Accidents and Aftermath, Chapter 3: Respect
Title: Accidents and Aftermath
Author: Dreaming of Everything dreams_of_all
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho
Characters/Pairings: Hiei/Botan
Rating/Warnings: T for over-all mood, nothing terribly bad in specifics.
Summary: When Hiei is poisoned, causing temporary insanity, he severely wounds Botan, who's now comatose, hovering on the brink of death. This fic is a series of onesided conversations between the two as Hiei deals with his emotions, and then the aftermath.
"Botan's current condition is a comatose state of unknown permanence. Her indigenous white magic ability is working to repair internal and external damage as well as negate the effects of the poison, which targeted her healing abilities as well. This all feeds off of itself, creating the worst possible conditions for her continued well-being.
"Her own body is healing itself, meaning that we are unable to do more than the most basic and preliminary treatments without interfering, which would cause a prolongation of the time it would take her to heal at best and a slow, painful drawn-out death at worst. From what we have been able to gauge of her state, some minimal amount of improvement has occurred.
"At this point in time, we do not know if, when or to what extent she will recover. There are any number of possibilities, and we are unable to assist or garner enough information to tell.
"The only course of action is to sit, wait and see what comes of the natural turn of events. We should be able to make a more definite diagnosis a little later. Both a complete recovery and a relapse into a persistent vegetative state are potential possibilities at this point."
The doctor finished reading, rolled up her papers, stuck them into briefcase and marched swiftly out the door, as if guessing that her presence would be most definitely unappreciated.
The room was left with the sort of thick, nervous buzzing silence that comes with the let-down after a climax, before the events-the verdict-sinks in.
Kurama resumed his pacing; he had frozen momentarily for the announcement itself. Yusuke was sitting, eerily subdued, while Genkai, poker face firmly in place, sat stiffly next to him. Yukina clutched frozenly at Keiko's hand as the other girl sobbed into her shoulder; Kuwabara looked lost, nearly, confused and shocked. Hiei wasn't even in the room, still sitting by Botan's side.
So much power, so little use. There was nothing they could do.
oOo
Life adjusts; nothing is so adaptable. The facts (Botan might or might not be fine,) didn't go away, were always directly in the minds of all involved, but they worked around it, eventually, even if only because they had to. A more somber, severe life, maybe, but it continued.
oOo
"Urameshi's changed in the past few days," whispered one girl to another as they passed by him in school. "I wonder what happened!"
"I know! He acts like his girlfriend died or something!"
"He's so scary! He beat up a whole gang, you know, yesterday, when they started asking him about what had him so sad..."
"But he's showing up to school on time... It's almost like he's trying to shape up!"
"I think there's something he's trying to avoid."
oOo
Even the wrong train of thought can lead to the right conclusion. Yusuke was avoiding facts. If he kept busy, even if that meant going to school, he could keep from thinking about...anything too deeply, he could keep it at bay while he slowly came to terms.
Because it was his fault. Despite what all the others said, no matter how much Genkai protested, he knew that it all linked back to him in the end. Not Hiei's, because Hiei had lost his control through no fault of his own. Not anyone else’s, but entirely his fault.
His conscious mind insisted that it was irrational; survivor's guilt, if you will, but his subconscious urgings were too strong.
His. Fault.
oOo
Yukina was often viewed as innocent, and she was. But she was also a demon who had been reviled by her mothers' species, the Koorime, and then imprisoned for her tear gems.
The birds who had been her only companionship had been killed.
Innocence had met cruelty and reality simultaneously, and the result was herself. So while she knew that Botan should survive, she knew that that didn't mean she would. She knew that she wanted Botan to survive, but that didn't affect the chance that Botan would never wake up.
Nothing, though could keep her from hoping that her friend would be fine. Genkai's temple could be... Lonely. The talkative ferry girl had helped, sometimes.
