Description: Roland visits Layla at the Southtown Central Hospital, both out of guilt and to try and coax her out of the hospital bed. Things don't go quite as intended, but the meeting ends on a positive note... with both agreeing to fight again in the future and perhaps have a bit of fun too.
It's a quiet evening in the third floor, right wing, of the Southtown Central Hospital. Even more quiet than one would expect a hospital to be, there do not seem to be many nurses or doctors walking the halls and the two female desk receptionists generally seem far too occupied with a conversation they're having to pay too much attention to anything else. It must be a rather slow day.
Inside Room #311, a cranky and sore young brazilian-american female is lying in bed.. covered up by a thick wool blanket... and wearing nearly a full body cast.
She's cranky partly because of her recent loss to a certain cowboy in a certain illegitimate League, partly because of the pain, and partly because she had basically exhausted ALL of her old tournament winnings she'd been squirreling away just to foot the bill for this place. She also did /not/ enjoy the fact that they would not allow her to have alchohol in here. In fact, even in her wounded state, she'd damn nearly had a throw down with her doctor because of that. The doctor, and his tranquilizers, won.
"Damn it..." The thuggish woman with struggled against her body cast, her worn and beaten body refusing to cooperate, to reach for the remote which was lying less than two inches from her right hand. After struggling for several moments, she finally gives up... relaxing again with a defeated sigh. "How many days??" She exclaims, aloud, to no one. She then resumes staring at the news channel they'd left on... in silence... as yet another report about the controversy and lawsuits surrounding Masters Corporation airs. She sighs. Hey, wasn't the host of Kuma League also one of the people slamming Ken Masters for having a death grip on fighting leagues lately...?
Roland felt kind of bad for Layla and how the entire incident with the bears ended up. Why the person who was first mauled is the one who didn't end up in the hospital is testament to Layla's honor as a fighter; she might be rough and tumble, but deep down her motives were not winning at any cost, but helping a one-armed man pinned beneath a grizzly bear! Also, being someone who was in far worse shape and stuck in a hospital far longer, his normally barren soul has some distant twinge of empathy.
The door suddenly pushes open without warning, and a heavily bandaged Roland is leaning against the frame. He's got a lot of gauze around his neck, and is a touch pale, but it's easy to make the comparison between his condition and hers. She got off a little worse for wear... and it was likely not the bears that put her in that cast, but his excessive used of steel playing cards! "Well. You sure look to be enjoying yourself in here." A sweep of his foot slams the door behind. In his arms is a massive bouquet of flowers, likely costing at least $100. It's just sort of lazily tossed on Layla's chest, aromatic and strong. The card could be read from the angle. 'Sorry for hospitalizing you, baby.'
He then immediately goes over to the television and starts changing the channels without asking until it settles on a somewhat glitchy Texas Hold'm show, as if his business with her was done and he now felt like stealing her cable. How empathetic.
Layla manages, not with any difficulty, to pry her eyes from the absolutely stupor inducing TV program to cant her head sideways in the direction of the door as someone apparently makes their way in without warning.
Before she even sees him, she assumes its the doctor. That arrogant prick seemed to believe his medical degree gave him the right to tell her what to do. It might as well have been him. "Hey, I don't like..." ... she stops, mid-sentence as she realizes it isn't the doctor. She still somehow gets the feeling he'd be the type to play at being one if it meant he could cop a feel.
Her eyes narrow a bit, "You! I...!" ... then she's cut off again by a bouquet of fragrant flowers being tossed in her face! What the hell?
Her first reaction is pretty predictable, "Oh god, it stinks." She was practically smothering under the perfume of the flowers. It was like that shit other women were always wwearing. How the fuck did they breathe?? ... She then reads the card, and her eyes narrow further. 'Baby?' ... "I mean... uh.." She somehow finds her manners, despite being a bit irritated at his entrance... "...Thanks, I guess."
Then e picks up the remote from the desk nearby and turns it to a card game show, an instead of responding with enmity, she seems a tad relieved... even if it wasn't /exactly/ what she wanted. "Thank god, I don't think I could stand any more of that garbage..."
She eyes the perverted cowboy silently for a moment or so, curiously, for a moment or so before finally saying what's on her mind... "So... what the fuck would you want to come here for? Doctors harassing you too?" ... or were the nurses too ugly for his liking?
