Say When

Bold green eyes peered through a curtain of scarlet hair, sizing up the other person in the room as one would a particularly sumptuous prey animal. If one was a predator that is. Kurama, for all he appeared to be a peaceably quiet youth unless provoked, was nothing if not a predator. Well, he was a thief, but one could not steal something unless it had already been hunted down.

Frustrated brown eyes flicked over to the corner where the kitsune sat pretending to be absorbed in a book.

"You're a creepy bastard sometimes, Kurama. You know that?"

Kurama raised an eyebrow, holding Yusuke's gaze for a moment more and then turning to look absently out the window. "I am sure I don't know what you are talking about."

"I thought lying went against some code you had or something." the former detective remarked.

"I make it a practice to never lie to myself." the redhead corrected. "Lying to others is just a part of being who I am. You don't get to be the most renowned thief in two worlds by being honest, Yusuke."

The mazoku couldn't argue with that, but he felt like somehow they had gotten off topic. "Right!" he said, remembering. "You're creepy. You've been staring at me for an hour off and on. What is so interesting about me?"

"I'm disappointed that you're still asking that question."

Yusuke rolled his eyes. "What this is really about is you being horny, isn't it? You can't control yourself."

The half demon had decided that he didn't feel comfortable being sexual with Kurama and Hiei until his divorce from Keiko was finalized. The demons had agreed that that made sense and everything had worked out until Hiei had been summoned back to Mukuro's for a month to hunt down some rogue demons.

Kurama rolled his eyes. "I understand celibacy, Yusuke. My human form was a virgin until Hiei and I got together, and that was fine. However, it is difficult to return to that since I have gotten used to regular sex. Still, I have not ravaged you as I want to, so you should not doubt my control."

"Hiei needs to get his ass back here, all the same."

"That, or Keiko needs to sign the papers."

Yusuke nodded. "She said she would once she had her father read them over."

"Do you think it would make anything worse if I went and talked to her?" Kurama wanted to know.

"About what?"

The redhead shrugged. "She and I used to be on friendly terms. While I'm sure that is not the case anymore, I think I deserve to have my say and that she deserves to hear it."

"Fair enough." Yusuke sighed and ran his hands through his hair. "I'll leave that up to you then, Kurama. If she'll listen to anyone, it'll be you."

"I'll go see her today then." Kurama said. He stood up and stretched lithely, enjoying the way Yusuke's eyes followed his form. He was convinced that the other male wanted him which, vainly enough, stroked his ego in all the right ways. He was a kitsune after all. "Shouldn't you be getting to work?"

The dark haired man looked at his watch and swore. "Yeah. Thanks for the reminder." Yusuke ran up to the bedroom and then back down just as quickly. He pressed a quick kiss to Kurama's lips, and was out the door.

The kitsune shook his head with a bemused smile. Yusuke was young to be sure, but Inari, if he didn't make it work for him.

Hiei squelched into Mukuro's office and plopped down across from her with a heated glare. His black cloak was dripping with some foul substance and there were bits of whatever it was he had just killed in his shock of dark hair.

Mukuro raised her one good eyebrow and adopted a bored expression. "You're getting my chair covered in…whatever that is. Incidentally, what is it?"

The glare turned frosty then, reminding the female of her former heir's koorime heritage. "From now on," Hiei began, "Would you either tell me what it is you want me to kill or go kill it your damn self?"

"I thought you enjoyed a challenge." Mukuro replied.

"There is nothing enjoyable about killing a forty foot demon and then having him explode all over me."

"I don't know…I seem to recall one demon you don't mind exploding on you. Or does he not count since he's in a human body?"

Hiei growled low in his throat. "Do you delight in being insufferable?"

Mukuro shrugged. "Of course. What are you complaining about, Hiei? You get to go home tomorrow and reunite with your precious fox. If the rumors are anything like reality, I'm sure that amorous thief is going crazy without you beside him. Or inside him, I suppose."

Remembering that killing the female would be more trouble than it was worth, Hiei reigned his frustration in. "Kurama has more than enough to keep him occupied."

"Ah. I was hoping you would say something like that. I heard through my sources that you and the kitsune have added a member to your little family. The powerful ancestral son of that fool Raizen to be specific."

"Your point?" Hiei responded, putting his blood and goo soaked boots up on Mukuro's desk.

She eyed him distastefully. "I didn't think either of you were into sharing."

"Depends on what we're sharing and who with." was the reply.

"I suppose that makes sense. I assumed the mazoku was a fancier of women, though it does make sense that he would give into the urges his change has obviously aroused in him."

"If you're done poking around in my personal life, I'd like to go not be covered in demon guts." Hiei quipped.

"Fine, fine. Go." Mukuro responded. "Give my regards to both of your lovers when you return to Ningenkai."

Hiei was gone before she had finished speaking, slamming the door shut behind him. The female demon allowed herself to smile then. Even if he wouldn't admit it, her little fire demon was growing fond of not being alone.

Kurama knocked on the door of the former Urameshi/Yukimura home. He knew that Keiko was in there because her startled brown eyes had peeked through the peephole at him before disappearing. He imagined that she was now deciding whether to let him in or not.

As the redhead had hoped, the woman's curiosity won out in the end, and she opened the door.

"Well you have a lot of nerve showing up here." Keiko snapped. "Yusuke got all of his stuff already, so there's nothing left here for you."

Kurama placed a placid smile on his face. "I know you must be very upset with me, Keiko," he began. "But I thought you deserved an explanation."

"I think I deserve more than that, but I don't really want to hear anything you have to say."

"Please, Keiko. Nothing that has happened here was done with the purpose of hurting you."

"So that makes is better?" the woman replied, raising her voice.

"It doesn't, but it does change things. Will you hear me out?"

The woman sized him up for a few long seconds before sighing. "Fine. Talk."

"Thank you." the kitsune took a moment to collect his thoughts. "I know that Yusuke didn't feel comfortable talking to you about the changes he has been going through since the Sensui debacle. I believe on some level he was afraid that you would look at him as some sort of monster. Like he was one of those terrible demons that he spent so much time fighting."

"Why would he think that? He was still Yusuke."

Kurama nodded. "Yes, to everyone but himself that is true. Yusuke was more than likely projecting his own feelings about himself onto you. That is what caused his retreat from you and your marriage. It was only natural that he would come to Hiei and myself. We are, after all, two of the few demons that he knows he can trust. I myself have gone through a similar transformation to his."

"That all makes sense, but how do you go from that to whatever it is you are doing with him now?" Keiko wanted to know.

"One of the things that Yusuke neglected to mention to you is that most demons are bisexual in nature. Their attraction to another has less to do with gender and looks and much more to do with power. There is a reason why there are very few half demons in the world. Humans just do not have the power that most demons are attracted to."

"So Yusuke stopped loving me when he became a demon?"

"Not exactly." Kurama answered. "He loved you all the same, but you were no longer equipped to give him what he needed."

"And that's where you and Hiei stepped in." it wasn't a question.

"Yusuke came to me and asked what I thought he should do once…well, once you were no longer living. I offered him a place with Hiei and myself because we have always been rather attracted to him. He was not supposed to leave you now. That was his own decision to make, and I believe he made it because he felt like you would grow to resent him once you saw him not aging while you grew old and died."

Keiko lowered her eyes trying to hide the tears that were rising in them. "Do you love him?" she asked softly.

Kurama was prepared for this. "Not yet. But I am happy with him which often turns to love. My instincts tell me that it will not be long before I feel completely content to be with him."

"And that means…"

"A demon is nothing without his instincts." Kurama informed her.

The woman sighed. "Was there never any hope for us?"

The kitsune hesitated, then spoke. "Let me tell you the story of Yusuke's ancestral father. Raizen fell in love with a human. Indeed so deeply in love that in the end he died for her. Before this woman, he was fearsome and ate humans as if they were nothing more than cattle. But then he met this woman and loved her so completely that he stopped eating all together. He forgot to take into account how fragile humans are and his love died giving birth to his child. Raizen mourned her until he died. Imagine Yusuke living like that. It would be unbearable."

The two of them stood in silence for a moment. Keiko searched Kurama's expressive green eyes and saw the true regret in them. "Wait here." she said finally.

She went into the apartment, then returned with a folder of papers which she pressed into Kurama's hands. "Give these to him."

"Thank you." the redhead responded.

Keiko nodded. "And…take care of him. Please."

Kurama inclined his head. "I take care of my own, as does Hiei. It's in our natures."

"Good. He gets into trouble."

"That will likely never change."

A/N: Another one down. I know a lot of people wanted me to put all of these together into one collection, but as those of you who read Little Wonders know, I recently lost my old computer to hard drive failure so it would be a pain in the ass to copy and paste these into new files and then re-upload them. Plus then I would lose my reviews. But I do understand that it might be a bit difficult to keep up with the growing list of parts in the series (there will probably be about ten), so I have a solution that I hope will work. On my profile page, I will list all the parts of this series in order and update it accordingly. I hope that this will be helpful. As always, thanks for the reviews, and please let me know what you thought of this.