Strong Medicine
-Bondings and Babysitters-
Ha, ha, I kinda expected this fic to not have many readers... ...If you'll excuse me, I'll be hanging myself from my bedroom window. (Goes off to try and commit suicide but wasn't allowed to do so until this fic is finished...) Anyway, no matter how few people are reading this, but I'll just do my best. Let's see, where did I leave the story...? (searches a huge box full of stories) A-ha! Here we are! Now, let's get on with the story!
To RunningSnow: Here's hoping you still continue reading... :-D
Please R & R!
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-THE MANSION, 0800 HOURS-
Long was walking off to his room after making a cup of tea for himself and holding a book in front of his face, miraculously dodging any obstacles that lay in his path. The shock of holding a miniature version of his clone and the high-pitched scream he emitted may have marred his memory forever, but now the shock was swapped with confusion. How in the world did Shenlong manage to shrink himself? And to top it off, the red-eyed man, now a pint-sized, red-eyed little boy who was the exact replica of Long himself as a child was calling him 'Father'. (Long had a little argument with him about what to call him...)
The oriental man stopped in his tracks and felt something bump into his legs from behind. He'd expected this and if he wasn't careful, he may well have broken the mug in his hand from the annoyance that he was experiencing. Long whirled around in place and looked down at where his 'stalker' stood innocently, looking up at him as if he was the most interesting thing in the world,
"Can you not follow me EVERYWHERE?" he said through clenched teeth. It was easier to fend the adult Shenlong off... At least Long didn't have to deal with those wide, adorably innocent crimson eyes staring curiously at him. Such a contrast to the adult Shenlong...
"Why?" the boy asked, putting his hands in his pockets like his adult self would. Well, at least some of his original traits still stuck on. He was wearing a black, sort-of oversized long-sleeved shirt and a pair of dark blue slacks that threatened to trip him if he didn't roll the bottoms up. (The clothes were courtesy of Jenny; she took the trouble of finding the little guy something to wear!)
"Because I don't like being followed."
Shenlong looked at the nearest wall for no apparent reason and fell silent for a moment before looking up at Long again and repeating his question, "Why?"
Now it was Long's turn to repeat Shen's earlier action and then said, "Because I prefer being alone," before Shen got to ask 'Why?' again, Long continued, "I'll ask you a question, and if you can't answer me, you have to stop calling me 'Father', or 'Daddy', or whatever pet names you have for me and go play with Uriko or something, alright?"
The little boy pondered for a minute and even without him asking, Long already knew what he was going to say next, "Why?"
"Because I said so. Alright, my question is..." Great... now he can't think of a thing to ask. He then decided to ask a question that he'd heard Kenji and Uriko joke about, "What kind of animal is big, heavy and goes 'clomp, clomp, clomp, squish'?"
Shenlong's wide eyes narrowed, now making him look more like himself. Obviously, the little guy was wracking his brains for an answer as his frown grew deeper. Long took that as an escape and walked off without even waiting for an answer from the boy. He noticed this and called out, "Father, wait!"
Long cringed and stopped involuntarily, "Stop calling me that..." he looked over his shoulder and looked at the boy venomously, just to prove his point. Shenlong pouted cutely, even though he DID feel scared under Long's glare. He cleared his throat and said,
"If I can answer your question, will you play with me?" the tone that Shenlong took reminded Long of himself. He had an urge to agree, but at the same time, he felt that he'd rather not. After a bit of struggling with himself, Long finally said,
"That depends entirely if you can get me the answer. Just giving me an answer and getting it right are two very different things, Shenlong," it felt strange, talking to his clone as a child and as an adult. When Shenlong's face lit up and he ran off smiling (possibly trying to get someone to help him), Long couldn't help but feel a bit happy himself. When he caught himself feeling that way, he made a mental note not to get too attached to the child. After all, Shenlong is still Shenlong.
