[Log] If I Begin.... Who: Dave Strider, Uchiha Itachi When: June 6th, early morning Where: The Dorms What: Dave and Itachi are rooming together...and neither are happy with the prospect. Warnings: Swearing Open or Closed: Closed Observable: No
Dave lay across his bed, dangled partially off and slightly upside-down. He had his headphones on, shirt rucked up to bare a lean expanse of pale stomach, bare feet pressed against the wall. He was humming softly, a child’s high clear alto, while the music blasting from his headphones was piano and guitar.
“Mmm, mmm....’cause I believed in the Lord....but He don’t show up anymore....”
His side of the room, in contrast to his single room, was surprisingly neat. There were still clothes kicked here and there, mostly socks, but there were no bowls or candy wrappers. There was an apple-juice bottle, half-empty, on the desk, and a crow patiently dropping sunflower-seed-shells into it. The window was, as always, wide open: there was another crow perched on Dave’s pillow, resting quietly. There were a few scattered down feathers on the floor, but no bird-mess.
“If a man can’t lie, how can he speak....”
After spending half the night trying to figure out if he was still real with Shisui, Itachi didn’t actually feel much better. He felt disjointed and shaking. He felt more like a concept of a person than an actual person, which was disconcerting. If you didn’t know if you were real, then what did you know?
Other than supposed cousins made nice pillows and nightmares were never going to be any kind of fun.
Itachi pushed open the door to his room, heard the noise, then froze. “Bloody ash,” Itachi swore with particularly dry feeling. “Of course it would be you.” Not that Itachi had anything really against Dave Strider, not really. They just seemed to rub each other the wrong way after a period of more than ten minutes, and Itachi didn’t feel like validating his existence by putting down small children for being idiotic teenagers. That and he was extremely tired, with a head-ache and a strong desire to be very still and quiet for a very long time.
Itachi walked over to his side of the room, which was very neat since he hadn’t been around. The sheets looked rucked up, though, and Itachi doubted Dave had done that.
“Muthafuckah!” said Dave in complete surprise and shot off his bed to stand ready... Oh. His roomie. He blinked at Itachi, then went into a casual slouch, reaching up to adjust his headphones, pulled askew around his neck, cord dangling free.
“Oh, I guess you’re done being temporarily dead,” he commented, nonchalantly.
See? Cool as cool. Nevermind the crow on his bed was chuckling.
Itachi jumped when Dave jumped, ending up crouched on his bed, the only good weapon--his pillow--in hand. Itachi did the mature thing. He threw the pillow at Dave.
“Yes, I’m done being temporarily dead.” Did everyone know about that? Had there been a public announcement about it? “If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep contemplating the uselessness of my current life and the sudden insignificance of death.”
It shouldn’t be a big deal, should it? He’d come back from it. He’d lived. Somehow, it still felt like a big deal.
Dave swallowed a yelp and ducked, snagging the pillow from overhead. Yeah, just a regular pillow. “I asked Chuck. And your freaky curly cousin came in here and fucked with your shit.” He bobbed his head twice, then lightly tossed the pillow back, to land beside Itachi.
“So don’t blame me.”
He sat on his bed again, found his iPhone in the covers, and plugged his headphones back in.
Itachi stared at his bed and then grimaced. Of course he had. Itachi caught the pillow instead of letting it land and smelled it. Yes, it smelled like Shisui. Well, maybe the nightmares would be less.
“Why did you ask...” Who was “Chuck” anyway? “Why did you ask if I was dead?”
“I asked where the hell you were, and after he freakin’ threw a bottle of gin at me he told me,” Dave answered, with a grimace. He flopped on his bed, propped up against the wall so he could watch-not-watch Itachi from behind his shades. “Chuck’s in a fuckall bad mood these days.”
He shifted tracks on his iPhone, and glanced at the crow on his pillow.
“Are you swearing to make a point, or were you raised with a bad example to follow?” Itachi asked sharply. He rustled through his things and found some clothes. He wanted out of the dirty scrubs he’d been rolling through the forest in.
Dave blinked. What? Oh.
“Uh. Never thought ‘bout it.” Adults swore. All the cool kids did. And it shocked when he cussed like a sailor. He’d picked it up on the internet and around the schools, and had never thought about it. Bro did - had sworn, but Dave didn’t know how much because they hadn’t talked a lot, really.
“Maybe you should put more thought into your actions.” Itachi paused to rub at the skin of his fingers with his thumb. The calluses weren’t right. They were softer and lighter now. Itachi scowled at this. His hands had always been covered in heavy callus as far back as he could remember. He didn’t like this. Itachi stared at his hand and rubbed his thumb over the pads of his fingers, trying to figure out how much he had lost and how long it would take to get them back.
“Well fuck you too,” Dave retorted, stung, and slouched deeper against the wall, turning his headphones up. Another crow flew in the window, circled the room, and dropped down to land on Dave’s upraised knee. It pecked idly at a worn spot in the black denim. Dave studiously ignored it and everything else in the room, though he did wonder what was up with Itachi’s hand and the way he stared at it. But not much! Because the guy was a jerk.
“You don’t take correction well, do you?” Itachi knew Dave couldn’t hear him over the racket of his music. Itachi cocked his head to listen to the growling noise coming from Dave’s headphones and frowned. It was better than listening to what was going on in his own head.
Dave flipped Itachi off.
“Case and point.” Itachi walked past Dave to the bathroom. This was going to be marvelous..