InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ One Simple Gift ( Chapter 32 )

~~Chapter 32~~

~One Simple Gift~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

“Hel-lo-o-o . . .” Isabelle called out, cupping her hands around her mouth to add volume to her voice as she stood in the empty foyer in the Zelig family's Bevelle mansion.

 

No one answered her, which wasn't entirely surprising. Though both her grandparents' vehicles were parked in the driveway, she didn't doubt that the two were likely closeted away in the studio they shared. Cain was probably working on another masterpiece while Gin would either be posing for him or working on her next children's book.

 

Setting the dark green paper bag containing the gifts she'd brought on the floor, she headed for the stairs with a soft little giggle. Though she couldn't exactly say that she missed being a child, there were moments when memories assailed her and made her wish just for a moment that life was still as simple as it was back then; memories of childhood laughter as she tore down these same stairs with Bastian hot on her heels after she'd swiped something from his room to tease him—probably one of his footballs.

 

The familiar scent of oil paints and linseed oil filtered through the small crack around the studio door, and she lifted her hand to knock on the door. She was stopped short when she heard the familiar sound of her cousin—slash—uncle's voice from within. “You know, Mom, I think you should bet against the Patriots this year,” he said, obviously making reference to the obligatory Christmas Day football game.

 

Gin Izayoi Zelig gasped loudly as Isabelle pushed the door open. “Sebastian! Why would I do such a thing?” she scolded, her tone implying that she thought the idea was worse than just about anything else in the world. “I want the Patriots to win!”

 

“So do I,” Bas countered with a lopsided grin, “and every time you make a bet, the team you bet on loses.”

 

That earned him a chagrined shake of the head as Gin crossed her thin arms over her chest and snorted in a decidedly unladylike fashion. “Not every time,” she mumbled, her hanyou ears flicking in irritation.

 

Bas rolled his eyes as Isabelle tugged on his arm to make him bend down so that she could kiss his cheek. “Mom, I'm sorry, but you've never won a bet . . . not once.”

 

“You're supposed to show your mother more respect than that,” she grumbled. “You'd better hope your father doesn't hear you.”

 

Bas chuckled since the aforementioned father was standing not twenty feet away working on a painting and doing a hell of a job ignoring both his wife as well as his eldest son—entirely normal, in Isabelle's estimation. Whenever Cain Zelig was working on his art, he was hard-pressed to notice much of anything else around him. Gin had often joked that the mansion could burn down, and Cain would be the last to realize it if he was painting or sculpting.

 

“Back me up here, Bitty,” Bas said, leaning toward her.

 

Isabelle laughed. “You're on your own, Bastian,” she deferred. “Merry Christmas, Grandma. I brought your presents out.”

 

Gin smiled as she hugged Isabelle, her eyes sparkling mischievously at the mention of gifts. “Are you sure you can't make it out for Christmas day?” she asked as she headed over to Cain's side.

 

“Unfortunately, no,” Isabelle went on with an apologetic smile. “I've still got a couple ladies who are due any time, and I'd hate to be out here if one of them suddenly went into labor. Besides that, the weather forecasts are predicting a foot more of snow on Christmas Eve.”

 

“Of course,” Gin agreed as she wrapped her arms around Cain's waist. He started slightly and blinked, looking completely disoriented for a moment as he glanced around the room. “If it snows, we can play outside! I can make another snow-Cain.”

 

Cain snorted but grinned. “Snow-Cain, indeed,” he mumbled, blushing slightly before blinking and glancing at his eldest son. “Oh, Bas, when did you get here?”

 

Bas rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I've been here, Dad. You just didn't notice.”

 

Cain's grin widened, and he set his brush aside before reaching behind him to pull Gin against his side and kissing her forehead. “No hug for your grandfather, Isabelle?”

 

Isabelle giggled as Gin wrinkled her nose. “You've got paint all over you, Zelig-sensei! You'll get it all over her sweater if she hugs you.”

 

Cain glanced down at his paint smeared bare chest as his smile turned sheepish. “I suppose I would.”

 

Gin pushed against Cain though she didn't seem to be exerting any real effort in her quest for freedom. “You're getting paint all over me!” she protested.

 

He chuckled, his eyes sparkling dangerously. “That's all right,” he assured her, kissing her forehead once more. “I buy your clothes, don't I?”

 

“You're bad, you know,” she pointed out as her cheeks blossomed with color.

 

“I'm not bad, baby girl; I'm good . . .”

 

“Oh, God,” Bas interjected with a wince. “Can't you be like normal parents and pretend that you don't have sex?”

 

“You're so puritanical, Bastian,” Isabelle said with a giggle, hurrying over to kiss a clean spot on her grandfather's cheek. “Hi, Grandpa!”

 

“Isabelle brought presents,” Gin said with a wide smile.

