Inu-Yasha and Shen - Backdated
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ax_mainInu-Yasha and Shen's trial friendship begins to show some strain.
As the Danger Room doors closed behind him, Inu-yasha was feeling pretty good. All the friendship crap aside, having someone to train with meant he could take on harder settings, which meant better training.
And he always felt better after beating the shit out of something.
To his initial surprise, the bird-girl wasn’t bad in a fight. She didn’t hold back, and he liked that he didn’t have to constantly protect her in these sessions. Hell, she was good at figuring out a plan and telling him where to punch.
Stretching his arms lazily over his head, like they hadn’t just been fighting the room (and like his shirt wasn’t a little bit burnt), he leaned his head to the side to crack his neck. “Now that felt good,” he said, grinning in that predatory post-fight way he had.
Shen was playing with an only slightly charred feather, twirling it between two fingers and thinking about how she could have avoided losing it. Inu-Yasha's comment brought her out of it and she looked over at him, lips ticking up into a small smile at the sight of the grin on his face.
"It did," she confirmed, although she had a feeling she could never match his enthusiasm for violence - she hoped that she never would, anyway. "You wanna grab a bite?" Food after a Danger Room session had become a habit of sorts, as far as she was concerned.
"Sure," he nodded, and followed her in that direction. Free food, that never got old as far as he was concerned.
Shen went into the staircase instead of taking the elevator, still idly playing with the scorched feather. "How are things, anyway?" she asked conversationally. She hadn't given up on the hope of getting him used to having normal conversations, nope.
"Fine," he drawled. He'd gotten used to these kinds of questions, even if he didn't like them. "They're makin' me do extra work with a tutor. Like I needed more school."
"Who's the tutor?" Shen asked curiously, rather than touching that last remark with a ten foot pole.
“The little blond kid,” Inu-yasha replied, sounding totally bored. In truth, he had some really confusing feelings about the whole situation. Quatre wanted to be his friend too, and said he cared. Usually anyone trying to be friendly with Inu-yasha gave up after actually talking to him a time or two, but the kid was persistent.
So was the bird-girl, but in a different way. “It’s super annoying,” he said dismissively.
"Which blond kid?" Shen asked. "We have a lot of those."
“The little one,” Inu-yasha replied, using one hand to indicate Quatre’s height. “Rich. Wears gloves all the time for some reason.”
"Oh, Quatre!" Shen realized, smiling at the thought of him. "Come on, he's great." He was wonderful, which meant that... of course Inu-Yasha wouldn't like him.
“Whatever,” Inu-yasha scoffed, though his cheeks tinted just a little pink. He didn’t like anyone, but for some reason, he didn’t not like his tutor. He pushed open the door to the stairwell, putting them back in the regular looking mansion. Which he was finally starting to get used to, or learning to ignore at least. “I’d rather be training than wasting time on all that crap.”
"All that crap should end up making the difference between surviving and living," Shen answered, although it wasn't the first time they had that conversation. "Doesn't mean it's not a pain in the ass having to go through it." She'd enjoyed this summer, and all that free time she could devote to flying, working out and Danger Room sessions.
"I'm a fighter," Inu-yasha replied dismissively, "not a thinker." They kept telling him that education could give him a better future, but he didn't believe it. That was true for other people.
"You might be surprised," Shen replied, but she didn't sound gung-ho about it. It was a step by step thing with Inu-Yasha. She pushed open the kitchen door and smiled to find it empty. It was easier to coral Inu-Yasha on her own. "What are you in the mood for?" She couldn't decide if she wanted to put something together or not.
"Anything," he replied unhelpfully. He wouldn't cook anything, but if Shen made something he'd eat that. Otherwise he was just as happy with a bag of chips or maybe cup ramen.
"I don't know that I really wanna start cooking," Shen admitted with a thoughtful moue. Then she brightened up. "How about fruit salad? You can help me cut them up." She was already turning to grab a few different fruits, and a salad bowl.
