Fluff

Disclaimer: I don't actually own Samurai Champloo or any of its affiliated characters, which belong to Manglobe/Shimoigusa Champloos. Hideo likes to dress up as Yatsuha, however. (Don't ask.)

Spoilers: You're good to go if you've seen up through ep #9. A dash of OOC, and a tablespoon of PWP; rated T for language and that wacky purple haze.

A/N: Hn. Strictly a one shot, and cracktastic to boot; a little brain candy while I'm working on Nenju. Very possibly this was better left as a no shot?

She was going to kill them.

Both.

In horrible ways.

Possibly something involving their own swords; she wasn't sure just how — sure, they'd notice if she came up and took their swords off them, but the element of surprise would probably carry her through until she could run them through messily. She'd start with that traitor Mugen, and it would come out his nose, she was going to stick that sword so far up his — wait. Would that be satisfying enough?

Hn. She discarded the idea of running him through, as over much too quickly. She was going to find a huge cauldron, fill it with boiling water, some wild garlic, and —

Had she just thought 'hn' to herself?

She was going to start with Jin.

If they ever got out of this, which was looking increasingly unlikely.

This, being this — this whatever it was, big pointy wooden thing, which was splintery and digging uncomfortably into her back and everywhere else she was lashed to it — which seemed like it was only a prelude to something else, which, from everything else she'd experienced here at the Hakone checkpoint, would be nasty and involve pain of some sort. The sort of thing, in fact, that the presence of bodyguards was meant to ensure against; she wasn't sure what these two were guarding her from, but it wasn't danger. Somehow she'd ended up with Stinky the Wonder Boy — currently not even in the same neighborhood, which was a glaring indication of what a crap bodyguard he was — and this half-assed Yoshitsune, who was at least here with her, though lashed to another big wooden thing to her right with bruises and graffiti decorating his skin. Maybe she had somehow hooked up with the only pair of bodyguards in Japan who specialized in protecting people from — what? Bunnies? Mugen could certainly protect the hell out of her when it came to the threat of rampaging yukimanju.

She sighed. Yoshitsune still wasn't talking, despite having heard the same speech from the checkpoint official she had, in which the words "death" and "execution" had featured unpleasantly; she'd stopped talking only when her throat began to ache and it had become obvious that no one was listening.

And then, as if being executed wasn't enough to ruin what had started out as a perfectly good — well, sunny, anyway — day, the day took a turn for the decidedly weird. There was a commotion at the other end of the courtyard, as tendrils of fog drifted in; it sounded like — this was very definitely some sort of stress-induced hallucination she was having. It looked as if the checkpoint officials had decided to throw an impromptu festival. From somewhere, she could hear the sound of music, and people were beginning to dance; some of them were stripping down to their undergarments, heedless of their neighbors. As she watched, two of the checkpoint officials caught each other up in a — she blushed: oh, my — lingering, open-mouthed kiss while a dog cavorted around them. Within moments, the courtyard was full of the strange, pale purple mist, and all pretense to anything other than merriment had been abandoned.

Except, of course, for those prisoners hapless enough to have been stuck on crosses before the festival.

She finally caught the attention of a man clad only in his fundoshi, who was watching the neat patterns his hand made as he waved it back and forth through the lavender mist. "Hey. Hey! Can you get us down from here? Please?" she called. He paused and considered for a moment, then to her relief, the man cut through the ropes binding her to the wooden structure with an abandoned spear. She collapsed heavily to the ground as the man wandered off to watch some interesting bullfrogs, then creaked to her feet underneath the cross where Jin was hanging.

"Jin," she called up to him. "I'm going to try to get you down from there, okay?" He nodded and she cut the bindings; he dropped to the ground only slightly more gracefully than she had, rubbing his arms where the rope had cut into the skin. He looked a little dazed, she noticed. It was understandable — she felt dazed. Whatever it was that was going on, their execution seemed to be off for the moment. Still, she wasn't about to look a gift — uh, party — in the mouth. He visibly shook off his malaise and got to business in reassuringly Jin fashion, as she watched him.

"We should get out of here," he said at last. "Stay here. I'm going to get my swords and then we're leaving." He strode off, and she took the opportunity while he was gone to rearrange her kimono so that she was dressed more or less properly. He returned after a few minutes — she saw he'd found his gi — and carrying his daisho and the rest of their things. She followed him past the checkpoint, glancing back at the scene of chaos behind them, before they headed into the forest, and where the lavender fog eddied more thickly about the trees.

They hadn't gone very far, maybe a mile from the checkpoint, before Jin called a halt at a stream. He dropped down along the water's edge, and looked up at her. "We should rest a moment," he said. She nodded, gratefully. The burst of energy she'd felt as they'd left had petered out, and a happy languor had taken its place. She let her knees buckle under her, dropping her down to the ground — well, Jin's hip, actually, and that was when she knew that something was very wrong. He made the expected grunt as her weight fell on him, which would have been normal, but then everything went a hundred and eighty degrees from normal; he giggled. And didn't move her off him, she noticed.

