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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It was not true. It was false. All of it, false. He'd not need people poking into his head and seeing things, reading into things that were not meant to be touched, that even he would not touch.

Luxord took a break from tearing the papers and turned to Celes, fixing her with the saddest look he could manage. Perhaps it would bring her closer ~~and let him touch her boobs~~.

Suddenly, gears shifted and Celes found herself with... oh sweet, merciful Poltergeist. He'd said himself that his own emotions were a carefully crafted lie (in so many words, anyway), and if she'd been a mere woman, then she might have been moved in her own right. Still he was... a person she was only as close to as they needed to be. Their own connection to each other was only through Noah and that kiss for a knife. Celes reached out awkwardly and rested her hand on his shoulder, only sliding close enough for the action.

Please don't make me do this, Luxord. The thought fluttered and passed away into tightly guarded memory. If he needed some kind of touch, then she'd provide it. If only for keeping him still and calm.

...oh that was pathetic, even for her.

Luxord plucked Tyche from his feet and placed her on his lap before leaning back against the couch, rolling his eyes, and crossing his arms, all traces of depression gone from his mien. "You are worse at this than I," he said flatly.

Where were his Gamblers when he needed them? They minded not giving him some sort of attention.

Celes turned her head and laughed, just under her breath, "Well, forgive me if I've no experience with comforting the disheartened." Celes was not without a heart, but Luxord was no rose, nor was he an old book. Celes knew little of how to take care of the needs of the living. She looked back at him, out of the corner of her eye.

"Though, the cat seems far more suited to your current needs than I."

If that were the case, then they had something else in common.

He watched as the kitten batted at his fingers, and he pulled a card from his sleeve and let her play with it. He would take her with him when he left, give her a life better than the one she had here. He would take care of her, she would keep him company, and they would find a way to exist in a world that without the knowledge of Landel's or Nobodies. Without II or Naminé or Celes. He would be Daniel, and they would be strangers.

He wondered briefly where they would stay. Would it be nice there? What would he have to do for a living? Perhaps he could write a novel of Kingdom Hearts, a best selling fiction novel about the horrible beasts roaming in Darkness, the princesses, the worlds, the heroic children saving the day and destroying a group of sociopaths in the process.

Or perhaps not. It would be taken as convoluted and cliche, leaving author, Daniel Rould, and his little kitten Tyche, with less money than it took to publish the book.

Maybe a story about vampires would sell better. Or wizards.

He sighed, but said nothing, opting to rest his head on the back of the couch and stare at the ceiling.

Celes watched him the same way she would watch a very interesting play. But after a few moments, it became clear that she was going to get very little out of him.

"What shall you do, then, Luxord?" she asked quietly, and rolled her shoulders. The soreness in them suggested she'd been very, very busy. It wasn't anything a hastily casted Cure would fix, either. She was getting lazy. Where her regular days had consisted of hiking or riding through the countryside, she spent far too much time inside upon her hindquarters. She turned her attention to the kitten and the card.

Hm.

He tilted his head to examine her movements in response to her question instead of giving an answer. His fun had been ruined, his secrets were not as such, despite his denial, and nothing was going to fix either of those. There was no point to speak of it.

So he changed the subject. "Your shoulders pain you, love?"

Mm.

Celes decided that a continuing course in trying to take Luxord head on would be the same as cheerfully running her own face into the pavement. A useless endeavor. She'd try it some other way, then.

The General crossed her arms and smiled (as much as she was apt to, anyway), "Fair trade, I suppose, for a night of swordplay." Oh, and what a night. Despite her qualms with harming those that were innocent, it had felt so... freeing.

Oh yes, he recalled her apology for such earlier. He would have normally asked the woman for more details, yet he could hardly find it in himself to be interested, at the moment.

Luxord removed his kitten from his lap, placed her back on the floor, and moved closer to the general. Without so much of a warning or a polite asking, he gently brushed the blonde strands away from her shoulders and worked to massage her aching muscles. Hopefully she would not elbow him in the face or something similar. Perhaps the emotionless look on his face would keep her from doing so, as it hid his lecherous thoughts. At least something was private.

[Sorry about the delay, bb ♥]

Celes could only describe the feeling as a complete mind reset and tensed immediately in reply. He was lucky she hadn't backhanded him and fed him his own lower lip. After a few heartbeats of adrenaline, Celes relaxed slightly. She bore in mind that he was unlikely to start strangling her person, lest someone else started in on him again.

"Ah, thank you," Celes murmured graciously and gathered the rest of her hair, her back to him. Being treated as a woman was novel, but could be more trouble than it was worth.

"The pleasure is mine," he said evenly, letting his hands do most of the talking. The softness of her skin, the curve of her neck, those golden strands of hair... They did wonders to take his mind off those less than pleasant thoughts from before, now replacing them with images better off not written down.

He closed his eyes and smiled.

Really, there was no such thing as an innocent backrub. But he'd pretend so long as she didn't notice otherwise.

I'm sure, came a cynical voice in the back of her mind. Celes ignored it, attempting to be graceful about the whole thing. There were no snide remarks, no prickly phrases with which Celes could think of. Nor would she.

And, to be fair to Master Luxord, he did have quite the pair of hands. She lowered her eyes and sighed quietly. A modicum of her usual icy defenses dropped. "You're rather adept."

