InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I say!"

Laura Moon (spitandviolets) wrote in vas_captio_rpg,
@ 2009-04-06 14:21:00

Entry tags:

!complete, day 03, l lawliet, laura moon, location: pharmacy/liquor store

Who: Laura Moon & L
What: Laura's returning to her "house guest" after a tangle with a nasty kitty.
When: Early morning, sometime around 6:00am or 7:00am by a watch.
Where: Bob McGillicuddy's Drug / Liquor Store
Rating: PG-13 for some gore / violence allusions
Status: Complete

There had been snarling, clawing, the gnashing of teeth. Laura had heard the best long before she had seen it. She had, in fact, felt it long before she had seen it. Its breath had been warm against her skin. Her superhuman speed had saved her from that blow. Just as Andy had warned her, it was angry. For a brief moment she had thought that maybe Sam was right; maybe she should have brought him along with her. Regardless, she was here now. The beast had found her long before she had found it. She could feel humans, but not carnivorous beasts of the forest.

The battle had been epic. She had left her cardigan back at the store, hoping that L might be able to use it as a pillow or something. She didn't even know him, but he seemed lost and tired, and she was glad that her home would be guarded for the night. She was dressed in a tanktop and a pair of jeans, all of it clinging tightly to her body. Loose clothing would have been a poor choice. The first half of the fight had been the two predators circling each other. It was uncertain who was the prey and who was the hunter. The beast seemed to not want to tangle with her much once it had got her scent. Creatures such as that had serious problems with dead meat, especially when it was walking and threatening their lives. It had made the first move, then, and that was what Laura was counting on. It had lunged at her, and as she weight far less than a normal woman of her height and weight, she had gone flying. Her body landed in a heap on the ground. She was mildly dazed by the attack, but less phased than a normal person. She paid, though, for being sloppy. It sank its teeth deep into Laura's shoulder, and with its jaws it began to thrash and pull. There was the sickening sound of bone crunching under razor teeth and powerful jaws. She did not, however, even seem to notice when the beast let go and, confused, prepared for another lunge. She had tried to use her right arm to get up, but while it still moved it would not support her weight. It, literally, was only half attached. This was going to make things a bit more complicated. In the end, however, she had killed the beast. She could punch with far more force than a normal human being. First she had dislocated its jaw; her left hook was nasty. After that it was a matter of killing it, which she had done with the assistance of a very hefty rock.

It had taken Laura a very, very long time to return to town. She was forced to drag the body, and she didn't want to leave it. Maybe someone could use it for food. It would at least provide proof that she had done away with the beast and that the citizens need not fear anymore. The sun was rising higher into the sky than she wanted, and though she was not tired it was difficult to maneuver. At one point she stopped, hoping to find out if L had stayed at her place; he did not need to see her like this. Unfortunately, it seemed that he was there and he was worried about her. Draping the beast over her shoulders, using it to hide the absence of an attached shoulder, she picked up the pace. Her muscles did not protest. Upon reaching the shop, she jotted another quick note to her impromptu roommate and entered. There was no sense prolonging the inevitable.

The dead woman stood in the doorway of the shop, a dead and bloodied cougar draped over her shoulders. Blood bathed her body, her pale skin dotted with, in the darkness, what looked like black. She looked around, plain as if it were noon, and she noted that her beer case was still empty and waiting for her. Her right arm hung limply by her side, while the left held onto the front paws of the animal. She had been warm for a moment, but the life had left it too quickly.

"L?" she called out in that flat, dead voice of hers. She was quiet, though, hoping not to wake him if he was asleep, which he probably was not. She had advised him to leave. Hopefully he had followed that. A few steps more in, she looked around again. "Are you still here...?"

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spitandviolets
2009-05-04 01:09 am UTC (link)

Jerked into some far away place, she looked at Ryuzaki but not at him, almost through him. "I looked inside myself. I saw inside of myself. And that was when it all made sense. I wasn't special. I wasn't unique. I was just as ugly as anybody else. And, truly, all of the trauma they found, all of the hurting, and the bruising, and the coagulated blood...Perhaps I was uglier than other people. After all, I sinned. I betrayed the only person in the whole universe who was unconditionally mine."

She fell silent, and the air in the room was almost stifling. It was like a crypt. The chunk of the stapler pulled her back to reality. She shook off her haze and looked at him. It was on the last staple that she was really herself once more. "Thank you," she murmured. She rolled her shoulder to test it out; the bone and muscle moved strangely. For now, though, it would do. And, possibly, it would have to do forever. She sat in silence. It was odd, carrying on a conversation this long and with someone this interested. Frankly, few things to say filtered into her mind. She waited for him to ask more questions, or to make more observations. In truth, she waited for him to give some sign that he was as there in the moment as she.

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inmyownworld
2009-05-04 04:06 pm UTC (link)

Even if society had rude names for people who felt more comfortable around those who were dead rather than alive, such names would not have bothered L. In fact, he might actually have felt comforted by the fact that such feelings had a name, that he wasn't alone. So much of his life was feeling alone, after all. Thinking the way L was beginning to about Laura... well, perhaps he'd ceased that tiring and oh-so-familiar process, for once.

