capeandcowllogs | of seeking

of seeking

WHO: demon midgets and sparkly psychics
WHERE: out and about
WHEN: 5/30, eveningish
WARNINGS: sparkles are impossible to wash out so yanno
SUMMARY: CLAUDE WHERE ARE Yoh hi hiei sup
FORMAT: No

Shaken and uncertain, it took a while for Soldier Blue to get his bearings. The chance meeting hours prior with Keith Anyan left him troubled, but not deterred. He had left the park with more than he had arrived with, but it was not what he was seeking.

Claude...where are you?

He was near the area where he had first come across the invisible man. Blue doubted he would be still there, but no stone ought to be left upturned. If he could just get a notion of the man, that would be enough. To know that he was safe and well would satisfy; he knew how Claude cherished his solitude.

Blue turned the corner, finding relief in the dwindling population. Night life was not as active on these streets--businesses and banks on the small patch of blocks were closed for the evening, so there was little for someone to find to do while passing darkened windows and locked doors. It made the going easier on the Mu, given the tiniest respite from the bombardment of thoughts and feelings around him. He was growing used to it.

Now, if he could just find that one mind...

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While the streets remained mostly unpopulated and Claude remained unseen, a familiar looming presence became apparent.

Hiei was standing atop a street light, perfectly balanced and watching with the street with only vague interest. He did not, of course, miss Blue's approach below; he was just waiting for the opportune moment to drop down and join him.

Hungry for that notion of familiarity did not blind Blue to Hiei's presence--it made it more sensitive, actually. His eyes lifted to the source as he walked, squinting to catch glimpse of the backlit silhouette of the demon from where he perched. How strange. No matter how far he went...

Blue stopped a few yards away, head still craned to the sight, waiting.

Hiei let Blue wait for a moment, letting the the tension build...at least in his mind. He always had possessed a minor flair for the dramatic.

At length his abandoned his perch, landing with the faintest of noises and making his way over to Blue.

"You're out late."

"Hello." Blue gave Hiei a respectful nod. "As are you."

"It isn't late for me." A chin tilt was all Blue received for his trouble; it could be taken as either a polite nod or an aloof gesture, and generally served as both for Hiei depending on his mood.

Tonight, he was leaning more toward polite nod. It hadn't been a bad day.

No wonder he slept so often during the day, then. Blue decided against an open comment on that, however. He was on a search, after all.

"I'm looking for someone," he said, though slowly, uncertainly. Claude was invisible. Even so, Hiei had that power of his...

"Can't find them with those powers of yours?"

Hiei thought powers was a stupid term, and that much was clear from the way he said the word.

A faint trace of distress flickered across his face. Blue glanced away towards the other end of the street. "I cannot. I've been searching, but...I have yet to sense him."

Hiei rolled his eyes, unseen. Sometimes people were so...predictable.

"You want me to find him for you, is that right?"

One could make seemingly considerable leaps and bounds with Hiei in the friendship department...yet observe no improvement whatsoever in his attitude.

A blink. "Ah..." Was that what he wanted? Blue wasn't certain he'd said that...Truly, it was only an explanation on his behalf for his wanderings. Uncalled for perhaps, but-- "I would appreciate the help, but it isn't something I would demand of you. I'm sorry."

Hiei straightened his posture, smugly rather than defensively. It seemed that once again Blue had hit the lucky combination for pleasing him instead of genuinely annoying him.

"Well, since you apologized so nicely..." he let that hang for a moment, relishing in his perceived victory, "...I'll have a look."

Still so, so strange...

Blue's head tilted just slightly with the small wonder of what had just come to pass. Only a moment, though; such things didn't last so long. "By land or air?"

Hiei sniffed indignantly. "If you can show him to me, we won't have to move at all." Hiei could view vast distances with the Jagan, no travel necessary.

"Is that so-?" Blue had little clue as to how that Jagan of his worked, save from that fleeting instance in the courtyard of the MAC. Hiei would know his own power, though, so the Soldier could accept that. He stepped forward with one hand lifted and outstretched, hesitating only a moment: contact always flung open doors for him, intentionally or not. Still, with his missing friend in mind, he placed the hand lightly, briefly on Hiei's shoulder, offering as true an image of Claude Rains--both the physical and mental makeup of him. Just a few, fleeting seconds and Blue's hand lifted while he looked down, curious as to how that Jagan would go about looking.

