Summary:Hod gets some help in escaping from the hospital from his friends. Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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Mount Sinai St. Lukes has a long and proud tradition of exceptional care, a level 1 trauma center and state of the art facilities, the hospital is a credit to it's kind. It's architecture is also glorious, if that matters at all.
Inside the facility, it's like most hospitals, sterile smell, lots of white floors, taupe and gray walls and ceiling tiles, stark artificial lighting, lots of people in scrubs, most of them super clean. Unless you enter through the ER, then… then that's another story. Harlem, despite it's return to prominance, remains an occasionally dangerous place to be. There's a nurses station, a stern looking woman of about forty seems to be typing on a monitor while handling 2 simultaneous phones calls all with a bored expression on her face that clearly tells anyone looking 2 important things about her. 1) She's had worse days often enough this one is hardly registering as an annoyance. 2) She does not have time for your bullshit, so stow it or she'll stow it for you.
Nurses at St. Lukes do not fuck around. Clearly.
Maybe it's the nurses. Maybe it's the registering, and she, being person non-grata, would trigger a bunch of warning signals. But, Silk has through some quiet inquiries at least found out what room Hod was in, after everything went down. She had waited a bit, waited for what she thought would be time for the surgery to do their work. For Loki to deposit the cane she'd found and handed to him.
And now, Silk is climbing the outer walls of St. Lukes, having already memorized the internal map she found of the place online with a basic show of each floor's room numbers. She'd found the room Hod was in by a phone call.
And it's with a gentle tweaking of the window that the red-vieled, black-and-white ninja-looking Spideress pulls open, quietly. She calls, "Hod?"
On her back, a small backpack - smelling, especially to Hod's nose, pungently of pleasent, aromatic flowers. "You awake?"
She peeks her head into the window. "It's me, Silk. Can I come in?"
Thankfully, Jean doesn't really need to follow protocol. Usually she'd balk at using her powers on random bystanders, but the alternative is trying to explain to an overworked nurse just how she knows the blind man with no eyes and why she's here to visit them.
So instead, she lightly skims the room number from the woman's mind, then heads down the hall on her own, giving off an aura of 'person who's supposed to be here, nothing to see here.' Sure, it's a little bit on the edge of the polite way to use her powers, but it's for a good purpose.
She comes up to the door from the inside right around when Cindy reaches the window from the outside, stopping short and quirking a brow.
Word on the street spread fast enough, and as luck would have it, Kate Bishop had heard as well. It wasn't her first time sneaking into a hospital either. She doesn't come through the ER way but instead slips inside through the side entrance where staff go, and continues on while wheeling a little snack cart. Her attire was that of a candy striper who volunteers to cheer up patients. Perfect cover, and one she'd done before… for realsie. Volunteering was a thing! It doesn't take her too long to find Hod's room this way, and she pauses the trolly while leaning against it wearing a bemused smirk as she sees Jean right in front of her. "Guess I'm in the right place then."
Hod is currently spread out in a hospital bed wearing one of those adorable backless 'cloth' gowns of much renown. There are tubes in each arm and an O2 line running over his ears and feeding into his nose. His eyes, THANKFULLY, have been covered with a pair of super cheap sunglasses from the gift shop, likely on behest of whatever doctors, nurses, or orderlies have to see him on the regular. Seriously. He has HOLES IN HIS FACE and it's disturbing on a truely primal level. Trypophobia people, real thing.
The room he's in has the light on and is actually colder then hospital rooms generally are, which is saying something honestly. His arms are bare, showing the lengthy inking that's been done on them, runes, glyphs, symbols, knots, and patterns ranging in color and style and age until they somehow make a cohesive design that's not symetrical, but is somehow clearly meant to be there. Unsurprisingly, a good number of them appear to be Norse in origin. There is a monitor on his finger, and in the corner is the little bumpy line that shows he does in fact have a heartbeat.
Oh. And then there's the bandages. His chest is lumpy with them beneath the gown, and there are stiches from deep gashes across his hands and arms, one across his forehead as well, along with spectacular bruising that has turned one side of his face into a plumb like color though the swelling has happily receded. When he hears talking, he grunts. Interpret that as you will.
