Title: Not Over the Fire
Rating: PG for mild rhyming sequences
Author: Idiom Laurels & Sister
A/N: Well, I'd consider this fanfic to be one with implied Kurama x Hiei. But that's just me, I suppose. Hmm, there's not much else to say except, uhh, tip your waitresses?
Not over the Fire
"Kurama," he spoke, hesitantly approaching his red-haired companion, his shoulders slouched sheepishly, and his expression lacking usual confidence. Even though everyone seemed to look that way at one point or another in their life, on Hiei it wasn't right, or even slightly understandable.
Kurama sat perfectly still in his chair; he gawked forward in a disturbingly silent look of confusion and worry, waiting for the smaller man to continue.
Only thoughts of the worst swarmed within Kurama's mind. What could be the matter, he couldn't help but wonder. Did someone break inside the house in the middle of the night and steal his necklace? His katana? Hiei's prized photograph of him and the mall Santa from 1997?
But then, finally, Hiei spoke.
"Kurama," he said again. "Are you listening?"
He was jolted out of his grim little game of 'what if' then, and turned to his smaller friend, putting on his most apologetic smile.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Please, continue."
"Last night while I was sleeping, I had a dream. And in this dream, a huge orangutan named Big Joe (I could tell because he was wearing a nametag) came over to me and patted me on my head. Then he said in a very deep voice, 'bring an umbrella with you to work tomorrow'. Well, clearly, after that kind of a dream, I woke up screaming."
Kurama weighed what Hiei was saying carefully. He had to be attentive to Hiei's obviously fragile emotional state. So he nodded casually and said, "Uh-huh, go on."
"After such a traumatizing dream, one figures that one must get up and get a drink of water. So one did. As I went into the bathroom, I noticed that my hair was in my face, so I moved it. Once I could see, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and immediately saw that something was different about me. I started to examine myself. I stuck out my tongue..."
"Uh-huh, continue."
"I twiddled my thumbs, I looked at my feet, and I put my finger in my ear. But everything seemed to be normal. Then it hit me like an over due library book. There, right in front of me, was the problem. It was exactly like when you open a door and you walk through it, then you go back in because you forgot where you were going, or when you try forever and ever and ever to pronounce a hard word, and you realize that you're reading a picture book."
"Hiei, I know exactly what you mean; that's happened to me many times," Kurama lied, looking his most empathetic.
"Really Kurama? I was beginning to think that I was all alone in the worlds. But finally I have someone I can turn to. I need you not only to help find a solution to this embarrassing problem, but to also find an alternative to Jell-O."
"It sounds like you need some ointment," the redhead said firmly, leaning forward in his chair to better look Hiei in the eye. "Does that sound all right to you?"
"I suppose," the fire demon answered, rising to his feet in a ready-to-embark-on-the-journey stance.
"Then we'll head off to the store as soon as I grab my coat," Kurama declared.
Hiei stood, waiting patiently by Kurama's bedroom door for the fox to emerge. He was taking a suspiciously long amount of time just to get his coat. Sure, Hiei understood that for people like Kurama, even something as simple as 'getting his coat' came strung along with many other tasks, such as: running a comb through his hair, putting on some shoes, lacing them up, and ultimately changing his entire outfit. And yet Kurama was still taking longer than Hiei expected, by at least four minutes.
The problem wasn't just going to fix itself. It was going to grow like a proverbial beanstalk in alternating bouts of rain and sunshine and fester into a virtual Godzilla in Hiei's mental Tokyo. So where was Kurama? He was smart enough to have fathomed the seriousness of the situation. Was he purposely ignoring Hiei in his hour of need? Perhaps Kurama wasn't the friend he thought he was. Why, anyone who could think about his appearance as their assumed best friend waited in utter pain and agony was no ally. For once in his life, Hiei was truly scared, and he needed Kurama's calm and collected attitude to help him through this. But would the former youko thief even care to sooth Hiei's emotional and physical destruction? Would he just fritter away the valuable Hiei-helping minutes in order to appear as always above standard? Was the fire demon's problem so trivial? He wouldn't stand for that. Hiei, even in such a frazzled state, still had his pride—enough to speak what he thought, and stand up for his own benefits! If there was one thing he'd learnt over the years it was that he wasn't as worthless as he'd once believed, and darn it, he deserved to be treated like anyone with a problem.
