Yay for Dark Hunter. Woo hoo. I'm my own fanclub -waves dippy little flag around- All I need now are pom-poms and white sneakers. Oh yes, and also crack. *checks pockets* All out, damn it! *goes to eat spoonfuls of peanut butter* Peanut butter is ALMOST like crack! Peter Pan makes it! ^_^
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Youji was dreaming. He thought. He hoped. His head ached abominably; his hair accually seemed to be glued to the surface beneath his temple; outer extremities numbing with cold, bare skin equally chilled from the flooring beneath him. This definitely shouldn't be real. If anything, he should wake up any moment to find himself warm and cozy, curled up in bed with Aya. He couldn't explain the headache away. What had he done yesterday to cause him pain?
His eyebrows drew together in a frown as he shakily propped himself up, searching around the dim room. Some sort of computer lab. Bulky machines lined the walls, similar in appearance to those first science-fiction fabled "super computers" from the seventies, their glowing screens providing the only illumination in the room. As his mind pulled the past few conscious hours together for him; he realized those computers were in all likelihood capable of far more complicated things than a game of solitaire.
Another worried thought flashing through his mind. The slamming door, the dead man? Youji was on his feet, whirling about within a second, disregarding the harsh stabbing of agony bolting through his skull. How long was he out? A minute? A day? Had the dead man retaliated against his invasion? Was he down here now? The thought of a living assailant never even crossed him mind, occupied as he was with his new obsessive fear.
Silence throughout the room, no movement visible in its dim, yellow-lit corners. He searched for a light switch, fist clenched at his side, ready for a swift attack should need be. At the foot of the rough staircase, a covered panel. There was no obvious method of release save a card shaped slit. He turned to scour the floor for his fallen key-card, sure it'd fallen with him.
"Ah-ha!" He chased it across the dusty floor; his short nails finding little purchase to scrape it up. The metal cover popped open to reveal a row of labeled switches. The relief stealing through his body was immediate, the bare hundred-watt bulb chasing away any suspicious shadows. Ko-Ishi the light eater wasn't here, or he would have popped out with some witty rejoinder by now. No dead men either.
The large computers only covered two walls and their adjoining corner. The remaining one, left of the staircase-wall braced a row of filing cabinets, shiny and professional as could be. They looked humorously out of place next to the big cheesy machinery and the Spartan lighting and decoration. Focus on the goal. Find Aya's sister. Find information about Ko-Ishi, or the being claiming their fallen foes name.
He pulled open the top sliding file holder on the nearest filing cabinet. Neatly alphabetized names greeted him: Aburon, Chase; Akalia, Sakura; Andrata, Michel. On and on, A through B in the first file holder. A quick perusal through a random folder showed him the entire credit history of a wealthy man; sited the dealings he'd had with Cobarde; a handwritten sheet of legal paper listed available hostages to threaten with should the need arise. Thorough.
Youji shot the stairwell a quick glance; almost afraid the dead man would make his appearance now, as he dug through the man's most treasured belongings. Why they weren't all kept in the form of a computer file Youji wasn't sure. Maybe Cobarde liked having several copies of important things and if Youji found himself feeling particularly ambitious, he could find a way to get Omi back here. Time to stop lollygagging about. Find what you can, get gone.
"Ko-Ishi, please be under Ko-Ishi." Youji breathed as he tried to center himself in the massive alphabet before him. How many files would 'K' have? Did Ko-Ishi have a real name he'd be listed under? Youji was screwed if that was the case. "Hah!" A triumphant sound from his mouth before he could stop himself. Another darting glance around him still revealed the surroundings to be clear of any living or unliving beings.
He tucked the folder under his arm without looking at it. Paused in thought for a moment before heading for the beginning middle section of the alphabet, finding two files he'd suspected would be there. Fujimiya, Aya. Fujimiya, Ran. Those went under his arm. The silence was getting to him. Time to get going.
