Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand, there were clearly some things that made even time throw up its hands in vain and say, "To hell with this!" Guybrush was still inexorably prone to disastrous accidents if the story about the Pox of LeChuck was anything to go by, and he was so obviously keeping something important from her that any passing dolt in the Institute would have been able to tell. In the end, that eternal underlying sweetness of his that won out, keeping her from punching him again, at least. That was only by a hairs width, though. Her snugglecakes was going to have to stay on his best behaviour if he knew what was good for him.

She left the Mighty Pirate™ alone for the time being when the announcement of the next shift went off. He would want some time to catch up with Morgan next, presumably. As much as the woman's attitude bothered her, she was a friend of Guybrush's, as she had claimed. Elaine could be strict, but she wasn't the kind of shrewish future wife/past fiancé who would keep her man from seeing his friends. Besides, she needed some more time to catch up on the goings-on of the Institute. Patients filled the building to the brim, now, it seemed; there would be a lot to investigate.

After a few quick trips back and forth to the bulletin and a few new leads to follow up on, the governor gave in to her nurse's persistent nagging and headed to the cafeteria for brunch. After the relatively light fare of the day before, Elaine took advantage of the Institute's admittedly scrumptious offerings and loaded up a full, balanced brunchfast of eggs, sausage links, waffles, and vegetable soup. As expected, the selection of drinks did not offer either root beer or grog. Grog she could live without, at least, she thought while making a face. Eugh. For now, she settled for a tall glass of water.

Elaine settled into a seat in the cafeteria and tucked into her meal. Her eyes didn't stay on her food, though, instead gazing around restlessly; she hadn't seen LeChuck so far this morning, and god forbid he wanted to invite himself to brunch with her if he chose now to show up. A certain horribly unpleasant dinner on Mêlée Island came to mind. She was prepared to either move at the first sign of the dread pirate or signal a random stranger to sit with her before he could.

[For Dean]

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[kindalikedit]

Dean beat Sam to the cafeteria. For once he just wasn't real hungry, and while he knew he'd wolf down whatever he put on his plate, it was just kinda more keeping his mouth busy than actually being starving.

He heaped on some eggs and tacos - might as well mix the two for some variety - and glanced around the cafeteria, giving a casual scan of the room. Same number of nurses and orderly standing guard, for the most part evenly spaced out and keeping an eye on their charges. They'd done this song and dance over and over before. Considering the Scooby Do teleport doors from last night and he wasn't even sure how good the odds were of just walking out, even assuming they could in good conscience leave these folks. So far no sign of the Doctor, either. Considering the Doctor was the only one who knew about the trip to the TARDIS, he figured the guy was still alive, what with that note and all on the bulletin board.

Maybe he should shove Sam at the Doctor, see what he made of the guy. At the very least Dean would feel better watching Sam trying to puzzle the Doctor out.

He picked a seat at random. Okay, maybe it wasn't entirely random; the chick there was hot and that was good enough for him. Dean slid into the seat across from her, setting down his tray and juggling the cup with water in it with ease as he flashed her a smile.

"Breakfast of champions you got there, sweetheart."

[Hitting up Elaine]

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

All right, maybe not just any random stranger, she thought. It seemed that without her even trying to get someone's attention, a man had appeared to fill the seat across from her, and he looked to be the flirtatious type. At least he had all his teeth and wasn't stinking drunk on grog; that was more than she could say for most of the men who had tried to flirt with her in the past (undead ones aside).

She raised an eyebrow slightly at the "sweetheart," but didn't make anything else of it. He wasn't being that rude yet, at least. Besides, now she had an opportunity to talk to someone who hadn't been stuck at the Institute the previous day. And who wasn't Guybrush. "What they offered us here yesterday was snack food at best. I'm just making up for lost calories," she answered, the corner of her mouth quirking up. "Last night didn't exactly help."

[kindalikedit]

A chick who didn't think an apple a day counted as pigging out. Dean could dig that.

He used his fork to lump in some scrambled egg into the first of the tacos. The scrambled eggs were toeing that line between awesome and kickass, the perfect consistency where it was fluffy but a little soggy at the same time. The only thing missing was some Tabasco or something. It wasn't worth getting up for though. He shrugged, taking a bite into the taco and remembering just in time not to just wipe his mouth with the back of his hand like he would've with Sam. Dean reached for a napkin.

"Guessing you got the same ride as the others," Dean looked up over the taco at the chick. "I'm Dean, by the way."

He'd grin at her but doing it with scrambled eggs in your teeth wasn't exactly pulling a Casanova there. What was it with this joint? Why were all the chicks hot or really hot? It was like there was no middle ground and he'd yet to see someone actually plain or looking like they got hit by the ugly truck. Well, at least on the chick side of it - he didn't exactly spend his time checking out all the guys here to grade 'em on attractiveness.

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

So the man had a bare minimum standard of table manners, too. If she had been at home, Elaine would have hit the motherload on tablemates with Dean. 

"If by 'ride' you mean being flung to the four corners of the Institute before being dumped at the bottom of a muddy hole in the ground, then yes, I did," she answered with a short, somewhat weary chuckle. "I prefer the Madly Rotating Buccaneer, myself."

The eggs were hard to resist given the relish with which Dean was going at them. She had to admit, they were indeed quite good, but gourmet Puerto Pollo eggs had spoiled her. Nothing like an egg straight from the hen to the frying pan, in her opinion. It almost made not being allowed to eat the actual chickens tolerable.

"I'm Governor Marley," she introduced herself out of habit after a few more bites. A pause, followed by a correction. "Or just Elaine Marley here, I suppose. I think we're just a little bit outside my jurisdiction." 

Following introductions, Elaine figured it would be best to get to more relevant matters. "So, Dean, I'm curious: how long have you been here so far? I didn't see you with the new patients here yesterday. I take it that means you have some experience with this place?" she asked. With any luck, he would be able to give her a clearer picture of the Institute than Guybrush. Adorable though her fiancé/husband was, he did tend to ramble off into tangents a lot. He had gotten to manatees of all things back in the chapel. Honestly. There was a time and place for manatees. 

[kindalikedit]

Governor Marley, huh? Had to say, she wasn't quite what he expected when he thought of a governor.

Although once you looked past the hotness factor, it was kinda troubling though. The random person jacked off the street was fairly easy to miss. Family and friends would look, maybe the local police - or the nearest hunter, if the circumstances were suspicious enough - but other than that, the average civilian missing here and there wasn't exactly enough to get media attention, to put it bluntly. Misplacing a governor was considerably harder to explain and if Landels Institute was trying to keep a low profile, it wasn't exactly keeping a good job at keeping its head down. This many people getting snatched and he didn't care what universe or dimension or whatever someone came from: it had to be turning heads. People had to start noticing, right?

Dean wasn't sure how to react to a Governor. Couldn't say he'd spent a whole lot of time cozying up to big wigs there, unless it was for a job and they needed info. That kind of attention wasn't normally something he'd much wanted, the kind that got him a paper trail (or any trail). But it wasn't like they were gonna arrest him all over again in Landels; getting arrested would probably be a step up, actually.

"Been here over a week," Dean said. He gave Governor Marley a lop-sided grin. "Guess that makes me a vet. The whole beaming thing last night wasn't exactly the usual but..."

He shrugged.

"It's not exactly normal at night either. Lots of stuff knocking around, if y'know what I mean."

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

"So I'm told," Elaine answered interestedly. "Our group didn't encounter anything of the sort last night, but my—" she took a half-second to decide between time periods "—fiancé was mentioning monsters this morning."

It was good to know that the random teleportation wasn't a normal occurrence, at least. Though, she had to wonder why exactly it wasn't. Judging by last night, Elaine had to figure it was an effective way to keep the patients from making much meaningful progress at night. Perhaps the method used to keep the event (for lack of a better term) going was too energy intensive to use all the time?

In any case, it was probably better to learn about what was more common in the Institute for now. Basics first, fancy stuff later. "What kinds of things have you seen 'knocking around,' exactly? I have far more experience dealing with the undead than frankly I would care to have, so I'd be prepared for that, at least. Just hearing 'monsters' doesn't really tell me how much my experience applies here, though," she explained. Her tone was professional yet light, as though speaking of the undead were as common a thing to be discussing as tax returns.

