damned_institute | Day 36: Intercom, Evening

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Day 36: Intercom, Evening

The intercom's jingle rang out and the somewhat uninhibited movement that was going on between the main activity rooms halted as the Head Doctor made one of his usual announcements.

"Good evening everyone, and I'm very pleased to see so many of you in such high spirits after meeting with your loved ones! However, like with all good things, it can't last forever, so I ask now for nurses to escort our patients in the waiting rooms and in the main areas back to their rooms, where they will be treated with a special Sunday... steak! That's right: today, we'll be serving juicy, delicious steak with fries and cooked vegetables on the side – simple enough for everyone to like and good enough for everyone to thoroughly enjoy! (Our patients with specialized diets will receive their alternate meals, of course.) Our usual beverages are available, and for dessert, we'll be serving warm slices of apple pie.

"After all, patients, t's always wonderful to see all of you cooperating with the staff even when given so much freedom, so I'd like to personally thank and congratulate all of you for helping us, your family, and more importantly, yourselves. Hopefully, we can help you to a speedy recovery so that you can see your loved ones more often, but first... dinner! I hope to speak with you all again soon."

The intercom clicked off.

[ All room threads go in response to this post; please post your character's room number as the subject line of the initial post. Thank you!

On an added note, just wanted to clarify to players of characters who are canonly vegetarians and the like that you get to decide (within reasonable and realistic limits) what kind of diet your character gets from the staff. :3 ]

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There was much buzzing in the halls about 'visitors' or 'guests'; from what Kunzite could piece together from the fragments of conversation, Landel and his staff somehow brought the 'patients' individuals whom they recognized from their original worlds. "No doubt some other form of hypnotic suggestion," he muttered under his breath, passing it off as jealous banter when questioned by the nurse escorting him to his room. His roommate was already inside, presumably resting from a long, exhaustive day. The swordsman sat on his bed, removing his notebook from the back pocket to jot down some observations on the day.

The arrival of supper did not distract him initially; brunch was extremely filling - and interesting, to say the least - but the tantalizing smell of the stake was difficult to resist for long. Closing the book and placing it on his desk, he moved to stand, but noted that Zex had barely attempted to partake of his own dinner, and still remained in his initial position. Something was amiss.

"Excuse me," Kunzite started, moving toward his roommate's half of the quarters but remaining somewhat distant nonetheless, "are you well? Do I need to procure some sort of medical treatment for you?"

Miles was in a slightly better mood when his nurse came to fetch him, but only just. There wasn't much anyone could do to make him less depressed about the situation he was in. The intercom announcement had only served to make him even more upset about things. It was true that he hadn't been taken away for a visitor, but it was also true that people he knew had been. It wouldn't end well.

He was silent on the walk back to his room, even as his nurse rattled on and on and on. He didn't feel the need to humor her with nodding and saying 'uh-huh' in places.

"Don't worry, Mr. Pierce," the nurse said as they got to the door. "We've arranged to have your food cut ahead of time, so you just eat and get some rest. Have a good evening!"

They would have to treat me like a child, wouldn't they?

Edited 2008-10-26 02:47 (UTC)

Wally winced, unable to really think of anything to say about that. He really needed to learn when to stay quiet. If it had been Bats in this situation, he'd probably have had the perfect excuse to explain away everything and wouldn't have been freaking out at all, but then again, Bats didn't have any powers, so all he had to explain was why he felt the need to dress up in a giant bat suit. This wasn't going to be as easy.

He fidgeted in his chair, wondering what to do now. "So, uh, how's your hand?" Wally asked, half-hoping to change the topic, though he really was concerned. His own injuries he could deal with but it was always upsetting when someone he'd been supposed to keep an eye on ended up getting hurt.

Elle had to be carefully steered back to her room by a nurse. Her father knew she was here? And he was playing along with these people?

There wasn't much time to dwell on that, however. As the door swung open it became obvious that her roommate was there, looking skittish and confused. Great, this was just what she needed. She'd fully expected to have escaped last night and never have to see the girl again, but here she was, standing in the doorway with her arm in a sling, an obvious failure.