Youji now knew valuable information existed for their use. He could come back with the rest of Weiss later; remove the stiff from his hooks, get Omi set up in front of the computer, go through the files without the fear hastened carelessness. He wouldn't be afraid to come back here with Aya. He couldn't exactly picture those cold violet eyes widening with fear upon seeing the gruesome tableau in the kitchen. Aya might even find it to be amusing; a gruesome sort of new-aged art. He was funny like that.
Time to brave the stairs. He adjusted the slipping folders against his side, all filled to bursting with sheets of paper. The plastic card in his hand was slippery with nervous sweat; Youji had a tense moment where he thought he was going to drop his key between step-gaps into unreachable depths, trapped to starve in this prison.
The door opened to the kitchen; afternoon's fading to dusk leaving the kitchen shadowy and gray. Youji wondered if he really was jinxed somehow. All that could be wrong and creepy somehow always came to be when he was involved. Fortunately, the muted light still revealed the corpse in its former position, still the gruesome mobile. It wasn't until after he'd left the room in his wake, breathing a sigh of relief, that bloodshot, decaying eyes rolled in drying sockets, intent on the doorway.
Youji couldn't get out of that house fast enough, slamming the door behind him, trusting the poor visibility to keep him unnoticed by nosy neighbors. Strapping the bundle of information down in the basket on Ken's motorbike, Youji was gone without a glance back. So, yeah, riding a motorcycle with a recently banged-up head... not smart. He'd be the first to throw aside any pretensions of common sense.
"Hello? Anyone home?" Youji pulled out a length of wire when no sounds greeted him. He frowned, peering about their front room. There was a breathing lump of blankets on the couch. If Fate was snoozing down here, did that mean all were asleep now? Why hadn't she woken up to his buoyant shout? He tiptoed over and flicked back the edge of the blanket. Fate blinked sleepily up at him, eyes crinkled up. She looked like a middle-aged goblin for a moment, face smushed up by the pillow.
"Gah!" Youji jumped back. She frowned.
"What the fuck was that for? Can't you see I'm trying to sleep? Go upstairs for ficky-ficky with your red head boy and leave me in peace." She yanked the flannel blanket out of his hand and pulled it back up over her head. Youji moved on, officially weirded out.
Up the stairs, quietly now. It wouldn't do to wake up those who deserved sleep. Hell, talk about deserving sleep... Two days running now, more if Aya was going to go frigid on him and tell him he couldn't sleep in the room. He sure as hell wouldn't share the couch with Fate, and Ken and Omi were due for a little privacy of their own.
The door decided not to creak for once as he tried his damndest to keep all sounds at that exact frequency that Aya was able to sleep peacefully through. Reaching that happy medium of stealth and harmless shuffling relied more on luck than any skill on his part. The object before him, hidden by the dark fouled up any last attempts at quiet, tripping him onto the floor. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" Helpless curses as he alternately gripped his knee and his head, sprawled on the floor, a dull sick feeling spreading out from the pit of his stomach to match the throbbing of his bruised bones. A never-ending day of hurting.
"There's a chair near the door, be careful." Low, acerbic tones as Aya propped himself up on one elbow, scratching a match to light the oil lamp on the end table.
Youji, swallowed hard, trying not to vomit. "Are you alright?" Aya pushed the blankets back and tried to stand when no angry reply was forthcoming. He barely made it past sitting. "Your hair is bloody."
Gritted teeth, stomach well and truly lurching now. Back on his feet, lurching down the hallway. Youji only hoped he could make it to the bathroom in time. Not fun cleaning up puke in the dark. 'Specially your own. He genuflected in the dark before the porcelain throne as the last vestiges of nausea passed, the contents of his stomach still firmly ensconced within the proper organs. Nothing like a head wound to bring up old meals for a visit.
"Youji?" A soft rapping on the door, a light as it swung open beneath Aya's hand. He limped across the small room, leaning heavily on the marble counter. "What is it with you and excessive throwing up."
