damned_institute | 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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"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.

Day 36: Waiting Room/Lobby 2

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