Payback's Hell

Participants:

abby4_icon.gif deckard3_icon.gif

Scene Title Payback's Hell
Synopsis Protests go unheeded, as they have in the past but this time with tables turned. There's going to be movies, coffee, perhaps the back seat, and no conversation of dead men between Abby and Deckard. None at all.
Date November 12, 2009

OLd Lucy's - Back Room


Books seem to be a bit harder to focus on today. Be it pharmacology books, or the books that belong to the bar that contain numbers as well, Abigail's not really into it all today. Which means likely, tomorrows test is going to suck monkey balls as some might say, considering that she skipped classes and claimed sick so she could attend the so called Trial of Emile Danko. One hand rubs across her face then grabs a kleenex to blow her nose and hopefully help.

A travel mug of coffee that's half consumed, a bag of hall's throat drops take up their respective places beside the desk that's situated in one corner of the room and serves it's purpose of the boss's desk. A second one will likely be shoved somewhere for Thalia soon if she wants it. Abigail's parked at it, burrowed deep in yoga pants, a sweater and a grey headband keep pink curls off her face.

"How on earth does Kat know this stuff better and she's the brain damaged one" Though, one could argue, and many have, that Abigail is as well. The sounds from the bar filter in through the door, and the kitchen on the other side of the wall that serve up the late late lunch for those that are squeaking in.

For all that he's been pretty thoroughly en absentia over the last few weeks, Deckard is a familiar enough face within Old Lucy's that he doesn't meet much resistence than a sideways glance when he passes the bar by to try the office door. Upon finding the handle unlocked, all that's left is for him to let himself in, which — doesn't happen as quickly as it probably could. Not until the girl at the register glances back to see him still standing there, anyway.

When he finally sidles his way in, he does it quietly, the scuffed brown of his leather jacket creaking only once on its way in. Reasonably clean cut with grizzled hair freshly buzzed down and decently dressed in a passably unwrinkled t-shirt, jeans and boots, he looks better than he has in weeks, if not months. Eternally on the lanky end of the build spectrum by genetic predisposition, he's filled out in all the places he should be. His clothes fit. His long face has shed gaunt shadows and haggard hollows. The skin on his hands isn't shrink-wrapped across knotted veins and long bones.

Overall, he looks — oddly normal. Even well-rested, if probably more awkward than he'd like once he's shut the door behind himself and taken to sideways eyeing the still pink state of her hair.

Take heart, it's fading. It's a hard color to maintain and the blonde is starting to shine through. Not as bubblegum pink as it was. But alas, it is still pink. "Brenda, can you see if they have soup in the kitchen still?" She inquire with that nasaly tone of the last few days and assuming that it's one of her employee's checking on her, needing something, fetching something. She's not expecting Deckard.

So when a glance is afforded away from mathematical equations that involve weight, and conversions of chemicals designed to make a person feel better in certain doses, there's a bit of surprise. "Hey" pencil faltering, held above the notepad in front of her. "You're. You're looking pretty good" Helps that last she heard there's not a thousand people running around and looking for healing. "I didn't expect to see you for.. a bit" Until the pink faded. "Did you need something?" The mechanical pencil is put down on top of the paper so she can curl her hand on the desk and focus on the person who is not Brenda.

"Hey," returned at an even drone, there's an awkward pause while Flint takes her in. And the pink hair. And the fact that she's sick.

There's room in his otherwise mild expression for guilt to take hold, and it does, however fleetingly. He shakes it off in a sideways glance at a span of wall that contains nothing all that interesting, brows knit after a timely, "You too."

Past that, he lingers near the door like he has a habit of doing when he's not sure where else it would be better for him stand and shakes his head at her last question. Not here because he needs something. "Just wanted to see you."

"Hey, doe suhmm, in the time of Daffodils, by E.E. Cummings mean anything to you?" She glosses over the awkwardness that always happens, as sure as the sun sets and as sure as Felix and Deckard will hold guns at each others heads and try to kill each other, Flint will always linger at the door.

"I was at my parents this past weekend and we found a poem on a tree" She has to scrabble for her phone and look at the picture to read it off. "In time of all sweet things beyond, whatever mind may comprehend, remember seek forgetting find" SHe looks over while one hand automatically goes for her box of kleenex so she wipe at her nose. "If it doesn't make sense, it's okay. it's not a big deal"

Deckard doesn't really look the type to have ever really dabbled in poetry, and in this case, does not disappoint. Caught off guard by the turn in subject matter, he isn't quick enough on the draw to keep the clear blue of his eyes from going a little blank with bafflement. His brows lift a little as if he looks like he might be thinking of saying something on the subject of a guy with the last name of Cummings, but (wisely) he finds it in himself to suppress the impulse before anything base can slip off the end of his tongue.

Instead, he's left to shake his head at her again, much as he did before. A little uneasily, and a touch apologetic. "Sorry."

