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Entry tags:
cuz i'm an albatraoz . ( closed )
Who: heine rammsteiner ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beissen & rin matsuoka jawdacity
When: ic: day before the waterworks?
Where: gardens
What: one dumb angry idiot teaches another dumb angry idiot how to hold a knife
Rating/Warning: ... one dumb angry idiot teaches another dumb angry idiot how to hold a knife
[ even as heine tracked his steps to the location, apprehension clung to squared shoulders like a bleary cloud. he doubted he took the quickest route to get to the damn leafy area, and had taken enough wrong turns to be thoroughly irate at the lay of streets but surprisingly, his arrival was still generally timely.
more luck than refined planning, heine falters upon the entrance to the gardens, sudden tension wrought as steel against artificial vertebrae, and his hands are buried deeper into his pockets. he's never seen a place so green before, and when he stalks into it, searching for either the clearing or the shock of contrasting maroon against the rest of the earthy tonality, his expression is kept stiff.
it was hard not to look and listen to the ambient sound of it all, and until he actually registers it enough to force steady breaths, they come shallow. too many memories, or too many broken promises, all culminating in one big failure. (why should he be seeing this, when the two people that wanted to the most would never be able to?)
so he passes fingers along the white bandage on his neck, and smooths the high collar of his coat. the chain to his gun sways with each step, even if the noise isn't loud, it embodies comfort. comfort attached to the triggers of guns and perhaps that was the exact embodiment of him.
he, of course, hadn't put tremendous thought into how he was actually going to impart his wisdom ( h a h ) on the kid. he brought his knife, his guns. he'll see where rin is at. heine wasn't going to teach theory, because he had little capacity for it when it came to fight -
- he finds the clearing, and a moment later, whether rin was just coming around, or already waiting, the only form of greeting heine provided is pivoting his shoulders towards him. ] Ready, then?
[ the way heine directs his gaze is specifically to rin. the green nature of his surroundings wouldn't be distracting in the long run, but the current lethargy was making it hard to entirely drop his discomfort away. ]
beissen & rin matsuoka jawdacityWhen: ic: day before the waterworks?
Where: gardens
What: one dumb angry idiot teaches another dumb angry idiot how to hold a knife
Rating/Warning: ... one dumb angry idiot teaches another dumb angry idiot how to hold a knife
[ even as heine tracked his steps to the location, apprehension clung to squared shoulders like a bleary cloud. he doubted he took the quickest route to get to the damn leafy area, and had taken enough wrong turns to be thoroughly irate at the lay of streets but surprisingly, his arrival was still generally timely.
more luck than refined planning, heine falters upon the entrance to the gardens, sudden tension wrought as steel against artificial vertebrae, and his hands are buried deeper into his pockets. he's never seen a place so green before, and when he stalks into it, searching for either the clearing or the shock of contrasting maroon against the rest of the earthy tonality, his expression is kept stiff.
it was hard not to look and listen to the ambient sound of it all, and until he actually registers it enough to force steady breaths, they come shallow. too many memories, or too many broken promises, all culminating in one big failure. (why should he be seeing this, when the two people that wanted to the most would never be able to?)
so he passes fingers along the white bandage on his neck, and smooths the high collar of his coat. the chain to his gun sways with each step, even if the noise isn't loud, it embodies comfort. comfort attached to the triggers of guns and perhaps that was the exact embodiment of him.
he, of course, hadn't put tremendous thought into how he was actually going to impart his wisdom ( h a h ) on the kid. he brought his knife, his guns. he'll see where rin is at. heine wasn't going to teach theory, because he had little capacity for it when it came to fight -
- he finds the clearing, and a moment later, whether rin was just coming around, or already waiting, the only form of greeting heine provided is pivoting his shoulders towards him. ] Ready, then?
[ the way heine directs his gaze is specifically to rin. the green nature of his surroundings wouldn't be distracting in the long run, but the current lethargy was making it hard to entirely drop his discomfort away. ]
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alone, here with his thoughts, the wind sinking deep into his hair.
there's something artificial about it. the dirt smells metallic, the texture strange under his fingers. he digs his fingertips in, silt burrowing into the quick of his nails. if memory can be teased away by CERES, what of sensation? if none of this is real, maybe there's something to be said about the skills for which he's submitting himself to learn. a virtual reality can't be judged in the same manner of all other things -- the blood he draws will be metaphorical. metaphysical. a concept more than an actuality.
the rationalizing does little to calm the pitter-patter of rin's heartbeat, though he tries to fit his shreds of logic together again and again and again until he has run out of mental wherewithal.
eventually, he forces himself to think only of the wind on his face. the sweaty streak his palms leave across his thighs. by the time heine arrives, he's standing at the far edge of the clearing, stretching his arms to pliancy. his hair is still damp; it's beginning to frizz as it dries. he looks up without a smile, though the slant of his brow should be greeting enough. ]
Sure.
[ his gaze is hummingbird-quick, darting from gun to foot to face. he exhales. ]
You ready?
[ the cockiness helps. ]
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his eyes glide over the clearing again. it was secluded, and apt enough for wide motions. the footing was unfamiliar, less stable than the smooth feel of concrete or steel, all man-made things that turned to rubble against streams of bullets.
but - he kept forgetting. all of this was made too, wasn't it? virtual reality didn't change the urgency of survival. pain was real, injury. death. that was all that mattered, and that was the normalcy heine has chosen to accept.
ah. was that a flower? it was a white thing, with a subtle sway amidst the green strands around it. delicate and fragile and it sent a shock, culminated in a flinch as he quickly snapped his eyes back to rin.
