damned_institute | Day 43: Waiting Room/Lobby 2, Third Shift

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Day 43: Waiting Room/Lobby 2, Third Shift

It would have been impossible not to see this coming, but after the night he'd had and seeing Euphy in the cafeteria-- hadn't the past twenty-four hours been enough? He couldn't do this anymore, not after seeing her walking around as if nothing had happened and knowing that Suzaku was going through a similar ordeal. His knight-- no, former knight now-- had been so transformed by her death, and having to behave now as if none of that had occurred had to be-- but it was out of Lelouch's hands now. Both of them were, and although he would have liked nothing more than to speak to her again or tell Suzaku why he couldn't tell him what had happened, he couldn't do that to either of them. It would be easier for them this way.

For him, however, the torment was just beginning. There was a wide variety of people the institute staff could have chosen from that would have a deep impact on him, but when the most obvious choice would have the worst-- he couldn't do this! He had spent almost all of his time here carefully shutting out thoughts of Nunnally after Suzaku had told him what would happen to her, but if he had to come face to face with her-- the walls were already beginning to crumble, and if it hadn't been for the fact that he knew his nurse would have grabbed and probably sedated him the instant he tried to bolt, he would have done so immediately.

As things were, he allowed himself to be led placidly through the Sun Room and the main hall, eyes downcast and shoulders beginning to quake ever so slightly with barely contained emotion. Nunnally-- he hadn't had a conversation with her-- a real conversation, not something rushed over the phone that hid more from her than he ever wanted and not something filled with lies and false reassurances, but a real conversation where he could ask how her day had been and lightly cradle her hand in his as she excitedly told him about the latest tidbit Sayoko had told her about Japanese culture or expressed worry about something in class she hadn't fully understood or sweetly smiled at him as she--

Lelouch shut his eyes tightly, barely hearing the nurse as she left him in the lobby to find a seat and somehow keep himself preoccupied while he waited and tried his hardest not to remember what the rest of his conversation with Suzaku had held that night. If he did...

Slowly, he began to walk over to one of the chairs, all but collapsing into it once he'd reached it and sagging forwards so that his elbows rested on his knees and only barely kept him seated upright. He didn't know how much more he could take, and if his visitor was Nunnally, then-- then what? He wasn't sure. And Nunnally-- what was he supposed to tell her? What could he even say? How could anyone expect him to talk to her now as if everything was normal when he had to-- when there was no way he could--

He stared down at the floor and waited, face blank. He would just have to get through this somehow, and after that-- he would deal with that later. He had to.

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The sound of light laughter echoed in the hallway outside the waiting room. One of the staff nurses could be heard next, asking, "You're awfully excited to see your brother, aren't you, Natalie?" The blonde girl in the wheelchair nodded. "I miss him a lot," she said. "Is it time yet?"

The nurse nodded, then wheeled the girl's chair through the doorway. She smiled brightly, and if she'd been able to open her eyes, they would have sparkled with delight. She held a string of paper cranes in her lap - one of her classmates had told her a story about how if you made a thousand, you would have a wish granted. She had then asked everyone to help her make as many as they could.

The string wasn't nearly a thousand cranes, but they would get there. Then her wish for her brother to be well and come home would come true.

The chair came to a stop right next to the young man's seat. "I've really missed you, Brendan," she said, voice trembling just a little with emotion.

The announcement had barely sunk in before Phoenix found his nurse coaxing him cheerfully toward the front of the building, telling him that his visitor had arrived. His stomach sank. In an intellectual way, he'd been curious about the visitors before now, when they were an abstract uncertainty. The announcement had been cheerfully sure in its proclamations, though, and had told him in those bright, calm, mechanical tones that he would be meeting a "graduate." Someone who'd been here, maybe, or at least somewhere like here. Someone who'd been brainwashed.

