(Untitled)

[animus_inspire]

Who: Reeve and The Crew at Gongaga - Open to Everybody! Tag first to Hojo and Amaya
When: Day 58 to fit into timeline (any efforts to catch up on communication - Cloud and Elena - will have come after this time)
Location: Gongaga
Rating: PG? I really have no idea... lol may be some medical squickiness?
Summary: Reeve is brought back from the brink

Comments

<3

[cradlewillfall]

It looked like the man was having a bad dream. He tossed about on the bed a lot, crying out strange words like he was remembering terrible things. But should sleeping people ever be woken up even if they were suffering? Or was it only sleepwalkers who shouldn't be disturbed?

Mama told her once, but Amaya couldn't recall. Her memory came in broken pieces. The white-haired boy she had spoken to seemeed more solid in her mind than all the years before her death. His face, seen only briefly as a flicker before she opened her physical eyes, was already displacing that of her father, though the features of her mother remained clear.

Seated on a chair beside him, wrapped in blankets and her own fragility, Amaya watched the man on the bed with her legs drawn up and her head on her knees. Constantly cold and persistantly tired, she didn't move around much, and didn't even have the strength to cry when the man with glasses - Mister Hojo, she knew now - cocooned her in overlarge clothes and told her she was sick. That urge left as she adjusted to this strange new place. Mister Hojo told her she would see Mama and Baba as soon as she was better, and in the meantime, there was a puppy to play with and it didn't matter if she couldn't run or sing like she used to.

And there was now also this other strange man with a beard, who had opened his eyes at last.

"Hello," Amaya greeted, because she was taught to be polite. She tilted her head at him and did not smile. "What's your name? Are you hurt too?"

<3! oops edity goodness xD

[animus_inspire]

The sensation of the firm, reassuring hand at his shoulder disappeared with a distinct loss, but Reeve had been righted into an elevated position. This was apparently to his benefit, for having blinked many times against the bright light and lack of focus, a choke racked through him and blood spilled vermillion from his mouth.

Swallowing some of the remaining viscous metallic-salt mixture Reeve's gaze flickered uncertainly as he tried to move. But it was to no avail, his limbs would not respond. It was as if his body had been cast with Stop. Whilst Cait was an adept user of status effects, Reeve loathed the effects of Stop; of paralysis whilst action carried on around you, unable to move to assist against the attacks made upon others, just watching, waiting for the effects to wear off and the inexorable hopelessness that overcomes finally dissapating.

Spitting the remainder spattering across his stomach, Reeve managed to shift his head to take in his surroundings. Looking down at his inert body it was like he was witness to a dire vivisection. He was lying on a table, not a bed and the smell was horribly familiar. A child-like voice sounded, eerie in that he could not yet place the source. He could feel eyes upon him.

With a brief grunt of effort, Reeve turned his head to the side and his eyes fell upon a small girl, bundled up and hugging her knees. Large eyes peered at him, inquisitive but with any expressiveness dulled to an almost inhuman pallor. Almost immediately he recognised certain features of his ex-lover, and her husband. "...A-ma...ya?" His voice croaked out as he noted with increasing panic the clothes in which she was wrapped. Shirt, lab coat. The table top was hard beneath him and the smell... clinical.

"Wh-where...?" Reeve halted the urgent tone of questioning abruptly. He did not want to frighten her, and there was more important things to be said. This girl, Amaya, had asked him a question. Are you hurt too?

"Reeve. My name..." a gasped breath, and eyes shuttering closed as pain flares up again "...it's Reeve." Taking a deeper, steadier inhale Reeve opened his eyes and focussed through a blurred gaze upon Amaya. "Are you... in pain?"

He kept questions, questions quiet for the time.

Vincent...

What happened after...?

How did I come to be here?

Where exactly is here?

Where is he? Where is... Hojo.

[[ooc: Still not totally with it, just like mah man - is Hojo here at this point? xD ♥]]

<3 IS LATE AND APOLOGETIC <3

[moralmisconduct]

Amaya buried her chin further into the linen of her unfitted clothes until only her eyes were visible; breathed against the fabric to gain further warmth against her cheeks. The stranger knew her name, but she didn't tell him what it was. She'd never seen him before - at least, not that she could remember. Maybe he was Baba's friend? In any case, he seemed really ill, and she recoiled slightly as he coughed and spewed blood right across his chest.

Mama's done that before.

"Reeeeeeeve." Amaya rolled the name around her tongue and teeth. What a funny name. She ignored his questions for now, instead tilted her head and looked to the corner of the room beyond his head and vision: "Mister Hojo, his name is Reeeeeeeve." And still did not smile.

