Day 51: Breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

Comments

[tightsofmight]

Today, the first thing Peter did upon waking was grope himself.

There was no intermediate stage. Simply sleep and then suddenly, frantic hands everywhere. He hadn't even been sure if he'd opened his eyes or not. A second or two of incoherent molestation later and he had all the answers he needed.

I'm boobless, oh thank god.

Short hair, flat chested, and...other things back where they should be. All was right with the world.

Peter breathed a heavy sigh of relief and collapsed back onto his pillow. All in all, he'd spent about three minutes as a woman. Tops. Frankly, that was more than enough for a life time. Maybe even two. Some people might want to switch out their bits and pieces and Peter had no problem with that, but getting slapped with nine thousand liters of estrogen against his will was in no way, shape, or form his idea of a fun time.

He felt a sudden rush of sympathy for Jessica. His poor, womanly clone...

Hopefully, the whole thing was over and done with and wouldn't come back to haunt him like Demon Rapunzel did. Finding ghost hair in your food was bad enough. He didn't particularly want to randomly flower into womanhood in the middle of lunch.

Ugh. He should check in with Scott, too. See if his plumbing switched back to normal. (Why did the woman give Scott bigger boobs? Was she implying something?) So far as he could tell, the only real souvenir he'd taken from the wacky trip was a slender burn on his left calf from the laser attack. It stung deeply as he swung himself out of bed, but he could walk just fine. Okay then, maybe the night wasn't so bad after all, but it was still an undeniable crap storm. Shot at by laser eyeballs and getting your butt handed to you by Strawberry Shortcake, god.

Brainy was still in bed when the nurse came to fetch Peter. The coma didn't seem to be the result of any serious injury, so he had no qualms with leaving the other boy to get his rest. Looking at his roommate did, however, remind him of something even worse. It gave him no peace, but the only thing Peter could do in memory of Terry was look out for Kurt in the meantime. He penned him a simple note on the way to the cafeteria, just in case he'd missed the one he had left in his room last night. Truth be told, he was a little ashamed about how sparse he was being with it. There just wasn't much he could say to make it better. Words weren't a big help sometimes.

Maybe he should try and catch him soon. Take his mind off things. Heck, Peter needed the mental break too. They might have clashed a lot, but he didn't dislike Terry. Quite the opposite, actually. The guy deserved respect.

Thus it was a very pensive Peter Parker who sat down for breakfast that morning, taking heavy bites of his french toast and staring at nothing in particular. He'd had worse mornings here, he supposed. But he'd had a lot better, too.

[For Sybrows.]

[dualistic]

Even with that crazy costumed kid using some sort of weird webbing material (where the hell had he even found something like that?), even with all of them surrounding the frilled-up, parasol-toting girl, nothing had worked. She'd simply taken that moment to disappear, and by that point no time had been left.

Or so Harvey realized as his good eye opened and he felt the discomfort of bandages that were wrapped almost too tightly around his face. More than that, his side was also bandaged up from the laser burn. While he'd never expected to lose half his face to an explosion, he hadn't even considered the possibility of getting wounded by some weird portal eye laser.

It looked like the idea of a group basement trip had been a faulty one. He supposed that Jones got points for trying, but Harvey had sort of figured from the beginning that a smaller group would be better. Maybe the archaeologist would have learned his lesson after having to watch two of his charges get their sex suddenly changed on them. He hoped that was gone now that it was morning, but in the end it didn't have that much of an effect on him.

More than anything, he was just frustrated that there hadn't seemed to be any way for that fight to be won. They hadn't been able to get a single hit on her. Frowning to himself, he got up out of bed and sent a glance at his sleeping roommate. He wondered if Lunge and the others had gotten any further, but now clearly wasn't the time to ask.

A trip to the bulletin board proved that the language confusion he'd partly experienced had not been limited to their group. It had likely affected all of the patients, and it was in that moment that he recalled how the head doctor had been jabbering on about the rings during the tail-end of that one-sided fight. Too bad he hadn't been able to make much of it out among all the chaos. On the other hand, since that kid was the one with the ring, it wasn't like he would have been able to benefit anyway.

So it was back to the drawing board. Harvey was beyond sick of it, and in the end all he could do was find an empty seat and stare at his vitamin shake with disdain. With no avenues by which to get revenge left, this place had lost any advantage it might have had.

[For Justin Hammer.]

