My friend informed me today that I'm not allowed to give up on this story
Thanks to o0.meats.of.evil.0o for beta reading but since her grammar sucks almost a bad as mine I don't know how much better that will be
Things are lookin' up, lookin' down
When Soi woke up, she was confused about her location. The buzzing fluorescent lights misguided her senses making her think that she was still asleep, perhaps in a nightmare of some sort. She shifted her hand, hoping to find some solid substance that could bring her into the real world, but instead, brushed something soft. Her fuzzy eyes stared into her lap where the orange fabric of Yoruichi's jacket had draped itself over her knees, she guessed it had been on her shoulders. Before she could remember her state of mind, a happy smile graced her lips at this sweet cliché.
It was quickly extinguished as she caught sight of Urahara meandering her way; he yawned slightly and slumped into the chair beside her.
"You're awake."
Soi adjusted herself in the chair and rubbed the sleep from her eyes with one hand, with the way Urahara eyed her she guessed the gesture made her look more childish than she intended.
"Mmmm, how's Aizen?"
Urahara seemed to lean forward slightly in his seat, "Well you see…"
She knew he was attempting to build tension, but she leaned in as well, trying to get his words passed her sleepy ears.
After a moment of silence he whispered just loud enough to hear, "He left the hospital."
She jammed his hat down even further onto his messy blonde head as if attempting to smother his brain with the stripes. "Then why, exactly, are we still here?"
Re-adjusting his hat, he looked at her beneath the rim, "Yoruichi didn't want to wake you."
Soi looked at him questioningly; her mouth slightly ajar as if he was kidding and she didn't know quite how to respond. Something warm landed in her lap; she stared down at a hot coffee drink that lay innocently on the orange fabric over her thighs. Her eyes followed the throw's arch to Yoruichi, who popped the top of a similar drink with only one hand. She turned the little bit of metal used to open the can to the side in a habitual manner, as she sat across a row of seats on the other side of the room and gulped down quite a bit of it. "Unfortunately he's right." She said wiping her mouth on her sleeve.
Soi picked up the drink peering at it curiously, it was a hot drink from a vending machine nearby, "It'll probably taste like shit, but you have to drive me to a place where I can sleep, so I need you alert."
Soi opened hers after a moment of embarrassed difficulty; the top outsmarted her for a second.
She heard Yoruichi stifle a laugh, but had to say she was right; it did taste like shit.
"So why exactly am I driving you home," She said after swallowing the hot liquid, trying not to taste as much of it as possible. Urahara answered for her, "Well I need to stay here in case he comes back."
"Aizen? Why the hell would he come back?"
Urahara gave an uneasy glance in Yoruichi's direction; she was too busy playing with the bit of metal on her can to respond, "Well, I said he left, it's more like escaped."
Soi managed not to spit spray the entire waiting room, "What the hell, he just left?"
Instantly Urahara's hand clamped over her mouth and she reflexively elbowed him in the gut. When he recovered, he pointed to a small lump on the chairs near Yoruichi. After further examination, she found it was Hinamori, sleeping soundly.
"So the bastard just left her there?"
Soi finally understood why Yoruichi hadn't been too fond of Aizen; unfortunately, she was too focused on the road to go into a full rant. Soi Fong had never been the best at driving, and the winters ice and unfamiliar car weren't helping her very much. Yoruichi lounged across the back seat; the ponytail her hair was arranged in pressed to the glass of the window in a way Soi thought would hurt her head.
"Doesn't surprise me." She muttered distractedly, "He used to be this big time gang guy; he came to Urahara with some sob story since they were friends or whatever."
Soi glanced at her in the rearview mirror; her black tee shirt was riding up slightly, revealing a sliver of her chocolate colored midriff. Soi focused back on the road, but the bit of cocoa skin caught her attention in a rather deplorable way every time she checked the driver behind her.
"Gang?"
Yoruichi lolled her head to look at her through the gap between the seat and car by her head, "Not a nice bunch, the Arran-something or other." Soi nodded and stopped at a red light, a sudden realization hit her and she turned, looking passed the side of her seat to meet Yoruichi's eyes. The gold was tinged with red from the nearby stoplight and she looked right back at her without any real expression, the shadows from the car and multiple lights made her skin a collage of different darkness.
"What is it?"
It was a gentle coax as if Yoruichi was trying to avoid flaring Soi's temper, but it brought to light the fact that she had gotten suddenly distracted, which she disliked.
"Where am I driving you, anyway?"
Yoruichi looked at her pondering and then said, "Well I sorta thought you'd figure that one out."
"Do you have a key to Urahara's house?"
"Bastard never gave me one, said I'd steal stuff from the shop when he wasn't there."
"Is Kuukaku around?"
"She's on a 'business trip'"
Soi sighed exasperated and let her head hit the steering wheel; a loud honk emanated from the car and she snapped back into position so fast her neck hurt. There was another loud honk and she thought she'd some how angered the car by hitting her head against its steering wheel. Then she realized it was from behind, and the light in front of her had turned to a dull green without her knowing it. Her foot hit the gas and she turned sharply. Yoruichi didn't even shift in the back seat.
