That might be the most ominous thing Sharon has ever had come through the Murmur—no context, no warning, just... that. It leaves a tight, restless edge under her skin, sharpened by the lack of sleep she's been running on thanks to the Sundowning. Still, she assumes he'll knock when he gets there—if he's actually coming.
He doesn't.
She misses the faint scrape of the lock being forced, only realizing he's inside when his voice echoes up through the hollow, three-story building. She's moving in seconds, taking the stairs two at a time, bare feet slapping against freshly mopped floors. She's still in her pajamas, soft gray, splattered with paint that's long since stopped pretending to be accidental. ]
What the hell, Seishirou? [ She hisses, blue eyes shadowed with that sleep-starved violet, arms folding tight across her chest. Her bleached hair is a frizzed mess, barely tamed. ] Most people knock before they come in, dickbag.
[ Hell, most people ask if she even wants company—never mind that she doesn't exactly extend the same courtesy. Then she spots the boxes. Bright blue. Familiar. ] Did... did you bring me macaroni and cheese? [ Her voice softens, confusion slipping in around the edges. Sir, what the hell is she supposed to do with you? ]
( My, my, isn't she in rather a state. And hardly hospitable, though Seishirou, eyes wandering up and down and carefully aside, will heroically battle the impulse to point out the obvious. There is a greater challenge afoot: his stomach, already unhappily summoned to attention.
He waves the provisions like a white flag, billowed. )
I thought, since you're cooking — ( Ad hoc, a loose and noodly idea suddenly gaining solidity. ) I'd be remiss not to provide the ingredients. Bad form, isn't it?
( Look at him, picture of innocence and bright-eyed enthusiasm, a taller and darker Caelus in designer. The wonders of his misplaced joie de vivre will surely never cease. And hadn't she offered? Did he misunderstand? It's surely not Seishirou's fault for mistiming his blatant attempt to snoop into the innermost lair of a young woman who's made it her business to dissect his own. If anything, he has been faultlessly cordial. )
Is now a bad time? ( She's alone. She wouldn't be so leisurely untimed in her theatrical displays of indignation, if she weren't. ) Are those boyfriends here, after all?
[ Irritation flashes quickly, sharper than usual. ] Bad form is showing up without an invite. [ She mumbles under her breath, already turning to lead him into the wide kitchen. The counters are mostly clear, save for yesterday's dishes, and she gestures for him to set the boxes down. The light clicks on, warm yellow, and she sets to work—filling a pot, hauling it to the stove, letting the water start its slow climb to a boil—before turning back to him, eyes narrowed. ]
What kind of girl do you take me for? Boyfriends? [ She scoffs, folding her arms tight across her chest. ] Freddie's out, Arthur doesn't live here anymore, and I have a girlfriend—not a boyfriend. Try to keep up, Seishirou. [ The old man is behind on his information—not that either of them really cares enough to fix that. ]
Did you seriously come all the way out here just to have me cook for you? [ Brow arching beneath the frizzy mess of her bangs. He's lucky it's early, and that she hasn't eaten yet. ]
( Arthur, Freddie. And a girlfriend, not a boyfriend. Well, well. Sharon da Silva is certainly a woman of the world, of the times and of unminced words. Try to keep up. Perhaps if he weren't the beat-by-beat victim of a speeding freight truck of information's screeching derailment. If he looks down (refuses, not while water-wet's still humming its way to a boil, and the household's gritting its teeth before Sharon's ruthless exploration), he'll find a casualty number of his shirt. Why, there, just where his heart should be.
For now, aggressed by the slam of pots and the tinny echo of water accruing, and the hiss of threadbare gas infrastructure feeling along the flame — he only retreats strategically, back to a counter, fingers grasping it behind himself. Steady. )
Mostly, I came to point and sometimes laugh. ( He has certain expectations of her domestic prowess that the jungle of her kitchen is doing little and increasingly less to dissuade. Yesterday's dishes are a neon-printed slur against his sensibilities. He shakes his head. )
Who's the girlfriend? ( Of all the times in all the world to desperately need a ciga — ...no, his fingers are sliding in his pockets, his glance is sending a pathetic prayer for the obsoletion of the waiting fire alarm, and he shows off the pack, crisp and clean. ) Do you mind?
