Who: Selina Kyle and Garfield Lynns. When: Tuesday Morning. June 16th. 9:00 a.m. Where: Selina's apartment. What: A blood covered stray in a kimono interrupts Selina's pre-bedtime tea. Liquor, goat cheese, and body mutilation follow. Rating: R for language and icky blood related things.
Gar staggered down the hall to Selina's apartment. Just a couple more doors ... there, that was the one, 82B. He slumped against the door and slid down to the ground, leaving a red streak above him. He took a few breaths, gathering his wits, and knocked.
When the door opened he caught himself against the door frame, but only just. He was dressed, curiously enough, in a dark red kimono; the blood on it was evident only by the shine from the dampness. In his hand he clutched a small velvet bag, and in his ear was a substantial notch.
Selina following her joyride with the mob and a particularly withering night of work was in a none to cordial mood when she heard a knock upon her door. Naturally, she assumed it was one of them that came knocking around the firmly placed "No Solicitors" sign. Or an escaped Maria. And so flying off the couch from where she had settled in to relax that morning, her pajamas still on and the nest still apparent with the steaming tea that sat on the coffee table, the revealed television set that was playing The Rape of Europa, and the cats still in there positions. Of course that was hardly the case in front of her, and as the door opened to the absurd sight of her stray dog in a kimono of all things...all the woman could manage was to stare blankly while the sound of a Nazi speech carried out in the background.
How had he made it here without being taken in? Was the first question that came to mind. The second thought was that she did not need him being seen by the gracious neighbors that left her the hell alone. Her gaze furrowed disparagingly at him, Selina's bottom lip pursing outwards nervously, her teeth coming down to worry it in her confused state searching for words.
"W.....Just....come in."
Gar heaved himself up off the floor and came in silently. What the heck could he say, anyway? Even if he had the strength. He dropped ungracefully next to the couch. "Don' wanna leave a bloodstain," he said, motioning to the leather. Now the he was inside under proper lighting, it was apparent where the blood had come from. Behind his ear was a vicious cut into his scalp, the sort of head wound that is not threatening but bleeds terribly.
It was an odd sight to be sure, but somehow it didn't phase Selina all too much once the initial shock wore off. Immediately shoving aside her nicer blankets and heading away towards her bedroom. When she'd return she'd be in a pair of junkier jogging pants and a black tank top. A sewing kit and a first aid kit was held in her hand along with a pile of towels some of them damp.
The towel set down she pointed towards the bathroom with a business like gesture the damp towels plopping into his lap, maternal warmth just barely edging into her voice while she tied her hair back from her face. "Go take the bloody things off, come back here and sit on the towels." The parcels dropped to the couch while she headed to kitchen to find the left over bottle of bourbon she knew she had laying around somewhere.
"And wash most of the blood off."
Gar did as she asked, relieved he'd chosen wisely. Picking whose doorstep to arrive on in such a condition had been tricky. It looked like she was going to take care of him, which was really all he wanted at the moment. He stumbled to the bathroom. He stripped off the kimono, leaving a pair of soft black pants underneath. The kimono went into the bathtub. He bent over the sink and gingerly washed the matted dried blood out of his hair, wincing when he touched the cuts on his head and ear. When he was cleaned up, he came back into the living room, a dark-colored towel pressed to his head to staunch the bleeding. He was feeling better already, just knowing there was someone there to watch over him. He was alone most of the time; it was good to have a guardian for the moment.
There on the coffee table was a foreboding glass of the vodka that sat next to an ice pack. Selina, cigarette already lit and dangling from her lips was currently engaged in threading a mattress needle with the same fishing line she often used to patch up her whips. There was a towel underneath her on the couch that draped down to the pile on the floor, clearly denoting where he was supposed to sit in front of her.
All in all, it seemed like she had formulated a relatively practical course of action in the time it had taken her to evaluate his status. "You've got two choices about that ear....we're either cauterizing it or stitching it. Drink the vodka and stick that ice pack on it while you decide."
