Author's note: Oh man, it's past 4 am and I've just finished the draft of this chapter… *eyes closing of their own will* Though this version here will obviously be the checked and re-checked one…
*next day…* Yep, as it turns out, I changed the whole ending of this chapter! I think this one works far better. I hope you like it. *heads off to bed for more sleep*
Ice and Chaos FourthAoshi woke early the next day: so early that he was up to watch the sun rise.
He lay with a blanket and his car's bonnet for a bed, with Misao lying, sleeping, beside him. He hadn't even remembered falling asleep the night before: all he could remember was that Misao had been there, close to him, making him feel safe from his dark thoughts, even though they hadn't once looked at each other eye to eye. He vaguely recalled her slipping gently down from the roof to lie next to him, leaning her head against his back and touching his shoulder tentatively, as he lay on his side, gazing into the darkness beside the car, watching the horizon deepen to black.
Now, in the cool, weak light of the pre-dawn, he'd found himself holding this curious stranger in his arms, and studying her face in the blue-grey light.
The sun's spreading rays touched her face carefully, warming the pinkish hue of her cheeks.
As the light grew stronger, and Misao stirred in her sleep, Aoshi withdrew from her arms, ignoring his involuntary shiver as the warm places where Misao's body had touched him made contact with cool morning air.
He moved around to stand a few metres away, facing the East and the rising sun. He didn't know what to think of any of this: he'd questioned his own humanity so deeply in recent days, and yet…
And yet…
…he could see how beautiful the cold grey dawn was… And he still had the instinct to hold and protect another person, as they slept beside him.
He gazed into the distance with troubled eyes.
A sleepy voice came from behind him. "You're up early today… Are you okay?"
He pretended not to hear the mild concern in her voice. "The sun's up." He didn't even turn as he spoke. "Let's get going."
Life plunged on ahead once more.
A strong bass line thrummed through the car's dusty frame, jolting the lazy warm air into action. A young female voice in the car joined in the song as the voice on the radio came in. Aoshi felt his spirits lift despite himself.
"I hate the world today.
You're so good to me,
I know but I can't change.
Tried to tell you but you look at me like I'm an angel underneath,
Innocent and sweet."
The day was full and glorious and Misao had the radio up load as the car streamed along the empty road in a rush of dust and music. Misao's voice cried out the words with crazy energy, shifting her expression to suit the lyrics as she sang and grooving away in her seat, completely caught up in the song. Aoshi just drove, trying to ignore the ever-increasing elation he felt as the atmosphere in the car filled with Misao's explosively good mood.
"Yesterday I cried.
You must have been relieved to see the softer side
I can understand how you'd be so confused,
I don't envy you,
I'm a little bit of everything, all rolled into one-" a quick breath, head nod- "I'm a bitch! I'm a lover,
I'm a child, I'm a mother,
I'm a sinner, I'm a saint,
I do not feel ashamed!
I'm your hell, I'm your dream," a sparkling grin at Aoshi,
"I'm nothing in between
You know you wouldn't want it any other way…"
The car flew forward to their journey's end, glinting in the sun, a darting speck fleeing across the ground. Honey light bathed the day.
"…I'm a bitch, I'm a tease,
I'm a goddess on my knees
When you're hurt, when you suffer
I'm your angel undercover
I've been dumped, I'm revived
Can't say I'm not alive
You know you wouldn't want it any other way…"
They stopped at a service station around midday, taking advantage of the tiny shop to pick up some lunch.
Misao picked up a couple of sandwiches and drinks while Aoshi filled up the car. As they went to the desk to pay, the clerk there looked at them strangely, glancing from Aoshi to Misao and back again. Misao didn't appear to notice in the least, happily slapping down her money and smiling at the salesman. Aoshi noticed the look. After deciding that it made no sense to him anyway, he cast the observation aside and they went outside to eat.
Misao perched on the lip of the pavement that ran along the front of the shop and set to her food with a will. Aoshi stood back in the shade, leaning against the wall. He'd left his trench coat in the car for once, in consideration of the hot weather. His deep grey shirt accentuated the slight dark-grey tone to his hair, and his dark jeans matched the deeper hints of blue in his pale eyes. Misao had already commented on how good he looked before: she was too busy eating just then to bother commenting on it again, despite the way he stood at that moment, poised against the wall with his dark presence and darker gaze.
