damned_institute | Day 44: breakfast

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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]

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Yuffie might have tried to cover it up, but Sheena caught the flinch. Shit.

"Oh, crap, Wutai. I didn't..." The ninja blew the hair on her forehead straight up. A moment later she reached out to pinch Yuffie's arm enough to hurt. If the other ninja felt that, then she wasn't a zombie. Probably.

"Y-ow! Leviathan, Mizuho, I didn't mean it that literally!" The snap-n'-bite in her voice was half-hearted at best, as was the dramatically executed retaliatory flick. 'Course, she could've avoided the pinch if she'd really wanted to… Of course. Yuffie sighed hard, combing her non-attacking fingers through her hair a bit at a time. "Well, maybe. I dunno." In a moment of grudging honesty, she added, "I wasn't exactly expecting to wake up this morning, but nothing undead got to chew on my delicious ninja flesh."

Sheena gave a small little grin at the reaction, but it quickly fell from her face.

Pushing her tray out of the way, she semi-mimicked Yuffie by laying her head down on the table, cushioning it with her arms (and ignoring the pull on her shoulder wound).

"Wanna tell me what happened?"

Yuffie'd bet her mastered Contain that, from an outside perspective, this looked several kinds of ridiculous. She didn't move, though.

"Not really," was her blunt reply. "I wanna ask you why you're tinkling." She needed a comb. And Martin Landel's a head on a platter. "Didn't you hear the freakylicious intercom announcements last night? I.R.I.S bursting into song, chorus of screams, et cetera."

In response, Sheena tugged on the string about her neck, Corrine's bell pulling free from her collar.

"...no. I didn't hear I.R.I.S." Sheena was quite proud of herself that she didn't blush at all. "I was very distracted." A pause. "I guess I'm glad if there was all the screaming and stuff."

There was a brief spark of interest in Yuffie's expression as the bell was brought out. "Patient possessions, or?" She pillowed her head a little more comfortably, on her arm this time instead of the table.

Wait, Mizuho hadn't heard I.R.I.S? "You didn't hear anything?" Yuffie demanded. "Even with the…" a little gesture with her hair-bound hand, "and the…?!" another, broader gesture. "The civilian-y-ist civilian could've caught on to that racket." That wasn't fair. Good for her, but - but it still wasn't fair. Well… She heaved a sigh; if ribbing Sheena was half as funny as fun as ribbing Yukari, it could work as a distraction. She'd have her smile slapped on and in working order in no time at all! Then she'd just have to switch her brain off for a little while, and--

A familiar voice, raised in unfamiliar ways, snapped her out of her thoughts. She sat up fast (too fast, her ringing head complained), then half stood, one hand braced on the table. People always flipped out at mealtimes, it was a fact of life. But this was -- this was Lelouch. "What the hell," Yuffie said without inflection, bracing one hand against the table. He was shouting and bawling at some kid. Impostors, hate, death threats, murder…

Yuffie slid back into her seat, flopped over, and rejoined Mizuho in using the table as a pillow. "Wow," she said. "Now that's dysfunctional."

Sheena shook her head. "I had a... visitor yesterday. He gave this to me," she said in a quiet voice. "It... means a lot. To me."

When Yuffie started gesturing and demanding about Sheena not hearing the intercom, the Mizuho ninja could not keep the color from springing to her cheeks. "I said I was distracted, Wutai. It's not my fault I didn't hear it!"

Thankfully, any further talk on that matter ended when the sound of a fight accompanied by yelling popped up and Yuffie got up to gawk at the scene. Sheena looked over to find a pair of really, really thin guys getting into it and the nurses that came with it.

resting her chin on her arms, Sheena nodded. "You can't have dysfunctional without fun," she quipped. "I take it you know one of them?"

Interesting. Really… Interesting. That was one side of Lelouch that she'd never seen before, and despite everything that had happened last night, it was enough to perk her insatiable curiosity. Yuffie let the words tumble over and over in her head, sifting through them. Sheena's reaction to the bell question and her defensiveness over the intercom stuff were, for now, squirreled away for future reference.

"Er, yeah," she answered, eventually. "The taller, darker haired noodle is Lulu. Lelouch. Y'know, the one that's usually surgically attached to the bulletin board? I've never seen him flip out like that." Her lips quirked into a thin smile. "I knew," well, very-very-really strongly suspected, "he's been hiding a lot, but this is somethin' else."

"Everyone here is hiding something," Sheena replied, making note of the name. "I guess with the talk of people dying last night, I can see why some people are a bit more prone to flipping out than others."

She was really, really glad she hadn't experienced whatever the hell the people who 'died' had. It was an easy choice to make. On one hand, she had dying in a freakish ranch and then somehow finding herself alive in the morning. On the other, she had a beautiful, insatiable youkai that made her feel-- Yeah. Easy decision between the two. She'd take the youkai over death any day.

