Two Minds, One Heart
"So, where did you go last night?" Sango asked once she was buckled in. Jade looked over at her and frowned.
"Nowhere." she answered.
"Nah, you left. I heard the door and I heard your car." Sango pressed.
"No, I didn't-"
"If you're screwing him, it's fine. You don't have to lie."
"Sango, you also said she was possibly going to smoke weed with Koga and the boys." Kagome stated as she leaned forward.
"Oh, yeah," Jade forced a laugh. "Sorry. I forgot."
"Are you good? To drive, I mean?" Sango continued.
"I'm fine!" Jade insisted with a smile. "I'm good."
"Alright."
'Oh fuuuuuuck, oh shit, did I sleepwalk? Sleepdrive?' Jade drove out of the parking lot and thought so hard that she was sure her brain was going to explode. 'I worked late, I came home, I slept...then I woke up this morning,' she listed off, thankful that Sango was preoccupied with her iPod at the moment. She went over the list again; work, home, sleep, woke up...something was missing. She felt it. There was a gap, but it was fuzzy. Her body began to tremble as if it remembered something she didn't. 'Lucy and Naraku said I did do that, though.'
Jade tried to pay attention to the chatter of her two roommates, but she couldn't. Their voices almost sounded muffled, like she was hearing them underwater. She also had to snap herself out of trances. She had experienced highway hypnosis before, but it was usually at night and when she was tired. She couldn't roll the window down to use the cold air to snap her out of it because they would suspect her of still being under the influence of weed that she never smoked.
'I wonder what Naraku is up to?' She inhaled deeply. 'Reading, writing, pissing off Bruce, extracting precious metals from chemicals to pawn for profit, grafting more heart tissue on spinach leaves,'
"Jade!" Sango barked.
"What?" Jade asked, glancing over at her.
"You're acting weird."
"No, I'm just...after I smoke, I'm super relaxed the next day."
"We were asking you what you're going to do over break?" Kagome chirped.
"Oh, uh, finish up some last minute lab stu- his dick, Sango! Better?" Jade snapped with a smile after she heard her friend snicker, but she was actually irritated. She had no memory of leaving, and she didn't think Sango was lying, but a part of Sango was still convinced Jade was sleeping with Naraku and it was a common joke that Jade was starting to grow tired of. "Then I'll probably go home for a couple of weeks, eat, sleep, the usual, and then I'll be back a week early for pizza stuff."
"Sounds good." Kagome answered. "I'm ready to taste my mom's cooking again."
"I can't wait to hear more of my dad's crazy stories from work." Sango added.
"Oh yeah?"
Jade zoned out again. She began thinking that seeing a doctor for memory issues was a good idea, but the last doctor she saw insisted that memory loss connected with trauma and comas were common and that it was also possible for the problems to persist even years after the trauma. She agreed, but sleepwalking and driving? That was dangerous! To add to her anxiety, she apparently had another nosebleed during the night; a stain was left on her pillow and she had dried blood caked to her face. It wasn't a small amount, either.
'Maybe Naraku has ideas,' Jade nodded slightly and wondered why she even thought confiding in him with such a personal, emotional problem was a good idea. Physical? Sure. He was actually spot-on most of the time. Anything centered around emotions and mental concerns? He was the poster-child of mental and emotional issues developing intelligence, a consciousness, and manifesting a physical form. He would observe everything she did in her sleepwalking state and in the name of science, he would not intervene, even if she was in danger. Still, though, she liked being around him for various reasons. 'Why am I thinking so much about him right now?' she wondered. Was she getting sick again? She felt fine and not fine at the same time - her body stuck in danger mode and her mind was stuck in a haze. 'He would know a remedy...god-fucking-damn it.' Was she even in control of her brain anymore? Everything she was doing felt...automated. Somehow, she hadn't crashed, or rear-ended anyone, ran a light; her body was doing everything it was supposed to do. Her mind, on the other hand, was floating around in space.
Jade's hugs and goodbyes to her roommates felt empty on her end, which made her feel terrible. They were her friends; she was going to miss them. Her mind had other plans, though. "Get back in the car," it seemed to say. "Drive back faster." It reached a point that she began whispering, "I'm going," over and over to herself, as if it would calm her down.
