damned_institute | Day 45: Breakfast

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Day 45: Breakfast

Mori woke with a start. He lay on the bed for a moment, staring up at the ceiling and sighed quietly. Another day, another round of shifts and people and-- Wait a minute. Breathing in carefully, Mori's brow knit together as he realized that his ribs were no longer broken. After testing his collarbone, he found that it, too, was healing faster than it should have. Not that he was complaining, but there was something odd about broken bones setting so quickly. Pushing himself up out of bed, the teen shook his head, knowing that he'd have another day or two of the sling and then he'd be free from it.

But more important than that was finding out how Mitsukuni was doing. The last thing he remembered was the bathroom and gathering metal. Since they were together at the end of the night, Mori was certain that Mitsukuni would be fine, but...well, he still liked to confirm such things with his own eyes. With the twins gone and Tamaki still missing, Mori didn't want to take any chances anymore. Especially not with the strange announcements this morning.

As usual, his nurse came to collect him and helped him into his sling. Then he followed her quietly into the cafeteria, taking notice of the unusually empty bulletin board. They really were cracking down on it already. Weird. Even weirder? For once, he was the first into the room. Picking up a tray, he pointed out what he wanted, making sure to take double of the pancakes (asking to keep them away from the sausages for now), double of the strawberry jam and biscuits, and an extra helping of fruit. To top it off? Milk. It'd help his bones mend. Hopefully.

Going to a nearby seat, Mori took a look around the empty room and shivered. Kind of eerie in here without anyone else but the nurses. Someone was certain to come sooner or later though, right? He hoped so at least.

[for Chihaya]

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Daniel's confused, anxious expression mirrored Howell's, and he glanced down at the tapping fork, then back up again.

The word hit him, as Howell said it: Bleed. The rest of his appetite vanished.

He had bled in his dreams both nights since his arrival at the Institute... probably as a reflection of his powerlessness. He had not seen the covered wound on his leg, and couldn't recall what it looked like, but he was sure it wasn't worse than a deep scratch. Had Howell seen him injure himself? He couldn't remember that, either.

The question about 'Ryuuzaki' could be answered, at least. He shook his head, a slow arc from side to side, his face wearing an expression of helpless dismay, and spoke in a small voice. "Please don't call me that. I am... I think I am not well. That name will not help, it will -- it makes things worse -- I should never have given it to you."

He took a deep breath. It's time to confront this. Be honest about who you are. "Please call me Daniel."

Edited 2009-11-06 07:03 (UTC)

"Daniel?" Howl echoed. He remembered Sakura (rather, Courtney) correcting him over the bulletin board, and felt his stomach twist in an unappetizing way. The first thing he thought was that maybe he was truly insane, but he dismissed it rapidly. He crushed that thought into a tiny ball and tossed it in the rubbish without giving it a shred of dignity. If there was one thing Howl was able to rely on in this world, it was the sharpness of his own mind. It was something he had always used to slip out of tight spots, and he was damned if he was going to let these odd little contradictions trip him up. He proudly pushed his hair out of his face.

"I'll call you whatever you like," Howl agreed, though he couldn't help but sound incredulous. "Really, though, there's no need to be so hard on yourself. You're perfectly well, or have been, at least up until today. I won't deny that you're a strange, eccentric and rather socially inept man-" Was that too harsh?, he wondered, "-but you've always been lucid!"

Edited 2009-11-07 00:30 (UTC)

Daniel's helplessness shifted, hardened; his eyes narrowed a little. Socially inept?

He considered the accusation, and when he thought about it, he had to concede that a person who was adept at normal interpersonal interaction probably would not have done the things that had put him in his current situation. With this in mind, the sudden tension went out of him, and he gave a small shrug, then a careless, dismissive wave of his pale hand.

"It's true; I have never particularly cared about making friends." Those tedious, pointless niceties. "But Howell, how can you say that I have always been lucid? We have only spoken once before.

"I can assure you now that I was... not myself."

The rest, he couldn't bring himself to describe: how he was deemed legally incompetent, his waste of so much of his father's money... his cringe-worthy attempt to prove himself in Tokyo... it was all so humiliating. He knew, with certainty, that the "world's greatest detective" could never have been such a spectacular failure as to wind up hospitalized for his misdeeds.

