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] tsunagari.livejournal.com 2009-09-25 07:38 am (UTC)(link)
"I..." Sai stared at the table, a frown on his face - something he'd been showing quite a bit more often since he'd been brought into this place. Had it bothered him? "Death is something you see often on the battlefield, or during difficult missions. I've lost teammates in the past, but..." He shook his head, at a loss of how to properly put his feelings into words. "There was something different about that. The suddenness of it and the lack of any real source for your suffering. It was wrong."

And the way Shikamaru's blood had run through his fingers, staining sheets that would be magically clean come morning. If the other ninja had died for good then, he would have found the death to be incredibly cheapened and meaningless.

He raised his eyes, looking lost. "I don't know what talking with Kakashi would do for you. I honestly don't know what to recommend at all, but that seemed like the best idea." From what he'd read and from what he'd seen... But people were different. He was aware of that. He and Shikamaru were nothing alike, and he wasn't even sure a talk with the jounin would help himself. "I apologize if you think I'm in the wrong."

[identity profile] toobothersome.livejournal.com 2009-09-25 02:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"I just don't want to keep depending on people," Shikamaru said. He noted Sai's expression and frowned himself, though the expression didn't seem anywhere near as foreign on him. "It's one thing to depend on your team, and I do. But Kakashi's got his own things to deal with, and I can't keep going to him for help on emotional matters." He sort of wished he could. Not that he'd had any serious emotional concerns at home--most of his problems were limited to pushy women and the general hassle of life--but he knew that if anything had ever actually, seriously been wrong, he could have talked about it with Asuma. Funny how that worked.

"There's nothing to apologize for," he said with a shrug and a small smile that was about 85% genuine. Sai was trying to help, despite how hard Shikamaru imagined it must be for him. "If I really can't handle it, I'll go to someone before it gets worse. It's just, I have to try to do this myself. I've never been on my own like this before."

It looked like the nurses were clearing people out and picking up trays, so he stood up. "If you need anything, though, you know how to get in touch with any of us."