damned_institute | Day 39: Intercom, Evening

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Day 39: Intercom, Evening

The Head Doctor seemed a little rushed as he spoke on the intercom, not taking as much pleasure as he usually did in describing the delicious food that would soon be served.

"Hello, everyone! Tonight is turkey night, which means turkey breast in a great turkey gravy with some nice turkey sides: peas, herb potatoes, a small garden salad, and for dessert, a slice of pumpkin pie. We of course have vegetarian substitutes available, as well as our usual assortment of drinks.

"...I believe that's it! I'll talk to you soon!"

The intercom clicked off abruptly.

[ If you are introducing your character during this shift, you may either choose for them character to wake up before their roommate gets back, or after.

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! ]

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After lunch, Hikaru had opted to go back to his room and nap. It was less noisy than the Sun Room (and a hell of a lot less noisy than the music room), and he hadn't wanted to be under his nurse's thumb longer than absolutely necessary. She was still a bit sore about the whole wheelchair incident. Hikaru couldn't imagine why, really--it had just been a good bit of fun, and nobody had gotten hurt!--but she kept shaking her head and muttering darkly about the egregious wrongs he'd committed, including 'misuse of hospital property.'

Killjoy.

It was the Head Doctor's dinner announcement that had woken him up. Had he really slept that late? Apparently so. He propped himself up on his elbows when his nurse came in bearing a tray and taking the opportunity to give him one of those Looks that adults seemed to be so fond of. "Now Andrew," she said, and Hikaru couldn't resist rolling his eyes at the way she was talking to him, "I want you to be a good example for your new roommate, all right? He's had a rough morning, and he needs a friend."

New roommate? So, that was it. Goku was gone. He just shrugged his assent, wondering what this kid would be like. Probably a total headcase; most of them were. Alfons had been an exception, not the rule.

Brainiac 5 made his way slowly to his room, barely paying attention to the nurse leading the way or whatever she may have said to him. Today had been particularly eventful for him; he'd been given a lot to think about by both House and, as much as he hated to admit it, Schuldig, and he'd been threatened again by Grell. The supposed 'death god' had threatened to find him again tonight, but considering the size of the Institute and that Grell didn't know the location of his room, he calculated a relatively small chance of them encountering each other. Nevertheless, he might need to look into obtaining some sort of weapon, just on the chance that the psychotic patient succeeded in locating him.

The smell of the food was appetising, but the Coluan boy was still unfamiliar with the concept of needing to eat more often and as he wasn't hungry to the point of distraction, he instead pushed the plate aside and set to work taking notes in his journal. Considering how most of his day was spent speaking ancient English (something he had insisted the Legion do for Clark's sake, even if it had taken him far less time than the rest of them), he had to admit it was almost... relaxing to spend time making notes in Interlac instead.

The nosebleed was mostly under control by the time Dean was escorted back to M2. As usual, he was the first one back. Seeing as there was no trash can, he passed off the bloodied tissue to Lurch; might as well, seeing as the orderly was just standing there watching him and he probably should look more busy than that.

Dinner tonight was turkey, but he didn't start digging in just yet. Instead, Dean took Angel's chair and dragged it into the center of the room, where he judged they'd have the most space for the exorcism. The hunter stood up on the chair and fished Sam's strawberry-scented crayon from his pocket, testing it on the ceiling. It worked, sparkles and all, but he still made sure to draw the lines on the Key of Solomon nice and thick, not wanting to risk a break in the devil's trap: all it took was one line to be uneven or incomplete and the whole thing would be useless and the "captured" demon not powerless, like it was supposed to. It took a good ten minutes to draw out the Key of Solomon on the ceiling because he had to move the chair every now and then to get more space, but, stepping down and looking up at his handiwork, Dean judged that it would do.

Fruity crayon and all.

That done, Dean moved Angel's chair back where he found it, and hoped Chippendale wouldn't do something as simple as just look up. He hopefully wouldn't look down either, and notice the meticulous salt line on the carpet by the door either. Then again, if he was a hunter like he suspected he might be - or knew his way around the territory - then maybe he'd know what both of those meant. Either way, Dean just wanted to avoid awkward questions right now, and concentrate on eating his dinner and prepping himself up for tonight. Dean sat down in his own chair and dug in, starting with the turkey and salad. Going hand-to-hand with a demon, even the oddball one like Punk-Ass, wasn't going to be a walk in the park. For all he knew, he was gonna end up looking and feeling a lot worse than he had this morning if he didn't get the drop on the demon. Still, wasn't like he couldn't deal, especially if it got them answers.

