(AN: Here's the last chapter! Also, I need EVERYONE to go find racereff at deviantART and shower her with love and devotion because she's drawing fabulous fabulous art of this pairing, and if you think this fic is cool, wait till you see her mad photoshop skillz!)
Sleeptalking, part 3
Urameshi stayed conked out on the sofa until noon. At some point, Shizuru must have come out and given him a blanket, because when he crawled into the kitchen while Kuwabara was making lunch, he had the funny imprints of fabric creases streaked across the righthand side of his face.
"Morning, sleeping beauty," laughed Kuwabara as he doled out the rice he'd heated up onto two plates.
"Nnnh, shut up," Urameshi groaned, "I'm just hungry and that smells really good. I didn't know you could cook."
"I just used the microwave. These are leftovers from two nights ago."
"Oh. Well, still."
As soon as Kuwabara set the plate of food down in front of Urameshi, he dove for it, inhaling about half of it before coming up for air. "Ugh, that's awesome," he said. "I can actually feel my energy coming back. I was pretty dead last night, huh?"
"Zonked," Kuwabara agreed. "When Botan brought you in I could barely even feel your spirit energy. I almost thought you were dead."
"You've been thinking that a lot lately."
The kitchen was filled with awkward silence. Urameshi went back to his food, and Kuwabara started eating his lunch too, trying not to think about...things. Trying not to think about the weird, blessedly conclusive but totally, totally gay realization that he'd come to when he was laying in bed last night, unable to sleep, which was that he probably had a crush on Urameshi.
But damnit, he just couldn't avoid thinking about these things any more.
"Urameshi, I - "
"Look, Kuwabara - " Urameshi said in the same instant - but they were both cut off from whatever revelations they were about to make, because the telephone started ringing. After a split second of awkward, loaded eye contact, Kuwabara crossed to the phone and answered it.
"Hello?"
"K...Kubawara? Kuwabara?"
"...Yes..."
"Yusuke's over at your house, isn't he?" Oh, now he recognized the voice, especially with the totally hung-over tone it held: it was Atsuko, Urameshi's mom.
"Uh, yeah. What's up?"
"There's...a couple of guys over here, lookin' for him. Say they're friends of his."
Kuwabara paled. "One of 'em isn't like...a medium-height blond guy, is he?" Urameshi looked up from his lunch in fearful shock, too.
"Yeah, that's them," said Atsuko. "Are you friends with them too, Kuwabara?"
"Uhhhhh, yeah!" he said. "Actually, we should probably come meet them, uh, right now! Go ahead and have them wait outside, we'll be there as fast as we can! Bye!" Kuwabara hung up the phone harder than was necessary and immediately wolfed down the rest of his lunch. "Be've goah go!" he mumbled with his mouth full. He managed to swallow. "The guy, the Dream Lord, he's over at your place!"
"Mom?" Urameshi croaked, panicking as well. "Well don't just stand there eating, we've got to move!"
They quickly tugged on their shoes and burst out the door, and this time, Kuwabara didn't even bother to lock it. Some things just weren't worth it.
Even when his weird relationship with Urameshi was involved, kicking demon ass came first.
-xxx-
The two of them ran through the streets, desperately trying to reach the Urameshi household as fast as possible.
Well, this was familiar.
But this time Kuwabara remembered the proper turn, because as soon as they reached the intersection he started hearing the screaming.
"Mom!" Urameshi screamed, pouring on the speed, and Kuwabara had to struggle his hardest to stay right on his heels. Urameshi really was just that smallest bit better than him at this.
They approached the house at top speed to discover that the Dream Lord and his ponytailed sidekick from the previous encounter had broken one the front window and were trying to figure out the best way to climb into it.
"Good thing they didn't find the spare key in the mailbox!" Kuwabara blurted.
"Shut up, Kuwabara! Now is not the time!"
"Sorry, some stuff just comes out when I'm scared!"
But Urameshi wasn't really listening any more. Urameshi was planting a flying, spinning kick straight into the Dream Lord's face. He stumbled and backed a few paces away from the front of the house but didn't seem incredibly fazed by it.
"Yusuke!" Atsuko called weakly from inside.
"Mom!" Urameshi yelled back. "Shit's under control, don't worry!" He was landing blow after blow on the Dream Lord, but it was as if the demon could barely even feel it. Kuwabara, meanwhile, had only had to hit the ponytailed guy once or twice before he was down for the count and no longer trying to climb through the window. After Kuwabara knew not to expect anything out of him any more, he turned to square off along side Urameshi against the Dream Lord.
The demon's hair looked even greener than last time, and his skin was inhumanly pale. After a few minutes of feeling it out, Kuwabara determined why.
"He's having a harder and harder time maintaining a human form," he told Urameshi. "That's probably why your hits aren't working as well, because he's starting to get his demon skin back."
