vivarium | ambidex voting #3

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ambidex voting #3

A M B I D E X V O T I N G

After escaping your rooms, talking with others, swiping your Ambidex Room cards, and entering, Calhoun appears on the screen to very briefly explain how the AB Voting works (45 minutes to either choose to Ally or Betray, you gain/lose points depending on what your opponent chooses), but to also introduce this round's prizes.

That's right, this round has a whole new set of prizes! They're a bit different from the last round, so listen carefully!

For anyone who chooses Betray, they will be getting a standard first aid kit and a can of food. Calhoun noticed that some of you managed to hurt themselves in the puzzle rooms, so he highly encourages you to take advantage of this one-time opportunity for free medical supplies!

For anyone who chooses Betray and their opponent chooses Ally, you will get a memory regain instead of a can of food! After all, you'll have access to the cafeteria so it won't really be necessary. ~~Unless your name is Clive Dove.~~

For anyone who chooses Ally, well, if your opponent chooses Ally as well, not only will all of your BP increase, you'll even get a gold star of friendship! Doesn't that sound wonderful?

If you're the poor sap that chose Ally and got stabbed in the back, well, sorry, you only lose BP, but maybe Calhoun will have something for you. He likes all of his test subjects, so he won't forget anyone here.

But anyway, happy voting! Calhoun will see all of you later with the results.

BASIC INFO ✖ VOTES + FORMS ✖ PRIVATE POSTS ✖ RESULTS + REACTIONS

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Heiji was, at that moment, extremely conflicted. On one hand, he did want his body to be as knife-free as possible on general principle. And Ema was kind of cute.

On the other hand, as he and Hershel had established by now, Ema was clearly some kind of mobster combat maniac who had forced Jake to be her footstool by unknown means and possibly maybe had given him his scar in a knife fight. Maybe.

Aaand then he tuned back in to the conversation. "'Older woman'? How old are you?"

...What.

"A gentleman never asks, and a lady never tells." Also, she wasn't 100% sure, what with the amnesia and all. Still, she was pretty sure it was closer to the Light side of the spectrum than the Aoi side. "You look pretty young, that's all I'm saying."

"What? You're the one who brought it up in the first place!" said Heiji, looking mildly affronted and forgetting, for the moment, Ema's frightening and dubious reputation. Clearly Ema would have to look to a different Aoyama work for gentlemen. Perhaps Kaitou Kid?

"Anyway, I can't get my pants off until someone pulls this knife outta me." Gosh, Ema, stop being sick.

Pshh, that was not a very simmerous comment, Ema thought, completely not even a little self-conscious of being on the older side of the murder warehouse population especially as that wasn't really relevant to the goal of getting everyone to have a minimum of metal and a maximum of blood inside their bodies.

"The point was, did you want me to take it out. I'm not going to be offended if there's someone you trust more. You just shouldn't wait around, who knows where that knife has been."

Heiji looked at Ema and ran through his options. Out of all of them, he trusted Hershel and Light the most... only he was afraid Hershel might faint in the middle of the process. Heck, he was already apologizing left and right for putting Heiji in such-and-such a position in the first place. One more perceived wrong and it might crush his fragile psyche or something.

Light was tough -- real tough. Only problem was he also couldn't see. And, of course, that he had a damaged hand already. Shoot, he might end up slicing his fingers open if he slipped with the knife. Which was very possible, since he wouldn't be able to see the blood.

"...You know basic first aid, right?" It seemed like she did, and Heiji couldn't really see a reason to turn her down. It was just sort of weird putting himself in a position of vulnerability with a complete stranger. Then again, EMTs were strangers, weren't they? Maybe he should just stop overthinking it.

"If you think you can do it, I'd be grateful. Ain't too many people around here I can ask."

Edited 2014-08-03 19:09 (UTC)

"Come on, then, let's get this over with." She didn't explicitly offer him a hand or anything, but she did move close enough so that he could lean on her if he needed as they head to the washroom.

