vivarium | The sleepless night [Open]

Entry tags:

The sleepless night [Open]

By the evening of day 69, when things were at least reasonably under control, Heiji was pretty tired. And while he did want to just fall asleep on the nearest flat surface, wasn't this the perfect opportunity to actually enjoy what they could while Zero still didn't have full control of the warehouse?

Answer: Yes.

A: Gutting a fish, setting up campfire stuff
The last time he'd been allowed into the maze with Hershel, they'd both regretted the lost opportunity. A whole fish tank room full of fish, most of them the kind that were actually supposed to be eaten rather than looked at. And they were going to die soon, anyway, right? Without power.

So technically just leaving them would be terribly wasteful and tl;dr Heiji was carrying a giant floppy wet salmon in both arms over to the river where he was going to (in theory) gut it and scale it and cook it because you know what, he wanted some actual food.

B: Campfire dinner
After a great deal of effort and setup, the smell of cooking salmon began wafting over the garden; once it was near to done, Heiji would start contacting people over the bracelets to tell them what was up and to bring any food or supplies they wanted if they'd found any. Who knows, maybe someone'd find some vegetables they could cook or something.

C: Reading mystery novels/textbooks/language guides
After dinner was over, Heiji was just going to set down with a stack of books and start reading some mystery novels, maybe offer to read something he'd found in the library with someone. HE MISSED READING OKAY, it was his life.

D: Music room
And of course now that the music room was temporarily open, Heiji was looking everywhere for Snake to hopefully listen to some piano playing for real. ...Although he wasn't above trying it out for himself, as well as the other instruments. Or maybe just shredding some cloth in here for bandages.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hershel hovered behind him, looking both unsure about this and vaguely intrigued by the whole deal. "What are you going to use to gut it? We need to get the scales off too." He helpfully supplied, shifting through his bag to see what they found from the food storage.

Besides food there was some foil, so he sets that to the side, along with what looks like a can of vegetables. You can't have a good meal without more than one food group, clearly.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I got a couple knives I found in the other rooms. Did you find some old newspapers or any scrap we can use? If not, I think the paper from the suggestion box'd work; I thought we could lay it over the walkway and use that as a flat surface."

Gosh, he was so excited about this. "Hey, you found some canned food, too? Jake said we could just cook that stuff in the can, if we wanted."

"Yes, there were some in a few of the puzzle rooms." Hershel answered, handing off the paper to Heiji. "General scraps here and there. Should work well enough for this."

"There wasn't much but there were some. I think it was only a portion of whatever food stocks they have." Or he was hoping so, because he didn't feel much like starving again anytime soon. "What can I do to help? Lay out the paper perhaps?" He's pretty excited too.

"Yeah, could you? Then we can both try and get these scales off." Heiji waited while Hershel spread the paper out a bit before putting the salmon down. It was a pretty big fish, all things considered.

"This is better than letting 'em all go to waste. I kinda would've liked to pick up a mackerel or some sweetfish, but Snake said he liked salmon. You do, too, right? Although I guess they use cod or pollack for fish and chips." Heiji supposed it was okay, eating some other fish, even if it wasn't his favorite. Salmon was still pretty good.

"Of course." And he did just that, neatly placing the paper down for their very professional work table. "There we are- Do you think you've descaled a fish before?" He sort of doubted it but hey, how hard could it be? Famous last words.

"I think so, certainly more used to cod and the like." He kneeled by the impromtu work table before giving Heiji a curious look. "Were there any sweetfish or mackerel? If this goes well we could try to make more while we have the chance. I doubt we'll be able to do so for much longer."

"Well, fishing's a pretty common thing to take your kid out for, so I've probably at least watched someone scale one..." Only one way to find out, in other words. Heiji put down the fish, hmm it sure had a lot of scales.

"Yeah, but they're smaller. I guess I could go back and get some. They're pretty good, y'know! 'Specially if you cook 'em by a campfire. You put a skewer through them and just let them cook that way." So apparently, Heiji had at least done that part before?

"I thought most kids would catch one then throw it back." Heiji's life was clearly very hardcore. Layton world would probably make the fish into a puzzle before throwing it back. Or it talked.

