damned_institute | Day 68: Recreational Field (Second Shift)

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Day 68: Recreational Field (Second Shift)

Despite Zero's earlier fit of (mostly internal) anger, it felt good to get some food in his stomach after going without since yesterday's lunch. He felt even better about how he had managed to avoid a certain former blue robot's attention for an entire shift - though he figured his luck was bound to run out very quickly as far as that was concerned. There were only so many people in this place and it wasn't like he was allowed to roam anywhere he wanted. Still, he would continue trying to awkwardly avoid his friend for as long as possible. Maybe he wasn't ill anymore and maybe it wasn't the right thing to do, but...until he figured out how to start a conversation with someone he'd literally taken a chunk out of the night before... How to apologize, and how to scold him for blatantly ignoring Zero's warnings...

(Either way, he wouldn't let it keep him from checking the bulletin board...even if there didn't seem to be much on there this morning. Hmm. Unusual.)

Otherwise... It seemed he was expected to go outside today. 'Vent some frustrations', the head lunatic said. Hmph. Good job being completely unsubtle. There was that flash of anger again - but by now, his ability to control said anger was becoming strong enough to prevent it from bothering him for more than a few minutes. That was good; he didn't need to waste his energy being too easily upset over words. Words couldn't make him bleed like half of the things that happened at night did. What he should be doing was taking advantage of the situation he had. The field would give him space to flex his muscles, help him train himself physically, prepare for whatever tonight might throw at him... Yes, that was what he needed to do. Train. And all he truly needed to worry about while doing that was not stressing his bandaged right arm, which needed to heal quickly more than anything.

Right. Once he managed to separate himself from his nurse (who was still worrying and fussing over his continued silence toward her) and once he'd scanned his surroundings to make sure that one particular face was nowhere to be seen, Zero began to wander across the grass, contemplating how he should go about this training. Maybe start with a light run around the field, to test his stamina....that sounded good.

[Harpuia and X!]

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Somehow or other, Lloyd's fuming steps had taken him within range of an abandoned black and white ball. Maybe it was a soccer ball, maybe it wasn't. He didn't care or bother to ask before he kicked it toward one of the goals. It rolled, and stopped, not even making it halfway. His moody kick hadn't been powerful enough. Proof of a lack of any soccer talent? Or just that the attempt had been halfhearted?

Either way, it didn't make him feel any better. It just made him want to kick it again, venting frustration. Instead, though, he looked up at Guy, mustering an attempt at a wave. It probably wasn't any more convincing than the kick had been. "Yeah- No. I don't know." He let out a frustrated breath. "I just... It'd be easier if the nurses weren't so nice!" Easier to disregard anything they said, easier to reject their advice, easier to resist, easier to fight back. What was he supposed to do when the nurse seemed like she just wanted the best for him?

Guy watched with a raised eyebrow as Lloyd kicked at the ball, but it was something clearly done in frustration, so it didn't do much. It was the sort of thing that made him wonder if he should feel bad for Lloyd or laugh, but in such a situation it was better to keep his face completely neutral. He didn't want to make Lloyd's mood any worse, after all.

At the mention of the nurse, Guy glanced toward the one who Lloyd had been speaking with. She was watching the two of them with a worried frown on her face. Just that image gave Guy an idea of what Lloyd meant. While the nurses were their enemies in a practical sense (and in a literal sense at night), the fact was that they really thought they were doing a good thing. Since the nurses didn't know the truth of what was going on, they couldn't exactly blame them.

"I know what you mean," Guy said after a pause, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Most of the time, it's probably easier to just ignore them." But that wasn't going to help Lloyd vent out some of his frustration now, so...

Guy eyed the soccer ball. "Kicking that around might help you to calm down, if you want to try it." He had to admit that he'd never really tried, though he'd watched plenty of other patients play in the past. It might be a good way to get some exercise and help Lloyd out at the same time.

