damned_institute | Day 62: Breakfast

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Day 62: Breakfast

A misplaced sense of familiarity met Barnaby the moment he opened his eyes, and the sight of the blank, white ceiling from yesterday morning greeted him. After rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, Barnaby sat up and felt around for his glasses. Had he blacked out again and wasted an entire night? Where was Kotetsu? And what had become of the man who had seemingly vanished before his very eyes at the end of dinner?

Once Barnaby slipped his frames onto his face, the world came into clearer focus, even if he didn’t get any answers out of it. He was in his room, and someone had apparently stripped him out of his street clothes in favor of the hideous hospital pajamas. Barnaby wasn't sure what he found more offensive -- that someone here had once again touched his things without his permission, or that he’d been undressed while unconscious for the second time since his arrival.

The thought made his skin crawl.

Just as he looked over to find a lump in the bed next to him, though, his assigned nurse came to retrieve him. He would have to confirm Klavier Gavin's whereabouts later. For now, he had no choice but to allow the nurse to escort him into the cafeteria. Strangely, she seemed to be under the impression that he and the other patients had slept soundly the whole night. While he might have assumed it was an act, Barnaby got the feeling that she genuinely believed what she was saying.

Regardless of her intentions, he knew she wasn't going to be any help. Instead of trying to ask her anymore questions, Barnaby left a note on the bulletin board concerning his roommate. If his observations from yesterday were any indication, he'd get some responses, at least. While he could have taken the time to leave something for Kotetsu, Barnaby didn't feel inclined to do so, especially when he knew he probably wouldn't check the board anyway.

He had no appetite this morning, but his nurse wouldn't leave him alone until she'd assembled a tray of fresh, fluffy pancakes for him. Honestly, Barnaby didn't see why some people felt the need to butt into his personal choices like this. At least there wasn't anyone forcing him to eat -- for now, at any rate. He sat down at an empty table close to the wall after setting his food down, privately hoping that she wouldn't try to find a "friend" for him to eat with this morning. He was tucked out of the way, so maybe she would forget about him for a few minutes as long as he didn't draw any unnecessary attention to himself.

Hands neatly clasped on the table, Barnaby didn't look at anyone in particular as patients filtered into the cafeteria for their morning meal. There were too many questions buzzing in his mind for him to focus on the names and faces of people he didn't care about. If Kotetsu wanted to find him, he could. It wasn't like Barnaby was going anywhere.

[For Kotetsu.]

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"Morning," Badd said, giving him a nod of greeting but not bothering to look him in the eye. "You have a nice evening, inspector?"

He really did need to stop being such an asshole to people right off the bat. Certainly it came naturally, and freed of his professional obligations it felt downright relaxing to indulge his grumpy old man personality. But this wasn't a place where one could afford enemies...this was a place where information was precious.

"It could have been more productive," Lunge answered, without pausing for thought- there was no particular reason for him to lie, per se, given that everyone here understood how difficult it was to get anything done, but that didn't mean he wanted to delve into the details of how and why they'd failed. Not right away, at least. The appearance of knowledge was a far more important illusion to maintain in the way it seemed to give him something to trade.

It seemed unlikely that Badd was simply asking after his general health, at any rate. "Was yours any better than yesterday night?" He was thinking of that ambiguous night in the chapel he'd alluded to- though 'better' here more referred to the matter of progress than peace of mind.

On the note of social acceptability: stop insinuating blasphemous sexual activity around people you might need later. The Inspector didn't strike Badd as the open-minded type. "Some ways yes, some ways no, but it did give me a lot to think about."

Badd shifted back in his seat, dialing his rough voice back to 'inquisitive'. It was hard to read a man like this but something about Lunge's posture indicating he wasn't have a particularly pleasant morning either. Badd got right to the point. "You mentioned talking to the guy we keep hearing on the radio. Did he say anything about the recent incidents of people losing their goddammn minds for brief periods? The brainwashing, the hallucinations, that stuff?"

'Given a lot to think about' seemed to be a recurring theme for this place; if some Jungian professor had set forth to create an experiment designed to force its subjects to face their inner demons he would have been hard pushed to do better than Landel had done.

But that was beside the point. Badd had raised a notably specific question for him.

"He didn't," Lunge answered, tapping a brief search into his memory. He carefully ignored that his memory had likely been badly jangled due to the fight they'd been forced to escape from prior to their conversation; he was certain that the matter hadn't come up. "It isn't unheard of, though, between the nightly therapy and brainwashing, and Landel's whims." But he was willing to trust that Badd knew about those already- he wouldn't be asking if he did. "Did you experience something outside of those events last night?"

Good, he was opening up. Badd sucked on his fork thoughtfully.

"I experienced all right. What I'm trying to figure out is how out of the normal it mighta been. The brainwashing part, when people spend the night thinking they're on Landel's side and the other prisoners are criminals, that's normal, I'm assuming. On the other hand, last night I saw someone lose touch with reality completely, didn't even know where he was."

Even without using Byrne's name it was a slight struggle to open up this much to a complete stranger, and an Inspector complete stranger at that. Badd knew enough about being a policeman and the kind of insane corruption that happened in his own backyard to not trust most people with a badge.

