Captive, Chapter 3: Understanding
Title: Captive
Author: Dreaming of Everything dreams_of_all
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho
Characters/Pairings: Hiei/Botan
Rating/Warnings: PG/K+, pretty tame. Warnings for het and unrealistic romance.
Summary: AU HieiBotan fic. Hiei, a mass murderer who now regrets his acts, is being held captive in a stone tower by King Enma for political reasons. Botan, a witch in training, crashes through his window to escape from a mob that wants to burn her.
Last Chapter:
"...Because I think he loves you," said Yusuke with a defeated sigh.
Now:
"Eh?" managed Botan.
Yusuke remained silent.
"Why would you think that?" she questioned further. "Is it because he didn't kill me?"
"He no longer kills," said Yusuke flatly. "Did you see him walk towards you when you panicked? Did you see the pain on his face when you flinched away from him? He fed you. Watched over you. Cared for you."
"But..."
"Just think about it."
"..."
"Just think it over."
"...Uh... What do you mean you and Kurama aren't exactly his wardens?"
"Kurama works as Koenma's gardener, and I'm Crown Prince Koenma's whipping boy. (1) Kurama's supposed to bring him his meals-everyone else is supposed to stay away from the forest and this tower especially, with him the only exception-but they became close friends. Neither will exactly admit it... I just found my way here and come to visit him."
Botan thought, her mind obviously busy, troubled, churning, struggling to wrap itself around so many difficult new concepts.
"I have to get going now. HIEI! Get up here! I need to go and want you two to work it out! Don't avoid it, be honest, try not to be scary! I know you can do it, shrimp!"
Before either person involved could say anything Yusuke was gone.
Hiei hesitated at the bottom of the ladder that led up to the upper floor.
Botan hesitated, pushing herself off of the bed. A distant part of her mind noticed that now she could move herself slightly, today. Soon she should be able to stand. Energy draining was severe and then it was gone.
Hiei hesitated for a moment more before climbing back up to the main floor.
He expected panicked screaming, revulsion, disgust, hate.
It's what he deserved, after all.
He couldn't stop a slight cringe, invisible to the girl on the bed, as he anticipated her reaction.
The silence remained, with no reaction, not even a break in her steady breathing.
Hiei turned his eyes up from the floor to gaze at her, looking at him steadily, if nervously, from across the word. He could see she was tense, eyeing him warily, but she was not panicked. Confusion seeped into his mind as he began to process it... No fear? Why?
She was scared, though, just not wildly, panickedly. She was being... cautious. Careful. Sensible. Common sense had overtaken her gut reaction, but Hiei knew better than to imagine that she would ever move beyond wary toleration. He knew that the common sense that had stopped the panic would always see the stupidity in ever trusting a mass-murderer... No, he knew better than to think that. It had happened before...
He wrenched his mind away from his spiraling thoughts as Botan drew in a slightly larger breath, about to speak.
"...You are the Forbidden Child."
The cold statement hurt. "Yes." His mask was firmly in place; he would keep himself out of any more trouble than he was already in for; he had let it slip more than it should have.
Botan started slightly at the cold tone he answered her statement with. He looked nearly... Lonely? Yes, and troubled by her statement.
"W... Would it be okay if I still call you Hiei?"
A brief nod was her only answer.
He would not get attached. He would not permit himself to care for her.
No, never again. Never, never again.
That hurt enough that he knew that he had already failed.
He had had...years to think over his actions, an endless monotony broken only by the visits of Kurama, Yusuke, Yukina and... and...
He had had years of only his own thoughts.
Vaguely Hiei noticed that his confused thoughts were creating an uncomfortable silence. Maybe Botan would take it as avoidance, another reason to leave him to his own devices... As long as she was no longer panicked in his presence he could live with himself. Not that he had any other choice... It was a disturbingly painful option, but one he could accept. One he would have to...
And after all, she only wanted to continue calling him by his name because it wouldn't remind her of who he was. Had been.
A sudden movement caught his attention and he snapped back to reality to see Botan attempting to lower herself back onto the bed, her arms beginning to shake as her weight grew too much for them; while she was beginning to recovering, she was nowhere near healthy yet.
