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Kurama told himself that he should have known that something was wrong.
It wasn’t unusual for Hiei to leave in the middle of the night to wander around the house or the neighborhood when he couldn’t sleep. And it wasn’t unusual for him to wander the city. However, he should have known that something was wrong when Hiei’s youki was muted. That was something that never happened. Despite their presence and their tentative alliance, they always knew where the other was by their aura. It was a reassurance and a measure of trust to be able to detect one another.
Trust was a hard thing to come by in thieves and Hiei was practical — he wouldn’t have forsaken their alliance just like that and they hadn’t argued about anything that day, that week even.
Kurama told himself that he should have known that something was wrong. But how he knew for sure was when he felt the weak shove at the reaches of his psyche. Just on the edge where Hiei’s mind melded with his own, a thin line only used in emergencies, and that is when the dread seeped in. Hiei would never admit that he needed him. Kurama was certain he’d rather die than admit he needed anyone. But the shove was insistent. The familiar confidence that the fire demon exuded a flickering ember and when Kurama answered the call, there was only one thing wait for him.
A ragged gasping utterance of his name.
Admittedly, he could have thought better of just leaving his room empty with the window open and curtains blowing in the wind. He could have changed out of his t-shirt and shorts for something practical and better-suited for a potential fight. However those thoughts took seconds to cross his mind, precious seconds that could’ve been the difference between whether Hiei lived or died. Kurama swallowed the lump building in his throat as he leapt from one rooftop to another, careful to keep his feet under him and his eyes focused despite the clouds that rolled over the moon. Hiei’s youki was muted but his scent wasn’t.
Though his nose wasn’t as sensitive as it had been when he was youko, he knew Hiei’s scent as if it was his own. Woodsmoke, ash, fire, smoke, everything that spelled out destruction but made up a complex being that not only destroyed but attempted to save. As he ran, Kurama couldn’t help but think that there was so much that he didn’t know about Hiei. They were gradually becoming closer but still circling one another. Kurama held his hand close to his chest while Hiei’s heart was buried deep in the shadows of his being. Prying it loose on either side was easier said than done but if Hiei were to —
Kurama swallowed thickly, and though the thought was a realistic one, he didn’t want to think of it being reality. Not again. Landing on the rooftop of a building under construction, Kurama looked around at the city’s skyline then stalked forward with a wary glance from left to right. Without the light of the moon, it was harder to see and the rooftop didn’t have any lights for him to turn on temporarily to guide his sight. Reaching into his hair and pulling out a rose, he held it level with his lips and pressed his youki into it’s stem and petals.
A gnawing creeping sensation pricking the hairs at the back of his neck and coiling the heat in his stomach made his heartbeat slow. Wet and clunky movements, something dragging, Kurama’s eyes darted to the left and as the clouds rolled away, his blood ran cold. The clunky movements belonged to a hulking beast made entirely out of cement and with carved features. Hollowed eyes boring into Kurama’s, fist curled into dark locks of hair as it drug Hiei’s limp body across the rooftop. The wet sound wasn’t from the golem but Hiei’s blood from his wounds. Reaching out through their mental link, the fire demon didn’t even stir at the intrusion to his mind.
As if he wasn’t even there.
The golem opened its mouth and before it could dare to breathe, Kurama’s whip cracked and sliced it in half. Bringing his arm back and lashing out again and again, he asked himself what he was doing. The golem’s pieces were falling to the ground in smaller and smaller bits but he wanted to erase it. All of it. The hand that’d been holding Hiei’s head disintegrated and fell away with agony as the main body was minced into pieces. Pleas for mercy were ignored, implications of pain and suffering were dismissed, all he could see was red. His palm burned and his white-knuckled grip on his whip loosened when he returned to focus. He hadn’t even figured what the golem was doing in the city or why it had gone after Hiei but none of it mattered.
The whip retracted and the rose stashed in his hair, another seed was pulled forth from his hair and he flicked it toward the reforming pieces of the golem. His youki willing it to grow and consume every inch, ignoring the garbled cries as he knelt down by Hiei’s side and gathered him in his arms. Hiei would never allow himself to be carried like this. He’d be spitting mad and volleying insults and threats without pause for breath. But Hiei’s eyes were shut, his face eerily peaceful and body pliant and loose. When his head rolled against Kurama’s shoulder from the fox’s cajoling, Kurama’s heart tightened and he held onto him tighter.
He was quick on the way home, putting his grace and balance to the test as he cradled Hiei close, leaping into the open window of his bedroom. From there, everything moved in quick succession. His plants slithered out from their hiding places to assist him, Hiei laid on a makeshift bed of vines on the floor, the window closed and Kurama had to keep moving. Gathering bandages, water, the salve and the plants that he used for healing, laying out his supplies as he tried not to think of Hiei’s ragged breaths and how close they sounded to him.
Undoing the fastenings on his cloak and pulling it away, a vine reached down to take it from his hands and Kurama made the mistake of glancing at his hands.
They were covered in blood.
Messy, warm, slick, a coppery smell that made his stomach turn because Hiei’s scent was there. On his hands, on his clothes, seeping into the fibers of the vines that held him comfortably suspended off the ground on a makeshift bed. Kurama’s fingers twitched and he curled them into fists, unsure of where to touch. There were deep etches into Hiei’s body, wounds that were certain to scar, lashes on his back and claw marks at his front. His face for the most part was unharmed but he laid there too peacefully.
Cleaning and dressing his wounds, Kurama felt tempted to press down a bit to see if he would even gasp in pain but he didn’t want to hurt Hiei.
“No.”
It wasn’t in him to plead. He never asked for mercy, penance or assistance but this was too much. Even as he worked desperately to save Hiei’s life, it felt as if he was slipping from his fingers by the second. There was no stirring and his breaths were shallow. Anything would have been preferable to this. An insult, a laugh, a small smile — anything would have been preferable to death.
“Not again.”
Somehow, he couldn’t help but think that this was his fault. His arrangement with Hiei, the agreement to protect their standing within the city, taking down anything that crossed their paths. Why hadn’t he noticed that Hiei was bothered? Why didn’t he go after him after his youki muted and their connection dimmed? Was he going to lose another partner just like that?
Squeezing his eyes shut, he felt as if he was back there. Kuronue’s body suspended on the bamboo spears, his eyes wide and that pendant that he loved so much held in his hand, its chain wrapped around his arm but Kuronue wasn’t there. He was in Kurama’s head, his voice yelling at him to run, to prioritize his life. To save himself. The image overlapping with Hiei’s peaceful face, the stillness, the quiet, his life slowly ebbing away.
“Not him too, please…”
His plants curled around the knob of his door in case his mother tried to come in. He didn’t need her to see him like this. Kneeling beside the bed of vines with his hand pressed to Hiei’s chest and eyes wet, trying to feel a pulse or something. Worrying that the fire demon’s breaths, his flame, would go out.
Kurama isn’t sure how long he sat there, eyes trained on Hiei’s face, but when the fire demon’s eyebrows twitched and his eyes slowly opened — Kurama dared to breathe.