InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Purity Redux: Metempsychosis ❯ Quiet ( Chapter 25 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

It was loud.  It was obnoxiously loud.  It was hideously, obnoxiously loud.

Lifting his gaze without moving his head, Ashur peered over at Jessa as she danced with Carol and Laith near the edge of the dance floor.  She'd been garnering appreciative looks all night, which just figured, but, given the tiny black mini-skirt that barely brushed mid-thigh and the dark purple cotton blouse that kept falling off of one shoulder or the other, it wasn't entirely surprising, even if it was ridiculously annoying, too . . . Carol was receiving her fair share of attention, as well, but to be brutally honest, Ashur really didn't care about that.  As far as he was concerned, the she-devil was on her own.

"Here you go."

Ashur blinked and glanced up at the waitress as she set a glass of whiskey on the table before him.  "I didn't order this," he said, pushing it toward her again.

The woman laughed.  "You didn't," she agreed easily enough.  Then she pointed at a table off to the right where a couple of ladies sat.  When they saw him look their direction, they wiggled their fingers in a jaunty wave.  He nodded once before turning his attention back to the waitress once more.  "Thanks, but I'll pass," he said, pasting on what he hoped was an indulgent smile and not a grimace that might look more like he was considering the eating of someone's spleen . . .

"Don't worry about it," she told him.  "Happens all the time, and we'd just have to dump it back there, anyway.  Might as well enjoy it," she said with a quick wink as she hurried away.

Ashur heaved a sigh.

"Hi . . . I hope you don't think I was being too forward," one of the ladies—a petite but lovely brunette—from the table that had sent over the drink said as she offered him a rather shy smile.  She was pretty, sure . . . She simply wasn't Jessa . . .

"Oh, uh . . . Thanks, but I'm the designated driver," he said, which was true enough, as far as he was concerned.

She grimaced.  "I'm so sorry . . . I thought you were here alone . . ."

"It's fine," he assured her.

She stared at him for a long moment, her dark eyes catching the strobe lights over the dance floor: first pink, then red, then as the colors cycled, rendering everything fairly garish hues.  "I'm Sonya," she said, sticking out her hand in greeting.

He took it and gave a brief shake before letting go once more.  "Ashur," he replied, leaning slightly to the side as he glanced over at the dancing trio once more.

"Are you new to the area?"

"Yes, I suppose I am," he allowed, affecting another tepid smile.

She nodded.  "I moved here a few years ago and love it . . . There's really no place like it, anywhere else.  Do you know your way around?  I mean, when I first got here, I spent weeks, just seeking out all those awesome little places that they don't mark on tour maps.  If you're ever wanting someone to show you around . . ."

Stifling the desire to sigh, Ashur shook his head.  "I'm sorry, Sonya," he said, hoping that his own impatience wasn't evident in his tone.  "That's very kind of you, but I’m good."

She looked very obviously crestfallen, and he winced inwardly when the poor woman blushed crimson.  "Oh, I . . . I wasn't trying to come on to you or . . . Well, maybe a little," she confessed.

"No, I'm flattered," he told her, managing a wry smile for her benefit.  "I really am, but, uh . . ."

Following the direction of his gaze, she breathed out a tiny, 'oh' when she spotted Jessa's crazy-wild hair.  She stared at the girl for a long moment before turning back to face Ashur once more.  "I'm so sorry," she muttered, pasting on a bright smile despite the lingering tightness around the corners of her eyes.  "I-I-I didn’t realize . . . It was nice meeting you, Ashur."

He nodded and stood.  "Likewise," he replied.  The woman hurried away, and he sat back down, wondering vaguely what the odds were that he could convince the girls that they were ready to go home now . . .

The pounding song finally ended, much to Ashur's relief.  The next one was just as obnoxious, but in a wholly different way, fully of high-pitched instrumental squeals and otherwise ear-piercing rhetoric.

Jessa stepped away from Carol and Laith and sauntered over toward him, ignoring the men who tried to call out to her—whether she could hear them or not over the general din of the club was irrelevant.  Watching as that little flirt of a skirt swayed provocatively with every step she took, he ground his teeth together at the bitter and almost violent surge of misplaced possessiveness crashed over him.

"Are you just going to sit there all night, scowling at everyone who looks in your general direction?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she leaned against the high table, smiling in a teasing kind of way.

"Thinking about it," he replied, only half-joking.  "You had your fill of dancing?  If you can even call it that," he grumbled, jerking his head at a couple on the floor that looked more like they were ready to have at it, never mind that they were completely surrounded by perfect strangers.

She stared at him for another long moment before reaching out, gently rubbing away the scowl lines between his brows.  "Won't you dance with me?" she asked.

He snorted.  "I'll pass, thanks."