"Huh?" He blinked at her, surprised that she'd want his help. "Why not just eat the fruit?"
"It's better in a salad," Shen answered with a simple smile, grabbing a couple of cutting boards next, to bring to the table. "Trust me."
He frowned but didn't argue, watching her pull out what she needed with a kind of curiosity.
"Come on, come wash your hands," Shen stated, nodding towards the sink and letting him go first while she finished grabbing what they would need.
"Fine, fine," he replied, rolling his eyes but doing as he was told. He kept one ear on her as he washed his hands in hot water, feeling like a little kid for moment.
"Now grab a fruit and get peeling and slicing," she told him as he wiped his hands dry, taking his place at the sink.
“When’d you get so bossy,” Inu-yasha complained at her, but picked up an apple all the same. He looked skeptically at the knife, then opted to start slicing with a claw instead. He took off bite-sized chunks of the apple, working his way down to the core.
"I woke up that way this morning," Shen deadpanned as she wiped her hands dry. Then she grabbed a knife and got started on a mango. "So what did you make of Xavier's announcement?"
“Didn’t pay much attention,” Inu-yasha replied, back to sounding bored. He had, in fact, missed the original announcement because he hadn’t been paying any attention at the assembly. He’d pieced it together after everyone started freaking out. “Old guy wants us to fight for him, huh?”
"Not exactly," Shen answered after a beat. "He wants us to fight for a better world. Help the people who can't help themselves. Show mutants in a good light."
Inu-yasha snorted derisively. “What, you fell for that line?”
"What do you think his end-game is, then?" Shen asked, actually curious.
Inu-yasha didn’t know what ‘end-game’ meant, but he knew what a game was, and that was fitting. “It’s always the same game,” he replied, grabbing a second apple. “Power. Adults love getting kids to do their dirty work - keeps ‘em outta prison, and whadda they care about some idiot kids getting arrested or killed?”
"Yeah, but what kind of dirty work would he need us for?" Shen asked in answer.
Inu-yasha paused to give her a look. Wasn’t it obvious? “He’s not exactly throwing any punches from that wheelchair, is he? Whatever his battles are, it’s not like he’ll be the one fighting them.”
"But how do you know they're not the battles he says they are?" Shen insisted, grabbing a peach next.
“Does it matter?” Inu-yasha dropped the last of the apple pieces in, looking at her skeptically. “I don’t fight other people’s battles, an’ I’m not gonna get myself killed for some rich old man sittin’ in mansion.”
Shen made a face. "You're the one who said I was falling for it. There's nothing to fall for if his battles are the ones he says they are - which happens to make them my battles, too."
“You think so?” Inu-yasha drawled, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s got you ready to bleed for him. You think he’s gonna do the same for you?” No way. The old man would keep his hands clean.
"That's beyond the point," Shen replied firmly, still working on that peach. "The battles he says he wants us to fight, they're battles I want to fight." It didn't mean she would trust him blindly, but she was definitely giving this a try.
“Huh? What the hell does someone like you have to fight for?” he asked bluntly. She didn’t have to fight, she had all the things she needed, and she wasn’t the greedy type trying to get ahead.
"Shit, I don't know, equal rights?" Shen retorted with a frown.
“What? How?” Inu-yasha wasn’t wholly oblivious to the idea, but it wasn’t like there was someone to punch for that.
"By showing the baselines we can be a force for good," Shen replied, cutting the peach into cubes. "We can do crazy, incredible, dangerous shit. If we don't get ahead of it, they'll have us locked up before we know what's going on."
Inu-yasha’s head tilted to the side, considering. That... halfway made sense. “Dunno about this ‘force for good’ crap,” he told her, blunt as always, “but showin’ ‘em what we can do makes sense I guess.”
"Showing them what we can do for them," Shen amended his statement. "You wanna grab some strawberries?"
