Participants:
Scene Title | The Beauchamp Gambit |
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Synopsis | To save a life, Abigail makes a decision independent of her teammates. |
Date | April 26, 2010 |
Staten Island: Anonymous Safehouse
Peter dropped off, a return planned to the safehouse that they had just left. Peter wouldn't have known that Abby didn't really intend to go to her doctor, to a clinic and get her cast taken off and redone. Body fluids like any other liquid on plaster, isn't good. She'll make good on what she told him, just, she'll do it later. She trusts him to heal Francois and for Teo to take care of things. For now, it was a pit stop down to work, make nice, steal a few syringes and sedatives so that she can take care of things if she needs it with Kozlow.
Second had been a phone call to someone that Caliban would likely be choking about her making. Come to think of it, everything she'd done would likely make him and others choke. What she's about to do too. There's a firm knowledge that if she's caught, things will not bode well for her and it might cost her some friends, and much more.
But the sturdy old ford truck is parked outside the safehouse, oblivious to the fact that Peter has already notified authorities that Sasha is down here and will be coming for him at some point. The ferry watcher inside is dismissed, a promise to call if she needs help when she returns, that she's going to take care of what she'd done which was namely to clean up Sasha. Bucket of water heated, soap, washcloths and towels, back and forth she goes upstairs then downstairs, getting things ready and by way of doing so, giving the groggy Sasha a warning about what she intends to do.
So with everything ready, sedatives loaded in a syringe and in her pocket if she needs it, the blonde is limping her way towards the chained Russian. "I'm sorry about Peter and the bucket. But I needed him to heal a friend. I didn't expect him to do what he did and I'm sorry for what it's worth. Someone's coming to get you. It's not Parkman, or Kershner. If I turned you over to them, they'd just… Lord, I don't know what they'd do. But… I owe you, for your healing. And I keep my debts. Can I help you get clean so you don't smell when Logan comes?"
It's the name Logan that causes Sasha to still from where he's stirring on the floor, half-curled into a fetal position on his side with one long leg stretched out and the other tucked into his stomach. He either has a concussion from where Abby hit him twice over the head with the bucket or Peter's new ability doesn't have any affect on the virus that's been ravaging his body for the last few weeks.
There's a third option that Abby could probably stand to think about, too. If it's an act, it wouldn't be the first time he's fooled her. The mild-mannered persona that befriended her in Ryazan only to be forcibly abducted by the Vanguard is proof enough of what he's capable of. Like he told Abby before, his call sign means treachery.
It's also a very clear indication of what Kazimir Volken thought of him.
"How's your wrist? Did he fix it enough?" Abby's eyes never really come off of him and as she advances on him, she's tense, ready to run or at least galump away if she has to. "I take it, that you'd either not like to go with logan, or you do want to go with him. because I can easily call Parkman or Kershner, and do that instead Sasha."
"It's your choice. But I can't stand to see you down here any longer and I don't want you to die before you can answer for what you've done. Perils of my bleeding heart" A washcloth is dipped into the warm water, squeezed, a bar of soap rubbed along it's surface and then carefully held out for him to take it.
And a chance that he might grab her arm while she there and repeat what he tried to do to Peter.
Sasha looks at Abby. Sasha looks at the soap. She's anticipating a trap, and after what happened with Peter he's expecting the same. Fearing that there might be some sort of twisted reverse psychology at work, he neither confirms nor denies anything lest his desires be turned against him.
He doesn't reach out to take the cloth, but he doesn't snap his hand around her wrist and pull him to her, either. He smells like something that crawled out of a flooded barn, his hair and skin suffused with the scent of sweat, piss and residual moisture clinging to his upper lip that doesn't belong to either category.
There's a slow roll of his shoulders, tension visibly slithering through the muscles beneath his clammy skin.
"Okay, now you're just being rude" Abigail mutters, rolling her eyes and reaching forward to take his free arm, no fast moves and starts to soap up his arm, shifting closer. "You make a move, you touch me at all, anything, then god help you because the people you've been hunting won't have any mercy" She warns him, even as she starts to wash him down, broad strokes of the cloth across skin, wiping away everything that shouldn't be on his skin. The cloth dipped to clean it, set in again. Dry clean clothes wait on top of towels so they remain clean.
"I'm going to have to sedate you. I'd like it if you'd let me do it, willingly. Not right now, later. I'll make sure that Logan at least treats you better than here. I don't have any winter clothes for you, jsut some extra sweater"
Pink lips purse together, brows wrinkling.
"Did you burn down my parents home?"
"Yes."
