damned_institute | Day 34: Men's Showers

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Day 34: Men's Showers

Artemis Fowl was, yet again, exceedingly displeased to be naked.

As much as Haku insisted that since he had experienced public bathing before, this time would be easier, the feeling was not mutual. Artemis' body was his own personal business, as far as he was concerned, and no one else's. His only comfort was the fact that he was not hideously tattooed anymore with various and sundry insults branding him a moron.

Still, that did not stop him from taking a towel into the shower area once again, Nurse Hedgerow grudgingly allowing it. She could see no other way of getting the boy to bathe. He was as stubborn as ten teenage boys. And after that lecture on psychological torture through means of public humiliation...

The boy let the water run over his head, the towel clutched firmly around his body. And he thought. July. How was it July when it had been fall just a week previous? It was impossible, logically speaking. But what part of this place fit in with any sort of logic Artemis had ever encountered? No, if he didn't let go of the fact that things would be as insane as people claimed he was, he would lose his mind.

His fingers brushed the burn mark Caleb had given him for what seemed the fortieth time. ...He had to get himself together, or this would only be a small taste of what awaited him in the hallways.

[For Omi]

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"Looks like they're doing a pretty good fucking job of-" The arm he'd had up to keep the water from his eyes was all that saved his head from the blow of the stool. It stung, and the corner opened up his forearm in a neat, bloody line. That would bruise.

"You son of a bitch!" He threw down the shower head and moved to sock the other boy. At least this time around, he had a bit of experiance in fighting in the showers. Was this the second or third time now?

Sousuke had yet again been washing himself quietly in a corner, wondering to himself why he couldn't remember much past talking with Allelujah. No night, no breakfast, no dinner. The thought unsettled him, greatly. He hoped Hinasaki was alright.

He forgot what he was thinking about the moment he heard the great stool battle break out. He watched for a moment, realizing that the two combatants were a boy he'd never seen before and...

Again?

Takaya was pulling back to punch the other fighter. Sousuke caught sight of nurses and orderlies slowly catching on to the possibility of a fight and realized that if he didn't do something quick, Takaya was going to be drugged.

The teen sergeant moved quickly across the wet tile, catlike as not to slip. "Takaya, they are watching!" He made a grab for Takaya's wrist. "This boy is not worth being drugged over."

Leon was all braced for the attack, ready to dodge or block or whatever move would work best with the actual punch... and then some new guy showed up and tried to defuse things. He glared at the newcomer, bristling at the way he was being talked about like he wasn't there. "I'm no boy, asshole."

Takaya was all ready to punch the other guy, but his arm was brought up short. Tearing his wrist away, he turned and glared at ... Sousuke? Why was he jumping in ... again.

When the shorter guy bitched about not being a boy, Takaya turned back on him. "Shut the fuck up. You are a boy, we all are, or we wouldn't be here right now." Showers were, after all, separated by age.

Sousuke, even though he had just been called an asshole, didn't seem phased in the least. He calmly let go when Takaya pulled his wrist away, somewhat confident that the situation had been diffused.

"Affirmative," Sousuke nodded slightly at Leon. "The common word for a male minor is 'boy'. However despite the connotations of the word, it is no excuse to incite a fight when the consequences are not worth the reason.

"I was not paying attention to who incited this, but both parties participated. I only felt obliged to point out that our captors do not ask questions before drugging us, and thus it would be ideal to refrain from doing anything to encourage them to do so."

Sousuke reached over to turn off the wild showerhead.

Leon crossed his arms over his chest, still pissed off but by no means willing to escalate things by throwing a punch. "Age is irrelevant. I've been in command of troops twice my age." And half again his size, but that was another matter entirely. He could not understand these guys, willing to be treated differently from adults just because of a number--experience was what counted.

"Like I give a shit what you've done. And these people don't care either. I'm older than both of you combined, but I'm not pitching a little bitch fit about being placed with the kids," Takaya snarled.

Bending down, he picked up his own showerhead and used it to rinse off the blood flowing freely down his arm now. Shit. Fucking plastic piece of crap got him good.

Command? That meant...

Oh damn. Sousuke had just mouthed off to a commanding officer.

