Heeey everybody! Here's another update. Not the birthday one, but that should be coming up next. Anyway, in celebration of my 10th anniversary on fanfic(dot)net, here's a cute little chapter. If we're lucky, there will be another update in a couple days. Yaaayy!
Thanks to: stephumz, Usako, inufan155687, Goddess of the Moonlit Sky, Leslie, ScarletL, SerentiyMoonGodness, devilsangels11287, life705, Miss Katrina Malfoy, AnnyP, TaliMoonAngel668, CharmedSerenity3, sailormoon489, Valencia petals, moon86 and Jessica for reviewing the previous chapter.
Title: Summer Rain
Author: Crystal Saturn
Rated: T
Chapter: 9: Waking the Dead
. . .
"The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't."
[-Henry Ward Beecher]
. . .
It had been almost two weeks now since Serena had started high school and since Andrew either had to work breakfast shifts at the Crown arcade or attend morning university classes during the week, the task of raising the dead was appointed to poor, poor Darien. It had sounded like an easy enough task to undertake when Andrew asked him to do it. Sure, waking up a teenage girl and making sure she made it to school on time didn't sound so hard. Had he have been informed as to what it was like to actually wake a teen up, any teen, maybe he would have reconsidered Andrew's bribe to wash his car and bike every week for the next year. Poor, naive Darien.
"DUMPLING HEAD!" Darien called from Serena's doorway for the third time that morning. "Get up! You'll be late for school!"
"Five more minutes." Serena grumbled as she turned over in bed before lifting the covers up over her head.
"You said that half an hour ago!" Darien approached Serena's bed and ripped the bunny print covers away from over her head, dispersing the warm cloud of air from around her body and stealing the last remnants of slumber from the sleepy teen.
"Darieeeen!" She protested loudly as she watched him throw her blanket into his room and shut the door behind him.
"It's eight thirty." Darien watched as Serena's face deadpanned. "Get dressed and I'll drive you to school."
"I can't believe you didn't wake me up earlier!" Serena shot up out of bed and jumped to shut her bedroom door for some privacy. Instead, her foot twisted on her sheets and she tripped, falling face forward onto the floor.
"Unbelievable." Darien sighed to himself, leaving the teary sobbing screech-ball in a tangled mess on her bedroom floor.
It was the same deal the next morning. In fact, it was the same sort of scenario every morning. By the third day, Darien had regretted accepting Andrew's favour. Forget the morning jog, it took all of Darien's energy just to get the dozy teen up and off to school.
"DUMPLING HEAD!" Darien called from Serena's doorway for the second time that morning. "You're going to be late again!"
"Five more minutes." Serena murmured, turning over in bed as she lifted the covers up over her head.
"I'm not going through this with you again." Darien approached Serena's bed and ripped the bunny print covers away from over her head, onto to find that the teen was wearing nothing but her bra, boy-leg shorts and a pair of socks.
"What are you doing, pervert!" Serena screeched as she ripped her blanket away from the stunned, somewhat embarrassed man.
"I... I didn't know!" Darien turned a bright shade of red as he watched Serena cover herself up again in her blanket. "Sorry." He turned and walked out of her room swiftly, which brought a smile to Serena's lips as she snuggled back under her cosy blanket and resumed her morning snooze.
After a few minutes out on the balcony in order to try to compose himself once again, Darien strolled into Serena's room to ask her if she needed a lift to school today, only to find her sound asleep snuggling peacefully under her pink blanket. Needless to say, this annoyed Darien to no end. Strutting towards the kitchen, Darien opened the fridge door and pulled out a jug of water. As he walked back to her room, he wondered if this was the best way to handle the situation and as he stood over her sleeping form, he could hear the deep, gentle sounds of her breathing in her sleep. She sounded as though she was happily purring away. Yep, it was the best way he could think of at the moment.
Lifting the jug high up over Serena, he peeled the covers away from her body slowly and starting from the top of her head, he poured the jug of ice cold water over her snoozing form. Serena jolted straight up in bed. She was absolutely mortified. So much so that as she opened her mouth to scream, she found that she was so outraged that she couldn't.
"Next time, when I tell you to wake up, you should do it." Darien warned monotonously. "Hurry up and get dressed, I'll take you to school in ten minutes." To make matters worse, Darien decided to use his motorbike that morning. Serena arrived at school with her long, golden locks matted across her face in a dango-less mess of tangles, leaf matter and motorcycle blow dried chaos.
She was given detention for missing out on an hour of class, which she had spent, locked in the girl's toilets, trying to brush the twigs out of her hair.
"DUMPLING HEAD!" Darien called from Serena's doorway for the third time that morning. As he peered in, he noticed that Serena had fallen asleep wearing a waterproof plastic poncho around her.
"Five more minutes." Serena mumbled, but before she could resume snoozing, she was startled awake by a loud, persistent metallic clanging sound above her head. She sat up in bed and looked about her room, still bleary eyed and dozy. There beside her, Darien stood, wearing ear muffs and bashing two saucepans together.
"WAKE UP DUMPLING HEAD!" He attempted to yell out over the sound of the pots. Serena winced at every strike and reached her hand out to stop the insensitive man. He took a step back and in sheer desperation, Serena launched herself at him. Her plan worked, for as she tumbled out of bed, Darien instinctively dropped the pots to catch her in his arms. The force projected by human missile Serena was enough to send both parties stumbling towards the ground.
