Participants:
| Scene Title | I Don't Belong Here |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Deckard is a little out of sorts while he sleeps, not where he normally ends up. Which is Abigail's bedroom in Lousiana. Abigail promises to take him to Hokuto when things don't turn out so "nicely" and they both spend the rest of the time they're sleeping in the real world, at opposite ends of the bedroom and not talking. Nothing can hurt them in here, but themselves. |
| Date | July 3, 2009 |
In Dreams
Whatever Hokuto did, she did. It's a spring day through the walls and outside the small white house. The cream colored hallways with classic cross stitching bible sayings, Gold crosses that are simple in their design above the bedroom doors. The white door that Deckard knocks on that is foreign and strange to him. Not to the occupant on the other side.
Hokuto said it was up to her to let him in. There's no green eyed men here, no lightening wielding men. Just the sound of someone in the kitchen somewhere in the house, chopping wood outside, and cicada's singing their songs that filter through the home. The doorknob turns under her hand, very much real feeling to Abigail as with a stubborn stiffness that she's known all her childhood that WD-40 can't seem to touch, she opens it. Between then and now, the gauntness is gone and replaced with Abigail that should be, not that was, looking up at Flint unspeaking.
Deckard doesn't belong here.
One eye rings bioluminescent blue through the murk on the open door's opposite side, the other shadowed pale beneath the hood of his brow. He's damp. Hair plastered and curled dark to his skull, grime smeared coarse beneath the seawater sheen that marks the hard angles of his long face. The brown leather of his jacket clings, sketches — flickers into something else. The singed grey of a suit fluctuates faulty and distorted across his lean frame, ashen across one sleeve, tie knotted neatly at his throat so briefly it may never have been there at all. Lines don't match up. There's no pattern or predictability, finger bones bleached and exposed electric blue beneath ghostly muscle one instant, quick and irregular as a lightning flash before the same effect has overtaken one leg from the knee down. Inmate orange jags at his collar, slices at a pocket.
He looks like a graphical error in the system, unsure how to represent itself or devoid of a consistent self to represent, all slivered, broken pieces and rickety motion for all that he's standing oddly still. His mismatched eyes don't blink, zeroing in upon Abby at a remove before they veer to take in the unfamiliar room behind her. This is weird, even for him.
There's no teddy bears. There's also no multitude of crosses. It's just a bedroom of any young woman that is frozen in time the day they leave home. Green quilt with leaf designs on it. Pillows, sheer curtains, Ivy painted along the ceiling. A white worn desk and chair, dressed, closet with a mirror on it. Simple. Plain. Un-embellish. "You're safe here" Abby offers up to him, looking put together here, as opposed to before the door opened. A blue sundress that hit her knee's, tied at her shoulders. "She promised" And like Hokuto did, the incarnation of her that came into her nightmares, Abby offers her hand out to. "My home. My room. My.. " She looks over shoulder. "Sanctuary"
Breath furled tangible through his sinuses to fog against cold that clings close to his person, Flint lingers on the threshold like a dog that isn't used to being allowed indoors. Reassurances are met with suspicion; the offer of her hand is mirrored by a twitch through his own, cooling blood webbed in mucousy strings between his fingers only to trickle back into the drip, drip, drip of dirty seawater pattering damp from his sleeve to his feet before it can spread. "I've never seen your room."
"No ones seen it. It's back in Louisiana. Dah's chopping wood, momma's baking. I guess" Fingers entwine with his, not caring about what's dripping. Nothing is going to stain here. "You're dreaming Flint. I'm dreaming. Someone.. pulled us from our nightmares and… is giving up reprieve" Inwards she tugs him so that he's in, really in. The doors left open so that the sounds and smells can keep filtering in from the rest of the house. "She told me to share it with you"
There's a visible ripple against the touch and tug, unease shuddering from toes to noes in a rapid-fire fracture of cloth to leather to bone, damp to dry and back again. A rubik's cube churning color to color in fast forward while the light in her room dulls his lambent eye to match the left, bruising passing through the socket like a shadow. "I don't dream about Louisiana."
