InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ The Forgotten Gift ( Chapter 35 )

~~Chapter 35~~

~The Forgotten Gift~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Griffin propped his cheek on his hand, shaking his head enough to let his hair fall over the other side of his face and thus effectively blocking out the entirely too-distracting image of Isabelle as she lounged on the sofa in what had to be one of the most God-forsakenly heinous things he'd ever clapped eyes on.

 

`Oh, please! You know you like it,' his youkai said.

 

`W—I—n—shut up!' Griffin snarled, the pen in his hand groaning as his grip tightened precariously.

 

`She's completely beyond reason,' he fumed, his cheeks burning at the mere thought of exactly what the woman was wearing.

 

`So she bought you a bright red shirt,' his youkai went on a little too casually.

 

Griffin snorted. It wasn't the bright red shirt that was the problem. No, it was the hideous orangey-yellow word `Pooh' across the front of it that was, and worse, she'd actually given it to him as one of his presents.

 

`I despise Christmas.'

 

`Oh, you don't, and it isn't that bad. So she got you one silly gift. The rest of them were fairly nice, even if you don't want to admit as much.'

 

He snorted again, tapping the tip of the ink pen on the blank page before him. `Did you see the stupid cell phone number?'

 

`It could be entirely coincidental that the last four digits of the number spell Pooh . . .'

 

`Right . . . so you didn't notice that she was way too happy to point out.'

 

`Do you really think she's that bad?'

 

`Yes . . . yes, I do.'

 

`Well, maybe, but in an entirely playful sort of way.'

 

`Bad is bad is bad is bad.'

 

`Save it for the hangman, Griffin. I'm not buying.'

 

`Good because I'm not selling.'

 

`Have you ever considered the idea that you take yourself way too seriously?'

 

`Someone has to because you never, ever do.'

 

His damned youkai laughed.

 

“So how about it, Griffin?” Isabelle said as she leaned against his desk.

 

He swatted at her hip in a vain effort to move her. “How about what?” he countered.

 

She laughed. “You're not really going to say that you haven't been listening to me, are you?” she demanded, and he didn't have to look to know that she had one of her eyebrows arched and very likely had an amused smile on her face, too.

 

“. . . What was that?” he intoned rather blandly.

 

Heaving a melodramatic sigh, she pushed herself away from the desk and wandered aimlessly around the living room. “I asked if you wanted to take the Christmas tree down.”

 

That got his attention fast enough. Glancing at her over his shoulder, he tried to decide whether or not he thought she was being serious. She appeared to be . . . “After all that fuss about putting the damn thing up, you're ready to take it down already?”

 

She shrugged offhandedly and paused in her pacing long enough to smile at him. “Well, I did displace your recliner for the duration,” she admitted.

 

“Did you?” he parried almost sarcastically since she hadn't bothered to apologize for that in the beginning.

 

She shot him a cheesy grin. “And you were a very good sport about it all, so I figured that the least I could do is offer to take the tree down. Besides, it's dropping needles like crazy, if you hadn't noticed.”

 

He grunted. Of course he'd noticed that. He'd noticed that the morning after he'd hauled the damn thing into his living room. For a man who tended to be meticulous to a fault, it was almost enough to drive him mad. Isabelle wasn't a slob by any means, but she wasn't nearly as anal about housekeeping as he had a tendency to be.

 

“So you want me to carry it outside and . . . do what with it?” he asked, unsure if he really wanted to hear her answer or not.

 

“Put it out and the tree-recyclers will be around to pick it up, but let me take the decorations off, first . . .” trailing off as she turned away from him, she tapped the claw of her index finger against her lips as she considered . . . something . . . “Now where did I put those boxes . . .?”

 

“Boxes?” he echoed, shaking his head and dropping the pen, giving up on the idea of working, at least for the moment since he was pretty sure that the woman just couldn't be trusted. “What boxes?”

 

“The boxes that the ornaments came in,” she said as though he should have known exactly what she was talking about.

 

He didn't reply to that. He wasn't entirely sure she'd have heard him, anyway. Even so, he turned on his heel and strode out of the room since he'd packed the boxes away in a large wooden box in the hall closet. She'd been so preoccupied in surveying her handiwork that she hadn't noticed it before.

 

She blinked in surprise when he came back into the room with the storage box. With a smile and a shake of her head, she waited as he set the crate on the coffee table and pushed back the lid. “Do you suppose we could leave the things in the front yard until New Year's?” she asked, taking the ornament box he held out to her.

 

“Do we have to?”

