The Third Kind

A/N: Ok so thank you for the reviews, you have given me the courage to continue on with this… um there is a bit of a nod here to LoOkYiTsSpAm if you really squint at it you can see it… I hate long author's notes so that's it for now.

Disclaimer: See first chapter, besides if I owned them they would have had to have a higher rating

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Mai was frustrated. Not only had Naru demanded tea the moment she walked in the door (which was normal for her), but he had also added that she should make sure the tea was hot. This would not seem too awful on a normal day, but this was not a normal day, this was a sweltering 95 degrees in the shade kind of day. In order to make Naru's tea as hot as she could Mai had practically sweated off the lunch she had eaten while in the kitchenette making the tea. She made iced tea for herself and Lin since when offered the man had jumped at the chance to cool down a bit (not literally jumped). Naru got his very hot tea and Mai was wondering when they would have to make a trip to the hospital for Naru's heat-stroke.

As it was now, Mai had hardly been able to drink her iced tea because the phone kept ringing, thus the real reason for her frustration was not being able to cool off with her yummy iced tea. Once again the phone rang and with a bit of a growl almost coming out she answered.

"Shibuya Physic Research. Tanimaya speaking, how may I direct your call." It felt like that was all she had been saying for the entire day.

"Mai-san, it's Watanuki." Mai instantly felt her mood lift.

"Oh! How are you?"

"I am fine, you?"

"Good, at least I can't talk about it all right now since I'm at work"

"Me too. Listen, Doumeki was able to make you those wards so we are going to bring them over later, what time are you off by?"

"I don't get off till 5…"

"That's fine" Watanuki cut her off, "We can meet you at your work a bit before that and walk you home. Then Doumei can set-up the wards in your apartment."

"Um"

"I'll make dinner and dessert for us all. Doumeki is a walking bottomless pit so we'll make sure that we stop off at the market to get food before going to your apartment."

"Um"

"OK so see you later."

"Um"

Click.

Mai stared at the phone in her hand. She didn't remember inviting the boys over nor did she remember saying anything about dinner. In fact about the only thing she could remember saying was "Um". Sighing she replaced the phone in its cradle and thought about the night. Just then Naru decided to make an appearance.

"Who was that?"

"Um… A friend that is meeting me after work." From the look Naru gave her, Mai thought she might want to look into not using 'Um' as much.

"The office phone is not for personal use."

After this Naru turned back into his office and added,

"Mai, tea. Make it iced this time."

Mai actually did growl this time and hit her head against her desk. At least the evening should be better, she reasoned with herself, since she would be able to see the two new friends that made her seem normal.

:-:-:-:

Watanuki looked over at Yuuko.

"I'm out of sake."

"Yeah yeah, I have more right here. So I am leaving in about a half hour is there anything else you need before I go? I left the fried fish in the refrigerator along with the other twenty bottles of sake and the leftovers from last night. I've finished dusting and cleaning. Was that all?"

"Yes you may go for the day. Is Doumeki waiting for you?" Watanuki didn't like the way Yuuko raised her eyebrows when asking this.

"Yeah, we're going to go see Mai and set-up some wards for her since we think she has a problem similar to mine." He said rather hastily as he started to make a bee-line for the door.

"Well, I expect to hear all about it tomorrow. Good night Watanuki."

Maru and Moro did a little dance as they helped or rather hindered Watanuki out the door. Waiting outside was Doumeki and the two boys left together. Watching them part Yuuko said to herself,

"I wonder what this is going to do…"

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Back at SPR Lin was a bit confused. It was 4:30 and Mai was making more tea when neither Naru nor himself had asked for it. He figured that she was probably thirsty, but he could hear her mumbling about something and was trying to understand it while failing miserably. Also his Shiki were acting very strange, they were whining and trying to leave while rubbing against him. All in all something did not add up.

At 4:40 someone came into the office. Whoever it was caused Lin's Shiki to all leave him and go into the outer office. Thinking that something very bad was there and endangering Mai, the Chinese man leapt from his desk and rushed out. The sight that greeted him was not what he was expecting.

In the middle of the floor a tall lanky boy rolled around. Standing beside Mai's desk was another tall broad shouldered boy and sitting at her desk was Mai. Mai had a shocked look on her face the standing boy had a rather stoic look on his face that could give Naru a run for his money any day and the boy on the floor… He was yelling "Shit shit shit shit shit" So many times Lin couldn't keep up with it.

After recovering from this slight shock Lin realized why the boy was rolling on the floor. His Shiki were… tickling the boy? But indeed they were and the boy was laughing uncontrollably while swearing at Lin's 'pets'.

"I thought this wasn't supposed to happen when you were around!" The boy on the floor yelled.

"Hn"

"Can't you give answers that are longer than one syllable? Useless idiot!"

Lin decided that his Shiki had more than enough fun and whistled them back to his side. Looking over he could see that Naru's door was open with Naru standing in the frame.

"Sorry about that…" Lin said as the boy got off the floor.

"Those things obeyed you? Never mind, I don't want to know." The boy said and Mai introduced everyone.

"Would you like some tea? I know that you probably had to walk for awhile and so I made some for you." Mai said and then included Lin in the invitation.

Lin watched Naru watching the scene in front of him. The boy's eyes narrowed slightly while Mai poured tea for her visitors and was talking with them. The three seemed to know each other in a friendly unaffected way. The two boys were wearing uniforms from the same school, though how they knew Mai was a mystery to Lin since they did not go to her school.

