WEdnesday again! And like I said last week I have to work today.
I'm still waiting for my manager to fall off that rock she crawled out from under, but as much as I make her out to be a troll it isn't likely to happen any time soon. She has this horrible tendency to schedule me opening the day after closing, like I said, but she's proven to be way worse than that. I wound up working six days straight last week and in that time I stayed late once because she didn't schedule enough people and on the last day, when I was the most exhausted, I wound up opening (after closing for the second time in those six days) all by myself in my almost half of the store. The other store managers were horrified because the clothing lines are getting a ton of freight right now because of Back-to-school. DId I mention I hate my manager?
And as if that wasn't bad enough I was so tired I lost my pay check, the day I got it. I really need that money too. My life sucks.
On the plus side I actually saw someone I know at work, whom I haven't seen in over six months. She told me to go apply at Marshall fields for a management position because apparently they're hiring. I think I'll do that tomorrow. Anything to get away from this wal-mart job. I have never hated a place of employment like this before.
On a different note, I've been so tired I haven't gotten much written, even though I've had the ideas for it. Don't you just hate that? In any case, enjoy this chapter as lots of fun stuff happens in it.
The Rock and the Hard Place
Certain things in life just can't be explained. Things like why it's only the left sock that goes missing in the dryer, and why government officials can get away with acting so petty and immature. Freedom Fries anyone?
And then there are the smaller mysteries that only required you approach them correctly to figure them out. For example, why did Aki's possible death always seem to pull out at the very last moment even though she herself is unable to do anything about the situation when it arises?
Take this latest instance into consideration. Naraku's detachment had been very intent on killing or at least hurting Aki badly. No one was going to be able to stop him, and yet Aki was still unharmed, the detachment was gone and no one could figure out why. And Inuyasha was never one to let his confusion to go quietly by unresolved, especially not when he was surrounded by a bunch of other people equally as confused.
"What happened just now?" he panted after returning from chasing off the threat. He lost the waterlogged detachment on the edge of town and was a little peeved about it and the unexplained events that lead up to that point. "One minute Mr. Invisible is about to take out Aki and the next he goes flying out of the circle for no reason."
"It would appear that some force or other knocked Aki's attacker back," Miroku thought out loud. "As to the source of the force, I can only guess."
Aki sighed and shook some wet hair out of her face. "Does it really matter? All we need to know is that it happened at all."
"It would be good to know so it can be duplicated in future when we come up against this threat again. Especially since your barrier, which blocks both the living and the dead from crossing, did not keep him out," Tama declared.
"That detachment exists on a different plane that only barely touches on this one," Aki explained. "He can slip into the intermediate plane of dreams very easily and in rare cases he can inflict damage to people here, but only if he has previously invaded their dreams and hurt them there. The more often he does the more damage he can do," she sighed tiredly. "It works both ways though."
"He must have attacked Aki-sama often to be able for you both to hurt each other so," Sango observed.
"Every time I fell asleep for two and half weeks certainly seemed often enough for me," Aki muttered.
"That's all the time you spent away from Sesshoumaru," Miroku pondered aloud. Aki just shrugged. She'd already come to the conclusion that the detachment either couldn't or wouldn't approach her dreams when she was with the taiyoukai. "Then my guess isn't as farfetched as I thought and it really was Sesshoumaru who blocked the detachment."
"I still don't get how that would work where Aki's barrier didn't," Kagome wondered aloud.
"I didn't say I understood how it work, I just guessed who pulled it off," Miroku shrugged.
"Aki, you don't look too surprised by any of this," Fred observed.
"I figured it out two weeks ago," Aki answered with a shrug.
"What?" Inuyasha demanded. "You knew all you had to do to get away from that detachment was to go back to Sesshoumaru two weeks ago and you still kept going the other way? What is wrong with you?"
"Inuyasha," Kagome attempted to cut in, but the hanyou steamrolled over the attempt.
"Mates are supposed to be together and you ran off! Then, when you found out that just being away from him you put yourself in serious danger from one of Naraku's detachments you kept running!" The dog boy couldn't believe this. "Do you like pain or something?"
