Day 57: Game Room (Third Shift)

[zack_fair]

Having already met two new people today, Zack found that his mood was slowly starting to improve, if only out of necessity. While he didn't like dumping his problems on his friends, he was even less willing to do so with a stranger. More than that, Rose had been very personable and he'd felt good about himself for being to help her with a few

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[36_24_35]

Tifa poked her head in every room down the wall of the Sun Room to find Scott. She needed his room number to openly pilfer the remains of his juice horde. Brunch had been much too distracting to focus on one man when she had booze to discuss with two odd boys.

She tried the Music Room first since that was where they had first met, but it was empty. The Sun Room wasn't very crowded either what with half the patients out in the lobbies waiting for visitors--Oh shit! Maybe he was one of them! Well, if she came across him, awesome. If not, there was always another time to try.

The last room was checked and, "Oh, hey!" There was actually someone in there! It wasn't Scotty, but Zack was just as nice. Tifa moved out of the doorway to get a better look of more than just his porcupine hair. "Meeting someone in here?" she asked, but she figured it was a no what with the single-player came in front of him.

"God, that looks depressing. I'll play with you," she suggested, already gloomy just watching a grown man play by himself.

[zack_fair]

As he'd guessed, it didn't take long for someone else to enter the room, though he hadn't expected it to be someone he knew. Zack stopped with his dealing and turned in his seat to watch as Tifa walked over. Cloud had said that she was doing fine and that seemed to be the case, which Zack was glad to see.

"Hey," he greeted her. "Nah, I was just looking for something to do." Though now that she mentioned it, sitting alone in a room and playing a game by himself wasn't exactly the most uplifting thing. Good thing she had come to join him.

When she offered to play, he nodded and collected the cards from where they had been spread out on the table, shuffling them once more. "What did you want to play?" He realized that they were once again avoiding everything that they'd heard on that night on Doyleton, but...

Well, now would be the perfect time to discuss it, since they actually had some privacy and they weren't in danger of being eaten by any monsters. He figured that they could work up to it, though.

[36_24_35]

She took a seat opposite him, crossing her arms on the top of the plastic table. Now, sitting with him, Tifa felt like a fool for making a big deal out of that one night in Doyleton. It was impossible not to feel embarrassed, but avoiding him had not been the right option. She was an adult after all, and adults couldn't play these kinds of games. It needed to be rectified, and now was better than later.

But it didn't have to be now now. Maybe Zack would be better at picking this up--Okay! Maybe just a few rounds of cards and then it would be a good time.

"Good question. I can't remember the last time I played cards... Okay, I think I remember Go Fish, or poker. Poker always works, I guess. Too bad we don't have anything to bet with..." She checked her person and placed the spoils of her efforts onto the table. "I have... one 'aspirin.'" It was supposed to be taken during brunch, but she forgot. "Play your cars right and it could be all yours..."

[zack_fair]

"Go Fish gets boring pretty fast," Zack replied with a strained smile. Luckily they had another option, seeing how Tifa also knew how to play poker. She was right about the fact that they couldn't bet, which took a lot of the fun out of it, but they could make do

[ofthemotions]

Given the option of free time in a place he didn't know was just a mistake waiting to happen. And he was supposed to choose pretty quickly, from the way the man escorting him around was acting. Mikado glanced nervously at the man who at the moment was towering over him in some sort of glower. Of the same stock as Simon.... Though Simon never eluded such clear hostility. "Uh

[predictator]

To think that Izaya had considered watching the movie... Or, more accurately: to think that he'd considered watching the people watching the movie, without knowing who else had shown his face. He'd spoken about the possibility of visitors earlier-and the first batch had apparently arrived this very shift-but as far as Izaya was concerned, seeing the young man who'd just left the Sun Room was much, much better than any visitor. If he was here, it meant he was here... to stay, just like Celty and Shizuo and Masaomi before him (even if Izaya hadn't seen the latter two in some number of days).

Izaya had even thought about him just yesterday. He'd left a note under the name of Dollars and wondered, and now here he was: Tanaka Taro. Ryuugamine MikadoIzaya had already been seated in the back of the makeshift theater when he'd seen the boy's face, and he was on his feet a moment later, following after him into another room. The game room, it turned out to be, and Izaya smiled to himself at the irony of one of the playing-pieces coming

[ofthemotions]

In retrospect, perhaps, Mikado should have specified when he had repeatedly wished for someone familiar to be here

[predictator]

Mikado was surprised to see him, Izaya was pleased to note, if his wide eyes and the way he'd stammered his name was any indication. Izaya had been maintaining a low profile-he'd left a note here and there on the board and made a few moves to his own benefit and to prime potential pieces, but he had yet to do anything to really spice things up around here. If that meant his name didn't reach the ears of newcomers like Mikado, all the better.

