Ancient History

I blame Blossomwitch and her awesome aura of short-story godliness for this fic being done so very quickly. I hadn't intended to get to it for a couple of weeks, and suddenly it attacked me so viciously I had to stay up until almost 5 am typing in order to avoid its wrath. Accordingly, it hasn't been past beta, but I like it the way it is right now. Contains minor, minor, excruciatingly minor Yuusuke/Kurama subtext; totally nothing overt. Also has no particular timeline—sometime after the Dark Tournament and before the Black Chapters arc.

First couple of paragraphs lightly revised 10/30/07 (at a friend's suggestion, just to make them less wordy).

New title 10/31/07. I definitely like this one better.

Kurama had an unexpected reaction just then.

Yuusuke had been ribbing him about various miscellaneous things, killing time in conversation by being snide as he always was, and something he had just said had upset the redhead—he could tell. He was taken completely aback; their talk so far had been routine, nothing special or even really that interesting—or not remarkably, anyway; talks with Kurama were always at least a little interesting no matter what subject they were on. But he hadn't insulted him (seriously), hadn't targeted his mother or Hiei with inappropriate humor, and hadn't said anything deliberately designed to make him mad.

And yet that hooded look that had immediately dimmed Kurama's eyes, that retreat behind his guard and that slightly stiff smile, were not lost on him, though they might have been if he'd been less familiar with Kurama's moods.

He looked at the fox askance, discarding the last few friendly jibes he'd have made under normal circumstances. "What did I say?"

Kurama shook his head, contriving to look puzzled and then flippant, and Yuusuke could see the dark expression lift with an effort. "Nothing, Yuusuke. I have a slight headache."

"Do you want some aspirin?" the detective asked automatically; they were at his house, and his mom kept a good-sized stash of the stuff to combat hangovers. He racked his brain as he verbally formed the question; what had he said? Something about Kurama always picking him up whenever he was unconscious and probably dead, hovering like his mom had when he'd come back to life—before that, a jab at the kitsune's tendency to over-plan versus his own success with zero planning altogether, and before that—

A slight smile curved Kurama's lips, so full of subtle self-deprecation that if Hiei'd been there, he would have said something acerbic and immediately left in disgust. Yuusuke almost considered it himself. "No, thank you. I can cure it myself if it becomes worse than this, but it's all right for the moment."

Of course it is. "So what else is wrong?" Yuusuke queried bluntly. "I did say something bad, didn't I?"

"Of course not."

"Bullshit. You—" Yuusuke paused, and grinned a rather merciless grin. "I was gonna say you suck at lying, except you don't, because you're actually really, really good at it. Except I know you too well and you suck at lying to me. So 'fess up."

There was a period of marked silence, in which Kurama just studied him. Correspondingly, the black-haired boy laced both hands behind his head and leaned back on the couch, assuming a reclined pose and a knowing smirk to cover his sudden discomfort at that reaction. He was having the distinct, belated feeling right now that in a moment, his triumph at having caught Kurama in a lie was going to be eclipsed by what a bad idea it was to have even asked. He'd called Kurama on bullshit before, but it had always turned out to be light or unintentional stuff; this didn't feel like it was either.

I'm gonna regret this in a minute, aren't I?

The pregnant quiet ended with the rustle of cloth as the redhead shrugged a surrender. "I apologize," he said, glancing away and then back, but not quite regaining Yuusuke's eyes when he did so. "I had not meant to react in a visible fashion; it isn't important enough to bother you with."

"It is, too." Yuusuke sat upright again and let his tone sound both hurt and indignant. "Your eyes did that thing."

Kurama looked vaguely startled. "That… thing?"

Oops. He hadn't meant to say that. "You know," he responded hastily, trying to cover for his mistake. Damn, and just when he'd had Kurama off-balance and talking straight. "That thing. Where they go all glassy and stop looking at anything for a second. The bad thing they do."

"Oh." Now Kurama just looked amused, if a little ruffled. He gave Yuusuke a grin that was mostly genuine, though, and replied with humor, "Hiei tells me I've begun to slip around the rest of you, but I had not been aware that he was correct to this degree."

"Hey, you'd rather lie to me and get away with it?" Yuusuke crossed his arms and scowled. "That's not nice, y'know. You're already an unpredictable bastard, you gotta give me something I can pin down."

