damned_institute | Night 59: Soccer/Recreational Field

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Night 59: Soccer/Recreational Field

[from here]

It was admittedly a little better outside. The air lacked the smell of too many things not-so-freshly killed and it felt less claustrophobic than the hallways by far. Unfortunately, even the sky seemed to be glowing faintly pink, which meant Code Fabulous was still in effect. It was casting a lot of freaky shadows.

Badou was starting to think that this might have been a bad idea. Passing through the Rec Field was the quickest route to Alle's room, but not necessarily the safest one. Despite the fact that he was moving quickly with his back mostly to the wall, he kept thinking he saw shapes moving out on the field.

He couldn't be more relived when his fingers closed around the cool metal of the knob and the door eased open. Unfortunately, he wasn't the only one who wanted in apparently. Something fat and mangy reared up about five feet ahead of him. Badou froze. The squirrel stared. Badou stared back. You have got to be kidding me.

"You wouldn't be one of those singing---"

The squirrel bared its teeth and lunged. Badou swung the door open, throwing his weight behind it as quickly as he could. The impact nearly pushed him off his feet, but squirrel face meeting door was a pretty fantastic sound. Badou grinned. Asshole.

Maybe when he told this story, he'd say it was a bear. And that he'd punched it in the face. And that it had stayed down, because Alvin sure as hell wasn't going to let a little head trauma get between them.

Badou, on the other hand, would be all too happy to end this sordid affair. He bolted. In retrospect, he should have pulled the door shut behind him.

[RUNNING THIS WAY.]

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"Yes," Allelujah replied, a small flicker of hope in his voice, because maybe this time, "maybe," they could go home. Or somewhere else. By this point he wasn't exactly being picky about where they went as long as it wasn't here and it wasn't worse.

He headed out across the field dauntlessly as a jog that he hoped Badou would be able to keep up with. He couldn't quite guage it anymore with his abilities returned to him full force.

Badou took a glance back at the institute, then turned and began jogging after Alle. They didn't have time for anything else. The chances of this kinda thing happening again were slim to none.

He might be a smoker but he spent a lot of time running, even around here, so the pace was a little quick but keeping up wasn't a problem yet. He had a feeling Alle could do this all night if he wanted to, and not being stuck in the institute come morning was a damn fine motivator for Badou. That and the yard being full of fucking squirrels.

It was going pretty well until he heard the screech. Up ahead, two dark shapes swooped down from the lovely disco pink sky, and the light glinting off their beaks and talons would have been hilarious and cliche and all that fun stuff if they weren't about to be buried in flesh.

"Fucking birds!" Badou swore, dodging out of the way. He figured his super-soldier best pal could handle himself for a split second before he realized Alle was the only one being targeted.

He glanced back to check that badou was following and smiled at him for a moment before focussing on running once more. Perhaps it was reckless to cross directly over the field, but the surge in power felt so good and he didn't feel like skulking around the outside against the wall. The monsters were outnumbered and outclassed tonight anyway.

Above!

He heard Hallelujah shout a second before Badou swore and even with his reflexes, he barely had time to move before the brid was on him, slashing down his arm as he grabbed for a bottle of acid. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he smashed the acid against the thing's bony chest, making it shriek in pain.

It jerked away, leaving him bleeding and open enough for the second one to make its attack.

Shit, they were swarming. Badou was changing direction before he even fully registered what he was doing. Weaponless and lacking any supernatural abilities, he probably wouldn't be much of a match for the birds, but it wasn't like he could just sit back and watch Alle get savaged by them.

As the second one dove for Alle, Badou leaped at it, which he would later recall as one of the dumbest things he'd ever done in a life full of doing incredibly stupid things. It didn't go down, but it staggered in the air, raking its claws across the side of his face with a furious shriek before he landed on his knees. It was accompanied by several more shrieks. Three more of the things were coming for Alle, including the one he'd just managed to distract.

Badou staggered to his feet, one hand over the bleeding side of his face. At least he was already blind on that side. It was like his lucky day or something.

"Alle there's too many! We gotta go back!"

He saw a red-haired blur hit the bird, knocking it off balance, but he barely had time to acknowledge Badou before having to turn to deal with the one he'd just injured. The pain had just made it angry and its claws were no less sharp. He ducked out of the way of one talon, heading for the wing and slashing it open with a shard of broken glass tube. It screamed, a shrill noise of pain, and lumbered around after him, not half so agile on the ground.

