damned_institute | DAY 43: CAFETERIA, MORNING

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DAY 43: CAFETERIA, MORNING

Where was Blitzwing?

Lugnut ignored the nurse's fussing over his foot, even as it howled objections to his ill treatment of it the night before, pounding through the town in search of his wingmate, reportedly helpless and injured by an attack the night before-- and not finding him, not seeing even a glimpse of his crazy triple-changing ally.

Snarling at the nurse, but restraining himself from shows of violence-- Blitzwing would mock him if he showed up drugged already, and he would be useless to Megatron like that--he made his way impatiently to the cafeteria, stopping for just long enough to post an urgent notice on the board.

Where was he?

Looming in the middle of the cafeteria, he took the tray the nurse handed him (filled with disgusting human fuel, didn't she know he didn't have time to eat, not when his wingmate was missing?) and ignored it, watching for Blitzwing, where was he?

He refused to think about what might have happened to a wheelchair-bound, drugged, incapacitated warrior, with the swarms of monsters flooding around him, clawing and biting...

[for Scourge]

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Artemis shook his head, thinking back. "No, just swarms upon swarms of revenants. I think I might have seen an animal akin to those in the building, but other than the biting-types, nothing." He frowned, "What do you mean by special snowflake?" Perhaps he meant that their opponent hadn't gone down with a simple kick? That using explosive force on his head was the only way to down him?

"Ow," Artemis said through his stretched cheek. He decided that he was happy his parents' siblings didn't visit them at all--this sort of behavior would have been commonplace, otherwise. Oh wait--it already was.

"Talk like that could damage my ego," Artemis replied, giving Badou a flat look. "Unhand my face, villain."

"I forgot what a delicate flower your ego was." Badou replied, but since he was no longer being threatened with food, he let Artemis' face go without much further abuse.

"The barkeep was hard to take down. He was strong, and pretty fast for a zombie. Not as stupid as the rest either. Bigger. And he roared like he thought he was the fucking lion king. Three of us were fighting him." It might not be pertinent information anymore, but if they ended up in a situation like that again he'd rather Artemis - and presumably Haku - get their asses into gear while they could still outrun the damn thing.

But that wasn't what he really needed to bring up. He debated with himself briefly, but those things could be back as soon as tonight and it was better that Artemis hear it from him before he actually ran into anything. "And there's a rumor going around about another type; some of the patients that died here were out there."

Artemis was quiet for a moment, wondering if Renji had been among that group. Or even Hitsugaya, even though he was alive now--or his 'alternate' self was or... honestly it was too upsetting to think about.

"Oh..." he said, finding himself unable to say anything else. "That... has implications that I can't exactly think about right now, but if you give me a few minutes, I'll think of something..."

He poked at his salad again, trying not to think about people who had vanished being trapped in their own bodies as undead--unable to die or leave their hell. Which meant, of course...

"We can't die here," Artemis said, connecting the dots. "We can't die, or we'll end up like that."

There went his last resort, he supposed.

"Yup, so you should eat your salad unless you want me to feed it to you." Badou replied, apparently non-plussed. "Think of it as more incentive to not die."

Though he continued in much the same tone, he reached over and rested a hand on Artemis' head. "You know, just in case you didn't have enough to deal with."

Artemis laughed weakly, not minding the comforting hand on his head this time. "No, of course not. Currently I just have a half-dead boyfriend, Schuldig who's lost Crawford again, you who won't eat, and an afterlife as a mindless zombie on my mind. Fortunately I only tend to worry about the things that happen to me mere hours previous--like a goldfish."

He half-heartedly stabbed his salad. "I'm not sure if this is supposed to rally my spirit to fight harder, or utterly destroy it. But I think I have some time before I completely self-destruct in a cloud of logic."

That was news to him. Not the half-dead boyfriend part, but Schuldig losing his partner (?) again. Badou couldn't say he felt terribly remorseful since Yohji was still around and he didn't walk around like he had a skyscraper up his ass, but he was the last person to be talking about other people's choices in friends.

