A/N: This story's a product of mhmartini's recent randomized pairing meme on LiveJournal. It was the third pairing I drew but the first one I've written so far, and since it wound up rather long and I like it well enough, here it is. Some of you guys might recognize the incident Kuwabara's reading to everyone, but if you don't, I'll elaborate at the end. Enjoy!
By the way, I can in all honesty say I've never before even tinkered with the pairing in this story, so let me know how I did!
Human Scum
30 June 2009
It was late afternoon, at the eatery that Yusuke had taken to calling a bistro to appeal to his growing clientele of students, as he figured that "bistro" sounded more intellectual than "noodle house." A stupid idea, Hiei thought—but then, it seemed to attract more humans of that age since the name change.
With that in mind, Hiei thought the ones that bred these students ought to consider asking for their money back, if their "educated" offspring were so easily duped.
Swat! Hiei raised an eyebrow as a rolled-up newspaper slammed won on the counter next to him, then looked up at the one wielding the paper. "Is that really necessary?" he asked Yusuke.
"Order something or vacate the counter," the taller brunette told him. "You're taking up prime real estate doing nothing." Hiei glowered.
Beside him Kurama quickly piped up, "Untrue, Yusuke. He'll have an order of peach buns; I'll pay."
Hiei smirked as Yusuke let them be. He knew it wasn't an act of charity on Kurama's part—the redhead had just arrived from his last class for the day, and would probably eat most if not all the buns himself. Actually, Hiei knew the Fox's motives were purely self-centered—Kurama was positioned by the window, and if Hiei relocated, the seat beside him would certainly be filled—and Kurama trapped—by one of the college girls who kept sending him furtive, unrequited glances from the booth by the door.
"Human scum."
Red hair shifted as Kurama tilted his head toward Hiei. "You say something?"
He hadn't. Both turned around to face the booth behind them.
"Sounds kinky," Shizuru said.
"Ew, shut up, I'm trying to read." Kuwabara smoothed out the entertainment magazine he was looking at, and recited: " 'During an interview on the set, the actor, who plays the reluctant heir to an ancient royal bloodline in the trilogy, was tackled by a young costar, who pronounced him "human scum" and kissed him'—Ew."
Hiei snorted.
"Any pictures?" Shizuru asked.
"Not of the actual thing, you pervert, but here." Kuwabara slid the magazine across the table so that she and Yukina could have a look.
"Right," the older psychic said, pointing a chipped fingernail at a glossy, if slightly water-damaged, photo. "He plays the Ranger…" Her finger slid across the page, "And he's the Elf." She pursed her lips. "He looks better with the wig. All that long, silver hair…"
"Is an irritant to keep clean," Kurama murmured, pushing back his own currently more colorful, more textured locks, "and neat."
"Hey, don't think I don't see you fidgeting; I'll kill you if you cut yours."
The redhead smirked. "Don't worry, that'd be impractical. Now, perhaps a trim—?"
"No." Then she looked thoughtful. "Maybe. If I get to do it."
"I thought elves were little," Kuwabara said, then looked at Hiei with a stupid grin. "Hey Shorty, you ever put on a pair of green tights and ride around in the back of a sleigh?" Hiei replied with a venomous glare, then redirected it, as beside him Kurama began to snicker very softly.
Meanwhile Yukina was looking over the article. "I like the other one better," she decided.
"Thank you!" Kuwabara exclaimed. "Finally, a girl this day in age who remembers that men get dirty and grow stubble and sweat. It's like very other girl nowadays goes gaga for some delicate-featured, long-haired pretty-boy, even though when they're not stalking him he's probably taking it up the—." He paused when he noticed the pair of eyes watching him through slightly narrowed lids. "Uh, not that there's anything wrong with that," he quickly amended. "Just gets annoying—especially when the guy's an ass—sorry, Yukina—like, say, Shishi."
Kurama's eyes crinkled in amusement. Nice save, they said. "Agreed," he verbalized, turning back to his schoolwork. "It'd be nice for some peace and quiet for a change."
