Day 44: breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie had died.

No, really. Seriously. She had actually died. Bleeding all over the place, making a horrid, sticky mess and scaring the hell out of Suzaku; she remembered it clearly. Kind of. Sort of. Through the blood loss, the pain, and the visions. Through Aerith's voice whispering in her ear, Cloud's stricken eyes, and her own panic. As bad nights went, it had been Bad, capital B and all the trimmings, and oh, god. She sat, trembling on the edge of her bed, eyes closed and hands pressed hard over her racing heart. The by-play between Landel—Landel!—and Lydia barely even sunk in. There was nothing in the whole world, any world, that could prepare you for something like…

Had it all been some kind of hallucination?

Had she imagined the whole thing?

No… She didn't think so. Nightmarish or not, Yuffie knew reality. But if it had been real, how was she alive now? That kind of pain wasn't something you could just cook up, was it? She thought about it all the way to the cafeteria, drifting behind her nurse without focus or intent. Maybe if she tried to stay clinical, tried to step back… But she'd never been good at that when things got personal. And every time she closed her eyes or blinked, she swore that the scenes played back to her, like an overused commercial on a crappy channel on a crappy TV, in a run-down dump of an inn that smelled like mothballs and yesterday's breakfast.

The scent of blood and damp, rotted wood clogged her nose. Disgusted, Yuffie shoved her bowl of cereal—handed to her by a clucking Plucky—off to the side so that she could melt into her chair, palm heels scrubbing against her eyes. Too much. This was… Too much. She couldn't even paste a plastic smile on her face to make herself feel better. Her usual shield, the white noise of inane babble that could filter out almost any crisis, was in tatters all around her. Five minutes, she gave herself.

Five minutes (not) to think, five minutes to get her act together, because there was no way she could let herself shatter here. No way…

[Closed to Sheena]

Comments

[kindalikedit]

Dean shoved his untouched plate in front of Sam, with a look that said Eat now and left no room for arguments. Hell, he'd embarrass his brother by spoon-feeding him if it meant he got some damn food inside him.

"Me too," Dean frowned, chewing his bottom lip. Maybe he'd been tripping out, but so had Sam apparently, and while hallucinating thanks to the paranormal wasn't totally out there, the timing of it was kinda weird. Now that that he thought about it, maybe he'd really been seeing things right before the attack hit, and it wasn't just the sprinklers dicking with his field of vision. Still, the important thing was Sammy was alive and anything after that, Dean was pretty sure he could deal with as it came at him, no matter how many friggen hunts kept popping up in this joint. "Could've been some Institute-wide supernatural acid goin' around."

Djinn, though? He didn't think so. He'd had an up close, very personal encounter with djinns and their attacks weren't like this. You clearly remembered the start of the attack, and they didn't end with the people close to you dying.

Even if it wasn't a djinn, it'd seemed way too real for him.

Even if Sam was okay, it'd hit him hard. Seeing Sam die all over again, except this time by hellhounds? Really started giving a guy second thoughts about keeping his mouth shut about that one year expiration date, 'cause having no warning at all, not knowing why someone got attacked...? Dean knew he should stop staring at Sam, taking in the fact he was alive (there was a point it was gonna get weird, then awkward), but he couldn't help himself.

Somehow he'd have to man up and tell Sam. Dean had been putting it off, saying he'd do it before he hit that year, but now? In a few days, he told himself, and he was gonna take whatever Sam dished out 'cause he couldn't let him get hit with a reverse repeat of last night. Sam had a right to know. Dean just...just needed a day or something to get together the nerves and the words before he sat Sam down and told him the truth about Cold Oak and maybe Bobby hadn't been as awesome as Dean said he'd been. Oh, and by the way, Dean was kinda on a timer here, so yeah, that's just how things were gonna be.

