vatheon | You and I got somethin', but it's all and then it's nuthin' to me, yeah...

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You and I got somethin', but it's all and then it's nuthin' to me, yeah...

Who: Rin Okumura and Death the Kid (with special guest appearance by an unconscious Black*Star)
Where: Da Villa
When: Evening, Monday
Status: Closed

It had been a couple of days since the first round of new arrivals, and with them several people from Maka's world, and despite how odd and unnerving it had been to Rin he was actually handling it pretty well. Well. Mostly. Soul was pretty cool and seemed to like Rin despite his status with Maka, Crona was... skittish as hell and he hadn't had a chance to talk to him much, but it was Kid that set Rin on edge the most.

He didn't want to feel like that, and he knew a lot of it was a result of psyching himself out over the fact that this teenage boy who was no older than he was just so happened to be a god of all things (and more specifically Maka's god. She had been insistent about that even before Kid was there), but he just couldn't help but feel uneasy around Kid still.

He did his best to not let it show, but certain things had abruptly changed about Rin after Kid's arrival. Namely that for the first time in over a year, Rin was hiding his tail again. Wrapped up beneath his shirts, just as he had done it at the start of his time in the cram school, he was taking care to not let it show. His demon heritage hadn't come up yet, even with his obviously pointed ears and fangs, but he wasn't entirely sure how to bring it up to Kid. And how Kid would react...

There was also the issue of what had happened last Halloween when Rin wasn't in Vatheon. One of them had been responsible for Maka's death, under the influence of a curse and something the scientists had done, but Maka had never said who. Yet for some reason Rin kept coming back to Kid in his mind.

That, plus the whole thing with her replacement scythe several weeks back just had the half demon being far more cautious and closed off than he normally would have been otherwise.

Coming home early Monday evening, slightly dirty from work as usual, he unlocked the door and kicked his shoes off as he always did, calling out to a surprisingly quiet house.

"I'm home!"

No one answered. He stopped with his left shoe partially off, hand against the wall as he looked up to find the living room and kitchen devoid of life. Was everyone upstairs? Or out? It was unusual, sure, but not unheard of.

"... hello?"

He listened for a second before finally letting out an irritated sigh, kicking the last shoe off with a mutter.

"I gotta stop worryin' so much... not like some one's gonna come home draggin' a dead body or somethin'..."

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"There's no need to wail like a child," scolded the reaper, whose voice dipped into a wondering murmur as he continued to mercilessly attack the matted, tangled fur with the brush, "Just how long have you left it like this? This is dreadful--"

Oh, you can take care of your own tail? The aforementioned 'twiggy little thing' leans his perhaps insignificant weight against Rin's back, somehow managing to provide enough of a hindrance to keep him from wriggling free except under attempts that approached violence.

"Can you?! Look at this! It's a mess! I've never seen matting this disgusting in my life!" He sure is giving him hell for the condition of his tail. "It would almost be easier to shave it!"

Oh god, please don't shave his tail please don't shave his tail.

There's a stubborn snarl, but this, mercifully, Kid did not attempt to muscle through, having caught onto a vital little detail:

"...Ah, come to think of it, should I be gentler? You seem to be in pain."

Death the Kid: ACE DETECTIVE.

"YES! I'M IN FUCKIN' PAIN!" Rin continued to shriek despite Kid's insistence that he was bellowing like a petulant child. Of course he was in pain. A demon's tail was it's weakest point, and even light tugs made Rin wince. To have some one pinning him down and forcibly dragging a brush through it like that... it was like torture.

He did quiet after that, though, breathing heavy and a bit flushed, fingers digging in to the counter top so hard his knuckles were turning white and his hands were trembling. His eyes were even burning, the threat of tears imminent just from the pain alone. God damn his back was throbbing. Kid was lucky Rin hadn't wheeled around and decked him yet. He did, however, look over his shoulder at the reaper in order to ask a question.

"What the hell is your problem anyway? Who gives a fuck if my tail is messy?" he had the gall to ask after he'd managed to catch his breath and had enough reprieve from the brushing to keep his voice from raising again.

