Alrighty, I really have too many fics on my hands right now, but I promised myself I would revive this piece of work after I deleted the last one. Last time, I had a hard time keeping it on track...now, however, I actually have a plot in mind for this little fic, so hopefully it pans out better.
Updates will be slow, because I have a rather full plate in life right now, and because I am currently trying to write three other fics on top of this one. (A crossover Black Butler x Hellsing Ultimate, a singular Hellsing Ultimate fic, as well as an Inuyasha fic that I really should update... in case you're curious what I write) That said, the inspiration for me to revive this fic came from a song called "Secret Love Song" by Little Mix,(maybe to be posted later) and, ironically, from a Black Butler fic that was so beautifully written that the emotions have been haunting me, insisting I write them out...so here I am.
Honestly, this isn't TOO dark or angsty, (so far...) but it deals with the darker side of homosexual relationships, the nature of demonkind(at least where Yusuke is concerned), and has a LOT of Kurama in it, because I love writing his character and find him to be beautifully complicated. Hiei makes many a star appearance too...As with Inuyasha, I can't promise to keep Yusuke in character all the time here because I don't do well writing the loud and uprarious characters (though apparently I write crazy ones pretty well) so plan on some OOC-ness on his part, and possibly Kuwabara's and Yukina's.
This fic takes place roughly three years after the series end, and yes, there will be spoils, so if you haven't finished the series, I recommend treading with caution.
PAIRINGS: YusukexKuramaxHiei, some YusukexKeiko(Dark), KuwabaraxYukina, TouyaxJin, and mayhap some other breif moments of...something, between other characters.
WARNINGS: Will appear at the head of most chapters where there are any, so watch out for that. Needless to say there will be a sex scene or two in here somewhere, but probably not for a while. I believe in slowmance, as my Inuyasha fans can tell you. :3 That said, as much as I try to keep Kurama in character, there seem to be MANY interpretations of his complex personality, and so he may at times seem OOC as well to some people. Just a heads up. FOR THIS CHAPTER:
Ok. the long A/N is done, now let's get this show on the road!
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
CH I
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The late winter sky seemed a sea of fire along the far spine of hills, visible from between the buildings and telephone wires as it spread over the crests and valleys like waves crashing ceaselessly against their earthen surface, throwing the bare trees into forests of shadow as the sun slowly hid its face from the world. It was roughly six in the evening, and all signs of life on the busy streets was fast dwindling as another chill night came to greet the world, its pale, sarcastic companion, the moon, following suit to bathe their little town in its own cold, silver rays, so much different from the reddish glow setting the sky on fire now.
"Shuuichi, darling, I think the pork is burning."
"Oh! Why didn't you let me know before, mother?" Kurama rushed from the kitchen window back to the stove, flipping the meat before its one side burned black, noticing with distaste that it still wound up darker than he'd intended. But it was still edible.
"Sorry about that, Mother."
"Oh, don't fret it, dear. You do seem rather distracted, though- has something been on your mind?" Shiori inquired, peering beneath her son's hair as his gaze fell to the floor. She expected the response- he really was a very reserved person, Shuuichi. She couldn't say she minded it, except that it left them little to talk about most days. Still, she respected his desire for privacy most times (unless she genuinely thought he was in trouble of some kind) though this time she made it a point to get something out of him, no matter how small. He'd been acting strange lately, and that was usually the first sign she needed to start worrying about his wellbeing. He may not have been aware of it, but he did things very repetitively when he was upset or fretful, a bit like herself. They were always little things, like the way he would step back and then forward again, repeating the action over and over as he cooked dinner for her tonight. Or the way he kept turning the choptsicks in his fingers over and over in his nimble fingers, never losing grip on them and seeming not to notice that every time he reached for the pork with them a new face of the squared sticks was facing himself as he spun them mindlessly in his fingers, seeming to have lost the answer to her question amid a sea of thoughts storming in his mind. It was things like this that clued her into her son's mental state, as well as thee fact that every now and then he turned to glance out the window, to the setting sun as if it held the answers to his unspoken questions.
"Shuuichi, darling, are you sure you're alright?" She prompted once she was sure he'd forgotten her question amid the flurry of his own that she could see swirling in his eyes- though what they were about, she could not say.
"Hm? Oh, sorry, Mother. Guess I've just got a lot on my mind." He was looking out the window again, and she seen a shadow pass over his eyes for a second. A little yellow warning flag shot up in her head as she seen this, knowing haven seen it once before that it usually meant he was in trouble with somebody.
"Did you and your friend get into a fight again?" She asked as delicately as she could as he turned back to the stove and flicked it of with a gracefull turn if his wrist. He pretended to go about his business with intent, but she could still sense the turmoil in his mind. He liked to do that, though- pretend everything was fine in front of her, even when she knew he was ready to fall apart.
