Not much to say. ;P Please read and review, and keep an open mind. This is not a real yaoi fic, will not be a real yaoi fic, and will not involve that much fluff, either, compared to some other YYH fics. If you can't handle the idea of a mature person walking around starkers, this is not a safe chapter for you to read. [grins] Though I don't include much description of whoever's going sans clothes, anyway. I trust in my readers to supply their own mental images. ;P Thank you for your patience, and on with the fic.
Chapter Three
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"I wanted to say I'm sorry," a rich voice whispers behind a focused Aislin. With the tiniest of squeaks, she once more leaps for the ceiling and glares irritably down at the rather embarrassed fox standing below her, breathing hard and waiting for the surge of fright/adrenaline to subside.
"You could have picked a better time!" she hisses back after she drops, this time not even bothering to fill in her finger-holes since the whole place would be brought down to the ground by morning. "And why in the Ice God's name do you have to keep sneaking up on me?? I hate that!"
"Habit," he whispers back, shrugging one shoulder in a helpless gesture. "Can't help it."
"Well, try," she seethes under her breath. Without another word she goes back to cracking the safe holding her prize: a beautiful master-work katana to replace the one Hiei'd lost while recovering from the implanting of his Jagan. She intends it as a birthday present, since she knows quite well what day he was born on and she knows he doesn't get many gifts. One like this might get her back in his good graces that much faster--not that she really cares about what side she's on--but either way, he is going to get it.
Her smile is triumphant when the lock clicks and she pops the door open, traps already disabled well before she started. The owner of this place is a fool she's been wanting to defame for a while now, and this gives her a perfect excuse. He is under the impression that if he acts as though his stuff is worthless, then so will the many thieves and robbers who would otherwise be drooling over his pretties. Hence, poor security, poor alarm system, easy, easy pickings. Her pack already bulges with stolen loot, the katana will be the last.
The katana shines in the sliver of moonlight falling through the window, and it is with properly reverent hands that she lifts it out of the safe, whispering to it, "Your new master will prize you fine, I think, and use you as you were meant to be used, instead of locking you away in the darkness." The blade throbs in her hands in recognition of her intentions, and the feeling she gets from it with what little Empathy she has is a patient but potent joy.
"Who are you giving it to?" Yoko whispers to her, and so elated is she with her prize that she gives him a brief and very pleased little smile.
"An old friend who's crashing at my place. He lost his old one, and this one will match him very, very well. Steal what you want from here, Yoko; I'm bringing this place down by dawn."
"As my lady wishes," the silver fox intones quietly, placing a hand over his heart, bowing his head, and vanishing from sight. Restraining the urge to break into a fit of evil chuckling, Aislin carefully wraps the katana in a length of grey cotton until it is simply a long, thin package and places it reverently in her pack. With one last look around she grins once again, unable to help herself, and heads for the exit, slowly emptying a large container of high spirits along the way. The profit she'll make on this place alone tonight will more than make up for the cost of the expensive booze, and besides, she's got a decent sized flask stashed away at home to enjoy at her leisure by noon.
Patiently she waits in a tree outside the rundown warehouse until a silver shadow materializes below her, virtually staggering under the weight of his take. With a smug, wicked smile she lifts an eyebrow at him and Yoko mouths a single word, 'clean'. Without any hesitation she takes out a small canvas-wrapped ball and pulls off the covering. Yoko's eyes widen. In her palm sits a firework big enough to level the place by itself. Added to the spirits he'd smelled on the way out…he grins in boyish delight and looks over at the building expectantly. Taking out a match from her boot, Aislin lights the fuse, chucks it into a high window and then runs like hell with Yoko on her heels.
The two take refuge on a roof without windows and look back just in time to see a brilliant flash light up the night sky, accompanied by a deafening boom and an explosion of bright colors in the shape of a 'smiley-face' sticking its tongue out. A second later there's another explosion and words join the fading image. 'NYAH NYAH HIGURASHI. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME!! WHITEOUT'
"Wicked, wicked creature," Yoko tells his companion gleefully, and she actually winks at him back, still buoyed by her easy success.
"Why thank you very much. Next heist, Yoko." And with a jaunty wave of the first two fingers on her right hand, she steps back off the roof. Rushing over, Yoko sees a whirl of snow dancing down the snow-filled street as though simply blown that way by a real wind.
He looks down at the riches practically dripping off his arms, chest, and shoulders, and this time grins with pure avarice. "And so damn profitable, too."
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The thought of that heist still brings a smile to my face--I was living off that take alone for over ten years, and the ease with which I stole was a very nice change. And Yoko? He stopped being quite so annoying. I even got his help planning Hiei's mini birthday bash.
