Nightshift 44: Men's Bathrooms (M01-M40)

[justanimpulse]

[from here]Bursting through the door with Piper in tow, Bart couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief, even though they weren't technically out of the woods just yet. At least there were sinks in here, so they could clean up any...uh, messes that might be accidentally created

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[hamelinschild]

Into the bathroom Bart went, with Hart flailing behind him, pushing forward and into a stall with just enough time to hit his knees again before loosing his dinner.

It was a good number of minutes past the dry-heaving stage that he finally shifted, slumping back against a divider wall. He frowned and wiped his mouth off on his sleeve. No necking for him tonight. The man needed some heavy duty mouthwash.

"I-I'm fine."
Mostly.

Rather than cat back to something that wasn't there, Hart rolled his eyes, biting his words back.

"Sorry I broke on you like that. Call you--" Barely upright ahead, he stepped back out, still undone by the sight of the younger Allen before him. "--a sight for sore eyes?" He offered up a weary smile, arms crossed around his middle again, like a poor attempt to keep him from doubling and slumping back to the ground.

[hamelinschild]

Weapon...weapon...
Huh. Where had his pipe gone to?

Hart gave a quick, glancing sweep of the room and spotted the thing nearly clear across to the other wall. He'd have dropped it in the rush in, and it was no wonder it had rolled so far. He'd have to break it to Scourge that he already -had- a weapon, but wasn't it the thought that counted?

Unfortunately(?), despite the pressed gravity of the situation, Scourge's energy is contagious.

"Two is always better than one. And I know Bart knows how to fight. --because I'm not leaving him behind." He gave the little speedster a small reassuring squeeze of a hug, his chin rested over the younger's head.

"But partners..." He's smiled plenty of times today, but in the dark of the night, it felt like it had been ages. It felt good to have it back. "--I think I can handle that." One arm around Bart, he offered the other hand to Scourge. Shake on it?

[justanimpulse]

Finally sitting up a little and shaking himself out of his Piper!hug-induced reverie, Bart watched the two men make their agreement, with only the briefest of skeptical looks crossing his face, which he took pains to conceal. It wasn't as though he actively disliked Scourge; it'd just be awkward to fight around someone who didn't already know about his secret identity. But if this was how Piper wanted it...

[haplesstracker]

"Sure, I can deal with a tag-along."

Scourge ignored the suggestion of a handshake. He knew the gesture, but wingmates shouldn't handshake like they were making some kind of deal, they were above that sort of thing. Metaphorically, if they lacked wings, but above it.

Instead, he scooted across the floor and shifted his body so as to nudge Piper's hand up and over his shoulders, negotiating himself into a one-armed hug. Now he understood Piper's hugs properly, it had just been the cultural differences that kept him from catching on to the proposition earlier.

Besides. It was nicer this way. Not quite as intimate as being created simultaneously from a pair of matched corpses, but one had to make concessions to the drawbacks of being organic.

[hamelinschild]

With the nudge, Hart caught on quickly and put his arm around the other, drawing him in some with hand rested along the curve of Scourge's far shoulder.

Deep breath, he coached himself. He still wasn't alone.
No more falling to pieces, okay? Look, you've gotta look out for him. --and not just because Wally would have your ass over it. So to speak.
This time he didn't mind so much.

--but a robot. Really, Hart? I thought you had better taste than that.Or so he thought

[justanimpulse]

After giving Piper one last hug -- since he figured they both could probably use it -- Bart grinned and all but literally bounced to his feet. Snuggling was nice and all, but he was ready to do something, despite the ball-and-chain Piper had apparently adopted, innuendo entirely unknown and unintended.

"I have no problem with meeting up tomorrow, but what are we going to do tonight?" he asked, definitely looking to Piper. Face it, Hart; you're the Man with the Plan. And you've got a hyperactive speedster on your hands, even if he does seem more subdued that he should have been at this age. Think fast.

[haplesstracker]

Scourge stayed seated next to Piper, slipping one hand around to rest on his wingmate's hip. He was completely fine with just sitting on the bathroom floor for the rest of the night. As opposed to walking around, of course, if someone had a different place to sit that wasn't made of hard tile and smelling like purge he'd be all for it.

