InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 6: Shameless ❯ Tongue Tied ( Chapter 8 )

~~Chapter 8~~

~Tongue Tied~

 

 

 

“You know, it's occurred to me, Gavvie . . .”

 

Startled out of his reverie, Gavin blinked and shot Jillian a cursory glance as she slipped into the chair beside him. “What happened to your fan club?” he asked with a wry grin that he couldn't hide as the waitress set the beer on the table and took the money that he offered her, stuffing it into the pocket of her dingy white apron as she turned on her heel and hurried back toward the bar.

 

Jillian wrinkled her nose. “I just wanted a white wine spritzer,” she went on, waving her hand dismissively.

 

He chuckled. “Has the bar tender even heard of white wine spritzers?”

 

Jillian made a face. “I don't know . . . she said they just have beer . . . manly beer.”

 

“Manly beer,” he repeated with a smile as he slowly spun the Budweiser bottle in his fingertips.

 

“Not even a good Corona Extra,” she lamented.

 

He chuckled again. “Poor Jilli.”

 

“I know!”

 

His chuckle escalated when she uttered a melodramatic sigh. “So what was it you were thinking?” he prompted.

 

Jillian smiled impishly, her dimples carving deeply into her cheeks. “Well, since you asked . . .”

 

“Uh-oh . . .”

 

She swatted his arm. “Since you keep insisting that I'm not your mate, I've decided to make it my mission to help you find one.”

 

Too bad he'd just taken a swig of his beer. Coughing and sputtering, spewing droplets of the drink over the table, Gavin wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shot Jillian a dark look. “What?”

 

“You heard me, Gavvie.” She smacked his arm once more, nodding toward the bar without so much as looking at him. “What about her? She's cute, and she looks smart.”

 

Following the direction of Jillian's perusal, Gavin shook his head. The young woman was cute enough, he supposed. Dark brown hair cropped short in a pixie-ish sort of way, she sat with another woman at the bar. “Not my type,” he grumbled, hoping that Jillian would leave it go at that.

 

He should have known better.

 

“How do you know?” she demanded. “You haven't even tried to talk to her.”

 

Gavin sighed. “I just know.”

 

“Gavvie . . .”

 

Trying to ignore her reproachful glance, Gavin shifted in his chair and studiously avoided her gaze, narrowing his eyes rather menacingly and sitting up just a little straighter, puffing out his chest and making a show of flexing his muscles in a nonchalant sort of way when he caught two men at the bar giving Jillian the once-over. The men grinned at Gavin's uncharacteristic show of hostility. One of them touched the brim of his hat while the other nodded. They both turned away, and only then did Gavin relax. “I'm not interested, Jilli . . . can we just leave it at that?”

 

She shook her head stubbornly. “You have to know what you're looking for, Gavvie. Tell me what your dream girl is like.”

 

“My dream girl?” he echoed with a raised eyebrow. “I don't have a—”

 

In true Jillian fashion, she completely ignored his insistence that he wasn't looking for a mate. “Is she tall?”

 

“Tall?”

 

“Blonde?”

 

“Blo—I don't . . . o-o-okay,” he agreed, knowing that once Jillian got her brain wrapped around something, she wouldn't just let it drop.

 

Satisfied that he was at least trying to comply with her line of questioning, Jillian leaned forward and set her pink Stetson on the table. “All right, tall and blonde . . . what color are her eyes?”

 

“Jilli, I don't—”

 

“And you won't unless I make you! Now come on, Gavvie! Tell me about her!”

 

“But I—”

 

“Does the eye color really matter?” she asked suddenly, spinning around on her chair to pin him with a penetrating stare. “I mean, they're just eyes . . .”

 

“But you—you're the one who asked—”

 

“Help me here, or you're going to end up on some cheesy late night talk show lamenting the girl you never found!”

 

Gavin shook his head and slumped back in his chair. “I don't want to date anyone, Jilli . . . why are you so obsessed with my marital status?”

 

She giggled then waved a hand dismissively. “Firstly, Gavvie, you don't have a marital status. Secondly . . . I'm a romantic at heart, you know! Everyone needs to be in love!”

 

“Technically, I do have a marital status . . . I'm not; there's your answer. As for your other statement . . . who are you in love with?” he growled.

 

She shot him a calculated grin and shrugged a little too off-handedly. “That's a secret, Gavvie . . . I'll tell you one day, if you're nice.”

 

He narrowed his eyes at her and snorted. “If you're about to say that you're in love with me, I swear on all that's holy, I'll—”

 

“Which is exactly why I won't say it now!” she cut in, her lips turning down in a marked pout. “See? I'm smarter than your average bear, huh?”