Polishing off her sandwich in no time, Misao rose suddenly from the ground, and twirled to end up facing Aoshi. "Ready to go now then?" she asked, sucking crumbs from her index finger with a jaunty smile. Aoshi lifted his glance from her lips to her eyes. "Sure. Let's go."
She smiled again. "I'll drive for a bit, okay? You're probably sick of it by now."
"No. No… That's fine," he amended. "It's my car: I'll drive."
She shrugged. "Okay then. Off we go again!" she said as she slid into the passenger seat, fanning her face with her hands. "It's getting so hot and sticky," she complained.
Aoshi didn't reply. He just leaned forward over the dashboard to look up at the sky before pulling the car away from the petrol pumps. He had already felt the charge in the air: all this heat in the past few days would inevitably culminate in a storm, sometime very soon, judging by the current humidity.
He pushed his hair back from his face, and drove on.
Sure enough, by the time evening had drawn on, angry, bloated clouds had filled the dark sky and the rumbling of thunder rang out heavily from above.
Aoshi reached for his windscreen wipers' switch a split second before the rain hit. It began in an instant, showering thickly in fat drops. It was difficult to see though the downpour. Aoshi squinted into the patch of rippling light created by his headlights on the falling rain, slowing the car to a more cautious speed.
"We need somewhere to stay, really. This isn't a good night to be outside," he muttered to himself.
Misao watched him with wide eyes. Suddenly she cried out and pointed. "There! Some kind of sign!"
Aoshi flicked on the indicator and turned abruptly in the direction Misao had pointed. He quickly spotted the sign she'd seen.
As they got closer, the brightly lit writing became clear.
"A motel!" Misao cried in relief.
Aoshi carefully navigated the car towards a pale, block-shaped building that loomed ahead, and switched off the engine.
He peered out into the night. A couple of lights suggested that some people in a few rooms were still awake. He spotted the office as a large, well-lit window to their right, at the far end of the building.
He gestured towards it. "Misao: there's the office. We'll get a bit wet, but at least we'll have somewhere to stay tonight."
Misao nodded. Suddenly a grin broke out on her face. "On the count of three…" she said with a laughing voice.
Aoshi's eyes sparkled a little in the darkness. The rain drummed a constant rhythm on the roof and windows of the car.
"One…
"Two…
"Three…
"NOW!"
Misao's shrieks of shock and laughter rang pleasantly in Aoshi's ears as they sprinted over the paving towards the office. The rain just dumped water on him like there was no tomorrow.
He swerved at the last moment, perfectly balanced, and swung himself into the sheltered doorway, pulling at the door handle in the same instant. Warm light spilled out into the darkness and he ushered Misao in ahead of him, pulling the door shut behind them.
"Ah…" sighed Misao in relief. "Finally, a comfortable place to sleep…"
She leaned back against the door of their room with another sigh.
"You're dripping on the carpet."
"Oh, I am, aren't I? In that case: I get first dibs on the shower!" she cried, leaping nimbly across the room for the door to the tiny bathroom.
"Hey…!" Aoshi protested, but it was already too late. He heard the lock click on the other side of the door.
"Great," he mumbled. He looked down at himself. He was hardly any better than Misao had been.
Just as he was wondering what he could do about it, the door unlocked and a dripping hand threw a towel at him. "You can put this on until I'm done," came Misao's voice as the door clicked shut again.
Aoshi stared at the white towel in his hand. At least it was clean, and big enough to wind around him properly.
Sighing in resignation, he started unbuttoning his shirt, which clung to him, wet, heavy and increasingly cold.
As he peeled the dripping fabric from his body, and placed it on one of the radiators, he wished to himself that there had been another free room. Not that they could really have afforded two rooms, anyway. It just didn't sit comfortably with him that they were sharing.
He reached into the pockets of his jeans to check for anything that might have got wet in the rain, and his fingers touched a scrap of folded paper.
Pulling it out of his pocket and raising it at a distance from him, as if it were a snake that could bite him, something tugged in his chest. He already knew what this was.
He froze all the same when he flipped the note open.
Memories came flooding into the front of his mind in an instant, threatening to drown him. How could such a simple thing cause him so much pain? Just a simple note on a scrap of torn-off paper, and he found he had to concentrate just to keep breathing.
