Participants:
| Scene Title | Purple Koolaid |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | He should have just let her drink it. |
| Date | April 10, 2019 |
Abby's Place - Kitchen
It's earlier than Deckard intended to wake up. Much earlier. Pre-dawn greys and blues filter dimly in through the kitchen window, painting long black shadows along and across the lean, grey-haired man currently pouring himself a glass of orange juice in the semidark. He's tall, wiry, scruffy, tattooed (a snarl fanged serpent coils around a cross at his right shoulder, with a chi rho marked black across the ridge of his left shoulder blade), and probably close to his 50s if he isn't already dabbling in them. Not the sort of person who should be hanging around Abby's. Then again, neither is Elle.
To make his presence even more potentially baffling for those who haven't seen much of him already, he's in an undershirt, dark grey socks and a creased pair of tuxedo pants. Why tuxedo pants? Why not? He finishes pouring and recaps the juice only to stand groggily where he is rather than replace it immediately. Fghhh.
It might be early, but Elle's used to getting up when other people are still sleeping. Or should be. Her trek out of her room is in time to catch Deckard in the middle of his hazy stare into space, the agent silently emerging from the shadowed hallway to ~flick~ on the light switch with one finger. There is a pause when she does.
Abby is half a foot taller than her, which constitutes a slight problem when it comes to borrowing clothes, but anything's better than nothing. She's currently in a white, overlarge T-shirt and pajama shorts; not like she's had anywhere to be. Rather than looking too surprised at Abby's choice of a boyfriend (or random thuggish housebreaker? Either one?), she cocks her head to one side, choosing to linger by the wall. "Turning on the light helps," she notes by way of greeting.
There's an unnatural flicker of blue at Deckard's eyes when his head snaps back to the door — too intense and too bright in the millisecond or so before the kitchen light flicks on in full. He's immune to the annoyance of the sudden florescent glow, but not to the annoyance of being snuck up on, intentionally or otherwise. The flat line of his mouth adopts a hazy slant accordingly, but he hefts the rest of the OJ in offer all the same, gaze washed to pale ash while he looks her over for the first time at close range. "Juice?" She's tiny.
"No thanks." The line of Elle's lips curves upwards a little as she approaches, padding right past Deckard for the cupboard not far beyond. Thus begins the illustrious search of trying to figure out which one has the cups. "…Y'know, I overheard your argument last night." Never one for social tact, is Elle. Thankfully the cups don't take too long in finding, and she sneaks a wry glance in Deckard's direction as she plucks one down.
"…Super." More good news to lob onto the pyre. Too tired or two preoccupied with other drama or too busy squinting at her sideways while she gropes through various cupboards searching for glasses right in front of him, Deckard fails to touch on anything close to his temper. "Don't suppose there's any point in asking you to butt out given that you lack the impulse control necessary to stay in your own branch of time and space."
"Hey, don't get pissy. I just wasn't aware I was supposed to be dead." Or that somebody is apparently angry that Deckard and Abby are doing the dirty thang. Thanks for raising your voice, Abby! Though Elle'll leave that spotty subject alone. "And…yeah, you're right, there's not." With an annoying and innocently blinkish smile, she pauses with cup in hand, using the other hand to run fingers through the hair on her shoulder. Straightening it out.
"By the way, I'm ~Elle.~ And I don't know who you are." Deckard no doubt knows -her- name already, but, hey. Tis' proper routine for two people meeting for the first time. Even she does know that much.
"Flint." No squigglies. "Deckard." Still no squigglies. Even worse than his flat affect is the way he watches her, glass in left hand, the jug in his right, jaw set and pale eyes unblinking. Kind of the same way biologists watch very rare and very deadly species of snakes. Only instead of a gun or a knife or a very long stick he has fresh squeezed Florida orange juice and a mild hangover.
No pulp.
"Don't suppose you'd be interested in telling me what you were up to when you were catapulted into the present from the middle of Utah." It's not really a question on account of the fact that he sounds like he honestly doesn't suppose that she is, but it's posed all the same before he finally turns away to put his juice back in the fridge.
"Flint. Flinty. What a cute name." Carelessly ignoring the unblinking stare, Elle turns her back on Deckard to tread over to the fridge, one pale hand resting on the handle before pulling it open. Outline barely visible, a bright triangle of light falls across the floor.
As she leaaans inwards for the cartons in the very back, a tiny smile grows on her face, out of his sight. "I was trying to kill a bunch of people who wouldn't stay in their prison cells. And a bunch of people were trying to kill me. I would've gotten more than just one, too, if I hadn't been snuck up on."
All in a normal day's conversation, yes? Yes?
Twin creases etch in between Deckard's brow at the answer. More honesty than he was expecting, maybe. Also, she called him 'Flinty.'
His brows hood down the rest of the way once that's had a minute or two to sink in, naturally surly in their default set. Never mind the hour. And his headache.
Rather than retreat to the kitchen table once he's sipped his juice, he turns to settle himself against the opposite counter, left hand braced to the keep some of the pressure off his lower back while he goes back to watching her again. Dance monkey dance.
