Quite an odd chapter, this one. I'm not sure if I like it or not. This one's prone to change. But, most likely it won't because I'm laaazy. Unless Nabeko-chan and Leera complain alot.
An-y-way, yeah. Have fun. And make sure you know it's shampoo.
Grey-chan
Chapter 12
The next day dawned annoyingly bright and unnecessarily sunny. Soon after the sun was fully up, I took it upon myself to move. It was a hard task that required several minutes of persuasion from myself.
Soon enough, though, I had pried Jasper's arms off of me, and stood up. "Well, now, sir, wakey wakey. 'Tis time to find clothes, small animals to eat, and shampoo. Not necessarily in that order, of course." I stretched, feeling my muscle pull and twist and… aaaaaaah. It felt so good.
I heard Jasper's jaw snap as he yawned and replied: "Milady, stop stretching, else I come over there," 'there' being two feet away from him, "…and do something I may regret later. Now, lets see… I could just nip over to a general store and get what we need, while you find a lake or something where there will be lots of tasty large animals, and you can wash your hair like the obsessive you are."
About halway through his speech, I stifled my protests, and sighed in agreement. " Sounds... okay I guess. How exactly will you find me by my precious lake again?"
"Everything has a scent, dawling." He drawled the last word, immediately recapturing my full attention. He had stood up and already shifted in the general direction of Denver.
"Well, then," I huffed, and then remembered a list I had composed sometime in the course of the night. "All I need is shoes. High top Chuck-Taylor's would be fine. Maybe a light-colored shawl or something, too. Lets see, that, and shampoo, and whatever else you may think of."
Jasper struck a pose and ran his hand slowly through his hair. "Maybe I should get myself some 'gel. Be stylish, for once." He dropped the pose after a moment of thought, however, and his hair flopped back into his face. "Nah, I never did like grease. Oh well, I guess I might try it…" He started off into the woods. I paused, knowing I was forgetting something.
"Oh…um…the money! Idiot, get back here!" He flicked back. "You need to buy that stuff, you know…" I started, searching my person for my five grand.
Then I remembered. It was in my jeans pocket, which meant it was in Kitty's house. Oh eff…
"Look, I have this," Jasper pulled a wallet out of his pocket. "And it has more than enough. I lifted it last night, from that prig, Matthew or whoever. Don't worry," He added insincerely, "The Wagner's will find you five grand more than enough retribution for our early departure."
He then, without another word, ran off into the forest. Thinking about the smell of water, I turned around slowly, drawing in a deep breath. There…
I ran through the trees, and soon enough I was in a clearing. It had a tiny little pond-puddle-like-thing, but that puddle was a spring, and it was clean. Not necessarily crystal clear, but hey, it wasn't murky. I smelled several deer and cougar in the area, the former very far away from the latter, and possibly bear. Perfect.
Soon enough, Jasper came back, clutching a paper bag in one hand. He had taken off his suit jacket, but nothing other than that had changed about his clothing than his shoes. He had changed his shoes to more comfortable Chucks, only his were very dark blue. He stopped next to me, lifted a very heavy book out of the bag, and silently handed the rest of it to me. Inside was a pair of black high-tops, just as I asked, and a poodle skirt and shawl to boot. I immediately threw the poodle skirt out, horrified, but went back to retrieve a pair of socks hidden inside. Jasper grinned evilly, and I gave him an icy glare.
"This is horrible looking," I stated.
"Yes, but, I thought you might want to look part of the era. Apparently you don– what the heck are you doing?!" I had started to tear a foot of fabric off of my dress, making it more comfortable and roomier. I paused, looked at him, shrugged, and finished my tear before standing up.
"It was getting constricting." I explained.
"That's no reason to ruin– do you have any idea how much that– oh, nevermind!" He finished frustratedly.
I flitted over to the poodle skirt and, balling it up with the ripped fabric from my dress, threw them over next to the bag. The bag. I ran over to it, snatching out my shoes and the shampoo.
