damned_institute | Day 36: Waiting Room/Lobby 2

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Day 36: Waiting Room/Lobby 2

Okita hadn't been expecting it when his nurse suddenly appeared in the Game Room. He'd expected to be left alone like last week, but instead she gently took him by the arm and told him he needed to say goodbye to Kaden for now. Okita assumed it was time for his visitor and waved goodbye to him, only to be led off himself. The swordsman had followed obediently into the Sun Room, but when he tried to go off to another room, she stopped him. "Not today, Julian."

Not today? Something about his nurse's demeanor seemed off, almost as if she were worried about something. It wasn't until she led him out of the Sun Room that he understood what was going on. He had a visitor. There were only so many people that would come to visit him in a place like this. His sisters, Tetsu, Kondou or... Okita didn't want to think about the last option.

Taking a step into the waiting room, he stopped at the door and turned to look at his nurse. "Are you sure you're not mistaken?" he asked, feeling actual fear for the first time in a long while. If this wasn't some strange punishment/joke for behaving poorly in the chapel, he didn't know what to do. Badou's graffiti was still on his hand and he quickly slipped that hand into his pocket. He could feel the pen there, clipped to the inside of his waistband. The nurse shook her head and moved to the side of the room, keeping a close watch on him as he stayed by the door, trying to hide his anxiety by feigning interest in the strange magazines on a table nearby.

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There was no denying that Nathan had a certain presence, and there really wasn't any way to miss him when he entered a room. So Peter caught sight of his brother right as he stepped inside, taking in his clean-cut, well-groomed image and struck by how familiar it was.

This was the Nathan he was used to, rather than the worn-down, scruffy person he'd met here at Landel's. Unfortunately, all of this was still fake, and he knew his brother would have hated knowing that his mind had been tampered with like this. It was like taking a backward step.

After all, Nathan had been so weary as a result of what they had been through over the past few months, and now it was like none of that had ever happened. In fact, he was certain that was what his brother would try to tell him now.

Peter couldn't help it; he stood from his seat once Nathan got close enough, needing to see the man face-to-face. The false name made him pause for a moment, but he didn't dwell on it. Instead, he tried to take in the other man's features, tried to figure out if this was really the same person he'd been speaking with just a few days ago.

It could have been some sort of illusion - he was sure a power like that existed somewhere - and yet he couldn't shake that this was the real deal.

"Nathan," he started, looking his brother up and down. "What happened?"

"Would you please cut it out with that 'Nathan' crap?" Harrison hissed, looking over his shoulder. Under his breath, he added: "You'd think they'd let us do these things privately..."

After a second, he shook his head and looked back to Ethan. "Whatever. Anyway, I came back to my senses is what happened, which," he reached for his brother's shoulder and grasped it firmly, "is what you should be doing, Ethe."

"No, I'm not going to cut it out," Peter quickly countered, not making any effort to lower his voice. It just figured that Nathan would be acting like this - embarrassed about how his screwed-up little brother was going to make him look. The fact that it was so believable was what made this difficult. If his brother had acted like someone else entirely, then it would have been easy to brush it off. But whoever had screwed with Nathan's head had been very precise about it.

Maybe that meant there was still a way to get him back.

"You didn't come back to your senses, Nathan," he insisted, glancing down when the other man grabbed him by the shoulder. "They did something to you, they made you believe you're someone else." He forced eye contact with his brother in an attempt to get through to him, making the effort even though it was probably futile.

Still, it seemed like Nathan did remember being here to an extent, which more or less confirmed that this was no doppelganger. Peter wasn't sure if that made him feel better or worse.

Harrison stared back at Ethan as he kept on spewing the same old nonsense as before. His eyes narrowed and he started shaking his head, as if trying to figure out how to respond to his brother.

"You... Are you really going to keep this up, man?" he asked, sounding a little more incredulous than angry. He pulled his hand away from his brother's shoulder and rubbed his eyes. "Wait... don't answer that."

The condescending attitude was nothing new for Peter, and so he was able to dismiss it easily enough. Still, he was starting to realize that this was a pointless effort that he was making. It was hard enough to get Nathan to believe him when he didn't have blocks built into his mind, after all.

"Listen," he said, actually holding back on saying his brother's name if only to make sure that the man didn't fixate on it. "What do you remember about being in this place?" If he could get a better idea of that, maybe he could figure out just how they had messed with Nathan's head.

And maybe if he actually had his powers, he might be able to undo what had been done, but as things stood there was no chance of that. Still, there had to be some way. After the sacrifices Nathan had made on his behalf, there was no way that Peter was going to let him stay lost in another life like this.

