Tournee du Chat

"Pet him!"

"WHAT?"

"Pet him! Cats love being petted!" Kuwabara yelled, dislodging the carrying cage from the top of his closet. Yusuke exchanged a glance with Hiei, who shook his head solemnly. Whether in lament of Kuwabara's apparent insanity or affirmation that HE certainly wasn't going to be doing any petting any time soon, there was no telling.

"Kuwabara, this isn't a cat. This is Kurama. I don't think a little pussy stroke is going to help him any."

From under the couch, there came another furious yowl. Hiei, who had stepped just a little too close to said furniture, risked losing half the skin on his leg to a ginger-furred claw. He leaped back in time to collide with Kuwabara, sending both man and cat carrier flying. The noise and general confusion was enough for Kurama, with whatever sense still remained in his now-unacceptably-feline body, to make a break for the door.

Yusuke dove for him. Hiei did as well. There was no amusing coconut-esque sound as their heads collided, but their mutual horrified looks as each realized the other hadn't caught the fox-cum-cat sprinting for the door was just enough to fulfill the laws of slapstick comedy.

Kurama, free, didn't give any fucks for slapstick. But oh, once he found that witch, how the fur would fly.

Yusuke pointed his flashlight into the boughs of a likely looking tree. "Are you sure the Jagan won't work?"

"He's a cat. Do you have any idea how many cats there are in this city?" Hiei crouched to look under a clutch of bushes behind a park bench. "And as an aside, what makes you think I haven't already tried that?"

"Because you're a bastard and like to deliberately make things difficult for us?" Kuwabara said, sweetly.

"For you, yes," Hiei amended, lifting his bandanna just in case he'd missed something in the bushes. A raccoon had passed, but little else. "For Kurama, I'd rather not give him any reason to want to kill me. More than he does now."

"Yeah, about that," Yusuke shone the flashlight in Hiei's face. "What exactly caused all this bullshit? Because if it had been his own fault I don't think Kurama would have scratched you up quite as badly as he did."

Hiei grimaced, lifting a hand to touch one of the clawmarks Kurama had left over the bridge of his nose. "We were investigating a witch. I… may have insulted her. She retaliated and missed."

Silence, suddenly, descended and made itself comfortable. After a few minutes, Kuwabara ventured, "I think you may want to leave the country once we find him."

"You think you can hide out at Mukuro's place? I'd offer, but Kurama already knows all the secret passages," Yusuke said, not without sympathy.

"Why does he know all the secret places in your palace, Urameshi?" Kuwabara ventured, grasping for some other topic that might not make Hiei murder them before splitting town. Though he didn't like the way Yusuke smiled as he opened his mouth to answer.

"You don't want to know that, fool," Hiei growled, elbowing Yusuke in the stomach, a little more viciously than normal. "Can we go? If we leave him out here too long in a few weeks the city will be crawling with half-kitsune kittens. Nobody wants that."

"This is the worst thing I've ever had to do." Kuwabara said, the complaint more meditative than he'd probably meant it to be.

Hiei snorted, though the sound straddled the line between dismissive and understanding. Barely.

"I swear I saw him go down here," Yusuke said, skirting the edge of the sewer's very slim and slippery walkway. "No cat in the world has fur that naturally red."

"I didn't think Kurama's hair was naturally that red," Kuwabara muttered, wiggling a bit of garbage off the toe of his boot. Hiei snorted again, getting a flashlight beam in the face as a result. "Do you have allergies or is there something useful you'd like to say?"

Hiei, who'd had it up to here with Kuwabara and the world in general for one night, reached for his sword. Yusuke shoved him and risked further firey death as Hiei teetered precariously over the lip of the sewer, arms pinwheeling with the effort to not be covered in any more garbage or disgusting muck than their job usually entailed.

"If I had fallen," Hiei warned, baring his teeth.

"If you'd fallen, We'd be laughing all the way to hell. Keep the cap on, Mr Bic, there's enough ass gas in here to light half the city on fire."

"Did you have to mention that? Again?" Kuwabara whined, pulling his shirt up over the bottom of his face.

"It's a fucking municipal sewer!" Yusuke snapped, using the flashlight beam as an imaginary reigun. He certainly didn't want to be down here, but fuck if they were going to let kitty Kurama run amok in the city without at least getting his claws clipped. "Ask me that again when we're not dangerously close to the shit of millions!"

"Shut up, both of you," Hiei hissed, holding up his hands. Surprisingly, the order was heeded. He put a hand up to his ear an listened.