She wanted to say something witty and biting. But all she could manage was to stand there, like a deer in the headlights, wishing she hadn't flipped out last night. She should've kept up her charade of civility, normality, but it had become so draining to pretend to care.

Daddy was disappointed in her. He was disappointed that she'd ended up here, and disappointed that she hadn't earned the right to leave yet. But she'd show him. She be good.

"Hi," she said quietly, as the nurse shut the door behind her, leaving Elle alone with someone she was suddenly irrationally afraid of.

Even though Guy wasn't someone who scared easily, he had to admit to himself that he didn't feel very secure going back to his room. He wanted to believe that Okita wouldn't hurt him no matter what happened, but there was no way he could take that sort of thing for granted, especially when he'd gotten multiple warnings on the subject. Okita seemed to be aware enough of what he was capable of that he had told a few people to keep their distance, but Guy didn't have a choice in the matter.

Even if he had, it would have seemed wrong to avoid his roommate like that. Okita obviously needed support right now, and while Guy knew he wasn't the best person to provide it, he could at least make the effort.

Having his arm in a sling actually made it a lot easier to hide the package that Heiji had given him on the way back to the room, and Guy let out a sigh of relief when the nurse left him to his dinner without searching him. He set the small present down on his desk and then looked over his plate of food.

Steak wasn't something that could really be eaten with one hand, so Guy slowly sat himself down and started in on the fries, trying not to feel nervous as he waited for his roommate to show up.

"Fine," Tony lied. It wasn't nearly that, and the sharp stab of pain every time he tried to move it too much was determined to remind him that he wasn't fine. He'd pulled through worse, but without something concrete to focus on, it was just one more thing to spike his temper. "You're changing the subject. Now, why would that be, I wonder." He picked up his glass of water and took a sip, glancing past it at Wally. "I'm beginning to get the feeling you don't trust me." The irony of that particular statement was not lost on him at all. He could, however, ignore it.

"Fine like my knee is?" Wally asked with a slight smile. He was trying to keep that leg as still as possible, but it wasn't easy considering how nervous he was. Tony's injury had to be just as difficult to deal with, maybe more so. At least Wally could spend most of his time sitting down (in theory anyway, in reality it was starting to drive him nuts).

"Well, duh, of course I don't trust you that much! I've only known you, what, three days now? Not exactly long enough to start spilling secrets or anything, even for me. And I don't see you offering to tell me your life story either." He folded his arms stubbornly an eyed his roommate, daring him to continue.

"Now, be sure to get some rest, Mr. Hunt. You've got to have plenty of sleep if you want to get better!"

An almost imperceptible nod from Javert - but it seemed to be good enough for his nurse, who could be heard humming as she shut the door after him and headed down the hall.

There was no sign of Fuchs. For the first time since his visit this afternoon, he was completely and totally alone.

He seated himself quietly and began to eat his dinner.

ZEX was deeply lost in his thoughts, trying to separate fact from fiction and continually failing. Even thoughts that normally comforted him, memories of Cerenkov and his menagerie, now only made the sick feeling worse. How could it all have been a lie? Was it all a lie?

Someone was talking to him. He didn't recognize their voice, and he couldn't find the energy to lift his head to look. He tried for a few seconds to sort through what they'd asked him, and to think of something to say.

"Medical treatment would not help," ZEX eventually said, although he wasn't very satisfied with that as a response. He tried for a moment to think of something better, then found the entire exercise pointless and returned to replaying his encounter with DAX over and over again.

Tony uttered an unwilling chuckle at that, and nodded admission. "Yeah, pretty much. At least I don't have to worry about walking on it, though."

He gave Wally a wry look. "I've lived most of my life in front of a camera. If I have secrets, my life story sure as hell isn't one of them. And I'm not asking for yours." He toyed with his glass, swirling the water in it to start up a miniature whirlpool. "Just do me the courtesy of not trying to bullshit me on something we both know I saw. Along with anyone else who was in that hallway, probably."

Lia's expression blanked, falling into coolly neutral lines, the calm, aloof mask comfortably familiar. She studied Elle, noting the sling with some small amount of private relief. If nothing else, it made for somewhat more even footing if it came down to a reprise of the night before.

