Author's Note: Hello everyone! New installment for this. I hope you guys enjoy it, because it was pretty fun writing it. Let me know if there should be a second part to this? o.o? Please review! It makes me happy when you review and makes me feel like people are actually reading this. xD.

Disclaimer: Copyrighted material belongs to their respective owners. I own nothing but the plot.

The Crow and The Butterfly

Prompt Name: Tinted Pink
Timeline: Sometime after the series ends
Point of View: Kurama
Word Count: N/A
Notes: Wanted to try something different here, this one may (and when I say may I mean totally will) go over my word count limit. :3

Plating the tempura I made for dinner, I grabbed a pair of chopsticks and sat at the bar and began to eat, my thoughts nowhere near me as they ran hard and free. A horrid feeling had made itself present in the pit of my stomach, and for the past two weeks I couldn't understand the cause of it, much less the solution. I was feeling incredibly anxious and I couldn't understand the reason. Of course, the topic of the reason took only seconds to realize. But it was the cause that was bothering me so much. My mind reeled once again over the conversation we had three weeks ago, and I found myself chewing on my bottom lip rather than my tempura.

"How long will you be gone?" I asked lazily, staring at Hiei through sleep filled eyes. Hiei was quiet for a moment as he pulled his shirt back on and began the hunt for his boots.

"Not long." The space beneath my bed was searched before Hiei pulled one boot out and then stood up, staring down at it with a pondering look. "How the hell…never mind," he muttered to himself, looking around for the second boot. Moments later and Hiei found the object he was looking for underneath my discarded shirt. Tucking his shirt into his pants and buckling them, he sat on the edge of the bed and began pulling his boots on. I sat up, the sheet pooling around my waist, and wrapped a lazy arm around the fire youkai's waist and set my chin on his shoulder.

"This must be some patrol you're going on," I murmured against his neck. Once Hiei's boots were on his feet, he turned to me and placed a hand on my chest, pushing me back into a lying position.

"No idea." His lips found mine then as he placated me for a moment, my nose bombarded with the smell of ashes and burning wood before he pulled back and taking a playful nip at the tip of my chin.

"Mm, you smell wonderful," I commented, choosing to ignore the eye roll he was giving me in my current state. As it was, I was nearly half asleep.

"Go to sleep, Fox. I should be back in about a week, maybe a few days longer." He informed me, releasing me from his hold and grabbing the katana that sat leaning against a wall, strapping it to his waist, and grabbing his coat and pulling it on. Finally grabbing the white scarf, soon to be cowl, off the back of my computer chair and tucking it into his coat, he opened up the window.

"You know, since my mother moved out, you could use the front door. Instead of coming and going through my window like a creeper," I told him playfully, enjoying the disapproving frown he sent my way.

"The window is faster," he justified, and I couldn't help the small chuckle that escaped me.

"I'm just teasing, Koi. Be careful, and I'll see you son." I yawned as Hiei's glare softened and he shook his head, heading off into the night.

Three weeks later and Hiei hadn't come back, or anywhere close to the Ningenkai as Yusuke had told me. I visited him after two full weeks had gone by and asked if he could do some digging, which he readily agreed to do. Unfortunately, Koenma couldn't tell him much. The patrol Hiei was called on was a security patrol for Enki, and nobody from the patrol had been heard from since they left, and Hiei's scent was nowhere near the border between the Ningenkai and the Makai either. Losing my appetite, I sat back in the bar stood and sighed, shaking my head. Hiei was more than capable of taking care of himself, and if he knew I was worrying about him like this just because he was gone a little longer than he previously thought, he'd be more than unhappy with me. And yet I couldn't stop this horrid feeling from spreading throughout my entire body. Something was wrong. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I jumped in surprise as I heard a loud thump coming from my bedroom, and I placed a hand over my speeding heart.

"Inari, how could I let my guard down like that?" I scolded myself, and then quickly stood up from my stool when I realized there was someone in my house. The scent was distorted, but I'd bet my life that I knew who it was. I raced up the steps and opened the bedroom, only to be greeted by a pool of blood on the floor, a trail leading from my bedroom and across the hall, leading straight into my bathroom. My breath caught in my throat as I hurried to the bathroom, opening the door with shaky hands and coming face to face with Hiei, who wore a pain filled expression on his face as blood dribbled out of the corner of his mouth. His hand was over his stomach, a dark red stain covering over half of Hiei's shirt and the top of his pants.

"Kurama," Hiei rasped out, panting as his eyes rolled into the back of his head. He had several deep lacerations on his arms and shoulders, and a bruise on his temple. The cuts on his arm were completely horizontal and placed strategically up his arms, spaced evenly as well. I looked on in shock and horror as Hiei stumbled backwards into the wall, sliding down the wall, a trail of blood left behind him. I caught him before he hit the floor and steadied him.

"Hiei!" I called out, grabbing his face and turning him towards me. His eyes were shaking incredibly fast, unable to focus on me as his head drooped forward, as if he didn't have the strength to hold it up anymore. "Hiei, come on, focus!" I yelled out, laying him down on his back and ripping his already torn shirt off of him. My breath caught in my throat as I looked at the horrid gash on Hiei's stomach, blood freely pouring from it. The cut was so deep that it cut entirely through each layer of skin and muscle, and at the very center of the cut was the lining of Hiei's stomach. The edges of his skin were torn, telling me that the blade was serrated.

"Kurama," Hiei whispered, his voice nearly gone. I met his eyes then and gripped his hand, my heart beating hard against my chest.

