A/N: I almost neglected this story for an entire year, but I polished off this chapter in an annual-enough fashion. And really, "neglected" is not the best choice of word, because I have been working on what has become the eleventh chapter of this story as posted here rather solidly for at least the past three months. School and work and some personal sundries have been trying to kick my ass and I've been trying to kick back harder in retaliation—and winning, for the most part. But I have been writing, and I do hope to see that my penname crops up in the "Latest" section more often as proof.
But let's not ruin the moment: you, the readers, got an update, so let's get to it!
What's Yours is Mine
Chapter XI
16 June 2010
Hiei squirmed in his seat, twisted his torso round, arched his back, all the while wearing an expression of annoyed discomfort on his face.
"Sleep on the couch if he kicks you," Mukuro finally said.
Curtly: "I do," he replied, unwinding himself as he finally felt, heard the sought-after crack. "He's irateabout it. He kicks me out." Literally and figuratively. "Or he drags me back in. He can't decide if his scent alone on the bedding will calm him, or if mine there too will be a comfort, or a distraction. Evidently my scent changes while I'm asleep just enough that it will alter the effect. I think the hormones and foreign energies have finally wormed through his brain."
Mukuro smirked. "It's the real parasite, not the imagined ones."
"I'll tell him you said that," Hiei threatened. The Kurama that had taken up bedroom feng shui with a vengeance, however, was not the same Kurama that had himself referred to the "parasite" as an "illness"; or that was how Hiei felt.
"I helped him with the blood between his legs."
Lips pursed. Mukuro, as a woman, had superseded Hiei in practical assistance to Kurama of late. In a way, she had become a replacement Shiori in the Makai.
He shuddered—Not quite a replacement Shiori.
"Go to bed if you're tired," Mukuro told him.
"I can't go back to bed," he countered. "He's trying to work. I can't go back to my quarters." He stressed his ownership, since it'd taken on the nature of a sick joke. He no longer recognized the rooms that had been his in the space they occupied.
His boss shrugged. "I didn't say your bed. Take over Urameshi's quarters; he's probably at your quarters right now, visiting your mate."
"Thank you for your rationalization," Hiei growled, gripping his elbows either way his arms crossed. He'd shed the drive to throttle Yusuke; but neither did he have the drive to seek out his company, or even tolerate it in high doses, especially around Kurama.
Still: "I'm taking a nap," he announced, boots thudding as he sprung up off the chair. If Yusuke wanted to haunt his bedroom—as he'd told Kurama to not get out of bed—then Hiei would repay the favor.
Actually, Hiei bumped into Yusuke, the one en route to the other's quarters and vice versa.
"Ow." Yusuke stepped back and rubbed his shoulder, face twisted. "Your head okay?" he asked Hiei.
Rubbing the spot of flesh above the black V his eyebrows had joined into, Hiei grumbled, "Watch where you're going."
"You knocked into—!"
"Don't trip and fall on my mate!" Hiei spat, in no mood for retorts from anyone else.
The odd prohibition made Yusuke pause. "Huh—Why would I trip? Over what?"
"Kurama's … redecorated." Hiei rubbed his face out of tiredness. "Because of the child."
"Like a nursery."
Hardly, in the sense that Yusuke meant the word; though who was Hiei to identify vulpine child-rearing tactics—or any other, for that matter? "No. Like an instinctual thing. Just don't upset him, physically or otherwise. He's been under enough stress." And taking it out on him, consciously or no.
Yusuke stared at him. Hiei stared back, then waved him on. "Go see Kurama. He wanted you to be here."
"…Kay," Yusuke said, the stare turning into a weird look before he looked away from Hiei entirely and went on his way. The notion of fatherhood was creeping up on Hiei, he figured; that must be why he was acting so weird. Neither of them liked having to wait around for shit to happen.
Kurama just had to pop—then Hiei would be back to standard surly.
The door to Hiei's and Kurama's quarters opened before Yusuke banged on it. Much of Alaric, Yusuke had long-ago surmised, was an odd integration of rustic and high-tech, and he figured some hidden camera or mic or spring or whatever prompted the early, anonymous greeting.
