Day 64: Intercom, Evening

[damned_intercom]

When the cheery jingle sounded over the speakers, the Head Doctor could be heard humming a song that suspiciously sounded like pieces of "Superstar" from today's movie. Then, as if realizing people were listening, he abruptly cleared his throat.

"Good evening, patients!" he greeted after a quick recovery. "I do hope everyone had a pleasant day. And what better way to end things than with a scrumptious steak dinner? We'll be including fries on the side, as well as offering our usual assortment of water, milk, and juices. Of course, we also carry vegetarian options for those of you who don't eat meat. Enjoy!"

The intercom turned off, leaving the nurses to escort patients to their rooms.

((Please make all dinner threads under this post with your character's room number in the subject line. For updated roommate assignments, refer to the latest Lounge Post. Thanks!))

Comments

[ryuuzaki]

The new roommate arrived in a state which made sizing him up a little more complicated than it might have been otherwise. L didn't set the fork down, but he did make it dormant, resting his hand alongside the dinner tray. He stared as the other man was dragged in and left on the bed.

There were some commonalities in their appearances: both were pale-skinned and dark-haired, with wiry frames. But L guessed--and it was only a guess--that the other man was taller than him by several inches, and, on a good day, probably at least a little bit stronger. At the moment, it was hard to make any judgments about his physicality based on his only partly voluntary movements, but it might be possible to take note of more genuine and characteristic ones at various points throughout the next day. L could recall having seen him around the Institute recently, without having taken special note of him; in those scant recollections, there had been nothing unusual about how he carried himself.

As to his current state... the man had most likely been sedated, which meant that he had either lost self-control and acted out, or he'd had some reason to want to be drugged. Someone who couldn't manage their own behavior might be annoying to share a room with, but someone who did something so ordinarily undesirable for their own purposes could be problematic indeed.

On the scale of things, it seemed more likely to be the former than the latter. Acting out was foolish, unimpressive, but it would also be normal for most people, under these circumstances.

Still... why was he laughing?

"You've had an interesting afternoon." Grave, inquisitive, not particularly sympathetic, and still more a statement than a question.

[complicatedliar]

That question struck Loki as even funnier, and he laughed unnaturally. "Oh, and how," he said, taking care to the form the words so he didn't sound overly drunk. He wasn't certain how well it worked, however, and it didn't even matter at this point. This was definitely not his previous roommate, and any chance he'd had of making a good impression was utterly gone, so he might as well not worry about it. "I think next time they tell me I've a visitor, I'll ask to glue pasta onto a bit of card instead."

He rolled over slowly to try to get a look at the young man. Nothing really stood out about him, though Loki did remind himself that it was the innocuous ones you really had to look out for.

Or for all he knew, the young man was actually a purple elephant and Loki just thought he was a man, because his head did feel incredibly strange. "Oh, I like this not," he said, covering his face with his hands for a moment.