Yu Yu Hakusho Fan Fiction ❯ Unbalanced Pendulum ❯ Simple Darkness ( Chapter 12 )

Thanks to all who reviewed! My notes below are short since it's been so long that most of them were irrelevant by now.

 

Kuranga108 - I felt that The First deserved more explanation as to his character since he was the original inhabitant/creator of the territory.

 

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Unbalanced Pendulum

Chapter 12: Turn to Darkness

 

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Kurama's POV

 

A hush of calm met my ears when I stirred from unconsciousness. I chose to lay motionless with my eyes closed and retain the feeling of stillness. I knew that when I moved, the calm would be disturbed and I would once again have to feel my limbs and face my injuries and hurts. I heard a rustle somewhere. I cared not to pinpoint anything about it and let it be but a motion whose vibration had entered my ear canal and struck the sensitive nerves of my eardrum. Then a hand graced my forehead and stroked slowly down my hair. I supposed it was tender and began to pay it more mind. The hand was small and the fingers calloused. Their movements were rhythmic and soothing. And I lay there, not thinking or wondering or knowing anything.

 

The hand shifted to wrap behind my neck and shoulders and pure strength lifted me to rest against a small shoulder. I let my head roll with the motion. Breath was against my face then gone. Another hand held my lower jaw and further spread my lips that had separated when my head tilted back. They were strong hands and the fingers had short nails. Damp lips touched mine. A tongue worked my mouth open and a slow trickle of cold water flowed into my mouth. I felt a droplet gather and drip out the corner of my mouth, down my chin. The lips and tongue departed and the small fingers closed my mouth and wiped away the lost droplet then began stroking my throat to initiate a swallow. I let it happen, like a limp and lifeless white doll.

 

The lips came again and I was made to drink again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

 

The arm around my shoulders lowered me softly to the earth and laid me flat. The arm began to pull away, but I liked it there. I stirred. My breathing was changed with a deep inhale. The arm was gone. I fell back into darkness.

 

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I stirred again - consciousness for a millisecond. I opened my eyes this time. I blinked once and saw worn black cloth at my eye level, upon the ground. I think I moved my arm towards the cloth. Maybe I just stretched out my fingers. They closed on nothing. I fell back into darkness.

 

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The alluring scents of sweat and smoldering wood wafted lazily into my nose. They tickled my senses and I scrunched my nose and squinted a little, reflex. I remembered a word, “fire.” A fire was burning around me, always burning. It was protecting me, caring for me. I curled about myself, sort of, small and brief movements only. Moving - still unattainable, why?

 

The fire was closer now, fiercer. I wanted it. So close…I fell back into darkness

 

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The calm was gone. I was awake, lying on my back straight and kept. My eyes blinked. My hands twitched. I made to push myself up onto my elbows, but they caved under the weight and I fell with a dry sound of surprise, alarm, and dismay. I would hardly call it a voice, but I had been heard, or seen; it didn't matter which. The fire approached, I saw black cloth, and I felt the small hands reach out to me. My eyelids were heavy again, but I didn't want sleep anymore. I wanted the embers that surrounded me, the scent heavy with wood smoke and ash.

 

The strong arms were again supporting me against a slim and well-muscled shoulder. I leaned into the black clothed body and the arm that held me close. I wanted to steal the strength, the warmth, and the energy there. I needed it and I wanted it. My arm hung limp, but with the fingers I grasped the rough black fabric and suddenly my fire - my protector and caretaker - was Hiei. I looked up into his face. He was confused, I think…perhaps. His red eyes wavered between me and away. They were light in shade, lighter than the demon red I had known before and in them I saw the sunlight for the first time since I had awoken. The light in there drew me in and for a moment I knew that I could never betray this man. And then reality woke within my heart. I could have cried.

 

I lowered my gaze and tried to forget in the darkness of his cloak. I pretended that its darkness was the calm that I wished I could reclaim as I had those many times before.

 

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Hiei's POV

 

Impatience is what I felt at first. Kurama's recovery was taking too long. I wanted to be out of there, to be rid of him and the contradictions that he was and the conflictions he was instilling in me. One of his seeds of doubt had been planted in my heart and I was helpless against its foreign power. I wanted this mission over. I wasn't thinking of what would happen to this angel of white, steely beauty under Karasu's hands. I never thought of the consequences of my actions. That was how I survived.

 

So white, so deceptively pure and wonderful. He was a lie, that's what I told myself as the stems of his seed grew throughout my veins and wrapped around my brain. I was at war and I couldn't see my enemy, there were too many mirrors on the battlefield. None of that mattered right now; I was doing what I had to to keep him alive. He was healing, finally, gradually.

 

I was not at his side when he finally woke. I was pacing, and intimidating the encroaching beasts not 10 feet away when I heard his gasp and saw him rise and fall. Propping him up against my chest and shoulder as I had become accustomed to doing, I first saw him look up at me. I don't know what he saw in my face, but in his I saw depth and a flickering softness that was soon replaced by inexplicable emotional pain. Then he looked away. The weak grasp he had on the hem of my cloak tightened and I felt him burrow into my chest. He was suffering and it was making me hurt too. I'd never felt this empathetic emotional mimicry before and it made me uncomfortable. Yet I couldn't convince myself to abandon him and do as I wanted so much to do, run away. I held him instead, and, nervously, my hand crept up to cup the back of his head.

 

As they had done before in the cave of branches and flowers, my fingers reached out, almost of their own accord, to grace his ears at their base, tracing lightly along the skin that was the edge between hair and fur. His breathing hitched and his grip flinched even tighter for a moment. I repeated the stroke, slow. Kurama finally tilted his head upward at an angle to look at me out of the corner of his astonished, half-lidded golden eyes. I again repeated the action, firm and slow, now that I could see his face. His eyelids nearly closed and his mouth opened just wide enough to permit the passage of a shuddering, quiet sigh. It was mesmerizing and I couldn't stop. I kept wanting to see him look like that. When I halted my hand his eyes were hard, suspicious, and nervous. He tried to pull away but had not the strength and I was too fascinated to let him go.

 

I whispered for him to relax and calm. Then I resumed running my hand through his hair. It was incredibly thin and light to the touch that I doubted whether he had ever had to brush it. I held him close to me and caressed his head, letting my fingertips occasionally wander along his ears and across his neck. I could feel his reactions against where his body touched mine - addicting. He had settled into the crook created by my arm, shoulder, and chest. The tension that had come so suddenly was fading with each breath he took. And, when he was floating along the border between waking and sleeping, I swore I heard him purr.

 

I didn't notice the smile that shadowed my own lips.

 

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Kurama's POV

 

I was helpless in his embrace. He wouldn't let me go and I no longer wanted to be released. I'd been granted the Hell fire that I had craved and now its seductively soothing embers were consuming me with a piercing peace that I would have thought impossible to feel and survive had it been described to me before this moment. Beyond bittersweet, beyond irony, beyond pain - not quite love…I hoped. I had been prepared to fall into my own illusion and vengeful lie…. I just hadn't been prepared for it to hurt this much. I refused to fall yet I was screaming my defiance from within the void. I could have cried.

 

Inari help us now.

 

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