**
I woke with a clench, barely choking off the scream that seemed to fill my throat. From that point I don’t know how long I lay there panting in my bed as I came down from the ecstasy of my dream. I do know that at some point I realized I was going to have to replace my clothes and bed sheets, so it couldn’t have been too long, and when I was pulling the sheets off after changing my shorts I could see my alarm clock which showed that it was 3am.
Bed stripped and myself somewhat cleaned up from my nighttime adventure I carried the sheets to the laundry room off the kitchen of the apartment and started to load the washer as I tried to remember and make sense of the dream. Unfortunately, there was nothing but a mass of faces and hair, a dark-skinned redhead that was backed by flames, a fine boned blonde with darkness behind her, and a multitude of Asian women, only one of who I recognized. The last face though was someone I recognized immediately, and I cursed my brain for throwing my friend into that kind of dream. Sheets layered into the washer I added the detergent and set the machine, only to hear water running in the sink as I went to push the start button.
“Don’t let me filling the coffee pot stop you from starting the laundry,” Aunt Emily said shutting of the water. “I can tell something happened, and if you’re doing laundry it wasn’t a nightmare, or it was one hell of one.” She gestured at me to go ahead and start the laundry load, so I did before stepping back into the kitchen where she was still filling the coffee maker. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Not really,” I answered blushing deeply as I sat down at the kitchen island.
Aunt Emily grunted in consideration as she finished prepping the coffee maker and started it brewing. “So, do I need to expect calls to and from Tokyo at odd hours?”
“No Aunt Em,” I answered before rubbing my face, “Tokyo and I broke up in the wake of the hijacking.” Mayumi didn’t have a problem with my powers, or so she claimed. No, her problem was the ease in which I had gutted a man with his own knife so that I could steal his weapons and the measures I had gone to so that I would have him alone to do so.
“Then do I need to have a word with someone on the team?” the question was logical, both as my guardian and as the local director, however it still had me staring at her wide-eyed. In response she gave me an indulgent smile, “Akane, as long as I’m not having to deal with Dennis in my home on an almost nightly basis, nor an enraged Glory Girl or Vista due to you chasing Dean Stansfield I don’t really mind who you go after.” The so long as it doesn’t mess up the team didn’t need to be stated. “Just don’t end up pregnant ok,” she stated, probably more calmly than she felt.
I smiled up at her as that wasn’t exactly a problem, “Aunt Em,” I said with a sigh. “The problem, or at least part of it, is that they don’t know how I feel, and I don’t know how they would feel about the situation themselves. They’ve been hurt recently, and, well I don’t want to hurt them nor drive them away.” At that point I muttered, “They’ve been hurt enough over the last few years.”
Aunt Emily’s eyes went wide at that point as she sucked in a large breathe in surprise. The yell I expected though didn’t come, only her muttering, “Fucking hell Akane,” before getting up to fix herself a cup of coffee.
**
I had met Saotome Mayumi on my first day of school in Tokyo. She occupied the desk next to me in my class and in all honesty, I was probably a little standoffish as she struck me as an overly girly-girl who didn’t even know how to throw a punch. That didn’t matter when a pair of older boys decided to pick on her at recess that day. She had brought a doll with her, and the boys who were bigger, and arguably stronger than both of us, took it and pulled it apart in a show of both barbarity and cruelty. They never noticed me walking up behind them, nor the fact that I drew back the whiffle ball bat that I had taken from the class supplies and swung it like a golf club behind the larger of the two, hitting him right between his legs. His friend didn’t get a chance to react either as I spun and put the same bat across the backs of his knees.
At that point I grabbed Mayumi with one hand and dragged her away towards the teacher who had yard duty that day. I ended up in trouble with the school, and my mother was called, but I was only scolded by the teacher and the vice-principal for taking matters into my own hands. Mom on the other hand was ecstatic, both that I had made a friend and that I had stood up for her myself. If the school had punished me, then mom rewarded me with some ice cream, inviting Mayumi and her mother along for the trip.
For almost the next ten years Mayumi and I were inseparable, even when the school would put us in different classes, one of us would find a way to at least spend lunch and club time with the other. At 13 I had realized I had feelings of being more than just friends with Mayumi, and at 14 I had managed a stilted and red-faced confession of my feelings to her. I had been so embarrassed, and so worried that she would reject me I almost fainted when she took my hands and kissed me on the cheek. She felt the same way, and from that point on we were a couple. Mayumi’s mother didn’t seem to mind, and somehow managed to convince my mother that we would be fine. Mom, well she thought it was just a stage, and that sooner or later we would be giggling over boys instead of each other. The fact that I could beat the crap out of any boy in the school, and scared most of them senseless, didn’t seem to matter. But then our class trip to Okinawa happened, and Mayumi looked at me with a look that I had never seen on her face directed at me. A look of fear at what I was capable of.