"Don't take the flowers the wrong way, I'm just trying to seduce you." Roland offers in a kind of distracted way, quickly running the cards in his head. The probabilities that follow are good practice on his old conman skills. A life left mostly behind, but old habits and hard-earned tricks die ruggedly. He grabs a nearby seat and just plops upon it, still facing the television. A sort of lazy sprawl follows, leg crossing and good arm resting on the back. "Honestly, they should be still kissing my feet after how long I was in here. No. I just never put a girl in the hospital before, so wanted to check on you. Plenty of guys, though." Another offhanded statement without an ounce of compassion. Before his brow furrows. "I've TRIED to put Ayame in it before, but she's a difficult one. So close last time, so close..." Roland actually visibly deflates into his chair, head hanging in depression. But he bounces back almost immediately.
"So it sounded like they were going to kick you out soon anyway, right? Once there wasn't the whole liability of dumping a cripple in the gutter. You seem the type to get in a scrap a lot, but not in a body cast..."
At the comment about 'seducing' her, Layla's eyebrow quirks slightly. Well, ... at least he was honest? He wasn't doing a bang-up job at it though, albeit she found herself amused at the least since his approach wasn't so like so many other men she knew. Not that it was a good thing, mind...
"It isn't working." She offers, in response, with a tone that suggests she's half-playing with him and half being sarcastic herself. She does turn her head back toward the television, and that glitchy program however... watching with idle interest. She'd seen these kinds of things quite a bit where she hung out.
As she hears the leather sofa give way audibly under his weight though... her brown eyes are upon him again... eyeing the bandaged neckwound the bear had given him. Thoughtful. "Well..." She replies, idly, "You didn't have to do that. I've been through far worse than this before." Though, she'd rarely fought anyone who threw explosive playing cards before... that was a new one... "...you do have an interesting fightening style though. I don't believe I have ever seen attacks quite like yours before..."
Her brow furrows a bit, though, at his inquiry regarding them throwing her out soon. Where the doctors plotting against her already? "Not for a week, I am told at least." She then turns her eyes up toward the sterile, white, ceiling and lays her head back against the bed... getting tired of holding her neck up. "...The sooner the better though, I hate this place. Can't even get a decent drink in here!"
"Well, I'll figure out something that works." is all Roland says further on the subject of womanizing. But calling him unqiue can be something of an understatement; some of those most advanced, practiced psychological minds can't make any sense of him, made all the more furious by it's seeming simplicity. "Heh. Don't compliment me. If I had started this years ago, I'd be a hell of a competitor. But I coasted life on talent. Look at you." Roland glances over Layla, if perhaps taking a bit more time then is neccesary. Probably to be an ass, not like much curves can be seen through a cast and blanket. "You've fought your whole life. And you aren't far below me. I'm an arrogant man, but I think I clearly proved I exceeded you in raw talent and potential. And that was nothing to grit and upbringing."
Not nothing, given he won, but the point is still clear. "A week. I take it back. You're a bigger wuss then Ken Masters." Suddenly Roland pushes to his feet and walks over to Layla's side, looking down on her. "You are listening to doctors. Doctors who treat normal people. Could a normal person /punch a bear over?/ We don't get broken. We get pain. Look at me... ultimately, was I all that worse off then you? Hell know. Do I hurt as much? Hell yes. If you don't want to be in that damn cast, then do what you want."
Roland then taps his chin. "Get out of that cast, and sock me in the jaw so hard I fall over, and I'll pay every penny of your hospital bill. How's that for incentive?"
The brazilian girl laugh softly to herself as he tells her he'll figure out something with regards to seducing her. She very much doubted he was capable, though she didn't state it outright.
When he starts talking about his fighting history though, she does listen... albeit not entirely by choice. Kind of hard not to be a captive audience when you're bound up in plaster as tightly as she was. The fact that he looks at her a little too long, or the fact that he's being an ass, eludes her to this point though. Whether it was the sedatives the doctors were giving her, or whether she was just that thick would be anybody's guess. She does frown a bit, however, as he finishes with what sounds like a very arrogant boast about his talent. A thing only alleviated slightly by the fact that he readily admits his failing of being arrogant.
"You complicate things too much..." She sighed, casting a sidelong glance at him before he stands up off the sofa. She is, of course,r eferring to his analyzing the outcome and the implicatiions. As far as she was concerned he'd won. For now, at least, until she'd managed to get to the point where she could move again.