When she checked her phone, she was shocked to see that Naraku and Bruce had called her multiple times. Sesshomaru sent a single text saying, "You should probably answer your phone sometime soon. Lives might be at stake." She snorted, thinking he was being sarcastic, but listened to the voicemail Naraku left her first and she closed her eyes as chills wracked her body; Sesshomaru was serious.
"Jade, I don't even- just call me as soon as you hear this." Naraku sounded defeated. His tone was soft, but not in a good way, and it sounded hoarse.
"Holy shit, so, I need you to come into the lab as soon as possible. Campus lost power last night, all of it, including the generators, and now any temperature-sensitive samples we have are either ruined or nearly-ruined and we need help saving as much as we can. As for Naraku's samples...I would really like to have you here before he shows up. He might actually murder someone. Please, hurry." Bruce's first voicemail made Jade's mouth drop open. She almost didn't want to play the second one...but she had to. She closed her eyes and tried to control her breathing.
"Okaaaaaay, so he got here before you did and…" Bruce's voice tailed off and in the background, Jade could hear Naraku screaming. Not shouting, not raising his voice; legitimately screaming like he was in immense pain. She heard glass shattering, a loud crunching sound, and Naraku's voice finally forming words, Japanese ones, which was even more concerning. "Yeah, so, please get here soon. Or call him if you don't feel safe. Or don't. I don't blame you."
'Fuck me, it's Colorado all over again, maybe worse,' she groaned. Maybe that was why she was constantly thinking about Naraku on the way to the airport; his rage must have sent shock-waves hundreds of miles out. She called his phone and prepared herself.
"Where are you?" he asked sharply.
"I had to take Sango and Kagome to the airport. What happened?" Jade started her car, hoping the heat would push the chills from her body. "Naraku? What happened?"
"Get here as soon as you can."
"Naraku-" Jade heard some rustling and then silence. He had ended the call. "Asshole."
Jade took the backroads back to the city, speeding when she could to help trim time. They might not have given details, but she could solve puzzles well enough. Bruce implied something was wrong with Naraku's samples, which made sense. That would be the only reason Naraku would lose control of himself like that.
She pulled into the parking lot behind the building and briskly walked inside, nodding to professors and maintenance workers as she made her way to the lab. When she spotted Bruce standing outside of the lab, she walked up to him first. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw her.
"Oh good," he smiled uncomfortably.
"What happened?" Jade asked, feeling like she had asked that a thousand times already.
"Naraku's samples are ruined."
"But, none of them were temp-sensitive. They should've survived the-"
"Ooooh no, this was deliberate." Bruce interrupted while cringing and massaging his temples. "And Sesshomaru didn't do it."
"I assume the cameras didn't record?"
"Not unless this person did it before the outage. We won't find out until everything is up and running again."
"Where is he?"
"In the lab."
"Okay. I'll go-"
"Maaaaaybe you shouldn't."
"I just talked to him a half-hour ago. He said he wanted me here. You said you wanted me here."
"Naraku thirty minutes ago is not Naraku now." Bruce replied grimly.
"I know, but he asked, so," Jade walked over to the door, but stopped when she heard...laughing? He was laughing? The trembling returned to her body.
'If he isn't suffering psychosis this time around, he's a tougher son of a bitch than I thought.' Inhaling deeply and holding her breath for a moment before pushing the door open, Jade silenced all thoughts. The smell hit her first; decomposing biological material had a sewage smell to it and since most of Naraku's samples were raw biological material from the bottom of a lake, it also had a slight rotten fish aroma to it. Every individual bag holding half a centimeter of material had been unraveled and dumped onto the floor. She assumed the excessive amount of water on the floor were his water samples, too. She walked past the table where Naraku lay on his back on the floor, sprawled out and still giggling like a schoolgirl. His white lab coat, blue shirt, and jeans were turning brown from soaking up the silty material from the floor and his long, wavy black hair was caught in the mess, too.
"Hey," Jade called out, standing beside him and looking down at him. His gaze met hers and he smiled.
"Hello, Jade."
"You, uh, you doing okay down there?"
"I'm doing fantastic, Jade. I've never felt better," he insisted with an innocent smile.