Or, he amended upon stepping inside, it could have something to do with the "redecorating" that Hiei had spoken of. The first thing Yusuke saw when he entered the chamber of Alaric's Second, all but officially ceded to the consort of the Second, was green: potted plants along the walls and vines climbing them to the ceiling, across the ceiling, across the floor, over the furniture…
The greenery spoke to him: "Hello, Yusuke."
He jumped, despite knowing the voice. "Where are you?" he called. Kurama's greeting was muffled, either by distance or vegetation. Under his foot a vine engorged and then contracted; he jumped again, then as it continued to pulsate, he followed it down the hall into the bedroom.
On the bed lounged the very pregnant consort of the Second of Alaric; a blue-haired envoyof the Spirit World perched nearby at the bed's foot. between them lay several stacks of papers in a spilling out of folders, and Kurama's belly pressed into the bedcovers as he leaned over, reading some of them. He stopped, though, and eased back as Yusuke neared, and smiled at his new visitor.
Yusuke's face, meanwhile, twisted itself in a skeptical fashion. "Should you be doing that, Fox-boy?"
"Why not?" Kurama replied, bemused. "It's no strain."
"Uh-huh, and what about the Jumanji décor? That wasn't here last time I was."
"It's fairly new," the Fox conceded.
"How new?" Yusuke pressed.
Kurama's lips twisted in a sheepish smile. "A week."
"Dammit, Kurama!" Yusuke gave him an exasperated grimace. "And how much strain went into that?"
Pleasantly Kurama replied, "It's rudeto ask how much a person spent on their furnishings."
"I wasn't asking for a lesson in manners."
"Oh lay off," Botan scolded. "The energy in those plants is mostly recycled anyway."
"Recycled?" Yusuke repeated, looking to Kurama for explanation.
"I don't need all of the energy everyone shares with me," the redhead told him. "I've deposited the run-off into these plants. Technically it's my energy, but the more powerful demons of Alaric, as well as a few from Gandhara and Tourin, fed my current furnishings."
"Uh-huh…" Yusuke widened his eyes a little as beside him the wall writhed. "All that energy must be why they're so energetic, huh?"
"They … don't usually do that," Botan said, scrutinizing the walls through narrowed eyes.
"Just don't trip," Kurama told him. He smiled. "I've heard you're back at work."
"Yeah." Yusuke nodded. "Yeah. I uh…" He smiled. "Sometimes, I'm back at home, too." Quietly, with a subtle shifting of his features, Kurama communicated his approval.
Botan was less quiet. "Well bravo, Yusuke—Now don't mess it up again—!" She stopped short, slid her gaze over toward Kurama. "Um…"
"Hm?" the Fox sighed evenly. A vine that draped down onto the bed twitched, slid over his pillow and across what little lap he still had.
"I don't mean to," Yusuke said, glaring at the ferry-girl. He looked back at Kurama. "I don't suppose you need a boost at all?"
Kurama made another "Hm"-ing sigh. "I might," he said, moving aside some folders so that Yusuke might sit.
As soon as the other man did and wrapped his arms around Kurama, he noticed how poised his body felt. "Relax," he said, loosening his hold a little anyhow in case Kurama was uncomfortable. He felt Kurama's back press against him as the redhead shifted; felt his body inhale deeply; he even felt movement in, energy coming from the compact swell in his friend's abdomen. He tried to, imagined that he felt his energy flowing into, mingling with Kurama's seeping deeper into that hybrid body, coursing in and out of that hybrid child—
Kurama, usually so sedate whenever anyone did this, tensed in Yusuke's arms. He loosened his hold more. "Am I hurting you?" he asked, and then he winced—a vine had wound round his thigh too tight.
"I'm fine," Kurama said, though there was a change in his voice. He looked over at Botan. "Would you locate Hiei for me?"
"Sure," she said, easily hopping off the bed.
Kurama watched her move. "I envy your mobility," he told her with a small self-deprecating smile. She laughed, then left.
"He's—" Yusuke had begun, but Botan was already gone. He looked down at Kurama. "You sure you're okay?" Kurama sounded, felt alert. "Are you waiting on something?" Was there something Hiei was supposed to bring?
At his inquiry the Fox shifted some more. He sat up and gathered up the papers he'd been working on, stacked them out of the way on the bedside table. "A hole opened in me," he told Yusuke, "early this week. I've been waiting on something for a day and a half, approximately."