He didn't even notice the chill that crawled over his body as the moisture on his chest and back cooled, and his wet jeans lost their warmth against his skin.
Misao stepped back into the bedroom with a smile that instantly vanished from her face. Aoshi was stood, half-undressed, in the middle of the room, completely still. He hadn't even tried to dry off: his skin gleamed slightly with rain.
She took a step towards him, and he jumped out of his frozen stance, sensing her closeness.
He turned to look at her. She had never seen so soulless a gaze.
Tears sprang to her eyes just seeing the emptiness in his. All vestiges of her usual cheeriness had deserted her, leaving her feeling defenceless. A chill crept over her.
She couldn't seem to think of anything to say. The young man who had shed the outer layers of his coldness and distance over the past couple of days had retreated completely. She could barely even see the Aoshi she knew in this man's face.
He was suddenly moving, brushing past her to the bathroom without a word. As the door closed with a quiet bang, Misao's eyes were caught by a tiny piece of white paper fluttering to the floor.
She knelt down and picked it up. It was a tatty-looking little note, obviously torn from the corner of a larger page.
'Friday- call me if anything changes'
Misao couldn't decipher the meaning behind the scrawled pencil words. She folded the paper back up, and put it on the bedside table. Whatever it meant to Aoshi had done something awful to him: she'd never seen anyone look so distant, so much like they'd died inside, their body living on as an empty shell regardless.
She crept into bed and under the covers, and waited for Aoshi to return. She had to do something: she couldn't leave him this way.
As she lay in the darkness, Aoshi's blank, cold face hovered in front of her eyes, prompting memories of her own that she hadn't wanted to think about. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice spoke comforting words to her, but another, more insistent voice read poetry in soft tones, reaching to Misao across the years to drag her back to the past. The shadowy memory of cool arms wrapped around her as she lay listening to the voice and her own soft breathing. A tear slid slowly from under her dark lashes. The voice went away at last, leaving only the murmuring of the other, gentle and comforting, voice at the back of her thoughts.
Remember me… I'll be here for you. Don't leave me behind, please, Misao.
She listened to the rain falling outside, and the rumbling of distant thunder.
Aoshi padded across the room in the darkness, and sat down on the edge of the bed.
"Do you want me to sleep on the floor?" he asked tiredly.
A hesitant pause. "No… There's no point, you'll only be uncomfortable. Besides, this bed is pretty big, it's not like we'd be pushed for room," Misao replied softly.
Not bothering to comment further, he swung his legs up onto the bed and lay back, letting his head sink comfortably into the pillow. He'd almost forgotten how relaxing it was to fall into a bed at the end of the day. He let that simple thought occupy his mind for a moment.
"Aoshi?"
"Hm?"
"Have you ever wanted to be close to someone… just so you don't feel so alone?"
The hesitation in her voice gave a particular meaning to her words. He knew what she was talking about. He just felt so tired, so drained and empty. Her voice washed over him like cool night air, sweet and soothing. He tried not to think about what she was saying.
"I don't know much about you, but I can see that some bad things happened to you not long ago, and, well, I don't think people should always do everything alone- face everything alone."
Her tone had grown a little more solid as her assurance in her words grew. He only felt more hollow. Life had forsaken him as he had drowned in memories, stood clutching that tiny note. Nothing stirred inside him. He couldn't even find an appreciation for the compassion she was showing him.
The blackness of the night covered his pale face and closed eyes.
He listened to the rustle of the bedcovers as Misao shifted over to him. Her face was suddenly close to his, and he could just see the soft outline of her face in the darkness. Her eyes looked straight into his.
Thoughts rose reluctantly to life in his mind. What was this girl? Why did she still try to reach out to a person so devoid of humanity? Why did she try to warm a thing so leaden and cold? The sickly-calm pain of his own self-loathing swept over him, and he could feel only distantly grieved as it dragged at him, pulling him down under the rising tide of his memories.
"Why can't we just forget it all for a while?" her soft voice asked, in a tone full of sadness. She touched his face lightly.
There was nothing but ice within him. He couldn't bring any expression to his face. "Some things can't just be forgotten: some things shouldn't be forgotten. It's cowardly to pretend a thing never happened," he said dully.