Edited 2012-11-29 01:30 (UTC)

He may have to be content with a view of the back of Kid's head, seeing as he was leaning backwards against him, a counterweight intended to prevent him from jostling the reaper and upsetting his efforts. At least Kid's ministrations had become more ginger the moment he became aware that those bellows were, in fact, declarations of pain. Rin, in the very short time Kid had come to know him, had not struck the reaper as one to discard his pride so easily as to kick up a fuss over a minor discomfort.

It would take longer, but he could wear down the knots and snarls of tangled fur with persistence, instead of force. As if aware of Rin's gaze, he turned his head enough to regard him out of the corner of one impassively half-lidded eye, and pointed the head of the brush at him.

"Symmetry," invoked Kid, as if he were uttering some deeply holy word. "The bilateral balance between the right and left is key to aesthetics." He set again to his work, frowning in concentration as his golden gaze again dropped to the tail as he brushed it. "If you can't take proper care of even something as simple as a tail, it reflects poorly on your ability to take care of other responsibilities."

Aware that he ran the risk of chafing him if he simply brushed the same stubborn mat of fur continuously, he slid his palm down near the flared end, to cradle it as he set to brushing out the longer fur there. "Its condition speaks of neglect and shame. You should demonstrate a little more pride in your appearance--and for your information, I care. I can't abide sloppiness."

After all that, Kid was met back with a blank, confused gaze, eyes slowly blinking repeatedly over and over again until the demon finally managed a mutter.

"I'unno what half those words you just said are."

Well, that was better than accusing him of making up words. And the end of Kid's little tirade at least made sense to Rin. It wasn't the first time he'd been called sloppy or messy or whatever. Mostly by Yukio, but that was neither here nor there. Of all the things Rin had expected Kid to be, a neat freak wasn't one of them. But if he was really going to make that big of a deal over his tail and sit on him to accomplish his goal, Rin wasn't going to keep fighting. There were worse things to get pissed about, and it had dragged Kid out of whatever self depreciating slump knocking around his friend had put him in.

Defeated, he simply let out a heavy sigh and dropped his elbows on the counter, resting his chin in his hands while trying to ignore just how much his lower back was still aching.

"So I'm a slob. Not everyone can be all prim and proper like you and Yukio." Yes, Yukio. Even he with his asymmetrical moles was a model of cleanliness and order. Rin was his exact opposite in so many ways.

"And it ain't my fault, okay? I ain't used to havin' this damn thing still. If you'd asked first instead of attackin' me you'd know that."

Those who could keenly understand what kind of deal this was for Kid numbered very few; in the wake of the kind of horrible mistake that almost cost a friend his life, this wasn't just some frivolous obsession. He had to do it. He had to fix something. It was a necessity that, if ignored, would have surely had dire, if vague consequences.

Few really understand what it's like to have his particular brand of crazy. He would toil over this for days if he had to, it was a lot worse than just being some kind of neat freak.

"Yukio?" As he expected, the end was much easier to brush clear of tangles than the shorter, more matted fur further up his tail; Kid idly tested it for snarls with his fingers, "Oh, that's right. Your fraternal twin with the unsightly spots."

SURE DID JUST CALL YOUR BROTHER UNSIGHTLY.

"I did not," One of those abbreviated notes occupied the space between words, shoulders stiff. "Attack you, I was merely acting with urgency."

Defensive.

Yeah, he was still smarting over what he'd done.

"Of course it isn't your fault. If it really only recently appeared, you'd have every reason to try to conceal it to fit in," returning again to the previous matting, bristles scrubbing, gently. "Has it been difficult? Reconciling with the fact that you aren't human."

Kid should count himself lucky that Rin understands anything at all, the way he was sometimes. But that was just how Rin operated. Socially smart, people intuitive, but otherwise dumb as a goddamn brick. Even if he couldn't get down to the absolute core of the problem, even if he didn't understand the minute details and the intrinsic nature of it all, he could still get that Kid needed something right then that wasn't focusing on what he did to Black☆Star.

The comment about Yukio made Rin pause, but let out a laugh after a second.

"Yeah, ol' four eyes is pretty damn unsightly sometimes."

Really he meant in personality, but close enough.

"'Acting with urgency', whatever. You still coulda asked..." came the next comment once the laugh had quieted and the smile faded away. Kid's last question effectively removed any remnants of it as Rin looked back to the mirror, scowling faintly at his own reflection.

There had never been a day since that fateful night in the church when Rin lamented his altered appearance. Like everything else, he accepted it and moved forward because in his mind he had no other choice. To stop meant to give up, and to give up meant to give in, and accept that he really should 'just die', as Yukio had said and as Mephisto has suggested.

It helped, he supposed, that back home only a select few could truly see his demonic traits, and in Vatheon there was such a vast array of different people and creatures that no one had ever really made a big deal over his heritage, even if they knew who Satan was. But the signs were there whether he chose to hide them or not - a constant reminder that one spring night fifteen years after he was born, he made a choice that changed everything about his life.

He didn't answer Kid's question. He dodged it with a mutter.

"You caught on quick..."

Edited 2012-11-29 02:27 (UTC)

"Naturally," remarked Death the Kid, for whom the rigidity of his shoulders was only just beginning to ease as he put distance between himself and the reminder of what lay unconscious down the hall, taking a kind of basic comfort in a tangible accomplishment. "After what you said the conclusion was simple. Also, the soul doesn't lie, it can only be concealed and anyway, such a power would be beyond you."

Wait, his soul?

It was already beginning to improve, and the visible progress went far in helping his mood -- not that he particularly deserved a better mood, all things considered. "You didn't answer my question."

That he dodged for a reason -- like the question being, perhaps, way too personal -- did not occur to him, he patiently revisited it like he expected Rin to require a reminder. The brush found another matted patch of fur, and began steadily scrubbing it loose.

"... guess that's true."

He didn't question it. He didn't need to. Maka had already told him once that his was a warm, kind soul, only burdened by the power given to him thanks to something that had been entirely out of his control. He didn't choose to be Satan's son. He did have the choice of what to do with it, though.

There was a long silence after that, and after a certain number of seconds had ticked by it seemed like Rin might not answer at all.

When it did come, it was a single word that held more weight than anything he had said previously.

"Yes."

He didn't lack sympathy, if anything, the implication presented by his tail being a somewhat recent acquisition suggested to Kid that Rin might have been rather new to the matter of not being human. To have one's whole life change in such a fundamental way was not a thing Kid could actually relate with, who had never stopped being Lord Death's son and a reaper himself, but he tried to place himself in a similar situation.

What would it be like, if he simply stopped being--

As he suspected, he couldn't even consider the possibility, let alone relate with being so divorced from a vital part of his identity. Kid gave him credit for being honest, however.

"Don't let anyone fool you into thinking it gets better, because that simply isn't true. If you're smart, you'll get used to that quickly," he had almost worked the last matted patch free, and that was the bulk of the work right there. "It hardly matters, since you'll probably outlive everyone you know."

"Che. That's the problem. I ain't smart," Rin shot back, bitterness creeping in to his voice at the reminder that yes, baring his own stupidity getting him killed, he was going to live longer than anyone around him. Save for maybe Yukio. It was an ungodly depressing thought and one he hated entertaining even on the best of days.

And then there was always the question that came after that. What would happen to him when he died?

"I ain't human, but I ain't completely a demon either. All I can do is move forward."

His mantra. His chant. The thing he told himself every day to get through the he special brand of hell that was exorcist training, with the constant threat of his imminent execution hanging above his head. Fail his exam, slip up even once, lose control again... it was all over. But he kept putting one foot in front of the other.

"I ain't gonna give up just 'cause it ain't easy, and it ain't gonna get easy."

He looked back at Kid, face set in determination that had been absent in Vatheon for so long.

"Say what you want about me, but I ain't a fuckin' quitter."

It was one of those things where Kid found his opinion shifting on the matter depending on the circumstances. When it came to the fact that he would almost certainly live to see each of his present friends die, he could not make up his mind. Was it a test of his worthiness to take his father's place, if he could throw off the shackles of attachment?

Hearing Rin's resolute determination was a refreshing change of pace as well as revelatory.

So, a demon, was it.

When Kid turned his head to catch that expression, his eyes regarded him without the previously cool indifference of a god, but with a rare smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.

"Is that so? I look forward to further surprises from you yet, Okumura. I'm done," and the moment was broken, perhaps, when Kid sobered, bringing the brush up to rap the wooden end against Rin's forehead. "Don't let it get so tangled from now on."

Edited 2012-11-29 22:54 (UTC)

"Ow-hey!" Rin whined loudly about the thunk to his head, but it was more complaint than actual discomfort. Really, his head was hard enough to headbutt a fully grown charging Nekomata and take him down. He could handle a damn brush against his skull.

He scowled faintly and snagged his tail back from Kid, only to stop when his fingers touched the now groomed tuft.

Holy crap it was like a completely different tail.

"... w-wow! It's so soft!" he chirped, running his fingers over it gently. Yes, Rin Okumura was standing in a bathroom, petting his own tail with the biggest, dopiest grin on his face. "I was totally wrong about you! You're really awesome!"

The flat, broad side of the brush was brought down into Kid's empty palm; he began pulling from its coarse bristles any lingering strands of fur loosened by his efforts to untangle it, sprinkling whatever he managed to clean from the brush into the wastebin beside the sink.

He froze in place, as he regarded Rin's discovery with a slightly incredulous -- if stoic -- rounding of his eyes, witnessing the way this half-demon's whole face lit up like a child on Christmas. To think, Rin Okumura had this kind of frivolous, unguarded side; he might have fit in well at Shibusen, had he been a Weapon, or perhaps a Meister.

Dealing with Death the Kid could test even the most saintly patience, but there were ways to win the Meister's favor. Flattery, and letting him indulge in his obsession with bilateral symmetry, were among these.

"Of course," he exhaled through his nose, as if Rin had only just now acknowledged that grass was green, gravity pointed downward, and the sky was blue on sunny, cloudless days. "I am a grim reaper, after a--wait," he opened his eyes, expression flattening into dismay. "What do you mean, totally wrong about me?"

Oops.

That wasn't the reaction he was used to getting. Of course when he said it to Izumo her reaction had been... pretty standard for her, which meant huffing and stomping her foot in typical tsundere fashion. Rin still didn't know that much about Kid, even with his obviously changed opinion.

The lit up face ran away quickly and he sputtered over his response a few times before blurting out probably the worst thing he could have.

"J-just some stuff I heard from Maka, that's all!"

... Rin. You idiot.

The pointed silence that followed was punctuated by a single blink. Kid resumed cleaning the brush as if he intended on missing no more beats than he already had, and was a few moments more before he spoke. "Maka and I are friends. And if there was something said that would give cause for there to be any improvement on your opinion of me, then--"

He paused to blow a bit of lint off the bristles, curtly nodding with satisfaction that it had been returned to the condition in which he originally found it. Kid turned his back, seeking out where the brush belonged, or at least, some suitable place to stow it. "--I must presume you mean when she was killed."

The reaper set it down.

There were a lot of thoughts Death the Kid preferred to keep to himself, particularly those that troubled him. His father was widely loved and respected by the students of Shibusen, and yet remained entirely inscrutable. If he would, too, command respect the way his father did, he could not afford himself the appearance of uncertainty or weakness. That was the easier part. More difficult was accomplishing this without alienating the same people he sought to protect, and one day lead.

"The truth is, I'm utterly disgusted."

Truthfully, Rin was just going to bullshit some answer based on what he'd seen of Kid so far, and hope that even if it wasn't a good one it would have been enough to convince him that he was only thinking in the most base preemptive judgement.

Which wasn't the case, and which Kid already knew, apparently. That surprised him, for some reason. Of course they had already talked, but he had made the assumption Maka wouldn't say anything about it since this was not the same Kid that had been in Vatheon a year ago.

That didn't mean it wouldn't come up, though. Damn. He should have known that...

"... she didn't actually... tell me it was you. She mentioned it and I just... had a feelin'..."

Shit, this got awkward. He pushed off the sink and rubbed the back of his neck, gaze shifting away from Kid.

"I kept tellin' myself 'nah it couldn't be' after you showed up, but I was havin' a hard time convincing myself of that, so when you came in dragging your friend--..." He didn't bother to finish that thought. It was pretty obvious where it was going. "B-but I know that it wasn't your fault! What... happened with Maka, I mean. It's--... this place fucks with people if you ain't careful. It's easy to get your guard down when everything's calm..."

He was rambling now, trying to justify his own feelings and the situation as he understood it. He felt bad for blurting out what he did so thoughtlessly and was internally kicking himself for it.

After enduring Kid's pushing around, his persistence, his fixation narrowed down on a single point -- and that just so happened to be, at the time, Rin's tail, is it really a surprise? When the reaper wanted something, for example information, he pursued it with ruthless efficiency. He simply leaned on Maka until her resolve for that first layer of secrecy broke.

