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
He let the flower petal flutter to the ground and made his way over to the front of the greenhouse where ZEX was standing.
The man appeared a lot older than Sam had expected. He'd somehow thought ZEX would be someone...younger, but if he thought about it, he supposed there was no age bracket for people who fell in love with a ghost.
"Hi," he said, small and polite smile in place. "Are you, uh. You're the Admiral ZEX I spoke to earlier?"
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"Ah, you must be-" He was speaking to someone's chest. ZEX took a step back and tilted his head back a bit jerkily to look up. "Hmm! You're big too! I didn't think there'd be so many humans here that were bigger than I am..." Somehow, he'd always imagined himself having a physical advantage.
Well, no matter. ZEX tried his best at a smile, although he still hadn't mastered the art of making it look natural. "Yes, I'm Admiral ZEX. I don't think I caught your name though..."
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Sam was kind of hoping it was just an odd way of speaking, but it rang way too close to how Wolfram had spoken. Jesus Christ, was this guy not human either? Was he another demon-but-really-something-else-entirely like Wolfram? Because Sam wasn't sure how many more headaches he was willing to sit through to sort something like that out. Probably not very many more. Like, zero, frankly.
He really needed to talk to Dean about this. Then again, there was a lot he needed to talk to Dean about.
Sam might've poked around for more answers—Admiral of what, for example, because ZEX sure as hell didn't act like any military man he'd ever met—except that wasn't why he was here and there was only so much he could ask before he started coming off as overwhelmingly suspicious. Information on the spirit took precedent considering he was, you know. Infected. And possibly on the chopping block, but that remained to be seen. He hadn't coughed anything else up. Which...he wasn't certain if that was a good sign or not.
"Sam," he filled in. "It's Sam."
He reached behind him to pull a stool out from under one of the counters and sat down. He figured towering over someone wasn't the best way to keep a comfortable conversation going.
"So, I was wondering if you could tell me what happened last night with the—" spirit "—woman. You mentioned you were upstairs, right?"
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Well, it wasn't important in the end. His new human friend was sitting down and apparently intent on sticking around for some time. Good! ZEX took the opportunity to give him a blatant look-over. Big human, although perhaps not as thick in places as Teisel. He did have nice eyes though...
"Mmm?" ZEX blinked out of the beginning of a fantasy, then brightened at the new topic. "Yes, her! I was upstairs near the doors on the second floor, near the sun room... I believe they may lead to the third floor. They seem to be locked, though."
ZEX coughed a little. "So, what exactly do you want to know about her? Did she appear to you as well? She's beautiful, isn't she?" With a loving sigh.
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That little tidbit fell to the wayside when ZEX started eyeing him, though. Which, okay. That was kind of...unnerving. It was impossible not to shift, so he brought one leg up to rest on the bar between the stool's legs as a cover. It took another half a second or so before something finally clicked and he realized he'd actually seen this guy before. He hadn't quite realized before since their first meeting had been less than a minute, but the ogling had jogged his memory. Because the last time he'd been ogled creepily? Was when he'd been with Peter, picking up the file.
Sam scratched the back of his head. "Yeah. She's certainly—unique," he agreed, and hoped his sincerity didn't fail him now. He knew he was supposed to disillusion ZEX since getting close to a ghost was a very bad idea, but he needed the information first and he was fairly certain that if he started lecturing on the dangers of spirits, ZEX was gonna shut down on him.
"Anyway, there's just a couple of things," he said. "Before you saw her, did you...happen to see something else first? Maybe a young boy?"
no subject
ZEX was quite content to keep staring creepily at Sam until he was told to stop (although there was no guarantee that that would actually stop him). It was interesting how humans reacted to being stared at. You'd think they'd be used to it, what with how strange they looked.
"Yes, very unique." ZEX was smiling a bit more naturally now that he wasn't giving it so much thought. "I don't think I've ever seen another human like her. Ah, the way she moved..."
ZEX blinked at the question curiously. "A boy? No, I didn't see any young boy... but my vision at night is not the best. I didn't see her until she almost on top of me." And how lovely that had been! Well, until the attempted murder and all.
no subject
It seemed the little boy didn't make an appearance in all cases, though. Huh.
Sam was still fairly certain it was a death omen, but death omens tended to be pretty constant. ZEX could've been right about his lack of proper night vision, but death omens were omens for a reason—they were there because they wanted your attention. If the spirit had been present at the time, it wouldn't have been discreet in trying to reach across the veil.