**
Sitting in the Wards common area I tipped back and finished off the first soda of my day. Being a twenty-ounce into my day at 7am struck me as being like an alcoholic and a pint in at that same point in the day.
In short, it was not a good thing. Still, I had not gotten back to sleep after waking up at 3am like I had. Back to bed yes, I had gone back to my room and laid down, however, I had not gotten another wink of sleep, instead I had spent the last three and a half hours contemplating both my past and my conversation with Aunt Emily. Being love struck over Taylor probably wasn’t the best of ideas, and quite frankly, looking at it objectively it was obviously a want for a rebound relationship. I had lost both my best friend and the love of my, admittedly short, life in one turbulent trip, because in the wake of what had happened Mayumi had very politely, but very firmly said that it was over between us.
The other side of things was that Taylor didn’t deserve to be a rebound relationship, either romantically or even as a best friend. She needed real friends who would have her back, not someone who could flake off at the worst possible moment because they found someone “more interesting” or “less stressful.” Furthermore, Taylor had spent the last year and a half going through hell herself due to her previous best friend turning on her like a rattlesnake that wasn’t being held properly. The work for Sabah would help her confidence, and getting her in a set of heels to practice in would probably be as easy as calling Vicky, and I would either have to help and possibly embarrass us both, or, I could leave her to someone else. This would embarrass only her, but that could be worse than the both of us being embarrassed since we could help each other there. I could handle being embarrassed, you didn’t learn the art unless you could. Of course, that was because you would always find someone stronger than you to face and inevitably end up being put on your ass.
I sighed before tossing the plastic bottle into the recycle bin and laying my face onto my forearms with a moan. “Bloody dreams,” I muttered to myself as I heard two people walk through from the barracks rooms and into the common room.
“Looks like someone had a bad night of it,” one of them said in a not unkind tone. Quite frankly it sounded like someone that had been there themselves even though they were either projecting or else just mistaken. “Nightmares keeping you awake?”
“No,” I growled raising my head enough to glare at Gallant and Aegis. Both were dressed for their patrol this morning, apparently about to go out. “Haven’t had nightmares for years, I have a prayer to keep them away.” I did too, having true faith in the military version of Psalms did wonders for one’s psyche.
“Carlos, why don’t you go ahead to the front door,” Gallant said taking a seat and removing his helmet.
“Yeah yeah,” Aegis replied, “no more than five minutes though, we need to get a move on.”
Gallant nodded and then waited for the Wards Team Leader to leave the room. “I can see something is bothering you Akane,” Dean said pulling his helmet off and setting it to the side as he sat down. “If you say it wasn’t a nightmare, I’ll believe you, but if it was, I understand.”
“Dean,” I said with a sigh. “If I say that it wasn’t a nightmare, believe me it wasn’t a nightmare.” He nodded at that but kept the same concerned look as he watched me. He wasn’t going to let it go, but I thought, Maybe if I give him a hint he’ll back off. “You have a girlfriend, right Dean?” I asked him. It was a rhetorical question of course. It was as if everyone in the world seemed to know that Dean Stansfield was dating Victoria Dallon, aka, Glory Girl. He nodded in response, so I continued with my hint, “I’ll assume you dream about her,” another nod, and then the light bulb seemed to appear over his head as his face lit up. Ah good, he gets it.
“I understand Akane,” he said getting up and pulling his helmet back on. “I’m sure things will work out between you and whoever it is you left behind. You seem like the kind of person who can make a long-distance relationship work.”
Idiot, I thought as he walked away and I put my head back down. In the background I heard the door open and voices talk too low for me to understand or even recognize. I just had to wait long enough for the caffeine to kick in and I would be alright, and then arms were wrapping around me from behind.
“Don’t worry Akane,” I heard Taylor say as she hugged me from behind. “I’m here for you just like you’re here for me.”
Gods damn it Taylor, I thought as I felt my body relax in her arms, You don’t know what you’re saying. It had been a long time since I had been held like this, and my mind threw me back to it even as the light dimmed for me.
