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damned_institute2009-09-20 11:43 am
thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com) wrote in damned_institute2009-09-20 11:43 am
Entry tags:
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Day 44: breakfast
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]
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]
no subject
Oh crap, I gotta get up. What if I missed half of my own birthday party? he thought, hoping that if he sat up fast enough, the vision of the white room around him would disappear back into the familiar sight of Ramona's apartment. No such luck. No matter which way he walked or moved his head, he couldn't get away from it.
The 24-year-old felt a nervous lump forming in his throat. "What the heck is going on?" As he checked around the room, Scott let himself really feel things like the sheets, desk, and walls for the first time. Everything felt so much more cool and concrete than it had the previous day. He squeezed his hands together several times, trying to make himself feel a controller there, but only felt his own palms.
Out of curiosity, he opened the closet door. "Ack!" It was immediately shut again in a brief panic. Not only was the hanger bar back in place, as though Scott had never removed it, but just barely hidden behind the gray clothes was the pile of stuff he had grabbed from the supply closet. If this really were real, then he was not about to let the equally real nurses catch him with all that.
After being taken to breakfast, he gazed around the room. Most of the patients looked unfamiliar to him, but several were faces he recognized, though he couldn't immediately place all of them. His brain just didn't want to let this compute. Okay, lemme get this straight. Fictional characters + fake institute + far-fetched monsters and ghost-type things = totally real? And not a game or a dream or whatever? The stuff he had read on the board the other day about people being dragged in from multiple worlds had been right after all. Had he even read that, or was he just remembering weird things again? That idea still felt too weird to think about, though, even moreso than subspace corridors and having to fight seven evil ex-boyfriends just to date one girl.
Speaking of other worlds, Scott caught another familiar face after grabbing a plate of french toast. Well, no, that was a lie. He had caught the boy's hair before even thinking about his face. He's really here, thought Scott in a strange mix of awe and discomfort as he walked over. Managing a weak smile, he waved to the boy he had fought hard with through multiple worlds and bosses and achieved victory over Ansem and the Heartless with. "Hey, mind if I sit? I'm Scott."
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"Go right ahead!" he said with a motion to the chair across from him. It was good that he was being distracted sooner rather than later, since he would have just spent his breakfast wondering about Kratos if he didn't have something else to do. The boy could only hope that the man, if he was okay, would see his message and respond to it quickly. He didn't want to be worrying himself over this all day if he didn't have to!
"I'm Sora, but I guess you already knew that," he continued with a smile as he speared another piece of the French toast and shoved it into his mouth. He was a little surprised that Scott had found him so easily; there were probably a few people his age with brown spiky hair around. Then again, Sora had made sure to put himself somewhere that was easy to see at a glance, and he was glad that had seemed to work out.
no subject
GRRGL.
Stomach meter says: french toast wins.
Scott speared a bit of his own breakfast and quickly wolfed down a few bites. As he ate, he was reminded that he hadn't eaten a thing the previous day. The more he ate, the hungrier he felt. The only thing that stopped him from outright ignoring his tablemate was the sheer weird factor of hearing Haley Joel Osment talking at him.
"I do?" he asked with his mouth still partially full. Scott was blank for a few moments before a lightbulb went on in his brain. "Oh right, I do!" The bulletin board exchange from the previous day came flooding back to him. He had been so out of it that he had completely forgotten that this was a scheduled meeting and not just fortunate happenstance. "Yeah, I've definitely heard about your world before. Somewhere. No idea where, really," said Scott with a nervous laugh. The stupidly addictive Traverse Town background music was already stuck in his head. "Was just kind of curious to talk to you about it, see what you were like, that kind of thing."
He paused for a moment, then tentatively added "And maybe ask for some tips on, uh, adjusting, I guess?" Scott wished Wallace were here. Wallace always knew the right things to say to people, the right things to ask. Maybe not always in the most tasteful way possible, but he got the job done, at least.
no subject
Sora tilted his head at Scott when the man seemed initially confused. They had organized to meet up yesterday, and Scott had found him with seemingly no problem, so why was he confused? Maybe the man was just distracted -- it was morning, after all, and most people spent their breakfasts thinking over the previous night. Sora was doing the same, to an extent, wondering if Kratos had responded to his post yet.
If anything, Sora became more confused as Scott continued to speak. This guy had heard about his world, but he didn't know where from? The boy might have assumed that Scott had run into one of his friends or something, but he knew for a fact that Scott had to be new to this place. Sora had never seen him before. Kairi and Riku had disappeared too long ago for that to be possible.
