Hotel Room

Someone was pounding on the door so hard that light from the hall glinted through the wood joints on each impact. Kurama heard; he did not panic when he should have. Instead, he picked a woven bookmark, a yarn and string creation he’d made in second grade for his mother, and slid it into his book. He was getting up to help Kuwabara with that tricky door handle, when the sound of metal shearing came from the other side of the door. Then it was flat on the ground.
Toguro ducked inside the room.
"Hello."
“I’m looking for your captain.”
“He’s out.” Kurama moved to offer him a seat on the bed, as the chairs were too small to hold him.
Toguro looked around.
“You’re welcome to wait, but I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
The man opened the door to the bathroom and leaned to see in.
Kurama drawled, “I was telling the truth, but feel free to look around.”
Toguro walked straight toward him and laughed. “From what I’ve heard, you’re acting more afraid than you need to be.”
“Not of you.” Kurama smothered a smile and held up his book. “Yotsuya Kaidan. I like horror stories.”
“Mm. I have a teammate you should talk to.”
Kurama smiled. “I believe I have.”
Toguro laughed, rubbing his chin. “So that’s what he meant.”
Kurama felt ill at ease. “Yes, I met Karasu and Bui after the match. We spoke. They did not seem to be acting in with accordance to you.”
“He and my brother argued about the wishes they had for the last match. He would be angry. It was about you.”
Kurama’s eyes narrowed. “Are you really going to –“ What did Yuusuke call it? “Talk trash about the finals until Urameshi returns?”
Toguro gave a social, false guffaw. “I wasn’t teasing you, doll. I didn’t say we’d get the wishes. Haven’t you planned for a win?”
“I suppose that’s been obscured by the more plebian concerns. Living through the matches and assassinations.”
Toguro smiled, “I can see I’m making you suspicious. My apologies, Yoko.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, looking around while he pulled a wrinkled envelope. He pointed at a pen on the lamp table. “Do you mind?”
Kurama shrugged.
“It is important that he get this. It’s from Sakyo. You can look, but it’s for him.” Toguro spelt out the characters of Yuusuke’s name shakily with the pen, dwarfed in his wide fist.
“I’ll write it,” Kurama offered.
Toguro smiled. “Sure.”
Kurama took the pen. “Should I tell him to be careful not to touch the sealing paper inside?”
Toguro pressed his lips together, and he vanished from the spot. Kurama felt his upper arm snap and then his feet hung off the ground. He screamed as the bones crunched by each other the tore into muscle and nerve.
A voice in his ear, “It was for you. I don’t mind taking you by force.”
Kurama reached for his rose, but found a hand around his wrist, squeezing tight.
“Like plucking a flower.” Toguro said, bending his wrist.
“Stop.” Kurama shut his eyes, quelling his voice. “I’ll come with you. Let go.”
He paused, then stressed the wrist until Kurama howled. “Maybe just the one.”
“No, I’ll touch it. I’ll touch it, please.”
Toguro shoved Kurama’s hand inside the envelope.
Kurama’s fingers touched the red tissue paper. He felt the hollow hairs crushed in the paper pierce easily through the skin on his fingers. Each hair was filled with a deadening poison. He recognized the structure, like nettles, but a thousand times more strong. Then no thought could enter his mind beyond rest. His joints felt easy and warm, and he slid down to the floor. His energy, human and demon, knotted dormant.
Toguro circled the boy.
Kurama slumped pathetically on the carpet. Toguro turned him over with a nudge of his boot. “Great. This won’t last long, will it?”
Kurama pretended he could not move his fingers and tried to whisper. Wordless.
“I should enjoy our short time together.” His thick fingers twisted into the front of Kurama’s ao dai, lifting him upward. “What do you think?”
Kurama hissed, whimpering at the jolt of his shoulder. His head lolled back as if he were already dead, or once again an infant. “Do what you will.”
“I choose face to face. I’ve got a condom.” He tossed Kurama backwards, letting him fall on the mattress.
“What?”
Toguro loosened his belt.
“Sakyo…hates waiting.”
