Nightshift 44: Men's Bathrooms (M01-M40)
[from here]Bursting through the door with Piper in tow, Bart couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, even though they weren't technically out of the woods just yet. At least there were sinks in here, so they could clean up any...uh, messes that might be accidentally created
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It was a good number of minutes past the dry-heaving stage that he finally shifted, slumping back against a divider wall. He frowned and wiped his mouth off on his sleeve. No necking for him tonight. The man needed some heavy duty mouthwash.
"I-I'm fine."
Mostly.
Rather than cat back to something that wasn't there, Hart rolled his eyes, biting his words back.
"Sorry I broke on you like that. Call you--" Barely upright ahead, he stepped back out, still undone by the sight of the younger Allen before him. "--a sight for sore eyes?" He offered up a weary smile, arms crossed around his middle again, like a poor attempt to keep him from doubling and slumping back to the ground.
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"Don't worry about it," he said with an off-kilter grin, keeping his distance for the moment in case Piper decided to be sick again. "Um...are you feeling better now?" Bart hoped so, and not just because that? Had been seriously gross.
He had a feeling he and Piper had a lot of things to talk about.
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Do I have to do this myself? C'mon, Pipey. Break the ice. You're the social butterfly, here.
Hart swallowed, attempting to down the lump in his throat (it really doesn't help with that horrible taste in his mouth). "Thank you though. I...suppose this warrants a proper introduction though."
Giving his hands a once-over (they're clean. clean enough, anyway.), he offers one Bart's way. "I know you. Or at least I think I do. Or did." Time travel is confusing. Damn you Booster Gold! --you make it look so easy!
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"I know you too," he said, though Piper's hesitance made him a little thoughtful. "We met last year, when Grandma Iris brought me back from the future to meet Wally." He frowned slightly in distaste; it was obvious that the bad feelings caused by that first meeting still lingered.
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It had nearly worked.
Nearly.
Hart gave back a decent enough shake, trying hard not to assume his earlier, more withdrawn position after they break. He wasn't sure what to exactly do with himself though, finding himself more apt to stare at Bart's feet than his face.
...god, that kid has big feet.
To keep the voice quiet, he looked back up, eyes generally focused on the smiley, smack in the middle of his chest.
"We did, didn't we?" he nodded slowly, a nervous smile pushing out. "Is it...okay if we sit while we talk? I'm still feeling a little shaky."
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"Are you sure you're okay?" he asked, concerned. "You didn't eat anything weird or something, did you?"
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Any dramatic entrance Scourge intended on making was ruined by the horrific, indescribable reek of the bathroom. It was worse than the spider, it made Scourge want to purge his tanks at the first whiff--a momentary consultation with his fleshy mindparts established that 'purged tank' was exactly what it was. Scourge stumbled, gagging, one hand pressed up to cover his nose and mouth until his sensors settled themselves down to a more manageable level ( ... )
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And in immediate retrospect, this really didn't look good in Bart's favor, did it?
"A-ah! No! Scourge! Down boy! S-sit!"
It was the first thing that came to his mind, really.
Hart shoved out his hands, waving them in the closest attempt at a 'nooooooo' he could manage, as he tried to crawl out from under Bart's lean over him.
"--he's good, Scourge!" Bad idea. "--he's with me!" Try again. "--we know each other!"
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Geez, just when you think you might maybe start to have a handle on the situation, some crazy Asian guy barges in and starts waving a knife at you. Okay, so that had never actually happened to Bart before, but it was the principle of the thing.
Instinctively putting himself between the Asian guy and Piper, Bart bristled at the idea that he was any kind of threat to his friend. Though Piper seemed to know him, so maybe it was just a misunderstanding or something. "Since when do you hang out with crazy guys with knives?" he asked Piper over his shoulder, not taking his eyes off the Asian guy in case he decided not to back off after all. And how long had Piper actually been in the institute anyway...? It might have been longer than Bart had first thought, if he was already making, er...whatever this guy was to him.
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Scourge lowered the blade with an expression of intense awkwardness and a shuffling of feet, his other hand still pressed across his nose. Okay, so maybe he'd misjudged the situation. The night made him anxious. "You looked like you were hurting him, okay?" he said defensively. "Why are you even in here, this place smells like Unicron's guts." Not that he knew what they smelled like, but it was the most disgusting place he could think of on short notice.
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Or at least he was, until Piper distracted him. "The...'Evil Club?'" he said, awkwardly turning around to give Piper a skeptical look. "What have you been doing? How long have you been here, anyway?" Might as well get that question answered, before Bart got anymore confused.
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"Evil Club's just some weird thing Piper started up on the bulletin board with me, Lord Recluse and Abe." Whoever Abe was. "I think we're about as much about Evil as the Cooking Club is about cooking. If you're taking it seriously you're definitely not a member of the club."
His nose had gotten somewhat adjusted to the stench by now and Scourge lowered his hand. The disgusted expression still hadn't left his face. "Not that I'm not liking how much it glitches up the shiny-polished good guys when they see bad guys actually enjoying themselves for once and can't do anything about it."
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Rule number one of Evil Club; You don't talk about Evil Club.
James. Shut UP.
He passed the glance back to Bart and sighed, attempting to explain. "--we do have an evil overlord in the group, but Abe's with us to, and from what he said, he just got off a stint with the good team, I'm reformed. And Scourge here..." He blinked, staring at the man.
Rule number two of Evil Club; You don't talk about Evil Club.
HURM. Nevermind. Back to Bart.
"--aside from medicating boredom with--" Vicious flirtations. Shenanigans.
"--conversation, we're pretty much harmless. We've passed some ideas about what to do within the institution as far as the staff, but not anything detrimental toward the patients at all." That at much was completely honest, and luckily for Hart, though he still looked a bit green in the gills, at least he was speaking without stuttering, sitting up a bit straighter as he spoke.
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Poor Bart. If only he knew.
"Have you been hanging out with the Trickster or something?" Bart finally asked, with a grin and a shake of his head. "That sounds like the kind of thing he'd come up with." Especially the part about harassing the staff. Bart could just imagine him trying to pull the toaster repairman trick on one of the nurses, and who knew? He might just have been able to pull it off. Assuming he found different clothes somewhere.
"So what are you supposed to be, then?" he asked, turning back to Scourge. "Their henchman or something?" This said while he was still sitting on the floor, practically in Piper's lap, mind. Somebody apparently didn't mind too much if they pissed off the crazy guy with the knife, though to be fair Bart's tone didn't really sound malicious.
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Having no scabbard or subspace pocket, Scourge swung his blade up to rest on his shoulders. He leaned against the far wall, one leg folded across the other. The floor didn't smell trustworthy enough to sit on. "He gets what it's like, being all evil but not really." 'It' being some nebulous concept building up to technically being a villain while having no real evil objectives or doing anything more evil than not dying and making a nice profit while doing so. Scourge was less than verbose.
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