The hardest part was probably gonna be Sam's reaction and then - Dean just knew he was gonna jump to this - Sam immediately trying to find out how to break the deal. Dean didn't know if Sam trying to break it counted as going against it, but he wasn't willing to risk it. He'd have to cockblock him on that too.

Dean couldn't shake the memory of Sam torn to ribbons last night. He knew he'd get killed and his soul taken to Hell when his year was up, but seeing it in action was another thing entirely. Wasn't a pretty way to go.

Yet another thing he was gonna have to prepare Sam for.

[boyking]

That was actually a strong possibility, given what'd occurred previously in the town. It would explain all the little things that'd been off about the attack last night, explain why Sam had woken up fine, because he knew, now that the initial stages of, What the hell was that? were over, no crossroads meant no crossroads demon. Besides, this wasn't exactly unfamiliar territory. It'd happened before. Dean just didn't remember any of it.

Except this time, there was no time bend. It wasn't that the death had been reversed; Sam had recovered. Minor detail, technically, but kinda important. Still—an illusion wasn't out of the question, even if it couldn't be the whole answer.

"Could be," he said. He reached out and used the edge of his fork to slice off a corner of the toast when Dean pushed the plate determinedly at him. Now that he thought about it, he actually was sort of hungry. "I mean, the intercom was on the fritz just before it all went down."

He couldn't see why they'd be targeted specifically. That made it personal, and Sam couldn't think of anything that powerful that might've had a grudge against them. Nothing where this would've fit their M.O. No, it'd make more sense if this had occurred across the board, targeting some fundamental...criteria, he guessed, rather than a specific person.

He hadn't had a chance to check yet to see if anyone else had gone through the same thing last night, but that wouldn't be hard to do. No doubt, someone was gonna stick a note up announcing it to the world, if they hadn't done that already. It did cut down on the need to interview the entire patient population, so he wasn't complaining.

Still left a bunch of questions, though. Motive, for one. Who or what did it, for another.

He frowned, thinking. The one part that was clear enough to him was that it hadn't been about killing him. That wasn't the point. It'd been about Dean dying. The flickering apparition that preceded the entire event, what he'd heard as...What Dean seemed to have seen, too. Dean had seen something, Sam knew that, too. So why had Dean escaped unscathed? Unless he hadn't.

He peered at his brother. "Did anything happen to you?" he asked, and if he sounded particularly innocent about it, well.

Oh, hell. He needed to know or they'd never figure this out, and even if Dean avoided giving him a straight answer or outright lied, he thought he could bank on reading his brother well enough to get the truth, anyway.

And yeah, maybe he should've cut Dean some slack considering Sam had died on him for the second time last night, right in front of him, and he knew what that was like. But that was the problem, too. He knew. They both did; Dean knew how it was to lose someone and he still went and...Just. Sam couldn't find it in himself to be wholly charitable, do the whole putting himself in someone else's shoes deal, because he'd watched Dean die, just the way it'd happened last night, and how could Dean do that to himself? How could Dean do that, give away his life in a way that Sam didn't even have a right to bitch him out for, to bitch him out for leaving him after everything, 'cause it was really hard to be pissed at someone for saving you with all they had without feeling like the biggest jackass in the world.

[kindalikedit]

Honestly, Dean hadn't even paid much attention to the intercom. First he'd been more concerned with just making sure Harry burned, making sure the fire didn't spread, he wasn't see things, and then finally that Sam lived through the night. Dean toyed with his fork, unconsciously scratching the tips into the table as he nodded. Sam was an observant kid, seeing and hearing hellhounds or not. And that's when Dean had the unpleasant thought - did he know they were hellhounds? Sam knew what they were, but did he suspect? And why the hell had both of them seen and experienced almost the exact same thing? Well, except for the part where Dean got torn apart; that was probably still on the burner, if his contract was still in place (and knowing their luck, it probably was).

Anyway, it wasn't like he had the supplies to find himself a crossroads, summon the red-eyed skank and ask.

