Kurama was enjoying a cup of tea in the garden of a friend's home in Southern France when he felt the most unusual thing he had ever felt in his life. It was like someone else agony spreading over the world. It's didn't feel right. As though the world he had lived in was being rendered apart. Then it was gone. Completely. The source was a mystery, and he felt like it was a good life choice to keep it like that. It had nothing to do with him after all. He studied the woman laying in the grass, slim and graceful, the phenomenon seemed to not effect her sleep. He let himself forget it.
Five months later: Dark Tournament. Some island in the northern Pacific.
"Pleasure" greeted an attractive blonde man as he and Kurama shook hands. Kurama thought it was quite a pleasure. He wondered fancifully if he had ever seen a more attractive man. Nearly a foot shorter than himself, but never the less a tall man. His long hair was a mass of curls and fell forward framing a bespectacled, unshaven face. His eyes where Grey, but not like he had seen before. They seemed to change hue with the light, and Kurama couldn't quite take his own eyes away. But apart from the over all stunning appearance of the man Kurama drew together an old image and had an overwhelming feeling that he had seen this man before.
"Indeed" he replied. His hands were rough. His all around appearance was sort of rough and grungy. He had short beard that had appeared not to have been taken care of in some time, the low neck of his sightly over sized, old sweater reviled the edges of tattoos, and he had studs running the length of his ears. There where holes in his jeans and his shoes looked like they came from an other decade. But he wore it fashionably.
A man is a suit standing with them begun the introductions. "Damion, this is Kurama. Kurama, allow me to introduce Damion Kriegh. Be gentle on him, this is his first time doing anything like this.
Damion Kreigh... Something about that name.
"Oh yes, please do introduce me as though I'm pathetic"
Kurama was surprised to hear a Welsh accent. He was from the living world. And he had a crooked smile. He liked it. "Like this?"
"Well, quite a few firsts really. But I do believe our employer is referring to the general populace of the island. I have never been to the Demon World. My experience with other demons is quite limited. Haven t a worry however. I wont be holding back the team"
It then occurred to Kurama that he couldn't detect the slightest spark of energy coming from Damion. Not Demon or Human. Nothing. He could have not existed as anything more then a shadow if he wasn't a man in front of him. Physical and warm. "I believe you"
"Fabulous, we shall get along spectacularly then" He was politely sarcastic. An obviously practiced and honed skill set of his.
Kurama couldn't get enough of his wide lips. Them managed to be fight attention from his eyes, always animated, smirking, even though the the rest of his expressions were very relaxed. He was reminded a little of a cat.
"Great, let us all get along" Said their employee, Anthony. Whose attention was drawn to three people in uniform heading towards them. At first puzzled then to a quickly he was all business. "There's the rest of the team. Some Ninjas I guess. And they were expensive as fuck" He waived. "Juhn, Jun, Reinji. This is Damion Kreigh and This here is Kurama"
The woman, Reinji said, "Yeah, we know who the fox is" She sounded impressed by Kurama's resume. "You have already been in the winning team twice. That's very impressive"
"Yes" he said, modestly.
Damion was watching them, looking at the new comers sceptically.
"And what about you Blondie" Said the visible Leader of the group. A taller man with blue hair, Juhn.
Damion grimed broadly as if he had been given a new toy. "What about me mate?"
"Who are you?"
"As the man with the money bags said. Damion Kriegh, sir, at your service"
"And how are you expected to help us in a fighting competition? Are you even a demon?" He was implying that Damion's strange lack of energy was a weakness.
"Aye sir. I am a demon. And I shall be as much help as I can. This pays well I hear"
"Your some sort of mercenary?"
"Some sort"
"What sort?"
