Disclaimer: Nothing owned, borrowed, stolen, rented, microwaved.
A/N: Finally, an update! I don't know about you but it seemed long to me. Sorry about that. You thought drunk Howl was bad; now he's got a hangover. (I keep rereading the scene in the book and die laughing every single time!) In which some secrets are almost revealed, some fluffiness ensues, and Sophie and Howl engage in some illegal activity. Enjoy! Comments are dwindling :( —keep reviewing please :)
Chapter 9"Uhhhhnnn…" Howl felt terrible. His head was throbbing, the light was far too bright, and he felt like he'd placed a supersensitive hearing spell on the whole world around him. Not to mention he felt slightly disconnected from his limbs.
"You, sir, are going to hell in a handbasket," he heard Sophie barely whisper, and he felt a cold, damp something across his eyes. It felt wonderful. Thank goodness she'd been sensitive enough to make as little noise as possible. Although she was a relatively quiet, soft creature anyway.
"Whyyou say tha'?" he groaned, nearly as slurred as he had been last night.
She just gave him a meaningful, knowing look and he remembered…sort of… "Unnngg. Di' I 'ave all m' clothes on?"
"What, is this a past issue?" She saw he was going to ignore that. "Yes you did, trust me, you wouldn't be here and fully, er," she looked at him again, "mostly intact, if you hadn't."
"Tha's good… 're you sure nothin', I dunno, weird, happ'ned?"
"All things considered, you got so hammered that it wasn't even funny, does that count?"
"Bu' the question is, did I get nailed?" he laughed weakly. Jeez, he bounced back fast, didn't he?
"You know, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. But just to keep it clear: NO." She raised her voice ever so slightly and he winced in pain. "Hm." She looked vaguely sympathetic. "I suggest you go take a very long, hot bath in total silence."
"Don' need t' tell me twice," he groaned, attempting to haul himself up. A wave of nausea hit him and he sat back down immediately.
"Hang on a sec, Howl. Have you no sense at all?" Sophie tsked, concentrating and trying a mild levitation spell on his limp form. "Hungover wizards are even more useless than sober ones," she muttered, putting normal precautions aside to drape one of his arms over her shoulders and guide his hovering body to the bathroom. She deposited him on a chair and made to leave. "I shudder to ask but will you be alright?" Despite his idiocy with no end in sight, he was causing her some worry.
"Uh-huhm," Howl said. Even in his hangover his old habits refused to die, but he had a bit of sense around Sophie. He wisely chose not to say that he wouldn't mind awfully if she stayed.
"Well, no one's hurrying you. Do as you please but stay hidden—I have to go to school." And she closed the door quietly. His welfare wasn't just in her interest because she was a little concerned about him—again, something she continued to deny—but because what if the Witch showed up on her doorstep and Howl was out of commission because of drinking too much? Forget idiocy with no end in sight—there would be no proverbial rhyme or reason to be so much as imagined for miles yet to come.
Sophie stalked up the steps into her room approximately seven hours later, muttering darkly about that day's mandatory sex ed class. "If I hear one more freaking word about fire in the fireplace…" She took pause for a second, remembering the other world she belonged to. "No offense to Calcifer, of course."
"Huh…?" Howl moaned drowsily. "It's in the fireplace…Calcifer…has…" he snored.
Sophie realized that he was asleep and dreaming. So far her noise hadn't woken him up and she'd always wanted to try something on a sleeping person. She decided to have a little fun. "What does Calcifer have, Howl? What does he have in the fireplace?" she asked softly.
"Have to get it back…"
"Get what back?" She was actually a little oddly curious now.
His incoherent mutterings trailed off into more snores.
"Howl…"
"So…phie?"
"Yes, Howl. I need you to tell me…what does Calcifer have?" she murmured soothingly.
"Mh…my…" he breathed for a moment. "Can't tell you."
"But why ever n—?" Was this something else that his curse didn't allow him to talk about? Maybe it was important. She reconsidered her question. "Can you give me a hint? A careful hint?"
"…Taken…every time…life…d—" and his words caught in his throat.
"Howl. Howl? Dammit." Sophie cursed her stupidity. She should have known. What if he stopped breathing? She at least should have waited til he was conscious! Why didn't she ever think these things through? She shook his shoulder and when that didn't work she considered slapping him, then amended that thought and started tapping him hard on the cheek. "Howl!"