She sighed, grabbing the glass of whiskey and downing it fast, only to make a face as the liquor burned its way into her belly.  "Can't dance, huh?"

Again, he snorted.  "I could if I had a mind to," he assured her.  "Like I said, when they actually start dancing, then I might consider it."

Rolling her eyes, she straightened up, tugged on his hand.  "Come on," she coaxed, pulling on his hand until he finally stood.  "That's better . . . I can't dance with them anymore," she explained as she dragged him away from the table and toward the smoky tiled dance floor.  "Carol likes him—a lot."

"Poor bastard," Ashur muttered.

She shot him a chagrined look, interrupted only by her smile.  "I like her," she informed him, slipping her arms up around his neck as her body swayed in time with the music—a slower song with a heavy, thick beat.  "She's the first real friend I've ever had," she admitted.

"Is that right?" he asked, unsure if he was more surprised or irritated that she didn't have any other actual friends.

"On the whole, girls are horrible beings," she went on, almost philosophically.  "The girls at my boarding school were terrible little hags . . . They were only friends with other girls who were as mean and nasty as they were . . . Always picking, always belittling . . . and I never really understood why."

It made perfect sense to Ashur.  Considering just how stunning the girl was?  And he'd seen pictures enough to know that it wasn't a recent development, either.  Females, he'd found over time, had a tendency to show their insecurities in themselves by projecting them onto someone else, and a girl like her?  She was likely the personification of everything that most of them would never be, so they'd done what came naturally: they tried to break her down . . . "Because you're a beautiful woman, Jessa—dead damn gorgeous, actually.  They were jealous.  It happens."

She froze, mid step, and stared up at him, her eyes wide, solemn, as she gazed at him without blinking.  He wasn't sure if the color in her cheeks was due to the whiskey or what he'd said.  "You . . . You think . . .?"

He rolled his eyes but chuckled.  "I'd have to be blind not to have noticed," he told her.  "Tell me you didn't know, just how beautiful you are . . ."

She giggled almost nervously.  "It doesn't count when it's your da saying so," she allowed.  Suddenly, she bit her lip and tilted her head to the side.  "Do you want to get out of here for a bit?  Go for a walk or something?"

He stared at her for a second, then nodded.  She finally smiled and stepped away, grasping his hand in hers again as she wove her way through the crowded dance floor to find Carol.


The night was mild, almost balmy, but not quite warm enough to be muggy.  Jessa could feel the moisture in the air, condensing on her skin.  Ashur strolled along beside her, hands in his pockets, a thoughtful scowl on his face.  She had to wonder if he had always worn that sort of expression.  Somehow, he didn't really seem the type to wallow in his own thoughts or musings, though.  Again, it struck her, as it had before, that there was something underneath it all, but he held onto it so tightly . . .

"So," she said, breaking the silence that had prevailed since they'd told Carol that they were going for a walk and slipped out of the club, "you don't like dancing . . . Tell me what you do enjoy doing?"

He sighed.  "Nothing, actually."

"Nothing?" she repeated, crossing her arms over her chest as she slowly shook her head.  "Nothing at all?  Camping?  Fishing?  Collecting stamps?"

Chuckling softly, he pulled a hand free to stop her.  "No, I meant, I enjoy doing nothing."

"How do you do nothing?" she countered.

He shrugged.  "Well, for starters, you wake up in the morning without a three-year-old kicking you in the face—or other areas."

"As nice as that sounds," she said, "surely you have other interests."

"Not really," he replied with a nonchalant shrug.  "I wasn't really brought up to have hobbies."

She frowned at his admission.  "What do you mean?  When you were a child, you had to have things that you enjoyed doing?"

"It was a vastly different world back then," he told her.  "I spent my childhood training and working on whatever tasks my father set for me, and when I wasn't doing those things, I found other ways to try to live up to their almighty expectations."

Something about his tone, his words . . . There was a sadness there, but there was also a quiet level of bitterness, too.  "Didn't you ever do anything that you enjoyed?  What about your family?  Did you do things with them?"

He chuckled, but the sound was dry, devoid of humor and full of a certain irony.  "No, I didn't."

His answers made her sad, didn't they?  When she thought back about her own childhood, there were so many memories, so many moments of happiness, that it was hard to imagine that he didn't have even one of those, and yet, it wasn't so much what he said or didn't say, it was the look on his face, the expression in his eyes . . . He really, honestly, didn't have those at all . . . "It sounds like they let you down," she said, frowning at him.

"If you live long enough, everyone lets you down eventually."

"That is an entirely pessimistic outlook on things," Jessa replied softly.

He shrugged, stopping, leaning against the railing as he stared out over the ever-moving water—black in the darkness of the night despite the reflections of a myriad of city lights, dancing on the lazy waves.  "Maybe.  It's also entirely true."