I laced up the Chucks, twirled around a bit, and then grabbed the shampoo bottle. It was glass. Muh.
"Well… then… I'll be getting to killing large animals now… buh-bye." Jasper ran off, no longer coherent.
Alone, I paused for a moment, before I raced over to the spring, bending over and dunking my head in without another thought. I hadn't washed my hair in… a very long time.
The water was cold, and I flipped my hair out, grabbing the bottle and unscrewing the lid. It oozed onto my other hand, syrupy. It certainly didn't seem like shampoo. Maybe it's gel, and Jasper's just stupid like that, I pondered, before the rolling smell of the open bottle hit me. It smelled familiar, but not exactly pleasant. It smelled faintly of …apples.
With a mental shrug, I rubbed it into my hair. I felt no suds or bubbles under my fingers, or on my scalp, so my suspicions of gel were confirmed. Stupid Jasper.
I dunked my head in the water again, savoring the clean feeling. As soon as I felt the last of the syrup detach itself from my hair, I pulled out, shaking my head and spraying water everywhere.
I heard a startled yelp, and turned around to find Jasper right behind me, looking very, very…wet. What he was doing behind me, I have no idea. Apparently he was back from hunting. It must have not been very challenging. Either that, or he didn't need that much blood to keep him full. He had eaten the day before, after all.
Jasper seemed to pause in his movement as I got up, obviously smelling the air. Then, before I could do anything, he had seized me in a tight hug and had buried his nose in my hair. I flailed, but he paid no attention.
"You… your hair… smells…intoxicating."
I protested very loudly into his chest until he let me have some air. I immediately relaxed, gasping. "What…exactly…was…that…hair…stuff?"
"Oh," Rub, rub. "It was a brightly colored bottle with some form of syrup in it." Rub. "I assumed it was hair product," Deep sniff. "…and bought it."
I broke out of his grip and bent down to snatch the bottle off the ground. I read off the label: "Apple Martini Mixer. Make you very own alcoholic drink at home!"
My eyes narrowed. "You…IDIOT!" And now he was getting high off of the alcoholic fumes coming from my hair. Splendid.
Jasper cringed slightly. "It smells good. What else is there to complain about?"
I advanced on him, pushing him back against a tree. "You…" Well, my mind amended, he's only stupid, not mean. You shouldn't scare the poor intoxicated fellow.
At a loss for words due to my own mental reprimand, I stood there for a moment, hands planted on either side of Jasper.
He suddenly grinned slyly, and wriggled down the tree a bit. "Aw, I knew you couldn't stay mad at me. Now then, back to business. What shall we do now? Spend quality time traveling the countryside?" He paused in thought. "Spend all afternoon talking? They both sound so much fun…"
He was almost eye level now. A sudden impulse from the general area of my gut seized control of my body, and before my conscious mind knew what was happening, I had leaned forward and kissed him. A very small part of my brain was screaming "Holycrapwhatintheheckdidyoujustdo!" but I ignored it.
Jasper leaned away first this time, and shook his head slightly. "Ah, how you work your charms so unfairly."
I turned around, so we were facing the same way, and slid down the tree. I sat down on the ground, shards of tree bark around me. (My bare shoulders had cracked them off)
Jasper slid down next to me, grinning again. "Well, then. How about that talking business?" He wrapped his arm around my shoulders.
"Have you ever noticed how, every time we sit down to talk, we always end up like this?"
"Every time? My lady, we have only sat down to talk twice." Jasper right out laughed.
I stuck my tongue out at him. "You… you… jeez, specifics, specifics."
"Both times have been after a kiss, though. I could count that as something."
"You could count the weather as something, if you really tried," I added unhelpfully.
"But what if I don't want to try? What if I want to be lazy and act on impulses?" He lifted his free hand to tilt up my chin.
I looked at him defiantly.
This got me a puzzled look. "Wha-at?