It wasn't enough. There was a sick feeling in his stomach as he saw the others flocking to join the first two and even with his strength and his skill, he wasn't supposed to be going up against monsters. He didn't have a Gundam, and he could still bleed.

He heard Badou's call, managing a quick glance at him. The blood across the side of his face, the blinded eye, seemed to snap something in him, shades of that battle, Lockon's ruined eye, fluttering in his head.

He ran, heading for Badou, but they were following him. They were following him, just him and he couldn't outrun them.

One of them hit him heavily, the wing making him stumble, hitting the ground heavily and Allelujah he twisted to face the diving things Allelujah! because he woudln't go down like this Allelujah listen to me! he had things to fight for.

"I don't want to die."

Then we won't.

Everything was going to hell. Just moments ago they had been jogging across the field and now they were surrounded by a cacophony of shrill cries and sharp beaks and talons. Badou's eye widened, his heart hammering in his chest. The birds were only interested in Alle. Why the fuck were they only interested in Alle? The part of him that had kept him around for so long told him to run. Survive. Because if he stayed, they both went down, and it was as simple as that.

And then Alle was running towards him, and the fucking bird on the ground tripped him up and something snapped in Badou as he hit the floor. The noise around him was like static. He didn't know when he broke into a run, but the first bird was nearly on Alle already.

"ALLE GET THE FUCK UP RIGHT NOW YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE SON OF A COCKSUCKING BITCH!"

He only managed to get between Alle and the others two. Talons raked his arms and shoulders, and he would have liked to pretend that he was doing more than flailing at them but it was probably only their utter disinterest in him that made him more of a distraction and less of a meal.

Then we won't die!

Perhaps it was Hallelujah's words, perhaps it was Badou's shrill scream, angry and savage, or perhaps it was the strangeness of the night, but it felt like a switch had been flipped in his mind. Suddenly, everything was moving slowly, sluggish, everything except him. He/They reached up, swept their fringe back from over that golden eye, and they grinned.

Left and they'll crash into each other.

Hallelujah's wild laugh and it happened as soon as he thought it, two halves of one whole working in perfect synchronicity. The bird-creature followed the way they rolled, crashing into one of the other birds in its eagerness and because it couldn't see like they did, couldn't move like they did, fast as a thought.

Well, that worked better than expected. Maniacal laughter was like music to his ears, and this time when the birds went after Alle he didn't make any move to intervene. He just watched, torn up arms dangling at his sides, a bubble of laughter at the back of his throat. It paid to be friends with badasses.

Even Heine had never moved that fast, not unless he lost himself. When they came down from this he'd worry about the fact that he'd never heard Alle laugh like that, or sweep his hair fully out of his face. For now, he couldn't really care too much because it was starting to look like the birds weren't on the top of the food chain anymore.

The one that had tripped up Alle earlier was already waddling after him, and this one Badou did go after - with the heel of his standard military issue boots to its back, then wing, then throat until he felt bone snap. "No, you stay down motherfucker."

There was being disinterested, and then there was being stupid enough to turn its back on him.

They'd never worked together like this before, him and Hallelujah. It had always been one or the other, all or nothing, control fought over violently until one of them overcame the other for control of the shell that they inhabited. And now... now it was what they were made to do and oh, those of them at the Institute, they had never realised what they had tried to kill, what they had deemed worthless when they had marked him as a failed experiment.

He laughed, Hallelujah and him, voices twisted together in black threads as they moved as one. They jerked backwards, away from the foundering birds, slashing with glass to slit the throat of the closest and it seemed almost slow motion when one of them charged at him, razor-beak missing him by millimetres but might as well have been miles. The other one blinded, acid in its eyes and in its beak, fizzing and hissing as rotting flesh was dissolved. He stabbed the glass right through it's scrawny throat and left it to bleed as he turned back to Badou.

Watching Alle work was nothing short of fucking terrifying. Badou wasn't even entirely sure of what happened, except that Alle was a fluid blur of death and the birds were helpless - actually, honest to god pathetic - in his wake.

And then he turned. This wasn't the same as dealing with Heine when he lost his shit, because there wasn't really any dealing to be done in that case. They both lost it, and then they both came back down to gunsmoke and blood, and then they changed into something clean and went out for pasta. Heine hadn't ever messed with him. He couldn't say the same about Alle's other side. 'Halle' had left bruises the first time he said hello. The rest of the fucking monsters were too terrified to come over.

Still, it didn't really matter, did it? Alle was his friend. That wasn't gonna change. So Badou took a step towards him, heart beating a little too fast.

