L'ecole d'Idiots

Okami sighed, finally getting his lungs under control, at the least. He missed the contact Leah had given. Those soothing circles Damon had given him after a particularly hard day of... training. Comforting gestures he would give Devan after the younger had gone without food again. It was nice, easy to relax to.

He wish she hadn't stopped.

~ = ~

Justin looked at the clock as well and scowled. "Wow. Two hours." He sighed.

"... Did you ever meet up with Lady Co-, I mean, Lucy?"

(baaaaw XD )

Leah glanced over at the hole in the wall. It would take some serious replastering to fix up. Most of the wall had been taken out, leaving the room exposed to the outside of the school. It let in a nice breeze at least. But it would really suck in bad weather. Especially in the rain. Or hail. Or snow. Or heat. Pretty much anything other than the cool breeze that they were blessed with at the moment.
"Nice weather, eh?"
A pitiful attempt at relieving the awkward tension that was building up at least for her.

~~~

"The higher ups usually only show up when they either A. have something really important going on or B. want to mess around with us out of utter and complete boredom. Lucy's the one I've seen the most, actually. She has this creepy fascination with freaking me out..."

(well you probably would. -shot-)

Okami groaned.

"I'll figure a way out to fix it..."

~ = ~

Justin nodded. "Yeah, she's sadistic as hell. She likes a tortured soul."

(I totally would. Seriously.)

"Eh we can always put some blankets over the hole until we get someone to take care of it. Don't worry bout it, I'll take care of it. So...does this always happen when you wake up?"
A bit of color was returning to his face. He looked like he was getting a bit better.

~~~

"Yeah, I got that impression from her...and she was so cheerful about it too."
James rolled onto his back, sighing quietly.

Okami finally sat up, spine cracking painfully.

"Depends on the night, really..."

~ = ~

'She usually is."

Justin shrugged.

'She was cheery about everything, really, no matter what. Cept when someone died..." He frowned. "And that happened, like, a lot, so that really doesn't make sense either."

Leah's forehead creased in worry.
"That doesn't sound very good. Have you tried seeing a doctor about it? Or...you know a counselor?"
She wasn't going to go any closer to hinting at the nightmare scene that she had saved him from at the beginning of the night. Talk about trauma.

~~~

"...How do you know her?"

"Please." Okami snorted, rolling his eyes. "Shrinks only sit in those seats and lie, saying that they know how I feel and that they care. But they don't. It's impossible to care about every single person! They just lie to make me spill my guts to them."

He scowled.

"I hate counselors. And doctors are the same, just different."

Yes, he knows he just contradicted himself there.

"The stare at you with those cold eyes, making up what they think happened and then lord it over you like they know everything and that it's your fault. As if!"

~ = ~

Justin bit his lip.

"It's... it's kinda complicated. And a long story." He sat up and stretched. "Really long."

Leah giggled.
"My aunt is a counselor. She has to deal with suicidal and depressed people on a daily basis. Guess you have to be pretty weird to handle a crappy job like that."
She sighed and leaned against the wall, eyes half lidded. Leah was used to getting more sleep than this.

~~~

"Well we've got nothing but time. Unless you'd rather not. I know. Giving long narratives is annoying as hell. "

James hadn't realized how nice it was to have the luxury to just lie around and talk to someone. maybe he shouldn't have spent so much of his life trying to avoid people.

Okami cringed. "Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to be slamming your auntie that whole time there." He rolled his shoulders, relaxing as they popped. "Never had an aunt..."

~ = ~

Justin shrugged.

"Well, if you don't mind listening..."

"Nah it's fine, not like you knew I have an aunt who's a shrink. Aunts are fun, mine always gave me candy to get back at my mom for always stealing her candy as a kid. Uncles are fun too. I bet you'd like my relatives, they're really nice."

Wait. He had said he'd never had an aunt. And that his mom was crazy. That she was why his eye was like that. Maybe it was a really terrible idea to talk about family with him...God she was stupid.

"Erm-you never told me what your favorite animal is! Or did I already ask that? ...I don't remember..."

~~~

"I don't mind at all. I'm all ears." He was actually dying to know how Justin could be associated with a higher up and not even be a Lucid.

Okami grinned.

"Such a subtle change. You can talk about your family all you want. It won't bother me." He smiled gently at her. "it's kinda nice to know that there's just an inkling of sanity left in the world."

~ = ~

Justin huffed, letting his hands fall heavily to his legs, smacking his knees and resting them there.

"Well... I'm gonna die for her."

He paused, realizing how intimate that sounded.

"Not like that, or anything, just, she needs me to take care of this bad guy and I have to die to do it. Like, there's a lot more to it, but... Yeah."

He frowned.

"I probably sound crazy right now... I just think I need to tell someone this so I won't go completely batty, ya know?"

"Hey I try!"
She smiled back, leaning her head on his shoulder. He looked better now. There was more color in his face and he didn't look like he was about to pass out quite as much as before. And his shoulder was definitely more comfy than a hard wall.

~~~

"...That's kind of screwed up. Can't she take care of it herself? I mean, if Lucy can't deal with this person, then I kind of doubt that many others could handle it either. Sounds a bit selfish of her to dump that kind of burden on some random kid."

"You try to hard then." Okami replied with a quiet chuckle, resting his head gently on Leah's.

~ = ~

Justin shook his head. "She has to abide by these rules. Keep it fair. And she has the Council on her ass 24/7, always telling her what to do and all that. So she just pops in every now and then to help me out when I really need it.

