Day 40: Sun Room [Fourth Shift]

[clockmongler]

Well, that was... special. No wonder he was losing respect for this place--the fearful Martin Landel was coming undone, most probably with boredom. So scary. Even Nursey seemed a little exasperated, though that most likely had more to do with X's constant insistence to stay in the Sun Room rather than go inside the Greenhouse

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[iwascloned]

Spider hadn't realized that these bastards had a way to take drugs out of his system. They'd put a tube inside of him. Through his nostril. A slender, sucking, plastic tube designed to rip out his insides.

"We'll have you cleaned out in no time, Mister Ellis."

They'd missed the first time. They'd put it in his lung. He'd feel it slithering through the caked ash on quivering tissue, knew before they did that they had to start the hellish process all over again.

"Oops, let's try that again."

Sucking and invading and spitting, like some abominable hooker-leech hybrid, they'd cleaned him out, and lead him back into the big, bright room to miss lunch in peace. Not that he would've wanted food. He had a phantom sensation of that slender, sickening tube, ready to steal away anything he put inside himself.

Take your mind off it. Have a valium. Wait, dammit! Without drugs to turn to, Spider distracted himself by browsing the bulletin board, immersing himself in other people's plots, and references to his own. This Lelouch guy was pretty

[jokers_wildcard]

Who'd have guessed after such a horrible day yesterday, today would turn out so... well? It was amazing! Showed there really was bright side to things, even when the dark side consisted of malicious, psychotic bastards stalking and beating her sweetheart beyond anything that could be considered normal. But she wasn't going to think about that. She already had her back up plan, and she planned to make the guy suffer ten fold for every scratch.

No harm keeping up with today's bright mood. She headed for the message board as soon as her nazi nurse let her go. Harley had mostly ignored the thing her whole first week, but lately, it's been getting entertaining. Like reading the tabloids, except these change up every few hours.

Instead, she found herself being drawn to that familiar bald head sitting a few yards from the board. Spider, that was the name. Easy to remember. But he was looking a little strange... And by that, she meant meant not strange. Which was strange. What happened to all that energy from yesterday? Even last night.

[iwascloned]

With the frequency that this Lelouch character was posting on the bulletin board, it was a wonder Spider hadn't seen him earlier. Scrawny guy, black hair, and what was it with people and their fucking purple eyes? Spider was about to get up and make an impromptu appointment with the kid when he noticed that blond from yesterday coming towards him. Not Yukari, the other one. Hal. No ... Haley. She hadn't been a complete pulsating sack of filth, if he remembered correctly. That was something, at least. And now she was talking to him, poking him with her word-things.

"Silence," he muttered, continuing to stare at the bulletin board. "I am conducting research."

[jokers_wildcard]

Harley raised an eyebrow. "Yeah? Good luck with that. You know any nutso can put anythin' up there, right? There ain't much worth payin' attention to."

Wow, he wasn't moping. He was just... really enthralled. She couldn't see why. Most interesting thing she'd seen on there was from this morning about Batman being here. Everything else was the usual garbage. Some of it was fun, sometimes, yeah, but nothing worth 'researching.'

[trapdetected]

The opportunity to go to the recreational field would have to be passed on. Naoto wasn't one for playing around in the great outdoors (as "great" as they could become, in this situation), not when she could be spending her time doing much more productive things. Like compiling more of the notes she needed, attempting to make connections between what she knew and what had been newly found out, trying to figure out where to go from there to get the best results... Ignoring what was going on wasn't going to get them out any sooner, nor would it make anything better.

