Home for the Holidays
Chapter: 3
Title: Homemade Pumpkin Pie
Disclaimer: There is absolutely zero chance that I could ever own Ranma ½ or any of the characters seeing as Rumiko Takahashi already owns them. Don't sue. I have no money.
Akane's stomach had developed a rather unpleasant feeling. During her escape, she had not paused to figure out how she would get out of the woods. Too bad that it had just now dawned on her, and that by now she had no earthly idea where she was or what direction she had come from. Not to mention the fact that it was pitch black. The canopy of trees blocked out most of the light (and heat for that matter) and it was now that the meaning of "winter solstice" became clear to her.
Where was Ranma anyway? She had heard him rush into the crowd of trees after her and had hastily picked up her pace so as to not be caught. Her pride had definitely come back to bite her in the ass. What had she been thinking running into foreign woods just when it was getting dark?
The truth was, of course, that she had not been thinking. For the first time in many months, she had not been practical or reasonable or even stopped to consider the facts. She was no Nabiki, but Akane couldn't remember being so utterly careless and irrational. She groaned. How could she have ever thought this was a good idea!
Her best chance was to look for Ranma and hope that he had not gotten as completely lost as herself. She heard leaves shuffle behind her. "Ranma...?" Who else would be wandering around this place? It had to be him. She reached out to feel around. Why didn't he answer her? He could be such a stubborn idiot sometimes. He was probably just trying to scare her to get payback for earlier...
Her hand found the warmth of his body. "Ah HA!" She didn't even bother to conceal the victorious smirk that had clad her features. He was in for it.
But when had Ranma gotten so hairy?
Stupid, uncute Tomboy. She was most likely lost by now, and thanks to her, he was as well. Not much snow had fallen through the tops of the trees, but the air in the woods was definitely chilly to say the least. His feet padded softly through the layers of leaves that made up the tawny forest floor. If he found her, he was gonna scare the shit out of her. It was only fair after what she had done earlier. But they had been having a really nice time up until then. He smiled in spite of himself. Ranma wasn't sure what he had expected it to be like coming home after two years, but this afternoon certainly wasn't anything near what he had imagined.
Then a scream shot through the trees and the cool December air.
Akane.
Before he knew it, he was sprinting full speed through crumbling earth and dried leaves.
It was a wild boar. And it was not happy.
Akane, upon the utter shock of finding said creature was not Ranma, had delivered a swift roundhouse kick to its midsection. The kick wasn't meant to be devastating, but even so, her attack had less impact than she had initially counted on. This pig was no pansy pig. It was too dark to tell, but she imagined a large, tusked, and unbelievably wooly monster of an animal, tailing her with a somewhat incredible amount of speed.
Since it was apparently angry with her for kicking it, she had decided her best course of action was to... well. RUN.
Unfortunately, it didn't take long for her to realize there was no way she was gonna wear it down just by running around. She needed a different plan of escape, which would really be much easier if only she could see. The faint outline of trees was barely visible as she whipped past. It would only be a matter of time before she was distracted long enough to collide into one.
The two figures were approaching rapidly. One he knew for sure was Akane. But the other he was unsure of... an oversized, irate Ryoga? Impossible. He wouldn't try to attack Akane anyway. Whatever it was, they weren't going to solve this by outrunning it. The only solution was to go up.
She sensed something else nearby. Was it possible that there were two of them? Briefly her mind wandered to the prospect that there was an entire family of them wandering around in this forest. Another obstacle was approaching, or rather, she was approaching it. A 20-foot stonewall that separated the forested area from the neighboring houses. Well at least she could have followed this wall back to civilization if it weren't for the giant angry animal at her heels. With thickly forested trees on both sides and a rabid pig behind her, she braced herself for the inevitable.
Suddenly, her body was weightless, slipping through the crisp winter air as if in slow motion. No ground. No gravity. Nothing.
THUMP. Okay. There was something. Akane Tendo was in a tree. On a branch. In someone's lap. More specifically, in Ranma's lap.
Her legs had somehow managed to become draped over his knees, and a protective hand was closed around her waist. She felt her cheeks heat up at their closeness.
Just…A friend.
Her ears told her that her pursuer had not yet given up the chase. The enormous animal was rifling around in the leaves at the tree's trunk, probably wondering how its prey had managed to essentially vanish into thin air.
Ah well. They could just wait it out. An alarm went off in Akane's brain. Wait? That could be a while. Hours, maybe. All night even.
A sigh escaped her lips. She glanced through the darkness at Ranma.
This could prove interesting.
