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tampered2007-12-08 11:02 pm
anti-buttons.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2007-12-08 11:02 pm
LOG; BACKDATED; COMPLETE
When; Roughly 1 AM, December 8
Rating; PG-13 because ALFONS IS CREEPY.
Characters; Ishida {![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anti_buttons} & Alfons {opfern}
Summary; Ishida rescued Alfons from the warehouse (because, he can’t help it), left to get his butt kicked by Shirosaki HOLLOOOWWman, and returned to have a kind of heart to heart. Basically, Alfons is creepy and Ishida wishes he was a Jedi.
Notes; Okay, guys, WHAT'S WITH THE FREQUENCY OF ISHIDA LOGS? D: He drinks too much tea, too.
Log; It had turned out better than Ishida had had any right to expect. Stumbling into Kurotsuchi-san, almost literally, had been a city miracle – it left him nicely bandaged, with beyond human salves that, if anything, helped to stopper his profuse bleeding. Thus, Ishida returned to his apartment pale, weak, with sweat dried and blood caked, an his arm hanging useless (unless pushed) – but, as well as could be allowed.
He never locked the door. Ishida bid good-bye to the shinigami and let himself in, his eyes moving immediately to the couch where he had left the other man earlier that night.
>>
When Alfons had woken up and found himself in a strange apartment, he was quite close to panicking. The last thing he had remembered was lying on the cold floor of an office building with his wrists and ankles tied, and Cirucci running away. Waking up in a warm apartment to find his bloodied wrists bandaged and a warm blanket covering him was not what he expected.
The note had clarified things. Ishida had rescued him? ...Also very unexpected.
He was still weakened from hunger and spending so long in the cold, so it took him forever just to get into the kitchen and find the stew in the fridge, wearily trying to formulate a solid thought as he went about heating up some food. He had just forced down the stew and some bread when he heard the door open.
"...Ishida?" He winced at how raspy his voice sounded, which could easily be blamed on how poorly the cold weather had treated his lungs during his captivity in that closet.
>>
The kitchen wasn’t far from the front-door, so though Alfons’s voice was weak, hoarse, Ishida made it out. He sounded awful, but not, with some short reflection, as bad as he had sounded before, filtered through the voice post. Ishida paused in the living room, shutting the door behind him.
“Yes,” he answered, not calling, letting his voice carry as it would. “Ishida.” Not ‘I’m home’ because, of course, he wasn’t.
Ishida crossed into the kitchen, or at least, as far as the doorway into the kitchen. Again, he paused, looking at Alfons seated at his kitchen table, trying to deny that he felt a little – awkward? That would require some recognition of his inability socially, and that wouldn’t happen. Instead, he tilted his chin up, reached with his good hand to push his glasses.
“I see you found the stew. I hope it wasn’t too dry. Are you better?”
>>
Alfons didn't even have a chance to properly reply, as the moment he saw Ishida walk into the kitchen resulted in him dropping his spoon into the mostly empty bowl. "Good God! What happened to you?!"
As if his thoughts weren't jumbled enough already, now Alfons had to see that the man who had apparently rescued him looked in even worse shape than he himself was. The chair scraped against the ground as Alfons hurried to stand up and get a closer look.
"Who hurt you?!"
>>
Ishida should have been less startled, really, given that he was well aware of how shocking he must look – not wearing a shirt, really, as it had been completely made into make-shift bandages by Kurotsuchi-san’s able hands. Still, his eyelids move in quick, blinking surprise, and the suddenness of Alfons’s movement almost, almost had him stepping back. It was only long, deeply ingrained habit, practice at remaining imperturbable and stolid that kept him in place.
“Slow down. That’s irrelevant,” he replied, raising his eyebrows only a little. “…You look better.”
He let his eyes drift, and considered the immeasurable wisdom of putting on another shirt, given what had happened to his. Even ignoring it, he couldn’t help but feel exposed.
>>
Alfons stopped when Ishida stepped back, immediately recognizing the signal. Edward had been that way at first, too. The connection drew out a small, secret smile as he observed the other before blinking and looking down at himself. "Oh... Yes. I suppose I am, thanks to you."
His voice was still scratching, but his wrists had stopped bleeding, and he was able to walk now without needing to grab onto something for support every five seconds.
As he glanced up, Alfons raised an eyebrow curiously. "To be honest, you're the last person I expected to help me... How did you find me?"
>>
Catching the smile didn’t let him understand it, and so Ishida disregarded it as another thing that made Alfons so very strange. Nothing, of course, could top his affection for the Thunderwitch. He followed Alfons’s look, evaluating what he could see of his injuries, and nodded. His need to say, there’s no need for gratitude, was somewhat foiled by the way Alfons had phrased it, and so Ishida refrained.
He lifted his shoulders in a brief, cursory shrug. “It wasn’t difficult. I asked the Thunderwitch where you were.”
If possible, he would skirt completely around the issue of it being him who had found his way to and rescued Alfons. As much as Ishida painted himself a hero, someone who protected, it contrasted with his portrayal of cold indifference.
>>
The young man immediately stiffened at the mention of Cirucci, his smile evaporating. "...Oh." Averting his eyes, he awkwardly rubbed at his stomach, still feeling that kick from earlier. "I'm surprised she told anyone. She's the one who stuck me there, after all. I don't even know why she came back."
Clearly uncomfortable, Alfons once again looked to Ishida's form. "...Are you going to tell me what happened to you?"
>>
The change in Alfons was immediate and obvious, but Ishida couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty. After all, he had asked. It also wasn’t a terrible surprise to learn that the Thunderwitch had put him there, then turned and told the location; the Thunderwitch tended to flip-flop even without a heart. To Alfons’s musings on her, Ishida didn’t care to volunteer an opinion, to further open that door of conversation. Not, of course, out of any concern for Alfons’s comfort. He said nothing; remained motionless.
