Participants:
| Scene Title | She's Fine (But You Should See the Other Guy) |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Sable receives callers inquiring after her health, and the circumstances of her injury. |
| Date | July 16, 2010 |
Gun Hill - Sable's Apartment
To call this room sparse would be, if not unfair, then not precisely indicative. Yes, there is little in the way of furniture here. In fact, the only object that really qualifies is a salvaged mattress sitting on a salvaged box spring sitting on the floor. There are sheets, but they are almost always coming free of the mattress itself, crumpled and tangled up with the blanket, a ratty old quilt that must have been through several previous owners. But sparse does not convey the sense of general disorder, the //ad hocness of the resident's lifestyle. On either side of the bed is a pile of clothes, one for clean clothes, the other for dirty clothes, and neither pile is very large, nor sports anything like a variety. Tank tops (usually white), cargo pants (usually brown), and underwear (usually depicting cute cartoon characters who have been given eye patches, devil horns or fearsome scars using black fabric marker) dominate the selection.//
Decoration has only been recently added. First and most noticeable are the many swaths of brightly colored, patterned cloth pinned in drapings upon the walls. The impressions is chaotic but enthusiastic, like the combined work of a hippie, an ADHD child, a crazy person. The last is true. The others… arguable. Second, clustered nearer to the bed, pinned to walls and ceiling, are pictures from old Playboy magazines, all from the 60's and 70's from the looks of it. Beauties from another era.
Other that than, there are only a few items that suggest the tenant's personality and interests: a CD player, a pile of CDs, an amplifier and two guitars, one black electric, one blue acoustic-electric. These alone, of all the (admittedly few) possessions in this place, look well cared for. Even the way they rest in the corner, arrayed with care, suggests something like love for them.
Aw, fucknuts, it's early.
The funky sounds of 'Estimated Prophet' start playing the moment the digital display on Sable's CD player flickers to the big six-three-oh, and Sable gives a somewhat anguished groan, both due to her own tiredness (pain killers = low grade sleep) and the pain in her arm (those pain killers have worn off). She feel asleep sitting up, her arm in its cast and splint, and she rubs her eyes with the back of her wrist and slowly pulls herself to her knees, sheets pooled around her. She drags herself to the edge of her bed, reaches over for her laundry pile, and starts getting dressed. She dons her clothes in a manner best described as 'grudging'.
She's up. She doesn't have to be happy about it.
As if on cue, there's a sudden thump-thump-thump against the front door of the apartment. It could be someone disturbed by the sound of the alarm, or maybe it's just a coincidence, but at least the knocking didn't start before she got dressed.
The superintendant - well, the less metrosexual of the two - is standing on the other side of the door, his expression one of open concern and brow furrowed with worry. Doyle's hand comes up again, knuckles rapping sharply to the wood.
"Comin'! Iii'm comin'!" Sable growls at the door, fastening her cargo pants and straightening the hem of her tank top, padding over in still-bare feet and cracking open the door. "Uncivilized folk 'r tryin' t' get their fuckin' bedrest," she begins to say, being actually the kind of person who will start quipping before seeing who's actually at the door. Who's there, though? Doyle. She squints. "'s you," she states, which is true, it is him, "…figure yer hear f'r somethin'. Somethin' mebbe y' heard 'bout?" She sniffs. "Well, come on in," she says, opening the door sufficiently to permit his girth, "Can't take too long, though. Got work."
"Yeah, well, it is kind of my job to be watching after you all, you know?" It's a bit dry, a bit sharp, from Eric's lips as the big man walks along through the door and into the apartment, squeezing past her and walking in - looking around the chaotically decorated room before turning back to look at her, both brows arching upwards, "What happened?"
Sable doesn't waste time, miraculous in and of itself. She's putting on her socks with a determined air that really shows those socks who's boss. Fuckin' socks. Get on my foot, or get the fuck outta here.
"Long 'n' short? Fuckin' psycho menacin' Magnes' gal. Came at us when we were out gettin', like, late night ice cream. I pulled a knife on 'im, he broke my fuckin' guitar playin' arm," she points at the arm and then reaches to get her shoes, "But I cut him up decent. Particularly his leg. Motherfucker was strong as hell. Too strong. Think he's, like, y'know," she looks up at Doyle, "Us."
