Day 19 - Male Showers

[class_one]

It was in complete silence that Zack was moved from the cafeteria to the showers. Usually one would have expected him to be chatting with the nurse despite the fact that she happened to think he was a certain Parker Johnson, but... No, not today

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[not_a_savior]

Before Nowe knew it, his nurse had come over to the breakfast table, explained to him that it was time to head for the showers, and was leading him toward where all the other 18 and over males were headed. He looked around him, and as his nurse ordered him to strip down and take a shower, he found himself hesitating. The rest of the men in there seemed to be rather... large, to say the least. They were all huge and muscular, and Nowe, while not exactly scrawny, felt a bit nervous entering a shower full of guys that were, for the most part, seemed at least twice his size.

Sucking in a deep breath, he removed the Landel's standard-issue clothes and stepped into the showers, looking for an empty showerhead. He found one near a black-haired, muscular-looking guy who seemed to be horribly depressed about something. He didn't seem to want to bothered, so Nowe switched the shower on and started cleaning himself off unobtrusively. Drawing attention to himself in the shower when he was naked and defenseless was probably not a good idea at all. Still, he couldn't help but steal furtive glances over at the black-haired man. He really wanted to ask him if he was okay. Nowe's compassionate side was awfully persistent, after all, and his sense of self-preservation took a back seat to it. Standing still for a moment, Nowe fought the small battle within himself and finally his compassion won out, and self-preservation was put on hold. He wandered over to the taller man, touching his shoulder lightly, trying not to startle him.

"Um, excuse me, I know it's probably none of my business, but are you alright?"

Damn his soft side, anyway.

[class_one]

Unfortunately, through a combination of too hot water and consuming thoughts, that attempt to not startle him failed. Zack jerked, tensing out of soldier's instinct as he swiveled to face the stranger.

Right. He was in this place, Landel's, and this was just another patient making sure he wasn't about to have a breakdown.

The problem was that he wasn't sure how to answer that question.

Zack paused, attempting to collect himself. It wasn't hard to realize that if he were in the other's shoes, he'd be doing the same exact thing.

"Hey, it's all right. Um..." He sighed and ran a hand through his long, black hair, which had lost some of its spikiness under the weight of the water. "I'm not doing so good, but... Well, I've got to keep going, right?" The intensity of the water's temperature was starting to become obvious to him, especially when he glanced down and saw how flushed his skin was. Frowning, he leaned forward to turn it down to a more reasonable temperature.

[not_a_savior]

Nowe tried not to flinch himself when he realized he'd managed to surprise the other man despite his efforts, and upon the man's response he stood awkwardly for a few seconds. It was difficult to find something to say, and somehow standing there completely naked wasn't helping either. Nowe wasn't really used to communal showers. Hell, he'd been raised by a dragon for the first few years of his life, he wasn't used to showers.

"Again, it's probably none of my business, so I don't blame you if you don't want to say anything about it, but... did something happen? I mean, it's depressing that we're stuck in this place to begin with, but it seems like something more happened to you than just that." Nowe paused awkwardly again. He was sort of just rambling, trying to make some kind of conversation. He'd noticed how hot the water was, the empty look in the man's eyes... he recognized it, that look of numbness. It was how he himself had looked in the mirror after Oror had been killed.

"You've lost something... someone... important to you?" He suggested, his tone suddenly soft.

[class_one]

The awkwardness went completely over Zack's head. Once again, he'd been doing this sort of thing since he was sixteen, and he was technically twenty-three now, though dying made him feel a good deal older than that. Normally, if he wasn't so distracted by everything that had gone wrong, he would have noticed how nervous the other man was and would have tried to accommodate somehow, but at the moment he wasn't focused enough for it.

"It's nice of you to ask," he admitted. "I mean, you don't even know me." Having finished with cleaning his body off, he put the soap back in its dish and reached for the provided shampoo. "And no, it's not just being here. I could deal with that."

The stranger got the nail right on the head, which meant he'd most likely been through a similar experience. Zack, as a soldier, had been forced to deal with the reality of quite a few of his friends dying, but he and Cloud had been best friends... It hit a little harder than any of the other's deaths had.

"Yeah... He was killed last night," he said quietly, offering the other a weak smile. "There are other people that apparently knew him, so I'm hoping I can find them and talk to them about it." Just having people around that could understand what it all felt like would be helpful. Squirting out some of the shampoo, he started to work it into his hair.

[not_a_savior]

"Oh, I see." Nowe said. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea. He was running out of things to say, but he'd wanted so badly to help this person. He had to keep talking, find something to respond with.

"That sounds like a good idea," he suggested slowly, nodding. "I haven't seen anyone around here that I know, so I guess I don't have anyone to worry about." He scratched his head. No, that wasn't the thing to say. Try again?

"My dad... or rather, my adopted dad... he was killed a while ago, way before I came here. It's true I don't know you, but I know that expression too." He said, pointing up at Zack's face. "The one where you just... Don't have any idea what to do. And you kind of want to scream, but you can't, because no amount of it would bring them back. You just sort of... Stop feeling for a while, right?"