Unless he was wrong and it wasn't an omen. But even then, spirits weren't passive. The only reason spirits remained anchored to the world in the first place was because they couldn't let go and those who couldn't let go? They grew angry.
"I didn't, either," he replied, realizing he'd have to reciprocate a bit during this conversation; he had no cover as a detective or a fed and that meant he couldn't push forward too hard with the constant questions. "She caught me by surprise."
It wasn't a complete lie, either, what he was saying. The spirit's figure hadn't formed until well after he was tangled up in her hair.
"After she touched me, she started to leave. Did that happen to you, as well? I mean, did she...do anything to you before that? Or did she come back at all after?"
If she hadn't come back, that meant her goal was basically to curse or infect the victim, no more. Sam knew that ZEX was his only source who might be able to confirm this for him—he was the only one crazy enough to have possibly stayed behind and waited for her return.
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"Yes, I wasn't expecting someone like her." ZEX was still grinning at Sam, although it was a bit more hungrily now. Bah, his throat was starting to itch again. "I thought at first that she might have been wounded, by how she was limping..." Not that that seemed to really slow her any.
"She touched you?" ZEX's interest refocused keenly. "How did she touch you?" Surely there was no way that his admirer could have gently touched this human while being so rough with ZEX! ZEX's understanding and generous nature was unmatched, and surely she could sense that. There was no way she would favor someone else over him. He was the only one who defended her! "I don't know if I would describe what she did to me as touched precisely... it was a bit more involved than that." With a bit of a smile. She had touched through his skin, after all.
ZEX coughed again, and this time with a bit more force. This was such an irritating feeling! It reminded him of drowning, somewhat, and like all VUX, he hated that feeling. "She has been... visiting me afterwards... she's left me-"
ZEX pressed a hand to his chest as if to warn his human lungs to cooperate, and this time it was too difficult to find the space between coughs to speak.
no subject
Sam's gaze flicked briefly, casually, towards the doorway when he spotted Dean stepping through, before his attention returned back to ZEX. Dean no doubt saw him and while his brother didn't move too far off, he didn't come over, either. Which was in all likelihood for the best. Dean didn't need to witness this conversation to use as more ammunition against Sam.
"Uh," was all he managed in response to how did she touch you?, and then ZEX's coughing set in.
Damn it. Sam frowned, rose slightly off his seat with a concerned, "Hey."
He knew exactly what was going on; he'd had the same thing happen to him this morning. But if ZEX had been finding hair from as early as breakfast, how many times had the guy hacked this crap up since then? Sam had only done it once and then he'd caught the ghost's reflection not too long ago, the latter of which he assumed was what ZEX meant by visiting.
So either ZEX had somehow gotten hit more severely than Sam had—possibly from prolonged contact? ZEX obviously hadn't been in any hurry to get away from the spirit—or he'd run into the ghost earlier. Second option wasn't as probable. Sam had gone upstairs immediately following lights out. If ZEX had arrived before he did, he'd have had to have moved extremely fast for the entire encounter with the spirit to have finished by the time Sam got there.
He kept a watchful eye on the patient. If this went the way he suspected it would, ZEX would be fine after coughing up the hair, but half of his mind was still thinking he should call a nurse over even though he knew that when a ghost decided to gank you, there was nothing you could do short of blasting it full of rock salt. The other half was distracted with sweeping the proximity to see if the spirit was present for this. Which—yeah, it was. There, in the faintly reflective glass of the greenhouse. Barely visible, though, and when he blinked, it was gone.
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Well, he couldn't say he was surprised by this exactly, although that was bigger than some of the other strands she'd given him so far. He leaned back and took a few deep breaths, his eyes watering. Apart from the actual act of coughing, ZEX didn't look even remotely upset or bothered by what had just happened. He would have been smiling if that didn't usually take effort.
"There, you see?" ZEX's voice was a bit rough. "I think she likes me. She's been giving me these all day." He knelt down and picked up the ball of hair carefully. "I think it's how she chooses to communicate with people. I don't think she can speak properly, poor thing..."
ZEX tried to remember what it was they had been talking about before he'd been interrupted by her gift. "Did she speak to you at all? She didn't respond to me verbally, exactly, but I believe she understood what I was saying." Right up until she'd latched her hands on his face. Had she done the same to Sam? Had they both offended her inadvertantly? "How did she touch you?"
