toxicspiderman: Photo of a grassy, tree-lined riverbank.  (Specifically, The Charles River) (bucolic)
Sangamon Taylor ([personal profile] toxicspiderman) wrote in [community profile] damned_institute2009-04-09 05:01 pm

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!]

[identity profile] scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com 2009-04-12 03:09 am (UTC)(link)
"I know a lot of places like that," Wally answered. "But it's no big deal. We might not even be from the same Earth anyway, right? Seems like there's a lot of them around the place, judging from all the differences people have been talking about." A few days back that idea would have really bothered him, or he would have been insisting that the Justice League were going to turn up and save the day. Bruce showing up here as well had really killed that idea though, but at the same time... Wally was confident that if anyone could come up with a way to get them out of here, Bats could.

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?"
strayfag: (Me?)

[personal profile] strayfag 2009-04-12 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah, that whole multiple worlds thing takes some getting used to. It's pretty sad when it makes more sense to believe we're all just nuts." Badou replied, tugging at a weed for something to do with his hands. He wasn't actually gardening, just destroying the leaves of some defenseless plant.

"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."