Accidents and Aftermath, Chapter 9: Misunderstandings

[dream_it_all]

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.


There was still the washed-out flatness of emotion he had realized was shock.

She would live. That was most important. Regardless that she hated him. That she feared him (Like everyone else, his mind whispered) and he loved her. That didn’t make up for his actions, just as the poison was no excuse because he had done it and he had almost cost Botan her life and he was the only one, out of all of them, that had been affected like that. There was no excuse.

The fact that he could never speak to her again, never be near her again, never see her laugh and smile and maybe try to speak to him, never get to respond to her, like he never had before, was secondary to all that. She would live, and he would not see her, and part of him wanted to scream or kill or cry because of that, but it was the way things would be, and maybe that was for the best. He couldn’t hurt her again, at least. He wouldn’t force himself on her, wouldn’t force her to accept him, even his presence, after what he had done. It was what he deserved. More than anything else, it was what he deserved, cold-hearted, cold-blooded killer that he was. He had nearly killed her once before-

--when she kneeled on the floor trying desperately to save the girl he had kidnapped to get to Yusuke, trying to stem the flow of his demonic power into the other girl with her white magic, and he was surprised-impressed, too, he realized later-by how much power she had, but it wasn’t enough, and they both knew that it was killing her, and eventually her magic would fail and the girl would be turned into his mindless subordinate and the ferry girl would be facing a likely death from exhaustion and he had laughed at that, an inevitable result, and one he relished-

The memories wash over him, and he’s surprised by how much older he feels, now. He’s lived for centuries, but the past little while has had more impact than any previous ten consecutive years, and the past week and a half or so more than anything else.

He feels ancient, crippled.

Even if they run into each other again-though he doubts that Koenma will continue to force Botan to work with him, allow him to work with Botan, after all that’s happened, the most unexpected near-death in the spirit detectives-she will be afraid. She won’t approach him, won’t talk to him, won’t try to draw him into conversation. She won’t giggle about a silly mistake she’s made, too busy fearing and panicking and trying to keep from bolting, no matter how useless it would be. She won’t… be herself.

He will never see her again.

oOo

Botan’s heart is still racing with the memories: Hiei lunging at her, brain only registering what she’s seen after he’s moved and cut into her side, forcing her away while he lunges at Kurama-and he’d always hated her, but out of all of them, he was closest to Kurama, why was he attacking him?-and oh god the pain, overwhelming except for a curious numb spot where the sword bit into her, where Hiei cut her, and now the sudden rush of power, too hot and painful, filling her past full so she feels like she’s bursting, even with the blood gushing out of her where she was cut, it should be weakening her-

She wonders what happened, that… that… that he was allowed to watch over her while she slept. That he would want to is incomprehensible, so she ignores the subject, her mind still fuzzy and fogged with sleep and painful and overfull.

She is struggling to move, move anything, any part of her, at all when Kurama comes sprinting into the room, eyes wider and looking more flustered than she’s ever seen him before, she thinks.

“You’re alive,” he breathes, as if it’s something impossible, extraordinary.

Botan tries to speak, but her voice doesn’t work, painful with disuse. She ignores the arrival of a nurse at the doorway, and simply doesn’t notice when she turns and leaves, presumably running to tell people.
She tries again, and finally manages, though her voice is strange and rusty to her ears: “How… Long?”

“Nearly two and a half weeks,” says Kurama calmly; he’s managed to compose himself, slightly, from-whatever it was about her that had shaken his composure earlier.

Botan would have gasped, but her lungs can’t manage it, not quite. It’s merely a slightly deeper rasping breath.

“What happened…?”

“Gaseous, airborne poison. It gave you a nearly uncontrollable burst of power, then weakened you greatly; it awoke an-uncontrollable bloodlust in Hiei. He lost touch with himself. He attacked you in his attempt to get to the nearest strong opponent-me-before collapsing. You brought us back to Reikai before collapsing into a coma as well, badly injured and still poisoned.

“We couldn’t help you, because it would affect your own healing ability, which was doing barely any good; it was what the poison in your system was targeting. We could heal Hiei quite easily, and he recovered quickly.

“He’s spent those past two and a half weeks watching over you.”

“Why?” said Botan, her voice beginning to even up, though it was still harsh with sleep.

“Because you’re his fri-” Kurama paused on the word, not knowing what described the demon’s views of the girl. Knowing that he would never-had never-described any of them as a friend, Botan least of all. He had always held her in the lowest regard… “Because he feels responsible.”

Botan shivered; she was horror-struck by the idea of him watching over her, watching her sleeping-

She always thought that people showed their truest selves when they were sleeping, losing whatever masks and walls they had built up for the day, showing only their purest self; and Hiei had seen her like that, relaxed and peaceful and dreaming, undefensive, out of control, when she was at her most vulnerable, even after what he had done. It left her feeling violated, someone seeing her like that, after what he had done…

And it wasn’t just the attack, which she couldn’t believe was just the poison. It had affected her own personality so differently, her own actions and motives… It was all the harsh comments and refusals and rebuttals that had made it so painfully obvious what she was to him, and it was also their first meeting, when he had tried to take over Keiko’s self-control to kill Yusuke so he could rule over Ningenkai, and nothing much had changed since then.