"Uh huh," she replied while crossing her arms. She could only imagine what was going on inside his head. It was at that moment she recognized the wide streaks around his arms and legs; he made a mud angel at some point. She fought to hold back a laugh.
'This isn't funny, this isn't funny, this isn't funny,'
"No, really, I'm fine."
"Okay, I won't argue. Just, uh, why don't we get off the floor?" Jade suggested as she offered him her hand. Naraku tossed his arm up, acting as if it was heavy, even grunting while doing so, and when Jade pulled, he swept his leg to the side and knocked her off her feet. She gasped and twisted to her side, holding her head protectively as she struck the filthy, moist floor harshly.
"Hahahahaha!" Naraku erupted into laughter again, acting as if it was the funniest thing he ever watched in his life. "You- hahaha, you said, "we," so I figured we could get up together!"
'Just play along, don't show him anything, just go with it,' Jade coached herself as she lowered her arms from her face. As she expected, his eyes were searching for any displeasure, but she was able to keep it neutral.
"You know," he began, reaching over to brush her hair from her face. "It had to be someone with a key to the lab."
"The door wasn't unlocked or left open on accident was it?" she quizzed.
"Nooooooo," he sang teasingly. His handsome smile was making her nauseous...or was it the smell of his ruined life smeared all over the floor?
"The lock wasn't picked?"
"Hm, I haven't checked," he looked up thoughtfully, but when he looked back at Jade, she could tell that he was mocking her...and becoming visibly angry. The hair stood up on the back of her neck.
"What do you want me to do?"
"I don't know, Jade. How about you come up with a plan for once?"
"Okaaaaay," she tried not to roll her eyes or sigh heavily. Now he was going to start negging her and doing anything he could for a reaction. "I guess I'll start cleaning. You can...do whatever."
"No, your plan needs to involve both of us. Tell me what to do."
"Naraku, you and I both know what you're going to do if I do," Jade pushed herself up onto her knees and winced when she felt a stinging sensation along her side, her legs, and her hands.
'Peroxide,' she remembered when she saw the chalky-white residue building on her skin. Luckily, it had been diluted. Otherwise, it would have been far more painful.
"Do you hate me now?"
"No." Jade said quickly, standing up and offering him her hand again. "How about I take you home instead?"
"Why can't I drive myself?"
"I'm just trying to be nice to you."
"Well, stop it."
"Okay." Jade dropped her hand to her side and walked away.
"Where are you going?"
"My apartment. I'm going to pack and go home early."
"What?" he sat up quickly. "You said you were going to stay for a few more days."
"Yeah, for lab stuff." Jade retorted, waving her hand from one side of the lab to the other. "I don't really have stuff to do anymore, thanks to some asshole,"
"Don't leave." he urged, now standing.
'I've never wanted to punch someone in the dick so much,' Jade held her breath, looking back at him. His sleeve brushed against his cheek quickly before his hand dropped to his side. 'Was that...is he crying?'
"Look, are you okay to drive home?" Jade urged softly. He kept his gaze downward, but he nodded. "Cool. So, go home and clean up. I'll do the same and then I'll come over and fix chili pepper tea. How about that plan?"
"I suppose it's fine."
Jade walked out of the lab and approached Bruce, whose eyes widened when he saw the brown smears on her clothes.
"What did he-"
"I slipped." Jade lied quickly, waving her hands. "He's going to go home, and then I'm going to...um,"
"Babysit?"
"Sure. I mean, I'm actually kind of worried about him."
"Same and I don't even like him." Bruce sighed heavily. "Well, because we don't know what all is mixed on the floor in there, the department has decided to call in professionals to deal with the mess. I won't tell them that Naraku decided to make fucking mud angels and that you slipped, so just shower as soon as you can so we don't have to file reports. Please."
"Yup!"
When Jade finished showering and dressing, she grabbed her Xbox and controllers, drove to the store to buy the ingredients for her promised tea, and then headed to Naraku's apartment. She hoped he actually did what she suggested. She sighed with relief when she saw his new shiny black car sitting right up front...in a handicap spot...with a blue handicap tag hanging from his rearview mirror.
