The Smell of Blood: A RK Short Story
Thought I might try my hand at some quick Rurouni Kenshin stories. I need to inspire myself I guess as I have a full chaptered story to complete and all... As it happens, I've been watching rk_challenge for ages and never joined or participated. I'm giving it a go now. Not for winning or prizes, but for the mental stimulation and the weapon in a war against writter's block. As it happens, this challenge is outdated anyway, but I'll still post it.
Title: The Smell of Blood
Author: Azuhra (Daughter of Chaos on FF.net)
Prompt: Fragrance
Rating: T
Word Count: 1851
Character(s): Sanosuke
Summary: Sanosuke thinks of the fragrances that please him, the scents the disquiet him, and the one time the smell of blood might have been helpful. T for Sano's potty thoughts and some mentioned Kenshin whump.
A/N: I feel like I might have slightly missed the point on this one, as fragrance refers to good smelling things. I did mention good smelling things. I just wound up focusing on blood. I hope that works anyway?
The Smell of Blood
There were smells that could take you away to far away lands and far-away thoughts. For some those would be romantic thoughts and pictures of smooth skin and fine features. For others those wondrous smells that made a man think of wondrous things involved well cooked food and the stale smell of sweat and sake that permeated his favorite drinking hole.
Sanosuke generally fell into the second category of things. Not that he didn't think of smooth skin and fine features given time to himself and no companion to share his cot for a month or two, but scent didn't typically trigger it. However, good food and the fragrance that could bring him set his stomach rumbling and his mouth salivating. And stale sweat combined with stale sake promised a fun evening in either getting drunk or enjoying a great bar fight - which incidentally both ranked pretty highly on his list of things to do.
There were other smells though, stronger smells, that brought things to mind that had no business being there. Not that the smells themselves were necessarily more potent in their ability to waft through a room and wipe out everything behind them. It was just that they were stronger in how the possessed a man's mind and took over his thoughts and actions after coming into contact with his nostrils. There were certain of these scents that probably affected everyone, like the smell of a house burning down or a corpse decomposing. There were others that affected a much smaller population of people.
The ever permeating scent of blood being among them.
Sanosuke knew the sight of it tended to turn most folks, but not all that many knew the smell of it without first identifying it with their eyes. He certainly could. He knew Kenshin could too.
Really you wouldn't think it's be an important distinction whether anyone could smell blood and know that coppery twang for what it was without a second thought or not. Turns out, it really is important and even occasionally useful. Such as when Kenshin decided to go and get himself purposefully kidnapped to save Jou-chan and the brat from a slightly more clever than usual Tokyo gang.
Sanosuke allowed them the slight cleverness for having drugged Kenshin before taking him and having forced him to take the drug by his own hand. The position with Kaoru and Yahiko really must have been compromising was all Sano could figure on this. Really, why else would Kenshin do it? Not that it mattered right then. What matted then was Yahiko's gasping explanation of events to a stunned Sanosuke as he stood outside his apartment row house. That and Jou-chan's haunted eyes and fidgeting hands.
Well hell, Kenshin was in trouble, of course Sanosuke was coming with them to rescue him. Not so much for the rescue, he told himself, as to knock the man a good one for adventuring without the street ruffian by his side - again. After all, Kenshin wasn't much the type to need rescuing. He was tough and durable and frighteningly resourceful. He'd probably be free of both drug and restraints by the time the trio arrived and have all ready taken down the gang all on his own.
All the same, Sano knew the gang and their favorite haunt. Worse, he knew their reputation. Despite his head reassuring him of Kenshin's relative safety, his heart urged his feet and those of his two companions to run all the faster. Because yes he was taking them with him. He had too. How could he protect them from potential backlash in this venture if they weren't in his line of sight?
They broke into the much abused manor house on the outskirts of East Tokyo by way of Sanosuke's fist. The left one of course, the right one was still healing and that lady doctor would have his hide for breaking it - again. The gang, such as the sentries visible were, were present and notably shocked by the entrance. Sanosuke flew into the great room with a whirl of fists, elbows, and feet and noted absently the vocalizations of sword techniques as Kaoru and Yahiko pounded down a couple of gang members with their wooden swords.
Despite an easy victory, or perhaps because of it, Sanosuke felt as though something heavy had dropped into his belly. Why hadn't Kenshin taken this lot out on his own yet? Was it possible the man was still under the influence of whatever drug they had forced him to take? Of course as he moved through the dilapidated building with his two shadows on his heels, Sano realized it couldn't all be this easy. And it wasn't. He was rewarded with a couple of decent fights on his way through. Nothing Kyoto level, of course (he feared he'd never see that sort of excitement again, really), but they made his heart rate increase and a light sweat to break out on his skin.
