damned_institute | Day 49: The Pet Supply Place

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Day 49: The Pet Supply Place

The bus ride had passed quickly enough, and then the moment of truth had come. The town, rather than being torn to shreds by rioting patients and the crazed undead, was more or less in good order. That was what Harvey had figured when he'd first exited the bus, anyway. His second thought had been that he was glad he had a raincoat. The drizzle was mild, but it would probably get worse before long and he didn't need his bandages getting soaked.

Which meant that his third thought was get cover, and the logical place to go was the pet supply store he'd been dragged into during that insane night. He wanted to see if there was any clue as to what had happened. His bet was no, but it was something to do and he needed to be sure.

The sheriff's office was another option, but Harvey was intending to avoid that place. If, by some weird turn of events, they knew about what he'd taken, then he was going to stay as far away as he could.

So, against all odds, he ended up entering the pet store for the second time. He noticed one of those damn smiley faces painted on the side of the building as he entered. Which was odd, but hell if he knew what it meant. The interior of the store looked pretty damn different in the day, but the first thing Harvey did was head over to where Jones and Franziska had grabbed those leashes. Honestly, he couldn't tell if there were less than there should have been. Here was where his inactivity that night bit him in the ass.

What he did notice was that one of the workers in the store was giving him the evil eye. The guy didn't look like he'd gotten his coffee for the morning, either. For a moment, Harvey had to wonder. Was this the one who'd attacked them then? Did the drone know, on some subconscious level, about what had happened?

Harvey paused, shook his head, and looked away. He couldn't fall into Landel's trap. If he kept on with thoughts like that, then he definitely would.

[Terry!]

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Of all the places to go once he arrived in Doyleton, Okita had no idea why he headed toward the animal pens. He was still slightly dizzy from his time on the metal deathtrap buses, barely able to keep his breakfast down as they rumbled through the winding roads. The anticipation that something was going to happen in town, however, kept him on edge all the way up to the point where he'd been dropped off at the park to the sight of a soft rain falling over the mostly unchanged town. His nurse had given him a warm blue coat to put on over his usual slacks and thick black turtleneck sweater (such bland colors that he was actually glad for the dark blue of the coat just to break it up) and then had showed him how to pull up the coat's hood to keep the drizzle from his face.

"For your health," she'd said.

Okita had only smiled at her.

Now that he was feeling better and was somewhat out of the rain as he lingered under the eaves by the fence penning in the livestock, Okita took stock of his surroundings and of a strange, almost ominous feeling that had settled in the pit of his stomach. He'd felt it last night, too. The way the sky was set almost ready to pour, the chill that crept through all the layers of clothing he wore, and that nagging feeling almost eradicated the sense of accomplishment he had from gaining access to the basement last night. It was strange, but what was it?

Stepping a bit further out and pulling the hood up over his head, Okita kneeled down by the fence and tapped on the wood, trying to get the attention of a sow and her family of piglets - newly born within the last week. Hijikata would have called it useless nostalgia, but Okita couldn't help it.

[Free, no limits]

What was that old saying? From the frying pan into the fire? Or in Terry's case, from elementary bus trips/moral dilemmas into stalking one of the big bads from Wayne's days as Batman. Not that he'd exactly been planning this little sidetrip, but given that Bruce was still missing, and now a guy who looked a lot like Two-Face had shown up? Terry thought it might just be worth a cane-smack to the head if he didn't follow after the guy.

On the plus side, it'd given Terry a pretty good look at one route through town. Even with the drizzle and the graffiti, he thought the place looked pretty nice. But then, he'd grown up in the middle of Gotham, so most places were going to rank higher on the paradise scale. Not that Terry didn't love his city; he'd picked one of the worst after-school jobs ever if that was the case. But it was nice getting an idea of what Gotham could someday be, if the right people stepped up and did the right thing.

Day dreams aside though, Two-Face ducked into what looked like a pet shop after a few twists and turns on the road. Odd place for a super-villain to hang out, or so it seemed to Terry. So naturally, he followed the guy in, and pretended to be extremely interested in goldfish for several minutes while his target checked out the leashes.

So now that he had the guy there, what was he going to do? Somehow, Terry thought that walking up and asking about life as one of Batman's archenemies would be the best introduction. And without one of the shirts the employees wore, Terry didn't think he and his sweater of teenage-humiliation would pass as a puppy salesmen. But he'd been thinking about getting a leash for his roommate, so maybe that was a place to start.

"You know, if you're going to try and boost something, standing there staring at it isn't the best way to go about it." Terry had lifted more than he liked to admit back in the day, but now at least, he could use it as a conversation opener. He walked up so he could talk low enough to Two-Face without being overheard, and did his best to look completely casual as he spoke to the guy. "Not that it's any of my business or anything, but patients need to look out for each other, right?"

After some time had passed, the employee who'd been watching him had lost interest. Not that Harvey really wanted to spend a ton of time in this place, but what he really didn't want was to feel eyes on him all the time. But right as he'd felt like he had the smallest bit of privacy, another patient showed up and started babbling at him.

Worse than that, Harvey could barely follow what the kid was saying. He only half-turned to look at the stranger, with his good side showing. "Boost? What are you talking about?" While a raised tone would have done a better job of showing his annoyance, he really didn't want to attract any attention to himself, and so he had to go for keeping his voice down to a more conspiratorial level. Which didn't mean he felt even the slightest bit of camaraderie with this kid; he hoped it wasn't taken that way.