"Twice," Howl correctly haughtily, a bit ruffled to have his analysis called into question. Mostly because Daniel (Ryuuzaki?) was right. One or two conversations could hardly reveal a person's sanity or lack thereof. How long had it taken him to realize what the Witch of the Waste was like, after all? Certainly more than a couple of chats.

Howl had come to assume certain things out of the man sitting across from him, and that was probably a poor idea. Some things were the same, such as his self-proclaimed disinterest in friendship. It seemed to fit, and perhaps Howl had taken comfort in that attitude. The company of someone who did not dislike him but held no intentions of getting any closer was a very low-stress sort of arrangement that he could appreciate. Now that his expectations (even if they were the less important ones) were being shaken up, he was allowing himself to become flustered.

"What do you mean, you were not yourself?" he questioned, softening despite himself. It was something just shy of sympathy, but there was interest and investment in the question and what answers it might provoke.

Daniel let the correction pass: Howell was also ill, mentally ill, and given that he'd dreamed of Howell, it stood to reason that Howell could just as easily have dreamed of him. By the same token, he wasn't confused by Howell's mild distress. It is something he would rather not show...? Yes.

He understood this. No one likes to appear rattled, particularly a man who must resent that his sanity is in question... even if the basis for the doubt is strong. His own humiliation was new and raw, yet he realized that his self-deception would not have been possible if he did not in some way have an aptitude for reading the behavior and motivations of others. However, he was unable to apply his talents; lacking prudence, he had always taken every attempt to do so too far.

The mixture of empathy and eager curiosity in Howell's voice was as easy to discern, but deciding how much to reveal to him was another matter. L was secretive because he had reason to be. Daniel now possessed a painful awareness that he had fabricated L's reasons for choosing seclusion out of thin air, that no one was much of a danger to him as himself, and that he was lucky that he had never stumbled across a truly serious crime. The world had no interest in his activities until they became intrusive.

He turned the problem over in his mind, trying to calm the panic that arose when he considered exposing more of the details of his life. L's panic, not mine; Howell is not in the least likely to kill me or haul me off to prison. He was more comfortable with reason than with emotion, so the attempt to soothe his alarm with logic was effective; a few slow, deep breaths seemed to help, too.

Training a level gaze on Howell's face, Daniel opened his mouth to speak. Nothing. He followed his silence with a second attempt.

"I mean that -- since I woke up today, I have known why I am here. I have been" -- his voice froze in his throat before he was able to stop it -- "I have been convinced for some time that I am an investigator. I believed that my skills were in great demand." Apart from the halting nature of his confession, his tone was cool, flat, emotionless.

He couldn't bring himself to mention that the persona which had taken over his life was not only a detective, but one to whom he'd accorded superlatives, one he'd conceptualized as peerless. The claim was so childish that he didn't think he could tolerate the added embarrassment.

Instead, he finished, "Obviously, none of it was based in reality. When you and I spoke before, I still thought -- " (he made an awkward shrug) " -- I thought I was him."

Edited 2009-11-09 12:56 (UTC)

"Oh," was all Howl could say at first. The tale that Ryuuzaki had given him was completely plausible sounding, and Howl would have been perfectly willing to accept it earlier. Ryuuzaki had that attitude to him where he could have listed just about any dark and mysterious profession, and Howl would have been left with little reason not to believe it. His own story, if he ever chose to tell it, was at least as outlandish as anything Ryuuzaki could come up with.

No, it was the way he dismissed such a plain story that made Howl suspicious. He was torn between a respect for Ryuuzaki's privacy and his own curiosity. Ah well. He hardly felt like he was talking to the same man as before anyway, which he found to be acceptable grounds for prying. He hoped that Sophie hadn't rubbed some of her nosiness off on him, but it wasn't unlikely.

"That's hardly unreasonable, though," Howl said aloud before taking a bit of food. "Believing that you're a skilled investigator doesn't cause one's own family haul them off to an asylum. Rather, I thought it would make them suggest that you become employed and make good on those skills."

This was coming close to dangerous territory, and so Daniel chose his next words with even more care than he'd used in choosing the previous ones.

"My father owns a large company; he would rather that I were competent to succeed him as its head. Apart from that -- "

He paused, and sighed. "Apart from that, believing that you are a skilled investigator is not quite the same thing as being a skilled investigator." While he had spied on and harassed neighbors and anyone else unlucky enough to have captured his suspicion, he had never uncovered the culprit of a single real, serious crime. He had excelled mostly in invading the lives of others.