"Yes I like pain!" Aki yelled sarcastically. "I love it! I love to experience pain when the alternative is the death of everyone I see around me! I will not be the cause of anyone's death ever again!" Her chest heaved with emotion as she stood glaring at the stupid hanyou. "If it comes down between me and someone else, I choose SOMEONE ELSE!"
Inuyasha stared at her in shock as his friends around her gasped in surprise. Aki was clearly very annoyed. It wasn't like she hadn't been continuously telling them she wouldn't travel with anybody else. It wasn't like they couldn't have figured it out after all the times they'd been informed of Aki's curse and in several cases her promises because of them.
"So you choose death at the hands of Naraku's spawn in stead of a comfortable life with your mate?" Tama demanded angrily.
"He wouldn't have killed me," Aki snorted.
"What?" Kagome blinked. It had looked to her like the watery outline was intent on killing Aki.
"He doesn't want to kill me. Naraku had stipulated that I had to live through whatever was done to me," Aki informed them.
"Then why were you so terrified?" Inuyasha demanded.
"There are worse things than death, Inuyasha," Fred explained. "Any woman that ever lived could tell you that. Some men for that matter."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Inuyasha demanded.
"He means rape, Inuyasha," Aki informed him gently. "And that particular detachment has never been shy of telling me what he'd like to do to me. It starts with rape and quickly evolves into slow violent torture with sex as the after thought." She sat back down and leaned against the wall of her prison to let the rain fall on her face. "And it appears that Naraku is starting to lean the same way," she added remembering the flash of lust on his features when they were fighting. "Before Naraku just wanted to absorb me like any other powerful demon he came across. Now…" she trailed off and shuddered, both in cold and in horror.
"Well, that's what you get for parading around and being all awesome," Fred declared.
"I can't help it," Aki scoffed. "It's just so easy for a woman to be awe inspiring in this day and age. Any woman that does more than make babies and work in the fields is not normal. And just the fact that I'm part youkai leaves me open for all forms of depravity."
"I still think you should take Hanako up on her offer," Fred grinned mischievously. "Then you'd just disgust people and all fantasies concerning you would not be shared for the shame they engender."
Sesshoumaru growled at the mention of the annoying rabbit. Aki would not be taking up with her if he had anything to say about it.
"You just want to watch the girl on girl action," Aki snorted. "I'm afraid you are of the mistaken impression that if I ever did take up with a woman I would let you watch. Well it isn't happening. I'm no exhibitionist you jackass!"
"She will not be taking up with the rabbit in any case," Sesshoumaru declared firmly.
"Quite right," Aki answered in quiet anger. He had no right to tell the world what she would be doing or not. "So Sango, how do you feel about same sex pairings?"
Fred laughed as the demon slayer started in surprise. The poor woman barely even managed to gasp out half a word before the youkai lord was at her throat holding her off the ground.
"Put her down!" Aki roared angrily. She dropped to the ground sifting through the dirt with her fingers. She continued to growl under her breath as a decent rock proved illusive.
"Aki! What are you doing?" Kagome wailed, mostly concerning the statement that had placed Sango in the predicament.
"I'm looking for a decent sized rock to knock some sense into the moron over there!" Aki yelled over the commotion causing all motion to stop as she kept looking regardless of what they did.
"She's talking about you stupid," Fred glared at Sesshoumaru. "She was angry with you for assuming you had the right to declare what she was and was not going to do. She isn't a piece of property you ass."
Sesshoumaru dropped the human woman as he turned angry eyes on the ghost. "She is my mate," he growled darkly.
"She is a living, breathing person," Fred corrected him. "She has a mind of her own and will decide her future for herself. We were just teasing each other as we always do. If you don't know that much about her, then you really haven't got a clue as to what she will or won't be doing so you shouldn't make statements like that."
"She is my mate," he reiterated and advanced on the ghost.
"And I am her friend," Fred replied evenly. "That's something none of the rest of you have been privileged to be called."
Aki found and threw her rock just then. It connected soundly with the side of Sesshoumaru's skull. "You are all annoying," she muttered before deciding to stockpile some more rocks for the next time she might need one.
