damned_institute | Day 38 - Doctor's Office 3 [Dr. Kisugi] [Second Shift]

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Day 38 - Doctor's Office 3 [Dr. Kisugi] [Second Shift]

It was her first day of work in a new facility, but Dr. Makiko Kisugi wasn't feeling nervous at all. To the contrary, all she felt was a sense of anticipation, an eagerness to see what opportunities might arise in a place such as this.

She was far from home, though, and so painfully new that she'd not dare take too many liberties as yet. As little as she liked the idea, now was a time to exercise caution, to play the doctor for the sadly deluded and likely uninteresting masses until she'd established sufficient power to act.

The files she'd been given, though - some of these looked. Well. Almost interesting, if only for the fact that they all seemed to be suffering from similar delusions. They were almost all male, though, which was both disappointing and potentially a good thing; generally speaking men lacked the indefinable something that would spark her interest (and hunger), but perhaps she'd be able to amuse herself at the least. Time would tell.

Makiko tapped a button on the CD player on her desk, flipping idly through the file for her first appointment of the day as a piano concerto began to quietly play. At the sound of a rap on her office door she glanced up and called out a crisp, "Enter," to the nurse. This must be Mr. Derringer now.

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[Ack, anonymous was me. Could we delete that one?]

"Therapy". What a joke. First getting stuck in some joint that had a 5-to-1 guy-to-chick ratio and now he was getting sent off to therapy. Talk about beating him over the head with the irony. He guessed he was supposed to talk about his feelings or that time he stubbed his toe as a kid and how that crap was supposed to come back fifteen years down the line. Dean rolled his eyes as he stood outside the door, Hello Nurse raising her hand to knock. Sammy might've gotten a kick out of therapy but all he could think about was how big a waste of time this was.

Nevermind this could be a trap. But Dean wasn't so sure; if they wanted to kill him, there was plenty of damn chances. What were they waiting for? Seemed more like they were trying to get him uncomfortable and disoriented.

He'd just have to disappoint them.

Stepping into the office, Dean automatically scoped it out as he sauntered in, bandages and all. Within a second of stepping across the doorway, he'd picked out some vantage points in a fight as well as a hostage: the doctor was a woman, a pretty hot one too, and he wasn't sure who'd be a better lay, her or Hello Nurse. Both of them looked kind of like they wouldn't be too enthusiastic, and while he was pretty sure he could overpower her, he wasn't gonna be able to take on her, the nurse and her orderly pal. He'd have to keep playing it safe.

Without asking, Dean casually flopped down in the seat across from Doctor Makiko Kisugi (according to her perfectly positioned plaque) and deliberately shoved his chair a little off center as if getting more comfortable. The hunter beamed at his therapist, flashing white teeth.

...well. Now there was an entrance. The bandages were somewhat unexpected, and Makiko gave a mental sigh of annoyance at the nurses who hadn't bothered to update the files before her patients arrived. She was only supposed to be treating these people.

Ah, well. It wasn't as though she particularly cared about Eric Derringer or whatever unspecified tendencies had caused him to end up injured. Picking fights with other patients, perhaps? He didn't seem like the self-injury type to her.

Makiko nodded a faint acknowledgement to the nurse as the woman departed, then turned a critical eye on her new patient. Not exactly the kind of person she looked for, but not so irritatingly sweet as to be uninteresting. And should she grow bored with his ramblings, there were a few interesting cracks in which to pry.

For now, though, she merely gave him a polite smile. "Good morning, Mr. Derringer. Or do you go by Eric?" According to his file he liked to go by "Dean" but she didn't care to indulge in a patient's delusions. "I'm Dr. Kisugi, and I've been assigned to be your doctor during your stay here. How are you feeling today?"

Dean almost snorted out loud when he finally heard his "real" name. Rick Derringer. Cute. It was almost a name he would've used as a cover way back when. The corner of his mouth did quirk at the name, amused, as he leaned back in his chair, not quite slouching, and wondered if he'd get away with kicking his feet up on the desk. Dean half-expected her to slap his feet off if he did try. Did look damn tempting...

"Eric's good," Dean said smoothly; it wasn't the first time he'd had to pretend to be someone else, although usually he had some kinda warning before he had to start winging it. "I'm feelin' okay, I guess. Except for this whole mummy thing," he motioned at the bandages on his arms and part of his neck, flicking a glance at her for her reaction: he didn't expect pity but he did wonder what they told her, if anything. "Or were you asking if I was bouncin' off the walls psycho? I mean, y'know, seein' where we are," he added, gesturing at the walls.