Dean knew technically nothing had happened he needed to lie about. He'd seen the exact same thing, and as far as he knew, he hadn't been hit, not unless he got nailed from behind so fast he didn't have time to even react.

Still, he had to say he didn't like where this conversation was turning. Even if for once he could tell the truth to Sammy for a change.

"Don't think so. I mean, I saw you eat it back there with it going all chest-burster, and that's when the end of the night came," Dean said. Somehow he managed to keep his voice level. "I was pretty messed up after that, but if I got hit too, I don't remember it. Unless I got ninja-attacked from behind, I think I came out okay."

Maybe with a lot more bullshit than he had only hours ago ('cause the last thing he needed was not only to see his own brother die in front of him again, but also to get a big fat reminder of what he had coming), but still alive. After a pause, Dean helped himself to the plate shared between them, spearing a slice of cantalope on it and shoveling it into his mouth. It was so friggen healthy, it almost made him sick. Still, he had something, even if eating all right and healthy wasn't his idea of a good time when the good food were the ones that shaved years off your life. But getting picky with food was just a plain dumb idea when you were on the job and you never did know if the freebies would run out or if you would need that extra bit of energy later in the day either. Dean just wished they could crack open a few beers though. Short of making a run down to Doyleton, dodging the civvies there, and doing some major breaking and entering and...that wasn't gonna happen over cheap beer.

Dean watched to make sure Sam was eating. At least he wasn't gonna have to spoon-feed him, so that was a relief right there. He realized after a second he was just staring at him again, just taking him in and Dean averted his eyes, glancing over his shoulder when some patient started yelling at another one, a nurse converging on the pair. Looked like a bunch of high school kids. He had no idea if they'd been there before tonight or were new arrivals, but Jesus Christ, there were a lot of people here who didn't belong. He was amazed some of them made it through the nights, short of holing up in their rooms.

[boyking]

Sam watched him for a moment, silent. How long had night lasted after Sam had died? How long had Dean spent thinking he was actually dead?

He remembered after Dean had...he was pretty sure it took Bobby a few times before Sam finally got moving and everything after that was a blur. He didn't even remember how he got out of New Harmony without crashing the Impala. Bobby had offered to drive, but Sam couldn't take the idea of someone else being behind the wheel of the car, not even Bobby. Now that he looked back, he was a little surprised Bobby hadn't pushed harder, but maybe the man had known when to leave well enough alone.

After another second, he nodded. "Guess that's good, at least."

Strange, though. He would've thought Dean would've been affected, too, somehow. Maybe the question shouldn't be who had fallen victim to last night's events, but who hadn't. It bothered him that none of the patterns would add up properly. It always seemed like they had something, except for one or two exceptions that threw everything out of sync.

Dean was still watching him, which was unnerving him a bit, but Sam didn't call him out on it. He could figure as much why. Instead, he just took the remainder of the slice of toast. When Dean looked over his shoulder, Sam turned, too, just in time to realize that yeah, he knew that voice.

He ignored it in the end. Disturbances cropped up all the time around here. Nothing more had happened with Lelouch since that night and while Sam wasn't about to let his guard down, he had a hell of a lot of other things on his mind, too. He couldn't keep everything at the forefront all at once every minute of the day.

"So, any ideas?" he said, because talking shop was a lot safer than any other topic. "'Cause if that was an illusion, we're not just talking a simple visual glamour. It felt pretty real."

It was one thing to make it look like someone died; it was another to actually kill them without...killing them. That was edging into territory that felt kind of beyond his pay grade. He was starting to think that maybe this wasn't something they could pull from their available resources—stuff they'd come across before or read about. This was a lot bigger.

Maybe that was where they were going wrong. Maybe they needed to quit looking at any of this like they already knew what the rules were.

[kindalikedit]

Dean hated to say it, but he didn't have much of a clue either. He scratched behind his ear, shrugging, "Beats me." Obviously wasn't a djinn, so that wasn't worth bringing up. Djinns gave you what you thought you wanted, even if it wasn't perfect.