Silk, in turn, sees Jean. Stares at her for a moment. Then, slips inside, taking the risk. She moves over to Hod's bed, and unshoulders the bag to pull out a small boquet of freshly picked flowers; a few daises, a couple lilies, some lavender and trilliums. Colorful and fragrant. This is set on the stand near his bed as she looks at Jean, "Come inside, if you're coming in. And close the door. I don't need the nurses knowing I'm here." A pause, and she adds, "I'm Silk. I protected Hod last night."
Her gloved hand moves to touch his arm, gently. "I'm sorry. I didn't get there fast enough. We got one of them, though. The other two escaped."
Jean turns as Kate approaches, a wry smile curving. "Nice disguise," she teases lightly, clearing her throat to add for Hod. "Kate's disguised as a candy striper and you're missing it."
Because there's nothing to help with healing more than being made fun of, right?
Jean steps inside, making room for Kate before closing the door with a wave of her fingers from three feet away. "I'm…" She pauses, then sighs, rolling her eyes. She's not in costume, Kate already knows, there's no point in lying. "I'm Jean. Nice to meet you, Silk. And thanks. He'll probably offer to pay you in ice cream."
Of course, as she's chatting, she's taking her own read of his status, checking his mind for pain and worries.
Kate Bishop lifts her eyebrows a little bit at the teasing. "Hey, volunteering is a part of my school's curriculum and the suit still fit." There's a little indignant sniff that was pure acting as she nudges the cart inside before the door shuts behind her. While Jean and Silk look over Hod she glances out the little window on the door to check for any staff passing by. "We're clear for now," she states as she rather expects that Jean has the same idea she does.
"I was planning on stuffing him under the cart to get him out, but he's in worse shape than I anticipated." She looks back over her shoulder at Silk, and Jean, giving the former a nod of greeting recognizing her from the fight. "Hey, I'm Kate. Hod's not human so it's probably not a good idea for him to be kept here too long."
Hod grimaces a little bit, "You know." he says, and his voice sounds AWFUL, like a mile of bad gravel road littered with broken bottles. He coughs, pain spikes through his features, then he tries again, "You know. If I knew that getting shot, blown up, and cut to bits was all it took for three attractive women to show up and dote on me, I'd have done it sooner." pause. "I assume you're all attractive. You'd tell me if you weren't, right?" he offers. The line would be funnier if it wasn't clearly a defense mechanism meant for dealing with pain.
And pain there is. Jean can feel it, the other two can see it. It's in the iron hard lines of his face, the Oh To Careful control of his every breath, movement, and word. But it's there. In rolling waves of agony he's just chosing to accept and ignore for the most part. Jean can pick up on other times he's been injured, a few worse then this, but even for him this ranks, top 10 at least. Maybe around 8-7ish worse beats of his life. There is also fear, anger, self loathing, defeatism, and somehow beneath all that holding it all together a /need/ to survive that seems greater then all the others. "So. Who's gonna help me sit up?" he asks through stiffly moving lips.
"He already owes me ice cream," Silk replies back, but not as humored or as warmly as she otherwise would if Hod weren't in that condition. She moves a hand around, and under his back gently and looks to either Jean or Kate to help with the other side.
"You've got two lovely brunettes, and a gorgeous redhead here," she tells Hod, trying to help distract him, some.
Though that doesn't last long. She tells Kate, "I know. He confided in me. I am guessing that someone, possibly one of the ones I protected you and Hod from that night hired these men, they were mercenaries, to kill or capture Hod. I, and a few others, who - I think were also like him, assisted. The one we captured was soemone called KGBeast. He was working with a man named Crossbones, authorities found after questioning. He was shot several times. Large rounds. They knew what they were after. You don't shoot someone with that artillery like that for a quick hit."
She tells Hod, "I brought you flowers. And told your friend who brought you here to bring you your cane. It's near the bed. When you're ready to leave."
"They're probably mercenaries, hired by the person who's been framing him all along," Jean grimaces as Silk explains things. "Hold on a second." When Cindy goes to lift Hod, she steps closet to set a hand to his brow, closing her eyes as she works. Carefully, she eases some of the pain away from his mind. It's not that it isn't there - it's just that he can't feel it. Quite as much. She leaves enough to keep him from overworking himself.
"Okay. I…shut off some of your pain, but that doesn't mean I healed it." She places a hand against his shoulder, but it's her mind that does the lifting, helping him sit up.
"Do you want to read everyone in on the latest doom and gloom?" she asks Hod.
