What Counts...

~*~
I stood there in my towel staring at my reflection in the mirror. I wanted to touch her, but I could not. How could I hold such perfection, not at all. I could not sully her. I needed to give up on this stupid idea. I was hoping. Hoping deep down that Robin would love me, and somehow I knew she did. And that made me want to smack myself between the eyes with Sakaki’s hairbrush. No Amon. No. I was NOT in LOVE with ROBIN. No. Sorry. She could love me all she wanted, but I was a free man, she was far too young.

Now why couldn’t I just find someone else, Like I had always done, focus on…Sakaki barged in like he owned the place. (Somewhere I had the wry thought that indeed, he did.) It made me freeze like I was guilty of something when I had not really moved. Hell, the brush was still half way to my tangled hair. I forced my look of surprise to turn to a look of self-righteous indignation. (Ignore the man about to use your hairbrush.)
“Don’t you knock?” I glowered.
“Not when I have to piss this bad.”

No, he wasn’t, he couldn’t possibly be going to. Damn. He was. Right Amon, get dressed out in the hall. Go NOW. Part of me wanted to look when I heard him unsnap the top of his jeans. The other part of me beat myself for being a pervert and made my balking body stagger out into the hall. I found myself drawing big lung-full’s of air as quietly as possible. Maybe I just valued my privacy too much, the rest of the world didn’t seem to mind barging in. Maybe I was just far too private of a person. Yes, that was it, I have had little human contact in a while and I am over-reacting. And then I turned around and realized something as I stared at the closed bathroom door. I had left my clothes in the bathroom.

I found myself musing, if I fell to my knees screaming “noooo” and clutched my head as though I was birthing my inner witch; would someone from the STNJ pop out of the woodwork and blow me away? I could only hope. Now he was going to ask me what was wrong. What was wrong indeed. Dear old friend of mine, I think you have an amazing body and I think I am frighteningly attracted to you. Mind you, It wouldn’t be a long-term sort of thing but I would like to…NO I AM NOT GAY NOT GOING TO THINK ABOUT IT. My god, I was becoming perverted. Twisted. I need a vacation. Soon. (Soon I would come to see the error of that small thought.)


~*~
“Amon, man, are you ok?”
“Yes, I am fine.” I stated drolly as water from my hair trickled down my neck and making me chill in the cool of the hall.
“Are you feeling sick?” Sakaki asked quietly.
“I am fine.” I repeated stoically.
“Your clothes are back there tough guy.”
“I am aware.” I stated coldly.
And it made him pout. My god. My stomach flipped. He was beautiful when he pouted. Fuck! I clamped down on the unruly trail of thought. I did not have feelings for him. I was merely distracting myself from Robin, and my feelings for her were purely based on the fact that I felt guilty. That was it. Yes. Exactly. I misplacing feelings of protectorship with wanting to love her, and I was misplacing wanting Sakaki with wanting sex in general. I was cold, yes, but I was not dead yet. That was all. Really.

~*~
I though he had been hit. My stomach clenched and I did something I had not done since rookie-dome. I froze. I could not shoot, I could not think, and if Sakaki had not popped back up from behind several warehouse crates and took out the witch, I could have been dead. I stared at the witch slumped on the ground. And half turned for a moment to view the sharp iron bar that had embedded itself in the wall to the right of my head. It was still making a soft ‘twang’ as it vibrated in the wall. I had just hesitated. This of course, made me hete ste some more. I think my mouth was hanging open.
“Amon?” Sakaki asked quietly as he held his gun to his side and slid up beside me, looking, subtly, trying to see what was making me stand here like a goldfish out of water.
“Amon?” He asked again, this time quieter. I was shaking again, I had had a flashback that could have gotten me killed, more importantly gotten Sakaki killed. I had...just hesitated. He touched my shoulder sympathetically as he had to actually steer me from where I stood. I couldn’t move, hardly could breathe. I was terrified and there was no particular reason why.
“It happens to everyone sometimes.” Sakaki said gently, trying to soothe me though I would not...could not speak. He helped me to the passenger seat of my car, insisting on driving after the factories van’s had cleared out.

~*~
I cursed. This of course made an overjoyed and currently dancing Sakaki stop and look at me strangely. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?
“We are going on vacation together Amon! How do the beaches of Miami sound good buddy old pal?”
Dear God. This wasn’t going to be a vacation. It was going to be a nightmare.
“I have no wish to go to America.” I stated coldly. “My English is horrible and I have no wish to leave when there is so much that needs to be done…”
“Uhm, really, we all get a vacation thanks to you Amon.” Doujima laughed.
I shot her an icy glare. Her laughter died in her throat. I did not want to fly to America. I did not want to go to this “Miami”; if Sakaki was excited about it then it was SO not the place for me.
“Are you sure that there isn’t a flight to Norway available…Alaska? That’s in America isn’t it?”
Everyone was looking at me like ‘haha, did Amon just make a funny?’ I wanted to tell them I was not kidding. Anywhere with polar ice caps was preferable to any amount of time on a plane with Sakaki. Why could we not vacation separately? Why? I knew the answer. The boss thought I was loosing my mind. I was a valued member of this organization, so to cater to the psychopath, the whole office was on forced leave. What did they think I was. Dense? Well, let them think what they wanted. I was going to the boss with this. I was NOT going. There was going to be hell to pay.
~*~
At least I got the window seat.
Sakaki had bored of my Laurel K. Hamilton Novel * and had passed out. Mind you, I had finished it two hours ago, it had taken eight hours for Sakaki’s Game Boy to run out of batteries. He had read for an hour, riveted, making funny facial gestures that he was more than likely completely unaware of in his boyish enthusiasm. And then he had mercifully passed out on my shoulder. This would earn me eight hours of respite if I was lucky.

It turned out, Sakaki had a serious phobia involving trans-Atlantic flights. Looking down and seeing water had induced a white knuckled terror in him. Fortunately, the flight was not full, so we each had two seats to ourselves so he had moved away from the window. This of course, had not stopped him from spreading out like a well-fed cat and oozing into my seat. He had three seats to himself and his feet were out in the isle. The flight staff looked quite annoyed at first, but even they had had to loose that angry expression after a careful glance. He was damn cute when he was asleep. But you did not hear that from me.

I wanted to stand and stretch. Eleven hours and I had a cramp. Only eight more hours to go. Before we switched flights in California in the US. ** Then god only knew how long before we made it to the tip of the far eastern coast line. There was a moment of turbulence that eventually jostled Sakaki from my shoulder to my lap. He slid there with a whine of protest, but then refused to move. I did not want to wake him, he might make a scene, for himself and for me. So I did what I could. I moved my pillow, sliding it under his head, kicked my seat back (Much to the chagrin of the person behind me.) and prepared to let him be like that. It gave me a chance to at least horizontally stretch the kink out of my back. Whatever…this was heI waI was in hell. Sakaki’s grand total seat count was now at four. Dammit.

~*~
TBC
A/N: Thanks for reading this far, your reviews are appreciated. You guys are the best, as always ^_^
* All hail Anita Blake novels. Laurell K. Hamilton writes them and owns the characters, and kudo’s to those who caught my reference in the first chapter ^ ~

** I do not know the exact amount of time, as I do not know what part of Japan they flew out of, or which terminal they came into in California, I simply do not know, so I can only guess, and if I am off by a few hours, consider it a layover somewhere obscure like the middle of the ocean. It happens XD [not in the middle fo the ocean, but use your imagination!!] (I think its 19 hours roughly, from Japan to California) but If someone knows, please let me know, it would if nothing else, be a point of interest.