InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ A Purity Short: Cacophony ❯ Settled In ( Chapter 6 )

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

Cartham opened his eyes and grimaced as his legs protested the cramped position that he’d assumed in the night on the rather small couch in Kelly’s living room.

He still wasn’t entirely sure, just how she’d talked him into staying with her.  He supposed it had something to do with the abject horror on her face when he’d stopped by the motel to grab the cell phone he’d purchased on his own plan for her.  He had opted to stay in a bare-bones kind of place that had rooms that were rented out by the hour on one end and by the week on the other with a window air conditioning unit, rattling noisily and sounding like it was ready to break down.

After she’d spotted the handful of cockroaches that scuttled off when he’d turned on the light, she’d said nothing, but she had marched over and grabbed his knapsack off the rickety old table and stomped back out of the room again.

When he’d joined her, she’d informed him in a tight and clipped tone that he was going to stay with her on her sofa—after he went through his bag and made sure that he wasn’t toting any unwanted ‘visitors’, that was.

He had, of course, pointed out that he could easily change his accommodations now that his objective had been met.  She’d snorted and shook her head, muttering under her breath that he could stay with her since she had no idea, how to work the coffee machine he’d bought for her—a housewarming gift, he’d said.  Even so, she still hadn’t wanted it once she’d spotted the three-hundred-dollar price tag.  Too bad he hadn’t given her a choice in the matter, citing that he wanted a decent cup of Joe whenever he happened to stop by, which had almost caused another disagreement since she wasn’t amused when he’d forked over nearly a hundred dollars on a five-pound bag of the good stuff.

When she’d reappeared so they could leave to get the coffee machine and the coffee that he’d found, courtesy of Google, at a small but very nice specialty shop a few blocks from Kelly’s apartment, she’d given him an envelope with five-hundred-thirty dollars in it with a very proud flourish.  He’d taken it and said nothing else, figuring that she likely didn’t want to make a fuss over it.  But he had asked her if she was sure, did she need any of it back for anything at all, and she stubbornly shook her head, true to form.

It was a little surprising to him that she’d accepted the cell phone easily enough.  Before she could start her normal protests, he’d told her that he’d gotten it for a couple hundred on his plan and that her part of the bill would only be forty-five dollars a month, that he’d add it to the amount that she’d already borrowed, but it was cheaper than setting up her own phone.  She’d taken it, and then, she’d harassed him for the next hour, taking random photos of him and applying filters that made him look pretty stupid.

But it amused her, so he let it go, with his only real caution being that she shouldn’t show his pictures to anyone, given what he did and who he was.  She nodded and flicked a hand in blatant dismissal, and he only sighed.

In fact, it wasn’t until last night that she’d discovered that he had programmed in his own cell number into the device, and she’d spent a good hour, sending him weird texts and memes from behind the closed door of her bedroom.

Maybe that was a mistake.

Stifling a yawn with the back of his hand, he started to sit up—until the chime of his cell phone announced that Kelly—it had to be Kelly—had sent him another text, and he sighed, but smiled, groping the coffee table until he grasped it and picked it up.

It was a meme this time: a picture of the ridiculous animated skunk from Bambi, complete with an idiotic flower tucked into its fur, and the caption?  ‘Daddy!’ it said.

He snorted loudly and dropped the phone back onto the table as he hauled himself up with a grimace.  “Not even remotely funny,” he hollered, knowing damn well that she’d hear him.

The reward for his efforts was the entirely pleasant sound of her laughter, muffled by the closed door, and he grunted.

“And I’m not a skunk.  I’m a pole-cat,” he growled back.

That laughter escalated, and he sighed again.

He stood and stretched, then lumbered off toward the kitchen to start a pot of coffee.  At home, he’d begin by roasting his beans, but Kelly really hadn’t been interested in that, so he’d bought the coffee that was already roasted—and ground, even though the coffee maker could do that, too.  She’d said that she wanted her coffee fast, didn’t like to wait around too long for it, so he’d bought the pre-ground stuff, despite the idea that he could feel some small part of him, dying just a little inside.