Brow furrowed, Yusuke repeated, "'A hole'? What, you mean like a wound, or—?"
Realization struck him, and now he tensed. Again Kurama shifted, so he made his body relax.
"My purpose in inviting you here on this occasion," Kurama said, "was because I anticipated your desire to be present at the time that I give birth."
Yusuke took a breath, took care not to flex and thus tighten his hold on Kurama again. "And that would be sometime soon, Fox-boy?"
"It would," answered Kurama calmly.
Suddenly Yusuke was aware of the pulsating walls, floor, ceiling. Kurama had converted the energy supplemented by powerful donors into a fortress of a thicket, an external vegetative, protective womb. "Very soon, huh?" he muttered, scrutinizing individual leaves curling and unfurling on individual vines. "Is this your security system, then?"
"If required, it could be." Kurama shifted so that Yusuke served more as a backrest. "I intended it as a reservoir, though—a vein of potent energy easily accessible, if I need it." Casually he cupped his hands round Yusuke's and brought them back to center on his lower abdomen. "I want an abundance of energy at my disposal, for the delivery and the recuperation, for the child and myself."
His grip on Yusuke's hands had tightened. Yusuke reciprocated. "You hurting, Fox-boy?" The conglomerate of red waves in front of him bobbed this way and that as Kurama shook his head No. "You scared at all?"
Softly Kurama replied, "I am anxious, Yusuke. I've never been on this end of a birth before."
Yusuke wondered if Kurama remembered his human birth, remembered the time in between, after planting his wounded spirit in the fetal form that would become Shuichi, leading up to that birth. He thought about asking the Fox, but then caught himself wondering: Did demons remember? And would Kurama's child, as that of a demon, remember? And what about the time before?
The sudden prominence of Kurama's shoulder blade against his sternum informed Yusuke that he'd tightened his hold too much. "Sorry," he murmured, loosening his hold, reining this thought and directing his focus instead alongside the energy being fed into Kurama.
His focus broke, though, when that same shoulder blade forced itself against his sternum, when the hands he held dug their nails into his palms, and the energy—the energies—that had waited like sponges at the bottom of the well into which his energy flowed, constricted—literally, Yusuke envisioned two sponges, one large and one small, suddenly, tightly wringing themselves out, and immediately soaking their contents back up. "You okay?" he repeated.
"Of course," Kurama answered. His voice was clipped. "This is natural. Birth is natural. Even male birth, in some species … not the human species, but then my humanity, my physical humanity, is largely a façade, and I am birthing a demon, yet in another sense I have birthed thousands, millions of plants, and…"
He exhaled deeply. "And I am rambling. And right now, I wish I could shrink this child down to its seed, extract and regrow it on the outside like gods and scientists do. Right now I want Inari or Koenma or Yomi or Mukurohh—" Shoulder blade in the sternum; Kurama was trembling lightly. "I'm okay," he repeated before Yusuke could ask again. "I'm okay…"
He was rambling, and repeating himself. "It's okay if you're not okay," Yusuke told him, sincere but uncertain. If what Kurama said was going to happen soon was going to happen soon, the Fox was doing himself no favors trying to self-contain himself to the point of psyching himself out. On the other hand, if Kurama did let loose his fears, Yusuke for one wasn't sure what he had to offer in assurance, aside from what Kurama was already utilizing: words that weighted their optimistic substance in hope foremost, and little else.
"I'm okay," Kurama said again, moving his legs uncomfortably. His water hadn't broken yet, but he'd altered his dress accordingly since the first spots of blood had appeared in his underwear earlier in the week. When the child decided to come, his attire was at least ready. He shifted more, tensing and relaxing his muscles in an attempt to eliminate the involuntary and unwelcome trembling. Switch it up: "I'm fine." Repetition took out what little truth nourished the deception.
Yusuke concentrated on pouring his energy, his strength, into Kurama, hoping that if it was a superfluity for the Fox's body that maybe it'd do something substantial for his nerves. "Do you need anything?" Maybe he wasn't a god and maybe he flunked biology and never got to chem., but if Kurama was thirsty he sure as hell could smash up some ice for the poor guy.
"I…" Kurama fidgeted. "I need to move."