Hiei rolled his eyes. Usually the only reaction he got from Kurama's stalkers was a look as though they feared he might whip out a mask and a knife.
A clatter in front of him, but instead of a newspaper, this time it was his-but-really-Kurama's order. "Yo Fox-boy," Yusuke said, face lit up with a leer. "Your friend's here."
"Which one…?" Kurama began to groan—until he saw who it actually was by the door, and began to gather his things up. Quickly he threw some money on the table. "Enjoy the peach buns, Hiei," he told the Jaganshi on his way past.
Hiei rolled his eyes again. "Spar you later," he muttered. The Fox had said before that their weekly activity was the only real work-out he was getting these days.
"See what I mean?" Kuwabara said, as soon as Kurama had departed with Yuu Kaito, and it was safe. Hiei pulled a face, though in fact he harbored suspicions more potent than those of anyone else present regarding the nature of his companion's study sessions.
"Whatever nurses your ego, little brother," Shizuru said, looking at her watch. "Come on, Yukina, it's time to go."
"Hey, where're you kidnapping my girlfriend?!" Kuwabara demanded. Hiei pulled another face.
Shizuru held up a hand, waggled her fingers. "Nails. You'll get her back in a couple of hours." Kuwabara muttered a begrudged-sounding "Fine."
"Bye, Kazuma," the Koorime said as Shizuru took one of her hands. "Bye, Hiei—Oh, what color?"
What color? Nails, he realized. "Green?" Even Kuwabara gave him a weird look. "Red?"
"Red's an idea," Shizuru said as she led Yukina away.
As soon as they'd departed, and it was safe, Yusuke walked over, leaned across the counter, and in a mock-whisper said, "You think they're scissoring?"
"I'll SCISSOR YOU, URAMESHI!!!" Kuwabara bellowed, looking around for a pair.
A new customer came in, diverting Yusuke's attention. "Yeah, well." He gravitated down the counter. "Maybe you ought to hold off at least until Keiko's out of night class."
"Forget you, man, I'm done." Kuwabara emptied the last of his coffee cup, put down some money and made to leave. Hiei sat a moment longer, reflecting that he was probably sleeping at Kurama's tonight, but that the Fox's study session—"study session"—might take longer than Yukina getting her nails painted would. Reaching a decision, he stuck a peach bun in his mouth, wrapped the others in a napkin, and followed Kuwabara, grabbing the discarded magazine on his way out.
A catalog of human vanity, he thought as he looked over it. Celebrity hook-ups and speculated hook-ups … though he supposed they were doing the same thing in the bistro. Hair and make-up, probably the most flamboyant vanity; although Shizuru was a beautician, and nonetheless one of the humans that he got along with most. Then the most common, weight. Well, Kurama had developed a little belly since resuming school, but didn't make a scene beyond insisting that they stick to their sparring routines. That, and the new weird-tasting food that'd taken over the Fox's apartment…
Fuck. Hiei needed a vacation from his vacation.
—Or at least to look up from the page on occasion, he thought in hindsight once he'd walked into the back of Kuwabara.
"Watch it, Shrimp! Geez, probably walk out right into traffic if I weren't around to keep an eye on you."
"I can keep an eye on myself with a set to spare!" Hiei growled in retaliation. In his defense he gestured wildly with his hands, and wound up hitting Kuwabara in the arm with the magazine.
The carrot-top looked at it. "Heh. Didn't know you read that shit."
"It's yours," he pointed out hotly.
"Yeah, but I got it for Yukina. She's interested in this sort of stuff."
"Why?" Hiei found himself wondering aloud.
"I dunno. Maybe it's educational, so she knows what to wear to not look like a mini-ninja—"
Hiei was about to retort, but humped as suddenly a rather large, rather loud vehicle pulled up screeching right beside him.
"—or what a bus is," Kuwabara finished, his tone superior.
"I know what a bus is!" he growled. He'd already learned the functions of day-to-day human life either by observation or from Kurama.
