and he huffed and he puffed

[implausibility]

Who: Yaha (barebacking) and Adachi (implausibility)
When: Late afternoon, forward-dated to Friday.
Where: Near the area where Adachi last saw Yaha's handiwork, near that alley, but not in it.
Summary: A collision of two equally stubborn forces gets you nowhere.
Warnings: Mentions of past murder, gore, and Yaha Is A Crazy Bitch.

Comments

[implausibility]

The skin around his eyes and mouth pulled taut. Little twat still had the gall to call him a 'colleague', huh? Though technically, that was true. Without proper evidence, the Justice Brigade and Company had utterly failed to bring any actual charges to light. Yaha was still running around free, as if it weren't obvious enough, and still in the force to boot. Hell, he hadn't even been given a proper slap on the wrist.

But there was no real justice in the world, anyway.

"What were you thinking of, exactly?" Adachi asked, easing his composure in what was an unfortunately obvious attempt to seem at ease. Unfortunately, his acting ability was only sub-par at times - his wandering eyes gave him away. They darted to and fro, from the alley to the street to the very ground, paved with cement. He hadn't forgotten about the gnomes, and their uncanny ability to sprout from the ground right beneath your feet. (There was nothing a person could trust in the world). "'Cause you know, call me picky, but I'm not really the kind of guy who likes hanging out in dark alleys with other guys, if you catch my drift."

Not that his drift was hard to catch - it was like a bulldozer stumbling its way towards you with all eighteen tons of its metal hide in tow.

[barebacking]

"I was thinking about a lot of things, actually." His gaze slipped away from Adachi's face to the alleyway, smiling at the fond memories that it brought. These days his thoughts were really all over the place that he sometimes had a difficult time trying to keep with them. Was he that distraught about being left behind by Liquid? By Urick? By the Core? A slight tilt of his head yet again. "But that's not what you're asking me."

Yaha turned his gaze back to his dear companion's. "I meant merely that I wanted to talk with you, of course." He did not comment too much on what was said about hanging out in dark alleys with other men. Yes, he did catch what it was that Adachi was trying to say, and he thought that it was amusing. It was his belief that no one could resist his charms if he implemented them properly. And yet, the people of this city kept proving him otherwise. Troublesome.

He held his hand out to gesture for him to follow or to lead, whichever move that Adachi would like to make. "If it pleases, I made a promise with someone that I won't harm anyone this month." Another sweeter smile as he thought of the present that he would receive for staying his hand. "I realize that you saw me at my worst that one time and other times past, but I'm wanting to show you my kinder side so that we can mend all ruined ties between us."

[implausibility]

Adachi shook his hands at Yaha so quickly that his fingers wobbled from side to side, flung around by his palms. "Oh, nuh-uh, no way! I don't want anything to do with your 'kind' side," he quickly refused, and only afterward did he tack on a polite, off-hand and meaningless, "No offense." He had no doubt in his mind, after all, that to some degree, Yaha thought that allowing his lizards to tear his victims limb by limb and innard by innard was somehow doing them a kindness to some degree, too.

I'm going to destroy the world and you're going to thank me.

He shook his head, fending off the minor throb that usually preceded a headache. Great. They were less common nowadays, but no less unwelcome. Adachi was waiting for the day they would disappear completely, but that was a long time in coming, he knew, especially since even summoning his persona made his forehead want to split open in two. Well, you couldn't win them all, and he could make do with just winning most.

"Besides," he continued, narrowing a skeptical eye at his...adversary? (Not quite, they hadn't exactly resorted to blows yet.) Colleague? (Hardly, and only in the most technical sense of the word.) ...Unforunate acquaintance, perhaps. "How do I know I can believe what you say 'bout your...one-month abstinence? I mean, hope you'll understand, and not that I mean anything special by it, but I don't really want to end up smeared across-" He looked up, read the nearest street sign. "Blein Street any time soon, just 'cause I was a good citizen and all."

