Day 62: Sun Room (Second Shift)

[complicatedliar]

The line of questioning that Rita had begun at breakfast still plagued Loki, as did his own uncomfortable feelings about the entire concept of people being transformed into monsters. It wasn't a useful line of thought, and he needed a better direction to consider.

Hopefully, conversation with Soma would provide that. While she seemed quite stern at times, Loki found her presence oddly relaxing.

Though he had to wonder if perhaps he wouldn't end up seeing her this shift after all, since she might be included in the group that was being herded to the showers. (As much as the statement also was one he greeted with relief, since he was wondering when he'd get an opportunity to bathe. The thought of being trapped in a building with a great many mortals and no bathing facilities had been too horrifying to contemplate.) He'd always been a bit bad at guessing the ages of mortals, mostly because they were so ridiculously short-lived.

Having already established a neurotic fear of the cold with his nurse, there was no difficulty convincing her that he'd be much better off in the Sun Room. Loki settled into his habitual seat, taking a moment to coax one of the cats into his lap. All settled in, he propped his notebook on the arm of the chair and went back to writing.

[Soma?]

Comments

[no_dont_go]

[from here]

The light that streamed in the windows seemed thin to Aigis. She knew that light was made of waves and could not rightly be touched, but this human body gave her a different perspective on things. Particularly things that she could "see" and "feel." She didn't understand art in the least, but she found herself growing more curious about nature and the aesthetic side to things the more time she spent in this body. Perhaps she was becoming complacent with how things in the institute were operated.

That very thought frightened her. She could never become a willing puppet of the institute and yet... And yet Aigis could not shake the feeling that that may well be where things were turning. Hadn't she just the night before admitted to Sechs that she was in some ways thankful for what Landel had done?

Her new heart thudded in her chest unexpectedly then, and Aigis reached up, clenching at the gray neckline.

[for The Doctor~]

[timedork]

Breakfast had been... better than the Doctor had expected it to be. Trying to get a fresh start had worked (after a fashion), but now that it was later, it was time to start dealing with everything he'd decided to delay. Keeping an eye out for Donna, Dean, and Peter in particular, he started to make his way to the bulletin board, intending to leave a couple of notes for them, if nothing else, just to see whether they were here.

Half-way there, he spotted someone unexpected: the Auton who'd shot at him and Castiel over a week ago. But... No, that couldn't be right. Perhaps she just looked like the Auton, or vice versa; non-human(oid)s here were all in human bodies, and that night she had very clearly revealed non-human, non-organic features...

He found himself making his way towards the girl, bulletin board and notes for mates forgotten for the time being.

"Sorry," he said to get her attention, coming to a stop nearby. "Might've got the wrong person, but—... Have we met before?"

[no_dont_go]

A man approached her, doing nothing to startle but Aigis' heart sped a few beats nonetheless. The uncomfortable feeling lasted about five seconds, then faded. Concerned, but distracted by the young man, she turned to give him a good look-over before answering his question.

"I do not believe we have," she stated plainly. She frowned, brows drawing together as she studied his face. "However... I do believe I have seen you somewhere before."

Enacting a rigid bow, Aigis inwardly praised herself for remembering the proper etiquette for introductions before it was well past the appropriate time. "I am Aigis. Perhaps we have talked on the bulletin board at some point as well?"

[gald_digger]

[from here]

When she returned to the Sun Room, Anise checked the bulletin again, despite having done so just minutes earlier. Still no note from Ilia. She was beginning to get anxious.

It looked like Guy hadn't gotten around to posting a role call yet, so Anise went ahead and did that. It was something to do that wasn't fretting over Ilia, at least. Once that was done, however, it wasn't long before she resumed her fretting.

Eventually, she settled into one of the sofas in the room. There, she held Tokunaga on her lap, nervously running her fingers over its seams as she watched people come and go.

[free!]

[heroesdontshave]

In all honestly, Snow should have been feeling pretty good today. Yeah, he hadn't managed to find Light or Serah last night. Or where any of the other people who'd disappeared were being held. But he'd found Hope, and that was at least some progress. Better than finding no one again, right? It also made him feel better about the disappearances. Because if Hope was around, then everyone else had to be, too. Somewhere.

But even if his spirits had improved, he still wound up feeling like crap as soon as he woke up. He was tired and nauseous and it felt like someone was jabbing a little needle into the side of his head over and over. He'd figured he maybe just needed some food, but breakfast hadn't done much good. Not like it was really anything to get worried over. It'd just go away eventually. But, you know. Just annoying was all.

Anyway, even if he was fine enough with ignoring it, he wasn't up for going outside and standing around in the cold again. ...Actually, maybe that was why he was feeling so bad. He wasn't used to this weather. Guess that made it the nurses' fault. Good going there, guys.

Snow scanned the room as he walked in, looking for any familiar faces. No sign of anyone yet. He'd been kind of hoping to catch Hope again, or else see someone else he could talk to to ask stuff. But, oh well. He'd just kill some time for a while until he could find someone. So Snow just... wandered the room, looking around.

He was walking by behind one of the couches when he slowed his pace. There was a girl sitting there which wasn't that weird. But she was... playing with a pretty freaky-looking doll. What the hell was that thing? It wasn't anything he recognized. Didn't really look like anything a kid would want to play with either. Though, who knew? Maybe this is what passed for 'cute' on Pulse.

Welp. No sense being rude about it, he guessed. Snow placed his hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward in an exaggerated curiosity as he peered down at the doll from above the kid's head. "Heeey. What's this guy's name, huh?"

[gald_digger]

It was hard to calm down while there was so much to worry about, and while Anise wasn't feeling her best. Tokunaga worked as a sort of safety blanket at times like this, though several minutes passed and she still didn't feel much better.

She gave a little surprised jolt when someone approached from behind the couch, snapping her head upward to see who it was. It wasn't a face she recognized, but he seemed friendly enough, so she offered him a weak smile. Anyone who'd take interest in Tokunaga couldn't be a bad person, she figured.

"This is Tokunaga!" she answered, giving the doll a little squeeze and doing her best to bring out a little cheer in her voice. "I got it back home, before I ended up here. It's cute, right?" She lifted it up so the man could see.

[heroesdontshave]

Toku-- Huh? That was a... pretty complicated name for a doll. Then again, there were a lot of people here with complicated names. Again, it was probably just a thing that had to do with these kinds of people. Not that he cared about that kind of stuff.

He met her smile with a big grin of his own and he poked the thing's head once affectionately, like he was testing its squishiness. In a certain kind of way, he could see how it could maybe be cute. Kind of. "Heh~ Sure is. 'S a good thing you got to bring him here with you. Now neither of you gotta be lonely."

Pretty nice of them to let her keep that thing. Maybe one of the guys in charge had a heart, after all. "Mind if I join you and To... er, your friend?"

[selfnighted]

It took a bit of talking, but Maya managed to convince her escort to let her go to the Sun Room rather than out to the courtyard. From claims that Maya was perfectly fit (partially true or not true at all), to claims that she had a unfortunate predisposition against cold (a lie), to claims that Maya was tired (she was depending on the nurse noticing how little of the human food she ate—not a problem for Maya, but abnormal for a human), and the woman seemed to give in out of sheer weariness.

There was more elegant way of convincing her, Maya was certain, and all in all it seemed a mite too much work to get out of going outside. She simply didn't want to sit on the cold ground, and as Maya settled into a couch, she couldn't help but smile at her own self-indulgence.

Unfortunately, her own company had its disadvantages. In a few minutes, she became bored with sitting still, and as she idly rubbed her hands, her thoughts drifted to Wataru. Hmm. Perhaps she should have gone outside, after all.

[free]

[not_heavens_adam]

Johnny's thoughts were still stirring around with all the new information Lust had given him. He was human, he could get nutrition from food, supposedly that meant he could go into the sun and pray and do everything vampires weren't allowed to do.

