About a Dream [Fang]

[Hope Estheim]

lights will guide you home

and ignite your bones

TAG: Fang! Words: 680

ONE LAST THING: I was fairly happy with this.

With as bad as the situation with the chaos was going to become, Hope thought he deserved two instances of good news in one day, though the second wasn’t seeming certain quite yet.

Having left Vanille, after she’d awoken, to rest and gather her strength again, considering crystalstasis was about as relaxing as running a marathon for a body emerging from it, Hope had taken to the his phone again but not left the observation ward at the behest of the doctor. For the most part, he’d been sitting in the holding area on his computer, desperate to pull up every single proposal for emergency actions to keep things in control in spite of the chaos and sign off his approval. Interspersed within his work was the occasional peer up at the monitor that looked into the room where Fang would hopefully soon be waking. Hope wasn’t counting minutes – not that it would matter anymore, considering time had ceased to exist – but he imagined he’d been sitting and working for nearly forty-five minutes before the doctor at the monitors across the room started to stand from his seat. Hope peered at the man for a few seconds before quickly finishing up on the file on the screen before him. ”Is she waking?”, Hope then asked, receiving a slow nod in return. ”Cognitive activity has returned to a normal state. We’re administering the process to wake her now.”

Hope had been glad that he hadn’t been aware when the doctor had been bringing Vanille back to them. A nervous feeling hit Hope in the pit of the stomach while he stood, because he knew the process for waking anyone from crystalstasis was highly dangerous and could leave their bodily functions in a state of sleep though they were free from the crystal. It had worked for Vanille. Hope could only assume it would work for Fang, too…after all, he doubted Fang’s body would take no for an answer when it came to living on Gran Pulse again. Hiding a slight smile that he had at the thought, Hope wrung his hands slightly and glanced the monitor to see her before stepping up to the screen with figures and bars that made a decent amount of sense to him even if Hope wasn’t a medical doctor. He eyed a few digits, noticing they were all noticeably higher than Vanille’s. Yes, he’d called it…Fang’s body was working as hard as it possibly could to rouse her from sleep. The doctor voiced the same thought almost while Hope was thinking it, explaining that the process would move a little more quickly than Vanille’s and that Hope might see fit to be inside with Fang unless she had a violent reaction. ”Good idea,” Hope said, before punching the numbers to open the door and step inside. Of course, if Fang did have a violent reaction, Hope didn’t know what good he would be to stop her or even if he’d survive it. It had taken long enough for Vanille to recognize him…if Fang shot to life and considered herself trapped in the room or something similar, things could suddenly get dangerous even if she was his friend and he could – probably – talk her down and convince her that she was in a safe place.

Still...

Hope wouldn’t let any of his worries stop him from entering the room, though, and as he did so he stepped over to her on the table and looked over her for a few seconds as he heard some of the machines above her spring to life to begin the process of helping her along to waking. Seeing her without expression on her face for once in her life seemed…strange, but Hope ignored the slightly chilling nature of it to give her a light pat on the shoulder and move to stand at her feet, letting loose a worried puff of air as he tried not to fidget and let the machines do their simple work. If this went well…Hope thought he could survive the rest of this chaos-born disaster.

and i will try to fix you

TEMPLATE BY: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE MIKEY ! @ CAUTION.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 400px; background-color: #171818; padding:20px; border-top: 10px #171818 solid; border-bottom: 10px #171818 solid;] Like your face getting pushed to the floor {WORDS } 794 {TAGGED } Hope {WEARING} Her tribal! Along with the hum of machines came the rhythmic movements of a chest pumping up and down. An IV was attached to the arm of the patient, along with machines to stabilize and read vital signs. That simple motion brought the life sustaining oxygen to the lungs of the woman lying motionless on the table. Underneath the pale complexion and nearly ‘dead’ appearance was a strong will to live. A body that was fighting for the life it once knew. And yet she lay without showing such, her body in a comatose state while machines worked their hardest to bring her to life. For a long time those same machines had been working on bringing her out of her sleep like state and back to the world of the living. All for one small movement. The opening of eyes. When it did happen, green eyes fogged from the process of being woken stared blankly toward the ceiling. Along with the opening of eyes, a huge gasp came from the age old huntress to signal that life was once more fully spread through her body. The mind somehow didn’t connect with the body right off hand though. Without the memories and knowledge of what she had faced in her last time of being alive, the woman reacted purely on instinct. The humming of machines, bright lights, beeps of her vital signs and murmuring of people around her was enough to push the woman over the edge. The first thing Fang noticed was the odd tube that was inserted into her arm. A low snarl came from her lips while she quickly jerked the lines from within her. The pain that came from that was barely enough to pay attention to, but the sting drove her instincts further. Without knowing where she was or why she was there, Fang instantly jumped to conclusions that whatever this damned place was, it was only out to harm her. Unfortunately for Hope, the lights were blinding her. Along with that, cognitively she was dulled. “Vanille…”, she whispered out in desperation. What had happened to her friend?! Wildly she glanced around the room, but didn’t see her cheerful best friend. “Son of a bitch!”, she hissed out. Along with that the Pulsian whirled on the bed like structure she found herself on. Seeing the machine to the side doing all the loud beeping, Fang pounced on that. When it slammed to the ground – along with her, Fang quickly rolled back to her knees. With her hands wrapped around the smaller base, she lifted it while she was getting to her feet. With a grunt, Fang slammed the machines top portion into the wall connected to the bed where she had been lying. This damned machine had to be doing something terrible! What had they done with Vanille?! Where was she?! What was she doing her? Why was there machines everwhere? Blindly she went about destroying the machine that had just before shown how strong her body was. In her current state of impulsive fury, Fang had destroyed the vitals machine until pieces lay around her feet. The next object she turned her vision onto was the large light that hung down from the ceiling. Wielding the inner core (LOL) of the tall machine like her lance, Fang sprinted quickly toward the bed to destroy that piece as well. She would get out of this lighted prison if it killed her! {NOTES} Ooh Fang

table by CALIFORNIA DREAMING of CAUTION 2.0, lyrics by Chevelle

[Hope Estheim]

lights will guide you home

and ignite your bones

TAG: Fang! Words: 544

ONE LAST THING: He's screwed.

Fang’s eyes opened. There it was – the only sign of life Hope needed.

He was pretty sure he would have pumped his fist or made some other display to celebrate the massive victory of having both Pulsians back with them if he hadn’t been nervous as to Fang’s reaction to her surroundings. As more signs of life became apparent, Hope was starting to believe that Fang might have a calmer reaction to her awakening than he had initially anticipated. She seemed to be drawing herself back into a normal bodily state stage by stage and not all at once. Though Hope wanted to do something to let her know that he was there and everything was as normal, he knew that touching her or letting a voice enter her ear was probably the last thing he needed to do. Those feet would swing up and catch him in the jaw if he wasn’t careful. Hope sucked in a breath and continued to wait, only taking a moment to glance to the monitor at the side of the room to ensure Fang was still healthy and that everything was still working like a charm.

Then, the reaction he’d been waiting for.

Hope barely had time to unfold the arms resting on his chest before it seemed as if Fang had torn the entire room apart. Using good sense, Hope stepped back, though all of his instincts were telling him to step forward and attempt to stop her. She would tire out, he reminded himself, from coming out of slumber so quickly and from the light sedatives that had been pumping to her organs to ensure they didn’t speed ahead of the awakening process. ”Fang!”, he did choose to yell at her, hoping something would trigger her to look at him and suddenly realize that it was Hope standing before her. She seemed completely disinterested in anything but the destruction of the machines – machines Hope and the Academy desperately needed during this dangerous time. ”Fang, you need to stop!”, he called again, but to no avail. Fang seemed to only be conversing with herself and the younger Pulsian who was not in this room. If Vanille hadn’t needed to recover for a bit longer, he would have brought her with him. Perhaps he could have avoided this…

