Gunarm (part 2 of 19)

a Burst Angel fanfiction by Sakurazukamori6

Back to Part 1
"Who wants seconds?" Kyouhei, with platter in hand, and a smile on his 
face served the three women he had gotten to know very well for this 
past year...well actually women and...child...oh and Jo, who was kind of 
like a...not really feminine, but still a woman, but not so much...

"I do, I do." Amy with a spirited wave called him over, and as he 
brought a plate over he tried to dodge the gadgets that were littered on 
the floor in front of her.

Sei noticing his plight turned to Amy, "Amy, this isn't your room, 
please pick up after yourself when you're done here."

It always amazed Kyouhei when he heard Sei, who was all business, talk 
in such a warm manner that incited within him thoughts of a mother 
explaining to a child, or a big sister kindly guiding her younger sister 
to the correct answer.

"Why?" Although sometimes it amazed him even more that Amy didn't have 
one shred of understanding when it came to normal human logic, as in 
when you made a mess after yourself, you were supposed to clean up after 
yourself.

"Meg, are you feeling alright? You haven't touched your dinner."

Meg, who had a sour look on her face, was gently prodding at her food 
with her silverware.

"I'll pass, I'm not in the mood for curry tonight. My stomach hurts."

He didn't know why he'd done it, but it was like a reflex when he turned 
suddenly to stare at Jo's reaction to Meg's condition. He really didn't 
know why, but he'd found that his eyes lately would be drifting over to 
Jo every time something concerning Meg came up. He didn't know if it was 
interest in what the other thought, because he could admit to himself 
that Jo was a very interesting person, which seemed like the 
understatement of the year. It was probably because Jo barely expressed 
any type of emotion, so when she did, it was like some kind of 
miracle...or disaster depending on the expression she was giving.

So when Kyouhei turned to study the countenance of Jo it seemed that the 
favors for a nice, quiet, evening meal were being slowly destroyed, and 
tipped in the favor of the Jo's disaster he had been alluding to 
earlier, because right now Jo kind of looked...annoyed.

And annoyed and Jo didn't go well together. It was gasoline and matches; 
you just didn't put them together unless you wanted an explosive 
reaction. It was strange to read an emotion like annoyance on Jo's 
usually blank, impassive features. It was almost like some kind of freak 
show that you couldn't peel your eyes away from, even though you really 
wanted to...not that Jo was freakish looking, heaven's no, but the 
situation...

"Is there something on my face?"

Kyouhei instantly jabbed himself out of his thoughts with a quick nod of 
the head, "No, uh I was just..." Well this was just embarrassing.

"Just what?"

This was bad. Jo sounded both annoyed and curious, and that to Kyouhei 
seemed like a bad combination of foreign emotions he would rather not 
have Jo displaying. He'd seen what Jo could do when she was curious. Not 
that it happened a lot, but when it did, and she couldn't kill something 
with just bullets, it seemed she liked to find other ways of seeking out 
their weaknesses. Other ways that usually involved a lot of bloody trial 
and error.

"Geez Jo, lay off the guy. He looks like he's about to wet himself with 
your interrogation."

Now Kyouhei had expected this remark from cute Amy-chan, who had a weird 
way of diffusing a situation with some of her sometimes mean, but really 
harmless jokes, and he would have continued to think it had come from 
Amy, if he hadn't been for the voice recognition and the visual of Meg 
saying these words with a bit more bite than warranted if it had just 
been a joke.

Jo's attention shifted from him to Meg so quickly that you would have 
thought her narrowed crimson eyes had always been on Meg. Blue eyes, 
under a spray of red hair narrowed back, and Kyouhei felt like he and 
the rest of them were caught between a very dangerous staring contests.

Damn, where were those big glowing brain things when you needed one? 
Because right now he'd rather have that distraction than deal with two 
very gun handy women.

Jo's fork dropped into her plate.

Meg continued to stare at Jo, and the quiet that existed in the dining 
room made for a pretty powerful weapon, one that Kyouhei thought would 
be the death of him.

"Meg?" With that one syllable, Kyouhei and just about everybody else in 
the room were holding their breath.

"What?" What was going on with Meg today, usually she was much more 
nicer when she talked to Jo. This was too strange.

Jo, who was still looking down at her plate, and her lonely fork began 
to get up from her chair. She set her plate on the coffee table, and 
then was walking out the door. She looked back at Meg as she exited the 
RV, and it wasn't hard to figure out that she wanted the redhead to 
follow her.

Meg got up, set her plate down with a bit more force than necessary, 
then stomped out of the room, slamming the door behind her and clanging 
down the three steps that separated the RV from the ground.

