Log; Complete

[thunderwitch.livejournal.com]

When; Thursday, June 21st, evening
Rating; PG
Characters; Cirucci {thunderwitch} & Alfons {opfern}
Summary; The human and the Arrancar run into each other, one on the way to deliver some baked good and the other out to the Underground. (Guess which one did which.) Roundabout twisted reconciliation occurs.
Log;

Why was he here?

He had told Cirucci to stay away from him, and then she had gone so far as to actually blackmail him into being her damn slave. But then, out of nowhere, she'd decided to stop her stupid little game, and hadn't even explained why.

Since then, they had stayed apart, and that was best. It made Edward happy, and Alfons didn't have to watch Cirucci more or less destroy herself. But...Edward has yet to act fully comfortable around him still, and Alfons hadn't even seen him for quite a few days. Perhaps that was best, what with Alfons getting over a cold, but when Noah had mentioned going out to see him in the morning, the pang of jealousy was surprisingly.

Edward had invited her out? He hadn't invited Alfons out since the picnic with his family... When was the last time they had been alone together? What else did Alfons have to give up to make it up to him?

Feeling guilty over his sour feelings, and knowing that he shouldn't think that way, he crawled out of bed to shower and dress and perhaps try to distract himself with baking and a book.

It wasn't even until he had finished that he realized he was making chocolate chip cookies. Did he even like chocolate chip all that much? After struggling with the decision for quite a bit, Alfons boxed them up and slipped his shoulder bag on before heading out.

Outside of Cirucci's door, Alfons stared at the floor for quite a bit before sighing and leaning over to set the box down in front of her door. As he turned to head off, the young man coughed hoarsely into his sleeve.
Cirucci was on her way out the door. In an effort to entertain herself in the City without making herself any more enemies than she already possessed the Arrancar had taken to frequenting the clubs in the Underground, able to lose her boredom in the blinding lights, the thrum of music, and the press of bodies common to such places. And she'd found one she liked, (is she'd known more about human cultures she would have been able to identify the music as Latin and dancing as Salsa, but she lacked in that respect), and she'd gotten Luppi to come with her to one tonight.

Humming idly to herself she opened the door, another rare occasion that found her out of uniform, hair down about her shoulders and instead of the gothic style of her usual clothing was clad in a short, slinky white dress that clung to her hips and breasts, still with the long white gloves and the hole in her chest bared by the keyhole cut out of the fabric, the faint traces of residual scarring still evident around the gaping place where her heart would be.

Cirucci paused and blinked when she opened the door, violent gaze almost shocked, but more like surprised. A variety of emotions flitted across her features, easily readable. Shock. Sweetness. Anger. A pout.

"... Cirucci thought Alfons didn't want anything to do with her." She finally muttered, standing still in her open doorway, hips cocked and arms crossed under her breasts in a huff.

Oh of all the damned times she could have stepped out that door. As he turned to look back, he was just relieved to see that she hadn't totally squashed the box. One more step would have done it though.

Crouching down, Alfons grabbed the box, only to notice as he slowly stood up that Cirucci was in very different clothes from normal. Still surprised and embarrassed over being caught, the box was offered out with one hand as he cleared his throat to speak, though as he was still recovering, it was scratchy and rather...hoarse. Even trying to whisper didn't help his dignity much.

"I just....made extra," he fibbed, averting his gaze. "And I know you like chocolate"

Cirucci tried to glare. He had offended her, leaving like that. He wasn't allowed to leave her, not like they all did, like they all would. She fought the snarl that wanted to come to her lips as she reached out and took the box.

"Thought you weren't talking to Cirucci either." She spat bitterly, stood there radiating a fury or frustration, her expression dour.

That made him wince, and he stepped back, rubbing at his throat nervously. If she was mad at him, that was better right? What the hell was he doing here, making things complicated all over again? Why hadn't he stayed away?

At a complete loss, Alfons glanced back to her face, his own expression one of genuine confusion and fear at his awful judgment. Clearing his throat again, he shook his head and pointed down the hall. "I'm sorry. I'll just go."

"No, you won't." Cirucci snapped, stepping back inside her doorway and pointing with her free hand back in to her apartment.

"Get in here." Her voice brooked no argument, and while she knew Luppi would be upset and whine a bit about her arriving late, he could wait. She'd spent the majority of her time recently with either the pseudo Sexta or Alturo, on her own now only to retrieve the dress she was wearing for dancing, and often times she had picked up her computer intending to ask Alfons to make her something only to pause with long fingers halfway to the keys before she remembered the human had tried to abandon her.

"Now."

Her tone startled him, and he cast another look down the hallway. Should he just ignore her and walk away? Would she chase him? Even if she didn't drag him in by force, he felt obligated to stay. After all, he'd just shown up on her doorstep without offering any explanation. She deserved better.

With a weak sigh, he coughed again into his sleeve as he did as requested and stepped inside, glancing around absently to see if she'd changed anything about the place.

Her trophy collection had been ransacked, the mantle emptier than it had been. Last time he'd been here it had born two sword hilt pieces, had acquired a pair of silver glasses and a small silver bullet, trophies won and now gone. She'd acquired more pillows, something she tended to go out and buy when she was upset over something, the decorations tossed about the room in haphazard piles.

"Cirucci thought Alfons wasn't sick anymore." She sat the box of cookies on her coffee table, plopped down on her couch and crossed her legs, almost wholly bare limbed thanks to the cut of the dress obviously meant for more underground activity. She asked without sympathy or the usual sickly sweet croon she affected around those she liked, her voice bland and straightforward as she idly picked open the box and retrieved one of the chocolate chips of a cookie and popped the small confection in her mouth.

The barren mantle was noted, but he hadn't ever really liked those 'trophies' anyway. He just about managed to trip over a pillow while staring at her as she crossed her legs, and he stopped to look down at the thing incredulously before picking it up to set it out of the way.

Pulling a chair over so that he could awkwardly sit Alfons, tipped his head at her curiously. "Any-- Oh." His smile was sheepish and forced as he shook his head. "No, this is just from a cold. It's starting to go away."

The coughing was back thanks to it, but this cough was...different. It felt different. Less life threatening. Not that he had much of a life to threaten anymore.

"Oh." Cirucci muttered angrily, eyes narrowed as she watched him. He looked the same. Was acting the same. Stupid, stupid, human male, with his stupid laugh and stupid smile, his stupid selflessness and his stupid self-sacrificing behavior.

"..." The Privaron muttered to herself, something unintelligible, and snatched a cookie from the box. She could almost hear Grimmjow, if he were there. With all those sweets, Thunderwitch, you're gonna get fat. She huffed and ate the cookie anyway, still looking Alfons over with a critical eye, appraising, checking.

The way she was watching him made him feel like a rat in a cage, and he shifted uncomfortably as he looked down at his folded hands in his lap. She had demanded that he come inside...for what? Did she expect him to explain why he had come by? He wasn't even sure.

"...So..." His shoe squeaked against the floor as he slid his foot under the chair a bit. "You looked like you were heading out? I didn't mean to interrupt anything."

"Dancing with Luppi." She answered quickly, wiping crumbs from the short hem of her dress with a sigh. "He can wait, Cirucci's been spending all her time with him anyway."

The Privaron looked back up at him, let one brow arch as she intoned sarcastically, bitterly, "Where's Edward?"

Luppi? Alfons had never really interacted much with him, but he remembered walking in on her and him when he had saved Kensei. That had been a sight he never cared to witness again. Uch.

The venom in her voice didn't go unnoticed when she asked her question, but he smiled and shrugged anyway. "I'm not sure. Possibly still out with Noah." He cleared his throat and sat back. "They haven't spent much time together at all since coming here."

But Noah could be back now, and Alfons still wouldn't know where Edward was.
"Hmmph." Cirucci continued to glare at him, as if he could read her mind. When it seemed that he couldn't, she finally looked down to her nails, idly examining the black polish against a green pillow pulled onto her lap, one of the many sprawled about her couch.

