damned_institute | Day 27: Library

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Day 27: Library

Libraries, he'd found, were rarely as dull as people made them out to be. Though he felt no magic in these tomes, they were still full of useful information. Maybe some of them could tell him a little bit more about this world he'd landed himself in.

For that matter, why hadn't he run into any of the others yet? They'd all been fairly close together when they'd left Rekord, but he hadn't seen a trace of any of them. He was able to communicate easily with the people here though, which led him to believe Mokona was within a mile or so. Unless the ones running this little game had some other way to let all these other-worldly people communicate amongst themselves. In which case, the others could be very far away indeed.

The library had that wonderful smell of old books, and Fai traced his fingers along the shelves, skimming titles and pulling books that struck his fancy. Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, The War of the Worlds, and with a smile, he found Bram Stoker's Dracula as well. Raven had been telling the truth then, in spite of his own lies. Ought to be a good start. He sat leisurely at one of the tables and began flipping through his selections.

[waiting for Tamaki~]

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Jack narrowed his eyes and leaned in towards Artemis. "And what is it you want exactly, kid? To be the big boy on the playground? The most popular girl in school?"

He stepped back, laughing at the idea. "Yeah, you keep trying. Don't let me stop ya."

"What makes you think I have a motive?" Artemis said, shrugging his good shoulder. "When someone attacks me, it is only natural to defend oneself, wouldn't you agree?"

Artemis' expression turned into a scowl, "This is a war, Mr. Horner, not a game. Popularity is not the issue, here. Perhaps it is for you, but not for me. Infamy waits for me at home, so I won't waste my time climbing the social ladder, thank you."

War, huh? "Where's the army, then?"

Jack again openly laughed at Artemis. "I don't really have time to waste on you- bigger fish to fry, if you will. But if you're really keen on pissing me off, I'm sure I can find space for you somewhere down the line."

Artemis shook his head as though pitying the man, "You really are thick, aren't you? We ARE the army. Don't you ever listen?" He pointed up, indicating the intercom. "You would learn so much more from listening rather than shooting your mouth off whenever it so pleases you. Narcissist," the boy spat.

"The worst sort of disease to have, and you're dying from it. You honestly think I would desire nothing better than to keep arguing with you. Is that why you post these ridiculous messages, Jack? You just want someone to call you an arsehole and fight with you?"

Jack folded his arms. "No, I post those "ridiculous" messages because I want to have sex with a hot chick. At least that one guy understands..."

He waved Artemis off. "And as for all of us being an army, I've arranged prison breaks with less. The only difference was people actually wanted to leave and actually BOTHERED to listen. Rather than preaching all the time...but you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

As an afterthought, he added, "And of course I'm narcissitic. LOOK at me."

The boy massaged the bridge of his nose. Did Jack really not know that the entire population of the institute was being experimented on for military purposes? He didn't know, and frankly, he was getting a little tired of explaining things to Jack.

"I'm not just talking about your most recent escapade, Jack," Artemis said simply. "And I am looking at you Jack, and although you look like a man, I'm seeing a boy. You want attention--I'm just not sure why. Yet. Not every little boy is a narcissist at birth, something causes them to be that way. An insecurity of some kind." Artemis looked at Jack, hard, "What is your insecurity, I wonder?"

Jack's smirk melted away and his eyes narrowed. "What the fuck?"

Running his tongue over his teeth, he sneered, "'Insecurity'? Who are you to say such things? I'll have you know I was BORN better than anything you can ever aspire to in your pathetic mundy life. I don't have any reason to be insecure."

Artemis watched Jack calmly as he proceeded to cross the threshold from 'Fine' to 'Not Fine'. The boy's expression was teflon. He didn't even so much as blink.

"Don't you? I wonder why you suddenly got so angry, then. So defensive. Are you hiding something? Maybe from yourself?"

Jack scoffed at the boy and spat out, "Oh, yeah, sure. I'm hiding something from myself. My insecurities, of course, how silly. Thank you, annoying-educated-wannabe-dick-child for alerting me to this fact because having lived as long as I have, I've CLEARLY still not come to terms with myself." He sneered again and rolled his eyes. "Save it for the people with the actual psychosis. Better yet, just keep your mouth shut and the world would be a better place."

