It Won't Save The World

Participants:

abby5_icon.gif deckard3_icon.gif

Scene Title It Won't Save The World
Synopsis Things come to a head in Mexico between Abigail and Flint around the firepit.
Date January 12, 2010

Mexico


Dinner is apparently being made by Abigail tonight, with enough for Flint if he wants it. Raquelle has taken off with his food to go talk to his girls and his man and see how the three are surviving in New York without Raquelle.

This leaves Abigail sitting on a round of wood, tending to food by the fire pit once the sun has set and it's dark. Colorful plastered leg up on another log, long skirt, shirt, sweater, a bottle of water by her side, she pokes at the fire so that she can shove more embers below the makeshift cooking grate. One pot simmering away, chunks of meat, potatoes, other vegetables all simmering in a pot and ready to be consumed. Water is starting to boil in anticipation of tea, coffee and later at some point to be boiled again and put into a a water bottle and dumped into her sleeping bag for warmth through the night. She's singing right now - again - to pass time.

"But my hand was made strong, By the 'and of the Almighty. We forward in this generation, Triumphantly. Won't you help to sing, This songs of freedom, 'Cause all I ever have, Redemption songs"

It was a day spent fixing again and one more, she should be done Flint's roof and can rest. Rest and then set about to cleaning the bar proper and getting rid of all the alcohol, maybe steal the car again and head into town to get more stuff. She convinced he's not returning and so, a mental list is made of what he'll need to live here for the next while. Even more so if the world comes flooding up to his front step.

The world's a quieter place in the desert.

Things that might normally be inaudible under the drone of airplane engines or the doppler hiss of highway traffic stand out here, especially in the gathering dark. What first sounds a little like the pop and stutter of errant sparks soon resolves itself into hooves displacing pebbles and sand from the direction of Antigua at a steady trot. The trot slows to a walk once man and horse are in clear sight of the fire, one only slightly longer about the face than the other.

Chopazo is near black in the dark, slabs of muscle lined out in yellow brown where the firelight gleams off his hide. He's a well-trained beast, sensitive enough to minute touch that Flint can take them right up to the paddock and lean over to fumble the gate open without dismounting.

There's no hallo. No missed me, no waving. The horse's enclosure and all relevant pieces of gear are stored around the far side of the bar, and that's where Deckard procrastinates for as long as possible with the process of saddle removal and brushing and hoof picking.

THe sight of the man atop of the horse, riding in from the dark gives falter and pause to Abigail's singing. Momentarily stunned by the sight and the deja vu of a kind that it brings.

Hokuto, if the woman ever surfaces from wherever she's hidden, is going to get a mouthful about her cards. Pale rider. She makes no move to get up though, to latch into Flint with claws and sink deep, drag him to the fire-pit. These few days have been just avoidance, a dancing of neither being in the same place at the same time. Three souls living in one town.

Eventually though, he can procrastinate only so much and she can only go so many days without conversation with anyone. God doesn't count. "There's food, if your hungry. Coffee too in a few minutes. No string attached"

Zero response is par for the course at this point. Leather rasps over leather, buckles clank and jangle. Flint tosses blanket over disposed of saddle with a muffled whumph and trips the bridle up onto its hook with a lazy turn of his wrist.

Then he's done.

Chopazo buries his long face in his water bucket and Deckard's left to crane a look back at the stars — the most he's ever seen. They're bright and white with glimmers of blue and red marking familiar constellations that might otherwise be difficult to make out amidst so much twinkling static.

A gritty dust of his hands across his pants later, he finally lets himself back out around the corner to track his way for the fire. The closer he gets, the more readily apparent it is that he made a pit stop in town. He's clean-shaven and showered, stink limited to horse sweat and hay when he lowers himself stiffly down onto the ground next to Abigail.

Long ride.

"Another two days, and the place should be livable to my minimum standards. I'll call Elias and ask him to pick us up and take us home" When Flint ambles near and then sits down beside her. She can take the smell of horse, hay, nature in it's regular smell. It's a great deal nicer than the stench that rolled off him before.

She leans away from him to gather up a bowl and ladle stew into a bowl, chunks of meat out-populating the carrot, celery or potatoes population. A spoon later and the earthenware dinnerware is passed over to him with barely a look or comment save for "You look better"

Toasted bread follows soon after and with dinner passed over, Abigail sets to looking up at the stars too. 'Can't see them in New York. I always forget about that until I get home and lay down in the backyard and can see stars and not helicopters or planes landing" She tracks a fast moving spot of light, marking it out as a satellite thanks to the regular speed and lack of blinking.