There's no pride in the confession, but there isn't any remorse either. Sasha folds his fingers into a fist and shifts his arm beneath Abigail's touch, blue eyes watching her face as she works with the sort of sharpness neither Francois nor Teodoro would probably be comfortable with if they were here. He heard her dismiss the operative upstairs, and he would be lying if he insisted that he wasn't thinking about what he might be able to get away with while he and the blonde are alone in the basement.
Maybe it's gratitude for what she's doing for him that stops him from making the attempt. Or maybe it's something as simple as physical exhaustion. Resignation. "I gave them a chance," he says. "More than Laurel Bail."
"Francois's lover" She knows who the woman is and spent a night getting drunk with Francois to help him ease the hurt. "Thank you for not killing them. Much as it galls me to say it. I am… grateful" Over the ropey muscles and boney skin she goes, shifting around, doing her best to remain calm while touching him. They are very much alone in this place and both of them know it.
"Do you know where Dreyfus might be hiding? As much as I am sure you will snarl at me and laugh at me, possibly spit in my face for thinking you'd answer, i'm sure you'd think less of me if I didn't at least ask" There's a continual and soothing sound of the washcloth dipped, more soap, and slap of cloth to flesh till she's reached about all that she can reach and drags the bucket over, producing a little travel sized bottle of shampoo. "I'm not going to shave you, I don't trust even a safety razor near you, so you'll have to live with your beard, but lean your head over. I really am sorry about throwing the bucket's contents at you"
This time, Sasha's response to Abigail's question is to avert his eyes and shift his wolf's gaze from her face to his arms and the black tendrils that snake around his wrist and forearm where Peter touched him. Although he has no way of knowing, he suspects that his leg beneath his jeans is much the same. His gauze stopped bleeding inky fluid some time ago, but he hasn't yet experimented with touching it in case it stains his fingers the same way it's already saturated his skin.
"Diiidn't think you'd tell me" She murmus, reaching for a cup to just scoop up some water, one hand shielding his eyes from the water as it's unceremoniously dumped across his hair so she can set about to washing, much like a petulant child, using her palm to shield his eyes from soap as she rinses - and conditions - the Russian. When she's done, and he's relatively clean as can be, there's a towel passed over for him to set about to drying himself off while Abigail makes her way to her crutch and then to the stairs so she can stand there and look up, head cocked at an angle and listening to hear if anyone has showed up yet.
Sasha's fingers hook the towel's hem and drag the material roughly over his face, burrowing his nose into the fabric with a low snort that sounds almost like a sneeze. His movements, though slow, can't accurately be described as languid; he's actually very meticulous when it comes to drying himself, and spends an inordinate amount of time soaking the soap-and-water mixture from his damp hair and skin but does not use his arm to thrust himself into a sitting position to do it. Petulant is exactly the right word.
Now comes the hard part. Getting him dressed. To do so though, requires him to be Uncuffed. When he looks done, into her pocket dips her hand, digging out the clear and orange plastic syringe, filled with a liquid and held in plain sight of Kozlow. "You ready? Should just be enough to throw you for a loop, but still be able to dress yourself Sasha. It'll wear off in a bit. But I can uncuff you and you can get into clean clothes. logan should be here soon. You can wait for him if you like"
Sasha's shoulders hunch, the hair on the back of his neck bristling, and instinctively he draws away from the syringe to bunch himself up against the radiator. There's a difference between allowing Abigail to bathe him and allowing Abigail to stick a needle in him and inject an unknown substance into veins that have already turned black thanks to her earlier intervention. He shoots her a warning look and makes his feelings known not only through his posture but the sneer pulling at the corners of his mouth as well.
Sigh
The empty ampoule is taken from her pocket and rolled across the floor to him, not advancing. "Baby" SHe's tempted to ask how Milenky would think of him shrinking away from a needle. "You're a doctor, you'll know what it is. I got another if you want me to fill it in front of you, but I wouldn't bath you and bring you clean clothes and turn around and kill you. I'm Abigail" Abigail points out.
"I'm not… Well, I'm Abigail"
Sasha's hand closes around the ampoule and it vanishes between the weave of his fingers. He folds his arm across his chest in a protective gesture meant either to shield himself from Abigail or, if she's feeling like a generous judge of character, Abigail from himself. Evidently unwilling in the absence of the man she claims is coming for him.
"Fine. We'll wait. Logan can help you dress" And she has a pretty good idea of how He'll make him work. She won't press it, sliding the syringe back into a pocket and eases down onto the bottom step where she can park herself, park her foot up on a step and wait.
It takes longer than Abby will enjoy for someone to come cruising up to the abandoned house, and fortunately, the sleekly black limousine can probably only belong to one person in this scenario. The crack of a car door opening and shutting heralds Logan's arrival when the luxury car is parked out front the abandoned house, and through the slogging, slushy snow, he begins to make his way towards the building, ghosted by the driver — a broad shouldered Tongan man with dreads cut just above his shoulders, squeezed into a suit.
