damned_institute | Day 66: Sun Room (Third Shift)

Entry tags:

Day 66: Sun Room (Third Shift)

When the shift changed, Gabriel didn't hesitate to take his leave, and Castiel couldn't blame him for that. He likely had other people he wanted to talk to, and as a newer patient, he might even be curious about some of the other areas. Castiel had seen it all multiple times by now, so when his nurse asked him if he wanted to move elsewhere, he declined.

It seemed better to remain in one spot for as long as he could and stay still so that his body wasn't pushed past its limits. His nurse couldn't argue with that, so instead she went to go get him some more painkillers, which he swallowed down instantly.

Relying on human drugs... It seemed ridiculous, though Dean had once given him a whole bottle to take. He wouldn't mind doing so again, but with the way his body was right now, that likely wasn't a good idea. So he'd just have to go along with what the nurses allowed him.

"Though Michael, you should really try to eat," his nurse insisted as she set a brown bag into his lap. "I know you're hurting a lot right now, but you'll feel better if you can get some food down."

Maybe she was right, but when Castiel stared at the bag, it seemed like a trial to even open it. Maybe if he just drank something... Slowly, he lifted his hand to push the bag open and reached inside to see what was there.

"There we go," the nurse encouraged him with a smile. "I'll be close-by in case you need anything."

At that point, she walked off, and he was left alone again. Maybe after he drank something, he could even see about getting some rest. Humans could sleep sitting up, couldn't they?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The nurse had a long-suffering look on her face when Ryusei finally finished sticking his head into all the rooms. "Sorry. Were you busy or something?" She didn't answer, but just gave him a look that made Ryusei not want to ask any more questions. What's that all about? Normally Ryusei wouldn't chafe under an authority figure who was strict, but he'd like some communication to go with it.

Speaking of, Tachibana.... Ryusei felt certain he would have left his Switch and Driver in the care of the Club when he received the news of where he was headed. Possibly even before then, when he would have—and he would have—realized what he'd exposed that led to all this. Daimonji or JK could drive Powerdizer, so Ryusei had no cause for concern. Right? Twice Leo Zodiarts had chosen to leave rather than finish him off; as long as Leo was after something else, the Club wouldn't be in danger.

No, stay focused. Ryusei had his own worries right now that he had to resolve as quickly as possible; he'd have to trust the Club to take care of it in his absence. For now, he wanted to check the bulletin board. Which was a mistake, as Ryusei soon saw. Just what is going on here, he thought as he moved to a seat. The other guy in the room looked pretty sick, too. Wasn't this not that kind of hospital? If it were, Ryusei would have been released by now. He couldn't ask the nurse, because she wouldn't talk to him. It was all starting to feel like some sick joke.

[The Scarecrow]

[Sorry for the wait! D:]

Scarecrow took a deep breath as he attempted to relax, tried to keep his spirits up despite the overwhelming evidence that all would not be okay after all. His chest felt as though it were bound with a rope- he coughed almost as soon as the air filled him, the room spinning around him again. He pawed at his eyes, trying to rub the sensation away with no success, instead finding they were watering for reasons he couldn't even begin to comprehend.

Though his nurse returned to him with a brown sack of food for lunch, she made no attempts to encourage him to leave, knowing he was feeling far worse than under the weather. Instead, she tried to find him company, knowing he did best when around other people. With a pat on his back, she insisted he sit near another patient in the room, one he didn't recognize. She answered his unasked question for that immediately: "He's new, and maybe he could use some help getting adjusted."

With a nod, the Scarecrow rose from his spot on the couch and crossed the room, taking a seat near the newcomer and trying to look far better than he felt. "I hope you don't mind if I sit here," he said in a raspy tone, putting on a smile. "I thought you might like some company."

Though to be honest, he was the one who didn't want to be alone with the infection, especially now that he knew what might happen.

