Title: The Price of His Past

Author: Ladye Black

Warnings: mentioned/implied omcxTsume and a bad word, implied yaoi

Notes: Thank you for all of your lovely reviews; I don't say it nearly as often as I should, but they're greatly appreciated and a great motivator.

Disclaimer: Nope, still belong to somebody else.

Chapter 5

Memories ran through his head, a lot of them were firsts. His first friend, his first time stealing... the first time he had to whore himself so that he could eat. His first time with a man where it, for once, didn't hurt.

The memories swirled in his head, like a sinister merry-go-round. Some, he shied away from, others, he embraced. And still others that either wouldn't come, or made him want to hide in the dark forever.

Slowly, he became aware of the roughness of a wet tongue scraping painfully over him. It pried at various hurting places, and Tsume slowly started to remember what had happened. He almost wished he didn't.

With remembrance came awareness, and the awareness was very painful.

"Stop," he muttered to the rough tongue that was cleaning one of his various cuts. It stopped.

"Tsume?" a voice questioned. The Wolf was too tired to put a name to the voice, he just grunted instead.

"Tsume!" another voice squealed. "You're awake!" Loud, thudding footsteps came nearer to him.

"Toboe! Don't-!" Too late for the 'don't' Tsume speculated as the air was painfully forced out of him by the youngest member of the group.

"Hngh!" Tsume protested, weakly trying to push the young Wolf off.

"Toboe! Off! Tsume can't breathe with you lying on top of him." Kiba's voice, Tsume thought vaguely. He opened his cautiously.

Directly above him was Toboe's face, smiling apologetically. "Oops. Gomen, Tsume," the pup said happily. Behind the pup was Hige, looking happy and slightly relieved. Kiba, who didn't really show that much emotion at all beyond slightly annoyed when he looked at Toboe and a little bit of relief when his gaze shifted over to study Tsume, was sitting beside him.

"How long was I out?" Tsume asked, voice slightly rougher than usual from disuse and lack of water. That reminded him, he was very thirsty.

"A couple days," Kiba answered.

"Yeah, you almost didn't make it!" Toboe put in.

"What about the creatures?"

Hige answered this one. "There was a heavy snowfall a few hours after you blacked out. It's still snowing, actually."

"We should leave." Tsume began to push himself up, but was thwarted in his attempt when Kiba planted a paw on his chest and held him down.

"We will, once you get better." The white wolf reverted back to his human illusion. "You still have a bit of healing to do before you're fit to travel."

Looking up at Kiba, Tsume idly wondered if the other Wolf's face was as cold as it looked, and if he should lick it to find out. Then he considered that thought and promptly discarded it to be examined at another time. "I'm fine."

Kiba's expression hardened. "You need rest."

"What I need," Tsume replied, "is for you to get off me." He glared pointedly at where Kiba's hand rested on his chest.

Glaring back while hastily removing his hand, Kiba sat back and regarded Tsume with a determined look. "Unless you can get up and make it out the door by yourself, you're not going anywhere."

Tsume was only too glad to take up the challenge. "Alright." He rolled onto his front, then carefully pushed himself up. It was slightly painful, but nothing he couldn't manage. Then he took a step.

And promptly fell flat on his face. Shit.

Behind him, he heard Hige snigger and Toboe make a worried squeak. When he finally decided to look behind him, he met Kiba's triumphant gaze.

The white Wolf smirked. "We're staying here."

TBC...

Well, how was it? Yay, second update this month!