Participants:
| Scene Title | Up For It |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Deckard and Helena meet to ascertain what kind of role he's willing to play when Miracle Day rolls around. |
| Date | October 07, 2009 |
Safehouse
Today is a very busy day, as Helena has been arranging the last minute details of Dee's party, while having doubts about having it, given the loss of Sal and destruction of the municipal building. But have it they shall, and there is still one task, unrelated to the party, that needs attending. It's been something of a nail biter for her (though she doesn't actually bite her nails) but at last today, there's no more waiting and no one else to give it a try.
Informed that Deckard is in the backyard of this particular safehouse, Helena makes her way out of doors, taking in with enjoyment the autumn smells. Eyes cast about for the man on her to-do list.
For all that his grizzled hair and scruff blend well with the greyish brown of weather-worn fencing and the onset of fall in general, Deckard isn't hard to pick out. The yard isn't a big one, and it's overgrown such that a table and chairs situated on a small concrete patio at the back door are virtually unusable under a matted network of ivy and weed growth. Flint's found just about the only available real estate to sit on: a wrought iron park-style bench near a bird house that someone's taken the time to clear out and clean off.
He's pretty ghoulishly thin about the face, blue eyes sunk deep and hands rendered skeletal in their loose clasp between his knees. Beyond that a battered brown leather jacket, blue jeans, and a slightly ridiculous pair of alligator cowboy boots hide the worst of it. Despite having zoned out after the flutter of feathery wings up around the birdhouse entrance, he's alert enough to note Helena's appearance and pushes up awkwardly onto his feet.
"No," Helena says quickly, "It's okay, you don't have to - you should sit." She remains standing herself, feeling awkward. Flint's not someone she really knows how to talk to, and Teo kind of made it clear that this request needs to not be fucked up. "Can I join you, actually?"
…Oh. Aahh. About 3/4 of the way up, Deckard hesitates and sinks back down again, stilted in the angle of hard drawn muscle against bone while he glances over her. She's awkward. He's awkward. His version of the same unease is quieter, though — confined to a nod when she inquires after the open space next to him on the bench.
Helena takes the seat, her hands resting in her lap. Awkward silence enthuses while she wonders how to best approach this; it's too important. "Are you alright?" she asks. Small talk, but not lacking in importance - if he's not feeling up to it, he may not be able to heal. "Abby gave me the impression that you were ill when I spoke to her on the phone about using Old Lucy's for Dee's birthday."
"I'm having some issues," confessed without much inhibition (or feeling, for that matter), Deckard lets his shoulders ease into a slouch against black iron, spine lax enough under leather and cotton that he can turn and look at her with ease. "But who isn't? I don't think she knows I'm here."
Helena nods to this. "I know she worries about you." Helena says. "Cares about you a lot." She doesn't press, and doesn't imagine Deckard will dish, which is okay because that would be way too strange. "I know you know about Miracle Day," Helena begins, "And it would be really good if you could participate. But if you're not well, I know what a strain it is." She studies him, hopeful and uncertain. "Would you be? Up for it. Because if you were…please."
Deckard's hard to read on a good day, and it would be easy to argue that this one isn't. The chilly clear blue of his eyes is impassive; the lines worn in around his long face are free of tension for better or for worse. He listens without real reaction, ribs rising and falling with a lazy lack of energy around slow drawn breaths — tips his head in hazy acknowledgement of Abby's propensity for caring. Maybe too much.
Then they're on to business, and he studies her in even return, mellow despite the absence of alcohol or marijuana stink that's characterized his presence so strongly in the past.
"I'm kind of physically fucked up," is the best he can offer after a pause, one emaciated hand lifted lifted by means of sketch example, "but if I take it slow for a few days I can probably try. …Just, cancer kids, or?"
