Information Overload

[htownshend]

He still wasn't happy with this idea, and he never would be. But he had to accept it, and that he was something he was good at. Eileen had let him pick the spot, and he figured that New York was a neutral enough place

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[eileen303]

Eileen fiddles with a dollar fifty's worth of bottled water (she's not the smartest consumer out there, okay?), flipping it back and forth between her hands. It seemed like she ought to reimburse the cafe in some way, lest their loitering draw glares.

One would think that Abernathy conspiring with Walter Sullivan, carrying a history of murder, and history of mixing subtle sarcastic mockery with odd compliments when he's spoken to her would make her at least a little more suspicious than she is. But his single self-sacrificing act to save 'his' Lynn DeAngelis, his help during Liz's incarceration, the fact that he honestly has been polite to her more often than not, and an enormous amount of sympathy for his unenviable position of being easily controlled means that Eileen knows why Henry's not happy about this, but doesn't entirely get it. Troy Abernathy, like the little boy in the woods overlooking Toluca, is filed away in her brain under the same heading that she assigns both herself and Henry. Victim of circumstance. And if she

[eileen303]

Goddamn Henry Townshend and his goddamn seven inch height difference. Sometimes this is a lovely thing, but when he's trying to stand between you and something really hideous and important, it's unspeakably problematic. Pushing her back is exactly what he's going to have to do a lot of. She's hardly going to clock him to earn the right to remain active in this, but she's not about to start shriveling in the background, even though she's not quite sure what to say.

Some of the fight drains out of her when the child-thing implies that the two of them have some guilt to share in this turn of events, and she looks back at the man they asked here, almost stricken. Shit shit shit, how to fix this one... Anger is replaced by a more placating approach, pleas delivered rapid-fire. "Okay. Okay, Lauryn LaRoche, we will, thank you, we will, so, can you let him go now?"

[dr_abernathy]

Oh, don't ask that, you stupid woman. It's about the only thing other than ow and fuck! that seems capable of running through Troy's mind right now. There's no 'letting go', there never really was. There was just the brief respite before the doctor was found and things went back to the 'natural' order of things.

And it wasn't as if Troy didn't like Eileen, or have respect for her. If he didn't, he'd be thinking in harsher language. But they had more to worry about than his personal shit. He has, and will, be put under a lot worse.

And just like always, all he can do is wait it out and try to detach himself from it, as much as possible. That's what he does now.

[cutelildeadcunt]

"Awww, that's cute," she says with a tilt of her head, "sayin' what I want to hear just so you can save your friend."

"Do you even know this bastard," she asks accusingly, "Do you have any idea what he's done?" She deliberately stretches out the pauses between words as she talks. She smiles as she imagines the pain Troy as going through as well as the pain she can see etched out on Eileen's face while she watches.

"I think if you knew a little more about Dr. Abernathy here," she says as she pauses to look at the writhing thing on the ground, "you might not feel so sowwy fow hims." She's stalling now and waiting. She's waiting to here the that final gasp of breath from Troy. She's waiting for him to die.

[htownshend]

Even Henry is looking uncertain at this point. He's gripping Eileen's hand tight and he's got a thumb over the panic button on his phone, but he's not pressing it yet. Instead he's watching wide-eyed as he hears bones snapping and strangled noises from the 'man' laid out below. "S-stop it...he can't- he's already dead...! Please..."

Well, if Troy wasn't dead before, he certainly is now. He falls limp, eyes closed.

"Damn it," is all Henry has to say.

[eileen303]

Christabella's not the first person to ask. Henry Sherman-Townshend, and the Henry whose grip is currently pressing the skin of her hand red and white, have made similar points. Pretty much everyone who knows who Abernathy is has asked some variation on, 'Don't you know what he's done?' Well, no, she doesn't, and the fact that she keeps getting asked that question does give her some pause. Maybe she was doing the wrong thing trying to give him a chance... but it doesn't feel like it.

With a jerk of her elbow, she tears her hand from Henry's grasp. She takes off on a run, but only gets a couple of steps towards Christabella's prone victim before the sound of his spine and his ribcage snapping. Eyes wide and white with horror, she falls to her knees and tries to pull away one of the dark stinking things wrapped around the man's neck. But there's no point; she wouldn't have been able to free him a moment ago, and she's certainly no good now for what's obviously a corpse. "What did you do... Why would-Oh God, what did you do..."