"Some of my teammates work with SHIELD. I can ask them to reference those names and see if we can get a heads up on where they might go. Though I don't think chasing them down right now is a good idea either way," Kate remarks with a look back toward the bed as Silk and Jean help him up. Frowning she considers how to deal with this extraction, her mind already working to formulate the best plan.
"Okay. Time to make you disappear Hod," she explains while going over to grab the chart off his bed and begin skimming over it. "Looks like they couldn't figure out your blood type so just gave you plasma to stabilize you." She goes quiet thinking again. "What IS the latest?"
Hod grits his teeth, "Notthebacknottheback!" he hisses… cause that's where the extra holes are. Though he manages to get up with Silk's help anyway. "You have no idea how appreciated the flowers are either Kumo. This place reeks of death and sadness." Plus, he can /feel/ Hela's fingers slowly sinking into him and so help him Bor's Balls he's not gonna go meet his fiance /that/ way. Nope. Not gonna fucking happen. That bitch is cray-cray. "That's exactly what you shoot someone with to kill them." he points out, "You usually don't have to shoot them three times and then figure you can take them alive afterwards." he grunts in pain again, "But point taken."
Jean's little trick and the TK assist honestly are the first breaths of fresh air he's had, flowers not withstanding, in twnty-four hours. There are small beads of sweat on his forehead from the effort, and he reaches out, patting around to try to find the cane, unaware it had been returned to him. A glimmer of hope. "Okay," he says, sloooowly lowering his legs over the side of the bed, and when they slip clear of hte sheets it's made abundantly clear they got the worst of the cuts as they look a little like a quilt in places, not from stiching but rather from the layers of bandages over the stitches, which has small spots of red on them in places. "first things first. I need to destroy my medical records. I can't do the computer fu, will need one of you to do whatever you children do with those things and make that info vanish. And then I need to destroy any physical samples they have. I don't know what sort of science you people possess, but I don't trust your medical professionals with Asgardian physiology. I know what happens when you people get ahold of something you think you can weaponize." he lets his bare feet touch the floor and he slowly shifts his weight onto them.
Once he finds the cane he leans on it heavily and stands up fully. Depending on who's on what side of the bed, this provides, by nature of physics and biology, at least 1, and potentially as many as 3, women with a clear view of his naked butt. With stiches in it. Also mummified bandages on his back, three spots of blood visible on them. Not that anyone's looking at /that/ at the moment. "Kid," he turns to Jean as if she was the only 'kid' in the room somehow, "don't suppose your scuples would allow you to scan minds in the hospital for the information we need and then maybe make it poof from their heads a bit?" he asks hopefully. Just, you know, asking a friend to violate someone's most sacred privacy rights. No big.
"I can get him in a sling, and carry him," Silk offers. "I'm okay with a computer, but," she shakes her head, "I'm not a hacker, or anything. I just use my tablet and my PC. And - I'd kind of be noticed moving around looking for his physical samples."
"I can get him outside the window, and move around the building to one of the sides that's less used. If one of you has a car, I can wait until you're below and then lower him down?"
Silk is damn good at fighting, using her abilities. The actual hero-ing beyond that? Well. Her inexperience is shining through, and she sounds slightly unsure if her plan is a good one or not. But, clearly she's in it to help Hod until the end.
Jean grimaces at Hod's question, reaching up to rub a hand at the back of her neck. "Not selectively, no," she finally admits. "Best I could do is a total wipe of the last however many hours you've been here, and given that this is a hospital, that puts a few more lives at risk than I'm strictly comfortable with. I can, however, give them a nice suggestion that they must have worked too hard and too late and imagined some weirdness. Easier than the brute force method, honestly."
She uses a judicious bit of TK to keep the robe closed, looking around the room. "I don't suppose they told you what they were doing with your pants?"
Kate Bishop glances back over her shoulder just in time to look away again with a shudder. "There's some towels on the cart, maybe some more robes," she offers quietly. "Even with my disguise I wouldn't be allowed in lab areas. But," she adds, "I do know it's hospital policy to destroy any samples that they have which they can't match to a patient. If we knock out most of the paperwork and files, and they're confused about things, they'll just toss them. It's for safety," she explains. "To make sure no one gets something accidentally. In that case they just take new samples over."
Hod smirks, well, one side of his face kinda twitches a bit, and the lights in the room dim just a bit, "What if you had cover? Think you'd be fast enough to get any sample out without being spotted?" his powers are over darkness, not electronics. So technically he could kill all the lights in the building and every machine would just keep plugging on, uneffected. So long as it was short lived, there'd be minimal danger of anyone getting, you know, dead. Especially if they planned it out first.
