c17h19no3 | It's about you, me, and tautology

Entry tags:

jigen,
lupin

It's about you, me, and tautology

What rouses him from slumber isn't a deep, satisfying yawn, the crack of his jaw over the need for oxygen to his brain, the darkness that envelops his bedroom, or the incessant chirp of birds outside his window.

He's lightheaded. It isn't the kind that comes hand in hand with a hangover after a satisfying night, no. Breaths are caught tight in his chest and throat and his legs are cramped, bracketed by something other than the humble frame of his bed. Lupin is sure this is some shit when his palms settle against wood. The air, what minimal air he has left, is thick with the scent of sandalwood.

He's in a goddamn coffin. This is decidedly not how last night ended. He and Jigen Daisuke had teamed up again for a certain painting, one held in an armored vault with a mind of its own (supposedly. Not much of one left after Arsene Lupin III got done with it. Nothing but gibberish after, not even enough for The Man Behind the Curtain.)

The first lesson in Waking Up in Your Own Coffin is to breathe as shallowly as possible, right? (He has no idea. This is his first time he'll care to remember in his adult life). His belt! His belt should have something...

His fingers feel heavy and fumble with the belt buckle, the sharp corners will probably be able to dig through the vinyl and wood pretty decently. Enough.

By the time he's dug through part of the lid his fingers are bloody and his breathing comes out fast and he's trying to keep his noises as minimal as possible, Grandpa would be able to get out of this in two snaps of his fingers, so why not him--

And that's when he hears a noise. A person shaped noise.

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Lupin's almost certain Jigen will turn away, a scoff and the Cold Shoulder loaded and ready to spring, like his would, but he also knows he should know better from this one...they both wear their hearts on their sleeves, after all.

So when Jigen springs forward with a snarl, ears red, rage and embarrassment swirling in the sliver of unhidden, Lupin merely smiles and stretches his arm back, the photos out of reach.

"I will. Once I memorize them-- I hunger for knowledge and study, remember? And that includes this." The smile softens, at least around the eyes, as he tips the items lower so he can peek up at them.

"He kept these safe for a reason...I understand that much."

Is that a sorry? No? Well he didn't try at all, no gold star here.

When or how Lupin managed to get those pictures taken is anyone's guess, but that unsolved mystery doesn't change the fact that this insufferable asshole is holding up a very embarrassing, very private picture of Jigen. Very private. With privates.

(Jigen's going to murder Lupin later, burn all of those nudes in front of his stupid face, if he'd only come back to take responsibility for them.)

His arm is up and over Lupin's shoulder, fingers straining, cigarette-drenched scent of his shirt right up and against Lupin's cheek. The thief can probably feel the annoyance on him, the heat of his flushed skin from mortification permeating through a layer of clothing.

A swipe and a miss, and he makes a soft sound of aggravation above Lupin's head.

"The reason being that you're both insufferable idiots, now gimme those!"

Or else he's going to topple over, at this rate.

Lupin sighs like the insufferable idiot child he is, like he's just found the answer to Everything and Nothing simultaneously. And he still doesn't give up the ghost-- er, the pictures. In fact, he holds them out further away.

"I don't do things like that for any old reason, Jigen. You know that. I do these things because they're important to the big picture," he says it patiently, like to a child.

(he doesn't know why he's trying to futility make Jigen feel better about this?? Maybe he's just trying to make himself feel better, yeah, that's it. That makes sense.)

He does, at least, curl his fingers around one of Jigen's hips to hold him stead.

"Think about it. Or don't. It might not matter right now, huh."

He tips his chin up, eyes on the ceiling as he considers this.

He can't believe this, of all the things this infant version of Lupin (they're both infants, who is he kidding) had to find, it had to be this. The soft sound he makes from the back of his throat, the light grunt, is both strained and annoyed; his index finger grazes the side of Lupin's hand, but it doesn't quite reach the photo.

"Important? Important to getting your damn rocks off, more like."

