damned_institute | NIGHTSHIFT 42: BLACK ROCK HOTEL

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NIGHTSHIFT 42: BLACK ROCK HOTEL

Snake jerked his head away from Fox's hand and shot to his feet, disorientated slightly by the sudden shift. The grout in the tiles was black with what looked like old blood, and the stench of rot heaved in his throat. Something was badly wrong. He sensed threats - left, faint shapes in the dark outside the large windows - Fox - something creaking in the ceiling - a long groaning voice off to the right, past the walls - and something moving in the back of the room -

It staggered towards him, and before he fully knew what he was doing he ripped the match from the book and struck it with his left hand alone, popped the cap off the hairspray, and blasted a tongue of flame at the aggressor, aiming for its face. He saw, in the flickering light, long hair and long nails and the skin on its rotten face peeling and cracking and bubbling in the heat. It gave a long, screaming cry, and toppled to the floor. Its arms and legs writhed and kicked furiously, an automatic, animal gesture, before it finally lay still.

"Here?" he snapped at Fox, wrapping his fingers around the can of hairspray. "This place gets better and better. It's like a theme park." His voice quaked with anger. The place now stunk of something far worse than rotten meat, and for a fraction of a second he thought he could hear Big Boss's voice saying something he couldn't make out before he realised that it had come from inside his own head.

"At least I don't have to be the only thing here back from the dead," he growled. The woman zombie was leaking something he didn't want to think about. He guessed that the decomposition must have trapped methane and other flammable gasses inside the body, hence why it went up like a candle.

That said, he didn't really think he could burn anything else again. For a while.

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The trade for privacy was darkness, but as Yue turned back he gave a mental sigh as he reached a decision. With his powers as pathetically weakened as they had been in this place, when they weren't outright blocked, he'd only used his bow when he needed to attack. There was one other thing he could do, but...it was incredibly humiliating, when compared to what it should be.

Still, though, there wasn't much choice. It was either go out into the room where there was at least dim light from outside, or stay in here where Sakura couldn't see.

He very carefully removed his jacket and dropped it to one side with a sniff of distaste, then even more carefully peeled away the shirt. The fabric was sticky with drying blood where it had seeped through the bandages at his stomach, even if it had escaped most of the damage from the outside. Some of the fabric might be usable for bandaging, though, so he set that on the counter, then lifted one hand in front of himself, palm up.

As he did a faintly glowing blue orb came into being just above his hand, enclosing not the sharp-edged ice crystals that it should have, but rather a scattering of snowflakes that glittered in the light. Pretty, perhaps, but entirely useless except for the light it shed.

Touya took a moment to appreciate the soft glow coming from Yue's hand. He'd seen magic before, but he had to say... nothing he'd seen before was as pretty as Yue's magic. Except for perhaps his mother--but rivaling an angel was hard, he supposed. Though Yue came close...

Snapping out of his thoughts, Touya stood up from rifling through the suitcase with a box of wipes that had (somehow) managed to survive the decay. "This should uh... help clean you up for now," he said, pulling out a wipe and offering it to Yue. "You should blot at your wounds--just to avoid anything getting in there..."

Yue eyed the offered wipe for a moment before reaching out his free hand to take it with a small nod of thanks. It was rather small to combat the mess, but at least it was clean and smelled better than he did at the moment.

But...the fact that he only had one hand to use was clearly going to provide a bit of difficulty. He couldn't let go of the light, though, so he did the best he could to clean up the mess that he could reach. At least his clothing had provided some protection on his chest and arms, which meant the bandages he already wore had stayed free from outside contamination. His hair was too much to deal with in a short time, but he could get some of the mess off his face.

"I'm fine," he insisted, though it was more of a token protest at this point. "Those creatures don't move very quickly at all, I was barely even touched. If there's clothing in there that would fit, a change should be sufficient."

Touya moved to stand up when he caught sight of a large stain growing on Yue's pants. The fabric was torn as well, from what he could see in the dim light, which meant it wasn't an old injury. One of those undead things had bit him.

"This is barely touched?" he asked, pulling a little at the torn fabric. "Let me see it, you can't clean yourself up with only one hand."

Sometimes it would be easier if Touya were as oblivious as his little sister could be, and didn't notice things like that. Yue glanced down toward the tear in the fabric, the corners of his eyes tightening just slightly as he sighed. "It's nothing."

It would be much easier to let Yukito take over now, given that his other self was less likely to mind being manhandled in such a fashion, but Yukito wouldn't know how to maintain the light he was holding. So, clearly, this was just going to get more awkward.

"Is there a change of clothing?" he asked, trying to delay the likely-inevitable moment when he'd have to end up removing the pants as well.

"Yeah, there is," Touya said, pulling the clothes out of the suitcase and standing up with them in hand. "They won't fit you, but it's better than nothing. And there's a belt."

The young man set them down on the counter. "But you should get out of your pants and let me look at the wound on your leg." No doubt Yue was going to fight this tooth and nail, but Touya could be just as hardheaded, if not worse when it came to the few people he cared about. He'd get a look at that wound even if he had to take Yue's pants off himself.