Meanwhile, Ranma had not moved. He was perfectly set in his position. Waiting. Listening.
He could kill it. He knew that. But at the same time, he didn't see a good enough reason to just kill the animal, regardless of whether or not it might be a little angry with Akane. After all, she hadn't been hurt, had she? . . . had she? Realization slapped him in the face. He hadn't even checked! His hands slid to her arms and legs, checking for any immediate signs of injuries or broken bones.
"Ranma." Akane's voice cut the air of silence. "What on earth do you think you're doing?" she hissed crossly.
Even in the covering of darkness, Ranma could practically see the indignation lit on her face. If they had not been sitting on a branch, and if it had not been pitch black, and if a certain wild boar was not waiting for them to tumble out of their current residence, he would have been a Ranma-flapjack, face down in the dirt. However, these were not the circumstances.
"I was just checking you out!" he burst, trying to conceal his embarrassment. How he wished his words had been different ones.
Her answer was a sharp whisper filled with resent. "You think I can't use my own hands for that?"
Ranma, who had interpreted this with a completely different meaning, was taken aback. "Uhh..."
Epiphany hit, even if a second and a half too late. Had it not been for the ill lighting, Akane's past life as a lobster would have been exposed. Fortunately, there was a standard response for this. "Pervert! I didn't mean it that way!" Needless to say, an argument ensued.
"How was I supposed to know what you meant?"
"You are such an IDIOT!"
"TOMBOY!"
"JERK!"
"DAMMIT AKANE! I DON'T WANNA FIGHT WITH YOU!"
The insult she had been prepared to bite out instantly evaporated from her mind. Akane Tendo had just been effectively silenced.
"I just don't wanna do this..." the stillness of the forest seemed to make the exasperation in his voice echo.
"... Neither do I."
It was difficult to say that for some reason. She wasn't ordinarily so stubborn or unkind. Somehow to admit that she always hated when their arguments became more than harmless banter seemed like admitting a weakness. It was a softness she didn't feel she could afford when doing battle with Ranma. Maybe because it required admitting she was afraid of how things might be if there were different. If they didn't argue... would they even have anything to say to each other?
It was such a ridiculous question... and even so, she had been afraid of the answer.
There had been times before, even just earlier that day, when they were completely civil, nice, even... friends. But two years without even a postcard- well. sometimes silence was worth a thousand words. She wanted to pretend even now that she didn't feel a tinge of pain when she recalled the years she'd spent away at college.
Maybe she wasn't as changed as she'd thought.
Ranma watched as the forest outline faded and evening fell. The silence between Akane and himself was deafening. Deafening to the point that he wanted to scream.
It felt like he'd been waiting a lifetime to get to this moment, and now he was unsure of what it would lead to.
There were so many things left to tell her. Things he wanted to say. Things he needed to say.
Things that, unfortunately, he was nearly deathly afraid to say.
It was absurd, really. Why would he be scared of talking to Akane? He'd fought demons and monsters and crazy, psycho gymnasts, and yet he could not express the regret he felt for leaving her and the hurt that was left when he did. Surely she could forgive him, if just this once. Inklings of doubt tugged at his brain. And if she didn't?
He felt Akane shiver in his lap. The temperature had suddenly plunged from cold to freezing. Instinctively his hands went to warm her up, but the action was cut short after further consideration. He cleared his throat. "Uh… You cold, Akane?"
She snorted in disbelief. How could she not be? It was negative thirty outside, and they were stuck in a stupid tree. Of course, that particular detail wasn't really Ranma's fault. She was the one, after all, who had skipped blindly off into the very large and very dark forest. Hahaha. Yeah. Smart move. There was no one to blame but herself. Here she was, living life like a normal person for two whole years, and her first entire day back in Nerima, she ended up trapped in a tree. They were adults, for crying out loud! And martial artists, no less! You'd think they could handle going on one errand for Kasumi. The whole situation was just way too… Ranma.
She couldn't help but smile at how ludicrous the whole situation was. Plain insanity.
With no one else in the entire world could she end up lost in a random forest on a frigid winter night.
With no one else could she be having a playful snowball fight and then suddenly end up being chased by a wild hog.
With no one else could she be so hopelessly in love-
Woah now. Getting a little ahead of yourself there. Surely she had meant something else. Someone else. You're just in a stressful situation. That's all it is. Just stress.
"... yeah. kinda..." Well what was the point in lying about it anyway? She would still be cold and stuck with Ranma in a tree if she had told him otherwise.
"Oh."
Silence.
