damned_institute | DAY 26: Men's Showers (Second Shift)

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DAY 26: Men's Showers (Second Shift)

Gluttony didn't want to leave his Lust, not after he'd just found her! But the mean tasty nurses said he had to. "You can't join her in the women's showers" was a bad excuse. He didn't like the mean tasty nurses. Maybe Lust would let him eat them later. Still, he knew he would see his Lust again, and that was good. He liked Lust. She was good and beautiful and smart and kind. Why did they have to take him away from his Lust?

Still, he would see her again. And she would tell him it was okay to eat the tasty nurses, and that would be good. His new friend liked eating people, too. That made him happy to find a friend who shared a love for eating people. Today was a very good day.

As he entered the showers, he stood under a shower head and opened his mouth wide to drink up the water. It wasn't as good as eating people, or eating waffles that didn't scream when he bit into them so weren't nearly as good as eating people, but it was still swallowing something, and that made him feel better.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

A wistful expression crossed Daemon's face at that. "I suppose it is. Even a year is too much when it's someone you want with your entire being."

"Still," he countered, glancing over at Renji, "at least you've come back together at all. The location is hardly perfect, but it is better than nothing?"

For a moment, he almost objected to what Daemon said; it was habit. Common scum weren't even supposed to look at the nobility, after all. But it was also true. Every year, every day was too long.

Not that he felt like it mattered now. It was too confusing and upsetting, something he didn't want to - couldn't deal with right now. All he knew was that it was far more painful than the nothing he'd had before.

He didn't answer; he closed his eyes and bowed his head, the water running in streams from his face. His expression became closed and still once more.

Daemon recognized that expression as well, even though he didn't know the other man very well yet. He still had no trouble reading it.

"I take it things aren't all well and resolved with Rukia yet, then?" he asked, his voice low and quiet as he studied Renji from the corner of his eye.

He didn't have an answer for that. Because in a way, things were resolved. He loved her; she loved him. And it had seemed so simple, so direct...

Enjoying yourself, pet?

His eyes were still closed; a brief look of of loathing and disgust crossed his face, before his lips curled back in a silent snarl. He drove his fist into the wall, like he had last night, so hard that it made the bones crunch; with all the background noise of showers and talk, it was masked. At least here it made no dent.

He turned to leave.

"Wait," Daemon said quickly, shifting his stance with a graceful ease, sliding in front of the other man, golden eyes dark with worry as he glanced from Renji's face to the fist still clenched at his side.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, his voice low and hushed as water dripped down his face. "I should have anticipated it being a touchy subject. My instincts are off here. We don't have to talk about it, there's plenty of other topics if you'd rather. Unless there is something I can do to aid you?"

Renji's fist raised for a moment before he managed to reassert rationality. It wasn't this man's fault, he told himself. He didn't deserve to be attacked, as Ichigo hadn't deserved it, either. He dropped his hand back to his side, forcing his fingers to relax.

"There is no help," he said, quietly. It was already done, and it had been his own fault, for being so weak.

The offer of other topics of conversation seemed laughable. No matter how he tried to escape this, it always seemed to come back to her, to his errors, the very thing he wanted to forget. He had nothing to offer, because there was only one thing he could think about, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

Daemon hated the fact that he couldn't connect with Renji's psychic thread enough to hears his thoughts clearly. The emotions and vague snippets of disjointed thoughts made little sense to him, and he felt there was something seriously wrong here. If he could only figure out what it was...

"You'd be surprised where help can be found," he answered quietly, golden eyes searching Renji's face intently. "Something has happened to you. Recently? Something that has you upset and uncertain."

Renji opened his mouth to protest, or simply to tell the man to shut up. It hit far too close to home, far too close to the very thing he wanted to forget. Before he'd even made more than a choked, angry sound, he lose his grip on rationality. It felt like he went hot, then cold in an instant, and then his teeth clenched together for a very audible snarl this time.

Then his fist was going for Daemon's face.

While Daemon wasn't exactly prepared for that reaction, he wasn't exactly surprised by it, either. Renji seemed to have as volatile temper as his own, and he'd pushed too far. Hand cupping his jaw, he staggered back a step, but caught himself, feeling his jaw throb as pain seared along his nerves.

Mother Night, he had as hard a fist as Lucivar!

The observation was torn between exasperation and ruefulness as he took another step back, body instinctively shifting into a defensive stance in case there was a second punch coming after the first, even as golden eyes darted back to Renji, preparing to hold the other man off should he need to.

When he had attacked Ichigo, Renji had only regained control of himself because Rukia had been there, yelling at him, and because she'd grabbed his arm. She was nowhere to be seen now, and in fact he didn't even know if she was okay; perhaps that pushed things just a little further.

He closed the distance between them, coming in for another attack. It was instinct now; he wanted to take his opponent down, and kill.