"Jin?" she asked, hesitantly. "Are you all right?"

He looked at her a moment, then nodded. "I — am all right," he said, very profoundly.

She looked at him a moment, then shrugged mentally. It was nice to stop for a little bit, Jin weirdness or not. "Would you like me to try and clean some of that stuff off your face?" she offered. "I can see where it is better than you." She scrambled partially upright, bending over him to peer at his face in the evening light.

Surprised, he put his hand up to his cheek. "Oh. Yes. Thank you, Fuu." She dipped the edge of her sleeve in the water, and scrubbed gently at his face. The ink came off, though unfortunately now she had a sleeve blotched with dull brown-black against the pink. She made a face as the wet ink trailed watercolors over her wrist. She'd have to rinse out her kimono somewhere later on, or she'd be stuck permanently with ink on her wrist every time her sleeve got wet, and — oh, hey. Pretty. Why hadn't she ever noticed the color of her wrist? It was like the palest of peach skin, and the ink dappled against her flesh like the tattoos on Mugen's wrists. She giggled. His were blue, though. If she'd stayed with the pervert painter, maybe she could have blue ones as well as black, or — hn.

There seemed to be a hand around her arm. Quite a strong hand, actually, pulling her down gently, though misleadingly pale and finely muscled, like that of a musician, and funny, that, the hand seemed to belong to Jin. It was Jin's hand, and he was pulling her down to — oof. He'd flipped her around so that she was nestled against him, her back pressed up to his front. It was comfortable and it was cozy and it was freaking her out a little, though she was surprised to realize how little it was freaking her out. Which freaked her out a little more. Huh. "Jin?" she asked, when he didn't let her go.

"Mm?" His murmur rumbled very pleasantly against her back.

"You're, um — ah — eeee — are you sure you're okay?" Maybe if she pretended everything was normal, it would be normal. Yes. Any minute now, he'd realize how not-Jin he was being, and leap up, restoring his dignity, and they would never speak of this again, which was sort of a shame, because this felt really nice, and —

"Mm-hmm." Perhaps this any minute would take place in the more distant future, then. Her eyes widened even further when she felt — oh.

Oh. She made a small noise.

He was taking the sticks out of her hair, letting the chestnut mass fall over her shoulders, then he was running the fingers of his free hand through the shiny, silky strands. His fingertips brushed softly against the fine hair at the nape of her neck, and she felt her brain liquefy in pleasure. Dimly, she heard him say, "Beautiful," as he rubbed her head with his fingertips. She would have smiled, but that would have required a degree of control over her muscles that just wasn't happening at the moment. Her hands relaxed from where they'd clenched his hakama, and under her palms, his thighs were warm and — oh. How about that. The hakama disguised a pair of strong, well-muscled legs, and what exactly was he doing with her hair, she wondered idly.

Not that she cared, really, she just hoped her brain wasn't leaking out of her ears as a result of those fingers, or if it was, that he hadn't noticed.

He shifted slightly against her and she made a little noise of complaint, before his arm tightened around her middle; the long muscles under her hands bunched as he moved them away from the stream, so that his back was resting against the trunk of a tree. He adjusted her so that she was cradled more securely between his outstretched legs, and continued running his fingertips through her hair, stopping every once in a while to hold a strand out in the dying sunlight and admire the coppery color against the faintly purple-tinged air.

She relaxed against him, content to breathe in his scent. She'd never been this physically close to him before, certainly not close enough to be able to smell him. He smelled good; she could pick out the wild mint he liked to nibble after he ate, but mostly the smell of cotton dried in the sun with the little salty tang of his skin. His heart thumped companionably against her shoulder as she drifted into a light doze, lulled by the stroking, which — hey, hello, fingers? Her hair was still loose against him, but his attention was elsewhere. Her face crinkled in mild dismay, as she twisted around slightly to look at him and stopped.

He was grinning; a big, dopey, dreamy grin, down at Momo, who had crept out of her kimono and onto her shoulder to see what was going on. As she watched, Jin began to gently scratch between the little squirrel's ears. She turned slightly, resting against his shoulder, and smiled. He just looked so happy. When was the last time she'd ever seen him this relaxed? Besides, um, never.

She looked at him affectionately and reached up to straighten a stray lock of his hair where it lay tangled over the shoulder of his gi; the black strands were cool and silky under her fingers. Oh. She glanced up, and saw that he was still playing with Momo, now rubbing the squirrel's fuzzy tummy. He either hadn't noticed or hadn't cared that she was playing with his hair — she grinned to herself wickedly.

The sun had come up again, by the time he woke up.

