Title: Sweet Horrible Freedom
Author: S. Mark Gunther
Part: 1/1(?)
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 is not mine. If it was, Kuno would be my sex slave. And Mousse would be my lover. :D
Summary: A rather surprising decision makes for a strange state of affairs...
Archive: Yes to AAML, and the RAAC archive. Anyone else, ask
first.
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Sweet Horrible Freedom
By S. Mark Gunther

   Mousse stood just outside the park in, the early evening air swelling over his shoulders, the warmth of the day dissipating as the sun continued to set. It had been 4 days since the Nekohanten was closed for the Amazon Elder's meeting, and Mousse was set loose on the city as he was a male and males were not allowed to settle in women's business. The previous days had been a blur for the blind martial artist as he toured the city, sleeping where he could pitch his tent, and training the rest of the time. It also gave him time to think and time to plan. The times were changing, and he was not going to be left behind.

   For weeks he had seen and felt the architecture of the Nerima usuals change and shift as they grew older and grew up. Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendo's school year was coming to a conclusion and he saw less and less of them at the Nekohanten. Ukyou was having a hard time with some issues of her own creation, so went the gossip, and she was fading into the woodwork for the time being. The Kunos kept on their ways like the tides, and yet they were also evolving before everyone's eyes. Ryouga was not seen for an abnormally long time in the area and many wondered if he was all right. But the subtlest change was in Shampoo.

   On the surface she seemed almost normal, but to anyone who knew her, she was slightly off kilter and twisted inside. She appeared to be dancing the Nerima dance as well as anyone, and yet she gave off an aura of instability. Mousse felt this as they worked and argued. The arguments between had grown to an alarming pitch, and there were days that they never even said a word to one another. It was a breakup without the love. It was pain without the light at the end of the tunnel, and it tore at Mousse's heartstrings that she was devolving before him.

   He swept away a stray hair from his face as he walked down the dirt path into the park. Kids played in the soft grasses, and couples kissed and loved in the earthy cushions. It was beauty in its raw form, and yet he didn't wish for Shampoo to be there. He knew where she was, and he knew what she was doing. His heart was in turmoil, but ceasing fire for the moment. Soon he emerged in an alcove off the side of a small hilly path, and the shade from a large cherry tree cast off the last descendant rays of sunlight that fell from the sky. It was almost as if in that spot reality was given a miss and nothing seemed as it was. Like a triangular rock, it almost seemed unreal in its reality. He knew it was time.

   "Xian? Are you here?" he called out softly in Mandarin, his arms loosening the bag from his shoulders. "I'm here for you..."

   "I am here, Muu Tsu..." Shampoo emerged from the shadowy area, tears falling from her cheeks and spilling down on her mini-dress. Her eyes burned with the tired fire of a woman under undue emotional stress, and she could feel his love in the air as she came closer to him. "Are we alone?"

   "Yes. No one is here for a mile in any direction."

   "Then take me...I need you to hold me..." With that she leaped into his arms and embraced him as tightly as she could. Mousse grinned as he felt her enclose her love around him, but then sobered as he felt the wetness flow onto his shoulders. She was crying again. She was sad again. It was going to be a long night...

***

   The nightly meetings of Shampoo and Mousse had begun just after the birdman incident, and the ensuing battle that Mousse had fought for his love. Shampoo was for days racked with the thoughts of how Mousse was willing to give his life for her, and she had the audacity to scorn his advances. And yet she knew that things were not the way they could be for their love to grow. It just didn't give them the chance to love the way she knew he wanted to love. And yet she knew that if she didn't act soon, she'd lose him. She felt the distance growing between them as every hour passed upon their return to Nerima.

   Getting Mousse to a place where they could talk was difficult. After the fight, Cologne had been crueler than ever to Mousse in the hope that she could stop any chance of a seed being planted in Shampoo's heart. The tension in the restaurant was higher than ever, and yet she still had to keep up appearances. She still had to hate him on the outside and love him on the inside. The meeting was difficult, and yet when he came to the rooftop just outside Nerima's city limits she knew she was changing the dynamics of their relationship forever, for better or for worse. And she didn't care. Things had to change.

   "Mousse, you still love Shampoo?" She asked as her hand glided gently over the boy's cheekbone.

   "Of course Shampoo...why do you think I would have changed?" Mousse replied, wondering why she was asking that. She had to know how much he was willing to give up for her. She had to know.

   "Because of great-grandmother's meanness to stupid duck. She no want Shampoo talking to Mousse anymore." Her head dropped just slightly as she fought the urge to vomit inside. God, how she hated the Japanese language, the fact that she couldn't express herself smoothly was a horrible bane in her mind. She wanted to be as graceful as Mousse; she loved him enough to become him in a way.