She had begun to trust him, after all this time, what with his devotion to the rest of the Reikai Tantei, if not to her-but it wasn’t devotion, wasn’t anything real, she had been wrong about that, clearly, it was all an act, it had to have been an act and it couldn’t have been real. And they all should have known better-

She can’t get the image of Hiei swooping down on her, unstoppable and so so far above her, like he had always been, like he had always told her, so obvious and blatant-and all because she was in the way of greater obstacles, an actual challenge…

She doesn’t want to think. Doesn’t want to deal with this, doesn’t want to try to understand-

Her train of thought is interrupted by Kurama pulling her into a gentle hug-that was new, how close had she really come to dying? She hadn’t realized he had cared so much-and then stepping back, smiling his old, familiar, smile, as inscrutable as always, but maybe a little desperate, a little relieved.

He steps back as Yusuke comes dashing into the room, then Kuwabara, and the nurses and the other ferry girls and Koenma’s there, too, trying to force his way through the crowd of people; and there’s Genkai, with Yukina, and Keiko and the doctor-

It’s cacophonous and nearly overwhelming. Botan thinks she’s beginning to realize how close she came to dying. People are crying, and she’s being hugged, hard and desperately, and people are hugging each other, and crying.

Botan almost wants to burst into tears herself. It was just too much right now…

The doctor-Botan was too fuzzy right now to come up with her name-seemed to understand. She was forcing people out of the room, taking names and personal relationships so she could set up, apparently, a visiting schedule.

About five minutes after the room empties-and it goes quickly, the doctor is surprisingly effective-Yusuke is let in.

“Uh-good to see that you’re feeling better,” he says, a bit awkward. It’s very Yusuke, and she can’t quite repress her smile. Yusuke grins back at her.

“Are you alright?” she asks, though afterwards she’s not sure why.
He paces a little. “I’m-I’m sorry,” he says at last, face stricken.

Botan sighs. “It. It wasn’t your fault, Yusuke. I don’t blame you.”

“I should have done something, should have realized what was happening, should have protected you-”

‘It has to be someone’s fault’ remained unspoken.

“I don’t blame you. It was dark, raining, we were under attack, and it really was- unexpected-”

Botan knows that now she is the one who is stricken.

“Don’t blame Hiei,” says Yusuke, that unexpected intuition he has showing itself for a moment.

She shivers.

Yusuke opens his mouth to continue, but there’s two loud knocks at the door. His face twists into a smile. “And that’s my signal to leave. You hurry up and get better, Botan!”

Koenma enters the room next, trying to look stern and mostly just looking shocked, and happy.

“Be more careful, Botan!” he says, before she can even open her mouth to say anything. “I can’t believe we came that close to losing you…”

“Koenma, sir,” she says. “Why… Why did you allow Hiei to-watch me like that?” She’s impressed by how even her voice is.

“Well…” Koenma frowns. “It wasn’t his fault, and he felt guilty… He’s made impressive changes to his behavior, and the rest of the Tantei weren’t going to take it well, if I told him to leave.”

But he wasn’t innocent, is all that Botan can think. He isn’t...

Koenma leaves and Kuwabara is next, and Botan thinks that it’s so much easier to manage this when it’s just one person at a time.

“Botan!” he says, grabs her into a hug that’s nearly too tight, and bursts into tears. She’s bewildered, but pats him comfortingly on the back.

He recovers fairly quickly, babbles a few garbled, embarrassed half-explanations and then exits.

How close, exactly, had she come to dying…?

She shivers, and then winces-her whole body aches-and then Keiko is entering the room.

Her eyes are brimming with tears, too, her mouth curved into one of the most painfully relieved smiles Botan has ever seen.

“Everyone’s so relieved,” Keiko breathes. “It’s so hard to believe, to, to fully realize… We were all so worried, Botan.”

Keiko spends a few minutes going over trivialities of what had happened while she had been comatose, before there’s another knock at the door.

“I’ll go over and get your apartment back in order, okay?” she says, as she stands to leave.

Botan smiles deeply. She’s so lucky to have so many people who care about her…

“Thank you, Keiko.”

Other people come and go, and eventually she’s left alone.

Botan’s tired, utterly exhausted, but she doesn’t want to sleep.
She’s spent the past two weeks (and then some) asleep, after all. She knows it’s silly, but there’s a niggling fear that if she falls asleep again, she’ll never wake up. And then there’s Hiei, who had been watching her all that time, violating her privacy, after everything else he had done to her…

Still, sleep’s pull on her is inexorable, and eventually she falls asleep.

And she dreams…