying to save money to maybe go to school, if I can find another job that pays as good as the diner did. Have some things to do first, before I can do that" She looks up at him again, the corner of her mouth going up. 'Are all middle aged men, like you? Hawking batteries and digging through graveyards to loot coffins?"
"I didn't mean twenty-year-olds in general. I meant the people you hang out with. Your terrorist buddies." Deckard's voice has gained strength with the ebb of pain associated with breathing, and he meets her study without blinking. The same way crazed terriers do when they want your cheetos. "I'm sure most men my age are busy getting divorced and paying for their kids' college educations."
"I don't.. think Flint, that i'm who you think I am" Abby answers. "I'm just a waitress who runs her ass off, or well, was a waitress, and doing god's work. That's all" There's a pause and she looks at him then smiles. "Are you thinking i'm with PARIAH? Just becuase I can do something everyone else can't?"
Flint's eyes narrow. Not the answer he was hooping for, clearly. "Admittedly I'm not one of the Bible's biggest fans, but isn't lying against the rules?" His hand turns slowly over, looped fingers assuming control over the contact by wrapping a little more deliberately around hers. Not enough to be restrictive, or even a matter of concern, but it's not a comforting kind of move either. "Unless you intend to kill me before I leave, we're all in very serious trouble. The more I know in general, the more I know about what kind of trouble we're in. You had help, that night in Chinatown. You were with someone."
"A friend. No more, no less. People who have i've stumbled across, healed, and revealed that they were either blessed by god or 'evolved' as the government puts it. She was going to make me dinner since i'd had a long week at work, as thanks for me spotting her meal. That didn't happen obviously that night, since god had other plans. She's just…" Abby shrugs. 'Someone who enters into my life now and then, that's all really" Abby doesn't raise an alarm, she notices the change in his grip. "Do I have to worry about you doing that Flint?" Her blues locked on his again. "I'd rather not meet my maker today, if it's all the same to you. I am very sure, that he has much more in store for me" The trickle of healing never ceases, the warmth twisting here and there, mending what it should, what it could.
"At least you've spent the last however-many years kissing his ass." Frustration firms Flint's grip into something more painful, eye contact maintained for a few harsh seconds before he flicks her hand out of his and pushes up off the couch. "Want to buy any guns? Buy one get one free, just for you."
Abby grimaces, a flicker of worry that perhaps, trust, momentary trust, was misplaced. But then he's lets her go and she does the opposite, sags back onto the couch. "No. I have one and that's enough for me. But thank you flint, for the offer. I appreciate it. Was there anything else you wanted to know. I shouldn't stay here long. I was coming to try and see what I could save, before home sec came" She looks tired now, shoulders pulled down, the weight of what she fixed in him, as if it was physicial, sitting on them.
"I was told I should try harder to push my merchandise on you people." His speech has an angry quickness to it, and he shoulders out of his sodden coat with an unnecessary amount of force to fling it down on the floor in front of the radiator. "Where are you staying? With a friend? You're not making rent on two apartments."
"I'm squatting, little to the west. Have no choice" Abby rises, moving to the tossed down jacket. "Anything in the pockets that won't like being on the radiator?" She's reaching behind the couch, and lo, there's some weird rack, fashioned out of wire hangers and she's laying the jacket out on it, perched on the radiator. "And 'you people' I would assume, is meant as those who are different. Why? Not doing enough business with those who are not blessed?"
"No." His tatty suit jacket follows the overcoat, exposing the shoulder and belt holsters beneath. Thanks to playtime with Brian, both are currently empty. "Stop saying 'blessed.' It makes you sound like an idiot." And away he paces to start rifling through her crap. Nevermind the fact that she's still here — he picks up the first thing that looks even remotely like it might have writing in it and starts his rifling.
"You can call it whatever you like, and I will call it whatever you like, if you need something to write on, it's hte basket beneath the table. Can I ask you what your looking for?" There's bills, she's on time, all the time. Take out menu's, everything kept neatly in place. Letters back home to some place in louisiana. Messages written on the back of reciepts, notations to pick up this or that for groceries.
"Fucked," says Deckard, who squints at one of her bills. It's folded and tucked into his trouser pocket. Nevermind the fact that his pants are as damp as the rest of him. "That's what I like to call it." He doesn't answer her question. Like a struck flare, his eyes burn to life in the kitchen area once he's tossed down a few less useful items, but they don't stay that way for long. A quick sweep of the other areas in the apartment, and they're shadowed under the hood of his brow again.
"Hey. That's mine thank you" Abby frowns as the bill is tucked into his pocket. 'What on eath do you need that for?" She's pulling herself up from the couch where she had settled again. 'And what are you doing" She motions to his eyes.
"You like people. You believe they'll do the right thing. Tell you the truth." Deckard reads over a grocery list as he speaks, eyes straining against the dark. When he tosses it aside, it's to move for the bed. "Unfortunately, people are animals. They have survival instincts. You're a liar and I don't want to die, so. There is a certain point where pragmatism defeats humanitarianism." Still no answer on the eye thing.
"What will you do, if you don't find what you want? Take me to whomever is having you ask those questions? Hope they can get, what you believe to be the truth, from me?" She's got no shotgun to threaten him with, so she resigns herself to the couch and curling up on it, though she watches him carefully.
At the bedside, Deckard does his thing again. Blithely, given her ongoing and as of yet unanswered curiosity about it. "Not part of the deal." Nothing he sees there seems interesting enough to be worth turning the bed over for, so he scruffs both hands up over the back of his damp head and heads back for the radiator. "Change your name. Dye your hair. Stay away from the diner. I'm not your friend, or your daddy."
"Give me a day… then give them what you find here. I don't think it'll help them, whomever it is." Abby gets up, making for the table, paper, pen and scribbles her number down, holding it out. "If your hurt again, ever. Call. When it's safe. I can't promise i'll be able to come, but at least… I can help" It's held out with steady hand.
Deckard says nothing to that, and he brushes past the offer of the number with little more than a glance. His suit jacket is tugged on with some measure of difficulty for its ongoing (if temporarily warmer) wetness. The overcoat is just slung heavily over his arm. "Sorry."
"There's canned soup, in the cupboards, if you need it, take it. Was nice to see you again Flint. I'm sorry you got hurt" No move made to take the paper, so she takes her hand back before she starts her own search, taking this and that, food, more clothes, dragging a duffle bag from a closet. "God bless."
No reply. He opens the door and lets himself back out into the chilly night, where sagging clouds threaten rain. At least he won't look out of place for long.
 November 14th: Worth One Bullet |
 November 14th: Rooftop Serenade |