His silence and how visible Alfons’s feelings were prepared him for the abrupt change in topic. Ishida shook his head. “No. …But I think I’ll change.”
Because, after all, his pants were well stained as well, the blood had spilled. Ishida turned, retreating in the direction of his room, to quickly change into something clean, an entire shirt.
>>
Again, a trait similar to Edward's. Always getting into trouble and never wanting to offer the details unless it was something worth bragging about. Again, there was that small smile on his face, and he nodded while looking away. "All right."
He considered if right then was a good time to leave. Just because Ishida had rescued him didn't mean he felt like having him over for a slumber party or anything. But he was honestly a little hesitant to go home at such an hour...afraid he would wake the girls. Had they worried about him at all? Had anyone even wondered where he was for a day?
...Maybe he didn't want to know. Just like he hadn't wanted to know Cirucci's true feelings.
Do you hate me?
Of course I do.
>>
A fleece, navy sweatshirt that hugged rather than fell loose and baggy, and a pair of dark grey slacks. Indoor slippers over checkered socks, and Ishida walked back, and looked at Alfons standing precisely where he had left him. Ishida blinked, entering the kitchen and maneuvering toward the stove.
“You can sit down. Unless you’ll be going, if you can manage it.”
Indifference was the key; Ishida did not hint that Alfons ought to leave, merely that the option was there and more than understood. And yet, even as he took the kettle to the faucet, fillet it with water, and replaced it on the stove, Ishida couldn’t help the question pricking at his mind, unanswered – without turning, he asked, pressing the anxiety out of his voice:
“…It wasn’t too dry? Nothing ever survives as well through a microwave, but…”
>>
He hadn't even realized just how much time had passed until Ishida walked right by him again, fully clothed. Had he gotten so lost in thought? What was he even thinking about?
"...Oh. Thank you. I just don't want to go home at this hour. I'm sure I'll have to answer some questions when I return, anyway...I'd rather it not be the middle of the night. The girls need their sleep." Of course he could manage it, he added silently.
And so, Alfons pulled out a chair to sit, watching Ishida work. There had been a lot of blood... He was curious, and the nurturer in him was keeping a close eye on the other man's movements, just in case he needed some help with something. Alfons was positive he would be too prideful to outright ask.
"No, it was good. I actually love using the microwave...it's much faster than the stove. Then again, the stoves here are much more efficient than the stoves at home, not to mention safer."
>>
A lot of blood. And it had been a little difficult, getting his arm into that shirt. Still, even a little light-headed, Ishida could play it off well enough. As sad as it may have been, he was no stranger to blood loss. He glanced to the clock on the wall beside the refrigerator, then redundantly, to the watch on his wrist. It was well after midnight; he could understand Alfons’s concern, and accepted his decision without comment. Even if he didn’t like it, he couldn’t justify kicking out someone he had bothered to rescue.
He felt an uncanny déjà vu, standing above the stove, his eyes on the teapot. How often had he prepared tea for a not entirely welcome guest? Ishida had been unaccustomed to visitors of any kind in his world, and as a host, he could be more than a little awkward. He didn’t sigh, but he wanted to do it.
But he had no instinctive, gut-need to avoid, to want to hate Alfons, as he did his most recent guest. Ishida turned, an elbow on the counter, genuine interest in his expression. “Were there no microwaves in your world?”
He realized that he knew, really, absolutely nothing about Alfons. “Ah… This technology is very normal, to me.”
>>
Alfons took note of how Ishida was favoring one arm, but didn't say anything. Instead he just quickly finished up what bit of stew that was left in his bowl. Ishida's inquiry did come as a surprise... For as little as Ishida knew about him, Alfons knew even less about the other. Aside from what he had seen in Cirucci's memories, of course.
"Yes, it seems normal to most people here... It was still 1923 when I..." Died? That sounded too morbid. "When I was brought here."
Standing, Alfons carried his bowl over to the sink, turning the water on. The least he could do was wash his own dishes while playing guest. He was much more accustomed to being the host. "The books I read at the library said it was first brought to the public in 1947. Of course, the picture in the book looked nothing like the ones here. Funny how the more advanced inventions get, the smaller they become."
>>
A surprise, that Alfons would take the initiative with his dish. Ishida watched him move with only the slightest bit more of the whites of his eyes showing; he considered protesting, and thought better of it. Perhaps a guest shouldn’t wash his own dishes, or perhaps he should; Ishida evaluated the task he would have doing it almost entirely one-armed, and thought better of being that polite.
1923 indicated his world, at least it matched with what little he thought he knew about Alfons, which placed him in Germany. Still, to be in his kitchen with Alfons, discussing microwaves … Ishida pushed up his glasses with two fingers, and glanced down as he did at the pot, a smile pulling at his lips.
“That date sounds right. Yes, it’s quite a feat, though to be expected for reasons beyond convenience. When one considers what man has been able to accomplish in the last fifty years alone, it’s really rather impressive.”
Yeah, humans were pretty cool. Talking about this kind of thing, normal things, it was a nice change. He almost felt at ease; the stove warming the air beside him, the sound of the water hitting the sink.
>>
It was indeed comforting to talk about these sorts of things with someone, and even more pleasant when Ishida almost seemed interested in the conversation. He was so used to people brushing his enthusiasm off...
Alfons appreciated the positive reaction as he washed his bowl and spoon by hand. No matter how much he marveled at modern technology, he still didn't use the dishwasher. He couldn't even see what was going on in there. How did you know your dishes were actually getting clean?
