Thank you so much for all the wonderful reviews! For some reason this story is hard for me to write. Insperation just doesn't slap me in the face with this fic. But I finally got my butt in gear and wrote chapter 2!
No, there is no fluff/shounen-ai/yaoi in this chapter, but be patient, it's coming very soon. I promise.
Also, I'm sort of screwing around with the timeline, as you'll soon find out near the end of the fic.
It's shorter than the last chapter, but enjoy!
Chapter Two
"Ahou, I don't think we're in Tokyo anymore."
No shit, Sherlock. Sanosuke once again got up off the ground and he and Saitou were quickly surrounded by the overly cheery villagers.
"Are you boys lost?" Asked an elderly woman, her eyes filled with sympathy. She looked over at Saitou, who was soaked to the bone from rain, his hair a sloppy mess that made him look more like a hobo that lived under a city bridge than a police officer. The old lady shook her head.
"Do you need a nice place to stay? I wouldn't mind taking you in...eheheheh….of course; it won't be for freeee…" The old woman's eyes leered at Saitou and what little rain soaked clothes he had on. He quickly got the hint that he'd be doing something other than regular house hold chores as payment. Making sure Sanosuke wasn't watching, he slowly backed away from the hag and went through the crowd back over to the rooster head, who was getting few questions of his own.
"Wow, mister you're a mess!"
"Are you some kina' street performer?"
"You're not the sharpest tool in the shed, huh?"
Sanosuke scratched the back of his head and removed a few twigs sticking out of his hair along with a small woodland creature that ran for its life back into the dead forest, "Of course I'm a mess! I've been stuck with HIM—" Sanosuke jabbed a thumb a Saitou, who looked at the appendage as if he were about to bite it off and eat it. "—for the past twelve hours! And NO, I AIN'T NO STREET MONKEY!" Saitou snickered at Sanosukes' use of the 'M' word. He had to disagree; this was turning out to be quite entertaining. Before Sanosuke could address the comment about his 'sharpness' a woman in the crowd screamed and a dark clothed man ran apart form the group.
"That man, that man just stole my money!" The woman yelled pointing at the thief. Everyone turned and looked at her. And, well, just stared. "DO SOMETHING SOMEBODY!" The women pleaded.
Saitou looked back at the retreating figure and was just about to deem the sad soul unworthy of his time when the wind picked up and his nose caught the scent of sweet, lovely, cancer giving nicotine. He did a double take, and his eyes almost burst from their tiny little sockets. (twitch, twitch, twitch…) In that creeps mouth was a real live burning cigarette!
It had been 12 hrs, 6 minutes, and 22 seconds since he'd seen one, let alone smoked one. (twitch…) he continued to stare at it hypnotically until the jerk spit it out on the ground and quickly stepped on it to put it out.
(TWITCH…..POP!) (A/N: Sound of popping veins in Saitous' eyebrow….)
"SOMEONE--!"
The ex-captain of the 3rd unit of the Shinshengumi practically flew past the crowd and after the robber as if he'd accidentally set his ass on fire while trying to put out (or light, it's your call) a cig.
Sanosuke went after the thief as well, but his idea was this:
Help girl get back money from thief plus a very happy and grateful (not mention hopefully loaded with cash) girl equals free food and a place to stay for Sano.
Saitou and Sanosuke had the theif pinned down within seconds and the crowd moved from point A to point B simultaneously to get a better look at the event that was taking place.
Sanosuke had to admit, the punk put up a pretty good fight, but he should've known not to mess with a psycho police officer that hadn't had a cig for nearly two days. Saitou did most of the ass kicking, especially when he found out that there wasn't anymore cigarettes left on him, and when he was through with him the guys face was barely recognizable with his broken nose and how purple his face was getting from fresh bruises.
The owner of the small satchel took the bag from the bloody man's hands and gave the disfigured thief a swift kick where his legs met with his body and the man passed out before he even hit the ground. Satisfied with the ten cents she threw in, she took off as quickly as she came. With out as so much as a thank you.
That ungrateful little…Sanosuke snapped out of his thoughts to see a huge crowd of people staring at him and the nicotine deprived cop with aw-struck faces. Even some of the peoples jaws were hanging open, their eyes full of excitement.
There was a long awkward pause as the two men stared back at the crowd. The two men glanced at each other, and then back at the mob of people in front of them.
