damned_institute | Night 66: Main Hallway, 1-Center

> Karkat: Find the girl.

Well, he found a girl, but he couldn't say if it was the right one or not. Given that she was the only girl even in the hallway so far made it look like she was, but he'd have to ask her to be sure.

The troll hefted the metal bat in his hands. It was comforting to have a weapon at the ready in unfamiliar territory, but technically it didn't belong to him. It belonged to his roommate, and said roommate had insisted he give it to the girl in front of the sun room.

So he took a few steps closer to her, clearing his throat. "Inoway?"

((ooc: If Rita wants to respond to this, it'll only take a couple tags.))

[Sure!]

Rita continued to wait with her arms folded as a few patients started to enter the main halls. Each of them only received a tiny glance, and were subsequently ignored once she confirmed that they weren't the person she was waiting for.

But one of them, a dark-haired boy, didn't appear to be ignoring her in return. He approached, and said something in her direction. Rita hadn't expected anyone else to come talk to her, and for a moment, she couldn't tell if he misspoke or if he thought that 'Inoway' was her name.

"Um. Are you talking to me?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

That probably answered that.

"Obviously not, unless your name happens to be Inoway." Or Inoue, as was the proper pronunciation, but he hadn't exactly had the time to go over the way it was said as Ishida had been being dragged out the door.

He sighed, running a hand through messy hair. "I'm supposed to meet some hu--... some girl in front of this room, but you're the only girl I see here. If you're not her, I guess I'll just wait."

He could be patient. It wasn't like he hadn't learned anything during all that time spent on the asteroid.

Looked like a case of mistaken identity. It probably wasn't so uncommon, with how many people made plans over the bulletin instead of face-to-face. "Yeah, that's not me," Rita confirmed with a shrug.

She caught that brief slip of the tongue, and had an inkling as to what it implied... but this wasn't really the time or place for an interrogation. That, and Rita wasn't that concerned with the affairs of strangers to begin with.

Karkat rolled his eyes in exasperation. "Figures."

Nothing was ever that simple. For all he knew Ishida had even given him the wrong information and he was waiting somewhere for someone who wasn't going to show. Maybe she'd been taken too. Some sort of messed up date in the labratory hosted by their captors.

He rested the bat on his shoulders and moved away from her to wait on the other side of the hall next to the doorframe. At least that would allow for an easy escape route if he needed to make a run for it.

[moving down a thread]

[From here.]

As they got closer to the Sun Room, the beam of light from Lloyd's flashlight illuminated a couple of figures standing in the hall. They weren't standing together, more like they just happened to be in the same place at the same time. Neither one was familiar to Lloyd, certainly not the boy they'd been hoping to find. Lloyd glanced at them, then at the girl at his side, slowing his pace as he tried to figure out what this situation meant.

"You said you were going to meet Ishida outside the Sun Room, right?" He still kept his voice down. He tried to ignore the nervous tension that tried to grip at his gut. "You think he might be inside?"

She had just finished repairing a gash on Lloyd's arm and was in the process of healing another when she stepped in line with him into the hallway. By now, tired was more or less an understatement, but she fought through it stubbornly, keeping their pace; her head was a bit fuzzy, and despite her efforts, she was unable to stifle the yawn that broke through, stretching her mouth into a wide 'O' as the sound came out and echoed against the walls of the corridor.

Blearily she realized Lloyd-san was talking to her, and she nodded her head towards him, smiling sheepishly as she rubbed at her eye. "Yes. Just... outside, I believe. He's a really punctual person, so he should be right around here," Orihime intoned, but as she looked around through her slightly droopy eyelids, she couldn't spot Ishida-kun's unmistakably unique haircut. With Lloyd's flashlight on, too, it shouldn't be any trouble for them to catch a faint flicker of her classmate's glasses at the very least...

Not to mention, wouldn't Ishida-kun have noticed her and her Shun Shun Rikka by now...?

It was a feeling like something heavy had dropped from the inside of her throat and into her chest, but she forced herself to hide her alarm, the cold prickling that had started along the surface of her arms. "Maybe we can ask someone..."

Like the boy. With the bat. He didn't look very happy either, but desperate times called for desperate measures. "E-excuse me," she attempted, as she led Lloyd carefully towards the slightly scowling boy perched next to the door frame. "We're... looking for someone." She wobbled when she pulled her hand from where it was once hovering over the other boy's arm beside her. Gesticulating, she brought her fingers up until they were six or so inches above her head. "About yea high-- oh, but I guess he's shrunk, huh... --Um, wears glasses, wears his hair like- well his bangs are like mine, but black... Talks like a president, goes by Ishida Uryuu?"

The moment it looked as though the new boy and girl would be heading in his direction, Karkat had planned to approach the female about her being the one his roommate was looking for. (And he planned to continue this treatment with any other girl that came into the area if she wasn't.)

However, suddenly she was approaching him, and anything he'd been about to say died on his lips as he found himself staring at the largest pair of rumble spheres he'd ever laid eyes on. Perhaps this wasn't saying much, given that he spent most of his time in the company of the troll equivalent of thirteen and fourteen year olds, but he'd seen pictures. It was even more mesmerizing on a human, because they had these fleshy bodies that caused those spheres to jiggle with every slight movement they made. They were like two inflated pouches filled with water that hung from the front of a woman's body, and he honestly couldn't understand how she kept her balance walking with such a thin physique and such a top heavy load on her torso. And dammit, he was still staring and she was talking to him now.

Of course this was the girl he was looking for. She all but said as much, mentioning his roommate's name. Yanking his eyes away from those mammalian spheres of doom, he quickly shoved the bat in his hands in her direction.

"He's my current hivemate. Said to give this to you. A couple of the humans on staff came in and dragged him off after dinner." And that was surprisingly not awkward. He'd half expected to slip human breast references accidentally into most of his response, like something out of a poorly written romantic comedy.

Edited 2012-10-09 03:44 (UTC)

The yawn was Lloyd's first clue to how tired Inoue was. He opened his mouth to ask her if she was all right, but then she was already talking, already heading for the other boy. But that yawn and the way she rubbed her eyes meant that he was already on alert when she wobbled unsteadily as she talked and waved her arms. He didn't think. He just responded, reaching out to steady her before she could trip or stumble. His injured arm went around her waist.

"Whoa, careful, Inoue."

Only after he'd acted did he realize how stupid a move that had been. He'd used that arm because it was closest, but he shouldn't have because it was still... hurt? He blink, then tried to look at his arm, but it was still around Inoue's waist. It still stung, not healed all the way, but it didn't hurt anymore. Even his ribs felt better. Maybe she'd made more progress than he thought and it only felt like it was taking forever.

His attention was abruptly dragged away from his injuries when the other boy darted forward and- He was swinging the bat-! Lloyd's other hand was already jerking up to defend before he realized the dark-haired boy wasn't attacking, but offering Inoue the bat. Feeling silly, he lowered his flashlight again.

"Wait, they dragged him off?" The alarm that had risen when he'd though Karkat was attacking refused to go down after that. His insides knotted. That couldn't be good. "Why? Where did they take him?"

If she noticed all of the attention their new acquaintance was giving her, then... well, her eyes were directed elsewhere, too.

Because Lloyd-san had pulled his arm around her waist, and it was enough of a movement to jar her concentration; Ayame and Shun'o temporarily retreated into her pins, and she was left awkwardly hanging off of the other boy's shoulder as she tried to regain her balance on uncoordinated feet, looking up at Lloyd with her eyes half-closed and her vision still slightly spinning. And certainly, it was embarrassing to have Lloyd worry over her (the proximity and the fact that he was practically holding her up was also somewhat flustering, but -- priorities!). More concerning, however, was the fact that, yes, she was tired. Perhaps it was the lack of restful sleep to blame, and for now Orihime was absolutely willing to believe that it was the lack of rest was to blame for her fatigue.

"Oh, thank you, but I'm perfectly-" She paused.

And sneezed.

"...E-excuse me," she said, rubbing her nose on her sleeve as the bat was held out to her. She stared at it quizzically for a long nearly painful moment to figure out what exactly it was for, if this new boy was asking her to play, but of course, nothing was ever that easy.

Her heart sank.

Lloyd-san was already asking, but she could barely hear him through the blood streaming through her ears, the sudden panic that seemed to highlight the high-pitched sound that screeched inside of her head. Her face paled, a chill zapped down her spine, but somehow she mustered the strength to push herself up on her weakened ankles, letting go of Lloyd and leaning in to chime along with him, asking in earnest, "We have to go save him. Immediately!"