If there was anything he was used to, it was people acting like he was crazy: funny, wouldn't you know it, but they didn't really like being told that what did go bump in the night was real and could chew you up and spit you out in the time it took to say "oh hell". By now, Dean had settled himself into the stiff plastic waiting room chair as if he owned the thing, legs sprawled out and his head tilted a little, his lip curling a little sarcastically. Going through the "you're crazy, son" speech seemed almost laughably normal and out of place.

If the man was looking for some kind of reaction, he was destined to be sorely disappointed; Makiko's expression didn't change at all as he spoke or gestured toward the bandages. She'd returned to her usual calm not-quite-smile after the greeting, and only nodded slightly as he spoke. One might even think the doctor was entirely bored with the proceedings.

"I was asking how you were feeling," she replied, absently tapping her pen against the arm of her chair. "How you choose to answer the questions is entirely up to you, Eric. After all, these sessions are for your benefit, are they not?"

Whatever he was feeling certainly didn't involve a lack of confidence, not from the way he'd obviously taken possession of her chair like that. At least, that was what he wanted her to think; there were some vaguely intriguing contradictions involved, but she wasn't sure they were worth pursuing just yet.

Dean shrugged. "Okay, sure, we can do that. I'm pretty sure the pig-in-a-blanket I had for breakfast is givin' me cramps, the bandage here," he pointed at his forehead, "is itchin' like a mother and I'm wonderin' just what's the point of talkin' about how I feel."

He said that last bit like it was something as useful as underwater basket weaving. Dean had been blown off by his share of chicks - a guy didn't always score - and he was getting a positively glacial vibe off Doctor Kisugi. She didn't seem too impressed with him. Now wasn't exactly the place to try to get laid, he knew, and anyway, he probably had a better chance with the nurse than with this chick: she wasn't exactly looking down at him but he definitely wasn't imagining the professional distance she was doing a good job at maintaining. It wouldn't be as easy as empty promises and a night in the nearest motel to get on her good side. He could live with that. What he didn't like was getting stuck here in something that would've pissed him off even before all this Cold Oak bullcrap.

Dean kept on the game face. He still didn't know if she was a demon playing nice or if she was a regular human who really did think all of this was real. All he knew was he was stuck alone in a room with her and that alone was making him antsy.

So he wanted to play self-assured and unaffected. Very well, then. "The point is that I'm here to help you get better, Eric. If you don't wish to cooperate, there's very little that I can do for you." Makiko's smile widened slightly as she regarded her patient, but it never touched her eyes. "If you don't wish to talk about how you feel, perhaps we could talk about the feelings of those who are waiting for you at home?"

She stilled the absent pen-tapping, reaching out instead to flip a couple of pages in his file, as though checking on some details. He wouldn't miss the significance of that, she was certain, and wondered how he would react. "You do want to return to them, do you not?"

Dean's expression remained the same, but his eyes flicked down to follow the doctor as she reached out and rifled through a couple of pages in a file - his file, he assumed. The only reaction at her words was a faint tightening of his casual smile, even as he shrugged.

"You tell me," Dean said. He did mean it, though - if he was supposed to be impersonating someone or pretending to be this Eric Derringer, it'd help to know the details. As of right now, all he had to play along with was the name and the fact he was "supposed" to be in a mental institute and therefore unhinged. He pushed the seat back a little more, the legs of the plastic chair scrapping on the floor, and got more comfortable, settling down like she was gonna read him a story.

He did concede one point: if he brought up Sammy, maybe he'd get clued in on if he was here or outside of Landels. "Been really lookin' forward to seeing my brother, though, now that you mention it."

He didn't name names; for all he knew, Sammy was saddled up with his own alias or this doctor was fishing for that kind of detail. Dean made it no secret he was checking out the doctor even as she studied the file, knowing he had about an icecube's chance in hell and not caring.

"That would hardly be productive, though," Makiko replied, in a gently chiding tone. The scrape of the chair legs against the tile floor elicited a faint, almost unnoticeable flicker of irritation, visible if he was watching closely - such annoying sounds were entirely unnecessary and out of place. Still, she continued speaking without missing a beat. "If I tell you how you should think or feel or be, then how would you ever learn to recover?"

