Log; Complete

[thunderwitch.livejournal.com]

When; April 9th [backdated woah, yes, we fail that hard]
Rating; PG
Characters; Cirucci {thunderwitch} & Ishida {anti_buttons}
Summary; Still in possession of Ishida's finger bone, obtained rather cheaply by taking advantage of a curse, Cirucci ends up returning it under threat of having her saketsu chain severed for good. I also suck at summaries.
Log;

She was waiting.

Cirucci was always waiting, it seemed, because whenever she got past waiting, when she actually took action, there was nothing to be had. She didn't get anything. She didn't go anywhere. She was always right back here, always right back to curled up in a corner of her couch, hugging bare legs close and pressing the side of her face into the cushion. No matter what she did, she was always Privaron. She was always 105th. She was always shamed.

Eying the bone pendant on her wrist, her lips twisted wryly.

She was always getting in trouble because of her goddamned big mouth.

>>>

How irritating; how well Ishida knew the path to her apartment by now.

He walked and thought of other things. Of his kitten fast becoming a cat, of that absurd election, of Rosiel's immaturity that somehow still got to him (no, it didn't!). He walked, and the time passed, until he stood in front of her door and did not knock. ... In part because the door was in wooden pieces, bashed inward and preceding the gore he could just begin to see. His lip curled as he edged around the door remnants, as it became impossible to side-step all of the blood.

Raising his voice, Ishida called, disdain dripping, "I see nothing about you ever changes. Can't you even clean up?"

>>>

"..." She shot him a glare, from the corner of the couch. Not a very intimidating thing, when, though she wasn't injured herself, dried blood caked her stockings, legs and skirt. Not at all scary. But then again, she had a feeling nothing she could do to him would scare him anymore, and what a goddamned buzzkill that was.

"Come to mock me again?" The Privaron mustered a twist of her lips, a sneer. "I thought you could do better than my housekeeping."

>>>

Not at all scary, but fairly grotesque. A sense of deja vu did not overwhelm, but pricked at his subconscious as he looked down at her; farther than that time, but with a similar, unreadable expression. The blood had gone brown and the little he had skimmed of her interaction with the other Arrancar suggested that he was the source of it. Ishida wondered if he could even manage to be disgusted, he certainly couldn't be surprised.

"This is a pretty exceptional case, I think," he derided, casting a backward glance as he walked toward her and extended his hand. "Well, take it off, or need I do that too?"

>>>

"..." He'd shoot her. She knew he'd shoot her. And she knew what would happen, her saketsu chain would sever, and she'd be worthless. Even more worthless than she already was, if that was even possible. And she wasn't sure it was.

Which made it inexplicable that she still hesitated to give it to him. Her pride, battered, bruised, and torn as it was, still existed, still dictated a good amount of what she did, and she turned her face away, tucked her thin wrist closer.

"... What do you want with it anyway?"

>>>

His resolve had not weakened, nor had his impatience. Nothing had changed; his belief that she could not possibly shake him remained unaltered. His gaze on her pathetic figure could not stir those damned feelings of pity, of not reluctance but a kind of need to compromise. When had he become so weak? When had he let emotion have such an irritating hold, when dealing with monsters?

But even as he made to shake off the beginnings of the mental block, he did not fire as she hesitated as he had sworn to do. Perhaps he could recognize her pride, tattered and clinging like something sick, diseased, but desperate to live. He shook his head, his eyes softening. It wasn't delay. She wasn't human (except when he taunted her with her humanity), but ... the way she curled into the couch, needing to preserve herself away from him.

"... It's mine. You don't ... You don't really want something simply because I let you have it? It would be the same as sparing you, all over again."

There was a hint of desperation in his tone, a need for her to simply give it, as if it didn't matter. Like this, she was too human, too much a broken girl with nothing to show for herself but stained stockings.

>>>

His words hurt. They always did, lately. He was right, that was the painful thing. It wouldn't be painful if they weren't true.

