damned_institute | Day 32: Intercom, Evening

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Day 32: Intercom, Evening

The intercom clicked on and the Head Doctor spoke with his usual fervor.

"Good evening, patients and staff! I am pleased to announce that the arrival of nearly all of our new patients will conclude this shift. In addition, we have a very delicious dinner in store for you: carved Turkey with a side of mashed potatoes and steamed, seasoned vegetables. For drinks, we have our usual assortment available, and as a dessert included with your dinner, we will be serving a slice of warm apple pie with each meal.

"I trust that those of you enjoying the company of new roommates will give them a warm Landel's welcome, and I also hope that those of you who participated in therapy today were able to find a productive time with their doctors.

"That's all for now! Enjoy dinner, everyone!"

The intercom clicked off again.

[ Please respond to this post with all dinner shift threads between roommate, putting your character's respective room in the subject line. While we have none scheduled for this shift at this time: all introduction posts for this shift's group of new characters should be made in response to this post; the introduction may then continue on to be a regular roommate thread. ]

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Archer's first impression of his roommate? Gross. Excess food, slimy juices, and slobber gave his cheeks a nasty, little shine, making him even more repulsive, if that was even possible? The other man's manners reminded him of a dog. Holding the fork simply made him a very intelligent dog. He pointedly stared at the Brook's extended hand that was in the same condition as his face.

"Likewise," Archer answered half-heartedly.

He didn't really feel like getting out of bed, and apparently, neither did the other man. Sighing, he got out of bed, only so he could slip the other man a napkin instead of a handshake. Returning to his bed, he resumed his meal, praying for silence. Unfortunately, Archer knew God was often busy, answering some other poor smuck's prayers.

Brook's smile turned into a momentary pout as his attempts at a handshake were turned into an exchange of a napkin. He stared at it, a little confused before realizing the indication. "Yohohoho! Oh, yes, I forgot!" he laughed, then began moving the napkin around his face. His manners never had been very good, but time with Sanji had taught him that they left something to be desired. And, as with his name, he still needed a bit of a reminder if he was to get any better at them like Sanji was ~~beating into~~ teaching him to be!

"My apologies! I'm still getting used to being around people!" he explained as he also took the napkin to his hand. By people, be meant those other than his crew since they apparently tolerated him to a degree. It was the new ones that might not understand him as well, or even at all! And he was trying to make friends too! "Oh, yes, I still haven't gotten your name!" he suddenly remembered.

Watching Brook take the napkin, he was thankful that Brook understood that the problem was his table manners, which was one less problem for Archer. His only response to the other man's unusual antics was silence. He wasn't being mean, just the disinterested asshole he usually was. Unfortunately, Brook had the joy of being in his company.

"It's Archer," he replied.

That was it. No more, no less than an answer to the man's question. Archer didn't really care for talking to strangers, and Brook had already displayed one quality that Archer disliked, bad table manners.

Company was company no matter how anti-social! Brook just loved being around people, even if they didn't happen to like him. Half of the Crew wanted to hit him sometimes, but that had never stopped him from laughing and joking and just being himself! He could do just the same with his un-talkative roommate.

"Archer-san then! Nice to.. wait, I said that already didn't I? Yohoho!" he laughed at his own absent-mindedness. Of all the things he was getting used to, it shouldn't have been so hard remembering to use his brain to remember things! "But this is great isn't it? We get to be roommates! I've never had a roommate before!" Which was true enough. The Crew could hardly be considered that since he never did end up sleeping down in that cabin with them. Something about nightmares... or that's what Usopp and Chopper had said! Using beds wasn't something he was used to anyway! Another thing he'd need to work at!

He'd called him "Archer-san?" "Brook" wasn't exactly a japanese name, nor did the man have any asian features. Archer suspected the man was merely aware of Japanese customs, believing the man might be educated in Archer's native culture would be a bit of a stretch.

"Sure, it'll be a blast," he dryly replied, while thinking of how to get a new roommate. There was the obvious method, but he didn't think Brook was that annoying, yet.

Unfortunately, Brook's upbeat personality just wasn't rubbing off on his roommate. Archer cherished his privacy, and he wasn't about to let some stranger in, especially one as annoying as Brook. Besides, he really didn't know what to talk about, so he just concentrated on his meal.

Hm, turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, and look a slice of apple pie! All the components of a balanced meal, or it would be, if it didn't look like microwave dinner.