-ON THE SECOND FLOOR, GADO'S ROOM-
Alan Gado was just working at his desk. As to what he was working at, nobody was sure. He always seemed to be working on things almost in secret. His concentration was broken when he heard someone knocking at the door. Judging from the sound, it was someone short.
"Come in," he said in his deep voice. There was silence. The door hadn't opened yet and he could hear the sounds of someone jumping just to get at the doorknob. If he listened closely enough, he could've heard the visitor curse under his or her breath.
The door opened shortly after that, taking a bit more time before it swung forwards with little Shenlong hanging, as if for dear life, on the doorknob. The boy smiled at Gado sheepishly as he let the doorknob go and land on his feet on the floor, only to fall on his rump and embarrass himself further. (Gado's doorknob was exceptionally high. He said it was for safety purposes...) Shen picked himself off the floor and looked like he was torn between asking Gado something and running out of the door.
Well, the old lion did notice that the younger Shenlong was somehow afraid of him. When he stood up to approach the little guy and opened his mouth to say something, Shenlong must have thought Gado was going to eat him because his eyes widened and he turned around to run off, but ended up running into the door that he'd worked so hard to open. At that point, he'd forgotten about the question COMPLETELY.
It must have hurt, because the little boy practically bounced off of the frame and the sound that was emitted from the boy's skull didn't sound very reassuring. Gado's single eye widened as he strode across the room and scooped Shenlong up in his arms,
"Shenlong? Can you hear me?" he shook the boy slightly, whose nose was bleeding and had a nasty cut on his forehead. The door must have had a splinter or two sticking out. Shenlong rubbed his face, his eyes watering from the stinging impact and mumbled,
"I'm fine..."
Gado didn't look really convinced, "What's your name, how old are you and do you remember what just happened to you?"
Though intimidated, Shenlong rolled his eyes, pretty much in the same manner as he would have done if he hadn't shrunk and said aloud, as if memorized from a book, "My name is Shenlong, I'm five years old, coming to six sometime next year. I'm considered small for my age and I wish that'll change soon... I don't know who my mother is, but my father Jin Long seems to want to disown me and I just ran into a door... ...And my nose and my forehead hurt a lot!"
"How many fingers am I holding up?" Gado asked, holding his hand up in front of Shenlong.
The boy squinted and said, "...Six?"
Gado looked at the three fingers that he was holding up and shook his head, "Come on, kid. Let's get you cleaned up," with that said, Gado strode down the hallway and downstairs to look for Alice, all the while carrying a protesting Shenlong in his arms.
-LATER-
"OW! That hurt! Are you trying to help me or trying to kill me?" Shenlong said pointedly as Alice looked like she was trying to tie all his brain cells together.
"Well, if the bandage is loose, how do you expect the medicine to be absorbed by your skin?"
"Can't you do it some other way...?"
"No, I can't. I won't, rather. Now sit still!"
-PULL!-
"OW!!"
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Uriko laughed when Shenlong told his story. Kenji's face had turned a shade of red from suppressing his laughter, but joined Uriko shortly after that, followed by Nagi, who had nothing to do.
Shenlong's cheeks were bright pink as he folded his arms across his chest and grumbled, "It wouldn't be so funny if it were you..."
Kenji wiped away a few tears and managed to say, in between laughs, "We're sorry, Shenlong, it's just that... Running into an opened door is unheard of!"
"Yeah, and it's funny!" Uriko chimed in as their laughter grew louder. Shenlong, agitated by this, felt his fingers twitch, itching to just hit something until Nagi, who sat across of him, stopped laughing and stared at him as if he'd grown another head.
Shenlong noticed this, "What?"
Nagi pointed at his head. Shenlong looked up and saw the ceiling, then looked at Nagi and frowned, "Are you making fun of me?"
Uriko and Kenji had stopped laughing too and were also staring at him. Uriko then asked, "Shen, where would cat ears pop out if you had them?"
The red-eyed boy raised an eyebrow, "What are you talking about? I dunno, maybe h-" he stopped short when he felt something soft and furry on top of his head, where cat ears would pop out if he had them.
