Home for the Holidays
Chapter: 7
Title: In a Million Ways
Disclaimer: There is absolutely zero chance that I could ever own Ranma ½ or any of the characters seeing as Rumiko Takahashi already owns them. Don't sue.
Nabiki Tendo surveyed the evidence.
One Akane Tendo, clad merely in some kind of strappy tank top and sweat pants, looking extremely uncomfortable at the moment.
One Ranma Saotome, shirt loosened with the first tie mysteriously undone and a look of guilt plastered on his face.
Both leaning forward, inches from the other's face.
Very interesting, indeed. "Well what have we here…" she drawled, a sly grin slowly spreading across her shrewd features.
What else was there to say really. "It's not what it looks like!" came the unified response from two pairs of hesitant lips.
With one last calculating glance, she shrugged nonchalantly and swiftly exited the room, casually shutting the door on her way out. Who was there to sell pictures to anyway? She had long since been out of the photography business. Nabiki Tendo did not waste her time with small fry business transactions. Oh no. She had moved on to bigger and better deals.
But this information could still be used for her personal enjoyment. Her life had become noticeably duller since all the exceedingly crazed, neurotic, and well, unique martial artists had left town.
Oh no. She was definitely going to enjoy this.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he crammed his pillow over his pigtailed head, feeling its softness mold around the curves of his face and press against his cheek bones. What had he been thinking? Had he actually been considering telling her? In his mind, he replayed the last few days of his life.
You show up again and I don't know what to do with myself...
He inhaled deeply, the gentle scent of cotton and linen blanketing his senses.
You really shouldn't let your guard down, Ranma...
What was so hard about being honest?
He was ashamed. Ashamed of how afraid he really felt. It was just like the first day that he'd realized it. The first day he'd really known that his life would never be the same. The first day that he'd come to terms with the fact that he couldn't live without her. That he was only half a man without her.
So he'd run off.
But he'd looked back too soon and realized what he was leaving behind… Her laugh. Her smile. Her.
His heart ached so painfully now.
How could he ever make it up to her? He knew that was what the dojo had been about. Two years of separation had torn away at his insides until he was ready to scream. How could he just waltz back into her life and expect things to be normal? Going to the market for Kasumi, having snowball fights, playing cards, making sandwiches at odd hours of the night.. practicing in the dojo.
The dojo. How had he lost control? He cursed himself for slipping up so easily. But that was it really. It was just so easy to want to be with her again. To slip onto the counter in the kitchen and rattle away about his training trip. To carry grocery sacks and issue meaningless complaints. To forget the world around him as he crunched through the snow with her. To get lost in her eyes and the warmth of her smile. To love her so completely and thoroughly that life without her was really no life at all.
So easy…
And yet… somehow he doubted being her slave for a week would be half as easy.
With a last mental curse to his pride and sour luck, he allowed his mind to succumb to rhythmic lull of sleep.
Ranma…
Lush green grass brushed the tips of his fingers, his legs sprawled out in front of him. The picnic blanket on which he sat was a quilt covered in delicate colors and patterns, blending together in the blissful sunshine.
"Hand me the lemonade, will you?" A feminine voice called to him breezily. He recognized that voice. He'd dreamed that voice a thousand times before.
"Just a minute.." Across plates of sandwiches and fruit salad, he heard his own voice echoing in reply, almost as if it was separated from his body. He was so relaxed, and it was such a beautiful day. He wanted to lay here in this moment forever.
His eyes caught a glimpse of a young boy on the swing set, laughing and waving in his direction, black hair flying as he soared through the air to the rhythm of the squeaking chain-link swing. His smile was so infectious and familiar. He just couldn't quite place it. He laid back and watched a cloud drift by, gently fading into the blue of the afternoon sky.
Ranma.
He closed his eyes, feeling the sunlight pour over his face.
"Ranma." The voice was impatient now.
He felt the light intensify. "Okay… I'm getting the lemonade.." He opened his eyes, squinting into the brightness.
He was staring into the face of Akane Tendo.
"Ranma… what are you talking about?"