Fred shook his head at her with amusement in the stunned silence that followed. He glanced over at Sango still massaging her throat where Sesshoumaru had assaulted her. "Aki would probably apologize if she wasn't so certain she'd have to clock the moron again. She's looking to create a stock pile to police him the next time he stupidly decides to get violent," the ghost smiled.
Sango nodded absently. She was still somewhat stuck on what he had said before about Aki not considering them her friends. She hadn't realized it before but Aki never referred to any of them as friends. They were acquaintances, someone she was slightly familiar with but not truly friends. Sango could understand Aki well; even with just the short amount of time she'd known her. The demon slayer herself hadn't really wanted to start any new relationships after losing both her family and her village like that. Aki was seemingly the same, only Aki was taking it to an extreme because of her curse.
It kind of hurt to know that Aki wouldn't let any of them in; they were all alive where Fred was dead. But Fred had died under her curse. Fred had been her friend far longer than any of them had known her. So Aki must have realized that friendship with anybody was an instant death sentence for any of them.
Sango glanced over at the noble youkai standing statuesquely in their midst. If it hurt her this much to not be considered a friend, how much must it bother him? He was Aki's mate, yet Aki wouldn't let him into her heart. He had to find that upsetting, at least a little bit. Or did he? Sesshoumaru wasn't exactly an emotional guy and some youkai mating contracts weren't about mutual affection. Perhaps he didn't care.
They watched silently as Aki went about piling her rocks. Eventually she looked up and caught the all staring at her. "What?" she asked in confusion.
"They're a little upset," Fred explained.
Aki groaned, "What'd you do?"
"I told them the truth," he answered easily.
"About what?" she demanded with a tired sigh.
"About how you feel about them," the ghost replied. "About how they are not really friends."
"Oh that," Aki chuckled. "And they were surprised? Silly geese. I said from the start I wasn't letting anybody else succumb to my curse. Did you think I would change my mind?"
"No," Miroku murmured. "We just hadn't realized how that affected us."
Aki shook her head, "Fred could have told you; I'm not related to him, not even by adoption. He was just a friend, an obnoxious, nosy friend."
"A friend that got you out of quarantine," he reminded her.
"True that," she nodded. "And my sanity thanks you for it."
"What are friends for?" the ghost laughed.
Aki smiled at him. She said something in English that none of the rest of them could understand and the ghost laughed.
Sesshoumaru did not like being on the outside of any relationship Aki had. He did not like that joke about taking up an intimate connection with someone else. What he wanted right now was to take her away from here and prove to her that she was his mate and that she shouldn't be joking about leaving him for someone else. That she shouldn't keep important things like her heart from him. But he couldn't do it with her locked in that barrier. He was growing to really hate that damn circle!
Miroku asked Aki a question and she couldn't force her brain to make heads nor tails of it. Apparently she could no longer force her brain to translate coherently any more. She glanced at Fred to tell him this.
"Damn," the ghost muttered under his breath.
"What's the problem?" Kagome asked the ghost.
"Aki's too tired to translate anymore," Fred informed her. "Which means that unless you know English better than you've been letting on, I'm the only person here who can carry out a full conversation with her. You know and I know that certain people here will demand a translation of everything she or I say thereby making it impossible for me to carry out a stimulating conversation with Aki."
Kagome glanced at Sesshoumaru, Tama and Inuyasha. Fred was right; those three would demand to know what was being said and being forced to stop after every sentence in order to translate would slow things down to the point that even the most interesting topic would be rendered boring. "Why don't you have her recite stuff, or sing?" the ninth grader suggested. "She can't fall asleep while she's talking, and she doesn't need a partner to recite things."
"It's not a bad idea," Fred shrugged. "But I wouldn't bet on Aki not falling asleep while talking. She's exhausted, speech isn't likely to keep her from passing out."
"Well then, have her act out a play or something," Kagome replied shortly. "Keep the blood moving. It's what kids do to stay awake."
Fred shook his head but made the suggestion. Aki immediately launched into the first stanza of Edgar Allen Poe's poem The Raven to spite him. She knew he hated all that morbid stuff, and Poe's work annoyed him to no end.
