Welcome back, darlings! Next chapter and we'll have hit the thirties...that's pretty exciting, I gotta say ;)
Anywho, I don't own YYH, but the other lovely ducklings do in fact belong to me. Enjoy!
Faking Plans is Better than Faking Death
Jonathan hurried from Dayne's room, trailing a dark sludge that reminded her of swamps behind him. The entire house was tainted with it, the walls leaning out as if to escape the disgusting streaks. Jonathan seemed unaware of it, lifting his hands to hug Dayne in greeting. His fingers glittered with knives as they wrapped around her back.
"I think that dream was almost too literal." Dayne remarked quietly, glancing over at Kurama. They had an unspoken agreement not to get to close while Jonathan was there. Not until they knew what he was going to do.
"What was it about?" Kurama asked, trying to focus. Some scent in the air was drawing away his attention, though. He had only smelt it two or three times before, but he recognized it immediately. "The demon was here." He snarled, his canines seeming to elongate as he twisted to look around. He was moving closer to Dayne, bearing down protectively. She had gasped, though, and taken off to the house.
"Jonathan! Jonathan, are you alright?" She was calling as she threw open the door. Kurama bounded after her, cursing her instinct to go check on her childhood friend – if "friend" could be used to describe the blonde conniver.
"I'm fine," the blonde southerner appeared in the hallway, looking mildly concerned, "what's wrong?"
"N…nothing. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you." Dayne smiled tightly, trying to control her fluttering heart. For a second, she had forgotten that Jonathan was probably in league with the demon. For a second she had thought he might have gotten hurt.
"Excuse me," Kurama murmured, putting his hands on Dayne's shoulders as he moved past her. He brushed by Jonathan without a word, headed towards Dayne room. The demon's smell seemed even stronger on this side of the house.
"Where do you think you're going?" Jonathan blocked off Kurama, his hand in front of Dayne's door.
"I left something in there." Kurama's voice was clipped and controlled as his eyes were turning to an almost hazel color, a strange mix of his normal emerald eyes and a light brown. Jonathan began to squint suspiciously.
"Why were you even in there?" He asked in a snotty tone.
"We were studying last night for our last finals." Dayne sounded puzzled, but politely so. "Did you leave a book in there, Kurama?"
"Yes, I think I did." He tried not to growl. Dayne was playing along nicely, and she was actually a wonderful actor, especially now that the stress of finals had disappeared. Jonathan moved out of the way reluctantly, his body stiffening as Kurama passed him and opened the door. Dayne's room reeked of two scents that shouldn't have been in there – the dark demon's, and also Jonathan's. He picked up a book at random off her desk, turning to face the other two. "Found it!" He said cheerily, although his smile didn't reach his eyes. What had Jonathan and the demon been doing in Dayne's room, and together?
Jonathan followed Dayne and Kurama out of her room, trailing so close to Dayne that she could feel his body heat. It was disconcerting and sent an odd shock of panic through her system. She tried not to trip against Kurama.
"Dayne, let's go out tonight to celebrate you being done with school." Jonathan suddenly said, dropping the rude tone he had taken up with Kurama. Dayne blinked and resisted the urge to grab Kurama's hand, even though she knew it would make Jonathan shut up. Actually, he would probably only shut up for a second and then start yelling.
"I'm not done with school; I still have Graduate school to go to." She elected on saying, trying to say it lightly. He was making her nervous. Kurama, with his stiff walk, was making her nervous too. They all ended up in the kitchen, settling around the square, wooden table.
"You're done for this semester, though." Jonathan was sitting on the side perpendicular to her. Kurama was sitting opposite him.
"Thank god." Dayne mumbled, realizing just how long the semester had been. Her father had died, she had discovered demons and learned – to an extent – how to use her dreams, for the first time in ages she had made new friends, she had fallen in serious like, if not love, with the very redhead who made her nervous, she had passed all of her classes, and she had some creeper who was in league with an old family friend. It had been a busy semester, needless to say.
"So let's go out, just me and you." Jonathan leaned towards her, his eyes sincere as he reached for her hand. Dayne jerked back, surprised.
"Actually," Kurama saved her from answering, "We all made plans to go out tonight to celebrate." He paused for a long moment, as if debating whether he should be polite or just as rude as Jonathan usually was. "You're welcome to come, of course." His human training won out, in this case.
"Pip, come on, ditch them. I came all the way over here to see you." Jonathan ignored the redhead, trying to guilt the raven-haired girl into it.
"Jonathan," she began before realizing she had nothing to say, "I – uhm – I don't think ditching everyone is a good idea. We've all been looking forward to this." Her will was bending a little, though. Kurama could hear it in her voice.
"You've changed." Jonathan leaned back, glaring at her coolly. Her eyes widened at what he said, but then relaxed when she thought about it. Yeah, she had changed, and despite Jonathan thinking it was a bad thing, she liked the change.
"If we're done deciding, I'll call Yusuke and make sure the reservations were made." Kurama smiled although he kept his gaze on Dayne. "Don't forget, it's a semi-formal restaurant." He warned her. She blinked in surprise – there hadn't been any plans, but he seemed to be on a roll.
"What time should we all be ready by?" Dayne asked, trying to be casual. She didn't want to give away the fact that it was all spontaneous. Kurama glanced at the clock out of the corner of his eye, judging the time. It was a little past three in the afternoon.