Between the two of them, they spun so many lies it was a wonder they could navigate past their own two feet at all (or maybe they were just both stumbling through).

[barebacking]

His eyes widened just a little in surprise at the dismissal of his kindness. The smile faded just slightly to a thin line with the ends barely turned upward, before it found its way back. "I see." He let out a soft sigh of regret. That was most unfortunate - his shoulders dropped just a little before he shrugged them a few times to remove any strain. "No offense is taken, of course. It is your own feelings that tell you to do this, and so I won't force you to think otherwise."

Yaha actually meant that he would not use his eyes upon him for something so little as agreeing with him on this, unlike how he had with Yazoo. That was only because he did not like his child to disagree with him. He realized that all children would eventually be disobedient, but he would rather that time come later rather than sooner. He tipped his head up toward the sky for a moment, staring into the grey that the clouds created in this month. "It's sad that the sun cannot even shine through this mess." A beat. "One would almost think that it sees no reason to fight against the gloom brought by the cold until it gathers enough strength to do so."

Yes, he was disregarding what Adachi had asked him about his month of not murdering in order to comment about the sky in an off-handed manner. "I have no intention of ruining you, Adachi." His gaze continued to fix upon one of the clouds, tilting his head as though he could see a familiar shape in it. "I have no intention of spilling your insides, because I respect the roles that we all play. I always have respected them. I respect that we are colleagues and that is why I will scold you from time to time, but have no reason to lash out upon you."

Dragging his eyes away from the clouds he looked upon the man's face, his smile widened. "But as soon as my position from the police is taken, I have no reason to keep true to these beliefs." A slight shrug. "I do believe that you have the power to kill me, and that is also why I honor you. But I also think I can mar your pretty face before I die. And that's all I want in the end if we do come to blows. To ruin your outsides just a little so that it makes it difficult to look in the mirror."

Little victories. Little things to ensure that he would not be forgotten. He'd be fine with dying by the detective's hands, but he would not let it be an easy fight. "But I don't see you as an enemy now. I see you only as a dear friend of mine, and I'd like to keep it that way, please." Another slight, childish tilt of his head. "I really don't like the thought of dying by anyone's hands but his, you see. So, even if I am all right with it, I am also not all right with it."

He started to laugh softly, kindly. "That is why you should not worry about me, all right?"

[implausibility]

Somewhere through that, Adachi had straightened. Sometime during the explanation, the fear had abated. It might have been the talk - all those mentions of scolding and respect and camaraderie in the name of being colleagues might have done it. It might have been the condescension; Adachi might've found it infuriating, or he might have simply recognized the uncontested fact that the people who talked to him like that had, in the end, never been able to carry out the promises they made. It might have even been an emboldening voice woman's crooning in his head, telling him not to worry, you have power now and you can use it, don't forget.

"My face?" he said, with amusement, running his hands over his brow, the long bridge of his nose, the narrow jaw. Adachi might have had an ego, but there were still some things he didn't protest. This was an average face, he know, and because it was average, it made playing his games a little easier. Adachi laughed quietly to himself, staring down at his splayed palm afterward, as if somehow, a trace of his visage had smeared off onto it, as if he would be able to see a residual trace of the unkind expression he was making in the cup of his hand. There was nothing there but lifelines and gun calluses and years-worn creases, and while a fortune teller might have found that more telling than a disbelieving smirk, the only con-men here were not of that sort.

"You like scarrin' people up?" He slid his hand to the back of his neck, tilting his head to the other side to allow it access. "That's pretty weird, even for you. I'm gonna decline, respectfully, I mean, and add that I'm pretty hurt, here, Mr. Yaha!" He patted a fist to the left side of his chest, a little off-center, and not quite above where his heart was beating (a calmed, regular pace now). "Don't know why you'd think I try to hurt you. I haven't lifted a finger yet, and even when-" Not 'if.' "I do bring you in, it's not like I'd try to ruff you up or anything. I don't operate that way."

