damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

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While some things last night had gone as planned; no one had been injured for instance, there was a lot that bothered him. The voices on the intercom were getting weirder every time he heard them, not to mention the overpowering scent of death that'd been almost everywhere last night. It made it really difficult to enjoy cake. Even Takashi had been rattled.

Honey put his things away before the nurse arrived and followed her tiredly to breakfast. It never felt like he got enough sleep here. Since there weren't any pancakes today, he just made sure to insist on plenty of syrup for his french toast and lots of strawberries to go on top. It wasn't cake, not by a long shot, but there was little use in getting upset at the nice nurses over that.

[Closed to Alfred]

Once he'd found the promised glitter Alfred prepared himself for the journey back to his assigned room. He'd opened the door leading back to the sun room... only to wake up back in his bed.

It was still rather disconcerting to suddenly find that he'd apparently been sleeping, but Alfred put on his slippers and slid two of the glitter jars into his pockets. He made sure that the thread and other glitter where out of sight when the nurse cheerfully burst into the room without so much as as knock.

"Well, good morning, Mr. Quartermain. I see that you've gotten yourself all ready for breakfast. Come along now."

Alfred followed her, silently contemplating the events of the previous night. The two bodies that he'd found in the arts and crafts room...

And then his nurse was shoving a tray filled with french toast and fruit into his arms and propelling him out into the cafeteria, urging him to make new friends. Alfred raised an eyebrow at her encouraging look before turning his attention to the people sitting at the tables. He was supposed to find someone named "Honey", who was probably a little girl, based on the description that had been given. Blond... with a pink rabbit.

Alfred started walking through the tables when he noticed a blond boy with a pink, stuffed rabbit sitting in his lap. "Excuse me, young sir?" Alfred set his tray down across from the boy. "Would you happen to be 'Honey'? I believe we spoke on the bulletin the other day."

"That's me!" Honey smiled brightly when the other man greeted him. He didn't recognize the face, but that was no reason not to be polite. This man seemed to be especially so.

"Haninozuka Mitsukuni, but Honey is a lot easier to say," he explained. "It's nice to meet you, ah- I don't think I caught your name mister. I'm sorry! Usually I'm really good with names." There were a couple of people he could think of that spoke so politely on the bulletin. One of them promised him cake. Maybe this day was luckier than he'd thought.

"My apologies, young sir. Alfred Pennyworth, at your service. I don't believe that my name was ever posted to the bulletin, but I do believe that I promised to try and bring you some glitter. I wasn't sure which kind would be best, so I brought you two of them, and I have a third in my room, if you would like that one as well."

He paused, allowing Haninozuka time to reply, and took a bite of his french toast. Like everything else that he'd eaten here, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't of excellent quality either. He ate some of the fruit instead, finding it to be a little better. It was hard to mess up fruit without making it entirely unpalatable.

The name sounded familiar, but Honey couldn't place it right away. When he mentioned the glitter though, Honey nodded, remembering the bulletin. Of course, that made sense. The one with the bat signal! He'd honestly expected someone closer to his own age trying something like that, but even older people could believe in super heroes. That was totally okay.

"Mm! I remember now!" he exclaimed. "You're really good at drawing the bat! This'll help me practice though, I think it'll be fun!" It would sure be great if Batman did know they were all trapped here though. Imagine how exciting the rescue would be!

Alfred smiled. "Thank you, young sir. I've had quite a bit of practice, believe it or not. Would you like me to give you the glitter that I found now, or is there a chance that the nurses would try confiscating it?"

This child certainly did seem to have a lot of energy, although Alfred did have to wonder what this place could possibly want with someone who appeared to be so young. Especially with how dangerous this place could be at night.

Honey couldn't help but wonder why Mr. Pennyworth would practice drawing the Batman signal a lot, but maybe he was a big fan? There were people who practice taking pictures of the Host Club a lot... or drawing pictures of them... making doujinshi even... so maybe it was sort of the same thing?

"I'll take good care of it," Honey promised, though he did glance over just to be sure the nurses weren't watching them too closely. "Promise!"

"Very good, young sir." Alfred removed the bottles of glitter from his pockets and handed them to Haninozuka under the table. It was just glitter, but if the nurses saw they would undoubtedly fabricate some reason about why it was hazardous to the patients if they weren't being supervised while using it. Perhaps they believed that somebody might try to eat it?

"I did happen to acquire a third bottle of glitter, but it's stars, suns, and moons, I believe, so it isn't nearly as fine as the glitter that I just gave you. If you would like that as well, however, I'm sure that some arrangement could be made."

[OMG I'm so sorry about my absolute fail in posting.]

Day 44: breakfast

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