All copy-written characters are the sole properties of their holders and no infringement is intended; no money is being made. As if people would pay my for this... lol
Kagome tripped on the threshold but managed to not get too wet in the unseasonable late Spring chill.
Rin let her friend and co-worker in through the dilapidated door and went back to doing her second most favorite thing in the world; hiding from her problems. This time it masqueraded as cleaning the living room furniture. Rin's new roommate was a strange sort of slob, things were clean but in casual disarray – shit piled here or flung there. Rin had decided it was dusty too; her hands reeked of furniture polish, Kagome noted with a shriveled nose. Where had she seen that grey velvet dust-rag before?
"When did you move?"
"Uh, a few weeks ago. Surprising how much shit you have when you move. I ditched most of it – the guys that got talked into moving the last couple boxes should be here already.", Rin thought out loud, trying to keep from scratching her nose with her waxy hands, waggling her face to try to assuage the annoying sensation. "Wonder if the rain's keeping them?"
"Just sneeze and cut the foreplay already!", Kagome laughed and shrugged off her damp coat, tossing it onto a soft, large case leaning against the nearest wall.
Three wet sneezes later, Rin gave up her one-woman crusade against dust and clutter. She braved the kitchen to grab her friend something cold and wet to drink. Now sitting comfortably in the middle of the bleached hardwood floor, Rin tried to remember why Kagome was here in the first place. The cell phone had rung her awake this morning and she'd agreed to whatever the voice on the other end had said to her before full consciousness had settled for the day – hence Kagome in her living room.
"You always sit on the floor in your own house?", Kagome lightly questioned the befuddled woman idly picking at her red toe-nail polish.
"Eh, it's not mine.", Rin quickly forgot herself and answered truthfully.
"Really?"
"Huh?"
"Nothing, Rin. So, about the horrific code last week; wanna go somewhere and talk about it?", Kagome shook her suspicions off like the rain in her black hair and fixed Rin with her most charge nurse-like demeanor.
"Is that what I said? I was half-awake... but – yeah. I really do. I think I need to.", Rin yawned behind her hand and realized she was still elbows-up in cleaning and worrying her latest sad attempt at a pedicure to death. Neither of which was becoming on her in the slightest, nor was it putting her mind at ease. She might as well go out.
She thought she could hear slow, even breathing through the closed bedroom door.
"Let me wash this crap off my hands and change my clothes really quick. I feel like Irish food...", Rin smiled to herself and pushed up off the ancient wood. Lifting her small foot to take a purposeful step in the right direction, the old floorboard complained with a dry snap. Even Kagome squeaked at the sheer volume inside the still house. Urban re-gentrification, her ass, Rin rued to herself, trying not to breathe.
Seconds dripped down like the slow rain outside but nothing moved – or woke up.
"Oh thank fucking god...!", Rin whispered in a rush to herself. She knew she couldn't hide it forever but she planned on trying to, as long as she could.
Kagome raised an eyebrow but said nothing – for a change.
Rin hit the bathroom by the office, threw her dust-rag over the pristine ES-175 on the stand and pawed through her stuff looking for clean clothes. Kagome could hear her friend muttering to herself and wanted to laugh. It was ridiculous; what was this – high school? The sound of running water wandered into her ears and Kagome found herself perusing her surroundings idly in wait.
The table before her had an interesting couple of books, an old copy of The Lancet journal and a low leather-covered box. The box was partially resting on the sharpest kitchen knife Kagome had ever lain her eyes upon. The dust jacket for one of the books featured a round orb of pink quartz which Kagome noted was from something called the Shikon mine. But the box was what kept drawing her eyes. It looked... lived in... something told her it's proximity to the wicked piece of butchery so out of place on a living room table bespoke of pure and concentrated malevolence to her. Being Kagome, she naturally wanted to see what was inside.
"Don't touch that!", Rin hissed in her most excellent timing; her friend's hand was resting on the lid to her junkie boyfriend's works and her knowledge would be the end of everything. It wasn't something she really wanted to be discussing over lunch – ever.
"What? Why – what is it?", Kagome drew back her hand like the soft worn leather box had been iced in molten lead.
"It's not mine.", Rin spat. "Let's get the hell out of here before something horrible happens."
"Horrible? What is going on with you? Who else is here?", Kagome stood, meeting Rin at the thick oak front door.
"No one. Let's just go.", Rin sighed out and fished for her keys. The newest one was a deep shade of metallic violet.
"Wait -Rin. I need to make a phone call before we go out in the wet.", Kagome backed up, away from escape.
"Uh, ok – just, I'm really hungry...", Rin nervously spoke to the front door, trying to open the stubborn locks.
"No problem – it'll just take a sec.", Kagome spoke with strange finality, fished a paper out of her purse and began to dial. "Thank the gods for caller id."
"Wait... Kagome!", Rin struck a brain-wave and froze herself to the door, which happily entrapped her in place.