"Didn't throw up."
"You okay?" Aya asked again.
"No."
Gritting his teeth, Aya knelt down on the faded tile, feeling almost as ill as Youji for a few excruciating moments. "What happened, where have you been all this time?" He slumped back against the counter and straightened his legs out in front of him in one quick motion, trying to condense all the pain into one tight moment.
A cool almost lifeless grasp on Youji's wrist. For a moment the stagnant, fetid air of Cobarde's kitchen was on him in full, the hand on his arm red veined with skin that slid over the bones like an over-ripe peach. Aya's hurt indigo gaze turned downwards as Youji jerked away from his touch.
"I'd leave right now if you wanted, but I think I'm sort of stuck right now." Aya gave the candle on the floor a tight, rueful almost-smile, pallid cheeks glowing with embarrassment in the flame's luminosity.
"No, even if you could I wouldn't ask you to." Youji rested his burning forehead against the cool side of the tub, craving the cool straightforward existence of inanimate matter. Sure, being shot was painful, being burnt and tortured and abused in any number of ways: also not fun, but feeling queasy was so fucking unendurable, sandpaper on that restless connection in your spine, your nerve endings and tolerance.
"Where have you been?" Switching roles. "You were gone all day." Aya realized he was repeating himself. It didn't matter anyway. Words held no value. Slowly, so Youji had time to shift back and save them both from more hurt feelings, Aya reached forward, carefully lifting a strand of rust tinted hair away from Youji's forehead. "You trying to one up Omi in some sort of unofficial Head Bleeding Contest?"
"When you talked to One-Eye, he sent you to two people, that bitch staying in our house now, Fate, and a man called Cobarde. I don't know if you went to see him or not, but he's now very dead. He has a hidden room under his house full of files on all the people he's dealt with." Slow halting words, forced out against the taste of the bitter saliva flooding his mouth again. Still was the best, no sound and the sickness stepped it down a notch or two.
"That's where you went? What were you looking for? Assuming I'd already passed through before OR after his death, what was it you thought you could find that I hadn't already?"
Youji swallowed again, the lump in his throat one of disappointment. All of that for nothing. Aya already knew about the room, had probably 'persuaded' the man take him down, and seen all that Youji had. So much for an affection winning surprise. And that's all it had been, some sort of eleventh-hour attempt to win Aya's praise, his gratitude. Stupid, very stupid.
"If I help you get up again, will you please go away?" Desperate to be alone now with the crushing misery.
"No." Aya crossed his arms. "You're upset now because it wasn't Omi you were trying to one up, it was me. That's not what this is all about. I want my sister back; I appreciate anything you do to help, but don't do stupid shit and get your head knocked in because you're trying to impress someone, especially me. I'm not worth impressing. I crawl around in sewers on the advice of little hyperactive women who call themselves "The Striking Cobra" when they appear to be all but harmless. What's admirable about that?" He slapped a palm down onto the floor.
"You obviously didn't see her arsenal if you're still calling her harmless." Youji changed the subject.
"You want to hear something I'll kill you if you ever tell anyone I admitted? If you hadn't shown up I'd most likely be very dead right now, drowned in a lake of muck in the sewers. If there's a score being kept right now, you're already in the lead."
A gap in dialogue as Youji kept silent, more deep breathes. Fuck, but it was cold out here in the real world. He wanted nothing more than to be in bed right now, something cool and nice against his head, something warm and breathing by his side to soothe the rest of his overworked body.
"You feeling any better? Do I need to get Omi?"
"Tell you what, I'll help you up if you'll help me up."
"I help you both up if you clear off and let me use this bathroom." Fate glibly interpolated from out of the blue.
"How long have you been here?" Youji pressed a hand over his eyes, thoroughly fed up and unable to do anything about it.