You need a hobby. [ Pointed and unimpressed. Being laughed at, truly laughed at, has never sat well with her. She's had more than her fill of that over the years. Teasing? Fine. Even a little playful jab, she can roll with. But outright mockery? No. That, she doesn't tolerate.
She turns to the cabinet, pulling out spices one by one—smoked paprika, garlic flakes, onion powder, ground mustard—lining them up with practiced ease. ] Jinx. [ She answers without hesitation, unbothered by the admission. Things are strained right now, sure, but she knows it won't last. When he asks the next question, she spares him a quick glance and gives a small wave. ] Go ahead.
[ Freddie might complain about the smell, but that's a problem for later. She can air the place out if she has to. ]
Tea? [ She's already filling the kettle, whether he answers or not. ]
( Jinx — and his brows pulse, perking up, gaze fleeting distant with the sort of traumatised alarm that becomes a man repeatedly submerged in the particular brand of explosive chaos perpetuated by Silco's daughter. She's... a firecracker, burning at both ends. A knife with no true hilt, only a blade biting.
And Sharon da Silva has decided to make herself a target. Well, well. The world has plenty of prospects for open wounds and good Samaritan, both shaped to receive the embarrassment of riches of Seishirou's huffs of amusement. Why ask, if she's already filling up the kettle's tank?
...and why did he ask, if he's already lighting up his cigarette, permission barely grazing his awareness, sleek wafts seeping serpentine in the kitchen? He's more relaxed like this, enshrouded in his addiction, certainly — and past it, in the fetters of his habit. )
Certainly. ( For posterity. ) Truthfully, I didn't think you'd be the sort to trust a crowd. ( To live with. ) Or a partner. You're softer than you look.
[ Sharon leans back against the counter once the kettle's set, the quiet hiss of heat building around her. Steam starts to curl up from the pot on the stove, slow at first, then gathering—molecules knocking into each other, building toward something more. A small, ordinary prelude to a loud, neon-yellow kind of breakfast. ]
Disappointed? [ Easy but edged.
Softness isn't something she's ashamed of. She holds onto it. There was a time she didn't get to be soft—didn't get to love, or be loved, or have anything at all. Sharon is soft now, softer than Alessa ever got the chance to be, and she's not giving that up. ]
I like being loved. I like trusting people. [ Like it's simple, like it should be. ] You go long enough without it, you learn to hold onto it when it finally shows up. [ She flashes him a sharp, almost teasing smile. ] You should try it sometime.
( Cocky. Ill tempered, mouth molten, her air like every cat that's caught the canary and swindled it into MLM euphoria and death by a thousand, increasingly more desperate and guilt-tripping cuts.
There are types of carnage every kitchen should be spared from. Blood that shouldn't join the counters, because it's thick and careless, pooling on Sharon da Silva's lips. This is youth, he supposes, a kaleidoscope of every glittering instance where a pretty thing ephemerally thought she knew all about life's secrets, trapped between her greedy fingertips. )
Who says I haven't? ( Love is — and a moment, artlessly bidden, while he starts the hunt for any especially neglected small dust-burned bowl to be assigned the unenviable task of ad hoc ashtray. There, this marble caviar severware. )
I suppose you simply give off the impression of a woman facing off against the world. ( Alone, implicit and complicit. ) There's... an anger about you, sometimes.
( Of the tall, dark and polygonally challenged variety, now and then. )
[ He reaches for some poor, dust-coated bowl and turns it into an ashtray without a second thought. A sigh slips out of her, edged with faint irritation. Smoke curls lazily around him, the ghost of his burning nicotine lover, while heat gathers thick and damp around her from the simmering pot. ]
The devil, I think. [ The answer comes with a sigh and a shrug, as if uncertain. Her gaze drifts, thoughtful in a distant, uneasy way. A man who doesn't know what to do with sympathy probably has no idea what to do with love, or trust... maybe not even hatred. The thought lingers longer than she wants it to. Is love even something he's capable of? Subaru had his heart in his hands, but... She's got a feeling it might've been literal.
She watches him for a long moment, eyes narrowed, expression drawn tight with something she doesn't bother to hide. Then her head tilts, shoulders lifting in another careless shrug. ] Because I have, and because I am. [ There's weight there. A beat follows before something breaks loose in her chest, a laugh bubbling up. It spills out breathy but is cut short. ] I am so angry all the time, Seishirou.
[ Her hand comes up, pressing flat against her chest as if she could steady whatever's churning there. Her fingers curl slightly into the fabric, gripping. ] Some days, I swear it feels like I could just throw it up and set the whole world on fire with it. [ But she doesn't. She won't. She can't.
She turns her attention back to the stove. The water is bubbling steadily now—not quite a full boil, but close enough. She reaches for a box without hesitation, tears it open in one clean motion, and pulls free the packet of powdered cheese. The noodles follow, scattering into the pot as she drops them in, and she leans forward just enough to hit the timer.
As long as you don't start with my — ...meal. ( Dinner. Slip of the tongue and a silver morning's sky to betray him. But he wrested back a confession on the tips of well-booted toes. There are greater tragedies afoot than Sakurazuka Seishirou's progressively noxious nocturnal schedule.
And she's angry, is she? So very angry. And few things more earned in modern society than female rage. If he flinches, indiscreetly swerving his cigarette-bearing hand firmly away from her, it's to spare them both the agony of any last-minute nostalgia for home-brewed arson.
The box of mac and cheese, only mildly sodden, is decapitated with a tearful screech. He watches the noodles go in, stares down the boisterous neon perversion of a powder whose closest connection to cheese must have been a factory worker, murmuring the word fondly in the night; and he shudders, drawing more solace from a drag, pretending he is too grown of a man to be startled by this theatre or real-life culinary horror. )
Are you Sharon da Silva because you're angry, or you angry because you're Sharon da Silva?
[ Meal, he says, but Sharon catches the hitch, the word he almost chose instead before reining himself in. Careful. Controlled. He's the kind of man who knows exactly how to smooth over his own edges, isn't he?
She stirs the noodles with a wooden spoon, making sure they don't clump as they soften. Soon they'll be ready—powdered cheese, a bit of seasoning, a splash of pasta water to pull it all together into something thick and passable. No milk, no butter, but Seishirou has likely swallowed worse than anything she could make.
His question pulls her attention back, blue eyes catching the kitchen's warm orange glow as she looks at him. She studies him for a moment, quiet, measuring. ] I'm Sharon da Silva because I decided to be Sharon da Silva. [ She finally says. ] And I've been angry a hell of a lot longer than Sharon has existed.
[ Sharon exists because of that anger, at least in part, but it was never just that. There were layers beneath it, things she'd never fully put into words, fear woven deep into the foundation. They wanted everything from her—body, soul, all of it. So she made sure they'd never have both. Never all of her at once. ]
( ...because she decided to be Sharon da Silva. Now, now. That's not something someone without options and a myriad of cookie-cutter PVC licenses might say. Is this the woman who learned to architect sewer dreg goop and package it as a would-be Italian meal derivative, light on the nutrients? Or was it her shadow?
He finds himself at once attracted to the knowledge and hesitant to approach it, a man before a bear, circling. She won't go for his hand, he supposes; he still withdraws it, turning the long even stretch of his back as he starts the chase for two passable bowls in their quaint little cupboards.
Sharing pestilence is caring. )
Who's the other girl? ( 'Sharon.' No. That's her choice. The best and final proposition. But there's at least one discarded draft. ) The one on the other side of the bottle blonde.
( Brassy, stiff, horrible little aesthetic torture to which her hair has succumbed with dutiful consternation. Not that Seishirou would ever presume to make the point. ) Why didn't she win out?
[ Sharon gestures toward the right cabinet, guessing what he's looking for, while keeping her focus on the pasta—easier to watch the slow swirl of it than risk looking at him and second-guessing herself. ]
It's not that she didn't win. [ She says after a careful moment of consideration. ] It's that we were never meant to be separate in the first place. Two pieces of the same whole. [ Her grip on the spoon steadies, voice quiet but certain. ] I'll always be Sharon, because that's who I chose to be—but Alessa didn't disappear because of that. She's still here. I'm her, too.
[ Too many years packed into a life that hasn't held nearly as many. Sometimes it presses in on her—the weight of it, the anger, the horror, the things she's seen and felt and done. Other times... it settles into place, like something finally aligned the way it was always supposed to be.
She finally glances his way. ] I'm whole, Seishirou. No one loses in that race.
