Participants:
Scene Title | Uncle Who? |
---|---|
Synopsis | Guy and Chess bring a drowned teenager to a rather disgruntled man who wishes they hadn't. |
Date | March 30, 2018 |
Staten Island: The Lighthouse
Turning around in the driver’s seat of the Magic Mobile, arm draping over the back, Guy looks back at Chess and the kid under her charge. “Okay. Stay here a moment…. I’m not sure how he is gonna feel about me bringing you all.” He hadn’t been by since after the snow storm, so who knows if the guy was still even there. Plus, you just don’t walk people into a man’s hiding place.
Currently, the van was sitting not too far from the derelict Lighthouse, the engine still ticking as it slowly cools down after the long winding drive through Staten. With all the debris, it isn’t as straight of a shot to one's destination. So it ended up taking longer.
“Just… no sudden moves or nothing.” Just a precaution after all. It’s probably fine… just fine.
“Ten-four,” Chess says. “That’s pretty much my MO with anyone in Staten. No sudden moves and always make ‘em wear a condom.” The words are wryly spoken so who knows if she’s serious or not. She doesn’t look like a hooker. Maybe she just likes bad boys.
She reaches into her bag to take out an apple, bright green, taking a bite and crunching it as she waits for him to go check in with whoever the non-medic-who-might-know-a-guy guy is.
“If you’re pretending to be asleep,” she says through a mouthful of apple to Lance, “I’d choose now to wake up, because if they’re really human traffickers I can’t carry your ass.”
There’s no answer from Lance, who seems to be well and truly passed out. He’s still breathing, at least, and the hoodie and jeans have dried off a little bit during the drive. Arm secured by that bit of fabric that Guy produced earlier, so he doesn’t go swinging it around when and if he wakes up. He’s a bit pale, and if he wasn’t breathing someone might think he was dead.
It’s probably not as bad as it looks.
“I’m not sure you understand the meaning of the word discretion.”
Flint has a voice like bare asphalt, abrasive against the cut of colder air past the sunset — and dimly familiar, perhaps, to Lance’s ears. He cuts a lean figure in the semi-dark — one long arm longer for the rifle that extends his reach, muzzle swept over the sand and grass ahead on his way out to meet the van.
He’s tall and gaunt, hair and beard scrubbed short in shades of scuzzy grey.
A fresh scar is still scabbed black up through one of his brows, bruising blanched into yellows and greens. His eyes glow in the dark. They are glowing very balefully, at the moment, at Cooper.
“Look…” Guy starts, after he meets the man halfway, looking all the world sheepish about being there at all. “I know, you said that… but then this kid washed up on the shore and I can’t just leave him…. I need to know we can set his arm.” Spinning back around to head back to the van, his hands spread apart a little, helpless. “If you know another guy, I’ll take him there.”
He sighs heavily, “Look man, I’m sorry.” There… he said. It.
Approaching the back of the van, Guy pauses her. “One more thing…” His voice drops to a whisper. “The girl is kinda jumpy.. So remember… eyes up here, but also… try not to make eye contact.” He points to his own eyes, gives ‘Mike’ a goofy grin and pops open the back of the van, to reveal the occupants.
“Alrighty..” He gives Chess a big confident smile. “Talked to my, buddy here. Gonna have him look at that arm, see what he thinks.” Yup, he just got Volun-told.
‘The girl’ manages not to jump when the door swings open. Her eyes widen just a little at the wide smile Guy gives her. “The guy who’s not a medic but might know a guy,” she says, holding the apple with just one bite out of it in one hand, her other firmly on top of the courier bag hanging from her shoulder and resting on one knee.
“Lemme get out of the way,” she says, glancing outside of the van to catch sight, if she can, of the ‘buddy,’ her dark eyes narrowing a little before she moves in an awkward ducking position to avoid hitting her head on the roof of the vehicle so she can exit.
Once she hops down, she leans against the open door — in doing so, keeping the door from getting pulled shut while allowing her to keep an eye on the kid inside. The apple is rolled around in her palm, much like the baseball had been on the beach where they found Lance.