"There's a solution to that," Urameshi said with a grin, and he cocked his right hand back to his side. Kuwabara knew instantly that this was no punch he was gearing up for.
"Assassinate this! Shotgun!" he cried, and every blast from his volley went hurtling toward the Dream Lord. Several missed, and many more were met suddenly with nightmare paste issuing forth from the demon's mouth, but a couple of them hit their mark. One in particular struck the Dream Lord right in the crook of his left shoulder, leaving a big squirting wound.
Unfortunately, the substance that squirted from the wound was more of the purple ooze, and it splattered all over both of them.
Urameshi immediately went catatonic, eyes glazing over that same funny shade of lavendar. Kuwabara could barely scream out "No!" before it overtook him, too.
-xxx-
The next thing Kuwabara knew, he was standing in a big void of sickly yellow. There was no visible ground beneath his feet, which made things very disorienting. In fact, he looked around as far as he could, and saw nothing but the horrible color, swirling around him like some sort of gas and yet not like a gas at all. He knew he wasn't going to be able to rely on his sense of sight. His spirit awareness would have to point the way for him.
He called forth his spirit sword, wanting to be prepared for the worst, and was surprised to find that when it emerged it was glowing purplish blue instead of its usual golden color. Of course, in looking down at his sword, he also caught sight of his blue jeans - now a repulsive orange - and his red sneakers, now bright green. His white sweatshirt was now black.
"It's like Opposite World," he murmured out loud, and that's when it hit him: Yellow was the opposite of purple, and this sick yellow around him probably mirrored the purple of the nightmare paste exactly. So if he was trying to find Urameshi, he should look for another black-shirted, orange-jeaned figure in the void of pukey yellow.
"Too freaky," he whispered, and then, closing his eyes, he tried to focus on finding Urameshi's spirit energy.
Immediately he got dozens, maybe hundreds of signals! They were all clustered together - almost in neat rows, he thought - way off to his left and behind him. Each one of them felt like a low-level demon. That would be a really stupid way to go. He kept searching. Far, far in the distance, he found a signal of a much stronger demon. That's probably the Dream Lord, he thought to himself. He wouldn't want to go that way, either. He wasn't about to try and fight the demon on his own turf, especially without Urameshi.
Ah, there! Suddenly he could feel it - a strong, feisty presence of what Kuwabara liked to think of as "good-guy" energy, the kind he felt when he hung out with Urameshi and Botan and that was also kind of half-present in Koenma. It was distant, but he felt like he wouldn't have a problem reaching it if he just followed his senses. Maybe if he could find Urameshi, they could team back up and bust out of here, even if no one else had managed to do it before. They weren't even feeling the "eternal torment" or whatever yet, were they? This would probably be way easier than Botan had made it out to be!
Kuwabara took off running in the direction of Urameshi's energy. As he got closer, he could tell that something wasn't quite right about the signal, but that was probably just because they were in crazy yellow world. The little tidbit that was missing probably had to do with this place not being real. Kuwabara kept running, not even bothering to open his eyes. It wasn't going to do him any good. But after a certain point, Kuwabara could feel the big demon energy - the Dream Lord - gaining on him from off to the right. He tried to pick up the pace. Hopefully he'd reach Urameshi in time for them to turn around and tag-team the little bastard.
He had almost reached Urameshi when he heard his voice call out. "Kuwabara!" Instantly, he froze.
The voice had come from much, much further away. From the place where he was sensing the Dream Lord's signal.
And from the energy right in front of him, there emanated a malicious, cackling hiss.
"You fool!" came the voice, in a timbre that Kuwabara had come to associate with demons that looked like giant insects. "You fell completely into my trap! Don't you see what you've done? In looking for your precious little friend, you came directly for me!"
And Kuwabara did see what had happened. It was suddenly all so clear. In the crazy reversed dimension where his spirit sword was indigo, demons felt like good guys and vice versa. He hadn't been running toward Urameshi's signal at all.
Furious, he focused his sword extra tightly and spun around, searching for the demon's actual form. "Come out and fight me, you big chicken!" he cried with false bravado. "I'm gonna take you out once and for all! There's no way you're getting to Urameshi!"
"Kuwabara!" the real Urameshi cried again. The voice was closer. But not close enough.
The gangly green and purple insect suddenly showed himself. "You talk big for someone so small," he sneered. "Remember, human, this is my domain. My dream. Anything I can imagine will happen to little old you!"
"What the --??" The sword in Kuwabara's hands had vanished, and though he knew he still had plenty of spirit energy left, he couldn't summon it back no matter how hard he tried. He panicked, grasping for it over and over, but it never re-emerged. He was about ready to just charge at the demon with his fists instead when suddenly, he became completely trapped within the nightmare paste, only his feet and head sticking out of the giant cocoon.
