Relative safety is cause enough for celebration

[warriorscribe]

Characters: Enoch and anyone
Setting: Cafeteria, this post is totally on the 18th what is schedule fail
Format: I'm starting prose, but I'll match you.
Summary: Enoch isn't one to turn down hospitality, and constant fighting's left him tired and hungry. And then he gets a taste of nostalgia. Basic aftermath post here, yep.
Warnings: Nothing yet!

Had it been a day as promised, he might not have had to rely on Rapid-Fire Recovery to avoid death. At least he had all his armor back because of it.

It was not a day. But they were safe. He hadn't even realized everyone had somehow lost half an hour, thinking he'd perhaps blacked out from fatigue. His steps had been uncertain on the stairs as he returned to the cafeteria to check on the others.

The sight of the "refreshments" as the strange-sounding voice had put it, took him by surprise for all of a moment before he made his way to the table and took a bread roll. He may need to sleep, but to refuse this food would be rude, and if he went to sleep now, he'd just wake up sooner than he needed from hunger.

His fatigue was forgotten when he bit into the roll and tasted the familiar sweet tang of that fruit he didn't know. Chewing slowly, he looked down at the roll in his hands. Bread with this flavor was the first food he'd given Armaros when they'd first found themselves in Meridian. It was what he'd been eating when he'd written...his free hand went to the pocket containing the card he'd written the words "my hero" on, fingering the plastic surface where he knew the words to be.

He forced himself to swallow and looked up at the ceiling, a habit to hide tears from observers. But no tears came. The tight ache of grief was there in his chest, but...he was too drained. Too relieved. And in spite of everything, he felt accomplished. He and the others had held them off and kept everyone below them safe.

"If I could celebrate this with you..." he whispered, not seeming to realize he'd spoken aloud. He reached for more of the blueberry-flavored rolls, as many as he could fit in the crook of his arm.

Comments

[swordofzero]

The last how ever many days it had been since the attack was a blur to Suzaku. Long patches where he remembered nothing, his Geass taking over and keeping him alive. He was exhausted, starving though he had eaten at moments through the fight. Enough to stay alive, no more.

Now with nothing to fight and food Suzaku stood looking a little lost. He saw Enoch, he had been fighting with him for the last few days and he went over now, he heard the words though and stayed a few paces back, not wanting to disturb him.

[warriorscribe]

Enoch looked over his shoulder at the approaching footsteps and managed a tired smile for his fighting companion. "We survived."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku didn't manage a smile in response but he nodded. "We did..." He was exhausted and slowly piecing together parts of the last few days, trying to work out exactly what had happened around the gaps in his memory. He took some food, glad for it.

[warriorscribe]

"The voice said..." Again, he seemed to be contemplating his bread more than eating it. He finally took a bite and waited until he swallowed before continuing. "...there were still repairs to be done."

[swordofzero]

Suzaku nodded, "I had a look upstairs, it is wrecked." He had seen worse damage, and he knew they were lucky not many people had been killed, even though they just came back. "The fact they didn't fix it immediately probably means their systems were damaged..."

Ack sorry, derped on this one somehow!

[warriorscribe]

"Or that it is truly so much work after restoring the floors that were torn off."

He thought about it - it was strange, knowing that everyone, even their hosts, were trying to get back on their feet.

"I'm glad, if the attack couldn't have been avoided, that it happened while it was Dax overseeing us." If it had waited a few weeks...well, he didn't want to think about Jason's priorities in such a situation. In fact, he couldn't.

[swordofzero]

Suzaku nodded though seeing as they could create entire worlds out of nothing, if the nightmare versions of worlds they had been sent to had been there creation then Suzaku doubted there was much they couldn't do.

Perhaps it just took time, he frowned at Enoch's observation. "Yes, I guess in that way we were lucky."

He too didn't wish to imagine Jason's priorities, or Riki's for that matter.

[papadojima]

"You can?" came Dojima's voice behind him, having not realized that Enoch was not talking to him at all. He reached out for a bread roll from the basket.

[warriorscribe]

Enoch took a moment to adjust to that, looking at Dojima over his shoulder.

"Sorry, I...hadn't meant to seem as if I was speaking to you." He sighed and took another bite, using the excuse to come up with...well, some way to tell him what he'd meant. Surely, he thought, he'd ask now.