"You alright?"

He felt... they felt... it was strange. A small frown crossed his face as Badou asked that question because he didn't know. They'd never done that before. It was always him or Hallelujah, never both and...

"You're moving really slowly," he said groggily, peering at Badou as he took a step. It was like watching something in slow motion. Did people really move that slowly? Did they really think that slowly, have to take time to plan things, even if to them it was barely a scant second.

Had they really moved so slowly when they had been separate?

He was covered in blood and whatever else the bird things had left on him, and his hands were burning from the acid and he felt more whole, more complete than he had done since that scarce remembered time before they'd cut his skull open and Hallelujah had appeared. He smiled, lopsided and just a little of both of them in it. He moved to push his fringe back down, but stopped partway there and left it, both eyes fixed on Badou.

Badou couldn't help it, he laughed. "Bro, I've got news for you... I've never seen anyone move that fast."

He wondered if Alle was even aware of it. He looked different with all of his hair out of his face. Really different. Badou had never seen that kind of smile on his face, but it was weirdly endearing, like he was gonna be just fine. Lost, but fine.

He felt the tension leave his shoulders, and suddenly he was aware again of the cold stinging the slashes across his face and arms. Most of the blood on him was his own, and he'd lost his eyepatch somewhere, too. He raked his own hair out of his face, if only because it was getting into his shiny new wounds. He should stop and patch up, but who knew how much longer they had now? He nodded once at Alle despite feeling just a little too exposed. (Starving kids stared at double cheeseburgers with that kind of intensity.)

"Let's keep going. We're not gonna get a chance like this again."

"We've never moved that fast before," Allelujah said, touching his forehead lightly. "We're not..." he shook his head, looking a little confused. "Hallelujah knew, I think. But Allelujah didn't so..." It was a little difficult to keep both sides of himself separate at the moment and talking about them was even worse so he decided to leave it at that.

He stepped closer, frowning at the blood and injuries across Badou's face and arms. He could see the blank eye-socket where the patch had been lost. Because of him. "You could have run," he said quietly, sounding a little taken aback by the idea that Badou had stuck around.

"Ah, we should go," he agreed, glancing towards the wall.

It was sort of weird to hear him talking about both of his... personalities... and neither one at the same time. Badou frowned. To be honest everything to do with that was just downright concerning but he wasn't about to give himself a headache trying to sort it out right now. This had gotten them out of a pretty bad scrape, and if Alle kept it up it wasn't gonna hurt their chances of getting out tonight. "So, what should I call you now?"

That look on his face was pure Alle. He seemed to share a lot of expressions with lost puppies in the rain. Badou waved it off and flinched, barely resisting the urge to draw his arm back and wrap his fingers around it. That would just lead to more puppy faces. "Could have," He agreed easily. "You coming or what?"

He didn't wait for Alle to respond. He started jogging toward the wall again.

He just stared for a moment, then gave an odd smile. "I'm sorry. I'm confusing, aren't I?" he asked. "You don't have to call me anything else," he added seriously. "I'm still me, we're still us. Just... better at working together, I think. They never expected this. Their loss." They were better than they could have ever dreamed of. He hadn't changed. Not really.

He caught the flinch when Badou waved, expression becoming suspicious for a moment. "I'm coming," he agreed. "Let's get as far as we can." And then they could stop and he could see how badly hurt Badou was.

Better at working together, huh? Actually, that did make some sense, and he could see it. "That's just my kinda surprise."

His fingers were numb with cold and slick with blood by the time they reached the wall. Normally he wouldn't have had much trouble getting over it, but he wasn't about to risk splitting his head open when they were this close. "Hey, gimmie a boost?"

He had to restrain himself from running full speed towards the wall and bounding over it as quickly as he could. He felt energetic, better than he had in a long while, with the strange bubble of excitement welling inside him. It was like a furnace, that feeling, and it was new and interesting.

"Of course," he said, when Badou asked, and he didn't like the look of him, how pale Badou was even in comparison. He stooped, offering Baodu a perch to help him clamber up to the top of the wall.

"Thanks." Getting over the wall was doable with Alle's help, but a wave of dizziness hit him at the top. Not enough to make him lose his footing - climbing walls in the cold, even with slick hands, he'd done that more than once - but enough to make him realize he was losing more blood than he thought. Even though they were relatively shallow, he had too many cuts from those damn birds.

"You got this?" Alle didn't look like he needed any help over, so Badou dropped down on the other side.

[to here]

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Night 59: Soccer/Recreational Field

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