Participants:
| Scene Title | Healer For Sale Or Rent |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Wu-Long needs to borrow Abby to fix Eileen. Juuust for a couple of hours. She agrees. What's the worst that could happen while God is watching? |
| Date | January 4, 2008 |
Old Lucy's has a vibrant and lively feel to it, from the dark wooden floors to the shady crimson walls lit up by neon lights and many times, the flashing of cameras from the oft-crowded floor. The mirror behind the bar reflects prices of various drinks, bottles lined up, as well as the entire saloon as seen from the bartenders; bolted-down stools line the other side, and there are loose tables and chairs placed all around, though many times they find themselves pushed back for more space within the center of the saloon. A few speakers are placed at strategic places and around a raised stage to the far corner from the bar. Above the counter, an obviously well-used bar is hung; it is this that the girls working will use should there be dancing, which is one reason many patrons choose to come aside from the drinks. Across the bar and near the back, there is a door that leads to the owner's office and just inside a stairwell that leads a apartment on the floor above the bar.
Deckard is looking dapper. Also, slightly drunk. This isn't the first bar he's been to tonight, but it is the most familiar — such that he doesn't actually have to look up to find a hook to drop his overcoat onto near the door. The suit beneath that hasn't suffered from whatever he's been up to thus far. It's a middling shade of ashen grey, lapels and light blue collar almost straight enough to compensate for the absence of a tie.
Feeling perhaps a little conspicuous, or at least slightly over-dressed, he hesitates at the door to go about the dull process of roughing a hand over his head and unbuttoning his collar. Because that's so going to help a forty-year-old dude in a business suit blend in at Old Lucy's.
She'd been in earlier and forgot her key's. She doesn't know and can't rely on one of the two guys to be home. So as Deckard is making himself comfortable, Abigail is coming out of the backroom. One arm in the sleeve of her jacket, the other tucked under and in the sling. Keys are gripped in hand and purse over good shoulder. The clinks coming from it denote it's usual ration of redbull can's. She's got a few days off, courtesy of Isabelle and the pyro's complete understanding. Evolved bosses are much nicer than non evolved diner boss's.
The blonde stops though when the sight of Deckard pops into view. "I still have to do your shirts…"
"Heeey…" says Deckard, who trails off there to squint at her. He did expect to see Abigail here, but did not expect to see her here off duty and wearing a sling. The blood alcohol level he's already achieved means that it takes him a few extra seconds to do the math on that. Once he finally has, he tilts his head, eyes pale in their puzzled study of the damage before they flicker back to Abby's face. "I've been having them dry cleaned."
"And I've been busy. Sorry." The blonde shoves her keys in her pocket and with one hand starts to pour herself a cola. "I'll.. get around to them. i'm sorry. I have a few days off, I'll drop by and take care of your pants at least, and what isn't being dry cleaned" liiiie, they're not being dry cleaned. Deckard doesn't seem the kind of guy to go take his suits in. But she comes around the bar and settles beside him easily enough. "Friendly Fire."
A versatile material, leather can be either dressed up or dressed down. Wu-Long tends to dress the same, the long panels of his coat framing his button-down shirt and slacks over combat boots with enough finish to avoid the obvious conclusion of steel-tipped toes, his colors not monochrome but a far more inconspicuous generalization of dark. He bangs through Old Lucy's with a lean shoulder and effectively canvasses the barroom, its happy hour occupants, in the arc of a single glance. His boots drub a walking rhythm across the floor toward the bar, ordinary as the cadence of an analog clock.
The selects the stool beside Deckard and addresses both him and the back of the blonde girl. He raises one hand in greeting, the other far below the level of the bar enough to encourage both not to flip their shit. "Nihao."
Deckard remains dubious, as exhibited in the lines of doubt that etch in between his brows and across his forehead. Hard to tell if he's incredulous about his ironing getting done or the friendly fire thing — just that his poker face has gone all to shit. Fortunately it's taken all the tension out of his shoulders and neck with it. "If you want to take care of my pants, I'm not going to get in your way," he replies for the sake of being a dick, adding on a milder, "whatever's cheapest on tap," for the bartender, who's already busy giving him a Look. Then there's a hand blurring into his peripheral vision, some idiot waving hi, and hey. It's Wu-Long. Deckard's mouth falls open. Also, his heart stops. Except not literally or he'd die.