[cutelildeadcunt]

"Hmm?" she responds as though she didn't notice the deeply satisfying crack of the spine that she had been so anxiously waiting for. "Oh, you mean that," she says turning to look at the broken Troy on the ground. "He's a real lazy-head inn't he," she says with her hand on her hip as though she were complaining about a child who was sleeping in late. She kicks the motionless body and yells, "Wake up, lazy-butt!"

Troy's tentacles uncoil and push down on the ground, lifting his limp body up to stand. His body shifts and convulses as bones realign with a sickening crackling sound. Finally, he opens his eyes and is alive once again.

"Well I hope you learned your lesson," she says to the now reanimated Troy Abernathy.

[dr_abernathy]

Coming back was always disorienting. It's hard to remember you're a person when you're being held up by parts you aren't supposed to have, when you're feeling your spine crack back into place. So he merely opens his eyes and glares at Christabella.

His first thought, once he's able to have them again is Fucking Christ, Eileen is STILL here? He shoots an annoyed glance to Henry- after all, the man should've done something to keep Eileen from seeing that.

"Can we go now?" he asks of Christabella, impatient. "I'm sure you'll be wanting to get back. Don't want to miss the party, after all."

[eileen303]

Eileen Galvin has tried to hold the jolting ghost of her former neighbor down in order to impale him. She would have seen Walter's destruction, if he hadn't taken her over in Frank Sunderland's apartment. She's felt her Self be hacked into and altered, felt another man's demise. She's beaten the mutated forms of children into submission. But never, in living memory, has she seen someone die. This doesn't technically count either, maybe, but it's as close as she's come

[cutelildeadcunt]

"Not yet," she says casually to Troy, ignoring Eileen's ranting for now. "I'm not done with these two yet," she says jutting her thumb out towards Henry and Eileen.

She turns to face Eileen. "It's none of your beeswax," she says defiantly. "What do you care anyway," she says cattily, "weren't you just using him to get what you wanted?" She pauses a moment to let any possible feelings of guilt set in.

"You know it was completely his fault what happened to that girl you're looking for," she says accusingly as if that were the whole truth. Technically it is. Christabella's just leaving out that "what happened to that girl," was that she was allowed to leave unharmed.

[htownshend]

Henry has been completely surprised by Eileen pulling away from him- he'd even shouted at her, but that had gone completely unheeded. When she jumps back, though, he's there to catch her. And that's all he really needs.

He doesn't care about what this hideous thing is telling them. He doesn't care what she means by 'not done with these two'. He doesn't care what she's trying to imply. It's all gone to hell, and it's just going to get worse if he doesn't get them out of there now.

He presses the panic button on the Pinpoint and is relieved to feel that familiar tugging again. Maybe they'll get away from her, and maybe she won't be able to follow.

[cutelildeadcunt]

"Well crap," she says in a non-committal tone. Her eyes drift to the side and she blows out some air in such a way that it lifts up a section of her hair. A very cute sigh for something so horrible.

"So, Troy... you know these assholes," she asks after a brief moment of thought. She looks at Troy with a gleam in her eye that he is no doubt all too familiar with. It's a look that says, I'm not done playing yet.

[dr_abernathy]

Well, fuck. She's noticed them now, and he can only hope that their magical little cellphone things are able to keep them far away from her. He's almost glad the damn nexus tech never seemed to work out for him.

"Not well," he answers, because he has to answer. "They've visited the town before." Other than speaking, he doesn't move. He's still a little disoriented from the being dead.

[cutelildeadcunt]

"Not well," she asks accusingly. "You come out of hiding for these little shits," she yells, "and you're gonna stand there and say, 'Not WELL!?" When she yells a gash appears on Troys face as though carved by the power of Christabella's voice. It cuts vertically across his mouth and stops just below his right eye. Blood spits out of the wound and Christabella is calmed again.

"Come on, hair-lip," she says mocking his new appearance, "I can still feel them." She disappears into the fog knowing that Troy will follow.

[dr_abernathy]

Of course he follows. He might have even if he wasn't forced to- he can't just let her chase after Ms. Galvin. Even if it might mean he'll be the one ordered to hurt her. He has to be there, either way. He sincerely hopes they can't get that far, however.

The wound mostly keeps him from speaking. Christabella loves those. He wishes that the pain would dull over time. But since he doesn't, he just bleeds and projects as much hate as possible in Christabella's general direction.