Gar's breath came a little shorter and shallower than it ought to, thinking about that. He sat down in front of her to steady himself, drank half the vodka and applied the ice pack while he thought. After several long moments, he swallowed the last of the vodka and answered, "Stitch it."
"Right then." The butter knife that had rested beside her was placed onto the table and the ice was pressed even closer to his head. She readjusted herself over Gar to get a better view, the smoke wafting into his face in the meantime. Fingers moving through his hair evaluating and patching up the shallower cuts with peroxide and liquid band-aid in the meantime, while the surprisingly stoic Selina let the alcohol worked its way into his system.
It would have appeared that she'd dealt with these sorts of things before.
"So start talking."
The price of being looked after. Ahh, if only he actually WAS a stray and could get patched up without having to answer any questions. He instinctively started to make up a story, then remembered that he'd promised to tell her the truth. Of all the stupid things to promise.
"Short version ok?"
"You'll elaborate if I require it." Selina responded coldly while she continued to check his scalp for any other punctures or cuts before she got to the big event. Hoping it would be enough time for the vodka and liquid codeine that she'd added to kick in, enough time to distract him with the story. Really, while she was used to patching up bite marks from her tools, some of the gashes and flapped skin seemed unfathomable to her.
He ran out of easier to heal cuts before he began, and she took to pouring the hydrogen peroxide over his ear into a glass that was stationed under it while he spoke.
To his credit, he didn't scream. He knew better than to draw attention to himself, or to Selina's apartment. When it really hurt, when it was too much, he'd stiffen and hiss a sharp intake of breath, heart pounding, waiting for the pain to pass. When he relaxed and started talking again, she could continue.
"I was hired by an outside source to pose as a prostitute at a high end ... social gathering at a hotel. It was geisha themed, I have black hair, apparently that was good enough. What I was really there for was scouting the terrain behind the scenes, down in the innards of the building, where guests could not go. I did as much, and I went to meet the man in his room at the hotel earlier tonight for my cut. He was dead. I had seen him put a knife once into a secret pocket of his coat, so I looked there and found these."
He dropped the bag on the couch. A tiny clear gemstone rolled out of it.
"You don't even have black hair, that's ridiculous..." Realy the entire scenari was, but then she tended to not doubt much when it came to the street urchin. Still it was an interesting tale, one with an even more interesting ending. Selina had been in the midst of lubricating the alcohol soaked needle and fishing line with neosporin when the diamond, or what appeared to be a diamond at the very least came rolling onto the couch. Green eye widened to a girlish state, a soft giggle caught in her throat and within her mind her Id was purring. Sparkly...sparkly little rocks. It was like her kryptonite, and immediately she had images of the tiny little things covering her decollete.
Her attention was certainly caught, but negotiations for her to gain a rock or two would have to wait until she had finished with him then. Drawing Garfield back against the couch, Selina legs came to wrap around him, securing him tightly to the foot and his head above her thighs. The needle poised, the ice pack was finally removed and his head shifted gently to the side so that she could make the first piercing.
Gar was torn between terror at the pain that was coming and excitement at having this much contact with Selina, even if there wasn't a whiff of sexuality about it. He let himself be manhandled, relaxing his muscles in that subtle but necessary submissive nature. He swallowed and reminded himself to take deep, slow breaths. "As I was leaving," he continued, "I tripped - or so I thought. Apparently the old guy had taken down one of his attackers, behind the couch. The guy was nearly dead, but he'd grabbed my ankle and pulled me down. He hit the side of my head with a crystal goblet. Hence all the cuts."
She took his relaxation as a sign that the pain that she had expected him to endure was not nearly what existed in actuality. And that her home made anesthesia was kicking in. "You're a fucking train wreck waiting to happen, Garfield." Selina murmured while she kept her eyes concentrated on the task at hand realizing around the fourth time she laced the fishing line back through the ear that it would have probably been easier if she'd just marked where the go through first.