"I suppose," was the answer he received. The kitsune kept smiling, and relaxed fully into the couch cushion. He glanced at the dormant television. "Aren't you missing the wrestling tournament you wanted to see today?"

That was pathetically transparent, especially for Kurama. Yuusuke stuck out his tongue. "Nice try, fox boy. It's not for an hour." It was actually closer to half that, but that didn't matter. "Now tell me what's up. I really wanna know."

The corner's of Kurama's mouth stayed quirked as he sighed. "No, you really don't. It would make you uncomfortable."

"How do you know?"

A shrug. The traces of mirth smoothed away into seriousness. "Because your friends feeling guilty always does."

The Tantei just stared at him. "You—I said something wrong, and now you feel guilty? How the hell does that work?" His eyes narrowed and his gaze became penetrating. "What words exactly made you be dumb for no reason? 'Cause I'll take them back after I smack you." Really, really hard, because that is seriously messed up. He only just stopped himself from adding that phrase out loud.

Another long moment of uncomfortable not-speaking; but this time he sensed that Kurama was actually about to tell him what he wanted to know. That, he realized, was kind of rare when he thought about it. He couldn't really be smug about spotting his partner's deceptions when he remembered all the times he'd let himself be sidestepped afterwards. This was only a partial victory, and might even be a fluke, and he still couldn't think of a goddamn thing he'd said that could have had this effect. He was almost sort of pissed that he knew Kurama well enough to know when he was lying, because that meant he also knew him well enough to know he wasn't making this up just to be a dick. That would have been much easier to understand. And much, much easier to solve.

Finally, Kurama shifted his posture, losing the relaxed cant to his shoulders but replacing it with deliberate poise, and faced Yuusuke a bit more squarely, tucking one leg under himself to facilitate sitting sideways on the couch. Yuusuke leaned forward in half-unconscious response to the suddenly confidential (and tense) atmosphere.

"Nothing you said caused me to feel guilty," Kurama told him quietly and firmly, looking him in the eyes to show that he meant it. "Something you said reminded me of guilt that I already have."

Yuusuke processed that. Apparently he didn't need to smack Kurama after all, because that made a lot more sense. "So… like what?"

There was still a trace of reluctance in the answer. "Something I did long ago, right after we first met."

His friend blinked, then laughed incredulously. "That ancient history, Kurama. Whatever it was, I didn't notice or care at the time, so it can't have been that bad. Unless it wasn't about me," he added quickly. Way to go being egotistical.

"It did have to do with you." The assurance was dull, the tone neutral. "And I feel it was important, even though you did not notice. I was reminded of it when you remarked that I'm always the one to pick you up when you're hurt or unconscious—which is true often enough. Have you wondered why I make a point of doing so?"

"Um, no?" Now he was confused again. "So this is about—"

The redhead cut him off gently, almost as if he were as impatient as Yuusuke now. His friend suspected he wanted to get it out of the way as quickly as possible. "I make a point of doing so, because it is something I wish I had done when I first met you."

Yuusuke wasn't sure it was possible to get more confused. "I wasn't unconscious when we met. You weren't, either. You were telling me your life story, and I'm pretty sure I was awake for that."

Impatience crept into Kurama's tone, and he got more specific: "After I tried to use the Mirror, Yuusuke. You offered it your life instead of mine, and spent some time unconscious as a result."

"Oh. That." The detective shrugged. "So? I didn't exactly need help, and I woke up feeling mostly fine."

"The fact that you woke up at all was luck," said Kurama—and the film returned to his eyes momentarily as he spoke. "You ought to have been dead. That was the arrangement you asked of the Mirror—that you die instead of me. I'm sure you remember that."

Stung, Yuusuke retorted, "I don't have holes in my head like Kuwabara. Sure I remember. So it took half your life and half my life and called it even, and we both got lucky. I still didn't need help. I mean, you could sense I wasn't really dead, couldn't you? Your spirit awareness is tons better than mine."

But as soon as the words left his mouth, he knew exactly what Kurama was feeling guilty about, and it showed on his face. Oh. It hadn't ever really occured to him before, but it made all sorts of sense now that he'd pried it out of his teammate. "Except you couldn't." The statement was definitely not a questioning one. "I get it."

Kurama flinched visibly at this response, and collected his composure more slowly than Yuusuke was used to seeing. "It—simply didn't occur to me to check," he admitted finally, looking uncommonly vulnerable and upset. "I was worried for my mother, and I neglected my debt to you in my haste to know if the wish had been granted." He paused heavily. "True, at the time I did not know you well, but even so, I owed you my life and should have spared at least a moment to see you were all right. I deeply regretted failing to do so, and still regret it."

Having listened to this much, Yuusuke made the most Hiei-like snort he could manage to halt Kurama's confession. He uncrossed his arms and leaned forward. "She's your mom," he said, in a tone that implied absolute and utter contempt, not for Kurama but for his current stupidity. "You wanted to die to make her well, and when you didn't die you wanted to make sure she was well. I was just some dumbass spirit detective who wandered in and did something even dumber than what you were trying to do. I swear, Kurama, I know you love guilt-tripping yourself and all, but I swear that if you feel bad about this anymore, I really will have to punch you to knock some sense into your head."

The kistune did not back down. "I could not have done anything for my mother, had the wish failed. I could have done something for you. If your life energy had been stolen by the Mirror, I could have given you some of mine, and you would not have died."

"You're not listening to me." His mouth twisted sardonically. "Yeah, I'll admit I didn't know you just left me there without checking on me, but it doesn't matter. If you'd saved my life and left your mom in the lurch, I don't think I'd ever have managed to like you at all, much less as much as I do now. You wouldn't have done that, anyway—you obviously cared more about her than anything else, or you wouldn't have been willing to die in the first place." He gave Kurama back stare for stare. "Stop feeling guilty for doing the only thing it made sense for you to do."

The two of them stared at each other with pure, genuine resentment. Yuusuke was just pissed that Kurama had been sitting on this for so long—what had it been, a year? And now he wasn't even listening to reason: he could see Kurama's jaw was still set, and his eyes were confused but mostly full of conviction. The idiot really thinks he let me down. Damn, has he always been like this? Huh. I guess he has. He even wanted to blame himself for his mom getting sick, and that was just dumb.

But I'm not gonna let him blame himself because he didn't take care of me. I can take care of my freaking self, and he doesn't need to give anything up to help me. He's already given up too much—I've already almost lost him too many times. I'll be damned if I let him suffer for me again, ever. He doesn't deserve that.

Hell, if anything, I'd rather pull his weight for him than the other way around. It's about time somebody did.

His own ability to communicate thoughts via his facial expression had historically been middling to poor, so when Kurama's own face cleared abruptly, he was somewhat surprised. He'd been readying more counter-arguments, sure that the fox was going to disagree again, and suddenly that didn't look likely to happen, which resulted in him having to stifle an urge to begin babbling them anyway. Instead he realized that he was much closer to Kurama than their respective personal space usually allowed, and eased back until he didn't feel quite so—quite so something. Uncomfortable, maybe. His cheeks were hot.

"If you're determined to be stupid about this, you can go home," he grumbled, looking away, aware that Kurama would be able to tell he'd just lost all his equilibrium. "Come back when you've found your missing brain cells and put them back to work. I'm totally gonna ignore you until you admit you're wrong."

Kurama did not oblige him, and chose to smile in lieu of departing. Respecting Yuusuke's reclamation of his space, he leaned back as well, and said quietly, "I will concede your point, if I may be allowed to remain. I—apologize, for being mistaken."

And just like that, their argument was over, and the issue was closed. He'd won. Yuusuke felt reasonably relieved. This was enough to let him look at his friend again, and note with further relief that his eyes were back to their normal state, which made him a little more candid than he'd meant to be. "I really hate it when your eyes do that thing, y'know."

"I know. I'll try not to do that in the future. You are going to miss that wrestling tournament."

"Am not." He grinned tentatively, and let relaxation settle in again. "But we can look, if it'll make you shut up about it."

"Assuredly."

After that, he kept a lookout for that clouded expression's return; and even when it didn't come, and the rest of their afternoon was as pleasant as he'd planned, he resolved to get there before Hiei next time Kurama needed someone to pick him up.

Turnabout, he knew, was always fair play.