damned_institute | Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

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Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

Yue was all too pleased to leave the cafeteria by the time lunch was over, even if he still wasn't satisfied that Fai was properly taking care of himself. It was clear that Touya hadn't accepted the answers he'd been given and intended to find out just what the guardian wasn't telling him, and being watched so closely was beginning to get uncomfortable.

It was clear that the truth would have to come out at some point, especially if they were going to be spending any amount of time together. Avoiding him was entirely out of the question, but at the same time Yue stubbornly refused to consider the idea of just outright telling him about what had happened in the last week. It was a dilemma indeed, and only served to make him even more irritable than ever.

How could he admit any of it? That he was weak and crippled, betrayed and altered by his creator? That he'd almost broken the promise he'd given in exchange for Touya's power? The latter he couldn't help but be reminded of every time he saw this Touya, who had only just gone through it, and would remember it even more clearly.

Fortunately Yukito was staying silent for the moment, although he could feel his other self's disappointment at being unable to speak to Touya so far, and it didn't make him feel any better.

In the midst of all this Yue was rather dismayed to realize that the nurse wanted to lead him to the music room, of all places: that was the room where he'd met the Sakura-who-wasn't-his-Sakura the week before, and needed neither the reminder nor the inevitable noise in that room. He abruptly halted in his tracks and refused to continue on. The nurse seemed initially disappointed, but finally agreed to let him stay in the Sun Room instead; the guardian found a corner in which to stand, arms folded across his chest and lost in his own ~~brooding~~ thoughts.

[for Sokka]

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That was one of the most enthusiastic greetings that Phoenix had received since he'd gotten here, and certainly one of the friendliest. He couldn't help but smile in spite of knowing the answers to her questions, taking her hand in return. Even without the brace, he would have been careful in answering the handshake - there was something self-possessed and ladylike to her, a bearing that seemed especially out of place in the Landel's uniform.

"No problem. It's nice to finally meet you in person." He took his hand back slowly, seating himself in the nearest chair. The smile faltered a little as he went on; he hated to be the bearer of bad news, and while the situation could have easily been worse, it could have been better as well. "I haven't seen him today, no. I asked my nurse, though, and she said that he's in the infirmary. I tried to get her to tell me what was wrong with him, but all she'd tell me is that he's sick and should be better soon." It was standard procedure, the staff being as vague as possible, but it irritated Phoenix anyways. He was used to being able to tease out better answers than this. That's when you have some kind of bargaining chip, though: a badge, existing facts, a court, evidence, the LAPD. The nurses don't have a reason to tell you anything.

He gave a little frustrated noise, meeting Mercedes' gaze. "I'm sorry I couldn't get more out of them, but I'll keep trying." The situation was uncomfortably easy for him to sympathize with - trying to deal with serious, relentless problems while someone you cared about was missing, not knowing if they were safe or even alive. At the same time, he recognized her expression, and if she was willing to hope, so was he. He mustered up a little smile, continuing with a tone of quiet conviction. "I'm sure he'll be okay."

Something about Phoenix put her at ease. Meche had had a run of good luck with meeting friendly patients today, but Manny's roommate seemed especially good-natured. And she appreciated the cautious handshake; she'd been going through a pattern all day of almost forgetting about her injuries until she did something that made her yelp in sudden pain. With Manny's salesman charm, she could imagine them getting along pretty well together.

Too bad his news wasn't as pleasant as his manners, she thought.

"The infirmary? Sick?" she repeated. "Boy, they've got a lot of nerve if that's what they told you. Guess they'd have to call it something nice-sounding, though, wouldn't they?" She curled her left hand into a fist, feeling the still-strange warm contact of skin on skin. That was the problem with being alive, wasn't it? When you were dead, there was only so much else anyone could do to you. In the Land of the Living, you were fair game to be bruised, beaten, even tortured. Just how 'sick' was Manny?

This could mean one of two things: either they really had decided to let Manny go but he needed time to recover from the injuries they'd given him, or they were just lying through their teeth to everyone. Meche was making a conscious choice to believe the former. "Did she say anything about how soon?" she asked.

"Not really." He shook his head. "But you must have noticed by now that they're vague about everything. Still, I've heard that they don't hesitate to tell you if someone's been released or not. And a friend of mine was in the infirmary once, and he didn't mention being mistreated or in any particular danger while he was there. All things considered, it might be the safest place in the Institute."

