Am I Dead?

When she wakes back up, Hiei's the first one she sees. He's hunched over against the wall with his sword close to him. Kurama is sleeping sitting up, leaning against her bed, but he's still close to her, and Botan is curled up on Me'ran's futon. I need more furniture, she thinks blankly. She expects a headache, but she doesn't have one. She guesses the knocked out ended ages ago, and she was sleeping of her own accord.

She's opened her eyes. That's good. She did that before she even noticed. She remembers that she could move the whole time, she just didn't want to because she was in so much pain. Well, except for her legs, those wouldn't move. Her back had been broken, and there is that gash up her side... She needs to change clothes.

As she starts to move, a simple motion of picking up her arm and putting her palm down next to her head and shoulder, she realizes that she can't move well at all--it's like every limb weighs a ton. She doesn't think there's any way she'll be able to pick herself up. Well. She CAN pick herself up, she's never been that weak before, but doing so would be a waste, and she doesn't really want to. She's so tired...

"You woke up," Hiei mumbles as his eyes open. She wonders why he's still here and not off doing his own thing.

At Hiei's voice, Kurama sits up and moves to the human girl in a single fluid motion, faster and more gracefully than Hiei could ever move, and he leans down to look at her face and he smiles. A sigh comes out of him, and he says, "You scared us. We were frightened you'd never wake up."

"Sorry to disappoint," she whispers. Again with the weakness, already she's sick of this shit. She reminds herself that, yeah, she can do it, but it's just way too much work to do right now, she doesn't want to. So she puts her head down, facing away from Kurama's concerned face.

"Sorry, man, but go away," she breathes, curling up a little tighter and stretching bits at a time. Now she has a headache.

Kurama sits back on his heels, and she knows he's got that smile on. He's happy she's back, even if she did hurt his feelings.

"How the hell did you survive that?" Hiei asks, looking over her. She rolls onto her back floppily and puts her arm over her head.

"I'm indestructible, baby," she hisses weakly with a smile, putting her fist to her chest. Then a question occurs to her. "Do I get new scars?" she asks, mostly to herself. She tries to sit up to look, but pain shoots through again, starting at her back and her side and goes straight up. It surprises her and the pain overwhelms her mind for a second, and she hears an utterance of pain escape her and she falls back onto her back, closing her eyes and groaning.

"Me'ran, you shouldn't try to move, yet," Kurama warns. Naw, ya think?! God Damn it that hurt.

"It just hurts," she sighs, rolling a little, trying to move so it doesn't hurt anymore, and then she tries to sit back up. She gives a strained cry, and decides to just stay down.

"Pain is a sign something's wrong," Kurama says. "Not a weakness."

"It's not a weakness," she agrees. "It's a pain in the ass and an inconvenience. I'm beyond the point of dying, I'm alright."

Hiei grunts and Kurama gives a soft laugh, though both of them still look concerned.

Botan opens her eyes and sits up and looks around stupidly before her eyes land on the human girl on the floor. "Me'ran!" she cries, and she starts to dive on the other female, but both Hiei and Kurama seize her and pull her back.

"You can't!" Kurama exclaims pleadingly. "You'll hurt her!"

She calms down immediately, then leans down over Me'ran and looks at her face. Me'ran stares back for a while during the time the pink eyes are so gleefully boring into the blue ones, until she gets annoyed. So she opens her mouth and bites at the pale nose that is dangerously close to touching Me'ran's face. Botan leans back and smiles brightly. "Yep, alive and well!" she declares. "Excellent news, I'm going to go report to Koenma right away!"

As the blue-haired woman leaves, Me'ran turns her head to allow the ear under her some air, and to get the back of her earring out of her skull.

"Do you need anything?" Kurama asks. "Water?"

"Nmn," she responds slowly. She considers saying "a few shots of vodka and a hookah pipe with the biggest amount of pot you can get in it".

"No," Hiei translates, but Me'ran can see the smile on his face.

"I spend enough time with you to understand the language of angry grunting," Kurama says curtly. "I'm going to go make tea."

She thinks for a second about what a funny word "grunt" is when he says it, and she giggles a little. The giggling is cut short with a hiss of pain. God fucking dammit, that hurts.

"Profane as ever," Hiei says, smirking. "I'm impressed."

By what?

"Your survival. Most humans wouldn't have made it, Indestructible or not."

What'd he do, anyway?

"He broke your back. And sliced up your liver. And you've got a few broken ribs, but they don't know that. One of them was broken by me this morning."

I knew those. I was making sure he didn't do anything else. Do you forgive me for whatever you were mad about this morning?

"You're stronger than you look," he says, ignoring the question, or dodging it altogether. She lets him slide and takes a shot to piss him off as retaliation.

And you're nicer than you immediately come across.

He looks at her and narrows his pretty red eyes at her. She sort of laughs.

Nice glare, she tells him. I can literally feel the want to run me through.