It wasn't like all was revealed, just enough for him to fill in the blanks with his own notions.

Rough timing, mentioning him; he turned with an unnatural speed in the twist of body, sharp enough with his glare when perhaps some lesser creature might have given themselves whiplash. "That matter and this one are completely unrelated. I wouldn't expect you to understand, you don't know how strong he's supposed to be!"

But he should have.

He pressed the pad of his thumb against the hollow between one eye and the bridge of his nose, pinching it at the other side with a finger. "...However," Kid admitted, calmer, "It's not an unreasonable assumption. The fact remains that I will not be tolerating such gross failure a second time."

A beat of silence followed. "If anyone has the utter absence of common sense enough to lay a hand on your girlfriend, I imagine I won't be the only one planning on taking it in payment for the crime. You can relax."

Getting wheeled on like that nearly kicked in Rin's natural reaction to be defensive, to yell out something about 'well how was I supposed to know?!', but when Kid backed off before Rin even had a chance to it as like a too-big bubble popping under the strain of it's own size. He actually deflated some, shoulders slumping and returning immediately back to the awkward feeling he'd had during his ramblings a moment before.

Maka wasn't weak. He knew that. Kid knew it. But it was still a comfort to know they were on the same page when it came to keeping her protected. Hell, they probably shared that in common when it came to any of their friends.

And Rin had his own failures to try and erase.

"Planned on it. I meant what I said. You're way different from what I was expectin' and I ain't gonna hold somethin' like that against you," he said after a few seconds had passed. He straightened again, holding his hand out.

"Think a god can be friends with a demon?"

That was, of course, under the presumption that whatever fool attempted to harm Maka actually survived her own retaliation. In her own right, she was a force to be reckoned with. Although their ideals could be mutually incomprehensible due to the gulf of difference that separated a god and a human, they still interacted as peers.

Someone more human, more easily troubled, more prone to wear their heart on their sleeve might have taken a moment to permit their gaze to drop to the floor; Death the Kid regarded Rin like he meant to comb through the pieces of a puzzle and figure out the way they fit together. It was the nature of sentient beings to fear what they didn't understand, and when Rin offered his hand Kid's conclusion was set:

"How intriguing. Since you aren't going around devouring souls," he added, grasping his hand. "I foresee no difficulty."

He looked down, releasing Rin's right hand after the formality of giving it a shake.

"Give me the other hand. We should do this with the left, too."

It was probably easier for Rin, since he was what so many people feared and misunderstood, to go out on a limb like that even to a god. Friends were friends, and even if it was a very simplistic view, it was one of the few things that had carried him forward.

The symmetry thing was going to take some getting used to, but Kid wasn't the first person around him to have otherwise unconventional habits. Hell, he had a few of his own, even if they weren't as glaring as that one.

"Good," was all he said to that, willingly offering his other hand when Kid requested it.

Rin. If you keep letting him do whatever he wants, Kid is going to get even more spoiled than he already is -- and that's really saying something. Still, his acquiescence to his request was met with another of those minute noises that suggested Kid was pleased with the outcome.

"It's warm, by the way," he remarked off-handedly, as he stepped away, intending to leave the bathroom. Kid slid his hands into his pockets, "Like standing beside a flaming brand. In case you were curious."

His half-turn once he passed through the doorway was a precise 90 degrees.

"I'm going back to my room. I imagine he'll demand an explanation when he comes to, and I'd rather he didn't tear apart the whole house yelling about it." By, presumably, heading him off at the pass by fact of being in the same room as the other Meister.

"Thank you."

He had heard it from Maka, some months before, but hearing it again still left a bit of quiet questioning in Rin's mind. They had no reason to lie to him, but it was still difficult for him to believe it. There would always be that part of him, beneath the bravado and the ego, under the desire to keep moving forward and the focus on his goals, that wondered if his was a soul really worth saving.

Hearing it that second time, though, did ease some of that concern, and a faint smile appeared after it was said.

"Heh. Don't worry about it..." he said as Kid left, raising a hand to bid him farewell. He had training to get to, so he likely wouldn't be there when Black☆Star woke up. Better to let Kid take care of that mess anyway.

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You and I got somethin', but it's all and then it's nuthin' to me, yeah...

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