Day 51: Breakfast

[thatdamnedninja.livejournal.com]

Yuffie Kisaragi, indomitable bouncing ball of sunshine and unfathomable ebullience, was tired. It'd been a long night full of gibberish and getting nowhere fast.

"Can't I—"

Plucky, who had been busily loading a plate full of French toast and bacon, tittered. "I'm afraid not, Hanna, darling. A chat over a nice, hearty breakfast would do you a world of good, don't you think?"

"Aaaaactually—"

"Come on, let's find you a seat. Plenty to choose from this morning!"

For a long moment, Yuffie seriously considered doing something—anything—to act out. Punch her nurse, rub jam in an orderly's face, climb a wall and hang off the ceiling, jump on a table and parody Loveless… A ruckus like that would definitely jolt her back into gear, right? Sedation aside. And it'd turn Plucky's good day right on its head, which was always a bonus worth shooting for.

But, by the time she'd reached a decision—and it was an epic decision, a really awesome one; everybody'd appreciate the genius, she was sure—she was already alone. Her breakfast tray had been set down neatly by the nurse, who had left with an infuriatingly winsome smile.

"Wow," Yuffie muttered. Shaking her head, she picked a chair at random and threw herself into it. She kicked back, one arm slung across her eyes, to wait. For what, she wasn't totally sure. Some moron to decide that she looked like good company? That was how it usually went.

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[highvoltagegirl.livejournal.com]

As she watched Peter's inner turmoil manifest itself externally, her brow furrowed. Was he really so upset about her? Her entire life, no one had really cared like that. Not even her own father. What made Peter so different? What made her so different? Maybe she was misinterpreting. That had to be it.

There were worse things to be concerned about, anyway. Like the whole Sylar situation. "When you say he's here, you mean... in solitary confinement or something, right? Not... here." She made a small gesture to the area around them. "Not like us." Even while she was asking, her eyes made a quick scan of the room. She knew it was just wishful thinking. And that somewhere in the room, maybe, one of the people innocently eating bacon and french toast was that sick bastard.

And just when she thought it couldn't get worse, it did. Peter didn't know her. Not outside of this weird, fucked up place. It didn't make any sense. It didn't make any sense because she didn't want to accept that everyone's memories could be tampered with so easily— Peter, Claire, herself? Probably everyone else at Landel's, from the sound of it.

Even more confusing, though, was why Peter cared about her at all then if he barely knew her, from the sound of it. "It wasn't much different, I guess." She tried to build herself up, tried not to make it sound like a major deal. Being a big girl was important now. "Except you were the prisoner, and I got to play nurse." With a sly smile, she propped her head against the palm of her hand. "We had some good times."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Maybe it was just him, but Elle seemed a bit different now. Not on a fundamental level, but she wasn't trying to sit in his lap and run her hands all over him, and her vulnerable side seemed to be showing a little more. He could tell that she was scared, more than she was letting on. He remembered how before she had been so intent on pleasing her father, and it was possible that that urge was what had led her to her death. She hadn't been willing to run.

The issue of Sylar was something that had to come in one big package, and so he set that aside at first, focusing instead on the fact that she was finally giving him some more information about how they had known each other. It reminded him of what little he had heard before. "That's right," he said, mainly to himself, as he glanced down at the table. "You said something about your father helping me to control my abilities." Then, just as quickly, he looked up. "But then why was I a prisoner?"

It had been right after he'd exploded, right? He couldn't see why he would have resisted getting help with keeping a lid on his abilities, so the need to lock him up shouldn't have been necessary. Maybe it had been a slip of the tongue on Elle's part (was there something she wasn't telling him?), or maybe she would explain. All he wanted was the truth, but so few people were willing to offer that these days.

"But no, Sylar, he's... he's here like us, with his powers limited. That doesn't stop him from trying to kill people, though." He couldn't just leave it at that. It would be cruel, and so he forced himself to make eye contact with the girl, shoulders tensed as he tried not to think about the image of her limp, bleeding body. "That's what happened to you, Elle."

[highvoltagegirl.livejournal.com]

She made a clicking noise with her tongue as she watched Peter, appraising. Still the same innocent little ... whatever he was supposed to be.

"How else are we supposed to control them?" She rolled her eyes, the sentiment of "duh" very alive an well in her words. "We couldn't just let you go wandering around after you almost blew up New York. What if you did it again? But you escaped and..." She rolled her eyes and dismissed the whole thing with a rushed wave of the hand. The less they focused on how she screwed up that assignment in Ireland, the better. "Whatever. Don't worry. Nothing can hold you down for long, tiger."

