Fox Hunt
[Two]
by Lori McDonald
"So, there they were, these
two kids out for a nighttime drive, and they found they had car
trouble. So they pulled over to the side of the road into a
little park under a tree and the boy told the girl he’d go
for help and she should wait for him in the car."
Kurama leaned forward eagerly,
listening to the boy on the other side of the campfire tell his
story. Around him, the other kids on the camping trip were
wide-eyed as well, all staring at the speaker.
"So the boy left," the
narrator told them. "And the girl sat in the car. And it got
dark, and it got cold, and she heard branches from the tree above
the car scraping on the roof, like fingernails."
Everybody shivered, ooing in fear.
"After a while," they
were informed. "A police car drove into the park and stopped
a ways from the girl in the parked car. A policeman got out and
told the girl to get out of the car and to walk towards him, and,
no matter what, not to look behind her."
Kurama’s green eyes opened
wide in frightened anticipation.
"So the girl got out of the
car and started towards him. But she was a curious girl and just
before she reached him, she turned and looked back.
"And she saw her boyfriend
hanging upside down from the tree, his throat slit and his
fingernails brushing the roof of the car!"
Everybody screamed as a dark form
lurched out of the shadows at them, bellowing. Kurama fell
backwards, his hand instinctively reaching for a seed in his
panic to defend himself with, then the shadow’s face
resolved into that of one of the kids attending the camp,
grinning wickedly. "Gotcha!"
"Sho!" someone yelled.
"You jerk!" Sho just looked smug.
Kurama laughed with the others as
he returned to his seat, his heart still pounding in his chest.
It was stupid to have been afraid, since he’d sensed no ki
and he’d faced far worse things in the Makai without
flinching. But he’d heard once that humans in a group were
no smarter than their dumbest member. And some of the kids around
him were pretty dumb.
Someone started a new ghost story
as Kurama stood and headed down the darkened path to the
outhouses. All in all, camp was fun. He wasn’t sure Shiori
would let him go after what happened at the school dance, but his
mother had agreed that her son deserved a little fun. Besides,
his step-father had wanted the kids out of the house for a while.
His step-brother was at a camp of his own right now too.
Kurama made his way easily down
the path, familiar with the way though his human eyes
weren’t as sharp in the darkness as his Youkai ones. Even
after a week, he still couldn’t remember what happened after
he drank the spiked punch. Just flashes of green and black and a
feeling of heat. He shook his head. He probably never would and
his friends still refused to tell him what embarrassing things
he’d done.
Still, even though he was somewhat
angry at them for their silence, he missed them. Yuusuke and
Kuwabara were good friends as well as teammates and Hiei… he
missed the little fire demon. He loved the little fire
demon…
So tell him, he thought to
himself as he used the outhouse and started towards the campfire
again. Right. And let Hiei stare at him without expression and
vanish. Kurama sighed. He’d never had any inkling out of the
koorime that he thought of him as anything other than a friend.
He didn’t even know if he liked boys that way and Kurama was
sometimes curious as to why he did. When he’d been just
Kurama, before his reincarnation, he’d preferred women, but
now he seemed to like both genders. Kurama was straight, and
Shuuichi was gay. It was that simple. The only hard part was who
he chose to fall in love with.
Kurama stopped before he stepped
into the light of the campfire. His fellow campers were all
giggling and trying to act brave in the face of a story about yet
two more teenagers out to neck and a psychotic killer with a
hook. He sighed, not feeling like rejoining them. He was in the
first real Ningenkai wood he’d seen and he didn’t want
to be human. His fox blood was calling to him and instead he
slipped in among the trees. Shedding his form, he went on all
fours in the night, a silver fox with a multitude of tails,
vanishing with a grin into the darkness.
He could only hold the fox form
for a few hours. An hour into his time, Kurama ran down a gully
after a rabbit, his tongue hanging out of his mouth as he pursued
it towards its den, harrying at its legs and forcing it to turn
away from safety. Desperate and wide-eyed, it ran for the side of
the gully, its powerful legs propelling it up the side. The fox
flowed after it, intent on catching his supper before it got
away, and skidded to a disgusted halt as he saw a great owl
making off with the rabbit in its talons.