The puppeteer leans back against the wall, arms folding over his broad chest as he listens to the explaination of what exactly happened the previous night. Eric's brow lines deeply as his lips turn down in a frown, his head cocking a little to one side. "So… what, was this just some guy you ran into out there, or…?"
"Followin' us," Sable clarifies, tugging on her shoes and lacing the ratty, tattered laces, "He's got a thing f'r Elaine. Don't wanna go int' details, speak 'f things that're, like, her fuckin' business. But he was after her then, 'n' likely still is," she flashes a mean, mean smile, "Y'll be able t' tell 'im by th' limp I gave 'im. Tore up his leg pretty fuckin' good." Just in case you missed that detail the first time she mentioned it.
"So… how long has this been going on?" Doyle's brow furrows a little bit, his frown deepening, and then he raises one hand up to rub against his face, "Right. I'll talk to her. Has he actually come by the Hill at all, or near here?"
"We were real close, not more th'n, like, a few blocks, when I got int' th' fight," Sable says, finishing her laces with a double knot and getting to her feet. "'n' not too long. Elaine got cuffed up pretty bad a few days back, but she wanted it t' stay her fuckin' business, as I dig like… mebbe y' think I shoulda said somethin', but that ain't how I roll. First loyalty t' the loved, dig? Now, though, it's gotten bigger. He's comin' t' her." She sidles towards the bathroom. "Gotta piss. C'n talk through the door, though."
"Maybe so, but this isn't just her business," Doyle says with a grimace and a tight shake of his head, stepping over towards the bathroom as well so his voice will be more audible through the door, "This isn't just an apartment building, it's also a safehouse… any sort of threats or problems risk everyone else, too. And if he's coming to her now, and he's Evolved, then we might have a serious problem here… I mean, what if he goes to the cops, says you stabbed him?"
Sable closes the door in Doyle's face, but not in an 'up yours' way. Just in a 'have to piss' way. Her voice takes on that weird hollowness that voices coming from bathrooms do, reverberating against tile before filtering out through the door. "I dig," she says, "Sorry 'bout draggin' my feet. Tryin' t' show a troubled gal some respect," she doesn't state this as accusation or defense, just reasoning, "I dunno 'bout all that. Sorry f'r the trouble. Makes y' feel better, if he pulls that, ol' Elaine c'n point to her own injuries as came by him 'n' his brutality. 'n' honest, I don't think even pigs 'r gonna side with that em effer over fair Miss Elaine." All this over a telltale trickle. A pause. "Aw fuck, 'course it's that time again." There's a flush, the door opens, and Sable peers out at Doyle, inquisitive, "They got spare tampons down at th' clinic?"
"Yeah, she could, but we don't want the authorities breathing down our necks… there're people here who'd rather not even see the cops, you know what I mean?" Eric paces a bit outside the bathroom, his head shaking slowly, "We'll have to take care of this, I'll talk to Elaine about this guy — I should find out if the guys down the block saw anything, they're supposed to be keeping an eye on the place, after all." A pause, and he looks to the door, cheeks flushed, "Uh. Probably?"
"Fuckin' tell me 'bout it," Sable says, wrinkling her nose, "I made sure t' skip right th' fuck outta there when Quinn said th' cops were comin'. Didn't want t' lead them on t' Gun Hill 'r nothin'. 'course Quinn doesn't fuckin' know 'bout the Ferry, so she didn't know any better," a pause, "May've let somethin' slip t' her 'bout it when she, like, yelled at me f'r tryin' to slip the cops. Tryin' t' explain, like, why I couldn't talk t' 'em, 'n case they asked where I lived 'n' shit." She frowns, "But she outta know. I know my vouch ain't worth much, but I vouch f'r her 'til th' end of time. Shit, everyone she fuckin' knows is Ferry. She lives here. 'n' she's one 'f us."
It's not hard to hear Colette coming a mile away, what with how her boots are thundering up the stairs in a hastened pace that implies urgency. By the time those clomping bootfalls actually make it to the apartment door, Colette looks out of breath and exhausted, given that she's in long pants in this weather it's a fair guess she was probably getting ready for work when she heard about what happened.
Pushing the door open with one hand, Colette slouches forward and rests her hands on her knees, catching her breath in the doorway before looking up and thorugh the apartment, finally spotting Doyle's frame by the bathroom. Dark hair hangs over one side of Colette's face, soon huffed out of the way of her good eye as she exasperatedly breathes, "She— is— " then lifts up one hand, a single finger raised as she tries her best to breathe.
