damned_institute | Day 46: Sun Room

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Day 46: Sun Room

Peter woke up suddenly, his body twisting in the bed and then forcing him to catch his breath in pain. Pain, which was coming from his middle because of the thing that had scratched him last night, and after that...

After that, Zach had jumped in front of him like some kind of martyr, like the exact opposite of everything Sylar stood for, to take the next hit for him. It got pretty fuzzy after that, so night must have ended right around then.

The man let out a pained grunt as he straightened himself up in bed. For some reason, he got the feeling that he'd slept in. There was no way for him to really tell without a window in the room, but he just knew. The fact that Sam's bed looked long since vacated was another clue.

Sam, but was he Sam again? Had the brainwashing worn off, as he and Roland had hoped, or was he going to have to go through this nightmare for even longer? He didn't know how long he could handle "Zach" and "Harrison" before he started going batty himself.

Pulling himself out of bed, Peter lifted his shirt and saw that he was tightly bandaged. The scratch most likely wasn't nearly as bad as the bite that "Zach" had received, but it still smarted. He let his shirt fall and then had to deal with a nurse chiding him for sleeping through the morning announcements. Not that Peter really cared at the moment. He was too busy thinking about last night and the fact that in a way, he now owed something to Sylar. Except it hadn't been Sylar. That was something he was sure of now.

Lost in his thoughts, Peter reached the Sun Room right as the rest of the patient populace was trickling in from breakfast. Sighing to himself, he headed over to the bulletin board and then saw a note written in familiar yet unpleasant handwriting. Holding his pen in a vice grip, Peter scribbled out a reply and then stalked over to an armchair and fell into it with a huff.

While Sylar was maddeningly frustrating, there was one good thing about the fact that he was himself again. It meant that Nathan was too.

[For Spock!]

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622 started, doing his very best not to go by instinct and wallop the new arrival between the eyes. That wouldn't earn him any friends. Just sedation. "No, sir," he replied the politeness only coming out of habit, eying the man warily. "There wasn't." Past tense. Apparently, that had just changed.

"...'sir'? There's no 'sir' around here, dude. Name's Xigbar." Of course, he'd seen the momentary flash of violence in those eyes, a trained response as natural as Xigbar planning to shoot someone. Made him wonder about that. "An' if there wasn't, then what's going on now? Or," he said with a cheeky grin, "am I important enough to make a change all on my lonesome?"

"It's just habit." Now that he'd calmed down slightly, he could take a good look at this Xigbar. He didn't think he'd ever seen yellow eyes like that on a human before. "I'm TK-622. And I thought badly startling someone would count as 'something going on'." As loath as he was to admit it, he hadn't seen the man coming.

"Huh... nope, 'bout normal for me. Dude, you are seriously way too tense if you can't handle someone sneaking up on you." He hadn't even gone 'boo,' and yet TK-Bunchanumbers was like this? How he'd survive was anyone's guess.

"...weird name, too. Grown in a vat somewhere, to get a number like that?" Sounded like something Vexen or Zexion would name their creations- lot number, then specific sample in question. But even their creations tended to have enough self-determination to try findind some new identity for themselves.

"I must have a boring life, then," 622 replied, meaning it with complete sarcasm. The boring usually stopped when people suddenly came out of nowhere, like a certain someone he might mention.

"Yes, I was." He never saw the point in civilian names. None of them were actually original, someone always had a name like theirs. And none of them made sense. In contrast, he was the only TK-622 there was.

"Yep, entirely possible," Xigbar answered just as mock-seriously, putting a hand over where his heart should have been, "an' boredom just isn't something that I allow, dude."

Of course, had he known what the soldier was thinking, he could easily put the lie to it. There wasn't another Xigbar in the world, and his name did make sense once it came up. But, alas, mind-reading wasn't one of his powers. ...it was rather a good thing that it wasn't, considering what misuses he would have for such a power. "Huh, sucks to be you, then. What kinda life did you have..." And he vaguely gestured upwards, indicating wherever TK-Numbers had lived before Landel's had swiped him up. Sure, space was at least three dimensional and there was a good chance his planet had been somewhere else, but eh, immaterial for the moment.

"Oh, great. I'm so glad you found me, then." A relative lack of seriousness, on the whole, seemed a better response than remaining stone-cold sober. That seemed more likely than anything to just encourage the man.

"I shot people, did my best not to get shot back, guarded my commander, and died in a cataclysmic explosion." His whole life in a single sentence. To him it was rather comforting, really. Relative to whatever level of comfortableness could be obtained when talking to a confusing stranger.

"Hey, that makes two of us! Lemme liven up your life a little, huh?" Said with a grin, as the simple fact of the matter was that Xigbar had found someone kind of amusing, and switching from deadpan to sarcasm only amused the Nobody.

As for the statement, it made him grin again, as he put his chin on his hand- an awkward position, given where he was on the couch, but he didn't mind- and nodded with all apparent seriousness. "Huh, sounds 'bout like mine. 'xcept for the whole 'died in a cataclysmic explosion' part. See? You an' me, not so different, now are we?"

