damned_institute | Day 23: Lunch

Entry tags:

Day 23: Lunch

The second the intercom sounded, while the man on the intercom was still talking, Ashton pulled himself off the couch in the Music Room and slowly made his way to the door. He walked, glided even, as if he were a ghost in a dream. The nurses had already filed up to escort the patients to the lunchroom, and one bustled over to walk Ashton those few feet from one room to another.

"You're not looking very well, Mr. Pritchett," she said cheerfully. "Didn't you enjoy your shower?"

Ashton replied with a small, forced smile, then shook his head. He didn't feel like talking now. Though the nurses were pushy and downright annoying, he figured he owed this one at least a little explanation. They didn't know - or didn't believe - what went on after dark, but he owed them the benefit of the doubt. "Bad day," he decided on telling her.

Bad day indeed. The showers and the music had done nothing for his nerves. But then again, what could get that graphic image out of his head?

He glided ghostily through the taco line and settled on two chicken and bean tacos, with chips, a scoop of guacamole, two churros on the side, and a glass of apple juice. He wasn't used to this sort of food (save the juice) and he wasn't even sure he'd eat it, but the chances were high that he'd be able to pass it off on someone.

He was on the verge of tears again, too. What he would have given to just sit down next to a barrel and eat a hamburger.

Thank goodness the cafeteria was bare just now, too. It left all the corner tables open, the tables that shouted 'Don't talk to me, I'm brooding over here.' He sat at one, pushed his food a little away from him, and buried his head in his arms.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hisoka's eye brow twitched slightly. Honestly, he saw no problem with merely eating the 'shell' or whatever it was called. Tsuzuki just needed to breathe for a couple seconds, or perhaps just start eating.

"There's air on it," He replied grumpily. "And possibly botulism."

Tsuzuki frowned. Botulism? Ok, now he was just being silly. Or paranoid. He couldn't quite tell which it was.

"It's not diseased..." he pointed out, just in case Hisoka was serious, then nudged the other stuff on his tray. "Why don't you try putting rice on it? And maybe lettuce?" It would at least give Hisoka something healthy to eat, and Tsuzuki figured it was normal enough that he'd at least try it.

Hisoka rolled his eyes, sparing his partner with an annoyed look. Why was the man staring at him and not eating his own food again? Hisoka couldn't quite remember.

On the bright side, Tsuzuki wasn't trying to shove confectionery treats down his throat. May they burn in hell.

"And how am I supposed to eat it then, everything will fall out..." Hisoka gave his partner a pointed look. "Why don't you just go back to your little diabetes sticks? They're getting cold."

Tsuzuki glanced at his churros with a slight frown. Ok, so he was right. Tsuzuki knew he should just be eating his own food... But his partner's health was important!

"Look, you're supposed to eat it like this..." Tsuzuki demonstrated by taking the shell and laying it out flat. He put some rice inside and some lettuce, like he had suggested, and rolled it up, folding the ends inward to keep it closed.

"There, try that, ok?"

If only to get Tsuzuki off his back ~~the big mother hen~~ Hisoka carefully picked up what now looked to be a very big eggroll and took yet another cautious bite, this time coming out with rice and lettuce rather than just the bread.

The boy chewed the small mouthful thoughtfully, avoiding swallowing it immediately lest it not go down as planned. It wasn't bad-- he had far worse with Tsuzuki's adventures in the world of cooking-- but it was still an odd taste...

"There, I'm eating. Now stop hovering already." Hisoka scowled and took another bite. This food had better not come back to haunt him...

Well, it wasn't great, but it was enough. Tsuzuki was satisfied with Hisoka at least eating something, so he happily pulled his own tray closer and started eating the burritos that he'd made for himself. Along with those amazing little churros~. Delightful~.

It was like a little piece of heaven in every bite.

After a quarter of the eggroll-thing had been consumed Hisoka began to feel tired again. Had he possessed any less braincells he would have possibly wondered if eating had anything to do with the sudden fatigue, as if chewing was such a great task...

The boy quietly lowered the quasi-eggroll to the tray and reached for his glass of juice, ignoring Tsuzuki's borderline psychosis with his food. If his partner wanted to practically worship his food before he ingested it, so be it.

Tsuzuki continued to gobble down his food for a few minutes, savoring the taste, before turning his attention back to Hisoka. Well, now that his partner wasn't irate, he could probably get some of his questions answered with little to no bodily harm.

"So, how long have you been here? I just woke up last night, and I'm still a little confused. My roommate send this place is a prison, but I don't know... It's a little weird to be a prison."

Juice still in hand, Hisoka glanced over to the other man at his question. He had been there only one night? Well, that explained why it had been so hard to find him... but it explained nothing about what was bringing them here and how it was targeting others.

"I've been here for four days," the boy frowned thoughtfully. "And I wouldn't call it a prison as much as I would a twisted game."

Because what else would pull people from other worlds, try to make them believe they were insane, attack them at night only to heal them the next morning so they could do it again? It was just a game.

"How much have you been told about this place?"

A game? Tsuzuki didn't like the sound of that... It was one thing to listen to his roommate, a complete stranger, tell him this place was bad. But it was an entirely different story to hear Hisoka say. It carried much more weight with Tsuzuki.

"Not much," he replied, giving a shrug and nibbling on the last bits of his remaining churro. "Just that they keep people here. And there was something about different worlds and times..." And brainwashing... But Tsuzuki wasn't about to poke at an old wound. The other stuff was weird enough, and he didn't want to upset Hisoka again, above all else.

