Participants:
Scene Title | There Aren't Always Roses |
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Synopsis | —but young people of faith never lack for symbols. Red fire, blue lightning, dead men, fresh pastry, and an unexpected congress of eagles. Abby and Teo talk about and around battles old, new, and coming. |
Date | March 30, 2009 |
Village Renaissance Building: Abby's Apartment
An average middle class apartment, it's populated with ecidedly not middle class furniture. A solitary red suede couch occupy's the immediate livingroom, with a battered coffee table and side tables as it's companion. A decent sized TV sits on a cupboard with a stero, dvd player. The kitchen sports a relic from the 70's, with matching chairs that still seem to be in decent condition. The two bedrooms off the hall are distinguishable from the other, one bearing a gold cross nailed above the door, the other not.
In the corner of the livingroom is an ornate cage on a birdstand, a blue budgie within it's depths. In another corner is a massive cat treehouse, and often occupied by a black cat with a red suede collar. It looks barely lived in, like the owners are not yet investing their effort quite yet to move in.
Three minutes after Abby's text message rings out, the bell tone of her cellphone signals an incoming call. The caller ID indicates who it is, though the number Teodoro is calling from isn't the one that he had called from last: an update courtesy of Hana Gitelman and the Ferry's Neverending Supply Of Disposable Cellphones.
Hiro's gone, text message sent and now the answer. On the second ring comes a "Teo?" Tayoh, she's fallen into the habit of pronouncing it proper now, much like Sonny does. There's a clang as more cinnamon buns come out of the oven and put down on the top of the stove.
"Bella." Italian fondisms, as Teo's wont to dispense like Pez. "'M glad you're— cooking," he guesses wildly after a halted moment. Noises of kitchen metal, and Abigail's known predilicitions. What else would he guess? "Mia Madr— my mom always used to say it was therepeutic."
"New Pastor, new church. I promised i'd bring some cinnamon buns for them to take to the trailers when they went to share gods word" Notice she said when they went. And the trailer park can only lead to visions of what her kitchen looks like right now. "Okay to talk about Moab?"
There's the sculpting of a smile to Teo's voice. "Great. I always like having a church to visit with consistency." Something chimes in his background, a growl of hydraulics. "Si. Line's secure and all. But I'm actually kind 'f here — right outside, and just a little bit hungry, so…" It's likely no bright and dramatic reveal, the fact that the Sicilian was furtively sniffing around to check how exclusive Abigail's personal space was these days, but he sounds appropriately sheepish anyway.
"Invite yourself up. you have a keycard and key. They're fresh from the oven. I'll have coffee waiting and butter" No need to speak more. He'll be up. Though she gives the disappearing spot another look before she shovels a few sticky buns onto a plate and kills the time that it'll take for Teo's finish nose to smell out where her apartment is to make sure it's all at the table. His coffee, cinnamon bun, butter, her green swamp sludge, and a half eaten bun that she's been nibbling on.
Knock knock. Teo's fist bounces off the face of the door at a tactless percussion beat. When the little Baptist peeks it open, his face shows whole and hale as the last time she left it, healing done, though the deprivation of sleep and accumulation of adrenaline still put light and tension into his face that is not simply health. "Buongiorno," he says, turning up the corners of his mouth. They smooth out the next moment, however, an odd knit taking his brow. "Who told you 'Moab?'"
Little Italians are allowed in the apartment. Conspiciously deprived of a Brian clone. The place smells like a bakery and there's a few large Tupperware containers filled with already done cinnamon buns, The first round is already freezing in her freezer. Shoes off, teo knows the rule. No messing up her floor. Go have a seat at the table like a good little houseguest. Grabbing knives, Abby makes her way over there too, taking a seat at the 70's throwback. Her red ponytail falling over her shoulder. "I saw it. No one told me about it."