There was something wrong with the girl, or she was just extremely worn out from some other activity he really didn't want to think about. Maybe she'd worn herself out playing outside or something. Who could even say with humans, though he very much doubted that was the case. It was none of his business, really, but he continued to mentally berate himself over his original reaction.

He almost facepalmed over her reaction, however, as it was a reminder of Ishida's original instructions, and of how he'd failed to deliver them.

"Wait. Fuck." Oh yeah. Language. "I mean shoot. I mean... I don't suppose it's too late to take that back? Ishida said to just say he'd changed his plans." As he was being dragged out the door. Yeah, he'd probably screwed up on this one big time. His roommate hadn't wanted her coming after him, most likely.

But why not? If they were friends, she should have every right to want to make sure he was safe. Trolls didn't have the same protective nature towards their women that a lot of human men had, which probably had something to do with how they didn't all give birth to grubs, or however it was with mammals. Unless she was this weak all the time and Ishida had some romantic interest in her, he saw no reason for her not to try and help him out. If that was even a possible thing.

Wait. Had there been movement in the glow of Inoue's healing just now? Lloyd thought he'd seen something blurry for a moment, but-

But then the glow faded and Inoue was pulling away, and whatever it was wasn't important because someone needed help here and now. There was no way he was going to pretend Karkat hadn't said what he'd said. "If he just changed his plans, he wouldn't have been dragged off like that. Did they say anything about where they were taking him? Which way did they go?"

A lot of human men were protective of girls, and Lloyd certainly wasn't an exception. Even now, his attention kept darting to Inoue, as though waiting to see if she was going to start to wobble again. With Lloyd, though, it wasn't just girls he wanted to protect. He wanted to protect as many people as he could, especially those around him.

In some ways, Orihime was the type to be slow on the uptake. In others, it was simply a matter of deliberately overlooking, of pretending not to worry if it meant it would ease the burden off of the people surrounding her. Sometimes she'd laugh it off and address it later; sometimes it was easier to let the conflict take place in the forefront, to do small things in the background, instead.

Tonight was not one of those times.

There was still some fatigue clinging to her limbs, her joints, and although it felt heavy just to move, it didn't pose much of a problem. For there was renewed energy simmering through her now, an invigorating shock that made her heartbeat quicken, that spiked the adrenaline in her system. She was tired, but it was nothing compared to the anxiety, the burning at the back of her eyes as she was left wondering, worrying over what-ifs, what-happens-whens. Her mind worked on overdrive, shooting images from the day's proceedings like a stream of bullets into her imagination:

Patients turning into monsters, nurses with needles, people leaving the institute. Even Kurogane came to mind, and about meeting him, and what would it even be like, if Ishida-kun arrived days later with no memory of having met her before?

No -- calm down. Her mind asserted, her hands balled into fists in front of her chest. You have to calm down. You can't do this. Not again.

"...Please," she started, voice firm although her brows were furrowed. Lloyd-san had already asked, but she was still anxious, still trying to calm her nerves. "You're... his roommate, right? Maybe there was something-- they said, or looked like that could give us a clue about where they were going."

Edited 2012-10-12 01:35 (UTC)

Oh no. Now they were giving him these concerned faces. And it wasn't as if turning an unconcerned face to this was going to get him any brownie points with anyone. They had a completely unfair advantage here. This whole day had just been one bit of unfairness after another.

He had his own problems to worry about, like this human body he'd found himself stuck in. No one seemed to care about that, though. That was normal around here, and he had others to compete with as far as fixing that situation went. And he guessed as far as bad situations to be in, it didn't win over the possible experimentation their friend was going through. (Unless of course said experimentation was going to put him in the body of another species, in which case their positions were about the same.)

Speaking of that, he should probably be straight with them now that he'd gone and messed up his instructions already.

"It was just some of the people that work here, though a couple might have been a little larger than the asshats I was seeing most of the day. They stuck a fluid injector into one limb and then took him away. That's about all there is." Drugged and dragged off. You didn't get much simpler than that.

Lloyd might have cared if he'd known that Karkat wasn't what he seemed to be, but as it was, he only knew of the one immediate problem: the location of Ishida Uryuu and what might be happening to him. Unfortunately, it didn't look like Ishida's roommate really knew much beyond the fact that Ishida had been taken. Lloyd let out a breath, frustrated by the situation.

