Misplaced Friends

Tabitha was tired. She probably should have taken a nap, but it was ten at night. She had things to do in the morning. She had convinced Sharaku to go on a walk with her. He was a nice guy, actually kind of sweet. She wouldn’t tell him that he was sweet, but then again, she wouldn’t tell anyone else. She was sweet on him, but that was just a part of life. He was an attractive man, with his femininely long hair, his earrings, his smile. Yeah, when he smiled. Not just when he blushed or when he was this stoic statue of a man, but when he actually smiled. She sighed, shaking her head at herself, she really should just get a drink.

So the violet haired woman headed to a bar. She thought about the things she could do tomorrow once she met with her friend, and ordered a beer. Some man was watching her, but this wasn’t uncommon. He didn’t seem to be suspicious, just some guy watching her, so she ignored it. She hadn’t pinpointed who was looking at her, so when a man walked up to her at the bar, she suspected it was him. She was wearing a short skirt, high boots, and a lace tank-top. Her knives were hidden in her boots and skirt, safe from sight. The man bought her a second beer, and she took it, flirting away with him just for the sake of it. The third beer was her last. She was feeling just a bit tipsy, but that wasn’t bad. She was far enough from her guild, and no one would know who she was. It was… well, as safe as things got.

Except as “safe as things got” only applied to inside the building. The feeling of being watched faded and Tabitha walked out the front door alone. She was walking down the street and the moment her sense of danger started blaring she put up her arm. A powerful blow hit her and she let out a pained yelp. Then a kick, and she jumped back. Unfortunately that only knocked her into the person behind her. Something heavy hit her in the head and she fell to the ground.

Tabitha woke up with a strip of cloth tied around her head. She winced at the light hanging from the ceiling. Her head still hurt. She went to move her hand to cover her eyes, but felt the rope around her wrists. She could have been able to manipulate these ropes if she were able to wrap her own strings in with them, but for the time being it was too much. She looked around the room, no windows. A door on the far side, but it was closed. The floor was cold, and she realized that while she lay on the dirty concrete, her legs were bare. The tights she’d worn earlier, and her shoes, were gone. It was just her and her skirt. Which also meant that the holsters for all her knives, and said knives, were gone. She glared around the room.

In the corner was some girl. She was cute, but looked rather afraid. From her appearance she had been here a lot longer than Tabitha, and wasn’t used to dangerous situations. “Hi…” Tabitha said, “what’s up?”

“Um… you came in last night… and your head was bleeding… and… um… I’m Anna,” she said quietly, looking to the door and then to Tabitha.

“Nice to meet you Anna…” Tabitha felt like she would probably have a lot of time to get acquainted with this girl. Unfortunately.

604/2000

Nearly three days’ searching for little more than rumors had brought Sharaku to the home of a worried young woman who’s sister had gone missing shortly before his friend, Tabitha. Sharaku sat there on the couch, doing his best to console the young woman called Kendra. Well, he wasn’t that great at consoling people, so mostly he was sitting there as she explained that her sister had been taken. All she knew was that her sister had been talking about some rumors about abandoned mines with a friend when she’d left to go on an errand, and that she hadn’t come back. “That seems as good a place as any to get started,” Sharaku nodded thoughtfully, getting up from her couch. “If the disappearances really are linked, there’s probably something going on there that started the rumors in the first place.”

An hour later, Sharaku was approaching the mines. They were in in sight, but he couldn’t hear any of the strange noises that had been mentioned in rumors. What he did hear, however, was a slight rustling in the trees. The rustling was entirely too loud to be a simple squirrel...

Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, and a bullet whizzed past Sharaku’s cheek, actually scratching it. He grunted in pain, turning to face his attacker in the tree. He dodged to the right, behind a large rock as bullets rang out. Around him, he heard people shouting. “****,” Sharaku cursed, looking around for something… anything to get him out of the situation and see if they were why Tabitha hadn’t come home.