ZEX paused for a moment, looking at some of the flowers nearby. If he remembered right... "Humans like flowers as gifts, don't they?"
no subject
Seriously? He couldn't think of any reason why someone would take this as a sign of affection. Even people who might normally believe in Casper would be having second thoughts right about now.
He glanced at the hair ZEX had picked up. It looked as expected—long and black. Everything a spirit did or left behind had significance, but he couldn't think of what the hell hair had to do with any of this. On the other hand, he didn't have much information to go off on, either. No history, no personal records to tie in patterns.
"Right." He rubbed the bridge of his nose. It was strange to be sharing information on his end with a witness—not really something he made a habit of doing—but recounting his version of events wasn't going to hurt in this case. "No. She didn't speak to me. She, uh. Attacked me, actually, first, and then she raked a finger down my cheek."
And, what? How did they get from here to flowers? Was ZEX planning to give flowers to this ghost? This was getting beyond ridiculous.
Sam offered a quick smile, anyway. "Flowers can make nice gifts for people. I have a couple more things, though," he went on, steering the conversation back on track without pausing to make a proper segue. "If you don't mind? I just need to know what happened in the moments before she retreated. Was it immediately after you came into contact with a part of her body? Her hands, for instance? Or was it only her hair that was touching you at the time?"
no subject
ZEX watched Sam touch his face curiously, wondering what it meant and for a moment wondering if he should mimic the gesture just in case, but in the end he decided not to stress his wounded arm any more than he had already.
"She attacked you?" ZEX sounded almost disappointed, and he glanced around the greenhouse. Maybe Sam had committed the same faux-pas that had led her to attack him? He was sure she wasn't a violent soul, just... impetuous perhaps. "We spent some time staring at each other first... she made this sound when I asked her questions, but I'm sure she understood me."
It was a bit awkward to talk about this when she could be listening or nearby. ZEX again glanced around. "I'm afraid she got a little... rougher with me than I would have liked," and now with the impression that he was talking to someone else, "and perhaps with proper warning, I wouldn't have acted so hastily, but," and back to Sam again. ZEX raised his good arm and touched along the line of his jaw. It was still a little sore near his ears. "She held me here, and her fingers went through me. She was pulling at me, and she was so strong and heavy and so cold. How her skin felt, her fingers in me... it was extraordinary." At least it was now that he had some welcome distance to look at the experience without human panic clouding his thoughts.
ZEX looked around, and if he had any familiarity with human expressions, he might have tried to look apologetic for his invisible audience. "She... left me when I struck her in self-defense. She bled, the poor thing... she looked confused. Then she was gone, with only a few strands of hair left behind. I hope she doesn't hold my actions against me. I'll have to make it up to her..." ZEX toyed with the ball of hair in his palm. "Oh yes, if it's relevant, one of my companions tried to strike her when she knocked me down... but they couldn't see her, and it passed right through her. A shame that her special interest in me had to be so rewarded!" ZEX sighed. "I wish things had gone better between us! I've never encountered something like her before... hopefully in the future we can overcome our differences."
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So. The hair, the glimpses in reflections, all that was confirmed as a pattern. The sound ZEX mentioned was probably the death rattle Sam had heard at the time, as well. It raised the question of why this specific ghost made that noise—death rattles were common in the dying, but Sam had yet to encounter a spirit that made the sound a part of its motif. Why this particular one, then?
The selective visibility was rare in spirits, too, though not impossible. But if so, that meant it, what. Picked out a singular target only and ignored all the others?
Plus, ZEX said—
His thoughts halted abruptly. He tilted his head. "I'm sorry, did you say it—she—bled?"
He'd seen a spirit bleed before, sure, but that had been a result of one spirit attacking another. Ghosts weren't alive, obviously. They didn't bleed on a physical level. They couldn't.
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But he'd asked him a question, after all. ZEX blinked. "Well, yes. I... struck her with something sharp, right here." ZEX touched his cheek. "Although, I did apologize afterwards, and it seems she doesn't hold it against me. It was dark, but I'm sure she was bleeding. She seemed so shocked..." ZEX sighed. Actually, his ghostly admirer's expression hadn't changed much at all, but he preferred to think of her as shocked. It fit in better with how he viewed the entire experience.
