"Hiei," Tsuki sang out, tones of delight echoing in the sound. Hiei still wondered how, exactly, she could have forgiven him so easily. If anything, she seemed more joyous than ever to see him. She almost always seemed happy, though. That was probably it. "What can I help you with today?"
He allowed himself to recognize the twinge of disappointment at the thought. He wanted to be special, at least to her. The rest of the world could screw themselves, in his enlightened opinion, but she wasn't the rest of the world.
Regretfully, he told her the reason for his visit. Her reaction was exactly as he expected.
"You came in for a bruise?" Tsuki's innocent voice – a voice which, Hiei now had to admit, he loved – was incredulous. Overly so, he grumbled to himself. He hadn't chosen to. He thought it was ridiculous to come to a hospital for a bruise; his selective memory chose to tune out the similar feelings he had for all injuries, from bone-baring gashes to broken limbs. A quiet voice at the back of his mind reminded him that he hadn't fought too hard this time. He squashed it.
"Where is Shigure," Hiei demanded. Much as he enjoyed her presence, he no longer trusted himself around her. Not yet. Ever since the incident involving a now-deceased medicinal expert and a large pink pill, his mind and body had been going through what he thought of as an illness from which he would eventually recover. His body and subconscious had been given freedom, absolute freedom, and didn't want to surrender again. He'd been thinking things he should not have been; only managing to squelch them after the damage had been done. Even his body had been betraying him. He hadn't allowed himself to shiver for over a hundred years, and now, suddenly, he had trouble controlling the movement. Just that morning, he had lapsed, and, seeing the limp brought on by the enormous, painful bruise, Kurama had sent him to the hospital.
Where was the sanity in any of it?
"He's not here. Up on the table," Tsuki instructed, "And remove your pants." She had to be kidding. That was asking for trouble. Hiei's frigid glare conveyed his message well enough, and Tsuki sighed in frustration, muttering something about a pigheaded koorime. He chose to ignore the comment. "Fine, I'll just roll up the pant leg." He stopped glaring.
"What did you do – oh." She fumbled with the drawstring. Hiei, amused, decided not to help. Minutes later, she threw up her hands in surrender, thwarted. He smiled inwardly. She probably didn't realize that he'd tied it that way on purpose.
"Baka onna," he chided, then rolled up the pant leg with some difficulty. To his surpise, it actually went up all the way. The enormous, nearly black bruise exposed, Tsuki was shaking her head in disapproval.
"A bruise," she muttered. "Didn't say anything about bruising the bone. You know," she addressed him frankly, "You can be really stupid at times. You should have come in immediately. Whatever you hit chipped the bone, and that chip's been in there doing damage for a while. That's what your 'bruise' is. How long ago did this happen?"
"Four, five days. You're not going to have to go in and get it out, are you?" No unintended emotion crept into his voice, but that didn't mean he wasn't worried. Taking it out would mean surgery, and that would mean staying in bed. Even just for a couple of days, he couldn't handle that.
"No," Tsuki sighed, resigned. "It's too late for that. I think you must have jarred it into place again – that's where it wants to be anyway – so it should start fusing soon. You got lucky." Hiei supposed he must do that a lot. People were always telling him that he had gotten lucky.
Ahh. Damn it! Her cold fingers against the skin beneath his bruise sent a shock of pleasure through his body. Unwelcome pleasure. Feeling the pulling in his loins, he would have given a lot, at that moment, not to be male. He fought to alienate the sensations, trying very hard to keep his reaction from becoming visible.
When it became necessary to force himself to breathe normally, he felt a touch of real fear. How long had it been since he was last truly afraid?
"Does it hurt when I touch here," she asked, completely unaware of his dilemma. Yes, it did, but not in the way she meant. He shook his head, not trusting the loyalty of his voice. As long as he didn't have to speak, and it didn't get worse, he would be able to leave with his dignity.
"Here?" She asked, touching the bruise with her index finger. The damaged muscle tensed, answering for him. Lucky again, because the outcome of this very personal fight was not looking good. "How about here?" She pushed slightly on the pale skin right above the bruise. He might have – might have – been able to handle one finger, but when all of the brushed against his skin, Hiei felt himself losing ground remarkably quickly.
He almost wished they hadn't killed Haku.
Tsuki frowned, feeling something that didn't seem quite right, and warned, "This might hurt a bit." She hadn't noticed yet, but she certainly would, if he jerked his leg away. Knowing what was coming helped, but that just meant he didn't fall over the edge completely. She was busily feeling the muscle, which required a lot more contact than he could handle.
