8
so i wrote this on the train this weekend. happily, i got a seat to myself, spread out my stuff and got to typing, any especial weirdness i blame on six hours spent in the same seat with no internet access and no dinner, lol
There was a moment of wondering what was going on before she heard it again. The distant trill: "Mommy! Mom!" She was out of bed in an instant even though it was not her child crying. Sisters react too when they hear their little siblings calling out. She was in the hallway in a second, navigating easily since her eyes were adjusted to the dark. "MOM!"
"Shhh," she said as she entered her sister's bedroom. "She's still asleep, it's Gwen. What's wrong?"
"I had a nightmare, monsters were chasing me." The little girl was sitting up at the top of her bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin.
"There's nothing to worry about, monsters aren't real, munchkin." Gwen sat down on the bed and ruffled Bella's hair. 'Except, you could say, for the one I brought into the house, and a couple of his buddies.'
"I know, but I can't help having a bad dream."
"It's okay, I'll stay here until you fall back asleep."
The little girl nodded and lay down again as her sister pulled up the sheets and tucked her back in. She sat there on the bed as the girl turned over and closed her eyes. 'I just told her there are no such things as monsters, the same thing I always tell her, but now I know it's not true.' She sat pondering for a few moments in the darkness, vaguely listening for her sister's breathing to shift to a quieter and shallower pattern. At last the change occurred and Gwen shook herself from her reprieve and slowly slid off the bed.
She slipped from the room, making sure to tread gently across the floor. As she stepped out of the room she saw a dark form to her right and froze, taking in a deep breath. The figure moved forward suddenly, faster than she could react to. A hand clamped over her mouth while a strong arm pinned her arms to her sides and pulled her away from the doorway. Her mind was blank with fear. All she knew was that someone had grabbed her, in the hallway of her own house and with her recent thoughts she was terrified.
"Don't scream." It was merely a tickle on her ear, a whisper so low as to mask the identity of the speaker. It did little to alleviate her fear. "I didn't mean to frighten you." There was a pause in which she stood perfectly still, every muscle tensed and her heart pounding furiously. "Gwen, breathe." She took a deep breath as she realized it was Kurama and not some home invader that had caught her in the hallway. "Can I trust you not to scream?" he whispered in her ear.
She nodded as well as she could and the hand slowly lifted from her mouth. It came to rest on her shoulder, and she took another deep breath. From the arm he still had thrown around her middle he could feel the rapid pulsing of her heart, still reacting to the rush of adrenaline in her system. He let out the breath he had been holding and relaxed his hold slightly. 'Well that was some way of making an impression on her,' he thought dryly. Her head clunked back against his shoulder and her body relaxed against him.
"You fucking scared me half to death," she hissed and elbowed him in the stomach.
"Gomen. I, er." He paused and took a deep breath, how to explain it? 'Yes I was just eavesdropping on you,' would go over very nicely with his most recent actions. He would be lucky if she didn't throw him out right then and there. "I heard your sister cry out," he whispered, still afraid of waking her parents. "I got up to see what was the matter but you had beaten me there. You came out without making much noise and I didn't have the chance to move away. I did not want you to yell and wake your parents."
"Makes sense," she murmured.
There was a snort from her parents' room and both froze. Kurama grabbed her arm and pulled her backwards towards his room as one of her parents turned over heavily in their sleep. He pulled her into the room and shut the door silently, lifting up on the handle as he swung the door closed. Gwen watched him and noted the way in which he moved the door, listening for even the beginnings of a squeak as he closed it and stepping carefully on the floor, shifting his weight delicately as he walked.
"You're a sneaky bastard, aren't you?"
He jumped as he heard her comment. It sounded strangely loud in the quiet house, even though she had said it barely above a whisper. "Whatever do you mean?" he asked. He wasn't sure exactly what she was referring to, or if it was just a general statement and his nature was a cautious one when dealing with unknowns.
"You're obviously used to sneaking around when you shouldn't be, skulking around at night and slipping out of the house."
"I don't do it that much, and now that I have an apartment I don't have to sneak out."
"But it's obviously something you got very good at when you did do it. I can tell, I'm the night owl in the house and I have to be quiet or I get yelled at for waking people up at 2AM."
She walked away from him, treading softly across the carpet to the window. With a little tweak she parted the curtains and looked down at the darkened street. She pulled the fabric back into place and looked back at him. Such a strange little human, he could hardly understand her. He was still trying to figure out why she had taken him in and, more importantly, now that she knew what was going on, why she was going to continue taking care of him.
