Participants:
| Scene Title | Two Hands |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Melissa visits Abby and Peter to watch movies, and instead there is healing and drinking and awkwardness. |
| Date | June 22, 2010 |
Le Rivage: Abby's Apartment
Peter returning a phone call. This is certainly a day to circle on the calendar! Though, rather than doing that, Mel instead grabs a few things, shoving them into a bag before she grabs a cab to the apartment Abby and Peter share. Platonically, of course. Peter said so.
Given that she's been invited, and whose apartment it is, Mel knocks once before she opens the door and pokes her head in, grinning. "Honey, I'm home!" she calls out as she glances around to see who's visible from the doorway. Though her arm is in the black and hot pink sling, it seems like she's in a decently good mood. Of course, she's probably on pain meds, so that might have something to do with it.
After making all that food for Mel, it's quite funny that now Mel's coming over and there's been chinese ordered for the trio, take out instead of cooking. Abby didn't feel like cooking, still flying high from the Opera and Robert showing up, helping a friend and the myriad of cataloges spread on the table that feature furniture. Not expensive, more like Ikea. But she's got an apartment to furnish, at least to a point where it doesn't look like a good will store set up shop. She's going to be staying here for a while, and even if she ends up figuring things out, moving in with Francois and Teo down the line, she'll need furniture for her room there too.
"Peter, what do you think about a Futon instead of like, a real bed bed. I mean… cheaper to replace if I-" She makes a motion with her hands implying something going up in flames, or a mushroom cloud. "Cheaper to replace a futon mattress and cheap wood frame…" The door makes a sound and Mel's coming in. Somewhere, Caliban makes noises about keeping doors locked and Elisabeth is agreeing with her. "Mel!"
"I could get you an asbestos sack and we could wrap you in it every night before you go to bed," Peter jokingly comments from where he's hidden in the kitchen. Treding barefoot into sight, Peter looks half well dressed, his slacks pressed but without a belt, suspenders hanging down limply at his side and one half of his button-down white dress shirt untucked, sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a box of chow mein cradled in one hand, fork twirling inside of the box as if it were a plate of pasta.
"Alternately we could maybe get you an iron lung to sleep in…" Peter offers a crooked smile to Abby, "I don't know if they have them in an Ikea catalogue though." Dark eyes flick over to Melissa on her way in, and Peter slouches his weight to the side, leaning against the doorway between kitchen and living room, quietly picking at his chow mein contentedly.
"How're you feeling?" is quietly asked, because right now Peter feels about two inches tall for not being the one there to respond to her injury.
Melissa grins and nudges the door shut with her hip, then slips the bag off her shoulder, setting it beside the couch. "Hey Abby. Look, I'm not cooking!" she says playfully. "Though I think Kendall is gonna illusion the house clean rather than actually cleaning it," she says, shaking her head but looking amused.
Peter's soft question has Mel smiling at him. "I'm okay. Francois gave me some pain pills if I need 'em. Worst part is that Abby came over and yelled at me for cleaning," she says, sneaking a glance at the other woman, her expression a bit sheepish. It's possible that she may have cleaned after Abby left. Just a little.
"I don't get the iron lung…." Abby really doesn't get the iron lung comment. "Asbestos sack feels a lot more comfortable than an insulin pump with sedatives in lieu of insulin" She and Peter had had this talk, about cat's musings on alternatives to the negation pills and helping her to get through the day with her ability at work.
"She was washing windows Peter. Windows. The woman has been shot, didn't go to a hospital, and is washing windows two days later. Mel, I should hire you a merry maid for two weeks. That's what I'll do. You can wag a feather duster at them to point where you want to clean. I wonder if they polish Skele- ooooh, Peter. Peter" There's a gesture to a coffee table, rustic looking, in teak. "I want"
Snorting out a laugh, Peter shakes his head and looks crooked to Abby. "I think I might've meant hyperbaric chamber, not an iron lung. A big metal room we can lock you in, kind've like…" suddenly a Moab joke seems really tasteless, given current company, so Peter cuts himself off and instead wanders on over to where Abby's looking at the catalog, leaning over her shoulder and peering down at the table.
