Day 53: Lunch

[buryyourdemons]

There was little to be said of the daily business that went on. He allowed himself to be shuffled, mind embedded too deeply in things he shouldn't be dwelling on. The night was over, the shadows had vanished, and there was little more than bad memories to be left in their stead. This was logic, pure and simple, and should have been reassuring but

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[unheroed]

Even if it hadn't necessarily done him any good on a practical level, meeting Ema Skye had still been interesting. It went to show how different siblings could be from each other; if it wasn't for the physical similarities, Harvey never would have guessed that she and Lana were related. On the other hand, Ema was still young, and a lot of young people had the same qualities. They were excitable, naïve, and oftentimes annoying. All things considered, Ema hadn't been so bad, and more than that...

She had been through something traumatizing and hadn't come out of it hating the world or herself (at least, not as far as he could tell). And that wasn't something that Harvey could claim about himself, was it?

With that thoroughly depressing thought, the bandaged man was led back into the cafeteria. He hated how so much of their day was centered around eating when he wasn't even allowed to have any solid food. Still, he'd been stubborn and had boycotted having any of his nutritional shake at breakfast, so he was going to have to suck it up

[thatdemonbitch]

Her first instinct upon walking into the cafeteria was to beeline for Sam and make sure she could finish up her explanation from that morning, knowing she wouldn't be able to if she planned on prowling around with the Hardy Boys that night. Unfortunately, there wasn't much she could do but stand awkwardly near the food line after grabbing her tray (holding a slice of pizza on a plate, because there wasn't a demon in Hell who gave a fuck about dietary options) as she saw Dean also beelining for the table. Unfortunately, he appeared to have the motivation to make it there faster

[unheroed]

When a woman he didn't know sauntered up to him, Harvey watched her over the lid of his protein shake, already guessing that she wasn't the sort of person he was going to enjoy talking to. She was walking over to him with purpose, like she knew exactly what she wanted from him. Harvey had a guess for what that was, and he already wasn't in the mood for it.

The comment she gave in greeting was one he'd heard before, and if she thought that she was edgy for saying it then she had another thing coming. He would have rolled his eyes if he were able, but instead he finished his sip of his drink and then set the cup down.

"How observant of you," he said, tone somewhat biting. Then again, this wound wasn't the sort that was going to heal, so those "better days" were more or less a thing of the past. Besides, with the people he cared about dead, Harvey had to admit that there wasn't much he had left to live for. Just revenge, and right now Landel was at the top of that list. He couldn't get to everyone else until he got out of here. He

[thatdemonbitch]

The bitterness seeping out of him probably would have discouraged most people, but not Ruby. Instead, it just piqued more intense interest -- sure, she supposed, if half her face was blown to hell she wouldn't be too thrilled to have people commenting on it, but that didn't mean it was going to stop her from doing it. Not that she precisely made a hobby of that kind of hypocrisy, but she was willing to subscribe to it when it best suited her interests

[unheroed]

It was already clear that the girl wasn't about to let up. Harvey didn't know why people got so fixated on him when there were plenty of other people using crutches or confined to wheelchairs, but apparently he was just that lucky. However, seeing how he had just gone through this exact conversation with Ema just a few moments ago, he was hardly in the mood to give the woman what she wanted

[thatdemonbitch]

Oh, how cute. He thought she was just afraid for her own safety. If only he could see what was under all that pretty meat she wore. Vanity had gone out the window a long time ago -- at this point, it was more or less the equivalent to a human's taste in clothes. She didn't want her brand new jacket ruined, especially when ones that would suit Sam's psychotic requirements for a vessel were hard to come by

[unheroed]

Maybe it was just him, but the stranger was starting to give off this condescending vibe that rubbed him the wrong way. As if he was getting things about her wrong at every turn when he didn't have much to judge by in the first place. Harvey considered himself pretty good at reading people, but she was just trying to stomp on that from the get-go, wasn't she?

Granted, he wasn't so sure he was willing to believe her fearless shtick. There wasn't anyone in the world who didn't worry about something. If not the danger of a monster attack, then something else. It just depended on the person, and suffice to say that he wasn't impressed by her bravado. "Fine. Are uou used to fighting, then?" If she was going to try and feed him information about how tough she was, then she might as well go the whole nine yards. Who knew, maybe she'd be worth keeping around if she was that comfortable with the idea of monsters. Or maybe she was just a military type, though she didn't really fit the part

[thatdemonbitch]

Well, his answer may not have given much away, but it did narrow the pool. By no means did she intend to give up that easily and take the vague answer, but it would do for now. After all, she had more important things to figure out before night fell. Like the frequent haunts of certain monsters and how many she stood a chance of running into before she got her hands on a real weapon.

She really should have taken the time out to bully Sam into giving up her knife between coaching him into being less afraid of his abilities.

"Not exactly a UFC champ, but I know enough to know what I'm doing." Understatement of the year. Back before she'd figured out damsel was the way to get Sam feelin' important, she'd proven herself plenty good at holding her own. Three of the seven sins would have attested to that if they were still alive. But, it was better to keep her talents to herself, particularly in the beginning and particularly until she decided who'd be useful. Not who she could trust, just who would be useful."Guess it'd be a

[unheroed]

The fact that she had mentioned a fighting league instead of something more military-based probably meant that he could count out the latter. People who were bred into that sort of thing usually weren't able to discount it or forget it so easily, in his experience. So if she wasn't a military girl, then was she self-trained? Probably, in which case he had to assume that she thought she was better than she really was.

An unfair assessment, maybe, but thus far all she'd been doing was blowing smoke.