   "Cologne doesn't bother me Shampoo. She never has."

   "But what if she try to send Mousse away?"

   "Why would she? She needs me so you can keep on chasing after that slime Ranma Saotome." Mousse spat the words out as he thought about the vile man she was engaged to. It was all he could do to not cling himself to Shampoo and beg her to run away with him. But he knew it couldn't be that way. "She needs to have a slave for her work, and males are nothing more than slaves to her."

   Shampoo shuddered visibly as the words came tumbling out of Mousse's mouth. She knew how much Mousse and Cologne mutually despised each other, and yet she had to take Cologne's side. She was her great-grandmother and her elder in the Amazon tribes. Her word was law, and yet she knew Mousse was right. "Shampoo know. Shampoo also need to know if you love her anymore?"

   "I never stopped loving you, Shampoo. If you don't know that, then you don't know me." Mousse could feel a disconcerting note in her voice and it worried him. His love was urging at him to come out, but the fear of failure he had secretly developed in his time in Nerima put up a wall that was keeping him back.

   "Then listen to me." She said in Mandarin as she came forward and slipped into his body, her thin arms clamping down onto his body. He gasped slightly and hugged her as he thought he should. This was so far from what he expected she was going to say or do. This was uncharted territory, and he merely went on feel. "I don't love you Mousse. I don't feel for you what you must feel for me."

   "Then why..." Mousse started to say but was shushed by Shampoo's fingers against his lips as she continued to speak.

   "I don't love you but I don't hate you. To love you means I have to know you the way I used to know you. I realize this now, and it scares me a little. Mousse, you nearly died fighting the birdman for me. Why didn't you leave me? It would have been easier on you..."

   "Because you're right. I do love you enough to die for you." Mousse said as he touched Shampoo's soft purple hair with his fingers. "I'm not going to stop loving you either..."

   "Then please do this for me. Let's meet in secret and reconnect as friends. I don't know you anymore, and I don't have anyone who knows me. I need a friend, not a lover." she sighed softly and buried her head into his chest, feeling the muscles hiding beneath the ornate fabric. "But what I really want is to fall in love with you all over again..."

   "You loved me before?" Mousse asked, his voice far away as he quietly ran his fingers along her back, afraid to touch her and yet fearful of letting her go. "Why didn't you...wait. I know why you didn't tell me. It was because you know I wouldn't be able to love you as a friend, just as a lusting inside of my heart. Is that it, Xian?"

   "Yes. I had to be sure that you'd love me enough to give yourself for me. I had to know I was more than a pretty face to you." Shampoo sobbed as she clung tighter to him. She felt his touch on her body and the shivers she shuddered were not of mere cold, but of the emotional wave breaking upon her emotionally jagged shore. Then his arms enfolded her in his love, and the raw affection she gave was being returned full wise to her. "Just give me time...give us time..."

   "Then we shall. It's whatever you want. I'll do it if it makes us better," Mousse replied as he tipped Shampoo's chin up slightly looking deep into her eyes. His gaze swam deep into the Amazon's soul and she warmed as she felt his care for her emanate through the look he gave. "But this one thing I must do."

   "What..." As she began to ask, Mousse's lips cut her off. Full, wet and very passionately charged, they pressed to hers and coaxed her to follow suit. She did after a moment's shock, and within a few moments the two teenagers were making out underneath the shadow of the tall trees. Passion mixed with pain, care with disdain, honor tangoed with desire. For a few silent moments, all was right in the world as the amazons explored each other on that wind swept rooftop.

   Mousse pulled back after a few moments, and looked into Xian's soft eyes. She never looked more beautiful to him, even when her face was lined with worry and concern. The honesty had to come now, or it wouldn't come at all. "I know now what you taste like. And that makes me able to wait for anything...even you." The Amazon male wiped the tears from his eternal soul mate's eyes and caressed her face as she continued to shudder. "I'll never leave you..."

   At that, Shampoo buried herself deeper into Mousse's arms and held him close to her heart, the organ spilling out her desire and affection in great floods of racking sobs. The pair merely stood there as the bells in the distance signaled the passing of another hour. A covenant was sealed as the tears flowed. A new friendship was started.

   And through the weeks that had passed, Mousse and Shampoo had reconnected to one another. Their meetings were infrequent and short, but the time spent together mended the bonds of friendship that they had shared as children. They used the time not as a place to make out and carry on as lust filled youth, but as adults trying to find a new beginning. Real world issues were wearing on their minds and their emotions like sandpaper on the finest of woods. Both of the amazons had to carry on as normal, and yet their hearts yearned for something more. They wanted true love.

