Nightshift 24: Second M-Block bathroom

[norainu]

(from here)

Renji kept them moving until they reached the bathroom. He never thought he'd be relieved to get into that dank, nasty room, but it was still better than the smell in the hall outside. All he could guess was that someone had killed at least one of those damn nasty cats. He could have lived his life happily without ever having to smell that again, and it was a nightly occurence here.

As soon as the girls were in the bathroom and the door was shut, he took out his own flashlight, so rarely used, and turned it on. He aimed it at the floor so no one would get blinded.

"Okay," he said. "You girls put your lights on too. If we put 'em on the floor in a couple places, we'll be able to see a lot better." He set his own light done where it could illuminate (if dimly) a good portion of the room. "The shower heads and knob things and the sink fixtures can be unscrewed. I'll... try something on the pipes."

He unwound the sheet from around his waist, laying it out on the floor as he'd done the previous night, ready for the metal they'd collect.

Comments

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

Despite her paranoia about aliens and tendency to overreact a little to fear, Sheska didn't even register the fact that she was now in a dark, dingy bathroom (a boys one, by the smell of it (and why did they always smell so bad?)) with a strange man and young girl. She'd read an awful lot about that sort of thing, too. But Vice-Captain was a military man, no matter where he was from, and so far he'd done nothing to make her believe he couldn't be trsuted. Sure, he wasn't some fluffy kitten of a man, but that made her feel even safer.

She wished her memory worked with places so she could work out where she'd come from. While she wasn't bad at remembering some things, words just seemed to have an affinity with her. She'd find a use for herself in this place, she was sure of it.

Sheska switched her light on and placed it on the floor, just as she'd been told. And then she looked around. So. She had to find metal. She walked up to a showerhead and inspected it. Then she gave it an experimental tug.

And then she smiled.
It wasn't often she was allowed to break things and take them apart. She'd read lots of books on plumbing too. So while she worked on the showerhead, she tried to think of something useful. The knowledge didn't stay in the part of her brain that could easily recall things. It needed pen and paper, something familiar to it, to lure it out of it's hiding place. But if she tried really, really hard, maybe she could do it. Everytime she had a hand free, she pretended she was holding a pen and wrote invisibly on the air.

[heartcrown.livejournal.com]

Well, that was an adventure. A boring one, but an adventure none the less.

It wasn't that she wasn't glad they hadn't been attacked ... it was just that ... well, walking was boring.

But back on topic.

Nodding at Renji, she clicked on her flashlight, pointing it to the floor as she moved slowly through the room, placing it down on the ground so it could brighten up the place. Letting out a soft yawn, Kairi began to move towards one of the sinks, staring at it for a second before she began to reach for it. The metal was cool against her skin, and she shivered slightly before beginning to work at getting it off ... tugging and pulling at it before beginning to unscrew the thing.

[norainu]

Renji laughed quietly at Kairi's yawn. "Yeah, not exciting, I know. We'll do something more interesting tomorrow night. I don't want to be permanently stuck on bathroom duty either."

He moved over to one of the sinks and crouched down, examining the pipe between the sink and the wall closely. Valyn had needed magic to get the things off the wall before, but there had to be an easier way. There were bolts and stuff. Which could be undone, unscrewed, something.

After inspecting the screws closely, he straightened, and began working on taking the upper fixtures of the sink apart. If he was lucky, one of them would be thin enough that it could double as a really shitty screwdriver. He made a mental note to ask Roy or Ed if it would be feasible to make tools. Because while it would temporarily deprive someone of a weapon, it would make the entire process at lot more efficient.

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

"I think it's fun," Sheska said, still smiling as she took apart a shower head, throwing metals parts onto the blanket. "Therapeutic, you know? Maybe I shouldn't have given up with the plumbing..."

Back home, when they didn't have much money, the toilet had bust up. Unable to afford a plumber, Sheska's mother put her to good work, hoping that theoretical knowledge could easily be translated into practical work.

Once the bathroom had been sprayed with, err, waste, they decided to just ask a friend up the road, rewarding him with food.

She pulled a face and looked at the pipes. She sure hoped there was nothing gunky in there. Although... they were by the showers, so that would be handy. Silver lining, eh?

"What are you?" she asked, looking at the young girl. "I mean...what do you do?"