Sheena didn't pay too much attention to the food, though the scent of it made her stomach growl, as she listened to her nurse go on and on and on about how she needed to learn to control her temper. Apparently, she'd broken that 'poor man's' hand. As if the ninja didn't know that; she'd done it on purpose. At least the rest of that particular shift had been nice, using that damn youkai as a pillow.

Actually, she thought as she sat down to eat, that really hadn't been so bad. And she'd finally figured it out, now that the drugs were out of her system. Yukari had been kind of nice. There the ninja had been, completely drugged, quite talkative for as sedated and sleepy as she was and... the youkai hadn't really pressed for any details on specific things. She could have asked so much and Sheena probably would have answered her - especially with the hair stroking and cuddling and all that going on. Somewhere underneath that cunning, manipulative, infuriatingly annoying exterior was something of a softy. Sheena was sure of it.

Not that she'd actually say anything about it. Maybe. For now, at least. No, she'd hold onto that information for use at the opportune moment. Whenever that would present itself.

Once finished with her food, the ninja started on her cards, again only making one out of the new, sturdier playing card material. Sure, she'd tested it out on the youkai the night before, but with rescue happening tonight, she didn't want to rely on something that might not work. As less effective as the paper cards were, they were at least tried and proven.

That one card would be the ace up her sleeve she'd mentioned to Ritsuka.

The Universe had decided that today of all days Kaido Kio would be beaten, broken and bruised. Great. Things couldn't really get any better, could they? He managed to ditch Nurse Wheelie and make his way back to M75. At this point in time, he couldn't care less where Sou-chan was. He was going to eat his goddamn dinner with his goddamn rommate and then join the cake club.

That was probably the only thing that had come out of the day. He'd be making friends (which he failed spectacularly at) and baking cake (which he hadn't done in a while), as well as staying out of harm's way. Hopefully. Entering the room, Kio grabbed his plate and glared at his nurse until she departed with a smile. He put the food on his bed and grabbed the files from their hiding place. Opening Soubi's again, he started scanning it thoroughly as he ate. Kio made sure to sit close enough to the pillow so when his roommate came in he could hide the files. No need for spies.

Shinichi had spent the last shift with his nose in his notebook, jotting down all sorts of theories about this language thing. He needed to do more preliminary tests before he could form a reasonable scientific hypothesis, but he thought that maybe he had a few ideas. He'd have to run them by Hattori later.

It wasn't until the nurse came to take him back to his room for dinner that he finally brought his mind back to a more practical gear.

The room. Shit. What if she found the metal? It was in his closet, he reminded himself. Unless she was actually looking for contraband, she wouldn't go looking there.

Right?

His heartrate didn't start to slow until he was at the desk in his room, staring at a plate full of turkey. She hadn't checked. He was safe.

Now he just needed to survive another evening with Sokka.

Another generous round of protein and fats Kristoph could do without. Thankfully, they were thoughtful enough to provide a vegetarian alternative, which he requested the second he laid eyes on the main course. Ever the agreeable woman, his nurse brought out a dish piled high with another type of food.

It honestly did not look any more appetizing than the turkey, but the lack of grease was far more acceptable.

He sat down to eat, once in a while staring at the notebook and tiny stack of papers tucked neatly against the desk's corner. Last shift, the man had taken time to plot out a list of obligations for he and his brother to fulfill at night. The pile supposedly consisted of all the information required to handle those goals, although something in the back of his mind persisted to nag as though Kristoph had forgotten one critical detail. The attorney ran through the aspects in his head, mulling over parts he thought may need a considerable amount of care, but found nothing.

No matter, he supposed. Kristoph had held off long enough during his stay; it was time to stock up and prepare.

Keman was very glad to get away from that awkward little scene. Kurogane kind of made him uncomfortable anyway. He...was a very imposing human to be around. Keman was not a short person in this form, but Kurogane managed to be just imposing enough for the dragon to feel very small indeed.

