Chapter 8: Rabbit Run (Browsing through my restored iPod, got it on AC power finally so I can have my anime theme music back! Enjoy my Author's Noteless chapter!)
Misao walked around with a stupid grin on her face all day, and no one really wanted to know why. Least of all Jack, and he DID know. Aoshi may be a cold fish, but at least he has discretion
Well in her shoes I'd grin too, I suppose. On the other hand, in her shoes I would also flash people who looked at me funny, Just for laughs, so that's nothing to judge by
Sano, in stark contrast, was positively gloomy, sipping his hard-stolen coke (Jack loved his 200% profit margin, he considered it hazard pay, no matter how much his customers muttered about usury) with a forlorn look on his face Jack knew had SOMETHING to do with a certain short redhead.
A conspicuously ABSENT redhead
"Damn, got him his own coke too. Hey Sano! Where the bloody hell is the midget? I can't remember the last time he skipped schooloh wait, it don't exist." Jack leaned closer and lowered his voice. "Hope he didn't miss his alarm clock because you kept him up all night"
Sanosuke colored nicely. "I have no godamn idea where he is, although if I did I'd be happier, godammit." He leaned forward and lowered his voice as well "And if you tell anyone you know I'll gut you like a friggin fish."
Jack just grinned maniacally. "Well let's go find him, I need another buyer for my fine product anywayI love being a coke dealer!" Sano scowled. "Oh don't whine, you know you need the sugar, and it pays the bills. Pez is expensive theses days"
Sano clambered to his feet reluctantly, somehow not really wanting to see Kenshin face-to-face quite yet, but not finding any logical excuse not to. Since when don't I want to see Kenshin? And what was WRONG with him? He's never cared about losing in Halo before, much less avoided ME about ithe seemed to hit it off with Katsu, too, they were playing for quite a bitdon't understand at all.
The pair wandered off, one searching for his love, the other for excitement.
Neither would be disappointed.
*
Everything was according to plan, however screwed up the plan was.
"Why dontcha try an get up again, girly-boy?" Hooted one of the neanderthal football players. "We'd be happy to put you back down." The remaining three sniggered as though the remark had any humor whatsoever in it.
Kenshin, however, obliged, and the spineless thug delivered on his promise with a brutal cleat-tipped kick to the face that probably broke the smaller boy's nose. The quartet hooted with good humor as Kenshin clutched at the abused organ.
It hurtsbut I deserve it Kenshin struggled to get up again. In the past when he was attacked he would fall down at once and not make a sound, the small-minded pricks had no attention span whatsoever, and would get bored before he really got hurt.
This time, however, Kenshin relished the pain, and sampled it like fine wine, the sharp feeling of the cleat spike in his side, the brutal agony of a kick to the small of his back, the burn of the punch that pasted his ear to the side of his head-
See Sano? I may be small and stupid to try to get between you and whoever it is you deserve, but at least I'm sorry about it. Kenshin was trying for one last cruel round of blows before he gave up and blacked out, when-
"KENSHIN!?"
With one eye swollen mostly shut and the other one closed to avoid gravel getting ground into it, Kenshin couldn't look to see who had shouted his name. But he didn't need to.
He had heard Sano to often not to recognize it.
"Jeeeeesus." Jack too? Fine. Rain on my bloody parade. He giggled at his own hysterical pun, vision starting to close in a little at the sides.
"Who are you? His little BOYfriends?" More moronic laughter.
In his head, Kenshin could see Sano stalking forwards with slow deliberateness, as Jack stood back slightly and spoke.
"This is sad. It takes four goons like you to take on a midget pacifist?"
Failing to recognize fully half of those words, all but leader scratched their heads. The biggest one in the middle, however, just got angry.
"Well what are YOU gonna do about it, you skinny-ass fags!?"
"Why don't you wait and find out? It doesn't take any more than a couple of skinny-ass fags to take out shit-faces like yourselves." Jack grinned. "Especially when one of them is as angry as Sano is."