[heartcrown.livejournal.com]

Kairi jumped and let out an embarrassed laugh when Renji acknowledged her yawn, and in her surprise, ended up yanking off the sink knob. "Oh ... it's not just that! I'm happy we haven't been attacked by anything ... those cats Sora, Rukia and I ran into were gross!" Keeping close attention to Renji's face at the mention of Rukia, Kairi flashed him her best smile before turning back to the sink -- only to turn towards Sheska a few seconds later.

"Oh, I'm nothing special. I'm really just a schoolgirl ... before all of this ... and before being kidnapped ... and before the heartless and Destiny Islands being destroyed and before having my heart taken from my body and before being in a coma ... " she could keep going, but she stopped. "I just attended school. I'm really not that interesting, really." Letting out a laugh, Kairi ran a hand through her hair before looking towards the girl and smiling. "What about you?"

[norainu]

Renji finished unscrewing both the knobs, tried them on the bolts, and frowned. He tossed them both onto the sheet and started working on the faucet. Maybe that would work better.

He had to wonder why Kairi was looking at him like that. Well, women were weird, and girls were no doubt just as bad, considering they were women with training wheels.

"She told me about that," he said. "I'm glad she was with you. Though sounds like you all did okay." He trusted Rukia to keep the kids safe. And he was glad that the cats were pretty easy to kill. At least in his opinion.

He snorted. "Sounds like an eventful life," he said. "And you're pretty young." He grinned. "What's school like? I never went." Well, he'd gone to the Shinigami academy, and they'd taught him how to read at least, but he doubted that the academy was anything like Kairi's school. And he'd definitely never done school as a kid.

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

Sheska looked at Kairi for a few moments, trying to determine if she was having them on. She'd been gullible in the past, it was a fault of hers. But... Vice Captain seemed to believe it. Maybe. Unless he was humouring her?

"That's... that's actually quite a lot... How come someone took your heart? And how did you live through it?" she asked, eagerly. Maybe it was the aliens!? The shower head she was leaning on gave way and she quickly caught it as she fell back. It whipped away from the wall, but something caught and left her head an inch from the ground.
"Woops," she laughed, quietly, standing up and brushing herself off.

"Me? I'm really not interesting at all. I had to leave school early to get a job, but I kept getting fired," she blushed. "Until I met Edward Elric! I helped him and he got me a job with the Military. But... well, after some stuff happened I got a permanent job there."

She gawped at Vice Captain.
"What!? How did you get such a high rank without an education? What did you do? Are you a war hero?" Her face lit up as she waited to hear what he'd say. She loved real stories.

[heartcrown.livejournal.com]

"Oh. I'm a princess. A princess of heart, to be exact. It's some lame mumbo-jumbo ... those with the purest hearts are called princess. I didn't find out until after I had my heart returned. Sora was holding onto it." She didn't realize how romantic this had sounded until she said it, and right after, a blush splashed across her cheeks, and she went back to the sink.

At the school question, Kairi let out a groan, followed by a laugh, turning towards Renji with a smile. "Oh, it's super boring. They teach you normal things ... like math, or english ... but every year they add on different things to teach you! It's so boring. In English right now, we're reading Romeo and Juliet. But we've all read it thousands of times!" Letting out a sigh at the memory of having been picked as Juliet and then being asked if the "Romeo" could kiss her, she shook her head and turned towards Sheska. "Wow! Congrats on the job! What do you do?"

[norainu]

"Ed's a good kid," Renji said. "Why were you gettin' fired?"

Renji listened to what Kairi had to say, feeling rather bemused. And even more bemused when she talked about Sora holding on to her heart. Metaphorical or not, it was rather cute. Not that he'd ever admit such a thing out loud. His expression stayed neutral, and he kept working on the faucet, trying to snap it off.

"Because I'm strong," Renji said. "When I went through the academy, they taught me the basics of reading and writing. I figured out the rest myself." And eventually taught himself other languages as well, but there wasn't a need to get into that. "My former division was more about being able to fight. Captain Zaraki doesn't give two shits about education. I was sixth seat there... uh... sixth in command. Then I got promoted and transferred to a new division as Vice Captain." He shrugged. "And now I'm as strong as a Captain, so I'll probably get another promotion some time, since I can hold my own." He said it as if it were no big deal; while the bankai had been something that drove him on, his real goal had been the rank of Vice Captain, and Rukia. Anything after that was just gravy.

