Nightshift 49: 2nd Floor Staff Lounge

[guardiancomplex]

( From here.Touya stepped through the door and stopped. He'd been in quite a few closets in his time of various kinds, and this was not a closet. Not unless Landel started storing couches and paintings of puppies in his closets. Did he take a wrong turn

Comments

[winged_moon]

Yue had hesitated for just an extra moment longer before moving through the door, making certain that his wings were folded as tightly as possible before he entered the storage closet. As he recalled there were quite a few shelves and the space between them was adequate for a single person walking through but his wings would be somewhat awkward in the situation. Not that he intended to dismiss them, of course; even if he would normally have done so when going inside this wasn't "normal" and he didn't want to be without them when he didn't have to

[giftofstars]

... That's weird. Either the institute had an extremely comfortable and open storage closet or they had entered some kind of lounge, and by Yue's reaction, it sounded like it was the latter. Maybe it was for the staff members? "Onii-chan, did we go through the wrong door?" asked Sakura, still looking around in amazement.

Although it definitely was easy for Sakura to make such a mistake, both Touya and Yue usually weren't as spacey as she was. Was something going on? Regardless of whether or not they had made a mistake though, they probably needed to backtrack a bit and make sure they knew where they were. It would be bad to get lost at night... and during a storm... and when monsters were about...

[guardiancomplex]

"I... don't think so," Touya mused, looking around the room. He could have sworn he'd entered the door marked 'Janitor's Closet', but it was dark and he was in a hurry to get where they were going. He blamed his nerves on the storm.

Touya walked further into the room, looking at the painting on the wall with a slight frown. Why would such a cushy room be next to a janitor's closet, though? It didn't make sense. Looking back at one of the tables, he spotted a pack of cigarettes behind a lamp and a half-full pack of gum under a chair. Hey, people were always asking for cigarettes on the board--it could be a good trade item.

"Must have taken a wrong turn," Touya said with a shrug, scooping up the pack of cigarettes and crawling down onto the floor to fetch the gum. "Let's find the right door."

[winged_moon]

None of them knew where they were, then. Yue was quite certain the door Touya opened had been the door to one of the closets, but this most certainly was not a closet. Nor did it fit the general "storage" theme of the other rooms in the hallway, so... what was it doing here? There'd been that brief moment of disorientation as he'd stepped through the door, which made him wonder if something odd was going on.

"Renovations" indeed.

He watched the corners of the room warily as Touya poked around, then gave a small nod and turned back to the door. Maybe if he opened it then it would go to the right place. But where exactly was the right place from here?

[to here]

[theroadsofar]

[From HERE]

This time he was a little more prepared. Instead of staggering, Dean just kind of made an awkward shift forward, catching himself on the wall before that sensation like he was going to tumble over a railing hit him full force.

Smell was gone. Dean sniffed again as he brought his flashlight up. Yep. They hadn't just left the kennels, they'd full on jumped somewhere else. Dean was still running through what could be causing it. Wasn't like he hadn't come up with a list but the problem was narrowing it down. None of this felt particularly douchey, so that cut out a Trickster. Felt more random. Dean reached up, adjusted the strap of his duffel bag as he checked the room out. Like the storage room, this just seemed like a regular...well, a regular room. His flashlight fell on a table, magazines scattered on it. Wandering over to check, he picked one up and - just like Sam said. The date was all wrong and they didn't even have a year. Even just flipping through it, checking for any celebrity gossip, it was all just kind of

[timedork]

Although the Doctor felt somewhat relieved by the change of location, he wouldn't forget the kennels so easily. Where they even part of the Institute's building, or had they been somewhere else entirely? It was a fair question, especially considering the out-of-place room with the boulders; where in the grounds would that have been hidden away? Given its walls, underground perhaps

[theroadsofar]

"Right now? It's gotta be what, midnight? One in the morning?" Dean frowned, stepping away from the door to follow the Doctor to the middle of the room.