He glanced down at her hand, then back up, expression clearly curious. "What you said, though. Do you have a reason to believe that he's not sick?" He wanted to ask after the wheelchair and the bandages, to know if they'd both been attacked. One question at a time, though.

Meche sighed and started to run her fingers through her hair, then stopped and uncurled her fist to do it with her good hand. They could take even your nervous tics away from you here. "Last night, the nurse came to get me after dinner," she began slowly. "I was taken upstairs...my memory's hazy. But I know they told me that they had Manny. They gave me a sproutella gun--it's not lethal here; it only shoots plants--and put me in the Entry Room. I was told that if I could keep everyone inside the building, they'd stop hurting him and let him go. If I didn't, they were going to kill him."

Even as she was talking, she was regretting having said anything. Her instinct was to trust Phoenix, but she needed him as an ally. Admitting to the awful things she'd done last night wasn't the way to get him on her side. After its weighing on her mind all day, she'd just felt compelled to tell someone.

It was probably a lot more than Phoenix wanted to hear. Meche felt a little guilty about spilling her metaphorical guts to the poor guy, who'd almost certainly just meant to stop long enough to tell her the little he'd heard. Something in his expression kept her talking, though. She wanted to get the rest out.

"I don't know if they were telling the truth about any of it or not. I just couldn't take the risk. All day I've been hoping that he'll come in, but that obviously hasn't happened." Meche looked down at her lap. "To tell the truth, I let someone get by me. A girl, early on in the night. I just keep wondering if it's my fault that he's not back."

A quiet dread seeped into Phoenix's expression as he listened to the story. Not for Manny, so much - he suspected that Landel's would keep him or send him away as it suited them, and wouldn't torture him for something so little as making one patient act as guard. Not when they knew that a simple threat would keep Mercedes in line. But the dread soon gave way to outrage, boiling up in him by slow degrees. They'd taken a hostage, or even the impression of one, and used it to force whatever kind of performance they wanted out of the woman. Phoenix knew that he had a bad habit of taking personally troubles that ran too closely parallel to his own, but he couldn't tell himself that the feeling was unwarranted.

As she finished her story he spoke nearly before she'd had a chance to finish, heel of his hand thudding down to the arm of the chair instinctively as he leaned forward. "You did exactly what you had to do," he countered, eyes bright and determined. "You didn't kill anyone, and the other option was . . ." He lost steam, there, briefly, and his focus flickered. He'd never had to make that decision, fortunately - let a murderer run free or see one of the most important people in his life killed. The clock had never run down so far that he'd needed to do that. But he hadn't been so far away from it that he didn't understand why she'd pull the trigger. "My point is, you didn't kill anyone," he continued, voice a touch quieter than before. "If they really wanted to punish you, they'd do it. But they didn't, and as of this morning Manny's still here." If there was one thing Landel's didn't hesitate to do, it was dole out pain. Phoenix had seen more than enough evidence off that. "Whatever this place does, it's not your fault. Believe me, you're innocent." A shadow of a smirk played across his face, then, and there might have been a moment of self-deprecation in it. "I have an eye for this kind of thing."

Edited 2009-03-02 00:54 (UTC)

You did exactly what you had to do.

Meche had been trying to tell herself that the whole night. She was still trying to tell herself that, in fact, and she still couldn't quite convince herself. Phoenix was wrong about her. Shooting at people--at children--didn't leave any room for innocence, no matter what your reasons for doing it were. But she'd needed to hear that she'd done the only thing she could do, even though it hadn't been the right thing to do. It didn't even matter if Phoenix's words were true. She was just going to have to get by on them for now.

She let out a long, shaky breath and looked at him. Even after the seriousness of what he'd said, he still had that hint of a smile. Bolstered by his self-assurance, Meche gave him a smile back. "Thanks. I appreciate it. It's very kind of you to go through all this trouble for a guy you must've barely met."

Knowing Manny, though, he'd probably made quite the impression, especially if he was still trying to figure out the afterlife angle. Meche's smile broke into an out-and-out grin as she pictured the energetic introduction Manny must have made for himself. He'd probably started running through the list of travel packages right off the bat to give Phoenix a head start on saving up money and good karma for the world to come. "I hope he didn't give you too much trouble in your brief acquaintance," she added, just in case Phoenix wasn't big on sales pitches.

Phoenix laughed shortly, flattered by the thanks and relieved by the answering smile. It was only a little gain, but it was something, and he didn't question how he'd become so wrapped up in her troubles so quickly. He'd always been a sucker for an unsolved mystery and a sad story. "It's no trouble. Things here are hard enough without somebody stopping to help here and there." Us crazies have to stick together, right?

