damned_institute | Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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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"Ms. Morales," someone kept repeating right at the edge of Meche's consciousness. It didn't register at first, until a hand gently shook her shoulder and she started awake. It wasn't until then that she remembered she was Ms. Morales.

"Good morning, sleepyhead," the nurse was saying with a grin. "You've already slept through the first shift."

"I must just still be tired from the trip," Meche answered with a ready smile of her own as she got up, but privately she was concerned. She almost never slept late. Usually she made it to breakfast while Donna was still dozing. Wasn't that what Senna had said about the people who disappeared--that they started sleeping a lot right beforehand?

She tried to think of what might have happened to make her so late getting up, but she couldn't come up with anything--last night had really been pretty quiet, at least compared to how most of the others had been recently. There was the question of whether Manny was really gone...but Meche decided if anything, that should make her get up earlier and try to work harder. Well, she'd make a point of waking up on time tomorrow. She was probably just overreacting.

The cafeteria was already crowded by the time she stopped at the bulletin board and made it there. Meche made herself a tray with cereal and fruit and craned her neck, looking around the room for Remy, since they'd agreed to meet. She spotted him just as a man about her age took the seat across from him. After a second of hesitation, she headed over to them anyway--she guessed it couldn't hurt at least to ask.

"Good morning," she said pleasantly, nodding first at Remy and then at his friend. "Am I interrupting anything?"

When Meche appeared, carrying a tray of -- it looked like the kind of thing he'd seen advertised on the old lady's television as 'a sensible breakfast.' -- Remy had just been opening his mouth to answer Scarecrow. Instead, he turned his attention to the newest arrival, looking happy to see both of his friends.

"Interrupting? Naaaaah. We were talking about last night. We tried to go to the kitchen" -- he pointed to it with his empty fork -- "but we kept ending up in Doyleton, in the tool store and... Scott told me the other place was a movie store." He paused, then looked between both of them, and added, "Do you two know each other?"

"I don't believe we've met," the Scarecrow said with a smile, both replying to Remy's question while greeting the newcomer. He took a mental note of something Remy had said- movie store. So what he had taken from the store was a movie? Exactly what being a movie entailed escaped him, but he'd definitely find out. There had to be a reason he and his friends appeared on it. There was a good chance it had been put in Doyleton as another part of the Wizard Landel's trickery; however, he couldn't help but be curious.

Where were his manners? He sat up, realizing he'd not introduced himself. "How do you do, ma'am? I'm the Scarecrow."

The Scarecrow? Somebody needed new friends if that was the kind of nickname they gave him, but Meche managed to keep most of the surprise and extreme skepticism out of her expression. "Meche. Nice to meet you," she answered with a smile. And since it seemed like they weren't too busy for her company, she slid into the seat next to Remy's and began working her thumbnail carefully into the peel of an orange.

"So how did you end up in town?" she asked them both as she peeled. "There was something strange going on with some of the doors I went through, but they mostly all seemed to go different places in the building."

"They went to Doyleton, too," Remy said, his mouth full of egg (still not enough chervil, he thought). "We went over the wall from the field to the courtyard, on our way from the kitchen, and we were in the movie store. We kept winding up there, over and over, no matter where else we went. And Kibitoshin kept freaking out about zombies."

He paused, taking a sip of orange juice, then added, "There was one room where we thought we found a dead body, but it turned out to be a fake. Where did you go in the building? Did you end up in the kitchen at all?"

The Scarecrow gave an agreeing nod as Remy mentioned poor Kibitoshin and his fear of zombies. The way his fears left him in a panic reminded the strawman so much of his friend the Lion, though Kibitoshin actually had some legitimate reasons for worry, given how dangerous the crazed people in town had been during their last trip; Lion, on the other hand, feared the unknown, the imagined, and the downright unlikely. Even his own tail was a threat at times.

Not wanting to interrupt the conversation between Remy and Meche, the Scarecrow listened quietly, interested to hear where she'd found herself during the night. They'd gone as far as town- there were bound to be other interesting stories among the patients.

"Zombies? You didn't run into any of them, did you?" Meche stopped halfway through peeling and looked up in concern. A second later she realized that Remy of all people certainly couldn't have been this calm if they had. Not that she blamed him; she hadn't exactly been a model of coolness under pressure that night either. She turned her attention back to the orange.

"My group didn't get very far," she answered. "We were trying to get to the pharmacy, but I'm not really sure where we actually went. Then we went right back through the same door and landed in one of the file rooms just before the night ended." If the door also took people to a zombie-filled town, though, she guessed having an unproductive night like that was probably pretty lucky. "You both look like you made it out all right, so that's a relief," she added. Then, with a grin, "Did you pick up any good movies?"

"Nah, not really. Mostly it was just Kibitoshin freaking out. I don't know the guy too well, but that seems to be his thing." That it was also one of Remy's things was something he decided to leave out for the time being. Rats had good reason to run: most danger for him, in his life, had been mortal danger. Even at the Institute, it was mortal danger, but he didn't think it was quite as bad as things could get at home. That night in the Sun Room wasn't the first time someone had shot at him or his friends, and nobody had put him or anyone else he knew of in a jar and tried to drown them.

