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| Scene Title | Body Shots |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | One happy-hour in downtown New York City for Peyton and Wendy turns into a far longer evening than either anticipated. |
| Date | August 13, 2009 |
It's Happy Hour — that magical hour when people are getting off work and heading to their friendly neighborhood bar. It's not Peyton's or Wendy's neighborhood, but they decided that they've had enough of the more upscale clubs for a bit — things seem to go wrong every time they enter one, after all. So Peyton is sitting at the bar, dressed "down" for the socialite — skinny jeans, a lacy white tank top, black and white polka dot espadrilles. She's staring at the bartenders dancing on the table, and worse, the people pushing up against the bar and her as they open their mouths like guppies to get shots in exchange for a five dollar bill. She gives a shake of her head. Leave it to Wendy to call this place "quaint" and "fun." She takes a sip of her fruity cocktail, swivelling around in her barstool to watch the door, waiting for Wendy to join her.
Felix isn't much to look at at the best of times. And recent events have not helped. Fel's just off work as well, and he's got his suit on. He is, however, sans both glasses and much of the hair he had when last he met Peyton, at once of those tedious winter formal events that the high and mighty of the city love to throw. Fel was there as the token pet cop, enjoying his little fifteen minutes of fame post-bogus-medal. He's got his head shaved as if he'd just decided to join the military, and a butterflied scar on the side of his head. He heads for the bar with the grim resolve of a man who really intends to get drunk.
Well it is quaint and fun by Wendy's standards. There's also a lot of evolveds in here. She didn't remember this many of them, and so her concentration slips now and then, the compass rose of her ability going off all around her as the place is just a little bigger than her range. "Every fucking bartender here, is evolved. I swear it. That one over there, she's a frigging water controller" Wendy's been here a few times. Touched a few people. "Former owner used to be an Pyro. Now I hear it's the healer. The little Nun" Wendy twirls the swizzle stick in her zombie. Pupils are dilated, someone's been enjoying a little of the THC earlier and still flying. No refrain for her today. "God, I hope no more come in or I may have to bolt. Fuck this ability can be inconvenient at time… ohh helllo, lets add another… fuck, where have I seen him before…"
There's a gesture to Felix.
"Hey, there you are," Peyton says with a smile and a hug for her friend. She tilts her head at Felix as he nears the bar. "I know him too… um… I forget his name. He got some medal and the key of the city and shit like that a few years ago I think?" she says. She frowns at the talk of Evolveds. "Seriously, you're going to get yourself beat up or worse one day, if you keep announcing everyone who has a power, Wendy. Not to mention the people who have the powers might get beat up or worse." It's a gentle warning, coming from all people, Peyton, who has never shown caution in her words or manners in her life. How the world changes when suddenly you find out you are Evolved.
'"Where's Abby?" Fel's nothing but blunt, as he looks at the current bartender. His mood is…less than pleased, clearly. He notices the glances at him and nods politely, but doesn't seem immediately inclined to jump into the conversation, pretty girls or no.
"…and so I say to him, what do you mean you don't want a Taurus, you're sure fond enough of the bullshit!" The tail end of a tasteless car salesman joke greets the bar as the door to the street opens, letting in a horrible sliver of sunlight to the otherwise dimly lit confines. Striding in slightly red faced from laughter, the mostly unremarkable man of broad-stomached proportions and receeding hairline stands out only in his boisterous voice and obnoxiously loud laugh.
"Did he buy the car?" Coming in with the noisy William Dean, is a man easily ten years his junior, dressed in the browns and tans of desert camouflage, boots laced up to mid calf and hair buzzed close to his skull. To the answer of the question, Bill's face scrunches up and his lips purse, head shaking quickly from left to right to very emphatically answer no.
"Not only did he not buy the car, he tried t'sock me square in the mouth!" Bursting out with laughter, Bill slaps a hand on the young marine's back and guides him over to the bar. Seeming quite entertained by his own story, the shorter and older of the two slaps his hand down on the bartop, "Let's get two shots of Tequila down here, eh? My boy here's just back from the desert and I think he needs it what good!"
"I'm… really not sure if — " Not taking any backtalk on the matter of Tequila or shots, Bill brings one hand up in a wordless and joking backhand motion towards the marine, a crooked smile spread across his lips. "Alright, alright," the marine relents, holding up his hands and laughing, "fine. Just one shot."