"What's she done, Hiei?" Kurama asks as he comes back in. He has a cup of tea in his hand.

"She's being an insufferable smartass," Hiei answers.

"I'm not surprised. A brush with death will bring out that particular trait, especially out of someone-"

"That's a smartass already and responds to fear with manic giggles." She hears the tones in Hiei's voice change when he says, "Who is going to stay with her until she can move?"

Hiei, don't leave me here with him! I'll kick your ass! Me'ran thinks desperately. She feels his eyes on her for a split second.

Why the hell shouldn't I? he demands. She wishes she could move, just for this instant. She'd get up, snatch a knot out of his head then break a rib. Or his chin, considering he's a midget, and it's a better shot at the chin.

You owe me, Me'ran answers almost violently. Don't you dare jump out that fucking window.

"I have school. I've missed enough, lately; I can't afford to miss much more this month. I suppose we could take it in shifts."

I'm not an "it".

"She said not to call her an 'it'. I'll do it," Hiei says. His voice sounds like he's given up, or he's annoyed. "I owe her, anyway."

"You owe her?" Kurama asks, standing up. She catches the displeased tones in his voice, and the confused ones.

"She's saved my life on more than one occasion," he mumbles, lowering his head and looking rather bashful, suddenly. She's confused, not immediately remembering the axe head or the lizard-monster.

Kurama looks surprised. She wishes she could see better, too, because it's a great face. She's not sure if it's the humility out of Hiei, or the fact that she's actually saved his ass.

Why so surprised, Kurama? Me'ran asks mentally at the same time Hiei asks, "What's the face for. Didn't it occur to you that maybe I take her along with me because I need her help?"

"I didn't think you'd managed to get hurt so badly, Hiei. It's rather surprising to think about you allowing her to help you, much less allow yourself to be indebted to her."

"Go to school, idiot fox."

Hiei slumps annoyedly against the wall and crosses his arms. She starts to move, but an intense pain shoots through her again.

Jeez, can't Botan heal shit?

"She's a shinigami, not a doctor," Hiei barks. "She could only just close the hole in your side, and that was with Kurama's plant's help."

Kurama laughs quietly. "I keep forgetting she can communicate with you through thought," he says. Then he looks at Hiei and narrows his eyes a little. "Hiei, you can't leave her here alone. She's far too vulnerable, and if she tries to strain herself and makes it worse, she could die."

"I'm not stupid. I wouldn't risk someone that useful."

"I mean it, Hiei, no matter how boring things get."

"I'm not leaving."

"Tell me this. I will hold you to your word."

Hiei rolls his eyes and gives a derisive sound. "I will not leave."

Kurama looks satisfied, then pats her hair gently, and he gets up. "I have to go. I'll drop by after school."

Then the door closes, and he's gone, and it's silent.

"Persistent, isn't he?" Hiei finally asks. "Even I'm not that cruel."

You try to act like you are, Me'ran points out emptily. Plus, the way he was drilling you made it seem like you'd leave as soon as the door was shut right.

"You think I would?" he asks/demands. He looks slightly hurt, but more pissed. She figures the pissed is the cover up for the hurt.

If it were someone you owed less than your life twice over to, you never would have offered, or even stayed, she answers sharply. Even in her head, it sounds cold.

"Hn," he responds, looking hurt again, but he hides it and sits down against the wall and puts himself behind his knees. "This is going to be a boring day."

That's why he made you swear to not abandon me.

"No, he made me swear to not leave you because he's afraid that you're going to die. What he doesn't realize is that if you were going to die, you would have, by now, and there is even less chance of you dying, now."

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Me'ran agrees. I suppose my death didn't kill me, and neither did an Indestructible, the only thing that can get me now is time.

"Hn," he says.

It's quiet for a while longer, and he seems to be asleep, and Me'ran tries to sleep to recuperate, but it doesn't work. Eventually, Hiei's eyes scrunch shut, like he's fighting with something, or hurt, and then they dart open, and he looks right at her. "You have nightmares behind your eyes," he tells her, rising to his feet.

Do I? What are they? she asks curiously.

"I'm not sure. They tried to eat me," he answers. "There were lots of sharp-toothed mouths. What's wrong with you?"

She sort of laughs, then thinks, Maybe you shouldn't have been looking there?

"Guarding memories?" he teases with a smirk.

Nothing to guard, that's just rude as hell. What're you doing in my head, anyway? You're going to catch something in there. You have no idea where that's been. Keep your eye out of there.

"It's interesting," he snips indifferently. He goes to her closet and drags out a box and starts to dig through it. She tries to watch him going through her box.

Get out of there! she finally cries angrily as he starts looking through old drawings.

"What're you hiding?" he asks, dropping the papers to the side, giving her a smirk. She wills herself to get up and throw something at him, but she only gets her knees folded under her when she feels a strange splitting sensation in her side, like something is torn, and she falls back down with a cry of distress. He stops digging through her stuff and lays her back onto her back and moves the keigoki up so he can see it. She feels it bleeding.

