View source for Logs:But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

{{ Logs
| cast = [[NPC-Fen|Fen]], [[Leo]], [[Maya]], [[Winona]]
| summary = "You know, I'm just going to not say words." (Set in the Blackburn [[TP-Prometheus|Prometheus]] facility.)
| gamedate = 2019-07-30
| gamedatename = 
| subtitle = 
| location =  <PRO> Wreck Room - Blackburn Research Facility
| categories = NPC-Fen, Leo, Maya, Winona, Prometheus, Blackburn, Mutants
| log =
The sign by the door says "Rec Room", but someone with a permanent marker bookended the first word with "W" and "k" at some point, and the subsequent effort to undo the vandalism was lackluster. Inside it is not usually that much of a wreck, though it might be more interesting if it were. One corner is dedicated to the reasonably sized flatscreen television mounted on the wall, with several rows of folding chairs arrayed before it. Another is centered around a set of tacky vinyl sofas bracketed by two bookshelves largely stocked with supermarket checkout paperbacks (about half James Patterson by volume, with Danielle Steel heavily represented, and there are at least six copies of ''Fifty Shades of Gray'' at any given time). The rest of the space is more modular, but usually plays host to several card tables ringed with folding chairs, supplied by a shelf of games, from playing cards to chess (with a couple of improvised pieces) to three different flavors of Monopoly.

Slouched and heavy, Fen is going for the Guinness World Record  for the most distracted game of solitaire -- which may be turning into a house of cards, from the way she is arranging her discarded cards into small triangles and pyramids.   She still looks trashed, her  hair stringy and oily, though she did try to do a braid down the back to be neat.  Her scrubs - clean, but wrinkled - are starting to smell like fish oil.  The circles under her eyes are darkening and skin is showing redness from an irritant she's been exposed to.

As she stacks cards - she's working on connecting two little triangles - she's humming.  The song is older, but melodic -- but she unfortunately keeps humming the same refrain.  Earworms are a beast.

Maya looks fairly well put together, on the other hand; at least for a prisoner stuck in a medical lab. Her hair is done in one loose dutch braid curled around the side of her head and hanging down one shoulder, her scrubs are neat and relatively wrinkle free, and she has obtained an emery board from somewhere that she is currently filing her nails with. She's sitting sideways on a chair near the television -- ''Glee'' is on, though she isn't actually watching it -- and observing the room with a curious interest.

At a nearby table, Leo has nominally been playing solitaire as well, though as he shuffles -- and reshuffles -- and reshuffles his deck with some increasing agitation, not actually dealing another round, it seems his patience is wearing thin. He looks -- kind of a mess, too. ''Clean'', showered and shaved and put together -- but there are blackened lesions peppered along his arms, his face too pale, his usually deft shuffling kind of fumbling, shakier. By the fifth or sixth time he's riffled the cards together he finally looks up towards Fen, his voice ''just'' a little edged when he speaks. "Can you ''please'' stop."

Winona walks into the rec room, a copy of ''Fifty Shades of Gray'' in her hand, a finger inserted between pages which to most observers are meant to hold her place. It's more likely to those who know her, though, that she had found both something to write with and write on, and tucked that between the pages of the book. Her hair has at least had a brush run through it and is decently clean, the rainbow ends seeming ever more faded and frayed by time. She looks warily between Fen and Leo while casually placing the book in her hands on one of the tables, and instead circles towards Maya. "Where'd you get that?"

"What?  Oh shit."  Fen peels herself up from a slouch and looks at Leo like she didn't know he was there.  She bumps the table, knocking over her fledgling efforts, but doesn't seem to mind.  "Sorry.  Did I... was I humming?  Sorry.  Tired."  She blinks at her cards, then over to the tv then back at Leo.  "Oh hell.  are they injecting or drawing? or just hitting you with a very small, hot iron?"  She scoops up her cards into a deck again and swallows hard.  "I was... going to say something, but I have forgotten."

"You were humming," Maya replies promptly. "Why would they have hit him with an iron?" She looks up with a quick smile, a small flush darkening her dusky cheeks. "Oh, this, um -- I asked that guard with the dreadlocks? He seemed not ''entirely'' the worst. Actually, I asked him if we could get condoms here but he took that ''so'' the wrong way and in retrospect maybe I should have led with something else?" She flutters her hand in the air as if she could brush away that last thought. "Anyway, he got it for me um -- do you want to --" She offers the emery board to Winona. "I could probably try asking for something else so long as it's not like. Explosives. Who knows what he'll --" She pauses, bites down on her lip, frowns. "Say."