"You'll wear yourself out," Yusuke protested.
"I'm not as fragile as you presuppose," Kurama countered, voice splintered with irritation. "Do not do me the dishonor of that presupposition. I'm tense; I want to wind down. Help me up."
Quickly, but carefully, Yusuke detached himself from the Kitsune. "Sorry," he said sheepishly, and extended his hand.
Kurama took the offered hand with his own, running his other hand through his hair, gathering it off either shoulder so that it fell straight down his back. "You'd be the wrong person to ask for a hair tie," he said to Yusuke.
The brunet laughed. "Calling me messy?" Kurama smiled a little and began to pace, slowly. Yusuke watched his bare, swollen feet tread up and down the floor he'd made to resemble a forest's. A new plant germinated nearby, growing in quick, lurching spurts, tender stems shooting out and off into whichever direction.
Yusuke stopped watching when Kurama stopped pacing, got to his feet when Kurama moved toward the wall and clutched its textured surface with one hand. "Kurama?"
"I'm fine, Yusuke," the Fox affirmed rapidly. "I can't walk during the contractions."
Can't walk—"Get back in bed!" Yusuke said, flinging one arm back in that direction.
"I will not," Kurama said, softly but still quickly. He grimaced reassuringly. "Did you know that most children, animal, human, or otherwise, literally drop into this world between their mothers' feet? Most human mothers give birth crouched, not lying, down."
"In the third world, maybe."
"Many of my more potent plants from the human world come from the 'third world'," Kurama pointed out with a tight smile. "If you don't believe me, try excreting something yourself while lying down; you'll find it's far less efficient."
"Oh come—" Yusuke twisted his face in frustration. "Fine, but if you trip I'll catch you and put you to bed and no complaints, got it?"
Kurama's smile loosened a little. "Then it's your job to take care I don't trip."
A knock.
In answer, wrinkles surfaced across Hiei's brow. His eyes, however, refused to be disturbed, and he tilted his head ever so slightly to one side, until his cheek rested against the underside of his arm. "He's not here!" he called from atop the still-made bed, from over still-packed luggage.
"I'm not looking for Yusuke!" Botan replied.
Now his eyes opened, resentfully; his arms uncrossed behind his head and led the rest of his body upward. Slowly, reluctantly, he made his way to the door, then opened it.
An earnest- and impatient-looking Botan awaited him on the other side. "What?" he demanded.
Before she could utter the first syllable of explanation, something brushed both their feet, and both looked down:
A vine, distinguished by its possession of disproportionately large, fern-shaped leaves that frilled and fanned out like the adornment of a lizard's collar; and by its constant evolution of hue, making Hiei think of a chameleon gone on the fritz.
No doubt what, and whose, jungle the thing came from. "You didn't leave him alone," Hiei said, his tone bearing a slight accusative.
"Yusuke's with him," Botan cleared herself.
"He's close." Again, without the inflection of question.
"Enough that he wants you there."
His eyes closed, only for a second, and reopened with more resolve. They'd have to remain open for a time longer.
They shot open wider, as did Botan's, when both Jaganshi and ferry-girl heard the reverberations of a scream.
The exclamation was not Kurama's.
"It's okay, Yusuke," the Fox tried assuring his companion. "It's supposed to happen."
Yusuke knew it, but had a little difficulty believing it. Kurama's body had just turned into a geyser, not of blood, as in cases past, but of a clearer substance that Yusuke knew was commonly called the "water." "Are you okay?" he asked, hating the impotence of that overstated question, but lacking anything that would make an adequate substitute.
"It doesn't hurt." Still, Kurama's face bore the slight contortions that betrayed some manner of discomfort. "But if it doesn't disturb you, I'd rather not continue to wear soaked clothes." Awaiting no affirmative or negative, he tugged at the waistband of his pants and bit by bit began to push them down, until either leg pooled stickily around either ankle, and kicked them away amongst the green.
His stripping prompted a momentary shift in balance, and Yusuke in turn shifted for fear that Kurama might topple. When he didn't, Yusuke straightened up, forced a shrug, and feigning indifference tried to joke, "It's nothing I haven't seen before, right?"
As soon as he'd said it, his own face bore the slight contortions that betrayed some manner, a different manner of discomfort. "Uh…" he tried, failed to recover.
