tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; Monday following Grab Bag.
Rating; No higher than PG-13
Characters;

blastiafreak
Summary; As much as they want to curl up and hide after the curse, a few things need to be put right--and a few worries need to be put to rest.
Log; For the longest time, she just sat brooding in her empty room, absently running her fingers over the rough metal of the discarded blastia. The curse was everything she wanted to forget, things she thought she'd gotten over with the passage of time. And then it all came back.

Yet while she wanted to avoid everyone, Rita knew she wouldn't stop feeling antsy until she saw for herself that they were all right--as all right as they could be...And the blastia had to be returned. That was what finally prompted her to stop stalling and send a message to Tyr: short and straightforward, one that simply said she had to return something to him immediately and so he should stop by.

After that, it was just the waiting.

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After a repeat of that curse, Tyr's mind was too muddled with other thoughts to realise exactly what Rita had to give to him and why he should come by as soon as he could, but he didn't question it. If anything, he owed it to Rita to see her another time even if there wasn't any reason.

He set out immediately after receiving her message and brought nothing with him; he knew already that he had nothing to give her (she always gave him medicine) and no desire to bring along his weapon (he would deserve it if he were attacked). The walk over felt longer than usual, possibly because it was eventless and probably because he hadn't been able to shake a feeling of foreboding that hadn't left with the curse. Nevertheless, even after trying to kill both Yuri and Rita, he only hesitated for a second at their door before letting himself in. He didn't have the nerve to just wander around to find Rita as he usually would, though. Standing in the doorway, he announced himself.

"Rita?" That came out a little hoarse. After taking a breath to collect himself and fix his voice, he repeated, "Rita, I'm here."

It seemed like it took ages for Tyr to arrive, Rita pacing her room and fidgeting restlessly; she kept wondering if he had gotten the message, if he was coming, if she should wait any longer before she went to go find him herself-

And then she heard him, and suddenly it felt like he'd gotten there in no time at all. She was still antsy but in no mood to stall any further now that he was here, and so she strode through the house to the doorway. Once she spotted him, she stopped short in the hallway several feet away. There was no hiding the swelling and bruises on her face, painful and anything but pretty, although they weren't as bad as they would have been if she hadn't been taking gels (or that medicine)--and she could only guess how Tyr would feel once he saw.

"Hey..." Her voice was quiet and uncertain. There was little point in asking if he was all right, so she held up the reason she had gotten him over there. "I picked this up."

The outside light was suddenly too harsh, and he almost automatically closed the door behind him. It didn't do anything to make her beaten face look any better, but that wasn't the reason he was staring at her. He felt his stomach knot in guilt and self-disgust the more he looked at her. He couldn't hold it against her if she wanted to keep that distance; it was hard to say it wasn't him when he saw and felt everything, and he doubted it was much different from her perspective.

He gave the blastia a quick glance before looking away. He could just hold out his hand, catch it, and go within a few seconds, leaving her alone until they were both better. ("Better" only being relative to how they were now, he thought.)

He folded his hands behind his back, tugging at the fabric of his sleeves. "I'm sorry," he blurted out as if he hadn't actually heard what she said.

This was one case where she could guess how he could be feeling--if only because she was full of guilt and disgust herself. The only difference was that she didn't have such an obvious reminder staring her in the face.

She blinked uncertainly and, after a moment's hesitation, took the initiative to approach him herself. She didn't blame Tyr and she wasn't afraid of him, even if she couldn't exactly erase the whole thing from her memory, and so she walked right up to him and held out the blastia while looking up at his face.

"I picked this up," she repeated, her voice a little thick as she attempted to keep her emotions in check. "And I...thought you'd want it back as soon as possible."

He looked back at her, trying not to look away again when he took the blastia from her. Once it was in his hands, he focused his attention on it instead. It felt heavy in his hands, yet somehow more delicate.

After some hesitation, he nodded. "I did... Thanks." Which was true. He did want it back and on his wrist again, but he just played with it in his hands silently. If he put it on, he'd have to go. There would be no other reason to stay.

It was selfish to just delay the inevitable, he told himself, especially when Rita really didn't seem like she wanted anything else to do with him. What kind of friend was he to stay? With a sigh, he secured the blastia around his wrist again. "Is there anything else?" he asked flatly.

Really, Rita didn't entirely know what she wanted. She didn't think she wanted him to go, exactly, but he didn't seem all that eager to stay. There was one thing she wanted to address, though, and it would give her a little more of a chance to see how he was. "Yeah. I can't believe I didn't realize it before. But the blastia's useless if you take it off, and...something like this--you know it could happen again." She can't hide her worry anymore; her voice and face are filled with it.

He didn't want to think about that, but it was true. It wasn't as if the past weekend was the first time he went out of control and hurt people. Right now, though, he was mostly worried for her. He stops playing around with the blastia and lightly, hesitantly rested his hand on the side of her shoulder. He couldn't make himself touch her face or further along her shoulder, but he wanted to support her somehow.

"Yeah... But curses like that...They don't happen often. I'm glad I have this at least for when I'm not cursed. That's why I wanted it in the first place..."

She tensed for a brief moment, but quickly relaxed again--or as much as she could under the circumstances. Since it was Tyr, she didn't mind the touch, and reached her hand out to place it on the blastia.

"I know, but--it did happen! I should've thought of it, but-" She cut herself off, knowing it wasn't what she was trying to say and that it was over and done with anyway. "What I'm trying to say is that I can lock it in place." A pause, then she added, "if you want it."

He looked back at her again in mild surprise. His first thought is that she really should have thought about it, but it's too late to talk about could-haves and should-haves now. His voice softens for her. "I do.

