Participants:
| Scene Title | Cherchez le Deckard |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Kameron drops in on Leah looking for information, which is one of Leah's favorite things not to give out. |
| Date | March 2, 2009 |
Run-down and ramshackle, the apartment might once have been nice, with a spacious central area and a series of narrow windows overlooking the Chinatown street. Now, though, it is a veritable potluck of furniture and decor, thrown together haphazardly. The sleeping area is separated from the rest of the apartment by a fold-out wall and there is about room to turn around in the kitchen. The bathroom is cleanly appointed in pale blue and yellow tile, with a chipped toilet, a double-doored double-wide glass shower, and a jacuzzi bathtub whose jets have not functioned properly since 1993.
The place largely exists in a continual state of half-cleanliness, friendliness reflected by a happy litter of discarded clothing, old magazines, and occasional whimsical sculptures constructed from empty cans and bottles, a creative alternative to recycling. The centerpiece of the apartment is a plush sofa of rich, buttery dark leather before a coffee table of polished mahogany inset with glass. The desk across the room, in contrast, looks like it was probably pulled out of a Dumpster and cleaned off. The TV is neither large nor small, neither new nor old, a hulk of black technology sitting on a very old, black, rickety-looking ~entertainment center~ coated in dust.
She felt a little guilty. It was kind of like she was avoiding Brian, and that wasn't the case at all! Then again, it wasn't the first time she screwed up a friendship. She's really batting 100% here. But Kameron is focused on other things, not the least being checking on her apartment. And then there's Leah. She'd gone earlier in the day, but either Leah had been out or sleeping and didn't hear the knock. Now it was later in the day, and there is a tak-tak-tak, a combination of cane, puppy paws, and footsteps echoing down the hall.
Kameron's hand trails along the wall and doors, counting by estimate. "I … think this is it." She murmurs to the guide dog at her side. Her hand runs alon the door, searching for the door numbers to feel the shape. "I hope this is it." Knock Knockity Knock.
Leah's head turns, brow crinkling as her dark gaze tips toward the door. The low murmur of the television cuts off abruptly after the second or third time she taps the appropriate button on her remote control, and she rises in a slow, fluid motion, arching her back. She hasn't been home that long, and it's just luck to catch her in the apartment at all throughout the last few days. It feels less and less like a home base … that's the trouble with staying in one place too long, in her particular line of work.
Stuffing the last of the egg roll into her mouth as she paces across the room to the door, she chews intently, cracking her door open to peer out at the newcomer beneath the rattle of the security chain. Her eye peeps out, but it takes her a moment to actually marshall a greeting, because her mouth is full of food. Swallowing her bite, she leans into the door, fingers curling into a tight wind around its knob. I don't know you, she muses, peering out. Once her mouth is mostly clear, she says, "Yeah?"
"I'm sorry to trouble you," Kameron begins without preamble, "But Bria- I mean, 'Breeanne' sent me. Are you…" I can't believe I'm sayin this. With a straight face. "Are you Tinkerbelle?" She still can't believe she said that -or that she believed Brian when he told her that the girl's name was Tinkerbell. I'm going to get laughed out of the building. Or she'll take offence and come at me with a curling iron.
Leah cocks an eyebrow, mouth pursing. The laugh doesn't break, caught in her eyes only; she tips her forehead briefly against the door. "Ah," she says. The door kisses quietly closed, followed by a rattle of chain. Leah pauses with the door about to open, stilled with her hand upon the knob: one heartbeat, two. Her jaw sets, pulse quickening with a tremula of anxiety.
Then the door opens, and Leah spreads it wide her with the nudge of her foot. "Guilty as charged," she says, tone mild but for a thin tremor of humor. "Step inside and I'll see if I can fairy dust away some of the mess."
Hm. Promising so far. There's no laugh, but she's not coming at Kammy with a curling iron either. "Thank you," is her relieved sigh. "Ah - I.. I'm Kameron. I work for him, at the Lighthouse. Him Breea-BRIAN. Brian, I mean Brian." Mess? Good thing she has her cane with her, puttering along into the apartment, "This is Prince," she adds, as the Collie walks in beside her on the leash. "Again, I'm, I'm terribly sorry if I'm disturbing you -" she stops, "… your name isn't Really Tinkerbelle is it..?"
