Hey guys I'm sorry that it took us this long to update. Well me to update, but there is a method to my madness I SWEAR! You see my wonderful reviewers this is the LAST CHAPTER OF LIVING ARRANGEMENTS! I know it makes me sad too! :( But never fear there might be a surprise in store for all of you. Until I have a better chance to tell you….please read on to the final chapter of Living Arrangements.
XxKat-ChanxX
Katie
The summer was winding down and the days were getting shorter and shorter. It sucked, to say the least, that we would have to go back to "The Jailhouse" A.K.A school. But then again it had been a crazy and a little bit frightening summer so I was ready to go back and have something normal to do like go to school. There isn't anything like life threatening danger to get a teenager to their homework. We had exactly two weeks left until our first day which meant one thing. WE HAD TO GO SCHOOL SUPPLIES SHOPPING!
I woke up at 7:00 and realized that I couldn't go back to sleep. I left my room and went across the hall to see if Brooke was up yet. Yeah I should have figured that she was still fast asleep. I decided to take a shower and get dressed because hey, there was nothing magical going on at seven in the morning…as of yet. I took a shower and grabbed a pair of pants and a t-shirt and pulled them on.
Downstairs the house was quiet except for the TV which had been left on all night. I turned on one of the music channels and jammed while figuring out what I wanted for breakfast. Because like everyone knows, Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! I grabbed a bagel and popped it in the toaster and dug the crème cheese from the fridge. I was lucky enough to find half a package left that HADN'T gone bad. But then again none of the food ever went bad unless someone wasn't in the house. It was against Aizen's religion to let any food go bad and the guys had no problem going by that.
Footsteps clomped down the stairs and Lilinette and Fran came into the kitchen and sat on the barstools still looking dead to the world.
"Hey guys want some bagels?" I got glares and went back to making my bagel and brewing some coffee. No matter what Brooke says MY SHORTNESS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH COFFEE! I am naturally short and thanks to the Hogyoku I gained two inches, but then again so did Fran and Brooke so I'm STILL shorter than them. But whatever, that's not important.
My mind traveled all over the place thinking about everything and anything. Finally I got to thinking about school. We didn't have a lot of time left before the bells from hell rang and we'd be back in class again. We'd have to go shopping soon…which was going to be my epic adventure for the day!
"HEY GUYS!" I said excitedly. Fran and Lilinette looked over at me. I guess they decided that they couldn't muster up any more glares so they just gave me blank looks. "We should go school shopping today. It's Sunday and we really don't have anything to do anyways." The idea of shopping snapped Lilinette out of her daze and she excitedly agreed. Fran nodded and went back to drinking her orange juice. I wasn't worried, she'd come around eventually.
By 8:30 everyone in the house was up, with the exception of Stark, and doing random things. Brooke and Grimmjow were in the living room watching cartoons, well really they were fighting over the remote, Fran and Ulquiorra were playing a card game, and the rest of the Spada were scattered around the house. So while they were doing their thing, I made up a list of all the stuff we needed at random stores though out town. Finally I got the list done and went into the living room.
"Hey guys!" I said walking in the living room. They kept fighting and playing cards. Unfortunately for me Brooke hit the volume button in her attempt to get the remote from Grimmy and the TV was blaring so they couldn't hear me yelling at them. "GUYS!" I shouted and waved my arms at them. Finally I went over, took the remote from Grimmjow's hands and hit both him and Brooke over the head.
I pushed mute and glared at them. "Oww Kat! What was that for?" Brooke said grumpily while she rubbed her head.
"Did you even see me screaming at you?" I said and she shook her head. "Anyways! So you know how school is starting in a few weeks?" Brooke covered her ears and started yelling.
"NO KATIE! DON'T SAY THE DREADED S-WORD LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" she said while hiding behind Grimmjow.
"Sorry girly, you gotta go back to the jailhouse" I said with a grin. Hey, don't judge! Around here we thrived on each other's pain and misery. It was the only way to get cheap entertainment in our sorry lives. "But anyways I think today is a good time to go school shopping. We have to do it some time and there isn't anything going on today so I think we should go."
"Can we get Taco Bell for lunch?" Brooke asked. I looked at her bewildered.
"Dude it's like 9:30 and you're already thinking about eating Taco Bell? You need to go in and tell them that you love their food as much as you do. You might get free Taco Bell for the rest of your life." Brooke grinned.
