damned_institute | Night 41: M81-M90 Hallway

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Night 41: M81-M90 Hallway

S.T. woke in a rush from a dream involving playing referee to a wrestling match involving two topless girls and a leviathan-sized octopus waiting for a rematch with the Nautilus or the world's largest deep-fryer and dish of butter sauce. His fingers were in his mouth and he was trying to whistle, when the intercom took over the job.

He'd slept through dinner, and the smell of uneaten fish hung in the air. That explained the dreams, at least the parts involving sea life and condiments. He made short work of the potatoes and asparagus, washing them down with the ubiquitous and still-over-chlorinated, now-lukewarm tap water.

Opening the closet doors let out a gentle wave of aromatic brewing by-products; the beer was progressing. He picked up one small bottle without agitating the breadcrumbs off the bottom, and poured a small amount into the glass. Looked like beer, smelled like beer, tasted like flat beer and stale bread. He screwed the caps down on all of them, since it seemed like the time for explosions had passed.

Then he hunted down his toolbox and repacked. The syringes went back in the trash can, labeled and sorted. A spare t-shirt went in the toolbox, pre-emptive protection against bottle-rattling. The flashlight got a new layer of tape, and the glass cleaner went in its holster. Everything ship-shape, which meant it was time to shove off.

[to here]

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"I don't know, maybe you'd pull a 'help me defeat the evil brain slugs Superboy!' so you could infect me too. No one would expect brain slugs to want to go near your creepy brain so I might buy it." Joking was good. Joking was normal and meant he didn't have to think about other Superboy's and people getting killed.

Robin leaning against him like that was also a good distraction but in a completely different way. Kon was happy to do whatever it took to reassure a friend but this was starting to make him really uncomfortable.

Time to close the clone petting zoo for the day then. Placing his hands on Robin's shoulders, Kon pushed him away, taking a step back as he did so and just trying to get a little space here.

"So," he said awkwardly. 'You were totally hugging me and I thought that'd never happen without like, drugs or something and I'm not sure what to do now.' Yeah, totally not going to say it but he probably didn't need to. It wasn't like Robin wouldn't be able to tell he was uncomfortable. Maybe he'd get lucky and Robin would actually cut him a break for once and not make fun of him for being awkward?

Right, and then the head loser would have a change of heart and let them all go home. Keep dreaming Kid.

Edited 2009-06-13 08:48 (UTC)

Tim let Kon push him away. He'd been wondering how long Superboy was actually going to put up with it, anyway. Even if he never got up the nerve to hug him again, at least there was that brief contact between them. It was hard to admit that he needed it, but...

Well, who said he had to admit anything, anyway.

He crossed his arms and stared off at the wall. "Yeah, well, brain slugs, remember?" he said, but there wasn't really any humor in his voice. He couldn't really tell Kon why he hugged him. He couldn't really tell himself why he'd done it, because he was too good at denial after all this time.

He settled for changing the subject.

"How long have you been here, anyway?"

Kon wasn't sure if he wanted to hit Robin or shake him now. First the hugging, now staring off at the wall and being all closed off. Seriously, what the hell was he supposed to do here? Maybe he was being a little unfair - it was probably just as uncomfortable and hard for Robin to deal with all this stuff as it was for him but even knowing that didn't help.

Fine, Robin wanted to change the subject. He could do that. "This is my... sixth night here. I woke up in the middle of the night after they snatched me out of hypertime. Bart got in a few days after me but he's from a couple of months ago." Kon shrugged, not sure what else to say. It was weird. Robin was weird and from a crappy future world. That was pretty much all you could say.

Bart being from a different time from the rest of the universe wasn't really that out of the ordinary, but Tim wasn't sure if he was ready to deal with Impulse just yet. He'd gotten used to Bart having at least some level of maturity, but if he was still Impulse, well...

He decided it was easier to not think about it.

"Have you found anything out? Fought a monster? Something? Hard to believe they can keep you here like this without you just breaking out through the wall or something," Tim said, looking back at Kon. He was mostly just making conversation, of course; if they were able to somehow suppress his TTK, who knew what else they could accomplish.

