2/21/2003

03:12 AM

Logfile from Ichijin.

 

Royal Elizabeth-Penthouse 1

It is a penthouse, a swanky penthouse at that. Plenty of windows, wood flooring, elegant lines and a modern look. You've got your sunken living area, long and dark dining table close to the windows that overlook a balcony decorated with topiary and such. Off to some side is the way towards the bedroom, double-doors left open just enough to get a hint of a large bed and more expensive furniture. All in all, it looks like a place that could use a far better description.

Obvious exits:

 

Reese walks in, slams the door behind her firmly, then beats as hard as she can against the hard wood. There's something between a growl and a roar there, oblivious to the room and cursing the world. At best feeble, her hands alone could barely damage the wood; thankfully, she's not pulled out any guns, or any of her personal big guns.

 

Sebastian emerges from the office space, a series of papers in his hands. Naturally, banging is going to tear him away from the mundane of his day job. He drops his arm to peer after Reese, watching her with a cool stare. "Reese?"

 

Reese nearly swings a punch at Sebastian, but draws back, putting her wrath into a pillow instead, before collapsing firmly into the couch. "Hi Seb," she mutters, the words barely audible - she hasn't bothered to lift her head, and it turns out that Italian silk makes for a decent silencer. The girl finally lifts her head for a moment, glaring at the man. "They treat us like monsters, you know. They look at us as if we kill and kill and kill, and love it."

 

Sebastian draws back a pace at the sight of that almost-punch, but then follows her towards the couch. Setting his papers carefully aside, he instead rests his hands on the back of the sofa to look down at her, "Our miko freely shoots anyone who looks cross at her with her gun. The Leviathan freely took two of their own, one of which shamelessly used torture for his /gods'/ means. Our gods revere corruption, trickery, destruction, all that is the antithesis to the warm and fluffly goodness that they think that they represent. I am not surprised. Even I have killed." He draws in a breath, "Who did you see?"

 

"Byakko no miko," Reese replies glumly, scowling magnificently. "And Suzaku no miko." We'll just leave the small frisk/grope out of there, hmm? "Rathan was giving her all these gooshy looks, and was totally hitting on her. I ask her about Dylan and Minai, and she goes all ballistic, ditches everyone, and Rathan gets all pissy." No, it was not a good day for Reese. "It's like they think that if we're not here to kill them, kidnap them, or torture them, we're here to ruin their miserable, pathetic little lives." With that, she flounces and buries her face firmly back into the pillow.

 

Sebastian frowns down at her, dragging fingers through his hair before coming around to take a seat on the couch as well. "I am not entirely surprised. After all, they /were/ her seishi, and she is bound to be a bit possessive of them. Especially considering that if we ever catch sight of Dylan again... he'll be a dead man." He sighs deeply before continuing, "What did Rathan say?"

 

Well, not exactly. You see, Reese already did run into Dylan, but he also happened to be surrounded by three other sei. Under any circumstances, however, she probably would have been persuaded to be nice. That's just how the poor girl is. "Well, she didn't know it at the time. Frickin' bitch isn't even my goddess," she says, flipping tiredly onto her back. Let's just hope she's not going to swing punches any time soon. "Rathan? He didn't say anything. He just gave me that 'I'm a jaded loner and you just took away my last friend' look."

Sebastian peers down at her, blinking somewhat as she speaks. "I'll have to have a talk with Rathan then. I think that the boy might be forgetting some of who he is, and who he is playing with." The man looks introspective moment, and then nods to Reese, "Was it just the Byakko no miko that was saying these things?"

 

"She didn't actually say anything," Reese murmurs, her face clouding. "But I could feel it, you know? They start out happy to see me, all bright and chipper and stuff, like I'm a real human being. And then, something snaps. They give me this look, these vibes, and it's all, 'Oh. You're one of /them/.' And then they just give me this look, like I'm going to bite out their jugular now that they've found out that I'm not normal. At least I existed in this world first," she mutters, glowering at the ceiling.

 

Sebastian sits back on the sofa, not so much looking at Reese anymore, but actually just out into the living area. A vague sort of look. "Are you looking for more from them, Reese? Are you trying for friendship or possibly some sort of... connection with them? What are you expecting from the Yang?"

 

Reese sighs and shrugs, wrinkling her nose. "Contrary to popular opinion, I do like to make friends. My chi sense only extends to people who feel bad - if they're nice, then I don't get a glimmer. A couple I thought were just normal people - really nice, normal people, like my friends in school. I want them to understand," she admits cautiously, "that I'm not trying to harm them. That if they got out of our way, everything could be happy. I don't want nice people to give me that look."

 

Sebastian finally looks back over to her, a flicker of confusion showing, but that is erased as he speaks, "Then you should act yourself if that is what you wish. You... cannot force them to believe who you are, Reese. They have to come to those conclusions all on their own."