Sometimes, Yue thought to himself irritably, it would be nicer if Yukito would just laugh. The sense that his other self was trying very, very hard not to laugh was far more annoying than anything else.

With his face so expressionless that it should be telling enough, and his attention firmly fixed at a point on the far wall that was nowhere near Touya, the guardian carefully unfastened the jeans one-handed. Stepping out of them was slightly more complicated, given that he had to be careful of the stomach injury, and the fabric was sticking to the bite wound on his calf.

Once finished he dropped the much-abused fabric with his equally battered jacket, and returned to staring at the wall as though he wasn't finding this situation incredibly awkward.

Touya tried to pretend that this wasn't awkward as well, though he wasn't doing a very good job of it. He knelt down, clearing his throat and pulling out another wipe.

"It looks like a bite..." he said. He was of course stating the obvious, but he didn't know what else to say. He'd just managed to confess years worth of repressed emotion for Yukito, and now he was in a dark bathroom pantsing him. This was one messed up first date or... whatever.

"Hold still," he said, gently brushing the wipe against Yue's leg.

"Only one bite. And it's not that bad." Against a horde of zombies, he rather thought he'd done well, and a hint of pride in Yue's voice reflected that. Only one bite had found purchase in his flesh, even though others had torn at his clothing and he'd received other, minor injuries.

Yue flicked a brief glance downward before resuming his pretense that nothing of the sort was going on. For a second he started to fold his arms across his chest, but remembered before he did more than merely twitch and re-focused his attention on the light again.

It was ridiculous how draining this small effort was. He wasn't even doing anything and he could still feel his power diminishing. Hopefully this wouldn't take much longer, else he'd not be able to fight as well later.

"...you're not injured?" he asked, after another moment's silence.

Edited 2009-08-08 05:37 (UTC)

"No, I'm fine," Touya said, dabbing at the wound a bit more before pulling his own shirt over his head. He deftly ripped it into a workable strip--the towels were too bulky for a leg bandage. Draping the wipe over the bite, he began wrapping the leg.

"It's not so bad," Touya said cheerfully. "You were right."

He couldn't argue that Yue hadn't done his job well. His and Sakura's lack of wounds proved as much. He'd had a good night--far be it from Touya to take that away from him.

Yue glanced down again when Touya removed his shirt as well, blinking in momentary surprise as it was turned into bandages. "I told you," he replied, though his tone had lost much of the cold bite to it. It was merely an observation, in an almost conversational tone.

He didn't immediately say anything else, though, letting the more awkward silence return for several long moments as he watched the bandaging process on his leg. As little as he liked the necessity of it, at least Touya was moving quickly enough, and not making any more comments about the injury.

"I'm not sure how long I can hold the light." The admission was abrupt, and Yue glanced away again as he spoke, toward the change of clothing. The faster this was over with, the better.

Or so he thought. He was ignoring Yukito's opinions on the matter.

"I'm almost done," Touya said, not commenting on how Yue's power was running out. He tied off the bandage and stood up. "You can get dressed now, you're pretty much as clean as is possible now."

He picked up the clean shirt off the sink and held it up for Yue to get into. He didn't have a full-range of movement after all.

"Is this the end of the world?" Touya asked.

Ignoring Yukito's too-casual musing on how much simpler things were when people cooperated with each other, Yue moved forward to take the shirt now that it was being offered. He wasn't so feeble as to need help to get dressed (but it would make it easier, Yukito murmured, and was still ignored) though he did need to dismiss the power he was holding in order to put the shirt on.

He blinked away the faint afterimages after the light disappeared, leaving them in darkness once more, and quickly pulled the shirt on. Touya now couldn't see how awkward the movements were, at the least.

At the question, though, the guardian paused again, then finally shook his head despite the darkness. "I...don't know," he admitted, almost absently pulling his hair free of its braid. "I've never seen anything like this. But..." Another pause. "I hope not."

Edited 2009-08-08 21:23 (UTC)

Touya frowned when Yue took the shirt from him. He'd only been trying to help or be friendly or something, since Yue'd busied one of his hands with the light spell. Which had been extinguished now, leaving them both in darkness.

"Yeah," Touya agreed, sitting on the sink. "There's... a lot of stuff I want to do before the end of the world." Like go on a normal date with Yukito, say goodbye to his father, go to college, get a job that didn't last only three weeks...

"Guess that's kind of hard to understand, since you've lived so long," Touya said with an uncomfortable laugh. "You probably have seen and done so much, after all..." He paused, looking down at the dark floor. "But, if the world ended, would you have any regrets?"

The silence stretched at that, longer than it would take for even Yue to decide how to answer, and well into "awkward" territory. Then came the faint sound of rustling fabric as he finished getting redressed, glad of the darkness that kept him from needing to hide how much each movement hurt.

Finally he stepped closer, reaching out toward where he thought Touya was. "Not anymore," Yukito replied, sounding a little bashful. "Now there isn't anything left unsaid."

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NIGHTSHIFT 42: BLACK ROCK HOTEL

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