damned_institute | Day 21: Lunch

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Day 21: Lunch

Hikaru and Kaoru had been so caught up in their little game that they initially hadn't heard the intercom go off. The new "ding" system was far less jarring than the old SCREECH, and as such, wasn't as easily heard, even in a place as quiet as the library. All too soon, the nurses came to separate the twins and take them to the next activity--lunch.

It only felt like a few minutes since breakfast, somehow, and yet Hikaru was starved. The lunch selection was ridiculously Americanized food of the "Pan Asian" genre, as bad as when his family had wanted Japanese food in California and had gone to the "nicest" restaurant in the English language guidebook. He cringed visibly when the surly cafeteria worker poured sauce on his rice--which was supposed to be plain--but...food was food, and he wasn't feeling terribly picky right now. At least it smelled all right.

One of the good things about being the first one into the cafeteria was having his pick of the tables. Hikaru chose one of the larger ones, saving seats for Kaoru, Tamaki, and (in a fit of hopefulness) Haruhi.

He hoped they'd come soon. He hated being alone.

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Lust was still rather irritated that her conversation with Luxord had been cut short. What a rude man, that Captain Reynolds. Still... he did seem to simply be worried over River. That hardly gave him an excuse to blunder into a conversation with all the grace of a drunken bull.

She'd catch up with Luxord - and the captain, if he decided he needed to lecture her on anything else - later. She had arranged a meeting at lunch with Barret Wallace. Who didn't seem to be in the cefeteria. She got her lunch and sat at an empty table, keeping her eyes on the door to spot the wheelchaired man when he entered.

Having skipped breakfast and the first activity because she "wasn't feeling well," Inara found herself unable to remain focused on her meditations and reflections. She was rather hungry, after all, and there were several people she'd desperately wanted to talk to after the night had passed.

They'd been remarkably fortunate given Landels' reputation, but Simon's confused state was not something to take lightly, nor was his sister's sudden disappearance. The former Companions shuddered to think of what might've befallen River. This place was something dark and sinister, and it certainly wasn't the sort of environment any of them would've wanted for the girl.

And they hadn't run into Mal that night. She couldn't deny that she was worried, no matter how hard she tried to wear a pleasant mask. The white-knuckled grip on her lunch was almost embarrassing, so easily did it give away what she was feeling.

With the meal acquired, Inara could do little save find an empty table to sit down and enjoy it as much as could be managed in the given circumstances. A watchful eye was kept for any of the Serenity crew as well as some of her acquaintances from previous evenings.

Barret was in a good mood now. At least, as good as it could get when one thought of the current predictament. Vincent's mistaken identity had filled him with such riotous laughter that he hadn't even said a cross word as the nurse hauled him away by the handles of his wheelchair and guided him into the Cafeteria. It was there he noticed the pain once again as the hilarity subsided, and he was left with the mind numbing agony of what was his middle. A hand to the wounds, he listened as the nurse admonished him for not taking better care of himself. He wanted to say 'Shut the fuck up', but instead kept quiet.

He was brought his food--fried noodles, vegetables, beef, topped off with a glass of water. Starving as he was, he wasn't looking forward to the task of trying to get this stuff down. Smaller portions would ease the tension on his wounds.

Besides...someone was suppose to be meeting him. Lust, wasn't it? Fuck, how could one forget a name like that anyway. He wanted to make no assumptions when he came to her appearance, but it wasn't like he couldn't hope that the name fit the form...

(moving down two threads)

Lust saw the large, dark skinned man as he was wheeled in to the dining hall. Even in the demeaning chair she could see how broad and muscled he was. Larger and darker than even her scarred man, who had always been the epitome of the virile warrior on Lust's mind. He certainly did look as though he'd had a rough night.

Lust picked up her tray and crossed the room, hips swaying as she moved to stand across from the man.

"Barret Wallace?" she asked, her voice its usual husky purr.

And another message from the all-powerful intercom. Hughes bid Ed farewell and headed to lunch, knowing that the teen would probably be in a better mood after he ate.

