tampered | log | incomplete

When; October 20, Monday, evening
Rating; PG lulz
Characters; Esther Blanchett {

lefeufollet} & Sabaku no Gaara {

sandmullet}
Summary; Dinner and distractions, because all the cool people keep leavin'. (coff app naruto and/or abel?? :D;)
Log;

There was, in all the abnormality of the City, the not at all reassuring fact of normality unreachable in his world. The ever-encroaching, disturbingly subtle, threads of civilian life. It may not have been unusual, but it was hard to fight the feeling of indoctrination when Gaara stood outside an apartment, knocked his knuckles against the wood, and wondered only what it was that Esther would be cooking.

As tempting as it was to break the lock again, it wasn't necessary. Only an emergency warranted the sand devastation of the, he could see, replaced mechanism. Without being able to immediately let himself in, to receive the near automatic material gratification that had filled so much of his life, Gaara found himself settling into the wait.

But he had waited for other things; for the important things. In the hallway, he waited, and didn't try to stop himself from sniffing the air, as if he could discern a scent through the door; less implausible when he concentrated chakra into his nose.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

One day bled into next, as of late, Esther going to her job and checking in with the police force, both usually being mostly futile measures in that there was so little that Esther could do, whether for rowdy students intent on tossing paper planes towards the board or criminals running rampant when those Esther worked for neither saw her as the most capable nor most reliable. There were things, of course, which stood out a little. Departures. Arrivals. Mostly the former.

And maybe she didn't mind as much as she did before, just because that--well it sounded a little silly--she could feel, when people left. The void that they left behind, it was there and tangible. For a moment, she could cling to those still left, should they be willing.

Well... then again. Was Gaara willing? Surely Gaara must have been willing, if he was still knocking on her door right then, and so Esther pulled it open.

Paella on the stove.

"Mister Gaara," she greeted with a smile, eyes closing enough that the smile didn't have to reach them. He deserved a complete smile, Esther thought, but she just couldn't bring herself to...

"I'm so glad you could make it."

Empathy had never been his strong suit, especially when the majority of emotions thrown his way for the entirety of his life had been composed of extremes. The fact that she smiled remained, in a lesser fashion, bizarre enough that he had no chance of realizing it wasn't in her eyes.

It smelled good; he didn't need the chakra focused in his nose once the door had opened. Gaara looked past her, thinking more of the food than of her words, to which he gave an automatic response.

"I had no other engagements." As if he ever did, when Esther was cooking?

When she stepped aside to let him in, he would enter. But first ...

"What is it?"

In the air.

Niceties sometimes felt a little bit superfluous, around Gaara. The little things that Esther said to set the atmosphere, to seem inviting, never really took on the other man, and that wasn't necessarily a bad thing in of itself, but it certainly left Esther with less to work with. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, watched as Gaara stared over her shoulder, and quickly she stood to the side.

"Paella," she replied, brows frowning as she wondered if Gaara would even know what that was. "It's a spicy rice dish. I've made it with beef instead of the usual seafood."

For once, Gaara knew. Spices were common ingredients in desert food, a remnant from times when the most could be done for preserving meat was salt, drying, and spicing through the rot.

"I like it," he remarked, before taking advantage of the space to walk inside. Esther's Abel had left, but on his initial look over of the apartment, he couldn't make an immediate difference.

It was possible that, had Esther known that Gaara was mentally referring to Abel as hers, she would have taken offense. One of the things that kept Esther's relationship with Abel so close was the fact that they both recognized the need for space and agency. Most of the time, anyway-- although secretly, a part of Esther might not have minded if she had that sort of guarantee that Abel would always be, in some sense, hers.

Esther was just a little bit possessive. Tired of people leaving. That wasn't so strange, was it?

"Good," she nodded, walking to the kitchen to serve the dish while it was still hot, setting it in the middle of the table where everyone could serve themselves. "I'm not sure where Killua's gone off to, and Father Abel is no longer in the City... so I suppose we could just start." She tilted her head, after a moment of hesitation.

For his part, it was natural to think in the possessive about relationships. In the same way that Abel was Esther's, Esther was his - Gaara's Esther, not entirely, but enough. It was easier to understand that way, though the terms didn't prevent anything, mean anything in actuality.

"Maybe to that girl," he conjectured, a little unlike him, in regard to Killua. The situation interested him, mostly because of what he didn't understand. But the food held a greater appeal at the moment, and he obliged to sit, waiting for her to follow suit before helping himself to the dish.

"To that..." Esther's voice trailed off as she wondered, slipping into her seat unceremoniously. "Oh! The one that he was asking the Network about? Possibly, possibly. Had I known, I might've asked him to bring her over--"

She paused. No, that wasn't exactly true; a number of things in the City had rendered Esther a little hesitant with respect to getting involved in muddled relationships. Perhaps because so many people had attempted to push her own in... very specific directions.

"--actually, no. He should be left to make his own decisions involving that girl. And he's a smart, capable boy too, so he won't get himself into any greater trouble than that which might require a little venting."

Had Gaara the familial experience, the way Esther talked of Killua would have reminded him of the way a mother might worry about her child, would have called to mind parental concern. Had he the experience, he might have also though that Esther was pretty young for that sort of tone, though age had never meant much to him. But having killed his mother through birth, and his father being as his father was, Gaara was only vaguely reminded of Temari. Mostly, he was puzzled.

But he swallowed first.

"...Okay," Gaara agreed, after reflecting and being unable to come to any other satisfactory response. Inexperience left him with no opinion on the matter. He couldn't see, still, why Killua had needed to ask the City, and why it should have obviously been girl troubles. And he didn't understand the fuss that lead Esther to contradict herself.

Forking up more of the rice, he asked an easier question: "Greater trouble?"

log | incomplete | huhuhuhu

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