Sangamon Taylor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
toxicspiderman) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
damned_institute2009-04-09 05:01 pm
toxicspiderman) wrote in damned_institute2009-04-09 05:01 pm
Entry tags:
- adelheid,
- aidou,
- blitzwing,
- blue beetle,
- claude,
- daniel jackson,
- depth charge,
- edgeworth,
- edward elric,
- frey,
- guy,
- homura,
- junpei,
- keman,
- kenren,
- kio,
- leon magnus,
- lockdown,
- nataku,
- nigredo,
- okita,
- ren,
- ronixis,
- s.t.,
- sam winchester,
- sanzo,
- scar (tlk),
- schuldig,
- scourge,
- snake,
- sora,
- teisel,
- the doctor,
- the flash,
- the scarecrow,
- wesker,
- willy wonka,
- xigbar,
- yohji,
- zex
Day 40: Greenhouse [Fourth Shift]
Most days, fish and chips (and a cold beer or three) was pretty goddamned high on S.T.'s list of perfect expense-account lunches. Today, the idea of picking at greasy hunks of unidentified bottom-feeder odds-and-ends (politely known as scrod, to the delight of teenagers all across the Northeast) didn't appeal.
He begged off and collapsed into his bed, after using his damp shirt as an excuse to surreptiously check the contents of his closet. Bingo. His nurse watched his little show, unimpressed but (more importantly) unsuspicious. Not that his hairy chest was much of a catch today, pale and sweating from fever. At least she didn't tuck him in.
The intercom woke up up right on schedule, and pulling the sheets back over his head almost won. But a handful of unanswered missives and a vague sense of duty dragged him out to the bulletin, and from there it was easier to stagger over to the greenhouse.
It was warm inside -- a deep, humid warmth that actually penetrated to the aches in more joints and muscles than he could remember the names of. Like a sauna, without the hassle of finding someplace to look that wasn't a mound of pasty middle-management cellulite. Or a sweat lodge, without the opposite hassle of being conscious that he was the only white guy in the room. In fact, besides the nurses in holding patterns, he was the only person in the room.
He located a tray of tomato seedlings going rootbound in their tiny six-packs, and a potting bench whose location was a quick-and-dirty approximation of equidistantly far from anything blooming. He assured his nurse he knew what he was doing, and after a couple of successful repottings, gently sliding the little seedlings out and loosening the tangled roots, she seemed to agree and backed off. It was, by far, the most fucking theraputic thing he'd found in this hellhole so far, and he let himself sink into the rhythm of the task.
[Free!]
He begged off and collapsed into his bed, after using his damp shirt as an excuse to surreptiously check the contents of his closet. Bingo. His nurse watched his little show, unimpressed but (more importantly) unsuspicious. Not that his hairy chest was much of a catch today, pale and sweating from fever. At least she didn't tuck him in.
The intercom woke up up right on schedule, and pulling the sheets back over his head almost won. But a handful of unanswered missives and a vague sense of duty dragged him out to the bulletin, and from there it was easier to stagger over to the greenhouse.
It was warm inside -- a deep, humid warmth that actually penetrated to the aches in more joints and muscles than he could remember the names of. Like a sauna, without the hassle of finding someplace to look that wasn't a mound of pasty middle-management cellulite. Or a sweat lodge, without the opposite hassle of being conscious that he was the only white guy in the room. In fact, besides the nurses in holding patterns, he was the only person in the room.
He located a tray of tomato seedlings going rootbound in their tiny six-packs, and a potting bench whose location was a quick-and-dirty approximation of equidistantly far from anything blooming. He assured his nurse he knew what he was doing, and after a couple of successful repottings, gently sliding the little seedlings out and loosening the tangled roots, she seemed to agree and backed off. It was, by far, the most fucking theraputic thing he'd found in this hellhole so far, and he let himself sink into the rhythm of the task.
[Free!]
no subject
"Looks that way," he agreed, standing up and wiping the dirt off his hands and onto his pants. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to wipe them anyway, and it seemed like it didn't matter what happened to his clothes, there was always sets of new ones waiting the next day. "Hey, I'm Wally West," he said, offering his hand once it was reasonably clean.