Yeahhhh /o/

[knightime]

Dave spent more time staring at the food instead of eating. It wasn't that he wasn't hungry, so much as he was kind of too tired to pig out. That, and all the food was kind of overwhelming to see at once when he's barely eaten as of late.

He glanced over when he heard Enoch speak, but didn't say anything about it. It didn't seem the other meant to say it out loud and he didn't want to really bother other people. He just shuffled by, eying things he didn't recognize and wondering if he should try them.

Previous CR confusion, go!

[warriorscribe]

Enoch might not have noticed Dave if he hadn't known him from elsewhere. As it was, the movement he caught out of the corner of his eye drew a double-take. That boy, he'd met him before - he was one of the first people he'd met in Meridian, he remembered him vividly for how he reminded him of Lucifel.

There was a moment of fishing for a name in his tired state before he finally remembered it. "Strider...?"

aww yiss

[knightime]

Dave turned his head, his mouth slightly agape. Even if Enoch couldn't see Dave's eyes, they were significantly wider than they were just moments ago. He had never met the other before, so Enoch saying his last name was kind of shocking.

Also kind of creepy. "How do you know my name?"

[warriorscribe]

Of course, it couldn't have been the one from Meridian - he and Sola truly seemed to be the only ones.

"I met...another you, before I was brought here."

[knightime]

Oh. Well, that makes more sense and makes this a lot less awkward in the longrun. He doesn't know waht the other knows about him though.

"Dave is fine, by the way. Unless you normally call people by their last name. But I have no idea what your name is."

[warriorscribe]

"You- ...He only gave me one name." A bit of a sheepish smile, weak in his fatigue. "Dave, then. My name is Enoch."

[hundred_power]

Kotetsu had been nearby when he noticed the blonde man, grabbing up a plate of food for himself. Fresh, piping hot fried rice was available (and after a quick taste test, tasted a lot like how he'd make it at home), and it took up a majority of his plate.

He wasn't sure if he was okay or not, so he decided to do what he does best: strike up random conversation in an attempt to ease the situation.

"This is some spread, huh?"

[warriorscribe]

Enoch glanced at the source of the voice, broken out of his thoughts. "It is...I'm surprised they were able to make so much."

[hundred_power]

"Do they do this often? Kind of odd for kidnappers to do nice things to their hostages. I might have to start believing that letter."

[warriorscribe]

That was definitely not something he wanted to think about. Rather than taking another bite of his roll, he fidgeted with it a little. "...Someone else said he was returned to his ruined world for a time."

[rose_of_may]

Beatrix was in the Cafeteria as well, yet she was not eating too much, barely enough to survive. She truly wasn't sure how they survived to all of this, but she was happy they at least managed to protect the lower floors up till the moment the administrators of the tower took care of the problem.

She noticed Enoch was close by after a while, one of the first who decided to smile for the others. She was pretty exhausted as well by now and managed a small smile to him, not bothering him thinking he might be, busy.

[warriorscribe]

Enoch happened to glance Beatrix's way after a little while, and smiled a bit weakly in return.

"We did well."

[rose_of_may]

"We did."

And without him, without one of them in fact, they may have failed. She nodded slowly.

"I have to thank you for your valiance and what you did."

[warriorscribe]

"And you, as well. It's good to see others that believe in fighting for those who cannot."

There is good in humanity, and there always will be - it is under this belief that he undertook the mission at home. To prove it was better to save the Earth. Even without the mission, seeing good in those around him gives him a measure of hope, some more or less, that they can endure whatever their hosts do to them.

For a man who's four centuries old and hasn't had much of a good time in those years, he's quite the optimist.

[rose_of_may]

"I protect what I believe in."

He's probably much more optimist than she is at this point. She wants to protect people, she desires to save the world, even if her own is doomed from what she's been told (not that she believes it entirely). But she won't lie if asked- Her faith in humanity is probably considerably lower than his.

After all the death, war and misery she's witnessed and participated in, nothing abnormal.

"Even if my world and its people are gone, I believe... Those who live in this tower deserve to be protected the same."

[warriorscribe]

Enoch is, in all honesty, too pure-hearted for his own good. He's seen the good and the bad in people, and while definitely cynical in a few ways, certainly not in respect to the good in people.

"They do. All of us are here in the same circumstances..."