Night 55: Female Nurse Prep Area

[lovecrafty]

> ==>The room was adorned in inky shades, thin rectangles of complete darkness cropping out here and there amid the stygian depths. Rose squinted, and opened the door as wide as possible to let what bare wisps of refracted light might join them

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[mirthfulness]

Gamzee had to wonder what she considered unusual. Most of this situation was unusual, and this new world he'd found himself in (whatever it was) had very little usual about it. Was he supposed to compare it to what he was used to? Because that might get complicated. In fact this whole pattern of thought strained at his drugged up brain cells a little too much

[lovecrafty]

A veritable smorgasbord of quotidian details, each more mundane than the next.  All of them potentially alienating to an alien himself, presuming that he was not, instead, a youthful master of deceit and living up to the moniker of troll in the Internet rather than fairytale sense.  All of her observations still pointed to him not having the intelligence for such a maneuver, but that would be an indication of consummate skill.  Just because Rose Lalonde had never been wrong in such matters before didn't mean it was completely impossible

[mirthfulness]

Luckily, the assumption that 'lockers' were the compartments with locks on them was easy enough to make even for Gamzee. He nodded and led the way over to them, careful to avoid the tables and... nah, he didn't even care. He just hopped over everything.

They didn't exactly have any keys, though, did they? Or did these lockers even use keys? Did it matter? The girl wanted to see the lockers, so they were going to take a look at the lockers. What happened once they were looking at them was all up to her, as she was the leader of this little excursion as far as he was concerned, even if neither had made any real mention of it. It was possible she knew how to open them and just hadn't told him yet. He was cool with that.

The troll turned human tapped at one of the lockers with a finger. The casing didn't seem that thick. Perhaps he could break one open after all... If it was all right with his present company, anyway.

[lovecrafty]

The first locker Rose tried was unlocked but empty; the second contained only a wad of foil that had, perhaps, once contained chewing gum. The next was locked, and her prior attempts during this encounter had all been chalked up to the humiliating side of the ledger. She opened the larger cabinet

A fuzzy sweater with some sort of revoltingly cute flowers on it, and a -- hopefully not part of the same ensemble -- scarf that, in the near-darkness, she could only tell was a solid color, and bound in tiny perfect stitches ripped from the needle-weary hands of fifty thousand soulless automated looms. She could do better, if love counted more than symmetry, but it would do. She wrapped it around her neck with a graceful motion that was entirely lost in the darkness. Or perhaps not; the depths of her companion's perceptive abilities was something she was, to belabor a phrase, a bit in the dark about.

Suitably adorned, she returned to the bank of mundane cubicles. Yank-screech Locks were no match for Rose Lalonde. Pity that after

[mirthfulness]

Now that was just cute. No really, it was. That whole scarf thing - that was adorable. It was enough to make Gamzee wish he could have something fluffy to wrap around his neck too, but he'd just have to settle with letting his partner wear it for now

[lovecrafty]

Fashion, it seemed, was not a troll high point. That sweater was an inspiration to passive-aggressive knitters everywhere, but it was eyebleeding enough swathed in near-total darkness. Assuming she believed the whole troll identity, complete with seeing-in-the-dark, which she didn't, the retinal damage could be irreversible.

There was a pack of cigarettes on the top shelf of the last locker, but when no matches or lighters were in evidence, she tossed it back in. Some people might think she'd have had enough fire by now, but some people would be wronge. Most people were, trapped in their humdrum existence. Or they had been before the world ended, but that was top of the list of things Rose Lalonde wasn't thinking too hard about. Avoidance was healthy. Denial would carry them right through endgame and out the other side, if they just kept to the plan.

"When you say miracle, can you be more specific?" That was sounding more like coincidence, which in turn was more like predestination where Sburb was concerned. Was he

[mirthfulness]

The unfortunate thing about the sweater was that, cute as it was, it also covered the smiley face on the front of Gamzee's shirt. He happened to rather like that smiley, despite the lack of nose, and thus found himself pulling the base of the sweater up every so often just to get another peek at it. Just to make certain it hadn't up and run off his shirt without anyone else to see it. It still really needed to be completed, though, and he'd have to fix that first chance he had. (What he'd fix it with, he didn't know

[lovecrafty]

Mirthful Messiahs? That was the least apropos description of the gods from the Farthest Ring she'd ever heard. It was also the first one she'd heard that came from someone else's subconscious, which she had to admit might have something to do with it.

"Does that mean you can still hear them? These messiahs of yours?" The quiet in that quarter was deafening. All transmissions cut off. Nothing. Nada. Zip. She couldn't think of anything she'd done to merit such a wholesale condemnation, especially not in favor of this...troll.

Who also wanted to be friends. Unironically. One of these days, troll psychology would be an open book. Not yet.