Sirens and smoke

[kyunnii]

Muses: Cho Kyuhyun (kyunnii) and Jung Nicole (backhugs)
Date / Time: 02/27, 2AM
Rating: PG-13
Type: Thread
Status: Closed; Completed
Summary: Nicole ends up inside Kyuhyun's dream, which quickly degenerates into fear-fueled nightmares.

Comments

[kyunnii]

Arranging for his purchased supplies to arrive later in the day (staple foods and herbs needed for his kampo medicine), Kyuhyun folded his hands into the long flowing sleeves of his hakama. This was how he'd passed most of his days in Meiji Japan, tending to any patients who showed up outside his small dwelling, watching as neighborhood children grew up and travelers came and went. He'd always preferred the smaller villages such as this one, where time seemed to stand still and the growing Western influences had yet to overrun tradition.

An unfamiliar voice caught his attention, and he looked down to see a stranger standing by the edge of the building's veranda. Had this truly been Meiji Japan, the girl would have certainly looked out of place dressed in such modern clothing. Kyuhyun's brow furrowed slightly as he briefly considered the strangeness of her clothes, brought to his attention, before dismissing them. Must be some new Western fashion trend.

"You're in Hohoku, west of Bakan," he replied, figuring her to be a traveler who had made a wrong turn somewhere down the road. His dwelling was near the edge of the village after all. "Where are you heading, traveler?" Considering they were in Japan right now, he might have questioned why they were suddenly both speaking in Korean despite how he'd conversed with the merchant in Japanese just a minute before.

[backhugs]

Her interest in his answer outweighed her guilt. “Hohoku,” she repeated, tongue awkward as she tried to imitate his pronunciation. Definitely Japan. “I’m actually not sure where I’m heading,” She was unable to withhold the sheepish laugh at how true the answer was.

Nicole smiled at a passerby that was staring at her clothes, tilting her body forward in a playful imitation of a bow. At least Kyuhyun wasn’t showing any signs of alarm, and he was being receptive to her presence, accepting her as part of the dream. If only it was always this easy. Her foot kicked at a pebble; it flew out of sight. “I was told that coming here would help solve my problems, but I don’t think it’s the case. I’ve been searching for a long while, you see.”

His clothes caught her attention, her eyes lingering on the folds. (Did they… still wear traditional garb like this in Japan? If not, then was this set in the past? But then just how old was he to have had these moments in his memories, because that cart definitely didn’t look… -No. This dream was probably set in some book or movie he had read or watched recently, his mind still absorbing the details and bringing them into fruition. Maybe an anime. Or The Last Samurai! That had been an interesting movie.)

She met his gaze again with an easygoing, albeit resigned smile. “So where would you recommend?”

[kyunnii]

Both eyebrows went up at her response. She didn't know where she was heading? He was used to dealing with wanderers, but much less since the Meiji Restoration. Someone else might have been wary about such a strange girl wandering into the village with such a vague description of her motives, but Kyuhyun had never been the kind to let such things worry him. He had his means of protecting himself after all, even if he'd given up his samurai sword decades ago.

"I can't give any recommendations when I don't know what your problems are," he said dryly. After a moment's thought, he extended one arm towards the open paper screens in an invitation. "Why don't you come inside, and we can talk. I'm Hohoku's doctor, so I might be able to provide some assistance..."

He trailed off, gaze going into the distance as a plume of black smoke rose into the sky. His eyes narrowed slightly; that looked like it was coming from the other side of the village. The volume of noise on the dirt road grew as the other villagers noticed the smoke, shouts of alarm going up. Horses thundered down the street in the direction of the smoke, their riders shouting to each other about pulling water from the river. Kyuhyun cursed, going to grab his medical kit from the inner room. He returned with it under his arm, dropping down off the veranda. "That talk's going to have to wait. If that's one of the children dropping a lamp again I swear..."