( - i want to see real flowers - ) ] Hah - [ his mouth curves wry and the strain of it ebbs. ] - what do you think?
[ ( sorry, lily. ) there was nothing special to the fragility of the stem; the colour of the petals. it was understated. ( back then, lily and giovanni would have liked them. ) why was he thinking about this now? it was tremendously annoying.
they both, succinctly, offer no direct response. but heine steps forward, shortens the space in fluid steps, and stops directly in front with hands loose at his sides. ] Can't teach you anything without seeing what you can already do.
So - try and hit me. [ unlike back in the hospital, where his head reeled and hound howled with the instability of it all, his attention is unnervingly all on the youth. you're not breaking his face just yet, shark boy. ]
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[ that's it? no build-up, no theory, just straight into the brawling stage?
maybe it's better that way. he's spent much of his life poring through technical texts about swimming, but nothing compares to the shock of a body sliding through the water: a battleground meant only for one. the rush of blood through his temples.
rin doesn't think, doesn't breathe, doesn't coordinate the ebb and flow of his breath with the release of his fist. he's been in tussles before: his childhood friend constantly wrestling him into the ground, frustration balling his fists and denting the walls. none of it has any bearing on the present, where he feels disconnected, powerless. like his fist is a pendulum and no matter how much force he puts behind the blow, it'll still swing back at him.
the backdrop is commonplace. his hands are damp. heine is a white shadow.
rin wonders - again - if he's made a mistake.
he grits his teeth. aiming for heine's face takes more than a moment of steeling himself. it goes against everything he knows, everything he believes in. but he does it. he thinks of the way heine had plucked the scalpel from his hand, easy as anything, and he does it. ]
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attention has to be sharper now, because he is looking for mistakes. he isn't just barreling through moving bodies that are already good as dead. the challenge is the restraint of it all.
his posture is kept loose even if his spine coils taut into reaction, and he takes stock of the entire flow of rin's motions. there's too much force. it's swing is too wide. footing itself he could break by an easy step and that is counted in the moments it takes for rin to aim the punch.
heine moves, fluid and wolfish, hand darting out just as he pivots away from the hit and long fingers coil around rin's wrist; the grip is sure and firm as it catches the momentum of motion and holds the arm extended. ] Hmph.
[ it wasn't the kid's first time trying to punch something, that much was clear. but it was...insufficient. it may have been a harsh evaluation, and heine finds himself weighing his words before they fall in pragmatic monotone. ] You're overextending.
Your stance is - [ he moves in emphasis, pulls on the wrist and taps against rin's front-placed foot, just to make sure he stumbles. ] - leaning too far into it. Makes you unbalanced.
It's not about how hard you punch. [ a huff, and his grip loosens, the pads of his fingers falling away from the heartbeat under rin's skin. ] And even if I hadn't asked you to hit me, I could have guessed your move from a mile out.
[ pausing, and he cannot help the frown that curls against his mouth. this was like trying to explain breathing to someone and he wasn't sure just how capable he was of it. his words fell from vague understanding of his own actions, and the acknowledgement that every single thing he did came from one place: ] - Ah. Your spine is the spring, and every movement comes from that. [ core would have been more apt, but potato-potato. ]
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but heine here is asking him to reroute those thoughts, making his body into a spring instead. he wonders - idly, nonsensically - if this would be easier if they were in the pool. if he could make heine stumble if he threw a punch hidden by a ripple or a wave.
stupid. the criticism doesn't sting; rin has been under a dozen coaches, each harsher than the last. he adjusts himself without arrogance, his earlier attitude now honed to focus. he's here to learn a skill that no one else can teach him: that in and of itself makes heine worth his respect. ]
Okay. Is there anywhere in particular I should be aiming?
[ no, not what he was asking. rin tries again, spitting the next question out before heine has the opportunity to answer the first. ]
I mean — weak points, vulnerabilities.
[ he's rifling through his store of knowledge. aim for the throat is conventional knowledge -- taught by the greats like jackie chan in rush hour. he'd taken a few sports medicine courses, so he has a basic knowledge of anatomy and eastern lore regarding pressure points and such, but -- basic knowledge is only that. ]
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but there was none of that; again and again, heine's perceptions of normality are labyrinthine. any notion of sport was not for his understanding and it would trouble him doubly to come up with any metaphorical comparisons for activities he couldn't even comprehend the purpose of. (you wouldn't want to swim in the waters they've had in the underground)
the fact that questions are asked alleviates the beat of wondering what to say next. but the answer comes with more bite, sinister and wry.] Depends on what you want to do.
Going for the limbs gives you control. Joints, especially. [ his hands, he notices, are restless. pinpricks of anticipation, the torpor in standing still while discussing something that is so starkly opposite. ] Unsetting the footing, too. [ another beat, and he looks to rin with as much weight in his stare as in his words. ]
But if you're going to put something down - [ he didn't think he would need to remember the detail of their first meeting, the hesitancy in rin's notice of the scalpels but now that he is in front of the youth, fulfilling such a request, those things stand arrant. he continues. ] - head, spine, throat, heart.
Most of the time, you won't be able to get to those without a weapon. [ for now, he is more than a little curious of the reaction he will receive. he could, and certainly will, go into more details on either points. but he could also only drone on about them for so long. they were obvious points, sure. but obvious didn't make it easier to reach them and just because heine can tear out a throat or sever a spine with his bare hands, it doesn't make it simpler for his companion.
but if the kid is as stubborn and steadfast as he so far left the impression of being, maybe this won't be so bad. ] Major arteries, internal organs too, but those can get messy.
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rin doesn't even try. when heine lays out the truth of it, cut and dried like meat already slaughtered, perhaps he should have been shocked or disgusted or fearful. but just days ago, rin walked into CERES's latest and saw the corpse of one of his oldest friends stung up like a fucking christmas ornament, his skin curling back like burning paper. if he's squeamish now, he'll never get anywhere.
so he throws a few more punches, stumbles a few more times. takes heine's suggestions to heart, making the corrections without question, saving all of his energy for the effort of learning what he's given. he'd thought this would be easier than it's proving to be: it had taken him a few days to learn how to swim, a few months to swim well. here, his body feels like it was formed wrong, joints too stiff and bones too brittle. his blood pounds through his temples; he can feel it, the adrenaline, the anticipation. he cleanches his fists, and follows again: punch, shift away, punch, parry, punch. your spine, a spring. ]
So --
[ limbs for control. organs for fatality. rin's expression twists and untwists - for a moment, just a moment, he looks very young. ]
-- when do you think we can start with a weapon?
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but the youth takes his answers with evident stride and considering the echoes, the implications of how innocent rin's world was compared to this, compared to heine's, it should raise questions of just what has he seen here to make his resolve so steadfast. but heine is simply relieved instead (glad to see little emotion to his systematic lecture (?), because if it came down to it, he would fight a thousand of that woman's attack dogs rather than deal with sentimentality) and he does not ask the question, does not even wonder because the lack of reaction is how this information should be received. it has always been about perspective, and that is what his told him.
they work through more motions, palpable anticipation and adrenaline of angled joints and tense muscles rolling against heine's fluid parries, lithe footwork. when the next request is posed, however, heine smirks, affixes his stance with vertebrae curving forwards in reflexive posture of something ready to strike (a coil, just as he's said).
he reaches to the back of his belt, and fetches out his switchblade. the sharp, flat edge catches the ambient light above them. rin's face, for a brief beat, startles heine; how young it looks. it reminds him too much of that rotten past in the most obscure of ways, but he has been living with one foot dragging behind in those bloodred depths for as long as he remembers so this, too, is shoved deep behind his mind.
the blade is spun on the ends of his fingers in languid comfort, fitting as though an extension of him. compared to the scalpels, this sat warm and steady and compliant. ] When you understand that in a fight, the clean edge of this knife, [ he raises it to his eyelevel, a glint of red eyes and harsh tone. ] - can instead be found in someone's flesh and bone.
[ yet with such words, his actions mark contradiction because he steps forward, and extends the grip to rin. ] - For the record, if you don't loosen your joints when you move, you're just as likely to cut yourself.
[ just saying. ] ... or maybe we should start with a gun? [ he was actually action rin for an opinion help him. guns desensitize, disconnect between trigger and bullet. or so he would assume. he never had a problem with disconnecting. ]
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the fear has become a fifth limb, trailing after him in all that he does. rin doesn't mind its presence; it keeps him aware of his surroundings. it would take a moment for heine to decide him fallible, unnecessary, to flick the edge of that blade to carotid or femoral artery. rin would die without fanfare. who knows if he'd even bleed: death in tellus exists in measures of uncertainty. ]
Yeah, I doubt there are guns sitting around for me to use. The knife's probably a better bet.
[ an answer dictated by logic, but rin doesn't want a knife. he doesn't like the neat scalloped edges of heine's answer: the demarcation between reality and quieter fantasy. the clean edge of this knife, heine says, and he doesn't flinch away from it.
rin finds his resolve and grips it tight.
better to cut himself than to shoot himself, after all. ]
I'm not gonna cut myself, for the record.
[ bravado first, until the false becomes true. ]
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there is innocence outlined against the bridge of rin's nose and the set of steadfast eyes; a thing that resonates unfamiliar - the sort that, perhaps, even the fragile set of nill's shoulders did not carry - and it makes heine want to stop. but this world will not, and therefore neither should he.
his grip slips away from the blade when the other takes hold of it and an exhale-huff follows. true, there hardly were guns lying around, and he wasn't about to be handing out his own for a loan. were there even places to get bullets from? he was rather terrible at being new, disinterest against dislike against apprehension. ] Heh - that's the spirit. [ he sees your braavado, and he also sees through it. ] Either way, you'll learn.
Hold it so the edge of it runs parallel to your forearm. [ fingers curl briefly around rin's hand, adjusting the hold of the weapon to his liking, force a bend to the elbow before dropping away. ] It's better for defense.
And this way, it's similar to throwing a punch. [ his instruction is systematic, unattached, a drawl steady and as clean as a cut. ] Easy to follow through and switch the grip.
[ a weighted beat. ] Mm - guess I'm not used to talking about this. Try a few swings.
[ and after another moment of stepping back, and watching footwork and posture and not being overly satisfied with a back that's still too stiff, heine's voice will coil cold and somber against the space between. ] Hey, Rin. Don't really know what practicing is like on empty air but - you need to understand what it's like to hit something.
[ he doesn't know what practice is. he knows survival, maybe. he remembers the hisswhisper of her voice in his ear, hands hotheavy against his then-slight shoulders, before he was nearly torn in half. he knows the anger and the need to sink hands claws teeth into something that is ready to do the same. he knows that it was not practice. it was a test, an experiment, grooming the perfect result. a part of him even knew that in a way that was him, some fucked balance between control and a loss of it. he knows that it was something he executed without question (fass commanded with no time to ask why). that he was not free from it, not as long as he was still this collared. ] So, try and land a hit on me.