"But what if..." He scrubbed a hand through his hair, still frustrated, as much with himself now as with anything else. He could 'what if' himself to death and it wouldn't do any good. He'd never been that great at planning like that anyway. Easier by far to deal with the problems he already had than to worry about the ones that might appear. He had more than enough trouble as it was.

Attention drawn back to the ball, he frowned at it, then considered the goal nets, then Guy. As frustrated as he was, kicking something did sound pretty good. Guy's thin, wiry build suggested he was physically fit, too, enough to provide a challenging opponent in a game of...

A game of what? Soccer? "I don't know the rules," he said slowly. Not so much a protest as just a statement of a problem. If Guy knew the rules, it probably wouldn't take long to explain them to Lloyd. If not, well... Maybe they could make something up? "Have you ever played soccer before?"

It seemed like there was still something on Lloyd's mind, something that he wasn't quite willing to explain just yet. Guy didn't mind giving him some space and time to sort that all out in his head. Maybe after they kicked the ball around for a little, he could ask Lloyd what was eating at him.

As for how to play, well, Guy had to admit he didn't know all the rules that well either. But after watching others play here for over a month now, he'd picked a few things up.

"I don't know all the technical rules, but the basics are that you can only kick the ball around, so putting your hands on it isn't allowed. You have to try and kick the ball into one of those nets... But since there's only two of us, we can probably just kick it back and forth, or try to steal it from each other." There was no need to make it something formal when they were just looking to have a little bit of fun and unwind. With this cold weather, Guy wouldn't mind getting his blood flowing either.

"No hands, huh? I think I can manage that." It might even be a good thing, too. If he spent all his time concentrating on his feet, the ball, and Guy, he might not even notice the chill on his bare hands. For a brief moment, he thought longingly of his red gloves tucked away in his closet, but they were there and he was here and he really didn't want to talk to his nurse, even long enough to ask to go back inside for them. He settled for rubbing his hands together as he walked over to where the ball had stopped.

He eyed Guy again, judging the blonde's position. "You ready?" he asked by way of giving warning, then drew his leg back and kicked. This time he was actually trying to put some force behind it. The ball sailed forward - too high and too far to the left - but at least with enough force to send it across the stretch of grass.

Lloyd didn't give Guy much of a chance to get ready, which meant it was a good thing that he had a habit for being prepared. The ball skewed to the side somewhat, which meant that Guy had to go chasing after it. He was definitely a sprinter by nature, so he was able to catch up with the ball and eventually dribbled it between his feet.

Oddly enough, his comfort with using a sword helped in this instance. One of the first things someone learned when practicing swordplay was how to have quick footwork, and so Guy managed to control the ball decently well, even without being able to use his hands. He looked back to Lloyd, aiming for a second before he kicked the ball back to him.

"Not so hard, right?" he called over. Already he was starting to warm up from the exertion, which was a relief. Not that he couldn't deal with the cold weather, but it definitely felt better this way.

Footwork was one of the things it seemed like Kratos had constantly lectured Lloyd on. No matter what Lloyd liked to think about himself, the problem was that he was mostly self-taught. Sure, there were some things he'd managed to figure out for himself, but he hadn't had good footwork drilled into him until only recently. Those sporadic times when Kratos had taken him aside weren't near enough to make it second nature to him. Not yet, and especially not since it had been some time since the last such training session. Not since before the Tower of Salvation...

He only had time to grimace briefly at the memory before he had to react to the ball. He nearly stumbled in his attempt to mimic Guy's quick footsteps, but after a few tries he seemed to get the hang of it, at least enough to send it back toward the other man. This time his aim was a little better.

"I guess not. I wonder why the game rules say no hands, though. Do people do something else with them when you're kicking the ball around?" He had a brief vision of someone kicking a ball while holding something with both hands. Maybe another ball?

This time around, Guy didn't have to run nearly as much to retrieve the ball, which meant that Lloyd was already getting the hang of this. Not that the basics of kicking a ball around was that hard; it was when you had to try and steal the ball from another player that it got tricky. Guy didn't see much point in making this competitive when they were just looking to have some fun, though.

