damned_institute | Day 50: Chapel

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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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...Okey dokey. With that tone she was obviously just a pulse short of being a zombie, but she had replied. Heck, he even got a joke out of it.

Or it was a polite suggestion that he haul his cheery ass somewhere else. He had difficulty telling the difference sometimes.

"This is Landel's. If anything it's the Fountain of Eternal Duck Itch and I'll spend the rest of my days bathing in vaseline." Peter sighed, turning his attention away from the aforementioned fountain and scanned the room -

Grell. Barely two pews away.

Crap, that meant he was within eavesdropping distance. Peter reined in the shock and forced his face into something that could pass as neutral, turning his attention elsewhere. Subterfuge was not his specialty, but it seemed that Grell hadn't noticed him yet. He could only hope the girl wasn't watching closely and brought up the momentary tick in his brow.

That also meant he couldn't use his real name here. Fine, okay, he could graduate from fake last names to fake first ones, too. So long as Giggles over here never talked about him with one of his other buddies, he was good. And really, without the costume? Peter was as unremarkable as they came. A bit of a blow to the ego, true, but it helped with the not getting murdered in your sleep thing.

"I'm Jonah," he said quietly (and hated himself for it). "You?"

Eternal Duck Itch, huh? This one had a sense of humor--of the juvenile sort, but the point stood--and Ange found herself sniffing in unintended amusement. Males were, as always, weird, but they were often genuine in the way that was comparable to demon furniture. Questionable. Remarkably refreshing, however.

At the same time, it wasn't a simple joke. Ange understood: the words held more sarcasm than one might expect. Guess that sort of thing came with the territory.

"Touché." No one deserved to deal with Vaseline.

In all honesty, Ange never expected continued conversation. The boy had paused, after all, and the silence between them was taken as an end. So the name offered came as a genuine surprise. This was what normal people did, did they not? Be polite and give others your name. Unless you couldn't for fear of familial rejection, in which case you could give them something else.

Right? Right.

She turned her head and took a minute to regard him. A part of her thought the name "Jonah" was familiar, but the connotations that rose had less to do with the immediate and more to do with the prophet and the whale. It probably wouldn't be wise to tell him that. "Greta," she replied instead.

Oh, he heard that sniff. The corner of his mouth twitched and Peter resisted a smile. It always felt like something of a triumph when he got someone with a perpetual stone-face to break the deadpan. Even better when it was a girl - a lot of them dismissed anything guys said completely in the off chance they were making a pass at them. Which was ever so depressing when you weren't trying to pick them up in the first place. Sometimes you just wanted to make a joke, geez.

The introduction derailed that train of thought. Peter squinted at her, brows neatly furrowed as he tried to place the name. He didn't recognize her by face, but the name...and it wasn't that silly niggling familiarity that came with catching someone from a movie or an old book he used to read.

"We talked on the board," he said abruptly, the realization a surprise even to him. He searched her eyes for some sign of recognition. "You're the one who asked about...timelines. Existing in two places at once. Right?"

While he didn't remember the exchange in its entirety, he did remember spilling a few very important beans. Namely, the fiction theory. If you didn't count him and Indy constantly skirting around the subject and the first time his fourth wall had gotten bulldozed (thank you, Sangamon), it was the first time he'd purposefully brought it up with anyone. Sure, she had asked. And though it was hard to tell from written notes alone, she hadn't seemed all that phased. That didn't stop the sudden tightness in his gut.

He had been avoiding Sangamon for a reason, after all. Philosophy had never been his strong suit, so being pummeled with that kind of existential quandary was a bite more than he could chew. Mostly Peter had been pushing it to the back of his mind and playing innocent. Pretending like he wasn't trying to slot actors into their roles and staring at cartoons sprung to life. Such a shame that this time he had already let his big mouth loose before thinking twice.

Seriously, he needed to look into getting his voice box removed. Life would be so much simpler.

They had talked on the board. The words became the single connecting line in a series of seemingly unrelated factors, the snap that placed every piece into its proper position. Ange turned to honestly consider the younger teenager, an expression of surprise evident on her face. Indeed, she had asked, and yes, they had corresponded at some length. Normally, conversations on the bulletin had come and gone from memory, but this particular subject had never left its presence from her mind.

She did not answer immediately, choosing a minute of contemplation first. He hopefully wouldn't mind the pause--what with their previous association and all. "Right," affirmed Ange. "You're JJ. You're the one who mentioned that we might be..." A pause. Her voice lowered to reflect the gravity of the discussion. "...fictional."

