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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[sixth-attack.livejournal.com]

Sechs tilted his head, blinking at the stranger's reply, then finally gave an aloof shrug. "Uh, alright then."

The Replica would have left it at that, but the rough night and the lousy morning that followed it didn't put Sechs into the most benevolent mood. Eyes shifting away from his table mate's neatly arranged meal to his own messily butchered lunch, Sechs' sight homed into the pizza on his plate -- which happened to have a particularly thick tomato slice.

"Hmm, I don't really care much for tomatoes either," Sechs remarked with a hint of a vicious smirk on his face as he picked up the juicy piece of tomato with his fingers, "How 'bout you throw it out with the rest of the tomatoes for me...?"

Sechs didn't give the stranger time to answer. There was a flick of his hand, and the red slice flew towards the other youth's lunch -- and landed right on top of his pile of cheese with a soft "splat!"

"Whoops!" Sechs said, not sounding one bit remorseful no thanks to his barely repressed chuckling. "Looks like my aim slipped a little there!"

[spandexorgtfo.livejournal.com]

Kratos had seen the prank coming a mile away; the nasty look on the other man's face made his intent crystal clear. If he were several thousand years younger and in the mess hall back in Meltokio, he might have actually thrown something back and resigned himself to the possibility of a food fight, but Kratos had already had his fill in this place of having food dumped on him.

Really, at least this was salvageable. At least it wasn't orange juice.

One eyebrow rose as the swordsman flicked the offending slice of tomato to the side with his knife and resumed eating his lunch. "It's perfectly fine. I'm well aware that some minds are incapable of proper depth perception in both meanings of the word."

[sixth-attack.livejournal.com]

Despite Sechs' mean-spirited amusement, there was a spark of anger in his yellow eyes at the other patient's words. Leaving the rest of his food in peace for now, his smirk grew toothy as he watched the red-haired patient dispose of the offending tomato off his cheese.

"Oh? Just what are you saying there, huh?" he asked with a challenging tone, "I wasn't aiming for your face, if that's what you mean." He then plucked out another tomato slice with his hand, giving it a mischievous flick between his fingers. "But I can show ya how good my aim usually is by throwing this right between your eyes!" he added with an increasingly wide grin.

[spandexorgtfo.livejournal.com]

Kratos frowned. Was this man actively looking for a fight? It was...rather early for that, wasn't it? He considered the mental image of him with a tomato slice slapped over the bridge of his nose. It was a little mortifying, he had to admit. He could only hope that a certain ninja didn't choose to look his way any time soon because Kratos could see that this complete undesirable outcome had an uncomfortably high chance of occurring.

"That wasn't at all what I was implying," he said, keeping his voice neutral and light (which typically had the opposite effect with these types, he had found).

[sixth-attack.livejournal.com]

Sechs returned the other man's frown with an aggressive grin. So far things didn't look to be leading towards an intense fight or an uprising against the institute, but just some silly little food fight with an unfortunate stranger. Despite it all, any outlet for Sechs to vent out his frustration, no matter how stupid it may be, was starting to look far more appetizing than the rest of his hearty meal.

"So then just what were you implying, huh?" he growled, feinting a toss of his red projectile with another threatening flick of his wrist, just to see how much he could freak out his finicky seat mate. "You saying I'm stupid or something?!"

If that were the case, the other youth had better be ready to duck his head...

[spandexorgtfo.livejournal.com]

[agh I know this is so late (notifs failed again); are you alright with a short backthread?]

Kratos sighed and shook his head. Kids. Honestly. "It was a two-way implication. One suggested that your tomato 'misfire' was due to a failure in visual depth perception; the other suggested that it was due to a lack of mental maturity. Both are understandable excuses, although I'm well aware that only one may have applied."

This time, when Sechs flicked the tomato slice toward him again, Kratos's right hand shot up and snatched most of the tomato out of the young man's hand, leaving a small piece still in his grasp. He wiped his hand in a napkin and fixed his neighbor with an intense stare.

"Really, I think it would be best to end this foolishness."

[sixth-attack.livejournal.com]

Now Sechs' mischievous grin had become a nasty grimace. He could have far cared less for the other man's response, or the reminder of just how slow his organic body was. In his original form, Sechs could have easily set that tomato into a plasma ball and thrown it at his table mate's face in a heartbeat -- or better yet, up Landel's ass! Instead, his eatable weapon was instantly ripped away before he could have used it to its full potential. He returned the other man's stare with a snarl.

What remained of his artillery was dropped back upon the slice of pizza -- but it wasn't left alone just yet. Sechs' fingers curled around the pizza's crust with the same tenseness as a soldier prepping a live grenade.

So finicky "Mr. Phobic of Tomatoes" thought Sechs to be "immature", huh?! It was true that Sechs was just barely two years old, but he knew he was far smarter and tougher than most people who've only lived such a handful of years! He hated being called stupid, and he wasn't going to let the guy get away with that!

"Well I don't!" he retorted, swiftly picking up the tomato-encrusted pizza and flinging it towards his target in a blur of scattering cheese and crust--

"Just WHAT are you doing Cody?!"

The flying pizza stopped in the midst of its flight at the sudden arrival of a nurse and a shadowing orderly. With the pizza hanging limply in his hand, Sechs paused, shooting an angry glare at the interrupting staff. A hint of a needle within the nurse's hand told Sechs she already knew of the little battle he was pursuing, and that she wasn't going to let it start under her watch. Seeing the syringe sent a twinge of pain in his back, and Sechs angrily returned the pizza back to his plate with a dull "plop"!

"Nothing!" Sechs snarled, feeling himself grow hot in the face with infuriated disappointment. "Was just fooling around. That's all..."

The nurse seemed satisfied with his answer and left, but knowing that she would be watching him from a distance now, Sechs reluctantly gave up on bugging his table mate. With that major put down, Sechs was forced to eat his own words -- and the pizza with its tomatoes as well.