damned_institute | Day 40: Lunch

*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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The walk back from the doctor's office seemed to take a long time. Armand felt mostly lost inside himself. Talking to the doctor hadn't damaged his sense of himself, but he felt very unconnected to the outside. His nurse took advantage of his distraction to indulge in her personal delusion that her patient was too thin and piled his plate with an extra piece of battered fish and another handful of "chips."

On the way to the table, Armand could smell the fish and picked up a few lemons from the salad bar. He didn't argue with the glass of apple juice either. He was so busy not arguing that she led him to a table and set the tray down. Her smile at Armand's surprise was cheerfully vicious, as if she was teasing him, which he knew she wasn't. He shrugged and took his seat.

Over the mound of fried food, he could see gray hair and large brown eyes behind glasses. Something made him think this was a youth. Armand made himself smile. "I'm sorry for her; she doesn't realize that I'm quite friendly enough to meet people on my own." Of course, when he didn't have specific meetings planned, he tended to visit his particular friends. Perhaps the nurse was working against that.

"I'm Armand."

It was hardly a surprise that someone would join him at lunch, since it always seemed to happen, and it wasn't as though Yukito didn't mind company. He paused in the single-minded decimation of the food on his tray in order to give the newcomer a bright, friendly smile, then shook his head a little and shrugged.

"No need to apologize," he replied, sounding cheerful enough. He didn't know this person, but had certainly seen him around before, so it was probably about time they actually spoke. "Nice to meet you, Armand-san. I'm Yukito."

San... He'd heard a lot of use of honorifics like that. "You don't have to be so formal or respectful." He reviewed how fast the food had been disappearing. "Are you... hungry? I seem to have a surplus here." He waved his fork at the extra portions of fish. "My nurse thinks I'm emaciated or something." Armand wasn't neither tall nor heavy, but he was hardly wasting away either.

"Oh, I'm always hungry," Yukito replied, with a grin and shrug as though it was completely normal for him to want to eat enough lunch for four people. "I guess I worked up a good appetite playing soccer this morning, or something."

He wasn't going to argue with people who wanted to share food, though - it was much better than letting it go to waste. Well, unless the person who was offering clearly needed it, but Armand certainly wasn't Fai. "If you don't want it..."

Armand shoved his plate across the table toward Yukito. "I only need one fish and about half of those potato things." He wrinkled his nose at the idea of eating yet more potatoes. "Why do they serve so many of them?"

Then he shook his head. "I suppose I should come up with more interesting conversation than my hatred of the plant family Nightshade."

Yukito nodded in thanks as he gladly relocated the indicated parts of Armand's lunch onto his own plate, then returned what remained of his new acquaintance's food. "I appreciate it, thanks. I guess the potatoes are just cheap and easy carbohydrates?" He just shrugged, apparently unconcerned. "It's good enough for me, though."

At the last comment, though, he paused, giving Armand a faintly puzzled look. "Nightshade?" he echoed, glancing down at his plate in some confusion. He certainly hadn't seen anything there but fried fish and potatoes, and wasn't sure just where this new topic was coming from.

"Potatoes are in the Nightshade family of plants," Armand explained. "Potatoes and tomatoes and some of those New World peppers." He shuddered. He knew they were safe if prepared properly, but he simply didn't like having them served to him by faceless people every day. "I sometimes suspect Landel of using the food as another way to harm us, but only sometimes." He smiled and started eating his fish, putting the potatoes off until last.

Wait - Armand was suspicious of the potatoes? And tomatoes? Yukito had seen references on the board to the idea that the food was somehow drugged (which he doubted, not that he'd give up eating it anyway) but simply suspecting potatoes because they were potatoes?

Although the "New World" reference did make him wonder, especially given the fact that he knew there were people here from other time periods than his own. "Ah, Armand-s--er." Yukito paused a moment, recalling the man's objection to the honorific, and continued, "May I ask where you're from?"

"You may," Armand answer automatically. Then with a slightly embarrassed smile, he answered what the boy had meant to ask. "I'm from France, don't you mean 'when am I from?'"

He cut up the remaining fish into tiny pieces. "I'm from... 1794. Summer. Does that explain what you wanted to know?"

Day 40: Lunch

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject