Nightshift 60: Main Hallway, 1-West

[toxicspiderman]

[from here]Even the main hall was deserted. S.T. switched on his flashlight and took a look around. Yeah, it was empty. No roadkill, no other patients. If he ever made it home, he was never bitching at any of the girls who didn't want to do night ops alone again. It was different when you knew there were things out there in the darkness.

Comments

[antiheroed]

from here]

As he hit the final leg of his stop, Riku saw two faces: a girl and a guy. It was clear right away that it wasn't the girl who was the one waiting for him, so he headed over to the guy. Maybe they should have set this up better, but he wasn't sure about that. If this was the wrong one, if he wasn't waiting for Riku, then he could let him know and Riku would just go find who he was actually looking for.

He headed up to him while, once again, noting how different things were. This time he thought: was it better that it was different? Or worse? The uneasy look on Sora's face the night before made him think it was better. But it also reminded him of the ominous changes warned by Landel. So maybe it was worse.

These thoughts didn't play on his features as he reached the guy. (Then again, they rarely did.) "Are you Lingormr?" he asked. The name came out somewhat slowly, as if he was trying to be sure to say it right. As he waited for his response, Riku noticed how much older this guy was. Well, hopefully he wouldn't have a complex about it.

[complicatedliar]

If this was Riku, he was both much shorter and much younger than Loki had been expecting. Well, and who else would be looking for him? For a moment his eyebrows went up, but that was the only break from the utterly pleasant mask of his expression.

Well, really, almost anyone in this place was likely to be far younger than Loki. A few years in either direction likely didn't make that much of a difference for short-lived mortals. And he also had to admit that at this point even the youngest child likely had a better idea of what was going on than Loki did himself, and thus there was most definitely use to be had.

He stepped away from the wall and even gave the young man a proper bow, if not a very deep one. "I am he." Riku's pronunciation was close enough and not worth correcting. "You must be Riku, then." He smiled. "I am at your disposal for the night."

[antiheroed]

"Just like that, huh?" Riku returned. This guy was pretty pliant if he could just do whatever Riku wanted. Their brief introductions weren't met with this guy giving him the usual once-over. Or, at least, he couldn't perceive one. That put some points into his book for now. It got tiring when that kind of thing happened. At times, he thought he knew more than half the people stuck in this place, and that happened before he arrived. Last night was proof it was true at least to set a contrast between him and Sora; their experiences, their moralities, were informed by far different experiences. "I think this can work if you're really at my 'disposal'," he joked.

Riku turned slightly and pointed down the hall. "There's some stairs, if you want to go up. Or we can keep going straight to the medical hall. Or outside, really. It gets boring no matter what way we go. So what's your choice?" Coming up with a determined plan on getting out of here was difficult. The only story with any kind of legend attached to it was the basement, and that was proven to be bad news.

Then again ...

"There's the basement, too," he added in after a beat. "But that could spell out trouble."

[complicatedliar]

"If you'd like, I can try to make it terribly complicated." Loki chuckled softly, a wry smile coming to his lips. "I don't clean toilets and I make horrendous sandwiches, though I've been told I'm quite useful for taking things off of tall shelves."

Loki cocked his head slightly as Riku seemed to be asking him where they ought to go. It seemed like a strange thing, considering it was his first night in this place and all he'd really gotten was warning after warning about how fantastically dangerous it was. He examined the young man's face, a bit of amusement blooming in his chest. This was most definitely a test.

Everything always was.

"Everyone I've spoken with today seemed to indicate that boring is a good thing, but I've personally never been a fan." He grinned. "But really, I'm here to be useless and over-intellectual dead weight wherever you'd like to go, since you're the one that actually knows the lay of the land." He chuckled. "I've been told I ought to find some sort of weapon, which I suppose will be very comforting to hug when something nasty starts chewing on my leg. I'm likely to be of the most use to you if there's anything that requires puzzling out. Though I'll go out on a limb and guess that there are no monsters that can be readily slain by a theorem, no matter how clever and well-written."

[antiheroed]

"How can you mess up a sandwich? You just throw meat on bread," he shot back, as it served as a proper way to break the silence. "If you can't even figure that out, you sure you wanna try holding a weapon?" Riku rolled back onto his heels and turned. There weren't many places to get weapons. Once, he was pretty sure he heard something about grabbing pipes, but those were a pain to get. The other option was to see if ending up in the medical wing would yield anything good like it had for him, but there was no precedence, no promise of a reward. It didn't seem like a good idea.

So, instead, he thought back to his first night here. That night, Kairi had been attacked and things had gone poorly. It was stupid that they had been sent out for baseball bats, but now, it didn't seem like a half-bad idea. At least Riku worried less about this guy than he did his friends. (For now, the fact that this was even true didn't occur to him as having any problems with it ...)

"We can head outside to the equipment shed, if you're still up for it. You can grab one of those baseball bats and then we can do something more interesting while you're less scared." And before his comrade for the night asked, he added, "This came because of a special thing here. You get a better weapon if you go take a trial drug. So look out for that." Riku remembered how his friends didn't like his decision, but once again: this guy wasn't a friend.

[complicatedliar]

"It may have something to do with the general uselessness of academics." Loki laughed dryly. "I'm not really fussed either way about weapons, to be honest. It's a function of if you prefer the mathematician at your back to be armed or not. I'm not so utterly incompetent that there's a danger of me accidentally wounding you, so it's as good a plan as any." He favored Riku with a thin smile. "I don't often go to the bother of feeling fear. It's a waste of time. Though I don't expect you to believe me when I say that, Riku. I'll simply hope there's no cause to find out."

Really, it was more that, after what he'd seen and done in his life, up to and including falling through a hole in time and space that lead to somewhere very dark indeed, there wasn't much left that really could scare him.

"I'll keep that in mind if the opportunity arises," he said, in regards to the drug trial. It was an odd sort of thing, pairing a weapon with some sort of experiment, but it wasn't really any odder than anything around here to begin with. "If you care to lead, I shall follow."

[antiheroed]

I don't often go to the bother of feeling fear. It's a waste of time.

As casual as the statement could have been-along with boasting-it unsettled Riku. The words brought him back to his own the day he left the Islands, Darkness swelling quickly around him, threatening to envelop everything that he had known up to that point. (And he didn't care because, just like Lingormr, he didn't fear. He wasn't afraid.) It was what he told Sora time and time again: I'm not afraid, I control the Darkness, I'm in control. It was always said the same way: sincerely, certainly, and not in any way intended as a matter of reassurance. He doubted Lingormr's words were any different. That was what made him uneasy. People didn't say those things lightly.

Sure, they might have been joking mere moments ago, but words like that would always strike Riku a certain way. He masked his emotions carefully, not keen on letting this guy know that he wasn't fond of what he just heard.

The rest he discounted as mere trivial information. It wasn't like an academic couldn't do damage. The fact that the Darkness was allowed to spill over and destroy the worlds in the form of Heartless was proof enough. That was the act of scientists, of research-it was what happened when someone decided to go too far. He realized that there were other clichés and definitions that played into it, and he knew that was what this guy meant. But that didn't mean he was going to just play along entirely. Riku liked a challenge, and after something like his fearlessness coming in an opening like that, it meant that he needed to really test him.

"Of course you will," he finally managed, giving a full shrug. "You're at my disposal, remember? I haven't forgotten already. But if you're a lazy bum, let's get you in shape. Hope you can keep up." And with that, he started down one of the closest hallways, as he knew it would open up closest to the activity shed. If there was trouble, he wanted to circumvent it as much as possible.

[ to here]