Day 40: Lunch

[whiny-egomaniac.livejournal.com]

*hobble wobble*

"Damn that SCOURGE!" Starscream cried out, the slowly-filling cafeteria producing a jarring echo of his raspy voice. His limping, already bad enough from not knowing how to properly use his crutches, was now exacerbated from the injuries he'd received the shift prior. Despite the gauges in his non-casted leg so lovingly provided by the aforementioned 'patient', Starscream could still put some weight on it, but not so much that he could really stop and rest; relieving the soreness under his arms was out of the question. The nurse that walked behind him with his tray, already upset at having to deal with yet another troublesome inmate, was growing rather impatient as his charge slowly made his way down the food line.

"Just...give me a standard serving of the aquatic creature's flesh, some of those fried potato slices, two bananas, and three bottles of juice," Starscream sighed, his anger from just a moment ago assuaged by the physical exertion needed to move the way he did. "I'm going to sit down here...bring it to me when you're done."

He was hardly surprised to find that one of the bananas was completely bruised along its inner curve, or that the handful of 'chips' on his plate were all on the small side. Tired and frustrated as he was, however, he could barely muster a 'damned flesh-creature' before moving his fingers to the plate, picking one of the longer 'chips' and shoving it into his mouth listlessly.

There was an unusually high concentration of sodium chloride crystals on it. Of COURSE.

[For Tony Stark]

Comments

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

So, apparently, taking a break was a foreign concept in this place. Everyone else seemed to be able to do it, Shikamaru noticed with annoyed envy. Playing soccer, having conversations for sheer amusement value...not that he considered either of the two relaxing activities, but still, they were better than quizzing people like some kind of really bored interrogator. At least he'd gotten to watch clouds for a few minutes before company arrived, and Sora had been unobtrusive, if a little nosy. It could have been worse, but that didn't mean he was happy with the way things were going. And worse, all of this effort had yielded next to no useful information.

Lunch was some kind of battered fish, unappealing and greasy but not outright disgusting. Once again, he put the standard amount of food on his plate and headed off to an empty table, resigned to the fact that he'd only get a few minutes of peace before another patient or one of the pushy nurses decided that he needed friends.

[free]

[prisonerofdeath.livejournal.com]

Last night had been painfully short, and Fox had apparently slept much longer than he would have liked. Time unconscious, time unaccounted for. Both of those things were bad signs. Fox took a seat next to one of the few people he recognized that had already made their way to lunch.

"Hello, Nara," Fox greeted. No sign of Snake, but only a small portion of the people here were in the cafeteria so far. Fox didn't pay much attention to the food, at first he'd been surprised by the quality of it, but it wasn't really worth any attention now.

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

The familiar voice was a relief, and Shikamaru looked up from the oily food to give a brief nod of greeting. "You can call me Shikamaru, you know," he said. The formality felt strange. At home, no one addressed him by his family name, probably because it belonged to another as well (two others, he supposed, but even if some poor soul wanted to address his mother, they wouldn't have the chance between her rapid-fire demands). The last thing he needed was more stuff to remind him of how different this place was, especially coming from someone he'd talked to more than once.

He picked up a fry and examined it, not quite sure what it was but able to make a few guesses. It didn't matter. Based on appearances, it would just taste like grease and salt anyway. Though he didn't say anything further, Shikamaru seemed to have relaxed slightly. He'd already gotten all the information he could from Fox, so there was nothing left to do but have a normal conversation.

[prisonerofdeath.livejournal.com]

"Okay, Shikamaru." Fox was a little relieved that Shikamaru apparently didn't have more questions for him. He was willing to offer his help but it would be nice to talk about something other than the hospital. Fox was still chewing over Snake's reappearance, and what that would mean. Shikamaru seemed a bit too interested in his fry, and it was possible he'd never had this kind of food before.

After being silent and just eating for a few moments, Fox spoke up. "You know this place brings people back from the dead, right?" He asked. It was interesting, the way they did it. People came back like they hadn't died at all, even the people that died here. So where did they go after they died?

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

And then, out of all of the subjects Shikamaru didn't want to discuss, Fox had to choose the worst. He flinched slightly at the mention. Why did people have to die all the time, anyway? It was a childish question and he knew it, but that didn't stop him from considering it for the second it took to quarantine it in some lesser-used portion of his mind. The life of a ninja is inherently violent, blah blah, insert all the crap he'd been told throughout his life that didn't make any of it easier. Who else was dead? Kakashi? Sakura? Anyone from his future could very well be gone.

"Yeah, I figured that out," he said, though he'd done less figuring than glaring at Sakura. He wasn't very close to Jiraiya, who'd always kept to himself and Naruto, but any death was unpleasant...not to mention that if a ninja as strong and skilled as Jiraiya had been killed, Konoha was probably in danger. And he was stuck being useless in some stupid mental hospital.

Pointless to dwell on, though. If they had to talk about death, the best he could do was focus the conversation on Fox rather than himself. The man wouldn't have brought up the subject out of the blue, so there had to be something on his mind. "Did someone you know show up?"

[prisonerofdeath.livejournal.com]

"Well, myself, for one," Fox commented. "But apparently people that die here also come back." That was the part that was concerning. Why kill people, why let them die, if they were only going to bring them back. was there a point to it?

