I couldn't help myself! It's a classic (read sterotypical) setup : the real world on a stormy night, a girl (ie the author) finds yuyu character injured and in need of help. Who can resist:3 So I gave it my own spin as kind of a plot bunny, I might write more, I might not. I'm trying to be self-effacing here, I don't mean to insult anybody else who's written a fic like this, in fact I read them :3, all the time. Oh and the rating is because I wrote this like I hear people my age actually talk: a curse in every other sentence when the parents are out.


The rain was pouring down now, thunder and lighting slowly approaching. You could tell from the shorter and shorter intervals between blasts of noise, and the increasing volume. The flashes were the biggest clue though, getting steadily brighter and more distinct. The teen on the couch turned the volume up on the TV for the fifth time in an attempt to block out the storm. Her back was to the glass doors opening onto the rain drenched chaos of the yard and she could almost pretend that she was not home alone in a scary, scary thunderstorm. It was getting even closer now, probably over the lake which was just beyond the band of trees behind her house. She got up and went into the kitchen to rummage in the fridge.

It hadn't been storming like this earlier; otherwise the others would never have gone out. They would never have taken her little sister to her friend's house for dinner. Of course it was a nice time for the parents as well, they got to chat and have adult time while the children entertained each other. And here she was wrapped in a throw, standing barefoot on the cool kitchen tiles eating ice cream from the box as she stared out the expansive windows into the backyard. It was kind of eerie having big black windows right there opposite the fridge, even if there was a counter and breakfast table between them and her.

She pulled her eyes away from the fascinating storm and looked back at the nonsense on the TV, just noise to distract her from the uneasy feeling of being alone in a silent and dark house. Alone because the animals didn't count. A high-strung, napping lapdog was no replacement for another person. And a cat, is well, a cat and had been out of sight for hours. There was another crash of thunder, but this time simultaneous with the lighting and she jumped, nearly dropping a spoonful of ice cream down her front. "Holy Mother of God that's close!"

The next noise she heard was even more unsettling. Something crashed into the glass doors into the family room. Her heart decided this called for a salsa and began beating double time while her stomach suddenly decided it didn't like ice cream very much and wanted to be rid of it. There was a second thump against the doors and she let out the smallest squeak, though she hadn't moved from her original spot. She hadn't moved for fear that doing so would allow her to see what was out there, and allow whatever it was to see her.

She was standing with her back to the fridge and front of the house, facing the backyard through the huge inky windows that in the morning let light pour into the 'breakfast nook'. The family room stretched off to her right, the flickering TV casting long shadows and tinting the room in strange shades. The only light on was sitting on an end table in the family room. It probably had no idea she was really in the kitchen. The counter she was standing at was in line with the back wall of the family room, and that set of doors. She grabbed a large pan off the stove top and silently climbed onto the counter and swung down. There was another door into the back of the house, the one she was approaching now. The 'breakfast nook' as her mother insisted on calling it at all times stuck out of the back of the house, and there was a door on the right side, looking out onto the deck.

She pressed herself as close to the wall as possible and scooted along towards the door, stopping when she was next to it. Several deep breaths were supposed to calm her, but had no real effect as her hands tightened on the heavy pan she was clutching. 'As if one pan'd save me from legions of the living dead,' visions of zombie movies coming to her head. 'Don't they always start like this too?' There was another flash of lightning and she leaned over quickly, peaking out the window in the door she was next to. There was definitely something on her deck, and it looked like it wanted in. "Sweet Zombie Jesus," she murmured reverently. It thumped again against the family room doors. She looked outside again, could make out its hunched and bedraggled form, but there was only one form there. 'Okay, so it's not a zombie swarm, and they normally don't run too fast, so I can clunk it upside the head and book it the hell back inside.' She bit her lip and took another deep breath. 'Or it could just be a person out there. Frankly I might prefer a zombie, cuz what the hell's anyone in their right mind doin' in my backyard on a night like this? Looking for their next serial murder victim most likely!'

She shifted the pan to her left hand and slowly unlocked the door. Then she flipped on the outside lights and opened the door. The Thing cringed back from the light. It lifted a hand to shield its eyes and its head jerked around trying to spot someone. "Oh god, oh god," she gasped, the pan clattering to the ground as she rushed forward.


There was some strange noise buzzing in his ears, it slowly resolved into words as he concentrated. He also realized he wasn't standing anymore. It felt like he was laying down, on some cold hard surface. But at least the rain has stopped. There was another sound, much fainter, beyond the words, the rumble of thunder and patter of rain. So it was still raining, and he was still wet, but he wasn't being rained on, he must be inside. Inside with this strange voice singing over him. There were strange smells too, besides his own, strange people and a strange place, household smells that were not his own, nor did they belong to anyone he knew. There was the distinct smell of a wet dog somewhere and something salty. He felt a few raindrops, but they couldn't be rain because they were concentrated in one spot, and he had already decided he was inside.

He opened his eyes slowly, but it wasn't bright like he'd expected. It was fairly dark, except when the occasional bolt of lighting would send a flare of photons into the room, momentarily making the shapes clear. "I'm sorry," the distant voice hiccupped, the singing having ended when he opened his eyes. "I don't know if I'm doing it right, you apply pressure to a wound but I don't want to make it worse." It crackled with strain and he recognized the salt smell now: tears. Mixed in with that other salty smell, that of his own blood. "For some reason I had the funniest feeling I shouldn't call for an ambulance." No, an ambulance would be a very bad idea; he had to agree with her there. He turned his head to the left so he could see her: fearful bloodshot eyes, straggly brown hair dripping water as her eyes flicked from his to the wound she was pressing on. "Are you dying?" the fear conveyed in those three words surprised him very much and he had to pause to take stock of his condition before answering her.

"No," he forced himself to answer her in the language she'd been using, English. He had no idea where the Hell he was, but at least he would be able to communicate with her. "Where am I?"

"On my fucking kitchen floor!" The poor girl was on the point of hysteria and he was hardly in any state to help her. She took one hand off his wound and used the back of it to wipe the dripping hair from her face. "I'm not going to get AIDs from you am I?"

"No," he replied, some of the smoothness coming back to his voice. "And the bleeding has lessened so you can stop pressing on my stomach for a moment."

The pressure lifted and he watched her fall back from crouching onto her haunches to sitting flat on her butt her legs bent up at odd angles. Her eyes were slightly glazed as she stared over him, not quite seeing anything. "I had to take off your shirt and coat to get at those injuries," she said in a much calmer voice, a flick of her wrist indicating something on his right. He turned his head slowly and saw that indeed his shirt and coat were laying there in their own puddle, but free of the blood that seemed to be leaking around him. Then he saw his right arm, the cut was just as bad as he'd feared, running up the length of his forearm, but above it was a makeshift tourniquet that seemed to be doing the job for the moment.

"Do you have any bandages?" he asked as he slowly turned his head back to the girl.

"I'm thinking," she snapped. "I don't know where she's put them, damn woman. My mother's a nurse, they're Somewhere. How am I going to clean all this up?" her voice rose several pitches again and she went to rub her face but stopped just in time. "No time for cannibal war paint," she muttered as she got to her feet. "You stay there!" she shook a bloody finger at him, like he was capable of movement. "Just what I need is the figment of my warped mind to go and leave me even more confused." She turned and walked into the next room, the source of the only light. "God what a time to go crazy, and schizophrenic nonetheless! Seeing people that don't exist, well at least I know he's not real," her voice was fading as she got further away and he thought he heard the creak of stairs. "Can't be real."

He heard the footsteps returning a minute or so later as he forced himself to remain conscious. He couldn't afford to go blinking in and out again, especially around this delicately balanced girl. The footsteps were stronger coming back and he winced as a bright light came on above his head. "Sorry, thought it better to see the extent of this gruesome scene. Shit you look like someone's been trying to sacrifice you on an altar to their heathen gods. Three old towels is all I can allot to this cleanup without completely tipping off Mom, she's a straight to the hospital kind of person. And so far you've given no indication of wanting to go to one."

She sat down on his right side and slipped a towel under his arm as she lifted it onto her lap. She held a bottle of peroxide dangerously over the gash and he gritted his teeth. "Imminent pain warning," she said and began to pour the liquid. He focused his attention on the series of cuts that had shredded his side to keep his mind off the burning in his arm. "I know it hurts like a bitch, but hey, it's not iodine right?" she laughed a little and he felt something being placed over the wound. He opened his eyes again to see her tearing a package of sterile bandages open and carefully wrapping up the length of his arm. "Tell me if I'm doing this right or wrong, Hell say something."

"You're doing it right, just make sure to do a couple layers."

"Sir, yes, sir," she responded, obviously amused by this for some reason.

"So where am I?"

"I told you, my kitchen floor. If you want the town I can tell you that, if you mean which state you must be really lost, and if you don't know which country I might just have to call Homeland Security."

"You might just have to call them then," he replied, wondering exactly what 'Homeland Security' was.

She sucked in her breath and continued wrapping his arm. "You're in America, on the east coast, a couple hours from the capital, D.C.. You probably don't know or care about the states. How the hell'd you get here, plane crash," there was a pause. "Or some other way?" He wasn't sure he liked the insinuation in her voice, it was too unnerving an accusation. She was just some suburban schoolgirl, wasn't she? He watched her hold the bandage up with one hand while groping around for scissors. She cut it awkwardly, then pulled out a roll of medical tape and taped the ends in place. "What to do about your stomach wound? I can't just wrap it can I? It's so huge! Agh!" She hit herself in the forehead and rocked backwards. "Why am I hallucinating bleeding boys in the middle of a storm? Am I really that cracked, gone off the deep end?"

"You're not hallucinating, I'm real," he said slowly, nearly switching languages on her. That was probably the last thing she needed at the moment

"Of course you'd say that!" she growled, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"How can I prove it to you?"

"You can't, the only way to be sure is have someone I know is real tell me they see you too. But you'll be gone by the time they get home."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." He pushed himself up on his elbows and looked down at the bloody mess of his stomach. "Why do people keep stabbing me there? It's very inconvenient. And tonight not only did I get stabbed, for good measure they added all those nice shallow slashes." He sighed. "I can bandage it myself."

"Not-uh," the girl said, holding the roll away from his outstretched hand. "And stop moving about so much!"

"Help me sit up at least." He gave her such a determined look that she only glared and muttered to herself as she moved around behind him and began pushing him up. It was only as she was trying to tug him up by pulling under his arms that he realized that she was much frailer than him. He was slightly surprised she had managed to get him inside in the first place. He remembered passing out against those glass doors, but this was not the room he had been looking into. He tried to help her by moving to sit up but his stomach muscles spasmed and he took in a sharp breath before falling backwards.

"And Mom walks in and goes: Thank God there's a boy in the house, but what the Hell are you doing?" she muttered from behind him as she tried to ease his fall. "I told you this was a bad idea."

"It's not. Hold still and I can bandage the cut."

"Wait," she said as he reached for the bandages, he felt her shifting behind him and her foot suddenly came into view to his right. "I can't sit on my legs forever you know. I'm not Japanese." Another strange statement that made him slightly uneasy, not like she could have any real idea though. She placed the roll of bandages into his hand and let her hands drop back. "Anything else I can do besides serving as backrest?"

"Not at the moment," he smiled slightly. He began winding the gauze around his midsection. The patter of rain and distant thunder were the only sounds now aside from quiet breathing. He could feel the soft surface he was resting on shifting slowly in time to her breathing. It was, slightly distracting. "What were you singing earlier?" he asked, to break the silence.

She let out a squeak and covered her mouth. "I thought you were unconscious!"

"I was, mostly. Can you sing it again? It was comforting."

She snickered and he could feel her body shaking from the suppressed laughter. "Oh it's not comforting by far, you must not have heard any of the words. It's Evanescence, angsty teen music."

"Please."

She let out something akin to a growl. "I'm dying, praying, bleeding and screaming… am I too lost?" She let out another low noise and unhappy groan. "My God my tourniquet, return to me salvation," the words came out almost too low to be picked up by human ears as she murmured them. She was obviously embarrassed. "My wounds cry for the grave… my soul cries for deliverance… will I be denied," she trailed off the last part and fidgeted slightly. "Rather morbid isn't it? Bet you wished you hadn't asked."

"Oddly fitting though," he said as he wound the bandage around again and pulled it tight. The bleeding had slowed greatly, thanks in part to the girl's quick actions, and in part to his own healing abilities.

"Fitting says the boy who fell outta the sky and into my lap," she muttered. He twitched slightly. "Well I hate to break it to you hon, but that's where you are right now, in case you haven't noticed." The line of gauze abruptly ended and he wove it into the other layers. With a deep breath he relaxed and leaned against her even more. "Agh, you trying to smosh me?" She exclaimed.

"Sorry." He couldn't move anymore, the effort of bandaging himself and trying to force his body to heal had drained most of his energy.

