Log: Complete

[dark-butler.livejournal.com]

When: Tuesday, June 10, Stuck on Glue Day
Rating: PG-13 for language
Characters: Walter Dornez dark_butler and Cirucci Thunderwitch thunderwitch
Summary: A bit of shopping, a bit of taunting, and a lot of venom.
Log:


Though Cirucci knows gaining my favour won't give her what she truly desires, doesn't she?

The Arrancar’s gaze was distant, staring ahead so hard she could bore a hole through whatever her sight landed on. Just because she knew something, just because she knew it didn’t mean he, the closest thing she reluctantly had to God, had to remind her that no matter what she did, the scar on her breast would always remain a scar. There was no more glory left for the Thunderwitch. Old, outdated, with newer models to take her place at the Espada table, and keep them from her without effort.

Without noticing her reiatsu had started to flare and splutter indignantly, nails to dig in to the fabric over her palms. Taking a moment to visibly relax, however false the relaxation was, the Arrancar outstretched her hand, probing through the bin of pillows. Shopping. Cirucci both liked and hated the activity. She liked things, her apartment was a virtual crow’s nest, one of the more avian traits she kept to was nesting, and she’d ruined a few pillows last time she’d been wounded at home. Stupid men.

Her fingers turned over a few, plucking a few she liked out. What Cirucci hated was paying. Rather, being expected to have and use money. So she just stole it off her meals. Easy enough. Though she now looked much more composed, her reiatsu was still hissing, the air humming a little around her in irritation.


Walter surveyed the mess that Pup had so kindly left him. Scattered couch pillows, white fluffs of stuffing, and shredded cloth left in the wake of a bored hellhound, however small he might be. The normally immaculate living room appeared to have been visited by that cartoon character that whirled itself into an engine of destruction.

He narrowed his eyes at the red gleam of six eyes peering out at him from under the thankfully undamaged couch and shook his head. Engine of destruction seemed an apt description for his familiar.

Pulling his ponytail straight in a lifelong gesture that often accompanied his pulling himself together at the same time, Walter left the mess, his chagrined familiar, and the apartment, pulling the door quietly closed behind himself. It would still be there when he got back, and he would be a bit less irritated by then.

New pillows. That was the ticket, it seemed.


Though she’d heard some shit about a curse, no one around the Arrancar was seemingly affected, and it didn’t seem to be bothering her one bit, which made it most definitely not her problem. A good way to think.

It didn’t take her long to stare at the money, try an figure out how much it took and how much she could get, plucking the colorful pillows in to her arms, a tell tale pout coming back to her lips.

Fuck them, then.


Walter didn’t hate shopping. He didn’t particularly like shopping. It was just one of those necessities that got taken care of with a minimum of fuss and muss if possible.

Keeping to the shadows was more a matter of comfort than necessity, but the vampire was not wholeheartedly pleased to be striding down City streets in the middle of the day. Stepping into the store and away from the front windows and those annoying streams of sunlight was a relief.

Hm… furnishings, curtains, dishes, vacuum cleaners…. Pillows? Where did they hide the damned pillows?

In the back of the store, as it turned out. A wall of them. Floor to ceiling in the back of one aisle. Plump, firm, hard, soft, feather, polyfoam, and more.

He should have sent Alucard to do this part.


A pout. She’d been forced in to a pout, over handling money, having to deal with incompetent mortals, and now… this. She had enough for one more, one, and she was going to use it, damn it, when he came in.

What Cirucci knew about Walter was mostly second hand. Strong enough to give Nnoitra run for his rank, threats against her… It was testament to her character that, while her pout turned in to a petulant scowl, she turned in a huff and went right back to glowering at the pillows.


And to add to the dubious pleasure of shopping, a tiny figure Walter recognized mostly by reputation and the harms she had done.

One corner of his mouth twitched up in a smirk in reaction to Cirucci’s huff. It wasn’t as though he would be starting a knock down, drag out fight in the middle of a home furnishings store. He had a bit more restraint and, dare he say, class than that.

His smirk spread slightly. There were other forms of attack and he was just in enough of a mood to want to play a little.

The tall man stopped several feet away from Cirucci and appeared to give most of his attention to the pillows, his face set in a smile that wasn't wholly pleasant.


Twitch. Twitch.

Cirucci bristled, and though she’d found the one she wanted, white, showed blood easy, purple pattern, she refused to do anything but eye it. She wasn’t about to turn her back to him, no way in hell. So she pretended, poorly, to be interested in continuing to look, lips pursed and shoulders stiff, easy enough to be agitated next to him.

Her downfall was, and always would be, her pride, and she would stake it too easily, on the most mundane of things. And pillows were a stupid thing to stake it on, boy did she know it. But her scar was irritable underneath white fabric, and finally she couldn’t take it anymore, reaching for the pillow to just leave.


It wasn’t conscious calculation that had Walter’s arm shoot out to snatch at the pillow almost before he realized Cirucci’s goal. Not really. She was an enemy, and petty as a pillow was, deep down, he didn’t want an enemy to have anything they really wanted. Petty? He preferred to blame his vampire nature.


If her body stiffened any further, she might just have a heart attack.

… If she had a heart that is. Her face went through a variety of expressions. Livid, pissed, angry, infurtiaed, pensive, to name the casual few. However, in the end, her painted lips broke in to a sickly sweet smile, turning to the taller vampire, hip cocking to look up at him, eyes betraying the one true emotion, and that was hate.

“Excuse me~” You caught more flies with honey than vinegar, was it? “You may not have noticed, I notice you seem to need some vision help, but I was about to take that.”

It was hard to smile and look at him.

“Could you return it, please?~”

Those words sounded awful hollow.


Walter’s smile was as honest as Cirucci’s, but his eyes were contemptuous rather than hateful. Contempt cut the prideful more deeply, in his experience.

“Don’t let me keep you from choosing another,” he said calmly, turning the pillow over in his hands, bare fingertips in his fingerless gloves tracing the pattern on the fabric. “This will suit my décor.”


She was going to keep on acting, really, but her kind smile turned far less amused, and she scoffed, hip cocked the other direction, spitting out her words. He had to go and fucking make this difficult, fucking bastard-

“I knew you were gay, but I didn’t know you were that gay. Light purple fits your décor?”


"Contrast,” Walter murmured with a sharp edge of humor in his tone. “It can’t be all whips and leather, now can it?”

She was making this almost too easy.

“I have what I want. I’ll leave you to your shopping.”

Of course, he’d have to be back later for something that he actually wasn’t going to give Pup to savage like this pillow.


Bristling further, the petite Arrancar drew herself to full height, that was all of five feet and a good few inches, arms crossing under her breasts.

“I don’t think so.”


Walter looked down his nose at her – waaay down his nose at her – and quirked an eyebrow.

“Are you going to take it from me, little woman?” He held the pillow up, just out of what he judged to be her reach so long as her feet stayed on the ground. “Perhaps you should get a stepladder first.”


It was undignified. It was utterly uncalled for.

But Cirucci Thunderwitch, for all she could act elegant, poised, refined, graceful, was a beast, driven by instinct, motivated by anger and fury. And she was angry.

So she jumped, shoving against him to reach for it with a grit out hiss.


Walter raised the pillow higher while he kept his lips pressed tightly together to keep from laughing. This had been too easy. Did the arrancar have no impulse control at all?

The smile froze on his lips as he realized something wasn’t quite right about the follow-up to her jump. It didn’t feel as though Cirucci was making an effort to stay pressed against him.

Was she?


… Something was not right, that was for sure. Because after jumping, she didn’t go back down, small, booted feet dangled off the floor a few inches. Cirucci wrenched, but she seemed to be having a problem separating her chest from his. The wrench turned in to a thrash, disregarding the pillow to dig her nails in at his shoulder and pull.

“What the fuck-“


What the fuck? was an apt question. His lips formed the same words as Walter took a step back only to find Cirucci coming along as though attached.

“You can’t fuck me to get the pillow.”


“Oh, fucking- Shut the hell up-“ Cirucci flushed in anger, biting her bottom lip and thrashing harder, trying to separate from him. But no matter how she struggled, she was still stuck, after a moment, she just stopped, glaring straight as his collarbone.

“Fucking curses.” Was muttered under her breath, brows knit together as she glowered and fell petulantly silent.

If she were lucky, he would just stand there and shut up for the rest of the day. Yeah, right.


“You have got to be having me on,” Walter muttered in return, putting his hands on her hips to try to push her away, lips drawing away from his fangs in distaste. This had been amusing until about ten seconds ago.

Grand. Now he was stuck with this undersized dance partner and his hands were stuck to her hips.

“Shit.”


“Good fucking job, Walter.” Cirucci hissed, squirming against the touch of his hands. It was awkward, with their heights, and she felt odd, just… hanging off his chest, so just to spite, she maneuvered her legs up around his waist, hooked her ankles behind him and smirked, more of a sneer.

“Is that better, baby?” She was just a whore to him, fine. She would be a whore. A spiteful, vindictive, whore.


That. Little. Bitch. For a moment Walter’s eyes flared with an angry red light and his bared teeth revealed sharklike points.

Tear her throat out now and be done with her.

Oh how tempting the thought was for a moment. For his human years, he’d kept a veneer of civility and gentility over the violence he was capable of. Existence as a vampire had stripped that veneer still thinner.

His eyes narrowed as he focused on control, the red light fading away to leave his irises grey. Killing her could leave him with a corpse stuck to his chest until the curse ended.

“If you press your lips together, will they stick closed?”


Despite her coy tone and appearance she adopted to annoy the fuck out of him, Cirucci was taut, ready to defend herself, awkwardly, if need be. She knew well how dangerous he was, she did, and she wasn’t about to just let him at her. Every one of her muscles, from her fingers curled over his shoulder to her thighs tight against his hips, was on alert.

“Nope~” She smirked wider, making a good deal of making herself comfortable. “You got us in to this mess by being such a bitch, so.”


He started to think having her as a corpse might be preferable after all.

But he had years of deception behind him. The anger faded from his face and he met her smirk with a condescending smile. He still seethed, but he’d be damned if he was going to let this thing have the satisfaction of seeing it.

“Now we have the pleasure of each other’s company for the day.” He bent his head toward hers for a false conspiratorial posture. “Aren’t you the lucky little creature?”


“If you count having to be subjected to your horrifically droll and stiff manner, then, yes,” Not to be outdone, the Privaron put her own act to the test, let herself arch her neck to him like a lover speaking, though her body still betrayed her wariness, nails, teasing at the back of his neck.

“I’m so lucky.” Cirucci breathed.


Arching her neck to a vampire was not a brilliant move. Walter’s fingers tightened on her hips without regard to any pain their strength might cause as his attention centered on the flesh that peeked at the edge of Cirucci’s collar.

There, that other part of himself urged. There would be blood there and he could punish her for this ridiculous situation…

…that he had been just as responsible for in his desire to embarrass Cirucci. There would be a time and a place to see her bleed, but this was not it.

Once more he caught himself and slowly relaxed his fingers, murmuring to keep most of the harshness from his voice, “You have no idea how lucky.”


“Oh?” It was easy enough with some effort to hide the wince, with hierro skin like she had, tough enough that most swords couldn’t even cut her. Most, any way. She had to concentrate to keep her own voice down to a sultry croon, not the harsh shrieks she was in the mood for emitting.

“I was going to finish up here, have a nice bath, lounge around, have some food… and you came and interrupted my nice, relaxing day. How lucky am I, again, Walter?”

She purred his name like she’d purred Nnoitra’s, Luppi’s, even like she purred Aizen’s name, inviting. But there was no real invitation for him, because this vampire was not someone she’d wanted within ten feet of her, let alone his fingers digging in at her hips that drove her to caress in retribution.