 

Reese wrinkles her nose and glares. "They're preconditioned to be clueless and hate us," she replies, shaking her head solemnly and finally sitting up. "They're okay as long as I'm a person, they're people, and we can drink coffee someplace and have a chat about schoolwork. But as soon as the cards are on the table, the point and hate and go, 'Ooooh, you're oni.' I try to be friends, they say, 'But you hurt me!' Like racial discrimination, but deeper than skin," she sighs, hunching her shoulders.

 

Sebastian listens quietly before replying, "Reese, they are seishi. I don't quite understand why you would want to actually try to befriend them, except if you plan on using that relationship to our advantage later? You have an idea in mind?" She is clearly talking to the wrong oni about this. She should have found Lexie first instead of the one that was 'programmed' to think mostly in terms of the business of being an oni.

Reese's jaw drops, her expression one of pure, horrified disbelief. "You didn't," she whispers, eyes welling a little bit. With a firm swallow, she forces the angst back down into her bile duct from whence it came. "Are you not human at all? Do you really have no need for any relationships whatsoever? I mean, honestly, stop fooling yourself, Sebastian. You're not like them, so absorbed by those damned personas of theirs. You've got some emotion in you." Here, she cringes, then looks both skeptically and hopefully at the man. "Right?"

 

Sebastian can only blink back to her in confusion, not quite sure about what she is asking from him. "Of course I am, Reese. How can you ask that? My relationship with you and the rest of our people. Those that I've been working on with the seishi." All with a specific point in mind. Notice no mention of emotion, Homasubi helped to lock that away a very long time ago.

 

Reese frowns and can only think to do one thing; she reaches her hand back quickly and smacks Sebastian across the face. "If I get mad at you, Sebastian, if I get really, really mad at you, but still do my job as an onisenshi... will you care? Honestly, now." Chi gathers into her, and it looks and feels as if it might not be an idle threat that she's making.

 

Sebastian rocks back with the slap, his hand immediately coming up to try to grab her wrist to forestall anything further like that. "I don't want you mad at me, Reese. I've done everything to try to make you comfortable, to see to you and the rest. I need what you can give me, and knowing the fallibility of human emotions, if you are angry at me..." He seems to frown, "Why are you angry at me now?"

 

"What you need from me?" Reese demands, her voice lowering to a rather dangerous quiet as her wrist is caught firmly. "So you want me to deliver a god into your hands, and that's it, is it? You want us to win the war, so what? What will you do when it's all over, when Homasubi comes, when Lexie's made her wishes. What happens after the gods find that their use for you is gone, and take back all that makes you senshi?"

 

Sebastian seems honestly lost about her sudden anger, and frowns even more so at the questions. In one breath though his face is a blank slate and in the next with is a wry grin on his lips, "It doesn't matter to me what happens afterwards, that is not in my hands. I am working for what we need now, and I am doing something to further the release of Homasubi. That is all that matters. I know that you know this, Reese. When he came to me, showed me what was possible, I..." But he trails off, blinking for a long moment. "I know what needs to be done. We will win."

 

Reese sees the grin and turns very quickly silent, her eyes holding an odd mixture of sadness, pity, and something deep within. She draws her hand from Sebastian's grasp, shaking her head slowly at the idea of winning or losing, then blinks at the man. "What has happened to Sebastian?" she asks, brows furrowing in distress. A hand waves any answer to the question off - she has asked before, with no great result. "If you were in Lexie's position, what would you wish for?"

 

"Reese, don't..." Seb murmurs, watching her cautiously for a moment, a warning hardness building steadily in his gaze. At her last question though, he hesitates for a very, very long moment before answering, "I would not presume to take one of those wishes for myself. But if I was in her place.... I really do not know what I would wish for. That is something I haven't thought about all that closely."

 

"Don't what?" Reese asks too quickly, her eyes seeking out Sebastian's face with a pathetically hopeful glance. "People have been keeping many secrets from me recently. Maybe I shouldn't press, but it makes me confused as to what your motivations are. Maybe I'm just being... stupid," she says, though the word is quite obviously not what she's looking for. "Or maybe I'm jealous, since mine are so obvious. But I want to know, Sebastian."

 

Sebastian hesitates, a brief frown addressing his brows until it is schooled away. "I wish that you would not try to pry. There is nothing of import here. My... What it is about me that I cannot say should not concern you at all. It has no baring on anything that is important now." He draws in another carefully calculated breath, "My motivation is to do as I am bid. To do what needs to be done. He came to me when I was very young, and I will not forget to do what I have to."