[barebacking]

"I like it." He added at the question about Adachi's face. Not necessarily a lie, because he did think that the other was quite lovely. Then, again, there were only few men that he did not like regardless of what their looks would be. But Adachi's suited him well. "I find it to be very endearing." That's why it would actually be rather sad when he thought of marring it some way. Even if it was something that he said that he wanted to do if it came to blows. Doesn't mean that it won't be depressing.

"I like making sure that they can remember me." It bothered him more than he was willing to admit that Nowe forgetting about him. His head gave a violent shake once as he thought of the teen -- such an annoying little bastard child. Not only did he take Oror but Urick away. He was a constant fixture in that child's life and he did not recognize him; did not even recall his name. "Don't you think that it's unfortunate how forgetful people are? I think that it is. If scars are the only way to ensure a memory, then I shall carve one on the soul of the people here."

He laughed softly to himself in a kindly manner, like they were just joking with one another. "Is that how it will be?" Holding his hands behind his back, he leaned forward to observe the face that he had commented on adoring just moments before. "I suppose that if you are doing your job that I have no real issue to be upset with you. Besides, I know who it is that I will blame when it comes down to it." Even Yaha was uncertain how he could keep his murderous desires from lashing out once more. It was difficult to keep himself calm with the fear that the pillars that he had gathered to allow him to be steady continued to tremble and be taken away from him because of the Core.

"But until then, I shall think of you as a friend of mine, regardless if you feel that way in turn."

[implausibility]

It didn't take a degree in psychology to pick that apart. Adachi kept smiling, the expression fixed doggedly into place. It wasn't natural, but looked like at one point, it might have been, like someone had taken a spontaneous photo at a moment where it was perfectly fine, but had forgotten to press 'play' on the specific part of the image around his face afterward. "You get forgotten often?"

Beginning to pace, Adachi was careful not to turn his back, and also careful not to mind his back at the same. The only opponent here wasn't just the one standing in front of him, after all. For a second, he was almost glad his shoes were so worn down - he could feel the stillness of the earth and pavement, and should it resort to it, he would feel the rumble of something burrowing underneath. The detective tapped his head, tilting it into the tip of his finger, a picture of deep thought. "I mean, I'm just a regular plainclothes detective, but - just a guess, right, don't go telling anyone I told you this, but...you think it might have something to do with the fact that people might wanna forget?"

A civil conversation as any, technically - neither had resorted to blows, and neither had thrown any knives quite yet - at least not any that weren't thinly veiled or trick-edged. It was as intelligent an exchange that he supposed he could carry out with someone as off-the-hook as Yaha. Dealing with people like that required conversing in a web of metaphors that he didn't quite understand (one that maybe even Yaha didn't fully understand, when it came down to it), but of all the things one could say about Adachi, you couldn't say that he didn't try his best.

[barebacking]

"Only once." Yaha let out a sigh, coupled with an exasperated sound. Like it didn't mean much that he had been forgotten, even if actions prior said otherwise. He was someone who was full of contradictions, because that merely was how he now operated. If he separated himself from them, he would not be particularly sure exactly who he would be. Tied up so tight in his own lies that he barely could recognize what reality was save for a few glimmers that shined through from time to time from the partially broken ceiling of his cage.

"It's impossible to know even if you want to forget." Another childish tilt of his head as he took a few steps backwards. "Only an ever-lasting trauma can force memories from one's mind, and even then, something has to take its place." He shrugged his shoulders as he accepted this as how things were. Even he could not live without his replacements - in people, in memories. Yaha wondered if it were possible for him to break just a little more if he fully acknowledged that he truly had nothing of his world save his children and his pact within the city. Even then, there was a feeling of being completely isolated and alone.

Only elf. Only pact-partner. Only from a time so far removed from everyone. His smile widened all the same, as he hummed some nameless tune. It went on for a few notes before he abruptly stopped. "Is there something that you wish to forget, Adachi? Surely, there is." A soft laugh. "Everyone has a memory that regardless of what it is that they want to remove from themselves, but have no means to do so. Even I can't from myself, but I can allow it for others."

