[desperate scavenger, maybe, but placeless and watching eyes only half-true. as the redhead turns a corner, there's an almost soulless bright blue gaze staring at him (ironically he's the only thing alive for miles, maybe for lightyears)]
[the kid looks like a bad domestic abuse case: dark shadows and what damn near looks like sharkbites tattering open the already-ripped black vest hanging off of him, where you can see ribs that were once full and ridged but now just look hungry. shredded and torn jeans hang off his hips with a belt that has studs nicked out of it. he's tattered, he's fucked, and he has a look in his eyes that says there once used to be innocence there, but he's too hungry for it now]
[there are words he wants to say to him, where bruised and blood-crusted lips part, but he doesn't know them in their language, doesn't hardly understand what to do]
[instead, he mutters a low, disapproving "t'sh" and wipes a dried-blood nose and returns to the darkness of the ally with moonlight glowing in his eyes
( ... )
[it's almost startling to come face to face with something other than dust and rot as he turns that corner, and the rigidity of his halt is made all the sharper by the shock of being startled - Renji so used by now to feeling ahead of time the presence of another before he meets them with smile or the point of a sword]
[he stands quite still, hakama legs picking up and drifting, listless, with the cool (cruel) call of a breeze as he tempers the natural tensing and readying of limbs and greedy muscles with a minor uprising against his instincts. ("got too much power here", an unnecessary reminder, he knew that the second he stepped foot out of Seireitei, "gotta be careful") sharp red eyes cut through the murk and keep a soldier's alert on every detail, every movement. it doesn't take long to take everything in.]
[only a second longer to know that in a couple weeks - a month, if he's lucky (or if he's really not) - there'd be nothing left to take in at all]
[he's a kid. Renji realises it like a stone to the stomach, softens it with a
( ... )
[really, he smells the food before he hears the words, always having had that sharp sense, and his gaze looks up from the darkness, two pools to be buried in like a demonic cat on all hallow's eve, fur just as mangy and diseased]
[he looks uncertain, teeth fighting behind lips with a hobo's chitter-chatter need for sustenance, the stubbornness not leaving his cut jaw that lies about his age just a little, grubby fingers jerking edgily at the tatters of his jeans]
[gears are obviously turning in his head, summoning up words and wisdom, little catches of phrases that he's learned in his stay, trying his hardest to latch onto the culture. he manages something, things he's heard as he's stalked the back of restaurants and waited for them to throw out their garbage, buried it in his lungs and stomach and mind as if words could feed him, too]
Hunger no.
[not from you, that balling of a fist and clenching of teeth says. he's been too razed, too bothered, to treated unkindly by these new inhabitants to trust another stranger -- especially
( ... )
[the stare is level and unabashed at the refusal, though the awkward collection of words registers in his mind if not on his face. foreign? or maybe an amnesiac... it doesn't matter. for now the problem isn't words and formalities, it's hunger and grime and Renji lets out a heavy, purposeful sigh, noting the slight cloud the exhale makes on the cooling night air]
[above and beyond lieutenant and duty and responsibility, Renji is strength. he's action and instinct, so as he speaks - tone notably flat, acceptance and rejection all in one - he shrugs]
Suit yerself.
[a second spent to bend, to place the pastry down on the dusty ground and glance - fleetingly - in search of meeting blue, and then he turns in a flick of firecracker red and begins to walk away]
[his head tilts downward, a shoulder shrugging up into his ear, defensive and trying to hide all those fleshy, sensitive places in view of some stranger's kindness (but oddly not turning away his soft underbelly -- a masochist, maybe
( ... )
Comments 41
[the kid looks like a bad domestic abuse case: dark shadows and what damn near looks like sharkbites tattering open the already-ripped black vest hanging off of him, where you can see ribs that were once full and ridged but now just look hungry. shredded and torn jeans hang off his hips with a belt that has studs nicked out of it. he's tattered, he's fucked, and he has a look in his eyes that says there once used to be innocence there, but he's too hungry for it now]
[there are words he wants to say to him, where bruised and blood-crusted lips part, but he doesn't know them in their language, doesn't hardly understand what to do]
[instead, he mutters a low, disapproving "t'sh" and wipes a dried-blood nose and returns to the darkness of the ally with moonlight glowing in his eyes ( ... )
Reply
[he stands quite still, hakama legs picking up and drifting, listless, with the cool (cruel) call of a breeze as he tempers the natural tensing and readying of limbs and greedy muscles with a minor uprising against his instincts. ("got too much power here", an unnecessary reminder, he knew that the second he stepped foot out of Seireitei, "gotta be careful") sharp red eyes cut through the murk and keep a soldier's alert on every detail, every movement. it doesn't take long to take everything in.]
[only a second longer to know that in a couple weeks - a month, if he's lucky (or if he's really not) - there'd be nothing left to take in at all]
[he's a kid. Renji realises it like a stone to the stomach, softens it with a ( ... )
Reply
[he looks uncertain, teeth fighting behind lips with a hobo's chitter-chatter need for sustenance, the stubbornness not leaving his cut jaw that lies about his age just a little, grubby fingers jerking edgily at the tatters of his jeans]
[gears are obviously turning in his head, summoning up words and wisdom, little catches of phrases that he's learned in his stay, trying his hardest to latch onto the culture. he manages something, things he's heard as he's stalked the back of restaurants and waited for them to throw out their garbage, buried it in his lungs and stomach and mind as if words could feed him, too]
Hunger no.
[not from you, that balling of a fist and clenching of teeth says. he's been too razed, too bothered, to treated unkindly by these new inhabitants to trust another stranger -- especially ( ... )
Reply
[above and beyond lieutenant and duty and responsibility, Renji is strength. he's action and instinct, so as he speaks - tone notably flat, acceptance and rejection all in one - he shrugs]
Suit yerself.
[a second spent to bend, to place the pastry down on the dusty ground and glance - fleetingly - in search of meeting blue, and then he turns in a flick of firecracker red and begins to walk away]
[his pace stays slow, but consistent]
Reply
Reply
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