“I didn’t do this for Sakyo, Yoko. I did this for fun.” He tossed his coat on one side of the boy and sat down on the other. He drew the flat of his hand down Kurama’s chest, over his jumping diaphragm, circled his abdomen. Tilting his head, he made a fist. He held it up, showing Kurama the size, and he grinned. Up close, his teeth were large as a horse’s and crammed together.
Kurama swallowed. “Toguro.”
“You’re small though. This might kill you.”
“Toguro!”
“Of course, that’s why I’m here. They were vague on how.”
Kurama shut his eyes and rested, drawing on his strength. He imagined carefully lifting himself up on his good elbow and tilting his head. Then, very slowly, he did.
Toguro jerked back, instantly.
“Genkai spoke better of you.”
“Lie down, boy.”
His arms were giving way, so Kurama let himself fall. He stared hard at the ceiling light, listening to the rustle and click of Toguro’s belt.
The pants hit the floor after the shoes, and then the shirt. Finally, the glasses. Kurama was hardly surprised. His eyes were a rude bright hazel, nearly gold.
“What, fox?”
“You…nothing.” Toguro had nice eyes.
“I have a face. You’re surprised.”
“Please,” Kurama said again. He fumbled his thin fingers over one of the man’s. “Please.”
“You sound…sweet.” He put his hand on Kurama’s knee, his face stern. “What are you hoping for? That I’ll walk away?”
“Please think on this.” he winced. “I have responsibilities.”
Toguro traced up and down the inside of his thigh with the tip of his middle finger.
“Is Mom as pretty as you?”
Kurama swallowed. Stupid, stupid!
“Interesting,” Toguro said.
Kurama waited for him to say more, but Toguro said nothing. He touched Kurama’s groin lightly, but did nothing more.
Kurama looked around. He licked his lips and watched Toguro’s face.
Toguro looked out the window, as though he were bored, fingers working smoothly.
Kurama groaned, “No,” and let himself become erect, as though he could no longer control himself. He held his thighs together for a moment, then gasped, letting them fall away, as though exhausted.
“Good boy.” Toguro said. “But I don’t think she would be proud.”
“You’re human,” Kurama said, shaking. “You won’t kill her.”
“You’re wrong.”
Kurama looked at him slowly. Then he smiled and shook his head. “I’m not.”
The man sniffed and shook his head, a screwed grin emerging. “Doesn’t mean this will hurt any less.”
“It’s ok.” Kurama said. “I like pain. To die in pain is fine.”
Toguro drew his hand back.
Kurama blinked down. “It’s not unheard of.”
“I didn’t expect it from someone…your age.”
Kurama laughed.
“You just seemed…” Toguro shook his head, genuinely thrown.
Kurama sighed. “Pain is something that interests those interested in endorphins. It’s a balancing game. You wouldn’t believe how little I can feel my arm.”
“You’re…so perfect besides that.” He seemed confused, like a high schooler learning that one could change cliques.
“And now I’m more perfect. You can do whatever you want and I’ll thank you. Oh wait, but you wanted me to hurt? To plead, cry. I can.”
“I just wanted– “
“Did you want fun, Toguro-san? You wanted to be amused? With another person’s body?”
Toguro sat still for a moment. Then he reached down and flicked Kurama’s slippers off.
Kurama rolled his eyes, breath catching in shallow heaves.
“You coming or crying?”
Kurama wept. Tears stroked his cheeks and muddied his sight. He locked his gaze on Toguro and slowly, deliberately chewed his lips red and licked them to shine. Pouting, he spoke, his words scraping through Toguro’s ears like the screech of bone on bone. “I’m beg you…”
Toguro covered his mouth with a hand. Then he shoved a finger past Kurama’s teeth, pinning his tongue down. “Keep this simple. Don’t speak.”
Kurama’s face twisted with disdain.
Toguro gagged him, shoving his fingers in slowly. He curled his finger around the root of Kurama’s tongue. The boy jerked his head away and backwards, but Toguro’s hand followed him.
Toguro pumped his fingers once and again before pulling back. Whatever Kurama said, Toguro liked the boy’s thoughts and the terse phrases he used to express them.
“I – “ Kurama only got out one blurred syllable. Then he spasmed as though he were choking and jerked over. He vomited beer and bread onto the mattress.
