Damn, looks like a lot of homework again this week…two tests, a project due on Thursday on Greece for my stupid geography teacher, and who knows what else in between. Not to even mention it's primetime season again so it's a struggle just to get my homework done before House or Lost comes on, let alone getting writing time in too. (sigh) Maybe I'll have more time towards the end of the week. Okay, enough of that, moving on. ON WITH THE FIC!

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Kurama paced the living room, absently stepping to the side to start a new path as he imagined the carpet was beginning to look more worn in his previous spot. He had become an absolute mess over the last month. Yes, that's right, a month! He had left Hiei in the captive hands of the Koorime for a full month! If you looked at him, though, you would swear it was the redhead who had recently been held in tormented captivity.

His hair was a mess, lacking all of its usual shine and luster. His eyes were much the same, dulled and lined with dark bags and rings. His answering machine had acquired some fifty odd messages over the past month, he had simply stopped bothering to answer the phone or keep up with the messages after about a week or so.

He hadn't gone back to his job since the day Hiei had left. Even if he had there was no way in all the hells he would have been able to concentrate worth a damn on anything. After his second week of unexcused absence he was promptly fired, he even still had the message on the answering machine to prove it. Of course he had never gone in to clean out his desk or anything of the sort. In fact he hadn't left the house for some time now, and even if he did it was only for the absolute necessities or perhaps a midnight stroll in a vain attempt to clear his head. His mother, after finding out about his sudden unemployment, had been paying his bills. Normally he would have objected, but he honestly couldn't find the strength to care anymore.

His mother was almost as worried about him as he was about Hiei. At least half of the messages on the machine were from her. She came by a few times, but after he refused to let her in and see him in this state, she had reluctantly resigned herself to daily phone calls, none of which he returned. Yusuke and Kuwabara had come to the apartment as well, trying to console the fox. Once or twice, Yusuke had even threatened to kick down the door if Kurama didn't open it. He never did. Whatever was bothering Kurama, somehow Yusuke understood that it would do more harm than good to try and force help on his friend. Kurama was centuries old, right? When he needed help, he would ask for it. Until then, he could handle it himself.

The reality of the situation was, however, that Kurama couldn't handle it. He was driving himself insane. Even after a month, the entire apartment still held Hiei's sent. More often than not the fox cried himself to sleep, completely unable to stop the tears. He kept the teargem Hiei had left behind with him at all times. Everyday he struggled with himself not to go to Reikai, to Koenma…

Once or twice recently he had found himself at the entrance to a portal, completely unable to explain how he got there. He would stand there, staring at the swirling abyss, fighting with himself. He couldn't do it, he couldn't harm Koenma. All rules and intimidating punishments aside, they were friends. He would die before he betrayed a friend.

There was another option, a third option. There was always a third option. He was just too frazzled to see it! That was what really made him mad, the fact that there was an answer and he couldn't recognize it. He had never been one to overlook a solution to a problem before. He knew it was there, just beyond reach, he just couldn't get to it.

He stopped his pacing. He had the answer but he couldn't make tangible sense out of it. Why did that sound so familiar? When he remembered he wished he hadn't.

Hiei had said something like that; the night Kurama had given him the nickname Quickfire. He had said the mind solved problems easily and sometimes a person's consciousness just didn't recognize the answers right away. The thought of that night, of those words spoken in his lover's deep baritone, brought the redhead to his knees.

He felt the tears forming, stinging behind his eyes, and was powerless to stop them. He wrapped his arms around his own shoulders, wishing desperately that those arms belonged to Hiei and not himself, as his body began to shake and tremble.

"Hiei…" he managed to choke out the single word before the sobs overpowered everything else and he gave into them willingly, loosing himself in mindless emotion for a while at least.

(xxx)

Hiei stared at the ceiling, waiting for Rui's daily visit. She had made it a habit to visit him at least once everyday, more then once on rare occasions, bringing him food and offering company. He was grateful for the food (the hunger pains occurred rarely now) but was even more grateful for the company.

Their talk was usually aimless. Not so long ago he would have called it a waste of time, but it brought a strange comfort to him now. She asked him many things. Mostly about the places he'd been. This was understandable considering she had never been off this cursed floating ice cube she called home. At such times he urged her to do as his sister had done and leave, see the world (or worlds as the case may be) for herself. But she always just shook her head rather sadly and said she could not.

The door opened with its usual soft creak and he sat up to great his visitor. Rui smiled at him as she closed the door behind her and he offered a small smile back. She crossed the room quickly, her steps light and fast reminding him, as so much of her did, of his sister. As she walked she removed today's illegal snack, another loaf of bread and what could be some sort of demonic cheese, from her kimono.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked as she handed him the food. She asked that everyday now. Hiei couldn't decide if it was because he was pregnant or because he was chained to a table.