Also, apparently, he failed at kids. That wasn't news at least. "I don't know where you got the impression that I was a cheerleader. I mean, I look cute in the skirt but that's beside the point. I'm just telling you what's going on because it might keep you alive a little longer to know and it's better than finding out the hard way." Sadly enough, this was the easy way. "That's all there is Arty. Life sucks, and then it sucks more, but you live anyway if you're lucky."

"I'll be fine." He added, almost as an afterthought. "I'll eat later. I'm not starving myself like a moron. Just not hungry right now, I promise."

Artemis stared at his plate intently as Badou spoke. While the skirt comment was most likely meant to soften the 'I'm not going to console you' blow. As much as he tried to avoid using the psychologist gloves with people he was friends with, Artemis was angry that the outcome wasn't the one he had wanted.

He couldn't get angry with Badou, though. He couldn't take out his despair and frustration on Badou, because that wasn't what he wanted. Realism was taking over his life, and he wanted someone to tell him he could defy this. That he would live anyway.

"No, I don't live if I'm lucky--I live because I work for it. That is the difference between you and me. You're fatalistic to a fault, in this building at least. But where I came from, if I had to jump out of a building to save myself and three others, I would. When my manservant and only friend took a bullet for me, I didn't sit there and say he wasn't 'lucky', I saved his life. So, forgive me if I don't agree that 'that's all there is, Arty'."

He paused for a moment and then stabbed his fork into his waffles. It stuck upright. Frustration taken out on his waffles, he was able to take a calming deep breath.

If Artemis had been looking for someone to tell him everything was alright, that person wasn't going to be Badou. It had never been him. He took Arty's mind off the big bad world for a while and let him sob into his shirt and treated him like family - but he never said things would be alright somehow. In Badou's experience, things were never alright. You laughed, you killed shit, and you kept going. Artemis was right. That was one of the biggest differences between them. When threatened Artemis acted, forced his own way like the stubborn brat he was. Badou reacted. Always. He spent his whole life backed against the edge of something deep and dark and ugly.

He opened his mouth to say something, but instead he laughed, the sound as harsh as gunfire and about as cheerful. "You're forgiven. Feeling better now that the waffles know their place?"

"Yes," Artemis said, a little annoyed that Badou hadn't said anything in reply to his small tirade. He went to all the trouble of pointing out a serious character flaw and all Badou could talk about was Artemis' waffles and the fork that was now slouching in them.

"And no. They didn't do anything. They're just waffles." He pushed his tray back and folded his arms on the table. He looked at the opposite wall, as though trying to read something written on it in small print.

"Do you truthfully believe that you are going to get out of here?" he asked.

Badou shrugged as if this didn't matter in the slightest, and after a moment he folded his arms against the back of the chair and rested his chin on them. "The pancakes are good. I might get out of here, I might die tonight. It doesn't matter what I believe if I get my head bitten off."

He stopped. That was pretty much all he had to say on the subject. Or he would have stopped anyway, but Arty wasn't the only one with a few million raw nerves. He didn't even notice his hand reaching down to paw at his pocket for an absent cigarette.

"Where I come from, when you jump off a building you hit the pavement like bird shit. When your friend gets shot, you rip the bullet out and stitch it up and you get lucky because the hospitals won't take you. Unless you're Haine. Then you just defy every law of the universe and good manners and fall into my apartment at three in the fucking morning and sit around and bitch while I use my good tweezers to pull bullets out of your pasty ungrateful unlikable ass. And then you end up here telling me this shit is real." Badou rarely got angry, but he was practically snarling by this point. "Un-fucking-forgivable. You think I'm going to let that go? We're partners. I have shit to finish back home."

He flashed Artemis a grin. "I might die, I might not. Is that supposed to mean something?"

On the one hand, Artemis had never seen Badou this angry. Outwardly, at least. It inspired a strange, dawning kind of fear--the kind that someone had when they slowly (or quickly) came to realize that an oncoming car was not going to slow down or stop. For this reason, he didn't say anything for a long time after Badou stopped ranting.

