Description: Following the retaliatory assassination attempt made on him by Kula Diamond, Ryouhara has been forced away from Issen Point to investigate the assassin and the group she comes from. It just so happens a rogue doctor with a sad past and a charming smile wants to meet the sister he never knew K' had..
Southtown is raining. Hard, grey, and violent, as if the skies were set on purifying all the sin from the streets like a cold, stinging, backward crucible, and the gunmetal skies rumble with distant thunder. It's a bad day to be outside.
Whip's almost glad she's got a reason to stay cooped up. Almost. She woke up to find the apartment quiet and emptied of her wayward brother, and used to tomcat-like way of coming and going as he pleases, she took his absence as a blessing. It means she could have some beer without him frowning, a stolen smoke without him trying to take it away, and do things at her own leisure. As much as she is happy to have found her roots, she only knows how to be a lone wolf.
And, face it, recovering from grevious injury has left her feeling a little moody and unpredictable. She bets it's the reason why K' went AWOL. Smart boy.
She's spent the morning savouring the rain, opening every window in the small apartment to air out the stale scent of overnight. Now everywhere is chilled and earthy -- just how she likes it -- and in the heart of it, Whip has taken to reclining in the living room. Wearing an army-green tank top and old cotton athletic shorts, the rest of her bound extensively in bandages, she reclines on the couch, sips Guinness lager, happily puffs away one of K''s confisgated cigarettes, and leans over her laptop set up on the coffee table.
Eyes lidded placidly, cigarette hanging out of her mouth, her ten fingers busily tap away at the keyboard, just about the only part of her she can move without any lingering pain. She's got a pair of crutches on the floor beside her, and every time she coughs from smoking (something she honestly shouldn't be doing) she winces slightly, laying one hand over her breastbone reflexively. Bruised and battered, the young woman looks one notch down from a total mess, and honestly shouldn't even be out of bed, but like that's ever stopped her before.
For every tomcat prowling the alleys, there was a wolf prowling the woods. You would think they would know to stay out of the city, but some are more adventurous than others.
It has been about a week since Ryouhara's beating at the hands of the powder blue leather assassin, but the brutal, savage kill attempt was diffused by him and, to be absolutely honest, there was too much to be done to allow it to slow down his pace any. If he slowed, even for a moment, his operations would be threatened. Shortly after what little recovery he could muster, he was forced to move out of Afghanistan, carefully creating an obfuscated trail back to Southtown. He'd left explicit orders for their leak in the area to be found and sent to all four corners of the globe in different packages, but that would not deal with the immediate threat in the vicinity. Leaving his cohorts--which would remain thankfully obscure--in charge and abandoning the operation temporarily was the best method to protect it.
Besides. He'd remembered some things about that assassin that was of interest to him.
It was in name the uncanny resemblance in the smaller ways to a certain other ex-associate of NESTS that caught his attention, and the implications thereof. Picking back up older, more faithful contacts led him back to Southtown, as a result, home of one of the closest things he had to a center of operations. He has fought Kay Dash once before... but a recent casual observation had led him to another conclusion.
He was not alone in that little apartment.
So it is with little connection to the image that is 'Seishirou Ryouhara' that a slim young man comes to the door of the siblings. He is a bright, sunny personality, with a wide smile and whip-thin eyes that make it hard to determine if he can even see at all. He is young for the dearth of tools he carries in the small medical chest at his back, and the white coat and slacks of the local hospice profession. But the enduring personality--said to come and go at whim from the local hospitals--is considered to be quite a talented, if obscure, healer.
Hair pulled back into a comically short black ponytail, Issei pulls down the bright white red cross-emblazoned cap at his brow until the brim casts just the lightest of shadows over his slanted eyes. He coughs mildly into a hand, but then does not mind when he has to wipe away blood onto a handkerchief. "It's no problem, no problem," he assures himself and then, to sweeten the deal, adds "..yosh," to the end. At the door he stops, fiddling at something jingling in his pockets. "Ah~~cha-cha-cha, where did I leave it this time?" the absent-minded boy muses. "Hey, hey, medical industry here--I'm coming in, OK? Don't be naked in there, ah~?"
The shinobi Seishirou Ryouhara was capable of picking, forcing, or detonating pretty much any lock.