 

She laughed. “I suppose we don't, but it always depresses me when Christmas is put away so quickly after the holiday.”

 

He stopped with a box in his hands and scowled at her. With her back facing him as she carefully studied the tree for the ornaments that went in that specific box, she didn't seem upset about the entire affair, but he couldn't shake the twinge of guilt that the only reason she was willing to remove the tree was ultimately because of him. “You don't have to take that down tonight,” he offered at length.

 

“Oh, it's okay,” she assured him as she carefully stowed the ornaments in the plastic tray. “I don't mind.”

 

Did she have to sound like she really didn't mind? Why didn't she pout or cajole to get her way? He'd seen Maria do that often enough—not blatantly but there, nonetheless. Isabelle, with her quiet sense of tranquility . . . she really wasn't like any other woman, was she?

 

She worked without comment for awhile, humming under her breath while Griffin packed the crate up once more, taking care not to break any of the delicate glass baubles. The entirety of the moment filled him with a comforting sense of familiarity, and he had to wonder why something as simple as packing away Christmas ornaments could lend him a sense of peace—something that had eluded him for so very long.

 

Maybe it was the mundane nature of the actions; there wasn't anything outstanding about the disassembly of the tree. Still, watching as Isabelle moved from one side to the other in her quest to locate matching ornaments, the calm that infiltrated his very being both soothed and frightened him. Every day, he grew more and more accustomed to her presence, and every day she became more and more necessary to him, but the precarious balance of his life was too fragile, too easy to upset. He'd never been good at living for the moment; never had been able to cast away the worries of what would come with the rising sun in the morning. That was the real reason he had always kept everything in a measured order, in a carefully contrived pattern that never, ever deviated from the norm.

 

At least, that was how it had been until the day he'd answered the door only to find her standing on his porch with that laptop computer and her nervous little smile . . .

 

He probably should have sent her away back then. That would have been the safest thing to do, but he also couldn't say that he honestly regretted his decision to help her, and maybe that was the most frightening truth of them all.

 

“Now about him . . .” she said, carefully plucking the idiot bear from the top of the tree and gathering the cord in one hand. “He won't fit in that box . . .”

 

“Damn shame,” he grunted, making a show of closing up the lip and reaching for the thick rope handles. “Guess you'll have to throw it out.”

 

“Don't be silly,” she chided, heading out of the living room toward the hallway to stash the stupid thing in her closet, he supposed. “He's perfectly adorable. He needs to be on our tree every year.”

 

Griffin snorted at that but couldn't staunch the flow of blood that shot to the surface of his skin at the implication that there would be another Christmas for the two of them, and as loathe as he was to admit it, he couldn't help the feeling of well-being that surged in him, either; the wild hope that maybe . . .

 

`Stop being stupid,' he told himself firmly, snatching up the crate to put it away. `She didn't mean that the way it sounded.'

 

Of course she didn't, did she? Scowling as he stacked the crate atop another one in the back of the small closet and adjusted the coats hanging in front of them, Griffin sighed and tried to ignore the voice in the back of his mind that told him that denying the truth wouldn't help. What was done was done, or so the saying went.

 

It didn't matter, did it? As much as he might wish otherwise, there were some things in life that couldn't be changed; some sins that couldn't be absolved. A lifetime of good deeds meant nothing in the end when there would always be the one black mark that nothing could ever expunge . . .

 

Stomping back into the living room, he shook his head as he moved toward the barren tree. He'd drag it outside for now, at least. It was too late to mess around with cutting it into burnable pieces, anyway.

 

He wasn't sure which was worse, really; the hope that coursed through him every time Isabelle smiled at him or the animosity that he knew could replace that smile just as quickly when she learned the truth. Grasping the tree and dragging it out of the stand, he tried to brush aside the unsettling thoughts as he lugged the tree toward the back door . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“So how are your parents?” Bas asked as Gunnar dropped his cell phone into his pocket and blanked his expression.

 

“Well, as always,” Gunnar replied, pasting on a tepid-at-best smile as he reached for the glass of whiskey before him.

 

Bas nodded slowly, downing half of his beer while he waited for his cousin to speak. Gunnar was always a bit of an enigma, but Bas had a feeling that something entirely different was bothering his cousin lately. He also knew damn well that Gunnar would never fess up to it, even if Bas asked, so he opted to wait until Gunnar felt like clueing him in—if he ever did, that was . . .

 

“Your mom lay the guilt trip on you for not coming home this year?”

 

Gunnar shrugged offhandedly and deliberately took his time quaffing the drink. “No.”