One day he ought to try to take one apart and inspect it himself.
"It's fascinating, actually...to be able to see what the world is like almost a hundred years in the future. I consider it an honor. People laugh at my enthusiasm for the technology here, but as a rocket engineer, my dream wasn't to make tomorrow a reality. My dream was to turn tomorrow into today. I think it was that sort of dreaming from other scientists that resulted in such a rapid advancement in technology."
Realizing that he'd gone off on a tangent, Alfons flushed and quickly dried the bowl and spoon before holding them out. "I don't know where they go."
>>
Ishida thought about pointing out the dish washer, but it was only a bowl and a spoon. Instead, he let himself be taken in by what Alfons had revealed -- rocket engineer? Alfons as young as he was, had been a rocket engineer. That was more than a little impressive, and Ishida, for all his genius, couldn’t help but gain esteem for Alfons. At the same, the way Alfons spoke –
Ishida was glad of the opportunity to clear his face in the time Alfons took to turn. He’d been looking at Alfons, unsure of how to react to such sincerity, as if he had three heads, but a little more kindly. He nodded, took the step to accept the dishes-one handed, and put them away.
“You’re something else, Alfons-san,” Ishida said, plainly, dropping the spoon in among with the others in the drawer. “An honor, this place? But, I see what you mean. I wonder that the City doesn’t mix in things from even farther into the future, if it can take from any time.”
The kettle hissed; Ishida busied himself with retrieving mugs, placing tea bags, pouring water. He picked up one mug, offered it to Alfons. “Green. I suppose I should have asked if you had a preference.”
>>
Something else? He wasn't really sure if that was an insult or a compliment, but he certainly didn't hear any malice in Ishida's tone. With a weak smile, he accepted the mug. In such cold weather, and without a pulse to keep you warm, it was nice to enjoy a hot cup of tea. For now, just holding it in his hands was pleasant.
"Thank you. I like green tea... I didn't have it until coming here, though. It took time to grow on me." He waited a couple minutes to let the tea leaves brew before locating the trash can to drop the small tea bag in. "And I have actually spoken to some people even further in the future... I know Faye Valentine is so far ahead it's like she came right out of a science fiction novel...or one of those movies she showed me! And the same with the Durandal, that gigantic ship on the beach. I took a look at it when Miss Mary Godwin was still in the City some months ago... She tried to explain the technology to me and I'm embarrassed to say it all went right over my head."
Instead of acting upset over it, though, Alfons just chuckled before taking a sip of his tea and staring at the ground. Again, he was lost in thought. It happened quite a bit with him, though instead of wondering about numbers and ratios, his line of thought was far more complex.
>>
Speaking with Alfons made Ishida realize how woefully little attention he had paid certain aspects of and people in the City. More than that, it threw into sharp relief a certain tendency of his to focus on the negative over the positive. While he persisted in doing, activity, and purpose, it wasn’t with much optimism. It left him bemused, thoughtful in a not agreeable but not entirely disagreeable way; he looked at his tea, at the reflection of his bespectacled eye.
“You and I would probably need to look at the manual for something like that,” Ishida conceded. “…At the very least.”
He drank from his cup; looked again at Alfons. “Which movies did she show you? It must be bizarre to be from the future and observe the past’s inaccurate view of it.”
>>
"It was a set of six movies called Star Wars. What I thought was strange is that the first three movies were made after the last three movies. That makes no sense to me." While there was a smile on his face as he spoke, Alfons kept looking on the ground, his normally sky blue eyes clouded.
His cup of tea was finished in record time, and he turned his back to Ishida to go about washing it out. His voice was so soft that it could barely be heard over the water.
"I don't regret doing it. I would have made it permanent if I'd had enough to trade."
>>
“That explanation,” Ishida began knowingly, “is a little involved. The older three are, of course, infinitely superior.” He left it there, only because getting into Star Wars might reveal the true extent of only a piece of his geekery. Not that he would ever reveal having attempted to use a Jedi mind-trick, only to be terribly disappointed.
He took more time with his tea, and still had at least half of it left when Alfons invited himself to the sink. Ishida started, having not expected the Thunderwitch to come up again, even if in immediate hindsight, it was inevitable; the elephant in the room. Ishida turned his face to the opposite direction.
”You’re insane,” He said, and went on with equal blunt force. “I don’t understand why you would, and I can’t imagine what you traded. It was stupid, Alfons-san.”
>>
Turning the water off, Alfons set the cup aside, still looking downward. He offered no excuse in his defense, no reason for his actions, or even a sharp quip to combat the insult. He didn't even appear upset, as one ought to be after encountering the situation he just had.
No, Alfons Heiderich just smiled, his gaze softening into something utterly pure and immeasurable in it's depth. It was the sort of look one took on when watching their loved one sleep--the sort of look nobody else was meant to see.
>>
Alfons’s silence prompted Ishida to redirect his attention to the German. What he saw was like -- like something from, what was the American program? The Twilight Zone? The expression on his face made Ishida feel as if he were intruding on something deeply personal. Uncomfortable, Ishida looked away quickly, at anything but. For it to be for the Thunderwitch was too bizarre.
Knowing what he did, what Alfons had to know, made Ishida want to shake him, to remind him of what precisely the Thunderwitch was, had done, would do again. But Ishida knew -- he understood that Alfons knew all that. What may have been worst of all for Ishida was that it wasn’t inconceivable.
Ishida shook his head. Then, biting out the words, his tea cooling in his hand: “You might be good for her. Indubitably, maybe, but she won’t ever appreciate it. You’re … by choosing to … feel that way, to do this, you’re signing yourself into immeasurable pain.”
>>
Ishida's reaction brought about laughter that would have normally been soft and pleasant, if not for the battered lungs that turned it into something more along the lines of a wheezing cough.
"If I had any choice in the matter, I would have grown older and married a nice young lady and had a son and a daughter. Don't even doubt for a moment that I didn't have it all planned out... In my time, it was expected." Despite his smile, his words had grown bitter. "But my body has proven time and time again that it does not wish to support the expectations in my mind. My heart is no exception." His love for Edward hadn't been normal...and neither was his love for Cirucci.
The bitterness had evaporated, but now there was nothing pure in his expression. For a moment, it seemed empty and tired--worn and jaded far more than someone his age should be. "She hates me now that she has a heart. And when she loses it, I can only hope that she continues to hate me for what I've done to her. At least, for the first time, I'll know she feels something when she looks at me."
>>
Laughter. Things Ishida didn’t know about Alfons, what he could only piece together – the memory of the way he had coughed, through the Voice Post. It hadn’t sounded like something minor. Ishida finished his tea in a long gulp, a distraction, a way of putting finally focusing on that look on Alfons’s face. He held the empty mug, but could only stare at it for so long.
This wasn’t something he could have predicted. Turning so to set his mug on the counter, Ishida used his freed hand to again push his glasses, his mouth in a thin line, back too straight; then his shoulders slumped, one more than the other.
“I don’t think she hates you.” In plain. Said, in part, because looking at that expression had been unbearable, and unbearably familiar. But it wasn’t out of comfort, not a lie. “Look at the facts. She wouldn’t have told me how to find you, if she hated you. She won’t hate you when she loses her heart; she’ll only wish she does, and pretend she does.”
>>
"Yes," Alfons murmured, head bobbing in an absent nod as he looked off to the side. "That's the logical way to look at it. That's the way I should view it, or what sort of scientist am I?" With a hapless shrug, he leaned back to rest his hands on the counter.
"But, Ishida, those aren't the facts you should be looking at when talking about Cirucci. The fact you should be looking at is that there is no logic to the way she acts. She's acted strange on several occassions, and her having a heart only makes her more unpredictable. She probably told you where I was because she was experiencing guilt, or because she didn't want people to yell at her if I turned up dead."
Oddly calm, he looked back to the raven haired youth standing in front of the stove. "I'm in love with someone who will never love me back. Even if what she feels in a few weeks is nothing but an echo of the hate she feels now, at least right now at this moment, I know she's probably thinking of me, and I know that she isn't indifferent to my existence. She wants to rip out my heart, but can't bring herself to because of the guilt. That's the closest thing to love I can ever get from her, and I'll do my best to enjoy every damned miserable moment of it."
Then, completely out of place, Alfons grinned and laughed again, waving his hand. "God, don't I sound morbid? Forgive me for going off like that. You should go to bed. It's awfully late."
>>
Ishida’s self-control was much too fine, too well-tuned. He made a remarkable job of suppressing his surprise, his pity, his emotion. He could keep his face studiously blank, even cold, as he regarded the speaking blond. There were a lot of things he could have said, defenses or arguments for or against the Thunderwitch, elaborations on his belief. But Alfons’s mind was clearly made up.
Lifting his hand again, he scratched his cheek with a fingernail, rested his knuckles there, briefly. There was no point in pitying someone so keen on his own misery. “No,” Ishida retorted, “You sound pathetic.”
“…So perhaps you’re made for one another.” Not a glower, but a direct gaze, unblinking. Ishida tried to move his other arm, a tentative stretch; his teeth clenched together, his muscles flinched only a little. “You’ll refrain from telling me if I should or shouldn’t sleep in my apartment, I think. I could say the same thing to you.”
Both boys, after all, had been through the works today.
>>
Even though it should have been an incredibly insulting thing for Ishida to say, Alfons almost seemed pleased. In a twisted way, it was similar to recieving someone's blessing. My, he really was screwed up, wasn't he? When had that happened?
"If you say so," he chirped back, sounding oddly cheery as he turned to walk out of the kitchen. He had been tempted to take Ishida's cup and dump the cold tea, but refrained since he was so carefully reminded that this wasn't his home.
"I guess spending a day tied up in a utility closet doesn't offer a very restful sleep, does it?"
>>
Alfons was very strange; that Ishida had long since decided. He eyed his back for a moment before crossing to the sink and handling the mug himself.
Very strange, and Ishida wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to be any closer to someone like that. It was bad enough that he humored the Thunderwitch as much as he did, without “befriending” (not that Ishida had and acknowledged friends, all things forbid) the boy infatuated with his own perverse, doomed love for the Arrancar. Not that it didn’t strike a certain fanciful chord in the Quincy, Alfons’s sincere, devoted self-sacrifice --!!
Ishida shook his head. Hard. “You can sleep on the couch,” He called. “I’ll bring you a blanket.”
>>
Ah, the couch. Alfons eyed it, having already spent a good chunk of the evening recovering on it. It was far more comfortable than the one in his apartment. Yet another thing for him to envy in Ishida's life.
"Thank you," he called back as he sat down. Then, as he slumped back against the cushions, staring at nearby window, he wondered if it would snow soon. His brow crinkled, and there was a downward tilt to his lips as he gazed at the glass, frosted from the cold.
"Thank you," he repeated, this time a soft whisper under his breath that nobody else was meant to hear, and Alfons wondered just who he was talking to.
>>
The closet with the spare blanket was in the living room, and after replacing the mug in its cupboard, Ishida crossed to it. He leaned up, tugging free the heavy cotton, and closed the closet with his foot. One-handed, he tossed the folded fabric at his seated guest.
To the first thank you, of course, and with a thread of intolerant irritation in his tone, furrowing between his eyebrows. His hand caught on its opposite elbow. “There’s no need to thank me. … Good night.”