...Crap, this couldn't have been helping at all. He was rambling again, just remembering how it'd been like after Oror had been killed. Describing his feelings wouldn't help this guy.

But Nowe knew what the other was going through... The kind of grief where you ate hot food and ignored how it burned your tongue, or turned up the temperature of the shower like the man just done and hoped the hot, needle-like water drops would wake you up from the horrible nightmare you hoped you were just imagining.

"Erm, I'm sorry. This probably isn't helping. What I mean to say is that I'm sorry about your... Friend, was it? Relative? Whatever he might have been to you." Nowe started reaching for the soap, but faltered. He wasn't particularly unclean, and somehow scrubbing at himself while trying to comfort someone else seemed too strange.

[class_one]

While it was a bit odd to speak to someone while shampooing his hair, Zack had carried all sorts of conversations with his fellow SOLDIERs in the showers. Granted, this was probably the most serious conversation he'd ever had in a shower room, but he felt the need to be clean. It wasn't as if he'd actually done anything wrong, but he'd promised to keep Cloud alive. And he hadn't.

No amount of soap was going to get rid of that feeling that he'd failed, but the sooner he was clean, the sooner he could sit down somewhere. He was exhausted.

"It has to be hard to lose a parent." His parents had lost him. He wondered if anyone had ever given him the news. He wondered what had ever happened to Aeris... There had been so many things he hadn't been able to finish before he'd died, but he'd always felt that it was all right so long as he'd made sure Cloud have lived.

But he hadn't.

"And yeah, that's sort of how it feels." He wasn't completely numb - shit, it hurt too much for him to be anywhere in the vicinity of not feeling - but his mind was threatening to shut down and he knew he couldn't let that happen.

"No, no, it's fine. I should probably keep on talking to people so I don't just shut off. And he was my friend." Ducking his head under the water, he allowed it to wash out the shampoo.

[not_a_savior]

"Oh, I see." Nowe bit his lip, turning his gaze to the ground. This was a lot harder than it should have been. He needed to learn to stop throwing himself into situations where he eventually ran out of ideas. He wished Urick was with him, the man was older and had more experience, and he'd know how to deal with a situation like this.

He could say that generic something-or-other that the religion-spouting priests were always talking about, how this man's friend was in "a better place" or whatever, but Nowe wasn't particularly religious. Again, the first part of his upbringing kind of prevented him from growing too attached to such farfetched belief systems. He wasn't sure how Zack felt about the whole thing either... this man was probably from an entirely different world, like Kadaj was, and who knew what they believed there?

In Nowe's struggle to figure out something to say, it suddenly dawned upon him that he'd forgotten one of the most important aspects of basic conversation, in his rush to try and make Zack feel better.

"I'm Nowe, by the way. I'm sorry, I just completely forgot to introduce myself. How rude of me." He rubbed the back of his head, sheepishly, and finally reached for the soap, deciding he'd better clean himself off to avoid any suspicion from the nurses or something. Kadaj had warned him about that.

[class_one]

It wasn't really a problem that the other man had been left with a loss for words. Speaking to someone that was going through something painful was never easy; that Zack knew from experience. He appreciated the effort--even with the horrible crushing feeling bunched up in his chest, he realized that this stranger was doing the best he could.

With all the shampoo out of his hair, Zack picked up the conditioner and began working that into his wild hair as well. He glanced over at the other man and once again half-smiled. It wasn't like this was going to make him miserable for the rest of his life. While he didn't want Cloud's death to mean nothing, he didn't want it to render him unhappy for the rest of his days.

He wasn't that sort of person. It wouldn't compute.

"I'm Zack," he responded. "I can't say it's exactly nice to meet you, considering where we are and what's happened, but..." He shrugged. "Well, you know what I mean. We've all got to work together here, so..." A group effort would be best. He still wanted to get in touch with the people from his own world. It wasn't that he didn't trust the others, but familiar ground was the best place to start when it came to such things.

[not_a_savior]

"Well, that's the ideal. I'm not so sure about the reality." Nowe's tone was doubtful. He remembered the conversation he'd had at breakfast with Kadaj, and the young man's absolute scorn of humans. It reminded him of the dragons and various other creatures from his own world who all seemed to share the same sentiment. Nowe figured Kadaj wasn't the only one who felt that way, either.

"Who was it you were looking for, exactly?" he asked, tilting his head curiously, "There's a very small chance I might know who one or two of them are, if you don't already." He offered, wanting to be of some help instead of just another chattering voice in Zack's ear. Of course, the chances he'd know the specific people Zack was looking for were slim. He'd only met... what, four or so people in the past several hours he'd been at this crazy institution?

Moving back under the spray to rinse off the suds, Nowe picked up the shampoo and looked at it, blinking slowly. It was another one of those strange things he hadn't seen before, like the flashlight or the waffles. He'd seen Zack put it in his hair and wash it out... was that it, then? It was soap for your hair?

