Boxers And Socks

Participants:

deckard_icon.gif kaylee2_icon.gif

Scene Title Boxers And Socks
Synopsis Kaylee stops in at Hotel California to see if Colette is there, instead she finds a drunk and half dressed Deckard.
Date February 20, 2010

Hotel California


Hotel California is not a nice place. It's even less nice in the deep and dark of a moonless Midtown night, all extraterrestrial light smothered soft into a uniform purplish grey by the bleed of light pollution from more intact portions of Manhattan. Some eleven or twelve stories up into the drywall and iron strut abyss, the building is defined by sound more than sight.

The structure is suffering under the relentless weight of snow and ice, all bone-chilling creaks and shrieks that only seem to increase for every story gained up the single intact stairwell. Occasional grinds and grates are even less comforting; at times it feels like the floor is rolling thickly over underfoot against howling wind and occasional clunks and clanks of debris slapping against the exterior walls.

Flint is alone, so far as he knows. That's probably why he isn't wearing a shirt.

Or pants.

It is probably a miracle of exceptional timing that he is still wearing his boxer briefs in his hunching sit at the card table over a bowl of dry cereal, a bottle of whiskey and a radio that tinnily sizzles and crackles out the last few bars of Stairway to Heaven while he pokes his spoon unenthusiastically at Honey Clusters of Oats.

Curfew dodging is one of the few things, Kaylee is good at…. which would explain why she's out at this time of night with out much care about it. On her way way back from a clandestine meeting with Remnant individuals, the young telepath catches the sight of a familiar building standing pale, barely noticeable in the late hour. Her path slows to a stop as she considers the building. A glance goes to the direction she was going, before she changes course and heads for the decrepit safe house.

There is a white plume of her breath as she tugs her scarf down, as she enters the building. A hand moving to guide her in the darkness, Kaylee starts up the stairs carefully, her mind stretching out to watch to see is around her.

As she moves in deeper letting her eyes adjusts slowly, her head tilts somewhat as she catches the faintest trace of something, but it's just out of her range to tell who it is. "Colette?" She calls out softly, pausing on the stairs, deciding not to startle the girl, if she's up there.

Of course, she's unaware that it's a half naked Flint up there, instead.

Breath locked in stiff under the terse lock of his chest, Flint snaps his head to the sound of another human voice like a coyote caught rifling through a garbage can at the curb, irises ringed stark blue and neck muscles standing out like belts of old leather from narrow jaw to shoulder. Unbalanced paranoia is more than simple illusion in the unblinking glow of his eyes, but it's only been a few days since he saw Kaylee's skeleton last and his memory isn't so whiskey shot that he's forgotten.

"No," gravels out coarse in answer — a warning rattle — and he reaches for the pump action shotgun propped up against the table edge all the same. His spoon clanks back into his bowl and there's a tell-tale grease of metal over metal when he deliberately sends an unspent shell skipping away from the chamber. Telepaths: They are untrustworthy.

Head tilting at the sound, Kaylee's eyes narrow some. "Flint…" Yeah, he has that distinctive voice one remembers no matter what, but there is a bit of unease that she can't help but feel. Even with the threat of shotgun, Kaylee finishes making her way up to proper floor. The blue glow of his eyes doesn't help to ease that feeling in her stomach. "Oh.. come on." She gives him a flat look, arms crossing as she leans against the door jam, "You really think I'm a threat?" Brows lift slightly as she asks that.

"Was passing by, thought I'd check and see if Colette was staying here." A glances around, she sighs a bit. "She normally runs away to this place… so I apologize for intruding." Though his current state of dress gets an amused look, especially with that shotgun in his hands.

"I hope not. For your sake." That clarification made with knit brows and a scrape back of his chair, Deckard pushes to his feet with shotgun in tow, either completely unaware that he is in his underwear or too deep in his cups to care. The muscles in his long arms and legs are lean, knotted wiry about the shoulders and forearms. Some sad, insubstantial scruff on his chest shades under the eyes tattooed in rough under his clavicles; the definition about his middle within poking ribs is less distinct, save for a line where there was a crease when he was sitting. Which probably doesn't count. He is 43 and a heavy drinker, cut him some slack.

In addition to his boxer briefs, which are white, he is wearing socks, which are grey or black or some other dark shade that's impossible to determine in the lightless murk he's steeped himself in. One is draw up over his calf. The other is rumpled down around his ankle.

Dim city light filters through a dusty window some ways off at his back, casting sallow shadows across a cot that is host to a pillow, some ratty sheets, another bottle of booze and a blow up doll. …Colette is probably not here. Just in case there was any question, Flint mutters a low, "She's not here."

"Yeah, I kinda got that she wasn't. Only one other mind in here.. and that's just yours." Kaylee comments softly, studying the much older man. Her head tilts a bit, what is bothering her so much about him. "And… no I'm not a threat Flint.. if you haven't figured that yet." She gives the door frame a shove with her shoulder straightening. "Just cause I'm a telepath doesn't mean I'm going to get in your head. I have some morals." Her tone a touch flat there.

