[ 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?
( All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't make that pan of atrocity palatable again. He flinches, for the first time a creature little past animal, made small by the vision of chemical death and intestinal decay writ in spindly noodles and amorphous goop.
He should hold himself to the standard of the Sakurazukamori's composure, to the lethal indifference of his forefathers. Should straighten in place (does), set his jaw (does) and resign himself to his mutinous, gory and painful murder (fails, on principle). He breathes, and it singes the inner lining of his throat, stings the inside of his cheeks, leaves him acris, frowning, put upon. )
Sharon feels like an open wound. ( No cleansing cloth, no antiseptic. ) Sharon is barely a person.
( Look at her, no better than Sumeragi Subaru, an ill-fitting equation that doesn't math out. Streets smart, but too well intended for worldliness. Few rough edges, but no class. No settling, but no ambitions. Wholly adrift.
And he nods toward the pot to make his final point - )
Sharon... should be incarcerated for wanting to put that on my plate.
[ An open wound. Barely a person. Sharon grimaces, recoiling somewhere deep inside her, as if he'd pressed those long fingers into that open wound. It doesn't show for long. Eventually, she lifts the wooden spoon, wet with offensively orange cheese sauce, and points it at him, words falling out flat. ] Careful, you're stepping into dangerous territory, Seishirou. A girl has access to your food, and we're known for poison.
[ She hasn't. She wouldn't—not him.
She ladles a heap of those toxic-orange noodles into his bowl, careless in the way it spills and settles. ] I'd offer you an illusion, maybe something you actually miss from home, but you haven't been very nice to me today. [ Another spoonful follows, generous to the point of excess, piling high before she finally turns to serve herself. The smile she gives him is saccharine, just a shade too deliberate.
He won't enjoy breakfast—somehow, that's satisfying. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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. ]
no subject
He should hold himself to the standard of the Sakurazukamori's composure, to the lethal indifference of his forefathers. Should straighten in place (does), set his jaw (does) and resign himself to his mutinous, gory and painful murder (fails, on principle). He breathes, and it singes the inner lining of his throat, stings the inside of his cheeks, leaves him acris, frowning, put upon. )
Sharon feels like an open wound. ( No cleansing cloth, no antiseptic. ) Sharon is barely a person.
( Look at her, no better than Sumeragi Subaru, an ill-fitting equation that doesn't math out. Streets smart, but too well intended for worldliness. Few rough edges, but no class. No settling, but no ambitions. Wholly adrift.
And he nods toward the pot to make his final point - )
Sharon... should be incarcerated for wanting to put that on my plate.
no subject
[ She hasn't. She wouldn't—not him.
She ladles a heap of those toxic-orange noodles into his bowl, careless in the way it spills and settles. ] I'd offer you an illusion, maybe something you actually miss from home, but you haven't been very nice to me today. [ Another spoonful follows, generous to the point of excess, piling high before she finally turns to serve herself. The smile she gives him is saccharine, just a shade too deliberate.
He won't enjoy breakfast—somehow, that's satisfying. ]