While he'd been handling her devil-may-care attitude pretty well up until that point, her next jab was enough that he ended up tightening his grip around his cup with enough strength to bend the plastic slightly. (Which wasn't a huge feat, but it was still noticeable.) He set it down and then fixed a one-eyed glare on her.

"I didn't let anyone do anything," he snarled, feeling his bandages pull around his mouth somewhat painfully. If she thought that anyone would allow something like this to happen to them, then she really didn't know

[thatdemonbitch]

How tough she thought she was, huh? Words like that made a girl almost start thinking he'd decided to assume not only how tough she actually was -- probably a horrible, insulting kind of misconception that didn't even begin to cover the tricks she had up her sleeve -- and the size of her ego. All right, admittedly, she hadn't exactly been covering up the ego thing too well, but she had plenty of reason to build up a sizable one and he'd just have to figure it out himself.

If he was lucky, anyway. Otherwise, he'd have to settle for an air of mystery and apparent, unbridled doubt.

"Gee, real accurate time measure you got there. What, the sun decide to stop rising for a couple days or something? Throw you off?" She rolled her eyes. Useless. His level of cynicism alone helped answer the question, though. A while. Until she'd met some more varied groups who'd spent different amounts of time holed up there, she couldn't really compare and rationalize, but it was definitely getting up there

[unheroed]

Was this girl a legitimate moron or something? Even though he'd made it clear as day that her attitude wasn't earning her any points with him, she just reacted with more sarcasm and continued to act like she deserved an answer from him. After she'd implied that he had somehow been responsible for his own injury.

The irony there was that he knew that he had played his part in what had happened to him. He'd taken risks that he shouldn't have, bolstered by his own confidence, and had been forced to pay the price for it. Worse than that, he'd dragged someone else into it, and her fate had been far more severe than his own.

Maybe that was what smarted so much about this conversation. This girl was acting like she was on top of the world, but if she wasn't careful she'd end up the same as him; she'd fall on her face because she got in over her head, and yet she wouldn't even acknowledge the possibility that that could happen

[thatdemonbitch]

"Insulting? You call this insulting?" Boy, he musta skipped the important parts of high school if that was the case. She hadn't even gotten close to starting with the insults, this was just casual conversation for Ruby. That's how it went for her -- subtle digs, nothing but biting comments. Hell, even with Sam, everything had an edge to it. That was part of the territory.

But maybe expecting this guy to be hardened to the ways of the world and understand how life worked was too much. After all, he was disfigured, not 80, apparently he hadn't had time outside to learn his hard life lessons before he got comped a trip to Shutter Island.

"Look, princess, if I hurt your delicate feelings, I'm sorry. Really, I am. But, I'm not here to mess around and play nice, I'm here to get the facts and go. It's called being honest. So, big friggen' deal if I hurt your self image, I'm sure it's not the worst you've gotten." That much she was sure of. Whether it was to his face or not, someone was bound to have made a nastier comment.

[unheroed]

Maybe it was true that he was taking her comments a little too personally (they barely knew each other, after all), but she still should have kept in mind that there were some people who would take it to heart even more than he had. If she hadn't taken a pot shot at the circumstances behind his injury, he probably wouldn't have cared. He'd exchanged jabs with Jason constantly, after all. But for someone to start judging him right off the bat

[thatdemonbitch]

It was hard not to smile around a bite of pizza. Of course he'd take the bait, jump to continue the conversation when she'd made it clear that he could use that get out of jail free card and let sleeping dogs lie. It was like he was begging to drop hints for her. Slowly, she set the greasy monstrosity back on her plate and dusted her hands off a little bit, crossing them on the table in front of her and leaning in again.

"Maybe it's gotten me favors in the past. Hell, maybe you're just not hangin with the right crowds." A quirk of an expectant eyebrow as she gave a kind of challenging smirk at that. It was a good feeling, the superiority of being able to make that snide remark, even if it was probably misplaced. He'd been there for a while, and he was right: she should be doing everything she could to get in his good graces

[unheroed]

While Harvey didn't think he wanted to be anywhere near a crowd where acting like a jerk got you places, he also realized that that was probably exactly where he'd be headed if he ever ended up back in Gotham. He couldn't really show his face (go ahead, laugh) in decent society anymore, so getting elbow-deep in the underground was going to be the way to go. Which meant that he was going to have to get used to the sort of shit that Jason and this girl pulled.

It was just that part of him still had that noble, do-the-right-thing in mind. But it was over and dead, and he knew that he was going to have to accept that eventually. He knew it made no sense to get all uppity when someone made a jab at him while also being willing to shoot someone in the face if they didn't fit his moral compass, but... that was what being two-faced was about, wasn't it

[thatdemonbitch]

Oooh, bargaining. Something she was familiar with -- place like this, it was downright reassuring to have him trying to level with her. Unfortunately, she had a lot less to offer here than other places. No information on seals, on Lilith, on Hell -- it didn't matter in a parallel dimension anyway, did it? There was on telling that this place even had an access pass to the Pit, especially if Dean had rolled up.

But no demon was left with zero chips on the board. And even if she wasn't sure how limited she'd be -- the fact that Harvey had pinpointed that one unsettled her a little, but she didn't let it show -- she knew it wouldn't be beyond the point of usefulness. Nothing was gonna put her beyond the point of usefulness as long as she still had the six hundred years' worth of work with a knife and a kid eager to provide one.

"Because, Harvey," she emphasized his name as she spoke in an almost catty way, as if she were holding it over him somehow that she'd gotten that much out of him. It was a success -- a small one, but it