Day 69: Sun Room

[rebonding]

[From here]

Korra wandered into the Sun Room while rubbing her hair dry with a small towel. The shower had been nice, at least. She had wanted her nurse to take her outside, but apparently there would be none of that for the moment. The "adults" were out there. What were they doing that they couldn't let her go outside, too?? She wasn't used to this, being cooped up. It reminded her of her time in the sewers.

She flopped down onto one of the couches, keeping an eye out for someone to chat up. Sure, her social skills weren't exactly 'honed,' yet, but that didn't mean she didn't want to talk to people. There wasn't anything else to do here, anyway.

[Barnaby!]

Comments

[firewhichrefines]

[[from here]]

He'd either done a less thorough job with the towel than he'd thought, or his hair had grown in the space between abduction and now: Sasuke found himself wiping drops of water off his neck considerably more frequently than expected (and ignoring his nurse's admonitions that he was liable to catch a cold). Normally he just lopped off what was inconvenient with a kunai, but he'd been here so long ...

So long and without a blade. Perhaps he'd take off the longest parts of his bangs tonight, keep them out of his eyes. For now, he tilted his head back to focus (and his eyes were definitely healing thoroughly: he could focus without the twinge of pain, now) on the notes at the top of the board.

Disappearances, questions, the usual thinly-veiled encryption. Were there fewer hands than there had been, before?

[[backthread for Soma]]

[madeinthehrl]

Soma's nurse did her best to urge her outside, but the memory of the lake was still fresh in her mind, and as high as her cold tolerance normally was, she didn't have any desire to repeat the experience. That, and the old surgery scar, a few days old now, still twinged a little when she moved. It was probably better if she stayed inside, whatever her nurse said.

The Sun Room was already busy when she entered. Soma recognized a few familiar faces, but she ignored them for the moment in favor of checking the bulletin board. Link had left a message to their basement team, and she paused to scribble a reply. Her arm brushed another patient as she leaned forward to put it up.

"Sorry," she said automatically.

[firewhichrefines]

The voice wasn't one he knew out of a crowd, but that pale hair was distinctive enough that if Sasuke wracked his visual memories -- and there had been an astonishing quantity over the past two days, even with the limitations of the initial recovery phase -- he was reasonably sure he'd seen her around. He acknowledged the apology with a short nod, less concerned with the touch than the purpose.

This patient had obviously here long enough to make use of the bulletin board more than Sasuke had in his weeks here, and his nurse had been reluctant even to read the notes that had been addressed to him (and those had diminished over time to encompass only the occasional terse message Aidou posted). If nothing else --

"There are fewer notes than there have been in the past," Sasuke said, gaze sweeping the board again without bothering to linger on whatever message the girl had just added. "Have you noticed?"

[madeinthehrl]

Soma looked up, a hint of surprise passing across her features. The boy she'd bumped into looked a little younger than she was, and she was certain she'd seen him around before at least a few times. She hadn't expected him to address her, but it wasn't as if she were opposed to a conversation.

"Yes," she said. No need to ask the standard questions about how long he'd been here. By the sound of it, he was as least as much a veteran as she was. "But there are fewer patients, too. Especially since the last few nights."

[firewhichrefines]

And there it was, the response Sasuke had hoped for in the confident line of her posture at the bulletin board: visual confirmation of what he'd suspected just over the previous days of being sighted. If he focused on remembering what the place had sounded like, before, there might have been an easier way to notice it himself, but with the strange and newfound freedom to wander Landel had given them, patients had been more scattered even throughout the daytime.

Greater freedom in exchange for lasting longer. It was becoming less like Sound and more like Academy.

"How long have you been here?" It was the logical next question. Sasuke had lost count of how many times he'd said the words.