Kyle's actions earlier had been enough of a warning for the nurses. They were accustomed to rowdy patients, but this one was one of the more belligerent ones. It was understandable, then, that a pair of orderlies remained nearby this shift, just in case.

Their concerns were well founded. Two large male nurses rushed in the moment Renji threw the first punch. "Stop this, Mr. Brothers!" one of them shouted above the sound of the showers while the other rushed in to grab the other patient around the waist and swing him away from the other patient. The one who spoke pulled out a syringe, just in case. He'd really hate to have to sedate this patient again, but they weren't taking any chances.

['tis a David]

"No!" Daemon called, quickly, holding up a hand to show he was alright. "It's alright! I'm fine! It was my fault, I said something I shouldn't!"

So much for keeping a low profile today.

He mentally cursed the fact that he'd pushed Renji too far, and didn't want the other man to deal with the consequences of his own lack of tact.

Renji's face went white as the nurse grabbed him, his eyes going wide. While still obviously caught in an uncontrollable rage, there was no mistaking the fear and something like horror now in his expression. His hands went down to the nurse's, attempting to dislocate and break fingers; he also tried to come down on the man's foot, the way he'd done to Muraki before, when--

when

when

"Don't touch me!" he screamed.

The nurses might have listened to Andrew's protests if not for the fact that Kyle was clearly having a psychotic episode, and their duties were to prevent him from harming the other patients or himself. They didn't have time to respond or react to Andrew. Their attentions had to remain entirely focused on the belligerent patient in front of them.

The nurse's grip on Kyle was rock-hard. While Kyle's actions could have forced a weaker nurse to let go, this one wasn't budging. "Sedate him!" he shouted, moving his foot out of the way of Kyle's stomp and pushing the patient up against the nearest wall. The nurse kept his full weight against Kyle, keeping him pinned for the other nurse.

The nurse with the needle stepped forward, being wary of Renji's struggling. He forcefully grabbed onto Renji's arm and stuck the needle into his tricep, injecting him with the powerful sedative.

Daemon's temper snapped at the sight of Renji pushed up against the wall by the male nurse and the terrified scream that reverberated off the tiles. While his conversation with Renji and even the punch had done nothing to test his patience or rouse his ire, this jolted him into an instant icy fury, his emotions riding the Killing Edge.

Golden eyes snapping with fury, he gave one rage-strengthened yank to tug the nurse off of him, his expression sharp with dangerous intent. "Don't touch him," Daemon echoed, his voice a low croon. For all it lacked the threat that most resort to in anger, there was still a warning edge to his sing-song tone.

All around them, the temperature began to drop, the hot water from the nearest shower heads turning significantly cooler as the Sadist came out to play.

It was a nightmare, that feeling of helplessness again; as soon as they had him against the wall, there was nothing he could do. He couldn't stop them from grabbing his arm, and couldn't do anything about the familiar burn of the needle. "Don't touch me!" he snarled again, though it was useless.

Then suddenly, they did. He dropped down to his knees, hands scrabbling against the wall. He clumsily pushed himself up and back, to his feet, but things were already beginning to feel strange and distant. He fell back against the wall, simply trying to keep his feet, now.

The nurses were not expecting the assaulted patient to step in to defend his assailant, so his efforts to push them back were successful. If they noticed the change in temperature, they gave no indication. "It's ok," the nurse who had injected Kyle with the sedative said. "We just gave him a sedative to calm him down. Step away so we can get him dressed and out of here."

The drugs were already taking effect on Kyle and the crisis was hopefully resolved. It was just a question of what Andrew planned to do next. They both knew better than to assume anything when it came to potentially belligerent patients.

_{[from over here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/173704.html?thread=11719560#t11783304)]}

Ren didn't hesitate; once he saw the change in Daemon, he immediately moved away from Farfarello with a quick nod. Putting himself in between Daemon and the nurses, he gave his focus to the former. He'd known the red-haired men would undoubtedly be dealt with by the orderlies when he'd started the attack, and there was nothing he could do about that - but he couldn't sit idly by and let Daemon go at them too. He'd end up sedated too - or worse. There was no point in that.

The temperature had dropped to a frigid coldness, but the look in Daemon's eyes was colder still. The doll steeled himself for a nasty confrontation.

"Please," he said, voice low. "Don't do it."

He didn't hold high hopes for this to end quickly and quietly, but Ren also had no intention of moving aside. Better to let himself take the brunt of it. There was just no telling what the staff would do beyond sedation.

Daemon registered Ren's arrival and his words without even a flicker of expression, his glare still locked on the orderly. The words, did, however restore some slight semblance of control on the icy temper.