The fog of sleep suddenly slipped away. "Uh…" He gulped down his bewilderment, facing the softly silhouetted feminine figure before him. "…just a weird dream."
Pausing to raise an eyebrow in reaction to his hesitancy, she seemed to brush it off for more pressing matters. "Well.. Kasumi left breakfast on the table. She went into town for some Christmas shopping." She smiled sweetly.
Sweetly? There was something wrong with this picture. His mind was suddenly sent into a panic.
He was her slave.
From the corner of his eye he saw her pause in the doorway. "Oh and Ranma…"
His mind flashed to eighty-three different horrific things she could make him do in the next thirty seconds. He gulped.
"… the bathroom's open if you need it." His heart rate dropped back down to sixty-five. He thought he saw her smother a wicked grin as she strolled down the hall.
This was going to be a long week.
Plopping down at the breakfast table, the scent and taste of Kasumi's cooking engulfed his senses. There was nothing in the world that could distract him from a meal so delicious, so tantalizing, so-
"Ranma, could you pass the salt.."
so alluring, so appetizing—
"RANMA." He turned to respond, but his reply vanished before it even left his lips. "Pass the salt," she gritted out, stern eyes narrowing in his direction.
He sighed mentally. The servitude begins. Snatching the salt from its place on the table, he handed it to her.
"Why thank you, Ranma." He could just see that smug smile on her face without even looking. Her voice was drenched in satisfaction.
His whole week continued this way. When he was about to take a hot shower it was "Oh Ranma, I need to use the bathroom." When he was on his way out of the kitchen it was "Oh Ranma, could you get me a glass of water?" When he was getting up from the table it was "Oh Ranma, would you take my dishes to the sink?"
He could hardly believe this was how she was using their bet. She'd had six days already! Where were the terrible orders to eat her cooking? Then again these ridiculously tedious, little chores could almost be worse in a way. She was just continuously rubbing it in—pouring more salt into that open wound that his pride had recently become.
He shuffled to the kitchen, sweatpants swishing against the chilled wooden floors. His eyes drifted to the snowy windowsill, where glittering icicles had already begun to form. And here he was in his very last hours of slavery, counting down the minutes to freedom. Lazily tracing a finger across the counter, he stopped to examine the dark grain. Had it really only been a few days ago that she had sat on this counter with him for the first time in two years? It was amazing how even the smallest of details had become so vivid to him. They burned into his senses now, searing his mind with memories of his teenage years. Everything seemed fresher the second time around, more intense than these old memories lingering in the back of his consciousness.
"Hey Ranma…" He stiffened. The sound of her voice drifted across the hall from the living room, its playful undertones tugging a furtive smile to his lips. He quickly wiped the silly smile off his face and briefly wondered if she had finally thought of cruel command with which to end his term of servitude. He watched as a cascade of black hair and amber eyes peeked around the corner.
".. would you watch this movie with me? It's about to come on, but everyone else is asleep already.." The pout in her voice was unavoidable. How could he refuse her? But he was her slave for the next two and a half hours anyway so he really had no choice in the matter. Plus he did enjoy movies… most of the time.
"What's it about?" He pursed his lips, pretending to be mulling it over as he perused the kitchen cabinets for food.
"Well they're having this Christmas movie marathon.." He groaned internally, snagging a bag of microwave popcorn from the pantry. A hokey Christmas movie. Just what he needed. Placing the bag of kernels in the microwave, he glanced towards the doorway where Akane was standing, draped in the warmth of an afghan Kasumi had made a few winters ago. From under the carefully woven strands of scarlet and green, a slip of creamy skin caught his eye. Maybe the movie was a good idea after all.
He turned back to the microwave. No! Bad idea! Bad idea to watch a movie late at night while everyone else is asleep, and you and Akane are virtually alone! His mind flashed to the dojo. That was the end of all train of thought.
"Yeah.. I'll watch it with you." Was he not a mature adult twenty years of age?
Ranma focused his eyes on the snowy scene in front of him where a little boy in a poofy jacket was pressed up against the glass of a store window filled with toys, his colorful scarf blowing in the winter wind...