It’s probably been quite awhile since ‘the guy who’s not a medic’ has seen the teenager in the van right now, and he was smaller than he is these days. That tall, lanky build is currently half-hidden in a damp hoodie, jeans dark as well with water. He’s shivering a little in his sleep - or unconsciousness, if there’s even a difference - and one arm is bound up to his chest to prevent him from getting further injured.
As there’s more movement and clambering around, he shifts a bit, perhaps starting to wake up.
Deckard has to lean and stoop to really get down into Guy's business, and staring back into blistering eye contact is every bit as difficult as staring into an incandescent filament, at this range. He endures the apology in the same gritty silence he endures the whisper, and associate warnings with regard to keeping his eyeline on the level. He's still standing some seven or eight paces away when Cooper goes all Vana White on his flotsam cargo, rifle in hand, looking for all the world like something that gnaws on broken bones more often than he sets them.
Chess is the first out, and he looks her over in silent, standoffish, who the fuck are you unwelcome. Slow to swing his grip on the gun up into the strap, and the strap back over his shoulder. But he does follow directions.
He doesn't look at her boobs.
Instead there's Lance to look at in the back, one hand braced up to the top of the opposite door as he surveys the damage.
"It's just out of the socket," he says, at length. "What the hell happened."
“Fuck if I know…” Guy states bluntly, with a shrug of his shoulders, fingers scratching at his temple under the beanie. “He mentioned something about him and others being caught somewhere and a teleporter trying to get them out.” He motions at the prone kid. “All I know is he washed up on shore lookin’ like a dead seal. Babble about all that and then passed out.” Arms sweep out — and there you have it.
“I haven’t taken care of somethin’ like that since the war, really.” He jerks a thumb at Chess, “This one said she’d help get him over to the other side, but not like she can cart an unconscious body over… and you and I both know some schmuck will take advantage of that. Then they will both end up somewhere we don’t want.” That might be more of the SESA agent talking there.
“‘This one’ isn’t ending up anywhere she doesn’t wanna go,” Chess says, apple tossed lightly in the air and caught again. “I think I knew the girls he was with. Safe Zone types, which I think he is, too, despite the fact he’s carrying. He shouldn’t be here.” That’s said as if she has more reason to be here than he does.
Deckard’s trick of simply knowing how bad Lance’s arm is earns the man a curious glance. “So which of us is gonna piece him back together? I’ve done it before but I didn’t get any awards for my bedside manner. Shocking, I know.”
She nods to the older of the three men in her presence. “Whatever you can do, maybe you can tell if you’re doing it right or not, better than we can? Otherwise I’ll just click ‘em back together like legos. As long as one of you holds him so I don’t get punched in the face by his other hand.”
It's the voice - rough, curt, to the point - that sinks in through the delirium of pain and exhaustion, Lance's eyes opening blearily as he tries to focus on it, on the older man. "U-uncle Flint?" Voice quiet, weak, confused - a little scared. At his core he's only eighteen, after all, even if he likes to think he's invulnerable most of the time, and right now he sounds as young as he really is.
"There was— there was a monster again…" Half-conscious mind latching on to Deckard's presence and drawing up memories of the man, of the Lighthouse, of another bad night… and with another monster.
"Christ," muttered for tales of teleportation and Safe Zone company, Flint leans in for a deeper look. Nothing new in there to change up the diagnosis — at the sound of his own name on Lance's lips, the old man wraps his free hand around the boy's ankle and drags him out closer to open air. No acknowledgement, worry stifled down into a flex and clamp at his jaw. Shit.
"I think we just pull on it."
That's what they do in the movies, right, Guy?
His eyes sear bright in sidelong question, daring the minimally(?) more formally trained of them to argue a more medically sound solution. He doesn't wait for an answer before he focuses back on Chess at the back of the van with him.
"Who the fuck are you, again?" He hauls Lance another four or five inches. "Just a concerned citizen?"