"Is she okay?" comes out practically all as one word as Colette straightens back up, tugging at the collar of her black t-shirt, leaning around the door to get a better look at where Doyle is, only then spotting Sable's head poking out through thr door. Relief, sure. Though she tries to play it off a little.
"Shit." Eric rubs a hand over the side of his face, "Well. We may have to… bring her in on things sooner than we planned. We have some background checks and vetting going on already, Sable, to make sure she's clean and safe. It's not like we were going to keep her out of— "
Then the door's pushed open, and he offers a wan smile, "Hey, Colette. Yeah, she's okay."
Sable's head turns in the bathroom door aperture, and her brows lift as soon as she spots Colette. A smile creeps its way onto her lips, the first non-crazy version of that expression she's had on since waking. "Better th'n okay now yer here, gorgeous," she says, lapsing into her typical manner like someone slipping into comfortable slippers. Any excuse to reach for normality.
"Got int' a knife fight," she says, waggling her brows, clearly playing this off as impressive, "T' be fair, was me with th' knife. But this motherfucker hits hard." Sable steps out of the bathroom, into full view, showing off her sling, pointing it it, "Ain't gonna be able t' play guitar f'r a while, so I'm gonna need other-type distractions, keep me from madness. So you don't be a stranger now, dig? You don't come callin' 'nuff, I figure."
Snorting out a breath and rolling her eyes, Colette sweeps a hand thorugh her hair and grumbles, "yeah she's fine." Though the fact that Sable was in a knife-fight earns a furrowed brow look from Colette, mouth agape and mismatched eyes widening before they quickly snap shut. "A knife-fight? Are you— out of— your mind?"
Sliding that hand down from her hair and over her face, Colette tiredly walks through the apartment, eyes opening and settling on Doyle with a is she serious look on her face, one brow lifted behind her bangs before focus shifts back to Sable.
"I was already downstairs about tog et on my bike for work when Lance told me you had your arm chopped off or something, I dunno. I ran down to the clinic and you weren't there, I couldn't find doctor Price anywhere so I ran all the way back up here. Swear to God I was gonna' wring Lance's neck for scewing with me…" then Colette's brows furrow together, "now I'm not sure if I should wring yours or not!"
Breathing in sharply through her nose, Colette crosses bare arms over her chest, both brows lifted as she looks back and forth between Doyle and Sable with an expectant look on her face. Seems like she wants the story too.
As the panicked rant from the photokinetic rails to the ceiling and off the walls, Eric Doyle simply listens to it with a bit of a smirk upon his lips, his head shaking slowly from side to side. Once she drops quiet and looks at him, he explains quietly, "Some stalker that Elaine picked up, apparently."
Sable lifts her good arm defensively. "Hold God, girl, y' wanna finish me off? 't least wait 'til I'm good 'n' mended b'fore y' go f'r my throat. Ain't no fair fight like this!" She's grinning, crooked as anything, embarrassed, nervous, weirdly sort of pleased. "Pretty when y' get worked up though," she sad, trading jibes for chides.
"Y' know, if I'm gonna have t' tell this fuckin' tale a half dozen times b'fore gettin' t' work," Sable says, wrinkling her nose as Colette shifts from upset to expectant, "I should go 'n' write a fuckin' ballad 'bout it. Gonna need a heroic-like title. 'n' have lots of embellishments 'n', like, tall-tale type details. Lies t' outlive me…" She cricks her neck, "Long 'n' short? Had t' defend Elaine from a beastly fuckin' bobcat 'f a fella with a mean fuckin' punch. Tore him up pretty good 'til he heard Quinn callin' th' cops 'n' went runnin'. Best f'r him, too. Just 'bout ready t' stop fuckin' with 'n' just put him in the ground!" There's the first embellishment.
Sliding her tongue over her lips, Colette lifts fingertips to her forehead, smooting them over one of her eyebrows as she nods her head. "Jesus, um, alright… We've still got those Linderman guys watching the place for trouble, I can't remember who hired them but I think it was Gillian." Colette's brows crease together, her eyes flicking over to Doyle before looking back over to Sable.
"I— are you really, really alright?" Only now that the anger is subsiding is Colette actually worried, the tug of teeth at her bottom lip one of those visual cues as she looks back up to Doyle, fidgeting nervously where she stands. "Um, God, Sable…" lifting up a hand again to brush back hair behind one of her ears, Colette shakes her head slowly — fretfully.