263 words

Anna was a nice enough girl. Skittish, uncomfortable. She had a real aversion to this one man who was consistently hanging around their room at night. Tabitha was still bound, but she really wasn’t happy with how that guy looked at Anna. He walked around and counted various things in the room. Tabitha sat there, leaning against the wall. Once day she got annoyed and started tearing at the rope. The men only came in at random times. It seemed like they worked at night, and hung around during the day, but they had shifts. Joel, or as Tabitha called him “the creepy one” was there more than anyone else. He looked at Tabitha like he wanted to smack her, but the way he looked at Anna was more concerning.

So Tabitha got bored and decided to try and break her bindings. She wasn’t physically strong, but she was fairly irritated about the whole situation. Weakness and vulnerability were disgusting to Tabby. She wanted her knives. Eventually she found the corner of a table and spent a full day dislodging the knot n her rope. She got herself untied and rummaged around the room.

“There are no weapons in here. They probably keep them with their gear…”

“And where do they keep that?” Tabitha asked, putting the bags back. They sure had a good amount of loot.

“Um, I saw it once… its… down the hall to the right? I think?” she asked, struggling to remember. Tabitha nodded. The girl seemed more stressed, which Tabitha understood. She had been here too long. Tabitha headed down the hall, but after opening the first door she saw a gloss of black magic in front of her. She turned around, but soon felt a gun to her back before she could see them.

“Back to the hole, rat,” said that familiar voice. Tabitha growled, but then she got hit in the head and crumbled to the ground. Her body was not made to take these direct hits. She woke up with a bag on her head, hands numb, legs bound. She squirmed, but immediately felt a hand at her throat.

A new voice told her, “If you try that again, I will just kill you,” his grip was so tight she couldn’t breathe. She heard Anna whimpering in the corner. “So don’t be a liability.”

996/2000

There wasn’t much that would get the copy mage out of a situation where the options were hide behind a rock or get hit with a lacrima bullet. He didn’t much like those options, which was why he was more than glad when reinforcements showed up. One man claimed he would apprehend Sharaku and find out how he found them, and Sharaku wasted no time diving and rolling so that the other thugs were between him and his assailant. Oh, and that he’d touched one of the thugs in the off chance he’d had magical power. He had.

Lightning sparked between one hand and fire sparked in another as Sharaku pulled back from his second target, blasting him with a combination of fire and lightning. He ducked under the punch of the original lightning guy, sweeping out his leg to trip the man as he ducked. The guy tripped over Sharaku, and he sprang up, hitting a third. He couldn’t sit still, or the man in the tree would get a clear shot. Even if he wasn’t getting these guys out of the fight that quickly, using them like this would hopefully keep them from trying to take his face off with bullets. That reminded him… Sharaku turned, facing the guy in the tree. Pointing his fingers like a gun, a lightning bolt fired at the tree, striking the man’s rifle and shocking him at the same time. The guy fell out of the tree, and Sharaku was free to focus on the-

Well, he wasn’t going to get shot, but the blow to the stomach wasn’t fun. Sharaku doubled over as a guy punched him in the face. He fell backwards, trying to roll out of the way. As he stood back up he winced. Crap, there were more people here than he’d bargained for.

569/2000

Don’t be a liability? Tabitha was going to cut his head off. Well, if he didn’t tear her head off first. It was a dangerous situation, and she knew she was ill equipped. She wouldn’t have been able to take them even if she had known what she was getting into. This was not her fight, but she was stuck in it. She grumbled slightly, not wanting to be trapped like this. She was going to lose her cool soon enough. She wasn’t scared, but it could potentially happen. She wasn’t afraid of pain and suffering, she had seen enough of that. She was just angry right now. It was like a warm blanket to comfort her from any other emotions creeping in.

She’d had the bag on her head the entire next day. It was very dark, but she kept her eyes closed and listened for anything interesting. At some point Anna disappeared, but she showed up again. She even brought some water… which was lovely, since Tabitha couldn’t have any. Now her mouth was dry. Anna was too afraid to talk for a while, but eventually Tabitha coaxed her into describing things. She described the layout of the building. A long hallway, with several rooms. It turned to the left and then went into a room with a ladder. That lead to the ground floor, a small building visible from the outside. Anna didn’t know about the ladder, just that there was a room in that direction they came and went from. No windows.