Guy dribbled the ball from one foot to the other a few times, making sure to let his arms hang loosely at his sides, as he thought over Lloyd's question. "I think it's just a way to make it more challenging. If you can't pick up the ball and throw it, or even touch it at all, then you have to rely on moving it on the ground with your feet."

He shrugged and then kicked the ball back. "So I'm sure you know by now that Claude is better, right?" Since Lloyd hadn't brought it up, chances were that Claude had told him all about it last night at dinner. It was nice for the two of them to have something else to talk about, Guy had to admit.

Lloyd had initially thought they could jump right into the competitive part of this game, but given how he'd nearly tripped once or twice, maybe just kicking the ball around was good enough for now. Once he was more used to it, they could change things up a bit. The last thing he wanted to do was trip and fall on his face.

Angling a foot out, he let the ball bounce off of his instep to keep it from sailing past. Awkwardly at first, eyes glued to the ground, he tried to do what Guy had done, dribbling the ball between his feet. "It is pretty challenging," he agreed. "I don't think I've had to watch my feet this much since Kratos... Since I was getting some training with my swords."

What had happened to Kratos last night anyway? He frowned and looked up, but still couldn't find any sign of the man. He nearly indulged in a small puff of irritation - trust the man to not be there when Lloyd wanted to talk to him - but the ball nearly escaping his feet forced his attention back on what he was doing. Deciding he'd dribbled it long enough, he kicked it back.

"Yeah, he was looking a lot better last night. He said he went with some friends found a plant that cured him. He even showed me what it was." The brunette tilted his head, free to examine Guy speculatively now. "Was that you? Did you go with him?"

It was hard to not look down at the ball, as that was anyone's first instinct, but Guy imagined that when you were actually playing you had to keep your head up and look forward, to map out where you'd be running. He almost wished he could see a full-blown game for himself, but it wasn't going to happen here and with no way out, it was a lost cause. Besides, even if he did escape, the first thing on his to-do list wouldn't be going to watch a soccer game.

Guy was shocked when Lloyd mentioned the name Kratos, because it was actually a familiar one. He'd only spoken to the man a handful of times, and that had been a few weeks back, but it was a pretty unique name. So Lloyd knew Kratos from home?

He was about to ask about it, but then the ball came back his way, and Guy focused on stopping and then controlling it. He listened to what Lloyd had to say about Claude, and then shook his head. "No, it was my friend Luke who was with him when they got the plant. But I saw Claude last night and he's already looking a lot better." Guy smiled and then kicked the ball back. "Thanks for looking out for him."

Lloyd smiled right before he caught the ball with his foot. "No problem," he said. "I'm sure he'd do the same for me if I needed it." Sure, he'd only known Claude a few days, but that felt like long enough for Lloyd to get a feel for his roommate.

He tapped the ball forward - not hard enough to send it to Guy, but enough to get it moving, then tried to keep up with it, kicking it again. He wanted to see if he could get it across the field without losing control of it. "Speaking of that, though," he went on, though he kept his eyes on the ball and the ground. "Do you know if people are still coming down sick with what Claude had? Should I try to get some of that plant?" He didn't feel sick, but what if he just hadn't come down with it yet? "How contagious is that sickness?"

Guy watched as Lloyd switched it up with the ball, starting to run with it instead. He didn't know what he planned to do from there, but he decided to just go ahead ans watch him for now. The fact that Lloyd could keep up a conversation while doing that made it clear that he was a pretty active person. And if he was also someone who knew how to use a sword, then chances were he had an interesting story of his own.

"As far as I know, it's only been a set number of people who all got sick at the same time. It's not contagious, so you don't need to worry about anything like that." He set his hands on his hips and shook his head. If it was something that spread in any way, Guy definitely would have been sick by now, after spending so much time around Claude and Anise.

