Subject: [kffdisc] Blanket Scenario (guess who! ^_^;) Date: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 05:45:03 EST From: MadamHydra@aol.com Reply-To: kffdisc@onelist.com To: kffdisc@onelist.com From: MadamHydra@aol.com I'm reposting this because of the switch in mailing lists. I apologize if you guys end up with duplicates! Here goes my contribution. I whipped this up in a few hours so pardon the roughness and the mistakes! ^_^; This story is set in "The Nightwitch Tales" and takes place 8 years before the events in RK. And yes, this story leads up to, but doesn't actually cover Saitoh's proposal to Tokio. Sorry about that.... Oh yeah. No lemon in this one! =^_^= ====================================================================== ROMANCING THE WOLF: A Rurouni Kenshin Fanfic by MadamHydra ====================================================================== The Blanket Scenario ====================================================================== The Blanket Scenario The situation: two Rurouni Kenshin characters trapped overnight in a single-room cabin in the middle of a blizzard. It's so cold that falling asleep uncovered will undoubtedly cause hypothermia. One blanket. --------------- Disclaimer All rights and privileges to Rurouni Kenshin belong to Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shuiesha, Sony Music Entertainment, and associated parties. The characters of these series are used WITHOUT permission for the purpose of entertainment only. This work of fiction is not meant for sale or profit. Original portion of the fiction included here is considered to be the sole property and copyrighted to the author. ********************************************************************** [Meiji year 3] Saitoh Hajime glared in annoyance at the one solitary item in the drafty cabin. A blanket. There was nothing wrong with that blanket. It was just a normal-sized blanket of better than average quality. It had done nothing to earn the intimidating stare of the feared Miburo -- a look known to make brave men's knees turn to water. He glanced at the window and saw the fat white flakes swirling in the fierce wind. Even as he watched, the snowfall became perceptible heavier. He could barely make out the pine trees that stood only a few yards away from the cabin. (Who ever heard of a raging blizzard at the end of April? Even if we are in the mountains....) So here he was, chasing after a list of names that was the key to a corrupt conspiracy that threatened to devour the still young Meiji government from within. In turn, he was being chased by those same corrupt officials who were desperate to retrieve that same list. He gritted his teeth in suppressed fury. They DARED to frame him as a traitor, dared to brand him as renegade. Many in the government were all too willing to believe the lies. They were afraid of him... as they should be. Fools. But when he got his hands on that list, he would know which person in the government was merely an idiot and which person was a true conspirator. So here he was, both the hunter and the hunted, a man barely recovered from the poisonous dart of some unknown assassin, stuck in a rickety little cabin in the middle of the worst snowstorm to hit the Kyoto area in half a century. And most importantly of all, stuck with HER. He glanced over his shoulder at the young woman quietly standing by the doorway. She patiently waited for him to say something or come to a decision. Then again, very little seemed to bother Takagi Tokio. She hadn't complained when he dragged from her home, even as the conspirators' henchmen were tearing down the front door. She hadn't said a word as he shoved her out the second-story window of the last inn they had stayed at, only moments before the arrival of the ninja assassins. He was grateful. In his weakened state, he doubted he could have tolerated a whiny or whimpering female. He leaned over to scoop up the blanket, but when he straightened, his vision started to go dark. "Hajime-san!" A pair of slim, but strong arms grabbed him around the waist and kept him from falling on his face. Tokio quickly lowered him to the floor, then knelt beside him. "Damn it," he swore nastily as he waited for the room to stop spinning. She said softly, "It's the cold. Your body's not fully recovered from the poison yet." He silently watched Tokio as she efficiently pulled off his jacket, wet with melted snow and ice. She lightly patted his light sleeveless shirt to make sure it was still dry. Tokio then plucked the blanket from his fingers, shook it out, and wrapped it carefully around his shoulders. As a child, he could barely tolerate being nursed, even by his mother. But it didn't bother him at all when Tokio did it, not even in his most embarrassing or vulnerable moments, whether it was vomiting up muddy canal water on her feet or having to remove nearly all his clothes so she could stitch or bandage his wounds. Cool fingers delicately brushed his forehead with the lightness of a butterfly. Tokio placed her small travel pack on the floor and said, "If you don't get some rest, the fever will return." He stared up at her as she gracefully rose to her feet. "What about you?" She smiled slightly. "I'm fine." "Feh. You're not dressed for this sort of weather." Neither of them were. The temperature had plunged from a balmy spring warmth to well below freezing in a matter of a few