"No. Actually, me and Hiei have been getting along better than we normally do." He replied with a soft smile as he rushed around the kitchen to finish preparing the meal. Shiori smiled alongside him, recalling that they had had a nasty little spat just a few months ago...something to do with Hiei's work getting involved with his love life and him getting in trouble for it before turning the blame onto Shuuichi. She recalled it clearly, for it had happened in her house, just upstairs where Shuuichi was once more staying.
His step father had passed away shortly before then, and being the worry-wort he was, Shuuichi had offered to move back in with her to help pay for utilities. He said he worked part-time at the university as a teaching aide, but Shiori had never seen him there when she had bothered to visit on her well-days; not that she didn't believe him with the salary he brought home every week. Her heart had begun to have some problems just last year, giving her red-head another incentive to move back in. He helped her keep tabs on her medicine, and generally tried to spoil her rotten, though she protested much of the time out of some sense of motherly pride. After all, if anything she should have been the one spoiling him, not the other way around. But Shuuichi had never really liked to be spoiled or coddled, so she frequently refrained except when he was sick, which wasn't very often.
"Actually..." Shuuichi's voice brought her back from her own thoughts instantly as she listened carefully to the sound of his voice. Shuuichi was a masterful liar, she knew. She knew too well he could lie through his teeth like it was as easy as breathing if he felt the need to. She couldn't say she really understood where her sense about that had come from, or when, but after raising the boy, she supposed she should know by now what at least some of his tells were- one of which could be heard more than seen if one listened closely enough to the way his voice rolled off his vocal chords. Her heart might not be in the best condition, but her ears worked just fine enough to hear the difference in the clarity and pitch of his voice when he was trying to hide something versus when he was being more honest.
"...It's Yusuke I'm worried about." He exhaled, brow furrowing a tiny bit as he closed his eyes, standing with his hands against the kitchen counter. His body was turned away from her, indicating he'd rather not talk about it, but she insisted this time as a measure of caution.
"Is he alright?" She inquired, concerned. Not much went wrong with that child despite his upbringing, at least not that she'd been clued in on. She'd met the spunky kid once, and he seemed to be able to take care of himself surprisingly well, considering he lived with just his girlfriend now. So to hear his name in this situation most certainly drew up her concern.
"He...well, rather..."
Suddenly the phone rang, and Shiori did not miss the jolt Shuuichi gave at the noise, try as he might to suppress it. She had given a jump of her own at the sound, but it was rare to see Shuuichi flinch at things like that. He'd always had this uncanny awareness of his surroundings that seemed to make him immune to being startled, as his younger brother had learned the hard way trying time and time again to pop up and scare him. Rather, it was always Shuuichi who wound up scaring the pants off his younger sibling, usually unintentionally, as he frequently walked into a room like a ghost. Shiori had gotten used to it after twenty three years, her son's admittedly eerily silent and graceful way of walking and moving in general, but it still managed to freak out the Younger Shuichi from time to time when he was caught off guard.
Shiori moved out of the way as her son made to grab the phone more hastily than she'd of expected, had he not just told her he was worried about his friend. She had her questions about her son's...unusual, choice of friends, but kept them to herself, if for no other reason than not to seem rude. Still, the Hiei boy that her son had taken up as a lover (she'd yet to confront him about her knowledge of that, she reminded herself, making a mental note to bring it up when the time decided it) worried her a lot more than she would ever probably openly admit, though she'd asked questions about him after they'd been formally introduced a year and a half ago.
"Hello?" She heard Shuuichi answer hastily, listening tensely into the silence that followed. She allowed herself to poke her head around to see Shuuichi as he stood by the phone, mounted on the wall near the kitchen threshold in which she presently stood. She watched him warily, knowing he typically acted differently if he knew she was watching him, the way most children did. The fact Shuuichi had been more of an adult his entire life than most people at any point in theirs didn't exclude him from that one reliable law of parenting: Your child will never act the same way with you they do with their friends or coworkers, even after they grow up. In this case though, Shuuichi took a nearly backwards approach. Rather than feel more at ease around her, even in situations you might expect such a thing to happen, like now, as she watched him fidget with the phone chord absently, he instead became more guarded. She supposed she could understand that, though; she'd never personally reinforced it, but he was praised highly in parts of her neighborhood as the perfect child, since there was never any rumors that he'd ever gotten in trouble, and it had affected him, she could suppose, in the way that he was afraid to seem weak or unreliable in her eyes. Then again, there were those in the neighborhood that seen his pristine record and made trouble out of it for themselves from time to time, so maybe he'd just become guarded as a side effect of that. She couldn't tell, and doubted he'd give her an honest answer if she asked.