Once - if - you manage, means you've learned a thing or two. [ it won't happen today. maybe in a few practices he will understand what it's like to keep his posture loose. after a few knockbacks onto his ass, he'll understand the need for fluid reaction. ]
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heine's patience helps. he guides rather than teaches, letting rin make his mistakes before stepping in with his corrections. this isn't like the repetition of working out in the gym or flying through laps, but in some ways it is: the edge of the blade meets an immovable object, the goal is to penetrate. every stroke he learns, every shifting strike of his body, all of it leads to the same end. repetition in motive if not in action. rin learns, and rin relearns; the knife hilt is slippery with sweat by the time heine stops him.
he tosses it from hand to hand as he wipes his hands off on his thighs. it's an unfamiliar weight still, even more unfamiliar than the weapons that he intends to turn his limbs into, but he's growing accustomed to it.
accustomed, a completely different end result than comfortable.
it's only the first day, he tells him, looking up at heine instead of letting his focus return to the knife's edge. after the second or the third or the fifth, the knife - and all the metaphors that follow - will become as necessary and inescapable as his shadow. ]
Why? I mean - if we're talking about acclimating to contact, all I need is a practice dummy.
[ because he'd rather not interpret the suggestion in any other way. whatever healing factor heine's fancy bit of metal allows him, it doesn't matter. that can't be what he's suggesting.
this - all of this - is to protect rin's friends from the enemy. even in the name of practice, heine isn't the enemy.
hard as flint, paler than rin's terror — still, heine isn't the enemy. ]
We have a couple in the gym, I could probably pull some strings and bring one out tomorrow. That work?
[ deliberate misinterpretation, and the stubborn set of his jaw as he returns heine's gaze is as good as admitting to it.
another thing about this whole endeavor: fighting seems to be a lot more about observation than attacking. that's why rin knows what heine really means. that's why - perhaps - he'll never be the fighter that heine is. ]
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but this was no situation hanging on taut tension; there was much rin had to work on, but it was akin to teaching a new pup the ways of natural motion. he'll need more time, and he watches him change the grip from hand to hand. comfort was a far cry from what it was; he doubted it would take so short a time for that feeling to even show a likeness.
however, if the youth believed heine's suggestion startling, he thought it tremendously tame. his silence breaks at the click of his tongue, voice rising and falling in incredulous ridicule. ] A practice dummy? So an object that doesn't move away when you attack?
Doesn't defend, or react or counter? [ in part, his incredulousness is genuine. he honestly didn't understand the need of such a thing; it seems counterproductive, a way for your confidence to grow only to have you misstep in an actual confrontation. ] It sounds useless. Putting distance between what's on the other side of the knife is fine, but that has to happen in your head, not on some sack. [ dismissive, with a wave of a hand and narrowed eyes. of course, he would never throw someone into the midst of chaos and tell them to learn. that is all he knew, but just the same, it was the understanding that such methods came from the mind of an old hag with a head too far up her own twisted ass to do anything else.
but this way made sense. rin wanted to learn to fight like him, therefore he must pay attention to how heine fights. so what was the problem? ] I don't get the issue.
[ though it doesn't sound like he is likely to take the answer seriously. they are visually, direct contrasts and perhaps that serves to highlight the rest. rin is bright colour, from hair to cheeks to the small rose colouring them as he runs through heine's bumpy direction; this against the pale of heine, an emphasis on someone very alive, against something just close to it.
maybe there is another motive swimming beneath the words. if rin can swing a knife on him for practice, maybe that means if something happens to make heine's precious control slip, rin wouldn't be caught in a stupor. or was that wishful thinking?
it frightens him that he cares. ] I'm not that easy to hit. Wanna bet?
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rin doesn't want to admit it. his reluctance shows in the cut of his gaze, a nervous trace from here to there, hand to face, face to foot. he shifts back, weight on his back foot. on one failed attempt at striking heine, he'd dug the toe of his shoe into the dirt; the clod of grass lies dying between them. he kicks it away. ]
You want me to stab you. And you don't see the issue.
[ his voice heavy but not questioning; heine has made his position clear.
rin shifts into the stance heine had shown him -- knees bent, limbs loose -- telegraphing his intent before sliding into another few strikes, just to avoid the inevitable.
minutes pass. he can hear his own breathing but heine is silent across from him, silent and inscrutable, as distant as the sky above. rin doesn't know him, even though he's asked him for this favor: he doesn't know anything about him, other than the shape of his grin and the weight of his hands.
--it should be enough. rin chose his best friend on less.
and yet.
he shouldn't have to hurt heine to prove that he's capable of seeing a blow through. the aliens will be easier: they won't look like him, they won't bleed like him, they won't have the same secret hurts hiding under the shroud of flesh. ]
Okay. Fine. I'll do it.
[ not i'll try, because rin's goals have always been written in stone, never sand.
his response is accompanied by another downward stroke, his brow furrowed. he's thinking about the point of the knife. heine's slim waist, the breadth of which is hardly more than the knife's reach. too much. too much.
but heine had challenged him, right? this is okay. he's rising to the challenge. practice doesn't mean much if he can't perform against the real thing.
and rin doesn't have to see heine in action against a true threat to know that he's the real thing.
and he doesn't want to follow it up with anything damning, knowing that heine will be able to read the intent behind the question, but he can't help it. he's a spitfire in the pool, violence in the form of an athlete, but burning down records and setting fires in his opponents' hearts is worlds away from anything that heine knows. ]
But — you'll heal, right? Like you did back at the hospital.