 

“Really? That's surprising.”

 

Gunnar snorted and sat back, lifting his hand off the table to motion the waitress over and held up his glass. She nodded and hurried over to the bar, her cheeks pinking slightly, probably at the very idea of being able to talk to a man like Gunnar, in any capacity. The Crow's Nest wasn't exactly a high-brow establishment, but Bas figured that beggars couldn't really be choosers since the number of bars that were actually open on Christmas night could be counted on one hand—maybe one finger. That was the only reason that Gunnar would deign to enter the place, Bas figured. Gunnar had a snobby streak about as wide as the Atlantic Ocean, and then some . . .

 

But then it had surprised Bas, too, when Gunnar had suggested going out for drinks to start with. Standing in the middle of the Zelig-family's kitchen as they picked over the leftovers from the huge dinner that Gin had spent hours preparing, he'd suddenly stated that he needed a drink, and while Cain kept liquor stocked at all times, for some reason, Gunnar had wanted to go out, instead . . .

 

“You make my mother sound like a veritable harridan,” Gunnar remarked dryly.

 

Bas chuckled. “No, but I know that she does it every year that you don't go home for the holidays.”

 

“Mother knows that I'm busy,” Gunnar evaded, idly twisting the empty glass in circles.

 

“Of course she does,” Bas agreed.

 

“Oh, shi-i-it,' Evan Zelig piped up, leaning back in his chair as he craned his neck to get a better look at something—very likely female—who had just walked into the bar.

 

“Keep it in your pants, Evan,” Bas grumbled, restraining the urge to reach out and wallop his sibling. “Mom's here, remember?”

 

True enough. Whether Gunnar had intended the invitation to extend to everyone in the mansion, it had. The women were flocked around the jukebox at the moment, while the men were sitting at the hoard of tables they'd pushed together to form one big one.

 

“Aww, bubby, did you see her tits?” Evan grumbled, slumping forward and strangling his bottle of beer. “Ah, never mind . . . those are fake, damn it . . . false advertising, at best . . .”

 

“Pervert,” Bas mumbled, shaking his head and figuring that he'd be better off to ignore his deranged sibling.

 

Cain grunted, probably thinking about the Azujubu phallus totem that Evan had given him for Christmas. Disturbing, it was . . . a four foot penis sculpted out of ivory that he'd picked up while he was out on tour in Africa . . . Pretty much everyone had picked up on the shape of the statue in seconds. In fact, the only one who hadn't was their mother, and that was only because Gin's mind simply didn't work in that way. That she'd absolutely loved it and had gone on to set it on the raised marble hearth beside the fireplace in the center of the living room . . . well, Bas had to wonder just how Cain was going to be able to hide it since he was reasonably sure that his father was already considering the best way to make the disturbing thing miraculously disappear . . .

 

“So, Bas,” Gunnar cut in before the conversation could degenerate any further, “you've traveled around Canada some, right?”

 

Bas blinked and nodded, setting his empty beer bottle aside and giving Gunnar his full attention. “Yeah, why?”

 

Gunnar shook his head and shrugged, dropping some money onto the waitress' tray as she set a fresh glass of whiskey in front of him. “Just wondered . . . you, uh, hear any interesting stories up that way?”

 

“Interesting stories?” Bas echoed. “Nothing remarkable.”

 

“Depends on your definition of `interesting',” Evan drawled, leaning back in the chair and turning enough to drape his elbow over the back, “and you are talkin' to the king of boring.”

 

“Just because the only thing that interests you is sex doesn't mean that everyone is as warped as you are,” Bas retorted.

 

Evan just grinned.

 

“Interesting stories?” Cain muttered, dragging his attention off Gin long enough to cast them a curious glance. “That's pretty broad . . .”

 

Gunnar grinned though he didn't look amused in the least. “Eh, you know, like . . . any regional legends or . . . anything . . .?”

 

Bas considered his question then shook his head, leaning back as Sydnie crawled into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. “Not really,” he admitted. “Can't say I do.”

 

Gunnar nodded.

 

“Dance with me, Zelig-sensei,” Gin insisted, grabbing Cain's hands and tugging.

 

Cain rolled his eyes but chuckled, letting Gin pull him to his feet. “All right; all right . . .”

 

Jillian giggled and leaned over Gavin's shoulder, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing his cheek loudly. “Come on, Gavvie,” she prodded. “Dance with me, you big stud.”

 

Gavin blushed crimson but let Jillian drag him off. Evan chuckled and stood up, pausing long enough to stretch before reaching for Sydnie's hand. “Come on, pussy-puss. I dance better than the ol' dog, anyway.”

