Accidents and Aftermath, Chapter 10: Dreams
Title: Accidents and Aftermath
Author: Dreaming of Everything dreams_of_all
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho
Characters/Pairings: Hiei/Botan
Rating/Warnings: T for over-all mood, nothing terribly bad in specifics.
Summary: When Hiei is poisoned, causing temporary insanity, he severely wounds Botan, who's now comatose, hovering on the brink of death. This fic is a series of onesided conversations between the two as Hiei deals with his emotions, and then the aftermath.
Author's Notes: This chapter is basically all dream sequence. Sorry?
Botan realized, vaguely, that she was asleep. She had to be, because it was the only time she ever saw her parents-the ones she had had before she had died and become a ferry girl. She never remembered what they actually looked like-or anything else about them, for that matter-when she was awake. It was part of her ‘deal,’ apparently, the one that let her be a ferry girl. Botan had learned to manage.
Managing. Yes. That was clearly what she was doing right now-not avoiding. Avoi-hesitating around an issue was just a way of managing, right? Because she didn’t want to think about any of this. So it was a good thing she was sleeping. And dreaming, apparently, because she was with her parents.
Had she thought this already? She wasn’t sure.
So: her parents. And this must be her past home. It was… Nice. A house and a small farm and a river running near-by-she knew it was there, even if she couldn’t see or hear it, and since it was a dream, it made sense-and several cats, one with kittens, on the porch with her, and her parents.
And… Hiei? But…
This wasn’t right…
She was dreaming…
She was in a Good Place, right? A nice place, dreaming or not? She was supposed to be safe here, and she didn’t want to think of Hiei, he wasn’t supposed to be here, because of… because of…
Things she didn’t want to think of
The scene changed.
oOo
It was raining, she could tell that much, but her thoughts weren’t defined enough for there to be actual raindrops, or for them to affect her-she was already wet, but that wasn’t from the rain; it was that river, the one that ran by the house her parents lived in. But further downstream, not where the house was… And her parents weren’t here… Nobody was. Except for her.
She was wet, her kimono soaked and her hair falling out of its tie, and her chest felt oddly heavy.
Because it was full of water, she thought. I’m dead.
That’s right. It had been the river. She had drowned. She was already dead, had been dead for centuries, but had been kept on as a ferry girl instead of moving on to-whatever came after death. She couldn’t seem to come up with it right now, which was okay-it really didn’t matter right now.
She was dead so she couldn’t be killed again, that was important…
Dead…
That was important…
And now she was somewhere else.
The sky was an odd color, leaf-green; the color she had painted the walls in her bedroom, with her ceiling sky green. No, not green, blue… It was supposed to be blue, but like this it was like trees had formed a canopy overhead, and nobody had bothered to paint in the leaves. It was claustrophobic, that heavy green sky weighing in above her, those leaves that weren’t leaves growing from nothing except maybe the ceiling and pressing above her, keeping her from the sky and the air and there was water all around her, pressing at her and filling up her lungs and that leafy sky pressing her down into the water-
--but it didn’t happen like that because she died on a sword, one that cut into her, she can feel it, biting into her side and she must be dying because there’s numbness and darkness and it’s like there’s a wave slowly enveloping her body, one with a fizzing edge and flat nothingness behind it, all emanating from the gash into her side, and there’s this strange, painful power filling her up and- and-
She’s drowning
Hiei’s saying that he’s sorry, but Botan knows that they both know that he’s lying.
And she’s underwater…
oOo
She’s dead so she knows that death is not like this. It’s Reikai and judgment and then a sentence, not this floating.
She’s underwater-in the ocean. It’s dark-it must be night, or she’s so deep beneath the surface that the light can’t penetrate at all. But maybe it’s her blood, because she’s bleeding: someone’s cut her, deeply. Maybe it was a fish, a shark, hungry and needing something to eat, though it's not that jagged.
But she
doesn’t want to think of that now
can’t bother with trivialities like that, it’s unimportant: what is important is that she’s dead, and this isn’t what death was, what death is.
This is where her body is, she’s back in it, something she hasn’t felt for-centuries-a while, a long while, and it’s drifting almost weightless down here. It’s funny nothing’s eaten her-except for that gash in her side-and she feels no need to breathe, and her chest is strangely quiet, and her head, with no heart beat and no hum of blood in your ears, everything crystal clear in this dark water with no light at all, although she can feel the brush of schools of tiny, almost transparent, fish against her skin. She can feel the ocean-
breathing
all around her, but it had tried to (kill) hurt her, had taken that bite out of her side and stained the water dark with her blood so the light couldn’t reach her like she was buried, buried under water, that was drowning, she had drowned…
She had drowned in the river and been swept out to sea where her body had been betrayed like this, raped like this, but still it had been so peaceful.
