Participants:
| Scene Title | Heal'em While They're Down |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Then give them a kick in the nads to remember you by. |
| Date | January 19, 2009 |
Lots of headstones.
It's cold. There is ice, and wind, and snow. The ground is too hard to dig into with just two arms and a shovel, so. Deckard isn't digging. He's sitting on the thick slab of a gravestone and smoking under under the moon-cast shadow of Jesus, who is as serenely unhelpful as ever despite the chill burning at Flint's ears. The marker beside him occupied by a brown-bagged bottle of whiskey.
Crunching snow might herald the blonde, who's carrying some silk flowers in a plastic vase. She knows that hulking form that's smoking, even if she doesn't have x-ray vision to recognize bones. "No grave robbing today?" Called out to the man. The flowers tucked under her arm as she diverts her path to bring her more towards Deckard.
The fact that he isn't digging currently doesn't mean that he didn't try. The grip of his shovel is balanced sturdily at Jesus's sandaled feet a few feet away at the next grave over, the proud owner of that particular grave having been treated to a few futile jabs at the icy crust that's hardened over them. Then there's Abigail. Like one of those goddamn oxpecker birds that picks and picks and picks until they run out of bugs and start drinking blood instead.
Deckard's brows lift over the black of his sunglasses at his own attempt at simile. Kind of harsh. He doesn't answer, anyway. Just sits up a little straighter in the off chance she's come to throw herself at his glass-clawed face again.
"Still an asshole. I see. Take care. You know where to find me if you want me. Or need yourself taken care of in that non-hooker way. Though, that one the other day, she was very pretty so I can see why you go to her" Abigails warm in her jacket, Scooter helmet dangling in the non plant bearing hand.
"What fun is it if the 'non-hooker' way is my only option?" Nose rankled against the recurrent implication that his sister turns tricks for a living, moreso in the absence of her than he was in her actual presence, Deckard is inclined to be defensive. Voice dropped to an irritable mutter, he breathes out, smoke mingling through the damp fog of his breath before he's compelled to tack on: "She's not a hooker."
'Really? Because last I knew the only women who tolerate your presence was those who street walk, and myself, though the latter of late seems to be not tolerated much anymore" Abby stops, circling in spot to face Deckard. "On that as well, Why won't you let me fix your face Deckard? Is it because you want scars? I can stop just before those heal over. Or are you just trying to torture yourself?" The silk flowers are shifting to sit on her hip.
It's hard to say where exactly Magnes came from, or when he entered the cemetery, but he appears to be rolling down a salted path, from some dark area where anything could be! He's wearing his small chef's hat, contacts in, red Robin hoody on, and doesn't seem to have noticed the other two, but he's easily noticeable.
No reply on the first account, despite the open swing of Deckard's scruffy jaw. It bites closed again before he can spit anything out at her. It's a sore point, maybe. Particularly lately. Particularly particularly with the addition of booze and a really cold gravestone under his butt. "It's because I don't care, and you care so much you can't stand it. Not because it hurts, but because you can't work your voodoo magic and fix it for me. Well…fuck you. You can't fix everything. I already said that." He leans to reach for his brown bag, brow knit over at the assortment of bones that comprises Magnes not all that far away. "I said it at least twice last time."
"You won't let me fix it. Or have you forgotten I tried already, with your not hooker present. I kinda remember the guns pointed at me and her. sot he whole I can't fix it theory is bunk. I can still do it" her back is to Magnes, so she can't see him skating. "But your right, I can't stand it. I can do something about it and your not letting me. I'm not going to be around forever soon, so just let me do it. Then you can go drink and celebrate that"
Magnes hears people talking, then vaguely recognizes Deckard (Who wouldn't?), but can't quite place the blonde from this angle. He has no idea Deckard has spotted him, so he puts his red hood up and crouches down, beginning to approach behind tombstones. "Please don't wake up, please don't wake up…" he whispers to… someone, over and over.
"No." It's dickish in its simplicity, and followed up by a 'cheers'esque lift of his brown-bagged booze that makes it even more so once Deckard has righted himself again. "I have white blood cells and platelets and stitches and antibiotics. And painkillers." Which go great with the bottle in his hand, no doubt. There's a slosh when he tips the whiskey back to drink, and another one when he lowers it, dark glasses and furrowed brow tracing dimly after Magnes's baffling progress across the cemetery. That kid is kind of strange in the head.
"Fine" Abby murmurs, turning away from him, trudging off through the snow towards wherever she was headed, flowers shifted again.