"You are such a hypocrite. You gag on my cheesy lines and yet you spout them like a poet."
"A poet?" He arched an eyebrow. "No, no, poets are poor, lonely burn-outs who have no lives. I have a life, am no longer lonely, and I am fairly wealthy. There is a difference, you know."
"I never said you were a poet, only that you were cheesy like one." I rolled my eyes. "Get it right!"
"Fine. From now on: a ban on all cheesy, lovey-dovey, sappy, or otherwise poetic phrases. Except for poetry by Edgar Allan Poe. Because he is just cool like that."
"Proposal accepted. Yay for impulse." I was starting to get uncomfortable from having my chin tilted up, but I didn't want to– oh, whatever, I thought, as I turned my head sideways and brought it to a comfortable angle.
"Can we stop talking about impulses now?" Jasper whined.
"Anything you– no, no! Whatever." I had just averted from sarcastic disaster.
"Ah-ha! It's harder than you think, now isn't it? Not so easy to be un-cheesy."
"Oh, no. Please, please don't rhyme like that…"
"Why can't I rhyme…" He drifted off, probably in search of a rhyme for 'can't.'
"Because, as stated earlier, I thought we banned 'other poetic phrases.' Rhyming certainly poetic. Besides, if you do rhyme, I might have to move. Far, far away."
"Hey, some Edgar Allan Poe can rhyme! Lets see…
"Romance, who loves to nod and sing,
With drowsy head and folded wing,
Among the green leaves as they shake,
Far down within some shadowy lake,
To me a painted paroquet—a most familiar bird—
Taught me my alphabet to say—
To lisp my very earliest word
While in the wood I did lie,
A child—with most knowing eye.
"Suceeding years, too wild for song,
They roll'd like tropic storms along,
Where, tho' the garish lights that fly
Dying along the troubled sky,
Lay bare thro' vistas thunder-riven
The blackness of the general heaven…"
I closed my eyes, enjoying the liquid of the words.
"That very blackness yet doth fling
Light on the lightning's sliver wing.
"For, being an idle boy lang syne,
Who read Anacreon and drank wine,
I early found that Anacreon rhymes
Were almost passionate sometimes—
And by strange alchemy of the brain
His pleasures always turn'd to pain—
His naivete to wild desire—
His wits to love—his wine to fire
And so, being young and dipt in folly
I fell in love with melancholy,
And used to throw my earthly rest
And quiet all away in jest—
I could not love except where Death
Was mingling with his Beauty's breath—
Or Hymen, Time, and Destiny
Were stalking between her and me."
As soon as Jasper stopped reciting, my eyes snapped open. He was looking at me curiously.
"Was it that boring?" He asked, slightly depressed.
I answered him with another question. "Is that the end?"
"You liked it?"
"I liked your reciting. The poem in itself was… really philosophical, I guess. It was hard to understand, for me. I can concentrate better when I close my eyes, though."
"Well," He amended, "There is more, but I can't remember it all. Something about later, Condor years, and how his draught…" Jasper screwed up his face, trying to remember. "…of… passion had been deep, but now he's just old and…" he sighed in defeat. "That's about all I can get."
"It was good, anyway. I think you might've changed my mind about poetry."
He leaned down and kissed my hair lightly. "I'm sure you'd hate the rest of it. Nothing's quite the same as good ol' sadistic Eddy."
During the course of the next week, it was impossible to stay bored, sad, or depressed. I was never without Jasper; most of the time we just sat and talked, or he read to me out of the monstrous fifteen-hundred page book he had bought, called Les Misérables. It was a good way to spend an afternoon: propped up against a tree, leaning against Jasper, listening to the story of Jean Valjean.
No, it wasn't simply good, it was… incredible, peaceful, exhilarating, relaxing, remarkable, and entertaining all at the same time.
It was heaven. But alas, how many times in stories have we heard that heaven lasts only in fairytales and when you're dead?