"But I do. When I'm not dreaming of Staten Island" Apparently. "you're safe here Flint. She promised me. You're.. with me, in my head, my dream, I think. It seems to be her ability, her gift. Something to do with dreams. She said she was bringing me to you, you to me." There's another tug, gentle, insistent. "Reprieve from self torture"
Steeped in the stench of smoke and wet asphalt and stale whiskey, Deckard smells like the sidewalk outside of a bar even in his sleep. Ribs flicker empty and fluorescent across his chest, sternum and clavicles arced over the stack of his spine beneath the bare of teeth naked in his skull. It's an unsettling effect for all that it doesn't seem to register with him, and there's leather at his lapels again in time for him to brush his free hand lightly over them when he turns his scruffy head enough to squint at the open window.
"You keep flickering" Abby points out even as he's looking out the window. Woods. Trees. Grass. There's a wood swing set, even a tree fort perched in a tree with steps secured to it's trunk to let someone climb up and seek another kind of sanctuary. There's a man off by a shed who swings his arm back, lets it hang there before it comes back down onto a round of wood, splitting it down the middle. The shape and size familiar to Deckard but faintly blurry. A beautiful late spring afternoon bringing the smell of the country through the window on the gentle breeze that stirs the sheer curtains. "You can change your clothes. Something clean, something you like. I think you just need to think about it" Heck, she'd think about it but she doesn't want to impose on him. Not when Hokuto has brought him here.
You keep flickering. The unconscious movement about Deckard slows as if unsure, change over change muddying translucent only to pick up again as before, cracks and fissures in his makeup cycling back to an epicenter under his chest. He turns his head to look back at her, confusion dull in his eyes, irises washed more white than blue. "It doesn't work that way." What doesn't? It, apparently. He's quiet again then, watching her the way he would watch a midget that he woke up in the middle of night to find sitting on his chest. "Why am I here?"
"She says you're my strength. That nothing can hurt me with you. Can hurt me here" Across the room she slips, easing down onto the side of the twin bed, weight disturbing the green fabric and looking out the window herself. "You're my strength and I'm yours. Together nothing can hurt us here"
Too polite to let skepticism write its way harsh into the lines around his eyes the way it clearly wants to, Deckard is resigned to standing where he is like a broken hologram, at an awkward remove when Abby moves off to sit on the bed. Who is she? A slow drawn breath sends another cycle of change stirring down the long bones in his arms and elsewhere, disjointed and disorganized. If it doesn't feel like guaranteed safety here to him, it doesn't feel bad either. So much so that he seems more inclined to stay quiet than he is to say anything that could screw it up.
"What did she pull you away from?" As in real life, outside the confines of their subconscious? Conscious? Something, she still talks, more out of nervousness. There's a gentle run of her hand across the green of the quilt, an obvious offer for him to come sit, beside her even, if he wants it.
Deckard shakes his head — vague dismissal of the idea that he should try to go into it. He was asleep as well. Still is? Who knows. Whatever was going on there is probably better off left undescribed and unimagined. "It's better here," is all he's willing to say, one shoulder shrugged up out of his slope.
The invitation to sit is noted with an indirect glance. One that he's slow to follow up on, orange spreading conspicuously crisp around the slant of his shoulders and down his back when he finally moves in her direction, ink over a canvas until it's dipped back into less offensive water-stained leather. He sinks down next to her as if stiff at the knees and back, not close enough to touch.
"It's always better here. Home is always better. Maybe i'll take you here some day, for real. Get you away from the city, where people know you and don't give you the benefit of the doubt" Where no one knows who he is. Save her parents. Across the divide between them is her hand, back of palm pressed to the comforter, wide open and waiting for his hand. Oh so casually. "She brought me here, before Logan could show up. Or Tyler, Kazimir, someone. Before they could do what they always do"
"Somehow I don't think your parents would be thrilled to see me." Voice dust over crushed rock, Deckard looks to her hand, then his, slick with gore. No telling if it's his or someone else's, but he waits until it fractures back away to expose the dry rough of his palm before he lets it fall over hers.
"My parents can suck it up. I'm a grown woman" Her own voice more relaxed here, not the pained one he'd heard the last few days. "It's my life. They don't have to like it" Her fingers curl up, insinuating themselves between his, her thumb stroking along the side of his. "You like it here though?" She tears her gaze away from him and back to the window. Sounds like her mothers headed outside, and is talking with her mother. The Cicada's still sing and neither of them are disturbed by anyone, anything.
