Who: Anton & Jane What: Dr. Cooper makes a house call. Where: Aubade 102 When: Tuesday night (11/9) Warnings: Cussing. Suggestive dialogue. Confusion. Etc!
Anton arched a brow when his assistant appeared in the bathroom doorway and announced a woman would be arriving shortly who was discreet and dealt with Creations exclusively. He asked if it was really necessary at a time like this. His assistant firmly stated yes it was.
While he waited on the mystery woman, Anton dug around in the bathroom for the butterfly style bandages. Getting used to a new apartment was usually more frustrating than fun, and tonight was no exception. He'd been trying to reorganize his work room, which had nothing on the garage at his mansion back in LA, so that his tools and equipment were arranged in a more comfortable way. Unfortunately, he had no idea the floor was freshly waxed. Anton slipped. He grabbed onto the nearest object and brought his largest tool chest crashing down on top of him, one sharp corner jammed into his chest a few inches below his collar bone.
His first order of business had been checking his arc converter for damage. Luckily, it was fine. His chest, on the other hand, had a sizable gash in it that didn't seem to want to stop bleeding. The bathroom rug was going to have to be replaced and one of his favorite t-shirts had been ruined. The toolbox and tools, however, seemed to handle the crash landing well.
Anton grimaced as he pulled a bloody wad of gauze away from his wound and examined the damage in the bathroom mirror again. This one was definitely going to scar. Maybe it would make him look more rugged after it stopped hurting like a bitch. He took a sip from the glass of scotch on the rocks he'd left on the marble counter top during his cabinet safari, hoping the damn alcohol would kick in soon and dull the pain properly.
Jane didn't mind emergency calls. She was just a little perplexed at how calm the person on the other side of the line sounded when going over the details with her. It looked like the residents of the Aubade was becoming her choice clientele.
When she arrived, she was let in by the door man, and then eventually by the person who had called her. The assistant directed her to the bathroom where she found that the man had not only bled all over the place, but was now drinking. Black doctor bag in hand, she couldn't help but frown at him, half tempted to just facepalm right then and there, but she'd seen worse. This just meant she couldn't give him any sort of narcotics for fear of him dying on her.
"Mr. Sparke." Her voice was low and cool as she observed him. She didn't bother to wait for him to look up. Instead, she walked over and pressed a hand on his shoulder, taking in her initial assessment. "That's a nasty wound you have there."
"Sorry about the mess. I'm trying to find those nice little butterfly shaped band-aids, but I think someone hid them from me. Or I don't actually have any. Which would put more of a damper on my evening," Anton said as he looked the blonde over and abandoned his glass on the counter. She wasn't what he'd been expecting at all, based on her conservative attire, but she was gorgeous. Definitely not a questionable street walker type, but a high class professional. Someone certainly knew his type and might have to get an impromptu bonus despite the really terrible timing. "I guess that's why you're here, Miss..."
"No worries, I'm used to it," she reassured him after his apology. She was wondering just how much he'd drank. He seemed coherent enough.
"Cooper," she said not missing a beat. "Why don't you have a seat and let me take care of that for you." She didn't know who he thought she was, but the wound did look really bad from where she was standing. She didn't let the look bother her. She just brushed it off, mostly because she was here to work.
"Miss Cooper." Anton smiled at her and shifted enough to lean back against the counter, but the movement made him wince a little. He really wasn't sure he was up to the task, as much as he hated to admit it, but maybe if he could just find those damn bandages. Hell, any kind would do now. ...If he could remember which cabinet the regular ones were in. It was the same one as the medical tape. Damn. He pressed the wad of gauze to his wound again and pressed his lips together in a tight line. "You're sure you want to do this in here?"
"Here will be fine, if you really don't want to sit down." Setting her bag on the counter, she opened it and began to take out the necessary equipment. This was done in an orderly fashion, along with pulling out a pair of rubber gloves and putting them on. "Oh, this is ugly," she said with a frown as she began to clear up the wound so she could get a better look at it. "You're going to need some stitches." She switched out her gloves, threading a needle. Unfortunately, Jane thought that Mr. Sparke's assistant had informed him why she was there. If she only knew he thought she was talking about something else entirely.
Anton's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water as his eyes drifted from the contents of the bag to Miss Cooper's face and back again. That was not what he'd expected to be in there and wasn't his kind of kinky. He was beginning to second guess his assistant's bonus. BDSM Barbie wasn't what he wanted or needed at present. "Are you qualified...? I mean I've heard of Jacks and Jills of all trades, but this..." He smirked and cocked his head to one side. "This would really take the cake."
