Day 55: Cafeteria

[bodhiandspirit.livejournal.com]

Though five days without bathing was hardly unusual for Rita, she was actually looking forward to showering today. To her, the last shift had been somewhat enjoyable, if only because it allowed her an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. Of course, she couldn't be completely alone in the communal showers, but no one was rude enough to disturb her in there, which was good enough for her.

Once the shift was over, she re-applied the bandages on her leg and knee, dressed herself, and made her way to the cafeteria. The pain in her knee seemed to lessen as the day progressed, and her slight limp became less noticeable to herself. Hopefully it wouldn't impede her much come nightfall.

Upon entering the cafeteria, however, Rita found that she had more immediate problems to deal with. What was that slop they were serving?

Deaf to her complaints, a soldier quickly ushered her into the line for the pink gruel. While waiting, Rita became aware of a section in the room where edible food was being served... but apparently only to selected patients. Whose butt did they have to kiss to get that treatment?

After receiving her "meal" (using the word very loosely), Rita found an empty area to sit in. There, she made no move for her utensils, but instead glared at the plate of mush as if the food itself had somehow wronged her.

[For Woody]

Comments

[gald_digger]

Despite her frequent trips to the bulletin board, it turned out that Anise was one of the first to reach the cafeteria. This was a good thing in that she wouldn't have to wait too long in line, but something was a little off. The room didn't smell as good as it usually did, and when she got a look at what was being served at the counter, Anise could see why.

"What's that stuff?" she asked, wrinkling her nose.

"You don't have to worry about that," the escorting soldier replied. "You'll be getting your lunch over there." The woman gestured to the far end of the counter, where the usual chicken tenders and the usual side dishes were being served... though in smaller supply than usual. Anise followed the soldier's directions, but as her plate was made up for her, she looked over to where the the icky-looking pink stuff was being dished out. It looked like most of the other patients were forced to stand in that line, so why was Anise different?

The soldier seemed to catch her concern. "Like I said, you get special privileges. Try not to lose them." She started to walk away, but stopped briefly to add, "Oh, and sharing isn't allowed." With that, she was gone.

With little else to do and no one to sit with just yet, Anise found a seat in the middle of the room and sat down with her meal. She felt kind of guilty, having such nice food in front of her when so many other people were eating some bland-looking goop... but at the same time, she was really hungry, and after everything she'd been through, didn't she deserve a good meal now and then? The girl picked up her utensils and started breaking up the chicken into smaller parts, but before taking her first bite, she paused.

... They wouldn't mess with the food twice in a row, would they?

It wasn't like Landel to use the same trick over and over, but this wasn't really Landel's institute anymore, so who knew what could happen? It was probably safe, but... maybe she'd wait a little before digging in.

[Guy and Tear!]

[nobleman]

Despite the cold, Guy's second shift had turned out to be much more enjoyable than his first. Part of that was because the person he'd spoken to had been much more well-mannered and willing to listen, and he got a certain amount of satisfaction from being able to help others. He knew his warnings and explanations probably only went so far, but he considered himself decent at that sort of thing.

Though he had to admit he was happy to both move back into the warm building and finally be given a meal. Though when Guy saw what was on the menu, he wasn't sure if he still had an appetite. He didn't consider himself picky, but that pink-colored gruel had to be enough to turn anyone's stomach.

His escort apparently noticed the disturbed look on his face, since he gave him a tap on the shoulder and then pointed out a different portion of the serving counter where the meal Guy was used to was being served up.

"Seeing how you're S Class, you don't need to worry about having to adapt your palate," the man explained.

So this what they had meant by privileges. While food was a small matter when compared to other things, it was their source of energy. Finding out that he didn't have to try and stomach that pink stuff was a huge relief.

Still, other patients were going to have to eat it, and Guy once again had to wonder what he'd done to reach such a high class. He felt bad for teasing the others with his far better meal, even if he made sure to quickly find himself a table rather than showing off his good fortune.

"Make sure you don't try to pawn that off on any lower classes, okay?" the soldier said as his parting words before leaving Guy to himself.

Seeing how there was someone in particular who he wanted to find, Guy homed in on Anise in no time, noticing that her plate matched his. So was she S Class too?

"Hey," he said by way of greeting, already looking forward to speaking to the girl now that her memories were back in place. That had been a real scare. "So you're also high-ranked? And how are you feeling?" There was already a lot for them to talk about.

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

Lunch time, finally!

To say Wally was a little hungry was the understatement of the century, or at least, that's what it felt like to him anyway. It'd been a while since he'd gone without breakfast at all, especially after using his speed the night before. But at least now there was the chance to do something about the horrible, empty pit in his stomach that had been steadily eating at him all morning.

Which was why he was more than happy to ditch the cold of the courtyard and file into the cafeteria. He felt a brief pang for everyone who, by the sound of it, were going to be having even more problems for what happened yesterday. But he had to face the fact that he wasn't much good without his speed and his speed wasn't healthy for him without energy to run on. As much as he'd like to stand up for others here, it wasn't exactly practical, so he'd just have to hope that it wasn't going to be too rough on them all.

Of course, that all kind of wavered and threatened to fall apart when he saw what food was on offer.

He didn't know what he'd expected, really. That with all the other changes, the meal times would really remain the same? Well it looked like that was a joke. Sure, there were the platters of food that looked really, amazingly good to his viciously empty stomach, but there was also some horrible looking, pinkish gruel that he really didn't like the look of. At all. Seriously, it could maybe be soylent green, except pink. That's how trustworthy it looked.

So he was understandably relieved when he was told he ranked high enough for the normal, probably-not-actually-people food. But that didn't last long, because then it meant that others were getting horrible, there's-a-90%-chance-you-will-regret-eating-this food, while he wasn't. And that just... seemed really unfair.

Wally's stomach churned with a mix of hunger and guilt as he was allowed to fill his plate from the more appetising selection of food, and he was trying to figure out his chances of getting more than his usual overly-large plate of food to share with others when he was stopped, his plate still woefully empty.

"Huh? What gives?"

"Sorry, West, but standard meal sizes for everyone below S-rank."

"...you gotta be kidding me," Wally groaned.

"Rules are rules. A-ranks can have one standard plate extra after finishing the first, but that's all." Catching his expression, the soldier added; "Unless you want to help us out with some information, my hands are tied."

"Right. Thanks anyway." Wally turned away with a sigh and headed over to an empty seat, too despondent to see if the table was empty or not. That figured; hold things like extra food or food that actually looked like food over their heads to get them to turn on each other. Well he wasn't about to go for that, no matter how hungry he got.

Though, he admitted to himself as he picked over the tiny plate of food (he could actually see the plate under it all still!), trying to make it last longer; he wasn't sure what he was going to do if every day was like this. The hunger was really, really distracting already, and it hadn't even been a full day.

[this tl;dr reserved for Edward. T__T]

[prodigalson]

For all of his sufficiently long life, Edward had, like a reasonable person, recognized the perks of being a vampire. Strength, speed... he could argue the telepathy, but that was more natural for him, if he was one to believe Carlisle's theory. There were two aspects that he had never acknowledged as positives, one being the logical loss of his soul and the second being existing strictly on a blood-only diet.

How times have changed.

Even if he wasn't focusing on a particular thought, the general atmosphere of the cafeteria was I hate my life and I hate this place and this food sucks. So it was basically high school. But even this... pink gruel was not as appetizing as Forks High's cafeteria food had been, which was saying a lot considering how little all food appealed to him. At the very least, Edward appreciated that it didn't have a smell to accompany the sight of it. It quite looked like how that thing he had eaten earlier had tasted.

It was nice that his refusing to eat wouldn't look so suspicious this time.

Despite his desire to feel empathy for the other very human patients around him, it didn't really hit him until another patient sat across from him, bearing a tray of what he would term real food. Edward thought of Bella being forced to eat this gruel and silently begged that the tray this man had was what she was eating from as well. She had already been starving herself for him -

Right. He was trying not to be angry about it.

Interestingly, this man didn't seem very thrilled, even with the real food in front of him. If he was hearing right, either this man was very spoiled, or... well, that was the only conclusion he could come to. How could he complain about hunger?

He slid the pink bowl away from him. "I'd offer you mine as well, but I feel like that would be a little insulting."

[dreadofthegrave]

If Battler had to describe the day so far in a word, that word would definitely be long. He honestly hadn't minded missing breakfast all though much, left strangely drained after the previous night, but his stomach was starting to pay for it, and after two meetings that were anything pleasant, the idea of a meal didn't sound bad at all. He wasn't sure what he was expecting when he got there, exactly, maybe something like a school lunch, but whatever he was looking at? That certainly wasn't it.

"Wh-what the hell, is that even edible?" he protested. The soldier, as he had the entire day, totally ignored anything he had to say, shrugging in a way that seemed to suggest he could either eat it or starve. Was there some rule that the soldiers couldn't talk to the patients, or did this guy just do that to piss him off? ..... Well, whatever. It probably didn't matter either way, even if it was irritating.

He took the 'food' to a table, but when it came time to eat it, he couldn't help but sigh. .... It wasn't like he was picky about what he ate, but wasn't this kind of ridiculous? But still.... It may not have been Gohda's cooking, exactly, but he was hungry. He took a cautious bite, and what followed was .... bland. Not bad, but not exactly good, either, and it certainly didn't encourage eating more. He may have been hungry, but if this was supposed to be his meal, he couldn't say he had much of an appetite. The fork was set down, and his tray gently pushed away.

"Ahh, dammiiiit," he muttered. ... It was like the icing some kind of horrible cake. The day was bad enough, and this only caused his mood to deteriorate even further.