 

Cain shook his head. “I know what you're getting at, baby girl, and no, you're not getting your presents from me early.”

 

“I wasn't even thinking about that,” she countered haughtily. “Aren't you ashamed for having such a low opinion of me?”

 

“Nope,” Cain replied, letting go of his mate so that he could reach for a cloth on the worktable. “That's exactly what you were thinking, and don't try to deny it. You really suck at lying, you know.”

 

“Anyway, Dad, I just stopped by to let you know that Gavin called me earlier. Jillian wants to go see Avis again, so he wanted to make sure that there weren't any problems with it,” Bas cut in.

 

Though neither Gin nor Cain said anything against the proposed trip, Isabelle could feel the tension rising, and she could understand their feelings. Though both Gin and Cain knew that no one could ever replace them as the only real parents that Jillian had ever known, how painful must it be, to be supportive of their daughter when the unwanted implication was that they had somehow lacked in their ability to raise her? Jillian, of course, had never felt that way, Isabelle knew. It was only natural, she supposed, to want to know where she'd come from; to need to know what sort of people they were, and no matter how perfect her childhood was, Jillian likely felt as though she'd know herself better if she understood the parents she'd lost, even if she'd never have the chance to meet them face to face.

 

Cain heaved a sigh and let Gin take the cloth from him, standing patiently while his wife wiped the paint smears off his skin. “Yeah, that shouldn't be a problem.”

 

Bas nodded slowly, understanding his father's reluctance but unable to do anything to stop Jillian, either. “All right,” he agreed. “Do you want to call Gavin back, or I can . . .”

 

“I'll do it later,” Cain said, leaning to the side and reaching around Gin to snag his dark green pullover off the nearby stool.

 

“You know, I'll go make some tea,” Gin suddenly said, dropping the rag onto the worktable and pasting an overly bright smile on her face.

 

Cain watched as his wife hurried out of the studio before following after her without a word.

 

Bas let out a deep breath and slouched against the desk that Gin used when plotting out her children's books.

 

“It's hard on Grandma, isn't it?” Isabelle ventured quietly.

 

Bas nodded, his gaze stony as he stared toward the wall of windows at nothing in particular. “Yeah, it is. She tries to be understanding, but . . .”

 

“But it still hurts her, doesn't it?”

 

“Something like that. Jilli's not trying to do that, and Mom does a fair job of hiding it from her, but you know Mom . . .”

 

Isabelle nodded. “Jillian isn't just an `adopted daughter' to her.”

 

Bas sighed and dragged a hand over his face before shifting his gaze to the side to meet Isabelle's. Seeing the distress on her face, he forced a wan smile and shrugged as though the entire affair were of little real consequence. “Jilli's not the `adopted' anything to any of us. Even Evan . . . well, even he's been a little upset about the way things turned out. Sort of caught between them, I suppose. He's always been a mama's-boy, and he and Jilli were raised like twins . . . He understands Mom's upset, but he also understands Jilli's feelings, too.”

 

“You know, you have a tendency to sell Evan short,” Isabelle stated rather pointedly. It was true enough. Through the years, Bastian and Evan's relationship was one that had always baffled her, maybe because she got along so well with her own sisters. It was hard to fathom the underlying hostility that separated Bastian and Evan. It seemed as though Bastian was constantly underestimating Evan, and as a result, Evan was perpetually antagonizing Bastian, yet she also knew well enough that Bastian loved Evan, too, even if he refused to admit as much. After all, he and Cain had gotten up at the crack of dawn just to be the first ones in line at the local record shop to buy Evan's debut CD . . .

 

“. . . Maybe,” he agreed though his tone was noncommittal at best.

 

Isabelle shook her head then shrugged. She couldn't mend their relationship, could she? No, it was something that they had to want, too . . . “Anyway, why don't you tell me what you got that gorgeous wife of yours for Christmas?” she teased, offering her cousin a conspiratorial wink.

 

Bas smiled almost bashfully—she adored that particular grin most of all—and dug his hands into the pockets of his faded Levi jeans. “Truthfully? Nothing yet.”

 

“Nothing?” Isabelle echoed, her eyebrows disappearing under her bangs as she stared incredulously at her adored cousin. “As in, not a thing?”

 

“Not yet . . . You know Sydnie . . . She always wants things that are absolutely useless—her words, not mine—and I haven't figured out what she'd consider `useless' this year. Besides, that idiot cousin of ours had an aquarium installed in the office, you know? Called it an early Christmas present for Sydnie . . .” Bas paused here to roll his eyes and drag a hand over his face in a show of complete exasperation. “She goes in early; it's nearly impossible to get her to leave . . . The other day, I went to tell her something only to find her stretched out on top of the damn thing, leaning over the side, batting at the fish that dared to swim close to the glass . . . She's enthralled by those damn fish . . . Must be the cat in her . . .”