He idly picked up a different piece in the silence that followed-the black king-and watched Mikado closely as the boy open his mouth silently... and then, finally, responded. Perhaps the surprise had been a little too much, if he was taking this long to process things. Then again, it was something Izaya could understand, at least-until he'd seen Shizuo (or perhaps more accurately, until Shizuo had seen him), he hadn't expected to run into certain people, even if the idea of finding a familiar face hadn't been completely unthought-of. But did that mean that of the people Mikado might have

[vsyourface]

Free shift came. Scott Pilgrim zipped straight into the Game Room.

A Game Boy was snatched from the shelf. A cartridge was snapped into place. An ass was parked in an armchair. Eyes glazed over as the comforting sounds of Kirby's Dream Land started up.

You were surprised?

[Free]

[doneinthree]

Kirk spent exactly four minutes in the Sun Room before deciding that he wasn't enough of a masochist right now to watch a film in which the prisoners of a POW camp were executed for trying to escape. Maybe earlier in the day, he'd been in the mood for motorcycle chases and against-all-odds heroism - hell, he'd spent a full ten years of his life trying to emulate twentieth-century hopeless rebels like Steve McQueen. But, as Kirk was learning with each passing day in this place, he wasn't that boy any more.

Or was he? Bones wasn't wrong about his recklessness. He hadn't exactly behaved maturely last shift either. If by pursuing this thing with the basement, he was leading his crew to pain and death... Bones might be right. Or he might be right, and this might get them some answers, finally. Or they both might be right. Who the hell knew

[vsyourface]

The man with the journal wasn't the only one annoyed by outside noises. As the slow, slightly disjointed speech in the background filtered through the beeps and boops of Scott's pixellated adventure, the first words on the tip of Scott's tongue were: "Hey, cool it, Shatner. Some of us are trying to concentrate." Except he didn't actually say that. Thankfully, Scott's increasingly well-trained fourth wall alarm blared in his ear before he could, and his thick eyebrows shot up. Wait. Didn't someone say... That he was around...?

His thumb smacked down on the pause button. Ever so subtly (read: not very subtly), Scott peered up over the top of the Game Boy, gaze drifting toward the sound of the voice. However, he didn't see anyone familiar-looking. All he saw was another young man staring at him and giving him the standard "turn down the damn game" look. Nothing unusual there. But no sign of the owner of that signature voice. Huh."Hey, you didn't just hear someone say something about stardates, did you?" Scott asked the random stranger

[doneinthree]

Kirk's eyebrows raised in a silent question when the guy took notice of him, although with a pen moustache and his head upside-down, the request of Could you please turn it down? probably wasn't as obvious as it could've been. Reluctantly, he forced himself up into a sitting position, feeling the blood rush strangely in his head.

"What?" Kirk squinted at him, wondering why he was asking. He'd looked younger staring slack-jawed and wrapped up in his game; now Jim reassessed the other man's age to a couple of years older, maybe even the same age as him. His face wasn't familiar, but then, to be fair, Kirk hadn't exactly had time to get acquainted with all four-hundred-plus people serving on the Enterprise.

He'd thought it strange that the only person who'd come here with him were members of the bridge crew. By now, he'd given up on calling for others on the bulletin board. Was it possible that this man came from the twenty-third century?

Or was it... the other thing? "That was me," Kirk answered. Only one way to find out, and

[hat_einen_vogel]

Upon entering the game room, Prussia was disappointed to see they didn't have that 'video game' from earlier in the week set up. He'd wanted to try it again after Claude had showed him how to play, but... On second thought, maybe that wouldn't have been such a great idea with England around. He didn't think he could lose at playing some video obstacle course, but he was still learning how, after all. This would have just been practice, and he definitely didn't need England around while practicing

[hat_einen_vogel]

Prussia cast a glance back at the other nation-he'd found some cards, it looked like-but quickly turned back to the cabinets. Was England trying to rub it in? Because if he was, it was working. Yes, it had been a painful time, but so what if England had lost some land and some dignity? Prussia had lost everything, and one of the ones to blame for that was standing in the same room as him.

"Yeah, sure," he muttered, gritting his teeth. He tried focusing on finding something interesting to pass the time; maybe once they found a game England would stop talking about it.

He pulled out a brightly-colored box labeled 'Candy Land'. "What the hell's this?"