"Bwahaha, that would please the Almighty Brooke!" She said standing epically.
"That is the incorrect use of those words" A voice said behind us. We all looked and found Szayel pushing up his glasses and holding a clipboard in his hands.
"PINKY!" Brooke and I yelled. I tackle glomped Szayel to the floor and tried to hug him to death. Hey, so I missed the guy ok? Life got pretty boring when you weren't somewhere in Szayel's lab helping him blow stuff up. So when we didn't hear explosions under our feet we got a little worried. Szayel had been gone sense we left and this was the first time we had seen him sense we all got back.
"Hey Szayel can we go blow some stuff up now?" He snorted and shook the clipboard in his hands.
"I have plenty of work to keep me busy for a few hours. If I need you for test dummies, I'll call. Now if you'll excuse me, I have data to record." Brooke glared at him as he went down the steps to his basement lab.
"What crawled up his butt? Mr. Pinky needs a good ass kicking" She said. I rolled my eyes and pulled Fran, Lilinette, and Brooke into the kitchen so we could look over the list.
"Alright, we need the regular crap, binders, pens, pencils, book covers, notebooks, ect. Then we need to go clothes shopping because Brooke has four pairs of pants and they all look like they got thrown through a mail shredder." Brooke crossed her arms and sat back mumbling to herself.
"Otay! So are we going together or do we want to split up and go different places?" Fran asked.
"If I have to go clothes shopping I'm dragging Grimmy with me!" Brooke said. She ran off and came back pulling the poor guy by the ear.
"What the HELL woman!" he said rubbing his ear, which was now turning a nice shade of bright red.
"YOU are going school shopping with us!" she said excitedly.
"What no way!" He said glaring at us.
"Yeah you, Ulquiorra, and Nnoitra need school supplies to and if you don't go we'll pick out stuff for you and you'll be stuck with my little pony binders and pretty pink pencils with matching cap erasers." I said, we crossed our arms over our chests and stared at Grimmjow until he gave in. Maybe it was the fact that he was threatened with girly things or maybe it was that four girls simultaneously staring at him.
"Ahhh FINE I'll GO!" Brooke cheered, ran up, and tackled him to the ground. Fran and I grabbed our bags and we ran out to the car with Brooke, Lilinette, Grimmjow, and Ulquiorra behind us.
First we hit Wal-Mart and split up to get school supplies and other random supplies.
"Fran! Will you come with me to get some tampons?" I shouted behind Grimmy. I watched him twitch and laughed at his uncomfort.
"Sure!" Fran said just as loud. Grimmjow walked faster up towards where Brooke and Lilinette were looking at random binders and notebooks. Ulquiorra on the other hand didn't seem to be in any rush to follow Grimmjow's lead and even went with us to the 'feminine needs' isle, not even flinching as Fran and I discussed which box to get, ignoring any and all weird looks he may or may not have gotten. This, of course, only made it all the funnier.
After getting 'the goods' it took our happy trio a full ten minutes to find the others. This was mostly because instead of being in the school supplies area(s), they were in the electronic section.
"Hi guys!" Lilinette waved, turning away from the Nintendo she was playing for only a moment before returning to her game, yelling savagely as she did so.
"Hi Lilinette, where's Brooke?" I asked her as I looked around noticing that neither the brunette nor the bluenette were visible.
"Over there somewhere." Lilinette motioned with her head, her eyes never leaving the Nintendo.
"Thanks." I mumbled as I started walking in the general direction that Lilinette had motioned to. Brooke ended up being in one of the most expected places in the whole section, the music isle.
"Hey dude!" Brooke yelled over the music she was blaring, causing quite a few people to turn around at her loud voice.
"Weren't you supposed to be getting school supplies?" I asked as I grabbed her headphones and pulled them away from her ears.
"Yeah, but this was more fun." She admitted simply.
"Touché." I agreed before I saw a Korn cd out of the corner of my eye. With the speed of a cheetah, I grabbed the loan cd and started bouncing up and down happily, the cd clutched tightly to my chest.
After browsing the music/movie section for roughly 16.7 minutes (once again, just a rough estimate) we finally decided to actually do what we came here for, namely, get school supplies. It must've been a difficult journey from the electronic department to the school supplies section seeing as just as we were finishing up getting everything we needed (all of Ulquiorra's stuff was black, fyi) , we noticed we were missing someone. A certain blue haired someone to be precise.
"I'll find Grimmy!" Brooke declared before walking away, taking her basket and walking away.
"Do you think she realizes she could just use the loud speaker to have him paged?" I asked Fran as we stood in the isle, not quite sure what to do.
"Probably not." My psychic friend answered, shaking her head sadly at this insight.
"HEY KITTY, GET YOU BUTT OVER HERE!" We instantly recognized the voice disrupting our concentration only moments later. Walking out of the section the four of us saw Brooke standing halfway down the walkway looking around for our missing kitty.
"Ma'am, you're making a scene, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." A random employee said, walking up to Brooke.
"You can't tell her what to do, she's a paying customer!" Fran objected, stomping over to the poor employee angrily. Said employee was starting to look a little frightened with the two brunettes glaring at him/her (I really wasn't sure).
"Y-you need t-to leave or we will have you es-s-scorted from the premises." He/she/IT stuttered.
"Fine, come on Brooke, let's go." Fran relented, though she never stopped glaring as the two of them threw down their baskets, before linking arms and walking out, smiling evilly as they pasted. The employee stood there for a moment as Ulquiorra silently walked over and grabbed the two discarded baskets, before shooting them a glare that put both Fran's and Brooke's glares to shame and walking back over to Lilinette and me. Just as the store began returning to normal(ish) Grimmjow walked up.
"What was all the ruckus about?" Sighing, I shook my head before walking towards the check out.
"Never mind Grimmy." After checking out, we carried our stuff out to the parking lot where we found Brooke and Fran sitting on my car.
"Hi Guys!" Brooke chirped when she saw us, looking quite proud of herself.
"How did the shopping go?" Fran asked innocently, "You know, after we got kicked out and all."
"Was the really necessary?" Grimmjow questioned sounding half interested.
"Oh, completely." Both girls agreed, hopping off the car and helping us stuff our things in the trunk before all six of us crammed into my five person car. Not the best idea in the world but whatever he police weren't going to pull me over unless I gave them a reason and I didn't feel like getting ticketed, so I said screw it and actually drove close to the speed limit THIS TIME.
We finished all of our school shopping and decided to take a trip to Dairy Queen. Yes everyone it was ICE CREAM TIME! Brooke and Fran raced ahead dragging Ulquiorra and Grimmy like rag dolls while I grabbed my keys. I followed behind and we stood in line deciding what to order. Once again the arguing started and I was worried that we would get kicked out of freakin DAIRY QUEEN! Who the hell gets kicked out of Dairy Queen, yeah I can see Wal-Mart or Meijer, but Dairy Queen...Really? Grimmjow came to stand next to me and we took a few steps back while Brooke and Fran argued about the pros and cons of putting sprinkles or chocolate chips on their build-your-own sundaes.
"So are you going to go break them up or am I?" I said looking at the two brunettes arguing adamantly at each other.
"Well one of them might kill me and the other might squeeze me to death, so I'm thinking it's your turn" I sighed and realized that I wasn't going to get any real help from Mr. Catnip or the Emo Kid, so I sighed and went to solve my very embarrassing and public problem.
"Alright you two, knock it off or both of you are getting thrown out of here" I said smacking both of them upside the head. They mumbled under their breath and marched up to the counter to order their ice cream. Once they were done, after a half hour choosing might I add, Grimmy, Lilinette and I ordered and we all sat outside on the patio to enjoy the sunshine and our wonderful ice cream. We chilled for a little while and waited until the last possible moment before we went back home.
Deciding to be a little bit dangerous and scare the living shit out of the rest of my friends, I took the back roads home and went as fast as my car would go. I think they peed their pants. I almost flipped the car a few times, but hey I got them home in one piece and I think I got the fastest time ever. I broke my driving record, made my friends pee their pants, and got the satisfaction of hearing their screams all the way home. So all in all I think it was a good day.
Stark came out and helped me carry in the bags while Fran and Brooke took Ulqui and Grimmy to who in hell knows where. I unloaded all of the stuff and sorted them into piles for each of us and Stark put the decorations I bought for the surprise I got for everyone, even if I thought that they didn't really deserve it sometimes.