[Klavier: IS HE GAY OR EUROPEAN?????]

[rocksthecourt]

Despite how horrible the last few days and, let's face it, today in particular had been, Klavier's mood had been steadily improving as the day went on. Speaking with Nigredo and Claire had proven to be both productive and strangely pleasant. So by the time lunch came around, he felt like maybe it wasn't the end of the universe as he knew it or anything. Things might turn out okay after all. That is... he thought that until this very moment.

Wh-What... What was...? Klavier didn't move. He simply stared down in uncontainable horror at the tray in his hands. Or specifically, the slop that had been placed onto it. And no, that wasn't figurative. It literally was slop. It was revolting! It was unidentifiable! It was... it was bright pink!! What food was even this color?! Was this even fit for human consumption?! Isn't this what they feed pigs on farms?! No, not even a pig would eat this!!

"Keep it moving, Gilmour," his escort said, already looking a little exasperated.

"... 'Keep it moving?!' You've got to be kidding me. You don't actually expect me to--"

"Look. Either eat it or don't. I don't care. But that's all your getting. So keep. Moving."

Klavier set his jaw, a few seconds away from really letting this guy have a piece of his mind. But in the end he whirled on his heel and took his generous portion of filthy garbage with him. God, he hated being spoken to like this. He hated everything about this place! And now he had to find someplace to sit and contemplate if he even wanted to risk ingesting his "food."

As fumed to himself and scanned the room for a place to sit, he spotted a familiar redhead staring down at his food with about as much enthusiasm as Klavier was feeling. No one was happy with this new arrangement, it seemed. Well. Better to sit with someone he somewhat knew rather than someone he didn't at all. So Klavier approached, sliding into the seat across from Red just as the other was pushing his tray aside in disgust.

"Lovely, isn't it? Nothing like a militant takeover to pave the way to mental health, I always say." It was a deadpan kind of sarcasm that probably would have been better if he'd had the energy to fake a smile along with it. "Of course, I'm fairly certain real soldiers aren't fed anything like this."

How he hoped not. If so, he was going to make a very generous donation as soon as he got back to L.A.

[tightsofmight]

Alive, well, and for all purposes in dandy spirits, Kurt Wagner had proved he could be something aside from a sight for sore eyes. Typically when the two met, one of them was suffering under their own personal rain cloud. For once that didn't happen. Good thing, too, considering the crap the two of them had dumped on their heads since arriving here was enough to dam the Nile. It was also the only shower Peter had spent here where he totally did not mind the naked thing. He was that glad to see Kurt.

Of course, that wasn't to say that the whole day was an affair of rainbows and ribbons. Anyone caught claiming that could take a dunk in the toilet. As happy as he was to know that his friend had committed no kind of bucket kicking, he still had the army's persnickety attitude to contend with. On top of every other frigging thing.

This shift's worry was one Scott Pilgrim. Apparently, Peter had picked the wrong night to sit out on. Scott had joined the brainwash brigade, doing a little more damage to an already half broken ego. Total desolation had yet to set in if Peter was still able to coax some riffing out of him on the board, but he was making no mistakes. The guy was in the dumps. Really deep in. All it took to induce fatal levels of depression in Peter was to mention his own stint in special counseling. It messed you up and messed you up bad. Even if he couldn't totally get rid of Scott's guilt, talking about it had to help somehow. Right?

Peter trudged into the cafeteria and was immediately thankful for one thing: there was going to be food this shift. His nostrils flared with delight at the scent. Thank go- what was that smell?

"Your lunch," answered the cafeteria drone, slopping a ladleful of sludge onto his plate.

Peter looked at the goop. Then at the good food behind him. Then back up, mortification written all over his face. "Seriously?"

"Seriously."

And that was that.

Yeah, not a good day. God, look at this crap. They must have squeezed it out of Jabba the Hut. Peter took a seat with his lip still curled and eyes full of fear. One could almost be wistful for the times when Demon Rapunzel was stuffing his food with ghost hair.

[For Scott!]

[vstheworld]

Scott was really, really looking forward to that shower next shift.

After running into his escort soldier toward the end of the last shift (most of which had been spent going back and forth between making tiny lewd snowmen in the courtyard and trading increasingly more ridiculous notes on the bulletin board), he had been informed in no uncertain terms that jumping jacks were in his immediate future. Food, apparently, was not. He had protested at first, whining that he had served what felt like a few hundred dozen punishments already for what he had done, but apparently, the military just wasn't going to be satisfied unless it was a few hundred dozen and one. He was just going to have to shut up and take it if he didn't want another trip to Solitary City.

So, feeling like a complete moron, Scott had made his way quickly into the cafeteria and started doing the stupid jumping jacks by the side wall. And he had watched as people started trickling in, trying to act casual and not make eye contact with anyone. Oh, what was he doing? Nothing. Just some pre-lunch jumping jacks. Nothing special. This isn't the Institute pariah you're looking for. Go about to your business. Move along, move along.

Scott didn't quite remember when he had sped up enough to look like he was trying to flap his way to the ceiling. At the time, he hadn't really cared. He had just wanted it to be over as soon as freaking possible.

Now, after having finally reached the mythical two-hundred, he felt like his body was about ready to burn up and blow away like ashes in the wind. "This suuuuuuuucks," he groaned as the monitoring soldier finally let him be. He was pretty sure at least half of the shift was gone already. Would there be anyone left that he could find to talk to at this point? Anyone who would put up with the smell of his mansweat, anyway?

Thankfully, Scott eventually caught sight of Peter in the crowd, and he didn't look occupied. Good, he thought. He didn't want to be rushing his much-needed shower after this just to run out to the Sun Room and find that kid. Before he could even think about sitting down, though, he found himself on the other end of a piercing glare from the soldier watching him nearby. Ulp. Right. Ain't no rest for the wicked.

So, instead of sitting, Scott opted to lean both hands on the end of the table, swaying a little bit from the combination of hunger, exhaustion, and a piling up of indignities. "Would you pretend I was still in total possession of my manhood if I said I wanted my mommy right now?" he said through another groan, head dropping such that his beret almost fell off.

[savagesolitude.livejournal.com]

Shortly after departing from Klavier's company, one of the soldiers had returned to toss her a new beret and demand the wet one from her pocket. Claire glared, but obeyed, gritting her teeth as she slipped it on and was met with a stern warning about following dress code.

"The boy's hat fell in the soap bucket, okay, " she grumbled at him. "It wasn't anyone's fault."

What a shock. Her plea went ignored.

Nonetheless, there was hope for this shift. Claire drifted into the cafeteria nose first, belly aching at the smell of food. There was a new scent underneath, however, and the closer she came to the buffet the more her nose began to wrinkle.

Beside the normal food, there was a basin of thick, unappetizing gruel.
Claire balked in disgust. No way. Now that she could eat real food again there was not a force on earth that could make her touch that. It was all slimy. Like someone had stepped on a slug. She aimed for the good food, only to be blocked by the same soldier. He pointed at the gruel.

"D-class patients don't have access to the old menu. Turn around and pick up your dinner."

"Excuse me?" Claire barked incredulously. "Just who do you think you are? Yesterday I was eating that, and I'm going to eat it today too."

The soldier was immovable. "Turn around and pick up your lunch, Greene."

"I didn't start the food fight! I had nothing to do wi-"

"If you continue to argue, Greene, you won't be eating at all." He narrowed his eyes. "Turn around."

Claire's face contorted. Anger, frustration, desolation. Each threatened to burst out and pummel the man where he stood. But Claire couldn't let herself scream. Couldn't go another day without food. Her lip wobbled and her eyes thinned into her most hateful glare. "Fine," she hissed. With a furious whirl she faced the gruel, slapped some on her plate and stomped off.

Claire located the table furthest away from the buffet and plummeted into the seat. She ate. She'd had worse meals. Far worse meals. But eating this slop while they were serving something way better down there was just plain cruel.

[For Venom!]

[anemptydecapo]

As intriguing as the discussion with the detective had been, it was not going to last forever. The assassin's march back inside was occasionally punctuated by scalding looks from the solider leading the way and perhaps also a bit of scolding (some harsh words for having placed his coat in the snow the entire shift) but Venom's attention had been more on the feeling of the cold melting off his skin to listen. He kept himself quiet through the halls, each remark sent his way simply rolling off his shoulders with practiced indifference.

The cafeteria appeared to have resumed its previous functions once he arrived, though there was still an obvious change. The scent of the usual meals aside, piled on most all the trays held by the patient body was... some sort of pink mass. He rose an eyebrow under his hair, especially when a surly soldier pushed a similar tray of 'food' in his hands and ordered him to sit.

...What was this thing he was looking at? Far more curious than upset, the Guild Head examined the strange pile closely as he wandered toward what was usually an empty corner. It held the same consistency of over-cooked oatmeal, though showed no obvious oats for it to be that. Its color was distractingly bright red-- what it artificial coloring or naturally that way? He wasn't a chef, not in the least (cooking was not in an assassin's learning-plan. Any excursions he made into kitchens usually resulted in more horror and pain than when he was doing his job), but he couldn't recall any sort of food item naturally taking the shape of something like this.

By the time he decided "pink-colored gruel" was the only description he would likely ever have for this meal, a sharp burst of pain collided itself into his side. The tray in his hands slipped, clanging noisily against a table he didn't remember getting that close to, especially not enough to run into, and proceeded to spill its contents all over the table's surface like brightly colored bile.