What had Ryusei even said? Gentarou had better not be pranking him, he'd think, but no one in the Club had that sense of humor, and no one else in the school knew him well enough—didn't at all know him, not enough to fake a prank like this, much less get his parents in on it. And they had to have been; Ryusei was a minor. And if he'd been discovered as Meteor despite his care, it'd be Tachibana reprimanding him right now—

—Someone was near. Because Ryusei was irritated, a more fake than usual smile flickered onto his face when he looked up. "Hello—"

Okay now turn it off. "Are you okay?" he said as he sat up. "Is there something going around?" I thought this was a mental hospital. Why do you and that guy over there look so sick? Maybe they'd come in here like that, but wouldn't they have been admitted to a regular hospital in that case? "Should I call someone?"

The Scarecrow frowned, wishing he didn't look so dreadful. No amount of brave smiles and insisting he was well could hide the fact he was the sickest he'd ever been- and it might still get worse, unfortunately. There was no telling until he either started getting better or changed into a monster himself. His stomach grumbled on that last thought, seemingly unsettled by the mere notion of what might occur once the sun went down.

He shook his head. "There is something going around," he replied— and with his general inexperience with both his humanity and how infections affected the human body, it had never even occurred to him that simply being near someone was a way to spread such ailments— "but there isn't anything the nurses can do. I don't suppose you've been here long, if you haven't heard about it already."

...Okay, Ryusei had given him that one. And anyway, the intercom announcement had mentioned an ailment, but Ryusei thought that had been referring to a cold; nothing like this. If the nurses were letting this guy walk around, it either must not be contagious or the nurses were pretty lax on this kind of thing. With the several warnings about the nurses now.... No, he shouldn't give those reports credit.

"Um—no," he fumbled. "I—uh, I'm Sakuta. —Nice to meet you!" Should he change the subject? Seemed a little rude, but if there wasn't an infirmary here where this guy could rest and there wasn't anything the nurses could do, and as Ryusei was empty-handed but for his lunch— "—Have you eaten yet?"

He smiled a little, always happy to make a new friend. "You can call me Frank. I do wish we were meeting under better circumstances, though."

He paused after giving Sakuta his name, looking at the sack in his lap sadly. Of all the human sensations he'd come to see as luxuries he'd never have in his original body, taste was one of his favorites, every meal a delight as he discovered the wonderful qualities of food. It was unfortunate that with the illness had come a certain aversion to it, his body seeming to reject it more and more every day until he felt he ought not risk eating at all, lest he want to risk upsetting his stomach again.

And that was the case at that moment, his grumbling middle feeling less like hunger and more like sickness. It was hard to distinguish the two, at times. "Oh, I would, but I'm afraid it'd just come back up again," he said plainly.

Aigis checked on the bulletin again before lunch, but had little energy to do much more than sign up to help with healing if necessary. She grabbed a bag at random for her lunch and flopped down on the nearest sofa, shuddering as a sudden chill took over her. How much longer was she going to suffer this illness? She had thought Aidou's prediction she would get better soon was accurate, but now she was thinking that was the complete opposite of the truth.

Aching, Aigis pulled her legs up onto the couch cushion and opened up her bag. She thought maybe it would be best to begin with the juice. Her stomach probably wouldn't be able to handle much substance.

[Sechs-nii!]

Sechs may not have been aware of the people around him in the Sun Room, but he sure made his presence known by the snoring he was making into the couch he slept on. With his head tucked into the cushion and his back facing everyone else, he had managed to keep his napping spot since earlier that morning, too sick and achy from the virus in his system and the post-battle wounds from the night before. A nurse had been kind enough to just leave a lunch bag beside his couch without disturbing him, knowing how stubborn this wide-spread sickness was but seemingly unaware of just how serious it really was.

To top it all off, Gally the kitten had given up trying to get the grouchy Replica to play with her, so she made herself a make-shift nest out of his scruffy hair, curling up in a little grey ball on top of his head. Sechs was too tired to push the pest off, as long as she helped block out the bright light of the Sun Room out of his eyes and didn't dig her claws into his scalp, he could have cared less. Conversely, Gally herself didn't seem to mind the noise coming from her hairy sleeping spot either.