   For Mousse, it was a juggling act for which he wondered if he had the stamina to keep up. To act like his normal, obsessive self to his love in public, and yet to be gentle and supportive to her - the way he wished he could be normally - only in private. And yet, he handled it with the grace and the skill of an actor playing a skillful role. To him, it was a way to be with Shampoo with no one telling him that his love for her was wrong, and if a little acting to keep certain undesirables out was necessary, so be it.

   Things were different for Shampoo, however. Never the most deceptive of persons, it was a struggle for her to not be totally honest with everyone about how she felt about Mousse. She was slowly falling back in love with him, and she wanted to scream to the entire world that she loved him and wanted to be with him until the end of time. Their brief encounters bore witness to the fact that their relationship was changing at a rapid rate. She could feel the ice floes between them drifting closer and closer, two islands in the cold waters of life, finally merging.

   Over the course of the months, their friendship deepened and matured. The wedding fiasco further strengthened them together as Mousse held her after the entire disaster in secret and consoled her heaving heart. She was sick at soul for disrupting what she could see was the hands and the hearts of destiny, and Mousse tried to help her find some sort of solace. Her spirit never seemed to break above the horizon line of joy, and she fell into a deep despair. The despair he now found her living in, her body shaking as her sobbing resonated through his frame like cymbal crashes from a forgotten drum kit.

***

   "Oh my love....just stay here with me..." Mousse gently shushed his beloved by holding her close to her, gently caressing the broad muscles of her upper back, feeling the knots and wishing he could strip her naked and massage them out. "We're alone, no one knows we're here and we can stay here as long as we need to."

   "Great-grandmother knows..." Shampoo moaned out in her worst broken Japanese, her voice muffled slightly by his tear stained tunic.

   "Wha....how? When did she..."

   "Please...sit. Hold Shampoo and she tell you everything," she stammered as she sank to the soft grass only to be scooped up into Mousse's sanctuary in his arms. The Amazon male carried her to the tree he was going to use that evening as a leaning post and sat down, cradling her gently as he sank down to the ground. She felt this and snuggled deeper into his soft embrace, trying to bury herself in his warmth, his sanctuary, and his love.

   She reached into her pocket and withdrew an envelope with Mandarin writing on the front. "Please read letter. It tell everything." She sighed and buried her head even more into his neck. He nestled her into his arms, and looked at the envelope with a wary glance. The paper was extracted and he looked at the Chinese script with a quick, scanning eye. Soon he put the letter down and looked down into Shampoo's anguished face.

   "Is this for real?"

   "Yes. Amazon elders no lie in letter."

   "....Well, this changes things. This also explains why I was kicked out this week." Mousse sighed and rubbed Shampoo's hair, his hands moving slowly over the glossy violet strands. Her nerve endings picked up this motion and she instinctively nuzzled closer to him. "What do you feel about this, Shampoo?"

   "...I don't want to give up my previous life, Mousse," Shampoo said quietly in mandarin, her voice slightly muffled by his tunic. "But I'm not going to try and defy the Amazon ruling council. They made a decision and my great grandmother can only do so much. I...I would like to go home, but if I have to stay I want to stay with you."

   "You actually want to stay with me?" Mousse said softly, his hands resting in a neutral position on Shampoo's lithe body. "I thought you didn't love me."

   "I don't love you. But I cannot live without you anymore. You're too much a part of me. There is no way I could leave you and face life alone."

   "And isn't that a part of love?" Mousse looked off into the far distance, his eyes and heart matching in intensity and focus, though the sights they saw were not matching. "I...I've been thinking a lot these last few days about you and I..."

   "...And..." Shampoo waited for him to speak again, her voice caught in his words.

   "And I realized I'm growing up and growing into something more. I want to change, and I want to make a new start. Ranma and I spoke a lot this week together, and he encouraged me to try something different. He and Akane will be going to school in the north come the fall and they would like us to join them in starting a joint school."

   "They both still want me around? Even after all that had happened?"

   "Well, they also know that you and I have been changing together. Ranma's far sharper then we give him credit for and he picked up on the fact that you and I were not the same people we were." He paused to wipe a stray lock of hair out of his eyes, his hand brushing softly against Shampoo's cheek. She shivered at his involuntary touch and hugged him tighter. "He and I fought...and I won...and he wants to have the two of us trade skills with one another. It's an opportunity I would like to take. I've always saw great deficiencies in my fighting style, and I'd like the time to correct them.