The food was nothing like Hughes was used to eating, but he had to admit it looked pretty good. He caught sight of one of the twins sitting by himself and contemplated going over. But he'd leave him alone for now.

He was really hoping to be able to catch up with Roy, but it looked like outside forces were conspiring to keep them apart. Wasn't that the way? The bespectacled man took a seat at a table and dug immediately into his lunch.

When she had made it halfway to him, he took full notice of her. Full notice; from the sway of her hips, to her straightened posture and confident stride even in those ridiculous clothes they were all forced to wear. Barret was able to keep control of his mind as well as his eyes, forcing them to keep to her face. He hadn't dealt with a multitude of women since his own wife was killed, but he surely knew how to respect them. After all, he had a child...back home, and if he ever hoped for her to find a respectful man, he'd have to at least give her something to compare it to. Sure, his other mannerisms weren't exactly...respectful when associated with the common man all the time....

One day he'd figure out a happy medium.

When she spoke his name, a gentle, icy shiver crawled up his arms and over his skin. He blinked a few times before forcing his head to nod, and gave a respectful smile. "I told you I ain't hard to miss. I take it you must be Lust. Good to see you." He held out his fleshed left hand for her to take.

"No, you're certainly not." Lust took his hand and shook it firmly, her grip more a man's than a woman's. "Yes, I'm Lust. It's a pleasure to meet you." She sat across from him, setting down her tray. This was all really so ridiculous when she stopped to think about it, even now. This place, the uniforms, the constant watchful eyes of the so-called staff....

"A pity we couldn't meet under more pleasant circumstances," she went on. Dear god, he was an impressive man. "I take it your night wasn't an easy one. Mine wasn't, either." Her wounds were hidden beneath her clothes, at least, and not so severe as to need an aide to walk.

Qui-Gon took it as a good sign that his stomach actually rumbled at the thought of food. He hadn't been eating that much recently, wasn't even sure half of what the lunch menu even consisted of (more Earthian words, he supposed), but the smell emanating from the cafeteria was enough to be tempting. It smelled strange, exotic, and a bit tangy, with some kind of unknown spices mixed in there.

The nurse escorting him seemed to be relaxing around his presence - she smiled up at him, and escorted him toward the line in front of the counter. The woman couldn't reach his shoulders and settled instead for placing a guiding hand in the small of his back. Noticing her patient looking at the food without any recognition, she pointed out what tended to be favored by the other patients, and soon enough Qui-Gon found himself seated at a table with what he knew now was a plate of fried rice, chicken (some kind of avian species, apparently - he hoped it wasn't a sentient one), and milk.

He wasn't too sure about the milk. Instead of being a dubious brown, it was now a dubious white.

"I brought you some water," the nurse said, materializing with a smile at his shoulder. "Since I'm getting the feeling milk isn't really your thing."

Qui-Gon looked up and nodded. "Thank you," he said, accepting the glass.

He sipped at the water and quietly set to work on his lunch. The Jedi Master knew he couldn't finish the whole meal, though it wasn't large, but he intended to try, especially after the discussion with Obi-Wan.

It took Yohji a moment to realise that the intercom had started speaking; considering it was a library, it seemed fairly noisy, although with that many people, it wasn't surprising. He put his book back respectfully, and followed the nurse back to the cafeteria. Didn't seem all that long since breakfast, but time seemed odd in this place anyway.

It was emptier than he'd have liked; his training meant that he distrusted large open spaces in general and crowds were much easier to disappear in. And he really wanted to disappear at the moment. That bulletin notice had unnerved him. One of the few things which could have made this place worse had happened and he'd really rather avoid Schuldig if at all possible.

He filled his plate, taking Cliff's advice to heart that he should eat something if he wanted to survive, even if the thought turned his stomach. He glanced around the room and found himself a seat at the table furthest from the door. If his luck decided to favour him for once, if the telepath arrived, he wouldn't notice. It was a pretty futile hope, but there wasn't much else to do.

