InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity 7: Avouchment ❯ The Countdown ( Chapter 38 )

~~Chapter 38~~

~The Countdown~

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

Isabelle stomped out of the kitchen, pulling the front of her sweater together to block out the prevalent chill in the air and balancing a mug of tea in her hand as she tried in vain to make sense of Griffin's obvious irritation. After having spent an hour or so sitting in a local restaurant since neither one of them had felt like staying in the house while it aired out, she was dangerously close to losing her temper as she glowered at the bear-youkai's broad back. “Here,” she said, careful to keep her voice steady even as she watched him reach for the basement doorknob.

 

He grunted and paused long enough to dig the key out of his pocket.

 

“I made you a cup of tea,” she informed him. “The least you could do is drink it with me.”

 

“I'm busy,” he grumbled, jamming the old-fashioned key into the keyhole and turning it.

 

“Griffin, please . . . what's all this about?” she asked in a reasonable tone.

 

“Why don't you go ask one of your new friends? They gave you their phone numbers, didn't they?”

 

Narrowing her eyes on him, she was hard-pressed not to growl in complete exasperation. “And you saw me leave them on the table.”

 

He snorted. “I also saw you fiddling with your cell. You programmed the numbers in, didn't you?”

 

`One . . . two . . . three . . .' she counted off in her head. “No, I didn't.”

 

“Right.”

 

`. . . Four . . . five . . . six . . .' She heaved a sigh. “You're being ridiculous,” she pointed out with a scowl.

 

“Am I?”

 

“Griffin—”

 

“Don't you mean, `Dad'?”

 

She couldn't quite contain the frustrated growl that slipped from her. “No, I don't, and you're the one who said yes.”

 

He snorted again and jiggled the handle. It must not have unlocked properly because it didn't budge.

 

`This is really, really stupid,' she thought with an inward snort of her own. One of the men who had stopped by the table `just to say hi' had rather rudely asked her if she was out to dinner with her father, and Griffin, for reasons that she'd never understand, had said `yes' before she'd been able to tell the man exactly what she'd thought of that. Griffin didn't look old enough to be her father, for God's sake. True, the guy had been the third one to approach the table, but she certainly hadn't done a thing to entice them, damn it, and had actually been quite irritated that they'd be rude enough to try to hit on her when it should have been obvious that she was having dinner with someone already.

 

“Stay here and talk to me, will you?” she demanded, unable to keep the mulish tone out of her voice.

 

He paused long enough to glower at her before stabbing the key into the lock once more and giving it a vicious twist. “Leave me alone, Isabelle,” he muttered.

 

“No, I won't!” she snapped, grabbing his arm to stop him before he could open the door. “What is the matter with you? I—”

 

She gasped as he jerked his arm out of her grasp, throwing it up in the air as if to warn her off. His hand caught her arm and the tea mug, sending it crashing to the floor as hot liquid splashed all over the both of them. She jumped back in time to avoid most of it, but Griffin wasn't as quick, hissing sharply as he glowered down at her. “Great; great,” he growled.

 

Heaving a sigh, she hurried back to the kitchen, swiping up the first towel she laid hands on before carting around and striding through the dining room to clean up the mess on the floor. He'd stepped away from the basement door, at least, though he still looked irritated as all hell while he swatted at the tea stains on his shirt and pants. She could feel the start of a massive migraine setting in just behind her eyes as she stooped over to mop up the tea.

 

It didn't take long, and she grimaced at the broken bits of mug scattered on the wooden floor, and she started to stand up once more, reaching for the doorknob to help her to her feet.

 

The knob turned as she tugged on it, and she nearly toppled down the stairs when it swung open. She blinked in surprise but didn't have time to think on it as Griffin's arm snaked around her waist and roughly jerked her back.

 

“Thank—” she began, clutching at her chest to slow her pounding heartbeat, her relief a palpable thing as she swallowed down the lump of late fear at almost falling.

 

“Just what the hell do you think you're doing?” he bellowed, wrenching her around to face him. Face contorted in an almost violent sort of way, he narrowed his eyes on her as his youki spiked angrily.

 

“Wh—I—”

 

“You what?” he demanded.

 

She winced when he shook her, gritted her teeth together to keep them from rattling with the movement. “I didn't . . . mean . . . to,” she whispered.

