Day 52: Lunch

[purpletaint]

[from here]It was a race. A fight against patience and a Song's call. Still, the sedation's dredges churned through him. Two close at hand had a potent effect--much like the night that they were left in that town, and the morning after. Rubedo had came then. Came for them like something out of place, and wasn't that so ironic afterwards--when

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[thatdamnedninja]

Time to draw, Yuffie thought.

Time to draw a great big skeletal horse, a brute, and a pack of the fugliest dogs this side of ever.

Putting pencil to paper (plain; she'd convinced her nurse that, no, really, letting her go back to her room to rummage was a great idea! She'd even walk, not cartwheel, okay? Okay!), Yuffie started sketching. And sketching. And sketching. Man, how boring… She'd rather be back in the sun room, playing 'anything you can do I can do better' with Kaito.

… No!

She was behind already; this was supposed to be done for tonight. And she still had some translation work to do, too. Her notebook sat open in front of her, opened to a double-page spread of Wutaian writing (and totally unrelated doodles)-she was halfway through it already, and she could only hope that the rest wouldn't take too long. She'd been the one to write it in the first place, after all.

At last, the huntsman and his entourage began to take shape. It didn't need to be anything more than the basics, with details and quick, labelled notes where necessary. Yuffie wasn't the best artist around, but she was good enough. Handy, when she didn't have a camera and when words alone didn't quite cut it.

Just as soon as she'd finished this, she'd have a bite to eat. The burrito-thing looked weird, but she'd hadn't had anything for breakfast (again); no way was she passing over another meal.

[For Sam and Dean~]

[theroadsofar]

"Man, you could totally sell that."

Dean rounded the table from where he'd come up behind Yuffie and while he wasn't exactly Michelangelo himself, he could at least tell the difference between a crappy stick figure and a decent drawing. That right there was a pretty decent sketch of some kind of freaky looking horse thing, and it wasn't one of those freaky looks like she just couldn't draw. Whatever she was drawing, the thing was an ugly mother in the first place. He would've said it was a kelpie, except kelpies didn't have their own riders like that - would've been hard to lure in another dumb schmuck for a ride if that seat was already taken, for starters, and two, somehow he doubted have some ugly sonuvabitch there was going to make someone suddenly want to jump on.

That and the whole bone horse thing was throwing him for a loop. Kelpies didn't exactly look that run-down.

Dean tipped his chin toward the drawing as he sat down across from Yuffie. He set down his tray of tacos. "That something from around here or you got an active imagination?"

It was probably too much to ask for it to be an active imagination, he was willing to bet. He wasn't in much of a mood to deal with a friggen undead kelpie on top of everything else, much less a freak one with a rider that already looked like a monster and were those dogs? As if it wasn't enough that there was a bog undead rider running around, he just had to have dogs.

Talk about overkill.

[thatdamnedninja]

Yuffie had known that somebody was approaching, but she'd been too absorbed by her work to realize, or care, who it was - until they spoke.

It was Dean, looking the healthiest and most whole she'd ever seen him. Just a couple of bruises here and there, a quick, casual glance told her; and he wasn't moving stiffly enough to suggest other, less obvious injuries. Either he'd been playing it safe these past few nights, or he'd gotten lucky.

"Hi," she said. Then, with the beginning of a gleaming grin, added, "Sure could. Bet some sucker'd actually pay for it, too."

She tapped her pencil against the sketch. There were still bits and pieces missing; the rot on the two huge hounds, and a miscellaneous detail or two on the seven-foot-tall monster man. He hadn't been armed, she remembered, 'cept for the horn… After double-checking that against her notes, she drew it in.

"Yeah, I wish it'd been my imagination. First night out, over the walls, super foggy - bam." Her grin faded into exasperation. "These guys came chargin' out of the woods. Only upside was, they weren't quiet about it." No noise, no warning… That would've sucked. Big time. They'd been lucky enough as it was, to be able to get away so cleanly, all limbs intact and attached; hell, maybe they'd been lucky to get away at all. A weeding claw and a scrappy little short-sword between 'em hadn't exactly evened the odds, and the dumb brute hadn't so much as stumbled under the force of a limit break.

[theroadsofar]

Sounded like a bitch and a half right there.

So basically provided they could get over the walls and get a decent ride (decent as in anything that'd run in the first place), there was a good chance there was those things out there. Usually he'd say "screw it" and put the pedal to the metal but he'd learned the hard way that a lot of the supernatural crap out there could and would run down a car.

