Day 49: Evening - Bus 1

[hat_einen_vogel]

Whatever promise the day had seemed to show in the morning, it had steadily turned for the worse since then. The weather hadn't bothered Prussia at all (other than the annoying women who seemed to think he could actually get sick by staying out in it, as if a little rain was just as dangerous as economic trouble), but by the time the nurses were

Comments

[thatdamnedninja]

"I, uh-" Yuffie cleared her throat. "I'm not so great with these things. Vehicles. Stuff I'm not… driving, myself. Just so y'know. "

It was a fair warning, and Yuffie figured that the guy could use it. He wasn't as, er, spry lookin' as the people she usually ended up with. He looked, say, maybe Reeve's age. Which didn't necessarily mean that he sucked, 'cuz not all old dudes sucked-her dad was a loser but he could still hold his own, and even Reeve was pretty handy when he had a good reason and a gun-but. Yeah. Fair warning, take it or leave it.

She'd given him a once-over out of the corner of her eye as soon as he'd sat down. Even in the midst of pre-motion sickness nausea, Yuffie was a mighty ninja of proud Wutai, and she'd live up to her heritage no matter what. Still, now that he was addressing her instead of bein' all pensive, Yuffie tilted her head around just enough that she was sorta facing him, and drew one of her soggy knees up to her chest. Her death-grip on the seat cushion didn't let up. "Awesome first impression, huh? I'm Yuffie."

[hes_deadjim]

Sounded like a standard case of motion sickness, except they hadn't even started moving yet. It could be nerves bringing on a preemptive case of it. Maybe if he could help keep her distracted, she wouldn't latch onto the idea of the oncoming kinetosis so much. Sometimes just the fear of a condition made the actual thing that much worse. He just didn't know how long he could distract her from the nervousness when the engines started.

McCoy would have offered his hand but it didn't look like she was going to be releasing that death grip any time soon. "Doctor McCoy. Pleased to meet you."

She looked about as soaked as he was, which meant the staff weren't doing their job. They shouldn't even be out in this weather, but that was just arguing the past. They were already out here. Complaining about it now wasn't going to change that fact, couldn't reverse time or anything.

He watched her curl in on herself. She somehow looked even greener than she had a few seconds ago.

"I'd offer my jacket but I think it'd do more harm than good," McCoy said apologetically. He'd been raised right, and treating a lady right was part of that. He wasn't about to go draping an equally soaked jacket on anyone either. "There's no shame in a little motion sickness. Everyone's gotten it one time or another."

As first impressions went, he'd seen a lot worse. Yuffie seemed to have a good sense of humor about it. She also hadn't thrown up on him yet either. McCoy was far past the squeamish reaction to seeing people get sick, dealing with bodily fluids from vomit to blood and CSF was part of the job. It was getting the smell out that was something else entirely. Even though the Enterprise boasted some of the finest facilities, all the same, he still felt like he could smell it lingering a few days after.

[thatdamnedninja]

Uhh… W-What?

Yuffie's expression wobbled, puzzled disbelief showing briefly, before she wrested it back under her control. What was it with people-and this? Kenshin, yeah, okay; maybe she could understand him tryin' to be nice about the whole motion sickness business, but some random guy on a bus was a little too 'good'-more like 'weird'-to be true. Even if he was claimin' to be a doctor… and wasn't that ironic? Doctor, just Doctor, 'John Smith' had been almost like this, too. 'Cept not. Yuffie really couldn't figure out what they were after, or if they were really were just suckers.

"Nice t'meet'cha, McCoy," Yuffie said. "Just stay outta the firing line if anything-happens." No promises either way. Yuffie was gettin' pretty handy about holding the floodgates shut until she got off the bus.

When McCoy said that there was no shame in motion sickness, Yuffie couldn't hold back a cynical little snort. "Yeah," she drew out the vowels, "right. Maybe not where you come from, but my place is really not down with weak stomachs." She paused, remembering what the Doctor had said last week. "Or confused brains."