*Snort!*

Aigis thought she would be alone for the duration of the lunch period, but the institute always surprised her with the most unexpected encounters. No one was introduced to her and no one came of their own volition. Instead, it was sound of a great snore that drew her up in surprise. Glancing around, Aigis blinked when she saw the source just a few yards away. Sechs sat there, slouched and dozing with... a cat on his head?

Aigis didn't know someone could sleep with that kind of pressure to the head. But then again, Sechs was no ordinary human by far. Interest piqued, Aigis made an effort to stand and walked over to her friend. Blinking owlishly, she reached up and touched his arm softly. "Sechs-san? You have a cat on your head."

"...Mmph?" Like pressing a button, Sechs' snoring immediately ceased at Aigis' touch. He slowly shifted out from his afternoon slumber. "...Cat on my head...?"

Meanwhile, Gally the kitten woke up faster than Sechs but not fast enough. Opening her big eyes, she just about mewed at Aigis when her perch upon Sechs' head abruptly turned over, sending the kitten tumbling down to the floor. She gracefully landed on her feet, but was not in the least pleased about her sudden eviction. She mewed angrily at Sechs, who only drowsily looked over his shoulder at her with an uncaring shrug. "What? That's what you get for bugging me," he grumbled at the disgruntled cat.

Rolling over onto his back, Sechs tiredly stretched out like he was a big cat himself before sitting up on the couch. "Hey Aigis... Uh, that's just Gally, she's always pestering me," he drowsily explained as the aforementioned cat stalked off with a huff. "You uh, you doing ok?"

Aigis watched with light amusement as she friend awoke and, in turn, knocked the cat from its warm perch on his head. He had given the kitten such a charming name. "Gally-san seems attached to you."

Aigis took a seat next to her tired friend, not feeling she was required to ask. As a fellow sick patient, she figured Sechs would understand. As for how she was doing... "It could be worse. I am certainly not completely well but..." She turned to him, suppressing a shudder after a chill. "I have not yet undergone any transformations."

"Yeah... I don't know why. Maybe I remind her of somebody..." Sechs replied as he lazily rubbed his eyes. "She sure reminds me of someone I know that's for certain," he said with a tired smirk, reflecting on the kitten's similarities with his Original, Alita. "Got the face, small size and stubbornness to boot!"

Sechs' focus shifted from Gally to Aigis as she took a seat beside him. Seeing her as an ally and friend, Sechs didn't mind sharing the couch with her, but it still bothered him to see the fellow droid looking so ill... "That's... That's good. Uh, not that feeling bad is good, but not transforming..." Sechs replied, feeling the urge to do something to make her feel better but having no idea how to do so.

However, he did remember the important discovery he made the night before. "Hey, I managed to find that second clue the radio mentioned last night!" he blurted out, then found himself trailing off with a sheepish frown. Looking down at his lap and messaging the bite wound in his leg, Sechs awkwardly scratched at the back of his head and unhappily mumbled, "And uh... I don't really get it yet..."

Aigis smiled gently at his explanation. "A nice reminder." Much like her Schrodinger-san reminded her of Heat. Those reminders could be sad, but they were also reasons to go on.

The smaller android nodded. "There is little we can say is good here, but not transforming is definitely on that list." She shook her head and immediately felt a little dizzy. "However, the complications that come from it are hardly delightful."

She could do without the aching, the shivering and the erratic beating of her inner mechanisms. The crawling of the skin and the cold sweats were also less than agreeable to the android. The mention of clues, however, had her lifting her head again in interest. "Perhaps we can figure it out together? What is it that you found?"

"Yeah, tell me about it..." Sechs groaned, closing his eyes and wishing away the damn fatigue and nausea to no avail.

Sechs nodded to Aigis' suggestion, feeling a bit encouraged knowing that she had a good head set on her shoulders and could probably figure this out for him. She definitely had more brains than him. "Who didn't?" Sechs grumpily thought to himself. At least he knew he was smarter than some people like those dumb twins Elf and Zwölf! If he gave those two a good shake he'd hear their brain chips rattling in their heads!

