damned_institute | Day 26: Cafeteria, Lunch

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Day 26: Cafeteria, Lunch

Scar felt cold and sick, though more the latter than the former. As he rose from his bed, he didn't quite know which way was up, and the artificial light coming from overhead seemed as hot and as blinding as the Ishbal sun.

His head hurt, but that was nothing new. After all, the last thing he remembered from the night before was fighting a homunculus off of Lust and then having a conversation about events best left forgotten. The man hadn't been his brother. He just hadn't. And if what Lust had said they'd done to her was true...

Scar stood with shakiness that he wanted to attribute more to a bizarrely weakened physical state than a mental one. Had he been knocked out by some kind of lurking monster before the morning had come? He felt as if he had been out for days, being a veteran of such circumstances, though as he took the practiced role of being an obedient follower behind the nurse and orderlies that came for him, it didn't seem as if much had changed.

This place was probably just playing tricks on him again, and he was tired of being the man left out of the loop. He grabbed some food he didn't really care for and sat down, not seeing anyone he knew already seated. On one hand, he wished he had someone to talk to, and on the other, it scared him that he was no longer used to being alone.

He dug his fork into his food and tried to block out any related thought.

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It was not that he resented the arrival of the lunch hour, Sam reflected as he helped himself to a plate of spaghetti heavily laden with sauce. After all, he'd missed breakfast, and indeed was not entirely certain of when he had in fact last eaten, and so a chance to do so was certainly welcome. No, it was being herded that he resented, as though he were incapable of doing the slightest thing without instruction. That he had been tugged away from a discussion which he'd hoped might provide some insight into this place, either through confirmation of similar circumstances or revelation of different ones only made it all the more irritating. In some small corner of his mind, he wondered if that was perhaps the purpose of shuffling people about, before he dismissed the notion for verging too far into the realm of paranoid cynicism.

Once a meal had been acquired, Sam paused long enough to make a cursory sweep of the room before picking himself out a spot at an unoccupied end of the table, with as much visibility as crowding and late entry would allow. He was grateful that he was at least able to find one with a decent view of the door, and occupied himself with alternating between watching that for the appearance of a familiar face, and watching the other diners nearby, mindful of the brief bouts of chaos he'd witnessed earlier that morning.

Well, the basement sounded like a goal for the coming nightshift. Reference to 'renovations' caused the man to scoff; either the basement was below several layers of earth, or they had some pretty quiet maintenance workers down there. On the other hand, the noise about the Institute rose to a regular clamor in the hours of daylight. Any covert developments occurring beneath the first floor wouldn't necessitate hushing up, in the literal sense.

The second piece of the intercom's broadcast did little to generate euphoria in Dean's present frame of mind.

Pasta. Whoopee.

Least they weren't being served mystery meat.

And there was Sam. It wasn't tricky to single out that familiar, brooding face in a crowd. He gave a wry smile and advanced.

"Hey." The greeting was coupled with the loud slap of his tray on the table. He remained standing. "... Can't believe you're here. Wasn't sure what to think when I woke up. Thought it might've been a... a vision, or somethin'." He quipped, grinning weakly.

As far as overt expressions of relief went, Sam's was somewhat lacking as Dean appeared at the table. A shallowing in the furrow in his brow, a slight decline in the tension with which he held himself. To a stranger, they would have been almost invisible, masked by his continued unease over the previous evening. His own smile was crooked, a thing of form far more than genuine sentiment. "You're too old, man," he returned, mustering a casual tone. It didn't last long; of the two of them he had never been the one most adept at irreverent banter.

Sam studied Dean for a moment, before broadening his gaze to take in the movement of the others within the room, though it was passive rather than active observation now, and he no longer watched the door. His spine no longer prickled quite so much at the necessity of leaving a blind spot exposed to what may or may not be a quantity of mental patients. While it was a far cry from feeling anything like safe, he trusted implicitly that Dean would watch his back. "What happened last night? One minute we're talking, and the next I'm waking up in a hospital bed." Faint though it was, a hint of apprehension threaded through his words, knowledge of lost time of a truly diabolical origin still fresh in his mind.

"Hm." A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips as he reluctantly dropped the joking act. Trust Sam to overrule the idea of swerving exchange.

The younger of the brothers was merely reacting similar to how the elder had reacted when he first arrived in this damn place. Dean didn't have the power to recognise this, however, somewhat blinded by anxiety. He held no desire of discussing the death he hadn't witnessed... or couldn't remember witnessing, anyway.

So he was clearly grateful when the other man started on a light note, the tension in his features relaxing a bit.

"Yeah... that part gets me too. They must release some kind o' sleeping gas. Or, uh, have us wired to black out when they see fit." He shrugged, pulling a chair out and sitting. "Better not to dwell on it. Lot o' things don't make sense here."