Godo had chewed her out time and time again back in the day. He was fine on boats, and doubling up on chocobos. He was fine on automobiles, or with flying; not that he did a whole lot of either. So, why wasn't she? It was shameful. A blemish. Yuffie'd gotten him back for it time and time again, tryin' to prove that she could work around it, but a weakness was still a weakness.

[hes_deadjim]

Easier said than done, especially in such close quarters. Yuffie might be close to a window, but getting it open in this weather wasn't going to be easy. Maybe he should move. Right now he was blocking the aisle. If she was going to have to tell the staff she was about to get sick, she didn't need an obstacle course.

"I'll do my best," McCoy said dryly. He'd seen a good number of cases of motion sickness, of various intensities and causes, and it wasn't always as easy as calmly turning the other way. A tiny part of him was preparing for the worst.

He didn't know what planet she was from. She looked human enough, but that didn't say much. Plenty of humanoids looked human but weren't actually human. You also had Landel somehow changing actual forms, like ZEX. What he had seen before were a few cultures where any weakness was looked down upon, strength the most desired trait.

It had to be tough growing up like that.

"Maybe so. But you can't always help that sort of reaction. Not unless you've got a way to consciously control how your brain receives signals and correct the sensory conflict immediately," he grumbled. "And if anyone's claiming that they've never gotten kinetosis, they're probably trying to save face. They're probably just as embarrassed as you are.

[thatdamnedninja]

"We can swap, if you wanna," Yuffie offered, generously. "Won't bother me either way." Because she'd gotten pretty damn used to diving over other people.

The bus was starting up with the rattles and the rumbles now. Yuffie grimaced, wriggling uncomfortably in her seat. Leviathan, she hated these things! They were so old and rickety, and about a billion other 'r' words-why Landel used 'em was totally obvious. They were torture devices! Of the worst kind!

… Well. Okay. At least it wasn't a boat. Or an airship. Those were torture devices of the worst kind.

Yuffie raked her fingers through her hair, fingers catching in the damp black strands. "Kinetowhatsit?" Probably just a fancy word for cookie-tossing. Geeks were always like that, throwin' big words at simple concepts. Yuffie preferred plain speech, whenever and wherever possible; even when it wasn't totally-or at all-appropriate. Especially when it wasn't appropriate. "I dunno about that, but…" Abruptly, she broke out into a fleeting grin. It was hard to imagine 'people' like Sephiroth and Rufus hurling, but damn, she could dream!

"One of these days, I will work out a method for gettin' over it that doesn't involve adrenalin kicks," she commented, a little more cheerful now.

[hes_deadjim]

McCoy was about to get up and let her switch when the bus rumbled to life. The doctor made an aborted attempt to find a seat belt, only to remember a second later that there wasn't any. So not only were they going to attempt a trip back in this weather, in these rickety things, they were doing so without a single safety restraint for the patients.

He couldn't help looking uneasy himself as the bus started moving.

Trying to make the switch right now might make her even more queasy. Maybe he'd just have to put up with her leaping over him if it came down to it.

"It's used to refer to any disorder caused by motions a person's not accustomed to," sometimes even the ones they were used to could spring it on occasion. McCoy kept his eyes steadily on the front window, or at least, what he could see of it through the pounding rain. The only consolation was that they weren't attempting this in a shuttle. They weren't going to plummet thousands of feet if something went wrong. They just might get in a wreck or roll over instead.

At least she was starting to sound a little better about the entire thing. Maybe it was helping to talk it out instead.

"Try looking at the horizon or closing your eyes. It might help."

[thatdamnedninja]

"But, but," said Yuffie, shaking her head minutely. "I've been doin' that whole travellin' thing for years. Since I was, like, nine. Whole lot'a boats," she gulped in a breath, "and I'm worst on those. And airships. But that's not-anyway, I'd say I'm plenty accustomed to it."

Chocobos were the best, followed closely by the WRO commission hoverboards. As long as Yuffie was riding solo, or driving? Yup, totally peachy, all the way! But throw somebody else at the helm-or the reign, or whatever-and things started heading south fast.