"Better than a pair of milk crates and a sheet of plywood, I like it." Off-color humor about the furniture in his own apartment, however, is perfectly acceptable. "I ah… I don't know how bad it is, but if you want me to fix it for you," Peter's eyes avert down to the floor, but his words are for Melissa. "I can… with a cost."
Looking back up, Peter's expression is a little more serious. "I'd leave some scarring, a hand print, pretty— unseemly. But… I could heal you up without issue. I just… if it's that bad. The option's there, but it's not the most clean healing ability I've ever seen."
A pained look crosses Melissa's face at the idea of strangers tromping through her house. Then Abby half-mentions the body in the basement and she shakes her head. "Nuh uh. I can't have maids in the basement! I still don't know what to do with the damn thing! And it was just windows. It wasn't like I was…I dunno…Scrubbing floors or cleaning the fireplace or something," she mumbles.
She wanders over, to peek at the catalog as well, before her eyes lift to Peter's face and her head tilts. "It's not that bad, hon, honest. Though if you wanna take a look at it, see for yourself, that's fine." She smiles. "And I didn't come over so you could heal me. I won't use healers like that," she says, gaze flicking to Abby, no doubt remembering another conversation where she said something similar to Darren.
"Better if it happens today if you do. Then Peter won't be in the rig going oooooh my shoulder, abby can you please unpackage this syringe, Abby can you please hold my drink, oooh abby, my shoulder aches can you get me a grande drip black with two sugars on the side" Imitating Peter with a grin as that page is marked.
"It was a joke mel, seriously. I told you I'd come over and clean every second day. Just till Francois or Peter here says you're good to do it all on your own" A few more pages are flipped, heading into the pages with couches, hide-a-beds and armchairs. "If you take it, don't do what I did. It's a handprint, black, and slightly raised. Almost like a tattoo" And as if to demonstrate, Abby's letting her hair out and parting it near the back of her head. There beneath the pink, should be normal colored flesh, but instead, there's black.
Grimacing at the revelation of the black skin at the back of Abby's head beneath her hair, Peter furrows his brows and looks away, down into his box of chow mein before idly walking away from Abby and towards the kitchen again. "You want an eggroll?" Peter asks over his shoulder, not really specifying who might want one, because if no one chimes in he's going to steal the last one for himself. Though as he pauses to ask that question, Peter's brows furrow and his dark eyes dart back and forth between Abby and Melissa.
"What's in your basement?" is perhaps too pointed of a question for Peter to be asking Melissa, but she did almost say the word skeleton, and there's something just a little unsettling about a corpse tucked away in the basement of a tenement building where a young boy lives.
Melissa peers at the black spot on Abby's head for a moment, before she nods slowly. "Do you take the injury on yourself, Peter?" she asks, looking to him before she flops down on the couch. "But seriously, you don't gotta heal me. Done this before. Same spot even. And…it's a body. Was behind a bricked up wall. Not sure how it got there or anything like that. I just know I want it out without it being able to lead the cops back to my house."
Her shoes are nudged off and then Mel stretches her legs out. "I could go for an eggroll. Abby fed me earlier, but…that was earlier." Then she's looking back to Abby. "So I gotta get Francois or Peter to say I'm all good to go before you'll let me clean my house again? Just them?" Not that she knows too many other medical type people, but it pays to be clear.
"I want a doctors note or a paramedics note. Pretty sure Peter is adept at knowing if you're good to go again" There's a wave off of the last egg roll, her moo goo guy pan in it's container, chopsticks sticking out of it as well as a fork. She's given up on the chopsticks. Despite Hiro's steadfast assurance that he will at some point have her fully learned in using them, she has not managed to wield them yet.