But yeah, the kid was right. It wasn't his business -- nor did Harvey need any help. He crossed his arms over his chest and moved a few steps away from the leashes, more or less done with them.

He glanced over the rest of the store, trying to find a sign. Were some of the things they'd knocked off of the shelves gone, maybe? In the end, he knew there was no way to be certain. That night had been too hectic for him to put his attention to detail to good use. Either way, this place was in better condition than it should have been. The question was whether or not it was feasible for this amount of clean-up to have happened in a week.

Okay, so hoping that the villain of the day would decide to open up to some random stranger was probably a bit too optimistic for anyone who had been in the business more than three days. Still, no one could blame Terry for giving it a shot. And more importantly, Two Face hadn't blown him off completely, but just asked for clarification. So it was still a foot in the door--just one that might leave Terry with a few broken toes.

"You know. Boost." Glancing around to see just how closely they were being monitored by the employees, Terry kept up with Two Face as he moved, sticking close enough to keep his voice low. Had to keep up appearances and all. "Steal. Shoplift? Man, I know old guys tend to be out of touch, but you don't look that ancient pops." Yeah, play up the role of the stupid stubborn kid, and hopefully a baddie might try to take him on as a pawn. At least, it was the best (and only) angle Terry could come up with, at the moment.

Was this kid seriously trying to give him clues about shoplifting the middle of a store? Harvey glared at him, though he knew that it wasn't as effective as it would have been if both of his eyes were showing. Still, it would probably get the job done. He didn't know where "boost" was slang for "steal," but it didn't matter.

"I was just looking," he explained, straightening and raising his tone so that the workers wouldn't think they were up to something. He wasn't going to explain why he was looking, either. "I'm pretty sure most people grabbed the things they wanted last week, anyway." He'd definitely gotten what he'd been looking for, and it was safely stored away under his bed.

It was a shame he wouldn't have been able to get away with bringing the gun here with him, though. If those undead bastards came back, it would have felt satisfying to plant a bullet in the middle of a few of their foreheads. But still... ammunition. Each bullet had to have a purpose.

Fortunately for Terry, Harvey was being nice about wearing his bandages. Kept him from scaring the populace, and kept his glare from being quite so menacing. After all, there weren't many who could beat the old man when it came to dirty looks. And it was a good thing, because part of the act meant showing some spine. Terry could tell Two Face wanted him gone, but he wasn't going to let that happen.

"Woah. Scary." Terry's delivery was perfectly deadpan, and his grin just cocky enough to make guys with a bad temper think about hitting him. "Was just trying to help, guy. Like I said, we're both patients, right? And nobody else around here has our best interest in mind."

But something interesting had popped out, and from the sounds of it, Two Face thought Terry should already know. But he'd arrived in time for bulletins, not the actual events of whatever happened last time--none of which exactly sounded pleasant. "What do you mean, last week? Not all of us were around then, including me. Don't tell me I missed out on all of the fun."

Maybe a few months ago, Harvey would have actually liked this kid. He had a willingness to help that he would have liked to see around Gotham a bit more, for instance. Now, though, after he'd been embittered to the city he'd tried to save, that just wasn't the case. The kid's generosity came across as fake -- and even if it wasn't, it was obnoxious.

However, when the stranger mentioned that he'd missed out on possible fun, Harvey scowled and shook his head. Even if the teen was being facetious, the events of the previous week weren't worth poking fun at. At least not in Harvey's opinion.

"Hardly," he said once all of the patrolling employees were out of earshot. This really wasn't the best place to have this conversation, but he wasn't up for going out into the drizzle again, either. "We were late getting back on the buses, and when night fell, things changed. Just like they do back up on the hill." Even though he had nothing to gain by withholding details, Harvey decided not to get into the nitty-gritty of things. Part of it was because he died a little every time he used the word "zombie"; the other part was that this kid wasn't exactly on his good side at this point. So, he'd be half-helpful.

"Woah, seriously?" Two-Face really wasn't giving anything away, was he. Terry almost wished he had a coin to flip, just to trigger some conversation. But even with Wayne missing, he could hear the old man telling him to suck it up and use what he had. Not that it was working too well so far. "Like with the monsters and everything? That's crazy!"

He'd gotten a little loud at the end, and Terry looked around to make sure he hadn't drawn too much attention. An employee or two had looked over, but they turned away quickly enough when Terry offered a placating wave. He hadn't missed the way they scowled, though.

"So does that stuff happen every week? I've never been here before, and all my--" Pause, look at the staff. A touch of panic just to keep up the act. "Uh. You know. My junk is back at the hospital." Maybe he really would need to put the old skills back into action. Not exactly something Terry would be proud of, but better a bite to the ego than a limb.

When the kid's voice rose a little too high, high enough to earn some attention from the workers here, Harvey sent him a glare that would have stabbed him in the chest if it could have. It didn't take much to fray at his nerves these days, and this random stranger had been hitting all of the wrong buttons so far. Almost like he was trying.

It almost made him want to withhold the information just to teach the stranger a lesson, but Harvey knew that that was treading into the wrong sort of territory. It was no skin off of his back to answer the kid's questions, even if there were about ten other things he'd rather be doing.

The town was uninteresting, anyway.

"This is only my second time here, but from what I've gathered, last week was the first time." Which meant that there was really no way to know what to expect this time around. There was no pattern to work off of. "And I don't think you need to worry so much about that. There're a lot of different things to choose from here." When it was steal a gun or get your leg chewed off? Harvey was pretty sure he knew what choice any sane person would make.

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Day 49: The Pet Supply Place

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