The clothes are still pretty bad, shirt sweat-stained and worn out under the slack fit of his leather jacket. He doesn't say anything on the subject of her going home, but does mutter a, "Thanks," when she passes a bowl of food over, either for the compliment or for the fact that he's being fed. The latter seems more likely, even if he isn't all that quick to prod his spoon into it.

Boots set out too close to the fire, he sighs through his sinuses and stirs around on his way to finally putting the spoon to his mouth. He doesn't say anything about how great it is once he's swallowed, but he doesn't say much of anything else either and he's pretty quick to continue on eating.

She almost seems fine to remain in the silence. The howl of something far off, the bugs that scatter and sing in the night and the crackle of the fire as a piece of sap is heated beyond it's threshold and pops, scattering sparks up and off into the air above them. The light from the fire plays this way and that on her face and his, glinting off the pots and what patches of white remain on the cast.

Eventually the water is hot enough and that too is poured into cups, enough for everyone who's present in the town be they actually there or not. Coffee cup, bag of sugar cubes, powdered creamer packets offered over to Flint. "Here" Lapsing into silence not long after, not even a hum from her.

Flint doesn't look much healthier without the beard than he did with it, but he's solid all the same. Certainly not starving. The only hollows in his face at the ones that are supposed to be there, stringy muscle wired across the clamp of his narrow jaw while he sits and chews and stares blandly down into his bowl.

It's set down so that he can take the coffee instead, along with one creamer packet that he thumps in at a careful sift. The sugar's left alone only for him to tuck a few blocks down into his jacket pocket once he's already started drinking. "I'm sorry," he says finally, half a mug already down.

Likely stowing the sugar for the horse. Not that Abby won't at some point chop up an apple and toss some sugar cubes towards the horse. The apology is unexpected and yet expected a the same time and it takes a minute then two of staring at the stars before she nods her head. "Apology accepted. Thank you" Her own coffee is filled with sugar, creamer packet and stirred while she looks over to where the brown horse is stabled then over to the fire. "Are you planning on staying here or will you be returning to New York at some time?"

"I dunno."

Flint does not say, 'You're welcome.' Maybe small steps are better than none at all.

Doesn't take him long to get completely absorbed in drinking his coffee and watching the fire flag and snap. Neither activity requires him to look over at Abigail in any capacity despite the fact that he's sitting right next to her, if a few inches lower owing to his lack of perch.

She'll take I dunno. She'll take I dunno with her coffee and stars. One hand rubs at the muscles behind her knee and above the cast, staring off into the fire as well.

"Tamara gave us tickets to Russia. When a precognitive gives you plane tickets you go. Turns out there's a 100 tonne nuclear weapon somewhere in the world and they wanted help to find it. Some people were kidnapped, others captured or just outright told to go. Or like Catherine, Teo and myself, we were just handed plane tickets. I didn't go as a way of running away from you. I went because I was told"

She takes a sip of her coffee, choosing to stare into it's depths as if she can read the few pieces of undissolved crystals. "I wanted to hit you back, did you know that? But if I hit you back, it wouldn't have had the same … I didn't hit you back because I knew that by doing that, it would make you hurt more. Make you hurt for doing what you did"

Aaand…Deckard says nothing.

Just sits there.

Like a rock.

Or a statue.

Made of rock.

His expression hasn't changed much, if at all. He's still closed off and distracted, hatchet-hewn features and chilly eyes angled slightly more away than in to track her explanation. Opinion. Thoughts. Whatever.

It'd be impossible for him not to hear — he just flat doesn't respond, or fails to respond enough for the evidence to project through the lines around his face and across his brow. Eventually a glance tipped down into his mug determines that it's empty and he sets it carefully next to his bowl.

She wasn't expecting him to say anything. Maybe more of an angry look as she just lays things out in the open. So she gives a nod of her head as if she agree's with herself about it, her own thoughts and starts to move. bring her foot down from the other stump in case he wants to sit on it instead of the cold ground while she gets up. The rest of her cup is tossed off to the side, likely to dry up come the morning or through the night and start the process of cleaning all her mess up.

"I'll try and find all your stuff at the bar and put them to the side for you Flint. I brought some things back from Russia for you too, I'll put them to the side" She hops around the fire to pick up one crutch and use it while putting water back on the fire, and scraping out the rest of the stew into a spare bowl likely to be set aside for Flint to eat when she's not here and he can relax. If one came across the fire right now and didn't know the two fo them, it'd be hard to picture that they were having issues with each other.

If the beer cans and spent casings that were lying around all over when they got here were any indication, Flint isn't all that big on cleaning up after himself in the outdoor portion of his ghost town. The little bit of stew in his bowl he didn't eat is slung into the fire and then abandoned with his coffee mug when he levers himself back up onto his feet — even more stiff now than he was when he sat down.