...not that she'd admit it out loud. And definitely not to Yukari.

"You gonna go talk to him later? He might be more inclined to answer things he wouldn't while sedated," she added on with a shrug. "I know I did."

The thin smile shone briefly bitter, before Yuffie regained control of her expression. Dictatorship, she reminded her body sharply. A.K.A stoppit now before I kick your ass. My ass. Whatever, it'll get kicked all the same. "Not what I meant," she said simply. "The flipping out thing is true enough, though." All the same, from the sound of things, that outburst had been a long time coming.

She sighed, swinging her legs in a quirky, alternating pattern. "Me n' Lulu… I'm workin' with him for as long as it suits me, and if he gets out of line, I'm kicking his scrawny ass from here to Gaia and back. His goals seem noble enough right now, but there's something…" She shook her head, then shrugged. As much as anybody could shrug, when they were half laying on a table. "Weird. Odd. He doesn't add up. I wanna get to the bottom of it." There was another flash of a smile, mischievous this time, and she added, "It's a fun way to pass the time, so I might just do that." Question him while he was still out of it, that was. Heh.

Edited 2009-09-21 16:37 (UTC)

"Like I said - everyone here is hiding something. Even us," Sheena repeated with the little addendum. She wasn't stupid, no matter how oblivious she sometimes seemed.

"Anyways, we're supposed to be talking about Miku. She's..." Sheena sighed heavily. "We're losing her. With Sousuke disappearing..." The Mizuho ninja fidgeted. "I dunno what to do. I'm not real good at keeping people together. You are, Wutai." From what she'd seen thus far of the other ninja.

"Especially us?" Yuffie ventured, with a pointed eyebrow waggle.

Maybe she would've elaborated, but Mizuho's next words jolted her uncomfortably. Damnit. She really didn't want… It wasn't that she didn't like Miku, because she kind of did, and the kid really was in a huge pickle, but. Damnit. She shifted uneasily, opening her mouth to say something, when Sheena suddenly started going on about some mythical talent she had for keeping people together. "Wait, hold on. What the hell gave you that idea? I'm about as sensitive and--what's the word? Empathetic?--empathetic as a nailbat to the cranium. My definition of 'keeping people together' boils down to 'annoying them until they realize that they'll never escape, so they might as well shut up, give up, and accept it'. I'm not exactly an advocate of the slow and gentle approach."

Her way worked with AVALANCHE, but they knew her for who she really was. Her way worked with AVALANCHE, because she trusted them, no matter what, to always pull through in the end. They could hold a metaphorical sword to her throat, her heart, or anything, and that would be okay. Freaky as hell and she'd kick them in the teeth afterwards, but, still. Okay.

How was she supposed to take responsibility for another person, when she was barely staying afloat herself? Pinching the bridge of her nose, Yuffie silently counted to ten, letting her tangled thoughts unravel. Half of her clamoured for non-attachment and independence; the other half told it to both get a grip and go stuff itself. Stupid conscience. She couldn't just let me Miku sink, didn't want to let Miku sink, and her own off-kilter sense of honor wouldn't ever let her.

"Alright, alright," she groaned theatrically, sitting up just enough to prop her chin on her hands. "I guess it'll make a neat distraction… If we're gonna do this, we at least gotta have some fun with it."

Sheena gave Yuffie a pointed look. "And you didn't jump up on a table and make a huge speech to rouse everyone and get their blood pumping? Sure, you can't keep people together. I don't know how you do it, but you do," she replied.

She then grinned. "As if I expect it to be anything other than fun. Think we can teach her the basics of the craft or something?"

Was that a Look? Two could play at that game! "That was different," she shot back, fending off Sheena's pointed gaze with her own. As far as Yuffie was concerned, there wasn't a single thing similar between acting out to gear herself up, and trying to keep an emotional teenage girl with possible abandonment issues afloat. There just wasn't. It didn't work like that!

Still, she'd as good as said she'd do it, and she never backed down from a challenge.

Her whole body was tense and she still felt heavy inside, like cement was running through her veins, but her answering smirk was genuine. "If we can't, nobody can."

While there was practically nothing similar between the two situations, Yuffie was still the best one to help keep Miku from crumbling into a pile of Miku-colored bits. The Mizuho ninja was not bothered at all by Yuffie's return look. She simply smiled.

"Think of how damn deadly she'd be if we got her ninjafied," Sheena stated. "No one would suspect something that cute." It was kind of like how no one suspected the cripple. Unless the cripple was half-elf, but that wasn't relevant.

Yuffie's expression flitted between conspiratorial and put out, like it (and the girl wearing it) couldn't quite decide which would look better. Fit better. Be better. "And she has got the guts for it," she said, eventually. "Er, sort of. She chucked a slipper at Sagara's--Sanosuke's, I mean--head once, when he was being a prick." Conspiratorial was winning. Definitely winning. There was something sly brimming in her voice and eyes, like dawn behind a night time thundercloud.

