damned_institute | Day 35: Bus 2

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Day 35: Bus 2

Wally woke as the intercom crackled to life and was surprised to find himself back in his room. The last thing he'd remembered was feeling relieved at finally beating off those dragonfly-lizard things. There'd been that weird intercom message, then... he wasn't quite sure what had happened after that, but he was certain it hadn't involved falling asleep. He'd be half-wondering if he'd dreamed the whole thing if it hadn't been for the nagging ache on his back and ankle from where he'd been bitten. A quick check revealed they'd been bandaged, apparently while he'd slept. He wondered if he had Kal to thank for that. Maybe he'd get the chance to ask later.

He jumped as the door swung open to admit the familiar face of the nurse who'd woken him yesterday. "Up already, are we?" she said cheerfully as she busied herself pulling out clothes. A blue shirt and a pair of jeans were passed to him. Wally blinked, he hadn't been here long, but he'd gotten the impression that the grey-and-smiley-face combo was standard.

"Does this mean I'm being released?" he asked, hope creeping into his voice.

The nurse turned back to him, pity etched on her features. "I'm afraid not, dear." She smiled brightly as she continued, "but today's when all the patients get a special field trip into town! Won't that be a treat!"

Wally stared at the clothes, his mind working away. He'd been trying to get into town and to a phone last night before he'd been attacked. But if they were going in today, this might be the perfect chance for him to contact the Justice League. He smiled warmly and thanked the nurse as she left to allow him to change, then happily allowed himself to be led to one of the buses, picking a seat about halfway down and sliding in to look out the window. It seemed like today was going to be brighter than yesterday, at least in the area of possible phone calls and rescues. About the only dark patch he could see was that the contents of his paper-bag breakfast were going to be nowhere near enough to fill the yawning pit that had taken the place of his stomach, and even that was tolerable when he was positive he wasn't going to be here much longer.

"And you say that time goes rushing by, but it seems so slow to me, and you see a blur around you fly, but it takes too long, it seems so slow to me..." he sung absently.

[Oh Captain, my Captain~]

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[For Dante!]

Tyki woke up in his bed with a start, a little disorientated before realizing nightshift had ended and he was back in his room. With his wounds taken care of, too. Well, okay. That saved him all the trouble. He removed his hair-tie and placed his thick bottle-glasses on his nose instead. As if on cue his nurse walked into his room, carrying some clothing.

"Good morning, João." She greeted cheerfully as she handled him some clothing. "Here are some things to wear in town today. Go on, change. I will be waiting outside."

The clothing wasn't all that different from what he usually wore while in his white side; a white, loose-fitting shirt and faded blue jeans, which were a little tighter than the jeans he was used to. With his broken arm in a sling and a brown lunch bag pushed into another, he slid into a seat next to window.

Doyleton, huh? A town meant shops. Maybe he could snag some useful stuff while he was there. A lighter and extra cigarettes wouldn't be very hard to find for a typical 'sticky-fingered vagabond', now would it?

A silver-haired man twitched as Tyki bumped his arm, sliding into the same seat next to him. "Hey," Dante said irritably, "Watch it."

He gave the man a once over and dismissed him. He looked like a worthless bum. He scratched at the bandaids on his face. Laying beneath them were mild clawmarks-- tokens of parting from those giant fucking mutant cats he and Lust had barely subdued last night. His hands and arms were wrapped in bandages he'd demanded. He preferred it this way. If nothing else, having them made him look cooler. Made up for the ugly greys. He'd actually been a little pleased they were giving him real clothes instead of ugly SMILEY rags-- but then again, he wasn't a fan of white. Or blue. Black and red, black and But whatever. Wherever the Hell Doyleton was (christ what a boring damn name for anywhere), it was at least OUT of the institute. Had it really only been a day? It felt like much longer.

The guy next to him had a smile that just pissed Dante off. If anything, it was this edgey feeling that the guy wanted to kill him. It was a familiar vibe. Dante tried to recall what it reminded him of. Yeah, it reminded him of Vergil.