"Not in that kind of wa…" Abby's in the process of replying to Deckard when lookie, there's wu-long. And look, there's a heart, jumping into her throat. If the regular bouncer was here, there's be a whole mess of emotions for her to play with and what nervousness that she feels around huruma is nothing to the abject fear that emanates from Abby. For once though, she doesn't run. She stays in her seat, knuckles white around her glass before she suddenly starts looking through the bar for his buddies.
The moment Wu-Long shows up, everybody is staring or looking away. And Elias wonders why he's constantly making a scene. To be fair, he's being less spectacular than usual, here, seated, hands inactive, features quiescent, no greater darkness than the ordinary stuff that occupies his skull here to threaten either of them. People may not change, but the situation this particular monster's found himself in has.
A little. "Eileen is hurt. Stomach wound." He states this in his most factual tone of voice, never one for elaborate games of manipulation. His eyes are on Abby, even if she won't meet his. "She needs your help." His eyes click to Deckard a quaver-beat too belated for anybody to mistake who his remark had been for. A crows' feet smile: the demon invites the Devil's advocate. Don't go, Abby. Don't go there.
Likely matching Abby per ounce of terror, Deckard eventually inhales as if to say something, but doesn't. One hand of his hands is on the bar, the other is on his knee. If a train leaves from his knee to his jacket and another train leaves —
He's eyeing Wu-Long all the while, slack-jawed, trying to decide, and trying to come up with alternate options that end in ways where he isn't dead. Ones where Abigail isn't dead are also good. Unfortunately he comes up with neither.
"Why don't you bring her here?"
She notices, it's she needs your help. Not I need your help. Abby ceases looking around when she doesn't immediately see Sylar, or Elias, her blue gaze going back to Wu-long. The wheels in her mind turning as Deckard asks his question. "I have conditions" She's the one with power, sorta. It went well enough with Niki. "First and foremost. You protect me from Sylar, and anyone else who tries to hurt me. I can't help if my skull's popped off like an egg shell" Takes every single ounce of courage for her to relax her grip on her cup and bring the soda to her lips and take a swallow. "Second. You let me go, the moment I'm ready to go and fulfilled my promise to her. Not in the middle of some crack den, but just outside work here, unharmed, in the condition that I went with you. Third" The glass is put down and she still keeps his eyes. oh the nerve of the religious whelp. "Third. You all stop looking for Mike here. Is her life worth leaving him alone?"
The mercenary's eyes crinkle further, Abby's reflected portrait shrinking, darkening, flattening out as he does so, as if he's crushing her little frame between his eyelids. Wu-Long's eyes are that dark. It's ethnic. He dignifies Deckard's suggestion with a polite monosyllable: "No." He will have to hope that no qualifications are necessary, as the woman is starting her piece, now. And it's a long one. Conditions. They aren't entirely unreasonable ones, a fact that he appreciates on a clinical level. "I will protect you until you until tomorrow.
"You can threaten Sylar when you are there, if you want more time. I will fight him for you any time before then." His gaze roves the room once after Abby's is finished with its circuit. "I'll bring you back when you are done." The arc of his glance ends with a simple nod, polite, crisp. He can almost hear Deckard's groan from here. "Bu yaojin. Don't worry: we aren't looking for Flint anymore." In fact, Wu-Long stopped all of seven hours ago. When he started hunting Abigail Beauchamp, more or less. "If we have new reasons, we will look again.
"Until then, please enjoy." There's an inclination of his head, the cultural legacy of a man Confucian born and bred. There's as little evidence that he's trying to be difficult as there is that he feels impatient, with the bird girl's life hanging in the balance. Hard to say whether that is open honesty, design, or what would be worse.