Naturally, Naoto wasn't going to be doing much of anything else when she had a choice in the matter. And thankfully she did; with the sun room being her only other option, that's where she decided to go, her first and only destination being the first empty end of a couch that was found. Much like yesterday, there she sat, writing down all the notes she could from her talk over breakfast and finishing up those from the bulletin. It was all she could do, up until the day came

[rocksthecourt]

The morning had been spent rather frivolously, he had to admit. Not that it was necessarily a bad thing. It was important to relax and enjoy oneself every once in a while, and in such a dangerous environment, it was best to take advantage of whatever rare opportunities one could get for pleasantries

[trapdetected]

Lost in her own thoughts, Naoto hardly gave any regard to the new occupant of the sofa-- it was hard to tell if she noticed at all. It was easy to forget the world around her existed when she was so focused on one thing.

So when a voice directed towards her came from seemingly nowhere, louder and more clear than any of the idle murmurs and quiet chattering from everyone else in the large room, her mind snapping back to reality was just visible enough on her face to notice. Quickly sitting back up, straightening her composure back to something more proper, Naoto looked up at the man who called her out.

"There is nothing wrong," she insisted, her voice flat in an attempt to brush off her moment of being mildly startled. Her face went back to its usual stoicalness as Naoto lowered her eyes back towards her lap. "I was merely thinking, is all."

[rocksthecourt]

Ha ha ha~ He could see that. Looks like she'd been fairly lost in thought if Klavier had been able to startle her without even trying. The smile on his face actually grew just a little brighter at the surprised look that crossed hers, and remained well after she'd regained her composure. A surprisingly strong composure, at that, especially for one so young.

"A relief to hear," he said, light-heartedly. "Far too many seem to be letting their anxiety take control of them. Especially this time of day. I should hope you weren't preoccupied by anything so... dismal. Penny for your thoughts?"

[theroadsofar]

It'd been several days since his injuries and the bandages on his face and chest were starting to itch. The bruises at least, were healing pretty fast, becoming less tender and more on the yellow side. But the gashes he'd gotten from the Sun Room ghost? They were starting to close - or had they been stitched? Dean hadn't taken a look - but that didn't mean it still didn't hurt. Dean just sucked it up. This wasn't the worst injuries he'd ever had, and he tried not to think about his first run-in with the Demon, or sitting in the Impala, getting friggen sidelined by a semi-truck.

It was a year ago now that that'd happened, that Dad was gone. Didn't mean he didn't think about it every day. That was the problem. Dean needed to stop thinking about this, make himself forget and just throw himself into the hunt. He didn't care if Sammy got on his case about it: he needed to hunt to get his mind off of this, to just get through the day sometimes

[theroadsofar]

That actually didn't really help narrow it down, because one of those options would be tough enough to deal with right now. Trying to locate a cursed object? Without his EMF reader?

The best they could hope for was to try to locate the body first, get Croaky's history. Dean began checking the second thing on the bulletin board he'd intended to take a look at. While he'd had experience with those psychic kids that Yellow-Eyed bastard seemed to like to dick around with, he didn't think they'd all be cool like Andy or Sam (Sam was just a given, 'cause no matter what Dad said, he was gonna save him and that was just how it was gonna be: he wasn't gonna ever go darkside, not on his watch). Reading up on this news of a guy with the power to make people tell the truth didn't sit well. Maybe part of it was because so much of his life, his work, relied on lying through his teeth, impersonating others to save people and do good. But most of it was Dean was just plain creeped the fuck out. If there was anything he'd learned before and after

[theroadsofar]

Dean turned. He had a split second to notice that hey, wait a minute, this guy had crutches, wasn't Lelou -

And that was as far as he got as he was promptly hit full force with Lelouch's power.

Dean blinked, his face slack for less than a second. Why shouldn't he do this random guy a favor? Searching the top of his head, he couldn't see a reason why. It'd be so easy to just do what he said. The hunter's face broke into a friendly smile, shrugging. There was no struggle at all as he obediently turned away from the bulletin board, the post about psychics, possible hunts, and human lie detectors forgotten already despite being literally still right behind his back. All he could remember was checking up on the posts about Croaky the ghost and trying to work out how he was gonna deal with Sammy's curse before this guy - kid, actually, he looked like he was barely college age if even that - approached him

[mind_the_sukima]

And suddenly Yukari found herself staring up at the ceiling while she sat on a couch, warmed gently by the rays of that giant burning ball of divine three-legged crow in the sky. Where was she? What had happened? And why wasn't Ran here to answer these questions?

