Day 55: Cafeteria

[bodhiandspirit]

Though five days without bathing was hardly unusual for Rita, she was actually looking forward to showering today. To her, the last shift had been somewhat enjoyable, if only because it allowed her an opportunity to be alone with her thoughts for a bit. Of course, she couldn't be completely alone in the communal showers, but no one was rude enough

Comments

[savagesolitude]

Shortly after departing from Klavier's company, one of the soldiers had returned to toss her a new beret and demand the wet one from her pocket. Claire glared, but obeyed, gritting her teeth as she slipped it on and was met with a stern warning about following dress code.

"The boy's hat fell in the soap bucket, okay, " she grumbled at him. "It wasn't anyone's fault."

What a shock. Her plea went ignored.

Nonetheless, there was hope for this shift. Claire drifted into the cafeteria nose first, belly aching at the smell of food. There was a new scent underneath, however, and the closer she came to the buffet the more her nose began to wrinkle.

Beside the normal food, there was a basin of thick, unappetizing gruel.
Claire balked in disgust. No way. Now that she could eat real food again there was not a force on earth that could make her touch that. It was all slimy. Like someone had stepped on a slug. She aimed for the good food, only to be blocked by the same soldier. He pointed at the gruel.

"D-class patients don't have access to the old menu. Turn around and pick up your dinner."

"Excuse me?" Claire barked incredulously. "Just who do you think you are? Yesterday I was eating that, and I'm going to eat it today too."

The soldier was immovable. "Turn around and pick up your lunch, Greene."

"I didn't start the food fight! I had nothing to do wi-"

"If you continue to argue, Greene, you won't be eating at all." He narrowed his eyes. "Turn around."

Claire's face contorted. Anger, frustration, desolation. Each threatened to burst out and pummel the man where he stood. But Claire couldn't let herself scream. Couldn't go another day without food. Her lip wobbled and her eyes thinned into her most hateful glare. "Fine," she hissed. With a furious whirl she faced the gruel, slapped some on her plate and stomped off.

Claire located the table furthest away from the buffet and plummeted into the seat. She ate. She'd had worse meals. Far worse meals. But eating this slop while they were serving something way better down there was just plain cruel.

[For Venom!]

[anemptydecapo]

As intriguing as the discussion with the detective had been, it was not going to last forever. The assassin's march back inside was occasionally punctuated by scalding looks from the solider leading the way and perhaps also a bit of scolding (some harsh words for having placed his coat in the snow the entire shift) but Venom's attention had been more on the feeling of the cold melting off his skin to listen. He kept himself quiet through the halls, each remark sent his way simply rolling off his shoulders with practiced indifference.

The cafeteria appeared to have resumed its previous functions once he arrived, though there was still an obvious change. The scent of the usual meals aside, piled on most all the trays held by the patient body was... some sort of pink mass. He rose an eyebrow under his hair, especially when a surly soldier pushed a similar tray of 'food' in his hands and ordered him to sit.

...What was this thing he was looking at? Far more curious than upset, the Guild Head examined the strange pile closely as he wandered toward what was usually an empty corner. It held the same consistency of over-cooked oatmeal, though showed no obvious oats for it to be that. Its color was distractingly bright red-- what it artificial coloring or naturally that way? He wasn't a chef, not in the least (cooking was not in an assassin's learning-plan. Any excursions he made into kitchens usually resulted in more horror and pain than when he was doing his job), but he couldn't recall any sort of food item naturally taking the shape of something like this.

By the time he decided "pink-colored gruel" was the only description he would likely ever have for this meal, a sharp burst of pain collided itself into his side. The tray in his hands slipped, clanging noisily against a table he didn't remember getting that close to, especially not enough to run into, and proceeded to spill its contents all over the table's surface like brightly colored bile.

"Kch!" It was the only sound to leave his throat as the pain in his hip subsided and the knowledge that he would now spend 40% of his day cleaning this damn canteen sunk in. His eyes briefly flicked to the woman who had been sitting at the table (how long had she been there...?) before he turned his back and left to retrieve a few napkins. When he returned, his tone of voice was at least somewhat apologetic. "I apologize for disturbing you, miss."