"Damnit!" he screamed, because Urameshi was still too far away, and what kind of warning could he give, anyway?
Then, the pain started.
"Augh!" he screamed, as he experienced the sensation of being skewered with thousands of needles. Every inch of his body that was covered by the goop suffered. It was total agony!
The Dream Lord laughed. "Do you know why I didn't cover up your head?" he said. "Even though I would love to cause pain over your entire face, where the skin is so sensitive?"
It hurt so much that Kuwabara couldn't respond.
"Hm? No?" said the demon. "It's because I just love to hear you scream!" The horrible sensations shifted, and now instead of needles it was fire. Kuwabara's entire body was being burnt to a crisp. He squirmed as much as he could against the paste, desperate to be free of such torture, but it didn't give an inch. It was stuck to him tight.
"Your friend is coming," said the demon, still chuckling. "The famous spirit detective. I can't wait to deal with him!"
"U...Urameshi's gonna kick your ass," Kuwabara bit out, scowling at the Dream Lord. "Just you...wait."
"Hm, no, I don't think so," said the creature. "You see, this is my world, and if you ask me I'd like my ass to stay kick-free!"
"Well that's just too damn bad," growled a voice, and Kuwabara turned his head as best he could toward it, excitement almost cutting through the pain. Urameshi! With white hair and an electric-gold field of energy charging in his hand. That was weird.
"There you are!" it shrieked.
"You let go of my friend, you freaky asshole," Urameshi snarled.
"No, I don't think I will," the Dream Lord replied.
"It wasn't a request!" Urameshi launched himself at the demon, skinny legs propelling him high into the air, and aimed his spirit gun at the creature's face point-blank.
But before he could let it loose, he was enveloped by the nightmare paste as well! He hovered, suspended in the air like a giant chrysalis, right across from Kuwabara. When their eyes weren't scrunched shut in pain, they could see each other clearly.
The horrible pain turned from blazing heat to unbearable cold.
"That's it, suffer! Suffer as the whole demon realm has suffered thanks to you ridiculous do-gooders!" Kuwabara could barely hear the Dream Lord's taunts over the clashing screams of pain coming from Urameshi and himself.
Wrenching his eyes open, he looked over at Urameshi, screaming in pain and rage. His face was a distorted mess, with a bit of blood seeping from his nose and his tightly shut eyes looking as though they might start crying. And suddenly, the stabbing frost of the nightmare paste didn't quite hurt as much. Nothing hurt as much as watching Urameshi get hurt.
"Stop it, stop it!" Kuwabara begged, his voice starting to go hoarse. "I can't take this shit any more!"
The Dream Lord appeared beside the two of them, studying Kuwabara's face with fascination. "What is thiiis? Are you suffering more just by watching this one suffer? How quaint. How very human of you. Perhaps that would be punishment enough. After all, it's not you I've been paid to kill."
Urameshi snapped into awareness at this. "Yes! Yes! Set him free! Get him out of here, anything at all..."
But Kuwabara had other ideas. "No, geez, shit! If you have to let anyone free, make it Urameshi. I just - I can't watch - "
"Kuwabara, don't be an idiot!" Urameshi shouted at him, even as the pain turned from ice to the stinging of a million insects. "I can take this," he said through clenched teeth. "You just get out of here and make sure everyone else is okay."
"But damnit, you asshole, I'm not gonna be much good if my freakin' heart is broken!"
Urameshi simply stared at him. Kuwabara knew that he was crying by now - the pain, both external and internal, was just too much any more. But there it was. He'd finally said it. And he meant it. If they were gonna be stuck here to be tormented forever and then die horrible deaths, he just had to know that he'd done something about all this ridiculousness.
"Both of you make very excellent cases," cackled the Dream Lord. "But at the end of the day, a reward is a reward!" And with a giant slurp!, the goo surrounding Kuwabara got sucked back into the great insect's mouth, and he dropped to the nonexistent ground, panting for relief while the demon just laughed and laughed.
He staggered to his feet and looked at Urameshi, the floating cocoon putting the detective just about his eye level. "Damnit, Urameshi..." he croaked.
"What are...you just standing there for," Urameshi demanded through clenched teeth, speaking quietly to keep the Dream Lord from hearing. "Go...kick...his ass!"
"My spirit sword doesn't work!" Kuwabara said, frantic but just as quiet. "And I don't think he's gonna let me get a punch in either!"
"There's got to be...something you can do," said Urameshi. "I know it's...not your strong suit, but... think!"
"Hey, I resent that comment!"
"Kuwabara!"
"Okay, okay!" The hurt look on Urameshi's face was almost more than he could take. If he didn't bust them both out of here, he'd never be able to live with himself. There had to be some way he could kill that big ugly bug!
The big ugly bug hadn't seemed to notice their exchange, so focused it was on the pained expressions on both its victims' faces. "Yes, yes!" it cried. "Torment of the body and torment of the heart! How exquisite!"
