Participants:
| Scene Title | Preventative Measure |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Calvin kindly takes one at the expense of happiness, rather than life or liberty. |
| Date | April 28, 2011 |
New York
The upside to big churches, is that you can disappear into them, amid the throngs of people. People seeking absolution, adoration of the Lord or even just contemplation. Even when there's no active service, there's still people. Coming and going, taking up pews, bending to knee and saying their whispered or silent prayers beneath the rafter and buttresses of St. Johns. Stone and granite raised high in exultation of the most holy father and a house for all to gather and worship.
It's here, that Abigail went on her current foray off the island, Kasha safe in the arms of one of the families there while she carefully went about her personal errands off the island, ever vigilant for Magnes - Either iteration. She hadn't stepped foot in one in… months, and it twists at her chest that she didn't. But when you're a terrorist and there's evolved hating colonel's hunting for you, you have to change your patterns. But with easter just passed, the demise of her marriage and the addition of the near one year old to her life in a more permanent nature, she had a desire to, almost a need. The humidity and warmth makes for a long sleeved shirt, blue short sleeved over, jeans, boots, jacket of her arms and backpack. A pageboy hat to cover her hair, the brunette - with brown eyes - is scurrying from the church, many miles to cover before the day wears out.
Changing patterns, brown eyes and pageboy caps aren't always enough, for people who try to blend into the mix.
Calvin doesn't.
He's in a grey waistcoat, tie and darker slacks, pocket watch chain and ginger mane enough to distinguish him clearly from the mill of cleansed souls funneling slow out the church mouth and into unclean streets. The makeup he's wearing helps too, eyeliner and shadow not enough to distract from week-old bruising brushed in blues and greens across the left side of his cheek and brow. The same bruising blacks his eye and sours his mood: he isn't smiling while he waits, though he does nod occasionally to churchgoers liberal enough to politely acknowledge his existence.
His dress shirt crinkles stiff when he checks his watch, and soon enough there is Abigail among them, cap and backpack and blue shirt, just like he said. She'll likely notice the track of his step even after hers before she notices the rest of him, shiny black shoes and light stride.
Paranoia is sometimes validated, and after a few minutes walking, of noticing that someone is taking the same turns that she is on the main streets, the ginger hair and clothes that she has run into twice, the latter with him chaining her to the underside of a vehicle, it's a no-brainer that she's confused as to why he's following her.
Or that she stops, turns on a heel and starts walking towards Calvin with a thin line to her mouth and a white knuckled grip on the strap of the backpack. Heading straight for him, no chance that she's going anywhere else or just going to pass on by.
"What on earth do you want?"
"A happy ending," drawls Calvin, who draws up confident in the face of her sudden advance, hands turned down into pockets and the caprine scruff on his chin lifted just a touch. A few straggling passers by turn to see why they've stopped, then continue on after a beat without violence, curiosity sated for the short term. Confrontation without an actual trainwreck to rubberneck.
Yet.
His eyes tick down after a beat spent sizing her up, stark blue like slivered glass accounting for the absence of a ring where her knuckles are snared into backpack strap. "Trouble at home?"
It hasn't been on her hand for a while, since it melted. Her own gaze going to where the ring was always on her right hand after November. Where there used to be a slight indentation. "If there is, it's none of your business" Quietly spoken back in response to his question. But the tightening of her hand on the strap, the raw grief that's still like a live nerve show on her face, the hunch inwards of her shoulders. "Auditioning to be the rebound?"
"Isn't it, though?" Cheshire indolence leads him into another winding step forward, not yet touching upon personal space. Threatening to, perhaps, when his brow furrows with exaggerated inquiry and his nostrils flare. Draconic in his way.
Just the one prowling step taken. And held. A gradual encroach.
"Not really. Of course, if you're interested, I'm sure we can come to some accord."
"Not interested. But I'm sure that there's people out there who don't mind redheads with handcuffs in bed" She offers out, not moving from her spot regardless of the advance, time on the run either making her stupid or a little bold. "Besides, Inks not on my divorce yet, so it'd still be cheating and at this moment-" She narrows her eyes at him.
