Day 43: Sun Room, 4th Shift

[euphemise]

The late-afternoon sun filled the large, open Sun Room. It was almost enough to make you sleepy, Euphemia thought, as she walked in, brushing a little glitter off her shirt. She didn't particularly feel like she was up to much - the worrying about everyone had drained her, as much as she'd tried not to think too much about it

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[bitpartgod]

As if the day couldn't get any worse, it slowly dawned on Kibitoshin that he had no idea where he was supposed to be for this shift's meeting. The Sun Room was the obvious choice, but in all honesty he'd been so swept up in the whole zombie thing that he'd completely forgotten eighty percent of the details. All he remembered was that he was supposed to be meeting an angel.

... hmm. He could maybe even ask around, but the nurses probably wouldn't like that. This would have been so much easier back in Otherworld! All he would have had to look for would have been the wings, or halo, or... that was what angels looked like, right? Oh, dear.

Kibitoshin dropped into an armchair, giving a sigh as he stealthily crossed the fingers on both hands. If he was really, really lucky, he had been the one to give his description and they'd find him soon enough.

[put him out of his misery, Chihaya!]

[numberonemonkey]

Chihaya had spent ten whole minutes locked in a bathroom stall reminding himself why he wasn't going to cry. The visit had been terrible and beautiful and sad. He didn't think he'd ever get to see his foster father again, ever have the chance to thank him, to....be sure that Lord Michael didn't hate him.

The nurse eventually lost her patience and Chihaya walked out, splashed his face with cold water and....refused to see himself in the mirror. He had to stop being like this. He was right, he'd made the right decision and now he was going to live because... he had this chance. It couldn't be wasted.

Walking past the bulletin reminded him he was supposed to meet somebody! Feeling awful, he began to search the Sun Room for his new friend. Long white hair.

He found a possible candidate and approach, smile perfectly in place. A new friend would be good. Something else to focus on, somebody to love and care for. A new family, even.

"Hello...are you Kibitoshin?"

[bitpartgod]

To Kibitoshin's relief, it wasn't long before he heard someone saying his name. Turning towards them he found himself looking at a gir- no, wait, a young man, he corrected. Very pretty with long, dark hair and wearing a friendly smile, even if the Kaioshin had the vaguest impression that he'd been crying earlier. What a relief! He returned the smile and got up to greet him with an outstretched hand.

"That's me! And you're, um..." They hadn't mentioned names, had they?! Oh, no, it would have been just too embarrassing if he'd forgotten it already! He rubbed the back of his neck, apologetic, and made a tentative guess. "... the angel? I'm sorry, I don't think I got your name."

[numberonemonkey]

"Oh," he laughed, lightly, "I'm Chihaya. And don't worry, it's my fault. Plus it's nice having people not know who I am right away!"

Chihaya sat down and smiled some more. So, this man was a sort of not-angel from a far off place called the other World where dead people went. In a way it sounded unpleasant, especially after last night, so Chihaya could only assume it was a heaven of sorts.

"It's nice to finally meet you. And strange too, I wasn't sure I'd meet any angels here, even if they're not that same as us. What's it like where you're from?"

[runner_up_robot]

Forte was getting restless, having been stuck in a chair all day, and having Sheena pulled away from him didn't help. He'd seen the other patients using wheeled chairs like his, and it seemed the large wheels were there for him to push himself around... if he had his hands. He tried to push with his left hand, but his right arm was still strapped to his chest, so... he could spin around in a circle. Until the nurse came and stopped him.

He passed time looking at the bulletin board, hoping Teisel would find him soon.

[For Teisel?]

[no_barbarian]

[Little buddy! :D]One minute he was headed to Zex's room, and the next it was morning. One minute he was standing in a hardware store, and the next his nurse was waking him up clucking something about sleeping all day, and Teisel was getting pretty tired of missing hours of his day with no explanation. A choice tidbit from Todd's file floated to the front of his mind, that Todd had missing time, unaware and with no memory of any of his 'episodes.' It was an uncomfortable parallel, and for now Teisel had bigger things to worry about

[runner_up_robot]

When he heard Teisel's voice, Forte spun the chair around to face him with a wide grin. Teisel was the last person Forte felt he really needed to see, and know he was alive (and judging by the bulletin notes, he needed proof as much as anyone else - it was still strange and kind of... embarrassing anyone had been that upset he was gone).