Kurama grimaced.
"Sorry," he concluded lamely.
"It's only a contraction," Kurama reasoned, thinking best to spare Yusuke, who was possibly more uncomfortable in the psychological sense than he was in the physical, by pretending that he hadn't heard. He eased himself into a position where his back rested against the side of his and Hiei's bed, and contemplatively massaged his abdomen through the fabric of his tunic. Though it was still winter, his clothing above the waist was already dampened by the light sweat he'd produced. He'd probably strip, or be stripped, down to everything that Yusuke had seen before, and more, fairly soon.
Around them the plants writhed; ahead of them the door opened, and shut, and opened again. Kurama knew that it was Shigure and Mukuro, and knew that Botan and Hiei were not far behind in answering his summons.
"Um, his water broke," Yusuke said when Shigure appeared. The surgeon looked down at Kurama, who gave a slight nod of confirmation, green eyes peering upward from under knotted, downcast red brows, seeming to dare to search for something from either of the two demons standing nearby.
Shigure recognized the gaze first. Metal-distorted lips distorted further as he smirked, though not necessarily at Kurama's expense. "I'll stand by if it makes you feel better," he told Kurama, "but I won't be good for much unless you have to be cut open. Barring any complications, this is mostly a matter up to gravity and yourself."
Kurama, the Fox, the trickster and disguiser, quickly masked the minor disappointment that had forced out the minor hope he'd dared conveyed to the surgeon. "It would make me feel better," was all he conceded.
Yusuke wasn't dense, but no mistaking what the odd eye contact, the exchange between Shigure and Kurama just now confirmed, what Yusuke had suspected but his companion kept negating, or trying to—Kurama was scared.
But would continue to deny it. So rather than try to engage the Kitsune in assuring conversation, Yusuke edged closer, then crouched down to the floor, beside Kurama but not too close to make him feel claustrophobic. He eyed a white-knuckled hand, less than a foot away from his own, and slowly, with tip-toe fingering delicacy, closed the gap between them. When contact was made, rather than shun his touch, Kurama reciprocated with such steel-gripped finger-lacing that for a moment Yusuke envisioned their two hands as the subject of some lattice-work metal piece.
Mukuro had been present in the doorway leading to the bedroom since Shigure's shrugging-off diagnosis, watching and waiting for Kurama to look her way. As soon as he did, she walked over and stood in front of him. He adjusted his footing, raising his body a little as he spread his legs wider, allowing Mukuro to see.
Imploring Mukuro to look; which she did, as she had when the hole appeared between Kurama's legs and since. The hole, which in the beginning had resembled a wound and bled as such, had over the course of its evolution become more feminized, prompting her to say now, "It looks normal."
Kurama nodded, and though his inhalations and exhalations had taken on the semblance of effort, he seemed to actually breathe easier thanks to her pronouncement. Additionally, and in his mind nearly equivalent in importance, the assurance of normalcy (or the closest resemblance possible, given his situation) would enable him to in turn give assurance to those he worried about worrying most: Yusuke, who was gripping his hand tighter than he reciprocated, for one; another—
He started, violently: his eyes seemed suddenly eager to escape their positions designated within his sockets; the grip of his hand contrasted with Yusuke's intensified far beyond reciprocation; his leg muscles felt like applesauce jell-o;— and all these peripheral sensations hardly distracted his foci from the main performance, center stage, within the pelvic region, a gut-wrenching contortionist that gripped him, moved him to voice his exclamations in a sharp, drawn-out cry: "AAAIIIIIII!" he wailed, ears perceiving but not comprehending attempted consolations, eyes squeezed too shut to distinguish who was where.
And yet, somewhere within, some semi-logical remnant of himself feared retribution, his loss of composure in turn begetting similar loss. As though by instinct, he tilted his head back, turned his face to one side, and dared open his eyes and look toward the door expectantly.
There they were, the latecomers Hiei and Botan, the latter visibly sympathetic, the former seemingly frozen in place save for his face, which betrayed the quivers of various and conflicting emotions. They met eye to eye a moment, and the Jaganshi had to look away, as though clearing his mind, before he ventured over.
