I have a problem with nightmares. I get them all the time, and sometimes I'll have entire nights full of them. Last night was one of those nights. I wonder if that means I can relate to Mai in a way. Too bad half of them are too horrible to put in a story. I've put some into these stories, though. Or, at least, the idea of the nightmare. I wonder if you guys can pick them out. They're not obvious. But I have three main themes to my nightmares. I rarely get any outside of those three themes.
So, to those of you who have read my entire series, or even managed to get a hold of my previous 7-book series, got any guesses as to what those three themes are?
Chapter 10
My dreams were replays of my father coming home and giving me smoky hugs. Deja vu glittered along with the marbles in the carpet, but rarely did anything new come to me. It was probably the only memory I had of him, besides the funeral.
And I dreamed of that too: walls of black and white stripes. The incense burning a sharp reminder to me of his fiery scent. Dad didn't smoke. Nor was he a fire fighter.
No. My father had been the average run of the mill police officer. He even still had the nickname 'rookie' by his other co-workers, as he hadn't yet to complete his first year in the field.
I woke up burning with regret that I hadn't asked my mother more.
The throbbing headache and the belly deep cough put a damper on that and woke Naru, who was surprisingly still naked under the covers. He reached a hand over to my forehead.
"That's definitely warmish," he muttered, then put a hand to his mouth to cover a cough. Smiling, I reached over to feel his own forehead, but my hand was so warm I couldn't much tell the difference.
"Look at us sickies," I said.
"Guess that's to be suspected." He gave a louder cough, made a little noise of fatigue, and curled his arm back under the covers, where it found its way over to my waist. I hadn't bothered dressing the night before either. His head followed as he hid away from the sunlight creeping through the blinds of his-now our-bedroom and tucked his head up beneath my breasts.
"I dreamed of my dad all night," I told him, feeling out his head to run my fingers through his messy hair.
"Those kinds of dreams?" he asked, voice muffled under the blankets and humming against my breast bone.
"With how insistent they were, hard to think they're anything else, especially given how random all this is." I tried to hold in a cough so my diaphragm wouldn't beat Naru's head off. I tried to tell him about the memory and my thoughts of fire, but I didn't know how much he heard as he started doing things under there that were very nonconstructive to intelligent conversation.
Yeah, we both felt like crap. But apparently not bad enough to stop from being frisky.
We came out coughing and dressed in sweats and big t-shirts to find Lin sitting at the couch, sipping a cup of coffee. While my feverish face just got hotter (we hadn't been exactly quiet), Naru looked unsurprised, which was unexpected coming from the guy who had just about freaked out whenever I said the word 'sex' when we had started dating. Maybe he didn't think Lin heard anything or knew something I didn't.
"I asked him to stay," he told me.
I gave him my best glare of 'and you didn't tell me before you seduced me?'
"And good thing," said Lin in his usual flat, quiet way. "Something tried to get in last night. It didn't leave until the storm broke up, which was sometime after sunrise."
"That's not encouraging," said Naru, who shuffled to the kitchen to open up the cupboard above the fridge. Achy, and feeling just a tad bit nauseous, I went to curl up in the sitting chair, but Lin stood up and pointed me to the couch. He even slid into the sitting chair before I could to make sure his offer would be taken. I sighed, and curled up there instead, shivering. I was of half a mind just to go back to bed.
"Most supernatural activities cease come sunrise, right?" I asked.
"How astute of you," said Naru dryly.
"Hey, you better be treating me like the queen of Sheba, I am your wife and you just brought me back from a god awful honeymoon."
"Well, your highness," a glass of grape juice and a bottle of pills appeared in front of my face, held by Naru from behind the couch. "I have brought your tonic and wine."
"Did you just crack a joke?" But I took his offering with a smile.
"I've cracked jokes before."
"You mean that ever present sarcasm that's your native language? That's hardly witty." I broke off with a cough and had to wait for it to pass before I downed the medicine.
"You should probably rest," said Naru to Lin. "You look pale. And if you say it's gone, we'll be fine."
Lin nodded and stood, his eyes out the wall of ceiling to floor windows (my favorite part about moving in with Naru). The windows of the building across from us gleamed like mirrors in the late morning sunlight. "If it starts to get cloudy, wake me up."
Naru nodded in assent and Lin left to...our bedroom.
"He's not going to smell anything weird, is he?" I whispered over the rim of my cup.
Naru snorted. "Like what? We cleaned up."
"He probably heard us."
I didn't need to say that, because Naru's ears had gone red on the mention of 'smelling' things. They got even redder as I said that. Guess he didn't know something I didn't. Did he really just not think about whether Lin heard us or not?
When he didn't answer, I gave a sore-throated, sickly cackle, which earned me one of his usual glares.
As I sipped grape juice, waiting for the medicine to kick in, Lin brought me out a blanket, which I thanked him profusely for, before returning to the bedroom and closing the door behind him. Naru had gotten out a pot and was currently digging some tofu and seaweed out of the fridge. He coughed now and then.
"I can cook," I said.
"The Queen doesn't cook," he said, a bit hoarse on the edges.
"Yeah, that sounded not-sick."
"If you're going to feel guilty, then make the tea. You're good at that."
So I slipped off my bed of sickliness and stood. I had to catch myself on the armrest as the blood rushed down to my legs, giving my head an extra, sickly throb and my stomach a turn.
The kitchen was just behind the couch, so Naru didn't have far to reach to push me down onto the sofa. I didn't know whether to thank him or not, as I was wondering if I might throw up, though the nausea calmed down once my vision returned.
"Sit," he said.
"If you had just waited for my blood to fill back in-"
"Do it for me, okay? I've had a rather horrid night."
The memory of him hyperventilating and puking on the side of the road returned to me. Had all that really been yesterday?
I shot up. Before he could stop me I had the teapot in the sink and filling with water. I met his displeased look with one of my own.
"You're not the only one who wants to take care of their spouse," I said, just daring him to argue back.
He didn't. Smart man. That, or a tired, sick man.
He made a simple miso soup with microwaved left-over rice, and I a creamy lavender and chamomile mix with drops of honey in each. Rather than sit on the stools at the counter, we used his coffee table as a kotasu and ate with our feet pressed together for warmth. Both of us were shivering, despite the thermometer displaying a comfortable seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit
"At least we know it's not a site bound spirit," I said conversationally.
"A personal haunting isn't much better," said Naru. "Did your father have any talents like you? Even maybe a suspicion of having a sixth sense?"
"If he did, it'd probably be written in my mom's diary." I finished off the last of my soup and climbed back into my nest on the couch.
"Have you never read it?"
"Frankly, I've never really wanted to. She didn't have an easy life and I wasn't attracted to the idea of revisiting all her suffering, especially where it had to do with taking care of me. Hand me my tea, would you?"
He did so, and I gave a happy little chirp as I nestled down with its warmth in my hands. My running nose was just clear enough to smell it.
"You do still have it, though, right?" he asked.
"Of course. Should be in the box with all the rest of my books. Think we should call the others over? Lin isn't exactly the best at warding magic. He's more of a...I dunno, go get'm type."
"Probably." A heavy cough cut him off. Once it had passed, he cussed. "For once in my life, I wish someone else would solve a case."
"Yeah," I said, taking a sip of my tea.
"I just want to sleep the day away. I feel like crap."
"I don't want to read all my mother's seven diaries just to see if my dad had ESP. My eyes won't stop watering."
"Maybe we could pay them..."
"You mean more than you already do?"
"I would be the client. And it isn't like you could feel guilty for not helping, you'd be sleeping. You get the best clues in your dreams."
I flopped a hand at him lazily to point at him, swallowing my gulp of tea. "That, right there, is a nummy idea. Yasu could read through all her diaries. He's good at research crap like that. And it's in the name of saving us from a mostly-mouth monster from hell, so I don't think my mom would mind...too much."
"If she comes back to haunt you," he said with a ghost of a smile. "You got your phone on you?"
I didn't, so he did plenty of groaning and coughing as he slugged about the house to find his. Once found, he took up the end of the couch to do his calls, which meant I could dig my feet under his thighs for warmth.
The cold medicine must have kicked in around that time, for an overwhelming drowsiness came over me. I dozed off, half-formed feverish dreams popping up. The coughing even subsided enough to allow me to slip further and further down. Naru's voice fell into comforting background noise.