And then there was Hiei. He had never been anything but kind to her; he had even offered to help track down her half-brother. True, he was withdrawn, antisocial and sometimes surly, but he had actively cared. And now he was refusing to leave Botan's side-Yukina could guess that he felt guilty. Even though he had never admitted to as much as tolerating Botan (though she had her own suspicions about that) he was a person underneath all his layers of masks, and one who took care of those around him. He was… fiercely loyal.
Maybe worst of all was the fact that Botan was one of the only people she couldn't heal: her demonic powers might not be safe interacting with the white magic Botan had naturally. Any healing might interfere with her own magic, but her own powers most of all. It had never been a problem before now; Botan had never been hurt-certainly not seriously-before now.
Everything changes, though. Yukina knew that maybe most of all.
oOo
Kurama jerked himself awake; he had gotten virtually no sleep, poring over all the demonic texts he had access to. Most of them had been stolen but a few had been come by honestly; there weren't very many of them that were relevant. Demons had never been, as a whole, big on healing. Still, it was his best bet. There had to be something, anything, that would help Botan. Some little-known cure, some obscure anti-venom now lost to time.
He knew it was probably a futile search. It was completely unlike him to obsess over a project with such high odds, especially when there was a chance she would survive anyway. He knew that he was probably worrying his mother, who thought he was working on a project for school, a plausible excuse... Except that he had never been so troubled, so last-minute or so frantic over any assignment.
In a way he knew what he was doing was similar to the frantic search he had made to find a cure for his own mother when she had been dying. And he knew that now he was doing it first and foremost for Hiei, and for Botan.
The half-Koorime would never survive the guilt.
oOo
Keiko moved with determination. Botan will live. She spun through her day, a force of nature, moving as if she knew what was going to happen minutes before the event. She will be fine. Perfectly fine. She bent her will to every task she was faced with, executing it exactly before moving on to the next, not a single unnecessary movement in her graceful and utterly utilitarian dance. Botan must live. She will live.
oOo
Koenma stared at the typical stack of papers on his desk; even if he did exaggerate about his work load, there was a lot of work to do to keep Reikai running.
Still, today he couldn't find the drive to get going. No matter how much he complained, he always got the job done. Or at least, he had. Except for today. Even though he knew that there would be souls left drifting and multiple problems growing exponentially worse for each minute he procrastinated, he couldn't find it within himself to actually buckle down and do it.
This was... stupid. Letting the spirit world fall apart just because Botan was hurt. It wouldn't help anything. And it wasn't like she really had any essential duties that couldn't be taken over by someone else, except for maybe helping out the Spirit Detectives-not that they would work right now. Yusuke was probably sulking, Kuwabara would be worried to distraction, Kurama... Who knew what Kurama would do. And Hiei. Hiei was still watching over Botan, just as helpless as Koenma was.
He couldn't help a small flair of irrational anger at the half-koorime. Even though he knew it was pointless, even though he knew that Hiei couldn't help it, even though he knew it was wrong and felt guilty about the anger. It was the thought that it was the antithesis of what Botan herself would think that was keeping that anger from growing.
That only fed the guilt.
He stared at the continually-growing pile of paper in front of him. Some day he really should make sure it wasn't some sort of wood pulp-based life form. Some days it certainly felt like it.
He really should get to work.
Koenma knew he was holding vigil for Botan as much as Hiei was.
oOo
Another day had passed. Hiei had only left Botan's bedside once, to see to his needs. The room Botan rested in was surrounded in a bubble of heavy, ominous silence, sensed and respected by everyone who walked past. The sounds of two people breathing was the only sounds, though the occasional interruptions of a hurried, nervous nurse as she bustled around, trying to get done (and away from that demon!) as soon as possible.
Hiei's breathing was the quiet noise of someone who had spent most of his life trying to avoid detection by any number of people. Botan's breath was the shallow noise of someone fast asleep, beyond even dreams. Both were quieter than a "normal" person's breath would be.
The silence was oppressive.
Even for Hiei, who was as silent as the grave, the quiet was too much. It was almost as if some huge creature waited around him, breath bated, planning for the best moment to strike.
Sometimes it's just too much.
"I never heard you complain, not about anything serious," began Hiei. "I..." His speech, even though it was barely above a whisper, was startlingly loud in the nearly sacred hush enveloping the room.
"I respected you for it. I know what it is to keep your silence... Even though I never had anyone to confide in. And that was our difference." He wasn't even sure what he was saying, he just knew he needed to get it said.
"You had people there for you. There was no one I trusted, no one I would let see that side of me, the side that felt..." He couldn't quite bring himself to say 'scared.' "... worried. Never directly. But I knew you had people you could talk to. Anyone you knew, I knew they would let you unburden whatever you had to say into them. No one would hate you for it, no one would look down on you for it. No one would...laugh. I don't think...even I...could...have..." His words trailed off, voice dissipating into silence.
A minute later he begins again, the quiet drawing the words out of him. "That you would have people to talk to, and still keep your silence, took a strength... I don't think I could have, if I had someone to... confide in.
"But then I wondered, Why? What was keeping you from talking to any of the people who were willing to listen? And it was easy to say that you were just a stupid ferry girl without any problems to speak of and let it rest at that. And once I caught you crying... You never knew I was there.
"I never thought about it. I refused to. Because you were happy-you acted that way-and I decided you were strong. You were, you know. Weak woman though you were, you were strong. I almost imagined I hated you for it. Always I... Respected you.
"Some part of me never stopped wondering. What kept you from going to Kurama, Genkai, Koenma, Yukina, Yusuke, Keiko, some other ferry girl, even Kuwabara, and confessing whatever it was that was hurting you?
"I never could confess to any weakness. What was making you do the same things I had done? The same things I still do...
"Even though I'm talking to you now. With no response, and no hope that you hear me."
His breathing was steady, and it steadied his nerves against the uneven counterpoint of his words.
"What I have is more than you would have wished for if you had come to me, looking for someone to listen. And... maybe... it's more than I would have given.
"No matter how much respect I felt, I never showed a weakness, even if it hurt."
Author: Dreaming of Everything dreams_of_all
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho
Characters/Pairings: Hiei/Botan
Rating/Warnings: T for over-all mood, nothing terribly bad in specifics.
Summary: When Hiei is poisoned, causing temporary insanity, he severely wounds Botan, who's now comatose, hovering on the brink of death. This fic is a series of onesided conversations between the two as Hiei deals with his emotions, and then the aftermath.
"Botan's current condition is a comatose state of unknown permanence. Her indigenous white magic ability is working to repair internal and external damage as well as negate the effects of the poison, which targeted her healing abilities as well. This all feeds off of itself, creating the worst possible conditions for her continued well-being.
"Her own body is healing itself, meaning that we are unable to do more than the most basic and preliminary treatments without interfering, which would cause a prolongation of the time it would take her to heal at best and a slow, painful drawn-out death at worst. From what we have been able to gauge of her state, some minimal amount of improvement has occurred.
"At this point in time, we do not know if, when or to what extent she will recover. There are any number of possibilities, and we are unable to assist or garner enough information to tell.
"The only course of action is to sit, wait and see what comes of the natural turn of events. We should be able to make a more definite diagnosis a little later. Both a complete recovery and a relapse into a persistent vegetative state are potential possibilities at this point."
The doctor finished reading, rolled up her papers, stuck them into briefcase and marched swiftly out the door, as if guessing that her presence would be most definitely unappreciated.
The room was left with the sort of thick, nervous buzzing silence that comes with the let-down after a climax, before the events-the verdict-sinks in.
Kurama resumed his pacing; he had frozen momentarily for the announcement itself. Yusuke was sitting, eerily subdued, while Genkai, poker face firmly in place, sat stiffly next to him. Yukina clutched frozenly at Keiko's hand as the other girl sobbed into her shoulder; Kuwabara looked lost, nearly, confused and shocked. Hiei wasn't even in the room, still sitting by Botan's side.