The trio who were with him observed him a bit more before he slowly put his arms down and asked, "Does anyone have a mirror...?" Nagi helpfully pulled a mirror out of her pocket and handed it to Shenlong. He opened it, adjusted the mirror so he'd be looking at the top of his head and as if he'd done a magic trick, he vanished from his seat in a flurry of black and blue.
The trio followed where the blur was moving at an alarming speed and heard Shenlong screech, "DAD!!" and when they found him, he was clawing at Long's door. By then, his hands had transformed half-way into paws and his nails made short work of the door. Not only that, his fangs had elongated, he'd grown a coat of fur that only showed like Uriko's fur would, his feet had formed paws and a tail completed the half-transformation, with the addition of his screeching now sounding like a cat with its tail stepped on.
Long opened the door warily and was surprised to have a small, cat-like creature pounce on him. This resulted in him and his assailant falling over and when he finally got a good look at the creature on him, Long felt a headache coming, "Shenlong, MUST you pounce?"
"But... but...!" the boy looked terrified, motioning to himself as his newly-acquired tail whipped about nervously, "I'm not human!"
"Well, nobody said you were," Nagi said without much thought. It earned her a slap to the forearm, courtesy of Uriko, "Ow! I was just saying it!"
Shenlong looked defeated as he huddled in one of the far corners of Long's room, making Long sigh and wonder what he'd done to deserve whatever was happening to him. He sat behind the half-tiger and said softly, "You're not the only one who can do that."
The little boy in front of him sniffled and looked at him over his shoulder, crimson eyes now a bit teary, "Really?" Shenlong asked and Long nodded. The red-eyed boy turned around momentarily to wipe his eyes with his sleeve before facing the adult and saying in a firm voice, "Prove it."
Long raised an eyebrow, "Here, now?" Shenlong nodded.
He looked at his room, which didn't really have enough space should he transform like he always did, so he stood up and walked to the centre of the widest space in his room. By this time, Shenlong had bounced onto Long's bed, watching intently. (Without him noticing, Uriko, Kenji and Nagi had joined him on the bed, as if ready to watch a movie...)
The oriental man closed his eyes and tipped his head back slightly so as to be able to summon the tiger within him without destroying anything around him. Everything was silent around him as the familiar surge of energy ran through him. He could hear Shenlong draw in a sharp breath as his features changed and fur sprouted from his body. When his transformation was complete, his now green eyes opened to look at the surprised cub.
"...How...?" Shenlong asked, too surprised to even complete his own question.
"We're zoanthropes," Uriko filled in for him, "People who can transform into animals."
Shenlong raised an eyebrow at the cat, "Transform into animals? Isn't that like... lycanthropy?"
"Ly...what?" It was Uriko's turn to look confused. Such big words, coming from one so small...
Kenji decided to spare Uriko the time to flip through the dictionary and said, "No, zoanthropes are similar to lycans, but zoanthropes are not lycans. Lycans transform completely into animals and lycans are just a legend. In the case of zoanthropes, we still retain some human qualities."
Shenlong nodded, "...So is that why father's able to stand up even when he's a tiger?"
"Right. That's one of the human quality that you retain."
"...Okay... Now I have another question," Shenlong looked at the trio behind him and then at Long. They waited for him to speak and after a bit of thinking, Shenlong burst out, "How the heck do I turn back!"
They sweatdropped. Long returned to his human form and Shenlong pointed an accusing finger at the older man, "See! Father does it so easily and I haven't even lost the claws yet!"
Nagi scratched her cheek absent-mindedly, "Well... If it were me... Hmm... He's got a point. How DID we do it...?"
Uriko scratched her head, "Well, it's either we get hit really hard... Or be knocked unconscious."
"...I'm not really ready to give myself another bump on the head..." Shenlong mumbled, motioning to the bandages around his head.
While the trio tried to find an easy solution to the de-transformation part, Long shook his head and said, "Just calm yourself down and picture yourself before you transformed in your mind."