That doubt was not voiced however, as the gaping notch in the ear was held together a bit tighter while she brought the needle through the cartilage. Pullng her fingers up delicately to draw the line tight. "Speaking of trouble, we've got a job to do this week."
"Yeah, but I'm a train wreck that spills gemstones," he said in a tight voice, talking through the pain. It really was not as bad when he wasn't doing it himself. "What job?"
"And lots of blood." She added, wiping her hand off on a free towel and clamping an alchohol pad to his ear in the mean time. Wincing herself at the inevitable burning that she knew came from that horrific combination. "I need to break into the Gotham Museum of Art to reclaim some fucking Marone family jewels."
He started to look over his shoulder but thought better of it. "The Gotham Museum of Art? Sheesh, you don't pick small targets, do you?" He thought for a minute, swimming up through a haze of pain and alcohol. "They on display?"
His head was immediately moved back into the place with her knee, fingers tightening into his hair to keep it till while she yanked the final stitch through into a make shift knot to keep it and his ear as tight as possible.
"I don't have much of a choice in this matter," Selina scowled as she thought about it. Cutting the fishing line. "They are...so?"
He gasped deep at the shock of pain. After a moment, when it was nearing manageable, he said, "Well it's a lot easier to steal something on display than something in a back room. For starters, you know where it is." He took a deep, steadying breath and rocked forward, head between his knees, until a spell of faintness passed. "I'll make a lot more sense later."
"I'll take it that means you're in, Kitten." Selina offered a rare sort of grin, laying on more of the Neosporin before finally standing up to go and wash her hands. Eyeing the sad looking stray across the room and debating how to go about keeping him for the moment. He definitely wasn't staying long if he continued to remain covered in blood that was for sure. "Go clean yourself up Garfield, I'll try and find you something that will fit."
Gar moved with a little more sway in his step back to the bathroom. He looked frightful, blood streaking his neck and shoulder. He cleaned himself up with shaky hands and returned to the living room. He sat back on the floor, more because it seemed to be the appropriate place to sit. "You know," he said, "I really don't think the museum heist is going to be as tricky as you might initially think."
By the time she'd finished changing loading the bloody towels and clothes into the washing machine, he was already out of the bathroom causing a suspicious, if not confused expression to form. "I didn't hear the shower running at all." It was her way of scolding him for having not understood her initial command, for still remaining in his prostitute skin and having not fully scrubbed himself clean of the residue of the evening.
It was certainly something she would have done. "How will it not be tricky? We're going to be pulling a heist on a traveling exhibit at one of the biggest museums in the god damn world.." Eyeing him, she decided that food would probably trump pajamas at this point. With the alcohol in his system, he probably needed it.
He looked up curiously. "I didn't need a shower. It was just on my chest." A beat, then he caught what she'd meant. "I didn't actually sleep with anyone," he clarified. "I was way too busy sneaking around in the back, and I wasn't exactly top material there. Geeze, you should've seen some of the - anyway. Museum, museum ... " He steepled his fingers, concentrated. "Exactly. It's one of the biggest museums. And their security is understaffed. You know that security desk near the entrance? I spent a good twenty minutes there a few weeks ago, pretending to sketch some sculpture, listening to the security guards bitch about how understaffed they are. There's not even anyone watching to cameras half the time; they're all needed out on the floor. Oh - and the glorious part? They're stuck halfway into switching to a digital system, so they're not storing the tapes anymore, they're just copying over the same tape until they can get the digital system set up." He smiled. "Sometimes it's nice being invisible."
