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] tostepforward.livejournal.com 2009-09-23 03:51 am (UTC)(link)
If he was really determined, Ayumu supposed that he could always just raid one of the womens' rooms at night, after the occupants had left. But she decided that part of the appeal would probably be the fact that someone was actually wearing the undergarments in question, in which case she wasn't going to say a word about it.

"Well, perhaps you should start using a different icebreaker, then?" Ayumu glanced up from her tray briefly, quirking one brow in mild inquiry. "Unless perhaps you enjoy having women offering violence on a regular basis. I've heard some people here can be quite mean."

[identity profile] promisedawhale.livejournal.com 2009-09-23 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Brook had never once considered that it would be easy to raid another room. The thought hadn't crossed his mind, but of course, he was a gentleman, and raiding rooms would be stealing! So of course he would never think to do such a thing! Something like that... aside from being illegal, would only make others suffer, himself included! Why, what was he supposed to ask to see if the young ladies were without panties?!

...

...

... perhaps he should consider it just for one time though.

"Ah, but being shown violence from my friends already is a regular occurrence! Of course Nami-san is the only woman... no, rather, she's the only one who does it constantly. Robin-san is a little more... restrained?" Oh but when he went too far, Robin had to be the last person he wanted upset with him. Just that look of her's!! It was enough to give him shivers all over! And he didn't even have skin! "I've yet to find anyone here quite as violent as either of them, however there one a young lady that came fairly close," he admitted, as though she held some kind of position of honor.