Her efforts proved too much and she collapsed, half-on and half-off of the bed. Her body cringed against the expected impact with the cold stone floor, but it never came. A few seconds after when the impact should have been she opened her reflexively closed eyes to find herself held off of the floor. She relaxed against the warm body holding her, a sigh of relief shushing out of her. A few seconds later her brain supplied the information that had been missing: that Hiei had caught her, and that yes, he was the Forbidden Child.
Paradoxically, she was surprised about how calmly she realized it. In fact, it was almost as if she didn't react at all... There was something intrinsically comforting and protecting about the warm body she was pressed against; later she would wonder why he was warmer than a human would be. The energy from her adrenaline rush had worn off, and she was still inordinately tired from the escape from her own personal lynch mob, and she supposed that that was some of the reason she felt so relaxed. Botan resisted the urge to snuggle into Hiei and allowed him to deposit her safely onto the bed.
She supposed that she would be slightly disturbed by her lack of reaction later on.
"Thanks," she murmured as she lay back onto the bed. Her eyelids felt heavier than they should, drifting closed... Botan's last thought before she fell asleep was to realize that Hiei hadn't taken up his customary perch on the window-ledge above her bed. It made her hurt, in a strange way...
oOo
Hiei was... Confused. Nearly angry.
She had been so trusting, nearly falling asleep in his arms...
He watched her swiftly drift into sleep from the other side of the room, leaning against the unforgiving stone blocks of the wall. He ignored the window sill, his normal vantage point; his nearness would only increase her edginess, the last thing he wanted, and, somehow... Somehow, it didn't seem right to sit there, when it was the farthest away from the tower he could get, the closest he could get to free.
He knew he deserved his punishment.
Still... She hadn't pushed away from him when he caught her. She had seemed nearly happy, cradled in his arms, content and lazily satisfied... It had seemed like she was almost asleep, that she had trusted him enough to do that...
He pushed the thoughts away, shaking them off both mentally and physically. No. Never again. No one will love you.
He slipped into a nearly meditative state-long hours with nothing to do had required him to learn how-and slowly, by degrees, slipped into sleep.
oOo
Both Hiei and Botan awoke at the sound of Kurama's slight cough, as he stood, another package of food in hand, just outside the windowsill, balanced on a branch, politely waiting for someone to invite him inside.
"Mmmph... Wha?" muttered Botan sleepily as she struggled upright from under the heavy blankets she was covered with. Hiei noted that she made it all the way up, and fairly easily; energy draining hit hard and fast, but wasn't long-lasting.
"Fox." said Hiei in greeting, not very gracefully.
The boy gracefully leapt inside the room, happy to have finally been noticed; it would be rude to merely enter without permission, and he had chores to get too still. Despite that, his curiosity wouldn't allow him to leave; he had heard some of what had happened between Hiei and Botan from Yusuke, but not all, and not what had happened once he'd left.
"How are you doing, Botan?" he asked, doing his level best to keep the curiosity out of his voice.
Botan paused for a second, collecting her thoughts. "Better, actually. I can sit up now," there was a slight amount of surprise in her voice, as if she was just noticing she could as well.
"Wonderful," said Kurama warmly. Mentally, to Hiei, he said What happened?
Kurama had to forcefully keep himself from wincing as Hiei flashed through the welter of forceful, frighteningly vivid emotions that had flashed through his mind, all compressed into a few instants and overlaid with the events that had occurred. He couldn't help but notice, though, that Botan had responded in a remarkedly positive way; she was more uneasy around him, now that the shock had worn off, but she wasn't panicked, she wasn't overly wary. Her reaction when Hiei had caught her seemed to reflect that she wasn't subconsciously frightened of him, at least, and there was the basis for more there... And he certainly had a vested interest in any potential for romance involving Hiei.
What do you plan to do? he asked the half-koorime.
There was a bleak, desperate hopelessness to the silence.
She doesn't seemed frightened of you, you know. In fact, judging by how she reacted when you caught her, I'd be inclined to think the opposite, or at least that there's the potential for that. My guess would be that it's shock that made her react the way she did, and that once she's had time to think it over she'll make a different, and more rational, decision. After all, you didn't offer her any harm before.
Kurama felt the tiniest hint of hope begin to blossom in Hiei before the link was suddenly cut short. The fire-demon glared at him from across the room. Kurama offered a bland smile in return.
Botan watched this non-verbal exchange with confusion. What had happened? She was still fuzzy from just waking up... Maybe she had missed something. Oh well, too late now. She stretched underneath the covers, luxuriating in their warmth. How long had she been asleep for, anyways? From the feel of it, past lunch. Breakfast. Some meal, anyways.
"Excuse me?" she said. She immediately was the center of attention. Botan couldn't help blushing slightly. "May I please have something to eat? I seem to have missed breakfast."
"Ah... Of course," said Kurama, mentally berating himself for forgetting something like that, while Hiei, generally confused, slipped back into his mental wanderings: he was wondering, rather hopelessly, why she had no signs of panic, or even fear, at all and whether there was any chance, no matter how slight, that Kurama might be right.
Botan snuck a slightly nervous glance at Hiei. While he was always quiet, and always kept his emotions carefully under control, the extremity to this... blankness was unnerving.
She accepted the food Kurama handed her murmuring a polite word of thanks before beginning to eat.
"I'm afraid I have to go now," said Kurama apologetically. More quietly, for Hiei's ears alone, he added, "Think about what I said." Then he was out the window and gone, leaving silence in his wake.
Botan finished eating and sighed, slumping against the wall. I'm so confused! Hiei--the Forbidden Child--what do I believe? He was certainly nice enough, during the time I was here, even though I fell through his window, took his bed, intruded on his privacy... Quiet and antisocial somewhat, yes, but kind. Patient. He caught me when I fell... And then what Yusuke told me. He... loves me? The Forbidden Child? But... If I think about it... Years, entirely alone except for occasional visits from two friends, with only his thoughts... He'd be so lonely. Years... It would make sense that he's changed, yes? Because he's not a mass-murderer anymore. There's Yusuke and Kurama and... and... Me. He has friends, now, and Yusuke did say he was lonely. He never threatened me, tried to keep who he 'really' was hidden. Yes, I think it's safe to say he's no longer who he was. But... Who is he now?
I do not fear him, for whatever reason. Once the shock wore off, anyways. When he caught me when I fell, the fact that I had a mass-murderer, the single most feared person in our world, holding me didn't frighten me. True, I was tired, but wouldn't that make me panic more? ...I suppose it's true, then, my subconscious mind is more rational than I am...
Either way, what's done is done, and over-all he seems like a... nice person, if you can call a taciturn fire demon 'nice.' I don't feel threatened, either way. And it's pointless, because I'm here either way, until I recover.
And there's certainly worse people to be stuck with, I suppose... He hasn't harmed me in any way, even though I'm a young, fairly attractive (if I must say so myself) teenage girl who's barely capable of movement, let alone self-protection...
And I missed him when he abandoned his perch at the window ledge for the other side of the room.
This was her last thought before she fell, suddenly and unexpectedly, asleep.
oOo
Hiei looked up from his moody and unproductive brooding some unspecified time later to see that Botan had fallen asleep, again, in a half-sitting position. Padding silently across the floor he paused by the bed, hesitating slightly. Before he let any more doubts grow in his mind (Should he touch her at all? What if she woke up and saw him? But, after all, that looked like a painful way to sleep, even for him...) he carefully shifted her, mindful not to jolt her enough that she would wake up. When he let go of her, attempting to back away, he found that Botan had somehow managed to attach herself to his wrist, curling around his hand as he watched.
Hiei couldn't help a small smile at the slightly silly gesture; it was almost as if she was clutching at a favorite teddy-bear.
He spent that night on the window sill, after moving her grasp to his ankle. Botan would wake up the next morning never knowing what had happened.
(1) The practice of a whipping boy was employed somewhen in someplace in Europe, probably England, when you weren't allowed to strike royalty; as a result, a non-noble child was beaten in place of the prince. He was known as the whipping boy.
