damned_institute | Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

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Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

The late-afternoon sun filled the large, open Sun Room. It was almost enough to make you sleepy, Euphemia thought, as she walked in, brushing a little glitter off her shirt. She didn't particularly feel like she was up to much - the worrying about everyone had drained her, as much as she'd tried not to think too much about it.

With that thought in the back of her mind, she walked over towards the bulletin board. It looked like it was cleared off at the end of the day, because now it was filled with information. She made a note of the 'primer' post, then began copying the maps onto some paper she'd taken with her from the Arts and Crafts Room.

One more thing struck her, though - the idea of visitors. Was this what all the announcements about graduates were? She thought of the others then, and frowned, hoping that neither of them were going through anything like that today.

[reserved for the tallmore.]

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A smile crossed Tim's face for a minute, there and then gone again. Javert wasn't wasting time or words; Tim liked that about him immediately. Tim wasn't really one for small talk these days, anyway.

He took the seat, as offered, and said, "I want to know what goes on up there. I was told that the locations are well known, but they're not known to me. I have reason to believe that someone I know was subjected to one of these things, so I wanted to learn more before I tried to talk to him about it." Bart hadn't exactly been able to talk about it coherently, anyway. But with the way he'd been talking, and everything Tim had learned today, it seemed pretty likely that Bart had been a victim of these "studies." Tim still wanted more information, though.

"That's good..." The thought was cut short, and Endrance turned towards the Sun Room doors, frowning. Something was going on - and whatever it was, it was causing his dormant Avatar to react. It wasn't much, only a faint whisper, but it was enough. That could only mean that another Epitaph User was in the building. Who, then?

He closed his eyes for just a moment, trying to get a better sense of what was going on. One last pulse, and the whisper was quiet once again. Haseo...

"...yes," he answered, quietly, a moment later. "Three of them...one that I knew years ago, and two from the time I remember..."

This was new; nobody had ever come in search of information due to concern before. Still, he could hardly fault Alvin for wanting to find out, regardless of whether or not his reason was actually true. He would just have to remember to refrain from using names; that was a mistake he wouldn't make twice.

"Those chosen for experiments are taken shortly after dinner, before the doors unlock; at least, that seems to be the case for those to whom I've spoken and from personal experience. I can't recall the details exactly, but there were orderlies; escape was more or less impossible." He'd talked about this enough times that his voice was its usual calm, slightly dry tone, and he was grateful for that. "The experimental rooms are located on the second floor; I can show you on a map if you wish."

"It is," Euphy agreed. "Though it's a little sad that the only person who knows you is someone you haven't worked with. Were you just in different units?" That kind of thing could certainly happen - it would be like two people going to the same school, but being in different classes. You just wouldn't cross paths.

The pink-haired girl looked towards that door again. How to describe it, then, without breaking her promise not to reveal his heritage or identity? She couldn't say they were blood relatives...

"Ah, Lelouch? We've known each other for a long time. He's really smart, and really..." She trailed off for just a moment, thinking about the earlier conversation.

"He had a lot on his mind the last time I saw him," she said. "There was a lot going on, and he was worried about a lot of people. He might not look like it on the outside, but he's a good person." I'll always believe that. No matter what.

The look that suddenly crossed Endrance's face reminded Hanatarou a little of the way someone would look back in Soul Society when using or sensing reiatsu. But...Endrance wasn't a shinigami, he already knew that much, though he hadn't attempted to look at the man's spirit thread or anything - with the side effects that had he usually didn't bother unless it was necessary.

But the moment passed and Endrance finished talking. "Oh, that's..." Are they also friends of Atoli he wanted to ask, but didn't, because really he didn't have any reason. He'd barely known her at all, even if now he was making the acquaintance of those who had known her before. "Um. I guess not good, because they're here, but...is everything okay?"

A brief shake of the head. "No. We are all solitary warriors within the Organization, only ever working as a small unit when special circumstances arise." She gave the girl a small smile again. "As it is, she didn't join the Organization until I left it. I'm apparently quite the topic amid the barracks after the handlers have gone to bed."

Teresa chose not to comment on how Lelouch looked, but nodded. "If you say so, then I have no reason to believe otherwise. What do you intend on doing while you are here?"

Well, this... wasn't good. Roland had felt sluggish all day long, and neither had he really felt like communicating. His stomach ached from gorging himself the night before, and even worse, he could feel the rumbling of discontent from the demon within. This upcoming night was going to be hell on earth, of that he was certain; which further meant that he was very much not looking forward to what was going to be going on. At all.

For now, he remained sprawled on the same sofa he had been for the entire day, not wanting to move or think or do much of anything. If he didn't move, neither would the rotting flesh inside of him. And if that didn't move, he wouldn't have much of a problem. ...reminded him that he needed to brush his teeth thoroughly in the next shift. The last thing he wanted was horrifically bad breath, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. Except bury his face in the cushions and hope no one bothered him, of course.