"Well, it was in the X-Ray room and near the first clue that popped up before," he began, leaning back against the couch with a soft grunt. "It was this old painting on the wall, a picture of a woman holding a man's severed head on a plate. The title of the painting was called... Uh... 'Salome with the Head of John the Baptist' or something like that. Below that painting was a pile of these dried leaves. I took a few just in case..."

"Someone mentioned on the bulletin board that the painting is an old story about some guy named John getting his head chopped off because some dancer asked for it," he explained with a dubious shrug. "She impressed some king so he gave her whatever she wanted and this guy's head on a platter was it for some reason."

Letting out a gruff sigh, Sechs rubbed at his temple with frustration. "So that with the leaves and John being a Baptist who hangs around water... I know those are clues but I don't get it yet... Any of this make sense to ya?"

Aigis listened patiently to Sechs' whole story without comment. She blinked a few times after he finished, then looked to the side as she searched all of her mind. Perhaps it was the slight feverish headache that had taken over, but she couldn't place anything he had said.

Frowning, she shook her head. "I am trying but... Nothing that you have said strikes any chords in me." She shook her head again, as if trying to shake off her ignorance.

"I do not know anyone named John or Salome, or what a 'baptist' is, unfortunately."

She needed to clear her mind, she had said, when she had left Ishida-kun's side -- but even the bright weather filtering in through the glass did very little to help. Even the adrenaline, the post-exercise buzz was more galling than calming. Orihime reached out into a ray of sunlight, moving her fingers until the warmth crept up her fingertips, her knuckles, her wrist. No good. Her skin still felt as cold and clammy as ever.

Kurosaki-kun.

A lot of people had once stayed within these walls. She had, too. Try as she might to remember, the memories never resurfaced, the headache never went away. Her cheeks were hurting from smiling too hard, too forcefully and too fakely, but psychology had never kicked in, and instead of happiness she only felt lonelier. She never did learn how to fake it until it became the real deal, after all. Maybe she never should've tried to leave Ishida-kun.

This was a hopeless venture, she knew.

Orihime stood in front of the bulletin, her hands folded at her center, holding her sack lunch and looking hopeful and lost all at once. There were a lot of messages. People looking for other people, some finding them while others waited.

She waited. For what, she didn't know. But she wasn't hungry, and that in itself was a strange circumstance all its own.

[ for Kurogane! ]

Each time he got the freedom to move, Kurogane was in the Sun Room, checking over the board to see if there was any response. At one point he had asked to head for other rooms - to check if the magician was around somewhere else - but he'd been denied that possibility by his nurse. She knew he was ill and didn't want him moving around too much. Like that was any of her business.

The fact that he'd been in the room three times without finding Fai or getting a response wasn't good though. The ninja had been there long enough to know what getting no response could mean, and none of those possibilities were good. With the lack of any response still persisting on the board, Tsubaki's assistance excluded, he had determined that room 99 would be his first stop regardless of whatever atrocities Landel had planned once night fell.

Swearing quietly, he'd turned from the board with the intent of finding a nurse that wasn't as set on keeping him in one place when the presence of another there finally registered. His attention had been so set on both locating the blonde man and getting to the board for a response that he'd overlooked all others. That, or his persisting illness had just dulled his senses too much, because even he couldn't understand how it was he could have missed the young woman with orange hair.

"Orihime," he said plainly, watching how she would respond while thinking that he had better not be to the point of hallucinating.

She'd been in front of the bulletin for ten minutes or so, Orihime wasn't really sure. Although she was usually the type to approach and to be approached, the tentative look on her face and the furrow in her brow had been enough of a message -- do not disturb, check in later, please leave a message after the beep. But that type of isolation was never good for anyone, especially her, and it was all she could do, not to get anxious for a reason of her own making.

There was a man beside her, and the way he towered over her in height was not quite as intimidating as the fact that he somehow knew her name. It was a simple statement. She jumped.

There was something decidedly different about being called by her first name, and it seemed like ages ago since she was called by such, with such a casual familiarity that even she was slightly swayed. Orihime turned her head to look up at the man's face, taking in his features and trying to recollect, but... to no avail. Still, she replied, more curious than hesitant. "Yes?"

