Day 56: Bus 1

[tightsofmight]

Previously, on Peter Parker's Sucky Life:

Pain, pain, fourth wall bulldozing, fire and pain, and teeny useless swords.

Yeah, so Peter wasn't feeling so hot today. It was a marked improvement on waking up after getting shanked by Grell, but this was in no way a good morning. They had all made it through the basement trials and got their dinky rewards, but man did they pay a hefty price for it. All of them. (Scott and the others had to fight robot raptors? What the hell...) Peter rose from his bed oh so delicately and with much wincing, thanking whoever it was that carried them back to bed every night for putting him belly down on his mattress.

His back, oh god. Peter seethed and hissed and grunted in pain. It felt like it was scabbing over, and the bandages yanked at the tender skin with every minute muscle spasm, every move he made. Cripes. Better his back than his arms or legs, but still. It was going to make things so difficult if they got stuck in Doyleton all over again.

Brainy was so thoroughly wrapped in his blankets on the other side of the room that Peter couldn't make heads or tails of his current state. But he'd stayed in the whole night, right? He should be fine.

Sometimes he just needed extra convincing of that. Considering the guy's track record and all.

From the sounds of it, this Aguilar guy wasn't changing too much of the routine. Being field trip day, Peter had wondered how the new man in charge would handle it (or how General Lieutenant Burger would, apparently). If he planned on letting them out at all. The announcement squashed that theory, and so did the orderly tromping in with a second-hand change of clothes. The burly man passed him the goods without so much as a word, stomping right back outside to wait behind the door. Guess they weren't going in military gear.

...Orderly? Peter pushed the door open again after performing the hastiest change of clothes he could manage in his state, peering at the man. That guy was in an army uniform yesterday. He remembered him. His buzz cut was uneven and he had a pointy old mole on the back of his neck.

"Uh. Are you going incognito?"

He was suddenly on the end of such a pointed look Peter could swear he was talking to Nick Fury. If Nick Fury was white and still had both eyes. "...Right. Okay. Lead the way, hombre."

So undercover it was. The people of Doyleton didn't know this was a military operation. Briefly, he wondered what the advantages of revealing that to the townsfolk could be, but then he remembered how they'd all up and morphed into the living dead at sundown. Put to rest any usefulness they might have had. They were just puppets, the same as the rest of the creepy crawlies in this hellhole.

Though that did beg the question as to why you would have to hide your secrets from puppets in the first place.

He was bequeathed with the usual paper bag lunch and packet of coupons, though he was still surprised to find himself a $15 gift card in the mix. Intercom Dude wasn't kidding about that?

He had money?

...What would he even do with money in Doyleton? What was fifteen dollars and worth buying that wasn't a gourmet burger? Peter boggled at the card as he clambered onto the bus. He'd never gone through the town with any inclination to window shop, so he couldn't even say what was available. He might actually have to look around. Even something simple might be a big help.

The orderly-formerly-known-as-Private-Dwight followed him on tucked a pillow into his seat for him. "Sit down. And don't do anything stupid. You'll heal a lot faster if you don't agitate it."

Peter fidgeted, but quietly settled into the pillow. This was kind of awkward. "Um. Thank you. I deeply appreciate your concern." The man nodded, and was gone.

Peter was the only one on the bus so far. The emptiness was kind of creeping him out.

[Reserved for Harvey Dent. WHY AM I TOP POSTING EVERYTHING YOU JERKS.]

Comments

[moral-liberty.livejournal.com]

"No." Then Stefan, too, had noticed. Kaworu was more like the Lilim than any of the other Angels, and yet, they could tell he was separate. There was too much that he could not emulate, and felt no desire to. It had been pointless for most of his life. The degree to which he fit in was irrelevant when surrounded by those who already knew. It was only later that it had any significance to his life, and even then, only for a short while. He had only needed to be one of them briefly, and only Shinji had truly believed him. Kaworu's hand closed and unclosed.

Here, it was once again meaningless. Without Adam, without the Angels, Kaworu was detached. He was still not of the Lilim, though. He would never be.

"The Lilim exist separately, but I've known nothing else." He stopped, and considered. Stefan wanted an account of his life. How he had lived. "My life was unremarkable, until I met Shinji."

[sainted]

"The Lilim?" Stefan echoed, the word unfamiliar on his tongue. Despite being a supernatural being himself, he was far from an expert on folklore or other arcane knowledge. Most vampires simply relied on witches for that part, if they cared at all, and of course there were those who made this sort of research their life's work, such as Elena's mother (and to a somewhat lesser degree, people like Alaric Saltzman). If ever Stefan had studied the same, it was a long time ago, during one of those difficult periods in which he sought explanations for what he was and where they came from, only to realize some years later that he wasn't going to find justification for his life in an occult text.

In spite of his searching, in spite of all of the decades he'd existed on this Earth, he never did find much of one — not until he met Elena. Stefan's eyebrows raised as he regarded Kaworu for a secord, surprised to hear the boy's words echo his thoughts. But it wasn't intentional, not like Edward's telepathy. Just... a coincidence.

I've known nothing else. What did that mean? He had too many things he could say in response to Kaworu's vague statements, but in the end, decided to settle on the easiest one. "Shinji. That's the boy we went to rescue a few nights ago, isn't it? Your... friend?"

[moral-liberty.livejournal.com]

"Yes," he agreed. It was, he supposed, the best word for it. It wasn't specific, and it didn't demonstrate all that there was between them, but that was not unusual. The pitfalls of language. The weaknesses of expression. Nuance and one's own thoughts augmented a word and made it personal, but only in one's own mind. Shinji was a friend, but was associated with specific events and memories that differentiated him limitlessly from Stefan, or from Ayanami, or from Otacon. These things were beyond words. He suspected the Lilim felt the same, but there was no surety.

Without fully realizing it, he had begun to smile again. The dull unfocused distance in his eyes was dismissed, and he met Stefan's eyes clearly. Stefan's passing curiosity mirrored Kaworu own. As they both experienced love, perhaps it was of greater interest when they saw it in others. But again, Kaworu only knew himself.

And although there was always happiness associated with Shinji, the memories of that night tainted and darkened that. "But I believe Shinji was hurt that night," he added, barely more than a murmur. "Deeper, and unseen. What happened to Elena?"