FicWad

Chasing Cars

As your wedding song, "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol, was played, your eyes went wide, and your mouth shrunk to a tiny "oh!" of shock. Blood spattered on you; you were suddenly drenched in it, the smell cloaking you and jumping up your nostrils to remain for years and years. The blood fell upon your cheeks and neck, and of course all over the white of your wedding gown. Your hands were covered in it, and the bouquet you'd been holding was now a solid red, the white of the flowers showing in the gaps between the warm liquid.

We'll do it all
Everything
On our own.

You gasped as your fiancé fell to the grass at your feet. Hiei was face-down on the ground, the expression of shock still fresh in your memory. His body was also covered in blood, and there was a hole from his back to his front, ruining his tux.[1]

You fell to your knees in despair, pulling Hiei's now-heavy body toward you in an awkward embrace. You pulled his head onto your lap, your train extending behind you. The faces of the wedding guests became mere blurs; you no longer heard or saw anything but your fiancé’s dead face, and the warmth of his skin. He was still warm. You stroked your beloved's cheek, the flush slowly fading from it. You looked into his eyes, and they didn't look dead. They looked alive.

Hiei was still looking up at you and seeing your face...then, his eyes closed on their own, his black lashes coming to rest on his now-pasty cheeks. The heat was beginning to fade from his limp body, and you felt tears welling behind your own eyes.

Wedding guests began to scream; the women actually turned to run, their hair flowing behind them. The men stood, shocked, and unsure of what to do. Several consoled their wives, pulling the women's frantic faces into their chests. Several guests converged on you and Hiei, and you realized that they were not guests, but Yusuke and Kuwabara. They grasped your elbows, attempting to pull you away from their dearly departed friend. However, you clung to the body, wrapping your arms around his muscular frame.

"No! I won't leave him! I WON'T LEAVE YOU!" You screamed, clinging to him as if you expected him to grab you back and simply hold you. But of course, he did no such thing, and you fell upon his chest crying, burying your face in his body. Yusuke and Kuwabara stood back, in utter shock and horror, unable to move or speak. Hiei's blood leaked into the grass and up the bottom of your skirt, staining your dress.

We don't need
Anything
Or anyone.

After several grueling minutes, you allowed Yusuke and Kuwabara to lead you away from Hiei's body, while some others picked him up and carried him to a stretcher where he was led into a vehicle. You watched Hiei go, his eyes closed peacefully.

He looked happier now than you had ever seen him. No lines furrowed his brow; his mouth was not pulled into a frown, and his eyes were closed contentedly. As you were led away by the arms, you caught a glimpse of the pews, where no one was sitting, save a young man in a tux with long red hair.

You watched Kurama's shrunken demeanor turn to watch you go, and through his thick, shiny bangs, you saw his emerald eyes staring at you. But unlike the eyes of Kuwabara and Yusuke and the other guests, his eyes were not shining with mourning and pity. Instead, they seemed to glare at you, accusing you, even blaming you. You weren't sure if that was really what you saw, because by the time you registered the image, Kurama shifted his head down, and all you saw were two twin trails of tears running down his face.

*

The next week or so were like a blur. You stayed at home, didn't eat, didn't bathe, and barely slept. When you did sleep, your slumber was haunted by dreams of the day you lost your only mate; your wedding day. You hadn't had any visitors, and your thoughts were only of Hiei—of your memories, and all you had planned for the future...everything he'd said to you, everything he'd done for you, and everything he'd always loved about you.

The outside weather was warm, and reminded you of a summer long before you had planned this marriage—the two of you had lain in a grassy field, staring up at the stars. Hiei had grabbed one of your hands with his, and lifted them so both of you could see this new thing that had bloomed. You'd smiled, and Hiei'd smirked back, and you both stared back up at the sky. The sun was beginning to come up, and with it, a new life for both of you.

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lay with me
And just forget the world?

A ringing at the door brought you out of your reverie—you seriously considered letting whoever it was go on ringing the doorbell for eternity, but the knocking became more persistent, causing you to get up and answer the door. Your hair was knotted and greasy, your clothing the same pajamas you'd put on after showering Hiei's blood from your body. You opened the door and were stunned to see Kurama.

