Scenario Entitled: Get Well SoonCharacters:
Gareth, recovering from a nasty spill... off a bridge. On a harley.
Nickel, witness to events, come visiting with timely assistance.
Location: Tolkeen Medical Center
Date: Marron, 111 P.A.
Room 203 - TMC
This hospital room is suited to hold more than one patient. It is slightly larger than the other rooms and can comfortable hold two patients, three if the hospital is in dire need of space. Each bed looks comfortable enough, with controls to adjust the head and foot of the bed. Diagnostic monitors behind the bed are attached to it through sensors, monitoring the patient's vital signs. Pale blue curtains separate the beds and can be drawn back if the patient wishes.
A few chairs are placed near the windows and one chair is placed at the foot of the bed in each curtained-off cubicle. A single bathroom occupies the room with a shower stall as well as the usual amenities, to be shared by the rooms occupants and their visitors.Gareth
This black man approaches eight feet in height and bulks out in every distended muscle group, to tip the scales at around five hundred pounds. One might say he's gone overboard with the notion of the 'Body Beautiful', but with his strong, African-descended features and burnished ebony skin, he can still be considered an attractive human. Nothing to shout about, and the small black patch over his left eye is a strange accent, but a step above merely cute, all the same. Of course, due to recent injuries, he's a bit puffy and banged up around the edges, further lowering any appealing features.
While his body recovers from some recent physical trauma, he sports what some would coin an amusingly small hospital gown. His astonishing and disturbing physique is barely covered by the aforementioned hospital gown, bearing a name tag with a bright pink ~G~ on it. His straightened hair is in slight disarray. While it's clean, there hasn't been much of an attempt to make them presentable or sheik despite the ragged tips that sport rich purple highlights. His face has gathered a number of days worth of stubble. His right forearm, leg and foot are all bandaged up with the addition of some metal splints.Gareth is currently propped up in a nice big metal wheelchair and alternates between rapidly flipping through a skin mag and scratching himself in the privates. Seems like he's got the room to himself for now, but the other bed in the room has some ruffled sheets and a slight indentation from it's absent owner. The latter patron of the hospital seems to have had a lot of visits or friends at least. Cheery little balloons, greeting cards and a stuffed animal are displayed around the cot. And poor Gareth has nothing. Awwww.
Nickel at least has the decency to knock on the door, which is in general a good thing to do when around a hospital. One does not wish to walk in on a nurse cleaning up excrement from the floor, or wiping it from a patient, after all. He responds to the curious looks by the security guards at the end of the hall with a shrug, turning to face away from them on purpose. Sheesh, make him nervous looking like that.
Gareth, figuring that it's probably another nurse, grunts. He flips through a few more pages and then tosses the magazine over onto the other bed in bored manner. "Aye...If yew bring'n ah-nuth'ah bloody wobb'lah wobb-wobb, yew kin take't back. I feel all fook'n blooted frum tha last one, S'truth."
The door pushes open, the thump of a heavy boot against the tile very audible. About half the foot is visible there, a swirl of brown fabric. "Not quite," a definitely masculine voice replies. Is it a detective, someone in the wrong room? Maybe someone from the Apok gang come to finish the job that was started earlier.
Gareth feels his breath hitch up in his throat. The big oaf purses his lips tightly together and slaps his hands down on the big rubber wheels of the chair. His expression contorts into one of those priceless looks that someone would kill to get a picture of.
Fingers curl about the door's edge, soft clinking noises coming from the figure as the door is cleared. If that's an Apok, the dress is right out. Looks like someone dressed for some bad weather, and what the hell is with the sunglasses indoors. The door eased closed, longcoat's folds settling out to roughly even. "Look who I see. That takes either cajones the size of oranges, or total loss of rational thought."
Gareth doesn't seem to ease up though, despite the strenuous work to get his face straightened out. It's hard to pretend when you're dressed in a garment made of something muck like paper. The sunglasses are what the big oaf seems to focus on the most. His hands clench tightly onto the wheels of the chair and he seems poised to...roll or something. "Who tha 'ell'r yew? Sum sort'ah ass-sass'n tah finish tha bloody job?" he strains out through a tight throat.
