trans_9 | Yesterday's holiday [Semi-open]

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Yesterday's holiday [Semi-open]

An appetizing aroma drifted out of the kitchen of the Susono Inn this afternoon, making its way up to the second floor. Not one that was particularly familiar, for Zouichi, but one Howard might recognize from the time he'd spent before the FAYZ had cut Perdido Beach off from the rest of the world. Though it might not be Thanksgiving anywhere else in the multiverse, Howard had decided it might as well be Thanksgiving now... and he'd coached Zouichi on the basics of the holiday as he remembered them.

[First thread is for residents of the inn only, characters passing by that notice something's up can show up in the second thread]

Zouichi had spent most of the morning setting up for the surprise meal while most of the others were out and Howard, in a gesture of unusual magnanimity, had offered to share some of the food he'd been stockpiling. They'd even found a nice tablecloth to drape over the table in the main hall, upon which each of foods was set: turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin bread -- even some homemade Swedish meatballs for Allenby (they weren't really a Thanksgiving food, apparently, but she'd requested them some time ago).

Of course, many of these had been canned or created from mixes -- easier to store, and much easier to make. But food was food. Now it was just time to wait for everyone else to show up.

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"Congratulations on your first mission," Zouichi said dryly. "You're in good company. The door's around to your right; just come around and walk in."

Sheesh, Howard, he'll buy you some potatoes next shore leave, okay?

Yes please, Zou.

Howard barely resists pointing out that on their first mission, Zouichi had to wear a maid outfit. "Oh, what an awful sacrifice. Your poor hair. Your poor weird-shaped head."

Not that Cedric has a weird-shaped head, but teasing people is totally in Howard's wheelhouse, and Cedric's just going to have to put up with it if he wants food.

"I'm going to fix it as soon as I remember the spell," Cedric grumbles, "but thank you."

Luckily, the door's easy to find! It's just about the only thing that's come easily to him this week. He slips into their...whatever this place is, looking high and low.

"What is this place?"

"The Susono Inn," Zouichi said, closing the door behind Cedric. "It's an old Japanese ryokan. A couple of us decided to take up residence here -- watch your step."

Zouichi made his way down the hardwood floors of the inner hallway, entering the main hall proper and pulling out a chair at the large rectangular table there, which was still covered with an impressive Thanksgiving spread. "Sit down and help yourself. And tell us about your mission, if you like."

"Zou lets me stay here because he likes my cat," Howard chimes in, before rushing back to his seat at the table. He doesn't quite hide the grimace when Zouichi invites Cedric to help himself, but he is interested to figure out what competition required people to be shaved bald. "And it's not 'if you like'. Humiliating mission stories is an entry fee."

"You have a cat?" Cedric asks as he sits. "Oh, I like cats. But I expect it won't like me."

He'll get to the stories in a minute! For now, he takes a very small amount of food. He expects many more people still need to eat, and if the supplies run low...well, he might be able to help.

"You've told your humiliating story, then?"

Alan looked up from his piece of fruit at the mention of the word 'cat', then went back to his treat. Zouichi liked him better.

"Come to think of it," said Zouichi, looking at Howard. "What happened on that archaeology mission? I don't think you ever told me the whole story."

"Yeah, Emergency Rations. She'll be around soon enough to try and steal food off our plates. I guess she's too good for cat food now." Or possibly she just likes the challenge of having to sneak food away from the table or catch those goldfish (something she still hasn't accomplished, though not for lack of trying).

"Me and Zou did our humiliating first missions together, so we don't have to rehash that." Howard loads up his plate again with more potatoes and gravy. He considers it a sad thing that he actually has to remind himself to use a fork and not just eat it with his hands. "And the archaeology mission was boring, except that John Smith dude threatened to feed me to the giant bugs and I had to do first aid on someone after he bumped his head."

Cedric looks fairly disappointed. That's such a dodge and they all know it. Sighing, he pushes a little sliver of turkey around his plate and delves into the story.