You remembered the look he'd given you after Hiei's death, and wondered if he'd come here to yell at you. "Perhaps if you hadn't tried to marry Hiei, he wouldn't have died. If you had left him alone, he would have lived..." But of course Kurama said no such thing; instead, he allowed himself to walk right into your house without an invitation. You sat down on the couch and he sat in your rocking chair, which, until his death, had been Hiei's favorite chair. But you said nothing about it, and allowed the red-head to sit down, staring at you as he did so.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Kurama began, and you whimpered, feeling fresh tears. He looked down, unable to comfort you in his pain.

But then he looked back up at you, and there was a new pained determination in his eyes. "He had a wish," Kurama continued, his sentences short and extremely unpleasant. You nodded, covering your mouth with hands that were wrapped in your pajama sleeves. Your eyes were already red and your face was blotchy. "His last wish, ___, was that you were to be safe, at any cost." Kurama took a breath, and you nodded, not even paying attention. It was too painful to hear what Hiei would have wanted when he died.

I don't quite know
How to say
How I feel.

"I made a promise to him...a few months before the engagement...____, he made me promise..." Kurama stammered, unable to continue. You wanted to hug him and allow him to cry on you, because the three of you, including Yukina, were the most important people in Hiei's life. As you thought of Yukina, your heart ached—Hiei had never told her that they were related. You debated internally whether you should tell her now that Hiei was gone, but decided against it. Why give her the pain of knowing that her brother was always there and never showed himself to her, even before he died? But she would look for a brother forever in vain. Was that fair? You didn't yet know.

"Promise what, Kurama?! Why are you here?" You asked, your voice straining. He began to say something, then closed his mouth, then opened to answer.

"Hiei wanted me to promise that I would keep you safe, no matter what...he wanted me to make sure Yukina and Kuwabara were married, and then he asked me to...to..." Kurama could not continue. You were glad Hiei had thought of Yukina after his death, and were even more pained at the thought that Hiei had finally accepted Kuwabara as his brother-in-law, and thought he was a good enough man for Yukina. That was the compliment of compliments, coming from Hiei.

"He wanted you to what? Just say it!" You were screaming now, wishing Kurama would just go, and that you would never have to see him, Yusuke or Kuwabara again. They brought back too many memories that were too hard to remember.

"He made me promise that you and I would be married."

Those three words
Are said too much
But not enough.

You gasped, feeling your heart jump into your throat. You, marry Kurama? Your dead fiancé’s best friend? "Kurama...he didn't know he was going to die like that...he didn't mean it! I'm married to Hiei...we can't..." You finished, defeated. Of course you weren't married to Hiei. It was one of the details that made his death all the more difficult to bear. He'd died before you had said your "I do"s. You were technically not married to Hiei, and therefore, open to courtship from others.

"___...I know, but...it was what he wanted. Do you not want to honor his wishes?" Kurama asked, his face a combination of pain and exhaustion. You couldn't answer him...yes, you did want to honor Hiei, but this...this was too much.

"No! I can't marry you! My fiancé just died! Get out!" You screamed, and Kurama stood, staring at you as you sat on the couch in ruins.

"Think about it, ___. I want to do right by Hiei...and I will do whatever it takes to honor his memory." Kurama's words were like hot arrows through your wet, paper heart. They didn't just rip it, they massacred it. You began sobbing, and Kurama left your house, the door slamming on his way out. You lay crying on your couch, and Kurama slumped against your door, covering his face with his hands.

*

Kurama's phone began to ring as he was getting out of the shower. He walked to the phone, a towel wrapped around his lower body, his hair wet and warm on his back. The caller ID said your name. Taking a deep breath and preparing for more anger, Kurama answered tentatively.

"Hello?"

"Kurama, it's me." Kurama closed his eyes and bit his lower lip.

"I know." He left off at that, and allowed you to speak.

"I...I want to do right by Hiei." Kurama looked at the ceiling, expecting there to be some merciful god who would tell him what to do. But instead, a white plaster stared back at him, mocking him silently.

"I understand."

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lay with me
And just forget the world?'

*

Hiei's funeral was held on a rainy day, a week or so after you accepted Kurama's proposal. It was given by a minister of the local church, and it was formal and sad. You were mentioned often as the "grieving bride," while Kurama and the others were called on a lot too, as his "loyal friends." There was no mention of Yukina as his sister. Kurama was one of the pallbearers, a job you were glad you didn't have to do.

You couldn't imagine putting your best friend—or husband, for that matter—in the ground.[2] Kurama seemed to handle it well, and though things had been awkward between you so far, the day was a picturesque one, with many tears shed for the man who had always believed that no one would care when he was gone.

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's
Burst into life.

You were the first to lay your rose on Hiei's grave, and you cried several tears onto the rose before setting it down. You stared at the picture of him for a moment—a picture of him smirking as you stood off camera. This picture took you back to your wedding day, when Hiei's lifeless eyes had closed, and you began crying in the middle of the service, in loud, miserable gasps. Yusuke grabbed your shoulders from behind you and steered you away, while Kurama looked at the ground, keeping his own tears in check. Yusuke, now crying himself, pulled you away from the scene, holding you in his arms and allowing you to sob on his shoulder under the cloudy gray sky.

After Kurama said his goodbyes, he walked over to you and Yusuke, and by that time, you had finished crying. Kurama gave Yusuke a brotherly hug, and then nodded to you. Yusuke went to find Kuwabara and see how he was holding up, while you sat on the grass and Kurama sat next to you.

"When do you want to do it?" Kurama asked, watching the mourning crowd, which really wasn't so big. You felt a slight anger at him for asking on this day, the one day you didn't want to feel, but then you realized that it was his way of comforting you, which he could not do outright such as Yusuke had done. You assumed part of it was because he was hurting as much as—if not more than—you, and the other part was because he might feel guilty, even though the two of you marrying was Hiei's wish.

"I don't care. Am I moving into your house?" You asked quietly, your nose stuffy and your eyes red, again. He shrugged.

"If it would be better for you...?"

He left off, allowing you to complete the imagery yourself. You realized that Hiei and you had slept in your bed, together, and on more than one occasion. Now, you slept in the same bed, but you cried yourself to sleep with Hiei's pillow, smothered in his scent. You imagined lying next to Kurama in bed you had once shared with Hiei, and Kurama's scent overpowering Hiei's until it was gone. You wouldn't let Kurama take Hiei's place like that. Not now, and not ever.

Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads.

"It would be best for me to move into your place. Mine has too many...too many memories," you sniffed, and pulled your knees up to your chest. You still expected a hug or even an arm around the shoulder from Kurama, but instead he sat still, looking defeated and miserable. A perfect embodiment of how you felt.

"Perhaps we should elope," he said quietly, watching Yusuke, Kuwabara, Keiko, Shizuru, Botan, Koenma and Yukina cry together in a mass huddle. You agreed and nodded.

"We won't keep it a secret, we just won't tell them..." you said calmly. You felt rational, and that was good. What would they say if they knew you two had gotten married less than a month after Hiei's death? They wouldn't understand it like you did, that was for sure. They wouldn't understand how it felt to lose the one person you cared about most...and they wouldn't understand wanting to honor that person's wishes...they'd think you were horrible...so you wouldn't tell them. It hurt to have to keep secrets from them, because now that you were marrying Kurama, you wouldn't be able to fall off the face of the earth as you had wanted to.

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lay with me
And just forget the world?

*

A few days after the funeral, you began packing all your stuff up, except what you would need while living with Kurama. Most of your stuff you threw out, especially the stuff that wasn't reminiscent of Hiei. The things of his he'd left at your house you kept in a small box that you carried with you nearly all the time. A few days after that, you moved into Kurama's house on the day of your elope. The two of you married in a sad, teary, closed wedding after moving all your stuff into his house. You said your shaky "I do"s and cried more, consumed with guilt by what you were doing and what you had done.

You didn't have a honeymoon, and instead went directly home. Neither of you had had a bachelor or bachelorette party, and none of your friends yet knew. Your first night with Kurama was painful. You both crawled into bed, fully clothed, and both teary. You had cried more than Kurama, but his eyes were still red. You lay side by side, not speaking, and not loving each other. Suddenly, you threw yourself on top of Kurama and cried harder than you had yet.

The pain of Hiei's death and what you were putting yourself through was finally crashing down on you, and you had nothing to do but cry it out. Kurama hesitated at first, but then rubbed your back. As he did so, you found yourself bringing your face up to look at him, and he looked back at you. Before you knew it, you were kissing him, and he was holding back, but then he began kissing you too.

Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's
Burst into life.

You hadn't spoken about whether the two of you would consummate the marriage or not, because you both assumed that the other one would refuse. However, this night wasn't about consummation; it was about consolation. Both of you were feeling the pain of your lives, and neither of you could do anything to help each other. There was no way out of this pain, this mourning, this guilt that was flowing through every inch of your being and generating more by the second.

So you kissed each other, and while this did not numb the pain, having someone there to relate to, to understand and comfort your lonesomeness was enough. You woke up in the morning naked, and looked at yourself in the mirror. Not only had you married your fiancé’s best friend, but you had slept with him, too. Kurama was still sleeping, and just like Hiei, he looked happier in that death-like state than you'd seen him in weeks. He too, was fully undressed, and you felt shame creep up on you like the winter. You hid your face in your hands, and cried again.

All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes
They're all I can see.

*

The next three months passed by quickly, and the events that occurred in them were passive, but harsh. You and Kurama never touched each other again, but that moment of weakness after your marriage had been enough to drive you both against the wall, looking for some sort of excuse or reason that you could give yourselves.

The pain of Hiei's death did dull a little over time, but it was not so much that you no longer missed him or yearned for his gentle touch, but that you realized that he was actually gone, and weren't expecting him to come through the door any second. You and Kurama spent as little time together as possible, and Kurama spent a lot of time at work. You had quit your job the week Hiei died, but decided you might need to find a new one to give you something to do. Mostly, you just cleaned the house and cooked dinner for Kurama.

Then, every night after dinner (during which neither of you spoke), the two of you sat in silence again, this time in front of the television, watching the news with blank expressions. You felt lonelier than you ever had before, and you cried in the bathroom nearly every day. When it got late enough, the two of you went to bed, and you shared a bed, but you didn't speak and didn't look at each other. Nor did you ever touch each other, and you pushed yourselves to the edge of the bed in order to be away from each other.

You couldn't understand how you woke up every morning next to Kurama and not Hiei, how you listened to Kurama's breathing and not Hiei's when you couldn't sleep, and how very wrong all of it was. But it was your life now, and things could not have been worse.

I don't know where
Confused about how as well
Just know that these things will never
Change for us at all.

Kurama slowly began taking a glass of wine with dinner, and then it was two glasses and one after dinner, until he was completely addicted to alcohol. He lost his job, and you couldn't understand how you were going to pay the rent.

Your stress levels went high up, and you began to hate yourself and curse your life. Kurama became drunk nearly all the time, and he was mean and surly when he was so, though this was nothing compared to the guilt-ridden depressive mess he was when sober. You eventually stopped eating and lost over twenty pounds.

Kurama and you spent little time with your friends, and they never came by. It was just you and Kurama now, but Kurama was hardly there, replaced by a sobbing, cruel drunkard who couldn't handle the harsh reality of life. You had become someone who was meek and terrified, and you were thin and sickly and in pain a lot of the time. Eventually, you lost your grip on reality, and days before you were evicted, wrote this letter.

"Dear Hiei,
Kurama's in the kitchen right now, drinking. I'm sure he'll die soon, from liver problems or alcohol poisoning. He drinks so much that it seems almost painful when he climbs into bed. I can't believe we share a bed. I'm so sorry, Hiei...I never meant to do this to you. Kurama and I...we had each other, once. But it was nothing like what you and I had...what we had was special, and only, and I'll never find anything like it.

I miss you, darling. I miss your smirks and your chuckles and your gentle roughness that always made me shiver. I wish you were here now...things are so horrible, and I'm so lost without you. You were my light...without you, I'm crawling in the dark, and I'll never find myself. But I think things are going to change tonight. There's a pistol in the bathroom, and I just might use it tonight. I might take all of my pain away with a little lead bullet. I might take Kurama's too, if he wants it.
Tonight, I'm going to see you again, sugar. And we'll be chasing cars.
Love,
Your wife."

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lay with me
And just forget the world?

[1] It's hard to imagine Hiei getting married, but I didn't think that the typical mating (i.e. the way demons marry) would be romantic enough for this piece.

[2] My grandfather died a few months before I wrote this, and at his funeral my cousin and my father and uncles were pall-bearers. I thought it would really suck to have to put your loved one in the ground.