Rating; PG-13 because ALFONS IS CREEPY.
Characters; Ishida {
anti_buttons} & Alfons {opfern}Summary; Ishida rescued Alfons from the warehouse (because, he can’t help it), left to get his butt kicked by Shirosaki HOLLOOOWWman, and returned to have a kind of heart to heart. Basically, Alfons is creepy and Ishida wishes he was a Jedi.
Notes; Okay, guys, WHAT'S WITH THE FREQUENCY OF ISHIDA LOGS? D: He drinks too much tea, too.
Log; It had turned out better than Ishida had had any right to expect. Stumbling into Kurotsuchi-san, almost literally, had been a city miracle – it left him nicely bandaged, with beyond human salves that, if anything, helped to stopper his profuse bleeding. Thus, Ishida returned to his apartment pale, weak, with sweat dried and blood caked, an his arm hanging useless (unless pushed) – but, as well as could be allowed.
He never locked the door. Ishida bid good-bye to the shinigami and let himself in, his eyes moving immediately to the couch where he had left the other man earlier that night.
>>
When Alfons had woken up and found himself in a strange apartment, he was quite close to panicking. The last thing he had remembered was lying on the cold floor of an office building with his wrists and ankles tied, and Cirucci running away. Waking up in a warm apartment to find his bloodied wrists bandaged and a warm blanket covering him was not what he expected.
The note had clarified things. Ishida had rescued him? ...Also very unexpected.
He was still weakened from hunger and spending so long in the cold, so it took him forever just to get into the kitchen and find the stew in the fridge, wearily trying to formulate a solid thought as he went about heating up some food. He had just forced down the stew and some bread when he heard the door open.
"...Ishida?" He winced at how raspy his voice sounded, which could easily be blamed on how poorly the cold weather had treated his lungs during his captivity in that closet.
>>
The kitchen wasn’t far from the front-door, so though Alfons’s voice was weak, hoarse, Ishida made it out. He sounded awful, but not, with some short reflection, as bad as he had sounded before, filtered through the voice post. Ishida paused in the living room, shutting the door behind him.
“Yes,” he answered, not calling, letting his voice carry as it would. “Ishida.” Not ‘I’m home’ because, of course, he wasn’t.
Ishida crossed into the kitchen, or at least, as far as the doorway into the kitchen. Again, he paused, looking at Alfons seated at his kitchen table, trying to deny that he felt a little – awkward? That would require some recognition of his inability socially, and that wouldn’t happen. Instead, he tilted his chin up, reached with his good hand to push his glasses.
“I see you found the stew. I hope it wasn’t too dry. Are you better?”
>>
Alfons didn't even have a chance to properly reply, as the moment he saw Ishida walk into the kitchen resulted in him dropping his spoon into the mostly empty bowl. "Good God! What happened to you?!"
As if his thoughts weren't jumbled enough already, now Alfons had to see that the man who had apparently rescued him looked in even worse shape than he himself was. The chair scraped against the ground as Alfons hurried to stand up and get a closer look.
"Who hurt you?!"
>>
Ishida should have been less startled, really, given that he was well aware of how shocking he must look – not wearing a shirt, really, as it had been completely made into make-shift bandages by Kurotsuchi-san’s able hands. Still, his eyelids move in quick, blinking surprise, and the suddenness of Alfons’s movement almost, almost had him stepping back. It was only long, deeply ingrained habit, practice at remaining imperturbable and stolid that kept him in place.
“Slow down. That’s irrelevant,” he replied, raising his eyebrows only a little. “…You look better.”
He let his eyes drift, and considered the immeasurable wisdom of putting on another shirt, given what had happened to his. Even ignoring it, he couldn’t help but feel exposed.
>>
Alfons stopped when Ishida stepped back, immediately recognizing the signal. Edward had been that way at first, too. The connection drew out a small, secret smile as he observed the other before blinking and looking down at himself. "Oh... Yes. I suppose I am, thanks to you."
His voice was still scratching, but his wrists had stopped bleeding, and he was able to walk now without needing to grab onto something for support every five seconds.
As he glanced up, Alfons raised an eyebrow curiously. "To be honest, you're the last person I expected to help me... How did you find me?"
>>
Catching the smile didn’t let him understand it, and so Ishida disregarded it as another thing that made Alfons so very strange. Nothing, of course, could top his affection for the Thunderwitch. He followed Alfons’s look, evaluating what he could see of his injuries, and nodded. His need to say, there’s no need for gratitude, was somewhat foiled by the way Alfons had phrased it, and so Ishida refrained.
He lifted his shoulders in a brief, cursory shrug. “It wasn’t difficult. I asked the Thunderwitch where you were.”
If possible, he would skirt completely around the issue of it being him who had found his way to and rescued Alfons. As much as Ishida painted himself a hero, someone who protected, it contrasted with his portrayal of cold indifference.
>>
The young man immediately stiffened at the mention of Cirucci, his smile evaporating. "...Oh." Averting his eyes, he awkwardly rubbed at his stomach, still feeling that kick from earlier. "I'm surprised she told anyone. She's the one who stuck me there, after all. I don't even know why she came back."
Clearly uncomfortable, Alfons once again looked to Ishida's form. "...Are you going to tell me what happened to you?"
>>
The change in Alfons was immediate and obvious, but Ishida couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty. After all, he had asked. It also wasn’t a terrible surprise to learn that the Thunderwitch had put him there, then turned and told the location; the Thunderwitch tended to flip-flop even without a heart. To Alfons’s musings on her, Ishida didn’t care to volunteer an opinion, to further open that door of conversation. Not, of course, out of any concern for Alfons’s comfort. He said nothing; remained motionless.
