damned_institute | Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

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Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

There were very few activity shifts, Cloud was sure, that could possibly make him feel more like he was being treated like a child. He took a seat at one of the tables and blankly examined the materials set out before him. A pair of the dullest scissors he'd ever seen were labeled 'ages 3 and up'. It was good to know where the patients stood in this.

He wasn't much of an artist, and he ignored most of the paints and other drawing utensils in favor of a few sheets of colored paper and instructions on how to make origami. That sounded vaguely familiar. Didn't Yuffie have throwing weapons made out of paper at some point? It was something to do anyway, and thus Cloud began the process of crafting what ended up being very elaborate paper wads.

Sadly, his attempts to keep from dwelling on the subject of his missing friend failed when he realized this was something Aerith probably would have enjoyed greatly. Tonight, he and Yuffie would go out and try to accomplish... something. It was depressing to think there really might not be anything they could do, that they might all end up the same as the flower girl eventually.

[for a hopefully more optimistic materia thief]

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"Y'know, Cloud, if you just screw up a few bits of paper together before liberally applyin' your fist, they come out looking almost as good."

Suddenly, a ninja! A ninja carrying an armful of brightly origami paper, a few pipe-cleaners, two tubs of glitter, and a tube of craft glue. Yuffie grinned, bright as metal in the summer sunshine, and dumped the lot onto the table. She was sorry to see that the tubs didn't explode, since a sparkly, glittering Cloud was the best Cloud of all.

Still, wasn't like she couldn't just glitter him up by herself. She did have good aim, and he was right there. Sedation would be a small price to pay.

Without waiting for an invitation, Yuffie chucked herself unceremoniously into an empty chair. The resulting sprawl of skinny limbs wasn't exactly the comfiest of arrangements, but she gave herself points for ingenuity, originality, and zestful inconsideration. Today had been way too serious, and far, far too tiring. Too full of pessimism and defeat and furrowed eyebrows. The only highlight had been the dude jumping up on his table at lunch, and then he'd gone and delivered the lamest motivational speech she'd ever heard.

"Ha." Cloud tossed one of the wads at the girl before pulling out a set of instructions from underneath a pile of his failures and casually glancing over them again. No one could really be that precise with paper, right? No one with clumsy, sword-wielding hands like his anyway. This was just an exercise in futility.

Much like their nightly excursions? Maybe. It could be a metaphor.

He cast a wary eye on the mound of supplies Yuffie had dragged over. Surely she didn't plan on actually using all of those, and he had a nasty suspicion that he was going to regret not moving the moment she joined him. "If any of that gets on me, you don't touch the materia. Ever." Glitter took so, so long to get out of his hair.

It was nice to see a smiling face, though, even if it ultimately meant a messy doom for anyone within a couple yard radius.

A flimsy lil' paper projectile like that would've been totally harmless, but reflexes were reflexes. Yuffie dodged, and nearly fell out of the chair for her trouble. A quick, flailing snatch at the corner of the table saved her.

"H-Hey!" she protested, dragging herself upright again. Her expression crumpled into a pout. A pout which intensified seconds later, when pulled his ace: no glitter, or no materia. "You can't threaten me with that! I lent you my sword, didn't I? You owe me for that! You owe me!" The materia was just as much hers as it was anybody else's in AVALANCHE, as far as Yuffie was concerned. "Besides, you could do with a bit more bounce n' sparkle. I'd be doing you a favor."

Instead of immediately going in for the kill, Yuffie grabbed a few pieces of origami paper and set to work. Nimble fingers flew as she made the necessary creases, turns, and folds. A chocobo to start with, she'd decided, half unconsciously, as soon as she'd seen Cloud in the room. And it was shaping up to be a good one.

"I don't think I need any more sparkle than I already have." Cloud smirked, indicating his eyes with one finger. "And I'd prefer to repay my debts in a manner that doesn't involve me picking glitter out of my ears for the next few days." If she'd give him the option, that is. It wasn't really fair of him to hold the materia over her head (and Zack might agree with that, so it was a good thing he wasn't around at the moment), but if she was seriously considering pulling a stunt like that...

He started messing around with some of the colored paper again, trying to get it to look like, well, something. Of course Yuffie had to go and make him look like a fool with her intricately crafted whatever-that-was. A chocobo? Really? How unfair. That wasn't even in the instructions.