He’d just finished up when Kelly shuffled into the kitchen with the manual for the coffee machine in her hands and a scowl on her face.  “This thing is bigger than a Chilton’s,” she muttered, holding onto the spine of the soft-backed book with one hand and flipping the pages with her other thumb.  “This is crazy . . .”

“Great coffee is well worth the effort,” he informed her, absently appreciating the fact that the girl actually knew what a Chilton’s manual even was.  “Better learn how to do this because I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“Hmm . . . In a hurry, are you?”

“Well, I do have a job,” he reminded her dryly.  “Besides, don’t you have to work tomorrow, anyway?  Hanging around here while you’re working?  No, thanks.”

She set the manual on the counter and crossed her arms over her chest, leaning against the cupboard as she leveled a thoughtful look at him.  “All right,” she finally said with a curt nod.  “I’ll take you out to lunch at one of my favorite places,” she offered.  “Really great food—and it’s really cheap.”

Cartham narrowed his eyes, pausing mid-reach as he started to pull two mugs from the cupboard.  “Those two words don’t go well together,” he informed her.

“What words?”

He grunted and resumed his retrieval of the mugs.  “Great and cheap,” he replied.

She rolled her eyes.  “Oh, my God, are you a food snob, too?”

“Nope.  I don’t mind fast food and stuff, but I’d hardly call it, ‘great’.”

She wrinkled her nose.  “Or cheap, for that matter.  If you’re going to spend that much for fast food, you might as well find somewhere better, even if you have to pay a couple bucks extra.”

Cartham said nothing as he set the cups on the counter and crossed his arms over his chest.  Finally, though, he sighed and shook his head.  “You’re not really selling me on this restaurant,” he told her.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Cartham,” she scolded.  “I don’t offer to buy lunch for just anybody.  Anyway, your coffee maker’s a dud.  Mine would been done by now.”

He snorted and jerked his head toward the table.  “Go sit down and wait, will you?  Great coffee is worth it.  Bet it’s better than the food at your cheap restaurant,” he couldn’t resist adding.

She flicked her hand over her shoulder as though to brush him off as she shuffled over to sit down.  “Sugar and creamer,” she told him.

He heaved a mighty sigh at that.  “Great coffee doesn’t need that shit to cover up the flavor,” he informed her.  “You’ll see.”

“I won’t see,” she countered.  “Coffee needs sugar and creamer or it’s gross, no matter how great it supposedly is.”

“We’ll see, missy.  We’ll see.”


“Tell me again, why did you drag me in here?”

Biting her lip in an effort to keep from laughing outright at the absolute chagrin on the big man’s face, Kelly gave a calculated little shrug.  “It’s good for a laugh, don’t you think?”

The look of pure irritation on Cartham’s face bespoke his disagreement with her bald statement.  “Can’t say I think it’s that funny,” he muttered.

She giggled quietly.  He didn’t appear to have heard her since he was too busy, looking around as though he were trying to make sure that no one he knew walked into Bran’s Late-Night Peep Show, the novelty-slash-adult store that she’d pulled him into.  She’d discovered the shop a few weeks ago on one of her days off.   The front of the store was an eclectic collection of novelty items that ranged from funny, if not slightly twisted, to mildly offensive along with the standard fare of lava lamps, blacklight posters, anime tee-shirts and the like.  The back of the shop that you had to show ID to gain entrance to held everything more adult in nature from sex toys to bondage gear to adult novelties and the standard array of porn.  She’d already tried to talk him into buying a package of gummi nipples.  He refused to even touch the package.

She picked up a small box of mints and held them out to him.  “How about these?  You could whip ‘em out during one of your meetings with Cain and offer him one.”

He grunted something entirely unintelligible, narrowing his eyes as he read the box: Minty Spermies, it said.  “No.”

She blinked and shot him a very innocent look.  “Are you sure?  Look!  Some of them have tiny bows on their heads!”

“Those . . . things . . . don’t really have bows,” he growled, and to her amusement, he actually blushed.  “Put those up before someone sees you holding them.”

Kelly rolled her eyes.  “You know, don’t you?  This whole place is probably monitored by video cameras.”  To emphasize her point, she turned around, held the box, high in the air, and gave them a good, loud shake.  “Hey, look!  I’m holding Minty Spermies!” she hollered.  “I’m Kelly, and this is Cartham!”

