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Entry tags:

darker than black - yin

Action/Video;

[Wearing a jacket, beach sand behind her, Yin is well aware she hasn't been around for a month - she checked the network and noticed the date - but she doesn't address that. The video shows her stockings and shoes nearby. Unseen by the screen are her bare feet in the water.]

[Hei, July and Mao are likely getting visits from her specter as she runs this.]

[She might look just a slight more worn than she looked before her disappearance, but not many people would even notice that. You would have to have noticed she was looking down in the first place.]

For those that arrived while I was away, welcome to the City. I hope you have received sufficient information on your location and the situation you've been placed in. If not, the Welcome Center might still provide help.

[Yep, that's it.]

[Click.]

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[If he doesn't want to ask, Yin doesn't want to offer.]

[In his embrace, she leans against Hei, and the scents are noticed only because she purposefully breathes in. Against him, she steadies herself. As he kneels, wordlessly, Yin switches his hands on his shoulders as they switch from one foot to the next.]

[This is what she focuses on: thigh high socks, shoes, Hei, and his shoulders. Touch.]

[His words, while telltale signs and disconcerting in their own right, weren't nearly as loud as this simple action. Yin's eyes opened - enough to be called a widening - when he started, and as they continue on, she just stares at him, soundlessly.]

[ Hei keeps his focus on the roteness of the task. It's not tender, the way he goes about it (he's never tender), but it's not an examiner's touch either. Bodies are no mystery to him, not when he's been trained to view them as a network of exploitable muscles and nerve-endings. All that knowledge is still there as he tugs the stockings up Yin's left leg, then the right. But tiny details seep into his consciousness all the same. The near-imperceptible weight of her hands starfishing his shoulders. The slight scrape from the rough pads of his fingertips -- on the damp arch of her foot, her ankle, her calf. The bare skin against his palms catches his attention -- contrasts in color, temperature and texture, the bluish lines of veins visible beneath a nearly translucent paleness. ]

[ None of it is such a surprise -- she's City Dead, she's cold, and she's always been on the pale and delicate and small side. (Verging on scrawny, he used to think when he first joined the team.) But now her proximity strikes him with a mute astonishment, like touching expensive pages of folio parchment. (She is pretty.) He slips her shoes on methodically as the moment stretches out, and his chest starts to tighten again. It's a pang similar to paranoia, even though the place is almost entirely deserted except for them. But something's happening here and he's not sure what. Just that it has to do with Yin's wide eyes and her hands brushing his shoulders and -- ]

[ He stands up quickly, not meeting her gaze as he focuses on brushing off the sand from his pants. After a beat he slips his hand around hers. Tugs, light but firm, ]

Let's go.

[Despite all the lack of expression, her feet move fluidly, toes pointing to slip down through the thin stocking layer, her slender legs moving under Hei's fingers.]

[She's incapable of being able to understand if anything is amiss, but when Hei's eyes don't meet hers, she marks it mentally. And her eyes stay on him, even when his back faces her, Hei's hand pulling her along, Yin watches him.]

[It's brief, but on their way, she squeezes his hand, even if it's not strong.]

[ He answers the squeeze of her hand with a light press of his own. There's something relieved to it, but somehow apologetic too, as if his thoughts skittered briefly to places they shouldn't go. (But in the end, it's easy for him to shelve that aside. Hei's been compartmentalizing both the personal and the professional aspects of himself for years. By now he owns less of a mind and more of a honeycomb -- stocked with repressed ideas and emotions.) ]

[ The walk to Yin's place isn't long. Yet with every step he feels like he did when he was eleven, already a soldier-in-training, with his hands on an extra set of carbines he couldn't wait to take somewhere private and examine. Which is unkind, because Yin is no weapon, or even the tool that the Syndicate considers her to be. Not for him. But he still wants to absorb every iota of her presence, not knowing how long it'll last. ]

[ At her building, he fishes the extra set of keys out of his coat. Opens the door to usher her in. In the dead stillness of her apartment -- (yet somehow it feels less dead and still than Hei's own) -- he says, quietly, ]

Be careful with this month's curses. They seem to have extended to 48 hours, instead of the usual 24.

[ Just a reminder, that while he's glad she's back in the City -- it remains a cesspool of chaos. ]

[Even Yin considers herself a tool. One for Hei, though, rather than the syndicate. She has no loyalty to them, and she never has, either. Not that would care - Dolls aren't capable of being loyal or disloyal. Oh, wait.]

[Even she was aware Hei treated differently, even knowing what she was, unlike the people from the City. Even Mao had started to change, just ever so slightly. Her own mind flows with few thoughts, but the ones she has center around Hei, for the moment.]

[As she's whisked into her apartment, she feels another odd, new and muted sensation - the feeling of being some place familiar, but safe. A place to return to. Was this what people called home?]

[She listens to Hei's warning and nods her head. It means little to her. Longer lasting curses. They didn't mean anything to her to begin with, but what they might lead to, how they might affect her teammates, that all had to be taken into consideration.]

Have you been cursed? [She has to ask.]

