Train
DISCLAIMER: Hey! These guys ain't mine! Author's Note: Hihi! This is here because I got enough people asking for a sequel to the story 'Simple Touch' ^_^! This takes place after the Tunnel of Lost Love OAV. And please please please review! I worked hard on this story! *begs*. This is pure R/A fluff, but don't worry, this isn't a bashing other character R/A fluff, this is just them fluff. ^_^
The train rocked everyone back and forth gently in their beds as it sped quickly towards the station in Nerima. After the Tunnel of Lost Love, bidding Ryouga good-bye, and watching a mass confusion as to what happened between Ukyo and the lost boy, all of them boarded the train. The last shuttle was at eight, and because of several malfunctions, the Nerima bound people where forced to sleep on board.
Nabiki had taken care of the arrangements, and most of the fees came from the 'Blue Thunder' after purchasing several pictures of his pigtailed girl and Akane Tendo. After which he wasn't conscious long enough to enjoy them with Ranma and Akane's feet in his face. Kodachi had glomped onto Ranma, and was rewarded with an angry Shampoo. Potions got released and both of them fell into a deep sleep. Cologne reassured they'd wake come morning. Ukyo was too tired after running around and fighting all day to care whom was doing what to whom.
That was three hours ago, it was now eleven, and everyone had gone to rest up in their assigned rooms. Akane, Kasumi and Nabiki, of course, shared a four-person room, their fourth (after much debate and bickering) had been Ranma. The youngest sister made it clear she would in no way feel as tempted as the others to sneak into bed with him, a smart remark from Ranma and a kettle met his head. Shampoo, Ukyo, Cologne, and Kodachi shared a room, while the third and final room was for Genma, Soun, Kuno, and Mouse.
Akane felt a shiver of fear run down her spine. No matter how quickly they traveled away from the haunted cave, she could still see the faces of the dead dancing just beyond the light. Their taunting words echoed in the chugging sound beneath the rails, and in the whooshing from the air conditioner. Pulling the blanket up to her chin, Akane tried to forget the sites and sounds that had scared her so much, and made Ranma pick on her for the rest of the day.
//Jerk.//
If Ryouga hadn't been there, even if it was to be with Ukyo, she'd have had to stay with insensitive jerk. But, Akane mused, it had turned out for the best. Finding out that because of Ranma and Akane's fight had brought their friends together, it was worth the trouble of putting up with the pervert---at least till the very end. Thinking she needed to be defended! It boiled the girl's blood to near evaporation when Ranma didn't look at her as a fellow martial artist, but an obstacle in his way to glory.
Turning her back to the troublesome boy who raced through her mind sleeping on the second bottom bunk, and who was also less than three feet from her. Squeezing her eyes shut, the young Tendo prayed sleep would come to her, heck, at this point she wasn't to stuck up to having someone bashing her over the head to make the unconsciousness come.
"Akane Tendo."
"AAHHHH!!!!" In two point five seconds, Akane had flipped over, sat back, and let a full force punch swing towards the airy voice.
"Oh my!"
"What the heck..?" Ranma sat up, and the lights were flicked on by an annoyed looking Nabiki.
Akane opened her eyes one at a time and then seen the face her punch had contacted.
"Kuno, what the heck are you doing here?" Ranma demanded. Not only did Saotoma not like being woken up for any reason, seeing Tatewaki's hands reached foreword, about to embrace *his* fiancee was enough to have him mad.
"I heard Akane's distressed plead through the air vent, and I, the great Kuno, came to ease her out of any pains."
"That doesn't give you any right to sneak in here!" Akane shouted, pulling her fist away, amazed her that while he was dressed in a sleeveless shirt, he wasn't the least bit cold. She really didn't like him at that moment for that reason.
"So?" She asked in a voice tinged with bitterness. Akane wasn't upset with him, only his ability to stay warm.
"What did you think of the Tunnel?" It was the best question he could think of to lead up to what he really wanted to know. Ranma watched as the girl slowly turned her head towards him with an eyebrow arched.
"Which part?"
"I dunno," Ranma shrugged, "Any part."
"Like when Ukyo and Shampoo pushed us together to go in as a couple? Or when you picked on me for seeing ghosts that you didn't until later? Or when you almost made me get in between Ukyo and Ryouga because you were being such a jerk? Or when..."
"Whoa! Hold on a sec! YOU were the run running down the cave crying like a baby for Ryouga to stop." Ranma pointed out, grimacing at the girl remembering how she chose bacon breath over him.
"Hmph, If you weren't being such a jerk, I never would have ran after Ryouga." Akane pointed out, tilting her nose up in the air as she did so. The effect was lost when she tightened her hold on herself and tried to fight off another shiver. If this kept up she'd end up with a cold for sure! And only fools caught summer colds!