Sam's reaction to this revelation was perhaps inevitable. Already serious, his expression darkened further, twisting into a frown that denoted internal evaluation mingled with disapproval. "Half the things we've run into didn't make sense. What's any different about this?" Almost absent-mindedly, he took in a mouthful of spaghetti. Eating was mechanical, a necessity easier to obtain than sleep and more key to functioning. The mechanics worked, even when he was lost in thought. Swallowing, he continued. "You said something about messing with people's heads last night, too. They seriously brainwash people here?" It was perhaps an indication that the universe's sense of humour ran occasionally towards the ironic that he sounded a touch skeptical.

Yeah, he was certain he'd receive a response of that temperament. Generally, hearing someone claim that something made no sense was frequently a sign it was their kind of gig. Meaning they could solve it.

"Yeah," he replied bluntly. "But I've never heard of anythin' like what this place has goin' on; the whole 'mental patient' scheme, takin' people outta their comfort zones..."

He ignored the scent of food before him as he listened closely to his brother.

"Yup. First night I was here? This kid – barely twelve years old – attacked the..." He coughed undecidedly. "Group I was in." He felt slightly ashamed to admit he'd become part of a tag team consisting of more than three, and this vaguely showed when he then hung his head. "Think it's like, uh, every second night. They haul a few people god-knows-where for experiments. Other times, they select patients at random, turn 'em against their equals. The staff call it 'special counseling'. I call it brainwashing."

Sam's eyebrows rose, just a little, the marginal reaction conveying surprise that his brother had deigned to work with a group large enough to merit the designation. "Hunters?" he asked, almost idly, and not sounding as though he had any real expectation that this was the case. It would be far too coincidental for his liking were it so.

A moment's pause marked a shift in thought, the subject of unexpected teamwork not enough to hold his attention in the face of what his mind stubbornly insisted upon considering a hunt, if an atypical one. "I don't know," he mused, expression turning thoughtful. "Tripping people up, making them suspicious of one another? We've seen those tactics before. Even the experiments. Remember the Roosevelt Asylum?" Even at such a remove, Sam grimaced at his own recollections, a flash of guilt darkening his eyes. "Could be the same sort of thing that was happening there. If it was really the patients attacking?"

"No. But they're quick on their feet. Trained." Even Elena, he thought with a grimace. "'Sall that matters."

Dean immediately shook his head at the next point, frowning so deeply that the façade could easily have been mistaken for a look of irritation. "Huh, I supposed the same - 'cept these mental patients aren't exactly... well, mental patients. There're some with a criminal background, but they're sane, far as I can tell." He crossed his arms, settling backward in the seat.

"Trustworthy?" Sam asked, naming another quality that, to him, was just as important. Especially in such an environment as this, where the resources they usually relied upon seemed to be, at least for the moment, out of reach. "Any of them know how they got here? Or are they blank, too?" He frowned, fingers twitching as though itching for a computer or a book or the journal, anything that might contain some scrap of a clue.

He noticed the twitching instantly, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey man, watch your blood pressure." Smiling halfheartedly, his demeanor returned to one of intensity, mirroring the man in front of him. "Yeah," he answered after a pause, "Think I'd put faith in them if my life were on the line. They're a bit shady... then again, so're we." The fact all three of them were openly associated with Shin-Ra - a rebel, terrorist organisation - was an aspect of the alliance Dean determined to withhold. It was his belief that if they were gonna escape this hellhole, applying the moral code to a patient's past mistakes (which Reno had delectably dubbed his own deeds) wasn't critical on the task list. Bitching about it wouldn't provide a getaway plan.

"No one's got a clue how they were brought here, or why."

Sam cocked an eyebrow, expression skewing slightly dubious, though absent a framework within which to place Dean's statement his assumptions of 'shady' ran more towards the sort of scams they had run, things which occasionally tugged at his conscience, but in the end did no real harm to actual people. Terrorism and other similar activities didn't even begin to cross his mind. "So we're looking at something, or someone, who's got the skill to abduct - what? Six or seven, counting us? More?"

He shook his head almost immediately, indicating the question as not directly important. "Enough people who've got enough experience that one of us should have noticed something. And they aren't just going after people who won't be missed. Guy I talked to this morning was a cop."

For a moment, Sam fell silent, considering. And then his lips thinned, the tension he had shed with the familiarity of the situation reasserting itself. "Shit."

His mouth curved to add to the bored air he jokingly mustered. This was something - although a commonly maddening part of the product that was Sam – that he habitually neglected: the way College Boy would echo his processes, create an invisible flow chart of piling ideas, higher and higher until it reached a conclusion or dead end. Frankly, Dean didn't possess material considered worthy enough to pop his brother's thought bubbles, so he kept cool and sighed, nodding as he heeded identical reflections of his first thoughts on the Institute. The guy needed to think aloud, for fear that his face exploded from suppression.

A hint that external contribution was required.

"What?"

"The real problem here's the scale, right?" Sam asked. It was a rhetorical question, followed almost immediately by a continuation along his train of thought. "A few people disappearing, we're used to that. More, if it's been going on for a while. But this many people being snatched up all at once?" He jerked his head slightly in indication of the cafeteria. There was little doubt in his mind that there were more people in their situation than they were aware of, even pooling resources, if not yet willing to entertain the notion that most or even all might be.