Kyohei realized that his mouth was a little open. He looked around and 
saw that no one had noticed. Good. He closed it, and he saw Amy picking 
at her food as if the little girl had lost her appetite, which had to be 
just about as strange a sight as Meg and Jo fighting. She picked at her 
curry some more, and then with a tiny shrug of her shoulders she turned 
to look at the other occupants in the room.

"Lover's spat." Amy seemed to consider the words she used to describe 
the situation, which again was quite a sight since the smallest member 
of the group didn't have any tact when it came to choosing her words. 
She shrugged her shoulders again as if she thought it was fine, and then 
she shoved her spoon into her mouth with relish and began chewing 
noisily.

Sei said nothing, and Kyohei watched the door silently as he picked at 
his food.
"If this ain't important Jo, then I'm going back inside." Meg's words 
were met by Jo's silence, and if there were anything that Meg thought 
would set her off tonight it would have to be Jo's indifference. She 
wasn't going to stand for any of this, well not anymore.

"What's wrong with you?" Dear god, it speaks.

"What's wrong with me? I was just having a quiet meal. What's wrong with 
YOU!" There was nothing Wrong with her, so what, she might be a little 
annoyed with Jo for being wintry with her these past couple of days, but 
that was her right. She had every right to be angry. Stupid Jo, she 
could just-

"Your attitude is starting to-" Jo stopped and then looked at Meg as if 
she would provide the missing words to this dilemma.

"To what?" And dammit, if Jo said she was annoying, she swore, she'd hit 
her. She'd slap her right across the face, or kick her in the shins.

"Starting to...suck." Well that was unexpected. Jo was trying out new 
words.

"Suck?" But even though it was a new word it still meant the say thing 
as annoying. Jo could take her new word and shove it up her-

"Yes. It's bothering me."

"I'm," she paused and then pointed at herself as if this was 
unfathomable...because it was. These past few days, Jo, not her had been 
the...sucky one. She was so not sucky. If anything she was patient and 
forgiving and unsucky. "Bothering you? Are you kidding me Jo? You've 
been avoiding me these past days. How the hell could I BOTHER you when I 
haven't even been around you?"

"Meg." Nuh uh, not this again.

"Don't think I'm jus' goin' t'roll over just because you're using that 
tone with me. Because I'm not Jo, so don't try to bully me."

"I'm not trying to bully you." Jo sounded like she would rather use her 
guns to solve this problem than good ole fashioned words. Well good, it 
was high time she learned how to have a normal conversation, or a normal 
fight instead of it having to blow up, literally.

"Look Jo, I think I'm being the bigger person here," by the look Jo was 
giving her, she seemed to disagree. "And as the bigger person here, I 
think I deserve an apology, or an explanation to why you've been 
avoiding me these past few days." There, that sounded pretty good to 
her, more than good. She sounded level headed, cool, and confident. 
Damn, if Jo wasn't impressed then she didn't know what to do.

Jo didn't look impressed, but she did look a little guilty. Ah ha! Now 
it was only a matter of what technique Meg had to use to drag the truth 
out of her. She could cry but that was kinda dirty, but hell she wasn't 
past using it on Jo. Not when the other girl had hurt her feelings 
enough to warrant real tears. Why would Jo avoid her? It had been 
tearing up at her for day now. It was why she had bags under her eyes.

"I...Meg," Jo sounded kind of tired as she said her name. She sighed, 
and then sat down on the steps of the RV. "Meg, I haven't been around 
because," I had to save the world. I had to clean my guns. Django needed 
repairs. I watched a whole marathon of Zombie Hell because it seemed 
like the thing to do. Meg was sure that Jo's explanation was within one 
of these phrases, and if it wasn't it was close enough. "Because I 
thought I should give you some room."

"Room?" Okay this was getting confusing real fast. "Room, I have a room, 
it's right next to yours. It has pink curtains. It has a nice big bed. 
It has plush pillows."

Jo shook her head.

"I don't mean that." Jo appeared conflicted. She looked like she was 
having trouble explaining herself, which was a far cry away from her 
normal cool and collected self. What would she have trouble explaining? 
Jo stretched her hands apart staring at them like she had never seen 
them in her life. Like they were the most interesting things on this 
side of the planet. It looked like she was judging the physical space 
between her hands and the troubled expression on her face made it seem 
like they were millions of miles apart instead of a couple of inches.

Meg didn't know if she was talking about Jo's hands, or her and Jo 
anymore.

Onwards to Part 3


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