"... You're never going to let me have any fun, are you, Ishida?" She hardly ever used the nickname anymore. With the other Arrancar, she used it, postured and preened, and sometimes when she mocked him, but it had lost its flair, that silly name, and he'd gained more depth than the white fabric wearing bespectacled intruder.

A privaron wished he had stayed just Shiro-Megane-Kun, and he'd stayed dead and bleeding in her echoing white halls, all alone with her, the blood, and the lingering shame shakily covered with the pride of a kill.

>>>

"Of course not," he said, and the words came smoothly, and his hand raised with two fingers to adjust the angle of his glasses. The light might have, probably hit his lenses just so, and for a moment, everything was as it should be, he was detached, arrogant, handling only an enemy.

But, he looked at her, once his glasses had been moved and through those thick lenses, she was still curled, and she had used his name. His lips tightened, thinned white, almost as white as his shirt, though he did not wear his uniform for this. Subtly, almost beyond notice, his shoulders lost their pose, slumping.

"... What is this?" He asked, unable to not sound a little indignant. "What are you doing? This is pathetic. You're pathetic."

Leaning toward her, he took hold of her upper arm, not to make her wrist more available but to force her to turn toward him. "Look at me. Lift your chin, make an effort, Ci--Thunderwitch!"

>>>

Brow furrowed, lips pursed, and she turned to face him, painted mouth drawn back in a sudden sneer of surprise.

"What am I supposed to do?" She snapped, one small hand rising as if to slap him, but didn't, didn't know why she didn't. Oh, yeah, because he'd just sever her chain, then, and she'd be right back where she started.

"This," Her face changed in an instant, from tragic fury to a confidant smirk, then right back again. Her act, her pretty, prideful act she wore to make everyone think she still had something left to her name, when really, she had nothing. "Doesn't work on you."

"That," Taloned nail pointed to Golondrina, left abandoned on the table, "Won't kill you."

"And I'm tired-" Her voice wavered, could hardly bear to say it, "Of you reminding me how goddamned weak I am compared to you- So what effort do you want when it gets me nowhere?"

>>>

His eyes followed her hand, followed it to its inactivity. This was unbearable. Standing, once he had released her arm and straightened, and staring down at her as she unraveled. What could he say, once she had finished her little speech?

It wasn't his responsibility; he knew and thought that first, and the fact circled his mind with the solidity of concrete, of his pride, of such facts as he was Quincy, she was Arrancar, she was a monster. His duty was to defeat her, not pity her, not need something more than this bitter mess. To retrieve his bone and overcome his disgust and get rid of it.

Air escaped him in something similar to a sigh, that wheezy exhale, and behind his lenses his eyelids slid down without lifting. The surface of the coffee table was clear enough, and Ishida suddenly found himself sitting, his forearms on his legs, his back bent. He knew his purpose but exhaustion was the weight that pressed his shoulders forward, that propped his weight on his arms, that forced his gaze forward at her.

Then he looked away, chin turned and eyes searching for her mantel. Picking out each object before they shifted to the blood on the floor, but instead of bile rushing out of his throat he felt air, another sigh.

"You're weak; I'm stronger. That won't kill me, and I can see right through you. It's all true. ... So?"

>>>

She sunk back, sulkily turned her head, but she watched him out of the corner of her eyes, purple iris peeking through the veil of dark, curled hair, painted lips full and pouting, another of her acts, but yet, not quite. A petulant child at times and a psychotic weapon others, a seductress when it suited her and a bitter mistress when it didn't, the Thunderwitch was a creature of contradictions.

"... So, exactly." Cirucci muttered, fingers toying with the stark bone at her wrist.

"I have to keep fighting you. And you're stronger than me. And I'm tired of losing." She spoke gently, it seemed, but the undertones laced through it, bitterness, hatred, guilt, shame, were unmistakable.

>>>

Knowing better than to trust a single expression, a single word that the Thunderwitch let go didn't make it easy. He knew this entire thing could be an act, an elaborate ruse to invite his human pity, and so he held out his hand, palm facing the ceiling, and curled his fingers once, in a swift jerk, to beckon for his pendant.