Author: Dreaming of Everything dreams_of_all
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho
Characters/Pairings: Hiei/Botan
Rating/Warnings: PG/K+, pretty tame. Warnings for het and unrealistic romance.
Summary: AU HieiBotan fic. Hiei, a mass murderer who now regrets his acts, is being held captive in a stone tower by King Enma for political reasons. Botan, a witch in training, crashes through his window to escape from a mob that wants to burn her.
Last Chapter:
"...Because I think he loves you," said Yusuke with a defeated sigh.
Now:
"Eh?" managed Botan.
Yusuke remained silent.
"Why would you think that?" she questioned further. "Is it because he didn't kill me?"
"He no longer kills," said Yusuke flatly. "Did you see him walk towards you when you panicked? Did you see the pain on his face when you flinched away from him? He fed you. Watched over you. Cared for you."
"But..."
"Just think about it."
"..."
"Just think it over."
"...Uh... What do you mean you and Kurama aren't exactly his wardens?"
"Kurama works as Koenma's gardener, and I'm Crown Prince Koenma's whipping boy. (1) Kurama's supposed to bring him his meals-everyone else is supposed to stay away from the forest and this tower especially, with him the only exception-but they became close friends. Neither will exactly admit it... I just found my way here and come to visit him."
Botan thought, her mind obviously busy, troubled, churning, struggling to wrap itself around so many difficult new concepts.
"I have to get going now. HIEI! Get up here! I need to go and want you two to work it out! Don't avoid it, be honest, try not to be scary! I know you can do it, shrimp!"
Before either person involved could say anything Yusuke was gone.
Hiei hesitated at the bottom of the ladder that led up to the upper floor.
Botan hesitated, pushing herself off of the bed. A distant part of her mind noticed that now she could move herself slightly, today. Soon she should be able to stand. Energy draining was severe and then it was gone.
Hiei hesitated for a moment more before climbing back up to the main floor.
He expected panicked screaming, revulsion, disgust, hate.
It's what he deserved, after all.
He couldn't stop a slight cringe, invisible to the girl on the bed, as he anticipated her reaction.
The silence remained, with no reaction, not even a break in her steady breathing.
Hiei turned his eyes up from the floor to gaze at her, looking at him steadily, if nervously, from across the word. He could see she was tense, eyeing him warily, but she was not panicked. Confusion seeped into his mind as he began to process it... No fear? Why?
She was scared, though, just not wildly, panickedly. She was being... cautious. Careful. Sensible. Common sense had overtaken her gut reaction, but Hiei knew better than to imagine that she would ever move beyond wary toleration. He knew that the common sense that had stopped the panic would always see the stupidity in ever trusting a mass-murderer... No, he knew better than to think that. It had happened before...
He wrenched his mind away from his spiraling thoughts as Botan drew in a slightly larger breath, about to speak.
"...You are the Forbidden Child."
The cold statement hurt. "Yes." His mask was firmly in place; he would keep himself out of any more trouble than he was already in for; he had let it slip more than it should have.
Botan started slightly at the cold tone he answered her statement with. He looked nearly... Lonely? Yes, and troubled by her statement.
"W... Would it be okay if I still call you Hiei?"
A brief nod was her only answer.
He would not get attached. He would not permit himself to care for her.
No, never again. Never, never again.
That hurt enough that he knew that he had already failed.
He had had...years to think over his actions, an endless monotony broken only by the visits of Kurama, Yusuke, Yukina and... and...
He had had years of only his own thoughts.
Vaguely Hiei noticed that his confused thoughts were creating an uncomfortable silence. Maybe Botan would take it as avoidance, another reason to leave him to his own devices... As long as she was no longer panicked in his presence he could live with himself. Not that he had any other choice... It was a disturbingly painful option, but one he could accept. One he would have to...
And after all, she only wanted to continue calling him by his name because it wouldn't remind her of who he was. Had been.
A sudden movement caught his attention and he snapped back to reality to see Botan attempting to lower herself back onto the bed, her arms beginning to shake as her weight grew too much for them; while she was beginning to recovering, she was nowhere near healthy yet.