Elle's expression tensed as soon as the topic returned to Sylar, and slowly turned to shock and disbelief. She had to be misunderstanding something. Peter had made a mistake. "He didn't kill me. I mean, he just tried to a few weeks ago, and--" And she took him down with her electricity. Him, and all the power on Level 5. But... if what he was saying was true, then...

Her dying kind of made sense. If she didn't have her powers, then there was no way that could have happened. And if she couldn't wield that power over him, then she was pretty much done for, wasn't she? But she wasn't going to admit that. Not to him. It didn't count if she couldn't even remember it.

"and you're wrong. And besides, even if you weren't, it's not going to happen again. So ... so there."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

The whole thing just sounded kind of odd. While Peter could see how he might have come across as extremely dangerous, that didn't explain why he'd decided to run away in the end. He would have thought himself reasonable enough to know that he would need to be controlled, which meant that they had done something to scare him off. Elle clearly wasn't going to spill, though, and questioning her too much would just lead to an argument. He needed friends here, not enemies. Sylar was more than enough already.

When Elle brought up Sylar trying to kill her already, Peter frowned in confusion. She had never mentioned that before, but Sylar hadn't really come up as a topic of conversation between them until the night of her death. Honestly, it sounded like things were all over the place between them, and Peter was having a hard time filling in the gaps.

But she was in denial, and he needed to pull her out if he could. Peter realized how crazy he had to sound, but she had to know there was no reason for him to lie.

"It won't happen again if you make sure you're careful," he said, wanting to at least half-agree so that she didn't reject him immediately. "The last time, when he came after us, you refused to run away. You wanted to beat him because you thought it would prove something." And that was likely to get through to her, even if she didn't want it to. Peter still could only guess at what her motives had been that night, but he wanted to make sure she didn't fall for it again.

[highvoltagegirl.livejournal.com]

"It won't happen again period." She was quick to retort. Was she completely sure that it wouldn't happen again? No, not at all. But it was better to build herself up than it was to show any fear or weakness when it came to meeting Sylar again.

She had to make him pay, anyway. For what he did to her father, what he did to her life. It was his fault that she was a broken shell of a person and that everything kept going wrong. Hell, he was here, maybe ending up in Landel's was Sylar's fault, too.

"I can take care of myself, Peter." She reached across the table to poke him on the nose, trying to stay playful. "Don't waste your time worrying about little old me." A coy glance. "Unless you really think I need protecting..."

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Why was she suddenly trying to push him away? Peter blinked and pulled back when she reached out for his face, desperately trying to figure out the meaning behind the girl's actions. He really didn't know her well enough to be able to read her very well, but the fact that she wasn't accepting his help seemed really backward.

Maybe she was just that intent on being independent. But what was so bad about accepting help? Peter knew he'd rejected Nathan's help in the past, but he'd gone running to his brother with problems just as many times, if not more. What was this stubborn pride going to do for Elle other than get her killed all over again?

"What I think is that Sylar is dangerous, even here where his powers are limited," he said firmly. "I saw him kill you once. I won't watch it happen again." She didn't seem to be taking a very real threat all that seriously, and it was starting to grate at him. What, did she think this was some sort of joke?

[highvoltagegirl.livejournal.com]

There Peter went, doing his... thing. His weird overprotective hero thing. People weren't supposed to care like that, and it made Elle frustrated, confused, and inclined to pick at her toast again instead of looking at him, despite having lost all of her appetite for it. "You're not going to, because it's not gonna happen, okay? I'll be fine. I have you, and me, and he's— it's just not going to happen. Got it?"

She never had to deal with someone who cared this much before. Even with her own father, it took getting shot for him to show the least amount of concern. It was kind of nice, she could admit, but more than anything it felt unsettling.

[human-sponge.livejournal.com]

Was she just in denial or something? Peter was tempted to just reach across the table, grab her by the arm, and shake her until she got it through her head that Sylar was here, had killed her before, and might do so again if given the right reasons. But in the end he refrained. It wouldn't make her any more likely to listen to him, and he didn't need to encourage her to get grabby herself, either.

He made a face, giving a small shake of his head to show that he didn't really agree. He could understand her rejecting the idea that she'd been dead and had only now come back, but she was downright stupid if she refused to prepare for it anyway. "You can tell yourself that over and over, but it won't stop Sylar from being here and being dangerous," he said with a frown, tone set and almost sharp.