A suit being something that Logan is not wearing. Expensive though his clothes may be, they're also comfortable, with a dense grey-blue sweater covered by the thick black wool of his coat, jeans thick over boots designed for the cold. He also has a gun in his hand — not gold-plated or even silver, it's a black and brown thing of the same design he shot Abby through with buckshot once.
The muzzle of the sawed off shotgun knocks against the door once, before he impatiently tries the handle and shoulders his way in. "Beauchamp?" is a familiar voice, if raw from his illness, demanding and domineering as Logan stomps heavily through, Eloni remaining a shadow. He half-expected a trap. Still half-expects one.
"Down here Logan!" Signs of her inhabitation upstairs, or at least people who are there for a chunk of the day in swing shifts. "Hurry it up please? I don't have all day" And it's already been a long one as it is. Once this is done with, she can go to the brownstone, get lectured by the tweedles, change and deal with her own hurts and cleaning. Sasha smells much better, Abby still… smells like she's been traipsing through blood and all else, arms and hands like the ivory soap that sits on a rag beside the bucket of water.
"You're ride is here Sasha"
Sasha does not allow his expression to betray the fleeting hope that the sound of Logan's voice inspires in him. The thump of the shotgun's muzzle bumping against the door tugs a twitch through his lean frame and causes him to tighten his grip around the ampoule in his hand, which Abigail isn't getting back.
He draws himself up, not about to be caught in a huddle when the Englishman appears at the bottom of the stairs, and rests his back against the radiator to which he is still chained, saying nothing to Abigail. Not even a thank you.
"Do you want me to knock your fucking teeth out? I'm coming."
When is Logan ever in a good mood, anyway? His shadow fills the entrance way to the basement, and Eloni remains out of sight for now — does not need to be in sight to be useful. He manages the stairs more or less fine, in contrast to his lean on a cane when Abby saw him last, if forever stiff in the knee that counts but he's good at hiding it too. Logan smells of whatever cologne he'd spritzed on himself on the way out, acrid enough to remind people more of alcohol than the tones it's designed to convey.
Cologne and snow, and somehow absent of cigarette smoke save for a stale cling to the wool of his coat. Maybe he's quit. Shotgun dangling from one hand, Abby gets a brief, pale-eyed glance before his focus turns to Sasha, avid attention and assessment roaming over the Russian, and a certain superior lift to his clefted chin. "All for me, eh? It smells like piss down here."
"He's been down here for ten days. I'm pretty sure that given how I was treated the last time I spent extended time in your hospitality, that you can offer him some a sight far better than this. He got caught when something went down, but.. he's going to die if he's kept down here and I don't know what the government will down with him" Abigail's thoughts are tired ones, wishing this would just be over so she can take care of her leg. Down a few heavy drugs and flop out on her bed.
"They've been trying to find out where Dreyfus is from him, but all he talks about is leaving Milenky in Berlin. I'm.. giving him to you because I don't know what else to do with him, but I can't let him die down here. I figure.. between you and possibly Robert if he finds out, you can.. do something" Learn something.
There's a glance to the shotgun, hand instinctively covering her middle before she starts pulling herself up. "I have a sedative I can give him but he won't let me near him with the needle. So either you can do your thing, and I can give it to him, or you can just do your thing period"
Sasha remembers nothing of his conversation with Abigail or the terms of endearment he laid at her feet in his native tongue. The word milenky earns her an even more pointed look than the one he'd given her before, warning her with his eyes to stay away. Something quivers through him, rattles the cuff's chain and clinks audibly against the radiator as she offers Logan her version of events.
They must be accurate or something close enough to it, because he doesn't dispute them in spite of his rigid spine, squared jaw or the furious twist of his mouth, though his ire is something he directs inward instead of out. What did his hallucinations let slip?
The temptation to risk meeting Logan's eyes is strong, but so is his desire to avoid them; what he settles for in the end is a tentative sort of middle ground where he picks something else to focus on without appearing to actively shy away from the scrutiny he's being afforded. The empty ampoule cupped in his palm, for instance.
Though Logan's attention has been crawling over Sasha during Abby's spiel, which May Or May Not Have been listened to, his gaze finally diverts to her face at that last point, about what he can do. The fact that he spends most of his time sun-deprived and variously without his health for whatever reason probably explains away the pallor of his skin — frankly, it isn't weird for Logan to be sickly. It's the darting glance that is more telling, and lasts but a moment as he steps closer to Sasha.
The gun is slid into a deep pocket of his coat, handle just visible and making dense fabric heavy. "He'll be good," Logan asserts, voice sharp and decisive for all that its cough-ragged and edged. "You'd have behaved too, in his situation. Keys?" He sniffs, and holds out a hand.