Not anyone innocent, he didn't pray, because he wasn't a praying man, even if he didn't know what else you called it when you begged something invisible to spare you. Make it someone I put behind bars. Make it Morgan, or Engarde, or - argh, you can make it Gant, if you want. Just make it someone like that.

The chair creaked under him as he sat, a little numbly, watching other patients trickle into the room to await their guests. Don't believe everything you hear, Phoenix, he told himself gamely, forcing himself to sit straighter. Just because that's the announcement they're giving you doesn't make it true. You didn't believe everything Landel said, did you?

Edited 2009-08-17 21:43 (UTC)

Scourge had really, really needed that quiet moment in the chapel. The noise of people talking was never deafening, but a gentle, mostly-alone mostly-silence was very soothing after the chaos of last night and today's morning.

And besides this, it had given him a breather before he had to face his "visitor". He wondered who they'd be putting up to him. The intercom seemed to indicate that the vistors were regurgitated past prisoners, but he hadn't heard anything about other Decepticons before Lugnut and Starscream got here. If they'd been brainwashed it was probably someone pretty weak-willed anyway. Dead End, maybe. Perhaps an Autobot, a visit from Optimus Prime trapped in a human mind would be priceless.

Or, if they wanted to save time and money, Spike Witwicky.

Scourge sat in his chair and slouched, head tilted off to the side as he idly watched the door for any face or voice that seemed familiar and pondered how best to go about entertaining himself with the pathetic mindless fool who'd let himself be taken in by Landel's tricks.

It wasn't long before a nurse showed in an average-looking man, dark-haired and blandly-dressed, looking worn and worried and uncertain as he looked around-- as if he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be there.

After a moment, he spotted Scourge, and stared at him for a few moments before approaching with only the slightest hesitation, pausing a few feet away.

"... Joshua. You're... looking well," he said, awkwardly, in his deep, familiar voice.

Well, it wasn't Spike Witwicky. Scourge looked his face over, trying to pick out recognizable features on the curved, soft human face. Nobody came to mind.

"Sorry, I'm not Joshua. He's over there." Scourge indicated an empty chair on the other side of the room, grinning lazily. There was a good line.

Voice, voice, he knew that--oh no.

The man's eyes flickered towards the chair, then back to Scourge, a frown crossing his face before he visibly steeled himself.

"I... can't humor your delusions, Joshua, not if you're to get better," he said, and looked away for a moment before covering the movement by sitting in the chair across from Scourge.

All humor disappeared from Scourge's face as a feeling of horror began to settle somewhere around his breakfast.

"I'm not Joshua," he stated firmly, glaring at the other man. He shifted away as the stranger sat down. "And you're...you're not him. You can't be."

Cyclonus was stronger than Scourge, far too strong for this place. Maybe it was some complex trick to make them lose hope, some human imitating his friend's voice.

Utena had been hoping and hoping ever since finding out that today was Visitor's Day that she wouldn't be chosen to participate. There was no way she wanted to see the face of someone she cared about being twisted for the institute's terrible purposes. Unfortunately for her, right after brunch, a nurse came to give her the bad news: that "Yomi" had a very special visitor, and that he was going to meet her in the lobby right away. Utena demanded to know who it was, but the nurse merely chided her for being rude and then told her that it was going to be a surprise.

Just remember: whoever they bring in here, they're not real. They're not real, Utena told herself, clenching her fists tightly on her lap as she was sat down in the waiting room. Still, even as she thought that, she had to wonder if the "visitors" really did look and sound as real as Harley had described them. The other girl had seemed extremely shaken just talking about the friend that had come to see her. Could Landel really make a clone or a creature look and act that close to what really existed? If it wasn't a clone, was his brainwashing really that good?

Utena grit her teeth and kept her eyes focused firmly on the door, waiting.

He sighed, the noise almost-sorrowful, almost-annoyed, and made no move towards his friend. "I... know you're not happy about this," Joshua was never happy about rehab or therapy, "but you know they're trying to help you. I just want you to... be yourself again, Joshua, not run away from m-- from the world into your drugs and fantasies."