"Look I— if you think this guy's gonna' be a problem maybe I can talk to Elaine and see what she knows about him, I might be able to get my dad to have him picked up or something. Or— maybe the cowboy handyman can scare him off like that Clint Eastwood movie about the gangs and stuff, where they tried to steal his car?"
Because that movie had such a happy ending.
"Why don't you talk to the guys down the street," Doyle suggests to Colette with a tilt of his head towards the window, referring of course to the Lindergoons in question, "Since, uh, you seem to be more comfortable with them than I am. I'll, uh, I'll talk to Elaine." He steps along over to that window to peek out, murmuring, "I don't want any cops sniffing around here."
Sable gets momentarily serious. Sort of. She fixes Colette with an earnest look. "I'm fine, mostly," she says, "Sorta fuckin' bummed… okay real fuckin' bummed 'bout my guitar arm gettin' busted. Not thinkin' too hard 'bout what I'll do if I can't play f'r however long. So… please, hon, don't you f'rget t' drop by 'n' distract me a little, arright? 'cause I'll be beatin' my head 'gainst th' fuckin' walls soon 'nuff."
Her eyes cut over to Doyle, "You be delicate with that girl, arright?" she says, not quite warning, "She's had a rough time of it…" A pause, "We cool? I didn't fuck up too bad, right? Fuckin' tryin' here. Tryin' t' be good."
"No you… did what I would've done so I can't bitch you out for it." Colette furrows her brows and takes a step back, slouching up against the wall beside the bathroom door and folding her arms over her chest again. When her back hits the wall with a soft whump her eyes close for a moment, brows screwed up and frustration visible on her face. When those mismatched eyes do open, she's looking up to Doyle. "Yeah, I'll… go talk to them, but only after you talk to Elaine. See if she has a picture of the guy or something, I want everyone around here to know what this douchebag looks like so they know to keep him away."
Glancing askance to the bathroom door, Colette makes a quiet, disconcerted noise in the back of her throat. "You serious about your arm being that bad?" There's that sound again, and Colette's eyes search the floor. "I'll ask 'round… there's gotta be somebody who can heal in the Ferry somewhere,e ven if it's just an associate."
A slide of the puppeteer's hand brushes back over his bald pate, rubbing at his neck as he straightens beside the window and then turns back to the girls, watching them for a moment before he exhales a sigh, hand falling. "Yeah, yeah. You did alright. You all should've told us about this, though, so we could've taken care of it - or at least set up some precautions, you know? You were protecting your friend, though, I get that, I do…"
Doyle nods to Colette, "Yeah… yeah, good idea. And, uh, I heard of some guy. Constantine?"
This conversation is lifting up above the place where Sable can properly understand it and its implications. But she gets the message: 'it's being taken care of'. So that's good. She grips her shoulder, squeezing, checking on Colette's behalf. Is it that bad? The only question she's equipped to answer right now. "Don't matter how bad th' arm is, so much," she explains, "Just that it keeps me from playin'. Y' didn't know me b'fore I found music. Ain't pretty."
She glances towards the door. "I… got work, 'n' all," she says, "'n' I can't fuckin' skip, I'm hangin' on by a thread as it fuckin' is. But… y' c'n sure as hell visit me when I get back," she grins at Colette, "Bring me dinner?" Might as well milk this while she's got it.
"You're going to work? With a stab wound?" At least that's how Colette's envisioning it from Lance's over-blown explanation and the mention of a knife-fight. "Alright, look— you're not going to work, I don't care if I have to call my dad and have him tell your boss you're dead, you aren't going to work without having gone to see a proper doctor." Not that Doctor Price doesn't seem like a real doctor, but she's got that je ne sais quoi about her that screams creeper.
"I'll call out for you, you're going to fuckin' rest or I'll have Eric make you rest," and that comes with something of a smirk. "I have t'go to work, but…" there's a glance up to Doyle, then back over to Sable, "I'll check out this Constantine guy, see if he can come out here to check up on you and get you back in fit shape. You ain't gonna' screw up your arm any worse than it already is though."
"Hey." At the mention of a 'proper' doctor, Doyle actually looks offended, frowning over, "Odessa's a real doctor. Unless you can dig up someone with an ability, she's, she's just about the best you can get."
A shake of his head, "You go to work, I'm… I'll have to go talk to Elaine, I guess."