   "Also, I need to have a bit of a change. Things here have been soiled so badly with the masquerade we've been putting on, that it seems to the three of us that a change is the only way we'll all begin to grow up." Mousse stopped and looked down at Shampoo's tightly drawn face, her features showing her in deep thought. His heart swelled at the sight of his love in apparent emotional distress. "I need a new challenge. Ranma is no longer someone I hate; his situation makes mine almost comical in retrospect."

   "But what about you and I? We need time to figure out where each of us stands..." Shampoo said softly her eyes not straying up to peer into his, her heart not wanting to betray where she already stood. She knew she loved him, she knew she couldn't stay away from him ever and she also knew he was far more mature then ever before. But could she risk it? "I know where I am, Muu Tzu. I....I lied before. I love you more then you'll ever know; everything I do now is for you and I to be happy forever."

   "Then you have lied again. Because you know how I've always felt. You know I only have eyes for you, Shampoo." Shampoo turned her head up and their eyes met, dark purple meeting pale blue. In an instant, all the doubts, all the questions, all the insecurities they both shared were put on the table by their glance. It seemed as if they were both laying down the sets of cards they both were holding in their game of emotional poker and it becamse apparent that they both had the same hand. Their love for one another was now equal. "I can only love you."

   "As I can only love you."

   Mousse sighed and stood up, his body creaking in response to the fact that they had been sitting on the soft yet unforgiving earth for so long. "Then I guess there is only one thing left for us to do while the rest of the amazons are here." He reached down to help her stand up and she took his help with a soft, sure grasp. "But why does Cologne know about where we've been meeting?"

   Shampoo looked at Mousse, his deep expression giving her a sure footing to speak on. She knew he'd not reject her now, no matter what happened. "I had to tell Great-grandmother and the rest of the elders everything, otherwise they would have passed the wrong judgment. When they found out everything...including my feelings for you, they told me to come and talk to you. Only then could a decision be made." She stepped forward, his expression still fresh on her mind. "Shall we go and tell her what we are now?"

   "Yes." With that Mousse took her hand and they exited the park hand in hand, the stars beginning to come out in the nighttime sky, their shine glowing down on the new couple like diamonds from a far forgotten jewelry box. The still life in front of them faded into the busy bustle and hustle of the city, but nothing else mattered. A serious decision was about to be declared.

***

   Cologne cleared the last glass from the last table and sat down behind the counter, her wrinkles growing more and more pronounced. She looked out the window and saw Shampoo and Mousse coming up the path to the restaurant, their hands locked together and their faces grim. As they entered the Nekohanten, she laid a piece of parchment paper on the deck and beckoned the children forward.

   "It has finished, Great-granddaughter. The Amazon elders have passed their judgment on you and I." She gestured to the paper and looked hard at Mousse. "Read and do as it says." With that she hopped off her stool and hopped across the room on her cane. Shampoo took the paper and read it, her eyes growing dark and intensely sad as she progressed down to the end.

   "I have been expelled from the Amazon tribes, Mousse..." she said softly as she laid the paper back down, her eyes quickly filling up with tears and emotion. "I'm only a woman now..." Her sobs got louder and as she broke down, Mousse's arms wrapped around her body, shielding her from harm and danger, emotional destruction and pain.

   "Whatever happens, Xian, I'll be here for you. I'll never leave you. I'll never let you go again." Mousse merely stood there, her tears soaking into the soft silk of his shirt. He didn't even notice the fact that Cologne had come back downstairs. Her cane poked him in the side and he turned his head to see she had her traveling cloak on and her bags were packed.

   "Read the letter I've left on the table, boy. You're the owner of this place now. I must go home as part of my judgment, but first I'm going to find my husband and make him come home with me." Cologne said softly, his voice never sounding so sad and alone.

   "Will you return?" Mousse said, his voice equally as hesitant and halting.

   "Whether I return or not is not a concern. What should be your concern is the care of my great-granddaughter. Marry her, Mousse. Take her as your own and help her get over this. You can do this."

   "I will."

   "Good. You were always an obedient lad, when you wanted to be." With that Cologne picked up her suitcases and hopped out the door, leaving the two teens to stand and wonder what the hell had happened to them. The sweet freedom they'd been given was not without a bit of pain.

   Shampoo cried on and didn't feel Mousse bringing her upstairs in his expansive, enclosing arms. As Mousse walked upstairs with his love in his arms, he couldn't help but think that their life was now going to be more interesting then ever before. He wondered if it was going to work, and then decided that they were alive, together and in Japan. Nothing could stop them now. They'd taste the sweet horrible freedom together.

---

Notes: Another long forgotten fic, redone and refurbished. This is another one of those open ended fics, just begging for a sequel, or even a series. the feedback of the ML may determine what I do with this. C&C is begged for!

"I've got the straight edge!!!!!!!"

                     -Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat, 1981


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