No fair! he thought after
it and grumpily licked at his paw to calm himself. So much for a
nice bloody snack. Not unless he could find something else.
Yipping to himself, he hopped up onto a tree stump and smelled
the night, searching for food. Bear, deer, a faint scent of a
moose… too large to hunt. He wanted something smaller.
Mountain lion; if he weren’t careful, he would be its
dinner. Partridge. His tongue lolled out of his mouth in a loose
jawed grin as he hopped off the stump and went in pursuit. A
little bite of bird would go down very nicely.
Cautiously, he stalked the
sleeping bird, hidden in a patch of grass by a tree trunk.
Careful not to move into a wind that would blow his scent to it,
he crept closer, belly to the ground. The grass rose up slowly
before him and faintly through it, he could make out the grays
and browns of the patterning on the bird’s wing.
Kurama pounced. There was a flash
of wings as the bird woke and tried to get away, but his teeth
closed around it. Growling, he pulled it down, shaking his head
madly to break its neck. The bird quivered and died. Pleased with
himself, Kurama carried it somewhere private to eat.
Ten minutes later, he lifted his
head, one feather sticking out of his mouth as he scented the
air. He couldn’t smell anything, but the forest had gone
very still, something that didn’t belong moving silently
through it. He reached out with his ki, but he couldn’t
detect anything of the Makai either, which might just mean that
whatever it was had warded itself to remain hidden. The fox
whined slightly. It probably was just a Ningenkai animal, but
there were plenty of those which could rip apart a Makai fox, or
even a human boy, and as a boy he’d never find his way back.
Four hundred years of life as a
fox demon had make Kurama very cautious, and that caution leaked
into his other forms. Picking up the bird in his mouth, Kurama
left the bower he’d found for himself, hurrying off into the
night in a circle back towards the campground.
Five minutes later, he stopped
again, the night sounds returned as he settled down to continue
his meal. His teeth bit deep into flesh and feathers, biting
through as he hunted for the tasty organs he hadn’t eaten
already, devouring them before he started on the rest. His tails
he curled around him, neatly arranged and glimmering in the
moonlight.
Then he felt as though something
were watching him. He only hesitated a moment, then grabbed the
bird and was off again. He dodged and twisted, heading through
the thickest thorn bushes and across a creek to lose his scent.
Satisfied at last that no one could have followed him through
that, he settled down once more.
In seconds, the feeling was back.
Kurama ran. Leaving the bird this
time, he bolted into the undergrowth as the feeling of being
watched was replaced with one of being chased. He fled
through the forest, twisting and turning, cursing his silver fur
that stood out so plainly as he tried to lose whatever pursued
him. He couldn’t hear it, or smell it. He just knew it was there
and the paranoia started by the stories told around the campfire
returned to him as he fled, not even knowing where to strike out
with his powers. Instead he just ran and ran…
Somehow, his pursuer got past him,
and Kurama ducked into a thornbush as he saw a shadow move.
Mindless of how the thorns tore his pelt, he raced through and
out the other side, almost into the claws of a bear. It slashed
at him and he sideskidded, racing away at top speed as it roared
at his retreating form and returned to its meal of grubs. Was it
a bear that was chasing him? Couldn’t be. Whatever was after
him was above, he realized. An owl? Would an owl try to take a
fox? A big one might. He whined and raced down the inside of a
hollow log.
A shadow crossed the exit he was
about to go out. Kurama skidded to a halt and raced the other
way. A shadow covered it as well, reaching for him. Panicked, he
filled the log with thorns and broke out through a rotten piece
of bark, sprinting for the nearby river down what smelled like a
mink trail. He didn’t even know where he was anymore. He was
miles from the camp now, beyond the designated parklands into
wilder woods, less tamed ones. He’d just never thought that
a Ningenkai forest could hold anything as dangerous as a Makai
one. Apparently, he’d been wrong.
Kurama raced down the path,
gasping, his strength waning from the long run. He’d have to
find someplace to hide, somewhere to go to ground. The smell of
mink was everywhere, maybe he could hide in one of their burrows.