Naru decided to make his presence known as Watanuki was finishing a rant about how Doumeki never appreciated all the wonderful food Watanuki made for him. Naru stepped into the outer office and all three boys looked at one another. Watanuki shifted closer to Doumeki. This made Doumeki look at Watanuki and then narrow his eyes at Naru.

Mai watched all of this and decided that it was ample awkwardness for one day.

"I'm finished for the day so Watanuki, Doumeki and I are leaving. I'll see you tomorrow Naru, 'Night Lin."

And with that she pushed both boys out the door, grabbing her own things and left.

Naru turned to Lin, "Have you seen them before?"

"No, the one was able to see my Shiki and they were drawn to him…"

"I don't like this… Mai could be in danger."

"I think that she would follow her 'intuition' and if they meant her harm she would let us know."

"I still don't like it."

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Doumeki and Watanuki were trying to convince Mai to go into a little shop they had seen on the way to the office. It looked rather creepy on the outside and sold… sake, Watanuki had taken one look and seen some sake that Yuuko wanted, thus the reason for the detour. He just knew that if he didn't get it she would know somehow and then she would find some way to make his life miserable for about a week. Also it would save him a trip the next day since he would most likely have to go out and get more for the alcoholic he called a boss anyways.

"It will just take a minute and then we'll go buy everything for dinner." Watanuki pleaded. "Please…" and a pout was added.

Doumeki was standing there watching his friends and trying to not laugh at the adorable face Watanuki was making… then he realized that he just thought of Watanuki as adorable and mentally kicked himself.

"Only for a minute and then we're leaving." Mai told her new found friends in her 'take me seriously' voice, which no one ever seemed to take seriously.

"Thank you thank you thank you" Watanuki exclaimed and ran into the shop.

Fifteen minutes and twenty bottles of sake later the trio exited the store.

"I think your boss has a problem." Mai said for about the tenth time eyeing the bags filled with sake.

"Trust me this is one of her smaller problems… though I don't mean in physical size since that pork bun of a plushy is one continual pain in the ass!"

Mai giggled at Watanuki's outburst and they headed to an actual grocery shop to buy dinner. While there Doumeki requested (although Watanuki thought it sounded more like a demand) something that was not in season and Watanuki went through another rant. Mai was learning to take her cues from Doumeki on when to plug her ears so that her hearing would still be intact the next day.

Back at Mai's apartment Doumeki set-up the various wards and was showing Mai how to do it so that there would not be a need for a trip to her apartment every time she needed them. Meanwhile Watanuki made a delicious dinner for the three of them. Mai didn't notice but Watanuki also cleaned most of her apartment while he made dinner, even though she did a good job of keeping it tidy she didn't know that Watanuki was a little bit obsessive compulsive and so therefore when he saw a bit of dust he went haywire. Luckily Watanuki was able to keep his side cleaning to a minimum so that Mai didn't realize what he had done even after they left, though she did think her apartment smelled better over the course of the next few days.

After dinner and when Watanuki was done boasting on how well he had made it and calling Doumeki an ungrateful cretin while praising Mai for her manners, the two boys left. Mai thanked them many times over to the point where even Doumeki was blushing slightly. Once the door was closed behind them Mai leaned against it and listened to them make their way down her hall.

"I hope that someone will care for me like that one day…" she said to herself.

Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, Mai then started cleaning the dishes from dinner and putting the leftovers in the fridge. Though Doumeki did eat a lot there were still quite a few leftovers which would keep Mai fed for about a week.

"I guess that I can take some to the office… Lin-san would probably enjoy them…"

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The next day at Yuuko's shop Watanuki was busily doing his work while Yuuko was trying to pump him for information. She was not being discrete about it and Watanuki was trying his hardest to not give her a reason to be interested in Mai, he was finding himself caring for the girl in the way he could imagine caring for a little sister if he had one.

"So are you sure nothing interesting happened while you were at Mai's?"

"Yes I am certain that her apartment was fine and normal… well as normal as you can get!"

"What about her job? I know that you went there first," Yuuko replied to Watanuki's raised eyebrows with, "you are not quiet when using the phone."

"Oh… well she does work with some interesting people." The moment the sentence was out of his mouth Watanuki was kicking himself and starting waving his hands, "No, no, that's not what I meant! I mean for normal people they seemed interesting."

"I can imagine that her boss would be very interesting since you already told me that he destroyed a god." Yuuko said in that tone of hers when she knew someone was lying.

"Uh, um, ok so yes he was interesting…"

"And?"

"When I saw him yesterday I felt his power… I don't normally feel Doumeki's power and he is an exorcist…"

"I think I would like to meet Mai's boss…"

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A/N: OK so that probably sucked worse than the last one… but apparently not everyone thinks that so I'll keep writing, I mean it's actually therapeutic for me since if I don't write it it'll stay in my imagination and drive me insane… The reason that the chapters are so long is that I am writing them as though they are one-shots with a common thread, but this one most definitely went into multi chapter story mode. I am open for ideas since this story has taken on a life of its own and I have no idea where it will go, so I could use ideas that you think of while reading this and if I use them you will get credit and possibly a dedication. I hope you liked it and tell me what you thought of it please (I guess I'm not above begging). )