"Nope," Leah says agreeably. There's a pair of pants on the floor just inside, which Leah boots aside with one bare foot so as to keep from becoming a hazard. Rather than provide Kameron with something less silly to call her immediately, she squats, putting herself on immediate eye level with the dog. Her dark red skirt slides over her knees, a little awkward in this position. "Hi there, Prince. Aren't you charming? Can I pet him on duty?" Balancing her weight on her heels, she plants a palm on her carpeted floor and peeks up at Kameron curiously. "So. Breanne sent you." Humor lightens her voice, draped over Brian's nickname like a cheerful sort of cloak.
Kameron lets out a soft sigh of relief. She couldn't even begin to imagine the childhood Leah would have had to be named Tinkerbelle. "If I can ask,.. what -is- your name?" She can't fathom calling Leah 'Tinkerbelle'. She barely knows the woman. Giggling a bit at the woman addressing her dog, Kameron nods, "Yes, it's fine to pet him." She was a bit lenient with the dog there - so long as he was still attentive, she didn't mind people petting the animal. "And yes, Bre-.u-um, Brian sent me. You're the sister of his Uncle Mike right?" Wait. "I-I mean, Mr. Deckard's sister."
"Hello!" There are many people in this world who have a hard time not speaking to animals with high-pitched or other baby talk, and for the moment Leah appears to number among them. "Hello there!" She scruffs behind the dog's ears, rubs her hands over his neck. Then she rocks back on her heels to push to her feet.
Rubbing her palms over the dark red fabric of the skirt, she lets her brows crinkle as she turns away on her heel. "Couch is over here," she says, "if you want a seat." At a moment's delay, she sits down on the soft leather arm of her chair, crossing her bare ankles in a fidgety slide of skin. "I'm Leah." Thoughtful of tone, she does not immediately confirm or deny her familial relations, instead asking, "What did he suppose I could do for you?"
Doggy ears pin back and the tail wags like a cwazy wagging machine as Prince accepts the attention. Kameron stifles a giggle, listening to Leah. And then the 'over there' direction Leah gives her. "Over where?" Kameron takes a few hesitant steps in a random direction, and purely by chance, finds it. Primarily by almost tripping over it. "Nevermind, found it -" she announces a second later, dropping down onto the cushion slowly and rubbing her knee. Given a name, Kameron feels more comfortable addressing the other woman, "Um - well, he thought you might have an idea of where your brother was. He's been trying to call him, but Mr. Deckard hasn't been returning the calls, and - well he didn't say as much, but i'm pretty sure he's worried. There was mention of him being captured, and then escaping, and Brian was saying that Mr. Deckard is the sort of person that gets in trouble an awful lot so he moves around and he doesn't have a place of his own and I'm talking too much aren't I?" Or at least - saying too much.
Mouth turning up at one corner in the dexter half of a sharp smile, Leah shakes her head slowly into a breath's quiet that follows the torrent. "Talk all you want," she murmurs easily. "I'm a good listener, or so I hear." She lifts a hand to rub her knuckles lightly over her jaw and the curve of her cheek. "Well," she says at length. "Considering what you've just said about the kind of trouble he manages to find, I'm sure you'll appreciate I'm not in the habit of handing out his location even to friends, if he doesn't want to be found." She lets her other hand fall, fingertips drumming lightly against her thigh while she shifts in place against the corner of the sofa.
"Even to friends? I mean, I-i kind of understand why you wouldn't tell me, I mean, you don't even know me. Have you seen him lately though? I don't have to know where he is, but - well, if you could just tell me if he's all right, and maybe why he hasn't been returning Brian's phone calls. Or maybe he doesn't have access to a telephone where he is?" Or maybe he had his hant chopped off and he couldn't use it to dial a phone! Oh how awful!
"I've seen him … recently," Leah allows, tone guarded. She turns slightly on the sofa, angling toward Kameron with her hands loosely clasped over her knee. It is almost a prim posture, which is certainly incongruous considerating the young Miss Deckard's personal history. She considers what further details to drop, running her tongue thoughtfully along the front of her teeth. "He's not having a very good month," she says judiciously, "but he hasn't fallen off the face of the earth or anything. I can deliver a message, if you like. Let him know he's missed."
A hand reaches out, though not towards Leah - rather towards Prince, who nudges his head under her palm. "Recently," Kameron is silent a moment, considering questions that she could ask that were vague enough to be considered -safe- to ask. "Um. Yeah you could take a message - say.. that um.. well, that Brian is worried about him. Apparently he was supposed to stop at the Lighthouse, but he didn't and it was all," She gestures feebly, "You know? I thought maybe he was resting but B.. Brian said that he wasn't like that. Didn't do that sortof thing. Which I think means that he's not the sort to miss a visit and not that he doesn't sleep." Deckard is no Chuck Norris!
