Four Missed Calls

Participants:

abby_icon.gif deckard3_icon.gif

Scene Title Four Missed Calls
Synopsis During his morning routine, Deckard realizes Abby tried to call him four times and stops in to make sure she hasn't been kidnapped/murdered/molested/threatened/paralyzed/etc etc etc before work.
Date August 22, 2009

Abby's Apartment


Three hang ups, One message on the fourth call. It was the ungodly hours of the morning, in which Deckard is sometimes awake, sometimes not, Abby never knows. Since he's left the apartment above Old Lucy's she's not really seen him.

"Ignore this. Sorry. Just ignore the calls, never mind"

One can think a great many things what she might mean, if it wasn't for that trace of emotion, the way her voice gets in the aftermath of nightmares that he knows so well. Leonard was in the bedroom, and Abigail had parked on the fire escape in the dim light of morning with the phone finally, staring off at the brick wall of the neighboring building when she couldn't get back to sleep. Victor needed his sleep, she justifies to herself the reason for calling Flint as opposed to Victor through the night. A travel mug of tea beside her, she's been out here for a bit with her blanket wrapped around her. Nights can get cool.

Deckard is awake. He doesn't want to be, slumped sideways into the bathroom wall before the wet drip of his sink, head tipped forward into cool wallpaper and eyes closed. He should shave. Should rinse off the toothbrush he just finished using and scrub a towel over his head and find his belt.

The rise of his chest under a t-shirt he shouldn't even think about wearing to work is weary and slow, and in the end, he opts to take it one step at a time. Turn on the faucet. Rinse the toothbrush. Reach for the towel. Scrub scrub scrub.

When he reaches to flip his phone out've his pocket to check the time, it says '5:30 AM.' It also says he has seven missed calls. Brow furrowed and jaw slack as he pads out of the bathroom for his bedroom and a bottle of whiskey open on the dresser, he has to work to focus enough to see that the name 'Abby' is next to each of the last four.

Another sigh later, he fumbles his way into voicemail and hooks the phone up onto his shoulder while he pours into a glass still half full from when he got in last night.

"Ignore this. Sorry. Just ignore the calls, never mind."

Brow knit further still, he holds the phone away from his ear, frowns, and hits repeat before taking a long draw off the whiskey he just poured for himself.

"Ignore this. Sorry. Just ignore the calls, never mind."

And that is how he winds up at Abby's door at 5:45 AM in blue jeans, a brown t-shirt and a day's worth of stubble grizzled in around the narrow clamp of his jaw while he knocks.

She almost didn't hear it, catch the knock on the door. The lack of buzzer means that it's someone she knows or someone from upstairs. Crawling in through the window, barefeet and knee's on the windowsill, stepping over the cat that was keeping her company, The tow headed blonde manages to make it to the door before Flint can need to knock on the door again. This is the usual wake up time for her anyways.

The peephole shows it's Deckard, and there's a tightening of her lips before chains are undone and locks turned.

"I told you to forget it. Ignore the calls Flint." Not outright chastisement. More like upset with herself that he came all the way down here. Up here. Sideways. Some ways, she doesn't know.

"Right. That doesn't sound at all like something someone with a gun to your head would make you say." On the other side of the open door, Deckard looks like he's been up for long enough to have showered, but there is none of the wide pupiled, strung out adrenaline edge that tends to accompany the all nighters he used to pull with fair frequence. He's a little groggy. Already has whiskey on his breath, along with a touch of mouthwash.

A quick glance around the apartment interior is enough to deduce that the gunman thing was probably a little off, though. He's left to squint at her while alternative possibilities start marching sluggishly into the back of his brain.

"More like a knife apparently" Abigail murmurs, opening the door wide to let him in. "You likely haven't had breakfast yet, let me make you something. An apology for you coming here so early. I'm sorry I was just.. drunk dialing again after a nightmare" Little traces of a small hangover here and there in the blonde and likely why she was sticking to drinking tea instead of eating something.

"You were drunk again? And I missed it?" Flatly unawares of any deeper explanation than the one she gives him offhand, Deckard leans himself in through the open door to check for other occupants before he invites himself in the rest of the way. "I was already up. And I can't stay for long."

"Even I wasn't aware of it. I'll make you toast and eggs" Because they take only minutes and he can gnaw on it out the door. "The serial killer decided to have fun with me" She gives an explanation. "Lets hear it for body possessors. I don't remember anything. I remember going to check on Liz and Coren's food and then… I'm in Coren's arms and I'm half naked and I got a stomach full of Tequila. Close the door behind you please"

…Oh. Jaw hollowed into a harder set, Deckard has to stand there for a second and absorb this before he thinks to follow through on directions and close the door behind himself. Clunk. Click. The lock turns over and he's free to trail her in towards the kitchen.

He's gone quiet. Could be blamed on the hour, or. The fact that he's too preoccupied to think of anything intelligent to say. Who's Coren probably doesn't qualify.

Knowing Abby, and that his name was spoken in conjunction with Liz's, could be a cop of someone else. A pan is pulled up and put on the stove, eggs and bread from the fridge. She seems to be making good on the promise to make him breakfast. "Leonard took me home. I had a nightmare though and he was sleeping. I just.. needed to talk to someone was all. But, I only got your voice mail so I just took a few pills and went and sat on the fire escape. I'm good now Flint. Promise." A pat of butter next, to melt and provide salt, keep the egg from sticking.

Standing around looking faintly distracted, crestfallen and guilty isn't really Deckard's style, but he's doing a pretty good job of it right now. Greying hair bristled damp and mouth still turned down out of its usual flat set into a frown, he watches her go about the collection of eggs and bread and pan without saying much of anything. He tracks a little deeper into the kitchen area to be closer instead, away from his post at the door and easy escape from awkwardness. "My phone's been on silent."

'I figured it was that, or turned off, or in another room from you Flint. I didn't think you were ignoring me. You're standing right here, aren't you?" Abigail points out. With one hand, she cracks an egg into the pan, breaking the yolk on purpose then tosses the shells into a bowl. Crack goes the second egg, albumen and yolk spilling out onto the pan and instantly whitening from the heat. "I'm good now flint. I'm tired, but.. I'm good. It's been.. like when I came back from Louisiana, just.. bad shit happening, again and again. Never ends. I'm starting to think I really am Job."

"Okay." Okay, as in, she's not blaming him. Still, he fails to look entirely comfortable with the situation as it stands, chilly eyes cast down to chase the slick slide of egg white from shell to pan in silence.

The egg sizzles. Flint stays out of arm's reach, though the quiet track of his shoes crosses a little restlessly past Abigail's back as he moves from one side of her to the other, as if in fear that this evil possession guy is going to spring up and prompt her to toss the pan up into her own face.

"Are you going to stay here?"

"It's Saturday. I have an invitation to go to the beach with the birds. After that I'm starting to move up top of the bar" She's aware of where he is in relation to her, doesn't stop the pacing and restlessness. "Why, is there some place else you'd prefer I go?" She looks over her shoulder for a moment, watching him curiously before she reaches for salt and pepper to season the eggs.

The toast pops from the shiny red kitchenaid toaster announcing it's brownness and readiness to be consumed. "Can you get the cheddar out of the fridge?"

"Somewhere one of a multitude of random psychos can't fuck with your head," muttered without much energy, Deckard's too busy slanting a frown over at the popped toast to catch her looking at him in time to play down the tired worry lined in stark around his face. A glance back her way later, he turns to pry the refrigerator open in search of the requested cheddar.

"I think that's Mars, probably Jupiter. But, if I went there, I'm pretty sure I'd die of oxygen deprivation," Abigail tries to crack a joke, downplay the severity of the situation, of her current emotional state which is teetering towards flat line/drugged. "At least then, no one would need to worry about me."

Deckard doesn't smile. Not that smiling is something he does much of anyway.

Cheddar retrieved and thumped down on the counter next to the stove, he nudges the fridge shut with the side of his foot and rolls his watch over to get a better look at the face. "Have you been thinking about killing yourself?"

Kind of an off question to ask while you're plucking toast up out of a toaster easy as if it's the weather they're talking about. Doesn't seem to phase him, though.

There's a sigh. "Why on God's green earth are you asking me that question?" She glances over at him, starting to assemble the sandwich by cutting some cheese to place over the hot egg. "I'm thinking how i'm going to tell Victor that I can't date him anymore because I cheated on him. I'm thinking about the poor cops at Columbia that I couldn't help. I'm thinking about feeding you cause I feel bad that you came all the way over here. I'm thinking about how many people in the bar saw my… breasts last night. I am most certainly not thinking about anything that consists of killing myself. I intend to go to heaven the day I die, thank you. Not hell in a handbasket"

"You said if you were dead nobody would have to worry about you," ponged bluntly back at her, Deckard takes a bite out of the first piece of toast before collecting the second and passing them both over, not…really exceptionally helpful as far as the putting breakfast together process goes. But he's back over next to her again, watching cheese cut and mulling over Abby's various life problems even as he reaches to pinch off an extra bit of cheese for himself. "You have nice breasts. I'm sure anyone who saw them only has flattering thoughts to think."

Cue the blood flowing to her cheeks, the extra slice of cheese sliced off for Flint and the final assemblage of the sandwich. "Well, it would be true. Dead means you don't need to look over my shoulder and see what's making a pass at me this time. Doesn't mean I want to be dead. I'm useless if I'm.. you know, I apologize, I shouldn't have said that" plain and simple. The egg sandwich is wrapped in paper towel and passed over to the taller man.

Now Flint does smile, however slightly and to himself. At the — thing with her blushing. Not the thing with her maybe killing herself. "Just wanted to make sure," passed off in exchange for the offered sandwich, Deckard plunks extra cheese down into the paper towel wrap with the rest of it. His mouth opens to add on something else, but he decides better of it before he can get further than that, already moving to step back around her again instead. Exit's thataway.

"Ask me that question again after I've broken up with Victor" Behind him she travels, bare feet plodding on the carpet as she goes. "Thanks for coming, regardless Flint. I appreciate it" IF something had happened to her, at least someone would have found her. "where you heading off to?" The heat still hides in her cheeks.

"Business to take care of," is Deckard's truthful (if also vague, misleading and uninspired) answer for where he needs to be in the next hour. His progress for the door is meandering and reluctant. It's too early to exist. Infinitely too early to park in a bakery and deal with pretentious shitheads who want to know how many calories are in a fucking blueberry muffin. "Thanks for the sandwich."

195 calories, give or take a few. For a regular sized one that is. "You go Flint, take care of business" The blush finally leaving. The door is unlocked, opened, and before the man can get out into the view of security camera's, she up on toes, offering a kiss, one hand on the door the other on his arm. "Don't get shot"

"Probably not much to worry about there." Unless someone is a big enough asshole to rob a bakery. Or someone gets really angry about the quality of coffee they're serving. Resigned to the misery of the day ahead, his voice is low and flat with irony and there's a cynical lift at the corner of his mouth when she stays his progress out the door with a hand on his arm. And a kiss. Which would probably be fairly innocious in itself all things considered if he kept it quick and sweet and did not, in fact, slow it down into something languid and carnal in a graze of teeth and tongue the way that he…does. Incidentally.

Takes a moment for her brain to turn over, but when it does, that heat is returned, hand tightening on his arm. Just a trace of her tongue back before she cuts it off with a lick of her lips and a meet of blue eyes on blue eyes. "You're running short on time and I've just had someone possess my body and show off my chest to the bar and a real bad night of no sleep. When I've dealt with Victor. I promise." She's known to keep her promises.

Breaths sifting a little faster through whiskey stink once she's backed it off, Deckard either doesn't process denial as quickly as he should or doesn't want to. It takes a beat for him to settle back and glance aside. First at the wall, then at his watch, which confirms what she's already said. So, he nods. Just once, nearly polite for all that he was making a concentrated effort not to think about the moral ineptness of this mere hours after a psycho killer had taken her body and her boobies for a spin around Old Lucy's.

He lingers for a bit, awkwardly, maybe in recognition of the fact that there is probably something he could say to make his standing there less ungainly.

Then he's disengaged and ducking out, sandwich in hand.

And there's a door closing behind him after she makes sure that he makes it to the elevator or the stairs. One of the two. Locks close shut and Abigail leans against the door. There's a soft sigh before she makes her way back to her forgotten tea out on the fire escape and spend a bit more time in quiet contemplation.


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