Next Anna described all of the guys. Joey and Joel. Joey had been the one who told Tabitha not to be a liability. She put him on her hit list. She would kill him, just wait. If she didn’t, he was going to kill her first, so was it really that unreasonable? The bag was tied around her neck, so Anna couldn’t give Tabitha any water, but eventually Tabitha convinced her to just drink it herself. Then they sat. Eventually people moved around outside the room, but the two girls couldn’t get check on whatever was happening.

1349/2000

Sharaku’s side hurt worse than he wanted to admit, though not quite as much as his bleeding lip. He wasn’t done fighting yet though, and dodged the next blow, counter attacking and tripping him with another flame kick. It wasn’t going to be easy to take out all of them and see if Tabitha was inside, but if he gave up, there was no one to rescue her and the other girl. He didn’t have any other friends in Shadow Heart who would miss him, and he doubted anyone would be focused on Tabitha being gone as much as they were focused on when she was there.

He was going to need some more tricks if he was going to keep on his feet and out of their clutches. Another touch occurred when he was attacked by one of the thugs. He was in luck, this guy had something that could be handy. With a mere thought, he stole another spell. He was about halfway out of his magical reserves though, and the weakness of his magic was that it drained him quickly. As the thugs ganged up for another group attack, he slapped his palms together, causing a kinetic blast to form around him, bowling everyone over with a thunderous crack. A few zaps of lightning later, he stood there, panting as he made sure no one was getting up quickly enough to stop him. Time to hope there wasn’t much left in the cave.

Something was happening outside. She could hear people leaving. Too many of them. “Your hands are unbound, aren’t they?” she asked.

“N-no, they are just bound in front,” Anna said. She seemed afraid of where this train of thought would be going. She had, after all, been here longer, and was not used to frightening situations. Well Tabitha needed to get out of here. She was not going to die in a hole with a bag on her head.

“That works just fine. Come over here and untie the rope around my hands. I can’t feel them.”

“Um…” Anna hesitated.

“… what?”

“There is something wrong with your hands. And something metal in the rope. It looks sharp.”

Tabitha considered this, maybe this was why she couldn’t feel her hands? Her elbows were locked in such a way that she really couldn’t fidget with them. But she forced herself to move, and winced at the pain.

“D-don’t do that, I think they are bleeding.”

Tabitha was frustrated with all of this sitting around. She could hear fighting. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe she just wanted to hear fighting, but she didn’t care. She started to feel claustrophobic. Anna wasn’t allowed the luxury of being hesitant right now. “Just take the **** rope from the bag and get the bag off my head, and the rope off my legs.” Clearly Anna was afraid, but she eventually worked at it. Tabitha blinked rapidly in the light. It was so dim, but it was brighter than she’d had lately. Anna had a bruised cheek, but seemed to think Tabitha looked worse. Tabitha just rushed the girl. She cracked her neck, which was also sore. Oh well, all she cared about was that she was actually able to stand up now.

She promptly fell into the wall, but Tabitha was not concerned. “Collect yourself. I am going to check out there, and if we can leave, we will.” At least she wasn’t just going to leave the girl. With help the door was opened, and Tabitha looked in the direction she heard some noise. She reached a ladder. … ****

Tabitha pushed herself against it, using her chin and knees. She got up and saw what she could have sworn was a familiar and hurt looking young man. She was just short of saying his name when she felt herself jerked down. Her head hit the ladder on the way down, and she closed her eyes from the now open and searing wound above her left eye. She didn’t have time to cry though, because she was pinned to a wall. “I told you not to be a liability,” she heard as she was held against the wall by her neck, hands firmly around them. She couldn’t breathe, but at the very least she was kicking wildly while she still had the energy.

1828/2000

Tabitha was probably surprised when the man holding her was suddenly engulfed in a flaming kick from what was attached to a familiar shoe. Sharaku had spotted them at the bottom of the ladder, and had wasted no time crashing the little party when he heard the words. The look on Sharaku’s face was one of pure rage as he quickly appraised the girl the man had dropped and returned his gaze to the other man. “No one touches Tabitha and gets away with it.” The young man’s hand sparked with electricity as the guy picked himself back up. He opened his mouth to speak, but Sharaku’s grip and subsequent electrical shock cut off that possibility rather quickly.

