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

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

"Oh, really?" Leon looked mildly apologetic. It wouldn't do to go insulting legitimate work that someone else did. There was nothing wrong with cultivating plants. It was a perfectly worthwhile endeavor. He was just more the type to collect them for use in potions rather than grow them himself.

"So," he tried to quickly make up for his foul. "What do you do back where you come from?"

[mitase.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I'm..." Okay, telling people he was a shinigami usually just earned him a puzzled look and more questions. Hanatarou quickly replaced that with, "...a healer. We have, um, all kinds of herbs and flowers and...well. I'm used to working in the garden."

That and working on cleaning the sewers. And everything else that could be cleaned. But the gardens were certainly more pleasant than the alternatives. He carefully lifted one of the seedlings from the tray, handling it as delicately as he might a baby bird, and glanced up at Leon again with a smile that even approached cheerful. "What about you, Leon-san?"

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

"A healer?" Leon brightened. Healing was something he'd never been capable of himself, and he was always interested in those that knew a lot about it. Not that he had any interest in becoming a doctor or somesuch, but sometimes he wished he could just do what Rena did and cast a spell that would heal you instantly. The best he could do was buff up someone's defenses or make them temporarily stronger. "That's awesome!"

He picked at the dirt in his pot. "I'm a scientist and heraldry specialist," he answered Hanatarou's question with a smile. Then, as he usually did, he clarified his own answer. "I mean I'm a mage. I use magic."

[mitase.livejournal.com]

...'awesome'? Hanatarou blinked in surprise at Leon's enthusiasm, then just gave a little half-shrug and turned to deposit the latest seedling into its new place. "I'm not that good," he replied, sounding a little uncomfortable. It wasn't that interesting, really.

The fact that Leon was a scientist, however, did make him a little wary; all the "scientists" he knew were in the 12th Division, and the less contact he had with them the better. Hanatarou considered that briefly, as he carefully patted soil around the newly-transplanted seedling. "Ah...what kind of magic do you do, Leon-san?"

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure you're better at it than me." The young mage smiled wryly at the other boy. His plant was a tad crooked in its pot, and he wrinkled his nose at it before setting it aside and picking up another. "I have a friend who can heal, but I was never much good at it." He could make potions, sure, but that wasn't the same.

"I'm mostly offensive," he said with a grin. And he was damn good at it if he did say so himself. "I can do a little protective magic, but I'm better at large offensive spells, mostly water or void based." Though he could also summon monsters, but this guy looked a bit too shaky to be bringing up something like that.

[mitase.livejournal.com]

It was probably best not to argue the point, or so Hantarou had learned recently - no matter what he told people around here, it seemed like most of them were completely unwilling to believe it. There were some who did, of course, and it wasn't as though he'd endeared himself to any of the other shinigami, so it was probably just that they didn't really know him.

Although the fact that Leon said he was good with offensive magics, he still didn't seem to have the disdain for healers that the 11th did. It was a little strange. "...Oh." Hanatarou glanced briefly toward the tilted plant, wondering if maybe he should help out a little, but finally decided it probably wouldn't hurt anything. "I...I'm guessing you're not from Earth?"

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

Leon shook his head with another grin. "Nope! I have a friend who is, but you're right. I'm not." He crossed his arms over his chest, showing a little pride in the land of his birth, even if it was far behind so many others when it came to technology.

"I'm from the planet Expel. Don't worry, I don't expect you to have heard of it." They didn't yet have any way to communicate between other planets, so the only people who knew about it lived there themselves or had wandered there on accident.

[mitase.livejournal.com]

It was a good thing Leon didn't expect Hanatarou to have heard of it, because he hadn't. It wasn't as though this place hadn't been confusing enough before, and not it was just getting worse, with people from other planets and the like that he'd never even considered existed.

Though...humans didn't know that shinigami existed, so perhaps it was all fair in the end?

"Oh. No, I haven't." Hanatarou almost absently transplanted another one of the seedlings as he considered, and spared a moment to wonder if maybe he should be taking advantage of the chance to look around the greenhouse while it was still daytime, in case he was sent back there again that night. But...well, maybe Kira would do it instead. Hopefully. "I'm from, um, Soul Society. Nobody's heard of it, either, except the others who are from there too."

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

"Isn't that weird?" Leon gave a bit of a laugh. So many people from so many places who'd never heard of the other places they'd each come from. It was extremely confusing and extremely interesting all in one.

'Soul Society' didn't sound much like another planet, though. Was it some secret organization? Perhaps that was the reason Hanatarou was so jumpy. Well, Leon wasn't going to go around mentioning it to everyone, if that was the case. He smiled again, as though trying to reassure the other boy without saying as much.

Then he sighed. "It'd be a lot more fun if we weren't all stuck here against our will."

[mitase.livejournal.com]

Why he was being smiled at reassuringly, Hanatarou wasn't sure - had he said something wrong? Something about Soul Society, maybe? He gave Leon an uncertain smile in return and just kept working. The plants at least were familiar and not at all confusing.

At the last comment, though, he hesitated, staring down into the hole he'd been digging. "I...guess so," he replied, after a moment's thought. In some ways it was nicer here than home, even with the defective gigai that kept him from using his powers like he should be able to. Recent events, though, had rather abruptly changed his mind. "I've met some nice people here." Nicer, even, than a lot of people back in Soul Society. "But it's still here."

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

Leon nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I know what you mean. It would have been preferable to meet them under better circumstances." Like, on his own planet. As visitors. Not stuck in a place where monsters came after them every night.

Oh! And there it was, like a smack to the side of his head. Leon had heard of Soul Society before. At least one of the other patients had mentioned it, but he'd been so busy with his own worries that he'd practically forgotten about it. "You mentioned others... You do have friends here, don't you? I think I've met at least one." He knocked some of his hair in front of one side of his face in imitation. "Blond guy? Kinda quiet?"

[mitase.livejournal.com]

Hanatarou nodded in agreement at that - maybe if some of the nice people here had been there they could've kept some of the bullies away. Or something. Just so long as he could finish his chores in peace, that would be nice.

He paused, though, trowel poised in mid-air as he blinked up at Leon. Unless there were other shinigami who had arrived recently, the description and the helpful hairstyle imitation had to be the vice-captain. "...Kira-fukutaichou? You know him?"

[heraldric.livejournal.com]

"I wouldn't say know..." Leon gave something of a half-smile. "I just ran into him in the library the other day." Literally. "He seemed like an okay guy. You two are both kinda quiet, though. Is it a Soul Society thing?" He winked as he asked this, but was still fairly serious about the question.

"I have a couple friends here..." They hadn't seen Ashton in some time, which was worrying. Then there was Precis, who he'd only seen for one meal...

[mitase.livejournal.com]

"Oh, no. No, not at all." Hanatarou was rather quick to correct that particular misconception, then blinked a little as though he'd startled himself. "It's, um. No, a lot of the other shinigami are, er...not quiet." Like, say, the 11th Division, the members of which probably couldn't be quiet if they wanted to.

He cleared his throat quietly and glanced back down at what he was working on, looking mildly embarassed. "There are a few others from where I come from here, but, er. I don't know if any of them are, um...friends." There was Orihime, though he hadn't seen her for a while. Not since, well, Renji and Rukia. And he'd prefer not to think about the two of them being gone.