Further down the tunnel, he could hear a yowl that was growing distressingly familiar. And hissing. Lots of hissing. "Kuwabara, get that cage ready," he said, moving past the taller man to peek around the corner of an intersection. He lifted his bandana and looked into a dark tunnel, not trusting the flashlights.

There was Kurama, snarling at what was probably the biggest rat in the history of all things, fur puffed so far out that he looked like he's been struck by lightning. The rat was easily big enough to take a medium-sized tomcat. Which, at the moment, Kurama was.

"Fuck," Yusuke breathed over Hiei's head, peering with him into the gloom. "Is that a dog that's going after him?"

"A rat," Hiei murmured back. "I can probably hit it from here, and that part of the tunnel is a dead end. As long as Kurama doesn't try to jump for the other side of the walkway, we can get him."

"That's a fucking rat? I thought the only got that big in cartoons."

"That's a fucking rat. Now get out of my way."

Yusuke stepped back, allowing Hiei enough room to maneuver around the corner and take aim. Kuwabara crouched behind him with the carrier open, flashlight beam ready to blind Kurama if he needed to. There was a sound like whirring metal, an animal shriek, and the sound of Hiei slamming against the wall to avoid Kurama as the furious and now terrified cat stampeded by.

The flashlight beam worked. Kurama skidded to a halt and tried to scrabble back out of the light. The first exit being up Yusuke's pants leg. Yusuke, who liked his skin just fine where it was, screamed and jumped away from the wall, shaking his leg ludicrously and, for the moment, forgetting that he was on a three-foot walkway suspended over a river of shit and garbage six feet deep.

He didn't forget for long.

Squelch squerk squish

"I don't think I've ever smelled anything so horrible in my life," Kuwabara said conversationally. He held the cat carrier out at arms length, occasionally holding it up to peer inside and see how Kurama was doing.

Splot glup blup

"It is an awful stench," Hiei agreed, decidedly straight-faced. His hands were clasped behind his back, though he watched Yusuke warily for signs of any further violence. He seemed to have grown tired of trying to fling poo at them for now.

"You do realize we're going to have to give him a bath," Kuwabara added, eyeing Kurama, who was motionless, sodden, but obviously thoroughly done with the entire universe for now. You really had to feel bad for the guy; Yusuke at least was used to never coming up smelling like literal and metaphorical roses after something horrible. He skirted around a particularly disconcerting glop of something that had dropped off Yusuke, who stomped (squelched) ahead of them, grumbling curses.

"It might be my trick ear," Hiei said, "but I'm almost sure you said 'we' in that sentence."

"It's going to take two of us to hold him down, at least," Kuwabara lifted the carrier a bit for emphasis. "It took the three of us just to get him in this. Cats hate water."

Hiei couldn't really argue with that, though he felt as if he should. The stench was overpowering enough that the thought of eliminating it was worth the risk of loosing all the skin on his arms to small cat claws.

Ahead of them, Yusuke squelched on, cursing. At least they were close to his apartment.

"What the fuck do you MEAN I can't come in?" Yusuke screamed at the door. He wasn't to the point of knocking it down - yet - and though he easily could have done so the thought of listening to his mother bitching at him to get a new door was daunting enough to give him pause. Still. "Ma, I fell into a fucking sewer! I just need a goddamn shower!"

"Fuck right you fell in a sewer!" Urameshi Atsuko shouted from the other side of the door. "And you ain't bringing it in here!"

"For fuck's sake, ma, I'll clean it up after! JUST OPEN THE GODDAMN DOOR!"

It kept on like this for a few minutes longer. Then Hiei sighed aggrievedly, turned his face to the door, and lifted his headband. The Jagan glowed. After a moment, there was a click, followed by a soft thud.

Yusuke ceased pounding on the door and looked down at Hiei. "What did you just do."

"I got the door open," Hiei sniffed, pushing open said door and stepping over Atsuko, who now lay unconscious and smiling on the floor. "No different than any other time she's passed out, I'm sure."

"Hiei, that's my fucking mother you just hypnotized," Yusuke growled, pointing at him.

"And you're covered in shit. We'll move her to her room. Just..." He grimaced, and Kuwabara finished for him, carefully closing the door behind them, "Just take a fucking shower, Urameshi."

"Uh-huh. Yeah. No, he looks fine, but until we get him cleaned up... right. Okay then, see you soon." Kuwabara disconnected his cell phone, and looked across the table at Hiei. "They'll be here once Keiko starts breathing again."