Silence hung in the room and in the background, they could hear Uriko say, "It was on the tip of my tongue!"
Shenlong got off the bed and closed his eyes, pretty much like Long did a few minutes ago and tried. Minutes passed and still, nothing. Shen slumped down on the floor, holding his paw in front of his face, "It's not working..." he said dejectedly.
"Aww... It's okay. Sometimes, it's better to stay like this," Nagi said soothingly, picking the boy up and sitting him down on her lap. Shenlong wriggled out of her grasp almost immediately, feeling uncomfortable in her embrace and opted to hide behind Long's legs instead.
Long sighed, "I'm wondering if I'll have enough time to teach you how to de-transform..."
Shen's ears perked up as he looked at his 'father', "What do you mean, 'if you'll have enough time'? You're not going somewhere, are you?"
"Oh, yeah... Long's going back to China for a week..." Uriko said, earning a slap on the shoulder from Nagi, "Ow! What? Long IS going! He's got his ticket and everything..."
Nagi glared at the cat zoanthrope and motioned to Shenlong with her head. Uriko took a look at Shen's horrified expression and knew she'd said something wrong.
"What?" the boy breathed, looking at Uriko as if he were trying to drill a hole through her forehead just by staring. He looked up at Long, his small hands now clenching the material of Long's trousers, crimson eyes searching Long's brown ones for an answer, "You're not really going, are you...?"
Long looked down at his clone and sighed as he knelt down and patted the boy on the head, "I am. I'll be away for the week, so Gado and I decided to get you a babysitter."
"Babysitter? ...Oh yeah... We're going camping..." Uriko said with realization that she and Kenji were going on a camping trip organized by her school, "But I thought Cronos, Ganesha and a few others are gonna be home. Why bother with a babysitter?"
"Gado asked them to help him with something," Long replied, standing up to return to his reading. The trio behind the stunned child seemed to understand what Long was talking about. For a moment, there was an uneasy silence hanging between them. A sniffle broke the tension in the air as suddenly, the chair Long was sitting in fell back, bringing him along with it, book and all.
The world seemed to spin when Long's head made contact with the floor, carpeted it may be. The tiger closed his eyes tightly, the pain blossoming from the point of impact. There was another sniffle as Long cracked an eye open to see a pair of angry but teary red eyes.
"You're not gonna bring me even if I asked, right?" his voice quivered when he asked.
"Shenlong..."
"Well, don't go! I don't want to be alone, ever! Not after Rinrei!" he cried. Long froze at the mention of the name. Before he could even catch the boy's tail, Shenlong had run out of the room, apparently crying.
"Shenlong, wait!" Long stood up in a hurry to chase his clone and nearly tripped himself, but was rewarded with a slam of Shenlong's door in his face, "Shenlong, open the door," he said, after finding out that Shenlong had locked the door.
"No!" came the muffled reply. His best guess was that Shenlong had a pillow over his head.
"I just want to talk to you."
"NO! Leave me alone!"
Long smiled at the irony, "And who was the one who knocked me chair over, saying he doesn't want to ever be alone?"
Silence rewarded him. He waited patiently and heard someone shuffling out of bed and walking towards the door. The door's lock clicked open and Long waited. Shenlong didn't bother opening the door for him, so he opened it himself, only to see the half-tiger sitting on the bed, looking outside of his window and hugging a pillow to his chest. Long smiled. He didn't expect to live long enough to see himself in such an awkward situation.
He strode across the room and sat on Shenlong's bed, pushing his slipping glasses up the bridge of his nose. Only then did Shenlong avert his gaze to the man he didn't know was his original, "What did you want to talk about?" his tone was cold, a tone that would have made the assassin Long proud.
Long's already sad smile faltered when he recalled the topic he was going to talk about, "...It's Rinrei. How did you know about her?" as far as Long could remember, Rinrei wasn't a child when she passed away. And he was in his late teens then.
