Sleepwake (Part 13/?)
See Part 1 for disclaimer.
.
.
A woman. A striking woman actually, although not exactly beautiful, in the way that the Mona Lisa wasn't exactly beautiful. But there was a certain poise and pride, an unaffected grace in her posture. A vivid piece of red fabric loosely bound her hair. Jin remembered when, lifetimes ago, Xiaoyu had forced him to sit through a nonstop Disney movie marathon, complete with the singing gargoyles and garish pastels of the Hunchback of Notre Dame-- but Esmerelda had _nothing_ on this woman. She was dark, she was regal, and she was staring at a battered looking cooking pot with homicidal intensity. Jin felt like he was interrupting something.
"I thought I told you to stay in bed," she snapped, still glaring at the hapless kitchen utensil.
"Me or the pot?"
The woman looked up sharply, focusing her domestic fury on an amused Hwoarang. Jin was almost surprised and vaguely disappointed that, after several seconds, the redhead failed to spontaneously combust or at least turn to stone. But the woman merely folded her arms, favoring the Blood Talon with a cool smile.
"Well, Bob, long time no see."
Hwoarang cleared his throat, a sheepish half-grin on his lips. Jin blinked. Curiouser and curiouser.
"I. . .Uh, you look good, Natalia," the Korean offered lamely. Natalia didn't seem too fond of niceties.
"Yes," she said, with the clear overtone of 'now why are you here?' Seeming to remember his purpose, Hwoarang straightened, his voice more firm:
"I need your help, you and Mike both."
Natalia scowled.
"What now? God, Hwoarang, why did Donahue even let you in?"
"Hwoarang?" the redhead murmured. Natalia seemed to take offense at the interjection, her crimson lips curling in scorn.
"Yes, _Hwoarang_, unlike Mike I can damn well pronounce your name. Unless you prefer Bob? The Holy Blood Talon?" Her eyes were knife blades, although her voice was still like velvet. Hwoarang winced, the barb hitting home. Natalia: one, Bob: zero.
"Come on, Nata, let's not waste time arguing."
She stiffened, and drew her arms closer to her body, gripping her forearms with white-knuckled fingers. Apparently the nickname was from a past that she was loathe to relive.
"What do you want."
Hwoarang sighed, and rubbed briefly at his forehead in frustration.
"My friend's in shock," he began.
"I'm not a hospital."
"No, you're better." It was more of a statement of fact than any form of flattery.
"She got caught in a shootout. We're running for our lives. I don't blame you if you'd happily watch me die, but don't pretend that you'd turn away from an innocent."
Natalia tilted her head, considering. Despite her withdrawn body language, a variety of emotions flashed over her features: anger, impatience, some pity. Doubt was never present; Hwoarang running for his life wasn't such an implausible prospect.
"Leave her, and go."
Hwoarang shook his head.
"You couldn't protect her." Natalia opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off.
"Trust me, Natalia, not with every trick you've got, and I know about most of them first hand, remember?"
Natalia glared at him some more, but by now she'd made up her mind.
"I'll take care of her. Everything else you're asking for- and you're asking for a lot, Bob- it's Mike's choice."
Hwoarang nodded. He glanced at Jin, and Jin caught the message: be grateful we got as far as we did. He felt a flicker of hope. Maybe it could work out.
"Where is she?" sighed Natalia. With her hands were on her hips, she looked reminiscent of a weary mother whose children had tracked dirt all over the living room carpet.
Throughout the entire conversation, Natalia had watched only Hwoarang, as though there was no other person in the room. Now, as Jin moved towards her bearing Xiaoyu, Natalia noticed him for the first time. When their eyes met, Jin felt his pulse slow, the blood heavy and lacking warmth, as though a hard white diamond had replaced his beating heart. He stumbled, numbness sweeping from his legs up through his spine.
Natalia recoiled from him in fear.
"Demonio!" he thought he heard her say.
