Day 32: Lunch

[damnrudecock]

Sanosuke hadn't quite been ready to part ways from Kenshin, but his nurse was insistent, and she was offering food. That second thing was what really got Sano off the couch and headed to the cafeteria. And at the very least, the thing about Okita had been settled, which meant the fighter could focus on his meal

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[whohitreset]

Sonuvabitch. The cafeteria was crowded with people as Matt's nurse lead him in by the arm. He could see the faces of those about ten feet away at most. After that everything started to become a blur of colors and shapes. He knew it was futile, but he squinted anyway to no effect. Bugger all.

Finally, and with a much amused glance from his nurse that he tried his best to ignore, the young man pulled out the hideous glasses from where he'd tucked them on his waistband. Everything came into focus immediately, but damn the irritating pressure on his ears! "You sure there's not a better pair?" he grumbled.

"I think they're cute," said the nurse.

"Oh yeah. Lovely." He let himself be lead to the food line, already not too thrilled with what they might be serving. Cafeterias like this were pretty well known for serving garbage. If he was going to eat that he wanted it dry and from a bag, not sitting in who knows what type of juices all day. And it looked like pizza day.

Pizza was hit or miss, so he opted for plain cheese and just hoped it wasn't drenched in grease. If his crust was orange? He was dumping it.

[Waiting for Mellooooo! ♥]

[cnflctofintrst]

Despite the strong tea he'd drank at breakfast, Mello had spent the last few hours asleep on the sofa. Fortunately, the sharpest edge had left his headache, and although he wasn't happy about the fact that he wouldn't be able to keep up with his body's desire for caffeine, he could tolerate the challenge. After all, it wasn't like caffeine was what drove him. His abilities were his and his entirely.

That was what Mello told himself as he grabbed a tray with one hand, still gnawing on the nails of the other as he scanned the cafeteria's occupants with uncharacteristic disinterest.

He was wasting time. He was wasting a lot of time, and had been for over twenty four hours. The first steps were always the most important, and if he let himself fall behind now, he'd have a hell of a time fighting for the influence he could have earned if he'd just stayed the hell awake.

Self-reflection was a waste of time. He'd just have to do better.

Mello yanked a couple slices of pizza onto his plate and withdrew his hand from his mouth. The cafeteria was still mostly deserted, and he forced himself to direct a little more attention to the other patients. Two newcomers: a confused-looking blond girl, and a guy whose expression fell somewhere between annoyance and apathy. He'd already turned back to the counter and picked up a glass of juice when the second face clicked.

Mello really was losing his edge. To be fair, though, Matt hadn't worn glasses like that since he was too young to have a choice.

L said that people arrived here from different points in time, and there was no way to know where this version of his childhood friend had been pulled from. Three out of four people from his universe agreed, though, that a few seconds before death was the way to go. He wasn't sure about Misa, but Darwinism wouldn't let someone like her live a healthy lifespan.

He returned the glass to his tray and left the whole thing sitting on the counter before leaving the line. "Nice glasses," he remarked as he slid into line behind Matt.

[whohitreset]

Matt gave a start, looking over just long enough to ascertain that it was Mello speaking to him. He was immediately conflicted. On the one hand, his friend was alive. On the other... had his plan succeeded? And then of course there was the matter of this hospital and the fact that if Mello was in it himself, there wasn't much to look for in the way of outside help. "Well," he muttered lowly, "so much for the Mello-will-get-me-out-of-this theory." Granted, he hadn't been banking on it too hard, but he wasn't going to tell the blond that.

A couple slices of cheese pizza found his plate, and they looked surprisingly edible enough that he added a couple bread sticks too.

"The nurse wouldn't tell me how long I'd been here," he continued in the same tone. "You'll have to enlighten me. I'm not even scarred." Either he'd been here a while, or this was some state of the art hospital. Though he was willing to guess this anyway, simply because he was still alive to begin with.

[cnflctofintrst]

"This is the first time I've seen you, and I've been here for a couple days," he said. Matt expected to be scarred, so what he'd seen on the news report must have already happened. A thoughtful frown crossed Mello's face. Even Matt might be reluctant to do favors for someone who'd ordered him to his death. It would have been easier if he didn't remember that, even though he didn't sound resentful. "I don't know why you're not scarred," he continued. "Obviously, I missed that bonus." Mello looked towards Matt with a smirk, then picked up his abandoned tray as they moved past it.