She persisted. "Aoshi… Please don't give up on yourself. I know I'm still a stranger to you, but I don't want you to lose your faith in your own life this way," she pleaded in a pained, desperate voice.
"You're right: you are a stranger. Why are you even bothering with me?" he asked lifelessly. He'd already lost his hold on any emotions he may have had at that moment.
She wrapped her arms around him, bringing her warm cheek to press gently against his cold face. "Because you're a person, with feelings and life and a future. Even if you won't acknowledge it, I will," she whispered pleadingly.
She slowly brought her lips down on his, touching him lightly with a warm kiss. She couldn't believe how cold he felt.
Her kiss shocked him, jolting something to life inside his chest. His eyes widened, and had there been light, the girl lying beside him would have seen their iciness soften the slightest of shades deeper.
He caught the glittering line of a tear on her face, and his coldness clenched up tightly in the pit of his stomach. She was crying for him. And that moved him.
How could he allow his life to intertwine with hers? How could he allow her to shoulder a burden like himself, and drag down another life this way? He couldn't…
Her lips softly brushed his again, more slowly, more encouragingly this time. The way her fingers ran through his hair and held onto his dark locks so tightly made him realise something in a flash of understanding.
How could he be so stupid, and so selfish? He wasn't the only one in need. She kissed him because she wanted to show how she felt: that she wanted to help and support him, and she wanted an escape from her own life as well. The 'we' of her earlier question snapped into focus. 'Why can't we just forget it all for a while?'
He closed his eyes. Carefully, tentatively, he moved his lips with hers, kissing her back. He tasted the tears that ran down her face as her warmth bled gently into him with her touch.
His kiss was so gentle, Misao thought her heart would break. No one had ever kissed her this way. He had sensed her need, and shown her compassion.
The past retreated into a grey haze at the back of her mind as she felt his hands reach up to touch her face, brushing away her tears. She didn't even notice when the soft whispering of the comforting voice in her mind faded away into silence.
She could forget, just for now. She'd forget about it all for this one night.
Author's note: Whew! Long chapter. I poured everything I had into that one, and I'm pretty satisfied with how it came out. I hope you liked it. Leave a review and let me know what you thought!
Notes to reviewers (other than the general *I love you!* ^_^) btw this is the replying format I've adopted for my other main story, 'the PB: Kenshin Style' (was that a shameless plug? *wink*), and it's worked pretty well, so I'll be using it here, too. Ta!
Thank you to FlameSolo (whatever indeed! Cheers for reviewing again. Glad you find it interesting… ^_^), Noa (It's the mysteries that keep it from being nothing but fluff ^_^ Poor Aoshi indeed: I sense that you really will huggle him to death after this chapter!), bee (Thanks! *glomp* It's been the hardest thing in this fic, to get everything kind of subtle and realistic, while, obviously *grin* getting them together. ^_^ I'm really chuffed that you approve), Megumi No Ushi (yes, you may have seen that I'm starting to delve into Misao's mind a little now, beyond her habitual 'look at me I'm cute and genki' appearance. It's really quite interesting to do it, actually! ^_^ And my room is clean now, so my mum's off the warpath! *hurrah!*), chalce (Thanks! It's cool to hear that someone else had a similar vision of how it would be to me! And yeh, subtlety is indeed a necessity. *sweatdrop* Not as easy as I'd expected tho!), dynast (yep, you waited, but your patience is rewarded! ^_^ Hope you liked it, anyways…), Mariana-chan (Yeh, she's pretty forward about things… *shakes her head at Misao* What's up with Aoshi is just a cold attitude *wink* *Aoshi glares at Akari* eep!), EK (Thanks! And thanks for taking the time to review!), lebleuphenix (Yay! *glomp* Someone's rooting for Misao! And it worked! ^_^ I love playing with her impulsive nature, she's such a fun character! But she has her own depth, wait and see!), TwinBakaNekos (thanks! Here is more, as requested! Hope you liked it), Argentum Draco (thank you! I shall continue in earnest ^_^).
Thank you again to all! Please cheer up my revision-filled hours with more reviews! *heads back to the hermitage with arms full of papers and books* ugh ugh ugh… Please make me smile, I need to smile! *cries*
Aoshi: Now that really was pathetic…
Akari: *glares at Aoshi*
Eh heh heh…