Jin was frozen in place. A strange sensation of unrest distracted him, itching just below his threshold of pain. He felt dull pressure and recognized it as the floor pushing against his knees.
Hwoarang leapt forward. He stepped back holding Xiaoyu. Jin looked at his own empty hands, mental capacities crippled by an overpowering sense of vertigo. Had he dropped her? What was going on?
"- doing to him?" he caught, the faint syllables distorted at the edges, blurred and buoyant, as though he heard them from under water.
"demon past my gates. . ." Natalia's voice came even fainter.
"He's suffocating-" Suffocating. Jin tried to remember the meaning of the word. It was hard to make the connection, and harder to care when he recalled the definition. It didn't feel like suffocation. It felt like dreaming.
"Fool!" she snarled, "Your bloodbath will sink the forest!"
Jin heard the sharp sound of a slap, and Natalia's gasp.
Reality snapped back like a rubber band. His vision and hearing was restored. Air flowed into his lungs again.
"Jin?" Hwoarang stood above him.
Jin struggled to his feet while Hwoarang watched, not moving to help.
"What did you try to do, Natalia?" the Korean said, his tone indecipherable, if not neutral.
Natalia was also already standing, slim and still as a marble statue. Her wide eyes and disheveled hair were the only signs that anything had happened on her end in the last few minutes. The tension caging her was sharp enough to draw blood.
"I don't know. I saw something." In contrast to her appearance, Natalia's voice was calm. "We'll talk later. Find Mike first."
Hwoarang stayed where he was.
"What will you do?"
"Nothing, there's nothing to be done. If you're worrying for your safety, don't: this isn't the time, I'm not the person."
After a minute's pause, Hwoarang accepted her response and turned to go.
"Leave the girl," Natalia said. He hesitated.
"I won't harm her." It was a promise. Jin stared at Natalia, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly. What could they do now, if she lied? But still, he was unwilling to leave Xiaoyu to this woman.
"How do we know?" said Hwoarang, voicing Jin's anxiety. Natalia rolled her eyes.
"_You_ brought her to _me_." She sounded exasperated.
"Just now-" started Jin, his first words in her presence.
"That won't happen again," Natalia answered with finality. "I've reached my scary-oracling-quota for the decade, thank you very much."
For some insane reason that Jin failed to comprehend, Hwoarang found this explanation perfectly rational, and subsequently placed Xiaoyu before Natalia. Not giving Jin a chance to protest, Hwoarang pushed him out the door, muttering, "Come on, Kazama, before the nice lady turns us into frogs."
"I heard that!"
And without any aid from them, the lacquered door shut itself behind him with a click.
* * *
"Have you gone completely nuts?" Jin was shouting as he paced in circles. Hwoarang sighed inwardly. Kazama stubbornly refused to understand.
"Xiaoyu is, according to every last dictionary ever published on the face of the earth, considered an 'innocent'. Natalia won't harm those."
"Says you!" Hwoarang found himself wishing for a large blunt object to materialize, but none made themselves available.
"Says her coven's laws. Natalia is a witch, to put it crudely. They have their own set of rules, and lucky for us, one of those also happens to be 'don't kill people'."
"What do you call trying to choke me to death?"
"Damn it, Kazama, I don't know; divine retribution?"
Jin glared at him.
"I'll rephrase: 'don't kill _innocents_'. You, Jinney-poo, are no goddamn innocent."
The Japanese youth had no reply to that.
"You heard what she called you."
"'Demonio'," he quoted, in monotone.
"Natalia didn't make a conscious decision to attack you; I know her, she doesn't act like that. It must've been a knee-jerk reaction."
"To evil."
"Kazama, if you were evil, you'd be dead already."
"Then why?"
Hwoarang shook his head. He had his suspicions, but it would be stupid of him to tell Jin now. Not until he could satisfy his own need for proof.
But- Jin deserved an answer, he thought, grimacing. Something.
Hwoarang opened his mouth.
