Day 44: Arts and Crafts Room, Second Shift

[gothamsfuture]

Astor hadn't talked much after introducing himself, which hadn't bothered Terry. With all the crap their little hospital of horrors piled on the patients, he couldn't blame a guy for not wanting to open up to some stranger. Plus, not talking meant he could get a decent meal in, and then check out the bulletin for the latest in Landel's news and

Comments

[udo_retrovirus]

Talking a bit about the circumstances behind the previous night's oddities helped some, even if his tablemate had let him more or less ramble, and being able to actually see Nigredo up and moving around also helped.

Of course, he still hadn't heard from or seen Albedo by the time breakfast was over. He had to be fine, he'd just fainted last night, right? He couldn't die in most circumstances. The redhead had been about to leave a message on the board when he'd spotted his twin in the sun room, looking no worse for the wear physically. He looked kinda quiet, which wasn't too different from how he looked normally but after some of the things he'd said last night and the way things had ended...it made him wonder.

Screw it. It should have just been a name rather than an entire identity, but he was sick of being 'Rubedo' and always messing things up with his brothers when he tried to make them better; for now, Junior just let the nurse guide him on to Arts and Crafts.

Thankfully, it didn't take long to spot a familiar face, and the redhead eased himself into a chair next to his friend. "Hey, Sora!"

[scintillatingly]

Sora hadn't wanted to spend the shift by himself, so he broke into a large smile when Junior took the seat next to his. "Hey, long time no see!" Well, it hadn't been that long. There had been that time in the courtyard, but they had gotten cut off so quickly that not much had come of it. Maybe they could have a longer chat now.

It was kind of overdue, seeing how Sora had had that talk with Junior's brother and he still hadn't discussed it with the redhead. He had been kind of upset about it at first (or rather, curious and a little concerned that Junior would lie to him), but at this point he just wanted to get the story straight from Junior's own mouth.

Sora knew he could trust him.

He didn't want to just jump into that, though. It had been a few days since they'd seen each other, after all! "How've you been?" he sincerely asked, turning in his chair so that he could face the other boy better.

[udo_retrovirus]

Sora wasn't too far off the mark. Even a few days could seem like a long time, really, since the days seemed to drag out and the nights could seem so hectic that making it out alive without everyone disappearing on you (or dying) was a relief.

"I've been okay." Relatively speaking. He gave Sora a bit of a wry smile in response. "Got kinda banged up last night, but that'll just take time to heal. How about you?"

Okay, so he did owe Sora an explanation, but Junior was glad they didn't have to get into that right off the bat. So many things lately had been heavy topics of conversation, and it was nice to have a break from that every so often.

[scintillatingly]

Getting banged up was never good, but it didn't sound like it was too serious, seeing how Junior wasn't acting like he was all that concerned over it. Getting hurt was a pretty normal occurrence here, so Sora was sad to admit that he wasn't too surprised to hear that from his friend.

"Well, I hope it heals quick," he responded with a brief smile and then thought over what his own reply should be. "Last night was kind of crazy," he admitted. "I ran into a brainwashed patient and then something bad happened to one of my teammates, but... it all turned out okay in the end, so I'm glad about that."

He'd even gotten the chance to talk with the brainwashed guy over the bulletin a little bit -- enough to make sure he was okay and not beating himself up too much over what had happened, at least. Sora tried his best to do that whenever he had to face off against someone who was suffering from Special Counseling.

[udo_retrovirus]

The wound still hurt, but so long as he didn't move much, it wasn't too bad; nothing to complain about, at least. "Thanks, me too. It sure was crazy. Sounds like you had a full night," Junior commented. "I hope things went okay with the brainwashed patient. I know those can be kinda dangerous." If hard to avoid. It seemed like there was always something in the high-traffic areas, like the sun room. There'd even been something in there last night when they'd run through.

He paused, considering what else Sora had mentioned before finally frowning. "You said something 'bad' happened...?" he asked a bit apprehensively, not that it was any of his business what exactly it had been. Last night was definitely crazy, and a lot of people seemed to have suffered from whatever-the-hell-it-was-itis, but Sora had only mentioned it happening to one of his teammates. Hopefully he hadn't had to see him die; watching people die so suddenly sucked, and the redhead never would've wished something like that on the other boy.

