damned_institute | Nightshift 33: Gardener's Shed

Godo? Protective? That was a new one!

Yuffie very carefully did not burst into maniacal laughter. Very carefully did not kick Cloud in the ass for being an-- for being an ass. Instead, she brushed past the blond, heading into the shed.

The shed was awesome! It had stuff in it; even though it was totally boring in every sense of the word, the potential for useful goodies being inside upped her opinion of it exponentially. "I like this shed," she said gleefully. With half her mind churning through possibilities for the other items she spied in the shed, she hopped over to the lawn mower and crouched down to examine it more closely.

Crossing his arms over his chest, Cloud simply leaned on the outside of the shed by the door, regarding Yuffie's apparent enthusiasm for the place. He thought some of the places upstairs were better, but this place was closest to the outside wall where it would be easy to jump. He had found this one useful, but she might not.

"You went in the activities shed during the day, did you not? If you wish, we could get you something from there as well." Keeping his friends well-stocked on weapons was something he took pride in. He never felt comfortable going anywhere under prepared.

Speaking of under prepared, he wanted to finish preparations on his baseball bat. "See anything you want?"

"Yeah," Yuffie replied offhand, still investigating the lawn mower. She began to fiddle with it, wanting a blade like Cloud's to add to her tiny arsenal of makeshift weaponry. "They've got bats n' balls and those disc thingies."

"Anyway," she continued, deft fingers fiddling away while her concentration turned to other matters. She'd had that old Super Ball as a weapon during the Jenova war... It was totally cool, but it had also been a total pain in the ass to carry around "I wouldn't mind checking it out; the discs aren't sharp, but the bats could be handy."

She glanced over at Cloud, then looked around the shed pointedly. "Sharp stuff." she said with a grin, in lieu of a proper answer.

Noting that Yuffie had decided on the blade to the lawn mower, Cloud removed the baseball bat from this make-shift bag and gave it a few practise swings. He seated himself on the grass and pulled out the screws that he had picked up last night.

"We can check that out once you dismantle that," he murmured as he twisted in some of the screws into the wood material. It did not take long for it to take shape as a decent representation of his old nailbat. Not all the same, but it would have to do.

He held up the 'screw-bat' and wacked a few of the screws so that they bent to odd angles. "Ah... brings back old memories."

The dismantling was pretty easy, and Yuffie was as pleased as a cat that had gotten into the cream. Or the ninja that had gotten into the lawn mower.

"Y'know what we should do?" She said lightly, pulling the blade away from the contraption and sitting back on her heels to examine it. "We should find Cid a mop, and then we can have a party."

Setting the blade on her lap, she began tearing strips off the bottom of her shirt. A little protection for her hands wouldn't go amiss.

Cloud snorted softly at the mention of a mop. It would not be hard to find in the Janitor's closet, but he was not so certain that Cid would find the humour in such an object anymore. Though, he doubted the grumpy pilot had much choice when it came to weapons in this place.

"You can be the one to give it to Cid then," he replied as he rose to his feet again. He picked up the spare screws and threw them back into his bag and raised an eyebrow at Yuffie's new weapon. "Though, I cannot say he would like a party. The Turks might... but Cid is a little grumpy for partying, would you not say? He has not had a smoke in awhile."

He set the baseball bat against his shoulder to looked to the wall. What would be beyond there? He would have to come back for Cid and Barret... and the Turks.

"Are you just grabbing that?"

"Coward." Yuffie accused, wrapping a few strips of cloth around the palms of each of her hands. After tying off the ends securely, she grabbed her new blade and bounced to her feet. As far as she was concerned, the mop was an awesome gift idea, and Cloud was just a killjoy.

... Nothing new there, then.

"A party with the Turks?" She said, suddenly reminded of the conversation she'd had with Reno over lunch. And boy, what a conversation that had been. "They'd probably want strippers. And booze. I want booze."

Kicking a few stray objects out of her way, she hopped over to Cloud. "This'll do for now, yeah." She replied, and then paused. "I need a loot bag," she added, eyeing the blond's.

"Thief," Cloud replied immediately. He was not about to go making Cid's life more difficult. Simply because Yuffie wanted to make trouble, it did not mean that everyone else did as well. She needed to learn restraint still. Nothing had changed despite the years... what a girl.

He raised an eyebrow at her, not certain he had heard that right. "You want... booze? Why would you want that?" He paused for a moment before stating simply, "you would be a troublesome drunk." She was troublesome when sober, and he felt he would need to take care of her if she ended up intoxicated. He could not rely on the Turks to do that.