Can't feel his butt. Can't feel one foot. Dusting around his cold seat helps to get blood moving again while Abby picks up and talks and does things that Abbys do. For his part, he does the thing that Flints do and glances around the fire before tracking wordlessly off towards his bar and the cot that's hopefully still shored up somewhere inside.

"That's it?"

It comes from the fire where Abby stands as Flint makes his way back to his bar and cot.

"That's it. I'm not worth fighting for? Just worth an apology and silence. I know that you like to stay quiet, that it's your answer, but.. I mean, you won't explain why you did it so that I have a better understanding. I'm willing to forgive you. But, you walk away, like I'm not worth fighting for when you, you are worth fighting for Flint." The pot is abandoned to shuffle forward towards the retreating man. "The world is gonna flood and I came here to find you so that if it did, I could get you to higher ground, to a place where we could survive, that had supplies. I turned down a healer from Agent Kershner, so that I wouldn't be asked to go on with everyone else and could come home to you. Teo told me, that you would probably rather I fight for my own life, instead of yours or anyone else and I told him the odds of me not fighting for you, for your life, was be the odds of a snowball not melting in hell." She stops halfway there, looking off into the darkness after him.

"I brought Raquelle because he's your friend. But I came because of you. Not because I needed healing, not because of a map or god alone only knows what else. I came because I wanted to understand. I came because of you and my love for you. You're twice my age, you're very much not like me. The only thing we have in common in what you now hold and the way that you make me feel when there's no clothes and it's just us. My parents, Lord, my father hates you. And yet, I traveled all the way here"

Abigail looks down at the ground. "I came to fight for you Flint. Am I really wasting my time? Talk to me please."

Deckard rounds on her like a grizzly bear, eyes flashing livid in choked firelight and teeth bared.

Things were going so well. :(

"What is it that you want to hear me say? You were a bitch. You were reckless, stupid, and presumptuous. I was angry. I had an impulse; I acted on it. I'm sorry." With the way he's towering over her now, voice raised and fists clenched, it doesn't seem all that far fetched that he might be fighting another such impulse right this second. He doesn't blink much if at all, coffee breath forced ragged through the white clench of his teeth while he stares her down, demanding answers of his own.

"Sex is sex. Nobody's forced you to have it with me; you'd enjoy it just as much with someone else. That's how it fucking works, Abigail. If you love me so goddamn much why are you throwing this in my face? I came here because I wanted to be left alone."

Apparently it's easier for Deckard to string multiple sentences together when he's shouting them into the face of a twenty year old girl in the middle of a Mexican desert. Even Chopazo is staring.

"This Flint! I wanted to hear this. I wanted to hear something other than stoney god damned silence, and you just staring off. I wanted to know why you did it" She manages to yell back at him as she looks up, knuckles white around the handle of her her lone crutch. "I don't know If I would enjoy it with someone else Flint because I've never been with someone else, but I know that I enjoy it with you! When have I ever said that you're forcing me to have that with you. When Flint?" Blue eyes tear up as she verbally burbles back at him.

"I can't change the past Flint. That's Why he lived, that's why no one heard of Francois after he gave the gift to me. because fifteen fucking years later, I and Eileen and Hiro saved him from the Vanguard. Saved him so that he could have dinner with the very man who tried to kill him then. I can't change the past, I can't and won't change, going back to save him, same as I can't go to the past and keep Tyler case from saddling you with this burden. Because it would only happen some other way. I can only stand here and watch you struggle and give you my help if you want it." Her other hand clenches into a fist, loosens then clenches again and it's her turn to walk away.

"You don't know what you do to me Flint Deckard. The way you send my god damned stomach into flip flops and make me worry and do stupid things. All I could think of after Ethan beat the ever loving christ out of me was that I wanted you. Not so you could make the hurt go away, but so that I could just hold you and know that things'll be okay. But they're not. Things aren't okay. You're broken, I'm broken, and I can't fix you. Only you can fix you. I can't fix someone who hates himself so much that he can't see someone standing in front of him who loves him even when he is broken" She starts to stump off to the fire again. "Go run Flint. Flee. They say I do it so very good but it's not me people need to take a lesson from. It's you"

"Variety is the spice of life," sounds like a weak argument after all of that, more exasperated than furious now that he's had a minute to pump the brakes and recall himself. A held breath shakes on exhale, anger still furrowed into the more distinct lines carved in around his mouth when he funnels the rest out into a nasal sigh.

