vivarium | DOUBLE BLIND

Shortly after the conversation with Zero ends, Zero opens the doors of the Garden and allows everyone to leave. However, the rest of the warehouse isn't better than the Garden:

The lights are still off, leaving everyone surrounded in darkness. The temperature just keeps on dropping, reaching near freezing point. The air feels more and more polluted, making it difficult to breathe without coughing, and nothing seems to be working as they should be. The electronic doors refuse to open without any power source, cutting off access to the cafeteria and dorms. At the very least, Zero has managed to open all the doors leading to puzzle rooms and has informed the group that new areas are now accessible to them, but they're on their own should they want to enter any other rooms.

Before the screens in the Garden turn off, Zero finally informs them that a new feature has been unlocked on their bracelets: any test subject wearing a bracelet may communicate with one another with the bracelet acting as a communication device. Holding onto the left button will enable the line to open just like a walkie-talkie. As long as test subjects are in the warehouse, they will have no troubles speaking with one another. What if they wish to talk to Zero? Zero's time is not be riffled, but they were generous enough to appear whenever anyone found a screen and pressed the on button a total of three quick successions.

And with that, Zero disappears from the grids and finally leaves everyone in complete darkness, leaving only one last piece:

"Best of luck, Test Subjects."

BASIC INFO ✖ MISSIONS ✖ MINGLE

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

How silly, it's not like he was in another coma or anything.

"I suppose I was... I don't even remember ever falling asleep at all." And yet he was still tired even now. He couldn't help but let out a yawn, prompting him to scoot out of bed and into his chair, which made a resounding squeak as he sat in it. It pained him to leave the very first bed that he had slept on in months, but it was too warm and comfortable for his own good.

"Where are you? I'll come meet up with you in a little while." He was going to have to wolf down this salmon first - he desperately needed the energy boost.

"Me? Right now I'm in the library. I'll probably be here for a little while, but I'll let ya know if I need to move." Heiji's voice sounded excited, even piped in through the bracelet speakers.

"The books in here aren't really useful, but there're a bunch of mystery novels!" In fact, he might have been reading them when Clive piped up to ask where he was...

Hearing the excitement in Heiji's voice brought a smile to Clive's face. "I noticed. I snagged a few for myself so I can read them once I have access to a proper light source again." He was very eager to have quality reading material again - he just couldn't tolerate the garbage in the lounge anymore.

"Anyway, I'll see you once I've eaten and freshened up a bit. You'll know when I'm on my way." Damn this accursed squeaky chair. Clive ended the conversation there and did exactly those things. Thank fucking god this room had a toilet and a sink, now he knew he didn't have to bother trying to get past the robots in the first floor bathroom, so he took advantage of both of those things while he was there.

About half an hour later, Clive finally left the room and headed for the stairs. He managed to get up them all by himself last night, so surely he could make it downstairs too. Getting down the stairs proved to be less exhausting but far more dangerous, but fortunately he managed to make it to the first floor without hurting himself. Then Heiji would be able to hear the constant squeak squeak squeaking of Clive's chair in the distance, quickly getting louder and louder...

And Heiji was still in the library, though when he heard Clive squeaking closer, he brandished the book he was reading. "Hey, check it out! They got a couple of books from the Thief with Fifty Faces series. Me and Hershel found a couple books on Britishisms and Ukranian and so on, but I dunno how accurate they are. Hershel said the first one was rubbish."

He was clearly enjoying being in the presence of actual books for once, if that wasn't already obvious. Heiji was apparently a pretty avid reader back home. "Oh yeah, how're ya feeling? I couldn't believe you fell asleep like that; you must've been wiped out."

Clive laughed. "You must have much better eyesight than I do if you can actually read anything in this darkness." If only there were candles lying around... Then again, holding a book so close to a flame would be pretty dangerous.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm fine now. Eating that salmon brought back the rest of my energy. Yesterday was such a long and exhausting day... I'm not surprised that I fell asleep so suddenly." All that tent building and exploring and doing missions and dragging his chair up the stairs, that was a lot of work for a tiny injured British man. "I hope you've gotten some sleep by now, too."

"Well, I mighta used my flashlight a bit..." Just a bit! Look, it was important to read mystery novels, shh. "And of course while we had the campfire going was the perfect time to catch up on a few chapters."

Heiji grinned at Clive. "Anyway, glad to hear it! I took a few naps here and there, but... while the power's out is pretty much the only time we'll have the run of the place, yeah? So I thought I might as well enjoy it while I could. Been nosin' around here and there -- it's how I found that room where I tucked you in! There's even a pool, but it might... have robots in it. Just a little."

Heiji was wandering around the warehouse looking uncharacteristically... tousled. Maybe the reason was that he wasn't wearing his hat...? But his shirt looked slightly askew as well.

He stood at the entrance of the garden in a slight daze, seemingly watching the stream.

It wasn't long before he was spotted by Clive, who squeaked over to him and gave him a suspicious look.

"Heiji? Are you alright?"

"Huh? Oh, Clive..." Yeah, it wasn't like Heiji to space out like that.

"Listen, um... Hershel said you probably had more experience dating than... us..." For values of 'dating' that meant 'acquiring scarlet letters and pasting them in a tastefully decorated scrapbook'. Heiji slid his gaze down toward the floor, cheeks slightly flushed.

"So I thought maybe I could ask you..."

Well, that was completely out of fucking nowhere. Clive was taken aback by the sudden mention of dating and Heiji's overall behavior at first, but when he gave Heiji a closer look-over, a grin quickly spread across his face. It all made sense now.

"Oh ho! You're thinking about finally putting those condoms of yours to use, aren't you? Or maybe you already did and it didn't go as well as you were hoping?" He certainly looked like he had a good time doing whatever he was doing, though...

"It was g -- fine!" Goddammit, Heiji hadn't meant to say even that much, but he was pretty bad about keeping this kind of thing secret. Exactly how g -- fine the experience had been could probably be discerned from how red Heiji's face turned when he said it.

"But we didn't go all the way. That's why I thought I'd ask if ya have any advice." Heiji reached one arm across his chest, unconsciously rubbing at his elbow. The gesture was an uncharacteristically shy one, and he couldn't quite seem to meet Clive's gaze. "I really want him to enjoy it, too..."

Wow, Heiji was just too precious. Clive couldn't stop his smile from growing even further.

"I'll tell you one thing right now. Sex isn't always as glamorous as it's depicted in movies and adult novels and whatnot. You have to really know what you're doing to have sex like that. So, if you want your first time to go as smoothly as possible, you should plan it all out beforehand with Snake. Figure out what his preferences are, what you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do, that kind of stuff. You may think that's embarrassing, but it's really not. It's a perfectly normal thing for partners to discuss, and it shows that you really care about making it as safe and enjoyable of an experience as possible." See, he can give serious sex advice without making jokes about wrapping it.

Heiji didn't know about that one, Clive. That last round was pretty... good...

"Preferences? It's not like we have a store or anything." Well, you know. They had a store, but not a store. And he'd already asked if Snake was a top or bottom so. ?????

"Wait, do you know something?" What if Snake was into something weird? What if he was into cosplay makeouts? Well, actually the cosplay makeouts were kind of nice, but what if it was something even weirder? Like falling down stairs? Or sweaters? He was pretty sure Hershel was not going to lend him a sweater for that.......

Edited 2015-02-20 03:57 (UTC)

DOUBLE BLIND

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