Demon and Dragon { TBTP | Closed | Bai}

[Bái Yan Láng]

Watching the two cooks move was mesmerizing.

As a kid, he’d stayed for a few months with an old lady who was always knitting for the local church. Even now he could remember the steady click of knitting needles, a soothing continuity that matched the rhythmic flick of her fingers. It had been an unending process, a pattern she must have followed day after day for decades of her life.

Zane and Judy had the same practiced deftness as they orbited one another. Maybe it was a byproduct of being twins, and spending that much time around each other, but Josh couldn’t help and find the display eerie. In all the ways the old lady’s knitting had quieted his kid-self the twin’s wordless facility was unsettling.

Josh wondered what they’d be like in a fight. That he was willing to see.

He met Xiao’s stare squarely, refusing to react at the creepy eye shit other than to question if this blud was part cat or something.

“What, your old man didn’t leave any names in his notes?” Josh joked, a throwaway quip to cover for how his heart was beating faster than ever.

(Twin psychics were a damn effective opening move. Josh had known Xiao was in with the local spiritual crowd, the guy had practically opened with that point, but realizing those same people were already loyal to the shaman was daunting.)

Maybe all that talk about territory hadn’t been a bunch of excuses.

Leaning back, Josh laced his fingers together behind his head, all too conscious of the shrinking distance between them. He wondered what this looked like from the outside, though Zane and Judy didn’t seem to be watching, and nobody suspicious was loitering on the street.

“Wait, you’re saying you built this whole style up without a teacher?” Josh quirked an eyebrow, not certain he was buying Xiao's story. The guy’s father could have been a genius and no number of written records would explain how Xiao got that strong on his own.

Information wasn’t the same as power or else people like Josh would be out of luck. Even in the normal world the venn diagram of well-informed bruisers was pretty damn slim. Knowledge helped but alone it meant nothing.

“Shit, man, are you one of those kung fu masters?” He snorted, shifting in his chair and verbally feinting just to see what Xiao would do about it.

“As for me, I dunno. I’ve just been figuring it out as I go, same as always. Not everyone’s got a friendly neighborhood shifu roaming around looking for twerps to teach their secret moves to.”

Josh frowned, that last bit coming out more bitter than he’d intended. He could hear Hiraeth laughing at him so he did the only thing he could – dug in his heels and pushed the envelope further. Pissing people off was one of his unique talents, and also had the side benefit of revealing who he was working with.

“Still, I gotta give you props – that’s gotta be a pretty good gig, offering lessons to the locals and whatnot. You’ve got a lot of followers already?”

[Xiao Bolin]

    "Maybe not entirely without a teacher." Xiao said, looking a little uncomfortable. He traced out two shapes on the table, a thin film of dark water flowing out from his fingers as he did so. At first it was just basic shapes, but as he went in to push the water out of spaces it became clear what he was tracing out. A scythe and samurai sword crossed with one another, and then a skull-like mask with very sharp fangs. "It is still possible to learn without the other party knowing they are teaching you something. And if you watch from the sidelines for long enough, you pick up patterns. After that, it's just a process of finding out what works, what doesn't, and what can be improved."

    He was looking very embarrassed now, and the water was quickly dispersed into steam that floated up and vanished into the air. Xiao had spent time thinking about this. A lot of time thinking about this. Doing it had always been one thing, but now that he was actually telling someone everything he had done, it felt a lot more foolish than it had at the time. He was still convinced of his plan. Of what he wanted to do and what he wanted to come, but the nervous fidgeting was as much of a tell as anything. It was always awkward to share just how much time you've spent quietly running after your dreams.

    Lucky for him, Josh was pushing the conversation on further, so he didn't have to dwell on it too much longer. He relaxed again and smirked before shaking his head. "Not a lot. As you might imagine, the local spiritual community isn't exactly bustling. If it was, then there wouldn't be as much of a problem with hollows as there is. Or they could just be hiding, keeping their heads down and making it from one day to the next. I can't entirely blame them, but nothing's going to change that way. Anyhow, like I was saying before, I've got-"

    {Order up!}

    Entirely unceremoniously, the twins deposited both ordered meals in front of the two young men, along with various utensils and their drinks. The two of them hadn't even made any noise as they stepped out from behind the counter to deliver the meal. They also didn't bother to say anything more as they went back into the kitchen and went back to preparing the various broths, spices, sauces and such they would need for future orders. Xiao pretended to glare daggers at the two of them for interrupting him, and though neither looked up, there was a twitch of a smile from each.

    Xiao sighed. "I have a few. Besides those two with their talent for weapons, there's a few guys a few streets over that I've taught some basic binding spells. Working together they can make pretty strong barriers, but they're also really simple. Easy to break out of if the one in the trap is clever." Xiao shrugged and started to dig into his meal. Started, paused, then glanced up at Josh over the mouthful he was about to consume. "What sort of things have you figured out so far?"

[Bái Yan Láng]

His mouth popped open, and Josh stared at the guy with open incredulity for all of three seconds before he shook himself. “Wait – wait, back up a sec.” He dropped his arms, leaning forward slightly with his elbows planted on the tabletop.

“You’re saying you cribbed stuff off of the Shinigami and Hollows?”

Hiraeth’s interest sharpened, equally as stunned as Josh but shifting to evaluative with that cold calculation Josh associated with the doll. He couldn’t even say which of those two categories impressed them more. Shinigami were notorious bastards and spying on one took guts, but Hollows? Seriously?

Josh let out a sharp exhale, huffing as he reigned his expression in, looking Xiao up and down in silent speculation.

Was that how the guy beat Hiraeth so easily?

Fully expecting the angry jab as the doll snarled in his head, Josh pulled on a lazy smirk that slowly widened the more this blud talked. Things were getting interesting.

Josh fought down the twitch when the twins wiggled out from the woodwork like service-ninja, casting the two of them a subdued glower – he wasn’t about to insult cooks, but at the same time Josh wasn’t going to put up with their shit and simply roll over.

Heat rose from his noodles with thick steam, the scent rich and distracting enough on his empty stomach that Josh left the twins alone to get a little closer to their work. “Thanks,” he said absently in Cantonese as he leaned towards the bowl.

“Yeah?” Josh tore his gaze off the noodles reluctantly, rolling Xiao’s explanation around in his head as he tested the temperature of the teacup. Against the back of his fingernails it was boiling so he left it well enough alone for the moment.

So: Xiao, the twins, and some runners. That wasn’t much of a gang. It didn’t explain why the Boss had sent Josh after this guy. Even if he was operating in the same territory this was a small enterprise at best. And considering how messy Hiraeth was, Boss didn’t exactly hand out kill orders without a ton of consideration as to the other options.

Was he that freaked about the spiritual stuff? Xiao was a damn good fighter, so Josh would understand if that’s what had spooked his Boss. It’d just have been nice to get a heads up. And it made things complicated now.

It was one thing if Hiraeth had splattered Xiao. Then they could’ve gone back and gotten their paycheck and hid out in their apartment for a while until the Boss’s guys stopped looking at him sideways. There was a reason most of his ‘jobs’ were intimidation. Nobody got spooked (except whoever’d pissed the Boss off but that was the point).
Seeing as option numero uno was a no-go -- and worse, with Josh having to admit he kind of liked this guy -- the Triad’s reaction was going to be a lot worse than some shifty bluds.

“That’s your local neighborhood watch? Or were you planning on going toe to toe with every Hollow that pops in for a snack by yourself?”

Of course, it was always possible Xiao was holding back. Josh doubted it though. The guy couldn’t hold in his nerves worth shit. There was no way he was hiding a horde of underlings beneath that antsy squirming.

He shrugged, sucking the heat from his challenge. Curiosity had a habit of twining with antagonism for Josh and he wasn’t about to apologize for that. Not outright, at least.

“Ah, you know. The basic drama.” Josh twirled his pointer finger, facing up towards the ceiling. “We’ve got our militant smug xenophobes running around in matching suits and fucking swords of all things, versus the monster-too-big-to-fit-under-your-bed and usually too stupid to try.”

“Can’t say I’ve spent a heck of a lot of time around either – not like your shtick. I’m more of an equal opportunity brawler. Hiraeth has more fun with the Shinigami, though.” Josh’s smile was a shadow replica of the doll’s smug glee. They couldn’t eat Shinigami, so whatever energy surge Hiraeth got out of smacking them around was purely emotional.

But damn if it wasn’t fun to watch. Not like Hollows. Those things gave Josh the creeps. He dreamt about that night, sometimes, though he usually ended up (in true dream logic) walking up an endless flight of stairs slowly bleeding out over the crappy blue cement.

Hiraeth was always a peach to wake up to on nights like that.

“Actually, yeah – you’re like the off-brand homeschooler compared to my secondary school drop-out. All that you’re going on about, the binding and whatever, that’s news to me. Hiraeth’s fought Shinigami who could pull out some light shows before, but I got no clue what they were doing or that you could copy it.”

Xiao was the first guy to halt Hiraeth in his tracks. And the first to talk to Josh (or Hiraeth) in anything resembling a cordial tone after they’d been unceremoniously excommunicated from the Quincy. Not that Josh needed a spiritual teacher. He and authority didn’t mix.

Wrapping his hands around the tea, Josh slurped from the top, rolling the liquid over his tongue to avoid burning it. As humid as it was everyone here swore that drinking hot tea would cool you off. He’d held out for almost a year; bug-eyed and positive they were all heathens before Josh had fallen and found himself swayed.

It still made negative sense but whatever. Tea was tea. Hot or cold he wouldn’t waste it.

“Did you learn that water stuff from a Shinigami, too?”

[Xiao Bolin]

    It was so much harder to feel proud of one's achievements when someone else is regarding you with incredulity. Even if the expression meant he had done something considered impossible or even just seven kinds of difficult, the latter of which it had been by the way, it still brought up the feeling that maybe he had done something wrong. It was a familiar feeling, and he hated it. It was the feeling he got when looked back on that time spent trailing his dad when he suspected the man had noticed his son's ability.

    Xiao busied himself with the food that had been put in front of him and was no longer meeting Josh's eyes. Even as the man began to speak of his own experiences, Xiao's gaze would flit up, but it would never stay there. Enough to show that he was in fact listening, he just had to collect himself before he was back up to proper confidence again. He reasoned this was probably the reason he hadn't gone to the other gangs and officially told them what he was up to and declared his lack of intent to go after their territory. Even if he insisted to Josh that the other gangs were in his territory rather than they in his, he couldn't deal with opposition outside of the combative sort.

    'Are you going to get like this every time a conversation doesn't go your way?' he posed mentally. 'Clamming up and avoiding eye contact? If you did the equivalent in a fight, that would be like inviting yourself to be killed.'

    Xiao was silent after the question of the water stuff. Not because he was pretending not to know, but because he had a mouthful of meat and noodles and he was trying to avoid dying the most mundane and preventable death in the history of humankind. And once the herculean effort of swallowing the moderately chewed mass was done, he quickly followed it with some tea himself. The heat stung, and he felt his tongue briefly go numb and lose the ability to taste the tea, but he knew it would return soon enough. Regeneration couldn't fix choking, but a burnt tongue was no issue.

    "No." A simple enough answer and were he a more taciturn person, it is the only one that Josh would get out of him on the matter. Better to not further expose the rather ad hoc nature of his dealings with the spiritual world. But, he wasn't that sort of person.