Shoes off, always. Signora Laudani taught her boys better than that. The left is shucked off onto Teo's big hand before the right, both hustled off to the right of the door and out of the way of its opening sweep, in case the cinnamon treats draw more scavengers or neighbors or further subcategories thereof out of hiding. He beelines toward the table and drops himself in the seat, watches the swing of her crimson locks going hither and to somehow all at once, and somehow refrains from seizing cutlery in either hand and looking too much the domesticated caveman.
And then she explains. Sort of. Not really. 'Saw it.' Teo blinks baby blues and inquires, intelligently, "Huh?"
"I was a bird. I had.. Eileen's ability or maybe she shared it somehow, I was flying to, or from Moab, I don't know, but I was an eagle. There was an explosion, fire, electricity, it's going up." Her swamp sludge glass is lifted and she swallows a mouthful or two, even chews it a bit at one point. "I was with Eileen. I'm going to be with Eileen" Their matched eyes are on each other, waiting. "Somehow."
The spiced bread falls in halves on either side of Teo's knife. He eats some of it. Listens with an obvious confusion mangling the line of his brow. He stares at the healer in blank silence. After a moment, remembers to chew some more and his eyes drift to the toxically green concoction she has at her side. "Y'…" After another moment, he remembers to swallow. "'M sorry. You had a prophetic vision that you're coming to Moab?"
"I'm not going to be at Moab, unless that's where Eileen is going to be. Pastor Joseph is gifted by god too. He can show you some point in the the future. God's plan. He held my hands yesterday afternoon, and that was what I saw" Save you know, Eileen backing away from Abby. "You cna call it crazy but I know what I saw, he doesn't see it, he can only be the conduit, like I am. But that's what I saw Teo. Is Eileen going?"
Boy and girl exchange identically quartz-bright stares from across the table. Cold as the color blue normally intimates, neither Abigail nor Teodoro are that kind of person; rarely with others, never between each other. Despite and above the horror of the last few months, the Southern belle's courage appear clear by kitchen light.
It leaves the Sicilian looking proportionally troubled, as the Sicilian is wont to be. "I'm not going to make you party to violence and conspiracy against the American government, Abigail." Clink. He puts his fork down and stares. "They dragged your fucking employer away in a black van for less, didn't they?"
"Okay" Abby murmurs, just like that. "Have someone keep an eye on Eileen. I don't know what happens to her, but something, something does, and I was going to try and touch her." She's not pressing it since Teo's balking at even the thought of her doing such. If it's meant to pass that she's there, she'll be there. God will provide the way. That and she'll pack a shitload of her pills. "Finish your cinnamon bun."
It's the oddest thing, commensurately strong as their faiths are, they rely on Providence for remarkably different things. Teo rarely looks to God for a way. Comfort, solace, discipline or even fear, but nothing more practical than that.
He thinks it might be a sign that he should. The fact that God's now, apparently, dispensing early warnings. "Okay," he answers, just as simple in his acquiescence as he was in his objection. "I'll try." To have someone keep an eye on Eileen, that is. Not to finish his cinnamon bun. That isn't to 'try,' but to simply do. Teo drops his eyes, saws away at the small brown pastry.
"Who's your priest, you mind me asking?"
"No laughing. Pastor Joseph Sumter, Guiding Light Southern Baptist Church" even she knows it's the name of a soap opera. She'd rather be there, watching over Eileen, but Teo's in protection mode it seems. Not giving a whit as to whether it might actually be good for her. But things find a way. "He knows what I do, I know what he does. He's married, but she's not out here. She's back home. I think he's from north of me. You'd like him I think. He's.. reminds me of home" That she still hasn't gotten around to going to, though there's been short phonecalls to home. More of the unappetizing looking swamp sludge is consumed. Sonny Bianco speciality.
Protection mode. Confused mode. One tends to feed into the other. "Thanks.