When his robe moves of it's own accord, he just ignores it, accepting it as some sort of weird mortal custom. Modern people certainly got wigged out by a naked ass super fast in recent history. No one used to care about that sort of thing. Those were the millenia. When that sort of thing wasn't worth commenting on beyond a joke or two. "My pants were shredded and covered in broken glass, burns, and blood. So I'm guess bio-disposal?" he answers Jean, "Along with my everything else." he points out with a slow breath as having turned caused a hitch in his side, "Well then. Kid, if you don't mind, make with the brain games and then we can discuss how I'm gonna escape out of here." he nudges an elbow in Silk's general direction, "We'll leave 'lower him down the side of a building in a web sling' as a backup. Usually I'd enjoy it, but I can just imagine bumping into the building repeatedly and then passing out from the pain slipping out of the sling and falling to my death. Or maybe just to my shattered orbital bones. Whichever."
Silk frowns, and says, quietly, "I wouldn't let you fall." Defensive. Maybe even a touch hurt. "Or let you fall." A sigh. But she gets over it, very quickly, guessing Hod is just in pain. Probably scared - on more than one level. She can forgive him. However, she nods, and exhales, "Just let me know how I can help."
She doesn't have much more to add, instead looking to Jean and Kate for further ideas.
"Okay," Jean sighs, taking a deep breath. "Hod, you stay here with Silk. Silk, you keep an eye on him." Because that's an integral part of the plan. "Kate, you see if you can grab some scrubs or sweats or something so he doesn't look like we're breaking him out, get whatever records you can behind the scenes. I'll go talk to the charge nurse and…convince her that she's just doing some clean-up while deleting Hod's records. We'll meet back here, and I can cover us while we walk out. Sound good?"
"It's not a bad idea, out the window, but that would really get a lot of people to notice. Maybe. Some people just don't look up," Kate has to admit with a shrug as she offers Silk a reassuring smile. It was a good attempt. But they were all winging it to be fair. "Yeah… I could get it with some distractions. Just so long as you leave me a flashlight or something," she points out only to nod in agreement with Jean. "Let me go get the clothes first. Be right back." Out she goes. It doesn't take her long to return with some scrubs pulled out of a linen closet.
Hod reaches out and takes a couple tries before patting Silk's shoulder (he hopes) gently, "Sorry Kumo, I'm a little… out of sorts." he pauses before adding, "I'm on a lot of medications right now, and while there was a time that wouldn't have effected me, right now, I feel like I'm made of cotton balls, pain, and pin pricks. Not exact on the order." That's right kids, he was stripped of his Aesir physical enhancements. He's high as fuck on some morphine derivative currently. Blame his high tolerance and ability to function mostly properly on his years of careful alchohol consumption. And by careful, one of course means excessive.
At Jean's plan, because Bor knows Hod certainly doesn't fucking have one, he's barely keeping himself upright /and/ speaking clearly, he throws a thumbs up cheerfully into the air. So. "You guys are awesome." he adds belatedly. "Gals?" he asks, suddenly curious, then shakes his head, "Guys. Gals sounds patronizing and stupid." Because /now/ he's going to start worrying about being PC. Then he turns to Silk, "Why do you wear a mask when you show up around me?" he asks curiously, "You know I can't see you right?" he sounds intrigued by this concept.
"If he tries to go anywhere, I'll web him down," Silk states to Jean, affirmitively, mostly mollified by the new plan, and Hod's mostly apology given. "Don't be long. We'll wait for you," she agrees to both Jean and Kate.
Then, she answers Hod, "Well. Because I know you can't see who I am, but that doesn't mean anyone else who doesn't look up won't, or - in this case, if I hadn't, Jean would've seen who I was. First rule of being a super-hero, you don't give out your identity to anyone. Me, especially."
A pause, and she confides to Hod, "You aren't the only one who could be being hunted."
"I've got a place we can take him," Jean adds, before she slips out into the hall.
This…is a lot more work for the telepathic side of her powers than she's used to. Communication is one thing. Going unnoticed is another thing. But pushing people's minds, convincing them that what they're seeing isn't what they're seeing…that's not something she's done much of.
She makes her way to a charge nurse, engaging the woman in a quiet, friendly conversation as if she's looking for a relative. As the woman clicks through screens, she carefully alters what she sees, until Hod's John Doe record is up on the screen. Only then can she use a broader push.
"This isn't a real record," she says quietly, pushing with her mind. "You need to remove it." Once the record has been deleted, she thanks the woman politely, then promptly erases those five minutes.
Kate Bishop sighs quietly as she moves in closer to touch Hod's shoulder. "Here," she offers, putting the shirt she'd gotten into his hands. "I imagine you might need some help with things." UGH. He was so OLD. Okay he didn't look THAT old but old enough. "You sure we need to grab your samples? Like I said it'll go into the incinerator soon as they don't find files to match it with. It'll probably get blamed on an intern."
Hod just 'stares' at Silk, "There are almost nine million people in the city, twenty million in the greater New York area. Trust me, we could all see your face right now, well not all, and no one would still know who you are. I mean, statistically you have to understand the odds. And I have to think it'd be harder to follow a random girl in a crowd then someone dressed up in whatever weird fabric you're wearing that makes the soft swishy sound when you move. I don't know what it means, but I have heard people tend to make them colorful, aka, recognizable. Why not just wear… I dunno. A pantsuit and then blend in and out of crowds in the blink of an eye?" he sounds actually curious on the matter, "In fact, I have a /lot/ of questions pertaining to you mask types and your wardrobe choices, long as you're here and watching me, I think I'm gonna grill you on the logic of them. I want to understand the logic here."
He actively avoids getting involved in Jean's headspace stuff. He doesn't understand it frankly, but it doesn't weird him out either. Chalk it up to his upbringing. Silk also doesn't bother him, people climbing walls and shooting goo from their hands also not that weird. Sif once almost killed Loki because he took her hair. That was a thing that actually happened. And now she's a perma-brunette. Because reasons. Spider people don't even wiggle his crazy-o-meter. Kate on the other hand… he just worries about her. He really needs to get rid of the Oathbreaker marks before she dies and it's all his fault. "I need to get rid of the Oathbreaker marks before Kate dies and it's all my fault." he says out loud. Then pauses. "Did I say that out loud?"
Then there's a shirt and he's Oh. So. Carefully. worming his way into it. Moving with three holes in your back muscles and with a few cracked ribs is not pleasent. At all. Makes dressing… complicated. It helps when he just lets the gown drop to the floor first. And they thought the butt was a problem. Naked shameless Hod. There. Serves you all right. "I can come back and find them when I'm sober. er. Soberer then I am now. No biggie."
"Because nobody wears pantsuits and looks good in them," retorts Silk, mildly back to Hod. "Also, because if you are fighting someone and you put them in prison and they break out, you don't want them killing your family in retaliation becaus they -will- remember you. And lastly? Because someone was hunting me. May still be. I don't know. And if they get ahold of me, … things will get bad. They don't have good intentions." She's sincere. Or at least, she ferverently believes this to be true.
She exhales as naked Hod is presented. "Alright. Come on." She looks to Kate, "Let's get him in pants. Go, teamwork." She does not sound enthused, but, she's at least being practical and not grossed out about it. She fires sticky webbing out of her fingertips, afterall. And she lived with a much older (looking) man while in the bunker for several months while he taught her how to utilize her powers.
She tells Hod, finally as she gets on one side to help support Hod, waiting for Kate to get on the other side, "There's other reasons, too. People treat you differently. If they know."
Finally, "Alright. We'll get you out of here, first. Then, we'll find someone who can remove your mark. I promise."
Jean returns to the room just in time for the pantsening, quirking a brow and reserving comment. "Here, let me help," she murmurs, raising a hand and levitating Hod about a foot of the floor. At least he doesn't have to balance. And the pants should go up more quickly.
"Your record is gone now, and the nurse doesn't remember deleting it. There's a feeling that it was a wild night. People might remember seeing you, but they'll probably dismiss it as some weird homeless guy." Would they technically be wrong there?
Once Hod is dressed, she lowers him back to the floor again, looking to the others. "If you can support him, then I can convince people we're not here as we move him out. We can take him back to a safe place, then we can figure out how to get him actually fixed up."
"I wear a pants suit, and sunglasses. It does make it easier to blend in. But I'm also an only child and my father's a criminal mastermind so he can fend for himself," Kate informs with a solemn nod as she sort of backs up Silk for her decision to wear a costume. Then Hod blurts that out, and she raises an eyebrow slowly.