 

“Can we just drop this?” he asked again, scowling at her to emphasize his point.

 

“Just as soon as we hook you up,” she allowed. “She's tall and blonde . . . though I can't see her eyes from here . . .”

 

“She's not . . . I don't . . . I can't talk to women!” he hissed.

 

“You talk to me, don't you?” she reminded him.

 

“Sure, but . . . I can't—You're not—”

 

Jillian sat back and crossed her arms over her chest as her eyes narrowed rather dangerously and she slowly shook her head. “If you're about to say that I'm not a woman, I may never speak to you again, Gavin Jamison,” she informed him.

 

Gavin snorted. “That's different,” he grumbled; face pinking as he slowly shook his head.

 

She laughed at his disgruntlement. “Okay, then just pretend that she's me . . . and if you don't like her eye color, you can buy her contacts. Go buy her a drink!”

 

“Cute, Jilli,” he snorted. “No. I'm not doing it, no matter how much you beg.”

 

She grinned. “Please, Gavvie?”

 

“Uh-uh.”

 

“Please?”

 

“No.”

 

“Please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, pl—”

 

“N. O.”

 

“You're losing serious hero points, Gavvie.”

 

“That's all right; I had plenty to spare.”

 

Her expression shifted into the one most commonly deemed, `The Pout', and she sat back in a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. “Fine, fine . . . you know, after all these years, I've tried and I've tried, and all you ever do is deny me something that would make me so-o-o happy—what greater joy would there be, I ask you, than to see you—my very bestest of best friends—happily married to a wonderful girl with eyes that you may or may not like the color of. I—”

 

He sighed and rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he listened to her tirade. “Blue,” he cut in, raising his voice to be heard over hers.

 

She blinked and frowned. “Blue, what?”

 

He tried not to blush, to no avail. “I like blue eyes, okay?”

 

Her smile was his reward, and she leaned over, kissing his cheek before hopping up and skittering over to the bar. After exchanging a couple words with the girl in question, she pointed at him as he stifled a low groan. The girl turned to peer at him over her shoulder. He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat as a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.

 

Jillian ran back to the table and bent over, effectively giving the men at the bar a very nice view of her . . . assets. Gavin stood up so that she would, too. “There, Gavvie! She's even got blue eyes! Thank me later!” she insisted, slipping her arm around him and giving him a light shove toward the bar.

 

“I can't—I don't—Jilli!” he hissed.

 

She giggled happily, clapping her hands and stepping back before shooing him away.

 

`This . . . is not good,' his youkai voice warned.

 

Gavin didn't answer. So intent on not tripping and falling flat on his face, he rather stiffly placed one foot in front of the other, forcing himself to approach the woman, who was now staring at him in a completely unabashed sort of way. His hands were drenched, his armpits were clammy . . . all in all, he felt feverish though he didn't really feel sick at all.

 

The woman smiled at him, and he tried to return the gesture. Her smile faltered then faded, only to be replaced by one of mild shock, and she leaned back against the bar in a wary sort of way. “H-h-h-hi,” he said in a tone that reminded him of the old Disney movie that Jillian adored . . . he thought it was called Lilo and Stitch, but why he was thinking of such inane things was completely beyond him. `Concentrate, stupid!' he growled at himself.

 

“Hi,” she replied a little uncertainly.

 

He cleared his throat and wiped his palms on his jeans. “Wanmebuyoudr-dr-drink?”

 

“Excuse me?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion.

 

Gavin winced, his cheeks painfully hot as he could feel every single eye in the bar boring holes in his back. He cleared his throat again to dislodge the fist-sized lump that was blocking his airway. “C-c-can I . . . buy you a drink?” he repeated.

 

“Oh, um . . . sure,” she agreed without taking her eyes off his face. The shocked expression was still there though she looked a little more perplexed than before.

 

He took a deep breath, glancing at the half-empty glass on the counter behind her. “A barn burner,” he said, glancing at the bartender. The girl nodded and shot him a quick smile before turning away to prepare the drink.

 

“Your teeth . . .” the woman said, pointing at her mouth and moving her hand back and forth with a slight shake of her head.

 

“M-my . . .?” Gavin reached up and felt his mouth, unable to figure out just what she was talking about.

 

“Here you go,” the bartender said, setting the glass on the counter beside him. “A little early for Halloween, but I have to say, those fangs almost look real, Dracula.”