"We encountered a very strange woman named Tyrant Banks. She claimed to have 'totally fierce' information about the Ohm, but given everything that's happened I doubt it has any value. Her condition was that the entire negotiating team had to compete in a modeling competition, and the winner would get the information. It seemed all right...at first."

Then it just got painful. "We had makeovers, and all of us looked significantly worse afterward. Then we had our first contest---modeling in chicken costumes with high heels on a burning runway. I failed because I tossed the high heels rather than getting wedged in the runway, tripping and allowing my face to be burned."

He still resents that. "In our second contest, we were dressed in spandex suits that matched our skin tones, to give the appearance of being naked. We were then stuffed into a claw machine. The claw had its way with me."

In other words, those photos had best never leak out.

"John Smith dude? Wait, what giant bugs?" He looked around for Emergency Rations, but so far, no fuzzy, ill-tempered feline food thief. Hmm. He hoped she wasn't up to something.

"A modeling competition." Zouichi was trying not to laugh at the description of the chicken costumes and the claw machine, because... well, his first mission hadn't gone too well, either. "Well, it could have gone worse. They could have shaved off your eyebrows, too."

Way to look on the bright side of things, Zouichi. He was glad someone else got the horrificly humiliating mission, though. For once.

Howard, on the other hand, having not yet been forced to wear anything more ridiculous than some brightly colored robes and a dumb hat, doesn't bother holding back laughter. Fortunately, he remembers to swallow his mouthful of mashed potatoes before he accidentally chokes in the process of mocking Cedric's pain.

"John Smith. That guy at the movie night who liked opera. And the crew helping with the dig were giant bugs. It's not nearly as interesting a story as a modeling competition."

Ah, there's the cat, rubbing up against their ankles. After brushing up against Cedric and headbutting him (clearly claiming this newcomer as Her Territory), she sits at the side of Zouichi's chair and silently implores him for food.

Howard continues after gulping down another fist-sized forkful of mashed potatoes. "Let me guess, you just don't look hot enough when you're stuffed into a claw machine? And rule number one about Stacy's mission: they always, always, always go wrong."

Cedric glares at Howard as they eat, but not for long. It's fair, he supposes. The only living thing in the house that isn't picking on him is the cat, and Cedric rubs his knuckles against her as she passes. Nice cat. Or so he thinks.

"I'm just not aggressive enough, I don't think. I would've looked fine with my hair, but I was crammed in the machine with someone else. Someone named Soren. He's the nastiest person I've met yet, and that's saying something."

"His name is John Smith? As in the historical figure?" But no, he didn't particularly look like a soldiering explorer. "Why was he threatening you in the first place?"

Zouichi looked at Emergency Rations, who had definitely been fed earlier today. Still... he took a small piece of turkey and offered it to the cat.

"Is Soren the guy in Medical?" he asked. "I've never met him, but I hear he's... difficult."

"John Smith is a historical figure?" Clearly Howard paid about as much attention to Pocahontas as he did to his history classes. "I thought it was just the most common name in the Western world. And anyway, I was scavenging stuff and he wanted some of it, and I told him fifty-fifty and he screwed me over for seventy-thirty."

Howard stabs the turkey on his plate with his fork. Clearly, he's still bitter about that.

"Yeah, he's one of the healers, I think. Total jackass, but I don't know, I kind of like him. Sampire's totally gotten off my case about my bedside manner ever since we got Soren involved." Howard grins and loads up another plate with mashed potatoes and gravy. "But honestly, the idea of getting stuck in a small space with him is kind of close to hell on Earth, I think. Did he jab you with his bony elbows or did you just suffocate on the bad mojo?"

Emergency Rations takes the turkey from Zouichi, nibbling on his fingers a bit too. She's already pegged Zouichi as the animal lover in the house. She plaintively demands a little more.

