like drops of water, like planets, like magnets, like our skin

[vivememorleti]

Hearts were things beyond our ability to control.

Every time it rained, Kisuke would dwell on that thought. Such things had always been the purview of a mind like his own He'd liked little more than to wait for a warm evening, when the insects were particularly loud, and to sit out on the porch with his legs dangling, considering the heart.

He was busier in Darrow, but he still found the time to do nothing at all, which was when he would tend to get the really good thinking done. Tonight it just made him frustrated, so that eventually he made his way away from the window of his little apartment and out onto the streets, where the rain on the roads made everything an artful play of electric lights. The sort of realer than reality that tends to grace night scenes in movies. He appreciates it, and the puddles are no problem, with the wooden geta he wears made for the express purpose of rising feet above the elements.

The jittery feeling of escape having been driven from his joints, he moves to lean against a street lamp by a bus stop and fish for a smoke, when he catches the feel of a familiar soul. He hadn't been expecting to find Mike Pinocchio out here, but nor did he dislike the coincidence. In the mood that Kisuke was in, he could hardly think of a better person to happen past. Mike had given him a pleasant skin-crawling when he'd met him, and Kisuke liked to have his fix.

"Walking or taking ths bus?" he said, without turning his head to meet the man's face.

Comments

[vivememorleti]

The heavy sound of Mike's breath echoing in the tall walls of the alley is similar to the sound of a room empty but for a pair of lovers. It's a detached observation; Kisuke neither links what he's seen with sex nor believes it isn't a part of it. Between himself and the soul of the sword in his hand, disguised as a simple cane, an exchange might not feel complete without both. Passion. It's passion, all of it. If he has a shadow, the passion is the shadow, hidden away deep within him by analytical, colorless eyes, and a conscious mind that bargained and manipulated the world around it, like a game.

The world isn't a game, though.

Kisuke is relieved to think he may have found someone to draw that truth back out of him.

He lifts a thumb to his own face, smearing at a spray of blood on one long cheek with it and spreading it across white skin until it leaves only a pink trace. The alley reeks of it still; Mike's excitement, the fear of the being that he'd destroyed; of blood and the mineral, soil smell of entrails.

The wound on Mike's neck is still bleeding sluggishly.

"It's powerful when a man meets something which he understands so deeply is beyond his level," he says, coolness masking a slowly-burning delight in his belly. "And it is a reminder that 'god' is such a poor word. Awe. Of that which we don't comprehend, we stand in awe."

[forthedog]

He shakes himself slightly. He's still high on it, the metallic taste of the adrenaline in the back of his mouth, though his heart was not and is not racing. It never does. It beats at the same pace but harder, thudding, more of a punctuation than anything else. A kind of emphasis.

He drops his hand away from his throat and stares down at the blade, which is still dripping slowly. He has a stake, he could have done it cleanly. But he almost never does anymore.

"So what are you in awe of?" he murmurs.

[vivememorleti]

Kisuke takes in a slow breath, letting it out again, loud in the emptied alley against only the whisper and tinkle of the rain making its way slowly down the city, into puddles and drains. It isn't a bad atmosphere, the drizzle, turning everything gray but Mike and the splash of color on the blade of his knife.

"You. Something that is what it is. That couldn't be better without becoming something else. You're dancing right on that edge. Aragami-san."

He gives a bow of his head, though he keeps his eyes on the other man, not lowering his forehead.

"I appreciate the opportunity more than words can express. Asking for anything more seems like begging. I'm not above begging."

[forthedog]

"I met a demon once," he says, almost musing. "He said I was well on the way to where he was."

The rain is coming a bit heavier now, washing away the dust, and - he hopes - doing at least a little to wash off the worst of the blood. He's come home covered in it before. He's beginning to realize that there will likely be trouble with Neil on account of at least some of what he's done tonight.

But it can't be undone.

"Turns out I have a thing for begging."

[vivememorleti]

"He was short-sighted," Kisuke says, with another curl of his lips, a confection of a smile offered up to Mike, too earnest to be a simper and too crafted to be organic.

He thinks to push, maybe, for what he wants, but it's better to leave it at this. Maybe. This time, at least. As much as his urge is toward instant gratification, a thing waited for sweetly with anticipation is better, more valuable. And the more he might have the proper context to place Mike into, the more will be revealed of how lovely he is, in his way.

"Thank you for giving me something to dream about," he says, lifting a teasing finger to press it against the center of his lips, turning the words into a divulged secret. Lifting the opposite hand, he gave a sharp snap of long, pale fingers, sparking the air with red light before a blackness appeared behind his shoulder, a large round hole in the space, darker than the night alley.

"I like the rain. But once you're so wet, there's no getting any wetter. Better to crawl back home and watch it out a window. Can I drop you off anywhere?"

He leaves Mike with the offer as if he were speaking of nothing stranger than a lift in a mini-van, the incongruity intentional. Kuchiki-san is a creature of innate grace and gravity. Urahara-san is simply Urahara-san. It's worth communicating.

[forthedog]

He's neither offended nor especially surprised at not being asked for anything more. This stopped feeling vaguely like flirtation a good while ago and now it feels like something more than that, because flirtation is light and easy and this is dark, thick, soaked in blood. What the demon had said hadn't frightened him then and it doesn't now, but he's never stopped wondering. Never been able to let it go.

But the peace that always chases the last of the adrenaline is asserting itself, and he feels calm, quiet, and happy to let it all simmer for the moment.

"My bike," he says, glancing from the black rift to Kisuke without a trace of worry. "It's about a mile from here, near Gerard. Close would be fine."

But he pauses a beat, then: "What does that mean? Aragami?"