"And you've decided not to fight me. Then .. give it back." An easy command, it was simple enough to summon the grit to back it.

Looking directly at her was difficult, though, the inescapable sense of sincerity in her current dismal state. Not his responsibility, he told himself, though it was. His, but why care? This was what he had wanted, wasn't it? Simple, over and done with, her yielding to his strength and that alone.

>>>

"... I said I was tired." Cirucci muttered darkly, fingers scraping over the bone fervently, as if she could memorize how it felt, perhaps, a small little taste of how victory had tasted, even if the only way she had achieved it was through cheating and curses. She had come to the point where she didn't care about the means, as long as she could have that taste of glory.

"I didn't say I wouldn't fight you. I have to fight you." She couldn't just give, give and not gain anything in return, nothing to advance her position, nothing to keep her respect or- ... She never got anything from him.

"I said I was tired." She repeated softer, fingers clenching tighter on the bone reluctantly. But her periphreal vision kept sight of him, in case his fingers twitched again, her whole body had tensed when he'd jerked them. If he reached for that bow, she'd have to-

Giving in was better than stuck powerless.

>>>

The constant movement of her fingers over the bone had not escaped him, the sound of her nails against it grating in his ears, a constant, numbing vibration. His extended hand closed into a fist, firm as he pulled back his arm. He pushed his glasses again, though it was unnecessary, the habit was impossible to fight. And what else could he do?

"Do you think," he began, quiet and trailing, "...that you're the only one? You'll fight and you'll lose, and I'll sever it, as I've promised to do for too long. It--"

His words halted, because he could hardly confess to her, that she made him look bad. How juvenile. What of the many other valid reasons to do it? His fingers shifted for his glasses but pressed over the bridge of his nose, the rest splayed over his forehead.

"I'm tired, too. I've told you before, I think ... I've probably said it all before, one way or another." It had been a long time, too long of a time, this city and her.

>>>

"..." Of course she thought she was the only one. Selfish to the core, Cirucci hardly ever spared a thought for anyone else's feelings, for their cares and worries, if they were tired. She was tired, that was the important thing here. She was tired, she was weak, she was worthless, to him, maybe, but she was strong, to her, she was proud, to her, and she could never reconcile the two seperate ways she could be viewed, unable to accept being less than she wished to be, or rather, wished to reclaim.

"I can't afford to let you do that." She finally grit out, teeth tight, lips curled. "I have too many enemies to be powerless. Too many favors owed, too many fucking debts." No one would pay her any mind, powerless. And attention was what she lived for now, when she couldn't live for power, or for glory, she took attention, could at least get some fleeting satisfaction from eyes on her, her name on others' lips.

And no one would speak again of Cirucci Thunderwitch if she had no strength, unless it was a passing "Poor Cirucci", in that sickening, sweet sweet tone.

Her knuckle cracked on the bone.

>>>

"Denying the truth won't help you," he retorted, but rather than arrogant and cold, clipped and stern, he simply sounded weary. The exhaustion to which he referred had left traces of that sigh in his voice, in the way his blue eyes watched the movement of his bone on her wrist. (Strange, that was still too strange; his finger crooked, reflex).

Those weren't his problems; she wasn't his problem, and even if he couldn't make himself believe that entirely, it was true enough that all her enemies, all her debts, they had nothing to do with him. His knees did not creak but he could imagine the sound as he stood, rising from the table, letting his arms stretch and bend to the ready.

"There's no use putting it off. Let's fight." If he waited any longer, he might lose his nerve; Ishida couldn't, wouldn't allow her to affect him that far. As such, he didn't look at her when he said it, when he began to concentrate the reishi to his wrist.

>>>

Cirucci watched him, but she didn't move to fight him, she couldn't afford it. The minute she entered it, she sealed her fate. She didn't know if anyone could repair a severed saketsu chain. Could Aizen, their god, do it? Could anyone in the City? Orihime, but she wasn't here. She would be doomed, and even though she was terribly proud, she couldn't just stand up to something she knew, indefinitly knew, would end with her own utter humiliation.

