Participants:
| Scene Title | He's a Kink |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Diogenes shows up at Lola's bedside with an easy step and a strange offer. |
| Date | September 27, 2010 |
Lola's Hospital Room
It is unusual for Diogenes to visit anyone. It is understandably even less usual for a man of his kind to visit a patient in a hospital, who happened to upset him in the past, largely by being too curious. At first, his revenge was comprised of following her, unseen. Now, however, he decides to occasionally pop up, just to remind her how sweet life is when you have someone like Diogenes around. Or perhaps he simply enjoyed the woman's company - it's anyone's guess.
The door to the redhead's room opens, and the man steps inside. He is dressed in a predictable manner, hinting at his overly neat and finely structured mindset. Jeans. Button-up shirt. Top buttons left open. A jacket. A common theme for him, really. "Still around? Why, did you get a cute male nurse?", he inquires with a sly glint in his eyes and the faint shadow of a smirk. For now, he stands by the door, slowly closing it with a single hand laid on its side.
She was sleeping or had been trying to. Dio gets a look at Lola in her troubled sleep for just an instant or two before his presence waske her - a restless sort of sleep, a sleep that is constnatly on edge, waiting to be awoken, almost thankful to be so because that means the sleep no longer has to worry about being woken. The sleep of the extremely paranoid.
"Aw shit," she mutters, rubbing her head with her free arm as she sits up, large Elle-teddy-bear-gift still beside her. "The hell do you want? Ah ain' got any souls fer ya ta eat today, ya demon."
"We grim reapers are highly offended by that archaic term", the so-called 'demon' duly informs her. "We prefer to see ourselves as messengers of an unfortunately grim nature." As the door is finally closed with a clack, Diogenes steps away from it and towards the severely injured, yet steadily recovering patient. "And don't worry, I'm on my day off today. Figured I'd check in on you before I am wrapped up in…" A grin flashes briefly on those lips. His eyes momentarily drift to the IV. He ventures towards the bed's end, to pick up the notepad and see what the doctors have wrote. "Feeling better, I see."
Leaving that aside, he walks to the bed's side. "You come here often, don't you? I knew you looked like the person who frequents hospitals. You're not exactly on many birthday invitation lists, are you?", he inquires, his eyes narrowed in feigned suspicion.
For lack of any better retort other than shooting the man, Lola sticks out her tongue at him. Take that, whippersnapper!
"Ah get by just fine," she stubbornly informs him. "Though truth be told, Ah ain' a regular a this particular hospital. Usually when Ah done get shot up or somethin' Ah go ta one a them back-alley places. Didn' have that luxary, this time. Though if ya'd like, Ah'm more'n happy ta make you a regular visitor yerself." She can't help it. She just has to be smarmy. Then agian, she's in a lot of pain and kind of high at the same time.
For an awkwardly long moment. Diogenes simply stands at the side of her bed, watching her. It is incredibly hard to read his gaze, considering how many thoughts run through his mind, and how seemingly unconnected and fragmented they are, ultimately leaving the man with a mostly blank look on his face. But perhaps that in itself is a sign - a sign that his mind is busy. In due time, however, the visitor's facial features brighten up, and he speaks once more.
"Back alley places, right. The next thing you're gonna tell me is you're a hitman for a local mob." Unlikely and amusing, right? But it was as much of a jest as a fishing hook. "Just for how much longer do you plan on staying here? You, uh…" Diogenes casts a short-lasting glance over his back. "I read your medical file. Judging by what I saw, you'll be in a good enough shape to walk in a few days. You'll be able to stalk Staten for serial killers once again."
"Callin' me a hitman's sexist, ya know. If Ah were anythin', Ah'd be a hit-woman." She can fly in the face of his fishing, haha! "An Ah kin walk a little now. Ah'm stayin' as long as Ah dare ta, till Ah see some unfriendly face at the door. Well," she looks over him suspiciously. "Unfriendly-er. An Ah prolly ain' goin' back ta Staten. Ain' no more killers left there than there is milk in my dead mama's left tit. Ah'll find others, though. Ain' like ya were mah first or anythin'."
"Really?"
His surprise is, of course, an act.
"Yeah, the way you took pictures of me in the middle of an almost empty street, in broad daylight? That was cold-blooded professionalism." Reminding himself of that event quickly dispels certain suspicions he might have had in regards to her possible profession. Digesting this change causes his expression to shift yet again, this time to disapproval. Like most, however, this one doesn't last long, either. His eyes venture lower; while one might assume he's lecherously eyeing Lola, he is instead paralysing the majority of her body, omitting the vital functions, such as speech and breathing.
"You have someone who will pick you up from the hospital, right? It'll probably Miss Thor, too?"
Shehe glares. She's still able to glare, but then she finds that she can't move. "Yer little parlour tricks are gettin' old, sugar. Little bitch of ya ta make sure Ah can' move when ya decide ta go insultin' me." But quite frankly, she was expecting this sooner or later. "An if the cops were any kinda men ya'd have wound up in jail that day. Last time Ah do a job fer cops, Ah swear…" She shakes her head and sighs, deciding to move on.