Toguro grimaced.
Kurama took a half breath before vomiting again, only messy clear bile this time. He winced, but relaxed suddenly. Toguro realized sharply how hard the boy had been fighting the seal; without tension, his body was supple and frail as a blade of grass.
“Feel better?”
“A human throat is more delicate…but you are human.” Kurama’s voice was grotesque. Toguro went to get him a cup of water, as he would for a child or an old parent. The fox kept speaking, “I am not your build. You can’t treat me like that.”
“You smell.” Toguro snapped open a thin hotel washcloth and wiped Kurama’s face.
“Did you do that on purpose?” Kurama spoke through the cloth.
“Did you?” He poured water into the boy’s mouth, who swallowed it in tiny sips. After letting him breath, he wiped Kurama’s teeth.
“I hate…throwing up.”
“I'm sure the toddler will make a note of that in your file.”
Kurama shut his eyes.
“Don’t play dead,” Toguro said, flicking the washcloth. It snapped through on of the windowpanes, shattering glass outward onto the forest.
Kurama’s eyes snapped open at the sound and his breath picked up again. There were red veins rising in the whites of his eyes and his lips were trembling.
“Real now?”
“What?”
“You pretending what you think I want again?”
Kurama cast a confused look at the nasty stain soaking into the bed.
Toguro wiped his fingers through the vomit and slapped Kurama across the face, who stared.
“You can stop worrying.” He hefted Kurama’s head, reaching around from behind to wrap his fingers around, and drove his face into the mess. The boy cried out, then held his breath and squinched up. “You see?” He shook the boy. “If I have to train you like a dog. No!” He bellowed in the kid’s ear.
“Sorry, sorry.” Kurama hissed.
“Good boy.”
“It was an accident, your fingers…Goddess…p-please go.”
“I can't leave you lying here like that.” He picked him up, folding the boy’s body over his arm like a coat.
Kurama saw a reeling mesh of carpet, trouser, linoleum. He heard the seat of the toilet drop and the tap squeaked and the water hitting the bottom of the tub. Toguro’s arm slid from his middle and he fell face down into the tub. He gasped into a thin film of water.
The man pulled his clothes off.
The water crept up his skin and the side of the tub. Kura felt his body melting away from his control, that feeling of panic. He wanted to cry out for – he could barely remember who was alive and who was dead anymore. He forced himself to think who was there. Hiei. Yuusuke. His team, their friends.
Even those strongest two wouldn’t put a scratch on the man.
The water leaked into his mouth. He shut his lips to hold his breath.
Toguro’s hand shot down Kurama’s thigh. He splashed his genitals with water, then forced a finger inside him. Kurama sputtered, jerking up a little in the tub, but said nothing, only stared.
After a minute, the water was deepening. Kurama pushed himself away from the spigot until his head was propped higher against the back of the tub.
Toguro began splashing him with water. Toguro imagined it would be good to be a human again. He liked the warm water, bubblebath and terrycloth. He gripped the cream colored ass under his palm and daydreamed about a girlfriend who would jump on his back with her arms around his neck. He would play cards at night with laughing friends and beer and chips, like Kurama played with his friends. It wasn’t fair. It hadn’t been a fair deal. And here was this little shit, pretending he understood being mortal when at the end of the day, he would simply skip back to his true form in the Makai and forget.
“Are you crying?” Toguro noticed the fragile shoulders jerking.
Kurama tried to turn away. He felt the corners of his mouth wrenching down in a sob and pulled his hand up over his face.
Toguro was delighted.
Kurama turned red with humiliation, but he’d passed the point where he could stop.
After a few minutes, Kurama sniffed and catch in a breath. He let it out slowly and asked, as though speaking presumed control, “What’s next?”
Toguro said nothing, but stoked him with wet fingers.
Kurama finally relaxed in his hand. He turned to the man’s great palm and let his face rest against it.
“Oh. Good puppy.”
He slid his finger inside the boy again. Kurama’s shoulders twitched, but there was nothing in his face. Kurama did warn quietly, “Careful.”
Toguro curled his fingers and smiled, seeing ripples quiver across the bathwater as Kurama shivered.