"I'm sworn off men" Broken hearts tend to do that. One still bleeding from the daggers slid through them metaphorically. "What's it to you"
Not particularly shocked, somehow, by her professed lack of interest in a sound fucking to get her back on her feet, Calvin shrugs with his eyebrows and a mild tip of his head, apathetic in the implied your loss. There's bitter dislike written subtle through the line of his mouth, flatter than he'd like while he works over the words to say.
Or at least endeavors to eradicate the ones he definitely shouldn't. Say.
He's already been hit with a brick once this week.
There's little of his usual charm about him. No twitch of a smile or conspiracy in the angle of his eyes aside. He's here because it's on his list of Things to Do and he can't keep lying around not talking to anyone or he'll never finish before Benji finds out and then finds him. So it goes.
"I don't like you," he says, finally, "but I have no reason to lie to you. And every reason to tell the truth."
"I think that I figured out the dislike part when you cuffed me to the underside of a car the other night. But the Lord never said that we have to like people, we just have to live in the same world as them" A glance around, half expecting police to come popping out from mysterious hidden corners and arrest her just in case he was talking to her to stall her for that purpose. But when none do, brief eye contact made with others on the street before back to the redhead in question.
"What did I do, that made you dislike me. For that matter, I don't even know your name. I'd like to at least know the name of the person who I'm having a broad daylight conversation with. Especially if he's about to tell me some truth about… something."
"M'name is Calvin Sheridan," says Calvin, which is one truth, honesty scorched acrid across the flat rake of his voice. She looks away to bystanders and he doesn't bat an eye, focus fixed flat upon her now that he's solved one mystery. Hands still in his pockets, non-threatening despite the bristle of contempt through his shoulders.
"Your husband's name is James Muldoon."
Not in the least if the hint of anger that rises at that name is any indication or the subtle heat inching off her. "I don't find that funny at all. My hu-" He's not her husband anymore, she has to remember that. "my former husbands name was Robert Caliban not James Muldoon. James Muldoon is… somewhere else. Fled the country last I knew" Which was years ago.
"And James Muldoon would have nothing to do with me. Last time he came near me, people decimated his little illegal fighting ring and burned down the warehouse he was housing us in. He wouldn't come near me again"
"Near you, on you. In you," says Calvin, who must agree that this is no laughing matter or he wouldn't be resorting to puns. He smiles, finally — more a show of his teeth than anything — and takes a step back, giving away ground gained with a roll of his wrists up out of his pockets, hands open. Conscious of rising temperatures, no doubt.
"Christ, you're dim. Ask him if you like, when you have him sign the papers. Ask Kasha, or Jasmine, or God. Or don't and blow me, if that's all you're determined to be good for. I've done my bit."
"I can't show up to sign any papers, and he's divorcing me, not the other way around" Not because of what he did, even if she wasn't on the run, the odds of her pushing for a divorce wouldn't likely have happened. "I'll be arrested if I show up." She's watching him though, the step back, the way he holds himself, the invocation of Kasha's name. Of someone named Jasmine. She doesn't know anyone named Jasmine, though she's looking at him with a different eye now.
Kasha came back. Adult Kasha, came back. "Who was Kasha married to?" She slips that noose back around her ability, haul back on it, batten down the hatches and make the heat drop, so she doesn't blow up on the guy. Would be bad form. "I won't ignite on you, don't worry. I'm better than that. I try to not burn the heck out of people"
There's a pause while Calvin takes her in like he might a cat that just stood up on its hind legs and started talking to him about hybridizing salmon, brow hooded and eyes ringed bright. Familiar, even, in their distinct cut and clarity. Is he high? More pressingly: "Are you fucking joking?"
He shifts his weight — a restless, uncertain, jittery twitch in his posture suspended from shoulder to heel. At a loss. Not entirely sure how to proceed.
"An entire year of your life and love outed as an insidious sham and you're on about someone else's marriage."
It's not a question, really. He's just pointing this out for her. In case she hadn't noticed. Like that other thing she hadn't noticed, only on a smaller scale.
"Right, well. That part's none've my business, I'm afraid. You'll have to talk to her. Nice speaking with you, though."
She'll notice the smaller thing, the Sheridan thing, likely soon enough. How many sheridans with red hair are there? She wasn't joking though, was more to see if he was like Kasha. Displaced, back in time of which, she's certain now that he is. She stands there, shoulders still slightly turned in, cowed by the revelation. Why would he joke about that. That Robert is actually Muldoon.
Her lips are dry, pink tongue darting out to moisten them, watching Calvin's lips as they part and move in the words that tumble forth. Year. Sham. Nice speaking with you. The thumb on her left hand starting to scratch against the side of her forefinger.
"You're not joking"
He's not joking. In the least. He's serious. Now it's her turn to encroach on his space, take the few steps forward, take his upper arm in her hands, firm grip. "Robert is James Muldoon? My Robert really is James Muldoon. Why are you telling me this Calvin Sherid-" Sheridan. Cue the cute little gasp of realization. Tighter grip. There really isn't that many Sheridan's with red hair.
Caught, Calvin stiffens and rankles his nose, muscle corded rigid with copper wire under her combined grip. He's hot without her help, warm iron stink radiating thick from the crisp of his shirt and the clench at his middle. Not keen on being touched, for once. Still sore.
Also, it's her.
"I'm telling you for my father's sake. And your own. Because do whatever you like to Muldoon, but if the thought of calling Flint to cover for you crosses your fucking mind," he bites, nose tipped down closer to her height, "I'll use you to determine how many pieces a single person can be pulled into."
Flint, has a kid. With Bella Sheriden.
Abigail, calls Flint, for something to do with Robert - Not Robert, James Muldoon - and Calvin's come here to tell her all this. "I love your father. I wouldn't do something like that, ask him to do anything to Rob- to Muldoon" Oh god, She'd married… Somewhere, deep in her, wound around her heart and squeezing, she's coming to the realization that he probably is. "I haven't seen your father is months. I don't even think he'd ever want to see me again"
And there's a glance to her hand, letting go of his arm. "I'm sorry" For gripping him too hard, for not believing him. For whatever she does to his father in the future. "I'm.. I'm sorry"
"You did it yourself." Whatever that means. Calvin's temper edges back from the brink when she releases him, a sweep of his left hand gone automatically to straighten creases left in the fabric after her. "And he deserved it. Still does." Dust, dust. He straightens out the vest as well, composure regained through a series of calculated fidgets. "I fully endorse any murder attempts you or anyone else might make. Anyway."
ANYway.
"This was a preventative measure, not a quest for reconciliation. Enjoy the rest of your life. Apologies in advance if things get a bit dodgy over the next few months."
They're already dodgy, aren't they? Now she knows the source of his dislike. Something to do with Caliban slash Muldoon. She watche shim fidgit, get neat and tidy again, can see little things of Flint in him. Not so much Bella, besides the hair but then, she never knew Bella too well. She fidgits herself, unsure of where to go, what to do, when to start thinking in earnest about what he said. Some place less flammable.
She knows where she wants to go but, can't. Not yet. To the terminal likely, so she can go find some underground place that's damp and less likely to catch on fire when she dwells on it.
When she connected what he said with other things that Caliban has said.
And she turns on her heel again, abruptly walking away from him without a thank you, as quick as she had turned towards him at the start. QUick steps, boots swift over the pavement. Likely off to implode.
The heavy-lidded slit of his eyes monitoring her retreat is rather Sheridan in its subdued rancor and poise, the curve of his spine fastidiously upright within the fine confines of his vest. It's difficult, sometimes, to be an individual. Even with the hair and the eyes and. The terrorism.
Duty done for now, Calvin, reminds himself to breathe once he has a modicum of privacy to do so in, toes flexed and splayed within shoes he'd rather not be wearing.
A few seconds later, he's sashaying off in the other direction. Onward.
