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[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

Characters: Lenalee (OU) | fallforthesky, Alex Mercer (OU) | angryaffliction
When: Backdated to the 11th or 12th.
Where: Hospital
Rating: M for Mercer's Foul Mouth
Summary: Lenalee is curious about the hospital and piqued Mercer's interest too. What hilarious hijinks will they get up to? What ghastly ghouls lurk in the dark?



It was dawn, and Mercer watched the overcast gray sky grow gradually lighter. He could sense more rain coming and that set his teeth on edge. From his vantage point, the rest of Nesreca seemed still. No sign of movement. No sign of Libitina anywhere.

Still, he was ever watchful for any sign of the ghost girl, but she didn't appear.

So the virus sat back on his haunches, drawing his hood tighter as the first drops of rain splattered down. He was still, like some brooding hoodie gargoyle perched on top of the hospital, roof, partially obscured by some rubble.

He would give the girl, Lenalee, another hour before he went in on his own. The virus hoped he'd find some answers. Maybe what happened. Maybe why. Maybe how. Maybe information about Libitina. Maybe even a way home.

But for now, he waited.

Comments

[setalight]

It goes without saying that with her line of work, dawn is nothing new to Lenalee. She's woken at dawn and stayed awake well past dawn, and sometimes she's hated the dawn for daring to arrive so serenely after a night of bloodshed.

...But in Nesreca, where there's no such thing as a mission and all routine has fallen away into monotony, what the dawn really is to her is bloody early. She wakes on time, stomach heavy with a weird kind of anticipation, but the instant she opens her eyes to the washed-out interior of her room bathed in watery, Kanda-would-be-proud-of-me light, all she wants to do is... go back to sleep. She can't ever seem to get enough nowadays.

There is much putting off getting up, and grumbling, and flinging her pillow across the room before she finally throws back the covers and gets dressed. For the first time in a long while, she finds herself putting on her Exorcist uniform to ward off yet another afternoon of rain. Then, with a weak sigh and a rueful glance at the small pile of rations in the corner of her room (she's not hungry; she doesn't need to eat anything yet...), she takes the quick drop out her window and— turns towards the hospital.

Maybe half an hour into Alex's allotted hour, he'll see her picking her way miserably through the muddy terrain towards him, though with the way he's brooding so intently up in the rubble on the roof, she doesn't notice him there and is therefore not putting forth much effort into looking cheery or approachable.

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

Movement!

Alex's eyes darted towards the source, hoping to glimpse Libitina.

No, not Libitina. The girl... Lenalee. In a skirt? And heels? That didn't seem very practical to Alex. Still, if she was here, he expected she was ready, heels or not.

Jumping down from the roof, he slid down along the wall, small tendrils clinging to the old brick. He landed by the entrance, his biomass rippling as it settled back into skin, leather and denim.

"You're ready?" He gave her a skeptical look, one dark brow raised but still looking as surly as ever.

[setalight]

Certainly not Libitina. For one, Libitina would most likely be giggling, and Lenalee is. Not. Giggling. She hears the sound of... something scraping over brick as she nears the hospital and tenses immediately. To someone who doesn't realize her method of fighting, the way she widens her stance might not say much, and that skirt and those heels will indeed come off as very impractical, but that's fine with her. She perks her ears and glances around herself from the corners of her eyes for the source of the noise. It's been a long, long time since she's had to fight, and while she figures whatever she's hearing isn't an enemy or something dramatic like that, it's still a habitual reaction.

—But it's just... Alex. Doing more of that building-scaling, looks like. She takes a half step back as he lands heavily on the ground, her expression still somewhat guarded, but she nods and lets the stiffness seep from her shoulders. "Yes."

A pause. Then, "I'm not late, am I?"

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

Tense.

That's what Lenalee was exhibiting. Tenseness.

The thought was unbidden but he could certainly understand it. He had a vague concept of what it was like to relax, but as with most things he understood it was foggy and second-hand. He understood that readiness, that constant paranoia though.

"No." He shook his head, surveying her with a glassy, quizzical stare. Why ask? If she was, he'd have just gone on ahead. "I figured it was better to get started early while we have the daylight for you to see." He wondered if she wasn't much of a morning person? Regardless he moved ahead, pushing in the mouldering door which just crumbled off its rusted hinges.

Alex peered into the dusty gloom, a strong scent of woodrot and mold and ancient chemicals hung in the air. Alex gave her a sidelong glance. "Find something to cover your nose and mouth with. You probably don't want to breathe in whatever's in the air."

[setalight]

A vague concept of what it's like to relax— God, how accurate is that for the both of them?