“I’m not interested in what you have to say. I’m tired, I’m going to be sore, and you’ve obviously been hurting the people you captured. You’re the lowest kind of scum.” That was ironic considering some people he knew at Shadow Heart. Somehow they were more tolerable than this guy. Probably because they weren’t making Tabitha bleed. One more kick to the head, and the man was out like a light with a grunt of pain.

Sharaku looked over at Tabitha, his gaze softeneing. “Sorry it took so long,” Sharaku told her, wishing he had some sort of bandage or something. His gaze also fell on the other girl huddled in the corner. She possibly looked worse than Tabitha… just not physically. “I had to dance with about ten guys out there, and one of them thought bullets would be a good welcoming gift.”

Well that was unexpected. Tabitha started choking and taking desperate gasps of air when the large man was pried away from her. Well, she wasn’t exactly sure what had happened. It was a very angry blur, including the look on Shar’s face while she was trying to catch her breath. She wasn’t afraid of dying. She reminded herself of that. Sure, she was afraid of her own mortality, but she refused ot accept it right now. She was afraid of being weak… and right now she was just very shaken. It was strange how protective Sharaku was, yelling about no one touching Tabitha, and attacking viciously. Similarly to when Tabitha had been talking about her father. It seemed a similar nerve had been sparked, though clearly for different reasons.

Her elbow ached from how she had landed on it when dropped, and she still couldn’t feel her hands. That would have concerned her more were she not so preoccupied with her rescuer. Rescuer. She had never needed to be rescued before. She felt so disappointed in herself. And Sharaku, her friend, had come looking, and found her, and clearly gotten roughed up in the process, and was clearly very protective of her. She felt… something. Grateful, surprised, vulnerable. All of it just made her want to cry, but besides some pooling wetness in the corner of her eyes, she kept that contained.

“Thanks….” she told him quietly, sniffling some because she couldn’t help it. Anna certainly was a bit of a mess, but Tabitha hoped she would feel better soon. “They suck at welcome gifts then,” she told Sharaku. She offered a small smile to show she was fine, although she still couldn’t much open one of her eyes, since the blood had continued to drop down.

“Are… a-are we leaving?” Anna asked tentatively. She was clearly afraid and didn’t want to be hurt.

“Yes, Anna. He’s my friend,” Tabitha said with a sigh. She was so tired. “… I need my knives. They took them. I don’t know where they are. And I can’t feel my hands.” The rope used to bind her hands were very thick, the ridges littered with sharp metal. Her wrists themselves were not a pretty sight, but they weren’t visible through the rope. Had she not been bound, she probably would have hugged Sharaku, but that obviously wasn’t an option just now.

2226/2000

Sharaku looked at Tabitha’s arms. He’d noticed it before despite not looking like it, but that didn’t make it any more pleasant. They’d actually given her some sort of torture device as a restraint, probably because she’d given them trouble, knowing her. Sharaku sighed, looking around. There wasn’t that much to this cave. Her knives had to be in here somewhere, unless someone had them on them. He hadn’t been assaulted with knives that he could remember, so that didn’t seem… ah. Sharaku looked down at the unconscious man, kicking him hard again so that he rolled over. Tabitha’s knives were this man’s prize for being  monster of the year, and he had them stashed behind his back. Apparently he fancied himself some sort of assassin after capturing one, the way they were positioned. Or he’d just seen where hers were and thought they went there. That seemed more likely.

Sharaku bent down, taking a knife and cutting through the rope, not caring that the rope cut his finger a bit holding onto it. After doing so, he flipped the knife easily, to where the handle was facing Tabitha. “I assume your magic still works,” he told her as he looked at her wrists again. If memory served, she had some trick to healing wounds with magical stitches, plus she could control the knives even without her hands.

Sharaku glanced at the other girl. "Are you okay?" he asked her finally. He did care about her well-being as well, but Tabitha had more actual wounds. "I'm Sharaku Narita. I'm sure you guessed I'm a wizard. I wouldn't say I'm a hero despite this, but I would say I feel a pretty superior to these guys." Sharaku didn't normally talk this much. It was relief to have found Tabitha, more than anything else.

She didn’t consider attempted escape from kidnappers to be “giving them trouble” she considered it par for the course. They could grow up if they really didn’t expect that. Kidnapping a poor flower girl kind of skewed their results, but Tabitha would help be extreme. Kidnap a wizard, get trouble. Kidnap one who had once called murder candy… well, she hated being this weak.

Sharaku found Tabitha’s knives. She could have kissed them. Her knives. Oh how she lived her knives. They were simply knives, nothing so special, but she would always know them in a crowd. They had been her companions longer than any human she knew. Far more loyal than most, even Sharaku. Although, how disloyal could a knife be? Shar was pretty good too. And he was here… and her arms were free….

Tabitha had her knives, and before they left, she would look for her boots and strappings. She would be back to her normal self. She didn’t think Joey had ever thought himself an assassin. She didn’t think of herself as one either. Perhaps she was one, but really... she was just a girl who did some murder. Specific reasons, at least. She wasn’t thinking clearly. Her arms were free and she rubbed her eyes with her shoulder. Wow this her eye hurt. She held all four knives in one shaking hand. It was weak and struggling, but with her magic back she tied the knives to her fingers. There. Simple.

Anna fidgeted, “I’m Anna March… Can we… can I go home now?” she asked tentatively.

Tabitha let Sharaku answer, but rummaged around for her gear. She found it and was dressed. She fumbled visibly. Her fingers were not nimble. She was not the spider she liked to be. It was uncomfortable. She got everything together, her knives in their places, and slowly stitched at her wrists. They were worn so raw that when the feeling came back to them she nearly cried again. “Anna, I will happily take you home,” Tabitha told her. They grabbed up the nearby loot. These men did not need it. She wanted to talk to Sharaku, but not until they were out of this area.

2592/2000

Sharaku nodded to Anna as Tabitha shuffled around and got herself fixed up as much as she could. “That’s half of why I’m here. I was looking for Tabitha here and I found out you’d gone missing too. I talked to your Sister.” Sharaku had nearly forgotten he was looking for Anna as well in the excitement. Finding Tabitha in the state she had been in had been quite distracting. As had getting shot at and tussling and a ten on one brawl, really. He was glad she’d been near, or he honestly might have temporarily forgotten to rescue her.

Tabitha was finally ready, and insisted they grabbed the loot. “Might as well get paid for all this,” Sharaku said offhandedly as he took as much as he could comfortably carry. It wouldn’t do to strain himself  the whole way back. It wasn’t the shortest walk. As the three of them walked, Sharaku let out a sigh. “I’m glad you’re alright,” Sharaku told his friend quietly as he faced forward, looking at the town in the distance. He couldn’t wait to pawn off this crap so that he could have his hands free.  Anna followed behind them, seeming both tired and in shock from the whole thing. He felt sorry for her, but he didn’t really have any helpful words to say at this point.

Tabitha would not have forgotten Anna. She had spent days with the girl. They hadn’t been the most interactive days, and it had been uncomfortable quiet, and she had been blind for most of it… but she would not have forgotten Anna. She was so happy to have Sharaku here now. Anna responded positively to hearing about her sister. Tabitha fidgeted at hearing he had been looking for her… not just stumbled on this. It was odd. She just wasn’t used to someone going looking for her.

They got loot and headed out together. He quietly said he was glad that she was alright and she again felt uncomfortably close to crying. She put her hand on his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek. An impulse that probably toned down all the others. The high energy survival instincts that told her to be extreme and just happy to be alive. She then looped her arm against his and held him close. “Thanks… I’m glad you came to get me… you’re the only person who would have,” she told him. It was a sad statement, but it took away none of her appreciation. She was so happy to be better, even with her magic stitches in her wrists. Even how much it hurt. She was happy he had been there for her, and yes, she was crying, but not enough to get his shoulder wet.

