damned_institute | Nightshift 29: M1-M10 Hallway

Entry tags:

Nightshift 29: M1-M10 Hallway

[Currently from within M2]

Daemon been half afraid this night would be a repeat of last, that he would continue, night after night, to be trapped as a puppet of this place. An illogical fear, maybe, but there all the same. He'd been used for such things for far too long to not anticipate a re-occurrence. The relief he felt when none were forthcoming was almost breathtaking in its force.

Settling back on his bed, he made himself comfortable, fully intending to wait for Renji to show up for their scheduled brawl. He was actually looking forward to, an equal meeting, a way to work off some of the frustration and helpless rage this place was so good at instilling in them. He was certain he could use the outlet as much as the redhead.

Darkness fell, and the radio snapped on overhead once, then again, signaling the change of things out in the building, although there was no doctor taunting them this night, only the harsh gutteral sounds of a transformed nurse, if his guess was right. He listened to the words with a fierce frown, sliding his legs over the bed and wondering if he should really be waiting here in his room while others were being dragged away for much worse tortures than he'd endured last night...

The pondering lasted all of a moment. That was when he felt it. Felt her.

For one long moment, he stood there in the center of the room, frozen in shock, and then a roar of disbelief and fury escaped him, the temperature dropping to an icy degree within the four walls, a covering of frost coating the furniture almost instantly as his rage unleashed. Without pausing to grab anything other than his flashlight to illuminate his way, Daemon tore out of the room, following the faint pulse of familiar Ebony power that filled him with both furious and joyous relief.

She was here. She was here and afraid, and she was alive.

[Going here.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Only if you propose first!" Yohji shot back, grinning slightly as he pushed the door open carefully. He stepped inside and met Cliff's eyes with some relief. There was always the worry that Cliff could have been taken tonight for the experiments.

He dropped his things onto the spare bed and set the bottle of whisky on the desk so it would be out of the way.

He looked back up at Cliff. That smile didn't quite meet his eyes.

"Only if you'll take an onion ring." Cliff replied, laughing lightly. "So, are you still up for some? Kinda cramped in here but I'm sure we can make do if you're alright with it."

He really didn't want to talk about it. Not yet, anyway. He'd done so much brooding on the subject all Cliff really wanted to do right now was lose himself in a good fight until things started to make sense again.

Hopefully Yohji would just let it go if he noticed.

Yohji snorted. "Sorry, onion's really not my thing. And do you even have an onion ring?"

He nodded in agreement. "I'm up for it," he replied, stretching a little. "I need the practice anyway, since there's no chance of me getting my own weapon made here." He couldn't even think about hwo it would be made, not to mention he was kinda' lacking in the glove department and that wire hurt to use with bare hands.

"Technicalities." Cliff replied, waving it off.

He stretched a bit as well, surprised at the stiffness that had come over him in a few days of atrophy. Even on the Eagle for long hours he had his partner to spar with... His expression changed for a moment but he shrugged it off.

Cliff shifted smoothly into his fighting stance, trusting Yohji to follow suit. "Yeah, what do you normally use?"

"Pretty big technicality," Yohji replied with a grin.

He caught that change of expression, even if it was only for a moment, but decided not to comment on it. Cliff didn't look like he wanted to talk about it, and just before they were about to spar was probably not the best of times to bring it up. He wanted to be in one piece after all. He shifted into a fighting position as well, following the other man's example.

"A razor wire," he replied.

"What can I say? I'm not really the marrying type."

Cliff started circling Yohji slowly, the usual fighter's dance of intimidation to see which party would strike first. He didn't want to overestimate Landel's ability to keep his strength in check but at the same time Yohji knew what he was getting into. Klausians weren't known for their restraint in battle.

"You'd better live up to your reputation tonight, kid. First strike's on the house." He smirked and beckoned.

"Ah, the wandering type. I can understand that." But his grin faltered for just a moment when he remembered Ken's words. A wife. He got married without even knowing who he was.

He looked Cliff over carefully as they circled, taking stock of his opponent's weaknesses and strengths. He knew from the other night that his best advantage was speed. Cliff was bigger and stronger and probably had more practice than Yohji. Not exactly an advantage then.

Then again, Weiss often worked with a disadvantage, and at least he wasn't horribly injured.

He circled again after Cliff beckoned, not taking the offered opening just yet, but then he darted forward, aiming for Cliff's jaw, but readying himself for a kick as well.

Cliff was true to his word and Yohji's hit connected solidly. After that it was any man's game.

He fell into the flow of battle, trading punches and kicks, exploiting every weakness he found. Friends or enemies, a fight was a fight. Even if he held back a little in the beginning, by the end he compromised for no one.

One opening too many and he'd shoved Yohji back against the wall, his fist back and ready to deliver the final blow. His fist hit the wall close to Yohji's ear. Cliff was breathing hard. "...You ok?"

He put up a good fight, or at least, he thought so, but he was no match for Cliff in the end, and he began to tire, taking more hits as the fight went on.

Finally, Cliff managed to pin him against the wall, and Yohji waited for that last blow to fall. The punch to the wall wasn't expected, but was a definite relief and he managed to smile weakly, even with the blood trickling from his split lip. "I think I'm gonna' be one huge bruise in the morning," he admitted. "You?"

Cliff grinned a little, slowly becoming aware of his own injuries. "I think we need a drink."