She didn’t want to dream this anymore. She was dreaming, right?
oOo
“How is a raven like a writing desk?” someone asks. Botan knows what the line is from. They-the ferry girls, because she was dead-had all read the Alice books a while ago. Before she had… Died again?
“We’re all quite mad here,” said the Cheshire Cat, and then she was being killed by Hiei.
He cut into her side, and her blood splashed into and over the tea cups. “I’ve got it in my fur,” said the Dormouse.
“Now I certainly don’t want any more,” said Alice.
oOo
They were dead, and she was dead and even the people it doesn’t make sense to have dead were dead. (But she had died already…)
Hiei wasn’t laughing. No crazed declarations. Nothing gleeful, just grim, self-satisfied satisfaction, self-aware recognition of a job well-done and a challenge met and exceeded, another barrier lost.
There was still a sadistic edge to that smile. It was predatory. Assuredly uncaring. Something Botan’s numbed, dead-but-dying mind couldn’t describe.
She was sprawled over her mother, and covered in her blood…
Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara hadn’t been enough to stop Hiei. Nothing had been. He had killed them in the first wave, right after her, and then the others he knew: Genkai, Keiko, even Yukina, and that meant he was beyond redemption. And then had come Koenma, a god, who should have been immortal, and then the ferry girls--already dead, like her. The nice doctor. Her neighbors. A child she saw walking to school each morning. Souls she had made a connection to, taking them to the Spirit World. Her parents.
Each one seemed carefully chosen to be as painful to her as possible, but she knew she shouldn’t be so egocentric, even if it was her dream. Hiei didn’t care enough about her to do something like that, no matter that he had watched her as she slept.
She didn’t understand, and she wasn’t fighter, and that was all he cared about, right? She was an annoyance, and nothing more or less.
oOo
She was with Yusuke, and Kurama and Kuwabara and Genkai, Yukina and Shizuru and Keiko and even Koenma.
“But how can we trust you?” they asked.
“But I’m the one who’s supposed to ask that!” she said, incensed.
They were wrong. After all, they weren’t the ones who had stuck her in a room with the person who had (killed her) nearly killed her. Again. Nearly killed her once more-because he had almost killed her in the past, and because she was already dead. She had already died, she had drowned in the river that went past her house, and she knew she was dreaming because she could see their faces in her mind-but why were they bleeding, cut into pieces like that?
“We just don’t know, Botan,” someone said, shaking their head sadly. It was hard to tell who-they were all blurred, she couldn’t make them out clearly, like she had just woken up-even though she knew she was asleep. Maybe she was crying? It didn’t feel like she was.
Hiei was with them. He was painfully clear, unlike the rest, and splashed with (her) blood.
“They understood,” he said. “After all, why else would they let me stay with you while you were asleep?” He smirked. “It was so much fun,” he added. “You know, you talk in your sleep.”
“Botan.” She could tell that it was Koenma, this time, she recognized his voice. “We decided to side with Hiei. He’s-well, he’s a bit more useful than you, after all, and we had to choose one of you. And technically, he hasn’t voided the terms of his release-it’s a legal issue, too.”
It’s funny. We’re underwater again. Can’t you feel it in your lungs? And taste the blood on your tongue. Remember dying?
“Yeah, Botan. Really, we just trust him more, too,” said Yusuke. “You’ve been more stable, yeah, but, well, you’ve never really fought alongside us. You’ve never hung your life on the line. I don’t really expect you to understand, but, well, if you can rely on someone in a to-the-death fight it counts for more than anything else can. Sorry, Botan.”
“But-”
don’t you remember him falling on us from out of the darkness, something predatory and violent made familiar and safe and then unleashed, uncaged, and the driving rain and the look in his eyes as he killed you (again, and nearly) as he discarded you like so much trash and moved on to Kurama, and probably from there on to Yusuke, Kuwabara, whatever and whoever else he could find, sword biting and blood flying and then smearing and never quite washing away in the rain, for who knows how long until he collapsed, because there was always more to kill
“-don’t you remember?”
And they look at her blankly-she can see them clearly again-and she knows they don’t.
And only Hiei stayed by her side.
And watched her become fully herself, at her most vulnerable, watched her as she slept.
Like she was now. Because she was dreaming.
And was he watching her now? He had left, and they-her friends, she had to believe-said that he had left, but they had let him watch in the first place, hadn’t they? Despite what he’d done. Despite what happened.
Was he watching her now, as she dreamt of him and her friends and her parents, the ones she couldn’t remember except in dreams? As she dreamt of her death (her deaths) and of the deaths of everyone else at his hands.
Was he watching?
oOoOoOo
She woke up screaming, but her voice wasn’t responsive enough to make any sound. Her body was soaked in sweat, and her skin was crawling. The room was probably empty.