Hisoka took a small sip of his juice, taking a moment to organize his thoughts in order to make it easier to explain. Though it wouldn't be easy in the least, not when he didn't even know everything about this place.

"I woke up during nightshift about three nights ago. The last thing I could remember was--" Asking you to stay with me, I had thought you lied... "Kyoto burning, but I had no injuries to speak of and there was absolutely no one there."

He paused, frowning slightly. It would take too long to explain if he just kept recounting his experiences. He might as well just summarize what was going on to the best of his abilities, the change in shifts would most likely interrupt them and the boy wanted the interruption to be sometime when neither of them was so confused. If that was possible.

"To make a long story short, this place has two faces. During the day it is meant to be a mental hospital and so far I have yet to find and lapses in their wonderfully kept guise." And he had actually been looking too. Signs of cruelty, signs of the darkness that permeated the halls at night. Nothing. Despite the fact that Muraki was here, there was nothing to point to how they suddenly shifted to the twisted darkness of nightshift. "At night though, things become a little strange, as you may have noticed. They unlock the doors to our rooms, they let us wander and from what I've heard, they let monsters roam as well."

And they stick their little toys with syringes and make them dance when they haven't played nice. Hisoka curled his hands into fists, glaring down at his rice-eggroll.

Tsuzuki's mood dampened a bit at the mention of Kyoto. It didn't seem like there were any weird time discrepancies between him and Hisoka... a burning Kyoto was the last thing he remembered, as well. There was a look of guilt that passed briefly across Tsuzuki's face, but it disappeared when Hisoka moved on to talk about the hospital. Now wasn't the time to bring up what happened in Kyoto, and Tsuzuki didn't really feel like talking about it, anyway...

"Monsters?" That really didn't sound good. But at least he knew what this place was now...Not that it really helped much. Except to more vividly explain that this place was twisted...

Tsuzuki didn't need empathy to tell that something was under Hisoka's skin. A quick look at his partner's posture and expression was all he ever needed. And considering what had happened last night, he could pretty easily figure out what it was. It angered him a bit that whoever had set this up was putting the lives of innocent people in danger, but his first priority was always to Hisoka... And he couldn't stand to see his partner looking so out of sorts.

"Don't worry." Tsuzuki rested a hand on his shoulder and offered a small smile, careful not to make contact with Hisoka's skin. "This is just like one of our cases, right? We'll find whoever's running this place, and we'll make sure they stop. We'll close this place down so no one else can be hurt here."

Hisoka shook his head yet allowed Tsuzuki to keep his hand in place ~~regardless of how the physical contact with setting his nerves on end~~

"You're wrong, this is nothing like our previous cases." And it wasn't. They had no superhuman abilities at their disposal and the mastermind behind it all was protected. Too protected. "I've seen the person who is behind it all, the man on the intercom? He decided to reveal himself to us yesterday. No one could get within five feet of him without being drugged."

Then there was the monsters to get past, but Hisoka decided that could wait. Tsuzuki just arrived and probably did not possess the mentality to deal with everything just yet. The boy sighed softly, quietly glancing at his partner. He tempted to say something to lighten the mood but he was never good with anything like that and Tsuzuki would probably die of shock.

So no one could get to this guy? No, Tsuzuki refused to believe that. Where there's a will, there's a way, right? And there was most certainly a will to stop this before anything worse happened. To them or the other 'patients'...

"Maybe we can get to him when the nurses aren't around to drug us?" Kind of like how they had singled out Maria's mother, way back when. People were always more easy to deal with when alone... The tricky part was getting them that way.

Hisoka raised a skeptical brow at Tsuzuki's suggestion. The other man had no idea how impossible that suggestion was...

"That would be a wonderful idea if it was possible. He stays in his office both day and night but exactly where that office is no one can say. An even bigger problem is he seems to be keeping surveillance of some sort because he knows almost everything that goes on here..."

The boy frowned at an afterthought, didn't the bastard doctor mention an intruder this morning?

"There is one person who seems to be able to get under the Head Doctor's skin though..."

Tsuzuki frowned, hearing how well guarded the intercom man was. The ringmaster of this particular circus.

"He can't really stop us if we wanted to find him, could he?" That was a bit crazy. They were shinigami, after all. They could just shift their energy or something. As far as he knew, Muraki was the only one who was any match for a shinigami... And Muraki, well... Muraki wasn't a problem anymore, right?

Still, it was good to know who could be used against this man. For once, Tsuzuki seemed a little serious when Hisoka mentioned that someone could find where the man was. "Who?"

Hisoka frowned a bit more.

"He probably could considering-" before he could say any further the boy was cut off by the sound of the intercom clicking on announcing showers for the children. Hisoka was moments away from murder.

Showering? With others?!

...And WHO said he was a child?!

The shinigami couldn't fight the glare as his nurse approached.

"Nevermind."

Reluctantly pushing himself to his feet, Hisoka spared his partner with a clearly displeased look.

"If we don't meet up later keep an eye on the bulletin board, it's in the Sun Room." Of all places. With that, the boy stalked off.

Tsuzuki frowned when the announcements went off. He could tell that Hisoka was annoyed. Probably at the mention of children, if Tsuzuki knew anything about his partner at all.

"Um, ok..." he replied as Hisoka headed off. Well, he'd just have to wait until Hisoka was done, right? Grabbing what was left of his food, Tsuzuki hurriedly downed it before heading out to the Sun Room.

Wouldn't hurt to check the bulletin board thing... Then maybe take a little nap~.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Day 23: Lunch

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject