damned_institute | Nightshift 33: Doctor's Office #10 [Burroughs]

Yohji waited outside as Omi stepped into the room and then leaned forward to hand him back the flashlight after taking another quick look down towards both ends of the corridor. No sense getting careless now that they were in.

He turned back to Omi and nodded. "Yeah?" he replied, waiting for instructions from his leader.

He swept the room quickly with the flashlight. Nothing obviously after their blood. Another plus. "Come in and shut the door. I'd rather not be a sitting duck to anything wandering by."

He shone the light around the room again, more slowly this time, giving a short shout of surprise when the light hit a poster of... He moved closer, shuddering as he got a good look. What kind of person wanted to look at that every day?

Yohji nodded and slipped into the room behind Omi, slowly closing the door to keep it from banging as he closed it behind them. It'd be stupid to let it slam and alert everything to exactly which room they were in.

Yohji looked around the room carefully, following where Omi shone the flashlight. There was an uncomfortable feeling ebtween his shoulderblades, like he was being watched. Occupational paranoia was good, the trick was distinguishing it from the everyday paranoia of being here that was the problem.

It took an effort of will to turn his back on the poster, which was silly, he decided, but it didn't make looking away from it any easier. Like something from a bad horror movie that would come to life as soon as the light left it.

...Oh, yeah, great, Omi. Think of it like that.

He huffed at himself and turned away abruptly, heading for the filing cabinets. "Might as well see if you can find anything useful while we're in here."

Yohji peered over at the thing Omi had been looking at, making a face at the sight of it. What the hell was that? looked like something from an American movie he'd once seen. Creepy as all hell.

He nodded over at Omi and moved towards the deask, starting to rifle through whatever he could find. There was nothing interesting on top of the desk, but the drawers were open. He pulled out a stack of papers from inside one and flicked through them, eyes widening at the sight of the case reports from murders, things that he was all too familiar with. "This woman's kinda' a ghoul," he said softly, glancing up at Omi. "Murder reports for children. Lots of them. Really freaky ones." He grabbed one of the boxes he'd pilfered and held that up. "And pills to keep awake. Lots of people could probably use those."

He riffled through the files, looking for anything labeled under either his real name or the one they'd given him here. He kept his ears open, listening for any change in the sounds of the room, not taking anything for granted.

He glanced over, worried, when Yohji mentioned the files. 'Freaky' was never a good word, especially when used by someone who'd seen as much as they had. He left the cabinets to lean around Yohji's shoulder. "Might as well take the pills. Define 'freaky'."

Yohji flicked through a few more of the files, quickly skimming over the descriptions of the murders and the states of the bodies with some distaste. He glanced back up at Omi, stuffing the pills into his pocket and making a note to give them back to Omi later on that night. He didn't want the temptation.

"All unsolved deaths, all really really weird, no explanations for how the murder occurred, and all of them kids."

He slid one of the files over so he could look at it. Really, especially as Yohji described it, it sounded far too much like something they'd be given to track down. "Any more solid connections? And do you think she's just collecting or..."

He glanced up at Yohji, questioning. They may not be here as Weiss, but it never hurt to know the enemy. Knowing whether someone was likely to take it into their head to flay you alive would be a good start.

Aside from bizarre as hell murders? He swallowed, flicking through a few more and wishing that it wasn't so easy to read over the details and see the photographs without feeling anything. He tapped a finger on one of the papers, biting his lip and checking back over a couple more. "There's a few things," he said after a moment. "A lot of them say that it's assumed they were killed by a guy called Frederick Krueger, mostly with a straight razor." He frowned, flicking through them. "And dreams," he added. "Far as I can tell, lots of the kids reported having similar nightmares before their deaths. And most of them died when they were asleep." Violently, which was pretty odd because people didn't usually stay asleep as they were murdered unless they were really really drugged out of it.

He looked up at Omi, concern on his face. "I've never met the woman so I don't even know how she acted. She could be a sick kind of collector who enjoys reading this stuff." He shuddered slightly at the thought of it. "Maybe she's more than a psychiatrist and is investigating this stuff or..." He gave a helpless shrug, knowing Omi would under stand. "Just be really careful around her next time." There was always the risk that they were trophies and this woman was keeping them to gloat at her own handiwork.