"You can't even buy your own liquor," Flint counters, lacking the energy to actually be argumentative on the subject while they're sitting around in Louisiana holding hands. It's surreal. Like, literally surreal. Because it's a dream. His hand fades from warm and dry to cold and wet to warm and wet, back and forth with a sluggish kind of unpredictability. The electric flicker and distortion about the rest of him has slowed as well, bone showing blue-white through his neck for no readily apparent reason. "Sure."
"You can relax. No ones coming for you here Flint. You can leave, if you want. I don't know whether you can get back again, next time you sleep, but you can relax. My parents won't be coming in. They'll never be coming in here. It's my room, it's my sanctuary" Her one hand squeezes the ever changing one, holding tight, turning to face the older man. Everything seems real, to her. not surreal. "You can see through things in your dreams still. I can heal still" Her free hand comes to rest on the part of his neck that's displaying the outline of bone through flesh, calling on her ability that she's lost in the real world, to try and turn his neck, his flesh and bones beneath to how it should be.
"I am relaxed." As relaxed as he's likely to get within the confines of a room he doesn't know in a state he doesn't know because a mysterious unnamed female decided he might need to be here. Leaving is an option, though. Deckard looks to the open door, whiskey breath warm on her wrist in sharp contrast with the clammy chill of invisible skin when she gets touchy and he turns back to peer at her again. Flesh and bristled stubble creep out over exposed spine, only for the same transparency to take hold through the brace of his boot when he dips his jaw enough to brush a kiss against her arm.
"Would you keep flickering like you do?" When his head dips down to lay that kiss, her face moves forward, to tip her forehead against his, trap him there. "Lay back with me? Stare at the ceiling? Tell me where you sanctuary is? Your safe place inside you" There's another tug. "Just enjoy the breeze. the quiet, while we can get it. No pimps with shotguns, or moving corpses. Just.. us and no danger, or people trying to kill us, take our gifts away. I don't know how much we'll remember in the morning.. so.. "
"I dunno." His mind is on other things. Clearly, what, with the way he tips his long face forward past the touch of her forehead to kiss at her neck, teeth clipping bare after a dry, sandpapery scuff of stubble. The tug is met with a lean, more of his weight into hers. Daddy's home and the door's open, but she's already said no one's coming in here. "I don't think there is one."
Turn the head, just a fraction, eyes widening that same fraction then closing. A kiss is not a contract, not a commitment. A kiss is a kiss is a kiss the same as a cigar is just a cigar.
She tugs him over though once he's started, the bed oddly fitting the both of them even though she's quick to maneuver onto her side. "Be nice. Don't make me slap you" Quiet, soft threat to him even as she still cups his neck with her hand and makes room atop the green quilt. "Sanctuary. Childhood bedroom. That part of you needs to still be.. reigned in. Sorta. Somewhat" She's talking too much again. "Just hold me?"
Deckard's breath fogs thick at that, smoke turning end over end on the leading edge of a sigh when he pulls his head back. Both eyes burn bright beneath the hood of his brow, frustration creased into the fuzzy lines around his mouth when he looks at her, then around at the window. It takes him longer than it probably should for him to agree, but a bend in his elbow sees him slowly over onto his back next to her. No holding, but no more molesting either. Bed springs creak, the neatly pressed creases of a soot-blackened suit edge out sodden leather and supernatural sight.
"You can still kiss. or.. you know" No she doesn't. But once he's laying down, there she is. Pressed along his side, one blue cambric draped leg over top of his and her head settled onto the crook of chest and shoulder. One arm carefully snaking across his chest and holding tight. An image that in the Bright Future was common. here, it's hesitant, unsure of whether he'd welcome the more chaste movements. "You okay?" Spoke quietly after she shifts up enough to place a kiss on the stubbly jaw.
"Yeah." Blood sinks in against her through the side of his suit coat, comfortably warm at first, then colder. When she grasps at him the line of his jaw angles automatically away from the kiss that follows, rigidly uncomfortable. Quiet. Sketchy dissonance continues on its own without easily comprehensible rhyme or reason, long bones blending and overlapping to make him look about as huggable as a brush pile rigged full of pulsing translucent viscera.
