Title: Heirlooms
Rating:
Characters: Yukina, Hiei
Summary: A/U; An earring was the last thing of her family she had left. That is, until her brother showed up at her door with the offer she needed to hear.
Warnings: There's Kurama/Hiei at the mention, if it's too much even here head back now. A/U usually goes hand in hand with some OOC with me.
The mortar shot that caused her to nearly drop the late brunch she was making was not the first of the day, but certainly the closest so far. She had woken to them, as she often did. Yukina looked toward the next room, the only one that retained a non broken and boarded window. She sighed and placed the food on the stove top. It was simply too expensive to continue to replace them when they broke more often than not. Truly what little she had to her name had been better put to use in keeping the stove usable as well as the refrigerator, even with the spotty electricity.
Her home had been lost in civil war most of her life now, starting as a young child and now as a young woman it showed no end in sight. There wasn't much left of her childhood neighborhood anymore, whether in people or buildings. But as she gazed happily at her modest brunch, she couldn't be happier she had stayed.
The young woman looked up again; this time slightly panicked at the barrage of noises a few neighborhoods away, more than just mortar shots. Instead of getting louder as she listened, it faded down to white noise moving away from her. The teal haired female went to her modest fridge to check what she had for drinks and dinner when it came about when her heart nearly stopped at the sound of a loud thump within her apartment. No… she scrambled from the fridge to the bedroom, eyes widened in fright.
She threw the door open and her heart could start beating again at the sight she found. In fact, Yukina was tempted to giggle in relief.
From the floor, her brother gave her a half hearted dirty look. Yukina finally did giggle as Hiei sighed from under the strange wrap of bed blankets he'd once been sleeping under. Half closing ruby eyes to gaze at her brother lovingly, she spoke,
"I'm almost surprised you slept through the fire this morning…." He looked at her with similar red eyes and the unspoken 'you were never like that as a child' was left that way. Hiei looked at the boarded up window to acknowledge the war that took no breaks outside it. In truth he had not slept much after his sister had fallen to sleep herself. Of course he knew of the squads that went through methodically each night in this city. It was something no one could look passed when the bodies ended up in the street the next morning.
The black haired male slowly untangled himself from the old blankets full of holes, mind going back to the reasons he was in this bedroom in the first place. It had been so long since he'd last been in this city. Not since the beginning of the war. Not since so much had happened. He turned back to his sister, so happy to see that she had grown as well as she had, only to see that she looked quite shocked.
"Yukina….?" She was pointing to his chest and he was more then confused. Sure he had a habit of sleeping rather close to naked back in the place he called home, but he was pretty sure he'd slept in something last night. Realizing his train of thoughts he resisted the urge to smack himself for how off kilter he felt with her.
"Y-your necklace!" Yukina could hardly believe the sight of the beautiful little jewel hung around her brother's neck. He reached up to grasp it and finally freed himself of the blankets to sit on the barren bed.
"This?" He stared at her. She nodded furiously.
"Do you remember…?" Hiei's eyes clouded and he looked away for a brief moment.
"I remember that it was mother's…" Yukina couldn't contain herself and sat next to him to hug him tightly. She felt him stiffen.
"The day it happened…" he started. She let go of him and caught sight of the tight look on his face, similar to the one he wore four days before at her doorstep. The first time she had seen him in so long.
They stopped at the gunfire, looking at the boarded window. It did not stop, but did not come closer.
"We were in the living room. Playing, right? I don't even know with what anymore. Everything else just blocks it." Yukina held herself back from continuing. She had not mentioned what had exactly happened after the day her brother had disappeared.
"I don't remember them breaking down the door," her brother told her softly, leaning against her, "just that it happened." His twin nodded.
"They took you so fast; I didn't even get to scream until they had you out the door." Neither broached the subject of her scream later that had gotten their father running out the door. Or what had happened in front of his very wide and frightened red eyes at the threshold of the apartment building.
"When did mother….?" He was entirely too calm as he asked, but there was no fixing that.
"A few weeks later." As her brother hid their father, she hid what had happened as she napped in a back room shortly after. "I lived with grandmother after that, until I came back to this place."
"Why would you come back to this place?" He looked at her with too much toughness in his face.
"How else would you find me?" Hiei closed his eyes and shook his head at her. But before he could say anything for her decision (no matter how helpful it had been), his twin spoke again.
"That's one of mom's earrings." He looked at her almost surprised. Before she could continue, mortar shots rang out again closer. They paused, waiting once more. But again it faded. Active today….
"We had gotten out mom's favorite earrings. I can't remember how." Her eyes held a faraway glance.
"I must have put it in my pocket when the door came down." Feeling guilty….
"Must have, since we couldn't find it when I remembered." She threaded her fingers in his.
"The metal was all twisted and wrecked by the time I….was safe I guess I can say." He looked at her. "That's why it's a necklace now." He opened his mouth to say more but stopped. No prodding from Yukina would have him continue. The young warzone woman changed topics.
"Why did you come back?" She looked at him biting her lip. She got a smile and a pause before a kiss to her forehead.
"For you." She hugged him tightly again, and this time he relaxed to hold her.
"I can get you out of here." She pulled back to look at him. He'd been reserved for a child but now was even worse. He barely relaxed behind the closed doors of the apartment for the days he'd been back. He looked so desperate, all bottled up in his eyes.
"….make me a refugee." He tackled her straight to the bed as he had when they were children.
She watched him on a "phone" he had smuggled in after they had eaten her nearly forgotten brunch. She packed what little she really wanted in the least suspicious bag she had. And now she listened.
"Yes she agreed! Would I call otherwise?"
" Will you be serious, damn it!" for a moment he looked at her, "…have you been around your brother today or something?" She tried not to giggle when his eyes widened. He was about to retort, when boots sounded in the hall and they quieted. They refused to move until it felt like the world had stopped. When she looked back to her twin, a light blush came to his face and faded as quickly.
"Will you stop that! Stop laughing, I'm trying to take my sister out of here! Just get a hold of that damn woman so we can do this." She watched him twist the ring he had been wearing on his middle finger a bit nervously.
"Dangerous talk, remember?" Hiei paused for a long moment. "Good…." He didn't say good bye, but just hung up.
"We're going to be good to go once we get out of this red zone." Yukina nodded and walked up to him. She held in his face their mother's other earring of the pair.
"I kept it." She smiled brightly at him. He stared at it, and gripped the necklace that was now hidden beneath his shirt.
"…I made it a necklace….so I wouldn't lose it. I thought I'd never prove who I was without it." You proved me wrong.
"Can we turn this one into a necklace too?" Hiei nodded with the slightest smile. He moved away from her to check the door, all was quiet for the moment.
He reached out for her hand,
"Let's make you a refugee." She took his hand and they left the rundown little apartment that was more holes than anything else. All that was left behind was a single, cryptic note on the stove.
The next three years would see much. The civil war did not end, but they made a new home elsewhere with the help of a heavily scarred woman her brother had the strangest relationship with. They were joined by other refugees, the man she had left her note to (who argued with her brother about the smallest things) and by a pair of opposite childhood sweethearts met again on the run. The red head who made her brother huff into the phone and twist his ring gave them all the support he could manage. Best of all it found the earring made into a necklace to mirror her brother's. Heirlooms to tie the past to the present. Sister to twin brother, life finally went on.