And she still hadn't noticed. Hiei couldn't believe his luck. The source of his distress was four inches from her wrist, and she hadn't noticed. He looked away, struggling to keep his thoughts under control. If he survived this, he was sure he'd never have a problem with any kind of control again. Ever.
When he looked back, she had noticed. The sight of her looking at his nearly uncontrolled erection caused him physical pain. Her cheeks burned bright red, and he realized that blushing wasn't something most had learned to control. He was grateful when she continued with the routine, pretending she hadn't noticed.
But was it really necessary to – damn it all! – touch so far from the bruise? He supposed it must be, if she was checking for muscle damage. Her cold fingers all the way up his thigh sent new shocks of pleasure through him, worsening the already unsalvageable situation.
"Does it hurt here?" Her voice, normally high and chirpy, was low and almost husky. Sure that she wasn't doing it on purpose, he discarded the possibility. He must have imagined it. Such thoughts were more than understandable.
He couldn't stop staring at her small, delicate porcelain hand. It provided a focus point: anything to keep him from seeing her clothed form, and remembering what it looked like without the obstructing material. Then she withdrew said hand, and he couldn't help it. He looked.
When the door opened, and Shigure walked in, Hiei could have kissed the man, but he was still too late. He had seen Tsuki's chest moving as her breathing quickened. He had seen the erect nipples poking through her white shirt. His eyes widened in shock, as the one thing he was truly terrified of happened. He completely lost control of his manhood, in front of other people. No. Not this! But his mind gave no acceptable answer.
Hiei couldn't remember ever being so enraged. This was the kind of mood that resulted in whole villages being slaughtered. This was the kind of mood that had just resulted in the deaths of over a dozen demons. Each time, he threw himself at the demon, a whirlwind of fury that no demon or human could survive. It frustrated him.
The whole point of being reckless, he reasoned, completely unreasonable, was to stretch his ability, exercise his power. Instead, the demons he hadn't allowed to flee had just died. No challenge at all.
Flitting through the woods surrounding the hospital, his fury and self-disgust made him his mere presence deadly. Word had already spread, which pleased him, and helped to ease his anger.
Not fast enough.
When the neko youkai made itself know, Hiei did not check its ki signature. He didn't consider the possibility that it might be stronger than he. He didn't know that it had come a long way in a very short amount of time, just for the chance to fight this maddened creature he had become.
He just attacked. Immediately, Hiei recognized his mistake, but it was already too late. The last thing he saw was the ground, rushing up to meet him. The last thing he smelled was his own blood.
"Oh, no. Please, God, no." Tsuki was returning to the hospital from Genkai's, and wished she had come back sooner. Was he dead? Was he dying? Hiei's torn, battered form sprawled limply across the mast on the forest floor, and she knew that even if he hadn't already bled to death, even if she could get him to Shigure on time, infection might still kill him.
If he wasn't already dead.
Tears ran down her cheeks as she gathered him into her arms, her mind pleading with a deity she had never believed in. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realized how short he was. He was lighter than he should have been, too. Glancing at the crimson forest floor before racing away, she knew why.
As she half ran, half stumbled, forgetting the prudence of using a path, she felt for a pulse, and found it. Weak and erratic, but it was there. She could have sobbed with relief, but then she remembered something. The look of horror on Hiei's face just that morning. Her quick mind connected it to this, and she knew it was her fault.
No, please, please, no!
She reached the front door, banged through, and nearly ran over Shigure. In her rush to get Hiei help immediately, she managed only to babble senselessly.
"I expected something like this to happen," he muttered to himself. Tsuki did not notice. Tears streamed, unchecked, down her face. This was a nightmare, but unlike the demon horses that sometimes visited a sleeper's dreams, this was waking, and its message was grim.
Shigure picked up Hiei, and shooed her away. The koorime's head shifted limply, the white star in his black hair turned dark red. She looked down, and her entire body was red with his blood. Gaping wounds still pumped his life force from him. He was dying, and Tsuki knew it.
She recognized something, then, like Kuwabara's red pinky string. A connection, intimate and strong, told her when he was okay, and when she had to worry. She wondered where it had come from, and when.
It told her that he was dying.
She didn't look for a chair, or lower herself carefully to the floor. She collapsed, and the physical pain that accompanied the crunch, as her face hit the floor, was welcome. She curled in on herself, feeling a hollow, throbbing emptiness in her solar plexus that was far, far worse than a broken nose. Clinging to the cold floor, she welcomed darkness, but the darkness of unconsciousness would not come. How could it? From a broken nose?