"Oh I'm real afr-" Sanosuke, who had appeared to be still out of reach, snapped out a punch directly in front of him, catching asshole number one full in the face. He collapsed without a sound, bloody nose pooling under him.
Punks two and three paled, then shouted and ran towards Sano. Leader punk, the brains, obviously, of the outfit ran about five feet before Jack handily tripped him.
Throwing a few kicks into the downed jock, Jack kept an eye out for vengeful teammates or evil principals, as well as making sure Sano was taking care of business.
He shouldn't have worried.
Sanosuke, fury still unabated, had twisted punk two's arm in a direction it was never meant to go in, and punk three was clutching a very sensitive part of his anatomy as his opponent rained punches into his abdomen.
Sighing, Jack gave punk leader a parting kick and grabbed Sano's arm before he could make punk three paint the sidewalk in unpleasant tan and red tones.
"We should go help Kenshin, big guy. Here, I'll go get Saitou, he'll make sure to beat all the shit left in these guys out of them, you fetch a nurse, I don't think the little man's up for moving anywhere any time soon."
A cruel light faded from Sanosuke's eyes. He shook his head slightly, as if clearing it. "Right. Gotcha, You go get Saitou."
Eager to escape any involvement with the small pile of groaning football players, Jack scampered off, intent on telling a tale so powerful that even Saitou would have to put Sanosuke in the right.
Sano had no intention of leaving his boyfriend bleeding on the concrete, however, and knelt beside Kenshin, begging him to open his eyes and say he was OK.
Dammit, dammit, dammit, as if Sano doesn't do enough for a worthless loser like me! "Sanodon't get yourself in any trouble over me. Please, don't get Saitou pissed-"
Sano cursed loudly, mentally thanking Jack for his new education in foreign profanity. "Hell, you jackass! I'm DEFINITELY not leaving you now, this is why you've been all banged up recently, ain't it?! I was sure if it were important you'd tell me, you godamn moron!"
"I'm sorry, Sano, I know I should have-" Kenshin coughed. "I know I should have told you. But"
"BUT WHAT!? You WANTED to get beat up? You didn't think I could handle idiots like them? You didn't think I CARED!?"
Kenshin was silent.
Sanosuke growled angrily, bent over, and kissed Kenshin, hard.
What
"Kenshin. NEVER do this again. I care, you damn sexy midget. I care a LOT. I don't mind a little trouble, as long as I can help you out.
"II love you, Kenshin. No one else. Don't forget I'd do anything for you."
Kenshin, completely confused, stayed quiet.
Sanosuke sighed deeply. "You prolly shouldn't be moved yet, I'll go grab a nurse for yasit tight, ok?" He ran off towards the office.
No one
"Well that was touching."
Kenshin's head snapped around, and he ignored the pain in his back as he looked up to that voice. Not
Katsu gave a little smile. "I guess I really should have known. It's obvious, the way you look at him." A sigh. "I finally find the perfect person, and he's taken."
The taller boy knelt down where Sano had. I'll bet he would have loved if I died. Kenshin thought viciously. Then he'd have him all to himself.
"I'm sorry, Kenshin. I shouldn't have gotten between you and Sano the way I did. It's obvious that you're better off with him." Damn skippy, you man-stealing bitch!
"I just wish there had been a chancea chance for me" Another sigh. Kenshin almost felt sorry for him. He knew what Katsu was feeling.
Almost.
"A chance" Katsu looked around, quickly. "For me and you."
He kissed Kenshin, just as Sano had, and quickly walked away, leaving a hurt and confused but feeling MUCH better Kenshin behind.
*
Saitou Hajime was not a very happy man at the moment.
His favorite student to pick on was sitting before him, fists bloody, expression defiant, and he STILL didn't have any excuse to expel him. A damn waste of an oppritunity
"One more time, moron. You come across these four upstanding students, who, without anyone catching them have been doing this for a month, are beating one of your best friends, and you never did anything about it until now? AND you knocked them all down or out without getting touched?" He quirked an evil looking eyebrow. "It would take a fool of your high quality to swallow such a tale"
"Well I've got witnesses, and you know full well that they had it coming, and that defense against something like that is DEFINTELY not against school rules." Enjoying (as well he should) being in the right for once, Sano grinned cockily.
