TITLE: I care for you
AUTHOR: Lemonychocolate
EMAIL: Kurama/Yusuke
WEB SITE: n/a
RATING: Mature-Adult
DISCLAIMER: I make no claim to, nor hold any license to the original characters to this story. These characters are used for the sake and sole purpose of entertainment only. No profit shall be, nor will be gained from the writing found hereafter; nor shall any personal credit be taken as to the character designs, personalities or concepts stemming from the original characters used. All situations in the story below, unless otherwise stated, should not, in any way, have any bearing on the creator's original work.
FEEDBACK: Yes! Yes and more yeses!
SPOILERS: none that I can think of.
BETA'D BY: Ashley, Bailey Meeker

Epilogue….

70 years later a broad-shouldered toushin, black hair framing his face in wild disarray, stood motionless looking out over the distance. Blue tattoos, swirling about his body, added even more paganism to his entire stolid body.

His face, though young held a look of cold feral cunning, a shrewd intelligence at odds with his primitive appearance. He exuded an air of power, ruthlessly contained.

Then he winced. Behind him, a pair of voices wrangled, jarring his already tense nerves.

"Will you two shut up! Jesus Christ, you argue worse than two married couples," Yusuke shouted at Hiei and Kuwabara. "Give me a friggin' break, for gods' sake."

The red-headed human glared balefully at the fire demon. No longer could he call Hiei runty, or shorty. Though still shorter than the human, Hiei had long since left his secondary growth 20 years ago.

Taller now, his body still as white and slim as it was 75 years ago. Still arrogant and opinionated, the only thing that had changed was his treatment of Kuwabara. It was marginally better. The two still argue, now even more frequently since the gentle ice maiden had passed from the land of living 10 years ago in a freak accident. At a time when the two should have drawn together in shared grief, they fought even more.

Yusuke decided he was going to lock them in a room somewhere until they resolved their problem the old-fashioned way. Sex was a good motivator, he smirked.

With a soft chime the portal opened. Ducking through, a silver-haired kitsune returned to the Makai. "Miss me…?" Kurama chuckled teasingly to his best friend, he endured Yusuke vigorous back slapping.

"Uncle 'Rama…" a miniature toushin, white hair framing his face much like his father's ran to the kitsune. Kurama swung the boy into his arms. "And how's my favorite toushin…?"

A giggle came from Kin. "Guess what…? Mommy says she's gonna be here in a couple of days!" he cried excitedly.

Kurama gave Yusuke a flat look. The older toushin looked sheepish. "Well, what did you expect me to do?" he whispered to the kitsune when Kin was allowed to run ahead. The little boy swung happily from Hiei and Kuwabara's hands, chatting happily a mile a minute about what he and his mother would do.

"Maybe tell the bitch to stay the hell away…?" Kurama suggested with a half-hearted snarl. The only good thing he could say about the female that inveigled her way into Yusuke's bed was that she did love her son.

Though like all cat yokai, she thought the quickest way to power was through the bed. She wanted to become Yusuke's lady and share in his power.

Kurama swiftly put that thought out of her mind. Growing bored of his current lover, he had returned to Yusuke, yanked Jisela from his toushin's bed and kicked her pretty ass all the way back to her father's house. Though, if he had known she was pregnant at the time, he probably would have been a little gentler. Maybe.

Yusuke kissed the snarl away from his lover's mouth.

"Have I ever told you that I love it when you get all jealous and possessive?" he said huskily. A teasing light was in his eyes that even after 70 years, still had the power to move the kitsune.

Reluctantly Kurama smiled, though his eyes held a serious look. "You know, I was thinking…maybe it's about time I made an honest yokai out of you."

Yusuke froze. His eyes rounding in shocked surprise. "After 70 years, you finally want us to become Bond Mates…?" he said, his voice rising in disbelief.

"Yes…?" Kurama hazarded a guess. Yes, he was jealous of the one hold Jisela had on Yusuke, but if he was honest, he missed the permanency they enjoyed when they first became lovers.

Yusuke stepped closer, his eyes searching. "You know toushins when we take a mate, it's forever," he warned Kurama quietly. "We…don't stray from our Bond Mates."

"What a coincidence…neither do kitsune," Kurama replied, his eyes intent on the toushin. "Stray that is. Bond with me…? Preferably before that bitch arrives," he muttered.

Yusuke kissed his soon to be forever mate deeply, possessively. "I do love it when you're jealous."

Four days later, Kurama was sipping wine from his glass when Jisela glanced his way. He was in his rightful place, by Yusuke's side. Overtly casual, he flicked an ear in her direction—the delicate chiming sound capturing her attention just as he wanted. She stared at the silver rings notched in his ear.

His Bonding rings.

Later on, outside and away from the crowd, Yusuke stood casually leaning against the wall. At a sound behind him, he glanced over his shoulder, his face breaking into a warm welcoming smile.

"Well, I guess your plan worked," Jisela laughed quietly. Her tail beat the air idly as she leaned on the railing. She was sleek and lean. She carried herself with all the arrogance of a queen. With black patches of skin dotting her flesh, she had the appearance of a particularly haughty leopard. "It almost backfired on you when I got pregnant."

"But it worked out…" Yusuke replied with a cocky, smart-ass grin. He absolutely refused to feel guilty about anything. Kurama taught him that if you want something, never to be ashamed to go after it. "Beside, Kurama adores Kin. He'll make a good father to our son."

"Still, you took risky chance." Despite what Kurama thought, she and Yusuke could never be more than friends with each other. He was too intractable. Once he got an idea in his head, nothing would shift him. That was not the kind of yokai she wanted. Her ideal male was big and stupid. She had briefly glanced at the human, Kuwabara; however, the visit Hiei paid her late one night quickly changed her mind.

Unlike Yusuke, Hiei had no problem with destroying any would-be competition. She shuddered, touching the tiny scar on her throat.

Then giving Yusuke a cool glance from yellow-green eyes a slow smile formed on her exceptionally beautiful face and she bowed, a master to her pupil. "I am proud of you."

Yusuke flushed. "Well, I didn't do it just for me. Me and Kurama, we ain't getting any younger and Kin needs some stability in his life."

"You took a real chance, trying to manipulate Yoko Kurama like that," she repeated. "There are not many that can actually say they did."

"Well, like I said, we ain't getting any younger," Yusuke said self-depreciatingly. "I thought it was high time we stopped running around like a couple of kids."

"You love him, don't you?"

"Only for about 70 years, give or take a couple of days," he admitted wryly.

They fell silent. "I'm going back inside, maybe I'll find a nice stupid yokai with lots of money that he doesn't know what to do with," Jisela said. She smoothed the panels of her rather revealing dress over her supple body and wiggled indecently, surreptitiously peeking at Yusuke to see if he noticed. He hadn't. Oh, well. "Congratulations…"

"Thanks…" he said absently turning his gaze back to the moon.

Jisela stepped into the corridor, the noise from the ballroom a swell of sound. She paused, long up-tilted eyes glancing to the side. Her furry ears twitched, her mouth curved at the sight of a silver-haired kitsune leaning nonchalantly against the wall.

He mockingly toasted her. They shared equally poisonous smiles. There was no love lost between them. And there was no doubt he heard everything.

Her ears twitched, flickering back and forth as her hindbrain and forebrain shared information; carefully weighing all the evidence unconsciously absorbed. Then she bowed, holding her pose, showing her respect.

A student to a master.

Kurama inclined his head, his golden eyes glinting in the shadows.

End

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