Darien blinked. There was not much more he could think to do as he stared up at the ceiling. Serena lay groggily sprawled on top of him and although he did his best to avert his gaze, he knew that she was clad only in her undergarments and that damn transparent plastic poncho. So he lay there on her bedroom floor and stared up at the ceiling, counting backwards from a hundred in roman numerals.
"Darien? Hello? Darien?" Serena's face suddenly appeared before him. It looked safe. She seemed to be burrito-ed up in her blanket. "What are you doing?" She stared at him curiously. He looked as though he didn't even hear her. Instead, he continued to look up at the ceiling for a few more moments before eventually rising to his feet and storming out of her room. Seconds passed before Serena could hear Darien's loud, agitated stomping returning down the hallway.
"And put some goddamn clothes on!" He yelled from the doorway before proceeding back towards his meditation spot on the balcony.
"It's not my fault you're a pervert!" Serena hollered, hastily throwing her uniform on before joining Darien on the apartment balcony.
"I'm not a pervert, you threw yourself at me." Darien had made a completely valid point as he stepped towards Serena in order to take their verbal argument indoors and out of earshot of their neighbours. Stubbornly, she stood her ground.
"Only to stop you from bursting my ear drums!" Serena continued to argue as she stood firmly, her nose was practically pressed up against Darien's chest. Blue flames of fury leapt within Serena's eyes. Darien held her threatening stare and lowered his face closer towards the petite blonde's in order to show that he too, wasn't intimidated.
"Well maybe you should just wake up the first time I tell you, then." He growled, his voice dangerously low. As they continued their usual stare off, it took Darien a few moments to realise just how close Serena was. He could feel the warmth of her body, ever so gently pressed up against his. At that moment, an unconscious force within Serena compelled her to lick her lips, and from then on, all was lost. Darien's physiological drives kicked in and he let out a stifled groan, jerking his body away as he suddenly turned his attention to the view of the city below.
"You're going to be late." He reprimanded through clenched teeth as he tried to think of something, anything, that would take his mind off of the memory of Serena's almost naked body lying on top of him.
"Ugh!" Serena realised the truth in Darien's words and rushed back inside to finish getting ready for school. "This is all your fault, idiot!"
Tap tap tap. Buzz Buzz. Tap tap tap.
"Ughh," Serena eventually awoke to the sound of a construction site within her room. "What are you doing, Darien-idiot?" There he was, lying on the floor with his head beneath her bed. A series of hammers, jacks and drills lay around him. Had she known any better, Serena would have spotted the welder perched in the corner of her room.
"Nothing, just setting up some hydraulics and compressed air cylinders, that's all." Darien continued tapping away at the frame of Serena's bed.
"Ugh, is that meant to make my bed softer or something?" Serena groaned at the annoying tinkering sounds. To her sleepy ears, it might as well have been a jack hammer or a chain saw right by her ears. It was almost as annoying as nails on a chalk board.
"Um... sure." Darien smirked to himself. "Like sleeping on a cloud... or water."
"Well could you do that a little quieter then? It's a school night and I'm trying to sleep." Serena wrapped her pillow around her head.
"It's afternoon." Darien's muffled voice came from under Serena's bed.
"What?" She screeched loudly, sitting up in bed and throwing her covers half way across her room. Turning to grab hold of her alarm clock, she held it up to her face and gasped. "Darien! It's one-thirty in the afternoon!"
"I know." He grabbed hold of his hand drill and a set of screws.
"Why didn't you wake me up for school?"
"I did." Darien mumbled flatly. "Four times" He shuffled out from under Serena's bed and strolled down the hallway. As casually as ever, he soon returned, wheeling in some sort of mutant digital alarm, gramophone, speaker system and proceeded to connect it up to cables that ran underneath her bed.
"What... what's that?" Serena looked anxiously at the flashing red digits of the alarm connected between the gramophone and the four foot speaker. "Is that a bomb?"
"No. It's just my old alarm clock." Darien winced as he plugged the alarm into the wall power socket, expecting his home made devices to overload the power board and surge, blacking out half of Tokyo. Thankfully, he still remembered some things from his engineering diploma. "Hopefully it'll get you up tomorrow morning so you won't have to miss another day of school." He smiled as he noticed that Serena was still eyeing down his alarm clock contraption suspiciously. "Hey, Dumpling, let's go get some lunch." Darien thought it would be best not to let her in on his little secret. Why spoil the fun? He decided that a meal would be the best way to distract the ever insatiable blonde. He was right.
Andrew arrived at the Crown Arcade at 7:30am and unlocked the doors. Turning on the fluorescent lights, he strolled into the back room and began to prepare for his early morning breakfast shift. Collecting the rubbish and old newspapers from the day before, Andrew made his usual early morning trip to the dumpster, out the back of the arcade. Just as he tossed the old papers into the recycling bin, he heard a loud thunderous boom, followed by a repetitive monotonous tone, off in the distance. The ground trembled at his feet, and Andrew couldn't help but look around, wondering if there had been some sort of explosion or an earthquake nearby.
"Strange." He thought, listening carefully at the tone blaring in the distance. "That almost sounds like Darien's annoying alarm."
. . .
There's another chappy guys. ^_^ I've had a wonderful ten years on ff(dot)net, and it's all thanks to readers like you. So here's to you guys and being wonderful readers. But please don't stop now... don't forget to review and I'll post up another chapter super soon.
Crystal Saturn
