Jude was sitting in a small wooden chair down in the hospital basement of a man named "Lafayette", his long legs stretched out, his head rolled back in boredom. No way in hell I should stay still for this long. He shifted positions, staring at the pale, white-skinned woman across the room, Harley. Suppose it's worth it for the view here, though... he smirked to himself.

Harley had been staring at herself in her compact mirror. It turns out it was possible for someone to get lost in their own eyes. However, upon nit-picky inspection of her appearance, she'd decided that one of her eyes had a tad less makeup than the other. She looked up from the mirror, about to ask Lafayette if she was pretty, when she noticed the newcomer staring at her. Her red lips curled into a mischievous smirk.

"You could drink something, you know," Lafayette broke the silence before Harley could say something she'd regret later.

Jude continued to stare intently at Harley, a false grin of amusement plastered on his face. The thought of drinking anything made him laugh dryly at Lafayette. "Not that it would do me any good," he began to speak quickly.

"But get me a shot of vodka or somethin'." He tilted his head, peering curiously at the supposedly "perfect" Harley. "What are you supposed ta be, a nurse here?" The look that came across Harley's face at the question was that of pure horror. Well, not frightened horror. Her nose wrinkled in disgust a bit, but she composed herself. Some people just couldn't see the obvious.

"No," she responded with a forced smile. "I'm a future pin-up girl." She withheld adding "Can't you tell?" to the end of the sentence.

"Ooooh, now I can tell, I can see it." Jude's bony fingers went up like a frame around Harley, and he grinned full of malice. "You'd look just great on a calendar or somethin'." The filthy-looking man decided he would screw with Harley a bit, stroke her ego, and then just as quickly dash it again.

From across the table, Lafayette attempted to slide him a drink, which missed him by several feet and fell off the side of the table.

"I have better aim when I'm sober," the doctor muttered sheepishly. "I assure you."

The shot glass whizzed by him and shattered on the floor. He grumbled. It wasn't every day he even had a chance to stop and rest. In fact, there never was such a day. He stared at the shattered shot glass.

"Sure, you do, buddy. You coulda just handed me the damn glass."

"I know," Harley responded before sipping from her martini. A smug smile of satisfaction displayed itself on her face. As she basked in the glow of her own ego, Lafayette reached over and put a shot glass down in front of Jude.

"You said it won't do much for you," Lafayette said, referring to the shot glass while trying to make the question sound more innocent than it was. "Why?" Jude resisted the impulse to reach into his mouth and pull out his esophagus, showing the good doctor just why his thirst would never be quenched. Instead, he smiled nastily, taking the shot down hard, putting the glass back down before responding.

"Unlike your little damn princess over here, I'll never feel any 'satisf-satisfaction.'. Besides..." he looked wearily around, his words beginning to become more broken, his face twitching. "They're watching me..."

"I'm not sure what you mean by that. But, I'm not sure I like it," Harley snipped, tucking a curl behind her ear.

"Who's watching you?" the doctor asked, his face displaying fright. It seemed he'd gotten just drunk enough to forget the important details. Harley rolled her eyes, the plan wasn't going to go well with Lafayette inebriated. Jude leaned in toward Lafayette conspiratorially, then leaned back again in a frantic manner.

"They are!! Goddammit!" he twitched, wringing his hands. "Always fucking follow me, my f-friend. You bet your ass They should already be here!" At some level, Jude was still consciously aware of his ramblings, and at the same time, eyeing Harley as he had when he first entered. "They'll kill this doc, you know, if they find me. And if they don't kill you... what happens to you then, without him, Miss Perfect?"

Harley's eyes widened in horror at the thought, but then narrowed into sardonic slits. She knew what she would do should Lafayette die, but she couldn't just blab about it in front of the man. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, opened it again, only to shake her head and take a sip of her drink.

"I'd die," she lied. The rambling of Jude almost managed to kill the doctor's buzz... Almost. He leaned back in his seat and took another sip of his beer.

"No, no," Lafayette laughed almost arrogantly. "If they haven't found me after all these cen- Countries!" he caught himself. "After all the countries I've hoped they won't find you." Jude reached across the bar counter, his spindly arm and hand plucking a bottle of vodka and popping it open, taking a waterfall drink. He finished, popping his eyes open wide and glaring at Lafayette.

"You know Hellhounds? Believe me, man. I've hopped more than my fair share of countries. There ain't any goddamn way of losing them."

"Is all that running the reason why you're so skinny?" Harley asked. It was an innocent question, despite how bitchy it may have sounded. Not to mention Harley was one to talk when it came to being thin. Or being fake. Or being plastic. Or... Well, just about everything, really.

"Don't antagonize our guest, Harley," Lafayette scolded, wagging a finger in her direction.

"I'm not!" she protested, pulling an olive out of her martini.

Jude whipped his hand around, almost like he was just about to smack Harley in the face. But instead, with a smirk, he grabbed the olive in midair, twiddling it in his fingers.

"I should s-say so." He twitched, and then it became noticeable that his accent and voice shifted every so often. "Running would b-be my middle name if I had one. If I was ever even really given a name." Jude stopped to ponder this, his thoughts seemingly floating from one to the other. "Hell, I don't think I was ever even 'born' so to speak."

Harley didn't flinch. Partially because she was a bit of a masochist. And, partially because she'd have liked to see Lafayette's reaction if Jude had slapped her. However, to her slight disappointment, he didn't lay a finger on her and instead stole her olive.

"Oh, really?" Harley asked, pulling another bottle from behind her and passing it to Jude. Hopefully, he'd start getting plastered soon. "That sounds interesting. It's a shame I didn't meet you until today," she laughed, feigning a coy expression.

Jude plucked the cork from the bottle Harley had handed him, eyeing down the drink inside, shrugging, and taking a long, drawn out gulp.

"Oh, you're s-s-s-sickly sweet, doll. Takin' an interest in little old me." He turned, smirking at Harley lopsidedly. "I hop bodies. I pick a corpse, get as far away as possible from it, and transfer souls. Key way of avoiding detection, right there..." He stared at the bottle again interestedly, slurring a bit.

"Really?" Harley asked. She shifted her body so that it was now facing Jude as opposed to Lafayette. She bit her lip a bit and twisted a curl around her thin finger. "So, how many Objects have you picked up? I'm sure someone like you could have gotten a whole lot."

Jude jumped at the mere mention, his eyes widening a bit. The spider-like man downed the rest of the alcohol he had, and turned back to Harley.

"Heeeeell no! I won't go 200 miles in vicinity of a d-d... damn Object! They... they watch me all the time..."

He was cowering a bit, stuttering and looking nervously around.

"Who do you think sends the Hellhounds? Damn Objects, that's who!"

It was at this point that a dumbstruck expression hit both Harley and Lafayette. For a moment the pair stared at Jude, a look of idiocy on their faces as they processed what he'd said. Harley turned to Lafayette as if to ask, "Well, what now?" Lafayette didn't bother to look at Harley, his face turning a shade of red.

"Did you think I'd let you just sit here and drink for free?!" he shouted, slamming his hands on the wooden table. It was obvious that the doctor's plans had backfired. The man didn't have any Objects and thus was useless to him. "Unless you're gonna make yerself useful..." Lafayette's Louisiana accent was now thick. "Git outta my hospital!"

The bony man took to hostility badly, shooting to his feet and looming over imposingly on Lafayette. It didn't help that he was tipsy, as he sneered downward.

"Hey! You want fuckin' Objects ssso bad, keep me around! Th-They'll come for me, and lead y-you right back to... those damn fuckin' Objects!" He threw his hands up in the air, exasperated.

"Why in the hell does everybody and their grandmother want those things?!"

"Because they keep me pretty," Harley answered bluntly and then nodded in a "matter-of-fact" manner. For a moment, Lafayette thought about his answer. It was a serious question, and thus deserved a serious answer. However, he'd come to find that he couldn't answer said question without giving too much away. So, he opted for an all-purpose reply.

"Forty-two," Lafayette grumbled, taking a sip of whiskey.