"Kch!" It was the only sound to leave his throat as the pain in his hip subsided and the knowledge that he would now spend 40% of his day cleaning this damn canteen sunk in. His eyes briefly flicked to the woman who had been sitting at the table (how long had she been there...?) before he turned his back and left to retrieve a few napkins. When he returned, his tone of voice was at least somewhat apologetic. "I apologize for disturbing you, miss."

[vodka-jump.livejournal.com]

The changes to the institute, in Russia's opinion at least, were all positive ones. The man who'd been in charge before had poor organization and less ambition and he was glad to see someone take a bit of initiative. They were strict, yes, but sometimes a firm hand was needed to make sure the rules were followed.

It all made enough sense, but it didn't keep him from missing his scarf terribly when he was taken from his room last shift. While he'd missed breakfast, it didn't seem to have hurt him any. He adjusted his gloves just a little (they actually seemed decent quality) as he walked down the hall with his escort, and went to the cafeteria for lunch.

The food, however, left something to be desired. He took his share regardless, because tasteless and plain as it was, it was still food, and having been without before, he wasn't about to take it for granted. He found a seat a moment later; the cafeteria was still fairly empty. But he kept a careful watch for his allies here, and America as well. It would be fun to see his face when he wasn't given his precious hamburgers or some other greasy American slop for lunch.

[Soma!]

[madeinthehrl]

Judging from the few patients doing jumping-jacks by the wall, it seemed the punishments for the food fight were only going to continue. At the very least, it made Soma a little less disappointed about having missed it yesterday. She wouldn't have been able to keep herself from participating if she'd been there.

The meals had changed, too, to an unidentifiable pink substance, though she noticed the regular meals were still available to some of the patients. Still, she didn't resist as her escort guided her to the line for gruel ("Alternative meals are for high-ranked patients only"). Orders were orders, unfair as they seemed, and she'd had worse rations in space.

Accepting a plateful of the stuff, she headed down the aisles of tables, looking for a place to sit, and found one next to a tall blond man. She indicated the seat across from him with a slight inclination of her head.

"Excuse me, but is this seat taken?"

[see-my-back.livejournal.com]

Showers had been pretty uneventful, aside from the soldiers being more obnoxious than usual after her trying to help Kurt at breakfast. She didn't care though, she wasn't going to let her friends or her teammates down and she wasn't going to let other people suffer or work their asses off while she sat on hers!

She was actually pretty hungry by the time lunch rolled around, though her hair was still damp and completely without style. However, her escort informed her, she wasn't even going to get the pink gruel for lunch because of her outburst this morning. Great. Well, it looked like puke anyway and she could deal with skipping a couple meals. But it wasn't enough that she had to stand the entire time and miss out on the meal, she also had to do physical exercise as punishment. 200 of these jumping jacks? Was that all? She frowned, but as much as she wanted to argue, it wasn't worth it if she was too worn out to help her teammates later. 200 jumping jacks was nothing anyway, not compared to Tsunade's difficult training or even her usual daily routine back home. It seemed kind of stupid for her to exercise right after she'd gotten clean, but she could hardly expect logic from this place anyway.

"Sixty-three, sixty-four," she counted aloud, determined not to show weakness.

[Free!]

[dualistic]

Harvey was more than happy to come back in from the cold weather, glad to have that over with. Franziska had managed to distract him from the temperature at least somewhat, though her personality had matched the elements rather well. Either way, he was now back in the heated building and that was all that he cared about.

Though as he headed in for lunch, he couldn't help wondering what the food situation was going to be. The nurses had been vigilant about giving him those vitamin shakes, but were the soldiers going to care?

As it turned out, the answer was no. He was given food from the new menu just like everyone else, and while the pink gruel looked like it would be edible for him, that didn't mean that he wanted it. Then again, it was probably no worse than what he'd had before, so the transition wouldn't be as tough for him as it would be for the other patients.

Even the shakes hadn't looked this disgusting, though.

But his escort shoved a plate of it at him with a look on his face that said that complaints wouldn't be tolerated, and Harvey was left to go find somewhere to sit. He ended up picking a spot next to a girl with a hair color that matched his lunch and who was doing jumping jacks for some reason.

Harvey took his seat and watched her, wondering why she would have dyed her hair that color. He'd come across one other girl her age with the same shade, so maybe it was just the new trend. He couldn't even begin to understand the youth these days.

"Did they order you to do that?" he asked as he started to move the mush around on his plate with a spoon. She seemed like she'd be able to answer even while working out, if she was counting off to herself like that.

[vitale.livejournal.com]

There was ... absolutely no way that Bella was going to be eating the gruel that was shoved in front of her.

After her talk with Damon, the teenager didn't want to admit it, but she was feeling better. Spilling her guts about what had happened was always a good release. It was different if she told Edward what had happened. Edward would have worried immensely. Maybe even had a panic attack. ... Or a mental breakdown. Or even both. Damon, on the other hand, probably just didn't even care. Not that she cared, really. They weren't even really friends yet. ... She didn't even know if they would be friends.

But she wasn't thinking about that now. Now all she was thinking about was how she was so going to not eat whatever the shit they piled in front of her was.

Bella watched her soldier walk away with a very unamused glance, instead started looking down at her food for a moment before shoving it away from herself. No way. Absolutely no way.

Especially after what had happened last night. How had she felt no pain? What had been different from usual? Food? The tear gas?

Either way. No thank you.

[shorttank.livejournal.com]

Another shift change, another set of orders. Leela almost didn't mind this set of them, since she was starving after having been deprived of the primitive and odd, but usually tasty, breakfast.

The food that greeted her in the cafeteria this time looked suspect, and not tasty at all. She wondered, in fact, if Landel's had turned their kitchen over to Bender, but a sniff at the pink gruel told her it was probably not bursting with lethal levels of salt. She would reserve judgment on the possibility of hallucinogenics until she tasted it. It was definitely a color food shouldn't be.

She looked around, and noticed Bella, who seemed as distrustful and/or disgusted by the food options as Leela herself felt, and she went over to her table.

"Looks like it shouldn't exist in nature, huh? I come from a place where people eat things you wouldn't believe, and I still don't want any of this."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Even though Peter hadn't held anything against Neku from the start, it had been nice to have a chance to talk to the kid and clear some things up. He now knew how Neku had been able to do all of those things, though the kid obviously didn't have access to the skills anymore. Peter decided he would do what he could to keep up with Neku, just to make sure that he handled things okay from here on out, but their conversation had ended before he knew it.

Meaning that they were going to be taken back to the cafeteria for some food, which Peter was both grateful for and apprehensive about. While he could definitely feel his appetite coming back even though he was half-fried himself and in a lot of pain as a result, he was worried that even the small movements he would have to make to eat would increase his suffering.

Couldn't he at least get some low-level painkillers? He wasn't even sure if they would do much good when he had such harsh burns, but it was worth a shot, at least to take the edge off.

When he bit the bullet and asked the soldier who was wheeling him back into the cafeteria if there was the possibility of having some drugs, the man brusquely replied that he could bring him something when he'd finished his meal.

Peter noticed that the man didn't even address the source of the wound. He didn't make up some ridiculous story for how he'd gotten the burns, but he also didn't specifically mention what happened at night, either. In a way, it was preferable to how the nurses had handled it.

Being in the wheelchair meant that Peter didn't get a proper look at the food until he was almost up at the counter. He caught just a glimpse of what the rest of the patients were being made to eat, but was told that his class meant he got the premium menu -- in other words, the sort of stuff they'd been served before all this.

They were really focused on setting up a divide between the patients here. Making an example of those who misbehaved, giving privileges to those who didn't; Peter wasn't sure if it was going to have the effect that they were aiming for, but it was definitely worrisome.

After getting a plate for him and then wheeling him over to an empty spot, the soldier threw the tray down onto the table and then stalked off. Sighing to himself, Peter started to reach his arms forward to grab his utensils, but even that pulled at the muscles in his back and doubled the pain. "Dammit," he hissed to himself.

[autophoenix.livejournal.com]

It was a little eerie, hearing someone else doing the announcing for Landel's. Even if she hadn't ever liked the original staff, after six days of them and the sudden switch, it was a little jarring. What was more jarring was the realization that it meant she'd gotten used to the life style that Landel's had forced her into to a degree. She had to have gotten somewhat used to it in order for it to really weird her out that the intercom announcements were different, right? Or at least she needed to have some kind of complacence.

The whole thing was unsettling. But, nothing as much as the mess that they were calling food. Claire made a face when it was heaped into a bowl in front of her and she didn't hide her disdain as she looked at the soldiers around her, though she quickly shifted her attention to the patients to find out who was in trouble and who wasn't.

The patients who had misbehaved, it seemed, were already starting their punishments. She couldn't really muster up as much sympathy as she'd like to, if she was being entirely frank, considering how annoying it had been to get nailed with cleaning duty for their sake this morning. But again, it was the kind of thought that freaked her out. She wasn't in a situation where being petty like that was excusable -- they were all supposed to be on the same side and, honestly, the food fight wasn't the worst of ideas. Some kind of rebellion sounded like a good one, anyway.

Noticing her uncle still sitting by herself was more than enough to drive her to head promptly over to where he was sitting. If there was anything he was good at it, it was putting things in perspective and dragging her back down to Earth. She dropped her food down at the spot across from him at the table, taking her seat with a weak and grim smile that tried to be a lot more hopeful than she was feeling after a day like this.

It took that long for her to notice the look on his face and any attempt at a smile dropped as she sank into the chair, eyebrows knitting together and forehead creasing in worry.

"What happened to you?" It had to be during the day, after all, and she hadn't noticed anything when they were together the previous night. But what could he have possibly done to himself over the course of the morning? Or maybe the real question was -- what could the soldiers have done to him?