hours. "But I'm not ill," she said with irrefutable calm. "And there's only one blanket." "I know that," he snapped irritably. "But you will be ill if you spend all night wearing those wet clothes. And it won't do me any good if you end up sick instead of me. The only way we're going to stay ahead of our pursuers is for both of us to stay as healthy as possible. And that means we both need to stay warm." She looked at him for a moment, then murmured, "Yes, you're quite right. Forgive my stubbornness." Tokio silently removed the wet travelling coat she wore over her kimono, then took off the kimono itself. She continued to peel off layers until she was wearing nothing more than her soft cotton underwear. In the drafty cabin, both his wet jacket and her damp clothes were already half-frozen and stiff from the cold. After she sat down beside him, he flicked a corner of the blanket over her shoulders. She sat close enough to be fully covered, but not so close as to crowd him. "How did you manage to get so wet?" he muttered. "A clump of snow fell off a tree branch and landed on me." "And you didn't say anything?" She looked up at him and simply replied. "You told me to be quiet." He remembered that moment. A few of the conspirators' men had managed to catch up with them. Still weak, he had told her stay silent as he waited in ambush. She hadn't uttered a single sound... not when a freezing cold mass of snow and ice had landed on her head... not when she had been splashed in the face with their pursuers' blood. Even as he stared down at her, a bead of water seeped out of her hair, down her forehead, then dripped off her nose. He glared at her. "Hell. Your hair, too." She squeezed some of the strands straggling around her face and watched a water droplet form. "Oh dear." She reached up and began to pull out her hair pins. With a tug of one final pin and a gentle shake of her head, the long, shimmering strands fell around her shoulders and cascaded over his bare arm, clinging to his skin like wet silk. He watched in unconscious fascination as she dried her hair as best she could with a corner of the blanket, then finger-combed the tangles out. She glanced up at him just as he managed to jerk his gaze away. He did his best to remind himself that he was bringing her along only as bait. Admittedly, he found her surprisingly helpful and pleasingly competent. Not to mention quite beautiful and witty in a quiet sort of way. He could get used to having her around. "Can we both sleep or should I keep watch?" she murmured. Startled out of his reverie, he glanced through the window at the opaque whiteness outside. "I don't think anyone will be moving around in this blizzard. And even if they were stupid enough to try, they won't be able to find us in these conditions. Go to sleep," he said as he lay down on the floor. He didn't expect to have a restful night. He didn't like sharing his bed with anyone. He couldn't even tolerate the presence of the occasional pleasure woman. But there was no reason for Tokio to know about his restlessness. She probably needed sleep more than he did. Tokio eyed him thoughtfully for a moment. He wondered if modesty was finally catching up with her. After all, she was a well-bred daughter of a wealthy family. While he himself wasted as little effort as possible on what he considered meaningless social customs, his mother had managed to teach him the manners appropriate to his class. Young ladies did not sleep with or share blankets with strange men. However it seemed that modesty was not the problem as she finally lay down beside him, her shoulder and hip just barely brushing his. No, she must have been thinking of something else. Like himself, Tokio seemed perfectly willing to push aside propriety as circumstances required. But he already knew that Tokio was no ordinary young lady. She wasn't one of those witless females that seemed to lurk around every corner. Tokio had strength, self-control, and she had brains. But most important of all, she knew the meaning of loyalty. She had provided ample proof of that when she had pulled him out of that canal in Kyoto and nursed him back to health while hiding him from Ishin Shishi forces. He could trust her not to panic and lose her head. He could trust her to act sensibly and follow orders. He could trust her.... That was his last conscious thought before he slipped into a badly needed sleep. The scent of her hair followed him into his dreams. --------------- Tokio lay awake, listening to Saitoh's slow, even breathing. Finally, she sat up so she could look down at his lean, austere face. Satisfied that he was truly asleep, she gently caressed his cheek before dropping a kiss on his lips. As she reluctantly pulled away, he sleepily growled a soft protest. "Soon, my love," Tokio whispered. "Very soon you will awaken." With those words, she curled up against him. And through the long, cold night, she watched the snow fall and kept watch over her slumbering mate, her dark eyes gleaming in the darkness. ********************************************************************** -------------------------------------------- madamhydra@aol.com /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/:E http://www.geocities.com/~madamhydra/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ New hobbies? New curiosities? New enthusiasms? http://www.onelist.com Sign up for a new email list today