tampered | LOG; ongoing; closed

LOG; ongoing; closed

When; Sunday, 10/31. A little before 1 AM?
Rating; PG-13? in case of swearing, idk
Characters; Celty Sturluson (

seekinghead) & Heiwajima Shizuo (

milkboned)
Summary; Demons become human again (well, one of them). Repercussions.
Log;

Small favors. One: when rage took over, he managed to suppress the destruction until out of the apartment. He'd managed that in Ikebukuro, too. Two: his quick cool-down. Three: the reasonable price of a replacement network device, though that was also a pain. Whatever prompted him to replace it. Annoying. He'd be happier without it; rarely had the patience and a long enough fuse to get through more than a few posts without stopping, separating himself to quell his irritation.

Now: almost an hour after his mind had returned to him and the realization of the past few days hit him, and with it a whirlwind of indignant fury. Shizuo walked back to the apartment, having stopped after securing a new device at a twenty-four hour store, to buy milk, honey, and ice cream. Through the door, and he slipped off his shoes, calling a dull, "I'm back."

It didn't feel right to say, I'm home. This place wasn't home, this shitty city not his. But with Celty, and Celty so close, it wasn't as bad. Not so bad. Most of the time, but at the moment he was determined not to think about the past week. He'd only get angry, and even now, Shizuo didn't want that.

He proceeded to the refrigerator, and put away the groceries.

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When it had broken, Celty had been lost. Out in a field with a head in her arms and a carriage and headless horse, reins in her hands one moment, and nothing the next. Her constant companion a bike once more, and no weight resting comfortably in the crook of an elbow.

What could she do?

She'd returned to the apartment before him, and sat down, opened her device... and just stared at it. Fingers dug in to the arms of the chair, shoulders began to shake a bit, and she wondered- was her head, the true one, crying somewhere?

What had she done?

So when Shizuo arrived, she didn't greet him like she normally did, by walking in to the main room and offering her PDA, a . The only proof that she was in the apartment, her helmet lying on the table.

With everything else still ringing of, reeking of wrong, it took Shizuo a moment to notice the anomaly. That despite the helmet, which he noticed as he sipped from a glass of milk, and despite the feeling that told him simply and surely that Celty was there, she hadn't approached in the way that had now become routine. That alone wouldn't have given Shizuo pause: it wasn't as if every single day it happened. Some days she returned later, some days he went to her, too engrossed in the network or something about aliens on the television.

But. It was past midnight, and with everything else reeking-- he set down the glass and walked through the apartment. It wasn't very large; Shizuo hardly had to move to see most of it, the exception being the inside of closets, rest rooms, and their bedrooms. The door to hers was half-open, and Shizuo paused outside. His toes pressed, one by one, against the floor through his socks.

After that beat of hesitation, he raised his hand, curled in a fist, and knocked on the door frame.

Edited 2010-11-06 07:22 (UTC)

Normally observant, quite more aware of her surroundings, Celty hadn't even noticed Shizuo had returned home, not until he knocked. Started up, at first, in surprise, and turned towards it. Come in, thought, but... that's right.

She didn't have a head anymore. In just a few days, she'd gotten accustomed to speech, taken advantage of it- (It wasn't fair- she thought that, too, but...)

Slumped forward, the motion that would have been like cradling her head in her arms if she'd had one attached there, but left feeling a bit empty. Shadows rushed from her feet, then hesitated.

Before they pushed the door open.

The door moved and Shizuo stepped back, in part because he hadn't expected it to, not without a body manipulating it. On seeing the shadows retreating, he understood, though not sure of what, precisely, he grasped. It was on a level beyond words and the concrete. His head tilted just so, considering entry. She had allowed it by further opening the door, yet...

Concern won, mild and for once, not crowded in by the seething inevitability of his rage. He crossed the threshold, then the room, stopping about two feet from her chair. The sight of her bent over twisted something in his gut, and prompted a familiar urge to rip apart the one responsible. Considering the probable culprit and the impossibility of confronting it didn't help.

One hand tucked its thumb into his pocket, the other lifted in a wave. "Hey."

No stupid question like, you OK? Not when the answer was so clear.

Her gut was twisting around, if she had a gut- where a gut would be was twisting, all gnarled up and tight and uncomfortable, like she needed to expel it, throw it up- but that was another thing she was incapable of, and though it might be unbelievable, she longed to be capable of such a thing. To be capable of eating, like everyone around her, so as to be capable of stomach pains, to be capable of even something as disgusting as vomiting. Because if she could at least do that... it might rid her of the sick wrenching in her.

How could she be so disgusted- didn't she do that as a dullahan? It's what they did, right? All the legends, all the stories Shinra researched and read to her said so. Hearing it... she hadn't thought much of it, tubs of blood, spine whips, terrible tales of the appearance of a dullahan's head, the power of it's voice-

It was what she was. Right?

Shoulders rose up, clenched tight and anxious, though she didn't rise much from her slump. But she did slide one arm out to let her fingers tap across her device's screen, if not slower, more melancholy.

It would surprise no one to hear that Shizuo's observational skills left something to be desired. An understatement. He could be both unnaturally sharp and incredibly unaware, often at the same time. Spending so much time keeping deliberately apart from others, while also unable to prevent himself from wanting that intimacy, helped to produce that strange effect. That of reading people well enough, but only when he noticed.