((Closed to Peter))

Personal experience. So Javert had been through this, too? How many people, exactly, had come through this place, either to leave, or to die, or to be subjected to some kind of awful experiments? How long had this place been operating, and how did it pull people in from various worlds and times? The more information he got, the more questions he found to be unanswered.

Tim was careful not to try to ask personal questions about the study. Not yet. He might get there, of course, because he wanted to have some basis for his theories about Bart. For now, though, he'd just go with this.

"I don't have a map with me, but if you show me, that would be good."

He absorbed the information easily enough. So they weren't medicating people during the day, but they were doing this shit at night? Well, yeah, that made tons of sense! As far as mental facilities went, they weren't really very realistic or believable, as far as Tim was concerned. But the inside didn't seem to matter as much as the outside world. If there really was a world out there beyond the zombie town, that was. He wasn't sure what he thought about that yet.

Javert turned the journal pages until he came to his map. He'd updated it recently, but he fancied he knew his way around most of the Institute by heart now.

"If you take the stairs at the end of the main hallway closest to the patient rooms," he said, tapping the indicated stairwell, "and head down the nearest hallway, it's the second door on your left. The door is locked but gives way if enough force is applied to it; the lock could probably be picked if you had the right tools. The individual rooms should be on your right after that."

Feldt had looked up once Harvey sat down near her, although she didn't say anything to him right away. She noticed the bandages that covered a good part of his face, and while she was curious about whatever injury he may have had, she didn't need to know. It was none of her business, and it really wasn't her place to ask that sort of thing in the first place. It didn't matter, anyway. Feldt had never been the one to start conversations - Christina had always done that. However, Christina wasn't there, and that left her to try to figure a lot of these social things out on her own. She glanced away from Harvey after his nurse had left. She was lost when it came to starting up a conversation.

Thankfully, Feldt didn't need to start anything. The man had done it himself. Granted, it wasn't much. All he had said was that he couldn't help her.

She didn't look back at him after he said something, but she nodded.

"... That's okay." She said, her voice quiet.

Badou would have given anything (even one of his cigarettes if he got it back later) to be sitting in front of his TV right now, at home, watching some guy hit his baby daddy with a chair. That was all he needed for a fulfilling life. Fucked up hilarious violence that didn't involve any thinking at all except to come up with a catchy cheer for the guy throwing the baby as a wailing ball of projectile weapon. He wasn't a complicated guy.

Unfortunately, the life of a hardboiled PI wasn't uncomplicated even if he ignored all of the irrelevant shit and just focused on saving his ass and getting it out of this place. He was probably going crazier. That had to be what it meant when he started grasping at zombies and crackpot theories or whatever the hell he was doing. He might as well give up on it for now. If nothing else, he had more incentive not to die here: the last thing he wanted was to end up looking like Haine for eternity.

Since there was no TV to atrophy in front of here, he ended up sunroom pretty much at random. He spread himself over one of the couches like a bad stain, one leg hooked over the back, an arm hanging limply off the side (to trip the unsuspecting), the rest of his limbs on some part of the couch that supported them well enough but, more importantly, meant he could have the whole thing to himself in the most obnoxious manner possible. And a good view of the doors was a nice bonus. He hadn't managed to catch sight of a familiar ~~pair of boobs~~ head of red hair all day. It would be nice if he didn't feel like he was on the ass end of a really bad joke when it came to that not-so-little detail too.

[For Gio!]

Edited 2009-08-23 07:51 (UTC)

That visit had gone more or less how he'd expected. Peter had known going into it that his mother wasn't going to be able to help them. No, it worked the other way around: they had to help her. He had to admit that the most bothersome part of the whole thing had been accepting that Landel had somehow gotten the jump on their mother, when she was usually the sort of person who was two steps ahead of everyone else.

In other words, it had been a downer to see her, but it hadn't affected him quite as much as Nathan's visit. Besides, if they'd decided to bring Nathan back, the same thing could happen with Angela--not that Peter wanted that. Even if she didn't know who she was right now, she was probably way safer out in the "real" world.

The experience had left him feeling like he needed some down time, though, and so he didn't take the offer to go any further than the Sun Room. He and Nathan had been separated by the nurses (they didn't want them seeing too much of each other and not enough of anyone else), and so Peter was left to find a place to sit on his own.

He picked out a couch that he thought was empty, but then raised an eyebrow when he got closer and realized that someone was actually laying there. Come to think of it, that white hair looked pretty familiar...

"Roland?" The name was out of his mouth before he could even think twice about it.