"I think I would."Even under many Photoshop filters and a distortion of barometric fog, Abigail does not in any way resemble an eagle, and he seriously doubts she could heal if she was one. He has little doubt there must have been some symbolism involved there; he's met two precogs, and both operate on maddeningly metaphorical terms. Teo records the name of the church to memory, squints because— he wouldn't have thought to laugh, anyway. He is not very up-and-up with popular culture. Foreigner. Y'know.
"That stuff looks awful," he notes, angling a pointed stare at the cup of chunky substance she keeps drawing from.
Only really, it wasn't symbolic. She felt it all, she saw and heard, and she tried to touch Eileen. BUt he's got alot of his plate, and she doesn't know when the Moab thing is happening. But there's other avenues to go down. "Doesn't taste awful. Sonny's recipe." It's offered over to him so he can try it. "One of the things he wants me to do, so I can be at the point where he can poke me with more needles and study me. Like I'm a puzzle." She glances down at her half eaten pastry before back up to Teo. "If you change your mind, I'll be waiting Teo."
"I'm sure when we get back, we'll need you and that'll be running more than enough risks," Teo replies. Half-smile, wan in that way he gets when he's done doing and checking his mental arithmetic, exhausted his ability to measure reality and calculate possibilities. Cinnamon bun finished, he picks the residue off with the curved edge of his fork. Looks faintly squeamish at the prospect of the glass she offers him, but he takes it, in the end.
Sniffs at it, first, his big Finnish boy-nose snuffing noisily past the rim, before he tries a ginger sip. His right eyebrow pops up: Not bad. Cleans the palette of cinnamon well. "That doesn't sound nice," he admits, at length. "'Puzzle.' Would you rather not?" He offers her swamp sludge back.
"Yes and no. He's trying to help, and lord knows for once we weren't snipping at each other." There's a gentle lift of her shoulders. "It'll help me, in the end, help me better manage myself so that I can heal more, heal better those in need." Her swamp sludge is taken back, the thick liquid being swirled around the sides. "But it makes you happy, it makes him happy so in turn it makes me happy. Guess I just.. I liked it being a mystery." Another swirl then sip. "We'll see. You should go. Want some for the road?" The cinnamon buns, not the swamp sludge.
The converse is true too, though, isn't it? Teodoro has this odd sense that he's meddling too much, whatever that entails. No one gets away with meddling so much. Salvatore's nearly killed their relationship once or thrice doing so, and half of Phoenix's guiding flame and beating heart is locked up in the prison for same. It probably also does somebody discourtesy.
"Hmmm." Teo's eyes blink comically in the easy light of her kitchen. "Maybe 's just a shortage of intelligence on my part, tesoro, but you'll always be a mystery to me."
He leans back in his chair slightly, a creak of hollow metal and false wood creaking at their rivets. There is a shadow of that neurotic self-consciousness that follows him around when she talks about him and Sonny as if she knows what's going on with them. She is, after all, the only one that does. "Could I have two? Please?" He is not especially disgruntled she's in the process of kicking him out, but nor does he seem immediately inclined to oblige.
Not so much kicking him out but a silent acknowledgment that there's more things that just her and a god induced glimpse of the future on his plate. "I'll give you more than 2." She pushes back from her seat, the green slimed cup devoid of all reachable drink and is deposited in the sink to be rinsed as she produces yet another of her mysteriously appearing Tupperware containers. eight in all put into the container. Not like she doesn't have the stuff to make more. "I have class soon anyways. English. If Huruma is dependable, I suspect she'll show up to take me out to lunch again." The lid seals with a burp and is carried over to the Sicilian.
The Sicilian appears to be thinking about something which is either far away, or buried in the tiled backsplash of the stove. Seeing the Tupperware careen into his peripheral, he stands up. Coughs, uncomfortably, over his own shoulder. "You know, if I wasn't — if me and Deckard weren't… I'd—
"I think I understand—" Apparently, he'd used up his whole competency at the English language during that last psychotically enraged verbal defecation. Teo closes his eyes, squeezes hard, and reopens them as he finally stands up at the edge of the table. Looks at her, his lips drawn tight around an explanation he isn't sure he wants to offer and knows he doesn't have the right to. "Sometimes."