His silence and how visible Alfons’s feelings were prepared him for the abrupt change in topic. Ishida shook his head. “No. …But I think I’ll change.”
Because, after all, his pants were well stained as well, the blood had spilled. Ishida turned, retreating in the direction of his room, to quickly change into something clean, an entire shirt.
>>
Again, a trait similar to Edward's. Always getting into trouble and never wanting to offer the details unless it was something worth bragging about. Again, there was that small smile on his face, and he nodded while looking away. "All right."
He considered if right then was a good time to leave. Just because Ishida had rescued him didn't mean he felt like having him over for a slumber party or anything. But he was honestly a little hesitant to go home at such an hour...afraid he would wake the girls. Had they worried about him at all? Had anyone even wondered where he was for a day?
...Maybe he didn't want to know. Just like he hadn't wanted to know Cirucci's true feelings.
Do you hate me?
Of course I do.
>>
A fleece, navy sweatshirt that hugged rather than fell loose and baggy, and a pair of dark grey slacks. Indoor slippers over checkered socks, and Ishida walked back, and looked at Alfons standing precisely where he had left him. Ishida blinked, entering the kitchen and maneuvering toward the stove.
“You can sit down. Unless you’ll be going, if you can manage it.”
Indifference was the key; Ishida did not hint that Alfons ought to leave, merely that the option was there and more than understood. And yet, even as he took the kettle to the faucet, fillet it with water, and replaced it on the stove, Ishida couldn’t help the question pricking at his mind, unanswered – without turning, he asked, pressing the anxiety out of his voice:
“…It wasn’t too dry? Nothing ever survives as well through a microwave, but…”
>>
He hadn't even realized just how much time had passed until Ishida walked right by him again, fully clothed. Had he gotten so lost in thought? What was he even thinking about?
"...Oh. Thank you. I just don't want to go home at this hour. I'm sure I'll have to answer some questions when I return, anyway...I'd rather it not be the middle of the night. The girls need their sleep." Of course he could manage it, he added silently.
And so, Alfons pulled out a chair to sit, watching Ishida work. There had been a lot of blood... He was curious, and the nurturer in him was keeping a close eye on the other man's movements, just in case he needed some help with something. Alfons was positive he would be too prideful to outright ask.
"No, it was good. I actually love using the microwave...it's much faster than the stove. Then again, the stoves here are much more efficient than the stoves at home, not to mention safer."
>>
A lot of blood. And it had been a little difficult, getting his arm into that shirt. Still, even a little light-headed, Ishida could play it off well enough. As sad as it may have been, he was no stranger to blood loss. He glanced to the clock on the wall beside the refrigerator, then redundantly, to the watch on his wrist. It was well after midnight; he could understand Alfons’s concern, and accepted his decision without comment. Even if he didn’t like it, he couldn’t justify kicking out someone he had bothered to rescue.
He felt an uncanny déjà vu, standing above the stove, his eyes on the teapot. How often had he prepared tea for a not entirely welcome guest? Ishida had been unaccustomed to visitors of any kind in his world, and as a host, he could be more than a little awkward. He didn’t sigh, but he wanted to do it.
But he had no instinctive, gut-need to avoid, to want to hate Alfons, as he did his most recent guest. Ishida turned, an elbow on the counter, genuine interest in his expression. “Were there no microwaves in your world?”
He realized that he knew, really, absolutely nothing about Alfons. “Ah… This technology is very normal, to me.”
>>
Alfons took note of how Ishida was favoring one arm, but didn't say anything. Instead he just quickly finished up what bit of stew that was left in his bowl. Ishida's inquiry did come as a surprise... For as little as Ishida knew about him, Alfons knew even less about the other. Aside from what he had seen in Cirucci's memories, of course.
"Yes, it seems normal to most people here... It was still 1923 when I..." Died? That sounded too morbid. "When I was brought here."
Standing, Alfons carried his bowl over to the sink, turning the water on. The least he could do was wash his own dishes while playing guest. He was much more accustomed to being the host. "The books I read at the library said it was first brought to the public in 1947. Of course, the picture in the book looked nothing like the ones here. Funny how the more advanced inventions get, the smaller they become."
>>
A surprise, that Alfons would take the initiative with his dish. Ishida watched him move with only the slightest bit more of the whites of his eyes showing; he considered protesting, and thought better of it. Perhaps a guest shouldn’t wash his own dishes, or perhaps he should; Ishida evaluated the task he would have doing it almost entirely one-armed, and thought better of being that polite.
1923 indicated his world, at least it matched with what little he thought he knew about Alfons, which placed him in Germany. Still, to be in his kitchen with Alfons, discussing microwaves … Ishida pushed up his glasses with two fingers, and glanced down as he did at the pot, a smile pulling at his lips.
“That date sounds right. Yes, it’s quite a feat, though to be expected for reasons beyond convenience. When one considers what man has been able to accomplish in the last fifty years alone, it’s really rather impressive.”
Yeah, humans were pretty cool. Talking about this kind of thing, normal things, it was a nice change. He almost felt at ease; the stove warming the air beside him, the sound of the water hitting the sink.
>>
It was indeed comforting to talk about these sorts of things with someone, and even more pleasant when Ishida almost seemed interested in the conversation. He was so used to people brushing his enthusiasm off...
Alfons appreciated the positive reaction as he washed his bowl and spoon by hand. No matter how much he marveled at modern technology, he still didn't use the dishwasher. He couldn't even see what was going on in there. How did you know your dishes were actually getting clean?
One day he ought to try to take one apart and inspect it himself.