Though it wasn't verbal at first, he saw the young woman respond at the name. A jump, as if in surprise, and then a look up at him that did not speak of recognition. When she finally spoke, her words echoed the same.

Possibilities... There were more again, and too many of them to easily figure out why it was the girl was not only back, but did not recognize him.

Some weeks had passed since he'd last seen her, but he never forgot those he met. Whether or not she knew him, if she was at least the same person - maybe even a different version of the same - then he couldn't confuse her too much. The one he knew had gotten flustered far too easily.

That was how he had to approach her in any event.

"You don't know who I am, do you?"

The years have certainly added age and calm to her demeanor. Where she might've flustered before, she doesn't do so now, but old habits die hard, and in reality she was still the young girl who skipped down the hallways whilst singing her own theme song. "Um, m-maybe?" There was a lilt in Orihime's voice, a question, and she wasn't sure if it was because she was afraid of the consequences of not knowing (he was tall and bulky -- quarterback-material, perhaps), or because she didn't want to disappoint him. "Eh... p-perhaps you were sent from the water department? Of my apartment. But I'm sure I paid the bills before I left, unless I somehow got the postage amount all wrong." What a scary thought, if he really was hounding her for her bills and followed her all the way here -- she would never pay a late electrical bill again.

But the dark-haired man continued to look at her, a hint of confusion apparent in his eyes. She recalled what Ishida-kun had said about her being here before. That once upon a time, she was someone else, herself and not simultaneously.

She had thought, back then, and now as he asked her, that it was all very sad.

"...I don't," she admitted, chin tucking in as she regarded him. "I'm sorry, but um...

"I would like to."

"..."

It was her. If nothing else, he couldn't deny that much. But she wasn't the one he'd met. Another version, or possibly even a past version... whatever the case, she was Orihime - one of the more reasonable kids he'd met in the place, however strange her words might get.

"That happens here," he eventually told her. He didn't want her feeling like she was going crazy if he could help it. Not if she was new. "It happens for me a lot anyway. Don't let it get to you."

He gave a glance away from her and out at the room. There was still no sign of Fai, nor of many that he knew. He tried to think if there were any still around from back then that might also know her. Fai, wherever he was, came to mind, but no others. He couldn't be sure who else she had known outside of him though. Either way, a warning would be good.

"I'm Kurogane, and just for warning, there could be others here who will know you that you've never seen before. I know one." He held up his good arm just shy of his own height. "A tall blonde named Fai."

Happens a lot for me, he had said, and it took her a moment to figure out whether he meant the meeting-people-you've-met-in-another-life-and-not-remembering-them thing or... getting late utility bills. He must get a lot of late fees.

But no, even she knew better than that. There was something oddly devastating in the casual way Kurogane-san mentioned it, even if she recognized the attempt to mollify her (don't let it get to you). It was difficult to swallow -- he was talking about losing friends and seeing them again and having them forget like it was all a very ordinary, everyday thing. Monsters, she had initially thought, were the worst things this place could throw at her; she never even considered all of these tests to her psyche.

But she wasn't the one directly suffering. Because there was a time when Kurogane-san had met an Orihime, and they'd gone window shopping and sipped lemonade beneath an oak tree and were good friends and bonded -- and she remembered none of it. It was one thing if she was the one who'd lost a friend, but--

...but hadn't she, in a way?

"Nn, thank you for the advice, Kurogane-sa-" Wait. They used to be friends, right? "...Kurogane-kun. I've been informed, but I-"

... Something clicked, and she noticed now, the way he kept glancing out of the corner of his eye, the message she had seen on the bulletin.

"Ah. Have you been looking for him?"

He hadn't been trying to upset her. Just get her warned. When he'd gotten there, the first thing he'd dealt with was the magician running from him like he was some sort of monster. Getting a warning then would have been helpful, though chances were he wouldn't have taken it. Even he had to admit he'd been a lot more brash upon arrival.

Now he knew to expect that nothing would make sense.

