Day 37: Breakfast

[for Sylar, I believe]

At the sound of the intercom, Wally jerked awake and blinked around at the room. He’d fallen asleep. He should have been up and keeping an eye open for ZEX, but he’d fallen asleep waiting on his bed.

“Idiot,” he groaned, ruffling his hair and sighing in annoyance. “Way to help a guy out, hotshot.” Hopefully ZEX hadn’t dropped by and thought he’d left or something, or wouldn’t be too mad at him for just forgetting about it like that. If he was lucky, he’d be able to catch up with the other patient at some point and explain what had happened.

Rolling himself a little awkwardly out of the bed, Wally took the opportunity to stretch his injured leg and test how well it was holding up. It was feeling a bit better, not so much that he could abandon his crutch or that it didn’t pull painfully if he wasn’t careful, but better. Tony had apparently made it through the night in one piece as well, which was a relief. He really didn’t feel comfortable about the thought of his roommate wandering about on his own with an injured arm. Not when Wally himself could relax and fall asleep in the apparent safety of their room.

Yeah, he wasn’t going to let himself forget that one in a hurry.

It was at that moment that the door swung open to admit one of the nurses. She seemed surprised to find him awake and ready to go already, but smiled warmly. “Hungry, are we Mr. West? Well in that case, let’s get you to the cafeteria. The staff have provided some delicious French Toast as well as a range of other foods I’m sure you’ll like. Now will you be needing a hand with your leg, dear?”

“No thanks, I can handle it,” Wally replied, smiling back. After all, it probably wasn’t the nurses’ fault that this place was so messed up, so it wasn’t like picking fights with them would do anything. With a cheery wave goodbye, Wally slowly made his way to the cafeteria, keeping a tight grip on his crutch all the while. Obtaining a plate of food was only slightly less difficult than it had been yesterday – he didn’t have the painkillers to work around this time – but he managed well enough, coming away from the buffet with a tray containing a plate piled high with slices of French Toast and slathered in maple syrup, butter, and sugar, as well as a glass of juice. Not quite as good as some coffee would be right now, but the sugar would hopefully make up for it. And, with how few people were here at the moment, he could afford to take more food than might have been considered ‘normal’ – he’d have most of it gone by the time anyone came to keep him company, then he could just worry about how many extra serves would be allowed before he aroused suspicion.

Feeling pretty happy with how things were looking so far, Wally hummed faintly to himself as he dug in to his breakfast.

[identity profile] no-barbarian.livejournal.com 2008-11-20 10:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"Yeah." For a moment, he felt intensely homesick. Tron and the others must have been pretty worried about him by now.

This guy's spiel was one of the looniest yet, but Teisel made sure not to let his incredulity show on his face. Reminding himself of what Haku had told him yesterday, he tried to keep an open mind about it. "Huh. Where I'm from, the species name is kind of derogatory." Their real species name was, at least. He shrugged, and started peeling his second orange. "I just wondered."

Space flight. Well, if space stations were real, then why the hell not? "Unzervalt, huh? Sounds nice." Definately had a homey sound to it, even if it was a bit too literal. He considered Zelnick's question, trying to find a way to answer that wasn't too shady-sounding. This guy seemed sort of straight-laced, and this was his only shot at a first impression. "Ah...I'm not really sure. My parents moved around a lot; me and the sibs were all born shipboard. We're...kind of a Digging family." Kind of. Digging was perfectly respectable though, right?

[identity profile] captain-hunam.livejournal.com 2008-11-20 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
"It's probably about as polite as calling me 'hey, you,'" Zelnick conceded with a chuckle, "but it's not a big deal." He was out of french toast, now, so he started in on his apple.

"It was. It's a beautiful planet." His smile was a bit wistful for a moment; his homesick had mostly worn out a couple years ago, but that didn't mean he didn't love his home planet.

Most of Teisel's reply made perfect sense, but the last bit... didn't. Well, he knew what digging was, of course, but the way Teisel said it made it sound a little more important than the verb normally did. "Digging?" he asked, curiously.

[identity profile] no-barbarian.livejournal.com 2008-11-21 03:57 am (UTC)(link)
"Huh. Well, I guess there's worse thing to be called, eh?" Teisel laughed.

"You been away long?" he asked, trying to look properly interested while at the same time trying to keep orange juice from dribbling down his chin. It was tricky.

And there was that off-balance feeling again, not as bad as before but still troubling. "Yeah, digging," he repeated, raising an eyebrow. "You go into a sub-gate and harvest refractors. And, uh, try not to get lost or trapped or splatted by reaverbots while you're down there, of course. Y'know. Digging." He watched Zelnick expectantly. Though exactly what he was expecting, he wasn't quite sure.

For the five minutes of Misadventures I've played, I failed horribly at the not getting splatted bit

[identity profile] captain-hunam.livejournal.com 2008-11-21 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
Zelnick chuckled again, nodding agreement.

"A while now. A bit more than five years, then the week I've spent here..." It felt like longer, but he was certain it had only been a week.

Teisel's explanation made absolutely no sense, and the look he sent at the older guy was without recognition. "I don't think I've ever heard of that," he began, slowly, then murmured, "though maybe...." Contemplating his nibbled apple as if it contained the answers to the multiverse, he suggested, "I've noticed that a lot of people aren't from a reality that really matches up with mine-- it might be a career that's unique to where you come from, or that doesn't exist where I'm from."

The art of splat avoidance takes a while to master. :B

[identity profile] no-barbarian.livejournal.com 2008-11-21 04:57 am (UTC)(link)
"Five years? You were pretty young when you left, then. You miss it much?" Teisel had never really had a strong attachment to any particular place. Home was wherever his family was, as far as he was concerned. Of course, if that place happened to contain your family as well... He tried to picture not seeing his siblings for five years. He couldn't.

Oh. He'd seen that blank stare before. This was possibly a bigger problem than the whole "continents" argument he'd had with Xigbar; how could you go through life without dealing with diggers? It didn't make sense. "Really? What do you use for energy, then? Refractors don't last forever; they have to be replaced sometime." He considered Zelnick's explanation. Implausible as it sounded, he might just have to work with that for now. No diggers, huh? But then how...?