I got the second half of this chapter done in the latter half of a sobering-up bent. I went to the pub with friends about half way through this, lol, but I'm so determined (and I hate sleeping drunk) that I managed to finish it. Even if it is twenty to four in the morning.

"Uh, Natsume?" she cautioned as he dragged her. "Natsume? Where are we going? Let go of me! Hey! Natsume! Where are we going?! Natsume! Fucking hell, listen to me! Natsume!" screamed Mikan Sakura, as her just-about boyfriend dragged her down the street.

She scratched, she twisted, she kicked; hell, she even bit – but nothing she did would make him release the vice grip he had on her wrist.

"Natsume! The fuck! Look at me!" she screeched, and he came to an angry stop.

"I'm still mad with you," he hissed, "but if you keep on like that I will just pick you up."

"You can't carry me all the way to… wherever we're going!" she spat, and then in a few startling movements he stepped around her and threw her over his shoulder.

"Ahhh!" she squealed, as his shoulder pressed uncomfortably into her stomach. "Put me down!"

"If you shut up!" he snarled, and she could feel the heat of his anger; he was still absolutely furious, and carrying her somewhere to do god-knows-what with her.

"Tell me where we're going!" she retorted.

"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked brutishly.

"What?!"

"Why didn't you say you lived alone?"

"You never asked!"

"That isn't a fucking excuse," he snapped, as he stopped and dumped her back on her feet. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"I…" she spluttered. "How am I supposed to say something like that? Hey, that's my house, no my house, my parents live hundreds of miles away. It doesn't come up in conversation. I didn't want to tell you," she stated coolly, "so I didn't. Why are you taking it like such a big thing?"

"Because I've found out in the space of a half hour that you've forgotten to mention half the stuff in your life to me!" he fumed. "Going out on the piss every night without consequences, what with not living with your parents; why-didn't-you-say-anything?"

"Because you're not… not!" she stammered. "You're not my... husband!" she finally finished, and he was cowed into silence for a moment. Not a good time to talk about marriage. Ever.

"I don't know about you," she said quietly, "but I don't tell guys I'm dating every single detail about my life, I don't burn off their ear complaining about my problems or making the worst of every situation. I don't know everything about you, so I don't know why you are making such a big deal about this. Remember when we first started dating?" He remembers; the reservations, the hesitancy to tell her anything she could 'use' with her friends, the trade-offs of questions about simple things like their taste in food or music.

"I…" he started, but trailed away into non-existence. "I…" he lashed out his hand and grabbed hers again. "Let's just go," he glowered. "I'll explain…later…" They walked to a bus stop, he pushed her onto a bus – paying for both of their fares – and walled her into the seat with an unresponsive cold shoulder.

"Natsume, explain this," she pleaded. "I don't know why you're flipping out… we… we're supposed to be in school," she reminded him. He didn't say anything, and her mood – much like the contents of her stomach – lurched about uncomfortably.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" she snapped. "I don't know what the hell I've done that's so wrong, or why you're so pissed off, but this is all completely stupid. Let's go back to school."

"I don't feel like that place," he growled, glaring out of the window. "If I have to sit through one more of Persona's classes I'm going to fucking kill myself." Mikan went quiet: Persona. Anyone who knew what it was like having a 'Dangerous Alice' hated Persona, and with a reason.

To others he seemed nice enough, weird maybe, and a little perverse, but there was nothing intrinsically wrong with him.

Until you got him behind closed doors.

Hell knows what had happened to him as a child – his Alice had put him in prison for double life sentences before the Academy found him, and – fuck knows why – decided that he'd be perfect as the teacher for their programme.

Maybe they thought a 'reformed' bad-Alice user would be able to help their kids, but Persona was the opposite to help.

He didn't take all the counselling classes, but the ones he did had locks on the doors. For a reason. He didn't hurt you… well, he didn't hit students (often), but he drilled the most negative, self-loathing and vicious hatred into students; until they were afraid to use their Alice because they knew what he might do to them; because they were ashamed to be themselves.

A criminal man with a criminal mind; Persona thought that punishment was the best preventative for future crimes, and he was particularly savage with Natsume, and turning sour on Mikan recently, as well. She did not doubt how serious he was by that 'I'll kill myself' comment; Persona could do that to people.

"Shit, he's on today?" she murmured, and he nodded.

"I saw the car in the parking lot," he explained. "I was just going to skip, but then you opened your fat fucking mouth and…"

"Shut it," she snarled. "This entire argument is your doing. I hate that guy, but I'm not missing the rest of my lessons. I'll fail my exams."

"Big deal," he retorted. "What the fuck does it matter anyway?" It was then that an alarm bell went off in Mikan's head. Shit, it said, triggers.

"Natsume," she said fiercely, "look at me." He didn't for a while, but then, as if he couldn't stop himself, he slowly glanced over at her.

"If you're thinking about that, don't," she threatened. "You stopped me; now I'm stopping you. Where are we going?" she demanded.

"I don't know," he bit.

"Where are we going?!" she screamed, turning heads of other passengers on the bus.