Something about that unsettled Lloyd, and it didn't take him long to pin it down. With normal sicknesses, people didn't all get sick at the same time. First some, then others, as people got sick and passed it around. Not contagious, though... Which meant they'd all been exposed at the same time, like if everyone had eaten something bad for dinner, only much, much worse.

Or if everyone had been given the same thing that made them sick by the doctors and nurses here. Lloyd's mouth formed a grim line at the evidence that seemed to support what he'd been told, and his next kick to the ball sent it farther than before. He had to pick up his pace to catch up. When he did, he kicked it hard to send it back to Guy. Probably with a little too much force.

"I don't understand this place!" he burst out. "They say they're trying to help us, and some of them act like they believe that, but then they make people sick at the same time! What do they even want?"

Despite the fact that Guy had been aiming to give Lloyd a way to unwind, it looked like they'd come back to the point of contention that had bothering him in the first place. Maybe it had been wrong of Guy to bring up the sickness. Well, he couldn't take it back now, so instead he focused on retrieving the ball. It bounced up against his shins, but it didn't hurt enough to bother him much, and he managed to trap it under his foot soon after.

Instead of sending it back, though, he nudged it off to the side for a moment. It didn't seem like the best idea to give Lloyd the ball back when he was clearly upset, and Guy didn't want to interrupt the more serious conversation with it.

He sighed and shook his head. "I know. It's hard to believe, but the nurses really don't know what's going on. They believe all our injuries are accidents, and that people got sick naturally. Landel has them wrapped around his finger. So everything that you get angry about? You should direct that at him." Or at the military force that was funding this place, but Guy didn't want to spend too much time explaining that now.

Lloyd had already been jogging to catch up with the ball he'd kicked to Guy, but when Guy stopped the ball, Lloyd's steps slowed, then stopped. A cold breeze did its best to cool him off from the flush of exertion, but he barely noticed it, caught up as he was with his emotions.

"They won't even listen, though. If they think we're crazy, how will they know when we're not crazy if they won't listen to anything we say?" It rankled him, not being believed, not even being given a chance. "What if there was something we needed to warn them about? What about all the things that aren't accidents?"

While Guy could certainly empathize with how Lloyd was so frustrated by everything, the fact was that it wouldn't do him much good to get worked up about it, not when they couldn't change it. If there was a way to get through to the nurses, someone definitely would have figured it out by now.

"It's... probably part of the brainwashing, that they don't pay us any mind. I think it's the same with the doctors, when patients are sent to therapy." He sighed and shook his head, finally nudging the ball back in Lloyd's direction. "It might be hard, but the best thing to do is just ignore them. Once they get used to you and decide you're well behaved, they'll stop bothering you as much." Guy refused to see it as getting complacent, because it wasn't like they had much of a choice.

The idea that some of their captors were being brainwashed didn't set well with Lloyd. It made it more difficult to think of them as true enemies, people he needed to fight against. "If we could just get them to realize that they're wrong, get them on our side..."

But that idea ran headfirst into the same problem he'd just stated, that the nurses and doctors were refusing to take any of their patients seriously. It was a problem that seemed to go in circles on itself, frustratingly unsolvable.

He caught the ball under his foot, but didn't immediately kick it one way or the other. Instead, he rolled it around underneath his foot as he tried to think through what this meant. "I just wish there was something we could do besides wait. We could get two hundred percent as much stuff done if we could do stuff during the day!"

This frustration Lloyd was feeling was the sort of thing that every patient went through, Guy included. Maybe it had been more internal in his case, but there were very few people who could be locked up somewhere away from home, on a completely different planet, and not be extremely bothered by it.

"I know that it's hard, but people have tried to throw riots during the day, and it's pretty much never ended well," Guy explained with a sigh, making sure to look around them and check that none of the nurses were close enough to hear.