Jin waited expectantly, squaring his sholders. His hands clenched and unclenched in agitation. Hwoarang's eyes followed their motion. If Jin tightened his fists any further, even the bluntest nails would break skin. As it was, purple indents began to smile on Jin's palms.
No, Hwoarang decided. It would be better to leave Jin unknowing than deluded by lies, however well-meaning they might be.
"That's all I know," the Korean finished, casually bring up his own glove- shielded hand to inspect the cuticles. Hm. Hangnails. "Barely any of this makes sense to me. I'll talk with Natalia soon enough." Hwoarang glanced at the lacquered door. Only half-flippantly, he said, "What I want to know is why she was talking to a pot of chicken soup."
Jin shrugged, his thoughts elsewhere.
"Maybe this Mike guy is sick."
Mike. Damn.
"This is going to be hell," Hwoarang said under his breath, groaning. He headed back down the hallway.
.
.
Author's notes:
Arg, this chapter was a pain. Thirteen: it's cursed, I tell you, cursed!
Endless thanks to Sam for beta-reading under stress!
Other stuff: rewrote a bit of Part 9 in response to a review: it's nothing that significantly changes the plot, but when I looked back at the chapter, I had to admit, it was pretty ridiculous. I try to write humor into this story, but, eh, those ain't the kind of laughs I'm going for ^_^;;;. Actually, a lot of the chapters, maybe all of them, are in need of reediting in some way or another; but what ends up happening whenever I'm debating a rewrite is, sadly enough, like this:
Chapter whatever: Rewrite me! I'm sloppy, overly melodramatic, and mispunctuated!
Maomi: ::considers in a deeply profound manner for several minutes:: Hmm. Or I could take a nap.
Well which one would you choose?
So yeah. Eventually though, and one day, the world will look upon a shiny, polished Sleepwake. Just not today ^_^.
.
.
Constructive criticism will be printed out and framed. Flames will be used to toast marshmallows. Yum.
See Part 1 for disclaimer.
.
.
A woman. A striking woman actually, although not exactly beautiful, in the way that the Mona Lisa wasn't exactly beautiful. But there was a certain poise and pride, an unaffected grace in her posture. A vivid piece of red fabric loosely bound her hair. Jin remembered when, lifetimes ago, Xiaoyu had forced him to sit through a nonstop Disney movie marathon, complete with the singing gargoyles and garish pastels of the Hunchback of Notre Dame-- but Esmerelda had _nothing_ on this woman. She was dark, she was regal, and she was staring at a battered looking cooking pot with homicidal intensity. Jin felt like he was interrupting something.
"I thought I told you to stay in bed," she snapped, still glaring at the hapless kitchen utensil.
"Me or the pot?"
The woman looked up sharply, focusing her domestic fury on an amused Hwoarang. Jin was almost surprised and vaguely disappointed that, after several seconds, the redhead failed to spontaneously combust or at least turn to stone. But the woman merely folded her arms, favoring the Blood Talon with a cool smile.
"Well, Bob, long time no see."
Hwoarang cleared his throat, a sheepish half-grin on his lips. Jin blinked. Curiouser and curiouser.
"I. . .Uh, you look good, Natalia," the Korean offered lamely. Natalia didn't seem too fond of niceties.
"Yes," she said, with the clear overtone of 'now why are you here?' Seeming to remember his purpose, Hwoarang straightened, his voice more firm:
"I need your help, you and Mike both."
Natalia scowled.
"What now? God, Hwoarang, why did Donahue even let you in?"
"Hwoarang?" the redhead murmured. Natalia seemed to take offense at the interjection, her crimson lips curling in scorn.
"Yes, _Hwoarang_, unlike Mike I can damn well pronounce your name. Unless you prefer Bob? The Holy Blood Talon?" Her eyes were knife blades, although her voice was still like velvet. Hwoarang winced, the barb hitting home. Natalia: one, Bob: zero.
