Participants:
| Scene Title | Did Somebody Order Pizza? |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Teo walks in on something - even astral projected - in milwaukee and completely cuts the weekend short. Shorter than it was already becoming. |
| Date | August 15, 2009 |
Milwaukee - Comfort Inn
There is no watering eyes, no screaming, no yelling, nothing. There's not even something risque happening unless you count Abigail in a bathrobe and on her side of the bed under the covers and flicking through channels and trying to settle on something to watch this late at night. Her hair is still damp from a shower. The little gold cross glints from bedside as a slap chop commercial shows up for ten seconds and Abigail watches.
"I should get one" Murmured to Flint before she's pressing the up button again. She, probably much like Flint is oblivious to the Italian Stallion that's raging about and been hunting them down, following the credit card trail. She's been trying to limit how much she's talking, more out of respect for Flint and her knowledge that he's not very verbose and once again because she never did read the manual. Duh.
"You don't need a slap chop."
Deckard's on the bed too, feet propped up on the pillow at the headboard, bristle buzzed head scruffed off the foot at an angle that lets him see the TV at close range between pages of the National Geographic he's taken to flipping through. Something about giraffes fighting, clashing and swinging neck to neck like clubs on the ends of slinkies. He's in pajama pants and a t-shirt, leather jacket and jeans slung off on the floor next to the bed. His shirt from earlier is actually hooked onto the corner of the dresser the TV is on — he folds the magazine over and reaches for it upsidedown. He's clean shaven, well-rested, and only a little buzzed off the glass or two of whiskey he downed after showering. Not making his shirt-grabbing efforts any easier, though. His fingertips bump at the fabric, nearly hook. Fail. Just a little too far.
Abigail looks over at the shirt reaching, a flicker of a frown before she slides out of bed and reaches to get it for him, pushing it within reach of him. "Do you need to go.. somewhere? We don't need to leave for.. six more hours" The TV remote's been abandoned and so it's left at some Telemundo show, some woman bellowing at a man in rapid fire Spanish and shaking her fist.
"No." No, Deckard's not going anywhere, and once he has the shirt he drops it lazily on the floor so that he can wind a hand warm around the back of her near knee instead, now that she's within reach. "I just wanted you to come over here." The flat slant of his mouth is salacious. The cant of his brows potentially even more so, even upside down, eyes clear against the flashing of TELEMUNDO!!that issues forth from the TV behind her.
"Oh" pausing as she starts to bend down to pick up the fallen shirt. "Oh.. Oh" When the hand latches around her leg just under the hem of the bathrobe. "Okay" The corners of her mouth turn up a fraction, looking down at the reversed face. "I'm not going to be able to drive you know, yes? We'll be late getting home" But she's not making a move to remove the hand from her leg. If anything she's moving a bit closer, curious as to what exactly he's going to do.
There's a knock on the door. Abrupt and apropos of no verbal greeting, close-fisted, two knuckles rebounded off the chapped varnish of wood with the severe alignment and neat recoil that the giver would have packaged along with a black eye delivered into some enemy's face.
(Un?)fortunately, the world will never know. Deckard doesn't get much further than drifting his hand up a few indecorous inches further beyond the hem of her robe before there's a knock at the door. His brows knit and his head swivels up and around hawklike — contact held soft even as he looks sideways at Abigail standing over him. "Did somebody order a pizza?"
"I didn't order anything" Abigail murmurs, worried. "Serial killer?" Mood killer more like it. Maybe. "You have the wrong room! Go back to the front desk" She's loathe to break contact with Deckard and his hand, but she does. So she can go to the door and peek through the peep hole.
What she see's through the peep hole though… "Flint. Can you get me a t-shirt please? You might want to get off the bed" Spoken even as she's already trying to school her face to something other than fear while undoing locks and opening the door for the person on the other side. Because near midnight is always when you want Italians to come knocking on hotel room doors.
Helpfully, Deckard uses the hand Abby has left behind to reach back over his head for his rumpled white button down, which is then unceremoniously balled up and tossed her way with slack, fluttery momentum to flop dull against her shoulder. He does not look interested in getting off the bed either, but does at least use a bare foot to flop his pillow over so that he can use the other one to bump the revolver under it up into reach of his left hand. If he stretches. Not like anyone in Wisconsin knows them!
Teo has a gun. This is fairly normal, all things considered; he being Teodoro Laudani, sore, stitched-up, and travel-rumpled, tracking Abigail Beauchamp beyond the safe borders of home, Hana in the air around him and the static of sleep-deprivation cacophonying like wasps inside his skull. Of course he has a gun. Even before the momentary blot of Abby's squint darkens out the peephole, he's catching soupy, distorted snapshots of the room within.
The girl's strange choice of shirt, Flint's long snout and pale eyes refracting lamp light. No guns. No fucking guns— why did they run to fucking Milwaukee?
FLint gets a glimspe of skin before his shirt is slipped on, everything dwarfing her here and still only coming to mid thigh. But when she's dressed, Teo's let in proper, door opened. SHe's appropriately submissive, figuring out exactly why he's here. Shoulder hunched down and in, a flicker of her eyes over to Teo. "Evening Teo" Blue eyes go back to him. "Welcome to Milwaukee?"