"They found a skeleton in the basement of the house a while back. I keep telling her to just bundle the bones up and take it to like a fire department, or a church or some place like that, so that the bones can be taken and the person laid to rest" Blonde brows crimp and she looks over at Mel, putting her hair back up into a braid. "Unless you have another idea Peter. I just don't like the idea of the person not being laid to rest. Someone's relative is missing and it'd give them some respite, if they were able to identify them"
Jabbing his fork down into the chow mein box, Peter sighs quietly. "My healing takes some of an injury onto me, not all of it though. It's… weird." Given that Peter turns for the kitchen again, that seems to be all he's willing to say about the power he took from Sasha. As he disappears into the kitchen, Peter continues to talk, though it's clear that he's shifted gears to a different conversation entirely.
"Give Robert a call about the skeleton," is Peter's very unusual response to the notion of the corpse. "I don't know for certain if that's something he's had to handle before, but I'll be honest— he works for Daniel Linderman— he's probably not unaccustomed to moving a body and knowing how to properly dispose of it. At the very least he knows someone else who could." Abby may not like hearing Peter's opinion of Robert, though outside of that association his description of him has always been fair and approving.
Coming back from the kitchen, carrying the last eggroll in his box of chow mein, Peter looks up to Melissa and sidles up close to her, then holds out the box and fork to her, eggroll and all in case she's hungrier than she imagined. "If you've been shot twice in the same place there's probably some lasting damage… I might have to heal you, I don't know."
"My issue with doing that though, Abby, is what if the guy lived in my house? It's not like I have legal custody of Kendall. Or even own the house," Melissa says, shrugging her good shoulder slightly. "I'm all for putting the guy at rest if possible, but my first priority is Kendall and myself, keeping us safe and out of the spotlight, especially where cops are concerned."
The offer of food has Mel smiling and reaching up, but rather than taking the food, she reaches for his wrist to try to tug him down onto the couch with her. "Thanks hon. And I told you that you're welcome to look at it if you want. I don't know how bad it is. I'll slap a bandage on someone, but I'm no doctor."
There is not a blink of her eye with regards to Robert knowing how to dispose of a body. "I think, that at the moment, asking Robert to do such a thing, would be very poor form of me. Hello Robert, I had a lovely time at the Opera, thank you for calming me down after Rupert came over, by the by my love, you wouldn't mind taking a body out of a house for me, of a friend and just burying it in a cemeta-" There's an idea. There is a cemetary on Staten Island. Abby didn't say it had to go to a police station, she just wanted it put to rest.
"He's busy enough as it is with Linderman things, and trying to find time for me, and all that junk. Mel said you could look, Look at her shoulder and give her your honest opinion. If she should be healed then… we'll deal with that then. Mel, what movie should we watch tonight?"
Making a noise in the back of his throat, Peter seems sheepishly led over to the couch, much like a puppy with a new leash on being led around for the first time. There's a look to Abby that helplessly implies that he has no idea what he's doing, and it most certainly doesn't mean about her shoulder. Settling down on the sofa, Peter leans forward and sets the box of chow mein down, then twists to get a better look at Melissa.
"Take your sling off and show me exactly where you got hit. I won't really be able to tell if there's permanent damage without an x-ray and even then…" he snorts slightly, head shaking from side to side. "How close to the original wound was this one? Same spot on the shoulder?"
Cemetary? That has Melissa blinking, then beaming at Abby. "Abby, if I was at all into girls, I'd totally kiss you. That's a brilliant idea! Though I'm guessing you won't let me dig a grave right now either," she says with an impish smile. She has no intentions of digging a grave right now. But the thought of a solution has her totally not noticing that Abby mentioned Rupert.
Melissa smiles at Peter, then she carefully takes the sling off. Unfortunately, with her wearing a tee-shirt, it means that it's going to have to come off for the wound to be seen. "Not exactly the same spot, though it's kinda hard for me to tell. It looks like maybe they overlap sorta, just a tiny bit. Like one of those venn diagrams, yanno?"
She starts working the shirt off, an awkward task with one arm, but she's had a little bit of practice. It still takes a minute before the bandage is revealed on her shoulder. Just on the front, as it seems the bullet didn't go all the way through. "I'll let you take the bandage off. Probably better at it than I am."