"Many adults don't come to terms with themselves until they're on their deathbed, and by then it's too little too late. It's nothing to be ashamed of. We all have aspects of our personality that we don't care to reveal to even ourselves.

"We all have our little psychoses. Some are just worse off than others. Like Farfarello. But that doesn't mean we can't function normally. It just means that we haven't examined our inner self closely enough. Have you ever asked what your inner motivations are, Jack? And don't take the superfluous answer--there is always a deeper meaning behind our actions."

Jack didn't feel like humoring the boy. "My inner motivation is to strangle you right here and leave your corpse for the nurses to deal with. However, you're lucky I'm such a nice person." Said dryly and with little emotion, Jack dared the boy to continue making wild claims.

"What, pray tell, do YOU suppose my inner motivations are?" The Fable asked curtly, directing the conversation back to Artemis.

"I'm not sure yet," Artemis said, smiling, "I haven't talked to you enough to figure it out yet. So far, I know that you're a narcissist who craves attention and can't face his own problems except through threatening violence. That's a rather broad diagnosis, wouldn't you say?

"Perhaps I could narrow it down, though," He took out his notebook and a pen, "Tell me about your childhood. Better yet, tell me about your mother. Did she make sexual advances on you when you were a child?"

Well, THAT was a bold statement. Going to attack his dear sweet mother, was he...

"You son of a bitch," The Fable growled, ready to land a not-so-soft punch, even if it killed him to do it with his injuries. "My mother was a saint, as far as you're concerned!"

Artemis' eyes widened--he was going to be hit this time. He'd crossed a line that, at the time, seemed logical. Now, not so much. A small part of him grumbled that actual psychologists probably didn't have to deal with this sort of thing.

"But what about as far as you are concerned?!" Artemis raised his voice to match Jack's volume, "Did she assault you? Rape you? Abuse you?"

This conversation had gone on long enough. If he was being rational, sure, he would admit that his mother had probably been a bit abusive by today's standards. She had spent much of her time belittling his intelligence and beating him silly as punishment. Still, abuse wasn't exactly considered the same way back in the homelands in his childhood, so Jack wouldn't look at it that way either.

Instead, he decided to put an end to the matter once and for all. He decked Artemis in the face, wincing and stumbling forward once the blow connected. Sure, he had expected to feel the kickback because of his OWN injuries, but he hadn't expected them to sting quite so much. Stupid Landels taking away his healing.

'Stupid Landel's' was about to take away something else, something much more real than a fictitious power from John's made up world.

"What is going on?!" The nurse's attention had been drawn by the shouting, and as the punch landed, she rushed to Sean's side, a bulky orderly not far behind. "Mr. Trick! There is no acceptable reason for violence, especially against a child so much smaller than yourself!"

She looked down at the boy who had been attacked, letting out a sigh. "Are you alright, Mr. Malloy? Can you tell me what happened?"

The punch, of course, like the previous strike, had much more of an effect on Artemis than it would on a normal man. The poor boy was sent flying to the ground, shocked that Jack had actually hit him.

Seeing the nurse and orderly come running, Artemis' hand covered his bleeding lip, hiding the spark that raced up the cut. Damn, that was the second time today that he'd wasted it! His hand came away with blood on it, but his head was still ringing. Would he have a bruise? He really didn't know how this whole magic thing worked yet.

And while previously, Artemis wanted nothing more than to silently laugh as Jack was carted away to Solitary, he had proven interesting in the last few minutes before he'd hit him. If he was sedated, he wouldn't be able to form coherent sentences.

"I-I'm sorry," Artemis stammered to the nurse, "It was my fault. I wanted to tease him until he got angry. I d-d-didn't know he would hit me..." Artemis burst into tears, "I'm so-sorry!" He sobbed, hugging the nurse around the middle.

Pfft, now the little bastard wasn't so tough, was he? Jack smirked defiantly. This punk was sorry? Well, Jack certainly wasn't.

He turned to the orderly with a cocky smile. "I regret nothing. Gonna come at me with a needle now, big guy?" He adopted a mock fighting stance. "After last time, I don't think it would be fair to either of us if I don't go down without a fight. That is, unless you want to go back to dickin' about on your merry way and let me and the little one settle things our own way."

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Day 27: Library

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