ZEX toyed with the ball of hair a few more seconds before looking back up. "Why, is that odd?" As if being able to materialize and dematerialize at will wasn't odd enough.
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Sam blinked again, thrown by the sudden change in topic and unclear as to what ZEX could possibly be referring to. Dean at a strip club had better focus than this. "Excuse me?"
Or. Never mind.
He watched ZEX play with the hairball, finding it a little fascinating on a certain level. He'd seen far more disturbing things than a hairball, but regardless. You didn't usually see someone toy with something like that after hacking it up.
"Well, you said all the other weapons went right through her," he explained. "I figured that meant she couldn't be hurt."
It was starting to fall into place now. The spirit was only visible to its intended target. No one else could see nor touch it, but the target could which meant that by selecting the victim specifically, it must've opened up some kind of connection, something that rendered it vulnerable in a way. He realized that the ghost hadn't left simply because it'd managed to lay down its curse; it'd left because they'd both struck it, hurting it. Not much, but it seemed to be enough to drive it away. Unheard of up till now and the question of why remained, but Sam was willing to go with the theory for the time being unless a better one came along. Or some new information blew holes in this one.
If he was right, though, what did it mean? That only its victim was capable of fighting it off? It was possible. That didn't solve the main problem, though. You could beat back a spirit all you wanted, the real solution was always gonna be a salt and burn. As long as the remains were out there, the ghost would never be able to move on. But maybe he could use this to buy more time.
"Your companions, she didn't seem to notice them at all? Not even after they tried to attack her?"
no subject
"No, she didn't seem interested in the others... she didn't react at all when my Teisel attacked her. Like he wasn't there." ZEX kept poking his hairball, then blinked a bit with a realization. "Perhaps it's because I'm not human? Maybe she felt a kinship with me as a result... that other person on the board who said they'd seen her, they said they were a..." ZEX could remember how the word they'd used was spelled, but had no idea how to pronounce it... well, he'd just have to say it and hope for the best. "A SHI NAG AMI? My apologies if I got that wrong, I'm not familiar with the word and I've only seen it written. But that means they aren't human either."
ZEX looked at Sam with a bit more curiously now. "Are you human?"
no subject
Sam started to ask if there seemed to be a reason why she'd, well. Reached into his mouth because ghosts tended to have a reason for the things they did, however screwed up that reasoning might be, but ZEX threw him another curve ball when he spoke up next. His brows furrowed. Shi nag—
"Shinigami?" he said, somewhat incredulously. As in, death personified? As in a reaper? What the hell was a goddamn reaper doing wandering around here? Then again, there'd been the goddess from this morning, but still. A reaper? Reapers weren't visible to the living. If it was here at the institute, though, then obviously people could see it.
Unless they were all dead?
At this point, that was as good a theory as anything. It'd sure as hell explain why Dean was here in a way that made more sense than a miraculous resurrection. Sam wasn't really sure if he wanted to take the notion of a miracle like that at face value or not.
Well, no. He wanted to. He just...didn't know if he could bring himself to do so. Sometimes it felt like he was only setting himself up for another round of Oops, just kidding, we're taking him away again.
And Christ, this was the second time in less than two hours someone had asked him that exact some question. The irony was almost overwhelming.
There was a split second of hesitation, barely noticeable. "Yes," he said, and it felt as if he were lying as much to himself as he was to ZEX.
For a second or two, he was silent before he felt an almost desperate desire to move the conversation away from himself and his level of freak. The question did give him an opening to bring up something he'd wanted to know from the start.
"Can I ask what you are, exactly, if you're not human?"
no subject
He wasn't really in the mood to think about that though. "But yes, I think that's what they wrote. They also said something about spirits and death, although I'm not sure if I believe any of it... I've always taken a more personal stance on such things." Besides, it made it more difficult for the Creator to punish him for crimes against nature if their existence depended on whether or not ZEX believed in them.
Sam's answer shot a hole through his theory though. There might have been some thread uniting all the people she'd visited, but maybe it was something only obvious to her. And possibly irrelevant in the end, since ZEX was the only one who seemed to appreciate her attention anyway.
"Did I not mention that?" ZEX laughed a little. "I usually include it in my introduction, although almost no one here has heard of us... I'm a VUX, a species native to Beta Luyten, although I no longer reside there." Not entirely by choice, but no need to mention that just yet. "I don't suppose you've heard of us?"