"Att'er boy," Bill notes with another slap on the younger man's back, "Tequila's a gateway drink, though." His head inclines, as if it were a serious topic, "it's a gateway ta'more Tequila!" Once more he breaks out into that wheezing laugh, slapping the marine on the back as his face reddens again.
"Boss is gone" Felix gets answered by a Brunette who's manning the bar with the others. Brenda's getting out the tequila bottles with the lemon wedges and shakers of salt for Bill and his cronies. "She came in crying and yelling, darn near tore off the head of the guy who's living upstairs and someone who came in claiming to be Izzy's sister. What'cha need with her?"
Brenda's more than delighted to do her American duty to entertain and serve the good soldiers. "Well now, that deserves a free round, if'n ya just came back" An extra dose of cleavage for the returning soldiers.
Wendy hugs Peyton back and shrugs. "Hasn't happened yet and I've been doing it for years. Usually the opposite, they're surprised. Intrigued. But seriously, I swear they hire like only evolveds here. It's actually sorta… cool" A deep pull of her Zombie and then the brunette is sliding from her seat and looking at Felix. Bill and his group don't twinge to her radar. So they don't interest her yet.
"The cop's evo too?" Peyton says, taking a sip of her Jolly Rancher so that her words are a little muffled. She turns and looks at the loud and boisterous group of car salesmen with an arch of her brow. She looks back at Wendy and gives a shake of her head. "Usually? I'll have to take your word for it." Apparently, the little socialite doesn't think that this place is up to her standards.
"I'll have a gimlet. Gin, not vodka," Fel specifies, with that particular prissy twist to his lips that makes have the precinct want to slap it right off them. And then he frowns. "I'm a friend of hers. At least, I count her a friend. You know what's wrong?" He glances back over his shoulder at the soldier and his companion, but they don't seem to offer any threat.
"See?" Bill notes with a whimsical tone of voice, slapping the soldier in the shoulder with the back of his hand. "What'd I tell ya? Everybody here loves a God-damned hero." Smiling like a knife, Bill sidles up to the bar and situates himself on a stool. "Sit'cher ass down Davey, yet makin' me nervous all stiff an' attentive, y'make ol' shorty look like a loose goose, eh?" That smile turns a bit more jovial as he eyes the young bartender. "Now see, I bet'cha they don't have broads like that out in Tikrit." Shamelessly, Bill motions right at Brenda with a point of his thumb.
Managing a tired smile, Private David Legrime — or so his nametag states — comes to sit down at the bar reluctantly, casting an askance glance at the bartender and then over to Bill. "Broads, really? What're you from the fifties? Gonna' be talking about dames and moonshine next?" There's a crack of a smile from the usually stoic soldier, one that Bill interprets as a sign of success.
"Well, you know me, I'll call'em whatever I want an' they'll like it." Laying one arm out on the bar, Bill sits side-saddle on his stool, making certain to be attentive during his conversation. "So, now that'cher back home on American soil… I bet yer itchin' to see the boys again. We got us a bunch of really anxious and energetic kids workin' these days. I can't wait'ta introduce you t'Shorty, he's just a big old barrel'a laughs he is."
"Shorty?" David's brows rise slowly as his eyes follow Brenda briefly, then settle back on Bill. "Look ah— are you sure it's really okay to be talking about this— " once more the faux backhand motion comes up to David's cheek, and Bill's brows rise and fall with a waggle.
"Ain't no bloody harm innit, Davie. Don't worry yer thick head about it. An' Shorty's got a name, but it's a pussy-name so I feel callin'em Shorty'll work out much better. I don't much like to call people by their last names, too stuffy an' formal. And seriously, Emile's about as manly a name as Francis." There's a crook of Bill's lips as he looks up to Brenda, tap-tapping his fingers on the bartop impatiently.
The appropriate shot glasses are laid out, and one for Brenda. Deftly poured with very little spilled around them. "Drink up boys and he can call me broad, damne, chica, whatever he wants but don't call me late to dinner" Brenda offers a wink to Bill before picking up a tequila shot and lodging it between her breasts and offers it to David. "Do your best soldier" Lemon wedge in one hand, salt shaker in the other.