[backhugs]

The embarrassed curl of her smile acknowledged his logic even as she moved to accept his offer. Usually, she was the one doing the offering and guiding, not the other way around, and it felt almost nice to just go along with the flow instead of being on the constant look-out.

But of course, her thoughts were settled too soon.

Conflicts in a dream were typically metaphorical, representatives of a real-life crisis or stressor the individual was facing. She didn't intervene with those, knowing that it was something the mind had to encounter without interruption. "I don't think.." she began to speak when he returned, feeling almost ill with the sudden foreboding aura she could feel emanating within his reaction. It was as if someone had poisoned the dream, replacing the pleasant regularity with something far more sinister, and in a panic, she grabbed his arm, forgetting to keep her own rules to keep distance. No, no, he shouldn't go. "Don't go."

Within seconds there was chaos, noises echoing, blending into one another as she shook her head, trying to figure out why she was being affected so easily by this unexpected chain of events. People pushed past her to get to the source of the smoke, their bodies feeling like mists against her skin.

[kyunnii]

About to get his horse, Kyuhyun was brought up short by hands gripping his sleeve tightly. He looked back at the stranger, eyes narrowing. Don't go? He was the village doctor, and someone was definitely going to end up injured over there. Fires spread quickly when all the buildings were made of wood and sliding screens. Already he could see more plumes of smoke rising from the other side of the village. "What? Let go," he yanked his arm out of her grasp. "Stay here if you want, but I've got a duty to this village."

A duty, huh, he thought grimly as he went to get his horse from the nearby stables. One of these days, his 'duty' was going to get him killed.

Before he could reach the stables, screams went up down the street. Turning around, he barely ducked out of the way of charging horses. These weren't from the village; their riders cut down anyone who stood in their path, swords flashing. Dropping to the ground to avoid getting his shoulder sliced open, Kyuhyun coughed and looked towards where they'd gone. Arrows burning with fire were in the air, setting buildings alight. The stable was one of the first to go up in smoke, hay catching easily. If the strange girl hadn't grabbed his arm and delayed him, Kyuhyun would have been trapped in the stables.

The village was under attack. But the voices of the raiders weren't communicating in Japanese. They were speaking Korean...Old Korean, a dialect Kyuhyun recognized because he'd fought soldiers from Silla before. He pushed himself back to his feet, eyes searching for a weapon. It felt familiar. It felt too familiar. He had to fight back.

[backhugs]

Her growing confusion left her reactions delayed even as he wrenched his arm out of her hands, Nicole staring after him for a few moments before following. She had never seen anything like this, a peaceful memory dream devolving in a linear pattern, like a horror story unfolding itself instead of abrupt segments. Somehow, it made it harder to process everything, information hitting her all at once as she instinctively swerved to avoid the blow of a sword, the path of an arrow. In that moment, whether or not she would actually get hurt didn't matter.

It felt like every thundering hoofbeat was a stampede running directly over her heart, preventing her from taking control of the dream. And if she wasn't careful with distancing herself now, she might forget this was a dream altogether and forget what she was supposed to be doing here.

"You're okay," she tried to tell him, unsure if he heard her through the screams. (The swing of swords were so loud and piercing, almost ringing in her ears even after she heard the bodies hitting the ground.) Nicole new she had to stay with him, the dreamer, to help her keep things into perspective. "You're okay." she repeated more for herself, taking a deep breath and counting 1, 2, 3 before the shaky exhale. This was just another dream.

When she looked at him again, Kyuhyun was looking for something, every line of his body alert and aching to jump into the action (a weapon?) - would he hear her out, accept her words as truth? Or was he so deeply involved that nothing would stir him from this haunting memory? Her fingers clenched around his arm again, forcing eye contact with how she pulled at him, making him face her. "They can't hurt you! This is a dream!" The sooner he realized this, the sooner the harsh details would fade - a few feet away, a dead villager lay in pieces, the garments of his clothes catching fire. Nicole fought the urge to close her eyes and escape.