At Eric's mention of his brother, she glanced down toward the file again, skimming a finger along the text until she paused at a particular line. "Are you? I'm not so certain that he'd agree, after the last time he saw you." She kept watch on him from the periphery of her vision as she spoke, wondering if he'd prove himself to be amusing or no. "Your mother, though, was more who I was thinking of. She was quite upset by your...breakdown."

Dean did snort out loud this time. What, was he pissed he'd gotten there too late? Was that what she was trying to say? Dean didn't say anything at first, although it was clearly a sore spot for him that he hadn't gotten to Cold Oak in time to save Sammy. Or did he somehow know about the deal? Honestly, how could he? He'd been with Sammy for maybe a few hours before they'd driven off to Bobby's, it wasn't like there was a whole lot of time there to get really suspicious and put two and two together.

Still, other that that, he couldn't for the life of him figure out what he was supposed to have done to piss off Sammy that much that he wouldn't want to see him.

Assuming this wasn't some elaborate trick in the first place...

And then there was the mention of Mom. Dean's smile did fade at this despite himself; if Sammy was a sore subject, his Mom was another. What did she think she knew about Mom? Hell, what was there to even know? She'd been dead since he was a kid and he'd be damned if some stuck-up frosty bitch with a Ph.D was gonna tell him "Mommy Dearest" didn't love him enough when he was little. She was talking like she was alive, which was such a load of crap - he had to tell himself to chill out and remember this wasn't really him, but some unlucky bastard called Eric Derringer, whose family might very well be still alive. Dean had made such a rookie mistake, getting too lost in all the details and taking them personally.

The darkening expression on his face lightened as he took a second to pick at his bandages, inspecting them for some imaginary lint, and then looked up.

"Guess I must've blacked that part out," Dean said, remembering this time to fish for information. His tone was neutral, despite the new rueful smile. "The breakdown, I mean."

Edited 2009-01-12 09:24 (UTC)

There, a reaction. Eric wasn't as strong as he believed himself to be; they never were. Everyone had their weaknesses, the little cracks in their psyches where it was so very simple to prod and pry and twist until they squirmed and did exactly what you wanted them to. Not that he'd be terribly useful to her, not in the way that she wanted.

Still, though, it was a way to pass the time.

She glanced up at him again, one brow lifting just slightly. "Did you?" Her fingertip tapped against the file as she considered. It was always far easier to just get the patient talking, let them ramble about whatever inane concerns they might have. This one, however, seemed far more interested in letting her talk.

"I suppose that the events that led to your attempted suicide would have been quite traumatic," she replied, with some vague pretense at a concerned expression. "You remember none of that?"

Dean shook his head. That much was true, he was pretty sure if he really had tried to off himself, he'd remember; granted, there was a lot of times he'd almost died, but that was the downside of hunting - the shit hunted right back and sometimes it got you, sometimes it didn't. Unless she meant the deal...which, he now that he thought about, was pretty much as good as suicide, just with an expiration date in a year. And it was guaranteed, there wasn't any way to botch it or get out of it or hope someone called 911 on your sorry ass.

Still, he didn't consider that really suicide. He'd done it to save Sammy and he'd do it all over again if he had to 'cause there was no contest between their lives. It wasn't like he'd got pissed his favorite TV show got canceled and that the next logical thing to do was to start carving up his wrists.

"Nope, none, Doc," Dean said cheerfully, although he was probably laying it on a little thick now. Dean didn't crack easily but he'd be lying if he said Doctor Kisugi wasn't starting to get annoying. Everything she did seemed so irritatingly deliberate, from the way she was tapping his file to the concerned expression on her face. "Kinda like startin' over though, not remembering."

Edited 2009-01-12 17:42 (UTC)

"I suppose it would be." Makiko leaned back in her chair again, leaving the file sitting open, though it was arranged and neatly aligned with the desk's edge. It was entirely possible for someone to blank out a traumatic event, and according to his file, Eric had managed to blank out almost his entire life. It seemed plausible enough that he was telling the truth by claiming he didn't remember, though the way he was acting now made her wonder.

Well. If he wasn't going to be cooperative, she might as well try to amuse herself. At least, as much as was possible without attracting...attention.

She regarded her patient for a moment longer, then changed tactics, recalling how she'd managed to get a reaction earlier. "I see that you remember other details of your life, though. Your brother, for instance, and your mother. What about your fath--ah, no." She flicked a glance toward the file again and shook her head slightly. "My apologies, I hadn't read closely enough."