He ended up with something that looked sort of like a crab (it was supposed to be a cat) but that was better than a wad. "So. Our great plans for tonight."

"Who said anything about your ears?" Yuffie asked, squinting down at her chocobo. She made a few quick adjustments before continuing, "That's like saying, 'wow, Yuffie, you're totally aiming to shoot glitter up my nose, just where everybody won't be able to see it.' Except…" She waggled a hand and rolled her shoulders, relishing in the nonsense. "Your ears. Or something. I think I had a point back there."

"Anyway," she said, clearing her throat. "Like I was saying. Don't even think about using that materia against me, 'cuz— is that a flea?" Whatever it was, Yuffie was pretty sure that Cloud hadn't been aiming to make it.

The introduction of nightshift to their conversation should've been enough to burst her bubble, but it didn't. Yuffie was getting kind of fond of the flimsy, bounce, intangible thing, which had sprung up sometime between saying goodbye to Logan and saying hello to Cloud. A tiny part of her piped up to call it the second wind, and privately, the rest of her agreed.

"Break the ring, visit the smelly ol' locker, then see how far we can get to someplace interesting before the night ends?" Yuffie suggested. She threw down the now-completed chocobo and began crafting a violently pink moogle. "Zack's got the basement covered… I dunno, wanna try the outside again?"

Cloud didn't really trust those rings at all, not after what had gone on over the intercoms the night before. What was there to return to, anyway? The second floor? Sure, it had taken them time to get up to that level in the past, and perhaps starting off there would allow them to get further than usual, but where else was there for them to go up there that someone else hadn't already been to? Not to mention that if they wanted to go outside, that would put them even further away from their goal.

At the same time, he felt bad wanting to deny Yuffie the use of the ring when it had been given to her. He picked up his little origami mishap and smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, sure. A flea." With a flick of one finger, he sent it 'hopping' in the girl's direction. It even kind of hopped like one if you didn't count how far short it fell of its target.

He looked thoughtful for a moment. "Outside is probably our best bet as far as finding anything new. Everything else will have been scoured over by other patients hundreds of times before." Maybe not the basement, not completely, but like Yuffie said - Zack already had that covered. Even the outside wasn't going to be a sure bet, seeing how easily they were allowed to get there, but he couldn't think of any routes that would be better.

The paper flea-thing hopped at Cloud's urging, before flopping pathetically. "I feel kinda sorry for it," Yuffie said, staring wide-eyed. She leaned over to poked it once or twice, before snatching it off the table and dropping it lightly onto her chocobo's back. Maybe she should keep it? To mock Cloud with at every opportunity, and, if nothing else, to use as an impromptu cat-toy…

"Couple of hundred, and then some," Yuffie agreed, sighing dramatically. "I can't believe it, Cloud. Even I'm running out of things to poke my nose into." It was a concern she'd been turning over and over in her mind for days now; whether she was losing her touch, and her drive to get out and do. Like that'd ever happen, she told herself. Totally laughable.

"There's gotta be something out there," she mused, fixing up the moogle's pom-pom and wings. "Other than zombies, a ghost town, a creepy mine, and a lake with a beach full of skeletons. The dudes from the radio, maybe? Treasure? … Horrifying monsters, too, but that's a given. A sucky given." Getting out there was easy, but actually getting somewhere was a different matter. Maybe it was weird of her, or naïve, but the prospect of hard work gave her hope.

It was probably about time to give up on the origami. At this point, all he was doing was giving Yuffie more to tease him with. Cloud did give an amused snort as she stuck the 'flea' on top of the chocobo, though. It was very much out of place. He did pick up another sheet of paper, but rather than try and make any sort of animal, he began folding it into a very simple paper plane. He could do that much, at least. (Now whether or not it would actually fly was still up in the air.)

"What do you know about those places you mentioned? Are any of them worth visiting again?" He'd been interested in the town ruins when they'd been warped there the other night. It was a shame they hadn't gotten a much better look at the place, and the rain hadn't exactly made for good visuals either. The lake she mentioned caught his attention. What could be in the water there? Or did those skeletons have nothing to do with what was in the water and more to do with what had caused all those places to empty out to begin with?

Then, while they were on the subject... "And what do you think about that ring? I have no problem with you cracking the stone if you want to test it out, but I don't trust the Head Doctor at all. I don't want you using any of your blood on that thing."

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Day 51: Arts & Crafts (4th shift)

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