"Look, I'll get you a real backrest," she said and he could feel her shifting behind him, trying to get to her feet or something. She grabbed him under the arms and began dragging him. She turned him around and backed into a counter, then squatted down and pulled him over far enough that his back was resting against the low wall. "I still have to clean up this mess before my mom gets home." He watched as she scuttled forward and began mopping up the mess with one of the towels she's brought down. Two towels managed to sop up most of the liquid covering the floor, but there were still streaks of red here and there. "Ah where's the method to my madness?" she muttered as she went around the wall he was leaning on to rustle through cabinets.

'Method to her madness? Perhaps she is unstable,' he thought as he heard her walking around again. She had a squirt bottle filled with some green substance and a roll of paper towels.

"The method to my madness," she smiled, holding the bottle up so he could see the word 'Method' in large letters across the front. "Method, heh, yeah I know, all puns are bad." He watched her clean, his eyes sinking closed just to snap open again as soon as he realized he was nodding off. She disappeared from his line of sight for a while, disposing of the evidence he assumed.

"Hey, hey, wake up. Man, wake up!" His eyes shot open and he had to stop himself from grabbing her neck. He shook his head to clear it and looked at the girl who was squatting in front of him. "Do you want me to call an ambulance; do you want to go to the hospital?" she asked. He shook his head in a quick negative. A hospital filled with doctors and nurses asking questions and examining him was the last thing he needed. "I made tea. I hope I didn't put too much sugar in." She held out a cup and he took it, grateful for the warmth of the mug in his hands and the refreshing scent. "I'm going to throw all the wet crap in the laundry, I know a trick to get blood out. Uh, er," he saw with some surprise as pink spread across her cheeks. "Um, do you want me to throw your pants in too since they're soaked?" She looked away quickly and reached to pick up his shirt and coat behind her.

"I guess that would be best," he said slowly, patting his pockets. It was gone. "Oh no."

"What's wrong?"

"I lost something. Something very important," he looked up to see her giving him an expectant look. "It's round and flat, a few centimeters across, opens and there's, there's a screen inside."

"It looks like a compact, like for makeup?" He nodded, wondering if she had taken it while he was unconscious. She flipped her half-dry, frizzy hair from her face and looked out the dark windows. "I'll go look in the yard, but I probably won't be able to find something that small in the dark unless it's flashing and playing the 1812 overture." She stood up and went to the door where a pair of sneakers was sitting in its own puddle. She put them on to an unpleasant squelching sound and slipped out the door into the night.


"I can't believe I'm out here in the pouring rain, again, trying to look for some stupid beauty product Mr. Blood-and-Gore might have dropped anywhere!" she grumbled as her eyes swept the deck. It wasn't up there, of course it wouldn't be in the first place she looked, the easiest, most straightforward place. It had to be difficult. She clenched her teeth and stepped out from the slight shelter of the house and walked down the stairs into the yard. Fortunately the grass was slightly long and the boy's passage had left a definite trail of slightly bent grass. In the distant streaks of lighting and the light coming from the porch it was visible, just barely.

She walked along, bent almost in half as she examined the ground for anything that might have been dropped there. She passed out of the range of the house's lights and had to pause to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Then she continued her search. 'He probably just said that to get me out of the house. I bet he didn't even lose anything. Well if he wants to run away that's his prerogative, less explaining I have to do.' She had reached the trees and was about to turn back, not about to leave the property, in the dark, during a storm, when she saw an oddly regular shape on the ground. She bent down and picked it up. It was a blue compact about two inches across, oddly heavy in her hand. It was an object she recognized and she flipped it open while feeling an iron weight in her stomach.

She trudged back to the house and inside, kicking off her shoes as she entered. "You're a mess." She looked around sharply at the boy's voice. She couldn't tell if he was mocking her, or if it was a commiserating tone he was using. She slammed the door and locked it, flicking out the back lights.

"Whatever kind of mess I am it's your fault. I was warm and comfy until you decided to play zombie at the back door! And I hate to break it to you but you're not the most impressive looking creature yourself at the moment." He looked mildly surprised as if wondering how she could compare the two of them. "I may be soaked to the bone but at least I don't look like a swamp monster with weeds and blood matted in my hair! And you're paler than me, feat that that is, you look like a freaking ghost with sunken cheeks, probably from the blood loss. The dark circles and bloodshot eyes don't help either Monsieur le Zombie, not to mention all the little cuts and the fact half of you is wrapped like a mummy." He was momentarily speechless and she instantly regretted lashing out at someone who could barely stay conscious. "I found your thing," she said in a softer tone as she walked over to him.