She meets his gaze with the same uneasy feeling erupting in her stomach as the first time (what is wrong with his eyes?) and stands a little straighter. It doesn't do much to help with the huge gap in height. And this would probably be a prudent time to mention that darkness isn't much of a problem for her— 19th Century dreary castle with insufficient lighting and all that— but he's already crossing the threshold to the hospital.

The smell that hits her then is strong enough to turn her empty stomach. She scrabbles with the pouch attached to her belt for a length of cloth dressing that, being rather outdated in and of itself, obviously came from her own medical kit. She folds it lengthwise and ties it behind her head as tight as she can bear, grimacing at the lingering smell. "What about you?"

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

Far, far too accurate. They can bond over the fact that they are chronic workaholics or something.

He gives her a puzzled look, and then averts his eyes. The way Lenalee looked at him made him terribly uneasy- it reminded him of the same look his sister always gave him. Like she was looking through him at the monster underneath. He didn't like that- that scrutiny. And Lenalee was obviously not stupid.

He shifts and there's an awkwardness behind his predatory grace- a perpetual uncertainty. That's the problem. He no longer thinks of himself in human terms or fitting in and it's where he slips up so often. He doesn't need light because he has various ways of 'seeing'. He doesn't need a mask because the only reason he takes in oxygen is to speak.

"There's nothing in here that would make me sick." He explains and says gruffly. "C'mon. We're wasting time." He marches into the chaotic, dusty gloom, the floor creaking ominously under his considerable weight. He peers around, expression sour as ever as he realizes he has no clue where to begin.

ALL ABOARD THE EXTREMELY SLOW TAGS EXPRESS I am so sorry.

[setalight]

Frowning as soon as he looks away. It doesn't make sense to her, what she's doing that always puts him so apparently ill at ease. Looking. That's all. Contrary to his belief, she isn't seeing any creature beneath the skin— though give her time, she may come to (and isn't that hypocritical, when Allen's technically just the same).

"Nothing..." It's only a murmur, soft enough that Alex won't have to consider it a question, but could expand on it if he wanted to (she doubts he does). With remarkable balance for someone wearing high heels in a ramshackle building, she picks her way around the rubble, gingerly toeing something unidentifiable. "...Are you looking for something in particular?"

SLOW TAGS = GREATEST CRIME OF ALL *never forgives ever*

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

He knows on some surface level there isn't a living person here who will know what he is. Perhaps not even believe it if they're told. But Alex still gets anxious about being watched. About being noticed.

He watches her in turn, out of his peripheral vision as he scours the mess of rubble for any kind of answer to present itself. She carries herself with an unusual grace- not like the eerie movements of Elizabeth Greene. He'd heard talk about people here with 'powers' but Lenalee didn't look like the hulking super soldiers he'd fought. But there was something strange about her. Something Alex didn't have the knowledge to place.

His eyes traveled along the floor, a broken vial by a rusting stretcher catching his eyes. Without warning, he visibly cringed, holding his head, unbidden memories flooding through him.

A vial shattering on the concrete, red liquid that held the virus spreading over the floor. Or was that his blood? It mixed, red with red, chemicals acting like a crib to his last creation as it unwittingly consumed him and replaced him...

He came back to reality, shaking off the unwanted memory like a fly, though his whole being throbbed with the pain of remembering. Still, it gave him an idea.

"I want to know what happened here." He said roughly. "If it was some kind of plague, the hospital records will tell us something."

NOOOOOoooooooooooooo...!!!

[setalight]

A virus living inside a human body? That's really not much harder to believe than a cursed, mechanical soul that wears a loved one's skin. And as for super soldiers... that's close, actually. Not quite as literal as in Alex' world, but close enough.

She just barely catches his sudden fit from the corner of her eye, and in some ways it's so familiar she almost doesn't comment— but he isn't from her world, so God only knows if it's at all normal for him. Lenalee comes to a stop, heart suddenly pounding. This man is completely different than what she knows. The things he can do, the way he behaves...

"Are you all right?" she says, voice muffled by the cloth covering her mouth and nose. But then he's recovering, and all that's left to indicate that anything had happened at all is her flickering pulse and a slight hoarseness to his voice. She hesitates, then tries to gloss over her question (her own voice a little shaky now) with, "—Where do they keep hospital records?"

No, Alex. She doesn't know. Paperwork isn't exactly... neatly organized in the Order.

I lied. All is forgiven.

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

"Yeah..." His voice sounded strange, even to him. Lenalee may even catch the very faint whispery echo. He straights and 'fixes' his vocal chamber. Memories always left his internal structure a little... off.