Dad. She just had to bring up Dad. The man was almost a year gone but Dean knew he hadn't even begun to get over losing him; he supposed he should feel closer now that they both earned tickets to Hell, but he didn't.

He felt angry. It'd been pissing him off from day one, when Dad leaned over his hospital bed and whispered his instructions about Sammy. Now that he knew the truth about how he'd suddenly keeled over dead, he wanted to shake him, yell at him all over again. It didn't make sense, Dean knew, but he couldn't help feeling that way. Maybe, he thought sarcastically, I'll get a chance in Hell to ream him good. But he knew there was also a part of him, a big part, that wanted nothing more than to see Dad again just like he remembered him, even the parts that always fought with Sammy and didn't tell him what was going on. Dean grit his teeth behind a tight-lipped smile, jaw working slightly.

Why did he get the feeling Doctor Kisugi was trying to rile him up?

Looking at her, he saw she was just gazing at him with that same disinterested, politely medical look.

"He's dead," Dean said, and was surprised his voice was level. "I was there when he died. Not much more to tell other than that.

Not much more? Makiko arched one brow just slightly, giving the man a look that conveyed mild disbelief. His reaction had been fairly easy for her to see, even if he had managed to keep it out of his voice. "Perhaps. But clearly it affected you, Eric. A parent's death is never an easy thing to deal with."

She reached over and made a note on the file, the gesture seemingly idle even though each word was formed with neat and careful precision. "Your mother believes that you took it hard. That perhaps it was part of what drove you to...act as you did. What do you think?"

It was all so tedious, really. Patients with strange delusions and problems that in no way concerned her. Baiting them was mildly amusing, but when they weren't even worth feeding from, there wasn't too much point.

"I'm thinkin' you're way off the mark, sister," Dean said. He spread his hands on the armrests, as if going you serious. "I wouldn't go around slashin' up my wrists or whatever because of that. I mean, I loved the guy, but that's not me."

Not when Sammy needed to be looked out after. If Kisugi had just switched Dad for Sammy, then she would have been creepily right on the ball there, only it had happened that way, it wasn't just speculation by some armchair Ph.D who thought she was hot shit. Dean wasn't proud of how he'd treated Bobby a few days ago but he'd meant every word he'd said to the other hunter back in that shack, with Sam's body only a room away: he hadn't cared what happened, and if the world burned, it wasn't his problem. Part of him still wasn't sure if it was because it was terrified he'd lose Sammy all over again hunting that yellow-eyed sonuvabitch...but Sammy was committed to the hunt and he sure as hell wasn't gonna let his brother go after the thing solo.

"So what's your story?" Dean asked, as if they hadn't been talking about suicide and dead parents. He reached out with a "may I?" for her neatly positioned pencil jar and took it without waiting for an answer, inspecting it idly as he lounged back in the plastic waiting room chair. "Obviously you're smart, attractive, and it looks to me you're bored outta your skull. I'm guessin' this wasn't your idea."

"Tried to stab yourself in the chest, actually," Makiko corrected almost absently, her attention still ostensibly on the file in front of herself. "Of course, this was after you'd abandoned your brother to fend for himself in the middle of nowhere, while going on about...hmm." She paused, flipped back a couple of pages, then continued, "A monster that was making you imagine your life. Fascinating."

She glanced up as the man appropriated her pencil jar, giving a brief frown but not bothering to try to stop him. It only held a few rather ordinary-looking pencils (all at the same perfectly sharp point, of course) and a couple of pens, twins of the one she began to idly tap against her desktop again.

"My story?" The doctor looked him over again, eyes narrowing just slightly as she did; for an instant she looked more like she was assessing a piece of meat than looking at another human. She wanted (needed, with a desperation bordering on ravenous) to toy with him, to taste his blood, but it was an impulse that couldn't be indulged here. Not now. Not yet.

The moment passed quickly, though, and she continued, her voice calm as she forced the violent urge back into submission once more. "We're not here to speak about me, Eric. I'm here to help you." Some might have actually believed the smile she gave there, if they weren't looking too closely.

Tried to -

Wait, this sounded familiar. So did a monster like her description.

Dean's eyebrow rose higher and higher as he stared at her as Kisugi meticulously went through more of the details of what supposedly happened. Well, shit, he did remember this. That one time with the djinn, where he'd thought a wish - one he hadn't even said out loud before - might've come true, a world where Mom hadn't died, where they hadn't ever become hunters...where Sammy still had Jessica, only there were no Winchester brothers hunting evil. They'd never gotten close. The Sammy he knew didn't exist, but he was happy, which had been the important thing. It'd been one of the hardest things he'd had to do, breaking himself out of the djinn's world.

