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!]
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Entertained as he was by such thoughts, Blitzwing didn't really notice or care where the nurse was taking him this time. Though Scourge seemed to have regained some of his coherence while Blitzwing spoke to him on the bulletin board, his relative usefulness for the rest of the day was still in doubt. Blitzwing would keep any eye out for him, just in case, but he wasn't about to waste his time searching for him -- WERE THOSE FLOWERS?
Oh wow, so this is what they meant by a "greenhouse?" It kind of made a little sense, there certainly was a lot of green lying around, but there was also brown and yellow and red and wow! It was all so pretty! Blitzwing wanted to touch everything, but -- right, right, he didn't want to attract any unwanted attention from the nurses, which he might by too much jumping around. So he settled for grabbing a watering can instead, humming to himself as he slowly moved down one of the potted rows.
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Just slipped and fell into the plants, nothing more. Completely manly and innocent, nothing to worry about.
Scourge felt a bit more secure once he found Blitzwing also playing with the flowers. Their de facto leader seemed to have gone into one of his weirder modes again and was actually making little noises to himself while he poured water on them. Once again Scourge found himself wondering how someone functioned in such a fragmented state, manic one moment and calm the next.
"Hey, boss?" he asked, coming up next to Blitzwing and looking at the flowers as well.
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Without looking, he shoved the watering can into Scourge's hands. What better way to test someone's possibly drug-addled reflexes than by surprising them with heavy objects full of liquid? "Hold this!" he demanded, all his concentration on that tiny weed. It was so close to the flower's base...great care would be required to extract it.
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Well, it was Blitzwing. Whatever. Scourge shrugged and placidly held the watering can, watching with bemusement as his current leader fussed over the tiny bit of foliage.
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"Here, trade me," he said, taking back his watering can and returning to his previous activity. "Did you want something?"
After all, Scourge had approached him, not the other way around. It'd be better to see what he wanted first, thus putting Blitzwing in a stronger position for making his own demands. Just one of many things a leader had to think about, especially if they weren't in a strong position for making their demands at gunpoint.
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"Wanted to see if you wanted anything, really," the tracker said, still inspecting the weed. "I've just been doing my usual. And clawing up Starscream."
Perhaps he shouldn't eat the weed, it was a bit dirty. "Actually," the tracker continued thoughtfully, looking back up at Blitzwing. "I thought you two were going after him."
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"Actually, I did want to talk to you about something," he continued, turning back to Scourge and crossing his arms (smearing wet earth on his shirt in the process, but who really paid attention to such things?), his gaze cold. "Specifically, that new "friend" of yours."
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Like Blitzwing really cared about what Scourge wanted. "I don't like him," he said firmly, glare practically daring Scourge to make a positive comment about the humanoid. "What do you plan to do about it?"
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"I just don't think he's someone we should write off, y'know?" he said awkwardly, scrambling for something positive to say about the young human. "He's been here longer and he knows a guy who got his old body back, or at least a better one." Even if Kurt was touchy as frag about it for some weird reason. Scourge would kill for something that dark and streamlined.
"And he's strong, real strong," the tracker continued. "You remember what Lugnut did to my neck?" Scourge tilted his head back, pointing to the just-barely-visible dark blotches around his throat. "These are already fading and that was later that night. You see these?" He looked around nervously, hoping no one was paying too close attention to them, then finally turned around and pulled his shirt up.
There were a pair of darker bruises on his lower back by his hips, about the size of a pair of hands. Scourge crooked his head back around to look at Blitzwing, pointing at about where he thought the marks were. He couldn't see them very well without checking the mirror, but pressing too hard on them made him wince. Fortunately they'd been put somewhere that was covered by his clothes. The neck was obvious strangulation, classic Decepticon style, but something that low might get some humans asking questions.
"These still haven't fixed themselves, and he wasn't even trying to leave marks." Because Scourge had asked him not to. "Don't know about during the day, but during the night...not a guy I want mad at me."
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No prizes for guessing which option Blitzwing preferred.
"Is he here?" Blitzwing asked, glancing around the greenhouse. Someone stronger than Lugnut...He must be very large. "Could you point him out?"
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"Nah, don't see or here him," he replied flatly, folding his arms. "He's not a threat, Blitzwing, he doesn't even care what we do as long as we're not going after him. And he likes me, that puts him more on our side than with the Autobots, right?"
This was his information, his "capture". He wasn't going to let his screwy superior make a mess of it like his usual one did.
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Blitzwing had reached the end of his patience. He'd wanted Scourge to grow a little backbone -- but only as long as it was convenient for Blitzwing's own purposes. This attitude the tracker was cultivating had to go.
Of course, Blitzwing could hardly knock Scourge down and have it out with him here and now -- though if the tracker kept pushing things, he might just do that anyway, and the nurses be slagged. But for the moment, he simply reached out and grabbed Scourge by the arm, thumb pressing hard enough into the muscle tissue that Blitzwing could almost feel the shape of the bone underneath. Humans were such delicate little creatures; a fact that could, with a little ingenuity, be worked to his advantage.
He leaned closer, lowering his voice. Nothing to see here, Ms. Nurse; just two patients speaking quietly together. But Blitzwing's voice was far too cold for this to be some friendly moment.
"You say he doesn't care what we do," he said quietly, studying Scourge's reactions. "But that wasn't my impression." The filthy little organic had been challenging his authority, from the very moment it questioned his right to keep tabs on Scourge. And it sounded just like an Autobot; Blitzwing refused to tolerate even the chance of interference.
Repost, now with actual sleep.
Properly, he shouldn't have been so attached to Superboy, but the organic had been the first person here he'd actually been comfortable around and people like that were few and far between in the Decepticon ranks and he really wanted to hang on to this one.
Especially when the other options were either a very unlikely death or Superboy hating him for getting him into such a position.
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He snarled, releasing Scourge's arm. Oh, he was so, so, so tempted to just haul off and throw a flowerpot at that slagging mechanical nuisance -- by which he probably meant the intercom. Probably -- but no. That'd be a shameful waste of a perfectly nice flowerpot.
"We'll continue this discussion tomorrow," he snapped at Scourge, just before the nurses came to separate. Whether or not Scourge managed to catch up with him and Lugnut didn't matter; tonight all Blitzwing's attention would be focused on finishing the mission he'd set three slagging days ago. Kon could wait until tomorrow.
After all, none of them were going anywhere.
no subject
As he walked his fingers trailed over a fallen yellow blossom lying across the warm dirt and reflexively picked it up. It smelled nice, even at arm's length, and right now Scourge felt he could do with some relaxing. Twirling it in his fingers thoughtfully, the tracker headed towards his room.