Magnes gets close pretty fast, and just as Abby turns away and he recognizes her voice, he stands up straight from behind a gravestone, which may be a bit… alarming. "Abby! What are you doing with that guy? He's dangerous!" he says with a worried tone, looking past her to Deckard. "He shoots people. It's lucky I had to deliver a pizza to the grave keeper…"
"He's right," Deckard calls helpfully, voice raised a notch or two more than is strictly necessary to reach the pair of them. "I'm a dangerous fugitive from juh—juhh…" He sneezes.
"He woulda shot me five times over Magnes. He's just being stupid. Careful, he robs graves" Abby doesn't seem the least bit worried about Deckard hurting her. "Besides, he knows if he hurts me, he's in deep shit from a bunch of people" She's firm in that knowledge. "So no Magnes, you don't need to go protecting me. He's just a drunken fool who doesn't know better"
"Yeah well…" Magnes stands up perfectly straight, taking a deep breath while trying to appear intimidating… failing rather badly. "You just remember that I know Gunkata, and I can use my power to do Matrix Kung Fu. You may not believe me, but before you even think about hurting Abby, you should ask yourself one question: Do you feel lucky?" Yes, his best attempt at intimidation as a large mass of nerdiness.
Nobody takes Deckard seriously. And that like, totally hurts his feelings. While Abby talks and Magnes threatens to cave his head in with kung fu, he passes his whiskey from right hand to left, so as to have the right free enough to dig around under the lapel of his overcoat. When he finally manages to fumble out his revolver, he nearly drops it, cold and alcohol-numbed fingers having a hard time with the hammer. He gets it back on his second try, with the silver gun's business end pointed hazily at the pair of them. "Do you?"
"Oh come on Deckard. Put it away. Seriously. Magnes, unpuff the chest. I don't want to be healing bullet wounds because he's too drunk and accidentally pulls the trigger" There's a note of warning in the blonde's voice. A don't you even think about it tone. She stalks back toward Magnes to put herself between him and the gun. "Put it away Deckard"
Magnes doesn't even give it a second thought, he reaches out to grab Abby and try to pull her behind a large gravestone. "Put the gun away or I'll use my gravity powers to do something bad! Think about gravity for a minute, it can do a lot of bad stuff, so put the gun away!" he negotiates, whether Abby comes behind the stone or not.
"Or what? You'll heal me against my will again?" Even with his eyes screened black behind his glasses, cynicism at both of their expenses is written out harsh and clear in the hollow of his jaw and the hood of Deckard's brow. The instant there's a scramble for the gravestone, he stiffens his shoulder, and — bang. There's suddenly a hole an inch off center in Magnes's chef hat.
Abby jumps at the gunshot, in the process of being dragged behind the stone. The silk plant white knuckled in her grasp, she looks over to Magnes, looking for blood. But there's none, just that hole "You son of a BITCH!" The blonde hair whipping in an arc as her gaze goes from Magnes to Deckard. The silk flowerpot goes sailing over at him not a moment later, they're close enough that she doesn't need to aim that badly. Flower pot to head incoming in 5..4…3…
Magnes yelps loudly, closing his eyes tight, but when he's still alive, he figures the bullet simply missed. He hasn't realized the thing went right through his hat. "W-what the hell are you doing?!" he calls out to Deckard, then when Abby throws the pot he tries to pull her back down. "Come on, I can get us out of here fast, just hold on…"
The chuckle that rasps from Deckard's perch is not a nice one, but it so rarely is. But hey. When you're Flint Deckard, every smile counts.
His thumb is already on its way back to the hammer when the flower pot catches him full on in the face. There's the shatter of pottery, an absence of cursing that can only be borne of abject surprise such as this, and an instant later, the heavy crunch and thump that is him falling backwards off the gravestone.
"No" Abby pulls herself away from Magnes. "Not yet" A prayer murmured in her mind, already plotting what to do. "You STUPID ARROGANT SON OF A BITCH. You SHOOT at him. At his hat! You want to piss me off Deckard, then you've done it" She's striding to the stone, and around it, looking to see if he's awake, or whether he's out.
Magnes quickly peeks over the grave stone, then when Deckard is down, he runs over to the downed man, and reaches to take his gun. He stands at it, holding it with two fingers as if it were poison. "Oh god oh god oh god…" he repeats, then quickly releases it and jumps back. Who knows what it was that caused this to happen, but the gun doesn't fall, it just stays there, floating in the air. "He tried to kill me again…"
Deckard is conscious, even if he'd rather not be. His nose seems to be bleeding, dark against the grizzled grain of ungroomed stubble beneath it. Also, one of the older cuts has opened back up, along with a couple of new (albeit smaller) ones to boot. His glasses are broken. Again. He also seems to be covered in whiskey, now — a fact confirmed by the fact that his lift arm drips the stuff soggily onto his chest when he lifts it. The gun is relenquished without a struggle, and he barely manages a wince against Abby's shouting. So loud. Jesus.
