damned_institute | Day 50: Chapel

The last thing Claude heard was the Head Doctor's voice faintly filtering into the corridors of the ship before he found himself tucked beneath the sheets of his bed. It took a moment to register he'd even changed locations, but then he he abruptly sat up, fought the wave of nausea that washed over him, and felt the blankets beneath his fingers. The room. He was back in his room now. Under different circumstances, he might have wondered if last night had been some horrid dream, but the sharp pain in his eyes gave him a rude awakening. Hissing through his teeth, Claude buried the heels of his palms against his lids, only to discover two cold compresses had been taped over them.

"Good morning, Thomas," he heard the nurse's cheerful voice from beside his bed. Her sudden presence nearly made him jump out of his skin, and he sharply turned toward the source of the greeting, heart beating rapidly in his chest. "I'm sorry you're not feeling well today, but hopefully you can still enjoy some of the activities we have planned."

'Not feeling well' was a bit of an understatement. His hand hurt, his stomach kept turning with every movement, and it felt like someone had dumped a bunch of sand into both eye sockets. Right now, Claude just wanted the nurse to leave him be, but it didn't look like that was an option. Taking his uninjured hand, she gently tugged him out of bed, despite his protests that, no, really, he just wanted to stay in and sleep, please.

"I think getting out of your room a little bit will do you good," she told him. "I'm sorry your eyes are probably hurting, though. If you're ever feeling uncomfortable, don't hesitate to ask one of us for some pills."

"What about eye drops?" Claude asked tightly.

"Oh, no, too much of that could damage your eyes," she cautioned, and the sheer irony of the situation hit Claude so hard that it would have been laughable if he didn't already feel like crying right then. The nurse was as oblivious to it as always, however. "I know you usually go into the chapel during this shift. Would you like to go there again?" Claude didn't answered immediately, but that didn't deter the nurse. "Yes, I think that sounds best..."

In truth, he probably should have requested the sun room -- it was closer, for one, which meant the nurse didn't have to lead him as far of a distance. For another, lying down on one of their sofas sounded like a good option. But by the time Claude came to that conclusion, he was too stubborn to say anything, and he made his way up to the second floor, his footing slow, but steady.

The nurse deposited him on one of the central pews, next to the aisle, before leaving him to himself. Thankfully, it was still early in the shift. As he paused to listen, the room was mostly silent, save for the footsteps and hushed voices of the occasional staff member or patient who trickled in. But it was probably only a matter of time before others came. For some reason, the thought of being stuck in a crowded room made him tense, not necessarily because he thought anyone would pay him any mind, but because he simply didn't want it right then.

Somehow, the full implications of what happened last night hadn't sunken in: experiments, healing himself, the issue of whether he could actually go home after this, not being able to see, the ship, father. Instead, he just felt saturated with all of it, paralyzed by the horror of what they'd done to him, and the uncertainty of what it all meant beyond this moment. Claude took a shuddering breath, uninjured hand balling into a fist in his lap.

[For Guy.]

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Oh... that was why Kurt hadn't noticed such a pretty girl before, she was new. His expression fell, eyebrows coming together slightly. "I'm sorry. I've been here for... nearly two weeks now." He had to think back for a moment there.

It was amazing though--he'd made two friends he'd nearly cried over in the span of two weeks. But he'd unwillingly shared his secret with Terry, Kon, Peter... and their acceptance of him was unconditional and nearly automatic. How could he not be fast friends with good people like that?

"I don't know if you know what it's like here... but yeah. My roommate was one of my lifelines. After this whole thing happened," Kurt pointed at the fading shadow of his black eye and the black line on his lip indicating it had been split a few days ago. "He said he wasn't going to let me go out by myself anymore. He was that kind of guy--who didn't blame me for not fighting back."

He paused, looking back down at his hands. "You might not want to promise anything before you find out what's wrong with me," he said with a weak smile. It might get his hopes up.

Two weeks. Wow, that... wasn't a good sign. Minako had been thinking that she'd figure something out in the next couple days and get back to the others, who had to be incredibly worried about her, but if there were people here who'd been stuck here for weeks? Maybe she should rethink this idea.

That wasn't the most important thing right now, though, so she pushed that to one side to think about later and instead just grinned at Kurt. "I'm pretty sure that I do," she replied. "You don't, like, have an evil entity from another galaxy lurking within your body waiting for the right time to emerge and attempt to destroy the entire world, do you? 'cause anything less than that I bet I can handle."

It said quite a bit about her life so far that she had dealt with that situation in the past, didn't it.

Kurt blinked. That sounded... awfully specific.