It was liberating.

When the nurse came to collect him to take him outside, Johnny almost agreed, but once he stepped into the light and warmth of the Sun Room, he knew this was where he wanted to stay. It didn't take much, apparently the man wasn't comfortable with a male patient's sexual advances and was more than happy to leave him in the room and escape.

With a content sigh, Johnny flopped onto a couch, only slightly aware there was someone else on said couch. The warmth of sunlight on his skin was strange and pleasant. It was something he hadn't felt in centuries.

[selfnighted]

"Pleased about something?" Maya asked the man who'd just sat down. She was tempted to ask how he'd gotten rid of his nurse so quickly, but the answer could quite simply come down to his nurse and Maya's nurse having different personalities. Of course, it also depended on their charges; Maya couldn't discern whether her escort was upset with her on the best of days, and honestly: Maya simply didn't care enough to find out.

The question, then, was fairly pointless. "Did you have a good night?" Maya said instead, falling back on something that reliably occurred to everyone, even if someone's nighttime experience might be more fruitless than others.

[madeinthehrl]

Everyone she knew had made it to breakfast safely, but the news of more deaths and disappearances during the night awaited her on the bulletin board. Even vaguely familiar names--names to which she'd attached no real significance--were a little sobering to Soma. It had to be the reason she was feeling a little lightheaded as she glanced around the Sun Room.

There weren't many people here when she'd arrived, and Lingormr was easy to spot. Soma offered her usual small smile as she approached him, inclining her head slightly. She hadn't seen anything unusual on the bulletin today--perhaps that was a sign that last Nightshift had gone better for him than the one before. It was difficult to imagine actively antagonizing Kratos, anyway.

"Good morning," she said, sitting down next to him. "How did everything go?"

[complicatedliar]

Loki looked up from his notebook, one hand still idly stroking the cat in his lap. He smiled. "I think it went rather well, actually. I accompanied Kratos to the medical wing and we acquired some supplies. I also picked out several books from the medical library that I think will be helpful in utilizing those supplies."

And Kratos hadn't gone out of his way to get on Loki's nerves, which was really the more important part of the night as far as he was concerned.

"I hope that your evening was... similarly productive."

[madeinthehrl]

"That's good to hear." One corner of her mouth twisted up slightly. "Sora paired me with Riku last night. We only got a few steps down the main hallway before night ended."

She wanted to tell him about Riku's idea to explore the basement, but that could wait until they actually got there. Besides, she wanted to get a better idea of what kind of person Riku was like. He hadn't seemed overly confrontational, but he had come off as the sort of warrior Lingormr had probably grown up with. She could see how they could have rubbed each other the wrong way.

"I brought you those sketches I mentioned," she said suddenly, opening her journal and removing a few loose pages. The drawings were hardly professional, but the lines were clean and neat: two of the mobile suits she'd piloted, and a carefully shaded drawing of the colonel's house in Russia.

She looked down for a moment. "It's not much, but you've shown me pictures of your home, so..."

[cpt_minnow]

This was gonna be a long day.

There was no way Depth Charge was about to go to the courtyard- he might as well have made a round trip to the recreational field and called it returning to the scene of the crime- and so it was off to the sun room he sloped to collapse down onto one of those man-eating sofas. At least the cats were back. He'd only been sitting for a few minutes, stretched out across a two-seater sofa, when one snaked its way across the floor and leapt up onto the cushion next to him, looking up at him presumptuously.

Depth Charge simply raised an eyebrow back. "Seriously?" Soliciting petting from a guy who'd done nothing but wreck the joint last night? He paused, faintly disbelieving- and then reached out to ruffle the cat's ears with an irritated sigh. "Cats really are stupid."

Truth was, all it had done was remind him of another stupid cat- one who'd probably have gotten his problem a lot quicker, though more by way of empathy than intelligence. Primus. What would he say if any one of those slaggers turned up here, huh? Even in another universe he couldn't keep things together. Then again, they'd probably figured that out by now anyway.