[fangirlfatale.livejournal.com]

Morgan wasn't surprised to find herself waking up back in the same room again, but she was annoyed. It felt like she'd been smashing up pipes in the bathroom just a minute ago (actually, she was pretty sure she'd been mid-kick last thing she remembered), which meant that somehow someone had once again managed to get the drop on her without her noticing a thing--not to mention drag her back here and tuck her into bed. It was insulting! And kind of creepy, too. The worst part was that she couldn't even figure out how someone could knock out both her and Elaine, both trained fighters. It had to be some kind of voodoo or...well, she wasn't sure what, but Morgan was definitely going to find out.

Her next thought was for her prizes, as pathetic as they were--the closet rod and the metal. Morgan started upright and groped instinctively around for them. She got lucky: her hand hit one of the pipes right away, nestled in the bed next to her. "How nice of them," she commented sarcastically as she wedged the rod under the mattress and went to stash the few pipes she'd managed to collect in the closet. "I'll just put these in here for safekeeping." She'd have to come up with a better hiding place, but hopefully S.P. or her goons wouldn't bother searching the room today, if they even cared. The metal wasn't a bad start, but Morgan was glad she had an extra night to come up with some more. If this was going to be her big chance at getting a sword, she was gonna make darn sure she had everything she needed.

That done, Morgan opened the door and strode a few paces ahead of S.P. (uuuggff!) to the cafeteria, where she put together a well-balanced breakfast (pirate hunters had to watch their nutrition) and found a seat alone. She didn't see anyone else she knew yet. Chewing her first forkful of fruit, Morgan wondered idly if Guybrush had made any progress with his kleptomania-and-chatting plan last night.

[free! No limit unless threadmate wants one.]

[kingdomless.livejournal.com]

When Kairi woke up, she was hungry. She blamed the traveling during the night - sprinting across the field and over the wall with the help of the Darkness that coursed through her veins. She felt slightly tired as well .. fatigued.

Truthfully, she was afraid to use the Darkness. She didn't want to, especially after what had happened to Sora. If anything, she wanted to get rid of it, to get it out of her body, so she could feel free again. Every night she worried - what if something happened and she was taken over again, and this time she really hurt Sora? And what if she hurt Riku as well? She wouldn't be able to face them if it happened again - she didn't know what she would do.

She knew she shouldn't, but Kairi couldn't help but wonder if they would hate her if such a thing happened.

When the once princess entered the cafeteria, she was surprised to see it pretty full already. Had she woken up late? She didn't think so. Either way, Kairi quickly grabbed a plate of toast and a bowl of fruit before heading towards an empty table so she could chow down.

[lastlovesong]

Once the usual routine of getting breakfast was done, Chise sighed to herself while sitting at an empty table. That had been the second--no, third time she blacked out when nightshift started. She had asked her nurse about it, but all she got was a smile and a stern warning to take her medicine after every meal.

With no signs of Fai or Kurogane in the cafeteria, she heaved another sigh and continued to poke at her breakfast absentmindedly. She needed to look for Shuji again, but was unsure on where to look for him. Obviously he wasn't outside, otherwise the facility's armed forces would've caught him by now(since they were able to capture her), nor was he with the regular people(he would've wrote something on the board by now). So that left the hidden underground facility(if there was one), and the higher floors. If nothing else worked, she'll have to confront the institute's main commander.

[for Kaworu]

[idolism]

_{[Out to snag a turtle-killer Sasuke.]}

Another rotation of the sun again, and this breakfast was almost no different than the last. Aidou almost had nothing to show for his efforts.

Almost.

Yesterday he had slipped a little, in his mind where he felt the pressure of being a prisoner the most; uncertainty of ’how’ and ’why’ had pushed through the cracks, along with a little self-pity. Today he wasn’t going to do that, couldn’t allow himself to fall down that slope. So what if he gotten anywhere new last night? He had gotten blood and drastically bettered his resolve, and although he couldn’t expect too little of himself, the vampire would rather dwell on what had happened rather than what happened.

None of this exactly meant he was content taking a large helping of French toast to a table and sitting down to face the cafeteria doors. Not by a long shot.

He was well-fed, at least.

[affictitious]

Gabriel was no stranger to time traveling. Hell, he used to play with it for the sheer novelty of the idea; it was his play-doh and he was a mud-covered five year old with a limitless imagination and busy hands. He was the DeLorean of the universe. Or maybe Marty McFly. Some kind of combination of the two. Either way, the point was that time didn't mess with him. Never. Only Daddy was powerful enough to pull a trick like that (and maybe his closest brothers, if he wanted to admit it begrudgingly - which he was not about to do - and even if he did admit it, they wouldn't twist the fabric of the universe for fun, seeing as both Michael and Lucifer had twisted versions of it. Lucifer, at least. Michael was a bit too uptight for fun.) But here he was, waking up to a day-lit room that was remarkably similar to the room he'd woken up in last night.

"But here he was" was going to be a trademark for occurrences in his re-life, he could just tell. There wasn't much explaining going on, but a whole lotta "screw the archangel over with questions and no answers, like two-thirds of X-Files episodes or every episode of Lost". And he didn't like it. Call him a control freak, because it's true. You just don't pull a fast one on The Big Four. It ruffled their -

- okay, that joke's too easy.

While the loving ramblings of who he could only assume was the head doctor - or was it Head Doctor? The insanity deserved capital letters, in his opinion - echoed through the room, he took a moment to soak in his new yet recognizable surroundings. In corner one was the lamp he'd swiped from the fishy shack, lovingly cradled haphazardly on its side near a sliding closet door. Corner number two... Captain Coma. See, now he was going to start needing a list of every grave injustice being done to him, zombie or not. Resurrection, kidnapping, deposit into a lake in winter - not to mention the amazingly human ability of being cold - unjustified jokes aimed at his stature by creating a freak race of He-Men and surrounding Gabriel with them, and then placing him in the one room with a coma victim. A coma victim who had managed to smuggle in three hundred dollar glasses.

Well, he wouldn't want them anyway. The lenses weren't even prescription.

Just as he'd slipped the glasses back onto his nose, a woman in white - a nurse somewhere in between Piccolo (the sexy yet earnest doctor) and Wang (the sexy yet arrogant doctor) - opened the door of the cell with nary a knock. Well, he'd seen better, but he'd also seen worse. She was all smiles as she said, "I see you're not as dead as you are when you sleep, Noah. Allow me to make your official welcome to Landel's Institution."

First of all: Noah? Biblical. Oh, how hilarious. He really hated irony, especially when it was way too close to the truth. Second: "official"?

"So last night was unofficial? Coulda done better than polar bear swimming." Captain Coma seemed to remain blissfully unaware of Doctor Piccowang, so maybe assuming his being a coma victim wasn't too far off. Watch out everyone, there's a hell of a party in this room, and before this moment it involved way too many dicks on the dance floor.

She tittered behind a hand - tittered. Behind a hand. Suddenly, he'd found himself back into a medical drama - but didn't comment directly on anything he'd said. She was fantastic at glancing over it, continuing on with, "Don't worry, Mr. Morgenstern, you'll be cleaned of those nightmares soon enough. We're here to help! And if you come with me, you can have your first breakfast at Landel's. Now, don't assume it's bad food just because we're a hospi -"

"Morgenstern. Really? Morgenstern? I wouldn't even pick that for a fake name." No, that was his brother, and what a hell of a time he'd had with that little moniker.

[ryuuzaki]

—Blood from a stone, blood that is a stone, a stone that is blood—L woke with a start.

Last night's truncated adventure had been ridiculous.

Jones must have invited people who he trusted, but their suitability for that kind of escapade was an open question. Scott and the kid in the unitard had both demonstrated hand-to-hand combat skills that verged on acrobatic. However, they also both seemed to be easily distracted by a fight, spoiling for it after the woman goaded them; by putting effort into an unnecessary confrontation, rather than the escape which would have been a better tactical decision, they'd displayed a decided lack of common sense. The group's progress had ground to a halt, and the night, as far as L was concerned, had been wasted.

He had gleaned one useful bit of knowledge, but because it had only depended on him hearing the intercom and having company, he could have made the observation anywhere: Landel could turn their ability to understand each other on and off with the click of a few keys. Or... something else?, he wondered. The typing might have been intended to throw us off... no. I don't think he is so subtle as to misrepresent his methods, at least not this time. He is unable to keep himself from gloating. He thinks of Jill—and presumably Marc, but not his prisoners—as the threat. He believes, therefore, that he is safe from us. Why?

Either way, it pointed back to the idea he had considered before: at least part of their experience was in some way controlled through a computer system which could only be both sophisticated and complex. It might be the I.R.I.S. system from a week earlier; it might not be; he didn't have enough evidence to give definite support to either option. A staggering number of possible variables existed, and many of them might be lies. He would need more specific information than he had now. If I.R.I.S. made another appearance, that would be one way to get it, but his last encounter with it—if it had been that—had been traumatic; recalling it prompted a sense memory of the taste and texture of the blood that had filled his mouth.

No. Some other way, if at all possible--there is no sense in enduring it again unless I'm sure that it's the best option left. Then, the reminder, and the rush of bitterness that it prompted: As if I would have any choice.

He had delayed his planned attempt to hack into the system for several reasons. Being too quick to follow advice given to him by anonymous sources on the bulletin board could be the same thing as walking into a trap, and apart from that, he had had important plans Friday night. Saturday, his attempt to reach the terminal in the lab had been derailed by Landel's travel game, which had increased his uncomfortable feeling that they were all rats in a maze and had ended with the crashing chagrin of a false return home. Last night, he had made the wrong decision, a mistake he wouldn't repeat. Tonight, he would try to reach the computers again.

Even if I'm successful, he thought, there isn't any guarantee that it's connected to the system that may or may not control the Institute. What then? A place like this, even with systems that were a few years old, shouldn't still have dial-up connections to the Internet; there might be a T1 or even a T3 somewhere, or, more interesting, no connection at all. It was difficult to say without seeing it. The point was that if he couldn't hack into the system itself, it might be possible to break into the drywall and learn something about how it was wired.

By the time the nurse arrived to take him to breakfast, he was sitting on the edge of his bed, a model patient again, with slipper-clad feet and his journal in hand, a pen tucked behind his ear, an axe under his mattress. French toast, orange juice, and fresh fruit sounded appealing. After going through the line in the cafeteria, he found a seat alone, then looked around the room.

When he spotted Javert's familiar face, he raised his spidery hand to wave him over.

[Javert!]

[36-24-35.livejournal.com]

"What would you like this morning, Rachel?" TIfa's nurse seemed in a very good mood today, which rubbed her the wrong way. It wouldn't surprise her if this woman was the mutated bitch that attacked her last night. Now, on top of her fading black eyes and her swollen nose, the young brunette had to contend with a limp from the gashes in her calf after those scalpel claws tore through her. She couldn't help but wonder if any other patients got into as many scrapes as she had in just two days.

"Whatever's fine...." The nurse left her to find her own seat, but Tifa didn't recognize anyone she knew. It was probably a little too early to pester a stranger with her fluffy smile, so she sat by herself and waited for the woman to return with her breakfast.

[Haineypants~ ]

[divinebrushwork.livejournal.com]

For the first time since her creation, Amaterasu was not happy to awake in the daylight. The sun may have been up, but it did nothing to settle her concerns and fears.
Where were her companions? Had they gotten back safely? Why didn't she get to eat any cake? It was hard for her to evaluate these questions, mostly because she did not remember how she returned to her own room. She had been prepared to journey to the kitchens with Takashi, Natalia and Honey. Not wake up back where she started.

The goddess was obviously very annoyed and her nurse did nothing to help. She was blabbing away, as most humans did, praising 'Amari' and telling her how impressed she was with her adaptation in the institute.
It was a blessing when she finally left Amaterasu alone at a table in the cafeteria, so that she may eat the small mountain of food she had piled onto her tray.

So, here she was. Her second day in this prison and still no sign of Issun or Oki or anyone from her world. She wasn't even sure how her new friends were doing right now. Ammy was anxious to go looking for them . . . after eating, of course. She ate at a much slower pace this morning, too focused on the issues at hand to fully appreciate the flavors in her mouth.

[Honey, Honey~]

[bothersomewoman.livejournal.com]

That Shikamaru had been right about any of predictions did little for Temari's mood. She'd just managed to catch the kunai he'd thrown before the loudspeaker came to life again. First it'd been nonsense Temari couldn't understand, then words she could, though they still didn't come off as reasonable. But before she could ask or say anything else, Temari found herself alone and in bed, just as she had only a brief time before. Now, however, the lights were on, and an overly pleased woman had come into the room just moments after Temari shoved the kunai under her pillow.

"You're the nurse, right?" And the apparent leader, given the positions of the two men flanking her. They'd clearly come expecting some resistence, which Temari was tempted to provide. Shikamaru's warning was still fresh in her mind, however, and giving that idiot an excuse to lecture her just wasn't worth throwing any punches. At least not for the moment. So instead Temari nodded when the nurse began to explain things, and even went so far as to bite her tongue when she was addressed by the wrong name.

It wasn't much longer before the woman led Temari from the bedroom, escorting her through the halls she'd seen the previous night. The men followed along, close enough to react to anything Temari might attempt--something the kunoichi would be sure to remember when the time came to do so. The trip had a few other rewards too, including an introduction to the bulletin board. According to the nurse, it served as the main method of mass communication for the patience, and a particular symbol seemed to prove her right. Temari's good behavior earned her a few minutes to make replies before the nurse insisted on completing the trip, which ended in the cafeteria.

Finally allowed to move outside of arm's reach of a member of the staff, Temari got her french toast and made her way to a table in sight of the door. Shikamaru had promised her answers, so she fully expected him to show up and provide them. And if he slept in? She'd just have to make it clear that being taller than her didn't mean he could afford not to take her seriously.