Kagome's normally sweet disposition turned piercing as she listened to a cellphone ringing in the room next to them. It rang four times before a large organic mass shifted enough to pick it up. Both women stared at each other; one defiant, the other defeated and annoyed.
"Onigumo.", a sleep-raspy voice growled into Kagome's ear in a weird kind of stereo, since she could also hear the same voice muffled from behind the bedroom door to her left...
"This call had better not be coming from my living room.", Naraku bitched around a yawn.
Kagome hung up the phone quickly and bugged her eyes out at her friend slumped against the recalcitrant door.
"What did you do? Rin?", Kagome squawked hoarsely at her weakly grinning friend, gesturing wildly at the bedroom door, which promptly opened to one very tall, sleep-rumpled mass of questionable humanity. Naraku's throat wore a new gorget of red and purple bruises, his whip-thin chest and hips had suspicious welts that Kagome had an ugly feeling might match Rin's fingernails perfectly. Thank god the rest of the maniac's body was covered by a pair of black pajamas.
"What did you do, little Rin? Go ahead and tell her.", Naraku goaded Rin from her impromptu spotlight against his front door. He sauntered lazily between his little mistress and her shocked friend, running his long white fingers over the wood behind the furiously-thinking woman with a wicked smile. Pulling Rin off the door, Naraku turned her back against him quickly, shouldering them both up against the unforgiving slab.
"Tell her what we did against this very door and tell her how I made you scream...", he hissed down into her ear, covering them both in his wild, sleep tangled hair, facing down Kagome's shocked gaze with no little enjoyment.
"Naraku – quit it!", Rin fired back at her purring lover without looking at him.
"I remember your pleas last night being a bit different-", Naraku started, looking down at the woman before him with mock disbelief, helping himself to a fine view of her cleavage in the process. The feeling of his girl's suddenly too-strong hand gripping his cock was fantastic; it was all Naraku could do not to break her in half, right here in front of her meddlesome co-worker; Rin's anger never failed to pump fire in his veins, making him throb heavily in her warning, squeezing grasp.
"I'm going out. Aren't I, Kagome?", Rin spoke in a tightly controlled voice. She squeezed her hand behind her back just a little harder and felt Naraku take a deep, shivering breath in response.
"Yes, I suppose you are, Rin. Is he going with us?", Kagome knew better than to argue – Rin's dark eyes were fixed and dilated with all the compromise she was going to tolerate until food and drink made her human again. Irish food sounded fucking great.
"No, he is not. He is going back to sleep because he was on-call last night.", Rin answered quickly in her dull, angry voice before anything else could be said about it. Assent was given behind her as Naraku cupped her clutching hand tight around his captured cock and groaned heavily, which he hid nicely in a showy yawn.
Kagome's eyebrows shot up at the large man blocking their escape. He seemed to be waiting for something. Long black hair twisted in the slight draft as Naraku tested Rin's determination to do nothing to him but leave.
Rin turned around and pushed Naraku out of her way, which he allowed when she whispered a strange guttural-sounding word to him.
Kagome could have gone her whole life and most of the next one without seeing the half-naked Dr. Onigumo rubbing his crotch with a devious smile as they passed his smirking, sleep-fuddled form on the way out the door. Rin didn't bother to close it behind them. She hit the first high metal step at a dead march and didn't stop until the smell of Guinness and corned beef was assaulting her nose like a kick-boxer.
"What did you say to him?", Kagome finally let her curiosity get the best of her friendly silence in the busy cafe.
"Verstaendlich. It's German for 'do you understand?'", Rin pinched her brows together in the hand not cuddling a large glass of black beer. "Or so I've been recently taught."
"What – is that the safe word or what?", Kagome shot out suddenly with a stupid grin.
"He wishes.", Rin snorted back and took a huge drink of her beer, trying not to smile.
"You know you two are worst couple I've ever seen. Seriously. You're going to kill one another.", Kagome scolded around a mouth-full of her drink.
"Again – he wishes.", Rin tossed back, eating slowly. She was tempted to forgo the fork and just feed herself the pink meat with her fingers. Minutes dragged as she remembered the last time she'd been... requested... to eat in such a fashion. Wet, shivering minutes... remembering Naraku's lying tongue in her ear, whispering sin upon delicious sin to her, his fingers within her – driving them both mad.
Kagome noticed a flush begin in her friend's down-cast cheeks; she didn't really want to guess why.
It was just – wrong – somehow to picture them together.
"You know he has deep-seated emotional problems for which the man needs to seek heavy medical treatment, Rin.", Kagome tried again, none too gently.
"Kagome. You're not telling me anything I don't already know here.", Rin groused. "Stop bitching about it, already."
"Why him?"
"Ask him!"
"I will not, besides when has he ever given a straight answer to anything?"
"You'd be surprised."
"No shit I would!", Kagome swore – with gusto.
"I think the Mets are going to take it this year, don't you? They're solid – they're going to go all the way...", Rin spoke to the air before her raised glass with a tiny smile, faraway eyes smoky in their utterly false reverie.
"Fine – if you don't want to talk about it, let's just go drink then.", Rin's closest friend and biggest critic threw up her hands with a grimace.
"Now you're finally talking sense, my friend."
.USW.
"Where are you?", Naraku grated into the phone, crunching mercilessly through a piece of ice. The rain had lifted for the moment, but the cold humidity had been kind enough to stay. The forecast was calling for sleet and freezing rain tonight. Hair stuck the physician's marred and sweaty back as he stood outside. It did nothing for his mood.
"RIN! – where are we? Your boyfriend wants to know!", Kagome screamed over the music.
"Who are you talking to?", Rin's intoxicated slur echoed back into Naraku's mostly amplified ear. He looked again at the phone's screen – the number said the bitch was next door...
"She says your an asshole, Onigumo and to eat shit and die!", Kagome laughed into the phone, putting her head on the bar, because it seemed like the thing to do when the going got drunk and weird.
.USW.
Rin stretched her stiff neck, these damn bar stools sucked. It was dark outside – and she was mostly drunk. She idly wondered if Juuromaru had ever brought her last few boxes of shit to her new address. She really needed to go home and check on that... eventually.
Kagome was still sipping the defrosted dregs of some frozen slushy business from her somehow endless glass and chattering away on her phone to someone, someone Rin knew...
"She says you're a – hey, hey Rin, what did you call Onigumo a few weeks back? Something old-fashioned... something farm-related..."
"Farm-related, for fuck's sake? Oh, yeah – a pig fucker.", Rin grinned stupidly, trying unsuccessfully to chase a stray hair out of her mouth.
"Yeah, you asshole, you suck and you, she says - you fuck pigs! Take that!", Kagome screeched loud enough for a guy two stools away to look embarrassed for them both.
"Wait – who are you talking to?", Rin nervously pestered, reaching for the cellphone...
"Never mind – he hung up on me, the prick.", Kagome huffed and flipped her phone closed. "Let's have another; on me. To you, Rin – may the gods have mercy on your soul!"
Rin raised her mostly dead soldier and swallowed hard.
A long moment flew by and the bar's door opened on yet another customer. The wet wind came in after him, belling out hi enormous black coat like spectral wings. Pin-pricks of icy sleet frosted the wind-blown mass of black hair that seemed to whip and twine with a mind of its own. The ice had already melted in luminous trails down the dark blue lenses. The bartender got a bad feeling that came and stayed.
The tall presence stalked slowly to where Kagome and her friend were sitting in shocked silence and once he'd come within speaking distance he merely loomed. Kagome looked askance - once at the towering yet still silent maelstrom of dark oblivion invading her personal space and then once at Rin, who appeared to be slowly counting to ten with her dark eyes closed.
Kagome thought she could hear Onigumo's boots echo like iron death when he took another step up to her. She could feel the lapel of his voided coat against her arm and breathed heavily out her nose when he continued to say nothing at all and stare her down. The cobalt glass over his mad eyes threw sick-looking circles on his raw face. But it was nothing compared to the hellish slasher smile plastered across the man's silent lips.
He stepped another heavy step towards her, this time there was nowhere left to go. Kagome didn't want to crane her neck to look the looming physician in the eye, she was afraid of what he might do if she did. Ice trembled in her glass with tiny seismic waves as Kagome felt her composure begin to slip. She'd never been afraid of a doctor in her life – but then again, they're weren't in a hospital, now were they? She had thought Onigumo a maniac physician before – now he was just a maniac.
When Naraku leaned across her back suddenly to grab Rin's nearest wrist, Kagome flinched so hard she thought she'd pissed herself.
"You can relax – I'm just here to collect my pig.", Naraku hissed loud enough for them all to hear and pulled Rin after him as he unfolded himself to leave.
Everyone in the bar was glad to see him go.
A/N: Some kind soul has brought it to my attention that my lovingly crafted version of Naraku here resembles Hellsing's Alucard quite a bit - which is not terribly surprising, considering I'm a large fan of that manga as well. I think it's the coat and the glasses, but rest assured those are only my own Gothic personal quirks; my own dark overcoat is not wool but hand-sewn in black leather (in an earlier incarnation I made leather garments by hand for the dark and evil crowd) and the Victorian cobalt-glazed sunglasses are my own as well. They are a nice stylish way to hide one's pin-point pupils from the disapproving world... not that I'd know anything about that, now would I? Anyone who knows me knows of my two men; one who actually looks a great deal like Naraku with his pale skin and waist-length dark hair and the other, a monster nearly seven feet tall and all Dom; I like their hybridization in my fiction a great deal. Here's to hoping you do too :) - The Voice in the Wilderness. - And USW stands for "uns so weiter" or 'Etcetera." cuz it's a pain to find a suitable page break in this format.