She turns a little so the shoulder is easier for Peter to reach, then she grins at Abby. "I brought a couple by. Left the Fly at home since that's been watched, but there's some Mel Brooks, of course, couple horror movies, and…An old black and white version of Romeo and Juliette I found. The original, not that stupid thing with Leonardo DiCaprio."
No Peter, you won't be saved, not from the resident cotton candy haired EMT. "Nope, No way Melissa Pierce. Though I'm sure that Peter and I can do it, and you can sit beside the grave and you can tell us to keep digging. Staten Islands Cemetary is pretty forgotten, we do lay him or her to rest there" Mel peels off her shirt and Abigail's looking in a different direction, in the direction of movies promised, and her own food. Yes, she's an EMT, yes, she's seen a few things in her runs with peter, but seeing a stranger and on the job is different than a friend and off work. "Depends on what Peter wants. Black and white one sounds interesting really. Shakespeare. Tell me if you need anything Peter, I'll get it for you"
"Rumeo and Juliet's perfect…" Peter admits, brows crease together and, to his credit, only briefly distracted by Melissa's two-thirds state of undress, lifting his hands up to her shoulder attentively. There's a momentary shift in Peter's mannerisms that Abby notices, a little stiffer, a little more meticulous with his hands as he presses his htumb on the side of her shoulder near the entry wound and — it hurts for a moment — seems to be gauging how badly she's hurt.
"If this heals naturally and there's permanent damage, I won't be able to do anything," Peter warns, looking up to Melissa and hearing Abby at his back. Sure, he could talk about the cemetery plan, but he would much rather ignore that ghastly notion for the time being. "I never really used to be partial to Shakespeare…" he adds distractedly while inspecting the injury, breathing in slowly through his nose.
"It's your choice, Melissa, whether I heal it or not." Dark eyes alight to Melissa's lighter ones. "I can't make that choice for you, but— with what I can see here— it might be necessary."
Melissa gives Abby an amused look. "Overseer Melissa. Do I get a whip to crack? Just for effect? Pretty please?" she asks, grinning. "But you guys don't have to dig anything. It's waited this long, it can wait until my shoulder's healed up. Besides, it's movie night. Unless you're into the whole illegal trip to a graveyard at midnight thing."
Then there's pressure on her shoulder and Melissa's wincing a little, though she makes no sound. She looks to Peter, considering him for a long moment. "Not partial to Shakespeare, huh?" she murmurs, remembering all the Shakespeare in his little room at the Howland Hook facility. But then her expression goes serious. "I've seen what happens when an injury heals wrong…but I don't relish the thought of hurting you just to take away my own pain. How badly would it hurt you?"
"He won't be hurt that bad. He'll ache for a few hours is all. I'll get him some advil and a heat pack. Get you some too for the cramps" Spoken like someone who knows what it feels like. "It isn't a picnic, he warned me about that so I'll warn you and black and white it is" Abby's education into things not bible belt has been gradual at the hands of friends that she knows and with Peter and Caliban's respective relationships with her. It's amazing what you talk about in the ambulance between trips.
The noisy apartment too makes her smile, glad to see that Peter and Melissa have made up, though over what, she doesn't know and if she did know..
"No grave digging tonight. It's our second night off, I'd like to relax, enjoy myself, stare at my pretty flowers and eat chinese and just relax" Not worry about this and that. "But since you had the resident death Kami in you and his love of things shakespeare…." She fills in for him.
Turning to flash a sidelong look to Abby, Peter's brows furrow and he sighs noisily. "Don't— if you have questions about what she just said it's… probably best not to ask them right now. It's a long story." Swallowing noisily, Peter turns his attention back to Melissa, leaning around her to look for the exit wound, scrutinizing how stiff she seems around it and noticing that there isn't one, eliciting a grimace that comes with a worried shake of his head. "Yeah this… you should get this healed, there's likely bone chips, and if you didn't go to a hospital…"
Sighing, Peter slouches his shoulders and looks intently at Melissa. "Alright, you need to tell me where you want the mark. It— it's going to look like a handprint, wherever I touch you, slightly raised, black and… the further away from the injury it is, the more the healing process with hurt you." There's a lift of Peter's brows at the explanation. "Abby had me touch her head to heal her ankle and… it was like a full-body charliehorse."