[kyunnii]

He needed a weapon. A sword, bow, hell even a spear would work even though he hated wielding them. He had to protect the village. Why soldiers from Silla were in Japan when they were thousands of miles apart...a thousand years apart...didn't matter just then. He couldn't let another village go up in flames. Not at their hands, not again. The last time he'd seen a village burned to the ground with the mark of Silla soldiers on it, it had been his own.

The presence of the strange girl had faded from his attention, panicked mind struggling to think clearly. In real life, whenever he'd been attacked by raiders in Japan, he'd been able to fight back. He'd always kept a clear head even when the villagers started panicking, shouting orders with all his centuries of experience and fighting the raiders back until backup arrived. But now, he couldn't think. He couldn't concentrate. Because those battles weren't the ones that haunted him, but the battles that he had no control over. The battles where the outcome had already been decided by some other hand and no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't change the past. He couldn't save the people who mattered the most.

Hands gripped his arms and he was forcefully turned away from the bloody street, away from the raiders. Instead he was looking at wide, brown eyes and a face that was paler than it had been before. This is a dream, she shouted at him, but it didn't click in his mind what exactly she meant. Smoke billowed around them, the smell of fire and death nauseating. It was a smell he knew well, burned deep into his memory. It was too real.

"No," he said, voice scratchy from inhaling too much of the smoke. "This is real." A child was crying somewhere, horses screaming as they burned in the stables. They couldn't hurt him, but they could hurt...

"Get down!" He pushed her to the ground as arrows flew over their head, shielding her with his body as embers flew. The wall next to them was on fire.

[backhugs]

The ground felt harder when she was pushed down, her desperate hold onto reality keeping her wind from being knocked out of her. His mind was already too invested in the reality his dream had created, unable to grasp the small ridiculous details for what they were - her pajama set, modern cars, pebbles that flew thousands of feet at a mere kick - and focusing the painful aspects that he remembered (meaning he had to have experienced this at one point and God, she was going to have to sit down and try to process this all properly when she woke up because this was definitely not modern times). She wasn't bleeding, dirt didn't stain her shirt, but she couldn't move, trapped underneath him as she tried to figure out another way to grab his attention.

Trying to erase one detail at a time was taxing, like holding an eraser precariously over the paper and hoping the dust didn't smear what wasn't meant to be erased, and her control flickered when his dream fought back. The corpses that were fading returned with a vengeance. Damnit. The faster she could get through to him, the faster she could coax his mind into letting go of this moment. Nicole would have to distract him from trying to fight back, from actively engaging in his dream as much as possible. And given his doctor status, she knew exactly how to do so.

He wouldn't notice the sudden change in her appearance, her short hair turning long and black and disheveled, facial features shifting until she resembled one of the pretty girls she had seen before on the road. Dreams were like that all the time. All she had to take care of were the appearance changes - the blood soaked fabric, a broken arrow lodged in her abdomen - because his mind would react and fill in the rest (the pain, the helpless pleas). "Doctor," Blood seeped out of her mouth, eyes wide as if she couldn't process why she wasn't able to move, body trembling from shock. "Doctor, help me..."

[kyunnii]

As expected, Kyuhyun was too caught up in the dream to notice when the person he was protecting from the arrows and fire changed. All he knew was that here was someone he could protect, someone he could keep alive. He couldn't lose anyone else, not if he could help it.

Pulling back and glancing over his shoulder to see if the coast was clear or if they were about to be cut down, a pained gasp caught his attention. When he looked back at the young woman he was shielding, his eyes widened at the blood staining her plain kimono. No...no, no, no.

He looked around for his medical kit, seeing it where he'd dropped it just feet away. Kyuhyun reached over and grabbed it, the battle in the streets temporarily forgotten. "Hush, hush, it'll be okay," he whispered to her, undoing the already loosened obi of her kimono so he could better see the injury. "You'll be fine, just keep your eyes open."