Another swipe, another miss. There's a soft whoa, and the hand trying to pilfer from the Master Thief himself moves down and braces against said thief's shoulder. Infuriating.

"Don't try to spin this as a lesson in necessity, you damn pervert."

You just like me, is implied somewhere there, and he realizes it, which is even more embarrassing; he glares under the carpet of his bangs, eyes narrowed but barely threatening. If Jigen wanted Lupin to really back off, his eyes would be blazing cold, not hot.

A squeeze goes to one bony hip. Gray eyes stare into darker ones. At least his smile is less patronizing? Somewhat.

"No, important as in the subject matter. Why would I take a picture like this, perversion and your ass aside. It's about how he sees things, right? It always has been."

He's silent for a moment, just gazing at Jigen, until he sighs and ruins the moment again. All the more punctuated by him tucking the pictures beneath his back so Jigen will really have to fight for them. What a fucking dick.

"Obviously you need a reminder more than a lesson on how stubborn I am. I saw those cigarettes, you know."

He keeps his expression carefully smooth and considering.

Provocation is the name of the game, and Jigen knows Lupin enough that he knows he shouldn't fall for it. But a knee goes on the bed, adding more weight and pressure to those sturdy bedsprings, and the hand on the outline of that shoulder grips a little tighter.

Did he have to mention the cigarettes? Bastard.

"—You're only making it harder on yourself."

Gracefully sidestepping the issue of filling his own lungs with tar, Jigen reaches back for those photos again; it's futile, like a cat pawing at a cage containing a very smug canary. His back curls, momentarily huddled over Lupin in a semi-embrace, save for that gap, that large pocket of space between his heart and his makeshift partner's.

"Whatever you have to say, save it for the one that needs to hear it."

Which is a strange thing to say, all things considered. He's sure his past (past?) self would tell him to shut up.

"You think so?" His eyebrows raise faintly, as if he actually wonders if it's possible.

(It's possible. he's definitely making this harder on himself. he shouldn't get attached to this Jigen, no matter how similar and different and fiery he is and soft but spiky around the edges)

The picture is hidden deeper (we must go Deeper), under his own shirt and beneath the waistband of his pants. Hand now free, he curls those fingers around Jigen's shoulder to steady him securely.

"I'm positive someone else needs to hear it more than I do. We always manage when it comes to this weird shit, don't we? What are you fluttering around for?"

(He knows. In a way somewhat similar to why he's fluttering around right now)

"I'm not fluttering around."

Defensive? Maybe. Slightly accusatory? Yes. He catches h imself, though, and dials back the offense so that it's just a low hum, a ringing in his ears. He's already done this yesterday, he's already made this mistake last night, but he wears his heart in a place that's so much more open than he'd like to believe.

He gives up trying to take those photos (sorry, he thinks to no one in particular), and settles his weight where it's in contact with the bed, easing himself closer to eye-level with Lupin.

(It's a mistake; you're never supposed to look something in the eye if you don't want to empathize.)

"What are you so worried about."

"Flap, flap, flap, that's you, fluttering around with too many flowers but no idea where to land yet."

He would've made the motions for emphasis but his hands are a little preoccupied with a gunslinger's weight at the moment. But Lupin's words seem to have at least sunk in, he's pulling back while leveling himself closer.

(a bubble of relief rises in his chest)

His chin tips up to look at Jigen, really look at him, and a chuckle this side of anxious (self conscious) tumbles from his mouth. There's a headshake, one eyebrow raises now.

"Worried? Me? Why would I be worried."

(about you)

Answering questions with questions, Lupin tactic number #34343.

"You think I'm still flitting around?"

He says that like it's the most ridiculous indictment against his character in the world; after all, how many years has it been since he's stopped taking offers from organization to organization? How many years has it been since he's become 'Jigen Daisuke, Lupin's right-hand man'? But he has a feeling that that's not what Lupin's talking about, and his brows furrow under his hair, contemplative and surly.