Yuffie forced her breathing steady, calling upon the most basic of the meditative techniques she'd been honing since the end of the Jenova War. If she could just keep her head clear, just keep her head above the waves, she'd be able to make it to the end without losing her lunch. It'd be tough, but she'd thank herself for it. McCoy'd thank her for it, too, if the uneasiness on his face was anything to go by. "How 'bout you? You travel a lot?"

[hes_deadjim]

The doctor shrugged. "You mentioned yourself that you're fine when you're actually driving. It might be partially due to a lack of control that's making you sick."

He'd known a few people back home who showed the same problem. They could handle anything from a shuttle to a starship under attack, do some of the craziest stunts he'd ever seen in them when they were behind the controls, but put them in someone else's hovercar and they got motion sickness very quickly. Maybe they were accustomed to the method of transporter, but they weren't accustomed to someone else controlling the speed and maneuvering.

"You could say that," he replied. It felt like he'd gone across a galaxy or two at this point, but in reality, it was likely just a small fraction of the known universe. He added. "I'm involved in research, but it doesn't just come up to you. So we search out the unknown."

[thatdamnedninja]

Yuffie made a strange, slightly strangled noise halfway between a laugh and a gulp. "Might be onto somethin' with that one."

It'd happened that way more than once. She'd be in control, doin' just fine, and then somebody'd take the wheel or the handlebar or the reigns or whatever for one reason or another, and wham! Ding-ding-ding went the puke-o-meter. The time with Vince and the hoverscooter had been a prime example. Eurgh. She'd told him, she'd told him she had a bad feeling about it-or tried to, at least; stupid jerk had pretty much gone and hung up on her-and he'd still gone up there. All for one itsy-bitsy creepy-ass life sign that shouldn't have been there.

And then he'd nearly gotten flash-fried by lightning and trapped under a cannon the size of a city. Doofus. Still, not everybody could say that they'd saved ol' Vinny Valentine's ass! Twice! Or more! Really, the way AVALANCHE's collectives lives went, it got kinda hard to keep track.

A little belatedly, Yuffie remembered that she was still in the middle of a conversation. She perked up, head cocking at the mention of 'research'. Vague, but hey; it wasn't like she went around crowing over the explicit details of her life story, either. "Neat," she commented, her interest genuine. "Back home, I'm head of Intel," and espionage, "for a global organization."

[hes_deadjim]

She struck him as a bit young for being the head of any department, much less something as important as Intelligence, but you learned not to discount age too much when it came to something like that. There were also just some people who just somehow seemed older than they really were. He'd seen his share of kids act more mature than most adults, and plenty of adults act as if they were still nine.

Yuffie didn't give him the impression that she was that kind of person. From what he'd gathered, she seemed acutely feel the peer pressure back where she came from, not to show weakness and to comply with her village's culture. That preoccupation didn't really give much of a sign of a wisdom that belied her age: those types of people tended to realize early on that peer pressure, having some human "weakness", and covering it up, wasn't everything. They would have shaken it off or at least, not have worried so much about it. Yuffie really just reminded him of a typical teenager in some ways.

"And what does this organization do?" McCoy asked. Was it military? Strictly diplomatic?

[thatdamnedninja]

"Stops the world from getting destroyed," Yuffie replied. "That happens-nearly happens-kind of a hell of a lot." Usually once a year, at the least. Sometimes more, sometimes less, sometimes quick, sometimes drawn out like a leech on a wound. "We're primarily militaristic these days, out of necessity, but sometimes we're called on to help in other ways. Like, me? I-urp, stupid bus-help bridge the gap between Wutai, my homeland, and the rest of the world." With a huffed sigh three parts exasperation and one part something almost, almost like affection, Yuffie added, "Wutai's still getting over the all-or-nothing attitude they've had for, oohh, generations. It's like herding cats, or tryin' to kick a statue up the butt."

Hard work, but it'd be worth it in the end. Yuffie had a lot of dreams, but seeing Wutai stand shoulder to shoulder with the rest of the world was right up near the top. The other, of course, was having the rest of the world in one piece to stand next to in the first place.