He'd stabbed himself.

But he hadn't ditched Sam on that trip to the warehouse, which got him wondering what other details had changed. Was he still in the djinn's clutches? Seemed highly unlikely, because that acid-trip had been pretty specific in him having a "good long life" where he'd be happy. Seeing Sammy get killed in some ass end of nowhere and having one year to live? Wasn't his definition of a long happy life. It seemed just as shitty as things generally were supposed to be. Chewing this over and toying with the pencils - it hadn't escaped his notice each was sharpened to a perfect, exact point that he had the urge to snap just 'cause - Dean happened to glance up.

The doctor was looking at him weird. Not hey-your-fly's-open weird. More like he was the world's most delicious T-bone and she was craving some prime red-meat. But it was gone the next second, blink or you'll miss it fast and leaving Dean wondering if he'd even seen anything.

But he hadn't survived for as long as he did by thinking he'd imagined things. That was usually the second, best case scenario choice in his line of work. Dean wasn't sure why she'd been looking at him like that, but he was on his guard; rather than tensing, his shoulders relaxed. This he could deal with. Dean knew it was messed up he'd feel more comfortable sitting across from someone (something?) that might want to kill him instead of talking about his feelings in therapy. But hey, that was life. He liked his damn comfort zone.

Dean returned the smile, "Telling me I tried to kill myself by stabbin' myself in the chest is your definition of help? No wonder I thought therapy was crap." He leaned forward, taking the time to fold his bandaged arms on her desk. "Might want to work on those people skills, sweetheart."

Edited 2009-01-13 06:21 (UTC)

As he leaned forward Makiko almost absently slid her nameplate out of the way, lest he try to push it somewhere as he'd already been trying to rearrange small parts of her office. "You were the one who said you had no memory of the events, Eric," she pointed out with complete and utter calm, as her pen remained poised above the file, ready to add another note. "Does finding out the truth upset you, then?"

That was odd, though; somehow his fear had lessened a moment ago. Makiko mentally reviewed her words, wondering what she could possibly have said to cause that, but couldn't think of anything. It only made her somewhat more wary, though, as well as mildly intrigued. She didn't feel that she had anything to fear from this one, of course - she was certainly a match for him physically, and in a place like this, with a file such as he had, anything he said about her would be easily dismissed as the ravings of a delusional lunatic.

The question he was thinking over was what was she, if not human. His first bet was demon, seeing as how Yellow-Eyes was on the prowl and he usually had some of his black-eyed friends with him. If she was a demon, she was surprisingly self-controlled though - all the ones he'd met were hell-bent on death and destruction and not sitting around just talking. He knew they were lying bastards too, smart, but if she was tryin' to get under his skin, she was going through a roundabout way to get to the damn point. Even that Crossroads Bitch didn't take this long; she'd come at him with her claws out from the get-go and started talking about Sammy's body like it was just a slab of meat - he'd been two seconds away from exorcising that smug smile off her skanky face, but then he'd thought about what it would be like to keep living without his brother. He'd folded a lot faster there than here.

Still, if Kisugi was a demon, he'd have to make sure. It wasn't like he had holy water on him, which meant he had to improvise. Dean reached out and helped himself to a notepad from the desk, leaning back to use his knee to prop it up as he scrawled something out on the paper.

"I just don't see how this truth is supposed to help things," Dean didn't look up, writing on the notepad with one of the stolen pencils. "So I stabbed myself in the chest. How do you know that's not givin' me ideas now?"

Apparently unhappy with what he wrote, Dean tore off the first sheet, crumpled it, and carelessly tossed it over his shoulder. It missed the wastebasket entirely. He went through a few more pages before he'd written it exactly to his satisfaction. Looking it over, he clicked his tongue against his teeth, and suddenly held out the notepad to Doctor Kisugi. There was only one word on the paper, despite all his writing. Dean flashed his most charming smile at Kisugi, the kind he usually reserved for the chicks he knew were more than willing to put out and not to ice queens who might be a hunt in herself.

"Hey, do me a favor, will you? I think I just remembered the name of my mom's old dog, but my memory's fuzzy on how the name's pronounced. He used to mean a lot to my brother and I. We practically grew up with him."