[bitpartgod.livejournal.com]

With a shift outside to cool down- literally, as it turned out, seeing how the first thing he did was put his foot into a snow-drift- Kibitoshin had managed to reign in his bad mood a little and reflect. It was terrible, really; part of him wanted to apologise to Franziska and take it all back before it had a chance to sink in, but then another, more vocal part of him wanted to leave it. Maybe it needed to sink it. Surely it wasn't entirely healthy for him to just carry it all around with him, and surely it wasn't good to not say anything? As much as he wanted to be friends with Franziska, maybe it was just too difficult for him to manage- if she didn't want to reciprocate, who was he to force it?

By the time he headed back in the only thing he'd decided was that he needed to let it all settle for now, gently stamping snow from his boots and handing his jacket back to the soldier. There really wasn't all that much difference between the man and his nurse, now that he'd had a chance to get used to the uniform and utter pokerface, gender differences, firearms and utter lack of warmth aside. He was sure that the man was just being professional and didn't want to seem soft; he was probably nice underneath it all.

Anyway, it was a nice change not to have someone talking to him all the way around the Institute; he did so feel obliged to answer when that had happened before, even if he would have preferred to have time to think. He didn't do enough of that, all things considered.

So, tonight and last night. Last night, he'd found all of Haseo's weapons, right? Well, there was probably no point in hanging on to them indefinitely (the shoes didn't count, he'd wanted those for sentimental reasons), seeing how he wasn't especially adept at wielding a sword. He had some idea of how it worked, but no formal training- odd, considering so much of his planet's mythology had centered around a magic sword. But anyway, it was fairly clear to him that someone else would get a lot more out of it than he ever could. And wasn't it his duty to help people?

Alright. That decided, he took a seat and asked his soldier if he could have his notebook with his strange pink porridge (?!). The second he had it, Kibitoshin ripped out a page and began to draft out a note advertising both swords and the knife. It had to be subtle enough to get past the censoring but still get the point across, and on top of that he needed to make sure no one evil got their hands on them...

[thestormishere]

Lightning's escort into the cafeteria was not happy with her, but as always, she didn't particularly care what he happened to think. Fair trade and all... she wasn't happy with him - or any of his soldier buddies - either. Her expression remained blank, unimpressed with his impatient posturing and stiff tone. Honestly, aside from his attitude, she was glad to get out of the cold and heading towards food.

As fate would have it though, it turned out that 'lunch' wasn't really a meal at all-- at least for her, and for the other 'rebels' who had done enough to land them in solitary after the food-fight riot the previous day. When she learned that, her agitation certainly flared- she hadn't eaten anything at all recently, except for a few bites at the previous dinner. She'd been too busy talking to Snow before the fight started at the breakfast before that, and had been sedated and isolated from then on....

Her stomach twisted, both in hunger and in anger. When she'd entertained the notion of whipping the jacket she'd worn in the courtyard into the soldier's face instead of simply handing it to him, perhaps she should have gone through with it. She'd probably already sent one of the soldiers to the medic with a busted nose, why not another? They weren't going to feed her here again anyway.

That desire intensified to a ridiculous degree the instant the man turned to her and ordered 200 'jumping jacks' out of her. A humiliating, useless exercise, of course, likely chosen just to make those being punished as noticeable as possible- she could already see several of the other prisoners starting to submit to the act, to the interest of those around them.

Here, however, the man may as well have been a child asking to play with fire. Lightning looked him for a long moment, but then her answer was simple and firm:

"No."

The ex-soldier weathered the verbal fall-out from that easily; she knew she was making herself a target by remaining defiant, but she didn't care about that either. She recognized the intent for what it was and rejected it immediately- nothing they said or did was going to cause her to voluntarily do what they had had asked of her.

... Not even when, in what she dismissed as frustration, they declared her immature and turned their attention to another in her stead- her roommate, Tifa. Fury boiled up in her even stronger, hot and defiant at the change in tactic. Naturally, she didn't want Tifa punished instead of her... but her stubbornness was stronger. She refused to bow to something so stupid. Period.

She'd apologize to the woman later.

For now, the former sergeant stayed where she was, her demeanor much like a woman onstage- probably not entirely inaccurate, since she could feel gazes on her from soldier and prisoner alike. Let them stare, though; let them all know that she wasn't going to give in to their nonsense.

While she stood, her own glare landed on the man sitting closest to her, but quickly moved from him without interest to the pink slush that was apparently now being served to most instead of the actual food from before, then the paper he was working with. She couldn't see what it was from where she was, though.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Oh, wow. They were serious, weren't they?

Depth Charge pushed his spoon around the bowl. His face, generally home to the most general of frowns, now entertained the most baffled stare in the known galaxy. It came as a small wonder (but enormous relief) when the spoon failed to stand straight up in the pink, thick gloop they'd presented him with for lunch.

It wasn't as though he'd ever particularly liked the food around here- he'd mostly just swallowed it down and dealt with it, so long as it wasn't fish. But when his meals started looking more like the contents of Waspinator's head? There was where he drew the line. Nuh-uh. No way.

He pushed the bowl away, shaking the expression off of his face before he started to look a couple screws short of a hardware store and putting his chin in his hands. The frown flew home instantly. There was only so much of this he could take, he realised; it was just a matter of how long he could go on pretending to be sensible about it before his pride caved and he kneed a guard in the crotch or something.

[selfnighted.livejournal.com]

"Not hungry?" Maya asked as she put her tray down and took a seat. "A meal three times a day is healthy, yes?" she added, adding in her private amusement at the irony. If her statement were true, the asylum wouldn't have deprived breakfast this morning, and it wouldn't be forcing patients to go without two meals in a row. Not to mention....

Well, it was no business of hers what happened to others, despite the bad feeling she had about the entire affair. She'd disapproved of the food fight, but not to this extent.

"Interesting, isn't it?" she said as she surveyed the food. "Like before and after. What reason could they have to do such a thing to the food?" Had the asylum run out of supplies? Or was it simple maliciousness? A glob of formless...stuff offended Maya's sensibilities; it wasn't even a nice color. No help for it but to wait, Maya supposed. The soldier's intentions would be revealed with time.

[immortale]

Even for prison, the food certainly left something to be desired.

Firo stared down at the bowl of slop. It looked vaguely like oatmeal... pink oatmeal. He'd been looking forward to a chance to eat ever since breakfast had been spent cleaning, but this... hadn't been what he'd had in mind. He had hardly been expecting a gourmet meal, but he'd been hoping for something a little more appetizing than this gruel.

His stomach growled in a cruel reminder of what would come if he didn't eat while he could. He'd had worse than slop before, but those days were long past; in the time since, he'd become accustomed to being able to eat good food at the Alveare whenever he wanted. Apparently he'd started taking that for granted somewhere along the way.

There had been a long pause between receiving the bowl and a glass of water and actually removing himself from the cafeteria counter to find a seat. Once he was settled, alone at a table, he picked up his spoon and started to eat. The gruel was bland, tasteless, but it definitely wasn't the worst thing he'd ever eaten and it would stave off hunger. Nevertheless, for the first time today he felt himself longing to be back in New York—and not just for the food.

[For one Mr. Claire Stanfield]

[train-tracer.livejournal.com]

While it had certainly been an interesting conversation with his new acquaintance, Soren, Claire was more than happy to bid his companion farewell for the announcement of lunch. He'd had the Institute marked as a strange place with surprisingly good food. And then, this morning's events had transpired. Claire had been rather dejected, especially considering what he'd had to go through the night previous. And he hadn't even been part of the whole fiasco in the first place!

Punishment could only go so far though and for that, Claire was glad. His soldier escort didn't even have to tell him to move it before they were already at the cafeteria. Claire somehow insinuated himself into the front of the line, wondering what kind of good food they had prepared for lunch today... only to be sorely, sorely disappointed.

His first blank question was, 'Why is it pink...?' Sure, it probably wouldn't kill him if he ate it, but, well, it didn't look very appetizing. His soldier prodded him hard in the shoulder, informing him that he was holding up the line staring at the gruel on his tray.

Claire sighed, then, at a glare from another soldier, scanned the cafeteria for an empty seat and someone he could complain talk to. And then he paused, not quite sure if what he was seeing was really true. Claire squinted, just to make sure. If he wasn't mistaken (and he usually wasn't), that brown-haired head looked suspiciously like it belonged to...

"... Firo? Is that you?" Claire navigated around to the other side of the table to get a good look at his face, blinking. "It is, isn't it?!"

And just like that, his good mood was back. He hadn't seen Firo in ages!

[freewill]

Once again, Castiel's conversation had given him more information than he could have expected about what had been going on the night before. While he now had his concerns about his own abilities and whether they would still be there when night came, there wasn't much he could do to rectify that. It all went to show that the people in charge here had immense power, if they could grant him that and then take it away in the next second. It was unsettling, to say the least.

However, to look on the bright side (which was surprisingly difficult for an angel), at least he had not been given some sort of negative effect, such as what Gabriel and some of Renamon's companions had suffered. He only wished he had better utilized his flight while he'd had it, limited though it had been.

After taking his leave from Renamon, Castiel realized that he was looking forward to the coming meal. He hadn't eaten since the night before, and while that normally wouldn't have even registered with him, his vessel's middle was twisting uncomfortably, as if it was eating itself.

However, upon entering the room he realized that something had changed. His sense of smell wasn't as trained as a human's, but even he was able to determine that something was wrong. When the soldier took him to the food line and he saw that they were being served something that looked more like bodily fluids than proper food, he couldn't help but make a face.