Hands are held up a bit in a defensive gesture. “I’ll do it… I just didn’t want to make something worse,” Guy grouses, moving to help shift the kid, motioning Chess out of the way, to give them space. He does manage to hear the uttering of his buddy’s real name, but… doesn’t react. Though… he does find that very interesting. Veeeerrry interesting indeed.
Small freakin’ world really.
“Not sure I like the fact he’s starting to hallucinate.” Only one person in this lot knows that Lance isn’t actually seeing things… but she don’t need to know that. “Probably from the pain.”
He motions Chess into the van, “Get in there and hold him down, while I have him,” a motion to Deckard, “hold the arm so I can pull the other half. I think between the three of us we can do this.” He sounds confident… and he has had first aid.
Once Chess is in place, Guy steps up on the tail of the van and places one knee on the bed. Still awkward, with is back pressed against the top edge of the door. Reaching for the arm, in question. He pats Lance on the cheek, “Hey… kid… hey. My buddy Mike and I… we’re gonna get this arm set for you.” He gives Deckard a bit of a nervous glance… Hoping that the other man would have give him a heads up if things were broken. “Ain’t gonna lie,” Guy starts again, looking down at Lance, getting a good grip on his half of the arm.
“Gonna hurt like a son of a bitch.” Before the kid can register the words… Pop!
“Something like that,” says Chess to Flint, not offering much more on the matter.
When Lance recognizes the grizzled man they’ve come to ask for help, Chess raises a brow, lifting her apple to take another bite of it, before sliding it into her pocket. She looks to Flint, assessing his reaction, and then over at Guy once he starts talking about hallucinations.
“See, if they’re related, I probably wouldn’t need to stick around and make sure he doesn’t end up in a bathtub full of ice and a kidney or spleen missing,” she says, but does as Guy directs, climbing back up into the van. “Or worse.”
She takes Lance’s hand in her own to give him something to squeeze when the pain comes, then uses her other arm to hold him by the shoulders, to keep him still as Guy pops the two parts of the boy’s arm back into place. “Where was this monster?” she asks, perhaps to distract him — or herself, because she blanches a little at sound of the ‘legos’ connecting.
Oh, hey, the van is moving! Or wait, maybe that’s him, being dragged. Lance tears his attention away from ‘Mike’ to look to Guy as the man leans over to explain, trying to focus - his fingers curling in around Chess’s own. “In the ruins, an old building,” he mutters, “A long time since— “
Then the elbow’s pulled back into place, and he’s abruptly very awake for a moment as he lets out a scream that might attract scavengers. Or chase them away. Depends on their particular tendencies, one has to assume.
Chess quickly discovers that the teenager has quite the grip.
Nervous glances don’t translate well through the empty sockets Guy’s eyeballs are sitting in; Flint looks back at him without much in the way of expression himself, to the tune of Chess’ joke. About kidneys. And ice. He’s unhappy, when he leans to take hold of Lance’s arm as directed, but when isn’t he, frown lines weathered deep into the long flank of his face.
Just another night on Staten Island.
Pop.
A glance is all he needs to confirm everything’s back where it should be, and he withdraws from the mix of kids and cops and whatever the hell Chess is all too readily, circling off like a cat dropped out of a hug it didn’t want.
It doesn’t take a genius to know what Flint walking away means, he watches the older man for a moment. He is gonna owe him big, he knows that. “Hey, Mike.” He calls after his buddy. “Side door. Taller cabinet. Big duffle.” He jerks is head in the direction of the van’s slider. When he isn’t watching certain things from afar or getting into trouble, he had been picking around the buildings for things. Part of it was out of sheer boredom at times, others it’s just him being a friend.
Far as Mike really knows at the moment… it’s payment for his help.
Guy turns back to his charge looking satisfied that the fix worked well enough and starts strapping the kid’s arm again.
“I think you’re gonna live, kid,” Guy offers with a goofy grin, patting Lance’s good shoulder roughly. Then it all falls away into a more serious look, “You really need to see a doctor, tho. Think you can stay awake for the trip?”
Chess squints a little at the pressure of Lance’s grip but she doesn’t give voice to the pain, knowing it’s nothing compared to what he feels. “Got a contender,” she says, when he doesn’t pass out from the intense sensation from having the bones slotted back into place.
