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The cafeteria coffee seemed particularly bad today. "Oh, ew," Sherry made a this is horrible face and proceeded to dump more creamer in her cup.

Was it always this bad? Was this a special failure? She didn't know. Hell, she'd been off island until just a day or two ago - She really had know way of knowing if this was the standard quality as of late or not.

She took another sip. Yep. Still gross.

"I bet someone hoards the decent stuff for themselves."

The choking cough that tried to escape from Sherry and almost made her spill her coffee could have been surprise or disgust - either at the Really Awful Pickup Lines or the coffee. It was hard to tell.

There was one follow up cough -to clear her throat- as she looked at...Mark. Mark? Why was he here? Why was he here with corny lines? Did he know she was single now? Or was she just the only female in the room sitting alone? Or was he here for something sinister, like work?

Sherry set her coffee cup down and reached for more creamer. "How many dates has that line gotten you? Or are you here about work?"

She honestly didn't think it was possible that he'd try to pick anyone up with that line. Right?

Sherry coughed again, as much to mask a cringe as anything. He was serious? Wow. So much Wow. And oh, lord, he stank. At first she'd assumed it was something from the kitchen, but no, no. It was clearly him. Sherry lifted her coffee cup to her lips again and inhaled - bad coffee smelled far, far better than stale Mark.

"Slow down, tiger. I'm not really looking for, uh, a workout partner." Even if she was, geez, Mark. Sherry might have been heartbroken and a little lonely, but she wasn't desperate.

"Don't get me wrong," she said, looking at him. "Corny lines can be cute, but something about you is coming on a little strong."

Sherry was having trouble thinking of a polite way to tell him he was stinky.

Sherry had honestly never witnessed anything so horrifying. She'd seen creatures made of bone and bugs....but this guy had roaches living in his hair which he apparently styled with spit. WTF. And that smell. Overwhelming, that's what it was. The air around him so thick with his stench she could practically taste it. Thankfully her breakfast didn't come back up. She was pretty sure she'd encountered rotting flesh that didn't smell that bad. WTF, Mark. WTF.

She cringed as he began to leave, and it actually took her brain a moment to process what he'd said. "Wait-" But no, he was gone. Sherry stared after him in horror and disbelief. And what was with that exit? Was he showing off? Another shuddering cringe of revulsion rocked her and she pushed her coffee cup away. How did anyone alive live like that?

---------

It was nearly two hours later that Sherry found herself actually headed towards Mark's office. He'd called it a lair. That's just a little terrifying.

Her original plan had been to ignore him. Just pretend the whole encounter hadn't happened, call it some kind of bad dream.

However. Mark was... still human, she was pretty sure, and that meant he deserved some level of decency and honesty. Basically Sherry's plan was to stop by his office and tell him straight up that he was kinda really gross and if he actually wanted to score being clean was a good idea.

She was even bringing him a gift basket. She'd picked up some lovely soaps on her last mission, and she was going to leave some with him. She knew he probably would never even touch it, but she had to try. The mere knowledge that he was living like that was- ugh.

Armagnac as always had helpful insights.

Sherry shook her head and paused just outside the office. She took one deep breath, and then knocked twice before heading in.

"Mark. We need to talk."

"Oh, holy hell." She hadn't been expecting anything clean (obviously) but WHAT? How did he even get any work done? How did he find anything that wasn't on a hard drive? How did he keep his electronics from overheating? The man was a health hazard and a safety hazard. But honestly, Sherry had known that walking in.

She almost walked right back out. What they had here was clearly a lost cause - which explained so very much.

Sherry opened her mouth once to say something, then closed it. I'm going to regret everything about this. She took a deep breath, regretted that, and opened her mouth to speak.

"You can take a bath." There, she said it.

Sherry had a very vivid mental image of cockroaches swimming in sudsy water, and she didn't even bother to stifle the cringe that followed. "Yeah, NO."

Glancing around, she looked for a place to leave her gift of soap. She was now 99.9999% sure he'd lose it before he even thought about using it, but stranger things had happened.

"I'm not going to bathe with you." He probably needed supervision in case he'd forgotten how bathing worked or something, but she certainly wasn't going to do it. Bathing with Mark meant bathing with roaches and eww. Wait. Was his grossness and his being a walking roach motel the only things that kept her from considering the idea? No, couldn't be. This was Mark. "You're stinky, bug infested, and you'd probably record everything and not tell-"

A memory crossed her mind's eye. Looking at a security camera screen trained on the public showers. She'd gotten herself a nice room with a private bathroom after that. But...

"You don't have cameras in the private showers, do you? Like, in the private rooms?"

Sherry's eyes narrowed just a little bit. She was going to have to check her bathroom again, just in case.

She then blinked at him in surprise. He had a shower? Why the hell wasn't he using it? Sherry was a little bit flabbergasted. "Mark, you can't have a sexy shower until you've had a normal shower! When was the last time you had one of those?"

"Why?" Sherry repeated. She didn't understand - how could he live like this? "Because it's gross, Mark." But he obviously didn't care about that. Not one little bit.

Maybe if she- Whatever Sherry was thinking was pushed right on out of her head when she felt something hit her hair.

"What?" She feared the worst even as the instinctive flinched sent one fat roach rolling off her bangs onto her nose before bouncing off to the floor. Her basket of soap was dropped as her hands rose to remove the offending creatures. They were in her hair.

"Get them off, get them off!" Sherry had to admit that her squeal was very undignified. So was the way she flailed, and the way she tripped as she tried to step back. She landed hard on her butt on something in the damn mess that Mark called an office.

"Holy ********." Sherry sat huffing and puffing and feeling rather itchy all over now. She was going to need a shower.

"I was trying to help you get laid, you a**," Sherry was grumbling as she tried to stand again. "I thought that was what you wanted. I--" Sherry stopped dead when she felt a scratching on her collarbone. She hit herself, hard, and felt more scratching and a little bit of bug gut go squish.

Defeated, Sherry sank back onto the floor.