#mikhailis

                                                       vines ! | accepting

[ ♢ ]  SEND “ICONIC” FOR A VINE THAT DESCRIBES OUR MUSES RELATIONSHIP .   ||   ACCEPTING

- - - - - - - - -

He first learns about it back in Meifu. After spending so long cooped up in the safe house, it feels good to stretch his legs and breathe some fresh air; even the ever-present cherry blossoms are a welcome sight, and the whirrs and beeps of the office appliances sound like home. It feels like it’s been forever since he’s come back into work. In reality, it’s likely only been a week and a half, tops.

“They’ve got another shinigami with them,” he tells Gushoshin Elder as he goes through all the files they have on past cases involving Muraki, even ones where his presence or involvement was never confirmed. Before Kyoto, before the Queen Camellia, even before Nagasaki. 

(Muraki had been killing long before meeting Tsuzuki, Sebastian had told him, so giving himself up to the man wouldn’t fix or put a stop to anything. He tries to keep that in mind as the bodies of the past pile up.)

Gushoshin looks concerned, as much as he can under all those feathers. “One of ours? I thought everyone in the Summons Division was either here at the offices or out on assignment elsewhere...”

Tsuzuki shakes his head, spreading the files out on a library table to look them over properly. “No. She’s--- English, I think. I don’t know why they sent her, but she’s been a big help.” For the most part. “But I don’t think she likes me very much.”

Across the table, Gushoshin rolls his eyes, taking the two thick volumes on nephilim that Hisoka had pulled from the shelf to study hours before. As he floats back up toward the shelves to replace them, he says, “No surprise there.”

Tsuzuki sticks his tongue out and says, “Mean.” But there’s a tiny smile on his face for half a moment before it falls away again. His fingers pick idly at the edge of a paper. “No, I mean... She came all this way and isn’t really making an effort to get along with anybody. She’s been kind of a bully to the person we’re meant to be guarding, as well.”

“Sounds like some unresolved personal issues.”

“Maybe.” He suppresses a yawn, thinking that everyone in their line of work has some unresolved personal issues. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here. “It’s just hard to work with her when she seems to hate everyone. I wish I knew what the problem was so I could fix it.”

Gushoshin returns after a moment, lowering himself to the opposite side of the table, big owlish eyes looking Tsuzuki over. “You can’t save everyone, Tsuzuki-san.”

Of course he knows that. How many people are dead because of his naïveté and foolishness? Too many. And some people just don’t want to be saved.

Tsuzuki shrugs, and thinks that Sutcliffe should consider alternatives if this job makes her that unhappy. It may just be this case in particular, but somehow he doesn’t think so. There’s a deep, bitter anger to her that seems untouchable, cold. It reminds him very much of when he and Hisoka first met and how... furious and afraid Hisoka had been to open himself up to the possibility of kindness. Maybe Sutcliffe just needs someone to listen to her and try to understand where she’s coming from.

“I wonder why she chose to be a shinigami,” he says, now dog-earing one of the file’s pages to come back to it later. “I think she’s been doing this even longer than I have, so... what could be keeping her here?”

Gushoshin freezes in place, and suddenly seems hesitant. “You... don’t know?”

“I don’t know what?”

There’s a beat or two of silence as Gushoshin tries to choose his words. “If she’s European... their shinigami don’t get a choice, Tsuzuki-san. They’re all suicides, and this is their way of paying atonement. It’s a punishment.”

The entire room seems to stand still for a moment as the words sink in, shock playing itself out on Tsuzuki’s face. What kind of god would take someone in their absolute lowest moment and force them to watch the deaths of other people? (Enma would. The others may have gotten a choice -- drownings, murder victims, accidents -- but he hadn’t. Enma had plucked his soul fresh from that hospital bed and put him in metaphorical chains.)

He thinks again of how angry she seems, seeming to be always on the tipping point between here and total destruction. And he thinks of the despair and pain in his own soul, and how easy it would be to turn to anger to conceal it.

“Like I said,” Gushoshin continues, picking up another stray book to return to the shelf, “you can’t save everyone.”

- - - - -

When he returns to the safe house with a briefcase full of papers and a take-out container full of Vietnamese food, Sutcliffe is standing just outside, smoking a cigarette. The smell of cigarette smoke was comforting to him once, when he associated it with his sister or with his first few partners. Now it just makes him think of Muraki and the taste of ashes in his own mouth.

His grip on both the briefcase and the bag containing the food tightens. To be honest, Tsuzuki hadn’t expected her to be standing outside the house when he arrived. He would have just teleported to the indoors if there weren’t magical barriers surrounding the place to prevent that exact thing.

Whatever fear or hesitance he might feel about approaching her, he swallows it down. She finally seems to notice his presence when he comes toward the door, looking up at him with a bored, flat expression behind those green-gold eyes.

“Find anything decent?” she asks him, exhaling a long stream of smoke in his direction. In this atmosphere, late afternoon sunlight filtering gold through the leaves of the Japanese maples, he thinks she’s rather pretty. When she’s more relaxed and not picking a fight with someone, maybe she could even be nice to talk to.

“A few things that might help... not a lot that we haven’t already gone over a hundred times, but I thought it’d be good to be prepared.”

“Mm.” Grelle shifts her weight, drops her cigarette onto the pavement, and grinds it out with the toe of her shoe.

Just as she turns to head back inside, to ignore him completely, Tsuzuki musters up the courage to set the briefcase down and place a hand on her upper arm. “Wait.”

She turns with such surprise that her hair falls into her eyes, and she brings up her hand to toss it back over her shoulder. She looks at where he touches her and he quickly removes his hand, suddenly embarrassed.

