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

[tsunagari.livejournal.com]

"I had assumed it was in response to the man on the radio." Sai carefully pinned a strawberry with his fork, eating it slowly and with a thoughtful expression. Not until he'd swallowed did he continue. "Whether what he said was based in truth or whether the two of them are actually working together is unknown, but in either case the Head Doctor was demonstrating another aspect of his control over us. It served not only as a warning against a current possible rebel faction, but also for anyone who might plan on rigging such communication devices between patients in the future."

Which could explain why he'd been arrogant enough to allow them the use of the radios in the first place. If they ultimately proved useful, Landel could simply keep them from communicating in other ways.

The ninja gave Mello a curious look. "As for the diagrams - no, I don't have them any more." He'd only made up one copy for the blond's previous incarnation here, and there'd been no need for duplicates. "However, it will take me no time at all to create them again once I have access to a pen and paper." Not that he'd had any reason to bring his journal to breakfast, but it was a shame he hadn't.

[swornandbroken.livejournal.com]

"Here." Mello had taken to carrying a pen with him, and he pulled it out of his pocket, and passed it and a napkin over to Sai. The pen cap was pretty well-gnawed by now, and Mello gave the ninja a repressive look that dared him to comment on that.

He started to cut one of the sausages into smaller pieces, frowning over the explanation of last night's events. Obviously, Landel had acted in response to a broadcast. What Mello wanted to know was what the alleged rebel had said, but he was even less inclined than usual to admit ignorance, even perfectly explicable ignorance. Landel loved to hear himself talk, and he liked to fancy himself a master of dramatic timing, but Mello knew he'd never let useful information get out; he'd shut everything down first, and offer tricks masquerading as help. One couldn't believe anything either side said. More than likely it was a game to everyone involved, and the prisoners the poor bastards caught in the middle, to be used as pawns in it. Mello speared a sausage piece with more force than strictly necessary. That can't be true, he thought, but he was running out of ways to combat that feeling of hopelessness.

"The rings are the same, I bet. They have to have some sort of fail-safe built in to keep people from making them useful." Mello did wonder how far he could get, if he travelled as far as he could one night, reset the ring there, did it again the next night, and so on. Was it even possible to reach a place outside the boomerang effect?

[tsunagari.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately for Mello, Sai found the man to be particularly unthreatening. Thus, when the chewed pen was handed over, he did receive a slightly raised eyebrow. The ninja didn't bother with more than that, however, only because he knew the blond wouldn't listen to any reprimand he gave.

The napkin wasn't the best material to be using for this, but if Mello was going to be insistent about getting the diagrams as soon as possible, then Sai would deal with what he was given. He'd just have to be careful not to tear the napkin as his pen flew across it in a blur. The napkin was unfolded some, allowing for more room. "A few sheets of paper would have been better," he said, but that was as close as he was going to get to a complaint.

Within a minute, the napkin was covered with forms as well as notes in very small, precise handwriting.

As he handed it over, he addressed the man's other comments. "I wouldn't doubt it. I gift from the head doctor would surely be given only for the sake of his own amusement, and wouldn't allow us any real chance of escape." It was, from what he could tell, all just a game to him.

[swornandbroken.livejournal.com]

Mello rolled his eyes in response to the eyebrow raise: fine, whatever. He was rationing the chocolate mints he'd swiped the night before last, since the Institute itself seemed to be conspiring to keep him from getting that far in one night again. The pen was the best stand-in he'd come up with for the snap of really good chocolate.

He took the napkin back, and pocketed it and the pen, with a nod. "Good. Ran into one of those brainwashed patients last night. My friend was less than prepared." Mello almost believed, as he said it, that the training exercises were more for Matt's benefit than his own. Right, because Matt's the one who got sucker-punched falling into the world's most obvious fakeout. He couldn't even argue with that, not that it made knowing it any easier.

"I wonder what he's not telling us. What he gets out of people using them." There had to be something; that much had been obvious from the smug glee with which the bastard had spread the word.

[tsunagari.livejournal.com]

Whether Mello actually meant his friend needed instruction or he was simply using 'friend' rather than speak about himself was irrelevant in Sai's mind. He could do simple exercise diagrams without worrying who ended up with them. It wasn't information that was hard to come by.

"If your friend requires actual training, he can visit me at the start of night and I'll see what I can do." His sessions with Mello in the past hadn't gone spectacularly well, but he hadn't been in the best mindset at the time. There was nothing saying he couldn't try again. He could give out his room number as long as the blond promised no harm would come to his roommate.

"As for the ring..." The ninja shrugged. "I didn't receive one, so I wouldn't be able to help test out any theories regarding it."

[swornandbroken.livejournal.com]

"I'm not using 'friend' as code," Mello said, irritated by Sai's emphasis on the word. "Someone I know who'd supposedly been released got dragged back here." It continued to frustrate him that Sai probably knew a great deal more about him than Mello really liked; he had no way of knowing what the other version had given away or outright told the ninja. He probably had a decent idea of Mello's physical prowess, or lack thereof. Annoying to have to take it on faith that he wouldn't spread that knowledge around.

"These diagrams ought to suffice." It had been almost a week since they'd first talked about the problem of finding time to train. Mello still wasn't willing to surrender any of the night to activities not directly in service of getting out. For now, he put answering questions about the ring in that category.