Sable blinks, looking surprised, even a little affronted. "I… hold on now!" she says, as Colette makes it very clear she's not to work today, and idea that Sable has a hard time feeling one way about, "I've got… I've got a duty t' keep. I already fuckin' skipped once, I can't go…" she stammers, "Y'… y' can't just overrule my will like that! Have a hard 'nuff time keepin' it straight m'self!" She scowls, "I'm walkin' out that door 'n' I'm gonna go sell some fuckin' records," she says, pigheaded stubbornness setting in.
"Nothin' y' c'n do will make things happen otherwise. My world's what I fuckin' make it. 'n' you… 'y can't…" She what? She can't what? Sable doesn't say, just trails off. Just wrinkles her nose in Colette's direction, glowering at her. No real hostility. She can't summon any of that up. She is, at worst, petulant. Doyle gets a suspicious glance. He was mentioned as a potential enforcing party. She just dares him.
Mismatched eyes lift up to Doyle along with a sheepish nod of Colette's head, "S— sorry I just…" there's a wrinkle of Colette's nose and a wave of her hand, "swear I'd seen her somewhere before all this." Primatech, Level-1 never crosses Colette's mind in the least, it was so long ago and those dreged up memories Linderman returned to her still so cobwebbed.
Casting an askance glance back to Sable, Colette leans off of the wall and lifts up her brows, taking a tone that is more Nicole than Colette. "You're staying home or I swear to God I will call Brian to send over clones to hold you down if Doyle won't." Shifting her weight to one foot, Colette looks over to Doyle and breathes in a deep breath and then exhales a sigh.
"Alright, I'm gonna go head out to work, I'll swing by the record store Sable works at and tell her boss what's what." Creasing her brows, the brunette looks back to the bathroom door, then to Doyle again. "If anything happens, call me okay? My number's on the refrigerator in Lynette's apartment."
"She's as much of a monster as I am," Doyle says quietly— a bit tightly, as he glances to Sable's broken arm, "Take that for what— for whatever it's worth." He shakes his head slowly at the argument between the two, then, and he looks to Sable with a wry expression then to note, "It might… be better to stay. I mean, if you're that hurt…"
Doyle is someone Sable would like to just dislike, or to not listen to - they have something that, to Sable, constitutes a 'history', and he's an authority figure. But he is not acting loathsome enough to properly qualify, which is frustrating. Reasonable, respectful authority bugs the heck out of Sable. It seems disingenious. It also seems easier to follow. Which is even worse. She grits her teeth a little.
"One fuckin' condition!" Sable declare, lifting a single finger to illustrate both the singularity and the adamance of her requirement, "You," she points at Colette, "have dinner with me here, t'night,'n' we catch up proper-like. You gimme that, I'll fuckin' stay put 'f my own accord," she squints with one eye, "Allowed t' walk about the buildin' a little, ain't I? Got some people I gotta talk to." And that maybe will not be visiting her of their own accord. Quinn did not sound happy with her last night.
Looking up to Doyle with an expression somewhere between apologetic and confused, though it's fleeting in light of Sable's insistance. "Can't do the dinner thing tonight," she admits with a furrow of her brows, "well— alright, maybe. Come over to my place and have dinner with me an' Tasha," which should be a much safer avenue in her own mind. "We've got real live furniture now, and maybe Tamara'll be around too. I'm not really sure, but maybe she'll get the intended invitation?"
Cracking a smile, Colette rests her hands on her hips, looking up to Eric again an steps towards him. "Don't forget to see if she has a picture of that creeper," she quietly offers in relation to his impending conversation with Elaine. Though as Colette takes a step back and offers a look back to Sable, her brows furrow worriedly.
"Don't go outside of Gun Hill, not even down the street, not until I know what this dickhead looks like and the guys out front know. Other than that, just be careful with that arm?"
Doyle rolls his eyes at her reminder, and he reaches out to ruffle a hand through Colette's hair. "I'll get a description at least," he reassures her, heading for the door with a slow shake of his head, "Christ. Kids these days…"
Sable's expression, a bit strange, is the effect of the various whirring and clickings going on inside her head. Processing. Parsing. Running through various ways to approach Colette's counter-offer. But it's early, she's tired, and she's still hurting, though it's not so bad as it was last night. She abandons worries of thought. She has a single solace that she communicates to Colette, after the single affirmative: "Arright.'
"But it was yer idea." In case things go awry.