Not real. No different than the delusions of friendship and a Witch in Gold. She could press on, conjure up the appropriate metaphors and similes, but that would be unnecessary. They both understood the weight of the subject, even if Ange did not feel particularly--

What? Here, she frowned. Bothered would be the correct term, but for reasons unknown, the girl could not think it.

Her eyelids instead drooped as if to contemplate, the potential answers swirling. She could say many things to this boy: ask him regarding the mechanics, nitpick the background logic... The possibilities were endless. But what actually came out was a question least expected. Even Ange hadn't foreseen the inquiry.

"Are you bothered by it?" she asked.

The muscles in his jaw might as well have been cased in iron. He couldn't pry them apart for an answer. Peter let his tongue dart out to wet suddenly dry lips, and looked away.

Indy was sitting with Logan. They were too far away to listen in, but the conversation seemed civil. Had Logan started to wonder what Harrison Ford's doppelganger was doing walking around in full on three dimensions? Or was he more concerned with DeForest Kelley, lounging three pews ahead of them and one blue shirt away from being in the spitting image of Doctor Leonard McCoy in his Star Trek heyday? It was tempting to reach out and pat their hands, their faces; pinch yourself and make doubly sure they weren't the most vivid hallucinations you'd ever had.

Anything beyond second glances simply swallowed you. Conversations blurred your impressions. The more time you spent with them, the more real they became. Knocking down their own pedestals when the script isn't there to save them - when you sit down to lunch with the Scarecrow, when a young Batman becomes the most frustrating friend you'd ever had, and a hapless Superman is murdered outside your room. You saw the lines around their eyes, caught their flubs and ticks and every twitch of their face in more detail than you ever wanted. They weren't entertaining any more, because now you actually cared.

Not that his own feelings ever counted for much. Just enough to sell a four dollar issue at a comic stand.

"Yes," he answered finally. His eyes stayed resolutely on the fountain statue, the only place in the room where he wouldn't catch someone's eye. Least of all Greta's. "If we're all made up, then everything...it's all just for kicks. And it doesn't matter what happens to us because we never mattered in the first place. It's just entertainment. We're performing for this invisible audience, and when it's all over they don't give it a second thought."

His mouth formed a hard line at the thought. Gore always had been a crowd-pleaser.

"How is that not supposed to bother you?"

Edited 2010-06-19 08:44 (UTC)

Body language was telling, distorting one's view like tiny ripples in water. Although Ange had her answer far before she caught the set jaw line, Jonah's movements gave away far more detail than initially asked for. The glance aside, the fixed stare at no human eye. Here was a young man in silent distress. And Ange, the inadvertent cause.

What more could she expect? When the lines of reality and fantasy blurred, your existence came into question, pulled apart with reason and logic and fallacy. A person is taught to trust the real world, and experience makes them abandon the rest as trivialities. What were you to do when you learn the things that once held weight--became so dear--were not real? How was that not supposed to bother them, as Jonah put it in no uncertain terms? How could she entertain this prospect so smoothly, as if considering a simple math problem?

Because. Because once upon a time, she had been in his shoes. Had allowed the realizations and the doubts destroy the ones that might have brought her a shred of happiness in that dull, gray world. Somewhere, she had let explanations like this slide through without a single regret. Somewhere in her heart of hearts, she had made them matter very little.

Ange, too, turned to watch the fountain, her movements calm despite the subject. It took a minute for the girl to speak, but speak she did. Otherwise, their conversation couldn't continue. "I'm not going to belittle your feelings," she began, "nor am I going to try and reason them out. You're right in that it's worth a bother."

Her tone lowered. "That kind of thing...is the worst."

He tore his eyes away from the statue to regard her for a moment, only to find that she had imitated him and was staring straight ahead as resolutely as he had been. Her expression betrayed nothing, and her voice was near impossible to read. The girl had been speaking in what was practically a monotone the whole time. Even when she switched it up it was difficult to say whether the conversation bored her, made her sad, or was just plain irritated by the whole thing. It was unsettling enough on its own without the strangeness of the fiction theory setting a heavy fog around them.

She wasn't the weirdest person he had met here. That would have to be Luxord or Mathemaniac, without a doubt. But this perpetual...sullen-ness was completely out of the ball park. Not even Moon Knight was this stoic.

And Moon Knight was such a freak.

"Does it bother you?" he asked quietly. "You didn't seem so surprised."

The timing of that question was a tad off the mark, in the sense that she had answered internally before it had been presented. Ange, however, did not mind. It wasn't like Jonah knew of her past or any of its intricate details; he might find some use in what she had to say. Not to mention, the fact she could control how much to divulge was a privilege she could accept, even if rehashing parts wasn't high on her list of subjects to talk about.

