Katou (katoustheshit) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2015-05-12 08:22:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, jack dawson, wendy darling, yue katou, zatanna zatara |
Who: Wendy and her Lost Boys (Katou and Jack), brief appearance by Zatanna
When: Last Night
Where: Wendy’s House
What: Katou dies. Again.
Rating/Warnings: Dream death and blood.
Status: Complete
Katou wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about the fact that he was dreaming again. On one hand, he was glad that his Dreams hadn’t ended with him taking strange drugs, getting possessed, killing his best dream friend, and dying. On the other, his Dreams had started with him taking strange drugs, getting possessed, killing his best dream friend, and dying, and that didn’t necessarily bode well for him.
He really, really shouldn’t have been surprised about the fact that he got possessed (through a mask, this time) again, and was killed. But he had fought it. He had broken through the possession with his own power, though it had been as painful as his first death. And then, with his own power, he took Setsuna’s hands, placed them on the cross Katou wielded as a weapon, and plunged it into his own chest so that Setsuna could absorb his powers and continue on with his fight. If the mask could only be taken off through death, then he would show them. This time, he would make his death mean something. This time, he would fight whatever they gave him, and this time, his death would mean something. He wouldn’t vanish without a trace. Setsuna would remember him, and remember what he had done.
Katou cried out when he woke up, and was immediately aware of the pain in his chest where he had stabbed himself in the dream. And his face… there was already blood running into his eyes. He imagined there would be blood covering his entire face from where the mask was.
“Shit,” he gasped, and looked over to Nana. “Hey,” wince. “Nana. Could you go, ugh. Could you get Jack and Wendy? Fast?”
Nana liked to patrol the house at night; she didn't sleep much, because it was her job to keep the children safe, which was why her kennel had been in the nursery before. If something happened, she'd bark and wake up Mr. and Mrs. Darling, that was how it worked. She didn't have a kennel here in the house this time, was free to wander since she (being a sophisticated, trained nurse) was far too professional to leave doggie shits and pee everywhere.
She was there when Katou woke up, alert, awake, wearing her frilly cap which she hardly ever took off. Didn't like it when people tried, either. The blood seemed to be sensed by her, and it made her worried, but she made a rumbling sound and dashed off on furry-fat paws to the hallway, where both Jack and Wendy's rooms were.
Whining and scratching, first at Wendy's door, then at Jack's. Wendy, curled up in bed under the covers and snoozing deeply, was pulled from the depths of REM cycle and got up to investigate what the matter was. All while wearing a balletic grey slip of a nightgown, the material a bit layered in comfy tulle.
"Jack!" she called for him, knowing right away something was wrong, as Nana barked louder.
There was never a chance Jack could ever develop the habit of deep sleep, could he? Not at night, anyway - day naps are what that was for, because if it wasn’t someone breaking in, someone dying, a dog mysteriously finding her way within the house, it was…
Actually, he didn’t know what this time even was. All he heard was barking, the sound of Wendy’s voice yelling his name and easily, Jack snapped out of his slumber and back to reality - where something was wrong, something was urgent, and it had him scramble from the bed. Blankets tangled up among his feet and ankles some, it almost caused him to trip, but he regained coordination.
“Heeey, Nana,” he greeted nervously, voice thick with sleep, and it was the valiant nurse that led him to Katou’s, flipping on the light switch so he could actually see. Those damn lightbulbs practically blinded him, and after some squinting and adjusting… “Shit, what happened?”
While in reality it didn’t take long for them to come, to Katou it felt like an eternity. He wondered if he shouldn’t’ve just screamed again, but then the light was already on. He wasn’t very nice to look at - his right eye was closed and covered in blood, and he squeezed his left eye shut when the lights turned on, though he opened it again to look at them. He was already holding a blanket to his chest to hopefully stanch the blood.
“Yo,” he said, and offered them a bit of a weak, smile. “I uh,” wince, “I think I woke up dead again?”
“Oh my fucking god,” Wendy gasped (probably fourth time in her life for utterance of the f word), because this was seriously happening again? Hadn’t it just occurred? Perhaps a month or so ago, but time passed quickly and she really didn’t even think that this should be a ‘more than once in a lifetime’ sort of thing. But she sprang to action quickly - actually, Nana was already there, having pulled a thick, fluffy towel from the basket of clean laundry and was dragging it in, smart thing she was.
Wendy snatched the towel and used it to help stop the flow of Katou’s crimson life force, which seemed to be spilled quite often in her house. She focused on the wound on his chest, glancing at his eye, which looked like he was bleeding straight from the socket. “What the bloody hell do you even dream about and - “ He’d explained it, somewhat, but it seemed so bizarre (then again, like she had room to talk, what with flying, thinking happy thoughts, mermaids, and pirates and wild politically incorrect Injuns). “We need...Jack, oh god, we need to call the paramedics again?!”
Jack was a little ashen now, at the sight of Katou’s face. Unsightly, something worthy of a goddamn horror movie - but he snapped out of that holy shit what is this kind of trance quick. Nana was efficiently on the scene, thank their lucky clovers, and Wendy’s frantic question caused his gaze to snap to her.
“They just came--we’d have to stage something else,” he blurted, pinching the bridge of his nose as he thought. Fuck, fuck, think, quick! Sure, hospitals, breaking another window - or something else, the door? It’d look suspicious, what if people started asking questions? You couldn’t explain this to the paramedics, not without sounding like you’ve lost your shit, but--
Wait, wait. A light switched on inside his head. “I’m--Gale, his back, some healer magic person!” That’s right, wasn’t it? He gained the misfortune of flogging wounds bleeding (literally) into reality, but he’d been patched up. “Keep him stable, cover up the wounds, stop the bleeding - gotta make a few phone calls! Don’t call the cops!”
Rushing back to where he slept (a skip and a hop away, literally), Jack snatched his prepaid phone of shit up and made a call. It’d cause a chain of calls, likely - but if Gale picked up, and he went through his channels of acquiring this mysterious woman with magic fingers, then they should be solid.
Hopefully.
Wendy and Jack looked a little stress. Which was actually kind of understandable, given the fact that Katou was bleeding out in the living room. Still, having people worry over him didn’t sit well with him, so it was probably time to try to lighten to mood.
“My dreams, oh shit. I was so fucking cool,” he said, trying to keep his voice light, but probably just sounding like someone who was in a lot of pain. “Me dying is kinda a pain,” he chuckled, but his chuckle turned into a cough that ended with him spitting up some blood. Well fuck, that didn’t bode well. He went to wipe the blood off with the back of his hand, but probably just managed to smear it around his face. “But it was so cool. Like a fucking hero. Shoulda seen me, Wen.” He watched Jack on the phone, and attempted another weak chuckle, this one coming just from his throat and not his chest so that he hopefully wouldn’t cough up more blood. Things were starting to get a little blurry. “But if we could hurry this up, that’d be cool.” He wasn’t going to die. Jack and Wendy wouldn’t let it happen, and Katou was going to fight as hard as he could to cling to life.
“We always knew you were a hero, Katou, you just had to believe it yourself - “ Now Wendy sounded like a greeting card, probably, or someone from an after-school special, but it was her valiant way of keeping herself together. And keep Katou together, literally. She attempted to put the kibosh on him shifting too much, hand gently pressed to his shoulder to get him to lay back. “Try not to move, alright? Just keep talking and stay with us.” If he was still talking, he was still alive, so she’d take what she could get.
At this hour, Gale was at work. Late shift, the graveyard shift. All good times. He had his phone on him and he picked up, while swimming in paperwork involving shipping someone’s entire household - everything from a piano to a bicycle with all the bells and whistles. But whatever made families of deployed soldiers feel at home in the new base, he didn’t judge. Of course, the conversation became more important and it was a ‘give me one minute’ to Jack and he meant literally a minute. That was how long it took for him to make a call on his end (or really, that part took ten seconds).
The actual minute later was when Zatanna, cloth robe over her short nightgown, appeared in the living room, causing Wendy to shriek with surprise but she was there. Magic running through her veins like liquid, a connection forged in blood.
“You’ve all had a rough night, huh? Don’t tell me, I think I can guess who needs the help.” To the half-dead teenager, that was where she went.
Christ, he hadn’t been kidding about the ‘minute’ part, had he? He bid a desperate thank you - maybe an ‘I owe you a beer or five’ before shutting the phone and darting to the sound of Wendy’s scream, back to the room where Katou was bloodied up and Nana had been, in all seriousness, fulfilling her role as a nurse.