“Now, a little deeper…how’s that?”
“I just…” Kurama smothered the sentence. He wished he were at home, where she’d be there, turning a slice of cake to face the right direction, folding the napkin under the plate after she’d used it, poking him with the fork to make him talk or eat. Mother. “Please let me go home.”
“I thought you liked pain.”
“I was LYING!” Kurama shouted.
Toguro pulled him out and onto his lap. He tilted Kurama to rest against his chest, then scrubbed at him with a towel. Kurama stared up at him, seeing the underside of that great face. Toguro kissed him, a through but shallow kiss. Then he turned to the side, spat, and kissed him again, as though he were sucking a snake bite.
Kurama nearly enjoyed the towel, the kissing; both were so plain and comforting he felt like he was four again - some twisted and abused four, but a wanted child nevertheless. The emotion belied his long legs and size ten feet; his toes were scraping the tile. Kurama relaxed. Death was not coming for the moment. Then he felt blood pumping into the man’s shivering groin and the anticipation of pain made him want to whimper and thrash.
“There now, calm down.” The man’s callused, bear claw hand trailed up his moist spine, and supported his form while the other touched his groin delicately. “A real red head.”
Kurama spat, “Have some respect.”
Toguro ground down and Kurama muttered, “You iniquitous rat.” But he groaned, and the man was pleased.
“You like to be touched.”
“Shut up.”
Toguro kissed him again and worked his tongue into Kurama’s mouth. The boy did not try to bite or hold him off with clenched teeth, but his lips were hardly parted. “Open wide.”
Kurama forced his mouth open slightly. Toguro placed his finger on his lip. Kurama looked afraid, and so caught the tip of the man’s finger up in his mouth and closed his lips on it, licking and sucking the thick flesh but never letting the nail bed past his teeth.
“Nice,” Toguro crooned. His brows bent in compliment.
Kurama kept on for a minute, then bowed, moving back slightly. His eyes seemed strangely green suddenly, more natural. “Toguro. If I do these…acts for you…would you leave me alive?”
Toguro shook his head.
“Would you…leave my comrades alive?”
Toguro tilted his head. “Which one?”
Kurama looked up and shook his head. “No. I won’t pick.”
Toguro shrugged. “And here I was so generous as to make you an offer.”
“That was a threat, not an offer. Why me?”
“You’re the best fighter. Why not you?”
“I’m the weakest, you mean; but you could take any one of them. Are you afraid of Yuusuke?”
Toguro tossed Kurama onto the floor. He stood over the boy and massaged his groin. He pulled out his cock, watching the youth cringe, and shook himself. “Good thing it takes more than a scrimpy rack of bones to make me feel good. You disgust me. But I suppose I don't have to fuck you before I snap your neck.” He began to urinate, first on the boy’s foot, then up his skinny legs, over his stomach, his tight shoulders, his covered face.
He stomped lightly with his shoe, breaking an ankle and a rib, but nothing vital.
Kurama held his breath, but the stench hung over him, over his hair and pooled on the floor. And his bones, his foot. His arm was swelled like a melon from the initial break when he’d refused to touch the seal. His mind couldn’t process all the cruelty.
Toguro turned his face up with his shoe. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing at all,” Kurama said, shaking his head.
Toguro unhooked the showerhead and doused him. The tile floor flooded. The water was icy, numbing, then scalding.
Kurama twitched, trying to protect himself and weighing each motion against the chance of Toguro picking up on it.
The man was insane. Toguro put the toe of his boot against Kurama’s ass, knocked his legs apart and ground the tread against his genitals, then half stepped on Kurama’s skull.
Kurama screamed out then, and the man took his hair and threw him toward the bed, his body scraping over the carpet.
“Up on your knees.”
Kurama tried. Toguro caught him up by the hips, settling behind him. Kurama rested his fists and forehead on the carpet.
He’ll put it in now, Kurama thought, trying to talk himself off the ledge his sanity perched on. He’ll put it in and it will hurt. They’ll find bruising and tears in the body later. The tears will feel the worst while it happens.
Toguro hit his dick lightly against the pretty skin. He had to hold the boy up, one hand under his abdomen.
“How much do you want?”
“I don’t. Are you joking?”
“In you. Can you take it all at once?”
Kurama must have misheard him. Either way, he was astounded at the stupid inquiry. “Of course not. You’re inhuman. You -“
The man smacked him. It was angry, random; it hit his side and drove him into the floor. The broken rib shifted dangerously, threatening to catch tissue, and Kurama warned shrilly, “You broke my rib, Toguro. In the bathroom – “
“You should hear yourself. Whiny cunt.”
Kurama said quietly, “If Genkai heard you…”
“She’ll be dead, Kurama. I’m going to end her. You know why? It’s my job. That’s how little a human life matters on this side.” He slapped the red hair. Then he gathered it up and let it fall through his fingers. It felt like hers. He threw the boy’s head against the floor, laughing at the bounce. People were really only material after all, pliant and sturdy.
“Why are you on that side, Toguro?” It was strange to hear a sentence making it through that flushed, swollen contortion of a face. “Why aren’t you with us?”
“You’re not one of them!”
“No, I know. Inari, I know what I am. I meant…Urameshi’s team. The Reikai. You could do so much good.”
“I don’t see good. I don’t see evil – I see a little goddamn fox in human skin – “
“Hiei’s a demon; I am too. I understand that. I’m not like them, I don’t eat - I don’t kill humans. I’m not like you.”
“Like me.”
“I can say it. I’m going to die anyway. This is an execution, isn’t it? If the torture were going to stop while I lived, you’d have asked me a question. You’d have given my hope.”
Toguro was having a difficult time staying erect. He didn't have the stomach, or the experience.
The boy looked at him, seeing a truth in his body that his choices didn't show. “May I ask why you, and not Karasu? He would have enjoyed it more.”
“You would have killed him.”
“Maybe not. I might have fucked him.”
Toguro felt that strange twist in his heart. To hear a fifteen year old say something like that. That Yoko gave him a thousand years experience was only more reason to expect prudence. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’m kidnapped, forced to fight and put my loved ones in danger, and about to be killed in a cheap economy class hotel room. By a pedophile. How are you doing?” Kurama glared back at him. The malice in his words was young, was teenage, ornery hate. “Will it be Genkai after me? Top a showy, domineering rape and murder, by killing the first and last and only woman to know and love you? The one who fought by you?”
“She fought against me.”
“She fought for you.” Kurama rolled over, locking eyes. “She fought for you.”
Trying to distract him, Toguro felt into the boy. “You’re small.”
“Unwilling.”
“Relax.”
“Why?”
“Because it will hurt less.” He jammed his finger in.
Kurama grimaced and shouted, “You’re sick! Your nail!”
“For a botanist, you’re not very hardy. Don’t you know what happens with that Darwinian selection.”
Kurama brought his breathing under control. Toguro aligned himself, rubbing the tip.
“Toguro. Let me ask something.”
“Like I could shut you up.”
“You could. May I ask…are you going to feel better after this?”
Toguro worked himself, trying to harden again.
“Is it the killing you like, or the sex? Will you feel good after you kill me? Will it be better than after the rape?”
“No.”
“The rape then, you prefer that to killing?”
“I don’t prefer any of it. It’s just an order.”
“You could just snap my neck.”
“So what?" He growled. "I’m not allowed to play with my food?”
“Am I food, to you? Not a person?”
Toguro dropped him. “You’re a job.”
“They didn’t tell you to kill me. What did they say?”
Toguro sighed. “You’re going to die one way or another.”
“Why do you think I’m going to die?”
“You’re all dead. Look how you ended up on the floor.” He was holding his breath and finally exhaled. “It’s better this way.”
“Please let me…sit up?” Kurama lifted himself slowly. “May I say something?”
“No.”
“Thank you for choosing me.”
“What?”
“You’re trying to save Genkai by killing me. You have to kill someone on this team, right? Messily, to intimidate us. To scare anyone from joining us late. Sakyo can end this tomorrow and get on with his life if our team is short a person. Why not Kuwabara?”
“That would be…beneath me.”
“Are you attracted to me?”
“Yes.”