[free]

[toxicspiderman]

Too bad he didn't have a camera. Depth Charge was stretched out on a sofa, cuddling one of the cats. S.T. liked cats. They didn't ask for much, and they didn't take shit from anyone. He was secure enough in his masculinity to pet kittens and do photo ops with baby seals. D.C. was usually a little touchier.

So, of course, he walked up to the one of thee two that was less likely to bite him if rubbed the wrong way, and ruffled D.C.'s hair from behind the sofa. "Looks like you made a new friend."

Before the guy could take too much offense, he transferred his hand to the cat, who was an equal-opportunity cuddler, it seemed. It sniffed his fingers and then headbutted his hand. "Anything exciting happen last night? I was out for the count."

[cpt_minnow]

The hand on the back of his head sent Depth Charge jerking forward as though someone had dropped a goldfish down the back of his shirt. "Do that again and I'll break your-" was about as far into his threat as he got, though, before he realised that he knew the figure bobbing down over the sofa and its occupants.

"Slagger," Depth Charge finished, in a decidedly less threatening voice. Instead of batting S.T. away he rolled his eyes, letting himself drop back into the cushions and his shoulders relax again. "What can I say? Cats like fish."

The dryness wasn't just limited to his words, though; he could feel his throat clenching a little as he put together an answer for S.T.'s question. A question which, surprisingly, he found that he wanted to answer. Lying to an ally about it... that wouldn't have sat well with him, especially when just about any idiot who'd looked out to the back of the Institute would have known. "Something like that. Guess who got a little call from the orderlies?"

[stellarregions]

Last night had been a pretty pleasant evening, all things considered, but the taunting at the end of the night had dredged up the same old fears and paranoias that had been haunting him ever since they'd dragged him off for one of their 'experiments.' He'd almost refused his medication that morning, but in the end, had simply been too mentally exhausted by it all to put up a fight. He'd spent breakfast sullenly, then expected to head out to the court yard, where at least he'd feel a little less cooped up.

His nurse, however, had other plans. After chiding him about how long he'd been out the previous day, and how, with that 'nasty bug' going around, he should take better care of his health, she'd towed him off to the Sun Room instead and left him there, seated on one of the couches.

It was so innocuous during the day. Whatever had been going on when they'd slipped through last night, there was no sign of it now. He might have wondered how they managed that, had he been in the mood to wonder about how anything here actually worked. As far as he was concerned, it was just one long nightmare. Which might, it seemed, be getting worse, if that ominous announcement was to be believed. He rubbed his arm a bit in a nervous gesture. The injection site was healed now, but the mental scar remained.

[Open]

[ichangedforgood]

The light shone bright in her eyes and she instinctively reached for a pair of sunglasses on top of her head. Finding them absent, she shielded her eyes and looked around her. Her surroundings had completely changed; she didn't recognize this place at all.

"Follow me, please."

Robin sat up and looked at the slender lady in the doorway. "To where are we headed?" Her tone was even and cautious.

"The Sun Room, of course, Miss Satanella. You missed breakfast, unfortunately."

"That is unfortunate indeed," Robin answered, playing along with the assumption that she was known as 'Miss Satanella' to this woman. Sliding her legs out of bed, she noticed that she was wearing very simple clothes. There had been nothing about her previous attire that she was completely attached to, but it was important to Robin to note all the same. Whoever had removed her from the Revolutionaries' ship had thought it necessary to strip her, but not put her in sea-stone shackles.

After following the woman and entering the Sun Room, she noticed that the woman left. There were others dressed like her in the vicinity, but the ratio of watchers to attendees had decreased significantly. Her gaze fell on a man reclining on a couch, who appeared to be unoccupied.

She approached him, a pleasant smile on her face despite the myriad of questions on her mind. "Languid sir, do you have some free time?"

[stellarregions]

Gren's hand dropped back to his side as he realized someone was approaching. He didn't recognize the woman, which meant she was probably fairly new. He'd been there long enough to get to know most of the regular population by now.