"Excuse me," he said, turning toward the soldier who had led him here, "is there a reason that the menu has been changed?"

"Just get in line," the man replied, clearly not interested in answering his questions.

Castiel could hardly understand how the pink-colored mush was even edible, and suddenly he didn't feel so hungry. But he got a plate served up for him nonetheless, and was soon left to find a place to sit (and eat, theoretically).

He immediately searched for either Sam or Dean -- preferably Dean -- but it seemed that neither one of them had made it in from the courtyard yet. For that reason, Castiel chose an empty table near the door that led in from the outside, prepared to flag them down if that was what it took to get them to hear him out.

His food was ignored for the moment.

[For L.]

[ryuuzaki]

Not long after waking up at the Institute, L had decided that, when dealing with the staff during the day, compliance was the most prudent course of action: not because it was his natural inclination, but because acting out would make his own life harder. That increase in difficult would be both unnecessary and exponential, and it would interfere with his pursuit of his goals.

If he chose open opposition, it would come at the price of losing a few hours of consciousness when he needed to stay as sharp as he could manage to. If he was drugged as a result of self-indulgent rebellion, he might miss a vital clue; there was no question that he would lose time that he would rather spend working out a way to bring Landel down. Rebellion was certainly at the heart of his own objectives, but it would be stupid to wear his intentions on his sleeve; he kept them as close to his chest as he could. Therefore, he'd made it a habit to do more or less as the nurses asked, and to treat them with a degree--only a degree--of courtesy. The more they thought of him as an ideal patient, the less they would interfere with him.

He found that it was easier to be a good patient than a good soldier. The new regime demanded more from him, on an immediate level. That made it infinitely more annoying.

His headache had vanished by the time they were allowed to stop cleaning, that morning, but it had left him feeling queasy and dull. He'd hoped that spending time in the cool, fresh air of the courtyard would clear his head; instead, it had been colder than he'd expected. He'd spent the time outside shivering with his hands jammed into his pockets until it was time to go back in for lunch.

No one had been given anything to eat since dinner last night, and even though the breaded chicken that was on the menu didn't appeal to him under ordinary circumstances, he was hungry enough that he would have eaten it without complaint. When he reached the cafeteria, though, it was obvious to him that something was wrong: the scents that should have been in the air were missing again. It wasn't like the morning, when there had been no hint of food in the atmopshere at all. Instead, what he smelled was probably edible, just remarkably less appealing than most of what had come out of the kitchens at Landel's during his captivity there. The chicken was there, too, but not as prominently so as it should have been.

He saw what they were serving, as he went through the line: porridge, and not particularly good porridge, either. He remembered breakfasts of his childhood, the time in the children's home, a place where whoever had planned the meals had favored nourishment over flavor. Mush in a bowl, tasteless except for a hint of grain and butter.

It was a long time ago, so long that it was rare for him to think of it at all, although in some ways his situation at the Institute was similar to what it had been after he was orphaned. That alone hadn't been enough to make that particular episode in his history weigh on his mind. The sense memory, though--the smell, and what he knew it would feel like on his tongue--that brought everything back. Am I as powerless as I was then?

Apparently so; one of the soldiers stepped up to steer him away from the chicken, insisting that the porridge was his only option. When he accepted a serving, he was allowed to find a place to sit.

A man, somewhat older than him, was sitting alone near the door to the outside. The face looked familiar in the way that anyone looked familiar after a few days trapped in the same place, but they hadn't met. There was an open seat across from him; L took it. The stiff boots forced him to sit with his feet on the ground, and he was sure, then, that he'd had more than enough of Aguilar already.

[witchoftruth]

The cafeteria, once a place that offered some mild relaxation for Erika at the very least, had lost some of its charm now that she associated it with tear gas, riots, and then the thick smell of soapy water. But this, this... this tragedy that was plopped onto her plate was one thing that Erika couldn't take. She wasn't stupid, able to see that some people (very few, she noted) had real food, and she wanted some answers for this!

"Do you actually expect me to eat... this?!"

"Yes," was her response, and Erika was scolded further, threatened with punishment if she continued to fuss and directed her to a table, where she was left with another stern warning not to attempt to steal or share meals with the patients who had "special privileges" and an aghast look on her face as she stared, just stared, at the mess of slop on her plate.

This was terrible. This was... This was not acceptable for her, Lady Bernkastel's piece! How could these idiotic soldiers just take away their food? Were they insane? Was their intention to just let most of the patients starve? She was so angry that instead of eating, Erika had taken to alternatively glaring at the pink slop and stabbing at it with her fork, as if this would somehow magically make it more appealing. This had to be a joke, right? Punishment for yesterday, perhaps? That had to be it... Finally, she stopped glaring and stabbing at her meal, trying to recompose herself and regain some sense of dignity and seriousness.

But she just... couldn't accept this was to be their meal! How did some of the others here get real food? Erika was going to find out, and from her spot, she started to look around for clues. There had to be something that made some patients stand out from others, some physical indication of what they had, that she lacked. Did it have something to do with those ranks on her dog tags? It didn't escape Erika's notice that some patients had pins in their hats, while she had none.

The very idea that there were other people who received special treatment and she was not one of them was the very problem that made Erika's blood boil. Who decided this, and when?

[ for gabe, we shall cry over this tragedy together... ]

[affictitious]

Gabriel was now officially offended by life. It was bad enough that he happened to implode a few days earlier, then woken up in Jacob's Ladder but with less sexual innuendos (which, at this point, were sorely needed). Now he was facing off with slop that would make The Jungle look like about as appetizing as a trip to White Castle with Neil Patrick Harris in the back seat. Locked in Mortal Kombat with a liquid that was possibly 90% corn starch and 0% anything desirable in the world, he was...

Yeah. Life needed to stop being a dick.

And if he had his way, hats would have stopped existing. Of course, if he had his way he would be in Cancun, eating the worm and having a three-day-long trip into his personal Narnia. He wouldn't be stuck here being threatened with spending the night dislodging bullets out of his ethereal wings if he didn't button his shirt and stand straight up -

He wouldn't admit it, but it made him bristle. It was home with starchy shirts and the invention of the modern-day iron. He wasn't a grunt. He wasn't a soldier. He may be a member of The Host and fighting may have been one of the fantastic little abilities he was imbued with, but at the heart of it all he had always been a messenger. Now the most soldiery thing he was likely to do was trip and stab out his eye with a knife.

First, someone had brought him back. They'd stripped him of his Grace, or what he used to feel of it. His power. No black holes, no pocket dimensions, no birthday cake pancakes all year long. Last night, they'd fucked with his head. Gabriel did not put up with that kind of thing. He had never been afraid of his brother. Sure, he was a born fighter and the Winchesters' pet angel and a bigger part of this whole Apocalypse scheme than Gabriel would have ever thought he'd be, but he was... family. Stick in the mud, humorless family. It didn't take a genius to realize Castiel was not like Michael or Lucifer.

Plus the giant kid? Oh hell no.

He dropped the tray with its bowl unceremoniously on the nearest table, pink globs jumping out to hit the table. The other occupant was - wow, get that. A literal kid. Surprisingly, she was seated with the same crap he was.

Gabriel whistled low as he flopped in his seat. "Even the kids get the high school treatment, huh? Sucks for you."

[stlg13bomber.livejournal.com]

Carter needed to stop letting his spirits raise around here. He'd always tried to keep an optimistic outlook even in the darkest of places, and it had served his sanity well. Maybe it hadn't been the most realistic but realism was so weird these days that there was no point trying to keep up.

But now the food was gone. The food was gone. There was this pink glop stuff and everyone was getting fed the same thing and the food was gone.

"Where's the regular stuff? Is it coming back? This is just for the food fight thing, right?" Carter asked the nearest soldier, staring in horror at the cafeteria line. This didn't even look like food. Yogurt, maybe, but nobody lived on yogurt. Yogurt would be a step up from stalag food but they'd been eating fine dining so long that suddenly losing it seemed like a nightmare.

The soldier shook his head, prompting Carter's shoulders to slump and drawing forth a look of catatonic despair. "Is it...is it at least strawberry flavored?" he asked, lip nearly quivering. He liked strawberries. Everyone liked strawberries.

The soldier gave him a look that was somewhere between pity and annoyance. "No. It's not."

Carter stared helplessly in a state of mental catatonia as the glop was lumped into a bowl and he was shuffled off toward the tables. All that nice food...just gone...

Dr. Landel better come back soon, this was just intolerable.

[Aigs!]

[no-dont-go.livejournal.com]

Nothing could ever endear her to being referred to as a "subject" of any kind. It made her feel like a science experiment. Well, beyond being an actual scientific marvel, Aigis didn't much like the "experiment" side of the equation. And not only that, it meant this regime only saw her and her fellow compatriots here as tools. Besides death, there was no worse fate.

By the time lunch rolled around Aigis was feeling the same pain she had felt the day Heat had encouraged her to eat the food provided by the institute. The sensation of satiating hunger was one of the few experiences she had grown to love at Landel's, but also one she remained wary of indulging. It was food she was eating to convert into energy but that did not make her human. It made her something similar but something still manufactured. Nothing could change that. So it was with as much forced indifference that she took up her own bowl of gruel. Even without having taken a bite, Aigis knew it would not be quite as pleasant as their usual fair.

She had thought she would perhaps just find a seat alone, but then a familiar face caught her eye. Carter! She remembered vaguely that she had planned to meet with him yesterday, but then there had been the sedation and her motivations for doing anything had been crippled. He might have waited up for her. She needed to apologize for her rudeness.