”Director Estheim, do I need to send in-“ Hope immediately started shaking his head at the doctor looking at him through the room’s dim window. ”It would only make things worse,” Hope replied, but he did know that some kind of force was needed to slow Fang down or she’d have this entire room torn asunder to a point where it couldn’t be repaired. It wasn’t as if she was going to listen to him trying to reason with her at the moment. Gathering himself as he saw her rush back towards her previous bed with one of the other machines hoisted like a weapon, Hope moved to an angle behind her and ran at her, diving to try and catch her around the legs and at least trip her up. He didn’t know what horrors she was going to do if he did bring her down, but at least he could put the rampage to an end momentarily.

and i will try to fix you

TEMPLATE BY: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE MIKEY ! @ CAUTION.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 400px; background-color: #171818; padding:20px; border-top: 10px #171818 solid; border-bottom: 10px #171818 solid;] Like your face getting pushed to the floor {WORDS } 726 {TAGGED } Hope! {WEARING} Normal clothes While she was so hell-bent on destroying some of the machines, Fang wasn’t paying attention to anything else around her. While she was alive and breathing, she was nowhere near the level of functioning that she normally was. Physically she was nearer than anything else. Cognitively she was having an extremely hard time focusing. Even now her eyes were fuzzy and seemed to swim with the images of the surrounding room. The machines had blurred and multiplied, until there was more than one of the same thing. Unfortunately, in her dulled senses, all she could focus on was the fact that there was even more light to blind her, and even more monstrosities that she needed to destroy. Despite that, she felt like someone was calling for her. Twice it sounded like such, enough to make her pull up slightly in her destructive actions. Instead of finding the voice though, Fang dismissed it as her mind playing tricks on her and went right back to destroying the large machine that had dared to beep at her. After she’d successfully destroyed that piece, her foggy vision was turned toward the lights that were shining down at her. In her own reality, if she cut out the lights, the enemy – whoever the hell actually was her enemy – wouldn’t be able to see her actions. All that remained after that was getting the hell out of her little prison here and getting away from wherever she actually was. And so Fang propelled herself toward the bed she’d been lying on when she had come to and started to scramble up onto it. Right when she’d righted herself and had lifted her substitute weapon to crush the lights, something slammed into her legs. With a grunt, Fang was thrown off balance and pitched into the wall directly in front of her, the whole right side of her body connecting into it. “Son of a bitch!”, she bit out once more while she attempted to right herself with a hand flat against the wall. “Get the hell offa' me!” Shoving herself back and standing up once more, Fang whirled around with a raised foot and kicked at her attacker, successfully connecting with his chest and hurling him back. While he went backwards, Fang picked up her weapon – which had dropped and rolled to the side, and turned toward whoever had had the gumption of attacking her – a Pulsian huntress. Blinking to focus on her target, Fang launched herself off the bed and elegantly landed near the attacker, a hand reached up to fit around his throat in order to keep him there while her hand poised back to slam her weapon into his body. Yet when her eyes registered on the face of the attacker, the arm that had been swinging down instantly stilled. That face…she knew that face… “Hope?” The hand that was holding him down slackened slightly, though her weapon remained poised there in the half arc. {NOTES} Oh dear XD

table by CALIFORNIA DREAMING of CAUTION 2.0, lyrics by Chevelle

[Hope Estheim]

lights will guide you home

and ignite your bones

TAG: Fang! Words: 505

ONE LAST THING: I hate my length. u.u

Well, the tackle worked in theory. Hope managed to keep himself from crashing too roughly into the floor and losing his grip by turning his shoulder down and clinging to his Pulsian friend at one knee. Things looked fine for the moment, but there wasn’t much he could do, having only one leg, to keep Fang from standing. Naturally, he didn’t think, with him on the ground and her standing above him, that he would remain in a position to restrain her for very long, even before he saw the foot come up and realized he wasn’t going to be able to do anything to stop it from crashing against his chest.