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"Happy Birthday, Kikan!" Hiei is awakened three days after he first fell asleep by something fairly heavy and warm landing on him and the playful, smacking kiss on his cheek that follows about two seconds later. Floundering up out of the blankets he'd nearly buried himself under, he sits up and glares blearily at the waay-too-bouncy female sitting astride his hips.
"Get offa me, you damned snowflake. 'S too early for this crap." Aislin merely grins at him and bounces up and down a few times, giggling. That wakes him up a bit in a bad way. The last time she giggled like that he'd had to clean up the mess she'd left all over the bar-room floor, and he doubted the inn-keeper had ever gotten all the blood out of the wood.
"But it's your birthday, Hiei! I got it all planned out and everything!" He narrows his maroon eyes at her suspiciously.
"Have you had sugar this morning, baka onna?" She holds up the wrapper for a new candy some apparition had come out with, essentially just sugar powder that comes in different colors and flavors. Pixies had been found to be especially fond of this candy, hence the new treat's name.
"Just a pixie-stick, honest!"
"With, or without the pixie?" He asks this for a very, very good reason, dreading the answer. She gives him the abashed-but-adorable look and sticks the tip of her tongue (colored a medium green) out. Not good.
"Erm, with the pixie but he deserved it for trying to bite me."
"Oh, ye gods," Hiei groans, flopping back and attempting to wrestle the covers away from the hyper Aislin with limited success. The last--and only other--time she'd eaten a pixie she'd acted like a cat on twenty pounds of catnip. It really is too early for this crap, Hiei groans to himself after giving up on getting back to sleep. "Who gave you the pixie and the sugar?"
"Yoko."
"Who's Yoko?"
"A very stubborn fox that's been following me on heists and stuff. He's not so bad once you get to know him but he can be a real pain in the ass like you and when I told him it was your birthday he gave me the candy and the pixie and told me I could have the candy and I should give the pixie to you but the pixie bit me so I ate him out of reflex and I'm sorry he was supposed to be your present and all but---mph!" Hiei had placed a hand over her mouth to cease her babble and sighs as he swings his legs over the edge of the bed.
"I can never understand how you can talk that long without taking a breath."
She bounces a few more times on the now-empty bed and giggles. "When I'm sober neither can I." Suddenly she remembers her original purpose in waking him up and picks up a long package from the rumpled blankets where she'd dropped it, holding it out with eyes sparkling. "Here's your present, Hiei! Open it!"
Warily the fire apparition takes the package and slowly unwraps the cotton fabric covering it. His eyes widen in surprise and awe when the last of it falls away and a magnificent katana sits, sheathed, in his hands. He unsheathes it enough to find the maker's mark engraved into the blade just under the hilt, and his eyes widen further when he sees it.
"How did you manage to get a Manzanaki blade?" he breathes, cradling it to his chest like it is the greatest treasure in the world. "He only made ten of these."
Aislin just gives him a Look, the sugar already burning itself out of her system. "Take a wild guess, Hiei."
He just grins and reaches out to ruffle her hair. She permits the caress and actually leans into it, her Arctic fox ears popping up and tilting in different directions in pleasure when he rubs that spot just behind her normal, sharply pointed ear. "Who'd you swipe it from?"
"Higurashi-baka." Hiei laughs and puts the katana down beside him, sweeping the startled Aislin into a brief, fierce hug.
"Thank you, Aislin. This is, without a doubt, the best present anyone has ever given me. Thank you."
"You're welcome, Hiei-kun!" She tickles his ribs playfully and quickly swipes a cat-rough tongue against his bare shoulder in a non-flirty gesture. "But doncha think you should put on some clothes before I take you out for a celebratory meal?" He pushes her away playfully, laughing.
"Perverted ice-fox!"
"Sensible ice-fox," she counters just as playfully. "I want you to myself when we go out, not have a bunch of other females hanging all over you."
"Jealous?"
"If I say yes can I get another ear rub?" she asks hopefully, and has the blanket yanked over her head. By the time she wrestles it off, breathless with laughter, Hiei already has his mended and clean clothing on and is standing in front of her vanity mirror trying to get his hair/fur into some semblance of order. Grinning, most of the sugar--and pixie--already out of her high-speed system, Aislin gets to her feet, walks over to him, and picks up her brush from the vanity table. "Here, let me try."
"Hn," Hiei grunts, still not quite fully awake despite Aislin's efforts, and allows her to wet the brush at her bathroom sink before beginning to groom his head-fur.
