A&L v 2.0 Ch 6: Behold the Out of Character-ness!

There are some medium-sized changes to this chapter. It's one of those where I'm like… I MUST HAVE BEEN TEMPORARILY INSANE WHEN I WROTE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (death by multiple punctuation, I know.) But I couldn't figure out a way to revise some of it without trashing/rewriting an entire paragraph or so. And I'm lazy. Anyways, you didn't come to hear me talk:

……………………………………………..

Robin and Amon (minus the Bad Black Coat) were back at Robin's apartment. Amon had once again started the drier by himself and attempted the washer.

"Robin, just how much coffee have you had to drink?"

Robin counted on her fingers. "Twelve cups, I believe."

"Don't you think you've had enough?"

Robin stared at him, but then remembered that Amon Was Foreign And Therefore Strange and shrugged, then muttered under her breath. "I need at least twice that much just to deal with you every day."

"What?" (said in a tone given to convey great emotion without actually sounding like emotion)

"Oh… Did I say that out loud?"

Amon sent her a Glare Calculated to Make Young Beautiful Fire-craft Users Beg For Mercy.

Robin countered it with a Glare Calculated To Make All Hot Dark Brooding Guys Stop Giving Dark Glares. It worked, apparently, because he stopped.

And the communicator rang.

Amon immediately stiffened and made the 'zip your lips and throw away the key' signal, causing Robin to come as close as she ever did to laughing hysterically, which was a sort of 'humph!' Amon shot her a Glare Calculated to Inform Young Beautiful Fire-craft Users That They Had Better Shut Up If They Didn't Want Their Hair Messed Up, which really wasn't much of a threat, now, was it? But it did the trick, apparently.

"Amon," Amon said into the communicator.

"It's Zaizen. Where the hell are you? Doujima and Sakaki got back an hour ago! And where's Robin?"

"We have An Assignment. We are Busy."

"I'm the one who gives the assignments around here. That excuse won't work. It's one of two things: Either Robin is your –coughcough—girlfriend, or you are over at Robin's apartment, which is also my daughter's apartment, WHOSE HEART YOU BROKE…"

Gulp!

"…getting your laundry done, Mr. Self-sufficient! I'm on to you! How much do you have? The whole lot again?"

Amon paused for a moment. "Yes."

"I'll give you today off. But tomorrow you had better be back… or ELSE!"

"What would that be?"

"You know, ELSE!"

Amon quickly hung up. It seemed the nutty Zaizen had had a one too many b-and-s. (Actually, he was feeling somewhat wild today, thus breaking with tradition and having whiskey-and-soda. But our heroes were not aware of this.)

"Zaizen?" Robin sighed.

"Yes."

"Brandy and soda?"

"Yes."

"Touko?"

"Yes."

"That's what I thought. What did he think?"

"Things."

"Things?"

"Yes, Things." Amon directed a Glare Calculated To Completely Cut Off Any Sentence One Was Saying in her direction.

Robin was getting very experienced at Counter Glares. Amon nearly wilted, but of course he wouldn't, because Amon does not wilt. However, he appeared to be vaguely crumpled or perhaps creased, but responded with a Counter Counter Glare.

And Robin responded with a Counter Counter Counter Glare.

And Amon responded with a Counter Counter Counter Counter Glare, and…. well you get the idea.

One imagines they would have gone on like this for several hours if both the washer and the drier hadn't gone off at the same time, making Robin jump slightly and Amon suddenly yell, or rather mutter loudly, "We can't afford ANY MORE MISTAKES!"

This made Robin say 'humph' again… and…and…

Oh God, Ais is frightened again…and…

AMON LAUGHED!

"Hurphle," said Amon, the left corner of his mouth giving a tiny, vague twitch.

Robin was startled enough to let her mouth drop open several feet. "Did you just laugh?"

"… No. I Did Not Laugh."

"Ah, yes. I am sure you did not. I'll go get more coffee. You bring the next load into the laundry room."

"I'll make the coffee this time." (The laundry of DOOOM appeared to be wearing on Amon.)

"Well… I suppose. The coffee is in the grinder and the coffee water boiler is on the stove and the filtered water's in the refrigerator, and the coffee press is on the table, and the…"

"I'll find it."

"…and the coffee spoon… If you're sure!"

"I'm very sure."

Amon was trying to figure out how to work the coffee press, as he had a normal coffee maker at home, when he heard Robin give a small shriek. He immediately thought of Death, Doom, and Destruction and pulled out the orbo gun. Sadly this didn't have quite the effect without the Bad Black Coat, but at the moment he didn't notice.

"What's happened, Robin?"

Robin was staring in shock at something on the floor.

"YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT ISN'T BLACK!" She held up a shirt with a sort of medium-grayish hue.

"Actually, I had spilled ketchup all over it…"

"What were you doing with ketchup?"

He gave her a Look Calculated To Make The Strongest Hearts Faint and she, of course, countered it.

"As I was saying, I spilled ketchup all over it, and I'd heard somewhere that bleach takes out stains, so I poured a bottle of bleach…"

"A bottle? Amon, black doesn't show stains!"

"I know that now. That shirt is old. I was sixteen. It was before Touko. So I poured a bottle of bleach into the… load of clothes, and they all turned gray."

Robin sank down in the middle of the pile of almost-all-black dirty clothes, bent double.