The phrasing of the question was a little odd, but given the way people were apparently pulled from all over, he didn't think a whole lot of it. "Yeah, sure," he replied after a moment. "I'm not busy." He could certainly use the distraction.

[notachick]

Although his conversation with Hijikata had finished well enough, there was still the business of his missed meeting with Taura and the others. It was a terrible thing for a leader to be so unreliable and the longer Okita put things off, the worse they would become. Still, he wasn't the best at dealing with his own failures and so, as he stood at the bulletin, mulling over the myriad of things he had to do that day, he went with the last on his list rather than the first.

It was a sad thing to see Asuka go. A worse thing to realize that it was always the younger ones here that seemed to disappear first. Shinichi, Kaito, Heiji.... The three of them were long gone now, along with Junpei, Kyouya, that brilliantly flashy boy in charge of the Aid Society... Okita stared at the bulletin board long after he finished putting Asuka's note up, thinking back on how many they had lost in the past month. His chest still felt heavy when he turned away, a bright smile plastered to his face like always. There was hope, of course, that they would return like Hijikata and Badou and others had, but that hope came with the caveat that they would be put in immediate danger again.

Making his way to a couch, Okita wished he was able to go outside like the others, but following last night's occurrence, he wasn't willing to risk it. Especially with the lack of staff and the curious way people were acting. The Head Doctor's announcement didn't assuage his fears any either and so he pulled his legs up under him and settled back against the soft cushions, wondering if his sickness had anything to do with what was going around as he watched the Sun Room with mild amusement.

[for Brook!]

[somesoulsearching]

Brook must have been having too much fun wile entertaining Renji last shift because when he reached the Sun Room for the next part of the day, he found he was a bit out of breath and, he noticed, felt just a little warmer than he remembered. He'd known that laughter could hurt, but usually that was only his side!

"Maybe I really am out of practice with having my skin?" he reasoned, frowning only a moment before setting a smile out at the Sun Room. Since he'd managed to make Renji laugh, Brook felt his day would be well spent trying to cheer up at least one person each shift. Of course he would be on the lookout for his roommate should he appear, but outside of that, someone had to be in need of some laughter!

Spotting a young man who looked to be feeling unwell, Brook set his course for the couch, pausing only a moment to give his head a shake. Really, it had been long enough since he'd laughed with Renji; he shouldn't still be feeling tired from it! But that didn't matter.

"Good morning," he greeted as, he believed, it was still well before noontime, "Would you mind if I joined you?"

[notachick]

The first thing that came to mind when he saw the familiar stranger was that he was tall. Or rather, that he was abnormally tall. The word tall did not even begin to describe the man's height, to be honest, and so he attracted Okita's attention as soon as he entered the Sun Room. He had seen the man around before (after all, it was rather hard to miss someone so lanky and so very...visible), but they had never spoken. People watching was one of Okita's many hobbies, however, and it was hard not to watch someone so interesting as he moved across the room.

Closer.

And closer until--

Oh. Okita looked up as the man stopped in front of him, craning his neck back a little to see his face. From up close, his hair was very round, his face very long, and he was even taller. He seemed a jovial sort, polite, and well-mannered though, and so Okita smiled back, motioning to the open couch beside him as he halfway wondered in the man would fit. "Good morning. And not at all. Please feel free to join me."

[oyaji]

Breakfast had left a heavy weight in his stomach that refused to unwind even after the fragile truce Barnaby and he had struck. It certainly was born from guilt and worry, but that was no longer an issue, so why did it continue to persist? Shifting in his seat uncomfortably, Kotetsu tried keeping his head down and his eyes unfocused, but nothing he did seemed to help. As time wore on, it became worse and manifested into a dizzy spelled and a nauseated stomach.

When their nurses came to take them to the courtyard, Kotetsu opted for the Sun Room so he could "relax" and thus wait for this uncomfortable sensation to dissipate.