 

Reese's expression doesn't waver, rather, softens. "It does concern me, Sebastian, and it is important. Because you're important to me," she says, casting her gaze firmly to her lap, and folding her hands there, clasping them between her knees. "If I find that some traumatic force of personality draws severe past emotional pains up to the surface and you revert to Yang, it'll break my heart. Really," she adds, as if confirmation makes it more true.

 

Sebastian shakes, quite literally shakes at her words. Tentatively, a hand reaches towards her face as if to lightly rub her cheek with his fingers, but in the next moment that hand is bawling into a fist. He clenches his eyes shut for a moment to try to bring whatever began back under the surface. "I am not Yang, Reese. In that you can trust."

 

Reese reaches out a careful finger touch the hand, her expression torn between worry and woe. Leaning forward towards the man, she balances herself precariously, not touching, but close enough to Sebastian that he could at least feel her presence, the line of heat telling him that there's someone nearby. "Now you begin to see my problem, Sebastian," she murmurs quietly. "It wouldn't break my heart that you were my enemy. It would tear me in two, because I wouldn't care."

 

Sebastian shivers once more, drawing in a shaky breath as he tries his hardest to repress those 'demons', lock up that actual passion that threatened to actually show itself once more. The very moment she says 'I wouldn't care' and it registers, he frowns, lifting his gaze to her in confusion, "I don't understand. What do you mean?"

 

Reese hovers frozen, watching the man's face, monitoring his emotions as she feels something stirring in her magic. "If you were Yang," she elaborates, "I wouldn't know what to do with myself. On the one hand, there is Homasubi, the job, everything I owe Lexie and Yin. On the other hand," she says, and here is where she nibbles her lip gently, with a touch of anxiety, "there would be hope. For me and you, that one of us would understand that we were wrong. See?" she asks, carefully dodging any poignant and potentially hurtful words.

 

"I am /not/ Yang!" Seb bellows, nearly stumbling off of the couch. The distinctive reddish-orange of his kanji even manages to glow rather vibrantly through the fabric of his sleeves. And not just there, but it begins to conjure almost violently around his hands. Provoking the passion within and his power grows mightily. He watches her, practically shivering, not quite sure to take the easy route and simply blast a hole through the apartment or what.

 

Reese's eyes snap wide open, and she instinctively presses back into the couch, raising her hands over her face in a protective cower. "I know," she blurts, her words muffled but choked out with great effort between near-hyperventilating breaths. "I'm so sorry," the girl murmurs, then, in a swoop of motion, rights herself and stands, facing Sebastian and carefully approaching him, with the slow speed of one who is terrified of scaring off a rare but dangerous creature. She holds her hands around the outer boundaries of the magic, eyes wide but determined. And slowly, surely, she begins to close her hands around his, as if daring the man to lose control.

 

See now, this is why it is so hard for him to do those tiny little chi blasts at livers and balls. This is why he disappears to go send a tenement into dust when I wee bit aggravated. Seb shakes considering just how wonderful it would be to tear this entire building to pieces and take out everyone inside, Reese included. If he was truly and completely given to his emotions, he would have already begun, but apparently there is a shred of restraint still there. The chi flares as she approaches him, slowly he shakes his head from side to side. And when his hands are touched it flares brighter as if in rebellion. He glares at her for a very, very long moment. A shaky breath later and he shudders, the effort to slowly release his grip on that energy causing the man to actually waver and stumble before collapsing to his knees. Damn, he is gonna have a heck of a headache tomorrow.

 

Reese breathes at an awkward, syncopated rhythm during the infinity that is that terrible glare. As he falls, however, the girl flies, dropping down to meet him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders quite possibly before he hits the ground. Holding him gently, she strokes a hand matronly over his hair, her crying given away only by a loud sniff. "Oh god, Sebastian," the girl murmurs, taking slow control of his weight. Her words are soft, a fraction away from unspoken altogether, and even with their faces so close, even Reese can barely hear them. "I love you," is breathed slowly on the exhale, a stroke of the slightest wind, then gone.

 

Sebastian keeps his eyes on her as he collapses, unable to steady himself in the wake of his near explosion. Drawing in one ragged breath after another, he continues to watch Reese with an almost weary fascination. "Thank you for stopping me," he murmurs, his eyes searching her face, looking for something and apparently finding it as just the faintest of smiles, weary, draws over his lips. A hand moves up to try to brush her cheek, frowning as he comes across evidence of her crying. "I'll try to be better for you." And in the next breath he finally lets the fatigue settle over him, and down he goes. Completely useless tomorrow too *as will his player*

 

Reese bites her lip at the touch, but remains silent, nodding her head and gripping Sebastian's body like life support, floatation in a sea of unidentified emotion. As the man collapses, she slowly suspends his body into the air, then lifts it behind her, slipping him into bed with a minimal amount of effort. The thought of shoving a couple aspirin into his system crosses her mind, but as tension drains out of her, she quickly falls asleep beside him.