He looks oddly distracted when he moves quickly enough to catch a hand around her near wrist, grip secured before she can make it more than a step in the opposite direction. From there it doesn't take much to pull her back around into the smoky warmth of him enough to kiss her. Carefully at first, gently probing after reciprocation and then rougher by degrees as it goes, all without the usual rasp and sandpaper of stubble to complicate his sudden deep interest.

Then again, he's been out here for over a month. Over a month and he hasn't fooled around with a single Mexican hooker. Maybe it isn't that sudden.

Right hand kept rigid around her wrist, he fits her hips to the push of his with the left, pressure there metered by desire over comfort. His voice is coarse at the corner of her mouth once manages to breathe something that sounds like the words: "I wanna fuck you." Then he's kissing her again and healing issues forth from every bare point of contact, murky as ever and insidiously warm. "Sorry for the short notice."

There's resistance at first, surprise that he's grabbing her wrist but not fear. Frankly, if he was going to hit her, he likely would have done it far before now, when she first started getting in his face. But he has height, weight and maneuverability on her and when he tugs and turns, she gives a hop, crutch going at an odd angle that warrants letting go of it or impaling her armpit on the aluminum and plastic.

She's ready to whack him with the crutch if he's doing anything. Anything other than do what else she hoped he would do when she was in Russia, before Russia, after Russia. Something she missed this, she needs this and acknowledges this mentally before the thought flits away as fast as it came. Coffee breath, hay, nature fills her nostrils and the ever present smell of Flint underneath it all. Only missing the whiskey that she knows so well on him.

Nose rests beside nose, no ability to avoid what the both of them have in fair amounts when he starts to kiss. It's reciprocated after a moment of surprise, not reluctance and as the healing starts to filter through, she ignores the strange feeling that brokers the line that Mu-Qian left in her flesh, the warmth that traverse through her body to seek out her ankle and fuse set bone, injured muscle and soothe inflamed nerves. Erases any trace of Ethan's attentions from her.

He wants to do all sorts of things to her that aren't in the bible and would make her mother fan herself and she wants to as well, no doubt about it as the sound of them together is quiet, hampered breathing and the moving of limbs. The lack of roughness that she usually gets when cheek to cheek, nose to nose and lip to lip with him is appreciated, cherished, adored. "Fucking won't solve our issues" She takes the moment to point out between breaths and the use of teeth to pull down a little too roughly on his lower lip - however wrong it might be to point it out at that moment. She worms a hand to around to his back, long fingers grabbing handfuls of fabric to pull them up so she can worm her hand beneath his shirt and pull him closer. As if they could get closer. "Fucking won't save the world, doesn't save the world. Won't save us" Not that saying so makes her stop the crawl of her hand up his back or pulling the one he has a grip on away so that she can curl it around the back of his neck and hold on.

Abby's talking too much, which at this point Deckard has deemed an inefficient use of energy (and tongue space.) On the bright side, she hasn't slapped him and he doesn't have to hold her still, which frees up his right hand to deftly unfasten the clasp of her bra. He's predictably, relentlessly efficient the smooth of his hand up her side, thumb tracing light over ribs on its way to breast — contact there lasting only as long as it takes him to decide he'd rather get her shirt off first. No one to see but him. …And the horse. But he probably won't tell.

He's warm under his shirt, meanwhile. So is the coffee on his breath when he kisses her again (and once more) in the pause between sentences. He doesn't settle back an inch or two to look her in the eye until what she's saying has had a chance to sink in through the single-minded haze cloaked around his brain, breathing quick and pupils swollen wide in the semidark. His brows knit against ill-disguised frustration that they aren't already further along than they are, THEN: his genius rebuttal.

"…Neither will not fucking."

Raquelle might see. He's somewhere, this town can't be that big. But maybe he'll be smart, and he'll scurry somewhere while two people succumb willingly to what it is that they are inevitably heading towards despite disagreements that may still be between them. Or maybe Raquelle will watch and be wistful, happy, jealous or whatever else the stylist might experience.

"Right" back in she goes, pulling down on his neck so she can stop standing on the tips of her toes and plaster. "Right. Not fucking" She more aware of her surroundings than Deckard is and it's with great reluctance that she breaks away from him, withdraws her hand from under his shirt and expose it again back to the cooling desert air. Hair is pulling out of the braid, wisps flying here and there and a flush taken up residence on her face indicative of her more than okay-ness with giving in.

"The bar. Blankets. Something. I'm not doing this on the dirt Flint Deckard" God knows what might venture by that will be neither human nor equine. God forbid a scorpion interrupt them. Her hand closes around his wrist this time and with a limp born of the virtue of plaster covering one leg from toes to shin, she's dragging him as fast as she can move towards the bar.


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