Or at least he imagined it to be colorful. Why did everything have to be in black and white? He was bored out of his mind with this movie. After briefly examining his empty bowl of popcorn, he turned his eyes to Akane, who was curled up at his feet, knees pressed close to her chest, eyes intently glued to the screen. At least one of them was enjoying this. "Why are we watching this again?" he mused, absentmindedly shifting closer to her.
"Because I wanted to," she answered simply without even taking her eyes off the little boy on the screen, who now had some hyper active puppy in his arms for a Christmas present. She paused to tilt her head back over her shoulder, a flicker of thoughtfulness touching her features. Wordlessly, she turned back to the movie, a small smile playing on her lips.
He turned his eyes back to the television now, covertly watching her through his peripheral vision. He smiled to himself too. She was right. He almost laughed aloud. She was watching this dumb movie because she wanted to… and he was watching it too. Because she wanted to.
And he wouldn't have it any other way.
After all the adventures and fights and crazy mishaps in his life, all he really wanted was to have that small shred of consistency in his life. Whether it was grocery shopping, snowball fights, watching television, or maybe even celebrating a little boy's birthday, he just wanted one constant in the whole equation of his life.
And it was her. She was the one thing in his life that would never change. That he didn't want to change.
She was there through spells and magical objects and potions. Through ice skating matches and random kidnappings. Despite Amazons and kendoists and spatula-wielding chefs.
And that's where he wanted her to be: beside him always, fighting and laughing and sharing with him this crazy experience called life.
And when she had left, he had felt a part of him leave with her, and he'd realized in that moment that he had built his life around her. Around protecting her and saving her. Around arguing with her and then apologizing to her. As if slowly after all that time together, she had been woven into the fabric of his life; just as natural as breathing and fighting was for him, so was Akane. She was always there. A part of him.
So when she had left so had he. He had run. He had run as far away as he could from the feelings that had already started flooding him as soon as she unfolded her acceptance letter. He hadn't waited to watch her board the plane or fly away into the fading blue of the skyline. Oh no— he'd left way before that so she wouldn't have to read the regret in his stormy eyes as she walked down the boarding platform and out of his life. He couldn't keep preventing her from doing the things she wanted to do. From living the life she wanted to live. From being the person she wanted to be.
He wanted her to be happy.
And if that meant watching lame Christmas specials on TV… then so be it.
"Ranma… why are you staring at me like that?" Somewhere in between his thoughtful reverie and epiphany, his covert watching had become full on staring.
"To watch that silly expression on your face." He felt the reply leave his lips, his mind still stuck in its dreamy state even under the intensity of amber Akane was directing his way. He thought he saw a tinge of pink creep to her cheeks. Probably just shadows from the TV.
She cleared her throat, attempting to gather composure and trying to focus her attention back on the flickering picture in front of her. "I don't have a silly expression on my face…"
It was in vain.
All she could think about was the boyish grin he'd had on his face and the rays of coziness that seemed to be radiating from the close proximity of his presence. So close that if she just leaned back an inch more..
She tried to resist the temptation to snuggle into the firm torso behind her.
He felt himself start to doze off, the shapes and colors of a holiday commercial blurring into the background. And then he felt the warmth of her fingers on his forearms, pulling him close and wrapping his arms around her.
He could have opened his eyes.
He could have said something.
He could have.
But he didn't.
Instead he laid there with her small frame enveloped in his, listening to the constant beat of his heart and the steady rise and fall of her breathing.
And that was enough. That was all he needed.
Consistency.
AN: So this has been sitting on my computer for a while. And well… I know maybe some of you were expecting action... I mean this was the slave chapter, right? But at some point in every relationship there has to be a turning point. Ranma and Akane have been working towards one. The dojo wasn't quite it although it sparked something. There's a lot of hurt and damage in their relationship because of the past… but this is about redefining whatever has become undefined for them. About redefining their definitions of love.
So comments and criticism are welcome as always (because someone has to tell me when I'm losing my mojo!)
Merry Christmas to you and yours.
-SP