Okay, so that hadn't worked either. That grin made him a little worried about what was entailed in having someone 'liven up your life a little'.

"What did you do, then?" Hopefully that would be a safe topic. He didn't know how to deal with civvies, or... whatever the hell Xigbar was either.

"Me? Called the 'Freeshooter'- put shots in what Number One said to shoot, an' did some other stuff on the side. Got to see plenty of interesting places an' people, even if the pay sucked." Granted, the 'pay' was 'not being turned into a Dusk or vaporized,' but still, sucked. Xigbar then tilted his head, a curious look in his single eye. "Hey, what kinda weapons did you use, anyway?"

That sounded something like a hired mercenary setup. 622 had always been a bit... edgy around mercs. Especially on Malastare, where you could bet that all of them were hired by the local crime lords.

"Blastech rifles. E-11, DLT-19, DLT-20a..." He trailed off, remembering those descriptions might not actually help. "Blaster rifles. Fire rounds made out of high-energy particles to burn holes straight through whatever you aim them at."

"Huh, that's not too bad. Gotta say, energy's got some charm to it. 'course," he added with a sly grin, "doesn't matter what you can burn a hole through if you can't hit your target. How 'bout it, soldier-boy? Hit what you aim at, or do you just keep firin' an' hope you get lucky?"

"Last time I took a shot at something, it was the neck of a sabotaged droid. The head hit the ground in one piece," 622 said, voice carrying just a hint of pride. He might not acknowledge he was even worth looking at when it came to just about everything, but not marksmanship. He was damn proud of what he could do with his rifle.

"Hey, that's a pretty decent shot." Xigbar nodded, but with a sly grin on his face as he added, "...assumin' you weren't just a couple paces away. Me?"

He made a 'gun' motion with his fingers, pretending to fire it at some distant target before looking back at the clone. "Coulda hit it from a mile away, even with a slug-thrower."

"More than that. And it was in the middle of a crowd of officers, shooting at them." It had hit one of them badly before anyone had been able to react, but he'd made the shot.

"Impressive," 622 replied with genuine surprise. As long as that wasn't exaggerating, that was quite a lot of skill.

"Huh, well, hittin' a moving target in a crowd, that's a little more respectable. Might just have a marksman on my hands. Of course," he added with a sly grin and a teasingly considering tone, "I'm not sure I'm buying it, dude. Think you'd be up for a bit of a challenge?"

"...Are you saying you have a gun here?" 622 was suddenly a lot more interested. Short of his armor or other Stormtroopers, nothing else could grab his attention like the idea of a gun here.

"Maybe," he easily answered with a laugh. "But if you want to find out, you'll just have to be a little more entertaining, dude. I don't let just anyone handle my gun."

"...Well, what exactly does that mean? I was made to be a soldier, not an entertainer." It sounded like a pointless demand, but it didn't seem to actually cost him anything thus far. And he really wanted to see what kind of guns could be found here.

"Well, in that case, you'll just hafta improvise. I'm pretty laid-back, though; I'm sure you'll be able to figure something out." To be honest, Xigbar was having quite the amusing time of yanking the soldier's chain, but he wasn't going to admit it. Not when hearing that confusion made him want to snigger.

"I don't know what you mean." This was so confusing, but like everything else, he just chalked it up to the fact that Xigbar wasn't military. But still, this seemed even more befuddling than normal, especially when he thought he'd finally been getting a handle on this stuff.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll figure it out in time. For now, though... I'll let you take a shot or two with it tonight, if you'd like. You'll hafta impress me if you want more than that, though." He'd be happy to give TK-Whatever a shot, as it were, but he wasn't one to waste more than that. Still, there was some potential anyway, he hoped it was going to be lived up to.

"Apparently not as I am right now. Am I missing something a civilian would get?" Because it felt like another one of those times, but he honestly had no clue.

"I'll do it." He could at least do that much. He hadn't made Sergeant by being a poor shot, he'd done it by being a really damn good one to save Commander Akobi's life.

"Heh, yeah, you are. Don't worry, I'll get you brought up to speed later." He might or might not, depending on what his mood was like, but for now, he was kind of curious. It certainly seemed like the guy was... unique, but in a good way. Mostly good, anyway, and if it got him someone who could appreciate some good ballistics, so much the better.

"So, where do you wanna meet up?"

"Oh." ...Well. That was... odd. 622 still looked innocently confused, an expression he was unfortunately wearing far too often in this place. He was supposed to uphold the standards of the Stormtrooper Corps, but it was nearly impossible when it seemed like every third word that most people said around here was incomprehensible to him.

"I'm already going to be meeting another prisoner in the M41-50 hall. Would somewhere around that area be a possible RV point?"

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numberii.livejournal.com - 2010-01-03 01:52 (UTC) - Expand

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