Her efforts proved too much and she collapsed, half-on and half-off of the bed. Her body cringed against the expected impact with the cold stone floor, but it never came. A few seconds after when the impact should have been she opened her reflexively closed eyes to find herself held off of the floor. She relaxed against the warm body holding her, a sigh of relief shushing out of her. A few seconds later her brain supplied the information that had been missing: that Hiei had caught her, and that yes, he was the Forbidden Child.
Paradoxically, she was surprised about how calmly she realized it. In fact, it was almost as if she didn't react at all... There was something intrinsically comforting and protecting about the warm body she was pressed against; later she would wonder why he was warmer than a human would be. The energy from her adrenaline rush had worn off, and she was still inordinately tired from the escape from her own personal lynch mob, and she supposed that that was some of the reason she felt so relaxed. Botan resisted the urge to snuggle into Hiei and allowed him to deposit her safely onto the bed.
She supposed that she would be slightly disturbed by her lack of reaction later on.
"Thanks," she murmured as she lay back onto the bed. Her eyelids felt heavier than they should, drifting closed... Botan's last thought before she fell asleep was to realize that Hiei hadn't taken up his customary perch on the window-ledge above her bed. It made her hurt, in a strange way...
oOo
Hiei was... Confused. Nearly angry.
She had been so trusting, nearly falling asleep in his arms...
He watched her swiftly drift into sleep from the other side of the room, leaning against the unforgiving stone blocks of the wall. He ignored the window sill, his normal vantage point; his nearness would only increase her edginess, the last thing he wanted, and, somehow... Somehow, it didn't seem right to sit there, when it was the farthest away from the tower he could get, the closest he could get to free.
He knew he deserved his punishment.
Still... She hadn't pushed away from him when he caught her. She had seemed nearly happy, cradled in his arms, content and lazily satisfied... It had seemed like she was almost asleep, that she had trusted him enough to do that...
He pushed the thoughts away, shaking them off both mentally and physically. No. Never again. No one will love you.
He slipped into a nearly meditative state-long hours with nothing to do had required him to learn how-and slowly, by degrees, slipped into sleep.
oOo
Both Hiei and Botan awoke at the sound of Kurama's slight cough, as he stood, another package of food in hand, just outside the windowsill, balanced on a branch, politely waiting for someone to invite him inside.
"Mmmph... Wha?" muttered Botan sleepily as she struggled upright from under the heavy blankets she was covered with. Hiei noted that she made it all the way up, and fairly easily; energy draining hit hard and fast, but wasn't long-lasting.
"Fox." said Hiei in greeting, not very gracefully.
The boy gracefully leapt inside the room, happy to have finally been noticed; it would be rude to merely enter without permission, and he had chores to get too still. Despite that, his curiosity wouldn't allow him to leave; he had heard some of what had happened between Hiei and Botan from Yusuke, but not all, and not what had happened once he'd left.
"How are you doing, Botan?" he asked, doing his level best to keep the curiosity out of his voice.
Botan paused for a second, collecting her thoughts. "Better, actually. I can sit up now," there was a slight amount of surprise in her voice, as if she was just noticing she could as well.
"Wonderful," said Kurama warmly. Mentally, to Hiei, he said What happened?
Kurama had to forcefully keep himself from wincing as Hiei flashed through the welter of forceful, frighteningly vivid emotions that had flashed through his mind, all compressed into a few instants and overlaid with the events that had occurred. He couldn't help but notice, though, that Botan had responded in a remarkedly positive way; she was more uneasy around him, now that the shock had worn off, but she wasn't panicked, she wasn't overly wary. Her reaction when Hiei had caught her seemed to reflect that she wasn't subconsciously frightened of him, at least, and there was the basis for more there... And he certainly had a vested interest in any potential for romance involving Hiei.
What do you plan to do? he asked the half-koorime.
There was a bleak, desperate hopelessness to the silence.
She doesn't seemed frightened of you, you know. In fact, judging by how she reacted when you caught her, I'd be inclined to think the opposite, or at least that there's the potential for that. My guess would be that it's shock that made her react the way she did, and that once she's had time to think it over she'll make a different, and more rational, decision. After all, you didn't offer her any harm before.