Years knowing Celty had lent him insight into her (if not her gender), but she rarely came to him so visibly distressed. He'd had the feeling on more than one occasion that she had been disturbed by something or another, but she'd never ventured an explanation, though he'd waited. It wasn't his nature to pry, or to force it out. Plus, the likelihood that it was Shinra's fault seemed pretty high, and Shizuo figured that was a byproduct of living with the creep.

It wasn't now, either. As such, he stood at an impasse, ill-equipped to handle this. Wanting to reach out, but completely unsure of how to do it.

"Thanks," he said, and scratched under his chin though it didn't itch.

It wasn't his nature. But, she'd been a support for him often enough, a pillar. The risk in keeping quiet and hoping she'd open up, the risk that she wouldn't, didn't sit well with him. Shizuo kept silent a minute, searching for the words.

"What is it they say around here... it's just a curse?" He asked into the air, the words finding purchase as he spoke them. Words that assumed a lot, to his irritation. "Annoying attitude. It still happened."

Edited 2010-11-06 10:35 (UTC)

Fingers fell limp on her keyboard, listening to the silence that filled the room before he spoke. What did she feel? If this had happened at home... if more people from home were here... would she feel this off? If she could just punch Shinra a few times, (then he could tell, even without a head, she was crying), if she could run in to Shizuo like she was used to, some stolen, quiet moments on a bench in the park, if she could do her job on those familiar streets--

Finally moved, and shifted a little bit towards him- if she'd a head, it would be like peeking out the corner of her eye at him, something like that. If she- Celty had thought she was content. Hadn't she been content the way she was? But to have it for only a brief time, only to have it snatched away...

Guilt. Maybe that was what to call the wrenching in her gut.

Shinra could read the smoke from her neck, could discern tears from joy from embarrassment. Whether his understanding came from his love, from time, from his observational eye, or something else -- it wasn't something Shizuo was aware of, never mind thought about. (Probably, Shinra would say: it's love~!). Years knowing Celty had lent Shizuo insight, as had the last few weeks sharing a living space. He couldn't see expressions in the smoke, but right now, he didn't need to: her body language said enough.

He wasn't much of a Shinra stand-in. Like hell he'd want to be. Shizuo could only be Shizuo; all he'd ever been, all he'd ever tried to be.

It took him a moment to understand, to get it, even with the curse so fresh. Shizuo knew some things about Celty: she was quiet, she didn't have a head, she was his-- his friend. A person similar to him. Shinra had thrown around words like "fairy" and "mythology" and "dullahan", but it didn't mean anything to him. She missed it. It took him that moment, until the pieces began to click together. Celty used to be on constant look out fo her head. This past week, a head had sat in the crook of her arm. A horse-drawn carriage, a bucket of fetid blood. What had Shinra said about the dullahan? It was a pain to remember, but for Celty, he tried.

Beginning to understand didn't grant him the knowledge of what to say. Without words, but wanting to help, to do something. Shizuo took a tentative step closer, then another, until he put a hesitant hand on her shoulder.

"It's OK," he said, the words experimental. Shizuo nodded, and went on, "I think so."

Celty didn't know what she was looking for in him, in this moment. This was Shizuo she was dealing with- and hadn't she never tried to burdon Shizuo... never tried to burden any of her friends with her problems, the insecurities, and the fears. Shinra had seen them sometimes... surely all of them had seen them, just a little bit, her slip ups, her mistakes.

Part of her wanted to rail against this- type out angrily Or indulge in a moment of self doubt, with , just so someone would reassure her.

But that... would be selfishness, wouldn't it? Even if Shinra might indulge her- it didn't make it something she should do.

But all those thoughts disappeared the moment he put his hand on her shoulder.

Celty looked up abruptly, neck snapping back... and though for half a second it seemed as if she might tense up... she sort of sagged in to the touch, and her gaze dropped again.

A long, quiet moment, as she reigned in that fleeting desire to be selfish, and looked back up at him. If she'd had a face- it would have been a small, reassuring sort of smile as she typed.

What she wanted from him, if she wanted anything: he didn't know, either. He wouldn't have minded. For Shizuo, for someone to burden him with themselves -- it could have been annoying. In theory. But, for those few people, those who stood by him, it wouldn't have been a burden at all. It would have meant that he could support them, that he could help and not hurt. So he put his hand out, not as a blow, but a comfort.

It wasn't something he thought himself capable of. Not really. So it relieved him when rather than tense, she relaxed; the moment that passed was comfortable, as silence always was between them. He read the words as she typed them, letter by letter.

Shizuo grinned, the expression a little shy, a little self-conscious. Very carefully, as gently as he could, he squeezed her shoulder.

"No," shaking his head, "that was a stupid thing to say. It's what idiots say when they don't know what to say... Eh, I guess that fits. What I meant was... whatever you want to be, that's what you are."

His head cocked to one side, as if to contemplate this new conclusion. "Was that better?" And he laughed at himself; an awkward, short sound.

Edited 2010-11-21 11:20 (UTC)

Admittedly, there would be no denying that Shizuo's gentle squeeze was more like a very firm one. But it was also true that Celty wasn't human- she didn't bruise, or really bleed for that long. And if he wasn't strong... she supposed he wouldn't be the Shizuo she knew at all. And that was the Shizuo she liked- her friend.

Was typed out once he said it, but when he added on to it, cocked his head, she couldn't help but laugh herself. Or- her sort of laugh, one hand raised to where a mouth could be, shoulders shaking just a bit as she shook her... neck.

Moved to delete what she'd wrote, and raised a finger as if in an epiphany before she retyped.

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LOG; ongoing; closed

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i'm so sorry x_x

<3333

♥

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