Chewing absently on a bite of his taco, Dean tilted his head so he could get a better look at Yuffie's drawing. At least it was one of those monsters that was nice enough to give you some kind of warning before they tried their damnedest to maul you or try to take a bit outta you or...whatever they felt like doing. Honestly, it hadn't exactly been his job to get into their shoes aside from figuring out where these things were likely to be holed up and how to hunt 'em down. Getting all philospher about it wasn't exactly his thing.

"So how'd you get away?" Dean gestured at her drawing with his half-eaten taco. "Looks like a real mean bastard there."

He figured yeah, she could handle herself, judging by the way she wasn't coddling that series of scars (claw marks?) on her cheek or the bruise. Still, first night here had to be rough regardless of who you were. His night hadn't exactly been a nice ride and he still hadn't found the sonuvabitch who'd friggen pistol-whipped him with his own flashlight (what the hell had that been about, anyway?). Did Yuffie kill this thing? He couldn't see how she could if she'd been dumped here fresh without any weapons; most hunters he knew were badass, sure, but killing something with their bare hands and nothing else was a long shot.

[allroadslead]

The one time Sam really needed to talk to Dean alone, Dean was occupied. Of course. Such was life. He thought about pulling Dean aside regardless, but he didn't want to alarm his brother by doing so. Not that Dean wouldn't be alarmed anyway once he heard what'd happened, but you know. Sam was hoping to forestall it for as long as possible because he wasn't exactly on solid ground about it himself.

When he came closer, though, he realized-was that...Yuffie, wasn't it? Oh, right. They had talked about sitting her down to figure out what the hell she knew about Dean's status as a. Returnee, he guessed was the word there.

And it was good to see her doing well. Maybe a little banged up, but who here wasn't?

All right. So the talk with Dean would have to wait, then. He couldn't help wondering if Dean knew about the Trickster or if he'd seen anymore of Castiel, too.

God, he needed to start an official task list for this.

He made his way over, flashed his usual brief smile. "Hey. Can I join you guys?"

He was already setting his tray on the table, beside Dean. Wherever his brother gone last night, he looked like he'd made it out okay, too. Which Sam had to admit was a hell of an improvement compared to the start of their tenure in this place. It was probably a small reason to feel better, but. Well.

[thatdamnedninja]

"Through an awesome combination of ingenuity, improvisation, skill, and, er, maybe a dash-okay, more than a dash-of dumb luck." AVALANCHE was used to fighting against the odds. They'd fought monsters, slimy alien bitches and their creepy psycho sons, and gigantinormous Weapons hell bent on protecting their Planet from anything and everything. Only the insane felt no fear, but they had experience on their side; they didn't scare easily, but they knew when to cut their losses.

… Sometimes.

"Protip," she added, gesturing at the sketch with her pencil, "skeleponies don't make for a fun ride."

There was more on the tip of her tongue, but somebody else chose that moment to make an appearance. It was-Sam, right? And before she could say, 'Yeah, okay, go ahead', he was already taking a seat next to Dean.

"Hi, Sam." Yuffie eyed him curiously, head slightly cocked. Was it just her, or did he super look like he'd been punched in the mouth? Didn't look like something you'd get from a Landel's usual, either, but… A long time ago, she'd learned better than to think that monsters were all bitey-scratchy and no punchy-in-the-facey.

[theroadsofar]

Dean just snorted at that. No kidding. She was lucky she even survived a ride on a "skelepony" in the first place and y'know what? He refused to call this damn thing a "skelepony" no matter how catchy Yuffie thought it sounded.

He was two seconds away from asking Yuffie exactly what counted as an "awesome combination of ingenuity, skill and dumb luck" for her when Sam suddenly popped up outta nowhere. Despite being a friggen giant, the kid still could sneak up on a guy - Dad would've done a crap job raising the two of them if he couldn't - and Dean met eyes with the kid as he parked himself down at the table. Those bruises weren't there last time he'd seen Sam, Dean scooting over to give his brother room and getting a pretty good look at those bruises. Looked like someone decked him right in the face and did a pretty good job on him, too. He expected some details 'cause there was a difference between someone not thinking Sam looked at 'em funny and the other things out there they usually ran with.

Although...most of 'em didn't usually just slug you in the face and call it a day.

They'd have to talk about it later, Dean deciding to fill Sam in.

"Yuffie was telling me we got some friends in the forest like that thing," he added, gesturing at her drawing with a taco before he took a bite out of it. "Remind you of anything?"

