ps_you_look_hot | [One For All]: The human bug-zapper

*Owen seems to have a knack for wandering into trouble. However, it's only when a shower of sparks almost sets his hair alight that he realises it would be a very, very bad idea to go creeping up on whoever's in here...*

*He makes sure to step into plain sight.*

You all right in there, mate? You're making enough racket to wake the dead.

Nikola laughs, almost hysterically. "Oh, if only," he says.

Then glances up sharply when he realizes he doesn't hear a heartbeat, can't smell blood coming from the other man.

Owen takes in the tall guy. He's a little unnerved by his gaze, but he won't let it show. Not yet.

"Sorry to hear it. What's up?"

"Why should anything be up? What makes you think anything's up?" Nikola asks in sharp staccato. In times of stress, he often reverts to the old, eccentric ways. They weren't all entirely a facade after all.

Owen shrugs, his hackles rising. He's back on familiar ground.

"Well, the fact that I could hear you swearing a mile off and you look like you're gonna burst into tears any minute might just have something to do with it."

Nikola arches an indignant eyebrow. The swearing he'll admit to but he's fairly certain he's not exhibiting any signs that he might actually (god forbid) cry. He sincerely hopes he hasn't come to that point. It's been decades, after all, since he has.

"You speak Serbian?" is the question he goes with. Not that he's under any illusions that the tone of his voice couldn't have given away the content of his speech.

"You just sound really rough, mate. Anything I can help with? And no, I don't speak Serbian..." His face splits into a sudden grin. "Could you teach me? Always good to have a couple of nice back-up cusses in mind."

It's a trick he learnt when dealing with jumpy patients. Distraction factor while raising self-esteem... kind of. He leans closer, trying to appear casual. Those same jumpy folk sometimes used to turn hysterical.

"I'd rather not," Nikola says with a sneer. "Never was much of a teacher." And in the midst of his anger there comes a rather disarming smile.

He leans back in his chair, leaving his project (and hopefully, his sparking) for the moment. "You could help me with something, though."

Owen does not fail to notice the disarming smile. But he's got a little more picky in what he will and won't go through with since his death.

"Yeah? What's that, then?" he asks, rather disturbed at the way things have turned around.

Nikola smiles and steeples his fingers. Evil genius is a look he perfected long before Ian Fleming made it popular.

"You can tell me how it is you're walking and talking and, apparently, cognitively functioning when you've been dead for so long."

Owen groans inwardly. Is this the only thing people are ever going to notice about him? Looks like it. And with that realisation, comes...

"My cognitive functioning's telling me to ask you just how you knew that." He frowns and steps closer. "When I never mentioned it, on purpose."

Nikola wrinkles his nose. "You have no pulse, and you reek of death," he says, as though anyone could have noticed these things without touching Owen or even getting particularly close to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry. It happens when you decide to go the whole hog as an undead - sleep in a coffin and stop taking showers," he replies sarcastically. "The pulse thing. How the hell would you know that?"

"You haven't really gone so far as to sleep in a coffin, have you?" Nikola asks, appalled at the thought. "It's so...cliche. And you're clearly not a vampire anyway. And I wouldn't worry about the showering. All the soap in the world couldn't take that stench away."

He looks Owen up and down quickly, taking in the full picture. "I can't hear your pulse. So either you don't have one, or you're about to drop from extremely low blood-pressure."

"Yeah, obviously." Owen rolls his eyes. "Course I haven't. Thought about it, but... nope. I'm dead, not a vampire."

He gazes steadily back at Nikola. "You, on the other hand... do I even want to know?" His stare shifts to a glare. "I can't smell anything. So it looks like it's just you getting pissed over a 'stench'."

Like he cares anyway.

"Of course you can't smell it," Nikola says mildly. "You're dead."

He casually taps his fingers together, sending off tiny sparks with each collision. "I don't believe you do want to know what I am. Or rather, I don't believe I'd tell you either way."

Edited 2009-07-03 18:46 (UTC)

"Yeah, because I need to be reminded of that every second of every effing day. Thanks." Owen takes a step backwards, fighting to control his temper. It hurts more every time someone else tells it to him.

"And you expected me to just open my heart. Okay, smart alec, you gonna tell me who you are? You can't be a 'normal'."

To settle the scores just a bit.

"Do you still have a heart?" Nikola asks, eyeing his chest with scientific curiosity. "I wouldn't think you'd need one by this point."

He grins though, because he never gets tired of actually being able to tell people who he is. "Nikola Tesla," he says smugly. "And I'd certainly hope I'm not normal."

"My heart's still in here." Owen sniffs and taps his chest uncomfortably. "What's left of it, anyway. Medically, no. Don't need it."

He tries to keep the sudden wonder out of his eyes, hoping he succeeds. This guy does not need any encouragement. "Tesla the mad scientist? Bloke who invented the radio, in between doing disturbing things with pigeons and dealing with OCD?"

That turned out a little ruder than he meant it to. Oh, well.

Far from being offended, Nikola seems to take this as praise. "The very same," he says, smiling again. "Though I doubt any of the things I got up to with pigeons could rightly be called disturbing, and the OCD was mostly an act to keep people from peering to closely into my private life."

Which, he's willing to admit, did occasionally delve into the disturbing.

Owen's not sure he even wants to touch on Nikola's private life.

He scowls. "So you're dead, too. That or you're immortal? God, you lot pop up everywhere." He thinks about this. "Actually, that kind of figures..."

[ooc: No worries. Getting to be bedtime for me anyway. :)]

(ooc: nearly 11pm here and I'm getting chased off to bed. Goodnight, and thanks for the talk :)

[ooc: Thanks! Sleep well. :)]

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