Issei 'The Rogue' Miura, however, happens to have a key. Aah~ lucky!
Unlocking the door rudely, the smiling doctor invites himself in without even knocking. He's done this a couple times before--he almost got shot the last time, but sometimes people are really sick!
In the meanwhile, Whip, like any hard-working, dutiful soldier, suspends her important emails to casually watch a barrage of gun-oriented videos on YouTube, leaning over her laptop monitor with a smitten look tattooed across her eyes. For a girl who has little concept of intimacy or romance, watching demonstrations of a Super Ruger Redhawk... she's pretty sure she's in love.
The world rains outside the open windows, the apartment marinates in a heavy, humid tranquility, and she's far too busy lounging and reading and sipping her beer to even notice the sounds on her doorstep. Not until it's too late. Or at least until the timing gets good.
Something makes Whip finally look up, her brown eyes slanted with bemusement. She swears she just heard someone say... "Naked?"
A key inserts itself into the deadbolt and the front door opens. Automatically, Whip is expecting a certain white-haired, dour-faced brother behind the door, looking rainy and raging and really not happy to see her puffing on one of his cigarettes, so colour her surprised when realization hits and she's seeing anything but.
Whip startles like she was expecting armageddon to drop before ever seeing a doctor at the door. She pauses visibly from her place on the living room sofa, perched bandagily over a humming laptop, a beer in one hand and a cigarette hanging out of her lips, her dark hair touselled and tied back, and her young, softly-featured face fixed with an incredulous look.
Despite looking like someone three houses down from death's door, Whip doesn't look happy to have a house call. "Who--?!" she blurts suddenly, almost dropping her cigarette.
She pauses. She tries again, "How-- ?!" He has a key? Who gave him a key? Why is he in the house? Who called him over to the house? What's going on?!
"...Hello?"
It's always a little exciting, the walk into a strange girl's apartment, but Issei has sworn never to break and enter (or unlock and enter) for his own purposes. Unless his purposes happened to be in the procurement of better medicines than what he has on hand. Right now though, completely benign, relatively speaking! He's looking out for someone's better interests!
Speaking of looking.
Issei gets one good eyeful at the soldier all laid up on the couch.
He reaches a hand to scratch the back of his head. ".._Wow._"
A moment passes.
Then he elects to clarify. "You are pretty banged up, huh?" Issei can smile as wide as the full moon is bright. See? "Sorry sorry!" He begs, stepping inside. He at least has the common decency to shut and lock the door behind him. "I'm a doctor with the Shunseishin Bullets and Eveready Infirmaries downtown," he explains. "Issei Miura! I-sei," he pronounces, "Like the guitarist! Pleased to meet you!"
"I'd heard there was someone who got hurt pretty bad up here, so I decided to come take a look for myself, yeah~?" he explains finally, though it is pretty obviously only half the story. "I guess it was good I did. Nyaaa~?"
Speaking of getting looked at. Blinking back the way deer do in the highbeams of headlights, it takes Whip a few dumb moments to realize that an eyeful had just been had. She forgets her own confusion to flush lightly across the cheeks, unused to stares and embarassed to be caught in this state.
Accused of being banged up, Whip can't help but slant a glance down at her own body and all its bruises and bandages, and her blushing only gets worse. She is a soldier, and soldiers iron pride into every pleat of their appearance. She'd drop dead before ever having the rest of the world catch her like this. This is so humiliating.
She's almost, almost vaguely reminded of Schugerg catching her in her underwear. That's a memory she'd rather not revisit.
Instead, Whip channels all her attention into receiving this strange visitor, and it's obvious she's trying to decide whether to look guarded or polite. Soon enough, she closes her laptop, painstakingly rearranging her body along the couch to properly sit up, an underlying grace coiled in the movement beneath all her stiffness and aches.
"A doctor?" she echoes, sounding honestly confused. Watching Issei warily, it seems his upstart, courteous manner has caught her completely off-guard. It seems K''s paranoia is not a trait that runs in the family.
"I-- my name is Whip," she replies, offhanded, while her eyebrows furrow, her etiquette automatic and her mind elsewhere. "How did you get in? Where did you get a key?" She has an idea, but she doesn't want to believe it.