She continued her watch on the fountain, making no movements that would betray her current perceptions. Eventually, the young woman spoke, and for once, she displayed a kind of amusement. Like there existed a punchline somewhere in the conversation.

"Not anymore," replied Ange. "It used to, but not...now." Not after she found out it never really mattered to begin with.

He arched a brow, not in skepticism but in shock. How exactly did one get used to the idea that their entire lives existed on paper and were sold as entertainment to intellectually stunted middle class children? (Or whatever demographic they happened to be pushing you at. Better middle class children than the entire fanbase of Sex and the City.)

Peter shifted in the pew to better face her as they spoke, keeping his voice low in the off chance that someone was eavesdropping. From the look of things they were in the clear, but that was never any guarantee. It wasn't like everybody cupped their hand to their ear and leaned into your face. "What made you change your mind? I only found out last week, and it's been...uh. Something."

At a gesticulative loss, Peter smoothed the hair out of his face and freed his eyes of bangs. Geez, this was so weird to talk about out loud. "I still can't figure out where this place fits in. Why they would push us all together where we can recognize each other and burst everyone's happy little bubbles? Are they just messing with us, or is there some kind of method to it all? Hammer in how useless we really are so that...I don't know. Just seems like rampant will-breaking to me."

What a question to ask. Ange briefly considered laying out the full story in detail, but the vague, mysterious route seemed more desirable. She could keep certain parts under wraps while allowing Jonah to digest the implications. Then, neither would have to feel strange about the situation--any more than they were right now, that is.

She drummed her fingers, mulling on exactly where to start. "I wonder," she started quietly. "My family attracts gossip and legends as a rule, but that isn't it. People can never fully adjust to the idea of fantasy crossing into reality; we're too stubborn to accept anything but truth. Except--" There was a sharp cutoff, and for a moment, a tired expression crept into her features. Only to disappear in the next. "There's something about loss that breaks that barrier down."

For others to take advantage of. So maybe it made sense. Maybe Jonah's viewpoint made perfect logical sense. "You might be right, then. If you blur the line between fact and fiction in a high-stress environment, you're more likely to accept the dissonance. You would want to take in whatever was thrown at you." Like how they were all insane.

So was there something skeevy going on with her family that would make people start up the rumour mill? Or was she famous as opposed to infamous? Some kind of ruling party, perhaps, or a big fish in a small pond. That kind of deal. It was Landel's so more likely than not the issue involved sparkly fairy powers, but the same basic social principles should apply even in worlds with witches and dragons and stuff (unless Harry Potter was a lie).

He nodded along to the rest. "Yeah. It's hard to grasp when you're doing fine and dandy."

The unexpected mention of death rattled him, though he did his best not to show it. There might have been a hint in the way his brows twitched, halting before he could change expression, but for the most part he kept his poise. He wasn't about to drop a bomb on the conversation by mentioning how he'd found out about the comic books literally the day after Harry died. Loss breaks barriers, indeed. Would he have just laughed in Sangamon's face that day if they hadn't run into the shapeshifters? It was incredulous enough that he might. Even with the guy quoting his life back at nearly verbatim, and all the hints with Scott and Indy.

Honestly, he couldn't see himself buying it. Greta was right. You had to be in an absolutely spectacular funk before you latched onto some crazy idea like that. Unfortunately for him, that had been exactly the case.

A thoughtful fist pressed against his mouth. "That doesn't explain what the purpose is though. Even if Landel is a Class A Sadist and likes to down a bucket of popcorn while we cry and gnash our teeth. That I.R.I.S. thing said we're in a program. They're training us for something. They need us. Do they honestly think knocking down a couple fourth walls is making them any more loveable?" Peter scoffed. "Besides, the Stockholm Syndrome thing probably works better when it's one on one."

Only a handful of truths could be derived from body language, and those observations could be taken as faulty. She could believe her short account had impacted Jonah in a meaningful way; a subtle response could give way to clarity over one's internal logic. It was interesting in a sense. Being regarded as someone without the taint of infamy or position, having suspicions reciprocated without mockery was an entirely new experience.

Therefore, she couldn't trust it. The impact, the effect. You couldn't wonder about another's loss without comparison. She might have done so in the confines of Saint Lucia or the world of 1998, but here was hesitation. It suddenly didn't seem right to compare, to think you might have said the wrong words. The people she met here appeared willing to divulge into truth without the messiness of the other place.

Ange would continue, then. Ignore everything that touched on subjectivity.

"It's hard to say when only a few seem to be aware of it." She lolled her head then, thoughts slipping when the younger mentioned an oddity. "What's I.R.I.S.?"

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Day 50: Chapel

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