"Hiei!" Yûsuke said cheerfully. The demon looked over to his friend and grimaced, sort of like a forced smile. Keiko, who was hugging Yûsuke's middle, smiled and waved a little.
"Girlfriend?"
"No…"
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"Sure looks like it."
"I'm doing it to help the fox."
"Aww, Hiei! What a cute nickname! You need one, too!"
Growl snarl.
Yûsuke chuckled a little. "What does Kurama have to do with…her?"
"Nothing, as far as I can tell," Hiei muttered dangerously, "but she threatened to hurt him with 'infliction' or something, so I have to pretend to like her."
"Fanfiction, sweetheart," Alexis purred. Hiei rolled his eyes dramatically.
"Whatever."
Alexis put a finger to her chin thoughtfully. Hiei moved back suspiciously. Alexis snapped her fingers.
"Eureka!"
"Eh?"
"The nickname," she said joyfully. "You call me 'Fox,' and I'll call you 'Kitten'!"
Hiei opened and closed his mouth a few times before he could manage to form proper words.
"Excuse me?"
"Sure, sure," Alexis continued. "In fanfiction, I see people all the time giving you kittens or cats or something and it's so cute! So because you kinda look like a cat or something, I'll call you Kitten! It makes perfect sense, don't you think?"
Temporarily paralyzed at the idea of caring for something defenseless (not to mention small and fluffy), Hiei balked, which Alexis took to mean "Of course, darling, and I'll love you for the rest of time."
Go figure.
"Oh I just knew you'd agree!"
"So…" Keiko said, trying to fill the silence so Hiei wouldn't hear her giggle and, you know, decide to kill her and stuff. "Hiei. Kit—um…I mean…Hiei. When's the wedding?"
"Next week!" Alexis jumped in ecstatically. Hiei tried to force her off of him, but the Iron Grip (I'm thinking of copyrighting that) triumphed once again.
"Never," Hiei mouthed over Alexis's head. The girl's eyes narrowed and she turned slowly on her…er, her beloved.
"What did you just say…?"
"I said the wedding is 'never,' all right?"
Alexis's eyes began to water. "But…but Hiei-chan…Love…Kitten…"
Hiei bit back on what might have been a scream.
"Love kitten?" Yûsuke asked teasingly. Hiei reached for his sword—even made the motion of swinging it—when he realized that Alexis had taken it and was trying to spin it around her fingers. (Failing, but let it be said that she tried.) He growled, but, remembering that he was doing this for Kurama, subsided with a scowl.
"Hiei-chan-chan, I always thought…"
Chan-chan?
"Thought what?"
"Well, in all the fanfictions I read, when you're a boyfriend, you're always nice and sweet and really cool! And you always surprise your girlfriend with presents, like rings and stuff, or pretty silk dresses or something. You know, something really adorable and kind."
Yûsuke muffled his laughter when the girl called Hiei "adorable" and "kind." Surely they were talking about different people.
Hiei seemed to be having a similar reaction.
"Adorable?" he shouted. "Kind? Where do you come up with this crap?"
Alexis smiled winningly. "Well, duh. Your girlfriend brings out the gentle person you really are inside."
Choke die.
Hiei might have fainted at that moment, it's really unclear. But a few seconds later, after he had recovered, he lunged at Alexis with his hands outstretched, preparing to choke her. She frantically looked around for some kind of defense and found—insert victory music—her super fanfiction character transportation device.
"Kurama!" she cried frantically, latching onto the-boy-who-appeared-out-of-nowhere's arm. "I'll lock him up if you don't love me!"
Hiei blinked a few times.
"Kurama?" he said curiously. The redhead looked at him, equally baffled, and shrugged.
"I…think so…"
Hiei sighed. He didn't want Kurama locked up. The fox was so good at casual sex—much better than Yûsuke, and he would never even consider Kuwabara. It would be a serious drain on the number of things he could do with his free time to have Kurama locked up.
"Fine…"
Kurama blinked a few times.
He turned to Alexis. "Did it ever occur to you," he asked in that sagely way of his that makes you feel real stupid, "that if you have to threaten Hiei to date you, your relationship doesn't have any weight or meaning?"
Alexis stared at him blankly for a second.
"Kurama," she said slowly, "you're my second favorite character, and I love you to death, but please, sweetie, stay out of matters you don't understand."
Kurama had to keep himself from killing her on the spot.
Why he refrained, I couldn't tell you. But he did.
Hiei, meanwhile, saw some real truth to what his friend and casual sex partner had said. The girl, Alexis whatever, was really annoying him, yet she seemed to think they were smitten with one another. It didn't make sense.
"I think Kurama's right," Hiei said smartly. Alexis looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"Y-you don't agree with me, Kitten?" she whimpered. Hiei shuddered at the nickname.
"B-but in all the…the fanfiction I read, you're always defending your loved ones and giving them presents and being so sweet and—"
"Yeah," Yûsuke butted in, "but this is the real Hiei, not some fictional knockoff. He would never give a girl a gift! Hell, he barely even remembers Kurama's birthday, and they're casual sex partners!"
Alexis looked shocked. Kurama smiled in a self-satisfied way. Yûsuke laughed a little. Keiko smiled daintily.
Hiei glared at Alexis. One of those death glares that haunts normal men in their sleep.
She was too stunned to notice, I guess.
"C-c-casual…sex?" she whispered, as though it were a dirty word. Which it technically might be, but she was saying it in a…special sort of way.
"Yes, casual sex," Hiei said slowly. Kurama ruffled his hair and Hiei shook him off.
Alexis sputtered, covering her mouth and the like as she tripped backwards. Somehow she did it in a graceful, fanfiction-girl way, but she did trip.
Kurama and Hiei blinked at each other. They didn't see what was so odd about it, and if this girl…thing claimed to be so knowledgeable in the ways of their world and the demons therein, it shouldn't have been a shock to her.
But they didn't have anything vested in her well being, so if she had fainted or tripped and fallen on her head or something, then…more power to her.
"You have a problem with that, I assume?" Kurama said delicately. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, and nodded.
"Hiei and I are supposed to lose our virginities to each other," she said quietly, lower lip quivering as tears sprang to her eyes.
Hiei couldn't help it.
He burst out laughing.
"And just what," Alexis said, regaining her composure suddenly, "is so funny about that?"
Hiei stumbled over to a tree and leaned against its trunk, bracing himself so as not to lose his balance. Yûsuke was laughing, Kurama was trying not to laugh but clearly failing, and Keiko was catching the fever. Alexis blinked, looking pretty stupid and definitely out of the loop.
"Wha-at?" she whined.
Hiei held up his finger as though to say "one minute, dumbass, I'm laughing at you."
One minute passed.
"Wha-at?" Alexis whined.
"You thought I still had my virginity?" Hiei gasped between laughs. Alexis nodded meekly.
"Oh, that's good…"
"But-but-but you and—"
"Hiei didn't lose his virginity to me, either," Kurama said, having gotten his amusement under control.
"Or me," Yûsuke volunteered, raising his hand. Keiko nodded, blushing prettily.
Alexis stamped her foot. "Who, then?"
Hiei shrugged. "I don't remember. Some demon a few hundred years ago. Tied me down and raped me pretty bad. It's okay, though, I cut—"
Alexis burst into tears and cut off the tail of Hiei's sentence, so each member of the little crew filled in his (or her…or its) own ending.
Hiei didn't seem to mind much.
"You mean you didn't save yourself for me?" she bawled. Four pairs of eyebrows raised in pretty nice synchronization.
"Seeing as how I didn't know you existed until you assaulted me in that tree—" Hiei started.
"—and it's extraordinarily rare for a demon to 'save himself' for a specific mate—" Kurama continued.
"—and two virgins trying to get it on and expecting it to be any good is just stupid—" Yûsuke added.
"—there's no possible reason he would have waited to lose his virginity to you," Keiko finished.
Blink blink.
Running blindly in no particular direction, Alexis "just happened" to head for the edge of the cliff that Makeout Creek "just happened" to be situated on. Resisting the urge to hold up his hands in prayer, Hiei hoped and hoped with all his might that she would run off and his problems would be over.
No such luck.
Alexis stopped just at the edge of the drop. Apparently, she had been aware of it the whole time. She looked over her shoulder accusingly, eyes fixed on one perplexed and disappointed fire demon.
"You're supposed to throw yourself forward to save me. Duh," she said flatly. Hiei gritted his teeth. The grinding was audible.
"Why would I do that?"
"Obviously 'cause you would die for me and I'm your most precious sweetest nicest coolest love ever."
"And if you're not?"
"But the problem with that is that I am."
"No, you're not."
"…second? Right after the deep and passionate love you had when you were younger? Who died and devastated you so much that it caused your mysterious and dark broody ways? And then got secretly reincarnated into me? And that's why I'm here?"
"I don't love you! I don't even like you!"
"Sure you do!"
Hiei threw up his hands and tried to stalk away, but Alexis, with her super fanfiction powers, was suddenly right in front of…wherever it was he was trying to go.
So, naturally, he turned around and tried to stalk away in another direction, and you can just guess how successful that was.
That is, not at all.
This didn't last for very long before Hiei realized it was completely fruitless and sat on the ground, dragging Kurama down with him (because misery loves company). Suddenly a thought came to him—maybe, just maybe, if he started making out with the fox (who certainly wouldn't mind), the girl-fanfiction-thing would realize he wasn't interested and leave.
He did just that (damn, had Kurama picked up a new trick in the last week or so? He was on fire!), right in Alexis's line of sight, and she had a typical reaction.
Quivering lip, furious raging eyes, hands balled into fists, tears spilling down her cheeks, stuff like that.
And she ran away, crying like a little brat.
Hiei and Kurama waited a few minutes…just to be sure…and broke apart, going about checking for Alexis as though they hadn't just had an awesome makeout session and weren't just a little sweaty.
Hiei was bent slightly at the waist, checking in a certain bush, when he had the most annoying sensation that he was being watched and followed and about to be spoken to, all at the same time.
"So are you over him yet?"
Hiei didn't jump, not at all, but he did spin around with his hands on fire, ready to burn and or kill something. He liked to play these things by ear.
Unfortunately, it was no normal enemy, but a certain terribly annoying young girl thing. Hiei's mouth hung open a little.
"How did you do that?"
Alexis smiled winningly and gave a peace sign. "I'm special!"
"Damn straight…"
"See, Yûsuke knows what I'm talking about."
Hiei grimaced. This girl was so infuriating…
Keiko smiled devilishly. Hiei didn't like that smile…it was too foreboding of bad things.
"Alexis," Keiko said secretly, as though they were two best friends gossiping about their boyfriends. "Don't you need to make invitations for the wedding or something? Or maybe reserve a church?"
Alexis blinked. "Oh, no," she said, waving her hands. "We're not doing any sort of traditional stuff."
Hiei looked at her incredulously. Not only was she still convinced they were getting married, but now she thought it would be unique and "not traditional," too? What was she, a demon?
"What are you," Kurama said skeptically, "a demon?"
Alexis nodded excitedly. "I wasn't going to say anything, because I thought it would be showing off—"
Like she hadn't been showing off the entire time she had been there, Hiei thought angrily.
"—but yes, I am a demon, actually."
Keiko snuck a little further behind Yûsuke, very subtly.
"What sort?" Kurama asked, curious and skeptical and annoyed.
"What sort? Oh, you mean what kind."
Huff sigh.
"Well," she said, holding up her hand as she got ready to tick off the different types of demon roiling inside of her. "I'm part fire demon—"
Hiei rolled his eyes.
"—part fox demon—"
Kurama raised an eyebrow.
"—part Mazoku—"
Yûsuke kept his mouth shut.
"—part light demon—"
Even Keiko thought this was getting a little silly.
"—and part darkness demon."
The four canon characters looked at each other with a variety of emotions and things reflective of certain emotions: smothered laughter (Yûsuke), confusion (Keiko), annoyance (Kurama), and infuriation (Hiei).
