Day 41: Sun Room

[feartehreaper.livejournal.com]

Haseo's steps were heavy with the weight of righteous anger as he was escorted into the Sun Room, his posture so sullen and reluctant you could almost hear the nostalgic cry of an electric guitar. He was seething, and though perhaps it was a bit harder to be intimidating while wearing the uniform of an insane asylum and flanked by a bored-looking orderly, it was not for lack of trying.

Unfortunately, his nurse seemed unaffected by the act, and even with the cloud of failing to keep "Kai" away from "Peyton" hanging over her, remained determinedly cheerful. She merely said something about receiving a lecture later on, ignored his retorts, and assured him that it would be alright even though his internet stalker was in the same building. For the most part, Haseo tuned her babbling out after that, dismissing it as hopeless.

"...and usually this would be the time children would be taking showers, but you don't have to worry about that right now. Now then, le--"

"Wait. What?"

"Oh, all the children seventeen or under are separated right now while the adults go to the courtyard..."

"Hey, I'm not a kid you old--!"

"Oh of course you aren't dear, but you're not eighteen yet either, now are you?"

Haseo resisted the urge to do something rash, literally biting his tongue to keep quiet. But upon having the bulletin board pointed out to him, he shrugged off his anger for the most part and headed that way, fully intending to get more answers than he'd had time to receive during breakfast.

Well... at least Endrance is in another shower group, he thought, Thank god.

[Closed to Tsukasa, for now!]

Comments

[toxicspiderman]

If Badou really wanted to be left alone, he'd've shut up or faked snoring or wandered off.

Or punched S.T. in the face well before he'd gotten to the vomit threat.

"I've known enough pretentious academics to be able to cite the difference between talking to the media and talking to the medium." He thwapped his pen against the notebook on the final, drawn-out syllable. Sure, stupid Latin tricks were the refuge of the bored overachiever who wanted to prove that there'd been a point to learning the fucking language in the first place beyond SAT scores. Which he hadn't needed any help with, due to being smarter than them. Whatever. Then he looked up, eyebrows semaphoring the universal symbol for try me.

"I thought you might have been here long enough to know something. But I can admit when I'm wrong."

[strayfag]

"I'm happy for you." Badou replied, not taking that bait. The word 'academic' was enough to warn him off.

Though in all truth this was the first guy he'd met here who actually spoke Asshole, and it was kind of a relief. He kept having to backtrack and translate to Landel's Standard with other people. Right now, he didn't feel like being that nice to anyone he didn't know.

"It's good you're so humble." He added, flashing another grin that was mostly teeth. "Does that actually work on people? I think I'm mildly insulted."

[toxicspiderman]

"Only on idiots, morons, and middle-management." A corner of his mouth twisted into a grin. Well, it worked on most of the Boston office of GEE, too, but they knew it was bullshit. It was just a highly-advanced form of code.

"No, seriously. If, hypothetically, someone were to put up a notice advertising a little get-together after lights-out, the staff wouldn't feel it was their ethical duty to confiscate the supplies, would they?" He turned the notebook around. Most of the half-written note was in small handwriting, illegible at that distance unless Badou was hiding telescopic lenses in his head.

Which, around here, might not be a safe assumption.

But to the ordinary person, four letters would stand out. Four letters spelling BEER, spaced unevenly across the top of the sheet. It looked like a tacky frat-party flyer, the kind that got tacked to telephone poles and dormitory windows like parking tickets at the end of the month.

[strayfag]

And minor mafioso, come to think of it, but they fell into the first two categories. At least they did when they weren't chasing his sorry ass halfway across the city and back.

Badou cocked an eyebrow at him. Beer didn't hold nearly as much appeal as cigarettes, but he could understand the desire to get totally wasted every once in a while. "There are people offering everything from battle axes to group sex for virgins. Come on. Shit's impossible to find around here though."

[toxicspiderman]

If S.T. had known what Badou was thinking, he'd have agreed. The thugs Basco had hired had been long on brawn, short on brains. At least the ones that had done the actual chasing -- some of them fatally (for them) so. Physics, unlike city government, didn't make exceptions for organized crime.

"Yeah, I figured." Group sex for what? He'd missed that particular lurid episode. If they ever got out of here, none of them would ever need to work again -- the talk-show circuit and ghostwritten autobiographies of sex, aliens, and alien sex would leave them set for life. "And it might be hard to find, but you don't have to be a brilliant biochemist to make the stuff. Though it doesn't hurt." He grinned. Modesty was something he'd never been accused of.

[strayfag]

Badou grinned back. "You total shit."

Which mostly translated to 'that's awesome and I think I'm fangirling a little'. He'd seen people try to do the whole brewing in the bathtub thing but it usually tasted a lot like it had been mixed with not-so-clear toilet water...which wasn't all together unlikely. But a biochemist had to get it right...right?

"Sounds like higher education is highly underrated. So what're you planning Mr. Biochemist? Reliving your co-ed dorm years tonight, or are you still hunting supplies?"

[toxicspiderman]

Grinning, like yawning, was infectious -- the kind that didn't require quarantines or hacking coughs or CDC pamphlets. His widened into an outright smirk.

"Got everything I need. Just need to give the micro-organisms another day or two to work. Tomorrow night." From the smell leaking out of the closet this morning, it'd be drinkable tonight. But it'd be better with another day, and something didn't sit right about kicking back with a beer on a night they'd dragged another set of poor bastards upstairs. Tomorrow, anyone brainwashed would appreciate a smaller range of targets for morning-after abject apologies.

He levered himself out of the chair. Then, feeling generous, he shoved it back into foot-usurping range. He swaggered over to the board, slammed the note onto the board, and walked off. Not that there was anywhere to go, but just on general principle.