Edited 2009-01-13 09:25 (UTC)

The nameplate was safe, but apparently her notepad was not. Makiko was starting to wonder if the man was determined to rearrange her entire office before leaving (though if so he'd be sorely disappointed, as she had no intention of letting him). She twitched slightly as he grabbed the pad, halfway tempted to stop him but restraining the impulse for now.

Fine. Let him write whatever he wanted, if it kept him amused. Even if another part of his amusement involved dropping crumpled pieces of paper on the floor. She frowned slightly, keeping her sigh purely internal, and added a few more notes to the file while he scribbled.

When he handed the notepad back to her she arched one brow slightly as she took it, partially in curiosity at what he could possibly want, partially in somewhat dubious reaction to the sudden attempt at being charming. The man clearly had no idea of who he was dealing with here.

As she glanced at the word he'd written on the paper, though, the other brow rose to join the first. "'Christo'? That's a rather unusual name for a dog," she observed, glancing back up at him again as she slid the notepad into her desk drawer. "Though if you grew up with him, I have to wonder how you could have forgotten its name. There must be some rather fascinating gaps in your memory."

So much for her being a demon; she hadn't even flinched at seeing the name of God, much less saying it out loud. 'Course that didn't really help 'cause there was a hundred other things she could be, but at least he could strike "Demon And/Or Possessed" off the list.

"My brother named him," said Dean with a shrug. "I do remember he was a geek. Law school and all that."

If this was based on that djinn's acid trip, then at least that detail should be right: Sammy then had gone to Stanford, only he hadn't dropped out of college to drive cross-country with his older brother and had been in law shool. Dean's eyes followed Kisugi's hands as she slid the notepad into her desk drawer, the corner of his mouth quirking up as he noticed she was keeping it out of his reach...even if she didn't make it look that way, there it was. He hadn't missed the tiny twitch of annoyance either. Looked like the good doctor didn't like things out of place, which made Dean want to do it even more. Somehow he just felt better knowing she was a threat he could deal with; there was a lot to be said when you could just take care of a problem by stabbing it with iron or silver and that would be that.

Granted, he still had no idea what Doctor Makiko Kisugi really was. But if she was living and breathing, he could probably kill her. Problem was narrowing it down. Dean mentally breathed a sigh of relief.

"So no guys in your life?" Dean switched the subject again. He doubted Ice Queen would bite but it was disrupting the therapy to keep trying to talk about her...that and it might clue him in on what she really was. "I mean, come on, you gotta be kiddin' me if all that," and he didn't hide the fact he checked her out, from her long legs to her rack and her pretty, but politely impassive face, "is single. Totally sellin' yourself short, Makiko."

"You keep trying to change the subject to me, Mr. Derringer," Makiko observed, sliding the drawer closed with just a tiny bit more force than absolutely necessary. If he was going to start using her first name uninvited, she was only going to become even more formal. "Are you uncomfortable speaking about yourself?"

He was likely deliberately trying to bait her, which wasn't a very good idea if he wanted to remain entirely healthy. She was only growing more irritated by his presence, by the necessity of having to pretend to be human when she'd already cast humanity aside. She was more than that.

Her grip tightened on her pen for a moment as the words echoed repeatedly in her mind, more than that, better than that, and she once more forced herself to push down the desire to rend the man limb from limb, to taste his terror in his blood. Not now.

She forced herself to go back to the file and continue writing notes, pretending to be focused on that while watching her patient from the corner of her eye. "Do you not believe you're worth talking about? Perhaps that's why you were so willing to throw your life away."

So she was single and she didn't want to talk about it. And she was determined to swing the subject back to him rather than consider the fact maybe she was uptight and needed to loosen up.

But then she had to bring up something that was way too close to home for his comfort. Dean didn't reply immediately. Instead he kicked back in his chair, folded his arms over his stomach, and put his feet on her desk, just far enough away from where Doctor Kisugi was seated so if she did slap them off, she'd have to lean forward to do it. The smile on Dean's face was cold now, maybe a little deadly, the kind he usually wore right before he started throwing punches or killing things. She might be dangerous and he was mostly unarmed, except for the pencil he'd stolen and not given back, palmed away in one hand. It might be good if he needed to stab it somewhere soft but that was all it was good for: one use. Much as he'd like to kick some ass right now and take every one of his problems out on something that deserved it, he knew he might have to book it out that door.