... Yet.

If the things in the video store were movies, like the ones that ran on the old lady's TV sometimes when she wasn't watching cooking shows, then it seemed like someone had found one that interested him. Not Remy, though. Spearing another piece of sausage with the fork that he held a little bit clumsily, he jerked his head over at Scarecrow. "I think he found a movie he liked."

Not expecting the subject of the mysterious box (a movie? That was right, wasn't it?) to actually come around in conversation, the Scarecrow lost track of his fork when Remy suddenly mentioned it, the metal clanging loudly onto his tray before he managed to catch it. He felt a bit badly for stealing it- on the other hand, he couldn't deny that he wanted to know what it was more than anything at the moment.

"I uh... well..." he stumbled, not sure how to explain himself and how he felt. "There was this one box on had a picture on the front, and I recognized some of the people in it. I thought maybe I could show it to someone and they might be able to tell me about it."

He paused briefly, his admission leading to his next question: "What's a movie?"

Meche didn't know who Kibitoshin was, so she just nodded. What really surprised her was the Scarecrow's question about what a movie was, although she guessed it shouldn't come as such a shock that someone didn't know about them in a place where people were princesses and space pilots and reapers.

"Oh, it's..." She bit into an orange slice, buying herself some time to think of a good explanation. "It's like a picture that you watch on a screen--" Meche drew a vertical box in the air with her hands to suggest a television or movie screen "--except it moves and has sound, just like real life. People pretend to be different characters, and a movie tells a story about them. Usually they're a couple of hours long." A story; she was pleased she'd hit on that. That was the answer that made the most sense to her, and probably to the Scarecrow too.

Speaking of stories, she was just now getting back to why she'd come to join Remy in the first place. "Still want me to write the alphabet out for you?" she asked, gesturing toward his journal.

Remy was curious about why Scarecrow had dropped his fork. Maybe he was just confused by movies; if he hadn't lived on the old lady's farm, Remy wasn't sure he would have had much to say about them himself. Mostly they seemed to be about humans fighting, kissing, or fighting and then kissing.

Or did Scarecrow drop his fork because he had been kind of weird about taking the box to begin with? It was like he hadn't wanted them to see it. Remy gave him a quick, troubled glance, then turned his attention to Meche. "Yeah, the alphabet!" He pushed his journal over to her. Even he hadn't written in it yet.

A question came to mind, then. "Are movies always about people? Or do they make movies about animals, too? Like" -- don't say rats don't say rats -- "dogs, or something like that?"

It was hard to tell what about Meche's explanation bothered the Scarecrow the most: what a movie was, or the thought of how the movie he'd taken from town related to him. It seemed the moving picture he'd seen during the experimentation had been some sort of a movie, though it didn't have someone else pretending to be him- it really was his own head he'd been watching, human brain and all.

Something in him churned uncomfortably, his eyes landing on a specific spot on his tray and remaining there for some time. People in movies pretend to be characters? If that was the case, the people on the box weren't actually his friends, but people playing roles. Still, they certainly did look a great deal like Dorothy and the Tin Man and the Lion. The person playing the Scarecrow himself was just as accurate in appearance- the similarity had been simultaneously amazing and frightening. He made a mental note to take another look at the box when he returned to his room, just to be sure.

Another possibility came to mind: what if the people in the movie playing the roles of his friends really were his friends, and the movie was somehow a record of their journey to the Emerald City and defeat of the Wicked Witch of the West. He thought of asking how a movie was created to see if someone could have made one of their travels without them knowing about it, but found he couldn't find his voice for the moment. Instead, he gave an unsure nod of comprehension and shoved a piece of dried bread into his mouth, continuing to listen to the conversation.

Meche wiped her fingers carefully on her napkin and opened the journal from the back, leafing through to find the first blank page so she wouldn't read anything Remy had written if he wanted to keep it private. The first blank page turned out to be the first page in the journal anyway, though. In large, deliberately clean print, she started writing out the alphabet, Aa Bb Cc...

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed that the Scarecrow was staring down at his tray, looking troubled. At first she thought he hadn't understood her explanation, but then he nodded as if it had made sense. Meche wasn't sure what about the conversation could have been bothering him--it had just been a pretty simple exchange--but she didn't want to pry. Maybe it didn't have to do with what they were talking about at all; she knew as well as anyone how many reasons there were to get into a funk in here.

She kept making letters as she answered Remy's question. "Oh, of course there are movies about animals! Some really wonderful ones. Dogs probably get most of them, but there have been movies about horses and cats and pigs and even mice." Meche smiled down at the page. "Why, are you an animal lover too, Remy?"

Boy, it got quiet fast. Remy could tell when someone didn't want to talk about something, although in the past, he had usually been the one shutting down -- on his dad, on Emile, even, in terms of communication, on Linguini. Whatever was in that movie box that Scarecrow had taken, it was really bothering him. Maybe something frightening?