Author: Dreaming of Everything dreams_of_all
Series: Yu Yu Hakusho
Characters/Pairings: Hiei/Botan
Rating/Warnings: T for over-all mood, nothing terribly bad in specifics.
Summary: When Hiei is poisoned, causing temporary insanity, he severely wounds Botan, who's now comatose, hovering on the brink of death. This fic is a series of onesided conversations between the two as Hiei deals with his emotions, and then the aftermath.
Author's Notes: This chapter is basically all dream sequence. Sorry?
Botan realized, vaguely, that she was asleep. She had to be, because it was the only time she ever saw her parents-the ones she had had before she had died and become a ferry girl. She never remembered what they actually looked like-or anything else about them, for that matter-when she was awake. It was part of her ‘deal,’ apparently, the one that let her be a ferry girl. Botan had learned to manage.
Managing. Yes. That was clearly what she was doing right now-not avoiding. Avoi-hesitating around an issue was just a way of managing, right? Because she didn’t want to think about any of this. So it was a good thing she was sleeping. And dreaming, apparently, because she was with her parents.
Had she thought this already? She wasn’t sure.
So: her parents. And this must be her past home. It was… Nice. A house and a small farm and a river running near-by-she knew it was there, even if she couldn’t see or hear it, and since it was a dream, it made sense-and several cats, one with kittens, on the porch with her, and her parents.
And… Hiei? But…
This wasn’t right…
She was dreaming…
She was in a Good Place, right? A nice place, dreaming or not? She was supposed to be safe here, and she didn’t want to think of Hiei, he wasn’t supposed to be here, because of… because of…
Things she didn’t want to think of
The scene changed.
oOo
It was raining, she could tell that much, but her thoughts weren’t defined enough for there to be actual raindrops, or for them to affect her-she was already wet, but that wasn’t from the rain; it was that river, the one that ran by the house her parents lived in. But further downstream, not where the house was… And her parents weren’t here… Nobody was. Except for her.
She was wet, her kimono soaked and her hair falling out of its tie, and her chest felt oddly heavy.
Because it was full of water, she thought. I’m dead.
That’s right. It had been the river. She had drowned. She was already dead, had been dead for centuries, but had been kept on as a ferry girl instead of moving on to-whatever came after death. She couldn’t seem to come up with it right now, which was okay-it really didn’t matter right now.
She was dead so she couldn’t be killed again, that was important…
Dead…
That was important…
And now she was somewhere else.
The sky was an odd color, leaf-green; the color she had painted the walls in her bedroom, with her ceiling sky green. No, not green, blue… It was supposed to be blue, but like this it was like trees had formed a canopy overhead, and nobody had bothered to paint in the leaves. It was claustrophobic, that heavy green sky weighing in above her, those leaves that weren’t leaves growing from nothing except maybe the ceiling and pressing above her, keeping her from the sky and the air and there was water all around her, pressing at her and filling up her lungs and that leafy sky pressing her down into the water-
--but it didn’t happen like that because she died on a sword, one that cut into her, she can feel it, biting into her side and she must be dying because there’s numbness and darkness and it’s like there’s a wave slowly enveloping her body, one with a fizzing edge and flat nothingness behind it, all emanating from the gash into her side, and there’s this strange, painful power filling her up and- and-
She’s drowning
Hiei’s saying that he’s sorry, but Botan knows that they both know that he’s lying.
And she’s underwater…
oOo
She’s dead so she knows that death is not like this. It’s Reikai and judgment and then a sentence, not this floating.
She’s underwater-in the ocean. It’s dark-it must be night, or she’s so deep beneath the surface that the light can’t penetrate at all. But maybe it’s her blood, because she’s bleeding: someone’s cut her, deeply. Maybe it was a fish, a shark, hungry and needing something to eat, though it's not that jagged.
But she
doesn’t want to think of that now
can’t bother with trivialities like that, it’s unimportant: what is important is that she’s dead, and this isn’t what death was, what death is.
This is where her body is, she’s back in it, something she hasn’t felt for-centuries-a while, a long while, and it’s drifting almost weightless down here. It’s funny nothing’s eaten her-except for that gash in her side-and she feels no need to breathe, and her chest is strangely quiet, and her head, with no heart beat and no hum of blood in your ears, everything crystal clear in this dark water with no light at all, although she can feel the brush of schools of tiny, almost transparent, fish against her skin. She can feel the ocean-
breathing
all around her, but it had tried to (kill) hurt her, had taken that bite out of her side and stained the water dark with her blood so the light couldn’t reach her like she was buried, buried under water, that was drowning, she had drowned…
She had drowned in the river and been swept out to sea where her body had been betrayed like this, raped like this, but still it had been so peaceful.
