Day 55: Male Showers [4th Shift]

[zack_fair]

Having to be around food that he couldn't eat hadn't been nearly as bad as it could have been considering what that food was, and so Zack felt fairly decent as he left the cafeteria and headed through the Sun Room into the showers. Actually, it was his feet that were bothering him more than his stomach. He hadn't been allowed to sit down all day (

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[heroesdontshave]

Things always seemed to be unnecessarily complicated in this place. He couldn't even remember a time back home when he actually had to worry about adjusting temperature this much. Normally you just turn it on. Water was always kept at very neutral temperatures to begin with, so adjustments were only slight when you needed it. And then it was never anything complicated like this. Apparently, the two knobs each controlled the absolute extremes of either hot or cold, and you had to somehow manipulate them both simultaneously until you managed to get something that worked for you. It was the kind of thing that was impossible to get right except through trial and error. Why would anyone design something like that on purpose?

He'd somehow managed to get it back to mind-numbingly cold when the guy under the shower next to him called out to him by name. He turned to him immediately, surprise more than evident on his face until he mentioned Light. That right there clicked immediately. Oh. A friend of Lightning's? And she pointed Snow out to him? .... Sad thing was he actually wasn't sure if that was good pointing out or bad pointing out.

Either way, the surprise melted away almost immediately and he just laughed, lifting both hands in an "I give up" gesture as he stepped away from the knobs. "Hey, if you know how to work this thing, be my guest." Snow knew it'd take several more minutes of screwing with the damn thing before he could get it to anything close to normal. And by then he'd be either half-frozen or his skin would be seared off.

"So you're a friend of Light's, huh? What's your name?" He kind of wondered if they met here or if this was a friend from back home. Not that he's recognize the name either way.

[zack_fair]

As it turned out, Snow was much more personable than the stony Lightning, though in a way that made sense. Zack just had to think about himself and Cloud and it made perfect sense. He had no idea of these two were as close as he and Cloud were, and yet he found himself making connections either way. Maybe it was because of what Lightning had accidentally seen, a scene that should have remained private between himself and Cloud.

He knew she wasn't going to mention it to anyone unless she had to, so it wasn't a huge deal, and yet somehow it still chafed. He didn't blame her, of course, but it also wasn't the sort of thing he could just forget about.

Right now, though, he was simply going to focus on helping someone else out. When Snow moved out of the way, Zack abandoned his own shower and migrated to Snow's so that he could start manipulating the knobs. It really wasn't a difficult process; he just stayed out of the direct spray of the water, turning up the heat first and then bringing the cold up bit by bit until it was about right.

"The name's Zack," he said as he turned back to Snow and nodded in greeting. "I've only known her a couple days, but you got mentioned once before." Mainly through a name mishap, but he didn't need to go into details. "Anyway, try that out, let me know if it feels okay." Some people liked their water on the hot side and some didn't, so he just wanted to be sure.