Botan healed my back, but her skill was limited on the life-threatening wound itself, Me'ran explains. I guess, she adds.

"From the looks of it. What can we do about it?"

We? How unusually caring of you. Mmkay, well. Do me a favor. I think the usual kits are still belted to my ankles, could you get them?

He pulls both of them off and out and puts them on the floor and opens them. She sees him studying them in an attempt to figure them out, but it doesn't do any good.

"What do I do?"

Alright, you see the thick cloth, soft, so loosely knit you can see through it?

"Yes."

Take that, and unroll it, then fold it up into lengths enough to cover the whole wound.

He takes a minute, but he handles it well. She guesses it's because of the practice with his right hand.

"Now what?"

That white tape stuff--take bits of it and put the cloth over the hole and tape it into place. I've never been hurt this badly, and I can't see it...

"You worked with wounds of war for half a month, and you still have no idea what to do with your own wound?"

Well, this is different. I can't give myself stitches, and I'm not trusting a needle in your hands anymore than I have to, and I can't heal myself, either. I could if I could see it, but I can't, it's right in the wrong spot.

He's quiet, and he goes back to looking through her stuff.

What the hell are you looking for in there?

"I wanted to know what someone like you finds valuable."

Someone like me?

He continues digging in silence, pulling out the stacks of paper and the toys and artsy stuff, before he finally shoves it all back and goes to her and pulls her up by the wrist, then puts his leg behind her to brace her and he puts Kurama's tea in her hands.

What's someone like me? she insists

"A human like you. Benign to a fault. Refuses to hurt one hurting her, will only fight for someone else, and then saves their life."

But that's not what you meant. Why would I have anything special in there because of that?

"If you must know, I wanted to see what the hell you had in there at all. You don't care about any of it."

Of course not, it's just junk.

"Can't you talk? I'm tired of having eight million thoughts surrounding me and having to pick out the loud one."

Fuck that, Hiei, you're just gonna have to deal.

He scowls, then lets her fall back on the floor. She's head bounces, and he winces, like it hurt him.

What the hell're you scowling for?

"I can feel the stuff in your head, too."

Then stay out of there, I'll figure out how to talk.

He laughs quietly, then looks at Me'ran's bed.

"Why didn't you want to sleep in your bed?"

I didn't want blood in it.

He chuckles again, then gets up to go somewhere else. "Go to sleep," he commands from the living room.

So she rolls a little onto her not-wounded side, and she makes her legs move until her quilt is wrapped around her feet, and she curls up as well as she can without stretching the hold in her side, and she closes her eyes, and sleeps.

br

Hiei's true to his word to Kurama. After the last conversation, he really just wants to leave, even though he's not sure why. He paces her apartment, and he looks through her stupid little boxes of stuff, and he naps on and off through the day, and he really just wishes she'd go ahead and die.

Why'd Kurama have to be so foolish and fall for her, anyway? If he hadn't, he wouldn't care, and he could even kill her himself without wincing. Of course, killing her isn't what's on his mind at the moment. What's on his mind is something a little worse, though he can't say he doesn't enjoy entertaining the ideas in the back of his mind. He appreciates the rolling, naked figures, for that matter, though he's twisted things about and made himself at least the same height as her. Not often, but every once in a while (though usually only around someone taller than him who happens to need a reason to make fun of him), his height is a disadvantage, and that would be one of those situations.

He does what he usually does when she's asleep and sits against the wall and admires the sweet, restful look about her face, watching her dream. Her mouth twitches, her hands curl, her foot shifts. The fears that she doesn't notice in her waking hours haunt her in her sleep, and he watches as all the moments she's fought off her own terrors come back to attack. He considers looking in, but the last time he did that, she drowned in her dream, and he didn't like the way he could feel the cold water flood "his" lungs. He "woke up" at the same time as her and choked for a minute before he realized that there was no water.

He thinks for a minute about how angelic she looks when she's sleeping, and how appropriate it is that she's been playing guardian angel over him and countless others for... How long has it been? Hardly even a couple of months... He watched her heal hundreds, literally, of demons in the last two weeks alone, selflessly, to the brink of unconsciousness.

Hiei gets up and goes to the kitchen to figure out how to cook well enough to feed himself. The... What's it called. The ice box or fridge or whatever the hell those damn people call it... It's used to keep food fresh, but everything in here has died, or has developed new life. It's been three weeks since she was here, though, and she didn't intend to keep anything to last.

He hops onto the counter to explore the cabinets, but he doesn't see anything useful. So he drops off the counters, then goes back to her room and sits on her bed.

It's surprisingly comfortable, so he lets himself lie down and he lets his feet hang off so he doesn't get anything in the bed, and he pulls one bit of the quilt over him, and he closes his eyes and falls asleep faster than he means to.