InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Bed Ridden ❯ The Plan Screws Up ( Chapter 14 )

General Info: Round Robin #1 for the Monk-and_Miko Yahoo! Group

Title: Bed Ridden

Summary: He's lived through a cursed hand, demons, and a hanyou with an attitude-but can our sixteenth century Houshi take the stimulation of the twentieth century? [MK]

Rating: PG-13

Chapter Author: Rurouni Star

Chapter Summary: There are many things to do in the dark - but none of them come into play here.

A/N: Second lights out in this story. Geck. And I didn't even initiate it this time (although… there were nicer possibilities with the last one that I never got to… ^___^)

Disclaimer: Uhm. I'm disclaiming. Really, I am. See me disclaim?

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Chapter Fourteen: The Plan Screws Up

"Wonderful," Miroku groaned.

The woman in the seat across from him might have echoed him if she weren't deathly scared someone across the room was going to hear her. She needn't have worried - the restaurant's workers were already escorting people outside to the patio where candlelit seating was available.

The monk blinked his eyes furiously, trying to make them adjust to the sudden lack of lighting, and muttered a few choice words about Kagome's sense of humor.

Then, he made the mistake that everyone else in that era had learned not to make from various movies and books.

"Could this get any worse?" Miroku muttered irritatedly.

And then, of course - it did.

"Ssssshardssss…" a voice hissed through the darkness.

"Did you hear that?" Miroku whispered disbelievingly, not daring to say it more loudly.

"H-hear what?" Yoko asked with a shiver and a glance at the darkness that probably held her ex somewhere.

"The Ssssshikon no Tama'sss ssssshardssss… where are they?"

Miroku made to rise from the table slowly. "Where are you going?" Yoko asked.

"To find out what's going on," he responded quietly.

She smiled at him reassuringly, not seeming too miffed - he'd seen that smile on women before, though it hadn't usually been directed his way. Miroku inwardly grimaced. She'd be gone with the rest of the disgruntled patrons before he got back.

Kagome was definitely going to pay for this.

Preferably with her lips.

His mouth quirked into a tiny grin as he made his way past the tables, making himself a mental map of where things had been before the blackout. If Kagome was where she had been before…

There was another hiss then, and a tiny `eep' in a high-pitched voice he couldn't fail to recognize. And the grin disappeared.

"Hssssst! Where did you hide them?"

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Kagome's voice came, shaky. "H-hide what?"

`Good girl', Miroku thought. `Stall it.'

"Give me the sssshardssss! You know where they are!"

The monk crept closer, wincing as he realized he didn't have his shakujo or his ofuda. Really, how did people in this era ever survive?

"I- I don't have any shards!"

That one was rather unconvincing. Unfortunately, whatever was holding her seemed to think so too - as Miroku crept closer, he could just make out the silhouette of a vaguely humanoid creature with a Kagome-shaped shadow in its grasp. Something that looked suspiciously like a scorpion tail was drawing back, readying itself to strike-

Kazaana was not an option here. Therefore, he dove.

Miroku instinctively wrapped his arms about the thing, pulling it with him to the ground and wondering why it felt so much softer and so much more… curvy... than he'd expected.

Swearing mentally, he turned his body to take the impact for the both of them. The tiled floor hit his back hard - followed by the very pleasant feeling of Kagome's body pressed against him, her face buried in the crook of his arm.

"Killitkillitkillitkillit…" she moaned into him. Briefly, he wondered why he wasn't hearing more of a reaction from the remaining guests in the dark… then he remembered flying through the incorporeal body of the demon. Miroku might have smacked himself in the head had his hand not been rather nicely occupied elsewhere.

Pushing heated thoughts immediately from his head (demon, he remembered, there's still a demon here…), the monk sat up and pushed Kagome gently away, trying to think of something he could do in the next… two seconds… before the advancing dark shape got to him.

"Ideas?" he asked Kagome helplessly.

She gulped, eyes fixed on the rather imposing shape now that he saw it better…

"Pen!" she said suddenly - and dove for the table where she'd been sitting. Miroku didn't know what she was talking about and didn't exactly have time to ask. The thing reached him then, and the arm that caught him in the chest definitely felt solid this time.

