damned_institute | Day 36: Intercom, Evening

Entry tags:

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 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, the talk with Nate had been food for thought, to say the least. He hadn't been all that excited about the steak, but Usopp had to think Luffy should be thrilled with the offering. What was Luffy going to be doing tonight, anyway?

At least he knew where some of his crewmates would be... a small army were due to drop by his room, and maybe Sai would come by as well. He could use all the help he could get, especially if the courtyard wound up occupied again. Usopp started into his meal without too much fuss, for once leaving his notebook alone.

Sousuke's nurse took the liberty of escorting him down the hallway, a comforting hand at his arm. "I'm certain you can talk to Alice tomorrow. Cheer up, Akihiro, I'm sure Kotone will understand."

He wasn't exactly sure what Kaname was supposed to understand, but he didn't feel like asking. He didn't feel like doing anything. He even didn't salute Usopp as he came into the room. Instead, he planted himself face-first into the bed and didn't move. His nurse gave Usopp a worried look, but left Sousuke's dinner on his desk and exited the room.

That was... decisively not normal. It was such a heavy degree of not-normal that Usopp found himself standing and walking over even before he'd had time to consider why Sousuke was behaving like this. Because he'd found out the truth about Usopp and didn't want to look at him? That was a stupid, self-centered thought, not to mention Sousuke would probably just beat him up when that day came. This wasn't anger, it was...

"Sergeant? Sousuke?" Superior officers could call lower officers by their names, right? Usopp's voice was hesitant. If Sousuke were crying, he probably wouldn't want to be interrupted...

Today was visitor day, wasn't it? Usopp had never gotten a visitor, but even the suggestion of the 'real life' here that his doctor had implied had been a bit chilling. What was Sousuke told by a face he probably trusted..?

[Apologies for my abject fail. -_- Not in just this shift.]

Sousuke slowly turned his head to look at Usopp. Weakly, he brought his hand to a salute. "Good evening, Captain." He wasn't crying, but he looked like he hadn't slept in about a week. His eyes were dark and sunken, and his expression was more tired than his usual fierce stoicism.

"I haven't had a chance to check the meat for rat poison. I'll get to it in just a moment, sir."

[It's fine, really!]

Sousuke's look was still depressing, which was maybe too mild a word for a man who was slumped in apparent despair on his bed, too upset to even get up and engage in his usual obsessive-compulsive food checking. Then again, maybe he didn't have much of an appetite, in which case checking the meat for rat poison'd be an academic venture.

"... Don't worry about it for now. You're not in a clear frame of mind. I'll check your meal; mine was clean as usual." Well, he assumed so, since he hadn't died yet from eating any of it. "Did you have a visitor today?"

Maybe that was too blunt a question, but Usopp didn't think Sousuke would explain why he was so upset if Usopp danced around the subject. When he'd been strung out on whatever they injected him with, Sousuke had helped him stay calm... he owed it to the other teen to at least try to talk Sousuke through this, even if they'd played with Sousuke's mind using different tools.

Sousuke nodded. The food was always clean. It had been clean for a solid ten days at least. Perhaps he wasn't going to be poisoned or killed via his meals. Perhaps he really was insane.

"The woman you drew for me... came. To see me. She wanted to see me. But I failed her. I have to fix her..."

The sergeant wasn't making much sense, and he was vaguely aware of this fact. Usopp didn't know how much Kaname had meant to him. How close they had been before... well, before Landel's and before Miku. Now he only felt guilt and frustration when he thought of Kaname's confused and pained expression. She was so patient with him, and yet she didn't have to be. It would have been better if she'd yelled at him. But she was so forgiving of his weakness.

The angel. Usopp only knew the story's loose outline, and the embellishments he'd added for his own entertainment later when going over it in his mind, but he knew the girl's face though he hadn't met her because she was important to Sousuke. That had been one of the first things Sousuke had told Usopp, that he had to find this person, because protecting her was his responsibility.

