Description: Both Howard Rust and Quon Chen were stuck in the same hospital. They weren't aware of this until it was time for both to check out. Good thing, too, for Howard has a gameplan he wants Quon in on as to how to solve virtually all their problems in the single most in-depth counterstrategy to the threats that plague not only themselves, but the world at large. It might work... maybe. Can he, at long last, provide a beacon of light to Quon's endless parade of terrible chain of events robbing him of his security, his sanity, and his hopes and dreams?
As fighters go, Quon had spent a lot of time in recovery from that fight with Marz due to her vicious attacks at the end. It was made obvious that Marz had did her level best to put an end to Quon's fighting career before it even had a chance to get off the ground. While in the hospital, Quon received additional bad news. In addition to being fired he's now being evicted from his apartment since both of his means of paying rent and utilities have been cut off and Quon has too much pride to use the money that Cammy gave him to keep his head above water.
Quon as a result, has been looking at homeless shelters, since he's not quite ready to swallow his pride and move back with parents. It would be as if he was admitting that it was wrong to follow his dreams, when really it was just the case of just one unfortunate thing after the next happening to him. He's even dreading the day when he receives that call from his parents about why he ended up getting expelled from Southtown U.
It been made clear that Quon will not be allowed to stay in the hospital much longer and at this point, he's going to have to find a way of getting his clothes before they get sold off by his landlord. Now however, he has to focus on packing his bags and getting ready to depart.
Rust had his own bad run-in with a bizarre pumpkin-headed killer, saved from certain death by someone who, years ago, he would never have expected to come to his aid... but these are some troubling times, indeed.
Today, at long last, however, he's free to get out of the hospital. Okay, sure, his insurance isn't covering what happened and for all intents and purposes, he's in line to go through equally bad times. At least, as far as he knows, he's got his job.
He also has a lot of torn pieces of paper wrapped in what was his hospital gown, slung over his right shoulder after being fashioned into a bag. For being a man surrounded by helplessness, he's trying to keep something - /something/ of a good face. After all...
He has a plan.
By the sound of one of his popping knees, said knee may have a plan too. A plan to get out of here and shut down so it doesn't have to cart this man that works it so hard around.
Dressed back in his usual ridiculous comination of road construction worker and wannabe samurai, he's pretty much on his way home. Just straight to the apartment. Even toilet paper and laundry detergent could wait, for he has a plan. This plan will be the plan that saves everyone.
...Maybe.
It's really only when he overhears Quon's name from idle chatter between a couple of loud hospital workers behind the counter that it comes to mind that the two are (or were?) actually under the same roof.
One query later about which room number he's in, and Rust decides that, yes, he needs to let Quon know. He really does.
There's a knock on Quon's hospital door, followed three seconds by a small series of knocks (maybe that first knock was just his shoulder crackling?) before he speaks up.
"Hey, uh... Quon, you in there? 's me, Howard," he says, "can I come in?"
Quon tries to ignore the knocking at first. After all, the nurses have been trying to give him the bum's rush out of his room for awhile but all of those gifts that Cammy had given him was numerous enough that he needed to take his time. The familiar voice however gives him pause.
"Yeah." Using one word to answer the two questions posed to him. Yes, he's there and yes, he may come in.
What Rust sees when he comes in is an unmade hospital bed, a couple of books on Fei Long, a few empty cans of soda and a bag filled with money. The Chongquan prodigy moves about the room gathering things putting them in one bag or another. The bag filled with money however remains untouched. Conspicuously so. Like Quon is avoiding being near that bag of money let alone looking at it.
As he moves about he speaks to Howard Rust. "You wanted to talk about something?"
The older man gently opens the door - what may be striking is the sight of something over his right shoulder as he pushes in the door and takes a good, long hard look around the room. He brings a hand up to his chin to scratch it, as if expecting Quon to still be in bed or something.
"...Huh. You're, you're on your way out too?" The bag full of money brings some extremely uncomfortable likenesses to a meeting by FREAKING SAGAT, though a part of him doesn't really want to broach that subject out of fears of tipping his hand in that regard. After all, it was because of Sagat's gift of money that he was able to fully arrange that short-lived King of Fighters run.
All that, and Quon never got his shot.
"I, I was just 'bout headed out... been in the hospital too, but, uh... didn't know you were here until I heard your name at the front."
Funny, how those coincidences work out.
"Soon as I heard, I, I just wanted to see how you were, uh... so, how are you?"
Quon is silent at first, trying to figure out if he should avoid the topic altogether or if he should vent all of his anger and bitterness on the most convient target available. Unfortunately, Quon's emotions burst the damn and releases it in a deluge of vitriol. "I have someone break into my house, pop out of my damn refridgerator and not only wreck my place and cause me to lose my security deposit but do their level best to end my fighting career. I end up in the hospital, and end up losing my job while trying to recover in the hospital, and then I just found out I got an eviction notice and meanwhile I have a best friend on the streets corrupted by who knows what." There's a pause and then he lets go of the last remaining bit of bitterness with a voice oozing with sarcasm, "Just... peachy."
Then Quon continues to gather things as things disappear and his bags gradually get bigger.
In retrospect, it was really silly for this man to ask that question. Someone break into his house... Cammy again, o-- whoa, wreck the place? As Quon's recounts of how horrible his days have become grow in intensity, the older, physically thicker man visibly flinches. Words can be very scary and harmful things unto themselves.
With the pause afforded after all that, with that last notice he should have given the conditional of 'beyond Antoine,' it's a pretty heavy thing to consider. Looking at Quon - that's almost him.
