Chapter 6: Bandaging
Kaede shook wearily as she lifted her head, wiping her soaking snow-white locks with amounts of body odor smelling sweat. The house laid before her, dark red in the dying night air about her, standing high and mighty in front of the wakening dull light of early morning, welcoming her home.
She sighed warmly for a moment, taking in the cold air, ignoring her frozen fingers and numb feet, and heaved the body under her arm closer to her, unthinking about how it looked to the outside world. Her mind was groggy, and didn't really bother with the thought of being watched, only that her friend would've frozen to death if she'd left him there. Yes, he was a bastard and a prick, but she still owed him her life, even if he had to protect her against his will.
She trudged forward, feeling the wear of her muscles as they screamed in protest, but ever scream was answered to eat shit and die because they were going to do as she said. She held a strange benevolent smile on her pale and shivering face as her feet trudged forward off the side walk onto the grass toward the side of the house, around it to the right side, to the thick green vine growing along its side. Smiling she stroked it lovingly, making it shake awake and asking in its own smooth way what she wanted.
"Beam me up Scotty." She replied with that same eerie grin, remembering that her mother had said it a lot before she passed. The vine groaned and shifted in annoyance off the wall and coiled its green body around her waist and the boy's body in her embrace snuggly, then with a might heave, it lifted both of the teens off the ground and up into the sky.
In through the open window they went and where placed lightly on her feet onto the tiled floor with ease from the vine. Kaede dreamily patted it and murmured her thanks as she heaved the boy up off the floor so his feet were not on the ground and it looked like she was giving him a bear hug as she swung around and opened the locked bathroom door.
Dazed she hummed a little tune to herself and walked into her bedroom door, bumping it open with a soft squeak as she entered and squealed in return as her foot shut the door behind her. Gingerly she trudged the last few steps and dropped his motionless body on the bed with a thud and a bounce and pulled the blanks out from underneath him creakily and threw them over him. As if on cue he groaned slowly and rolled over, taking the blankets in a fist and pulling them further up as he rolled into her pillow, taking a deep breath and exhaling peacefully. Kaede snorted at him and swayed tiredly, watching the world spin a little, until she steadied herself. Tiredly she grunted at the fact that she still vaguely needed a bath before she went to bed and found herself a moment later in the bathroom turning the knob and taking off her clothes as the hiss of hot water gurgled out.
At the right water level she turned off the water and climbed into the water and submerged herself under a layer of bubble bath, up to her neck. She leaned back, content with the warmness flowing through her and didn't know she fell asleep.
"Kaede, you idiot, wake up!" A voice grumbled in her ear, making her open her exhausted eyes to a blurred Christa, sitting on the edge of the white tub, looking at her angrily and worriedly. Kaede dully blinked at her, and turned over, facing her back to her as her face pressed against the plastic lining of the tub, closing her eyes to go back to sleep. Christa kept her awake by shaking her, her hand warm on her prickled skin. Kaede groaned annoyed.
"Five more minutes." She grumbled sleepily at the continued shaking.
"No you don't. You'll drown. Get out." Kaede groaned sadly and slowly turned over and lifted herself up wearily out of the water and took the out stretched towel and rapped it around herself as she got out. Christa dried her off thoroughly, cooing over how soft her hair had got, keeping her on the borders of sleep. Kaede dressed in white cotton pants and a black t-shirt and stumbled as she followed Christa's pull on her wrists, into her room. Kaede looked at T.R under the blanket tiredly and didn't notice Christa pulling the blankets off him and pushing her onto the bed.
She didn't wonder of why her sister didn't scream in surprise, or why she wasn't shocked at all, just normal faced as she pulled the blankets over the both of them, only looking at her, and patting her head as she left her room. Kaede was aware enough that this was wrong, both to the fact that Christa didn't notice him in the bed as she was sleeping in the same bed as a boy, and sleepily got out of the bed with her remaining strength, swaying to the closet door and grabbing a spar blanket and curling it around her, as she watched the world swing and turn to darkness as she fell into her desk chair with a soft thud.
Kaede woke with a start to a thunderous bang from inside her room, making her hurtle forward too fast for her to keep herself from falling to the floor. The world only spun for a few moments when a blurred vision of T.R crept into her sight. His angry face came into focus, eyes glazed with fury, and his mouth set in a plastered snarl before he turned on heel to the mirror and glared at his reflection. Wondering what had gotten him in such a foul mood, she rose off the floor guardedly, watching his expression close for a few minutes until she got to the decision to ask him what was wrong. She collected her courage and was about to ask him what was the matter when he gritted his teeth into a painful snarl and slammed his fists down on the dresser and growled as he whipped tubes and containers off onto the floor in a violent movement of his arms.
She stood there, rigid with uncertainty at the intensity of the moment, and waited for him, now staring at the settling tubes and smashed boxes full of spilling powder, to control his ragged breathing and calm down before she opened her mouth.
"You okay?" It was obvious that he wasn't, but she wanted to get him talking. He faced her, his eyes stormy and dark but welling with on coming tears.
The only time she had ever seen a boy about to cry was when her mother died, and that had been her brother's expression at her casket, pale and stormy eyed with tears running down onto his black suit as he placed the white flowers rigidly onto her coffin. An expression screaming to be told why someone he had taken for granted could so easily step aside in his life. How completely unfair it was. Kaede remembered being taken back by his sudden stream of tears and deep emotion. He'd never let anything make him cry, for as long as she'd had known him, and that was her whole life.
And looking at T.R's tearing face shadowed Mat's young face dramatically, and she was unable to keep the door in her head closed, it evaded her strength and bursted through with extreme force, knocking the door wide open and making herself loss control at the sudden surge.
There was no control of her feet. She walked forward in quick strides toward him in the grace she always tried to hide. She also didn't understand why the voice screaming she should stop was being gagged so violently when she put her arms around his neck and hugged him, her body not listening to her shrieking mind that he didn't even have a shirt on and that this was so incredibly stupid. She felt him go rigid under her, his breath go suddenly hoarser, like he couldn't breath, which was weird, and with that she battled the annoying force back behind its door and came to her senses.
She herself went rigid, and feeling foolish, lowered her arms and looked at his confused and puzzled face, watching him as her face redden and her eyes dart to the floor. It was then that his lips twitched for a moment and he glared at her coldly as he snorted.
"Mortals." He snarled, but he didn't move from his spot.
Surprised that she wasn't hurt by his comment, she carefully bent down and picked up the small brown bottle off the floor with a few cotton swaps and carefully ushered him into the chair she had been sleeping on.
He didn't protest, but sat down in the chair and waited patiently as she soaked the swap and placed it on one of the opened wounds. He snarled at the pain, making her flinch back frightened. When he didn't make a comment she warily dabbed the liquid onto another cut and expected the snarl. He didn't do anything, just stared boredly on. So, she continued to clean the cuts on his back, ignoring the well toned muscles and the familiar male body odor. Some how completely sure this is what had set off the anger. Why else would this stuff be out in the open if he didn't take it out?
Diligent in her work, she whipped it off and applied the white cream carefully; unaware of the hair rising on the back of his neck as she did so, just that his back seemed to be full of cuts. She took the first aid stick on bandages where she could on all the small cuts, but some in some places the skin gouged and needed to be bandaged with cloth. She ended up binding his torso in the soft cloth a couple of times. Whipping the droplets of sweat from her brow she took pleasure at her detailed work as he gingerly stood up and tested them.
"Hm." Was all he said during this. She expected no thank-yous, but was surprised not to hear any insults either. Deciding not to spoil the moment, she kept this to herself, and simply walked out the room.
Book Dragon: "Please review."