"Just say it Teo. Whatever it is. I'm not a china doll. What do you understand?" Her eyes study him, waiting. That restless energy she usually has, absent still since her captivity. Might be in part because she's not also on a perpetual caffeine high.
A long-fingered hand splays to catch the flat base of the container, and Teo lowers his head to peer through the translucent lid and into its contents. "Why he came onto you. I think. Well, maybe that's obvious.
"I know you're not a china doll, neither in terms of fragility nor—" There's a furrow of his brow as he stops, stumbles, tramples noisily, clumsily around a subject he's always ever tried to avoid broaching with the young belle; of her being with somebody, anybody, like that. "Granted, I'm the least reliable consultant on the planet but—
"I don't think he did it for the wrong reasons, just the wrong time." Pallid eyes segue toward the floor, before angling away through the doorway. He pushes his chair in first. "There— aren't always roses."
"He wants nothing to do with me now Teo. Unless it's to heal him up after someone shoots him" In other words, it's pointless now. The container relinquished, she heads back into the kitchen, pink frilly apron tied back around her waist so she can start hitting some dought with the butt of her palms. "I think we both know that. Make sure he gets some of those, don't tell him where they came from. He'll just throw them out." Gee Teo, mood killer. Not that she was in a mood other than chemical induced equilibrium. "I have classes Monday and Wednesdays. Noon for the former, three in the afternoon for the latter. My teacher for Wednesday is a ferryman, of all people. Just let me know when I need to be ready to take care of people. Teleporter would be good, cause the moment you break them out, they're going to come looking for me and watching where I live."
He has a bad habit of that, it's true. Raining on parades. And he doesn't even have atmokinesis. Teo looks at the tupperware container and listens to the whump-whump of her hands on the dough. "He's weak like that. I'm sorry you were the victim of his insecurities.
"I'm not going to share these with him," he notes after a moment, blank in a way that indicates, plainly, that he would rather not explain. Socked, his feet don't make any noise as he walks away. There's no sound until the scuff of boot panels going back up underneath his pant legs. "You should probably cancel your classes Wednesday. Sonny will be there to work with you, if there's anything to do."
Holy shit, already. Wednesday. "I'll unpack Al's stuff. Be waiting. I'll tell the professor I'm sick." So soon. "Detective Shelby said they're getting warrants for Muldoon. They're going to try and nail him to the wall, though it won't be for what they did to me, they can't do it for what he did to me. Agent Ivanov's going to do the rest" Good news, somewhat, in the midst of it all, a light note to end the catching up with. She's shaping the dough into a rectangle, pushing edges in preparation for the butter. "Keep an ear out. They're going to catch him on being unregistered Evolved at least."
"Okay. I will." The box is lumped underneath Teo's arm with a scuff of sleeve, a hand brushed down the popped buttons and zipper of his jacket. He hadn't actually reconfigured his clothes at all since stepping in from the cold, always the parasite for warmth in spite of his own ludicrous metabolism. He can't think of what to say. Felix is dead. Felix isn't going to do anything except rest.
Still, it's better if James Muldoon is gone, and best of all in a way that can bring Abigail some closure, however small this measure or inconsolable the rest of her grief. "A presto. Lucky priest you're keeping," he adds, gentler by far even than the transition between seasons. The door whines open and Teo's feet thump out.
"God bless Teo. Godspeed." She'll be tacking on half a dozen prayers, maybe even go after class is said and done and spend some time in the guiding light. She watches the Sicilian tromp out, the door close behind him. There's another look to where Hiro had disappeared and then back to baking. She had at least a dozen more if not twice that to do before class, and Delilah was getting some of the byproduct of her frustration and emotion venting.
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