He released Yohji entirely, taking a quick look to make sure he hadn't broken anything. Yohji had put up a pretty good fight and it looked like his injuries would be relatively minor. That in itself was a feat.

"You're not half bad." Cliff admitted, almost grudgingly. His hand rested against his ribs where Yohji had gotten him particularly good a couple of times.

Yohji began to relax when Cliff grinned, the bruises and aches beginning to assert themselves. Damn, he could do with a bath. He gestured to the desk where the bottle was. "That's what I figured which is why I brought it."

He stretched once Cliff had moved away, wincing at the ache and then wiping the blood off his lips. "I'm glad you think so. Hand to hand isn't really my strong suit and my profession didn't usually call for it unless things went wrong. And you're damn good." He was going to be feeling this for ages.

"It's the only thing I do," Cliff crossed over to his own bed, snagging the bottle before he sat down. "But my ego doesn't really need any more boosts. It's bad enough."

Cliff opened the bottle and took a swig, letting the liquor scorch his throat on the way down. He was tired and sore in more ways than he could count and he still wanted to tear Martin Landel's throat out with his bare hands.

Mirage had been his partner and his friend for as long as he could remember. She would have kicked the bastard's ass...and if she could, she would have chosen to live somehow too. As long as she was alive she could still fight. It was the same with him. He just needed some time to let it all cool down.

Cliff passed the bottle to Yohji before his hands could tighten around it. "So, how'd your day go?"

He was selling himself short, Yohji could tell that. Playing down his strengths, his intelligence because he could damn well tell that Cliff wasn't just doing the muscle work wherever he came from. "I'll refrain from praising your dashing good looks then," Yohji said instead, winking at the other man.

He went to settle on the spare bed, leaning back against the wall and closing his eyes while he waited for the ache to become ignorable. It was probably going to take a while.

He gratefully took the bottle when it was offered, taking a long swig of it and sighing. "It was... I've had worse. Helped out one of the healers with the drugs they'd found."

Cliff shifted into his customary position, back against the headboard and one knee raised so he could drape his arm across it. He leaned back and closed his eyes, a quick smile crossing his lips. "Nah, you can keep telling me about that."

"Helping the healers doesn't sound like the 'I've had worse' part of the story. Visitor trouble?"

Yohji chuckled softly and nodded. "I figured that would be alright," he said with a grin.

He shook his head at Cliff's question. "I didn't have one." For which he was truly grateful. "Just stuff from last night mainly. Omi and Ken managed to get themselves cut up pretty badly. But today... nothing terrible beyond just being here."

Cliff nodded. "From last night? They ok? I still need to meet with your fearless leader."

Yohji seemed fairly composed. He'd been better and worse since Cliff met him, but the 'worse' periods seemed to be growing shorter and shorter. Cliff smiled a little.

"They'll be fine, I think," Yohji replied. "Ken at least was in pretty decent spirits when I spoke to him earlier." He shrugged. "We've all had worse." At least those claws hadn't been poisoned or something that he couldn't help with just bandages.

Yohji returned the smile with one of his own. "You?"

Cliff shrugged. "I've had better days."

He beckoned for the bottle again, forgetting how scarce the stuff was for a moment. "I never thought I'd wish I had some work to do. This place gives you way too much time to think."

Well, he'd seemed pretty fine that morning so it must have been something afterwards that had made the day so bad. And there was only one thing that he could think of... "Visitors?" he asked quietly.

Yohji took another swig and then passed the bottle back to his friend. They could always raid the doctor's offices again after all. "It does, yeah." He smiled wryly. "At least a cover job during the day kept your mind off things, even if it was floristry or teaching."

Cliff accepted the bottle, debating on whether or not he wanted to approach the subject. But what could he say, and what could Yohji do about it? It all just seemed like a bad excuse to sulk more. "Just the one."

He took another drink and passed the bottle back to Yohji. "Teaching, huh? You don't look like the type."

"It was bad?" He asked. It was probably a stupid question. Everything here was bad pretty much. But Cliff wasn't telling him to back off at least.

He took the bottle back but didn't drink anymore yet. A grin appeared on his face. "It was for a mission," he explained. "We had to infiltrate a school. I taught art."

Cliff ran his fingers through his hair and stared up at the ceiling. "It wasn't good. I really don't know what to tell you. Their goal was to mess with my head and if I keep thinking in circles... I don't even know if she was real."

Which was ironic, considering her name.

Cliff chuckled softly. "Getting paid to paint naked women. I could go for that life. Were you any good?"

Ouch. That had to have hurt. Yohji shook his head. "You seem like you're handling it better than most people. But this place seriously blurs the lines between real and fake." He wondered if any of Weiss had had visitors.

Yohji snorted. "It was a high school. Not as many naked women as I'd have liked unfortunately." His fingers tensed around the bottle, knuckles turning white. None except that bitch...

"I'm pretty decent at art. Good enough to teach in a prestigious high ranking school. Even if I had a little help getting hired."

"Makes me wonder how most people handle it if beating the crap out of a friend is 'good'. But then, someone told me I'm just a video game character so reality's been a little questionable for a while."

He really wasn't the type to have an existential crisis about it.

"You should show off sometime. I'll even model for you." Cliff grinned at him.

"Well, I don't find it weird. I lived with Ken. That's how he handles stuff too. And wait... a video game character?" He gave Cliff an incredulous look. What the hell? That just... didn't make sense.

Yohji returned the grin and took another swig of the booze. "Do I get to do naked pictures?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject