The It Couple
Chapter Fifty-Three
The sound of breaking glass.
A car alarm wailing outside.
Sango's eyes fluttered open, dazed. The last blow she'd taken had been to the stomach, knocking all of the air out of her lungs and leaving her too weak to even cry out. Her dad had always been good at leaving the bruises where they wouldn't be seen.
The pocketknife was on the table, still open, still unused. Not for long, she knew.
"What the FUCK?" Her dad stepped away from her and looked furiously toward the window, then moved toward the hallway leading to the front door. "Is that your little bitch friend causing trouble?"
He passed by the table on his way out.
Don't take the knife don't take the knife don't take the knife with you.
He took it, gripping it in his right fist as he banged out of the screen door.
Sango sank to the floor in front of the chair, burying her face in her hands.
"Sango, honey," her mom immediately rushed to her, moving none too comfortably herself.
Who knew what had been happening in the house before Sango and Kagome had arrived. Sango shuddered to think of it, and she also shuddered from the physical pain. So much to shudder about.
"Come on, Mom," she whispered, "We need to get outside. Out of this house."
The tears were pouring from her mother's eyes as she nodded. "My baby girl," she whimpered, as they helped each other stand, "I let him do this to you. This is all my fault."
"Stop it," Sango growled, maybe a bit too harshly, "Don't you go doing that again. He's been drinking, and we both know no one can control him when that happens. If anything, it's my fault for not protecting you better."
Holding each other, they gently, hesitantly started to open the screen door.
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" her dad was screaming, still taking swigs of his beer, the knife hanging at his side, "Where's the cute little piece of ass that was hanging around here in the first place?"
Sango nearly fell over when she saw past him at who was standing in the middle of the street.
Houshi?
He wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to see her like this. He wasn't supposed to know she was nothing more than used goods and trailer trash.
Kagome had ratted her out.
Sango felt faint, but she decided to forget about her pounding heart and instead snuck herself and her mother a little further down the porch, away from her dad. Away from the knife.
Miroku was standing there, one hand on his hip and the other on the back of his head, looking distressed and distracted and more than a little sheepish. "I don't know who your little getaway piece of ass might be, but geez," he said in a friendly tone, "I'm so sorry about that! It's my boy, you understand. Big baseball fan. The little slugger musta hit that last one too hard. And on a car like this! It looks brand new. Gosh, dealer plates and all. I'm so very sorry. I'll pay for the damage, of course. How much does a new taillight run on one of these things?"
Houshi, what the fuck are you doing? Where's Kagome? He hadn't met her eyes once, hadn't even looked at her.
Miroku looked Sango's dad over once, clearly taking in the pocketknife, and his eyes narrowed for just a moment before he pulled out his wallet and pointedly started counting out hundreds. Sango's dad just took another gulp of beer, but she saw his grip on the knife relax slightly.
At the sight of the money, her dad stumbled down the porch steps. "You owe me ten grand for that."
"Ten grand! Wow-ee! You must have gotten the extra, extra modifications for a taillight to be that expensive on a 2018 Challenger! Most I've ever paid is, like, a couple hundred at most!" Miroku looked genuinely impressed, then furrowed his brow at his wallet. "Maybe I should just let it go through my insurance."
"I'll take what you've got, right now," Sango's dad said, "And we'll call it even. Just get off my property."
He's starting to slur his words more, Sango noted. Hopefully her little gamble with his beer had paid off.
Miroku looked surprised at the man's hostile tone of voice. "Um, I'm not on your property, sir." He motioned to where he was standing. "I'm on a public street." He paused in the middle of shuffling bills in his hand. "What's the knife for?"
"Nothing."
Miroku smiled kindly. "A man comes out of his house with a knife, he had to be doing something with it."
"I'm carving something. You're interrupting something important," her dad growled, "Not that that's any of your business."
"Fair enough, just making sure you didn't have some dark intentions coming out here or whatever," Miroku said cheerfully, "Just let me find my son's baseball and I'll give you the money and we'll just move on with our merry lives!"
Houshi, seriously, what the fuck are you doing get out of here get out of here get out of here -
Miroku took a small step forward onto the lawn, as if he were scanning the sparse grass for something, then finally he looked up and his blue eyes met her brown ones in a moment that seemed to almost stop time.
There was so much adoration in that one, brief glance. Sango wanted to squeal with glee and cry her eyes out at the same time, but neither of those actions would do for the situation they were in right now.
"Hey!" her dad called out, his voice a hoarse growl, "Get the fuck back."
Miroku immediately threw his hands up and took a few steps backward, his eyes still locked with Sango's. "Whoa, there, hoss, didn't mean to strike a nerve."
What are you trying to tell me here, Houshi? Sango wished she could just call a time-out and find out what his game plan was, but that wasn't an option.
"Sorry," Miroku said, "Like I said, just looking for my son's baseball. I suppose it could have bounced into the next yard over. Who's that?" He pointed directly to her, a smirk on his face.
Houshi no what are you doing please -
"That's my daughter," her dad growled, "and it's time you got on your way. I'll forget the broken taillight once you pay for it, and then you get out of here."
"How old is she?" Miroku said, scribbling on a check in his wallet, his eyes still locked with Sango's, a dreamy look on his face.
"That's none of your goddamn business." Sango's dad was getting visibly angrier and more frustrated. The knife was still in his right hand.
Sango couldn't quite concentrate on how much the sight of Miroku made her want to do nothing else in her life but love him. And love him hard. Forever. Until the end. That knife made the future harder to center on.
"Here's ten grand for the taillight," Miroku said, holding out the finished check to her dad. When he reached out, Miroku seized him by the wrist, pulling him closer. "And I want your daughter as well."
"What?" It was clear her dad was surprised at the outburst as Sango was.
"I said," Miroku said, leaning in closer to Sango's dad's face, "I want your daughter as well. I want to take her away from all this and give her a life of luxury. Away from all this...adorable quaintness."
"You son of a bitch!"
I love how he says that, but he still snatches the check away. Money first before your family, right, Dad? Anytime, every time.
Miroku shoved a right hand into his pocket and smirked at her dad. "You haven't even asked my price before insulting me."
Sango inhaled sharply. Her mom sank further into her arms, seemingly knowing what was about to happen and wanting to turn her face away.
She almost cried out his name.
She almost did.
But a quick, almost sad smile from him silenced her. She could just picture him saying, "Babe, don't worry, I'll take care of it."
Her dad straightened up slightly and stepped up to Miroku, as if ready to negotiate, as if Sango was just a little trinket he could lend out to whoever needed it.
Sango felt her eyes narrow as she closed her arms around her mother and stared at the back of her father. You asshole, she thought, you've tried to do this to me before with your scum friends and it never worked. I always kicked, I always screamed. And I always got hit for it.
"What's your price?" her dad said, clearly swaying on his feet. It seemed Sango's little concoction was working somewhat, though not as well as she would have hoped.
"My price?" Miroku just grinned into his face.
And then Miroku seized the knife still gripped in her dad's right hand and forced it toward himself. Her dad was surprised and resisted too late and the knife point hung above Miroku's shoulder.
"I want you in jail for the rest of your life," Miroku said calmly, too calmly, as he put a fist around her dad's wrist and forced the knife downward.
Into his own shoulder.
Sango shrieked.
"Now?" Inuyasha demanded, holding his phone aloft with 911 on speed-dial.
Kagome winced as if in physical pain herself. They had stashed the car several blocks down and were hiding in the bushes on the corner, watching it all go down.
"Yes, yes," she said, amazed she was able to speak, "For god's sake, now."
"Get OFF of him!"
Sango felt herself drop her own mother unceremoniously to the porch floor as she leapt over the garden fence and darted towards Miroku.
"Mom, call 911!" she screamed over her shoulder as she bodily wrestled her own father off of Miroku. Her mom seemed to get the message and scrambled into the house.
Her father fell backward, obviously too drunk or too conked out on the Xanax she'd dropped in his beer to coherently physically respond. The knife remained in Miroku's shoulder. Her dad clearly felt Sango drop to her knees in grass next to them, and he murmured something incoherent and tried to sit up, and Sango answered him with a stiletto boot to the face, almost without looking. He groaned and fell backward and didn't respond further.
"Houshi!" She held his face gently in her hands. "Why the hell would you go and do something that stupid?" She couldn't resist it; she peppered his face with small kisses as tears started to form in her eyes.
"It's okay, babe," he said woozily, looking mildly down at the blood trickling from under the knife, "I made sure to guide it into my shoulder. I'll be okay."
"You absolute idiot," Sango said, "You realize there's a major artery in the shoulder, right? People have died from shoulder wounds. It's not like the fucking movies!"
Miroku dazedly blinked at her, then looked back to the knife sticking out of his shoulder. "Oh, shit," he said, all too calm for her to be comfortable with it, "Probably shoulda thought this through better. But then again, I didn't get much time to plan, ya know?"
"Houshi," Sango said, pulling him up into a sitting position and holding him up with her own strength, which was meager at this point.
"Yes?"
"Don't pull out the knife."
"Don't worry, babe, I wasn't gonna touch it."
"It's probably keeping you alive right now."
"That's nice." He flopped forward and let his forehead rest on her collarbone, his eyelids fluttering.
"Houshi!" She shook him probably a little too violently, since he winced.
His eyes met hers. "I told you," he said softly, almost wistfully, reaching up with a trembling hand to brush her bangs out of her eyes, "Eventually you're gonna have to stop calling me that."
"Why?" she said, catching his hand in her own, willing him with all her own being to stay awake, "Tell me why."
"Someday," he said, cupping her cheek in his hand as his eyelids fluttered again.
"Stay awake!" she screamed in his face, "Give it ten minutes and I'll have every paramedic ever licensed in California taking care of you. But stay awake!"
Sango was dimly aware of something warm and wet coating her hands. She knew it was Miroku's blood, but no it's not his blood he's invincible he's the heartless king behind the scenes of Hollywood nothing could ever hurt him -
Miroku coughed a little, and Sango felt a fresh rush of hot blood between her fingers. "Ugh, shit," he grumbled, as if it were only a stubbed toe or a dinged funny bone and not a fucking possible fatal blow.
He let his head fall back into the crook of her arm.
"Well, if this is it," he said, and she shook her head violently to interrupt him.
"It's not it! You fucking idiot! You're gonna stay alive and then you're gonna tell me what you meant about me not calling you Houshi anymore! Okay? Got it?" Sango was well aware the tears were spilling freely out of her eyes, and that they were falling onto Miroku's cheeks below her, but she didn't care.
"What I was gonna say," he said softly, that stupid serene, accepting smile on his face like he didn't know this was a load of bullshit and that he was going to pull through no matter what, "is that I wouldn't have wanted it to end anywhere but in your arms, Sango."
"Wh-what?" She was so distracted, it was hard to even think clearly.
"I love you," he whispered, his thumb tracing the outline of her face, and the look in his eyes was so beautiful, so sweet, so wonderful, that any other time on this earth Sango would have blushed.
And then he slumped backward, dead weight in her arms.
"I didn't hear you, stupid!" Sango cried, unable to even see clearly through the tears pouring out of her eyes, "I didn't hear you! And as far as I'm concerned, you never told me anything! So you better stay alive and tell me again, got it?"
She buried her face in his neck, sobbing.
And then the red and blue lights soared into visibility. Much too soon for her mother to have called them.
Miroku mumbled something into her shoulder.
"What?" she cried, leaning in so she could hear.
"Get rid of the fake check," he said softly.
Sango wanted to slap him, but she grabbed the discarded piece of paper on the lawn and, with no other options in sight, quickly ripped it into strips and chewed and swallowed it.
"Kagome?" Inuyasha squirmed at the arrival of sirens, "Let's go help."
"We can't," Kagome said, tears streaming down her face, "Or at least, you can't. Otherwise this will be front page news."
"You're front page news now, too," Inuyasha pointed out, his face trained on the paramedics rushing toward Miroku in Sango's arms.
Kagome said nothing, but agreed with him, nodding silently as her face crumpled into tears.
Inuyasha folded his arms around her shoulders, seemingly unsure of what else he could do at that moment and obviously hating a situation where he couldn't just punch his way out.
"What do we do, baby?" Inuyasha whispered, "Your call. I don't give a shit at this point."
"Let's meet them at the hospital," Kagome said softly, "We need to braid your hair again and get you a jacket."
UGHHHHH! *sniffle* I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm NOT FINE WHY WOULD YOU EVEN ASK THAT... sigh.
You gotta admit, that was a very Miroku way of declaring everlasting love. You know, in the face of death itself.
SONGS
Miroku - "Things We Lost in the Fire" by Bastille
Sango - "Bless the Broken Road" by Rascal Flatts AND "Who Knew" by Pink
AND
Miroku and Sango both get "Elastic Heart" by Sia feat. The Weeknd (not sure if I've used this one before but dear lord it fits here)
No InuKag songs for this chapter, but hey, they were like barely in it.
HASHTAG PRAYERS FOR MIROKU
*sniffle again*
Once again, appreciate your views and reviews; if you have the time I'd love to know what you think. Thanks guys. I promise it will get lighter and happier soon. Pinky swear. But abusive situations aren't pretty and I'm not apologizing for making this tone serious as shit. I know a lot of you like the comedy bits, and like I said, don't you worry, we've still got a certain full-of-vengeance big sister to worry about and you best BELIEVE that I got some things lined up for that. Love you guys! - meggz0rz