Death Kami has Melissa looking confused for a moment, but then her mind connects Kazimir with it, and the confusion clears, whether she's right or wrong. She nods slowly to Abby. "Alright. Grab the movie, get it ready? And since this is gonna hurt…got any alcohol?" she asks with a hopeful smile.
Peter gets a smile as well. "Good thing I love black. Won't have to worry about it showing through white clothes, anyway." She considers his words for a moment, mentally going through a checklist of where she might not mind a black handprint. "I guess the head would be the easiest to hide…" There's another pause and a little chewing of her lower lip. "Yeah, guess that would be easiest. I'd say my shoulder, on the back, but with as often as I wear corsets, it'd show, and unless it really looks like a tattoo, that'd just be awkward."
"I had you touch my head because really, I have enough tattoo's on me, that I didn't need another, and I could hide it under my hair with some help from a chromo. But yeah. Charlie horse, or like… I was giving birth" Which makes her think about Delilah, giving birth in that broken store front and Trevor dead in the back of the crumpled ambulance.
"Whiskey. Some vodka I think.. not much. Usually I just took what I needed from the bar for guests. Careful of the head, lest you look like a skunk and we have to try and dye your hair"
She's easing up from the floor, heading for the open kitchen so she can go for above the fridge and the alcohol that rests there.
Peter was about ready to get up and get the alcohol, but Abby's approach to the kitchen has him looking over his shoulder to her, brows creased and a subtle nod of recognition coming before his attention settles back down on Melissa. "It'll turn a lot of your hair white around where I touch you. You're… definitely going to need to dye it back its normal color after I'm done, or— I guess do something insane like Abby did." There's a ghost of a smile, the word insane enunciated clearly so she can hear him from the kitchen.
"Maybe go dark?" There's an arch of one of Peter's brows. "I think you'd look good as a brunette…" Slyly smiling, Peter settles back against the sofa, nodding to Melissa and motioning to her balled-up t-shirt with a somewhat awkward smile. "You can put— well— I… guess you can wait until your shoulder doesn't hurt anymore, actually…"
"Vodka and any kind of juice would be good," Melissa says with a smile to Abby. "But don't mention the really bad pain. You know how much it sucks not to be able to nix my own? It really, really sucks." Peter gets a sad look. "It'll fuck the dye job?" She considers for a moment. "I haven't been a brunette since I was a kid. But I could do something insane. Not pink though. No offense, Abby, but pink? So not me. Blue maybe. Blue could be good. I dunno. I'll figure something out."
Mention of the tee-shirt and putting it back on has a sly smile coming to Mel's lips this time. She very nearly says something, but stops just before the first word can leave her mouth, glancing towards the kitchen and Abby. No, she'll be good. This time. After all Abby did cook for her. "Okay, babe. Whenever you're ready."
"Mine was blue at one point. Chromo got drunk. Got drunk and then hauled off by Hiro, leaving me high and dry with blue hair, angel wings on my back and blue fingernails and toenails." orange juice is procured from the fridge, makings for a screwdriver in place, a trio of glasses. It seems she's even going to partake of the alcohol. "As for pink, Peter. Cannot be worse than Robert showing up at my door with Logan cause Robert had been hurt, and enduring comments from them about the pink. It looks good, I like it, and.."
There's a shrug. "I color my hair when I'm stressed, my shrink says I do it to try and hide from something. She also said the cross on my shoulder was the same thing. But sometimes.. they're not really on the ball. I'll change it back, sometime. Probably to blonde. I did get some stares at the Opera last night with it and my dress"
"Good stares, from the sound of it…" Peter opines as he reaches out to take the proffered glass, downing a swig of the drink before settling it on the table beside his box of chow mein in front of the sofa. "Robert seemed to like it," he admits with a playfully lopsided smile, then settles his attention on Melissa. Peter's brows crease, his chin tilts up and dark eyes look up and down her. "Sit still," he instructs, before lifting his hand up to settle on the back of her head, breathing in through his nose slowly.