"Yes.... I did. I don't see the unclothed form very often," he said, shrugging, trying to keep from sounding too terribly naive. It interested him that he actually cared if Laura saw him that way. He looked extremely interested when she mentioned her ankles, but then realized that it might have been meant as a joke. Though... he did hope that he'd get to see them.

He listened, fascinated, as Laura explained how her autopsy had gone, from her perspective. It was strange and interesting, and oddly... L stopped himself before giving it a name. But the contrast was something which drew his attention in a particular way. The idea of someone so peaceful and composed, with such violent things occurring, was something his mind could (and would, later) mull over for hours. "No... no uglier than other people," L said, after a moment of deep speculation. "But... have you ever thought of it in a way that makes you wiser, or more complete than others who didn't receive such insight?" he paused. "Most people go through their lives worried about what others think and say... they also see themselves as supremely unique, set apart from others. Regardless of what they claim, that's what they believe, with few exceptions. I met someone once, who said that the happiest day of his life was when he realized, for true, that he was really no one. I wrestled with the idea for a long time, wondering if it would free a person's mind or numb it with a sense of futility. I have never been able to think that way, anyway... I am either too arrogant to say that I am no one, or my mind is too weak to accept that as truth." There was a hint of admiration in his voice, as if to imply that he deeply admired a person who could get past pride and accept something so depressing. "Maybe I could have reached that point if, like you, I had been able to see myself pulled apart, treated as something inanimate rather than living. It must be infinitely profound. Perhaps I am saying this because I have no true concept of the experience, but I am somewhat jealous."

He set the stapler down, accepting her apology with another of his shy smiles and having no clue that the placement of the bones was odd. Approximately the same thing was running through L's mind; it was the first time in forever that he was actually, as Laura subconsciously put it, "in the moment" and enjoying himself. If he met someone who fascinated him, usually it was because they were someone who would soon be behind bars or dead because of him.

"Does that feel all right?" he inquired, reaching forward with a long, light finger to very carefully touch the staples. It didn't look very good, to L, but that was his own fault.

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spitandviolets
2009-05-04 06:53 pm UTC (link)

Something dark switched inside of Laura's mind. It was that tone in his voice, that sense of resignation, that he seemed to have given up, that touched her in a very profound and unsettling way. How could anyone romanticize death and dying and autopsies?

"It made me apathetic," she said, looking up at him very seriously. "Death makes you apathetic. There is no getting wiser, there is no acceptance. There is fact, and there is apathy towards everything except fact. I did not realize that I was no one. I was shown that I was no one. A woman, a woman who may or may not have been loved in her life, and I was reduced to nothing more than a meat sack. Flesh, and bones, and bandages, and bruises, and blood. That's all that I ever was. Any meaning that this corpse, my corpse, held, was gone. Meaning is all subjective. It exists because humans try desperately to deny fact, to make sense of fact. The fact, then, is this: there is no sense to fact. Fact simply is. My existence, at this time, simply is."

How should she go about wording the rest of her argument? It wasn't really an argument; she was stating to him how things simply were. Still, he was human and she was not. That made this a little more difficult for, as she said, humans liked to make sense of things. As a detective, he enjoyed such pursuits more than other people.

When he reached up to touch her shoulder, her hand lightly touched his. She shook her head. "Death is horrible. You gain knowledge, you understand why, but you lose it all. You lose yourself, you lose your feelings, you lose everything. That is why my situation is even worse. I do not know who I am. I do not know how to feel. I do not know what to be anymore."

"You can't ever give up. You can't ever decide that dying would be better. I don't care if someone is the most bland person in the world. I am not prejudiced about killing or about watching people die. Selfishly, I want them to die. I don't want to be the only one to go through it. But, inside, I know that no one will go through what I have gone through. People die, and they do not come back. Always remember that. Everything is lost and gone forever when you die. Everything. And I do not think that I could stand that thought about someone who seems to have so much."

For a moment she fell silent. "It feels fine," she replied, nodding. "Thank you for doing that for me. It feels much better than when it was hanging." Laura offered him a sad, lopsided smile.

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inmyownworld
2009-05-04 07:14 pm UTC (link)

Apathy and resignation were different, now that L thought of it. Watching Laura, he knew this beyond a shadow of a doubt. He wondered if it was a disadvantage or something else; he envied Laura's detachment, but noticed that she seemed sad despite the qualities he thought would come in useful. Perhaps even because of them. And the way she spoke of herself... it made L want to convince her otherwise. Odd, for him. Usually, he condemned such talk as self-deprecating and ignored it.

"Still... the idea of simply being, without other burdens... of knowing, even if you have to give everything up..." L paused. "If I live because I like to learn things, and death provides all the answers..." he knew where that train of thought would lead before finishing, and decided to hop off before it carried him over the edge.

"I understand. I won't give up," he said quietly, "even if I don't have nearly as much as I appear to." he gave the staples in her arm a final, gentle stroke with his thumb before rising and returning to the corner he had chosen to sleep in.

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