The Hunter Captured by the Game
Author: Mei TwoMoons Rated: PG-13I've read allot of pairings in Dragonball fics, but it came to the attention of me and my fellow muses (whom I adore) that both Android 17 and Lime, a little girl about Gohan's age from just before the Cell games, are usually left out of the fun.
Special thanks to all my beloved muses, who kept my butt in front of the computer writing, and in particular Lexxie, who gave me awesome insights and inspirations for this piece.
Disclosure: I don't own any of these characters. And if I did, would I be writing fanfiction? I think not.
Part 4: Escalation
Lime had always heard the saying practice makes perfect. So how was it possible that every night the broth somehow manages to taste worse than the day before? Could he actually be doing it on purpose?
She had been there for 10 days, having no choice but to lay or sit in the little cot, drifting in and out of sleep while trying to recover her strength and heal.
And every day she became more convinced her 'savior' had taken her home simply so that he could torture her more. The endlessly long silences, the stifling boredom, and consistently bland food were not exactly making her feel right at home. Actually, he seemed to be as welcome in his cabin as a cold draft in the dead of winter. Not that she wanted to be there any more than he wanted her there.
But sometimes, sometimes he almost seemed to delight in provoke her on purpose, a surprisingly well-placed insult or snide remark leaving her without a rational response. He seemed to enjoy seeing her miserable and angry and in pain, and as far as she was concerned, the minute she was well enough to walk under her own power she was SO out of there.
And then came the morning she snapped. Literally in the middle of a slurp of the flat and brownish substance she had been drinking her throat seized up and she choked and sputtered for a moment before regaining her breath. "Damnit! That's it, I can't take any more of this crap!" She kicked the blanket off her legs and eased herself up into a sitting position to look at the darkened fireplace a few feet away from her. Might as well have been a few miles. "I can make that. I can.. wow the floor is cold!!"
Using every piece of furniture between the fireplace and the cot, she got over to the hearth, and found it fairly easy to start a new fire from the hot bed of coals once she was there. And there were a few jars of dried herbs that from the amount of dust covering them had obviously never been touched. Spicing the soup would be quite easy. The hard part was finding a way to turn the freshly killed and skinned rabbit hanging from the fireplace flu into something edible…
~~~
Juu entered the clearing around his little cabin a few hours later, his brow creased in curiosity. He knew he had smelled an oak fire, but it would seem his suspicion that his 'guest' was trying to burn down his cabin was unjustified. Still, that didn't explain why the obnoxious redhead had gotten out of bed in the first place. "I'll put a stop to this, even if I have to tie that woman to the bed."
Several other thoughts of what he could do to keep her in bed, not all of them pristine, played at the edge of his mind until he opened the door into the warmly lit interior, the distinct smells of roasted flesh and rosemary invading his senses. She had been busy.
Lime didn't even notice the open door or the presence behind her until she felt a firm hand on her shoulder, the coolness of his skin soaking down through her thin shirt and flesh to send a chill along her spine.
"And who said you could get out of bed?" The voice sounded irritated, but no more angry than grateful. And noting this irritated her enough to spin and face him from the stool she was seated on in front of the fire, swaying just a bit as she did. "You could at LEAST say thank you ya jerk."
"For what? Wasting a perfectly good rabbit?"
The corners of her mouth dropped into a stern frown. "You don't need to eat any of this stew, the muck you left me this morning is still over there." She gestured vaguely towards the corner where her cot was.
"YOU should still be over there. Your haven't recovered enough strength or common sense to be out of bed, that is if you ever had any common sense."
Lime choked back a hasty response. Despite the insult, he'd almost sounded concerned for her just then. Then she remembered whom it was she was talking with. Of course he wanted to keep her in bed, she made an easier target when lying down. "I was just getting tired of that swill you've been feeding me! Just because you missed with the gun you're trying to poison me?"
"You didn't have to eat it now did you?"
The petite woman stood, arms straight at her sides, hands balled into fists. "Oh Sure, and I suppose I could have just eaten my blanket. It couldn't have tasted any worse."