What happens next happens quickly, there's a warmth at the back of Melissa's scalp where Peter's hand was laid out. A sharp prickling pins and needles sensation, then the most unusual and aching feeling of the muscles in the back of her neck knotting up and moving in slithering fashion beneath her skin, undulating like her musculature was trying to pull away from the bone, snaking all the way down one side of her neck and to her shoulder where all the muscles clench and release in a throbbing motion.
Peter's brows furrow as a sharp, searing pain presses into Melissa's gunshot wound like a thumb being pressed inside, followed by a pinching sensation as the wound begins to seal itself shut while pieces of bloody bone are ejected from the still fresh wound to dribble in clear plasma and blood down her skin.
When the hole closes, the flesh knits itself shut in a scar and her muscles give a flesh one more time before the pain subsides and Peter slouches back, wincing and grunting, bringing a shaking hand up to the same shoulder Melissa had been shot in. "I'm okay…"
"Dress?" Melissa asks Abby curiously. She wants to know about this stare-worthy dress! Peter's instruction gets a nod, then is obeyed. The warmth has an odd, thoughtful look crossing her face, the aching a frown, and the pain, of course, creates a wince. But with all that, she might have thought Peter was okay, if it weren't for his assurance that he was. She told Brennan she was okay right after getting shot, after all.
Ignoring the bone and body fluids around her now healed wound, Melissa studies Peter's face, then sets a hand lightly on his knee. "How bad does it hurt?" she asks softly, even as she takes a turn using her ability. If nothing else, she can make him comfortable until medication kicks in. It's gotten easier over time for her to take pain. There's not even a nose bleed! "Abby? You said you had some meds? I can only keep this up half an hour or so," she asks, glancing to the pink-haired one.
"Heavy, medium and OTC" She chimes in quietly, a hand towel laid gently across Mel's knee for herself, disappearing off down the hall so she can break out the new lockbox of drugs that she's garnered in her own scrapes and bruises post-Bar only to re-emerge with a few different bottles. "Vicodin. Since you just had some alcohol. I won't give you anything stronger. Or I got some tylenol three's"
Topic of her dress gone, not so much her dress as the person wearing it that made Robert appreciate. "Just breathe Peter, it'll go away in a bit" She murmurs, passing over the bottles, trusting him to self medicate appropriately
"I'm fine," Peter dismissively grouses, leaning a bit away from Melissa as his brows furrow and dark eyes shift over to Abby. He looks frustrated about something, perhaps his own inability to make Sasha's power not insane, but given the mental state of the man he took it from it's hard to imagine it being otherwise. How it's been twisted under Peter's control also says something unflattering about the paramedic himself. "It's just— I'm just sore it's alright…" Peter's jaw sets squarely, attention goes to the blood trickling down Melissa's shoulder, then over to Abby.
Taking the bottles, Peter furrows his brows and rattles them around in his hand, staring down at them for a moment before leaning to the side and setting them down on the table beside his screwdriver and chow mein. It's only when an audible buzz comes from Peter's coat pocket that he begins to look worried. Brown eyes go wide and when he pushes up from the sofa, it's to make a straight path towards his coat hung up on the coatrack.
Sliding the cell phone out, Peter flips it open and looks down to a message waiting for him, his tongue slides over his bottom lip and brows furrow before he looks up to Melissa, then over to Abby. It's clear the ache from his shoulder is bothering him more now that Melissa's not mitigating his pain, but that's not entirely what is making him discomforted.
"I— have to go," Peter murmurs, sliding the phone shut and tucking it into the back pocket of his slacks. "Alone," is added for Melissa's sake, his eyes meeting hers before he looks up to Abby and grabs his red scarf from the coatrack, draping it over his shoulders demonstratively more so than anything.
"I… also forgot where my shoes are," Peter murmurs, lifting a hand up to his injured shoulder to massage there.
Peter's reaction has Melissa frowning and drawing her hand back slowly. She watches him as he grabs his coat and scarf, then down to the towel on her knee. It's picked up, the blood wiped away before she tugs her shirt back on. She reaches for the nearest drink, whether it's hers or Peter's, and gulps down a healthy swallow, before she looks back up to Peter.