"Always amazes me how much harder your hair-fur looks than it is," the koorime says cheerfully, wielding the brush with practiced skill. Hiei's head lolls back and he snorts, absorbed in the feeling of the brush running through his hair. "There!" she says in satisfaction a few minutes later, setting the brush down and taking a step back to admire her work. Hiei's hair now bristles straight up like it's supposed to in short, gleaming and silky-smooth spikes that are edged in dark, dark blue highlights. "Quite the handsome kajihenge."
"Quite the pretty koorime, when you aren't bouncing off the walls," Hiei counters teasingly, reaching out and tugging on a strand of silky white. "Burned off that pixie yet?"
"Just about. I think I like having a little buzz, though. But come on, Takinada's place ain't gonna stay open all day!" And laughing merrily, she pulls an unresisting Hiei out the door.
===
Yoko is wandering the streets late that night and has just passed a tavern when a furious shout makes him stop and turn. The bouncer, a very burly bear-demon, drops the two apparitions he'd been carrying by the scruffs of their shirts onto their feet just past the door, growling, "And don't come back 'till yer sober!" Drunken laughter reaches the fox's silvery ears as the two straighten and dust themselves off unsteadily before weaving their way towards him. With a jolt, Yoko recognizes Aisuhana as the paler of the two celebrants, and moves to intercept them. He doesn't recognize the other, a youngish apparition with wine-berry eyes and hair that defies gravity and color standards--he'd never seen a starburst pattern of white in black hair before--but assumes it must be the friend Aisuhana had wanted to give a good birthday celebration to.
"Heeyyy, ish Yoko!" slurs the koorime when they notice him, and she grins. "Thansh fer the idea o' taverrn crawlin'. 'Sh the mosht fun I've eveer had." She lets go of her inebriated friend and spins around in a circle, arms flung out wide. "Whee!"
Holding in his laughter, Yoko gently catches her and steadies the leaning male at the same time. "What have you two been pouring down your throats to get like this, huh?"
"What haven't we?" the boy manages, sounding much more sober than she but no less cheerful. "Think the weakesht shtuff--stuff--was Takanada's Demonslayers."
"And you two are still standing?" Yoko's respect for their staying power rises considerably. "Damn, you're gonna have some nasty hangovers tomorrow."
"Come on, Hiei!" Aisuhana whines from the other side of Yoko where she clings to his arm to keep from falling over. "We still ain't hit the Bumblin' Badger or the Cutpurse yet! They're gonna closhe in five hourshh! Lessh go!"
"Sure," the young male agrees readily, and they start to stumble off in the wrong direction. Sighing, Yoko catches up and turns them around, then walks beside them.
"I think I'd better stick with you two until you sober up. Inari only knows what kind of trouble you'd find if I didn't. Or what would find you, for that matter."
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"Oh, my head," Aislin groans upon regaining consciousness, shielding her eyes against a blinding light off to her left. "What the hells did I do?"
"While I was with you?" an amused voice booms from a short distance away. "Let's see. You drank seven more Demonslayers, ten Honeycombs, three entire bottles of unfiltered sake--by yourself--a bottle of Dragonblood, seven shots of vodka, fourteen and a half shots of whiskey, and two glasses of wine. That would be enough alcohol to kill seven adult human males, by the by, and that was only on the first day."
Whimpering at the way the voice reverberates in a sloshing skull, she manages to crack her eyes open and peeks in the right direction. A very amused Yoko sits on a chair beside her bed, his teeth startling white in his tanned face. "What are you doing here, Yoko?"
"Keeping on eye on my favorite koorime and her friend. Do you remember getting kicked out of the last three taverns?"
"I don't remember anything after my eighth Demonslayer at Takanada's." That smile on Yoko's face just gets wider.
"I have some prime blackmail material, then. Hiei might remember more than you do, he's fire apparition so I suspect his metabolism burned the alcohol faster than yours did. I'll have to ask him when he wakes up." And he gestures at the space behind her. Aislin turns--away from the light, huzzah!--and finds Hiei lying in the bed beside her, arms wrapped around her waist without so much as a stitch of clothes between them.
Rapidly checking her internal systems over--as fast as a headache the size of Makai would let her, anyway--she notes that the only thing sore is her head and her feet. Noting her expression, Yoko refrains from chuckling, knowing full well that would hurt quite a bit with her hangover.
"No, you two didn't do anything besides lose all your clothing between your front door and here, before piling together like a couple of kits and passing out the second you got comfy. You'll notice I'm not looking at anything besides your face, by the way. Please pull the blanket up before temptations overwhelm me." Obliging by burying herself back under the covers to get away from the light streaming through her bedroom window, her next question is a bit muffled but still audible.