Shiori was pulled from her thoughts by her intuition. She looked over at Shuuichi, seeing him standing there stiff as a board, his face pale as a linen sheet. Her gut immediately clenched in apprehension, making her frail heart accelerate. She tried to keep her anxiety at bay in light of her health, but had to admit that seeing such an expression of fright on her own child was a first for her, and that it scared her equally as much.
"I understand." Shuuichi replied into the phone in a soft but clipped voice, making Shiori even more anxious. "I'll be there. Do you...should I bring anything?" There was muffled noise on the other end. "Yusuke." The way Shuuichi said the name, as well as the name itself, made Shiori tense. He'd said his friend's name in a way she couldn't exactly describe; it was partly commanding, partly comforting. Once more her intuition told her that Shuuichi would probably be missing dinner tonight, based on the sound of that tone alone.
"Yusuke, breathe, okay? I'll...Let me get Hiei, and we'll be right there. Hm? I have a car, Yusuke. I can get to the hospital, okay?...Yusuke?" The warningly concerned tone in her son's voice and the fact he'd mentioned a hospital made Shiori exit her position in the doorway to come up beside Shuuichi.
"Is everything alright?" She said with more alarm than she'd intended. "I can take someone to the hospital if they need it. Is Yusuke alright?" Shiori asked as her son hung up the phone with a careful motion that told her he was more upset than he would let on.
"I...I think Yusuke will be fine, as long as me and Hiei can talk to him." Shiori's pulse, rather than be soothed by this, only increased. The way this was sounding to her...
"Who got hurt?" Shuuichi looked up at her from where his eyes had been averting hers on the ground, noticing how shook she seemed to be.
"Mother, everything will be okay-"
"Who got hurt?" She insisted, worry making her tone firm but not quite demanding. He got the gyst though, and sighed.
"Keiko got...well, there was an accident. Yusuke's really shaken up, and...well, I'm not really sure how to help him yet. But Hiei should be able to help him with this kind of thing, so I should probably call him..." Once more he peered into her eyes, sighing before forcing his features to relax. As much as Shiori hated it when he did that, masked his emotions, she had to admit that it calmed her down.
"Mother, you should sit down. Your heart is in no condition-"
"My heart is fine, dearest." Shiori snapped a little, and almost regretted it when it seemed to take Shuuichi aback. Almost. "I can drive to the hospital if you need me to. How bad was the accident?" At the harrowed look her son gave her, she swallowed.
"She's being taken in an ambulance as we speak; it was Yusuke who asked for a ride there to...be with her. But frankly, I don't think it's a good idea he's with her right now, being as shaken as he is...I also don't think it would be good for you to be there either. Your heart doesn't need that kind of stress. Besides, apparently it was a...messy, accident." At the look of alarm that bordered on panic that crossed Shiori's features, her son retracted and started over. "That is to say, she got hurt pretty badly. But I'm not going to be around that too much, just going to meet Yusuke nearby and help him get cleaned up and calmed down is all, so you really shouldn't worry too much. Besides, Hiei will be there too, if I can get a hold of him, and maybe I'll call Kuwabara as well." At the persistent look of worry that lingered on her face, Kurama changed tactics. "Look, I really don't think it's a good idea he's alone right now, and since he called me first..." Shiori nodded in understanding.
"I understand dear. I'll pack dinner for when you return. Just make sure you take your cell and keep in touch with me, okay?" Shiori smiled gently, placing a dainty hand on her son's arm comfortingly. "If something goes wrong or...or you get scared, call me. I'll be up a while; take my car if you're going anywhere else. I just filled it yesterday."
"Mine will be fine, Mother; stop worrying. I'll come straight home if anything happens, okay?" He grasped her hands lightly, trying to soothe her mind and heart.
"Ok, dear. Be safe." She said as he pulled his cell off the counter and dialed a number, grabbing his other things before walking out the door, phone pressed to his ear.
'I hope Yusuke will be alright.'
'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
Alright, alright! Well, this got off to a nice start, no? I think so. Much better than last time, anyway.
Okay, so to let those know who don't; As a general rule of my fanfictions, I will only post a new chapter if someone REVIEWS the posted one. This has nothing really to do with hubris or wanting the reveiw (though I lOVE feedback, love, love, love, as any author might, be it good or bad), it just helps me to gauge how much demand there is for my fics. Some, like my crossover, have a TON of demand, and others, like my little standalone Hellsing fic, not so much. Point is, More demand= faster updates. So, with that in mind, REVIEW for more in this slightly twisted tale of slowmance.
until then, Aufweidersehen!