A frown starts to shadow her mouth, up until she forces her lips into a quick, apologetic smile. "I -- don't need a doctor."
"WHIP?" He pronounces, loud and clear. "That's a terrible name for a beautiful--"
Miura pauses for a moment, apparently being made briefly and violently aware of the situation he is in.
His hands knit together at his hip quickly. He blushes almost as furiously as Whip, bowing quickly as he notices he has the girl's self-esteem at a knifepoint. "AH~ my apologies yeah~? I didn't mean to be rude it is so hot when--DH I--mean rare when I see a pretty young woman nowadays. Forgive me, forgive." He bows no less than three seperate times, quickly. Unfortunately for Whip, he is not in fact polite enough to leave still. Issei hears that all the time!
"The truth is, I unlocked the door -- with this." He shows the key. "I got it from a pretty violent fiery guy," is his energetic explanation, but he doesn't skip enough of a beat to have to reveal the rest of the story, "They say that kind of hair color is silver but I think those kinds of people just went grey early form too much stress, don't you think?"
His eye--flashing her quickly a skilled and not ignoble thing--catches the sensation inherent in her movement and the difficulty she has in expending the effort. Not to mention she's damn near mummified.
"Nh.." the rogue replies, vocalizing in a lower tone of voice, just shy of serious.
"You can say that all you want... Miss Whip," he minds her, but a slim finger reaches up to tap his temple. "But this eye and this mind can tell otherwise just from your moves. You're in a lot of pain right now, nya~? See.." that same hand raises, while unshouldering the case at his back with the opposite hand. "I can help with that. You don't know me, so I guess I can cut you some slack, eh? But.." He grins. ":D"
"Weird injuries are MISTER Issei Miura's specialty, nya."
Then he sparkles at Whip. Sparkle sparkle. :D
And, from a strange doctor who had invited himself into her very home, Whip receives the most unusual of introductions. He pretty much tells her she has a terrible name.
If it were her brother on the sofa (and if it were, the apartment would already be half-napalmed at this point,) Issei Miura's remark would have been met with quick anger. On the other hand, Whip just looks surprised, confused, then a little hurt... but, fortunately, she doesn't get the time to dwell on her choice of a name, because the young doctor is already, apologetically moving on.
To worse subjects.
Being called beautiful isn't helping Whip's blushing any. She looks miserable, trapped there on the sofa and feeling like some prey animal in the hairs of a rifle. The young woman averts her eyes nervously, feeling strangely self-conscious for reasons she's not even too sure about. Any notion of flattery completely escapes the Ikari, who is too bewildered about receiving attention at all to really know how to fluster appropriately at it. Thankfully, so very thankfully, her misery is short-lived.
Whip's dark eyes return on Issei when he answers her question about his mysterious key. Violent. Fiery guy. Silver hair. K' did this. She can barely believe that someone as paranoid as her own brother willingly gave a key to a stranger while he himself wasn't home... but...
Behind her kind eyes and polite smiling, something dark and sinister lurks. In a soft voice, she asides, "That's K'. And he doesn't know stress yet." She. Is going. To. Kill him.
Still trying to mentally reconcile that a doctor is standing in the living room, Whip tries to search herself for just a modicum of mental clarity. Quick to reiterate herself, she starts anew, "But, really, I don't need a doctor. I'm sorry you had to come all this way, but I--" her eyes follow his case as he takes it off his shoulder, her voice faltering momentarily, "--I really don't need it. Despite whatever my brother said."
So hasty to shoo the poor doctor back out the door, Whip doesn't even realize what she may have just blurted out. "I'd be happy to reimburse you, whatever you charge a house call--"
The young Miura's own blush eventually fades with the more awkward social context. Miserable? Well, that's only because Miura hasn't had a chance to do a full exam! And he might never be able to, from the looks of that face. For every ounce of red in her blush prior, his own drains, as he breathes in ever so slightly at the force of the young lady's fury. "N--Nyaaa~~." Scary!
He feels bad for the guy what comes home today.
If Whip had pressed Issei any more, Miura might have had to tell her that more accurately he /stole/ the key off of him in a scuffle. Not that what Issei tells her will ever matter in the long run; K' has never seen his face before. That smiling slightly hyper expression across his face is soft now, not entirely beyond mischief but also, there is a mark of pity in his eyes.. for someone hurt?