Kurama was the first to point out something a little weird about her mixture.
"Light and Darkness stop each other," he said. "A single entity cannot have both powers."
"Whaddya mean, 'stop'?"
"I mean that too much Light cancels out Darkness and too much Darkness cancels out Light, so when you throw them together in equal 'parts,' they cancel each other out entirely."
"B-but…" Alexis whimpered, "but I'm—I'm—I'm special!"
Kurama shook his head and stopped trying.
So naturally, Yûsuke gave it a go.
"You can't be 'part' Mazoku," he said. "Being Mazoku means being part demon."
"Right, so I'm part demon."
"If you're part demon, part human, then you're all Mazoku, and I thought you were all demon anyway."
"Well…" Alexis said shyly, "I'm actually half human."
Yûsuke blinked a few times and stopped trying.
Keiko had to get in on the action.
"Fox demons naturally have the power of fire," she said. "Being part fox demon, part fire demon is redundant."
"I've got super extra fire powers."
"Fox demons can use foxfire because they're fox demons, they don't need 'super extra fire powers' to use multiple fire attacks."
"Normally, yeah," Alexis agreed, "but I've got more fire powers than are covered by normal foxfire."
Keiko put her head in her hands and stopped trying.
Having already seen the entire claim debunked (completely successfully and completely unaccepted), Hiei resigned himself to attacking the "I'm half human" angle.
"You're half human," he said, "one eighth fire demon, one eighth fox demon, one eighth light demon, and one eighth darkness demon?"
"Yup!"
"And you think that balance is stable?"
"I'm still here, aren't I?"
Hiei threw up his hands and stopped trying.
Alexis gleefully amused herself by holding her hand, palm upturned, out in front of her and "focusing her energy." She smiled at a seemingly random point, passing her free hand over the "focused energy." Hiei cocked his head curiously.
"…what are you doing?"
Alexis looked up and smiled sagely. "I'm practicing summoning my fire magic," she said with that annoying "duh" undertone.
"…but there's nothing there."
Alexis closed her eyes and shook her head, her smile widening a little. "Is my energy too strong for you to see, Kitten? Should I concentrate it more?"
"There's nothing there."
"Here," she said, completely patronizing and not seeming to care. "I'll concentrate it further for you, okay?"
Hiei growled quietly. Very threatening.
She clenched her teeth and furrowed her brow the tiniest bit, then relaxed her expression with a satisfied grin.
"That better, Kitten?"
Seething (really obviously), Hiei punched a tree.
"Here," Alexis said, trying to be placating. "Touch it. Go on, it's your darling sweetheart's power, it won't hurt you. You'll be able to feel it, that's all. Don't be afraid."
"I am not afraid of things that don't exist. And I am certainly not afraid of fire."
"That's good! Now just come on, sweetie, and get real close. You can do it."
To humor her, and maybe get her to shut up for once, Hiei stepped closer and stuck his hand out over hers. He raised one eyebrow when, just as he had expected, he felt absolutely nothing. Even if her energy had been too strong for him to see, he would have been able to feel it. It would have hurt him, probably pretty badly.
But there was nothing there.
He waited for her response.
She giggled when he said nothing.
"Too enamored with the overpowering sensation of undying love that you're getting from my fire to respond?" she said school-girlishly. "I get that a lot."
"There's nothing there."
"Sure there is!"
Alexis "threw the energy" at a nearby tree, waiting patiently for it to catch fire or explode or something.
Naturally, nothing happened.
"Well, that's odd," she said softly. "I'd say that I missed the target, but I'm a master sniper—I taught Hagiri how to snipe, by the way, I don't know if I ever told you that—so maybe my energy was too weak? Except that I'm the strongest person to ever work as a Spirit World detective—I taught Sensui everything he knows, by the way, I don't know if I ever told you that—so of course I'd be able to blow up a stupid tree…huh."
Four jaws might as well have been resting on the ground, but we all know jawbones aren't that flexible.
"I think we have to go," Yûsuke said quietly, standing and pulling Keiko up with him. Hiei and Kurama nodded mutely, still staring at Alexis, slack-jawed.