"Yes, I'm qualified." Jane had absolutely no idea what the hell he was going on about now. It couldn't possibly be because she was a woman that he believed she wasn't qualified. If that was the case, then she wasn't going to let it get to her. That would mean that he was willfully ignorant, and there wasn't much she about that. "Dr. Cooper, former field medic and trauma surgeon, currently working in a small family clinic, but I make house calls to Creations who need discreet care. In this case, you've got a really bad rip in your chest that needs to be sutured, so how about you stop slighting me and let me do my job?" All this said was said very patiently.
"Creations who need discreet care... Oooh. Well this could've been a lot more embarrassing than it is," Anton said, his eyes going wide as realization of his misunderstanding sank in. Then he laughed a little, cringing again as pain radiated from the gash. "Sorry, doc. I thought you were a hooker." He tapped the glowing blue device in the center of his chest and arched a meaningful brow at Dr. Cooper. "Discreet means you'll keep this between the two of us, I hope."
"..." That was a new one. She hadn't been mistaken for a hooker before. For the first time since she came into the bathroom, she actually smiled. It was genuine and she broke off into a little laugh. "A hooker? Really? I should work on my introductions. I'm just so used to everyone already knowing who I am, by name at least." She'd attached herself to quite a few notable people. Being seen in public with the likes of Thomas Brandon III and Adam Morgenstern, although both were fleeting, her most notable attachment was that to Daryl Hockney.
Jane didn't talk much when she was working, but she was just so thoroughly amused by the misunderstanding. "Yes, that will be staying between you and me, Mr. Sparke. And you can call me Jane."
"You can call me Anton," he said, returning her smile earnestly. She was even more beautiful when she smiled like that. Anton tried to tell himself to keep things professional since she was a doctor, now his doctor, but he'd had just enough to drink that the idea seemed pointless after he'd initially thought it. "And that was probably my fault. I told my assistant I was fine. Apparently I really did need medical attention, though, or you wouldn't have been invited over. I'd offer you a drink, but I don't think that'd be a great idea until after you play seamstress with my chest." He wasn't a terrible host, after all.
"We'll worry about it then," she said as she started to focus on making the stitches. "Would you like to explain what it was you were doing, Anton?" She pulled the needle through, finishing a neat stitch before moving to the next one. "And this thing isn't going to explode and kill me is it?" She probably should've asked that before starting, but she was just making sure after the fact. He might have forgotten to tell her something that important...especially if he thought she was a hooker.
"No. No explosions, doc. ...Jane," Anton said, then grabbed his scotch from the counter while trying not to move. He downed what was left in the glass. Another one of those was going to be in order before he crawled in bed for the night. Though visions of crawling in bed currently inspired visions of Dr. Jane Cooper joining him between the sheets. Maybe tonight wasn't a good night, but he knew if he wanted her badly enough he could win her over. The chase was half the fun a lot of the time. "I went a little overboard with the body modification thing in college," he joked, doing his best to ignore what she was doing with her hands. "Who needs tattoos when you've got bling like this?"
"Well, I feel a lot better about this then." Jane had no worries about getting electrocuted. He didn't seem very concerned with it either, considering how he put his drink away. She finished another stitch or two as he went on joking about the strange thing attached to his chest. It caused her interest in it to grow slightly. It was around then that she remembered that Daryl was probably going to take quite an interest in it. Yeah, she was going to have to change clothes before she went home. Daryl would more than likely notice, but it didn't matter. That meant a stop by the office. "Is that the new in thing for people with money to burn?" The thought of seeing one of these in Thomas' chest the next time she looked at him shirtless made her want to facepalm.
"Not to pry, just curious. I've never seen one of these before."
"That's because it's one of a kind," Anton said with easy pride. He grinned, though it was more of a grimace, and wished he had taken the good doctor's advice and sat down before all this started. Of course that wasn't his fault. He'd been expecting her to pull fuzzy handcuffs and flavored "massage oils" out of her bag, not medical supplies. "I made it myself. Based off of a Harold Sparke original, but I improved on my old man's original design. A couple times over."
"Cool." Despite how distracted she sounded, she picked up a few things through what he said. One, that he wasn't exactly soft. He wasn't whining and was great at distracting himself from whatever pain she was now inflicting on him. Two, that he was very good with technology. The thing in his chest looked really sophisticated. She wouldn't have been able to make heads or tails of it he'd attempted to try to explain it to her. Three, that he was very comfortable with himself and this situation. Her reason for being there had only derailed him for a beat, but he recovered smoothly.