[propheteer]

One moment Izaya had been watching Castiel fight the thing that might have been a dog (or once been a dog), and the next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes somewhere else entirely and staring up at a ceiling.

He was lying in a bed, eerily reminiscent of the position he'd found himself in earlier that night. Or last night, as the case apparently was. The voice on the intercom was announcing breakfast.

Izaya sat up, glancing around the room. It looked like the same one he'd woken up in last night, only there was someone else lying in the other bed—the 'someone else' Izaya had thought had been in there last night, perhaps. He turned to swing his legs off the bed, and no sooner had his feet touched the floor than the door opened and a woman dressed like a nurse stepped through.

"I'm pleased to see you're already up, Joshua," the woman said. Izaya assumed that she must have been speaking to him as the man in the other bed was clearly not 'up' yet, but he couldn't recall a reason why she might have been calling him 'Joshua'. He was familiar with the use of aliases, but this one wasn't a name he recalled ever using. He preferred aliases that didn't stand out too much, and 'Joshua' was foreign enough that it might draw attention to himself, even in Tokyo.

Then again, if he really wasn't in Japan... maybe a foreign alias was for the best. He'd play along, at least until he figured out why he was there in the first place, or why he'd woken up inside once more when he'd been outside earlier.

Izaya smiled sweetly at the woman. "Anything to make your job a little easier," he said, as if he'd known this woman for a while instead of having never seen her before. If he could get on her good side, it would make things much easier.

She returned his smile, and held the door open. "Are you ready to head to the cafeteria for breakfast?" she asked.

There was a pair of slippers on the floor by the bed, and Izaya quickly stepped into them. He joined the nurse at the door, continuing to play the part of a good patient. "Only if you'll accompany me!"

Izaya made some small talk with the woman on the way to the cafeteria, careful not to reveal that he didn't remember actually coming here in the process. The woman wasn't as chatty as he'd hoped she would be, but he did manage to get the name of the hospital out of her, at least: Landel's Institute. He also kept an eye on their route as they walked; it looked like it was the same way he'd come with Castiel last night until they turned left instead of right.

Once they reached the cafeteria and the nurse encouraged him to get a good breakfast, she left him alone. Izaya ignored the food for the moment in favor of the other patients.

He'd seen a fair number of people in the hallways last night, but there were even more in the cafeteria; either only a fraction of them had been out last night, or else they had been more spread out—either option seemed just as likely. He spotted Castiel sitting with two other men, but his was the only face that was even remotely familiar.

He lingered a moment longer before turning to join the food line. He helped himself to a piece of toast and a small fruit salad before carrying his tray to a corner table, where he'd have a good (or good enough) vantage point to see the rest of the room.

[For Touya]

[see-my-back.livejournal.com]

It was frustrating that all she had to show for last night was a whole lot of nothing. Oh, and some gashes from claw-guy on her leg. That was great. She'd woken up to find it'd already been treated and wrapped and her chakra was totally and completely useless during the day. So at least for now, she'd have to deal with it.

Didn't help her mood any to find that Temari was here. Normally it wouldn't have been so bad, but the girl was seriously on her last nerve. Who did she think she was telling them they were disorganized and asking if they were even going out at night?! Nevermind that a tiny part of it might be true, that hardly mattered! They'd lost Kakashi, Shikamaru was a mess from whatever they'd done to him, so it was no wonder things weren't running smoothly. Just because they couldn't hand her a key and walk her to the door and escort her out, she thought it was fine to complain? Ugh!

Sakura finished checking messages on the bulletin, led into the cafeteria by her impatient nurse, who sent her through the breakfast line. Most everyone she knew was already in conversation with someone else, so she sat alone, spreading her notes out and re-checking them to help calm her ruffled feathers.

[Free!]

[kagurazuki.livejournal.com]

Kagura woke to find that not much had changed. She put her things away, hid the weapons, but paused when she saw that the plush candies she'd made for Badou were still there. Had he gotten stuck? Not had time? What if something had happened to him? The last thought raised goosebumps on her arms and she dismissed it quickly, packing up the felt toys and pushing them into her clothing drawer.

No, she told herself, it couldn't be that. It was probably just that... that he didn't like the color scheme, or it wasn't what he wanted. She'd probably made them too girly or maybe she just hadn't looked carefully enough at the request. That made more sense, right? That he just didn't like them. Of all the other options, she really hoped it was that one.

She followed the nurse to the cafeteria, only to find that it was already bustling with people. She must've slept late. She picked up a few things; toast, fruit, milk, and took a seat at the nearest empty table. No sign of Ritsu or Haine just yet either. She'd have to look out for them.

[Free]