(12-19) This is chapter six, kids. Make sure you read chapter five first, since I put them both up at the same time.
Here's another short, crappy, letdown chapter.

CHAPTER SIX
IT'S BURNING!

Here's the scene. Shadow: in the kitchen making dinner. Hiei and Eclipse: sitting on the dining room floor eating Christmas cookies. Kurama: at home. Everyone else: In drunk-proof rooms on an upper floor of Shadow's house.

At least, that was the scene at the end of the last chapter. Here's the REAL scene:

"OHMIGOD I BURNED THE TURKEY!"

"You did WHAT?"

"I BURNED IT IT'S ON FIRE!"

"THEN PUT IT OUT!"

"IT'S BURNING! BUUURRRRNNNNING! FIRE, FIRE, CALL 911!!!"

"SHADOW! SHUT UP!"

"THE TURKEY IS BURNING, THE TURKEY IS BURNING! EEEEEEE!" She ran around in circles with her arms around her head. "FIRE! FIRE! FIRE!"

"SHADOW!"

"CALL 911! CALL 911! CALL 911! 'TIS A LIFE-OR-DEATH EMERGENCY! WE MUST SAVE THE TURKEY!"

"THE TURKEY IS BEYOND BEING SAVED! SAVE THE HOUSE!" Eclipse screamed.

"I CAN'T!" Shadow wailed.

"WHERE'S HIEI WHEN YOU NEED HIM?"

"I BAKED HIM IN A PIE!"

"YOU DID WHAT?"

"PIE! WITH FOUR AND TWENTY BLACKBIRDS!"

"WHAT ARE YOU COOKING BLACKBIRD PIES FOR?"

"HE TOLD ME TO!"

"HIEI?"

"NO, THE BLACKBIRD!"

"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!"

"I LIKE PIE!"

"WELL I LIKE YOUR HOUSE BUT IF YOU DON'T DO SOMETHING ABOUT THAT FLAMING TURKEY, YOUR HOUSE ISN'T GONNA BE HERE ANYMORE!"

"What turkey?" Shadow looked at the stove and saw the still-burning turkey, and her screams started up fresh. "OH MY GOD, THE TURKEY!" Her screaming and running in circles commenced.

"WHAT ARE YOU LUNATICS SCREAMING ABOUT?! And why the hell are you just sitting there letting that food burn like that?!" Hiei snapped. The fire was out in a second. Shadow stared at it in awe.

"Wow... It's God..." She grabbed Hiei's shoulders. "Please! I must know! What is the secret of the universe, God?"

Hiei slapped her across the face. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"You said you cooked him in a pie!" Eclipse whined. Hiei's eyes widened. Then he noticed a small accumulation of empty eggnog bottles in the corner.

"What's this?!" he asked, wrenching out of Shadow's grasp and walking to the bottles. Without his support suddenly, the girl fell on her face. "Were you getting yourself drunk while making dinner?"

Shadow got up, rubbing her head. "Owie, that was uncalled for..."

Eclipse's eyes narrowed. "You burned my dinner. You will pay." She tackled Shadow and started strangling her. Hiei just stood there and watched as the brown-haired girl shook Shadow around by her neck, screaming angry things at her. He only saw it fit to step in when Shadow's eyes rolled back in her head and her tongue lolled out of her mouth like a panting dog.

"Okay, Eclipse, that's enough," he said, dragging her away from Shadow's limp body. She thrashed wildly, still screaming angry things, but now they were aimed at Hiei.

"PUT ME DOWN YOU WEIRD LITTLE FREAK! I'LL BITE OFF YOUR ARM!"

"Shut up," he said simply, dropping her out in the hall. Shadow blinked, her eyes becoming normal, and shut her mouth on her tongue. She screamed obscenities until it felt better. They watched her stand up, look around. Her face lit up as she set eyes on the charred remains of what was once an edible piece of poultry.

"Taaki!" she cheered, and grabbed it, shoving the entire thing (thermometer, pan, remains of aluminum foil, and charcoal corpse) into her mouth and swallowing. She gagged a couple times and hit her chest hard before the uh... food... settled into her stomach. Once she got over the gagging, she looked absolutely no worse for wear and smiled widely and stupidly.

"She just ate a pan," Eclipse said dryly. Hiei nodded and replied in an equally dry tone, "I saw."