"You left Cirucci." She reminded with another bitter tone, almost a pouting child in the way she was acting at the moment, one of her many facets. A psychotic killer. A smoldering temptress. An unstable female. A needy woman. A childish girl. All of which Alfons had seen at one point or another.

The pouting, to him, was incredibly familiar. It was a hilarious thought to entertain that he had even missed it...and yet he had. Perhaps it could be blamed on this bizarre city that toyed with your emotions and spun your world all around and upside down.

Sighing, his voice was even more hoarse than normal as he picked at some invisible lint on his pants. "I did." And with good reason. It upset Edward, because Edward didn't trust her, and he worried for Alfons' safety. Not to mention Alfons just couldn't take dealing with Cirucci's perverse hobbies and pretend they didn't bother him.

He wasn't supposed to be there. Shouldn't have wanted to be there. But... "I missed you."

"No, you didn't." Cirucci muttered darkly, glowering down at her nails as if to burst something into flames with the blackening tint to her eyes and her anger. She didn't like being left.

"You're just saying that so Cirucci will let you leave in one piece." And the sentence was said in all seriousness, as if she could, without any thought to the contrary, simply reach over and disembowel him where he sat. She was capable of it, every inch of her a weapon because that was what she was, and yet... she was pouting.

Cirucci Thunderwitch did not like being alone, and she did not like being left.

Alfons coughed into his hand, rather disturbed by the thought of Cirucci shredding him to pieces. He had never really been afraid of her doing something like that before, but... Things were obviously different now.

At least... They were supposed to be.

"I wouldn't have come by in the first place if I didn't miss you," he pointed out carefully, but he knew that Cirucci rarely liked to listen to logic. Not that...any of this was logical.

"I told you, before, that I'd never leave you... I'm sorry I lied."

"Better be." Her mutters quieted a bit, her glare softening somewhat. Silly Alfons. Always too nice. Far too nice for his own good, far too stupid, to trust an Arrancar, to miss an Arrancar, promise to an Arrancar, say he loved an Arrancar, fuck an- Okay, that had technically been her fault, but still.

Cirucci sat in silence for a moment, pale fingers petting idly at the pillow in her lap before she suddenly snatched it up and threw it hard at the human's face.

He had just started to relax then, when she stopped glaring quite so dangerously...only to have a pillow come flying far too suddenly for him to think of blocking. He did still lift his arms out of reflex, but it wasn't like the pillow really hurt, even when thrown by an Arrancar. A pillow was a pillow.

Startled and not sure what to think, Alfons caught it just as it fell. "Cirucci!" Well, he almost scolded her, but he caught himself. Better than shredding him to pieces, right?

"You deserved it." She almost smirked, instead snatched another pillow, a blue one this time, and replaced the space in her lap that had been left vacant. She stared up at the ceiling, then the floor, then the cookies.

... With all those sweets, Thunderwitch, you're gonna get fat.

Maybe she wouldn't eat another one yet.

"... And Cirucci has been starving." The Privaron added with a moping kick of her feet, in strappy heels instead of her usual thick boots.
Alfons kept his grip on the pillow in his lap, just in case he needed to use it as a shield. She might feel the need to throw something else a little less soft next time, after all.

"Starving? I know my food was something like your first, but you really should give the bakeries around here a chance. They have excellent pastries, and many things I can only dream of making." He tossed the pillow up in the air and caught it again, flipping it casually and thinking on the blue pillows he still had sitting on the couch in his apartment.

It was a good thing that Hansel and Gretel didn't spend a lot of time there. They seemed to only use the place for sleeping and occasionally making him very uncomfortable with their stares. He was glad Noah took responsibility for them most of the time. They spoke about Cirucci far too much.

And they had nearly wrecked those pillows in their last 'wrestling' match. At least that was what they had called it. He hadn't wanted to ask further.

"...Ciro's growing up fast," he whispered offhandedly.