"You're doing that in purpose. You're upset with me" Cicada's stop singing, stop making any noise at all. SHe doesn't look up at him anymore, instead towards the window.
"I don't do anything on purpose anymore." Things just happen. A skeletal hand is flexed and turned over, still more familiar to him than the look of it the other way around. Doesn't stop a staticy flicker from redefining it as flesh bound again before he can let it fall back to his side.
"I asked you to be nice, and you went from kissing my neck, to barely wanting to touch me and pulling away. Then you start bleeding, I think you're bleeding. Flint, here you can be.." you can be whatever you want. But she shuts up, shuts up and closes her eyes and turns to lay on her back, back of her head still on his arm. "we can be what ever" Murmured. "We can be safe"
Slatted ribs rise and fall beneath a jaggedy application of grey and then brown, easy for all the tension hard-wired into his neck and through his jaw. "I'm not bleeding."
Abigail doesn't say anything in return. IF it wasn't blood then what else was coming from him. Was it alcohol? The cicada's still don't return to their song, but little else changes. her hand hands on her abdomen, bare feet pointed towards the one corner of the bed and looking up. "I'll bring you to her. If you want. You can tell her not to do this again. She thought it would help. She saw you in my heart. You place in my heart"
Brows lifted at everything, including God if he's a big enough asshole to be listening, Deckard stares blandly up at the ceiling while she talks and he listens. Sort of. One ear is turned to the persistent quiet of the non-existent insects that occupy the fields beyond this room. For the most part he's quiet, falling back on his initial plan to keep things that way.
She takes that as a yes. Yes please. Do that. The cicada's start up again, slowly gaining decibels till they are as they were. Abigail carefully slips a hand into his, or at least tries to, seeking out his palm with hers and just entwining fingers again around his. She'll have to tell Hokuto that it didn't work. "You don't want to be here"
"I don't want to be me." Succinct in the truth, Deckard slants a half-smile over at her across the quilt, only briefly allowing an entanglement of their fingers before he lifts himself up into a sit, takes a breath, and sets to shuffling himself off the bed and back onto his feet.
"Then be what you want to be here. For however long you're alseep Flint. Just… Be. I'll still feel for you, I don't give a flying.. hippo's behind that you don't want to be yourself. Just be whatever makes you happier" She's resistant to untangling her fingers from him, doesn't want him to go, but if he tugs away hard enough, they'll come loose.
"You'll be fine." Probably. Deckard's eyes lift back to the window, the ceiling, the entirety of the room as preserved by her memory, safe and sound. He's still disengaging, bony fingers sinking conveniently intangible to free themselves from her grasp so that he can trail away unhindered. Back to a suit again, faded threadbare around the joints and stained dark at the sleeves, he's careful to focus on the decor rather than Abigail on his way for the door.
"Don't go. I won't be. I'm afraid if you leave I'll be back in the shipping container on Staten Island. you don't have to sit on the bed, you don't have to do anything but just be here. Please. Till you wake up, till I wake up. Till something" Impossibly small as she turns onto her side, slightly curled up and watching him.
"Please. For me"
Guilt fits better into the natural lines etched in around Flint's face than it looks like it should, all the way down into the loose skin that bunches at tuck of his jaw against his neck when he tips his chin down at the open door just in front of him. So close.
He doesn't have to turn to know she's curled up on the bed. He can hear it in her voice or feel it or — something. Much as she might like to think it does, not everything makes sense here.
Finally, with an air of rigid reluctance, he turns his shoulder into the wall next to the door and slides himself down into a sit on the foor, legs bent out ahead of him spider-like under blue jeans streaked with things no common washing machine is going to get rid of.
And she feels bad for that Guilt in his movements. "Thank you Flint" Sorry for having you stay. That goes unsaid. Sorry for not wanting you to go back to your own hell where you're bleeding and strange. "I'll.. take you to her" And with that, she's silent, for once. Enjoy it while you can. She's pretty sure that Hokuto wasn't imagining this when she had him knock on the door.
A tip of Deckard's head fails to achieve any real 'you're welcome' kind of connotation. It's just a tip. A loll of acknowledgment. Then he too is silent and mostly still, condemned to whatever happens when she inevitably wakes up first.