( There are lines and crumbs between them, letters and drawl. He reads better than most.
We were never meant to be separate. This isn't the idle talk of a young woman bemoaning the loss of multiple identities or the splendour of their reunion. No pretty special ops package. No FBI bow. What, then? Multiple personality disorder? Exorcism? A consumed twin? )
Did anyone win?
( He crushes the twilight remains of his cigarette and turns his back to her, and it's a more strained gesture than before, tender and pallid. It's Seishirou recalling pretty palms and dainty fingertips still kill.
The bowls, rescued, clink and clank neatly in a two-part tower. He shows them off for her review, an obedient schoolboy recognising the authority of his better. Is the abstract floral print the right pick for the job? )
You'll forgive me for saying so. ( Because he won't stop. ) But Alessa isn't a name that suits you. I like Sharon better.
[ Did anyone win, he asks, and Sharon can't help the faint grimace that pulls at her expression. No, no one did. There wasn't a version of that situation where anyone walked away with a win, though the Order tried their very damndest. They didn't win, but they still managed to take everyone she'd loved from her.
Seishirou holds up the bowls like he's picking out fine china, and she gives a small nod, gesturing toward the drawer with the silverware. Spoons, forks—everything inside is heavy, well-made, the handles etched with delicate florals like someone once cared enough to choose them carefully. ]
Cool—me too. My adoptive mom picked it. [ She stops the timer just before it goes off, scooping out a bit of the starchy pasta water before draining the rest. The noodles go back into the pan, and she works quickly from there—powdered cheese, a splash of the reserved water, a shake of seasoning. ] I think it fits the blonde. [ She glances back toward him briefly. ] Sharon just... feels blonde, you know?
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Re: april | week 2
That might be the most ominous thing Sharon has ever had come through the Murmur—no context, no warning, just... that. It leaves a tight, restless edge under her skin, sharpened by the lack of sleep she's been running on thanks to the Sundowning. Still, she assumes he'll knock when he gets there—if he's actually coming.
He doesn't.
She misses the faint scrape of the lock being forced, only realizing he's inside when his voice echoes up through the hollow, three-story building. She's moving in seconds, taking the stairs two at a time, bare feet slapping against freshly mopped floors. She's still in her pajamas, soft gray, splattered with paint that's long since stopped pretending to be accidental. ]
What the hell, Seishirou? [ She hisses, blue eyes shadowed with that sleep-starved violet, arms folding tight across her chest. Her bleached hair is a frizzed mess, barely tamed. ] Most people knock before they come in, dickbag.
[ Hell, most people ask if she even wants company—never mind that she doesn't exactly extend the same courtesy. Then she spots the boxes. Bright blue. Familiar. ] Did... did you bring me macaroni and cheese? [ Her voice softens, confusion slipping in around the edges. Sir, what the hell is she supposed to do with you? ]
no subject
He waves the provisions like a white flag, billowed. )
I thought, since you're cooking — ( Ad hoc, a loose and noodly idea suddenly gaining solidity. ) I'd be remiss not to provide the ingredients. Bad form, isn't it?
( Look at him, picture of innocence and bright-eyed enthusiasm, a taller and darker Caelus in designer. The wonders of his misplaced joie de vivre will surely never cease. And hadn't she offered? Did he misunderstand? It's surely not Seishirou's fault for mistiming his blatant attempt to snoop into the innermost lair of a young woman who's made it her business to dissect his own. If anything, he has been faultlessly cordial. )
Is now a bad time? ( She's alone. She wouldn't be so leisurely untimed in her theatrical displays of indignation, if she weren't. ) Are those boyfriends here, after all?
no subject
What kind of girl do you take me for? Boyfriends? [ She scoffs, folding her arms tight across her chest. ] Freddie's out, Arthur doesn't live here anymore, and I have a girlfriend—not a boyfriend. Try to keep up, Seishirou. [ The old man is behind on his information—not that either of them really cares enough to fix that. ]
Did you seriously come all the way out here just to have me cook for you? [ Brow arching beneath the frizzy mess of her bangs. He's lucky it's early, and that she hasn't eaten yet. ]
no subject
For now, aggressed by the slam of pots and the tinny echo of water accruing, and the hiss of threadbare gas infrastructure feeling along the flame — he only retreats strategically, back to a counter, fingers grasping it behind himself. Steady. )
Mostly, I came to point and sometimes laugh. ( He has certain expectations of her domestic prowess that the jungle of her kitchen is doing little and increasingly less to dissuade. Yesterday's dishes are a neon-printed slur against his sensibilities. He shakes his head. )
Who's the girlfriend? ( Of all the times in all the world to desperately need a ciga — ...no, his fingers are sliding in his pockets, his glance is sending a pathetic prayer for the obsoletion of the waiting fire alarm, and he shows off the pack, crisp and clean. ) Do you mind?