[ By habit, Hei's monitored her apartment in her absence, if only because her few belongings were there (and on the off-chance, perhaps, that she'd show up again one of these days). Even so, he goes through a sweep of the interior on instinct. Nothing seems out of the ordinary, so he relaxes enough to settle against the wall, both hands slipped into his pockets, eyes on Yin. Unlike her, home isn't a word he associates with places --- can't, when he's faced deracination all his life. Truth be told, he doesn't think of home in conjunction to the people he's with either. ]

[ But what matters to him is knowing that these people know how to neutralize him as a threat, and vice versa. There's a trust implicit in that knowledge -- and it's more important than any sense of home ever will be. ]

[ Yin's question gets a pause. Not because he's gathering his thoughts, but because it's startling, the idea that she's curious enough to want to ask. ] Once. It was enough. [ Enough of a headache. Enough to know the City's system -- such as it is -- is out of whack. More gently, ] Will you be okay on your own here? Or do you want me to stay? [ He's asking her, but it's an assurance that's -- perhaps selfishly -- more for his sake than hers. ]

[ She's just gotten here. He has enough things to do, but for now he doesn't want her out of his sight. ]

[She isn't sure. The word - the feeling - is so foreign at this point. It could just be a comfort in the familiarity of it. The relief she's no longer in oblivion. Relief at all.]

[She didn't think he could escape the curses entirely, but at least it's only been once. She has no remarks for that.]

[At first, Yin gives Hei a nod to his questions. She will be just fine on her own - she always is. But she stops and gives his second question a verbal response, while her hand reaches out to his wrist.]

Stay with me. [Even if it's not long, and he has to go. Just for a time, it would be easier on her to have him remain. Just a little longer. Long enough to not to feel alone. Long enough to not listen to white noise fade in the background.]

[ She says, Stay with me, and he reads volumes of sentences compressed into those three words. It's enough to make him want to ask what sort of place she was in before. But -- No. It's enough that she's here. Enough that she's fine with having him nearby. Her fingertips are cool points on the skin of his wrist. His hand slips out of his pocket on impulse, so he can cover her hand with his. All this time he hadn't let himself dwell too much on the memory of it, the exquisitely simple comfort of being close to her. And now all that nostalgia tumbles out of the mind-closet he'd packed it into. ]

[ (But really, Yin always has a tranquility that appeals to him, especially given the volatile environment he's grown up in. It's more than a Doll's programming. It's her.) ]

[ Very gently, he squeezes her hand -- then tugs in the direction of the kitchen. ] I'll make you something warm to drink. [ Granted, she doesn't need to eat or drink. But that doesn't mean she has to be temperatureless and tepid either. ]

[It takes Mao longer than is wise to register their arrival in the apartment. He had fallen asleep in Yin's closet, hidden and curled up amidst her meager possessions. When his sleeping mind hears her voice, at first he thinks it's a dream (Contractors don't dream) or a fluke in his system.

When he realizes it's actually her, he jerks awake. He has no desire to run to her, of course, but he'd be remiss not to greet her.

Except somehow, while he slept, the closet door shut. He bangs his shoulder against it, trying to get it open, but it will not budge. Damn it!]

[While she doesn't need something to drink - and didn't care before - since her death in the City drinking warm things gives her a brief moment where she doesn't feel numbly cold. As a result, she nods to Hei.]

[At first she's dragged along into the kitchen, but at hearing a muffled thud, she pulls away. She doesn't bother telling Hei why, either, but follows the sound to her room.]

[With just about as much apathy as she did most anything, Yin opens the door, only to have her eyes widen again. Why was Mao in her closet? That didn't seem very...well, logical. Maybe Dolls just couldn't understand logic.]

[ No. Not logical at all. ]

[ Hei catches that dull thud the same instant Yin does. Follows her, narrow-eyed and alert, to her room. His hands slip into his coat pockets -- to the wires concealed there -- by instinct. Not that he thinks her closet harbors monsters; if anything his first suspicion is that there's a rat in there. When the door opens to disgorge Mao, Hei offers no reaction beyond a raised eyebrow. But inside he's mildly confused. ]

I didn't think you were the pining type. [ Sure, he missed Yin too. But he sure as hell didn't curl up in her closet like ... an ownerless pet. ]

[Sweet freedom! Mao leaps out of the closet, but refrains from showing his pleasure. (Perhaps if it was just Yin, but certainly not around Hei.)]

I was not pining. [That isn't the sound of affronted dignity you hear. No, he's just stating the facts.] It was simply comfortable. [He's had a feline affinity for small, enclosed spaces, even before moving full-time into the body of a cat.]

[When Mao says it was comfortable, Yin reaches into her closet and grabs the nearest shoe to prop the door open with. Then she reaches for Mao, intending to pick him up.]

[And, still without a word, she turns to Hei.]

[They can speak - or not speak - of pining all they want. It's not supposed to mean something to Yin that anyone did or didn't, so she can't be disheartened by the notion anyone wasn't. Nor can she feel touched anyone did. That's why she's trying to carry Mao, right, because she doesn't care.]

[ Yeah, Hei has an affinity for small enclosed spaces too. Just as long as they don't spring commitments and strings on him. He lets Yin pick the cat up -- unable to decide what's stranger. The fact that Mao was lollygagging in Yin's closet. Or that Yin picked him up without needing to be prompted. (Or maybe the strangest thing is the use of the word lollygagging?) ]

[ Slipping his hands into his pockets, he looks them over for a moment -- 3/4ths of the team, together again. For however long that might be. Clearly this calls for a celebration. ]

Tea.

[ As in he's making some. Maybe even milk in a saucer for Mao. ]

[It's beneath his dignity to be picked up. But Mao allows it, because nobody told her to do it, and that is...interesting. Disturbing, but interesting.]

[Yin nods her head to Hei. Tea is warm. And so is Mao. His fur is soft to her skin, a sign he eats well, according to nutrition facts on cats. Good.]

[She follows Hei, still in her jacket, silent and intent.]

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Action/Video;

action; I'm sorry I'm getting shorter over here

action; It's not the size it's how you use it >3 /shot

action; lol! No shooting

action; oh, okay ^///^

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