—Not that he always had the means to perform said functions, he thought, staring blankly at the coin slot on the bus. All his money was at Kurama's.
Kuwabara made a little self-satisfactory snort as he dropped several coins in, and handed Hiei the ticket. "Like I said."
Great, so Kuwabara had control of basic motor skills, Hiei was real fucking impressed.
Out of idleness Hiei thumbed through the magazine, paused—and widened his eyes as he came upon an article that he was sure was geared at the magazine's probably widely female audience:
"10 Things He Wants to Do In Bed."
"What're you doing?" Kuwabara asked as Hiei began tearing out the pages.
In reply Hiei shoved the torn rejects into the man's face. "You buy this for Yukina to read?!"
"Huh—Oh—Oh, chill, Hiei, it came with the magazine is all!" Under his breath, Kuwabara muttered, "I ain't getting anything anyway."
Hiei bristled, and began to reassess the logic of the icy Koorime crone-bitches. Cloistered away, without (physical) vanity and mean and the ten things they want to do in bed.
After a moment, Kuwabara added, "'Sides, that's just a kinda trashy magazine about kinda glamorous and kinda trashy people. You won't see anybody like me in there."
His tone managed to be proud, defensive, and resentful all at the same time. Hiei realized his quick save earlier with invoking Shishiwakamaru, who'd pointed out before what Kuwabara had just said: he wasn't the type they showed in magazines.
He considered some woman model, taller than he was (hardly a feat, he knew), maybe even taller than Kuwabara, but so skinny he wondered—but, disgustingly, knew better—if she was from somewhere with famine.
"You look better than her," he offered with a shrug, showing Kuwabara the picture.
"Thanks," Kuwabara said sarcastically. "Sheesh, that girl's probably got enough people on her ass about how she looks."
For crying out—"Maybe your sister ought to get you some lady pads on her way home," he said, relishing the choking noise and look of horror that followed.
"Shit, Hiei!"
"Oh chill, Kuwabara, it came with the female boss is all." Coolly Hiei thumbed back through the magazine, decided he was done with it, and dumped it in Kuwabara's lap. The bus was slowing down, anyhow.
"You know," Kuwabara said as they dismounted, "you make a bitchy date."
Hiei snorted. "What about Yukina?"
"Yukina's sweet!"
"Too bad. She ought to be bitchy, around a pervert like you."
"Oh, come on, Hiei! That's just a magazine article! Stuff in magazines—well, 'cept for maybe ones like National Geographic or Modern Guitars—but stuff in this sort of magazine don't mean anything!"
"Is that so?" Hiei demanded, features melding into something that Kurama, having known him so long, might have recognized right away, but that Kuwabara seemed to take no notice of.
"Yeah! Man, if no one out here knows what you are, they probably at least know that you're foreign. Jump at a bus, cant' pay for a ticket, think everything in every magazine is real, which if that were true would make you an alien like that one tabloid said, though I guess that maybe that's not the best example to use since you technically kind or are one but—Shit!"
Kuwabara made the most interesting face as he landed on the sidewalk. Hiei smirked down at him—before grabbing either side of his head, and to his horror—which didn't help him, because that made him open his mouth—kissing him.
Feel him squirm! thought Hiei evilly, mimicking the movements with his tongue, which made Kuwabara squirm more.
After just a moment or two, though, Hiei hopped off of him, ignoring the crowd of people staring, and smirked as Kuwabara stumbled to his feet, wiping his mouth and giving Hiei a confounded look. "What the—?"
"Shut up," Hiei cut him off. "Human scum." And while Kuwabara stood and stared, he turned and proceeded in the direction of the home that human shared with Shizuru and Yukina, just down the street.
"HEY!"
Hiei was by the fence just outside the house when he heard the rapid footsteps catching up to him, on the patio when they did—
Through the sliding screen door, when the first caught up to him. Better to tumble with it, he decided as he went flying, and accomplished a perfect mid-air somersault before landing perched on the back of the couch—he had to give Kuwabara some credit, sending him through the kitchen with just one punch—, facing his attacker.
