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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[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

[swornandbroken]

"Got it in one. I couldn't afford to have a problem with it. Not if I wanted to make things right again. Which is what I need to get the hell out of this place to do."

Instinctive to use the past tense to refer to his world, by now, and Mello had caught himself doing it before. This remained unacceptable; not even two weeks here, and he was already resigned to it on some level? It was worse than having consciously decided; it was insidious, creeping in past his defenses, which were considerable.

Not as considerable as you'd like to think, came the almost-expected murmur from the back of his mind. Mello frowned into the soup bowl, and took another bite.

"So no. I'll never feel at home here." He knew it had just been a figure of speech; he was also perfectly aware that his rejection of it was more for his own benefit than S.T.'s, and that S.T. was probably sharp enough to pick up on that. "The other side could cheat there, too. Hell, they could cheat in ways you'd have to call supernatural. But not like this." Not so that Mello could

[toxicspiderman]

"I always have a point." He smirked. "Worst vacation spot ever, but it sounds like you could use one." Mello was too young to sound middle-aged. Couple teenage over-sincerity with a world gone to shit and it wasn't a surprising result. It didn't matter if Mello was wrong or right about what he was up against.

Trying wasn't all that mattered either. None of that kindergarten everyone-wins New Games bullshit. But no-shows never won, and if you worked yourself into paranoid catatonia you weren't going anywhere.

Mello wanted to be convinced. S.T. could oblige.

"Either your crusade will still be there when these bastards let us go, or it won't." Or they'd flush their extra specimens down the drain, but Mello knew that was the option that they didn't talk about. Especially over a plateful of pork sausages. There was recycling and there was recycling. Mystery meat and Soylent Pink.

"Life's too short to spend it all miserable." He'd have said sober, but chemical relaxation might not be his thing. "Go be a fucking