The other option was that he was from Sora's universe and had somehow had heard of Destiny Islands that way. World order should have prevented it, but Sora had broken that rule more than a few times, so it was definitely a possibility.
Then Scott said that he had wanted to see what Sora was like, which implied that he'd heard of him before. While the boy also heard the comment about "adjusting," he needed to get those first points ironed out before he moved on to whatever help the man needed.
"So... you've heard of me, then?" he asked as he took another bite of his food. "Where are you from?" Maybe he came from a world that Sora had visited before. That would be exciting!
no subject
Then he was asked that dreaded "where" question. Crap. "Uhh . . ." Scott stumbled, a piece of french toast a hairs-width away from being lodged in his throat. After a moment, thankfully, he had a brainwave and swallowed. "Um, it's a pretty sparsely populated world, cold and out of the way, kinda. You've probably never been. It's called Canada."
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Still, it sounded like he and Scott had never actually met (that would have meant there was another version of him around, since he didn't remember Scott), so he hopefully wasn't disappointing the man in any way.
"It wasn't that many," he replied, though he was still grinning about it. It was nice to get acknowledged for what he'd done every once in a while.
Sora wasn't sure if Scott was embarrassed about his world or something, but it was true that the boy had never been there, let alone heard of the place. "Yeah, I don't know about that one," he admitted. "Sorry!"
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"That's okay. Even our own neighbours like to ignore us or make fun sometimes," Scott said with a laugh, trying to ease himself into a more comfortable state of mind. Considering the current situation, that was going to be a bit of a thing, but still. "News still gets to us though. I've heard all about your adventures. So have lots of other people. If you're not already, you should be proud of yourself, man." He held up a fist of solidarity, grinning across the table. "And I'm sure you can keep it up here. With hero-types like us on the job, we'll all bust out of here in no time! Count on it!"
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"Thanks a lot," Sora said when Scott even went so far as to compliment him. It seemed like he really had heard a lot, and it would have been enough to make Sora blush if he hadn't already become accustomed to people praising him for all he'd done. While he appreciated their thanks (and it was enough to make him grin as widely as Goofy right now), he didn't really require it. It was his job as Keyblade Master to take care of that Heartless, and so that was what he'd done. Simple as that!
"I've been trying to keep it up, but it's kind of hard," he admitted. "That doesn't mean that I've given up, though!" He mimicked Scott's gesture, holding his fist up in the air -- it just seemed like the right thing to do. "And you're a hero too?" That made Scott even more interesting!
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"Oh you'd better believe it!" he answered, tearing off another chunk of sweet, syrupy goodness with much relish. "Been the hero in my world since Day 1, Page 1. I'm defeating piles of evil ex-boyfriends every which way back home. Man, you should've seen some of these douchebags! Good god! I don't know how many are left, but I think it's just a few more now. After I beat them, no one will come after me anymore, and it'll be smooth sailing for me and my totally amazing American ninja girlfriend."
He slowed down to take another few bites. Mm, butter. Why wasn't Ramona here? She would have loved sharing (and possibly hogging) such good French toast.
"Anyway, before the evil exes, even, things have been pretty cool for me. Maybe a few slip-ups here and there—" The biggest of which had been named Envy Adams, but that was something Scott felt he didn't need to go back and touch on right now. "—But yeah, otherwise pretty sweet. I'm in a band with some friends called Sex Bob-omb. We don't totally suck either, which is good. We actually got a person or two clapping at our last show!" he said with a good-natured laugh. Scott decided to omit the part about how said show had been months ago due to the onset of "recording" (a.k.a.: Stephen Stills and that one beardy guy agonizing over soundbytes while Scott and Kim sat on the bed bored out of their minds). Skip the lame parts, leave in the awesome. Simple as that.
no subject
Sora found himself staring at Scott as he continued to ramble on about things that made so little sense to him that it made his head spin. It wasn't that he didn't know what ex-boyfriends were, but why would Scott have a whole string of them to fight? That didn't quite sound like hero work to him, but maybe the world Scott came from was unique.
His eyes widened at the name of Scott's band, but at least it sounded like the man had a life that he was happy with. Sora encountered so many people who had X problem or Y problem, so to find someone who was just upbeat and in love with the world -- well, it was a relief.
And when it came down to it, Sora was pretty sure he could handle weird.
"I know someone who's trying to start a band here," he informed Scott with a quick smile. He was pretty sure Demyx was looking for more members, so maybe he'd be up for adding Scott to his roster. "But, um..." Sora leaned forward so that he could rest his head on his hand as he ate a few more of his fries. "Why did you have to fight ex-boyfriends?" He didn't think it was an unreasonable question, all things considered.