Day 28: Callahan's Grocer

[sasuke-of-sound.livejournal.com]

[[from here]]

The place smelled like a normal enough grocery store, although Sasuke remained suspicious of anything that the Institute deemed 'appropriate.' A vague murmur of shoppers underscored the nearly-cozy atmosphere, but crowds were never a good sign either.

Or, at any rate, Sasuke had never much liked them.

His nurse led him to the notice board she'd mentioned, and after finding a paper and a pen, Sasuke concentrated on writing a legible message. It was harder than he'd expected or hoped.

Comments

[misterprince.livejournal.com]

After the not-quite-up-to-par meal selections at the institute, Sanji was curious to see what sort of grocers a town such as this one would offer. It seemed regular enough, at least as far as a grocers in this world was concerned. The technology was obviously more advanced, but the selection was about the same.

Though he did admit to some confusion with the vegetables. If these carrots were "organic," then what the shit were the other carrots, made of metal? He made sure to compare them both thoroughly and decided that, had he the choice, he wouldn't be touching any that didn't have the organic label. Knowing what little he did of this place, the others could be made of anything.

At least he'd been allowed better clothes for the outing. Though... better might be stretching it. These jeans were loose, but still oddly confining. The shirt was long sleeved and flannel. Red and blue. It was a good thing for Sanji that he looked great in just about anything. (If you asked him, at least.)

His attention was drawn at last to the bulletin board, and mosied up to stand beside the dark-haired boy already there. "Oi. What's this? Does this one work like the other one?" he asked.

[sasuke-of-sound.livejournal.com]

Sasuke's nurse wandered away to let him write and post the message, but the set of footsteps that approached once he was done weren't the light, feminine ones he'd learned to hate.

Judging by what the man said when he addressed Sasuke (assuming 'Oi' meant Sasuke), he was also a patient.

"She said we could post things here," Sasuke answered shortly, and shrugged a shoulder in the direction his nurse had gone, hoping she was still visible enough that it was clear whom he was indicating.

[misterprince.livejournal.com]

The chef glanced behind him, catching sight of the nurse and frowning before he could help himself. Why was it everyone else got women nurses except him? As it wasn't his, however, that meant it was this boy's. And that meant that he was from Landels, like himself.

"Post things like what? Do others even know this is here?" What was the point of posting anything if the ones the notice was directed at wouldn't even see it? It could only be hoped that news of it would be spread by word of mouth, in which case it might be quicker just to find those you wanted to address on your own.

He glanced down at the other patient's note, catching just enough of it to tell that the kid had terrible handwriting. Reading it at that distance would be an impossibility. Turning back to the board, he muttered "I suppose Looking For Way Out, please post any known info here probably wouldn't go over well."

[sasuke-of-sound.livejournal.com]

Sasuke shrugged again. He'd thought it was stupid, even if the woman had been excited about it, but it was better than running blindly around town looking for the particular idiots Sasuke wanted to find. Especially since 'blindly' in Sasuke's case was literal.

"I assume the word will spread if the staff are aware of it," he responded, and tucked the pencil that his nurse had found him into a pocket. It couldn't hurt to have something relatively sharp. The stranger's muttered comment amused him enough that he glanced towards the voice -- habit, even if he couldn't see the source.

"The town is probably as much under control of Landel as the institute," he said. At any rate, it was safest to assume that everyone who wasn't a patient was in league with Landel's. "We wouldn't be permitted here otherwise."

[misterprince.livejournal.com]

Perhaps he could at least post a request for spare cigarettes, or something along that line. Unfortunately, Sanji currently didn't have anything he could offer as trade.

The board was, for the time being, rather empty. He was tempted to add random messages just to keep it from looking so abysmally blank, but didn't. Instead, he glanced back down at his new companion again. This was a good time for questions. Usopp had given plenty of answers the day before, but as reliable as the sniper could be in some cases, a truthful recap was often the exception.

