Participants:
Scene Title | He Was Behaving Before |
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Synopsis | <summarize the scene> |
Date | August 25, 2009 |
Staten Island
It's been a couple of hours since Gabriel took off on an errand. Pre-pre-dawn light is starting to touch on the edges of the sky around the same time a large and unnatural inky swatch of cloud is skimming merrily across the top of an inland river that winds deep into the heart of Staten Island. You can walk on water this way, don't you know? A shadow big enough for two men, it's approaching an old looking house that has its pillars embedded into the swampy water, an overhanging room that the amorphous, phased form of Gabriel Gray and Flint Deckard skim up the sides, slither through a partially opened window, all without a sound.
It's an old house, moderately touched up in places thanks to the industrious hands of the Ferrymen. Carpet's been stripped, baring the skeleton of wooden floors, the walls have peeling paint and bloated paper, the ceiling has stains - but it's a home.
The cloud of general blackness rolls through a doorway within, into a bedroom that was last taken by Ethan Holden, if Gabriel can recall correctly. The phased form constricts, rises up from the ground into a turning, ever-moving pillar— and then splits into two. There's a thud as at least four different feet find the ground at a stagger. Gabriel is pale, infinitely more tired looking than he had appeared to Deckard a few hours ago, resting a hand against a knee as he takes a breath like he'd just run a sprint race. Special delivery.
Tiny wood shavings float and sway, slowly making their way from the bed loftily down to the ground. An explosion of new wooden shrapnel springs up from the sharp edge of the knife, hastily going to follow its predecessors journey below. The knife continues to press forward, creating a solid rhythym of shhk shhk against the piece of wood held in a black glove.
At the sound of four new feet the knife freezes against the wood. Obviously it heard them. Coming away from the rough outline of a figurine, it is placed down on the ground quietly. The little wooden elephant soon joins it. Black gloves slap against the ground, shoulders thumping against the wall as Holden pushes himself up.
With a groan, he grabs at the doorframe, going to hobble into the portal. Peering through the house, his hand floats near his belt for a moment before flittering back down.
"Allo."
Deckard's boots fail to find secure footing upon first contact. He stumbles forward like a man freshly dropped in through the roof and drags in a breath like he thought he might never breathe again. Which might be melodramatic, but you try unexpectedly being forced to exist as powerless nothingness for a few hours at a serial killer's whim and see how you feel about it after.
Initial blue-eyed and slack jawed shock at return to tangibility aside, Flint seems to be going with angry. For how he feels about this. As in like, really, really angry.
Pick up a cage with a wet wildcat in it and shake it around, and the reaction might border upon similar. He lunges after Sylar with bare handed intent to shove him back against the nearest wall while Ethan looks on. And somehow the weirdest thing about him is how clean cut and respectable he looks with fresh cut hair and scaly boots.
Gabriel's feet backpedal beneath him out of pure instinct as he's shoved, oofing when he hits the wall with a dazed few rapid blinks as if he's not quite sure where that came from. While Deckard is filled with wiry anger-fueled strength, Ethan might be vaguely familiar with the kind of fatigue that Wu-Long carried around with him when it came to pulling more than just himself through whatever intangible portal one has to travel to become some higher form of energy.
There's a flash of teeth, like a dog might bare his in a snarl, and Gabriel puts a hand back against the wall to steady himself, although there's no immediate lashing out of raw power in Deckard's direction, not with three seconds to recharge his batteries. His other hand is occupied in placating, or fending off, or whatever it is hands do when they go out vaguely and wearily as if contemplating how easy it used to be throw people into walls like ragdolls.
"Git off o' 'im y' fuckin' vagina faced cock."
So it's not creative. He's concussed, fuck you. Walking heavily into the hallway, the Wolf brings his hand back up to hover at his back, giving the implication that there might be a gun back there. "You know you've been wanting to feel me up ever since I 'ad you on that rooftop. So quit flirtin' with 'im, and claim your prize." The Wolf growls down the hall, his free hand raising up to rest against the wall, supporting him.
With two fistfulls of Gabriel's shirt and resilience enough to use that leverage for the purpose of thumping him hard back into the wall one more time, Deckard does not seem all that inclined to let go. Whiskey breath in the Midtown Man's face and eyes chrome glossed bright against reason and logical thought about things like the potential for being exploded into a thousand pieces at the twitch of an exquisitely groomed brow, he leans into resistance and…
There's Ethan's voice again. Even more effective than a dog whistle, it turns his head and pries away at his hands. The gun bluff helps, maybe, but he doesn't reach for the one holstered at his hip, preferring instead to wind off a ways to hammer a fist sideways off of moldering wallpaper instead. ASSHOLES EVERYWHERE HIS LIFE IS FILLED WITH THEM.
Thump. There is only so much bouncing off the wall Gabriel is going to have patience for, which only shows in an angry flash of amber-brown eyes that cuts through the fatigue once his skull connects with papered over plaster once more, his hands coming to grip white shirt sleeves around the time Ethan is speaking up and forcing Deckard to veer away. His own grasp is easily loosened, Gabriel instead smoothing down his own shirt, shoulder blades still braced against where he'd been shoved and finally swinging a look over towards the Wolf.