[ he doesn't look at heine when the question leaves the bower of his throat, focusing instead on all the weak points heine has showed him. thinking about nothing but his body and the new capabilities he's clutching tight. ]
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it takes some time for his companion - student - to actually fall into the proper form, and heine does the courtesy of not counting the seconds he waits for that to happen. rin's intentions he reads from wide breaths away, so clear it might be painful and he wonders why rin is putting such effort into telegraphing each motion.
heine evades every strike at the very last minute with minuscule shifts. a rise of his hand to parry an advance, or guide it along and push rin forward, rasp his knuckles on his ribs just for the sake of showing him the most clear openings. he could have disarmed him four times already. seven if he was the one attacking and didn't care about broken limbs.
but this was the difference of humanity. it took time. there was less desperation, less animalistic need to tear and snarl and obey. it had taken him a long while to understand that that was how things were meant to go. a part of him still failed to grasp the full extent.
scrutiny aside, rin wasn't doing terribly and he agreed with solid conviction, which meant this favour will continue its fruition and heine's mouth curves into something briefly satisfied.
the question even gets a chuckle. ] One way to find out, right?
[ yeah, he'll heal like he always does but where was the fun in straight answers all the time? he throws rin an opening on purpose when the other moves to offense, stepping forward instead of back and breaching the space between them; he'll even go as blatantly far as to smack rin's wrist to guide the strike closer to his side. whether its enough to cut through his shirt and skin isn't as important as demonstrating how close he would need to get to heine in order to actually connect. ]
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Not funny. The hell is wrong with you?
[ but he's grumbling rather than lashing out, his anger braided with quieter emotions: frustration, embarrassment, concern. if heine is taking it so lightly, stepping towards the blade rather than away, then rin is going to have to trust his judgment.
he follows the guidance of heine's smack, but the blade doesn't connect. not this time.
it's too close, he thinks. this close, heine's shirt on his forearm, the smell of skin and sweat and iron filling his lungs: to hurt a person this close, he has to reaffirm their humanity first.
--which doesn't really matter at all, because it's not people he'll be hurting. it's aliens. strange and otherwordly and utterly unfamiliar, even at this proximity.
right?
—right?
rin steps back, snarl caught in his pursed lips, and tries again. ]
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even the words rin gripes only serve to feed a lighter mood. not entirely light in the standard understanding of it (nothing about heine would suppose normalcy) but he knows the answer to the other's rhetoric is you have no idea. it was hilarious. really.
but the shadow of a smile is dropped in place of returning calculation, a cant to his head. should he try harder to understand why it was so difficult? for him, association was the thing he had to train himself in. not so much willingly as begrudgingly, taught offhandedly by the persistently human presence of a nicotine addicted idiot, a lolita-complexed priest, that swordswoman and well. an angel.
disassociation, however, was natural and comfortable.
he had attempted to give naoto advice once, when she was unwilling to strike in killing blows... maybe he should try a similar thing?
rin steps back and tries again and this time heine makes a decision that might be a stupid one in terms of human conception. but in his method, it made sense.
when rin's strike comes forward, he's grabbing the wrist instead and pushes it forward, using rin's own momentum to drive the blade into his side.
the smoke starts nearly at the very same moment the blade connects, and for a beat, he is keeping it there, under rin's own grip. it hurts, sure, but it is a pain he is used to. such a small injury barely gets a blink from him as he locks his eyes on the youth's face. ] Listen up.
Remember how it feels to have your knife actually bite. [ his hold is unrelenting for a brief moment more as though he might bury the edge deeper before he pulls it away. the blade is stained red, and his shirt may be torn a sliver, but his skin mends with a hiss and rise of clouded white-grey. ] Whoever is attacking you isn't going to give a shit about you.
I've got no actual clue how those alien freaks look like. But it won't matter.
And it shouldn't matter to you. [ this might have been too harsh a show. had he gone too far? he starts, realizes his fingers still coil around a beating pulse and they unfold away. his countenance, for the breath of a second, softens. ] Understand that.
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it's strange. it's a lot harder to penetrate human flesh than he thought it would be.
that's the first thought. the second and third and fourth and fifth are lost in a wash of near-panic, rin sinking his teeth into his bottom lip to ground himself.
he'd asked for this. heine had agreed. he'd promised to take this seriously.
and yet rin tries to jerk away, scattered mind reaching for anything in his experience that might be relevant to the current circumstance: how to staunch a wound, shallow knowledge from his sports medicine coursework. how to punch an emergency number into a cellphone and let a fucking professional take over.
he'd asked for this.
he's here to dig the knife in deeper, not to draw it out. not to heal. heine's face could have been whittled from wood, hewn from stone: rin looks at him and wonders about all the tiny hurts that must have made up his life in order for him to take a knife to the side without flinching.
smoke and blood. rin inhales and exhales, rabbit-quick, but he doesn't stumble when heine finally lets him move away.
silence, now. he hardly hears heine speak, but a part of him absorbs the words regardless: be strong, be a man, don't flinch from what you've asked for.
understand that.
rin steps away, gaze locked on the edge of the knife -- blood that he drew.
he can do this. heine's still standing and he's gained valuable experience in the effort, even if he still can't quite believe that he'd gone from dreaming about swimming to dreaming about killing those who stole that dream from him. ]
Yeah. I get it.