Grunting from the impact, he rolled with the blow and ended up on his back all too close to the frenzied woman, gathering his appendages underneath him and pushing to a knee. ”Fang! Please stop!”, he tried once more, but to no avail. Instead, she took to her makeshift weapon again, leading Hope to lean back as far as he could to avoid having it bash into his face before he had another chance to slow or stop Fang. He wasn’t completely out of ideas just yet.

Unfortunately, ideas against the metal “lance” that Fang was rushing him with wouldn’t do him much good. Hope brought his hands up to defend himself as she landed within range of a strike, trying to find a foot to pull out from under her with one hand while sweeping at the arm that made a reach for his neck. He did manage to grab her around the ankle and yank, but the other means of defense failed completely. Okay, so getting her hand off of his neck. His best idea? Taking up both hands to try and pull her free. As much as Hope had grown over the years, though, he was still no menacing combination of huntress, dragoon, and l’Cie. He could only really pry loose her fingers, desperately looking up and meeting her eyes to give her a chance to realize who he was. Fortunately, she hadn’t cut off his breath, giving him a chance to speak up once more. ”We’re supposed to look out for each other.”

Finally, realization.

With the loosening of her hand, Hope let his own arms drop beside him and tentatively looked up at the raven-haired woman, responding to her statement of his name. ”It’s me, Fang,” he told her, patting her slightly on the extended arm. His words came out paced and slowly, as he tried to inch up to a seated position and encourage her to put down her weapon. ”I was the one trying to wake you up. Vanille’s fine. She came out of crystalstasis too, and she’s recovering in another room.” He leaned fully forward finally, still looking her in the face. He only knew of one singular bit of information that might calm her more than telling her that Vanille was okay. ”It’s been four hundred years, but…you’re home, Fang. You’re on Gran Pulse.”

and i will try to fix you

TEMPLATE BY: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE MIKEY ! @ CAUTION.

[Oerba Yun Fang]

[atrb=border,0,true][atrb=style, width: 400px; background-color: #171818; padding:20px; border-top: 10px #171818 solid; border-bottom: 10px #171818 solid;] Like your face getting pushed to the floor {WORDS } 631 {TAGGED } Hope {WEARING} Tribal Though she heard the words being shouted, Fang made no effort to understand the words or let them sink in either. As far as she was concerned, whoever was yelling at her was obviously out to get her, and the fact that they knew her name just fueled her on faster. What kind of a sick operation was this anyway? Instead, she readied herself and finally launched at him, weapon upturned to bash him in the head with it. That would silence the little devil anyway. It took hardly any time at all for her to reach the man that had been deposited on the floor by her kick. Effortlessly it would seem, she curled her fingers around his neck to anchor him to the floor. His attempt to get her hand loose got her mad all over again, and so she put more pressure on his neck and growled low in the back of her throat. It was only when she looked directly into his face that the pressure once again slackened on his throat, allowing him the oxygen he would have needed to talk to her. Hope? His voice only confirmed it. Hot damn, it was Hope! Chuckling slightly, Fang patted his cheek somewhat hard and sat back on her heels, still holding her makeshift weapon in her hands and twirling it around a bit. “Well...” Looking at Hope, Fang didn’t quite know what to say. “Ya hit puberty foinally!”, was the first thing to come to mind and the first thing out of her mouth. With a bit of a smirk, Fang slapped him on the shoulder affectionately. He certainly had. Damn if he wasn’t a man now. Hard to think of him as a man. Damned hard to do that. Actually, she looked at his face and could only seem to see that fourteen year old boy she’d known so long ago. “Were we out fer tha’ long? Or did ya’ take drugs? ‘Cause I woulda thought you were too smart to be takin’ drugs.” At the mention of Vanille, Fang once more got her intense look back on her face. Quickly leaning forward on one knee, she gripped his forearm with her hand in a deadly grip. “Vanille! She’s-…oh damn, that’s good.”, she muttered out in relief. Fang had long ago told Vanille that she would keep her safe, and if she’d failed her now, she would have damned herself. “Hard job, keepin’ an eye on tha’ one.”, she mentioned with a bit of a laugh, before releasing his arm once more. But that didn’t answer where the hell they we- “Four…hundred…” Leaning back once more on her heels, Fang attempted to digest the information he had just given her. Another four hundred years had gone past? “How the hell are ya’ aloive?”, she finally questioned. “’Cause ya’ sure don’ look loike yer four hundred years old, ya know?” {NOTES} TCH, YOU HAVE THE BEST LENGTH EVEH

