Day 51: Men's Showers [Second Shift]

[perfectrecord]

Bah. So much for yet another suggestion of von Karma's. Such priorities this Institute had. They would implement a foolish suggestion to introduce origami lessons and to offer sewing supplies to select patients, yet refused to allow them to cleanse themselves more often than twice a week -- and, of course, without any additional privacy? How

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[arc_wrench]

HK had been dreading this. The showers where his least favorite place in the entire facility. All those naked meatbags, utterly unashamed by their squishiness in public. There might be some who were ashamed, but he never looked that closely. Not when he was trying very, very hard not to look down.

What was doubly infuriating was the fact that his nurse seemed to look at the showers as a good thing. Yes, he could admit, meatbags had no non-stick surfaces and therefore that meant cleaning was required, and even without having accumulated dirt and no doubt billions of bacterial colonies, human meatbags seemed to think on some evolutionary level that this simply wasn't enough, so their outer surfaces dirtied themselves. Especially the hair. And under the arms. Urgh. He glowered at the nurse meatbag while she made sure he actually removed his clothes and didn't just spend the entire shower doing something less embarrassing like remaining clothed and facing a wall and trying not to think about all of the meatbags being naked.But

[tartaros_avatar]

Recluse held a rather pointed dislike for the showers. The lights were bright and unrelenting thanks to the bright blue and white tile that lined every surface, and the absolute lack of privacy only made things slightly worse.

Nevertheless, arguing with the nurse over all of this would be slightly less productive than attempting to teach Captain Mako table manners. He therefore removed his clothes without complaint, finding a shower as far from the glare of the lights as he could manage, and started to occupy himself with getting clean.

[Free, if anyone wants an imposing slab of evil beefcake.]

[sixth_attack]

DAMN that little BASTARD!

That Nataku was lucky Sechs hadn't landed anything too damaging on him! Sechs himself was fortunate that the nurses didn't use him as a pin cushion for all their damned sedatives either! That morning seemed to have been full of both the good and bad aspects of luck. He could have made an ally, but because of their seemingly different experiences with the same person, Sechs got himself a new enemy instead. Great, one more bastard to carry on Sechs' hated rival's legacy! Again Sechs couldn't help but mentally bemoan over Will's discharge... He still wanted to kill Will himself, but nooo! Will had to go and disappear without a trace! LOUSY, NO-GOOD...

Sechs had been too busy fuming over the little scuffle over breakfast that he was practically on auto-pilot by the time he was lead to the showers. He took his frustration out on the nurse by throwing his clothes into a puddle of water again and angrily stomped through more little soapy ponds on the tiled floor until he found the nearest vacant shower head

[tartaros_avatar]

Well. He had almost thought he would be showering in peace, but it seemed as though Sechs had quite suddenly decided to shower angrily next to him. Recluse raised an eyebrow, looking down at the other man.

"I take it your morning did not go well after we exchanged notes?" Once again, he was reminded of Mako. The shark mutant's rages could be quite dramatic as well.

[sixth_attack]

Sechs was still engrossed with the temper tantrum going on inside his head when the large figure that he didn't bother to acknowledge suddenly started to speak, and with a rumbling tone that overruled the angry pounding in Sechs' ears! The startled Replica gave out a growl of surprise. Getting spooked like that never did well for his anger; all it did was make it flare up like a brief flash fire...

"Ugh...! No!" Sechs snapped, squinting his eyes through the sheet of water at his tall shower mate, "Course I didn't! What's it to you, huh?"

Wait... After they exchanged notes? Frowning, Sechs brushed the water out of his eyes. Hey! It was that big spider guy! It seemed like a long time since he last seen him! What was his name again...? Beefy Six-Arms? Wait, no... It started with an "R"... Really Beefy Six-Arms? Nah... No, it was... Ah, Recluse! Sheesh, he thought he had it with his first guess there

[loyal_soldier]

Thank the Emperor. Shower shifts couldn't come often enough here. He didn't even mind that it was communal, that was nothing new. the only slight hangup was that the others there were almost all civilians, a group he still never quite trusted. A few weeks here had left him less jumpy about them, but it still nagged at him.

Well, no point in not making the best of it. He stripped down, taking the closest unoccupied shower, feeling unaccountably pleased when he managed to get the water to not come out freezing cold or scalding on the first try as he fiddled with the generally tetchy controls, then started to wash himself down without any further delay, enjoying the warm, clean water.