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He reached out and shook the man's hand. "I'm Badou." He replied. He tilted his head at the patch of ground Wally had been working with. "Were you weeding by choice or did the nurses put you in time out too?"
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"What'd you do to get on time out anyway?" he asked, turning his attention back to the other man.
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Badou shrugged. "Mostly I just don't get along with the staff."
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Actually the whole night thing complicated the matter even more, from what he'd heard. It seemed like the nurses became something else during the night, but Wally wasn't sure if they knew about that or anything else that was going around here. He was inclined to think that they didn't, since otherwise they'd be doing something about it all, right? But that just made things more difficult.
Realising the smile had gone from his face and that maybe he was looking a little too pensive, Wally shook himself and flashed a quick, apologetic grin at Badou. "Sorry, thinking about something. So, what did you do before you got here?"
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Damn. He really didn't want to spend any more time angsting over how thoroughly fucked they were. In situations like this you were supposed to take it like a man: bitching loudly. At least that was how Badou took it.
Aaand they were back. Badou shrugged. "I'm a PI, mostly. What about you? Gardner?"
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The crack about gardening reminded him what he'd been doing before Badou had turned up and Wally bent back down to start pulling at the weeds while he talked.
"Nah, I'm just good at this. I helped out an old lady who lived near me with her garden all the time." 'Near' in this case meaning on the other side of Central city, but when you had superspeed, pretty much everywhere was close by. "I'm actually in forensics, working for the police."
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Badou crouched where he was without really thinking about it, apparently quite comfortable with doing nothing. He did grin at that, though he might have been amused for less than pure reasons. "Full time forensics, part-time boyscout, huh? Nice. Is that really therapeutic or something?"
It was unclear whether Badou was talking about helping out old ladies or weeding for the Institute, but he really didn't care which Wally picked to answer.
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Wally wasn't particularly bothered by Badou wanting to help out or, as the case may be, not. As Sanzo had found out earlier that day, he just had difficulties standing around not doing anything, and while he'd have preferred running, doing something with his hands while he talked was also good. "That pretty much sums it up," he laughed. More accurate than Badou knew, though Clark had always been the one called 'boy scout'.
"But if you really wanna know? It's also 'cause she makes fantastic cookies. I'd probably help out anyway, but that's a pretty nice bonus after working hard in the garden." Normally for all of a few minutes in normal time, but that was often hours of work in subjective time. And truthfully Wally hadn't ever asked for any kind of payment, but it wasn't exactly a secret that the Flash needed to eat a lot to get by.
no subject
So Badou was friends with a terrorist who had MPD, a little boy who took on the mob in his spare time, and couple of reasonably unhinged mercenaries and hit men, but Wally had to be the weirdest guy he'd met so far. He was just so... well-adjusted. Badou had been almost certain that was a myth he made up. Like unicorns and tax breaks.
"Cookies? Seriously?" Badou laughed. "Man, you are a boy scout. Your world must be nice. The little old ladies back home can get pretty bossy." Not that he ever wanted Granny Liza to hear that. She'd probably kill him and then dock the cleanup cost from his funeral.
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Besides, moping about things without doing anything really wasn't his style.
Wally grinned and laughed along with Badou. "Yeah, seriously cookies," he said, setting aside the weeds he'd been pulling and wiping some dirt off his cheek. "Or sometimes cake. All in a day's work, you know? Man, I hope everyone's coping okay without me..." Not just Central, but the League as well. He was going to have to have serious words with them all if he came back and found they'd all flipped out or gone crazy-evil or whatever.
"So anyway, what'd you do with your spare time?"
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"And I'm sure she'll find someone to eat that cake," Badou offered. "We might not even be missing from our worlds anyway. How else would that whole multiple timeline thing work out?"
He actually had to think about what he did in his spare time. Smoking didn't count as 'spare time' since he did that pretty much all the time. He counted it off on his fingers as he spoke. "Sleep, get shot at, bitch at Haine for being an inconsiderate dick... Drink. Uh, sometimes I eat." He shrugged, "The little old lady I work for pays cash."