[scintillatingly]

It was an understatement to say that they were kinda dangerous, but in the end the man from last night hadn't done too much to them. The way he'd changed the hallway around had probably been the worst part, but it was something else that had caused Kratos' wounds. Sora didn't think any of them had been hurt other than fatigue from using powers, and that was usually gone by morning anyway.

Sora was tempted to tell Junior about the weird hallway, but he knew that was just a way to get away from things that were tougher to talk about. The other boy was curious, and while Sora wasn't sure if it was his place to explain what had happened to Kratos, it would probably be okay so long as he didn't mention the man's name.

"Yeah, umm..." Sora grabbed for a nearby marker and started to fiddle with it. "All of a sudden, he got these really bad wounds, but it wasn't from the Special Counseling patient. I guess that something else caused it, and they've been talking about it on the bulletin...?" Sora hadn't had the chance to read up that much on it, and a lot of people had been very vague, so it was hard to figure out what was going on.

[udo_retrovirus]

Junior nodded, his expression now entirely serious. "Thought it might've been that. Sorry to hear it. Something like that happened to my brother last night, too. We weren't even around anyone else at the time, so I don't know how--" Junior broke off that statement, then shrugged, wincing at the dull pain in his shoulder. "At least they're okay today, right?"

That was probably one of the only good things about last night's events, although he thought so for an entirely selfish reason. People were supposed to stay dead when they were killed and not come back to life (with a few really weird exceptions), so defying that and having a huge tragedy be prevented was nice, if also slightly cruel. Those who'd experienced it once would still eventually die again. That had to be pretty frightening to know.

[scintillatingly]

So Junior had been exposed to it too? Man, that terrible killing-but-not-killing thing was almost like some kind of sickness that had affected only certain patients. Sora dragged a hand through his hair and felt kind of ill at the thought of so many people dying on their friends all around the building. It had all turned out okay in the end, but that didn't defeat the fact that they had thought their friends were dead for that time.

He couldn't even imagine what it was like to know you were dying and then suddenly be okay again. Well, he kind of knew, what with the whole thing where he'd temporarily become a Heartless, but this seemed different.

"I'm sorry that you also had to go through that, Junior," he said with a frown. And it had been his brother, which was so much worse! "But yeah, at least it all turned out all right."

This seemed like a good way to steer the conversation into the direction they both knew it had to go. "So... was that Nigredo...?" he carefully asked.

[udo_retrovirus]

The redhead sighed, and then figured there was no point avoiding the topic anymore of whatever it was Sora and Nigredo had discussed when they'd met. "Yeah, it was Nigredo," he confirmed.

Before he could continue, an itch in the back of his mind was followed by Nigredo's voice over the link. What perfect timing the youngest had. Seemed like he owed a bunch of people explanations, and they were all going to collect at once. {Yeah? What's up?} he asked, before turning his attention back to his friend.

"Actually, he's said that there's some things I need to explain to you, too, so, uh..." Junior's sentence faltered there, and brought his good hand up to rub at a spot between his eyes, to try and get rid of a bit of a headache that had started to develop. "I guess I should properly introduce myself." He awkwardly offered his good hand to Sora. "The name's Rubedo. If you've got any specific questions for me, go ahead and ask 'em."

[scintillatingly]

It upset Sora to hear that Nigredo had been forced to experience something like that, seeing how he'd seemed so nice the one time they'd spoken, not to mention he was so young. Unless he was like Junior and he was actually much older than he looked? That would make sense, if they were brothers. Then again, from what Sora had been able to figure out, Nigredo was Junior's younger brother, while he had another (dangerous) twin named Albedo.

He stared down at the hand and considered the new name for a moment (of course it matched the others) before actually shaking. He definitely had a lot of questions, and he was glad that the other boy was being so understanding about answering them.

"Well, I guess the first question would be... why did you decide to use a different name in the first place?" he questioned, tilting his head. "Nigredo didn't recognize it at all. And... what would you prefer for me to call you?" Sora would switch to Rubedo if he had to, but he didn't mind sticking with Junior if that was what the redhead wanted.