"Excuse me, Carter-sa... Carter." That's right. Like Heat, Carter did not wish for an honorific attached to his name. She smiled slightly, coming to stand beside a chair at his table. "I'm sorry I missed seeing you yesterday. Would you mind sharing my company today for lunch?"

He didn't seem to be one to mind, but asking was the polite way to go about these things.

[heroesdontshave]

A whole half day had passed, and Snow was still fidgeting in his new clothes. He kept pulling on the collar trying to get it away from his neck, which earned him looks from every soldier around him every time he did it. He couldn't help it though. Unlike most people, he couldn't just forget he was wearing it. The whole thing made him feel so self-conscious and he couldn't stop thinking about the fact that he was wearing a military uniform. He hated uniforms. He hated the military. He hated guns being shoved in his face. He hated people being used as slaves to clean up everyone's mess. He hated being led around like some kind of sheep. He hated people barking orders at him. And most of all, he hated being unable to do anything about ANY of it.

But despite all this, Snow was actually being pretty damn compliant for him. He hadn't ripped open his shirt or thrown his hat (or thrown a punch, actually). He only scoffed when he was gathered up and led into the cafeteria, following along without a word. Yeah, he was being uncharacteristically obedient so far. The guns probably had something to do with it. As did the hunger and the memories of what happened yesterday. But now happy time was over and Snow was getting pissed all over again.

Why? Because it looked like the soldiers were upping the ante and were going to pull the usual kind of crap they did to lower level soldiers. Now they wanted him to be a good little doggie and jump through hoops on command. Or do jumping jacks in front of everyone as was the case right then. Snow just crossed his arms and looked away from them like he hadn't heard that, even though everything on his face indicated he had. They tried yelling at him to get him to do it, but that just made him snap and yell at them right back. Cause no way, no way, was he going to do anything they wanted upon command. Especially something like that. It felt too much like submission. It felt too much like he was letting them win. He wasn't anyone's damn lacky! He wasn't going to bark on command and he wasn't going to let them think he'd do something just because they ordered him to!

His escort put his hands on his hips and looked up at Snow, thoroughly unimpressed by the display. Nothing in him looked even slightly intimidated. "You don't want to do your punishment? Fine." The guy turned to another soldier standing nearby. "You. That kid. Bring him over here."

Snow turned to look at the soldier then at the kid his escort had pointed out. Wha...? He turned back to him. "What are you doing?"

"You want to be a baby, Davidson, then he'll do your punishment for you. Either way, I'm getting 200 jumping jacks right now. You can stand there and watch him do them for you." The guy made a hand gesture to the other soldier like he was telling him to hurry and fetch the kid already.

Now Snow looked panicked. It was bad enough they'd punished all those people this morning when they hadn't even done anything, but now this? There was no way! He wasn't going to make some kid do something like that because of him! He held his hand out to stop the other soldier from leaving completely. "Wha? Wait! Hold on!" He glared at his escort. "Fine. I'll do it. Just leave 'im alone, alright?"

The guy didn't confirm a yes or no to that. He just looked at him, waiting impatiently for him to get started. Snow clenched his fists and looked down at the ground for a second. Then after giving one last glance at the kid they'd been about to use cause of him, he got started.

[For Edgar!]

[girlsandgadgets]

While the quiet shift outside had given Edgar plenty of time to observe how Aguilar's soldiers would handle the patients, there were more surprises waiting when the lunch shift began. As if the menial labor in place of breakfast wasn't enough punishment, it now appeared that the menu would consist of gruel and water... only gruel and water. There were other patients with more familiar meals, but it seemed the previous choices were reserved for a select few. No doubt they were the higher-ranking classes. He spied a few of the other rankings on the tags of patients around him: B and D, while one A-rank was led away from the gruel line. How one rose in the ranks was something he had yet to discover.

Edgar's mind turned to the bulletin board as he waited to be served. There was no answer from Locke yet- a bad sign. He had considered leaving one for Natalia as well, given that he'd not seen her since the morning after her healing session- since the shadows attacked them. It would be worth making sure she was still around: after all, her abilities not only made her a fantastic ally, but she was a treat for the eyes, as well.

Once given his serving of water and a mush that had roughly the consistency of a Flan, Edgar headed for a table, astounded their seating wasn't being dictated as well. A few of the prisoners were being forced to do exercises in what he guessed was continued fallout from the riot. One exchange in particular caught his interest: a certain patient he'd eyed a few times- oh what was his name again? No wait, their conversation in the library had been cut short by a nurse- was being blackmailed into his punishment, lest some bystander be made to do it in his place.

It was beyond cruelty at this point. It was a deliberate move to break the man, to use the promise they wouldn't punish others as an incentive for his obedience. The carrot was a double-edged sword: if he argued with the soldier's demands, someone else would be forced into a punishment they hadn't earned, sending a message about his moral fibre to the rest of the patient body; if he complied, it was proof he could be pushed into such a position again. It was a sickening predicament, but one Edgar understood well.

Edgar waited for the soldier to leave before having a seat near where the punished patient was indeed performing his jumping jacks. His protective nature was a constant reminder of Sabin. "I'm surprised how well you're handling this," Edgar admitted. "Though seeing that exchange made even my blood boil."

[zack-fair.livejournal.com]

That conversation he'd had with Lightning had gone in unexpected directions, and Zack was left feeling uncertain as he was led away from her and back inside. He hadn't realized that it was going to go in that direction, and how could he have known? As someone who tried to keep his deeper-seated issues close to the chest, he hadn't felt so comfortable sharing the details, and he'd done best not to. Even though Lightning had had every right to ask all those questions, the whole discussion had left him more drained than he'd expected.

Though as he found himself back in the cafeteria, Zack was quickly given something to distract him. A soldier explained tersely that he would need to do two hundred jumping jacks before he could relax, and even when he was done he wouldn't be able to sit down or eat. It was harsh, but Zack actually preferred being given something to do as opposed to how they'd been forced to stand around at breakfast.

More than that, the exercise would get his mind off of the issues that he didn't really want to deal with right then. He would have preferred doing two hundred squats, but jumping jacks would be even easier to punch out.

As for the lack of food, there wasn't much he could do about that. He'd missed multiple meals in a row while on missions, so he could at least bear through it, even if he was definitely feeling a steady hunger by now. The endorphins from working out would help to stem that, at least, and so without further ado he got to work, doing the jumping jacks with the efficiency and resilience of a trained SOLDIER.

[tasteoftruth.livejournal.com]

He was insane. Let's just go with that. It was a combination of drugs and stress and the horrific crazy situation around him that had driven him into hallucinations. When the shift change came Badd wanted to ask, like a schizophrenic, 'Do you see him?', but stopped himself just in time. If he was going insane he refused to bow to it and instead fled into the hallway to escape the phantom's presence.

And it just had to be Byrne. In retrospect it was no surprise that his subconscious would conjure up his murdered, betrayed, nigh-martyred partner. It was what would hurt him the most, and what tended to be on his mind the most. Byrne had haunted him for years, lingered in his memory during the day and encroached on his dreams at night. He'd devoted his life to catching Byrne's killer and the smuggling ring that stood behind her. He'd nearly killed her. He'd testified and gotten her put away. And that only gave him the very barest gasps of peace as he sat, finally satisfied, in his lone jail cell and now it was right back up in his face again just as he found himself forced back into the Yatagarasu role again.

It was only the stress. Still, he caught himself looking around the cafeteria, wondering if Bruce Goodman or Neil Marshall or Cece Yew were going to pop out of the crowd and say hello as if nothing had happened in the intervening years. Badd forced himself down to a table and put his head in his rough hands, staring unseeingly at the man doing random jumping jacks next to him. He needed to pull himself together before he became just another babbling crazy like the rest of them.

(Though if von Karma suddenly manifested before him he might just start talking to him out of annoyance. A von Karma was best when he wasn't alive enough to try and murder him in his sleep.)

[stellarregions]

Now they were being ordered around by the intercom. How charming. Gren sighed as he was forced to surrender the jacket again and moved on towards the cafeteria. Had the normal staff been around, he would have been tempted to ask about getting a larger sized shirt--this one pulled across the shoulders, and more unfortunately, across the chest--but the soldier escorting him today had barely looked at him, let alone said anything. He wasn't about to try striking up a conversation. Instead, he settled for slouching just that little bit more, even though it meant his back was going to ache by the end of the day. They were already stuck in hell, what was a little more discomfort on top of that, right?

Inside the cafeteria itself, it seemed lunch was actually being served. Well, something like lunch, anyway. A few people seemed to have the regular lunch fare, but there was a preponderance of some sort of pink-ish mush on most of the tables. How wonderful. Thankfully, despite the missed breakfast, he didn't have much of an appetite. Impending nervous breakdowns were good for something, after all. He took his tray without enthusiasm and went to find a place to sit as far away from other people as possible. He'd done his best to feign normal for Leela, but he just wasn't up to smiling anymore. Idly, he wondered if he could get away with faking sick to go back to his room. At least then he could try and pretend the whole day was a bad dream.

[For Matt]

[gamingsostfu.livejournal.com]

[Yikes! I'm so late, I'm sosososoooo sorry, bb. ;;]

Matt shuffled along after his armed escort, trying to at least seem compliant. It appeared to be his best bet for receiving something that was similar to civilized treatment. So far, it seemed to be working; he wasn't being manhandled or pushed to his next destination - where there would hopefully be some actual food. His growling stomach was starting to become just as much a problem as the fact that he was now going on his third shift with no nicotine. Mood was verging on rock-bottom, and irritability was rising slowly. He couldn't help wondering what their angle was; other mental facilities he'd heard and read about allowed their patients smoke breaks. Hell, inmates were allowed to smoke in prison! It made no sense for the patients of Landel's to be denied the same privileges as those on Death Row.

