damned_institute | Day 37: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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Day 37: Sun Room (4th Shift)

There were still too many things on Armand's mind for him to truly relax. The morning with Alec had been a help. And seeing that TK was going to be well helped him know that it was time to work out something else, but what? He'd already, without success again, tried to reach one of the club leaders about his sole idea of something new and different. Maybe it was hopeless.

There was no way he was going to play with paper and glue like a small child, and he glared at the nurse as best he could until she gave up on the idea. There was a free chair in the Sun Room--in fact, there were many free chairs--where he settled down to see what the new patients looked like. Prisoners, not patients. He felt bad that he had to remind himself. Even if he was crazy, he wasn't going to give in to Dr. Landel's game, not today. He nibbled on an overgrown cuticle and kept an eye on the room. No dozing today.

[for Citan]

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Artemis came out of the shower feeling a bit more refreshed and relaxed. Spending time with Haku would do that. But his nurse was still concerned about Sean's complacent, almost soulless manner. She couldn't imagine why he was so out of sorts.

The boy spotted Ken with a kitten. Immediately, he was reminded of the time he'd spent with Renji and the kitten after his first visitor. He moved over to the man and sat down, tearing up immediately.

"He liked kittens."

And then there was Artemis. And he was crying. Holy shit, he hadn't even gotten a chance to say anything stupid. This had to be some kind of new record.

"...Artemis," Ken started, not really sure what to say. He knew about what happened last night--he wasn't completely illiterate after all, and the bulletin board had been covered in enough rumors and stories to put a supermarket tabloid to shame.

"I'm sorry."

"May I pet it?" He asked. Artemis thought that perhaps reaching haphazardly into Ken's lap would be undesirable. Kittens had helped him when Bellman had come to visit, perhaps they would help now.

Then, perhaps, he could tell his story.

Ken nodded and gently scooped up the kitten. It meowed protest against the moving, but settled down again once Ken deposited it in Artemis's lap instead.

Artemis needed the small fuzzy thing far more than Ken did. And as long as it was being pet, the kitten didn't really care either.

Artemis hadn't expected the animal to be deposited in his lap, but he petted the kitten anyway. For one who was so cold a few years ago, he was surprisingly loving with the small animal. He stroked under its tiny jaw with his index finger.

"He died in front of me."

"I could say some trite and overused proverb and hope it helped, but that's all bullshit anyway." It never got easier, and that 'better place' crap never helped anyway. "But if you need to talk, I can listen." One arm went up along the back of the couch, behind Artemis's head.

"And I can't say for sure. I never met the guy. But from what I know...it seems like somethin' he would've done. T'protect someone he cared about."

Artemis nodded vaguely. "I thought it was my fault at first, because I couldn't heal him. The magic was gone, since I had to fix my heart the night before. I thought that... if only I had just fought off Mello before he stabbed me, I would be able to heal him. If only I hadn't tried to help him fight off the nurses, the Captain wouldn't have had to choose who to heal.

"But... it was him," Artemis drew the kitten onto his chest and held it. It felt soft and wonderful against his cheek. "He gave up his life for mine."

"And if the situation repeated, he'd do it again. Knowing that won't make it easier to live with at first. But eventually...it gets better.

"Losing a friend is hard. I'm not going to say it's not." Ken leaned his head back, staring at the ceiling. "It hurts more than anything. But eventually...you get to a point where it doesn't hurt as much anymore. Where you remember the good instead of the bad."

Or you eventually snapped, but that was not constructive at all and Ken wasn't going to risk getting the idea in Artemis's head.

The boy nodded again. The kitten was warm and purring now. It made him smile. "Yes... I know. I've read about it many times, but I've never had to actually experience it. It's very different, I must say."

He continued to pet the kitten, looking off into the carpet. "Especially when you can't save them."

"It gets better when you're the one who had to kill them," Ken murmured, hopefully too low for Artemis to hear.

"Lots of things are different than what you read about. And there's no guarantee you would've been able to save him, if you had your magic or not. You can't really blame yourself for it."