"... That sounded really lame, Ishida." She scoffed lightly, lips pouted. "Let's fight~" She started to laugh, a bitter, high strung sound, and her fingers clutched the cushions of the couch.

And she didn't move. Unable to reconcile herself with the knowledge he'd sever it, but unable to give it to him, either.

>>>

The bow flared, spirit beginning to erupt and arc, familiar and same and forming the web-like weapon. He took his stance, proper and posed, and -- lame? His arms jerked and crossed over his face, bow dissolving to a miniature version before fizzling completely before he took a step back and very nearly tripped over the coffee table.

"W-what?!" He asked, loud and taken aback. "What --what am I supposed to say? I mean, that's what we're doing, we --"

Her laugh had sounded manic; he realized that then, belatedly, and narrowed his eyes. As ever, it was a struggle not to pity her, and to let that feeling influence his reaction. Resuming his previous position, his shoulders lifted a half-inch and his jaw tightened.

"Stand up, Thunderwitch. I'm taking it back, one way or another."

>>>

"I'm tired, Ishida." But it didn't change that barely hidden flinch, tightening of all her muscles when she saw the bow, instrument of her demise, her shame, humiliation, fear.

She was torn, between two choices. Both, she didn't like. She couldn't just stand to give it to him, that would be too much, and she couldn't fight him, that would only end badly. Horrifically. Horrible.

Slowly, she fingered the bone on her wrist, then averted her eyes, and extended her arm.

>>>

"..." Even words would humor her. Ishida let his silence speak for itself. Once he sensed her movement, noted it out of his peripheral vision, he allowed himself to look at her, or more specifically, down to her wrist. His hands moved, fingers deft and up for the simple task of unhooking the clasp, of pulling her makeshift bracelet from her wrist. In a way, it looked like a mockery of his bracelet, his Quincy pendant, a bone from the finger that fired the arrows.

Once it was his, he pocketed it. The silence went on then, all-encompassing, and to resist the pull of it, the obligation to speak, the sight of her, he pivoted, turning his back. His eyes met the bloodied floor, the splintered wood; his head tilted and he felt his bangs graze his cheeks.

"If you're tired," he began, quietly, staring at the red-brown blood, caked and so real it looked fake, "then rest."

>>>

"... Hnn." She sat still while he removed it, pale wrist that could have matched the ivory of that bone, only the smallest tremble of reluctance when he removed it. When he'd taken it, she withdrew, toes curled, legs tucked up and lay her cheek on her knee, head turned to watch him, eyes dimmed.

"... Maybe I will." The Privaron murmured. And she didn't want to say it, it sounded like begging, but.

"... Going to tell anyone?"

>>>

"How would it come up?" He asked in turn, irritation evident in his tone. His chin tilted toward his shoulder, angling his face to allow him to look back at her, the muscles in his shoulder taut.

"Who would I tell? I'm throwing it out and that's the end of it. Be grateful that you got off this lightly." Even in her pathetic state, Ishida could not resist what was now instinct to disdain, to look down his nose and disregard his enemies and in turn, ever importantly, highten his own importance and strength.

"The one who needs to keep her mouth shut is you. I trust you'll rethink how you brag about what you've done to me in the future."

Not that he had a small mouth, when it came to that. Obviously. Ishida worked his way to the door, or the door frame, once again unable to avoid the blood. "And... clean this up. You have to live here. You might start trying."

>>>

"I don't work." Cirucci mumbled. "You have to have money to buy things here, no one will clean for free, I won't clean it myself, and if I threaten someone into it, you'll have a fit and sever my chain."

She ignored his comments, because once again, he was right. He was always fucking right, and she started laughing again, not quite as bitter, more of a genuinely amused laugh.

"What- Do you think I'd make a good waitress, Ishida? Or a secretary, maybe?" The very idea was so amusing that she just kept laughing, fingers smoothing at the blood stains on her skirt, looking around her apartment.

