Night 64: West Wing, South Hall 1-A

[dualistic]

[From here.]

Still no one. Harvey imagined that before long these areas were going to be flooded with sick people who were going to follow that clue, so he was glad that he'd beaten them to the punch. It wasn't that he thought it was contagious anymore -- by this point, they would have known -- but he didn't need to be surrounded by a bunch of miserable, sniffling people, either.

Relieved that he'd dodged that bullet, at least so far, Harvey reached the end of the hall and took a right toward their regular meeting spot.

[To here.]

Comments

[nobleman]

It was the sort of thing that would have come as a surprise to anyone, but Guy realized that it had been wrong of him to see anything as a constant here. Anyone could be taken and have their mind rearranged at any time. It made it hard to make friends and keep them, but at the same time he couldn't think of going through any of this alone.

What if Claude disappeared next? Or Anise? Of course, it was also possible that he would be the next one on the chopping block, but that was almost harder to fathom. Still, if it had happened to Okita, it could happen to any of them.

When Claude's hand clapped down on his shoulder, Guy glanced at it before meeting his friend's gaze with a strained smile. "It's not really the sort of thing you can prepare for, I guess." That hardly encapsulated all of his feelings about what had happened, but he couldn't dwell now.

"Anyway, we'd better keep moving or Anise is going to worry." Though for the moment, he didn't move away from Claude's grip.

[earthling]

There was a lot Claude wanted to say, but he realized that this wasn't the time or place to say it. Moving through the halls at night made having any sort of deep or meaningful conversation impossible. That was probably just as well, though. They had things they needed to do, after all, and they didn't want to keep Anise waiting.

Still, he didn't move immediately, instead giving Guy's shoulder a squeeze as he met his eyes. If you ever need to talk about it, I'm here, was the unspoken message. And though he felt like Guy could use a hug, it sounded like his friend was ready to focus his efforts on something more productive, so Claude was willing to leave it at that for now.

"You're right," he said once he broke eye contact. With that, he finally let go of the other man's shoulder and resumed his earlier pace. "Let's go."

((To here.))