 

`Shit!' he thought with an inward grimace, fighting furiously to redo the concealment that had slipped when his nerves had taken over. “Oh . . . uh . . . genetic,” he mumbled, hoping that the females wouldn't see through his lie. “M-my family is weird that way.”

 

“Ah,” the woman nodded, her smile finally seeming more natural. “What's your name?”

 

He glanced around, unable to grasp the slow understanding that she was talking to him. “My name?”

 

She nodded.

 

“I-I-I have a name,” he blurted.

 

“What is it?” she prompted.

 

“I . . .” Biting his lip as his brain slowed to a crawl, he shook his head dumbly and shrugged. “Uh . . .”

 

`Holy mother of . . . you've forgotten our name?'

 

`Shut—up!'

 

“On the house, Dracula,” the bartender said with a wink, sliding a Budweiser across the polished counter.

 

“Gavin!” he exclaimed suddenly then grimaced at the volume of his voice. “M-my . . . I'm . . . Gavin,” he repeated, making a mad grab for the beer and downing half of it in short order.

 

“You're cute, Gavin,” the woman remarked. “I'm Sissy.”

 

He tried to smile though he was fairly certain that the expression turned out more like a grimace than a show of happiness. “Th-that's a . . . girly . . . name . . .”

 

`Wow,' his youkai moaned, `that was . . . lame . . .'

 

She giggled, sipping the fresh drink that the bartender set down. “Nice . . . I like an observant man . . .” she quipped, holding up her glass so that he knew what she was talking about.

 

Gavin nodded, lifting the beer to his lips in a desperate effort to quench his parched throat. Choking on his beer when Sissy laid her hand on his forearm, he tried not to cough but couldn't quite contain it. Sissy squealed and jumped back as his coughing fit sprayed her with the liquor. Snatching a paper napkin off the bar, he tried to dab at the moisture. “Oh, God, I'm so sorry,” he mumbled, switching the bit of tissue into the hand holding the bottle. They were the tiny ones that bars only kept around to set drinks on, and that just figured. Leaning to the side, he snagged another napkin, only to grimace when her second screech drew his attention. Realizing a moment too late that all he had succeeded in doing was dumping the remaining beer on her, as well, he dropped the bottle and flinched when it shattered on the hardwood floor. It registered somewhere in the back of his mind that if people hadn't been staring before, they certainly had to be now. Gritting his teeth as he willed himself not to panic, he snatched up a handful of napkins in another pathetic attempt to help her. “I'm so . . . s-s-sorry!” he stammered once more.

 

“I think you've done quite enough,” she gritted out as she snatched the napkin and waved him away.

 

Setting the bottle onto the bar, Gavin kept muttering apologies. “Let me . . . I'm sorry . . . Here,” he said, blotting the beer off her chest with the clean napkin.

 

“No, no, it's okay,” she insisted as she tried to step back. His claw caught on the pocket of her blouse, and with what seemed like an obscenely loud tearing sound, the fabric ripped. Sissy uttered a harsh little noise as she knocked his hand away and covered her chest with her arm. Moments later, her free hand cracked against his cheek before she careened around and ran toward the door, shoving people aside in her haste to get away from him.

 

Gavin could feel his face flaming, hot. Slowly glancing around the bar, he groaned inwardly when he realized that the entire place had ground to a screeching halt and that every single person was gawking at him. Jillian was still standing beside the table where he'd left her, and he could see the obvious upset on her features as her fingers fluttered before her lips in a decidedly nervous fashion. Dropping the napkins onto the bar along with a few crumpled up dollar bills, he muttered a low apology to the bartender and turned on his heel, striding through the parting crowd, pausing just long enough to grab Jillian's arm to drag her out of the establishment.

 

“Oh, Gavvie,” she crooned as the thick oak door swung closed in their wake. “That was . . . that was . . .”

 

“It was humiliating,” he growled from between clenched teeth. “If you ever—ever—do that to me again, I swear, I'll—”

 

“I'm sorry,” she cut in, the pitch of her voice rising in panic. “Don't be mad,” she begged.

 

He heaved a sigh as he escorted her around the truck and jerked the door open. “I'm not mad,” he grumbled.

 

Jillian winced. “You sound mad.”

 

“I'm a little mad,” he conceded, “and a lot embarrassed . . .”

 

“I didn't think . . . hmmm,” she half-whined, wringing her hands as he pushed her door closed and strode around the truck.

 

She didn't speak again as he drove out of the parking lot and turned onto the road that headed out of town. It was just as well. Gavin could still feel the painful, mortified flush staining his cheeks . . .