He shook his head and took a step back. That was really the last thing he needed to deal with on top of everything else. After a second, he turned back to the filing cabinets, going back to his original search. "I will. She acted... like a shrink. Less straightforward than the Kritiker ones, but I guess that's not surprising if she works with people who aren't..." 'Cracking under the pressure of killing people' didn't sound quite right, true as it was. "Like us. I'm more worried about what she knows than what she might do, though."

He leaned against the cabinet, still facing away from Yohji, with a hint of black humor creeping into his voice. "I mean, how can you fight someone who kills you in your sleep, anyway?"

He didn't know why he was worrying. Omi had more experience dealing with stuff than any of them and knew how to take care of himself. He snorted when Omi mentioned the Kritiker psychologists. "Yeah, but then, she can't really come straight out and ask us how killing a person makes us feel," he replied, with a touch of morbid amusement. Not that he'd ever heard one of Kritiker's shrinks say such a thing. They were more concerned with keeping them from going entirely off the deep edge like the previous Weiss had done. He had to wonder whether they had been a success or not. They hadn't started killing outside missions or hacking up women to get off, but they hadn't exactly come out the other side in tact.

A humourous comment it might have been intended as, but what Omi said struck a deeper note in Yohji his fingers round her neck, tightening and squeezing because it was just like her, just like Neu and... He flinched, shaking his head to dispell the vision and managing to knock some of the papers off the desk in the process. He stooped to pick them up quickly.

She practically had, really, asking him about Kritiker like she had. Did he remember anything? Of course he did, but he wasn't going to tell her about that. That would be like asking for a long-term stay in a comfy white jacket. No thanks.

He looked over his shoulder when he heard the papers hitting the floor. Yohji wasn't usually clumsy enough to manage something like that. And he didn't look so good, either. "Yohji-kun? Are you okay?"

Yohji finished picking up the papers, setting them back on the pile and squaring it off before sliding them quickly back into the desk drawer and closing it firmly. He looked back up to see Omi giving him a concerned look and could only guess at how he must look in the dim light. He could tell that he'd gone pale. He forced a smile for his teammate, waving it off dismissively. "I'm fine, Omittchi. My hand just slipped." And that was the lamest excuse ever from someone who's life often relied upon his hand not slipping.

He just stared at Yohji. Maybe, if he was very lucky, his silence would say what he didn't want to, that he thought Yohji was an idiot for thinking he would believe that. Because he was fairly sure he was walking on dangerous ground. It would be far too easy to destroy the tentative truce they'd managed tonight, but at the same time, Omi couldn't just ignore something that had so obviously bothered Yohji. He'd say something in a minute, but he rather hoped he wouldn't have to.

Oh, that wasn't a good stare. Yohji met Omi's gaze for as long as he could before ducking his head to avoid it, messing with the pill boxes in his pocket to keep himself distracted as he glanced around the room again. He didn't want to say, couldn't bear to say. Only Ken knew about that and that had only been a forced admission. He didn't want Omi to know.

He shifted uncomfortably in the silence, playing with the cigarette lighter in his pocket nervously and hoping Omi would get bored of staring at him soon.

He turned fully to face Yohji, but the stare didn't waver. If anything, it grew a little sadder as Yohji continued to ignore him. Didn't Yohji realize, didn't they all realize that he just wanted to help them?

And didn't Yohji realize that Omi had never given up that easily?

One of the odd byproducts of being raised to accomplish the mission at all costs, most likely. It did tend to make a person somewhat more stubborn. "Yohji..."

Damn it. And things had been going so well with repairing things with Omi too. If he didn't answer, Omi would think Yohji didn't trust him and be hurt, and if he did answer then that was the final nail on his metaphorical coffin and he'd end up with Omi thinking he was no better than the people they killed.

He swallowed thickly when Omi spoke, using the serious voice that meant he wasn't going to let go or forget and if Yohji didn't answer now, he was going to bring it up at the most awkward time possible. He opened his mouth, intending to just brush it off as nothing, but the words died on his lips and he lowered his head in defeat. "I..." He swallowed again, nto entirely certain of how to start. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "It started a while ago and I swear I've never killed anyone. I... I always managed to stop myself before then."

Well, that... was unexpected.

He hadn't entirely expected Yohji to even answer him, after the last couple of weeks. He'd almost expected his pushing to ruin what they'd managed tonight and send Yohji off in huff. That was more or less what had happened the last time they'd been stuck in the doctors' offices during the night. Granted, the circumstances had been a little different, then, but Omi had still had the possibility in mind when he'd decided to push.