"You suck," he growled in Japanese, just because he knew she couldn't understand him at the moment.
"Do not disrespect the Lord of the Western Land's mate," Tama threw a barrier bubble at him. This was a new way to use her barrier making skills. She'd never thought to make hand sized barriers to throw at people until she was informed that her barriers could effect ghosts. Since she knew she would be seeing a very specific ghost rather often the old goat demon had felt the need to come up with a way to police the mouthy annoyance. For all points and purposes, it worked.
"HEy!" Fred hollered. "What'd you do that for you crazy, horned, moldy excuse for a nun reject!"
Sesshoumaru blinked at his chatelaine and allowed a small smile to hover around his mouth. It was nice to know that somebody could punish the damn ghost, especially someone that worked for him.
"Know your place you dead human," Tama threw another barrier bubble at the ghost, which Fred promptly dodged
"What were you so upset about?" Sango wanted to know.
Fred blinked at her a moment before recalling what had first been said by him. "Aki started reciting a poem from an author she knows I detest," he answered. "All of his pieces are rather morbid and depressing. Most end in death too."
"Who is the author?" Kagome asked.
"Edgar Allen Poe if you've heard of him," the ghost muttered unhappily.
Aki finally came to the end of the first poem and Fred was all set to offer thanks that it was over before she started off with yet another poem by Poe. This one was just as depressing as the last and ended not only with death, but also with sleeping in a tomb. He grumbled at her in English and she just laughed back at him saying that The Raven always led her to think about Annabel Lee, it was a natural train of thought.
He then demanded she switch authors after this. Aki stuck her tongue out at him and leapt into one of the holy poems of John Donne that she was familiar with from "The Wit".
"She is so annoying!" Fred yelled in Japanese. "I finally get her to stop reciting Poe's stuff and she launches into Death Be Not Proud. I can't win!"
"Why not just ask her for something less morbid?" Kagome suggested.
So Fred did just that and received The Jabberwocky as a reward. "Now we've gone from morbid to just plain nonsense," he grumbled.
"Stop being so damn picky!" Kagome cried. "This is just so that Aki can stay awake. It isn't about you and your stupid opinions. I don't know how Aki puts up with you!"
"Guys?" Inuyasha tried to interrupt them.
"You shut up!" Kagome snapped. "I suggest she recite things and all you do is gripe about what she manages to recall to recite. She's friggin' exhausted, we're lucky she can recite anything at all!"
"Yes, well now she's not reciting anything at all!" Inuyasha yelled over their argument. "If you two weren't so busy arguing over stupid shit you'd notice that Aki stopped talking."
"What?" Kagome gasped in horror.
Aki's head was beginning to nod forward until she jerked it back up and forced her eyes open. They watched as she forced herself to get up and move around a little.
"What is she doing?" Tama demanded of Fred.
"I think she's getting ready to start a play or something," he murmured in curiosity as Aki cleared a small area to be the stage. He was slightly worried as to just what she planned to act out. His worry was justified as a moment later she launched into the opening lines of "Romeo and Juliet".
"Is that what I think it is?" Kagome asked in awe.
"If you're thinking it is "Romeo and Juliet", you'd be right. I hate "Romeo and Juliet". Actually I'm not particularly fond of most of Shakespeare's plays, but I'd rather she act out a comedy than a tragedy," Fred grumbled. "Why couldn't she have done something like "Twelfth Night or What you Will"?"
Kagome rolled her eyes, "The only difference between a Tragedy and a Comedy in Shakespeare is whether they all die at the end or they all get married."
"So they all die in this one?" Miroku asked mildly amused.
"It's a story of Star crossed lovers. The children of two feuding families fall in love and get married in secret because of the feud," Kagome explained. "The parents of the girl decide to marry her off to a cousin without knowing she's already married. She and her priest set up a ruse where her friends and family think she is dead where instead she's just asleep and send word to the guy to come get her and that all was fine. Unfortunately the message goes astray and Romeo, the guy, kills himself right before she awakens. Juliet, the girl, wakes up only to kill herself with his dagger in sorrow."