 

Try as she might not to smile at Bastian's thorough disgust, Isabelle couldn't help the soft giggle that escaped her, either. “That's not so bad,” she ventured.

 

Bas snorted and shot Isabelle a disgruntled scowl. “She killed them all the first day. Dumped the entire canister of fish flakes into the tank. Gunnar replaced them all before she realized it. She said that she thought they looked hungry after she fed them the first time . . .”

 

“Well, her heart is in the right place,” Isabelle remarked, lips twitching as she tried not to laugh at her exasperated cousin.

 

“Uh huh . . . do you know? I caught her holding a fish in her hand, giggling as the poor thing flopped around. She thought it was playing with her.”

 

“Maybe it was?”

 

Bas snorted again. “It was dying, Bitty—dying. Poor things. My kitty's going to kill every last one of them, and all Gunnar does is replace the ones she inadvertently kills off, and you know what he says?”'

 

She shook her head and waited, almost afraid to hear what sort of ridiculous reason Gunnar had given.

 

Bas heaved a sigh. “Gunnar swears that he just wants to make Sydnie happy,” he grumbled.

 

“Oh . . . that's so . . . noble . . . of him,” she replied slowly.

 

“A little too noble, if you ask me,” Bas went on. “Too bad I know damn well that there isn't even the tiniest bit of `noble' anywhere in that bastard's black soul.”

 

She had to laugh at the cryptic tone in Bas' voice, especially since she wasn't feeling overly magnanimous toward that particular cousin at the moment. “Maybe he really is just trying to do something nice,” she offered though she sounded far too dubious even to her own ears.

 

“Maybe,” he allowed, sounding anything but agreeable. “I doubt it, though. Sometimes he just doesn't know when to leave well enough alone . . .”

 

Isabelle sighed, too, rubbing her arms as her humor faded; as she turned abruptly to stare out the windows at the softly falling blanket of whiteness. “No, he doesn't,” she murmured as the sudden and fierce need to see Griffin's face assailed her. “He never has . . .”

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Griffin frowned as he turned the white velvet jeweler's box over in his hand and finally pulled it open to inspect the delicate bit of gold that he'd purchased.

 

He hadn't really taken the time to look it over in the store, and he grimaced as he scowled at it. Pretty enough, he supposed. The length of the chain alternated between openwork links hooked together by clasps in the shape of tiny bumblebees that might not have been nearly as suspect had the single charm attached to one of the links not been a stupidly grinning likeness of the idiot bear perched atop the Christmas tree that Isabelle had managed to talk him into buying.

 

“Oh, God,” he grumbled, unable to staunch the flow of blood that washed into his cheeks. Grimacing as he snapped the case closed, he fleetingly considered taking the damned thing right back to the store but changed his mind just as fast. Given the first encounter with that place, he'd rather die a thousand miserable deaths than go back, and even if he did manage to talk himself into it, by the time he got there, he'd be sorely pressed not to heave the offending thing through the plate glass window—and run like hell.

 

In short, there was no way that he could possibly give the stupid thing to her. If she didn't laugh outright, she'd absolutely think that he was encouraging her to continue with the unwelcome teasing about the foolish bear, and that was just something that he really, really didn't want.

 

`Damn it,' he thought with an inward scowl as he heaved a sigh and slowly shook his head. `Back to square one . . .'

 

The sound of the front door opening drew his attention, and Griffin glanced around almost wildly since the very last thing he wanted or needed was to be caught with the jeweler's box in his hand.

 

“Griffin? I'm back . . .” Isabelle's voice rang out in the silence.

 

`Crap . . . crap, crap, crap, crap, crap!'

 

He could hear the soft whisper of her feet as she padded toward the living room. Without stopping to think about it, he dropped the box into the nearest stocking and stepped back just as Isabelle wandered through the doorway.

 

“It's getting colder and colder out there,” she said, rubbing her arms through the thick sweater. He could discern the smell of the winter wind; the vague traces of wood smoke and pine trees warmed by her body heat and clinging to her in an entirely familiar sort of way, and she spared a moment to smile at him before hurrying off toward the kitchen. “Did you miss me?” she called back over her shoulder.

 

He snorted but couldn't help the tinge of pink that burned just below the surface of his skin. She didn't see it, thank God. “Of course not,” he grumbled, frowning as his eyes lit on the stocking where he'd hastily hidden the bracelet—her stocking, damn it. He'd have to remember to get it later so he could find a better place to hide it, like in a fifty-foot hole, maybe . . .

 

Her laughter drifted out of the kitchen, and when she re-emerged, he wasn't entirely surprised to note that she was carrying two mugs. “You could say that you missed me,” she pointed out as she sashayed toward him and held out a steaming mug of dandelion tea.

 

“That'd be a lie,” he insisted, taking the mug and sniffing the contents, lest she had decided to drug him.

