Mar 09, 2011 12:03
leela,
kirk,
s.t.,
klavier,
japan,
tsubaki,
badd,
anise,
minato,
the doctor,
sam winchester,
firo,
goku (dragonball),
taura,
dexter,
franziska,
claire bennet,
kinomoto sakura,
peter parker,
snow,
lunge,
lana skye,
ruby,
mello,
soren,
brainiac 5,
the flash,
roxas,
albedo,
stefan,
peter petrelli,
mele,
damon,
two-face,
ritsuka,
lion,
rapunzel,
erika,
edgar,
canada,
the scarecrow,
sync,
matt,
maya,
zevran,
battler,
spock,
zack,
kratos,
l,
shinji,
kenshin,
bella,
scott pilgrim,
gumshoe,
ax,
claire littleton,
sora,
gren,
prussia,
claude,
renamon,
guybrush,
dean winchester,
byrne,
guy,
kairi,
venom,
nigredo,
ilia,
kibitoshin,
lightning,
rita,
alaric,
yue,
sasuke,
aidou,
claire stanfield,
edward cullen,
kaworu,
mccoy
Just as he was resigning himself to his scrubbity fate, however, the officer added, "Those who have participated in yesterday's insubordination, however, do not get to help."
Scott's head snapped up. "Wait, what?"
The first thought that came to Scott's head was from his slacker brain: Score! I don't have to do woooork! I don't have to do woooork!
It wasn't long, however, before the more decent part of him took back the reins of control and forced him to be properly horrified at the implications of that. Everyone was going to be looking at him now. Everyone. They were going to be scrubbing their asses off and shooting him death glares and knowing exactly who to lynch come this nightshift. Why is my suffering never enough for you people?! Scott thought with a quiet groan, feeling like he wanted to pull his beret down over his face and hide inside it until he died from lack of oxygen.
Scott started shuffling along the sides of the cleaning area as the other patients (privates?) started their work. Where was the best place to stand and not be seen? Where could he avoid gazes from people like Peter, or Indy, or Sora? To his dismay, there didn't seem to be anyplace he could go. The best he could do was to get as far away from people he knew as was possible. Eventually, he ended up near a tanned boy scrubbing at a grape juice stain, a complete stranger to him. Well, almost a stranger. He could swear the guy looked familiar for some reason, but he couldn't place it at the moment. In any case, he was sure he didn't know the guy's name, and if he was going to be hated, he wanted to be hated by someone he didn't know, at least.
The guy, Hattery something, was apparently one for talking to himself. Scott couldn't help but respond. "I'd take your place if I could, man, I swear to god," he muttered back, putting a hand over his eyes and rubbing his temples between his thumb and middle finger.
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"Look," Heiji said sharply--he wasn't in the best of moods, for obvious reasons. He tossed the brush back into the bucket. "You guys wanna start a riot when I'm asleep, fine. If Frau McBotox wants t'make th'people who tried t'stay outta it clean and try t'divide us, whatever. But don' stand there n' tell me you'd switch places with me n' sound all regretful, 'cause there's somethin' bigger goin' on than jus' scrubbin' this place spotless while y'guys watch."
Heiji stood up with the bucket, looking at the other young man. He looked familiar, but Heiji was more drawn to his hat. There was a pin on it--was there one on his own? He really hadn't checked.
"If anythin'," he said, carting the bucket over to exchange it for a clean one. His had turned sort of brown-purple. "I'm livid that one day, they've taken my two best friends--same day!--" He slammed the bucket down, water shooting up and onto his shoes. "--'n th'next day, 'm cleanin' their floors. That's what's wrong here, not you, Hat Bling."
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"Geez, you try to be a little sympathetic...!" Scott grumbled a bit to himself, lifting his hands at his sides in frustrated defeat. He was about to complain about the stupid nickname when what the guy was actually saying hit him. More disappearances. Now that the military was in, was that going to mean more or fewer of those? Scott hadn't really thought about that. More, I guess. These guys aren't fooling around. They're gonna be more strict about who goes and who stays, he thought, a small lump forming in his throat. He shot a quick glance across the crowd to where Peter was scrubbing with some blonde chick. He and a few other people he recognized were still around, it looked like. Was there anyone missing, though?