"You should have seen the other guy."

[no_barbarian]

Elated to have a good surprise for once, Teisel returned the grin. "Oh yeah?" He sobered for a moment. "Last I heard, you got in a fight with Hell's tabby and lost. What happened?"

Had that note on the board a few days ago been a hoax? But why would anyone in here need to lie about another patient's death? It didn't make sense, and while Teisel was glad to have his friend back, it bothered him to think that someone might have put one over on him.

[intoindra]

Well, this... wasn't good. Roland had felt sluggish all day long, and neither had he really felt like communicating. His stomach ached from gorging himself the night before, and even worse, he could feel the rumbling of discontent from the demon within. This upcoming night was going to be hell on earth, of that he was certain; which further meant that he was very much not looking forward to what was going to be going on. At all.

For now, he remained sprawled on the same sofa he had been for the entire day, not wanting to move or think or do much of anything. If he didn't move, neither would the rotting flesh inside of him. And if that didn't move, he wouldn't have much of a problem. ...reminded him that he needed to brush his teeth thoroughly in the next shift. The last thing he wanted was horrifically bad breath, but there wasn't much he could do about it now. Except bury his face in the cushions and hope no one bothered him, of course.

((Closed to Peter))

[human_sponge]

That visit had gone more or less how he'd expected. Peter had known going into it that his mother wasn't going to be able to help them. No, it worked the other way around: they had to help her. He had to admit that the most bothersome part of the whole thing had been accepting that Landel had somehow gotten the jump on their mother, when she was usually the sort of person who was two steps ahead of everyone else

[intoindra]

Roland's response was in his usual vein of brilliance and pithy wit, well-suited for an author and a leader of men, to say nothing of the dark cunning of a demon and the leader of the Asuras. "...ngh."

Even still, after a moment, he tilted his head ever-so-slightly, his bleary gray eyes seeming a bit less focused without his glasses on- they were beneath the couch so no one would step on them. While Roland was usually pale, now he was even moreso, and he clearly wasn't doing all that well. But he hadn't stood up, so that was all right. "...Peter. How are you?" Maybe talking to someone would help him ignore the pain in the pit of his stomach?

[human_sponge]

Peter had been half-hoping that it wasn't his friend, but that was all proved wrong when the man turned himself around to stare up blearily and Peter was met with a familiar face. Roland looked terrible, like he was coming down with some sort of illness. Peter would have jumped into nurse mode if he hadn't been uncertain whether or not Roland would appreciate being fussed over.

Even more bothersome than that was the fact that the first thing Roland did was ask about him, when Peter really had no injuries or anything wrong with him. (He knew he had that same tendency himself, but he didn't like seeing it in other people -- which maybe just made him even more of a hypocrite, but it wasn't the worst thing to be hypocritical about as far as he was concerned

[cigarettes_plz]

Badou would have given anything (even one of his cigarettes if he got it back later) to be sitting in front of his TV right now, at home, watching some guy hit his baby daddy with a chair. That was all he needed for a fulfilling life. Fucked up hilarious violence that didn't involve any thinking at all except to come up with a catchy cheer for the guy throwing the baby as a wailing ball of projectile weapon. He wasn't a complicated guy

[sixtyeighth]

Giovanni never thought he would be so thrilled to be walking the halls of a mental institution; compared to the arts and crafts room of aforementioned mental institution, however, the rest of the building felt like heaven on earth. He needed to make sure he didn't make a similar mistake in choosing a place to spend this shift, so he opted for the sunroom. It may be boring, he thought, but boring is infinitely preferable to uncomfortable.

As he turned into the sunroom, Giovanni nearly had to do a double-take. He hadn't seen one familiar face the whole day, and so realizing that the man on the couch was that nosy, redheaded partner of Haine's came as a welcome surprise. It seemed like things were about to get a little more fun. Giovanni smiled and tilted his head as he approached, hollowly mimicking friendliness. He sat himself down in an armchair across from the couch, crossing one leg over the other and placing his hands on his knees, and then looked at Badou expectantly.

"It's a pleasure to see you here, Badou."

[cigarettes_plz]

Badou looked up. Landel's, even during the day, was probably the worst place in several worlds to stop paying attention to your surroundings, so he'd argue that he was aware, just not caring much at the moment. He certainly didn't recognise the guy who'd approached him, but the smile was met more with vague curiosity than anything else.