"The only thing we've ever seen with disappearances on this scale in such a short period of time was in Rivergrove. Yeah, we figured it had something to do with the demon virus, but what if it didn't? What if who or whatever started that could've snatched them all up anyway?" It was a long shot, he knew. Beyond a long shot. But it was at least something he could fit within his own framework for how the world worked, within the logic he was used to. That he hadn't been introduced to the truly bizarre aspects of the place contributed as well. Alternate realities, what?

Caught up as he was in attempting to puzzle out some possible explanation for what had happened, he had momentarily set aside in his mind the reason for the tension between himself and his brother the night before. And thus had, if rather obliquely, come around to the subject they had so far managed to avoid, almost as though by tacit agreement: the events Sam recalled, but Dean did not.

He was driven to clarify; those currently present weren't snatched up all at once. He'd spoken to plenty of people now to comprehend the concept of patients arriving in batches. Sam's total ignorance of the fact his brother had been missing for three days, maybe longer, created an eruption inside Dean that he cogently submerged, for the sake of pride, and replaced with a scowl.

"We weren't abducted at the same time," he heatedly blurted out, resentment revealed in the statement, seeming to be a method of reassuring himself of this. The implication he'd lost memory of things was a notion he wasn't prepared to fervently entertain.

It certainly came as no surprise that he sensed a nerve snap somewhere, the niceties of a time he definitely hadn't resided in succeeding to fracture the imaginary front he'd built.

"OK, that's it." He slumped forward, laying his palms flat on the table. "Demon virus?" He snorted scathingly, staring expressionlessly in another direction. "I swear, man..." He didn't even know what to say. This was proving to be an amazingly stupefying level of aggravation.

"The Croatoan case?" Sam prompted, his own tone not without its fair share of exasperation. "The whole town went nuts, then just disappeared? C'mon, Dean, it was only a few months after--" And then his mouth snapped shut with an audible click, recollection catching up and submerging his irritation beneath a sick wave of some sentiment he couldn't name. He looked away, expression walling off, eyes turned shuttered and subdued. After a moment, he exhaled sharply, with the air of an unvocalized curse. "You really don't remember. Great."

"Don't remember?" He uttered, tenor swelling as vehemence began to rise, face changing rapidly to reflect a stormy core. "Maybe 'cuz it never happened?! Come on, Sam! If I've really been here for months, wouldn't you've noticed I'd gone AWOL?" Any and all odds of this - the possibility these circumstances he was pressed under were of a sick, malevolent design, part of some twisted lie - were viciously shoved to the back of his mind.

"You never went missing!" Sam snapped back, his own volume rising to mirror his own inner turbulence. Worry warred with anger, the former for the moment winning out. "You were there the whole time, Dean." It was not precisely true, of course, but he had no desire to have to explain the vow his brother had revealed to him, let alone the possession that had tested it. As rough as the current circumstances were, that could do nothing save make it worse. "I don't know what they did to you in here to make you forget, but whatever it is, it's pretty damn' impressive."

The little voice in the back of his head, the one questioning his own memory, wondering if perhaps Dean was right and it hadn't happened, had only been a product of his own fevered mind, was swiftly hushed. He was certain. It had to be real, even his visions had never been so complete as these recollections.

Getting to his feet, as if to stress how goddamn infuriating the most recent edict was, he glowered at the younger man.

"Y'know, I am sick of this." He gnashed his teeth, growl unwavering but arms trembling just a little. The older brother jabbed a finger toward the younger. "Ever since you arrived, you've treated me like some nut job."

The tone of his voice was absolute, and if anyone arrived to call him 'sensitive'? He was going to kill them, which was why he retained low volume at the cost of blatant sweat.

Sam did not stand himself, though the palms of his hands pressed flat against the tabletop, tense enough that the first and second knuckles on both hands bleached white. It was a posture meant to give him leverage, to negate some of the disadvantage of remaining seated. His features fell into stark lines, closed off and belligerent, though the bleak, sick look still lurked behind his eyes.

"What the hell am I supposed to do? Pretend everything's normal? I can't just sit here and act like I don't remember any more than you do." As though picking up a cue, he was careful as well to keep his voice low enough to shield the discussion from too many prying ears. The last thing he desired was interference from another inmate, or worse yet one of the staff.

At Sam's retort, Dean glimpsed left and right, placing a hand over his eyes, which descended to his mouth and finally lowerered to his side following a pause. It appeared to be a strain for him to force his body into the chair again; bending and straightening awkwardly, and sitting down in the end. He kept a slouched posture and stared long and hard at his brother.

He opened his mouth to speak, realising belatedly there wasn't a single word on his tongue. Jaw twitching, the man set a tough gaze on the full tray of food in front of him.

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Day 26: Cafeteria, Lunch

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