It doesn't really bother me. My brothers..." His face became distant. "Well, they're dead now... I'm not against dying anymore, really."

Leah bit back a hysterical giggle as she imagined their heads banging together. That would hurt...A lot actually. But still. Kinda funny. If not mood killing.

~~~

"You gotta have something to live for, to make it all worth it. Even if it's something stupid, like a girlfriend who'd chuck you away without a second thought to keep her social status in check. Don't you have anything like that?"

James couldn't imagine fighting Nightmares without Rowan by his side. He wouldn't see any point in fighting back at all, really.

"So, we have school tomorrow."

~ = ~

Justin thought for a moment on how to say this.

"Well... I had brothers. One died, then one killed himself after the other died. Had a girlfriend. She killed my third brother, younger one, Jamie." That still hurt. "Then she tried to kill me and said it was for my own good."

He nodded slowly.

"Sound good?"

Leah blinked slowly, processing this scrap of information that she hadn't considered before.
"...I never got a schedule."

~~~

"...Dude. How are you able to even function? And what about parents? I mean...jeez."

He didn't really know what to say.

Okami pursed his lips.

"Meeeee neither."

~ = ~

"Dead. Dad died while I lived in the hospital, Mom got her throat torn out the day I got out."

Justin shrugged.

"Starts feeling numb after a while. No biggy."

She unconsciously snuggled a little closer to him, yawning.
"Well I guess we'll have a busy day tomorrow, running around trying to find classes."
She really didn't mind that idea, if Okami would be there too.

~~~

Camden frowned.
"You know it's not okay when you can't feel anything anymore. That's really bad."
He sighed then. It was hypocritical of him to offer advice when his own personal life was such a mess, when he struggled to find any sliver of happiness in his day.
"Whatever, I don't have the right to tell you what you should or shouldn't feel. That's way overstepping."
James seriously considered grabbing his iPod right then and there to blast his ears out until he could forget he had blurted any of that out.

"I'm sure we'll be fine."

~ = ~

Justin shrugged again.

"Oh well. I'm sure I'll find something good in my life eventually..."

Should he say this? James was quickly becoming a close friend, which was unusual for Justin to allow. But he knew so much already... Still, this was about someone who might actually be their enemy. But it was also...

"Actually, I think I know who that person is..."

Leah smiled, completely at ease leaning against a boy she had met not even a day ago.
"As long as we don't have to deal with any more explosions, that is most likely the case."
She could feel her eyes growing heavy just from the luxury of leaning against a warm body.
"Meh keep me awaaaake I don't want to deal with the Nightmares right nowww," she grumbled, hardly able to keep her eyes open.
"They're so incompetent. And they won't even listen to me half the time. They still treat me like a stupid child."
She didn't even realize the words were slipping out, they just came. She didn't even care at this point. Okami'd probably just think it was delirious blathering from a sleep deprived teenged girl. He had no reason not to trust her.
“Their laughter is so creeepyyyy.”

~~~

Camden raised an eyebrow. He really hoped Justin wasn't about to get weird on him. Last thing he needed was some depressed kid with a hopeless crush on him while he had to deal with Rowan and all of her drama.
"Oh?"

Okami frowned, listening to her ramblings. "Nightmares?"

~ = ~

Justin continued.

"That guy back there... He seemed so familiar, so... yeah, I felt like I knew him."

She blinked drowsily.
"Mmmm...Well sometimes I get nightmares where there's these creepy monsters that do weird things to me and boss me around. Sometimes they hurt me...and sometimes...Anyway, I usually can get rid of the nightmares most nights and end up back in the Night Realm where I took you before. That is, if you even remember last night."
Leah yawned and stretched like a cat, arching her back with closed eyes before settling back up to Okami. It was hard to resist the temptation to purr.

~~~

Camden gave a barely audible sigh of relief. Thank God.
"Huh...Well we should definitely keep an eye out for him and that girl today. Maybe we should try acting friendly, so they're caught more off-guard rather than us having to literally chase them down and force answers out of them."
He glanced through the curtains of the window next to his bed. The sun was finally making its slow ascent into the sky.

"Oh... I remember."

And something told him the Nightmares were the badguys.

~ = ~

"Yeah..." Justin trailed off, watching the sun rise slowly as well.

"And what if they recognize us?"

A tickle in the back of her throat caught her off guard.
Shit not now. Please not now.
A hard, racking cough got her doubled over, fighting for air. She gave a pathetic moan as the coughing worsened. Black spots appeared around the edges of her vision as she fought a wave of nausea from the sheer force of coughing so hard. Tears streamed down her face. She dully noticed falling off the bed and onto hard wood floor.

~~~

"They shouldn't recognize me, since I pretty much have a completely different identity when I'm Lucid. You they'll probably recognize. I don't know, I get the feeling that guy was pretty confused when he saw you. Maybe you should try approaching him even if he will recognize you. I'll try finding the girl."

Okami got up quickly, ignoring this huge sense of deja vu as he knelt beside her, at a loss of what to do. He settled with rubbing slow circles on the small of her back, pulling her into his arms and singing to her gently some weird lullaby his mom had taught him. In Italian. Cause that was his first lanuage.

"Ninna nanna, ninna oh,
Questo figlio a chi lo do?

Se lo do alla Befana
se lo tiene una settimana.
Se lo do al lupo nero
se lo tiene un anno intero.
Non lo do a nessuno
e lo tengo sempre piu’ ."

... Yep, he was pretty sure he got that right.

~ = ~

"The guy seemed kinda scared of me, though." He bit his lip. "You sure he wouldn't run or something?"