In The Kindest Possible Way

Participants:

abby6_icon.gif deckard_icon.gif joseph_icon.gif

Scene Title In The Kindest Possible Way
Synopsis Joseph invites Abigail over to have a talk, only it's not his apartment and there's a third party involved.
Date May 5, 2011

Chelsea - Deckard and Bella's digs.


The apartment is a step down from the one that Joseph began with, in Greenwich Village.

It doesn't smell like dog and it's in a rougher part of town, a simple set up of furniture. The living area has a couch. And a television. Evidence of life, too, the casual fall of items like a remote control, a book. A coat over an arm. A woman and a man. The Chelsea address given to Abby is an unfamiliar one, but the man who opens the door to her — Joseph Sumter — is not. He has his shoes on but his clothing is casual and comfortable, his smile somewhat tired, small, but present and not a lie. "Thanks for stoppin' by," he says, turning his back on her and leading the way inside. One door over there is open, dark, the other closed, and he stands between her and the kitchen, with light from the afternoon warming it, spilling out through the doorway and into the lowkey room.

Very infrequently, had Abby in the past, stepped foot in Joseph's apartment. Only to get Alicia and walk her, bring food for the Pastor when he was down and afflicted by his own ability, or sending Deckard to check on him after strange phonecalls by a man named Charlie. A sweater draped over her arm, long sleeved shirt, jeans, hat and boots, She's not long in following behind him, pausing only to press the door closed, flicking the locks. This way, it'll take two seconds and not one, for someone to burst through it to arrest them, should god forbid, that happen.

"I was mainland, who am I to turn you down Pastor Sumter." She's gained back weight lost almost, traces of the illness wicked away to a bad bad memory. "I didn't know you had a place still, here. Makes me think that maybe I could do that too, for Kasha, instead of always on the island" She wipes her palm against her thigh, smoothing out denim. "How are you? I haven't had much of a chance to rightly talk with you of late. I heard about the uh, the graveyard you put up, on the island"

"It ain't a bad idea," Joseph says, of the notion of having a place out here. One that isn't Ferry. It inspires him to take a glance around, too, up towards the ceiling and then back down to her, hands pushed into sweater pockets, mouth pulling into a frown at her topic of choice. "Yeah. Well. We all knew they had to be buried and I helped pick the place. Figure it may as well be a place instead of just— a place. Kaylee told me— " Abrupt veer into new territory. "About Kasha. Her and Hannah were the only ones I knew about."

"Better than me burning them I suppose. Seems more appropriate" Not that she would have relished the idea of being a living pyre for them.

But onto different territory and less depressing ones. "She did? I guess, not really a surprise. I didn't tell her much about.. Kasha, just that, I'd had a dream, about her. That I met her already. Do.. should we sit?" Regardless of whether Joseph wants to, she's going to, take up a spot on the end of the couch, drop down her bag. "Is it weird, for you? Knowing that she's yours? That however many years down the road, she made a choice to come back and that the little girl with Caroline is… is going to be all grown up?"

"Claira. Caroline's my mom." C-names, says the vague wave of Joseph's hand. It's been a while, since they talked, and he never shared much anyway. Never went into much detail.

He doesn't sit, but does wander to lean against the opposite sofa arm, a lingering glance over his shoulder, then back at her. "It's weirder more because it don't feel as weird as it should feel. Maybe we've all seen too much, or when you're a believer, you're willin' to accept things as they are. But the dream gave me a taste of it, what it was like to be a dad've someone near grown, so it weren't so hard to…" He trails off, then, as if remembering himself, flicking a dark eyed glance for her face.

"There's probably more we should be talkin' about— " And there's a slam of a door, like punctuation — a pantry door banging shut on its hinges in a way that could be accidental, deliberate, or just careless. The rustling of things, which had been heard before, minor squeaks of steps, but could have been the neighbouring apartment for all Abby could tell — the nearer sound of the door shutting puts it into context. It comes from the kitchen, and Joseph's glance after the sound is unconcerned, unsurprised.