"The sort that make money for their skills, I suppose"
"Your vague as hell"
"We are at a fighting competition. Please excite me by proving you have deducting skills"
"Alright," Anthony chimed in "Now that we are all friends let's find your room"
It was a swanky sort of hotel and in addition to the strange demons and buff humans taking part in the tournament is was also full of suits. Damion didn't like the suits. But he had spent a significant time of his life with with them. He knew them, and he knew how he could be useful to them. They were snide and conniving men. Always looking out for new money ventures and sick hobbies. And these sort were the elite. Sickly rich ass holes that spend billions as play money. You could always find this same mix of men where ever blood was going to spill. He had recognized one man in the lobby. They didn't make eye contact. His business was not the sort you mentioned after.
He wasn't very fond of his company. Jun was a try hard. For sure. Trying to look menacing behind his never do wrong shits gold master Juhn. An egomaniac with a thing for Reinji that will probably spend the entire time trying to get in to Kurama's pants. Kurama... He might have enjoyed having a go with him. He looked like powerful man, he made Damion look right small. And incredibly attractive. He couldn't help but to notice how Kurama was looking at back.
'Now is not the time for this' Damion thought, 'But I bet he's a fucking beast in bed'
The room was a sort of small apartment. Three bed rooms each with two beds and a bath. The living area was split with a television area and a kitchen. There was a small balcony. Damion immediately chose a room and disappeared inside. The two other men had agreed to bunk together and Anthony had an other room in the public smaller rooms. Reinji would have a room to herself and Kurama would be with Damion. Which he didn't mind at all. Anthony left to his own business leaving Kurama and the ninjas.
He wasn't very interested in spending anytime with the three. They were dull conversation. So he left to seek out more interesting people. He new of a few. He could feel if old friends on the island. He smiled at the thought.
Yusuke Urameshi was sitting at a table with Jin and Chu in the Hotel dinner. Jin noticed him first and his ears sprang up, and so did he, wind spilling soup on a near by patron of which Chu gave a large smile. "Looky at who it is I haven't seen ya' in years!" He flew over to him shaking his hand vigorously.
"It's good to see you again, Jin" Kurama answered, grinning broadly at his friends. "Yusuke, Chu"
Chu jumped at him and grabbed his hand, "Damn good to see you mate. You know that Missy I was to fond of?"
"Yes"
"Still wont give me the time of day, but I'm making progress"
"Congratulations"
"Thank you" He slapped Kurama on the back, "Aw damn great to see you lad"
Yusuke still looked at happy as ever. There was still a wedding ring on his finger, and after ten years he probably had children now. He didn't have his hair slicked back and it had grown out just a little. Kurama was a little surprised to see how much he looked like an adult now. He was handsome. "Kurama" he greeted.
Kurama walked to him and grabbed each others hands firmly. "You look really good Yusuke"
"Man you look like shit" He started laughing. "No but, are you on an other team then?"
They all took a seat together.
"Yes"
"Aw you bugger you should have got a hold of us" Chu said.
"This pays better" He smiled "And now I have a chance to finally fight Yusuke"
"Hell yes you do" Yusuke said "I can't wait. Have to seen the brackets? When will we fight? I hope its later. I would hate for one of us to go home early"
"It will be late lucky enough. We are on opposite sides of the bracket. If we go against each other it will be the finals. It seems the committee had already thought of that"
"Well I guess you can always guarantee they turn out some great matches. Rich bastards. Not that I mind in this case. Hows your team?"
"I cant really say yet. Three of them are ninjas I guess. They may do good, but I am not very impressed. They may be to cocky as well. But the other man, I don't have a clue what to think about him yet. He is very strange"
Damion got hungry after a few hours and decided to hit up the diner down stairs. It should be quite and all the big wigs would be in the nice restaurant this time of day, or in some day parlor drinking and judging teams.
When he got down there he saw Kurama with three other demons. They were laughing and talking animatedly. He must have known them. Kurama looked up at saw him and gestured for
a quite invitation. He decided to take it. It would be awkward to sit alone with him there. "Hello. Fraternizing?"
"Yes, join me?"
He nodded to the others who were now smiling at him. "Hello"
Yusuke asked "Hes the strange one?"
Damion raised an eye brow at Kurama.
"I mentioned you" he looked embarrassed. Damion thought it was cute.