"It's fascinating, actually...to be able to see what the world is like almost a hundred years in the future. I consider it an honor. People laugh at my enthusiasm for the technology here, but as a rocket engineer, my dream wasn't to make tomorrow a reality. My dream was to turn tomorrow into today. I think it was that sort of dreaming from other scientists that resulted in such a rapid advancement in technology."
Realizing that he'd gone off on a tangent, Alfons flushed and quickly dried the bowl and spoon before holding them out. "I don't know where they go."
>>
Ishida thought about pointing out the dish washer, but it was only a bowl and a spoon. Instead, he let himself be taken in by what Alfons had revealed -- rocket engineer? Alfons as young as he was, had been a rocket engineer. That was more than a little impressive, and Ishida, for all his genius, couldn’t help but gain esteem for Alfons. At the same, the way Alfons spoke –
Ishida was glad of the opportunity to clear his face in the time Alfons took to turn. He’d been looking at Alfons, unsure of how to react to such sincerity, as if he had three heads, but a little more kindly. He nodded, took the step to accept the dishes-one handed, and put them away.
“You’re something else, Alfons-san,” Ishida said, plainly, dropping the spoon in among with the others in the drawer. “An honor, this place? But, I see what you mean. I wonder that the City doesn’t mix in things from even farther into the future, if it can take from any time.”
The kettle hissed; Ishida busied himself with retrieving mugs, placing tea bags, pouring water. He picked up one mug, offered it to Alfons. “Green. I suppose I should have asked if you had a preference.”
>>
Something else? He wasn't really sure if that was an insult or a compliment, but he certainly didn't hear any malice in Ishida's tone. With a weak smile, he accepted the mug. In such cold weather, and without a pulse to keep you warm, it was nice to enjoy a hot cup of tea. For now, just holding it in his hands was pleasant.
"Thank you. I like green tea... I didn't have it until coming here, though. It took time to grow on me." He waited a couple minutes to let the tea leaves brew before locating the trash can to drop the small tea bag in. "And I have actually spoken to some people even further in the future... I know Faye Valentine is so far ahead it's like she came right out of a science fiction novel...or one of those movies she showed me! And the same with the Durandal, that gigantic ship on the beach. I took a look at it when Miss Mary Godwin was still in the City some months ago... She tried to explain the technology to me and I'm embarrassed to say it all went right over my head."
Instead of acting upset over it, though, Alfons just chuckled before taking a sip of his tea and staring at the ground. Again, he was lost in thought. It happened quite a bit with him, though instead of wondering about numbers and ratios, his line of thought was far more complex.
>>
Speaking with Alfons made Ishida realize how woefully little attention he had paid certain aspects of and people in the City. More than that, it threw into sharp relief a certain tendency of his to focus on the negative over the positive. While he persisted in doing, activity, and purpose, it wasn’t with much optimism. It left him bemused, thoughtful in a not agreeable but not entirely disagreeable way; he looked at his tea, at the reflection of his bespectacled eye.
“You and I would probably need to look at the manual for something like that,” Ishida conceded. “…At the very least.”
He drank from his cup; looked again at Alfons. “Which movies did she show you? It must be bizarre to be from the future and observe the past’s inaccurate view of it.”
>>
"It was a set of six movies called Star Wars. What I thought was strange is that the first three movies were made after the last three movies. That makes no sense to me." While there was a smile on his face as he spoke, Alfons kept looking on the ground, his normally sky blue eyes clouded.
His cup of tea was finished in record time, and he turned his back to Ishida to go about washing it out. His voice was so soft that it could barely be heard over the water.
"I don't regret doing it. I would have made it permanent if I'd had enough to trade."
>>
“That explanation,” Ishida began knowingly, “is a little involved. The older three are, of course, infinitely superior.” He left it there, only because getting into Star Wars might reveal the true extent of only a piece of his geekery. Not that he would ever reveal having attempted to use a Jedi mind-trick, only to be terribly disappointed.
He took more time with his tea, and still had at least half of it left when Alfons invited himself to the sink. Ishida started, having not expected the Thunderwitch to come up again, even if in immediate hindsight, it was inevitable; the elephant in the room. Ishida turned his face to the opposite direction.
”You’re insane,” He said, and went on with equal blunt force. “I don’t understand why you would, and I can’t imagine what you traded. It was stupid, Alfons-san.”
>>
Turning the water off, Alfons set the cup aside, still looking downward. He offered no excuse in his defense, no reason for his actions, or even a sharp quip to combat the insult. He didn't even appear upset, as one ought to be after encountering the situation he just had.
No, Alfons Heiderich just smiled, his gaze softening into something utterly pure and immeasurable in it's depth. It was the sort of look one took on when watching their loved one sleep--the sort of look nobody else was meant to see.
>>
Alfons’s silence prompted Ishida to redirect his attention to the German. What he saw was like -- like something from, what was the American program? The Twilight Zone? The expression on his face made Ishida feel as if he were intruding on something deeply personal. Uncomfortable, Ishida looked away quickly, at anything but. For it to be for the Thunderwitch was too bizarre.
Knowing what he did, what Alfons had to know, made Ishida want to shake him, to remind him of what precisely the Thunderwitch was, had done, would do again. But Ishida knew -- he understood that Alfons knew all that. What may have been worst of all for Ishida was that it wasn’t inconceivable.
Ishida shook his head. Then, biting out the words, his tea cooling in his hand: “You might be good for her. Indubitably, maybe, but she won’t ever appreciate it. You’re … by choosing to … feel that way, to do this, you’re signing yourself into immeasurable pain.”
>>
Ishida's reaction brought about laughter that would have normally been soft and pleasant, if not for the battered lungs that turned it into something more along the lines of a wheezing cough.