His back to the scene, Hojo frowned as he wrapped up a set of bloodied instruments and exchanged soiled gloves for clean ones.

"You'll call him Mister Tuesti, precious," he muttered, moving to stand beside her, green materia in hand. Frown deepening at the mess across the patient's torso, he pressed the cold orb to the closed incisions, mouthed Cure, and was unsurprised but still irritated as the stone failed to glow.

"It's been a long time since I was a surgeon," Hojo continued as he held the materia out for Amaya to take, not sparing a glance at Reeve's face as he started to dress the man's wound. He was addressing the girl, though the words were not for her ears. "Researchers are rarely doctors, though it's fortunate for Mister Tuesti here that I happen to be both. Another half hour - ten minutes perhaps - and we would have lost the mighty commissioner of the WRO. And what a shame that would have been, when we have so much yet to discuss."

Amaya stayed silent, watching gauze pinken where it was pressed against the sutured lines.

"My Sleep spell wore off too quickly," Hojo said, finally looking at Reeve's face as the bandages were laid into place. "But what do you expect, from an old man cast and left defenseless in the streets for so long? I'm out of MP, so you're out of luck. Cure would have provided some pain relief but...well. After seven hours of tending to you, you can hardly blame me for being drained, hmm?"

"Mister Tuesti knows my name," Amaya mumbled against her collar.

"Yes precious, I daresay he does." Hojo's smile was subtle, lightly tinged with sadness, but twisted into a smirk as he moved closer to the incapacitated man's head. "So, Mister Tuesti - welcome back. Twice you have helped to end my life, and now I have served to prolong yours. Isn't it interesting, how unpredictable our lives can be?"

<3 IS ALSO LATE AND APOLOGETIC <3

[animus_inspire]

Reeve looked over Amaya as she recoiled from the violence of his expectoration with a tinge of regret. Such a small frail child, considering her parents. Kira's features, plumped up with puppy fat stared to the back of him. Undeniably there was much of San in there also.

A wave of nostalgia washed over him; a familiar feminine lilt mixing into the locution of the little one -

Reeeeeeve. We should start a family! What do you say?

...Reeve?! I- Oh dear! Well, hmm... I suppose there are two people you really should meet. Darling? Little one? This is Reeve. My-

Her ex-fiance. ...A pleasure to meet you. Both.

- and the Commissioner blinked again, unsure for the moment if he was still dreaming; surreality and intense pain was dulling everything at the fringes.

Then the snap of rubber snapped him back to attention. Cricking his neck to the side, his prone body almost fell back with the remaining unresponsiveness squatting insidiously there. Instead Reeve swayed, bobbing unsteadily like a metronome, until a balance re-initiated within, the new sound of Hojo ringing in his ears.

A brief, largely stifled, groan and Reeve swiftly silenced into a listening state. Pervasive feelings stopped reaction in favour of making sense of the situation; of location, of the words, of Amaya and Hojo-... Precious?

The cold materia pressing against his chest shuddered an autonomic response through him and Reeve's eyes flickered to Hojo with a disorientated anger, unshielded by lack of defenses. But Hojo was not looking at him. Temper cooled in his gaze when Amaya reached out to receive the cure, though thought passed that a child should really not be so comfortable being assistant to such procedure. To such a man.

Yes. Mortality weighted heavy on him, but Reeve mentally shrugged it off, with great difficulty. He would have time to consider what had happened, what his options were, soon enough. For now there was enough to consider at hand. Had it been seven hours?

Once more Reeve tried to speak but a croak exhaled out in the words place. As Amaya and Hojo carried on their conversation the Commissioner's sense of unease became greater; fingers twitched, with a silent demand screamed. Dammit move.

Finally the inertia in his limbs broke suddenly; blocked velocity slammed Reeve's hand out to the side until it connected with the scientist. Fisting his fingers into the loose folds of white, agony warped his voice into a snarl "Hojo--" Enough of this insanity; of such insinuations. "...What do you mean to do with Amay--"

Another spasm. Reeve fought to breathe, blood wretching into his mouth, fought to remain conscious, as heat seared through his chest.

Losing his grasp on the other man Reeve fell back, eyes squeezing shut against the pain "She's... she doesn't belong..." No. It shouldn't have come out like that. Don't be afraid. Gods. She's not your child. She belongs to "...Kira..."

Unconsciousness took Reeve once more. Moments passed as an unseen struggle brought the Commissioner round again, eyes wide now with fear and bent entirely on Hojo.

[[ooc: this is really shonky ._. you deserve better, but I wanted to get the tag out. I blame the muse disorientation neh. xD Hope you can work with it?]]