At least he's pretty sure he's got his job still, despite all his worries. And the apartment. Can't forget that, even though there's a real chance someone can and will, indeed, pop out of his fridge and attempt the same to him at some point.
"Cripes." Quon's bad day has, officially, managed to completely and utterly trump his last... oh, month or so, and that was a pretty bad month. "I'm... I'm sorry, Quon." The older man lowers his head a little. Though, there's a part of him that remains eager to say, 'I will fix everything.'
"I don't even know what... what's gotten into... y'know, today's employers and hospital stays, I mean, god damn, Quon." The older man shakes his head, and eventually brings his free hand onto the side of his head. "It's god damn crazy."
With a deep breath, the man moves towards some of the things Quon is gathering, likely motioning to help him with packing. "I could, uh... I could let you crash at my place for a while. 's... one bedroom, but, but I can fuss with the couch, make a good bed out of it."
There's a part of him that considers Rust's offer. It would set an intermediary step between apartment and homeless shelter and as a result there's another step between where he's at now and being forced to go back to live with his parents after a failed acting and fighting career. And due to Cammy's dislike of Howard Rust it would decrease the likelihood of her breaking into a place he's living again.
There's one thing that keeps him from saying yes. The fact that it won't stop anyone else from Shadaloo from breaking in and wrecking stuff. As far as Quon knows, Rust is just an innocent and he doesn't want his problems to ruin someone else's life. "I can't accept your kind offer. Things keep getting worse around me and I don't want you getting caught up in it."
"Quon. Look. Quon." The shop teacher speaks up as he thinks to help move a book to wherever - only for it to start sliding off its little stack, at which point there's an unneeded pause as he slides the thing back onto the stack and motions at it vaguely with his free hand, as if to say 'please stay still, please, please... thank you.'
"I... I really can't say I've, I've gotten out of here unscathed either, I mean... Cammy keeps showin' up," and everyone involved knows what /he/ thinks of her, however slightly undeserved at least one facet of it is, "and... Zach..."
He's not sure what to say about it. In the end, he shakes his head. Not while he's got that collar on (but damn it, he should have let him try the chainsaw). "Quon, look, I know... I know I said something that, that really upset you, I... I never got 'round to talking with you 'bout it, because, well," he clears his throat, "'scuse me," patting his chest real fast.
"What I want to say is... y'know, a lot of things're bad for... for everyone, but, but I think, y'know, I might've actually gotten this licked. Just 'bout, uh, mind if I borrow your bed for a sec so I can show you," he says as he lowers the makeshift sack of... whatever it is inside there as he slowly lowers it onto the hospital bed.
Quon's eye brow raises slightly in an open display of skepticism. How can whatever that is in that makeshift bag solve the problem of a friend that is corrupted by some type of unknown agent? Can it remove Shadaloo from his life? Can it give him a place to live or let him return to school? Because his problems are so numerous, he can't fathom the idea of solution to his problems could be found in that bag.
The very least he can do though is hear the man out and so he nods and steps around the bed to see what the shop teacher has in store.
The makeshift bag is then unceremoniously dropped on the bed, undone to reveal a whole lot of... torn... paper balls? Tumbleweeds? An origami sculpture of Francois Poiroit?
"Quon, some of this, some of this shit we're dealin' with... 's magic. Legends, and that sort of bullshit." This is probably not the best way to open when, to the appearance of any sane person, he just literally dumped a bunch of crumpled up pieces of paper on a hospital bed. "Then, some kinda paper crane ended up in my windshield, and... y'know, after some things happened... I started folding paper cranes."
Most of these really do not look anything close to being construed as paper cranes. There is probably something very wrong with this man's head right about now, but Howard talks with a completely straight face, as if taking what silliness is coming out of his mouth with complete sincerity in his belief of what it is he's about to say.
"I, I know what you're thinkin'," he waves a finger, "but, I've seen some things, Quon, and... and I think, I think I'm on the right track. I'm puttin' together a thousand of 'em when I got the time. They say that, that you get a, a wish of some sort when you do."
...
"I'm gettin' there, Quon!" He insists as he makes eye contact proper. "I'm gettin' there. I ain't letting no... no Shadaloo, no friggin' bullshit from my co-workers, or Zach's little explosions get in the way."
Quon's mouth opens as if he's about to say something yet nothing comes out. He makes another attempt but still he seems to have trouble putting his thoughts into words. It appear that the only thing that Quon is capable of responding with is stunned silence.
There is Howard, visibly none the wiser about Quon's silence and possible damage to his dwindling SAN score in the face of so many things going wrong with his life, reaching down to hoist up the bag with one hand and scoop the, er... fingerquote, cranes, unfingerquote, into the bag with the other. He believes in this so much that he does not even treat any of these random pieces of artful garbage as expendable, making sure that not one of them is left behind in the least.
"I don't know what... what else there is to it, I mean, there weren't... any drugs involved, hell, nothin' else makes sense any more, so... it's, it's pretty simple, just gotta get all these done on the side while we look for Antoine again, and... and I think we'll get this licked."
The bag of origami abominations recollected, Howard hoists it back over his shoulder, holding out his hand to Quon again. "Listen, just... you don't have to answer now, y'know where I live, right? Just, just call me, or... or let me know if you need to stay a night, a week... a month, and, and we'll work out what to do from there, okay?"
He's not going to let a near death experience with that pumpkinhead stop him. He's got your number, he thinks about this creature that, in reality, is probably the furthest possibly removed thing from all of their issues and problems.
Log created on 12:38:14 05/01/2011 by Rust, and last modified on 00:20:41 05/31/2011.