 

Isabelle rolled her eyes and giggled softly. “You're so suspicious,” she remarked as she sank on the sofa and set her mug aside in lieu of the notes he'd left spread out on the coffee table. “What's all this?”

 

He shrugged and plopped down beside her, pausing for a moment to take a drink of his tea before answering. “What's it look like? It's more of the translation.”

 

“You got all this done today?” she queried, shuffling through the pages that he'd finished.

 

“Yes. They weren't too difficult. He must've felt a little lazier than normal.”

 

“Hmm,” she intoned, her attention focused squarely on the research—something that irritated Griffin more than he cared to admit. “Excellent . . . excellent . . .”

 

He snorted and hid his scowl behind the steaming mug of tea.

 

`Oh, for the love of . . . you're actually jealous?' his youkai blurted.

 

Griffin nearly choked on the swig of tea he hadn't managed to swallow. `Jea—no! Hell, no! Of course not!'

 

`You are . . . you really are . . . you're all kinds of irritated because she's looking over the translations . . . your work, you moron!'

 

`Hardly!' he scoffed, sounding much more self-assured in his mind than he probably would have if he had spoken out loud. `It's rude; that's all. She was gone all day, and she's not home ten minutes before she's got her nose buried in those papers.'

 

`Wo-o-ow . . . you're a little pathetic, you know.'

 

`. . . Shut up.'

 

“According to this, if we took samples from full youkai and isolated the gene that controls transformations, then we could develop a serum that could, in all likelihood, protect hanyous from the same transformation,” she mused, almost more to herself than to him.

 

Griffin grunted and set his mug aside, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees and shrugging offhandedly. “You mean like a vaccine.”

 

She nodded slowly but didn't look up from the documents she was still reading through. “Yeah . . . the same principle as injecting the body with a bit of the virus in order to stimulate the production of antibodies.”

 

“Yeah, that never made sense to me,” he mumbled.

 

“You're right; it does sound odd when you first hear it, but it actually does make complete sense. If the antibodies are present, then the chance of actual infection is significantly lowered.”

 

Griffin shook his head and cast Isabelle a sidelong glance. She was gnawing on her bottom lip, and somewhere along the way, she'd slipped on her glasses, too. Her hair caught the warm glow of the fire on the hearth, and it took a moment for him to recall that he really shouldn't be staring at her. “I suppose,” he allowed. “You're the doctor; not me.”

 

“All of this just seems like common sense, really,” she went on, ignoring Griffin's commentary entirely. “This is something that could have been figured out long ago if we'd only realized which gene triggered the youkai-reaction in hanyous . . .”

 

There was something entirely childish about the absolute sense of excitement that surrounded her. The soft, triumphant little giggle that escaped her caught him entirely off guard, calling to mind a memory half-forgotten; one that hurt him and somehow managed to comfort him at the same time. A little girl's laughter—that's what it brought to mind—and the imaginary scent of cherry blossoms carried on the spring breeze . . .

 

“I can't believe you got all this done today,” she said, her voice breaking through the memory, shattering the half-formed image before it could clearly solidify in his mind.

 

Griffin blinked and shook his head, and he had to clear his throat before he could find his voice to speak. “It's nothing big,” he maintained with a little shake of his head, ducking his chin as unaccountable heat filled his cheeks at the warmth behind her tone. “It's just . . .”

 

“Don't sell yourself short, Dr. G,” she chastised, dropping the stack of pages and shifting on the sofa, bringing up her knee as she turned to face him. “You really are amazing, you know.”

 

He swallowed hard at the tender little smile that lent an uncanny brilliance to her gaze, and for a moment—just for the moment—he almost allowed himself to believe her. Too bad he knew that some things were inevitable; too bad he understood everything that she never would, and yet . . .

 

And yet she was the single most precious thing to him; the single being that dared to remind him of beautiful things—the insular thing that he absolutely had to protect, no matter what the cost. Reaching up, touching the scars on his cheek, he heaved a sigh and shrugged, wincing inwardly at the palpable reminder of a lifetime of sins. “Translating simple words . . . it's not really that big of a gift.”

 

“One of these days, I'm going to make you see what I see when I look at you,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “Then you'll understand.”

 

He grunted noncommittally. “Will I?”

 

She nodded, her smile widening as she continued to stare at him. “Yes, you will.”

 

Griffin looked away, frowning at the mess of papers strewn on the coffee table where he'd left them; where she'd dropped them, as he wondered why it was that his chest ached so badly—and why it was that he couldn't help but wish that she was right, after all . . .

 

 

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A/N:

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Final Thought fromBas:

Gunnar and his fucking aquarium …

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Blanket disclaimer for this fanfic (will apply to this and all other chapters in Avouchment): I do not claim any rights to InuYashaor 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~