Chapter Text
It’s like, okay, he didn’t get this filthy fucking rich to be holed up in a place like this.
Frankly, it’s kind of offensive that people are acting like it’s his fault for being all riled up, considering the shit he’s had to go through all day. He’s normally wildly, ridiculously chill. He normally has an incredible capacity for being chill that’s being completely disregarded by the rest of the assholes littering the Artemis. They’re getting their panties in a twist trying to paint him like the bad guy when all he ever did was try and get out . Bullshit!
Let’s take a look at just-another-Wednesday for Manfred Stone. It doesn’t involve 3D printers and he can say that fucking much!
His world isn’t streamlined so much as it is carefully scripted. He flips through five star hotel room reservations like pages in his checkbook and expects the jug of water on his bedside table to be accompanied by a pack of xans and with maybe like, fruit or mint or some shit in it- he appreciates establishments that try to maintain a modicum of class, especially when all that’s on the news these days are about riots and mayhem . He signs his John-fucking-Hancock off on non-disclosure agreements at breakfast and pays a visit to one of his more successful warehouse operations at lunch just to see how quickly they can flush the coke down the toilet just in case the times call for it. He bitches about his hangover when he’s flying out to Bolivia to assist in a coup by supplying whoever on the military will pay him in Russo-Baltique vodka this new type of rail gun he heard was fucking insane. He’s getting gold plating on his teeth and he’s hardly blinking when he hears that the new industry standard for the teargas the cops are using are supplied by an offshore bank account he knows for a fact he owns. He’s jerking it in a bathroom stall. It’s this comforting haze of party drugs and tropical locations, of undone shirts and lap dances and diamond belly button piercings, of his big gold rings and thinking about getting a dragon tattooed right across his chest, of telling gangsters to fuck off and telling mob bosses to bring their fucking wife around next negotiation so he has something to look at, it’s all silk and Giorgio Armani and yacht clubs and shooting first when things get messy.
By the time he peels himself off the 3D printer he’s seeing nothing but red, and he can’t tell if it’s his shit eye or something more serious.
Here’s how it goes down. Apparently it wasn't a good idea to try and kill a guy with a machine built to repair tissue. Big surprise there. Excruciating as it was, Pulco shook the whole fucking thing off and left it behind him in the dust just like what he did with his days spent back in the Penitentiary when he was dealing heroin out his fucking ass-crack.
So he’s fine, maybe. He’s cool, really. Everything is fine. He’s Manfred Stone, he lets things roll off him like water off a duck’s back, because he’s untouchable and glittering and untamed. He’s gonna live forever and leave a footprint big enough everyone will know it- now he just has an extra two scars on the back of his head to prove it, they even match the ones darting across his face. There’s nothing worse than that, actually- nothing beside a throbbing behind his temple. And breaths coming out faster and faster in these short, staccato bursts that catch in his throat, and these sobs that are making their way out of his mouth that are all sticky and cement-wet, cracking down the middle like the table did from how tightly he was grabbing it before he went limp, and a grating on his nerves and ringing in his ears that drown out the wetness that he heard when the blades first, oh god, entered him, and the way he didn’t pass out at first and the, fuck, somebody help him, and-
He inhales and counts down from ten. Pulls his focus back down to himself and how fucking mad he is. He has very potent rage. And when the roof of his mouth stops tasting metallic, and the room stops swirling like his vision, and he can stand on his shaking knees- he will hunt that little eurotrash cunt down like Ahab and the goddamn white whale. And what’s-his-name, to boot.
Nobody has pulled that shit with him and lived to talk about it. Nobody has pulled that shit with him in the first place. He doesn’t even know what he’s going to do with them yet when he finds them but he’s going to make them pull each other’s fingernails out one by one, he’s going to make them eat their way through whatever fucking dollar bills the bank robber even pulled from his last job, he’s going to make them- he has ideas. He’s creative. He’s got this. The room wobbles when he tries to stand up from the place he’s been crouching under the table.