He grinned. "School sounds kind of boring. But also kind of nice. Get an education, make somethin' of yourself."

[the-clown-king.livejournal.com]

(From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/117457.html?thread=8546001#t8563153))

Tamaki stumbled through the door of the bathroom, his movements stiff and awkward. His mind was still reeling, his eyes wide and tinged with shock. He was still pale and shaking from the fight, and still dripping blood from his leg and his arms.

He didn't even register the presence of other people in the bathroom.

[norainu]

Renji was saved from further interrogation by the girls when he heard noise outside the door. He dropped his plumbing fixture and was on his feet in an instant, a pen in each hand. As the door opened, he flipped the caps off, only to see...

Suou. The stench coming in from the hall was worse, and there was blood, a lot of it. The boy looked like hell.

He tucked the pens away and rushed forward to grab Suou's arms and support him. "Is it still out there?" he demanded, tone sharp and commanding. That was the most important thing to know - if there was still a fight going on, that was where Renji needed to be.

[ooc: cutting in line]

[totallytheseme.livejournal.com]

Hikaru stumbled in soon after, holding the makeshift bandage to his side. It was already completely bloodsoaked. He didn't look much better than Tamaki--white and shaking and utterly terrified.

"N-no. It's over. They're dead."

It was slowly starting to register that he was the only one in their little group of four who had done absolutely nothing. He had just frozen and been useless for the rest of the fight.

And that hurt almost as much as the deep gashes in his side.

Re: [ooc: cutting in line]

[the-clown-king.livejournal.com]

Tamaki just nodded when Hikaru responded for him, gesturing weakly to his sword - still stained with blood and gore from the battle. He was very, very glad to be held up. He didn't think he could stand on his own two feet.

Re: [ooc: cutting in line]

[norainu]

Renji nodded. "Okay," he said. He manhandled Tamaki over toward where there was some clear space against the wall so he could lean. "See to your weapon, then sit," he said. That was something that had been drilled in to him from day one; take care of the sword first.

His eyes narrowed as he took in Hikaru's condition. He grabbed the boy's arms next, half-dragging him over to the same area as Tamaki. "Sit," he ordered. He kept his hands in place to help Hikaru if the boy needed it.

He didn't know if he'd have enough energy to heal them both, and that was the priority if there was nothing to fight. He frowned, deciding he'd work on Hikaru first. A wound on the limb would be easier to patch up to hold until morning, if it came to that, so Tamaki became second priority.

[totallytheseme.livejournal.com]

Hikaru limply allowed himself to be moved to the wall next to Tamaki. A sort of...pulling feeling in his side somehow managed to break through the general haze of pain, and he realized, dimly, that sitting must've reopened what little of his wound that had managed to clot.

Oh well.

It was just so...nice to rest. He really couldn't trust himself to be upright any longer.

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

Sheska was already looking pretty horrified from Vice Captain's offer to teach her to fight. He may have said he couldn't do much...but still. nobody had ever even thought of asking her. And she'd never thought of learning. She just... wasn't that sort of person. She was weak and jumpy and clumsy. It was probably safer for everyone if she just stood back and let others do the fighting. But she felt her head slowly nod at his offer. Maybe out of politeness. Maybe out of some deep desire to prove to everyone that she COULD fight.

And what kind of world was this when only fighting could prove your worth?

Anyhow, there was no chance for her to lose the look of horror, as some boys came stumbling in, bloody and pale.

"Oh my! Are you alright?" She dropped what she was doing and rushed over. As she got closer, she felt her head go heavy and light at the same time. Everything was going sparkly.
"Oooh dear," she laughed weakly, turning away and standing beside Kairi. Almost behind, in fact.
She hadn't quite prepared herself for the blood. She'd be fine in a moment.

[robin-fox.livejournal.com]

Robin walked into the bathroom. At first he'd been on guard, just in case, but then he smiled the moment he caught sight of what was going on.
"Well now, from the looks of it, you're my sort of people."
This was what he'd like to think of as peaceful protest. Whatever they were taking the place apart for, it was going to really get on some people's nerves. And without a single punch thrown. Wonderful!
"What's all this in aid of?" he asked the man as he walked over to help with the boys.