Leah rubs the pad of her thumb along the side of her nose, lips pressing thinly for a moment against a tide of inner frustration. Her cheeks puff out and she hisses a low breath past the purse of her lips. "Do you know," she asks in a musing tone, as a woman chasing idle curiosity might, "what sort of thing he'd be doing there?"
Kameron shakes her head, listening to the sound of Leah's frustration. "…No. I think it was - he just wanted Mr. Deckard to check in, sort of to show him that he was okay. I think he was worried that he got hurt when he was caught by those people at the .. the.." ..… not again. "That place." She says finally. "The one with the people?" Smoooth. "The ones that kidnapped Ally, and probably a lot of other people too." Of course it was possible that Deckard got mixed up with -different- people, but .. ..then again if Leah wasn't up to date on her brother's habits, Kameron may have just gotten hiim in trouble. Oops.
Thoughtful, by the hummed "hmm" note in her low alto voice, Leah shifts — restless as ever — in her seat, scrubbing her palms against her knees and then lacing her fingers together again as she slides down into the corner of the sofa and its arm. She tips her head, drawing a long breath past her teeth. "It's sweet of you and Brian to worry," she says decidedly, narrowing a glance across the sofa at the talkative young woman, studying her face with a frankness she might not use to study someone who wasn't apparently blind. "I'll tell him he's doing nasty things to people's blood pressure, disappearing off the radar like that. — Do you know how he might have gotten mixed up with such a thing? He does have that nasty habit of attracting trouble."
She didn't know? Me and my big mouth. "Well, I'm not sure. Did he know Abby?" the only other option she could think of was being part of an attempted rescue with Brian or something. But as far as she knew, Brian hadn't gone yet - he did mention something came up and all. "I'm sure he's - I mean anything he got into, he.. I mean.." What DID she mean? "He um, means well? A-and …" She trails off on the realization that she knew precious little about Deckard, and couldn't come up with an adequate compliment for him beyond that. "Well.. I'll tell Brian that you've seen him anyway. He might come and talk to you himself, and you can get more detail from him then. I shouldn't take up too much of your time anyway." She smiles, about to stand.
… … "Can I ask you just.. one question though? I mean not that, what I just asked, but one other."
"Oh, no," Leah says in a low voice, almost amused, "he knew Abby. I just thought you might know if there was more to his sticking his neck into every convenient-" She breaks off, her lightness of tone insufficiently masking darker emotions, and wiggles her fingers dismissively rather than finish her sentence with the rest of that thought, which probably would have been every convenient noose. She scratches her nose. "Never mind," she adds firmly, and then looks brow-arched inquiry in Kameron's direction, noting the shift in her posture and starting to rise in a fluid unfolding of limbs. "-What is it?"
Convenient what? Convenient what? Damn her eyes. Kameron's, not Leah's. Kammy wouldn't wish harm on anyone. "Well.. you… you know Brian right?" DUH. "I mean, obviously you know him but - well. I was just wondering, does he strike you as - I mean, does he seem the type to .. .." You know what. No. She's not going to go there. Kameron shakes her head, "Ne-Nevermind, I'm sorry. I appreciate the help though." She smiles, "If your'e ever in Staten Island, drop by - oh, and I have an apartment on the first floor; I check the mail there every couple of days. One oh Five."
"Man trouble?" Leah guesses sympathetically, running her fingertips over the arm of the couch as she half circles behind it, and then closes her knuckles against its soft surface. "I'm no help there, either." Total relationship fail runs in the family, apparently. Unless that's a contradiction in terms? "It was nice meeting you, Kameron. Perhaps I'll see you round." Grin flashing quick and bright on a breathy laugh, she adds, "And Prince, too."
Man trouble? "No! No!" Kameron stammers hastily. "No! Nononononononononononono! Please don't get the wrong idea, it's nothing like that." Brian might wish otherwise, but - augh. "It was just -I was just .." She was just worried about him. "He's a friend, that's all," Kameron smiles, sheepishly. "It was nice meeting you too, Leah- Miss Deckard. I'm sure we'll run into each other again. It's a small world after all." Responding to the laugh with a smile of her own, she turns to go, with Prince pressing against her leg briefly, leading her out the door.
 March 2nd: Pouring Fire On The Gas |
 March 2nd: Do The Right Thing |