When she started thanking him, he was nearly about to wave her off when she corrected herself in addressing him. Ever since he'd chosen the name, he'd not been called in such a way, not even by Tomoyo who most times saw it as her job to torment him. The magician had made up his own names as well, but that idiot hadn't even been attempting to call him properly those times. Because of that though, Orihime's words surprised him more than they should have.

"Hah?" he stared, not really sure what to think.

Where she came from, stuff like that was probably important. Ururu had called him Kuro-san, and she'd been from the same world hadn't she? He'd never really given this kind of thing much thought, nor practiced in how he addressed others. Names were rare for him to speak anyway.

"Just... Kurogane," he eventually said, shaking out his head and trying to get beyond the strange feeling. He looked back at the room again. "And yeah. Haven't seen him in a while."

... Well, that wasn't the reaction she expected. Which wasn't bad, per se, but not really good either. Maybe -- odd?

"...O-oh! Um," She started, and before she was even aware of the fact, she was wringing her hands at her front, fingers fidgety and restless. "Kurogane." It came out as a strangely pitched squeak. But it was understandable when, besides Tatsuki, there wasn't another person whom she'd addressed quite so informally, with all the casual air of friends that have known each other for years and years. In the end though, it wasn't really much of a sacrifice if she really thought about it. Strangeness, she could tolerate -- but the thought of memories gone to waste was a sadness she couldn't bear, even emphatically.

She imagined shared photobooths and picnics and Tatsuki-chan, and tried to think about what it might feel like to suddenly lose all of that. At the same time, she understood that it wasn't right to assume friendship when she was still different, not quite the Orihime that he once knew.

At the very least, she'd be able to meet him halfway, she thought, if they were going to be friends, now.

"I see," she replied, as casual as the concern on her face would allow. The great deal of information that she'd been fed since morning wasn't doing very much to help put a stop to her imagination, that conjured up images of monsters, and nurses with their needles, and the various things that could've happened to this 'Fai' who once knew her -- knew a her. "Maybe we should go look for him."

[ pinging the drugged up angel. =) ]

Mikado found consciousness hard to come by. It came in waves, broke against his mind and settled back down, and he remembered waking up a few times before he actually did.

It was dark. Darker than it should have been, and his vision was narrowed-- It was only when he hesitantly raised a hand to his face, to his eye, to feel bandages and tape did it all slam into him with the force of a building falling. The reality of it, all of it.

"Please don't touch that, Kenta, dear. It's still healing."

Mikado could only turn a wide eye towards the woman who had appeared in his doorway, because this... They were just going to write this off as an injury he'd gotten? Like Mikado had heard from others. This was... Something they had done, they had--

He had the inexplicable urge to tear into the bandage and rip it away. To see if he could still see, even now. To go past that and tear at his eye, because behind it--

No. No. He needed to see if it was true. If any of what that man had said was true. The boy swallowed, and followed the woman where she led, attention only returning when she starting speaking again. "--aybe you two can keep each other company while you both heal, all right?" A bright smile, and then she nodded, leaving. Mikado was left to stare at an exhausted looking man in a wheelchair. Again, he was reminded of his own bandaging and fought the urge to touch it. "...H-hello."

By the time that someone had been brought over, once again by a nurse who had decided that someone in severe amounts of pain was good for conversation, Castiel had pulled the juice box out of the brown sack. Now he was trying to get the straw unwrapped, but it wasn't going well.

He glanced up as a stranger settled near him, but in this case he was fairly certain the boy wasn't new to this place. They didn't bring people in with wounds, as far as he was aware, and this human had bandages wrapped around his right eye.

Keeping each other company while they both healed -- Castiel didn't think that made sense even to humans. It was something the nurse had come up with, a justification for making them both suffer. Castiel sighed and glanced over at the stranger.

"Hello," he said, his voice strained from fatigue and pain. Should he ask what happened? He wouldn't mind explaining his own situation, but that might not apply to the boy. Maybe a more subtle form of asking, then. "Are you all right?"

The man seemed in worse shape than Mikado, his voice more exhausted than Mikado could recall being. Still, civilities slipped through his fingers, and for a moment, Mikado was only silent. Then dropped without prelude into one of the chairs situated nearby. A part of him pointed out the lack of polite greeting--the rest only filed it away to look at later.