Nodding, he snorted softly at her request. "Grab the bag that went to the lawn mower then. You have to do some altering, but that is what mine is."

"That's just lame," Yuffie chided, exasperated. "C'mon, be more original."

Geez. Here she was, trying not to let everyone get sucked down into the dank, dark depths of emotastic depression, and what was she getting for it? Not much, other than a few laughs at Cloud's expense. That was so not a fair deal. Yuffie wanted a refund.

The smirk she flashed in his direction was brief, before she span around and headed back into the shed to get the bag that Cloud had mentioned. "A bit of alcohol would make this place a bit more interesting, at least," she replied. "'Sides, it'd be great for bargaining with."

Cloud shook his head a little. "I have no reason to be rude to you," he said in his own defense. He was certain he could think of something original, but it would not be in anyone's best interest if he spoke openly in such a way. He would leave the foul talking to Reno.

He waited for her to make good on her need for a bag, glancing around to make certain that it was still safe in the area they stood in. Nothing was out of the ordinary, which was lucky. He still was waiting for something to bolt from the bushes at him.

"It would make things more rowdy," he said simply. "And I still think it would be unwise for you to become intoxicated, especially in the presence of Turks." Though, she did have a point about the bargaining. He was pretty sure that alcohol would be in this place somewhere, but he had never looked.

"It's not--" Yuffie started, then shook her head. He wouldn't get it, and she'd probably have to hammer it in with a nail-bat to get it through his skull anyway. "Nevermind."

"It'd be fun." The bag was easy to find, and once it was slung over her shoulder, she meandered back to Cloud's side. "Besides," she continued, walking a little ways past him- she trusted him to warn her if something nasty was waiting to turn her into a chew toy. "People are easier to manipulate when they're drunk."

Shrugging his shoulders in a helpless kind of way, Cloud had no idea what she was thinking about now. It was probably good that he get her annoyed now on something trivial than putting his foot in his mouth later on. "Okay, okay."

Her definition of fun and his were obviously different. "I hope I never get the pleasure of seeing you drunk, Yuffie," he murmured as he regarded her. He also hoped she never had the pleasure of seeing him that way. "Why would you want to manipulate someone anyway? Or more like... who?"

"What're you talking about? I make a cool drunk!" She turned her nose up in the air with a sniff of disdain, glancing back at him. "I bet you do as well. You do, don'tcha?"

Following the glance through with another twirl, Yuffie shifted her weight from foot to foot. It was better to keep following the train of conversation rather than letting herself get annoyed- annoyance would be bad. Bad, she told herself. Bad like deep-and-meaningful was bad.

Her eyebrows shot up when he asked why she'd want to manipulate someone. His follow-up question of who was a little less dumb, though. "Wouldn't you like to know." She winked at him.

"Anyways! Can we get a move on? Standing around and watching the grass grow is about as boring as watching Cid molest-- sorry, I mean tinker with-- the bucket of bolts he calls an airship."

Cloud eyed Yuffie skeptically. "You have been drunk before? When was this?" He wracked his brain to see if he could remember a time when she had been tipsier than normal or less controlled, but it all seemed normal to him.

He looked away at mentioning him being a 'cool drunk'. He had not allowed himself to become intoxicated since his military training, but he would not classify his behaviour under the influence as 'cool' in any regard. "It has been a long time... but I doubt I would be much fun." More like humiliating and strange.

He did want to know, but he figured that what he currently did not know would not hurt him. "I might want to... are you going to tell me?" He doubted it, especially if she had some kind of edge over him.

He pointed at the wall that lead beyond Landel's and then to the one where they had come from. "Did you want to go to the Activity's Shed or are you up to braving outside of the walls? It might be dangerous... like old times."

"I've been drunk plenty of times," Yuffie said, planting a loose fist against her hip. It was a bit of embellishment, but Cloud didn't need to know that, did he?

Their definitions of fun were definitely different. Different like day and night or black and white, because the thought of a drunken Cloud was enough to make her wish she'd been there to see it. Preferably with a camera in tow.

"'Course I'm not going to tell you!" She laughed. "Where'd the fun be in that?"

He asked a good question, though: Activities Shed, or outside of the walls? Outside meant escape, technically, but they had no way of knowing just how far the influence of the institute stretched. It'd totally suck to get so far and then get dragged back.

The itching desire for mischief and freedom won out. She grinned at Cloud. "Just like old times," she agreed, spinning in the direction of the outside walls and bounding off ahead.

He was not so sure he believed the term 'plenty', but he doubted it would be worth calling her on. Or maybe it would? He snorted softly as he leapt to the rooftop of the shed, crossing his arms over his chest. "I believe once or twice for you."

