"RYUUZAKI" (L - Death Note) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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damned_institute2013-06-24 04:50 am
ryuuzaki) wrote in damned_institute2013-06-24 04:50 am
Day 71: Waiting Room/Lobby 1 (Fourth Shift)
An unexpectedly uneventful night had been followed by an equally dull day.
L had slept late -- something uncharacteristic at home that was becoming troublingly common here in the few weeks since the surgery -- but had woken in time for a late brunch. He followed his meal with a perusal of the message board, which was of less interest on the whole than the note that was passed off to him by another patient in the Sun Room.
After copying the numbers into his journal, he'd dropped it into someone else's lap. If they'd already seen it, they could send it around to someone who might not have. It wasn't his problem. The nature of how the note was being passed meant that it would be better to see it two or three times anyway... otherwise, everyone would miss the information added by everyone who came after them.
It was Visitors' Day. It marked four weeks at the Institute for him. The vast majority of people who had been there the first week were gone, and the population on the whole was much lower, which could be seen from certain viewpoints as an ominous sign. Unnerving or not, it meant that there was now an array of potential visitors for L... Abe, Jones, Howell, Lunge, and almost anyone else from those first three weeks.
The only one who had ever visited him before was Abe, or the complacent figure Landel had managed to turn Abe into. It was strange that a man who had had that kind of insight into L's secrets had been convinced just days later that everything was a delusion, so much so that no appeal to logic would work on him.
When the nurse tapped him on the shoulder ("Daniel, please follow me. Your friend has come to visit you!"), he merely shrugged, raised his eyebrows, slipped his feet into his shoes, and followed. The brief walk was uninteresting; he occupied himself wondering who it would be, someone from here or someone from home, what they would say to him to convince him that he was a very disturbed young man who would have a bright future if only, and so on. At worst it would probably be a tedious conversation. What would happen later tonight, if they managed to reach the Coliseum this time, was the more pressing matter, the one that haunted his thoughts. It was almost cruel that they hadn't been able to reach it the previous night: it meant another entire day of uncomfortable anticipation, not knowing exactly what he would have to face.
The nurse ushered him into the lobby where the visitor was waiting. His stomach fell, and for the moment, his concerns about the Coliseum vanished, as he realized that he hadn't been prepared for this at all. A rattled expression flashed across his face, then almost immediately fell away, replaced by something much less revealing.
He shouldn't have been surprised, but the idea of something was different from the experience of it.
[Team Lars Reunion.]
L had slept late -- something uncharacteristic at home that was becoming troublingly common here in the few weeks since the surgery -- but had woken in time for a late brunch. He followed his meal with a perusal of the message board, which was of less interest on the whole than the note that was passed off to him by another patient in the Sun Room.
After copying the numbers into his journal, he'd dropped it into someone else's lap. If they'd already seen it, they could send it around to someone who might not have. It wasn't his problem. The nature of how the note was being passed meant that it would be better to see it two or three times anyway... otherwise, everyone would miss the information added by everyone who came after them.
It was Visitors' Day. It marked four weeks at the Institute for him. The vast majority of people who had been there the first week were gone, and the population on the whole was much lower, which could be seen from certain viewpoints as an ominous sign. Unnerving or not, it meant that there was now an array of potential visitors for L... Abe, Jones, Howell, Lunge, and almost anyone else from those first three weeks.
The only one who had ever visited him before was Abe, or the complacent figure Landel had managed to turn Abe into. It was strange that a man who had had that kind of insight into L's secrets had been convinced just days later that everything was a delusion, so much so that no appeal to logic would work on him.
When the nurse tapped him on the shoulder ("Daniel, please follow me. Your friend has come to visit you!"), he merely shrugged, raised his eyebrows, slipped his feet into his shoes, and followed. The brief walk was uninteresting; he occupied himself wondering who it would be, someone from here or someone from home, what they would say to him to convince him that he was a very disturbed young man who would have a bright future if only, and so on. At worst it would probably be a tedious conversation. What would happen later tonight, if they managed to reach the Coliseum this time, was the more pressing matter, the one that haunted his thoughts. It was almost cruel that they hadn't been able to reach it the previous night: it meant another entire day of uncomfortable anticipation, not knowing exactly what he would have to face.
The nurse ushered him into the lobby where the visitor was waiting. His stomach fell, and for the moment, his concerns about the Coliseum vanished, as he realized that he hadn't been prepared for this at all. A rattled expression flashed across his face, then almost immediately fell away, replaced by something much less revealing.
He shouldn't have been surprised, but the idea of something was different from the experience of it.
[Team Lars Reunion.]
no subject
The day had given her plenty to think about without them--the entire week, truthfully. She didn't want to leave Sora in the Game Room; a part of her wondered what if, like a mirage, he disappeared the moment she took her eyes off of him? Only the tangible fact that he was alive and well kept Tsubaki from arguing with her nurse. Although he wasn't quite back to normal, Sora was back.
And she... she had to make sure she was doing everything she could to support him, and the rest of her friends. For now, that meant following the Institute's cues.
She took her customary seat in one of the waiting room's chairs, hands clasped in her lap. Truth be told, Tsubaki was happier having a distraction from thoughts of visitors and who might be on their way to see her. Her last conversation with Masamune still felt surreal, a waking dream that made her chest ache. Her brother was gone, and yet the smiling, laughing ghost of him remained.
If he walked through that door, she would have to see him again, talk to him. She didn't know if she would ever be ready for that.
no subject
Michio took a breath to ready himself before pushing gently on the door to the waiting room. Just as before, Miyu sat alone, hands folded in her lap. This would not be something he could hope to change over the course of a single week, he reminded himself.
"Sister," he offered softly, pausing at the empty chair set out for him. "It's good to see you."
no subject
Her stomach clenched briefly, and she wondered how she was supposed to balance something so wonderful with something so... strange as this.
Tsubaki stood up at his approach. "Hello," she said, remembering to smile. She was supposed to say yes, it is as one might expect, and maybe offer a seat, but it was so much harder to think like this. "Yes... it's hard to believe it's only been a week."
no subject
That was all that Otto Jung could wonder as he sat in the lobby, watching the nurses drift to and fro with that calm, precise look they always seemed to wear. But none of it touched him in the way he thought it might. The feelings of entrapment and isolation that had haunted him between these walls not even a fortnight ago were so detached from him now that they seemed not so much a distant memory as a fading dream- and goodness only knew, he'd learned his share about not interpreting dreams. Not interpreting anything. That had, he'd gathered, been at the heart of his neurosis, and his follow-up appointments outside of the Institute had been keeping that desire neatly in check. His head was becoming a more silent place to be, and Jung was grateful for it.
That was, perhaps, part of what had drawn him back. To call the connections he'd forged during his stay illusory would have been to do a disservice to just how intense everything had felt here. Though he could now say, with the benefit of hindsight, that their exploits had been imaginary and even unhealthy, he hadn't quite been able to shake the sense of responsibility he felt for the young Daniel Laurier. He had led him astray then; now he had a chance to make amends.
As Daniel entered, Jung rose. In another time he might have dissected the fleeting bewilderment that crossed his face, but now he kept his thoughts more carefully neutral- he must be surprised to see me- and instead offered him a hand to shake. "Daniel. It feels as though it's been years, doesn't it?"