chapter eleven: in which words are had

"I'm going to borrow a line of Yusuke's," Kurama said from his perch on the attic window sill. "If this continues, I'm going to need alcohol."

Hiei's curiosity had finally overwhelmed his general awkwardness around people having serious issues, prompting him to seek out Kurama. "I wouldn't recommend that."

"Neither would I," Kurama pointed out. "But I'm getting frustrated. Someone who was just unlucky enough to look like me just died because of it."

"Actually," Hiei said mildly, "it was probably my fault."

Kurama almost smiled. "This is true. Nevertheless, I'm the catalyst."

"Take a lot on yourself, don't you?" Hiei inquired. "Of course you're the catalyst. And you've killed innocent people before in more direct ways. You don't feel guilty."

"But people expect me to feel guilty," Kurama explained slowly. "They expect me to be nice, and they expect me to feel pity."

"You do have a distressing inclination towards kindness to others," Hiei told him. "So that would be your own damn fault."

Kurama laughed. "So it would be. Thank you. I think I needed that."

Hiei felt greatly relieved. "Now what?"

"I'm thinking of standing around and letting him have at you," Kurama said gravely. "You've annoyed him. He'll probably want to kill you and then use your shattered corpse as part of his master plan."

"He needs to wait his turn," Hiei mused. "I've made a lot of people corpse-shatteringly angry."

Kurama twisted to look at Hiei. "Why does that not surprise me in the slightest?"

"You know me?" Hiei suggested.

Looking at the ground under the window, Kurama said softly, "I suppose that was the obvious answer."

Hiei fidgeted slightly, turning one question over in his mind a few times without ever figuring out just how to phrase it. Not only was it not the sort of question that he was accustomed to asking, but it was dangerous territory in general. And if he kept telling himself that the question was not why he was up here, it might all just go away.

Unfortunately for him, Kurama decided to live up to their previous subject by stating doubtfully, "You're here for a reason. Can I answer something for you?"

Hiei shifted again. "Yes," he said warily. "You told me to make him angry. I assumed that this meant at all costs. Was I...correct?"

"Ah," realized Kurama. "Lie outrageously to Karasu. Make up stories involving body glitter, feathers, and snakes if you so desire. I don't think you'll have much more in the way of opportunities to do so, but if you can, go ahead."

"I thank you for the mental image," Hiei said expressionlessly. "But I can tell him things that are true, and I think they do him worse damage. If I tell him such things...?"

"There isn't much," Kurama pointed out. "You could tell him that I willingly worked for you once. That won't make him happy, and the subtext is practically text if you say it right."

It occurred to Hiei that perhaps Kurama wasn't going to be much of a help in articulating what he wanted to know. "That still falls into the category of lying outrageously."

"Nothing is perfect," Kurama said with a shrug. "Though I'm close."

"I can tell him true things," Hiei insisted.

Kurama shrugged. "He wants a claim on me. He wants things that I wouldn't willingly give, things that he must force on me, take from me, or coerce me into giving. I could list them for you, but it's nothing you have. You made him angry because you startled him. He and I are similar in that we assess things beforehand and hate it when something fundamental changes. But he'll accept it and he knows that you're going to try and use the same thing to provoke him further. You do tend to be slightly predictable."

"If something works, why not use it again?" Hiei wondered.

"Sometimes you have no finesse," Kurama complained.

Hiei went very still. "Yes, I suppose you are alike. Did I mention that he said that to me just before he tried to blow my head off?"

"Ah," said Kurama. "I suppose I asked for that. In retrospect, I really should have seen that coming."

"Not necessarily," Hiei remarked. "I don't think I ever quite covered what he said to me. And, last I checked, I was the one with the precognition here."

Kurama allowed himself a smile. "Do what you would. I neither can nor will stop you."

"That sounds nice," Hiei told him, kicking the attic's trap door shut in order to walk over it. "An excellent turn of phrase."

