(Untitled)

[victrixs]

WHO: Mello and Kusuriuri.
WHAT: Late night imposition.
WHEN: After this.
WHERE: Kusuriuri's storage unit.

Comments

ignore my tense

[auburn_ivory]

He had never had much use for homes, too many times over his endless years had he seen the filth and terrors that men invited into their seats of power. The atrocities they committed. He had no need for it. His home was within him, cradled in the arms of a dark skinned demon whose golden markings writhed like hydras. Thus laid his heart, better protected than four walls could ever have hoped.

However, it had been a long time since he had been forced to stop anywhere and this... Eronum had stopped him. He did not understand the nature of it and that vexed him, but the novelty of perhaps living amongst these creatures for a while intrigued him, amused him, though he knew the boredom would return.

And thus this place. A square gray building, its insides lined with a labyrinth of small rooms. One of those storage units was his, though he spent no time there. Yet, Mello had asked. He approached from the West, spotting the boy and pinning on an amused expression.

"Shall we go in?"

/ignores

[victrixs]

Eyes embedded with reinforced blue-steel cant toward his evening company, and he doesn't reign in curiosity, hasn't since their introduction and won't until he's satisfied. It burns bright in the vigor of his expression. Nothing gives him away but that lift of lips, wry tension at the narrow cat corners of his mouth. As if he's very tickled.

"Don't tell me this is the most convenient address you could dig up," Mello ventures. He's not sure how he likes the thought of cold concrete, intermittent doorways like pocket dividers, hallway after hallway of gaudy paint. "Not too luxurious for your guests." Mello places emphasis on guest, stressing his own importance with an arrogant look.

In the dark, Mello notes differences in how the medicine man fits his surroundings. Under florescent lights he's sure it'll be stranger. "So, Kusuriuri." The name rolls off his tongue like a foreign flavor, succinctly delivered. "Had any customers?"

[auburn_ivory]

Gracious and smiling, he leads the way inside. The man at the front desk does not notice them. The camera in the hallways do not catch them. His dated wooden sandals do not click on the tilted floors, do not echo off the cold concrete blocks

ashamedly late

[victrixs]

The decoration stands out to him immediately, a swarm of paper symbols he doesn't recognize, wonders if he should have expected such an odd accumulation. As far as his expectation goes, he's not surprised at the lack of furnishing, is more struck by the wallpaper, as it shows his company hadn't chosen any nondescript room. He'd already picked this, lucky 77. The forethought is a little interesting.

"What are these?" the boy asks, blue eyes already on the prowl of the area; a habit that's clung since he hit the streets as a barely-teen. He's brought his gun with him, a shiny pistol tucked into the band of his own pants in favor of a proper case, and Mello's wrapped in the same leather he wore during their first meeting, white undershirt peeking below the collar of that well-worn jacket.

Prying, plucking fingertips reach for one of those seals, intent to tear it from the concrete wall of the room.

don't be ashamed bb I will backtag you for months if you want 8]

[auburn_ivory]

Ah, he's usually such a calm creature, and calm is not lost, but perhaps the speed with which he reacts makes it seem others. The palm of his hand thudding against the wall lightly, flattening the charm back to the wall, the tips of Mello's fingers under the heel of it.

"They are wards against demons and spirits." He smiles, fangs showing, blue eyes narrow and glittering. He seems particularly inhuman in this instant. His vulpine anima is usually quite apparent but this is new, deeper, snakelike. It is not precisely a threat. It would mean nothing if Mello were to take one or two or even ten, they can be replaced, and yet--

"I can make you your very own, if they interest you." And they well should. There are strange beasts in this city elementals and reapers; demons and world-eaters; witches and godlings.

you are too good to me

[victrixs]

Mello reacts with a shuddering jerk to wedge his fingertips free from that flat palm, momentarily struck by such abruptness like a quiet blow, eyes rounding a fraction. An angled sideways step scrapes his shoulder on the wall, ruffling a few of those seals but not dislodging them. He looks like a cagey animal in the face of the not-threat, fur stroked backwards, hearing demons and spirits.

Monsters aren't something he's never experienced; not luminant yellow eyes under a bed frame or pale phantom shadows on a cold night, but real shark teeth and hellfire, otherworldly presences. It's enough to raise his hackles in deeper suspicion. "They don't," he enunciates, retreating farther back where the room isn't as well lit by hallway fluorescence, where the corners are darker.

"I can defend myself," he says, bristling. "Is there something you're trying to protect in here? Looks like a whole damn lot of empty space to me."

[auburn_ivory]

Kusuriuri smiles darkly. He can defend himself? Mortals always are such arrogant little beasts and he supposes he knows that about this one. Particularly belligerent, isn't he, but he does not know about Saya's store of corpses a few halls away, about the reaper who answers to the Overseer, about Mochizuki's demon, burning like embers inside of her.

"It has been a very long time since I was forced to remain in one place," he murmurs softly. He sheds the case from his back and flicks on the overhead dim overhead light, its switch hidden underneath the paper. He pulls the door most of the way closed. "And if I must stay, then a sanctuum is not uncalled for."

A quiet place, a protected place for weaving the great ancient spells. A corner of this bubble that is his alone, there is power to be gained from it.

[victrixs]

Uneasy and far from assuaged, Mello retreats further into his own corner, staking claim in the lean of his side against the covered concrete. His leather-dressed arms come together in a fold over his chest, critical, calculative eyes set with the same doubt and distrust, radiating off him in waves and as translucent as his every hypersensitive mood.