So he hadn't learned anything too useful in the library. No sense feeling bad about it, Darman reasoned as he was escorted by his guard to the messhall. Sometimes you couldn't come up with the answer immediately and at least he knew of the existence of another soldier in Landels...though it remained to be seen just how friendly this Fox was to Darman's affiliations.

At least it was the midday meal. There was just something beautifully simplistic about fulfilling his body's needs and he was always hungry since his metabolism showed no signs of slowing down to a normal human's. The clone wasn't sure what half the menu was, only that some of that was meat and that translated to protein, and protein was sorely needed. He needed to continue to try to scour up more information on this Landels, as well as find out more about Earth, but that would have to come later.

Seated a bit past the entrance at an unoccupied table, Darman dug into his lunch with a kind of single-minded focus, methodically gong through everything on the plate whether he personally liked the taste or not. Despite the fact that he knew now he would be fed no matter what, he couldn't bring himself to waste anything like a civvie. No sense being a snob about the food. He was lucky to get any, after all, especially considering he was a prisoner.

Barret was visibly impressed by the firmness of the handshake. He knew Tifa was one to give a good one, but most other women he'd come across seemed scared to even touch his hand, let alone give any force behind it.

He continued to keep his eyes to her face, forgetting for the moment there was food in front of him, "I guess in some sick way shit happens for a reason. Guess we just gotta make the best of it." The mention of a troublesome night ignited the memory with clarity. Battling River was no easy feat. Did he even get a hit on the girl? He didn't recall, which made him feel like a fucking useless piece of shit. Banishing the thought, he focused his attention on Lust, "What happened to you? You seem fine." In more ways than one was placed in his head as an afterthought, and he woulda kicked himself had it not been for being as injured as he already was. Hopefully his eyes didn't betray those thoughts.

"Optimism in the face of poor odds," Lust mused, smiling some. "I've seen far too many simply give up." Either in fits of rage or fits of apathy, the weak ones fell before this place. She had long ago refused to give in, despite the bleakness of the situation. She'd come close, that night they had taken her and used their knives and tools on her. Like she had been some lab animal. She hated to think on it even still.

"Cats," she said, standing and drawing her hand over her midsection and down to her left hip. She could feel the bandages beneath. "The fool thing tore me open before it could be kill. It's rare to survive the nights here unscathed." She took her seat again and spun a length of noodle around her fork. "Tell me, Barret, where are you from?"

Luffy hadn't been particularly interested in a room full of books. After all, he'd much rather be out living his own adventures instead of holed up in some weird-smelling room with a bunch of empty stories in his lap. Fortunately, the Cat Lady had allowed him to spend the library shift napping in the sun room, apparently thinking he could use the rest from his injured hip.

Now that his nap time was over, the pirate was feeling particularly refreshed and was ready for another meal. After piling as much food as the cafeteria ladies would allow, Luffy glanced around the room for a familiar face. He quickly spotted the guy from last night - RC-whatchyamacallit, as Luffy had dubbed him - and eased down beside him, mindful of his own injuries.

The man seemed particularly intent on eating his food, and Luffy could fully understand and appreciate that. Though it wasn't anything like the meals Sanji fixed, food was food, and that was good enough for him. Maybe he and RC were more alike than he'd first thought.

"Yo!" he chuckled after stuffing a large bite of noodles into his mouth. "Getting shot sucks, but at least they feed us, yeah?"

Food again. River frowned and stuck her tongue out in distaste as the meal of the day was heaped onto her tray and plate. It would be quite pleasing to the palate, as most of the nourishment here was, but she wasn't hungry. The idea of food made her feel ill.

I threw up on your bed.

River made her way quietly through the people milling around the lunch tables, looking for a solitary place. Free of noise. Free of voices chattering where they didn't quite fit. Squeezing into the most inconvenient of places. She stared down at her tray, making another face as she picked out bits of rice one by one.

Separate from the meal, and it lost half the flavor. Sometimes good food had to go to waste.

Darman glanced up as someone else joined the empty table. It was that kid from the night before, the one with the scar and the smiles that didn't fit in with this prison at all. Despite getting shot by the sniper the other night, Luffy looked ridiculously cheerful about the whole thing.