"Oh no, please don't get up on my account," the new arrival says, grinning while motioning with a hand towards the metal bracework. "I imagine the nurse you spoke of would probably do something saddistic like readjust them without giving you any painkillers, if you got them out of whack." The man crosses his arms, moving over to rest one booted foot on a chair. This of course leaves a wet footprint there, as the snow and slush does tend to melt with travel. "Assassin? Hmm, maybe," he replies to your earlier question, looking bemused. "Somehow I think once it was found you'd been stabbed to death with a screwdriver that they would be suspicious. No, just someone curious what kind of person it is that runs that kind of a gauntlet without backup."
Gareth chews on his bottom lip through the majority of the dialogue. When the terror in him subsides a tad, he's able to actually use part of his brain to recognize the fella in front of him. He squints and hunches up his shoulders, trying to look tough, as if this could erase the recent past. "Ah bloody tre-mendoos...firm arsed bloke, S'truth. Whut dew't matt'ah though? I fook'n lost'n gots cheese'oled by sum dum-dums'n I gots'ah boike tha gots one foot inn'ah grave." He flares his nostrils and begins to try to pry his fingers from around the wheels. "I knuw yew...Yew one'ah them blokes tha whut fooked oop tha Madison things ain'tchu? I saws yew on tha telly I did. Core."
Nickel gives a little snort, leaning over to check the bindings on his boots. He opens one of the clips, pulls it out a little more and snaps it back over to get a better fit, looking back up. Briefest hint of storm-grey metal between sunglasses and the overhang of his hair to the eyes, there. "I fucked up precisely nothing," he replies shortly. "Don't group me with the triggerhappy assmonges that reduced that settlement to beetle fodder. I'm glad to have come out of it in one piece and all, but we had everything going just fine until more folks joined and the average intelligence dropped below 'Door to Door Salesman' on the meter."
Gareth curls up the corner of his lip and turns his attention over towards the other bed and then the window, a storm getting all huffy and puffy on the other side. "Tha's why I dun't goo goo be-yond tha fook'n walls. Fah, nuth'n but trubble oot there. Witches'n faeries'n...black spinn'n discs 'o doom." He sniffs, clearing out his over-active nostrils. "Can't stand them goof'ah bastards tha live oot there any'ow...So then, whut I kin a dew fer yew then? Swap 'orrible stories 'o fook'n re-porters stick'n camer'ah lenses oop each oth'ahs arses? Look'n tah by spare parts oot'ah me bitch 'o'ah boike? Auto-graph?...Haw."
Nickel huhs at that. "Hmm, perhaps it would have been nicer to hear you trying to figure out what to say to an assassin to keep what blood you still have to your name on the inside," he muses. The boot slides from the chair as the coated figure moves over, dropping into it and crossing his legs comfortably. "I'm not here to swap stories, not looking to buy parts off of you," he replies. "I'm no charity if you need the money. I'm busy but bloody curious, too, and if you ain't got anybody else in town that knows how, I can give a try at straightening your motor out. Don't know about wheels though."
Gareth frowns in a somewhat confused manner. He lets a cynical eye linger on Nickel for a few seconds. "Whut?" He pouts out his bottom lip. "Yew will'n tah lend yer ser-vices b'cause 'o tha set oop tha oth'ah noight? Not say'n I dun't need'ah ~com-petent~ 'and, but I be'ah bit skep-tickle a-boot blokes...an even femmes these day 'o days, whut with tha Pokos, Poo-lice'n oth'ah shite lick'ahs take'n turns on me firm arse. Whut in't fer yew ass-ide frum sum gener-oos credits yer way? Or are yew look'n tah make'ah washed oop con-tact?"