And where a woman stood, the resemblance to someone he knew familiar, and then it clicked.
“Raven’s aunt?” Jack assumed, up behind Wendy to give her a quick shoulder squeeze of something that was like comfort. “Thanks, for coming. Short notice and to….strangers, and all.” Okay, really, it needed to be said, because none of them knew her but here she was, like a damn magical hero.
Katou had started to space out - it was really hard to keep his concentration up - when Wendy screamed. That brought him back to reality pretty quickly. He snarled “The fuck are you?” as he went to lunge off his bed so he could… he didn’t really know. Bleed aggressively on her before collapsing at her feet? He didn’t get very far, for a number of reasons. First, because ow, second, because of Wendy’s hand still on his chest, and third, he could hear her say something about helping and other than Wendy’s surprised shriek, she didn’t look too concerned. And then Jack came back in and was thanking her. So, Katou laid back down, not taking his eye off the woman who had just appeared in the living room.
“Down, tiger,” Zatanna chuckled huskily, and she nodded in the affirmative to Jack’s question, a short show-woman’s bow accompanying the gesture. “Raven’s aunt, in the flesh. Don’t worry, healing’s what I signed up to do, so...” She was fine with being called in to do it. That was why she’d established the Guild in the first place, right? So people would have magic users to call in times like these?
Now that the kid wasn’t trying to drag his nearly-unconscious and blood-drained body on the wood floor to come after her, Zatanna settled near him and reached. Mentally, of course, to that otherworldly pool of resources, the connection that - for her - was laced with gold and brightly lit in her mind’s eye. To pull from that pool of resources was the use of magic and it might drain her a little, but overall she’d be right as rain.
“Mih laeh,” she spoke clearly while Wendy watched, fascinated, sort of clutching Jack’s arm for something to hold onto, as Zee’s hands hovered over Katou’s injuries - first his face, then traveling down to the gaping wound on his chest that could only have come from some type of blade (again). Nothing really glowed, though. Maybe a shimmer, a ripple of the air around them - but it was working, that was the good thing.
“She’s good,” Jack whispered to Wendy, curious eyes glued to whatever magic seemed to actually be working. He’d never seen magic done. Not personally. Heard of it, plenty of times - it seemed like a common occurrence, but witnessing it in the flesh? It was surreal, like he’d been reeled into a dream where it was entirely possible that someone could just teleport into the middle of the room, wiggle their fingers and help fix the bleeding wounds on Katou’s flesh.
Except that entire dreamlike sequence was actually happening, here. In the waking world. Christ.
“She healed a friend of mine,” he explained. “Uh, from flogging wounds.” So if she helped Gale, and Gale had a good feeling about her, so would he.
Katou wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but he could tell that something was happening. His wounds had begun to stop hurting, and when she was done healing his face and moved down to his chest, he reached up to touch it. It was still covered in blood, of course, but there wasn’t anything actually bleeding anymore.
When she was finished, he sat up, and patted his chest. No more hole, either. “Holy shit, that’s a handy trick,” he said, which was almost his way of thanking her. “Uh… this might be weird, but can I get your number or something? In case I die again?” Because, if he was realistic, he had had less dreams than he could count on two hands, and had already died twice. Assuming there was life after life after death, he was probably going to die again.
Zatanna's magic was rather old, it was ancient, gone back for generations to the very beginning of the Homo Magi, their initial creation. A powerful brand of magic, but it was very much dependent on her ability to speak. Her neck had been cut so many times in her dreams, her body even fucked up by an assassin to where she suffered a direct blow to her liver which incited a regurgitating reaction so she couldn't talk. But when she was able to help people with it, that all simply reminded her why she had it in the first place.
"Wow," Wendy sighed, hand going to her chest to calm her fluttering, anxious heartbeat. "That was good. I'm also glad we didn't have to smash the living room window again."
The magician's mouth tipped up in a half-smile. "Sure, you can have my number." Probably would be better that way, so no one had to play phone tag when (if) this happened again. A business card was procured, with all her contact info, and she tucked it into Jack's hand since the kid was bloody and Wendy looked awestruck. "You all call me if there's anything else, alright?"