"And how did he describe the rest of the team, then?"
"They are cocky and hes not impressed" Jin answered.
"Oh? Well that sums that up I guess" He sat down next to Kurama. He smelled good. "Does this place serve alcohol?" He looked around for a waitress "Miss, vodka?" a waitress disappeared to the back.
"Good man. Drinkings good fer ya'" Slurred Chu as he took a drink from a flask.
"I'm just that sort of healthy guy" Damion pulled a joint out, put it between his lips and drew, the end ignited on it's own. As though suddenly realizing that he may be being rude, "Apologies, I have a medical condition that requires me to be stoned when ever I'm awake"
Yusuke, playing along, "You know, I just happen to have a similar issue that makes it fatal if I don't smoke around other people smoking"
Very apologetically, "I'm so sorry, that must be very hard on you, please, take this before you start seizing"
Kurama was learning he thought a lot about Damion in this short amount of time. He was getting along with rowdy bunch much better then the very serious ninjas. He listened to people's stories, engaged. But he had nervous twitches. Ever so often he would start to flex he fingers or shake his leg. Kurama assumed he had a lot of pent up anxiety.
He listened more then he talked. Then entire group had eventually fell to peer pressure, with out much of a fight, and was smoking with him. And when they decided to part Kurama and Damion walked back to the room together, both high, Kurama more than he would like to admit, something about weed was partially strong to foxes.
He liked to strange take he was having visually of the world, everything being so much more vivid. He had a hard time not watching Damion's hair as they walked up the hallways.
It sort of changed colors when it moved, shining strange golds and greys. I capture his imagination. He remembered a race he met 4000 years ago.
"When I was a child, Damion, I saw by chance a strange race. They were like Hummingbirds, their hair, wings and eyes would seen to change colors depending on the angel or the light" Suddenly he realized where he knew the strange feeling that came from Damion.
They were almost to the room.
He wondered if he could be mistaken, after all that time he saw them was so long ago, he had been only a small child and sis not himself get to talk to any of them. But Damion had no wings. Damion was only wearing a thin worn t-shirt, it reveled many scars, tattoos, but a flat, wingless back. Without much thought he reached out and touched that part of Damion's back were wings would have been. It was scarred, but so was so much of his arms.
"Can I help you sir?" Damion asked, bemused.
"I'm sorry, you reminded me so much of them. But they wings"
He didn't say anything back. They were back to the room. Damion heated water on the stove and Kurama went into his and Damion's room for the first time. It already smelled like weed. The the table by the window was covered in Damion's things. A novel, a few sketchbooks, one open the a dark landscape roughly sketched out. He fell in love with a painting very similar to it a few years back he bought for his friend in France. He sat at the table and flipped threw the drawings. They were mostly black and white and somber. Some of the images were so conveying of hopelessness Kurama almost wanted to cry. Dark themes, morbid. Figures huddling for warmth on war ridden streets and woman crying for dead children. Kurama could not mistake the subtle details . He was definitely the same painter of the one he bought. The coincidences where started to build up between them. He knew that the race conversation was not over also. Damion's presence was suffocatingly overwhelming. He was liking it.
"Curious, eh?" Damion was behind him. Kurama hadn't noticed him at all.
"Your quite"
"Don't let yourself down, you've been smoking, and your obviously in deep thought about something. Are my silly sketches that intriguing?"
"Maybe. Actually, your name caught me off my guard this afternoon. I knew I had heard it before, and it has been bothering me all day"
"Is that why up can't stop staring at me?"
"Probably... But it I believe that I bought a painting of yours"
"Really, that's really coincidental. And sort of neat" He sat opposite of Kurama and stretched out his legs up on the table, a hot cup of tea in his hands. He looked distracted despite his flirty bantering.
"These drawings are beautiful"
He blushed, but was still half gone. "I don't really like anything in that"
"Always your worst critic?"
"No, that's Cherry McKenzie for the New York times... That race with the wings. What were they called? And why are they strange?"