He pushed a bang out of his eyes and smirked down at her. "Troublesome drunk... you would need a baby-sitter," he gently teased. It did kind of feel like old times.

Turning as she moved for the wall, Cloud ran across the shed and leapt clean over the wall, flipping in the air to survey the ground underneath him as he moved. "I hope you did not forget your flashlight, Kisaragi."

[To Here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/412864.html)]

[from here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/403085.html?thread=32884365#t32884365)]

It looked clear enough, although Xelloss turned the flashlight on again to check the corners of the room carefully for anything waiting to jump out. "Hmm. The person who was last here wasn't too messy, at least! And there are shovels." Rakes and other items too, including an odd seated thing in the center of the room that Xelloss couldn't make any sense of, aside from the obvious fact that it was meant to be ridden.

What it had to do with gardening, though, was beyond him. Xelloss reached for a shovel, hefting it carefully. Not perfect, but he'd fought on occasions with his staff at home as part of his cover... this wouldn't be so different. Aside from the use of actual muscles and an actual body, of course! "It seems the mission was a success!"

Things really were going their way tonight, weren't they? Well, other than the fact that the whole point of their meet-up had turned out to be for nothing, but at least they had made something out of it in the end. Even if Peter had already been to this place, he didn't mind helping the other man out, considering Xelloss had worked with him to puzzle out more about his powers.

He watched as Xelloss collected a shovel that was more or less the same as his, nodding with a smile at the man's comment. "Yeah," he agreed, leaning his own "weapon" on his shoulder as he glanced around the shed. He wondered if he should grab something for Nathan, just in case. It would be better if both of them had something they could fight with, after all. How was he supposed to carry all of that around, though?

"What now?" he asked Xelloss, figuring he could decide depending on what they were going to do with the rest of the night.

"Hmm, that's a good question." Xelloss tapped the side of his cheek thoughtfully with a hand, leaning his shovel hand with flashlight against the floor. "To be honest, thanks to you, all my goals to the evening are done. I didn't really plan for anything else..."

Then he offered Peter another smile, illuminated awkwardly by the tilted flashlight. "So, is there anything you were wanting to get done tonight? Exploration, or gathering materials? I'm armed now, so I'm slightly more useful than I was before!"

While seeing some more of the institute might be a good idea, Peter doubted they would be able to get too far before night ended. Since there wasn't a good chance of them actually reaching somewhere of interest, he wasn't sure that taking the risk of being attacked was really worth it.

"I dunno. It's probably going to be morning soon, so maybe we should stay put." He glanced around the shed - it wasn't the coziest environment, but if they didn't attract any attention to themselves maybe they wouldn't have anything showing up and trying to snack on them.

"I was thinking of taking another one of those shovels to give to a friend of mine, and I wouldn't want to try walking around while carrying so much." Waiting out the night with someone he only barely knew might be a little awkward, but Peter didn't mind. It was really up to Xelloss at this point.

Xelloss seemed to be considering Peter's words, though still with the usual upbeat demeanor, before nodding. "That's not a bad idea. We can use the rules of the Institute to our own advantage, that way!" Xelloss reached over and handed over another shovel to Peter, since he was closest, before taking another for himself.

"And getting another shovel isn't a bad idea either. Sometimes this field or the other one are full of dangerous monsters. We really ought to take anything we think we might want now, when we have a good chance." He started glancing around the room, although nothing really struck him as interesting, apart from the shovels. If the rakes didn't seem to be made of such flimsy metal, maybe...

"Say! Are you from a world where the technology is much like the Institute's?" Xelloss paused, as his eyes passed over the riding lawnmower again. "Maybe you can explain something I don't understand. What is this?" His hand patted the mower's seat.

Peter nodded in thanks as he took a second shovel from the other man, leaning it against the ground. He felt a little ridiculous with two of them, but Nathan would thank him for it later. Hopefully. He still had a vague worry about where his brother had gone off to floating around in his head, and he tried to squash it.

Xelloss helped with this by asking a question, causing Peter to raise an eyebrow for a moment. It was strange that something that was such common knowledge to him would be a mystery to someone else, but that seemed to keep happening in his discussions with the priest.

"Yeah, uhh... It's a lawnmower. You sit on it there and then when the engine is going it'll move. It, uhh... cuts grass." That probably wasn't a very helpful explanation, but there wasn't much more to it than that. He was pretty sure he had never used one before, so it wasn't like he could give the man a demonstration, and he got the feeling that it wouldn't turn on anyway. And even if it did, those things made a lot of noise. Riding one around the courtyard would be like begging to be attacked.