"Course your her friend Ivanov, we seen you around enough, she lets you in the back. Dunno, she just came in crying, looked a mess, surprised she didn't down half her pills. Marie tried looking around to see if maybe someone was harassing her, on account of being a healer and the like right? Thought maybe someone had been harassing her to come touch em, but saw nothing. Then the guy living upstairs tried to stop her from leaving when she was gonna come back out. I tell you, he just winked at us, and tossed her over his shoulder before closing the door" That's about all the brunette knows. "They came down a little after. Got in a car"
"Cop is too, waiiiit, that's not a cop. He's that evo .. FBI agent who got like a medal… " and just like that, Wendy's wending her way through the crowd so she can come up beside Felix. "Hey handsome" Her hand comes up, fingers walking up his arm as she hits on him. That's when the metal in her mouth and a different kind of pull just hits her and makes her cock her head. "Buy me a drink?" He's confusing her. He should… feel like a speedster.
"Cop, FBI, what's the diff—" Peyton begins, but then Wendy's already gone, and hitting on the prissy looking cop. "God, she's such a touch slut," she mutters to herself. She knows it's all about feeling the power, finding out what he can do. She doesn't understand it. She turns and looks at the marine getting the free shot with some interest. She doesn't know any servicemen, not that she knows of. The people she went to school with all went off to law school and med school and into fields like marketing and business. No one went off to fight in a war.
Peyton decides to practice her power on him, see the world from his perspective for a few moments, to see if she can. Her eyes dilate as the bar shifts in perspective.
I'm a fag. Doesn't that make me exempt? Fel doesn't say this aloud - he merely gives Wendy a faintly startled look, before the guy code kicks in and he smiles obligingly. "Sure," he says, with the opaque look of someone trying to remember where in hell he knows her from. "What're you having, gorgeous?" Maybe a little camp will work, instead. "What guy living upstairs?" persists Captain Nosy, momentarily diverted. "She doesn't have some deadbeat boyfriend now, does she? I'll throw his ass in jail if he lays a hand on her." He's only half-listening to the banter between the soldier and his companions. "A lot of difference," he notes to Peyton, not looking over at her. "If you ask the NYPD."
"I'm having… a moment of confusion, and a long island iced tea. I thought…. you were a speedster.." She reaches out to run her fingers along his upper arm. "No.. you're… Metal? Magnets, that's it, the pull. How the hell did you change…" It's loud enough that Bill can hear with how close they are to the other group and peyton.
"Nah. She's dating Victor. He's a speeder, poor boys got it bad for her, but she don't got it for him. He's screwwwwwwed. Hey!" She calls over her shoulder to the other end of the bar. "Who's the guy living upstairs?" "The pastor you mean?" "No, not him. The other guy" "Oh… Boris? Mike? Something like that" The brunette looks back at Felix. "He's rarely there anyways, always coming and going"
"I guess. All I know is they bring me down, most of the time," Peyton says with a smirk, her focus returning back to her eyes. She shakes her head to clear the ringing in her ears and the headache the few moments of using her ability brought her. She picks up her purse, rummaging through it to find something for the new ache, knowing it won't go away but maybe she can take the edge off of it. She finds a bottle — something prescription from the looks of it, and shakes out a couple of pills. Vicodin — Wendy at least would be able to tell from a glance. She tosses them down with the Jolly Rancher she's drinking. Depressant cocktail time!
The bartender gets a narrow-eyed squint from Fel. Suspicious twerp mode, go! And then the little angelic voice of his conscience which sounds oddly like both Elisabeth and Leland speaks up, and Fel looks wry. And then Wendy's asking a way, way too personal question. "Lady, I'm sorry, but what're you talking about?" he says, rounding on her. His expression is weirdly neutral.
"Y— you've got to be kidding me…" David says with a grimace, "the sun's not even down y— " And there goes Bill, leaning in and over the table after taking a lick of the salt on her hand to slurp at the shotglass and press his ham-like face straigh tbetween the buxtom bartender's breasts. From her angle, she can perfectly see the bald spot on the back of his head that matches the receeding hairline. He leans back, a dribble of tequilla running down his chin as he bites the lime and pulls i tout of her hand, folding it back behind his lips and then pulling them back to reveal a lime-rind smile.
