Unbeknownst to both of them, Emerson Matthews - known to everyone as ‘Mason’ - was in exactly the same boat. Except instead of arriving a week ago, he’d arrived yesterday in the middle of the afternoon. He’d been bundled into the room that would be his for the rest of all time, likely, and read the riot act. Told in no uncertain terms that his powers would be off and remain off until he could be trusted with them. They would only be activated when he was in the field, and that might be a rare occurrence so he had to just get used to life without powers for now.
What fucking bullshit.
He’d been given a map so had made his way to the cafeteria in the morning to try and grab some breakfast. It had been either jail or here, here seemed like the lesser of two evils but with his powers turned off he was beginning to think it wasn’t worth it. Was it too late to change his mind? At least jail he could have broken out of.
Fucks sake.
The line wasn’t long, he’d either beaten the rush or missed it, either way he didn’t care. He picked up some shit bacon (because American bacon was shit) and some potato things, avoiding the scrambled eggs. They looked like someone had sneezed them into the tray. He topped off his breakfast with an apple and an orange along with a fruit juice before looking around, trying to find somewhere to sit.
There were a lot of tables that were crowded, packed full of chattering people who were already eating, engaged in wild conversations that he had no desire to be any part of. The bracelet around his wrist flickered a little, catching it in the corner of his eye he was reminded once again that this place wasn’t fun. It wasn’t a joyride.
A table at the far end only had one person sat on it and he seemed to be looking out of the window. There was enough space between the guy and the other end of the table that Mason could sit there and not really be engaged in conversation. He was British, sitting on the same table as a stranger was completely alien to him let alone sitting on the same table as a stranger and striking up a conversation with them.
As he approached, though, he couldn’t help notice that the side of the guy’s face looked kind of familiar, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was familiar to him about it. It just… it looked familiar.
He put his tray down on the table near the window, looking at his new table-mate again and then suddenly realised why the profile looked familiar.
Because it was his profile.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” he started, not sitting down but instead staring at the other guy, looking somewhere between pissed off and stunned. What kind of fucking game was this?