“You’re lucky that I am not going to take you home to allow Alucard to remove you from my body one piece at a time.” He straightened, no longer needing to keep his expression concealed. It was a day. Only a day.


“And here I thought the whole point was supposed to be that you were better than me.” She would have been afraid, had she not spent a week earlier being dissected again and again under Szayel Aporro’s knife. Pieces of her own flesh weren’t so scary any more, after that experience.

“Does that mean we’re going to my place? Shame, I haven’t picked up.”


“That’s hardly a point. Just a self-evident truth.” Ego? Now that was something Walter had in ready supply.

“Did you want to go dancing, instead?”


“Oh, yes.” Her voice was dripping in sarcasm, lips twisting. She was already tired of him.

“Because my footwork,” Her heels dug in to the small of his back, “Is impeccable right now.”


He wondered, as his fingers dug brutally into her hips in retaliation, if the little bitch bruised. He hoped so.

“Then by all means, take me home with you.” As though he wanted witnesses to this particular fluke of City bad luck anyway. “I’m all aquiver to know where it is you go to hide.”


Oh, she bruised. All too often and in all the wrong places, her lip twitching in the corner. She’d have neat little marks from his fingers before the day was out.

“What?” She was nearing a hiss, barely kept level voice now. “Did you prefer standing here in the middle of the fucking store?


“Which. Building?” He asked, words clipped off sharply before he stifled his irritation with her. She was hardly tolerable on the network, but up close and personal, she really begged for bleeding.


“One.” She hissed back, shrugging off the cute and coy act with a toss of her head, long, curled hair, not caring if she hit him in the face with that motion, her lips pursed petulantly. Today was going to be hell.


Without another word, Walter turned to stride toward the front of the store, then paused, looking toward the cash register. He pursed his lips speculatively before smiling and going to the counter to pay for his pillow.

Moral high ground, here we go in an utterly non-high ground way.


Oh, she could see that smile.

Lips pursed firmer, and she snarled at his throat. Eye level, for her, even like this, kicking hard at the small of his back again.

“Son of a bitch.”


Walter shifted his attention down to her face, the smile blinking into something colder and back to that amused expression he turned on the clerk at the register. “Cirucci, dear, my wallet is in my breast pocket.”

He tilted his head at the clerk’s quizzical expression. “She just can’t help herself sometimes,” he explained to the man. “Do you think you could get my wallet if she can’t pull herself away from my charms to get it?”


Charms, his fucking charms-

“But Walter, dear.” Cirucci fawned, moving a bit to slip her slim fingers in his breast pocket, coming up with his wallet and twirling it in her palm. “I just really want you to hurry up here so we can get to fucking, alright~? You promised, you know.” No shame, really, she was much beyond that, but she could try and embarrass him in return, arching her spine back to toss the wallet at the hapless clerk with a huff.

“I don’t like waiting.”


He lived with the younger Alucard; embarrassment had been fairly well burned out of him by some of his spouse’s excesses. At least on the outside.

On the inside? The inside wasn’t as calm as the smile he kept turned on the clerk until the flustered man tucked the bag with the pillow under his arm, wallet inside.

“See, Cirucci, you could wait those mere minutes until I would sweep you off to your nest to hear you scream for me.”

He turned away without looking back at the now-speechless clerk.


“But I still hate waiting~” Cirucci fluttered, running her fingers through his stiff ponytail, whining loudly. “And you promised we’d be back home by now, and look, you’re still shopping and I’m not satisfied.”

The Arrancar kept whining, pouting, aiming to be just as much as a pain in the ass as she could manage without crossing the danger threshold.


She was definitely succeeding in being a pain in the ass.

Walter gave her hips another cruel squeeze and pushed through the door and out into the street. Building one. Right. Anything to get the Hell out of the public eye with his current parasite burden.

“You’ll be happy to learn, then,” he said as he strode toward Cirucci’s building, “that my clothes are mere shadow constructs, and can melt away at will.”