He could understand that, even if he was weak and there hadn't been any magic armor, just Luffy's help to keep Usopp's own true story from becoming a slaughter. And the princess whose castle he'd left behind under guard, they'd tried to use her against him too. He still remembered the slow and careful way his doctor had explained to him what 'really' happened with Kaya, the odd cold feeling it had put in his stomach even without an imitation Kaya there to deal the blow.

"Sergeant. The enemy's information is all lies. It is designed to alter your mindset, to cloud your view of the world." Crouching down beside the bed again, Usopp tried to speak in his firmest tone of voice. "They make things here--monsters that look like people. I've read about them. They know about our real lives and use little details against us. It's a mental war. The person who came to see you wasn't your... wasn't Kaname Chidori." That was the name, wasn't it? "She isn't here. You can't let them make you lose track of your goals--you still have a duty, don't you? A mission."

Every time he'd tried to give a pep talk, he'd had the feeling of failure afterward. It was strange, because he was in absolute earnest, even if he really had no right to speak to Sousuke like this. Was it the residual effect of too many lies, clinging to his honesty?

Sousuke could sort-of make out what Usopp was telling him, and he tried to comprehend with everything he had in him. It was his duty to respect those of a higher ranking than his--no matter how much he just wanted to sink into a pit of despair and not come out until the Institute had been burned to the ground.

But he found truth in Usopp's statements. It wasn't Kaname, it couldn't have been. Landel could probably make anyone look like anything if he wanted to. Yes, he couldn't let this get in the way of what he was striving for.

"Yes, sir," Sousuke said, sitting up and slumping against the wall. "I will fulfill my mission, despite this disturbing experience." He'd been through post-traumatic stress therapy before, but Sousuke had a feeling he'd need a lot more therapy than he'd ever needed before.

"Though with this visitation, however fake it was, I feel once again as though my relationship with Hinasaki Miku is somehow inappropriate..." Given the fact that he had feelings for Kaname...

At least Sousuke was moving, and seemed to be coming out of his fugue a bit. Better, he agreed that the person he'd met was a fake, and that was important. Usopp refused to believe the visitors were any more real than the town patients were driven to once a week or the nurses they were treated by--who knew where they came from or how they were made? The fact that someone on the board had suggested people who vanished were 'cured' and came back as those visitors sometimes had made the issue personal. Maybe they could be brainwashed enough to attack friends for a night, thinking it was in their best interests, but not so far as to accept another life and the Institute's lies. Nami would never... and Usopp was willing to bet Sousuke's Kaname wouldn't either.

That was the good part, easier to deal with. The other part wasn't as simple. Usopp stood up and headed towards Sousuke's desk, to start his promised 'inspection' as an excuse of not having to look right at Sousuke for this. He'd wondered when Sousuke mentioned kissing, but a guy could be protective of a girl without it being romance...

"That's... difficult. If it doesn't interfere with your mission, it's just a personal question. Were you romantically involved before you came here?"

Sousuke wasn't sure if his relationship would interfere with his mission. But if Kaname became involved again, he could see difficulties springing up. Namely, difficulties protecting both women who seemed to both get into extraordinary amounts of danger. Could he protect them both at once? And how would Kaname react to the revelation that he had... kissed a woman two years older than him? For now, the sergeant looked uncomfortable.

"Not officially, sir..."

This was going to be a problem, wasn't it?

'Not officially.' Usopp had taken the philosophy that what Kaya didn't know about what he did on the Grand Line wouldn't hurt her, but he also hadn't kissed anybody. Well, not sober, as far as he could recall. The end of the first night at Whiskey Peak was still kind of a blur.

"... Officially, then, unless both women are agreeable, you should only be romantically involved with one." That was kind of stating the obvious, but there was no getting around it. "But sometimes romance doesn't work out that simply, either." Maybe Usopp was just lucky he hadn't found someone he matched with so well in the walls of the Institute, and hadn't had to face that kind of question. "It isn't a situation that someone else can solve for you. But... ideally, you'll be returning to your own world and time and duties, and your female friend here will be doing the same someday, won't she?"

He poked and carved busily at the meat, feeling like he was carving up a kid's meal for him. It at least kept him from being embarrassed about what he was saying.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 36: Intercom, Evening

M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33

Re: M33