Fate shrugged. "A while." She crossed the last of the gap and extended a hand for Aya. "You first, stupid man. Sit on floor with bad leg. Why you not stay in bed like intelligent invalid? Hmm? Because you are idiot? No need to answer so quickly, stupidhead." She caught the underside of one elbow, pulling him up with one arm, the other gripping Aya's other arm, letting him do some of the work. She staggered off with him, leaving Youji with the candle and his confused emotions. Stupid woman...
"You go to see Cobarde?" Fate returned. "You see what they do to him? In all places I see that carnage, what they do to those who know what they should not. You are all best to leave the dealings to me. I get red head's sister back, trounce Ko-Ishi. No problem for you, you just stay and act as distraction." Fate nodded.
"Why did they do that to his body?" Gorge rising to his throat as more mental reminders paint out the kitchen scene behind his eyelids again.
Fate shrugged. "Eccentric cult thing they think is much funny. You not worry. Only for traitors, every other person be bludgeoned to death, be less of a mess." Fate upped the wattage, trying to blind him with one of her truly frightening grins/grimaces.
"Why does your ability to speak grammatically correct sentences in Japanese degenerate every time I talk to you?"
"You just rubbing off on me I guess. I go away soon, get more smart for my head." She smiled at him. "You hit your head, feel sick? How many fingers do I hold up?" She laughed. "What happen to your head, you remembering?"
"Fell down a flight of stairs."
"Very stupid." Came the benediction. "You feel confusing? You tired or dizzy?"
"Nope, just sick."
"You be okay dokay in a short time. Just need rest and heal. Come, stupid red head will be getting lonely, you can argue in bedroom so I can use bathroom." Fate shook a warning finger. "You make vomit on this shirt it is your problem, I take it from your closet. Says 'dry clean only' on tag. You vomit, you pay for cleaning."
"Well, just so long as we're clear on that point..." Deadpan.
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-goes away to eat shiny tinfoil after she cooks chicken nuggets on it- Give me feedback, tell me I should actually keep working on this project instead of sleeping at night or watching Conan O' Brian. Darkhunter@ijustdontcare.com or akainobaka@mchsi.com You know the drill. No feedback, no updates. NYAH!
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Youji was dreaming. He thought. He hoped. His head ached abominably; his hair accually seemed to be glued to the surface beneath his temple; outer extremities numbing with cold, bare skin equally chilled from the flooring beneath him. This definitely shouldn't be real. If anything, he should wake up any moment to find himself warm and cozy, curled up in bed with Aya. He couldn't explain the headache away. What had he done yesterday to cause him pain?
His eyebrows drew together in a frown as he shakily propped himself up, searching around the dim room. Some sort of computer lab. Bulky machines lined the walls, similar in appearance to those first science-fiction fabled "super computers" from the seventies, their glowing screens providing the only illumination in the room. As his mind pulled the past few conscious hours together for him; he realized those computers were in all likelihood capable of far more complicated things than a game of solitaire.
Another worried thought flashing through his mind. The slamming door, the dead man? Youji was on his feet, whirling about within a second, disregarding the harsh stabbing of agony bolting through his skull. How long was he out? A minute? A day? Had the dead man retaliated against his invasion? Was he down here now? The thought of a living assailant never even crossed him mind, occupied as he was with his new obsessive fear.
Silence throughout the room, no movement visible in its dim, yellow-lit corners. He searched for a light switch, fist clenched at his side, ready for a swift attack should need be. At the foot of the rough staircase, a covered panel. There was no obvious method of release save a card shaped slit. He turned to scour the floor for his fallen key-card, sure it'd fallen with him.
"Ah-ha!" He chased it across the dusty floor; his short nails finding little purchase to scrape it up. The metal cover popped open to reveal a row of labeled switches. The relief stealing through his body was immediate, the bare hundred-watt bulb chasing away any suspicious shadows. Ko-Ishi the light eater wasn't here, or he would have popped out with some witty rejoinder by now. No dead men either.