 

Bas grunted and narrowed his gaze on his sibling but let him pull Sydnie off to dance just the same, deciding that Gunnar's uncharacteristically strange line of questioning took precedence, at least for the moment. He did, however, spare a moment to watch as Evan pulled Sydnie into his arms. She laughed at something he said—probably something really perverted—and Bas couldn't staunch the little growl that surged out of him.

 

“Really, Bas, jealousy is an ugly thing,” Gunnar remarked rather dryly.

 

“Shut up,” Bas grumbled, dragging his attention off his mate and pinning Gunnar with a calculating stare. “Gonna tell me what's with the sudden interest in obscure legends?”

 

Gunnar grinned rather lazily. It looked completely contrived. “Did I say I have an interest in them?” he countered.

 

“Sure, you did,” he replied, dragging a hand through his long golden-bronze hair. “So why?”

 

“Call it mild curiosity,” Gunnar drawled, claws flashing in the paltry light. Eyes darting around despite the sense of calm that he strove to maintain, in Bas' eyes, Gunnar seemed like he was searching for something—a habit of his whenever he had something on his mind.

 

“Hmm,” Bas drawled, deciding that if Gunnar wanted to beat around the proverbial bush that there wasn't really much he could do about it. “If you say so.”

 

Gunnar heaved a sigh, rubbing his forehead in a tired sort of way—a strange gesture from him. “Do you know what irritates me the most?” he began slowly, his eyes glowing when he finally met Bas' gaze.

 

Bas didn't answer since the response to that particular question could change in the blink of an eye.

 

“People that try to hide things,” he concluded, his eyes taking on a dangerous glint. “People who go out of their way to hide things . . . and people who can't see the truth when they're staring it in the face.”

 

Bas' eyebrows shot up, and he leaned back in his chair as he carefully regarded his cousin. “So find out why this person is hiding stuff,” he replied simply enough.

 

Gunnar's lips twisted in a half-smile that was colder and more cynical than any that Bas had seen before. “Oh, don't worry about that, Bastian. I fully intend to.” Lifting his glass, he drained the liquor in one gulp. “I promise you that.”

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Isabelle shook out the red flannel plaid Christmas tree skirt and carefully folded it in half before laying it over the back of the sofa so that she could drop it off at the drycleaner in the morning. It didn't look dirty, but she knew from experience that tree sap could be quite tricky if it set in.

 

It was a little depressing, she had to admit. Putting away the Christmas tree always had been one of her least favorite things, but given that Griffin had humored her in the first place, she knew that she'd be pushing her luck to try to leave it up, and even then, it was one of the best Christmases she could remember. The bracelet that he'd given her jingled softly on her wrist, and she couldn't help the little giggle that bubbled up inside her.

 

He'd gotten her a Winnie the Pooh charm? That had amused her even though she'd hidden it well enough. Given his reaction, though, she had to wonder if he'd realized when he'd bought it that his nemesis was dangling from the bracelet. Either way, she'd been good and hadn't teased him about it at all despite her desire to do exactly that.

 

Wrinkling her nose at the needles that had fallen when Griffin had taken the tree outside, she shook her head. As neat and tidy as the house normally was, the spray of needles looked sorely out of place.

 

It didn't take long for her to fetch the broom and dustpan. At least with the wooden floors, the needles were easy enough to sweep up, but somehow the irritating things had spread all over, or so it seemed. There were even some near the wall. Padding across the floor in the thick alpaca yarn socks that Gin had given her, she bent down to pull the curtain out of the way only to stop and frown at the nondescript package hidden beneath the heavy folds.

 

`Isabelle' was written in Griffin's bold but neat printing, and she leaned the broom against the wall before carefully retrieving the package and standing up.

 

`What . . .?'

 

Looking around as she idly turned the gift in her hands, she glanced at the back door. The silence of the house echoed in her ears, and she frowned thoughtfully, her attention returning to the package once more. Griffin hadn't acted like there was a missing present, had he? Why hadn't he mentioned it?

 

She uttered a soft sound, almost a whine. She knew why, damn it. As shy as the man tended to be, it wouldn't surprise her if he had panicked at the last minute and tried to hide it from her . . .

 

Which, of course, left her with the biggest dilemma of them all: should she put the gift back and pretend that she hadn't found it or should she open it anyway and assure him that she adored it no matter what it happened to be?