"Oh, but I did," Artemis said honestly, moving closer to Ken. He found that proximity was very soothing. Proximity to friends was even better. "I even was in denial that he was dead for a while. But all this happened during breakfast. I've slowly become accustomed to the way I'm supposed to express healthy grief."

The boy rested his head on Ken's arm. "I know that it had to happen, and I know there wasn't any alternative. But... I still wish I could have saved him. I've done it four times before..."

"If only all of us could move through the stages of grief as easily as you could. I'm usually stuck on denial for weeks." Ken idly thought that it really said something when he could say that he had a 'usual' response.

"Wishing and hoping are good enough. But...so much regret really doesn't do any good. But you can learn from this. So it doesn't have to happen again."

Ken's arm dropped down from the couch back to rest lightly across Artemis's shoulders, drawing him into a one-armed hug. "Maybe we can start with teaching you pressure points, so the next time someone's bein' stupid and leaping headfirst into trouble, you can knock them out."

Artemis nodded at that. "Or perhaps I could use them the next time someone tries to kill me. Considering I have no backup system now."

That worried him, certainly. He'd used his failsafe on Mello, and now he was spent until the next full moon. Possibly he was eternally spent. Who knew if the magic would come back to him, or if he was barren forever? The magic had given him massive headaches and, possibly, a change in diet. It wasn't human.

"Someone still teachin' you?" Ken asked, glancing down at his friend. Farfarello had been doing it, last Ken heard, and while that didn't exactly set him at ease...he had to acknowledge the Schwarz knew what he was doing. He'd gotten a firsthand demonstration on more than one occasion, after all.

"Not recently, no," Artemis confessed. He'd been busy with other things, ever since he found he could get over the wall. "I haven't had the chance. The Captain has been running me like a dog lately."

Artemis looked off into the carpet again, "And I've been more concerned with things besides fighting, recently."

Ken smirked and reached up to ruffle Artemis's hair with one hand. "S'ok. Just remember that there's plenty of people ready to give you a hand with it."

Artemis glowered. That made three out of four. Haku hadn't ruffled his hair--but Haku really wasn't the type to ruffle his hair. Apparently Badou, Schuldig, and Ken were.

"I hope you'll allow me to call on you, then," Artemis said, trying to sound businesslike, despite the fact that he now looked like a very irate baby bird.

Ken grinned. He did it because he just knew Artemis was the kind to get annoyed with shit like that. Ken found the whole thing amusing. "Sure. Whenever." Ken shrugged. "It's not like I'm ever doing much that's useful anyway."

"You aren't?" Artemis said, sounding a little surprised. He supposed that he had fallen down a little on keeping track of people. "What have you been up to recently? Besides wandering around in ridiculous sunglasses?"

"...sure. You remember my sunglasses." Ken shook his head. "Knew I shouldn't have let Omi talk me out of my goggles."

As for what he was doing, Ken shrugged. "Trying to keep everyone else together. Not doin' so well at that either." And he'd passed out in the hallway last night, on top of it. But that wasn't for Artemis to worry about.

Artemis sighed. "It must be a hard job," he said. If Schuldig was getting annoyed at trying to keep everyone together, it must have been even harder for someone who couldn't simply dive into someone's head and see what was going on. Ken had to do it the old-fashioned way.

"I think a lot of us are starting to lose hope."

"Yeah." Ken wasn't about to say that he thought that he was one of them. Admitting it would only make everyone else worry.

"But we can't give up."

"I honestly believe that if we were to go down, the answers would lie there. But the Captain insists on heading outwards over the walls," Artemis crossed his arms in thought. "The good Head Doctor isn't out there, he's in here. If anyone is out there, it's Jill."

Ken nodded. "I can see where going out would be a good option. We do need to know what's out there. But..." Inside was even more vital. "His offices aren't on the first floor, or the second. Doubt they'd be in the basement. With those three out, the question of 'where the fuck is he' comes into play."

Artemis thought, almost squinting through the walls. "There is a third floor.

"I've seen it, when we were coming back from town. There's a first story, a second, and a third. The only possible explanation is that he's up there."

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