Wasn't he gonna warm her up or something? Why did he even bother asking her if he wasn't gonna do anything about it?
As soon as he asked the question, he knew it could not end well. Either she would say no and yell at him for asking such a dumb question or say yes and leave him unsure of what to do next.
Obviously she lived to confuse him. A negative response would have been much easier to deal with than the downright indifferent one with which she had just replied.
Was he supposed to risk getting pounded to warm her up? Or did her answer really mean she wanted him to do just that? If it did in fact mean she intended him to follow through, did this also mean the subsequent action would not result in physical pain for him?
There were really just way too many questions involved here.
He attempted to swallow away the dryness in his mouth. When he had asked, he hadn't actually thought about how he would solve this particular problem.
By now, Akane had decided for sure that he had chickened out. She really couldn't blame him. For two years of his life, all she did was mallet him when he touched her, even if he was just trying to help.
And then a pair of hands were warm on her shoulders like sunshine on a chilly afternoon, spreading warmth to her arms and hands and to the tips of her fingers. If she could've spoken, she doubted that she could've thought of anything intelligent to say. Even though the rest of her was being warmed up, her brain was frozen.
After a few minutes, he stopped, his hands coming to rest with hers enclosed in them. He would hold her hands just a little bit longer. So they wouldn't get cold again, of course. "Better?" His voice was soft and uncertain, a real rarity in the world of Ranma.
She nodded ever so slightly. "Yeah.. thanks..." She was surprised at how small her voice sounded in the quiet stillness, nothing but the hushed whisper of a breeze in the tree tops reverberating in the woods.
A few minutes passed by.
And then a few more did.
And then, yes, a few more.
The tension in the air was getting to be way too much for her. "So... did you ever get stuck in a tree while you were in China?" She couldn't see his face, but she could tell he was relieved that she had said something.
"Nope... but plenty of other places..." His brain was still distracted by the petite hands enfolded in his. Sitting here now he couldn't imagine how he'd left two years ago. Things were just so much better here at home. Even sitting in this tree, lost in the middle of a forest was better than being in China. It was better being here.
With her.
His stomach growled. He heard Akane stifle a laugh. He sweatdropped. What a time for his stomach to start complaining.
"Sounds like someone's a little bit hungry, eh?" She leaned forward, smirking. He rolled his eyes. "I guess now you're wishing we'd had time to grab those strawberry danishes at the bakery before Mr. Amori's kitten drove us out of the place." She pressed a hand to her forehead for dramatic emphasis on his mini crisis. There was so much mirth in her tone that he wasn't even sure he could be annoyed with her for rubbing in the whole debilitating fear of cats thing.
"Tsk Tsk, Miss Tendo," he shook his head in faux disdain. "I think you're forgetting who just saved your life for the hundredth time."
Before she could even begin to protest, he felt Akane flinch in his arms. "Ouch!"
He tightened his grip around her. "What is it?" Sheesh. With all her flailing around, she was lucky he didn't drop her.
"I think... I think something bit me." He could tell that there was just a hint of panic in her voice. I mean here they were in the woods with God knows what creeping around- poisonous spiders, killer bees, giant japanese hornets...
"Ouch!" More squirming. "I think it's still on me!"
"Stop wiggling around! You're gonna fall flat on your face! Just lemme get it." She stopped squirming. Well. It made more sense than falling ten feet to the ground. He shifted his grip on her waist so that his right arm was free. "So.. where is it?"
He felt her grab his hand and pull it slightly left of the small of her back. "Somewhere near that spot, but I think it moved some..."
He evaluated the circumstances. This would involve going under some clothing. Now was the time to rationalize. He was just going to get the bug. She knew that. He knew that. He considered announcing it so all the other living creatures in his proximity could bare witness that if this went south quickly. His fingers clumsily inched the back of her sweater up a bit. His fingers brushed against the spot where she'd been bit, and he felt her wince lightly at the pain. He was trying to search quickly for the dang thing, but Akane wasn't giving him very good directions.
"Up- no, wait, you went too far. Back to the right-" Not only was it odd for Akane to have Ranma's hand up her shirt, but the stupid bug was driving her nuts. "Honestly, Ranma! Just let me do it myself!" She moved hurriedly to get it all over with. Maybe a bit too hurriedly given the circumstances.
Her brisk movement knocked them off balance.
And, yes, out of the tree.
And, yes, there was some screaming involved.
A beam of yellow light hit them square in the face.
"Hey you! What are you doing around here?"
AN: This chapter is dedicated to my dear sister.
-SP