"I don't think I've ever heard her laugh so hard," Hiei said, dabbing at one of the scratches on his arm with a paper towel. The struggle to get Yusuke and Kurama out of the sewer (and Kurama into the cage) had given him a few more to think about. He could only thank all the gods that he wasn't as prone to infections as humans. And that Atsuko kept industrial-strength disinfectant in her kitchen.

"No kidding. She'll probably stop laughing once she gets a whiff of..." he glanced meaningfully at the cat carrier. Kurama hadn't moved at all, but a sound kind of like a growl emanated from its innards every time his name was mentioned. "Well, at least they'll be here to help with you-know-what."

Hiei grimaced. "They don't know what they volunteered for," he said, taking his turn to eye the carrier. Well, at least Yukina could heal them, but cat claws hurt like hell, and Kurama was still rather strong, even by cat standards.

"I have never," Yusuke announce, walking out of the bathroom with a towel and a self-satisfied grin, "ever had a more enjoyable shower in my life. And that includes the one I took after I was dead for a week." He dripped happily, and glanced at the carrier. "I would like to know which of use is getting short-changed for cat-grooming duty."

"Shizuru and Keiko. They're bringing Yukina along as backup." Hiei dabbed at another cut. It bled annoyingly.

"Thank the gods for that," Yusuke sighed, adjusting his towel and taking a vacant chair. "After all that I don't want to put my hands on any more shit, thanks."

"Makes me wonder how closely Koenma still monitors us," Hiei said, leaning back in his chair. "I'd actually pay for video footage of this fiasco."

"I won't deny you that pleasure," Yusuke said magnanimously, "but if I find it on youtube I'm going to come after your short ass."

"I wish I'd brought my camera for this," Keiko said wistfully, putting on a pair of oversized rubber gloves they'd nabbed from a 100 yen store on the way over. "I mean, I feel bad for him, but this is just way too funny."

Kurama was huddled in the back of the carrier, bright green cat eyes big as saucers and almost all iris. If his fur wasn't in such an... unhappy state, it would probably be puffed out far beyond the confines of the cat trolley. Shizuru, who'd had enough sense to put work gloves on, reached into the carrier to grab him.

The double-protection did its duty well, as she withdrew her hand almost immediately, all four sets of Kurama's claws hanging on for dear life. He dripped pitifully.

"It's ready!" Yukina called from the bathroom, poking her head out in a cloud of steam. "I... oh, dear. I'll get the shower started as well."

"Poor kid," Shizuru muttered, holding her arm out and shaking her head. Kurama stuck like a burr made out of garbage and hate to her gloved hand, quivering in quiet cat rage and terror. Keiko cooed pityingly.

"If he can understand you right now, he'll probably kill you later," Hiei said helpfully, earning two (possibly three, but it was hard to tell with all of Kurama's fur stuck) deathly glares in return. He wisely shut his mouth.

After the solemn procession of grim-faced, determined young women entered the bathroom, it took less than ten seconds after the door closed for the screaming to begin.

Most of the screaming was from Kurama.

Yusuke, Kuwabara, and Hiei sat on the couch, their backs to the bathroom, and drank heavily.

"No, get him...!" Came a shout from Yukina.

"How the fuck did he get up there?" Shizuru replied, moments later.

"The scrub brush! For god's sake, get the scrub brush!" Keiko screamed.

"It's in my teeth!" Was a muffled, unidentifiable shriek soon after.

There was a moment of silence. And then a long, tortured yowl. A very long yowl.

"He's gotta stop to breathe sometime," Yusuke said, cracking open a fifth beer and chugging it down determinedly.

Next to him, Kuwabara shuddered. Hiei looked almost guilty.

The yowling ceased, replaced by pitiful, almost kittenish mewls. There were responding coos and murmurs of feminine encouragement.

The atmosphere in the livingroom became decidedly more dark when the three of them realized that Kurama was getting more female love and attention in one sitting than all three of them had gotten in the past year combined.

"I hope he gets soap up his nose," Yusuke grumbled.

"He deserves it, the bastard," Kuwabara agreed, a little too drunk for kindness.

Hiei said nothing, but his thoughts would burn down forests. If there was even the hint of a clawmark on Yukina... well, he couldn't be held responsible for his actions.

TBC

11/19/2011

What the fuck, you guys.

For the ladies who follow badyyhfanfic on tumblr

more later