"Geez, Akane, why didn't you bring a blanket or something?"
Akane, for the most part, could only give him an annoyed look. "I didn't know it would be below freezing, ya know!"
Sighing the boy was two seconds from suggesting Akane go back to the sleeping car, but then another, more attractive idea turned on in his brain. Then the rational part of the same brain started to wave a red flag of warning to the idea. There was no way on earth the girl would ever go for it. Maybe if she started to have frostbite would she consider it, but just because she got the shivers? Akane would have him bloody and broken in no time and Ranma's reputation as a pervert would only get worse.
"You're cold."
"Thank you, Sherlock."
"Come here," Ranma felt his cast iron stomach tighten as he lifted the armrest which separated the two seats.
Akane's eyes were about to pop out of her head. Did she her him correctly? 'Come here'? What was Ranma trying to pull? Akane's mind naturally jumped to the wrong conclusion, he was going to try to feel her up! "PERVERT!"
Ranma winced at the word. He just *knew* it was going to happen. Trying to save his pride, and his body, Ranma kept his cool while explaining. "You're cold. I'm not, and I thought you could take some of my body heat to stay warm." Akane's eyebrows rose, "And think of it as returning a favor."
Again, the girl was thrown off balance because of his words. Her cheeks flared with a lovely red color, Akane wasn't an idiot, and she knew what 'favor' Ranma was referring to. When Shampoo had been bugging him, the blue haired girl was the one to put a stop to it. That was not as important as what happened next. When Akane touched him, Ranma didn't jump away or even give her a nasty look. Instead, he allowed it, and wrapped his own hand around hers to keep it there longer.
"A-are you sure?"
"Sure I won't try nothin'? I gave you my word, didn't I? And everyone else is asleep, so I don't think there's going to be anyone trying to get us married tonight." Ranma, on the outside was cool and confidant as if he only asked her to pass the salt instead of sitting very close to him. While on the inside he had so many butterflies once Akane got up to move. Sitting her down in between the seats, Ranma guided her back to him, till her back rested on his chest, and her head was tucked under his chin.
Akane was like cement, afraid to move unless she'd fall, or give Ranma the wrong idea. No butterflies in her own stomach could have survived the warmth that touched her all over, melting her heart and mind. Ranma let his arm stay draped over her stomach, and Akane picked her legs up and laid them on the seat. She felt a smile tug at her lips, even now, Ranma's own height was seen because her feet still stopped short of where his was.
Thankful for the fact the girl was facing away from his pink tinted face, Ranma noticed she was like a small piece of ice. How she got this cold was beyond him, but soon Akane wouldn't be cold anymore. Sleep said it wouldn't be ignored anymore, and the pigtailed boy felt close to collapsing into the Sandman's lap about then.
But he couldn't! What if his hand got a mind of it's own and went somewhere it wasn't suppose to go? No! Ranma would not go to sleep! He had to shake it off not shake sleep's hand, no matter how sorely he was tempted. Breathing in deep, the boy tried to think of something else besides the fact that he had a girl laying on him who was now warm thanks to his own heat, and his body was exhausted. There had to be something else Ranma could focus on. Out of the million of things he *could* think of, all roads lead back to the fact he had a girl in his arms, with no one around.
Just when he was going to start randomly pinching his arms to keep awake, he noticed something.
Akane wasn't moving, or talking, just breathing. Listening to the steady intakes of breath, Ranma was relieved with what it meant. She was asleep, glancing at the clock, the boy was shocked to see that nearly an hour had flown by since they walked into the seating car.
Maybe she hadn't been scared at all, maybe she was just cold. Ranma rolled his tired eyes, it would figure. All Akane would have needed back in the room was an extra blanket! Somehow it just seemed to fit the girl who would sooner go for the hard way out than the easy one.
"Tomboy." He muttered.
Ranma's whole body froze when he felt his fiancee's arm cover the one he had over her stomach. Grasping onto it like a lifeline, not painful, but there was no way Ranma was going to be able to ignore her touch.
The ice, as well as his thinking melted under one simple word, "Ran...ma.." the sleeping girl uttered in her sleep and then shifted a bit more till she was laying on her side on his chest.
Not knowing what else to do, Ranma let a prayer go out he wouldn't do anything improper during the night, and come morning, they wouldn't be discovered by any angry girls or weeping fathers. There would be NO way to talk their way out of this situation!
Yawning once again, the pigtailed martial artist tucked his free arm behind his head and let the Sandman knock him out. Come the morning light, both of the people woke up without saying a word, and disentangled themselves from one another before being caught. And during the night, before the dawn, Ranma's hands were very obedient, not traveling anywhere they were not suppose to go. The only time his captured arm did move was to tighten its hold on his prized possession, but no one would ever know about that either.