damned_institute | Day 37: Men's Showers

I wouldn't really call this a locker room. More like a bathroom with lockers. The place was uncomfortably crowded, with almost every adult male patient being hustled into the showers at once, but Phoenix wasn't as annoyed by the claustrophobic, milling throng of bodies as he might have otherwise been. Every extra person was one more person who might end up standing between himself and Edgeworth.

He knew that the prosecutor would have a fit if he found out about this. He'd known since he'd tacked that first response up on the bulletin board. And in a way, he couldn't blame him. Phoenix knew that he jumped into things all-or-nothing more often than most people. At the same time, he had some kind of reality testing. He wasn't going to learn the basics of how to defend himself and suddenly decide that he was Rambo.

He found an unoccupied locker in the southwest corner and glanced around, trying to gauge how long he could possibly stall in a locker room, looking as if he was expecting something, before people started looking at him strangely. It would have been easier if he'd known something of the description of the man he was supposed to be meeting. As it was, all he had was handwriting and a military rank, neither of which guaranteed any particular appearance.

It's not as if there was a better way to plan this, though. "Yeah, meet me by the lockers. I'll be wearing gray and a smiley face, just like about a hundred other guys."

[for Hughes]

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"Everyone's aware of that," Mello said. Now that he'd calmed slightly, his voice was a compromise between the usual clipped tone he used with Near and the more casual matter-of-factness he'd used with others last night. He'd noticed L's arrival as well, which was part of what forced him into relative order. He understood the importance of the situation as well, which was evidenced by the fact that he hadn't stormed out of this conversation.

He'd already directly threatened L. There was nothing else he could do beyond making good on that threat, so the final outcome was now up to L. L knew the stakes, and if he were smart enough, he'd do as Mello ordered. If Landel had compromised him to such a degree that he couldn't be recovered, allowing him to die was no different from sacrificing a once strategic point overtaken by an enemy. Despite his arrogance, Mello had limited resources. He couldn't afford to waste valuable time and energy trying to keep his predecessor in line when he needed to concentrate on gaining control of the rest of the institute.

"Speaking of consequences." Mello looked over to Near again, pretending to take a second to silently assess the teen's injuries. "You're not in any condition to deal with something on that level." The matter-of-fact tone nearly concealed the arrogant disdain in his voice. He turned off the faucet and grabbed his towel. "If you try to help and you're not up to the task, you could end up as more of a problem than a solution."

Day 37: Men's Showers

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