"Okay, we'll just have to go with what we know, then. We know where he was taken from - or, well, you do." He gestured toward Karkat. "I don't know where your room is, but that's where we need to start. Unless one of you has a better idea, or knows where the doctors take people for... whatever they've taken him for?" He didn't want to say experiments, but the word hovered in the air anyway, ugly and harsh and all too possible, and impossible to ignore.

"I'm Lloyd, by the way." Because he'd realized he didn't know the other boy's name. The gesture he'd used to point at Karkat turned into a held out hand. If they were going to work together (and he assumed that they were, didn't even think to question it), they should know each other's names. "Lloyd Irving."

Hivemate. Fluid injector. Inexplicably strange was the way this new boy spoke. And of course she noticed, of course she realized that it was probably not his problem, that a roommate that he'd likely just met was drugged and then taken away with little ceremony.

Which was honestly at odds with the bigger picture. After all, he had waited for her, hadn't he? Following Ishida-kun's request, no doubt (if the excuse -- changed his plans -- when he was really sedated and taken captive was of any indication). Still, it was ultimately something that was very much the boy's choice to do.

He was kind. Even though he was so casual about the entire situation, Orihime could tell that much. And although it was difficult, when tunnel vision still had her focusing on Lloyd-san's pause -- take people for... -- she knew that it wasn't fair, to unload onto strangers.

"I'm Inoue Orihime," she chimed in after Lloyd-san had introduced himself. Her voice was quiet, but a little brighter now that she was able to smile. "Thank you very much for waiting for me... it put a bit of a dent in your plans, didn't it? I'm sorry, but -- thank you. Very much for coming here, and for telling me the truth."

She paused then, squeezing her fingers, forcing away the creeping blackness that sometimes came in from the edges of her vision.

"I," Orihime started, tone careful and uncertain as she kept her gaze trained on the floor, "will be going to look for Ishida-kun. After I heal Lloyd-san, of course, but-

"He's my friend, so," she looked up, trying her best to square her shoulders and smooth out the worried expression on her face with a crooked smile. Honestly, it wasn't wise to go about it on her own, when she still didn't know what she could do, when three heads were better than one, and yet- "I don't want to trouble the two of you. I know you-- probably have other plans!"

These people were way too friendly to be companions of his roommate. But then what did he know, given the odd mix in the players of his session? He was mostly just inwardly complaining at this point, because the friendlier they were, the more difficult it was to be irritated at them.

Or perhaps he could be irritated at them simply because they were so friendly. It wouldn't be the first time he'd done that.

He wasn't sure he should be amused or embarrassed about how they kept bringing up how they were interrupting his 'plans' when he had no other plans to speak of. This had literally been it - get the bat, bring the bat to the girl. His roommate's abduction had thrown him off so much that he hadn't even thought to make plans beyond that point. What else was he going to do without someone else to wander with after he'd been told so many times not to go out on his own?

When Llyod spoke up, he was able to focus at least a little of his annoyance. "The fuck is the point of going back to my room? It's not like they left bright glowing tracks leading out."

No comment was made about how they were or weren't taking up his 'precious' time. He could act like they were a burden on him for now.

"Whatever plans I had aren't as important as this," Lloyd reassured Inoue. "Ishida needs us. My plans can wait." The only thing he'd even really been planning to do was search the Institute for the rest of his things. It was nice to have his clothes back. It made him feel much more confident somehow to have boots on his feet instead of thin slippers. Still, he'd feel even better if he had his swords back and not just the dagger hanging from his belt.

Speaking of his clothes, though, now that Inoue wasn't healing his arm, he pulled his jacket off from where it was draped over his shoulder and started shrugging it on, juggling the flashlight as he did so. The movement pulled at his half-healed wounds, but his ribs and arm still felt so much better than before, easily something he could deal with. "Don't worry about healing me the rest of the way," he said. "I'm okay now, and that looked like it tired you out. You should conserve your mana in case Ishida needs it." He kept his tone firm, letting her know that he wasn't going to argue on this.

Arguing on something else, though... He frowned at Karkat's response. "Well, where do you think we should start, then?" If he was going to shoot down Lloyd's suggestion, he should at least have one of his own. "Maybe there's something you missed. Maybe Ishida left a clue."

It came as both a relief and a slight disappointment, but she tried not to let it translate into her smile, as brittle as it was already. A strange feeling indeed, when she faulted herself for her lack of confidence, for being even the slightest bit apprehensive and afraid. After all, Orihime had learned by now how dependence could cripple a person, a group of people, and how frustrating was it to her that old habits died hard and she feared for the moment that she'd lose Lloyd-san's company.