The brilliant grin didn't escape his notice, though, nor the timing of it, and it made him rethink what might have been a slightly more sarcastic response. He wasn't going to presume - that would have been rude - but if just mentioning him, even when he was missing and possibly in trouble, made her smile like that . . .

Friends, Nick. Friends until proven guilty.

"He, um . . . no. No trouble, really." He averted his eyes and scratched at his hair a little, realizing that she wouldn't let that hesitation go without a question, especially she was as concerned with propriety as she seemed. Besides, she came across as one of those rare, good-hearted types - the ones who even up on the stand wouldn't suddenly turn into compulsive liars. Maybe he'd get a chance to figure out whatever his roomate had always been smirking about. "I always got this feeling that he thought he knew something I didn't and wasn't planning on telling me any time soon, but that's about it."

Meche was sold. Phoenix could turn out to be an axe murderer and she'd still think of him first as a really nice guy. This wasn't fake charm á la Domino--it felt genuine, and boy, did it feel good after all the things she'd been through. "I wish more people thought that way," she replied. "We'd probably get a lot more done around here." They'd also get a lot more done if the doctors weren't shoving guns into their hands and ordering them to shoot at each other, she thought ruefully, but you had to work with what was in your control.

That line about "knowing something I didn't" set off the mental alarm bells, though. Meche was starting to pick up on the conversational gambits that, so far, had invariably led her to the what-it's-like-to-be-dead lecture. This time was even worse, because she had no way of knowing exactly what Manny had told him. It did sound like it hadn't gotten quite as far as the merits of the Number Nine versus the Excelsior Line, though.

It was tempting just to say that Manny had just been pulling Phoenix's leg, but she owed Phoenix a little better than that. She decided to do a little sidestepping and let him decide how interested he really was--if he really did want to know what the Grim Reaper's office looked like, far be it from her to withhold information. She'd let it slip to plenty of people already.

"Maybe he did," she said carefully. Now what? "He had a job for a long time that gave him access to a lot of...classified information, I suppose. It's probably made him a little smug." Then a stroke of inspiration hit her: "That's how I first met him, actually. I was a client of his." Perfect. Completely true, but it gave them both an easy out if Phoenix decided he wasn't feeling all that curious about Manny's deep, dark secret after all. Meche felt pretty good about that one.

Client. Classified information. Smug jerk.

. . . oh, come on. Tell me that my roomate isn't a lawyer too.

It would have made a terrible, shouldn't-be-funny kind of sense, though. He already knew that Edgeworth's room was practically the Landel's Institute prosecutors' lounge. Maybe they'd stick the defense attorneys in one room, too. Phoenix had seen a lot stranger, even before he'd come here.

"Really?" He leaned forward another inch, interest painted transparently across his features. "I mean, I know what you mean. I'm a lawyer myself, so I see a lot of that kind of thing." To be more accurate, Phoenix actually did a lot of that kind of thing, but he wasn't about to tell this very nice, very polite lady about the subtle joys of making prosecutors apoplectic with the I-know-something-you-don't-know song and dance routine. "What does - did - he do for a living?" He had mentioned something about retirement, hadn't he? It must've been a good job if he could retire already; he hadn't looked that old.

"A lawyer, huh?" Meche asked, raising an eyebrow. Her amusement was probably just as evident as Phoenix's interest, but hopefully he'd take her teasing in stride. "I wouldn't have pegged you for the lawyering type, if I'm honest. Shouldn't you have fangs or something like that?" Granted, she didn't know a whole lot of lawyers; Manny's stories about that snake in Rubacava were the closest she'd come lately. But lawyers certainly didn't have a very good reputation in any case. They really needed better PR.

She actually repeated "For a living?" out loud--it was too good a private joke to pass up. "He's done a little bit of everything, actually. You should get him to tell you the stories whenever they let him out," she said quickly, keeping her face straight. "He started off mopping floors in an automat once, and he ended up taking it over and turning the place into a nightclub less than a year later. Another time he shipped out to sea for a year and came back as the captain. He's that kind of guy." She'd heard the stories many times, but retelling them brought back some of their weight. Manny really had had a remarkable afterlife. She could only wonder how many jobs he'd worked his way through when he was alive. If they ever got out of here, he could probably be president.

"When I met him, though, he was a travel agent," she concluded.

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Day 39: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

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