Day 56: Twin Pines Restaurant (late afternoon)

[lookitmemama]

Window shopping--no, that was too lofty a word to be used with this quaint town. Looking at things all day (yeah, that worked much better) was all well and good until the chilly air became less than bearable. With the sun sinking into the earth, the shadows grew across the sidewalk and made pockets of frigid air. The redhead groused with each

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[gargantuanlaugh]

[Hey there, jailbait ;) ]The whole day had been wasted. Goddamned snow kept driving him inside, and now it was worse than ever. He'd found nothing of interest for buying with the paltry sum he had been given. What could anyone buy with just a measly five dollars anyway

[lookitmemama]

Miss Asuka. It had such a nice ring to it. The redhead's own scowl was tempered by a false smile as well. If only this day hadn't been so gloomy, the eva pilot may have mustered her usual chipper attitude. But a cloudy day and terrible clothes had taken its toll on Asuka's humor. The only thing she could do was keep her mood from crashing into one of her few allies. Their relation was only held together by the principles of give and take, but it was better than nothing, and, as she recalled, they had unfinished business since the Sun Room visit.

"This is where all the cool kids come, apparently..." Asuka took a moment to overlook her "peers" and felt quite sorry for the establishment having to tolerate all these psychos.

"Langley, party of one!" came the announcement from the hostess' podium. Asuka quickly stood up, glad to see the impatient faces of those waiting on parties of three or more.

"Well--" She began, turning to Gant in a flourish of hair. "Since I have a booth, why don't we turn this into a party of two, mmm?"

[gargantuanlaugh]

The cool kids. Gant chuckled. Certainly an amusing way of referring to the patient body. But if he was honest with himself, he had to admit the patients here were definitely the brighter lights in this place. He wasn't sure what to think about the townspeople, quite honestly. They just seemed so... vague and lackluster

[lookitmemama]

"It's been okay," Asuka replied blandly, flicking the end of her straw from the complimentary waters the waitress had brought over. The ice shifted and cracked under the steady vibration, but that could only hold her attention for so long. Eventually she shifted her attention back on Mr. Gant, amused to see him zeroed in on the last page of the menu. Well, she might as well fat it out with him.

"My first time coming here had been better," the redhead continued as she scanned over the restaurants selection of sweet things. "I met Marc actually--" Her smart blue eyes glanced at her tablemate for the briefest moment to see how well the name registered on his face. "--but he wasn't in the same place. Not surprising, of course Pretty stupid of him if he squatted in the same place twice."

"I sure hope he's getting somewhere in his plans, cause from where I'm sitting, I haven't seen much progress." Men. So much talk and little ever to show for it.

[swornandbroken]

Mello hadn't eaten yet today, and while he'd have granted that Matt had every right to be a total prat, he was getting awfully tired of it, and of having smoke blown in his face accidentally-on-purpose. The last time he'd been in Doyleton, he hadn't eaten at all, had been too ill, mentally and physically, to stand the idea of taking food, even indirectly, from those who'd imprisoned and tortured him

[toxicspiderman]

The painkillers had mostly washed out. S.T. felt hungover, sweat-sticky, and hungry. Dehydration and low blood sugar would do that.

Coffee would fix a lot of it. People bitched about it dehydrating, but it did more good than harm. Caffeine didn't make you piss that much. If it did, MIT would be exporting dead hackers instead of boy geniuses.

A good candidate for the title was looking morose at one of the tables. S.T. walked over, cane squelching with each step, and set his shopping bag on the floor. "You mind?"

He sat down before the answer, but with the chair angled away; if Mello didn't want company, he just needed to say it. S.T. just wasn't going to stand while he made up his mind. If it was going to be Revenge of the Zombies tonight, he could use a breather

[swornandbroken]

Mello shook his head, eyeing the cane. "Rough night?" On the Landel's scale, where the minimum was what counted as rough in the real world, and the worst was the shit nightmares were made of, was what he meant. He figured S.T. had long since made that mental recalibration.

He wasn't absolutely certain the Institute's level of attention to detail was sufficient to include giving the prisoners clothes specifically designed to annoy them, but between his own damn hoodie and the pacifist hippie being forced into something that looked like a CPA's weekend wear, he was starting to think it was all part of humiliating them by inches.

His plans had shifted since the last time he'd talked to S.T. One of Mello's bullets still had Landel's name on it, but he was willing to wait to deliver it. Explode the fuck out of everything, and make sure you're in a position to walk out of the rubble was never going to fly here, and the military had made large-scale rebellion all but impossible to organize. People were too scared of consequences now.

[toxicspiderman]

"Pretty good." S.T. grinned. Nothing beyond surface wounds. A few interesting scars to go with the collection he had. Now, if they had any clue what they were supposed to do with an unbalanced silver set for a Lancelot Ken doll, they might be getting somewhere.

It was nice to be useful, even if most of his contribution was playing taxi and not dying.

The waitress came by. S.T. ordered a hangover cure -- coffee, OJ, and a breakfast combo. The smell of coffee was so strong that, if he closed his eyes, he was swimming in a pool where someone couldn't read the difference between caffeine and chlorine. It was giving him a contact buzz, which was eating away at the pounding.

"You?" Mello'd asked about his night, so the converse was fair game.

[36_24_35]

After successfully blowing all her money on booze, Tifa was glad to know the institute had put a failsafe on the patients accidentally starving themselves for the day: coupons! Tasty Burger was a bit too heavy if she was thinking about the night to come. Two pounds of greasy beef wouldn't help her outrun zombies, as unfortunate as that was. Sometimes taste had to be sacrificed for the greater good.

But Twin Pines promised just as much guilt in their dishes as Tasty Burger, so Tifa kept the complaining to a minimum. Anything was better than the pink snot that waited in her room. Giving her name to the hostess, Tifa waited in like the others for a table.

It was a little depressing to eat by herself, but perhaps she would see someone she knew inside.

[Cloudface]

[bigdamnzero]

After parting ways with Zack, he'd hit up store after store in his search for Tifa, not really bothering to buy anything just yet. His first idea had been to go to every place they'd received a coupon for, even venturing a moment into the nail salon, but each try was met with no luck. In frustration, Cloud had shoved his hands in his pockets and noticed that he... still had one last unchecked slip of paper. Well

[36_24_35]

She straightened at the sound of her name, assuming her table was already waiting for her. What she found waiting was more than she expected. "Cloud!" Surprise melted into a warm smile as he moved closer to her seat. Words came to mind five at a time and lodged themselves in her throat, but the young woman kept her smile sealed shut until she felt she could talk without embarrassing herself

[bigdamnzero]

"Dinner sounds good