"What's the last thing you remember?" he asked. His voice was quiet. He hadn't recognized anyone in the cafeteria yet, but just because he didn't recognize people didn't mean they didn't recognize him. There was no reason to risk an eavesdropper.

[whohitreset]

"Gunshots," Matt answered just as quietly, though there was a note of something else in his voice aside from ordinary caution. Flashes of light and sound. Bullets twanging off the hood of the car, ripping through his vest, whizzing by his ear... so much to take in during the split second before he--

He raised a hand to his head again, just as he had back in his room, as though expecting to feel something off there. Blood? A wound of some sort? A gaping hole? Nothing. There was nothing there, no change from before, and Matt looked slightly dazed as he led them both to an empty table.

"You didn't go to a hospital, idiot," Matt muttered, trying to take his mind off the previous imagery. "It might not have scarred up so bad if you had."

The fact that Mello hadn't seen him didn't mean anything. If he was unconscious and no one had told the blond he was there as well it could have been any length of time. "How did it go?" he finally asked, assuming that his friend would know what he meant.

[cnflctofintrst]

Mello gave a noncommittal grunt as he dropped into the chair across from Matt. "That sounds pretty much right," he said, replying to the first thing Matt said. Hell if he was going to admit to the second. "I didn't know that all that would happen," he added with the vaguest hint of apology in his tone. He knew that he didn't have to apologize--he'd been right, after all, or would assume as much until Near showed up--but he couldn't completely shake the faint whisper of guilt from his mind. Not much in the world could cause Mello to admit he'd overlooked something, but despite the uncharacteristic words, his voice was mostly casual.

He took a long sip of juice and returned the glass to the table, then gave Matt the type of long, thoughtful, vaguely challenging look he'd given to many a textbook during their childhood. He'd already taken creative license in his conversation with L, and although he didn't want to do it to Matt, the alternative was admitting to what sounded like failure.

"As planned," he finally said. Not a complete lie, but not the complete truth either. It seemed like a decent compromise.

[whohitreset]

"Mmph." Matt snapped at a rebellious strand of cheese on his pizza before setting the rest down. That was probably as close an apology as he was going to get from Mello face-to-face, and it made the rest of what he said a little confusing.

He hadn't known Takada's men would fire on him, and yet things had gone as planned. Just on Mello's end, he supposed. Still, if everything had gone according to plan, how had the blond managed to live through it? Sure, his friend was resourceful, but...

"Am I hallucinating you, then?" he asked blandly. "You owe me a better explanation than that."

[cnflctofintrst]

He shouldn't have expected it to get by Matt. Mello looked away and scowled at his juice. After losing the stare-down with his glass (he was having a streak of that, he thought, and a deeper scowl flashed across his face), he slid back further into his chair and folded his arms as he pressed his foot against the edge of the table. Etiquette be damned.

"You're not hallucinating," he said, then narrowed his eyes in thought. If half of the people here seemed to be fictional characters, he couldn't dismiss the idea of mass hallucination. "Well, it's unlikely," he added.

An explanation. That wouldn't be easy. "You want to know what happened, or do you want to know where you are?" His annoyed expression wasn't meant for Matt, but it was clear from his mood that he'd probably only answer one of the questions.

[whohitreset]

Except that Matt didn't really care what mood Mello was in. Obviously his friend had answers of some sort, and this wasn't the time to be leaving him in the dark.

"I want to know why the two of us are sitting here eating pizza in the middle of some sort of hospital wearing ugly gray and yellow nightclothes. If explaining that to me answers either, then I'm all ears." It was odd seeing Mello without the usual chocolate bar. Had he not been able to get connections in this place in order to secure some? Probably not, judging by the fact that he was also in a similar outfit. (One which, if he did say so himself, Matt wore far better.)

[cnflctofintrst]

"It-" he started, but his words were cut short as he started chewing the cuticle of his index finger. "I'm working on it. We'll be out of here soon enough." Not that either of them had much to return to...and Mello wouldn't leave before putting Artemis in his place. His desire to beat Landel was intellectual, like his desire to beat Kira. The other situation was personal.