David covers his face with one hand slouching back on his stool with a groan. Bill spits out the peeled rind on the bartop and wipes at his mouth with the back of his hand. "That m'boy is called opperfuckingtunity, and when it knocks you just gotta' slap yer face between opportunity's whim-whams and— " he slaps his hand down on the bartop, "— sieze the motherfucking day!" Laughing with that wheezing hack of his, Bill twirls a finger in the air towards Brenda, a subtle sign of another round as he pushes his shot glass towards David. "Catch up, son, catch up…
But as Bill is urging David to catch up to his salacious liquoring, Bill's eyes are shifting over to the only other loud conversation in the bar. A thin smile cuts across his face as he looks Felix up and down, then shifts his focus over to Wendy. A moment later, he's leaning over to rest a hand on David's shoulder as the young man slams back the shot, "'ave one for me, boy. I've gots t'go mingle."
Sliding off of his stool and flipping up the collar of his unbuttoned shirt, Bill Dean saunters his way across the bar, hands tucked into the pockets of his slacks as he meanders on over towards the table. "Felix fucking Ivanov!" Bill exclaims, swinging out a hand to slap down on the Fed's shoulder where he sits. "I apolgize for runnin on over like some god damned lookie-loo, but I read about you in the papers, boy. You're a goddamned national hero— the one man army who takes down fucking terorrists!" Bill cocks one hand back into a gunhand shape and makes a ker-pow sound with his mouth, winking at Felix as he shifts his focus over to Wendy.
"Good god is this saucy little thing yours?" He asks with a brow raised, "I must imagine you're practically swimming in poon what with being on the television with the President after all'a that. I just wanted to be able to say I bought a drink for a national hero is what's what." Bill slaps his hand down on Felix's shoulder again, squeezing the agent's shoulder firmly. "You midn if I buy you a round? Fuck it, make it a round for you and the the saucy tart here too," Bill adds with a good-nautred chuckle. He's like that creepy uncle who doesn't really ever go away at a family barbecue.
"What're you two drinkin', I'll get ol' Whim-Whams up at the bar to pour you out another and I'll get one for m'self to catch up to you, how's that sound?" He's already reaching for his wallet, opening it up with a practiced impersonation of stumbling fingers, letting an Associated Press badge fall out and slap down on the table, one that reads Phillip Lincoln instead of the name that should be on there.
"Your ability. It was.. spee…." And then there's Bill and calling her a … poon. Poon?!. Saucy Tart? There's a suddenly disgusted look on her face at the attitude rolling off Bill. The black haired woman starts as if to read Bill the riot act, that she's no tart, and she doens't want anything from Whim Wham when the woman goes stock still and her head whips around to the door of the bar. Peyton's seen that look before. "Fuck" Is all she gets to utter before even that's taken away from her. A group of eight people come waltzing in, happy as you may, oblivious to the effect that some of their number are having. The brunette seems ready to slither to the ground.
Brenda's in heaven. Men, attention, booze. There's a whoop and holler when Bill takes his shot, and her tops seen quite a few of these kind of drinks tonight. SO when Bill hands the reigns so to speak over to David and the new shot glass is wedged once more between her ample bosom. "Have at it handsome. Unless Blonde's more your thing and if so, we can get Tanya over her. She's electrifying"
"Yeah, quaint, Wendy," Peyton says with disgust. She can handle loud and obnoxious, but she prefers it to be in the form of loud and obnoxious music or even loud and obnoxious male models. Loud and obnoxious men old enough to be her father hitting on her friend is just… obnoxious. And the loud makes her head hurt all the more. She sees the woman's face go pale, and she glances back over her shoulder. "Crap." She can't tell what they are, but obviously they're Evolved. Off the bar stool she goes, over near the others. She holds Wendy's arm, curling her hand around it so that she can help "ground" her friend, knowing that it helped for whatever reason that first night they met. "You need to go?" she asks, her dark eyes searching Wendy's.
"The middle name's 'Nikolaievich', not 'fucking'," Felix corrects, with the gentleness of a butler setting crystal on the dining table. "And I didn't deserve that medal. But if you want to buy me a drink, you're welcome to. I'm drinking gimlets. I don't put out until you get at least six in me, though, so you might wanna pace yourself," he advises, tone very light. "You a reporter? And no, the lady's not with me." He cuts a cool blue glance at Wendy, looks back to Bill with an air of challenge. Man, Leland lets him off the leash, the bitch runs amuck. But he doubletakes at Wendy's reaction, and wonders, more softly, "You okay? Sit and have a drink of water."