"Thank you," he said as she handed it over. He opened it and there was the sudden crackle of static, something it hadn't done for her. He snapped it shut immediately and handed her something. She looked at it with curiosity. His pants. She turned away quickly and scrambled to pick up his other discarded clothes then jumped to her feet. "I'll go throw these in the wash," she said and ran past him through the kitchen and into the next room. He heard the metal clang of a washing machine being opened and the whoosh of the water pouring in.

She was pouring detergent straight onto the bloodstains and rubbing it in, in hopes of getting most of the stains out when she looked down at her own clothes. They too had large smears of red in obvious spots. "Shit." She threw his clothes into the filling washer and began unbuttoning her pants. "Thank god I'm just crazy and he's not real or this could be embarrassing." She applied the same spot treatment to her own clothes and dropped them into washing machine as well before slamming the lid. She looked out into the kitchen and saw the throw blanket on the floor where she'd dropped it when he had slammed against the door the first time. 'Salvation!' She hurried forward and wrapped it around her shoulders.

"I have to go upstairs for a bit, will you be okay down here?" she asked from her position in the middle of the kitchen.

"I believe so," he replied slowly from the other side of the counter.

"Is there anything I can get you first?"

"No, I can think of nothing."

"Okay." She shot out of the kitchen into the family room. Skirting in front of the couch, she passed in front of the muted TV and dashed up the stairs. She shot down the hallway into her room and pulled open the dresser. "Clothes, I need clothes. Wash and dry takes over an hour and a half too… damn." She tossed things onto the floor in a heap, then picked up the pile and carried it down the hall into the bathroom. "But first a shower. Wait, you're not supposed to shower in a thunder storm." She stopped and went to the nearest window. Lightning was faint and distant now and she couldn't even hear the thunder. "Okay, screw safety, and the fact that the washer is on, I need a shower."

Fifteen minutes later she was headed back downstairs, humming to herself as she rubbed the towel covering her hair. The boy was standing next to the sink, standing on a bloody towel as he combed his fingers through his hair. "Gross! Do that over the trashcan!" He started and looked around, a leafy twig in one hand.

"I'm doing it over the towel, which you left sitting by the trashcan and not in it."

"I was gonna put it in a separate bag to make it harder to tell what it was," she huffed, walking towards him. "Should you even be standing?" His eyes slid halfway closed and he went back to picking through his hair. 'Don't make that face at me!' she screamed mentally. "Nice boxers by the way," she snorted and he blushed. She stepped up to the counter and unloaded her armful of stuff while still trying to dry her hair with the other hand. "Well at least I don't have to pick you up," she said as she jumped forward and grabbed him by the hair.

"Hey! What are you doing?"

"Making you look half-way human before my family gets home. If you're real it'll be easier to explain you if you don't look like a swamp thing that crawled outta the lake." She pulled his head towards the sink and flipped on the water. "It's a good thing we've got a garbage disposal, that'll take care of the leaves, you'd better have gotten the branches out already." He made several noises of protest as she shifted things around on the counter. "I guess dish soap would work fine." He tried to jerk away but only ended up hurting his stomach more. "But then I did go to the trouble of bringing shampoo down. Stay still there." He sighed and folded his arms on the edge of the sink, hanging his head down and silently cursing this girl.

"Now that wasn't so traumatic was it Monsieur le Zombie?" she sniffed as she shut off the water and let him stand up straight. He tried to glare at her but she whipped the towel off her hair and threw it over his head. "Now sit down before your legs give out," she said as she shoved him around the counter and into a chair at the table. He collapsed into the chair and heard her walking away as he tugged the towel off his head. He watched her pick up the towel from the floor and wrap it around the debris that had fallen from his hair before she shoved it into the trashcan. She picked up something else from the counter and tossed it to him.

He caught the shirt and shook it out. It was a white t-shirt with green and gold letters emblazoned across the front. " … College? You're a university student?"

"Yup, and when mummsie comes home, you're one too," she smiled.

"I am a university student."

"Even better. But that should fit you till your clothes are dry, since it's big on me. So," she said, leaning on the counter and fixing her eyes on him as he pulled the shirt over his head. There was a malicious glint in her eyes that he didn't like. "How do you want to be introduced, as Kurama or Shuichi?"


it's always fun giving a setup your own twist. Reviews with some feedback would be nice