Inu-yasha sputtered for a moment. "Whadda ya mean, for them?!"
"Helping others," Shen replied simply. "I know it's a brand new concept, but try to wrap your mind around it." Seriously. There was only so much 'I've lived my whole life on the streets' could excuse.
"We were talking about fighting," Inu-yasha replied with a little growl.
"Yes," Shen confirmed. "Fighting to help others, that's what he says he wants us to do. Strawberries."
"How do you help others by fighting?" he asked gruffly, so focused on the conversation that he barely noticed himself going to get the strawberries from the refrigerator. "That doesn't even make sense, fighting is all about hurting people."
"Fighting can be about stopping bad people from hurting others," Shen pointed out. "Don't tell me you never helped out another kid on the street."
Inu-yasha growled softly, handing her the berries but not actually responding.
"What?" Shen asked with a genuine frown, then turned to wash the strawberries in the sink.
"Nothing," he replied defensively, turning too look away even though she wasn't looking at him.
"No, seriously, what?" Shen asked more quietly, only glancing at him as she worked.
Inu-yasha seemed to chew his words for a long moment before responding, quiet but gruff, “How’d you know that?”
"I didn't," Shen answered, a lot more quietly than she would normally have. This felt like 'minefield' territory. "It's just what anyone decent would do, at one point or another."
He glared at the wall. "Well I'm not," he growled back. He didn't want her getting any ideas about that.
"What's wrong with having helped someone else out?" Shen asked with raised eyebrows, then brought the strawberries to the table to cut them into the salad.
“I’m not nice, an’ I don’t help people,” Inu-yasha shot back angrily.
"Clearly you do," Shen told him, grabbing a knife to hull and cut up the strawberries. She was scowling at them as she worked, however. "I don't know why you're so unable to see that this is a place where you can admit to being nice - if only on occasion, in your case. I mean, no one's picked on you because of your ears, right?"
"No one's dumb enough because I'd beat the crap out of them," he replied, growling a warning at her. "And I never did it to be nice, because I'm not - I'm only looking out for me, got that?"
"No one wants to pick on you, seriously," Shen retorted, glaring at him now. She hated being growled at. "You're being an idiot again."
“What? Am not!” Having no idea how childish he sounded, Inu-yasha pressed on. “I’m tellin’ it like it is. S’not my fault you don’t get it.”
"No one knows that you'd manage to beat the crap out of them, so they're not picking on you because they don't want to," Shen replied crossly. "And you just admitted to helping kids out, so stop pretending you didn't. Seriously." She could so see why Clarice had dumped him in the lake that one time.
"What do you know about it anyway," Inu-yasha demanded angrily, hitting his hand on the table, making it shake (shit, he hadn't meant to do that).
Shen liked to think of herself as a strong woman - or girl, whatever. But it didn't mean that she didn't start when Inu-Yasha hit the table that hard, or that she could help the very, very unwelcome flash of fear at that small display of violence from someone as strong as him, who could do that much damage. She'd lived a lot of her life as a tiny Asian chick who could not kick ass in the physical way.
But no longer. She locked away that fear and glared at him, wings tensing behind her. "Don't you pull that with me."
"Huh?" He hadn't been threatening her, just frustrated and angry (neither of which were abating at all), but he was surprised when she flinched. Argh, not that it changed anything!
"You don't get violent around me - not even against furniture," Shen told him flatly. The fruit salad had been temporarily forgotten, a few strawberries still needed to be added. "As for what I know about it - everything you've told me. Grow up."
"You don't know shit," he growled back at her, glaring fiercely. Like some girl could understand why things like this mattered. "Dammit, I don't need this crap!" He turned away and stalked out of the kitchen. He needed to get outside and hit something.
Shen glared after him, then made a very, very frustrated noise at the empty kitchen. Now she had way too much fruit salad for just her; she'd take it back to her room to see if Jeanne-Marie wanted to share. So she went back to the strawberries, jaw working with frustration - at both him, and herself.
