Shield

22.- Drunk

His fist crashing on the wooden desk was deafening, thunderous inside the small room.
A heartbreaking.
"What do I believe, huh? What do I think please tell me?" He shouted running his shaking hand through his hair, smoothing it back, trying to calm himself "Just admit you are in love with him! You eat with him, sleep with him, dress up for him," Shun breathed in deeply, his nostrils flaring "You have changed everything for him!" His eyes squinted and his face frowned, red by the surge of anger pushing blood to his brain "So, tell me again "it's not like that", tell me what I should believe."
Nel stared at him, her hands behind her back resting on the door head hung low "And you haven't?" she said in a flat, bored voice like she had repeated herself too many times like her father "He tells you how to dress, where to go when to talk -"
"It's different!" he barked, feeling his blood boil with the comparison, she was in a different category completely, how could she even begin to understand the relationship of master-servant they always had? The loyalty he required, to do the things he did.
"How?" she smiled patiently, a hint of melancholy in her tranquility "How is it different?"
He shook his head covering his eyes with his right hand, in the darkness behind his eyelids feeling a soft burn, the coolness of complete black made him breathe in deep, steadily "Then explain," Shun's voice was harsh, tired, pleading, grasping at straws "I NEED you to explain."
Nel licked her lips closing her eyes, resting her head back, drawing in breath "I am NOT in love with Milo. I HAVE NEVER been in love with Milo, I am in fact MARRIED to Milo." She let herself slide down the door and sat on the floor shapeless.
"You are with me every single day" Nel began and stopped, shaking her head slowly from side to side, pushing the idea out of her head.
"Yeah, I see you every day, and that does not make me the wiser," Shun said, sitting heavy on the bed "I never know what you are thinking, I don't understand what you say," In the orange light the shadows of his face looked like deep cuts, sectioning him "You reject me again and again! I'd do anything for you. You just have to ask." He looked at his hands like those of a stranger and rubbed his palms together as washing off a stain, the silver watch dancing on his wrist.
"Anything?" Nel asked.
"Try me." Shun tensed letting his hands fall to his lap.
"Then believe me." She said he did not know if she was begging, asking, demanding, or just done. And for a second Shun panicked thinking she would cry, only for a second, a fleeting moment he would grow to believe he imagined all together. As it came it was gone.
That wave in her voice, that kink in her armor. A glimpse of humanity.
He wants to go to her, hug himself to her body and comfort himself in her touch, crawl under her skin, and inhabit it till the loneliness is gone for good.
They both sit across the room from each other unmoving, each a spectacle to the other. An enigma of lost empathy.
"If you only knew..." Nel whispered a ghost exhaling, the outline of a soul.
"Then tell me. I'm here. Talk to me, don't push me further away," Shun is begging, ready to throw himself on top of her to prey each word out with the metal bar of his will.
Nel shook her head "I need a drink." she said, it was almost comical
"Since when?" He chuckled
"Go and get something please," Nel stood up, assuming her womanly form once more, unlocking the exit.
"What do you want?" Shun asks standing heavily.
"Anything strong" she wants to add the taste doesn't matter, everything is fowl, the numbness is what she is chasing, but decides against it.
He nods "Wait for me,"
She nods "I'll be here,"
Once he leaves Nel walks into the bathroom and washes her face slowly, rubbing hard with angry strokes, her skin turning red is finally free of makeup and pretention.
She sweeps her hair back in a messy ponytail ruining the precise press.
She undressed, dropping her uniform in a heap on the ground, she puts on an oversize t-shirt.
Nel sits on the bed waiting.
Shun opened the door to the image of a small woman on his bed, knees tucked up close to her chest, chin resting on a pillow balanced on her knees, staring at the round window covered with a thick piece of cardboard.
He took a plain, white mug and filled it with liquor, offering it to Nel "Is this ok?" she nods taking it with both hands.
She gives a few deep gulps draining the mug between coughs and wincing.
"Nel..." Shun began.
"More please," she choked, extending out the cup.
"Nel- "
"More please," she repeated a bit louder, he served filling it once more. This time she sipped it unhappily.
He sat behind her, as he stretched out his head resting on her lap, the warm skin of her smooth thighs.
The humid day outside was tacky, the shadowed room was the right kind of warm. Her kind of warm.
"Watcha thinking?" Nel asks feeling her face hot, she taps her cheek.
"That you are ridiculous, "he says tracing the shapes of her knee with two fingers.
She nods taking a sip from the mug, a burning sensation roaring down her throat to crash hard in her stomach.
"Your pretty," she tells him, running her fingers through his hardened hair, feeling roughness from the gel that kept it in place.
"Mm," Shun says thinking how no one had described him as pretty before.
"You make me insecure," Nel said in a small voice.
"What" Shun sat up to look at her
"When you're nice like this, not when your angry," She specified "When your nice I feel so... insecure like I'm doing something wrong" She went to take another sip of the mug only to realize it was empty, with a frown she stretched out to place it neatly on the side table.
"Why?" he asked her as she rested on his shoulder.
"You're too gentle. You were supposed to be scary, but you're not," Nel puckered her lips deep in thought "You don't make too many questions and don't talk back. You're so big... I feel, I don't know, small."
Shun had the urge to pull her into his arms binding himself tightly around her body, to ask her everything that passed through her mind, pay every cent he had for as many thoughts he could afford.
He wanted to dissect her completely to analyze her mind, her heart, cut her into pieces to order them alphabetically under an atomic microscope. Re-play each word she had ever told him, over and over till they lost meaning leaving no doubt inside him of what she meant with her sighs and shrugs.
Catalog every smirk, every "OK", photograph the confused blinks, and shy eyelash batting. Memorize her snorts, her short laughs to be able to recreate the scenarios that made her happy for reenactment on bad days.
He wants to lock her up in his room, away from anyone who ever made her believe she shouldn't be treated with tenderness, to devote his time to her completely, his all only to her.
If only he could set her world on fire to see her reborn from the ash.
"Sorry," she said at a loss for words "I'm acting weird," shaking her head she intertwined her hand with his "Sometimes it's nice... to feel small I mean" her voice wary in the growing darkness "You will stay with me won't you?"
Shun rested on the top of her divine head "Where else would I go?" he asked as Nel shrugged.
"You disappear sometimes, and so do I. We can always come back, here, right?" she was grasping desperately for hope, now to him she felt small, vulnerable, freefalling.
"Yeah, we can always come back here"
Nel was drowsy and drunk, swallowing hard and thirsty.
  "Do you want another drink?" he asked gingerly caressing her cheek
"No. Water please" she asked so he fetched it with care. She ran her finger over the bridge of his nose.
"You're not a dog..." Nel said amused "You're a gecko" she added with a grand smile "A cute Comodo dragon,"
Shun chuckled "What's that about?" Nel nodded emphatically as she explained "When you smile you look like a reptile, but only sometimes. When you smile but don't want to smile. You know?"  he nodded confused "...Ok..."
"I like reptiles" she added, and he nodded again "I don't want to graduate" Nel complained, suddenly whining as she rubbed her face into Shun's side.
"I thought you were excited, Ceecee and you making all those plans for medical school and stuff," Shun tried to console her "Leave the worry for dead beats like me."
"I'm a deadbeat too" Nel whined "I negotiated with my dad but in the end, it depends on Milo... At least I don't have to convince Oli..."
Shun felt a heaviness in his chest that he could only describe as dread "We will have fun in the big Q, you'll see"
Nel grunted "yeah...we... fun"
She drifted off as Shun laid her down effortlessly and tucked her in like his precious porcelain doll.