"Where the hell have you been?!" Suguro yelled when Rin finally turned up at ten thirty "We have been waiting, in the cold, for ages"
Rin cowered a little.
"Sorry!" He yelped "My roommates stayed up way later than I thought he would, and they kept talking and talking and I literally had to scream across the room that some people needed sleep, then senseii marched in and I got in trouble!"
"Idiot!"
"No one said you had to wait out here!"
~oOo~
Even before they made it onto the train, Okumura was being a pain.
He would not shut up for longer than thirty seconds, kept bouncing around, asking stupid questions, and at some point found a vending machine.
He proceeded to raid it, and send Shima into a sugar high.
Shima on a sugar high was even worse than normal Shima by a mile, in that he flirted with everyone in close proximity. At one point, Shima's attention focused on Suguro, who didn't hesitate to throw the contents of his whole water bottle at the pink-haired idiot.
After that, Shima wandered off and started flirting with Okumura, who stared for a few seconds before growling and showing his demonic nature in an impossible leap to the nearest high point, which happened to be another vending machine.
Suguro watched all this play out in a sort of frozen horror, while Koneko just buried himself in a book.
Thank god Okumura was a lightweight - he was out for the count before ten forty-five. Still on top of the vending machine.
At around eleven, Koneko fell asleep with his face on his book. Suguro turned a blind eye when Shima (still sugar-high) drew on the smaller boy's face with marker.
Okumura fell off the vending machine with a thump and a crack which gave the two remaining awake people the fright of their lives.
They scurried over to the machine at high speed, and looked down at the sleeping half-demon.
"His arm's broken." Shima noted, staring at the lump and looking like he was going to be sick.
Knowing that broken bones were in the same league as bugs to his friend, he bit his lip and was running over how to realign a bone when he noticed it shifting back into place by itself.
Right. Demonic healing.
They moved their friend-but-Suguro-wouldn't-admit-it onto a few seats and stuffed his backpack under his head as a pillow.
A notice came through that the train was delayed, pushing its arrival time to midnight.
Suguro swore upon hearing that, before clamping his hand over his mouth and turning to see if Shima had noticed.
The pinkhead was passed out on the floor and snoring away.
Groaning, Suguro ran a hand through his bicoloured hair and wondered if vending machines stocked caffeine.
~oOo~
Seven hours in a train alone was boring.
Seven hours in a train with Shima and Konekomaru was somewhat entertaining.
Seven hours in a train with Rin Okumura was pure torture.
Put them together at ten minutes past midnight and what've you got?
A lot of sleeping people.
The other three had stayed awake long enough to catch the SRS transfer train, laugh at the name "Express Sunrise Izumo", and find a comfortable spot on the sleeper seats.
Then they all passed out.
The only sounds were the rustling of turning pages, breathing, wind rushing past the train, and the wheels on the tracks.
Suguro had been trying to memorise the Revelation chapters in the Bible, so his muttering soon joined the background noises.
"The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near."
~oOo~
By the time the sun was coming up, Suguro had memorised the book of Revelation, and so went to review the book of Joshua, which he had messed up a few times. Just little things, but those little things could cost a life.
He flipped through the book, overshot, flipped back, undershot, and realised that he needed coffee.
Putting the dog-eared bible down, he fished through his bag until he retrieved the can of awakeness and cracked it open with a hiss.
Taking a few mouthfuls, he wedged it into the gap between his seat and the next before picking his bible back up and managing to open it to the right place.
~oOo~
"So Joshua who was the…damnit. So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, 'Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.' And he ordered the-." Suguro looked up at a weird choking noise.
Rin was sitting bolt upright, clutching his throat, eyes wide, the pupils slit and the iris vivid blue.
As Suguro watched, a tear of what looked like blood formed in the corner of his eye, and ran down his face.
"S***!" he yelled, leaping up as Rin hit the floor and started spasming. His bible tumbled to the floor, knocking over a few other objects on its way down.
The racket he was making caused both Shima and Koneko to jolt awake.
"I'm up!" Koneko yelped.
"Whassagoinon?" Shima asked, voice and eyes thick with sleep.
"Fatal verse! How do you counteract one of those?"
"What?" Both shot upright and the sleep cleared from their eyes with the speed of light.
Suguro pointed at the shaking half-demon. Both looked at him, then back at Suguro.
"What did you say happened? Shima asked, voice showing barely contained panic.
"I accidentally read his fatal verse."
"He has one of those?"
"Yes, he does!" Suguro shouted "Now what do we do before the security guys come through and think we poisoned him?"
"We can't." Koneko said "He has to fight it off himself."
"Demons can do that?" Shima and Suguro asked in unison.
"I think so." A shaking hand pushed up glasses "Either way, we may kill him if we interfere. We just have to let this play out."
None of them liked how that sounded.