"They weren't ''hitting'' me with an ''iron''." Leo sounds sharper at this. He stares fixedly down at his hands, though, his jaw unclenching as he shuffles again. And again. When he does look up it's with narrowed eyes, fixing on Maya a moment. His brow furrows. "... did they give you the condoms? Who would you even --" His head shakes quickly. "I don't want to know." His thumb runs along the edge of the cards. His eyes dart to Winona's book, and then back to Maya. "You think he'd bring you more stuff, though?"

Winona takes the emery board with little hesitation. "The guard with the dreadlocks," she repeats under her breath, looking between her (unfortunately poorly taken care of) nails and the emery board a moment before she sits down and puts it to use. "I'd be surprised if he provided the condoms, which... uh... but to have a working pen or even a decent marker and notebook..." She sighs longingly, her expression softened as she stares down at her nails.

"Why do they do anything here?  But... I dropped an iron on my foot when I was a kid.  It kind of looked like that -  but the old fashioned iron that were just a fire heated chunk."  Fen elaborates, despite the growing recognition that she might not need to taking over her body language.  "Sorry."  She then looks to Maya, confused.  "Why... would you want..."  She shakes her head.  "I just... want my tank.  A really long sleep in my tank.  I'd take a sewer at this point because then it'd mean I might get out of here... all Shawshank Style."

"He hasn't given me the condoms ''yet''," Maya replies wistfully, "but he said he would. Okay okay, notebook and pen. I'll put it on my shopping list." She runs her thumb along the edge of one recently filed nail, flicking at some thin hanging shreds of keratin. "I bet more than one person would like those, I see Wendy tearing blank pages out of the backs of books to write on. I don't know how ambitious I can be but it doesn't hurt to hope, right?" She pulls her knee up to her chest, resting her cheek on it. "We have toilets so we have sewers. Just good luck fitting down them."

Leo stares blankly at Fen as she just keeps talking. His jaw is clenching back up, but eases off again as he flicks again at the edges of the cards. "They weren't," he says again, and now it just sounds tired and patient, the words a ''bit'' slower and a ''bit'' more enunciated than before, "hitting me with an iron." He looks down at the table, switching to a lazy overhand shuffle as he continues fidgeting with the cards. "Shawshank style?" There's a healthy note of skepticism in his voice. "That's kind of an about face from your usual refrain."

"Those blank pages are at a real premium around here," says Winona, nodding with a slight nod towards the book she came in with. "And if you have someone willing to do you favours, I say go for it 'til their patience wears thin." She looks up towards Fen and makes a bit of a clicking sound with her tongue, her eyes flicking to Leo just a moment. "Yeah... that sounds almost like a shred of hopefulness." She snorts softly, but her tone does not actually convey dismissiveness. "Didn't know you had even that."

"I... I know I am just making things worse for myself, but they've never taken my tank away before. All this... waiting to see if I will ... i dont even know anymore.  How long can she go. That's all I hear." Fen half mutters, half whines the words, itching her arm uncomfortably. "I mean, it's not even realistic. Jumping into a sewer would be the worst.  How would I get all of that shit out of... my everything?" She pushes herself back from the table and stands up, leaving the cards behind.  It is now time to pace.

"I'm good at testing people's patience. Wait, no, that doesn't sound right." Maya scrubs at her cheek with a palm. "I mean that I think I'll be good at seeing how far he's willing to --" Her brows crease again. "You know, I'm just going to not say words."

Leo taps carefully at the cards, aligning the edges of the deck carefully before he slides them back into their tatty old cardboard box. "You should talk to Wendy," he suggests lightly, setting the cards down on the table and standing. "Probably some things she could use, too. If you're making a list." He picks up ''50 Shades of Grey'' from the table to leaf through it slowly. His brows raise as he looks the pages over. "It's kind of sad but I think this might be the most popular book we have here." He closes it again, pushing it across the table towards Maya. "Maybe it'll be inspiration. You know, if those condoms ever come in." He skirts wide to avoid the path of Fen's pacing as he heads for the door.
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