tampered | Log; Ongoing

Log; Ongoing

When; Wed. March 28th, evening
Rating; Unknown
Characters; Nemu {

not_avampire}
Summary; Cal comes over to provide a little comfort for a worrying creation.
Log;

A fish tank gurgled quietly in the corner of the room.

There was no other noise, not even the sound of breathing, that so quiet it was inaudible. Nemu sat on the edge of a chair in the living room, eyes open, but blank, staring not at anything in particular, merely lost in thought. Her hands lay were they often did, folded in front of her, but her knuckles were white, gripping fiercely onto nothing.

She did not often feel fear. Nor worry. But this City... she had long since tried to stop herself from trying to understand it, because it was, for all she was able to tell, impossible to understand. And her emotions... were impossible to have at home, but possible here. And she was worried. She was scared. Not for her own life, but for the lives of others, of people precious to her.

The fish tank bubbled.

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Bad things, as Cal had come to learn in life, had a habit of happening to good people. Now, some would argue that this was what made good people so essentially good, their personal struggle. Others would argue that it only seemed bad things happened to good people more often, because you notice things you dislike more often then otherwise. And others (Like Alana Ray or Lace or The Shrink, maybe) would argue that the nature of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ is debatable at best.

Cal thought all of this was bullshit.

Debating the philosophy of the problem, he reasoned, didn’t solve the problem. Action and research where best. The worked. Fixed things. Or at least stopped the problem from goddamn spreading.

So, when Cal climbed onto his roof that night, he didn’t try to reason why something ill had befallen Nemu. He didn’t try to understand the meaning of her pain, or why it had befallen her. Simply, Cal concentrated on the fact that Nemu was sad, he couldn’t fix it, but he could help.

And so he was going to so as best he could in that arena.

Running over rooftops and jumping over fences came with ease and precision to him, his enhanced senses allowed him inhuman balance and strength. Combine this with all of the ‘Physical Hacking’ he’d done in Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Bangladesh, Chicago, Los Angeles and Kyushu, and Cal was at Nemu’s door in very little time at all.

Before knocking on Nemu’s door, he did what had become custom to him in the past months and years. Check for cuts and bruises. (None) Check for leaks of any body fluid. (None, the exception being his perspiration, but that couldn’t pass the Parasite. Unless you liked injecting sweat into your veins. Lots and lots of sweat. For days. And days.) Check libido. (Controlled) Check materials. (He had some pills, a syringe, and a few books his mother had read to him as a child. Now wasn’t really the time for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he reasoned) Good. Everything in order. He couldn’t, through any way he could see, pass the parasite.

Cal Thompson knocked on the apartment door.

It was a welcome noise. Slowly, deliberately, (Nemu did all things in that fashion if she had the luxury of not being forced into quick action and reaction), her gaze focused, pulled back from the void she had been staring into, and glanced at the door.

She rose, by habit tugging down the hem of her skirt to adjust after sitting, and walked to the door, it was dark in the apartment, no lights because she had not bothered to turn them on, and the glow of the City's light of night through open windows was suffecient illumination for her activites, which had consisted of all day sitting. And thinking. Planning, plotting, trying to make her brain do what it had always done. Come up with answers. But none had come.

The door was opened, and she stood in the doorway for a moment as if her whole body sagged with relief, though it did not move. Perhaps it was only the expression of her eyes, her face, as usual, somewhat blank.

"Cal, thank you for coming." She murmured, stepping aside to clear the entrance.

Cal smiled. He wasn’t sure why. He sure as hell wasn't happy to see him like this.

“Hey, no problem,” He walked inside, “It’s time well spent, and all,”

Cal did not notice the darkness of the apartment, as he steped in. In truth, his apartment was often darker than hers was now. Light was not needed for the eyes of a peep to see; if cave darkness was nothing for a half-peep like Lace, shadowed rooms and dead light bulbs where nothing to a full blown, practiced carrier like Cal.

He turned to face her. Eye contact was good.

“So... you wanna talk, or...?” He made a friendly, calm face. It implied, he hoped (because try as he might to master most faucets of body language, he spent too much time inside to truly complete his knowledge of the subject. Anyway, he relied on smell of pheromone and sweat gland to guess the emotion of who he was speaking to, why would he know well of the art), that she was important. That her need was paramount, for right now, at least.

"... Sit, please." She gestured to the two chairs and couch of her living room, meeting his gaze quietely with dark eyes nearly unreadable, falling back, as she was prone to in frustrating situations, to hooded emotions and blank expression. And there was hardly anything there now, just... confusion. Frustration. Helplessness.

Her legs carried her back to the seats, sitting straight-backed and prim on the edge of a sofa cushion, black braid settling heavy against her shoulders. Her mouth opened as if to speak, thought better of something, and shut again. Cal was... a friend. A confidante. Someone she trusted, and still, it was so hard for her to admit.

"... I can't think of what to do." The creation finally admitted, the words damning to her own ears, the weakness of not knowing what to do, of not being able to solve a problem.

Cal sat. Abruptness was... nothing new. And not just in Nemu, Cal had known many abrupt people in his time. He still did.

“Ah...” He sighed, settling what he had brought down underneath his chair, “Well, neither… neither can I. There... isn’t a clear, completely winning situation that I can think of... ” Not that he was some master tactician or something. He just played a lot of chess. The computer had a program where you could do that, play against some Deep Thought program in cyberspace. And Cal did just that, in his downtime.

There was a lot of downtime.

“Sorry,” he added, after a moment’s thought, “That can’t be to comforting.”

He tried to smile. Tried to do something. Anything ...Damnit! It was like Lace all over again. Although it wasn’t his fault this time, it was still an unfair situation he couldn’t fix.

And again, the situation severely deserved fixing.

"Your precense is comforting, I should not ask for much more." Nemu was quick to reassure, to assuage. She was used to people being uncomfortable in her company, (most of the shinigami in the Gotei 13 found her blank expressions and overly servile demeanor 'creepy'.) But she was not used to people being uncomfortable because she was expressing emotion.

"... I simply..." She was more thinking aloud, hands folded tightly again her lap, knees pressed together firm. "... Do not like feeling helpless, I suppose. I am used to it, but here... it is different. I can do more, and yet I am still unable to."

Cal sighed, and dipped his head.

“Yeah... that’s… that’s life,” As detrimental to the situation as the statement may have been, Cal figured it was better than lying, “it’s full of... helplessness. We can’t always do what we want, what we need, stuff like that,” And briefly, for a moment, Cal was talking about himself. But he blocked it out, swallowed it, hid it under a rock. Nemu was important here, Nemu. Not him and his sad little life, “And... there’ll always be pitfalls and stuff like this.” He sighed.

“Actually, I think this is more than a pitfall,” He chuckled, but continued on almost hurriedly, “But... on the bright side...” And Cal paused while he searched the crevices of his parasitic brain for a bright side that didn’t involve Hot Fuss, “At least you care.”

Was that even a bright side? Damn, Cal thought to himself, I suck at this!

“I mean... there’re a lotta careless people here. You’re not one of them. That’s... that’s good,”

And then Cal shut up and silently contemplated the consequences of talking too much, possibly without point. Well... he hoped he got points for effort. He could cash them in for prizes at the end.

"I'm not supposed to." Her head cocked to the side a bit, listening. The statement was made without pathos or any other emotion. Just... a statement. And she wasn't. Mayuri-sama made it clear always she had one duty and one alone: to follow his orders.

"... I just..." She tried to search for words to properly express what she was feeling. Nemu had never been particuraly clever with words. Didn't ever really speak unless she felt she had something of at least minor importance or relevance to say. Did not speak out of turn. Did not talk back to superiors. These were all things the vice-captain simply did not do. Usually.

"... I cannot fully comprehend," Her speech was tentative and unsure, "What it is about certain people that makes me angry, or upset." Her grip on nothing in her palms tightened slightly. "What... makes people delight in pain. I can explain it scientifically, ethically, morally... but none of it seems to fit."

{ooc: off to bed for me, so I'll start up replyin' again tomorrow~ ♥ Such a good logger, you~}

“Yeah, well,” Cal placed his head in his palm but briefly, “I’m not supposed to be here like this, either.” He shuffled his feet. Thinking about it hurt, “It’s all very quaint, what we’re supposed to do and what we actually do.”

Because, for all of The Shrinks lectures about nature and natural actions, sometimes things weren’t what you thought they where gonna be. Like now. Nemu had said she was made to serve, not feel, more than once. And there she was, struggling, on the cusp of feeling. That had to mean something. Going against nature, being what you want to be, not what you have to be. That meant something. Right?

Godamnit, I’m thinking about myself again! Cal would have smacked his forehead if Nemu wasn’t there. It would have startled her; arguably the last thing she needed was that, right now.

“What makes people delight in pain...” Cal repeated it. He knew it. He’d seen it first hand, from time to time, when a mission had gone awry or when a peep had broken through his gloves. (it had happened before!) He knew violence, and how one enjoys it.

And on the other hand, what Nemu said made sense, too. Cal could explain the evolutionary and viral need for one to feel joy and addiction to pain and the spread of such, but... it didn’t fit in with humanistic or civilized beliefs. The ones Cal liked, every once and a while.

The Shrink, in the back of Cal’s head, reminded him that humanism and civilization where overly optimistic views of the world. As always, he blocked her out.

“I...” Cal sighed, ducked his head in some feeble apology, “I don’t know that one either.”

[ooc Same here, I need sleep D: And thanks! ^O^; ♥~]

"Very frustrating, not knowing things." Nemu's voice was as it always was, there was no change there. Soft and low, servile. "I don't like it."

She shifted slowly, always slowly, lifting one leg to cross it over the other and refolding her hands in her lap. The fishtank caught her eye and she stared at it, struggling for words to express properly. She knew it was probably frustrating for him, to have to deal with her, and she knew she would have to apologize for that, too, before he left.

"It's not fair." The murmur finally escaped her. "The world is not fair, it is said, but it... I still do not like it." Hinamori didn't... she didn't deserve the Arrancar always targeting her for what she'd done, especially not now, when she'd forgotten, even, what she'd done that made them hate her so. (Though the forgetting drove Nemu to absolute wit's end.) And now... she was in the same position again.

Cal nodded. That was the exact reason he dived into books when he was depressed. He had a feeling he’d be doing that, later tonight.

He clenched his fist as she readjusted herself, his hand finding the wrist of his corresponding arm as the Parasite screamed inside of him. Patience, quiet... Alright. He could talk again.

“It isn’t fair, no,” The murmur didn’t escape Cal’s hearing, few things did, “but... I think it could be worse,” these fleetingly optimistic thoughts kept Cal mentally well, he liked to think, “We could have nothing. We could be without choice... Instead, we have choices, however futile.”

He forced a half-smile, a slightly pathetic thing for her benefit. A gift.

She turned her head back to him, a slight apologetic look as she noticed his reaction. He had told her of the parasite's symptoms, and she respected he was able to control himself, (Nemu did not know many males capable of such constrained behavior and she found it admirable). But she smiled softly in return.

She was very grateful for his company, for the silence in her head, or, rather, the lack of a metronome ticking away until the end. And his company was comforting, if only for his prescense. He may have thought he wasn't being much help, but just the sentiment that he would bother to come for one such as her, for a mere creation, was something she valued more than anything.

"Mr. Skinnyhead is adapting quite well." The shinigami said suddenly, entirely serious.

“Yeah, I can see,” He turned to look at the fish, a smile crossing his face, “He looks healthy as a...” Was there some kind of ‘healthy-as-a’ comparison? Uhm... “As a very healthy fish.” Guess not.

He scratched his head. Cal knew what to do when he was in his element, books, parasites, sewers, all correspondingly indefinite.

He could also deal with people, to an extent, when they where happy and the situation was unserious. Or perilous. But not sad. Anything but sad. Cal couldn’t help when they where sad. And he hated that.

He had no skill cheering people up, Cal thought, when he could rarely do so for himself.

“The skull complements him nicely,” A wink, “If I do say so myself.”

The smile did not leave her face, trying to push her worry, her concern, to the back of her mind. She could not do anything but worry, which made the action useless, however much she felt inclined to do it. And she was slightly torn. Was it more proper to worry, or to try not to worry? ... She didn't know.

"I hope he looks healthy." Being as socially... inept as she could sometimes be, his attempts at comfort and speech may have seemed awkward to him, but they worked with her. Suddenly she froze for a moment, blinking.

"I'm sorry, Cal..." Nemu's brow furrowed. "I haven't been a proper hostess, can I get you anything? Beverage? Food?"

A sigh from Cal, at least the smile was sticking.

He contemplated, for a moment, saying he wasn’t hungry. But... in truth, the roof-jumping and emotional heaving had depleted his carbohydrate reserve. The parasite wasn’t screaming, no, but there was a distinct yell in his veins, brain and spinal column.

He twitched.

“Some food’d be great, Nemu,” He said, “Want me to help?”

"That would be nice, thank you, Cal." Always polite. Slowly she rose, repeating the habit of tugging down skirt hem, and walked towards the kitchen, bending to plug in a large lamp as she went, flicking it on deftly and blinking once as pupils dilated to quickly adapt to the sudden source of light. Mayuri-sama did not want a creation who could be easily blinded or hampered by such things.

"What would you like?" Nemu asked, halting her progress at the refridgerator and cocking her head to one side in a questioning manner.

Cal stumbled into the kitchen behind her, resting a hip on the counter. He scratched his head.

Nemu’s kitchen smelled like soap and disinfectant to Cal, very sterile and clean. Unlike most kitchens he’d experienced in his time, there wasn’t as much of a hint of dust, dirt and microwave-exploded-overcooked-behemoth-food in the smell. Thoroughly clean.

He’d always thought that fitting.

“Well, my only criteria for food is that it had to be alive at one point,” He winked, or something between that and a head-dip. Body language, honestly, “So I can help with that however you want.”

"I think I have a few things that would fit that criteria." She almost gave a quiet chuckle that escaped as more of a twitch in her smile. She turned to open the fridge, not having to rummage for anything. Everything was placed neatly where it belonger, categorized and... this scared most people, in alphebetical order.

She came up with a small packet in her hands from the butcher's, unwrapping it neatly on the counter, a decent serving of beef.

"Would this be alright?"

Cal eyed the meat. It was good, Nemu always got good stuff (good enough for him, anyway) and he had wonderfully low standards. Not that the two where necessarily related, of course.

“That’ll be fine,” He smiled, looking over the foodstuff. The predator part of his brain was whizzing away, trying to decide what slice of meat it was. Another part of his brain noted that he was taller than Nemu, maybe stronger?

Cal snapped the rubber band on his wrist.

“I’ll preheat the stove, then?”

And with a bit more ten-second-meditation, urges where controlled. The evening was looking up!

"If you would, please?." She bustled about the kitchen with a certain focus, assembling ingredients, pulling out a pan and utensils, seasonings and the like.

The snap of the rubberband was noted duly, she had not known what it meant before he'd explained it to her, and though she always meant to ask what he had been thinking at the moment, she did not wish to bring his mind back to what he was trying to forget, (awfully counter-productive), so she merely kept track of when it happened, to see if she could detect a pattern.

"I think... it may rain, soon." She noted out of the blue, pausing while tying a short apron about her waist, (she always wore one when cooking, no matter what she was cooking) to glance out the kitchen window.

“Sure thing.” Cal crouched in front of the stove and mumbled to himself, “Ah, my old nemesis,” Not that he really had any trouble with kitchen appliances (Sans blenders. Never blenders), but he enjoyed the joke. He began to toy with the knobs of the thing, and the inside light clicked on.

“Oh, sorry,” He waved to the illuminated inside of the stove before clicking the light off, as if he had disturbed someone sleeping inside.

A few more clicks later, and the he had it to the right setting.

“Alrighty, then. Mission accomplished.” He patted the stovetop, “You’ve done well, son.” Because when one spends a great deal of time talking to one’s cat, only to loose the cat, we start talking to inanimate objects.

At least he hadn’t named the microwave yet.

Now she laughed, as much as she ever did, a light noise more in the back of her throat. Her braid swung steadily from side to side against her back, marinating the beef with a blend of seasonings she had prepared as he fiddled with the stove. She was no good at cooking really, in and of itself. She was good at following the instructions in the recipes.

"You're funny, Cal." Nemu smiled, looking over her shoulder and nodding.

“Hah,” Cal replied, “Only when the situation requires it.”

But he was happy, mainly because she was happy. Cal didn’t really think he did it, either she had become too worn down from all the negative emotion or she had decided to hide her sadness.

But still.

She was happy. And that... was good.

{ooc: that actually seems like a nice tag to end with?}

[ooc Works for me 8D! Nice loggins with you~ ♥]

{ooc: You too~! ♥}

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Log; Ongoing

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