Shrugging, Kurama said, "I can get more to the point, but it's just so dramatic already that I don't think I want to start going around making poignant declarations. I really would need alcohol if it got to that."

"You wouldn't be the only one," Hiei muttered.

"You wouldn't happen," Kurama began carefully, "to be trying to ask just where truth ends and lying begins as far as I am concerned, would you?"

"I was actually going for 'Should we demand that Yusuke cuts us into his bet?', but I suppose that I'd like you to answer that as well," Hiei explained.

Kurama pulled his legs under him and turned to face Hiei at long last, hair glowing around the edges in the light. "I could have never said anything," he finally announced. "Or done anything, or generally acted on this. But I have tentatively acted nevertheless. And I have no arguments...with shifting the line between truth and lie. Before I answer your second question, I would like to know why you are asking this thing."

Hiei reached the window and looked down into the street below where a zombie lay, a piece of metal driven through its skull. "Because the excuse presented itself, and I do not like to lie to myself when I do not have to."

"It complicates things," Kurama said. "Irrevocably, it complicates things."

"Because it was so very simple before," Hiei remarked dryly, startling a grin from Kurama. "Either we would stop communicating or this would happen. Friendship is not something I understand..."

"Or that I am comfortable with," Kurama finished. "So many people assume that I took on human social skills automatically. I did, after a fashion, but they are not the ones I should have. I can charm and lie and promise without promising. I can be my worst enemy's best friend without minding in the slightest."

"I've noticed that you talk to very few humans, though they all seem to like you," Hiei pointed out.

Kurama looked at Hiei sideways. "It's not hard to miss. I never know what to say to random people."

"And yet we're still talking," Hiei realized. "Why are we still talking?"

Tossing his hair from his face, Kurama told him, "Because it's your move."

"Ah," breathed Hiei slowly, picking up one of Kurama's hands and examining the nails. "You've managed to break them all," he said absently.

"Botan's healing skills apparently do not extend to a complimentary manicure," Kurama agreed patiently. "I believe that happened when I...don't change the subject."

Hiei didn't bother to smile, even though he rather felt like it. There were other, more pressing things that could be done.

Kurama tasted overwhelmingly like his own blood, which outwardly tasted human but was demonic through and through. It screamed of injury to Hiei, who managed to say, "You were badly hurt, weren't you?"

"I've had worse," Kurama said breathlessly, kissing Hiei again with biting intensity.

"Am I hurting you?"

Kurama smiled, brilliant and exquisite. "I don't care what side effects there are, but don't...ah..." here he had to pause, as Hiei had just bitten him on the collarbone rather sharply, "...stop."

Hiei didn't bother to convey that the thought had never crossed his mind. He supposed that he could indicate it without much trouble, and he was distracted anyway by the oh so clever fingers picking apart cloth and trailing ragged nails over his skin.

They had both forgotten that they were in an open window, but the reality of that came racing back when Kurama nearly fell out, the sill splitting apart and wrapping around one wrist belatedly, as Hiei already had him by the collar. "You should be more careful," Hiei said quietly, doing nothing to pull Kurama back into the room.

"I caught myself," Kurama indicated his wood-bound wrist. As Hiei looked, the wood peeled itself away and folded itself back into the window sill.

"I got you first," said Hiei before their lips met again. They hit the floor inside the room without much preamble, scattering small items of clothing and weapons while their fingers worked.

And if Kurama noticed that Hiei bit over the nail marks on his neck, he said nothing about it.

But perhaps there were other, more captivating things to focus on, like the way frustration and fear and release tasted on skin, or the way Kurama's eyes glittered gold if one was close enough and the light was just right, or the way Hiei's hair could be ripped out of its gravity-defying style if fingers ran through it hard enough. They were all little things, but they had spent so long being the only ones to know the little things about each other that it was that much more powerful.

It was an educational experience, Hiei reflected. It had never occurred to him that there were so many things that could be done (or undone) with one's teeth alone, and it had been even less obvious that Kurama would be incredibly and inexplicably skilled at this.

"Hey," Kurama whispered, grinning rakishly. "Stop thinking about things that aren't me."

"When did you steal my role of 'selfish bastard'?" Hiei demanded, then caught his breath when Kurama ran his mouth over one hip bone.

"Better," Kurama decided, "but I said...stop thinking...about things that aren't me..." he added, slithering up Hiei's torso with forced pauses as he found other, too-brief things to do with teeth and tongue. "And don't just stop thinking, either," he continued when he hit Hiei's collarbone.

Hiei let his eyes drift closed. "I am," he finally said, wanting to wince at the words but somehow no longer caring. Kurama's skin on his felt like the strangest fire he'd ever dealt with; burning and sexy and addictive as hell.

"You are what?" Kurama's pupils were heavily dilated, leaving only a faint ring of green-gold visible in his eyes.

"Thinking about...you." He didn't lie when he didn't need to; despite ages of self-preservation that screamed to shut him up, he didn't want to lie. And even if he had tried, Hiei doubted that he could have been convincing.

Kurama murmured something against his lips that might have been, "Tell me what you're thinking," but Hiei opened his mouth and forgot about everything but Kurama entirely.

On the demon plane, Karasu was blissfully unaware of all the potential psychological ammunition being assembled against him and was amusing himself by bombing all the demon mosquitoes that flew through the waiting room of El Zorromancer's demon world office.

"I'm cold," Toshi complained.

"Warm you up?" Karasu offered, waving a bomb under Toshi's nose.

"Go fuck yourself," Toshi retorted, rolling his head away carefully. "You seem like the sort of sick fuck who'd just love that."

Karasu smiled indulgently at the ceiling. "How frankly you speak." He reached out and flicked his fingers in front of Toshi's face. "I will have no qualms about blowing your mouth off if you offend me."

Toshi swallowed. "Okay, mister. You can calm down now." When Karasu took his hand away, Toshi decided to test matters by muttering, "You fucking deranged asshole."

Seconds later, Toshi landed hard on the other side of the room with very little left of his face and upper torso. "I wasn't that offended, actually," Karasu mused, "but your fighting will not be amusing unless you continue to do so in spite of injury."

There was a faint twitch of the hand from Toshi. It looked a bit like an Italian hand gesture, but it could just have been a spasmodic reaction from having copped a bomb to the head only a few seconds prior.

Another zombie folded a newspaper and put it back in his lap before licking one hand. A stray bit of Toshi's skin and blood had made it to the demon's skin, from where it was licked off. "Tastes cheap, used, and like gunpowder," the demon said critically to Karasu. "You sure you want that one? I can find you more suitable ones for a real good price."

"I like that one," Karasu said. "He's not a permanent fixture, but he has his uses...mostly as a warning. And as a way to bide my time."

The demon rattled his newspaper back in front of his face with a grunt as a young woman in a black designer suit with a sleek knot of neon green hair minced over to Karasu. "El Zorromancer will see you and your young charge now, sir. Would you like assistance with the pieces?" As she spoke, the scattered bits of Toshi were rising and collecting on the still-twitching boy's chest.

"Lovely," said Karasu, rising and picking up Toshi as well. "Thank you."

"My word," said El Zorromancer on beholding the pair. "You seem to be having a rough time. Julian, be a dear and unwind the duct tape for me, will you?" Julian wordlessly got up to obey. "You also seem to be missing some hair in the back."

"The vine wrapped around my neck and some of my hair and cut through all of them at once," Karasu explained as his head was removed and examined. "That is a very curious sensation, by the way."

"So I've been told," El Zorromancer said absently, placing Karasu's head back where it belonged. "There now," he finished, drawing his fingers around the gash. "Try your mobility."

Placing Toshi on a nearby settee, Karasu felt the absence of wound or scar carefully, then nodded. "Excellent work."

El Zorromancer bent his head in return before turning to work on Toshi. "My dear, you are a mess," he said to Toshi, fingers moving over the ravaged face and chest. "The broken neck seems to be your death wound."

"Nnk," said Toshi weakly as his mouth was fixed. "Glk."

"No, don't talk," El Zorromancer soothed him, brushing one hand over his hair. "He's terrified," he noted to Karasu.

Karasu's eyes crinkled in the expression that El Zorromancer was learning to read as a smile. "Of course he is."

"I see," said El Zorromancer thoughtfully as he started to work on Toshi's neck. "A bad break, this."

"No shit," said Toshi. "It hurt."

Karasu raised one eyebrow. "Would you have preferred to bleed to death? I would have preferred that, but you did keep struggling."

"Whatever you want," Toshi squeaked from the settee. "It's good."

"He is the most interesting combination of compliance and defiance that I have ever seen," Karasu said to the room at large. "Humans can be so fascinating."

"There you are," finished El Zorromancer, handing Toshi up from the settee. "I'm assuming that you will be staying with Karasu, then?"

Toshi looked around wildly. "Not if I can help it. Listen, I guess you see a lot of dead people, but he's...he's..."

El Zorromancer blinked at Toshi with opaque black eyes. "My dear, do you even know why a powerful demon like the one who killed you is even bothering to revive you after having his fun? It's not out of the goodness of his heart."

"I was supposed to carry a message," Toshi recalled. "But then I was dead."

"You carried it admirably," Karasu told him.

Toshi looked from El Zorromancer to Karasu warily. "My dead body was the message, wasn't it?"

"And still is," Karasu agreed. "You are still dead."

"What the hell message am I sending?" Toshi screeched.

El Zorromancer looked at the blonde head bent industriously over job applications from hopefuls. "Julian? Where did you put the information I had you pull on Koenma's band of demons, hellions, and other strange creatures?"

Julian nodded without looking up, then opened a small leather-bound book in order to begin thumbing through it. "Here, sir," he said, handing the open book to El Zorromancer. "I believe that this is the message you are looking for."

El Zorromancer held the book out to Toshi. "It's not the best picture, but it should do."

Toshi blinked at the slightly blurred picture, then snatched the book from El Zorromancer and ran a finger down a respectable list made in Julian's exquisite handwriting. "List of major demons defeated...you. I'm your fucking revenge toy, am I?" he demanded of Karasu, tossing the book at Julian, who fielded it expertly. "So you pick up the first person you can find with the same colour hair as this Kurama demon person and blow them half to hell!"

"You'd most likely be bounced right back out," El Zorromancer said, examining his nails. "I did take steps in that direction."

"Jesus shit," said Toshi in awe.

"So will you be my errand boy?" Karasu asked, putting deceptively gentle fingers under Toshi's chin.

Toshi swallowed. "You ask that question with only one answer in mind. Yes, I will show up at this person's doorstep, fling myself on their mercy, and beg and scream and cry until he hands himself over to you in order to be a punching bag, sex toy, and whatever the hell you do in your spare time. And if he says no, I'm banging him on the head and making him come with me. You're hurting me!"

Karasu pulled his nails out of Toshi's skin and tilted his head to one side. "One last small thing."

"You sink any fangs in me and I am so the hell out of here," Toshi warned, eyes wide.

"Where would you go?" Karasu asked. "This is the demon's world. You would not make it to the border, and without me you could not get through. It seems to be a war zone. And the demons that find you might just make me look kind."

"Nothing in the fucking universe would do that, mister demon man," spat Toshi. "Ow! Fuck me, what are you doing?"

El Zorromancer peered at Karasu's handiwork. "Signing his name, it seems."