Speak for yourself, is what he'd say, but he knows the answer to that one already. Heard it a million times.

("I always come back". Idiot.)

The nervous laughter isn't missed, because Jigen's looking for it. He tips his head, bushy hair tipping along with the motion of his neck.

"Because you're the one that should be worried."

About being here, about everything. Pretending that he doesn't have any concerns is ludicrous, and that's the silent implication made with a light tap of knuckles against head.

"I don't think, I know. I've got eyes. You're looking for a landing that isn't there yet instead of honing in on the opportunity, when it comes. You're not honing your energy in the right place," matter of factly.

There's a moment where he draws in a breath, where he thinks Jigen's going get puff up again with rage-- but thankfully it doesn't come.

What follows almost makes him wish it were so. Licking his lips, he shakes his head and chuffs another laugh, this one a little stronger

(can't let him scrape it back, that's your job).

"Why should I worry? A Lupin always gets what he wants in the end," he says, in a tone that's light and airy and completely like he's recited it. He turns into the motion of Jigen's knuckles, inquiring.

A Lupin. That worries him. Not me, not I, 'a' Lupin. It's not something he hasn't heard before— his partner has a flair for the dramatic, referring to himself in the third person isn't exactly new— but even then, it's usually 'Lupin the Third'.

Now, now Jigen looks a little angry. How silly of him, to take everything else in relative stride, and bristle only when his partner says something slightly off-center about himself.

(Not that it's wrong, it's not, but.)

"Bullshit. I already know what I want. You're the one digging up photos and trying to pretend that you're just 'intellectually curious'."

His teeth grit together, canines showing from the little lift of his upper lip. The hand on Lupin's shoulder grips, then shakes his partner's frame once, twice.

"If you don't want to say anything, fine. I put up with your cryptic shit all the time. But I'm not blind, Lupin."

Edited 2015-03-09 08:05 (UTC)

Gray eyes stare at Jigen listlessly for a second, his words sinking in his ears, in his brain, and he moves with Jigen's movements, confusion now written across his features. He doesn't get it. Now he's getting riled up? He just doesn't get it. Lupin was trying to snap him out of it so what the hell is this.

(it's heavy, this weight. Another legacy stretched out before him, untouchable, this hand on his shoulder)

"Ah, right, now you get it." He hums, a question in his eyes. "And just why was I digging up these photos, then. Tell me, Oh Enlightened One."

(No. He doesn't want to hear it. Not at all.

one of its corners digs into his back)

But he will acknowledge a fact: "About time you woke up, then. Welcome back." And brush it off.

So many whys to contend with, like a kid posed with a challenge and asking, asking, asking. 'Unfair, unfair, unreasonable'. Jigen's dark eyes dull for a second, and then close for the moment it takes to lean in and put forehead to forehead, skin against skin as his hair parts to make a direct path.

"Because," he says through still-tightly ground teeth, angry because of their collective stubbornness, angry because he knows why he's doing this despite everything that tells him that it's stupid, useless. "You're a stupid goddamn kid."

Lonely? Posturing? He knows both of those feelings, and there's something about Lupin, this one, that makes him draw both knees up on the bed and draw his arms around those wide shoulders, those shoulders that carry everything.

"Forget about all of this once you're back in your world, idiot."

He's still angry, words still bitten through clenched teeth, but his arms are dangerously gentle; still the same Jigen Daisuke, the same stupidly softhearted gunman who takes the fall for mafia wives.

He doesn't want to admit it, but Lupin really doesn't understand the weight of these arms, does he. It's why he quiets the second a furrowed forehead meets his, bangs tickling his face. It's exactly why all he does for a good five seconds is make a befuddled noise in the back of his throat, eyes wide.

Mimicking the night before, slowly, ever so slowly, his hands find their way to Jigen's back. There's tension coiled there beneath his fingers.