[savagesolitude]

Claire was almost looking forward to a meal left in silence. Such a thing hadn't happened to her since she'd arrived here. It was almost unnerving now, to go from near solitude to being surrounded by people day in and day out. Complete strangers, at that.

Scratch that, it was unnerving. Claire hunched over her meal, taking a wary survey of the room and its occupants with each spoonful. There were good people here. She knew that. But it was risky to think that every single one of them was good. Damon had proved that much. On the island, she had known where she stood with everyone.

Or so she had thought. Unbidden, the image of the departing submarine came to mind. Jin in her hut, scrambling for a story that she would buy. Like he was afraid of her. Kate begging her to join them on the boat, after they had already run away without her. Would that be Bella next? Muraki?

The tray before her turned blurry. Claire bit her lip and clenched her eyes shut. Just goes to show you. Just goes to show...

There was a sudden clatter and an unappetizing splat. Claire jolted upright, bewildered and scooting back in her chair like a startled animal. All across the table was the remainder of someone's lunch, pink goop sprayed all around and dripping off the table's edge in clumps.

Claire blinked at the mess, trying to steady her breathing. She turned to the man standing beside her and blinked again. All thoughts of before were forgotten.

His hair. She couldn't stop staring at it. What had he done to his hair? Was that a wig?

"What?" she said finally. It was a moment more before she was able to collect her thoughts, and then she shook her head. She wanted to stop gawking at that hair and look him in his eyes, but that was impossible when she couldn't even find his eyes. She ended up talking at the big blue pattern where his face should be. "No, no, it's fine - are you okay?"

[anemptydecapo]

Impressive as the woman's startled jolt was, truthfully, Venom hadn't noticed it. He'd already taken to sweeping the mess back onto the tray (he'd already known he wasn't going to stomach anything even before entering the cafeteria. The change in menu was entirely coincidental), attention fully on the way the gruel stuck stubbornly onto the paper napkins.

It was only marginally disgusting. Like rotted blood...

His fingers twitched around the napkin he held for a second as he circled to the other side of the table, lowering himself to his knees and cleaning up the underside of the table and what had spilled onto the floor. "Don't concern yourself over me," he said as he worked. It hadn't been that strong a hit, certainly not enough to be a cause for worry. It hadn't even been on his injured side, rapidly healing as the gashes on his hip were. He didn't need a stranger asking over him when he was still able to move.

Hmph. There. The napkins were tossed onto the top of the tray, then put back onto the table. When Venom finally turned his head back up, he caught sight of the red under the woman's eyes, the green of her eyes making it all the more obvious. Had she been crying...? His mind immediately told him to ignore it, to not get involved, but the question left his mouth before he could put anything into action. "Has something happened?" Damn it.

[savagesolitude]

He was cleaning up by himself. Alarming as the situation was, Claire could remember enough of herself to peck at the mess, gingerly scooping up whatever he had left behind and looking for a spot to set the soiled napkins down. He didn't seem keen on putting it back into the bowl, which struck Claire as an awful waste for a moment. Then the chatter around her hit her ears again, and she remembered. Back here, that wasn't necessary. Back here, in the real world, that was unhealthy.

She hunched in her seat, embarrassed for thinking of it. She was gross, wasn't she? It just seemed silly. The table top was cleaner than a lot of things that people put in their mouths, and food was food. But that wasn't how things worked.

He didn't seem hurt, and confirmed as much. His voice was deep. English accent, nothing like Charlie's or that red-haired woman's. His skin was as dark as Eko's, but his hair was just all wrong. Unbelievable. Even more confusing was that it looked like it was real. It lacked that odd lustre of wigs, and sat on his head like it grew out of his scalp. Did he dye it that way, then? Dye, flatten, and paint it? And why would he wear it in front of his eyes like that?

He deposited his napkins on the tray, and so did she. She debated offering him the rest of her portion - she had the snacks in her room still. She would survive. Claire pursed her lips and gripped the bowl, moving it towards him uneasily by only an inch before he opened his mouth again.

"I - uh." Claire blinked furiously, then shut her eyes. Brows furrowed. "I'm not used to crowds anymore." Part of the truth. She opened her eyes, but they slid over to the people surrounding them. She didn't want to stare at him. She didn't like getting stared at herself. It used to happen for all the good reasons before she was pregnant. Then it became suspicion. And now it was just alarm. Caution. "I haven't...I haven't been around new people in years."