Assuming they'd get something and it wasn't gonna be some weird cockblock like the magazines. Man, that was just dedication right there. Dean was just surprised all over again at the eye for detail - these magazines couldn't be real, not when this kind of stuff should have more tells for the date. Gossip wasn't exactly timeless. But the magazine he'd picked up had been so damn generic that it'd stood out, and he couldn't have been the only one to notice that. The Doctor had picked them up too, and Sam had noticed the lack of date on the newspapers before that. Still, seeding all these magazines and literally wiping out anything that could narrow down the year was way too funky to just be an accident here and there; had to be coordinated somehow

[timedork]

"Sure, right now," the Doctor said, giving the television set a quick once-over to find the controls on it. Locating and pressing the power button, he turned the television on, pleased to see it was in working order. "There are twenty-four hour news programmes, aren't there? Whether or not it'll pick one up, well... I'd be happy for anything that might tell us the date."

He started fiddling with the channel controls, but channel after channel all the television was showing was static. If he'd had his sonic screwdriver, tuning the set to pick up a station it wouldn't normally would have taken no time at all, but without it... He could start tinkering with the set, but that would take time they might not have. The night was already wearing on, and morning always seemed to sneak up quickly.

The Doctor frowned, trying more channels, but they were just the same as the first few. Fruitless though it was, it had been worth the look. No reception on the television, nothing that he could use to place the date-or even the decaded-in

[time-slipping and coming in later]

[purpletaint]

[from here]

This room was larger than the previous, and the air about it was less stifling. He trod forward, bare feet on the thick carpeting, towards-- A misaligned strip of carpet caught on a shard of glass protruding from the underside of his foot, moving it backwards. The boy inhaled sharply, dropping into a crouch and carefully letting go of the shotgun. He pulled a foot into his lap, eying it. A bit... worse than he had thought. No matter.

(But was it? Wasn't it more and more delayed? Moments passed before regeneration started, moments and minutes and time. And how, then, would it be this time? How would--)

An expression of fear had settled on to Albedo's face without his knowing. The boy made no move, frozen where he was.

[falseblack]

Another enclosed space, another dead end in appearance. At this rate, they would likely run around in circles, from room to room to room, until morning came or they stopped. Nigredo couldn't guess at which would come first. He couldn't even predict the amount of time that had passed, though his body felt as though it was running on its last limits for the day.

Still, he stepped back to continue their wanderings, to direct Albedo back to the door, when the variant noticed his brother sit awkwardly on the floor. Here, he realized a mistake the younger had forgotten. Albedo had walked on glass. Of course, he would be sitting.

Nigredo remained stationary but opted to speak, voice rising no more than subdued. "Are you all right?" he asked. "We can stop here." For a while, that is.

[purpletaint]

His brother's voice came as a shot in the dark, and Albedo started violently. He looked over his shoulder, eyes wide, before registering the who and where. Nigredo. Yes. If nothing else, he had to--

...Hm? And what was this? What an odd development! Wanting to move forward, only to make sure that the other was fine. His sibling was fragile, and when he acted what he was, this inclination grew. How opposite. The same reasoning had prompted violence before, saw Nigredo as prey to tear into and maim. And now, what? Something to protect? It seemed too laughable to be true. Should he search for a different reason, or--

Albedo swallowed once, then stared down again, reaching to pluck out a larger shard. Blood welled, and he watched it as it spilled over. "I'll be fine." Lie. "Sit down, then. We'll rest for a moment."

[falseblack]

He had proclaimed to not argue the point, and thus, Nigredo said nothing to the obvious lie nor the command thereafter. There was no reason for it. The boy could not bring up such a sour element a second time. After a long minute, the boy stepped forward and around his brother. Rather than sitting down, however, he began the routine visual sweep of the area. Nothing struck out as unique to the variant, though he noted with no particular feeling that the place reminded him of the Sun Room in terms of furnishings.

Carefully, Nigredo set down the bottle to a nearby table. With no other reason than to wait, he began to walk around the room's perimeter, green eyes fixed on details the child might have missed in his first glance. Logic recognized this as a way for him to distract himself from Albedo's foot but also understood to act otherwise would lead to unpleasantness.

It didn't matter that they'd been close only moments before. That was then, and this was now.

[per_ardua]

[[From here.]]

"Well... there might be something here," Raine said, looking around. Even if they found any secret passages, they clearly couldn't use them tonight. Still, the long row of cabinets was worth investigating.

And for many reasons, not just potential weapons. She hadn't even reached for the nearest cabinet before she got distracted by the coffee maker on the counter. She hadn't had any in a long time, and getting this little sleep, she could use it. The scent of the coffee was different than she was used to, but it might be worth taking the little appliance with them for a multitude of reasons. If it had a heating element, they could use it to boil water...