"Ah… r— really no I'm," David raises a hand, waving it from side to side before motioning to the gold band in his ring finger. "I really shouldn't," he says with an awkward smile. "No offense or anything, ma'am, you're very attractive, I just— I don't think my wife'd appreciate it much." So much the good boy soldier, David slides the empty shot glass from the one Bill had left him across the bar. "I will take a bottle of Coors, though, if that's not too much to ask?"
He nods over to Bill, "He'll pick up the tab once we're done. Guy goes all out for us kids," he notes with a crooked smile, folding his hands on the bartop and sitting up with his back straight. For a married man, his eyes stray in Peyton's direction once or twice as well, but he does his due dilligence to do little else. "I'm sorry if he's a bit loud, this is the second bar we've hit tonight." That's a bald-faced lie, but even the good-boy soldier has talents of his own, and lying thorugh his teeth is one of many. "Since the curfew's on, he wanted to get an early start." The soldier's eyes drift ove rto Bill, watching him 'socialize' with Ivanov.
There's a steeliness that comes over Bill as he swallows awkwardly, hand coming off Felix's shoulder as he lays a forty dollars down on the table. "I'm not like that," Bill states flatly, "so don't worry much 'bout that, eh?" Waving over one of the waitresses with that same 'another round' motion, this time it's directed to Wendy and Felix.
Eyeing the badge, Bill grimaces and slides it up off of the table. "Press photographer, actually. I work 'round the city, showing people just how bad it is out there," his eyes wander from Felix to Wendy, then back again. "An' don't go all humble 'bout how you didn't deserve no medal. Trust me you did, takin' out them terrorists? That's a man's job right there." Finally, after too long a wait, Bill's eyes sweep over to Wendy, one brow raised.
"You alright there Betty-Boop?" He motions with a nod of his head towards her, "You're lookin' a little pale." He frowns slightly, eyes casting over to David, then back to Wendy again. "You want me t'call you a cab or somethin'?"
Peyton's hand doesn't help, not with the combination of bartenders and then already present Evolveds when the few in this group came in. That one time, it had been under that mysteruious ever wavering limit of people that she can handle. She was already nearing her limit till it got bumped up by quite a bit. Other people abilities overload, and go off, sometimes a spectacular display. Wendy's ability just shuts her down mentally. She hadn't been joking to Peyton about flopping down like a fish. The other socialite searches but like that saying goes, the lights are on but nobody's home. Felix doesn't get an answer to his question, at least not from Wendy.
"Aww, so cute, Fidelity. Well. I can respect that. Bottle o'coors it is" Brenda winks and turns around to deal with getting the drink from the cooler beneath as she makes a display of wedging the bottle against the counter top and bringing her hand down on top with momentum, pops the cap off. One fresh Coors, mist coming off the top from the variance in temperature between cooler and the bar proper. The bartender, the one by Felix, Peyton and Bill is up on her toes and looking over the top. 'Shit. Fucking druggie. Probably OD'd. Tanya! Call 911, tell em we got another one! God damnit, can't they get high naturally instead of drugs"
"No! No, no, no," Peyton says, her eyes wide as she looks at Brenda. "She's not ODing, she just needs some space… she can't handle…" she frowns at looks up at Felix. "Tell them not to call 9-1-1?" she asks, since they'll listen to him, he being an FBI agent and a friend of the boss's, apparently. "She just needs to get away from so many Evolved people," she whispers.
Peyton wraps her arm around Wendy's waist. "Let's take a walk, Wendy." She reaches in her purse to find money for the first round, tossing it on the bar top. It's enough to pay for at least three rounds, but she's not going to wait for change. "Come on. Walky walky." She drapes one of Wendy's arms over her shoulder, apparently about to drag the taller woman if the woman's feet don't move when told.
A man's job. It always makes him think of Blade Runner. And well, Deckard is fairly apt, in a lot of ways. Fel fakes his way through his
job and gets rewarded for it nonetheless. Then Wendy's going all vague, and he's turning to her to tend to her, supporting Wendy before she can slide off her seat entirely. "I didn't do it alone. It wasn't me playing Rambo with an AK," he corrects Bill, patiently. "The FBI's been working counterterror since before 9-11." His tone is humble.