The clone bent down to his own meal, frowning. "I don't go out of my way to get shot," he grunted.

He didn't like the fact he'd been shot. He couldn't care less whether a civvie got themselves shot - they were expendable for the most part, in his mind - but it was a matter of professional pride that he not get injured by blundering around in the dark like an idiot. That kind of thing hurt. It was downright embarrassing. And it shouldn't happen to a self-respecting clone commando, who'd been taught and trained from day one to know his place in the clone hierachy and know he was just plain better - a fact of life and not an opinion.

Shaking his head, the clone took a sip of the juice. It was too sugary, but he drank it anyway.

"They could be starving us," Darman admitted grudgingly. He glanced around the room for familiar faces, but didn't see any yet, as patients were still filing into the messhall.

Fox was almost glad to be away from the strange girl and her almost morbid fascination. The talk of a club for people who had died was just too strange.

He didn't want to think about that, the time he'd spent dead, in a lab. It was one big long blur of pain and darkness and needles and nothingness. Thinking about such things didn't dull his appetite much, so he was glad when he got his tray of food.

Looking around he saw the girl he thought was River sitting by herself. Thinking it over for a moment, he made his way to her table and sat down.

"Hello." Hopefully she'd introduce herself, or do something to indicate he'd found the sword-girl. Someone else who'd been turned into a weapon, he almost hoped it wasn't her, she looked so young, too young for something like that.

Wallace didn't say much in regards to her comment about optimism. It was just that morning he was seriously considering accepting he was crazy and rolling with the institutes punches. A little something changed since then. He couldn't quite place his finger on it, but it had to do with River and Elena. Kiden too. Kids. They weren't throwing in the towel, why should he?

He watched as she displayed where her wounds were placed, and internally grimaced at the knowledge that her body had been so viciously damaged.

Then he shook his head to clear his mind of the unwanted thoughts that suddenly decided it was a fine time to surface and torture the poor man.

"A world called Gaia, born in a village called Corel, but I've been all over my world...literally. Before I was taken, I was in a town called Edge with my friends and...my daughter," his heart ached, and he put a piece of beef in his mouth to hide it. "There's a jackass here, Kadaj...I don't know if his other brothers are here, but just before I left they were technically killed, and very alive here like a friend of mine who had been dead well over two years. Trying to bring back their mother for the Reunion or some shit like that. Crazy assholes, the whole lot of them. You'd best stay away from 'em." He gazed up at her, feeling he'd been talking a little too much, "What about you?"

"I'm sorry," she repeated simply, almost mechanically as she remained focused on the rice bits she was collecting. Brown, tired eyes were wide, alert as always despite an obvious lack of rest.

She knew him the moment he sat down with her, and she knew he was the one she'd unintentionally stood up. When the head doctor set a play date, there had been little the girl could do to keep her old ones.

Something so familiar about it, so easy to understand. She'd assumed it from the moment he'd spoken to her on the bulletin board, but in person, it was assured. River slowly tilted her head up from her work to gaze at him curiously.

"They call you Fox. Last night was an accident. Got mixed up and turned around," she continued. "Puppet on strings, dancing for people who don't know how to dance."

"Gaia, I've heard of it." Lust nodded. The woman she'd met first in this place had been from that world. She raised her eyebrows at the next bit of information. "You've a child? It must be difficult for you. How old is the girl?" She didn't particularly care, but people tended to enjoy talking about their children. Family was so important to humans. And she was beginning to understand why.

"You'll get used to seeing the faces of ghosts. It's an all too common occurrence here. I'll take your advice as to who to stay away from - I've no desire to tie myself to madmen. I'm from a world that has no name. I was born in a desert land called Ishbal and raised in the country of Amestris. It's a rather war torn place. Ishbal was destroyed a few years after I left it, another casualty to the expanding Amestrian empire. Politics are really nothing more than a pretty excuse for empirialization where I come from." She shook her head some, not bothering to delve into the fine details.

"Though I'll return the advice you gave me - there's a woman here, small and petite and ingratiating. She goes by Dante and she's a madwoman with no regard for anything but herself. She toppled nations to get what she wanted, and she has a taste for strong and handsome men. Watch yourself around her."