"I don't... think I do," Kurt said slowly. You never knew, though Kurt was fully sixteen--he probably would've realized there was some kind of creepy-scary voice in his head telling him to destroy the entire world by now.

"So you handled a... evil thing that was going to destroy the world?" Kurt asked, voice still lowered. He was glad to be talking about something besides himself, though. It got his mind off of wondering where Terry was now.

"What, me?" Minako blinked once, then gave a belated and far too obviously forced laugh as she waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. "Oh, no. Of course not. That'd be, y'know, completely crazy." And she was anything but. Oh, yes.

She busied herself with fussing with the ribbon in her hair for a moment, as though that could hide the sudden pink tinge of a blush on her cheeks. Careless, careless, going around dropping examples like that. Not that... well, if the whole different-worlds thing was true, maybe he was from somewhere that didn't have the weirdness that made up her life.

Wow. Now that was an odd concept to wrap her mind around. Well, not that most people knew just what was going on with the sailor senshi and the various beings they'd fought over the years, which was how it should be. But what if they didn't actually exist at all where Kurt was from?

As Minako started laughing and futzing with her ribbon, Kurt blinked slowly, watching her. For someone who hadn't dealt with a very specific thing she'd just described, she sure looked a little nervous. Maybe... maybe she'd told Kurt something that he wasn't supposed to hear.

"Like... how it would be completely crazy if I was covered in blue fur every night?" Kurt said, his voice softer than ever, the words coming out slowly as though he were thinking of each one carefully. But once the words were out, they were out. He looked startled that he'd actually told someone he'd just met a few minutes ago. While Minako radiated an aura of trust and heartfelt concern, he hadn't voluntarily connected himself to Nightcrawler since he'd shown Amanda what he looked like without the watch's aid.

"You know," he said, raising his voice slightly. "Just as an example of something that would euh, be totally crazy. Not like that would actually happen to anybody. Being... covered in fur..."

Well, now. Not only had he not tried to pry into that even though he must have realized that she'd said something she hadn't meant to, but he seemed to be admitting to something himself. Something that he probably didn't want to talk about, judging from how carefully he was saying it, too. Minako re-tied the ribbon and lowered her hands to her lap again, considering both the audible question and the silent one as well.

"Like... if you looked different, but you were still you?" she asked, tilting her head a little in a curious fashion. "I dunno, it'd be kinda unusual, sure. But I don't know about crazy. It's who you are that matters, right? Not what you look like."

Of course, when Artemis changed forms he was pretty cute... not that she was going to say that to him or anything. That'd be just weird, and she didn't like him that way anyway, so it didn't matter. But her friends being covered in fur wasn't all that strange to her, so she just shrugged and grinned. "I bet blue would look good on you, anyway."

Kurt chuckled. "Someone told me something similar this one time," he said, continuing to stare at his knees. Amanda, when she'd seen what he looked like up-close and personal, had said that blue was her favorite color. It was a little weird (given that nobody normal ever said that they looked good in their own skin-tone), but he could go with it.

"I just wish everyone felt the same way," he said, looking up and smiling at her. "Not everybody... thinks that the outside doesn't matter." He rubbed at his black eye nervously, wishing that it would go away faster. It at least looked better than when it had first happened, but black eyes were nasty, nasty things. He knew.

"But this is all, you know, hypothetical," he said hurriedly. "And totally depressing, right?" Kurt forced a laugh. "I guess my friend disappearing kind of started me on a depressing path, sorry."

No matter how potentially weird (hypothetically speaking, of course) Kurt might end up looking at night, he seemed like a really nice guy. Though... why only at night? It probably didn't matter, and would likely be rude to ask, though she was admittedly still curious. Oh, well.

"Well, you're allowed to be upset. I give you permission." Minako grinned and reached out to ruffle his hair in an impulsive gesture. "You've been kidnapped from home, stuck in a weird place, and one of your best friends here is gone." And apparently someone hadn't believed so much in the idea of 'what's inside is what matters' from the looks of the fading marks on his face. It'd be more surprising if he found it all completely normal, really.

"But my offer still stands. If you want a friend, I'm happy to volunteer. Well," she added, a little sheepishly. "If you wanted. You don't have to."

"O-of course!" Kurt said, instantly flustered. Of course he wouldn't turn down someone offering to be his friend. So few people offered to be his friend, he wouldn't turn anyone down. The idea that he might turn her down embarrassed him. "And I could be your friend... if you don't mind someone who's really..." he smiled awkwardly. "Blue, all the time."

Day 50: Chapel

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