He hacked violently as he woke up. He smacked himself on the chest with one hand, catching on a chain that was hanging from around his neck that Sophie hadn't noticed before. From the chain dangled a blue jewel that gleamed the same color as his crystalline eyes. The resemblance was so eerie that Sophie jumped a tiny bit as those eyes flew wide open. He shuddered and coughed a last time and sat there panting a little, closing his still slightly bloodshot eyes again.
"Apparently tongue-tying curses work in your sleep too," Sophie mused quietly, not sure how much volume the wizard's ears could still take.
Howl wheezed unhappily in agreement. Finding his voice, he croaked, "What'd I say? Or rather, try to say?" He was speaking at a normal volume, if a little rusty, which Sophie took for a good sign.
"I said something about Calcifer and didn't notice you were sleeping, then you said that Calcifer had something and I tried to ask you what. But you said you couldn't tell me so I asked for a hint, but all you said was "taken every time" and that wasn't very helpful. You started to say something else but that was when, you, ah, choked and nearly scared me to death." She narrowed her eyes at him like it was his fault.
"What, so it's my fault I got cursed?"
"Doesn't seem so far-fetched to me. Well, maybe it's not entirely your fault if it was the Witch of the Waste that did it. That old hag," she nearly snarled at the two memories she had of the Witch. Neither exactly left warm fuzzy feelings. "I don't blame you for running away from that woman. Although if memory serves me, you looking terrified was a pretty funny sight…" she giggled despite the circumstances it had been under.
"Ugh. You try that someday, tell me how you like it."
"I wouldn't just be running."
"Oh? And how might that be?"
"I'd either be turned around and at least attempting to blast said hag off the face of the earth—"
At this Howl made a rather ungentlemanly snort.
"—or I'd be running and screaming "Run fatty run!" back at her at the top of my lungs."
"She wasn't quite so enormous thousands of years ago, let me tell you."
"So damage her ego, if nothing else. Women obsess over their bodies fah too much." Sophie scoffed. Then her brow furrowed. Had she just said far in a British accent? How weird.
Howl had noticed it too and a little tingle of happiness shocked its way through him briefly. Her old accent had slipped through the cracks of memory and time. "You don't seem to," he responded to her comment.
"Cause I don't really cah and it's just another stupid, fanatical American ideah." Now she frowned. There it was again!
"You really do defy the stereotypes… How like you," Howl remarked.
"I'm nothing special, I just have my views. Everyone does. I just always seem to be the black sheep." She said carefully, thinking about each word as she said it. No weird changes in pronunciation. Good. That was odd. Whatever. She shrugged it off and zoned back in on what Howl was saying.
A thoughtful expression was on his face and he didn't appear to have said anything yet. "When do you turn nineteen, Sophie?"
"Eighteen. Ten…" she corrected and thinking about it realized that her days in Ingary had thrown off her perception of time. One week… "…Four days."
"I always forget that you always look older. Eighteen. Right. Less than a week?" He cursed. "I thought we had more time than that."
She looked older? Huh. Right. "More time? What do you mean?" She just knew that he was about to come out with something else that he hadn't told her and it wasn't going to be good.
"I'm going to put this very bluntly and implore you not to strangle me or pass out."
"Sure."
"You've only ever lived past seventeen once and even then you only made it to twenty-four." As he had expected, her eyes grew big and unfocused as her breath whooshed out and she swayed slightly. He stood quickly, and it was a good thing he did because just then her knees gave out. He caught her, the look in his eyes softening just a little bit only to be beaten down by the lack of a heartbeat in his chest. Jeez, she was a lot heavier than she looked! Maybe because she was pretty much dead weight right now. Not like him telling her not to pass out had helped, he thought as her eyelids fluttered. She was hovering between awareness and unconsciousness. She wasn't shocked to this state easily, Howl thought grimly. Must be tough.
Howl sat down on the bed, holding Sophie on his lap, and just waited. He stroked her hair gently, concentrating on trying to bring out some stronger feelings from within himself. Calcifer was probably ready to kill him from the continued onslaught of emotion that his heart was no doubt throbbing with but nevertheless did not, could not, reach Howl. Five minutes later, Sophie stirred.
Someone was running their fingers through her long hair soothingly, probably the same person that was holding her. It felt nice, and it was a new feeling to be treated as if she were made of glass and might suddenly crack and shatter if she wasn't handled delicately. After a minute, she was awakened slightly out of her haze of pleasant feelings by a light sigh coming from somewhere just above her head. She opened her eyes lazily and then had the overwhelming feeling that one gets when remembering a dream, or a solution that had been obvious but overlooked, or in her case, what had happened to make her pass out.
Realizing she was in Howl's arms, she looked up to see that her head had been neatly tucked into the crook of his neck and thought in the back of her mind that she had rather felt at home there. She righted herself, yet not moving from her seat on his lap, and blinked hard.
"Never getting to eighteen…" she murmured pensively. "Well, what am I supposed to do with my final week?"
Howl could think of plenty of things, but didn't say any of them, because this wasn't going to be her final week! Not this time. "It doesn't have to be that way!" he insisted.
"Do I have a predetermined expiration date on me? I wonder if my heart—huh. My heart. Will it just…give out?" she continued to ponder.
"Sophie. Sophie," he emphasized when her eyes kept their glazed-over look. She zoned back in and looked at him. "I'm not just going into denial—there is a way to stop it."
"It's no use—what?"
"I said, there's a way to stop it." In theory, he added to himself.
"Well do tell how I ended up dying before eighteen before."
Howl swallowed hard. He wouldn't tell her. He couldn't. She knew about the first time, but that was all. And if she hated him for it—he cringed inwardly—all hope was lost because they needed each other if she was going to live. If she hated him later for not telling her sooner…well, assuming she was still alive, she'd warm back up in a little bit. After all, his not telling her would have led to her living. Right. At least, that was what he told himself. He stuck to half the truth. "Think about that, Sophie. Who would want you dead?"
"The Witch."
"Precisely."
"So she cursed me to always die just before eighteen?"
"You can't do that, curses can't directly create death. Come on, Sophie, you're missing the obvious again."
Sophie sighed. Why was she so predictable? Overlooking the simplest of solutions…and she was still drawing a blank. She shrugged.
"She finds ways to kill you, of course. With much drama, too, as I'm sure we've discussed before. That was another reason she's waited til now and not sooner, let alone a year ago. She hardly leaves a day or two to spare."
Sophie's nose wrinkled adorably. "Ugh. Of course. So how do we stop it? I mean her. Or whatever. How do I stay alive?"
"Well, see, that part's all just a big theory right now, but the way I see it, it's looking like a rather pressing matter to see the spells you can do so fa—"
"Stop slithering out!" she scowled in his face.
"Slithering? I'm doing no such thing."
"Tell me about why this is a "theory" as you put it."
"Erm… Well what it all comes down to is how she tries to kill you and how we protect you."
"So it really is a big jumble of variables. Honesty's good, Howl. Keep working on that."
He wasn't sure if that was a compliment or not. He watched as she glared at the upturned palm of her hand in front of her face, a small glow appearing and then flaring into what looked like a miniature Calcifer. Minus the demon part, of course, but still. She was still sitting on his lap, having either not cared or not noticed. Howl was, sadly, betting on the latter.
He playfully swatted at her hand with a wave of ice water. She yelped and threw up a wall in front of the water and it absorbed the conjured liquid. She smiled evilly and shot the water back out at Howl. A dawning look of dismay had just shown itself when it hit him full in the face. Sophie laughed gleefully, at which a suddenly dry and grinning Howl attempted to suffocate her fire with a rapidly compacting bubble of air. She frowned slightly and tried to make the bubble bend to her will instead of his and in that fashion the two continued a tug-of-war-like game for a moment. The bubble just popped without warning from the opposing forces and the two both felt like they'd had a rug yanked from under them. Sophie crashed into Howl, who had been thrown forward to meet her halfway, sending them thudding to the floor in a heap. They were both laughing by now, but as Sophie rolled to get up and stood over Howl with a distinctly mischievous glint in her eyes, a look of apprehensive horror replaced his grin.
She flung her arm out to the side and a wall of water materialized over it, falling to soak Howl from head to foot. He froze momentarily from the sudden coldness and then shuddered and groaned. "Fine, fine, you win! Please don't hurt me." He knelt and shook his black hair like a dog.
Sophie uttered an unladylike snort. "Right. Like I could."
"Actually," he grumbled, "You were always better than me when it all came down to it."
She considered this and then cackled madly, spinning across the room. "Howl Pendragon admits defeat!"
"Shut up," he whined. "…Please?"
"Well, all right, but only since you've said the word 'please' a record two times in the last minute…"
"You're insufferable."
"Always have been, always will be! Just check out my record." She grinned at the old joke she and Maria had.
"You have a juvie record already?! Most definitely less innocent than before."
"Nah, it's just fun to say and watch the reaction. My school record. Everyone's got one, if you have the right connections you can access anyone's and—" she broke off abruptly. Howl followed her train of thought and groaned again.
"Oh, lord, no, she never could have…"
"And why not?" Sophie demanded. "She's a witch, she can appear as young and beautiful and persuasive as she wants. It'd be easy."
