"I have fallen into an abyss. I live in a world so curious, so strange. Of the dream that was my life, this is my nightmare." - Camille Claudel (1864-1943)
Jasmine: (Sweat) Don't look at me like that! (Edges away from the accusing eyes)(Sniffle) Not my fault, I swear! It was…it was…WRITER'S BLOCK!…(Shifty eyes)…You know NOTHING. I wish I could own Rurouni Kenshin. If I did, I could do all sorts of naughty things. But I don't. And I can't. (Sigh) …Well, actually…maybe I CAN…(Evil grin)
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The Difference Between Love And Loathing - Chapter Ten: Patience(With Saito and Misao in Misao's room, March 19, 2005.2:34 a.m.)
Misao awakened abruptly, blue-green eyes blearily blinking away the last remnants of a deep sleep. She hazily clutched her stuffed wolf tighter to her pajama-clad chest and confusedly tried to pinpoint the source of her rousing in the virtual pitch-blackness of her room. Neither hearing nor seeing anything amidst the shadows, she sighed with exhausted annoyance, grumbled inaudibly under her breath, and allowed her tired eyes to fall shut, nearly drifting off again when a sudden sound startled her back into awareness.
The hell? What was that? she thought groggily, sitting up and tightly drawing the pale purple covers around herself protectively. Ears straining for any bit of noise, she listened hard for the sound, but to her extreme frustration, could hear nothing. Torn between ignoring it and going back to sleep and investigating the disturbance, her weary mind finally rested on the latter, seemingly more sensible plan.
Misao set Wolfie down next to her side and carefully slid from the bed, feet quickly growing cold when exposed to the cooler night air. Ignoring the chill for fear of alerting some kind of unknown attacker of her presence, she quietly crept across the carpet towards the other end of her room – Saito's side. Upon hearing the alarming noise near her she froze, fear temporary gluing her legs to the floor.
Swallowing harshly, the weasel uncertainly managed to whisper, "Sa-Saito? A-are you a-awake?" Taking the silence as a no, she slowly tiptoed over to his bed, intending to shake him awake – loathing to admit that his presence made her feel safe. She supposed that even the company of an irritating wolf was better than being terrified out of her wits.
So distracted was she with shuffling along in the darkness, she nearly screamed when her toes unexpectedly came in contact with the wooden bedside table. Biting down on her bottom lip to avoid yielding a sound, she hastily gripped the injured appendage and hopped on one foot until she reached the soft obstruction that was the detective's bed. Cursing out loud, she hissed, "Dammit Saito, wake up! I think someone's –"
"Tokio…"
A tormented murmur, enough to instantly still her annoyed rant despite its faintness. Her forehead immediately creased with worry at the sound of his labored breathing. "Umm, Saito…? You okay?" So he had been the one making all the noise after all.
With an indistinct sigh of relief at this realization, Misao released her smarting foot and hesitantly reached out to the man, unsure of what to do. He was definitely asleep, that she was certain of, but…
Hoary moonlight streamed hazily into the room from behind the dark-curtained window, bathing a small portion of the bed in a pale silver blaze. In the light of the glow, Misao could make out the wolf's troubled features: sweat dotted his forehead and ran in streams down his face, his chest rose up and down sporadically as he struggled to gasp for air, and the grip he held on the blankets was enough to turn his knuckles bright white. It was clear that he was in the clutches of a nightmare – and a terrible one at that for it to plague a man like the detective so.
The ninja gently placed a hand on his arm and shook it slightly, almost afraid to wake him as she mumbled, "Saito? C-c'mon, don't scare me like this!" This caused the opposite of the desired effect, however, for the wolf merely turned closer to her, stretched one arm out, and firmly wrapped a hand around her slender wrist. The squeak she emitted was enough to wake a neighborhood, but Saito seemed unfazed as he slumbered on.
"L-Lemme go, you jerk!" The itachi hastily abandoned all pretense of being discreet and started clawing at the offending hand, desperate to get him to release her. She quickly looked about the room, searching for a way out of her horrible predicament, and spied a half-filled glass of water sitting oh-so innocently on the bedside table. She instantly seized it and without a second thought, dumped its contents upon the unfortunate man below her.
Definitely not the best plan in the world, for if you know Newton's first law (also called the law of inertia), you should realize that objects at rest (Saito) tend to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force (the water). And since the wolf has more mass (inertia) than Misao, he is more resistant to movement while she is much more easily moved when pulled. Meaning: this should get really funny, really soon.
The water not only spilled all over Saito, oh no, it managed to cascade all over the floor as well. And, being the poor disorientated wolf that he was, he accidentally yanked down on the wrist he didn't know he was holding and caused everyone's favorite weasel to slip upon the evil liquid and fall over backwards…
"EH?"
"KYAAAAAAAAH!"
"Oomph!"
"EEEEEEEEEP!"
The next thing Misao knew, she was lying on her back on something—someone, rather—very warm…and very much alive.
"Itachi," a voice thick with sleep grumbled near her ear. "Get…off of me…"
Now how had this happened? Her original intentions were purely innocent in their nature – to wake the wolf up, that was all! With such a virtuous objective, how had she ended up both on top of Saito and in his bed? Not that it was such a bad thing, though, for he certainly was cozy…
Uh-oh Misao, not again! Stop these thoughts! What about Aoshi-sama?
But, strangely,the scolding voice wasn't as loud as it usually was.
Feeling as though her throat was full of cotton, she struggled vainly to speak. Clearing her throat and swallowing before words would form, she said, "I-I think…I think I'm stuck, Saito."