[Russia!]

[vodka_jump]

His talk with England had been amusing, but when the nurse led him away before he'd even finished his meal, he was at a bit of a loss. He was used to be ordered around by only one person, his boss, whomever that might be at the time, but here it was as if all the nurses and orderlies thought they could make him do whatever they wanted!

As for leading him into the tiled room and making him undress, it was just insane! It was fine not to have a banya, but there wasn't so much as a bath. Just the spraying faucets. Bathing ought to be a much more enjoyable ritual, not just being hosed down while sprayed with water.

It wasn't even so much that he had a problem being nude. France did that often enough and he didn't even have much to bother about covering up

[loyal_soldier]

TK looked up from his washing as someone approached, recognizing Russia, and giving him a polite nod in acknowledgment. Russia was... well, odd, but seemed competent enough. Probably some sort of officer.

Still , competence seemed to generally be foiled altogether by the shower controls for everyone. "You turn them to about here, sir," offered, indicating the controls on his own. "It's finicky, but generally gets there in the end."

[vodka_jump]

At least the other man was respectful. And more or less helpful. Any cackling, laughing, or sarcastic remarks would've been returned with broken tile, mangled pipe, and blood, plenty of blood. He mimicked the way TK told him to turn the knob and was met with a decently warm spray of water. These Western customs could be so ridiculous at times.

Once he was comfortable though, he took a step back, glancing around at the others and the routine way they approached showering, just to be sure he was doing it correctly. It wasn't at all what he was used to, but as it was, there were no other options.

"It seems so impractical. A bath is so much better," he shook his head, mouth downturned in a childish pout.

[bitpartgod]

Kibitoshin had, he decided, just about gotten the hang of these shower shifts. So long as he was quick, kept to himself and didn't look anyone in the eye (especially not anyone taller, scarier or more stern looking then he could ever be), he could get out without being roped into any awkward conversations. Admittedly he nearly tripped and hit his head on the sink in his haste to undress, and he might possibly have gotten soap in his eyes while he washed, but it was all for a good cause! Anything was better than being trapped in a corner feeling more and more awkward every second, right

[not_rly_fai]

Breakfast had gone more or less as expected with few possible exceptions. The bulletin in the Sun Room yielded little and as tempting as it was to ask outright about Marc, it would be relatively suspicious, wouldn't it? At the very least, it was something to think about.

He followed his nurse to showers, glad to find the place still fairly empty. It took a bit of fiddling to turn on the spray and adjust it to a good temperature before stepping into it. At least this week there were no open wounds, just a lot of scar tissue beginning to form. Not wearing the medical eyepatch for a while actually felt pretty good, and he scrubbed at the places it'd sat around his scalp, much like a cat without a collar.

There was the town or the areas surrounding it that they hadn't checked yet. The rebels wouldn't be hiding out in the same place they were trying to overthrow, would they? Maybe he should look into getting some maps of the areas near the institute.

[Yuki!]

[winged_moon]

That definitely had been Sakura he'd seen at breakfast, since she'd answered the post Yukito had left on the bulletin -- but how had she managed to sleep through an entire day without realizing it? She was still here and awake and apparently unharmed, but the previous warnings he'd read about how people who were about to disappear started to sleep a lot was enough to keep Yukito (and Yue, though he was still quiet today and wouldn't admit to it anyway) very concerned. Hopefully she wasn't about to leave here again; Yukito wouldn't mind if she returned home and safe, but after she'd been here as a visitor he suspected that the Institute would simply return her to that false life

[not_rly_fai]

How was it that the same people seemed to find him time and again in all the same places? At he should be thankful it was Yukito and not Yue, though he could hardly be one without the other near. It'd been a couple days since they'd spoken last but at least Yukito seemed to have put aside some of the things that had gone on recently

[winged_moon]

Though the smile and tone said everything was fine, neither could really be trusted when coming from Fai -- from what they'd seen, he would cheerfully greet any sort of situation no matter how he felt on the inside about it. That was one of the main frustrations Yue had with him, though the guardian was hardly one to talk; his coping mechanisms simply tended toward hostility rather than false cheer. Coming so soon after, well, all that Yukito hardly trusted it either, and he still couldn't help but feel some responsibility for what had happened simply because he'd been there and watching when it had