The Shotgun Approach
Chapter 19: Love Songs, Drug Songs
A/N: This is a YUSUKE POV chapter (haha, all caps to avoid the confusion from the first time). If I thought last chapter was hard, this one is gonna be even harder. Sighhh. I'm fully prepared to lose some readers for this one, but it's...important too, in a way. Hope you guys will stick around though!
. . .
"Urameshi..."
I continued to punch the random asshole who'd decided to pick a fight. Some low level piece of shit. I saved him for last, all his buddies laying unconscious on the ground around us.
Saved him for last just so he knew how fucking angry I was.
"Urameshi!"
Even after the bastard passed out I didn't stop hitting him. It was like my fists had a mind of their own. I needed an outlet, bad.
"YUSUKE!"
Kuwabara shouting my first name made my next punch stutter to a halt, before I slammed it into the ground next to the guy's head, the asphalt crumbling to pieces. Leave it to Kuwabara to ruin my fun. It was a nice change to beat the shit out of someone without using spirit energy. Hiei was the only one willing to do that now.
"What's wrong with you, man? You've been in this rage for days."
He wasn't wrong. I was pissed. Pissed at the fucking world. Pissed at myself. But mostly I was pissed because of Ettie.
Fucking Ettie.
Beautiful, broken, fucking drug addict Ettie.
"It's nothing," I murmured, standing so I could give the idiot I'd just beaten into next year a final kick in the ass.
"For some damned reason I have a really hard time believing that."
"Well it's true, so go fuck yourself."
"Cripes...something really did fuck you up."
I gave Kuwabara the finger, snatching my shirt off the ground where I'd thrown it earlier. I pulled it over my head and fished out a pack of cigarettes from the sleeve, making a sound of disgust when I saw there was only one left. I took it out and lit it anyway.
"If you're just following me around to nag me, you might as well give up. I ain't talkin' to you."
"Urameshi...come on man, we're all worried about you. You've been looking for fights. You can't sit still, and when you somehow manage to all you do is drink and smoke like a chimney."
"So what?" I said, glaring at him. "You gotta problem with that?"
"Yeah I do, cause you only do this shit when you're upset about something."
I wanted to scream. The more he bothered me, the more I wanted to beat the ever loving shit out of him next. I couldn't tell him what he wanted to know. It wasn't my story to tell.
And I would never be able to tell it right even if I tried.
"I just want to be left alone, Kuwabara." I took a long drag off my cigarette, letting the smoke roll out in a slow cloud from between my teeth and out my nose. "I need some time. If you're my friend, you'll listen, and give me that goddamn time."
His face fell, but he nodded. The big lug was an empath, he knew I was hurting, and he wanted to fix it. But there was no fixing this. Not this time.
"Hey uh, I know this isn't the best time," he rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable, "but have you seen Ettie lately?"
My face turned to stone. I already knew why he was asking. She was nowhere to be found. Been gone for days. I couldn't track her and Hiei was off in demon world screwing around on some errand for Mukuro, so I couldn't even ask him to use his jagan.
I settled on asking him why anyway, "What's it to you where she is?"
"Somethin' Kurama mentioned, something about that translation she gave us. He says there's discrepancies or whatever."
Of course there was.
Ettie was many things. And a liar was one of them.
"Haven't seen her." I turned away from him, flicking the used up cigarette to the ground and snubbing it out with the toe of my sneaker.
"Is...what's goin' on with you...because of her?"
My energy flared, quick and relentless, before I sucked it back. Angry. It made me so goddamned angry. "Just go, Kuwabara. Its got nothin' to do with you."
I walked away, leaving him behind, and was thankful when he didn't follow this time. He meant well, I knew that, but he wasn't what I needed right now. What I needed I couldn't have.
So I took it out on everyone around me.
What I wouldn't give for Hiei to show up just so I could kick his ass.
My cell phone rang from my pocket. The twentieth time today. I dug it out, flipped it open, and snapped it back shut. I didn't want to talk to anyone, least of all Keiko.
