I <3 U, K?

"Your fork goes on the left, knife on the right, "James smiled. "And now you know."

He gave a very plastic smile as he demonstrated with his own silverware.

"You hold them with your index fingers like so, and then wrap your other fingers around the base. Now elbows in, and don't chew with your mouth open young man, or it's no dessert for you!"

He set down the silverware with a smirk.

James continued to ignore his own food.

"I don't want dessert, unless it's Larson chocolate cake." Justin smirked.

"Now, eat." he commanded, jabbing at the food in front of James with his fork. "Seriously, we're both really thin, so we gotta eat."

"Not hungryyy," James whined, ignoring the previous comment.

"Come oooooonn, eat or I'll feed you!"

James play glared at Justin stubbornly, crossing his arms and shaking his head like a little kid.

"Not hungry."

"Eat, you silly child!"

Justin grinned and stabbed at a piece of chicken and held it inches from James' mouth.

"Come on, eat!"

He moved it closer, waving it in the boy's face.

"Fine," James groaned, opening his mouth and biting the piece of food right off the fork.

He smirked as he chewed and swallowed.

"Maybe I am a bit hungry..."

"Damn right you are, anorexic freak..." Justin mumbled around his own fork with a grin. "You seriously need to eat more. I have a legitimate excuse."

He jabbed the prongs into another chunk of meat.

"I await yours."

James cut off another piece of chicken and stabbed it with his fork. He stared at it thoughtfully.

"Lack of motivation, mostly. And a fast metabolism."

He brought the fork up to his mouth and chewed the food, raising an eyebrow at Justin.

"I don't believe I've heard your excuse."

"If I eat too much, I risk upchucking it later."

He lifted another piece of meat, making a face at it, suddenly realizing just what he was eating. He stared at the meat a bit longer before putting it out of his mind with a shrug and putting it in his mouth.

"Plus, I don't really need it. It's more like a pleasure or comfort sort of thing."

"Food's just a comfort thing? Now who's got the bad eating habit? Jeez." James shook his head, smiling a little.

He had made short work of his food. There were only a few pieces left and James had filled up quickly. He was content to just sit here and talk now.

"Please, I generally don't have to worry about staying in shape." Justin chuckled, eating the last bit of his steak. He pushed the plate away before folding his hands in his lap, twiddling his thumbs.

"So, are you really as much of a computer nerd as I think you are?"

Odd question, but James just seemed like the type.

James found himself grinning in response.

"My dad's computer friends taught me everything I know. I'm a pretty good hacker, if I may say so myself. But dad makes me keep it to a minimum. They're important people and they wouldn't want their reputations ruined because their son screwed up and got caught. I've done a lot of beta testing for websites and games, too. So, yeah, I'd say I'm a fairly good computer nerd."

Showed how much of a life he had, really.

Justin grinned.

"Dude, that's awesome! You and Zane would have a blast together, lemme tell you." He shook his head good-natured-ly at the thought. That would've been interesting.

"Oh yeah, he's one of the guys you live with, right? I've never seen him at school. Does he go somewhere else?"

Well at least it was getting easier to talk now that the initial awkwardness had melted away.

"He doesn't live with me any more."

And suddenly, his good mood was gone.

"They needed him. Honestly, I wish to God he didn't have to do what he's doing now, but he does."

He sighed and looked out the window pensively.

"Necessity of human life, and whatnot."

"I'm sorry," James murmured, biting his lip. Now he felt like a dick for bringing up obviously painful memories. Like Justin needed any more of that.

Justin shrugged again.

"Don't worry about it. "s not like any good thing lasts with us very long. You get used to it."

He breathed out, relaxing his muscles and threading his fingers behind his head in a very lay-back position.

"Plus, Zane was practically born to be a doctor. He's doing fine. For the most."

"Do you mind if...do you mind me asking why he left? You don't have to explain if you don't want, I get it. I'm just curious."

James leaned on the table with an elbow, deliberately spitting on the manners that had been drilled into his head since before he even knew what "manners" were.

Justin remained silent a moment, lips pursed as he sorted his thoughts.

"... Did you know that at least 1970 people missing a day? And those are only the disappearances reported." He looked to James to make sure he was following.

"Now, in the Creator world, those people just go missing. And that's used to be how it was here and other worlds. Kidnappings, murders, runaways. But then, suddenly, it spiked. Went from around 1970 to 2240. At first, no one could explain it. Until we started finding the bodies, though they were from people who'd been missing for a while."

He licked his lips before continuing.

"Turns out, there's this... disease going around. A pandemic. It doesn't have a name yet and it spreads randomly, not sticking to a type or a setting. It just gets people. Causes dimensia, paranoia, schizophrenia, at first. People generally run and hide. Hence, the missing people. But then..."

"Well, then, it gets worse. They insides begin decaying from the inside out, their nervous system freaks out and the infected just turn into this writhing mass of flesh and pain. Takes them a couple weeks to die. And there's not cure, not that we've found. And that's why they needed Zannin."

He smiled sadly at the boy across the table from him.

"Zane was trained under Gavin, one of the most medically advanced minds in the entire history, present, and future of the universe. He has this infectious calm about him, too, and this knack for taking care of people. They called him in to..."

He took in a shaky breath as he thought of Zannin's initial reaction to their request.

"To make the peoples' passings easier. Not any less painful or horrific, just... they needed someone to be there for the people. So, now, Zannin spends all his time in this hospital, watching them die and trying to keep them happy as long as he can."

He sighed and brought his arms down, not meeting James' eyes anymore.

"Can't really think of a worse thing, really. Do watch all those people die in horrible agony and being unable to help... Makes me sick, ya know?"

James stared and shook his head slowly, unable to think of anything to say to that.

"...That's...I'm really sorry. I can't imagine what that would do to a person. He must be a really strong guy. I would have liked to meet him."

Justin grinned, though it didn't quite meet his eyes.

"Dude, Zane's like a friggin god! He's one of the strongest guys I've ever met. No matter what shit he goes through, his first priority is either me or whoever else was involved. And it only takes him, like, two minutes to get over something. Like a damn machine, that guy..."

"Guess they chose the right guy then."

James could see that this was painful for Justin to talk about, that he was trying to put up a strong front about it. Yeah, now he could remember at least one conversation with Justin mentioning that he was living alone now. Shit, he'd forgotten about that.

"But oh well."

Justin went back to folding his hands in his lap. He didn't know what to do with them.

"I started out doing things alone. I can manage."

James raised an eyebrow. He didn't really buy it for some reason.

"Well you don't have to be alone, you know."

Woah where had that come from? Talk about subtle. Jeez.