"I'm moving in."
Somewhere in the back of his foggy mind, a dim awareness of his expression broke through. It had been hard to tell these past few minutes - trying to ignore the feelings Yusuke let in with him when he walked through that door - to keep up with himself. The alcohol had numbed him, body and mind, so it was alarming to realize how severe a pose his face had taken to all at once.
Wide doe-eyes, flushed cheeks, mouth gaping like a fish on a hook - he must have looked so surprised. Kurama felt it too, though he'd been trying very hard not to feel anything at this point.
"You...I - how can you...?"
Before, he'd been able to step past his inebriation to a degree. After all, he had a sharp mind, not so easily doused stupid with even the strongest of spirits.
Now, though, his own voice sounded painfully slow, confused, tongue thick with the drink. He reeled, trying to grab at the right words; he knew they were there, always, even in the most dire of circumstances. He could talk his way out of anything.
All he could settle upon this time, however, was a pathetically mumbled "I don't understand."
Yusuke's grin only widened, taking on a proud edge in stumping the once-brilliant strategist. "I'm living here with you until you're better. Kuwabara and I decided that yesterday after he came over here and saw what a shithole this place has turned into." He paused, dark brows furrowing together in consideration, before adding "and you look like hell, Kurama. If we leave you alone out here you'll probably die."
That, Kurama could not argue with. He hadn't looked in the mirror for days; hadn't had the strength to.
Yusuke, on the other hand, looked heavenly. Tall, broad, sculpted - every bit a raven-haired god in his own right, one worth worshiping. A thin green jacket covered his lean shoulders over a loose white T-shirt, while skintight bluejeans clung to his muscular legs. His fashion sense hadn't changed much, but then again, neither had his face save for a few laugh lines. One thing, however, had not remained the same.
"You don't slick back your hair anymore." It seemed like the right thing to say after staring at the man for what felt like hours. His attention span was short these days, anyway - he'd already casted aside his confusion in favor of examining his long lost friend.
Yusuke snorted a shy laugh, fingering away dark strands of hair hanging loose in front of his bright eyes. "Yeah, well, things gotta change sometimes, right? It gets annoying so I try to keep it short."
"It...suits you. I can hardly tell any time has passed when I look at you," Kurama admitted.
Something foul simmered beneath the surface of warm brown, but Yusuke kept his tone light when he countered, "Well Mr. Skin-and-Bones, when I look at you I can't seem to forget that it has. So we're gonna fix that."
He turned back to finish their meal then, leaving Kurama to his own devices for a short time. In this state, there wasn't much he could do aside from slump against the table and brood quietly.
He must have dozed off, because the next sensation he noticed was a gentle hand on his shoulder, shaking him into dull consciousness.
His automatic response spilled from his lips before he could close them: "Hiei?"
A tense silence answered Kurama before Yusuke awkwardly scuffed his sneakers against the tile, muttering something about dinner. Then the clank of a bowl being set in front of him paired with the smoky aroma of cooked meat and vegetables finally enticed him to lift his weary head.
The kitchen spun in a dizzying whirl of colors around him, dragging him to the edge of motion sickness; the warm hand on his shoulder tightened, thumbing soothing circles into his collarbone.
"Don't lift your head so fast, you're gonna make yourself sick," Yusuke chastised, waiting until Kurama could sit up without tipping over before releasing him.
The bowl was slid closer to him by a tentative hand; Yusuke leaned down to his ear, murmuring encouraging words about regaining his strength and soaking up some of the alcohol in his system. It was the voice of a father, Kurama decided, and a good one - kind, patient, fair.
"You must be a wonderful father," he blurted, daring to peak up through his lashes if only to witness the lovely pride painting Yusuke's face.
"I try. Now eat."
Something cool and metal was forced into his hand - a spoon, he registered belatedly. His grip was weak at best and wobbly at worst, and his first attempt to bring a mouthful of stew to his lips ended in disaster.
Yusuke chuckled, already dabbing at the mess he'd made on his sweater with a napkin. "Don't look at me like that," the Toushin said in reaction to the horrified expression that crossed Kurama's face. "You don't have to be embarrassed; I have two kids, remember?"
The redhead scowled, turning his head away petulantly yet doing nothing to hinder Yusuke's blotting. "I am not a child."
"No," he agreed, "you're drunk. Which is almost the same thing, gotta say."
Yusuke finished wiping at his front, snatching the spoon away from Kurama's shaking grasp and dipping it into the stew. "I took care of Atsuko when I was young, you know. She drank a lot, too."
The haze blanketing his mind cleared for a fraction of a moment, long enough for Kurama to understand why Yusuke had referred to his own mother by her first name.
"I don't need you to take care of me," the redhead snapped agitatedly, refusing to take the spoonful of food Yusuke had carefully lifted towards his lips. "You think I've survived all these years by relying on anyone other than myself? Ignorant child."
If he offended the Toushin in any way, his tone offered him no clues. "There's a first time for everything, man." Endlessly patient, Yusuke pressed the spoon right up against the kitsune's bottom lip until Kurama finally relented and allowed it to hit his tongue.
Slightly spicy, warm, and every bit as delicious as it smelled. Yusuke made a pleased noise, then fed him another bite.
"Maybe I am a child in your eyes," the other man said after the third spoonful, "but right now you're in no condition to do anything other than land yourself six feet under the ground, and I didn't save your ass at least twice to let you die this way. So you'll just have to put up with it."
A fourth spoonful; Kurama swallowed hard.
"And if I can't? If I'd rather die?"
Unflinchingly Yusuke replied, "then you'll have to fight me every step of the way. And we both know how stubborn I am." He took a moment to wipe away a speck of food plastered to the corner of Kurama's lip. "You wanna die, you'll have to kill me to do it."
The dreadful image of Yusuke lying cold and unmoving on the floor of his living room drenched in blood broke through the haze, hitting him hard and heavy - more than enough to crush the last vestiges of Kurama's control. The last thing he remembered before darkness set in like a dark, velvet drape over his eyes was the thick, acrid taste of vomit spilling from his lips and chasing away any remnants of Yusuke's delicious stew.
As per usual, the first thing Kurama awoke to was pain.
His temples throbbed drumbeats of agony along his cranium, signaling dehydration. His eyes stung at even the dim light of a lamp when he slivered open his lids. Every joint in his body shrieked in protest as he tried to sit up, mostly due to a general lack of activity or stimulation and perhaps also because of malnutrition.
The heaviest of pains, however, sat like concrete in his chest, right where his heart beat on relentlessly.
"You shouldn't try to move too much yet."
The gentle waves of Yusuke's voice lapped softly against Kurama's ears, though he still flinched away. His bloodshot eyes had not quite adjusted but from the sound of it, Yusuke stood somewhere nearby, close to his head.
"What...happened?" he asked, struggling to force out the words around a thick tongue.
A weight shifted on the surface where Kurama lay - the sofa, his fried brain registered finally - near his feet. Kurama blinked at the blob a total of three times before his vision cleared and he could finally make out the startlingly concerned face of his friend.
"You passed out after you puked," Yusuke told him succinctly. "I caught you before you fell but I'm pretty sure you banged your head kinda hard on the table."
Sure enough, as soon as the wound was mentioned his forehead erupted in vindictive pain. He cringed.
"How...long have I...been out?"
The man's shoulders rolled in a shrug. "Haven't really kept track. You've been in and out for probably two hours, if I had to guess. Had to keep making sure you weren't dead. You could be concussed for all I know." The man swiped a finger under his nose and flashed a tight smile. "I thought about dragging you to a hospital but I didn't think you'd appreciate it very much. They wouldn't let you leave looking like you do."
A shiver ran down the kitsune's spine, bringing attention to the fact that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Or pants. In fact, the only thing he felt covering his skin aside from a thin blanket was boxer shorts.
"My clothes?" he inquired, relieved when the words flowed more easily from thought to mouth.
"Hanging to dry. They were...spoiled, so I did some laundry. That's all I really had time for though, between cleaning up the puke and making sure you still had a pulse." Yusuke laughed nervously, patting at one of Kurama's covered legs. "Freaked me out at first, 'cos I forgot you're supposed to have a steady one."
For the first time in he didn't even know how long, a brilliant warmth took root in his heart and rushed through his bloodstream. Yusuke had cleaned up his vomit, tucked him in, and probably had worried himself sick watching over him for hours.
"Yusuke..." He could hear the tears lurking beneath the tone of a shattered man. How he'd ever allowed himself to become his way, he'd never truly understand.
His friend seemed to, however. His face awash in a glow of understanding, Yusuke raised a hand against any further speech on Kurama's part. "You don't have to thank me. Just seeing you get better will be thanks enough, okay?"
And Kurama knew that if anything else was said on the matter, the walls of his heart would cave in and he would not be able to stop his fragile, human emotions from taking free reign.
So with a weak smile, he nodded.
After his stomach settled enough and the room stopped turning on its side, Kurama sat at the dinner table with yet another bowl of stew placed in front of him. He had assured Yusuke several times over that he most likely was not concussed and would be fine without medical attention, and eventually Yusuke backed off - with the condition that Kurama actually made an effort to consume a decent meal.
But Kurama was a master of compromise, so beside the stew loomed a tall glass of Makai liquor that sipped at every minute, practically on the dot. Yusuke brooded beside him with his attention devoted to his own food, only broken by the occasional glare at Kurama's choice of beverage.
"The stew is delicious. I meant to say that earlier," Kurama started conversationally.
Yususke was having none of that, apparently. He grunted once in response, stopped eating to glare at the glass of booze again, then resumed spooning at his dinner.
Kurama huffed, scooping up another mouthful of his own. "If you're going to be staying here I hope you'll be more conversational than this," the kitsune grumbled once he'd swallowed.
"Cut the shit," his friend spat, "I'm not in the mood for small talk."
Sensing the presence of an uncomfortable topic looming on the horizon of Yusuke's thoughts, Kurama diverted tactics. He reached out with a tender hand to brush dark tendrils of hair away from those beautiful brown eyes and husked his voice low when he asked, "what are you in the mood for then, if I may ask?"
He knew it was a mistake as the hard line of Yusuke's mouth curled into a snarl and his eyes darkened with hurt. "Not being fucked with, that's for sure. I'm going for a walk. Don't choke on your fucking soup while I'm gone."
The chair cried out against the tile unpleasantly when Yusuke rose, kicking it on its side like a raging hurricane. And then hurricane Yusuke swept away, cursing and slamming doors in his wake.
Kurama, left cold and alone, downed the rest of his glass in one long gulp.
A/N:
Bleak, I know. But it will get better eventually! Thank you to my lovely reviewer, whose feedback always makes me smile, and to those of you who faved and/or followed - I'd certainly like to hear from more of you! Updates will likely be sporadic between life and the two other stories I'm working on, but today this story refused to be set aside, so here we have chapter two. I know it doesn't divulge too much information, but really Kurama is still very emotionally fragile and unable to cope. Next time will be from Yusuke's POV; I will be switching every chapter.
Thanks again to all those that read my silly little stories! Until next time!