table by CALIFORNIA DREAMING of CAUTION 2.0, lyrics by Chevelle

[Hope Estheim]

lights will guide you home

and ignite your bones

TAG: Fang! Words: 624

ONE LAST THING: Nothing at all to say.

Knowing nothing to do but brace slightly against the strong pats rapping against his cheek that thankfully were done with Fang’s hand instead of the makeshift lance, Hope thought he might have truly gotten fully through to her. When she spoke, he knew he had. Despite the tension of the situation, he couldn’t help but redden a little and let a sheepish smile cross his face as he finally let his gaze fall from her face long enough for him to scratch at the base of his neck a bit. Of course, only Fang would have to bring up puberty at a time like this, after she’d basically just attempted to kill him, wouldn’t she?

Hope let the redness subside, though, in favor of actually answering her next question, though his answer still came out tentatively to match the situation that that Pulsian was creating…and to discourage her strange talk about him taking drugs. ”You were out for that long.” And longer, Hope mentally added to himself, but he was going to try to ease her into the revelation that she’d been gone for four hundred years, and sprinkle in some words of familiarity to her as he went along so she wouldn’t either go into another small rage at him or have some sort of other strange reaction to awakening from crystalstasis. Just because Vanille had handled awakening so well wouldn’t mean that Fang would, too, because they were certainly not the same people.

Mentioning Vanille was one of the ways Hope tried to soothe Fang, but as she leaned forward and took ahold of him again, he was led to awkwardly shift his own arm to retaliate against hers for a second to make sure nothing happened to rouse her to activity as it had only a minute or two before. She seemed to be okay, though, only reacting anxiously to the name when he mentioned it before she processed that he’d expressed that Vanille was alright, a fact that Hope, too, was utterly thrilled about and couldn’t help but bring a twinge of a smile to his face. After all this time, he finally had her, and Fang, both back, alive, and able to…just talk with them again. Hope couldn’t express how much he’d needed both of them to talk to throughout the years. Throughout four hundred years, if he were in Fang’s situation.

He broke the news to her, watching quietly as she processed it and wondering if he shouldn’t do something to comfort her about it. Hope didn’t know if there was ever any way or any need to comfort Fang in the slightest, though, so he remained perched in place and only watched her nervously. He felt a little better about how she was taking it, though, once she directed her forceful question at him. Hope shrugged a little, glad he had an answer for her that had nothing to do with fal’Cie, magic, or anything of the sort. ”I built a time machine,” Hope informed her matter-of-factly, as if people built time machines every day of the week. ”Back…in the time when you and Vanille saved Cocoon, we found out that forces were going to bring the pillar down eventually. We learned that, because of it falling, Gran Pulse would eventually die off. To stop that from happening, I…found the tools I needed for a time machine, and we traveled here. Sazh saved you and Vanille right before Cocoon fell.” Hope didn’t think it wise to mention the chaos or any of the other horrible events taking place right at the moment. That Cocoon fell would be information enough for Fang to handle for the time being.

”I’m sorry, Fang…I know that’s a lot to take in.”

and i will try to fix you

TEMPLATE BY: THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE MIKEY ! @ CAUTION.