She turned around, leaned back against the railing, bent arms sticking out behind her, forearms propped on the rail.  "And you really think that everyone is destined to disappoint you?  Do you . . .?  Do you think I will, too?"

He shifted his gaze, stared at her out of the corner of his eyes.  Silhouetted in the moonlight, the cold, blue-white haze that touched the contours of him lent him a mystery, a seemingly unreachable distance, even though he was standing right beside her.  In those moments, a sudden, vicious stab of loneliness shot through her.  It was a melancholy desperation, an isolation that hurt, deep down in places that no one would ever see, that no one but she would ever feel . . .

And yet, she wanted to know those things about him, wanted to know why he had that look in his eyes, that lingering sense of darkness.  She wanted to know everything about him, to the point of distraction.  Too bad she knew that he wasn't going to give up those secrets, not without a fight . . .

He sighed, gaze slipping back to the water once more, reflecting the twinkling lights of the city as the brightness pooled in his eyes, making the shadows just a little deeper, a little darker, a little farther away . . . "You have to understand," he began quietly, almost a whisper that she might have missed, were she human and not youkai.  "It's not that I think you'd . . ." Trailing off, he grimaced, grasping the rail tight in his hands, arms straight, muscles taut, shoulders raised slightly, chin hanging a little lower . . . "But I . . . I didn't think she'd ever . . . But she did, and . . ."

Frowning at Ashur's half-answer, at the questions that his words brought to mind, Jessa bit her lip, leaned back slightly to get a better look at his face, at the strange sense of foreboding that lingered in his eyes, in his stance.  "Who is she?"

"Hana," he replied, as though it were the simplest and somehow the most complicated thing in the world, and maybe to him, it was.  "She . . . She was my best friend since childhood, I guess.  But she . . . and I . . ."  He shook his head.  "I can't forgive her . . . What she did . . . It . . . It killed a part of me, I guess . . ."

"The part of you that wants to trust someone else," she murmured.

He nodded slowly.  "Something like that."

"Was she really much of a friend if she hurt you that badly?" she asked, careful to keep her tone as neutral as she could.

"It wasn't like that.  I mean, it wasn't her intention, and I can understand that, but . . ." Trailing off with a frustrated sigh, he suddenly shook his head.  "It's in the past, and that's where it should stay," he finally said.  "Suffice it to say that I . . . probably . . . have some trust issues."

A strange sense of anger shot to life in the pit of her stomach—anger at this unknown woman who had hurt him so profoundly.  It irritated her—and it made her sad, too.  His kind of answers only served to bring more questions to mind, and she knew deep down that if she pressed him for more, he'd pull just that much farther away from her, too.

She sighed, figuring she ought to simply change the topic before she ended up, alienating him entirely . . . "You know, toward the end, I was always so angry at my ma," she confessed.  "It was her sudden fixation on having me find my mate, I guess . . . or not even that.  More than once, she said that I should find someone, 'who would suit', like it didn't matter if I loved him or not . . . Looking back on it, I wonder, though . . . I mean, some people say that their loved ones would suddenly become fixated on certain things, like . . . like they knew that they wouldn't be around much longer, and they feel this unconscious desire to see everything settled before they . . . they die . . ."  Swallowing hard to choke down the rising lump in her throat, Jessa shrugged a little pathetically, gaze dropping to her crossed arms.  "I wonder if that's why . . ."

"Maybe she simply wanted you to be happy."

She dragged the length of her hair over her shoulder, idly twisting it around and around and around.  "If I could speak to her one last time, I'd . . . I'd tell her that I was sorry I fought with her so much . . . that I . . . that I love her . . ."

He sighed as she sniffled, as she struggled to fight back the tears that stung her eyelids, that tingled in her nose, and he pulled her over against his chest, the sound of his heartbeat, steady and strong and entirely comforting.  "It's okay to cry for someone you miss," he told her gently.

She shook her head, squeezed her eyes closed, even as two fat tears escaped, slipping down her cheeks as she leaned back, smashed her hands over her face.  "I hate crying," she muttered, her voice muffled by her hands.  "It's so . . . so weak and pathetic and—"

"It isn't," he countered, hugging her tight again.  "My father said that before, too . . . but he said a lot of things that weren't true . . . You're not a weak woman, Jessa, and crying won't make you one, either."

Pushing against his chest, she looked up at him, and just for a moment, she didn't try to mask the emotions that she usually tried so hard to keep buried.  All the pain, all the misery, all the loneliness—even the fear that she despised . . . and she laid it bare for him to see, willing him to understand.

He lifted a hand, brushed the back of his knuckles over her cheek, wiping away the tears that had fallen despite her efforts to stop them.  Then he sighed, pulling her close again, kissing her forehead as he stared over her head at the moon . . .