"So that's your secret!" Howl joked off-topic-edly.
"Oh, just can it, Howl, it'd be no use anyway."
"Fine, well, how do we know if she's done it or not?"
"Well, see, we have to actually get into the file room. Trying to detect it purely by magic is just too inaccurate, am I right?" she asked smugly.
Howl grunted. "Besides she'll trace the focus of the magic—she can sense it just like we can—right to the school and see what we're doing right away."
"As I thought. We'll have to take some less-than-desirable action here…"
"Action?"
"Shut up."
"You just like to tell me that, don't you?"
"Maybe. Anyhow, we're going to need that lock pick from last year…"
"You do get around, don't you."
"Hey, this is just being resourceful. We're going to have to do some smuggling, breaking, and entering, and we have to do it all without magic. You know," she looked at him thoughtfully, "I'm starting to think how much of a mess you'd be without your magic." He shuddered visibly at the thought, making her laugh.
"I feel like an idiot."
"We're going for functionality, here, not looks. You're fine, black suits you anyhow."
"Why thank you. I can safely say more than the same for you, Sophie dear." It was true, Howl thought. She looked stunning in any kind of anything, and the black just made her prettily white skin glow more.
"Aha! Got it." Sophie had just finished picking the lock on the back entrance to the school, through the janitors' garage-type space. Their feet padded almost silently into the first-floor hallway of the school, by the back of the cafeteria. Sophie had to drag Howl past the pictures of the horrifically perky cheerleading team by the arm.
"How—no, better question—why do you know how to pick locks?" he asked once his attention was back on Sophie.
"You try getting locked out of the house in the middle of a near-hurricane when no one's home. You learn fast. It comes in handy, actually. No one certainly expects anything like that from me, of all people."
They reached a low balcony above the school offices and Howl unhesitatingly vaulted gracefully over the railing to land lightly on the floor. Sophie did the same and was unexpectedly caught by a strong pair of arms. There passed a few seconds during which she and Howl stared at each other (this would be denied by both parties later on) in wonder of the eyes looking back. Sophie's thoughts were mostly centered around, How could this beautiful creature be chasing after me? I don't see why I'm worth it…look at those eyes… Howl was thinking, Sophie, you're beautiful inside and out…how can't you see it? I could never be deserving of you no matter what… The moonlight that was filtering through the tall windows cast a calming glow on everything. It glinted off Howl's raven hair, off Sophie's necklace, off their locked gazes. Howl hesitated before righting Sophie on her feet resignedly.
She mentally slapped herself and nodded coolly in gratitude for catching her, before moving to the office door across the lobby. In another two minutes (it would have been one if Howl hadn't unintentionally kept distracting her!) they were inside and hunting for the file room. In there, Sophie tried to keep form banging the cabinet doors looking for the H's. She finally found it. H…H-A…H-A-T. Lettie, Martha…and no Sophie. Hm.
She looked up. "No go."
"No transactions are in the reports, either. Even better." Howl was rifling through a black notebook.
The slightest sound came from outside the office and down the hall. Howl's temporarily magically enhanced hearing picked it up and his head snapped up. It came again. He swiftly took a confused-looking Sophie around the waist and whisked her back out into the hall, shutting the door silently behind them. When she looked at him concernedly, he motioned for her to be quiet, and let's go now! She nodded vigorously, trusting his judgment for now, and pointed down the hall that led straight to where they had come in.
As they took off down the hall at a run, Sophie's lungs threatened to start hyperventilating with expectant fear. Something had obviously spooked Howl, and that in turn frightened her. Not to mention that the black hallways and creepy darker spots seemed like they were closing in on them. Every shadow scared her and she wanted to just use her magic to light it all up and get out, but—
Two arms shot out of nowhere, one clamping effectively over her otherwise ear-piercing scream, and the other snatching her around the waist, also pinning her arms.
Sophie was absolutely terrified by now and didn't know who or what was holding her, and her hardwired instincts kicked in as she tried in vain to kick, or twist, or escape, or something. Anything! But unlike most times, a few brief seconds that felt much longer than that passed with nothing happening whatsoever in the way of freeing herself.