He thought he felt a pang of familiarity. Not someone he remembered meeting, but maybe someone he'd seen or heard about. Nothing came to mind immediately. He really hoped he hadn't fucked this guy when he was drunk or something, because then things were going to get awkward reeeally fast.

For now he didn't move from where he was. He just looked over at the other guy perched on the chair in an ominously flamboyant manner and swore off beer for the rest of his life while dropping his other leg back onto the sofa cushions so he wasn't presenting a nice open target. "...Who are you again?"

[sixtyeighth]

The way Badou dropped back into a semi-protective position amused Giovanni a little bit, but the curiosity he showed amused him even more. So the great detective doesn't know who he is? All the better, he thought. Instead of revealing himself right away, Giovanni decided to make a little game out of it. How many hints will it take for Badou to figure it out?

Ignoring Badou's question, he instead opted to ask one of his own.

"Has Haine been well?"

He leaned back in the chair and waited to see the expression on Badou's face, grinning all the while. (Of course, the question served dual purposes: one was to confuse Badou further, and the other was surprisingly straightforward. Giovanni really did want to know how Haine was - and who better to ask than his partner? If Nails was in the institute, there was a chance Haine was as well, and that prospect excited Giovanni even more than the idea of night shifts.)

[scarletspeedstr]

Geez, today had really been one bad thing after another so far. First there'd been the whole zombie mess the night before - which he had the injuries to remember them by, not to mention enough nightmare fuel to keep him going for, say, forever, and that was assuming the night before that stopped haunting his dreams sometime in the next lifetime - then there'd been the news that ZEX had lost someone he really cared about in all the chaos. Then Tim telling him that firstly, he was Robin, and secondly, people thought Batman was dead where he was from. And then he'd quite possibly messed things up so badly with Grell that, if Bats was right, there'd probably be another corpse turning up sometime soon and it was going to be called Wally West, the dumbest guy alive

[thebatbutler]

Alfred had stopped by the kitchen, after speaking with Richard, and picked up a few apples. They wouldn't be too messy and were easy to hide. It couldn't hurt to have food readily available during the night... Although, from what he knew about Wally West, he probably wouldn't have any apples left once he was done talking to the man.

A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he looked around the room for Wally. The man had alluded to the fact that he might know Bruce, in their conversation on the bulletin. Perhaps he would know a little bit more about what seemed to be going on, what with different universes and everything. The thought occurred to Alfred that it was possible this would not be the Flash that existed in his 'universe', but there was little that he could discern without actually talking to him

[scarletspeedstr]

Wally blinked as someone joined him on the couch, and realised that he’d closed his eyes for just a few moments, which probably meant he was more tired than he realised. It was lucky that Alfred had an idea of what he looked like, otherwise they probably would have missed each other.

"Oh, hey Jeeves!" he said, pulling himself up more and grinning happily as he studied the older man. So it really was Alfred after all. He wondered how Bruce was taking that, provided he even knew at all. No doubt he’d find out what was going on there soon enough.

The apple was in his hand and had a bite missing before Wally’d even realised it was being offered. He hadn’t eaten that much this morning with ZEX - understandably - and while he’d made up for that while talking with Tim, that had been a while ago, and his conversation with Grell had been stressful enough that he was back to being starving again.

"So, uh", he said carefully around taking another bite out of the fruit, "how long have you been here?"

[thebatbutler]

Alfred blinked at the nickname, raising an eyebrow slightly, "Jeeves, sir? Although I appreciate the effort you demonstrate in creating a unique new name for me, I can assure you that 'Pennyworth' is quite fine." He already had the feeling that this was going to be a loosing battle - almost as pointless as the one he waged with his nurse - but the rebuttal was more out of habit than anything else. It wasn't that he particularly enjoyed being called "Jeeves", but if the alternative was to discuss that instead of more important things...

It certainly did seem as though the other man was hungry (although that might not be quite strong enough of a word) from the way he went about consuming the apple. Alfred sighed to himself, certain that he would be returning to his room without any of the 3 apples that he'd removed from the kitchen.

"I believe that I have been here for approximately two days, sir. How long have you been here." He paused. "You don't seem to be faring very well, sir. Would you like me to look at your injuries?"