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

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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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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."

[kindalikedit]

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."

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"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."

[kindalikedit]

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."

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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.

[kindalikedit]

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!

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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."

[kindalikedit]

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."

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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."