"Hello," she replied finally, one eyebrow raised in bland inquiry, though she said nothing further to give context to the reply. Her store of civility had not replenished itself so far as to incline her to small talk, though it kept outright hostility for the moment buried.

He had struggled with the nurses for appearances sake, but once they were down the hall, he'd stopped. There was no point to fighting when all he needed was the sedative and hands stronger than his to carry him out of that room and away from Hijikata. He was calm by the time they reached the lower dorm halls and silent when they led him to his room. The nurses must have assumed the sedatives were working because they let him go at that point and ushered him into his room with a rather sharp chiding. "One more incident and we're putting you in solitary, Mr. Ikeda."

The door shut and Okita sank back against it. Guy was in the room already, and Okita knew he should put on a happy face for his roommate, but he just didn't have the energy anymore. His head swam and he put a hand to his forehead, moving unsteadily toward his desk. He missed the chair the first time and hit his elbow on the top of the desk, then finally made it into the seat.

Hijikata was gone. He'd left. He had been broken and changed and-- Okita pushed his thoughts away through the fog and looked up at Guy. Nerves, something was wrong - his arm was in a sling. He ate, but he couldn't cut his steak and Okita didn't exactly trust himself to do it for the man. Forgoing his usual greeting, Okita tried to get his tongue to work around the words in his head and asked, "When did you hurt your arm?"

Harry was jerked from his thoughts by his roommate's entry. He stared at the bright purple hair and - tattoos? Trying to remember when he'd gotten a new roommate and what had happened to the other guy.

Shrugging it off, he said "Hey, I don't think we've really met. I'm Harry." He wasn't really feeling up to holding a conversation, but it didn't feel right to just ignore the guy.

"I do okay. They gave me a crutch and stuff, so it's not so bad. I've had worse." He shrugged and smiled, at least Tony was still in a good mood, which was a definite improvement over how he'd seemed earlier.

Though he was beginning to think he could have handled a brooding roommate if it meant they didn't have to have this conversation. "It's not the same," he insisted. "I mean, what kind of secrets could you have?" Nothing on the level of what Wally did anyway; if Tony had had any kind of superpower, he would have used it last night, not just been a monster's chew-toy.

He sighed heavily. Even if he could get Tony to stop talking about what had happened, it wasn't like he could make the guy forget what he'd seen. And he couldn't think of any good reasons to explain it either, other than the obvious anyway. "Look, if I tell you, you have to promise to keep it to yourself." He locked eyes with Tony, desperately trying to convey how important this was to him.

For once, since Scar's disappearance, Lust was feeling more at peace with herself. She attributed the change in mood to Luxord, and their conversation (and flirtatious banter) at brunch. She supposed now she could pursue him, if she so desired. There was no harm in keeping a lover around while stuck in this place after all.

She allowed herself to be led back to her room at the end of the day, wondering if Hohenheim would be by again tonight, or if she should see about finding the pale haired gambler and seeing if he truly did want her company this evening...

She ignored her roommate, as usual, and went to her desk to inspect dinner.

Naomi was glad to be back to her room at the end of the day. She was still going over what she'd discussed earlier in the day, all the strange things people told her about other worlds. Nothing had ever prepared her for sorting this kind of information.

Back in the room she shared with Arlene, she took a seat and turned to the other woman.

"I've got company coming over tonight," she said, fishing the cigarettes out of a drawer. "Want one?"

After dealing with Elle and her games, nicotine sounded wonderful. "I'd love one," the Bride said, getting up.

She didn't go over to Maki, though, but instead went to her bed and pulled the sheathed katana out from under the mattress. "The alchemy is real," she said, heading over to Maki to show her the blade.

Naomi looked at what Arlene held out, an eyebrow raising slightly in appreciation. She hadn't exactly doubted that it was real, she just...hadn't seen any proof. Enough people had testified that yes, there were people who could make weapons with some sort of magic that it was hard to discount it, and yet....

It was the rational mind. It continually rejected the bizarre and unexplainable or unknown. Even last night, after seeing monsters and zombies or whatever you wanted to call those things at night, Naomi's mind had tried to reject that creature as impossible. As a nightmare.