"I want to see it," he admitted in a burst of temper. "Okay? I want to see for myself."

"See what?" she questioned dumbly.

"Your house," he spat. "Stupid. I want to see this empty 'shell' with my own eyes."

"What?" she groaned. "You could do that after school."

"Not when you started that fucking argument," he hissed, and then he turned and stared her straight in the eyes; she swore she almost saw panic in them.

"I'm going to do one of two things right now," he said softly, like he wasn't really there, and someone was reporting on his own activities while his mind was at the front lines. "It's gone, okay? I'm going to go out and find something to torch," he murmured, and she reached out and closed her hands tightly around his wrist – no, she begged; they were being strong together. Since they had become a couple neither had broken down once, and that was longer than either of them had gone for quite a while.

"Or I'm going to your place to fuck you senseless," he finished viciously, and – as hard as she tried not to – she shivered all over.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she whispered; fearful, almost.

"It's flipped," he groaned – low and almost pained at the back of his throat. "I can't beat it." Then he looked back at her. "Half of me wants to hit you," he confessed, "but the rest knows that you're the only thing that I just might be able to ride it out it with."

"…What?"

"There's a man with a cigarette at this stop," he hissed, and Mikan bolted her head around to see an elderly gentleman lighting a cigarette in his mouth. "The woman three seats behind us has one in her hand." This too was true. "Two men with lighters in their front pockets, a man with a blowtorch doing roadworks two streets ago, a bonfire in a garden a few streets away and..." he hesitated, as he tried to decide how far he'd go, "...one lighter in my pocket, two in my bag; this bus smells of fucking diesel and there's a can of lighter fuel in that carrier bag." He shot a glance across the aisle to a woman dozing into her hands; the label of the canister was faintly visible through her plastic shopping bag. "It's like they're screaming at me," he said, his hands pressing against his forehead. "It's gone, it's just gone."

"Natsume..." she begged, frightened of how de-railed he was, "don't do it, please don't do it. We're okay, we're stronger than this." 'We', she kept saying 'we', and as his strained temper burnt away, like his self-restraint, he snatched her hands in his and slammed them against the bus window.

He didn't speak, he didn't even need to, he just crushed his mouth over hers; reaching into her like his life depended on it.

"You hate me," he muttered darkly as he ripped his mouth away as savagely as he'd applied it. "I fucking hate you sometimes."

"That's fine," she rushed hotly, her lips moist and temper just as riled. "Hate me, do whatever, but don't let it beat you."

"Why?" he said through gritted teeth. "Why is it so important to you that I don't use it?"

"Because you can resist it!" she countered fiercely. "I don't know everything about you, but I know that you're strong enough to hold back, I believe you can do it. You stopped me when I thought it was all going to shit, so I know you can do it to yourself. What did you tell me? I... don't remember, but you can, Natsume, you really can."

"I...wish I believe you," he growled, and his hand slipped down and gripped her thigh. "But unfortunately you are just about the only person who does think like that... and... I want to believe that...and... shit, it's just got to be you." He reached out desperatly and pulled her onto his lap, clamping his mouth over hers in the process.

One hand ran up her back, underneath her shirt, and the other hand crept up her leg. She stole her mouth away from his after a minute or so, but he could feel her muscles twitching under his touch.

"We're still fighting," she reminded him, her look sour and her voice acidic.

"Agreed," he replied, and yanked her mouth back onto his; tongue already poised to jump past her lips and tangle with her own. She responded in full.

They were so heavily into this pastime that they actually missed the bus stop they needed, and it took half an hour longer than it should have to get to Mikan's house; she'd relented, in the end, not wanting to go to school herself and needing to find out what was what with Natsume. She couldn't think about anything else until she had her head straight, and while they were fighting it was harder and harder to concentrate.

Not to mention something else that got harder and harder; Natsume was practically feral by the time they reached her house, and after unlocking the door he prowled in and started to explore the place suspiciously, checking every room as if he were a cat staking out his territory.

Mikan stood awkwardly in the hallway her own home, wondering just how much of a good idea this had really been. She didn't have too long to think about it, though, because once Natsume had assured himself that there definitely weren't any parentals living there he went straight back to her. He seized her by the shoulders and began to guide her to the bedroom.

"We're still fighting, right?" he asked caustically as he pinned her against her bedroom (or what he assumed was hers, judging by its messy state) door.

"Yes," she replied defiantly, and he drew her into a crushing kiss.

"Good," he retorted, pulling down the handle and giving her a shove into the room; not hard enough to constitute real bullying, but rough enough to let her know who exactly was boss in this situation.

He luckily had the sense to have a couple of condoms in his bag, which he had transferred into his pocket during the bus ride, and they barely even interrupted the flow of sex (after a good deal of practice, while she was still refusing to go on the pill).

That said, he'd stripped Mikan completely ass-naked and gone down on her first anyway – much to his delight he discovered she had much harder and louder reactions to oral – and he was quite assured that she'd already come before he even thought about taking off any of his school uniform himself.