'Never change, Naraku.' She couldn't help but to snicker and shake her head. She didn't mean to laugh at something that was probably a symptom of severe mental illness, but she also knew that he was fully aware of what he was doing.
A low whistle squeezed through her lips as she walked by his car to inspect it. 'A muscle car for a muscle-obsessed guy,' she noted. She wasn't sure if Chargers counted as muscle cars or not, but they were close enough in her opinion.
"Oh," Jade flinched when Naraku answered the door with nothing but a towel around his waist and another wrapped around his hair on his head. "I could've waited."
"You've seen me naked before." Naraku answered decidedly. "Haven't we discussed this already?"
"Yup and you're still purposely avoiding the point."
"Oh?" he spun around to walk away and Jade froze when she saw the massive spider tattoo on his back. It was clearly Japanese-inspired and densely detailed. Its legs were sectioned and came to sharp points at each end and even the hairs on its legs were identifiable. Its abdomen and its patterns also took the form of an oni's face. The spider was mainly black and dark gray with red highlights. He also had fresh red blotches on his back and the backs of his arms and legs from laying in the peroxide for so long.
"Have you always had that tattoo?"
"Always? No. Since before I met you? Yes."
"Why have I never seen it?"
"Probably because of my hair,"
"Makes sense," Jade replied, placing her Xbox down on his coffee table beside his discarded keys before striding into his kitchen to begin boiling the tea.
"Hey," Naraku called out, peering out from his bedroom. "Don't start making it yet. I want to watch."
"No, fuck you! It's my recipe!" she shot back jokingly, waiting for him to finish dressing before doing her thing.
Naraku stood behind her quietly, peering over her shoulder, carefully eyeing how much of each ingredient she used, and occasionally misplacing them to force her to put extra effort in for his amusement. Jade let it go, knowing that Lucy and Sango would be disgusted by it. But she wasn't. She didn't have a huge sense of pride over herself. She knew what she was capable of and no one could take that from her. If Naraku needed to cut her down to make himself feel better, that said more about him than her.
"Okay, it should be done in a couple of minutes," Jade sighed. Naraku nodded, but kept his gaze aimed at the floor. "I brought my Xbox, too, if you're wanting to try any stuff out."
"I think I would prefer watching you play."
"Sure!" she chirped with a smile.
Once the tea was finished, Naraku scooped up his guinea pig and joined Jade on his couch while cradling the pig on his chest. After a minute of Naraku scratching his ears, the guinea pig crawled up to his neck and snuggled.
'Doesn't care my ass.' Jade shook her head. Her thoughts turned back to the lab. 'Who would've done that?' Another thought surfaced in her head, one that she had been ignoring most of the afternoon; if she left the apartment while sleepwalking, did she trash Naraku's samples? 'But why would I? I've been working on them, too.' Was it even possible? Sleepwalking was a thing, but was it possible to be so specific and destructive? 'I'll have to read up on it. If I ask Naraku, he might get suspicious. He's pissed a lot of people off, though. It's probably a coincidence.'
"Jade," Naraku's voice was gentle. He exhaled heavily while closing his eyes.
"Hm?"
"Thank...you." he said slowly while he fidgeted in place. "For dealing with me, I mean."
"That's what friends do. If you ever need to talk or scowl angrily in the presence of someone else, you can trust me." she replied, pointing to herself. She was trying not to visibly celebrate the fact that he thanked her! Without a smart-ass comment!
"Friend," he repeated, almost sounding it out. "Do you truly think of me as a friend?"
"Yeah, you're my friend."
"You have low standards."
"No, I just...I don't know. Can you just accept that you're my friend without turning it into a psych evaluation?"
"I need to understand it to accept it."
"Okay," Jade dropped her controller into her lap. "What do you want? A list of good qualities?"
"I have good qualities?" he chuckled mockingly, holding the pig up to examine his belly and feet.
"You love science, you always show me cool stuff, you helped me with my homework all semester, you taught me useful skills, you helped me with my cuts, you got high with me, you got drunk with me, you take good care of little Dab over there, you stopped me from jumping off a building, and most of all, you make me laugh."
"Those outweigh the bad qualities?"
"I think so."
"No one else does."
