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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Matt just nodded sharply, keeping himself steady; slowly, he edged around the door with his back against it, glancing away from the nurse for just a moment to check down the hallway. He could see a few more members of the staff, and his heart rose up in his throat. Gotta do it now, Matty, he told himself. Won't be another chance; just get the hell out!

It may have been obvious that he had become a little too desperate since the day before, but it wasn't registering at that moment that the urgency to flee without thinking his plan through properly was just another side effect of the withdrawal; all Matt could think about was running right of those doors, straight for freedom.

That's why he bolted down the hallway, mapping out his escape through the front of Landel's in his head. It was a long shot, but he was determined.

The sound of running footsteps was all the alert the orderlies needed. One of them looked up as Marcus came closer and, realising it was a patient, immediately tackled the young man to the ground. The second quickly moved in close as well, keeping an eye on what the patient would try next and attempting to get enough of an opening to make a grab for the crowbar.

Oh, this wasn't good; how many damn guards did they have passing as orderlies in the place, anyway? Being tackled to the ground much like a football wasn't how someone as skinny as Matt enjoyed being stopped, but he wouldn't be down for long. He knew he wasn't the fighter that Mello was, but he liked to think he wasn't bad. He kicked out underneath the orderly, much more confident in his leg strength than he was with his upper body strength, and the sudden blow had actually knocked the crowbar from his hand. He struggled against the bigger body on top of him, completely unaware of the second not far away.

"Dammit- Get off me!" he cried out, not fully realizing that the cries would probably mean nothing to them.

As predicted, the orderlies didn't pay any attention to Marcus' yells, the first working to get the young man's arms pinned with minimum fuss as the second quickly picked up the crowbar and moved it away.

Meanwhile the nurse caught up to the two of them, sighing faintly at the sight of Marcus struggling on the floor.

"He didn't do any damage," she said. "So we won't put you in solitary this time, Marcus." The last comment was directed to the patient as she knelt down to administer the sedative to him. "But the crowbar is being confiscated. I can't imagine how you got your hands on it in the first place."

Waiting for his struggles to die down, the nurse then signalled the orderly to let him up. "Now we'll let you have something to eat anyway, but we'll be keeping an eye on you for the rest of the day, alright? No more problems out of you."

His struggling continued, even as he felt the needle penetrate his skin; if anything, he tried to fight against them even harder, yelling non-words as he did. This was bullshit, and he wasn't crazy; he didn't belong there, and...

It sank in slowly, and his senses gradually dulled. It just seemed pointless to keep fighting; they'd won this round, and, as much as he hated to admit it, he'd failed. It was a sobering thought, and Matt had to wonder if that was how Mello felt most of the time, cooped up in Landel's as long as he had been. Made him feel a bit more sympathetic to the prat, that was for sure.

Sucked that they were taking the crowbar, but what could he do? Nothing, that's what. As they helped him up, he just nodded. "Yeah. Sure. Eat."

"Good," the nurse said with a smile. "Now, let's get you to the cafeteria then." And with that the three of them escorted the young man to rejoin the rest of the patient body, collecting him a tray of food and directing him to an empty chair.

"Remember we'll be keeping an eye on you, Marcus," the nurse reminded him before they left.

Matt just made a disgruntled face as he was basically led into the cafeteria, like a small, helpless child. He was rather helpless right now though, wasn't he? Pathetic, that attempt to escape; now his head had cleared a bit more, and he grimaced at the blatant lack of logic in his escape as the orderlies guided him into the seat.

Glaring down at the tray piled high with food, Matt frowned, sliding down in the chair to get comfortable. He really didn't feel like company, and seriously hoped that his current sitting position and unhappy expression would deter any potential nuisances - but that hadn't worked out so well for him the day before, had it?

Sighing, he just poked at the food, wondering if he should refuse to eat or not. He needed strength for the upcoming night, he figured after another moment, so he stabbed a piece of waffle and let the process begin.

Edited 2010-06-21 23:34 (UTC)

[*aligns the planets correctly...*]

Cloud didn't like being pulled away from Tifa, even if the injury wasn't all that devastating. At least they were all going to the same place, and he didn't think she'd run into much difficulty just getting brunch. He did wonder if she'd be able to eat properly with the bandages as they were, but the nurses seemed intent on keeping them apart from each other. (Well, they probably didn't even notice, but it certainly seemed that way.) By the time he had a tray of food he'd lost her in the crowd.

With a sigh, he found himself another table, catching sight of an off-looking young man who must have just found himself on the wrong end of a sedative needle that morning. Company was company, and the rest of AVALANCHE that he could see at the moment appeared otherwise occupied. He'd catch up with them all eventually.

The blond smiled as he set his tray down across from Matt. "Mornin'. You gonna be okay?"