"Of course, thank you." Miss Darling had calmed a bit by now. "I'll...you ought to get in the shower, Katou. Or soak in the tub." He could even use her bath bombs, she wouldn't judge!
Oh, so she had a business card for this kind of thing. Okay, yeah. That was cool. Really fucking handy though, all things considered, and he took it with a semi-numb nod because this was real life. “Will do,” he promised easily, in case a ‘next time’ did happen. It was way too damn possible around these parts.
Business card tucked, he gave Katou a good lookover and sighed, relieved. No more dying, fuck. “Echoing Wendy. Clean yourself up, we’ll take care of…”
Well, the crime scene that was his bed, for example. It’d need some freshening up in the form of just about new everything.
“Sure beats going to the hospital and healing the normal way,” Katou said to Zatanna. He would definitely be calling her again if he needed to.
A bath was definitely needed. Well, maybe a shower first, so he wasn’t bathing in a tub filled with his own blood. Katou had been homeless for five years, so walking around filthy wasn’t really something he minded too much. But the smell of blood was strong, and the feel of it’s stickiness kind of made his skin crawl, and some of it was already starting to dry and that was unpleasant. And he was coated in the stuff. But Katou had more pressing needs right now.
“I think I need to go out for a smoke first,” he said, and reached for his pack in his jacket. He put one of the smokes in his mouth. “Uh… Your neighbours aren’t gonna be up at this hour, are they?” Look at that, not only was Katou going to go outside for a smoke without being asked, but was also concerned about what Wendy’s neighbours might think seeing a blood-soaked teenager standing outside.
Baby steps indeed, those were all positive signs. And he wasn’t lighting up in the house while mouthing off to her or Jack, so Wendy would just count her blessings. As she began gathering the bloodied sheets (they’d have to burn these too, like they did with the last set), she shook her head, tawny waves a mess and falling in her face. “No, I don’t think anyone’s up at this hour,” she huffed a quiet laugh. “If you go out in the backyard, on the patio, you should be alright. I’ll leave clean towels in the bathroom for you.”
The smoking, she still didn’t like that but she had to pick and choose her battles - with Katou, she was more concerned with the drug use. And she couldn’t hide everyone’s cigarettes (oh, but she wanted to).
By then, Zatanna had gracefully taken her leave. A spoken chant of Kcab em gnirb and she was gone in a ripple and a shimmer. Wendy exhaled another relieved sigh, Nana whining a little and, to make sure Katou was really okay, she bumped him with her nose and gave him doggie kisses.
Jack was at that point of craving a cigarette, too. Especially after that. Never really a restful night of sleep around these parts, was there? “I’ll watch him,” he assured Wendy, the idea of Katou going out on his own not settling right with him. He’d give him space, of course, but if something happened he wanted to make sure he was there, in case.
“C’mon, man,” he hushed, giving him a hand out of bed. “Let’s get a little cancer in our lungs,” because smoking cigarettes sure as hell didn’t help their physical health, it was mostly just a mental thing, “to squeeze in some normalcy for the night, yeah?”
He didn’t think he’d sleep much after this. Which was fine - he’d take over breakfast for Wendy, let the working girl and the kid that almost died a second damn time around a little rest.
Zatanna disappearing was… weird. This place just kept getting weirder and weirder. It didn’t make any goddamn sense.
“I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” Katou said, though his words didn’t have the bite to them that they might have had a couple of days ago. The bed was… kind of a mess, and if Katou hadn’t almost died again, he’d almost feel bad for messing up Wendy’s stuff again. But hey, no one could blame him for the shit his dreams did, and he wasn’t about to do it himself.
“Delicious, delicious cancer. Gotta say, I definitely prefer this whole ‘killing myself slowly’ thing over the quicker deaths.”
'It's not babysitting, it's male bonding," Wendy insisted, the bloodied sheets in her arms - no sense in trying to salvage them, she'd just be putting them in a pile elsewhere to get rid of. Very thoroughly. Maybe Jack wouldn't mind burning these too. "Now go on, both of you. Shoo."
She'd fix up the bed, leave towels in the bathroom, all like any mother would. Then she'd go and have a nip or two or seven from the sherry as well. Also like any mother would. Goodness.