"I did not think that I was skilled in this way myself; instead, I believed that I was someone else. I can't blame my father for discouraging it." Given how badly wrong it had gone as a hobby, and his newfound desire to be well, he couldn't entertain the idea of pursuing any of it as a career.

His own food remained untouched on the tray in front of him.

Howl still lacked a satisfying concrete reason for why Daniel would have theoretically been taken to a mental hospital. But, he conceded, perhaps he was looking for drama. For a story. Something flashy. He would have expected a fantastically tragic, dramatic story for his own imprisonment, if there was one at all. The nurses had never called Howl by anything but his real name.

Of course, this was all assuming that Howl was willing to consider Daniel's story as fact, and not as something going horribly wrong with Ryuuzaki. He had died a couple nights ago, so perhaps it had done something to his head. Powerful magic had a way of making people eccentric, and Ryuuzaki was so very strange already that perhaps it had gone full circle and made him normal all over again.

"Someone else?" he parroted skeptically. It was the most unusual thing about Daniel's story, but the man himself still seemed so mild. Shy, awkward, polite (exceedingly so when compared to Ryuuzaki's direct mannerisms). "That is a bit on the mad side," Howl admitted with a soft scoff. "I still don't see what the fuss is over you, and I cannot sympathize with the idea of doubting your own self. I can say with certainty that I am a sane man." There was a mix of pride and humor in his voice that made it difficult to separate out where he was being sincere.

When Howell finished speaking, Daniel stared at him, deadpan, for about eight seconds. From L, this kind of look could be withering, even derisive, but from Daniel it was only thoughtful.

Howell had claimed, in their last conversation, to possess magical abilities. It is an easy claim to make, and not necessarily indicative of insanity... he seems... vain?... and it would be a way of drawing attention to himself. The claim had made enough of an impression on him that it had been one of the elements of his dreams two nights earlier: he had seen Howell try to perform magic twice. The abilities seemed real.

But it was only a dream. Daniel's brows drew together in a frown. Insane people often insist that they are sane; it's part of their illness. He exhaled, a soft puff of air, and only then realized that he'd been holding his breath.

"Why do you think you are here?" He did his best to sound curious rather than accusatory.

Howl spent those eight seconds squirming under Daniel's stare. Even if it was lighter than anything Ryuuzaki had given him, Howl was not fond of anyone looking at him like that. He could practically hear the gears in their heads turning, as they tried their best to figure him out. Sophie would often look at him like that. He hated not knowing their thoughts, and not being able to change them if they started to wander into territory he was uncomfortable with. Even though he doubted Ryuuzaki was about to start confessing his dark secrets to Howl, or begin relying on him, Howl didn't like it. It was something of a survival instinct.

But why was he here? He had two possible scenarios, and both of them were dark and unpleasant, and relieved him of his control. On one hand, the obvious, and to some, ridiculous answer was that while dimension hopping, he had slipped through the cracks. This place seemed to be a magnet for lost souls from all over existence. Whoever had claimed this space, namely Landel, whether he found it or created it, was doing something to muffle supernatural abilities and keep everyone trapped. No one really knew why, but Howl could hear how tickled Landel sounded in his announcements. He was having fun.

The second option he liked even less than being trapped in some lunatic's dollhouse. It laid out a situation where Howl had truly lost his mind.

"No one has given me a proper, ah, diagnosis, shall we say, but I suspect claiming that I can perform magic didn't impress my family," he sighed, leaning on one arm. "Very little that I do impresses them anymore."

"Have you asked for a proper diagnosis?" Since he'd woken up at Landel's, none had been given to him, but his father had been mentioned, and the fact of his own illness was made clear to him on a persistent basis. The staff had never acknowledged that he might be anyone but Daniel Laurier. They seemed to trust that, in time, he would understand on his own why he was there.

"Also, do you think your family would have hospitalized you merely on the basis of a claim that you could perform magic? Have you ever tried to act on the claim, maybe?"

His words were calm, now that the focus was no longer on him, and he sat back in his chair, watching Howell; he had lost all interest in his breakfast. The questions he'd asked seemed to him to be the most rational and necessary, under the circumstances.

Howl flinched away from the series of questions, all pertaining to his mental health. In the end, Daniel wasn't so different from Ryuuzaki. He lacked that dark edge, but he was still full of inquiries. This time, though, he was asking about Howl's personal life; something Howl couldn't remember Ryuuzaki ever taking a particular interest in.