As the Danger Room doors closed behind him, Inu-yasha was feeling pretty good. All the friendship crap aside, having someone to train with meant he could take on harder settings, which meant better training.
And he always felt better after beating the shit out of something.
To his initial surprise, the bird-girl wasn’t bad in a fight. She didn’t hold back, and he liked that he didn’t have to constantly protect her in these sessions. Hell, she was good at figuring out a plan and telling him where to punch.
Stretching his arms lazily over his head, like they hadn’t just been fighting the room (and like his shirt wasn’t a little bit burnt), he leaned his head to the side to crack his neck. “Now that felt good,” he said, grinning in that predatory post-fight way he had.
Shen was playing with an only slightly charred feather, twirling it between two fingers and thinking about how she could have avoided losing it. Inu-Yasha's comment brought her out of it and she looked over at him, lips ticking up into a small smile at the sight of the grin on his face.
"It did," she confirmed, although she had a feeling she could never match his enthusiasm for violence - she hoped that she never would, anyway. "You wanna grab a bite?" Food after a Danger Room session had become a habit of sorts, as far as she was concerned.
"Sure," he nodded, and followed her in that direction. Free food, that never got old as far as he was concerned.
Shen went into the staircase instead of taking the elevator, still idly playing with the scorched feather. "How are things, anyway?" she asked conversationally. She hadn't given up on the hope of getting him used to having normal conversations, nope.
"Fine," he drawled. He'd gotten used to these kinds of questions, even if he didn't like them. "They're makin' me do extra work with a tutor. Like I needed more school."
"Who's the tutor?" Shen asked curiously, rather than touching that last remark with a ten foot pole.
“The little blond kid,” Inu-yasha replied, sounding totally bored. In truth, he had some really confusing feelings about the whole situation. Quatre wanted to be his friend too, and said he cared. Usually anyone trying to be friendly with Inu-yasha gave up after actually talking to him a time or two, but the kid was persistent.
So was the bird-girl, but in a different way. “It’s super annoying,” he said dismissively.
"Which blond kid?" Shen asked. "We have a lot of those."
“The little one,” Inu-yasha replied, using one hand to indicate Quatre’s height. “Rich. Wears gloves all the time for some reason.”
"Oh, Quatre!" Shen realized, smiling at the thought of him. "Come on, he's great." He was wonderful, which meant that... of course Inu-Yasha wouldn't like him.
“Whatever,” Inu-yasha scoffed, though his cheeks tinted just a little pink. He didn’t like anyone, but for some reason, he didn’t not like his tutor. He pushed open the door to the stairwell, putting them back in the regular looking mansion. Which he was finally starting to get used to, or learning to ignore at least. “I’d rather be training than wasting time on all that crap.”
"All that crap should end up making the difference between surviving and living," Shen answered, although it wasn't the first time they had that conversation. "Doesn't mean it's not a pain in the ass having to go through it." She'd enjoyed this summer, and all that free time she could devote to flying, working out and Danger Room sessions.
"I'm a fighter," Inu-yasha replied dismissively, "not a thinker." They kept telling him that education could give him a better future, but he didn't believe it. That was true for other people.
"You might be surprised," Shen replied, but she didn't sound gung-ho about it. It was a step by step thing with Inu-Yasha. She pushed open the kitchen door and smiled to find it empty. It was easier to coral Inu-Yasha on her own. "What are you in the mood for?" She couldn't decide if she wanted to put something together or not.
"Anything," he replied unhelpfully. He wouldn't cook anything, but if Shen made something he'd eat that. Otherwise he was just as happy with a bag of chips or maybe cup ramen.
"I don't know that I really wanna start cooking," Shen admitted with a thoughtful moue. Then she brightened up. "How about fruit salad? You can help me cut them up." She was already turning to grab a few different fruits, and a salad bowl.