He doesn’t want to be under the table anymore, he wants to be in any place that’s not the Hotel Artemis. He’s gonna fucking cry. He just wanted to get out of there, he just wanted to get a helicopter, it really wasn’t his fault that they had to mess up his plans, and insult him, and laugh at him, and treat him like- like- he had to do what he had to do, it wasn’t his fault that he had to shoot them it-
He can’t see out his left eye anymore. That scares him. It terrifies him in a deeply personal way, it sends his stomach lurching and hands shaking and he can’t for the life of him explain why. He thinks it might have something to do with the way he could hear the dim whirring of the printer loud, pressed against his ear, and could the vibrations throughout his skull just as much as he could feel the metal in his head holding him in place. It was almost a sticky-sweet feeling, this weird numbness filling him up like molasses as he scrabbled at the tabletop and twitched, once, faintly, and blinked away his own blood as it dripped down in between his eyelashes. It was terrible and terrifying and he couldn’t tell if it had been minutes or hours or days- the thing that was the worst was the way it pulled itself out of him.
It’s- he almost wishes Waikiki didn’t leave the fucking thing on. It shuffled through his broken cells like a deck of cards, gathering info with a quick pulse deeper into him that made him gurgle- unravelling strands of DNA like ribbon. The little light on the side of it blinked once it had figured out how to repair the damaged tissue and slough itself out of him inch by inch, piecing the puncture wound back together bit by bit, and by that point Pulco was so far gone his entire world had condensed down to the adrenaline in his system and the overwhelming desire to fall unconscious- even though he can’t say as to when he actually did. He resents the thing for saving his life, he really does, the firing of skin and sinew and material as it retreated, centimeter by centimeter, the red clouding his eyesight-
Ten, nine, eight.
Partial vision his fucking ass. This is what he got for thinking LA would be a secure enough location, a gank eye and lifelong trauma. Once the printer announced it’s completion with a cheerful little chime and Manfred finished choking on his blood and tears and spit- he did his best to get his act together and to ignore how thoroughly ruined his suit was. Is. He doesn’t really know where he is, now. He’s crouching underneath the table with one leg pulled up to his chest and the other sprawled out in front of him, smelling worse than the fucking room that Nurse tried to put him up in in the first place.
Last secret hospital he went to put a fucking mint on his pillow- goddamnit, he wish he were in Milan . He had tried to walk his way out of the room after the printer released him, but had fallen a few steps short, collapsing onto all fours and rolling over his right shoulder under the nearest available surface and croaking, gagging up something concerningly dark.
He doesn’t notice when the lights come back on.
-
What startles him awake is the sound and fuzzy figure of someone shuffling through the shelves across from him almost frantically- and he can’t exactly make out who it is but he knows it’s definitely not the Nurse or her weird trained puppy of a bodyguard, or, god forbid, Nice, but it very well might be-
Manfred squints at the person in front of him to see if it’s Waikiki. If it is, he’s caught between starting a fight again or just staying quiet and playing dead. Something is telling him that it would be unwise to try and get his revenge while he’s this battered up, but something else is whispering in his ear that there’s no way Waikiki is in good shape either, if the way the night had been turning out was any indication.
It doesn’t matter, because when he leans forward on his good arm to look forward, his leg shifts behind him and connects with the side of the table he’s hiding underneath, sending a whole load of shit tumbling off the top of it. The figure jumps at the noise but noticeably does not flinch, which is confusing as well as a bit scary. When the man turns around Pulco feels his fucking balls drop, he distinctly feels a shiver down the line of his spine. It’s someone considerably worse to run into than Waikiki. Than Nice, even.
Because The Wolf King of LA is even taller than described, blank-faced and alarmingly in control of his movements. There is something terrifying about how disheveled he looks- he has a blood-soaked tourniquet unwrapped and hanging loose around his neck like a scarf, and red all down the front of his shirt, and a dried line of it coating his chin like it leaked out his mouth - but no discernible injuries. He looks right as rain.
Orian hums under his breath as he leans down and takes a step closer, and the environment is so quiet that Pulco can hear the small creak the floor makes under the Wolf King’s shoes. He thinks he’s even holding his fucking breath. Orian moves very leisurely but very precisely, a direct contrast to the recklessness of how he had been just moments before, looking for god knows what.
