Day 60: Music Room (Fourth Shift)

[norainu]

It wasn't often that Renji felt less like punching people in general as his day wore on. This was a new experience for him. A not unwelcome one, if he was being honest. And the fact that he felt less like punching Fai? Kind of mind-blowing. The sort of thing Zen masters would probably use as a kouan to reach an all-new level of non-punching enlightenment.

So he was back from the dead, almost everyone he'd known was gone, and yet bizarrely his day felt like it was looking up. Kind of. Renji wasn't sure what to make of this. Maybe his grumpy meter was just nearing empty. That was as good an explanation as the next, considering how this place made him feel.

Whatever the reason, he ended up in the music room. And he remembered oh yeah. He'd always kind of hated this damn shift. He grabbed a little book of music and a drum and retreated quickly to the far end of the room. He put the drum down in front of him just so he looked like he was doing something and opened the book. But he had no idea how to read music, and really, he was more interested in the ongoing puzzle of what the hell had happened in the last four weeks.

And brooding. Of course. There was always brooding to be done.

[Okay Tolten, let me lay it out for you. When there's a mommy and a daddy... or sometimes a daddy and a dadddy. Or, hell, sometimes a mommy and a mommy if you buy the right kind of wood cuts (and a third mommy if you go to just the right shop)... but anyway when they love each other very much, or at least a suitably large amount of money changes hands, there are some things that happen...]

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[full-score.livejournal.com]

Claude's stomach churned as his nurse led him into the music room. When she commented on how pale he looked, he managed to wave her off with a weak smile. Inside, though, he had no idea what to do. With no way to warn Mom of what to expect, and no way to convince her to stay out of the coliseum, he was powerless to stop her, short of physically blocking her way into the basement.

And he knew his mother well enough to realize that even that wouldn't be enough to keep her out. If anything, she'd probably become more determined to investigate the area. And what was he supposed to do? Block her way into the basement every night?

Maybe she'd eventually see reason, though. Maybe, at least, she'd delay going down there in order to try to collect more information. Maybe she'd--

"Thomas, why don't you go take a seat with Milo over there?" his nurse gently suggested, cutting into his thoughts and pushing him forward with a firm hand. Claude's gaze settled on a familiar head of red hair, and he sighed. Well, if he was going to get assigned to someone for the shift, there were definitely worse people than Luke. Granted, this would be their third or fourth introduction (it was kind of bad when he was starting to lose track), which could be awkward, but he'd at least done this enough to know what to expect.

"Um, hey," he greeted as he approached the other man. Offering a smile, Claude figured it might be good to focus on some common ground. "Kind of annoying, right? The way the nurses baby us during the day, I mean."

[dispersive]

After an appalling first round, Luke was grateful to be saved from musical defamation by a fellow patient. He recognized Claude easily enough (after all, he was the only person not from Auldrant that he had ever talked to in this place) and parroted his greeting, though the blond had beat him in the cheery department. The replica found it very difficult to keep a chipper attitude about all of this.

"Yeah, well at least they don't have guns." Frankly, he was getting a little tired of military interference. This Landel guy might be crazy, but he didn't have an army of professional killers terrorizing the patients. If he wanted a gaggle of women in white that was fine with Luke. Then again, it wasn't like he could ever hit a girl. His green eyes briefly landed on his nurse. Maybe Landel did know what he was doing with a group of harmless women.

"If that's what it takes to keep those 'waffles' coming, I think I can deal with a little hen-pecking..." The recorder spun back and forth in his hands, unsure as to what to say to the man. Claude apparently knew all about him, but Luke knew absolutely zilch about the blond.

"So, uh, you're not from Auldrant, right? So... does that mean you're from here or...?" Maybe the easiest thing to do was start off with the general questions and work his way down.

[full-score.livejournal.com]

Well, Luke did have a point, and Claude had to admit that he agreed with him on some level. At least they didn't have to worry about getting tear-gassed while the nurses were here. Of course, it sounded like he'd met yet another fan of Earth's waffles today, which probably didn't hurt matters. Claude chuckled at his comment. It was all kind of true, wasn't it? Provided the military really was gone for good, at any rate, but he didn't feel right trying to rain on the guy's parade.