"I don't care what anyone else thinks. It's my decision, not theirs. If they don't want to deal with your bad qualities, fine. But I do because I like you. Is that okay?"
"Yes," Naraku was now staring at her with a shocked expression on his face. The guinea pig was cradled against his chest again and was squeaking contently. "What if I don't like you?"
"Then I'm stupid, I guess." Jade picked her controller up from her lap and began scrolling through the list of games she had. At least she received an untainted thank-you. If he was going to deny liking her, that was his problem. She landed on Nioh and pointed at the screen. "This one is kind of like Dark Souls, but in Japan with a bunch of demons,"
"Yokai," he corrected.
"Whatever. It's weeaboo bait, but it's actually a good game." Jade declared, choosing to start a new game.
"It stars a white, European man; classic."
"At least it isn't Tom Cruise. I'm pretty sure a bunch of Japanese people wrote the story and made the game, so blame them. They even go by a pretty stereotypical developer name of, "Team Ninja." So yeah."
"Self-aware?"
"Definitely. They know what they're doing."
"You do know that you're smart, right?"
"I'm- what?" the statement came from nowhere and Jade didn't know how to react.
"You are smart." he stated simply.
"I think I'm average,"
"I've seen average; you're miles above it."
"Oh," Jade smiled. "Thanks, dude."
"I do like you a little bit."
"Just a little?" she repeated. It was a shitty confession, a Naraku-esque confession, but a confession nonetheless! Progress was progress!
"If I could choose only one other person to survive the apocalypse besides me, I would certainly think about you the most."
"Aw, thank you. Who is second?"
"Sesshomaru; I need someone to beat to death if I can't have someone I like a little bit."
000000
'Hm?' Naraku opened his eyes when he heard a young girl's laughter. She was running through the meadow with a wide smile on her face and her black, wavy hair pulled back into a messy bun. She breezed past Naraku, looking back when another voice called out.
"Kagura!" the boy shouted. "Give it back!"
'It's me. I remember this.' As the memory filled his head, its moments played out before him.
"I just wanted to look at it!" she argued.
"It isn't yours!"
"It obviously isn't yours, either!" Kagura laughed, scrambling onto a boulder that was partially submerged in the stream.
"Yes it is!"
"There's no way someone asked you to the dance," his sister said sharply. She held the sealed card out to the side. "If you come any closer, I'll drop it!"
"Give. It. Back." Naraku demanded icily.
"I just want to read it. Mother said you have to share with me."
"You're going to the dance, too! You're going to find out anyway!"
"So, what's the big deal if I find out now?"
"I haven't even opened it yet! Why should you get to see it first when it's addressed to me?"
"Oops," Kagura gasped after she broke the seal. "I guess I should just go ahead and- ow! Naraku!" his sister cried out after the rock he threw struck her shoulder harshly.
"Give it back."
"I'm telling Mother!"
"I'll tell her for you. I don't care." Naraku huffed as he crossed his arms.
"I'll read it anyway!" Kagura opened the card and her wicked smile disappeared. "What is this?"
"An invitation?"
"It doesn't look like your handwriting. What a bust." Kagura jumped down from the boulder and shoved the card into her brother's chest before running away.
"Insufferable." Naraku whispered under his breath as he opened the card to read it.
'I assume your sister will steal this copy, so joke's on her if she did. I'll give you the real one in person.'
"Heh," he snorted as he held it against his chest.
The sunlight woke him from his sleep and he sighed.
'Kikyou was the one who asked me. I almost turned her down.' Naraku remembered with a smirk.
He stretched his arms up and walked out into the living room, spotting Jade sitting up and leaning forward on his couch. She had tissues held to her nose and an irritated expression etched onto her face.
"Nosebleed?" he asked.
"Yeah," she huffed. "I got a little on your couch. I'm sorry. I was asleep."
"I know how to remove it."
"Okay. I'll leave when it stops."
"You won't stay for breakfast?"
"You're offering breakfast?"
After they finished eating, Naraku got dressed and walked with Jade out to the parking lot. He waited until she got in her car before backing out and pulling up behind her car to delay her. It took a few minutes, but she finally held her middle finger up. Naraku snorted and drove away to return to campus.