“Or you’re fixated on me. Because you miss your humanity, and you think I know how to get it for you. I don't.” Kurama pointed to his own face. “I was able to merge because I was one of Inari's white foxes. You have powers of a demon, but you aren’t one. You’ll have remain as you are. As you chose to be. I’m sorry if you’ll have to watch the rest of us indulge in the sensual.”
Toguro reached for his throat. Then his hand shifted. Toguro lifted Kurama and lay him on the bed.
“I’ll make it quick.”
“Why me?”
“I came for Yuusuke.”
“Is that fair that I die because you couldn’t find Yuusuke?”
“I’m killing you because…because.” He knelt by the bed. “They will execute the others. You, they plan to keep.”
“Why?"
“They could have done so much worse, child. You have no idea who I work with. Who I live with. What I live with. You got out of this world, if you were ever in it. You were a loner.”
Kurama reached over to touch him. His hand bumped against the man’s chest. “I was a scavenger.”
“Now it’s me eating scraps. I get it.”
“No. I was addicted. The impossible lock, the most guarded, the most valuable, beautiful, or sacred. When I became human, I could change. But you’re still human. You can change.”
“You said I was a monster.”
“I meant you’re a larger build and will never understand how it feels to be fragile, to be small enough to be crushed.”
“I’m sure that’s what hell is for.” He looked at the small body and drew a hand down, cupping Kurama’s groin. “I’ll let you choose; how do you want to die?”
“Old age.”
He laughed, his voice breaking. “That is the only way I didn’t want to die.”
“Don’t touch me. This is a mockery – oh – “ His eyebrows drew together, trembling.
Toguro pulled on him, taking joy in the boy’s arching hips. Finally, he said, “I want to make your team angry. So they fight strong. I want them to burn cold with fury. I’ll make up the specfics as I go.”
“Can’t you say no one was here? Can’t you wait for Yuusuke?”
Toguro said nothing.
“Don’t touch me.”
Toguro shook his head. “Take it up with the toddler later. Have him put it on my tab.”
Kurama could see his own death coming like a waterfall’s horizon. It was not here now, but it was coming. The bucking horomones rode him closer, deceptively smooth and full.
Toguro leaned over, taking a lush mouthful of the young man’s flesh. His mouth smacked loudly and Kurama felt vertigo.
“I want to drown.” That would get him out of the room. “Please. Drown me. You can mutilate the body.”
Toguro leaned back. His thoughts were intuitive leaps, and now he felt mainly he needed to close in on the boy, circling like a raptor before ending his life, then hanging on for a moment like a tiger after a kill to make sure the fox was dead. “No.”
Kurama’s mouth went wide, trying not to sob. “Why.”
Toguro thought of pushing him under, the beautiful hair floating out like it lay there on the pillow. He nodded and stood. “Okay then. But not in the ocean. Not even in the forest you love.”

Kurama did not even wait until he was in the bathroom. As soon as Toguro was away, Kurama began to roll his hips and shoulders up on the side. He fell on the broken arm then and stifled a scream in the cheap, polyester comforter.
He rolled onto his face, then up on his other side.
Pushing himself around with his feet, he hooked his legs over the far side of the bed and pulled. He slid. Along with the comforter, he landed in a heap on the far side of the bed.
They were only three floors up, counting the lobby. The drop wouldn’t kill him.
He pulled his knees up, and rolled on top of them. Leaning on his elbow, he pulled himself forward. The carpet, that he’d once laughed it for being thin, was too thick now. Too much friction. He was bogged down in it.
Inches later, he reached up to the sliding door handle. He pulled off the lock.
Inhaling against the pain, he lay his broken arm in his lap. Spreading his palm against the glass, he sat up and put all his weight against the door. It squeaked and slid open.
He crawled. His crushed ankle caught on the door track. Kurama keened under his breath, lifting his leg to clear the ledge.
The porch was a few inches drop down onto rubbery painted cement. It was good traction.
He dragged himself to the slats of the railing.
Taking a moment, he looked down. There was probably lawn. Probably rock and patches of asphalt, invisible from this angle.
