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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Kenren couldn't let go of Goku now. There was too much for him to say and who knew if he'd go missing again? So he stayed close as they were herded towards the cafeteria, one hand against Goku's shoulder like they had so many times before, starting with their first meeting. The memory brought a small smile to his face. The expression on the bureaucrat's faces when he'd said Goku was his son had been priceless.

He blinked in surprise when Goku told him he was hungry and could only watch as Goku piled his plate high with more food than he could imagine anyone managing. He took a bowl of ramen for himself and some pancakes and syrup. He hesitated over the burgers; he wasn't supposed to eat meat after all, although he doubted it mattered when he was already dead, but decided not to tempt fate more than he had to.

He settled himself next to Goku and took a few forkfuls of the ramen while surveying the guy who was with Sanzo.

A frown crossed Kenren's face. He seemed kind of familiar, like Kenren had seen him before. He doubted it was too important here, but he kept an eye on the man, even when he turned his attention back to Goku.

"So..." he began, almost warily.

"They aren't my friends." It was an automatic response. Friends implied a deeper connection, and Sanzo generally just thought of them as a group that he could trust a little more than the common stranger not to stab him in the back. "And fucking stop calling me that."

Sanzo glanced away, as Goku settled down next to him, followed by Kenren, who he could probably do without. It was weird: the monkey usually would be diving right into the food, sometimes without any regard for manners. Right now, the absence of that one quirk was enough to make him wish for the pigsty eating style rather than that confused smile that just spelled out uneasiness.

"If you're just going to stare at it, don't bother picking it up: you're just wasting food."

Homura nodded even as Sanzo said the words; of course they weren't his friends. They never had been. They had merely been bound by fate, and yet the four worked so well together, each strengthening the others, so that combined they were brilliant. It had been that way on both Heaven and Earth, and Homura would be happy enough to see it remain unchanged.

The arrival of Goku and Kenren sparked new interest in Homura, and new confusion: Goku and Sanzo were as they had been when Homura died, 500 years after their fall from Heaven. Kenren, however, was as he had been in that time past, instead of his contemporary incarnation.

Interesting indeed.

"Son Goku, and Kenren Taisho." Homura nodded to both as a greeting. "A pleasure to see you both again."

The use of his name and title bought the guy a closer examination from Kenren, even as he started eating. Dark hair, strong looking and... Kenren blinked at the sight. Mismatched eyes, one of them gold; the sign of a heretical being.

He narrowed his eyes at that, something sparking in his memory. He dug through the mess of half recalled reports and news of the upper world. Mismatched eyes, a creature of taboo. Shame it had all gotten pushed to one side when they'd got embroiled in the big conspiracy.

"You're that kid, the one who was a candidate to become Toushin Taishi." He remembered now, the story had pissed off him and Tenpou both. Locked away for being what he was then brought out to serve the purpose of heaven. Made him sick to think of their manipulation. A shame they couldn't have brought all of heaven down with them. "I think I saw you around some."

It wasn't so surprising then, that the guy knew of Kenren. He hadn't exactly made himself inconspicuous, after all. Being a shield for Tenpou took a lot of work sometimes!

He turned back to Goku for a moment, a fond smile crossing his face. Kid seemed famished. He slipped a pancake from his own plate onto Goku's.

An eyebrow lifted, and Sanzo's mouth tightened into a thin line. This complete stranger knew both Kenren and Goku, without so much as a single introduction to either.

Was he the only one out of the loop here?

There was Hakkai. It was likely he was at the same loss. Although, with that man, it was sometimes hard to tell if he was or if he was really already onto whatever was going on, and just being amused by the entire affair.

The priest didn't like being in a position where he had such a distinct disadvantage, and he made it a point not to usually be at that point usually. Except right now, he was very much in one. Not just because of Landels, but he was in it right here. He wasn't comfortable with some stranger coming out of nowhere and speaking to him or the others with such smug familiarity.

Sanzo watched as the kid's eating sped up. That was better. Goku didn't seem to understand the point of chewing with your mouth closed, but he'd managed to outlast Sanzo on that subject. The monk had given up trying to teach that a long time ago. Some things he just couldn't get into his ward's head.

Satisfied with the return of Goku's appetite, Sanzo's attention returned to Homura and Kenren, eyes flicking from one to the other suspiciously.

"You know each other?"

"Homura, yes." Homura addressed Kenren first, his presence arousing the greatest sense of curiousity. "I watched you for some time in Heaven. It was a hectic time when you and the others fell, wasn't it?"