"Then the big guy in charge calls the families together and calls them and their feud stupid in front of the whole town and the play ends," Fred finished.
"Rin thinks that is the saddest story she has ever heard," Rin's soft voice announced the arrival of all three children. Shippou leapt into Kagome's arms as Rin hugged Sesshoumaru's leg and wiped her tears from her face.
Azusa made sure to cut a wide circle around the taiyoukai as she headed for Sango's side. "What is Aki doing?" she asked the older woman.
"She's acting out the story Kagome just told. It's actually a play and Aki thought that it would help her stay awake," Sango explained. Azusa gasped as Aki played out a fight seen with a tragic death.
"She's actually very good at fake death throes," Miroku observed.
"Aki used to act in school programs and stuff," Fred informed him. "Every kid loves acting out the death scenes though. You can be as melodramatic as you want. Actually she's cutting them short so she doesn't sit still too long."
"Yes, the fight scene was rather energetic," Miroku acknowledged.
"She plays Romeo rather well," Kagome said in surprise.
"Yeah," Fred chuckled. "Aki always did have a problem playing the stupid female that can't think for herself. She always hated that the priest thought up the ruse, and that Juliet couldn't think of a way out of the situation for herself. All she had to do was get the priest to tell her parents she was married."
"Well that's the way they thought of women at the time the play was written," Kagome shrugged. "It's kind of how they're thought of now too."
"Aki hates that," Fred grinned. "She has a brain and knows how to use it. She hates being coddled and told what to do, especially when she'd already decided what to do in a situation."
"I can understand that," Kagome nodded.
Sesshoumaru greatly disliked this conversation. He disliked it almost as much as he disliked the stupid play. Or rather he hated the way Aki played the death scenes so well. He didn't need the reminder that Aki was just a breath away from yet another possible death.
Inuyasha poked the growling taiyoukai in the arm. "Calm down, stupid," the hanyou ordered. "Aki doesn't have much longer until dawn. Then you can yell at her all you want," he explained. "But don't be too hard on her, she's trying to protect you and everybody else."
Sesshoumaru glared icily at the younger male. He knew what she thought she was doing to get herself into this mess. That didn't mean he had to be lenient. Intentions didn't save lives or prevent danger.
"You stubborn block of ice!" Inuyasha snarled. "I'm saying you should wait for the major scolding and punishment until you know her a little better. Most of what you're likely to do is only likely to push her away and annoy her. Aki doesn't think like the rest of us. She doesn't care what we think or how we think she should act. She doesn't care how we feel about her actions or her intentions. You have to find something she does care about before you can know how to handle her. You have to understand how she thinks in order to curb her errant behavior effectively."
Sesshoumaru growled, "How do you expect me to do that when she will not stay put?"
"Aki is not the only source for this information, moron," Inuyasha growled back and ducked as the older inu threatened to lash out at the insult. "Fred could tell you things. Sango could tell you stuff. All of us have had varying experiences with the woman. Ask for help you stupid-" Inuyasha truly had to duck that time. "Okay that was over the line, but the fact remains, we want Aki happy and we are willing to help you in that goal. Just ask."
The hanyou walked away just as Aki was performing Romeo's death. Her skill set his teeth on edge. Especially when she got up and performed Juliet's next.
Strangely, Aki did not get back up after performing this final death. The group grew alarmed when she didn't answer Fred's calls either.
It was then that Haku approached Aki to test her barrier. He glanced up in horror when he managed to get close enough to run his ghostly fingers through her hair.
"Aki!" the dead child yelled in worry. Haku then shook his head when she didn't even stir. There was no help for it. The dead phoenix pressed his middle three fingers together and started muttering under the sound of the growing panic outside the circle. His eyes suddenly snapped open as his own little barrier of blue flame settled into place.
"That ought ta doit!" he slurred together in lethargy. "'T will last 'til dawn. Yep, it should."
The ghost priest shook his head sadly at the boy. "Yes, but what happens then? What happens when we disappear for the day?"
Haku shrugged. Hell if he knew. He just knew Aki would live to daylight. Whether the shield evaporated or imploded with the first rays of the sun was up to fate. And fate was in a rather playful mood lately.