"Nuerklum. They where strange because their energy was so chaotic. But some of them felt like nothing, like you. And not long after they left my homeland they disappeared entirely. But through out history they have always been a mysterious race. No one has ever known much about them. Their wings though where very valuable"
"How long ago was that? When you saw them?"
"Over 4000 years ago"
"You are a font of interesting information aren't you"
"I can't tell if your being sarcastic"
"I have talked to all sorts of historians and and have only two accounts of Nuerklum, and the only person to actually give me a name and anything more then 'Had wings and disappeared' was a hunter that told me about how their wings were incredibly valuable. You, you knew what I was because of what I look like. That is actually incredible"
"But you don't have wings?"
Damion stood up and pulled off this shirt. He was skinny but his abs were remarkably toned. He turned around showing stretched out, old scars on either sides of his shoulder blades. "My parents removed them when I was born, my brother too" He sat down.
Kurama shuddered. That was a grim thought "Was it for safety?" He asked hopefully.
"I think it was once for safety. Like generations ago before they all left. But it evolved to something religious"
"I don't understand" he could only imagine that turning culty.
"Apparently the white wings we are born with are blasphemy. We were demons from hell acting like angles and as penance we cut them off"
"That's... I'm sorry"
"Yeah, they were pretty crazy..." He trailed off. "Is that that all you know?"
"Yes, I'm sorry. I never actually got to talk to them, I was so young"
He signed. "So. 4000 years. My fuck, your old. as. hell."
Kurama laughed, "Why yes I am I suppose"
"You suppose" he mocked, "People like you usually get that old?"
"Much older sometimes. Usually? No. But we are around"
"I bet you have seen some shit"
"I have"
"Tell me a story"
"Really?"
"Oh yes, please. Please tell me a story, I love old people stories"
"Okay" For a moment he thought. He liked this. He enjoyed talking to Damion. The little up and downs of the conversation. And the fact that he didn't know a thing about him was a welcome fancy "Very far away from the parts of the Demon world watched by Spirit world there is a volcanic area thousands of miles across under the ocean splitting to land masses almost in half, like a tear. And the entire ocean is boiling and there are always massive explosions. It is basically a terrible place. Worst place you can imagine. There is a massive continent in the middle which, obviously, is fairly removed from the rest of the world. They have evolved a form of energy incredibly different from the rest of the world, and their technology is incredibly advanced with their energy. Some masters of their craft can move through dimensions and craft small entirely new ones. And something those powerful people do is wander new worlds just learning new things.
"I am have once had a long drink with the man that was Merlin. You would consider him an eccentric scientist really, but he is also the Magician of the Court, an adviser to the royal family of that island. And he really did have a thing for druids"
"That may have been the most interesting stories I have ever heard. I am in fact now in debt to you for that enlightenment"
"That I think is the most "old person" story I can come up with. Or at least that you might relate to"
"Thank you for considering your audience. Did you meet him in the human world?"
"In fact I did. The human world was good place for a demon to hide for a long time. I spent much of the last thousand years in Asia, Europe and very early America actually"
"How early?"
"Earlish 18th century"
"Did you wear a Doublet?"
"Time to time, lovely coats to. It was all very uncomfortable"
"That's hot."
"Yes I was quite the eye catcher"
"I bet you were. Why, if that is not so personal, were you hiding?"
"I'm a thief" He said plainly "I got a reputation and that reputation was making it hard to be me anymore. I thought time alone in a less menacing world would calm me down"
"Did it work?"
"It took a long time, but I think so"
"Do you regret your life?"
"That's was blunt"
"In my experience thieves are normally more then thieves and they are always sad at the end of the day. You seen to have ran away to an other world to get away from it"
"My reputation had almost destroyed me. But I never really stopped what I do. But when your victim is no match for you you don't need to fight them, and they never have to see your face. I enjoy what I do. It's a rush. But now it is only a useful skill"
"Useful skills get people in trouble to"
He looked at Damion's scars, "You seem to have experience in that"
"I've always painted to try to make a buck, but it couldn't feed me. The paint would cost more then I could get from it. And I found my self in the position that I couldn't get on by with my art and performing on street corners. And livin how I did on the streets I new how to defend myself. People took noticed that and starting paying me more money then I've ever seen. I got good at it fast. I even had a real job with the military for years"
"But spirit world is very hard on demons fighting humans?"