But this boy--this male minor--had instigated a fight inside a communal shower. Or at least, had prompted one. Sousuke wasn't sure, and while he knew that Takaya was one for losing his temper easily, he couldn't blame the whole situation on him. It took two to have a nuclear war, after all.

So what was best to do in this situation? Acknowledge that Sousuke had made an error and apologize to the officer? An officer who he could only respect in title alone? Was that enough?

He respected Captain Testarossa completely, despite her age. The same went for Captain Usopp, Statesman, and the other military personnel he'd met during his imprisonment here. He'd never seen them in a fist fight--ever. Perhaps that was one thing that allowed Sousuke to put his trust in them: he knew that they would only fight for the right reasons. For the just reason.

And yet Sousuke's training was nagging at him, pulling at the back of his mind, telling him that this teenager was a commanding officer and he deserved Sousuke's respect no matter what. The sergeant was silent as he tried to piece all this information together, tried to come up with something that he could say without offending Leon.

"It is... It's true that many of us do not belong with normal children, myself included. However, this is a prison and therefore, we cannot-- it would be prudent not to antagonize our captors, sir. Whether or not we belong here is, with all due respect, irrelevant when considering the situation."

"I was minding my own business until he started bitching at me." Which was as close as Leon was going to come to 'he started it'. He humphed a little, then bent to pick up the showerhead he'd dropped. Damn having such a lousy grip with his right hand--he would never be able to dual-wield again, even if he did manage to get a sword in addition to his knife.

Leon really had no idea how his little expression of frustration--hitting the soap dispenser for a bit--had turned into this anyway. Just figured he'd end up standing next to someone as temperamental as he was.

What was that? A 'He started it'? Fuck that. "I was trying to be helpful," Takaya snapped back. "You were the one trying to tear the fucking soap off the wall."

The warm water wasn't helping his arm at all. Stupid thing actually stung and damn it, there was bruising too. Shit. "I wasn't the one throwing shit."

Sousuke could feel insanity creeping up his spine. This must have been what going crazy felt like. While he desperately wanted to side with his friend, Leon was a commanding officer. And on top of that, his attempt to pass the buck to Takaya made Sousuke want to bury his own head in the sand even more. And on top of that, Sousuke could feel the tension rising again between Takaya and Leon. At least now he was closer...

The sergeant looked back at Takaya who was trying to stop his arm from bleeding. He hadn't noticed that... This fight had been more serious than he had originally evaluated.

Spotting a wet towel on the floor, he picked it up and wrung out part of it as best he could. "Here," he offered it to Takaya. "It should help it clot."

At least this would give him time to think about what to do. Tend to the wounded, then continue sorting this mess out.

"Whatever." If the dumbass wanted to try to pretend he had the moral high ground--like he hadn't been the one insulting people's mothers and shit--Leon was too tired at this point to get into another fight about it. With the showerhead put back where it belonged, Leon turned the water back on so that he could properly rinse off. The fight had started while he still had shampoo in his hair, after all.

Takaya took the towel from Sousuke with a mumbled 'thanks' and pressed it to the cut. Holding it in place with his body, the Possesser reached out with his aother hand and turned off the tap.

He wasn't going to keep picking on the other kid just because he felt like it. Sousuke was right. He didn't need to get drugged today.

Sousuke was happy to see that, while the atmosphere was still tense, the urge to fight had been severely diminished. He still wasn't sure how he'd managed to diffuse it, but the important thing was that Takaya and Leon weren't at each other's throats anymore.

With Takaya taken care of, Sousuke turned to the other party. "Are you hurt anywhere?"

Leon looked at the newcomer through his wet--but thankfully, clean, now--hair and snorted softly. "Nowhere new, anyway." And actually, all his wounds seemed to be pretty well healed. Or, in the case of his hand, as healed as they were going to get.

Which, not-so-amusingly, brought Leon right back around to what had put him in a foul mood in the first place.

"He wasn't the one throwing around a fucking stool," Takaya grumbled softly, mostly to himself. He was done here, no reason to stay.

Except that when he left,he'd have to deal with a nurse fussing over him and being 'annoyed' and 'disappointed' in his behaviour. At least he hadn't actually punched the guy...

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Day 34: Men's Showers

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