Shifting a little, he made a short gesture, as if he was going to reach out Scourge before thinking the better of it.

Scourge's hand tightened on the arm of his chair, his nails leaving long furrows in the soft fabric. "Look, I don't know what the slag you're up to here, but I'm not who you keep saying I am. And I don't think you're who you keep saying you are."

Not Cyclonus. Not Cyclonus. Cruel and sadistic, but there's no way it could be his friend.

"Who are you even supposed to be, anyway?"

The man looked wearily unsurprised, rubbing his eyes for a moment before replying, "Levi. Leveritt Gale. I'm your friend. Remember?" The last word was not just a prompt, halfway between a plea and a question. "You practically live on-- lived on my couch, Joshua."

He makes another aborted gesture, hesitates, then completes it, leaning forward to touch the back of his friend's hand, noting its steadiness without really thinking about it. Either he's drugged to the gills, or he's through withdrawal, Levi thought, then mentally shook himself.

Forcing Joshua through rehab wasn't his job right now. Thank God for that; he was miserable at it anyway.

Scourge recoiled like Cyclonus was holding a blowtorch towards him, nearly snarling at him. "You're not my friend," he growled, tensing up as if preparing to dive at him. His voice grew increasingly more upset. "I don't know you. I don't want to know you. All I know is you're not Cyclonus so stop pretending to be, you filthy little...meatbag!"

It was HK's trademark epithet, not his, but it was the first good insult that came to mind. And it was either a good insult or his nails going through this horrific impostor's eye sockets. Of all the people he'd expected Cyclonus had never even been on the list. He was too strong, too hard to imitate, too...too Decepticonly for this place. Every alarm klaxon in his head said it was Cyclonus in all but form but Scourge couldn't bear to believe it.

Peter wasn't sure if he'd done much of anything to make Daphne feel better about what had happened to her, but watching someone die in front of you and having to cope with that feeling of uselessness wasn't something that anyone got over easily. He was still dealing with Elle's death, and he didn't think the memories of that night were ever going to stop bothering him.

He had a much bigger problem to worry about right now, though, and that was his nurse telling him that he was scheduled to be visited once again. He'd been hoping that he would be off the hook after last week (Nathan was back here, after all), but apparently that wasn't the case.

Remembering how Nathan had mentioned their mother during his visit last week, Peter already had a pretty good guess about who would be coming to see them. When the nurse mentioned that "Harrison" would be coming for the visit as well, that pretty much cemented it.

Dealing with his mother was difficult enough under normal circumstances, so he really didn't want to imagine how this was going to turn out. He listened to the computerized voice speaking in place of the Head Doctor as he walked with a nurse down the hall toward the waiting room, and frowned when he heard the word "graduates."

His theory had been right, then: these friends and family members had been brainwashed. It still didn't explain how Nathan had come back a week later with a completely different hair length, but Peter had given up on making sense of certain things.

It seemed that he had made it to the room before Nathan, and no one else that he personally knew was around. The nurse led him to a spot where three chairs were facing each other and Peter took a seat, then turned to eye the door for either his brother or his mother.

No, no, not this, not-- damn it all. Damn it! He knew Joshua was delusional, but that didn't make him feel a damn inch better, and Levi drew back, before his friend went violent (again).

Why did it have to be so hard?

He knew it was useless to tell Joshua that he wasn't Cyclonus, that he had never wanted to be an intruder into Joshua's fantasy world as anything other than himself-- he'd learned that before Josh had left the hospital. So, instead, he went silent, looking away for a moment before changing the subject.

"... Do they treat you well, here? It seems nicer than most of the places you've been in..."

She didn't have long to wait.

