open doors [(and yet) closed]
Who: Lust (sonvisage) & Lupin (lumenrelegandus)
When: Right after this.
Where: Their flat.
Format: Proseish.
What: Baggage trade. (His Broadcast Mind for her Memory Recorder.)
Warnings: Intro. reposted from tags: sultry = hers, wolfy = his.
Her gaze flickers over the door, doesn't stop, it's moving with the lamplight. Uncertain. But she moves toward the door, turns the ( Read more... )
When: Right after this.
Where: Their flat.
Format: Proseish.
What: Baggage trade. (His Broadcast Mind for her Memory Recorder.)
Warnings: Intro. reposted from tags: sultry = hers, wolfy = his.
Her gaze flickers over the door, doesn't stop, it's moving with the lamplight. Uncertain. But she moves toward the door, turns the ( Read more... )
Difficult to watch this image of Lust with Io sitting right next to him, it's almost stranger to see such personal moments from people whose faces he knows only over forges, only briefly met in person if at all. Hawkeye. Mustang. Alphonse. -maybe it's easier, knowing them mainly as images.
His focus is fixed fully on her soon enough.
That was uncalled for. I do have feelings.
Her vigilance is unnecessary. His reactions aren't subtle. No skill needed to read his hand tightening-it happens almost instantly: when Mustang shot her. All the way to the end, every shot fired into her makes him wince. (Clearly she's all right, she's right here… in the video, she heals… so why is seeing her hurt upsetting to him? Especially when… with increasing cause and clarity, she deserves…)
Apart from a few things, I was made nearly identical to you.
It's when she skewers Havoc that he goes completely still. He doesn't move even as the video gets worse and worse. His hand no longer tells her anything. It's as cold and distant-even in contact-as hers. His eyes don't leave the screen and are unreadable.
The way her skin reforms from burning. Closes after being incinerated to the bone. The red electricity of her power. The intimacy of violence. Her cruelty. Her love of the pain. Delight in their suffering. Conviction of her superiority. Her hair, her eyes, her voice.
I am human.
Is Bellatrix.
So let's see! How many times is it gonna take?
On the blasted hill before the Door,
in the white room in the Memory,
she's consumed in fire, goes down screaming agony… brutal, monstrous, murderous.
…You killed me. I hate losing. But there are worse ways to die than at the hands of a man like you.
No, not Bellatrix one bit.
The gem turns to dust.
Lupin reaches out one hand and turns off the machine.
I was made nearly identical to you. I am human.
His other hand has never left Io's.
At last, he turns and looks her in the eye.
"But that's not you," he says.
Reply
beind her eyes. "No." Does he do this on purpose? These stunningly unpredictable reactions? Because this. Is not---
And softer, as she half-rises, slides her hand out from under his to grasp at
the air between them. "But you don't know that. You can't."
(It rains on my gloom parade, Remus. You can't watch that and still want to be in the same room with me.)
"It could be." she muses, and carrying it further, "It could have been. It is to them, it's not a rumor or a dream, it's a memory. Those are the Colonel's memories. His Lieutenant wasn't so forthcoming, but she said much the same. Told me things."
She moves a few steps to the window, looking out at the She moves a few steps to the window, looking out at the people, the crowded street. A woman in a large hat, a man hurrying with a stack of parcels so high that he could barely see. For a moment it looked as if they might collide, but they do not, and the woman turns a corner soon after.
His acceptance burns worse than the imagined pain of Mustang's fire - it's the shadow of acceptance she's wanted longer than she can put words to. These words - his words - from the wrong lips - a pale echo of life much like herself.
Hands pressing against the windowglass, eyes dark and hot, throat tight, she manages a strained sigh. It may have been a word. A name. One cannot be sure.
Reply
Right now he stays seated, looking at the memory recorder. At last he looks over at her reflection in the window; exhales, and changes his.
The wolf in the window says, "I'm not inclined to judge what you can't remember."
The image shivers and returns to the man. Lupin gingerly levered himself to his feet. He didn't cross to her. "And I'd like to give myself a little more credit than that. I wouldn't feel the way I do about the woman in that memory. I've met her. She's not to be trusted. I trust you."
Reply
The beast in her field of vision wavers in the glass, speaks, but she does not turn ...although she listens. She doesn't want to listen - is ill inclined after this latest viewing of memories. She's surprised that she's bothered by his reaction at all.
She's bothered by her surprise.
Things were simpler when she didn't question, when the ache wasn't ...palpable, when someone else pulled the strings. At the very least, this other self had not been clouded by confusion, or weighed down with conscience or longing.
Weighed down? Really?
One hand reaching back - and still she hasn't turned from the window. As if she's reaching for him as he changes - but a blade shoots from her index finger in an instant - shoots and stops inches from his flesh. She can almost feel the thrum of his heartbeat through it.
"Do you?" she asks, now turning, the thin black spire between them, although nothing in her manner suggests a threat.
Reply
Reply
She eyes him through the window's reflection still, and after a long moment, turns her head.
"Well, that answers my question, doesn't it?"
Reply
"More than one," he said; "I hope. That I trust you, and that you deserve it."
Releasing her reflection from scrutiny, he rests his eyes momentarily on the back of her head. That ocean of waving hair. At the merest indication from her, he'll stay; and gives enough time for such a sign. If none comes, he'll leave her alone in the room.
Reply
"I continue to marvel at you ability to steal words. I haven't any idea what to say and yet I'm still speaking. Strange."
Her tone is teasing, but her expression is not.
Reply
He holds her gaze, if a bit more perplexedly.
"Is there more you wish to say? You can. …Alternately I can break the mood and offer to make tea."
Reply
She doesn't move toward him - only lowers her hand.
Reply
Reply
It's formality and a comfort at the same time.
Reply
Leave a comment