A careful question, one meant to probe at the truth hidden beneath the surface without revealing it. What did Kenren know of the future of his soul, and had he figured out who Sanzo truly was? Homura almost felt a sense of duty to protect the future by keeping what he knew hidden, to avoid altering the fate of Sha Gojyo in some unintended way.

And at the same time, of course, he wanted to have a bit of fun with it. If he was the only one who knew the whole truth, that gave him quite a bit of power, and power was perhaps the best of things to have.

But Kenren wasn't the only one there, and Homura had to be very careful. Exposing too much to either side would undoubtedly help all figure it out, and that might not be in his best interest...at least not yet.

"It would be more appropriate to say we know of each other, Konzen." He said the name deliberately, just to rile the priest. "Kenren and I were both in Heaven for a time."

Kenren nodded slowly, a little unsettled at the knowledge that someone was here who had seen what had happened. It was one thing to live it and be with others who had lived it, but having someone who had only seen it from the outside was somewhat disconcerting. He leaned back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. "Yeah, more than hectic," he said wryly. "Of course, if people insist on having conspiracies and shit, what do you expect?"

If Heaven weren't so boring, it would probably have been a lot safer.

He glanced back at Sanzo. "Yeah. Well, what Homura said. I was high up enough and caused enough chaos up there that I wasn't exactly inconspicuous. And I'd seen Homura around."

He blinked when Goku got up, going to refill his plate. He'd just eaten a huge amount. "Is he always this hungry?"

"The pigging out? It's normal," he replied.

For some strange reason, it almost felt like he was being ganged up on by these two: both insisting they were from heaven, and that he was Konzen. And then Kenren agreeing to all of it. Sanzo considered going with Goku, but it'd look like he was trying to find an excuse to leave, which was unacceptable. He wasn't about to get forced out of his own table.

Unfortunately, this meant he couldn't escape Homura and his constant dropping of "Konzen" left and right. It was almost like the other man thought that if he did it enough, Sanzo would suddenly give in and agree to it. All it did was irritate the priest more and more.

"Would you stop calling me that?"

Homura let out a quiet laugh as he watched Goku go, the picture of innocence. And yet there was so much power in the boy, enough that it had even defeated Homura.

But they didn't remember that, did they?

He turned to Sanzo with an amused grin. "Does it truly bother you so much to be called that name? You have forgotten so much, but I would think it might spark something in you other than annoyance. Certainly it should be possible in a place such as this, that seems to defy the laws of time."

"Normal?" Kenren said in surprise. Goku had always loved food, but never so much of it in one go. What the hell was wrong with him?

He cast a glare at Homura with the other god's taunting. "They don't need to hear it," he said coolly, a warning note in his voice. It was one thing to tease with a name that Sanzo obviously didn't remember, but quite another to push the truth upon them. They weren't the same people; he'd seen that much with Hakkai, and it wouldn't be right to try to make them be the same as they had been so long ago.

He turned a grin on Goku when the boy returned, patting his shoulder. "It's nothing. Just teasing."

Sanzo nearly rolled his eyes skyward. Trust Goku to - on accident of course- undermine the very point he'd tried to make.

So there was more to that name than just that strange, restless feeling he got at hearing it, and apparently both Homura and Kenren knew it.

Showing any more interest in the name would mean never hearing the end of it if Sanzo couldn't manage to drive Homura off permanently, and yet... if Kenren was deciding for him that he didn't need to hear it, then that was unacceptable as well. Sanzo made his own choices, and he didn't need some roach-lookalike to do it for him. The other man was trying to deliberately hide something that, judging from the tone, had everything to do with Goku and himself. He very much doubted it was "teasing".

The monk's eyes narrowed.

To commit himself to future annoyance or the truth? Both had its merits, one for Sanzo's continued sanity, the other just for not being in a disadvantage any longer...

Sanzo just took a bite here and there, waiting to see where this went: he'd let these two go at. He'd make his decision whether to pursue the topic himself later.

Homura met Kenren's gaze with a mix of defiance and enjoyment in his eyes; it wasn't surprising that the Taisho wanted to protect the other three, especially if he had figured out who they were. In a way, it was admirable. The dedication, the loyalty...

Of course, the advantage it gave Homura was also a plus.

"Oh, there's no need to worry, Kenren Taisho. I've told them all of this before." Homura allowed a moment of silence for the statement to set in, to watch the reactions of the others.

He shifted his focus onto Goku specifically, studying the bright eyes that (according to his name) were able to perceive so much. Eyes of a heresy, marked in gold. And yet Goku had escaped the fate of the other heretical beings in Heaven.

It Homura wonder for a brief moment if the boy really should remember the things of the past.

"But it seems that a great deal has been forgotten, doesn't it?"

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Day 22: Brunch

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