Day 37: Breakfast

[scarletspeedstr.livejournal.com]

[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.

Comments

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

"Gah!" Where was that voice coming fr- Oh. It was just this again. Lying back down, Teisel listened to the announcement, though Pencilneck wasn't really saying anything useful. His ears did perk up at the mention of showers. His hair was dry now, but it still smelled like pond.

Catching sight of something white on the back of his hand, he held it up and wondered who had felt the need to tape a square of gauze over the scrape. That was weird. Weirder still, when he pulled a corner of the guaze back, the wound looked pretty much healed. It was still a little sore, but otherwise it looked like it'd be fine in a day or two. Feeling similar wrappings on the deeper scratches and punctures in his side, he peeled the gauze off to find they were okay, too. After being clawed by a rodent and doused in dirty water, he was expecting them to be at least a little nasty-looking. How bizarre.

Still puzzling over the gauze, he ignored the nurse the entire walk to the cafeteria. He felt a little boorish, ignoring a lady like that, but it couldn't be helped. He'd just have to make a point of talking to her later on.

Teisel wasn't really used to fancy breakfasts. Eggs were familiar, so he filled his plate with those, and carefully selected one piece of french toast and a strip of bacon to set on top. He wasn't so sure about eating something greasy first thing in the morning, but pork was expensive; if he was stuck here he wasn't going easy on them. On a whim, he grabbed a couple oranges as well. Hardly anyone around here knew he was a pirate, so he could eat them in peace without any "scurvy" jokes.

And hey! He'd managed to sit across from an adult this time; the morning was looking up. With a grunt that may have meant "good morning," he dug into the eggs. He was used to feeling hungry, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

Well, at least it didn't look like he'd have to deal with awkward morning-afters outside his own head. He smiled at his unfamiliar breakfast companion and said, a bit wryly, "A pleasure to meet you, too. Beautiful morning, isn't it?" before taking another bite of breakfast.

Mmm, french toast was, apparently, toasted bread made absolutely delicious. He liked it.

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

Everyone was a smartass. He finished up the eggs and started in the french toast. It wasn't bad. Kind of eggy, but then he hadn't put anything on it. Teisel was of the opinion that a grown man had no business touching powdered sugar for any reason. Food wasn't supposed to be cute. "Gimme a minute. Eating."

By the time he got to the bacon Teisel had slowed down, and he intended to savor the oranges. Trying to peel one without getting rind gunk under his nails, he looked back up at his dining companion. He seemed to think more highly of the french toast. Eh, different strokes. "So what's so beautiful about it?"

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

So, his tablemate took food seriously. (Was that another trend? Everyone he knew here was weird about food or had something going on with their eyes. Or both.) Zelnick half-shrugged and dug into his own breakfast until the other guy spoke up.

He swallowed his bite, smiled a bit sheepishly, and replied, "Nothing, really. I was just making small talk." A pause, and then he continued, "I'm Captain Zelnick of the New Alliance of Free Stars. You?"

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

Small talk. Yeah. Under normal circumstances, Teisel was pretty good at that. He needed to get his head in the game.

Blinking, Teisel tried to sift through that name. He'd zonked out a little by the second "of." "Wow, that's...quite a title." The name Zelnick rang a faint bell, though. "You from Yosyonke or something?" He kind of doubted it, but it was worth a shot.

Compared to Zelnick, Teisel didn't sound particularly impressive, much to his chagrin. He wasn't even a captain, for crying out loud. "Teisel Bonne of the..." he stumbled for a moment, "Well, of the Bonnes, I guess. Formerly of the Gesellschaft."

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

"Never heard of Yosyonke, and I tack on the New Alliance title in the hopes someone'll recognize it," he confessed. "In this place, it's about three people strong." Did ZEX count? He hadn't allied with the New Alliance back home, of course, but he was definitely an ally here. "Maybe four, at a stretch. You can call me Zelnick. Or Captain." He paused. "Or human, that's one a lot of people've used."

At the other man's introduction, Zelnick smiled cheerily. "Nice to meet you, Mr. Bonne." Gesellschaft... society? Huh, interesting name.

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

He wasn't entirely surprized that the guy'd never heard of a big town like Yosyonke. He was starting to have serious misgivings about this island. "Doesn't ring a bell, sorry. But hey, four's better than none, right?" Human? That seemed kind of cold. "Why would they call you that?" Unless everyone was right about this place, and he was talking to a real, bona fide human. Wouldn't that be a trip and a half?

It always felt strange when someone here seemed gunuine about that 'nice to meet you' junk. Still, it was sort of nice. "Yeah sure, likewise," he said. "You can just call me Teisel. Mr. Bonne was my dad, y'know?"

The orange wasn't too bad. A little on the dribbly side, though, which made the thought of a shower later that much nicer. "So, if you don't mind me asking, where are you from? Not around here, I hope," he joked. "I've been in sub-gates that were friendlier than this." Maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration, but not by too much. At least you knew where you stood with reaverbots.

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

"Heh, yeah," Zelnick agreed. "It is good to have some people I can rely on."

"Ah..." How to explain that one? "Where I'm from, humanity's got kinda isolated, so for a lot of the other sentient species I met, just calling me by species was as specific as calling me by rank or name. And a lot cared more about the me being human part more than any of the rest." He shrugged; it didn't bother him, really.

"Teisel it is," he agreed with a friendly grin. "And definitely not from around here. I was born on Unzervalt, an inhabitable planet in the Vela system. Uh, space flight, y'know." A lot of the people here predated interstellar flight, from what he could tell. "Where're you from?"

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

"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?

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

"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.

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

"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

[captain-hunam.livejournal.com]

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

[no-barbarian.livejournal.com]

"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...?