Author's Note: Merry Christmas, Amaringo!


"Use your speed to your advantage."

Serious and reviling the ache of his own muscles, his own weakness, Hiei raced forward, footsteps drumming as he tried to slice through the sticks of pure energy Shigure threw around him as targets.

Without fists or fire, his slow progress mastering this weapon was infuriating, but he grimly continued, slashing at the rapidly appearing, clustering targets, cutting towards the purposeful weakpoints each one had.

Sensing one begin to build energy for a stinging attack, he twisted to jab his sword through it.

"Your footing was clumsy; do it again, a hundred times."

All the other sticks of energy fizzled out of existence, puffing away like smoke.

Hiei turned to sneer into the bastard's eyes, but he well understood the necessity of it.

One hundred strokes later, his muscles, already weakened from the surgery a few weeks ago and several sun-ups and sun-downs of training, were close to giving out, though Hiei concealed it as well as he could. It was not laziness, Shigure knew, but the true weight of utter fatigue, the point where even the strictest master, if they knew what they taught, would call a halt.

So Shigure did, beckoning Hiei from his fighting stance and ushering him inside.

Hiei came with reluctance, with wariness. He tore through the stew Shigure had made, a truly disgusting concoction, with the ease of a being who's never known good or plentiful food.

"Sleep," Shigure said, careful to keep his voice suggestive, not commanding. He earned a suspicious glare, and then the small fighter walked over to the corner of the kitchen, simple as that, and crouched, balancing on his sword and slipping into a slumber that never reached insensibility, and so was never plagued by dreams.

Shigure slept too, in his own bed, and for hours neither being was aware of the other.

Shigure awoke with arousal like fire curling in his chest and his cock in Hiei's mouth, a small tongue toying with the two piercings in his head, a pair of sulky red eyes glowering up at him, daring him to complain.

"What—"

"Payment," was the rude, single-word answer.

Hiei suckled and toyed, slicking the cock from base to tip with long swipes of his tongue and sloppy, sucking kisses over its side. He took it into his mouth, intending it to go to his throat, when suddenly he was pushed off, his mouth sliding wetly off the cock, the piercings scraping his cheek. He was pulled up, a hand taking his chin. "You've paid me already, quite adequately. I don't need a service like this."

Those red eyes watched him, relieved, surprised.

They never spoke of the incident again. Decades later, as Shigure watched his Lord's interest grow into love for the young, volatile fighter, he thought often of the numbed ease with which Hiei handled his cock, and the blank anger in his eyes.

He wondered whether Mukuro ever saw the same image when Hiei and her had sex. He guessed she did, frequently: and recognized it, because she made many a similar one.

And he was glad, very glad, that he hadn't indulged in what was offered that night. What wasn't offered freely should not be offered at all.