I woke with a clench, barely choking off the scream that seemed to fill my throat. From that point I don’t know how long I lay there panting in my bed as I came down from the ecstasy of my dream. I do know that at some point I realized I was going to have to replace my clothes and bed sheets, so it couldn’t have been too long, and when I was pulling the sheets off after changing my shorts I could see my alarm clock which showed that it was 3am.
Bed stripped and myself somewhat cleaned up from my nighttime adventure I carried the sheets to the laundry room off the kitchen of the apartment and started to load the washer as I tried to remember and make sense of the dream. Unfortunately, there was nothing but a mass of faces and hair, a dark-skinned redhead that was backed by flames, a fine boned blonde with darkness behind her, and a multitude of Asian women, only one of who I recognized. The last face though was someone I recognized immediately, and I cursed my brain for throwing my friend into that kind of dream. Sheets layered into the washer I added the detergent and set the machine, only to hear water running in the sink as I went to push the start button.
“Don’t let me filling the coffee pot stop you from starting the laundry,” Aunt Emily said shutting of the water. “I can tell something happened, and if you’re doing laundry it wasn’t a nightmare, or it was one hell of one.” She gestured at me to go ahead and start the laundry load, so I did before stepping back into the kitchen where she was still filling the coffee maker. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Not really,” I answered blushing deeply as I sat down at the kitchen island.
Aunt Emily grunted in consideration as she finished prepping the coffee maker and started it brewing. “So, do I need to expect calls to and from Tokyo at odd hours?”
“No Aunt Em,” I answered before rubbing my face, “Tokyo and I broke up in the wake of the hijacking.” Mayumi didn’t have a problem with my powers, or so she claimed. No, her problem was the ease in which I had gutted a man with his own knife so that I could steal his weapons and the measures I had gone to so that I would have him alone to do so.
“Then do I need to have a word with someone on the team?” the question was logical, both as my guardian and as the local director, however it still had me staring at her wide-eyed. In response she gave me an indulgent smile, “Akane, as long as I’m not having to deal with Dennis in my home on an almost nightly basis, nor an enraged Glory Girl or Vista due to you chasing Dean Stansfield I don’t really mind who you go after.” The so long as it doesn’t mess up the team didn’t need to be stated. “Just don’t end up pregnant ok,” she stated, probably more calmly than she felt.
I smiled up at her as that wasn’t exactly a problem, “Aunt Em,” I said with a sigh. “The problem, or at least part of it, is that they don’t know how I feel, and I don’t know how they would feel about the situation themselves. They’ve been hurt recently, and, well I don’t want to hurt them nor drive them away.” At that point I muttered, “They’ve been hurt enough over the last few years.”
Aunt Emily’s eyes went wide at that point as she sucked in a large breathe in surprise. The yell I expected though didn’t come, only her muttering, “Fucking hell Akane,” before getting up to fix herself a cup of coffee.
**
I had met Saotome Mayumi on my first day of school in Tokyo. She occupied the desk next to me in my class and in all honesty, I was probably a little standoffish as she struck me as an overly girly-girl who didn’t even know how to throw a punch. That didn’t matter when a pair of older boys decided to pick on her at recess that day. She had brought a doll with her, and the boys who were bigger, and arguably stronger than both of us, took it and pulled it apart in a show of both barbarity and cruelty. They never noticed me walking up behind them, nor the fact that I drew back the whiffle ball bat that I had taken from the class supplies and swung it like a golf club behind the larger of the two, hitting him right between his legs. His friend didn’t get a chance to react either as I spun and put the same bat across the backs of his knees.
At that point I grabbed Mayumi with one hand and dragged her away towards the teacher who had yard duty that day. I ended up in trouble with the school, and my mother was called, but I was only scolded by the teacher and the vice-principal for taking matters into my own hands. Mom on the other hand was ecstatic, both that I had made a friend and that I had stood up for her myself. If the school had punished me, then mom rewarded me with some ice cream, inviting Mayumi and her mother along for the trip.
For almost the next ten years Mayumi and I were inseparable, even when the school would put us in different classes, one of us would find a way to at least spend lunch and club time with the other. At 13 I had realized I had feelings of being more than just friends with Mayumi, and at 14 I had managed a stilted and red-faced confession of my feelings to her. I had been so embarrassed, and so worried that she would reject me I almost fainted when she took my hands and kissed me on the cheek. She felt the same way, and from that point on we were a couple. Mayumi’s mother didn’t seem to mind, and somehow managed to convince my mother that we would be fine. Mom, well she thought it was just a stage, and that sooner or later we would be giggling over boys instead of each other. The fact that I could beat the crap out of any boy in the school, and scared most of them senseless, didn’t seem to matter. But then our class trip to Okinawa happened, and Mayumi looked at me with a look that I had never seen on her face directed at me. A look of fear at what I was capable of.