"Should we sit down for it?" he adds as an afterthought. They've always been sitting when she worked with his blastia, and he really just wanted to down.

She relaxed a little more, nodding. "Yeah...Okay." After a moment's hesitation, her hand closed gently over his so that she could tug him in the direction of the study. Of course it was too late to change what had already happened, but they could at least prevent a repeat of the same mistake.

When she put her hand over his, he took hold of it. He knew his way around the house fine and could have guessed where they were going after the first few steps, but holding her hand just felt nice. There was nothing he could think to say as they walked since Are you okay? was always a stupid question at times like this and he couldn't pretend this was a normal visit. Silence was sort of better.

Silent it was then, as they traversed the hallways and entered the study. It was messy, as usual, papers and books scattered over every surface, although they hadn't been touched in a few days, and Rita led him to a vaguely clear spot so they could sit.

"I'll secure it with a lock, so...It can still be removed, but not so easily." Another time and she might been too absorbed in the blastia to focus on anything else, but she kept her eyes on Tyr. She continued after a long pause, "Make sure I'm not cursed before I try to take it off, all right?"

He had relaxed enough to finally look her in the eye by the time they entered the study and sat down, but not enough to stop himself from being bitter. "I'd rather not take it off at all, cursed or not."

Not that it would have stopped him from causing most of the damage from the past weekend. Not that he hadn't killed people with just his staff before. Any bit of security was welcomed, though.

After a beat, he realised how harsh that sounded and added, "So you don't need to make it removable unless you think there'd be some side effect to that..."

She couldn't help but feel a rising of anger and guilt of her own again, but she kept it under control. Of course he'd be bitter over it; it shouldn't have happened. So although she wasn't entirely certain that it was the best idea, she gave it a moment's thought and nodded. "All right...If that's what you want, I'll seal it on. The only way it'll come off is by cutting it, and nobody could do that without that right tools."

Although it's what he wants and what he asked for and he doesn't think there would be a reason to ever want to remove it, he has to ask, "And you have those tools, right?"

The only reason he can think to remove it is if it was somehow damaged and hurt him. If something were to have broken, though, he's sure it would have happened when he tossed it. And he feels fine wearing it now... He doubts she'd neglect mentioning any other potential side effects.

"Yeah, I do." She gave a simple nod and, just to be safe, double-checked the status of the blastia's formula. "I looked at it earlier...There aren't any problems, so I'll seal it." It was nice to have something important to work on. It proved a much better distraction than the rest of her research.

Rita glanced back up to Tyr to make sure he was as all right as he could be, and then she moved away to gather the necessary tools.

He flashed her a small, sincere smile before she went away. If there weren't other curses in the City, Tyr would be thrilled just having the blastia sealing his rune's own curse. He tried to think of that instead of all the damaged caused without the Soul Eater even coming into play.

"Thanks," he called after her. Even if he did things for her before, it didn't feel like they compared.

His smile gave her just a tiny pause before she turned away. She just...couldn't really smile back, and wasn't sure how Tyr could at a time like this, either.

"You don't need to thank me," she answered quietly as she moved around the room, picking up tools here and there. "I should've already done this." With everything soon collected, she returned to wear he was sitting and kneeled down in front of him.

"You're doing it now... That's what matters." Even though she was right, she couldn't have known, and it wouldn't have made matters any better for Rita right now. It was his bare hands that tried to kill her, after all...

He looked over her tools when she returned, more out of curiosity and the desire to be distracted more than anything, but soon looked back up at her. He couldn't really smile for long, honestly.

Tyr was right, even if she didn't entirely feel better about it. "Yeah...It should prevent anything from happening with your rune from now on." And focusing on the rune was easy--she could do something about that, at least. There was nothing they could do about curses that changed them.

Rita worked mostly silently, keeping her eyes what she was doing so there wouldn't be any mistakes. Eventually she asked, "Have you seen everyone else?"

He looked down at her hands at her question and gave himself a minute to respond. It wasn't a hard question, but he didn't really want to answer it either.

"No... Just you and Ted." While he did technically see the others who shared his apartment, he still left his goodbye to them in written form. He hated saying goodbyes like this. It was either going immediately or lingering forever like he was right now with Rita. He didn't think Katara would want him disappearing after what happened last October, either, even if he thought he could face her now.

"What about you?"

"Huh?" That surprised her, enough that she stopped in her work to look back up at him again. "You haven't seen Katara?" If something like this had happened--when it had--Estelle was the first person she wanted to check on. She would have thought Tyr would do the same when it came to Katara.

Then again, when he returned the question, she glanced away again and mumbled, "No...not really."

The stab of guilt he felt when she mentioned Katara faded away when she admitted she hadn't seen anyone either. He kept his eyes on her - they were blank and expressionless - as he responded. "So you understand, too.

"It'll be better to see her after I come back, anyway... Suki could probably help her more than I could now..." Admitting that made him wonder what Rita was going to do now that it was just her and Yuri. Maybe she'd do the same thing he's doing.

"But that's..." It wasn't the same, she wanted to say, but...he was right that she understood, at least. It still didn't stop her from wanting to argue with him, if something else he'd said hadn;t seemed quite right.

"Wait a minute--what do you mean, come back? Come back from where?"

"A little trip," he answered simply, "to sort things out..."

There wasn't any reason to hide it from her; he planned to tell her eventually. She deserved to know that much, at least. "It won't really be long..."

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oh I'm not getting notifs...D:

Me either :< /refreshes everything

Noooo ;_; /refreshrefresh!!

;_; /refresh!!!!

;3;

we'll make it through-!

we will! It won't stop us-!

That's right! o9

/o/!

\o\