One gun, in addition to Teo's. Flint manages to get a grip on the revolver just as the door is being pulled open despite obvious cause for distraction — he doesn't actually get to see naked people in person all that often anymore. It isn't hefted, though. Isn't lifted or wielded or — remembered, once the pale-washed blue of his eyes has had time to chill into sharper focus on Laudani's face. His eyes go to the shirt Abby's wearing almost as an afterthought, then…somewhere else. The lamp isn't a bad start.
One gun. Not being hefted. Means Abigail saw him and signaled, but of course she saw him; Teo saw her see him, and her silence was indicative enough. That explains nothing. Nor does Abby, when she finally pulls open the door and appears in a state of underdress, prettily tousled, while Deckard looks and arbitrary interchangeable furniture shit in the background and while the seedy hotel doesn't quite stink of sex, but you would have to be not breathing recently to fail to understand what was going on in here. Teo, penis having recently been broken by force of psychic trauma, actually almost does fail, for a moment there.
Realization makes him blink. Straighten fractionally. His finger curls tighter around the 9 heavy in his hand, but it's no longer around the trigger itself, fortunately. He stares at Abigail for a protracted moment, the raw bright of paranoid tension effacing slightly, in the shuttering squeegee of eyelids. Blink, blink, blink.
"You look different," he says, finally. His voice sounds cracked around the edges, as if he hasn't spoken in awhile: the 'concierge' probably doesn't even know he's in here.
Abigail is.. expecting Teo to say something else, other than that and she also was not expecting such scrutiny coming from another man. Forget that he's a friend. The door closes behind him with a soft thud, night lock going back on for now to prevent anyone from accidentally walking. "I.. might…" Quietly offered as down she goes, bending at the knees and not the waist like a proper woman so that she can grab the bathrobe and cover herself up proper. Not that Teo hasn't seen her in a nightgown that shows more, but more the situation is what's making her do it. "what.. brings you here?"
"No she doesn't." Automatically contrary in his dragging way, slate over sand in his voice, Deckard rolls up onto his elbow enough to reach for his jacket on the floor with his gun hand. When he resettles flat on his back, it's with brown leather pulled scuffed and battered over his face, neatly trimmed grizzle and all. So that he can lie there. And pretend to be dead. With a gun in his hand.
That is, frankly, the most unconvincing combination of choreography that Teo has ever seen. Other than, you know, the fact that Abigail isn't actually trying to lie to him. He isn't sure whether that is supposed to make this more or less awkward. She's putting on a robe, and physical reality aside, that covers less than it reveals. A knot appears between the dark blocks of his eyebrows.
He breathes in, then out again. Doesn't avert his eyes, not to scowl at Deckard's disagreement or to spare Abby a little modesty: she doesn't really need it, anyway. "You disappeared." Teo answers the question, instead. "Alone from the apartment, with Deckard from Old Lucy's. He was armed. You were in a hurry— you drove all the way out here, and you barely made a fucking pit stop on the way. You left your cellphone. You both left your cellphones. Something happened.
"I thought it must be something bad." If he meant 'I thought something bad must have happened,' he'dve said it. But something did happen, fairly obviously, and that, at least, he isn't ready to categorize as bad. Yes, there's an elephant in the room (flat on his back, dead cow draped on his face, playing dead) but for now he's busy hunting mammoths.
"Nothing bad happened. Just.. just a bit of a breakdown and… Richard threw flint at me. I made him leave the cell phone, I left my own cell phone because I didn't want.. I didn't want this Teo. That was why I paid for my gas with my credit cards and reserved the rooms with my card too" Abby's cheeks are flushing a healthy red, especially in light of the fact that Deckard is hiding from Teo under his jacket.
"I'm sorry that I worried you just.." Just. "I snapped okay. Better it be that I rent a card and drive off than go find John Logan and shoot him in the head Teodoro Laudani, for hurting Niki. I just had a lot of stuff that.. was waiting when I came home that I didn't know about and.." Stuff happens. Abigail pads away from the door, sash tied firmly tight and eases down onto the bed beside Flint.
Deckard sinks a little deeper into the bed when Abby sets down next to him. Otherwise the jacket doesn't move and neither does he, apparently under the impression that no one will see him or remember he's here if he wishes hard enough.
A bit of a breakdown — that isn't likely to diminish Teo's mean level of anxiety much, but for the moment, for this particular encounter and event, it works well. The hard lines of his shoulders settle, fractionally, ticking down out of their rigid, razor-edged right angles and into something that looks more human than cyborg. A figment of apology creases his brow, briefly, without actually reaching verbalization.
Suddenly, those two are on that side of the room, and he's still on this one. One hour ago, this configuration would have meant little besides a mathematical proportioning of space. Tonight, it speaks remarkable excesses. When he locates his voice again, it's softer, in both senses of the adjective. "I'll leave you alone anytime you ask me too." He finally looks at Deckard. Or the dead elephant, as the case may be.
"I think.. that might be a really good.. Idea since you walked in on.. us…" There's a glance to the elephant. "I think you killed him. He's died of embarrassment. I think I am too. I don't quite know yet. The shock is… you know" She runs a hand through her hair and brings her knee's up. Just as quickly she brings them back down as cheeks flood again. "Uhh.. I can get you a hotel room? We were gonna head out in a few hours.. and head back.. home…" Another run of her hand through her hair. "I'm safe Teo. I'm fine, as fine as I'll be with everything. Thank you for being a gallant white Italian knight thinking you were riding to my rescue but.. i'… you're hurt…"
Resigned to the fact that what has been seen cannot be unseen, and what has been deduced cannot be undeduced, Deckard sighs slow into the slumped underside of his jacket and reaches to drag it down to a rest under his chin. The shape of his face is different sans scruff; longer, even, that it tends to look otherwise, with lines more sharply defined to demonstrate the precise degree of his distaste for this situation in stone carved clarity.
"I'm not dead." He says so decisively, in the event that there was real doubt. "And I'm not embarrassed." He says that decisively too, even though he is lying, halcyon eyes gone a little piercing under a tilt of his brows that is likely meant to be casual rather than synonymous with the sound of cracking bone. "I appreciate the sentiment. Who knows what brand of evil would drag us to Milwaukee before they started cutting out organs."
"I know a few brands of evil who would chase you to Milwaukee before they started cutting out organs," Teo responds with a bitchy sort of aplomb, which, no, isn't really aplomb at all. There's a sniff through his nose, an audible motion of air. Possibly, introduction to the yeast species killed a dozen years' worth of socialization as well as his sex drive. Probably. Yeast are simplified creatures, aren't they? He regards Deckard for a protracted moment.
Switches to looking at Abigail. Puts his gun back on safety, finally, metal clicking and sliding home, snapping to a standstill. He re-installs it inside his jacket. "I'm sorry about Niki," he says, straightforwardly, turning back for the door, robot now from something constituted from a lot more awkwardness than ninjutsu grace. His feet scratch noise out against the floor. "Fedor helped me charter a flight out. It's going back in three hours, if you're ready by then. And— uh." He almost hazards a glance back. Doesn't, quite.
"She'd better not have paid for the fucking room."
A flight was better than a drive back. Abigail opens her mouth to accept the offer of the flight, the two of them could easily be ready by then. But then come those words from out of Teo's mouth, those last few words and her mouth closes with an audible snap, a thump of upper teeth against lower teeth. "And if I did? What difference does it make Teo? Does it make what we did any less …" What? Beautiful? really god damned amazing. "You can leave now Teo. We'll meet you out front in a few hours to go to the airport" That last comment has truly made her a little twitchy.
"And I did pay for the room. And I'm the one who started it."
Still lying stretched out flat on his back on the couch after all this time, Deckard turns his head enough to follow Teo's progress across the room.
Brows initially knit in a surly huddle in the face of potentially justifiable censure, they ease up again into the beginnings of a lift when she digs in after Teo with invisible claws flashing badgery and black around her robe.
Part of the background now, the slanty-eyed look Flint gives Teo through the intervening space is unmistakable. I hit that.
The scolding finally does drag a glance back over Teo's shoulders, his brows hooking downward with the sharp severity of something you'd stick meat with. It's reflex more than real disagreement or anger, though, and — sort of vaporizes off his face when he catches the look that Deckard garnishes Abigail's imperatives with.
His cheek twitches, below the arrogant incline of his cheekbone, threatened by some wry laughter or incipient apology, or— God knows, a jealous word— or something that he doesn't actually say aloud. If he really wanted to be difficult, he'd tell them to drive. Meet him at the airport. Something. Shatters to confetti and skates off in a wind that actually giggles a bit before escaping. "No. It doesn't make it less.
"Not even a little." He pulls up his shoulders and opens the door. "Hope you checked the expiration date on the wrapper, vecchio. Don't be late.."
Not that he really would need to worry about the expiration date. She's told Flint how many weeks ago that she was taking protection? Not that Teo knew. Unless Sonny blabbed and that didn't look likely. "Stop being jealous and just go. We have to pack and get ready. I gotta call in the car" She doesn't know whether it's jealousy or just him being cranky from having to come out to Milwaukee, but it's something. Abby doesn't move from the bed though, remaining in spot where she is and settling a hand on Flint's midriff.
There's tension at Flint's middle when Teo's attitude falters into something that might have looked like near laughter for a ghost of an instant. Most everywhere else too, tangible but otherwise difficult to detect with him taking up half a mattress and Abby obscuring muscle lined out taut across the backs of his arms. Get out get out and — whatever Abby says too.
He doesn't slump until the door has clicked shut in Laudani's wake. There's an audible sink and creak of springs under his readjusted weight, then silence. Awkward or relieved or resigned. He's still eyeing the closed door, and it's hard to tell by the time his eyes flicker up onto Abigail. "Well." Well. They should probably get packing, so. Over he goes slowly away off the side of the bed to get to it.
"I could kill him" Abigail mutters, she too watching the door. The next word out of her mouth is one she's heard the girls at the bar use before.
"Cockblocker"
And then she too is scrounging for her bag and some fresh clothes. They have a flight they have to make now.