Why didn't Snake remember what had happened after Zanzibar Land. He looked like he was from the past. Fox had an obvious reason for not remembering the things Snake had when he'd first shown up here. He had been dead. Why take away Shadow Moses, and everything else that had happened.

"I know what happens to the people that simply vanish, but those that physically die... I'm not sure. I couldn't get a clear answer about that," It was something that bothered him. Did they end up on the outside, brainwashed? Or did they have to be brought back to life and go through the brainwashing process again. Perhaps it was Snake's state of mind that had made it necessary for him to die.

Fox wasn't prone to regret, but he was beginning to wish he hadn't given in to Snake's request to put him out of his suffering. Now he was back to suffer all over again.

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

"Huh." It was an interesting idea, though it didn't apply to any of the Leaf-nin (as far as he knew, anyway). It took away some of the gravity of dying but also introduced a new level of risk. There couldn't be closure for something like that...it would be a never-ending cycle of coping and not coping and coping again. Managing that kind of stuff took a degree of control that he'd only figured out in the last week, and determination couldn't serve as emotional stamina indefinitely. Even thinking about the possibilities that this place opened up made something inside of him pull away. He hadn't fully considered how much he needed the dead to stay dead.

"Not many people die here," he said, forcing himself back to the subject at hand. It seemed strange, considering the level of violence, that most of the losses were peaceful. "But I guess if people come from different times, there's no reason they shouldn't show up again. It wouldn't even be coming back, I guess. Just re-arriving." He rubbed his neck as he thought about it from the furthest mental vantage point he could find. "Or do they remember stuff from the last time they were here?"

[prisonerofdeath.livejournal.com]

"So far, I don't know anyone that remembers the last time they were here, but it isn't impossible. If the reason they kill people is because they've become impossible to brainwash, it wouldn't make sense to bring them back with their memories in one piece," Fox said, it was a difficult topic to discuss but still an important one.

Facing the possibility that Snake would die here again was harder than Fox expected. That was why Snake hadn't been able to pull the trigger. Fox understood now, in a way that he hadn't been able to before. Even if it was the right thing to do at the time, even if Fox wasn't sure he'd make a different choice if he had to live through that again, doing it a second time would be unbearable.

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

"I dunno," Shikamaru said, focusing solely on the topic of return after previous disappearance. "It'd be a completely different thing if people reappeared with memories of being here. As it is, Landel's pulling people out of their real lives at different points. Bringing people back with memories of this place means that he can control the timeline in his own world." Shikamaru didn't know much about how time worked--it was hardly an important subject, except in a place like this--but it seemed like controlling your own little corner of reality wouldn't be the same as taking people out of other worlds.

[prisonerofdeath.livejournal.com]

"Time control seems like it wouldn't be beyond him, but there are probably simpler ways to do it. I don't know to what level he can manipulate memories, if at all, but that could also be the case. If he can extract, alter, or rearrange memories... the state my body was in when I arrived here was far from what it was before I was taken, even discounting the injuries I received in my last fight," Fox explained. His body was like it had been in Zanzibar Land, but he remembered things after that point. If he'd had the injuries he'd received during his fight with Snake he wouldn't be able to function very well without the exoskeleton.

"Since there are monsters here that can take on the appearance and mannerisms of people close to you, I wouldn't say it's impossible. There were also people in my world capable of reading minds and extracting information directly from a person's brain," Fox remembered Psycho Mantis, and had vague memories of another powerful psychic from when he had been younger. Although with everything else Landel was doing regarding pulling people from different worlds and different times, Fox wasn't sure he couldn't control his reality.

[toobothersome.livejournal.com]

For a conversation that wasn't supposed to feel like work, this conversation was certainly starting to feel a lot like work. "I don't know much about that kind of stuff," Shikamaru said truthfully. He checked his body for the bruises he'd earned before showing up here, but as Fox had said, they were gone. Next, he checked for a few of the more obvious scars he'd gained throughout his life, but those pale lines remained unchanged. Huh. He should have thought to check that earlier, but it was useless information, since the accelerated healing he'd read about on the bulletin wouldn't have left any evidence.

Satisfying curiosity wasn't high on Shikamaru's list of priorities, especially since he didn't have much of it to begin with. "It doesn't matter either way," he said as he bit into a fry. As expected, it tasted like grease and salt. "If he screwed up our memories he screwed up our memories. There's no way to tell so there's no point thinking about it." The last thing he planned to do was get stuck in some existential quandary. Those things were the very definition of useless effort.

[prisonerofdeath.livejournal.com]

It would be impossible to tell without an expert in the field, and Fox felt a pang of loss. Lyta... If she was here she would have been able to offer insight into the situation. Fox forced himself to eat some of his food, considering what they could do about the matter.

"Without memories, though... what are we? There's nothing worse than losing yourself, losing your identities," And that was what Landel was trying to take away here. Maybe death was preferable to being brainwashed. "I guess you're right, there's nothing we can do about it now but keep going." Although Fox was tempted to write down something in a journal to give it to Snake, in case he disappeared and then came back. Then again, perhaps it was better to not know. For all Fox knew, this wasn't the first time he'd been here.

No one had recognized him among the patients that had been here longer, but that wasn't necessarily proof that this was his first visit.