It's not that Issei is particularly prideful about his art--it's mostly just an act--it's that for some reason, he really, really needs to help people. And not just the little old ladies and hypochondriacs that come into the office. He could care less about those folks, but there are guys out here in the real world who are *really* *suffering*. Soldiers like Whip, who wear their pride on their sleeve and suffer through a thousand cuts if it protects their ideals. Artists and shinobi who hold their honor so tightly that they do not burden 'the system' with their pains. He cannot feed every hungry child, he cannot house every man, that's not what he was born for.
He sets the medical chest down.
"Hey... it's alright. You don't have to be afraid anymore." :)
Miura moves deceptively quickly when it comes to it. In a step or two, it's done. Just when did he get that close? "It's okay," he soothes gently, suddenly dead serious. He is, in fact, close enough for Whip to _feel_ the warmth of his breath. His eyes can be seen in this case, a warm radiance of dark brown. The slightest twinkle there--there is still belief in this young man in imagination. In dreams. In ideals. "Sometimes for our kind, suffering is a necessity. We have to be strong in troubled times.. but.. that doesn't mean we can't rely on eachother .. nya?" He heard what she had said. "You are lucky to have a brother who would care about you.. that much." There is a twinge of truth to his words, of something that is not sheltered beneath a facade of mischief and bluster. He smiles slightly. "It just means you're not weak, you know?"
"I won't hurt you. I can't.."
His hand slides low. If Whip allows him for even a moment, his bared fingertips will feel along her ribcage, lightly touch on the fabrics at her side and the bandaging underneath. His hands are rough, as if from an age of handling tools that children should never have to handle. He looks for the source of her injuries, based on the sides that she favors. If he can just touch her for a moment or two.. the gentle warmth of chi will bloom there.
"I just.. need to know you're going to be alright."
The idea. The very concept of Miura's nature comes from a warm sunny place where there is no pain, no misery, no shame. He needs to touch her, to know she's alright. He cannot feed every child, or house every man.
But he can help with wounds. Both new and old.
Whip's obvious fluster grows worse by the minute. She's alone, she's disarmed, she's partially undressed, and she's wounded, deeply, greviously wounded, and looks all what she prides herself never to become. She's been intruded upon in the most discomforting of ways, and the worst of it all is that her mysterious, medical interloper is being far too sincere, far too /nice/ for her to even consider anger.
Outrage is genuinely the farthest emotion from her now, undoubtedly to the young woman's great disadvantage. Without it, she's left prone to be consumed by her unsocialized, awkward nervousness. Ever so contrary to a soldier, Whip almost seems shy.
When she's gently, compassionately accused of being afraid, Whip tenses to properly look the part, her soft features paling with dismay. Deciding automatically that she feels too exposed, that she needs to stand up, Whip is reaching for one of her two crutches as she interjects: "I'm not--"
But Issei Miura is fast. She has only extended her arm and he is already there, dangerously close, his soothing presence stepping past her guard and walking purposefully all over her personal space. Despite all her kindness and good etiquette, Whip is something of a guarded person, and that fact shows clearly on her face. She is shocked and wary to find the doctor suddenly there, but a breath away, her expressive face revealing all. Her pupils are dilated. Her jaw is tight. And her cheeks are probably going to be stained red for weeks to come. Holding her breath, she's as still as corpses, unable to move, too afraid to -- not knowing what would happen if she did.
Unable to help but just stare back into Issei's eyes, the look in them holding her immobile as though his nurturing gaze was holding a knife to her throat. Whip has never seen anyone stare at her like that. She doesn't know what to do. She also doesn't want to look away.
It is the feel of his hand on her that breaks her bewildered, beguiled reverie, and the soldier reacts immediately to it, her spine going straighter than a rifle. The pain is sudden and sobering, its grateful familiarity almost enough to center her in all this strange confusion... but soon even even that eye in this storm passes, as she realizes he's touching her... and it feels nice. Warm.
Swallowing thickly, trying to breathe carefully through the sensation of chi. She's felt it on her body so many times, all of them violent, all of them agonizing, and none of them like this. It's starting to feel very good, and Whip is warring with herself now, one side of her tense and timid, and the other so desperately wanting to relax. Her eyes mirror so many questions that she wants to ask, though, in the end, her lips move with only one, her voice broken down to a murmur: "...Who are you?"
