Chapter 6: Don't get connected, they might die. Part II

Each of the eight opened heads filled with fruit and red cream were still sat at a cold part of the room while the plates of grounded up brains turned into decorated shapes of meat patties, were taken up by the waiters to be served first, they were served with some of the fried leftover pieces on the side. It was weird how they weren't even cooked yet still being served anyway, but I guess some humans actually can handle raw meat, some were topped with either onions, green herbs, small pieces of lettuce, or even a raw egg. A very weird looking decoration for raw meat, but then again, they had fried meat chunks on the side, it couldn't get any stranger. 

The other pastry chef helped Roman finish the last blood drink, and another waiter put them all on a round tray before being served. 

Alonzo collapsed, leaning on the kitchen island as he slid down and breathed, no longer wanting to look at the heads that he fiddled with earlier. The lady knelt down to pat his shoulder. 

"Relax, our night is done now." 

"Not ours." The new dishwasher lady said.

She was leaning against the edge of the counter next to the sink with another woman who had a polar opposite attitude, looking tired and very scared with her hands holding each of her arms, she side-eyed her friend next to her. 

"Oh, of course." Noemie was next to look regretful. She stood up and nervously looked at the two who were already beginning to clean some of the tools and things used tonight, the plates would come later. 

"Would you like me to help you two? So that you won't have to stay too late?" 

One just shook her head while the other affirmatively said no. 

Roman brushed up against her shoulder as he walked past her to the locker rooms, he was always the most eager to leave. He threw his gloves into the trash can in the corner with loud thuds.

She turned to look at him, he stopped and nodded his head over to the locker room door while looking at her, a sign meaning he wanted her to come follow him.

Gavin gave a look that was hard to read as she followed him out, also taking her gloves off and throwing them out on the way. His face was a negative one it seemed as he stitched his brows together, leaning against the table to rest next to Elias while the other pastry chef stayed standing, holding a pitcher of something sweet smelling and slowly pouring it over the skewered eyes. It had the consistency of honey.

In the locker room, Roman was taking off his chef jacket while he talked to the woman, his eyes staring off into nothing. 

"You need to stop getting so close with the others, you did the same with the old pair of dishwashers." 

The lady gave a sad look as she looked over her shoulder to the door. She sat down on one of the benches in the locker room, legs clearly tired.

"I feel guilty for everyone here."

"Some people are here for a reason."

"Oh, believe me, I know. Regardless, I feel a sense of guilt." She told him gently, keeping a strong eye contact. 

He returned her gaze with a soft look as he was fixing his clothes that were hugged underneath his chef coat.

"That's nice of you, but don't waste your efforts being nice to them, Gavin as well."

She frowned, staring blankly at him as she raised her head higher.

"Why not?"

Roman didn't face her or respond. He was fixing his hair out of a bun and into a ponytail, revealing how curly his hair was, the red tips oddly complimenting his face. He closed the door of the metal box holding his bloody chef coat and apron, eyeing the woman curiously as he leaned against the lockers, arms crossed.

Sidenote: While the dishes they make are rather disgusting and gruesome to their tastes, the rest of the place was actually cleaner and rather nice.

"He makes jokes out of this situation; those people tend to either die early or turn into backstabbing jerks. I don't want you to cry over him when his 'dark humor' finally gets him in trouble." 

She scrunched her nose and left his gaze, standing up towards the door.

"He won't die, I'll make sure of it." She mumbled.

She turned her back to him and walked towards the door.

"If you're just trying to scold me into caring less so I won't get hurt about their death, then follow your own advice and stop caring about my business."

He froze at her response, and then composed himself again as he sighed, choosing his next words carefully.

"Wait." 

She stood right before the door, hand on the door handle and waiting for his next response. The woman has steeled herself in an odd way during the month she began working for this underground restaurant; she can stay calm, maybe act defensive at times but those are simply small reactions. All those other normal reactions such as questioning and needing time to cope, she can skip all of it and get right back to what she would normally do, still thinking about the incident, just calmly. Though, I suppose another word for that would be numbness.