"Ah ain' thought 'bout it. Just figure Ah'd wake up one day an feel good 'nuff ta slip out."
"Parlour tricks? Is that what you're calling favours, nowadays? Okay, fine by me."
Surely enough, paralysis dissipates, the inability to move thawing with each moment. Given how shortly it lasted, the return of sensations is nearly instantaneous. "Staten was in too big of a mess then to deal with a one-time murderer who has never shown up. Can't really blame the cops for focusing on much more important issues." Diogenes steps away from Lola's bed, wandering over to the window to have a look outside. Somewhat thoughtfully, he echoes the woman's words in an inquisitive tone: "Slip out?" He then directs his gaze back to Lola, over his shoulder. "What do you mean, slip out? You don't intend to stay here until you're fully healed and the doctors sign you out?"
She wimpers a little, clearly in pain again. She doesn't speak up about it, but the tensensess in her is clear - she's not feeling well again. "Yeah, sugar. Slip out. Why, ya out ta cause problems fer me?" She asks, turning her head to watch him walk. "Lets just say Ah ain' the sorta girl that cares much fer these sorts a places. Smells like sick, ugly ass walls, people that don' much care either way but they gotta put up a good front. Ain' my sorta place. Don' even serve beer."
Initially, no more than a single word is murmured.
"Interesting."
Diogenes turns his attention away from the window, making his way to the foot of Lola's hospital bed. Placing his hands on the frame and leaning forward, he tips his head to the side and forms a crooked smirk. "I suggest you hold onto something, because the shock might be too much for you", he informs her, his smirk growing steadily. "I want to help you. Make sure you get home safe and sound, wherever your 'home' is. And if Elle is around, well…" Diogenes straightens out with a sigh, burrowing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. "The more, the merrier, right? And I can keep most evil, evil Evolved away, in case you somehow miraculously managed to piss off even more people by not dying."
His smirk reaches its zenith. "What do you think?"
"Ah think there's quite a bit a folks what's pretty pissed Ah ain' dead." And someone else might be dead for it. She really ought to find out about that. And now that he's so close - handsome though he is - Lola leans back to be as far to the other side of her little cot as possible. She doesn't look scared as she does so much repulsed. "Uh-huh," she intones softly. Thinking. Listening.
"Now Ah know this is gonna be the dumbest question yer pretty lil ears have ever heard but - why?"
"There are two sides to my answer", he begins, successfully concealing his excitement and the conniving appearance from merely a moment ago with a level, almost stoic tone. "One is the truth, and the other is a lie." There are hints of his smirk returning, even though such arrives much later. Instead, he focuses on clarifying on both sides of the answer.
"Let's start with the latter, because that's what everyone else would do in my position - lie, so that I would get what I want. The lie itself? It would sound something like this: I have had a change of heart, and I am feeling guilty because of how I acted towards you. I want redemption." Once the overly theatrical portrayal of a lie is over, brief silence arrives to serve as an interlude. "Wow, that almost hurt me physically to say."
"Then you have the truth. Speaking the truth usually results in an awkward moment, or some party being terribly upset or offended. The truth, in this case, is that I get to see a side of you I haven't seen before. You didn't really like playing my game that involved questions, so I figured I'd use the famous quid pro quo method."
She listens, patiently, to his schtick. She flinches as he recants his lie, one that stinks so high that Jesus himself is probably febreezing the clouds up there. Finally, once his monologue is completed, she answers. "Sugar, that hurt me physically ta hear ya say," She informs him, rubbing her stiff neck. She has, after all, been in this hospital bed for weeks.
"So, now this quid pro quo. Ah can' imagine what ya want with lil ol me. After all, accordin' to the law Ah ain' nothin' but the pinnacle of innocence. Done paid my debts to society an all a that, an now Ah'm white as the driven snow."
"I want resources." A simple enough request. Alas, hardly anything is simple with Diogenes. "A very specific resource, actually. It is very hard to find today. The truth." Like a vulture, he returns to the bed's side; this time, however, it's the side that faces the door, not the window. It's as though he wants to compensate for the distance that Lola has created earlier. "I want to know who you are. I don't want your phone number or… or even your home address, even if stalking you would make my Friday nights more interesting." A heavy fractured sigh escapes the man. He looks the woman over curiously, gauging her reaction. "I am looking for an honest man, and you have involuntarily become a part of my quest."
"Ya want honesty? Ah'm a woman sugar. Not an honest man, not a hit man, a woman. Could be both or neither honest or hit, but Ah'm a lady. Jeebies, do Ah gotta flash ya?" Luckily, she doesn't volunteer to do that. She instead lays back on her bed, looking up at him. "We need ta get you a date or somethin' if ya ain' got nothin' better ta do fer Friday but t'be followin' me around. Anyway, what's the point of all a this, this honesty stuff? Ah mean…why? What's it matter so much to ya for? What'll ya do once ya find yer 'honest man'?"
