Day 62: Women's Showers (4th Shift)

[fourstonewalls]

Lana was the first into the showers when the doors opened; she didn't really have a problem with communal showers, but she needed a few minutes to herself, a few minutes where she didn't have to watch her every reaction with the eyes of an ace interrogator. The tiles told no secrets, or, if they did, not to any of the other patients, and the near-scalding hot water spraying around her made an adequate do-not-cross line. She shampooed her hair, fingers tugging out the tangles one by one, and then ducked her entire head under the water. Her eyebrows needed plucking; with no makeup, no suit with tailoring that ran as close to military lines as could be respectful, no battles of wits that ran half on appearance and the other half on intimidation, she'd let things go. Pity. She'd need to fix that. They'd be in town tomorrow; perhaps she could purchase a few things then.

She had let herself relax. Taken a vacation, in this dead-end, because the only thing that had kept her going when everything had gone to hell was here, safe and sound and willing to forgive her. And now they were back to square one, at best. The worst-case scenario was what she needed the armor against.

She wrung as much water as she could out of her hair, tucked it behind her ears, and dressed in silence, as other women were still filing in.

[to here]

Comments

[selfnighted]

She'd lost the opportunity again to see the courtyard walls. No matter, she told herself as she turned a faucet, if it were easy to escape through there, surely others had found a way....

The issue was whether anyone else thought like her and avoided trying for that very reason, but Maya shrugged it off. It mattered not; she simply needed to investigate for herself. For now, her only concern was getting through the shower quickly. Doubtless the head doctor thought it amusing that the patients shouldn't enter these rooms every day. Even if she didn't believe that, the entire affair was irritating in the sense of having to expose more of herself than she wanted to show out of necessity, even as she was aware that anything else must erode the veneer of normalcy that the asylum wanted to maintain.

Which brought her thoughts back to why the deception was in place to begin with. Whoever or whoever Landel worked for didn't have a secret base that they could run this operation from, Maya gathered.

[free]

[diamondstorm]

At least with sharing information, Renamon could feel like she was actually doing something, even if there was no visible forward motion. Sharing things with others assisted their likelihood of chances, and it was possible that upon speaking things, others would see a way that she did not.

But the day was almost over and she needed to decide what she was doing before the day was up. She washed quickly and quietly left.

[to here]

[survives]

It was almost a relief, finally getting to take a shower, even a communal one. A chance to feel almost human again, something she hadn't been denied even in Aetersyl. (Then again, as horrible as that place had ended up being, they'd always treated her well.) How long had it been since she'd arrived, since she'd last set foot in her home in Ebel City? Far too long, as far as Leanne was concerned, especially if she'd spent that entire time without bathing.

She hadn't been able to help but wonder just why it'd been so long, out loud even, but on the way there, the nurse had promptly informed her that she'd managed to sleep through the last time the women had a chance to shower.

Great.

Right. She'd just have to make sure she didn't sleep through any more important things, she decided as she set to washing her hair.

Which brought to mind another, entirely different, matter. ...Would there be anywhere she could find some hair dye?

[free!]

[sarcasmfordummies]

She'd expected the showers and had both welcomed and dreaded the coming shift where she would be able to get one not to herself. Lord knew she needed one, even if it was one of the more embarrassing things she wanted to do there.

Begrudgingly she striped down, grumbling under her breath and eying the nurses and orderlies watching them. When she was ready she headed in and avoided everyone until she found a shower head. From the moment she got the hot water working, the rest of the world did not matter. An almost proper shower was better than none.

She cleaned herself as best she could, starting at her hair and working her way down. It wasn't until she got to her legs that she unfortunately realized she wouldn't have a choice this time. She had to get a razor somehow, but knowing these nurses? Ugh. She nearly tried to make herself deal with the fact that she could hide stubble with her clothes, but that made things worse in her mind. She really didn't have a choice.

"What do you mean I can't do it on my own!?"

[continued over here]

[madeinthehrl]

All in all, Soma decided, today had been acceptable. Or at least as acceptable as a day could get in the confines of a mental institute turned supersoldier facility. If nothing else, she'd at least gotten to speak to Lingormr and Rapunzel, and now she'd finally get to meet Rapunzel's friend.

She washed quickly, rinsed her hair, and headed back to meet her nurse. Inquiring about the whereabouts of a Tsubaki got her nowhere until she added a physical description ("Oh! You mean Miyu!"). She evaded the inevitable lecture about not encouraging other people's delusions, and headed for the Sun Room.

[madeinthehrl]

[to here]