Raine opened the cabinet immediately above the coffee maker and started searching for actual coffee. If they were going to be stuck here, they should at least have some of the comforts from home.

[mizuhomaiden]

At least nothing tried to eat their faces when they ended up in... some room that smelled like a tavern in the early morning, minus the bacon. That didn't mean something was going to jump out of the cabinet and latch onto Raine's face in the midst of her search. In a way, it'd be kind of fitting, but then Sheena felt bad for thinking about it.

Sullen, the ninja leaned against a nearby wall and crossed her arms. She was irritated, she was annoyed and she really just wanted to curl up in bed with her youkai and not go playing portal jump. It was as bad as that one ranch...

"Hey, Raine... Do you think there's some kind of key to these portals like the Sorcerer's Ring?"

[mind_the_sukima]

Another room, this one more inviting and full of interesting things than the last one. Pictures, a TV, soft carpets and most importantly, couches that looked invitingly comfy. But first of interest was the lootable items of interest. Much as Raine gravitated to the coffee maker, Yukari headed towards the mini-fridge, opening it up (and hopefully not getting sucked inside to another wondrous dimension).

"Like a switch or something to turn them off?" Yukari mused as she rummaged about. "Maybe in Landel's office, but I don't think he'd let patients wander in there."

There really wasn't much worth keeping, but the youkai did come out of the fridge with three cans of soda, setting two on the counter next to Raine. One stayed there while the other sunk into the counter, eaten by a gap. It reappeared in front of the ninja, falling up in a momentary defiance of physics before gravity took hold again and pulled it back down, causing it to disappear in the gap floating before the girl and pop back out of the counter, only for the process to

[per_ardua]

"I know, but I was thinking of just taking it." Raine studied the appliance for a moment longer, then asked, "Would this fit in your gap?" It looked heavy, and she wasn't about to try to carry it to parts unknown. She could take the coffee itself, though.

Either way, the cups themselves would definitely be good to have; she crammed as many as she could fit into her bag, glad they were so light even in stacks. Tonight was probably not going to involve finding anything they really needed, but luxuries were nice too.

[shorttank]

[from here]

Leela stepped toward the rainy, creepy street, but her boot landed on dry ground, indoors, and on something that cracked under it. Once the room decided it was going to stay put, instead of being an unsoothing blur of soothing colors, she looked down. "Ew!" Broken glass, with what seemed to be blood on it. Elaine's commandeering of the bar from the closet was looking smarter and smarter by the minute.

"Look out!" she said, sure that anything remotely dangerous that could be crashed into or stepped on by Chise would be.

[time-skip alternative]

[cryingweapon]

Chise instantly crouched down to the floor when she heard Leela's warning. Once the room finally stopped swirling, she noticed the scattered pieces on the floor. "It looks like somebody was here before us. The amount of blood doesn't point to a serious injury, but I could be wrong. I hope they're alright."

While exploring the room, Chise was surprised at the huge difference the room was compared to the rest of the institute. Several big differences were the reclining chairs, a mini-fridge, a TV, a coffee tab--oh look! Cigarettes! Something that a certain red-headed-nicotine-addict she met on a bus a week ago needed. After taking the package of cigarettes, she discovered that there was only 8 sticks left, enough to last a week if whoever smoked them was smart.

[shorttank]

"Me too," Leela said. She'd thought before that nervous, scared humans running around was a recipe for disaster. Make that humans with weapons and no idea where they were landing next, and you had the olive in the disaster double diet martini.

For her part, Leela couldn't believe her eye--er, eyes. A coffee maker! "What do you say we take a little rest?" It would give Leela a chance to get some much-needed caffeine, and Chise a chance to get her legs back under her, and... smoke? Leela gave the girl a curious look.

[cryingweapon]

"That sounds like a good idea. I'm still a bit nauseous from walking through those doors," she replied, Sitting down next to the nearest recliner chair. Very comfy indeed. It was as if she was eating the delicious meat they served in the army.

Lifting an eye open, she noticed Leela's stare before glancing down at the cigarettes she was holding onto. "I-I'm sorry, I didn't know you want one. I'm just holding onto these for somebody else. Do you smoke too?" In Chise's eyes, Leela didn't look like the type who smoked often. But then again, she could be wrong about that.