singillatim | I need new clothes, I need somewhere to stay

[ Lalo finds time, in his terrified panting, to twist his face into a half-amused, half-confused grimace. ] Like the inkblots? [ He points at the other man's mask...face?...thing. ]

'Cause of that?

[Lalo looked a touch deranged, though given he'd clearly been experiencing some bad injuries or illness at some point in the recent past, Rorschach was willing to give him some leeway.

He nodded wordlessly at the questions. A big talker this one was not, which only added to his creepy aura.]

[ Lalo is, of course, aware he looks like an insane person, and it only adds to his sense of mortification. Fortunately, he's not so embarrassed he can't manage to make a joke out of it. ]

Ay, ese, you can stop talking anytime now. I can't get a word in edgewise!

[ Lalo seems to think he's hilarious. ]

[Hah. Funny. Or at least this was someone who thought he was funny. Either way, it took a lot more than that to get a laugh out of Rorschach. He just continued to stand there and stay silent, looking Lalo over with an intense air, the blots of his face moving around even as the rest of him remained still.

Finally, the silence having stretched out an uncomfortable length, he spoke in his gravelly tone.]

Look terrible. What happened?

[ Now that he's had some time to calm himself down, Lalo focuses on fixing his hair and evening out his breathing... and just trying to look less deranged. He responds to the intensity of Rorschach's air by flopping back down into a chair across from Rorschach. In contrast with Rorschach, Lalo's own air becomes looser and more relaxed as he starts to wake up and get the image of a blank mask staring down at him out of his mind.

He extends an arm over the back of the sofa as he stares back at Rorschach. He seems more comfortable now, unbothered by the silence, content to wait for the other man to speak. And maybe, trying to regain some of the dignity he'd lost by shrieking like that.

He seems more amused than anything by Rorschach's assessment of his condition as "terrible"...in any case, he can't disagree. Lalo knows he looks like shit. ]

Wolf attack, man. It was brutal. One of them came out of nowhere, and sunk their teeth riiiiight into me.

[Rorschach didn't sit down, opting to still stand up. It was hard to get a read on him and not just because of the mask covering his features. His body language was closed-off as if he didn't want anyone to be able to tell anything much about him. He digested what Lalo told him. He hadn't heard of any wolf attacks for a number of months now but made note they might have been coming back. Time to pull out the extra paint and matches again.]

Did you bite it back?

[Despite the completely flat tone of his voice, which meant there was almost no emotion attached to it, that was something approaching a joke for Rorschach. His sense of humor was very dry and often leaned towards black comedy most of the time.]

[ It takes Lalo a second, just because the masked man's tone is so dry. But eventually, he catches on that it's a joke. He starts to laugh. He points at Rorschach. ]

I like you!!

[ In contrast with how closed-off Rorschach is, Lalo's body language is loose, confident, and relaxed.

You know, in contrast with how freaked out he was just a few minutes ago. ]

[This guy was strange. And coming from someone who was practically owned the title of town weirdo the way he acted, that was saying something.

His head tilted a little to one side and stayed that way, like a dog trying to figure out what sounds a person was making.]

Most people don't.

[That was just a fact of life. Rorschach was very off-putting in nature and just generally had a hard time interacting with the majority of the Interlopers in town.]

[ Lalo just nods along with that revelation like: Yeah, that tracks. ] Yeah, I can see why.

[ Lalo isn't usually that blunt, but nothing about Rorschach screams "welcoming". ] You always sneak up on people like that? You practically gave me a heart attack, man.

But you're interesting! I like "interesting."

[ Being liked by Lalo means little, though, because it comes without trust. ]

[He gave a nonchalant shrug and Lalo's question.]

Got quiet feet.

[Rorschach didn't always intentionally mean to scare the shit out of people when he came up on them. It was just due to how poorly socialized he was plus being in the habit of being far silent than just about any other Interloper.

He thought about if he liked being called 'interesting' or not. Interesting, after all, held a lot of connotations and not all of them good. But he figured there was worse things in the world to be called and had been called in the past.]

Can live with that.

[ This relationship may yet prove to be a ticking time bomb of drama and blood and more drama and more blood, but for now Lalo's intrigued.

He laughs when Rorschach says he can live with being called interesting, like Rorschach just told the funniest joke. ]

Not like you got a choice, right? [ Shrug. ] Unless you wanna have a heart attack right here.

[ Lalo stands and starts to approach. Unlike Rorschach he's tall, handsome, with a vibrant presence that makes him stand out like a beacon even when he isn't trying to. But then he dizzily steps back. ]

Whew! You smell interesting too. What the hell, man? Do you need somebody to show you how to boil water or do you just never take that back off? You are ripe.

[ Exaggeratedly, he waves a hand over his nose. ]

[Hah. A funny man. Or at least someone who thought he was funny. Either way, Rorschach didn't laugh.

He grew even less amused when Lalo pointed out his lack of hygiene. Look, he knew it was a problem, but did everyone have to be so damn blunt about it? (That was him entirely being a hypocrite, given just how blunt he tended to be when it came to interacting with everyone else.) He folded his arms across his chest, a sign he was less than pleased by what Lalo had just told him. He didn't say anything else, just silently glaring at the other man from under his mask, the dots continuing to move around as he did so.]