The large computers only covered two walls and their adjoining corner. The remaining one, left of the staircase-wall braced a row of filing cabinets, shiny and professional as could be. They looked humorously out of place next to the big cheesy machinery and the Spartan lighting and decoration. Focus on the goal. Find Aya's sister. Find information about Ko-Ishi, or the being claiming their fallen foes name.
He pulled open the top sliding file holder on the nearest filing cabinet. Neatly alphabetized names greeted him: Aburon, Chase; Akalia, Sakura; Andrata, Michel. On and on, A through B in the first file holder. A quick perusal through a random folder showed him the entire credit history of a wealthy man; sited the dealings he'd had with Cobarde; a handwritten sheet of legal paper listed available hostages to threaten with should the need arise. Thorough.
Youji shot the stairwell a quick glance; almost afraid the dead man would make his appearance now, as he dug through the man's most treasured belongings. Why they weren't all kept in the form of a computer file Youji wasn't sure. Maybe Cobarde liked having several copies of important things and if Youji found himself feeling particularly ambitious, he could find a way to get Omi back here. Time to stop lollygagging about. Find what you can, get gone.
"Ko-Ishi, please be under Ko-Ishi." Youji breathed as he tried to center himself in the massive alphabet before him. How many files would 'K' have? Did Ko-Ishi have a real name he'd be listed under? Youji was screwed if that was the case. "Hah!" A triumphant sound from his mouth before he could stop himself. Another darting glance around him still revealed the surroundings to be clear of any living or unliving beings.
He tucked the folder under his arm without looking at it. Paused in thought for a moment before heading for the beginning middle section of the alphabet, finding two files he'd suspected would be there. Fujimiya, Aya. Fujimiya, Ran. Those went under his arm. The silence was getting to him. Time to get going.
Youji now knew valuable information existed for their use. He could come back with the rest of Weiss later; remove the stiff from his hooks, get Omi set up in front of the computer, go through the files without the fear hastened carelessness. He wouldn't be afraid to come back here with Aya. He couldn't exactly picture those cold violet eyes widening with fear upon seeing the gruesome tableau in the kitchen. Aya might even find it to be amusing; a gruesome sort of new-aged art. He was funny like that.
Time to brave the stairs. He adjusted the slipping folders against his side, all filled to bursting with sheets of paper. The plastic card in his hand was slippery with nervous sweat; Youji had a tense moment where he thought he was going to drop his key between step-gaps into unreachable depths, trapped to starve in this prison.
The door opened to the kitchen; afternoon's fading to dusk leaving the kitchen shadowy and gray. Youji wondered if he really was jinxed somehow. All that could be wrong and creepy somehow always came to be when he was involved. Fortunately, the muted light still revealed the corpse in its former position, still the gruesome mobile. It wasn't until after he'd left the room in his wake, breathing a sigh of relief, that bloodshot, decaying eyes rolled in drying sockets, intent on the doorway.
Youji couldn't get out of that house fast enough, slamming the door behind him, trusting the poor visibility to keep him unnoticed by nosy neighbors. Strapping the bundle of information down in the basket on Ken's motorbike, Youji was gone without a glance back. So, yeah, riding a motorcycle with a recently banged-up head... not smart. He'd be the first to throw aside any pretensions of common sense.
"Hello? Anyone home?" Youji pulled out a length of wire when no sounds greeted him. He frowned, peering about their front room. There was a breathing lump of blankets on the couch. If Fate was snoozing down here, did that mean all were asleep now? Why hadn't she woken up to his buoyant shout? He tiptoed over and flicked back the edge of the blanket. Fate blinked sleepily up at him, eyes crinkled up. She looked like a middle-aged goblin for a moment, face smushed up by the pillow.
"Gah!" Youji jumped back. She frowned.
"What the fuck was that for? Can't you see I'm trying to sleep? Go upstairs for ficky-ficky with your red head boy and leave me in peace." She yanked the flannel blanket out of his hand and pulled it back up over her head. Youji moved on, officially weirded out.