"But... why not just use soap?" Nowe wondered aloud to himself, scratching his head. This place seemed to be full of strange and pointless things.

[class_one]

There was a certain truth to what Nowe responded with. Even if it would make sense for all of the patients to unite under one cause - that is, getting out of the institute - the chances that it would actual work that way were slim. There were enemies among them--already, Zack could say with quite a bit of confidence that he would refuse to work with Hojo. He had to believe that there were similar situations among the other patients. "Well, some of us should be able to get along, at least," he said with a sigh.

It didn't seem like there would be any harm in telling Nowe the names of the people he was supposed to find. "A man named Vincent, a girl named Elena, and someone named Kadaj," he responded. "At the moment, Vincent is my priority." The reasons for that were obvious. He was wary about Kadaj, mainly because he didn't think he was going to enjoy hearing whatever the mysterious person behind that name had to tell him.

Nowe's question seemed to be directed more to himself than anyone else, but it was too odd for Zack to just ignore. He chuckled slightly (an improvement from earlier, he was laughing!) and stared at Nowe. "What?" he asked, trying to hide a smirk.

[not_a_savior]

"Oh, I know Kadaj. He's the one I was sitting with at breakfast. He's got... Um... Silvery hair, down to about here..." Nowe gestured on himself to show Zack, "...And some long bangs in front of his face. And green eyes, that kind of look like cat eyes. You might not want to talk to him, he's kind of cynical, to say the least."

He looked back down at the bottle of shampoo in his hand, and held it up. "But this. What is this? I guess it's soap for your hair, right?" He tipped over the bottle, watching some of the liquid-like substance pour out into his hand. "I've never seen soap that wasn't solid before. Why not just use regular soap? You're just trying to get your hair clean, right?" Nowe sounded honestly befuddled by this mystery.

"I don't get this place, first there was that thing I found under my pillow, where you pressed a button and light came out of one end. Then there was that weird bread at breakfast, that looked like a square, with other squares inside of it. It was really good, but I've never seen them before in my life. They called them... What was it? 'Koffles'?" He looked helplessly over at Zack, noticing the man was watching him with a rather amused look on his face.

"What?" He asked, sounding defensive, his brow furrowing a little. He honestly had no idea how half the stuff in this place worked, and it was embarrassing that other people did.

[class_one]

The physical description was helpful, though Zack probably would have been able to pull Kadaj out of a crowd without knowing. "I don't exactly want to talk to him," he explained with a sigh, "but it has to be done, unfortunately." No, he could hardly imagine that would be a fun conversation.

...Nowe didn't know what shampoo was? The fact that he didn't know completely baffled Zack, but after he put some more thought into it, it wasn't so strange. There were people here from all sorts of different worlds--it would make sense that some of them didn't have the same developments as others.

And apparently his world didn't have shampoo.

"Ummm," he said, doing his best not to keep laughing (considering Nowe almost looked offended). "Well, solid soap is more meant for your skin, while shampoo is designed specifically for your hair. I don't know about you, but trying to use normal soap to wash my hair wouldn't work that well. And shampoo is better for your hair, too. Its got chemicals in it that strengthen your hair and... stuff like that." He was hardly an expert on hair-cleaning products, but he'd seen enough commercials...

As Nowe explained the flashlight and waffles, truly acting as if he'd never seen them before, Zack struggled to keep his expression straight. "Waffles," he corrected him, before placing his head under the water to wash out the conditioner.

"And sorry, I've just... never met someone who didn't know about shampoo. That's okay, though," he assured Nowe, clapping his hand on his shoulder. "Anyway, I think I'm going to go dry off in the locker room." He walked through it on the way into the actual shower area--there had to be towels and stuff there, he figured.

"Thanks, though," he said sincerely. He was certainly in a better mood than before, though still nowhere near 100 percent Zack cheerfulness. With that, he headed out toward the locker room.

[not_a_savior]

"Ohhh. I think I get it," Nowe said, looking back down at the bottle again and nodding slowly, "Though I still don't see why regular soap isn't good enough." He shrugged, and started to gingerly scrub it into his scalp, looking up as Zack excused himself.

"Alright then. I hope you find some answers, Zack. Good luck!" He gave a wave with his soapy hand as the dark-haired man walked away, and then leaned back to rinse the-- shampoo, did he call it...? What an incredibly weird name! --out of his hair. He watched as it turned into soapy bubbles and ran down his skin and into the drain, just like regular soap would. He touched his head lightly. His hair didn't feel any different, just... Wet.

He felt better, in any case. That hadn't been the life-threatening encounter he thought it might be. It seemed like there were some very nice people at Landel's, people he felt he could trust pretty completely. He still wasn't sure what to make of Kadaj, but Zack was a good person. He meant it when he'd wished the man good luck, and silently he hoped that Zack would not become the revenge-obsessed man that Nowe had been for a short while after Oror's death. Well, they'd probably run into each other again. He'd look forward to it.

[class_one]

[ Zack's wandering over here. ]