"Only sometimes though, sincerely useful however. You do amaze me at times, street rat.." As always Selina's kitchen was understocked with the usual health food but she managed to get something together that involved both whole wheat bread, a rare chunk of chevre, and her last two eggs. The skillet sizzling as she brought the oil up to a bubble, while the bread toasted. "We'll have to find a point of entry. We could either break in, or hide in the area until closing. It'd be fairly simple to make way under one of the period beds or armoires and to come out at night....it's on the third floor. And there are no sky lights there, but a few halls over it opens for the sculpture garden."
"Why not take it out in broad daylight? I mean, with the guards occupied elsewhere, it wouldn't take long to get the stones out, right? If you could get some cheap copies made, I bet it would be awhile before anyone noticed, and by then the tapes would be overwritten." He smiled an evil, malicious grin. "And you can be well assured, everyone WILL be busy elsewhere if I'm involved."
"I only have until Friday to get it done, I doubt we could find decent replicas by then. I mean, we could substitute somethingcompletely different...I doubt the plebians would even notice it, and most curators are ass up in research." The make shift meal came together relatively fast, seeing as there wasn't much to be done to it. Beckoning Gar over to the counter to eat while they continued to work on their course of action. Sometimes it was nice having friends.. she mused to herself, particularly glad to have added the vagrant to her list.
"Just until Friday? Hrm; that's not very much time at all." He frowned, rubbing his chin. "What about just a professional looking sign, 'Display in repair' or 'Item currently not available' or something like that? Might buy a few days."
"That may do. We can use it to conceal the hole as well, since I doubt I'll be able to lift up the case without alarms going off. That is unless you set them off elsewhere by accident?" Things were coming together now, the plan seemed far less terrifying than the original mission impossible style heist she'd been considering, far easier than seduction as well.
Further more...it was nice to have someone to share this whole horrible fiasco with. A fork plunked down on the plate and she took to filling up a large glass of water in the meantime. "We'll need disguises, won't we?" Now that aspect? That was her expertise, that was exciting. Selina was already planning her new identity for the affair.
"Presumably. I don't really know what sort of distraction to pull yet ... student protest, arson, 'spontaneous' performance art involving fireworks ... I'll be able to think of something appropriate and effective when I have more of my brain back." He moved wrong, and a fresh surge of pain had him bent over again to keep from passing out.
A vigilant eye was cast over to him from the counter, waiting to see if he'd actually need help or get over it. The toast popped up and it was placed onto the plate along with the eggs and chevre. "Come and eat, it'll make you feel better." This was certainly not the sort of afternoon she had planned but there wasn't much else she could do to make up for it. "We'll worry about the details later, I'm still waiting for a drop off of information."
"Ok," Gar said, a bit relieved. He got up and made his way to the table, sat down and for once didn't scarf his food. Pain and nausea tended to go hand in hand, and while the pain in his ear and head were fading to a dull throbbing ache instead of the sharp stabbing pain of earlier, it was still messing with his whole system. The food helped to settle him, though. He looked up from his plate with a strange gleam in his eye, something that looked almost like gratitude. "I'm glad I had you to come to," he said.
"Well it just saved me the trouble of having to track you down." And that was the way Selina put it, it wasn't a favor nor an act of friendship. There was hardly a flicker of warmth or love in her voice, but the actions spoke louder than anything else. In the end, the woman could always write something off as self serving that way. There was no loss, no foul.
She cut herself a round of the cheese that had been set in front of him, picking apart the creamy mush with her fingers and eating it in smaller nibbles. Having already eaten her breakfast, this was a treat. And something well deserved she figured...a yawn breaking out in between bites. "It's going to be bed time for me soon, did you need to crash?"
"Yeah," he said between bites. "I think I've been up for something like 36 hours." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and sat back, looking suddenly very tired.
"Right, you know rules." And without much other thought she stood from her seat finishing off the last of the cheese before heading into the bedroom to find him some sort of clean clothing and bedding. Nudging away the cats from where they were sniffing at where he had been previously bleeding, picking up her first aid and sewing kit. "Clean up when you finish eating..." And then, cats in tow she disappeared from eyesight into her bedroom.