He’d force them out if he had too. His fox instincts yelled
at him to get underground as a shadow fell over him, from
something following him through the trees, pacing him easily.
Kurama ran around a corner and
through a bush and suddenly something tightened around his
throat. Garroted by a wire, he was thrown off his feet by his own
momentum and flipped almost 180° before crashing to the ground
on his back. Already panicked by the adrenaline of his flight, he
fought against it, trying to pull his head loose, and the wire
only tightened more, crushing into his windpipe and cutting off
his breathing. Pain exploded in his head and he collapsed,
kicking weakly at the ground as he tried to summon up the ki to
use his powers. The device was made of plastic and steel though,
and he couldn’t breathe. His chest heaved futiley, blood on
his lips as he panted desperately, his vision filling with spots.
He couldn’t think of any stupider way to die than in a
hunter’s snare, and he whined at the thought of being
skinned when he was found, his beautiful silver pelt and multiple
tails ripped off him.
Kaasan! he wailed silently.
Help me! How would she handle this? As far as she knew,
her son would just disappear and she’d never know why. The
kids would make up a new campfire story about it, about the
redheaded boy who wandered away from the fire and never came
back. It would probably get embellished over time too. He might
some day be described as being found hung upside down from a tree
too. His fox body probably would, too, providing he didn’t
switch back to human when he died, or worse, his Youkai form.
Kurama’s struggles slowed,
his hind legs still kicking weakly at the forest floor as the
shadow that had hunted him fell across his body. Was he the one
who set the snare? The fox couldn’t even manage a wince at
the thought of it. Some trappers skinned their prey the second
they found it, irregardless of whether it was dead, and he hoped
this one would at least let him die first. The shadow came closer
and he heard the sound of a blade being drawn. It looked like he
would be skinned alive after all. Silver flashed, the blade
coming down towards him in an arc and he heard the sound of it
biting deep.
The wire loosened. Kurama lay
immobile, air not moving past his damaged throat and felt hands
on him, gentle, pulling the wire wide, then off, fingers
searching his throat for damage, then moving under him and
lifting him up.
He was cradled against a chest,
one hotter than he would have expected a hunter’s to be.
Much hotter. A familiar scent filled his nostrils. Hiei??
he realized. It’s Hiei! The little fire demon held
him tenderly as he flashed through the forest as full speed,
leaving Kurama to wonder what he was doing two hundred kilometres
from home as the lack of air caught up with him and he passed
out.
Kurama woke to the feeling of ki
transferring to him, replenishing his own supplies as his body
instinctively healed itself, repairing the damage done to his
throat. Hiei’s scent was everywhere.
He lifted his head dizzily,
looking around. Still in fox form, he realized that he was lying
curled in Hiei’s lap, the koorime leaning back against a
tree as he stroked his pelt and shared his energy. The stroking
stopped the second he moved.
"Hn. Stupid fox."
Kurama blinked, carefully standing
up, much as he would have liked to stay where he was, and stepped
off Hiei’s lap. Getting a little distance, he shifted back
to his human form, his hand rising to his throat before he tried
to speak. It was still marked, but the effects were fading.
"Arigato," he croaked.
"Hiei. Thank you."
The fire demon shrugged. "If
you hadn’t run from me, you wouldn’t have gotten
snared. Stupid fox."
He blinked at him. "That was
you??"
Hiei tossed him the remains of the
partridge. "Least you could have done was share," he
growled.
Kurama stared at him. Hiei had
been chasing him? Hiei?? He’d been wanting Hiei to catch him
since they first met! Mentally, the Youkai started to kick
himself. Then his eyes narrowed. "Why didn’t you tell
me it was you?" he asked, suddenly noticing the wards the
demon was wearing. Wards designed to mask a demon’s ki.
Hiei shrugged. "More fun to
chase you."
Kurama knew he should have been
thrilled that Hiei had wanted to play with him, at this sign of
any kind of feeling for him. Instead he was incensed.
"Baka!" he screamed. "Idiot! How could you scare
me like that?? Do you know how terrified I was? I thought
something was gonna eat me!"
To his surprise, the little demon
grinned. "Maybe something was," he murmured, then his
expression was as stony as always, leaving Kurama wondering it
he’d heard that right. He shook his head to clear it.