Hiei reached up and removed the his handband, letting it dangle from his hand as the Jagan pulsed blue, pupil aimed straight ahead.

Hiei's expression lost focus as he stared at the horizon, all his thought directed at the images he was receiving from the Jagan. It scanned the City, searching for a match to the image that Blue had given Hiei. Images cycled through Hiei's mind almost too quickly to be recognized--streets, parks, the insides of businesses and homes, the subway system...

After nearly five minutes of stillness, Hiei blinked and turned to Blue, frowning.

"He's not in the City."

It was not anything that Blue could comprehend himself; he could only stand, watch, and wonder. He stepped away when that power pulsed at first, uncertain. Throughout those long, five minutes, Blue said nothing, not wishing to distract or deter anything.

When Hiei moved, Blue straightened, attentive. The response, however...

"...I see." It was not what he had hoped for.

Hiei's eyes flicked from side to side, while the Jagan remained fixed on Blue. He seemed to be internally debating something.

"I could look further," he offered at length.

The notion was enticing, certainly. Blue looked ready to agree for a moment, keeping silent while he took time to consider. Claude was a man overly fond of solitude, it was true. If he was still in the world, still wandering, then...wasn't that fine? And the alternatives...

"If it's safe," he decided, frowning.

Hiei gaze drifted to the distance again as he let the Jagan look further, slowly expanding the search outside the boundaries of the City.

He was still for a long time--ten minutes, twenty minutes--after a while, he started to sway just a little. He was letting the Jagan have a lot of power and it was taking a bit out of him.

Finally, after almost an hour had passed, Hiei shuddered and refocused, though on the ground instead of Blue. It spoke silent volumes to Hiei's real trust in Blue that he let himself stand vulnerable for such a long period of time.

Blue hardly moved, though it was all he could to not to reach out and steady Hiei. But contact flung open doors; he couldn't interfere like that. Waiting was something he was well-acquainted with, but even so. It was a long wait. Perhaps it was wrong to accept that offer. If someone were to come by...well. No. He was Soldier. That wouldn't be an issue.

He was shaken out of his vigil just as suddenly, shifting forward just slightly with concern and interest. He wanted to apologize right away, but his concern was secondary. "Hiei-?"

"I can't see him."

Hiei's first action was to cover the Jagan--after allowing it so much freedom, he knew he had to quiet it quickly before it decided to take advantage of his weariness. His second action was to slouch to the closest storefront and lean against it.

The wave of guilt was his own; Blue watched without a sound, a troubled frown playing on his lips. His first impulse was to apologize, but--

"Thank you. For looking, Hiei." I'm sorry.

"It was good exercise," he said dryly, eyes closed.

For once, he was speaking with genuine wryness. It had been some time since he had to stretch the Jagan that far--it took him back to the days when he was trapped in Living World while Yukina lived in Demon World.

The tone hardly eased Blue's concern, yet he made no move or gesture to convey it. What was he supposed to do?

He wanted to ask if the Jagan saw only the living, or...well. He didn't really want to think of his friend that way. Blue looked away, clamping his eyes shut as if that would shield him from the thought. No such luck.

"Good," he echoed, not nearly as neutral as he had intended.

It wasn't his place to care, Hiei told himself.

In the end, he managed a whole minute before speaking his mind. Sometimes it just wasn't worth fighting his more pathetic impulses.

"He probably just got sent back to wherever he came from."

"Yes." The preferable conclusion. Blue would hope for that--though probably implied other things as well. He wore the troubled frown only a moment longer before it washed away to something more placid and attentive. He could push aside himself for those before him.

Even so...asking someone like Hiei if he was alright seemed...

"Searching that far..." He couldn't not ask, it seemed. "It wasn't too taxing-?"

Despite the fact that he was obviously, as Blue had noted, taxed, Hiei bristled at the implication that he had overworked himself.

"I am an S-class demon," he said icily, straightening away from the wall long enough to level a glare at Blue. "That was nothing."

"Of course..." It wouldn't be stressed, but Blue wasn't about to avert his attention too readily. S-class...?

"Of course," Hiei mocked. He sagged against the wall, still wearing a painfully sulky expression.

Prickly as ever...

Blue's exhale allowed for just a touch of exasperation. "Thank you again for your effort," he pressed, stepping away, albeit reluctantly. "It saved hours."

"I'm sure."

Hiei remained leaning against the wall. Perhaps he would, for a while, catching his metaphorical breath.

Another pause. "Where is it you were heading, Hiei?"

Hiei raised his gaze to Blue again, an almost calculating expression on his face.

"Nowhere."

"I'm unfamiliar with the place," Blue replied, almost flatly. He shook his head once, starting to turn. "Elsewhere I would be willing to take you in exchange for the time you spent helping me."

Hiei snorted. It was becoming more and more apparent that hanging out with Blue provided the best entertainment.

"I wouldn't be able to show it to you," he replied, now smirking. The unspoken part of that statement, of course, was that Hiei had no objections to Blue's company.

The faintest trace of a smile of reply started to show before something...wrong gripped at the Soldier. Something cold and empty and...

Blue's head tilted upwards, hands raised to the amplifiers. It was--

"Jomy."

"What," Hiei said cautiously, still unmoving. Could their enemy in the MAC have made a move?

"I--" Blue cut himself short, turning his head in the direction of their temporary home, sending out a call and receiving nothing. He tried twice more, his expression no longer the reserved mask that it tended to be. "Something's wrong. He's not--"

He had no explanation. Radiating with a glow, manners and pardons and farewells forgotten, he vanished, teleporting back to the dingy building where he and Jomy stayed. Dingy and empty.

"...Jomy?"

Only a few minutes passed before Hiei appeared at Blue's window, crouched in the frame. For good or ill, Blue's uncharacteristic disappearance had left him curious enough to investigate for himself.

He was there, kneeling on the ground at the far end of the sparse room, a hand outstretched and tilted to the small, blue mouse that whimpered inches away. No lights on and no one else, save for the two--now three. Blue himself looked stricken, lifting his head and glancing over at Hiei.

"Now Jomy is gone. Vanished."

Hiei transitioned from the window to the inside of the room, coming to stand behind Blue.

"Will it put your mind at ease if I look for him, too?"

Turning his head back down to Rain, Blue drew a slow breath as one does listening to something grave. The mouse had seen it happen, as he was seldom ever separate from Jomy. It was no ordinary teleport, certainly. "White light...fading. This wasn't his doing." He frowned to himself, letting Rain climb to his shoulder as he rose. Hands went back to the amplifiers, and when he called, there was a faint blue discharge with the effort, calling out for Jomy again.

He waited for a response, and minutes passed with nothing until he let his hands drop. "He would hear," he murmured, turning to look over his shoulder. "I'm sorry. Hiei, would you look? If something's happened--"

Hiei let his gaze drift as he let the Jagan feel around the City, searching for the less familiar but still known spirit aura of Jomy.

After a few minutes, his gaze snapped back to Blue.

"He's gone." A beat passed as Hiei's mouth twisted. This was one of those moments that required tact and he didn't really possess any...

"He probably also...you know."

He knew. Blue's frown deepened at the mention, moving for the first time since Hiei had begun his search. Aimless. Where was he to go? Jomy was gone. The strength and truest testament of his future was closed to him now, only alluded to by the closed-off words of Keith Anyan.

Rain made a sound, yanking him back to attention. For a second, he seemed lost and out of place before settling eyes back on Hiei, anchored. After a moment, he managed a quiet reply. "Thank you...for looking."

"I told you it was nothing."

Still, perhaps it was time to leave. He was no good at giving comfort. He started backing toward the window with that aim in mind.

"No," he said, eyes fixed and certain. "It was...a great thing. Not nothing." Saved from hours--maybe days of scouring and distress was no small thing to Blue, and though he still held seeds of doubt and anxiety, it was substantially less.

"Whatever you say." Hiei lingered in the window for a brief moment, favoring Blue with an odd look. What was it that made this human so enamored of him?...

"Try not to be too torn up about it. Most people come back."

And with that, he dropped out of the window, on to lesser things.

Despite intentions (or lack of them), the phrase gave little comfort. Blue watched the window for a moment before Rain took his attention again.

The building was very, very empty.

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