thenearshore | Absorb what is useful

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Absorb what is useful

Who: Sharak and Gojyo (guest starring That Damn Rooster)
What: Plot -- yelling about bad dates, to start
When: August 25th or thereabouts
Where: Temple Aditi
Warnings: Will update

[ A week of sink baths is all he can endure. At first he'd justified staying away from the temple -- or, more specifically, staying at the bar -- by citing all the repairs and work that needed to be done. The tables needed sanding. The plumbing in the ladies' was leaking. There was always inventory to process.

But eventually, he just had to admit it to himself -- he was avoiding going back to the temple because he was avoiding Sharak, and he was avoiding Sharak because she'd really hurt him. He'd trusted her. He'd really thought that they were, okay, not equals, but possibly maybe friends? Certainly there had been some mutual respect there, right?

Apparently not.

The more he thinks about it, the more he mentally pokes at that bruise, the angrier he gets (and he can't lie, a good chunk of that anger is directed at himself. Things Gojyo Knows About Gojyo: when he's hurt and betrayed, his instinct is to just take it, slink away, distract himself with the shallow friendships of the regular barflies for a couple nights. That's not the man he wants to be).

It's just dawn by the time he finishes cleaning up, and makes his way back to the Far Shore. Sharak will be up by now, he's sure. The damn rooster will be up, and therefore so will everyone else in earshot. And if she's not up, then that's fine -- he can wait. ]

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[That first night when Gojyo didn't come home, Sharak thought maybe the date had gone better than expected. Shizuo hadn't seemed the type to move that quickly, but it's not as if she asked him. She tried her best to stay out of Gojyo's head in general, but side from picking up a little tension early in the day he hadn't seemed to need her concern. Maybe things would work out after all.

The next night leaves her a little more worried. The next night a little more. By the following morning, it's fairly obvious that Gojyo's just avoiding the temple and therefor her. She could hunt him down and demand an explanation but... Well, Gojyo is an adult. He's not obliged to speak to her if he doesn't want to. If he wants to hide like a sulking child, that's his right as a grown man. Damn it.

She's awake by dawn, of course, the damn rooster won't allow otherwise, but she's still barefoot and toweling off her wet hair when she walks into the main room. She only glances at Gojyo when he enters.]

Should I have told him to have you home by ten after all?

[Okay, maybe she's a little annoyed.]

[ He spent the whole walk home -- and a good part of the last two days -- thinking about what he wanted to say to her. Should he be conciliatory? Aggressive? Should he try to show her how her actions hurt his feelings or should he just haul off and clock her in the face?

(He knows that last one is a terrible idea, but that doesn't stop it from rising to the top of his wish list every time he starts thinking about the whole stupid situation.) ]

I think you told him enough, don't you?

[ Damn. He really wants a shower. ]

Did I?

[She barely told Shizuo anything about Gojyo. Certainly nothing bad- okay, she did call him an idiot, but that's to be expected. So what did she tell him?

... Ah, fuck. And to top it all off, she can feel Gojyo's frustration on top of her own. Sharak takes a breath and drops the towel to the floor, taking a seat. Getting annoyed now won't help. She needs to be the calm one.]

I'm guessing it didn't go well.

Oh, you think?

[ Fuck conciliatory and rational. He leans back in his seat, arms folded, and fixes Sharak with a steady glare. (The intimidation power of the glare is somewhat muted by how frizzy his man bun has become, sadly. ]

You owe him an apology.

[She's going to kill Shizuo, the fucking loose-lipped idiot.]

Do I? For what?

[The intimidation power of the glare wouldn't have much effect anyway, whatever state Gojyo's hair was in. She already apologised for the brief confusion and told Shizuo he didn't have to go meet Gojyo. He decided to of his own free will, fully informed as to the circumstances.]

[ Nope, on second thought, this is a conversation best had standing. Standing and possibly shouting. ]

For treatin' him like a problem to be gotten rid of!

[ Yup, there's the shouting. Sorry, Celty. ]

If you're not into him, that's fine, but you didn't even respect him enough to tell him to fuck off! What the hell's the matter with you?!

[Absolutely not, Sharak is staying seated and calm. Possibly out of contrariness as much as anything else, but still. Her brow furrows at that.]

What the hell are you talking about? [What the hell did Shizuo tell him? Obviously about the mix up, but...]

I did tell him to fuck off. He thought I was asking him out when I was talking about you, but we cleared it up and I said I wasn't interested. [More or less. In a Sharak manner.] He understood fine.

[ Good. She can stay sitting, and he can pace like an angry tiger. ]

You know what he understands? [ He rounds on her, gesticulating angrily. ] He understands that the person he's been crushin' on for weeks thinks so goddamn little about him that she'd ask him out on a date for somebody else.

[ He taps the side of his face, right between his eye and his scars. ]

I bet he told you about his memory, too, didn't he? About bein' hit on by red-eyed monsters? And you sent him on a date with me?! Un-fucking-believable.

That's not- I don't think little about him! [There's a momentary flash of hurt on her face that is quickly covered up by a glare.] I didn't know, dumbass, and I said he didn't have to go if he didn't want to!

[It's not her fault, damn it! She didn't ask for him to start crushing on her! She thought they were friends!]

Yes, he told me, and I didn't think it was relevant. You're hardly a monster.

[ He dismisses her protests with a wave of his hand. ]

But I've still got red eyes! And it was a date, so I was still hittin' on him!

[ She said he didn't have to go. Is she fucking kidding? ]

You know why he went on that stupid date? To warn me about you. [ Yeah. Let that one sink in. ] You stepped all over his heart and his only thought was to make sure I didn't get hurt by you too.

[ Which... is a bit of a loose interpretation of the evening's events. But it's not entirely incorrect? ]

To make sure I know exactly how far I can trust you.

[What the fuck, Shizuo?

Sharak goes quiet at that, glaring silently up at Gojyo. It takes her a moment to finally respond, in a measured- if not strictly calm- voice.] I didn't exactly ask him to start spending his time staring at my tits, you know. I told him it wasn't going to happen and that he should drop any ideas he had otherwise, and I don't know what the fuck else I could have done that would have been kinder.

[Leading him on would have been exceptionally cruel.]

I don't know what the hell he thought you needed to be warned about, but I thought it might be better for him to spend some time with someone new. [Some more personable, nicer and prettier than her.] I'm sorry if it went wrong, I didn't know he had no intention of even trying, but I didn't mean to hurt either of you.

[ So she thought the best way to get him to stop being interested in her was to send him on a date with a) a guy, who b) looked like one of his nightmares?

Oh my god, Sharak, hearts don't work that way. ]

Well, you did, okay? [ A brief pause, as he remembers that this is about Shizuo, not him. ] So how're you going to make it up to him?

[Look, she tried.]

I told you, we already talked. It's fine.

[Except Shizuo's been avoiding her for even longer than Gojyo has. They'd ended the conversation positively, so she's not quite sure why.]

... If he's hurt, he's hurt himself. I didn't have anything to do with it.

[ ...No, no, this is definitely the right point in the conversation to give up on words and just sock Sharak in the mouth. She's his god ~~and she's a woman~~, but this is for Shizuo. Poor stupid broken Shizuo... who Gojyo also plans to sock in the mouth next time they meet, but that's not important right now.

What's important is that Sharak just blithely wiped her ass on some poor sap's heart, and then blamed him for feeling the pain of it. That's not acceptable. So without another word (other than a frustrated kind of sigh), Gojyo hauls off and swings a hard left right at her face. ]

[Gojyo's punch makes contact and knocks Sharak onto her back. She stays there for a moment, before slowly getting her feet, bangs masking her eyes from view.

Then in one quick move, she hooks her foot around Gojyo's ankle and tackles him, ready to take him to the floor and punch him right back.]

[ He takes a step back when she rises, shoulders dropping and hands slowing coming up into a defensive pose -- he's not a complete idiot, okay -- but even then he's still not fast enough to stop her from knocking him down.

He hits the floor hard, and then she hits him even harder, nearly knocking the wind out of him as she tackles him. He punches up, kicking to try and roll over and dislodge her... and because, okay, yeah, this is just a brawl at this point. ]

[It's a brawl and as comfy as the Temple of Aditi strives to make it's floors, they're still not kind to people being knocked down onto them or rolling around fighting on them. Which is what's happening, as Sharak and Gojyo both struggle to come out on top, punching and kicking each other and damn, using nails is probably dirty fighting but that's never slowed a Sanzo down before.]

Goddamn fool-

[Gojyo manages to dislodge Sharak from on top of him, but she keeps hold of his jacket and works on embedding her knee into his gut anyway. Well, this is still better than the last time one of their disagreements came to blows.]

[ They really should have more arguments on level ground. Better for everyone.

Sharak scratches him, and Gojyo unapologetically pulls her hair. It's a classy fight between two professional combatants, that's for sure.

But that knee to the gut ends it. Gojyo turns white, and rolls off her with a stifled gasp, struggling to catch his breath. He's swearing at her the whole time, but with the wind knocked out of him it's mostly just pathetic squeaking sounds. ]

[Sharak gives Gojyo one last, ineffective kick as he rolls away, trying to catch her own breath. So long as he stays over there, he's welcome to keep trying to swear at her.

Still, hair pulling was crossing a line. She runs her hand through her hair, pulling it out of her face, before her hand moves to her jaw. Damn, that's going to leave a bruise.]

... Next time someone asks me for romantic advice, I'm telling them to shave their head and join a temple.

[This is not fucking worth it.]

[ He can almost catch his breath. Almost.

Gojyo rolls over onto his hands and knees, head hanging down, and finally manages to suck in a half-lungful of air. It's shockingly cold, cold enough to make him cough. ]

Next time you give me romantic advice, I'm shavin' your head.

Not a good look on me. [What. Sharak shakes her head and sits up.] Don't worry, it won't happen again.

[Anyway, to be fair, she didn't give him advice. She just threw a hot blond at him and trusted him to work his own magic. Granted, he probably could have used a heads up about the exact circumstances, but how relevant was it? Surely ignoring the whole thing was the better option.]

... Look, I don't know what the hell Shizuo thought you needed warning about. All that other crap- [such a touching description of a man's feelings for her] had nothing to do with you, I didn't even know about it when I suggested you.

[ Wait, hold on... ow. Did he hear that right? ]

He confessed to you after you set us up?

[ That is not what Shizuo said. He may have gotten himself very very drunk by the end of that date, but he was stone sober at the beginning, and he's damn sure that Shizuo, in fact, implied the exact opposite.

Which really means only one thing. ]

I'm gonna kill him.

Don't, it won't be at all satisfying.

[Shizuo is too much of a punching bag for that. And he's still kind of Sharak's friend. She waves her hand vaguely.]

It all kind of happened at the same time. I told him I could get a date for him, he was happy, we planned it out, he realised I didn't mean with me- how he got that impression to start with, I don't know- and then he "confessed". I turned him down and since he didn't seem that heartbroken about it, suggested he meet you anyway.

[Seriously, she doesn't think Shizuo's honour needs defending as much as Gojyo thinks it does. It's not as if Shizuo was seriously interested in her.]

I told him he didn't have to, but he said yes. I didn't hold a gun to his head or trick him into anything. [Brief silence.] ... But I'm sorry I let you get involved.

[Gojyo may deserve an apology for all this. Shizuo doesn't.]

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