[ his grin is shaky but real. he blinks - once, twice, thrice - and his eyes are clear. ]
You're fucking crazy and I'm even crazier for wanting this.
[ but he loosens: slowly, then all at once. he doesn't drop the knife. ]
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heine had braced himself against the knife, waited for rin to go through the motions and the thoughts and held fast at the initial reaction of stepping back. it's not what he was here to teach.
he was rewriting instinct; no, that wasn't it because if that predominant reaction of bite or be bitten had not already been there, if he had not already seen it, he would have never conceded to start this damned routine.
smoke and blood. it's what he's made of more than flesh, and his breath is barely there, steady against the rabbit pace of rin's.
a momentary silence before he laughs, a catchbreath and it's somber, sedate but honest and he casts his eyes down. without realizing it, he finds the slender flower again, blinks at how the petals were now bent, folded, lost. they must have trampled it in their training. ] Yeah.
[ white fingers against whiter cloth around his neck, and red eyes scrape against rin's posture again, note how he loosens but it is in firmness of his decision.
good. ] You'll - ah - you'll do fine. [ said in the most sloppiest of appraisals ever, from someone unused to anything even marginally sentimental, human.
which is why, after all of this, he almost yawns. this was, whether obvious or not, good progress. it was proof that this wouldn't be a waste of time. more than that, for reasons why left unexplored, heine was almost content with accepting his unofficial position of teacher. it still felt broken, fragmented against the rest of him but...he didn't mind. ] Ah - I'm hungry.
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rin's hands are still shaking, but he shoves them in his pockets. or almost does, then he remembers the knife. blood on its edge.
a breath turns into three. rin crouches down, wiping the blade on the grass. some has trickled into the groove of the knife and already begun to congeal; rin has to make two, three passes to remove all of it.
the smell of it remains, thick and bitter. another new constant in this new life.
a glance at his cerevice shows that nearly an hour has passed — he's exhausted, more than emotion keeping the tremble in his hands alive. the knife is folded back into its handle and stowed in rin's jacket pocket.
it'll take awhile to acclimate to the new weight. the blade is much heavier than he'd expected it to be. ]
Yeah.
[ his hands are loose fists in his pockets. he's looking away -- across the park, into the horizon. somewhere past the scant trees, the ripples of the lake, haru and makoto are probably walking home from work. a reason to keep going. ]
I'll cover your ass this time. What kind of food do you want?
[ he's not so great at saying thank you. this should be enough. ]
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rin's hands shake as he wipes the edge clean, but heine is sure it's still stained in his mind. he'll get used to that, too. heine is too fucking damaged to realize that it would be better if he didn't (that whole humanity crap that gets tossed around from time to time), if hands still shook when you take a life. when you threaten one.
hands in his pockets, and he pulls the zipper of his jacket closed, over the tear in his shirt.
what a weird place he found himself in, he thinks, and when rin looks to the horizon he looks to the green of the trees. the offer is as much thanks as he needs - he's better at accepting or declining than wielding pleasantries. he probably wouldn't know them even if it hit him square in the face. ] Mm - pizza.
[ his diet is very balanced and very healthy, rin. as an athlete, you will certainly appreciate it.
a longer pause, and more staring at the leaves. ] Where you're from, you have a lot of shit like this? Ah - gardens, I mean?
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something a normal person wouldn't wake away from. rin's gaze lingers — heine's odd coloring, the shuffle of his step. the animal quality of his stoicism in the face of pain.
it strikes rin, for the first time since they started all of this, that heine truly is from a different world. perhaps as different from rin as the flamines that supposedly wiped out everything that he'd known and loved.
he's drawn from his musings when heine continues. rin dusts off his trousers as he stands. an errant thought - he should have offered the knife back to heine.
well, he hadn't asked for it. ]
Yeah?
[ the lilt of a question is confused rather than mocking; rin follows heine's gaze to the leaves - ordinary leaves, by any measure - before looking back at him, eyebrow cocked. ]
Wait -- you don't?
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though technically, he doesn't even need to eat, even if it is a technicality he decides to keep to himself. he'll still crave a pizza.
heine had, from his very first arrival, resolved to not think on the destruction that had inevitably overtaken his world in virtue of him being here. he knew, in the recesses of his conscience, but had never acknowledged it head on.
and as always, he lingered in the past instead.
lazily, red eyes move from the green-browns to rin then to look ahead of him. a roll of his shoulders, muscles loose and stretched and lacking in adrenaline. ] No. Not really. Definitely not something this big.
Ah - it's always cold. Don't think anything like this - [ weak? natural? kind? ] - would last long. A big part of the city doesn't even have a sky.
[ a shrug, to emphasize just how average such a thing was to him. it wasn't that he was being particularly wordy, but it was a comparison drawn and over and over it was hard to even picture a different environment.
yet here he was in one. mostly unimpressed. ] It's just different. [ it's never just, but it is significantly easier to put things so plainly. ]
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that said, rin's generosity is easily accessed when trades involved races in the pool are involved. what say you, heine?
rin doesn't even know where the pizza joints in this place are, but he can vaguely remember passing a few brightly-lit parlors down by the arcades in town. so, that's all you need for a smorgasbord of worldly delights: get your world destroyed, never see your family again, kiss your dreams goodbye.
maybe it's working out better for heine than it is for rin.
he feels immediately guilty for the thought. that's not the kind of person he is, no matter that current circumstances have stripped flesh and marrow from his bones.
what a life. no sky, no stars. no early-morning jogs with the sunrise as a backdrop. sympathy isn't what rin's feeling, but it's a grittier feeling, one that he wouldn't be able to explain even if he tried. ]
What's up there, then?
