damned_institute | Day 22: Brunch

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Day 22: Brunch

Cid usually liked sleeping in, especially in a place as messed up and uninviting as this, but this happened to be one situation where he really wished he hadn't.

Right there, on the bulletin board. The Head Doctor and he'd fucking missed it? Some part of him wished he'd been there to take his eye out and another part of him knew he wouldn't have been able to. No man that powerful who hid for so long went to dangerous places without some kind of entourage.

Brunch sounded like it'd be filling, at least, though he nearly stopped in his tracks when the bastard announced TEA. TEA. It'd been a damn long while since he'd had some fucking tea, though with all the stress this place had found fit to rain down on his fucking head, it hadn't really been the first priority on his mind. Kinda nice, even if Cid was sure this was just some game the mother fucker was playing to get them all stuck neck-deep in Stockholm Syndrome.

He scanned the mostly-empty room for any sign of a familiar face once he'd piled waffles and sausages and syrup on his plate, though the person he really wanted to talk to was that Reynolds guy. "Spaceship" was the last word he remembered clearly before waking up in his bed, and dammit if he wasn't going to keep it stuck like glue in his mind.

He found a table where he could watch people come into the cafeteria and grabbed for his mug. The steam rising from his drink and the bag of herbs in it was nearly enough to make him grin despite it all, and it was with marked leisure and a little relief that he drank his goddamn tea.

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As he was led into the cafeteria, mind reeling from the chapel and leg burning from the pace, the sight of yet another teammate with Cid and Yuffie was all it took to shake him from his thoughts. Dammit, they had managed to bring her here as well. Timelines aside, she made the entirety of Avalanche.

Vincent passed the actually pleasant-smelling food with disdain, not wanting to bother with the difficulty of eating right now, and made a beeline straight for their table.

"When did you get here?" he asked without hesitation, immediately sitting to take the weight off his injuries.

Conversation was cut off once the nurses intervened to whisk the patients off to brunch, but his nurse was sure to stop before the bulletin to let him read the current events.

So the big surprise was the asshole psychotic doctor making an appearance? He'd have loved to have been there to shove his wheelchair straight up his ass, but he had a feeling the ones present would have done something akin to that. Since the guy was able to leave the structure alive, the only logical conclusion was he was well protected. Too bad.

They entered the cafeteria, and the nurse helped him put a plate together even though he was completely uninterested in what he put in his mouth. No point in being picky considering their circumstance. He did intervene when he caught eye of the stacked pancakes and requested them instead of the hamburger. It brought the warm memory of blueberry pancakes Tifa used to make, and Marlene would attempt to help with. It was a bittersweet memory, but one that kept him fighting onward.

So when he locked eyes to the elder of his memory flash, the nurse with his food was forgotten, as was his wheelchair. He shot out of the aid of the rolling chair upon impulse and quickly limped his way to the woman. Yuffie was attached to Tifa, but he didn't let that detail stop him. He approached the front of her, his adrenaline making the pain in his knee and middle dissolve into a distant memory. There was only one person on the forefront of his mind.

With the intensity of concern and dread in his eyes, he gripped her shoulders, staring into her face as his heart nearly burst from his chest, "Tifa...where's Marlene? What happened to my baby girl!?"

Shit, Cid sat down and he got fucking mobbed. Not that he really minded that much, seeing as it was a bunch of friendly faces. Of course, friendly faces meant that more people were stuck in this place, but... fuck, he'd contemplate insinuations later.

He smiled wryly at Tifa, who, from the look of things and in comparison to Yuffie, seemed much less familiar with the drill.

"Hey," he said, cocking his head to the side. "Welcome to the shithole that makes no goddamn sense. Tea?"

He then looked to Yuffie with a sharp glare.

"And I ain't gramps, kid," he grumbled as if they were safe back home, glancing up as he saw some movement in his peripheral vision. He smirked as Vincent and Barret approached and nodded towards them.

"They are."

Although the fact that Vincent's human arm seemed pretty banged up worried Cid somewhat, he found himself tuning out of the emotionally-charged and desperation-wrought conversation he could already see heading his way. He instead turned back to his food, halfheartedly spearing a corner of a waffle with a fork and taking a bite out of it.

It didn't taste quite as good as it should've.

Tifa made a surprised "Oomph!" noise as she was tackled by her younger friend. It was odd that Yuffie wasn't as nearly as loud as she usually was, but as she turned around she saw the cause. Her friend had obviously been injured.

"Yuffie!" Tifa exclaimed, concern written all over her face. "What happened to you?"

Before she even got an answer, Vincent arrived at the table. From the way he talked, it seemed he had been here for some time longer than she had. "Just now, pretty much," she responded. She was just about to ask her friends just what on Gaia was going on when she was grabbed again, this time roughly, staring right into the eyes of her closest friend.

"Marlene's at 7th Heaven with Denzel," Tifa told Barret calmly, trying to soothe him with her voice. She understood more than anyone how important Marlene was. "I was just with them a few minutes ago...until I woke up here. She's perfectly fine." She turned to look at her friends. They looked so beat up...what was happening?

She turned to Cid, seating herself at the table. "Yes, please." Not that she was hungry, but tea sounded very nice. She couldn't help but grin at his response to Yuffie, but she still had several questions to be answered.

"What's going on here?"

"And I ain't kid, gramps," Yuffie replied, sticking out her tongue at the pilot before turning to Tifa and waving off the concern. "I'm ok. It's just a little sore." She didn't really want to go into everything that had happened last night...