Most important questions first, of course. "Have you been here long?" he asked, voice low. "Would you know if a nurse, should she become something horrendous at night, return to her normal self come daybreak?" The wound on his shoulder ached in memory of the night before, and he rubbed absently at the bandage.

[31st-of-china.livejournal.com]

Compared to some of the shit he'd seen during the nights back in the prison and the sterile atmosphere of the days there, this seemed startingly normal in comparision. While he usually sent the other three out to get the cigarettes and booze, he could make a decent guess as to where they were.

Most likely near the front near the cashiers. Easy enough.

Getting them was going to be a problem, though.

[notahangedman.livejournal.com]

Not if they worked together, Seishirou calculated. The shop was small enough for one person to run, if Seishirou could distract the man away from the register for long enough for Sanzo to grab what they needed, it shouldn't be too hard. He followed the blond inside, glancing around smilingly. So small and idyllic, if only he had known how to feel, stealing might have felt uncomfortable.

But instead of getting right to the business, he glanced around to make the place a bit more comfortable, fingering a corner of a shelf here, the plastic around fresh carrots. The manager looked like a friendly type, smiling openly at him when he glanced at the man's direction. Seishirou whipped out a friendly curve on his lips as well.

"Such a cozy little place," he said to Sanzo softly.

[31st-of-china.livejournal.com]

Sanzo shot him a glance, then looked back at the manager.

He had the sinking feeling they were about to stoop to the level of some low-life thief, and either Seishirou had an amazing amount of control hiding how he felt about that, or he just didn't care. It was hard to read him, far harder than Hakkai.

"Why do I have the feeling that I'm about to regret whatever you say next?" the monk asked.

Sanzo might be going through some shitty new depths of withdrawal, but this was a new low.

[notahangedman.livejournal.com]

Oh? A moral spine? Seishirou added that to his mental drawing of Sanzo. Or lazy. Or perhaps on the nervous side. But those were something he didn't easily associate with the way no-nonsense type of people usually were.

He grinned a bit, shrugging carelessly and gave Sanzo a bit of scrutiny through his nonchalant mannerism. Obviously stealing did not bother Seishirou in the least, but he was curious to see how far Sanzo would be willing to go to avoid it.

"We could ask if the manager has some work for us instead," he said casually, lowering his voice just a hint, and then smiled warmly.

[31st-of-china.livejournal.com]

The priest just gave a snort.

"I doubt that'll work any more than trying to use these piece of crap 'coupons' on him," Sanzo said dryly.

This was below him. Something that Gojyo no doubt did before he ran into Hakkai, and Goku when he was younger because the idiot didn't know any better.

It was more along the lines of pathetic, and it was a blow to his pride to even consider stealing. Sanzo didn't quite care for the moral aspect of it - he'd done enough immoral things as it were not to care too much about what was expect of a "proper" monk - but it still came off as desperate.

[notmyfather.livejournal.com]

(From here (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/245151.html?thread=17800863#t17806751))

At least the novelty of shops was enough to momentarily distract Valyn from the whole Shana problem. He wandered into what looked like a general sort of shop, wondering if any of the vouchers were good here. It seemed to be mostly food and strange knick-knacks and things he couldn't place. And he focused on that. or tried to. His mind kept wandering back to their conversation, poking holes in every argument he'd given.

She had made valid points. He wasn't one to put much stock in tradition and custom and the restrictions of Elven society. He never had been. He'd broken more rules and laws than any other elven lord he could think of. What was one more, when you looked at it that way? And if he was perfectly honest with himself, he intended to continue his relationship with Shadow regardless of when or who he married.

Was that truly fair to Shadow?

But Shadow was different. Wasn't he? Wasn't it an entirely different situation altogether? He loved his cousin with everything he had, loved him in ways he didn't even understand. Shadow was his other half, the thing that made him complete, that gave his life meaning. He did care for Shana, but not quite in the same way. And it was different with females.

And he knew he had done, in a way, what he hadn't meant to. He'd made a decision for Shana, in a way. And even if it had been the right decision, didn't he owe it to her to make up her mind for herself?

Ancestors, this was miserable.

Where was Renji when he needed him?

[robin-fox.livejournal.com]

Robin wandered in from the street (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/245151.html?view=17811615#t17811615), gazing around at all the vegetables. This was more like it. Even the smell could have almost been home. If only the products hadn't been so fresh. Not that he ought to complain. He'd never seen such green lettuces piled up in one place.

He nudged the nearest person. "I don't suppose you know where the stocks are, do you?" He wasn't going to throw anything, just see if anybody needed rescuing. He'd tasted justice with his rescuing of Sexton and now he was hungry for more.

"Friend, don't look so glum!" he said, shaking his head when he finally looked at the man.

[notmyfather.livejournal.com]

"Hmm?"

Valyn was a bit startled out of his inner thoughts by the strange question.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what stocks are." He shook his head. "I was just lost in my thoughts, I'm fine, thank you." And he was able to smile easily, and look friendly and attentive, even though his mind was still worrying over the issue of making things right with Shana.

[robin-fox.livejournal.com]

"I suppose I've heard stranger things," he winked. "Stocks are wooden stands bearing three holes, one for the neck and two for the wrists. The top bar is lifted and the prisoner places himself in these gaps, then the lid is closed and he's stuck there until... well, until he's learned his lesson, I suppose. You really don't have anything like that?" That was probably a good thing. Unless they had worse.

"They don't seem like very good thoughts, if you don't mind me saying so. Here," he said, rummaging through his coat pockets, "they're delicious." He held out some doggie biscuits to the stranger. "Not sure why they're bone shaped, but still..."

[notmyfather.livejournal.com]

"That sounds very unpleasant," Valyn responded, raising his eyebrows. But no worse than anything they had back home. Or perhaps they did have something like that, it wasn't as though he knew every form of punishment on every estate.

"Just thinking about women," Valyn clarified. He glanced down at the oddly shaped cookie - everything around here seemed to have skeletal motifs for some reason - and accepted it graciously.

"Thank you."

Ancestors, that was a dry and rather tasteless cookie.

[notmyfather.livejournal.com]

Valyn led Shadow away to one of the aisles in the store, an empty one, and released his arm.

"I won't ask how you know what happened, but I will say I know I made a mess of things again and I do intend to fix it."

And he did. How, he was still unsure, but he would fix things.

[valyns-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Do you?" Shadow asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Do you even know the first thing about fixing something like this? Without magic?"

He was sounding much too cross. Shadow sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm not angry with you. In fact, I doubt Shana is really angry with you. And I'm sure you tried the best you could but damn your elfish way of trying to reason your way out of every situation. It always seems to get in the way and complicate a simple situation. It isn't this hard to figure out whether you want to pursue the girl or not. You're turning a simple dance into some complicated, orchestrated ballet. You need to be honest with her and not the brutal honesty where you pull in elfish politics and traditions which I'm sure you already did. Be honest with what you're feeling in here."

Shadow took a breath and poked Valyn in the chest. "I know your heart is in there somewhere, Val. Just speak from it once in awhile and damn the consequences."

[notmyfather.livejournal.com]

Valyn looked away, deflated, his defensiveness gone.

"I tried, Shadow," he admitted. "Ancestors help me, I did try. And it was going well. Perfectly well. But the fact remains that politics does play a role in this. If I pursue her, I don't want to find myself involved with her and then have to end it because of marriage. And I explained as much to her. I won't treat her like a concubine, Shadow, I can't do that. And you yourself pointed out that a permanent alliance with Shana would be disastrous. I explained that regardless of what she or I wanted, we could never have anything permanent and it wasn't fair to her to lead her on. And she somehow came away with the idea I don't think she's good enough for me, and I don't even find her attractive."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head.