"Sorry Hiei," Kurama said politely, as he stepped out from his room, "I dropped the car keys behind the dresser and had to fish them out. Again, I apologize to have kept you waiting."
"No problem," Hiei replied.
"Well then, let's hurry up and get going. This situation of yours (or ours, if you'd prefer to think of it that way) needs to be put to rest."
Hiei nodded, then forewent in following Kurama like a hound in a fox hunt, only it was less of a hunt and more a game of follow the leader.
"When you consider it," Kurama started, after the two had taken seat in Kurama's car, "this affects me almost as much as it does you, only in a very indirect way. If we don't nip this in the bud, I'll be faced with the stressful and mind boggling task of preparing oddities and polishing things that wouldn't normally be polished. Not to mention me, being the provider, would end up paying for all the specialty items."
"I wouldn't want you to have to do that," Hiei spoke, looking away in shame.
"Of course not," Kurama smiled, starting up the car. "But if that's what it comes to, we'll just have to make do, won't we?"
"No. We're going to take care of this right now."
Kurama smiled; Hiei could be so optimistic when he was on the verge of death.
As they were driving the seven and a half miles to the local pharmacy, Kurama decided to put on some music, as Hiei kept busy by trying to pronounce the street signs. Kurama ultimately ended up putting on his favorite country music song, and started to sing along.
"Dancing through life, no need to tough it, when you scuff it off, as I do. Nothing matters but knowing nothing matters. YEEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAH!" Kurama sang.
Hiei screamed in horror.
Not knowing how to react to Hiei's sudden outburst of emotion, Kurama decided that the only thing to do would be to slam on his breaks and swerve into a park bench. This not only shattered it into tiny, splintering pieces, but also gave the little old lady, who had been residing on the bench, a staggering heart attack.
Hiei, legally too small to sit in front seat, went flying through the windshield and was eventually brought to the ground by a young boy's ice cream cart. Kurama, alarmed by Hiei's ice cream mishap, got out of the car and ran toward him, but tripped on the fallen old lady.
Kurama hurried to get off the moaning old woman, and apologized for the inconvenience. Then he rushed over to Hiei's side and said, "O' Hiei, Hiei, you all right?" Hiei grobbled an ear splitting grobble, as he was virtually drowning in the melting ice cream. The young boy, owner of the ice cream cart which betook Hiei's head and body in a clash of not wit and strategy, but random crashing of Kurama's car, was scolding Hiei, accusing him of stealing his daily crop. Kurama, enraged at the boy's lack of sympathy for Hiei's injuries, knocked him out and said in a smug, overly confident tone, "Well maybe next time you should move your cart, so it doesn't get in the way of Hiei flying through a windshield!"
Kurama then attended to Hiei, turning him over on his back and lifting his chest to his sensitive ears; he immediately concluded that Hiei's lungs were filled with ice cream. Kurama decided that the best thing to cure pneumonia was to see a doctor and have him do it. Luckily for Kurama, Hiei didn't have pneumonia, so he decided to just take the fire demon to the pharmacy as originally planned.
Once they arrived, the young woman at the counter—named Natasha Jones—instantly recognized Hiei's condition as he was being dragged into the drug store by a tall, attractive woman with blood on her fist.
Ms. Jones exclaimed, "Hark! Ye bringeth thy fifty-second ice cream filled lungeths patient of the century."
"What?" Kurama asked, flinging Hiei over his shoulder, as not to get dirt on his cloak.
Then, in a New York accent, Ms. Jones said, "Yo. It l'ks like yo've brough' m' my fi'ty-secon' ice cream f'lled lunged patient o' dis cent'ry!"
"Well how does that help me now?" Kurama complained, lowering Hiei's carcass to the pharmacy floor.
"Well that means that you my friend get the fifty-second patient Pulitzer Pretty Prize," Ms. Jones declared, snapping her thin, bony fingers, not once, nor twice, but thrice, which activated the pharmacy spotlight. It shown directly on Hiei's small, slightly open, mouth of drool. Then, almost as if it had been rehearsed, all of the pharmacists sprung out from their hiding places and did a course line. While they were doing the high-kick, they pulled out sparkling top hats and placed then atop their heads, making them appear the most dazzling of ever if any all pharmacy course lines. Kurama, disgusted by the pharmacists' absurd actions, decided to jump in, leaving Hiei to drool on the floor, alone. While the dance continued, Kurama defeated the raging, white hot opposition and became the star.