"How long did our binge last?"
"By my account? If you started on Hiei's birthday, I'd say it lasted nearly a week."
"Ow."
"'Ow' indeed."
"No, I mean ow! Hiei, you little prick! Stop biting!"
"Mrph?" The second lump stirs, and a rumpled Hiei sticks his head out of the blankets like a parody of a turtle to blink owlishly in the light at the silver-haired stranger. "Nani? Dare wa?"
"I'm Yoko Kurama. Aisuhana-chan might have mentioned me. I gave you the pixie for your birthday."
"She ate it." Yoko's expression suddenly changes to that of someone who has just drunk something very fizzy and is attempting to keep that fizz from escaping.
"Ate it?" he squeaks, grin nearly splitting his face in half. Aislin squirms around underneath the blankets, which has the effect of shoving Hiei mostly out of them and halfway onto the floor, halfway into Yoko's lap.
"It bit me," she explains from her dark sanctuary. "And my first reflex when something bites me is to bite back--count yourself lucky, Hiei--and it's not my fault the damned things are bite-sized, anyway."
"Ate it," Yoko squeaks again in confirmation, and gives up. It escapes as an odd hiss from between clenched teeth at first, shaking his shoulders, and starts getting louder. Hiei has a perfect view from his place with his head on Yoko's thigh of the fox's face, framed by his silver hair. The elegant mouth is twisted upwards, eyes squeezed shut, ears flat back. Finally he loses the battle entirely and warm, rich laughter pours from his throat, head flung back while he sits there helplessly and lets the merriment wash over him. "Ate it," he chortles again, unable to help himself. "A pixie. She ate it. Hahahahahaha!"
"You wouldn't be laughing if you had to deal with her on a pixie-trip," Hiei grumbles, righting himself and reaching for the black pants slung over the headboard of the wide bed. "Damned things are catnip to her."
"Don't laugh so loud," is the plea from the lump of blankets marking Aislin. "My head is killing…'scuse me!" And before Yoko can get more than a glimpse of a long, pale back liberally decorated with scars she is out from under the blankets and in the small bathroom, the sounds of retching easily heard.
"What the?" Yoko asks, still floored by the idea of a streaking 'Aisuhana'.
"Must've remembered--"
"HOW COULD YOU LET ME KISS THAT REPULSIVE EXCUSE FOR A DEMON??" comes the outraged shriek of agony from the bathroom. Hiei grins evilly, dropping the pants onto a dirty clothes pile.
"--the slug demon and his bet."
"Augh! I'm never going to get the taste of that out of my mouth! Do either of you have acid? I need to use it for mouthwash!" Hiei and Yoko look at each other, start to grin, and then both start laughing as the indignant, horrified commentary continues all through three rounds of toothbrushing with the strongest paste in the medicine cabinet, five rinses with especially strong mouthwash, and a serious flossing. Then comes a repeat when the floss brings up a chunk of something very slimy. "ICK, ACK, UCK! UCKUCKUCK! All the fires of whatever passes as hell take that foul thing and his entire brood for that dirty, sneaky, underhanded muck-drinking slop-eating sleeps-with-his-own-mothers-then-sells-them fuckin' trick!!"
"Perhaps soap would get that mouth cleaner," Yoko suggests dryly, and Hiei looks at him, horrified. But to the fire apparition's surprise, the cursing stops for a moment, and a wan face pokes from around the door and grins weakly at him.
"You know, that's not a bad idea? Got any hydrochloric face-wash stuff? I'm fresh out." And her head disappears again for another round of brushing. Hiei stares at the amused silver fox in something close to awe.
"She must like you or something, fox. If I said that, even in jest, I'd get my head bitten off, and I'm not talking about the one on my shoulders," Hiei murmurs to him, the fox's eyes widening a bit in startlement.
"No joke? You think so?"
"Hn. You mean you hadn't noticed?"
"I thought she hated my guts."
"Oh, that. No, she only does that with people she holds closer than friends. Take me. She'll act like a bitch just because she knows I can be a bastard right back at her without either of us getting our feelings hurt. Brother and sister kind of thing, you know?"
"But I don't want to be a brother!"
"I doubt you are. Remember what I said about the soap." While that startling revelation sinks in, Hiei gets up and vanishes into the bathroom. There is the sound of a brief scuffle for the shower before the spiky-haired male gets tossed right back out again and the water turns on.