"Oh, I see!" Xelloss glanced over it a little more. It seemed like an awfully big machine just to be cutting grass, but maybe it was very good at cutting grass. He wasn't really an expert on machines. "I could tell it was something you ride, but I couldn't figure out what it would be doing in a gardening shed."

He shrugged loosely, before tilting his second shovel against his leg again. "I believe that the tasks we might perform with magic or with simple machines in my world are done with more complex machines in this world, or in your world." Really, there was nothing stranger about his curiosity than there was about Peter's lack of knowledge about magic. It was like a more exaggerated version of the separation between the former Mazoku barrier's interior and exterior. "Of course, since I'm in this world at the moment, I really do need to learn all I can about this sort of thing! It's more practical. Don't you think so?"

What Xelloss had to say made sense. If his world had spells that could do the things that Peter's world used technology for, then they would have never needed to develop that technology in the first place. It was hard to say what the better option was, seeing how a lot of technology was so bad for the environment. It made him wonder how those who had powers, like him, might be used for practical purposes. As tools. It wasn't ethical, but he wouldn't be surprised if something like that ended up happening.

Pulled out of his thoughts by Xelloss' question, he gave a small nod in response. "Sorry, umm... Yeah. If you had any other questions I could try to answer them," he offered. He couldn't give the best explanations, but Xelloss probably only needed some basic knowledge in order to get by. Peter was just glad that everything in this place was familiar to him. That kind of confusion would have made it that much worse.

"Well, nothing specific comes to mind right now. But I do appreciate the answer to my question!" Xelloss glanced at the lawnmower curiously again. He supposed it was a big lawn, but still... "Even though I don't understand why they work, understanding things like the flashlights or the sound transmissions aren't too hard. The equivalent exists in my world, at least."

He rose his head, smiling. "Oh! Were you here for the bus rides a few days ago? They were very exciting." Making small talk to pass the time was a bit idle, but he could at least find out more about his new friend here while they waited.

It was hard to get used to the fact that they were camping out in a rickety shed and talking things over like it was dayshift and they were safe, but it didn't sound like they had anything to worry about at the moment: everything was quiet. Even if something did come to bother them, they were well-armed. At this point, though, he was kind of wishing morning would come so that he could get past the oddness of the situation and check to see that Nathan was all right.

The mention of bus rides caused him to turn his attention back to Xelloss, tilting his head. "Bus rides? No, I never... What happened?" He couldn't tell if the other man was being genuine or sarcastic when it came to his apparent excitement, so he'd just have to wait and see.

"Ah, that must have been before your arrival, then! I think it has been a while. It was all very interesting!" Xelloss nodded as though agreeing with himself. "For me, I had never ridden on a bus before, although it reminded me a little of a train. Somewhat smellier, I think. We went to a town which was populated with people who said the same things they say in the Institute, but the people were generally polite anyway, like the nurses in daytime."

Xelloss paused thoughtfully, tilting his head. "Actually, maybe this is a good story for warning! The buses didn't return us all into the Institute before nightfall, and the nurses on the buses all transformed into terrible monsters. There was a great mess trying to get out of the buses or to subdue the nurses! It's very funny... oh, not ha ha funny, but odd!" Well, it had actually been a bit ha-ha funny, but that wasn't polite.

"Where I'm from, an evil person making a curse like that wouldn't be terribly unusual." A transformation into a monster form at the fall of night? Practically cliche. "But here, there's no magic, is there? It raises questions to me about how much this world is what it seems. I think it imitates a world like yours without magic, but like everything else here, there's no reason to take this world's appearance at face value."

There was a town near here? Peter wanted to hope that was a good sign, but the institute would only allow them to go to a place like that if they had it under control. It made him wonder how far the head doctor's scope of influence traveled. It wasn't very encouraging to hear, though the information was helpful nonetheless. Better he was in the know than oblivious.

He was completely pulled away from those thoughts when Xelloss mentioned something about the nurses transforming. He turned to face the man, not able to make out many of the priest's features in the darkness of the shed. Still, Peter's eyes were widened. "You mean--"

But the man wasn't done explaining, and Peter tried to take in his words with as much composure as possible. "That's... a good question. I mean, observation. I don't know how to explain it, but..." Changing from a normal person into a monster didn't seem like any sort of feasible power, but on the other hand, was it really any more insane than flying or singlehandedly causing a nuclear explosion? "It's definitely something to think about," he agreed with a nod.

Nightshift 33: Gardener's Shed

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