Characters: Lisa, Shinji
Summary: Learning each other's secrets is oddly easy. Breaking out of the rut is another matter.
Pairings: implied Shinji x Hiyori
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Turn Back the Pendulum arc
Timeline: None needed
Author's Note: I don't know why, but I like to portray Shinji and Lisa as close friends.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Habituation has taught them both so very much, not always welcome lessons, about each other and themselves, how they've changed and how they've stayed the same. Lisa is fascinated with the changes and lack thereof even if she doesn't own up to it; Shinji notices but can't be bothered to care, except to brood and regret.
Shinji's laying up on the twin bed on his side of the hotel room; on the other side, Lisa sits at a desk, thin pale fingers flying across a piece of paper pressed smooth, fountain pen leaving thick, fine strokes.
Lisa still pronounces words and excuses and abject apologies to the shadows in the grains of the wall. She sees ghosts of people who likely are not even dead yet, sees them in the shadows that rise up from the carpet when the lights are turned to dimness.
Shinji can't remember Lisa ever being haunted by people before they left. She was always haunted, he supposes, but in a different way.
"What're you writing, anyway?" Shinji demands, propping himself up. Lisa's always writing something, it's impossible not to notice. Her hand is stained generously with ink that gets washed off in the gritty little bathroom. Shinji can't help but smile a little when he thinks of how Lisa resembles Lady Macbeth when she's washing her hands, with all the obsessive scrubbing.
Lisa never looks up, the lamp light shining off of her glasses and obscuring her eyes. "A letter. You know I have to write letters; otherwise everyone will start trying to find me."
That explains a lot.
Flopping back down on the bed, Shinji rolls his eyes. "Yadomaru Lisa at her anti-social best. So who's the letter to?"
"Hiyori." At this, Lisa turns her head and smirks silkily. "Shall I send her your love?" she asks in an especially sweet voice.
"Hell no!" Taking the bait Shinji jumps up. Lisa twirls the pen in her hand and he snarls. "You wouldn't dare."
She laughs softly and tucks the paper into an envelope, sealing it.
This is a regular routine for them, on any night when Lisa writes letters, especially to Hiyori.
The parts are so familiar that they know exactly what to say.
They can't tell what the words mean anymore, though. Overuse has made them meaningless.
Shinji and Lisa just take their cues from the clockwork that keeps them both running. That, at least, they can understand.