The boy exhaled, pulling together parts of himself, then looked up. "I'm--" His hand went to his face without his meaning to, and he nearly jolted. "...I'm probably fine," he gave on a mutter. Probably because he wasn't bleeding or ill or hideous maimed-- He even had both his eyes, though whether he could use both was still--

He had an overwhelming urge to talk to Izaya suddenly, to see if he knew anything, because it had to be better than nothing at all. Nothing but what Mikado had been told. He swallowed, and glanced at the man again. "Are you, um. Doing okay?"

Probably fine, he said. Castiel didn't know how the boy could be uncertain of such a thing. Either you were fine, or you weren't. Since he didn't know, Castiel could only assume he wasn't, at least not completely. Either way, that form of questioning hadn't actually given him any details on what had happened to the stranger's eye, so he would have to give up on it for now.

The question was turned back on him, and he let out a sigh. "It depends on your definition. I was operated on last night, and while that fixed the major problem I suffered from, this recovery process is... trying." To say the least.

Finally, the plastic on the straw he'd been fiddling with came apart, and he was able to press it into the juice box. He lifted it up to his mouth and took a few sips, but almost immediately his stomach rebelled against him.

...The man answered bluntly in a way Mikado hadn't thought to consider. The boy's good eye widened further--Mikado leaned forward in an obvious way. Even he understood that, but-- "You were operated on last night, too?" Because, when you got down to it, that was what he had went through. There was someone like a doctor, and the precision of the equipment used....

Ahh, don't think about that now. It's possible that this man knew something more than Mikado did. "Ah, I'm Ryuugamine Mikado," he said quickly, bowing his head.

No, the boy misunderstood, and it wasn't as if Castiel had meant to drag information out of him in such a way. He'd been operated on, yes, but not by the institute. If the boy's eye had been toyed with, then the doctors here had to be responsible. As far as Castiel knew, most patients didn't want to discuss it. And now he'd led this stranger to think they had something in common when that wasn't the case.

"No, another patient operated on me," he clarified. He was too exhausted to try and pull together an apologetic look. He had a hard enough time getting this vessel to do what he wanted when he was at full strength; now it seemed impossible. "I was one of the infected." He lifted his hand to show the boy his hand, where the rash that had covered it was already fading.

Ryuugamine Mikado, he said. What a dramatic name. Castiel nodded to the other patient. "I am Castiel," he said.

Another... patient? Confusion slid across the boy's face obviously. It was possible that there were people with the skills needed for that here, yes, but the need for it escaped him. The further clarification given by the man was anything but. Infected? What did that even mean? The last Mikado knew some people were getting sick, but to call it something like that just seemed strange.

The man introduced himself in turn before Mikado could ask, and the boy nodded politely. Castiel. Another strange name. More like Tolten than Lily or Snow, but it was still something he had never heard before. Rather than repeat it to sound it out, Mikado questioned Castiel further. "You said... infected. What do you mean by that?"

How could the boy not know? Castiel frowned for a moment. He found it hard to believe that Ryuugamine would have been experimented on when he'd only been here a day, so how had he missed the news about the illness?

But Castiel's nausea had been growing steadily since the conversation started, and it was starting to reach a point where he felt like something bad was going to happen, though he didn't know exactly what. He didn't know how to read this body or the signs it gave him.

"It means... There are a group of us that fell ill," he said, hoping that he could distract himself from how awful he felt with conversation. "But it's no ordinary illness. Those who let it go untreated will eventually turn into a monster of some kind." He sucked in a breath, hoping that it would help with the nausea, but it didn't seem to do much good.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 66: Sun Room (Third Shift)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

/dates and honorifics...!! ded

alskdfj yes, she imagines how they were friends beforeasdf sorry

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

Day 66: Sun Room (Third Shift)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

/dates and honorifics...!! *ded*

alskdfj yes, she imagines how they were friends beforeasdf sorry

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

/dates and honorifics...!! ded