That was it? For some reason, Harvey had been expecting much more of a reaction from someone with pink hair. Maybe he was generalizing, but he would have thought that any girl who went to the effort to dye their hair that color would be the loud, hyper type.

Not that he knew much about kids this girl's age. He'd tried to appeal to young people when attempting to get elected, and he'd been willing to talk to them openly about their issues and problems with Gotham, but that had been a different time and a different place. He wasn't that man anymore, and he had nothing he could think of to discuss with this girl.

There was one other thing that stood out about her -- who just said "that's okay" when someone greeted them so brusquely? It wasn't like he felt guilty about his words, but...

"Are you just trying to be polite, or do you really not need it?" If it was the latter, then maybe she would be useful.

Geez, today had really been one bad thing after another so far. First there'd been the whole zombie mess the night before - which he had the injuries to remember them by, not to mention enough nightmare fuel to keep him going for, say, forever, and that was assuming the night before that stopped haunting his dreams sometime in the next lifetime - then there'd been the news that ZEX had lost someone he really cared about in all the chaos. Then Tim telling him that firstly, he was Robin, and secondly, people thought Batman was dead where he was from. And then he'd quite possibly messed things up so badly with Grell that, if Bats was right, there'd probably be another corpse turning up sometime soon and it was going to be called Wally West, the dumbest guy alive...

And like that wasn't enough, his painkillers had worn off, meaning that his left shoulder and arm were a mass of throbbing pain. It really, really didn't seem fair.

But as much as he might want to just curl up and sleep until the world in general stopped trying to kick his ass, he also knew that he couldn't let himself do that. He was supposed to be meeting with someone, or at least trying to find out a way to undo his mistakes, and since he didn't see anyone who looked like Alfred - assuming that was what the person had been telling him anyway - he figured that made it option two.

Picking a couch that gave him a good view of the area, Wally carefully lowered himself down onto it and stretched out with a sigh. That felt much better than trying to sit up. Now he just had to hope he hadn't gotten the wrong place or time or something.

[for Alfred]

Alfred had stopped by the kitchen, after speaking with Richard, and picked up a few apples. They wouldn't be too messy and were easy to hide. It couldn't hurt to have food readily available during the night... Although, from what he knew about Wally West, he probably wouldn't have any apples left once he was done talking to the man.

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he looked around the room for Wally. The man had alluded to the fact that he might know Bruce, in their conversation on the bulletin. Perhaps he would know a little bit more about what seemed to be going on, what with different universes and everything. The thought occurred to Alfred that it was possible this would not be the Flash that existed in his 'universe', but there was little that he could discern without actually talking to him.

He glanced around the room, and it wasn't long before he spotted a man with red hair sitting one of the room's many couches. He made his way over, taking in the man's apparent injuries with some concern as he drew closer.

"Excuse me, sir?" Alfred approached the man, "I believe that I spoke with you earlier, on the bulletin? Would I be correct in assuming that you're Wally West?" He sat down on the couch, a respectful distance from Wally, noticing that the other man appeared to be in pain. It was rather unfortunate that he didn't have any medical supplies readily available to him, or he might be able to make the man a little bit more comfortable... As it was, he offered Wally one of the apples instead. There wasn't much else he could do, and he recalled something about the man having a rather monstrous appetite.

Chihaya had spent ten whole minutes locked in a bathroom stall reminding himself why he wasn't going to cry. The visit had been terrible and beautiful and sad. He didn't think he'd ever get to see his foster father again, ever have the chance to thank him, to....be sure that Lord Michael didn't hate him.

The nurse eventually lost her patience and Chihaya walked out, splashed his face with cold water and....refused to see himself in the mirror. He had to stop being like this. He was right, he'd made the right decision and now he was going to live because... he had this chance. It couldn't be wasted.

Walking past the bulletin reminded him he was supposed to meet somebody! Feeling awful, he began to search the Sun Room for his new friend. Long white hair.

He found a possible candidate and approach, smile perfectly in place. A new friend would be good. Something else to focus on, somebody to love and care for. A new family, even.

"Hello...are you Kibitoshin?"

To Kibitoshin's relief, it wasn't long before he heard someone saying his name. Turning towards them he found himself looking at a gir- no, wait, a young man, he corrected. Very pretty with long, dark hair and wearing a friendly smile, even if the Kaioshin had the vaguest impression that he'd been crying earlier. What a relief! He returned the smile and got up to greet him with an outstretched hand.

"That's me! And you're, um..." They hadn't mentioned names, had they?! Oh, no, it would have been just too embarrassing if he'd forgotten it already! He rubbed the back of his neck, apologetic, and made a tentative guess. "... the angel? I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name."

"Oh," he laughed, lightly, "I'm Chihaya. And don't worry, it's my fault. Plus it's nice having people not know who I am right away!"