"Maybe I just don't like runnin' my mouth off, unlike some people," Dean said, looking her right in the eye. It wasn't quite a direct challenge, but it was getting there. "I'm totally fine with who I am. Looks to me like you're the one avoidin' the subject."

He pretended to look about the spotless room, the effect of which was slowly being ruined by the off-center chair, his feet on the desk, the litter on the floor, and he could only hope he'd scuffed her friggen floor. There was little to nothing in the way of decorations, any posters on the wall perfectly arranged with almost OCD levels of precision. It was coldly impersonal. Dean faced Doctor Kisugi again.

"Lemme guess: straight A student, has to be the best at everything, no friends, your work's your life," Dean sounded almost like he was reciting off a list, ticking off points. "Man, you need to get out more 'cause this's just sad. You give hermit a whole new level of meaning."

Makiko met the man's look with a steady gaze and just the faintest hint of a smile; it was the most genuine expression she'd worn during their entire session, and it showed a trace of smug, self-satisfied amusement. She knew she'd hit a sore point, and had done it on purpose. He'd irritated her just enough that she'd decided to try amusing herself instead of putting up with it.

"Ah, Mr. Derringer, I somehow doubt you're completely fine with who you are, considering that you're sadly suffering from delusions and confined to a mental institution." She looked back down again long enough to finish the line she'd been writing, then set her pen down and folded her hands on the desk. "Since you're here to get better, so you can presumably return home and continue your real life, I'm not sure how finding out about me would help you in any way."

As for his list - well. In some ways he was correct, and in others, very far off the mark indeed. Her work, her life? Not at all, not when she had so many more important things to be doing. It was merely a safe facade for the time being, until her power was sufficient that she could move on. And so she didn't bother to acknowledge a bit of it, except for perhaps the slightest twitch of amusement in the corner of her mouth.

As though he hadn't even spoken, she continued speaking, calm and even as though they were really having a normal doctor/patient conversation. "If you're really so happy with who you are, you're welcome to leave at any time. I can tell the nurse that we're finished with therapy early for the day. You can return to your nice daytime activities and never see the outside of these walls again." She paused for a moment, then continued, "And in the meantime, your brother, the one who you abandoned in the middle of nowhere, without so much as a telephone or a dollar in his pocket - he'll still be out there. Your mother will still be out there. And...some of us do leave the Institute at night."

This time there was no mistaking the faint trace of malice to the woman's expression; not so much in the smile, but in the near-feral gleam in her eye as she spoke the last words.

Oh, it wasn't to help him to get "better". The more he fished about for information about Makiko Kisugi, sooner or later he'd have to pick up something that might help identify just what she was exactly. Problem was, it wasn't as easy as dropping by the local library, jacking their computers, and doing a few searches on the good doctor herself, finding out if there'd been any weird deaths following her around wherever she moved. Usually with these things, there was a pattern forming over the years, but he had to find it first.

Of course, he could just be jumpin' the gun because he was stressed and needed something to hunt.

That and Kisugi was a Grade A bitch.

As it was, he didn't really have anything to go by other than that Kisugi was almost inhumanely neat, and she'd looked at him funny. Even for him, that wasn't really much and he was saying this coming from years worth of taking on hunts from rumor and hearsay. Dean adjusted his position, legs still on the desk as he decided what to do. On one hand, it looked like Ice Queen was dead set on playing this straight and pinning the attention on him, dangling the threat of being trapped in Landels while Sam was out there. And Mom, supposedly, but Dean wasn't buying that. He'd fallen hard for it the first time with the djinn.

Dean's eyes narrowed slightly at the tone of Doctor Kisugi's voice. His gut feeling was she was threatening him and not just with getting stuck in Landels forever (which was only a year to him 'cause he was damn sure no hellhound was gonna wait when it was time to collect). Was she trying to say she could get at Sammy? Or was she just being matter-of-fact, taunting him with her freedom? Dean didn't know, but he was instantly bristling at the idea of this bitch thinking she could threaten his family. For a second, going for an eye with the pencil looked real tempting, his anger suddenly spiking. He forced it down. If she wasn't human, that wasn't gonna do anything but probably piss her off; he needed to play this smart instead of going for instant gratification.

He'd find out what she was. Dean knew he had a little more than nothing to work with, but he promised himself he'd find out just who Makiko Kisugi was and if she turned out to be a what and not a who, then it was game time.

"I want to get outta here," Dean said and it was the first one hundred percent honest thing he'd said today. He was no longer smiling, "No matter what it takes, I want to see my brother."