They definitely didn't go reliving your worst nightmare. It was a surefire way to wake up screaming bloody murder, that was for sure. Djinns liked docile, easy prey, so it didn't fit.

"What about faeries?" Dean after a moment. Honestly, it was just kinda goin' for straws at this point: despite all the Disney stories, the types of fae he'd seen were nasty little sons of bitches, and there was a whole hell lot out there that hunters didn't know much about. Some of what was out there was so seriously old school that he wasn't even sure if they were real, and the only stuff he knew was a lot of theory. "Can't faeries make you trip some serious balls?"

The variety he'd actually seen and hunted had only dicked around with emotions. It was another thing entirely to convince not one person or two, but a whole damn building, that everyone was dying. The buggers couldn't do that, not just if there was one, and a djinn on some serious crack couldn't either unless everyone patiently stood in single-file and lined up to get roofied by the thing. And even then, it didn't make sense. Djinns didn't screw around with your head to be a douchebag like a faerie would. Dean was at a loss. He decided the best thing for him to do was just be glad Sam hadn't really died last night and leave it at that. They already had a ton of problems already on their plates.

He raised an eyebrow at his brother.

"How's the arm? I haven't seen you go all Garfield with the hairballs recently," Dean said, his voice a little too carefully offhand.

He glanced down at Sam's arm. It looked okay to him, the bandage changed, and since Sam wasn't reaching across the table hunkering for brains, so far so good. And he seemed hungry, judging by the way he was going through the french toast, and Dean found himself unconsciously relaxing a little bit. Last night was probably gonna be one of those things he lied to Sam and said he didn't have nightmares about, but so what? He'd seen a lot of terrible, evil things out there. He'd just have to cope and move on.

Sam needed him to keep trucking like usual.

[boyking]

Huh. Faeries.

Sam tipped his head, considering. "Yeah. Actually. Sometimes. I mean, there've been recorded cases of people getting elaborate hallucinations." He frowned down at the plate. "I don't know."

They targeted individuals, people who crossed their paths or happened to be in the way. He hadn't ever heard of faeries that went after a large number of people all at once. Which was the problem right there—there were plenty of things he could think of that was able to pull this kind of stuff off with one or two people. But a whole building?

Assuming it was the whole building, but with the way yesterday had been so bizarre—the intercom, the missing doctor—it seemed more likely that that was what had to do with it rather than an independent supernatural creature.

Of course, it was true that it wasn't entirely impossible for someone to harness the use of faerie powers. Would take some pretty dark magic, but if you found the right ritual, you could take control of...well, anything. He'd seen it happen with reapers and demons.

Sam paused and glanced at the bandage on his arm when Dean brought it up. What with the dying and everything, the implications of that bite had slipped his mind a bit. And the spirit, too.

He shook his head. "Seems fine, as far as I can tell. It's weird—the one witness I talked to, he was even more heavily affected than I was, and he's still walking around like nothing happened."

Yeah, he wasn't gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, but he couldn't help finding it strange. Since when did these things come easy, anyway? He could understand the lack of an infection a bit more, even if he'd never tell Dean about the exact reasons why. But two supernatural infections couldn't mix in the blood at once, and the demon had gotten there first.

The spirit, though? Spirits didn't just leave you alone. When they picked a target, they latched on until you were dead or you got away or you managed to kill it.

[kindalikedit]

"That's good," Dean said, at a loss of what exactly to say. Hauntings didn't just go away if you waited them out. They usually escalated. He could see the same thing was going through Sam's head, "Maybe it wasn't a spirit attack in the first place."