"With a name like that he would." Cirucci murmured offhandedly, another comment about something she knew but didn't know how she knew it. Could remember words and disjointed phrases but not where they came from, how she knew them, why she remembered them. It was a strong name.

The Privaron pouted, full lipped, at the mention of having to shop for her food. She was lazy sometimes, and she did so like it when her food came to her.

"Cirucci thought about getting something." She mentioned, feet still kicking. "To keep the ticking away when Alfons leaves her again and the boys get tired of her." Sympathy treatment. But she had considered it.

A name like that? He had thought she didn't know the meaning of the name... Strange.

And then once again she brought up being left. His sigh was heavy, if scratchy, and he lifted up the pillow to throw right back at her, trying his best to smile despite the depressing undertones of her comment.

"A pet is a lot of responsibility. Cats and dogs each have their pros and cons. Dogs can be more affectionate, but I'm pretty sure one would get on your nerves unless you spent a lot of time training it."

She had closed her eyes, and on instinct had raised her hand to fire a bala at whatever was hurtling at her, but she choked the reiatsu back and instead caught the projectile deftly, tucking it behind her back in one quick blur of motion.

"Not those." Cirucci stopped kicking her feet a moment, somewhat serious.

"A bird."

"A bird?" Well, when one analyzed that choice, it seemed to make sense. A bird couldn't fly away if you kept it in a cage... And Cirucci definitely reminded him of a bird.

He could still remember the time she had taken him flying, and the memory alone made his stomach do somersaults again. Folding his arms over his stomach, he leaned over a bit and tipped his head to the side. "Have you thought about what kind?"

"No." Her frivolous nature showed itself as she shrugged, legs kicking idly once more. Her gaze roved, upset at herself. She was still mad at him, her ire couldn't be offset that easily, but it was east to just slip back into idle conversation with the blonde, easy enough to disconcert.
"Cirucci doesn't know what any is called, really." She shrugged again, thought of her nickname among some in the City, the Swallow.

"Something pretty."

"Something pretty..." Well, Alfons didn't know much about birds really. He knew that tropical birds were the prettiest, and wondered how expensive they were in the City, considering the price of everything else...

Feeling awkward again, and unsure about his next suggestion, he looked at the box of cookies. "I could probably find some books for you, so that you could get a good idea of what kind you want."

"Mmm." She nodded, shifted the pillow in her lap. This was not going as planned. She tried to muster her anger and was irritated to find it out of reach.

Stupid Alfons.

"Cirucci has to go dancing." She finally said, standing abruptly and brushing some more crumbs from her dress, still trying to be angry. He left her. Then he came back. And he'd just leave again.

"Oh, right." He stood quickly at that reminder, feeling guilty all over again. This would be so much easier if she had just shut the door in his face the moment she'd seen him.

Trying to smile again, he motioned for the door and backed up a bit. "Then I'll just... Sorry if I...ah..." Well, that was there to say? Frustrated with himself all over again, he just shook his head and walked over to open it so he could be on his way.

He needed to pick up more cat food, anyway.

"Cherries." Cirucci suddenly said, still standing by the couch and cookie box, arms crossing over her chest and an indignant expression on her face, watching him leave with another expression, unknown, in her eyes.

"Next time something with cherries."

The mention of cherries made him pause and glance over, readjusting his shoulder bag. Cherries? He might have been sick with a cold, but he knew that a curse had just passed involving cherries and death.

"...All right. Cherries." Smiling and nodding at her, Alfons shut the door behind him and walked briskly down the hall, clutching tightly at the strap of his bag the entire time.

Had he just gotten himself into another mess all over again? Or had he never even gotten out of it in the first place?

She nodded, watched him go as she let the smirk settle fully on her lips.

Good.

Cirucci waited a full two minutes before she let herself have another cookie, letting herself out now to meet up with Luppi as she's promised.

With all those sweets, Thunderwitch, you're gonna get fat.

"I am not going to get fat, Grimmjow." She muttered around a chocolate chip on her tongue.

... Stupid.

Maybe she'd share the cookies with Luppi.

Maybe.