"And you know I can't do that. I can't even be honest with you, how in the name of the Ancestors am I supposed to be honest like that with Shana?" He leaned back against a cabinet, carefully.

"And besides all that... I just don't know what to do. I know I shouldn't try and make her decisions for her - but I also know it's a habit I can't break easily. I'm torn between just apologizing and taking my lumps and laying everything out for her and letting her decide what to do."

[valyns-shadow.livejournal.com]

"Listen to yourself," Shadow said, an exasperated laugh in his voice. "You're talking yourself in circles so much that you don't even know what you want anymore. Look at where we are and the chances of us escaping. Elven politics mean nothing here. So why use them as a shield to hide behind. You're being more honest and upfront then you've ever had in all the time I've known you."

He reached out and took Valyn's hand, squeezing it. "Thinking about it like this isn't going to help. You'll just frustrate yourself further. Give Shana a break. She's been through a tough time. I don't think anything you'd say other than 'Shall we find a close inn?' is going to sit well with her. Breathe, Val. It'll be alright in the end."

[notmyfather.livejournal.com]

"Then what am I supposed to do?" Valyn asked, knowing that Shadow was making sense. It wasn't as though they'd be going home anytime soon. Ancestors, before Keman showed up, he'd resigned himself to the fact that he'd never see home again.

"I don't want to upset her further. I don't know what to say. And I'm not hiding behind anything, I'm being logical and honest."

[heavens-too-far.livejournal.com]

Dias had, despite the unusual situation of the field trip, had the most peaceful day he'd had in quite some time. He hadn't actually really conversed with anyone all day; he hadn't seen any of his friends (it was odd how accustomed he'd become to using that word) on his bus, and since he'd arrived in the town he'd been prowling the streets more or less at random, taking in the unfamiliar surroundings.

Part of him had hoped that the field trip would give them an opportunity - to do what, he couldn't entirely say, but he'd hoped nonetheless - but he'd quickly become frustrated on that front. There was an absurd amount of security watching their every move outside, and inside any of the businesses in the town there wasn't much to do in any case. Further, although there was ample opportunity to make observations about this place at the very least...there were a world of things that were so utterly foreign to him that they didn't enlighten him in the slightest, and he wasn't entirely sure what information he could trust in any case, not in a place where the head doctor allowed them to run free.

Still, despite the supervision, he had relative solitude. Not so long ago, being alone had been what he preferred...now, he was mildly surprised by how boring and, well, lonely it felt. Possibly it was because he had no specific goal in mind, but he suspected that it was also due to the fact that he'd grown accustomed to having the company of his friends despite himself.

It was as much boredom as anything else that sent him into a store; Tria knew he didn't have any money, fol or otherwise(he'd at least made one useful observation today, in that the money they used in this place didn't resemble fol at all), with which to buy anything they had there. Further, it was a grocery; he supposed he could steal small things, but there was little here that he felt compelled to take back with him. After all, they were fed well enough at the institute that extra food wasn't really necessary.

[heavens-too-far.livejournal.com]

Nonetheless, the foods Dias didn't recognize were, if not an education, then at least interesting to look at and attempt to puzzle out. (What in Tria's name was a sour cream and onion potato chip, anyway...?) So he wandered the aisles idly, until he found himself at the back of the store in front of a rather aged display of what looked like candies...although certainly the strangest candies he'd ever seen. There were bears and inexplicable worms that squished through their clear packaging, strange colored dots on paper, long colorful tubes(another mystery; what was a Pixie Stix?), orange things that looked like some abomination of peanuts, red and white-striped discs, small brown-colored -

Dias' eyes locked onto the package he'd just glanced at, and he leaned in for a closer look. Even then, he had to read the label in disbelief before he was fully convinced that he was seeing what he thought he was - candy (root beer-flavored, according to the label, whatever root beer was; some sort of alcohol?) in the shape of barrels. Clearly someone in the candy-making business on this planet shared Ashton's strange fixation, as he couldn't imagine why else anyone would make candy shaped like that... And, from there, his thoughts moved quickly and smoothly down a rather simple and logical line of thought.