It would have felt good were Kenshin at his side. It should have felt good anyway, the punching and the kicking and the sheer joy of the fight. Sanosuke found he wasn't used to worrying after others in the middle of enjoyable things though, found he didn't like having the taste of good combat gone sour in his throat for burning concern for his friend. As such he didn't take his time in the fights. He didn't loiter. If he couldn't enjoy it he determinedly made it quick. Apparently Kaoru and Yahiko caught on to this as they said nothing in his wake.
The last of the gang in the building (though certainly not the last in the gang, the rats had abandoned the ship on finding Storm Sagara Sanosuke blowing through the place. They'd have to do more hunting at a later point) was finally dispatched. The man's wild eyed last ditch effort to cover himself and his track was to announce that they wouldn't be able to see what the couldn't find as he dashed his kerosine lantern to pieces down the flight of stone stairs to the black cellar below the manor.
If nothing else, it made it blatantly obvious as to where Kenshin was.
Sanosuke wanted to tell the younger two in his rag-tag group to stay on ground floor in in the light of the fading afternoon. By the determined looks on both faces he knew it'd be a lost cause though. Yahiko, fast fingered kid that he was, filched a candle and a match from somewhere and Sanosuke lead them into the cellar.
And Sagara Sanosuke knew with in a few feet of the stairs what was in that cellar. It was a scent that sorted itself above and beyond the kerosine spill on the steps and the musty dampness of the room. It was blood. Probably not a lot of it, that would have been even more coppery in his nose, but there all the same.
Which would be when this was one of the few times that knowing that smell quite so intimately proved useful. He held up a forestalling hand to his two charges even as the flickering candle light dimly showed the magenta clothed form of his samurai friend. “He's hurt. We'll need a tourniquet of some sort and then to get him out of this cold as quick as possible.”
Yahiko eyed him askance as Jou-chan's face paled. “Your sure about that? We haven't even found him ye...”
Sano pointed to the figure he could barely make out on the floor and both of the other two charged in with out further conversation. He'd smelled the blood and provided as much warning of the fact to these two innocents as he could. It was enough. The panic was a dull roar instead of a wild fire and they had quickly bandaged Kenshin's bleeding right leg before Sanosuke hauled the still unconscious rurouni over his shoulder and back out into day light.
They returned to the dojo and sent the brat to fetch the lady doctor. Which was good, he needed doctoring. After having laid Kenshin out in his room, Sanosuke seated himself in an ungainly sprawl across the engawa outside. He desperately tried to imagine the sweet fragrance of Megumi's bean paste or that western cake he'd spied at a stand the other day. Anything to clear his pallet of...
Yahiko, his usefulness indoors apparently at an end, took a fidgeting seat beside Sanosuke, interrupting his thoughts. “How did you know he was hurt before even seeing him?”
Sanosuke twitched a crooked grin at the younger boy. “Do you know what blood smells like?”
Title: The Smell of Blood
Author: Azuhra (Daughter of Chaos on FF.net)
Prompt: Fragrance
Rating: T
Word Count: 1851
Character(s): Sanosuke
Summary: Sanosuke thinks of the fragrances that please him, the scents the disquiet him, and the one time the smell of blood might have been helpful. T for Sano's potty thoughts and some mentioned Kenshin whump.
A/N: I feel like I might have slightly missed the point on this one, as fragrance refers to good smelling things. I did mention good smelling things. I just wound up focusing on blood. I hope that works anyway?
The Smell of Blood
There were smells that could take you away to far away lands and far-away thoughts. For some those would be romantic thoughts and pictures of smooth skin and fine features. For others those wondrous smells that made a man think of wondrous things involved well cooked food and the stale smell of sweat and sake that permeated his favorite drinking hole.
Sanosuke generally fell into the second category of things. Not that he didn't think of smooth skin and fine features given time to himself and no companion to share his cot for a month or two, but scent didn't typically trigger it. However, good food and the fragrance that could bring him set his stomach rumbling and his mouth salivating. And stale sweat combined with stale sake promised a fun evening in either getting drunk or enjoying a great bar fight - which incidentally both ranked pretty highly on his list of things to do.
There were other smells though, stronger smells, that brought things to mind that had no business being there. Not that the smells themselves were necessarily more potent in their ability to waft through a room and wipe out everything behind them. It was just that they were stronger in how the possessed a man's mind and took over his thoughts and actions after coming into contact with his nostrils. There were certain of these scents that probably affected everyone, like the smell of a house burning down or a corpse decomposing. There were others that affected a much smaller population of people.
The ever permeating scent of blood being among them.
Sanosuke knew the sight of it tended to turn most folks, but not all that many knew the smell of it without first identifying it with their eyes. He certainly could. He knew Kenshin could too.
Really you wouldn't think it's be an important distinction whether anyone could smell blood and know that coppery twang for what it was without a second thought or not. Turns out, it really is important and even occasionally useful. Such as when Kenshin decided to go and get himself purposefully kidnapped to save Jou-chan and the brat from a slightly more clever than usual Tokyo gang.