There was no good in thinking that way, though. And by the time she truly smiled at the other boy, she had steeled herself in, standing straight and firm (even as her vision blurred before her). "Thank you, Lloyd-san." I'm sorry, she almost said, but there was no need -- she'd find a way to heal him all the way, too, in the end.

"Or," she ventured hopefully, turning towards the boy with the bat, "maybe he left his journal?" But that wouldn't help, she figured; if Ishida-kun had drawn a map, then he would've given her directions around the place earlier in the day.

"... Eh... maybe it'd be quicker if we just asked someone for directions."

"What, you think if we just go up and ask someone where to find the rooms they torture people in they'll be able to show us the way? Is that like a commonly known location around here? Because all I've been hearing is how no one is able to escape from this place, and being able to just walk in and rescue someone would kinda go against that."

That was certainly a defeatest way to look at things, wasn't it? Perhaps he shouldn't have been so mean about it, but Karkat commonly suffered from the inability to filter his thoughts before speaking them. Sadly, knowing this didn't keep him from doing it often anyway.

He looked just a little apologetic after that, mostly due to how stupidly innocent they both seemed. "Whatever. If you want to go back there, then fine. I don't know what all he had anyway. I don't just go poking around in other people's stuff."

Usually.

"...And then maybe you can sit down." He raised an eyebrow at the girl. "You look like shit."

Something about that pessimistic tone was starting to get on Lloyd's nerves. People who gave up before they'd even tried everything made it sound like they didn't even want to succeed. "How do you know it's not as simple as that?" he shot back. "Just because we haven't heard of someone making it out doesn't mean it hasn't happened. It just means we haven't heard about it yet."

As though to prove his point, he swung his flashlight around to scan the rest of the hall. The girl who'd been there before was gone, though, and as far as he could tell, no one else was around. Undaunted, Lloyd turned back to face the other two.

"Even if it hasn't been done yet, that doesn't mean it's impossible. Dwarven Vow number sixteen: You can do anything if you try. We should still give it a shot."

Defeatism? Meet idealism. I'm sure you'll make wonderful friends.

"So, you'll take us back to Ishida's room?"

Rooms they torture people in--

That was an awful, awful feeling that dropped into her stomach at the sound of those words. Orihime swallowed, and it was a relief to say the least, when Lloyd-san had picked up where her voice had failed her, when the reality of it had been too terrible to even try to imagine. But then again -- Frankenstein easily came to mind. Or perhaps the image of a man strapped down to a doctor's table. He'd have woken up in the middle of the night only to find that his doctor was dressed in a tuxedo and magician's garb, a chainsaw in his hand and a manic grin on his face as he intoned, trust me, I'm a doctor.

(The reality of it was, she was not new to it. There had been a time and a terrible moment when the air smelled like blood and burnt flesh, when there was a man, a murderer, who stood in front of her and Ishida-kun, offering her the opportunity to become a test experiment.

But she'd buried the memory. Now, she tried not to let it reach out and grab her from where she had last left it.)

"Y-yes!" She squeaked, holding her hands up defensively. "We're going to have to turn our frowns upside down and... Well, at least we can't sit around and mope. If we really sit here thinking something like, 'what's the point!' Then of course we're not going to get anywhere." Those dwarves really knew what they were talking about...

But um.

"I'm really fine," she lied -- fibbed? -- insisted as she shrugged her shoulders, clasping her hands together. "So- maybe we can check Ishida-kun's journal. Or ask around? If we see someone in another hallway, perhaps..."

Maybe if she tried hard enough, she'd be able to feel him... see his reiatsu, or maybe catch wind of one of his arrows.

Dwarven? Did that make this guy some other species originally too? And that wasn't even a vow. That was a statement. But really, correcting this guy on something like that wasn't going to get them anywhere right now.

And that girl? Totally not 'fine'. At least not when it came to her state of well-being, as she was certainly attractive enough to be considered 'fine' in another sense. He made sure his expression let her know just how wrong he found her assurances to be, but honestly he wasn't going to push it much further than that. At least not yet.

If they were going to insist on heading back to his room, then there was no point in standing around and discussing it further. He pulled away from the way and shoved his way past the other boy.

"Alright, you wanna talk until your seedflaps fall off, or do you want to search for your fucking clues?"

> ==>

Night 66: Main Hallway, 1-Center

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