"You…. ah… been down to see Joseph yet?" She asks curiously, even if she can't see him well, the constant hum of his mind is followed, but not intruded on.

Deckard's mind is somewhere between a rusted out underwater mindfield and a blurry mockup of a collapsed building or junk yard, all in shades of translucent grey and broken bone and opaque metal jutted razor sharp between sifts of corrosion and dirty runoff. He is drunk and rickety-brained enough to the point of being slightly disoriented for all that whiskey doesn't slur at his speech or slack his grip on the shotgun. Thoughts are not clear enough to be easily read, if he's doing much thinking at all.

Odds are, beyond some vague unease and ill-suppressed tension, he isn't.

Physically he isn't much better, all wire and bone, which probably has something to do with living in Midtown and making meals out of a bottle of Jack and Honey Bunches. "Are you planning on staying here or are you just talking to me for the hell of it?"

"Dunno yet.. not that I have to worry too much about being caught out here." Kaylee states, sounding amused, tips of her fingers tucking into the pockets of her jeans. "Just occurred to me.. we haven't really talked." Eyes narrow somewhat as she studies him, as if trying to figure something out. "Course, you obviously are not much of a talker… especially right now." Yeah, she's noticed, not that it can't be figured out.

A step is taken inside and she bends down, to pluck the unspent shell off the ground at her feet. "The glowing eyes are new, admittedly. Familiar somehow.." She frowns a bit, as she moves to set the shell on the table, on it's end. Can't waste ammo. Making sure it'll stay sitting up before letting go of it, her eyes moving back to Flint.

"So yeah… I guess I'm just talking to you for the hell of it." She says quietly.

There's a long beat of silence while Flint looks her over, ribs rising and settling slow and steady within ridged bands of light that spill in grimy patches across his back. Head ducked, scrubby buzz mussed into coarse disorder by whatever he's been up to in here, he eventually tips his shotgun up onto a rest against his shoulder and turns for the cubicle with the unmade cot and the inflatable bitch.

"What about any of this makes you think I want to talk?"

Dolly's swept aside onto the floor with the gun stock, where she continues to look vacantly surprised by her own existence. He drops himself down into the cot, meanwhile, now unoccupied except for him and his blankets.

"Absolutely, none of it. "

"Just wondering why I suddenly, feel uneasy around you. Never use to be.. accept that one… time." The words trail off some grimacing as she brings that up without thinking. Kaylee's head dips down as she studies his clothing choice, "Though I have to say the boxer and socks combo is an very interesting look for you. Though you practically undressed, shouldn't make me uneasy.. seen enough of it when I use to do nothing but go out picking up guys." She comments lightly, turning slightly watching his progress, with a mild smirk.

There is a moment of silence, before she shakes her head and starts to turn and leave, but something stops her. Turning back, she peers at him in the darkness as something occur to her. "You… ever have a horse?" Her tone, makes it sound like she knows it's an odd question, but she can't help but ask it.

Old springs creak in shrill tune with the Hotel's agonized cries and Flint nudges a propane heater in the cubicle around to focus its hellish red light on him before crawling into the sheets proper-like, shotgun and all. He shuffles awkwardly around in there, as drunk people do. Hard to manuever. Hard to get the sheets up over his shoulders without exposing his feet. Especially when he can't see them.

BUT within minutes if not seconds, he's down and and laid out under ratty grey blankets with one of doubtless many firearms shored up in this place. The final touch is the drag of his pillow up over his face and head to blot her and the neverending noise of a sickly building out.

The final final touch is him dragging the pillow back off enough to tilt his head up and give her an unsettled, brow-knit look across the office floor.

A hand comes up in a placating gesture. "Yeah…. yeah.. I know. Really odd question. But.. I keep remembering a horse.. maybe is it was one of my nightmares." The last is murmurs, but then she shakes her head and Kaylee sighs, turning back around to go, boots scuffing across the floor. "Fine, I'm out of here. Anything you need up here…" There is a beat, and a sarcastically added, ".. besides anything of the sexual nature." Another moment.. "Or alcohol." She stops at the door, hand on the door frame, glancing back over her shoulder. "Food.. drinking water?" Hey, at least she's being polite.

While she waits for some answer, she winds her scarf around her head covering her nose and mouth to ward off the chill when she goes back into the night.

"Dignity," muttered after a tired beat without much actual hope or feeling for its unlikely fulfillment, Deckard slouches back on his elbow and then all the way down again, chilly eyes blanked out by the slow pull of the pillow over his face once more.

"Mmm… tough one there, Flint. I'll look into it though." Kaylee's voice, muffled, somewhat by the scarf, still manages to sound bright. "Sleep tight, Flint." She offers before she heads down the stairs and back into the the night to head home to the Terminal.


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