Although privilege and influence could make many uncaring, not so Antony Westmark. Anyone who'd ever had business with him remarked how unfailingly polite he was to everyone, young or old, rich or poor. He didn't intend to make Yomi, his dear little sister's best friend, wait alone any longer than necessary.

The top of his head nearly bumped into the door frame, but he stooped with grace, and a smile lit his face and green eyes as he approached the pink-haired girl. He pulled out a chair to sit where he could see her, his long legs spread apart for balance. "I could hardly wait for today to come. You're looking better than I feared from what your aunt told me." He leaned back, though not smiling quite as broadly, because he wasn't gleeful to see the young girl here, of all places. "Gray is not your color."

Scourge wanted to crush him. It was worse than the patronizing nurses and townspeople, those he knew were mindwiped little minions, but this, this concern for him was infuriating even without Cyclonus' voice plastered on top of it.

This place made him terrified on a regular basis but it had never made him so angry.

"No," he spat, nearly literally. "Last night I nearly got eaten by zombies, the night before that my back got clawed open by a giant spider, and everyone here thinks I'm a lunatic! How do you think they're treating me?"

He leaned forward slightly as he ranted, waving one long-nailed hand around in frustration.

Lelouch seemed to shrink in on himself when she entered the room (just this once, why couldn't he have been wrong?), but as he had so many times in the past, he paused, took a deep breath, and straightened, an answering smile appearing on his face for her benefit. Even if she couldn't see it, she could hear the difference; he'd learned that early on. He wasn't sure it would make a difference when Nunnally had always been uncommonly good at picking up his real emotions, but he had enough practice at hiding them from her that he had to at least make the attempt. He couldn't upset her, no matter how much the visit pained him.

As prepared as he thought he was to see her, though, his breath still caught when he finally lifted his gaze. Nunnally-- looked exactly the way he remembered her, if more human and so much more fragile now that he was viewing her up close instead of on a monitor or from behind his mask and across the room. After a whole year of being separated from her, he was finally-- even if it was a short visit, she was there and he could talk to her without watching Rolo, the impostor, lower his fingers one by one as their time ran out. Nunnally--

The smile faltered when she said that name, but compared to seeing her-- he delicately took her hand in his and gave it a small, reassuring squeeze. "I've missed you, too, Natalie," he managed to force past the growing lump in his throat, tone gentle as it always was when he spoke to his sister despite his last-minute correction. He was grateful he'd overheard the nurse earlier now; he didn't think he would have been able to stand it if her cheerful expression had crumpled after hearing him use the "wrong" name. "It's been too long."

Levi blinked. Zombies and giant spiders? Those were... new. More normal than giant space robots, but still new.

Wasn't this place supposed to help Joshua get better? New delusions wasn't better, not by his standards.

With visible frustration, he pressed the heels of his hands to his closed eyes and just... breathed for a moment.

Perhaps there was a reason. Perhaps, if he played along, just a little bit-- not with the identity issues, but with the monsters Joshua claimed attacked him-- perhaps it would smooth things over. He had asked how they were treating Joshua, after all, and he'd gotten a fervent answer...

"Possibly like a lunatic?" he replied, with a unheartfelt little smile at Scourge. "But if you've really been injured-- what kind of security do they have on this place? " It was a specialty institute for possibly-violent delusions, wasn't it? Joshua's delusions weren't the most placid, either, of course. It was all too easy to imagine him getting into a squabble, or pissing someone off just that little bit too much...

"Security for who?" Scourge scoffed. "During the day they won't let us do anything to each other and at night they try to kill us."

He had the marks on his back to show where he'd been torn and his forearms were still scratched and bruised. But if the nurses didn't buy it he doubted not-Cyclonus would.

The tracker sat firmly back in his chair, arms folded. What was this guy's game?

Looking over Joshua again, with an eye for damage beyond chemical, he saw lank, tangled hair (did they give the patients brushes?) and newly-polished fingernails (not that godawful pointy-tipped pink Joshua had been favoring, thank goodness, though he wondered where his friend had gotten a manicure in this place-- maybe one of the nurses?), and...