Tyki hadn't exactly been paying attention to the people walking through the bus - he was more occupied with his breakfast - so the fact he accidentally bumped his less-injured arm against a person wasn't entirely unsurprising. But as laid-back as the Noah was, he couldn't say he was all that worried about it.

"Heh. Sorry, Sunshine." Tyki answered, referring to the other guy's obviously irritated mood. In contrast to the killing vibe that even his white side couldn't completely hide, he gave an almost innocent smile, like he was actually really sorry. Which he wasn't, but hey, never let it be said that Tyki couldn't be a nice guy.

'Watch it', huh? What a funny thing to say to a person who had thick bottle-glasses. Those nearly equaled blindness, now did they? Even when he technically didn't need them, but this silver-haired guy didn't know that.

Oh, now he had attention. 'Sunshine'? He wasn't getting away with that shit. Not after all the other stuff he'd been dealing with quite reasonably, so he thought.

He threw his arms over the back of the seat and glared. "You're pretty fucking happy for a guy in a mental institute. Did they forget your meds this morning?" Those glasses were so retarded and overemphasized- there was no way any doctor would make someone wear them. They had contacts now for people with vision bad enough to need those. So that, to Dante, obviously indicated, along with the overdone smile, that this guy was putting on one hell of a good act. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Maybe he was just as crazy as Dante. The thought gave his voice a slightly calmer tone.

"Wonder where they're takin' us..." he said, glancing out the window.

Now, it's important to note that living in the apocalypse tends to make you forget what the world is actually supposed to look like. Fields, sunshine, normal, undestroyed buildings and no strip clubs; Dante hated it already.

Actually, 'contacts' were not yet invented in the 19th century. Before his Noah had awakened Tyki actually needed those glasses to see properly. Whenever he returned to the human side of his life, he stuck with them for a good reason. Not necessarily to be unrecognizable, but simply because explaining the sudden absence of them would be pretty difficult. And maybe, those glasses somewhat belonged to his white side as well. An obvious difference to his black self. Symbolism, he guessed.

"Maybe." Tyki answered. "Or maybe I'm just in a good mood." Not that he had a reason to, considering his injuries, lack of nicotine and the general shitty night he had, but this guy seemed pretty fun to prod. It'd keep things from getting boring. That, and the hobo wasn't really the type of guy to let things get to him all that easily. Unless he was going to get scolded for it.

"Some town called Doyleton, apparently." Tyki shrugged before taking a bite of his muffin. "Never been there. But somethin' tells me that they have smokes." He raised his index finger at that last statement.

Not that Dante knew Tyki was from the 19th century, (nor did he care) since Dante wasn't going to turn around and accept that this whole thing wasn't a retarded practical joke. Pretty fucking elaborate, but he needed to feed himself some kind of lie or devil forbid that a feeling of hopelessness would start creeping in. Dante was perfectly fine and perfectly unlikeable-- when his powers worked. He didn't have to be liked. What was anyone going to do about him? But in this state, he felt sure that a perpetual state of being pissed-off was very, very likely. He realized he'd taken the stupid lunch without even thinking. He opened the bag and made a face of disgust.

"I don't smoke, but if they don't sell pizza, I'm gonna bust someone's damn face."

Edited 2008-09-04 22:55 (UTC)

"Whoa! Are ya pizza-deprived or something?" Tyki asked. He remembered eating some on his first day here, but for all he knew this guy could have showed up later. New patients each few days seemed to be normal here as far as he knew.

But to each their vices, he guessed. The Noah continued to eat his muffin for a moment before suddenly asking:

"How come you have white hair?" He looked a bit too young to be graying, and the only other person he knew with that hair color was cursed by Akuma. The Noah was almost surprised that he didn't take Dante for an old man.

Dante looked at him, head resting on one hand against the sill of the bus window. They'd started to move. Fantastic. Only 142436 million more miles until they would be anywhere Dante knew about. Straight up. Probably on another planet.