If Brook wanted to talk, Archer was more than willing to let the other man take care of his share as well. He'd contribute when the conversation turned from idle to intelligent.

"It shall!" Brook nodded, happy with the positive, though dull response. He was looking forward to making new friends here, and who better to be friends with than his roommate?! "So, tell me about yourself. What you like, dislike... oh, but don't say you don't like music all right? I'm a musician, you know, and there's no one who can outright hate a good tune!" Or so Brook was convinced.

"Music's fine. I enjoy a good tune like everyone else," he said, neglecting to comment on Brook's earlier performance. "I like to clean, and I dislike messiness."

Not to mention, he disliked annoying people, and frankly, Brook seemed to qualify.

"What about you?" he asked, hoping Brook would continue babbling instead of asking something dangerous, like about Archer's past.

"Cleaning?" Brook questioned, a little baffled. He hadn't really expected that of the man, being as quiet as he was, but he supposed everyone had a hobby! And not everyone had to have as loud a hobby as Brook did either!

While he thought on it, he realized something. "Ah! Then that's why you handed me this napkin!" he raised the napkin in question at his brilliant deduction. "Yohoho! You'll have to forgive me for that. Believe it or not, I'm getting better with my manners! One of my friends likes kicking me in the back or face when I don't eat properly. I guess I just forgot without him here to abuse me! Yohohoho!"

He looked at his food, or what was left of it and decided that he'd had enough. If Archer didn't like messy things, then Brook had to do his best at trying to keep his manners better! Making friends was a better motivation for being the proper gentleman he claimed to be than threats of pain anyway!

Dabbing at his mouth with the napkin once more, he latched onto Archer's returned question. "As I said, I like music! And I can play anything at all too. I was playing that small piano-like instrument in the Music Room this afternoon if you were there. Wonderfully pleasant, but not really like a true piano. My friends say that we'll be going there again tonight to get me an instrument to carry around! I can't wait!" he exclaimed no less enthusiastically than a child at Christmas.

Well, someone needed to have a knack for cleaning in order to offset the filthiness caused by someone else, like Brook.

Finally, Brook understood. It was good to know the man responded to physical abuse, staring absentmindedly at his knuckles, Archer filed the information away for later, in case he needed to use it.

Cutting into his turkey, Archer decided revise his earlier assessment of his dinner. It was actually quite good, passable by Archer's standards. However, Archer was pulled from his musing when Brook mentioned his plans for tonight with his friends. That meant that Brook already had friends in the institute, willing to team up with him for the nightshift, and it made Archer wonder whether befriending his roommate might actually be a good idea in the long run. Although making a run for the music room just so Brook could get his hands on an instrument didn't exactly seem like a worthwhile plan, and it made Archer question what kind of friends Brook could have. He hoped they weren't all like him; one of Brook was enough for Archer.

"Are these friends from your world?" Archer inquired, before swallowing some mash potatoes.

"World?" he blinked, tilting his head ~~and afro~~ a bit. "They're on the same pirate ship as me? Is that what you mean by world?" Really, he'd heard the environment of a Pirate Ship referred to as many things, but never a world really. For him, it was more like a home than anything! One big house with the family all aboard! "I'm very glad that they're here though, or I wouldnt' have known what to do with myself! Things are so strange here! The food, the clothes, the skin, the...!" A rather large belch ended his excited run and he quickly moved the napkin back to his mouth. "Excuse me! Yohoho! I got excited!" And here he had been trying his best to be more proper in front of his new "friend"!

"People here at Landel's come from different times and worlds," he said, too tired to care whether Brook thought he was insane.

Finding out his roommate was a pirate wasn't exactly shocking to Archer. However, something Brook mentioned, during his babbling, stood out among the rest, so much that Archer had to ask.

"What do you mean by 'the skin?'"

As soon as the words left Archer's mouth, Brook displayed his less than desirable table manners, and Archer instinctively turned his head away in slight annoyance and disgust. Archer never understood why other guys belched like that; it merely looked stupid to him.

Brook's mouth fell open. "Really, do they?! That's so cool!" His eyes sparkled with amazement. People from other worlds! It was just as strange and yet as wonderful as people coming from different times, which he'd already been informed of! "What world are you from, Archer-san? Do you have pirates? Or oceans?!" There had to be oceans in other worlds right? His own world had five, after all!