"What are you still mad for, idiot? I'm the one who should be mad. Being called a stupid goddamn kid..." Sure, he's certainly not happy about it, but his tone belies little of that. It's too light.

But Jigen's last comment strays his hands from trailing down his back. Fingers dig into a smokey jacket.

"Is that what you're going to do when this is over?"

(It'd probably be for the best, but...)

His fingers hang loose along Lupin's shoulderblades, stubbornly refusing to knit.

"Then be mad— you're always sulking about something."

A light snort to accompany the sentiment, as knees shift to get proper traction on his perch. He still smells like fog, like ash still settling into cracked corners of a cooling volcano.

Lupin's question sounds like a low whine to Jigen, coupled with the grip to his jacket and that moment of hesitation.

"You already know the answer to that question, so don't bother."

(He won't, he's not the one that'd be better off forgetting.)

(That, and... well. He's Jigen Daisuke, what can you say.)

He feels his mouth tip downwards.

"Who's the one sulking? You're definitely projecting your own traits onto me, man. I'm cool as a cucumber."

Lupin inhales, as if to prove it, and his eyes flutter closed. Fingers remain dug into fabric, twisting. Jigen's a bubbling volcano, still smoldering with dust and hardened lava around the edges.

"Then why should I expect to do the opposite? I won't stand for blocking out a single part of something that's still me. Even if it makes me....irritated. It's good to have a rival, right?"

He's his own rival, now? How many rivals can this idiot child handle.

"This was supposed to be about you, you know."

(He can always count on Jigen to be the one doing the waking, huh. Lupin wanted to prove a point just once)

(aside from the general...irritation and the unease in his belly, he can't help but be amused)

Edited 2015-03-10 03:05 (UTC)

'Cool as a cucumber'. Jigen's stance on the veracity of that statement manifests in a sigh, inaudible but certainly not intangible.

His breath ruffles Lupin's hair.

"Rival, huh. This isn't a damn competition."

Unless his partner thinks it is, in which case Jigen will happily punch him for his trouble. Back straightening, Jigen rests his chin on top of the kid's head, settles there as he transitions from nursing his residual anger to channeling it into something more useful. Practical, thy name is Jigen Daisuke.

"And don't bother— I don't need you to worry about me. I never have."

He could have phrased that in a kinder way, could have said you shouldn't instead of you don't, but he's never particularly been good at that.

"Sure it is! I won't stand for someone looking down on me, not even myself."

Jigen is very, very warm in his arms and Lupin is getting pretty damn comfortable...and maybe the older man won't kick his ass! Everything might be coming up Lupin...for the moment. So the moment between Jigen ending a sentence and beginning the next.

Now it's Lupin's turn to scoff, fingers curling into a fist he softly knocks into Jigen's back, lips twisted into a scowl.

"Well excuuuuse me for looking out for a friend. Someone's got to make sure your ass stays in one piece during this turn of events. Someone's got to wake you up."

(And it's mine right now. My responsibility. My pleasure. My job.)

(to think it's the same set of grumbling in this particular part of the partnership....)

Lupin is dead wrong if he thinks that Jigen won't retaliate, however lightly: he reaches around to the nape of Lupin's neck and pulls out one of the small hairs there, plucks it out with vicious and swift precision. What an infant.

"What do you think, that we're all out to get you? I'm looking down on you right now."

Looking down at, more like, but. Semantics. His chin works against the crown of Lupin's head, knees flush against the thief's sides.

And it's not without a quiet warning that he says what's coming next, a slow: "I'm your partner" in correction of the word 'friend'.

Not business, though: not obligation.

"If you tell me that you don't trust me to be able to work with this, I'm throwing you out in your goddamn underwear."

Of course that wrenches an embarrassing yelp from the thief, followed by cursing and a fist buried in Jigen's kidney--

"How dare you assault my full head of luscious hair! If you make me bald in the future I'm going to shave your damn face, baby face."

There are two perfect dots of pink burning into his cheeks, embarrassment and annoyance and maybe a little bit of softness attempting to cull his edges all at once.

A little more seriously: "Don't look down on me, I'll shoot right up to the sky and you'll sprain something if you look too far up."

And maybe, maybe he softens a little more, palms flattening against his partner's back.

"I trust you with my life," he says, evenly. "I just don't want you to get in over your head, that's all."

(Weird fucking owls and pyramids are one thing...)

That most definitely are Lupin's fingers using his organs like Play-Doh, ouch. Brows furrow, followed by an inwards bend of one knee as it draws up and into Lupin's side, mimicking the gesture of his partner's hands with his own kneecap. Have a taste of your own medicine.

"I'd like to see you try," he huffs, ignoring the statement about Lupin going anywhere that he can't reach, because it's not worth addressing— Jigen won't hold him back, but he won't be happy if he's left behind with the soles of his shoes worn down from running.

The thought makes that fire in his gut flare again, and he pulls out another strand of hair for good measure.

"Maybe try not being such a goddamn handful all the time, then. I wouldn't be 'in over my head' if you didn't rush head and pants-first into everything."

Especially dick-first, but let's not be crude. He has no idea what this Lupin's done with his Jigen, but he has a feeling that they haven't gotten to that point of exasperation, of mutually-acknowledged inevitability.

He smiles about that to himself, privately.

"—But that's awfully straightforward of you, for once."

Digs his fist in and wiggles it, like he's giving his partner's kidney a much needed noogie for redemption, and unsuccessfully bites back the howl of pain and anguish and rage at yet another coveted hair being plucked from his soul.

"Don't go to sleep tonight or you'll see just how hard I try...youth has a lot of merit too, you know," said sulkily as hell. What a fucking baby.

"You'd be bored as hell worrying about the weight of your heart if I didn't rush in head and pants-first with you right at my heels. You'd still be waiting for your heart to be devoured if I hadn't showed you the trick to it."

Lupin never actually divulged the trick, now, did he. Oh well, a thief's a thief.

(Thinking about Jigen still stuck there, like a wandering wolf with no pack, no homeland of his own, makes something in his belly curl uncomfortably)

(not that he ever needed anyone to pick him up, but--)

(he's still glad he had)

Lupin harrumphs in response. "Well take a picture, it lasts longer."

A lot of these things fly over Jigen's head, the allusions to his heart and the weight of it, which are things that have remained mostly unspoken between his Lupin and himself. It's the weight of his hat that Lupin flicked off, all those years ago: a lit match in one hand, offered.

Jigen isn't exactly embarrassed by his nostalgia. Like many things, they become better with age; kinder, fuller. He's not Fujiko, he's never seen a reason to outrun his past.

That revelation softens his posture, makes his joints more generous and his anger less stubborn, chin traveling from Lupin's head to his shoulder, knees easing themselves down so he can sit, surprisingly, on his current partner's lap. Not docile, but knowing when to acquiesce.

"Don't think I'm not grateful for it."

He says in response to the observation about his heart, with an astonishing matter-of-factness. It should be a moot point, really, and Jigen twines his fingers at the small of Lupin's back, looking straight at the headboard of the bed, the wall in front of him.

"And I'm not taking a picture, you'll whine about that, too."

A soft sound of wonder huffs between Lupin's teeth to accompany the full weight of Jigen in his lap, a hand curls around his partner's ribs to keep him in place. There's awe brimming in his eyes at that admission, true and wholesome and straight to the heart, ect.

(Thankfully Jigen can't see his expression, but can probably feel the tension eased from the line of his body)

A beat passes. Then two. And, slowly, "You don't have to be grateful. Just follow me for awhile."

(Forever, apparently)

One pointy chin, accentuated with a grin, levels itself upon Jigen's shoulder in return.

"What, me? I'm so photogenic, though! You can't convince me you don't have some of these, too."

It's about you, me, and tautology

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