Title: Just One Night
Pairing: Hiei x Botan
Genre: Romance
Warnings: (OOC, implied sex) Nothing graphic.
Summary: One night, they'd agreed. Just one night to forget the blood, the darkness, the scent of death that hung over them all.

Notes: This part starts out in the same place as the last chapter left off.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Blankets were not supposed to move around like that.

Nor were they supposed to be lumpy.

Hiei's were both. He would have had to drink at least three times as much as he had tonight in order to be able to dismiss the shape under his blanket as some alcohol-induced hallucination. There was definitely someone there. It couldn't have been anyone who wanted them dead; the plant would have reacted. It wasn't one of the team; he didn't sense any of their energy. That narrowed the list down to five people.

The brat had his own room, so it wouldn't be him. Besides, something told him that his visitor was female. His sister was probably asleep in her bed, and he'd seen the human girl with the detective on their way outside a few moments ago. The idiot's sister was a possibility, but from what his eyes could see in the dark, the form under the bed was not tall enough to be her.

That left only one other possibility.

"Hn. Botan. Botan. Wake up." He shook her as he spoke, but she did not wake up. Her eyes were moving behind their lids and from the slight whimpers she was emitting, he would guess that she was having a nightmare. Suddenly, without warning, she shot up, eyes unfocused, wildly searching the dark for some unknown predator. Hiei grabbed her by the soldiers and shook her slightly.

"Idiot. It's just me. What are you doing in this room?"

"...Hiei?" Her voice was raspy, probably due to the combined effect of the alcohol she had imbibed and the sleep he had disturbed.

"Who else?" Now that she was awake, he was quick to want her out. She had her own bed. Let him have this one.

She shivered slightly and turned her head so she wouldn't meet his eyes. Her hands played with the blanket, twisting it and turning it in the same way he noticed she twisted her hair whenever she was anxious.

"Well? I'm waiting for a response." His voice was harsh, sandpaper on silk.

"...Do you think...do you think it hurt," she asked him, eyes large and glistening.

"What are you babbling about now?"

"Genkai...do you think it hurt...when h-he killed her?" She was openly crying now, and she used the edge of her yellow sweater to wipe away her tears.

Hiei was starting to get impatient. First she'd slept in his bed, now, when he had finally woken her up, she cried?

"I wouldn't know. I've never been dealt a mortal blow like the one Toguro undoubtedly gave her."

She blinked up at him, spilling a trail of tears across her cheek. Her hand hesitantly went to his shoulder. Fingers brushed a feather-light touch across the wound he had gotten from Momotaro, each finger splaying over a puncture wound. He was suddenly aware of how close he was to her.

"Did this hurt?"

He grabbed her exploring hand in his own and firmly placed it in her lap.

"No. Why aren't you with the others?"

"Yukina's asleep, Keiko's with Yuusuke, I don't know what happened to Shizuru and Genkai's...Genkai's...d-dea—"

At that, she broke down into tears again. This time however, her whole body slumped forward and her head landed lightly on Hiei's shoulder. Her body was shaking from the force of her sobs, and Hiei could hear her periodically asking "why." After they had subsided, with a gentleness either had dreamed he possessed, he lifted her head off his shoulder and brushed off her tears. He moved to let her off the bed.

After he'd seen her to her own room, he had lain awake for a few moments before he fell asleep to the soft scent of lavender tickling his nose.

A few hours later, Hiei was awoken by a soft tapping against the door. He looked around for a moment, bleary-eyed, before he realized that Kurama and the others were not back yet. A slight clicking noise alerted him to the fact that whoever had knocked was now with him in the room. He cursed himself for being so sluggish. If that had been a real threat at the door, he would have been dead before the next minute.

He felt a slight dip in his bed and the delicate scent of...

lavender.

It was Botan.

Her fingers traced imaginary patterns in his bedspread, her eyes glued to the floor. He waited for her to say something, anything, to explain her presence in his room. When no explanation seemed to be forthcoming, he decided to ask.

"Why are you here again? Didn't I see you to your own bed?" The harshness in his voice was one-part sleep and two-parts uneasiness.

"The other girls...they weren't back yet...and I can't be there. Not alone. Please Hiei, don't let me be alone tonight." The desperation in her voice was tangible, and it unnerved him. Why had she chosen to come to him? Surely there were other viable options.

Yuusuke was mourning Genkai's death harder than the rest of them. He would be the perfect grieving partner.

Kuwabara and Kurama were both sensitive individuals. They could comfort her; provide her a shoulder to cry on. The fox could even make her one of his herbal remedies, something that would lull her to sleep.

Any of the other girls were better than he was. He shouldn't have been the one she was crying to.

A light touch on his chest brought him back from his musings. Her candy eyes were still slightly glimmering, and she was biting her lower lip, as if she had only now realized the magnitude of her invasion.

What the hell was she doing here?

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, to go back into Hiei's room. She couldn't be alone tonight, and no one else was around. And, he couldn't have been as bad as Kuwabara thought...

She thought back to her spirited defense of his character a few hours ago. Admittedly, at first, it had only been to keep Yukina's fascination for her brother from slipping into fear (no thanks to the oblivious Kuwabara). But as she said the words, the more firmly she believed in them. Hiei was a paradox, a set of oxymorons wrapped in a swath of black cloth. He was honorable in his own way, and she supposed understood his reasons for being so detached.

It was hard to be cheerful when everyone you met either loathed or feared you on sight.

Watching him now, his usually dispassionate eyes flitting from her position on his bed to the window a few feet away, she made her decision. For one night, she would forget. For one night, she would close her eyes to the sight of mutilated bodies and pools of blood, and forget this place. Forget that the boys were fighting for all of their lives. Forget about death. She could do that, right? Didn't she deserve it?

Didn't he?

Her first touch was tentative, and had she not been so intent on not meeting his eyes, she would have laughed at his rarely-displayed look of surprise. Her hands whispered over his chest, hesitant to land. For a while, they were both still, one too timid to look up, the other too astonished to absorb what was happening. Then, she spoke, her soft voice nearly deafening in the silence of the dark room.

"Please Hiei...just for one night. L-Let me stay with you. Help me forget what happened today, what happened yesterday. Just for one night."

He opened his mouth to tell her it was ludicrous. Who did she think she was, barging into their room and making absurd requests? Had she forgotten that he was Hiei, master swordsman, wielder of the Dragon? That he could snap her human body's neck with the same force that it would take him to flick at a fly?

She looked at him then, eyes bright with unshed tears, cheeks flushed, mouth pressed into a firm line to keep from crying out. Her hair was mussed and she was wearing a ratty, pink T-shirt with rabbits on the front. He opened his mouth to refuse her before his resolve could weaken anymore.

"No one ever has to know, Hiei. When this is over, we'll go back to being the way we were. Don't ask me to leave."

Botan chose that precise moment to place both of her soft, shaking hands gently on his toned shoulders, and lean in until their foreheads touched.

"One night."

His mouth was not at all what she thought it would be.

Hiei, she realized, kissed like he fought, passionately and without mercy. Yet for all that, there was gentleness there, as though he'd realized that Botan was fragile, that she could possibly break at his slightest stroke. There was caution in his movements, a restraint in his touch.

And Botan was beginning to hate it.

She wanted to forget her sorrow, to be so overcome by heat, that she couldn't think straight. Hiei was doing an admirable job at fueling her desire, but he was holding back, and as long as he did that, she couldn't get lost in him, couldn't let go of her fears.

She traced light circles on his stomach, the same pattern she had been embroidering with her fingers earlier, in an effort to make him lose control. The kisses she placed on his collarbone tested his willpower. But it was her eyes that finally broke him.

For all her teasing touches and aggressive nips, Botan was hurting and everything she couldn't convey with her hands and mouth was there in the tears she refused to shed.

One night, he'd promised her.

He didn't quite know what it was, but something told him that he would regret it if he didn't make her tears go away.

Thanks for reading.

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