“Oh, my God,” he growled, quickly slipping his hand around her and slapping it over her mouth.  “Can’t take you anywhere,” he fumed, pulling the box out of her hand and dropping it onto the shelf.

She snorted, trying to breathe and laugh through his unforgiving hand.

“Are you going to behave?” he asked.

She wasn’t done laughing, but she did nod.

He narrowed his eyes.  “I don’t think I believe you.”

She blinked.  “I ‘an’t ‘reeve.”

“You can, too, breathe,” he told her.

She considered, sticking out her tongue and licking his hand, but before she could, a nice, healthy burp slipped out of her, only to be muffled by his palm.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed, yanking his hand away from her mouth.  “I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

She couldn’t answer since she was too busy, giggling, and it took a few moments for her amusement to die down.  “Lunch was really good,” she argued.  “Admit it: you liked it.”

“It was till now.  Don’t throw up.”

She wrinkled her nose, but her eyes were still sparkling.  “I can’t help it.  Mexican food always makes me burp.”

He shook his head.  “Probably something you should have mentioned before we ate there,” he pointed out.  Suddenly, though, he scowled at her and sighed.  “Why do I get the feeling that the refried beans were a really, really bad idea?”

Kelly’s eyebrows lifted, and she tapped her lips thoughtfully.  “You should never be ashamed of your body functions, Cartham,” she replied.

“Mine aren’t the problem, but yours just might be.”

She nodded very slowly.  “Cartham?”

“What?”

“. . . Are you afraid I might fart?”

His scowl darkened.  “If you’re going to, just warn me first so I can get the hell away from you.”

She laughed.  “If I warned you, who would I blame it on?”

“You wouldn’t,” he growled.

Her response was a very Cheshire-cat-like grin.  “A gentleman always takes the blame for such things in public,” she told him.

“I don’t think that’s a real rule.”

“Sure, it is.”

“No, it’s not,” he insisted.  “Can we get out of here now?”

“I’m not done looking around,” she told him.  “Anyway, it’d make sense if you farted.”

“How do you figure?”

She shrugged, moving off down the aisle, paying more attention to the shelf than she was to him at the moment.  “Well, you’re a skunk,” she said in an entirely reasonable tone of voice.

He grunted.  “I am not.  I’m a pole-cat.”

“Yeah, same thing.”

“It is not,” he informed her.  “A skunk is of the genus Mephitidae while a pole-cat is in the order Carnivora and subfamily Mustelinae.”

She faced him long enough to level a very droll look at him.  “Nice use of the big words,” she told him.  “I have no idea what you just said, but I’m sure it makes sense to you.”

He snorted again.  “It means that a skunk is a skunk while a pole-cat is closer related to ferrets and weasels.  Any relation between the two is very, very distant, at best.”

“You’ve really thought that out,” she mused, slowly nodding as she regarded him.  “But you know, if it looks like a skunk . . .”

“All right.  Moving on . . .” he grumbled.

Figuring that she really ought to take pity on him, Kelly laughed and grabbed his hand, tugging him toward the doorway and back out onto the street once more.


“So, this new job of yours . . . It’s not dangerous or anything?”

Blinking as she glanced up from the magazine she was leafing through, Kelly seemed a little confused by his question for a moment.  Then she shook her head.  “Dangerous?  No . . . I mean, I just change out casino chips from the safety of a bulletproof booth.”

He didn’t look like he was entirely convinced, but he nodded slowly.  “Okay.”

They’d returned to her apartment after she’d dragged him into a few more stores.  At least the others were a lot less embarrassing, and he hadn’t minded them so much.  Still, all day, he’d been thinking about her new job, most especially since she’d said she was working at a casino.  He figured that the housekeeping job at the hotel was safer, but he’d already looked up the casino she had mentioned, and it seemed pretty decent.  It wasn’t one of the biggest nor the most notorious ones in Las Vegas, but it wasn’t a seedy dump, either.  Even so, he couldn’t help but think that he ought to check it out, just to make sure that she really wasn’t going to be in any actual danger . . .