Lose touch with reality completely...? Lunge blinked, surprised. That wasn't something he'd heard specifically in a relatively long time. It sounded like something Landel might have inflicted on them as one of his nightly games, but if that were the case he'd have fully expected the bulletin board to be crammed full of oblique references to the suffering of other patients and their friends.

Tracing back through his memory he'd spotted a likely candidate without realising it- unsigned, in handwriting he hadn't recognised, asking about 'dreams within dreams'- but no one had answered when he'd looked. Yes, one man was an irregularity for certain.

"I've never heard of something like that affecting only one person," Lunge answered, tapping the end of his fork lightly on the tabletop in thought, "and those are generally hinted at by Landel before the night begins."

There was, however, one possible answer- and it was a simple one at that. He knew it better than anyone, after all. A pause- then Lunge looked back up at Badd, expression unreadable. "Do you know if the person had undergone a night-shift torture session? The aftereffects of those can vary wildly."

"Yeah, a little under a week ago." Badd had been fairly certain that the torture had something to do with it. "Last night he hallucinated his daughter but seemed to have a pretty firm grasp on what the rest of the world looked like. His kid was here a few..." Had it really been two weeks? "A while ago," Badd corrected, letting the fork slip from his lips again.

"So it wasn't as impossible to believe in as being unable to recognize the people talking to you. I guess the question I'm angling at is how common is this, and does it ever fix."

The knife in his hand hovered over his plate. It just would be a daughter, wouldn't it?

The silence might only have lasted a few seconds longer than it should have done, but Lunge could already feel it prickling on the back of his neck, oppressive and uncomfortable.

"I see. It's a distinct possibility, then," he said suddenly, as if he'd never hesitated. This time he didn't look up at all- he simply finished cutting the edge off of a pancake, a little too sharply. "A man named Inspector Javert kept notes on those sessions; he never mentioned anyone recovering." Two weeks on, and he certainly hadn't.

...he was really getting bad at this detective business in his old age, wasn't he? It wasn't his fault reality kept changing its mind on how it wanted to be, they hadn't trained him for monsters and time travel. Badd allowed Lunge his silence and his reflection upon personal demons.

"Javert was my roommate," he admitted with some measure of embarrassment. "Whatever notes he had, they're not there anymore, and he never discussed any of it with me." Probably because Badd had first disbelieved him entirely and then blamed him for not doing anything to rescue the torture victims. His head hadn't been in a good place after what they'd done to Byrne, but it wasn't any excuse for sloppy police work. "Even without being dosed up I'd imagine the torture would leave some pretty deep mental scarring. But the complete psychotic breaks, is that what happens to everyone?"

The admission forced Lunge to look up then, surprise breaching the surface of his expression for a split second as he took it in. "Your roommate?" Javert had never been the open, friendly sort, of course, but surely... no, there was no point in lingering on that detail. Dinners were often awkward, silent affairs. He himself had only just started talking to Dent in any serious capacity, after all.

He shook his head slightly, putting the matter to one side. "At any rate- it isn't necessarily a psychotic break. What they do to you isn't restricted to ordinary torture; it's pitched as scientific experimentation." He stared knowingly at Badd, eyes bright and alert against the calm monotone of his voice. "His mind could have been physically altered to make him more susceptible to hallucinations." He paused. "If you'd like the rest of his case notes, I have them memorised."

The surprise on his face was interesting. Javert must not have mentioned him to Lunge--why should he, Badd had done little of note besides yell at him for things outside his control

At the latter statement Badd flinched, feeling his stomach twist. The thought of them poking around in his partner's mind with scalpels and syringes made him want to bring his breakfast back up for a second showing. He would kill them, simple as that. He would steal what the Yatagarasu couldn't steal, because some men just deserved a bullet.

"If you don't mind?" he asked, though he didn't seem eager to hear the news.

A visceral physical reaction, hard and sharp, like breathing in ice on a winter morning: Lunge observed it with interest. The 'he' in question obviously meant a lot to Badd- more than he'd anticipated. With how elusive the man had been about the details it was difficult to pinpoint their relationship- certainly not a son, given that the man apparently had a daughter old enough to have been in the Institute herself, which left the possibility of a close friend, brother or partner. The latter seemed a distinct possibility, bearing in mind Badd's caginess, but there was no reason to make any firm decisions on that.

"I'll get them written up for you, then," was all he said, though. Badd had opened up to an extent, that was true, but pushing things further with needless questions to satisfy his own curiosity would have only been a step backwards. "I should have them written up by tomorrow, if I can find the time in the next few shifts. Should I leave a note on the bulletin board for you?"

Badd nodded, slipping back into the stone face that was his comfortable default. "Don't address it to me. Just something unsigned, 'I have the notes', and you can slip them to me at breakfast." No reason to let Byrne know he was looking into the matter, it'd just stress him out more. Once he had proper evidence that Byrne was not personally losing his mind then they could discuss the matter.

If it turned out Byrne actually had been surgically altered into being insane...well. They'd deal with that.

Belatedly, Badd added, "I'd appreciate it."

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Day 62: Breakfast

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