"It's not white," Dante said, looking out the window and not bothering to turn around, "It's silver. Those glasses obviously aren't helping you very much." He sighed. Stupid place, stupid people; it was like Temen-ni-gru all over again. Nothing but a big empty palace full of wackos, retards, and power-hungry control freaks. What else was new?

"As for why," Dante said flatly, "Hell if I know why I was born this way. It's not like I ever knew my parents. I don't even have a father."

While it was true Dante had not known his parents much (his mother Eva had been killed by demons), he did, in fact, have a father. That father was the most powerful demon to have ever lived; The Dark Knight Sparda.

Dante resented his father and the legacy he had left on Dante's shoulders. He'd cleaned up enough his old feuds in the demon world to be satisfied to never hear about Sparda again. Besides, when people kept comparing the two of them, Dante was kind of offended.

He was much better looking.

Silver. White. Not much of a difference, at least not to Tyki. It still was a pretty weird hair color to be born with, though. But whatever.

"Right." He glanced at the other man from behind his glasses for a moment, looking thoughtful for a moment. Most people would apologize for asking, but the Noah had met plenty of people who had never knew their parents. Being orphaned himself from birth, he never understood why people apologized for something like that.

"I'm Tyki."

If nothing else, this guy was persistently sociable. Dante could be sociable too, and even though he didn't particularly feel like it, sulking was a one-way ticket to Boredom County so he'd better start putting his attention away from the blank fields of out there and focus on the weirdoes inside the bus.

"Name's Dante." He jerked a thumb at his chest assertively. "I'm also the Captain of the Really-Fucking-Pissed boat right now, so unless you can exlain why I was attacked by mutant cats or give me a worse story, I'm going to try and eat this crappy food without gagging."

Tyki had kind-of already noticed Dante's bad mood. Not that it had stopped him.

"Mutant cats now too, huh? Well, this ain't a monster-infested asylum for nothing I guess." Tyki answered. "Why we're here? Beats me. I haven't met anyone who knew." That or they collectively decided not to tell him.

"Maybe the guy in charge doesn't have anything better to do." Not love, but boredom could make people do strange things.

Dante snerked.

"If someone's in charge, they're doing a really shit-poor job of keeping things together." He sighed deeply.

"Maybe there'll be a weapon shop in this town, too. I dunno, do mental patients need a license to own a firearm?"

"Well, there's a head doctor." Tyki announced. "It's the guy on the intercom." The Noah couldn't say he was all that interested in that man's ramblings, though.

As for weapon shops...
"You can always try to steal knives from a restaurant." Tyki announced, as if it was very normal to do such a thing. It was for a vagabond, at least. It seemed easier to accomplish than trying to find a story selling weapons in all shapes and sizes - and somehow sneaking it back into the institute.

Dante laughed, loudly.

"Knives?" He grinned widely. "It would be offensive to demon hunters everywhere if one was witnessed brandishing a steak knife. Come on. Maybe I can't get a good sword, like anything forged in Hell, but if I can get something better than a cooking utensil, that'll be just fine."

He shook his head, silver hair falling in his eyes.

"This place sucks. I need a drink when we get there, too."

"Oi, it's better than nothin' right?" Tyki had to admit that cooking utensils were a bit lame, especially compared to the Tease. He could change those butterflies in large throwing-blade if he wanted to, which were a lot more fun to play with than a kitchen knife. But his white side was supposed to pass for a 'normal' human, so killer butterflies simply wouldn't be mentioned in this conversation.

But Dante's comment still caught his attention. Offensive to demon hunters? The Noah titled his head in curiosity. "Are you a demon, then?"

Dante yawned.

"Half and half, you know. Good for coffee, but bad mix for a hunter. It's always 'you smell like humans' or 'you're not even a complete demon' this or that. Eventually I start telling people I just don't goddamn know. Nice way to meet girls though, sayin' I'm half-demon." He laughed again.

"I am going to go stir-crazy if this busride lasts any longer." He stood up in front of his seat and started stretching and jogging in place before flopping down again.

"So fucking bored."

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Day 35: Bus 2

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