After seeing Archer's response to his burping (well at least he hadn't tried to harm him), Brook kept Brook frowned a little and kept the napkin to his mouth. He was confident he could be at least a little better for his new friend's sake, but if he couldn't, there was the napkin there at the very least! "Yes, skin! I haven't had any for a while, so it's such a different having it back!"

"I suppose it's possible that pirates exist where I'm from, but I suspect that not many are left anymore," he said. "There's certainly oceans in my world, making up more than half the planet."

It seems like Brook was learning his manners, keeping his napkin to his mouth. Archer decided not to make an issue out of it, turning back to face his roommate, trying not to encourage him too much.

"What do you mean you didn't have skin for awhile?" Archer asked, slightly surprised. Before Brook had said anything, Archer hadn't thought of him as anything but human. "Were you dead or something?"

His roommate didn't seem dangerous, but Landel's attracted all kinds of things. The important thing now was to discern what kind of creature Brook originally was and his intentions, depending on his answer, Archer might have to act appropriately. He wasn't exactly on the clock, but exceptions could be made.

"Oh, how sad," Brook's tone turned sad for a moment. Pirates were a breath of fresh air sometimes! Or, at least, his crew had been. He knew full well that there were other crews out there that weren't very friendly - one had even been the death of their own! - but not all crews were like that. Brook definitely couldn't have lived with himself had the Rumbar Pirates been like that, in any case.

Then his smile returned, albeit hidden beneath the napkin. "Oh yes, quite dead!" he announced proudly, even though it wasn't really something to be proud of, "I almost said earlier, but I used to be "Just Dead Bones" Brook! A walking skeleton, as it were. Hm, do you know what a Devil's Fruit is? Probably not, but you see there's these fruits where I'm from that if you eat them give you amazing powers! And mine brought me back from the dead! Yohoho!" Still sitting, he swooped into what would pass for a bow. "My soul got sent back, but by the time I found my body again, I was just bones! It was so strange being a skeleton! A living skeleton! How impossible!" He began laughing again.

"You seem to be doing pretty well now, what with the skin and everything," Archer pointed out, rather obviously. "I assume it's because you came here that you put on a few pounds of fleshy?"

The former Servant actually felt a little sorry for this guy. Living as only a skeleton would be a horrifying fate. Archer was amazed that this guy hadn't tried to destroy himself or give up after finding his body in such a deteriorated condition.

"Why do you try so hard to live, despite being a skeleton? Wouldn't it have been easier to simply pass on?"

Archer was also interested in this Devil Fruit, wondering if there was any truth to its namesake.

"Oh yes, quite well!" he hummed happily. It wasn't every day that one got thrown back into his skin after half a century without!

He would have been willing to explain the ups and down to being a skeleton as a follow up, but it seemed Archer wanted to know about something else - the same thing Franky had thought to ask that time in Thriller Bark. The man wasn't at all like his cyborg friend - but then again who could be?! - but Archer was just as insightful. The question just boiled down to "why try" then?

His mouth dropped back into a neutral position, as his eyes trailed to the floor, distance beginning to show in them. "Ah, well that's..." ...something he really hadn't though of in a while. Of course, his crew, their promise, and most of all Laboon were always on his mind, but through the excitement of the day, he'd had no reason yet to simply sit and dwell on anything. Now that someone was asking him, he really couldn't think of anything else.

Having skin was wonderful, but this place and the magic it held were just another block in his journey back.

"I made a promise," he said simply, "one that I absolutely must keep."

"That must be one hell of a promise," Archer said, taking a moment to wash his food down with a gulp of juice. Taking on a more serious tone, he spoke. "If you go out and meet people with the way you look, you know what kind of reactions they'll have right?"

It was the harsh truth, and Archer didn't think Brook was a big enough idiot to have overlooked this.

"You're a talking skeleton...? There's no way that you could become friends with a guy that creepy, something that abnormal will die of shame," he said, staring at his roommate. There was no malice in his words, just the cold, hard truth. Turning away, with a lighter tone, he continued, "Well, I can see that promise is important. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. People have secrets, and there's no reason for you to reveal it to a perfect stranger."

"It is," Brook nodded as he abandoned the napkin back to the tray, then folded his long fingers in his lap while the man continued.

The Straw Hats were one thing, but outside of them there would be others not as understanding, even on the Grand Line. He'd yet to meet anyone outside of Thriller Bark back home since they'd not even made it to the ~~Mermaid~~ Fishman Island. When it did happen though, if he returned to being a skeleton again after this place, he would deal with it. That was after all a part of taking a Devil Fruit's "curse", wasn't it? And even if it was not, the truth was something he knew very well, probably better than anyone, and being told it directly did not affect his understanding of what his skeletal condition meant.