Peyton corrects him, in turn, and Fel gives her that owlish look. He just nods, and assures the bartender, "Her friend's got her, it's cool, really. Like he knows."
So many Evolved. "Pfah you're too fuckin' humble, Felix." There's a pause, brief in its cunning slip from one deception to another. "Davie!" Bill suddenly calls out, "Get yet fuckin' cell phone out and take a picture of me with the human hurricane!" That nickname will haunt Felix for the remainder of his life and into all nine of his afterlives. Hearing that, David jerks his head over to Bill, looks around, and then grimaces, quickly reaching into a cargo pocket on the side of his BDUs and retrieves a cell phone. Flipping it open, he subtly takes a picture of Wendy and Peyton, then slides off of his stool and over towards where Bill and Felix are.
"Promise not to make a face for me," Bill notes, slinging an unwanted arm around Felix's shoulder and grinning like a goddamned idiot as he holds one thumb up in the air. David shakes his head slowly, snapping the picture with a push of the button before Bill leans back and off of him, rather quickly for a man of his blocky frame. "Davie here's one of me boys, fresh back from Ee-Rack." Bill's brows rise as his eyes follow Wendy and Peyton. "Hey, you heard the girls. Why don't you go offer'm a hand, you ain't one'a them after all. Be a good soldier, Christ did I raise you in a goddamned Sodom and Gammorah?" Well, maybe Bill was.
Felix touching, Peyton touching. Faaabulous. Wendy's screwed. Totally screwed. Oblivious that Bill just took a picture of her and that she just miiight be screwed even further. That and she's dead weight as her tall gangly form goes from leaning against the bar and the stool to Peyton, head lolling to the side and then forward. The brunette babbles unintelligibly then nonsensically about moons, fish, purple and candy. A few people around the bar are getting weirded out, and the rumors of OD'ing, forget being around too many evolveds are making the rounds of the bar.
"Right, around too many evolv…" There's an oh shit look on the bartenders face. "Fuckk, the uhh, side there, it's closest, you can take her out that way" Two fingers slide into another bartenders lips and an impossibly loud whistle goes through the room above the music even "Berth! Get people outta the way! Evo's manifesting or something, they need to get her out" Talk about mistaken thoughts and idea's.
"someone should take her to that Suresh center!" Comes a 'helpful' suggestion from the crowd.
"Right! I heard that place is the last place an evolved wants to go"
"Oh Em Gee, is she lighting on fire?"
'No, that was the old boss. This girls just… laying there. God, she got gipped. Wonder what she's doing?" 911 is not being called as per the FBI officers request. That and really, they've been called toooo many times near this place already the last few weeks if you ask the staff here.
"She's not manifesting!" Peyton says with a stomp of her foot as she tries to drag Wendy — she's not doing too badly, holding one of Wendy's arm over her shoulder with her right hand and clutching Wendy's side with her left so that the woman won't tumble down to the ground. It doesn't help that the alcohol and the vicodin are starting to kick in for Peyton. "Focus, Peyton," she tells herself, staring at the ground so she doesn't trip on anyone's feet, and hoping that telling herself to focus will keep anyone else's eyeballs out of her head. She glances over her shoulder at Felix. "You could help, Mister Hero," she tosses back. She didn't notice the cell phone shot being taken, but then, she's used to that.
What Bill gets is Felix's profile, because he's already looking off-panel, to Wendy. He slips away from bill with muttered excuses, high brow already furrowed with lines. "What's wrong with her?" he asks, as he comes up on Peyton, offering support for Wendy's other side.
"'Ey, ey… is your gal in trouble?" Slipping away from Felix — and away from his drink! — Bill comes lumbering over to where Peyton and Wendy are, all the concern on his face of a parent confronted with a sick child. He's hardly concerned with what's wrong with her, only that something is. "Hey, hey… come on you two," he manages something of an affable smile, trying to be at least somewhat welcoming. "Let me call you two a cab, okay? I know what it's like to be stumbling 'round and looking for a way home…" Bill reaches up and grabs David's cell phone, eyes flitting to Felix briefly before looking back at Peyton and Wendy. "I may sound like one big boorish asshole, but I'm a nice guy. Ain't that right Davie?"
David grimaces and rubs at the back of his neck. "Yeah, you're right, you're a boorish asshole." He deflects Bill's teasing glare with a broad pearly-white smile, folding his hands behind his back as Bill starts dialing a number on the cell phone.
"Hey, yeah, I got a couple a girl who need a cab down on west 48th, Old Lucy's?" Bill plugs his opposite ear with his pinkie-finger. "Yeah, yeah, could you? That's fantastic," he flashes a smile to the pair of women. "There's a cab comin' for you two. Don't you worry your pretty little heads about it. On me, alright? I want you two t'have a safe night."
Once outside, Peyton looks at Felix, across Wendy's slumped form between them. "She can only handle so many others…" she says. "I've never seen her this bad, but I know it sort of … fries her system." She nods back at the men behind them. "Thanks. You don't have to pay for it; I have enough. Thanks, though." She turns back to watch the street, in case another cab comes along quicker than the one called for. "Why the hell did I agree to come to Greenwich," she mutters to herself. There are so many, many reasons not to be here.
Fel is left nonplussed, but he nods mutely to Peyton. "Will she be okay?" he says, and he sounds oddly plaintive, really, as he supports Wendy.
There's a cab, almost too soon to be the one Bill called. "Well, look'a that," he notes standing on the sidewalk, lips pursed to one side. "Must be your lucky day, darlin'… your chariot's early." Both of Bill's thin brows rise as he offers the cell phone back over to David as he finally makes his way outside. Looking over to Ivanov afterwards, Bill just gives a faint grimace, then takes out his credit card and hands it off to the soldier.
"Davie, go on inside and pay the nice young whim-whams, I think we'd best be cutting out tonight early." His eyes wander back over to Peyton and Wendy, watching the languid brunette closely for a moment. "I hope the best for the two of you, tell 'er to take it easy from now on, right?" That yellow cab comes rolling down the street, slowly coming to a stop as the active duty light comes on atop the roof of the vehicle.
Bill takes a step back, looking over to Felix with one raised brow, smiling happily. "It was a right fine pleasure t'meet you, mister Ivanov. Not every day I get to meet a bone-fide hero out here on the streets of this here city." There's a nod of his head, eyes flicking to the driver of the cab, then up to Peytn and Wendy with a cheery little wave-wave of his hand, brows bouncing up and down on his forehead.
"I think so, I don't… I've never seen her like this," Peyton says, her voice tremulous. And then the cab's there. "Thanks for your help," she says to them, hurrying to the cab and opening the door, trying to get Wendy inside. Damn long legs and arms of hers! Finally she manages to get Wendy in, and she runs around to the other door to climb in the other side. Deja Fucking Vu. She gives her Upper West Side address to the driver — the building's one of the ritzy ones that overlook Central Park.
"Listen, do you want me to come with you?" Fel's offer is hesitant, awkward, and he doesn't seem all the willing. But he makes it nonetheless.
Another round of nonsensical words come from Wendy, the distance between her and the bar of freaking evo's not lessoning the effect. As a side effect, this all really sucks. All those people who say that she's got a really great ability, she made it easy by the evo fairy when she was born have obviously not seen her like this.
She's a New York native. She takes cabs all the time. Plus, she thinks she could kick that driver's ass if she really had to. Peyton shakes her head. "No, we're fine. She just needs to sleep it off, I think. We'll be good." She smiles at Felix, and closes the door.
And Fel is left. He's standing there staring like there's something he's so desperately trying to remember.
When the two young women get into the car and instruct the dark-haired and wiry cabbie where to take them, the vehicle pulls away from the curb, turning Felix Ivanov's lanky frame and Bill Dean's crooked smile into tiny smudges of human silhouette backlit by the setting sun. The automatic door locks click once the car goes over fifteen miles per hour, and the cabbie's voice comes thorugh the speaker in the back, an inch-thick plexiglass shield between the front and rear seats a normal security precaution in New York City.
«Going to be a small detour on the way home…» The cab driver's voice crackles over the speaker, «there's some construction on the way, m'going to go around it.» After a few blocks, however, it begins to become evident that the car isn't heading anywhere towards the Upper West Side, it's crossing up through the Bronx into Harlem. «So…» The cab driver croons over the speakers once it's clear they've headed into the Bronx.
«…I hear you two girls are special.»
«I've got some friends who're you're just going to be dying to meet.»