"Ummmm…." Sanosuke took a step back, and crowd took a step forward. "Oooookaaay…"
Then a voice arose from the crowd. "Hey now, make room! Out of the way, let an old man through!" The people obeyed and parted for the man demanding passage. Despite his comment about him being old, he was even taller than Saitou; with long dark hair tied neatly back with a few silver hairs here and there. His eyes were a calm dark cerulean, and the long scar that started from above his left eyebrow and winded down to his collar bone told others that he'd been through more than anyone realized.
"I thank you for helping my daughter. You will have to forgive her, for she is quiet shy." He said, motioning to the girl behind him. The smaller person hid away from the other two behind her father and his extravagant kimono. This family must be fucking loaded. Sanosuke thought.
"As you can see, not much of, well, anything goes on in this small little town. My name is Nakashima Masahiro, the leader of this humble little village. Please, allow me to express my gratitude by allowing you to stay at the inn my wife runs." Sano gave the man a doubtful look. "It would be for free, of course."
Sanosuke grinned. Score! "My wife, Michiyo, will lead you there while I take care of this…problem." The older man said; glaring at the still unconscious lump of meat that was once considered an upright citizen. "Michiyo, if you can be so kind…"
"Ehehehehe…." Saitou snapped back to reality at the sound of the all too familiar and quite annoying laugh (He'd been studying the burnt remains of the cigarette that was lying on the earth, and missed out on the entire conversation typed above). An old woman stepped up to them, her eyes leering at the two. She looked over at Saitou and saw that her eyes were screaming in triumph. "You poor boys look exhausted! Follow me….Ehehehee…follow meee…."
Needless to say, Saitou did his best to keep his distance as far a humanly possible, while Sanosuke walked ahead of both of them, ogling the street vendors that were selling strange exotic fruits and the ramen shops scattered about. Sanosuke was completely oblivious to the earlier encounter that had transpired between the older man and even older woman, and therefore was oblivious to the fact that the old lady was short. Very short. Oblivious because he was too hungry to notice, or just plain stupid. Saitou opted for the latter. She didn't even go past Sano's waist. It didn't take long for the cop to figure out just why she let the rooster lead the way, when he most certainly didn't know the way.
But Saitou didn't have the time or brain capacity at the moment to be pissed off and disgusted that the old hag had a perfect, front row seat view of Sanosuke's ass. (Better watch were you're going old woman, you might trip and break something…hopefully) He needed N-I-C-O-T-N-E! And a bath, yeah one of those sounded good at the moment too. Wait a second. Saitou stopped in the middle of the street to gather what little though was left in his brain. After a moment of internal debate…Shit, now I KNOW I need to find a cigarette!….He kept walking, ignoring the strange looks he was getting, and the even scarier lookers some of the women were shooting at him.
When they finally stopped at the front doors of what almost seemed to be a palace more than an inn, Saitou finally allowed himself to look up from the ground. It had been so interesting, Saitou almost didn't want to rip his eyes away from it. (Yeah right.)
"Wow…." Was all that Sanosuke could say as he looked over the huge inn with a child like glee in his eyes. The Aoi-Ya was a Barbie doll house compared to the size of the Western styled inn. Saitou had to admit, it was quite impressive for such a small town.
"Boys, welcome to the Nakashima Inn. Ehehehehehee…Or, more like welcome to paradise, if I do say so myself." She said proudly, and the three stepped inside.
"Ahh….I'm in heaven." Sanosuke declared lazily as he soaked himself in the bath. He silently thanked the gods that the inn, although intent to be western style, had a section for private traditional style bathing rooms such as the one he was currently in. The fighter had taken one look at the bathroom in the room he was staying in and didn't trust that white bowl of death called a toilet one bit. He didn't even want to step into the shower. The silver shower head had leered at him as if ready to explode with water and flood the room at any moment. What the hell were the Americans thinking?
Deciding not to dwinldle on it any longer, he shrugged off all thought and let the steaming hot water he was in melt the mud and grime from the past hours away. He almost fell asleep until he heard the shouting voice of a young girl. He opened his eyes and saw her shadow dance across the thin paper of the sliding door, pacing back and forth in worry like fashion. At least from what he could tell she seemed worried.
"Momo…Momo! Where are you!" The voice whined. "Come back! Now that we've found a place to stay Mugen won't try to eat you anymore…" The voice continued to drone on and on and slowly faded away toward the exit of the baths.