"How'd you all end up impersonating knife sheathes anyway?"

They were close enough that Heiji just sort of limped the rest of the way on his own. "I didn't actually see what happened, but Hershel and Jake were over by the dolls -- you know, the real creepy-lookin' ones with the holes for pills. They got one of 'em right, but the other two were swapped. Lucky it wasn't all three, or we might've ended up the way Light did."

Yeah, no one had told him that Jake had just started shoving random pills into random dolls.

"Anyway, there's this awful screeching noise, and then it's just knives flyin' through the air everywhere. We might look bad now, but it could've been a lot worse."

"Technically," she muttered, not quite under her breath. "I suppose that means you missed major arteries? Since you're somewhat mobile and lucid and all."

Heiji laughed despite himself. "Yeah, if it nicked my femoral artery, I'd be in real trouble!"

You know, as opposed to now. He pushed open the door to the washroom and made his way on over to the sink. "You want me to sit up on the counter? Since you're gonna be the one pulling it out, I figure it's your call."

She considered this, nodding slowly. "That'll probably be best. If gravity is pulling blood down out of the wound, that seems like a negative."

...Okay, that was a real scientific analysis there. If nothing else, the situation was disproving the hypothesis of her being a doctor real quick. Still, probably everyone had seen a medical drama on TV, so she removed her coat and vest (that much less laundry to do later) and washed her hands for some semblance of cleanliness.

"So here's what'll happen: we remove the knife and tourniquet, take off your pants, replace the tourniquet, try to clean out the wound, then wrap it up? Hershel said you'd nabbed some bandage material."

Out of one of his pockets, Heiji produced some of the torn-up bandages they'd manage to make out of the bedsheets in the infirmary and piled them up on the other side of the sink. "In a manner of speaking. Here, lemme get up there."

He hopped up onto the sink counter, though with markedly less energy than when he'd scrambled on top of the elevator room a few days ago. The knife was lodged in his left thigh, mid-leg, and blood had soaked through some of the denim of his jeans. It did look kinda bad but Heiji was determined to see this through.

"Okay. Ready when you are."

"Here goes nothing."

Ema gripped the knife, gave Heiji a quick look in the eyes to confirm, then slowly pulled it out. It wasn't that she was trying to make it some terrible ordeal or anything, she just wasn't a professional knifer and wanted to make sure she wasn't making the wound worse. Likewise, removing it took a little more force, sounded a little fleshier than she'd expected--

--But then the knife slipped free, and she quickly dropped it into the sink. Right, no problem. A shaky breath, then she could finally risk a glance at Heiji's face.

"Doing okay? Let's get this off."

Funny thing about getting a knife pulled out -- having it stuck in there in the first place hurt, but having it removed was like sitting there while someone slowly and carefully poured boiling oil on him. Heiji made it almost to the end before letting out a scream.

He fell silent after Ema dropped the blade in the sink, but his breathing was shallow and rapid, and he was starting to ooze blood again now that the knife was no longer acting as a plug. Nevertheless, he fumbled for the ends of his makeshift tourniquet to try and undo the knot.

"Let me help with that," she said, already knocking his hands away and working the knot loose; between the cry and the ashy tint to his face, this wasn't the time for relaxing and sharing responsibilities. The ooze of blood got a little more active once the tourniquet was off, so she didn't hesitate to get to work on getting his jeans out of the way.

"Almost done with the hard part, okay?" She had no idea if that was true, but someone ought to say something.

"Y-yeah, don't worry about me," he said. He didn't protest as she worked, which was probably a good thing overall. He did, however, try to help in kicking off his jeans, revealing what someone in the know might identify as a scar where a bullet had once grazed his lower leg.

"Thanks for this."

Edited 2014-08-03 22:34 (UTC)

Her eyebrows rose at the scar, as she could indeed identify the type of scar it was, but rather than comment she concentrated on retying the tourniquet.