"I mix up the two. Sorry. C names" A flush of embarassment that she got the names wrong when she prides herself on keeping names straight. But there's sounds from the kitchen and her attention diverts that way, a questioning flash of her gaze to Joseph and raised dark brows as if to inquire who it is only much more silently. Is Kaylee there? She's pretty sure that Kaylee's not, that Kaylee would have come out to greet her if she'd been there.

And it brings her to her feet, the sweater left on the couch in her wake, unsure of whether she should really sit, or stay standing until whomever it is, decides to show themselves. "My dream, the one of Kasha, wasn't a good one. But it's one that hopefully it won't rightly come to fruition, you have other company?" She's nervous all of a sudden, worried that she came at a wrong time.

Banana in hand, peeled open, and lopped off at the end to be rolled soft and white behind the long, scruffy jut of his jaw, Deckard emerges from the kitchen barefoot in jeans and a field jacket.

And a cowboy hat.

Which.

He reaches up to remove after an uneasy beat spent sizing up Abigail on his couch while he masticates raw nanner. Blank of eye and gorilla of brow, he looks to Joseph once he's forced himself to swallow and set his hat carefully down on top of the television set. Like.

What?

Guiltily knowing what's going on but righteous enough for it not to bother him too much, Joseph rocks back on his heels absently as Deckard comes in and stares at Abby, a jolt of a shrug dismissing whatever invisible question may have been laid on him. He edges a step in a Flintwards direction, glancing back at Abby. "This ain't actuallty my apartment, but I still agree it's a good idea," he says, kind of an excuse. "But I thought it might be, ya know. Healthy. If you was in the same room for a change, 'stead've…" Not, presumably, and doing whatever else that goes along with that.

Begs the question of who's apartment it is. She doesn't know Flint to actually stay in apartments. Not furnished ones that look like they've had current and clean occupation. The lack of a dog smell should have tipped her off. "This won't be healthy for me in the least Joseph. You don't… Flint, you, he doesn't know what" Abby reaches up to scratch at her cheek, looking tremendously uncomfortable at the presence of one Flint Deckard, the words of a ginger haired spawn of his very much still in the back of her head.

"Calvin threatened me, told me that he.. it's not relevant what he told me he'd do to me, just that if I called him, called.. you. That…" Awkward. A look to Joseph with a bite down on her lower lip. "Flint" Hello. Give in to the obvious. At least he took off his hat. "I'm glad you're both still talking with one another. Have you… met your son yet." You know. Calvin. Sheridan.

Suddenly there are a lot of things being brought up in this room that various people haven't discussed because it didn't seem appropriate 'at the time.' Or at any time.

Grip flexed such that the base of his banana is in danger of becoming mashed, Flint continues to ??? at Joseph once he's offered an explanation. An 'explanation.' That happens to be bullshit. A twitch of muscle short of palms turned out an up in open exasperation, he clamps his jaw and swivels an osprey-eyed look back at Abby instead, mainly because she is talking and in talking, she keeps saying his name.

And Calvin's name.

"Yeah," he says, simply. Truthfully. Evasively.

And Joseph goes :/ to Deckard's ??? but offers no words. Either he has nothing further to add orrr nothing he wants to add while Abby is right there. But his waffly discomfort sharpens into interest at Abby's question and the ensuing answer, and it's the woman he looks at rather than Deckard when it comes out as simply as it does. "He's done some things that're getting some— bad attention," he says, of Calvin, still focused more on Abby even when the words are specifically for the other man. "I figure it's one've those things you should know. If it helps any— "

A looser shrug, and it's an understatement when he says, "He ain't the only one." A nod indicates he is indeed talking to Abby, now, when he adds, "Why'd he warn you off, anyhow?"