Unless they were somewhere worse than Death Row, having committed crimes worse than rape and torture and multiple murder.

As he entered the cafeteria and glanced around, Matt frowned slightly. He didn't know these people; he could be unwittingly standing in a room full of psychos and murderers.

Or maybe he was just paranoid.

Hopefully he was just paranoid.

Still, he was wary as he walked through the cafeteria, only giving himself a moment to puzzle over the new food quality. It made sense, really, when one thought about it; the goo probably had more dietary supplements in it than a whole week's worth of a balanced diet. It probably tasted awful, but by the look on the soldiers' faces, there was no room to complain. And if Matt had to choose between eating horrible goop and practically starving like he had before...

The brunet slid into a seat when he managed to spot Gren, looking pretty uncomfortable. Remembering what he'd seen in the showers, Matt could understand perfectly well why. "Hey," he greeted the other man, setting the bowl of mess down on the table. "I could spill some of this crap on you, if you like." A small lift to the right corner of his mouth; Gren was one of the few people here that he liked, besides Mello. Not that he trusted him, but like and trust were two different things.

[hairraising]

Rapunzel was torn between wanting to enjoy the snow longer and wanting to stop her teeth from chattering. Her tower had definitely gotten drafty in wintertime, but there had almost always been a fire in the fireplace or a few blankets over her bed. Thus, staying outside in the cold, even with a jacket on, was not something that entirely agreed with the sheltered girl. 

Either way, the decision to stay or go wasn't hers to make; the soldiers were ordering everyone inside for lunch, so she went inside for lunch. ...Or what was being called lunch, anyway. Most of the food laid out looked perfectly inviting; according to her escort, though, she wasn't getting any of that, no sir. Instead, she ended up with a plate of something that she was pretty sure had been puked up by a very, very sick unicorn. 

"Eeugh..." Rapunzel made a face as she examined the stuff on her way to find a table. This stuff just looked vile. She could already feel herself choking on the rough, slimy texture. This was worse than some of the failed experiments she had made when first leaning to cook. And that was saying something; little Rapunzel's first meals had been more akin to witches' brew than actual food. The memory of those attempts still made her smile, at least. Even after the passage of so many years, she could still see hear herself giggling over the look of exaggerated disgust on Mother's...

She clenched her teeth when she caught herself thinking that name. That word. It was just so hard to keep from thinking it. Should she even bother, she wondered, at least when it came to memories? Sick though it made her feel to admit it, Gothel had been "Mother" to her as far as she'd known back then. 

Rapunzel had to let out a bitter breath at that. "Back then". You mean everything ever before yesterday? she asked herself.

She sighed. This wasn't the time to start getting mopey, not when she had an appointment to keep. Trying to beat back flashes of yesterday (not entirely successfully) Rapunzel found her way to a table. Sora needed to be able to see her hair as a marker, so she sat at the very end, laying the end of her thick braid on the newly gleaming floor where it would be visible. 

Once settled, she turned back to her plate. Her face contorted a little. "Again: eeugh."

[Disney! Square! Together again for the bazillionth time. ♥]

[lighthearted]

Guilty as Sora felt about the fact that he'd had to tell Woody such terrible things about this place, he also knew that he'd done his job in warning the man. There was a good chance that he was going to run into a Special Counseling patient sooner rather than later; it was better that he knew what was going on when that time came.

Still, their conversation had ended on a good enough note, and Sora had two potential club members and one more he needed to meet up with now that it was lunch time. It was the girl who Kairi had spoken to yesterday, Rapunzel -- the one who Kairi had said had beautiful hair. And even when they had coordinated over the bulletin board, the girl had used her hair as her identifying marker, so it sounded like it really stood out.

It seemed that today was a day for club recruitment, though, since this would be the third person he was going to try and convince. Sora had a good feeling about this one, though, since she had come to him sounding interested. If he just explained what they were trying to do, hopefully she would be curious enough to become a part of it.

However, even with all of that on his mind, Sora found himself distracted when he was brought over to where the food was served and saw what was there. While the food he'd gotten used to during his long time here was still present, something new had been added and in comparison there was much more of it. He couldn't say what it was, except that it was something he'd never seen in nature or on any dinner table.

"Gross..."

"Don't worry, Matthew. A and S Class patients will be allowed to eat from the other menu."

Which apparently meant that he would be getting chicken after all. Suddenly he was really liking this whole ranking thing -- or that was his first thought, at least. His second thought was that he was probably going to upset a lot of people because he got to eat real food while they had to eat... whatever that pink stuff was.

But he got his plate filled nonetheless and then quickly set to finding Rapunzel. It didn't take long, since neither she nor Kairi had been lying about her hair. It was long, so long that it reached to the floor, and that was even while braided! Sora still didn't know if he liked it more than Kairi's hair, but that was because Kairi was Kairi.

The girl was looking at her food like it might eat her, and Sora couldn't blame her. He approached her a bit sheepishly, trying to hold his tray to the side so that his own meal wasn't as obvious. "Ahh... Rapunzel, right?" he asked as he drew closer.

[falseblack]

A couple of details occurred to Nigredo at the start of lunch. First, there had been a strange interest in him the moment he and his escort entered the cafeteria. For half a minute, the child found himself being dragged across the room by the arm, only to be dropped afterward. He looked up at the soldier in pure bafflement, but the man only shrugged.

"You just got lucky this time," he stated nonchalantly as Nigredo rubbed at his arm in annoyance. "Let's go get your food."

Second, the aforementioned food happened to be a pink-colored pile of... Oh, what was the word? Mush? Slop? Something worthy of scientific experimentation? Nigredo nibbled on the unknown food for a bit and found it to be ultimately lacking in taste. It wasn't bad-tasting. It wasn't worthy of admiration, either. It was tolerable and reminded too much of another type of meal at another type of institute. He sighed and pushed his plate away.

[For Sakura K.]

[giftofstars.livejournal.com]

After talking with Yue out in the snow, the soldiers herded the patients back in for lunch. Even though the soldiers had been in control for a few shifts by now, Sakura still wasn't used to them as a substitute for the nurses. The nurses at least seemed interested in the patients' well-being. The soldiers, although not mean to Sakura, were overall less friendly and gave the institute somewhat of an oppressed atmosphere.

Her opinion didn't change much once she saw what they were being served. Some kind of... pink mush? Was this even safe to eat? Is this what they served soldiers in the army? The young girl hoped that this wasn't going to be their new menu permanently because it made the nurses' menu look like gourmet dining, but she had no way of knowing for sure. The soldiers did look like they were here to stay though.

Once she filled her plate with mush out of hunger more than desire, she spotted a familiar black-haired boy in the distance. It was probably a good time to make amends with him as she did with Yue, so Sakura decided to go over and say hello. "Nigredo-kun!" she called once she was in earshot.

[fourstonewalls]

When the intercom rattled back to life, Lana kept her reaction to a simple raise of her eyebrows.  Pretending everything is back to normal, hmm?  She marched back through the cafeteria and out the other side.  A guttural "Just be back b'fore the bad boys and girls finish up," was the only reaction the shadow at her side gave to her cold silence as they threaded their way out past the children coming in from the showers.   Lana watched the crowd for Ema, though she didn't spot her.  The bulletin, however, gave ample evidence that she was as well as could be expected.  She took as long as she dared answering that note and a few others, and then gave her escort the same curt nod she'd give an overly-familiar underling.  

It was petty, but she didn't care.  Or, rather, she cared too much; a little distance would help.

A little distance between her plate and her mouth wouldn't go amiss, either.  The patients were being sorted by rank, which, from the few examples Lana had, appeared to correlate with seniority, and she had taken her place in the lower ranks without complaint.  The food looked awful -- more psychological games, to divide and pacify the population.  The question of whether she dared eat it at all after last night's experience was easily discarded.  When she got hungry enough, she'd eat whatever was offered, but she wasn't there yet.

She sat quietly, hands folded in her lap, watching the dynamics unfold.

[Hattori Heiji]  

[osakapwnzu.livejournal.com]

Heiji was doing much the same, though through a veil of Pissed Off. Shinichi and Kaito's disappearance wasn't going to leave him so quickly, that was for certain. Even if the military had marched in to take over, that didn't change the fact that his two best friends were gone and had left him here to deal with this new set of obstacles.

Which included not eating this afternoon for mouthing off that morning. Though once he got a look at what was being consumed, he couldn't say he was terribly upset about fasting. Pink... gruel stuff. No doubt highly nutritious, but lacking in all flavor. Dear god, he was going to die if he didn't eat some goddamned takoyaki soon.

He was instructed to stand and watch everyone eat, which he did with little complaint. Sticking to the edge of the tables, he watched the patients who had started the riot do jumping jacks. More attempts at dividing the group. Heiji brushed it off and watched a woman not eat her gruel. Good choice, in his opinion.

"Does it taste like anything at all?"

[adiostoreadurr.livejournal.com]

No one had attempted to approach him during that incredibly embarrassing shower, and Tavros was thankful. Getting dressed again was a little difficult (he'd really gotten used to those robotic legs, and forcing the heavy limbs back into his trousers took longer than usual) but he'd managed, and then he had allowed the alien with the angry face to direct him to his next destination.

His shower had given him some much-needed time to think about his situation. Being back in his chair was incredibly upsetting, but it wasn't the biggest problem. Considering he was pretty sure he was just stabbed to death and dropped off a cliff (again), that actually wasn't too bad.