You lay your hands on him, he thought venomously at Kisugi, and I'll kill you, I don't care how long it takes to figure out how!

Now this was finally beginning to become less boring. His family, the brother especially, was clearly a vulnerable spot and figuratively digging a knife into it was about all the amusement Eric could really provide for her, since his flavor was too weak to be of much interest.

Makiko folded her hands together atop the file on her desk, returning to her default calm expression as she regarded him, just as though he weren't staring at her with that look on his face. It wasn't as though he had any chance of hurting her; even if he used the pencil he'd undoubtedly palmed it would barely scratch her and she'd heal quickly enough afterwards.

It was almost tempting to get him to try - it always surprised men so to find such a small and frail-looking woman could match them in strength, could surpass them, even. That was when they usually folded, though, spoiling the taste and leaving her unsatisfied.

"I'm glad to hear that you've come to that decision, Mr. Derringer," she observed, nodding just slightly. "That's the first step to recovery, after all." Her gaze flickered down to the papers briefly, and she added, "Perhaps a visit could be arranged for this coming Sunday. Provided that, well, he wants to come see you, after everything, of course. But having him here might do you some good. It could remind you of why getting well is so important."

Makiko looked thoughtful for a moment at that. "Perhaps I could have a word with him, as well, while he was here. Speaking to your family members could, after all, help me to understand how best to help you."

What Dean really wanted was to know everything about her. It sucked, but that was gonna take time, especially without his usual means of research available, and probably doing a lot of stuff he wasn't gonna be totally cool with. Doctor Kisugi didn't sound exceptionally smug at him seeming to fold, which he wasn't sure if that was annoying or not, and instead was looking at him like he was no more interesting than a piece of flattened road-kill on the way to work.

But arranging a visit? It sounded like Sammy was still out there then...or only just barely, because they knew where he was and that didn't make him feel any better. The kid was damn good, even for being a college geek, but the stuff they'd been facing lately, there was only so long you could keep dodging without getting caught. It didn't escape Dean's notice that Doctor Kisugi was speaking more like it was in her power to bring Sammy in and not just a mere possibility. 'Course she could be bluffing. She had an impressive poker face, he wasn't gonna lie. But he needed to know where Sammy was before he started stabbing things or torching this bitch (or whatever it took to kill her). The hunter instead nodded, maybe a little grudgingly.

"I'll look forward to Sunday," said Dean. He didn't look up as the intercom sounded and that man - most likely Martin Landel - began talking about what was on the menu and new patients.

Dean ceded Kisugi's point by removing his feet from the desk and standing up. Hello Nurse was due to pick him up like he needed to be herded somewhere and couldn't possibly make it there on his own, which meant this fun little visit was over. Dean smiled again, one hand on her desk as he leaned forward over the edge, maybe a bit too close to be just purely between patient and doctor. He couldn't believe he was still trying to hit on a hunt (the thought made him shudder, he might have low standards but they were still standards), but the last thing he wanted was for Makiko Kisugi to see him as a threat...at least until her time came due, when it was too late to get outta Dodge.

Nothing more harmless than a guy who let his balls do the talking.

"Unrelated word of advice: don't sell yourself short," his eyes flicked down meaningfully to her chest and her face, "you ever need to chill out and feel like a human being, you know where to find me. I'm amazing where it counts. Any time, anywhere: I'm game so long as you are."

Edited 2009-01-15 05:45 (UTC)

Feel like a human being?

Like a human being?

Makiko had long ago given up on humanity, had changed herself into something so much more, so far superior, that this "Eric" person couldn't even begin to conceive of it. It was laughable, really, and yet at the same time irritating enough that he'd even suggest such a thing that it took away some of her amusement at his reaction to her needling.

She didn't appreciate that. Not in the slightest.

As he leaned in closer she didn't move a hair, didn't so much at twitch at his proximity; it was as though they were still seated on opposite sides of the desk. And then, slowly, the corners of her mouth turned up and her eyes turned ice cold in a distinctly malicious smile. "Even if you were my type," she replied softly, and with an edge of distaste, "I somehow doubt you'd enjoy it very much."

Just on cue came the nurse's rap on the door, and Dr. Kisugi was calm and professional once more, leaning back against her chair as the door opened. "Until next time, Mr. Derringer. Do think on what we spoke of."

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Day 38 - Doctor's Office 3 [Dr. Kisugi] [Second Shift]

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