Right where he'd left him. A twitch of a glance is spared when Deckard's fist cuts through soft, cheap, aged wall stuff. "He was behaving before," Gabriel notes, explains in Ethan's direction. "But then I didn't want to go the scenic route."
"You let 'im off 'is leash and you see whot 'appens? 'e doesn't know whot to do with 'imself." A chuckle is given to the fist flying into the wall. "Oh boy. Flint Fuckin' Deckard, Gabriel you better call the fuckin' cops we 'ave a wanted felon in our midst." Ethan saunters forward, lazily making his way closer to the angry Deckard.
"Whot are you so angry 'bout, Flint? Is your knob not shootin' roight?" His hand traces along the wall whilst he waltzes forward before he drops it in front of him. "I know a breathin' thing that might 'elp you with the stress. You ever consider Yoga?"
"Fuck you Holden. Jesus fucking — fuck. Fuck you." What time is it? WHAT TIME IS IT EVEN? Deckard scrubs bony fingers back over the bristle brush scruff shorn close against his skull — too short to muss into disorder despite his best efforts and the fact that they're punctuated by a hard swat at the first lamp he comes across. ARRRGH. LAMPS.
It takes the tinkle of shattered lightbulb glass and the slow rotation of the shade across wooden slats for him to realize that breaking lamps isn't really helping and there's only one more anyway, and he'd have to go through at least one of the assholes who brought him here to get to it.
Doesn't slow his breathing or calm him down. Actually glancing at his watch doesn't help either. He's not going to make it to work on time, and all it takes is a dismayed glance between Gabriel and Ethan to know that he can't explain to them that he can't be here because he's supposed to be selling muffins.
It will take a few cups of coffee and something intensely bad for you for Gabriel to feel himself in any short amount of time, but getting there. He takes his weight off the wall and folds his arms loosely across his torso, hands gripping either shoulder as he watches Deckard hiss and spit, tracking the fall of the lamp without particular concern for its welfare.
"If he can't calm down, there are ways of making him calm down," Gabriel suggests, predatory look now locked in on Deckard even as he directs though words to Ethan. It's to the older of the three, however, that he says, "Heal him. Then you can find your own way back to Manhattan."
"That was profound." His eyes follow Deckard's swing at the lamp. One finger comes up and taps at his lips a bit. "You broke our lamp." He notes in observational tones. The finger is dropped, "Bout a year ago, I would 'ave killed you for that." Lurching forward, his hand goes to seize at Deckard's wrist. "Aren't you 'appy 'ow much your life 'as improved since then? Look. The two of us." He motions to himself then to Gabriel. "We're not torturing you."
"That's something to be thankful for, Flint." A wicked grin spreads on Ethan's scarred features. "Heal me. I'll even give you a ride back."
Deckard's teeth sliver out to bare at the implication that he can be made to do anything, eyes cold enough to burn in their lash across the room after Gabriel's input. He's looking snarlier by the second, actually, hackles bristling more under the influence of both of them than he probably could've managed with either of them alone. It's highly possible that the fall of Deckard's right hand towards his belt was in search of the gun living there, but the world will never know because Ethan's fucking hand gets there first.
There's a fizzling pulse of muddy warmth through Holden's veins, pleasant if somewhat unsanitary when his grip locks around Flint's bony wrist, but that's all he gets. The non-existent nozzle twists itself off before any real healing could be done and he's already testing his bounds in trying to jerk his arm back under his own jurisdiction. "If you were willing to drive you could have come to my place you limey cocksucker."
"He can barely stand upright," Gabriel snaps across the room, his feet finding the creaky wooden floor in a wolfish pace back and forth. What little light is struggling through the grimy windows reflects readily off his pallid features offset as they are by darkness of hair, eyes, brows, and the smattering of stubble on his cheeks, jaw, throat. Such extremes don't help the scowl he's now wearing. He didn't just go do all of that for nothing.
A pause, and then; "Ethan. Back off."
"The point is, my good doctor, that I can't drive now. After you heal me. Well that certainly gives me more options." Ethan growls, his eyes flickering to Gabriel. "I thought 'e came 'ere to 'eal me." His hand remains on Deckard's wrist, his lips pulling back to reveal a little snarl when the 'nozzle' is capped off. "So 'eal."
Deckard stands in surly silence, shoulders and spine seized up with coiled tension while he continues to apply steady awayward pressure to the grip Ethan has on his arm. To little avail, obviously, but it's the sentiment that counts. Ethan doesn't back off. Flint doesn't heal, too busy focusing all of his energy into a filthy look for Gabriel's imminent arrival.
Log doomed to remaining unfinished forever. Later this evening there was an HF attack called in on a local Safehouse and Deckard was forced to heal Ethan so that he could leave to see to that.