"Stay with me," I commanded earnestly, taking a look around my bathroom. The first aid kit under the sink wouldn't help with wounds like these, and I remembered there was a supply of serious hospital equipment in my mother's old bedroom from when she fell ill. "Hiei, I'll be right back. I have to get a few things to help you. Keep pressing this onto your wound, don't let go," I said sternly, pressing his hand onto his shirt that was being used to stop the bleeding. His other hand gripped onto me for a moment and I gently pried it loose. "I'll be right back, Koi. Just hold on," I whispered, standing up and damn near sprinting down the stairs and into my mother's old room.

I threw all of the equipment in a bin and rushed back up the stairs, stepping into the bathroom and leaning next to Hiei again and taking his hand. Removing the shirt, I inspected the wound for any debris, and finding none, I grabbed a saline solution and disinfectant from the bin and poured it onto some gauze, dabbing the wound clean. I did my best to ignore Hiei's yell of pain, grateful that he was still with me. If he could still feel pain it meant he wasn't dead.

"Detective…" Hiei muttered out, gaining my attention.

"What?" I asked, right before Yusuke burst into the bathroom. His eyes landed on Hiei and went as wide as saucers, leaning down on the other side of him and pressing more gauze onto the wound for the disinfectant to work.

"Holy shit! What the hell happened!?" Yusuke screamed, looking straight at me. I shook my head and pulled the gauze off, grabbing a shot of lidocaine and epinephrine and shooting it into the area around Hiei's stomach. I pressed the gauze back to the wound to help with the bleeding and looked at Yusuke with wide eyes.

"I have no idea. I just found him like this," I answered, looking at Hiei who was staring hard at Yusuke. Hiei shot his hand out and gripped onto Yusuke's shirt and yanked him close.

"Not dead," he said between clenched teeth, struggling to breathe properly.

"What?" Yusuke asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.

"Not dead!" Hiei yelled, his grip on Yusuke's shirt tightening. "Coming…coming…" he repeated over and over again, until Yusuke closed his eyes and removed Hiei's hand, gripping onto it tight.

"Whatever did this isn't dead, and they're coming," Yusuke said after a moment. "Can you handle this? I'm going to go look for this bastard," he said, standing up. I nodded.

"Go!" Hiei yelled, glaring straight at Yusuke.

"Alright. You hang in there, Hiei. If you die on me, I swear I'm going to beat the living hell out of you," Yusuke swore, turning and rushing out of the bathroom and heading back down the stairs.

"Hiei, can you feel anything in this area?" I asked, pressing hard in the area above his wound and then below it. Hiei concentrated for a moment before shaking his head. "Good. The anesthetic has kicked in. Stay with me, Koi," I told him, gripping his hand for a moment before staring on the next procedure. Grabbing a pair of surgical scissors, I cut away the jagged pieces of Hiei's skin, talking nonsense to Hiei so he would stay focused on my voice. I don't remember how long I was hunched over him, staring to place absorbable suture underneath the lying tissue so it would mend together once again. After what seemed like hours, all that was left was the skin to suture, which I got to work on. I kept talking the entire time, Hiei sometimes answered back as best he could, and sometimes he was silent.

Finally the wound on his stomach was closed, and I quickly got to work on doing the same thing on his arms, and by the time I was finished the sun was rising in the sky. Placing an antibiotic ointment over each of the fresh sutures, I taped a patch of gauze onto the wound on his stomach, and sat Hiei up and undressed him, turning the water on the tub on. I kept the plug out of the tub so it wouldn't fill and I set Hiei inside, leaning at the edge of the tub and pulling the bandana off his forehead, I washed his hair first, which was half matted down with blood.

"I'm so tired…" Hiei muttered, his eyes fluttering close every now and then.

"I know. Just stay awake a little longer," I pleaded, lightly kissing his shoulder and continuing to wash his hair. I put the plug inside of the drain and let the tub fill up to his waist, shutting it off before it hit his stomach. The wound had to stay dry for at least a day before it could get wet, but I wanted to get him cleaned up and the area around his arms clean. I took a sponge and gently cleaned his body, wiping away caked on mud, dirt, and blood. By the time I unplugged the drain and pulled Hiei out of the water, it was tinted pink. I sat a nearly unconscious Hiei on the covered toilet and wrapped his arms up in fresh gauze, making sure they were tight. Finally, I pulled Hiei up to his feet and half carried him to my bedroom, laying him down on the edge of the bed. I grabbed a pair of black sweat pants that he wore from time to time and put them on, noting that he finally closed his eyes and fell into a light slumber.

"Kurama," he muttered, waking up momentarily.

"I'm going to set you up with an IV, make sure you're hydrated. Then I'm going to shower and get in bed, okay?" I told him, lightly kissing him before leaving him there. I quickly brought up an IV bag and stand that my mother used to use and set it up next to Hiei, inserting the needle into his arm and taping it there. Hiei was now fully asleep, and I left to go clean everything up. I didn't realize I was shaking until I dropped the mop, placing a hand over my mouth. It took a few moments to get a grip on myself, but I quickly cleaned up the floor, the wall, the tub, and then my discarded dinner and took a quick shower.

Finally, finally, I pulled on a pair of my own sweat pants and climbed into bed next to Hiei against the wall. I pulled the blankets over both of us and maneuvered his arm so it was out of the way and comfortable and laid my head on his chest, careful not to touch the wound on his stomach.

"Sorry I'm late," Hiei whispered quietly, his eyes opening only a little. I shook my head and gently kissed him.

"Hush. Go back to bed. Yusuke will take care of whoever did this, and when you wake up, we'll talk. For now, sleep." I laid my head back on his chest and listened to him inhale and exhale, wariness and exhaustion settling over me too.

"Thank you, Koi," Hiei whispered, taking in a deep breath, and then letting sleep consume him entirely.