"It's gonna take a long time to explain everything." He scooped up a slice of pizza, then slid back into the chair. "What I know so far: this place claims to be in New Jersey, but it's not. Something supernatural's tweaking the languages so that we can all communicate, and monsters come out at night. That's why so many people are bandaged up. There are dead people here. There are people from other worlds and other times."

He watched Matt's expression closely. His friend had dealt with paradigm shifts before, so Mello was optimistic about his ability to handle the facts.

[whohitreset]

To Matt's credit, he sat through the entirety of Mello's explanation with a straight face. Granted, it might have been a bit too straight, and it didn't really change until a few moments after the blond had finished speaking.

"Or..." the other man finally muttered, "I haven't actually woken up yet, and whatever gas they have me on is giving me loopy dreams about crazy supernatural hospitals." Because Mello wouldn't say anything like that unless he actually meant it. "Or they've got you on something that's messing with your head."

And yet it felt too awfully real to be a dream. Too many of his senses were affected, and it ran in a linear fashion without changing scenarios every few moments like his dreams normally did. Then the second option... no, that wasn't right. Not with how Mello was acting otherwise. It was even less believable than the first in a way.

He made an indecipherable noise and covered his face with both hands. Not possible. Not possible. He'd proved the whole deal with the book that killed people, but this? New Jersey? "The hell, Mello?" His voice was muffled. "What the hell."

[cnflctofintrst]

Mello groaned. This probably was the type of thing Matt dreamed about: chasing monsters down dark hallways in abandoned mental institutes. All he needed was a health bar and a bottomless item bag.

"If I was going to hallucinate I'd come up with something a little less cliche than this shit," he snapped, glaring again. As unlikely as the institute seemed, he'd only questioned his sanity briefly before introspection reminded him that he sure as hell wasn't weak enough to be manipulated by the type of person who would create something so juvenile-horror-novelesque. His outburst of anger was gone as soon as it appeared, and he yawned as he folded his arms behind his head.

"What the hell," he said with a nod. "I know. But we can't reject evidence because its improbable. I've spent two days gathering info about this place, and I'm telling you, that's how it is. Being wrong isn't my style."

Aside from the whole 'getting you killed' thing.

[whohitreset]

The heels of Matt's hands had moved up to dig into his eyes. How had he gotten involved in this, anyway? These weren't the sorts of twists and turns he'd expected after he'd started life in Wammy's. He had expected a life in espionage... or at least professional stalking.

There were monsters here. Dead people. Other worlds and times. Dead... "You got us both killed, didn't you?" he started quietly. "You got us both killed, and whatever crazy shit was involved with that fucking book dragged us both here, right??" He should have known. He should have known. You didn't mess with the supernatural like that and expect to come out unscathed.

And there was no chocolate for Mello. The man had taken to chewing on his nails, of which there wasn't much left now that he got a better look. So chances of him getting a cigarette or three were probably next to nil. And his games... "Fuck, Mello. FUCK."

[cnflctofintrst]

"I did not get both of us killed," he said, a little louder than necessary. The word 'get' made it sound like the whole thing had been a poorly planned mistake, and even coming from Matt, it was more than enough to make Mello bristle. "I did what I had to do, and I accomplished the goddamn objective. Besides, you didn't have anything to do with the book aside from watching a girl who'd used it! It's not like you touched it or anything. If that was enough to get someone here, the place would be packed. Use your goddamn head."

He stabbed a breadstick into a puddle of sauce and bit off the tip, his nose wrinkled in annoyance and disgust.

[whohitreset]

The association had been willing, though. He'd willingly associated with someone who'd been trying to stop the user of said book. Matt scowled back at his friend. "I am using my head," he growled. "Enough to notice you didn't contest the fact that we're both dead."

Maybe Mello hadn't been directly responsible for Matt's death, but if he hadn't gotten into this whole mess with him it wouldn't have happened. Mello should know that as well as he did.

"Sorry if I've hurt your pride."

[cnflctofintrst]

It wasn't hard to hurt Mello's pride. He took another angry bite of his breadstick and fumed for a few seconds, still scowling. When he finally spoke his voice was sullen, though some of the heat had cooled. "Yes, we're both dead," he said flatly, "but I figured you'd get away. I'm not stupid enough to let two people die by accident."

After another moment of silence he resumed eating the breadstick with slightly less aggression, though he was far from pleased. "It might have to do with the book, in our case," he said. "The book didn't send us here, but when people show up in groups they're always connected by some important event."