"Honestly!" she muttered to herself in complaint. "Putting up with this sort of crap was not featured anywhere in the job description!"
She gave another heaving tug, pulling his limp arms around her shoulders and with a grunt of effort, took the majority of his massively heavy bulk onto her back.
He'd gone out for another night of drinking, though thankfully this time there had been none of his pitiable attempts at debauchery as well. She hated it when he decided he wanted to tie one on; firstly because spending an evening in the presence of drunks was possibly one of the last things she liked to find herself doing. Secondly because every single time he'd drank himself into blissful oblivion in the last week, she was the one who got to take care of things afterward, and that had meant carrying him home so that he didn't wind up sleeping in the gutter somewhere. This guy had to wiegh at least twice as much as she did in sheer muscle mass alone!
"Where in my contract does it say that I have to haul your inebriated carcass home every night for a week?!" She vexed to herself, wishing she could kick his shin.
The only answer to her query was a soft snore from the drunken gunman loaded up onto her back being dragged back home. He instinctively tightened his arms around her when she nearly tripped on a divot in the gravel-dirt road, and her breasts pushed up a little, reminding her that she needed to get someplace where she could purchase a new bra because the ones she had were starting to wear out from overuse in the course of her travels.
:Good thing he's dead to the world: she thought in partial annoyance and partial exasperation with him. If he'd been awake and aware, she'd have clobbered him a good one for taking liberties with her exquisite self. It was just his luck (or maybe hers) that his arms were long enough that pulling them around her shoulders in order to drag him home put them right in a position that a good many men would envy him for.
He nuzzled his head into her neck, still snoring slightly and drunkenly mumbled something about having a separate stomach for cake and ice cream. His breath on the back of her neck sent little shivers down her spine. It was a very good thing for him that he was passed out drunkenly, she'd have never allowed these sorts of liberties with her person if he'd been awake.
Fortunately for her, she didn't have to carry him too far, the place where they were staying was just down the street from the bar. He was really, really heavy, and the grate dug in a litttle into the left hand side of her back. She pushed open the door and stumbled into the tiny place, then debated on whether she wanted to dump his ass on the tiny little couch in the living room that was about half his size and let him sleep it off there so he could wake up with a crick in his neck, or whether she was going to win the good samaritan award and haul him all the way to his bedroom.
"Ah, heck... I've carried him this far, the stupid spikey-haried moron," she muttered to herself and proceeded on to his bed chamber. She moved extra quietly in order not to wake up the other occupant and pulled him over to the extra long twin bed in the room.
She turned around and released his arms from around her breasts, effectively dumping him cross wise on the bed. She then leaned over and jerked and pushed his torso so that it lay lengthwise and stuffed a pillow under his head. Then she reached down and tugged at the complicated system of buckles on his boots. There was a much less complicated way to undo them, rather than unfastening every buckle, but it was the only revenge she got for all the trouble he put her through was to make him refasten them all in the morning. She tugged his boots off and lifted his legs onto the bottom half of the bed. He made a contented sigh in his sleep, having found a comfortable postion to sleep on and Meryl rolled her eyes a little, trying not to look fond. He really was pretty high maintenece.
Seeing the throw blanket nestled at the foot of his bed, the perfectionist Meryl Stryfe couldn't leave a job unfinished. He was in bed and there was an unused blanket nearby so she had to cover him with it.
With a long-suffering sigh, she pulled the blanket out and was about to throw it over him and leave him there when one of his limbs flailed wildly in his sleep and knocked her off guard and onto his bed, coincidentally sprawled out over top of him. Meryl looked up at him suspiciously in the moonlight, searching for any signs at all that this was more than an accident, but Vash was utterly and totally dead to the world.
"I swear he does this on purpose," she muttered to herself, squirming over him to get out of his bed. She was tired too dammit, and wasn't about to let Mister Restless Sleeper over there keep her from her own bed for the rest of the night. Thier legs were tangled because he was tossing so it took a little longer than she'd have liked to detach herself and squirm out of his bed. Meryl gave one more long searching look at his slack face and even breathing, feeling more than a little suspicious about the whole fiasco as this was the third time this week she'd somehow mysteriously wound up falling into his bed with him in it. Granted, nothing objectionable had happened, no "accidental" gropes or "misplaced" kisses, but it seemed more than a little suspicious to her.
"Hm, there we go," she said, flicking the blanket neatly over him and surveying a job well done in satisfaction. He really did look kind of adorable in the moonlight, all peacful and... not blowing shit up. Her looked just as sweet and kind and cute as she knew he was. She couldn't help the little rush of fondness welling up in her body when she looked down at him, lying there so peaceful in the moonlight. With a little smile to herself, and the decision that no-one had to know about it but herself... after all Vash was out cold... she quietly leaned over him and gave him a soft little kiss on the cheek, then padded out and went to her own room.
& & &
Stretched out on his bed in the tiny room he shared, Vash the Stampede opened his eyes and blinked, fully aware and without even the faintest lingering haze of alcohol in his system. He'd never tell his Short Girl, but he'd discovered, much to his relief and annoyance early on, that Plant Angels couldn't actually get drunk. Thier bodies metabolized things too fast for anything more than a slight euphoria from the alcohol to take hold. He'd certainly never gotten to the point where he'd been able to forget things... which to Vash had been the entire point in the first place; but he was a social creature at heart and it was easy to make friends in a bar... buy 'em a drink and they're yours for life.
If Meryl had known that he was taking advantage of her good nature by pretending to be passed out drunk just so she would carry him home and he could have a little fun with the situation he'd be dead meat. He sighed and smiled a little, wriggled down more comfortably in the blanket she'd thrown over him and sniffed at the collar of his jacket, it smelled of vanilla and lilacs... just like her. What she didn't know, wouldn't hurt him.
End
Written as a "prize" for JadeEyes 77 for having guessed the correct answer to the Nightheart Challenge (or whatever) posted at the end of my last chapter of Home. That being "What do all of the Chapter Titles and the Main title for the fic have in common?" and the answer was, "Sheryl Crow" yes, they are all of them titles of Sheryl Crow songs. Since the winner never actually sent me a theme or prompt for the fic, I just picked one at random and hoped for the best. So congratulations JadeEyes77, I hope you liked it! All the rest of you can leave a reveiw. WHo knows, with enough urging, I might do this again.
Nightheart.