Day 41: Breakfast

[oftemptation]

Endrance turned his head to look at the intercom, giving it a look that would wither an entire rose garden in an instant. He would never get used to ending up in his room again from somewhere else in the Institute

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[no_barbarian]

Oh, what had he been on? Luckily the night had ended before things got any worse, but still...! He didn't even have the excuse of being drunk; it was just...sad. Was he really that desperate?

At least he had his file now, though at kind of a high price. Mortified and full of regrets, Teisel hauled himself out of bed and let the nurse herd him to the cafeteria. There was bacon again today, and he helped himself to several pieces along with a couple pancakes, leaving the quickly-cooling eggs alone. He'd learned his lesson about those wastes of plate space. He slumped into the nearest empty seat, gloomily nibbling a strip of bacon in the hope that it'd cheer him up a little.

...This problem was too large for bacon. Well, the admiral seemed like a pretty posh guy. People like that knew how to be discreet, right? They'd come to a sort of understanding, in private, and that's where it'd stay. In private. Even if he was regretting the whole mess now, it wasn't anything anyone else would know about, right? At least there was that...

[free to anyone, limit=3]

[alwayscomesback]

[Here, have a hungry teenager!]

He hadn't gotten very far. Again. Maybe this really was some reoccurring nightmare that he was trapped in. He'd have to take the next night, if he was still stuck here, to see if he could break out of the cycle. Maybe that would wake him up.

Since he'd be trying that tonight, Sokka was going to be sure to stock up on a good helping of the bacon stuff before then. "Breakfast is he most important meal of the day," he told himself, cheerily piling the bacon on. The lady behind the food insisted on him getting more than jut meat, so with a little bit of eggs and pancakes also in tow, Sokka made is way to the closest table and had a seat.

[no_barbarian]

Ugh. Another kid. Why were there so many of them in here? It was downright disturbing.

Teisel had more important things on his mind than some punk teenager. Giving the kid a brief glare, he went back to his breakfast.

[alwayscomesback]

Hey, at least Sokka was a kid that could mind his own business for at least the first half of his meal. He munched on bacon for a while, feeling better and better about his looping dream fate until he took the time to look around and spotted his table mate. No sense in being rude.

"Hey, how's it going?" he greeted, holding his hand up (some bacon still held there) in a wave.

[no_barbarian]

Teisel stared for a moment (why was the kid shaking a piece of bacon around? Was he trying to wave?), wondering whether he should just ignore the little human blister. Aw, hell, it'd probably just get him whined at.

"Just super." As super as things could be after the night he'd had, but Teisel would die sooner than elaborate on it.

[alwayscomesback]

"That's good," Sokka said, though he was really just making small talk now. Starting a conversation and then falling back into silence, even just to eat, was pretty strange and it caused Sokka to get a little nervous. "Have a bad night? You haven't been like... looping into the same place, have you?" he suddenly asked, wondering now if it wasn't just him that was getting caught in the cycle.

[no_barbarian]

Either the kid was good at ignoring sarcasm or he had all the awareness of a cucumber.

"Yes. And thanks a lot for reminding me." Not that he'd forgotten, but still. It was hard to look dangerous while drinking orange juice, but Teisel tried his best. How did he always end up with morning people?

The next question was confusing enough to distract Teisel from his grouchy mood for a moment. "Looping...? The hell are you talking about?"

[alwayscomesback]

Sokka didn't ignore sarcasm - he was practically the king of sarcasm! - but he was actually immune to it, especially when he wasn't focusing too terribly on what others were saying. At the moment, Sokka's focus was mostly on his food, so he didn't catch what he should have been catching. Oh well, the guy was talking, and that's what mattered.

Right?

"Hey, don't get touchy about it," he said warily, holding up a hand in case the guy got more than just touchy. The last thing Sokka needed was to be doused in orange juice for trying to be friendly. "An I asked about looping like if you're doing the same thing, or getting stuck in the same place over and over?"

[no_barbarian]

"Who's touchy?" Teisel snapped, setting his glass down a little too hard. He wasn't the one who'd decided to open his yap. Couldn't a guy eat breakfast and agonize over his latest set of regrets in peace?

"The same...?" How in the world would that even happen? "No--I have a brain. Have you tried just doing something different?" This kid was a real winner.

[alwayscomesback]

"You, apparently," Sokka snapped right back, since the guy was being all snappy himself. If he was grumpy, then he shouldn't be taking it out on Sokka! Or on his glass, which Sokka was pretty sure had never done anything to the guy. "And it's not like I haven't tried doing something different either!"

Well, sort of. Sokka knew that he had been about to enter the next hallway, but that guy with the weird hair had been bugging him. Maybe that was it, that guy had done something last night. Hey, it was possible, since everything else in this weird possible-dream seemed to be possible too.

[no_barbarian]

"What?" The nerve of this kid! "You're gonna be eating your breakfast through a tube if you don't watch it, kid. I didn't ask you to start bugging me and it's not my fault you're not making any damn sense."

There was no justice in this world if Teisel could get sassed by some shrimpy little dumbass and not get to throw him across the room. It wasn't fair.

[alwayscomesback]

"Hey, I was just trying to have a conversation! Meals are boring if you don't have anyone to talk to," he defended, though he was beginning to think that he should really look at those he took a seat next to.

Maybe this guy just wasn't a morning person.

"Do you know how hard it is to make sense out of something that doesn't? I've tried making sense of this place, believe me, and I still can't figure it out. All I know is that's it's got good food." And lots of people with weird attitudes, he thought, but didn't say.

[no_barbarian]

This was among the dumbest conversations Teisel had had in recent memory. "Did I look like I wanted to be talked at? Why can't you just eat your food? Or find some other kid to sit with--it's not like there's a shortage of 'em."

"Wow. Sounds like you're making some real progress there," he drawled through a mouthful of pancake. "Maybe you should sit quietly and think about it some more, smart guy." Whatever he'd meant by 'looping,' Teisel would probably never know, since the kid seemed to have had his train of thought switched onto another track entirely. Provided it had been on a track to begin with.