"Ow!" wailed Toshi one last time when Karasu released him. He hunched one shoulder over the mark irritably. "I don't want to go around with someone's goddamn name on me. I can handle the password deal, fine. But none of this name shit. Not permanently."

"You will heal," Karasu said, "but it will scar. My nail-marks tend to stay."

Julian quietly materialized at Toshi's elbow with a business card and a heavy strip of leather with a buckle. "Demon and human world numbers," Julian pointed out, "and if you would like a cover for your new scar, I believe that this might be acceptable for both parties."

Karasu eyed the strap as Toshi quickly buckled it over the scar. "I do find that acceptable. This is a truly unique and incredible creature you have here," he added to El Zorromancer. "We have been here longer than the usual time, so we will let you get on with business hours."

After the round of goodbyes accompanied by one last pleading look from Toshi, El Zorromancer slumped back into his chair and thumped his feet onto his desk. "Julian?"

"Sir?"

"Where were you keeping a handy leather collar?" El Zorromancer had to know.

Julian broke into a real smile that lit up his entire face. "I wished it," he said, flicking a forefinger and thumb together. The smile melted easily into a more businesslike expression as he opened up the appointment ledger. "There was a cancellation owing to the work of Urameshi Yusuke, so the next twenty minutes are yours."

El Zorromancer relaxed into his chair more easily. "Ah. Lovely." He closed his eyes with a sigh, then opened them and looked around the room again. "Julian?"

"Sir?"

"Smile again, would you?" El Zorromancer eyed the obedient smile, then got up, picked Julian out of his chair, and sat back down at his own desk with Julian in his lap. "You take a twenty-minute break too," he added to the back of Julian's neck.

Julian tilted his head back onto El Zorromancer's shoulder with another glowing smile. "Of course, sir."

On the other side of the border, Karasu looked back at the still-growing chaos with mild bemusement. "It really is a war zone. I shall have to find another place to cross."

"Okay," said Toshi warily. "We're no longer in weird-as-fuck la-la world. Now what?"

"Some just call it the demon world," Karasu said gently.

"So you all really are demons," Toshi said, rubbing his forehead. "God. You and that necromancer guy and the people in the waiting room and everyone?"

"I'm none too clear on what that Julian West is," Karasu said reflectively. "But the rest, yes. And the one you go to see is a demon as well, as you guessed."

Toshi made a face. "So where is he, anyway?"

Karasu smiled and made a tiny gesture in front of Toshi's face, causing the zombie to flinch away. "This is a tracking bomb," he said. "I will make it visible for you."

"Sounds good so far," Toshi said guardedly, watching the bomb materialize. "It won't blow up on me?"

Karasu's eyes glimmered. "No. I want it to reach him. It will not leave you behind. Now off you go. When you find him, take him to El Zorromancer's human world office. I will find you there."

The bomb headed sedately down the street. Toshi pushed his hair off his face with a two-handed motion, then chased it with one last terrified look at Karasu.

"I will know," Karasu called after him, "if you disobey me. And I will find you." Toshi shuddered and disappeared around the corner with a gleam of vinyl shorts and too-red hair.

Several miles away from Toshi, Hiei was sitting idly in the open window, scrolling through Kurama's music selection, having recovered the iPod from a corner. Kurama was asleep on the floor beneath the window.

Two girls, roughly ten years of age, turned onto the road that went below the window but turned and fled when they saw the zombie lying in the gutter.

"What was that?" Kurama asked sharply, sitting up.

Hiei sighed. "For the fifth time in about twenty minutes, nothing."

"Sorry," said Kurama, lying back down and closing his eyes. "I feel like someone's looking for me. It's making me jumpy."

Rolling his eyes, Hiei pointed out, "If I want you to be awake, I'll do something about it."

"I believe you." Kurama was asleep again in minutes. Thus, when Hiei's phone went off, Kurama made a strangled noise, felt for the offending object without ever appearing to actually wake up, and threw it hard at the nearest wall.

"I might have wanted to answer that," Hiei said mildly.

Kurama asked, "Did you?"

"No," replied Hiei. "Not really. Feel free to do that again if you wish."

Grinning into the floorboards, Kurama said solemnly, "I will."

Half an hour or so later, a boy with too-red hair dragged himself into the alley, panting. "You stupid...fucking...tracking bomb thing," he gasped, clinging to the nearest wall. "Slow the fuck down!"

The bomb beeped impatiently and headed farther down the street.

"Fuck no," said Toshi woefully. "Slow down." The bomb sped up anyway. "I am not getting paid enough to do this," he wailed, then hoofed it after the explosive.

Hiei watched him go, then reached down and yanked on a handful of red hair. "You'd better be thinking about getting up."

"I'm more than thinking now," Kurama answered, sitting up carefully and rubbing his head. "You keep that behaviour up and you're going to end up scalping me."

A terrific banging broke out from the door downstairs. "It's that dead body that Karasu gave me, only a little less inanimate. I think he just might want to talk to us," Hiei explained.

Kurama reached up and snagged an earbud from Hiei. "Yes, well, I'm not inclined to go and let him in. He can just find his way up here by himself. What playlist have you stumbled onto?"

Hiei passed the iPod down to Kurama. "I don't know; it's your music. Can I take this apart sometime? This is more efficient than anything else the demon world has ever produced."

"It's tricky to get it to play demon world music files, but not impossible. It takes a lot of swearing, screaming at the computer, and the occasional voodoo dance," Kurama said, "but it's yours if you want it after this whole chaotic mess is finished." He eyed the name of the playlist, then smiled. "This would be Yoshi's music that you've found. Hence the utter absurdity of it."

There was a faint, frustrated scream from the front door. Hiei bit back a smile and wondered, "How long until he realizes he could just break a window?"

"Hopefully a while," Kurama said, passing one hand over his eyes. "It would be nice to feel that I'm invariably better than the enemy for once."

"You didn't have to break the window," Hiei pointed out. "Wait. When did you relock the door?"

Kurama dangled a ring of keys in front of Hiei's eyes. "After I took the spare keys out of the mail box. I don't like unexpected company, though it seems to have shown up anyway."

Hiei swiped the keys from Kurama's hand idly. "Whatever happened to having turrets with convenient kettles of boiling oil?"

"The oil price got too high," Kurama said solemnly. "It's all over the news by now."

Hiei stared at Kurama for a long moment. "Shut up and listen to the music," he finally ordered.

Kurama grinned at him briefly, then started wheeling through albums with just the right amount of unconcern.

It occurred to Hiei yet again that one of the main problems with Kurama was that he was a shockingly good liar.

ARGH IT IS LIKE PULLING TEETH WITH YOU TWO.

okay. what the hell. i write 'sidewalk' and the computer magically changes it to 'pavement'. WHAT THE FUCK.

Yes, I threw Yoshi in there. If you don't get it, read IoV.

Oya: ...It wasn't supposed to. Kurama would have torn him apart in a fit of pique had he killed Karasu. Eheh.

KyoHana: Now that makes me snerk.

Evene: 100th reviewer! Yes, I hate them! Actually, my hands are all but destroyed. I simultaneously have a horror of wrecked hands (for they are useful) and know a lot about wrecked hands. So. Er.

Nyte Kit: Sucks to look like him, don't it?

Capella Alpha Aurigae: You called it; it's one character. I fixed it in the LJ version. Or I will. When I revise. It's fixed in future references.

Aithril the Elf-Maiden: Bit hard to scrub off nail marks.

shadow priestess: Violence is always the answer:)

RehdFawx: School is school is school.

A lilmatchgirl: I love Botan and Kurama interacting. They're hilarious together.

Bluespark: Oh, that rebel. It's like he was once a criminal! Er. Wait.

I'm staring at your forehead like a cat does when it wants you to feed it.