This has a good affect when she doesn't waver under the sounds of Roman's shoes tapping against the floor, coming close behind her, even when she can feel him tilt his head to her and feel his breath on her ear. 

"Please understand, I just don't want you to lose yourself here." His husky voice whispered to her. "Elias is still too weak but you're strong enough, and I feel like I can trust you more than the rest."

She shifts her face and carefully makes eye contact with him, while also making sure their lips and noses don't touch as she stares into his sincere eyes that were somehow looking sad in that moment. His eyebrows tilted to opposite sides and his hand helped him steady himself against the door frame, like his body was towering over her as a protective barrier from the world.

Her eyes were already numb from witnessing the world, they didn't waver at his body's proximity to her. 

"I might get hunted soon with how I always arrive late; I'm annoying the manager all the time. You shouldn't get too close to me; I can't guarantee I'm worth trusting."

He gave an extremely rare smile, mixed with sad eyes. 

"I know, but I still want to." 

"Why?"

The door opened and revealed Gavin who was not expecting to see those two right by the doorway, his widened at their close proximity. 

Roman slowly backed away from Noemie, hand leaving the door frame and away from her head, his fingers brushed against the side of her hair and dropped to his side as he walked away, erasing the atmosphere of what he made earlier. 

Gavin merely raised an eyebrow, adjusting his glasses as he watched him leave, and then back down to the woman who wasn't face by the situation, still holding her blank expression while she was now signaling to him that she wanted to move past him and back to the kitchen. 

He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and tilted his head in curiosity. 

"What was he doing just now?" 

"He was just scolding me, I think." She brushed it off.

He still wouldn't let her go, instead gently pulling her by both shoulders into the kitchen. They stayed silently as the other two chefs along with a sickly-looking Alonzo moved past them, going to take their coats off and go home. 

The only one's left were them and the two dishwashers, who were now receiving plates back as the waiters came in to retrieve the plates of fruit filled heads, putting them on carts and wheeling them out quickly.

"I've always had a weird feeling about that Roman guy." Gavin said out of the silence. 

"Why? Do you also think he'll get into trouble?"

He leaned against the kitchen island with one hand still on Noemie's shoulder, stroking softly as he stared down at the dark red tiled floors. 

"I feel like the manager will keep Alonzo around more, like a cat toying with a mouse, but an ambitious and stoic guy like Roman? She might get suspicious of him." 

Noemie put a hand on his, stopping the strokes, pondering something before she let go and moved away from his hand, going out to look through the small circular window of the door leading to the dining room. 

She could see all eight of the patrons sitting in the large circle table, far more fancy looking than the canine man from the previous night, they acted like normal people as they talked and used toothpicks to grab the chopped fruits sitting inside the cut open heads of people. 

Her eyes connected with one patron who looked familiar, they looked like one of the two coworkers who joined her and Lilia for lunch earlier today. 

Gavin reached from behind and turned her face away, he searched her eyes and watched as she became silent again. He easily read it as shock as his face grew with concern, and he pulled her close, guiding her to the locker room while he bid the other ladies goodnight. 

In the locker room, Noemie sat on the bench again, mentally drained this time. Gavin sat next to her, rubbing her back as he lightly lectured her. 

"Don't stare out the window, we chefs have the luxury of not having to interact with the patrons, unlike the waiters, and I suggest you keep it that way." 

"I knew one of them." Noemie whispered, her face in her hands. 

Gavin didn't look very surprised, nor did he react at all much. He wrapped both his hands around her and rested his head on top of hers. They stayed like that not out of comfort, but simply because the night was growing tiring to deal with and it was nice to have some sort of warm physical contact. There was no cat whose purring or dog whose rumbling could help make anyone feel better, but there were hugs.

Her coworker, albeit someone she's not that close or familiar with, is in the dining area, just two rooms away, eating fruit out of human skulls like a chalice, with their other fellow cannibals. 