On the other, Artemis felt relieved that Badou actually felt something. It was hard to work towards a goal with apathetic compatriots. Certainly Butler was always telling Artemis that whatever he was planning wasn't going to work or was too crazy for even Artemis to consider relatively sane, but any energy was energy. If Badou, someone Artemis depended on to keep him focused and upright, began talking as though it were all over, he wouldn't have been able to take that.

"It would mean something to me," Artemis said, looking back at Badou.

He stared at Artemis a moment, then shook his head and rested it on his arms again, expression unreadable. After a moment, he snorted softly. "You're such a girl."

He sat up enough to drag Artemis' plate of much-abused waffles over and remove the fork so he could cut off a small section. He held it out to Artemis. "Say 'ah' or I start making airplane noises and tell the nurses you're trying to look like a supermodel."

"I'm a what?" Artemis asked, ready to be indignant. He watched Badou cut up his food for him, frowning a little.

There was no negotiating himself out of this situation. Badou was a dangerous man, prone to fits of picking up children without their consent, and he was armed and dangerous with a fork and threatening to poke even more fun at Artemis' age. He couldn't defend himself against that. So he did the only thing he could: he pouted.

"Well, I wouldn't want you to look stupid," Artemis replied, his tone obviously implying the exact opposite. He opened his mouth and took the waffle bit, though.

"Just remember how much you like me." Badou replied. The only thing his tone implied was that he was a total and utter dick, and Artemis was doing very little to discourage this behaviour.

He cut off another waffle bit, ready and waiting for when the boy finished chewing the first. "Ahh. Allelujah was going to make a scrapbook out of the things he likes about me. Maybe you should help him out. You might be more artistically inclined than a guy who kills people with giant robots."

Artemis paused mid-chew when Badou mentioned Allelujah's apparent occupation. He considered this for a moment, then nodded and continued to chew. "Possibly. I suppose if all he does is kill people with giant robots, then yes he may be stunted in his right-brain.

"Or he could be a very creative robot-operator. Kill people in creative ways. But I suppose I could lend a hand. I did forge a few paintings in my day," he finished, opening his mouth for more waffle.

Badou had more-or-less intended to feed Artemis waffle until he got sick of it and grabbed the fork to do it himself. He should have known better. For all of his epic pouting maneuvers, he liked being pampered. Geez, kids these days. It was a good thing he didn't have an adopted nephew or anything to spoil rotten by doting on him like...would that make him an uncle whale? Did uncle whales dote or just kind of lay around in the water being like WHALES FUCK YEAH?

Oh god, he hoped Haine never showed up. He would never live this down. Never. They'd be zombies together and Haine would still be laughing his undead ass off.

...What were they talking about before he was mortified? Oh yeah. Alle.

"He did do the whole zombie head explosion thing, but you might be better at color-coordination. Don't tell him he has brain damage though. He gets kinda pissy." Another bite of waffle appeared on cue. "What'd you think of him anyway?"

"He seemed a little quiet," Artemis said after some thoughtful chewing. "However if he had been offended by our antics, I would think he would have run off never to return."

It was curious though--Artemis hadn't pegged Allelujah as the type to have brain damage, though he did exhibit some signs of trauma. But who didn't, here? By his guess, though, trauma could stem from killing people with giant robots. Unless he was a psychopath and a serial killer who's MO was a giant robot. Anyway.

"I liked him," Artemis said with a smile. "If he's able to put up with you and Schuldig, as well as my delusions of grandeur, that marks him as an interesting person by default. More syrup this time." He opened his mouth like a baby bird waiting to be fed.

In the beginning, Artemis would have found this sort of behavior to be forever incriminating--cannon fodder for Mello's never-ending tirade on Artemis' character and brilliance. However, not only was he feeling more secure nestled in a den of assassins (figuratively speaking), he did like the feeling of being taken care of. He'd taken care of himself for so long, acting like a child this once seemed... fun.