When Elle straightens and turns around again, it's with a jug of purple Koolaid in hand. Across the top of the counter, she meets his watchfulness with a close stare of her own— never mind Deckard's ability to make his blue eyes unnaturally intense; hers is on 100% of the time. "You look kind of old to be Abby's boyfriend," she observes, glance lingering on the top of his graying hair. "You're not a visiting uncle, are you?"
"Actually, I'm a visiting uncle and her boyfriend." The bloodless slate of his glare bugs beneath the hard level of his brow with exaggerated scandal for this supposed incest. Oh no! Then he swallows down more juice and scrubs out the orange murk clinging to the bristle on his upper lip. "Are you a friend of Abby's from the past? A captor? Just some random broken doll that she's trying to duct tape together again?"
"Do I really look like a -broken doll- to you?" A light, amused breath is inserted behind the emphasis, creating almost a coo in sound. Elle stays still for just a fraction of a second more before heading for that counter. Down the Koolaid jug goes with a -bump-, and her coolly curious eyes flicker towards him yet again. "And, uh-huh, I'm sure she likes that. I suppose even a girl as nice as her needs an outlet once in a while."
"'Broken' probably isn't the right word," Deckard agrees a little too easily, chest rising and falling slow when he sets his own glass aside on the counter top next to him. His study is ongoing. Equally curious. More clinical. Deliberate, searching, suspicious. Fortunately Abigail's kitchen falls short of a hospital's white tiled sterility, and so does Flint Deckard. In apparent response to Abby's preferences in the bedroom, he belches. Quietly, at least.
Elle neither agrees nor disagrees with that, but snorts, softly. She lets her stare stay on a level with Deckard's, pupils sliding back and forth in barely-perceptible movements as she scans his face, before allowing it to drop with a smirk. "I didn't know Abby before I got here. She's a friend of some of the other time travelers." Friend of a friend, same difference. "Still feels weird calling myself that."
"Yeah. I was awake for a while, trying to feel surprised." But no. Of course there are time travelers popping up to make a mess of the life he's been building for himself. If anything he's surprised they didn't get here sooner. Sooner and with more nuclear warheads. He mirrors her smirk with one of his own when she breaks off what's turned into a staring contest first, oddly self-assured of something despite his wardrobe, the hour, and the setting. "Don't worry. I'm sure you'll be back to killing people back in 2009 soon enough."
"Thanks! I hope so too," is Elle's pert reply, the agent's attention now focusing downwards and away from Deckard's changes in expression. Her hand, lingering on top of the jug's plastic contours until now, finally picks it up to pour. Purple liquid ~sloshes~ in a carefully angled stream. "I'm actually surprised you're taking this all so calmly. Or maybe you didn't before, I dunno." Abby seems like the type who'd take anyone in if they begged nice enough, never mind the story.
"If Abigail wasn't predisposed towards taking in strays, you're not the only one who wouldn't be in here right now." Coffee is starting to sound like a good idea, but neither of them thought to set the machine last night and Deckard can't be bothered to mess with it now. A sideways glance vaguely indicates as much. Maybe if he slogs around down here long enough he'll be able to fall back asleep. "My life has been one big improbably long clusterfuck. That stuff turns the kids' shit green, by the way."
One of Elle's eyebrows lowers, and after some hesitance, her hand does as well. That puts an interesting new spin on things. "Fine. On second thought," she snips with somewhat impatient resignation, heading right back over to the fridge with Koolaid grasped around the top, now, instead of at its handle. Fff. "You and Abby together does seem a little wacked out. Uh. How'd she end up with you, if you don't mind my asking?" So, she might not've been kidding after all about Abby needing an outlet.
Hey. He's just the green shit messenger, here. His own (orange) juice lifted and sipped while Elle returns to the refrigerator, he peers down into the slosh of the remaining contents to watch pulp that shouldn't be there drifting lazily around the bottom. "It's a recent development in a decade-long story. Also, not really any of your business, Muffin."
Did he really just call her 'muffin'? Both of Elle's eyebrows stay lowered sardonically all the way during to the sink, as she dumps out the purple mess inside (splattering all over the nice, spotless walls of the sink), and all the way back. Her mouth is in a slant. "Just saying. You just don't seem like you make two little matching lovebirds." Oh, yeah. She's looking at the tattoos and scruffiness in conjunction with all the crosses hanging in various places all over Abby's home.
And then she shrugs, choosing plain water to take into her possession this time thank you very much, and everything in her expression lightens. "I'm not complaining. Everyone has their kinks."
At long last, tension starts to creep across the backs of Deckard's arms through his neck, wiry muscle corded taut only to slack again on the tail of the next lengthy breath he manages to force out. It's a brief thing — a snake in tall grass, tell-tale one second and invisible the next. Free hand pushed up over a jaw ever-increasingly in need of a shave, he leans away from the counter, orange juice and all.
"I should get back upstairs." Ffff. He's too distracted to bother with being defensive.
One more smile on Elle's part, this one more considering and less kind than any of the others. She, on the other hand, will stay to finish her drink until it's all gone. "Have fun up there."
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