"Calling Flint when I kill Robert" She'll let that drop like a really big boulder into a small puddle. Good and kind Abigail Caliban killing someone. "I call Flint to cover up for me, supposedly." It's then that she doesn't quite meet anyone's eyes. "Seems to me that if he can release the flu that'll kill his own momma, that ripping me to pieces doesn't seem like that far off or too hard a thing to think that he'll actually follow through with. He already handcuff me to the bottom of a car. He makes Flint look downright angelic"

Praise and a compliment, of a sort. She's looking back and forth between the two men, sinking her own hands into her pockets, at risk for filling the air between them with words, like she tends to do when in the same room as Flint.

"He sought me out. To tell me who Robert really was. He.. I think he messed up what Kasha came back to make sure wouldn't happen. To protect Flint"

Joseph already knew?

After Deckard went through the effort of trying to kindly sway conversation away from how he and Bella made a jerkass ginger kid happen in a timeline somewhere?

Now he does go palms up and out away from his sides, a full on what the fuck bro with his banana that's really — at least in part for both of them. More and more for Abigail as she keeps talking and talking and the sheer flank of his cheek angles gradually back around until he's focused raptly back on her. Not blinking. Sometimes he doesn't remember to.

A hand drifts up to rub at his own brow around when Abigail gives her praise and compliment, the wince disguised by hand and sleeve cuff, visible in the lines at his eyes before he deals a glance to Flint at the peripheral sight of what the fuck bro. "I didn't know for sure," Joseph mutters quietly, defensively, fer sher, except he doesn't have Deckard's attention anymore. He takes a breath. "Abigail," as he sometimes says, vaguely paternal. Abby ain't too old. Hannah's, like.

Thirty something. "Let's you and I talk," he proposes, and the look he flicks back to Flint is apologetic. A default, and also implication he'll be right back unless the door gets barricaded. Joseph doesn't head off for some private corner of the apartment, though — he makes for the front door.

Stare off. Abigail's looking at Flint too, seeing how bad - or how good - off it is that he's doing these days. As if she could gauge his whiskey intake on sight alone. She's the first to blink though, turning to take up her sweater, slide her arms into the sleeves with a brief nod. Deckard wins. "Yes Pastor Sumter" Murmured as she follows though halts.

Turns around to grab up her bag and then follow Joseph back towards the door and presumably out into the hall again. Strap slung over her shoulder and held tight by her fingers, ducking her head. "Flint" Tossed over shoulder, assuming that she won't be privy to seeing him again.

Flint looks — well. As well as he ever has. Lucid. Thin about the face and wiry elsewhere. Decently rested. Decently dressed. A few new scars since she's seen him last but no fresh stitches. He is too young to be going as grey as he is but that's a concern for people who can remember how old they are to begin with.

There is a painting on the wall far behind him of a man and a woman kissing as well as they can with burlap sacks over both of their heads and he is staring hard, hard at Abigail. Like somehow she's managed to beat out this painting to be the weirdest and most uncomfortable thing in the living room.

He doesn't bolster himself out with a stiff drawn breath until Joseph's taken the reins and nudged Abby for the door, steam let off through his sinuses at a slower hofff of expelled air that doesn't smell like booze, or much of anything else. Banana, maybe.

"She has a gun!" probably isn't a serious warning bit out after them once the door's almost shut after Joseph. X-ray vision switches on and then off again almost as quickly.

He frowns at his hat.

A hand goes up, a vague wave of thanks for Deckard that gets obscured by the door, revealed in X-ray, gone again because Deckard switches off his eyes and also because Joseph drops his hand. And continues moving down the hallway, out of earshot, his steps casual but holding momentum. "Why'd you go ahead and bring him up at the Council the way you did?" Straight to the point, this time, rather than embarking on a circling conversation orbit about kids and the weirdness attached to them. "When he's got barely a clue about anything Rosen went and did — not to you or the world. Most days I don't understand what possesses you and your mouth, Abigail Beauchamp, and I mean that in the kindest possible way.

"Mostly. Kinder'n tellin' the guy he's a saint in comparison to a would-be mass murderer."

"Robert used to make remarks about the words that come out of my mouth. You're not the first to say that" She hikes her pack up higher on her shoulder, re-adjusting it's sit as she walks down the hall with Joseph, a glance over her shoulder to see if Flints following or sticking to his abode with the crazy painting.