"Why?"

"She's drunk."

"She ate a pile of ashes and a lot of bones."

"Aren't turkey bones bad for you?"

"If you're a dog..."

"She's a bitch, does that count?"

"Hiei!"

"What? She is! Sometimes."

"I dunno, then. We'll see."

Shadow was digging through the eggnog bottles now, and found one with a few drops left. She drank them and skipped away. Hiei sighed.

"So much for dinner."

"We could just continue gorging ourselves on cookies."

"Yeah, that's real healthy."

"So? They're here to be eaten, are they not?"

"They are."

"Let's go."

She grabbed him and dragged him back to the dining room to their Leaning Tower of Cookie Cans.

A few minutes later, Shadow came flying through the room and hurdled over them, slid down the hall and fell as she made an attempt to stop in front of the kitchen. She scrambled into the said room frantically and threw herself onto the stove.

"YOU STOLE MY HIEI AWAY FROM ME!"

Hiei, hearing this from his place on the floor of the dining room, raised an eyebrow at Eclipse and looked in the direction of the kitchen as there was a loud klang followed by some swearing. He blinked and took a bite out of the cookie in his hand.

"I think she just kicked something," Eclipse said. She stuffed a cookie into her mouth.

"Why did she refer to me as 'her' Hiei?"

"I 'ono," Eclipse said through a mouthful of cookie. "Fee's thtewpid."

Hiei sighed and got up, eating the rest of his cookie and picking up a handful for the short trip to the kitchen. There had been several more thuds and colorful words from there in the short time it took for the three-sentence conversation between the cookie-eating occupants of the dining room floor to occur.

When he reached the doorway, he found Shadow unleashing a multitude of strange Kung Fu Ninja attacks on the stove.

"The stove stole me?" he muttered to himself.

"The giant metal beast of heat-exerting danger hath stolen the small mortal demon of heat-exerting danger to strengthen its heat-exertion army of heat-exerting exertion!" Shadow cried, falling to her knees in front of the dented kitchen appliance. She sat there in silence for a while, unaware of her friend standing in the doorway watching her curiously. Finally, she looked straight forward at the oven.

"That's it! I have decided!" She stood up valiantly. "I'm goin' in! Wish me luck!"

"Going in where?" Eclipse asked from beside Hiei. Her question was answered as Shadow opened the oven door and flung herself inside like there was a tunnel inside instead of shelves and a couple pies she'd been cooking. Like it wasn't on several hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Like throwing herself into it wouldn't cause her to hit her head on the back, burn herself on hot pie filling and the shelves and walls, and get trapped inside when the door shut and her screaming and thrashing knocked it over onto its front and sealed her inside.

"HOLY HELL! DO SOMETHING!" Eclipse screamed, but Hiei was way ahead of the game.

"One happy Christmas this is," he snarled, righting the appliance and opening it to drag a severely scorched Shadow out by her smoldering arm. She screamed and thrashed wildly until she noticed that she'd just been saved by...

"AN ANGEL!"

Hiei fell over, landing with a thud on the floor. Shadow stared at him.

"Mr. Angel, my entire body hurts. Am I dead?"

"You don't feel pain in death, Shadow," Hiei muttered. "You just threw yourself into an oven, you drunken fool!"

Shadow blinked. "I did? Why would I do such a foolish thing?"

"I have absolutely no fucking idea," Hiei snarled. Shadow gasped and slapped her hand over her mouth.

"You used a naughty word. You should get your mouth washed out with soap. Angels aren't supposed to cuss."

"I'm not an angel. You need medical attention," he said flatly, dragging her out of the kitchen and into the basement infirmary. Eclipse trailed behind for lack of anything better to do, holding a can of cookies and stuffing her face with the healthy snack while she watched Hiei apply burn salve to Shadow's numerous injuries. She whimpered and looked at him with teary eyes.

"It hurts, Mr. Angel."

"I'm not an angel, you are not dead, and for the last time, be quiet!"

Yusuke suddenly showed up in the doorway, fuming, with Kuwabara and Shizuru right behind him, also fuming. They stopped dead at the sight before them. Scarcely clad Shadow sitting before Hiei, her skin burned and her eyes full of tears.

"What the hell is going on here?" Yusuke cried.