Chihaya sat down and smiled some more. So, this man was a sort of not-angel from a far off place called the other World where dead people went. In a way it sounded unpleasant, especially after last night, so Chihaya could only assume it was a heaven of sorts.

"It's nice to finally meet you. And strange too, I wasn't sure I'd meet any angels here, even if they're not that same as us. What's it like where you're from?"

Kibitoshin tried hard not to let just how relieved he was about that show on his face. Inevitably, he failed. But he wasn't going to let that get in the way of their conversation. Chihaya, was it? He took a seat opposite.

"You too!" Now that he was starting to relax a little, the smile and the words came more easily to him. "I'm still getting used to the idea of other universes, let alone angels. I'm from a planet in Other World- where people go when they die, in my universe- called Kaioshinkai. All of the Kaioshins used to live there before-"

He cut himself off swiftly. No need to talk about something like that unless it was necessary, especially not when he could feel himself giving in to a nostalgic sigh just from the reminder of home. "- well, that's where they lived. It's really peaceful there, not to mention beautiful. What about you?"

Roland's response was in his usual vein of brilliance and pithy wit, well-suited for an author and a leader of men, to say nothing of the dark cunning of a demon and the leader of the Asuras. "...ngh."

Even still, after a moment, he tilted his head ever-so-slightly, his bleary gray eyes seeming a bit less focused without his glasses on- they were beneath the couch so no one would step on them. While Roland was usually pale, now he was even moreso, and he clearly wasn't doing all that well. But he hadn't stood up, so that was all right. "...Peter. How are you?" Maybe talking to someone would help him ignore the pain in the pit of his stomach?

"A whole planet for the dead?" Chihaya asked, enthusiasm so strong it could be bottled. He noticed the pause, but wasn't going to push. they both needed good things to think about.

"It's sounds lovely! Do you travel to other planets much? I'm from Eden. If you ask me, it's a lot like Earth, even if others refuse to admit it. Lots of green land and blue seas. It's far away, but we have a moon base closer to Earth. The buildings are all very old though. And HUGE! Most of them. We never get visitors from other planets though...."

One minute he was headed to Zex's room, and the next it was morning. One minute he was standing in a hardware store, and the next his nurse was waking him up clucking something about sleeping all day, and Teisel was getting pretty tired of missing hours of his day with no explanation. A choice tidbit from Todd's file floated to the front of his mind, that Todd had missing time, unaware and with no memory of any of his 'episodes.' It was an uncomfortable parallel, and for now Teisel had bigger things to worry about.

Like that Sheena person and her little note. He'd posted one to try and verify her claim, though it occurred to him that he probably wouldn't be able to tell if someone decided to fake Forte's terrible handwriting.

Prepared to be disappointed, Teisel wandered back over to the board to see if he'd gotten an answer, coming dangerously close to shrieking in surprise to find the kid himself waiting there.

"Forte?" he squeaked. Embarrassing. It was just Forte; it wasn't like a ghost or anything (though the feeling was difficult to shake). Clearing his throat, he gave the kid a once-over. "You look like crap."

Giovanni never thought he would be so thrilled to be walking the halls of a mental institution; compared to the arts and crafts room of aforementioned mental institution, however, the rest of the building felt like heaven on earth. He needed to make sure he didn't make a similar mistake in choosing a place to spend this shift, so he opted for the sunroom. It may be boring, he thought, but boring is infinitely preferable to uncomfortable.

As he turned into the sunroom, Giovanni nearly had to do a double-take. He hadn't seen one familiar face the whole day, and so realizing that the man on the couch was that nosy, redheaded partner of Haine's came as a welcome surprise. It seemed like things were about to get a little more fun. Giovanni smiled and tilted his head as he approached, hollowly mimicking friendliness. He sat himself down in an armchair across from the couch, crossing one leg over the other and placing his hands on his knees, and then looked at Badou expectantly.

"It's a pleasure to see you here, Badou."

"Not exactly. There's a whole other dimension for the dead. I just live on a planet in that dimension," Kibitoshin explained, smile only broadening at Chihaya's question. His enthusiasm was infectious; it wasn't long before he was swept along with it himself. "But it is lovely, even if it does get a little lonely sometimes. My ancestor and I are the only ones there, mostly."

'Eden' didn't mean much to him as a name, but the description certainly rang a few bells. "That does sound like Earth! And I should know, I've seen an awful lot of other planets. You must miss it a lot, huh?"

When he heard Teisel's voice, Forte spun the chair around to face him with a wide grin. Teisel was the last person Forte felt he really needed to see, and know he was alive (and judging by the bulletin notes, he needed proof as much as anyone else - it was still strange and kind of... embarrassing anyone had been that upset he was gone).

"You should have seen the other guy."

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Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

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