Saitou sat in the middle of the reasonably sized room silently studying everything his eyes lied upon. The second he stepped inside this room, a strange feeling had been sitting in the pit of his stomach. He didn't mind that the place was western style; in fact he was sitting in one of the chairs right now. Although it looked elegant, he could tell it was probably bought out of a thrift shop and made by a second rate craftsman. Saitou chipped away at the paint at the arm rest. To anyone that didn't know him, he looked as calm, cool, and badass as ever.
"..."
The point of all that distracting elaboration above was to try and forget about the fact that there was only one bed in the room that he was being forced to share with the rooster head. ("Ehehehee…Sorry boys, but I'm afraid you'll have to share a room, seeing as we're booked solid for the next couple weeks. EHEHEHEHEHEE!")
Saitou would've twitched if his eyebrow wasn't already pounding from the headache he was developing between his eyes. He'd used the shower instead of the bath, and now wondered why water had to shoot out at 90 mph just to get oneself clean.
There was a soft knock on the door and a voice, "Rooooom service….eheheee…." The dark haired man rolled his eyes got out of the chair to answer the door. He hoped, for her sake, that the hag was bringing some food. He slowly opened door and saw the old woman with a tray full of all sort of foods.
"Nakashima-san…" Saitou started, eyeing the food like a starving animal. "About the room arrangement…"
"Alright, food!" Saitou was cut short by certain annoying rooster head standing in the doorway. His hair was still damp and he had on a black yukata just like the other taller man was wearing. The moment Saitou had laid eyes on him he'd lost all train of thought and old woman Nakashima (A/N: I'm going to call her that from now on…guess there really was no point in giving her a first name.) had scurried out of the room and left the food on the small table nearby.
Sanosuke jumped at the food and happily started shoving it down his throat. Saitou just slammed the door and flopped lifelessly onto the huge bed trying to shut out the rest of the world.
"Heeeey….Look what I fooound…." He ignored Sanosukes' pathetic attempt to get his attention and imagined himself anywhere but here.
That is, until he felt something like a small box tap the side of his face repeatedly. He swatted the hand and object away and turned to face Sanosuke. One hand was holding a bowl of rice and the other was behind his back. The brunette was grinning madly, with a few pieces of the white rice sticking to the side of his face. The older man just raised and eyebrow, "What is it, ahou?"
Sanosuke just continued to gin stupidly and swayed back and forth on his heels. "Oh nothing….But your gonna love me as much as you hate me in a few seconds…" He said playfully, sounding like a little kid that had found out a huge secret that he wasn't supposed to tell, but of course was going to tell anyway.
"Ahou! Spit it out!"
In a flash Sanosuke jutted out his other hand and showed him his treasure. A pack of cigarettes. Saitou's eyes widened and he quickly reached out and tried to grab the item, but missed by only a second. The younger man cackled semi-evilly and placed the rice bowl on the table. The older got up and quickly pinned Sanosuke against the wall, but all Saitou got in reply to his silent demand was a cheesy smile and wave of both of Sanosukes' hands.
"Where are they?" He said in a chillingly calm voice. The younger man was unaffected, though, and ducked under Saitous' arm that was leaning against the wall and began to walk around all superior like. "Who knows…Who knows…" He said. Sanosuke walked up to Saitou, got right in his face and with a wave of his hands the package of cigarettes had appeared in his hands. Sanosuke had learned all sorts of tricks while living on the street and he was thankful that they were finally starting to pay off.
Saitou continued to stare hatefully at him. He couldn't use force (for fear of being kicked out on his ass and having to hear the rooster whining about it for god knows how long) and even if he did Sano would have used whatever strange tactics to make the pack of cigs disappear again. Then idea popped into his head, but the plan seemed more insane then any other idea he'd ever come up with in his life. He looked at the western clock on the night stand and calculated how long it had been since he'd woken up in the forest and had landed here, then calculated how long it would possibly take to get the cigarettes. Five minutes, that's all he needed he was certain.
Muahahaha. Let's see how long it takes for you crack, Saitou.
Lose your rep. for a small pack of cigs? He looked back at the rooster head, who had a look of painfully stupid overconfidence plastered on his face.
It was worth a try.
What's Saitou's plan? You'll just have to review and find out:)