“Oh,” says Orian, and his voice is just a shade above a whisper, low and warm, “You. You’re ah- now, forgive me if I’m mistaken, but- Stone? Hampton, or, uh, Manfred. That’s it.”
Manfred didn’t realize he was backing up until his back touches against the wall underneath the table. He’s gripping the legs of it so tightly he can see the tendons in his wrists strain. He feels distinctly like he’s staring down a shark- and the blood-soaked leer, inspection, examination that Orian is giving him isn’t helping dissuade the impression one bit.
“It’s Acapulco these days.” He says.
The Wolf King gives a half-shrug with one shoulder, like he couldn’t be bothered to use both. Acapulco registers it as annoying, faintly through the haze of his pain and the daze of actually seeing the man he had previously thought a myth in person. Orian opens his mouth as if he’s going to speak, but then pauses to pull the bloody bandage from around his neck and letting it drop to the floor next to his butt-ugly sandals. His legs look even longer than they probably are from Pulco’s perspective on the floor.
“Don’t bullshit me,” he says pleasantly, “I’m sure you’ve taken a, a cursory glance around the place. Well beyond the point of nicknames now, baby.”
“Alright,” says Manfred, and his voices pitches a little too high on the tail end of the words because he can feel himself falling into some type of hysteria as he sees the way the shadows darken Niagara’s face in his blurry vision, “So that’s real fuckin’ peachy then! That’s real perfect! I- I don’t know if you can tell, but I’ve been a little preoccupied lately, so no- No I haven’t fucking PEEPED around the goddamn HOTEL, alright buddy? Jesus fucking CHRIST, this shithole just- keeps getting better and better, you feel me? You jive with that? You get where I’m fucking- what, are you staring at me? Got something on my fucking FACE?”
Orian’s laugh fills up the room and makes Manfred heat up from the tip of his head to his toes- the laugh is stilted and disconcerting, soft enough that it seems to be manufactured to put other people on edge, and it’s just fucking infuriating ever being laughed at, ever been mocked, that Pulco almost jolts up and knocks the whole table up off his back. Instead, he balls his fists and stares pointedly forward. He’s shaking apart, maybe. He doesn’t know half of what he’s saying.
“That was uh- surprisingly expected.” The Wolf King makes a vague gesture at Pulco, and then there’s a tense moment where he can feel the man examine him again, this time more obviously tracing each line of his body, “The Shanghai deal you did with Cros, he told me that you were a, a nasty little slice.”
Pulco’s mouth dries up.
The Wolf King doesn’t move from where he’s peering at Acapulco, “Are you ever going to scramble out from under there? I don’t know how long I’ve leaning over like this, it’s very uncomfortable, all told- are you ever going to take the hint? I feel like I’m making uh, making smoke signals over here.”
Manfred takes a few seconds to starts moving more than he probably should, shifting uncomfortably in place until Orian flicks his eyebrows up expectantly and that alone prompts him to start moving. He skitters forward and unfolds, hitting his back on the edge of the table in his haste and almost the 3D printer again, which makes him- it makes his knees a little bit weaker just thinking about it. He knocks a pen off the desk, though, and his eyes dart to it because of the sound it makes, while Niagara doesn’t take his eyes off him .
Orian makes a noise like he’s been well-pleased by Manfred following his instruction, and that alone is so fucking obnoxious that Pulco suddenly doesn’t give a flying fuck who the man is, or what gangs he controls. He sets his spine a notch straighter and tilts his chin high- higher than it already is, because he needs to look up to actually make eye contact with the other man. His jaw clenches infinitesimally.
“Pray tell,” says Orian, “What the fuck were you doing under that desk in the first place, sugar?”
He snorts. “The french bitch’s whipped fucking man-candy shoved me into the printer ‘cause I put her in her fuckin’ place.”
That’s the first thing that actually catches Orian off guard. He makes a funny little snorting noise just as the sides of his mouth twitch, right before he catches himself. And the worst part is, Pulco has a feeling it’s more out of amusement at him as a person than at his comment.
“Ah.” says Orian, still standing in place. Pulco feels antsy. And a bit woozy. He can’t tell if he’s dizzy from standing too fast or just from the heady scent to the other man’s cologne mixed with the blood in the air. “The very same woman to slit my throat! I know the feeling.”