So, maybe this was the afterlife. That didn't explain the loss of his horns, though, or where all these humans had come from. Tavros always thought that death would be more like dreaming. Maybe he should've talked to Aradia about it when he had the chance.

He put all of this aside, however, in favour of giving the pink slop he was handed a blank look. This was what humans ate? Tavros couldn't say he was impressed. It sort of looked like a pink, lumpy form of sopor slime. Hopefully the effects weren't the same. He thought of asking if there was anything else on the menu, but the words died in his throat at the warning glare from the adult human. He gave a timid smile, one that said 'okay, I'll take it, I don't want to be difficult', and rolled out to the tables.

Tavros parked his four wheel device at an empty table. He'd only spoken with the four human kids before; as the (presumably) only troll in a sea of humans of all ages, it was safe to say that he was incredibly intimidated. And after his last attempt at being confident, he wasn't too eager to try again so soon.

[Free! Anyone want a mowhawk'd alien to stutter awkwardly at you while you try to eat?]

[kingdomless.livejournal.com]

After he shower, Kairi had returned to her room, where she tried to get some sleep (the soldier had been polite to her, after all, so she saw no fear in asking.) and when she woke up, was quickly escorted to the Cafeteria, where she was handed a plate of actual food, as opposed to what other patients were eating. What in the world is going on here?

After a few moments of looking around (Sora was talking to the girl she had met the prior day, Rapunzel. She smiled at that.), Kairi noted a boy she had not seen before, and moved in his direction. She couldn't help but go towards the patients she had never seen; what if they were new and were not informed of what the institute really was? ... Considering it still was what it had been prior to the military takeover. Would things be different once the lights fell as well? It was frightening to think about. She had been so used to things as they had previously been, but if now they were all different ...

Don't think about that, Kairi scolded herself as she moved towards the boy in the wheelchair, trying her best to look as friendly as possible. ... But considering she was friendly by nature, she supposed this wasn't all that difficult.

"Hello," the princess greeted happily, giving him a small smile. "May I sit with you? I mean, if you do not have any company coming."

[guardiancomplex.livejournal.com]

Oh. Yuki was going to be so disappointed.

Touya stared at his plate full of pink... (oatmeal? Was it oatmeal?) and wondered just how Yuki would take this development. Last shift, Touya had been informed that (for whatever reason) he was allowed to walk around the first floor, but he would have gladly traded that to eat something that wasn't so... unappetizing. Pink he didn't mind. Gross-looking, he did.

He looked around listlessly, almost hoping he wouldn't have to see Yuki looking heart-wrenchingly sad with his plate of pink goo and a spoon. Maybe he could break it to him gently before some rough soldier shoved a plate of gross at him.

[For Yuki~ ♥]

[winged_moon]

This time there was food when they entered the cafeteria, and Yue willingly slid to the back of their shared mind in the face of Yukito's delight at the prospect. The guardian had more than enough on his mind at the moment, what with Sakura, and Mokona, and whatever else was going on in this place; he liked to have the opportunity to think and ignore the fact that he actually felt hungry no matter how much that annoyed him. Yukito thought it was reasonable, of course: they'd missed an entire day of meals yesterday, after all, then breakfast this morning, and he would have been more than pleased to eat the entire buffet.

When he reached the serving line, though, and spotted the... pink stuff, his enthusiasm waned just a bit, but instead of that he was given a plate of the usual food. Only one plate, though, and nowhere near as full as he usually filled it. If that was all the food he was going to get he'd likely starve before the day was out, but when he tried to ask for more he was met with only a stern look and a head-shake. Should he finish that plate, he was told in tones that suggested it was more than enough for anyone, he could get one more because he was an "A rank." Whatever an A rank was....

Yukito's expression had turned thoughtful by the time he carried the tray over toward the tables; Yue had given the tags they wore only a brief glance that morning, but now as he pulled them out (with no difficulty balancing his tray in one hand, which was unusual) he noticed the line beneath his false name. Huh. So that actually meant something, did it? Odd.

He wasn't too distracted to notice Touya sitting by himself with a plate of the pink stuff, and quickly turned to head that direction. "Are you as confused as I am?" he asked, with a glance around that took in the guards and the uniforms and the people doing jumping jacks by the walls.

[sainted]

So Elena and Damon had gotten through the night, and now Alaric Saltzman was here too. Stefan still wasn't entirely clear on the details of what happened, and it wasn't like Elena hadn't made the effort to explain. Just... what? Like too many things which happened here, Stefan pushed that business aside and decided to focus on what he did know to be important. No one was hurt — at least, no one was seriously or, uh, permanently hurt. Their numbers were growing. Why Alaric? Why were they all missing parts of their memories? Why were they even here?

Since last night, Stefan had come to accept that they were caught in something greater than the darkness entwined in Mystic Falls' history, that "vampires" and "Katherine" and "centuries-long curses" didn't register as concerns to the majority of people here. But he couldn't help the brief, disquieting thought that this was his fault in some way. The "doctor" who'd compelled Elena had been a vampire. Elena, Damon, even Alaric... all the reasons they had for being involved with the supernatural now were because of Stefan, directly or indirectly.

If there was something specific to why they'd been chosen by faceless puppetmasters to play in this game, then he couldn't ignore his role in it.

Stop, he silently chided himself as he took a seat at an empty table, but he didn't have much hope of reclaiming his relative good mood from this morning. As far as Stefan could see, the one plus side to lunch was that if he ever ended up that... sick... again, it wasn't as if the gruel smelled very much like food.

He made an effort to eat it anyway — it would help distract from the cravings which were already curling around the edges of his thoughts.

[NIIIIISAAAN]

[saviored]

Having to wait to talk to anyone was seriously starting to cramp his style. Damon did not do waiting. If he'd had his way, he would've already spoken to Stefan hours ago. As it was, he'd only just gotten the chance to look for him now.

Despite the unnaturalness of open communication lines between them, there were things they needed to discuss. What happened last night, for instance. No, he didn't mean what happened to him; he meant what happened with Stefan and Stefan 2.0. Judging from the past several nights, there was no way all that occurred was a pleasant picnic with a few dead squirrels, and Stefan's inept attempt at ambiguity on the board pretty much confirmed it. So a personal visit was in order.

He cocked an eyebrow at the unrecognizable semi-fluid substance shoved into his hands. It reminded him vaguely of the aftermath of having too much tequila with your blood (hard for a vampire, but not impossible), only with the addition of pouring milk over the whole damn thing. Sucked to be human.

Which he was not, so he didn't spare it anymore thought than that.

His little brother, as always, was easy to find. If Damon could track him down across continents, he could do it in a moderate sized room. Even with Stefan's beret hiding that Edward Cullen hair that was normally identifiable on Google Earth.

He slid the tray completely to the side as he sat down across from his brother, careful not to jostle his side along the way. Last night hadn't done him any favors there. "Hey, Stef," he said brightly. "So much for being eternally under the mark for conscription, hm?"

[doneinthree]

Kirk didn't realize how hungry he was until he stepped into the cafeteria again and caught scent of honest-to-god food for the first time today. How is it that he didn't feel all those times of blithely skipping meals or eating only a few bites out of stubbornness, but actually deprive him of one breakfast and his stomach started to drown out every other thought? He picked up a tray and moved through the line automatically, having done this too many times in the last two weeks to spare a second of his attention to the routine.

Instead, he counted how many different voices they'd heard over the intercom to date. Landel, obviously, plus Head Nurse Lydia, but neither had been around since yesterday. I.R.I.S. had taken over announcement duties yesterday while the regime change was going down, replaced by a male voice at the start of the night. Not General Aguilar, by the way he'd spoken of the man. And now for lunch, a different voice, this time female.

Distracted as he was, Kirk didn't notice the change of menu until a worker slopped a helping of... what was that? Some sort of pink gruel, without any sort of telling aroma he could make out. Up and down the line, others were grumbling about the meal, but there were a few who were apparently still allowed chicken tenders and juice.

Prisoners, not patients. Finally their wardens weren't pretending otherwise. Great, because Kirk had enough of pretending to be a well-behaved lunatic. "The hell's this?"

"Lunch," a soldier answered, in a tone which suggested he'd been answering this question all day. "It's this or nothing. C Class doesn't get meal privileges." He let Kirk glower at him for exactly one second before pointing to the line exit. "Keep moving."

C Class. Kirk balanced his (very bare) tray on one hand to get another look at the dogtags around his neck. WILLIAM SHATNER, C CLASS, 36221701M. The soldier had given him a line of "privileges" when he'd tried to look at the bulletin during first shift. So this is what they meant... but then how did they determine rank? Spock was the same as him, while Uhura's tags had said D Class. Did it have anything to do with the ranks they held back home? What about Bones?

He set his tray down at a table, and sighed when he was once again confronted by the pink gruel. Not that Kirk honestly expected to be treated well by the people who'd kidnapped and tortured them, but even Starfleet emergency rations weren't this bad. "Food is food," he muttered to himself, picking up his spoon. Get used to it.

[closed]

[sdatislife.livejournal.com]

Shinji found himself shoved into a seat (while, more like guided, considering that he didn't put up much of a fight) and a plate of slop handed to him. For a moment he stared at the unappetizing mess on his plate, but he knew he had to eat If only because if he didn't, he'd probably end up without any energy. He spooned a mouthful of the unappetizing gunk into his mouth, chewed and swallowed mechanically. He ignored the taste. After a long moment, he finally looked up at the older man across from him.

"...hello."

He prodded at his food and looked away. Nothing to see here. Just a shy kid. Why had he even said anything anyway?