'Laptop, binder, throw out the broken lamp, check on my abomination of nature,' Naraku listed off in his head as he walked to the building. He wasn't as angry about his ruined samples as he thought he should be and that annoyed him. He had the answer to his question from Colorado, though; Jade really did make him feel better. She wasn't overbearing, constantly pushing her feelings on him - she was just there. That was yet another difference between Kikyou and Jade. Kikyou meant well, but she often pressured him to accept her pity, her help, and her feelings. Jade rarely tried and when she did, she backed off when told to. 'She said I had good qualities; no one has ever told me that, let alone listed any of them. I didn't know those counted.'
When he reached his office, he left the door open. Campus was nearly empty; winter break had begun. He didn't plan on staying long, anyway. Even he had a limit and he pushed beyond it the previous day.
"Hm?" Something caught his eye; something out of place. He stole a storage cabinet from the basement level of the building to hide the crystal heart in, but there were three empty glass tubes sitting on top of it. A wooden tube holder was knocked on its side. A few small drops of red liquid pooled between them. Corks had been dropped on the floor. Smaller red droplets were scattered around the corks, too. Naraku's chest tightened as his blood turned ice-cold. "No, it can't be," he whispered. He almost jumped to the cabinet, picking up the tubes and spotting the labels on the sides; blood types written in his handwriting - his and Jade's blood types.
'How? How did these get here? They were in my desk at my apartment!' Naraku closed his eyes, trying to remember if, for any reason, he brought them to campus and forgot. He already knew the answer, but the answer to how they ended up there and empty was one he didn't want to think about...it couldn't be possible…the droplets of blood...from her nose...she had no idea they existed! How could she? 'Why bring them here? Why not confront me about them? Did she just do this as a prank?' He opened the wooden cabinet and received his answer; it was no prank.
The crystal heart was now a crystal box. The entire interior of the plexiglass case was covered in pink crystals. Their translucent property allowed him to see the dark purple center, which continued beating.
"It wasn't like this yesterday! It...yesterday! Jade!" he closed his eyes and swallowed hard, feeling the nausea building up. "She did it! She destroyed my- why? Was it you?" Naraku grit his teeth, now glaring at the crystallized case in his hands. Her nosebleed, the trance she was put under a couple of weeks ago; it was practicing!
'I have lost everything! My samples, my solutions, and now Jade is-'
"You can't have her!" he snapped, slamming the case into the floor with all his might and fury.
An invisible force washed over him like slime and made him stumble backward. The air thickened and every movement, every breath, took more effort than the last. It was stronger than the time before; much stronger! He heard buzzing and popping noises as the room and hallway grew dark. His desk lamp flickered before turning off and when he checked his phone, the device shut down and showed a final message saying the battery was dead. Naraku inched over to his window and looked out; the lamps along the main sidewalks were off and so were all the lights in the neighboring science building.
'It hasn't been faulty wiring at all.' The realization hit him like a truck. As the heart laid dormant to recover its energy, it emitted EMP waves. 'Was it protecting itself just now? Showing off? Did it call to Jade?' A sudden cough wracked his body and brought him to his knees. Blood covered the palm of his hand from covering his mouth. He could feel his body relaxing, his eyes starting to close…
"Fuck...you!" Naraku grunted, forcing himself back to his feet and sprinting out of the room. He made it to the staircase before falling to his knees again. That was it? All that time and effort spent building up his body and stamina and that was all he could manage?
'I can't call...phone died,' He forced out a laugh. So, the abomination was sentient? He threatened it, it killed his access to help, and now, it seemed it wanted to kill him. No one would know for weeks.
"You look so sick," her voice sounded sickeningly sweet. "What did you do this time?"
"Y-You're not real!" Naraku shouted, falling onto his side. It was Kikyou! It always came back to Kikyou! Would he never be free from it? His body trembled with weakness, with fear, and with shock.
'It has been affecting me the whole time,'
"You poor thing," her hand stroked his arm. The pressure, the warmth; it felt so real!
'All of my dreams, my hallucinations, my fatigue,'
"You have a gentle side, Naraku. I've seen it. Next time," she paused to kiss his cheek and then whispered into his ear. "Use it."