Howl needed to keep his hands busy, and so pulled his hair over a shoulder with easy, practiced movements that spelled out the confidence he lacked.

"If I say yes," he began thoughtfully, "you'll only think I was imagining things, and that I continue to do so. Do you suppose that you were imagining it as well, the other night? As you can see, I lack any proof that I ever changed my hair color." He tugged at a strand of his long, dark hair. It was nothing like the golden blond he had created in front of Ryuuzaki. Not a single trace remained. It was all rather dismaying.

Still, he smiled easily at Ryuuzaki. "So which part of your mind is it that you believe?"

This should be a difficult subject; certainly, questions were raised by the fact that Howell seemed to know about something that Daniel had dreamed, and that he could not remember having told him about in the interim. He focused on the table between them, looking bemused, his lips pressed together.

As Daniel tried to concentrate on his memory of their previous conversation, a haze developed around it, obscuring the possibility of any obvious conclusion. Did Howell offer to show me how he could change his haircolor? If that was the case, it's possible that each of us happened to dream it, or that I never dreamed it at all, and have only misremembered his suggestion that he might make a demonstration of it. This seemed the most likely explanation, the most sensible one, even if the details continued to slip out of his grasp.

He realized that the "question" Howell had posed only had a single possible answer, and he raised his dark, troubled gaze to deliver it.

"I believe the part which I know to be sane," he began, then paused to take a deep breath.

"This Ryuuzaki business... it is a fantasy, one which has caused me a great deal of trouble over the years. Please understand... I agree that it is time to put it behind me. I do not want to fight it. I do not want to indulge my own self-deception anymore.

"Moving forward is the only possibility, Howell."

When Daniel spoke, it was in a gentler tone than might have been expected: he was irritated, but his resolve had been strengthened by the fact that it was challenged. Howell was not culpable for his own illness, or for Daniel's.

All in all, Daniel sounded satisfied with his own certainty.

Edited 2009-11-22 11:38 (UTC)

Howl was not satisfied. He didn't want to give Ryuuzaki a single centimeter, because as soon as he did, it would be acknowledging that his version of things was truth. And yet, Howl realized that he had already given Ryuuzaki plenty of room to push his convictions. He wanted to excuse himself and walk away, but he didn't. It didn't feel right just abandoning him to whatever this fate entailed. Howl wondered if that was how Daniel was looking at him, with the same determined pity. Howl sighed.

"It isn't only a matter of moving up and down. Things would be a great deal easier if that was all there was to it," he disagreed in a clipped tone. Not angry, but scared. He desperately hoped it didn't show. Howl leaned in on his arm, and a curtain of hair obscured part of his face.

Life came at you from all angles, and the past never stayed behind you. It could just as easily be an argument for Howl's own insanity. It answered nobody's questions. Neither of them could come to an agreement, when their perspectives had become so skewed.

"If I am mad, where is my family?" he asked, suddenly oddly solemn. "They will not allow me to contact my sister, who's the only one who could have possibly sent me here. They will not acknowledge the dependents that were with me just before I arrived. I don't know what happened to any of them.

I don't deny that this place is... conceivable, but I'm not a stupid man, Ryuuzaki. Neither are you. The details are all wrong."

"I believe that all of your questions about the details can be explained by taking into account that this is a psychiatric facility. For example, your sister may have instructed the Institute to disallow any contact until there has been... palpable improvement in your condition."

He continued to speak in the same quiet, rational tone, sounding far more patient and self-assured than he felt. Doubting the existence of the "dependents," he didn't mention them at all.

"It isn't a matter of stupidity, Howell. I know that I am not stupid, and I can say that I do not have the impression that you are, either." He leaned forward over his abandoned tray to make his point, to underscore the vital nature of his words, but he never sounded fervent.

"It is a matter of recognizing and admitting that we need help, a matter of accepting what is true, rather than what we would like to be true. Apart from that, we have been given a chance to change -- to improve -- our lives, to live our own, rather than someone else's.

"You do not think that this is a chance worth taking?"