Kurama looked a moment. His eyes were squinted nearly blind, lashes tangled in tears. His mouth was wide and red from weeping. He grabbed the wood slat in front of him and pulled himself up on his knees. From there, he edged his good knee out and put that foot firmly on the ground.
He pushed up, careening into the corner of the wood railing. He winced, silent, as the shoulder above the break hit the wood.
But it wasn’t enough to stop for now.
He dragged his chest over the rail, hopping to get his foot under him.
He felt a warm arm curling around him.
“No – Inari – “
Toguro planted a hand on the rail on either side of him. In his ear, he said, “I thought you deserved to see the forest once more. Tell it goodbye, Yoko.”
Kurama looked at the man.
He could see it was over. Toguro was at the precipice, going down, and anything Kurama said would just tip him into the abyss more quickly. So Kurama looked out to the forest.
Even after the obvious damage, the clear cutting and waste disposal from the hotel, and the countless illegitimate matches and free practices, the forest was heavy translucent green.
The leaves were spattered with light.
If Kurama let Yoko listen, he heard all the creatures and trees, each being and all the stories, garbled and meaningless, but potent, transient.
Kurama wept. He lifted his arm. Pressing his fingertips to his lips, he held them out to the forest.

Inside the room, the air was stifling.
“Please. You know I just chose that to make you leave. Just throw me over.”
“No,” Toguro said. “No briar patch for brother fox.”
Kurama took all his force and when Toguro leaned down showily to grab him, struck at his jugular.
Toguro caught Kurama’s hand with his fingers. Pinching, he snapped one of the tiny phlanges of Kurama’s middle finger.
The fox keened and wept. No arms. One good leg.
“What do you want then?”
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. My family…Inari…” Kurama turned to the woods and, inhaling deeply, shrieked with a force that caused tremors in Toguro’s ear drums: “HELP ME!”
“No, no, now. There.” He pulled the fox’s injured, half functioning hand off the rail in a shower of torn splinters.

Kuwabara, in the other room, woke up from a gory nightmare and hit the light.
“Crrreepy.” No one.
He sat up and went to check the other rooms. Maybe Shizure had noticed it.

Yuusuke was balled up, in far too much pain to differentiate.

Hiei let the light die from his hands. He shut his eyes and looked around. Then he shook the saltwater from his sword. He grabbed his cloak.

“I’m afraid of drowning, Toguro. I’m afraid – “ Kurama seemed smaller. One leg curled up, the broken arm held across by the injured hand, and he seemed folded up.
“All deaths are frightening.” Toguro kept a tight hold on the fox’s hair. He sat on the toilet and leaned over. He checked the water with his hand. “Your bath’s ready.”
“It smells in here.”
“I won’t leave your body in the tub. You’ll be on the bed. I’ll close your eyes.”
“You can’t do that.” Kurama said.
“What?”
“If you do that, there’s no point to the violence.”
Toguro sighed. He would leave the boy floating in the tub, as he died, or if that wasn’t enough, he would put him spread eagled on the bed, with semen splattered over his hair, if Toguro could manage it. “I was trying to give you some peace, boy.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said, lifting the boy to his lap. He angled Kurama’s feet in. One ankle was slate colored with bruising. “It won’t buy you time.”
“Strangle me. I like that.”
The tone was odder than the words. Toguro stopped. “You like that?”
“Asphyxiation. You can touch me again and strangle me as I come. Then it won’t matter that you haven’t ejaculated; there will still be immediate, iconic evidence of sexual assault, visible to the naked eye when my team returns. On the bed, please, away from the water. Foxes don’t like water, you know that.”
Toguro sighed. "Another lie."
Kurama winced.
Yet Toguro pulled him out. He carried him to the bed and lay him down. “What now?”
Shivering, Kurama held his hands over his chest and looked at the ceiling. His lips moved a few times before sound emerged. He looked to the slide door.
Toguro circled and closed it. “No more Neverland, Wendy. Time for the real world. How do you want it?”
Kurama panted. He shut his eyes for a moment. Then he instructed, “Your belt.”
Toguro sat down beside him and rubbed his thigh. “My belt.”