Up the stairs, quietly now. It wouldn't do to wake up those who deserved sleep. Hell, talk about deserving sleep... Two days running now, more if Aya was going to go frigid on him and tell him he couldn't sleep in the room. He sure as hell wouldn't share the couch with Fate, and Ken and Omi were due for a little privacy of their own.
The door decided not to creak for once as he tried his damndest to keep all sounds at that exact frequency that Aya was able to sleep peacefully through. Reaching that happy medium of stealth and harmless shuffling relied more on luck than any skill on his part. The object before him, hidden by the dark fouled up any last attempts at quiet, tripping him onto the floor. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" Helpless curses as he alternately gripped his knee and his head, sprawled on the floor, a dull sick feeling spreading out from the pit of his stomach to match the throbbing of his bruised bones. A never-ending day of hurting.
"There's a chair near the door, be careful." Low, acerbic tones as Aya propped himself up on one elbow, scratching a match to light the oil lamp on the end table.
Youji, swallowed hard, trying not to vomit. "Are you alright?" Aya pushed the blankets back and tried to stand when no angry reply was forthcoming. He barely made it past sitting. "Your hair is bloody."
Gritted teeth, stomach well and truly lurching now. Back on his feet, lurching down the hallway. Youji only hoped he could make it to the bathroom in time. Not fun cleaning up puke in the dark. 'Specially your own. He genuflected in the dark before the porcelain throne as the last vestiges of nausea passed, the contents of his stomach still firmly ensconced within the proper organs. Nothing like a head wound to bring up old meals for a visit.
"Youji?" A soft rapping on the door, a light as it swung open beneath Aya's hand. He limped across the small room, leaning heavily on the marble counter. "What is it with you and excessive throwing up."
"Didn't throw up."
"You okay?" Aya asked again.
"No."
Gritting his teeth, Aya knelt down on the faded tile, feeling almost as ill as Youji for a few excruciating moments. "What happened, where have you been all this time?" He slumped back against the counter and straightened his legs out in front of him in one quick motion, trying to condense all the pain into one tight moment.
A cool almost lifeless grasp on Youji's wrist. For a moment the stagnant, fetid air of Cobarde's kitchen was on him in full, the hand on his arm red veined with skin that slid over the bones like an over-ripe peach. Aya's hurt indigo gaze turned downwards as Youji jerked away from his touch.
"I'd leave right now if you wanted, but I think I'm sort of stuck right now." Aya gave the candle on the floor a tight, rueful almost-smile, pallid cheeks glowing with embarrassment in the flame's luminosity.
"No, even if you could I wouldn't ask you to." Youji rested his burning forehead against the cool side of the tub, craving the cool straightforward existence of inanimate matter. Sure, being shot was painful, being burnt and tortured and abused in any number of ways: also not fun, but feeling queasy was so fucking unendurable, sandpaper on that restless connection in your spine, your nerve endings and tolerance.
"Where have you been?" Switching roles. "You were gone all day." Aya realized he was repeating himself. It didn't matter anyway. Words held no value. Slowly, so Youji had time to shift back and save them both from more hurt feelings, Aya reached forward, carefully lifting a strand of rust tinted hair away from Youji's forehead. "You trying to one up Omi in some sort of unofficial Head Bleeding Contest?"
"When you talked to One-Eye, he sent you to two people, that bitch staying in our house now, Fate, and a man called Cobarde. I don't know if you went to see him or not, but he's now very dead. He has a hidden room under his house full of files on all the people he's dealt with." Slow halting words, forced out against the taste of the bitter saliva flooding his mouth again. Still was the best, no sound and the sickness stepped it down a notch or two.
"That's where you went? What were you looking for? Assuming I'd already passed through before OR after his death, what was it you thought you could find that I hadn't already?"