For some reason, the confession came thickly. Claire glanced up at him, estimating his eye line as she looked. She thought she caught a glimpse of him, the shadow under his brow. Licking her lips, she finished passing her bowl his way.

"You can have it. I've got my own food for later."

[anemptydecapo]

As much as he loathed the idea of her speaking about herself when he was clearly a stranger, the assassin couldn't keep himself from listening out of sheer morbid curiosity as she went on. 'In years?' She couldn't have been referring to being in this aslyum for that long, meaning she was talking about something else. Had she been a prisoner before this? Physically speaking, she appeared too frail, too... generically pretty to handle prison. That was hardly a basis for judging a person, yes, but the woman held none of the quiet, dangerous edge the other assassins did. There was no lurking coldness. Still, the longer he watched her behind his hair, the easier it was to spot the subtle twitches in her muscles. Her constant uneasiness...

Perhaps he was right about her inability to handle a prison. That didn't mean she hadn't been in one.

Having decided the area was as good as any, Venom finally took a seat, shaking his head at her offer as he did so. He knew he should eat something. It was stupid of him to endanger himself by withholding on consuming anything, but the point remained that he just never felt like it. There stayed that constant numbness in his chest that hated the idea of being filled. Having seen the contents of his own bowl splattered against the table only made his stomach turn and rebel even more.

"I said not to concern yourself over me. I'll be fine without it."

[savagesolitude]

A refusal. She should have expected that somehow. But it did leave her in an awkward position. Silence lingered, then Claire drew the bowl back. She took in a spoonful, her eyes never leaving him. Waste not, want not.

She debated warning him about skipping meals. They had all missed breakfast, and now he wasn't getting lunch. She'd spent enough time here starving herself to know that it would be getting painful by now. Yet he'd made it clear it was none of her business. If he was going to keep saying he would be fine, there was nothing more she could do about it. He could eat supper tonight if he wanted.

"They've changed a lot around here," Claire remarked casually. She stiffened as a soldier walked past the next table over to reach a patient, hunching her body as if she ready to spring at a moment's notice. "I wonder if they're sleeping somewhere inside the building. It would be a lot easier to catch them when they're not aiming those guns around."

She took another thoughtful spoonful, watching. Every soldier seemed to have the same burly gait. Even the women. Measured expressions, the same tones and gestures. They all looked like different people, but it was like they were cut from the same cloth. Or brainwashed. It disturbed her - to be truthful, it always had. The way people acted in the army was so robotic. Unnatural.

She had had about enough of them. Her gaze rolled back to the strange man, and she wondered again what was behind that curtain of hair. "Can I ask you a question?"

[anemptydecapo]

Venom could have been disconcerted with how the woman never wanted to take her sight off of him. He could have been amused at the idea that he were so visibility untrustworthy that a stranger would watch his every movement without pause. Instead, his head briefly tilted to the side, one blue eye barely visible as he watched her, scrutinizing, in return. Really, the entire situation was more awkward than entertaining. There was clearly something very wrong with this woman and Venom himself was clearly socially maladjusted enough to stay in her presence regardless.

She hadn't asked him to leave, after all.

Again, he found himself internally repeating the words leaving her mouth. Catch them? "You have plans to hunt them down?" In theory, the idea was only slightly ludicrous. After all, Venom was never one to pretend he'd the higher ground when he'd done far worse than ambushing a group in their sleep for the sake of the Guild. After all, information was information--how it was garnered was rarely important to an assassin. But the mental image of this, again, physically frail-looking woman (as well as possibly mentally unstable) attacking this new management, possibly alone, when it was well known that everything in this building was prone to horrible transformations...

The tight line his mouth usually formed went from impassive to questioning.

Before he could continue that train of thought, however, the woman already moved to a new one. The assassin shook his head, finally looking down at the table in front of him. "If you must." The tone of his voice made it obvious there were lines drawn over what could be considered personal and she would do well not to over-step them.

[savagesolitude]

Why was no one in this place going for the most obvious solutions? His surprise at her suggestion was almost stupid. If you were a prisoner, your enemies were your captors. You had to take care of them before you got out of anywhere. You'd die in here if you sat on your hands and waited around for rescue.