The chauvinistic remark, which oddly happens to come from a woman, finally brings the aforementioned smirk back to light. It seems as though it would escalate to an actual wholehearted smile, though unfortunately (or fortunately, as far as certain people are concerned) it does not reach that. "Yeah, well… I'm guessing you're not married, yet, so I can still squeeze some truth out of you." Right back at you.
Amusement drops like an anvil when Lola asks what drives this man's obsession with truth, honesty and all knowledge pertaining to the human individual. His face attains a morose shade, but he remains where he is. "Look for another one", comes the grimly jestful confession, spoken with some uncertainty to be found in his voice. "And then another one. And another one." Slowly but surely, his amusement is slowly making a return, as does his smirk.
"There are people trying to save this world. There are people trying to destroy it. I am trying to understand it."
She sticks her tongue out at him again. Why not? It seems to shwo her displeasure well without giving him fodder to run with. "But why? Ah mean, what'll ya do if ya understand…Ah dunno. Wahtever sugar. Oughta know better'n ta try ta understand potheads an deep thinkers an the like. World's pretty plain from where Ah sit, anyway."
She sits up a little, fluffing her pillow with one hand. "So…why…ack…why me then? Ya think Ah'm honest or somethin?"

There's a faint glimmer to be noticed in the man's eyes. Diogenes looks at Lola in a strangely affectionate manner, albeit clearly not in a way most would expect. Perhaps envy is the best suited word. Regardless if the redhead is able to pick up on it, it is clear that the man is grimmer, now. Eventually, he lifts up a hand to brush his hair back. An overture to his response. "Consider yourself lucky, then. People think wisdom is something grand, that it makes someone intelligent. Truth is, wisdom is just realising that you know shit."
A mild gesture beckons attention to be directed at Lola. "I chose you because I've met you. I'd be stalking Elle, too, if it didn't involve a risk of being burnt to a crisp. She requires a more delicate approach." Yet another sigh arrives; this is truly becoming more complicated than he intended.
"This is becoming way more complicated than I intended. Look…" A hand reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket. Surely enough, he reaches for his notebook. "I'll write down my phone number so you can tell me when you're planning your genius escape."
Now it's Lola's turn to grin a little. "Aw sugar, did Ah rain on yer crazy shit parade? Ah'm sorry, Ah didn' mean ta get in touch with yer man-feelings." Okay, well, she's going to have her laugh and there's probably nothing he can do about that. "Alright, then. Ah spoze it ain' against mah sense a propriety ta have help in somethin' like this. Ah gotta get away clean fer more reasons than ye'll ever care ta know, sugar." She sits back, waiting for him to write down the number. As he does, another question perks up. "How come ya only stalk women?"
The mockery is taken lightly, as surprising as that may be. Or perhaps it is not as surprising, for he often exposes people to equally caustic remarks; it would be hypocritical of him to take offence, after all. Instead of offering a retort, he opens up the notebook, rips out a sheet of paper, and starts jotting down his cell phone number. As Lola's question regarding his gender preference comes up, though, he looks up, both brows raised. He doesn't even need to ask, as his eyes themselves seem to inquire, 'Are you serious?'
It's only after he writes down the number and hands the piece of paper to Lola that he finally answers. "Elementary, my dear Watson. If I find out they're not honest, I can at least have sex with them", he explains, now mirroring Lola's grin.
The paper is snatched easily enough. She uncrinkles it over her leg to look at the number, then tilts her dark eyes back up to him. Hey! That's her mischevious grin. See? This is how you're supposed to wear that. "Well if that ain' the biggest incentive Ah've yet heard ta be honest, Ah sure as shit don' know what is." Bitch
"Good ta know at any rate, that ya ain' so much lookin' fer honesty as ya are lookin' for ass. Nice ta know ya really ain' on a high pedastle, but yer really just a freakin' kink like the rest of us. Welcome ta earth, sugar."
"Speaking of which!"
The triumphant announcement is followed by theatrical silence, during which Diogenes petrifies, furows his brows and wrinkles his nose - an overall thoughtful posture. An index finger darts up, as though to beckon further silence. "Hear that? It's my stop. This is where I get off", he informs Lola as seriously as though he would actually be on a train. Stuffing the notebook back into the inside pocket of his jacket, the man strides towards the door with not much else said. It was time his visit came to an end, and it's unlikely Diogenes would settle with an uneventful departure.
"Kink!" Lola calls after him, not really expecting an answer. It's just her way to be smarmy and a pain in his ass. After all, that's what she does.
None the less, she'll watch teh door after he's gone, just to make sure that he's gone and no one is coming on his heels. It'll be hours before shedares to start to relax, although she probably shouldn't. But she can't help it. She's so damn tired of being scared.