Holding up his index finger, he waved about like he was scolding the other. "But only if you truly wish to forget." A beat. "Or, if you have no real connection to the memory and could care less if it was there or not. However, we're not talking about those sort of recollections, are we?"

[implausibility]

"What?" Adachi said, drawing out the vowel with a small laugh. He canted his head, like a curious child, but everything else about his relaxed stance was like the silhouette of sharp edges poking out from a velvety cover. There were no blades, but it was there. "You're saying you could make me forget something?"

[barebacking]

He rose his hands to lightly dismiss the question. "I can truly only make someone forget if they want to forget." If he tried to do it to someone who wished to keep the memories, it simply hurt too much. Like how he had only temporarily removed Edgeworth's.

Yaha remembered the bleeding of his eyes -- his hand rose to touch his face, glossing over his chin like he could still feel the red tears. Ah, how weak I was afterward. His head bowed for a moment before lifting it to shrug his shoulders easily. "Why? Is there something that you would like to forget?"

[implausibility]

For a second, he considered this. It was a devil's offer - the type that was definitely not without its catches, but for a moment, Adachi entertained the idea. Try as he might, though, he came up blank more often than not. There was that one mistake, back in the city, that would have prevented him from ever getting transferred, but he was much too bitter and jaded now to think that even if he had escaped that one, he would've gotten anywhere.

Adachi was a man that no longer believed in the world.

Everything else fell through his fingers like fine sand. In the end, had there really been anything that really stood out in his life to be important enough to remember? Important enough to forget? There was just studying, cram school, pressure to keep up grades. Perhaps at the time, he would've been tempted to take the offer and erase a dreaded B+, back when he was a child and had a child's measure of importance. Now, he had little to claim, little to gain, and little to lose.

"But it still happened," he said at last. Then, with honest curiosity, he added, "Or can you stop that too? Make everyone forget?"

[barebacking]

"It still happened, yes." One could not change what had happened. One could only change how they saw how things happened. That was something that he became aware of even before he came to this city.

"I suppose that I could make everyone forget, so long as I got in contact with everyone who was related to the event." Of course, there would have to be a month of reprieve each time that he went to find each person. He wondered if he continued to force the memories from the people's minds that he would either go blind or cease to be able to use his abilities. Either way, he was uncertain what would happen, but if Urick was not around, he was starting to wonder what point there was to keep his charms.

The self-destructive thought came and went easily. He cared too much to still want someone to care for him. Hoped too much that Urick would one day return to him to ruin himself too much. "I believe that eventually everyone would forget about it if no one of interest could bring it up. It might be as you say that people wish to forget what is unfortunate to them."

Or that is how I see humans. They seemed to have forgotten what had happened during the war. They acted as though we were the villains when we were far more humane and loving than the Empire ever was. A flash of rage before it faded from his eyes to the usual calm sweetness. "Eventually, with no one who could bring it up, who could remind them of what was unfortunate, it would be like it never happened." He laughed softly, shoulders shaking slightly. "You can't change that it happened. You can't change that it is still there. But you can deny that it ever was until it never was."

Really. Yaha was aware that he was just repeating himself in different ways, but it was just because it was so funny to him. Adachi had really reminded him of something interesting, something that he had almost forgotten himself.

[implausibility]

Adachi was smiling at something, down near his feet. It might've been the pavement, might've been the scuffs on his shoes, where a hint of a black stain still lingered on the edge of his right foot, too black for blood, too dark for something as simple as a normal stain, and very faintly, surrounded by tendrils of similar black, like shadowy fingers reaching out for something before it, too, disappeared. It might even have been something past the visible eye, from a long time ago, that he hadn't, couldn't, and not necessarily wanted to forget.

"That's good enough, though. For all working purposes. It's not like anybody really needs you, then." It was spoken with the tone of a simple observation, no hidden corners and no bladed syllables. The words themselves were piercing enough already. Adachi had no need of dressing them up. "But I heard you could do other things, too. Isn't that what you did to Mr. Prosecutor back then? Otherwise, I don't think even the apocalypse could shut up a guy like that."