He hadn't expected defeat, though. He wouldn't have pushed if he'd known.. well, no. That was a lie. He'd have pushed anyway, because it was obviously bothering Yohji and he couldn't let that happen. He'd have pushed more carefully, though.

He definitely hadn't expected the actual confession. "What? I don't understand."

Omi probably hadn't anticipated how very much Yohji wanted this to work, how much he wanted his teammates to trust him again and be willing to work with him again. He just hoped that this wouldn't do exactly the opposite of what he'd intended by being truthful.

"It was before Weiss was disbanded that it started," he began awkwardly. "I- when I slept with someone, afterwards... during sometimes, I, it's like being unconcious because I was never really aware of doing it until afterwards. But I... I'd find my hands around their necks, trying to strangle them. Left bruises. But I never killed any of them, I promise."

He looked off to one side, not daring to look at Omi's face and see his expression and response to that admission.

Omi hadn't, no, and now that he'd gotten the truth, at least as Yohji knew it, he had absolutely no idea what to do with it. Given time, he probably could have come up with a suitable response, but he was unfortunately aware that time was the one thing he couldn't afford to take right now.

So, he did the one thing that immediately popped to mind, the one thing that any good leader should do when one of their people was hurting like that. He took the weight of that responsibility onto himself. "I'm so sorry, Yohji-kun."

Yohji shifted awkwardly as he waited for Omi's inevitably disgusted response, flicking the cap of the lighter open and shut over and over, counting each one to keep his mind off it. Should he just offer to leave now and save Omi the hassle of dealing with him?

He looked up sharply when Omi responded, eyes widening in an expression of pure shock when it wasn't the disgust that he'd expected. He sounded... sorry? He opened his mouth to say something, closed it again and then finally managed to speak. "Thanks."

He managed a small, not-quite-happy smile in response to Yohji's look of shock. He hadn't quite aimed for that reaction, but the way Yohji'd been acting lately, he wasn't surprised, either.

After a second, he ducked his head and turned back to searching for his file. He'd made Yohji admit to that, so he wasn't going to push him any further. Not tonight, at least.

Yohji returned the smile with a small one of his own, awkward, but genuine for once, and he was more relieved than he cared to admit that Omi had just accepted it. He still didn't know what to do about it, but Omi knew and that was a start at least.

Yohji stepped back from the desk, going to look at the articles pinned to the cork board. Nothing really useful and nothing with dates on that might give them a clue about what year they were in. The pictures on there though... weird ones, made his skin crawl though.

Omi was quiet, letting the silence grow as he searched. It was a comfortable sort of silence, the sort he was used to from working with the same team for so long.

It took him another few minutes of dedicated searching before 'Thomas, Michael' finally showed itself. This time he did give a little shout of triumph. About time.

Yohji tried to keep from looking at the odd pictures on the board, but they kept dragging his gaze back to them, so he was rather glad when he heard Omi's pleased shout. He turned around, wandering back over to the desk and looking over Omi's shoulder at the file. Michael Thomas? He guessed that must have been Omi's fake name here. "You found it?"

"Mmhm." He flipped through it quickly, glancing over some of the pages. Divorce, brothers, fake assassin's guild and delusions of 'bad people' everywhere.

Yeah, that seemed pretty complete.

He made a face, rather disgusted by the whole thing. He'd read the file because he wanted to see just how much they knew about his 'fake' life, but he wouldn't exactly enjoy it. It was far too close to home. "Looks like it's all here, as far as I can tell."

Yohji leaned back against the edge of the desk as Omi read, not wanting to pry too much into his business. He didn't know what was in the file after all, or if it was something very private.

He turned back, a little amused by Omi's expression, but figuring that something bad must be in there. "Everything?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "Everything about Kritiker? HOw do they know this stuff?!"

He closed the file and offered it to Yohji. He'd sit down and read it later, when he had time and was sure nothing was about to crawl out of the woodwork, perhaps literally.

"Not everything, but enough that they aren't just guessing. Kidnapped, amnesiac, raised to be an assassin. All the major points." Which, okay, wasn't surprising, considering they'd managed to steal him here in the first place, so knowing a little about him wouldn't be so hard, but he still didn't like it.

Yohji took the file and skimmed through it, his expression darkening at the frank way that Omi's life was described. Everything was there. Even the rest of Weiss were mentioned, albeit in a way that didn't directly name or describe them. "This really is everything," he said, flipping the folder shut before holding it out for Omi to take back. It made him wonder how much his own file would say, if they knew all the tiny details. "They know more than anyone besides Kritiker should be able to."

