[RL with Birkin and Adachi]

[demondoctor]

Stein's wing of the dungeon he used to share with Birkin had become, if anything, darker and more terrifying since Birkin left. The lower floors were thick with shadows that were creepy, stitched monstrosities or tottering, jittering clockwork robots. The walls crawled with cracked mirrors and stitching, and were marked at intervals by terrifying

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[touchofgenius]

Birkin for one was completely exhausted. Physical activity - especially this much of it - was a foreign thing to him. He really had no clue this whole Persona thing would be so labor-intensive. If Adachi hadn't thought to steal some supplies, they probably would have been in far worse shape then they were right now.

His eyes scanned past the cages and Birkin wished for the millionth time that day that he'd just wake up already and would only need to deal with the remnants of a very, very bad dream. He willed his hands to stop shaking as he walked further into the room. They'd come this far, hadn't they? "You know," Birkin mumbled turning his head to Adachi, "you can still run off at this point. I wouldn't think you were a coward if you did."

He frowned slightly as Stein talked, standing up a bit straighter. "Not a chance in hell. I'm doing this for your own good."

[det_goofball]

After all this trekking - again - Adachi was developing a begrudging admiration for the kids who'd done this all those times, for people they barely knew. He himself wanted nothing more than to turn back but had a sneaking feeling that without help, Birkin'd be completely screwed and hell, he couldn't let that happen to someone else he actually liked.

"You're stuck with me, doc," he replied, doing his best to ignore their surroundings. Why couldn't he be rescuing someone with a dungeon like, say, that Kujikawa girl's? This was just nasty.

He remained quiet after, letting Birkin handle whatever conversation was to be had. After all, he wasn't particularly interested in saving Stein himself.

[demondoctor]

Stein got up and put a foot on the office chair, his expression turning more ugly. "So you're choosing him are you?" he snarled. "Doing this for my own good? You're no better than the assholes who've been holding my leash for most of my life."

He gave a push on the chair with his foot and it shot towards Adachi and Birkin like a lethal weapon. He squared off in front of them, hands rising and clenching into fists.

"Do this, do that!" he snapped. "Don't be so cruel, Stein. Don't cut that boy, he's scared! Come on, come back to class and pretend you fit into those neat, boring boxes we put everyone else in!"

[touchofgenius]

Birkin tilted his head slightly. "What? I didn't choose him over you, if that's what you're getting at." He held his hands up in front of his chest in an attempt to keep the peace.

As soon as the chair came hurdling towards them, Birkin stumbled off to the side hitting the ground hard, mentally cursing the fact that his one foot wasn't in particularly good shape. "Adachi, just for the record, this is the exact reason I didn't want you to come."

He picked himself off of the ground. "St- Franken, you asked me to keep you leashed when I brought you to my world, remember?" Birkin sighed, already knowing reasoning with him - it? - wouldn't work in the slightest. Discretely as he could, he started slowly fishing his tarot card out of his labcoat's pocket.