damned_institute | Day 34: Lunch

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Day 34: Lunch

Yuffie bounced all the way through collecting her lunch, all the way to a good seat- one with a nice view of the whole cafeteria, which was something she'd been missing out on during the past day or so that she'd been stuck in the Institute- and hell, she even bounced into her seat.

A good mood? No, really?

Despite the occasional blip, talking to Sagara had been awesome. He was a fun guy; he wasn't a prude, didn't have a stick shoved so far up his ass it was poking out his eyeballs, and he'd actually had a conversation with her. One that hadn't revolved around doom, gloom or how much life sucked. If she could find other people like that and keep in touch with Sagara, maybe there was a little hope for this place.

After a quick gulp of pink lemonade, Yuffie settled to munching through her food and keeping an eye on the door.

[Waiting for Dean, I think? :x]

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Armand winced.

"I understand what you mean, in theory. I never was much of a fighter as an adult. Percy and his friends had begun teaching me sword work, but there wasn't much point the last few months." He grinned and ducked his chin. "I didn't used to be so bad when I was younger. I had a lot of my confidence knocked at me one particular time, though." And a bit of his flexibility then. He'd long since recovered except the slightest of pulled skin sometimes. He wasn't sure how this new wound was going to heal.

"Would you rather rest?" he asked. He hadn't realized how few friends Morrison had. "You need to meet more people."

"I'll do what I can. I can't really give practical training right now, but I can at least talk you through things." And maybe half of what he was saying would come out coherent for someone who wasn't a Stormtrooper, if he was lucky.

"I'll be fine. Just a bit unsteady. And... I've got no idea how I'd meet people. Training never exactly said anything about that..." And all he had to go by was his training, when he ran into things he'd never seen before.

"I could introduce you to people." Armand bit his lip. "You'll need to tell me your room number."

He wasn't sure what he could do to ease Morrison's loneliness. Too many 'civilians' would just make the man uneasy and feel even more obligated to protect. "I want to help you."

"I'm in M-100. I..." He really had no idea how to say this. "I'm still terrible with people who aren't millitary. All I've ever been around before was other clones and the officers. I've only ever had one friend before coming here, and he was my Commander. I still don't know how anything really works with civvies." He finally got around to starting to eat. It wasn't really like him to have ignored his food for so long.

While Morrison plowed into his food, Armand thoughtfully ate his soup. "I'm sure there are plenty of non-civilians here too," he finally said. "So not a civilian." He grinned. "I wish I had my notebook. I should be writing this down. Any other qualities?"

Alright, this was back to perplexing again, and it showed on his face. "...What?" Why was--... What? Confused incoherency had returned.

"For friends," Armand urged. "You need someone other than me. Following around after me will just get you hurt." He shook his spoon at Morrison's nose.

TK was slightly distracted by the spoon for a moment before remembering to say something. "Oh. But... that's just how things are. I'm a soldier. A pretty good one, but I still get hurt. But it means other people don't have to deal with worse." It made sense to him. Not that saying that meant much at the moment, he'd nearly gotten mesmerized by a spoon a few moments ago.

"Dr. Landel did not bring you here to be my personal bodyguard! You should be looking out for yourself." As much trouble as his own affairs were in, Armand surprised himself by the vehemence of his worry for other people. "You and Bridget both have no sense of self-preservation!"

"Would you mind meeting a small blond boy who looks like a girl?" Armand's stern expression softened into a smile. "He needs friends too, and I wonder if a former bounty hunter counts as a civilian to you, even if he is just a young boy."

"I'm not supposed to. I'm supposed to fight for the Empire. And since there's no Empire here and I have no idea if I'll ever be able to go back to it, I fight to protect my friend." That was really all there was to it. Amazing what you could figure out when you were out of it.

"Uh... I'm not very good with kids." Out of the grand total of two he'd met here, one of them had sprinted away from him at full speed, and the other one had gotten a slap across the face for being unreasonably irritating. That... wasn't exactly a good track record.

"Bridget is an unusual child," Armand explained. "Fight to protect yourself too, or I won't let you protect me." He nodded firmly, then just closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. "Being here is so exhausting sometimes."

"I do. I've got enough self preservation instinct for that, at least." He looked down at his almost clean plate. He hadn't really noticed that he had still been eating. "Whatever you think is best with... things like friends. I'm clueless about all of it. No experience."

"There are always times people need friends. When you had your... fellow soldiers, they filled the same role, as much as you knew how." He felt fairly sure of that from what he'd been told. "And that officer you like was even closer." He frowned, scraping at the bottom of his soup bowl. "Did you love him, perhaps?"

TK nodded. Some of the ohers could be royal terrors for him as their Sergeant, but he'd... he'd liked them. "Love... how do you mean?" That was one of those confusing words that had too many conotations that he never could figure out the context for.

"It's like friendship, but deeper. And there are different kinds of love. One can love ones friends and nothing more, but sometimes there is a kind of love that eclipses the others in intensity. When one person's heartbeat blots out the rest of the world, and you know you'd give your life, your very soul, to keep it beating." Armand's voice dropped to a passionate whisper as his eyes grew distant. Remembering.

"I... The former. I've... deffinitely never felt the latter." The way that Armand had started acting when talking about that was... He really didn't know what to make of it at all. But that was nothing new.

Armand glanced down, embarrassed and blushing faintly. "My apologies. I was thinking of my wife." And how he'd destroyed his life to save her. "You deserve a chance." He rested his chin on his free hand. "I need to find a way to tell if you like men or women."

TK's slighly puzzled look was replaced with a blush within seconds. "I, uh... I really have no idea. I mean, I've always been around other men..." Women were just as alien to him as another species would be.

Armand reached for TK's hand again, meaning to hold it gently. It seemed to him that people needed comforting when talking of things like this. "Don't distress yourself. You may not have it in you to be a lover. After all, you are not French, and we are the greatest and most passionate lovers in the world."

Well, that was one good way to make a Stormtrooper blush bright red. He didn't think the blood loss would have allowed for it, but his cheeks were burning. "Uh... I really, really have no idea what to say to that." And not enough brainpower to be anything more than stupidly honest.

Armand grinned cheekily. "There is nothing to say. We may make a passable beau out of you yet, though, if you work at it. You are handsome and honorable, and very, very tall. Women like tall me. Perhaps other men do too." His blue-gray eyes sparkled in good cheer as he tried to plan. Something like this was just what he needed to get his spirits out of the doldrums.

"...Oh." The blush didn't look like it was leaving anytime soon. Well, at least Armand was looking happy. That was a nice change. He was fine with being confused and vaguely worried he was embarassing himself as long as Armand actually cheered up.

The blush was good to see on Morrison's face. It meant the big man was feeling something, even if it were only embarrassment. "You're such a dear man. I would hate to see you lonely if I can help it." The idea of finding friends for his friend was cheering. It gave him something to plan that wasn't guaranteed to fail or hurt someone. There were still risks. Broken hearts were painful too.

He leaned closer, conspiratorially. "Do you wish me to find out for you?

"I... guess..." If my old Sarge heard me talking like this, he'd whallop me for being soft. That thought didn't help. But he was completely out of his depth here. The whole concept of... all of this was just utterly alien to him.

"Oh wonderful!" Armand said cheerily. "Perhaps I can put up a note after lunch." He drank some more lemonade and poked at the breaded chicken. "Is that chicken?" he asked doubtfully.

Then, as if forgetting what he just asked, he went on, "What are we doing next shift? Do you know?"

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