"Are you sleeping in your clothes? They're going to be all wrinkled, and there's no way that's comfortable."
"Don't worry. I'm fine, I assure you. I've been in far worse situations than having to sleep in a pair of jeans."
"Alright, but tomorrow we're definitely going to Target."
"As you wish," he smiled at her as she walked past him towards the door.
She stopped, a repressed laugh making a choking sound in her throat as her eyes pinched shut. "Oh God, it's a good thing I know you don't know the Princes Bride." 'Or I'd know you were messing with me,' she thought but didn't say out loud. "But you just make sure you go to bed and get enough rest because tomorrow's Friday, Saturday's move-in and then the craziness begins."
He watched her go with a small smile before following her advice and going back to sleep.
He woke up late again, but not quite as late as the day before, and immediately sat up and looked around. It hadn't been a slow and gentle return to consciousness as one normally has on a lazy weekend or a glorious day off. No, something had definitely caused this sudden change in state. It took a second before he realized it was the sound of barking. He slipped out of bed and into the hallway. The house was quiet except for the plaintive yips and warm yellow light filtered into the hall way from the windows of the master bedroom. The barking was coming from downstairs, so he headed that way.
As he reached the family room he realized that the sound must be coming from somewhere in there and looked around. In the corner, half-obscured by the TV cabinet was a very small kennel, and inside it was a very small dog. The creature stopped barking as he spotted Kurama. Then a growl, so high-pitched it was comical, issued from the fluffy creature's throat.
"Mm, and why are you growling at me?" Kurama asked the dog as he approached. "A better question would be why haven't I seen you up until now? Though I did smell you when I first came in." The dog seemed to have changed his mind once more and was wagging his tail, his head cocked to the side. Kurama bent down to open the kennel door and was immediately attacked.
The small creature burst forth with far more force than he could have imagined and threw itself in the air repeatedly while banging against his legs and emitting increasingly high-pitched yips. The demon took several steps back but the dog remained undeterred and began running in circles around him as it threw itself periodically in the air. Kurama was a plant person, not a dog person, and was unsure how to react, but he really would have preferred if it would be quiet long enough for him to think. He grabbed it out of midair and held onto it firmly as it struggled to lick his face.
"You were barking earlier, probably because you need to relieve yourself." He looked towards the back door, but there didn't seem to be any fence outside. Glancing around the room for some hint as to what he was supposed to do, he saw a leash sitting on top of the cage.
Walking a hyper-active dog now topped Kurama's list of 'things never to do again.' It was only after they had gone outside that he saw an area along the side of the house was actually fenced in, and opened off a side door. By that point he couldn't get the creature, for he was sure it wasn't actually a dog but some kind of new demon, near the fence. Instead it resolutely pulled him off towards the trees and lifted its leg by each one at least twice, even though it only peed the first two times. That was an experience he was not keen to repeat.
He went back inside and let the dog loose, seeing no way that he was going to get it back into its kennel. There was still no sign of a living human about the house. 'Perhaps she went out,' he thought as he looked into the front rooms and found no sign that anyone had been there for the past several hours. He wandered back upstairs with the dog following and looked around the bedrooms up there. The silence would have been eerie except for the presence of the dog, who's tail was still wagging happily. She hadn't gone into the master bedroom for her bath and she wasn't in her sister's room. Then he turned with a smile towards her room, the door was still closed and it seemed that she must still have been in bed.He opened the door and saw a large lump on the bed with one leg protruding gracelessly from the covers and hanging down over the edge. He stuck out a foot quickly and blocked the dog from rushing past him into the room. Somehow, he thought, that would not be a good idea. He quietly closed the door and went back downstairs.
With a wide yawn Gwen rolled over and rubbed her eyes. Light was filtering through the blinds and the whole room was glowing with the late morning sunlight. 'Well I guess it's time I got up,' she thought as she sat up and scratched her head. She shuffled through the boxes littering her floor and pulled open the door while letting out another yawn. As soon as she was done she realized she smelled something good and hurried forward, her stomach rumbling in response to her nose. She came tripping down the stairs, expecting to see that her mother had stayed home for the day or something of the sort when she stopped dead. There was a red-haired boy in the kitchen, wearing her mother's apron and leaning over a cookbook. His brow was furrowed as he poured over the page, leaning on the counter with one arm, a skillet dangling from his other hand.