So much power, so little use. There was nothing they could do.
oOo
Life adjusts; nothing is so adaptable. The facts (Botan might or might not be fine,) didn't go away, were always directly in the minds of all involved, but they worked around it, eventually, even if only because they had to. A more somber, severe life, maybe, but it continued.
oOo
"Urameshi's changed in the past few days," whispered one girl to another as they passed by him in school. "I wonder what happened!"
"I know! He acts like his girlfriend died or something!"
"He's so scary! He beat up a whole gang, you know, yesterday, when they started asking him about what had him so sad..."
"But he's showing up to school on time... It's almost like he's trying to shape up!"
"I think there's something he's trying to avoid."
oOo
Even the wrong train of thought can lead to the right conclusion. Yusuke was avoiding facts. If he kept busy, even if that meant going to school, he could keep from thinking about...anything too deeply, he could keep it at bay while he slowly came to terms.
Because it was his fault. Despite what all the others said, no matter how much Genkai protested, he knew that it all linked back to him in the end. Not Hiei's, because Hiei had lost his control through no fault of his own. Not anyone else’s, but entirely his fault.
His conscious mind insisted that it was irrational; survivor's guilt, if you will, but his subconscious urgings were too strong.
His. Fault.
oOo
Yukina was often viewed as innocent, and she was. But she was also a demon who had been reviled by her mothers' species, the Koorime, and then imprisoned for her tear gems.
The birds who had been her only companionship had been killed.
Innocence had met cruelty and reality simultaneously, and the result was herself. So while she knew that Botan should survive, she knew that that didn't mean she would. She knew that she wanted Botan to survive, but that didn't affect the chance that Botan would never wake up.
Nothing, though could keep her from hoping that her friend would be fine. Genkai's temple could be... Lonely. The talkative ferry girl had helped, sometimes.
And then there was Hiei. He had never been anything but kind to her; he had even offered to help track down her half-brother. True, he was withdrawn, antisocial and sometimes surly, but he had actively cared. And now he was refusing to leave Botan's side-Yukina could guess that he felt guilty. Even though he had never admitted to as much as tolerating Botan (though she had her own suspicions about that) he was a person underneath all his layers of masks, and one who took care of those around him. He was… fiercely loyal.
Maybe worst of all was the fact that Botan was one of the only people she couldn't heal: her demonic powers might not be safe interacting with the white magic Botan had naturally. Any healing might interfere with her own magic, but her own powers most of all. It had never been a problem before now; Botan had never been hurt-certainly not seriously-before now.
Everything changes, though. Yukina knew that maybe most of all.
oOo
Kurama jerked himself awake; he had gotten virtually no sleep, poring over all the demonic texts he had access to. Most of them had been stolen but a few had been come by honestly; there weren't very many of them that were relevant. Demons had never been, as a whole, big on healing. Still, it was his best bet. There had to be something, anything, that would help Botan. Some little-known cure, some obscure anti-venom now lost to time.
He knew it was probably a futile search. It was completely unlike him to obsess over a project with such high odds, especially when there was a chance she would survive anyway. He knew that he was probably worrying his mother, who thought he was working on a project for school, a plausible excuse... Except that he had never been so troubled, so last-minute or so frantic over any assignment.
In a way he knew what he was doing was similar to the frantic search he had made to find a cure for his own mother when she had been dying. And he knew that now he was doing it first and foremost for Hiei, and for Botan.
The half-Koorime would never survive the guilt.
oOo
Keiko moved with determination. Botan will live. She spun through her day, a force of nature, moving as if she knew what was going to happen minutes before the event. She will be fine. Perfectly fine. She bent her will to every task she was faced with, executing it exactly before moving on to the next, not a single unnecessary movement in her graceful and utterly utilitarian dance. Botan must live. She will live.
oOo
Koenma stared at the typical stack of papers on his desk; even if he did exaggerate about his work load, there was a lot of work to do to keep Reikai running.
Still, today he couldn't find the drive to get going. No matter how much he complained, he always got the job done. Or at least, he had. Except for today. Even though he knew that there would be souls left drifting and multiple problems growing exponentially worse for each minute he procrastinated, he couldn't find it within himself to actually buckle down and do it.
This was... stupid. Letting the spirit world fall apart just because Botan was hurt. It wouldn't help anything. And it wasn't like she really had any essential duties that couldn't be taken over by someone else, except for maybe helping out the Spirit Detectives-not that they would work right now. Yusuke was probably sulking, Kuwabara would be worried to distraction, Kurama... Who knew what Kurama would do. And Hiei. Hiei was still watching over Botan, just as helpless as Koenma was.
He couldn't help a small flair of irrational anger at the half-koorime. Even though he knew it was pointless, even though he knew that Hiei couldn't help it, even though he knew it was wrong and felt guilty about the anger. It was the thought that it was the antithesis of what Botan herself would think that was keeping that anger from growing.
That only fed the guilt.
He stared at the continually-growing pile of paper in front of him. Some day he really should make sure it wasn't some sort of wood pulp-based life form. Some days it certainly felt like it.
He really should get to work.
Koenma knew he was holding vigil for Botan as much as Hiei was.
oOo
Another day had passed. Hiei had only left Botan's bedside once, to see to his needs. The room Botan rested in was surrounded in a bubble of heavy, ominous silence, sensed and respected by everyone who walked past. The sounds of two people breathing was the only sounds, though the occasional interruptions of a hurried, nervous nurse as she bustled around, trying to get done (and away from that demon!) as soon as possible.
Hiei's breathing was the quiet noise of someone who had spent most of his life trying to avoid detection by any number of people. Botan's breath was the shallow noise of someone fast asleep, beyond even dreams. Both were quieter than a "normal" person's breath would be.
The silence was oppressive.
Even for Hiei, who was as silent as the grave, the quiet was too much. It was almost as if some huge creature waited around him, breath bated, planning for the best moment to strike.
Sometimes it's just too much.
"I never heard you complain, not about anything serious," began Hiei. "I..." His speech, even though it was barely above a whisper, was startlingly loud in the nearly sacred hush enveloping the room.
"I respected you for it. I know what it is to keep your silence... Even though I never had anyone to confide in. And that was our difference." He wasn't even sure what he was saying, he just knew he needed to get it said.
"You had people there for you. There was no one I trusted, no one I would let see that side of me, the side that felt..." He couldn't quite bring himself to say 'scared.' "... worried. Never directly. But I knew you had people you could talk to. Anyone you knew, I knew they would let you unburden whatever you had to say into them. No one would hate you for it, no one would look down on you for it. No one would...laugh. I don't think...even I...could...have..." His words trailed off, voice dissipating into silence.
A minute later he begins again, the quiet drawing the words out of him. "That you would have people to talk to, and still keep your silence, took a strength... I don't think I could have, if I had someone to... confide in.
"But then I wondered, Why? What was keeping you from talking to any of the people who were willing to listen? And it was easy to say that you were just a stupid ferry girl without any problems to speak of and let it rest at that. And once I caught you crying... You never knew I was there.
"I never thought about it. I refused to. Because you were happy-you acted that way-and I decided you were strong. You were, you know. Weak woman though you were, you were strong. I almost imagined I hated you for it. Always I... Respected you.
"Some part of me never stopped wondering. What kept you from going to Kurama, Genkai, Koenma, Yukina, Yusuke, Keiko, some other ferry girl, even Kuwabara, and confessing whatever it was that was hurting you?
"I never could confess to any weakness. What was making you do the same things I had done? The same things I still do...
"Even though I'm talking to you now. With no response, and no hope that you hear me."
His breathing was steady, and it steadied his nerves against the uneven counterpoint of his words.
"What I have is more than you would have wished for if you had come to me, looking for someone to listen. And... maybe... it's more than I would have given.
"No matter how much respect I felt, I never showed a weakness, even if it hurt."