Unless Yuffie was jerking his leg, he figured she hadn't run into one of these things before; call it a hunch, but he doubted there was anything in the lore called "skeleponies". Dead horses, horses without riders looking for new ones to sucker, sure, but it didn't mean he knew exactly what she'd run into. He was still trying to figure out how she'd lucked out in the first place.

[allroadslead]

At Dean's look, Sam quirked an eyebrow-almost imperceptible, meant for his brother alone. Later, it agreed. He nudged his chair back with the back of his heel and sat down.

Drawing, huh. He winced internally when Dean waved at the sketch with his food, half-expecting Dean to send ground beef flying into Yuffie's face. Probably an unfounded fear, but with Dean? There were always...possibilities. Way, way too many possibilities.

"Uh." Sam edged his tray aside and leaned forward to get a better look at the picture. If he hadn't known better, he'd have said it was nothing worth noting. You know, stuff you found on posters or the album covers of various heavy metal bands. Because seriously, a skeletal horse? With hounds on its heels? He'd seen a lot of crap. The supernatural never looked that stereotypical.

Okay, maybe not never. But rarely. Still, if Yuffie had seen it-

His eyebrows raised again, this time distinctly noticeable. When he spoke next, it was almost impulsive. "'And I looked, and behold a pale horse; and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.'" He frowned, shrugged. "Maybe it's a projection, you know. Working off of your fears, picking out common nightmare material. I mean, say what you will about Revelation, but it's got some detailed imagery."

He trailed off a little, thoughtful now. Whatever Yuffie had seen, it was interesting. More so if it wasn't some kind of illusion. He was leaning towards door number one, but what if he was wrong? People had described hellish looking hounds, he remembered. Ones that weren't black dogs. Black dogs didn't hunt in packs. Hellhounds, on the other hand, did. And while they weren't supposed to be visible, they could very well be here. A variation on a theme, maybe. These guys obviously weren't chewing their way through souls up for grabs; Dean wouldn't be sitting here right now if they were.

His gaze flicked back to his brother for a moment before returning to the sketch.

The funny thing was, he hadn't ever seen much interspecies mingling. Giant birds in one area, cats in another. Spirits in another again. This was the first time anyone had ever told him that they'd seen two different sets of the paranormal seemingly together. Out in the forest, no less. Did that mean something changed when they moved beyond the institute?

Possible. Yeah, definitely possible. That the zombies apparently roamed the town only was proof enough of that. Man, they really needed to get out there and see for themselves.

[thatdamnedninja]

Had Sam said such weird things the last time they'd spoken?

It sounded like he was quoting-something. Yuffie didn't know what. It reminded her a little of Odin, the death Summon, but… no way. It couldn't be, could it? Skelepony was missing a set of legs, the dude was missing the sword, and Odin didn't lead packs of mangy mutts to do his attacking for him.

Sam tossed out something about projections and fears and revelations next, and that earned him a blink. What did 'revelations' have to do with any of this? "I've seen some pretty damn real illusions before," Yuffie said, shrugging off her confusion, "but… um, no. Almost definitely real." Almost, because with Landel, who the hell really could tell what was real and what wasn't? He never liked to give 'em an easy ride, that was for sure.

"And-haha, ha, no." The laugh had been humorless, and Yuffie's expression shuttered briefly. "Wouldn't put it past Landel to keep something like that around, but this-for me? Nah. If that was the case, it would've chosen…" She shook her head, bringing back her smile. "… Something else. Anyway."

"Anyway, there's not a whole lot else I could tell ya. They're, like, one unit, but they can work independently as well as together. The horn's loud enough to give anyone a headache. And I'm not so sure they were aiming to kill us… I mean, they weren't not, but it kinda felt more like… herding, almost. Aggressive herding." Yuffie scratched lightly at her scarred cheek, staring down, first at her sketch, and then at Wutaian writing in her notebook.

[theroadsofar]

Nice to know that a few years on the road and Sam was still a hopeless geek. Made him wonder how many times that one worked as a pickup line.

Nerd had a point though. Dean didn't consider himself a Bible-thumping angel humper but c'mon, even he knew some of the lore in the Bible sometimes got it right about what was really out there - keep taking potshots in the dark and sooner or later you were bound to get in a lucky hit, just like every other source out there. It was just a matter of looking past all the skewed stuff. Make that really skewed. There was a reason - fine, a couple of reasons - he didn't much bother with the Bible and one of 'em was it was more hellbent on getting the good Word out instead of focusing on what really mattered, like how many demons in it were real and how many were just some ancient LSD trip. Dean gave Yuffie a dude, I gotta live with this kid grin and polished off his taco, picking a chunk of cheese that'd fallen onto his plate and popping it into his mouth.

"That’d explain how you’re still here if it was trying to get you nice and cornered,” Dean said. “Did it stop following you or something? Y’know, at a certain point.”

Some of the stuff out there had a weird sense of territory or they were literally bound to a spot, which was helpful to know if the monster was gonna keep charging you or if there was an invisible line you could cross and hit a relative safe zone. The herding thing sounded ominous to him. It meant whatever this thing was, it was smart enough to either take orders or dick around with its prey, and that was bad news all around.

Dean really hated the smart ones.

[thatdamnedninja]

"Yup," said Yuffie.

She pushed the sketch and her notebook off to one side, finally giving in to the hunger pangs that had been plaguing her since breakfast. "Back towards the Institute-ran that way, it let off." Yuffie took a bite of the, um, burrito, right? Something like that. It was kinda weird, but not hella bad weird, so she chewed, swallowed, and ate a little more.

It wasn't long before her food was half gone. Yuffie'd always had a high metabolism; high enough that she could eat five courses plus dessert without gaining a pound. All the meal skipping she'd been doing in Landel's… It was a pain either way she looked at it. What was wrong with regular snacking? All these heavy meals, day in, day out, always at the same time, in the same place-they were doing it just to be jerks, Yuffie was sure.

"No real way to tell yet, though," she added. "Far as I know-and yeah, I've looked into it-we're the only ones who've seen it so far. And by 'we' I mean 'me', since my friend got released not long afterwards."

[theroadsofar]

Letting 'em go then? Yeah, Yuffie was right, it sounded like they had some supernatural guards here which was weird in itself. Not that it was impossible to get something to watch your back or shank some folks for you but it took a lot of balls, for starters, and the ingredients weren’t something anyone could pick up from the supermarket. Looking to top off with the blood of innocents and a stillborn’s spine wasn’t just some easy errand for the weekend. He was hoping that meant there was only one of these things out there, although with this place, it was pretty hard to tell what limits it had. Some random jackass working from his living room, Dean could make a good guess and figure he only had the juice for one familiar of that size.

Here? Anything goes. Martin Landel wasn’t some random jackass and this wasn't just a familiar running around; that would’ve been too easy.

Awesome.

Dean exchanged looks with Sam. His brother had just joined this party but Sam was probably thinking the same thing he was. “Mind whipping up a copy of that for me sometime?” he nodded at Yuffie’s drawing, gesturing at Sam and him with a finger, “Figure we could ask around, see if anyone else saw anything recently.”

He frowned when Yuffie mentioned her friend was “released”: loaded word, “released”. It could mean a number of things, even outside of Landels - she’d really got let go for good behavior, it was fancy way of saying she was missing (and there probably wasn’t a body), or there was a body and no one had found it yet. Considering what little he knew of the experiments that went on upstairs, Dean couldn’t say option one was much better than options two or three, not if the victim ran the risk of getting cut up so bad they wouldn’t know who they really were anymore. For all he knew, it was possible to recover and the victim was at least still alive, but - he didn’t know. It sounded pretty shitty to him, not knowing who you were and being a-okay with it.

This was veering pretty close to territory Sam and him had talked about. It was totally possible to have been cut up already and not even know it, make a guy think he’d been here only a few days when it could’ve been months.

“Think she was taken for the sleep studies thing that got mentioned on the intercom?”

[allroadslead]

Huh. Stopped following them. That was weird. Maybe it was bound by its environment. It didn't happen often with creatures that were non-corporeal in nature, but just because something had managed to physically manifest didn't mean it didn't have non-corporeal elements or that it hadn't started out that way. Couldn't forget the tulpa, after all.

Christ, maybe the Head Doctor had a bunch of kidnapped patients sitting up in a secret room somewhere staring at a Tibetan spirit sigil all day to create...skeletal thoughtforms of the equine genus. Or something. It'd be one way to keep this place on guard and lockdown. Either way, whatever it was, it was tethered the same way a lot of the things here seemed to be. As if they weren't completely free to go all-out.

Sam pulled his plate back towards himself, realizing that he should probably eat. Unlike his brother, Sam had a desire to keep his food from escaping his mouth, so he'd skipped out on the actual taco shells and created something that vaguely resembled a taco salad. Dean was probably mocking him in his head.