Who waved a still-clenched around, before fixing it frozen at his side. "What the HELL was that about?!" Kuwabara demanded. "Hey, I don't know what you do with your buddies in Demon World, or at Kurama's place"—Hiei raised an eyebrow—"and I don't really even care, but I am not that way, and besides it's rude to just tackle and French someone out in the open like that!"
Whatever the French had to do with this. "Rude?" Hiei repeated, letting himself fall over onto the couch. "I hope it's living with two women that makes you sound like such a priss."
"Priss?" A contorted face appeared over the back of the couch, and glared won at him. "I'm not a priss. I—!"
Hiei narrowed his eyes. "'Sweat?'" he sneered.
"Right!"
The Koorime turned his head to one side. It wasn't even fun baiting him anymore. "What do you think I do at Kurama's place?" he asked.
"Uh—." He pursed his lips, turning a little red. "Nothing I want to think about!"
"Nothing."
Kuwabara stared won at him. "Huh?"
He rolled his eyes. "Nothing," he repeated. "Nothing happens. 'I ain't getting anything anyway,' like what you said. I think his study sessions take it all out of him."
Above him the carrot-top cringed. "Let's not talk about that, 'kay? Wait." Kuwabara gave him a weird look. "You wanna get some?"
Trying to take an objective look at himself, Hiei figured to that be perfectly honest, he probably didn't come off as some hormone-crazed horn dog like Yusuke or the idiot standing over him could be; or effortlessly seductive, like Kurama. If he wasn't getting any from Kurama (or from Mukuro, if Kurama was the one teasing him), then he must be perfectly sexless, much more sooner to beat the shit out of someone than be tender with them.
Well, maybe that was true, but still…
"Are you offering?' he asked, unable to suppress a malicious smile as Kuwabara's eyes practically popped out of their sockets. "Human scum?"
"Uh," Kuwabara said. "Uh. Uh…" Did he think he was being seriously propositioned?
Without warning Hiei sat up and tugged on that stupid poof of hair that sort of reminded him of a rooster's comb, yanked the attached head down, and kissed the mouth again. Shut up, he thought at the resulting, muffled protest sounds, kissing deeper. Would anyone speculate over them?
"Oomph!" he uttered through a tangle of tongues as the body on the other end teetered over the back of the couch and landed on top of him, practically crushing the already-dwindling air out of him.
SO much for Kuwabara "not being that way," he thought cynically as he felt big clumsy hands grope at his hips. Or maybe that was just it—he didn't have a "pretty" face like Kurama did, but he—he had hips…
And there was something hard, pressing down on something hard, between his hips.
He'd always known that practically ever other thing that shot out of Kuwabara's mouth was pure shit.
"I'm not your couch cushion!" he growled as Kuwabara's arms crushed round his, Kuwabara's hips began to grind into his, sending him sinking deep into the couch. The man above him eased, shifted weight, and he was able to at least get his legs out from underneath.
Which of course made other things shift, altering the pressure—he gasped loudly. All he'd meant was to fuck arou—"Oh!"
"Uh!" Kuwabara replied, squeezing his hips harder.
Shit, and if he—and he'd nothing to change into here—one hand slithered down, undid his belt, undid his pants, which eh started wriggling out of—
He cried out, hissed, cold metal of a button, denim stretched over rock hard pressure on his cock. Kuwabara humped him harder, he began to chew on the psychic's ear, figuring that if he was going to bruise, that oaf ought to bleed…
"A-AH!" Hiei wrapped his legs round Kuwabara's lest the go flying any which way while he all but disappeared into the couch, digging his knees into Kuwabara's thighs, wondering when next he could breathe.
"Aw—shi…"
A snarl: "Urnh!!!"
"OW!"—Hiei'd bit down on an earlobe.
Both gasped, breathing deeply in, out, in, out. And then Hiei coughed. "You're crushing my sternum," he growled when Kuwabara tried to rest on top of him.
A sleepy, confused-sounding "Huh?," then, "Sorry. I'll—" Thud.
