It is well known in the Tendo household that Nabiki is not a morning person, but what is less well known is the reason why. While her current blackmail activities were very lucrative, the blackmail for money had only become a regular practice when she had shifted from using nature spirits to imps that demanded the material they gathered be used — before that she had mainly used the information collected to learn what she needed punish those “friends” that had betrayed her, then to protect herself from their anger, and their friends’ anger, and then possible attacks from acquaintances.... Not that the blackmail bothered her much, by that time she had a very jaundiced view of humanity and figured they deserved it.
At any rate, Nabiki had beeen getting increasingly paranoid over time and as a result was a very light sleeper. So when Ranma’s arms circled her, Nabiki was instantly awake, out of bed, and plastered against the wall with her hand on the light switch staring as ... a naked, sleeping redhead was sinking into her bed!? But there wasn’t anything living beneath her room to stop her.... Just as suddenly Nabiki found herself under her bed with a deathgrip around Ranma’s upper left arm just in time to keep her from sinking completely through the floor. She wriggled backwards until they were both out from underneath her bed, got up on her knees and yanked — and promptly learned one of the first lessons of any astronaut, the difference between weight and mass, as Ranma came flying out of the floor and knocked her onto her back.
Ranma came awake to find herself face to breasts with her new friend and promptly flew through the ceiling in panic, where she paused over the roof, gasping for air. What the heck!!? It must have rained where Pop and me camped. Great, now Nabiki’s gonna think I’m a total pervert. Well, might as well face the music, maybe if I grovel enough I’ll keep the only friend I got. She flew back down through the roof, her face as red as her hair and already stammering out an apology, only to gape at the sight of Nabiki practically rolling on the floor with laughter. “Um, Nabiki? What’s so funny?”
Nabiki looked up at the naked redhead floating just under her ceiling and her laughter died as she saw the mingled confusion and fear on Ranma’s face. “Ranma, what’s wrong?”
“You don’t think I’m a pervert? I know I don’t understand girls much, but don’t you usually get mad when someone grabs onto your chest? Pop certainly got a real beatdown the last time he did that by mistake.” Ranma scratched the back of her head and stared at her feet floating in the air. “Sorry ‘bout that.”
“Sorry for what? You were asleep when you arrived, and I was the one that yanked you on top of me.”
Ranma stared at Nabiki in shock. She isn’t going to blame me for it? But I always get blamed for whatever goes wrong, that’s how the world works! She felt tears welling up in her eyes and turned away from Nabiki and curled into a ball.
Nabiki stared at the crying redhead. What was the problem now!? And what did she do about it? It wasn’t like she had much (or any) practice at comforting friends, human or otherwise. She took a deep breath, calming the panic she felt rising in her chest and thought back to years ago and the last time she’d cried in front of family and remembered how Kasumi had responded. She wasn’t Kasumi, but still ... Well, the first thing was to get Ranma down from the ceiling. “Ranma, come down here.” Ranma just shook her head and curled up tighter, so Nabiki walked over and jumped up, grabbed a convenient foot, and yanked down. This time she was ready, and only staggered a bit as Ranma smacked into her arms. She walked over to her bed and sat with Ranma in her lap and just held her in her arms as the crying settled down to sniffles. “All right, Ranma, what were all the tears for?”
Ranma uncurled a bit and laid her head on Nabiki’s shoulder as she wiped at her eyes. Inside her a voice was screaming that this wasn’t proper behavior for a man among men, but the cuddling felt too good, too natural. She had a real friend!!! “All my life, whenever anything goes wrong Pop would blame it on me. And then you didn’t blame me for what happened and I was so happy, and I started crying and couldn’t stop and guys aren’t supposed to cry, girls cry, and ... and ...”
Nabiki chuckled. “Ranma, whatever you may be when you aren’t here, right now you definitely are not a guy.”
Ranma stiffened and sat up straight in Nabiki’s lap. “Hey, I’m a guy, dammit!”
“You may be male in your mind, but physically you are definitely female. And just like girls are usually weaker than guys are, so too are they more likely to cry. At least that’s how it works for humans, and from how you were acting earlier I’d say it works the same way for your type of nature spirit.”
“Really?”
Nabiki chuckled again. “Really. Just because you cry more easily like this doesn’t mean you aren’t as manly as ever when you get some hot water.”
Ranma relaxed again, laying her head back on that convenient shoulder. “Thanks, Nabiki.”
Before Nabiki had a chance to respond, her door flew open and Kasumi stepped inside. “Nabiki, is everything all right? I heard some odd noises, and voices ...” Kasumi’s voice died off as she took in the sight of her younger sister sitting on her bed in her night clothes, with a devastatingly cute, very naked redhead cuddled in her lap, and her hands flew to her mouth. “Oh my!” She stared at the frozen pair for a moment, then lowered her hands and sighed. “Nabiki, the imps are mostly harmless and the people you’ve been blackmailing usually deserve it, but this! Are you really so lonely that this is how you seek ... uhm ... companionship? And what is it costing you?”
As Nabiki’s mind raced desperately, trying to process the sudden information dump, Ranma seized on the — to her — important fact. “You can see me!?” she yelled, one hand covering her crotch while her other arm crossed over her breasts, while her face flushed as red as her hair for the second time that night.
“Yes, I can, and hear you as well,” Kasumi said with a gentle, slightly confused smile. Ranma wasn’t acting the way she would have expected a demon lover to behave. The cute demon was acting much more like an embarrassed teenager.
Nabiki sighed as her mind caught up with events, a little upset with herself for freezing like that however bizarre the night had been. “Kasumi, it isn’t what it looks like, and we need to talk.”
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(Posted Wed, 11 Mar 2009 05:50)
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