Title: Fever

Published: August 12, 2014

Summary: "He was fire- sultry and beguiling. He consumed her; whispering lust and promising ecstasy, he drowned her in his suffocating heat before casting her from his hearth." Not your average faerie tale.

Pairing: KXK MXA SXM (Definitely AU OOC)

Notes: Thanks so much for the reviews! I really hope my writing isn't too confusing/slow for these first few chapters. Please bare with me! Also a reminder, this story is based off of a couple of different stories combined and mixed in my head, which I do not own. Don't forget the 'M' rating!

Disclaimer: I wish I owned the RK crew, but alas I do not.

Chapter Two: Extinguished

She was on fire.

No.. that wasn't it. It wasn't that simple. This feeling- it was definitely something more than that.

'What was a better word?' She mused.

Ah- yes… there it was.

She was scorching.

Lost.

She was thrust into a hedonistic tide of heat. It was rocking, but the furthest thing from soothing. It was filling, but the furthest thing from enough. The tidal wave, it drowned her in the throes of its motion -stroking, and sensual. The all encompassing flame; it licked up her sides, wrapped around her legs, slid between her breasts, and filled her waiting, receptive mouth. Her body responded with perfect aptitude, never missing a beat. She could no longer remember when the reverent feeling infused inside her wasn't a daily occurrence. It was as though the copulation was meant to complete her. As if she was being remade whole.

Her lover- he baptized her with fire.

X

Kaoru knew if she ever lived through this, she would never complain about anything ever again.

Pain.

So much pain.

It came and rooted deeply in her bones, and tangled within her insides. So certain was she that, if she so much as moved she would disintegrate. Kaoru gasped at the gentle rise and fall of her chest, which stretched pained skin across her body. Her flesh screamed at the simple, natural exertion.

Everything was wrong.

Somehow throughout the night she had been switched into a foreign body much too small, the skin much too tight and the temperature much too high.

Kaoru cried out again beneath the hot press of blankets when it seemed even that even the natural stucco of her thumping heart sent a new rush of symptoms thundering through her.

Hot.

So hot.

Her skin singed with the heavy weight of fever. Her mind fettered between the two ideas of; unrolling beneath the damp coverings or burrowing even deeper. Unable to find the strength to so much as consider lifting the blankets from her, so she laid; docile and defeated. Turmoil spewed through her new riotous, foreign body.

To her dismay, she found she couldn't escape even into her thoughts. Her outer pain was only a perfect mirror for her inner ache.

Kaoru's mind was a deep cavern of lost information, buried beneath the kindling of a burning bonfire. She couldn't remember if she had ever been able to so much as formulate a thought in the past. It was all heat and fire. If it wasn't the former, than it was the later. She swam down deeper into her mind, desperate to escape the pain.

Darkness. Darkness.

It whispered to her from beneath the endless broiling depths in her deep cavern. It beckoned to her with a gentle, sweet promise. It held out its hand in breathless anticipation as she submerged herself beneath the riotous waves and it claimed her in its sweet oblivion.

X

The next time she awoke it was jarring. Not the typical smooth transition from sleeping to wakefulness that Kaoru was accustomed to. But, the type of transition that was harbinging, all the alarms on her person were blaring without definitive clarity as to why. Kaoru held her breath when her eyes flew open.

Disoriented and panicked, she searched for some clue as to the reason, as silence greeted her strained ears.

After a few terse seconds, Kaoru released her baited breath, but couldn't tamp down the ridges of goose flesh across her skin. It was too hard to make out anything through the inky darkness in the seemingly moonless night.

Feverish yet vigilant, she peered through the dense blackness to catch a possible waiver of shadows. Nothing appeared- no horror movie style "pop-out", no moving furniture or rattling chains. Just complete and utter silence.

Kaoru expelled a breath she hadn't been aware she was holding. This seemingly new, however simple act sent another swell of ache to her head. It stamped deep down in that full cavern and caused another ripple in the waves. Sleep, the ache cooed to her riotous body. It answered receptively.

Finally, somewhere between a newborn sunset and the dusting of early morning, she awoke once again.

As if being turned on like a switch Kaoru gasped herself aware, in an all too familiar pool of sweat and fear for the second time in twenty- four hours. Pulling herself to sit-up between her panting breath, Kaoru could hear the familiar hum of her neighbor's voice filling her voicemail box, as it broke through the still air. Partially lucid, yet still completely vacant, Kaoru listened to her neighbor's distinct prattle:

"-llo Kaoru, This is Ms. Hiyomi, you know from downstairs..,"

Hesitantly, Kaoru's cracked lips pulled back into a half hearted smile at the lady's introduction. Falling back into a prone position she allowed her thoughts to wash over her. In all the time she had lived in the ramshackled apartment above Mrs. Hiyomi the old lady had always introduced herself in that way. As if Kaoru would forget the greying women's name if not constantly reminded before Mrs. Hiyomi; knocked at her door, left a voice message or sent an email.

The elderly Ms. Hiyomi was a lady who suffered from a plight similar to that of most of the decaying older generation; a deep generational gap between her and her family had left the older lady with unfulfilling social life, and broken family bonds. Because of this Ms. Hiyomi was left constantly left with a bit of time on her hands. Time she chose to spend, nosing on neighbors or gazing out her a cold bustling city such as the one she lived in, Kaoru found her to be completely endearing.

In her typical fashion, Mrs. Hiyomi recounted to Kaoru her usual day of snooping and far fetched conclusion making about the happenings in the world around her. The normalcy of the whole situation sent a sweeping wave of shudders up Kaoru's spine. After her night of seemingly death and then rebirth, she was so shocked that time had passed on so easily without her while she was being rebuilt.

In bated breath, she wiggled her fingers and repeated her actions with her toes, so sure and so scared that throughout the night she had mutated into a completely new being.

Shocked once again, Kaoru had found that nothing had changed. Even the body deteriorating ache from the previous night had seemingly vanished.

Now she only ached from lying in her prone position on her back for so long. Still completely suspicious in this new change in her health, Kaoru flipped over to lay on her belly gently, her long hair dragging across her hypersensitive skin. This feeling caused a new ache in a place she hadn't been aware of in years.

'How odd,' she mused embarrassed.

Those type of needs had not presented themselves in so long. Maybe the fever had gotten into her brain? Rewired her to just become this lustful being she was experiencing now. Or maybe it had just been too long, lord knows it had been years…

Kaoru scoffed out loud.

Maybe she was still too delirious from her sickness. Some type of airborne illness brought on by her stressed weakened immune system. Sleep, sleep was what she needed right now. It would fix all the abnormalities in her life, right her body and mind. It was like fighting off the inevitable anyway. Kaoru drew in a breath and began her steady count back from ten- she was asleep by seven.

'..open for me'

-UP!

'That's it my sweet girl, open your mouth for me'

WAK-

'So beautiful'

WAKE UP!

She was slammed back into the waking world by a tidal wave from that deep frothy cavern of hers. Her mind was pitching and thrusting, a new place trying to break free. Terrified, Kaoru quickly beat down the flood.

In a second, everything went from zero to sixty as, what can only be described as a lesson in fight or flight kicked in. All at once her pistons were firing as one, as her mind roared at her to flee. Never had she experienced an episode so terrifying as this one. Listening to her body, she rolled from her bed and stumbled as her sheet caught between her feet. Her floor kissed her a quick hello as she made contact. The shock from the blow quieted her tumultuous head and she struggled to find the breath that had escaped her.

'What in the fuck?'

Still as a hunted rabbit, Kaoru lay motionless on her apartment floor as the seconds dragged on in complete wanted to move- oh how she wanted to move in those few terse seconds.

But, her body- her body, wasn't her own. Governed by an unseen puppet master, she helplessly waited until they let go of the strings. All the while her body was tense and waiting for her final blow. That dark cavern in her mind was back and, wordlessly purring to her that this was her end.

She believed it.

Kaoru summarized that this was what looking down the barrel of a gun felt like. Running your eyes down that long length of hardened steel, into that empty black hole- and knowing that this was your final time and that this was your final breath.

Had she lived a good and fulfilling existence?

Would she see her parents in the afterlife?

Her final moments on the floor were so anti-climatic, so unlike what they described with flourish and a dash of beauty in the romance novels she devoured and movies she watched. As she on the floor waiting to be slaughtered like a lamb Kaoru almost felt- well, cheated. The telltale sound of her aged voicemail system filled the air.

"Kaoru? Are you there Kaoru?"

'Great,' her mind gasped, now she had to die listening to the words of the nosey busybody from downstairs.

"-Kamiya-san, please this call up. It's Toshi, you know? Your gardener from back.. well you know. I- I just...Please, Kaoru!?"

Oh, it wasn't Hiyomi, Akane from 'forty-two b'.

"Kaoru, I am so sorry. So, so sorry. We have been trying to get a hold of you for days. The police came by to do a notification for next of kin, but they said you didn't answer. I'm just hoping you get this message. I'm hoping you are home to pick-up this call."

The voice took a long pause as if waiting for her to rush over to the line as requested. A deep plagued feeling settled into her gut, quickly diminishing the earlier sense of un-warranted fear. Still, even with this hold gone from her body, Kaoru couldn't find it in herself to move an inch from her position. Something was still wrong she could hear it from the urgency in the voice.

"Doctor Genzai is gone Kaoru. They found him dead in the house. He had been there a few days. They say it was a heart attack… they said he went peacefully. Please know I'm here for you if you need anything. Anything at all, we all are. But please whatever you do, call me as soon as you get this!"

She rolled over and threw up.