At least the bite seemed to be fine, according to his brother. Dean had glanced at the bulletin board and it looked like some others not only had gotten themselves bit, but were also displaying signs of infection...and just like in the damn movies, which was a whole new level of What-the-Hell he didn't need. In some ways, if it kept following the trend of Romero flicks, it did make it easier to predict, but it also meant that the only way to "cure" them was either hope they were weirdly immune like Sam or aiming for the head and killing the victim to prevent others from getting tagged too. This wasn't helped by the fact they only had one gun with limited ammo between them and a bowie knife - not exactly something you wanted when you had friggen zombies to deal with and close combat was something to avoid.

Sam might not have been infected, but that didn't mean Dean couldn't be.

Dean finished off the fruit. Okay, so maybe Sam wasn't haunted anymore. And the bite wasn't gonna be a problem. That left a whole lot of people out there who were, and then what caused everyone to wig out last night. Or why. Dean usually didn't care to find out the "why" when all that mattered was finding the pattern and stopping it, but when those patterns weren't adding up, you had to take a different approach.

"I don't get why they'd want to make people think the other patients are dying though," Dean said, tearing off a bite of sausage links as he spoke. "Aside from just being a douchey thing to do, I don't see a big plan here."

He still believed demons were behind this, considering how Cold Oak went down and how this joint seemed to be like that all over again, just on a larger scale and with a lot of weird crap thrown in. Still, if this was shaping up to be a battle royal between the psychics and...well, everyone else who didn't have a grab bag of powers, it was taking its sweet time for it to get to the point. Dean didn't like it. If something was gonna go down, he'd rather it went down instead of taking it all slow.

Although having time to at least figure out a way to tell Sam the truth would be nice, too.

[boyking]

Whatever that thing was, it was definitely a spirit, and Sam might've seen it as an omen a lot easier if there hadn't already been a spirit prior to that that'd served as an omen. Apparently not as a death omen, though, considering he hadn't died.

Well, he hadn't died as a result of the ghost, that was.

"I honestly have no idea," he admitted. At this point, he was just kinda at a loss in general. Maybe it'd be good to just let it go for now. They had other concerns, after all. Putting effort into something that had at least been resolved in the most superficial sense might not be worth the subsequent headache.

He laid down his fork. The why had been a question he'd been asking himself since day one. It was the one thing that simply didn't add up. How could be chalked up to a supernatural force beyond what they normally ran into, but why made no sense. What did they want? Why these particular patients, why now, why here? Why raise the dead and then create an illusion of the people closest to you dying?

Unless...that hadn't been the main point. That was a possibility, wasn't it? That everything that'd happened up until now simply didn't have the significance they'd been assuming it did? No significance in and of themselves, just somehow an offshoot of something bigger going on that they simply couldn't see at the moment.

"What if there is none?" he said, leaning forward, elbows on the table. "What if everything we've been witnessing over the past several nights—or hell, since we've got here—what if they're side effects?"

[kindalikedit]

Side effects. Dean didn't like the sound of that. But side effects of what? It seemed like it was different for each person and okay, he got you had to pick your poison, but for all of this to be just random?

"I dunno, man," said Dean after a moment, not entirely sold on the idea. "Seems a bit too...planned for it to be all random side effects to me." He didn't whisper, dropping his voice so they weren't broadcasting the conversation to any casual listener. "What about all the people with those abilities, all in one place, all with no idea how they got there? That just reeks 'Yellow-Eyes' all over."

It looked like however much he wanted to argue the point, it was gonna have to wait. The intercom broke up breakfast, patients starting to get up and leave the cafeteria, and while he probably had a minute or so to discuss it some more with Sam, he wasn't really sure he wanted to: this was getting to close to talking about Cold Oak again, and while Dean knew he wanted, needed to tell Sam sooner than later (especially after last night's nightmare), he still needed time to go over what he wanted to say, the last painful way to break it to him that yeah, by the way, I'm kinda on a tight schedule here.

There was also the fact that he had no idea if Harry burned all the way last night. Considering the attack he wasn't sure if it'd even happened or not, Dean had to admit a part of him plain didn't want to go back and check, pussying out at the door at a place where he'd seen Sam kick the bucket with his own eyes.