"The daytime is when you should focus on what you'll be doing that night. And you can't be working all the time. There's nothing wrong with taking a shift or two to try and relax, too." Guy knew that might sound overly laidback, but seeing how he'd been here for so long, he'd had to figure out ways to cope.

"How can you relax when you know there's people suffering?" He kicked the ball back to Guy. The words were less accusation and more a struggle to reconcile the idea to himself.

As the ball rolled, his eyes tracked it, until it had closed half the distance to the other man. Guy would kick it back soon enough, but...

But it was starting to get a little boring just standing here waiting for it to come back. He jogged forward, angling a little to the side, giving Guy a moving target.

"I mean, I get that you can't do work all the time, but..." The worry from before that had started all this stirred to the surface again. He swallowed, trying to push it back and focus. "But what if we do nothing and that starts to... to feel right? What if it starts feeling like they're right? The doctors and nuses, I mean."

Guy did his best not to take that question as some sort of judgment. The thing was, maybe Lloyd was right and he'd become desensitized to a lot of the things that went on here. But he didn't think that was it. No, it was more that there was so much that went on that trying to deal with it all would honestly just be exhausting. Guy had to focus on the places where he could actually make a difference.

"I'm not saying you should get complacent," Guy said, watching as Lloyd ran ahead. He had to make sure to time it right, but he did what he could to kick the ball so that it would end up right where Lloyd was running.

"But you don't want to get so stressed and worked up that you can't function, or get sick." While it had already been proved that sickness could be forced on them, there was no reason to make it worse. "And believe me, I've been here a while and I've never for a second felt like they were right." That was something he didn't think Lloyd would have to worry about.

Back when Lloyd had lived near Iselia, before the Journey of Regeneration, before the Desians, before everything had started happening and life had been simple, he'd often made the argument to anyone who would listen (but especially his teachers and Dirk) that he needed to take plenty of breaks from school or work to keep his mind sharp and his stress levels relaxed. Dirk had let him get away with it to a degree, even approved with amusement sometimes. After all, he was the one who'd taught Lloyd the tenth vow.

Once things started becoming more dire, though, playful moments happened less frequently. He just hadn't had the time, or hadn't been in the mood. It was hard to think of doing much else when he was worried about his friends, about the two worlds, sometimes worried so much his stomach tied into knots...

Maybe Guy had a point.

"Dwarven vow number ten," Lloyd murmured, mostly to himself, but loud enough for Guy to hear if he was listening. "Play hard, play often." He intercepted the ball, maybe a little less gracefully than he would have liked, but tried to keep moving. It... felt odd, almost uncomfortable, to think about relaxing when they were all still prisoners, all still in danger every night. But...

Guy's words touched a chord in him. A thought occurred to him, and he crooked a wry smile before kicking the ball to where he thought Guy would be next. "You sound a lot like my Dad. So, you really don't think there might be anything true about what the doctors say?"

When Lloyd got the ball and then kept running, Guy jogged after him, though at a casual pace. He'd already managed to fight off the cold by engaging in some exercise, so he was glad that he and Lloyd had decided to do this.

What had Lloyd said about a vow, though? Maybe it was some proverb from his world. Either way, it looked like Guy had gotten through to him. The smile on Lloyd's face as he kicked the ball over confirmed that, and Guy smirked himself as he ran forward to get the ball under his control.

"Like your Dad?" Guy paused for a moment as he considered that, because he hadn't heard a comment like that in some time. He was still pretty young to be acting parental toward anyone, but seeing how he'd helped raise Luke, it made sense that he slipped into that kind of behavior sometimes. At least Lloyd didn't seem to mind.

"Yeah, I really think that," he said as he moved the ball between his feet. "If anyone starts acting like their fake self, it's because this place brainwashes them to. That's all." Which wasn't a very encouraging thought, but it did prove that it was a huge hoax.