 

“Of course you didn't,” he scoffed, shaking his head furiously to cut her off, the malevolence in the air roiling and thick, cloying at her, choking her, holding her motionless, and she could only stare. “The one thing I asked you not to do was try to go down to the basement,” he snarled, ignoring her lame protests entirely in the face of his rage, “and you can't even do that! My God, you have absolutely no decency, do you? No, you don't! Whatever you want, right, Isabelle? Whatever you want, and who gives a damn about anyone other than you?”

 

Retreating a step—she couldn't help it—she shook her head, unable to find any words at all. His eyes glowed—burned—with an intensity that she'd never seen before; an expression of absolute revulsion writ in the depths of his gaze. As much as she wanted, she couldn't help staring at him, unable to look away and feeling like a deer caught in the headlights. Shaking her head against the anger in his words—maybe she was trying to buffer herself against his tirade—she bit off a little cry that tried to slip from her. “Griffin, please, I—”

 

“Save it, Isabelle! I don't give a damn!” he bellowed, jerking on her arm to silence her. “You stroll into my life, turn everything upside down, do what you want, whenever you want, wherever you want to do it, and you never, ever take into consideration the fact that I don't want you here!”

 

“I didn't—I never—”

 

The tendons in his throat strained, his face a deep shade of crimson, looking entirely different from the gentle man that she had come to know and care about. In the back of her mind, a voice whispered to her that he was just lashing out. It didn't stop the tears from stinging the back of her eyes as his tirade continued. “Damn right, you never! Now I'm telling you for the last time: just leave me the hell alone!”

 

He let go of her so abruptly that she stumbled back and nearly fell. Latching onto the corner of the bureau, she steadied herself, her hands trembling as she sank her teeth into the soft flesh of her cheek to keep the tears in check. Swallowing hard, she shook her head and shuffled backward in retreat. “I'm sorry,” she whispered—choked out, actually—as she wheeled around on her heel and ran . . .

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

“Tell me again: why are we packing at ten o'clock at night?” Gavin asked as Jillian folded a shirt and placed it in the open suitcase.

 

She shot him a bright smile and reached for another shirt. “Because we're leaving tomorrow, “she reminded him.

 

“Tomorrow night,” he corrected with a shake of his head.

 

“All the same, it's poor form to procrastinate,” she insisted, giving his ponytail a playful yank.

 

Chuckling softly, he rolled his eyes but strode over to the drawers as she waved her hands in that general direction. “There's nothing wrong with procrastination,” he insisted, pulling open the drawer and picking up a stack of underpants.

 

“Besides, we have a ton of things we have to do tomorrow before we leave,” she pointed out. “We have go to the bank to pick up the traveler's checks, stop by the post office to have them hold the mail—”

 

He caught her fingers—she was counting off the mental list—in his hand and quickly kissed her knuckles. “I stopped at the bank at lunch time and picked up the traveler's checks, and I took care of the mail online earlier, too.”

 

She giggled and threw herself into his arms, hugging him tight. “You're so organized, Gavvie!” she gushed.

 

“The only thing we have to do tomorrow is stop by Evan's house.”

 

“Evan's house? Why?”

 

“I told him he could borrow Digital Thunder Racing while we're gone.”

 

She wrinkled her nose at the mention of the video game but laughed, giving him a quick squeeze before turning back to her task of packing. “Organized and thoughtful,” she teased.

 

“Yeah,” he agreed with a sigh, arching his back and thrusting his fists into the air as he stretched and yawned. “I'll regret it; I just know it. He'll learn the game forward and backward and get better at it than I am.”

 

“Evan will never be better than my Gavvie,” she said, arching an eyebrow and fluttering her eyelashes.

 

Gavin grunted but couldn't help the blush that rose to stain his cheeks. He still hadn't gotten used to Jillian's teasing . . . “Isn't he supposed to go back out on tour soon?” he asked, changing the subject before she could say anything else to deepen his flush.

 

“Hmm,” she pondered, screwing up her face in a thoughtful scowl as she considered his question. “I think he said that the Asian tour was over and that they were going back out in a couple weeks.”

 

“Where to this time?”

 

“The States for a quick tour and then on to Europe.”

 

Gavin sighed and shook his head. As much as he enjoyed his quiet life with Jillian—at least, it was quiet most of the time—he had a hard time understanding how Evan seemed to thrive on the chaos of his chosen profession. He'd said once that nothing beat the adrenaline he felt from a crowd of people who were all `digging his groove'. Gavin hadn't really comprehended that, either, but if it made Evan happy, then it didn't really matter . . .