Youji swallowed again, the lump in his throat one of disappointment. All of that for nothing. Aya already knew about the room, had probably 'persuaded' the man take him down, and seen all that Youji had. So much for an affection winning surprise. And that's all it had been, some sort of eleventh-hour attempt to win Aya's praise, his gratitude. Stupid, very stupid.
"If I help you get up again, will you please go away?" Desperate to be alone now with the crushing misery.
"No." Aya crossed his arms. "You're upset now because it wasn't Omi you were trying to one up, it was me. That's not what this is all about. I want my sister back; I appreciate anything you do to help, but don't do stupid shit and get your head knocked in because you're trying to impress someone, especially me. I'm not worth impressing. I crawl around in sewers on the advice of little hyperactive women who call themselves "The Striking Cobra" when they appear to be all but harmless. What's admirable about that?" He slapped a palm down onto the floor.
"You obviously didn't see her arsenal if you're still calling her harmless." Youji changed the subject.
"You want to hear something I'll kill you if you ever tell anyone I admitted? If you hadn't shown up I'd most likely be very dead right now, drowned in a lake of muck in the sewers. If there's a score being kept right now, you're already in the lead."
A gap in dialogue as Youji kept silent, more deep breathes. Fuck, but it was cold out here in the real world. He wanted nothing more than to be in bed right now, something cool and nice against his head, something warm and breathing by his side to soothe the rest of his overworked body.
"You feeling any better? Do I need to get Omi?"
"Tell you what, I'll help you up if you'll help me up."
"I help you both up if you clear off and let me use this bathroom." Fate glibly interpolated from out of the blue.
"How long have you been here?" Youji pressed a hand over his eyes, thoroughly fed up and unable to do anything about it.
Fate shrugged. "A while." She crossed the last of the gap and extended a hand for Aya. "You first, stupid man. Sit on floor with bad leg. Why you not stay in bed like intelligent invalid? Hmm? Because you are idiot? No need to answer so quickly, stupidhead." She caught the underside of one elbow, pulling him up with one arm, the other gripping Aya's other arm, letting him do some of the work. She staggered off with him, leaving Youji with the candle and his confused emotions. Stupid woman...
"You go to see Cobarde?" Fate returned. "You see what they do to him? In all places I see that carnage, what they do to those who know what they should not. You are all best to leave the dealings to me. I get red head's sister back, trounce Ko-Ishi. No problem for you, you just stay and act as distraction." Fate nodded.
"Why did they do that to his body?" Gorge rising to his throat as more mental reminders paint out the kitchen scene behind his eyelids again.
Fate shrugged. "Eccentric cult thing they think is much funny. You not worry. Only for traitors, every other person be bludgeoned to death, be less of a mess." Fate upped the wattage, trying to blind him with one of her truly frightening grins/grimaces.
"Why does your ability to speak grammatically correct sentences in Japanese degenerate every time I talk to you?"
"You just rubbing off on me I guess. I go away soon, get more smart for my head." She smiled at him. "You hit your head, feel sick? How many fingers do I hold up?" She laughed. "What happen to your head, you remembering?"
"Fell down a flight of stairs."
"Very stupid." Came the benediction. "You feel confusing? You tired or dizzy?"
"Nope, just sick."
"You be okay dokay in a short time. Just need rest and heal. Come, stupid red head will be getting lonely, you can argue in bedroom so I can use bathroom." Fate shook a warning finger. "You make vomit on this shirt it is your problem, I take it from your closet. Says 'dry clean only' on tag. You vomit, you pay for cleaning."
"Well, just so long as we're clear on that point..." Deadpan.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
-goes away to eat shiny tinfoil after she cooks chicken nuggets on it- Give me feedback, tell me I should actually keep working on this project instead of sleeping at night or watching Conan O' Brian. Darkhunter@ijustdontcare.com or akainobaka@mchsi.com You know the drill. No feedback, no updates. NYAH!