Looking down at his blood-covered hands, Kyuhyun clenched them into fists tightly enough to leave nail marks in his palms. The biting pain helped him focus a little. He couldn't panic. A doctor couldn't panic. That was what he was now...not a soldier, not a fighter, a doctor. He was here to save lives, not take them.

Gathering her up in his arms, he was able to maneuver her away from the burning building. He couldn't go much farther away without catching the attention of the Silla raiders, so this would have to do. The arrow. Take out the arrow, stem the bleeding, keep the patient calm. "Look at me, keep your eyes on me, okay? I'm going to pull the arrow out, it will hurt a bit but you'll be okay after. Deep breaths." He counted to three before pulling it out, careful not to expand the wound. Thankfully the arrow wasn't barbed. Pressure was immediately applied to the wound to slow the bleeding, arrow cast to one side.

[backhugs]

Nicole felt guilty, almost cruel, when she saw the look on his face, the clear concern that would have touched her heart had she not been distracted with keeping up a pretense. This would help him in the long run, force him to pursue a path of healing instead of running to keep defenses. Something told Nicole that he wouldn't be all that bad at the fighting arts, either. (Who are you?)

"It's hard--" Thankfully, she managed to diminish the background noise, the crackle of the fires quieting with the cries for help. Even if she couldn't understand the language, the sound of pain was universal. His hands moved with skilled experience and she seized the opportunity to take a good look at his features, her blinks slow and far in between. He looked young, almost too young to be knowledgeable in how to take care of arrow wounds and be the village doctor. The change from his brusque manner of speaking to concerned care made her smile inwardly; anyone who cared for a dog in real life couldn't be all that bad, no matter how intimidating they were upon first impressions.

The arrow pulled out with what felt like a gentle tug, even as she reacted, labored breaths growing shallow as she winced with pain. "At least.." she whimpered, cracking a smile. "At least it's not a pregnancy. There could be --" A pause for a dizzying wave of pain, eyes going unfocused for a moment, mouth left open as her words trailed off, got softer, slurred. "--a lot worse things..." Eyelids significantly heavier, she decided to focus on the pain that was supposed to be present, the acute intensity of it enough to keep her from closing her eyes. "Do..." When had her tongue gotten so heavy? "Do you have family?"

[kyunnii]

If Kyuhyun noticed the background noise fading, he gave no sign of it, completely focused on his task. Slow the bleeding. Clean the wound - no, no fresh water nearby, but he did keep a small bottle of alcohol in his kit that would stave off infection until it could be cleaned properly. The only thing worse than a belly wound was an infected belly wound. No internal damage? No. Good, because if an organ had been pierced by that arrow he doubted he'd be able to save her.

He was going to save her. He wasn't about to lose a patient now.

Keeping the patient calm was the best way to turn a bad situation around. Panicking would just make the injury worse, heighten the sensation of pain, and completely overload her body. The best way to keep the patient calm without the use of drugs (which he didn't have right now) was to talk to them. Which was what Kyuhyun did. His bedside manner was far different from his usual tone, because in most situations there was nothing to hurt other than the other person's feelings. As a doctor, the quality of his voice meant everything.

A small, wry smile appeared on his lips at her forced joke. Somehow he thought that she'd rather go through a pregnancy. "You'll have to come find me in a few years after you've had children. Tell me which is worse." For some reason it amused him to think of all the times he'd had to help with those because no one could find the midwife fast enough. Each time he swore he'd never do it again, and each time after that he ended up helping once more.

Her voice was fading. "Stay awake, you're almost there," he freed one hand from pressing against the injury to squeeze her hand reassuringly. He had to bind the injury now. Keeping the pressure on the wound, he used the material of her kimono to keep her waist up off the ground just enough so he could wrap the gauze deftly around her midsection. To keep her focused and talking, he answered her question. "A long, long time ago." Far longer than any human could realize. "What about you?"