"Come on, Nata, let's not waste time arguing."
She stiffened, and drew her arms closer to her body, gripping her forearms with white-knuckled fingers. Apparently the nickname was from a past that she was loathe to relive.
"What do you want."
Hwoarang sighed, and rubbed briefly at his forehead in frustration.
"My friend's in shock," he began.
"I'm not a hospital."
"No, you're better." It was more of a statement of fact than any form of flattery.
"She got caught in a shootout. We're running for our lives. I don't blame you if you'd happily watch me die, but don't pretend that you'd turn away from an innocent."
Natalia tilted her head, considering. Despite her withdrawn body language, a variety of emotions flashed over her features: anger, impatience, some pity. Doubt was never present; Hwoarang running for his life wasn't such an implausible prospect.
"Leave her, and go."
Hwoarang shook his head.
"You couldn't protect her." Natalia opened her mouth to argue, but he cut her off.
"Trust me, Natalia, not with every trick you've got, and I know about most of them first hand, remember?"
Natalia glared at him some more, but by now she'd made up her mind.
"I'll take care of her. Everything else you're asking for- and you're asking for a lot, Bob- it's Mike's choice."
Hwoarang nodded. He glanced at Jin, and Jin caught the message: be grateful we got as far as we did. He felt a flicker of hope. Maybe it could work out.
"Where is she?" sighed Natalia. With her hands were on her hips, she looked reminiscent of a weary mother whose children had tracked dirt all over the living room carpet.
Throughout the entire conversation, Natalia had watched only Hwoarang, as though there was no other person in the room. Now, as Jin moved towards her bearing Xiaoyu, Natalia noticed him for the first time. When their eyes met, Jin felt his pulse slow, the blood heavy and lacking warmth, as though a hard white diamond had replaced his beating heart. He stumbled, numbness sweeping from his legs up through his spine.
Natalia recoiled from him in fear.
"Demonio!" he thought he heard her say.
Jin was frozen in place. A strange sensation of unrest distracted him, itching just below his threshold of pain. He felt dull pressure and recognized it as the floor pushing against his knees.
Hwoarang leapt forward. He stepped back holding Xiaoyu. Jin looked at his own empty hands, mental capacities crippled by an overpowering sense of vertigo. Had he dropped her? What was going on?
"- doing to him?" he caught, the faint syllables distorted at the edges, blurred and buoyant, as though he heard them from under water.
"demon past my gates. . ." Natalia's voice came even fainter.
"He's suffocating-" Suffocating. Jin tried to remember the meaning of the word. It was hard to make the connection, and harder to care when he recalled the definition. It didn't feel like suffocation. It felt like dreaming.
"Fool!" she snarled, "Your bloodbath will sink the forest!"
Jin heard the sharp sound of a slap, and Natalia's gasp.
Reality snapped back like a rubber band. His vision and hearing was restored. Air flowed into his lungs again.
"Jin?" Hwoarang stood above him.
Jin struggled to his feet while Hwoarang watched, not moving to help.
"What did you try to do, Natalia?" the Korean said, his tone indecipherable, if not neutral.
Natalia was also already standing, slim and still as a marble statue. Her wide eyes and disheveled hair were the only signs that anything had happened on her end in the last few minutes. The tension caging her was sharp enough to draw blood.
"I don't know. I saw something." In contrast to her appearance, Natalia's voice was calm. "We'll talk later. Find Mike first."
Hwoarang stayed where he was.
"What will you do?"
"Nothing, there's nothing to be done. If you're worrying for your safety, don't: this isn't the time, I'm not the person."
After a minute's pause, Hwoarang accepted her response and turned to go.
"Leave the girl," Natalia said. He hesitated.
"I won't harm her." It was a promise. Jin stared at Natalia, and she returned his gaze unflinchingly. What could they do now, if she lied? But still, he was unwilling to leave Xiaoyu to this woman.
