video;

[eatsyourscience]

[Souji is in the diner, putzing around, cooking things. He's been trying to cover as many shifts there as possible in order to a) keep himself busy and also to b) give Tohru a break.

Since most of the people in the Mansion probably aren't going to be ordering curry or anything else he's used to cooking, he's been practicing making American foods. Hence the delightful image filling the feed when he turns it on.]

I think I figured out how to make good American-style hamburgers. [This is an important distinction to make.] But...now I have too many. If anyone wants one, just come by the diner.

[Because this is too many for even him to eat.]

Comments

text;

[halfwinchester]

<sub>[This place, Wonderland, whatever it is... Adam finds it hard enough to deal with on a regular basis just being alive, let alone rubbing elbows with the others he's living side-by-side with. If not for his Mirror's interest in it while they'd been sharing a body, he might never have realized the network existed.

But now he does, and he has all the time in the world to put together a text message. There's probably something in his DNA that attracts him to burgers like a moth to a flame.]</sub>

There's a diner?

_{[Just a simple question. Sending it can't hurt, right?]}

text;

[eatsyourscience]

there is. it's on the 8th floor.

[A couple seconds after sending that answer, Souji sends a second (and much more important) message:] it's free.

[halfwinchester]

_{[Jesus Christ, is there anything this place doesn't have? He considers both messages for a long while before he thinks to reply.]}

What's it for?

_{[If food isn't an issue, why would it be there?]}

[eatsyourscience]

to meet people mostly. and to get home made food.

[halfwinchester]

_{[There's a delay before yet another question comes Souji's way.]}

You're running one here just for that?

[eatsyourscience]

why not?

a group of people started it awhile back, but only one of them is here now. she can't do all the work on her own, so i help out, too.

[There's a short delay before he sends a small addition:] this place comes in handy during dangerous events too.

[halfwinchester]

I keep waiting for this place to make a little bit of sense. We're talking about a magical mansion with a restaurant inside.

<sub>[Isn't "why" the better question, given that?

The second message is less surprising somehow. "Dangerous events" is putting anything even remotely close to what had happened with the grey roots mildly, and it doesn't begin to cover what had happened before that, but Adam's getting used to danger in the worst way.]</sub>

What kind of dangerous events?

[eatsyourscience]

once when there were hellhounds all over the mansion a bunch of people hid in the diner for safety.

[halfwinchester]

_{[... Still waiting.]}

Like hounds from Hell?

_{[At the last minute, he thinks to capitalize the word, something he wouldn't have done before.]}

[eatsyourscience]

yes. they were pretty hard to kill, but i heard that salt helped keep them away.

[halfwinchester]

It spits out things from down there a lot?

_{[Like people, for instance.]}

[eatsyourscience]

not always from there. i guess the world it's from has a lot of stuff going on with hell, maybe?

when it's my world, there's a lot of fog involved.

[halfwinchester]

You make it sound like a theme party.

<sub>[Adam takes a while to type the message, unsure of just about everything, including how he's supposed to feel about someone brushing Hell off with a word as casual as "stuff." No one who knew what it was really like would put it quite like that.

Lucky, to not know.]</sub>

I don't know what you're trying to say.

_{[He considers texting what he's thinking, a combination of "fuck you" and "this is insane," but since he can't possibly qualify as sane himself, he doesn't. Different worlds, real hellhounds, Michael free from the pit... why not. Why the fuck not. This is Wonderland, after all, who needs to keep their head screwed on straight?]}

[eatsyourscience]

those events--when hell hounds show up or when the fog comes--are from our worlds, based on our memories. whatever we've been through can happen here as an event.

[halfwinchester]

You know how that sounds, right?

_{[He's so tired of this. He can barely hit the 'send' button, and when he does he almost feels regretful.]}

[eatsyourscience]

i don't know how it sounds to you, specifically, but it's the reality we're facing here.

[Souji gets the feeling he's making a bad impression here, but he's not sure why, exactly.]

[halfwinchester]

It sounds like I'm having a mental breakdown and imagining this whole thing. But that could be unrelated.

_{[Even if he's feeling sarcastic, the message is still mostly true.]}

I'll have to take your word for it.

[eatsyourscience]

that probably isn't what's happening. i'm real, anyway. i guess if you think you're hallucinating me, you probably don't believe that, but it's still kind of arrogant to think i came out of your imagination.

[halfwinchester]

_{[He's not sure what he believes anymore, but believing he has power or infallibility certainly isn't it.]}

Being crazy isn't arrogant, it's just being crazy. No one said it had to make sense.

[eatsyourscience]

I thought people who were crazy didn't know they were crazy.

[halfwinchester]

No offense, but we're talking about different worlds and Wonderlands. Going with that logic doesn't make you look great.

_{[Someone who could shrug off the kind of stuff they were discussing probably wouldn't know they were crazy, either.]}

We're about even.

[eatsyourscience]

two and a half years here has made it easy to accept a lot of crazy things as normal.

[His own world wasn't exactly full of normal experiences anyway, so he had a headstart.]

[halfwinchester]

_{[Adam thinks about this message for a long while.]}

Are we talking that long in normal time?

<sub>[He doesn't know how to ask the question any other way, though even he's not confident how someone who hasn't experienced what he has can answer. According to Dean and the others here, time in Hell had been... different. What had apparently been only three years had felt like forever.

Is it the same here? Did the days just march on and on, endlessly?]</sub>

[eatsyourscience]

not at home, no. i mean, when i go home, it will be like i never left.

here time passes normally though. there are days and months and years, with normal seasons and everything.

[halfwinchester]

_{[It's okay to admit he's confused, right? He doubts the other person is holding any high expectations for him at this point.]}

How do you know that?

_{[It's not a very comforting thought.]}