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] superdynamic.livejournal.com 2009-09-23 03:43 am (UTC)(link)
Suzaku glanced away, not wanting to hear something like that from her, now that he knew how unreliable he truly was. And yet -- in theory, the words pained him because of how horribly untrue they were, but when she said them. . . He didn't know what it was, but something about her always made him believe in the things she said. Even if the world she'd envisioned, where people could be happy and Suzaku wouldn't have to hate himself, had died before it was born -- he couldn't help believing in her.

And so when he looked back at her, this time his smile was real. Slight, but real. "I want to thank you. You -- you've always been so good to me." It was something he always wished he'd had the chance to say. But he couldn't get sentimental now. He should just be thankful he had the chance to say it at all.

"And. . " He wasn't sure what to say to that. He couldn't stand the thought of her being so traumatized by the night before, but there wasn't anything he could do about it, besides simply being there if she ever needed him. She'd have to heal on her own, as much as he wanted to take the pain away. But Euphie had always been strong.

"You're right. That's all we can do. Still, I promise -- I'll do my best not to let them hurt you or Lelouch again." Do my best wasn't something he was used to saying; he usually just did. He didn't want to lie any more to her, however, and didn't want to make promises he couldn't keep. He would probably fail, so all he could do was try.

[identity profile] euphemise.livejournal.com 2009-09-23 06:03 am (UTC)(link)
"I don't need to be thanked for that, either," Euphie replied, a slight blush coming to her face. "It's out of love, you know that. And it's something that won't change. No matter what else changes...that won't." She flushed a little darker, looking away for just a moment in a thinly veiled attempt to try and hide it.

"Thank you, Suzaku. You're always looking out for me, and I can't thank you enough for that. Really, I can't. I...I know what happened last night was something you would want to prevent, but there wasn't anything anyone could do. It doesn't do anyone any good to blame themselves in a situation like that. All we can do is move forward and look out for the ones we care about." She punctuated the sentence with a nod.

"Ah. About that..." She looked down at the table again. "You saw what happened on the board this morning? Well...that strange person tried to contact me before that. I don't think his intentions are good in the slightest. If he tries anything, I can call for you, right?" Her expression was more strained than it had been before - it was one thing to be in a situation with no control, but almost worse to have what equated to a target painted on one's back.

[identity profile] superdynamic.livejournal.com 2009-09-23 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Suzaku blushed a little as well. He'd felt shy about it at the time, when they said they loved each other, but now -- he just hadn't seen her for so long. And he'd given up on ever being loved again. Hearing her say it again, after so long, made it even harder to keep believing he shouldn't be loved. Not when she was so determined to keep being so good to him. . . no matter what. He wondered if that could be tested.

"You shouldn't thank me either," he replied. "Even if we shouldn't blame ourselves --" except he should "-- I should still do everything I can to keep it from happening. It's. . . out of love." And he'd made a promise to Lelouch. Several, in fact.

Speaking of which, he had a few suspicions about that person on the board. Lelouch hadn't made that many visible enemies in the Institute, at any rate, and Sam would probably mind his own business if they left Dean alone. And Homura and Okita weren't enemies so much as skeptics. Which left Porky. Suzaku didn't care about Rolo, but if that man came near Lelouch or Euphemia again. . . Euphie wouldn't approve of the results, but Suzaku might not be able to stop himself. After all, he wasn't the same person she used to know.

"I saw that. And I think I might know who he is. He's threatened Lelouch before, and he's smarter than he looks, so be careful. Of course I'll try to protect you from him." Though he wasn't sure how she would call for him. "By the way, what's your room number? Mine's M28."