"Can I at least be sympathetic about that? I've lost people too, man," he answered, chewing on the inside of his lower lip as he turned back to the guy on the ground beside him. Hattery here still looked ever-so-faintly familiar, and that was really starting to bother him now that he had mentioned absent friends. Had he seen the guy hanging around with anyone maybe?
He let the silence sit for a few moments longer before he worked up the stones to ask: "...Who'd they take? Maybe I knew 'em?"
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Heiji's fingers tightened around the scrub brush until they went into the bristles, but he didn't shout what he wanted to. It wasn't this guy's fault, it wasn't any prisoner's fault. And screaming, as much as he'd love to indulge in it, wouldn't bring either of them back or make him feel any better later on. So as much as Heiji wanted to play the 'My Pain Is Worse Than Yours Game', he held it in.
"Yeah, maybe y'did," he said quietly after taking a deep breath and letting it out. "Kuroba Kaito and Kudou Shinichi. Went by Kyle Crowe and Jimmy Doyle here."
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"Whoa, wait, Shin's gone?" Scott said with alarm, forgetting for the moment that Shinichi would have reminded him not to call him that had he been around. Now he knew why this Hattery or Hat-torrent or whatever his name was looked familiar: he was sure he had seen the guy sitting with Shinichi at least once or twice in passing. He had never gotten the guy's name before, but yeah, there was the connection.
He realized after a moment that this was probably going to sound confusing unless he clarified himself. "Sorry, yeah, I do know him. Not the other guy, but I do know Shinichi. My name's Scott Pilgrim. I don't know if he mentioned me?" he explained hastily, trying to fight the sinking of his own chest as he tried not to think about all the things that might possibly have happened to his new friend. "You just found out today? Did you see him at all yesterday or anything?" Scott hadn't. Now that he thought about it, the last time he had talked to the guy had been a few days ago now. Ouch. Way to be observant, Scott.
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"The guy’s name is Scott Pilgrim. I… you wouldn’t believe this, Hattori, but I literally ran into him."
That was where he'd heard it before. This guy was one of three people who knew Shinichi's secret.
“He seemed like an okay guy, but he’s not the person I’m all right with knowing about Conan. He was as freaked out about it as I was, and I seriously doubt he’s part of the Black Organization, but I’m not sure I can trust him completely.”
"Yeah, Shin's gone," Heiji said, standing up and tossing the brush back in the bucket. If Scott thought Heiji had looked mad before, he could probably see the flames coming off the Osakan right now. "Hattori Heiji, firs' person t'put th'pieces t'gether'n figure out he 'n Conan were th'same person. He told me you were th'third."
In a few slow steps, he was inches away from Scott. "Question is, I know th'firs' didn' let it slip, 'n th'second's had plenty'a time to. And isn' that funny--four days after you find out, he's gone." He narrowed his eyes, bucket forgotten for the moment in favor of possibly beating in the face of the guy responsible for Shinichi's disappearance. "Got anythin' t'say 'bout that, Pilgrim?"
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"What?! Whoa, hey, no! Hey! Listen!" he squeaked, backing up into a table with his hands in the air. "I'm freaking out about this too, okay?! I didn't know he was gone, and I didn't do or say anything that might have made him disappear!"
He paused. Then a stinging chill scurried up his back.
".............Nothing that would have gotten traced back to him, anyway?"
Oh god. He had told someone about Shinichi's little secret. Shinichi's name had never been mentioned, but Scott had blabbed to Not-A-Trademark-Of-LucasArts Sam about seeing someone turn into a seven-year-old. That hadn't come back to bite the detective in the ass later, had it? Even with his name removed? No, no what was he thinking? People disappeared from Landel's all the time for seemingly no reason. There couldn't have been a connection. Couldn't've been, I tells ya!
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