Badou obligingly poured more syrup onto the waffles, cut off a piece, and lifted it to his own mouth, showing no signs of obliging Artemis. "What's the magic word?"

He accepted that Artemis was a brat, but he wasn't going to let him be a rude brat on top of that. He was only responsible for corrupting him with good pornography and swear words in three or four different languages. Oh, and spoiling him since he happened to be the favourite nephew. But only if he asked nicely.

"Alle's kinda shy. He doesn't get out much," He added, cutting off another bite of waffle. "But he's not bad once he warms up. He's crazy enough to keep pace with the rest of us if that's what you're asking. Split personalities. Bad emo hair. Puppy dog eyes that would give you a run for your money. You know, normal."

Edited 2009-08-13 04:31 (UTC)

"Well, if he only has one personality disorder, then he's a fair bit behind the rest of us, but we can probably make the hair thing look good on his application. Though I don't know how I feel about signing someone on who could out-puppy-dog-eye me," he said with a smirk. Even he could even do such a thing. Probably not voluntarily, but when the situation called for it he probably could.

On the waffles front, Artemis was glad that Badou was eating something, even if it meant he himself was left with his mouth hanging open. He frowned for a moment, then realized he could work the situation to something else he wanted. Smirking, he stood up. "You're welcome."

He returned with his own fork, then moved the plate of waffles between them.

"As long as you don't try to team up. That's against the rules and grounds for being dunked in the lake nightly for the next month." He had to make the threat clear after all. A team attack was the last thing he needed - though in all fairness, Artemis didn't even need puppy dog eyes. He was working the whole helpless kitten angle just fine.

Badou watched up get up and come back again and almost laughed. "You're a little shit," He said, pointing with a forkful of waffle. "I respect that."

Edited 2009-08-13 19:51 (UTC)

Artemis laughed. "Well at least you respect something about me. That's a clear relief. Even if it's my subtle ability to make you eat something. Or just twist things in my favor every once in a while."

He sat back down and began cutting himself some waffle. "And what rules? I don't remember us establishing a set of rules, least of which a set of rules where I'm dunked in a lake as punishment. I think I would have protested that clause heavily."

"I should've known that was your plan all along." Badou replied dryly. There was plenty on the plate, so it wasn't like either of them were going to starve if they shared it. As long as Artemis was eating, he'd at least take a few bites every now and again. He just wished he'd taken the pancakes instead. Waffles were so inferior.

"The rules I just made up a few seconds ago. Feel free to protest if you think it'll make a difference." He bit into his piece of waffle, smirking. "But you should know protests are also subject to punishment equal to twice the projected humiliation of the last threatened punishment." He added, mimicking Artemis' voice. "I think that means I'll have to hang you naked from the ceiling and have a wild dance party after all."

Artemis pouted ~~as befitted a man~~ and looked up at the ceiling. He didn't see how throwing him in the lake was only equal to half the humiliation he would feel if Badou strung him up naked and had a dance party (and he didn't even glow that way anyway...), but Badou had a good point: protesting wouldn't make any difference. Like parking tickets.

"I think these rules you've made up are idiotic," he said, spearing himself another bite of waffle and putting it in his mouth. "And I do not sound like that."

"Yes you do." Badou replied, equally mature.

"And I like my rules." He was busy chewing contently. It wasn't like Artemis' opinion mattered. "If you keep pouting at me I'm going to build up a resistance. One day I'll be immune, and then you're screwed because I won't be so nice anymore."

"I'll have to resort to recruiting Allelujah then. Once you're immune, all bets and rules are off. Tyranny of the majority," Artemis said, grinning.

He put some more waffle in his mouth. "And I do not."

Several minutes passed and the argument about whether or not Artemis sounded like a high-pitched member of the Home Shopping Network finally came to a close. The waffles were also consumed and Artemis was finishing off some scrambled eggs and a fruit cup.

"All I'm pointing out," he said, spearing a chunk of pineapple. "Is that even if you were able to throw a dance party at night, how many people would actually come? The lack of free food and music would pose a problem, I would think."

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