Manfred pauses. “But- if she-“
The light on the far end of the hallway blinks out for a quick moment, and it makes the shadows on Orians face abnormally long for a brief flash. He has- his cheekbones are interesting. So is the cut to his jaw.
“I’m here now, baby,” he says, gentle, “I just wasn’t a little bitch about it.”
-
Manfred follows Orian around for a considerable amount of time while the man continues to root around through the rooms shelves for medical supplies, and he can’t for the life of him say why.
He thinks it may because he has nowhere left to go, at least not currently. Once he gets out, though, oh, once he gets out he’ll be back to his regular schedule in no time. He’ll be halfway to Aruba, sipping on a lemon mojito faster than he can say Bye-Bye Los Angeles, Bye-Bye Wolf King. It’s faintly comforting to think about, he has to close his eyes and center himself for a quick moment when it all becomes too much by concentrating on just how comfortable his sheets are gonna he once he gets back on track.
He’s just caught between the stress of the riots, the stress of criminals loose in the hall, and he stress of the criminal right in front of him picking out a little orange bottle of pills from what looks like a stack of twenty identical ones.
He doesn’t deserve to be there. He wants to be out of the Hotel. He doesn’t belong there, either, doesn’t belong standing next to the fucking Wolf King and shifting uneasily from foot to foot while the man pockets rolls of bandages it doesn’t look like he even fucking needs.
He doesn’t know what to think of it when Orian tells him he was bleeding out by his throat a few minutes prior, doesn’t know whether or not to believe him. Aside from labored breathing and a few moments where he spaces out, Orian seems relatively unaffected for a man who was most definitely pronounced dead.
Manfred can only wonder how many fucking nanites were in his room at the time. He remembers a story he read one time, of a guy who stabbed himself in the throat so he could breathe while his head was submerged in water. He thinks that if someone could survive that , then, well-
Orian’s an interesting guy. He is who he is for a reason, maybe. Manfred can see that. He seems tall and charming and with a great capacity to be terrible, stoic and confusing and obstinate and patronizing, cruel and condescending and quiet and gentle and a whole list of other things that are playing over and over in Manfred’s head on repeat.
The Wolf King has big hands. An expensive watch.
There’s a crash somewhere else in the Artemis, closer than comfortable and louder than any of the ones before it. Pulco jumps forward a little, reaching to his back pocket where he would have been keeping his wallet and his plans for the gun if that son of a bitch hadn’t taken it. Orian doesn’t react outwardly to it, but he turns his head to the door and then leisurely turns back to reading the label on a tub of cooling gel.
It reminds Pulco how desperately he needs to scoot.
“It’s-“ He starts speaking just a little too quietly, and clears his throat to try again, “I swear to god if that bitch finds me again, or you, for that matter-“
“I don’t begrudge her anything.” The Wolf King says, flippantly. He discards the cooling gel to the side and reaches deeper into the bin he’s pulled out, going for a stray pack of collagen spot treatment.
Pulco’s fucking aghast. “You throw thieves into the ocean. She tried to kill you.”
“Ah.” Orian spins around and wave a finger at him briefly, it makes Pulco feel oddly heated, “That’s your mistake, honeybunch. Thieves are so, so slimy. Slippery. Disingenuous, one might say. Simply can’t stand it, especially when I catch them. Because then they’re just sloppy at their job and that’s disappointing , to boot. She was very good at her job.”
“Clearly not good enough.” Manfred says. The side to Orian’s mouth quirks up in an interesting way.
“She made a mistake, it happens to the best of us! Left way too fucking early, gave me too much fucking time. And as you can see,” He gestures to his neck region, “It pays to be, ah- thorough. How about it, doll?”
Pulco nods, vaguely, “So why the medical supplies, then?”
“She stabbed me in the neck , jesus goddamn christ, a man can’t be injured in his own hospital?”
He just keeps on nodding, not making eye contact with Orian. He hopes that if he keeps on nodding and taking a step back every other sentence he’ll be able to phase out of the room entirely. It was a mistake to even be there this long in the first place, he couldn’t say why or how it had happened. He’s been swept away in listening to Orian speak and picking apart the subtleties of his movement- he forgot about the only goal he’s been focused on.