"You guys heard Landel, right? It sounds like he's keeping a pretty close eye on our communications. If we're going to make plans, we better do it while he and his cronies can't find us." He smirked, holding up his free hand and rubbing his fingers together in a shifty, roguish fashion. "And I know where chemical storage is, if we're going to be bombing anything."

Damn, Landel would be reading their plans on that too. "We should probably work out some kind of code to get stuff in under the radar, too. There's a few people here who know 'con script, but I'm guessing you two aren't amoung them."

[hamelinschild]

"Music--" Hart replied swiftly, perking up some. "--I can code in sheet music. The code would be easy enough to teach to you and wouldn't have to rely on the given names for the notes, so it would be harder for others to figure out."

Plans. Of course. Time to up and move. --shame though, despite the smell (it wasn't that bad, there were far worse smelling things in the world), he was actually rather cozy now. Human (relatively speaking) contact did wonders for the mood

[justanimpulse]

"What kind of tools?" Bart asked, getting caught up in Piper's enthusiasm. This was probably just what he'd needed; somebody to give him some direction, some kind of purpose, without being a jerk about it. Piper was nice. He could work with Piper.

Shame they had to bring Scourge along, but oh well. At least he was good for something.

"There's a utilities closet upstairs," he said, thinking back to the map he'd seen on the bulletin board...which would probably be taken down by tomorrow. Good thing Piper had a copy coming. "We could look around, as long as we're up there...And the patients possessions room is close, too." He grinned. "We could check for your flute, too."

He was started to shift his weight from foot to foot, just shy of bouncing in place. Someone was eager to get moving.

[haplesstracker]

Oh, is that what that pipe was about? It was far too inferior a weapon for his new wingmate, Scourge would have to see about getting him a blade to match his flute. Maybe a bladed flute. That would rock.

"I can try and hear for you, if you need me to," he said, eager now to find some way of being helpful. He was practically beaming as he got to his feet. "Not sure what my wavelength detection threshold is in this body but it's gotta be better than a human's."

Something actually happening! And plans! And...Scourge hadn't felt so excited in days (months, if you restricted it just to excitement over diabolical plans). Piper seemed to have a knack for bringing that out in him.

[hamelinschild]

Scourge--good lord, he was a sweetie. Sometime soon, Hart needed to sit him down and give him the full talk on how his 'powers' really worked--from perception, to action, and back again. It...could almost be considered some kind of a feedback loop, but again, that was for another time.

"I'll be fine as far as hearing goes right now. Might get a little jumpy in the halls, but frayed nerves can be dealt with, right?"

Here's to hoping!
Well my god. I'm so glad to have your approval.
--is that sarcasm I'm sensing, Piper? Are you being smug?Wouldn't you like to know

[justanimpulse]

"Why am I in the middle?" Bart asked, giving Piper an exasperated look and mouthing 'what are you doing?' while Scourge wasn't looking. He was the speedster; he should be on point! Even though his powers weren't working right, he was still faster than anyone else here! -- Even if he couldn't really use his powers as long as Scourge was watching, because of that whole stupid secret identity thing...

Oh, so this was why working with people outside the hero community was a bad idea...Bart had always kept to himself or worked in small teams before, so he hadn't realized.

[haplesstracker]

Leading his allies back to important things he'd found, now this was the sort of thing he'd been born to do!

...no, really. It was right there in his core programming, nestled between the visual detection and cowardice subroutines. Probably even had a little label on it.

"Because you don't know where we're going so you can't go first, and you don't have any weapons or sensory abilities so you can't go last," Scourge announced smugly. "If you want to take the back and get eaten by whatever's coming up behind us you can, but that wouldn't do the rest of us any good." Now hush and let the grownups talk, hero.

Blade held ahead of them, Scourge went back to the bathroom door and poked his head outside, then waved to the humans behind him. "Nobody's outside. Come on."

[ To here.]

[hamelinschild]

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