"You're not making a mess are you?" she asked tentatively and he jumped, almost dropping the pan.
"Gwen! You're awake!"
"Yeah, and you're cooking," she said as she walked through the family room, hurriedly trying to pull her hair into less of an unruly mess.
"I was attempting to fix breakfast. I didn't anticipate how difficult it would be with an English cookbook and an unfamiliar kitchen, but I have had some success."
"And what were you making?" she asked, repressing a giggle as she took in the apron up close.
"Omelets. What do you find so amusing?"
"Nothing! I just think it's cute. Look at you," she exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to brush off his nose. "How did you get flour on your nose if you're making omelets?"
He flushed slightly and moved away. She stood there watching him as he set the skillet down and picked up an oven mitt. "I also attempted to make muffins, but I can make no promises about how they turned out." He pulled open the oven and reached in, a moment later withdrawing a steaming muffin pan.
"Oh those look good!" she exclaimed. She went to a cabinet and pulled out a wire rack as Kurama set the pan down. In spite of the fact that they were steaming hot she pulled the muffins out and stuck them on the rack to cool, cursing at each one while the demon chuckled and went back to reading the cookbook.
"After breakfast, and I get dressed we're gonna go to the store." Gwen was sitting at the kitchen table, tossing a muffin from hand to hand fast enough that it wouldn't seriously burn her fingers.
"You could just set it down and let it cool," the boy remarked as he tried folding over the omelet he was cooking.
"Nah, I'm not that patient. I'm gonna take a bite of it in a minute and burn my tongue like I always do. You doing okay over there?"
"I think I have the hang of it now."
"Good because we can't feed the dog anymore 'practice omelets.'"
"You're the one who said they weren't fit for human consumption. Why haven't I seen Gremlin before?"
"He was locked up when you came in and I put him outside before I woke you up. I didn't want you to have to deal with his hyper craziness. Mom let him back in after we went upstairs."
Kurama nodded and slid the mass of eggs and other things onto a plate. He walked around the breakfast bar and handed it to her. "I hope it turned out okay."
"Smells good. I'm sure it's perfect!" she replied as she took the plate, but he couldn't help catching the suspicious look she gave it as she stabbed her fork into the surface.
"Did you talk to your mother about allowing to me to ride to your school with you?"
"Yeah, I actually dragged myself out of bed birght and early to ask. Then I promptly passed out again." Catcinghis questioning look she added: "She said it's cool."
After they ate Gwen ran upstairs to get dressed. Kurama was left to find a way to get her dog to go into his kennel. Apparently he hadn't learned to obey any of the commands Kurama tried, and merely stood staring at the boy, his tail wagging in hope of more eggs.
"Grem, get yer butt in your house." Kurama looked up from the dog to see the girl come flying down the last three stairs. The dog turned away from him immediately and headed for his kennel. She landed at the bottom, had to grab the railing to keep from falling over and gave him an embarrassed grin.
"How did you do that?"
"The kennel is his 'house,' if you tell him to go to it and mean it he goes. Ah you're giving me a weird look, can you tell I'm not wearing makeup?" Her hand shot to her face and rubbed across her lips. "Guys don't normally notice makeup or not so I don't usually bother. Or is it because I jumped down the stairs?"
"Oh no, I had no idea," he said, though he had noticed the lack of heavy eyeliner or powder. "I was just surprised that you dressed up."
"Fft." She blew air over her bottom lip and waved a hand, not making eye contact. "A skirt isn't dressing up when it's warm out, it's fashionable right now. Come on, let's go."
She paused to lock the dog's kennel before swinging her purse on her arm as she walked towards the front door. Kurama followed behind her while pulling his jacket close. Even though it was hot and humid out he couldn't take it off because of the large rips in his shirt and the wide swath of bandages beneath. As they walked out of the house and down the stairs his eye was caught by her skirt, and the way it swished back and forth with each step she took. He wondered how intentional her choice had been before quickly shaking his head. It was wrong to question his host's motives, especially when she had shown hardly any sign of rabid fan reactions to his presence. But, he promised himself, this was one human girl he would not fall for, he had learned better. There would be no repeat of his middle school years.
Celedeen Tachibana: so glad you figured out a way to get past your plot hole! i hate getting stuck because i then come up with ridiculous ways to get moving again, lol
Lady-Crymsyn: thanks as always!
Chibified Doom: yeah, my room is always a disaster area when i pack. it scares my family