Coming into dinner, he was surprised to find himself absolutely ravenous. He dug into his food and cleaned his plate in almost record time, not even pausing long enough to savor how good it tasted.

His pumpkin pie disappeared as quickly as the rest of it, and soon he found himself guiltily eying the tray meant for his roommate. He was still so hungry...maybe Leon wouldn't mind if he...took a tiny bite...

Meeting with someone as nice as Harley had put him in a considerably better mood, and if Kio's attempts went well, he might even have extra sweets tomorrow. It wasn't terribly practical, but it seemed like something nice to do for others.

The dinner looked really good and Allen didn't waste any time getting started on it. He'd have time to grab that extension cord in a bit, but first he wanted to fill his stomach.

Comfort was hardly Nigredo's emotion when the nurse returned the child to the room he awoke in. Last night's incident had yet to leave his mind, and with the additional disturbance during breakfast, he couldn't keep down the tension. There was really no reason for it--Nigredo did not think either one of them proved an immediate threat to the other--but the feeling remained.

He sighed audibly as the door closed behind him, a part of him tempted to release the mental block separating the boy from his brothers. Not that they'd actually lend some kind of assistance should worse come to worse (especially Albedo), but having that avenue open felt a little reassuring. Plus, he wasn't sure if Rubedo had wanted to meet up again tonight.

Hesitantly, Nigredo began to tug at the mental strings between himself and the other U.R.T.V., clearing out the obstruction bit by bit like a child wadding through waters. This he did while poking at his dinner, figuring it served as a good enough distraction should someone decide to continue their little tit-for-tat. Fortunately, nothing of the sort filtered through; everyone was silent.

Relieved, the child continued eating, hoping to finish before his roommate arrived.

The day had seemed to drag on.

Renamon actually seemed to accomplish a few things, between Badou and Mello, but the doctor's shift had shifted something within her, and she wasn't sure exactly how to put that back. Or if she was supposed to.

But she couldn't waste time thinking about it now. She wanted to go over Badou's transcripts, and Jiraiya would be coming to talk to her at the beginning of the night. She needed to focus. After that... then she could reevaluate herself.

Perhaps she'd have breakfast with Orihime tomorrow.

The last shift had gone pleasantly enough - a few hours of sleep were always welcome in a place like this - and Javert found himself in a slightly better mood than the one in which he'd been this morning.

No sign of Tanaka as of yet. Javert seated himself and began to work through his dinner with his usual implacability. He'd need the energy for tonight.

By the time he returned to his room, Ken found himself hovering between the realms of sleep and awake. He could hardly keep his eyes open long enough to see tonight's dinner, let alone taste it. The nurse thought it would be prudent for the child to get to bed early tonight and began nudging him toward his side of the room.

He tried to resist. There was several things he had to get accomplished as soon as humanly possible (including those notes for Ururu), but the heaviness around his eyes and head became overwhelming. Consequently, Ken crawled into bed with minimum protest and to his dismay, dozed off.

Meat and potatoes: Indy could get behind that kind of dinner. Getting a substantial meal in sounded like a good plan, especially if he ended up striking out for...whatever was outside the Institute. He took a seat at his desk and started in on the turkey.

He'd spent--wasted, he was almost tempted to think--a lot of time catching others up to speed today, but the afternoon had more than made up the difference. Not in terms of learning anything new about Landel's; learning something about himself, rather. Indy wasn't sure how he felt about his bizarre legacy. Some of his adventures had survived, but as fiction instead of historical fact, at least in the popular eye. It didn't make sense. Surely some of his finds were still in museums in 2009 or whenever the kid was from. Surely someone else had done later work at his old dig sites--the ones that hadn't been destroyed, at least.

This wasn't exactly the kind of fortune and glory he'd been expecting.

Claude's mind was reeling by the time the shift ended and he was escorted to dinner. Now he knew why the nurse had told him to expect a familiar face today. Even if he'd had a million guesses, though, he never would have thought that Dad would be among today's batch of newest patients. Much less a younger Dad.

Augh, it was already taxing enough worrying that Dad had been brought here in the first place. He didn't even want to think about what this could mean for any potential mess-ups for his life's entire timeline. But surely he couldn't be the first person this has happened to. Surely not, with how crazy this place was. Maybe he could some advice from the bulletin tomorrow...

In the meantime, it was dinner, even though last shift had pretty much robbed him of his appetite. Turkey, turkey, turkey, he inwardly sighed as he pushed some of it around his plate. Not that he had anything against turkey -- it was a dinnertime classic, even if it wasn't his favorite food ever. But right now there was so much more important stuff to worry about than eating.

He forced down a few bites before wondering if it wasn't a better idea to just pull out his book and start reading. Still, he knew he needed to have a full stomach if he was going to the basement tonight. And, anyway, with the way the butterflies were dancing around his stomach, it was all he could do to make himself eat. He doubted he'd be able to pay attention to anything he read.

Claude rubbed at his eyes, putting down his fork for a moment. Dad...he hoped he'd be okay tonight...

Today had been pretty interesting, over all -- in weird ways and funny ways, but that was over now. Now all Luffy had to do was wolf down his food and then wait for the real fun to begin. He was still really excited to get to meet up with Usopp tonight, and he was pretty optimistic that they'd be able to find something cool. In fact, he shoveled the food into his mouth faster than he normally would have, as if that would somehow make the night come faster.

Danny wasn't in the room yet, but maybe he was just being really slow today. Luffy wasn't going to worry too much about it for now. Even after being on his third roommate, he never assumed any of them disappeared unless he got a new one.

Urgh! What a waste of a meal! Why were they turkey when they could have been having pork?! At least during the other meals they had had substitutes or pork-byproducts as choices! It may have seemed innocuous to others, but it was just enough to sour Porky's good mood. Porky didn't want to go hungry before night fell, though, so he tried to take a bite of the turkey purely out of necessity.

BLECH! Oh, PORK, that tasted horrible! It was all Porky could do to keep from gagging! As the turkey was definitely a no-go, Porky went on to eat the side dishes served with the turkey. Well, all of the sides except the salad. What did they think he was, a rabbit?

As he was eating, Porky thought back to the people he had met during the day. If they were any indication of the patients as a whole, it would certainly be an interesting place. Porky doubted that there were many "normal" people like Adam, but at least they added variety. As for people like "The Hunter" and Evangeline? Well, they may not be nice, but at least they made things more fun. As he was thinking, Porky looked up and-

"OH MY PORK!" Porky shouted and then quickly covered his mouth with his hands.

Who the hell was that?

If you took away breakfast, today had been a really good day. She found a new Nobody friend, one who was really fun. She helped a new guy out--and he did act like she had helped him, even though she didn't know a lot. Plus went to Demyx's band practice, and met his other friends. Plus. Lunch had came with pizza. All in all, good day.

This... uh, leadership thing that Momo had posted though. Senna was hoping that was a typo. Misprint. Mistake. And maybe it was. She had to go meet the Shinigami, so there was a chance that it might be different. Because Senna didn't know the first thing about leading people. At least not like the others. She didn't think she could be that strict and grouchy all the time.

She sighed, wandering into her room. Food first, everything else later. She settled down, and started to eat.

Another day, another set of oddities. It was becoming a strange sort of routine. Tony was glad enough to bid the nurse goodbye and hear the door click shut behind her. The solitude would be short-lived, but he'd take those few minutes where he could get them.

He settled down to eat his dinner, another surprisingly decent meal. By that point, it would have been more startling to find the staff serving typical hospital fare. His thoughts lingered uneasily on the conversation with the young alien girl. Whose name, he realized, he'd never actually managed to get around to finding out. Well, there were always other days. Each one that passed made it seem less likely any of them would be escaping any time soon.

It was a relief to get out of the cacophony of the music room, though Methos wasn't sure he was looking forward to another evening discussion with his roommate. No doubt the man had managed to devise yet another test or trap or theory. It was a pity; Jones seemed like a decent enough sort of man. Which might have been the problem, now he thought of it.

Methos nodded a hello, waiting for the lock to click behind him before he took a seat and started in on his own meal. His thoughts circled back to Porky as he ate. The man had clearly been mad, but his story could still pose a problem. There were enough gullible people around that one or more of them would almost certainly buy into it eventually. Unfortunately, as things stood there wasn't a damn thing he could really do about it.