"Peek and you're both dead!" is the fair warning given by the koorime before the showerhead is turned on and the sound of water running is the only thing heard from that direction. Hiei turns to the slack-jawed fox and shrugs carelessly before walking over to the small dresser and digging through the bottom two drawers, coming up with a grey shirt with the sleeves cut away and a pair of black trousers. Completely uncaring as to the fact that he is still walking around in the nude, the fire apparition picks his way over the trap-covered floor and out, heading for the kitchen. A second layer of running water joins the first, accompanied by a yip of dismayed pain from the shower. "Hiei! Warn me next time!"
"Sorry!"
"No, you're not! You like playing pranks on me!"
"You leave too many openings not to!"
"Prick!"
"Snowflake!"
"Kisama!"
"Ikeike!"
"He wasn't joking," Yoko says in mild awe as he listens to the cheerful argument between the two elemental spirits. A knock at the front door rouses him from his stunned trance, and judging by the sound and tempo a rather annoyed person is standing beyond the locked entrance. Shaking his head at himself the kitsune rises to his feet and simply hops over the mess, walking down the short hallway and using the keycode he'd picked up from 'his' koorime when they'd finally come back here.
About to bang on the door a fourth time, a very startled Mizu stares at the fully clothed fox towering over him, a silvery eyebrow raised expectantly. "Yes?"
"Ah…er…that is…what the hells are you doin' at Aisu-san's house?" the cat demon finally manages to spit out, pointing at the amused Yoko.
"Making sure she gets home from a week-long tavern crawl in one piece, if one doesn't count the number of pieces her skull and dignity are in now. Might I inquire as to the reason for your visit?"
"I came to get her for her trainin' session. Nine am wake-up, three hours long, twice a week. She missed the last class so I came to get her myself." A grin bares the tips of two very un-catlike fangs and he shares a conspiratorial look with the fox. "So that really was her I saw gettin' bounced outta Takanada's?"
"More than likely."
"Heh, I'm gonna get to bust her ass over this one."
"How is that?" Yoko purrs dangerously. He only receives an intimidating look back and a straightening of the cat demon's spine.
"I am her commanding officer on the grounds of my school. My students and fighters are not allowed to drink unless given explicit permission, and since I am officially her trainer and teacher, that means I get to put her through hell when I get her on that field."
"Oh, goody-goody," Aislin grumbles, walking up in one of her winter kimonos. "Just what I need after a week like that. What in hells possessed me to do that, I wonder."
"Probably that bit of fox in you, Aisuhana-chan," Yoko teases, and pokes her nose. Big mistake. In one mercurial motion those small but very white teeth latch onto his finger and bite down hard enough to draw a bit of blood. Growling, he tugs for possession of the offending finger but is denied by the also-growling female attached to the other end of it.
"Did you poke her or something, baka kitsune?" Hiei questions amusedly as he walks out of the kitchen, clean and dressed in his borrowed finery. "I should think you'd know better by now."
"You'd think," grits the fox as he tugs again for the return of his finger. "Gimme, Aisuhana." The growl takes on a playful edge and Aislin tugs back, grinning around the bit of tanned flesh.
"Uh-uh."
"Gimme."
"Uh-uh!"
"Drop it."
"Grr," she laughs, playful enough now to lick at the blood trickling over her lower lip. "Mm."
"Perverted ice-fox," Hiei chuckles, and goes back into the kitchen to raid the icebox. Mizu just shakes his head and turns around.
"If you ever feel like getting the most out of what you paid me, try to get to the grounds today." A cheerful wave is his response and he leaves, shutting the door behind him. Once again in relative privacy, Yoko bends down until his eyes are level with the grinning koorime.
"I am going to count to three, and if I don't have my finger back I'm going to lick your nose." Eyes widening in mock dismay, she shakes her head again. Purposefully misinterpreting that headshake as an I-ain't-letting-go, he just beams at her and tugs once again on his abused digit. "One. Two. Three." And before she has a chance to release him he darts his chin forward and lightly swipes his tongue over the tip of her nose. She lets go in a flash and starts swiping at her nose with her thumb.
"Ack! Kurama germs!" Aislin cries and runs for the kitchen. "Help, I need the disinfectant!"
"Sorry," Yoko hears, "but we ran out. I guess you're just gonna turn into a pain in the ass like he is. Oh, wait, you already are." Laughing, the silver fox stumbles to the kitchen and collapses at the tiny table, grinning at the two small beings verbally sparring as they make breakfast for three.
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Onna: woman
Nani: What (question)
Dare wa: Who are you?
Kisama: Bastard
Ikeike: Bitch
