Chapter 5

"Yusuke, I'm only going to say this once. You should really stop trying to kill Kurama."

Yusuke was curled up on his side on the floor of the cave, hurting too badly to lie flat--a position he had occupied for several days now. "Thought he said--didn't want you to protect him," he managed to grunt.

"I'm not protecting him," Hiei said incredulously. "The score, by the way, is now Kurama thirteen, you zero."

He's keeping score? "Not trying to--kill him," Yusuke said stubbornly. "I just want that damned seed." The seed of the snow plant--which Kurama had retrieved from some untold location only to hide in his hair like any other seed, growing exactly as much as he felt Yusuke required to stay alive. It was unbearable.

"And possessing the seed would do exactly how much good for you? Have you acquired the ability to make it grow? Your attacks are pointless as well as pathetic."

Yusuke tried to laugh, but it came up rusty and dry, like a wheezy cough. "Then why--bother asking me to stop?"

"Because Kurama's patience is wearing out. He doesn't have any honor to keep him from killing someone weaker than himself, and you've far exceeded the limited amnesty I've seen him grant to friends in the past. I don't think he'll tolerate being hurt like this much longer."

"Not hurting him," Yusuke grumped. "I can't even--" He was interrupted by a fit of coughing, this time real. "Land a hit," he finished.

"That's not what I meant."

"So--you're complaining--you're complaining--that I'm hurting his feelings?"

Hiei only glowered. Yusuke stared at him stubbornly, waiting for him to answer, until the world started to tilt again and he gratefully fell back into sleep.

Or what passed for sleep these days. It seemed that he would always hover just barely outside true unconsciousness--hearing snatches of conversation and working them into his dreams, seeing his friends' images twisted and distorted into new realities. The intensity of Hiei and Kurama's fighting had lessened--or so he thought, it was hard to be sure of anything with the way his brain was functioning now. He heard a lot less of their bickering, and what he did hear was more subdued--but even so, those snatches of anger invariably worked their way into his dreams and he would wake up screaming. Screaming, wrapped in fragments of both dream and memory, and with one of them kneeling next to him, preventing him from injuring himself as he thrashed about.

At first it was Kurama who was there most of the time when he woke--Kurama, who was used to tending the sick and the injured, skilled at it. Then Yusuke made the connection, through the pain and haze of withdrawal, that Kurama was capable of providing snow and chose not to. He began attacking whenever he felt Kurama's hands tending him, inarticulately trying to express his rage and agony.

But then--gradually, he thought, but he wasn't sure--it stopped happening. He never woke to Kurama's presence anymore. It was always Hiei's hands that held him still during the nightmares, Hiei's voice that pervaded his dreams. Sitting by his bedside, as it were; and Yusuke wanted to tell Hiei that he'd always known the fire demon was capable of this kind of patience, despite whatever he might say. But as the days went by and the agony worsened he lost the energy to speak. And it was hard to feel grateful for any of this, anyway. For the return of the memories, the imprisonment in the cave, the removal of snow. For the brief, brusque words of comfort Hiei offered, or, more frequently, for his disparagement. Kurama would have done a better job--Kurama, in the past, had always been able to come up with a kind word or a bit of wisdom to tide you over. But Kurama apparently wasn't speaking to him.

Strange--to simultaneously want someone to tell you it was all okay, and to want to beat the living hell out of them.

It was easy for Yusuke to see, even through the haze of withdrawal, that Hiei resented taking almost total care of him. But he did so nonetheless. For how long, Yusuke couldn't tell. Time was fluid, able to turn in on itself or run backwards, a whirlpool that he was stuck in.

And then--then, there suddenly came a day when Yusuke woke up completely. When he only had a headache, not the sensation of dwarves excavating his skull, and when his stomach felt queasy but not ready to leap out his throat. When his limbs were shaking, but not convulsing.

He had no way of knowing how long it had been. He was alone in the cave; sunlight was streaming through the entrance. He got to his feet--his legs held him up, even though they shook--and wandered outside.

Hiei was curled up just outside the entrance, drowsing in the sun. Or at least that was the appearance he gave--but Yusuke knew that should any passing predators mistakenly approach, they would not live to regret it. "Morning," Yusuke offered.

"Afternoon," Hiei corrected him, without opening his eyes.

"Oh." Yusuke stretched, and realized that he didn't feel like he'd been beaten up anymore. Instead, he felt like he'd been in bed for years and his muscles had atrophied. More time must have passed than he'd thought. "What day is it?"

Hiei told him.

Yusuke stared down at him in disbelief, mouth agape. "It... are you serious?"

Hiei finally deigned to halfway open his eyes to look at Yusuke. "I think you may have gotten through the first step. Congratulations," he said flatly.

"What's the first step?"

"Detoxification. You may still crave the drug, but your body doesn't require it to survive. That was the easy part."

"Like hell it was."

"You had no choice about what's happened so far. From now on, no matter what Kurama and I do, if you're determined to be an asshole you can do so."

"Where is Kurama, anyway?"

Hiei blinked at him a few times. "I have no idea," he finally replied.

"...What?"

"Don't you remember? He left. He said he'd check back in a couple of weeks."

"A couple of weeks?"

"Well, it was nearly a week ago that he left... Don't look so surprised, detective. If it was me, I would have cut out long before he did."

Yusuke slowly lowered himself to the ground next to Hiei, trying to put it all together. He couldn't remember. It was one of the worst things about snow--he could never remember what had happened, when it had happened, how it impacted what was happening now. But before, now had always been about more snow, and he hadn't cared. Without snow, he found himself straggling along behind the course of events, desperately trying to make sense of them.

"What..." he started hesitantly. Hiei, who had returned to drowsing, opened his eyes again to show that he was listening. "What did... I do?"

"Do?"

"To make Kurama leave. It was me, wasn't it?"

"You attacked him. A lot."

"Did I hurt him?"

Hiei snorted his amusement. "I think you scratched his arm once."

"Then why..."

"Because there was no point in him staying. His presence was actually making you worse. You know, Yusuke, you are the must bullheadedly stubborn person I know when you get an idea into your head. And you'd decided for some reason that if you got the snow seed away from Kurama you'd have snow itself. He left so that you wouldn't injure yourself trying to injure him; also so that he and I didn't kill each other while we waited for you to truly wake up. You haven't been good company, by the way."

"Thanks for staying."

"Hn. Idiot."

Yusuke stretched out on the ground, thinking for a moment about what Hiei had said, also enjoying feeling not as sick as he had before. He was curious about what Hiei and Kurama had planned for him next, but he didn't feel like asking Hiei about it. So he voiced a niggling, fearful question, knowing that despite the present situation Hiei would still be able to answer it. "Do you think he hates me yet?"

"Don't be an ass, detective," Hiei snapped. Then--much quieter, so subdued that Yusuke immediately regretted asking the question--he added, "It takes a lot to make Kurama hate someone."