After Stark and I finished, we went into the living room and sat in the really big blue chair and cuddled. I laced my fingers through his and leaned back and sighed happily. School was going to start soon, and that was going to be an adventure on its own. Of course the 'Spada were coming back with us. One more year and our high school years were going to be over. It was odd knowing that the people you wanted to be with you were actually going to be there for once.
Stark may have been a lazy ass bastard but I knew that at the end of the day I was always going to want to cuddle up to him and fall asleep next to him. He knew me so well and I loved that about him. It was hard hiding stuff, but honestly I would end up telling him anyways eventually.
Brooke and Grimmjow, I don't even know where they're going to go. There would be days where they would want to rip each other's heads off, but Grimmjow cared about her in some weird way that I would never know. He would cut anyone to shreds if they tried to hurt her, and I was sure that Brooke knew that even though she would probably deny it.
Fran and Ulquiorra's relationship was a quiet one. Ulquiorra came out of his shell when he was around her, dropping his façade of an emotionless bastard. Fran was calm and peaceful when he was anywhere around her. They completed each other perfectly.
We were all so different, but when we came together we made a family; a very dysfunctional, loud, obnoxious, and horribly unsupervised family. But that's the way we are and nothing would change that. I stopped thinking, closed my eyes and listened to the sound of Stark's breathing and the warmth coming from our intertwined hands.
"KAT-CHAN!" My eyes snapped open and I glared at the person who interrupted my nap.
"What Brooke" I said rubbing my eyes.
"What's with the big white box in the fridge? It won't open and I was wondering if I should get the blow torch and try and fry it open." She said gesturing at the blow torch in her hand. "I was gonna ask you if you wanted to but you were napping then I thought what the hell I'll wake her up anyways."
"Gee thanks, the box is for everyone from me. So go get everyone and tell them to get their asses up here for their present."At the sound of the word present Brooke ran off to find everyone while I crawled out of Stark's lap and got the box and the rest of the stuff from the bag I hid under the sink and together we decorated before everyone came into the kitchen
As they all assembled I grabbed the white box and placed it on the counter. "Alright so I just wanna say that I had an amazing summer with you guys. Even though I thought I was going to kill you all at one point, I realized that it didn't matter and I just wanted to get you guys something." I opened the sealed box and turned it around so everyone could see. Inside the box was a cake. It was covered random sunset colors, beach balls, candy blankets, and blue food coloring made part of it look like water. The cake looked like the beach scene from our trip to Lake Michigan.
Instantly Brooke, Fran, and Lilinette came up and tackled me to the floor trying to squeeze the life out of me.
"OH MY GOD!"
"Kat-chan! It looks amazing!"
"Thankies, thankies, thankies and million times over!"
"You guys are welcome but if you don't let go I'm going to turn blue" I said gasping for air. We all stood up and I went to cut the cake. Everyone went into the living and we settled in to watch a movie. I looked over to see Brooke and Grimmy on the couch. I laughed when Brooke put her feet in his lap. He shoved them off and scowled at her, but she kept putting them back up there. They kept this up until Grimmjow gave up and let them stay there. I finished eating and took my plate to the sink and went back into the living room to find Stark in my chair.
"And you think I won't kick you out because…?" I raised an eyebrow looking at him. He gave me a lazy smile and pulled me into his lap and I sighed and relaxed as his arms wrapped around me. "This is the only time you're getting away with this" I said, he just chuckled and kissed the top of my head. We watched T.V for a bit and I somehow I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up upstairs in my bed cuddled against Stark as he smoothed my hair back from out of my face.
"What time is it?" I asked a little out of it. The clock was somewhere in the room and I really didn't feel like looking for it.
"About two in the morning" He said. I sighed and rubbed my face. I laid there for a few moments, something was bugging me and I couldn't figure out what. Then I realized what it was.
"You'll always care about me won't you?" I asked wondering why the question came out.
"Of course, I'm glad you crashed into my life. Your fiery personality and all" He smiled down at me and a cuddled closer finally realizing that I had nothing to worry about; At least for now anyways.
I hope you guys enjoyed reading Living Arrangements. We sure did love reading all of you amazing reviews! Don't worry my dear little reviewers we are making a sequel as we speak. So sit tight and hold on to your hats because WE WILL BE BACK! Brooke and I love you all terribly and we will see you very soon.
With bucket loads of love,
XxBrooke and Katie of Dazed and ConfusedxX