"Shadow threw herself into the oven," Eclipse answered nonchalantly. The other three stared.

"...Why?"

"To save Hiei."

"What was Hiei doing in the oven?"

"He wasn't doing anything in the oven. He was in the dining room."

Yusuke stared. "Merry Christmas," he said sarcastically.

"She's drunk, Yusuke," Hiei informed him. "She burnt your Christmas feast and ate a lot of stuff she shouldn't have."

"Like what?"

"A pan, aluminum foil, the charred remains of a turkey, a thermometer, and the entire turkey skeleton. Hiei's wondering if turkey bones will effect a bitch in the same manner as they effect a dog."

"Um... Oh."

"We must have our gift exchange!" Shadow was whining. Hiei restrained her feeble attempts at getting up.

"Tomorrow," he said. "We'll have it tomorrow. Okay?"

Shadow looked dejected. "Okay, Mr. Angel."

"STOP CALLING ME THAT!"

"I'm sorry, Mr. Asshole."

Yusuke laughed. "Asshole."

"Shut up, Yusuke, or I'll stuff you in the oven and I won't let you out," Hiei threatened.

"Ah-ha! So you really did stuff her in the oven! I suspected it all along!" Kuwabara accused. Hiei glared.

"What the hell would make you think that? Why would I put Shadow in an oven, let her out, and care for her wounds?"

Kuwabara stared.

"Thanks, Hiei. We'll be going now," Shizuru said, grabbing her brother and dragging him away kicking and screaming. Yusuke chuckled.

"See you tomorrow," he said, also leaving. Eclipse watched them go, then watched Hiei work in silence. After a long time, she sighed to try to break the silence. It didn't work.

"Man, this Christmas blows," she said eventually. "I'm going home to see if I can get some leftovers."

Shadow watched her go, even more tears welling in her eyes. Rather unexpectedly, she flung her arms around Hiei and bawled.

"MY FIRST CHRISTMAS IS A GIANT FAILURE!" she wailed.

Hiei twitched a bit.

"I TRIED TO MAKE IT SO WONDERFUL AND IT TURNS OUT THAT I'M JUST A LOSER THAT NOBODY WANTS TO BE AROUND!"

The fire demon sighed. Before he could get a word out, Shadow continued.

"NOBODY CARES! I'M A DUMB, UGLY, RUN-OF-THE-MILL BITCH! THEY ALL HATE ME!"

Before she could continue after her next sob, Hiei put his arms around her.

"Calm down, Shadow."

She was startled by his actions and hiccupped slightly with her next breath, sniffled, and tried to calm down.

"You don't hate me too?" she asked. Hiei shook his head.

"None of them hate you."

"Yes they do. I can't throw a Christmas party without getting us all tossed in prison. How could they even slightly like me?"

"Because the alcohol has fuddled your brain. You have no idea what you're talking about."

Shadow pulled away and glared, sniffed, and hiccupped again. "Do you not think this Christmas sucked?"

"I think it was fine," he said. "I never even knew what Christmas was before you told me. I'm sure I've had worse. People probably tried to kill me at least one Christmas day out of all of them I've been through."

"But..."

"No. Now you're going to cheer up and go to bed after I'm through with this, aren't you?"

"I guess..."

Then Hiei did something totally unexpected. He kissed her. Just a tender, perhaps even shy, kiss on the lips, but it was a kiss.

"Merry Christmas."

Hiei just acted OOC from his initial OOC-ness for the fic. Oh well. Shadow acted OOC cuz she's drunk. Like I said, the story hath died... It sucks, doesn't it. Major letdown if you were expecting some great Christmas stuff... Too bad, I'm just trying to get something up on this story so I can say it's complete... I hate having an incomplete fic on my screen.
Anyway, gift exchange in the next chapter, hopefully, and I need some major FEEDBACK on these last two chapters and some SUGGESTIONS for the next one. GIVE ME SUGGESTIONS OR I'LL GO ANOTHER YEAR WITHOUT UPDATING! BECAUSE I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING! AND IF YOU DON'T SUGGEST SOMETHING I'LL SIC THE ANGRYSAKANA ON YOU!

And WHY the hell does it like to run my words together? There's no way in hell I'm going to proofread an entire chapter just to see if stupid ff's wonderful edit thingy screwed up my fic! Bastards!