"I know. My brother was arrested by them when I was a kid because he killed two boys that attacked me, I haven't seen him in a hundred years"
"Then how do you...?"
"I use a gun, or my hands. And I really am only as strong as I look. Like a human really. I only heal better. So basically I'm fair. As long as I don't use my energy harmfully around humans, I'm a free man apparently"
They sat across from each other talking until two. Mostly about art, which Damion was very fluent and animated about. He seemed to be fluent in quite a lot of things actually. Including French, Spanish, English, Japaneses and Welsh which were just the languages for one reason or an other as of far brought up. He was well traveled and well read. And his crooked smile was infectious. He had turned on a pandora playlist on his computer hours ago, and was always sort of bouncing to the music, subtlety, and would time to time sing silently along. Kurama loved listening to his voice. Sometimes he idly sketched. Kurama peeked over to what he was drawing. It was him.
Kurama raised an eyebrow.
"Hey now, you sit so still, your a remarkable model. I had to"
"Oh?" he said, bemused.
"And then then the light was just beautiful. I can't miss that sort of opportunity"
"Well I am pleased I could help you out"
"Aye, so don't you start moving now" He started to draw with a sort of comical seriousness.
"Yes sir" Kurama fell back to his previous motionless pose. He was getting turned on.
Damion's phone began to ring. He ignored it until it stopped ringing. After a moment it rung again. He picked it up and walked out of the room, then Kurama heard the balcony door open and shut.
Damion was enjoying the hell out of the night. Being around Kurama was absolutely delightful and insightful. He was obviously an incredibly intelligent man. And he liked being alloyed to stair at him.
He closed the balcony door and lit a cigarette, letting the the phone go again to voice mail. It rung again. Damion answered.
"Do you understand what fucking time it is here?"
"2:15. Late, you should be sleeping, I hear you might have a little scrap tomorrow"
"Yeah, fuck you. Fuck off" He hung up.
The phone rung.
"What?!"
"Say your sorry"
"...h ..." A dreadful pit started to build in Damion's stomach. He threw his phone off the edge and sent a spark of energy to it causing a small explosion.
"That felt good" He thought to himself, smiling at the poof of smoke where his phone had been. "Satisfying as hell" He ashed out his cigarette and went back to the bed room.
Kurama looked out the window trying to think about the fights tomorrow when an exploding phone drew all of his attention back to the situation at hand. A moment later Damion came back in looking faintly manic.
"Sells call?"
Damion burst out laughing and fell sidewise onto a bed. When his laughter subsided and turned into a heavy, sad sigh. Then he starred off. Kurama was behind him and couldn't see his face. He looked at the still man on the bed, a minute ago he was infectiously happy. The second the phone rung it looked like the world had suddenly collapsed around him.
Damion got up with a deep breath and started changing clothes. The music was on and he was fidgeting along with it. In mid taking off his shirt he asked, "You sleeping in that chair?" He was looking happy again and smirking. "Wouldn't wake well I'm sure"
"I do want to be spry in the morning" He also started to dawn his bed clothes, tactfully not watching Damion do the same. Until he noticed Damion was very much not tactfully not looking. "Can I help you?" He joked.
"I'm just waiting for you to take off you pants, don't worry about it. Just, just keep going" he himself was now shirtless and starting off with his pants. His underwear seemed to be the newest issues of clothing, Bugs bunny boxers. He noticed Kurama noticing him and devilishly smiled to himself. Then forced himself back down with a jolt. "Damn, okay" He pulled on pajama pants and slipped under the covers. "I need to sleep. I'm going to be a zombie. Then ill just prove those ninjas right. Hell with that" He muttered.
"Good night Damion" Kurama slipped into his own bed.