Tim wondered what kinds of drugs they could find if they managed to break into the pharmacy area. There had to be something like that here, although he hadn't seen them actively giving medication to the so-called patients. That in and of itself was atypical of a mental institution; he would have thought they'd be dishing out drugs like candy, considering all the disorders they'd have to pretend to pin on everyone here.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kon snapped defensively, crossing his arms to glare at Robin. He never stopped did he? He'd been the one who'd dragged him here and been all thing at him and now he just started acting like Kon was just some big useless moron who couldn't do anything on his own.

"I told you my powers aren't working right! That's why I haven't broken out yet! And I've found out plenty of stuff about this place! And fought Big Foot and a freaking huge squ- animal." He was not telling Robin he'd gotten chewed on by a stupid squirrel his first night here. He'd never live that down, even if it had only happened because he hadn't know his powers weren't working.

"And I found out they take people for experiments some nights - I went with this babe to try and rescue them only we got attacked by a giant spider. And the nights just sort of end without any warning - one minute you're doing something and then you're waking up back in bed and I don't think anyone knows how it happens. And they brainwash people and make them attack other prisoners - I ran into the girl who'd had it happen to her and she had all her powers back at the time. And my tactile telekinesis doesn't work right and.... it can hurt me sometimes."

Kon stopped to draw breath and think what else he could tell Robin to prove he hadn't just been sitting around the whole time waiting for someone to come along and tell him what to do. He was Superboy, he didn't need someone bossing him around. Even if he was maybe sort of glad to have Robin here too it wasn't because he needed him to tell him what to do.

Edited 2009-06-18 08:30 (UTC)

Tim rolled his eyes. "It's not an accusation, Kon, it's an inquiry. It doesn't make sense to me that they can suppress your power so much. I believe you, I do, because I don't think you'd even be here if they didn't have some control. But they're not using Kryptonite, or you'd be worse off. And Kryptonite wouldn't explain how they make Kurt feel like he doesn't have a tail, or where the damn monsters are coming from."

He was frustrated, and it showed on his face. It also made him irritable; he hated when things were out of his control. He'd had so little control lately, as it was, and he just couldn't take this.

"They experiment on people? What? What do they do, do you know?" That set off serious alarm bells for him, but it also made him wonder if that was the real reason they were here. Was this just some cosmic science experiment? He couldn't readily think of anyone that would have this kind of power. Some of these people allegedly weren't even from Earth, so he couldn't apply the alternate world theory to all of them. Plus the differences in timelines, that was something else entirely.

What the fuck was going on?

"...did you just say that using TTK hurts?"

"I could've told you they're not using K," Kon grumbled. He wouldn't ever forget what it felt like that time Robin had used the stuff on him and it wasn't the sort of thing he could not notice.

"I don't know what sort of experiments they do, just that they do it and where. I don't know if anyone really talks about what happened to them." He'd only gone to help out that one night with Tsubaki and they hadn't gotten to help anyone, before they got attacked by the giant spider and then the night had ended.

Looking at the floor, Kon folded his arms more tightly, saying in a subdued tone, "It only hurts sometimes. It's.... actually kinda like K only my head really hurts and I can't use my powers at all and I can't tell when it's gonna happen. I know they gotta do something to people's powers so we don't just bust out but I don't know why mine hurt sometimes." It was still wrong, his TTK being painful to use, no matter what sort of prison he was in.

Tim thought for a minute. This whole thing just got worse and worse.

At least he had something to focus on, a job to do. Yeah, they had to get out of here. But first, they had to actually have a plan. Just getting past the guards wasn't going to be enough, from what he'd heard about it.

"All right," he said, and straightened up. His voice was back to normal, no more overemotional teenager, no more uncertainty. He was Robin, after all. He had a job to do, and for now he had a team to lead - at least in his own eyes.