Howl, in the meantime, had noticed the abrupt change, or rather, lack of movement five feet behind him and spun quickly, scanning the empty hall with fearful blue eyes. Then he noticed the very slight alcove set next to an offshooting hall, and the barest flicker of movement from the shadow of the niche. He slid to a stop in the opening to see a struggling Sophie being held tightly by a…a…what was that? Oh. Right. A blob-man. One of the Witch's…oh, fiddlesticks. He knew that the blob could just go through a wall under normal circumstances, but since his orders seemed to have been "get the girl" he couldn't do that because Sophie, in contrast, was perfectly solid. The blob actually made it easier for Howl by immediately jumping at him, and rather substantially, with not as much of the flowing, gloopy usual motion. A new prototype the Witch was trying out, maybe? Well, it was attacking Howl, so now wasn't the time to think.
Sophie would have gasped in relief if she had had any air to do it with when Howl's shape appeared in the very faintest trace of moonlight in front of the alcove she'd been pulled into. It was a blob-man, she realized as it let her go and launched itself at Howl. One of the Witch's henchmen. They needed to get out—now. But what could she do? Howl and the blob were grappling with each other in the middle of the hall.
The blob-man landed a kick on Howl's side and he gasped slightly in pain. "Sophie, run!" he cried to her.
She froze for a mere fraction of a second. She absolutely was not going to leave him here! But an idea struck her and she sprinted for the exit.
Howl would have just about died on the spot if he hadn't been in the middle of a fight with a blob. She had actually listened to him, done as he had told her, with no encouragement to speak of! She was never going to live that down…assuming he got out of here before the Witch or god-knew-what-else arrived.
Sophie skidded to a half just inside the door. What was she doing? She couldn't just run, even if Howl was scared out of his wits! Especially if he was scared. That meant he needed her help. Time to face the fear, Sophie, she told herself grimly as she pivoted and raced back to Howl.
Howl was clearly fighting a losing battle. It was weird. The blob was really more solid than it should have been and as a result was doing a lot more damage. He saw a shape moving toward them fast from the exit and experienced a second of despair before he realized that he recognized the pounding of the person's feet. What was she doing! She had to get out!
Sophie darted back down the hall and advanced on the surprisingly solid-looking blob from behind. Said blob turned to see this new threat and how he remembered it later was that he was literally shocked into substantiality, into his real form. Sophie's mouth dropped open in shock.
Howl was about to jump on him from behind and Sophie screamed, "Stop!"
Howl gave her a look from behind the ex-blob that plainly said "What are you doing?" except with a whole lot more of expletives.
She focused on the other figure, craning her neck to see his face. He was clearly a real human that had been disguised—she could tell now, even without fully activating her magic. And her suspicions were confirmed. "Justin," she said calmly, a hint of a question in her slightly quavering statement.
Howl immediately caught on and appeared in front of Sophie, yanking her behind him. "And what is it you want?" he snarled.
"S-Sophie?" Justin gasped, ignoring the man.
"Good to see you again," Sophie said as coolly as she could manage, after a few seconds of deafening silence. It was still such a shock to realize that he was alive and breathing, and even more so that he was standing in front of her. She had long since had to accept his death and had tried to move on, and now that part of her was trying frantically to gather itself up and turn itself around.
"I…Look, Soph, I…" he sighed dejectedly. "It can't change anything, but I'm sorry."
Sophie's eyes softened slightly and she stepped the rest of the way out from behind Howl. "I know you are, and I wish it could too." He had been her best friend, after all.
"…You do?"
"Of course. But why are you here now?"
He looked around anxiously. "I was supposed to get a hold of whoever came here…I guess it was you after all."
"So now what?" Howl asked tightly. His jaw was clenched.
"You tell me, ah, Wizard Howl, is it?"
"This seems to have been your mission—"
"Chill, guys. Take a pill." Sophie rolled her eyes and stepped into the no-man's-land between them.
Justin stifled a snicker at the mildly confused look on Howl's face at the idiom.
"We're going to need to be gone, and you're going to need a legit excuse." She turned to her friend and saw Howl stiffen out of the corner of her eye. "What's wrong?" He didn't look well at all. He just shook his head. He couldn't believe this idiot was here. Hadn't he done enough damage already? And Sophie, no less, was standing up for him! Why didn't she realize that he couldn't be trusted? She was too naïve for her own good.
Suddenly a crackly voice boomed out of nowhere. "Howl! Howell Jenkins! The Witch is coming!"
A look of alarm crossed Sophie's face before she realized it was Calcifer, then a more frightened look showed itself. Howl looked vaguely faint. "We have seconds," he said, recovering for Sophie's sake. "Time for us to take off!" When Sophie opened her mouth with a look he recognized all too well, he tacked on "Now?" for emphasis.
"Um, bye!" she called to Justin as Howl all but dragged her toward the door. She saw him nod with a small smile before turning to run through the whirls of large snowflakes that had begun to fall from the night sky.