[One For All]: The human bug-zapper

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Insects and other lifeforms intensely allergic to electricity would probably do well to stay away from the section of lab Nikola has appropriated for himself.

Colorful, Serbian curses waft over from his workspace, accompanied by the occasional, impressive shower of sparks.




[ooc: Nikola probably won't electrocute your pup, should you care to stop by. :)]

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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.

[doctor-weevil.livejournal.com]

"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.

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"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."

[doctor-weevil.livejournal.com]

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.

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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."

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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."

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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.

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"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?"

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"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."

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"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.

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"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."

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"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.

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"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."

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"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.

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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.

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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..."

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"I'm not dead, no," Nikola says. "As for being immortal...well, that's one of those things you can only disprove, now isn't it?"

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"S'pose. My boss was immortal, he thought, back home - and I helped him maintain that theory," Owen says with a dark grin. "I shot him. Good few times."

"So," he continues, propping himself up on the door-frame. He's genuinely curious, and not about to leave without some answers. "I'm assuming you're not going to tell me what you are? Why not," he slides a glance at Nikola, "is it too scary for the poor little fresh corpse?"

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Nikola chuckles. "Well, if you ever feel the need to put a bullet in someone here, I definitely recommend myself. It stings a bit, but that's half the fun, isn't it?

"I'd hardly call you 'fresh' anymore. And I'd hardly worry about scaring you, fresh or not. But we've only just met, now haven't we? You can't expect me to...what was it 'open my heart'? Not just yet, anyway."

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Owen holds up his bandaged hand, shrugging. "I wouldn't know. Takes all the fun out of self-harm, it does, being dead."

He bends his finger back just far enough to hurt any living person, and sighs as nothing happens.

Then he tilts his head, thinking. "It freaks me out more when people start being nice to me. Don't blame 'em; I wouldn't be. But I don't think there'll be any trouble of that with you." Owen grins.

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"Oh, now that is a shame," Nikola says. "At least I can still feel." Not that he at all views his condition in a negative light.

He grins wolfishly at Owen. "It's been a very long time indeed since I've been accused of being nice."

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"Tell me about it," Owen agrees. "Sucks big time when your fatal wound still effing itches, but you can't even have a cup of coffee - or anything else that requires bodily functions. At-flippin'-all."

Accused of being nice? he wonders. Aloud, he says, "That I can well believe. People, they just stab you in the back however nice you are."

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"I can think of several things requiring bodily functions that I'd miss a hell of a lot more than coffee," Nikola says, amused.

"People," he adds, expression darkening just a bit, "are assholes in general. Affectations of niceness only serve to exacerbate that."

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"It is the small things you miss. Like coffee," Owen says, smiling slightly, "but that's the one I pulled up for use in polite conversation." Now he's really trying not to laugh.

"The people thing..." His humour fades a little. "I used to think that. And then, then I met Will Zimmerman, when I was apparently so out of it I thought my voice had been lost in translation across the Rift, and he helped me; is helping me. Well, he just wouldn't give up," he adds seriously.

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"This is polite conversation?"

He smirks darkly. "Ah yes. Young William. Such a budding philanthropist. Genuinely nice, through and through." There's more than a hint of sarcasm in his voice.