Her dark eyes follow Flint as he withdraws. “Thanks for helping,” she says — which might be taken as sarcasm given everything else she’s said, and because she doesn’t know what exactly he did to help. But her tone seems sincere enough; there’s no wry smirk to accompany the words, either.
Looking to Lance, then to Guy, she adds, “I can get the kid back to Brooklyn. Or I can just go and get out of your hair,” she says with a shrug. Apparently Guy’s earned her trust. “Whatever you want,” she says, nodding to Lance this time.
Okay, Lance is awake now, at least for the moment, although he could probably use a good twelve hours of sleep. Maybe more. In the wake of the pain and as Cooper secures his arm into place he's panting for breath, mumbling, "Fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuuck…"
He glances up, fighting tears of pain and just exhaustion as he watches Deckard withdraw from the vicinity of the van, then gives Cooper a confused look at his call after the man. "…Mike?" Maybe he is hallucinating!
A hard swallow, and he glances between Cooper and Chess, "I can… I can try? I'm really tired. I'm sorry, I.." A sniff, "I'll try to keep awake."
Uncle Flint adjusts course, picking his way back around to the side of the van, which bumps on its shocks when he throws the slide door open. It bumps again when he steps up into it — a stooped, rustling figure under the van’s dim light, prying a cabinet open and dragging a duffel heavily out onto the carpet.
Which is hideous.
“Don’t mention it.” Like, ever.
His glowing eyes find Chess through the stretch of van between them, and he turns to help himself back through the side, bag in tow. It looks like he’s most like going to shuffle back to his shack, but when he comes back around the van, it’s around the rear, duffle on his shoulder next to his gun.
One of his guns.
The strap has pulled back the side of his jacket, and there’s a pistol strapped up against his side in a tatty old holster. He eyes Lance over Guy’s shoulder.
“You don’t want to spend the night on this side of the bay.”
There is a nod from Guy. “He’s right, kid. Not a fun place at night and your friends are probably freakin’ out.” Hopping out of the back of the van, he grins at Lance. “We’ll get you across.” He points at Chess and realizes he still doesn’t know her name…“ Ah — she is on her way back, so she can keep ya company on the boat over.”
Guy eyes the young woman for a moment and presses lips together considering. “Hell, I’ll help pay half his passage.” He reaches out to grab both doors into the back, set on closing them. “We good?” Giving the two younger human beings a chance to protest this grown-up decision.
Flint’s reappearance with gun showing only gets an arch of brow from Chess before Guy’s question draws her dark eyes his way.
“Chess,” she supplies; apparently he’s earned her trust enough to give him that much. Flint gets it only due to his proximity.
“The sooner the better,” she agrees, waving at Flint. “Bye, Mike.”
If he were healthy and hale, Lance would probably argue the point. Say that he could take care of himself. If he were healthy, he might even be right. At the moment, though, the teenager’s in no position to - and he knows it.
He swallows once, hard, wiping his nose with his good hand and nodding mutely to Deckard’s statement. “‘Kay, Uncle Flint,” he offers quietly, drawing in a breath before looking at the others, “Thanks. Um. You didn’t have to help, but— thanks.”
Deckard’s eyes go dark for the beat he takes to really get a good, long look at Chess, crow’s feet hatched in tight at the corners. Biiiiii—
All to the tune of another Uncle Flint.
“This is what happens,” he says in aside to Mister Guy, with a tip of his head to Chess. Chess is what happens when you show your soft side on Staten Island. But he has a squat to squat in, and a party bag of shit to paw through, and he turns to go in earnest.
“Thanks for the scrap.”
“Yup…” Guy says rather flatly in agreement to the older man, though who knows what that it for… Possibly both. He eyes Lance for a moment, then with a sigh, closes up the back. They may hear a thump, which may or may not be Guy’s forehead bouncing against the doors.
“Sooner the better, indeed.” Guy grumbles under his breath as he pushes away from the doors and heads around to play chauffeur.