Not really disappointment. Maybe if was on the subject of guns, he might. Her acceptance that he doesn't is punctuated by a sneeze and then a scowl from the woman as she attacks her nose with a kleenex and waves him into the back room proper to take up roost somewhere in the room, be it the couch, or the table and chairs, or if he dares, the corner of the desk.

"I'll ask you know who, if he ever surfaces and takes the wheel again. Damned if Eileen or I know what it means, but it was left, on a tree, for the both of us presumably" Wipe, gentle wipe, gentle wipe again and the white tissue is tossed into a wire trash can and she's putting a glob of antibacterial handwash on her hands, "don't worry, you can't catch what I have. It protects you" As she's personally finally come to understand. Hello dentist bills in the future for things other than a cleaning.

But then it triggers in her mind, that he came because he wanted to see her. Not because he wanted something. There's a dawning on her face, not quite a lightbulb but there is a flush that creeps in to heat her cheeks to a shade less than her hair and her nose. "Been a while, since you wanted to see me" A staten island walk in a greenbelt actually. But she doesn't say that. "It's still pink. Sorry if you don't like it, but.. it's still pink and you'll need to accept that. Cause, it's kinda growing on me. The pink"

Shouldn't he be the one sitting at the desk with her perched on the corner? Maybe in an alternate universe somewhere. In this one, he winds a few indirect steps deeper in the back room and dithers dully between his options of couch and table and desk.

That he opts to divert for the latter probably has more to do with its curren occupant and her nose wiping than it does the prospect of a hard-edged desk to sit on. Probably definitely, given that he circles 'round the back for Abby and her chair rather than settle down on the front or — sides. Or wherever one is generall expected to sit awkwardly on their girlfriend's desk. If she still is.

The thought hardens out of vague third person omniscient into the line of Flint's brow when he reaches to brace his hand across and around the back of her neck. His palm is warm. Warmer once healing's begun at an easy lap, attention turned a little pointedly down into squint at her homeworks, as if his sudden interest in doseage calculations will somehow negate what he's up to around back.

"I've been thinking about dying mine blue."

"Fliiiiint. It's just a cold, it'll go away. It makes me miserable" not that most anyone can tell "But it'll go away" Bitch, moan, whine. She's figuring out now too why he would grump when she'd heal minor stuff or try to. But for all the grumping, she doens't pull away, just takes it, bitter medicine of a sorts.

"You can't go blue, I've already done blue. You'd need to go green cause then you can camp in the green belt and have your head up and no one would see it to shoot at it" He could be joking, he might be joking, she is. "I like your hair the way it is. All peppery and such. Her roots are blonde, this was not a Xiulan kind of job, As evidence too by the fading.

Abigail twists in her seat, not disloding his hand at the back of her neck, peering up at him. "Things okay? I mean, you're actually fitting your clothes and you look" He looks? "You look like the flint before the alley, sorta. Just cleaner"

"Payback's hell," muttered without any intent of letting up, Deckard concedes to slow the rate of transfer with a lift of paired fingers into faded pink while the rest remain in careful contact. There's a twitch in his shoulder when she turns, almost, almost like he might tighten his grip and force her back down into the chair if she sets to wiggling, but it's hard to catch and quick to fade. Impulse, maybe. Muscle memory. Some old habits die harder than others.

"Things are better," feels more like a confession than confirmation, but the tip of his brows after it is easy. "I feel better." Nothing further's said on the subject of hair.
"Payback's a bitch, not hell" It's mrmured back, less nasally as inflamed tissues get does and treated with something far better than psuedoephedrine. Better than Vitamin D. There's no attempt made to run away, just sullenly take it. Like he did with her but with far less violence than was generally involved.

Or flower pots.

"Seeing me making you feel better too?" God knows she's feeling like a brand new baptist thanks to him. "I uhh, there's a church on Staten Island, Baptist one. But it's at one end of the rookery. THink you can bring yourself to walk me there on sunday? If not, it's not the end of the world, I'd ask Pastor Sumter but he's got things these days and I think he's babysitting the Humanis First guy till they figure out who to pass him over to" One palm slithers up and over to rest on the one that grips the back of her neck while blue eyes focus on blue eyes.

"Yeah." Honesty offhand comes quietly, but it's better than him standing there and saying nothing. There's only so much around to pretend to be interested in here aside from her. The couch is a couch, the table is a table. She's Abby and hot and still has pink hair — he can't force himself to stare at the floor for long. S'like going to a strip club and keeping your eyes closed.Who's bright idea was that?"

"Yeah." Honesty offhand comes quietly, but it's better than him standing there and saying nothing. There's only so much around to pretend to be interested in here aside from her. The couch is a couch, the table is a table. She's Abby and hot and still has pink hair — he can't force himself to stare at the floor for long. S'like going to a strip club and keeping your eyes closed.