“I...” Now that he has the opportunity to bring it up, he finds that he can’t. He wouldn’t want to force her to relive those moments, anyway, as horrible as she’s been to him and everyone else in this house. No one deserves that.

Except me, he thinks, like a reflex.

“Yes?” she asks, clearly annoyed. “Are you going to spit it out, or am I supposed to stand here and watch you come to terms with---”

“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.” Finally the words come, even if they aren’t what Grelle seems to have been expecting. Her irritated look falls into something more neutral, or even confused. “I made a lot of snap judgments when we met, and I probably came off a little... I don’t know, overbearing? I just wanted you to know that I’m sorry, and that I’m here if you ever needed to talk to someone.”

Grelle stares at him with the look of someone who’s been slapped. The surprise on her face isn’t a pleasant one. And then, as he should have predicted, she laughs at him; not the gentle laughter of relief, but mocking him, loud and cruel. She says something in English that he doesn’t understand, but going by her tone, it isn’t nice. His face flushes hot in sudden embarrassment, and suddenly he feels about ten years old all over again.

“I don’t need your pity,” she barks at him, her lip curling hatefully. “Who told you? One of your supervisors? Sebastian, perhaps?”

“No.” Tsuzuki is quick to correct her, shaking his head. “No, I... just found out.” His voice drops lower as though to keep the conversation more private, even if she doesn’t seem to care about that. “I think it’s wrong to do that to you. I know how it feels---”

“You don’t,” she interrupts. Where she should look angry, or hurt, there’s instead a grin on her face, sharp and dangerous. Tsuzuki has a hard time reading her body language. “So what, you found out about my tragic backstory and had to rush to comfort me? Are you really so foolish to think that I need you of all people to be my shoulder to cry on? You barely know me.”

Why is she fighting him about it? It’s frustrating, like trying to talk to a particularly annoying brick wall, but Tsuzuki presses on, steeling himself for another onslaught of insults.

“You’re right. But I’d like to know you.” It’s a stupid thing to do, especially now that he can see her grow angry. “I don’t know what I did to make you dislike me this much, but I think it's... it’s okay to feel angry about what’s being done to you. You shouldn’t take it out on other people like that, but you have a right to be angry.”

“Stop talking about me like you know anything!” Grelle is shouting now, loud enough that he flinches, even if he stands his ground. “You don’t get to come here and pretend like you’re my friend. I don’t know you, I don’t care about you, and you can’t just bat your eyelashes at me and expect me to spill all my secrets to you. And you certainly don’t get to dig into my life and try to comfort me about information I did not provide you.”

It stuns him silent. Finally, he says, “I just want to help you.”

She gives another harsh laugh, and her hand snaps out to catch his face, fingers firm on his chin as she stares into his eyes. “You poor bastard.” He’s blushing, half out of humiliation, half out of embarrassment that she’s touching his face after she’d been so affronted that he’d dared to put his hand on her arm. “How many times do I have to spell it out for you? I don’t want your help.”

He knows that she’s trying to hurt him because she’s ashamed. He’s seen this a thousand times in other people, and even in himself, in his worst moments. But despite his knowledge of this tactic doesn’t stop it from hurting to be so coldly rejected.

Grelle cups his face in both hands now, and the smile on her own is cruel. “You can’t save yourself, so you work on saving everyone else, is that it? I’ve dealt with men like you before. They end up destroying themselves. You’re powerful, and beautiful, but you’ve got a personality like plain toast -- you’re bland, darling, and dull.” Her fingernails touch his cheeks, and start to press little half-moons into them as she squeezes. “So you make up for it by playing savior so no one has a reason to hate you, or to leave you. Well, you don’t have to worry your pretty head about that with me... I hated you the moment I realized what you were.”

His blood turns cold in his veins, color draining from his face. She does let him go, but pats his cheek firmly enough to lightly sting.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. You’re so obvious!” She looks delighted with herself, even as he can feel the world falling away from his feet. “You know, demons fascinate me. In another life, I may have taken you for a spin, but you’re so dreadfully soft, it disgusts me. I’ve given you nothing but grief and yet here you are, offering to be my friend.”

He doesn’t have to stand here and listen to this, but it feels like his legs are frozen in place. Grelle seems so pleased with his reaction, too, like this is Christmas and her birthday all at once.

“A piece of advice, darling,” she says, walking backwards toward the door. “It’s a cruel, merciless world, and if you let yourself be a doormat, it’ll walk all over you. And the next time you try to pry into someone’s life like this, try to remember...” Grelle opens the front door and lets herself halfway inside, speaking over her shoulder at him. “You can’t save everyone.”

『♛❞ ——   ❝ Th--   this... !     It isn’t what it looks like !! ❞         It is exactly what it looks like. Of all possible presences to be graced with at this moment in time, he cannot think of anyone less desired. No time for concealing the unholy concoction of discolored batter, various kitchen utensils, broken jars fallen off their shelves and what looked like clumps of coal, all haphazardly swept to one side of the sullied kitchen floor, soot on his Highness’ nose tying him directly to the scene of the crime. Instantly he regrets allowing for Agni to be whisked off by the gardener who seemed to admire him so, for who else could get this situation under any semblance of control? 

About The Muse. || Accepting. || @mikhailis​

ACES. Oh gosh, that’s a lot. Prepare for a readmore and no formatting, my dude. You asked for it.

                             give me drawing prompts please ! | accepting

{ @mikhailis | from this meme; not accepting }

For: mikhailis From: babelfalls Prompt: Sebastian teaching Shiori how to dance Artist Notes: I figured the excuse could be something the long the lines of Sebastian teaching Shiori to dance so she can be presentable for her newly betrothed, movieverse equivalent of Elizabeth... Where’s the lesbian sequel we deserve you cowards!!!