Matt grunted as some blond guy started to walk over; he started to rile up a bit at first, thinking it was Mello coming over to finish their fight from the night before. His mouth seemed glued shut though, and he just sank lower into the chair as the other male sat down across from him.

Blinking, Matt watched him with his good eye. Oh, thank God it's not the psycho, he thought when he realized that it was some other blond guy. Matt had lucked out for the first time that day.

"Mm. Yeah." Why couldn't the floor just open up and let him fall through? He did not feel like being sociable - though. When did he ever?

"Don't worry. I won't press you." Though if he looked like he was going to have difficulty eating or something, Cloud knew he'd have a hard time not offering his help - embarrassing for his tablemate as it would be. So perhaps sitting here hadn't been the best of ideas.

At least he could introduce himself. He stretched a hand out across the table. "I'm Cloud, by the way. Cloud Strife." And he tried to sound casual when he said it. If the guy was sluggish he wasn't going to want some jackass shoving his hand in his face with an overenthusiastic grin. The greetings should be kept to a minimum, then he'd see how up the other man was for talking.

Matt just nodded slowly, appreciatively, at his first few words. Nice, open people like this guy seemed to be just disturbed Matt; what the hell did they have to be so nice about? But he couldn't discount it right now. His time would be better spent trying to use such a personality to his advantage, despite the haze currently filling his head.

He pulled away a little from the hand, but settled when it stopped coming closer. At least Cloud was applying a decent amount of distance to their interaction, which was an obvious step up from the staff at Landel's. His arm felt heavy, but that didn't stop him from continuing to poke at that waffle.

He figured Cloud was expecting his name in return. "Matt," he complied before really thinking it over. Whatever, he thought, when he realized what he'd said. It's just another alias, really - and a useless one, now that I'm stuck here. He just couldn't seem to fight that overwhelming hopelessness now.

Might as well try to learn something. Though he really was starting to hate the obnoxious amount of people gathered in the facility. He eyed Cloud a moment before asking, in as clear a voice as he could manage, "Been at Landel's long?"

That little bit of interaction told Cloud a decent amount about the man in front of him, at least enough to help dictate the way he continued talking with him. No physical contact, though he hadn't planned on, say, patting the guy on the shoulder any time soon. The fact that he'd most likely just been manhandled by the staff didn't help, but Cloud suspected he was just a more private, 'don't touch' kind of guy in general. Only giving his first name didn't help change that image either.

But it looked like he didn't want to sit there and say nothing, so the blond gave a wry smile at the question. "Depends on what you mean by long. I've only been here a few days." Less than a week, he believed, while others had been there far longer. He didn't like being reminded that Yuffie had been there two weeks before he'd even arrived and he hadn't even known.

"A couple people I knew were here before me."

Matt got the feeling that he was being analyzed just as much as he was analyzing, but that could just have been drug-induced paranoia, really. It was hard to tell, since he was still unnaturally groggy.

Whatever the case, he'd gotten an answer. A little more of an answer than he'd expected, in fact; did Cloud think he was too drugged to remember later? Or was the guy really just that unguarded? One way to find out, though he sure didn't like the idea of more conversation.

His lips curled into a slight smirk with Matt, of course, none the wiser. "How's 'at workin' out?"

"It's nice to have them around, and at the same time I wish they weren't here. I'm sure you know what I mean." They were the same feelings he was sure more people in the Institute held who had others around from their own world. No one wanted to look happy that their friends were trapped with them, but they didn't want to be alone either.

Cloud didn't see any reason why he shouldn't share that information, especially since it was perfectly harmless. Plenty of patients had friends here, or just others they knew. And in any case, he didn't particularly find Matt all they threatening, smirk or no. If the kid did turn out to be a bad sort, the blond was sure any one of his friends could kick his ass - Aerith included.

"What about you?" He'd said he wasn't going to pry, but as Matt was apparently interested in conversation after all, he might as well ask mostly harmless questions back.

Memories of that fight with Mello the night before fluttered through his mind, and Matt grimaced a little, sagging more in his chair. He didn't exactly like where the conversation was headed - or that there was a conversation at all - but he was hard-pressed to find anything out of the ordinary about it. The stuff Cloud wanted to know was the same type of thing he could probably find out from just about anybody with eyes at Landel's - especially considering that both Matt and that skinny blond freak that used to be his friend had apparently already been at the facility, and just didn't remember. People were sure to recognize him, which was something that hadn't occurred to him before, but it was sure occurring to him now.

The sedation had worked surprisingly well for clearing his head of any bullshit, and it was proving much easier to think logically without the withdrawal in the way. As far as Matt could tell, there really seemed to be no harm in disclosing a few more facts that could be just as easily obtained elsewhere.

He took another bite of the blasted waffle. "Yeah, I've a friend here." He kept his voice low. "The only one I know of so far, but 've only been here a day." He shifted, uncomfortable again.

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Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

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