He raised a hand, made some winding, circling motion near his temple with his index and middle fingers, looking for a second like he was holding a mock gun to his forehead. "You know. Something else with your head."

[barebacking]

From beneath the ground, through a few of the cracks, the inhuman screaming of the noise slipped through. It filled the silence even if the ground itself did not shake to indicate that they would appearing. Hissing screams that eventually died off. Yaha tilted his head slightly in a childish, almost apologetic manner -- it was meant completely to his poor pact partners who had felt the blunt of his anguish. Doesn't need me?

"Oh, I can, yes." Yaha supposed that at this point it was no secret. His tone had not changed much from before -- still calm and friendly. Only the screaming from below that indicated that he was bothered by it. "I can use my charms to command a man to do what it is that I would like. They love me so much that they cannot help but want to please me, you see." There was a small noise that could have been a laugh added at the end.

"It's only fair." He shrugged his shoulders as he opened his hands to Adachi in surrender. "No one used to want to please me at all. Now I only need to see into their soul and know that they actually love me. That they actually just need the courage to wish to please me." It was how he could erase memories. A person need only love him enough to wish to forget something that would make him unhappy if they remembered it.

"And what of you? What is it that you have that I saw at that time?"

[implausibility]

Adachi jumped at the noise, tensing up, one foot lifting off the ground in a show of precarious, if not comical balance, as if he was trying to get as far away from the ground as possible (in the end, he managed the feat only the toe of one shoe in contact). When it was over, it took a moment for him to relax. Adachi spent a few good seconds simply staring at the paved earth as if it might swallow him whole, before gingerly and slowly lowering his feet. Strangely enough, throughout that entire display, he didn't even wobble once, as one would come to expect from a person of his...hardly reliable character.

He didn't need to ask what it was, because whatever it was probably wasn't good.

"Charms," Adachi said, not without a few good ounces of skepticism as he finally tore his eyes away from the asphalt long enough to glance at Yaha's face. The other man's features were not ugly, by any means, but Adachi was past the point of appreciating the beauty in life, even if it was an beauty not unaccompanied by ugliness. Perhaps he just simply could not see it anymore, and rather than it being a matter of not noticing, it was a matter of being unable to. Still, he did not question it, knowing better than to say the situational equivalent of, Why yes, you do look fat in that dress.

"Oh, that?" he said instead, addressing the last of Yaha's concerns. "That was just a friend of mine. You know, like yours." He stuck a finger out and jabbed it down, motioning to the floor. "A friend that helps me out sometimes. He's not really as nice as yours, though - kind of a headache really...in the literal sense of the word."

[barebacking]

"I don't think they like the cold much." Yaha stated conversationally, even though it was more than a little off-topic from what it was that they were talking on. "Makes the earth hard and difficult to dig through. Have to use so much magic to tear through the ground." Kneeling down, he touched the ground in an affectionate manner -- glossing his fingers over the dirt and grime. There, there. Spring will come and you'll be able to move a little easier.

He looked up from where he was, not yet standing as he was still consoling his children. "That's right. My charms." His head gave a little childish tilt. "Would you like to see some of them? I promise that I'll be gentle." Like how he was with Riku. He only asked the young man to touch his hair in order to show what his powers were, in order to show how he felt that people could not resist him. And yet, and yet, and yet.

"A pact partner?" His eyes widened slightly as he could feel others who were in a pact, yes, but he did not quite feel that from Adachi. Those that were in pacts could communicate with one another in an almost telepathic manner as well. His head continued to tilt back and forth like some animal who had heard a strange noise. Something from another world that is like mine? How interesting. "I'm so sorry to hear that he causes you pain, though. If it is like mine, it's the price that you have to pay for gathering their power. For using it at all."

A beat. "Because creatures like us were not meant to have it."