Then, Meche answered his question about movies. Mice? They make movies about mice? Why would they want to do that? Mice aren't anywhere near as interesting as --

"Huh? Oh, yeah! Animals are... great." The last word was clipped, as if he wasn't completely convinced. He continued in an easier tone. "I don't think I would want to watch a movie about a dog or a cat, though. Maybe... if they made them about birds, or... rats or something."

He looked back and forth between Meche and Scarecrow. It was inevitable that they would both recoil and denounce the mere idea of rat-based entertainment... wasn't it?

The Scarecrow gave another hollow nod to what Remy was saying, trying to keep his mind off the doubts and questions that were starting to flood through him- not only were they going to make things worse for now, but all that thinking was bound to set off the clever little thing.

He shook his head- there was no use in fretting about the movie yet. For all he knew, he was over-thinking the issue, and he really didn't have the brains for that sort of unfounded worrying, even with his broken human thinker. He took a quick glance around the cafeteria, looking for someone he knew he could ask about the strange "Wizard of Oz" box he'd found in town. Perhaps Abe would know- he was a professional, after all.

Seeing Remy look his way, the Scarecrow returned his attention to the table. "Oh, I think a movie about most birds or rats could be interesting," he chimed in, filling the silence in the conversation, "if I'm getting the right idea from your explanation, that is. I'd rather not watch a movie about crows, though. They're more irritatin' than anything."

Edited 2010-06-23 05:42 (UTC)

Meche tried to remember if she'd ever heard of any movies about birds or rats. Wasn't there an old horror film about birds that pecked people to death or something like that? Somehow that didn't seem like the kind of thing Remy had in mind.

"I wouldn't mind seeing a movie about birds or rats either," she agreed with the Scarecrow. "Rats especially can probably go all kinds of places without being noticed. I bet they'd have some pretty interesting stories to tell if they could talk."

She realized a little late what a turn for the surreal this conversation was taking. It sounded like small talk, but she just felt that there was a lot going on here under the surface that she was missing, between the Scarecrow's almost worried reactions an unusual dislike for crows (was he a gardener?) and Remy's equally unusual interest in animals (it struck her as strange that someone who worked in a famous restaurant in Paris would be such a big fan of rats; she'd expect someone like that to be disgusted by an animal that most people thought of as unclean). But she couldn't figure out what it might be that was driving either of their responses, so she just kept writing letters and sneaking in the occasional bite of food in between keeping up her end of the conversation.

Remy relaxed a little in his seat, munching on a bit of seasoned potato; he paused to give the remaining potatos a surprised, thoughtful look. They actually weren't half bad. Not too oily, just enough salt, a nice blend of herbs. He took another bite, looking pleased.

"I'd say it's more like rats have to avoid being noticed, wouldn't you? Where I come from, th-- we kill them. But I don't know, I don't think the little guys are so bad. They just have a bad reputation."

So Meche didn't mind rats much after all? Remy felt a little twist, and he recognized it as hope. If he decided to confide in anyone about his situation, someday, Meche might not be a bad choice... Scarecrow didn't seem repulsed, either, and had the advantage of being someone who claimed he hadn't been human before he was at the Institute. Remy would have to keep both of them in mind, if a day came when he couldn't hide his secret anymore. Some days, he wanted to tell everyone he talked to; it was weird that nobody recognized him for what he was. He didn't think that he could deal with the possible consequences, though.

"Almost done with the letters, Meche?" He could hear the mild excitement in his own voice.

From the corner of his eye, the Scarecrow couldn't help but notice Remy's unusual delight stemming from what he was eating. How strange! Maybe he'd been in the same situation as the former strawman: not human, and incapable of human sensations like taste. The Scarecrow had yet to meet anyone quite like himself; the robotfolk came close, but even they seemed baffled by his existence as a construct. It was more likely that the food Remy was nibbling was something he'd never had before. Experiencing it for the first time was a true joy.

The conversation pulled his interest. "They kill the rats? But why?" the Scarecrow asked, his curiosity marked with genuine concern. He couldn't help but feel sorry for them- he'd had a few living in him at one point in time. He wouldn't want them in there now, but it wasn't much of a problem to just ask them to leave.

"They can carry disease," Meche explained off-handedly, still finishing off the last of the letters. "And bite, get into your food...but you know, they're not bad animals, really. Some people actually keep them as pets these days."

She drew straight, careful lines for Zz and slid the journal back across the table to Remy. "There! Do you know about capital and lower-case letters? I made one of each. I can tell you the names out loud, or do some explaining if there's anything you don't understand." She knew Remy was literate, so she wasn't positive where the gaps in his knowledge were.

Having finished that, she went back to her brunch and ate quickly to catch up.

"Yeah, but humans carry disease and can bite and steal food, too. It's not as if rats are anything special in that respect." Remy decided to keep his opinions on the idea of being kept as a pet to himself, although he understood now what it must feel like. Any more talk on the rat topic would probably be too much.

He took the journal back from Meche, and looked over what she'd written out. "The letters? I'll be able to figure it out from here. It was mostly just having them in the right order so I could practice writing for the note board. Thanks, Meche!" It took a little doing to smile at her -- only because of the recent conversational conversation -- but he managed a grateful grin.

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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