"Yes, I would appreciate that. I'm just thankful Dani decided to listen to me and not attack first." At least she had ONE Valkyrie on her side. With Silk and Jean helping she gets the pants on Hod, quickly, careful of injuries and TRYING NOT TO LOOK DAMMIT.
"I'm going to need a beer after this," she mutters while stepping back, and then moving to help Hod stand again. "We can get him out just fine I think if you can handle the cover, Jean. Thank you."
Hod snorts, "I look great in my suits." he says with a confidence he has no way of backing up. "Well sure, but knowing what you look like and being able to track you down are different things entirely. If you showed Kate the face of a complete stranger, said they lived in NYC, how long do you think it would take her to find them? By the time she got close they may have gained weight, lost it, changed their hair, swapped their style, gotten glasses, grown a beard or shaved it off if that was their thing." he reaches up to stroke his own dark black beard, "Twenty million people. One person in that number is staggering odds of being located. That also assumes you only live here. And why would you limit yourself that way? The world is big, so you do a few years here, then go do a few in Tokyo, be a hero there. Then maybe Sau Paulo, you think New York is crowded… yeesh." he shudders.
"Seeing someone and knowing who they are are completely unconnected things. Otherwise every criminal ever would have been caught by now instead of many of them spending decades on lists, and that's /when/ the police have their names, accounts, photos, and contacts lists." he shakes his head, "Pants are prolly good. People will stare." he agrees with Silk. He makes a little 'weeeeeee' noise as he's levitated into the air and then he's buttoning pants and trying to smile with a purple smooshed in face. "And who gives a fuck how people treat you? People, family mostly, have treated me like garbage for three thousand years Kumo. You know what it's like to be blind and penniless in Greece circa 250 BC? Or China in 1100? Mongolia? Egypt? Spain? Fucking /France/?" he huffs. He will never forgive the French. Ever. "Fuck people. You do what makes you happy, but also keeps you safe. I'm not sold on the whole mask and colorful 'shoot me right here' costume thing, but whatever the case is, don't ever worry about what people think of you. They gotta earn that shit, work to make their opinion matter. Until they earn it, nothing they can do to you matters. They can only hurt you if you let them." pause. "My current health status not withstanding the previous statement. It was a metaphor." He perks up, "Ooo. Beer. Yes. Lets go drinking." because that's what a stoned diet-god needs. Alchohol.
"People have ways of finding other people, Hod. Even in a city this populous. But if it makes you feel better, I like the way I look in it, okay?" She's clearly not going to have her mind changed on the merits of wearing a costume with Hod, or change her mind. Still, for his pep-talk, she does kiss his cheek. "You're sweet. No beer for you. You're already loopy on medication."
She nods to Kate, "I've got this side. You get the other."
She looks to Jean, "Okay." She looks hesitant, but willing to trust. If the girl can play with people's minds, she's certain she can be 'forgotten' well enough. They'll know in a few seconds, at any rate.
"You're such an optimist, Hod," Jean smirks, rolling her eyes before she gets the door for the others. Whatever she's doing, it seems like the people in the hall don't even register that they're there. They skirt around them without even seeming to notice it, looking right past them if they're looking up.
"Kate, do you have a car?" she asks as she moves through the hall, sounding distracted. "If not, this is gonna be a really weird uber ride."
Kate Bishop nods emphatically, "Yeah I have a car. I wasn't expecting help so I came prepared… In the loading zone," she explains as she helps them along.
Hod makes a small face, "That is the second time you've kissed me this month. That's two more times then I've been kissed since 1947. I'm starting to worry about you. People generally don't touch me. Are you not normal?" the not touching him thing is made a bit easier to understand when upon putting their hands on him to help guide him, both Kate and Cindy will find him cool to the touch. Not frigid or anything, but lacking the warmth that touching another person always has. It's not uncomfortable persay, but it's alien enough it makes the mind unconciously shy away.
"Optimist. Yeah, because if there's one thing life has taught me, it's that a good attitude will eventually prevail over pain and suffering. I mean, I'm three millenia old, I'm sure that happy ending is right around the corner." he scoffs slightly. Wait. Did someone say he was sweet. "Did someone say I was sweet. And hey! Don't leave my flowers behind. They smell nice and I smell like anticeptic and oozing blood. Icky."