Day 44: Lunch

[mizuhomaiden.livejournal.com]

That had been a very frustrating shower. For many reasons. At least Raine was going to at least look at Forte. Hopefully, she'll actually heal him. The showers had also succeeded in making the ninja feel like a pervert. A mild one, but still... It was as if Yukari had picked that spot in the showers because she knew the ninja could easily see her.

Ugh! Damn youkai.

Squirreling herself away in a corner of the cafeteria, Sheena finger combed her wet hair before pulling it back with the bright red ribbon. She so needed her own hair ribbon back. She was attempting to formulate her plan of acquisition - she was ninja after all - as people started trickling into the room. The plan was put on pause, though, when her stomach rumbled.

Food now - plan later.

[Closed to Haseo and Endrance]

Comments

[justanimpulse.livejournal.com]

[:D?]

Not really know what to do with himself, Bart had just messed around with some markers and construction paper for most of the shift. Now it was time to eat again, and...he still didn't really know what to do with himself. Was it possible to actually get bored with emotional trauma? Well, if it was, then Bart was probably the person to suffer from it.

Filling his tray as usual, Bart cast around for a likely seat mate, finally settling on some guy with...blue hair? That was different.

"Hey, is this seat taken?" he asked, putting his tray down next to the other guy's. He'd only just realized, with a belatedness that was pretty bad even for him, that he'd been acting kind of rude lately, just sitting next to people without even a greeting in some cases. Well, he'd been traumatized. It was a decent excuse. Besides, he'd do better from now on.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Glancing up from his pile of leaves ("They're good for you, Mr. Price!"), Depth Charge found himself looking at a kid. Who actually looked like he might have been a little younger than Forte. The slaggers. Sure, people didn't always look their age here, but it still fired something good and self-righteous up inside him to know that they didn't have any problem with keeping sparklings here.

Now that was just a bad mood waiting to happen. He chased the feeling into the back of his mind with a shrug before it could settle any or leave a sour taste in his mouth. "Go ahead."

[justanimpulse.livejournal.com]

It was just as well Bart didn't look his age, or things could have been...awkward.

"Thanks," he said, seating himself and tearing into one of the many burgers he'd piled on his tray. "My name's Bart," he added, because he was after all trying to be social. Brooding alone in the dark just wasn't his thing.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

The name sounded human enough, even if that appetite didn't. Slag. Depth Charge couldn't stop himself from raising his eyebrows, or prevent the slight, startled delay between Bart's introduction and his own. "Depth Charge. Are you even chewing?"

[justanimpulse.livejournal.com]

"Mmph?" Whoops, caught him mid-mouthful. Wait just a couple seconds... After swallowing, Bart grinned sheepishly. "Of course I am. I'm just...really, really hungry." Okay, looks like he needed to tone it down a little. With all his focus turned inward in the wake of the sleep study, he hadn't really cared what anyone thought of him...And he still didn't, technically, but he wanted to care. He wanted to go back to the way he'd been before, even if he had to drag his subconscious kicking and screaming the entire way. So. Time to slow down just a little, Bart.

For some reason, the internal voice that sounded like Max actually helped a little.

"That's an interesting name," he said, employing the time-honored technique of distract, distract, change the subject and distract. "Where are you from?"

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Cute. Depth Charge hadn't meant to be catty, but apparently Bart was a little more aware of himself than he'd pegged him to be. That, or there was something bugging him and getting called out on his table manners was just the cyber-icing on the cake- a suspicion only furthered by the sudden subject switcheroo.

Still, he wasn't going to be the one to push it. Last time someone had tried that with him he'd near bitten their head off, and you just couldn't be sure about the people around here. And if it was a distraction he wanted... "Cybertron. I'm guessing you're an Earthling?" There. That should give the kid something to chew on other than his lunch and his troubles.

[justanimpulse.livejournal.com]

"I'm guessing that's another planet?" And with a name like that, what kind of people lived there, robots or something? Still, the kid from the future wasn't about to call anyone else's home weird; it was actually kind of interesting to talk to an alien. An alien other than Superman, that is.

"And yeah, I'm human." Oh yeah; Depth Charge definitely had to be an alien. Who else actually used words like "Earthling." Bart actually felt kind of bad for him; the institute wasn't exactly casting Earth in a positive light. "Have you ever been to Earth before?" he asked, suddenly hoping that there wouldn't be some kind of invasion scheduled out of revenge once they all got out of here. That was the kind of thing aliens did in all the video games, after all.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Depth Charge couldn't help but smile at that. He was taking it pretty well, for someone who'd just been given the We Are Not Alone spiel up close and personal. Huh. He'd always thought humans were sensitive about that kind of thing.

He shrugged, clicking his tongue thoughtfully. "Yeah, I've been to Earth before. Crash-landed there before I came here. Can't say I know too much about it but the oceans are pretty nice." Any more of that slag and he'd sound like a walking brochure for universal travel. "Though I have to say, it's kinda tough to admire the scenery when you spend most of your time being thrown into it."

[justanimpulse.livejournal.com]

"Okay...?" Bart laughed quietly, taking the alien-weirdness in stride. "Can't say I ever payed much attention to the oceans before..." Water, dirt, it all felt more or less the same if you ran fast enough. If anything, oceans were boring because they didn't have any people to talk to or buildings to look at. "But if that's your thing...What do you mean though, 'getting thrown into it?' What did you used to do before ending up here?"

He'd started out just asking questions as a distraction, but he was beginning to grow honestly interested anyway.

[scalyfishman.livejournal.com]

Hey, don't underestimate the oceans, kid. Don't come crying to me when you fall in and no one's there to fish you out again. "Well, for starters, I crash-landed there on a mission. As if that wasn't bad enough? I fell straight into a war."

And just look where that much had brought him- dead but still trapped in a purgatory for the Pit, while X... Depth Charge felt something flicker across his face that hardened his expression, drained some of the warmth from his smile. That coldness had been trapped in there all along, splintered and ugly inside him somewhere he didn't want to think about. Ignoring it was all he could do for now. He forced it down so hard he could have choked on it and instead forced a smile out. "You ever seen a robot showdown? It's not pretty."

[justanimpulse.livejournal.com]

A robot war on Earth? Bart found himself thinking back to the former site of Coast City, that he'd visited once during an impromptu race against Superboy. Just one cyborg -- or rather, the Cyborg -- had destroyed an entire city, even with a handful of A-list superheroes trying to take him down. What kind of damage could more than one do? At least it wasn't happening in his dimension -- Robin would have mentioned something like a robot war, Bart was sure of it -- but for some reason that didn't really make Bart feel better.

And then Depth Charge's face changed. He tried to hide it of course, but even with Bart's superspeed inaccessible during the day, he could still experience things in subjective time. In fact, he didn't have much choice in the matter. So he got to see every nuance of expression cross Depth Charge's face -- and for once, he was looking.

He flinched back slightly. An expression like that wouldn't have looked out of place on Batman's face.