Then the comparison to Ken Masters comes, and the weak comment, and her dirty eyes narrowly dangerously at him even as he stands over her. Rather than yell, her usual response to this sort of thing, she has a moment of migraculous insight... and adopts a shit-eating grin. "...Funny, you comparing me to someone so much more skilled than you and calling me weak." Then she realizes from the tone of his little speech thereafter that he's trying to be positive... in possibly the only way his asshole self knows how. There's a tinge of guilt there then, and she shuts her eyes... taking a prolonged exhale... "You make that sound so easy." She might be strong, but she couldn't make nerves fire that didn't want to... or bones hold weight when they wouldn't. "...What is your deal, anyway?" She asks, honestly. "Why the hell do you CARE what I do??"
"I'm trying to help you." Roland states, matter of factly. "Because you're a fucking fighter. And one I thought tougher then most. Ken has lived such a life of luxury that being seriously injured for the first time in maybe months has him still bedridden. And look at you. You got badly hurt. But guess what, I've hurt weaker people even worse, and they never went to the hospital at all. They drank and complained. But they didn't die, And they had no lasting wounds. You're underestimating the regeneration of a fighter's body, I guess. Keep babying yourself, and I guess you end up like Ken, is all I'm saying." Suddenly Roland grips his bandage and yanks it off. The wound upon his neck is horrible. If he was sane, it's the sort of thing he'd remain in a hospital for himself. It could get infected. Tendons are visible. A punch to the throat could kill him. He slaps it back on awkwardly. "So, I guess that's all. I came here thinking if someone like you was in the hospital, I might of killed you. Guess I was wrong." He then takes a couple step backwards, giving a sort of disappointed sigh and shrug.
If he were trying to 'help' her, he wasn't doing a great job at it. Even through the sedatives and against her malfunctioning neural system, she could feel her right fist slowly curling tightly as her anger slowly built to a boil. "WILL YOU FUCKIN' SHUT IT??" She shouts, loudly enough for half of the hospital to hear. She stares at him furiously, even as he removes the bandage... exposing the totally fucked up neck beneath. As he slaps it back on, his injury making a low, sickeningly wet, sound though... she isn't sure whether she should feel as though he's insane or feel kinship with the asshole. There's probably be at least a dozen times Layla herself had done something in a fight that might kill her, or pressed the attack despite having such horrific injuries that bone protruded from her flesh. Yet, that was often when she was drunken with the fury that overtakes her when she fights.. her persona outside of battle was slightly different...
He goes right on ahead, anyway, however... explaining his reasons for coming before stepping back from her bedside... with a disappointed look on his face. "I'd say I appreciate it but honestly, the only thing it seems like you're trying to do is pick a fight!" She growls lowly... "...and if it's a fight you want, FINE! I was planning to hunt you down eventually and get even with you for that embarassment..." Her mind plays back that scene of him basically stripping her with a deck of playing cards... and she fights herself not to turn crimson.. cheeks tightening as she quashes any trace of a blush. "..but god damn it, I have to be able to stand first! ... And how are stupid are you?? I don't care hom much you drink, THAT neckwound isn't going away. Hell if you aren't careful you'll be out of the god damned league before I even have time to challenge you again. .. Don't believe for even a second I'd visit you if you died, I have no interest in dead men either." ... Then she realizing what the wording of her last sentence implies. She growls again audibly. "DON'T FUCKIN' SAY ANYTHING ABOUT IT!"
Roland doesn't so much as wince or bat an eye when Layla yells at him in such a fashion. In fact, he pulls out a pack of smokes and settles one into his mouth, toking it up with another spark of chi before exhaling in pleasure. However, any attempt to leave suddenly stops, when Layla makes that ocmment. "Fuck yeah. I want to fight you again. Without any bears in the way. And so I was making sure you aren't dead. I just hope you won't get soft..." Roland glances over his shoulder then, expression serious. "Because I won't hold back any more the second time, either. And I don't have much interest in fragile girls." Nobody can say he can't be quite the ass when given half a mind. All Layla earns afterwards is a big smirk, before he pats his neck hard. "Baby, you ever hear of a man called Freeman?" There's a suddenly haunted expression on his face. "He's what cost me my arm. And if you looked under my shirt... which you might get to one day... you'd truly wonder how I'm still alive. I earned these wounds with pride in a battle. And I'll wear them with pride, live or die." He then gives a jostling kick to the base of Layla's bed. "So get better soon. We'll have some drinks, then beat each other to hell, and the loser pays. Sound like a date?"