"Someone like you deserves this much."
He stands with her.
The internal energy flow of Miura is clear and constant. Chi can destroy, but it is best used to create. Concurrent with her, he moves. He tenses as she does, moves as she does, though at least at first, his movement is always in an opposition. Contrary. For her straightening, he softens, for her tension, he soothes. His voice is a cool breath, easy but rich in the concern for a patient who needs -- real -- attention. The warmth of his touch is based on his spirit--like K', Issei heart is like the fire. It is a passion immeasurable. There is something he wants to pursue of the young woman, a pain deep within that he'd like to know the source of.
He attains that touch, as he needed. In doing so, in spreading the warm bloom of charity and that need, he knows her. He feels her as deeply as he can through that wound. Most fighters of her class have a kind of aura that stops those kinds of things, but he can feel that weakness, the light pulse of his chi penetrating as surely as his fingertips can ambiently feel her heartbeat. "There.. there it is," he whispers, sotto voce. His lips are only a set or two from the curve of the young soldier's face, his eyes /that/ much closer for it, looking away for only a moment as he feels the depth of that injury from his own chi. "It's a little cold still," he realizes, a little shocked. "It must have been agonizing."
Something about that bothers the rogue medic. It's surprising, even to him.
The next is not his strong point. You see. He is only the vaguest study of pressure points. He is familiar with two he tirelessly works now, just below her chest and above the wound. Another, at the nexus of her collarbone and shoulder on the opposite side of her, a calming point touched with the opposite hand, something that will help with the wound in her chest. There are some who could kill with a touch. The best he can do is perhaps relieve pain, to nurture the natural process. To hear and to respond. If he had his tools at the ready, he could do more. But such a thing is not possible now. The warmth of his chi is like the spring sunrise. At the distance he uses it, it touches. It awakens. And he does his absolute best to make sure she knows the extent of his ability therein. At this point, he knows. Those tools at his disposal are not usable without giving rise to that poisoning anxiety. To hurt instead of heal. But, he can do his best with what he--what they--have right here. He looks quickly to the reflection in her eyes, the question on her tongue. He blinks in comprehension.
His smile is faint, a faraway thing, even sad to the eyes of some.
"It isn't important. I am someone who lost my everything a long time ago," he answers.
"I just need to make sure they are never forgotten."
His move is contrary to her own. As her pain fades, he.. takes it as his own.
Fingertips lifting slowly from the warmed skin beneath them, his hands.. slowly break contact.
"Er." A pause. "I.. I'm sorry." His voice is small.
"..nya?"
'It must have been agonizing,' he says, and her gazing eyes, unable to look away, pinch minutely at the corners. He's right. It was. It is.
That weakness circulates through her, transcending far beyond any physical aches. Whip has spent the last many days hurting in more ways than the obvious; her incredible loss to Kula Diamond has weighed down on her far more than she ever thought possible, and Whip did not see it as miraculous that she narrowly escaped death, instead something far more troubling. She encountered the girl intending to prove her worth more than some hollowed-out amnesiac or some obedient soldier; she wanted to fight as an avenging sister, someone's protective family, and finally fight for something that her very blood begs her to do. The fact she failed has made her question her worth, and her lingering injury all but forces her to marinate in her doubt with every step.
But now the pain is fading away.
It is with an indescribable look that Whip stares at Issei, her brown eyes rounded and locked on his, her shocked staring reflecting every pulse of his healing chi. Her fights conditioned her body to loathe the sensation of chi. It was something that always hurt her. She would have never considered that chi could feel this good. And for someone who resisted the notion of a doctor, of treatment ever so persistently, Whip takes to healing like a natural, her body responding to the energy with a reflexive quickness not seen in normal bodies; hers is a different, strange genetic code that doesn't exist in nature. And it basks in this wonderful treatment.
Whip can barely concentrate on her own breathing, it feels so good. She doesn't remember the last time she allowed herself to relax, and she feels she's being forced to do it now on a molecular level. Her grim, constantly-thinking mind slows, and for once in weeks she lets herself think about absolutely nothing at all. Feature by feature, her face gentles, and the emotion soon drains out of her eyes. They start to shut.
And then those hands are taken away.
Whip draws open her eyes again, blinking, looking startled. Whether she is startled at the loss of sensation, or by her own slow disarming, or by the fact that her pains are now burned out of her -- it's hard to say. Perhaps it's all three. She breathes in quickly, trying to find her bearings, her attention torn between so many things. Eventually, the mysterious Issei wins out over all, and she watches him helplessly as he answers a question she doesn't remember asking.
Her eyes crease a little, confusion and emotion hitting her when he remarks on 'losing,' but Whip's frowning soon becomes distracted when she looks down at her own hands. Then her arms. Then the rest of her. She moves her shoulders but no longer feels the burning, stinging pinch of mending flesh. She moves again, and all she has are the ghosts of old aches. The worst she feels now is the itching of useless bandages.
She gawks at herself. Then she gawks back up at Issei Miura -- just in time for him to apologize to her. She starts at those words as though they had hit her.
"--Don't be sorry!" She replies, a little breathless, unsure of how to think. She's seen many things, but not a chi that can heal trauma. She feels strong. She feels like herself. She feels good. "Why wou--" Whip stammers, her eyes watering, "You -- you fixed me!"
One moment, she's just standing on the spot, all but flabbergasted. The next, she's winging herself straight at the doctor, not even thinking, just moving, trying to wrap her arms around him and crush her body to his.
It was surprising, even to Miura. The ability of his healing hand was not comparible to his skill with the blade and the salve. A improvisation, if you will, allowing him to know the depths of his charge's pain. The only thing he could use, in this case. But--it works. And it works with an unnerving amount of accuracy. Miura glances at his own hand, a question only he will ever really know rolling in his mind.
His technique was a method of pure 'relaxation,' raising the ambient temperature to soothe soreness, and using that to reinstate the natural healing process. An opening of the chi circulatory system, if you will. He could do it on himself, but normally it slowed his bleeding and eased his pain. This much was something he didn't account for. It is a thought that will preoccupy many of Issei's nights. Perhaps for her.. she is different?
Perhaps, to someone like him, perhaps it mattered enough?
"NYA--" Another moment. His recovery is slow for this much--he is pliant to her, as she nearly crushes him to her body, and his breath hitches in his chest, along with the ambient shift of shock in his frame as he flails pointlessly. She /is/ a strong one, isn't she? His cap tilts low on his head with the sudden motion. Without consent, Issei's eyes widen. For a moment and beyond the scope of what is immediate in that moment, he actually feels. -- Once he had a family. His was not one of abuse, but of compassion and dignity. He was a loved and cherished child. The warmth of her gratitude reminds him deeply of the warmth of his family and that sentiment, a long suffering thing he is rarely aware of.
His expression, accepting the period of distress, fades to a gentle acceptance.
"... I'm glad," he decides. His hand moves behind him, roaming briefly the cotton fabrics of his suit until his skin finds her own, a seeking touch that takes her hand in his. "When someone who is loved like you is hurt, the world is just a little worse off for it."
Then abruptly he shifts, to remove the gracious soldier's hand.
"Please.. don't touch me like that," he asks, softly.
"There are things I'm not meant to feel."
For someone who spent years as a ruthless, cold-hearted assassin for the Cartel, Whip sure knows how to hug. Inside her lean, long limbs, and small, light frame, there is a deceptive strength coiled in her, even when injured. It's probably something that came with her usual genetic code. But for the way her crushing, squeezing hug starts to ache around the corners, it's filled only with whole-hearted, grateful warmth.
She half-clutches, half-collapses onto him, so appreciative of what he's done for her, and so utterly unable to think of a way of returning the favour, short of clinging messily onto the poor doctor while her watery eyes make a wet spot of his shoulder. Issei Miura, whether or not he intended it, has just made a friend for life. Because Whip isn't even trying to let go until he's coaxing her to.
Her limpeting falters when he finds and takes her hand, and slowly -- and a little embarassedly -- she peels off of him, turning her face as her other free hand wipes distractedly at her blinking eyes. After a minute of composing herself, she looks back on him, her expression mollifying on the spot. She pauses, listening carefully to his words, and they seem to touch her in their own way. Her cheeks colour again, her face tormented again with encroaching shyness. She's never had a person tell her something like that before. She's not even sure what to say.