"Every time I clean it up, someone always wrecks it anyway."

>>>

He hated to look at her. Ishida hated the sound of her laugh, hated the way her throat moved and her lips parted for it, hated the curve of her body as she lounged on the couch. He hated the blood dry and not sticking to his shoes, hated the bone in his pocket, that he had had to come here, to look and hear her, to speak with her, to finish this. He hated the way her fingers moved on her skirt, hated them long and slim and deceptively feminine, not now very like talons.

He hated all of it, but he did not hate her - maybe he hated that.

"If you're expecting me to pity you, it's too bad," he responded, fairly smoothly. "All of that's your choice. You can clean it, but you won't. You could get one of those dull, mundane, human jobs. But you won't. You won't make the effort, you won't try to make anything different, though you certainly have the time ... And that isn't anything but your problem."

His body had turned more toward her, his hands once more adjusting his glasses, though he remained in the middle of her hallway, centered, tall.

>>>

She cut off, abrupt, teeth clicked shut, brow furrowed, complete one eighty.

"..." Finger moved, hand, wrist, and she flipped him off, lips terse. "Fuck you, Ishida."

The Privaron hated being told she was wrong, hated more when her slights and faults were pointed out, hated even more when details, why, how, she did things, were spouted back at her, because it made it all to clear to everyone, even her, how vain she was, how petty, how worthless. It always came back to worth, with Cirucci Thunderwitch.

"I'm not a human, so I don't get a dull, mundane, human job." Her voice tried to mock him, but only came out like an indignant squawk. "I'm not going to try and change things that won't change." Can't change, that had stuck in her throat.

>>>

Well, that was mature. Between one person and another, Ishida had actually been flipped off enough in his time to be able to take it with a considerable amount of aplomb, which was to say, indifference. He barely felt the need to roll his eyes, and that was a reaction easily suppressed in favor of looking like the better person.

She made that, at least, very easy.

Even as her voice became more avian, more animal, less human, his expression remained neutral, easily impassive. It was simple, right now, simple now and again to lean back and achieve that desired distance. She needn't be anything to him. It could be that easy.

"If that's what you've decided, then," he replied, his words chosen with care as he placed deliberate control into her hands. And that said, first with a backward step then a pivot, Ishida moved to the door.

>>>

There, that was another thing she hated. Being ignored.

"There's nothing else to decide." She spat, flouncing back on the couch petulantly. It was this human that was the biggest problem. She wanted to kill him, firstly. And yet, she couldn't. No matter how it hurt, and it had hurt, to realize it, he was stronger than her. It had been even harder to realize she could barely hate him these days, a simple, yet undeniable product of how long she'd been in this place. Over a year, and everything about her was less than before.

Well, not her hatred for the Espada, but that was a different story altogether. And considering the blood on her floor belonged to a Numeros, completely unrelated.

"... Sure you have all of it?" Cirucci whispered in a vain attempt to catch his attention again. That was the thing. She needed him to acknowledge her, and he so rarely did. She needed it, and he wouldn't give it, but in passing.

The bone was chipped, after all, some wear and tear.

>>>

As expressive and transparent as she made herself with her body, with her fall back onto the couch, so was her attempt to perturb him. The comment was such an obvious jab for attention, such a pathetic last try for the upper hand, that even as Ishida felt his muscles tense in a muted flinch, he knew precisely what it was.

The possibility that she had more of it had not escaped him, and how pathetic, like a sudden reflexive upchuck, he could feel anger hitting him, boiling beneath his skin and squeezing veins -- but he'd bee superior here for too long to lose it now.

"No. If not, then you'd better keep quiet about it to all of your friends," he said, not even letting himself look back, letting his neck turn, though his muscles ached with how hard he had clenched his jaw. "Or I'll be back, and I won't be as generous with your having hid it for a third time."

There was no door-knob to turn, nothing to impede his exit but the wreckage to move around. So he did.