"Robin?" he asked, and her shoulders began to shake.

"Amon!" she gasped out. She did appear to be crying.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! I'm laughing! Laughing so hard I'm crying!"

"Is that possible?"

"No wonder Touko liked you so much!"

"What?"

"You can't do a darn thing for yourself, but…" she burst into another round of laughter. ('Hurphle, hurphle, hurphle…' is perhaps something akin to the sound, although it doesn't seem quite right.)

"Wait!" he mutteringly exclaimed, and was Amon again. "Touko! Time! Laundry! Can't waste!"

To his great annoyance, Robin laughed again.

"Call me when you've calmed down."

"Amon… You are nuts… I mean dreadfully amusing!"

"It takes one to know one," he muttered. But when he was back on the couch with a fresh cup of coffee, his thoughts had a disturbing tendency to drift away from the strong high-proof drink he was going to get sometime in the near future from Harry's. And the Disturbing Thing they tended to drift to was a Certain Dreadfully Underage Slightly Blonde-ish Green Eyed Craft User who was putting Tide with Bleach Alternative in the washer, and laughing to herself all the while. (It was strangely disturbing to one and all. In fact, astronomers had noticed unusual planet alignment, sunspots, and unusual inactivity on Mar's Red Spot on that day. It also seems that something completely unknown caused the Mississippi to flow backwards for a week as well as an extreme disturbance in the tides.)

"Must you do that?" he called. (Muttered/called?)

She came into the living room, attempting to compose herself, and sat down demurely on the absolute opposite end of the couch. "I suppose not, Amon."

"When will my coat be done?"

"We said we'd pay extra for rush. Next morning, I should think."

"But we have no time!"

"Amon, why do you do that?"

"What?"

"Obsess about time."

He opened his mouth to speak, but quickly closed it. Then he opened it again, and closed it again. Amon… was at a loss for words! Why did he? He'd never thought about it before! "Well… Because we Can't Afford To Make Any More Mistakes."

And Robin, who appeared to be having the time of her life after the sixteenth cup of coffee, laughed her head off again, in a strange Robinesque way (it probably was not heard more than two feet away, but the aftershock was felt in Australia.) Amon obviously didn't want to laugh again, his Badass Person having been somewhat disturbed in the past twenty-four hours, and so ended up saying something unintelligible, between a cough and a snork.

"We have two more hours. Do you think we can get this done in that time?" Amon asked Robin once she had composed herself.

"Well, no, but we can try. I wouldn't want to run into Touko if I was you, either."

Amon, trying to cling to the last of his Dignity and the remains of his Badassness, attempted to look aloof and uncaring. It, of course, failed. He did not want to run into Touko, and it was surprisingly obvious.

Bah. Touko. Love triangle. See, here he was, sitting in the same room in the same house with Robin, and not feeling anything more for her… than… simple… partnership? Aw, shit.

"Amon!" cried Robin. "What are you doing? Stop hitting yourself over the head with that coffee mug!"

Suddenly Amon turned, crossed his arms, and looked up at the Great Mother Goddess of Almost All Things In This Fanfic, the immortal Ais.

"Mumble!" he said darkly. "My dignity! How do you know what I was thinking?

And the Great Ais answered: "Because I'm The Great Mother Goddess of Almost All."

But Amon was not to be daunted. "I really don't care. First the laundry, then my Badass Hair, and now this!"

The Great Ais wasn't daunted by the undaunted Amon either. "We all know what you're thinking about anyways. So hah."

Amon began to protest. "You're breaking all the fic rules! I am so out of character I don't even know myself! And you keep inserting yourself into the story line!"

"Humph," said the Great Ais, highly insulted. "'Suddenly Amon doubled over with indigestion, crying out.'"

And Amon bent double with indigestion, and cried out to the Great Ais: "OK, OK, I'll stop!"

And thus Ais rested her case.

…………………………………………

You know, I can safely say that this chapter is among the stupidest things I've ever written. Among.

BTW, I have my bio up. You can blackmail me now! Take a look!

…………………………………………

AnimeReviewer790: I take it your birthday wasn't very good? Well, thanks for the well-wishing-ness. Here's an icepack.

CrazyTomboy: --Ais's window screens are relieved—You know, I have NO CLUE where Hyde is. I'm inclined to believe it's the black hole known as High School Band.

Kanno: Well, I try to get one a day up, because I'm back to work on Monday. BLAGH. Thank you very much!

Sakura Rain: Behold the GOPWA! Glad you liked your chapter! I seem to be doing a brisk trade in icepacks today. And using excessive punctuation. –hands GOPWA an icepack—

St Earns: The hair gel is blessed among the nations. You know, Claus is easily distracted by anything that makes any sort of movement/noise or is shiny. Mirielle is easily distracted by whatever interesting things her brother is doing. Union violinists? I was wondering what they meant about 'demands…'

Fiery Demon Fox: Oh, the hair gel. I simply love the hair gel. I'm glad you laughed! Thanks!

……………………………………….

Well, that's about it. Hyde is currently MIA, so that appears to be what the non-updating-ness is about. (You know how people verb nouns, like 'scrapbooking?' Well, I adverb/adjective nouns. :P)

All reviews appreciated. My Shameless Plug of the Day.

Thanks!

---------------Ais