I need new clothes, I need somewhere to stay

[salamanca]

Who: Lalo Salamanca and YOU.
What: Lalo comes back from his travels with Methuselah badly injured.
When: January 29th thru the next week or so after
Where: Around town. See individual prompts.

Content Warnings: Description of injury, blood, and infection; others tba.

See individual prompts in the starters below.

Comments

[moralabsolutism]

[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.

[salamanca]

[ 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. ]

[moralabsolutism]

[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.]

[salamanca]

[ 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. ]

[moralabsolutism]

[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.]

[salamanca]

[ 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. ]

[moralabsolutism]

[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.

[salamanca]

[ 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?

[moralabsolutism]

[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.]

[salamanca]

[ 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. ]