(Untitled)

[crownofsnow]

Characters: Cross (Allen) [crownofsnow] and Shiro (Ishida) [quincy_crossed] later Justice (Miles) [extantlaw ] and Smoke (Gojyo) [inthecenterfold]
Date/Time: January 7th, 10:00 am
Location:Justice's office.
Rating:R for description of violence.
Summary: Cross is shaken up from finding Aurora's body and Shiro is there to give him a change of clothes and keep him sane.

Comments

[quincy_crossed]

Shiro had been bracing himself for what he was going to see; from Cross' reaction in the journals he knew it was going to be bad. Very bad, as a matter of fact. He hadn't expected to see thee amount of shock his roommate was going through, but in retrospect he should have anticipated it. This wasn't the sort of thing that you dealt with every day.

More to the point, though, he hadn't expected his own reaction.

He had stared at the corpse (well, what was left of it) for a long time, eyes huge. The urge to retch was strong, but so was an inexplicable, deeply-seated anger. The kind of anger that would force a man to want to kill. He'd never thought of himself as that ruthless, but all he could think of was I will kill you. It took him a while to shake that off, but the fury still remained.

When Cross came back out he was leaning against a wall, staring blankly at the opposite one as he got the last of his rage in check. He glanced over, sighing. "Inasmuch as one can be after something like that. What about you?" He was

[crownofsnow]

It felt like he dealt with terrible situations like that one on a day to day basis. Working in a clinic had given him a tougher skin but that wasn't it. Cross thought about the question and looked at his black hand. The fingers creaked as he flexed them. All he could think about was the humming sensation his double's arm had. His answer came out softer than he intended it to. "I'm alright

[quincy_crossed]

Black and white. There was something that rang a bell for Shiro in there too...not in the least because of his name. Shiro. He'd picked it specifically because it meant white, because everything in his dream had been white, because somehow, some way, the lack of color that was white was very important to him. So thus, that rang a bell. He pushed away from the wall and walked along next to his roommate, listening.

"What does the eye see?" He wasn't quite sure what was up with that; the odd eyes were making him look two or three times but it wasn't like it fundamentally changed who he was. "And the whole not entirely human bit..." That had seriously weirded him out. People weren't supposed to look like that on the inside. It wasn't right.

As they walked through the door he reached over to put a hand on his roommate's shoulder. "We'll figure it out but do me a favor and don't try to convince me you're all right. I know better." Since Shiro practically lived in his pocket most of the time. "After this you really do need to

[crownofsnow]

"The world is inverted with eye." He covered the lens with his hand and sighed. "It's a seeker. I don't remember what it's supposed to find." Cross pressed his lips together in a thin line. He wanted to know, it felt important. "...I honestly don't know what to think about Mister Aurora now. He's still who he is but what he might be is bothering me."

He felt like a predator. If Aurora started killing people...he'd destroy him. That was what he was supposed to- Was it? He started when Shiro put his hand on his shoulder. After a moment he relaxed but he still was as hyper aware as he'd been all night. "...ah, I forget you see through that. You ever feel like you know what you are and yet you don't? I've felt like that all night and all morning."

He only nodded in agreement about sleep and made his way over to Justice's office couch and sat down. "Remember that coat I wore when our clothes were changing? The one with the silver cross? I've felt naked since it disappeared."

[extantlaw]

The coppery smell of blood and the stink of Cross' vomit lingered in Justice's nostrils and on his clothes. He took another deep breath of the fresher air in the hallway as he walked towards his office, his brow furrowed as he considered the state of the room he had just left.

To kill was one thing; to maim almost beyond recognition in such an impersonal way was entirely another. 'Why?' as much as 'Who?' was a question that had recurred several times as he picked his way among carefully removed organs and not-quite-so-human-looking parts that puzzled him as to their function, and there was a growing anger at the return of violence to the Sphere.

But at least this time people seemed willing to try and find out the truth, and the urgency of knowing who had done this was only more pressing because of the message from Crow, that had troubled him since he read it and still did now

[quincy_crossed]

"I don't know if I can do anything about the boots, I'm no cobbler -- but the rest I'm very confident I can pull off, as long as I get the right fabrics." Shiro had raided a fabric store in Vegas -- half their bedroom was jammed full of fabric, sometimes it made it hard to move around -- so the only thing he wasn't sure he had was the silver trims. Silver was a pain to get and make look semi-decent too, so that didn't help matters. That said, though, Shiro figured he'd rummage around somewhere and come up with something that would work.

As Cross hugged him he blinked, then gave him a real hug back. He had already determined that he'd be sticking by his roommate's side come hell or high water, since somehow they'd sort of ended up in this together. Not that he cared. Good friends were hard to come by, so you hung onto them when you found them.

Of course, it was in the middle of this hugging that Justice walked in.

This...probably looked really really awkward.Oh well

[crownofsnow]

"I'll see what I can do about the silver." Cross figured they'd make things work somehow. He believed in Shiro's skill with needles. He smiled when he got a real hug in return. Good friends were really difficult to come by. He heard the door open and sighed in relief. Justice was here. This was almost over for a little bit.

The fact this looked really awkward didn't even occur to him. "Has Boss Lezard showed up yet?" He frowned at the thought of the body again and rubbed his temples. For some reason he knew what came next. He'd been in these shoes before...too many times. It left a sick feeling in his stomach as he sat up straighter. "Now comes the debriefing, right? We've been needing to talk for a while now."

Cross shifted his weight while the lens before his eye put the room back into focus.

[extantlaw]

Any surprise that he may have ordinarily felt at finding his colleague and his tailor hugging on the sofa in his office was considerably dulled by the memory of what he had seen in the operating room, and by his concern for Cross. Justice had every respect for Cross' skill as a healer, but the fact remained that he was young - too young to have walked in on that room without any warning. That aspect of it alone angered him more than he would care to admit, and it took some effort to keep his voice calm