"Huh?" He blinked at her, surprised that she'd want his help. "Why not just eat the fruit?"
"It's better in a salad," Shen answered with a simple smile, grabbing a couple of cutting boards next, to bring to the table. "Trust me."
He frowned but didn't argue, watching her pull out what she needed with a kind of curiosity.
"Come on, come wash your hands," Shen stated, nodding towards the sink and letting him go first while she finished grabbing what they would need.
"Fine, fine," he replied, rolling his eyes but doing as he was told. He kept one ear on her as he washed his hands in hot water, feeling like a little kid for moment.
"Now grab a fruit and get peeling and slicing," she told him as he wiped his hands dry, taking his place at the sink.
“When’d you get so bossy,” Inu-yasha complained at her, but picked up an apple all the same. He looked skeptically at the knife, then opted to start slicing with a claw instead. He took off bite-sized chunks of the apple, working his way down to the core.
"I woke up that way this morning," Shen deadpanned as she wiped her hands dry. Then she grabbed a knife and got started on a mango. "So what did you make of Xavier's announcement?"
“Didn’t pay much attention,” Inu-yasha replied, back to sounding bored. He had, in fact, missed the original announcement because he hadn’t been paying any attention at the assembly. He’d pieced it together after everyone started freaking out. “Old guy wants us to fight for him, huh?”
"Not exactly," Shen answered after a beat. "He wants us to fight for a better world. Help the people who can't help themselves. Show mutants in a good light."
Inu-yasha snorted derisively. “What, you fell for that line?”
"What do you think his end-game is, then?" Shen asked, actually curious.
Inu-yasha didn’t know what ‘end-game’ meant, but he knew what a game was, and that was fitting. “It’s always the same game,” he replied, grabbing a second apple. “Power. Adults love getting kids to do their dirty work - keeps ‘em outta prison, and whadda they care about some idiot kids getting arrested or killed?”
"Yeah, but what kind of dirty work would he need us for?" Shen asked in answer.
Inu-yasha paused to give her a look. Wasn’t it obvious? “He’s not exactly throwing any punches from that wheelchair, is he? Whatever his battles are, it’s not like he’ll be the one fighting them.”
"But how do you know they're not the battles he says they are?" Shen insisted, grabbing a peach next.
“Does it matter?” Inu-yasha dropped the last of the apple pieces in, looking at her skeptically. “I don’t fight other people’s battles, an’ I’m not gonna get myself killed for some rich old man sittin’ in mansion.”
Shen made a face. "You're the one who said I was falling for it. There's nothing to fall for if his battles are the ones he says they are - which happens to make them my battles, too."
“You think so?” Inu-yasha drawled, crossing his arms over his chest. “He’s got you ready to bleed for him. You think he’s gonna do the same for you?” No way. The old man would keep his hands clean.
"That's beyond the point," Shen replied firmly, still working on that peach. "The battles he says he wants us to fight, they're battles I want to fight." It didn't mean she would trust him blindly, but she was definitely giving this a try.
“Huh? What the hell does someone like you have to fight for?” he asked bluntly. She didn’t have to fight, she had all the things she needed, and she wasn’t the greedy type trying to get ahead.
"Shit, I don't know, equal rights?" Shen retorted with a frown.
“What? How?” Inu-yasha wasn’t wholly oblivious to the idea, but it wasn’t like there was someone to punch for that.
"By showing the baselines we can be a force for good," Shen replied, cutting the peach into cubes. "We can do crazy, incredible, dangerous shit. If we don't get ahead of it, they'll have us locked up before we know what's going on."
Inu-yasha’s head tilted to the side, considering. That... halfway made sense. “Dunno about this ‘force for good’ crap,” he told her, blunt as always, “but showin’ ‘em what we can do makes sense I guess.”
"Showing them what we can do for them," Shen amended his statement. "You wanna grab some strawberries?"
Inu-yasha sputtered for a moment. "Whadda ya mean, for them?!"