"How do we know?" said Hwoarang, voicing Jin's anxiety. Natalia rolled her eyes.
"_You_ brought her to _me_." She sounded exasperated.
"Just now-" started Jin, his first words in her presence.
"That won't happen again," Natalia answered with finality. "I've reached my scary-oracling-quota for the decade, thank you very much."
For some insane reason that Jin failed to comprehend, Hwoarang found this explanation perfectly rational, and subsequently placed Xiaoyu before Natalia. Not giving Jin a chance to protest, Hwoarang pushed him out the door, muttering, "Come on, Kazama, before the nice lady turns us into frogs."
"I heard that!"
And without any aid from them, the lacquered door shut itself behind him with a click.
* * *
"Have you gone completely nuts?" Jin was shouting as he paced in circles. Hwoarang sighed inwardly. Kazama stubbornly refused to understand.
"Xiaoyu is, according to every last dictionary ever published on the face of the earth, considered an 'innocent'. Natalia won't harm those."
"Says you!" Hwoarang found himself wishing for a large blunt object to materialize, but none made themselves available.
"Says her coven's laws. Natalia is a witch, to put it crudely. They have their own set of rules, and lucky for us, one of those also happens to be 'don't kill people'."
"What do you call trying to choke me to death?"
"Damn it, Kazama, I don't know; divine retribution?"
Jin glared at him.
"I'll rephrase: 'don't kill _innocents_'. You, Jinney-poo, are no goddamn innocent."
The Japanese youth had no reply to that.
"You heard what she called you."
"'Demonio'," he quoted, in monotone.
"Natalia didn't make a conscious decision to attack you; I know her, she doesn't act like that. It must've been a knee-jerk reaction."
"To evil."
"Kazama, if you were evil, you'd be dead already."
"Then why?"
Hwoarang shook his head. He had his suspicions, but it would be stupid of him to tell Jin now. Not until he could satisfy his own need for proof.
But- Jin deserved an answer, he thought, grimacing. Something.
Hwoarang opened his mouth.
Jin waited expectantly, squaring his sholders. His hands clenched and unclenched in agitation. Hwoarang's eyes followed their motion. If Jin tightened his fists any further, even the bluntest nails would break skin. As it was, purple indents began to smile on Jin's palms.
No, Hwoarang decided. It would be better to leave Jin unknowing than deluded by lies, however well-meaning they might be.
"That's all I know," the Korean finished, casually bring up his own glove- shielded hand to inspect the cuticles. Hm. Hangnails. "Barely any of this makes sense to me. I'll talk with Natalia soon enough." Hwoarang glanced at the lacquered door. Only half-flippantly, he said, "What I want to know is why she was talking to a pot of chicken soup."
Jin shrugged, his thoughts elsewhere.
"Maybe this Mike guy is sick."
Mike. Damn.
"This is going to be hell," Hwoarang said under his breath, groaning. He headed back down the hallway.
.
.
Author's notes:
Arg, this chapter was a pain. Thirteen: it's cursed, I tell you, cursed!
Endless thanks to Sam for beta-reading under stress!
Other stuff: rewrote a bit of Part 9 in response to a review: it's nothing that significantly changes the plot, but when I looked back at the chapter, I had to admit, it was pretty ridiculous. I try to write humor into this story, but, eh, those ain't the kind of laughs I'm going for ^_^;;;. Actually, a lot of the chapters, maybe all of them, are in need of reediting in some way or another; but what ends up happening whenever I'm debating a rewrite is, sadly enough, like this:
Chapter whatever: Rewrite me! I'm sloppy, overly melodramatic, and mispunctuated!
Maomi: ::considers in a deeply profound manner for several minutes:: Hmm. Or I could take a nap.
Well which one would you choose?
So yeah. Eventually though, and one day, the world will look upon a shiny, polished Sleepwake. Just not today ^_^.
.
.
Constructive criticism will be printed out and framed. Flames will be used to toast marshmallows. Yum.