But whatever. There was no way he was going to try to cram a concoction of salsa and meat into his mouth while carrying on a conversation.

He let Dean do most of the talking while he ate. Until they suddenly came to the topic of released patients. Sam set down his fork and glanced up, then over at Dean. He shook his head.

"No, the sleep studies are different, they're around the next day. Patients who get released are just." He hesitated. "Disappeared. But the implication is that they're still alive or...they could come back anytime. Only not in the exact same condition."

He wasn't sure what else to say about her friend. The lack of permanence when it came to this had to suck-not really knowing when they'd pop up again or not. Or ever.

[thatdamnedninja]

When Dean requested a copy of the notes for himself and Sam, Yuffie shrugged. "If you're gonna get back to me with whatever intel you pick up, if any, I don't see why not." A photocopier'd come in real handy right about now… Writing out the notes themselves wasn't a problem, but no way was she gonna kill her hand drawing the damn thing all over again.

Hopefully Okita'd be content just to look it over once. Or it could get passed around, or… Whatever, she'd figure something out. For now, she had better-if more depressing-things to think about.

Yuffie raked her left hand through her hair, stalling. "He," she corrected, eventually, before nodding at Sam. "And Sam's right-one day he was there, fine as he can be, next day, bam, his roommate's tellin' me that he's been given the boot. It's a little…" A vague gesture at nothing bought her a split-second to gather her thoughts. "Messy. Far as I've been able to tell, the released patients are brainwashed; they're who the institute tells 'em they are.

But, it's weird. He came back a week or so later, as a visitor, with a new false name. And now he's back again, as a patient, with another new false name. And…" Whoa, whoa, hold on a sec; that was far enough. Enough detail, without the details. She changed track smoothly, saying, "The name thing is weird, like I said, but the rest-it's not uncommon. I've had two ex-patient visitors, and I got the released-recalled treatment myself."

She threw a long glance at Dean, lips quirking into something just short of a smile. Thinking about all the people she'd lost in this place was like getting kicked in the gut by a dragon. She'd never stop getting back up again and fighting, but it hurt, and it was tiring. That was something even Yuffie couldn't deny. "You're part of that club, too."

[theroadsofar]

That was the part he'd heard, yeah, and it still wasn't anymore cool the second time around. "Yeah, so I keep hearing."

Actually, they had talked about this very subject a few days ago in Doyleton. Seemed like a long time since then. At least that time hadn't ended up with him drooling on Sam's shoulder, so that was something easy to shoot for. Dean leaned forward.

"Sure I'm the only one? What about you? Or Sam here?" he jerked a thumb at his brother. "Be nice to know how long we've been here instead of living the same couple of weeks over and over again."

And call him selfish, but Dean wanted to know exactly how long he had left. Losing a week or something would suck balls but it wasn't the worst that could happen in the long run. But if it'd been months of this run around, then that was a problem and even if he didn't want to make the most of his time topside, he still wanted to know. Sam needed back-up and Dean needed to know how long he could keep helping the kid before it came time for the hellhounds to collect. It sounded like it was totally possible to keep waking up a newbie in Landels not just once, but over and over again, however long they felt like it.

Dean found himself running a hand through his hair and down the back of his neck. No ridges, no weird bumps. Nothing. It felt normal, nothing like how Donna had looked after the sleep studies. Whatever they did, it was a lot less obvious than that and that was the scary part, the whole not being able to tell thing. Christ, if you didn't have people who knew you beforehand, there was no telling exactly how many times you'd woke up like that.

[allroadslead]

Him?

Sam slid another look at his brother. That was true. He hadn't thought about himself as a candidate in any serious terms. He supposed it just didn't matter with him. Or no, it did. Of course it did, and the idea made him feel quietly freaked out as much as anything. But compared to Dean, it wasn't that important. Sam wasn't on a ticking clock. No more of a ticking clock than any other hunter out there, that was. He could afford to lose a week, month. Hell, even a year.

Dean, on the other hand.

Yuffie seemed to have run into a lot of ex-patients, though. And someone returning after a second release? There had only been one patient on his list who'd been listed as having been readmitted twice. He couldn't remember the handwriting, though. He hadn't had the time to study any of the notes closely.

"Skye Smith," he hazarded anyway, eyes narrowed in thought.

Worth a shot. It didn't matter if she knew he was the one who'd been asking around that time or not. They'd sort of busted down walls with this conversation; hard to keep up pretenses about how much you knew if you were gonna be delving deep into the stuff that kept cropping up here.