I woke up a bit when I felt him sidling up to me so his body was between me and the back of the couch. His arms wrapped about me like I was a big teddy bear and he nuzzled into my hair. I sleepily situated the big blanket so it covered both of us before going out once more.
Maybe being sick wasn't so bad.
Both of us had forgotten to keep a look out for clouds, though none must have appeared, or the spirit too worn out, for I woke up, not to a monster in my face, but Yasu accidentally dropping some of my books as he was unloading a box. On meeting my eyes, he winced.
"Sorry, Mai. I tried to be quiet."
I blinked blearily at him, one of my eyelids a bit more sticker than the other. I blinked to the grimacing Takigawa in the room, as well as a pursed lipped Ayako who was glaring at Yasu. She sighed, and came around the coffee table to the couch, where she knelt down and put a hand to my head.
"Good lord," she muttered, then reached behind me. Only then did I remember that I was being spooned and cuddled with everyone of Naru's limbs. I heard a deep, hoarse breathing. "He isn't much better. At least he seems to be a heavier sleeper. Who'd've thought?"
"He isn't," I said, frowning. "Naru?"
He groaned and hugged me tighter. "Or maybe I don't want to grace the world with my attention. Let me sleep." He grumbled something about Yasu and shifted his face against my hair.
Ayako put a hand over her mouth to hold in the giggle, though not to hide her China sized smirk.
"Goodness, I've never seen Naru so unabashed. This needs pictures, but first, have you taken anything yet?"
I told her the cold medicine and where to find it, and my best guess to when we had taken it. She snorted, called Naru an idiot when it came to pharmaceuticals, and came over with some Tylenol and something else, along with a glass of milk.
"Milk isn't the best for phlegm, but you mentioned you had some nausea. Grape juice and miso soup are kind of acidic, so you need something to balance that out."
Now that she reminded me, I did feel pretty sick in the stomach too. I groaned as she held out the pills and cup to me. I didn't want to sit up. That required effort.
But Naru moved his leg off my calves and his arm around my waist (which were hidden under the blanket, but Ayako's smirk grew anyways), so I sighed-which ended up in a cough-and sat up. The milk was wonderfully cool down my throat. I hadn't realized how thirsty I was until then.
"Yeah, that's sort of indicative of a fever," said Ayako. "I'll make you some ice tea. It's easier on the stomach than water."
"You're so good at this stuff," I mumbled, probably giving her a dopy smile. It was kind of hard to focus. I kept drifting off between the banging mallets behind my eyes and the gray world outside. It would be so nice if it rained. Cuddling with Naru under a blanket while water rushed down those big windows.
"What do the journals look like again, Mai?"
"Green." I coughed. "Don't touch the polka dots or stripes."
"Why?" He waved a particularly girly looking striped one up, complete with one of those cheap little locks that never worked anyways. "Are these yours? I wonder what saucy secrets are inside."
"The saucy secrets of your death," I rasped, having finished off another cough.
Yasu gave a low whistle. "That sounds way more threatening with that sick Vader voice of yours. Alright." He dropped the book in the box. "It's probably just full of gushy Naru daydreams anyways."
"Yasu," said a low, dangerous rumble from behind me. "You're on a job, and your client is trying to sleep."
With that, he tugged on the back of my shirt to urge me back down, threw the blanket back over me along with his arm and leg. The world swung and teetered a bit from just that movement, and I watched it still as the first rain drop splattered against the window like a big bug on a windshield. I didn't like it. But I liked rain. I was just thinking how nice it would be.
"It likes water," I mumbled.
Takigawa glanced up from where he was looking through the books with Yasu and followed my gaze to the window. He muttered a low curse and got up.
"I totally forgot the wards in the car. Just hold on tight, Mai-chan, I'll hurry."
Ayako snorted from behind us in the kitchen. "Good going, dumb ass, forgetting the whole reason we came here."
Naru let out dog-like grunt. "You're all fired."
Man, my head hurt. When was the last time I'd been this sick? Did it always make your eyeballs feel like they had swollen in your head?
Something large and wet slop-smacked against the window. Everyone in the room jumped, and Naru bolted upright, his arm on my waist going down to the couch to brace himself protectively over me.
But there was nothing there. Just water, as more raindrops had crowded in to join the first.
"Frick, already?" said Yasu, who had gone a bit paler than usual.
"Get Lin," grunted Naru.