no subject
She turns to the cabinet, pulling out spices one by one—smoked paprika, garlic flakes, onion powder, ground mustard—lining them up with practiced ease. ] Jinx. [ She answers without hesitation, unbothered by the admission. Things are strained right now, sure, but she knows it won't last. When he asks the next question, she spares him a quick glance and gives a small wave. ] Go ahead.
[ Freddie might complain about the smell, but that's a problem for later. She can air the place out if she has to. ]
Tea? [ She's already filling the kettle, whether he answers or not. ]
no subject
And Sharon da Silva has decided to make herself a target. Well, well. The world has plenty of prospects for open wounds and good Samaritan, both shaped to receive the embarrassment of riches of Seishirou's huffs of amusement. Why ask, if she's already filling up the kettle's tank?
...and why did he ask, if he's already lighting up his cigarette, permission barely grazing his awareness, sleek wafts seeping serpentine in the kitchen? He's more relaxed like this, enshrouded in his addiction, certainly — and past it, in the fetters of his habit. )
Certainly. ( For posterity. ) Truthfully, I didn't think you'd be the sort to trust a crowd. ( To live with. ) Or a partner. You're softer than you look.
no subject
Disappointed? [ Easy but edged.
Softness isn't something she's ashamed of. She holds onto it. There was a time she didn't get to be soft—didn't get to love, or be loved, or have anything at all. Sharon is soft now, softer than Alessa ever got the chance to be, and she's not giving that up. ]
I like being loved. I like trusting people. [ Like it's simple, like it should be. ] You go long enough without it, you learn to hold onto it when it finally shows up. [ She flashes him a sharp, almost teasing smile. ] You should try it sometime.
no subject
There are types of carnage every kitchen should be spared from. Blood that shouldn't join the counters, because it's thick and careless, pooling on Sharon da Silva's lips. This is youth, he supposes, a kaleidoscope of every glittering instance where a pretty thing ephemerally thought she knew all about life's secrets, trapped between her greedy fingertips. )
Who says I haven't? ( Love is — and a moment, artlessly bidden, while he starts the hunt for any especially neglected small dust-burned bowl to be assigned the unenviable task of ad hoc ashtray. There, this marble caviar severware. )
I suppose you simply give off the impression of a woman facing off against the world. ( Alone, implicit and complicit. ) There's... an anger about you, sometimes.
( Of the tall, dark and polygonally challenged variety, now and then. )
no subject
The devil, I think. [ The answer comes with a sigh and a shrug, as if uncertain. Her gaze drifts, thoughtful in a distant, uneasy way. A man who doesn't know what to do with sympathy probably has no idea what to do with love, or trust... maybe not even hatred. The thought lingers longer than she wants it to. Is love even something he's capable of? Subaru had his heart in his hands, but... She's got a feeling it might've been literal.
She watches him for a long moment, eyes narrowed, expression drawn tight with something she doesn't bother to hide. Then her head tilts, shoulders lifting in another careless shrug. ] Because I have, and because I am. [ There's weight there. A beat follows before something breaks loose in her chest, a laugh bubbling up. It spills out breathy but is cut short. ] I am so angry all the time, Seishirou.
[ Her hand comes up, pressing flat against her chest as if she could steady whatever's churning there. Her fingers curl slightly into the fabric, gripping. ] Some days, I swear it feels like I could just throw it up and set the whole world on fire with it. [ But she doesn't. She won't. She can't.
She turns her attention back to the stove. The water is bubbling steadily now—not quite a full boil, but close enough. She reaches for a box without hesitation, tears it open in one clean motion, and pulls free the packet of powdered cheese. The noodles follow, scattering into the pot as she drops them in, and she leans forward just enough to hit the timer.