 

Wandering absently over to the sofa, she sank down with the gift in her lap and waited. Why was it that Griffin always thought that everything he did just wasn't good enough? It was enough to send a surge of righteous indignation straight through her; irritation that he would ever feel inadequate. It wasn't true, and she knew that. She'd hoped that he was starting to understand that, too . . .

 

The scrape of the back door opening followed moments later by a blast of frigid air and the accompanying sounds of Froofie's claws clicking against the hardwood floor did little to dispel Isabelle's unsettling thoughts. Griffin stomped his feet on the mat near the door, and in her mind, she could see him slipping off his boots. He'd leave them there until they were dry—Griffin was a creature of habit, wasn't he? The image of him, leaning against the door handle as he pulled off his boots, being careful not to let any snow fall on the wood floor made her feel like smiling.

 

So why did her eyes sheen over with suspect moisture, instead?

 

Dashing the back of her hand over her eyes, she cleared her throat and squared her shoulders as Griffin's footsteps—absolutely silent though she could feel the floor tremble just the tiniest bit—drew closer. “Yet another reason why cutting down a real tree just to stand in the living room for a few weeks is a complete waste,” he mumbled, surveying the pine needles strewn over the floor.

 

“This is for me?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her words halting and breathless, and she couldn't quite make herself meet his gaze.

 

Griffin stood stock-still for a moment. Then he sucked in a breath so sharp that it whistled as the air rushed into his lungs. “Y . . . you . . . i-it's stupid,” he blurted, leaning down and reaching out to swipe the gift out of her lap.

 

She grabbed it and smashed it against her chest, scooting to the side and out of Griffin's reach. “No!” she yelled as hot color flooded her cheeks. “I-I mean . . . it has my name on it,” she insisted, modulating her tone as she slowly shook her head.

 

He looked like he wanted to argue with her. His scowl was black when she finally dared to look up at him, but she didn't miss the embarrassed color suffusing his skin, either. Standing with his hands on his hips, he scowled at the room almost angrily but stubbornly refused to look at her.

 

Isabelle bit her lip, slipping a claw under the twine that he'd tied around the package and giving a little tug to cut through it. It fell away with a slight snap, and the paper slipped free, too. He hadn't messed with tape, or maybe he hadn't realized that it would have made the job of wrapping the gift a lot easier.

 

She smiled at the smooth wooden box revealed. Simplistic and sturdy, the only embellishments were the delicate bronze hinges on the one side and the minimal carving on the lid. “It's beautiful,” she breathed.

 

He snorted. “It's just a box,” he mumbled. “It isn't the . . . the gift is inside,” he admitted with a sigh.

 

It took a moment for her mind to digest that, and she couldn't understand why her hands were shaking when she started to lift the lid. Maybe it was Griffin's own sense of reluctance that swayed her. She didn't know, but she couldn't help but smile, either.

 

“Oh,” she gasped, blinking at the wooden sculpture inside. Small, certainly, but the attention to detail was remarkable. The dog was curled up on his belly with his nose nestled between his paws, and she laughed softly when she lifted it out of the box to inspect it closer.

 

“Like I said, it's dumb,” he mumbled, turning away before she could look at his face. “Just . . . throw it in the fire or something. It's wood. It'll burn . . .”

 

“I will not!” she huffed, scowling at Griffin's wide back. “He looks just like Froofie,” she commented.

 

He snorted but didn't turn around again. “It's just a stupid hunk of wood.”

 

“Says you,” she shot back, stroking the statue's head with the tip of her finger. “It's the most beautiful thing anyone's ever given me.”

 

He snorted again but didn't respond.

 

“You can see it, you know,” she murmured, reaching out to scratch the real Froofie behind the ears.

 

“See what?” he asked rather grudgingly.

 

“The love,” she replied simply. “Whoever made this . . . he loved making it, didn't he?”

 

Griffin was silent for a moment. Isabelle didn't notice. So enthralled with the simple gift that only Griffin would think of giving to her, she couldn't help the complete and utter warmth that filled her as she stared at the carving.

 

“Maybe he did,” Griffin said, his voice oddly husky.

 

Isabelle blinked and glanced up at him, but he was already heading out of the living room. “Griffin . . .?”

 

“Want some tea?” he asked over his shoulder without slowing his gait.

 

“Sure . . .”

 

“Don't ask for sugar,” he warned. “Honey . . . that's what's supposed to be put in tea . . .”

 

Slowly, so slowly, Isabelle smiled. Somehow, she always seemed to understand all those things that Griffin just never could bring himself to say . . .

 

 

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Final Thought fromIsabelle:

It's my puppy!

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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~