    "The water is me." He'd decide if it was all him, or a bit of something else later. His studies of it thus far had only been in its control after all. "Water has always held some sort of significance, simply because it is the source of life. Seen as spiritually beneficial or harmful depending on whether it flows or pools in some religions. In many more, the world always starts with darkness and water. Rivers serve as natural borders and guides to early man. Too much can kill a man, as can too little. Styx, Tigris and Euphrates, Yangtze . . ." He was rambling again.

    "Anyways, as a shaman, my magic runs on associations. So having the focus of my power be something associated with so much spiritual significance gives it extra punch." He hoped.

[Bái Yan Láng]

More magic mumbo jumbo – except Hiraeth was paying rapt attention, the pressure in the back of Josh’s head intensifying. He wasn’t sure if his headache was from how little any of this made sense or because Hiraeth was an asshole who took up too much space.

“Okay,” Josh pulled the word to its fullest length, letting the last syllable fade into nothingness as he stared at Xiao.

He’d been more comfortable right now if the guy had beaten Hiraeth through normal means. Josh could recognize power. He understood that there’d always be someone better or stronger out there.

It was just hard to evaluate this spiritual stuff. How much stronger was Xiao? Did that make him some sort of local badass or was this just a crappy match-up? If Josh put his weight behind the guy, was he going to topple over like a paper tiger when things got tough?

He’s strong.

Josh coughed, pretending he’d gotten a mouthful of peppers to cover up the shock at Hiraeth actually sounding impressed. What alternate universe had they side-stepped into this morning?

“Are they all like that?” He tugged his bowl closer, one arm curled around it. “The guys you’ve trained. They’ve got this magic?”

Quincy society was a corrupt lesion that Josh was just as happy pretending didn’t exist, but occasionally he was reminded of yet another reason to heap blame on the fools. No one’d ever thought to teach him about normal spiritualists – you know, the kind that didn’t live in a moralistic cult and go around feeling holier-than-thou.

Josh knew they existed – people like Xiao. The Quincy had told him that much, but they’d skimped all the useful details, and he hadn’t realized it was a thing in time to ask for more.

Don’t sound so jealous. Do you think splashing around would make you any tougher, boy?

And there was the disdain again. Josh was unnerved enough at Hiraeth complimenting Xiao that he smothered the bitterness on his tongue. Instead of lashing out, he rolled his eyes, and ignored the doll's criticism.

(He didn’t want magic.)

(Why would he?)

[Xiao Bolin]

    He was losing him. It wasn't hard to see and it didn't look like josh was too interested in hiding it. Xiao started to busy himself with his food again and went back over his words in his head. Even now he was trying to refine his techniques, figure out how he could make them better. There was a lot he was going to have to consider for the future. If he was going to make this organiza- No, that was too noble a word for it. If he was going to make this gang work, then he was going to have to be better than this. There were going to be more opponents, more people of actual power he was going to encounter. If he couldn't convince one, then he wasn't going to get anywhere, even if the mortal gangs stopped sending assassins after him.

    He suddenly looked back up at the sound of Josh coughing. He raised a brow and looked to the twins, but they were in their full dance by now and if they were sending any glances to the two of them, it was too furtive for him to make out. Xiao looked back over to Josh and leaned his head on one fist while he idly picked at his food with his utensils in the other hand. Once Josh recovered, there was the question. And . . . Xiao wasn't sure how to answer. He wasn't even certain what the question was entirely. He stared there silently, gears visibly turning in time with the click of his sticks against each other.

    "If you mean the spells, only the ones that show an affinity for it. I teach everyone the concept and try to adapt it to how they express what power they have, but its not for everyone. Like I said, some are better with weapons than words." A good answer. Not even one where one might think he was trying to conceal things. But it still felt incomplete. He hadn't had a chance to talk about his theories, actually discuss them . . . pretty much in the whole of his life. He quickly ate some more of his meal in hopes to swallow the energy back down, but it was no use.

    Hopefully the twins wouldn't be too mad about the small furrows his free hand had left in the table.

    "If you mean the water, its not that simple. Like I said, that's me. As in just me. I've tried, mind, but I can't teach it. I don't even know how I did it. There was just-" He cut off, Cantonese failing him utterly and miserably. He chewed his lower lip a moment while he searched the bowl for some sort of answer. "It was like a damn breaking. There was just a point. I'd learned enough, lived enough, had enough strength and it just came to me. A breakthrough point that boiled all of me down into something that represented me in terms of power." He sighed in defeat and let his head slump to the table.

    "I can't teach it, but maybe one day I can figure out how to get others to their own breakpoints." He looked up to Josh with one eye. Draconic again, but more curious than sharp. "Your turn. See if you find it so easy. How'd your thing with Hiraeth come about? What's the nature of your strength?" Ok, so maybe there was a bit of bite in his tone. He was embarrassed thoroughly and had to get some face back somehow.

[Bái Yan Láng]

Josh nodded, twirling noodles around his chopsticks. It kind of sounded like mortals were the swiss-army knife of the supernatural world. Rather than getting stuck with ranged weapons the way Quincy did, they just found a grab back of weird and pulled whatever cosmic fate handed off to them.

“They’re not all connected?”

The noodles slipped free, plopping back into the broth. He felt like an idiot asking, but Josh might never get the chance again. And Xiao was awkward enough it wasn’t like he’d mock Josh for the question – no, he seemed more like the type to get all intrinsically pleased over giving out information.

Teaching – that was apparently the guy’s jam, so Josh should take advantage of it. You had to crack a few eggs to learn, right?

Josh scraped the edge of his nail against a groove in the table, forcing his jaw to relax and his shoulders to remain level. It was just a few questions.

“The spells and, what’d you call it? The power that represents you?” God, he felt dumber already. “The other stuff’s technique, then? Or, what – it takes spiritual affinity?”

With his luck, he wouldn’t be able to make a mote of light let alone one of those glittering cages that held Hiraeth down. Even if all this shit about bindings and spells and magic or whatever was just a matter of learning specific techniques, like some freaky martial arts school, Josh had never exactly excelled at learning.

True to form, Xiao wasn’t flipping out over Josh’s stupid questions – the guy looked more beat down than arrogant, even though he wasn’t the one who’d gotten smacked into next week. Josh stared a little, knowing he probably shouldn’t but the slightest bit concerned when the other guy just slumped over like that.

Was it odd that he felt better as soon as Xiao gave him that freaky look? The guy was creepy and magical or whatever, but he had a mean stare-down face. Getting someone to take pity on him and fork over basic information wasn’t Josh’s comfort zone – he much preferred having Xiao basically dare him to say some shit of his own.

He corralled his noodles again, taking a bite and chewing just slowly enough that it was obvious. While he totally intended it as a provocation it also gave him a moment to collect his thoughts. “Yeah, okay. Fair enough.”

Josh poked at the broth, searching for noodles in a fruitless effort since he’d nearly reached the bottom of the bowl. He kept looking anyway, watching spices and little bits of sediment float around in a gentle spiral. “It wasn’t anything like yours, that’s for sure.”

“I mean – I didn’t know shit when Hiraeth popped up, and I sure as hell wasn’t strong enough. Maybe it was the opposite actually, who knows?”

Spit it out, boy.

Grunting, Josh stabbed at a piece of meat because getting into a mental fight with Hiraeth right now wasn’t going to improve either of their moods. He continued, a little rougher and a trace faster, like he was forcing the words. “I got messed up by a Hollow, basically. Almost kicked the bucket, and then somehow, I wake up, and instead of dead I’ve got a goddamn headache that never goes away.”

His lips peeled back in a silent snarl at the rush of amusement from Hiraeth. “Yeah, and turns out that headache’s a fucking monster, and now we’re body roommates or some shit like that and of course there's no lease contract.”

That did earn a rise from the doll, but rather than set off a cascading rant about humanity and true monsters and blahblahblah Hiraeth dug his metaphysical fingers into Josh’s shoulder like an overbearing parent which wasn't exactly noteworthy.