Edited 2009-11-25 14:27 (UTC)

Howl sat back, both to pull away from Ryuuzaki's increased proximity, as well as to show his pride through his posture. His moment of honesty disappeared, covered quickly by a facade of self-assurance. He could not doubt. If he doubted, then this place would be victorious. (That was a moderately paranoid, insane thought, he involuntarily acknowledged.) It was not outside of the realm of magic to do this to a person. The human mind was complex, so specifically imprinting a new set of memories on Ryuuzaki would be difficult, but there was nothing out of the reach of a wizard or witch. Assuming, of course, that you had the power and the mind.

He placed his hands on the table and looked directly at Ryuuzaki, likewise faking his confidence, though possibly to a greater degree. If he showed doubt, Ryuuzaki would notice. He would latch onto it, and it would only exacerbate his... whatever this was. Oh, Howl was going to make sure Ryuuzaki knew precisely how little he appreciated this joke once he was back to himself. In order to facilitate this, Howl might have to actually do something about it. That thought made the whole situation even more inconvenient.

"It's nothing but an elaborate little lie," Howl scoffed. "Come now, you say that you've got the mind of a detective. Put it to use!" Howl's hands lifted off the table to make a sweeping gesture.

"Only two showers per week are allowed. Is that sanitary? No phone calls are allowed, when even prisoners are allowed a degree of outside communication." He leaned back in, and pointed towards the accumulated patient body in the cafeteria. "Patients are constantly waking up with bizarre injuries. Burns, bites, lacerations. Injuries that they could not have possibly inflicted upon themselves or one another, if this were indeed a mental health facility. It is a rather good reconstruction of a modern mental health facility," he admitted grudgingly, "but they don't care about the details. And why bother? It isn't as though we can escape. We're being toyed with, and you're part of it!"

For a long moment, Daniel continued to lean forward, staring intently at Howell. Everything about his searching gaze suggested that he was weighing the words that had been said to him.

We have not exerted ourselves enough to need more showers than we take; the place itself is quite clean, and showers present an obvious danger to the psychologically disturbed. The collective mental state of the patient body can also easily account for any injuries. Far from not caring about the details, a nurse has been present for every aspect of my experience here, apart from dinner and sleeping; I could call one now, to end this exchange.

It is a tiresome conversation, but I cannot force Howell to see reason.

The idea of casting a pleading glance at a nurse tempted him, but he made the decision not to. If his goal was to be a mature, functional adult, a member of society rather than an unwanted observer of certain elements of it, then it would be necessary for him to see this discussion through to its conclusion.

And he was determined to conclude it: to draw a line past which he was unwilling to indulge this kind of talk. He hoped he would be able to do it without losing his temper.

"Howell," he began, in his gentle, patient tone, "everything you have mentioned has the same obvious and intrinsic explanation: we are patients in a psychiatric hospital. We are not what I would describe as reliable witnesses. It seems that if we stay on this subject, we are only likely to continue to disagree, and to waste the remaining time in which we could be eating our breakfasts. I don't want to discuss it any more than we already have... not even this much.

"I only wanted you to understand the realization I have come to."

His voice dropped, and he began to look and sound drained, almost dejected. "Please... I can't continue to live under false pretenses. There are worse places than this, and I will stay as long as I have to, but... I would like to go home, and then I never want to find myself in this situation again." It was the truest thing he had said in weeks.

"In the meantime, neither of us has any choice in the matter. We will be here until we are well enough to leave." He made an uncomfortable little shrug, then lifted his cup of orange juice for a drink, which had the added benefit of hiding the lower half of his face.

Daniel seemed absolutely convinced of his story, and Howl's will to fight slipped away from him. It wasn't Daniel's stubbornness that was the worst, though; it was his patience. It was the way he spoke to Howl like he was a misguided child. It reminded him more of his parents than anything else.

He knew what he was and what he wanted, but it hardly mattered in the face of someone who had already decided for themselves. Howl was well-accustomed to that sort of attitude. Daniel saw a madman, and he refused to acknowledge any of the inconsistencies that surrounded them. Simply reminding Howl that he was insane collapsed his arguments like a house of cards. It was a pathetic sort of discussion where Howl could make no headway. And so, only several steps into it, he backed down with an annoyed scowl.

He hated arguing anyway. Howl sighed and rested his chin in his hand. His appetite was lost.

"You're right about having no choice," Howl muttered, but his sullen face and posture made it clear that he completely and utterly disagreed with the rest of Daniel's assessments.

"Where is your home anyway?" he asked, suddenly curious about how much Ryuuzaki had been inaccurate about.

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Day 45: Breakfast

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