He pried Kurama's "free" hand loose from various vegetation mauled by the Kitsune's discomfort; green crescents remained lodged under fingernails as he pulled the appendage away. He wrapped it in both his own. "You're almost done," he told Kurama, who stared at him, and yet through him, betraying no indication of comprehension, let alone belief, only impatience and anticipation. "I remember my birth," he added.
Kurama opened his mouth, whether to reply or to rebut, Hiei didn't know; or perhaps simply to vent the shriek that came out, grated into a high-pitched growl as his teeth clenched and his face twisted, seemingly in an inward and spiral fashion. His body tried mimicking this movement, with enough force that both his and Yusuke's previously-hovering bodies collapsed to the ground.
"Hold him," Shigure offered from the doorway, even as Hiei and Yusuke each moved to restore the struggling Fox. In the end they succeeded in holding him braced against the bed, in a position half-squat and half-slumped. He, meanwhile, sporting face and body blotched and blanched simultaneously, and dripping sweat, writhed and shook against the bed and against his assistants, squeezing either proffered hand till the volunteer was more white-knuckled than his own.
Each volunteer twitched as suddenly Kurama made a movement that seemed part-tripping, part-lunging, attempting to cling to and tear free from the demon on either side of him—
"Get it," Shigure said, stepping forward, though Mukuro was closer, and already moved.
"Huh?" Yusuke glanced over, then quickly redirected his attention as Kurama crushed his hand and seemed hell-bent on burying the remains within the mattress.
Not only his hand: Kurama thrashed backward, freezing in a rigid arch against the bed, face pinchedand body trembling. Then he went limp, and released Yusuke's now-discolored hand.
Promptly Yusuke and Hiei looked at each other, and promptly an agreement of gazes was made. Yusuke took one quick look at his hand—the discoloration was only the effect of lacking circulation, not breaking—and went with Mukuro and the wet, red thing in her arms. Something animal penetrated the air.
Hiei remained with Kurama. "I can move you up to the bed," he told the Fox.
"Afterbirth," Kurama negated hoarsely, and began to shudder. Hiei held him, and tried to hold still himself as Shigure now came forward, a knife withdrawn and visible in one hand. Unperturbed, Kurama went on to ask over the squalling, "What is it?"
Yusuke, who had sighted the glint of knife and looked over, no looked back over his, or more directly, Mukuro's charge. "It's, uh…"
"Girl," Mukuro answered, wiping away the last of the concentrated muck with a towel.
"Are you sure?" Yusuke asked, as what he was looking at suggested otherwise.
Mukuro found his focus. "I hope so," she maintained, lifting up the umbilical cord. "Because this shrivels up and falls off within a week."
Across the room Hiei rolled his eyes. Kurama chuckled weakly, then closed his eyes, leaned back and groaned. Something that Hiei thought resembled a gelatinous liver fell to the vegetative carpet.
"Eat that for nutrients," Shigure said. Hiei curled his lip in a light snarl at the joke. He supported Kurama, steered him onto the bed.
Suddenly he heard an odd sound, a cross between a slurp and a pop, and looked around.
"The floor," Kurama murmured. Hiei looked down.
Stared down: at the apparent absorption of the gelatinous red blob by the thick, ropy cords of vine and stem that had colonized their floor. It made a squelching sound as the plants' pores sucked it in and it colored their fibers an almost maroon color.
Absorbed by the absorption occurring before his eyes, Hiei asked, "Are you going to convert its energy?" thinking of the reservoir of the Makai elite that Kurama had cultivated.
"In a sense." Kurama gave him a weak smile. "That plant has much the texture of asparagus, when steamed."
Hiei continued to stare at the transformation on the floor—then blinked, and in turn stared at Kurama when he processed that the tone with which the redhead had delivered that information was not so much that of a statement as it was that of a request.
Meanwhile Yusuke continued to scrutinize the new child. "Her eyes are blue," he said, or from the inflection in his voice, asked.
"Most children's are, to begin with," Kurama murmured from the bed. "Their eyes change color, and their hair falls out." He paused. "If they have any," he added. Weakly he propped himself up—he'd yet to see his child. Mukuro, noticing and correctly interpreting his movement, remedied this, passing the swaddled creature to the bedded mother.
With shift in newborn came shift in Yusuke, whose focus on the baby diverted long enough to appraise his exhausted friend. "How you feeling?"
Tiredly Kurama smiled. "It's a mere passing of a life form through a small hole in my body," he replied quasi-humorously, lying back and losing himself in the idle fondling of the sticky, slightly misshapen head of the creature that clung to him along his sternum. Suddenly he twitched, struck by what he had just said. Something had just passed out of him—a hole—a void! Momentarily his eyes stung; he blinked the prickling away, turned his head to one side, and familiarized himself with the make and scale of his daughter's fingers in relation to his own.
"Do you have a name, Fox-boy?"
"Hm?" Kurama turned his head enough so that he could meet Yusuke's curious gaze. "I'm thinking."
Yusuke squinted. "You don't have a name?"
Another tired smile. "I have a name," he replied. "It's Kurama. Hers will be something, soon." Yusuke's face showed protest. "She's only born. Only for now is she nameless."
The unnamed she became more vocal. "She's hungry," Hiei said. Kurama nodded in agreement.
"Huh?-No, you did not just agree to naming her 'Hungry,' Kurama, you don't have the excuse of being hopped up on pain pills!"
"Neither do you, idiot," Hiei retorted. "I'll rephrase it for your birth-addledmind: she wants nourishment."
Yusuke tapped back into reality. Brows furrowed as he clarified, "From him?" Him, referring to Kurama.
The Kitsune, whose complexion had begun to stabilize a little, rabidly colored again. "Yes," he conceded, debating with himself whether that was wholly factual since what would provide the nourishment was also part of what rendered him, her.
Before the second gradient change in Kurama's cheeks, Hiei had already moved to clear the room. Strolling up to Mukuro, he smirked into the makeshift mid-wife's face, and jovially (or as jovially as could be achieved, pertaining to Hiei) told her, "Get out." Returning the smirk, she complied and left, followed by Shigure, who eased up off the doorframe once Hiei looked that way and tapped his fingers against his headband—figuratively giving the surgeon the evil eye.
"You too," Hiei threw without even looking Botan's way.
"What? Remember that I'm the communicator between you guys and Human World!"
"You have the communicator," corrected Hiei, unimpressed.
She ignored his lack of appreciation via a roll of the eyes. "But what I am supposed to tell the family?"
Kurama's family. His, too—the child currently trying to burrow through Kurama's half-buttoned shirt was soon destined to be his sister, legally.
He shuddered. Humans. "It's a girl," he advised Botan. "Kurama's fine. More soon. Get out."
The ferry-girl dawdled. "What do I tell Koenma about—?"
"OUT!" Hiei corrected her, extending a finger for emphasis. "Births aren't an official concern of the Prince of Death. We'll deal with paper fabrication later."
"Yes we will," Kurama confirmed softly from the bed.
This legitimized Hiei's claim in Botan's eyes. "Fine," she gave, then paused on the threshold. Hiei glared. "Can I just work at the coffee table or something? I don't have actual quarters here."
"Fine—Go." Hiei closed the door behind her.
He turned. Yusuke stood uncertainly. Hiei considered him, then half-shrugged, and joined Kurama on the other side of the bed. "Better now?" he asked, eyeing Fox and babe curiously.
"Yes, but I'd prefer that you didn't watch." Kurama was getting out of his shirt.
Now it was the Jaganshi who rolled his eyes. "What should I be doing, then?"
"I'm starving," was the only answer the Kitsune gave, all the answer he needed to give.
Instantly Yusuke was on his feet. "I can cook."
"Cook something for yourself as well," Kurama murmured after hi. Regardless of whether he was back at work and back at home sometimes, Yusuke still looked more diminished than he did in Kurama's prelapsarian memory.
Hiei was engrossed with the floor again. "That thing," he said, referring to the ensanguined plant that Kurama had likened to asparagus. "How long does it retainits potency?"
Little smile. Hiei countered it with a suspicious gaze. "Like most food, it's best fresh." Suspicious became challenging. "I'd like that and scrambled eggs," Kurama rejoined. "You and Yusuke can split up who cooks what."
Challenging became aggrieved, then resigned. Kurama shifted the newborn hybrid so that her head rested against his chest, while Hiei went off in search of a knife.
Obviously Kurama was okay, if he was throwing Hiei's own egg metaphor back at him again.