Noemie had her face buried in her hands still as Gavin held her close. 

"I think I'll just call in sick for work tomorrow morning." The woman said, slowly raising her face out of her hands. 

Gavin released her from his arms, standing up to unbutton his coat and finding his locker to shove it back in. 

"Or quit and find a new one, maybe move to a different state, that would guarantee your safety." He responded, half joking and half not. 

The woman shook her head. 

"It's hard to find a new place, and I can't just leave." 

She also stood up and unbuttoned her coat, her blouse that was underneath the coat was a little wrinkled from how snug it was around her. The lady went to one of the metal boxes lined against the wall, the one with her name written on the rectangular name plate in black ink cursive, turned the dial of the lock hanging from the handle in a routine motion, opened it, and neatly placed her folded coat inside, the only one to treat their coat so tenderly really. The woman stared into the metal box, looking at the inner part of the door, and the opening slits on the upper parts of it, big enough to slip paper through, which was how the chefs were typically notified of what to cook and how many patrons. 

(A funny thing about that as well, the manager who usually does this, slips the notes into each of the lockers of the chosen chefs for the night, and each note has different information on them. Noemie and the others found this out on their first nights working together, comparing the notes they had gotten and have to piece it together. The manager thinks it's funny, I think it's funny too.)

"If it's alright to ask you..." She spoke. 

The tall man turned to her as he was adjusting the collar of his shirt that also got wrinkled underneath the thick coat. He closed his locker door by leaning his back on it and crossing his arms, waiting.

"How did you end up working here?" She turned to fully face him, arms holding themselves as her usual stance. Her purse was slinged onto one of her shoulders already. 

"Do you owe money to a loan shark? I thought Morticians earned a lot."

The man slightly grinned and gave her an amused look, the atmosphere still being light. He shook his head as he patted down on his pockets, then pulling out a silky looking cloth from one of them and using that to clean the lens of his glasses.

"Student loans needed to get paid off." He lied. "It takes a while to go from a student to an intern, and a full-on Mortician." He rubbed the back of his head.

Noemie simply hummed in response, clutching her purse as she went to the door to the kitchen, about to go back inside, making Gavin give her a confused look as he was walking to the exit.

"What are you going back for?"

She stopped before she could press the door back, turning to look at him.

"You know one of the waiters from earlier?" 

"No not really. They die a lot; I don't bother trying to recognize any of them."

She frowned at him, he waved both his hands up in a mock surrender, smiling an awkward grin.

"What? I don't want to sound like a jerk but it's true. It's like when someone avoids getting pet, knowing they don't live long."

Noemie was about to retort back with something but stopped herself, her mouth opening and slowly closing as no sound came out, her eyes slowly pointing from him to the floor in front of her. She quickly shook away her instant thought. 

"I want to go back and talk to one of them, Everett. He got bitten yesterday; I want to check on him before I go."

This time Gavin frowned and tilted his head. 

"You, got acquainted with one of the waiters?" 

"Umm, yes." She replied with a slow, careful tone. Her eyes examining him up and down warily.

"And he got bitten yesterday but you saved him?"

"No, just wrapped him up."

"You realize that almost proves my point that they die often and you're just setting yourself up for sadness if you get too connected to him?" 

Her fingers squeezed against each other, she didn't move from her spot as she nervously looked away from his judging gaze, and back to the door. His eyes never left her as she went back inside the kitchen, anyway, seeing the two women who were now cleaning some of the empty plates brought back and not saying anything to them. She too could sense that they weren't the social types.

This is the part where she would listen in on what's happening outside the kitchen, in the dining area, by walking close to the door. this time she avoided the window as Gavin advised, choosing to not want to see the face of a familiar coworker out there and feeling sick again. The sounds of the chatter could tell her what the atmosphere were like out there, the clicks of shoes against the floor could hint how busy the servants were entertaining them, or walking on eggshells around him, but the most difficult for human ears to hear through a door and from a distance is the clinking of silverware against plates.