Bridget was happy that he'd been able to talk to Kagura and that she wasn't mad at him. Now all he had to do was not fall asleep and meet up with her tonight. That shouldn't be so hard.

His nurse warned him to be quiet, since his roommate was asleep (how interesting), and Bridget sat down on his own bed, notebook in hand, and started writing down what he'd learned today.

Albedo didn't mind being dragged back to the room he had woke up in. He was quiet on the way back, holding the notebook Angel gave him tightly in case the nurse tried to take it from him. He wasn't about to relinquish something that someone had given him, freely and of their own will. There was no way. He rubbed the cover beneath his fingertips.

Following the nurse into the open door, he froze at the sight of the other boy in the room. His eyes narrowed automatically, and he drew the notebook to his chest. The nurse was leaving so there was no escape for him. He had noticed the two beds before, and had come to the obvious conclusion, but a roommate that wasn't family was not something Albedo was interested in at all.

He glared, watching for a moment, before curiosity outweighed paranoia. He moved to the desk and opened the drawer quickly. Angel hadn't lied. There was an identical notebook inside. He drew it out with something like reverence before clutching it with the other one. He picked up a pen, then retreated to the bed. Pulling his knees up, he opened up both, absentmindedly trying to mimic one of the drawings of the reoccurring girl. He most likely couldn't draw worth anything, and he knew that, but it was exoticness of paper that made him want to fill the empty spaces.

Angel was the first decent person he had met. Albedo liked him. He had never met an adult that didn't have ulterior motives. Absorbed in the foreign strangeness of the notebooks and the strange kindness of Angel as well, Albedo found himself in his first good mood in a very long time.

Edited 2009-03-02 17:16 (UTC)

Pierson didn't look too disgusted with him, which suggested that they were at least on decent terms. Indy nodded in response and gave the other man several minutes of quiet to get started on his own meal. It was good to have a little time to digest everything that had happened in the last day, and dinner was their only real chance at that. Someone always swooped in on you almost immediately in the more public shifts, whether of his own free will or strong-armed by a nurse.

"Just out of curiosity," he began after an appropriate length of time had passed, aware that he was probably voicing Pierson's least favorite words but also too invested to care, "ever heard of a movie called 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'? It would have been pretty well-known in the 1980s, I think. Someone--er--recommended it to me today." In a manner of speaking.

The day hadn't been terribly busy, but they usually weren't. Just light conversations, naps, the option to subject oneself to institutional-style 'fun'...

Vlad hadn't thought much of the food for the day either, so at least turkey was a slightly more dignified meal when compared to the pizza he'd had for lunch. Even with cheese, it was just too heavy and too greasy. He liked to think of himself as a practical man, able to accept a temporary setback for eventual gain, but a genuine feeling of homesickness was starting to come over him. Going from his choice of the finest food and whatever pasttimes he'd care to enjoy to being a prisoner whose meals and even recreation were carefully monitored was stressful enough. Then there was the confusion with his poor roommate, and of course Daniel's late efforts to worry Vlad didn't help. He hadn't seen the boy at any of the meals or during the activities... it was possible enough that a short boy with black hair would blend in easily with the crowds, and Vlad didn't spend every moment on the lookout for him, of course, but...

Well, they had parted on odd terms the previous evening. And assuming Daniel had the common sense to back away from a problem where even he admitted he could see no solution was possibly assuming too much. It wasn't enough worry to keep Vlad from eating his dinner, but it was enough that he was beginning to wonder if he shouldn't start looking into the basement himself, just as a pre-emptive gesture. He could kill someone easily enough, if needed.

Suzaku was all set to go back to the cafeteria when the announcement was made for dinner, and was surprised when all the "patients" were led back to their rooms. Apparently dinner was served there.

He made himself comfortable once the nurse left, digging into the turkey. He eyed the other bed speculatively -- the room was obviously built for two. Would he have a roommate, or was he by himself? A roommate could be another source of information, but Suzaku might be able to operate better if he had some privacy, especially when it came to confidential discussions with Lelouch and whatnot.

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Day 39: Intercom, Evening

[M48]

M71

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