A can of extra thick New England clam chowder fell from a nearby shelf due to the vibrations from the tap-dance solo Kurama was performing. Now, normally, when one sees a heavy can of soup falling toward them, one will expect the worst. But since Hiei was currently unconscious, and with the only people who could possibly come to his rescue dancing about in a pharmaceutical course line, he hadn't any time to react, and thusly, stayed in his pile of drool. Then, at that moment, the fateful can of heavy soup bestowed Hiei with life! Since the side of the can hit Hiei's chest in just the perfect, precise location, it dislodged an ice cream bar wrapper that was caught in his air tube, and made Hiei sit up, thrusting the ice cream/wrapper/grass/windshield glass out of his throat and into the applauding audience that had gathered.
Hiei looked up confused by his surroundings and thought to himself, 'gully O' gee, where can I be? It seems it as if I'm in a pharmacy. But normally I would suspect a pharmacy to be a much calmer leave, instead of dancing around happily and with glee. I can't seem to understand why my friend Kurama would be over there, having fun and dancing without a care. While here I am, sitting in my drool, Kurama's having fun. Seems quite cruel. Has he forgotten about me? Or could he simply be... caught up in the razzle and dazzle of our local pharmacy? Nevertheless, I must admit, that he got me here. So I can get this product that will eradicate my fear. And would you look at that, on that shelf, lies exactly what I need, with a picture of a little green elf, and as it reads, right on the label, 'is used to cure shelfeonelf', how obscure.'
At that moment, the entire crowd, who had begun to clap along, stopped their jolly ways and gasped, seeing Hiei's problematic problem. Hiei, quite embarrassed by this event, decided to throw the can of New England clam chowder into the audience, and make a mad dash for the door, which unfortunately was a wall. He fell backwards into an unconscious slump and hit the hard, cold, uncaring floor. Kurama, worried as a wart, ran over to his little Hiei, and wiped the plaster from his bleeding teeth.
The audience clapped.
Two days passed, and finally Hiei awoke from his deep slumber, then, after a short pause, began to scream. Yelling out, "Kurama! Kurama! Where are you?"
Kurama rushed in, a worried look upon his pretty face. "Hiei, what's the matter?" he asked, kneeling at the half koorime's bedside.
"Kurama, is my problem gone? Am I healthy now? Did I get in trouble for throwing the can of soup? Did the pharmacists get in trouble for dancing on the job? How's that little boy you punched? And that old woman you tripped over?"
"Hiei... I'm sure how to tell you this. But as I was taking you to the pharmacy, a little boy and his ice cream cart wheeled out in front of our car, and I had to swerve violently to keep from hitting him. I was fine, but regrettably, you hit your head on the windshield. You've been unconscious since then," Kurama said, holding back tears, "you actually lost a lot blood. It took me a long time to find a –Q blood-type donor, and wouldn't you know it, Kuwabara-kun happened to have that very type."
Hiei screamed in horror.
"So, you mean the pharmacy course line and the running into the wall was all a... dream?"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. I'll never be able to forgive myself either. Oh, and by the way, while we were at the hospital getting your blood transfusion and your eighteen stitches, I had the doctor look at that little problem of yours, and he gave you some ointment. Wouldn't you know it, it looks like your problem has vanished, too," Kurama beamed.
Hiei relaxed his body and leaned back against his pillow. "What a relief."
"Hiei, you've had such a hectic past couple of days, what, being unconscious, and I feel that it's somehow all my fault. Heh, don't move anywhere today. I'll call in sick for work, and while I'm at it, cook you a special lunch, served to you in bed," he said, hurrying off.
"Hn," Hiei said with a smile, as he thought to himself, 'my, what a nice thing for Kurama to do, I bet he's a mere one in a few. He seems to care so much. He really comes through in a clutch.'
Kurama soon returned, carrying a tray. Atop it a vase holding a fragrant flower, and a piping hot bowl.
Hiei's for once normal expression then turned to the color of pure white powder, when he realized that Kurama had made him... clam chowder.
-End-
Grobble: This is obviously not a word. My sister insisted on using it, though. Let's just think of it as a spur of the moment onomatopoeia. It's like a backwards gargle.
New England Clam Chowder: A rich & creamy clam chowder with an abundance of tender potatoes, celery, delicious clams, real butter, onions & seasonings.