"Maybe then" Definitely then, she would have. Keys though. There's a tremendously sheepish look at the request for the method to unlock Sasha. Her pink tongue darts out to lick at her lips, reach up to her hair and pull out a bobby pin, offering it up to him. "I uhh.. I didn't really… plan that far ahead. Someone else has it"
Sasha flexes his fingers in anticipation. His eyes have settled on the bobby pin with more predatory interest than he's ever directed at Abigail, and as she offers it to Logan, the Russian makes a low sound of impatience at the back of his throat, which is the closest he's going to come to misbehaving while he's still at Team Charlie's mercy. Eventually, his gaze flicks past the pair and searches the darkness at the top of the stairs, waiting for Elisabeth or Felix to come into view, pistols at the ready.
It would be a simple thing, killing Sasha and Logan both. The safehouse's basement has exactly one point of entry that doubles as its exit, and the latter isn't the only one suspicious of a trap.
Two birds, one stone is the English expression. He isn't familiar with it, but there's probably an equivalent that gets tossed around back home.
Logan's communication of oh come on manifests in a kind of loosening of tension in his shoulders, the sit of his head on his neck and the baleful look he sweeps over her at this news. Still, it doesn't stop him from stealing the offered pin from between her fingers, shuffling on over to Sasha with a raised eyebrow look at him. "So who does have the keys?" he asks her, before descending into a crouch next to the handcuffed man. His left bends with lithe ease of a twenty-something, and his right juts awkwardly, precariously balances. "So I know who'll be at my neck when they find out. After they're through with yours, I bet."
Left hand tight around the chain binding Sasha to the radiator, his right hands goes to work the lock free with less confidence than some of the ninja criminals he knows, but enough competence that no one will have to saw off Sasha's arm today. Pale-green gaze flicks to the Russian's face, less of a study and more vague, flickery interest.
There's a telepathic communication between Logan and his driver, unknown to both Russian and Louisiana native. If Elisabeth or Felix are arriving, Logan isn't springing to not get dead.
"I'm going to call Parkman after this, tell him that Sasha is here. After you're gone with him. It was a Ferryman who was here, i told them to take off while I cleaned up the mess. They'll come back, see god knows who, here and back off" Whether she'll succeed, who knows. Abigail doesn't deign to move from the staircase. It was presumptuous and rude to assume that Logan would know how to pick a lock, but it seems the bet paid off. Or that at least sasha would know how.
There's a tiny click, so soft as to be almost inaudible, and just like that Sasha is free. As far as liberation efforts go, it's a little anticlimactic; he doesn't surge to his feel or bowl Logan over on his lunging way toward the stairs. Raises his hand instead and clasps it tight around the other man's right bicep in a tacit request for help, too proud to verbalize his need for assistance. His opposite arm hooks around his shoulders, and with a scissoring effort, attempts to get his feet under him again.
For as selfish a man that Logan is, he's also pragmatic enough to know when his help is a necessary commodity, and in this case, gives it freely. Despite the other man's height and his own disadvantages, the Englishman helps the Russian up off the floor, an arm looping around his waist and a superficially scarred set of fingers gripping hard onto his arm, avoiding the bandages as best he can. Once they're both up, he doesn't let go, and simply tells Sasha in a very neutral whisper that is felt near his ear more than heard: "You owe me."
The release is not quite abrupt— well maybe a little, but he keeps a hand wrapped above Kozlow's elbow. "Harrison? Laudani?" Logan continues to prompt, as Abby didn't quite answer his question. "Holden, was it? He needs clothes, 'm not giving him mine. It's cold, you know."
"None of them know I'm here. Liz is busy with Frontline. Teo is busy with…" There's a glance to Sasha. "He's busy with Peter healing Francois. Dreyfus attacked Francois while we were here taking care of Sasha yesterday" There's a gesture to the pile of clean clothes, warm winter clothing that should fit the Russian. "I'll go upstairs. You can help him change, then you can take him and leave. I… have things to do" Take care of herself now that she's done all she can for everyone else.
"Pray I don't get exiled for what i've just done"
There's a breathy snort of fever-induced laughter from Sasha at Abigail's last statement. "Exiled," he echoes, and his voice sounds hollow even to his own ears. "You?" He offers no further elaboration largely because no further elaboration is necessary. You don't spend as much time stalking Charlie and familiarizing yourself with their behaviour as Sasha has without realizing that the Beauchamp girl is loved. Some of the others would sooner part with one of their hands than permanently separate themselves from Abigail and excise her from their lives with the surgical precision of the doctor that Sasha Kozlow pretends to be.
"I will change in the car," he informs Logan, breath warm against the other man's throat in a hoarse whisper similar to the one that tickled his ear a few moments ago. "Spasiba."