"We haven't had the chance to do the level of research we did when we first tried this." Helena admits. "But a child with cancer, it'd have to be something other than leukemia, if the rule's still that you can't effect blood, or a kid with something congenital. Some kids are born without limbs, that's possible, too. If you think a certain type is easier than others - the deal here is we'd be doing our best to accommodate you, keep you safe. No recording, these healings speak for themselves." She shifts on the bench to face him, hands in her lap. "As few or as any as you think you can handle, but if it's going to be only one it should be…something that without this kind of intervention, would be impossible."
"I've already done a cancer case. …I dunno what kind it was, but I was okay afterwards. I won't be trying to regrow anything any time soon." Voice graveled low and matter-of-fact, Flint is slow to nod after reassurance of no recordings, chilly eyes fallen to her lap rather than her face in the time it's taken her to turn. "I'll do what I can."
Helena nods. "Thank you." she says. "How much assistance do you want? With Abby we had two people come along, one to keep an eye on her, and one to be a look-out." She's relaxed, just a little bit, with Flint's agreement to participate, and she's wanting to see him situated as he sees fit.
"That sounds fine." For all that semi-agreements have been made and they're talking details now, Deckard seems to have lost the ability to maintain eye contact. His attention wavers from Helena's lap out onto the fence, and then up at the nearby birdhouse even though there are currently no birds there. Awkward pause get.
"I was — wondering. If I could ask what the point is. Or the purpose, I guess. Why it's important everyone does it on just the one day."
Helena doesn't answer immediately. She doesn't see to be grasping in that silence, it's more a pause to collect her thoughts. "It's not that I think we shouldn't be trying to do what we can all the time," she says after a moment, "But right now, with the way things are, it's an issue of drawing attention. On this one day, when all these things happen, it makes people notice everything that we can do that's good, and then the thought can occur that every day can be just like it if they gave us a chance. But first you have to get their attention, snap them out of the default assumptions." She smiles faintly, but it fades into something more serious. "The Evolved have good things to bring to this world, but everyone's so overcome by what our presence might mean…I think in some ways the fear's kind of primal. We just
"Okay," says Deckard, again after a pause. Acceptance, if it is acceptance, doesn't look much different from ambivalence through the hollows and hard edges that define his profile. But he doesn't argue, and he doesn't ask any more questions either, right hand scuffing restlessly after an itch at his opposite shoulder in the place of a more satisfying brand of agreement. "Teo should have my phone number, if you don't. I didn't bring mine with me."
Helena studies him for a moment thoughtfully, obviously uncertain as to how to read him, and well, she's no champion at that anyway. "Is there any part of this that you want a specific say in? Who goes with you, or what hospital or hospice to go to, or anything like that? We want this to be as easy as possible for you and help as much as we can."
Flint shakes his head, right hand falling back to wind in with the left after hooking in behind his ear and scrubbing once past his jaw. "Whatever's best. Whoever's available. No cops, no cameras."
Helena's not is adamant. "We can do that. No cops, no cameras. Do you want Red Bull on hand? Something for the after effects? We kept Red Bull on tap for Abby."
"Rockstar tastes less like an armpit," is Deckard's Eeyoresque opinion on the matter of energy drinks, but his brows tilt up and there's a lift at the corner of his mouth as well when he finally looks back at her again. "I can tolerate Red Bull. Anything else I need to know?"
Helena shakes her head. "Nope." she says. "But you know how to get to me if you have more requirements, and we'll get a time confirmed and a meetup place." She rises to her feet. "Thank you." she says. "We'll have patient information available if you're curious, but if you'd rather not know, it's not necessary. I should get going, though." She gives him another one of her faint, brief smiles. Awkward departure time!
"Sure." He knows. He made it here, anyway, despite not remembering half the journey or where he departed from. 'Thank you,' gets a vague lift at his grey-patched chin, anything he might've actually said muffled out into the slow intake of a quiet yawn. "I'm not. Curious, I mean. I don't think." Back to being awkward then, he looks a little unsure at her smile. "See you around."