Kurama felt the tiniest hint of hope begin to blossom in Hiei before the link was suddenly cut short. The fire-demon glared at him from across the room. Kurama offered a bland smile in return.
Botan watched this non-verbal exchange with confusion. What had happened? She was still fuzzy from just waking up... Maybe she had missed something. Oh well, too late now. She stretched underneath the covers, luxuriating in their warmth. How long had she been asleep for, anyways? From the feel of it, past lunch. Breakfast. Some meal, anyways.
"Excuse me?" she said. She immediately was the center of attention. Botan couldn't help blushing slightly. "May I please have something to eat? I seem to have missed breakfast."
"Ah... Of course," said Kurama, mentally berating himself for forgetting something like that, while Hiei, generally confused, slipped back into his mental wanderings: he was wondering, rather hopelessly, why she had no signs of panic, or even fear, at all and whether there was any chance, no matter how slight, that Kurama might be right.
Botan snuck a slightly nervous glance at Hiei. While he was always quiet, and always kept his emotions carefully under control, the extremity to this... blankness was unnerving.
She accepted the food Kurama handed her murmuring a polite word of thanks before beginning to eat.
"I'm afraid I have to go now," said Kurama apologetically. More quietly, for Hiei's ears alone, he added, "Think about what I said." Then he was out the window and gone, leaving silence in his wake.
Botan finished eating and sighed, slumping against the wall. I'm so confused! Hiei--the Forbidden Child--what do I believe? He was certainly nice enough, during the time I was here, even though I fell through his window, took his bed, intruded on his privacy... Quiet and antisocial somewhat, yes, but kind. Patient. He caught me when I fell... And then what Yusuke told me. He... loves me? The Forbidden Child? But... If I think about it... Years, entirely alone except for occasional visits from two friends, with only his thoughts... He'd be so lonely. Years... It would make sense that he's changed, yes? Because he's not a mass-murderer anymore. There's Yusuke and Kurama and... and... Me. He has friends, now, and Yusuke did say he was lonely. He never threatened me, tried to keep who he 'really' was hidden. Yes, I think it's safe to say he's no longer who he was. But... Who is he now?
I do not fear him, for whatever reason. Once the shock wore off, anyways. When he caught me when I fell, the fact that I had a mass-murderer, the single most feared person in our world, holding me didn't frighten me. True, I was tired, but wouldn't that make me panic more? ...I suppose it's true, then, my subconscious mind is more rational than I am...
Either way, what's done is done, and over-all he seems like a... nice person, if you can call a taciturn fire demon 'nice.' I don't feel threatened, either way. And it's pointless, because I'm here either way, until I recover.
And there's certainly worse people to be stuck with, I suppose... He hasn't harmed me in any way, even though I'm a young, fairly attractive (if I must say so myself) teenage girl who's barely capable of movement, let alone self-protection...
And I missed him when he abandoned his perch at the window ledge for the other side of the room.
This was her last thought before she fell, suddenly and unexpectedly, asleep.
oOo
Hiei looked up from his moody and unproductive brooding some unspecified time later to see that Botan had fallen asleep, again, in a half-sitting position. Padding silently across the floor he paused by the bed, hesitating slightly. Before he let any more doubts grow in his mind (Should he touch her at all? What if she woke up and saw him? But, after all, that looked like a painful way to sleep, even for him...) he carefully shifted her, mindful not to jolt her enough that she would wake up. When he let go of her, attempting to back away, he found that Botan had somehow managed to attach herself to his wrist, curling around his hand as he watched.
Hiei couldn't help a small smile at the slightly silly gesture; it was almost as if she was clutching at a favorite teddy-bear.
He spent that night on the window sill, after moving her grasp to his ankle. Botan would wake up the next morning never knowing what had happened.
(1) The practice of a whipping boy was employed somewhen in someplace in Europe, probably England, when you weren't allowed to strike royalty; as a result, a non-noble child was beaten in place of the prince. He was known as the whipping boy.