He crouched down beside Hikaru, all humour lost from his eyes.
"Let's get this sorted, shall we?"
He looked over his shoulder at the new people, smiling once more. "So. Who here's good with... well, this? The boys are all pretty beat up."
He was going to ask about sewing, but he didn't want to frighten the boys. Their day and age might have some fantastical potion or device that healed wounds.

He sat down properly, legs crossed.
"Sorry for intruding, of course. I wanted to get the wounds washed."
He was going to need cloth for that and he was running out of clothes already. He pulled the dressing gown off and began to tear at it, hands and a teeth.
"Any of those wells still in working order?" he asked, collecting the rags he was tearing. He wanted to save the upper part to pull out the thicker threads. If nobody could heal the boys, he was going to have to inspect the cat claws and see if he could work something out.

Then again...
He looked at his torch. It was always warm when left on for a time. But not hot. Above them, however, were larger lights (currently off). Maybe they got hot enough to close the wounds... He looked up at them, thoughtfully.

[godhood.livejournal.com]

[Like the others, from here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/117457.html?thread=8014545#t8014545)]

Light was a little surprised to see people in the bathroom that weren't from the group he'd been with earlier, but he didn't show it. Instead, he merely stepped inside after the others had and gave the people he hadn't met before a faint nod in greeting. Exactly what was he supposed to say in this situation anyway? Nothing really seemed appropriate, especially when two of their number-- or three, counting himself-- were wounded and still bleeding freely. Normal conversation had no place here.

He caught the tail end of what the others were saying as he walked over and found a relatively out of the way place to stand, not wanting to interrupt whatever it was the man with the tattoos was doing and not feeling well enough now to help Robin with what he had planned. He didn't know what that was either, but something about the way the redhead was eying the lights above them worried him. What good were those going to do?

Feeling suddenly tired, he leaned against the nearest wall and closed his eyes, willing the scratches on his arm to heal faster. He would allow himself to rest for just a moment before going to clean them and that was all. He could take care himself. If he couldn't do something as simple as that, then how could he ever manage something as big as cleansing the world of evil? This should be a cinch in comparison.

He eventually opened his eyes again, but rather than go to a sink like he had planned, he ended up watching the others curiously. If he didn't know any better, he would think the tattooed man was trying to cast a spell or something, but while he was now perfectly willing to believe in the existence of things like monsters and shinigami, he had yet to see any real magic. At this point, however, it wouldn't surprise him.

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

Sheska supposed she ought to try and be useful. But Vice Captain and the shorter man seemed to be ok with what they were doing, so she grabbed some damp clothes off of the short one and wandered over to the third boy. He seemed calm, so maybe he was ok. Mostly. Apart from the injury.

Sheshka wasn't afraid of blood. Just... pain? She wasn't sure. It just made her sad because a bloody stain could be the clue to a person's death or pain and... that just wasn't nice. But she could stomach it. She'd just run away before because she hadn't been prepared for the scale of the injuries. She had no idea what to do for them.

But she was almost tiptoeing as she approached the tall boy. His eyes were closed for a moment and she jumped when they opened, laughing nervously.

"Um... I think... maybe... would you like me to clean your wound?" she asked quietly. "Or Kairi could!" She stepped back suddenly and pointed at the other girl.

[heartcrown.livejournal.com]

Kairi had been in shock when more people suddenly piled into the room -- Tamaki Suou being one of them. She remembered their conversation on the bulletin, and yet she had never met him ... but there he was, covered in blood. Renji looked like he knew what he was doing, and thusly tried to not get in the way. When yet another person filed into the room and leaned against the wall, she heard her name spoken and perked up, moving towards the boy that had just wandered in.

"Would you like me to care for your wound? It would be best to get them cleaned up quickly..." Too much was happening. All of the blood around made her suddenly begin to wonder how Sora was doing, and if he was all right or not.

Shaking those thoughts out of her head, Kairi put on her serious face, staring at the boy.

[godhood.livejournal.com]

It took Light longer than he'd ever want to admit to realize that he was being spoken to, but once that filtered through, he gave the two girls a rather sheepish smile. The delay hadn't really been that long, but for someone who prided himself on always being on top of every situation, it was excruciating. As soon as he recovered from this injury, he was going to invest as much time and effort into learning how to defend himself as possible.