"Fine," he answered shortly. He began to eat and she watched, waiting patiently for him to finish. Their conversations usually didn't really start until Hiei was ready, and he was never ready until he had finished eating. So she waited.

Hiei barely noticed her. He was rather lost in thought as he ate. Yesterday she had told him he had been here for a full month. Why was he still here after so long? Why hadn't the fox come to get him? Was he not able to for some reason? Had he tried and failed?

The doctor had come to "examine" him a few day before that, if you could even call that mockery an examination. He had been insulted by the rather rude Koorime the entire time. She had made several snide remarks that the great Youko Kurama had probably decided that rescuing a Koorime bastard wasn't worth his time and simply moved on to his next lover. Hiei knew these lies were and would never be true, but they still stung. He had narrowed his eyes but otherwise made no remark. However, it had taken all his willpower not to kill the woman when she remarked rather giddily that he did not even bare the mark of a mate on his neck. She had said that it was obvious that the Youko didn't want Hiei's tainted child, especially if he hadn't marked the half-Koorime or even bothered to rescue him up until now. Rui had intervened then, pulling the doctor out into the hall before Hiei killed her.

Hiei sighed. Though he wanted to believe she had been wrong, some part of him heard truth in the doctor's words and in fact had been waiting for something like this to happen. Why would Kurama, the perfect, beautiful, flawless fox want him, the shunned, unwanted Forbidden Child? What was worse, he was beginning to worry more and more about his child. When Rui had first told him about he Koorime's plan, he had wholeheartedly believed that Kurama would rescue him long before the child's gender became an issue. Now however…

He was two months along now. In another two months the child would be mature enough. He'd either have to get out of here before then or prey he had a daughter. The idea was almost laughable really. The Forbidden Child, shunned from a world of females simply for being male, wishing for his child to be a girl. How ironic. It made a person want to cry.

"Hiei?" Rui asked quietly, seeing that though the food was not gone the fire demon had ceased eating and was not staring silently at nothing. He jerked slightly, turning to face her. She sighed, dropping her eyes before taking a deep breath and meeting his gaze once more. She twisted the fabric of her kimono uncomfortably in her hands.

"There's something I've been meaning to tell you," she confessed quietly. He continued to stare at her silently, waiting for her to continue. A familiar sense of sick foreboding stole over him.

"I meant to tell you after that horrible doctor teased you…" she closed her eyes, swallowing roughly. "Gods!" a harsh whisper escaped her, not really directed at him but more a vocalization of her thoughts. "I'm sorry! All the horrible things I've done to you, and now I just keep adding to the list! You should have killed me…when you came back before you should have killed me!"

"Rui!" he cried. He hated when she got like this, when her grief overcame her and she started begging to be killed. He couldn't kill her. He would never kill her, or even hurt her. They were friends now, at least on some level, and he would never hurt a friend. Her eyes opened and they were glazed with tears.

"The other Elders and I," she began slowly, struggling to keep her voice from shaking, "put a curse on you after I…I d-dropped you." She choked on the last words, a single teargem falling.

"A curse?" he wondered. He was cursed too? Gods! What fresh horror was this?

Rui nodded solemnly. "Yes. It was a curse against…against your…h-happiness," she sniveled.

"My happiness?" he repeated. On some truly sick level it made sense. If killing him failed they could always just make him miserable, right?

"I-if you e-ever…ever t-took a…a m-mate," Hiei's attention doubled at the word 'mate', "the c-curse…would drive you insane. Y-you would hear voices…voices t-telling you to…to k-kill your mate. Once you d-did that…the c-curse would m-make…make sure you f-fell…into a s-suicidal d-depression…and…and…"

"I'd kill myself," Hiei finished quietly. Rui nodded. Several more teargems had formed a pile around her feat. Did this mean that he and Kurama could never be mates?

"Rui," he asked gently after a moment. She looked up at him, wiping her eyes. "Is there anyway to remove the curse?"

She looked down again. "The only way to nullify the curse is if the ones who cast it are dead." Hiei's heart sank. He wouldn't, couldn't do that! The other Elders maybe, perhaps even gladly, but not Rui. He had claimed her as a friend and was bound by his honor code to protect her, or at the very least never physically harm her himself. He sighed and looked down, straining one shackled hand as far as the chains would allow, resting it on his stomach. He had been hoping his child would grow up in a stable home with two mated parents; much was the custom with ningens and marriage. That, however, was beginning to look like an impossibility. Hell, at this rate the child might not even grow up at all!

He sighed once more, turning back to his unfinished meal. He was separated from his lover, his child's (not to even mention his own) life was in danger, and now he found out he was cursed as well. Life is just a bitch sometimes.