"...Yeah." He repeats himself and coughs. "Fine." His voice was normal again. Gravelly and unpleasant but normal.He wasn't sure what to make of Lenalee's concern though. That, like so many things, was alien to him. He decided though that it was better not to dwell on it. He needed to focus on the task at hand. "Older records would probably get put in a basement, but we're looking for whatever was most recent. So check offices, filing cabinets, anything. We can look for quarantine rooms as well."

His brow furrows. He knows he's missing stuff but he was never that good at planning. But there's somewhere to start.

Goodie. ;u;

[setalight]

He doesn't strike her as anything close to fine, not with that sudden fit just after warning her not to breathe the air without a filter. She hesitates on coming a little closer to him and remains where she is instead, turning her head sharply to stare around the room.

"Are the quarantine rooms actually safe to go into, do you think?"

/holds forever omg

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

"After a hundred years? ...Probably."

If it was a disease that had caused this, it had either died off or was long gone by now. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to bring along Lenalee if it was as potent a virus as he. But it was too late to get rid of her now and she would ask inconvenient questions about his sudden change of mind in going alone. He doubt he could pass it off as chivalry.

He stepped into the dusty gloom, careful to watch his footing on the aged flooring.

"They'll have kept the secret stuff somewhere where people wouldn't wander in aimlessly. Which means our first stop is the basement." He shoved aside some rubble, and peered down an old-fashioned elevator shaft. He could make out the wreckage of the thing some fifty feet below, and then to Lenalee, a smug grin on his face. "Shortcut?"

it's going to be forever at the rate I'm going /dieeeeessss

[setalight]

Smart thinking, Alex. She has little patience for chivalry, either false or genuine, so it's best you just let her come along. You'll have hell to pay if something happens, though.

Click, clack, tap, go her shoes as she follows after him, toeing aside broken tile and twisted scraps of metal. All the dust in the room seems to catch on her eyelids, making her feel even more exhausted than when she first woke up.

She watches blearily as he moves towards the collapsed elevator shaft, commenting mildly, "Do you have a light?", though in the wake of the rubble being heaved aside, her voice is drowned out.

Shortcut...?

Well. Maybe.

Coming up next to him and... peering down into the darkness. There's a flare of soft, greenish light that fades very quickly into nothing as she invocates on a whim. It's comforting. She's missed it, almost. She missed less the feeling of steel painting its way up her legs, however— and there's your clue to what she meant by knowing people who were also fast. Lenalee gives Alex a look once her Boots have activated, her expression for the most part an equal mix of wariness and that sort of bland acceptance a soldier wears as they're handed their weapon. "I'll go first."

She jumps down into the shaft before he can reply.

psh, I tag back forever bb<3

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

Which was good for Lenalee because Alex didn't have a chivalrous bone in his body. He'd had a mental taste of both sexes and had found, aside from the obvious biological differences, both were psychologically similar.

When he catches the movement on her legs, he raises a brow but said nothing.

When she jumped, Alex lunged to the side to stop her, but as she landed on the bottom, his doubts were erased.

"Stand back," he warned and then jumped, forming his hand into a claw and digging it into the wall to slow his descent. It reformed it into a hand before he was visible and landed heavily, denting the tiled floor.

"Any other tricks up your sleeve?"

LET US TAG FOREVER, THEN!! <3

[setalight]

By the time Alex calls a warning down, Lenalee's already back-pedalled as far into the dark as she's willing to risk, the memory of the impact craters he'd left on his first broadcast resurfacing. What little light the grimy windows let into the hospital's first floor blots out, leaving her temporarily in complete darkness— she can hear a crunching sort of sound as Alex presumably follows her down the elevator shaft.

Curiosity isn't enough to make her chance a glance up, though.

Which she's especially glad for when he lands and leaves yet another dent to mark his passage through Nesreca's ruins. She stares at the cracks in the tile for a moment, eyes readjusting to the dim light, and then glances up at him. He can't see it through the cloth she has tied over her face, but she smiles a bit at his comment.

"A few."

ETERNAL TAGGING YUSS

[angryaffliction.livejournal.com]

"Good." Alex remarked brusquely, emphasizing his words with a curt nod. "We may need them."

His eyes didn't have trouble adjusting to the gloom but that may have had something to do with the whole not being human thing. He scoured the gloom, looking for a likely place to start.

Down the dark passage, something clatters, and Alex's head snaps immediately towards the sound.

"Is someone else checking this place out too?" His voice is a low growl, and he's poised almost like an animal about to strike.