The brown-haired, brown-eyed, ball of fury seems to soften again... if just a bit... when he lights up and returns her sentiments with regards to fighting again. Her head leans back against the bed again, eyeing a lock of her red-streaked hair that had fallen into her face at some point during her little outburst. God, this is why she kept a ponytail. But the doctors took it out, claiming it was unsanitary.
She blows the strand out of her face with a huff, then turns her eyes back toward the gambler slowly... watching as he goes on excitedly for a moment about fighting her again.
Then a somber tone slips into his voice as he mentions this 'Freeman' person. She hadn't the faintest who he was, giving she didn't normally have access to radio or TV, but she could tell he was someone dangerous. Anyone who could make a person like Roland take that tone must be...
She eyes his bad arm for a few moments in silence, reflecting on what she'd just ben told... and suddenly feels a bit more empathy toward him.
Then the bed is kicked suddenly, jostling her and causing the bed to sway... and her IV stand nearby to sway dangerously before settling again. Suddenly, she was listening again... shocked back to reality by his zeal.
She does offer her a grin though, when he mentions them getting together some time and having a few drinks and beating each other to hell and back. Whether he was aware of it or not, he'd probably managed to pique her interest in him far better than when he wa trying to 'seduce' her. "...Yeah, I'll take you up on that." She chuckles softly. "You better not back out either though, next time won't be the same as last time!" At least, she'd be better prepared next time... given she had already fought him once. "So... " She finally asks, since it seems they'd managed to get past the point of tension. "What are you going to do now?" Not that she really cared, mind. She was really just being polite... "Can't imagine you'll want t stay in this shithole too much longer..."
"If I thought you'd be another free win, doll, I'd not have gone through the effort of making sure you'd be here for another round." Roland has a card in his fingers now, dancing it to and fro in a rapid manner. It seems to be the same razor-edged sort, making it somewhat impressive he can do it while distracted and not cut himself. His focus remains on the television for now, before his head tilts and he smirks back at the brawling girl. And then flicks something to her. A flask lands on her chest, smelling of strong alcohol. "Well. You can have this, if you can get to it before the doctors check on you. But before that..." Walking over, Roland sweeps away the covers to bare most of the casted midsection. Then pulls out a pen, scrawling right across her chest. 'Roland Brown; A Man worth Gambling On'. Then his phonenumber beneath. Boy, will the hospital people wonder what THAT's about. Afterwards he plops on the chair and resumes watching television. "I'm not training today. I'll just watch TV until you ask me to leave." he states, simply enough. As if he couldn't do the same thing with much better comfort anywhere else!
Brown eyes watch curiously, following the card as it dances from one finger to another, as he replies to her remark about not anticipating an easy win. As the card is retracted, and the flask is tossed however, her eyes leap from one object of interest to another. This last lands squarely between her boobs, or it would if the plaster cast weren't in the way. She couldn't help but wonder if that was some kind of perverted reflex he had. ... She wouldn't doubt it.
Then he walks right across the room, back toward her bed, and she looks up at him inquisitively... eyes leaving the flask of alchohol with some reluctance.
Then she's taken by surprise again, as the bed covers are jerked off of her... exposing her heavily-casted body and sending the flask to the floor with a clatter.
She frowned a bit. She didn't really like it. It made her feel naked, and not in the sexual way. For her, as a fighter, to be seen in such a stupid thing.
Then she hears the subtle click of a pen cap being pulled free from a writing pen, and seesn him going to scribble something on her chest. "What the hell are you doing??" Another strand of wavy hair falls in her face, her brown eyes eyes showing the slightest bit of irritation... until she reads what he wrote.
Then there's a small smile from her. That's pretty much the only response one could have to something like that. "..Alright." She replies, as he pulls the covers back over her and moves away again to watch the TV. "Not like I have any choice in the matter anyway.." She chuckles softly.
The flask is picked up and placed right back on Layla, in a way that would require her breaking the cast of one arm to reach. Truly a cruel thing to do, but maybe it was related to his belief in curing broken bones and heavy wounds by 'walking it off'. Only about ten minutes of television start before a nurse walks in. Seeing the flask, scattered flowers, and Roland pretty much sends out a lot of alarm bells. In the end he's dragged out by a security guard, yelling back towards the bound girl, "BETTER FIND ME!!" before the door is shut and the hapless patient must deal with the wrath of her doctor. It seems Roland never checked in as a visitor... he fasttalked the nurse about 'just dropping off flowers', and decided to stick around.
Log created on 21:49:52 07/20/2012 by Layla, and last modified on 02:58:48 07/21/2012.