Nightshift 28: Bus 2

[misterprince]

Sanji was blinking furiously, trying to figure out why he still felt awake though everything was dark. The sedatives, just recently injected into his system, were working full force and he was having difficulty figuring out which way was up and down. All the sounds were reminiscent of something out of a nightmare. Was that what this was

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[nadine_he_loves]

Nadine had been curled up on a seat near the rear of the bus, staring out the window and ignoring her dinner and anything going on around her. She had spent most of the trip simply wandering the town, amazed at a place where nothing apocalyptic had ever happened. It was so much like how it had been before the end. It had been...nice.

Now she was snapped back to what had become her reality. Now she stared in rapt horror, feeling her gorge rise as she watched night come over the institute.

Her heart pounding so hard she thought it would burst, Nadine pressed herself tight against the back of the seat and screamed.

[unmocked_lawr]

[from here. Let me know if it's a problem! ^^;]

Javert was, as a rule, not particularly good at getting people to calm down. That task had usually been delegated to a younger officer back in Paris - one more experienced in the art of the murmuring of soothing words and the offering of handkerchiefs and whatnot. Dealing with a screaming woman was not his idea of a good time.

Still, the importance of getting her out of the bus outweighed his initial reservations (he had promised to protect her, hadn't he?), and anyway, he'd been told that unpleasant as he was to be around, he did have a certain reassuring presence about him. With these thoughts in mind, he cautiously approached Nadine, careful to stay a reasonable distance away from her.

"Mademoiselle?" he said, trying to make himself heard over her screams and the surrounding noise. "Nadine? It's Javert. Let's get you out of here."

[nadine_he_loves]

"Javert?" There was panic in Nadine's voice, a note of clear hysteria. "Oh God, Javert. The things...they... and right in front of us...." She was swallowing hard between fragments of sentence, and compulsively tucking her hair behind her ear.

She wanted Larry.

[unmocked_lawr]

"I know," Javert said, as soothingly as he could (which wasn't very, but a man could try). "I know. But the others are dealing with them."

The transformations had stunned him as well, and he still couldn't suppress the wave of horrified fascination that swept over him every time he glanced at the front or the back of the bus. So he didn't.

"We've made holes in the sides of the bus," he continued. "We're going to leave; do you want to come with us?" It was a stupid question, but as long as he could get her to focus on the fact that there was a way out, he didn't particularly care.

[nadine_he_loves]

Nadine nodded, sharply. "I don't like small, enclosed spaces," she said, through sharp breaths. "Claustrophobia. I've always.... I can't breathe and I freeze up and..." And this was even worse than the Lincoln Tunnel. She'd thought nothing could be worse than that darkness full of death, but this was.

"What if those things come after us?"

[unmocked_lawr]

"I don't either," said Javert frankly. He gestured at the back of the bus. "And I like those hellish creatures even less. If they come after us - which I think, mam'selle, is highly unlikely, as they appear rather distracted at the moment - you will run, and Trevelyan and I will take care of them. The front doors of the institute aren't that far away.

"So." He stepped back, tilting his head slightly, and waited for her to get up.

[nadine_he_loves]

"Okay. Okay." Nadine slowly uncurled herself and stood on shaking legs. She was still breathing rapidly, unable to get herself completely under control. But she trusted Javert. He'd protected her, just like he'd said he would. Just like Larry. She'd be alright. She was always alright.

[janus_006]

[From here]

Alec had dealt with traumatized people before (hell, he'd been one of them), and Nadine was very definitely traumatized. She must have suffered a similar experience at one point in her life, and he didn't envy her that. Javert was trying, but God only knew how long that would last. They were in little danger from the monstrous nurses, he thought as he glanced towards the front of the bus. They seemed distracted.

Time to try and calm the woman down. She could stand now, but she was shaking - if she had a conniption fit, he was going to have to kill her. He quickly stifled that thought. All for one, and one for all. That was the only way they were going to get out of the bus alive and mostly unscathed.

"You might want to look out for broken glass in the windowframe," he said. "I tried to get it all out, but God knows how tenacious that stuff is."

Okay, so it wasn't exactly calming, but it was a warning. Hopefully she'd be alert and cautious and not freaking the fuck out as they made their escape.

[unmocked_lawr]

"We'll take the other exit, I think," Javert said, nodding at the larger hole on the opposite side of the bus. It irked him to think he'd injured his shoulder for nothing, but getting out by the other way would be easier for all involved.

Trusting (hah) Trevelyan to bring up the rear, he gestured for them to follow him and began to push his way toward the hole.

[moving to here.]