Night 62: M11 - M20 Hallway

[age_of_kings]

After bidding good night and good luck to Kratos and being left alone in his room, Tolten stood and decided that he may as well make use of his time. It was rather like being in prison, or so he fancied. He'd never been imprisoned before, but he'd listened to the stories around the fire and the dinner table. And while he couldn't do much insofar as putting his mind to work, he could do his best to stay in top physical shape.

Even if he was (perhaps) under the weather. He didn't know what to think of the announcements that were made, either during the day or after dark. But he didn't trust them one bit. And until he could discuss it with someone else or read the bulletin, he was going to ignore it. It was really easier that way.

But in the meantime he would set himself a routine. Which would involve stretching and warming up each evening between dinner and whatever was to be done that night. Even if he was staying in. Really, especially if he was staying in. At least running about and fighting was physically invigorating!

The young king managed to strip off his shirt and stretch a handful of times before he felt light headed and decided to lay down on his bed for a moment. Just to catch his breath.

He truly hoped this wasn't warning signs of some horrible thing...

[Locke!]

Comments

Re: M12

[baniichan]

When Barnaby heard a knock, he didn't waste any time in striding over to the door and opening it. He was greeted by Kotetsu's masked face and out-of-place smile -- and an unfamiliar man standing at his side. Muted surprise crossed his features, but he promptly schooled his expression into one of neutral indifference.

"A friend of yours?" he asked, his tone distant and polite. Although Barnaby's cool gaze settled onto the stranger, the question was obviously directed toward Kotetsu. "I didn't realize you'd need help finding my room."

Or maybe he'd just collected a stray on the way over here. With how unwell some of the patients here sounded, and Kotetsu's constant need to butt into other people's personal problems, Barnaby supposed that wouldn't have surprised him, either.

Re: M12

[oyaji]

"Eh, heh, well doesn't hurt to walk in packs," he explained, though his nervousness made it sound like a question than a cautious statement. Wild Tiger directed his amber eyes at Castiel briefly as he considered his next words carefully.

Barnaby had only one look and that was his stone face, but after spending as time as he did with the young man, he knew when his partner was anything but stony. Right now, he was rather irritated. Wild Tiger could see it plainly in his green eyes. This was going to take some finesse to get Barnaby on his side and, unfortunately, the older man sucked at that.

"Uhh, yeah sort of. He's my roomie. Bunny, this is Castiel. Castiel, Bu--Barnaby!" he corrected before the blond gave him a cold frown. "He's my partner. And uh well I thought we could swap information and stuff... 'Cause, he's been here awhile and I'm sure you... listened to the... intercom..." The longer he talked, the more his voice grew soft as he began to mumble and trail off like he was slowly drowning in a tar pit.

Re: M12

[freewill]

It was clear from the man's clipped way of speaking that he wasn't particularly pleased by the fact that Kobayashi had brought him along. Castiel understood the feeling of not being welcome well enough, having experienced it his fair share of times in recent years. The question was why his roommate had insisted on bringing him along despite the fact that his friend might not be agreeable to it.

He glanced between them, trying to judge the situation as Kobayashi jumped in and started to explain. Barnaby was the blond man's name; Castiel nodded in polite greeting, putting the name to memory.

It seemed that his roommate wasn't the most skilled at giving concise explanations, and so without any hesitation Castiel spoke up to add some detail. "Against my will, I managed to sleep through the day. Kobayashi informed me that you might be able to offer some information about what took place during that time, along with what Landel spoke of over the intercom."

As for where they were going for the night, he would be surprised if these two managed to work it out among themselves. It made him realize that he'd taken the Winchesters' coordination with each other for granted. And he still didn't know what had happened to Dean or if he was reading too much into things.

Re: M12

[baniichan]

Kobayashi. Barnaby's face didn't betray his surprise from hearing Castial refer to his partner with an unfamiliar name. Obviously, Kotetsu had decided to introduce himself as such in order to protect his identity as Wild Tiger. For his sake, though, Barnaby hoped he hadn't latched onto the name the nurses had given him. Since the staff used "fake" names for most of the patients here, that was the fastest way to draw attention to himself the minute another patient caught onto what he'd done. Still, he supposed it was better than giving no name at all.