[ rin gestures towards the sky. tellus itself is lacking in greenery, all of its plant life limited to the gardens.
but the sky — at least that's a constant that rin can trust in. ]
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and he will not be getting into any pool races, thank you very much. not that he will have a choice in the days to come
foreshadowing.heine has left tellus unexplored, for the most part. he knew of the brightly lit district, of the odd job he had caught here or there that lacked enough consistency to become anything close to routine. there was little delight to be had in this brave new world, though it was alright with him al, the same. if he had to, his feet will learn the routes even if his mind will not care enough to.
perhaps in that respect, rin's thoughts should come guilt free. perhaps heine was better equipped at handling destruction and corpses and ruin even if that was not entirely true.
another flinchglance up at that sky. ] Well, there is a sky. But that's at the Above- ah. There are two levels that are primary.
The Above, and the Underground. It's as it sounds. [ He doesn't mention the Below. and even though he's seen the sky enough times, cold and crispy and clouded, it will always bear a bitter aftertaste, right to the very core of when he saw it first.
it was what is was. there should be no pity. he hardly knew anything else. ] Underground's just got - a high ceiling.
[ a pause, and a step wider to avoid another stray flower beneath his heel. he would rather not touch those, as though the veins of the delicate petals held lily's memory in their sinews. ] Lots of this would be new to a lot of people.
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rin leads the way out of the gardens, missing the clean air immediately. it's not that the rest of tellus isn't kept hygienic -- it's just that the gardens with their effluence of greenery boast air a little sweeter than that of the rest of the city.
it's difficult to imagine what heine's describing. it sounds -- suffocating. there's nothing rin likes better than visiting the beach. floating in the shallows, the sun overhead.
gardens. trees. running in the sand. is all of that new to heine?
has he ever even seen an ocean?
he can't imagine living like that. let alone being born into a world like that. never knowing anything different existed. no wonder heine had been so mesmerized by the gardens. ]
So I guess this is... kind of an upgrade for you. Excluding the - [ a flick of his wrist to encompass all of tellus ] - forced participation part.
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heine follows in stride. though follows is not entirely apt when it comes to strays, and he is no exception here.
solid concrete beneath his heels instead of softer earth and it is easier not to think back on the hushed rustle of leaves, that specific scent of air that has more oxygen than smoke, even if it is as artificial as the rest of this place.
it is impossible to imagine the sights that rin has seen; oceans, and sand between toes. how obscure.
he stares ahead. ] Don't know about that.
[ nonchalance, always. it's fine he wants to say. he wasn't sure he liked all the greenery. ] There's a few people who would probably like that stuff more. [ wouldn't it be were? there were people and now there weren't? technicalities. ]
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at least it's something. better than heine reaching for his wrist again, better than the split of flesh under his blade.
rin flinches in a muted crack of his spine. he relaxes in the next moment, trying to reaffirm his composure. not while heine's here. the weakness comes later, when he's alone, when no one's around to see and judge him for it.
yeah, maybe he came from a world that boasted sunsets and ocean tides. maybe blood isn't yet an accessory he knows to wear.
but he'll do it. he has to.
so rin refocuses, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation. ]
Thinking about friends?
[ a question lightly posed, friendly rather than probing. ]
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not his own, mind you. over exaggerated views of his own abilities are an honest flaw that he still refuses to understand.
rin had limitations. the same ones badou had (maybe more, due to a lack of his own berserk snap induced from nicotine withdrawal and automatic handguns) ; he's drawn the comparison over and over because that is the nearest thing he has in his memory.
he doesn't flinch at rin's question, but he wants to. friends? did he know what those were? would he know?
but no. he was thinking of lily. giovanni, too. his inhale scrapes too shallow. ] No. [ denial is easiest, as it were. no! not friends. or no! not thinking about that. rin's tone does not stink of intrusion, or the pressing need for answers. it's why his own voice slips a quiet sigh. ] About promises.
It doesn't really matter, though.
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if he measured out his contribution to the scale, it would likely tip in favor of those broken. not by intent, perhaps, but such a simple measure never takes intent into account.
he wonders if that's why heine blurs at the edges when he speaks of such things. like he's becoming incorporeal with the weight of his memories. rin has to stifle the urge to reach out and sling a heavy arm about his shoulders, just to remind him -- you're here now. in the present. ]
You should start a collection.
[ once rin is struck with an idea, rarely can anyone quiet his burgeoning enthusiasm. ]
I mean -- of seeds. Plants that don't need much sunlight. We can do some research.
[ the we is spoken without thought, heine included in rin's circle of friends by default. it's how it is, now. ]
If anything's still out there - and if you make it back - you can keep your promises to whoever you're being so secretive about.
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and yet he fell into that dream the hardest back then, did he? so willingly showing his belly before it all went under in agonizing blackred.
he knew better now, didn't he.
but that is how he has always been, ever since bishop picked up a broken piece - a blur of white edges, paperthin and fading from then and a never-fully now.
for a moment, heine stares, moves a question into distant eyes and frowns. the idea was almost laughable and there is so much ease in the inclusive manner rin gives that it is...unsettling. ] Right. And what do you see me doing with those, anyway? [ do you see him being a farmer? tending the garden in soil-stained gloves and a smile? the hell was the point in that?
he'd kill the thing and it would just be his luck. a glance at his hands, long steady fingers ghostpale and clean. only in visual.
had he fulfilled his promise? had he set them all free? maybe things like them would only truly be free in that very singular way. a torn end of an artificial life. ] No. I can't. Going back anytime soon won't change them being long dead.