Keiko, who I called before I even processed what Ettie told me. Keiko, who listened to me cry like some kind of loser even though I couldn't explain exactly why. And then told me it was okay to feel this way, it was okay to be angry and sad and upset on Ettie's behalf. That it was okay for me to feel that way even for myself.
I hung up on her.
It wasn't okay. What right did I have to feel like shit over this? It wasn't my story, wasn't my life. I didn't live through it.
And it wasn't even so much that, as it was feeling sorry for myself.
She loved that guy—Artair—so goddamn much. Even almost forty years later didn't dull that. What kind of chance did I have? How did I go on trying to get her to love me when she physically couldn't? How did I justify my feelings for her when all of them had this underlying layer of guilt now?
How could I touch her—love her—knowing what I knew?
She wasn't my woman. Would never be. For fuck sakes, I was younger than her son would have been. No wonder she thought of me as a little boy. I never stood a fucking chance.
But that didn't mean these useless feelings were ever gonna go away. If anything, I loved her even more. Loved that she trusted me enough to tell me such a raw piece of her past. I knew it hurt her, whether she showed it or not. And I just wanted to know she was alright, but I couldn't find her.
She was probably mad at me.
I wouldn't apologize. And I meant what I said.
I already had the monks working on finding a way to get a message to her father. I didn't have the first clue where her home was, but that wasn't about to stop me.
I planned to put the son of a bitch into the ground.
Ettie wouldn't do it for herself, so I would do it for her. It was the only way I knew how to release some of this...rage. So much rage.
It had been a long time since I felt so furious.
My cell rang again, pissed now, I flipped it back open and snapped, "What the fuck do you want?!"
"...Yusuke?"
The voice sounded familiar but I couldn't pin point why. "Who the hell are you?"
"Uh...this is Shou. I work with Ettie..."
"Oh...yeah, hey. Sorry...I'm not in a good mood right now and if you're calling to talk to her, she isn't here."
There was a beat of silence. "I—I'm not calling for that. I know where she is. But I was hoping you could find Hiei for me."
My lips turned down in a frown and I rubbed at the back of my neck, anxious now. He sounded almost...scared. "You know where she is?"
"Yes, but...just, please, get a message to Hiei. It's really important." And then he hung up, leaving me with a sudden panic blooming in my chest.
What the hell?
Why wouldn't he tell me where the fuck she was? Why was Hiei the only goddamn person that ever seemed to be able to help her? Why did she let him in on things that she refused to tell me?
Energy sharing, working together, making plans behind my back. It irritated me.
I was only jealous because...well, I wanted to be included. Maybe that made me sound like a sissy, but it was true. I didn't have a problem with her and Hiei being together, I had a problem with being left out and lied to.
I sighed. Well, if I wanted to know where she was there was no way around it.
The number I dialed, memorized for years, was one I rarely needed to use. The phone rang once, before it connected and someone answered, not even bothering to cover up his complete annoyance. "Now isn't the time to bother me, detective."
Hiei never used his cell phone. It was something Yusuke insisted he have on him, just for times like this, and only the King's Hands knew the number. Hiei didn't even allow us to write it down anywhere and if you called him you better have a damn good reason.
"Ettie's in trouble." I didn't bother to say anything else, it would get my point across. And I knew he would come, no matter how many times he told me he hated her or didn't trust her, he would still come.
There was a long stretch of silence. I swear he didn't even breathe. And then, voice tense, as if he were about to come apart at the seams, he growled, "I'll be there soon."
. . .
When Hiei eventually made it back to the human realm, I was already at the bar, two drinks deep. A third was half finished in front of me. My cell phone was on the table beside it and I spun it with a flick of my finger, watching it go round and round. Shou never called again. And neither did Keiko.
The sound of the bar's door being banged open made everyone else in the room turn and stare, except for me. The look on his face must have been scary as hell, because they all turned back around pretty damn quick.
The silence was a little much, because it allowed me to hear his angry boot stomps as he marched up to our usual booth. "What the hell are you doing?" he snarled.
I cast a sidelong glance his way and took another gulp of my drink. "Drinking, what does it look like?"
Oh he was pissed, his eyes were practically glowing. There wasn't much I liked more than pissing him off.
"Drinking?" he growled. "Where the fuck is Etternia?"
I shrugged. "No idea."
I was hoping he would grab me, pick a fight, but all he did was stare. It felt like his gaze was burning, burning straight through me to dig out all my fucking secrets. My eyes flicked to him, and I was certain they were full of a furious energy that made them appear red. "Don't do it. You know I'm shit at blocking your goddamned eye."
"You know something," he said. "Something about her."
"Yeah...maybe."
"Tell me."
My gaze dragged back towards my beer. I dipped my fingers into the condensation on the glass and flicked it across the table, watching as it splattered. "It's not my story to tell."
"Get up," he snarled. "Take me to her. Now."
"When you gonna admit you have a thing for her, huh?" I said, bitter. I drained the rest of the beer in my glass and crushed it with only the smallest amount of pressure.
It cut my hand, and I watched mesmerized as my blood began to drip and pool on the table. Blood just as red as anyone else's, but it wasn't the same, was it? Never would be again. The wound would be gone in less than half an hour. All thanks to my deep rooted demon biology.
"Where is she, Yusuke?" his voice was bordering on furious, the barely contained rage sitting just at the back of his tongue, and I would do just about anything to see him explode.
I wanted him to admit it, to say it out load, that he was in just as fucking deep as I was. I wanted to know I wasn't the only one, I needed to know. Come on, Hiei, fucking show me. Show me how much you really do care about her and then maybe I would let you see what she told me.
"Ask Shou," I said, tossing him my phone.
His glare could have melted platinum it was so scathing.
Hiei took forever to find Shou's number, not being used to using a cell phone, but when he did he swallowed, his adam's apple bobbing almost as if in slow motion.
Shou didn't take long to answer and Hiei barked a few orders at him and then listened for a moment. He hung up on the guy without even a word of thanks and then stalked away. I scrambled up to follow him, slamming some bills down on the bar's counter when I passed, and running to keep up with the fire demon. He was already half way down the street by the time I made it out the door.
I caught up to him quickly, reaching out to grab his arm and pull him to a stop.
He reacted by taking a swing at me I barely dodged, his fist breezing by my cheek and leaving a cut across it from the energy he put into the blow.
"You wanna fight?! I'm all for it, asshole, lets go!"
But Hiei just stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk, the glow of a street light casting him in a strange ethereal luminosity. It didn't fit. It made him look like a dark angel instead of the demon he was. He stared at me, face like stone, and I felt danger spike down my spine. Pure, terrifying, danger. He wasn't in the mood to mess around. Wasn't in the mood for petty fighting or a spar in the street. He meant business...and I could feel it in every sparking nerve ending.
And that feeling excited me.
His jaw clenched along with his fists and his eyes seemed to glow just a bit brighter, the garnet red turning into glittering rubies. "I have no intention of fighting you just to make you feel better about this pity party you are throwing for yourself."
"Who said anything about a pity party, you prick?"
"It's obvious. And what is even more obvious than that is the fact it is about Etternia," he said. "Do not project your pathetic emotions onto me."
I outright laughed. Projecting? There wasn't any need when he was so far fucking gone. "And where are you rushing off to, if you hate her so much?"
"I never once said I hated her. I've said I hate her habits, some of the things she does. But not her."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"It means you are an ill informed fool who is so hopelessly lost in a woman he can't think straight."
He turned away then, shoulders still tense and gait quick, but he did not run. Why? I wondered. If he was so worried, why wouldn't he run to her? I could keep up just fine and Hiei knew that, so why walk so slow. It was like...like he didn't want to go but felt he didn't have a choice.
I shut up then, realizing Hiei knew something I didn't. I followed after him, the entire trip silent.
Eventually, we came upon an old apartment building, even older than Ettie's. Hiei let himself in, his black coat billowing behind him, switched in favor of the old cloak he used to wear. He walked up two flights of stairs and then stopped at a door with the number 23 in chipped gold lettering across its front.
He stood there for a second, before pulling one hand out of his coat pocket, and giving the door one sharp rap with his knuckles.