"His last name isn't Rosen it's Sheridan and it's lack of a brain and being a stupid oblivious woman that possesses it Pastor Sumter. Surely you're not the last one to see that and he is. For all that he's done, at least he's nothing like his son" Her free hand is sunk into the back pocket of her jeans, trying to keep pace. "Maybe you need to fill him in on his son, and his son's great plan. So he won't be blindsided like the rest of us. Besides, he is the best way to draw him out. Use him as bait."

Joseph has a temper. It's one he's always been good at keeping in check, but it's there, and human, and flickers black in already dark eyes. "Fine," he says, stopping and turning to her, a hand out to grip her wrist to halt their progress and letting go without squeezing. "You're right. Deckard's the perfect way to get this rat in the open — if you've read him right and if he weren't lying to you. Let's say you did and he ain't." A pause. "But what right do you have to put out that notion without talkin' to Flint," and he points for the shut door, keeping his voice quiet so it doesn't drift back, "or me? I'm his friend. I don't need to be blindsided about what the heck you know, right when everyone's all angered up and might not care like I do. I can see you don't, and that's all well and good, but what did you expect from me?"

He takes a step back. "He hurt you, you hurt him, I un'erstand, but that don't give you the right to use people. It's beneath you, or I thought it was. I'll tell him what he needs to know, so don't worry a lick about that — y'didn't seem to before."

Joseph is so good at putting her in her place when needed, or not needed. Near or from afar over a phone. "I don't know what right I had. I don't know what I expected from you either. I've had a lot on my head and my shoulders the last few weeks. But I do know this" She takes that step back too.

"you don't get to tell me about who I worry about and who I don't. You're not Kaylee. You don't got a peek into my mind like she does. I do worry about him. Enough that I was counting on whatever it is that y'all would be doing with him and his jerk of a son while I did what I had to do. So that he wouldn't somehow magically show up and stop me and get.. killed or… I dunno what. His son wasn't terribly forthcoming about what happened, neither was Kasha."

She takes a noisy inhale, then exhale, looking at the wall then back. "His son wasn't lying though, I know that. Keep him away from me. Take him to the Island, or… somewhere. but away from me. If you care about him or about me"

He doesn't immediately come out with whether he will or he won't. Joseph might not consider himself to have much in the way of control over Deckard's comings and goings. Passed from Abby to Teo to Bella, seemingly, with a fair amount of independent nigh unstoppable motion in between. After his little monologue, fairly hissed in his warmer tones, Joseph is quiet as he thinks, a hand up to scritch and tug through dark hair before dropping again. If he had argument against whether or not she cared, he'd probably say it, at this point. He doesn't.

"Alright," he says, hands coming to rest on his hips. "Calvin Sheridan." Christing Lord on high. "Sounds like he inherited someone's experimental nature. What else did you get outta it?"

"He's telekinetic, or maybe it's just metal, I dunno. He can move things without touching and he doesn't like being touched. Didn't like it when I grabbed his arm when he was following me. He smells like…" Not whiskey, like his dad normally does. "Like metal. He smells like the head of my Dah's axe."

"He loves him. I think, in as much as he can show it. I think.. I think he really loves Flint. Or else why would he have sought me out to tell me about my Husband and to threaten to kill me if I involved Flint" She shakes her head. "And he's not above murder. Not in the least and told me as much literally"

Joseph waits, prepared to be silent until Abby's said her piece on the matter, before he nods and glances back at the door as if paranoid that Deckard has already vanished somewhere behind it. But in good conscience— "I'll walk you downstairs, put you in a cab," he says, moving to walk again. "Sorry if I endangered you any, but it won't be happenin' again if I can help it." It's all said a little stiffly — maybe because he tends to feel bad for yelling, but unwilling to apologise for it. Maybe because there's more left unsaid.

He's not so easily read that one or the other would be immediately apparent. Hands in pockets, he guides her for the stairwell.


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