Somehow he doubts the helicopters have become more available since he last spoke to the companies, and at this point, if not even his personal caller ID can fetch himself a decent ride then it’s a futile effort at this point. He’s going to keep trying though, he’s going to push it through and call in favors and wake up in Dubai.
“Great.” He says, “Well. Good for you that you got your whole thing going on with respect or whatever, but uh, that bitch tried to kill me and hurt my feelings. So I’m going to make her cry. That’s how I show my fuckin’ respect. Pissing on her headstone outside Acapulco where I’m gonna bury her.”
“There’s no need to be crass. ” Orian says, without looking at him. Pulco can hear the smile in his voice, “I’m really not stopping from your, your exploits , by all means- exact your revenge right now! I have the impression she’s still in the building!”
“I’m- No.” He says, “I’m getting out of here.”
“You’re quite the little hypocrite over there. Breathing kinda heavy. Seem a bit frazzled.”
“My head was in a printer. ”
Orian pulls out a travel pack of nanites with a flourish. It’s a plastic thing resembling an ice pack, there’s something green and glowing moving under the surface and it says something about being broken to activate like a glow stick.
“Understandable!” He chirps. “I was only really asking because I too have some unsavories in this very building. Rather, I’m walking out before I count on any flights to still be uh, active, at a time like this. You could accompany me, if you’d like, sugar.”
Manfred freezes in place. The chill in his bones is back, and darts along the knobs of his spine one more time as he watches Orian stand up with all his medical supplies gathered in his arms, staring Pulco in the face.
His mind races as he tries and come up with a decision, and fast. Orian is slowly putting the smaller items he selected into the pockets of his slacks, still looking all bored and handsome and mean. Imperious.
Orian waves a hand in front of his face, “Hello? Oh shit, it’s not both of your eyes that are blind, is it?”
“Yeah.” Spits out Manfred. He wonders if he really needs the favor of the king of LA, if LA is going to shit as quickly as he expects it is. Going to shit just like Orian’s stupid fucking hospital. “I mean- No, my eyes are ace. Yes, I’ll tag along. But don’t treat me like your little gang, I see how you think you’re so big and strong, staring at me like I’m- If you know what’s best for you you’re going to cut that shit out right now. ”
The Wolf King blinks in surprise. “Of course,” he says, smoothly, “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, honey. Even under these, uh, extenuating circumstances. Sweet little thing like you. It’s always, always beneficial to have an arms dealer around- I think my old one passed away in the Honolulu suite, actually!”
“I’m not carrying any of your fucking bandaids.” Manfred says.
Orian gives a long-suffering, petulant sigh. “Thought I’d have enough of you prissy, preening assholes with good old Cros.”
-
Manfred watches the way the man’s wrists move as Orian fumbles with the wires behind the dash. They picked up a stray car in the parking garage adjacent to the hospital, got skedaddling toward it the second the smell of cigarettes made it to their room and Pulco realized for a hot second that Nice really did live.
And Orian didn’t seem too keen on meeting up with the Nurse. Manfred can’t for the life of him explain why.
The man connects the red wires with a minuscule jolt and a faint noise, and the dumbass sunglasses he got from the glove compartment slip a touch lower on his nose as he turns to look at Manfred with a grin on his lips.
He’s a sight for sore eyes- got all this blood on his beard and a weird, resigned glint to his eyes. The casual air around him and leisurely lilt to his speaking contrasted by how tightly the man is gripping the steering wheel. Hair all messy and windswept like he’d run a hand through it too many times. Chapped lips.
Manfred guesses he doesn’t look too hot either, at least not to Orian.
( Sweet little thing like- )
He places both hands on the dashboard in front of him to quell his nerves and get his shoulders to stop trembling, ever so slightly. “What,” he says, only half-joking, “Couldn’t even get us a fuckin’ Porsche?”
( Nasty little slice.)
Orian snorts, and pulls the car out of park. There’s a concerning noise from the engine. “You’re really something else, aren’t you?”
Manfred’s staring out the window at the Artemis when the car really starts moving.