Shou ripped it open only a few moments later, his hair a mess and dark circles under his eyes. He looked like shit. "Christ, you look like you haven't slept in a week."
His eyes flicked to me, nervous, and then back to Hiei. "She isn't going to like that he came."
What the hell did he mean by that?
"Move, Shou. It doesn't matter." Hiei pushed by him, letting himself into the guy's apartment and not even bothering to take off his shoes.
I slipped mine off with my toes and then followed after him and Shou. They came to a stop in front of a doorway where only a beaded curtain blocked the room from view. Hiei's arm was stuck in it, lifting them just enough so he could get a good look inside, and I was forced to try to peak over his shoulder. "Is she in there?" I demanded.
"Don't follow," he said, before slipping beneath the curtain and letting them tumble back into place in his wake.
Oh hell no. He didn't tell me what to do. I turned to Shou, angry now, "What the fuck is going on you little pleb?"
Shou, a pair of nerdy glasses over his tired eyes, still managed to look pissed when I asked. "She's sick," he said.
"Sick? Then why the hell is she here? Why not a fucking doctor? And what's Hiei gonna be able to do?"
"You ask too many questions," he said, rubbing his fingers into his temples, obviously exhausted. But Yusuke didn't give a shit.
"Yeah, and you don't seem to be coughing up many answers. You want me to beat them out of you?" I leered, cracking my knuckles.
His faced paled and I felt a rush of triumph. Shou bit his lip and took a surreptitious look towards the doorway. "Do you know about...Ettie's problem?"
Taken aback, all I could was gape for a solid few seconds. "You do?!"
Shou gave me a look that clearly told me he thought I was an idiot, but answered anyway. "She isn't as good at hiding it as she thinks she is. But she's a damn good paramedic, so we kind of ignore it as long as she isn't too bad off."
"Okay, so what? Did she go on another bender?"
"It—it's a lot worse than that..."
My forehead furrowed, concerned. "How bad?"
His eyes flicked back to the curtain. "I found her, Yusuke...found her half dead dumped outside the station. And I don't think she put herself there. So I got her in a cab and brought her here...and she asked for him, for Hiei. I didn't know what else to do."
Half dead. Delirious by the sounds. And asking for Hiei...of all fucking people.
I got why Shou didn't want to take her to a hospital. I got it. But I didn't like it. Ettie would lose her license, her job, and what little bit of her life that was still holding her together. He did the best he could.
I couldn't listen to another word. I felt sick as I dashed through the curtain, not even thinking about heeding Hiei's warning. But I was stopped short when I finally took a good look into the room. Stopped short because what I saw made my breath come to a shuddering halt and suddenly I couldn't move my limbs anymore. Shocked was too light a word for it.
Ettie was there all right. Hiei too.
Hiei had shed his clothing, stark naked and back resting against the headboard of what I assumed was Shou's bed. Ettie was between his legs asleep or unconscious, her back against his chest, and almost as naked as he was. Hiei made sure their skin touched in as many places as possible, his arms wrapped around her and legs twined together.
The scene seemed far too intimate. And seeing Hiei that way made something sharp spark in my chest.
Hiei's energy surrounded them both—powerful, unrelenting, suffocating. A glorious gold that made the air hazy with heat, causing a sheen of sweat on their skin.
His eyes burned when then struck me. Burned with so much rage that I felt as if my life were in immediate danger.
"Get. Out." He said the words from between his clenched teeth. "This is not something she would want you to see."
And for one horrible second I really did consider running. Turning and not looking back. Listening to Hiei for once instead of being a stubborn asshole.
But that was the thing, I was a stubborn asshole. And I didn't plan to change anytime soon.
I stripped off my shirt, leaving my jeans on, and stalked over to the bed. Hiei's eyes were wide, to say the least, and if the situation wasn't so damn serious I would have laughed.
"It's heroin isn't it?"
Hiei lifted her arm, the arm without the tattoo, and ran his thumb over the track marks I could see there. So many...so many for just a few days time.
"Fuck..." I breathed. "Goddamn it, Ettie..."
"What happened...between you?" Hiei asked, tone carefully neutral, but I could sense the underlying curiosity anyway.
"I didn't...I didn't think she would do something like this," I murmured.
I tentatively crawled into the bed beside them, my nerves making me anxious, but Hiei just reached out and grabbed my arm, dragging me closer. We settled into an awkward mesh of legs and arms, with Ettie smooshed between us, and for a brief, horrifying second, I wished this was real. That it wasn't caused by something so ugly and horrible, but out of something much more...
I didn't fucking know.
What did I want?
Was I even ready to admit something like that to myself?
"Show me," Hiei murmured. "Show me what she told you. I need to know."
The fact he sounded almost...desperate...made my resolve waiver. It still wasn't my story to tell...but she was suffering. Suffering because of me and my goddamn stubbornness. And if telling Hiei lessened even the smallest amount of that weight, was it really so bad to show him? She was the one that asked for him. She wanted him here. Would she really be angry if I told him now?
So I swallowed, my saliva thick and throat dry. "Okay," I said. "Just...don't hold it against her, Hiei. She doesn't need that kind of shit for something like this."
He didn't say anything, his eyes still boring into me like they were picking me apart. Slowly, the jagan opened, its purple light flashing. The memory was brought to the forefront of my mind and like watching a movie on fast forward, he played through the entire thing. Then rewound it and played it again twice more. When he was satisfied, he sat back against the bed again, stone faced.
I didn't bother to interrogate him. I was sure he didn't feel much different than I did.
For a long time, we laid in silence, Hiei pouring all his energy into keeping Ettie alive. And when he grew tired, I reached out, arm around Ettie, and grabbed his hand. I gave him what I couldn't give her and he took it, took it with unprecedented hunger, and turned back around and poured it right back into her until she was glowing so bright it hurt to look.
I grew tired after awhile of this, my eyes heavy, body and mind weary. I yawned and stretched out, making myself more comfortable.
"Rest," Hiei whispered. "She isn't going anywhere."
His eyes were just as heavy lidded as mine were, but he never stopped feeding her that energy. And I wasn't even so sure if it was because she still needed it...or Hiei just didn't know how to stop anymore.
"Don't die," I mumbled, face pressed into Ettie's skin, breathing in her scent—rain and fresh snow and herbs and sweat.
Hiei let out a rumbling laugh that lacked any humor. "Speak for yourself, idiot."
Late in the night, sometime in the wee hours of the morning, I awoke to a noise. I heard it over the sound of pouring rain and I wasn't sure he meant to make it, but I was careful to hide the fact I was awake.
Hiei had crept out of the bed, laying Ettie beside me, and made his way to the single window still naked. I stared at his back, at the corded muscle there and all the scars that littered it. And I couldn't speak a word, couldn't speak as he pressed a palm to the rain splattered glass and looked so fucking lost that it rent me speechless for once.
I didn't feel smug realizing that I was right...
That Hiei was in just as deep as I was.
I sat up, not really sure why, just knowing I needed to. My hair was a mess and I looked just as strung out as Ettie did, but I needed to say something to him. Anything.
But all I could say was, "You love her too, don't you?"
Hiei's fingers curled into a fist against the glass. But it was his eyes in the reflection that spoke more than anything. Eyes that shined with some deeply hidden emotion he would never normally show.
My heart didn't break. I wasn't jealous.
The only thing I felt was relief. Relief because he couldn't hide it anymore. Relief because I wasn't the only one so lost in this woman who I had no business being so lost in. And relief because Hiei was here with me now and he understood everything.
. . .
A/N: Shit. Shit. Shit. Double shit. What's gonna happen next? I don't even know. (Jk, I do, but I'm not tellin'!).
I'm sure some of you guessed at what Tadao gave her, but be aware that the dose was much, much higher than any normal person would ever be able to live through. And she took MORE of it afterwards. My girl needs some serious help. And I know just who to give it to her.
The reviews for last chapter were so awesome, some of them seriously made me want to cry. You guys are great and I love you and I'm so glad you are all liking my story so much even though it's dark and oftentimes depressing. It's a story coming from deep in my soul and I need to get it out and I'm so glad you're all here for the ride.