"I see," Barnaby simply said, placing a hand onto his hip. He didn't sound as reproachful as he might have under different circumstances. There wasn't any reason to drag this stranger into their personal disagreements, for one thing. For another, he'd wanted Kotetsu to point out his roommate anyway, so he could regard this as simply killing a couple of birds with one stone.

Of course, Kotetsu could have avoided dragging Castiel to his door if he'd just paid attention to the intercom. He'd have to remind the man to listen to things other than the sound of his own chewing the next time the intercom came on during dinner.

For now, his aloof, green-eyed gaze fixed onto Castiel, committing his features to memory. He appeared to be around Kotetsu's age, and was at least a little more articulate than him. Normally Barnaby could decipher Kotetsu's muddled explanations, but he had to admit he was a little tired tonight, so he appreciated the clarification.

"I'm not sure how much you missed," he admitted. "The staff behaved the same as they did yesterday." Things weren't so simple, though, so he easily continued. "The only difference was tonight's announcement over the intercom. The 'head doctor' seemed to address someone in particular before moving onto everyone as a whole. He talked about how some people will begin to develop strange symptoms, and claimed that a few suffering from this infection will eventually turn into...violent creatures, for lack of a better phrase."

Barnaby didn't believe in monsters, but he knew he couldn't assume they were all safe, either. "Whether he's telling the truth or not, I think it's obvious he's trying to divide everyone by making them suspicious of one another."

[oyaji]

"Okay, great! Yeah, see? Told you he would know!" Wild Tiger interjected, anxious that this exchange would run dry and on the wrong side of the dam. The guy was all alone and it just wouldn't be right to let him leave without back up. Even if he was a former soldier, one person was still vulnerable. He wasn't sure whether Castiel was a NEXT either, and with a institute full of them, the older man couldn't in good conscious abandon the guy to the unknown. Plus, he was probably a little mentally unbalanced! If he accidentally hurt someone, Wild Tiger wouldn't be able to forgive himself.

And, as terrible as it was to use Castiel, the former Hero did not want to be stuck by himself with Barnaby. His partner no doubt had a mountain of questions to grill him with that he had a hard time scaling even on a good day. Frankly, he needed his roommate more than his roommate needed him and he wasn't about to forget it.

If he came off as overbearing or just odd, well, so be it! Wild Tiger was going to keep the man with them no matter what!

[freewill]

Receiving a straightforward explanation was definitely a relief after the more disjointed one that he'd endured from his roommate, and so Castiel nodded along as Barnaby explained. Unfortunately, the bottom line was more unsettling than he'd been prepared for. Turning people into monsters? That wasn't something that even an angel could do lightly; monsters weren't their territory. It wasn't Hell's territory either, for that matter. That was all left to the mostly unknown realm of Purgatory.

But this place had already managed so many things that shouldn't have been possible. Castiel had to wonder why he was still surprised at this point.

"That seems like a fair assumption, yes." If the patients fed into paranoia and ended up taking each other out, then that would probably satisfy Landel's sadistic leanings. The problem with the Head Doctor was that he was not nearly as predictable as those military types. He could have completely different motives or be functioning on complete whim.

"Do you know what kind of symptoms, exactly?" Castiel couldn't say if his long sleep or the pain in his head had anything to do with this, but he realized that he couldn't discount that possibility. The idea of an angel turning into a monster seemed ludicrous, but this place had already taken most of his power and made him think he was a human for a day. He wasn't going to take any chances from now on.

[baniichan]

"He didn't say," Barnaby told him. "From the way he was speaking, though, it sounded like people have already begun to experience the beginning stages." He wasn't about to mention that he'd been feeling under the weather. That sort of information not only had the potential to cast him in a suspicious light, but odds were it was just a coincidence anyway.

Instead, his gaze drifted toward the man's sword. Such a weapon seemed out of place in a hospital, of all places. But Barnaby had been here long enough to realize this facility was far from ordinary. And yet he wasn't sure whether he'd encountered anyone or anything that would justify waving around a blade for everyone to see.