"Oooh, how exciting~" Cirucci dead panned, lost most of the glitzy act when there wasn't anyone left to scar or traumatize. "That's a wonderful trick, Walter, I'm dying to see it."

Now she only sounded sarcastic, huffing to herself and tossing her hair.

"None of my others can do that, how impressive."


Irritating creature. As though he really wanted his bare skin pressed against her.

“I’m sure they have other talents.”

He pushed through the door into her apartment building. “And a fascinating array of diseases.”


“Like Arrancar have to bother with those things.” She snorted derisively, “Unlike vampires, I imagine. I do hope you’re clean?”
Her lip drew up in a sniff, resorting to glaring over his shoulder with a muttered “top floor”, fixing any one who looked more than once with a promise of a painful death.


“The dead don’t get diseases.” A jab of his elbow to hit the elevator button. Could he stun her into shutting up by slamming her into the wall? A thought. Perhaps later.

“So here we are. And I’m starting to feel a bit peckish.”


“Funny, that line works for me, too.” She pursed her lips once more, eying the ceiling as the elevator began to move. Like she didn’t miss THAT reference. Subtle.

“Good thing I have some fruit in the fridge. I’d have more food, but, shame, they really don’t package souls for personal consumption, you know? Maybe you like mango… ?”



Why bother with subtle. If he was stuck with Cirucci glued to his body, subtle had essentially gone on vacation anyway. “Nothing a bit saltier? I lost my sweet tooth some time ago.” He watched the numbers count the rising elevator until the doors slid open. Maybe he should have just gone home to have Alucard remove her. Of course, now he’d know where to find her on other, less annoying days.


In retrospect, she knew it wasn't the smartest thing to bring him here. But she was easy enough to track down. Even just a question, not to mention she had little doubt Nnoitra would sell her location out in the time it took his little brain to process it would end with her injury or death.

"No, sorry." Not. "I really only have sweet things, I trust you can last?"


Walter wryly considered that junk food just might have to do. Although she might taste utterly foul. Of course, perhaps she could be made a ghoul. A ghoul would shut up.

Sadly, he had a feeling that a creature such as she would not make a ghoul, but it did intrigue him to wonder.

“Which apartment?”


“One thousand.” She almost yawned, rolling her eyes and fiddling with his pony tail. Spiteful little thing, and too often abused to have a major fear of pain and death.

“Door’s unlocked.”


He was going to need a long, scalding shower after this to get the smell of her out of his hair. Spiteful little thing. “You’re the one with free hands. Don’t strain yourself opening your door so we can get out of this hall. Not that anyone will notice with all the comings and goings that must go on here.”


“Tch.” With a bit of twisting she reached the doorknob, opened it and sighed dramatically.

“You make it sound like I’m a whore, Walter.” But for a whore, she kept remarkably clean quarters. A bit of a cluttered appearance, with all the pillows strewn about, but clean nonetheless. What could she say? She liked pillows.


"That depends,” Walter looked around and let the pillow under his arm drop to the floor. “On whether you get paid for your favors or not.”

Clean, cluttered, covered in pillows. It wasn’t precisely what he had expected, but he had never given great thought to the arrancar’s living space.

“Are you a whore or a slut?”


“Define… payment.” She was willing to play that game, if he was going to.

“Are we talking money, or physical well being, because if it’s the latter, then yes, I’m quite the whore.” Advancing herself in any way she could was something she was used to now, and if that meant sleeping with her superiors, then so be it. Anything to taste that glory again, as desperate as that was.

“Otherwise, I guess I’m just a slut, mm? Terribly judgmental, aren’t you, Walter?”


“Just a product of my environment,” Walter agreed unapologetically. Between his generation, his lifelong career, and having been Xulchilbara’s Judge for a time, he had come by his judgmental streak honestly.

He quashed the feelings that always rose when he touched on the memories of the Red God and looked for a place to sit down. It was daylight; perhaps he could sleep away the worst of this damnable curse.