"In that case, it's very likely there was a historical figure named John Smith," Cedric notes, happily munching on the small dinner he'd arranged for himself. It'd be rude to take too much food, after all.

"Both," he snickered into his turkey, almost finding the memory funny by now. "I sincerely hope he wins and cheers up. It could do wonders for him."

"Yes? Although I believe his encounters with Pocahontas were greatly embellished and romanticized later. But that John Smith didn't really strike me as someone from the 17th century. In any case, I treated him for an injury after the Lirath battle and he seemed rather secretive."

Zouichi gave Emergency Rations just a little bit more turkey.

"You mean there's someone with a worse bedside manner than you? What does he do, call you names?"

"He's got a sneaky face." Howard scrunches up his own in hypocritical disapproval.

Howard wags his finger at Zou. "Yes, he does. And hey, my bedside manner isn't that bad. It's only bad if the patient doesn't want to hear me ramble about the X-Men while I'm stitching them up." He raises an eyebrow at Cedric. "Anyway, you think winning a modeling competition's going to cheer him up? It'll just inflate his ego more. That rot goes way down, eye-em-oh."

Emergency Rations demands just a little more.

"And how can you tell that a face is sneaky?" Cedric's genuinely curious about that. It's not something he usually picks up on.

He shakes his head, acknowledging that Howard's probably right as he finishes a good chunk of vegetables and stops to digest. "I'd much rather hear about the X-Men than die. But what's that about your eye?"

Zouichi shrugged. "He seems very reluctant to part with information about himself. I suppose that might fall under 'sneaky'." He had been a bit condescending to Howard as well. But mostly, Zouichi simply didn't trust people who were secretive like that. If he had to work with someone with their own agenda, he wanted to know that agenda, dammit.

"Wait. If he's so terrible at his job, why is he in Medical?"

"You know. Shifty eyes, lip-biting, hand up by their mouth the whole time, only making eye contact if the other person's level of vision is below theirs. That's how you get a sneaky face." Not that Howard doesn't engage in 'sneaky face' all the time. "And he keeps calling me Howie, so I'm blacklisting him forever."

Howard pauses. "Oh, right, no internet in your world. It's a short-form of 'in my opinion'. And hey, crappy bedside manner or not, we don't kick healers out for having bad attitudes. He can fix in a few minutes what would take nature a few weeks to heal, I think."

Emergency Rations, having realized Zouichi has stopped feeding her, goes and begs at Cedric's feet instead.

"Got it," Cedric laughs. "No nicknames for you, then."

He leans down when he feels a cat nudging at his legs, smiling at her. "Hello there. Hungry, I take it?" He lowers his hand to let her lick at bits of turkey.

"Does she usually eat your food? When there's food around, I mean? I can't expect she likes the slop any more than we do."

Howie. Hmm. Maybe Zouichi would call him that sometime. You know. Just to try it out. "Nanotech? Magic?" Of course, 'healer' would imply magical means, but...

"If you believe her," he said, "She's always hungry. Howard has a supply of cat food, though." Zouichi was one to talk, giving her that turkey. Terrible enabling. Just terrible.

Don't you dare, Zou. Don't you even dare.

"I give nicknames, Cueball. I don't get them. And magic, I think."

He shakes his head at the cat, who's busy licking Cedric's fingers and purring. "She acts like I never feed her. I even got her the good cat food. She just knows her feline wiles don't work on me."

Howard is very, very good at denying food to big doe-eyes. "So, you started that sports team yet, Cedric?"

"Cueball?" Cedric made a face. What a bad choice. He isn't going to be bald forever! Hmph. He's determined to restore his full head of hair by tomorrow.

He leans down to pet the poor kitty, sneaking her just a tiny bit of food. He can't help but like cats, they're familiar and sweet.

"Not yet, I've only just returned. And I can't seem to figure out where the captain of the other team's gone off to. Haven't seen him in a while."

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