[ Lalo is wounded, so he's nervous now. If he was in tip-top shape, he wouldn't back down, but he isn't. Rorschach can see it in his eyes, since Lalo isn't lucky enough to have a bitchin' mask, but Lalo is suddenly deeply conscious of his wound. It pains him more than it has since he was getting in stitched up. Lalo tries to see tough, but there's just the faintest hint of wilting.

He is alone here. No family, no resources, in a world full of potentially dangerous strangers he doesn't know, with no idea when he'll be able to leave. (He is sure he will be able to leave, of that much he's confident. But he has no idea when.) ]

I... uh. Sorry. I didn't mean... [ Oh fuck please don't murder him. ] I take it back. You know what? Your musk is... uh... [ he tries to find the right words, and snaps the fingers on his non-injured hand ] unqiue. To you. I support that. Good for you doing your own thing.

[ Please at least find this babbling amusing enough not to kill him, oh God. ]

[The nice thing about being so quiet is that people who liked to talk, as he suspected Lalo was, often filled up the gaps with just about whatever came into his head. He waited to see just what the other man was going to say and wasn't disappointed when he just continued babbling on, though this time he was backpedaling just about as fast as he could.

When it appeared Lalo had finished speaking for the moment, he had only a few words to say.]

Digging yourself deeper.

[Once he'd been insulted, it wasn't exactly as if that could all be taken back again as if a cassette tape was being rewound. Really, he'd heard far worse from far nastier people than Lalo, so he wasn't going to beat him up for hearing he stank. At least Rorschach knew it was the truth.]

[ Lalo hates this feeling. It's the worst. He felt it with Louis, and he's feeling it again now. The fear. That squirming-inside, helpless fear. It infuriates him. It's not death he fears, but the sense that something even worse than death could happen at any moment.

If he weren't in such bad shape, Lalo would have little fear from an expressionless hobo with a Napoleon complex. But he's in terrible shape. He's injured, and sick from the infection. He's tired. He's in pain. If someone were to attack him now, in this state, he could to little to fight back.

It makes him feel like--

Well, like people usually feel when he looks at them. He remembers leaning over the poker table, elbows jutting out, watching Domingo's sweating, squirming nervousness as Lalo eyed him down. He wishes he could do that to this piece of shit now.

Instead, Lalo wonders if this is how that Domingo kid felt, sitting across the table from him, and feels angry on the inside that he should ever be forced to relate to such a boring nobody. But it has to be similar. The uncertainty. Feeling like both blatant disrespect and further submission are equally likely to provoke merciless verbal mockery at best, outright physical violence at worst.

Lalo swallows, and lowers his eyes, and says nothing. On the inside, he fumes, and thinks about how he'd like to bash Rorschach's head in with something. It's not fair, Lalo thinks, that these mini-humiliations be so successive and constant. What does the universe have against him? What did he do to deserve any of this besides be handsome and cool and sexy and live life on his own terms?

It's so unfair. ]

[Rorschach let the silence sit there and grow between them, becoming as uncomfortable as it hung there in the air as Lalo certainly looked right about now. He wasn't sure what to make of the guy. Perhaps at a different time he would have been taken in by his charms but at the moment all he saw was an ill mess who had insulted him. From beneath his mask, his sharp blue eyes kept a close watch on the other man.

He let that silence go on. Rorschach was used to people being intimidated by him. Despite being so small, there was just an intense air about the vigilante that could make people squirm. Mainly it was because it was never quite clear just what he was going to do next. That was what happened when one was just on the right side of sanity and always threatening to cross over into a place he wasn't going to be able to come back from.

Finally, he pointed at Lalo and then back at the bed he'd been in with a gloved hand.]

Sit down before you fall down.

[ Is he being pointed at like a dog??? Lalo is quietly stunned. But he also knows that nothing has changed in the past couple of minutes, and that he doesn't have the advantage here in any sense. If anything, he knows Rorschach could be a lot crueler to him right now, if he wanted to.

"An injured, unwell mess who just insulted someone" is Lalo's appraisement of his own situation too right now. He's arrogant but he's not stupid.

So he slinks back to bed, obediently. He doesn't even glare, choosing to keep his eyes down to avoid conflict. He can think of a million jokes he could make, but he doesn't want to risk making any of them, not sure how Rorschach will take them. Maybe he'd appreciate them, who knows, but Lalo doesn't want to risk them being taken as disrespect.

When he's laying down again, Lalo finally looks up at Rorschach and asks: ]

Now what?

[There was a certain amount of satisfaction in bossing people around, Rorschach would never deny that, especially when it came someone who had been so damn rude to him minutes before. Watching Lalo slink back to his bed like a whipped cur with his tail between his legs almost brought a smile to the face that lay under his mask.]

Now you stay. And I'm leaving.

[He'd gotten more than enough interaction with the idiotic man for the moment. It was time for him get back outside and to patrolling the town. Plus he was sure Lalo could have used more rest after being startled out of a sound sleep by the vigilante. Rorschach walked off, his feet making his exit just as silent as when he'd approached Lalo in the first place.]

[ It's like Lalo can feel the smile, even if he can't see it. He would take umbrage but he's too exhausted. Instead, he marinates in his feelings of indignity while he watches Rorschach go, before laying back down and relaxing into the comfort of the bed. Rorschach is right. He does need sleep. ]

I need new clothes, I need somewhere to stay

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omg I'm so sorry this is so late!!

Ditto that! Spongebob voice: One thousand years later...

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