“Do they have armed guards?”

“Of course, they do,” she replied, sounding a little preoccupied since she’d buried herself in that magazine again.  Cosmopolitan.  Not really his thing . . .

“It said that there was an attempted robbery there a few months ago,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, I heard about that . . . They caught the guy, though, so not a big deal.”

He wasn’t inclined to agree.  All it took was one off-kilter individual for things to have gone really bad.

He sighed.

‘So, stop by there before you go to the airport tomorrow . . . You’ve got some time, anyway.’

‘Yeah, but if she finds out that I’m casing the joint . . .’

‘She’s not going to be that upset if she does.  It’s no secret to her that people are concerned about her well-being.  If it worries you that much, just tell her.’

‘What?’

‘Quit fussing about it and just tell her that you’re taking her to work in the morning so you can make sure that the place is well-secured.’

He sighed since that idea didn’t seem very wise, either.  Still . . .

“So . . . Did Cain tell you to check on me?”

Blinking as her question shook him out of his reverie, Cartham sat back.  “Aiyuh.”

She nodded slowly, scooching down a little farther, hiding behind the magazine a little more.  “I . . . I thought so.”

He’d have to be beyond slow to miss the deflated tone in her voice, the sudden sense of a harsh quelling of her ebullient mood that had lingered all day.  “I would have, anyway,” he told her.

“Uh, no,” she broke in, scrunching down even more, drawing her feet up like she was trying to make herself even smaller than she already was.  “I didn’t really think anything else.”

He hated the almost meek quality in her voice.  It didn’t match the girl he was slowly getting to know—had gotten to know so much better in the last couple days.  It . . . It bothered him a lot, even though he really didn’t understand why.  His feeling was so much deeper than it should have been, stronger than it ought to have been.

“Your . . . Your mom asked me to call her when I found you,” he admitted.  “Said she wanted me to let her know that you’re all right.  I didn’t, though. I mean, I didn’t call her.”  He shrugged.  “I figure if you want to call her, that’s up to you.”

She stilled for a moment before slowly lowering the magazine just enough to peer over the top of it at him.  “I don’t . . . don’t want to,” she muttered, ducking behind the publication once more.  “We don’t have a good relationship.  We never really have.”

“I figured that,” he told her.  “Kind of got that impression when I talked to her.”

She leaned over to drop the magazine on the coffee table, only to curl up into herself again, hands on her bent knees, chin, lips, obscured by them, her gaze falling to the side, and she slowly shook her head.  “‘You really did it this time, didn’t you?  Because of your carelessness—again—we don’t have a place to live, lost everything—everything—Kelly . . . All because you never, ever think . . .’” Raising her gaze, she slowly, hesitantly, met Cartham’s own, but there was a haunted kind of darkness there—a sadness that was tinged with a bitterness that he could understand.  “That’s what my mom said to me when I was laying there in the hospital, burned from head to foot . . . That’s what she said . . .”

And just what could he say to that?  He wasn’t there; he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter, anyway, because the perception in her head was far stronger than anything else, and if that’s what she remembered, then he wasn’t about to try to tell her that she didn’t have a right to feel the way she did.

Kelly angrily swiped the side of her hand over her face, wiping away a couple of tears that somehow managed to deepen her feelings, whatever they were.  It was simple enough to discern her sense of righteous indignation, but there was more to it, too—that emotion that was much more difficult to define.  It was something that Cartham recognized because he’d lived with it, too, for such a long time, and, though it was a long, long time ago, it had never been truly forgotten.

“Anyway, I don’t owe her an explanation.  I don’t need to tell her that I’m all right.  I don’t need—” Cutting off abruptly as a hitched breath punctuated her words, she stubbornly shook her head, scowled at the far side of the room.  “—Need to say a thing, just so she sleeps better at night.”

“Okay,” he relented, slowly nodding his head.  “What you do or don’t tell her is up to you.  I won’t . . . I won’t tell her a thing.”

Only then, did she let out a tumultuous sigh.  “Thanks,” she said, clearing her throat, but she still wouldn’t look at him, and he figured it was fine, too.  “Th-Thanks.”