"Yes-- thank you both," he said sincerely, and after setting down his flashlight, he began to somewhat awkwardly untie the "bandage" from around his arm. The bleeding seemed to have slowed at least, but what had already escaped and soaked through the sleeve Robin had used was making it much more difficult for Light to remove with just one hand.

Eventually he succeeded, and after staring long and hard at the deep tracks the cat's claws had left behind, he hesitantly held his arm out. He was feeling lightheaded again, but that was all he was going to allow himself to do. He was no more used to getting hurt than either Tamaki or Hikaru were, but he certainly wasn't going to fall to pieces like they had. He wouldn't be able to stand losing control like that.

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

Sheska quickly handed the damp rags over to Kairi.
"Um... you said you'd been fighting before and stuff so I thought maybe you might have a better idea what your doing," she said quietly. She felt silly, proving to everyone (yet again) that she wasn't much help. But it was better to do that than end up hurting the man or something.

"Err, I have a pillow?" she said, looking to them both. She'd bought it out with her and had surprisingly managed to forget it's comforting existence upon meeting Vice Captain. But she'd dragged it around with her and currently had it propped up against the wall.
"You could sit on it. Wait here!"
She ran off to fetch it, bringing it back in both arms and looking very pleased with herself. Only... she didn't want him to bleed on it. Not if she had to stay here a little longer. But he seemed polite enough to avoid such things if he could.

[heartcrown.livejournal.com]

Kairi let out a soft laugh at Sheska when the girl suddenly became very tense, turning back towards the boy with the damp rag in hand. "Thank you, Sheska! Now ..." Turning back towards the newcomer, Kairi scooted closer to the wound, looking at it silently, frowning. "This may hurt a bit ... and if it does, I'm sorry. I'll be as gentle as I can." Flashing the boy a quick smile, she quickly got to work and began to clean.

Looking at the pillow, she blinked in surprise, pausing now to look towards the boy once again. "Would you like to sit on it? It's better than the floor, and we don't want you to pas out from all the blood or something ..." That normally happened, right? She was about to speak again when she suddenly realized she was being rude. "Oh! My name is Kairi, by the way. And this is Sheska." Motioning towards the girl with her hand, Kairi smiled.

[godhood.livejournal.com]

"Thank you again, Kairi and Sheska," Light replied, giving them both another smile that was only very, very faintly marked with a wince as the younger girl cleaned his wound. She was being gentle, but even a little pain was unavoidable at this point. He saw no reason to mention it, however, so he simply added, "My name is Light. It's nice to meet you both."

With introductions out of the way and what little he had learned of their names safely tucked away in his memory (just in case), he was now free to move on to more important matters. The glow coming from the other group of people that he knew couldn't be from any flashlight was taking up most of his attention, but since both girls had asked him more or less the same question, he at least appeared to focus entirely on them, saying, "And thank you for the offer, but I think the floor will be fine. It isn't the most comfortable thing in the world, but I think one of the others would benefit more from a pillow than I would." He gave the other group a much more noticeable sidelong glance than his previous silent examination of them had been, then looked back to Sheska and tacked on jokingly, "Besides, you don't want me bleeding on it or something, do you?"

With any luck, saying that would not only lighten the mood somewhat, but also give them a more positive impression of him as well as open up more opportunities for him to study what the man with the tattoos was doing. With both the light and the fact that Hikaru seemed to have recovered after it was done, Light was almost convinced that something supernatural was going on, but he wasn't at a very good angle to see exactly what that could be. It had to be some kind of healing ability, but unless he could learn everything about it and the person using it so that he could use both of them to his advantage, it was useless.

[verbatim-worm.livejournal.com]

"Light? Light. Liiiight." Sheska tapped her chin. Why did that name seem significant to her? She realised she'd just repeated it suspiciously and blushed. "Sorry! I'm just sure I've heard of someone else who has that name. But it's not at all a common one, is it?" she smiled.

Kairi was half used to strange lights, being from a world of alchemists, but it still got her attention for a moment. And then she looked back, hugging her pillow. Light didn't want it and... she was a little intimidated by the other group. But she'd look silly now, no matter what she did.

"I'll go ask," she said quietly. And then she froze as Light spoke on.
HE'S A MIND READER, OH NO! she thought. She smiled to him, although it was a little too forced, and moved away.