"He's calm," Daemon answered the man who'd spoken to him, his voice still a low, dangerous-edged croon as he placed himself between the orderly he'd yanked away and the unsteady redhead leaning against the wall behind him. "As I said, it was just a misunderstanding. I'll see that he finishes getting clean and dressed, I can assure you we'll be careful not to have any further disagreements."

He didn't know if the orderly would listen, but he was not going to easily relinquish a drugged Renji to be led off to Darkness-knows-where, not after the panic he'd flown into when the orderlies had started to manhandle him.

The one thing that the sedatives did do that was positive, from Renji's viewpoint, was quickly muffling all of the emotion as if it had never existed. Now he just felt tired, dizzy, and apathetic. Still, as a point of pride, he kept on his feet, even if he felt like sitting and going to sleep. This was probably really, really embarrassing, he thought, and he'd be unhappy about it later.

"'sokay," he murmured, though he wasn't really certain to who. "'sokay. 'm sorry. Rukia..." He reached up unsteadily to press his fingertips against his forehead.

"That's not necessary," one of the nurses said to Andrew, grateful that a different patient came in to calm him. He wasn't good at calming. He was good at restraining when necessary and administering the proper medication when needed. "Mr. Brothers needs to be escorted to his room to rest. We'll take it from here."

Neither nurse moved towards Kyle yet, hoping that Andrew would play it smart and move aside.

Despite enjoying making jokes of bets, he wasn't willing to put money on a choice between the two orderlies against two of their prisoners. But it was a poor comparison, because if he was going to come to heads with anyone, it looked like it was going to be Daemon.

He couldn't blame the guy. Even so, he had to do something.

Ren stepped further into the group of men, keeping his position between the two groups. "Tannin-san and I are finished in here anyway - would it be all right for us to see he gets out safely? He looks like he's had a time of it." Ren didn't believe for an instant that the staff members that worked here hadn't been manipulated in some way by whoever ran Landel's, but if they truly wanted to inflict harm, the methods they used were superfluous. That, and realistic to a fault.

"Excuse me," he added, speaking to the nearest nurse, "but when could we expect to see Brothers-san again?" The servant fixed his gaze on Daemon, hoping he would understand and consider the options they had. The nurses - as rightful nurses would - seemed determined to remove the red-haired men from the equation and take him to his room. If Daemon resisted and had the same happen to him, that hindered more than helped his acquaintance.

The temperature was still much cooler than any normal shower should be, but Daemon didn't act. Not yet. His body was tense and coiled to spring despite the fact that otherwise he looked perfectly at ease, other than that same dangerous glint in his eyes.

He didn't speak. Part of his mind acknowledged the fact that he had no idea what had just happened to Renji, other than the orderly had stabbed him with something that injected some substance in a way similar to his snake tooth. That made him wary and distrustful, especially since Renji was now left nearly nonsensical behind him. Was it a venom or a sedative? Either way, Daemon had no wish to experience it himself, but he wasn't about to just hand Renji over to the very people responsible for his state, either.

Ren's words penetrated his rage-hazed mind and he held off his temper a little longer, struggling to rein himself in from the Killing Edge, although not too far, in case he should need it. Not that he thought finding his way back to it again would be difficult. Just one of those screams from Renji had been enough to nearly shatter his control completely.

He knew the tone of those screams all too well and they haunted his nightmares still.

So he waited, golden gaze narrowed and glittering, focused on the orderly and waiting for an answer before taking another step of action. He knew Ren was trying to solve this peaceably, but Daemon was not backing down until he was satisfied over the drugged man's safety.

Going to his room an laying down actually sounded really, really good, in Renji's opinion. He was just so tired, and at this point, standing seemed like far too much effort. But another thought stirred in his mind, at the forefront because it had also been the source of his attack on Daemon. And the thought was:

the last time they drugged me and took me somewhere, it...

He licked his lips, hands pressed firmly against the wall as if that would help keep him upright and help him think. He put every ounce of concentration (not that he had a lot, at this point) in to spreaking clearly, though his words were still heavy and slurred. "I'd like to finish taking my shower, please."

That was the best he could manage, and it didn't sound all that convincing. If the nurses insisted on taking him off, he'd go quietly, and save his strength for whatever fight might be coming.

The nurse who seemed to do all of the speaking for the pair smiled at the newest patient. Rhett, he believed his name was. It was nice to have a patient try to resolve things peacefully for once. "We'll bring him back out for Lunch. He just needs a little time in his room to cool off. Now, if you'd kindly move aside, Mr. Brothers needs his rest."

The request to finish his shower struck the nurse as an odd one. The patients had had plenty of time to shower. "That's really not necessary, Mr. Brothers. Come along, we're just going to go to your room for the rest of the shift."

The other nurse looked directly at Andrew. "Step aside, Mr. Tanin."

DAY 26: Men's Showers (Second Shift)

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