Day 40: Greenhouse [Fourth Shift]

[toxicspiderman]

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!]

Comments

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Brooklyn had never potted plants before. He didn't know why they had to, really. Were these going to go somewhere? The sun room could use some sprucing up, though the plants might be bothersome for someone with hayfever. Then again, it was already full of cats, and he'd heard a lot of people were allergic to those. Maybe they were special non-allergenic cats?

He made his way toward someone he didn't know but seemed about his age, human-wise at least. The kid didn't seem too pleased to be there and he supposed this wasn't exactly the most fun of activities. (And really, the atmosphere of this place wasn't very conducive to having fun in general.)

A friendly chat might help things along, though. "How's it going?" He asked, smiling and taking a seat.

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

Junpei looked up, a plant sadly leaning to the side in his pot.

"Yo," he replied. "Sup, dude? Not too bad aside from these stupid plants."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

'Dude!' A kindred spirit! The gargoyle grinned back, leaning over for a moment to right the plant Junpei had been working with. "Yeah. I guess it's just another way to pass the time."

He then held out his hand. "I'm Brooklyn."

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

Wasn't that a name of some place in America? No, no... it was, like, wherever the Dutch were from. Weird to be named after a city or whatever it was.

"Junpei," he replied, taking a moment to remember the whole handshake thing. "Dude, did they give you the five-year old potting lesson from the hot nurse or did you get the bad draw and end up with an ugly cow?"

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

June-pay? Well, it wasn't as it Brooklyn was one to judge when it came to unique names.

His question caught him off guard. There weren't any cows in-- oh. Well, that wasn't very nice. He supposed if one was a teenage human boy, though, one might think that way. "I, uh, wasn't really paying attention."

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

"Smart move, dude," Junpei replied, dumping some more dirt into the pot. "My nurse is better to look at than listen to anyways. I should have done that instead."

He overfilled it a bit and started taking the extra dirt off. "They said something about talking to and taking care of plants will make us be less crazy. I think they need some major greenhouse work themselves. Or maybe just a session of being forced to watch that American movie about the giant man eating plant named Aubry of something like that."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

"Little Shop of Horrors?" Brooklyn had caught that one on the Saturday night special a couple times, but musicals weren't really his thing.

He looked down at his plant. It wasn't exactly man-eating, but he took a couple of the leaves and put them together like a mouth. "Feed me, Seymour!"

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that's it!"

Junpei grinned and laughed at Brooklyn's antics with the plant, sticking his pinky into the 'mouth' and then faking like he'd been bitten.

"Ow! Ow! It hurts!" Oops. That drew the attention of a nurse. He held his hand up perfectly fine. "See, no harm, no foul, babe."

With a shake of her head, the nurse wandered back off. Junpei wiped his brow. "Jeeze. These people have no damn sense of humor."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Brooklyn cleared his throat and went back to trying to look like he was doing something when the nurse looked their way. June-pay was right about that. they didn't allow for a lot of playing around.

"I guess this could be sort of therapeutic, if you liked this sort of thing." Angela might have liked it, but he would never want to bring her into this place.

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

The teen shrugged. "I suppose so," he said, moving onto the next plant. "Maybe they've got some kind of point system about who does what and maybe we get special privileges during the day or something."

He paused. "Nah. That'd be, like, normal. Heaven forbid there be normalcy. At least the food is good and there is plenty of eyecandy."

Glancing up, he assessed Brooklyn. "You got a chick back home?"

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

It was lucky for Brooklyn that he'd been catching himself up on modern day slang, or else Junpei would have lost him several phrases back. As it was, he just smiled again.

At the mention of having a girlfriend, however, the smile became slightly sadder. "Nah. I mean, there's a girl I had an interest in, but she seems to be more interested in my brother and I can't step in the middle of that."

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

Junpei paused and gave Brooklyn an understanding smile.

"Doesn't that just blow? I totally get you, though. There are things a guy just can't do to family," he replied. "I'm an only child, so I'm not sure what having brothers is like. But I've got some guy friends I kind of see as family."

Crawling through Tartarus together to save the world will do that to a group of guys.

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Brooklyn nodded. Broadway and Lexington weren't technically related to him by blood, but they were his rookery brothers and all that was left of his age group among his clan. (Not counting Angela. It was still weird to think that she'd been one of the eggs he'd been stuck in the rookery with the night of the attack.)

"Do you have any of those friends here?" he asked suddenly. "I haven't run into anyone familiar yet."

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, actually." Junpei frowned. "There's a lot of my friends here. Even my girlfriend is here, though I'm actually really glad she is since it means I get to see her again."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

"Get to see her again?" Brooklyn couldn't understand how anyone would want to bring the person they loved into this mess, even it meant they got to see them. "Had you been away from her for a long time or something?"

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

A sad smile touched the teen's face. "She died about a week ago to me," he explained. "She gave up her life to save mine. It might seem cruel to be happy someone is trapped here with you, but to see her again..."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

"She..." Brooklyn blinked, shrinking down a little. He knew about people dying before they arrived here, but hearing about it first hand was always a bit of a shock. Imagine, running into someone you'd seen die only a few days before... he could understand why June-pay would be happy to see her.

"That's.. wow. I'm happy for you."

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

"Thanks!" Junpei bounced back pretty quickly. "She's an awesome girl. Kinda weird and maybe a teensy bit crazy,, but that's not her really her fault; she had a chitty upbringing. Oh! She's smokin' hot, too!"

Junpei's eyes glazed over. "Brilliant red hair down to here," he made a gesture down by his rear. "Deep eyes that see right into your soul and the sweetest smile the few times she does smile. It's kind of rare, but when she smiles and laughs... my heart is hers all over again."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

All Brooklyn could do was smile sadly again as his new acquaintance described his girlfriend in detail. He wondered if there would ever be a time when he could do the same thing. There was very little left of their kind in the world, and if he wanted to meet another female gargoyle he'd have to go out of his way to do it.

...If he ever got the chance, now that he was here.

"She sounds nice," he said seriously.

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

"She is! I'll have to introduce you two sometime." Junpei winked then. "No macking on her, though." It was clear he wasn't being serious, since he didn't expect Brooklyn to do something like that.

"She draws really well. Maybe she'll do your portrait."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Brooklyn laughed, but the growing sinking feeling in his stomach hadn't gone away. He was sure she was lovely, and doubly sure he wasn't going to be hitting on her.

And for him to have his portrait done... an image of this false self the Institute had crafted for him... As fun as it was to be able to mingle easily among humans, and to be able to walk about in the daylight, this just wasn't who he was.

"That would be... fun," he managed, voice a bit duller.

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

Junpei wasn't always the brightest crayon in the box, but he could tell something he said bothered Brooklyn. He sobered up and looked at the other guy for a long moment.

"Okay, Brooklyn - pony up. What'd I do or say that's got you all emo?"

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

"Nothing." Brooklyn shook his head, forcing his smile to be a little wider. "It's nothing. Sorry, I just thought of something there for a minute. Don't worry about it."

[whos-da-man.livejournal.com]

"You are a shitty liar, but okay," the teen replied, turning back to the plants. "So what sorta things do you do back home to keep from getting bored."

[manhattan-red.livejournal.com]

Perhaps he was. He needed to plan better before he tried and fooled someone, so he just shrugged - in response to both the comment and the question.

"Oh, you know. The usual." Patrolling the streets of New York for lawbreakers and humans in trouble. That sort of thing. "My brothers and I like to catch movies and concerts when we can. I like to read a bit, and Lex'll sometimes drag us over to play video games with him."