This wasn't her ceiling.

This wasn't her ceiling, therefore, this wasn't her house therefore this was some crazy hellish institute full of transdimensionally kidnapped beings of all shapes and sizes. Okay, that last step was a bit of a leap, but it made sense to her drugged mind. Somehow. Now, why was she drugged?

Cringing as she tried to work through her mental fog, Yukari groaned and clutched her head. So tired. Yet for some reason, she was still awake.

[Free Drugged Youkai]

[mizuhomaiden]

[only stopping by for a bit]

Sheena had been watching the youkai out of the corner of her eye since she'd spotted her during lunch. Sufficiently worried, especially with how Yukari managed to get herself to the Sun Room, the ninja opted to pass on the rec field. She'd been meaning to go out there since the open area would provide the perfect place to work on her tumbling, but she couldn't help but check on the youkai.

Grabbing a couple really plush pillows as she passed a couch, Sheena went to Yukari and tucked them into the space between the youkai and the corner of the couch.

[mind_the_sukima]

She was drugged. Yukari struggled to keep that at the forefront of her mind because besides being somewhat amusing, it also helped explain everything wrong with her, which was calming. If she knew precisely what was wrong, then there was no reason to panic

[mizuhomaiden]

Seeing Yukari cutely latch onto the pillows, Sheena knelt down on the floor next to the youkai's couch and proceeded to tuck some of the blonde hair behind Yukari's ear.

There was that -chan thing again. She was going to ask what it meant, but then Yukari asked the question she did. Sheena blinked. Yukari couldn't have forgotten already. It's not like one would forget the details of being drugged.

"Uh... yeah. Spider did," she replied. "You know this. Just take a nap, okay? You'll feel better after you sleep it off."

[fuyunohanabi]

Well, that hadn't been as terrible a conversation as Rangiku had feared. Her relationship with Gin was something that she expected more opposition to, but if they could go on ignoring it, then she'd be happy enough. She wasn't about to fight him in a place where nothing that happened in Soul Society actually mattered, and where he could quite easily come back after death. It was futile and pointless and painful to bother.

But for now she had a meeting to attend to. She stretched out on one of the couches, ankles resting on the arm as she watched the door. She wasn't quite sure who she was looking for but hopefully he would find her.

[For Suzaku]

[superdynamic]

Lunch had been. . . interesting. Suzaku was glad the business with Porky had been resolved to some degree and that Lelouch was in a better mood for it, but talking to the other boy was like navigating a mine field. Not a week ago he would have detested the thought of talking to him as if they were still friends, but with all the uncertainty between them now he couldn't help hiding behind the old, comfortable teasing. Maybe the problem wasn't so much that he didn't know where he stood with Lelouch as that he didn't know where he wanted to stand with Lelouch

[fuyunohanabi]

Rangiku smiled at the boy who approached her and nodded genially. He was young, sixteen or seventeen, but wasn't about to let that colour her judgement. Look at what Kurosaki and the others had managed to achieve against shinigami centuries older than them. "Pleased to meet you, Suzaku-kun," she said, shifting up on the couch to make room for him to sit down. "Rangiku is fine," she added. She preferred informality when she could get away with it.

"That's what I'm here for after all. Ask away."

[superdynamic]

"Thank you," he said politely, sitting down next to her. He couldn't very well start this like an interrogation, but the most basic things he wanted to know -- more detailed information about what the club really did -- were something anyone was likely to ask, and they would likely lead to more specific questions.

"Well, I was wondering what kind of goals Arts and Crafts has, and what you specialize in. Forgive me, but the stuff on the board didn't seem that specific. You focus on things like exploration, right?"