He could grant Archer one thing over Franky at the very least: he was far better with his timing on the question. And for that, Brook was fine with explaining his story.

"A long time ago, the pirate crew I was a member of had to leave one of our Nakama behind somewhere. It was a painful and difficult decision, but... we made a promise then to absolutely come back before setting off without him." His head lowered further. "But... we were annihilated on the sea. And so as not to break our promise to him...!" Without realizing it, he tightened his hands, then relaxed the grip before continuing. "I've lived for a very long time since then. I am the only one who was able to return, so I have an obligation to that nakama, and to my crew that I must keep!!" He closed his eyes. "Since that day we died, it's been over fifty years time..."

"Nakama?" Archer asked, mouthing the words, rolling them over in his head. "You mean your comrade?"

So Brook was a romanticist? It was a little surprising to see he had a serious side, but perhaps this was his true self? Archer hadn't known him long enough to tell; his roommate seemed more like a goofball.

"Hey, did you say 50 years? It was that old of a story? I wasn't even born 50 years ago," he said, before adding, "well depends on how you look at it, but... still... Your Nakama might not be waiting anymore, or he could have died."

Archer sure knew how to bring down the party; it was like second nature for him.

"Yes, that's it," another nod, "My comrade and my friend, just as every member of my crew once was and still is." Death did not matter. His nakama were still just that, dead or alive!

The corners of his mouth turned up when Archer repeated the number of years. "Ahh. Fifty years is pretty long, isn't it?" He agreed, chuckling just slightly before tilting his head back gazing upward. "But! I know he's waiting! It took fifty years of being alone before I found out, but I know that he is waiting for us! For at least one of his Nakama to come back, as promised!!"

After the excitement, he brought his head back down, still smiling softly. "He believed in us so much to wait that long, and now he's still waiting. If all of us really had died... I know he never would have forgiven us! Death wouldn't have been enough of an apology for breaking our promise to him when he put such faith in us returning!!" Once again, he closed his eyes. "All those years of not knowing, however painful, were worth it to know what I do now."

It was still a little idealistic, this serious and solemn side of Brook. However, Archer felt that he could forgive Brook's chivalrous notions, just this once.

"I see, so that's how it is..." Archer simply said, smiling slightly. Perhaps his roommate was worth getting to know. The Counter Guardian couldn't really understand what Brook was going through, but he could respect it. Waiting all those years, surpassing even death, and weathering through the humiliation and horror of his twisted existence, all of it for the sake of fulfilling a promise to his nakama. Such strong devotion moved even Archer. "That's an admirable goal. I hope you meet up with your nakama."

Brook brought his eyes back up and looked across at Archer. For once, the other did not seem outright disgusted with him! That left Brook smiling brightly once again. "I intend to! How could I forgive myself now if I didn't make it back?!" Not only Laboon, but every last member of his Crew would have every right to murder him twice over (or perhaps it would be thrice over) if he didn't make it back to his friend now!

"Ah, but that's enough of that," Brook decided, feeling he'd explained all he needed. How had the conversation taken such a direction anyway? Oh right! Him being a skeleton! Always a conversation starter, that. "What about yourself, Archer-san? I'm sure you've a much better story than this old skeleton's tale!"

"Not really," he said. Lying was so easy when you were able to practice it for countless years. "I had a pretty normal upbringing, growing up under my adoptive father. I suppose I was more fortunate than the other children at the orphanage."

Lying back, he stared at the ceiling with his arms cushioning the back of his head, contemplating what kind of "safe" material he could share with Brook. He wasn't really obligated to share his life story, even though the other man had done so.

"I went to school, fended off an overbearing older sister, practiced my craft, and worried about useless things."

I also got involved in a war, twice. Died during the second one. It was meaningless, just like how I died the first time when I still believe in being a "Hero of Justice..." What a worthless dream...

"Ah, that sounds nice," Brook said, buying into everything said. He had no reason at all to doubt anything Archer said, might not have even if he had known the other man better. Brook only went with things once they were said and did not question. "Can't say I've had anything near that normal in a long while..." Though he supposed Pirates were more normal than not in his world. Still, his breed of Pirate was anything but!

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Day 32: Intercom, Evening

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