"Ugh," he groaned in passing to Barnaby who followed him. "I think that pancake didn't sit well with me. I'm gonna go to the bathroom real quick." Breaking away from his partner, the older man was led to the men's bathroom by his nurse. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one in there this time around. Apparently the boys of the institute were taking a shower, which meant he was a bit shit out of luck.

Kotetsu didn't really want to hurl or do whatever else was necessary to dispel this nausea in front of an audience, but there was no choice. In a stall, Kotetsu stood staring at the porcelain toilet with dread. The first buzzing of light-headedness and excessive saliva signaled the upsurgence of his stomach's contents.

"Okay, okay," the former Hero mumbled to himself as he waited for the inevitable. He squatted down to the toilet's level, palms beginning to sweat, but nothing came out. Kotetsu even gave a few dry heaves, but it was all for naught. Whatever this nausea was, it refused to leave him peacefully.

With a defeated sigh, Kotetsu flushed for posterity's sake and left the bathroom, rubbing his stomach the entire way back to the Sun Room where Barnaby was waiting for him.

[Bunny and Japan]

[baniichan]

If Barnaby wanted to be honest with himself, he didn't feel well, either. Though with everything that had happened during breakfast, he wondered if it was a combination of stress and skipping out on his meal. Maybe not eating had been for the best, though, if those pancakes were giving Kotetsu a sick stomach. Part of him worried that the food had been unsafe to eat after all, but it wasn't like a flood of patients became ill after every meal.

He pressed his lips together as his partner excused himself, but there wasn't much for him to do except settle down on one of the couches and wait. While he wanted to survey the grounds in an attempt to better understand the terrain surrounding the building, Barnaby inwardly recoiled at the idea of going out into the cold. He generally disliked lower temperatures anyway, and that feeling only grew more intense when he felt like he was catching something.

Barnaby resisted the urge to sigh. Getting sick was exactly what both of them needed right now. Great.

Assuming a composed expression, Barnaby did his best to cover any signs of illness or discomfort. He knew he had to, or else he'd practically broadcast his weaknesses to the surrounding patients and the staff who guarded them. Barnaby couldn't trust the people here not to take advantage of a single moment of carelessness, which meant constant vigilance.

He could only hope Kotetsu would return soon. Arms folded over his chest, Barnaby kept a sharp eye out for him.

[osoreirimasu]

That...had been rather cathartic. It wasn't often that Japan could simply be open with who he was here, especially since so many people were very quick to judge and none of them had apparently heard of the nations before. It was rather refreshing to be called by his real name and not his human one, and for that, Japan suddenly realized that it seemed silly to hide. Yes, the nurses - with their continued refusal to lend him a face mask - were on the side of Evil Forces(tm), but that didn't mean the patients were, right? So long as he used his knowledge of the Fourth Wall to his advantage, Japan could easily parse out who he could and couldn't tell about his true self. It might even be liberating! Exciting even!

Or, he could be called a crazy person. He wasn't sure which.

Walking across the Sun Room, Japan put a hand to his chin, thinking hard on this new development. "...It would be advantageous to allow my people to know that I am here..." They would, after all, take better care of themselves perhaps, or even find their spirits bolstered with the knowledge that their country was here to care for them. Or it could smash their hopes that even a nation could be held captive. Of course... "If they know that a nation is being held against their will, certainly the governments won't stay quiet, yes?" Of course not. Without a nation, what could a government be? His lands were still in existence even if the silence was prevailing and it only meant-- "I simply must find the source of whatever is blocking me from my people." --then he could be stronger and give America back his strength, England back his, and together they could all--

"Ah!"

Japan felt himself bump into something - or more accurately trip over a chair leg since he wasn't watching where he was going - and he fell. And not very gracefully either, which was a bit of a disappointment. Losing his balance, Japan tipped forward and rolled into a ball, somersaulting rather clumsily across the floor once, twice, three times, until he came to a rest in front of a tall blond man with glasses. The rolling made things a bit hazy, but he was certain this was not a person he knew. "...Ah." Wow, he was dizzy. "...I apologize. I did not hit you, did I?"