"May I ask why you have that?" Barnaby asked after a beat of silence, his tone perfectly even.

[oyaji]

Wild Tiger couldn't help but swallow anxiously when the conversation turned to talk of symptoms and those who were possibly infected with some kind of sickness. It was very likely he was one of these and that was not a good feeling at all. He had been sick since this morning after breakfast and, while it could have just been a bad batch of pancakes, Barnaby and a host of other patients hadn't gone running for the bathrooms like he had.

And all that black hair he had thrown up... That was just not normal. However, on the outside, Tiger was just going to chalk it up to his breakfast. No need to fuel suspicions if what his partner said was true about trying to divide the patients. What an ass.

"Oh yeah--" the old man finally piped up once the subject had changed. He had been meaning to ask Castiel why he carried a sword of all things around. It seemed an odd instument, especially for a soldier... And then a thought hit him. "Were you like some kind of elite force in the army?!" Maybe they only struck with fists and a sword because they were just that bad ass! Oh man, that'd be so cool!

[freewill]

The beginning stages. While Castiel didn't know if the pain in his head counted as such a thing -- and if it did, what it would eventually develop into -- but it was something he would have to keep an eye on. He certainly didn't need to share it with either of these men, although if it did get progressively worse then he was going to have a hard time keeping it from his roommate specifically.

Unfortunately, Kobayashi didn't seem like the sort of person who would look the other way and not ask questions.

In fact, both of the men were showing an interest in his sword. Castiel glanced down at it. While it had none of its usual power, he had to admit it was a relief to have it in hand. "Something like that," he said in response to Kobayashi's question. "You could say this was standard issue."

Before he could explain further, the intercom came on with a garbled voice that sang out some sort of nursery rhyme. That was easy enough to follow, but the string of numbers after it was complete nonsense to the angel. He frowned and regarded the two men. "Did that have any meaning for the two of you?"

[baniichan]

Barnaby eyed the sword, but managed to hide his skepticism. Standard issue? Yeah, right. In this day and age, there was no use for such outdated weapons outside of ceremonial use. Still, the fact this man had managed to somehow smuggle a blade into the institute was significant. If they could eventually learn how he managed to pull it off, they could try to use that knowledge to their advantage. Not that Barnaby had seen anything worth stabbing since arriving here, but there was already enough in this place that didn't quite add up.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sudden announcement that blared over the intercom -- if anyone could even call that an announcement, anyway. "No," Barnaby answered Castiel, his eyebrows faintly raised. "The numbers were probably binary, but..." He couldn't decipher something like that on his own. Most people couldn't.

"Someone might write about it on the bulletin board tomorrow, though," he remarked. Not that it would necessarily amount to much, but perhaps a few of them could pool their resources together to decode it.

[oyaji]

This time, Wild Tiger listened a bit more at attentively to the broadcast. It wasn't the same voice this time. In fact, it didn't sound like a voice at all, more like an automated system. There wasn't much he could take away from the experience except that he was officially creeped out now.

"Uhh, does that... happen a lot?" he asked Castiel. It seemed rather useless unless the Head Doctor's mission was to make his patients feel complete unease. What an ass. "Is it bad? Maybe we shouldn't just stand around here..." Last time he lollygagged in an area too long, he got assaulted by a cat woman.

[freewill]

"I don't think this is the first time that voice has spoken," Castiel said by way of explanation. The two of them hadn't asked any further questions about his weapon, which was probably for the best. It wasn't something they needed to think about too much, especially since it might end up saving their lives depending on how things went. "From what I understand, it's used when the Head Doctor himself is too busy to speak with us."

Whether it had any sort of special meaning or was a warning for something was impossible to know when none of them could puzzle through that string of numbers, so Castiel was willing to let it go. While the safest option would be to stay in one of the rooms, it was never his intention to stay safe.

"Let's get moving," he agreed, glancing at his roommate before he took off back down the hall. It was frustrating that they didn't have a specific place they were aiming to go, but they could work through that on the way. Anything would be better than standing around pointlessly in an empty hallway.

[To here.]