Because that was how the human mind worked. Most of them, anyway. Where she was from. The qualifiers kept adding up, the longer she was here. Even though she had mostly accepted all the strangeness in her conscious mind, that part of her mind she didn't control still tried to force everything into normalcy.

"Which one did you go to?" she asked, holding the pack of cigarettes out to her roommate.

Maki wasn't the only one in the room with the same issues concerning rationality, but the Bride had seen it with her own eyes.

She took one of the cigarettes out of the pack. "The Norn - Skuld," she stated. Maki was one of the few she might actually consider a friend if she was asked, so her hesitancy in revealing the goddess' identity wasn't present. "Un-fucking-believable sight to watch a bunch of pipes, wood and cloth meld into this very nice katana."

"I've seen her posting on the bulletin," Naomi said, nodding. She didn't have any need of weapons, but it was good to know, just in case. "She did it right in front of you? How did she do it?"

Were there words that were said? A...magic wand involved? Yes, because the woman would have a magic wand here in the institute. But alchemy was, as far as Naomi could tell, a form of magic. Which was one of those unknown things for her. She knew it from only books and movies and things like that.

Having Okita's entrance accompanied by a warning about solitary confinement wasn't the best way to start off their dinner together, but Guy wasn't going to let his nerves get to him. He turned and watched as Okita pushed away from the door and staggered over to his desk; it was obvious that he was under the influence of some sort of drug. The reason he'd been sedated was less clear, but there was a good chance he'd lashed out and attacked someone.

Or it had something to do with the fact that visitors had come today. Either way, Guy was sure that bringing it up was the worst choice he could make right now. Luckily they had some other things to talk about, and he glanced down at his arm when the question was asked.

"I didn't hurt it," he responded, even though he realized it must have been hard for Okita to formulate his questions properly considering the state he was in. "I was attacked by another patient last night and this is the result." Maybe that would give Okita a wake-up call of sorts, though there was also the chance that it would have the opposite effect and make him even more prone to want to attack someone.

As much as he felt like he should ask after Okita, or even acknowledge that something was wrong, Guy knew that it would be best if he kept his mouth shut for now.

"Hold on," Beatrix said, setting the sword on her bed and then finding the two pieces of paper she showed Light earlier. She handed them to Maki.

"She took those measurements and used some kind of really high level math formula to make that design - the array," Beatrix explained. "The raw materials were set on top of the array on the floor and then she said some stuff in a language I've never heard before. There was some light and the metal and all that just... melted and then reformed into the sword and its sheathe."

She shook her head. "I can't even really describe it properly."

Tony smiled at the question, though it was a strained, bleak sort of expression, and bore little resemblance to humor. "I play piano," he replied blandly. "That's about it. And normally I'd kill you to keep that from getting out, but, you know. Effort."

He leaned back in his chair, all traces of levity falling away as Wally met his gaze. "You have my word," he replied, with a sudden gravity that sat a little at odds with his usual sarcastic demeanor. He salvaged that a few seconds later by adding, "And hey, what kind of asshole would I have to be to repay your watching my back by shooting my mouth off about your secrets? Especially in de Sade's dream asylum."

Math and magic. Naomi frowned thoughtfully, thinking it over. The description had been enough, at least, for her to get an idea of what it had looked like. Not how it had been done, but at least what it had looked like to Arlene.

Part science and part magic. That was interesting. It at least indicated there were rules, laws, logic to the practice. But how was it done? Once the science stopped and the magic began, it was like a wall came down. She couldn't imagine the two things being compatible. It was like...like science and religion - which was, she supposed, a form of the supernatural or fantastical in its own right.

"It's hard to wrap the mind around," was all she managed to say.

"You've got that right," Beatrix replied, laying back on her bed to examine the ceiling while enjoying the nicotine.

"She claims her power is celestial in nature - that she's a goddess." She sighed. "All this shit we're coming across in this place is really fucking up my perception of the universe and how things worked. I'm not religious in the slightest, but I was raised Catholic."

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Day 36: Intercom, Evening

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