He did look a little scuffed up. How had Levi missed it?

Without thinking, he stood up, went to Joshua's side, and took one of his arms, pulling it gently away from Joshua's chest and peering at the damage. Nothing major, just bruises and scratches, but...

It probably could have been done with silverware, nails, and Joshua getting into a scrape with another patient-- or even by a belligerent piece of furniture-- but it still made Levi worry, examining the scratches for the redness of infection.

Scourge watched him suspiciously, but didn't pull back this time. "You think I did this to myself?" he asked in an acid tone, wiggling his fingertips. "There's worse on my back--this stuff's where they missed."

The nurses had never seemed this concerned. They just bandaged him up like a broken drone and sent him on his way.

"What, you?" Levi glanced up and managed a faint quirk of his lips. "You hate pain." It was why he spent so much of his time as high as a jet liner-- don't think about it, Leveritt. He wasn't the one who had to try and keep Joshua okay, anymore.

"I don't know about spiders and zombies," he continued, releasing that arm and gently taking the other, "but it's not good that you're getting hurt here."

It had been nice to talk with Yukito during brunch, even if the topics they covered were relatively serious. He had the ability to make everyone like him, and when you were upset around him, you couldn't stay upset for long. Indubitably, those was one of the many qualities which drew her brother to Yukito... and herself for a time.

However, her thoughts quickly returned to what had happened before she had been brought to the institute. She had sealed the card which was impossible to seal. She had confessed her love to Syaoran, who had been faithfully waiting for her response for so long. Overall, it seemed like her life had been set straight before coming here, and more than anything, she wanted to return to that life which she had worked so hard to set with everyone else.

The usual message came for the shift change, and Sakura headed toward the door of the cafeteria before her arm was grabbed by a nurse. "Eri! You've got a visitor! He's waiting for you in the second lobby!" the nurse said enthusiastically.

"W-What?" Sakura stuttered out, but instead of an answer, she was merely dragged all the way to the lounge shouting, "HOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Once she got there, the nurse sat her down in a chair to wait. "I know he's someone really special to you!" the nurse whispered in her ear, causing Sakura to quiet down.

Scourge actually gave notCyclonus the other arm, becoming a bit more cooperative now. Maybe they hadn't made "Levi" to manipulate him, maybe they'd brainwashed some poor sucker into being "Levi"--someone like Cyclonus enough to unnerve him, but also programmed to care about him.

Maybe he could play the game too, and win at it.

"Then get me out of here," Scourge pleaded. "I don't like it here."

Looking down, avoiding Joshua's eyes by focusing on his arm, Levi was silent for a moment as he examined the injuries, then let go of his friend's wrist and sat back on his heels, staring at the floor.

"Joshua," he said, deep voice a little too rough-edged before he cleared his throat and looked up, "I... I've done everything I can to help you myself. I can't do it on my own. I thought I could, but I can't." He gestured around. "This is like any other rehab; it won't work if you stop too soon, and you'll hate every moment of it, but it's the help you need." (He frowned, and glanced at Joshua's arms, and shook his head. Even if Joshua believed in zombies and killer bugs, and was banged up? Was this really what he needed...?)

What Joshua needed...

"Oh," he said, "I nearly forgot." He stood up and dug into his jacket pocket, glancing around at the nurses-- none looking their way, good; he hadn't checked that this would be okay-- before slipping a three-tall stack of chocolate bars into Joshua's hand, the kind that was in gold foil and elegant wrapping and clearly more expensive then the ones you grabbed at the checkout of a grocery store. "I figured they wouldn't have much candy here," he said, almost apologetic for the smallness of the gift, then asked (as if suddenly realizing that Joshua wasn't guaranteed to be the friend he'd always known), "You do still like chocolate?"

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Day 43: Waiting Room/Lobby 2, Third Shift

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