Claire knew better. Rescue was one of those once in a million things. Nothing was more unreliable.

"If we can't get out by running away, we're going to have to find out how to do it, won't we?" Claire said, voice coloured with conspiracy. "Best bet's to wrangle it out of one of them. And if that doesn't work, then it's no skin off our noses if they start disappearing."

And she would do it. She might not be able to take them all on, but one on one was a different matter. Hopefully two on one, if she could find someone to help her.

The man seemed reluctant to talk. Everything about him was abrupt and strict. Single sentences. Totally withdrawn. It almost justified the haircut. Just another wall to hide behind.

Not that that would stop her curiosity. Claire licked her lips and leaned in closer, fancying that she'd finally found his eyes under that thick white sheet. "How did you get your hair like that?"

It might be something personal, so the question was asked quietly. He had to be sick of people asking by now, but when you chose to look that weird you had to expect it. It was the strangest thing she had ever seen on another human being.

[anemptydecapo]

Venom found himself shaking his head the more she spoke, one hand briefly raising from his lap to gesture away her words. That wasn't what he meant by that. It was his own fault, of course. It was rare he was anything but short with those he'd no business with--a habit that wouldn't gain him anything when he desperately needed all the allies he could get. After the woman finished, the assassin lowered his hand once more, let out a sigh, and explained himself. "I wasn't implying that was a poor plan of action," he began. "I was only wondering whether your methods in doing so were well-thought out.

"You need to take more than the desired result into consideration. You assume you can beat them into submission or find them sleeping: why would they rest when we don't?" The occasional losing time, aside. Despite regularly awaking from nightmares, Venom himself never recalled having fallen asleep his entire time him. He certainly never felt rested in the morning. "Why would they be unarmed at night when they aren't in the morning, especially if they're prone to suppressing any act of rebellion? What's to say they aren't like the other creatures in this facility and change into more dangerous shapes when the lights go out?" He shook his head again, lacing his fingers on top of the table's surface. He looked at the woman in front of him, his voice almost chastising. "You shouldn't be so willing to charge into a war without knowing who your enemy is. That is why I questioned you."

But... "I will preemptively congratulate you if you can take them alone, though."

As if a flip had been switched, the Guild Head immediately lost what sociable air he may have gained by speaking more than two sentences to this stranger at a time. Once the topic was back on himself, on something so mundane and irrelevant to their current situation, his voice changed back into what it always was: distant, quiet, and tinted with anger. "Like what, exactly?"

[savagesolitude]

He had a point. He had a lot of good points. One part of Claire could understand this, and took his words to heart. The other part of her put the pout on her face.

"Well, we won't know anything like that unless we look. That's what bothers me. Nobody has." She shook her head at him, crossing her arms and sending a scathing glare at their guards. "No one's invincible. There's no such thing."

They could very well be armed at night. In fact, they were likely to be more so. Claire was aware of that. But nobody could afford to be on their guard at all times. They had to have places where they rested. Or at least breaks or safe rooms, where they let down their guards. You had to find out where those were. That everyone was so damn determined to run around in circles instead was just beyond her.

Granted, that wasn't her plan of action for the night. Maybe in the future, but for now her plans with Klavier were more important. They might find something useful on their search, too.

His parting remark on the subject had her teething her lip. She could manage by herself, but...it would be so much easier if she wasn't. "I hope I won't be alone for it. I can handle the interrogation, but I can't carry anyone out. It would be better with two people. Three at the most."

He seemed reasonable, at least. There was no reason to bite his head off. And he actually saw some merit in her plan. Maybe the man was stiff, but he wasn't so terrible as some people here.

His reaction to her question, however, set off a small pang of guilt in her chest. Maybe he was sensitive about it. Claire bit her lip again in silent apology, and rushed to defend herself. "The pattern. I've just...I've never seen anyone with a pattern on their hair before. Doesn't it grow out? Get uneven?"

She wouldn't touch on the colour or how straight it was. Or even how or why it hung in his eyes. If those things all came naturally to him, then she had best leave them alone. The pattern was the only thing about it that no one could have been born with.