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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[boyking]

That conversation with Dean just now wasn't the conversation Sam had been preparing for when he'd woken up this morning. But maybe that was good. He'd dodged any questions about Peter or the demon and that whole trip "home" and while he was pretty sure that wasn't the end of it—Dean was no doubt going to ask when he wasn't so distracted by his own whacky situation—at least he'd avoided it for now.

Man, it was way too early to deal with this crap.

He should probably try to find Ruby today, too, shouldn't he? Tell her about what happened, let her know about the knife. See if she had any similar crazy experiences last night. Or, you know, if she'd encountered any robots and time machines, as well.

But not at the moment. He wasn't in any rush to talk to her, and if she needed him, she knew where he was. He still wasn't sure how he felt about Ruby being here in such close proximity with Dean—it was just weird. They were the two parts of his life he'd never intended to collide; Dean had been dead, after all, when he'd dropped pretty much everything that'd had to do with his old life. In a way, he'd always been kinda glad Ruby had hopped bodies. It made it easier to separate things.

Absently grabbing a plate of pancakes and some fruit, he made his way around some tables, trying to locate an unoccupied space. He'd stayed a little longer in the chapel after the initial wave of patients were herded out, which meant a good chunk of them had already found their seats. Dean was talking with a girl a couple of tables off. No surprises. Sam didn't interrupt, though he did cast his brother a glance as he slipped between two chairs with barely an inch of room to maneuver through. Jeez. Crowds and a tray of food didn't mix well.

He found an empty table before anything went flying, nestled between the wall and another wall. He wouldn't say no to some time to himself, but it felt useless, as well, not to be doing anything. There was only so much thinking that could happen before his thoughts began divebombing in a very bad and unproductive direction.

Like, say, now, for instance.

He frowned and speared a piece of bacon, severed the tail end with his knife.

[Team GQMF right here, bitches.]

[doneinthree]

Kirk was late getting to brunch, feeling neither hungry nor in desperate need of a scenery change when the Head Doctor's voice rang out for the second time this morning. Alright, fine, if he was being honest, he would've had to admit that the idea of going outside did sound pretty nice. Despite a half-dozen attempts last night, he hadn't had a single taste of fresh air since the field trip... or a taste of anything, at that.

It wasn't as if the food here was unpalateable (far from it, really), but he wasn't going to fall for it, okay? He'd felt himself slide that way a few days before — musing on the expert job they'd done at treating his wounds, feeling almost glad for the things they did get in here — and had reared up just in time realize the path of his thoughts. The last thing he would ever feel towards their captors was gratefulness. The last thing he would ever do was even come close to accepting this scenario.

But there was only so long he could rebel before the staff considered extreme measures, so Kirk headed into the cafeteria eventually, seeing most of the prisoner population already seated. His nurse went as far as loading up a tray and forcing it on him with the efficiency of a yeoman (not that he'd ever been served by a yeoman, so he wasn't sure where that mental image came from—) before sending him off.

It was a wonder he got through the crowd in one piece, what with his attention more on faces than on his own feet, but if Chekov was around, Kirk hadn't seen him. Which, he reminded himself, didn't mean anything. Spock and Bones answered the bulletin, but it had happened before that one of them hadn't noticed messages until almost the end of the day. Hell, a couple of times, that someone had been Jim.

Only after Kirk had plunked his tray down on an empty place did he bother looking at his meal for today: waffles, eggs, sausage, bacon, tater tots, and a glass of milk. Wow. "You know, my appetite's as healthy as any other human male, but even I have to wonder what all this food's doing to us."

Kirk glanced at the other guy seated with him, wasting a second to look over the build of those shoulders, and the length of the legs stretched out under the table.

"Well... obviously good things, in your case."

[boyking]

Sam was mostly frowning down at his plate and the journal in front of him in an effort to tune out the rest of the people around him—there wasn't any point in keeping a very close eye on his surroundings during the day; it wasn't like he was in a dining hall full of covert assassins (...probably)—so he didn't quite notice anyone approaching until he saw part of a person's torso and heard the quiet clatter of the tray.

His pen paused midway through drawing a line from one end of the institute to the other on the impromptu map he'd sketched out on a napkin. He glanced up and set the pen down. Blue eyes, blond hair, otherwise nondescript—though Sam wouldn't be surprised if the guy had turned out to have played football in college or high school or something.

He raised an eyebrow at the remark and offered a smile, deftly sweeping his stuff out of the way to make room. Plus, you know. His notes. Not quite something he wanted anybody to see, even here where it wouldn't appear as crazy as back home.

"As long as we don't go down the Hansel and Gretel route," he replied. Though yeah, that plate did look a bit piled high. Even Dean might've had trouble finishing it. Or...no, okay, maybe not. Dean would've finished it just fine.

Anyway, he wasn't really surprised to end up with a table mate. It seemed to happen more often than not, which Sam was still trying to adjust to after spending...God, years on his own, or with only Dean or Ruby as company. He hadn't had this constant stream of people since college.

Still, the man was friendly enough and Sam couldn't say he minded holding casual, superficial conversations. As tired as he was sometimes of pretending all the time, he couldn't deny it was a comfort zone of sorts. It was something he knew how to do.

Deciding the guy looked like the hand-shaking type, he held out a hand. "I'm Sam."