2827/2000

Sharaku didn’t say anything about him being the only one who would come after her. He wasn’t sure that was entirely true, but he didn’t argue, especially since he was probably the only one who could have done so successfully, at least. He just let her cling, nodding his acknowledgement of her gratefulness. It had been a long couple of days, especially the parts where he was searching for and fighting for Tabitha. Being a hero was too much work. No wonder he didn’t do it for a living.

Sharaku didn’t miss Tabitha’s silent crying, and one of his hands went up to pat the side of her head gently. “By the way,” he told the girl that was following behind them, “Those idiots back there won’t be bothering you again, I promise. I’ve taken care of everything, so you can feel safe and relax.”

Finally, they were back in town, and walking down the streets. “Let’s take her home first,” he told Tabitha quietly. “It’d probably make her and her sister feel better.” He shrugged. He was thinking of giving them some of the easier stuff to pawn off for a bit of extra money for all their troubles. They’d cross that bridge when they came to it though.


1813/2000

Who would come get Tabitha? Really? She had no one she considered a friend. Her exes, who she was quite fond of, were not fighters. On top of that they would never know she was missing. She didn’t keep track of them. Her family? That was laughable. Sharaku had high hopes for their guild mates if he thought any of them would stick their neck out for Tabitha Wolfe. The best she could hope for was that someone might have done the job for money and stumbled upon her. Alternatively someone who really wanted to get on the good side of Tabitha, but she doubted that. Besides, her good side was quite small, and Sharaku was inhabiting the majority of that right now.

He patted her face and she shifted away some to dry her eyes. She didn’t want him knowing she was crying, even if it seemed like he did. He started comforting Anna, explaining that the men would not bother her. She nodded timidly. Tabitha agreed they should take Anna back first. “Anna, are you looking forward to seeing your sister?” Tabitha asked as they walked.

“Definitely,” Anna said. She was still quite timid, due to the circumstances, but Tabitha felt a sort of attachment to the young woman. She had a bond, so she knew how Anna felt. When they reached town Tabitha followed Anna’s lead. She seemed to know where they needed to go. She reached a hotel room they were apparently renting, and went to the door. Tabitha kept ahold of Sharaku’s arm, uncomfortable in the city. It was just… odd. She wanted to be at home in her house, not here, and not in the light. She knew she looked a mess, and she didn’t like it. Going home to lick her wounds was at the very least a requirement.

“Kendra!” Anna said when her sister answered the door. The immediate bawling and hugging made Tabitha stop. Family. Ugh. It was weird. She wanted to go home.

“You can… tend to them… I will just…” She trailed off as Anna mentioned her by name. And Sharaku. There was a lot of crying. Kendra insisted on thanking Tabitha, who didn’t have any of her usual shine. “Um, yes, you’re welcome. I didn’t do anything for her… Sharaku did though. He was quite the hero. It’s a good thing you talked to him,” Tabitha said with a nod. She was perfectly happy to direct the praise to him.

Kendra nodded, “Yes, thank you so much for helping my sister, and your friend.”

3253/2000

Sharaku was stuck in the house of the rescued sister for much longer than he wanted to be. They wouldn’t let him leave without thanking him at least seven or eight or forty times. He stopped counting after six. Especially once he’d dropped off a bit of the spare loot that he’d gathered that would be easy to pawn and told them that they deserved it after what they’d gone through. He really wanted to feel like a hero for all of it, but he knew better. Sharaku Narita was no hero. He didn’t have the time to be. He wasn’t a good enough person to be.

He finally sighed as he left the house, where Tabitha had been waiting since she didn’t want to be part of the celebrations. He gave her a gentle grin as he looked her over quickly. She looked terrible, but it was terrible in a way that said she would be fine, eventually. That was better than the alternative. “Well, we’ve had more pleasant adventures,” he told her optimistically as he walked up to her. “Let’s try to never have to do that again. I don’t have any real desire to be a hero again. It’s not really my thing,” he lied with a smile. Sharaku had always wanted to be a hero as a kid. Now he simply knew he didn’t deserve it.