[kindalikedit]

Getting nabbed with the fiance in tow had to be a tough break.

Although that kinda fell by the wayside when Marley dropped the undead hunter in his lap. Dean didn't stop eating or pause to stare, his gaze just flickering back to the woman for a second longer than normal as he wondered if he needed to revise that first impression. Well, okay, no, she still had a nice rack on her. That hadn't changed. But now he was wondering if she was really a governor or if that was some kind of title, like Ash's Dr. Badass - and he wasn't gonna get caught up thinking about the Roadhouse burning to the ground, not when he still had a job to do. Dean pretended to be busy scooping in the rest of the egg into the last taco.

Sure, there was weird shit here, but he was still glossing over the bit about the Daleks until he jumped the Doctor and shook some answers outta the guy.

There was monsters and then there was pure crazy.

"Well, seen a few ghosts and something in the kennels," Dean said, glancing at her, probing. If Sam and him could get their act together, the kennels at least could be torched. He broke out into an easygoing grin, "Gotta say, you're not what I expected a Ghostbuster to look like."

The problem with being in a fake mental institute was he didn't know for sure who was really from another "world" like the Doctor or Peter, giving him a cover story or were really not firing on all four cylinders. Ruby, fine. Sam had vouched for her and he trusted Sam's judgment, even if the kid was holding out on him about something. He'd just met Elaine. They weren't exactly close to knowing exactly what was haunting this place or roaming the halls, much less being able to compile a list to pass around.

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

The brief glance didn't go unnoticed by Elaine, and by itself was enough to tell her at least a little bit more about the man. Either Dean was from a place not so afflicted with ghosts and zombies and now thought she was a bit crazy, or he too was all too familiar with the undead (either here or at home) and had made a note to reappraise her. Judging from the lack of bugged-out eyes and/or eyebrow raising, she was betting the latter. He was going to be a lot more helpful to her if that was the case.

"Hmm, not a term I've heard before, but I like it," she answered to the bit about being a "Ghostbuster." What a great title that would make, she thought. Ghostbusters. Someone had better get on the trademark for that. "In any case, ghosts I've handled. Only problem is I'm betting this place doesn't stock any voodoo antiroot. Without that, dealing with ghosts is much more troublesome." Maybe that was why the Institute didn't offer root beer; it might be bad for the health of more than just the living residents. 

"What did you see in the kennels, then?" she asked, leaving the ghosts for later. "And where is that exactly?"

[kindalikedit]

She hadn't seen Ghostbusters apparently. That had to be a crime in some states.

Dean reached up and scratched his cheek. "Don't know exactly: we got beamed into it last night, so I'll have to see if it's possible to hoof it on foot." Providing he didn't run into the same deal with the teleports. "Looked like a bunch of mutated animals or something. Big claws, real nasty fangs, that sorta thing. Wouldn't want to run into 'em if they got loose."

If he had it his way, they wouldn't ever get loose. They'd just be nice and crispy and not a threat to any of the patients. As jobs went, it was fairly cozy. Point and shoot, and the target couldn't exactly charge you or do much hiding if you torched the cages. Sam might think that it was the least of their problems, all things considered, and Dean might agree, but still. If it wouldn't take them that long to deal with them, then they might as well torch 'em on their way to whatever else Sam had in mind.

[selfrescuer.livejournal.com]

It was understandable that Dean hadn't gotten any clues about where the kennel might have been. If it didn't have any windows or visible signage inside, there would be no way of telling. Either way, though, she definitely had to agree that something with that many potentially jugular-severing parts wouldn't do well to be let loose in the Institute. If they were anything like the pesky man-eating snakes of Plunder Island, she was all for taking that place down in a blaze.

"I'll keep that in mind as a place to find and mark for decidedly unpleasant things," she answered, tucking into a bit more of her brunch. "I wish I had more information to give you in return. Unfortunately, the most interesting place we wound up was that hole in the ground. A quarry, from the looks of it." She half-expected that maybe Dean would already know about a quarry, and if that was the case, then she really didn't have anything to offer at the moment. "I'll be sure to pass along anything useful I come across in the near future, though," she assured the man.