Better Than Santa
(rough draft)
A Rurouni Kenshin fanfic by Raberba girl
Summary: Enishi is forced to spend Christmas Eve with his six-year-old nephew. Modern AU.
A/N: This was NOT written with the recent tragedy in mind, but some people sensitive to the incident might draw some unintended parallels, I dunno. :/ Sorry ahead of time; all I was going for was Enishi/Kenji fluff, anything else is just coincidence.
o.o.o
Enishi's best Christmas present that year was getting to see his sister open her eyes for the first time in two weeks.
Before that, though, he was baby-sitting.
"Your snacks suck," said Kenji.
Enishi glared at his six-year-old nephew. "If you think I was gonna waltz around the grocery store tossing Fruity Rainbow Marshmallow Double-Chocolate Crap into my shopping cart, you can forget it."
"I'm hungry."
"There's more pork buns in the kitchen."
"I want pizza."
"Give me your entire year's allowance and I'll order some."
"No!"
"Then shut up."
They glared at each other.
"I'm gonna tell Mom and Dad that you told me to shut up."
"You can tell your dad to go sit on a porcupine for all I care." Tomoe, though... "And you can't tell them anyway, idiot, because they're in comas and they might never wake up."
"They will so wake up! They're not gonna die! They're strong!" Kenji looked to be near tears. Enishi realized that he was, too, so he whirled and stormed to his room and slammed the door shut.
o.o.o.o.o
It was a long time before he came back out. "Oi...Kenji..." The house was very quiet. "Kenji?" He had expected the kid to be watching cartoons or something, but he wasn't in the living room. With a growing sense of dread, Enishi searched the entire house and realized that his nephew was missing. He swore and seized his coat. "Dang it, kid, where are you...?"
He trekked through the cold night, peering around bushes and into neighbors' yards, listening for a young voice or anything out of place. "How far did he...?" Enishi had been by himself for a long time. Maybe Kenji had...gotten farther than he thought. "Ugh!"
Cursing again, Enishi hurried back home and started up the car. "Where are you, where are you, where are you, Neesan's gonna freaking kill me..." He drove slowly and ignored people honking at him once he was out in traffic. Eyes mostly on the sidewalks, searching for that tiny figure; stopping to ask passerby, half of whom gave him weird looks and increased their pace. It was times like these where it didn't pay to be creepy. "Kenji, I'm gonna kill you."
It wasn't that it actually mattered to him what had happened to the kid. Kenji could disappear for all he cared. Rather, it was picturing Tomoe's face...imagining what he would have to say as he told her that he'd misplaced her son. "I swear, if you don't show up in the next five minutes..."
Fifteen minutes. Thirty. An hour. He warred with himself about calling the police. Yukishiro Enishi had very good reason to stay clear of law enforcement, but when it was his sister's child at stake... "I never wanted to baby-sit, anyway!"
Tomoe had never wanted to end up in a coma, either. "I HATE THAT LIFE'S NOT FAIR!"
An hour and a half...two hours...
Kenji was so small. Kid that small, wasn't gonna be worth anything; too weak to lift anything he could use to defend himself. If something bad happened to him, he'd be helpless. "Why am I stuck being responsible for some loser weakling I never wanted..." It was easy to hurt a child, especially one that small. Could do it in half a move. And it wasn't like kids were brilliant at the art of self-preservation, either; half the time they did stupid things to hurt themselves. "If you fell in a ditch or walked into an electric fence or even just forgot your freaking jacket in this weather..."
Hi, Tomoe. Hey, glad to see you're awake; that's great, I'm really happy. Hey, listen. You don't mind adopting, right? I mean, you don't exactly have a kid anymore, but you can always get a new one, right? I bet he'll even be a better one. Yeah. You'll get a better kid and not even have to worry about the old one. Who disappeared under his uncle's watch. "It's not my fault!"
Finally he gave up and went home. Parked, trudged up the front walk, all the while trying to numb his heart, turn to annoyance and sulking so it wouldn't-
Thought it was a cat at first. Big cat. Realized pretty quickly that it was human, a really small one.
Enishi came to a halt, studying the little figure huddled miserably by the front door. "Didn't find what you were looking for, huh?"
"S-s-so c-c-c-cold," Kenji barely managed to say. "D-d-dark...you l-left m-me..."
"Oh, I left you, that's how you're gonna paint it to mama? Brat." Enishi nudged the kid out of the way so he could unlock the door, then picked up his nephew and carried him inside. Turned up the central heating, got him into some fresh clothes, noted with alarm how cold the boy's flesh was. "Hey, it's not that cold. Get it together."
Kenji just stood there shivering, teeth chattering, not saying a word.
Enishi wrapped him up in a blanket, set him on the couch, and dug through the kid's bag until he found a DVD, which he popped into the player. While that was starting, he went to the kitchen to stick the soup in the microwave to re-heat, ladled it into a couple of travel mugs, and brought them back into the living room. As soon as he sat down on the couch, Kenji dropped against him. Enishi tried to hand him a mug, and ended up having to dig the kid's hands out of the blanket and make him grasp the mug himself. "Drink it. It's soup."
"C-c-cold."
"If you drink the soup you'll warm up, stupid."
"Don't c-call me s-stupid."
"'Cuz you are."
"So're you."
"Am not."
"Are so."
The movie wasn't mind-numbing like he thought it'd be - first of all, it was kind of hard to ignore the sight of a giant piranha or whatever it was gnashing its teeth right at the screen; then some gimpy fish kid whose dad kept smothering him the way Enishi probably should have done to Kenji if he was a good person...
"It's like life," Enishi remarked as he watched the fish-kids going to school, "but with fish instead of people."
Kenji did not answer, since he was already asleep, with his head pillowed on his uncle's arm. He had stopped shivering and was now reassuringly warm. And heavy.
"Stupid kid." Enishi surprised even himself with the affectionate note in his voice. "I still don't like you, just so you know..."
The first thing he thought upon awakening on Christmas morning was anger at himself for falling asleep before seeing if what's-his-name-clownfish had ever found Nemo. The second thing was noticing Kenji standing in the middle of the living room, slowly turning in a circle.
"What's up?"
"Santa really didn't come," Kenji said forlornly.
Enishi glanced around his living room, which was devoid of any gifts or holiday ornamentation. "That's because he's not real, duh."
"I know...Mom told me. But I thought he might come, anyway."
See? Kids were stupid. Though, for the first time, it occurred to Enishi that he did not have to say this aloud. "Hey. Who needs Santa." He threw off the blanket, went to his bedroom closet, and dragged out a large box he'd gotten Tomoe to gift-wrap for him before the accident. Kenji was watching him from the doorway.
"What's that?"
"Your present."
"From Santa?"
"No, from me, stupid."
"No."
"No, what?" Enishi said, taken aback and a little irritated.
"You'd never get me a present, you're mean. That's from Santa."
"..." 'I'm a horrible uncle,' Enishi thought. Not that he cared, but it galled, being bad at something. "I've given you presents before."
"You did?"
"Hello, racecar set last year? That was from me."
"Huuuh? No it wasn't."
"Yes it was!"
"No it wasn't!"
"Yes it-! Gah, it was, now shut up and open your present before I chuck it in the trash."
"Don't do that." Kenji hurried over and tore off the paper. "Aaaawww! Awesome! How'd you know I wanted this?!"
"Your mom told me."
"She did?"
"What do you think Christmas lists are for?"
"Oh... Thank you, Uncle Enishi."
"You're welcome. I guess."
"Let's play with it in the living room."
"No. Get your coat and stuff, we're going to the hospital."
Kenji's eyes lit up. "To see Mom and Dad?"
"Yeah. To see Mom- I mean, your mom."
"Yeeessss! You're the best uncle ever!"
Surprised at being glomped, Enishi looked down at his nephew for a moment, then shrugged and hugged him back.
o.o.o
Author's Notes: Platonic Enishi/Kenji is one of my favorite RK pairings. I love them together, especially in an uncle/nephew context. X3 Lol, those two characters are pretty much the only way I can enjoy writing new RK stories anymore; writing Enishi is like writing Vanitas, and writing little Kenji is like writing little-kid Roxas. XD *heart*
Any negative feedback (from anyone except The Layman or kokoronagomu) just makes me hate RK fans even more than I already do, so please don't continue to keep ruining this fandom for me. If you don't like my pairings or my writing or my attitude, just go read something else; I've been forced to deal with this fandom's crap for years and I am now completely fed up with it. Being lectured and criticized just makes it worse.
I'd rather have no feedback at all than be told yet again that my pairings suck or that Kenji should be Kaoru's kid or that I'm too sensitive or that I shouldn't let other people influence me or WHATEVER it is that you think I'm doing wrong. Just keep your opinions to yourself and go find a fic you'll actually enjoy reading.