towerofanimus | (no subject)

Characters: Marty, and Open
Setting: Floor 38, morning of the 28th
Format: Either or
Summary: He's working at the makeshift lab/food bar on Floor 38.
Warnings: Breaking of the Space Time Continuum.

The pancake batter was getting a little on the thin side, but that didn't deter the teenager as he prepared it for cooking in the automatic pancake maker. Marty tried really hard to stretch out their supplies, and while he was really grateful the power was back on which meant less monsters hanging around (and to be honest he was still a little mystified monsters actually existed, let alone all the other stuff he'd seen since being here) he hoped it meant that the cafeteria was going to come back too.

What was going to happen to the Pancake Stand (as he liked to call it) if that happened? It was fun, if.... different, getting to know the people that came for pancakes and cooking the food they brought. Still, he was getting pretty tired of pancakes.

Giving the machine the last bit of batter, Marty took off his makeshift apron and walked over to flop down on a sofa, a book nicked from the library in hand, while the machine did its work. He'd get to the coffee later, if they even had any left, but it was still pretty early and he didn't expect anyone to show up just yet.

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"I'm used to being depended on." That statement, of course, utterly failed to grasp the scope of more than three centuries of being the one with the task of saving the world, the only one who could do this. "And I've...failed to help people in need."

Tilting his head in confusion, Marty honestly hadn't expected a confession like that. "So... not really? I kinda know how that feels... have a seat, I'll get you some coffee."

And it took traveling back in the past about thirty years to fix it. Those memories were still painful, it hadn't really been that long for him, watching the Doc get gunned down.

Enoch sat down on a nearby couch, leaning slightly to one side, since he had armor high on his right leg.

He felt like he'd had a chance. He always did. He stared at the wall, lost in thought. For a few hundred years, he'd felt...confident, in his abilities to get things done. Sure, he'd doubted he'd ever find the rogue Fallen Angels for a while, but immediate things: battles, food, shelter...he'd been able to take care of himself for the most part, with some help from Lucifel.

Here...he hadn't even been alone. They'd been a team, and they still failed. There were children in there. And he could do nothing but wait.

When the coffee finally finished perking, Marty poured a cup and handed it to the guy. He looked like he took it straight... besides, they'd run out of milk and anything sweet but the syrup a long time ago.

"Thank you." Enoch didn't think to ask what 'coffee' was. It was being offered, the man seemed trustworthy, and honestly, something warm sounded nice right now. He took a small sip, careful of the heat.

He seemed surprised for a moment, looking up from his cup at the ceiling as if trying to recall something. He took another sip, letting it linger on his tongue.

He knew this taste. It had been attached to a container of beef broth, but...

"So this is what that taste was..."

"Kinda strong, isn't it? Sorry I don't have milk or anything." Marty gave a sheepish shrug. "Things like that have been pretty scarce lately... but everyone seems to have come together during this, helped each other out. It's kinda awesome."

Enoch finally managed a smile through another sip of coffee.

"It is...most of us come through when we're needed. Why else would the exceptions be so reviled?"

He wasn't too sure what to make of that. An exception. A person who was more selfish than others? Someone who was only out for themselves. Well, that described the Tannens pretty accurately.

One of his growing fears was growing to be like them. He had seen what their selfish actions had caused. He knew if they were in the Tower they would have hoarded food, not shared with anyone. Seeing the true extent of the consequences actions like that had, it made Marty realize that sometimes the best reaction was to walk away. Some things were more important than if some idiot thought he was a chicken.

Wow, it had been a while since he thought about it, with the shock of coming to the Tower and then everything else.

"Yeah... but y'know, I never really paid much attention to things like that before. I mean it's way different experiencing this than..." He waved his hands before wrapping his arms around his chest and tucking his hands against his sides. "Reading or playing a video game. I had some scrapes back home but nothing like this." Getting shot at was still pretty damn scary.

Enoch found himself staring into his coffee. There had been a time, long ago, when he was unfamiliar to danger. He couldn't remember it in any detail, he just knew it had happened, logically.

At least the reminder of humanity's brightness had brought back some of his curiosity. He looked up at Marty again when he was done speaking.

"A 'video game'?" he asked, clearly not familiar with the term.

"Yeah, you know, like Nintendo and arcades and stuff." Though he tilted his head, thinking. People could be from different times here. "Television, moving pictures. You can play games, and pretend you're fighting off bad guys."

That was a nice save on Marty's part, since Enoch was about to ask about those. 'Moving pictures' seemed to be something he got, since the confusion cleared from his expression quickly.

"Oh, someone else did mention 'movies' to me," he said, saying 'movie' the same somewhat-unnatural way someone's grandparent might try to quote their slang. Judging from the somewhat apologetic look, he was aware his words were out of place. "They described it as...something of a visual story."

"Yeah, exactly. There's a floor that's got video games, music, pretty much anything you'd wanna play." Marty had discovered that floor early on, even if they were all titles he didn't recognize, a video game was a video game.

Enoch was silent for a while, thinking through the floors. There was only one full of machines that seemed...relaxed enough to be for recreation. "...The level with the...ah..." Now how was he going to describe what he saw there?

"Floor Fourteen, I think." The boy offered, giving him a smile. "Hey, I get the time thing better than most people. I went to my future one time and there was a ton of stuff I had trouble with."

The jacket sort of stuck in his mind, though he didn't know why. Self-drying jackets didn't seem to be popular with the kids in the Tower that were from the future. Maybe that was one of the things they'd changed in time travels.

"You traveled to your future? Do you know someone capable of that, as well?"

It was the only explanation; he couldn't imagine such a thing being mastered by human technology alone.

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And now I get to have fun with the game transplant aspect!

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