Seven minutes. ]
no subject
And she's angry, is she? So very angry. And few things more earned in modern society than female rage. If he flinches, indiscreetly swerving his cigarette-bearing hand firmly away from her, it's to spare them both the agony of any last-minute nostalgia for home-brewed arson.
The box of mac and cheese, only mildly sodden, is decapitated with a tearful screech. He watches the noodles go in, stares down the boisterous neon perversion of a powder whose closest connection to cheese must have been a factory worker, murmuring the word fondly in the night; and he shudders, drawing more solace from a drag, pretending he is too grown of a man to be startled by this theatre or real-life culinary horror. )
Are you Sharon da Silva because you're angry, or you angry because you're Sharon da Silva?
no subject
She stirs the noodles with a wooden spoon, making sure they don't clump as they soften. Soon they'll be ready—powdered cheese, a bit of seasoning, a splash of pasta water to pull it all together into something thick and passable. No milk, no butter, but Seishirou has likely swallowed worse than anything she could make.
His question pulls her attention back, blue eyes catching the kitchen's warm orange glow as she looks at him. She studies him for a moment, quiet, measuring. ] I'm Sharon da Silva because I decided to be Sharon da Silva. [ She finally says. ] And I've been angry a hell of a lot longer than Sharon has existed.
[ Sharon exists because of that anger, at least in part, but it was never just that. There were layers beneath it, things she'd never fully put into words, fear woven deep into the foundation. They wanted everything from her—body, soul, all of it. So she made sure they'd never have both. Never all of her at once. ]
no subject
He finds himself at once attracted to the knowledge and hesitant to approach it, a man before a bear, circling. She won't go for his hand, he supposes; he still withdraws it, turning the long even stretch of his back as he starts the chase for two passable bowls in their quaint little cupboards.
Sharing pestilence is caring. )
Who's the other girl? ( 'Sharon.' No. That's her choice. The best and final proposition. But there's at least one discarded draft. ) The one on the other side of the bottle blonde.
( Brassy, stiff, horrible little aesthetic torture to which her hair has succumbed with dutiful consternation. Not that Seishirou would ever presume to make the point. ) Why didn't she win out?
no subject
It's not that she didn't win. [ She says after a careful moment of consideration. ] It's that we were never meant to be separate in the first place. Two pieces of the same whole. [ Her grip on the spoon steadies, voice quiet but certain. ] I'll always be Sharon, because that's who I chose to be—but Alessa didn't disappear because of that. She's still here. I'm her, too.
[ Too many years packed into a life that hasn't held nearly as many. Sometimes it presses in on her—the weight of it, the anger, the horror, the things she's seen and felt and done. Other times... it settles into place, like something finally aligned the way it was always supposed to be.
She finally glances his way. ] I'm whole, Seishirou. No one loses in that race.
no subject
We were never meant to be separate. This isn't the idle talk of a young woman bemoaning the loss of multiple identities or the splendour of their reunion. No pretty special ops package. No FBI bow. What, then? Multiple personality disorder? Exorcism? A consumed twin? )
Did anyone win?
( He crushes the twilight remains of his cigarette and turns his back to her, and it's a more strained gesture than before, tender and pallid. It's Seishirou recalling pretty palms and dainty fingertips still kill.
The bowls, rescued, clink and clank neatly in a two-part tower. He shows them off for her review, an obedient schoolboy recognising the authority of his better. Is the abstract floral print the right pick for the job? )
You'll forgive me for saying so. ( Because he won't stop. ) But Alessa isn't a name that suits you. I like Sharon better.
no subject
Seishirou holds up the bowls like he's picking out fine china, and she gives a small nod, gesturing toward the drawer with the silverware. Spoons, forks—everything inside is heavy, well-made, the handles etched with delicate florals like someone once cared enough to choose them carefully. ]
Cool—me too. My adoptive mom picked it. [ She stops the timer just before it goes off, scooping out a bit of the starchy pasta water before draining the rest. The noodles go back into the pan, and she works quickly from there—powdered cheese, a splash of the reserved water, a shake of seasoning. ] I think it fits the blonde. [ She glances back toward him briefly. ] Sharon just... feels blonde, you know?
[ Rose had the same blonde hair. ]