His neck protested at the strange position he'd fallen asleep in, and he was uncomfortably warm, as if he'd slept under an overly thick quilt. There was something draped over him, he realized, as sleep receded farther from him. It was warm, and pink, and — Fuu? The girl was snoring lightly, fast asleep, and lying stretched out on top of him. He shook her by the shoulder gingerly to get her off him, and — gaaaah! — realized that not only was she lying on top of him as she slept, she was so out of it that she was drooling on his chest. He shook her loose gently; she clutched his gi reflexively, then slid to the ground alongside him and whimpered in her sleep. He stood and checked himself over — ah. She had drooled directly onto the mon on his gi. Well, at least if any of the other students from the Mujuu saw him, he wouldn't have to draw his blade; they'd die laughing before he got anywhere near them.

He rubbed his eyes, which were dry and gritty, and tried to piece together what had happened. Fuu was there, but Mugen was missing. Where — ah. Yes. The checkpoint. His eyes widened. There had been that very odd purple fog, and they'd crossed the checkpoint in the confusion, and then they'd stopped here, and — remembering was overrated, anyway. His mouth felt as if someone had used it to store bales of cotton while he'd been sleeping.

He went over to the stream, which tasted clear and sweet. He drank deeply from his cupped hands until the dryness of his mouth was a little better, then splashed his face and felt more like himself. The stream looked as if it was the runoff from a recent storm, a few puddles nearby drying in the early sun.

A tiny movement drew his eyes. Fuu's pet squirrel was next to one of the puddles, stretched out in a pocket of sunlight to enjoy the warmth. Momo eeped affectionately at him.

"Hey," he said quietly, and went over to the squirrel. Momo hopped onto his outstretched hand, and climbed up to nestle in the crook of his shoulder; she was delightfully soft and warm and — ah.

Right.

As a matter of fact, remembering things was probably not even something a man who aspired to enlightenment should do, because things only led to desire, which was bad. What the f—

He stared into the calm surface of the puddle, reflecting himself standing over it, looking down with his mouth agape and — oh look, the part of his brain that hadn't been reduced to complete incoherence helpfully told him. We've never woken up with our hair braided before. Looks kind of like a girl's, doesn't it? And hey, it's sort of pretty. The flowers are a nice touch. Fuu must have — as behind him, the girl began to stir.

He made a strangled sound from somewhere deep in his throat and desperately clawed through the braids, pulling out both flowers and — ow! — hair before casting them wildly aside. Momo hissed at the disturbance and scampered off to the girl's side. By the time Fuu was sitting up and yawning, he had tied his hair back as neatly as he could under the circumstances; he hoped it looked at least halfway normal, and that possibly she had forgotten everything that happened since they'd left the checkpoint. He could always hope that she'd be kidnaped in the next few hours and sustain some sort of memory-altering head injury; not impossible, he thought, cheering slightly.

Maybe he'd sustain a head injury, if the gods were feeling especially merciful.

"Jin. What — " she yawned hugely. "What happened?" Automatically, her hands went to her hair, pulling it back into its customary loose knot and securing it.

"We seem to have fallen asleep," he said. He added mentally, And apparently I should be grateful you don't travel with makeup. "We should try to get further away from the checkpoint, before anyone remembers we cut our execution short and thinks to come looking."

"Uh." She stood and stretched, Momo evidently giving up on a stationary nap and crawling back into the space between her shoulder and the kimono. She gave the little squirrel an affectionate scratch between the ears and walked past him. "Well, let's go then."

He let go a breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding, and followed her in relief. "Ah."

It was about two hours later that they came across Mugen.

"Hey, Jin. What do you suppose happened back there, any— "

"Nothing! We should just be grateful that we were able to cross the checkpoint in the confusion."

"I can't believe that Mugen," she groused. "Not only didn't he come back by sundown, it's morning and he still hasn't shown up."

Jin remained silent. If Mugen had come back before either of them had woken this morning — perhaps his karma wasn't entirely horrible, after all.

They walked on some moments, before Fuu stopped him by grasping the back of his gi. What the — he could see through a break in the trees one of the stranger things that he'd seen (discounting the last thirty-six hours, which, as far as he was concerned, had never happened, and la la la, he couldn't hear you), ever.

Mugen was sprawled out, giggling in a field, in the middle of a group of other men; another man that he'd never seen before had his arm around the Ryukyuan, hugging him to his side, and the Ryukyuan was letting him. And was that the — the official from the checkpoint sat nearby, laughing to himself. The green sack the officials had sent with Mugen was lying in the forefront of the field, abandoned. The long grass behind them continued to smoulder dully, giving off a pale purple haze in the morning sun; there was still a party going on, complete with what he would have sworn were temple dancers and drummers.

Fuu stood, fists clenched at her sides. She was going to kill him. She was going to find a barrel, and some fireworks, and then she was going to —

Behind her, a big, dopey, dreamy grin spread over Jin's face.

-fin-