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]

[identity profile] givemeoblivion.livejournal.com 2009-09-23 10:21 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh yes. Just peachy." Callisto willed herself to settle down. She didn't know the full details of what had happened, and therefore there was no reason to throw a fit over having missed the experience. (She could tell herself this now, but she knew she'd be angry again later.)

For now, she tossed the remaining half of the spoon aside and picked up her fork, stabbing it into an unsuspecting piece of french toast. This man was probably the friendly, heroic type. There were a good many of those in this place. So she shook her head and smirked at him. "Don't mind me. What about you? Did you fare the same?"

[identity profile] human-sponge.livejournal.com 2009-09-24 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
While it was obvious that things weren't fine with the woman, Peter knew better than to try and drill her for more information. She didn't seem like the type who would hesitate to yell at him or maybe even worse. Then again, Peter didn't want to assume too much. Maybe she had just had a bad couple of days. (On the other hand, who hadn't?)

He thought it was kind of strange that she was asking him questions when she was unwilling to say anything about herself, but he realized that it wouldn't really do any harm to reply. It would have reflected worse on him if he refused to own up to the fact that he'd been involved in a guilty death, wouldn't it?

Besides, he liked to be honest. His family got too caught up in secrets, and he did his best to be open whenever he could. He didn't have to go into the gory details.

"Yeah, I did," he said after a fairly long pause, wondering if it would surprise her. "Can't say it was the funnest night of my life." He didn't want to make light of what had happened, necessarily, but how else was he supposed to handle this topic with a stranger?