"Nope, I'm technically from this planet -- Earth," Claude clarified. He could only imagine how strange it would be to have no concept of other planets, only to wake up on another world, surrounded by strange ideas, people and places. His Expellian friends had gone through something similar during their travels, but Claude had always taken the knowledge of other worlds for granted, and his Federation officer training at least left him more prepared to deal with these sorts of things.

"Well," he suddenly added with a scratch of his cheek, "from its future, anyway. This isn't my original time period." That...probably sounded as weird to Luke as it did to him, but there was no getting around it.

[dispersive]

Well, it was fortunate Luke had decided to keep that recorder far away from his mouth or a shrill note would have assaulted the room's small population from Claude's strange drop of information. He diplomatically (as diplomatically as Luke can be) shifted his wide eyes away from Claude's face and sort of hovered around his shoulder/chest area.

"You're from the future?" He repeated, just to make sure he had heard right. "You've told Guy this...?" And he believed you was thankfully scrapped at the last moment. Luke didn't want to go around antagonizing allies and certainly not friends of friends, but it was hard to imagine. Of course, it was hard to imagine a sea of hospice workers unaware of the sinister plots that unfold with the night. Maybe it was best to just go with it. There was nothing else he could do for the time being.

"So, what's it like? The future... Anything you miss a lot being stuck in this place?"

[full-score.livejournal.com]

"Well, sure," Claude replied with a perplexed look. "Why wouldn't I have told him?" As far as Luke was concerned, they'd just met, whereas Guy and Claude had known each other for awhile by now. It was only natural for something like that to come up sooner or later, and Claude had little reason to hide too much of his background in Landel's. In fact, it could often serve as a bonding experience between patients who were out of their element.

Maybe Luke just thought the concept was a little too hard to swallow. But if that was the case, at least he wasn't being outright disbelieving about it, so that couldn't be a bad thing.

And he was asking questions, too. Claude actually liked it when people tried to keep the conversation going with stuff like that, and his expression brightened. "The future? Hmm..." Rubbing his chin, he took a moment to think. "Well, it's pretty different. The technology is a lot more advanced, for one thing, and the people of Earth don't fight with each other so much because they're united in exploring the universe. On the other hand, it's..." He grew more somber now, his gaze drifting toward the recorder in Luke's hands. "...well, it's crowded and polluted, and everyone's in a hurry. To be honest, it's difficult to live life at your own pace. A lot of the planet's natural beauty has been destroyed, too."

As for what he missed? Claude tilted his head back as he considered that question. Most people would have been able to immediately pinpoint something they missed from home, or would have at least been overwhelmed with all the different things they longed for at once. But, strangely enough, nothing sprang to mind.

"I...really don't know," he confessed. "I mean, I miss my freedom, obviously, but--" Straightening, Claude looked over at Luke. "I was actually stranded on a different planet from Earth before I woke up here, so I guess it's a little hard to sort through my thoughts about a question like that."

Rubbing the back of his head, he gave a small, self-depreciating laugh. "Sorry, all of that must sound kind of strange, huh."

[dispersive]

"Oh, huh..." Well, that was a bit anti-climactic. Luke had been hoping to get a better grip on this whole idea with a bit of technological proof. But one thing that did pique his interest came not from any fontech splendor, but the general society itself.

"So, does that mean you guys don't have war, like at all?" Now that was something to envy. True, Luke and the others had secured world peace (for the moment anyway), but the cost had been more than a little bloody. A lot of it stained his hands, he was ashamed to admit. But with the sacrifices made by the people of Auldrant, by Luke, by Guy, and Tear and all the others, he hoped that his home planet could move on and use their knowledge and resources for a better purpose, like Earth. They certainly weren't advanced enough to go exploring out into space or the "universe", but... Maybe they could get there soon too.

"Is that how you landed on another planet, because you're an explorer? That's...!" Actually, he wasn't sure if there was a word for it. The concept was just so radical. "That's pretty cool--Hey! Does that mean you have and airship? It'd have to go into space... Whoa..." It was hard to picture, at least the space part. He could certainly see the Albiore dinking around, but in what? Did everything remain blue up in space? Was it just more clouds and sky until you hit another planet?

"Man, I know Guy'd love that!" The image of his friend piloting his own spaceship put a goofy grin on Luke's face. Actually, it sounded pretty fun to him too. Well, maybe not the stranded part...