She didn’t want to dream this anymore. She was dreaming, right?
oOo
“How is a raven like a writing desk?” someone asks. Botan knows what the line is from. They-the ferry girls, because she was dead-had all read the Alice books a while ago. Before she had… Died again?
“We’re all quite mad here,” said the Cheshire Cat, and then she was being killed by Hiei.
He cut into her side, and her blood splashed into and over the tea cups. “I’ve got it in my fur,” said the Dormouse.
“Now I certainly don’t want any more,” said Alice.
oOo
They were dead, and she was dead and even the people it doesn’t make sense to have dead were dead. (But she had died already…)
Hiei wasn’t laughing. No crazed declarations. Nothing gleeful, just grim, self-satisfied satisfaction, self-aware recognition of a job well-done and a challenge met and exceeded, another barrier lost.
There was still a sadistic edge to that smile. It was predatory. Assuredly uncaring. Something Botan’s numbed, dead-but-dying mind couldn’t describe.
She was sprawled over her mother, and covered in her blood…
Kurama, Yusuke and Kuwabara hadn’t been enough to stop Hiei. Nothing had been. He had killed them in the first wave, right after her, and then the others he knew: Genkai, Keiko, even Yukina, and that meant he was beyond redemption. And then had come Koenma, a god, who should have been immortal, and then the ferry girls--already dead, like her. The nice doctor. Her neighbors. A child she saw walking to school each morning. Souls she had made a connection to, taking them to the Spirit World. Her parents.
Each one seemed carefully chosen to be as painful to her as possible, but she knew she shouldn’t be so egocentric, even if it was her dream. Hiei didn’t care enough about her to do something like that, no matter that he had watched her as she slept.
She didn’t understand, and she wasn’t fighter, and that was all he cared about, right? She was an annoyance, and nothing more or less.
oOo
She was with Yusuke, and Kurama and Kuwabara and Genkai, Yukina and Shizuru and Keiko and even Koenma.
“But how can we trust you?” they asked.
“But I’m the one who’s supposed to ask that!” she said, incensed.
They were wrong. After all, they weren’t the ones who had stuck her in a room with the person who had (killed her) nearly killed her. Again. Nearly killed her once more-because he had almost killed her in the past, and because she was already dead. She had already died, she had drowned in the river that went past her house, and she knew she was dreaming because she could see their faces in her mind-but why were they bleeding, cut into pieces like that?
“We just don’t know, Botan,” someone said, shaking their head sadly. It was hard to tell who-they were all blurred, she couldn’t make them out clearly, like she had just woken up-even though she knew she was asleep. Maybe she was crying? It didn’t feel like she was.
Hiei was with them. He was painfully clear, unlike the rest, and splashed with (her) blood.
“They understood,” he said. “After all, why else would they let me stay with you while you were asleep?” He smirked. “It was so much fun,” he added. “You know, you talk in your sleep.”
“Botan.” She could tell that it was Koenma, this time, she recognized his voice. “We decided to side with Hiei. He’s-well, he’s a bit more useful than you, after all, and we had to choose one of you. And technically, he hasn’t voided the terms of his release-it’s a legal issue, too.”
It’s funny. We’re underwater again. Can’t you feel it in your lungs? And taste the blood on your tongue. Remember dying?
“Yeah, Botan. Really, we just trust him more, too,” said Yusuke. “You’ve been more stable, yeah, but, well, you’ve never really fought alongside us. You’ve never hung your life on the line. I don’t really expect you to understand, but, well, if you can rely on someone in a to-the-death fight it counts for more than anything else can. Sorry, Botan.”
“But-”
don’t you remember him falling on us from out of the darkness, something predatory and violent made familiar and safe and then unleashed, uncaged, and the driving rain and the look in his eyes as he killed you (again, and nearly) as he discarded you like so much trash and moved on to Kurama, and probably from there on to Yusuke, Kuwabara, whatever and whoever else he could find, sword biting and blood flying and then smearing and never quite washing away in the rain, for who knows how long until he collapsed, because there was always more to kill
“-don’t you remember?”
And they look at her blankly-she can see them clearly again-and she knows they don’t.
And only Hiei stayed by her side.
And watched her become fully herself, at her most vulnerable, watched her as she slept.
Like she was now. Because she was dreaming.
And was he watching her now? He had left, and they-her friends, she had to believe-said that he had left, but they had let him watch in the first place, hadn’t they? Despite what he’d done. Despite what happened.
Was he watching her now, as she dreamt of him and her friends and her parents, the ones she couldn’t remember except in dreams? As she dreamt of her death (her deaths) and of the deaths of everyone else at his hands.
Was he watching?
oOoOoOo
She woke up screaming, but her voice wasn’t responsive enough to make any sound. Her body was soaked in sweat, and her skin was crawling. The room was probably empty.