 

“Don't let me forget to pack the gift I bought for Dr. Avis,” Jillian said suddenly, whirling around to poke a finger in the middle of Gavin's chest.

 

He blinked at his mate's delicate hand and arched an eyebrow. “All right,” he agreed slowly.

 

She smiled again—amazing how she could change expressions in the blink of an eye. “You know, we should have left weeks ago,” she muttered then sighed since it couldn't be helped now.

 

“You had that photo shoot, remember?”

 

She wrinkled her nose and carefully smoothed a clean pillowcase over the contents of the suitcase. She insisted that it helped to keep the clothes in place, and she'd done it the entire time that Gavin had known her. “Oh, that!” she scoffed, pushing down on the lid of the suitcase with all of her weight. The suitcase still didn't close completely.

 

Gavin chuckled. She also believed in stuffing as much as she possibly could into the suitcases so that nothing would shift around—a moot point when the pillowcase was supposed to circumvent that, in the first place. “Sit on it, Jilli, and I'll get the latches.”

 

She sat on the suitcase and hopped a couple of times for good measure. Even with her weight, the suitcase barely closed. Pressing his thumb against the sensor in the locking mechanism, he waited until it beeped twice before picking Jillian up and setting her on the floor again. She sighed, her normal ebullience waning as she twisted her fingers together in a decidedly nervous sort of way and wandered over to the window.

 

“You going to tell me what you're thinking about?” he prodded gently.

 

Jillian forced a smile and shook her head. “It's nothing,” she insisted, rubbing her forearms as though she were cold.

 

“That's not an `it's nothing' look,” he informed her with a frown.

 

She let out a deep breath and turned away from the window, shuffling over to him and leaning on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her. “It's just . . . I have so many questions; you know? So many things . . . stupid things, really . . .”

 

“I doubt they're stupid,” he said gently.

 

She sighed. “Maybe not . . .”

 

Kissing her forehead, he cuddled with her for a minute, trying to reassure her that she wasn't being ridiculous. “Like what?”

 

“Like . . . Like what was my mother's favorite color . . . or her favorite song . . .? Did she sing on key? Just . . .” she sighed again. “Just everything.”

 

Gavin frowned, understanding what Jillian was trying to say. He knew that she adored her parents—Gin and Cain—more than anything else, and yet there would always be a part of her that wondered. It was that part of her that felt compelled to speak with Dr. Avis, even knowing that he had ordered Eli to kidnap her just a few months ago. Though she had rarely expressed feelings of inadequacy regarding the idea that she had been adopted, Gavin knew better than anyone that the carefree façade she wore hid so very much of her true heart.

 

“You can ask him all that stuff,” Gavin said, his voice soft in the quiet.

 

“I can, can't I?” she replied, her smile taking on a brilliance that was closer to the one he knew and adored.

 

He sighed and shrugged but squeezed her tight for a moment before letting go and stepping away. “Let's finish packing, all right?”

 

Jillian giggled and nodded before scurrying off to the bathroom to gather some of the toiletries they'd need on their trip.

 

 

~xXxXxXxXxXx~

 

 

`What the hell was that?'

 

Griffin snorted and flexed his fingers as he fought to calm down before gave into the temptation to slam his fist into the wall. Even with her out of his sight, his anger wasn't abating. No, if anything it was growing—festering—an ugly thing that seethed through him: anger directed at everything and everyone, from Isabelle to the bastards at the restaurant who hadn't had the decency to leave Isabelle alone to the very images that were entirely too real in his mind, but most especially, anger—no, it was contempt—with himself . . .

 

`She's not the problem, Griffin,' his youkai pointed out reasonably in a soothing tone that Griffin over time had come to despise. As though his very being feared the monster that he could be, that tone—that voice . . . it was enough to drive him mad.

 

`She is,' he argued stubbornly, knowing deep down that his youkai was right but ignoring the truth of it, at least for the moment. It was easier to be angry, wasn't it? Easier to lash out and hurt something so fragile and wonderful, because . . . because the idea of letting down his defenses any more than he already had . . .

 

`If you were honest with yourself, you'd admit it, you know.'

 

Griffin snorted and shook his head, taking a step toward the windows only to be brought up short at the sharp stabbing pain that erupted in his foot as a bit of baked clay dug into the tender skin of his instep. Shifting his glower to the floor, he blinked then grimaced at the scattered remains of his favorite mug. An unsettling sense of horror crept up his spine, locked around his brain, and for the briefest of moments, he could hear the screams, feel the heat of inescapable flames, and he smashed his fist against his lips as an insular thought whispered to him. `Cursed . . . ruin . . . everything you touch will forever be left in bits and pieces to be swept away with the wind . . .'