"You know what we have to do? First, I want to see the patient records. Yours, mine, Bart's, anyone we know is here, I want a record. Then we have to get to the pharmacy. There has to be some way to determine trace elements, what they're using to dope everyone. They're not giving anyone pills, so it doesn't make sense. But we're not getting out of here if we don't get answers; that much is clear."

It was a relief to hear Robin finally sounding normal again. Maybe Kon should feel a little bad about that - normally he'd be happy to see that Robin could be a normal guy when he wanted to be but he hadn't exactly been acting that normal. Mostly he was just happy to see Robin figuring out what could be wrong with his TTK and how to get them out of here.

He nodded along with the plan, trying to think of something to add. He didn't have a map so he didn't know where that stuff would be but Robin wouldn't have said anything if he didn't have some idea of how to find it. There was one thing - "OK, but the records could be hard. I dunno what they call Bart here."

Should he check up on Kurt before they went anywhere? He should be all healed by now and maybe he could come with them. That way they could make sure he'd be OK and he'd useful to have around. It didn't look like Bart was going to show but he had said he had other stuff to do tonight. Kon didn't know what that was but Bart could probably take care of himself. He'd been doing alright so far. But Kurt would probably still freak out over being seen, which meant he should come with them so they could make him see he'd fine.

"We should be able to find his somehow anyway. I want to check up on Kurt first but."

Tim pulled the map he'd copied from Jaime out of his pocket and studied it for a minute. "We're a long way from anywhere important," he said, slightly irritated by that fact. Well, they'd manage.

Kon made a valid point, of course. He'd heard the nurse call Raphael something else, so it stood to reason that not everyone got called by their actual name. Why he was an exception, he had no idea.

"What do the nurses call you?" Tim asked, genuinely curious. He was willing to be it wasn't Conner Kent.

They certainly didn't have time to go through all the files. But they could start with their own and see where it took them.

"All right, we can check on Kurt."

[ooc: God I've been so slow, I'm sorry. I figure since NS is officially over, they can be interrupted by the bleeding walls or something?]

"Hey, you were the one who dragged me back here," Kon pointed out. His room was way closer to stuff so it was Robin's fault for making him come all the way here instead of just borrowing someone else's room for a bit.

Before he could say anything else - about what they called him here or what else they'd told him about this Caleb guy he was supposed to be - a thick fog flooded the room, making it impossible to see Robin even though he was only a few feet away. Startled, Kon moved towards where Robin had been, calling out hesitantly, "Rob?"

This hadn't happened before and it was.... worrying. Not frightening but unsettling. As he tried to reach Robin, his foot slipped in something on the floor and, still too used to being able to just rise up into the air to catch himself, Kon stumbled against the wall.

His hands came away wet with something warm and sticky that he was sure hadn't been there before. He brought them in close to his face so he could actually see what was on them, staring uncomprehendingly at the red liquid for several long moments. When he finally realised what it was, Kon shoved himself away from the wall as fast as he could, yelling in shock and horror.

[Don't sweat it, I haven't been too speedy myself. They'll have plenty of time to flail at each other later.]

The fog came in so suddenly that Tim didn't have a chance to notice it before it filled the entire room. He could hear Kon calling him, sounding further away than Tim knew he was.

What the hell, how was there fog inside?

"Just don't move," he called out. He knew where Kon was, of course, unless he'd moved. But knowing Kon, he might have. Well, it was just a room, not a whole city. If they just stayed calm...

But why was Kon yelling like that? What was going on here?!

"Kon! Kon, are you okay?" he asked, though it sounded slightly more desperate than he'd have liked. Even if it was weird and they weren't the same, Kon was still Kon, and Tim couldn't stand the thought of something happening while he just stood there.

Ignoring his own advice to stay put, he moved toward where Kon had been standing before, keeping one hand out since he couldn't actually see anything. The fog smelled weird, and there was some other smell that was familiar, but that his brain refused to place.

His hand brushed the wall, and he stopped. The wall was wet. Warm.

Oh god it smells like blood in here. Someone is bleeding.

"KON!"

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Night 41: M81-M90 Hallway

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