"If I had any choice in the matter, I would have grown older and married a nice young lady and had a son and a daughter. Don't even doubt for a moment that I didn't have it all planned out... In my time, it was expected." Despite his smile, his words had grown bitter. "But my body has proven time and time again that it does not wish to support the expectations in my mind. My heart is no exception." His love for Edward hadn't been normal...and neither was his love for Cirucci.
The bitterness had evaporated, but now there was nothing pure in his expression. For a moment, it seemed empty and tired--worn and jaded far more than someone his age should be. "She hates me now that she has a heart. And when she loses it, I can only hope that she continues to hate me for what I've done to her. At least, for the first time, I'll know she feels something when she looks at me."
>>
Laughter. Things Ishida didn’t know about Alfons, what he could only piece together – the memory of the way he had coughed, through the Voice Post. It hadn’t sounded like something minor. Ishida finished his tea in a long gulp, a distraction, a way of putting finally focusing on that look on Alfons’s face. He held the empty mug, but could only stare at it for so long.
This wasn’t something he could have predicted. Turning so to set his mug on the counter, Ishida used his freed hand to again push his glasses, his mouth in a thin line, back too straight; then his shoulders slumped, one more than the other.
“I don’t think she hates you.” In plain. Said, in part, because looking at that expression had been unbearable, and unbearably familiar. But it wasn’t out of comfort, not a lie. “Look at the facts. She wouldn’t have told me how to find you, if she hated you. She won’t hate you when she loses her heart; she’ll only wish she does, and pretend she does.”
>>
"Yes," Alfons murmured, head bobbing in an absent nod as he looked off to the side. "That's the logical way to look at it. That's the way I should view it, or what sort of scientist am I?" With a hapless shrug, he leaned back to rest his hands on the counter.
"But, Ishida, those aren't the facts you should be looking at when talking about Cirucci. The fact you should be looking at is that there is no logic to the way she acts. She's acted strange on several occassions, and her having a heart only makes her more unpredictable. She probably told you where I was because she was experiencing guilt, or because she didn't want people to yell at her if I turned up dead."
Oddly calm, he looked back to the raven haired youth standing in front of the stove. "I'm in love with someone who will never love me back. Even if what she feels in a few weeks is nothing but an echo of the hate she feels now, at least right now at this moment, I know she's probably thinking of me, and I know that she isn't indifferent to my existence. She wants to rip out my heart, but can't bring herself to because of the guilt. That's the closest thing to love I can ever get from her, and I'll do my best to enjoy every damned miserable moment of it."
Then, completely out of place, Alfons grinned and laughed again, waving his hand. "God, don't I sound morbid? Forgive me for going off like that. You should go to bed. It's awfully late."
>>
Ishida’s self-control was much too fine, too well-tuned. He made a remarkable job of suppressing his surprise, his pity, his emotion. He could keep his face studiously blank, even cold, as he regarded the speaking blond. There were a lot of things he could have said, defenses or arguments for or against the Thunderwitch, elaborations on his belief. But Alfons’s mind was clearly made up.
Lifting his hand again, he scratched his cheek with a fingernail, rested his knuckles there, briefly. There was no point in pitying someone so keen on his own misery. “No,” Ishida retorted, “You sound pathetic.”
“…So perhaps you’re made for one another.” Not a glower, but a direct gaze, unblinking. Ishida tried to move his other arm, a tentative stretch; his teeth clenched together, his muscles flinched only a little. “You’ll refrain from telling me if I should or shouldn’t sleep in my apartment, I think. I could say the same thing to you.”
Both boys, after all, had been through the works today.
>>
Even though it should have been an incredibly insulting thing for Ishida to say, Alfons almost seemed pleased. In a twisted way, it was similar to recieving someone's blessing. My, he really was screwed up, wasn't he? When had that happened?
"If you say so," he chirped back, sounding oddly cheery as he turned to walk out of the kitchen. He had been tempted to take Ishida's cup and dump the cold tea, but refrained since he was so carefully reminded that this wasn't his home.
"I guess spending a day tied up in a utility closet doesn't offer a very restful sleep, does it?"
>>
Alfons was very strange; that Ishida had long since decided. He eyed his back for a moment before crossing to the sink and handling the mug himself.
Very strange, and Ishida wasn’t entirely sure if he wanted to be any closer to someone like that. It was bad enough that he humored the Thunderwitch as much as he did, without “befriending” (not that Ishida had and acknowledged friends, all things forbid) the boy infatuated with his own perverse, doomed love for the Arrancar. Not that it didn’t strike a certain fanciful chord in the Quincy, Alfons’s sincere, devoted self-sacrifice --!!
Ishida shook his head. Hard. “You can sleep on the couch,” He called. “I’ll bring you a blanket.”
>>
Ah, the couch. Alfons eyed it, having already spent a good chunk of the evening recovering on it. It was far more comfortable than the one in his apartment. Yet another thing for him to envy in Ishida's life.
"Thank you," he called back as he sat down. Then, as he slumped back against the cushions, staring at nearby window, he wondered if it would snow soon. His brow crinkled, and there was a downward tilt to his lips as he gazed at the glass, frosted from the cold.
"Thank you," he repeated, this time a soft whisper under his breath that nobody else was meant to hear, and Alfons wondered just who he was talking to.
>>
The closet with the spare blanket was in the living room, and after replacing the mug in its cupboard, Ishida crossed to it. He leaned up, tugging free the heavy cotton, and closed the closet with his foot. One-handed, he tossed the folded fabric at his seated guest.
To the first thank you, of course, and with a thread of intolerant irritation in his tone, furrowing between his eyebrows. His hand caught on its opposite elbow. “There’s no need to thank me. … Good night.”
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