When they walked through the door to Soi's apartment, she was already regretting her decision. Yoruichi had been smirking at her as the two had struggled up the stairs, quite a feat with Yoruichi's injury. Apparently, she'd be okay within the next week or so according to Unohana, who had become a constant visitor of their building as of late. Not that she had been asking around about knee injuries, it just happened to come up. She assisted Yoruichi to the couch and then sat down; the woman muttered, "Weird way to spend the day before Christmas Eve." Soi Fong, not having known this, agreed with an automatic nod.
The blood that was still on her shirt caught her eye, "I'm gonna go change, there's food in the kitchen and milk in the fridge." She tried to remember what kind of milk she had bought, knowing she'd hear about it for a week if it was 'that messed with skim stuff'.
"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have any extra clothes would ya? I can stand to be in this shirt; it smells like the hospital."
Soi suddenly felt a surge of nostalgia, how many times had they had this exact same conversation in the past? How many times had Yoruichi borrowed one of her over-sized sleeping shirts (all of Soi's tees became belly shirts on the well-endowed Yoruichi) and not returned them? You think she would have learned.
"I have something I'm sure."
This pleasant conversation was really pissing her off, though she had no idea why the conversation shouldn't be pleasant. They'd spent enough time together that Soi could at least speak with her without getting angry. She walked out of the room before her half angry half nostalgically pleased mind could start saying things out loud that she didn't want the woman to hear. Instead, she went to her room and began to rummage through her drawers. To her surprise, in the bottom of the last drawer lay one of Yoruichi's shirts, either forgotten or loaned. She pulled off her bloody garment and noticed the red had soaked through to the white material of her bra, and had dried itself on her stomach. Not thinking twice, she headed for the bathroom door beside her closet and cranked the hot water of the shower onto high, then headed back to her bedroom door where she tossed the shirt she had gotten to the couch where Yoruichi was lying. She sat up, the shirt covering her face in a childish way. She pulled it off and Soi was glad she'd hidden behind the door having not yet put a shirt on. "Hey, where's your remote?"
Soi hardly watched TV and hadn't a clue; Yoruichi must have realized this by the look on her face and muttered, "Ah, I see, never mind then." and slumped back to the couch.
The hot water of the shower had felt good on her pale skin, which she thought might have been frostbitten at this point. She exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam already dressed in a tee-shirt and panties, being the type who didn't feel comfortable walking around naked, even in her own house. What she found was Yoruichi in her bed.
How she had managed to get there was a mystery, but the small amount of stuff knocked off her dresser was an indication that it had been difficult. The woman was splayed over the comforter, lying on her side. Soi scowled angrily at her.
She let the towel that she had been using to dry her hair fall to her shoulders and grabbed a pair of pajama pants from her dresser before proceeding towards the woman's sleeping figure. Looming over her for a few seconds, she said her name several times but got no response except for heavy breathing. Her scowl stayed in place the entire time even as she sat down next to her on the bed.
"You really messed up you know that?"
Soi asked the sleeping Yoruichi quietly, she stared at her knees, planting her hands beside her.
"Running off like that was such a dumbass thing to do, must not have been too great if you came back here huh?" She glanced over at Yoruichi's closed eyes as if waiting for an answer or some sign that she wasn't really sleeping at all; somewhere in her head, a little bit of her hoped she was just faking it.
Soi's hand twitched and her arm lifted, she cursed then laughed in her head. Yoruichi had driven her limbs to go against her. The traitorous hand reached over and lightly brushed a few strands of dark purple hair away from the woman's face. Yoruichi made a slight noise in her sleep and shifted her shoulders, Soi's eyes trailed down her neck, the purple hair was still in a pony tail and she could see down the back of Yoruichi's shirt. There on her shoulder, emblazoned in coffee colored skin, was an elegant black butterfly.
Yoruichi had thought she felt someone touch her face. Normally, such a thing would not wake up the deep sleeper, but that touch was so light and nostalgically familiar that she couldn't help but be jarred from the sleep she had found in Soi's bed. Usually she was okay with couches, but Soi Fong's bed was probably one of the most comfortable things in this hemisphere, and well worth the effort of staggering and limping into the room. When her eyes cracked open expecting to catch someone in the act of adoring her in her sleep, all she found was emptiness, she sat up in the bed and examined the room around her, then heard a soft chord float in from the slightly open door. With difficulty, she stood and half stumbled- half fell her way to the door. Glancing out, she saw Soi sitting in a chair from her kitchen island strumming her guitar. The sudden entrance of Yoruichi, whom would have been undetected if not left awkward by injury, caught Soi's attention, and she looked up at her surprised to see her awake.
"Did I wake you?"
"I'm not sure, did you?"
Soi Fong faked a confused look and Yoruichi pretended to buy it, "Whatever then, G'night."
She turned and waved over her shoulder. "Goodnight."