"Then after this let's go get some, as long as the journey's a safe one." Fucking robots. "If you're giving them such high praises I'd certainly like to give them a try."

"Aww, that's only if they're too small!" said Heiji, like he actually remembered this kind of thing. "If they're big ones, you put 'em in a bucket to take home with you."

Hmm, speaking of buckets... Heiji snapped his fingers. "I bet we could find a bucket in one of them supply closets. We can just wash it out and use it to carry them! They're smaller fish, so carrying 'em in our arms probably wouldn't work out as well. I bet you'll like 'em a lot!"

He handed Hershel a knife. "Here, use this and let's get these scales off!"

"Oh, actually we found a bucket in the food storage room- well, in the supply closet. One on wheels like janitors use." Hershel answered. "I don't know where Ema put it but even if we can't find it I'm sure one in one of the other closets." The plan was coming along.

He took the knife, regarding the fish for a moment before nodding, vaguely determined. "Alright, it can't be that hard." He gave it a shot, probably doing it a bit too hard but hey, the scales were coming off. Step one sort of on it's way to happening. "This isn't so bad I suppose. How are you planning on cooking it?"

"Yeah? That'd be perfect!" This is what their life had become, getting excited about finding a bucket...

"Well, in a pinch, we could just divide it up and set up the pieces on skewers. That's what you do with smaller fish. But if you found any aluminum foil, we could wrap up some pieces in foil packets and cook 'em that way." Scales everywhere, man. That was what was going on.

They live a fast paced, exciting life. "The wheels will make it easier too- I do hope we'll get to keep some of this." He glanced around at... well, everything. The junkyard they all no doubt accumulated. "When things get back to normal, if things get back to whatever normal is around here."

There are so many scales. At least no one has cut off a finger yet. "I hope I'm doing this right..." He cleaned the accumulated scales off his knife before continuing. It wasn't that gross really. "Oh, do you really cook them like that with foil? That might be easiest then, we certainly have enough to cover it."

Welcome to the life of a criminal, Hershel. Stealing everything that wasn't nailed down. "That's just more reason to use this stuff while we can, yeah? I know where I'm gonna sleep tonight!"

In a bed. An actual bed.

Heiji frowned a little at the scales; somehow, he felt like he should be reminded of something, especially with the way they fell and glittered on the ground, but... oh well. Amnesia sucked. "Yeah, it's one way to make do without a real grill. I think I can take a spare branch and strip off the bark to use as skewers for the saury, though. That's whatcha do after the fishing trip's over, y'know. Build a campfire and cook everything ya caught!"

Wow, Heiji's life was apparently hardcore. Did Hershel ever fish in the Thames, though, that was the question. Probably not...

"An actual bed, can you imagine? It's been months now." The real question is could they somehow steal a bed. Probably not but that would clearly be the height of their criminal prowess, truly.

Amnesia did suck. "I can't tell if you strike me as a camper or not." Hershel mused, regarding Heiji for a moment as if thinking it over. After a moment he nodded to himself. "Yes, you do. I can't imagine you not having done all this before in some way." Problem solved.

He probably harpoon fished then asked the fish out for tea to apologize, 100% canon. "There we are, I think that's mostly it... what now? We have to gut it, right?"

He laughed. "You sure you've never done it before? I mean, you did used to live out in the country."

Heiji jammed the tip of his knife into the salmon's underbelly and began cutting along its ventral side. It was a bit of tough going, honestly, especially since the area nearest its gills was rather bony, but he seemed to be managing. When he got to its tail, he sat back a bit.

"Yeah, now we gotta take out all its guts or it's gonna taste all bitter after we cook it. I wonder if this one's a girl salmon..."

"Maybe? I don't really know, it doesn't seem extremely familiar or anything." Hershel answered, meaning he probably camped with Randall on stupid adventures a few times and any attempts at fishing probably ended with the shitlord making them both trip into the water when he waved a fish in Hershel's face. That's a legitimate experience, right.

He made a face at the gutting but didn't move away or anything, he was going to help, damnit. He moved to open the fish now that it was cut, making the same face as he scraped the guts out the best he could with the knife.