But the ninja was thrilled to see Tifa. And Cid. And Vincent, again! She really was. But when Barret approached, she frowned and moved out of the way, avoiding eye contact with him. She didn't want to talk to him. At all. What did he care about the rest of them anyway?... He had new friends here, didn't he?

Vincent briefly nodded at Barret, glad to see him looking at least a bit better today. Injuries here were far from a good thing, he was discovering.

"Tifa," he said, wincing a bit as he crossed his arms on the table. Exposition was not his strong point but everyone else seemed reluctant to explain. "We're not really sure what this place is, but it claims to be a mental house. At day, it's normal, but at night..." Vincent shook his head, the words coming out of his mouth sounding so ridiculously awkward and stupid. "At night things come out. Dangerous things. Cid and I have survived a week so far, but you need a plan before nightfall."

He would avoid the timeline part for as long as possible. The morning was bad enough without that headache.

The news only set Barret slightly at ease. At least she wasn't here as far as Tifa knew. This whole different world/different timeline bullshit was terribly confusing, but Marlene was Marlene no matter what time she came from. Same as Tifa, which allowed him to recall her reassurance. Mentioning Denzel led him to believe she was closest to his timeline than the rest. In retrospect, that gave little comfort.

He was about to settle into one of the seats as the adrenaline leaked out of his pores, until the frustrated tone of his abandoned nurse approached with a scowl on her face. At least his forgotten wheelchair was in tow, "Mr. Fischer," he almost clocked her right then and there, "if you hope to have a full recovery, you are going to have to limit your exertion." Without a further word, she gestured to the rolling device. She took the plate of food from its seat and set it in a vacant spot as Barret glared, but complied with her silent suggestion. This wheelchair made him feel like a gimp. Even though his knee was feeling remarkably better in comparison to the first night, running on it made it progressively worse. He didn't hate the thing--it was responsible for saving a life after all.

When the nurse departed their company, Barret's eyes grazed across all of their faces, even Yuffie's--his anger toward her almost forgotten, "We all oughta stay together," he said firmly in relation to Vincent's comment aout nightfall plans, taking notice of his injury with an internal cringe. Maybe Yuffie had a right to be angry with him... "We ain't easily fucked with when together."

"Yeah, yeah..." Cid waved the young ninja off as he handed his mug to Tifa. Although he'd stayed out of the less superficial aspects of the conversation so far, everyone's apparent relief at being buddy-buddy and sticking together was beginning to get on his nerves, if only because there was one problem hanging over their heads like a damn harbinger of denial.

"Yeah, well," he began with a sigh, tossing his fork at his plate as he stretched his arms over his head and leaned back in his chair, "the one point that these bastards forgot to address is the one that makes this whole operation a damn sight trickier than it should be."

He looked to each one of his comrades in turn.

"Last thing Gothman remembers is us on our merry way to the damn Northern Crater. Barret here hails from two years after that, from when you guys did in... Kadodgy or whenever the fuck cornrows are in style. Yuffie... I got nothin', but a kid who calls me gramps doesn't count anyway."

He then looked back to Tifa, mouth twisting into a wide, wry grin.

"Me? Last thing I remember is some fucking bright backlash once Meteor was about to blow." He winced both at the memory and at the wounded arm he'd stretched too hard, then nodded towards her. "I'm guessin' from the fact that you have a different hairdo than I remember and ain't reactin' to Barret's new one that you're gonna tell me I'm lookin' too good for my age."

He then shot Yuffie a glare.

" 'Cause I sure as fuck ain't 'gramps.' "

Things?

So that was why everyone was injured. She felt even worse when a nurse came by, scolding Barret for leaving his wheelchair. His wheelchair. What kinds of creatures could have done this to her friend?

She gratefully accepted Cid's mug as she listened on. The fact that they had somehow been drugged and brought here was bad enough, but from different points in time? However, she couldn't help the small smile that was forming - Barret's new hairdo had certainly taken some time to get used to.

"I was just about to ask you where the gray hair went," she teased lightly. "I'm around Barret's time - two years after Meteor." Then she tilted her head, curious. "So you already know about what happened with Kadaj?"

Then she realized. If everyone could be taken from different points in time...did that mean...?

"Is...is Cloud here?" she asked, glancing around the table.

Despite he decision to keep out of the way, Yuffie stuck her tongue out at Cid again when he mentioned her opinion not counting. "Do too count. And the last thing I remember was finishing up with the whole Meteor thing and going our separate ways, so there."

She was a little surprised that Barret had mentioned them sticking together at night, though. She had a good mind to call him a hypocrite, but she kept her mouth shut for once. If she started yelling at him again, she figured she might actually go hoarse. And that would totally suck. She settled with just giving him a 'you're one to talk' look.

"Cloud was here two days ago, I think," Yuffie replied to Tifa's question. "But I haven't seen him since, then..." Where had Cloud gone to, anyway? With everything that had been going on, she'd almost forgotten about him being here...

Cloud---?

"Wait," Vincent interrupted, all thought on the Landel's explanation dissipating immediately as he forced himself to remain calm. He scanned the cafeteria for any sign of spiky blonde hair, and when there was none he stared intensely back at Yuffie. "You haven't seen him?" He'd been too busy the past few days to find Cloud every shift, but if he'd gone missing...

"Have any of you seen him?" he demanded, voice edging on desperate. None of them knew except Cid, and as long as Cloud was alive---if he'd been alive at all---it would stay that way. Dammit.

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Day 22: Brunch

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