There was little to no talking throughout the entire thing; except for the occasional 'there' 'higher' 'lower' 'harder' turn of phrases, they barely said three words between them. It was much closer to his old form of sexual encounter, and as they finally fell apart, Mikan shaking simply from what her body had just been through, this very thought occurred to her.

The old fears from before resurrected, and she clutched her duvet around herself worriedly. The old wound rupture open fully as he got up, dragging his boxers on – still silent – and walked out of the room. She heard him go to the bathroom, and she reminded herself not to do something awful like start crying as she heard the running water inside.

Had she blown it? What about what he'd said before? Would he cut and run now, like he always did before? She was unsure, and angry, and sad, and she did not want to cry but she could vividly imagine him walking out of the door without saying one thing to her, and she didn't want that enough to make her get up and go to find him.

Before she was even out of the bed he'd burst back in through the door.

"Well?" he said tersely.

"Huh?"

"It's ready."

"What's–?"

"The bath!" he snapped. "What did you think I was doing?" He stared at her accusingly. "You... thought I was splitting, didn't you?" he said dryly.

"Well," she murmured, and he simply reached out and grabbed her arm.

"Just get in the freakin' tub," he sighed, steering her towards her destination.

The generous bath in the house's one family bathroom was still filling, but she could see the steam rising off it; seemed he liked them hot.

"Go on," he prodded, removing his boxers again and unhesitatingly sitting down in one end of the western-style tub; apparently its installation had been one of her fathers odd whims when decorating the house, when he was still alive.

"What... is this all about?" she asked worriedly, and he merely pointed at the free end.

"Sit down," he instructed. "We will talk then." She didn't know how else to argue with him, and it did seem like a relatively simple request. She was already naked anyway.

She hissed a little at the heat, but eventually sunk down into the hot water at the opposite to him.

"So?" she probed.

"Hmmm," he moaned contently, slipping down further and letting the water lap over his shoulders; she gotten used to seeing him naked quite quickly, circumstances encompassing, and the fact that neither of their states of naked-ness bothered her at all now must say something about them, she hoped.

"You were going to talk!" she blustered. "You were going to talk on the bus! You were going to talk when we got in! You could've at least talked while we fucked! Talk to me now, Natsume!" she demanded, and his only response was to sigh heavily and close his eyes.

"I want to know about you," he said openly, and she dithered; confused.

"Eh?"

"You said old boyfriends never knew everything about you, or the other way around," he remarked languorously, melting into the warm water like hot wax. "Well, I'm not them."

"You?" She still wasn't quite sure as to what he he was going on about.

"I want to know everything about you," he stated simply, shifting forwards and then sitting up; water running of his lithe torso and steaming as he leant in to kiss her suddenly. "If it's at all possible.."

"I..." She was taken off guard; she couldn't follow what he was saying. For that matter, why had a hot bath cooled out his temper so much? It was that or the sex, and he had still seemed pretty angry up until now.

"I get mad if you keep things from me," he explained, leaning back again as he very nearly read her mind. "Someone like you shouldn't have anything to hide from me, and I'm your boyfriend: I can ask for these sorts of things, right?" He opened one eye to look at her, and she looked around awkwardly.

"I...s'ppose," she murmured, and felt the water level sway as he reached out to grab nearby shampoo. He wanted something to do with his hands; he didn't like to admit it but he was not entirely comfortable, in fact, he was a little nervous. She could reject him at any point now, and he was the one laying out the 'I want to know everything about you's on the table.

"I'm..." he hesitated, the word heavy on his own tongue; this was getting harder and harder for him. "I get jealous, okay? Going out every night with people I've never heard of. I get jealous."

"I'm not going to do anything with anyone," she sighed.

"That doesn't matter," he explained as he filled his hands with shampoo and rubbed it into his hair; distraction defused some of the tension. "I just don't like it; it was like you smacked me square-on with this big 'guess what you're not important enough to me to know' punch." He moved his foot in the water and ran it along her leg subtly. "I'm pissed you never told me about this, but... I've been thinking about it, and I can work with it if you promise me one thing."

"What?" she asked curiously, pulling the bottle of shampoo out of his hands when he started to lather his hair and taking control herself; bending his head down as she rooted her fingers around against his scalp, working up a foam with a gentle smile on her face.

"You'll... tone it down," he said quietly, "and spend some nights in... with me." She laughed affectionately, and it was one of the nicest sounds he'd ever heard her make - bedroom activities including.

"If you worry," she explained patiently, as she washed his hair, "then you can come out with me, you know? In fact,"she said brightly, "I want you to, so for every night I spend staying in with you, you have to come on a group outing with me, okay?" He frowned, and then burbled as she ducked his head underwater. He reached out for her hips and slid her towards him, gazing up at her hotly as he broke the surface of the water again.

"I guess I can live with that," he relented, and she pulled his lips forward to meet his.

Sealing the deal with a kiss, or so to speak.

Angrygoes tohappy. Without the fights no boundaries are placed, and I'm trying to two these two idiots out so I can play around with the other characters too ;)

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave a review on your way out please. I keep to a pretty good update schedule, it would be nice to hear some appreciation from people reading every day who haven't reviewed yet.