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.

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Ashton had clearly never washed another man's back before, and he hadn't had any real younger siblings to help wash, but he found it calming enough. Xigbar's back was muscular too, in an oddly sinewy way, and riddled with odd scars that he let his sword-callused hand drift over.

"Well, there's this one," tracing a deep scar from the edge of the Freeshooter's left shoulder blade diagonally down his side, almost to his hip. Another man's body.. it was becoming oddly natural to clean it, and his blush had faded to just a minimal pink. As long as he didn't look at Xigbar's ..bits, or get too close, he was going to be fine.

"Hmmm," he added, taking on a dramatic, mysterious tone, "it also appears that there are also these big circular-shaped scars, one on each shoulder blade, both about the same size.."

Xigbar barked a laugh at that, grinning at Ashton's sudden mysterious tone and and the far too dramatic styling. Hey, the kid was starting to pick it up! Good for him!

As for that one scar... well, at the start, Xigbar just let his grin linger, enjoying the feel of calloused fingers sliding over his body, something nice and easy now that he was all soaped up ~~with nowhere to go.~~ Kinda nice, really. "Sultan's guard," Xigbar murmured, "was snooping around to figure out where a genie's lamp was, got caught, got carved up kinda good before I got out. One of 'em nabbed me from behind, so it took awhile to get it sewed up. Hah..."

And here Xigbar tilted his head so he could glance at Ashton, that lopsided grin still on his face. "Guess they didn't want me taking phenomenal cosmic power away from 'em. Who woulda thought?"

Ashton laughed when Xigbar did, happy to be in a relatively calm situation with the Nobody, one where he wasn't afraid that he was going to be suddenly kissed or anything. Such naivete would certainly prove dangerous in the end, but Ashton wasn't afraid for his physical safety in the least.

"Oh, really?" Ashton said, interested in the story. Sure, he didn't know what a sultan was, or even a genie, but he could imagine. Phenomenal cosmic power? Oh, wow. It was a grand idea, a fantastical one that seemed like it would best fit in a storybook. "That sounds .. that sounds a little exciting. It's sad you didn't get the genie's lamp, though. It's great to have power," he said rather matter-of-factly, almost as if he was innocent of fighting and killing hundreds, if not thousands, of monsters (and people.)

His soapy thumb gently lifted to trace the scar on Xigbar's face, visible now that the other man had turned around to face him. He was getting a better look at that scar now than he had before, as he'd normally only seen the guy in the dark, so he got a little closer. "Hmm, then there's this one," he said in a more hushed tone.

Yep, that was a very dangerous sort of naivete, and yet Xigbar was still too disarmed to take advantage of it. Had to be because he loved boasting and telling stories, and it was a rare enough situation when he actually got a willing conversation partner. Especially one who had the heart to actually be interested, instead of just pretending... or not, in the case of most of his fellow Senior Members.

"Nah, someone like you should be glad I didn't get it. We were planning on turning the Genie into a Nobody, then turning all of Agrabah into a crawling hole of Heartless. Not exactly what a goody-goody like you would've liked." Not that Xigbar meant that too unkindly. He just knew that Ashton was a softie, and he wouldn't like the idea of thousands of people losing their hearts. Even if it was for a good cause.

As for the scar on his face? Xigbar took Ashton's hand in his own, abruptly nuzzling into it with a cat-like enigmatic grin. "Sorry, but that one I don't know you well enough to blab about. Same with the eye."

Yes, Ashton was very pro-emotion and pro-heart, but that didn't keep him from feeling understanding towards his heart-free friends. Even if they were really bad guys. Who did lotsa bad things, like Axel had told him. It was just one of the byproducts of being part monster.

"Ah.. I understand about your face scars. I'm sorry, it must be very private." He nodded his head, then turned his body to the side a little bit, pulling his hand back toward himself, so he could return to scrubbing Xigbar's back. Oh, Ashton was no stranger to learning about scars in the shower. The last time he saw some...

Well, last time's scars were no normal scars either.

He bit his lip, suddenly feeling a little nervous. Change the subject, change it, change it away from that "Why were you going around turning places into Heartless holes? I mean, not that I'd judge you any for it, you obviously know that, b-but.." he said, quickly trying to defend himself.

Yep, very private stuff, there. Xigbar didn't mind shifting the topic of conversation back to something else entirely, especially since Ashton was a very dutiful ~~uke~~ back-scrubber. When was the last time Xigbar got someone to do this? Waaaaaay too long.

Then there was that question, and Xigbar abruptly grinned as he turned around, taking Ashton's hands in his own and placing them on top of Xigbar's lean chest, right above where his heart was supposed to be. 'Supposed' to be. But he didn't have a pulse, didn't have anything there. As a Nobody, that was simply how it went. "'cause I don't have a heart," he said with the simple ease of a professor lecturing a student, "an' Xemnas had an idea. If we capture a lot of hearts and force them all together, they get more power, see? And if we get enough... we could get our hearts back. The Big Man said to do it, so I did. Tried to, anyway."

His one eye gazed into Ashton's two, that grin suddenly shifting into a completely neutral, emotionless expression. "...me? I just wanna get back to the way I was. People like you an' the Big Blue Machine? You don't even know how important a heart is. Nobody does except for Nobodies, an' we can't even get them back without tearing worlds inside out an' upside down. Heck if I've ever seen the beat."

Ashton looked dejected, dropping his gaze from Xigbar's one eye to his chest. Heck, Ashton hardly noticed his own heart beating, save when he was in an adrenaline-fueled situation, but most of the time he couldn't really feel his heartbeat even when he put his hand over his own chest. He could easier feel a pulse when he touched his neck in that odd place between a muscle and his chin. So it wasn't that strange to Ashton to feel the lack of a pulse, except that then he remembered that there wasn't a heart underneath. An empty shell..

That was something he tried his best not to think about, mostly because he couldn't understand how important it was, like Xigbar said. Ashton didn't really think about things that could damage or change his view of the world.

"I - .. I am sorry you lost your heart," Ashton said, his voice breaking a little. He remembered what Axel had said what seemed so long ago: "And that you have no emotions of your own. Even now, you're just being influenced by my own heart.."

He looked up sharply at Xigbar, his eyes suddenly determined. "Did it ever work for anyone? The - well, Number I's idea. I know Axel got sort of a heart, but that's different."

"Didn't 'lose' it. Got taken from me," Xigbar lightly corrected, as though the matter amused him more than anything else. He squeezed those hands over his chest, grinning a little as he spoke. "Mind you, I deserved it for bein' a real moron and biting a baited hook an' all, but man! If I could do it all over again, I'd have stopped things then and there. Shame I can't, huh? Used to be a real trend-setter, me, and now I can't even feel for myself. Feel like I'm handicapped."

At that sudden determined look, Xigbar sharply barked out his laughter. "That's a good one! That's a good one. Nope, me and the whole crew get killed before we could figure it out. 'least that's what they tell me; I'm from pretty early on, when it comes to the experiments. There was another way that might've worked, but I never got a chance to try it."

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DAY 26: Men's Showers (Second Shift)

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