Nightshift 39: Stairwell by Nurse's Station 1-B

[lady_general]

[From here]Celes paused at the foot of the stairs and looked up. There was no proof yet that anyone had moved up the stairwell, so did that make her the first of the evening? The general almost laughed. Perhaps it would be an easy night, after all

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[lady_general]

[to here]

[lady_general]

[From here]

Celes very carefully tipped the gurney down the stairs, and started a slow, slow decent down them. It had surprised her just how heavy the cart was, now that gravity had them both firmly in hand and pulled them by the noses. At the first landing, she paused to assess the second set of stairs. It didn't look as though anyone had come after her. That was somewhat unwelcome. The patient body should have started moving, and branching out more thoroughly by now.

Again, Celes and her gurney began to head back to the first floor slowly. When they got to solid, even ground again, she pushed open the door with the gurney and walked out into the hall.

[And off to here]

[lady_general]

[From here]

There, they were now halfway to their goal. Celes hoped that the trip would be mostly uneventful - however entertaining battle with a gurney would be. "Ready?

[felled_hero]

"As ready as I'll ever be," Hughes said, grinning. It wasn't exactly like they were heading into anything he knew how to gear himself up for. except in the very generic manner. But he figured it was best to stay relaxed, stay cheerful, keep up that nice facade of not being bothered by anything at all. It did wonders for the nerves - both his and other people's.

"Let's do this."

[trapdetected]

[from here.]

It was empty, and almost eerily so. After stepping away from the comforts of surrounding groups and their straying lights that aided in illuminating the area around them, Naoto held her breath for a moment before climbing the steps forward. Her own flashlight never pointed away from anywhere else but forward.

After another step, a realization hit her. "I apologize," Naoto said, interrupting the silence. "I haven't introduced myself yet. My name is Naoto Shirogane."

[sheisthecause]

"Mercedes Colomar--Meche," Meche replied. She didn't bother with a handshake; even if her right arm hadn't been braced up, this didn't seem like the time. If the pitch-dark stairwell hadn't been unsettling enough, Naoto's nonchalance was even more so. She looked like a high school student. Meche was trying to pin down whether her new partner's ability to "handle" the morgue was just bravado or the product of life experiences a young teenager probably shouldn't have had.

Either way, Meche decided she should probably just shut up and be grateful--at least she seemed to have picked someone who could handle her own. Which was more than Meche could say for herself at the moment.

"What are you looking to find up there?" she asked.

[trapdetected]

"Information, if possible," Naoto answered, stepping up on the final steps and continuing on into the next hallway.

[to here.]

[mizuhomaiden]

[from here]

"I'm oh so curious," Sheena added on as she made her way up the stairs.

It wasn't a lie; she was curious. She was also wondering how close that was to what Sheena had almost done, anyways. At the last second, she'd decided biting the youkai, getting her back for the previous night, wasn't the intelligent thing to do. Tempting, though.

[mind_the_sukima]

Yukari wasn't too worried about stains, since Landel seemed to like them to start every night looking their best, fixing their accouterments each night (except her parasol, she noted irritably).

"A bite would have been ironic," suggested Yukari, following her up the stairs. "A kiss, surprising, but I suppose that's asking too much. You could have tried to play it longer and see how long before I figured it out. Something more than just standing on the stairs awkwardly for a minute. An intriguing opening that led nowhere." She reached up, gently prodding Sheena in the back of the head with a finger. "You should think these games through beforehand."

Not that Yukari always did; sure, she could plan ahead, but it was so much more fun to play it by ear.

[mizuhomaiden]

That was half of Sheena's problem; she didn't think things through all the way. She'd get to a point in her planning, usually decided off the cuff, and decide she'd figure the rest out when she needed to. But when she did, and it wasn't clean and cut, she tended to get confused. It wasn't that the ninja wasn't intelligent, it's just the things she did stop to think about weren't light subjects at all.

"I'm not like you; I don't molest people from behind just for my own amusement. I'm much more direct," Sheena said, spinning to catch Yukari's hand as she pushed the youkai against the wall and kissed her.

This was a prime example of the ninja not thinking things all the way through.

[mind_the_sukima]

The opposite of thinking things through was spontaneity, with most people usually falling clearly to one side of that boundary or another. While such capriciousness could be troublesome or fall short, it almost always had one thing to its advantage: surprise.

Which more or less summed up the look on Yukari's face when Sheena kissed her.

Was the ninja bipolar? Or possibly she'd simply managed to goad the ninja into doing something rash, which seemed likely, considering that had more or less been the goal of her teasing. Admittedly though, Yukari had been thinking of another tantrum or perhaps some explosions when it came to "something rash", not kisses.

Still, just because it was unexpected didn't make it unpleasant; far from it, even if she was more used to the role of the aggressor than the aggressed. Unresisting, Yukari returned the kiss, watching the girl's face with half-lidded eyes.

[kanpekinasenshi]

[from here]

This was nostalgic of traveling with Leon again, and Seiya wondered if she shouldn't contact him on the boards, see if he needed a partner for... anything. She was directionless still, just drifting and gathering supplies against some greater day that they might not be fighting pointless battles. The clubs didn't reassure her, especially with the changes in leadership that seemed to be sweeping through them. Was talking to that Statesman fellow even worth the risk, after all the trouble she'd gone to?

It wasn't the time or the place to worry about those things, but she took her time up the staircase as usual, wary of something coming out of a corner unexpectedly and the tight quarters in general. Seiya kept quiet towards Eileen here, only glancing back to be sure she was being followed.

[themotherreborn]

"Um..." Eileen pursed her lips, trying to think of a way to describe the curse. "If I start...talking weird. Like in a voice that's not mine. It's...it's really hard for me to explain. I guess it's like...like a curse. But it's not all the time, it only happened one night here so far."

Just the night they'd taken her and strapped her down and made her relive that hell, invoking Henry's name....and his.

"I just figured...it'd be best to warn you. It might happen if we get attacked, or something like that."

[kanpekinasenshi]

"Talking in a strange voice... okay." Seiya had to admit, that was pretty strange, even in comparison to her own clothing choices. "I'll keep an ear out, but hopefully you won't get that scared tonight anyway. I'll be doing my best to help protect you, since you're my partner for tonight, all right?"

Saying it out loud, as presumptuous as it was, felt good. Maybe her logic wasn't too strong, but she also wasn't suffering under any curses that might be a problem in the middle of a fight. Unless something about that voice was helpful in a pinch...

Not that it would matter, if it didn't come up. And Eileen said it had only happened once; Seiya didn't know how many nights that was in comparison to, but decided it was a healthy number for her own peace of mind.

[to here]