"Right, you're the nomadic type, I could already tell," he says, sarcasm edging like a rustic blade into his words. He settles himself into his spot, a displaced guest; not wholly comfortable here among the room's cold, almost sterile unfamiliarity, but not likely to leave unless he's threatened. He came for this enigmatic creature's company, after all.

"Run into any of your demons and spirits yet? I don't think the zombies really count."

hardcore journal fail.

[auburn_ivory]

He sits down on the floor primly based his case, with his legs tucked under him, hands folded in his lap. There is a chair between the two of them, empty, he does not motion to it. An animal does not take offerings when uneasy.

He watches Mello calmly, lips curved. "I was not present for the zombie invasion," he qualifies softly. "And demons and spirits reside everywhere." In the highs and lows of the city, at its heart, in its veins, and more and more are brought into this dream with every passing day.

It is a recipe for disaster, he thinks, the pressure of all their sins and chaos bound into this tiny place with no source of release. The Overseer may rule with fear now, but there is only so much weight a mortal can bear before the Ayakashi devour all their reason.

jona just got a whole lot creepier.

[victrixs]

He doesn't like that. The vague, faintly menacing connotation behind those words; with demons and spirits everywhere, unavoidable, inevitable ethereal intrusions. He doesn't want to think of his world as secondary to whatever monsters exist, not when humanity's already so convoluted, not when he's fought so many battles he wouldn't have won if he couldn't outthink, outrun, outsmart his opponents. (And demons, spirits--they're not the same. They're unpredictable. They're fucking unfair.)

Expression stormy, Mello bridges distance between them, and leans, all the grace and elegance of a leopard with his gums showing, right in Kusururi's face. That strange, too-calm, too-cryptic painted face.

In a growl, anger a familiar sore in his voice: "No, they aren't. I don't care if you're delusional or what, but you haven't proved a single one of your flowery intuitions right, and I'm not going to believe a goddamn thing you say until you stop talking circles and show me."

he's too cute to be creepy

[auburn_ivory]

He raises an eyebrow, slowly, mockingly. "What is it that you wish to be shown?" he asks gently. He has no intention of pandering to this little human, but he doesn't mind playing this little game of cat and cat. Claws flexing, dragging lightly along cloth and leather, testing all these borders and barriers.

He supposes he could lean this back into flirtation and obscenity, but that isn't where his mood is. He watches Mello's anger and frustration with quiet curiosity, a little too close without the purring smugness that he usually holds. Cold and blank instead.

"The beasts lurking in your scars?" he wonders airily, blue eyes wide. "Or those hiding beneath the concrete, lurking in the darkness, hungry and waiting?" He does not particularly want an answer. "Why are you here, Mello?"

[victrixs]

He struggles against that disposition, the chill and lack of something he can't place but has felt its absence all this time. Those questions unnerve him because he doesn't have answers, nothing either way, and the frustration builds at a fast crawl.

He could answer I don't know but that isn't what he wants to say.

Steeled, Mello shows his teeth and backs off a step, arms over his chest, provoked, and wonders if it has something to do with this strange creature's presence. He doesn't sense a real bone in him. Those sweet, teasing words only go as deep as scar tissue; Mello won't be swayed so easily.

"Because," comes low, on the edge of a hostile whisper, "you can tell me what I need to know."

[auburn_ivory]

Kusuriuri hums softly. Yes, it is astonishing what a need for knowledge can prompt one to do, isn't it... He remembers the touch of a demon cat, how it had scratched its way through his body and soul in exchange for the words he had needed to hear. When secrets remained hidden, they festered, those cast aside by the keeping growing only angrier and more desperate, violent and uncontrolled. He killed such things, such wild magicks.

"Perhaps," he answers slowly, tasting the shape of it on his tongue. Neither man nor mononoke, nebulous, in between, it is the best he can offer, but perhaps he is also feeling generous. He has already let the boy inside his sanctuum, already shared his flowering smoke and secret smiles with.

"But only if you know what it is you need." And somehow he doubts that Mello does.

[victrixs]

That rewards a withering look, thought he feels a distinct burn of embarrassment, unfamiliar but poignant, unlearned but inherent. Restless on his feet, Mello paces the length of the back wall and hates the symbols around him with sudden flare of emotion, because it's suffocating, stifling. And he may not know, but that doesn't keep him from shooting in the dark. With his eyes closed, he still has questions.

"Tell me what you know about gods," Mello suddenly prompts, and is eating the ground under his feet with every step until he kneels, closer, before the painted face of this creature, arms across leather thighs in a defensive posture. "Death gods."

[auburn_ivory]

"Gods?" Kusuriuri breathes, tastes the words and feels the beast inside of him stirring, like prodded embers, molten gold sliding through his veins. Whispers of power gliding up his throat, considering release, but he holds them in. There is so little of what he knows that mortals understand. "Death gods... a minor breed, less powerful than the August Court, but they have their place."

He does not shy from the intensity of Mello's gaze. "Gods is almost incorrect, they are... watchers, couriers, paper-pushers." He tilts his head, thinks about the Death God he had spoken to on the Logos, but knows there are other varieties, but there is a similarity in the reapers, always.

"Why Death gods, Mello?" he tilts his head slowly. "Have you angered one?"

[victrixs]

At that final question, he shows his teeth and tilts his head back, an arrogant gesture belying his thoughts. No, he didn't anger one. Did he? That isn't what this is about--what happened was no result of the Shinigami. They are watchers, skulking dark creatures without allegiance, capable of manipulation with just the right shove in just the right direction.

"No," he says, caustically, knows better than to upset something he has limited control over. Something otherworldly. The scar on his skin, the rosary around his neck, they can both attest to that.

Mello straightens, pushing leather fingers through fine blond hair. "And they have weapons that kill. Don't they?"