Nickel gives a little gesture of revulsion, that's somewhat more a warding gesture. "Just as long as you don't turn about to display said ass, I'll at least stay and talk with you," he replies. "Money is the main part of the thing, though at least some of it is due to the fact that it's almost painful to hear an engine running -that- badly, with eight bleedin' repair shops in town. What'd you do, sleep with the owner's daughter of each one and get found out?" He grins in an almost lupine manner at the jest. "Mmh, washed up. Now there's one I've heard before." That seems to cause some silent musing.
Gareth scowls openly, appearing none too jovial about the subject and his poor choice of motorcycle. "So 'ow dew I knuw yew gunna ~fix~ me boike'n not just sab...sabo...yew knuw, fook't oop? Tha bloody boike wuz loike new...S'truth." He fumes. "Custom ordered so me fab-yew-loos self could ride all noice'n shite. If'n tha fook'n Pokos 'adn't challenged me, I would'ah go'tit fixed soon'r or late'ah. Can't back duwn frum one 'o those punks though. Give'm'ah inch...they take...more inches." He flusters and flaps his lips with an expulsion of air."
Nickel ponders that for a little. "So why not just shoot the challenger?" he replies. "Besides, it's looking like there's not really much reason to go after you anyway, 'cept making payback for past times. Either you enjoy getting ground in or you take a vacation outside, the way I see things." One leg is crossed over the other, the top leg swinging from the knee. "Besides, the way I figure it, your bike's probably pretty buggered up as it is. Fixing it up to sabotage it has got to be the stupidest bit of paranoia I've ever heard. Why do that when they could just shoot you? Did, in fact."
Gareth drops his hands onto the wheels of the chair again but gives them a pump this time to coast him a bit closer. "Why thank yew ev'ah so bloody mooch fer yer bloody oh-pinyon Mist'ah...guy. Yew knuw, there wuz'ah bloody toime when I would'ah choked tha fook'n loife frum sum bloke loike yew fer tha ah-tit-tudies yew sling'n. Who tha 'ell yew think yew are anywho fixie-man? Yew re-mind'n me 'o sum foo-lish blokes tha got ground bloody gud...by me fook'n boot." He rolls into the edge of the bed accidentally, bashing his knee against the steel frame. He glowers, flushing with some frustration and embarassment.
Nickel watches the rolling, uncrossing his legs and watching. Even in a wheelchair the presence and difference in size does have an effect, the coated man looking somewhat nervous about having the hulk of a man getting closer. Just because he shouldn't do any strenuous activities, doesn't mean he won't. "Sometimes the truth hurts," he notes, intentionally drawing a parallel to what just happened. "It's your life, I'll look at your bike if you have something to make it worth my while. Beyond that, it's everyman's right to blow off a little steam. Just ask the streetpunk with the heater that I talked with."
Gareth grumbles, grinding his teeth a little bit as he fixes one of his beady eyes on Nickel. A muscle twitches underneath the metal patch. "Roight." He leans back in his chair, consciously trying to focus on things other than his smarting knee. "Mebbe I dew just tha. If'n I make't oot'ah this fook'n 'ospital Ah-loive."
Nickel nods to that. He pushes slowly from the chair, standing. "Well, since you're the old hand at this, I'll just leave you to your musings," he says, looking towards the door. "Maybe look you up again when you get out of the stainless-steel bondage gear there. Seems you've gotten in a lot of dirt with lots of folks. Pity you can't just dump it on them, eh?" He curls his fingers about the steel door bar, drawing it open to exit.
"Yew nev'ah knuw. They cert'nlah won't until tha shadow passes ov'ah 'ead'n tha whist'ln noises foll'oo." Gareth snarks cryptically and then tries to wheel himself back towards his too firm bed. He gestures to his metal eyepatch and then towards you. "Eye be see'n yew."
Nickel looks over his shoulder, the ghost of a smile showing. "Not if I see you first," he replies, tapping the edge of his sunglasses. Then he's gone, the door closing with the usual *thump* of an overenthusiastic pneumatic piston.
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