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]

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Asch felt Jason's eyes on him and frowned deeper. He hated being stared at. Of course, this guy probably had no idea what replicas were, unless that dreck had spouted off about their world. But it didn't matter. Asch always got irrationally annoyed when he felt like he was being compared to someone.

"Of course I exist," he said, not bothering to stop and think about how most people actually didn't have conversations in their head. Even in his world, it wasn't a common occurrence by far.

"Of course you do, how could I have ever doubted? It's not like the guy I'm expected to share a room with just started talking to someone who wasn't there," Jason replied sarcastically. Asch was a lot less chatty than Luke had been, not a trait he minded but he wasn't in the mood to sit quietly no matter what anyone else wanted.

"You're really nothing like your twin, are you?" He knew they weren't twins, at least if Luke was to be believed and there was no reason not to believe him, so Jason was going to assume Luke's talk about being a copy of this guy was true. If he could telepathically contact Luke, and possibly do more, then it probably wasn't that good an idea to try baiting the guy but Jason couldn't remember the last time he'd let something like that stop him.

Asch bristled visibly. "We are not twins," he said, maybe a little too loudly. He wasn't exactly a social butterfly in the first place, and being not only reminded of the replica but stated as being related to him...he couldn't tolerate that. Even though it was true he wasn't quite sure how he felt about the situation, he'd probably never get over his knee-jerk reaction to things like that.

"Did you come over here for any specific reason, or just to piss me off?"

He'd hit a nerve there, and he hadn't even been really trying. Jason smirked, not trying to hide his amusement at Asch's irritation. "I came over because I was curious, pissing you off is just a side effect."

Spreading his hands and shrugging he continued, "I mean, how was I to know just mentioning your other half would upset you? Surely you must be used to people comparing the two of you." Now he was really trying to bait Asch, partly because he had nothing better to do and partly because he was curious just what hit Asch's buttons. He hadn't liked being referred to as Luke's twin, whatever the reason, which made Jason interested enough to press the topic. That and he enjoyed pissing people off. Call it a hobby.

Asch's eyes narrowed further. So this guy just liked to push buttons, was that it?

"We're not related. We don't have anything to do with each other, so just shut up about it!" he said, still angry. He could feel his hands ball into fists, and didn't bother stopping it. He wasn't one for starting fights with anyone but the replica; he'd storm off. But he couldn't stand anything about this conversation.

"You don't have any relationship at all? So you're two completely unrelated people who just happen to be able to psychically communicate and look identical? Goodness, who'd have guessed it?" Jason stared at Asch as he spoke, wide-eyed in mock surprise. He really had some issues with Luke, didn't he? He could guess at the reasons after all that talk of 'replicas' and 'originals' and while part of him thought he could maybe understand that didn't make it any less fun to push the subject.

"He's my replica, okay? It's not like I know him on purpose," Asch said, frustrated. It wasn't like he went around explaining to people he didn't know that he wasn't sure how to feel about the replica anymore. He'd hated him for so long, for stealing his life. He hated being replaced so easily.

On the other hand, the replica had proven that he wasn't a total idiot all of the time. Most of it, sure. But not quite all of it.

Dying sure did fuck one's perspective up pretty good.

"Replica? And what's that supposed to mean?" He doubted any explanation Asch would give would be that different from what Luke had said but it didn't hurt to ask. It was a vaguely interesting topic - the whole idea of literally making copies of people, while not wholly unfamiliar in principle wasn't something Jason was used to. Especially the way both of them spoke as if it were fairly common place wherever they came from. Knowing more might prove worthwhile and asking would probably piss Asch off even more so it was a winning situation either way.

Part of him wondered if Bruce wouldn't have been happier if he had of been able to make a copy of Dickie after giving him the boot. Wouldn't Daddy have loved that? As soon as there was a problem with the newest version of the Golden Boy he could toss him aside and make another. Maybe it wasn't really that easy but if it were...

Asch crossed his arms and forgot about lunch. "A copy of someone. There's not another word for it, and I don't know the specifics of how they do it. It's called fomicry." He made a frustrated noise and pushed his hair up out of his face.

"I don't even know why the hell I'm telling you this."

To be perfectly honest, Jason didn't know why Asch was putting up with him either. He'd half-way expected the man to storm off by now or just start ignoring him. Hell, maybe he wanted someone to talk to about this kind of shit and there wasn't anyone else who knew about it and wasn't the 'replica' in question. Too bad he was barking up entirely the wrong tree if that were the case.

Not that Jason planned to stop digging any time soon. If Asch was feeling chatty he was perfectly happy to take advantage of that. "Really. And why would anyone want a copy of you?"

Asch couldn't take it anymore. He'd had enough quite awhile ago, and that was the last straw. "Yeah. Why would they?" he asked, but there was anger still in his voice. He stood up abruptly and veritably stormed off, not even bothering to take his tray with him.

Day 40: Lunch

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