Disclaimer: This isn't my sandbox, I'm just playing in it for a while.

Notes: I stole these prompts. You hear me? I stole them like the dirty thief that I am. This is the 14th prompt (destiny/fate/karma) from the Beta List at 30kisses on LJ, and I haven't properly signed up for a challenge there, I stole the list because I needed something to get my creativity going.

This chapter contains Kuwabara and Kurama being all introspective.

He often toyed with the idea of fate - was he meant to be here, in an office job with no hope of promotion because his stepfather was no longer manager and the new manager assumed he was only there because of nepotism? (That was when he started toying with the idea of karma, and wondering if the punishment quite fit the crimes.) He had given up his demon life, that much was true, but there were times, when he looked out at the window and saw nothing but steel, that he mourned it. There was no shame in enjoying a good fight, was there? Certainly not in the victory.

He had won, hadn't he? He'd beaten the Youko with Shigeru's blade. So why, then, did he feel so defeated?

It was this question that found him on Kuwabara's doorstep. Kuwabara had given up the fight much the same way he had. Perhaps it had given him answers.

"Ku - Shuichi! Man, I'm never gonna get used to that," he muttered, still smiling lop-sidedly at Kurama.

"No one's around to compromise me, Kuwabara." Kurama returned the smile with more warmth than he expected to feel. "Call me whatever you like."

"Come on in, then, Kurama." Kuwabara opened the door wide and Kurama stepped inside, toeing his shoes off before following Kuwabara to the kitchen. "What brings you into the crappy side of town? Don't tell me you're looking for work."

"No, my job is...stable," he said dryly. "And there are worse places to live. You've done quite well for yourself."

"Yeah, well, 'under-appreciated teaching assistant' was not on my list of Places I Want to Be in Ten Years." Kuwabara raised a coffee pot in question. Kurama lifted a hand to decline. "It's hard, sometimes. These little snot-nosed wannabes, skippin' class and - "

"Acting much like you used to?" Kuwabara gave Kurama a sheepish look over the rim of his mug.

"Yeah, well. It's hard not to knock their heads together sometimes. We didn't save the freakin' world so they could mess up the same way we tried to."

"And there's no telling them that, is there?"

"No. Wish there was, though." Kuwabara gazed wistfully at the wall for a moment before turning back to Kurama. "You didn't come all the way out here to listen to me bitch and moan. What's shakin'?"

"Actually, my complaints are quite similar to your own." Kurama sat at the kitchen table, resting his chin in his hand. "When I said my job was 'stable', I meant it in the strictest since. Steady, unchanging, and utterly dull."

"You're missing the fight too, huh?" Kuwabara sat across from him.

"No, not the fight itself. My stomach could do without a new wound each week."

"Hey, man, I told you to block."

"It's difficult to block your stomach when your weapon is at your neck."

"You didn't need both hands for it."

"I didn't come here to bring up old arguments, either." Kuwabara smiled. Kurama resisted the urge to smack him, Yuusuke-style, for old times' sake. Then he sighed, resting his chin in his hand and looking out the window. "I suppose it's just paranoia. Things have never been peaceful for this long. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"We've earned a few years of quiet paranoia," Kuwabara said, stretching his arms out behind his head. "The shoe can stay right where it is." He followed Kurama's gaze, and a small, wistful sigh escaped him. "For a while, anyway."

This is a perfect example of when I start out intending to follow the prompt all the way through...and then I don't.