Fall off the couch, apparently. Hiei sat up, stretching his body and looking at the mess on it. His mess; Kuwabara's pants had stayed on. Well, there was a box of tissues on the coffee table, thank you, Cold-and-Flu-Season.
He was on his feet, pulling his pants up, when Kuwabara rolled over and sat up. "Aw, man … Huh?" Kuwabara flexed his arm, twisted it around so that he could see the magazine page stuck to it. "Poor Yukina's magazine took a beating, huh?" He pulled it off, paced it on the coffee table. "She's going to be home soon," he said, standing up. "I'm going to take a shower. Do you—?" He frowned, touched his neck, looked at the liquid on his fingers, touched his neck again, slid his hand up—
"Oh, you fucker, you made me bleed!"
Hiei considered his arms, lifted up his shirt and pulled down his pants a little, appraising the matching bruises on his hips. "Knew you were a pervert," he muttered. "You'd better not be this rough with Yukina." He'd felt that "bone" against him, wasn't going to try imagining it inside of him.
"Ew—I told you…"
Hiei looked at the screen door. "Your sister's going to kill you."
"Aw, it'll fix. She used to throw me through that at least once a week." The psychic shrugged. "Well. Shower. What're you doing?"
On the other side of the couch, he could see the leftover peach buns Kurama had bought him, spilled on the other floor thanks to Mr. "I am not that way".
"Kurama's on a weird health-food kick. I'm staying for dinner," he said, teeth showing as he smiled, like barb. "You stupid, human scum."
Kuwabara gave him a weird look, then shrugged and turned away. "Fuck you, Hiei," he called on his way down the hall.
Right. He rubbed the ridge of his pelvis tenderly, then glanced at the kitchen sink.
His clothes were clean enough, but he sweat, too.
Must have been some study session, Hiei thought, hearing the click of a key turning in Kurama's front door. He'd eaten with the Kuwabara's and his sister (who now had garnet nails), done some after-dinner sparring to smooth over this afternoon (sort of—and was wearing some fresher bruises now, about as many as he'd given, too), and come into the apartment through an open window—an hour ago.
The door opened, and his friend walked in, a little stiff-legged. Hah! Hiei thought—He fucking knew it.
"Hello," Kurama told him, setting down his things and taking off his coat. "Have you eaten?"
"Earlier," he replied as Kurama walked past him into the kitchen.
"I haven't yet."
Hiei watched what he pulled out to eat, grimaced and was glad he hadn't wanted to eat with him. The stuff looked worse than—"Cottage cheese does the same job," he said when Kurama sat down with whatever it was.
"What?"
"You—" He shrugged. "I … read it in a magazine."
"You were bored; I'm sorry." Now Kurama gave him a different sort of confused look. "Did you get in a fight?"
He'd changed out of the clothes he wore earlier, and was now wearing a sleeveless shirt; Kurama had noticed the bruises on his arms. "Practice, with Kuwabara," he said with a straight face. Kurama could look at him as pensively, could interpret it any way that he wanted.
So he thought.
Until green eyes shot wide open in shock, and Hiei's followed suit, in horror.
Stupid, fucking, prying, puzzle-solving Fox, not that way!
"Hiei?!" Kurama exclaimed, even as the demon of that name tore over the couch and be-lined for the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
"Shut the fuck up and go read on of your stupid human magazines!" he yelled through the door.
"Oh, you mean one of my stupid 'human scum' magazines? Tell me, Hiei, smooth face or stubble?!"
A/N: The "human scum" incident was between Orlando Bloom (the kisser) and Viggo Mortenson (the scum) on the set of The Lord of the Rings. You could probably Google around for an actual article, but the one in here I just made up.
Having wrote this, I now look at it and realize that there's a subtle pun, having to do with the spacing of the words in the title: human scum. If you alter the spacing by just one letter, to the right, you'll see what I mean, hah!
As always, commentary is most welcome, especially in this the case where I basically dove in not really knowing what I was doing!