Wu-Long says no. Ok. Deckard ducks his head a little, an unconscious change in posture that's accompanied by a fall of his eyes to the bar a beat later. When he looks up again, it's to his opposite side, and Abigail. It's a bad idea, don't do it, you dying is just as stupid as her dying, and so on. There's a pleading aspect to it as well. Don't do this while I could do something to stop it. Fortunately or unfortunately, he's not telepathic, and looks can only say so much. The bartender finally clunks his beer down in front of him.
"You keep him away from me till the end of next week. I want some peace in my life for a little bit to heal without looking over my shoulder. After that, if he still so badly wants what I can do, then… There's not much I can do to stop him. I'm tired of being kidnapped, shot, punched, you name it. You started my new year off on a really bad note and that's twice that you've saddled me with hospital bills. I'm not made of money" The rest of the cola is swallowed in a series of gulps before the empty glass is pushed towards the business side of the bar. She catches Deckard's look, and just tilts her head, bumping it against his. "God's work Mike. Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" She can read the look. "She needs me. She's never done a single thing to harm me, and … god doesn't judge, not until the very end. Who am I?" well no, there's sylar. She's already judged him, and she'll bear that little black mark. "They'll have me back, before the people who need to know that I'm gone, know that i'm gone and if they don't" Well, that goes unsaid. She's either dead, or they're keeping her to use. Sometimes, you need a little faith, and Abigail Beauchamp, no matter how her knees are quaking right now, is seemingly bred and made of it. She reaches across to wu-long and offers her hand, if he agrees.
Girls whine a lot. Wu-Long would rib Deckard about this, but Flint doesn't seem so much in the mood. The Chinese man doesn't have a lot to say to the adjustment to these terms. "I have a day job." It comes with an inkling of the tone of a silly joke, but it seems kind of true: genocide takes up time, and little about the Vanguard's activities thus far would lead anyone to think they have any schedule less rigidly packed than one's average paramilitary hate group. Nevertheless, it comes accompanied too with: "I will do my best.
"If this is a trap, I will defend myself," he adds by way of disclaimer, rising from his stool. There's a knife in his hand, the one that he'd settled down below. The bar light coruscates along the edge between his fingers, and then it's gone, the blink of an eye. He takes her hand in a gunsure grip, the tiny scars wicked into the segments of his fingers bridging rough across her bird-boned knuckles. He looks at Deckard with a blank sort of expectation, waiting for any sign, a word, grimace or flinch: some No.
No. Deckard's buzz has been effectively drawn and quartered, which is par for the course, really. Abigail does not seem interested in listening to the way he's trying to knock her unconscious with his stare, so he looks back at his beer instead. "Call me crazy but I'm pretty sure God isn't holding much sway in this conversation."
He does flinch, fear and intense dislike crawling past more distinct resentment to take hold of the lines and shadows carved in around his face. But he doesn't say no, and he doesn't stand, and he doesn't reach for his gun.
"I'll be back, in two hours Deckard. I promise. I'll fall asleep at your feet and you can cart me upstairs to Isabelle's apartment" with that, and the requisite kiss to the old buzzard's cheek (old her her) "God holds more sway than you can imagine" And her hand squeezes wu-longs, sealing the deal. "The sooner I get to her, the faster I can get her out of pain" She's placing faith in the man who pinned her beneath a pew.
Perhaps the healer should have considered the nearer than remote possibility that inviting Wu-Long into her circle would give her more to work on and more to fear instead of less. On the other hand, where honor and conscience fail him, having more to do might be incentive enough for the old sociopath to make good on his side of the deal. He's grinning now, teeth showing picket perfect despite the faint color of age. Mistaking his intent, the bartender smiles back from the other end of the strip, before calling out farewell to Abigail.
"It won't be too sore, anyway," he reminds Deckard, kindly. "You heard her. She didn't push her third condition as hard as the first."
It's a perfectly ordinary stride that he takes toward the doorway. He keeps his hold on Abby's hand, companionably, even as he digs his cellphone out of his pocket with the other. Elias. We're ready for pickup in two minutes. By the time the solitary plainclothesman has stepped out of the men's room, both mercenary and healer have vanished. Deckard saw it through the glass of the door: both went dark, lights off, winked out into the cover of twilight just like that.
 January 4th: Regular Everyday Normal Guys |
 January 4th: The Scars are Merely Hidden |