Ashton liked sweets. Ashton liked barrels. And Dias was willing to stake his sword on the fact that Ashton had never, ever seen anything like this before. Sweets in the shape of barrels would, in theory, make Ashton twice as happy as either sweets or barrels by themselves. And considering what Ashton had gone through during the earlier parts of last night, he deserved a pick-me-up if anyone did.

After a moment, Dias caught himself wondering whether he was actually using logical arguments because he believed them, or whether he was using them to back up whatever emotion it was that had engaged almost immediately upon seeing the root beer barrels - whatever it was that made him want to see Ashton's delight when Dias presented these to him. He honestly wasn't sure what it was he felt, but what he was going to do was at least clear enough.

He was well-obscured from the front of the store in any case; after one quick glance to make sure no one could see him from this angle, Dias slid two of the packages of root beer barrels off of their metal hooks and tucked one into each pocket of his loose pants. They were slightly dusty to the touch; evidently this wasn't merchandise that got picked over very often. Probably the shopkeeper wouldn't even miss them.

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

From here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/245151.html?thread=18434463#t18434463)

L entered the grocer and placed a shopping basket onto his lap. He surveyed the area, taking notice of the security cameras placed in the store keeping his face down his face down as he moved. It was better to be safe than sorry.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed that the cameras were stationary. This would mean that they would have a limited range of view. L quickly determined where there would be blind spots. One in particular was located by the stand of fruit located furthest away from the camera.

L moved around the store for a couple minutes, acting as though he was a casual shopper grabbing various items and placing them into the shopping basket. He Picked up a pack of original flavored bubble gum, reached up and made to scratch his neck, and dropped it down the back of his shirt. Next he palmed some dental floss, and a small box of matches; Moving as though he were placing them into the basket when in fact he was carefully sliding both into the sleeves of his sweater, keeping at an angle in which the camera wouldn’t show anything overly suspicious.

Next he grabbed a box of tea, a package of birthday candles, and a box of nicotine gum, tossing them in the shopping basket along with the other useless items he had grabbed. As they were the larger of the items, hiding them in his clothes would be too obvious. So he had to think of a way around it.

The opportunity came when L reached the blind spot by the citrus. He reached up for an orange that was just barely out of his grasp and “accidentally” pushed the rest of his arm against the oranges below it so they fell into his lap. L looked down at the floor, and then reached down into the blind spot with the basket.

He moved as if he were trying to reach an orange that had fallen under his chair, but he was taking the moment to open the package of tea. Quickly, placed every packet he could inside the sock on his injured leg. Next he hurriedly shoved the box of candles and the nicotine gum into his shirt, replaced the half empty box of tea into his basket, sat up, and put the oranges that had fallen back in their rightful spots.

Finished with stashing everything he could, L placed the basket full of useless items on a shelf, and made his way towards the exit.

[fyeonly.livejournal.com]

Naomi followed along behind, hands in her pockets, finding she had little to say. She was lost in her own thoughts, thoughts she'd rather not be indulging in. Home, Raye, how she'd come to be here....

She followed L into the grocery store, looking around mildly. She wanted to watch L and figure out exactly what he was doing, but he probably didn't want attention drawn to him.

She knew he was grabbing things. Why else even bother coming here? At least he seemed to know what he was doing.

Had he just grabbed... that gum to help you quit smoking? Great.

[el-lolly-eat.livejournal.com]

L paused briefly by the stores entrance to examine a sign, then casually rolled his wheel chair outside of the store.

Waiting for Naomi here. (http://community.livejournal.com/damned/245151.html?thread=18434463#t18434463)