This fic is my second attempt at writing with someone else. Kathy's such a sweetie she convinced me to give it another try, and so far it's been a lot of fun!  Please direct comments to both of us -- we look forward to hearing what you think!

Sano's eyes opened the tinniest crack, and reinforced what his brain was trying to tell him.  He didn't want to wake up.  Even the dim sunlight of his room lanced through the shadows to torture him, and he tried to suppress a groan as his eyes slid closed again.  He struggled to sink back down into oblivion, whether it was to sleep, or just to die.  At this point he wasn't sure which state would be preferable.  Sano prided himself on his capacity for alcohol, but this time he had even outdone himself.  Gods!!  Even his hair hurt!  And his stomach . . . He knew from long experience that the less he thought about his nausea, the better off he would be.

Desperately fleeing consciousness, he let his mind drift where it would, and soon it returned to the events of the evening before.  Caught between the realms of dream and memory, his retrospection had a curiously real feel to it . . . Well, up to a point anyway.  After that point the recollection became maddeningly elusive.  He slipped the slightest bit closer to awareness as he tried to remember exactly what had gone on the previous night.  His aching brown furrowed as he struggled.

He remembered drinking.  He remembered drinking with . . . Kenshin!  That's right!  He had been amazed at the amount of sake the Rurouni could put away.  Why, he was almost matching Sano drink for drink!  Sano spared a sympathetic thought for his friend.  He was sure that Jou-chan had wasted no time in plaguing Kenshin if he had anything approaching the hangover Sano had.  Sano shuddered.  At least he got to suffer in the dim quiet of his own room . . . with no Jou-chan, and no Yahiko to give him hell.

And suddenly the warm body pressed against his back turned to throw a careless arm around his waist.  Sano nearly jumped out of his skin . . . the sudden motion not doing anything to improve the condition of either his head or his stomach.  Subconsciously he had been aware that she was there, but his nearly incapacitated senses hadn't managed to process the knowledge into rational thought just yet.

Kuso!!  How did this happen?  I don't even remember which girl I was talking to!!  Oh no!!  It could be anyone!  His belly spasmed again at the thought of the horror that might be snuggled against his back.  A quick inventory ascertained that he was still nearly fully clothed, missing only his jacket, which he could see lying in an untidy heap just out of arms reach.  That brought a small sigh of relief.  Still . . . he had to figure out how to get rid of this stranger in his bed.  Hopefully she had been just as drunk as he was at the time, and would be just as embarrassed this morning.  Embarrassment meant a quick retreat, and that was just what Sano wanted.

Gathering his courage, he stealthily rolled over in his partner's embrace, careful not to wake her as her slender arm remained wrapped around his waist.  Let's at least get a look at who it is.  If she's too dreadful I can always sneak out, and hide at the dojo until she decides to leave here.  And if she's not so bad . . . No!  It's not Megumi, so . . . He had already decided that it was the Fox, or no one for him, but damned if it hadn't been no one for a very long time now . . . He finally managed to get turned over enough to view his unwelcome visitor.

The figure wasn't ugly... quite the opposite, in fact.  The features were fine and delicate, the skin lovely, with long lashes curling gently against the cheeks of the sleeping face.  The hair, which had obviously come unbound during the night, was a silken banner, wrapping and twining itself around slender shoulders.  And when those deep violet eyes slowly blinked open to see him gaping in horror, Sano wasn't sure which one of them was more appalled . . . Kenshin or himself.

For a moment they were both simply stunned.  And then Sano caught Kenshin making the same inventory he had made only moments ago.  To their mutual relief, the little Rurouni was also still fully clothed . . . his gi in about the same position on his side of the futon as Sano's jacket was on his.  Thinking about it later, Sano felt it was a shame that Kenshin didn't use the godspeed of Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu to get out of his bed as fast as possible, because the two men were still gaping at each other in consternation when Sano's front door slammed open.  And if the two of them thought that the situation couldn't possibly have gotten any worse . . . it did.

Sano thought he had never seen Jou-chan look so angry . . . or so hurt.  She stood there for a moment, frozen in shock, before spinning away to go running down the street.  Sano winced as the sound of her sobs came floating back to him.  And of course now Kenshin was able to move fast . . . fast enough to jerk on his shirt and be out the door before Sano could say a word.

Sano's eyes remained fastened on the doorway, where Megumi still stood, not saying a word.  She just stood there and looked at him, looked down at him, he thought.  Of all the people to see this, she had to be one of the two worse choices.  And the other one of the two was now being chased through the streets of Tokyo by Kenshin.  He sighed, and he looked back up.  Megumi was still standing there, a curiously blank expression on her face.  He squirmed uncomfortably, and was about to make some excuse when she spoke.

"I don't know what you and Kenshin got into last night, but the police were at the dojo looking for both of you this morning.  They will probably be here in just a little while."

She glanced over him once again, taking in his pale face, deeply circled eyes, and most importantly, his still clothed body, long and lean on the futon.  She had already turned to leave, so he didn't see the relief on her face when his voice stopped her.  She paused for only a moment, as she listened to him.

"Fox, this isn't what it looked like.  Nothing happened here.  I know that you know that."