 

Jillian rolled down her window and sighed, staring at the passing landscape illuminated by the harsh headlights of the truck. “I suppose there's no help for it,” she finally said, her voice rife with resignation.

 

“No help for what?” he asked though he wasn't sure he wanted to hear her answer.

 

“Well, I can't let you do that to yourself, ever again,” she remarked without so much as glancing at him. “That ranked right up there with the time you tripped over your shoelaces in front of all the girls at my slumber party.”

 

Gavin grimaced. She just had to go there, didn't she? “You tied them together, Jilli—while your girlfriends were laughing over the idea that I'm five years older than you but looked younger.”

 

She laughed. It just figured. “It was a joke, Gavvie! Anyway, I've only seen that shade of red on your face once before—what would you have called it? I would have said it was almost scarlet, but with a little more of a purple tint . . .”

 

“Jil-li!” he groaned. “Enough of the stroll down humiliation lane: `Let's see how many times we can embarrass the crap out of Gavvie', right?”

 

She giggled, covering her mouth to hold back her amusement and failing miserably. “Of course not! The girls all thought it was so cute that you crawled into my `My Pretty Princess' sleeping bag with me, too!”

 

He snorted, gripping the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white as he gritted his teeth together. “Only because someone was crying and carrying on about monsters in the living room,” he pointed out.

 

“Yeah, Evan was always a pain, wasn't he?” she quipped.

 

“All he did was sneak around behind the sofa and grab your arm.”

 

“During our scary movie fest!”

 

“Incidentally, don't think I didn't realize that was the last slumber party you ever had,” Gavin grumbled acerbically.

 

“I think Daddy was afraid of what Evan would do with that many girls in the house,” she said with a shake of her head. “True enough . . . I think he holds the record for getting suspended for illicit behavior at school . . .”

 

“And that amuses you?”

 

“It doesn't amuse you?” she parried, digging a small compact out of her purse and checking her lipstick in the small illuminated mirror that turned on when she opened the compact.

 

Gavin's answer was a decisive snort as he swung the truck onto the dirt path that led back to the ranch.

 

“Anyway, back to my original thought . . . I don't care what you say, Gavin Jamison: I'm going to save you from yourself, whether you like it or not,” she went on, snapping the compact closed and stowing it in her purse once more.

 

“Save me? How?” he asked though he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

 

Jillian pushed her door open and hopped out of the truck before Gavin could come to a complete stop. “Jilli!” he chastised, grinding his foot down on the brake and slamming the vehicle into `park' as he killed the engine. “That's dangerous, you know!”

 

Jillian giggled happily as she yanked his door open, too. “Stuff, stuff, stuff!” she shot back with a saucy grin as she grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the truck and toward the house. He barely had time to kick the door closed behind him, and he didn't miss the sniggers coming from the general direction of the bunkhouse, either. Ignoring his hired hands as best as he could, he stumbled over a small rock in the darkened driveway but caught himself before he tripped. “Since you have no trouble whatsoever talking to me, I've decided that the best thing for you is intensive Jillian-therapy to get you over your hump.”

 

“My . . . hump . . .?” he echoed as a vaguely amused smile surfaced on his face.

 

“Yes, your hump!”

 

“You've got an interesting way with words, Jilli . . . I think you get it from your mother.”

 

“Really?”

 

He laughed outright at the pleased tone of her voice. Gin Zelig was infamous for saying things that weren't exactly what she meant to say, and Jillian . . . well, she had a habit of doing much the same thing, proving that naiveté was and could be environmental instead of hereditary since everyone knew that Jillian was adopted. It was Gavin's considered opinion that Cain Zelig had to be damn near a saint at times, especially when Jillian, Gin, and Cain's oldest daughter, Belle were together. “So just how does `Jillian-therapy' work?” he asked as he reclaimed his hand to unlock the door.

 

“It's simple, Gavvie,” Jillian said, rolling her eyes as though Gavin should already have figured it out.

 

“Simple?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Oka-a-ay.”

 

Her grin widened, and she patted his cheek before hurrying inside and making a bee-line toward the stairs. She stopped just before she started up to flash him another wide smile. “Yes, simple. You're going to date me!”

 

And she was gone, leaving a shocked Gavin gawking at the empty stairwell in her wake.

 

 

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Final Thought fromJillian:

My poor Gavvie!

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Shameless): I do not claim any rights to InuYasha or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Rumiko Takahashi, et al. I do offer my thanks to her for creating such vivid characters for me to terrorize.

 

~Sue~