“You put it around my throat and pull. You do whatever you want to me. As I’m starting to cum, you pull the belt tighter. The lack of oxygen…” he shut his eyes, trying to control his panic. “Will induce cerebral anoxia in the brain, causing perceptions of exhilaration, fear, and arousal to be reinterpreted. If I orgasm then, it will be mind blowing.”
Toguro leaned back; he had been mouthing the boy’s smooth genitals. “You’re sick.”
“You’re raping a fifteen year old boy so that you can indulge in a more gruesome murder.”
Toguro smacked him.
Kurama inhaled shakily. His lip bled. He held still, like a frightened animal. The blood pooled. It dripped toward his nose, then rolled sideways, across his cheek and down his jaw. "That was true."
Toguro stood, jabbing a finger at the boy’s eyes. “I should have drowned you. That would have been quiet. I could have loosed some blood in the water."
"You sick - "
"I'm not sick. This is the only way."
"You're insane, you monster."
"Don’t speak like that to me again, Yoko.”
Kurama touched his tongue to the blood.
Toguro stood, looking for his belt.

There was a tinkling explosion.
Toguro turned to see the small demon’s sulking red eyes. Then everything was burning, hideously black, and he was screaming. The dragon was screaming; he was wrestling teeth. When he was able to see, he was hundreds of miles away, sinking in saltwater, but otherwise unharmed.

“Thank you, Hiei,” Kurama smiled.
Hiei blinked, sleepily. “If you would return to your natural form, these disasters wouldn’t happen. Hedonist.” Hiei offered him his coat. “Put it on, quickly.”
Kuwabara opened the door, yelling, “Did you hear that? Whoa, what happened to the other half of the room? And the hotel. Did Shorty had a nightmare?”
“It was my nightmare, Kuwabara. Hiei simply woke me.”
“Aren't you a sound sleeper.”
“If either of you wake me before the fight,” Hiei yawned. “I will take out the other half of the hotel, with you in it. Is that understood?” He fell over on the carpet.
“Eh,” Kuwabara said, picking him up. “This ain’t LEED standard anymore. Come on to my half of the hotel; it has a minibar. Jeez! What happened to you?”
“Toguro sealed my life force with a poison. I’m fighting it, but it would be best if I rested, along with Hiei.”
“I don’t think you should be sleeping after dreams like that.”
“Hiei did that. It’ll be fine. I need your help to move though.” Kurama touched his arm. "I'm injured."
“No prob. Let me put Hiei in my pocket so I have a free hand, heh.”
Kuwabara helped Kurama put Hiei’s cloak on. It was tight in the shoulders, but Kurama wrapped it tightly over his body, enjoying the high collar.
“Don’t worry. Men are men! We’re meant to be naked anyway.”

Kurama recovered silently, while Kuwabara brought him a steady stream of packaged foods he’d brought from home. The crappy ramen was somehow comforting. Kurama slept, wounds splinted, with Botan’s hands over him and Hiei at his side.
When Yuusuke came home, he paid a visit to Sakyo’s rooms. There was shouting, but no fire, no energy. He returned victorious, a goofy smile blanking his face. “They don’t have Toguro back yet, so we’re getting a reprisal. Two days.”
The human’s cheered.
Kurama felt a curl of energy touch him, and looked over. Hiei blinked slowly and muttered, “Didn’t you warn him? He’s teacher’s probably being slaughtered this instant.”
“I did," Kurama pouted at the insinuation. "Yuusuke said she could handle herself. I wasn’t in the position to argue.”
“Unfortunate.”
“We’ll both be better off with two days rest.”
Hiei corrected him, “Unfortunate that Genkai must die here.”
Kurama felt fury and shame bloom together inside him. “That monster, Toguro, was her responsibility. Let her figure it out.”
“Still angry? It wasn’t her fault.”
“I know it wasn’t mine. They were partners. I would be accountable if you went insane.”
“Right now, we’re all insane for thinking we’ll be alive at the end of the week.”
“I will be.”
“Me too.”
Kurama let out a shuddering breath and smiled. “I’m going to go to the forest when I heal.”
“Can I have my book back?”
“You burned it.”
“Damn.”
“I have a worse story for you, if you’re interested.”
Hiei shook his head quietly. “I was watching.”