"Cute but deadly. Sorta like us, but fluffier," she concurred brightly. It still rang hollow to her, but she was getting there, inch by painful inch. Her gut still twisted for Aerith, grief following two steps behind and a half pace to the left; she almost imagined that it had a face, but that was dumb and crazy and imaginary friends were for losers.

Sheena's eyes went wide for a moment, surprised by Miku's actions, but then she grinned. "Oh yeah, definitely. Underneath all that... Miku-ness is a little fire that just needs a little stoking."

Finally sitting up, Sheena stretched, her back audibly popping into alignment with an accompanying grimace. She flicked a single grape at Yuffie. "So... how do you think we should go about getting her to stop moping like it was her fault Sousuke disappeared?"

"With you n' me as her nurturing and talented guides, she'll move up the ranks of badass in no time at all," said Yuffie. "From slippers to swords! Not that there's anything wrong with slippers. They're pretty damn handy when you know how to use 'em." And as the master supreme of unusual weaponry, she should know.

She flicked the grape back without even thinking about it, sending it speeding towards Mizuho's nose. "Uh," was her intelligent response. "Well. If we can get her so active that she can't think about it, that'll be one thing…" She shrugged, rubbing the back of her neck thoughtfully. "But she needs to face the facts, one way or another. Shutting herself up in a box of emo is, like, the single best way to kick Sousuke in the face. Repeatedly."

What would -- Tifa do? Or say. The woman was infinitely more patient than Yuffie was, like silk with a cast-iron backbone. After a long pause, she added, "I think we've gotta make her see that this isn't the end of things. There's still a lot left to do, and there's still a chance that he's out there somewhere. Possibly gettin' noogied by Sano. Or wedgied. Or both."

Without really paying attention, Sheena's hand came up and caught the grape, a thoughtful look on her face. Gods, she could really use Lloyd and Colette being about right now. If anyone could make Miku un-emo (whatever that meant) it'd be them. Not that she wanted either of the stuck in this damn ranch.

Idly rolling the grape across her knuckles, Sheena hmmed. "See, now that's the problem. She's kind of bathing herself in... emo." That was such a weird word. "I wish I knew what pissed her off. I think she'd be a lot easier to fix if she was angry than all sad and stuff." Anger was so much better than sadness (so Sheena liked to tell herself).

"Do we want to take her out raiding tonight? I... need to be doing something constructive tonight." Something that didn't end up with her anywhere near a certain youkai...

"It'd be even better if we could just nip the whole thing in the bud," Yuffie pointed out, gazing blindly up at the ceiling. "Teach her how to use emotions productively, instead of pushin' 'em down to fester." She blew a raspberry at nothing in particular. See, this was why she usually played these things by ear, right in the moment.

"Tonight? No can do." Sitting back a little, Yuffie glanced briefly at her poofy-haired tablemate. Her eyes said it all; amongst other things, tonight really wouldn't be the time for an edgy, spooked ninja with a vicious streak and a wicked sense of humor to take it easy -- and with somebody like Miku alongside, that's what they'd have to do. "Take her out for a test run, or something. I've… Later, we can all get together and rock this place 'til the roof tiles dance. Swear it on my ninja honor and left pinkie finger."

A test run? If it had been any other night, Sheena would jump on the chance to take Miku out and at least teach her how to sneak. Unfortunately, with as much as Sheena's mind was wandering to... other things, she knew she wouldn't give Miku the attention she deserved. At least not alone without someone else to keep her focused on the task.

"I'm holding you to that promise, Wutai," Sheena replied, flicking the grape back at Yuffie. "I haven't seen Miku today, but if I see her..."

She purposefully left that lingering. Even if she wanted to clarify, she didn't have the chance when the intercom went off.

"Don't do anything stupid tonight, Wutai. I don't feel like kicking your ass for it tomorrow if you do." Sheena wasn't an idiot; she'd seen that look in Yuffie's eyes.

"Later."

A nonchalant two-fingered flick sent the grape flying away again -- or it would've done, if the stupid thing hadn't given up the ghost. It went splat, pathetic and green, against the edge of Sheena's plate, just as the intercom blared to life.

Her snicker bordered on sardonic, "Yeah, yeah," she drawled. "Thanks for the lecture, mom. You couldn't kick my ass even if I knocked myself out first."

It still… almost felt wrong to talk like that. Yuffie squashed the idea ruthlessly, ground it under foot, stuck metaphorical fingers in metaphorical ears, and metaphorically chanted 'la la la la'. If metaphorical was even the right word for that. Showers. Showers next. She could wash all this out of her system, clear her head, and be ready for that little chat with Kenshin.

"Later."

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Day 44: breakfast

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