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]
lighthearted: gesture, smile, down (light)

[personal profile] lighthearted 2009-09-25 08:08 pm (UTC)(link)
So Scott was from the same universe that he was! That meant he probably knew all about the Heartless, and maybe even Organization XIII. Apparently his world hadn't gotten attacked, though, seeing how he'd only heard stories about him. Sora had to admit that it was nice to come across someone who knew who he was, who thought he was famous. Usually it was the other way around; Sora would go up to someone he knew and they would only give him a blank stare in return.

Still, it sounded like he and Scott had never actually met (that would have meant there was another version of him around, since he didn't remember Scott), so he hopefully wasn't disappointing the man in any way.

"It wasn't that many," he replied, though he was still grinning about it. It was nice to get acknowledged for what he'd done every once in a while.

Sora wasn't sure if Scott was embarrassed about his world or something, but it was true that the boy had never been there, let alone heard of the place. "Yeah, I don't know about that one," he admitted. "Sorry!"
vstheworld: (gets it together)

[personal profile] vstheworld 2009-09-27 06:05 am (UTC)(link)
Phew. He buys it. Not that Scott felt all that great about having to lie to Sora, but what else was he supposed to say? "Sorry kid, you're just a bunch of pixels and megabytes on my memory card?" Indy had seemed accepting enough of the idea that he was a fictional character, but from what he could gather, it seemed that someone had already gone and poked through Indy's fourth wall before him. He wasn't about to be the one to start the poking with one of the great game characters of the oughts.

"That's okay. Even our own neighbours like to ignore us or make fun sometimes," Scott said with a laugh, trying to ease himself into a more comfortable state of mind. Considering the current situation, that was going to be a bit of a thing, but still. "News still gets to us though. I've heard all about your adventures. So have lots of other people. If you're not already, you should be proud of yourself, man." He held up a fist of solidarity, grinning across the table. "And I'm sure you can keep it up here. With hero-types like us on the job, we'll all bust out of here in no time! Count on it!"
lighthearted: gesture, smile, down (light)

[personal profile] lighthearted 2009-09-27 07:33 am (UTC)(link)
It didn't seem like it was a good thing that Scott's world got made fun of like that, and yet the man didn't seem too upset about it. Maybe it was the sort of thing where it was good-natured teasing? Riku and Kairi had dumped that on him all the time, calling him a lazy bum and so on. He definitely wasn't the lazy one now, though! He barely even got proper sleep anymore...

"Thanks a lot," Sora said when Scott even went so far as to compliment him. It seemed like he really had heard a lot, and it would have been enough to make Sora blush if he hadn't already become accustomed to people praising him for all he'd done. While he appreciated their thanks (and it was enough to make him grin as widely as Goofy right now), he didn't really require it. It was his job as Keyblade Master to take care of that Heartless, and so that was what he'd done. Simple as that!

"I've been trying to keep it up, but it's kind of hard," he admitted. "That doesn't mean that I've given up, though!" He mimicked Scott's gesture, holding his fist up in the air -- it just seemed like the right thing to do. "And you're a hero too?" That made Scott even more interesting!
vstheworld: (sonic pilgrim 2)

[personal profile] vstheworld 2009-09-29 05:52 am (UTC)(link)
Yes! Solidarity, my Square brother!

"Oh you'd better believe it!" he answered, tearing off another chunk of sweet, syrupy goodness with much relish. "Been the hero in my world since Day 1, Page 1. I'm defeating piles of evil ex-boyfriends every which way back home. Man, you should've seen some of these douchebags! Good god! I don't know how many are left, but I think it's just a few more now. After I beat them, no one will come after me anymore, and it'll be smooth sailing for me and my totally amazing American ninja girlfriend."

He slowed down to take another few bites. Mm, butter. Why wasn't Ramona here? She would have loved sharing (and possibly hogging) such good French toast.

"Anyway, before the evil exes, even, things have been pretty cool for me. Maybe a few slip-ups here and there—" The biggest of which had been named Envy Adams, but that was something Scott felt he didn't need to go back and touch on right now. "—But yeah, otherwise pretty sweet. I'm in a band with some friends called Sex Bob-omb. We don't totally suck either, which is good. We actually got a person or two clapping at our last show!" he said with a good-natured laugh. Scott decided to omit the part about how said show had been months ago due to the onset of "recording" (a.k.a.: Stephen Stills and that one beardy guy agonizing over soundbytes while Scott and Kim sat on the bed bored out of their minds). Skip the lame parts, leave in the awesome. Simple as that.
Edited 2009-09-29 05:55 (UTC)
lighthearted: gesture, smile, down (unsure)

[personal profile] lighthearted 2009-09-29 06:40 am (UTC)(link)
Evil... ex... boyfriends?

Sora found himself staring at Scott as he continued to ramble on about things that made so little sense to him that it made his head spin. It wasn't that he didn't know what ex-boyfriends were, but why would Scott have a whole string of them to fight? That didn't quite sound like hero work to him, but maybe the world Scott came from was unique.

His eyes widened at the name of Scott's band, but at least it sounded like the man had a life that he was happy with. Sora encountered so many people who had X problem or Y problem, so to find someone who was just upbeat and in love with the world -- well, it was a relief.

And when it came down to it, Sora was pretty sure he could handle weird.

"I know someone who's trying to start a band here," he informed Scott with a quick smile. He was pretty sure Demyx was looking for more members, so maybe he'd be up for adding Scott to his roster. "But, um..." Sora leaned forward so that he could rest his head on his hand as he ate a few more of his fries. "Why did you have to fight ex-boyfriends?" He didn't think it was an unreasonable question, all things considered.