"By seven." He said decisively, standing and leaving the room to gather up the entire gang.
"I don't like him." Jonathan said quietly, catching Dayne's gaze.
"Why not?" She asked, trying to act like she hadn't already gotten that impression. Really, Jonathan telling her he didn't like Kurama after behaving as he did was a little redundant.
"He's hiding things from you." Jonathan leaned forward again, keeping his hands on the table this time. "He's hiding really important things from you." Dayne resisted the urge to snort. Had Jonathan said that to her three months ago, she would have agreed wholeheartedly. However, she hadn't felt as though Kurama was hiding anything from her for months. She had lost the impression the day she first met Sagaku and Hiei for real.
Sagaku and Hiei stood shoulder to shoulder. Hiei was impassive, but Sagaku had a feral grin on her face, a shiny, metallic whip woven around her fingers. Watching with crimson eyes, Hiei stepped back and left his mate to advance on a cowering boy, one with dyed-blue hair. He was whimpering, holding a hand up and saying things in an unfamiliar language.
"You think you can actually summon up demons?" Sagaku snapped. "You only catch their attention. None of them are going to help you now." And then the whip slashed forward, jerking his hand up and then down. "So what was it you found out when you killed them? Did you get pleasure out of it? They were my friends, my mentors. I'm glad Dayne found you." She was smirking, her eyes looking unusually harsh. The man had given up his whimpering and tried crossing himself instead. A portal was appearing below him.
"Dayne, you're not even listening to me!" Jonathan snapped angrily.
"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to zone out, you know it just happens!" Dayne wasn't thinking clearly, her mind caught up on the dream. Was the blue-haired man the one that had killed Nenriki and Shoseki, Sagaku's demonic friends who had died long before Dayne even knew demons existed? Why was she dreaming about that?
"I know," Jonathan's voice was softening, "but really, Dayne, your friends are more dangerous than you realize. Don't you remember how he stalked you? It was only five or six months ago. He doesn't have a stable mind." He spoke to her as if she was a child who needed to be soothed and reasoned with.
"You don't really know them." Dayne tried to reason right back, ignoring the fact that he had targeted Kurama despite saying 'friends.'
"Dayne, they're d-"
"Keiko and Botan want to know if you want to get ready with them at Shizuru's." Kurama interrupted, leaning into the kitchen. Dayne paused blankly for a minute, wondering if she knew who Botan and Shizuru were.
"Sure," she stood and headed to her room to get everything she thought she would need. Jonathan glowered at her back before standing and heading to his own room – one of the guest rooms. They weren't leaving for a few hours and he was not going to be stuck with the demon-thief if he didn't have to be.
Dayne stood between Botan and Keiko. Keiko was expertly applying make-up while Botan was doing something with her hair. Shizuru, a wry and sarcastic girl, was smoking a cigarette while sitting on her couch, and Sagaku was in the other room with Yukina. They were going over last minute details with a human babysitter over what was appropriate and what wasn't with the two demon babies – not that the babysitter knew they were demons. Luckily Nenriki didn't have his daddy's third eye.
"The guys are going to be here in a minute!" Botan squealed, accidentally poking the back of Dayne's head with a pin. Dayne pressed her lips together, trying not to squeak indignantly.
"Well I'm done!" Keiko smiled sweetly, stepping back.
"It looks good, girl." Shizuru said from her vantage point.
"Thanks," both Dayne and Keiko replied at the same time, before looking at each other and laughing.
"I'm done too!" Botan jumped up and down, her pink dress flouncing cutely around her legs.
"Thank you both for your help." Dayne smiled warmly at the two girls.
Kuwabara threw open the door, secretly hoping that he would scare the girls. Instead they all turned and smiled at him. With a disappointed sigh, he stepped to the side to let the others into his sister's apartment, his eyes scanning the room for Yukina.
"You girls all look very nice," Kurama smiled sweetly.
"Yeah, you're looking especially hot tonight," Yusuke grinned at Keiko. She punched him in the arm, but grinned anyways.
Jonathan was leaning against the wall, not even making a move to introduce himself to everyone he didn't know. He narrowed his eyes on Kurama, whose yes were roving up and down Dayne's body. She was wearing a rumpled green skirt that fell down below her knees, and a sleeveless, lighter green shirt. Her hair was curled pleasantly around her face, pinned up in the back, and she was wearing make-up. He wasn't sure he liked the idea that she had gotten dressed-up for the redhead, but it was definitely the impression he got from the way she kept glancing at Kurama from the corner of her eye as she joked with Yusuke and Kuwabara.
"Come on, then, before someone else steals our table!" Sagaku demanded, bounding out of the back room with Yukina in tow. Somehow, on the way out to the parking lot, Jonathan ended up across the group from Dayne. He was forced to get into the third car, not the same one she was riding in. Needless to say, he was pissed.
Dinner was highly amusing, although they almost got kicked out of the upscale restaurant. They all split the bill, and then ended up just walking around the city for lack of anything better to do. Jonathan was seething, although Dayne had tried to pay attention to him too. In her defense, he had been repugnant and rude.
"Let's go to the park." Shizuru suggested. "I want to sit down." And so they all traveled to the park, squeezing out every last minute of the excursion that they could.