Think, Kuwabara, think! But all he could think about were thoughts of Urameshi. How he'd saved his friend once from this demon slime, only to fail at doing the same thing again. How he was pretty sure this whole situation, this unbearable pain in his chest, meant that his terrible crush wasn't going away any time soon. How he was pretty much Urameshi's only hope. How if he'd just figured out the whole opposite world thing, they might have stood a better chance -
"That's it!" he cried. Oh, but he was going to have to focus way harder than usual. It wasn't like an object he could hold in his hand.
"What's it?" crowed the Dream Lord. "You've already seen what happens when you try to use your foolish spirit weapon! It's not going to work here!"
"But I'm not gonna use my spirit weapon," Kuwabara said with total confidence. "I'm gonna use his!"
And with all the effort he could possibly muster - all of his pain, his frustration, and his weird-but-awesome feelings for Urameshi - he focused his spirit energy to a tiny point at the end of his right index finger.
"Spirit gun!" screamed Kuwabara, and the energy burst forth, sloppily, nowhere near as precise as Urameshi's, but with enough of a bang that it shot straight forward and pierced the Dream Lord right through his ugly bug head. As it screamed in pain, Kuwabara turned over his shoulder to make eye contact with Urameshi.
The detective merely smiled, and Kuwabara actually felt his knees go weak.
But that might have had something to do with them suddenly, magically being on the solid surface of Urameshi's front lawn again.
-xxx-
They were sitting in Urameshi's kitchen, just the two of them now that Botan had left. She'd made them some tea to drink while they recuperated - thanks to some tonic she'd brought from the spirit world, they were healing incredibly quickly, but they both still looked (and felt) like all of their skin had been rubbed raw with sandpaper. It had also taken quite a while to get all of the gross purple stuff out from inside their ears. Neither of them were speaking.
Well, speaking much.
"So how did you know that would work?" Urameshi asked him.
"I didn't," said Kuwabara. "I'm not used to firing bullets at all."
"No, I mean the whole concept in general," he clarified. "Why should my technique work if yours wouldn't?"
"Because of the whole...opposite thing. I couldn't do what was expected of me, but I could do something that was the total reverse."
"What opposite thing?" said Urameshi. "I still don't know what the hell you're talking about."
"Everything in that place was the opposite!" said Kuwabara, setting down his teacup. "That's why we were all those crazy colors, and the paste stuff and the weird void was yellow instead of purple - "
"Oh. Oh yeah, I guess it was kinda like that. Weird."
Kuwabara rolled his eyes and was about to take another gulp of tea when it occurred to him. "Wait. If you didn't realize it was the opposite thing, how did you know to come running toward me? Didn't my spirit energy feel like a demon's, the way yours did?"
"How the hell should I know?" Urameshi snorted.
"What?! You mean you still couldn't tell?"
"Of course not," he said. "After all my training, all we did was prove that I'm completely hopeless when it comes to spirit awareness. That's why I was so worn out! I could never manage to do it the way I was supposed to."
"Well then what were you going to do about that thing just slinking around all invisible, and stuff?"
Urameshi's face went ever-so-slightly redder, and he looked irritatedly away. "Well, I guess I was...mostly counting on your dumb ass being there for me."
Kuwabara blinked at him. "Really?"
"Well yeah. I mean, that's always kind of been your gig, the whole spirit awareness thing. That's why we make a good team. You find the bad guys, and then I kick their asses."
"Hey, I can do some ass-kicking too!" Kuwabara protested.
"Well yeah, but still."
"...Yeah."
The conversation fell silent while they sat there, drinking the rest of their tea.
"So that whole...opposite thing," Urameshi said after a while.
"Yeah?"
"Was any of the other stuff you said in crazy nightmare-land the opposite?"
Kuwabara braced himself; they hadn't said anything yet about his sudden heartfelt proclamations. "No," he said finally. "That...that was all the real deal, I guess. Look, I'm sor--"
"Good," Urameshi said forcefully, cutting him off, and then he grabbed Kuwabara by the shoulder and yanked their mouths together in a kiss.
It was longer than their other one, and a little deeper, a little more forceful. Urameshi's grip on his raw skin definitely hurt, but it wasn't even important any more, because everything else that was going on was just too awesome. Urameshi didn't hate him for his stupid crush. Urameshi actually probably liked him back, and thought he was just being stupid about it this entire time. Urameshi was kissing him. And Urameshi was actually a pretty amazing kisser.
They broke apart after a minute, panting nervously, with Urameshi looking up at him as if waiting for his approval. It almost made Kuwabara laugh, it seemed so uncharacteristic of tough, forceful, confident Urameshi.
"We make," he said, just before finally initiating a kiss himself, "a really good team."
This definitely beat out some stupid dream.
FIN