Shenlong closed his eyes, hugging his pillow closer to his chest, "...I don't know... I'm not sure myself. It feels like I know her, but at the same time... ...I don't know how to explain it..." he gave up trying to explain and lay sideways on his bed.
Both tigers remained silent for a moment before they both decided to drop the subject. Shenlong, being unable to explain what his memories held and Long being unable to decipher what Busuzima's medicine was capable of doing next. Shrinking Shenlong was strange enough, erasing his current memories and having parts of Long's memories was even weirder.
His train of thoughts was interrupted when a drowsy Shenlong laid his head on Long's lap, "...You're still going, aren't you...?"
"...Yes..." Long said thoughtfully, propping one arm up on his knee and resting his chin in his palm while unconsciously allowing his free hand to stroke the child's head. Shenlong's cat ears twitched momentarily and if Long listened closely, he could hear his clone purring in approval of the stroking. He sighed as Shenlong slowly drifted to sleep in his lap and he continued to stare into space, doing apparently nothing.
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A few days later, Gado got himself a very unlikely visitor. He found himself in the living room, sitting across a teenage girl with dirty brown hair and red and purple stripes in them. She had narrow eyes, but if her eyes were a bit narrower, she would have reminded Gado of Jenny. She didn't have the mysterious look Jenny's eyes had, but her sky blue eyes were secretive and somewhat dark. Fairly tall, even after ditching the rollerblades that she appeared to be very fond of and having alabaster skin that was a fine line between appearing doll-like and pasty depending on the light intensity, Gado couldn't really put a finger as to which country she came from.
Alan Gado leant back in his seat as he sipped on his tea, surprised at how quickly the young lady replied to his ad. As a matter of fact, she was the ONLY person who answered to his ad... After observing the teen a bit longer, discovering that she was built like an all-round athlete, he put his cup down and looked at her in the eye,
"So, Katea Falenby, was it? You said you were willing to baby-sit for me. May I ask why?"
The teenager, Katea, smiled at Gado, "Well, I'd be lying if I said I'm not doing it for the money. Is the kid I'm babysitting really worth that much?"
Somewhere behind them and sitting with his feet dangling off of the railings of the second floor, the child she was going to baby-sit looked at her disapprovingly. She never noticed though. He seemed to disappear from her sight whenever she tried to look at him.
Gado sighed, scratching the back of his neck, "Well, if he isn't worth that much, I won't be getting myself a babysitter for him now, would I?"
"Point taken. I don't mean to be blunt, but how much of a nuisance is this kid to you?" her straightforwardness made Gado imagine a little protesting Shenlong somewhere at the back of his mind. Oh well, just so long as he doesn't start beasting up on her and scaring the daylights out of her, she'll be fine...
"He can get annoying, but he's pretty obedient. I don't think he'll have any problems listening to you," again, somewhere behind him, Katea could hear someone scoffing something inaudible.
Katea brushed a strand of her dyed hair away from her eyes and said, "So, let me get this straight; I start at 10 in the morning and stop at 7 in the evening?"
"It can vary, depending how much work we have, but you'll be paid for the extra hours."
"And if you come home earlier?"
Gado shrugged, "Then we'll have to cut a dollar or two."
Katea seemed to re-consider at this point but ended up saying, "If I wasn't doing this to save myself from poverty, I'd probably be in a video game arcade by now, but I'll do it. When do I start?"
The old lion smiled at her, "Now."
Crickets chirped.
"NOW??"
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Chapter 2 done. :-)
Author's ramblings!
I managed to introduce myself! Yes, Katea is me. I'm characterizing her as myself in real life. So, anything the BR cast say here, if they said it to me in real life, you'll know how I react to them...
I've made Shen and Long more father-and-son than I originally intended... And I stuck myself in a corner by mentioning Rinrei... ...Great. Now I need a new plot bunny to either kill the idea or just go with it...
Oh well, hoping more reviews would come... PLEASE click the little 'Go' button at the bottom of the page... For me:-) (sweating profusely in the background)