Miroku bit his lip, taking the blow and rolling with it to come back up to his knees just a little slower than he would normally, one hand going instinctively to his still-healing wound.

It was stalking toward him again, and he recognized the slow gait from other, more animalistic demons he had fought before - a hunter, toying with its prey.

And then, Kagome was helping him up, an arm behind him, and her hand closing on his. Then, he felt her pressing something into it.

A napkin?

"Kagome," he muttered, "In case you were wondering - the time for practical jokes is officially over."

"No!" she told him in exasperation, "Use it!"

And then he brought it into the light and saw that she'd torn a strip from a napkin and written (in very bad handwriting, he noticed) the characters for an ofuda scroll.

"You can't expect this to work!" he told her with a coughing laugh, eyes still following the circling creature. "First off, you'd have to be a priest to even make it-"

"So try it!" she hissed in his ear, sending delightful little tingles down his spine. "It's better than nothing!"

This was so.

Especially since she was suddenly not behind him anymore. In point of fact, she was once again dangling a few feet from the ground.

"I'll jussssst eat her! The sssshardssss are inssssside sssssomewhere!"

Miroku's mouth hardened into a line - he stood up immediately. "Put her down," he said quietly.

The demon wasn't listening. He saw, in the darkness, that its mouth was now distending grotesquely - it did indeed intend to eat her whole.

"Or not," Miroku finished under his breath - and leapt.

The characters on the material in his hand flared to life before his eyes, but the creature was already holding her above its jaw - and Kagome screamed.

There was a blinding flash of light.

And when he had managed to clear the spots from his eyes, Miroku saw that there was no longer any shadow scorpions. Just Kagome, huddled on the ground and whimpering. Something in his chest tightened, and he moved to put his hands on her shoulders.

"Kagome!" he said in a hoarse voice, "Did he hurt you?"

She squeaked and pulled away. "N-no! No, not at all, stay away, don't come near me!"

He frowned as she skittered backward, leaning against the wall and fiddling with something.

"Look, if you'll let me see it, I'm sure I can do something-"

"NO!" she interrupted fiercely. "Stay - stay on that side of the room. Stay there! I'm watching you!"

Miroku sighed and moved toward her, disregarding her sudden aversion to him. She turned to flee toward the nearest door, leaving him to wonder just what, exactly, had made her so gods damned scared of him.

The priest sprinted to catch her, and reached out his arm. It slid around her waist, closing around it and pulling her backward against him, and then he realized…

Her dress strap had broken.

"Oh god," Kagome moaned, her head falling back to hit his chest with a thud. "I am never going to live this down."

And, though he really, really, really wanted to do otherwise, Miroku felt his gentlemanly tendencies object and force him to.

He pulled off his jacket and put it around her shoulders.

"Home?" he offered, trying to keep the strain from his voice.

Kagome stared at him.

"Unless, of course," he added, unable to resist, "you wanted to take me into the bathroom and ravish me right here."

The girl put a hand to her forehead and tried to make her giggle not sound hysterical. "No thank you," she told him. "The ravishing will have to wait."

He snapped his fingers with an overdramatic sigh and turned his back oh-so-respectfully while she buttoned the jacket (he only peeked twice). And when she was done, he offered her his arm.

When they got outside, he smiled at her in a way that gave her slight chills. He was going to say something. Actually, he sort of had the right, since she'd sort of ruined his night, and sort of been the one to bring the jewel shards…

"That shade of brown is definitely your color," he said, managing somehow to keep a straight face.

And even though she was so completely humiliated and feeling quite guilty about the whole thing now that she had to wear the thing, she had to stop and stare at him.

Because his smile was so very handsome, and his hair was falling into his eyes in just the right way, and he looked almost dashing when he was just in that normal white undershirt.

So she leaned up to brush her lips against his cheek.

"Sorry," she whispered. "And… thank you."

Miroku's expression turned surprised and slightly pleased. And when her face colored red and she moved ahead of him, he rubbed his cheek with a gloved hand and grinned.

Well.

The night had been worth it after all.

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Next Author: Chubbies

Due Date: June 6, 2004

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