A silence, and then, "What was that, weasel?"
Nervous laughter. "I'm…eh-heh…stuck?"
She could feel the irritation radiating off of the man below her in waves. Her desperation to get off of him before he did something rash increased two-fold. Frantically clawing at the blanket wrapped around her legs, she whimpered, "W-wait, let me see if I can get this sheet off! Hold on!"
Misao's mad struggling against him definitely wasn't helping the poor detective's mood any and he nearly groaned in frustration at her…severely distracting antics. By Kami, the itachi was an idiot! "Stop squirming, you stupid girl!" He paused patiently for the order to sink then, then continued in a dangerous-sounding voice, "Now, calmly unwrap yourself and get out of my sight, weasel! Waking up to this certainly isn't my idea of a 'good night's' sleep." Never mind that he was enjoying it much more than he should be.
"Sh-shut up, you jackass! I-it won't come undone! If you want me to get away from you so badly, help me get this stupid blanket off!" She hissed, tugging fruitlessly at the cloth binding her legs together. How had this happened? Surely a mere fall onto the bed couldn't have gotten her into such a horrendous dilemma! It was obvious that:
A) Kami hated her.
B) Her luck was absolutely, positively, without a doubt…nonexistent.
And C) Fate was cruel.
Saito ran a hand back through his hair and emitted a long-suffering sigh. "Fine, you annoying creature! Move over a bit so I can reach you!" He waited while she wriggled to the side before attacking the sheet with a vengeance. The sooner he got it off of her, the sooner she would leave him in peace!
The weasel vehemently forced herself to concentrate on anything but what the wolf was doing. The very last thing she needed was to take notice of the sense of his hands on her legs…
She felt her face heat up and was instantly glad for the darkness. Not good, not good! No focusing on that! Bad Misao, bad!
But she couldn't help thinking about it! It wasn't something one could ignore easily. After all, this wasn't something that happened to her everyday.
She needed to get off of him. Now.
"S-Saito, I think I-I can move now, thanks for your, ah, assistance!" Without further ado, the itachi pushed his still-busy hands away from her, propelled herself to her feet, and went to take a step off the bed, but…
She hadn't waited for him to completely unwrap the sheet from her. And, because of this, her legs stayed stuck together and when she went to take that step…
Can you say, "London Bridge is falling down"? Because it certainly is. Well, not literally. But I think you get it. For poor Misao had accidentally repeated her earlier action—
"EH?"
"KYAAAAAAAAH!"
"Oomph!"
"EEEEEEEEEP!"
—and toppled back down upon the unsuspecting (and now thoroughly squished) detective.
Except that this time, she spun in midair in a feeble attempt at saving herself from humiliation. This—while not working in the least to aid her—did manage to land her in a much more undignified and embarrassing manner. Chest-to-chest with the wolf certainly qualifies as "undignified" and "embarrassing", don't you agree?
Misao had honestly never been more mortified in her life. She had never been this close to a male before, either. It was proving to be quite the experience for her. Now, if only she could calm her raging heartbeat enough to speak.
The man beneath her, meanwhile, was beginning to think that Kami had it out for him. Surely only divine punishment could bring something this horrible into his life.
Ignoring the pounding of his own heart, the wolf took a deep breath and growled, "How is it that your stupidity has exceeded even my expectations, weasel? Get off me!"
A mumbled reply came a few seconds later, "I would if I could, believe me. I'm stuck again." It didn't help that her face was buried into his shirt, but he caught it nonetheless.
Disregarding his need to hit something, Saito grit his teeth and stated in a deceptively calm voice, "Itachi, you're an idiot."
"Don't you think I know that already? Declaring the obvious isn't helping, jerk."
"You do realize that I could push you off the bed and merely forget about you, hmm? I don't need a blanket," he said, voice filled with sarcasm.
Misao raised her face from his extremely warm chest and glared furiously at him, ocean-green eyes smoldering with barely-suppressed rage. "You wouldn't!"
The wolf smirked down at her, his own amber eyes cold and full of promise. "I would."
"You wouldn't!"
"I would," he affirmed smugly, almost daring her to say otherwise.
She watched with horror as his smirk widened evilly. The horrible man was serious! Damn him! "Well, fine then Mister I-know-everything-because-I-think-I'm-so-superior-but-really-know-nothing-because-I'm-a-jackass, do you have any bright ideas on how to get us out of this mess?"
He quirked an eyebrow down at her in amusement. Nothing was more fun than working Misao into a tizzy. "Now that you mention it, itachi…"
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When looking back at it later, Saito would curse this night over and over and over again, mentally blaming his own sheer stupidity on its (what he considered) disastrously horrible outcome. Who was he to know that the events that transpired would end up inexplicably bringing him closer to Misao, thus firmly tying her to his heart where she might never—and probably would never—release him? Who was he to deny the insatiable pull he had developed towards the little weasel in their short time together? For—despite his stubborn resistance—it seemed inevitable that something like this would happen to shove them even nearer to one another.
Fate (the bastard) seems to have many devious plans.
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Jasmine: I am so horribly sorry for this being late. Homework, laziness, writer's block, EVERYTHING brought me down. But I have succeeded! Sorry for any mistakes in this chappie, guys. I'm posting it REALLY fast so I can get it to you. And this reviewer response thing shall be fun! Finally FF has done something RIGHT! Well, until next time, loyal reviewers, this is Jasmine Reinier, signing off!
"People only have hope…because they cannot see Death standing behind them."