There's a hand coming toward Deckards face, though it's not a fist, he should be thankful. She's going to take advantage of him being disoriented. Down she sits, not caring that he's got alcohol all over him, right plop on his chest without so much as a how do you do, feet spread to give herself leverage in case he tries to buck her off. One hand snatches up his hand, the other going for his neck and jaw. The moment skin to skin hit, so does the warmth and the tingling, full force. "You shot at my FRIEND. You shot. why? to prove that your some badass? That you have a gun and are willing to wreak havoc with it. But you didn't shoo thim, you shot his hat. Such a prick!"
Magnes just stands there, utterly shocked, then when she mentions his hat, he removes it and stares at the hole, quickly dropping it. The hat actually hits the ground, but he's in quite a bit of shock at how close he just possibly came to dying, watching the slowly rotating gun in front of him. "He tried to kill me…"
The great huff of breath that Abby's choice of seating arrangements forces out of Deckard's lungs is tainted acrid with alcohol, to be followed shortly by a muffled 'get off' style grunt. He's fairly out of it, snow clinging in irregular clumps to the dusty curl of his hair when he tries to turn his head enough to squint after the drop of Magnes's hat. His sunglasses are still in place enough to mask the glow of his eyes, so that's something, at least.
With the healing going at full force and everything, it doesn't take him all that long to regain his wits. Skin cold and neckbeard bristled under her grip, teeth bared, he tries to — hghh. "Fucking fuck, Abigail—" What is there to try to do? She's sitting on him. And holding his hand. It's hard to breathe, and he's still drunk, but eventually he figures out that he can sort of try to twist…her wrist… "How much do you weigh?"
"You don't ask a woman her weight!" She wrenches his wrist the opposite way that he's trying to turn her wrist and bounces a bit on his chest. "One Hundred and Twenty Eight pounds of bible thumping blonde goodness. Sitting on your chest, when I could have been ironing your shirts and bringing you whiskey, but no, no. YOU Deckard, go and shoot at my friend. Soo, one more moment… there we go. Your healed" one more bounce, a creak of ribs that will only protest, not crack or bruise, and the blonde is heaving herself up, grabbing the gun once she lets go of Deckards hand and touching magnes. "Lets go. Teo can give you back your gun. Because I wouldn't put it past you to take potshots for revenge"
"Huh?" Magnes is suddenly snapped out of it, and Abby will notice the gun is completely without weight, though that'll wear off in about twenty minutes or so. "Oh, yeah, let's go…" he agrees in a whisper, following Abby and not saying a word to Deckard, or even looking at him.
"Bible thumping HhFf—" says Deckard. She doesn't weigh that much but Christ, the bouncing on his diaphragm. Eyes squeezed shut for the rest of the duration of the Abby-on-top predicament, his first move upon being free again is to throw his left arm off his chest and off to the side in the hope that it may soon regain feeling. His second move is to do nothing. He just lies there, one leg still propped up at an angle against the gravestone's back. "Next time you want to bounce around on top of me have a little patience and I'll see if I can't get my dick involved somehow. Bitch."
"Guess i'll have to break your heart Deckard. Don't shoot at my friends, ever again" There's a glance to Magnes before the blonde heads off, and quickly, scooping up her helmet. "lets get going"
"Wait." Magnes says to Abby after Deckard gets his last words in, a look of anger suddenly coming across his face. He starts to walk back, all fear replaced with fury. "You watch your fucking mouth! Don't you /ever/ talk to her like that again!" Then, at the word 'ever', he sends a swift kick aimed straight at Deckard's nuts.
"Who said anything about my heart?" Mutter like mud over gravel, Deckard reaches blindly for the solid form of his whiskey bottle on top of the snow. He doesn't notice that Magnes is making a return until it's too late. He lifts his head, his brow furrows, and a swallow bobs at his Adam's apple. Then there is a foot in his groin. Whatever he was going to say is cut off into a choke and a reflexive roll and curl over onto his side. Holy. Shit.
"Magnes! Don't!" She tugs on his arm, draw him backwards. 'No, never there. Let him say what he wants, he's bitter, but never between a mans legs. That's just Low!" The blonde hisses. "Does ANYONE have any manners when it comes to fighting?" She stops tugging though, her phone brought out and dialed, A message left for Teodoro Laudani to come fetch his favourite fugitive from the law as she stalks away from Deckard and the cemetery as well as where to find Deckards gun.
"I'm sorry, it's just… He just shot at me, then he talks to you like a whore. I don't think I've ever hit anyone before…" Magnes sighs and shakes his head, then he follows Abby again, this time not turning back around. "I'm sorry."
No, that sorry wasn't to Deckard.
 January 19th: Everyone Has Limits |
 January 19th: Call Me With A Drop Of Faith |