"You really want to thank me, don't let this happen again. Next time I'm leaving Jake to stitch you up, so keep that in mind." She wasn't entirely sure she was joking.

With everything else out of the way, now Ema could concentrate on just cleaning the wound (as clean as it could get without any sort of antiseptic or antibacterial anything). Even though it was just water, it probably stung--though who knew, it could be nothing compared to the whole knife bit--still, she tried to be efficient about it.

Heiji laughed, albeit a little weakly. "That's a real threat right there."

By the time she'd started cleaning the wound, Heiji had recovered a little -- at least enough to be able to dunk his improvised tourniquet under the faucet and wash out most of the blood. He wrang it near dry, then replaced it around his leg. Then he tapped Ema lightly on the shoulder. "It's okay, I can handle the rest."

Ema pulled the pile of bandages closer anyway, then hesitated. It was true she didn't know Heiji well other than that he was apparently a bit of a projectile magnet. It did sound like the type of self-sacrificing comment you just had to ignore on a regular basis, but that didn't mean that it was.

...Well, may as well practice the openness crap she'd been preaching to Hershel. "It's not some huge amount of trouble to keep going after coming this far."

Ema hadn't struck Heiji as the nursing type, so he was a little surprised. But Heiji put up his hands up nonetheless. "Well, in that case..."

After all, it would be a little awkward bandaging himself, and she seemed to know what she was doing. Best of all, the sight of blood didn't seem to phase her too much, although maybe that was another point in favor of the Ema's Sordid Past theory...

Were he to ask, she would note that it had nothing to do with nursing, and a lot more with finishing what you started, or avoiding future beadily distressed gazes from Hershel, something along those lines. "It'll only take a minute," is what she ultimately offered, taking the bandages and getting to wrapping. It was nice to have someone around who was neither obnoxiously sassy nor stupidly hard-headed.

"So, how 'bout that last ambidex round," she started, since that was obviously the best sort of small talk.

It was also nice (once he got past the initial embarrassment of having to ask someone else to patch him up) to have someone looking after him.

"Yeah, about it," said Heiji, because when someone was nice enough to bandage you up it was polite to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. Besides, (a) he could talk all day, and (b) it kept his mind off his injury.

"That Jake fella is tough to understand. I figured he was more the logical type, 'specially after hearing why he decided to betray Clive. And a medical kit or two could make all the difference if more people end up gettin' hurt. But then he turned right around and voted Ally. Didn't seem all that happy about it, either, but he ain't seem too happy about anything."

"You can say that again..." Talking about how people acted in these games was considerably easier than actually getting hurt during them, but the latter was a heck of a lot more straightforward. "But yes, I wouldn't have called it. I was surprised either of you allied, to be honest."

"I was just gonna ask him to pick Betray right from the start," said Heiji. "Figured he wouldn't trust me, and I didn't really trust him, either, after what he did to Clive and Hershel. Heck, that Clive's still steamed, and I can understand why. Wouldn't even explain why he overrode Hershel's vote like that, till Hershel went and begged him." Heiji shook his head.

"But Hershel wanted to go with Ally. Heck, he was promising all this stuff if I'd just agree with him this round. I don't really know how to explain this part, but..." He paused, trying to figure out how to articulate the decision. "He had his line of reasonin', and I had mine. To be honest, I think it really could've gone either way. But y'know when someone gets that look in their eye, like 'I really wanna do this, and I won't regret it no matter what happens'? That's the kind of look he had. Besides, I wanted to see where his deductions were going to lead."

He fell silent for a moment or two -- and then, apropos of nothing, he gave Ema a cheeky grin. "Y'know, you're pretty cute for an older lady."

Ema could understand where he was coming from with that; she wouldn't have trusted Jake either, and he'd never gotten her even a little stabbed. But apparently he found or at least borrowed some sense for a minute. And Hershel, too--he'd certainly looked pleased with himself, but the thought of the boy actually acting without regrets...

And then before she can put anything related to any of these sentiments into words, Heiji continues

"--What."

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