He chuckled a bit at that, eyes still focused on the back of the woman's neck. There was the strong urge to caress the skin there with his lips, but it also came with the knowledge that she would break his face for doing so.

And really, his face was too beautiful to break. He denied that urge.

Even in such close proximity, a beautiful woman in his hands, and an entire shift of the two of them, he could not think of a thing to say. How odd.

It was a fight to keep her eyes open, at least until Luxord probed a knot. Surprised, Celes's chest lifted in a small arch. "Oh!" the young woman clapped a hand over her mouth in embarrassment. "Ahem, I'm sorry. That was, an unexpected surprise."

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Ah, that sound she made... He couldn't stop himself from smiling. So cute~

"There?" he leaned in and whispered with an innocent smile, intentionally letting his breath run across her neck and stir that blonde hair. If he was not allowed to lay a kiss on her, he could always tease her ~~before she teased her fist into his face~~, which included focusing his hands on that part of her back that seemed to cause so much surprise. "Does that feel better?"

He was skating on thin ice, he knew, but it was an enthralling gamble.

Celes's scalp tingled, not uncomfortably, though every nerve in her body insisted that if she didn't turn right around and slap the chocobo dung out of him, she was doing a disservice to her own honor. Celes shifted her shoulders again against his hand and watched his face from the corner of her eye. "Yes, there."

Wasn't this how those smutty stories the Emperor had commissioned started? Pardon, those romantic dramas, she thought with a quirk of her lips. "And it's quite a bit better, Master Luxord, thank you." It wasn't a lie, Celes did feel better. But, it was high time to stop their little charade. Perhaps he'd be content to know that he'd won this round by the skin of his teeth and the good graces of her own improved mood. With a deft shift of her weight on her hips and the tuck-and-turn of her legs so that his hands slipped from her shoulders, Celes faced Luxord again.

She was perhaps too close for propriety's sake, but that was neither here nor there at the moment. "'Twas very kind of you."

"I appreciate you saying so." It was obvious Luxord minded not their proximity (if that tiny gleam in his eyes said anything), though he still moved away, placed Tyche back onto his lap, and leaned against the cushions once more.

As shiny and distracting Ms. Chere was, his foul mood had not dissipated yet. "There are many who claim I do not know the meaning of the word. It is not as if I care, yet their words can still wear one down."

"They're mundane and base," Celes replied with a shrug. "Resorting to mud-slinging on a bulletin board is little more than showing how very powerless they've become. Children, in effect." After all, it was what the House of Lords did every new election, wasn't it? Celes was glad her position had been earned ~~and not on her back, either~~ - it was much simpler when she came into a field of battle and the other side sent up the white flag.

Oh, to live simply. Celes settled against the back of the couch again and quietly removed her brush from her pocket, untangling the blond strands that had knotted together in their now-dry state. "Perhaps you should find a way to effectively quiet them." Celes, of course, was thinking of a good and honorable way.

Of course, she had no way of suggesting anything short of blackmail, and that wasn't very honorable, now was it?

...that sounded promising, really. At least, it would have two weeks ago and not when he was preparing to leave everything behind. Now it seemed boring and trite and he hadn't the time to devise a brilliant scheme to thwart that bastard telepath and his redheaded friend (the best of those ate time like one would not believe, but the payoff... ugh, genius), not when he wanted out of this asylum.

Luxord lifted one of his hands to reach out and touch the woman's hair, but decided against it mid-way and let it drop. It soon went back to petting Tyche.

"That would take effort." He was not in a mood for effort.

"Most plans do," she said simply, shrugging her shoulders and twisting her hair back from her face. She wouldn't properly be able to dress her hair until nightfall, but a hasty lover's knot for the bulk of her hair would do for now. It would at least mean she'd be able to see. Celes stuck a pen from her pocket into the bun once she'd finished to make sure it didn't decide to fall down again.

She wouldn't take defeat twice today, by the Triad. "You could always fantasize, I suppose."

The only response to that was tired "mmhmm," as the Nobody had taken to closing his eyes. He was awfully lethargic at the moment and a nap sounded fantastic.

And so long as Celes did not specify what type of fantasizing he was supposed to be doing, he was hardly going to correct himself.

Celes turned her head to look at him and resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Perhaps it was the kitten, stealing away his energy just as the old wives' tale suggested. Poppycock. If she were more of a child, and possibly more cheerfully spiteful (for what else could she call the man?), then perhaps finding some sort of marking pen, or paintbrush would've done nicely. Instead, Celes sat there for a bit longer, her eyes narrowed at the crowd as she contemplated her plans for the evening.

Despite promising to meet Hughes again, she'd not seen the man after breakfast. Having to wait for his bulletin to magically appear was taking too much time. Celes slipped off the couch and moved to Luxord's head, leaning over him and murmuring into his ear, "I'll leave you to your rest."

Perhaps it was Tyche. She was simply so warm and fluffy and demanding of attention ~~just like him~~... It was comforting to have the creature sleeping soundly in his arms as he rested his head on the couch cushions-

The warm breeze on his ear made him smile for all of 2.4 seconds, after which the words processed and his eyes opened, taking in the sight of Ms. Chere leaving him without a single thing.

That was simply unfair.

He closed his eyes once more with a frown.

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Day 37: Sun Room (4th Shift)

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