"We'll watch a movie another time. When there's no injury to distract us from it. Be careful," she says softly, leaning back into the couch, gaze flicking over to the TV and lingering there while she absently rubs lightly where Peter touched to heal her shoulder.
Messiah business. Which means she's not meeting his eyes just looking at the scarf that he wraps around his shoulders before heading off to his room that he's taken up so that she can fetch his shoes. "Just call if you won't be back, so I know whether to ask Mel to stay or not. And thank you, for you know" Taking Messiah business out of her place. She disappears from sight and sound, the door to his room opening and rummaging loudly for them.
"Sorry, Melissa," Peter offers in a quiet tone of voice, but that he isn't needing to explain himself to her and also isn't making an excuse may be a small clue as to the fact that they're both in the know. "I should be back, but probably not until close to sunrise. I've— " Peter pats his right pocket, hearing a jingle, "I've got my keys, so you can lock up. If Melissa wants to stay here that's fine, she can use my bed." There's a look from Peter to Melissa, an expression on his face that hints at apologies, then eyes avert down to the floor again.
"I'll probably crash when I get home," Peter offers for Abby's sake, "that way I'm not totally useless at work." That he's still trying to live two lives is a conplicated, difficult thing to manage, but it's more and more obvious every day that Peter Petrelli is grinding himself down to the bone.
Though she's clearly bummed that Peter is disappearing for Messiah business, and not even taking her, midway through his apology she actually smiles. "Like I said. We'll do the movie another time. Even if I have to chain you to the couch and steal your keys and shoes. But I won't wait too long," she warns, though even that is playful.
"Now, Abby. Why don't we put on a comedy, get drunk, and talk about this dress of yours?"
"You're napping in between calls Peter" Not an option. She'll make him, deny him coffee and make him. She could be mean and toss his shoes at him, but she isn't, coming over and putting them on the ground in front of him before padding her way over to the couch, watching him quietly. Messiah is a mood killer.
"Sure, but I can't get drunk" She's not taken a negation pill, doens't quite trust herself drunk yet, not without the monitor that she and Cat are ordering. 'She'll take the third room Peter, it'll be fine, just go, do your business" Abby's blessing. "Call if you need to be picked up" Which means Abby doens't intend to drink.
Crouching down to pick up his shoes, Peter leans against the apartment door as he pulls them on. Loafers aren't the most ideal thing to go traipsing around Staten Island in, but thankfully he won't be doing much of his traveling on foot. Reaching down to pull up his suspenders, Peter slides them on over his shoulders with a wince when he recalls his empathetic injury, then tugs on his black blazer and buttons the front closed, the red of his scarf wound loose around his neck.
"Don't burn down the apartment while I'm gone," is half joking half serious, one brow raised and Peter's lips creased into a nervous smile. But there isn't a farewell, isn't a goodbye, isn't even a thanks for the Chinese food, just Peter suddenly flattening up against the door and becoming nothing more than a black silhouette cast by nothing. He snakes down the door, pooling onto the floor as nothing more than two-dimensional shadow.
"Have fun," Fun, is the whispering parting that Peter gives, his disembodied voice hissing out from the darkness before he slips beneath the door and out of the apartment, litterally stealing away like a ghost in the night.
Melissa gives Abby a sad, sad look. "The third room?" she says in a soft little voice that doesn't quite match the mischief in her eyes. Then she's looking back at Peter, and she's…staring. Here she thought he healed. He just proved it. So how in the hell did he just do that? She looks back at Abby once the shadow that's Peter is gone, and stares at her for a long moment before she speaks.
"Okay, I think I'll have enough to drink for us both."
"Two hands"
Abby's explanation when Mel looks at her with the stare, lifting her shoulders. "Two hands means more fun for everyon-" clamp goes her mouth, realizing what she's just said and blushes.
"Someones room, you drink, I'll get the movie" Abby bolts from the couch, heading for the kitchen and some ice.