Luffy stared at RC for a moment with wide eyes until he shook with a sudden, loud laughter.

"Who goes out of there way to get shot?" he asked with an amused smile that seemed to stretch across his face like a rubber band. "A stupid person, that's who! I'd be kinda worried if you got shot on purpose." He paused, his eyebrows raising. "You didn't, did you?"

Luffy leaned back in his chair, using his good leg to prop him up. "Oh, yeah, they totally could starve us if they wanted." The thought unnerved him, and it showed - a contrast to the way he so casually talked about getting shot at. "I don't think I could last that long if they didn't feed us." As if to comfort himself, he slurped down some noodles. "People can shoot at me all they want - not that much different for me when I'm out on the ocean - but I'd be mad if they tried to starve me."

Then, he laughed again, as if they were talking about something much more innocent than the prospect of being shot or going hungry.

"Yes, I'm Gray Fox." He wasn't quite sure what she was saying, or how she knew he was fox. Puppet on strings.

It took just a second for him to come to a conclusion. Someone had brainwashed her, controlled her somehow and forced her to do something. Probably fight.

He knew vaguely what that was like, in Shadow Moses, he had been unable to stop himself, killing everything and everyone he came across, trying to kill Snake. But the blood and death didn't bother him as much, probably because he'd been fighting and killing for as long as he could remember.

But for someone as young as River, who'd never been a soldier. It made him angry in a way he hadn't felt in a long time, but that emotion was dulled and extinguished almost as quickly as it appeared.

"River, are you injured?" Probably not, most likely the injuries were on someone else.

Just when Mal had been starting to worry over Inara, he spotted her right as he entered the cafeteria. Even though it was already fairly full, he didn't have a hard time locating her. It was true, what he had said before - she did stand out.

Getting food would be to his benefit and this style was not something unfamiliar to him, considering that the Alliance had been a joint effort between the United States and China. He grabbed a bowl, filled it with steamed rice and beef, and then went to go sit with the Companion. With her glowing personality, he was rather surprised no one had gone to sit with her yet.

He sat down without a word and began to eat, only glancing over at her after having taken a few bites.

"Get hurt last night?" He, for once, hadn't gotten himself seriously injured. He'd have to see if Inara had fared as well. Hopefully she had found some people to travel with - or maybe she had just stayed in her room.

"It is," Barret replied with the thought of Marlene now on the forefront of his mind. "She's six now. Real smart. Got a sixth sense about people sometimes. Kinda unnerving." He chuckled a little, realizing positive memories fill him with the longing to raise her, be with her during the pivotal points of her life, yet also giving him a hope he'll see her again.

He listened to the back story of her birth place attentively, nodding his head toward the end, "I agree with that, 'bout politics," he interjected before taking heed to her warning with a grin, "Heh, was there a compliment in there, or just a caution?" He couldn't even really recall the last time someone had implied he was handsome. Then again, it wasn't something he worried himself over in the least.

Explanations were nice enough. Sora liked to help people, so he'd taken no issue with having to spend a shift teaching Ravi and Hakkai the ropes. Even so, as he was escorted to lunch, he wondered if he might run into one of his friends... Or at least find someone to make nighttime plans with.

The food smelled great. It reminded him of the food the emperor had treated them to in the The Land of Dragons. His stomach grumbled so loudly he was worried it might have a mind of his own. Figuring it was not a good idea to oppose it, he made obtaining food his priority.

Once he had a healthy serving, the boy found an empty table. Normally he would have had no qualms about approaching a complete stranger and starting up a conversation, but he was hoping that if he kept to himself, Roxas or Kairi or maybe even Riku might find him. Or one of his new friends, like Nowe...

Then again, there was an equal or greater chance that someone unpleasant would sit with him. But it was dayshift, he reminded himself. It wasn't like they could do anything without getting sedated, or worse. So he started in on his food, scarfing it down before anyone showed up and distracted him from getting his nourishment.

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Day 21: Lunch

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