 

Shuffling his feet backward, he felt himself recoiling, unable to deal with the broken cup any more than he'd ever been able to deal with anything else as a second thought—just as transient—broke through the haze. `Clean it up, Griffin,' it said. `You still have a chance to fix it . . .'

 

`Fix . . . it . . .?'

 

He didn't remember fetching the broom and dustpan; couldn't recall sweeping the bits and pieces together. The harsh whisper of the pieces falling into the trash can broke him out of his reverie, and he sighed. Memories and half-formed thoughts ran through his head in a jumble of incoherence that all seemed to begin and end with Isabelle. He was too tired, too weary. Days and nights spent dwelling on that one moment in time, visions of her smiling at him—only at him . . . the feel of her body against his as they shuffled their feet in time to the music . . . and the consuming knowledge that the thing that he didn't dare admit that he wanted more than anything really did look as ridiculous from the outside as he had known it would . . .

 

He'd realized it all too well at dinner, hadn't he? Sitting there at that table with her as she was approached by men who had seemed so much closer to everything that a woman like her needed, it had been clear to him, hadn't it? As much as he tried to deny it, he knew deep down that somewhere along the line, he'd started to hope; had dared to think that maybe, just maybe . . .

 

`It . . . it's better this way . . . isn't it . . .?'

 

`Do you honestly believe that?' his youkai asked though not unkindly.

 

Griffin didn't answer as he put away the broom and dustpan, as he turned and stared out the window at the solitary star shining through the clouds covering the sky. It looked lonely, didn't it? Lonely and a little sad . . .

 

He closed his eyes, let his head fall back with a heavy sigh. It was better this way, at least for her. It was better if she never learned the truth, wasn't it? For her . . .

 

Unfortunately, he couldn't stave back the pang of selfishness, the crazy need to keep her near for as long as she wanted to be, and it was that need that made him move, that thought that carried him through the house and down the hallway to stand outside the closed bedroom door . . .

 

And it hurt like hell to smell her tears, to know damn well that he was the cause of those. Not even a breath of sound came from the other side, but he didn't have to hear her to smell them, either. Swallowing hard, he reached for the handle. The door opened without a sound. Isabelle was curled into the window seat staring outside—was she seeing anything at all? He couldn't see her face through the bronze sheet of her hair, but that didn't interest him at that moment. His attention was focused on the open suitcase lying on her bed . . .

 

Tamping down the rise of panic that surged through him, he cleared his throat to let her know that he was there. She gasped and nearly fell as she stumbled to her feet, dashing a nimble hand over her eyes, her silhouette golden in the wan light of the bedroom. “I-I was . . . just . . .”

 

She trailed off, turning abruptly to grab clothes out of the open dresser drawer. Griffin winced, his feet moving before he could think about what he was doing. Taking the clothes from her hands, he stuffed them back into the drawer and shook his head. “Y-you can't leave,” he blurted, casting about for some reason that she might believe. “It's . . . it's still dangerous. The research—”

 

“No, you're right,” she said with a pathetic sounding sniffle. “I'm sorry . . .”

 

Somehow her apology made him feel just that much worse. He didn't want her to be sorry, damn it . . . He didn't want that at all . . . Opening and closing his mouth a few times, he scowled at the half-formed thoughts that just didn't say nearly enough. There had to be a way to make her understand—something that he could do to show her that he . . . that he was sorrier than she'd ever know . . .

 

“Griffin, no . . .” she said softly, the sadness in her eyes a painful thing for him to see. “Everything you said . . . you were right.”

 

“Y-y-you're leaking again,” he stammered, clumsily running his thumb along the rise of her cheek, wincing at the moisture that ran down his finger in a slow ribbon. “I . . .” He licked his lips and ground his teeth together. “Come with me.”

 

Shaking her head as confusion brightened her gaze, she sniffled and blinked quickly, as though struggling to deny the tears that were glossing over her eyes. “But—”

 

He reached for her hand and shook his head stubbornly. “I . . . I want you to see,” he muttered.

 

Her resistance held fast for a painfully slow moment, but slowly—so slowly—she clasped his hand in return and let him lead her out of the room.

 

 

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A/N:

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Final Thought fromIsabelle:

…What …?

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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~