"Helping others," Shen replied simply. "I know it's a brand new concept, but try to wrap your mind around it." Seriously. There was only so much 'I've lived my whole life on the streets' could excuse.
"We were talking about fighting," Inu-yasha replied with a little growl.
"Yes," Shen confirmed. "Fighting to help others, that's what he says he wants us to do. Strawberries."
"How do you help others by fighting?" he asked gruffly, so focused on the conversation that he barely noticed himself going to get the strawberries from the refrigerator. "That doesn't even make sense, fighting is all about hurting people."
"Fighting can be about stopping bad people from hurting others," Shen pointed out. "Don't tell me you never helped out another kid on the street."
Inu-yasha growled softly, handing her the berries but not actually responding.
"What?" Shen asked with a genuine frown, then turned to wash the strawberries in the sink.
"Nothing," he replied defensively, turning too look away even though she wasn't looking at him.
"No, seriously, what?" Shen asked more quietly, only glancing at him as she worked.
Inu-yasha seemed to chew his words for a long moment before responding, quiet but gruff, “How’d you know that?”
"I didn't," Shen answered, a lot more quietly than she would normally have. This felt like 'minefield' territory. "It's just what anyone decent would do, at one point or another."
He glared at the wall. "Well I'm not," he growled back. He didn't want her getting any ideas about that.
"What's wrong with having helped someone else out?" Shen asked with raised eyebrows, then brought the strawberries to the table to cut them into the salad.
“I’m not nice, an’ I don’t help people,” Inu-yasha shot back angrily.
"Clearly you do," Shen told him, grabbing a knife to hull and cut up the strawberries. She was scowling at them as she worked, however. "I don't know why you're so unable to see that this is a place where you can admit to being nice - if only on occasion, in your case. I mean, no one's picked on you because of your ears, right?"
"No one's dumb enough because I'd beat the crap out of them," he replied, growling a warning at her. "And I never did it to be nice, because I'm not - I'm only looking out for me, got that?"
"No one wants to pick on you, seriously," Shen retorted, glaring at him now. She hated being growled at. "You're being an idiot again."
“What? Am not!” Having no idea how childish he sounded, Inu-yasha pressed on. “I’m tellin’ it like it is. S’not my fault you don’t get it.”
"No one knows that you'd manage to beat the crap out of them, so they're not picking on you because they don't want to," Shen replied crossly. "And you just admitted to helping kids out, so stop pretending you didn't. Seriously." She could so see why Clarice had dumped him in the lake that one time.
"What do you know about it anyway," Inu-yasha demanded angrily, hitting his hand on the table, making it shake (shit, he hadn't meant to do that).
Shen liked to think of herself as a strong woman - or girl, whatever. But it didn't mean that she didn't start when Inu-Yasha hit the table that hard, or that she could help the very, very unwelcome flash of fear at that small display of violence from someone as strong as him, who could do that much damage. She'd lived a lot of her life as a tiny Asian chick who could not kick ass in the physical way.
But no longer. She locked away that fear and glared at him, wings tensing behind her. "Don't you pull that with me."
"Huh?" He hadn't been threatening her, just frustrated and angry (neither of which were abating at all), but he was surprised when she flinched. Argh, not that it changed anything!
"You don't get violent around me - not even against furniture," Shen told him flatly. The fruit salad had been temporarily forgotten, a few strawberries still needed to be added. "As for what I know about it - everything you've told me. Grow up."
"You don't know shit," he growled back at her, glaring fiercely. Like some girl could understand why things like this mattered. "Dammit, I don't need this crap!" He turned away and stalked out of the kitchen. He needed to get outside and hit something.
Shen glared after him, then made a very, very frustrated noise at the empty kitchen. Now she had way too much fruit salad for just her; she'd take it back to her room to see if Jeanne-Marie wanted to share. So she went back to the strawberries, jaw working with frustration - at both him, and herself.
