Yvette, Laurie, Thursday wee small hours

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

In the wake of Yvette's memory breakthrough, Laurie is awoken by her suitemate having a nightmare.



Laurie woke up from a sound sleep, eyes staring blindly at her ceiling as she tried to figure out what the problem was. She'd never been a light sleeper, so it would take an event to wake her up. It was only a moment later that she heard the soft crying coming from the other bed.

"Yvette? You okay?" Laurie called out, worried.
She slipped out of her bed and padded over to Yvette's side of the room, stopping only to swear as she accidentally kicked her toes on a low lying table, she made it the rest of the way at a slight limp.

There was a slight gasp at the thump and the swearword, the small shape in the bed cowering into itself even more. Closing her eyes didn't help - when she did, all she could see were the men from her dream, the ones who had taken her, stuffed her in a metal-lined crate, sealed the lid... Clutching Piglet to her, Yvette tried hard to stop the whimpering, to make it hard for the bad men to find her, only she couldn't be quiet, couldn't stop the shaking...

Yvette hadn't answered her, and Laurie was really beginning to worry now. What if something had happened to her? It was as she touched the lamp beside Yvette's bed that she heard the whimpering.

Soft light illuminated the curled up figure cowering in the bed and Laurie reached out for Yvette's shoulder, gasping and pulling her hand back as Yvette's hair sliced her fingers.

It was obvious that something had scared the other girl, her skin hadn't been that hard in awhile , and on top of that she seemed to not be hearing Laurie at all. It really wasn't that difficult a decision in the end, not when a friend needed you.

Laurie slid onto the bed beside Yvette and clutched the smaller girl's shoulders, turning her so Laurie could hold her in a hug. She'd worry about the damage it was doing to her own body in a little bit, after she'd gotten Yvette calmed down. Still, it didn't stop her wincing in pain at the cuts on her hands and arms. Amelia was going to have a field day about this one.

' Woods, and oceans and mint chocolate chip ice cream on a super hot day, eaten by a pool while hanging out with friends.' Laurie thought, fixing the images in her head.

It'd do neither of them any good if Laurie's own power made Yvette's reactions worse.
"Yvette, kiddo, please, it's Laurie. Are you alright?" Laurie asked again, trying to make sense of what might have happened.

Yvette had flinched at the first touch, still seeing those gloved hands reaching for her. But gradually her racing heartbeat slowed down and the shivering eased, and she instinctively leaned into the touch, forgetting her own power. "~Mama, I had a bad dream,~" she whimpered in Albanian.

Laurie hadn't understood a word of what Yvette just said, but she moved her head to the side, trying to avoid the razor sharp blades of Yvette's hair. It wouldn't do to get her face cut up by a random movement. She was feeling calmer now, more in control of the situation. Yvette had talked, which meant that the other girl had at least heard her, even if she hadn't responded in English. What could be the problem?

"It's alright, Yvette. It's gonna be alright. But I need you to tell me what's wrong. Please?" Laurie whispered, keeping her voice low and as soothing as she could.

English. When did her mother speak English? With a hiccup, her breathing starting to even out under the influence of Laurie's power, Yvette choked out. "D-dream. B-bad d-dream. There are being bad men..."

A bad dream...of course. Laurie hugged the younger girl closer, starting to rock her gently at her breathing evened out. "You're safe, Yvette. No bad men here. It was a dream, just a dream, and no one here would ever let anyone hurt you."

Another hiccup, and a sniffle. Yvette raised her arm to wipe her nose on her sleeve, the light cotton nightshirt she wore over Forge's leotard tearing easily against the sharp edge of her nose. "Oh." Then she registered the arms around her, and looked up at Laurie. "Oh!" The thought that she might have hurt the older girl inadvertently...

Laurie smiled, trying to show Yvette that she was fine, and noting that she was going to need some new pyjamas after this. She seemed to have contained most of the damage to a few deeper cuts where Yvette's hair had touched her arms and some scrapes where her flannel pyjamas had given up the ghost. It had helped that Yvette hadn't struggled, otherwise it might have been more serious. She'd definitely go see Amelia once she'd made sure Yvette was okay though.

"Don't worry, I'm fine." Laurie said, wrinkling her nose at the sharp stinging sensation of the cuts. "Although, you get to go shopping with me for new pyjamas later though. I'm thinking something with Snoopy on it. Or Piglet. Piglet is cool."

At the mention of the name, Yvette nodded, hugging the toy Kyle had given her even closer to her chest, trying to avoid touching Laurie any more. The cuts weren't bad, but the sight of blood, even a small amount, stirred already unsettled memories. And strangely enough, Yvette didn't like hurting people. "P-piglet is being cool, yes," she stuttered, glad of Laurie's power making things easier to deal with. Her face had stiffened again, but she knew it would reverse in a day or two now. "T-thank you, Laurie, for being helping me. I am being sorry I am waking you. I am... I am being remembering. When before I was being at the school."

"No need to be sorry. Bad dreams aren't something you can control." Laurie replied, moving to the side a little to give Yvette some room. "How about we go get some warm milk from the kitchen? I find that always helps me get over bad dreams."

Yvette would talk about her dream when she was ready, Laurie knew. But only if she was ready, and Laurie certainly wasn't going to push her to talk about it.

"After we are seeing the doctor, for you," Yvette said. She looked up at Laurie with intensely glowing eyes. "Then we are getting the milk, yes?"

Laurie looked down at the tattered remains of her pyjamas and only then noticed the blood on her upper arms. Wow, she'd not realised that you could get that much blood from such small wounds, it must have really been freaking Yvette out. "Gah, you're right. Doctor, and then warm milk. Since it's late, we're probably better off finding Amelia, rather then Jean. I don't think Amelia needs to sleep, so we shouldn't be waking her up." Laurie replied, babbling slightly as she headed for their common room and the door to the hallway. "I wonder if she's got Scooby Doo bandaids, I was always partial to those when I was a kid."

Yvette, still clutching Piglet as a kind of a talisman against Bad Things, trotted alongside Laurie. The Laurie-babble was comforting in that it was familiar, settling the disturbing fragments of memories that were still drifting through her head. Carefully, mindful of the existing cuts, she reached out and took Laurie's hand in her own gloved one.

It felt safer, that way.