"I remember being out of my mind," Harrison said, looking up to meet Ethan's eyes. He frowned and pointed at him. "I also remember you not being much of a help... Listen."

He moved to sit down in a nearby chair and gestured for Ethan to follow suit. He sighed as soon as he'd seated himself.

"I know how you're feeling, all right? But trust me, what you think you remember..." He looked up at him. "It isn't real."

Even though Peter knew that Nathan wasn't functioning under his own terms right now, being blamed hurt more than it should have. What his brother said was true, even if it wasn't in the way that Nathan meant it right now. Peter should have been able to prevent this from happening in the first place; he should have been able to keep Nathan here where they could tackle this problem together.

Instead Nathan had been forcibly put onto the wrong side, which just wasn't fair after he'd worked so hard to do the right thing in the past.

Despite all that, Peter automatically followed as his brother led him to sit down. He fought the urge to argue back, instead figuring he should ask a more helpful question. "Then what is real?" He might as well hear about what he was up against.

"Oh, I dunno... real life?" Harrison said as Ethan sat down. After a second, he seemed to realize that sarcasm may have not been such a good strategy, so he turned towards his brother and looked him in the eye.

"Mom's worried about you," Harrison said, "and so am I. I mean, thinking we can fly...?" He chuckled and shook his head. "I know it's easier to try to run away, but it's also completely insane, Ethan."

This was all just causing Peter to flash back to a few months ago, when Nathan had expressed the same unwillingness to believe in his claim that he thought he could fly. Of course, they both knew how that had turned out - or Nathan was supposed to know, at least. Instead he was calling him by the wrong name, and--

Mentioning their mother, of all things. Peter paused at that; had Mom been through this place, too, or was it some impostor? He wasn't sure which would be better, but if both she and Nathan had been brainwashed, he wondered how much longer he had.

Continuing to insist that he wasn't crazy would just make his brother less likely to believe him, and so Peter kept on with his line of questioning. "Well, can you tell me about your life, then? Everything's pretty jumbled up in my head, so I'm not sure what's real and what isn't," he feigned, giving the older man a lost look as he tried to play the victim. He didn't want to manipulate Nathan like this, but knowing that his brother wasn't really himself right now made it a little easier.

Harrison stared at Ethan dubiously for a second before he sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, all right," he said a little reluctantly, as if it was stupid to describe something so obvious but he felt obligated to do it anyway.

"Well, first off, yeah, I'm a lawyer; took over Dad's law firm, and no," he preemptively interjected, shutting his eyes in disbelief and waving his hand dismissively as he saw a familiar look of distaste cross Ethan's face, "he never worked for some flower-power gangster named 'Linderman', so don't even start."

So it looked like enough of the details were the same to make brainwashing doable and maybe even easy (Peter didn't even know how they did it, but he was sure it was possible), but there were also differences to make everything as normal as possible. Their father wasn't involved with the mob, there were no powers, and he was sure their lives had been cakewalks compared to the reality.

Still, Nathan seemed to know about his "delusions," which Peter hadn't expected. Had the nurses or doctors given him the details, or did he still have some lingering memories? Or was he somewhat aware of what he'd believed to be "true" when he'd been held here?

There were a lot of possibilities, but Peter wasn't sure how easy it would be to get the answers out of his brother when he was barely willing to give him the time of day. Still, he could give it a shot.

"How do you know about that?" he asked.

"Ethan," Harrison chuckled a little nervously, "we made up all that crap together, remember? Some kind of... cooperative delusion, because of the way I was after the war and your always being... ...well, Iet's face it: three fries short of a Happy Meal. Anyway..."

He slid his arm over Ethan's shoulders and turned to look him in the eye.

"I'm not asking you to get cured, all right? Hell, if you need to lie a little to get out of here, that's fine, but... geez, Ethan, get your ass home somehow. It's not that hard to figure out what's real and what's not, is it?"

The blending of truth and falseness seemed like it would take a while for Peter to sort through, especially when Nathan was being so difficult. Still, as his brother's arm rested on his shoulders, Peter could tell that this was the same person, and that had to mean that there was a way to repair the damage that had been done.

Peter looked Nathan straight in the face, searching for some remnant of the truth, but all he found was confidence and concern. No matter what Peter said, he wasn't going to be believed.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll get home." He was going to get both of them back there, no matter what it took. Lying to "get out" wasn't going to work, but he would find another way.

"Just... trust me, all right? I'll fix this." He sent Nathan a brief smile that quickly faded into a downcast frown.

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Day 36: Waiting Room/Lobby 2

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