He sighed as he took the folder. "Which implies that we aren't being randomly taken. They know all this, so they wouldn't just grab anyone. There has to be a reason, but if they can take us from any time, too..."

He glanced around, trying to follow his thought through to the conclusion. It all had to make sense somehow, but how?

"It's difficult to think of a reason that takes in everyone that they actually have here," Yohji said, frowning in thought. "Although, everyone here seems to have at least some capacity for survival in these circumstances. You rarely har of any deaths and wounds, while they might be serious, aren't half as common as you'd expect if you threw a load of random people off the street in here."

"Adaptable, too. No one's completely lost it like you'd expect someone off the street to do in a place like this." He frowned, glad that the dim light probably hid his blush. "Well, not because of the monsters, anyway. Maybe that's the common thread?"

Not that that answered the 'why' of the whole thing, but maybe it answered a small bit of it. Or maybe it didn't. He kicked a leg of the desk, grumbling to himself. "It'd be too easy if it made sense."

Yohji nodded in agreement. "Yeah, the monsters don't seem to be much of a problem for most people once the initial shock wears off. A lot of people seem kind of used to having to fight creatures like that." Not Weiss necessarily, although they'd seen their share of really messed up things. "It could be," he mused. "Adaptable people, capable of survivng extreme conditions. Although that's a pretty broad spectrum of people to choose from then." Why not just kidnap an army?

"So then you get back to why us specifically." A possibly infinite selection of people from across a possibly infinite number of dimensions and worlds, and they chose this specific group of people.

He eyed Yohji. "Like, why me instead of your Mamoru?"

Yohji nodded helplessly, a wry smile on his lips. Compared to some of the people here, Weiss really were nothing special. No special powers, nothing except being able to kill and a ridiculous ability to survive even when the odds were stacked against them.

He looked back at Omi and shrugged. "I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind. You're from so much further back then use three." He made a face. "And he's not my anything." Except his boss. That was all.

He rolled his eyes at Yohji. "You know what I mean. He's from your time." He really didn't like the idea that he was going to grow up to be somebody who would get that reaction out of Yohji, but seeing as they'd only made up such a short time ago, he didn't think this was perhaps the best time to mention it.

"And exactly. I'm from further back. Would it make more sense to take a person from the peak? If time isn't an issue, and it's obviously not. So why not take him instead of me?" Assuming, of course, that he hadn't been horribly disfigured or crippled or something, but Omi was pretty sure one of the others would have mentioned that.

"Yeah, I know," Yohji replied, giving Omi an apologetic smile. He shouldn't bring up Mamoru around Omi, he knew that. It was just still so strange and good to have Omi here rather than Mamoru. He wasn't entirely certain how Mamoru would have reacted here, but he doubted it would have been good.

He frowned, trying to think of any kind of reason and comin up with only one. "Maybe it's just another mind game," he suggested. "None of us are sure of how we should act and well, you've seen what happened."

((Ha! Take THAT continuity! Also- plotted out with Yohji-mun, aka not-radio-godmodding))

"It's-" He stopped before he could answer when Yohji's radio clicked on. He really did need to start carrying one of those, too, but for now he had Yohji's. "Outside? You think she's serious?"

Meanwhile, outside the room, there was the dull crash of someone, or maybe something, breaking down one of the other doors in the hallway. Sounded like it might be their cue to leave. Omi edged closer to the door, listening.

[XDD Absolutely]

Yohji paused as well, listening to the announcement with some interest, especially after the announcement on the intercom earlier. He frowned at the mention of going outside and then looked over at Omi. He shrugged. "There was that weird intercom announcement earlier," he said. "Might be worth taking a look at least." They could survey the area from the top of the wall perhaps, and find out if it was true.

"Yeah. Can't hurt, at least. I don't have any other plans for tonight." He tucked the report between his waistband and the small of his back where it would hopefully stay fairly secure. Just his luck if he came all this way for it, then lost it. "Be careful, though. It's getting later, so who knows what's out wandering the halls."

Yohji laughed softly and nodded. "Yeah, me either. Not exactly like we can go and rent a movie or something." Not that this was particularly different to a lot of their nights. Breaking and enetering, theft of important documents, a bit of murder on the side. "Yeah. We could try the greenhouse yard. That leads outside and I think the wall was climbable."

[To here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/408710.html?view=32498566#t32498566)]

Nightshift 33: Doctor's Office #10 [Burroughs]

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