No.
Seized by the desire to cause herself to bleed, to fall unconscious, Tsuki started the painful process of drawing herself off the floor, but gave up and folded again, her broken sobs echoing off the unfeeling, surgically white walls.
She had killed Hiei.
Over the next week, Tsuki would not leave the intensive care ward, except to shower and change clothes. She slept there, ate there, cried there constantly. Every day, when she left at dawn to go home, she went to Mukuro's private garden and picked two roses, bringing them back, with the thorns, to place by Hiei's bed.
One was white, the other was black, but they lay as equals together.
Though Hiei was a very black sort of person, she thought of him as the white rose. The pure, clean, angelic white rose, with such soft petals, and slightly shorter thorns, though they were still very sharp. The black rose, she thought of as herself. Black with sorrow and self-loathing, and long thorns that reached out to cut those around her.
She didn't know that Hiei would have thought the exact same thing. He would have seen himself as black, and her as a laughing, radiant white. Not that he would admit it. Neither would she; not to an outsider. Her feelings for him grew as she watching him sleep, never waking, and never showing any sign of real improvement.
Many days more passed, and she stayed by his side, bringing a new pair of roses every day, as he fought to survive raging fevers and deadly infection. She had been right; the loamy soil and rotting mast was wreaking havoc on his immune system. There were times when she was sure he would die, times when the despair at such a prospect overwhelmed her.
And yet, Tsuki fought with him, through the forbidding mist that surrounded him, the mist that reeked of death. She begged whatever gods might exist to spare him. She made promises, tried to bargain, and wept bitter tears. Shigure watched all this with something like pity, and for the first time in her life, she welcomed it.
It was worse than Silent Hill. How could one man make her wish she was back at Silent Hill, if only she could return to her uncomplicated, loveless life. She didn't, though. Going back to the way it had been would mean going back without Hiei, and she knew she couldn't bear that. She had mocked, in her mind, those who no longer wanted to without their lovers, but now, she was one of them.
How could she have mocked them?
Closing the door behind her, Tsuki left the room to go home, change, and bring fresh roses. She rubbed at her eyes, and noticed that they were swollen and itchy from crying. She resolved to wash her face.
A crack sounded near her, and she looked down dully, trying to spot which branch she had stepped on. Seeing nothing, her brow furrowed, and her mouth opened, and –
Tree. Where had that tree come from? Disoriented, and realizing that she had badly bruised, if not broken, her left arm, Tsuki raised her head. That was where the tree had come from: a demon, the same demon that had so badly wounded Hiei, had found her. It must have smelled Hiei on her.
It couldn't have been a very smart demon, but that was not important. She squinted, trying to collect her thoughts, and recognized the demon's stance as a killing attack, just as it launched at her helpless form.
Then it wasn't anywhere that she could see. Still dazed, she realized that someone had picked her up, and smelled Hiei. What? She looked up.
It was Hiei, looking very awake indeed.
"How did you know," she whispered. "How?" It was inconceivable that after two weeks of coma, suddenly he should be awake to save her. It was a miracle.
"You remember when that idiot, Kuwabara told you about his red pinky string?" Eyes, wide, she nodded, then realized that he wasn't going to say any more. He didn't have to. She smiled.
Wait a minute. "I was so worried about you," she cried, slightly angry with him. He raised an eyebrow. "The demon," she cried suddenly, remembering it. She looked around wildly. "Dead," she concluded faintly.
"Dead," Hiei agreed, a hard, cold tone in his voice. Then his eyes softened, just slightly, and he chided her, "Baka onnanoko." (stupid girl; onna is woman, onnanoko is girl) "You shouldn't be so careless. You're lucky I'm here to watch out for you." The Jagan eye, no longer contained by the sutra, glowed slightly in response. He held her closer, as amazed as she that he had said so much.
"Will you, Hiei?" she asked softly. There were tears in her voice, and neither knew whether they were of joy or something else.
"Hn?"
"Watch me," Tsuki clarified, before a desperate strain entered her voice. "Will you watch over me?"
"I have been," he answered, his voice only slightly less cynical than usual, which was a great concession for him.
Her eyes glowed with happiness, shining tears of happiness spilling over flushed cheeks. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so happy, and she saw some measure of the feeling reflected in Hiei's eyes, though no one else would have seen them. "Will you stay with me? I get so lonely at night," she confessed. "Will you keep me company?"
"In your arms and in your bed."
And that was enough.