"I think that's all." Gross. He glanced at Heiji, amused. "Why, do you want caviar? That's rather high brow."

A totally legitimate experience and definitely not a sign that Randall needed to slow his roll and not wave fish in people's faces, no of course not. Maybe they'd been fishing off a boat and the boat overturned, how about that

Heiji just stuck a hand into the fish's stomach cavity to pull out the innards; using the knife didn't seem very efficient. "Sure, why not? Lotsa people like salmon roe. Looks like we're out of luck on this one, though. Let's rinse it off a little, and then we can fillet it!"

Thankfully, you didn't need a ton of expertise to scale and gut a fish. And if anyone complained about the job they were doing, well... they could fix their own.

If they were ever on a boat there is no way that boat didn't overturn so yes. Watch me make a memory regain out of this, I'll do it.

"I hope all those fish don't die- I'm worried about the mint plant too." Hershel said, looking legitimately worried about the stupid plant as he cleaned up the fish. He may or may not have made several trips to make sure it was doing okay in the cold. Reasonable behavior.

"There we are, I think it's ready to cook." Ripping the guts out of a fish wasn't so bad it seemed.

Live the dream, man. Live the dream.

"Well, one or two shady days wouldn't be enough to kill it, but... yeah, if this goes on, I bet it won't do too well." Heiji placed the fish back on the paper.

"Can you get some of that foil you were talkin' about? I'll cut this up into smaller pieces."

"It's more the cold I'm worried about, such a sudden climate change..." Hershel threw a worried glance in the plant's direction. Be strong, little buddy.

"Oh, of course." He went and did just that, making sure the foil was clean and whole before bringing it to Heiji. "... Have you spoken to Zero at all?" He asked after a moment's silence.

"Aww, I bet the roots'll survive, even if you lose some leaves," said Heiji. He had faith in Mr. Mint Plant, apparently.

Heiji started wrapping the pieces of fish in foil. "Yeah, I did. Can't say he was too eager to talk, though. He's just 'I don't have to answer you' this and 'you're wasting my time' that. Didn't really know where we could look for Calhoun, either... though he did say that he's in pieces."

"I suppose herbs tend to be hardy." Hershel agreed as he watched Heiji work with the foil, trying to help by doing the same. He managed, thankfully this wasn't a cooking step that was easy as hell.

He paused a moment before speaking a bit hesitantly. "I spoke to him too, I asked about Akiko." Not that I've done this thread yet whoops... shhh. "Not that anything came of it, I didn't really expect it to."

"Did he say anything about it at all, or was it just more of the same crap he was sayin' when we were all talking to him?" Sorry, Hershel. He knew how much Akiko's death meant to you.

Heiji was fairly handy at wrapping up the little parcels; at least he wasn't making a huge mess of them, so that was something.

"Mostly the same, the only thing he was willing to say about it was that a 'test subject' did it, he wouldn't say whether they were still here or not, and he wouldn't offer any proof." Again, not that he expected anything else but there was always the vague hope that something could have come of it. "Mostly he just seemed annoyed by it, like it all was an inconvenience to him." He doesn't sound happy or impressed by that.

He sighed, pulling back from his newly wrapped fish. "So, what do we do from here?"

"Sounds pretty much like what you'd expect," said Heiji. "Either way, it don't change the number one thing we gotta do, which is get ourselves the heck out of here. I am curious about these 'other' test subjects, though."

But on to happier topics. "We need to gather some firewood, is what! Sasuke's pretty touchy about those trees, so let's see if we can find some other sources of wood. I bet I could drag that shrine up from the basement, improve its aesthetic a little."

Yeah, he totally wanted to set fire to that shrine.

"Ah, yes, I suppose he did imply that there are others somewhere." Which sucked. He paused for a long moment. "I can't help but feel like there's more we could be doing right now to get answers, yet I'm lost on how to do so. Even just speaking with Zero finally, there must be some way to learn from him, as unhelpful as he tries to be."

That suggestion made him smile a bit though. "I'm all for burning that dreadful thing. Shall we go try to get it? If we find a bucket we can go get some of those fish you like as well."

A

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject