Day 59: Sun Room

[witchdetective]

Erika stood back to survey her work, and she had no idea why no one seemed to care.

By 'no one', she was referring to the soldiers who were on guard, who should be looking particularly anxious due to the atmosphere of this place. It didn't make sense in her mind. Someone who just took up a large chunk of the middle of the Sun Room to build a

Comments

[anemptydecapo]

It was becoming incredibly disheartening when the assassin was beginning to prefer the nightmares over waking up in the morning. At least his nightmares were always at a consistent and expected level of torture--he'd handled it for years and accepted them long ago. But the constant emotional fluctuations this asylum put him through every day? They were going to drive him insane. After what this damned military put him and everyone else through last night, he was clear on the path to forgetting what it was like when his head wasn't pounding all the time

[chippforprez]

The one sole redeeming feature of this place was knowing that he wasn't entirely alone in this weird-ass place (though then again, that was a really bad thing if he looked at it another way), which was why Chipp was none too happy about being separated from his conversation partner once breakfast was done being served. Damnit, he just got the guy to agree to vote for him too! That was why Chipp was already engaged in an argument with his escort, who threatened him with pushups and further punishments if he continued to talk back. It was then that Chipp stopped in the middle of the hallway and looked his escort straight in the eye.

"Shut the hell up and stop talking to me, then! Damnit!"

Needless to say, Chipp ended up doing the pushups, which was really nothing for a guy did them on a daily basis anyway, but he hardly looked happy about it and didn't even take the following warning in good graces. Needless to say, it was a miracle that he ended up in the Sun Room without further incident. This was the first time the ninja had seen

[scintillatingly]

Getting to talk with Daemon first thing in the morning had definitely helped the day got off on the right foot. Sora always tried to make the best of the daytime activities, whether by taking some time to relax or tracking someone down for information. Riku was way better at the latter, but Sora still did his part. He'd just recruited Daemon after all, hadn't he?

Of course, that conversation had also put him in a pretty nostalgic mood. He was going to have to tell Kairi about this, both to check and see if she'd met Daemon before and also because she was the only one who would understand how weird it was. Of course, people from that long ago showing up again was a good sign. It meant that even if some people vanished, they weren't necessarily gone forever.

While the boy had been content enough to move on to the library as the announcement had said, there was something in the Sun Room that stopped him. Sora had no idea how anyone had managed to pull it off without getting in trouble, but someone had put together a fort made of

[anemptydecapo]

[Just posting once more before Harry gets in.]

This entire situation was madness. His eyes narrowed the longer he starred at it, mind still too tired and wracked with pain to come up with a sufficient answer to all of the questions this brought up. Why weren't the military members doing anything? Why were they just staring with the same disappointed expression that he was instead of doling out those pointless punishments? Why was that woman making a--

"Zanuff?" The response came not a second later after the other man's voice entered his ear, and he almost fell backwards with the speed at which he whipped around to face it. No, there hadn't any mistaking that voice. The source was the same mass of pale white and loud noises as before and he still carried that same insistence to stand directly in Venom's face when he should have known the assassin preferred his personal space untouched. A combination of both that and his own disbelief forced the Guild Head backwards, almost stumbling back to regain said space. "What--" Him? "Why

[commentated]

Remember all that talk about soldiers shooting people with their guns and how scary this place was with the experiments and the killing and noxious gases that they stuck into the sprinkler systems like a bad grad prank? And the crazy people. That too.

The last part was the only thing that stuck when Harry poked his head into the ever-originally named Sun Room (TM). (Did they patent that shit? They should, it was a classic.)

Well. Okay, then. What? Was there a reason for...? Not that you ever needed a good reason to build a blanket fort. They were pretty cool, you know, if you were, like. The age of ten. Or the age of twenty-three and really, really wasted while watching episodes of SpongeBob on loop

[chippforprez]

Chipp wasn't the kind of person who minded company, but he couldn't help but raise a brow at the kid who just came up to Venom and cheerfully asked about the fort. It wasn't that Chipp didn't like the kid when he didn't even know his name, but ... how the hell did Venom know a kid like this? Venom just didn't strike him as the kind of guy who liked babysitting. Wait, maybe the kid was a recruit or something! Shit!

Before Chipp could ask, they were interrupted yet again by another person, a guy who had also taken interest in the damn fort and ended up stepping on the kid's foot. Well, wasn't this a crowd... Luckily for Chipp, his ability to not pay attention to most shit ended up swinging in his favor for once as he kept his attention focused on Venom for the time being (Seriously, was the kid his ... friend or something? Chipp didn't even know that Venom had friends

[scintillatingly]

For a split second, Sora could have sworn that Venom seemed... was it shocked? Disoriented? Whatever it was, it was an emotion he didn't often see on the man's face, and sure enough, it was gone soon after. Still, it seemed that he did know this guy with the white hair. Sora wondered if maybe he'd intruded on something he shouldn't have, but --

"Ow!" He wasn't given much of a chance to worry about that, since the next thing he knew someone else had wandered over. The man was a stranger to Sora, but he seemed friendly enough and he clearly hadn't meant to step on his foot. The bad language made the boy a little uncomfortable, but he'd been exposed to it enough in this place that it didn't bother him too much

[anemptydecapo]

Oh god, now there were three of them.

His internal concern by being surrounded by three blindingly optimistic people was enough to turn the trio's words into unimportant mush. He took another step away from them, eyes briefly casting down and at Sora's trodden foot (he'll be fine) before taking to watching the three before him. It was enough that Harry already reminded the assassin of Zanuff without having the actual ninja there with him. It was enough that Sora's cheerful disposition was here without having to add Harry's constant unease on top of it. And it was enough that Zanuff persistently failed at listening to others without having two more people speaking to him at the same time.

If this asylum had succeeded in whittling down the Guild Head's pride, he would have slipped out the second the other white-haired man opened his mouth. Unfortunately, it hadn't. Even worse was the fact that he was interested in what was being said. Harrington? That was--

I'm Venom's friend."...Friend," he questioned quietly, the word crawling off

[commentated]

There were some moments in your life where you didn't know how you came to be where you were. The morning after prom night. Ten years after you graduated high school and all you had was a dead goldfish and a cactus. Things like that.

This was one moment. It was awkward. He should probably remove himself from the equation since clearly, Venom had a thing going on with these two, but they were already being introduced, so. You know. Although it was a little weird watching Venom throwing off the word friend like it was a damn peanut allergy. Like saying he was friends with a sixteen year old boy would make Chris Hansen spring up behind him and tell him to why not have a seat

[chippforprez]

Even though they amassed quite a crowd, Chipp seemed to take more interest in the other two when Venom indicated he did know them, telling him their names. So the one guy was Harry and the kid was Sora, and Sora knew Daemon and Harry was kind of nice since he apologized for stepping on Sora's foot, so they seemed to be trustworthy people. And they were Venom's... friends? Chipp had to admit, Venom just didn't look like the kind of guy who was interested in friends, Guild head or not. Even if he did try to deny it; since the kid introducing himself looked so friendly, it was like Chipp felt offended for Sora at having his declaration quietly denied

[scintillatingly]

It didn't take long for them to go through the full round of introductions, though Sora was growing more and more surprised at the realization that Zanuff (or would it be better to call him Chipp?) and Venom were friends. It was just that Chipp (Sora quickly decided that he liked that name better -- it was like Chip and Dale!) seemed so much more laidback. He seemed to understand that two people could be friends immediately if they wanted to, and the boy shot him a smile for that reason

[anemptydecapo]

It was clockwork. A formula could have been written on it. The longer Zanuff kept speaking on the subject of their... partnership in front of others, the more Venom's head sunk into his hands. It wasn't that he hated the man, or that he disbelieved how serious the ninja was on this matter (as foolish and rash as the man acted, at this point Venom fully understood that he was nothing but serious), but...

He really didn't need anyone encouraging Sora's over-exuberant ability to "make friends." Why couldn't anyone else understand this as the horrible thing it was? Not everyone was going to respect him. People were going to use him and betray him and only distance could keep that from happening

[commentated]

This was, like. A really confusing conversation. He was pretty sure it was because he came late, but with the talk of fire and Harrington and, like, what? Who got set on fire? And why did no one seem to find this strange except him? Again. Seriously. Was everyone crazy

[chippforprez]

Chipp immediately decided, upon Harry's response, that he rather liked Sora and Harry. Okay, deciding to go into the fort was a little weird, but hey, it wasn't like they were hurting anyone. The thing was still there so Chipp guessed it wasn't like they were going to get in trouble just for going in. But hey, what did he know, maybe it was for military use only. But then, they were wearing these weird uniforms

[scintillatingly]

It had been a long shot even asking and Sora had known that. Venom's response was exactly what he would have expected, but he barely knew the others and so their reactions took him by surprise. The man named Harry was the first one to go in, and Sora found that he liked his belief that there were just certain things that you never outgrew.

"That's the spirit!" he chimed out in reply, moving to follow the older man. Before he got the chance, though, Chipp went in as well, except that it seemed that for some reason he wasn't allowed to sit. Sora had seen other patients who had to stand around all day, which probably meant that he'd gotten in trouble with the soldiers somehow. That wasn't a good sign, but at least the fact that Chipp was standing caused one of the blankets to raise up, giving Sora an easy opening to head inside.

It was a shame that Venom was probably going to ignore all of them after this, but at least this gave him a chance to get to know the man's friends (or acquaintances, whatever he wanted to call them) a little

[commentated]

Man, was that kid always this happy-go-lucky? You'd think with the abduction and everything, he'd be acting a little less like he was in Disneyland. You know, if Disneyland was, like, solely constructed out of chairs and blankets and guarded by Mickey Mouse with a machine gun