[udo_retrovirus]

He gave Sora a smile then, appreciating that the other boy was at least asking which he preferred to go by. He liked his new(-ish) name, after all, and he'd hate to have it taken from him. "Keep calling me Junior. Unless you ever meet my other brother, Albedo." He didn't know what his twin would do if he ever found out about this other name, and all the people that 'Junior' knew, so it was better to keep that much still secret; besides, it helped in case he ever needed to talk to Nigredo over the board without Albedo figuring it out.

The youngest's response came at that point, causing Junior to wonder what prompted the question. It couldn't hurt to go down there again and try one of the other doors, but he was kind of apprehensive to try it after last night, and right now wasn't exactly the best time to consider it. {Maybe. We can, if you really want to.} Man, trying to divide his attention between the two conversations was horribly distracting.

"And it's...complicated? Nigredo's further behind me in terms of memories, so he wouldn't recognize it, but Junior's the name I've been going by for years now. We had to use them back home for cover, initially, and it stuck. I figure it's just as much my real name as Rubedo is, so I just went by it here like I have been. I didn't expect them to show up and complicate things." He didn't realize until after he'd said it that it could have sounded kind of bitter, which wasn't really his intent; he wasn't really that bitter about his brothers' appearances, but Junior couldn't deny that it did make things difficult, to say the least.

[scintillatingly]

There was that mention of Junior's twin once again. Sora still didn't know much about this Albedo, other than the fact that he was dangerous and extremely protective (was that the right word?) of Junior, but it looked like he was really going to have to watch what he said if he ever ended up talking to the boy. At this point, though, he had to wonder if it might just be easiest to avoid the third brother entirely.

He was relieved that he could still keep using "Junior," though. That was what he was used to, and it was obvious that the other boy preferred it as well. Sora wasn't sure if that was because he wanted to separate himself from his brothers or what -- Nigredo seemed nice enough, but Albedo was another story.

Either way, Junior's explanation made a lot of sense, even though it must have been difficult having two names to keep straight. "Gotcha'," he eventually said with a nod. "I'm sorry for any confusion I caused, then! I just realized that Nigredo looked a lot like you and I decided to ask him if he knew someone named Junior, not realizing that he wouldn't recognize the name..." He hoped that things had worked out between the brothers, though. It sounded like everything was all right if they'd been spending the previous night together.

[udo_retrovirus]

That headache was getting stronger the longer he and Nigredo kept using the link, and his brother just couldn't keep his messages short, could he? He'd need to ask him to do that, later; it'd defeat spend more energy on it now. {Okay, let's take him down there tonight.}

Junior also grabbed for a marker and started twirling it absently between his fingers. "Nah, don't worry about it. if anything, it's my fault. It just kinda slipped my mind that things would start getting confusing since everyone here knew me as Junior." Which would probably only get more confusing now that he was introducing himself to people as Rubedo. At the same time, being able to admit this stuff, have people accept it, and move on was refreshing. It was just a name, after all, so it wouldn't (or at least shouldn't) be that big a deal. If only everything else was that easy.

Junior leaned back in his chair and gave Sora a lazy grin, setting the marker down on the table. "I just hope I didn't make you think I didn't trust you guys or anything like that, because that's not true. Sorry that things got so confusing, and thanks for being understanding."

[scintillatingly]

While Sora had gone through a moment where he'd had to question how trustworthy Junior was, that hadn't lasted long, and it was obvious that it was as simple as a misunderstanding now that he had the whole story. In a way, he felt bad that he'd doubted his friend in the first place. He should have known better, really, but it had just come as such as shock when he'd heard all of that stuff from Nigredo.

"No problem!" he quickly replied, waving the other boy off. As far as Sora was concerned, it was all water under the bridge now. Maybe he could find Nigredo sometime and they could have a proper chat, too -- last time they had ended up pretty distracted with all of that name confusion.

"So what have you been up to recently?" he moved on to ask, regarding the redhead curiously. "It sounds like you've been spending time with your brother and stuff, right?" That made sense. Who wouldn't stick with family if they showed up here? He wasn't sure what kind of terms Junior and that Albedo guy were on, but the boy had definitely been with Nigredo last night, at the least.