damned_institute | Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

Hitsugaya left the chapel no less frustrated than before. The head doctor once again had chosen not to hide his face, yet promised he would be making an appearance at some time in the near future. He didn't like being patient, but there wasn't much choice. Either the head doctor would show his face, or he wouldn't. Renji had already seen him, and knew how to find him. That was enough.

The thought of eating made him slightly nauseous as usual, but he knew he needed to get his strength up. He could either be weak and try to force his way through brunch without eating anything, or he could be smart and actually give himself something to eat. And there was rice. Rice and fruit. He took a heaping pile of rice, and grabbed as much watermelon as he could fit on his plate, then proceeded to an empty table. He scanned the room, watching for Momo. He wasn't exactly looking forward to their conversation, knowing how she'd acted yesterday; however, he knew he had to speak to her, and there was a good chance that she would show more restraint now that the drugs were out of her system.

Thoughtfully he consumed his rice and waited.

[free at the moment, pester if you wish]

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Whoa now, monsieur? For a second, Brock wondered if he was being flippant, serious or just being a sarcastic jackass. But, glancing up as the other patient sat down with his tray, he decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. It wasn't like he met this guy and while he'd expect the lip from Parker from the get-go, that didn't necessarily mean everyone he met here was the same.

" 'Morning," said Brock. He was in a fairly decent mood, so he even returned the smile - even if his was just polite, it was still a start. The blond nodded toward the tray in front of his new bench-mate. "Breakfast of champions, eh?" He didn't hold out his hand, but dipped his head instead as he introduced himself: "Eddie Brock."

He wasn't surprised he didn't recognize this guy. It wasn't like he even knew that many people to start with - didn't help when you seemed to have more enemies like Parker, Kasady and the Cripple here than friends - and it seemed like every day there was more and more people being brought in. So far, most of them had some kind of powers, which wasn't that surprising considering this seemed like some kind of mutant holding facility. He wondered briefly what his new bench-mate's powers were. It wasn't really his business, and he wasn't just saying that to be polite.

Armand nodded back, glad for the compromise between the bow he'd normally feel compelled to stand and give and the modern handshakes he'd seen exchanged.

"I don't like potatoes that much, not the way they cook them here," Armand explained in his strongly accented tenor. That was a simple and easy truth. "I'm Armand." After a pause, trying to decide if he should, he added, "St. Just. Armand St. Just." If he was lucky, the man wouldn't recognize the name. Most hadn't.

And Brock wasn't any different. He just nodded, mumbled something that would've sounded a lot like "interesting name" if he wasn't trying to dig into his scrambled eggs at the same time, and was more occupied with wondering what was wrong with the hash browns. Armand said he didn't like the way they made the potatoes here, so either he knew something Brock didn't about the cooking here or he was just picky.

"Not a fan of hash browns?" Brock asked, taking a sip of his juice. He wasn't sure what to make of Armand; he seemed polite enough, but most anyone would when you only knew them for a few minutes.

Hashbrowns?

An odd name for potatoes. He shrugged. "I don't like so much oil. It's too rich." Armand felt vaguely uncomfortable insulting the invisible staff who fed them, but he truly didn't like even the smell of the potatoes.

He was hungry, so Armand stabbed a forkful of eggs. As he chewed he wondered how he was supposed to get to know a perfect stranger over a single meal.

Too rich. Right, that kind of thing mattered to most people. He wasn't really sure what to say to that and dropped it, for a few minutes seeming satisfied just to eat his massive breakfast in silence. It was a crapload to pack in even with an accelerated metabolism, but the way he figured it, everything counted for something if it got them back on their feet. It was still slightly distracting to feel the alien symbiote in him doing its thing and cleaning up house, but he'd get used to it.

"So," said Brock, polishing off his cereal. "Where you from? You don't sound like you're from the US, if I can be blunt."

Armand could tell his explanation wasn't taken very well. He didn't know any other way to say it. The question, after half a plate of eggs, was almost a relief.

"Ah, at least that is easier to explain. I'm from France. A long time ago. Last I knew, the U.S. as you call it, was barely free from the English."

Brock actually turned to stare at him. "You're kidding, right?"

He could buy the French bit, but the rest? Yeah, right. You didn't have to be a history major or even be awake during those high school history classes to know that the whole American Revolution thing had been centuries ago. It was kind of a weird thing to be crazy about, but it wasn't like everyone here he'd encountered was one hundred percent sane. He probably figured Armand was...odd, like River, only so far without the weirdo mutant mind-reading and more of the French stuff.

Brock knew he probably would look crazy too if he started blurting out crap like that or talking to himself; even if there was a voice in his head and it was more than real. Parker could attest to that fact, but he still gave them that look like he was losing it. Assuming he was right, Brock still thought that as one potentially-crazy looking at another, he still got weirded out.

It wasn't like he knew how to handle this. He could get that maybe other countries weren't so tickled with the US as the US itself, but he drew the line at acting like the American Revolution was news. Even so, he found himself curious, wondering how far the crazy went.

"Uh, where I'm from, that's like, something around centuries ago," Brock said, clearing his throat. "People don't even talk about that usually."

Armand shook his head to the initial question. "Oh, I am telling the truth, M. Brock." The man's attitude saddened him. Today, everything saddened him. "It is not a topic of ordinary conversation where I lived in England either. We had more immediate concerns than the Americas."

He wondered how to make his point. "I would assume that the nurses here give you a false name and claim your own is a delusion, yes?" But without waiting for so much as a nod from his companion, Armand continued. "If I should know my name is not Gilles Larue but Armand St. Just, then I should also rightly know my birthdate and that the year I left was 1794."