“Convenient excuse. I use that one myself.” Cirucci sounded bored, but she was still as wary as she’d first been, making sure to monitor his movements.

“Not hungry anymore, mm?”


“The menu isn’t to my taste,” he muttered and settled onto a pile of pillows with as much grace as possible without his hands and with a small woman attached to him. “At least not now. I’ll be hungrier later.”

Her façade was well-practiced, but likely harder to penetrate when not stuck to the person she was trying to deceive.

“Shall I strip now?”


That attachment did have an adverse affect. Any time his fingers moved against her skin a muscle twitched and tried to shirk away from the contact, and any time he made a movement she sought to move just a step behind, anticipate, react.

“Oh, yes.” Her voice was dead pan level.

“Now would be good.”


Walter revised his opinion of Cirucci just a little after that response.

“You,” he murmured, shifting on the pillows to get more comfortable and be able to relax his head back, “are almost a good actress.”

He let his eyes drop mostly closed, finally shielding him from the daylight that made it into her apartment. Just because he could go out during the day didn’t mean he actively enjoyed the sunlight. Quite the opposite, in fact.


If she’d known, she would have asked. Curious thing, though she usually kept that under wraps. As it was, she frowned, another petulant look as he shifted, because it forced her to move with him until it more seemed like she’d straddled him, laid down on his chest.

“Like I’d be able to get by if I weren’t?”

The fact that he’d closed his eyes annoyed her. Because more than being hurt, being ridiculed, being shamed, in fact, so much more that she would rather have those things than this, Cirucci hated being ignored.


“Probably.” This was too intimate a position to be in with someone he neither liked nor respected. This was a position that called for caresses and kisses and probably more. Better to keep his eyes closed to make the disinterest obvious.

That, despite the way the two of them had bantered in the store and on the way to this apartment, was not going to happen. It would take an utterly different kind of curse for that.

“But not as you are. Who protects you this week? Anyone?”


“No one.” At least, no one had, not for a long time. Oh, she could usually garner some verbal defense, sure, but actual protection? Not going to happen, hadn’t happened in a long time. If someone had protected her, she would have the faint reminders of dissection scars still tracing the skin on her chest.

“Surprised?” She could still sound casual in this position, shifting about until she at least was comfortable as well, grabbing a pillow in a huff and putting it on his chest.


“Amused.” Although not by the picture they made, comfortably cuddled in the midst of Cirucci’s pillow collection.

“That you can’t keep your stories straight.”

If he felt even the slightest indication to feel any pity, empathy, or sympathy for her, he would have been able to kill it with the memory of an infant murdered and this woman gloating about it.


“… Hnn?” To be perfectly honest, when it came to most things, she really couldn’t keep a story straight. Oh, she could lie, and lie nicely, too, but she often lost track of who she spoke to, a social creature, who she told what, and ended up having to craft a new lie to cover her ass all over again.

Another honest point, Cirucci barely even thought about that anymore, that was how callous she was. It had been months ago, and for the immortal Arrancar, rather, never aging, things more than a month old were old news, not usually to be thought on again unless brought up.


Walter’s answering snort sounded a bit drowsy and his eyelids were almost completely closed. “Sex, protection, and your lack thereof.”

He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I never expected better of you anyway.”


That was almost offensive. It wasn’t like she cared what he thought-

“Are you sleepy, Walter?” Her voice had a wounded edge to it though, the very idea of him going to sleep on her- That was ridiculous, you don’t ignore Cirucci Thunderwitch- You just didn’t.


Walter’s answer was an mumbled, “vampire, witch,” and little more. He was either asleep or ignoring her. Without the physical cues of the living, that might be hard to differentiate.


The problem was, as much as she hated being ignored… she wasn’t about to risk pissing him off, not when she couldn’t fight to her utmost. Not like this.

The Privaron flounced, wriggled, squirmed irritably and poofed the pillow on his chest, but she didn’t say anything beyond a passing “fine, then!” under her breath.

With her luck, this shit would be over and he could get the hell out of her apartment. … Without that pillow.