Sanosuke allowed them the slight cleverness for having drugged Kenshin before taking him and having forced him to take the drug by his own hand. The position with Kaoru and Yahiko really must have been compromising was all Sano could figure on this. Really, why else would Kenshin do it? Not that it mattered right then. What matted then was Yahiko's gasping explanation of events to a stunned Sanosuke as he stood outside his apartment row house. That and Jou-chan's haunted eyes and fidgeting hands.
Well hell, Kenshin was in trouble, of course Sanosuke was coming with them to rescue him. Not so much for the rescue, he told himself, as to knock the man a good one for adventuring without the street ruffian by his side - again. After all, Kenshin wasn't much the type to need rescuing. He was tough and durable and frighteningly resourceful. He'd probably be free of both drug and restraints by the time the trio arrived and have all ready taken down the gang all on his own.
All the same, Sano knew the gang and their favorite haunt. Worse, he knew their reputation. Despite his head reassuring him of Kenshin's relative safety, his heart urged his feet and those of his two companions to run all the faster. Because yes he was taking them with him. He had too. How could he protect them from potential backlash in this venture if they weren't in his line of sight?
They broke into the much abused manor house on the outskirts of East Tokyo by way of Sanosuke's fist. The left one of course, the right one was still healing and that lady doctor would have his hide for breaking it - again. The gang, such as the sentries visible were, were present and notably shocked by the entrance. Sanosuke flew into the great room with a whirl of fists, elbows, and feet and noted absently the vocalizations of sword techniques as Kaoru and Yahiko pounded down a couple of gang members with their wooden swords.
Despite an easy victory, or perhaps because of it, Sanosuke felt as though something heavy had dropped into his belly. Why hadn't Kenshin taken this lot out on his own yet? Was it possible the man was still under the influence of whatever drug they had forced him to take? Of course as he moved through the dilapidated building with his two shadows on his heels, Sano realized it couldn't all be this easy. And it wasn't. He was rewarded with a couple of decent fights on his way through. Nothing Kyoto level, of course (he feared he'd never see that sort of excitement again, really), but they made his heart rate increase and a light sweat to break out on his skin.
It would have felt good were Kenshin at his side. It should have felt good anyway, the punching and the kicking and the sheer joy of the fight. Sanosuke found he wasn't used to worrying after others in the middle of enjoyable things though, found he didn't like having the taste of good combat gone sour in his throat for burning concern for his friend. As such he didn't take his time in the fights. He didn't loiter. If he couldn't enjoy it he determinedly made it quick. Apparently Kaoru and Yahiko caught on to this as they said nothing in his wake.
The last of the gang in the building (though certainly not the last in the gang, the rats had abandoned the ship on finding Storm Sagara Sanosuke blowing through the place. They'd have to do more hunting at a later point) was finally dispatched. The man's wild eyed last ditch effort to cover himself and his track was to announce that they wouldn't be able to see what the couldn't find as he dashed his kerosine lantern to pieces down the flight of stone stairs to the black cellar below the manor.
If nothing else, it made it blatantly obvious as to where Kenshin was.
Sanosuke wanted to tell the younger two in his rag-tag group to stay on ground floor in in the light of the fading afternoon. By the determined looks on both faces he knew it'd be a lost cause though. Yahiko, fast fingered kid that he was, filched a candle and a match from somewhere and Sanosuke lead them into the cellar.
And Sagara Sanosuke knew with in a few feet of the stairs what was in that cellar. It was a scent that sorted itself above and beyond the kerosine spill on the steps and the musty dampness of the room. It was blood. Probably not a lot of it, that would have been even more coppery in his nose, but there all the same.
Which would be when this was one of the few times that knowing that smell quite so intimately proved useful. He held up a forestalling hand to his two charges even as the flickering candle light dimly showed the magenta clothed form of his samurai friend. “He's hurt. We'll need a tourniquet of some sort and then to get him out of this cold as quick as possible.”
Yahiko eyed him askance as Jou-chan's face paled. “Your sure about that? We haven't even found him ye...”
Sano pointed to the figure he could barely make out on the floor and both of the other two charged in with out further conversation. He'd smelled the blood and provided as much warning of the fact to these two innocents as he could. It was enough. The panic was a dull roar instead of a wild fire and they had quickly bandaged Kenshin's bleeding right leg before Sanosuke hauled the still unconscious rurouni over his shoulder and back out into day light.
They returned to the dojo and sent the brat to fetch the lady doctor. Which was good, he needed doctoring. After having laid Kenshin out in his room, Sanosuke seated himself in an ungainly sprawl across the engawa outside. He desperately tried to imagine the sweet fragrance of Megumi's bean paste or that western cake he'd spied at a stand the other day. Anything to clear his pallet of...
Yahiko, his usefulness indoors apparently at an end, took a fidgeting seat beside Sanosuke, interrupting his thoughts. “How did you know he was hurt before even seeing him?”
Sanosuke twitched a crooked grin at the younger boy. “Do you know what blood smells like?”