Brock sputtered, almost choking on his juice.

1794. Seventeen-fucking-ninety four. Not only was that ridiculous, but it was ridiculously specific. He tried to recover by finishing up his drink. If this guy was crazy, he was seriously going native and running with the whole thing. "The Americas" (not America singular, but America plural). He couldn't even think of the last time the US got lumped in with South America like they were some kind of inconvenience to England - Canada didn't even count, they were just there.

Setting down the glass, Brock searched for a moment what to say. He guessed he should just say what was reality for him, although he had a feeling that Armand probably wasn't going to believe him at the rate he was going.

"Where I'm from, it was 2007," he said. That seemed safe enough.

"My roommate says he's from the 1990's," Armand said absently. He didn't know how much else he wanted to expose himself in the face of Brock's obvious scorn. After the morning he'd had already, it was almost too much.

Not almost. It was too much.

"I don't care what you think! This evil place has stolen too much from me. My family. My wife. My home. So I don't care. It can't take my identity." He pushed his plate aside and looked away, fighting with his temper. If he fell apart right now, he was certain he'd end up drugged. So he resolutely looked at anything but Brock.

He reached for his juice with one shaking hand and gulped it down.

Showing some tact for once, Brock didn't say anything at first. While he still didn't buy that Armand was from 1794, he could at least understand that he was upset about stuff that would matter to anyone. His family and his home. Brock might not be comfortable with being around people that were less than sane - to put it nicely - but even crazy people deserved to care about stuff like family and friends.

"Sorry," Brock said. It felt awkward, like he'd seen something he wasn't supposed to. The worst thing to do was ask if Armand was okay (who honestly wanted to hear that?), so he didn't. "So you had a family?" he asked instead.

He hadn't been too close with his family, personally, which probably was one of the factors that explained why he was so dependent on his symbiote. You didn't a shrink to tell you that, but he thought he was doing fine with just the two of them.

Armand could not bring himself to answer for a long while. He tried to remember what Bridget had told him just an hour ago. Behind his closed eyelids, Jeanne smiled at him, her dark eyes full of faith and love.

"I was married less than a month ago. There is also my sister and her husband." He didn't dare say more than that. He could barely think of it without breaking down again. "I will not betray them by forgetting."

Ouch, that sucked. Getting married only to be thrown into the mutant slammer next thing you knew. He thought he'd had it hard, but it was one thing when the only family you cared about was actually sharing your body, it was another in Armand's case. Brock knew he could be a jerk - Parker's thoughts, intruding from their genetic memory - but he figured now was probably a good time as ever to play it nice.

"No one says you have to," said Brock. Steering the subject to something else, he couldn't resist asking: "So how long you been here?"

It was a question that everyone probably asked each other. Being here over a few days wasn't exactly a badge of honor or something, but you could tell who might be able to cut it if they were here after the first couple of days in one piece.

"No one says it," Armand returned quietly, "but I do feel a great pressure to do so. It would be easier simply to pretend, and ignore the greater evil of being trapped here." His anger burned away as quickly as it had burst.

"Four nights. I think this is my fifth day." He'd avoided the question himself, thinking it would make him as a neophyte.

"How long have you been here yourself?"

Brock paused to think back to his first memory here, trying to count back mentally how long it'd really been. When he came up with an estimation, he couldn't help being surprised. Almost half a month he'd been stuck in this mutant prison. Incredible now that he thought about it; if it wasn't for his symbiote, he probably would've been dead meat awhile ago.

Then again, he would've been a normal human, so he probably wouldn't be stuck in Landels to begin with.

"I'm guessing maybe something like fourteen, fifteen days," he said after a moment. Could be missing a day for all he knew, but this place could really fuck with a guy's head after a while. "Too damn long if you ask me."

"That is a long time," Armand agreed. "You're fortunate to be alive still." And seemingly sane, Armand added in the privacy of his mind. He didn't know if he'd last as long. Except he must if he had any hope of getting home again.

He didn't dare think of that long, not if he wanted to retain his composure. So instead he looked around again, finally settling his eyes back on Brock's face.

"In all that time have you learned anything that would be the most useful for survival?"

Learned in Landels? Well, he'd learned that a half-blinded, mute cripple could still pack a wallop if he happened to be armed with a shovel. And he'd learned that trying to pick a fight with someone else higher up the food chain was apparently a bad idea. Oh, and that he wasn't as freaked out by the idea of mutants running around with their mutant powers as he would've thought he'd be. But that probably wasn't what Armand here was expecting to hear. He probably wanted something a bit less personal and more useful, like Brock had some secret to scrapping by this long.

Brock thought about it. Weeding out the stuff like he happened to have someone to do the fighting for him and all those details, he supposed a lot of it was dumb luck sometimes. Lucky that he hadn't run into that many creatures, and those freaks that he had run into, he'd been able to take care of it, the coming dayshift saved their collective butts or he'd had some fellow patients as distractions.

"I can't really say there's one surefire way to survive here," Brock said, trying to keep it somewhat vague. "But I guess just have a lot of friends. Or just travel in groups. Safer in numbers."

Armand bit back his first impulse, which was to snap that that sounded like a good way to get one's friends killed instead. Obviously, his bad mood from the morning still lingered. It had only changed form. So he sat quietly until a more appropriate response entered his stubborn mind. "I've never been in a group larger than three people at night here. More seems like an invitation for arguments. Too many cooks and all that."

His disapproval still colored his statement, but it was more based on what he'd observed in small groups that had no clear leader. "I still keep hoping to find someone willing to take a lead. Someone other than that white-haired captain."

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Day 29: Cafeteria, Brunch

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