"Hmph. Fine. But next time I find you in this office, no matter if you defended a busload of nuns against a gang of robbers with switchblades, I WILL call the police. Simple enough for you, moron?"
Sano, still grinning about his victory, leapt out of his chair, striding from the office and slamming the door. Still moving quickly, he flipped the bird at the bench of bleeding homophobes before breaking into a jog back down the nurse's office.
Saitou, denied his favorite prey, had no compunctions about working off some of that tension any way he could. He smiled cruelly at the though of what he would do to the four fools who had DARED to get caught in HIS school. Morons
"Next!"
*
When Kenshin woke up, the tips of Sano's brown hair impaled his limited vision, aided by the pounding ache in his back and the foul stuffiness of his nose. "Oww"
"Oh, heya Kenshin. Nurse said we could just stay here, no need to go to the hospital. How you feel?"
"Like four football players just savagely beat me."
"Ummset myself up for that I guess."
Kenshin giggled, then sniffed loudly. "Sorry. Couldn't help myself." He tried to move, and winced when his back twinged.
"Nurse said not to move, you got kicked pretty hard in the backshould be ok though, nothing seriously hurt."
Kenshin was quiet.
"Kenshinwhy did you do this, babe? You could have told me, could have told ANYONE, could have just avoided themI know you could have gotten away if you tried. And you never even attempted to hit them back"
"I'msorry, Sano. I don't really know" Kenshin trailed off.
"Oh come on, if you can tell anyone it's me, right? Right!?"
"Of courseI just don't know if I CAN tell anyone in the world. I was just sojealous. I felt like I was wrong for you, that I didn't deserve you-"
Sano silenced him with another kiss. "In the future," He drawled, planting another quick peck on the smaller boy's closed lips "remember that whoever you think I deserveI WANT you. And I won't take anyone else."
He kissed him one more time, to close the deal, and it was a long time before he returned to class.
*
A week or so later, a healing Kenshin snuggled deeper into Sano's lap, relishing the warmth he found in his boyfriend's embrace.
"Eek, hope ya don't wanna get any closer, babe, 'cause we'd need to take off our clothes"
Kenshin wriggled in what he knew must be a truly wonderful way. "Not QUITE yet, sexy, but it sounds like a plan"
The game was totally forgotten as Kenshin felt all the love he was sure had left return to him in the tight hug Sano had trapped him in. As aliens slaughtered the unattended heroes on the screen, Sano leaned forward, and Kenshin tilted his head, and parted his lips slightly-
"Something you were going to share with the class, Sanosuke?"
Four eyes spun violently, and two faces turned unnatural shades of red, as Katsu grinned maniacally in the doorway.
"Ummme an' Kenshininvited you to tellyou know"
"Oh come on, like I hadn't already guessed?"
If this were an anime, Sano's eyes would be totally replaced by strange spirals.
"BUUuuuuyyyyyy" Sano finally managed a strange sound of confusion.
"Quiet, and go to split-screen play. If neither of you can take me down alone you're just going to have to work together, aren't you?" Katsu grabbed a third controller, and took an elegant seat on the couch.
Kenshin and Sano lost. But not by very much. And no matter how Katsu laughed, none of them really cared.
(OK, short (and lousy) chapter for now, just because it's late and you need closure. Next one comes soon (and better), I hope, sorry this one took so long, but I ended up going to school in the endgod I hate being sick AND still attending class. One more day till the weekendanyway, thankies to my readers, ubar-thankies to the reviewers, and special magic ubar thankies to mindmelda, Jessi, and Mik-chan, who, respectively, accurately assessed my need for drugs, have me on author alert and use it well, and sent me a cute get-well e-card. You guys roxxor. And, as always, I love you koishii! L8r all!)
And I SWEAR the next one will be better. My flu is affecting my brain. Very sorry.