"Rooster-head, I can't imagine why you think I'm interested enough to care."

The tiny smile on her face would have heartened him, but she made sure he didn't see it as she loudly *banged* the door closed behind her on her way out.

"Kuso!"

Sano fell back on the futon with the exclamation before he realized what it was going to do to his abused body . . . particularly his stomach.  That's why he was out in his back yard when the police arrived.  Deciding that he just wasn't in the mood to be answering questions right now, he put his long legs to good use, and hopped the fence into the neighbor's yard.  He cut through the yard to emerge on the street exactly one block over from his, and sighed.  He supposed he'd better get his hungover self to the dojo, and back up Kenshin's story . . . whatever it was that the Rurouni had decided to tell Jou-chan.  Things sure would be a lot easier if he could just remember what the hell they had done last night . . .

Senses fogged and throbbing from over-indulgence the night before, Kenshin turned over and pulled the warm form snuggled against his back closer to him, finding it easier to linger in dreams than to face the dim light of day filtering through the room's dirty windows.  Surely she could be nothing other than the stuff of dreams, her presence and the room nothing more than a whim of his subconscious:  wistful thoughts set free by the volume of alcohol he'd consumed the night before.  Still... the dingy room he'd spied in the brief moment his eyes were open wasn't exactly the location he normally imagined, the form under his arm far less curvaceous and womanly than he would have expected.  Puzzled -- though not overly so -- he raised drowsy lids as she turned to face him, violet eyes peering softly into a pair of horrified brown.

Disconnected facts clicked sluggishly into place, from recognition of Sano's bachelor home to the utter wrongness of the body resting under the curve of his arm.  With abnormal calm he assessed their state of undress, refusing to panic at what he knew was an absolute impossibility.  They were still staring at one another in dumbfounded confusion when the door to Sano's apartment slammed open, and Kenshin raised his gaze to meet Kaoru's startled blue stare.

Panic abruptly asserted itself as her eyes widened in hurt and filled with tears.  Giving him no chance to explain, Kaoru darted away, her pain-filled sobs loud in his hearing as Kenshin struggled to his feet and into his discarded gi.  Leaving Sano to Megumi's uncertain care, he followed after her as fast as his strangely leaden form would allow.

Stumbling to a shaky halt at the end the alley, Kenshin looked frantically for Kaoru's small form, the bright blue of her ribbon, but her brief head start had allowed her to vanish in Tokyo's busy streets.  Where would she go?  Home?  The clinic?  His worried thoughts scattered and regrouped, dismissing the more ready possibilities.  She wouldn't want to deal with Yahiko's insults, or Dr. Genzai's questions.  Somewhere private but familiar, someplace . . . With renewed purpose, he headed for the riverbank.

Kaoru huddled into herself as Kenshin's footsteps rustled through the long grass, providing just enough warning to prevent her from jumping when he seated himself on the log beside her.  Glancing at him out of the corner of her eye, she could see that his hair and gi were loose, and felt herself tear up all over again at the reminder of where she'd found him.

"Kaoru-dono, nothing happ--"

"Don't!" she interrupted, suddenly angry, pointing an accusing finger at him.  "How stupid do you think I am?!  You were in his b-bed and you h-had your arm around him!"  Her bottom lip trembled and she frowned as hard as she could in an effort to still it.  "I-it's obvious wh-what was going on wh-when we opened the door."

The entire idea was laughable, and to his horror Kenshin found himself fighting the urge to do just that.  What is wrong with me?  The sensation was both more pleasant and more unsettling than what he remembered of his last hangover.  Sake shouldn't do this . . . what were we drinking?  Focusing on Kaoru's pain-tightened profile helped to kill his humor, allowing him to speak gently and clearly despite the sluggishness of both body and mind. "I think you're very stupid if you believe anything could ever happen between ano and I." One corner of his mouth curled in a small smile as she stiffened, obviously torn between acting insulted and crumpling in relief. "Kaoru-dono," he chided, pulling her close and resting his forehead against hers, "there's only one person I want to share a futon with, and she doesn't have anything in common with Sano."  Pressing a kiss on the tip of her nose he asked almost petulantly, "Wasn't it obvious that we were horrified to realize who we were in bed with?  It was certainly obvious to me . . ."

Kaoru gave a watery giggle at his faintly offended tone, her voice muffled in soft fabric where she'd hidden her face against his chest. "Gomen nasai . . . it's just . . . when you didn't come home last night, and then the police came looking for you this morning--"

"Police?"  Kenshin pulled away to look down at her in surprise.  "Is there some sort of trouble?"  Uramura had requested his help before, but only under extreme circumstances . . .

She frowned back at him, her blue eyes concerned.  "Kenshin, the officers said you were wanted for questioning -- something about a woman disappearing after witnesses saw her talking to the two of you."  Dropping her eyes to where her hands curled gently against his chest, she hesitated a moment then asked the same question he'd been puzzling over, "What did you and Sanosuke do last night?"

"I don't know, Kaoru-dono... but I think we'd better find out before Uramura's men do."

to be continued . . .

August, 2000
CoAuthored by Kathy (mikomi2@excite.com)
and Tae (tae@sekihara.dreamhost.com)