"You know, you're a lot less obnoxious than the papers make you out to be, or is that the blood loss?" She tied off another stitch and worked on another one. "Almost done."
"That's because of your incredible charm, Jane. Makes me wonder what your bedside manner's like," Anton said without missing a beat. He was both teasing and being honest. And he'd had the terrible luck of not being able to use that line on many of his past doctors since they were usually male or dowdy or too old for his tastes. He glanced down at her work and was happy to see she was almost done and making the stitches small. Tonight he was going to sleep like a rock. And have his eight a.m. meeting rescheduled. Unless the eight a.m. was on Thursday. Either way. Who the hell wanted to go to business meeting at eight in the morning anyway?
It was actually refreshing to be around a patient at the Aubade who wasn't too high strung or paranoid. She smiled again at his compliment, the smile laying crooked on her lips at the part about her bedside manner. "Well, you won't be finding out about that any time soon. Can't risk pulling your stitches." She ran her tongue along her lip as she finished the final stitch. "There all done." She set the needle down. "Just make sure to keep this clean." She removed her gloves and placed some little plastic bandages on to the counter. "Make sure to put these on before you shower." That said, she began to clean up after herself.
"Later is good. I can do later," Anton said a little too quickly. He grabbed his glass from the counter and tried to take a sip, but there was nothing left in it but mildly scotch flavored water. A refill now, versus later, seemed to be in order. He headed out of the bathroom, but paused just outside the door. "Can I get you something to drink? It's on the house."
Jane was more than amused at his eagerness for this 'later' that he had mentioned. She watched him as he exited the bathroom, and finished packing up her things. To his question, she simply exited, brushing past him. "Someone's waiting for me, but I'll take you up on that later." She took a moment to admire her handy work. "I'll come back in a few days to check up on you. Just make sure everything's fine, and you haven't gone all cowboy and ripped anything else important." For some reason, no one liked listening to the doctor, so she practically had to babysit everyone.
"You know how wild and crazy business meetings can be," Anton said with a wry smirk. Talking about cowboys made him think of Jane performing a similarly named sexual position. Why was she leaving again? Someone was waiting on her? "You should stick around for a little while. I've got Rock Band. I bet you can sing like Christina Aguilera. Unless you've got a date hotter than me, in which case I'll be forced to concede."
"Well, try to tone down the intensity, just for this week," she said with a small laugh.
"Unfortunately, I think I'd make the paint peel off the walls if I tried that," she said wincing at the Christina comparison. "And my date is a smaller, adorable, practically impossible little brat. If I don't get home to check on her, she might do something stupid." There was a lot wrong with her and Daryl's relationship, not that she minded half of it on the surface. She'd grown accustomed to pretty much causing her life to revolve around her roommate. "Don't want her to worry."
Anton was amused, though couldn't decide if Jane was talking about a dog, a child or maybe a monkey. Dogs or monkeys he could handle, even if he wasn't exactly a pet person. A kid, on the other hand, could likely mean a husband. That wouldn't be any fun at all. He wasn't into adultery, even if he'd been tempted before.
"Puppy or kid?" he asked out right, still smiling in amusement. He'd already had one major misunderstanding with the good doctor. There wasn't any real need to cultivate new ones. They'd only just met, after all. And getting-to-know-you questions were completely warranted.
"Roommate," she said not missing a beat. "She's a little temperamental. You'd think she was a child." It wasn't like her to talk so candidly about Daryl Hockney, but he didn't seem to notice who she was, so that meant he probably hadn't made the connection. A huge assumption, but it didn't matter if he made it afterward. "It was nice meeting you, Anton. I hope our next visit is just as pleasant." She extended a hand to him. If she stayed any longer, she was going to start getting text messages. Daryl had that creepy possessive boyfriend thing down pat.
Anton took her hand and acted like he was going to shake it, but then brought it to his lips and placed a light kiss on her knuckles. The word "roommate" had never before been such music to his ears.
"The pleasure was all mine, Jane. Except the part where you stabbed me a bunch of times. I'm not much of a masochist," he said and shrugged. He was sure his assistant would disagree, but that was beside the point. He reflexively swirled the contents of his glass around, but the noise the half melted pieces of ice made was disheartening.
Jane was about to squeeze when he turned her knuckles up. She watched a little amused as he pressed his lips against them. "Hopefully I won't have to stab you again any time soon. Be a little more careful with yourself?"
Taking her hand back, she lingered only a moment. It almost looked as if she were about to change her mind about that drink, but she turned and went out the way she came. His assistant was more than helpful in showing her the way.