As far as Tabitha was concerned, Sharaku was a hero. He deserved it all. She hadn’t wanted to go inside and enjoy the praise. She felt a fondness for Anna. She would probably keep track of the girl if she could handle it. It might be a painful memory she wanted to avoid, but Tabitha was pretty mentally stable. She suspected she would be able to do that, and she wanted to.

She was happy when Sharaku came out of the house. Her wrists were still stitched up messes, but that wasn’t the most important thing to her. She could feel her knives in her boots. She could feel her boots. Those were important to her. Being barefoot made her kind of disgusting. Even when she had been a street urchin she had shoes. It was unpleasant to be without them. Still she would keep up as much of an appearance as she could until she was home to shower. She had been focusing on her knives while he was inside, and calling herself stupid for being caught off guard. Now she was back with Sharaku.

Tabitha stepped up to him and hugged him. With her arms behind his back she couldn’t see her wrists. She was also relatively helpless, but she didn’t care. It was worth it for this. So she hugged Shar and ignored him saying being a hero wasn’t his thing. “I’ve always thought it was. Maybe I think of heroes differently…” she said quietly. “Will you come home with me?”

3507/2000

Sharaku was a bit surprised by Tabitha’s hug, but it was easier to take when he was aware she’d been through a lot in the last couple of days. He silently cursed himself for not being able to find her faster, but it wasn’t anything that could be helped. Not anymore, anyway. He hugged her back after a moment, nodding his head at her question. “Sure,” he told her with a reassuring grin. She thought he was the hero type, huh? Well, he wouldn’t argue. He didn’t think anyone from Shadow heart was really a hero though. Even if they wanted to think they were for their own selfish reasons.

“Whatever you want, I suppose. It’s probably the least I can do,” he decided as she let go enough for them to walk, at least. They could still make it to her house. It would be a bit late by the time they got there, but they’d endured worse, at least as far as he’d figured. He walked in relative silence, but was content to let Tabitha talk or not. She could hang on or walk beside him or whatever she felt like doing. He was just happy she was alive, to be honest.

He should have been surprised by Tabitha’s hug. Since when did Tabitha hug anyone? She didn’t. he didn’t know her softer side, or that it actually existed. She didn’t want people to know that. She didn’t want to feel weak. She wanted to feel alone, but she was not lonely. When she wanted attention all she had to do was walk into a room, or walk out of it. In her guild hall she had enough leering men with inappropriate thoughts. She could practically read them like a book. They looked at her like a piece of meat, and she looked at them like a piece of paper scribbled on in crayon. They were not so difficult to understand, and she did not wish for any of them to understand her. Whether she was difficult to understand or not. She did not know either way, she just knew she did not wish for their understanding.

What she wished for right now was the arms around her to stay. She would have liked him to have felt more comfortable than surprised. Of course it was odd for her to be hugging him. It was odd for her to have cried at all, let alone around other people. It was odd of her to get so hurt from the butcher, and odd to have gone to anyone for help. Admittedly, it had kept her from bleeding out somewhere, so that was nice. Why did she have to keep coming back to him? She didn’t go back to anyone. Even her romantic relationships ended eventually, and she was never reduced to some crying, hugging weakling in any of those relationships.

Were she to have hugged him on her own terms it would be different. He would have felt awkward and probably blushed; instead of being angry he hadn’t helped her sooner. He hugged back at least, and she appreciated that. He was muscular enough but not massive. Being that she’d only ever liked women, she really didn’t have some need to date big bulky people. Date? Ugh, she needed to stop coming back to that. She wanted to lock him in her room and keep him, but that was a far cry from dating. Even if she did want to date him, right now she just wanted to feel safe. He did make her feel safe.

Sharaku said he would go home with her, and it was the least he could do. The least he could do. She held onto his arm like she had when they’d pretended to be dating. Except this time she was softer. She was less calm, less controlling, less pretending not to be pretending. It was not the least he could have done. The least he could have done was to worry that she was missing and maybe go looking for her. Going in alone to rescue her and then walking home with her. It didn’t feel like the least. Maybe she just expected that little from everyone.

4007/2000