"Why are you here,
Hiei?" he asked instead. "We’re two hundred miles
out in the middle of nowhere. How did you get here?"
No reaction. "I ran."
He blinked. "Why?"
Still no reaction. "No
reason."
Kurama started to grin, leaning
towards him. "You came two hundred miles into nowhere at a
run for no reason? Why do I find that hard to believe?"
Hiei shrugged. "Believe what
you want."
Stubborn koorime. Kurama leaned
back on his heels. "Did you come here for me, Hiei?"
"No."
"Then why did you come?"
"No reason."
He smiled. "Were you
bored?"
"Yeah."
"Were you sick of hanging
around Yuusuke and Kuwabara?"
"Yeah."
"Were you lonely?"
"Ye- no."
Kurama grinned, feeling his heart
swell. "You came out here because you missed me, didn’t
you?"
Hiei glared. "Baka."
He shuffled closer. "I’m
only going to be here two more weeks."
"I didn’t miss
you."
Kurama went closer, Hiei not
moving away. "You can stay. I won’t mind."
"Why would I want to
stay?" Hiei actually looked uncomfortable.
He shuffled up to sit right beside
him. "Because then you can chase me as much as you
want."
The little demon looked away.
"Stupid fox."
Taking a huge chance, Kurama moved
closer so that his shoulder was touching the other demon’s,
hoping that he hadn’t read his signals wrong. "I would
have liked being chased by you better if I’d known it was
you," he told him softly.
"Why?"
"Because then I would have
enjoyed being caught by you more."
The little demon snorted.
"What am I supposed to do with you when I catch you?"
Kurama hoped that was the opening
he thought it was. "You’ll have to catch me to find
out."
Hiei was silent a moment, then his
hand shot out and grabbed Kurama’s shirt. "I caught
you."
Kurama looked down at the small
hand gripping his shirt, the tendons and veins standing out on
the pale skin, the arm itself bound by the warded bandages that
kept his dragon tattoo under control. Softly, he laid his hand
over his. "You have," he whispered. "I guess
I’m yours now."
Hiei studied him, not saying
anything as his red eyes seemed to burn into his face. Kurama met
his gaze, fighting not to blush or to stammer, not to turn away
and give the little fire demon a way out.
"Hn," he said at last.
"You’re already mine, stupid fox."
Before Kurama could decipher that,
Hiei yanked him to him and kissed him, his mouth like painless
fire on his lips. Kurama’s senses shot into the
stratosphere, his heart beating so fast he thought it would burst
out of his chest as he returned the kiss gently, desperate not to
scare him away.
He didn’t. Hiei held him
close, kissing him gently, his small, sharp canines pricking
Kurama’s lip as he pressed him mouth against him, his tongue
flickering out towards his. He tasted of flame, if fire could
have a taste. Hot and sensual. Finally, he pulled back, his red
eyes still holding the same expression as he looked at him,
letting go of his shirt belatedly.
His face flushed, Kurama smiled,
happy and amazed that the little demon had opened up to him so
much, that he’d come so far for him, and made him feel so
wonderful. So loved without being trapped. A wild thing caught
and tamed. He grinned at the analogy and kissed Hiei’s cheek
gently. "Arigato," he whispered.
"Hn," Hiei grunted.
Kurama’s smile widened.
"I’m glad you caught me," he whispered.
Hiei looked at him, no expression
on his face. "Me too," he replied and was gone in a
displacement of air.
Kurama lay where he’d been
left for a few moments, just reveling in the memory of their
kiss, quick though it had been, and luxuriating in the night
breeze that blew across him. Finally, he stood to head back to
camp, then realized that he had no idea where he was. Not a
single landmark looked familiar to him.
Kurama blanched. "Oh,
crap…" He’d already be in trouble for missing
curfew. If he didn’t get back before morning, they were
going to freak. "Hiei!" he yelled. "I’m lost!
I need you to help me get back to camp!"
"Then catch me," drifted
back to him.
Kurama’s jaw dropped for a
moment, then he closed it and grinned, headed off into the forest
again on a hunt of his own.
THE END
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[On to the next story: I DID WHAT??]