[ long dead but alive in the haunt of his memory. in einsturzen's twisted clones that look too much like lily.
maybe he would be able to keep his to naoto; we are each other's last resorts, and all that. but that was what his promises should only be for. bullets and carnage. ]
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it was a stupid suggestion, all things considered. even if heine wasn't who he is.
one thing rin can be certain of: whatever heine seems to believe about his relation to the deceased, they'd been friends. or something like, anyway; their deaths have left an imprint on heine of such clarity that even rin's untrained eyes can pick it out. ]
Sounds like you're still carrying them around.
[ rin's murmured response, though he doesn't expect a response.
it's what he feels about the spirit of his father, now dead longer than rin had known him. it's hard to let go of death when you can see your own hand in it.
not that rin had any hand in his father's death. but he'd certainly been the reason his father had been forced into the life that he'd lived. a fisherman, lost at sea. when he should have been an olympian on the international stage.
rin doesn't know anything about bullets and carnage, but he has an inkling about loss. ]
Grow a pot of bright red roses for yourself, then. Enough exposure to color and you might grow out of the albino look.
[ maybe it's too light-hearted for the subject at hand, but the last thing rin wants is for heine to disappear into the sinkhole that he can sense nearby. ]
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a roll of a shoulder and internalization is returned to solidity, a thing that came quicker, now that the fragile stems were far behind him.
sounds like you're still carrying them around and he knows it's true. but there were no other options, not for him. he can't explain, and he doesn't think he should. that's his boulder to carry and he's gotten accustomed to the weight anyway.
maybe everyone had their demons dragging around. and everyone had their losses. to dwell on it further, to vocalize and clarify is just tedious. instead theres derision towards his look of all things and it's easy to twist a smirk as though the other remarks never even happened. ] Hah, what's that supposed to mean? I'm not colourful enough for you?
[ roses. how odd, to think about actually holding a flower. he'd - rather not, in fact. ] It'd die in a day. Max.
We could place bets. [ unless you want to give him a crash course on plant care. ]
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but he still feels off-kilter.
rin's a problem-solver. when his friends have issues, he does his best to solve those issues. and if he can't, then he makes sure he provides whatever possible to facilitate the cure.
but this - heine - isn't something easily picked apart. he'll let it lie today, but tomorrow, the day after, the day after that, he's going to figure heine out. and he's going to take all those jagged pieces and see how they fit back together.
besides, they're going to be spending a hell of a lot of time together. might as well make it interesting. ]
I don't think flowers can even die that quickly. [ well, considering heine... ] Unless you shoot it. Which doesn't count.
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he does not know many people who will push to the very extent rin will. maybe before, people knew better than to ask questions, and would settle for any halfassed answers given. with rin, heine felt as though his words were always cataloged with a look that was sharper and brighter than he had given him credit for.
it was an unknown thing, the attempt to be understood. the process of talking to someone who understood humanity better than heine had any right to. his problem solving skills too often involved fingers curled around triggers. he'd likely balk at a porblem that couldn't be solved by punching someone in the nose. ]
I wouldn't know. [ well, considering it's heine...rin's observation is terrible correct.] Shooting anything usually does the trick - [ a beat, a curious tilt and a snort. ] - so what do you mean it doesn't count?
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it's different, now. he may not have heine's terrible ability to shift from placid to deadly in a moment flat, but he has a heart -- a heart that wants to understand as much as it has always wanted to be understood. maybe that's just as dangerous.
so he lets the difficult moment slide, though he knows they'll be revisiting this topic in the days to come. in detail or otherwise, he doesn't know -- either way, this isn't the last heine is going to hear of rin's incessant need to know about his friends.
better to smooth a furrowed brow than to let the angry secrets fester. rin knows that better than anyone. ]
You can't bet on your inability to take care of a plant and then shoot it to win.
[ a raised eyebrow in turn. ]
Isn't that breaking some cardinal sin, anyway? "Don't waste bullets on sad cute plants that can't fight back" — ?
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[ a weapon with no purpose. though that is unclear if that refers to him or his guns but maybe that was the key to understanding him. purpose and usefulness written out against the lack of it and some inane urge to fulfill it all the same. give back to the bitch that gave it to him, with the ferocity of a berserker.
heine couldn't speak too much of hearts. or maybe he didn't want to. (it was too complicated, and didn't he have enough to worry about without the need to understand someone else?) ] Why keep a plant, anyway?
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every conversational turn is another reminder that heine is different. that heine's priorities have been flipped to an unrecognizable conformation. ]
I dunno. Same reason people keep pets, I guess.
[ they force you to care about a sliver of life outside the expanse of your own body. life that's wholly dependent upon your ability to care for it.
maybe that's taking it too far. rin raised a puppy as a child, and there were times when he loved her more than he loved himself.
but a plant — that's a symbol. a fragment of green in tellus's technological haze. rin doesn't know how to put that thought into words, or he doesn't want to watch heine's expression lighten with condescension were he to try, so he closes his teeth around the sentiment. ]
You could get a dog instead, if plants aren't your thing. A yappy robot pomeranian.