The Way We Are

17

"Knock, knock," Hank looked up and to the door, Lola peeked around. "You weren't in your other room. I had to actually ask Charles where your bedroom was..." She said a little awkwardly with a smile tugging at her lips. "You should've seen his face!"

"Oh, I can imagine," Hank said with a frown, he looked away from the monitors in front of him and looked to her. "What's wrong?" Thinking back to Charles's earlier words, Hank blinked slowly, "Are you okay?"

"Me? Yeah, yeah! Peachy keen, I'm fine and dandy...right as rain..."

"You're not," Hank stated, she looked downwards and shuffled into the room. He shook his head at the sight of her being wrapped up in a blanket. Honestly, for the rest of the day Hank hadn't actually seen much of her. He decided to let her to go and socialise with the others which now called this place home. Lola had seemed fine and happy enough to do so. Only of course when it came to the point where everyone went their separate ways to bed, she sought to hunting him out then. Seemed she couldn't honestly spend too long away from him. Hank didn't mind, he liked it actually.

Lola kicked the door shut quietly and shuffled in, she smiled and a hand appeared out from the blanket cocoon. Hank just watched with narrowed eyes as she placed a hand on his head. A low sound emitted from him, he honestly knew she was trying to be caring by touching him, but it did still feel like he was being petted. And Hank didn't like being petted. Not that the experience had ever happened. But he didn't like it. It felt patronising. Even if it was coming from Lola. "Sorry!" She exclaimed, "Just...this is going to sound weird, and I think there's only so many ways to say this, without sounding like a total loon I mean, well, you're soft, Hank." She giggled, Hank's eyes widened as he stood up suddenly from his chair and moved away from her with hunched shoulders. "What are you doing?" She leaned down and looked over the monitors on his desk. "Surveillance?" She looked over her shoulder at him as he found something from a storage draw and turned it over in his hands. Lola turned and watched him, she raised an eyebrow at the sight of the containers which seemed to be stored with nearly anything and everything. Walking over she opened one up and peered in, Hank sighed and shooed her hands away. "Sorry, sorry, just...that's a lot of stuff, Hank."

"Well," Hank started and returned back over to his chair, he sat down and moved closer to his desk. "You never know when you'll need-"

"A fuse?"

"A fuse...wait, what?" Hank turned and looked at her, standing wrapped in her blanket holding it to her with one hand the other held a fuse. "Exactly!" He said with a nod and waved a hand at her, Lola just raised an eyebrow and dropped the fuse back into the drawer and shut it. Hank turned back and stopped again when her chin rested against his shoulder.

"So, what are you doing?" She frowned, she didn't get what he was doing. Nor did she get where he got these monitors suddenly from. Last time she checked, he hadn't pinched one from the living room. Alex probably got them for him on an outing, for all she knew.

"I am setting up a way to scout through all news footage." Hank said while arms appeared out from her blanket and wrapped over his shoulders. She leaned her head against his and looked at the one working screen so far. It was showing some late night show which she didn't even know what was happening. The sound was down, or Hank hadn't got the sound working yet, but even still he wasn't paying any mind to it.

"To keep track of these rallies?"

Hank's yellow eyes narrowed and he paused in messing with the small piece of machinery in his hands, slowly his eyes raised and looked sidelong at her. "That, and anything else which comes up."

Lola tilted her head and hummed, "Hank, how are you going to go about keeping record? You can't stay up transcribing everything. From what I can gather, you're already an insomniac," Lola said while looking at numerous scattered and forgotten coffee stained mugs.