**
Sitting in the Wards common area I tipped back and finished off the first soda of my day. Being a twenty-ounce into my day at 7am struck me as being like an alcoholic and a pint in at that same point in the day.
In short, it was not a good thing. Still, I had not gotten back to sleep after waking up at 3am like I had. Back to bed yes, I had gone back to my room and laid down, however, I had not gotten another wink of sleep, instead I had spent the last three and a half hours contemplating both my past and my conversation with Aunt Emily. Being love struck over Taylor probably wasn’t the best of ideas, and quite frankly, looking at it objectively it was obviously a want for a rebound relationship. I had lost both my best friend and the love of my, admittedly short, life in one turbulent trip, because in the wake of what had happened Mayumi had very politely, but very firmly said that it was over between us.
The other side of things was that Taylor didn’t deserve to be a rebound relationship, either romantically or even as a best friend. She needed real friends who would have her back, not someone who could flake off at the worst possible moment because they found someone “more interesting” or “less stressful.” Furthermore, Taylor had spent the last year and a half going through hell herself due to her previous best friend turning on her like a rattlesnake that wasn’t being held properly. The work for Sabah would help her confidence, and getting her in a set of heels to practice in would probably be as easy as calling Vicky, and I would either have to help and possibly embarrass us both, or, I could leave her to someone else. This would embarrass only her, but that could be worse than the both of us being embarrassed since we could help each other there. I could handle being embarrassed, you didn’t learn the art unless you could. Of course, that was because you would always find someone stronger than you to face and inevitably end up being put on your ass.
I sighed before tossing the plastic bottle into the recycle bin and laying my face onto my forearms with a moan. “Bloody dreams,” I muttered to myself as I heard two people walk through from the barracks rooms and into the common room.
“Looks like someone had a bad night of it,” one of them said in a not unkind tone. Quite frankly it sounded like someone that had been there themselves even though they were either projecting or else just mistaken. “Nightmares keeping you awake?”
“No,” I growled raising my head enough to glare at Gallant and Aegis. Both were dressed for their patrol this morning, apparently about to go out. “Haven’t had nightmares for years, I have a prayer to keep them away.” I did too, having true faith in the military version of Psalms did wonders for one’s psyche.
“Carlos, why don’t you go ahead to the front door,” Gallant said taking a seat and removing his helmet.
“Yeah yeah,” Aegis replied, “no more than five minutes though, we need to get a move on.”
Gallant nodded and then waited for the Wards Team Leader to leave the room. “I can see something is bothering you Akane,” Dean said pulling his helmet off and setting it to the side as he sat down. “If you say it wasn’t a nightmare, I’ll believe you, but if it was, I understand.”
“Dean,” I said with a sigh. “If I say that it wasn’t a nightmare, believe me it wasn’t a nightmare.” He nodded at that but kept the same concerned look as he watched me. He wasn’t going to let it go, but I thought, Maybe if I give him a hint he’ll back off. “You have a girlfriend, right Dean?” I asked him. It was a rhetorical question of course. It was as if everyone in the world seemed to know that Dean Stansfield was dating Victoria Dallon, aka, Glory Girl. He nodded in response, so I continued with my hint, “I’ll assume you dream about her,” another nod, and then the light bulb seemed to appear over his head as his face lit up. Ah good, he gets it.
“I understand Akane,” he said getting up and pulling his helmet back on. “I’m sure things will work out between you and whoever it is you left behind. You seem like the kind of person who can make a long-distance relationship work.”
Idiot, I thought as he walked away and I put my head back down. In the background I heard the door open and voices talk too low for me to understand or even recognize. I just had to wait long enough for the caffeine to kick in and I would be alright, and then arms were wrapping around me from behind.
“Don’t worry Akane,” I heard Taylor say as she hugged me from behind. “I’m here for you just like you’re here for me.”
Gods damn it Taylor, I thought as I felt my body relax in her arms, You don’t know what you’re saying. It had been a long time since I had been held like this, and my mind threw me back to it even as the light dimmed for me.
Wolf wins every fight but the one where he dies, fangs locked around the throat of his opponent.
Currently writing BROBd
Currently writing BROBd