Or the circus.

"Who's bright idea was that?" asked in regard to Joseph and his bigoted charge, he steps over the church question with one of his own, right hand finally leaving off her neck to loop briefly around hers on its way to falling back to his side. "I can take you as long as I don't have to listen."

"I don't know. Maybe it was his. He could use a visit, if you swing by. He's got stitches marching across his forehead and I didn't catch how he got em" Abgiail takes a moment to breath deep, through her nose, big breath of air and hold it in her lungs. Long enough that one might suspect she was some toddler who was holding her breath till she got something she wanted.

But she expells the air with one of the most relieved expressions on her face. "Thank you Flint. Thank the heavens, I can breath through my nose and not cough up a lung or two, possibly three. But to answer, no, you won't have to listen, you don't even have to come in. I don't rightly know how his service is gonna go, he's an interesting man. He swears, he drinks, he… he's a different one and my dah and momma'd have a fit, but I promised that I'd see about coming over. He's apparently part of phoenix too."

The pharmacology textbook is closed, pencil marking the place where she needs to pick it back up again. "Did you want to try and go catch a movie, or a coffee? Something? Tell me how life with it is going?"

Deckard nods to news of Joseph having another dent put in his head, and probably enough to pass for a hazy 'you're welcome' as well. Same as ever. Maybe unconsciously, he holds a short breath of his own on the tail end of hers, balance shifted subtly over into a step to the left, where he's out've easy reach and hard to see without her twisting around in her seat.

"We can see a movie. Or do coffee. But I'm not gonna talk about Francois." Or ~it~, as she's taken to referring to a second identity that isn't actually his. At least, so far as he's concerned. Certain French people may beg to disagree. Unfortunately, they aren't here right now, and he seems oddly stable standing where he is.

'Then coffee and movie, but no Francois. I can live with that. Easily" Whatever won't make him run off, fleeing for the hills or whatever place it is that he rests his head at night. "You can pick the movie, I'll pay" No need to change, it's not like they're going out some place fancy. It's just a movie and some coffee.

'WE can talk about my hair instead, and the orange that i'll color yours. Or… you know, uhh… pharmacology. I mean, you might know something about that" Being that he's dabbled in drugs a time or two. "I should borrow the CPR dummy and bring it home, scare Leonard with it somehow" There's a twisted grin and Abigail gets out of the chair with more energy and health than she did before he came. "You can tell me what you did for halloween. You missed the party here"

"I didn't do anything," is said curmudgeonly enough that he probably means it, though the proclamation is softened somewhat by the half-slant of an apologetic smile. He didn't do anything, all the way down to and including 'feel like partying.' "I've been sleeping in Staten. Helping run shit around for the Ferry out there." And criminals, who are both more prolific and tend to pay better. But that part hardly needs discussing right now, before cinema and coffee.

It helps that he doesn't look particularly nefarious right now, save maybe for the alligator hide cowboy boots. Familiar edges of tension around his jaw and brow are missing, giving hard worn lines room to rest. He's mellow and sober at the same time, at least in the sense that he doesn't reek of booze or pot.

"Anyway. We can talk about whatever you want as long as it doesn't involve dead people."
"you've made that loud and clear" It's not annoyance, just clear confirmation. No talking about dead people. "I"m pretty sure we can avoid that topic." No need to grab a jacket, it's a sweater for her already, and they'll be taking her vehicle and by the time she scoops up her keys, with a press of the button it's already turned on and starting to heat up. MOdern vehicles. For. The. Win.

"You know yes, that you can still have the room upstairs. No questions asked, if it makes you feel better, you could even pay a ridiculous small amount of rent" To salvage ones pride.

Already crossing the back room for the door, Flint adjusts the sit of his jacket as he goes, largely unfamiliar with the magical luxury of cars that heat themselves at the press of a button. Perhaps later they can investigate it more thoroughly from the back seat. "Anyone else living up there?"

"Just Leo" Always Leo. "Master bedroom, all to yourself, your own bathroom too. And that nice big window that you can slip in and out of whenever you please. Not that you don't already. If you can put up with Leonard, and you can pay whatever you want rent, if you need to." With it is the unspoken 'you'll be fed whenever you want' and that food will never really be an issue.

"It's something to think about Flint, that's all. Don't feel obligated, if you don't want to. Leonard knows about us, he won't bat an eye and you both seem to function well in each others general sphere of influence"

Non-committal in the way he usually is when he intends to say 'no' later, Deckard casts a glance up at the ceiling only to find that the world ends there. Impossible to tell if anyone else is home, or anything else, for that matter. In the end, he tips his head and sidles on out, expecting that she'll follow.

She does. No more talk of moving in, or dead people or anything else. There's a waiting suv, a movie where they will either laugh, scream or cry then coffee, espresso or latte.


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