But Whip still tries. "I--" she starts, but her thought never gets to finish. Her hand is freed back to the air, dropping uselessly to her side, and she fixes Issei with a strange look. When he tells her not to touch him, at first she looks stricken and apologetic, thinking that she had inadvertantly hurt him... but it doesn't seem so. The context is different. Her face blurs with a momentary pang of suspicion, before it softens into a misunderstanding kind of confusion. She looks at him like she's not sure what he means at all, like it was said in a different language.
Things he's not meant to feel? But aren't people supposed to feel what they want to? Isn't that what freedom is? After all, she escaped the Cartel because her own feelings told her to. How could someone go on trying to ignore a part of themself?
"I don't--" understand, Whip wants to say, but doesn't. She's not sure if she should. Starting to feel strangely like a guest in her own home, she pauses then duly steps back, obligingly allowing the doctor his space. A frown starts to mix through all that lingering relief and appreciation on her face, but she still entreats, "I'm sorry. Is there... anything I can do for you? Anything you need?"
It's for _|_
you. ____ | / ____
|_ ( '.')_| [ ('.' );
/[____] |__\ /|____|\
| | | |
____ ____ ____
( '.')_|\___\ _('.' )
/[____] || | |____|\
| | | |
CRUSH desu!
____ \ / ____
( O.O)_<@> _('.' )!
/[____] / \ |____|\
| | | |
____ ____
( ^_^)_<@> ('.' );
/[____] /|____|\
| | | |
____ ____
(^__^)_<@> ('.' );;
/[____] /|____|\
| | | |
For two unaccustomed to the world's compassion, the affair was clumsy and heated. She clung to him like a doomed woman, and he--for a moment--had little idea of what to do. He only keeps balanced by virtue of some unseen well of agility, ostensibly from the questionable necessities of his job. Despite the obvious distress, he holds up well under the pressure. His frame is as lean as her own, but the soft cottons and drills of his outfit bely the wire tones of his body, not like the tradition of an office doctor. Regardless, he wobbles as she holds herself unto him in that embrace and he almost falls over the couch, drowning in the affection of the ex-cartel agent. Suffocation is an entirely likely fate if things continue on any further. As she presses into him, the somewhat out of element medic additionally finds himself acutely aware of just how healthy Whip actually is, in more ways than one.
Er, whoa.
The contact breaks and Issei is free to enjoy the air again.
The medic starts by straightening his cap in the brief silence that follows. He was not entirely sure why she acted towards him as she did, but he could make a few educated guesses. Tugging his shirt thoughtfully and straightening out the fresh wrinkles as if a far more fastidious man than he is, he is forced even to question himself, though the specifics of that question and the answer he comes to is not something Whip is ever likely to know, only a brief detached look in his eyes, something that moves further away from her. As if reflecting it physically, he turns, picking up the medical chest at the table. The movement is hardly a specific thing. It is an isolation of everyone, quick and long engrained in him, a reflexive thing at this point long bred into him. Subtle--it is just that look in his dark eyes, and even that is short lived.
"It's okay," Miura assures, close-eyed and warm. Lashes are the only thing that can be seen of what was formerly a sincere regard rendered in shades of dark brown, almost familiar like a brother, but the familial nature ends in circumstance--and of course, the burden that he will bear on the cartel assassin's behalf. It seems like he can taste the question floating on her mind, at that fragment of a question. "Forgive me. For what I have to do, there are no compromises in the world left for me. I need to see the world in this way," he apologizes and explains, finally shouldering the pack at one side.
"Besides. You'll kill me with one or two more of those, nya." Issei gives a weak grin. He thinks Whip broke something, and he's not entirely sure his breathing is back to normal yet. "I'm rather delicate, and I'd like to stay that way," he adds, though his tone is purely of mirth, in jest.
The seriousness returns. "Nothing... nothing you can do," he finally tells her. "Except be yourself. Your memory is enough for me," the rogue medic suggests, smiling wide and sparkling, mischievious like a cat.
He turns to take his leave.
Log created on 01:12:50 07/07/2008 by Seishirou, and last modified on 21:44:03 08/02/2008.