"Yeah," Lloyd said, still smiling, this time at the memories that played through his head. Dirk sitting down and trying to walk him through homework, hours spent teaching Lloyd what he could of his craft, meal times when Lloyd tried to recite Dwarven Vows - they all held a similar thread. "Whenever I got too frustrated with something, Dad would make me take a break. I still had to do it, so it's not like he was going easy on me." And of course with the case of meals, that break meant that he stayed hungry even longer. A break didn't mean Dirk was backing down from making Lloyd practice his Dwarven Vows. "But he said if I was too stuck to think something through, then I needed to stop until I could get unstuck. I guess... I guess I just never thought about it like that for stuff besides homework or things I'd do at home." Things he'd do with Dirk.

Dad, I hope you're all right. He swallowed and tried to shove the worry aside. He still didn't know what Yuan had meant with that comment he'd made about his father. Maybe he hadn't been threatening Dirk. Maybe it had just been a bluff. Either way, there wasn't anything Lloyd could do about it yet, not until he found a way back to his world. Which he couldn't work on until tonight. And until then...

Guy was right. Dirk was right. Maybe the best thing he could do right now was work on staying unstuck.

Unstuck and unbrainwashed. Lloyd winced at the sobering thought. Winced, then took a breath and tried not to be phased by it, tried not to get stuck again. "If that happens..." If that happened, what would he do? "If that happens, we'll just have to do what we can to remind people about who they are." None of his friends from his world were here, but he had made other friends. Friends who knew him as Lloyd, not Nigel. If he forgot, they could remind him. And... he also had Kratos. He might not be friends with the man, but surely Kratos wouldn't put up with the Institute doing something like that. Surely he wouldn't let Lloyd just forget.

Surely... This wasn't the same as Colette. Shaking his head, Lloyd tried to push that uneasy thought away as well. Too many worries, too many what-ifs. He needed to focus on the here and now, and worry about what might happen when it did.

"So... Think you can get that ball past me?" He let the corners of his mouth slide up. Here and now. He could do this.

Besides, he could definitely do with some fun.

So that's how it was. Guy smiled as Lloyd explained, because it turned out that whoever his dad was, he had a good head on his shoulders. It was true that stepping away from a problem for a little while often helped to give a new perspective on things, and that was no different here at Landel's. With all the stress put on them during the nights, they almost needed the days to regroup and catch their breath. So while sometimes it felt like a drag, Guy tried to make the best of it. Like this whole conversation, for instance.

"Exactly. Even if you take breaks every now and then here, you're always going to turn around and go right back to trying to get out, right? So it's fine." He shrugged his shoulders, because it seemed like common sense to him. They weren't robots that could keep at things twenty-four seven.

As for the brainwashing, it was a problem that Guy thought about pretty often, because he was pretty sure that Jade, Natalia, Tear, and possibly even Ion had become victim to that fate. He wasn't about to give up on them. He nodded to Lloyd, because it looked like they were on the same page there.

When Lloyd gave him a challenging look and dared him to try and get the ball past him, Guy just smirked right back. Might as well, right? He didn't have any concerns about his footwork, and while this whole soccer thing was new to him, it was worth a try. So he started to dribble the ball toward Lloyd, already trying to plan out in his head how he could slip past him with it.

Lloyd shifted his footing to prepare himself to intercept Guy when he came, but it's one thing to chase a ball that's been kicked straight toward him, another entirely to try steal a ball out from under someone's feet, especially if you're trying not to trip him. The result is something less than graceful.

But that's not the point, now is it?

By the time the nurses came out to retrieve their wards, Lloyd was a little breathless, but he was smiling, a smile he tossed at Guy even as his nurse led him away.

"Did you have fun, Mr. Clarke?" His nurse beamed at him.

Mr. Clarke. That still wasn't his name. It still bothered him, but maybe not so much. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I did." Raising his voice, he lifted a hand to wave. "See you later, Guy!"

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nobleman - 2013-02-05 18:55 (UTC) - Expand

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Day 68: Recreational Field (Second Shift)

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Should we start wrapping this up?

Yeah, I think we're at a good point.

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