Night 60: M111-M120 Hallway

[oneman-onekill.livejournal.com]

Ah, how he'd missed the sweet sound of Landel's voice signaling the start of their nighttime festivities. Not. Niikura rolled his eyes as he went about getting ready for the night. Back on his high horse just like that: how annoying. He carefully tuned out the doctor's voice while thinking through all of the comments he'd received that day about the basement. Brains and brawn, huh? Well, he had the brawn--that was Mike--and as for brains, between the two of them, he and Shiina could probably take anything that was thrown their way. As long as they all watched each other's backs, they'd be fine.

Yeah, he was kind of lying to himself.

He changed into the old military uniform, noting that they had fixed the torn sleeve, or at least replaced his former shirt. It didn't offer any more protection than the smiley face and sweatpants ensemble, but it had better pockets and pants, and a belt, all of which he needed. The sword he'd gotten from Utena and his flashlight came next, and Niikura took the opportunity to jam a few pens into his front pants pocket before heading out. Time to see if they could all manage without his little pick-up service.

[to here]

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outside m114

[vitale.livejournal.com]

And finally, destination reached.

There was no one in the hallway, which caused Bella to frown, her paranoia skyrocketing as she stood in front of Edward's door, breathing heavily as she tried to regain herself. Just calm down, Bella. Everything's going to be okay.

At least that was what she told herself as she knocked gently against the vampire's door. It was rude to just barge in (even if Edward had done it before a ... few times, but that was besides the point.) so she waited patiently outside of his door, waiting for him to ... hopefully answer.

[prodigalson]

Back to normal. Right. Normality had ceased to have any importance to Edward for a long, long time, and at this point, what did it matter? Landel, Aguilar, they were similar men. The only separation between them was their means.

Against every inclination otherwise, Edward made no attempts to move for the duration of the day. Nothing he did would matter. Even this changing of the guard, going back from Aguilar to Landel's leadership - none of it had been through the effort of the patient body themselves. It was becoming a mere pipe dream to believe they would be adequately formed into a rebellion, a coup. It was amusing to think when he'd first been stuck here, he was an optimist.

Of course. His cold, dead body was a wealth of optimism.

He was dead from the high of being vampire again. Now he had been thrown back into a sad little human body. A literal corpse at this point. The venom didn't make him different from a body - no strength, no speed. He never thought he would miss it until the curse had been taken from him.

His head turned to the door when he heard the knock, awkward from where he lay on the bed. Unmovable. He hadn't even pretended to breathe for his roommate, but he hadn't noticed. All the better.

He moved now. Bella was the only reason he should. Maybe one day she would barge in. It'd be a nice change. Lucky her he had no energy to waste on being terrified for her traveling alone again.

"Bella," he greeted her, immediately taking her warm hand. "Can we stay in tonight?"

[vitale.livejournal.com]

Relief instantly washed over Bella at the sight of Edward standing there, and she let out a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding until he reached out and took his hand in her own. Nodding her head dumbly, she entered the room, shutting the door behind her with her foot, her eyes darting to the floor.

"I was afraid you were gone," the teenager admitted, and before the vampire could respond, she continued. "Claire ... Claire's gone, so I was just. Scared."

She could feel the tears beginning to pool in her eyes from losing the only real friend she had in the institute, but she wouldn't cry. She had to think positively, that the blonde was home and that was that. She couldn't afford to think otherwise.