Juu grinned. She really was breathtaking when she was angry. That and the backlight of the fire was giving him an excellent view of her… curves. All her curves. He caught himself before he let the thought take his mind off the task at hand. That was getting her back into bed and keeping her there.
He leaned over, brushing past her to grab the wooden spoon she had been stirring the mixture with and stood, licking it with a thoughtful look on his face. Then he smiled and turned his head at a playful angle to look at her. And for a split second between feeling him brush up against her and seeing him smile she expected something akin to a compliment.
She should have known better.
"This is easily the worst tripe I've ever had the
displeasure of tasting. You don't
actually plan to EAT this?"
Her mouth opened in a huff of righteous indignation. //How DARE he. How dare
he even THINK such a thing!// She felt
her blood pressure rise, her face getting hotter as she her anger got the
better of her. "Why you selfish,
thoughtless, egomaniacal asshole!! I
worked all DAY on this you just.. just… you…"
Juu's eyes blinked as the girl he had been watching so intently swayed to the side a bit, and before he could think he had caught her firmly against his strong chest, lest she could fall into either onto the cold stone floor or into the fire. Sometimes he forgot just how fragile humans really were, especially this one, and he had no intention of letting her be injured further. Lime mumbled something nonsensical as she almost passed out, but it was defiantly not meant sound grateful.
Juu looked down at the top of her head as he held her, and then shifted his arms to swing one around the bend of her knees to pick her up and carry her back to her place on the cot. He couldn't believe how warm and soft she felt. Although he had carried her before, it had almost been like when he carried home a kill, just another game animal. He decided that maybe it just felt different because she was alive. Her eyes rolled under their lids trying to see what was going on, her lips pursed together trying to form coherent words. And although she hung limply in his arms, her head rolled to settle in the crook of his arm. And that was when he realized he had been standing there staring at her as he held her. He scowled at the thought as she finally opened her blue-green eyes to focus and fix them on his face.
The realization that the jerk was holding her came a split second before she noticed how angry he looked. Scary angry. She tensed in his arms, not knowing what he was going to do.
The look of fear showing in the face of the girl he was holding had a strange effect on the android boy. One he wasn't immediately aware of. Although he had been delighted to see her angry with him, the idea that he could make her feel so afraid tugged at his insides. Was it pity, or remorse, or some other ridiculous name that humans insisted on dubbing their intangible feelings with? He wasn't sure what it was, but he didn't like it. And when he caught himself, as he was about to say something reassuring, that was even worse. He tore his gaze away and walked quickly back over to the bed to drop her onto it none too gently, which her clearly expressed. This also gave him an uncomfortable sting and he felt compelled to look down. She looked more confused than scared now, but his eyes drifted down from the expression she wore to the thin nightshirt with the rust-colored stains where her blood had dried. And there he could see a new stain, bright crimson even in the dim firelight.
She watched the black-haired man whose name she didn't know looking at her. Was he TRYING to make her nervous, because if he was it was working. He just wouldn't' stop looking at her. And then he trailed his cold eyes and the accompanying scowl down her body, making her shiver from something other than the cold. And almost too fast for her to see, he knelt down next to her bed and grabbed for the bottom edge of her shirt. "No!" She shrieked and darted her hands down to hold the thin cloth where it was, and to pull it over her feet if she could.
Juu was totally taken by surprise. He hadn't anticipated that reaction, and wasn't quite sure how to
handle it. But if she was bleeding
again… "Let go woman."
"No you CAN'T!" She was not about to be
taken advantage by a sex fiend, even if he was the most attractive man she'd
ever seen. "Stay away from me!!"
"Juu grunted and grabbed the girls wrists one and then the other and easily pulled them over her head and out of the way with one strong hand. This only seemed to make her screech and struggle all the more, which he tried to ignore as he pulled her long shirt up and away and felt along the clean bandages where the blood was soaking through.
Lime was beginning to cry now as she felt his cold hands traveling over the warm skin of her torseau. "Leave me alone. Don't touch me you bastard! You let me go, you hear me! I'll scream till I die, I swear I will!"
If she kept struggling like that she surely would do herself more injury, and he knew it. "Calm down, your overreacting. I'm just checking your injuries."
"Injuries?" She didn't know what he was talking about, but something in the way he was speaking to her now convinced her to submit to him, just a little. Not that she had much of a choice, seeing as he still had her arms pinned over her head.
Juu continued to probe and poke, but didn't see the source of the fresh blood. If she had torn her wound again, the bandages would be soaked. "Then where did the blood come from?" He asked himself under his breath.
Now that Lime had ceased her bellowing, she finally realized what he was on about. She stuttered a quiet response. "The .. the blood on my shirt is from the rabbit. When I was making the stew it got on me."
Juu angled his head at her. Now that he wasn't so caught up in making sure she was in one piece, he realized it did smell like rabbit blood.
"So it is."
He released his iron grip on her hands and stood smoothly to walk over to a small wooden chest on the other side of the room, living the girl on the bed blinking in surprise. It was almost as if nothing at all had just happened. "I'm sorry I misjudged you, it's just that I.."
"Save it." His voice cut her off as he pulled one of his own black shirts from the chest. "Put this on so that one can be washed. Or burned. It smells like something died in it."
Lime sat up with a wince and glared at him. So much for a touching hallmark moment. "SomeONE almost DID die in it!" She rolled her eyes in exasperation. "Ya know, you really are an asshole."
He smirked at her and tossed her the shirt.
"Thank you."
She caught it. "An arrogant bastard."
"I'm flattered."
"And a selfish PRICK!"
"Stop, I'm blushing."
"And a total IDIOT if you think I'm changing clothes in front of you. So if you please, get the hell out."
Juu crossed her arms and leaned against the wall looking like he was having a heck of allot more fun than she was with the situation. "Why should I please? It's my cabin, my shirt, and you don't have anything I haven't already seen. After all, who do you think put all those bandages on you?"
Limes eyes widened. There wasn't a single insult strong enough to use on him. "Get out get out just GET OUT!!!" She picked up the bowl of cold soup from that morning and hurled it at him, missing him by a few good feet. She was so angry she couldn't see straight. She had been helpless and he had.. she had NO idea what he had done. How could a man, any man, be so cold? "Please get out!" She felt tears welling in her eyes again, and she didn't want him to see her like that for some reason. She didn't want him to see how weak and helpless she suddenly felt.
And somehow Juu understood. He didn't feel the least bit sorry she was crying for no good reason, but he got it all the same. Still, he was not about to be chased from his own home without getting in a word edgewise.
He walked casually over to where the stew was bubbling over in its cast iron pot and ladled some into two bowls she hadn't broken yet. And then he walked over to stand above her and hand one to her. "You will stay in bed, even if I have to break your legs. Understand me?" She sniffled and buried her face in the black shirt she was holding. He shook his head and turned to walk outside, shutting the door firmly after him.
As soon as she hears the sound of the door being pulled shut, she lost it. All the pent up frustration and emotions that had been funneled into anger for the last few days took their true form as she cried into the soft cotton material. "Damn him. Why is he doing this to me? How can he be so.. so cold!?"
Out side Juu could hear her sobbing, despite her attempts to muffle the sound and he shrugged. Humans were so emotional sometimes. Just one more reason he was a superior creation.
He flew up onto the roof to scan the night sky with his clear blue gaze. Fall was nearing its end, and it would be cold soon. If the girl didn't recover within the next month, she might have to stay there for the duration of winter. Not that he really minded the idea so much as he used to. The last few winters had been exceptionally long and boring. Having a little entertainment around might even be worth the trouble she seemed so good at causing him.
That and she could cook.
He took a sip of the stew cooling in his palm. It was quite possible the best he had ever tasted. Not that he would ever tell her that. After all, why ruin a perfectly good insult with an ill-placed compliment?
He had to keep thinks interesting after all.
