A LITTLE DISCLAIMER: Most of the characters appearing in this fic are the property of Yoshihiro 
                     Togashi, Studio Pierrot, Fuji TV, and Shonen Jump Weekly. 

He worked on keeping himself awake by trying to formulate a way to approach Hiei over his suspicions about the rash of robberies that had been plaguing the florists in the area without upsetting him too much. Whoever the thief was, and Kurama had a very good idea of just who that someone was, had been stealing roses. And not just a few here or there. This person had wiped out the stock in every store. Last night when Hiei had slipped back to curl up against him he had smelled very strongly of roses. Kurama had thought it was just part of an amusing dream until he had read the paper on the train on the way to campus.

The light from the open window was suddenly blocked by an ungainly shadow. "Hiei, where are you going?"

"Out. Go back to sleep," Hiei answered as he straddled the sill, one leg in and one out.

"Did you break into all those florist shops?" Kurama asked as he sat up.

Hiei paused on the window sill and Kurama saw the shadowed shrug of his shoulders against the faint moonlight.

"What do you need roses for, anyway? And why didn't you just ask me?" Kurama questioned, curious.

"I want them. They taste good. You aren't recovered enough yet to be wasting your rei on making them," Hiei answered with another shrug.

"You're eating roses?"

Hiei shrugged again and Kurama had to bite his tongue to keep his laughter in check. "Hiei, you can't just take things in the Ningenkai without paying for them."

Hiei's eyes sparked with orange fire as he glared back.

"No, you're the one who can't take things from the Ningenkai without paying for them. I don't care. I need them."

He rubbed at the babies who where turning somersaults in his belly. He had to have rose petals. Now. He turned, ready to leap down when the aroma hit him and made his mouth water. He glanced back over his shoulder and saw Kurama hold out a huge bouquet of roses with very large, full blossoms. He was sitting cross-legged in front of Kurama before his Fox had a chance to blink.

"You shouldn't have done that," he mumbled around a mouthful of bittersweet petals as he saw the slight tremble in his lover's hand as he offered another stem.

Kurama shrugged this time and asked, "Are you having cravings for anything else?"

"That sweet snow," Hiei answered right before he decapitated another rose with a sharp click of his teeth.

*Sweet snow?* Kurama laughed softly as he figured it out. *Ice cream.* But there hadn't been any reports of break-in's or robberies of grocery stores in the crime section.

"Hiei, how did you get ice cream," Kurama wondered out loud.

Hiei blinked at him with two rose petals sticking out of the corner of his mouth. His tongue flicked out and collected them as he answered, "From the food store on the corner. Where else would I get it?"

He turned a curious look on Kurama as his lover dropped his face into his hand with a groan.

"Hiei, I have to shop there. Why didn't you just tell me and I would have bought you some."

"I want some. Now. Buy it for me."

"Now? It's three in the morning!"

Hiei shrugged and struggled up to his feet with a growl, feeling he had made his point. It was getting harder and harder for him to get up as his belly got bigger and bigger. He swore he had expanded another five inches while he had sat.

"Just wait, would you?" Kurama said with a sigh as Hiei headed for the window again.

Hiei turned to see Kurama stepping into a pair of jeans. "There's an all-night store over on Pine."

Hiei licked the last of the sweet snow that Kurama insisted on calling ice cream off his spoon as he gazed at his lover. Kurama had insisted on going with him even after he said that he would just take the money and pay for the frozen treat. Kurama had told him that it wasn't safe for him to be out and about alone this late at night now. Hiei snorted to himself. As if any human could catch him. And he could outrun any youkai...well, almost any youkai. He was slower now, his balance out of center and it was harder to breathe with the babies pressing against his ribs all the time. But still, he seriously doubted that anything in the Ningenkai could touch him and besides, Kurama wasn't in any shape to take on anything that might decide to take a whack at him either. He had explained that to Kurama, but his lover had insisted on accompanying him anyway and now had fallen asleep at the table, his head pillowed on his crossed arms.

A tender expression overtook his normal, fierce countenance as he reached out to gently push a stray lock of hair out of Kurama's face. It was a rare thing, this look, and would have startled Kurama or anyone else who knew him. It was a look that only came to his face in the small hours of the morning, when he was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was no one and nothing that could see it. He rubbed the silky stuff between his fingers and wondered if their son's would have the same texture and coloring.

What were the babies going to be like? Powerful, of that he had no doubt. Would it be possible for he and Kurama to raise them in the Ningenkai? But what other choice did they have? Kurama was stubbornly insistent on staying in the Ningenkai until his human mother died and he, himself, was going to be on Mukuro's hit list for quite some time. He grinned. Probably until she died. Their parting had not been good. After two years of sharing her bed and learning the 'in's and out's' of being a ruler, he decided he really didn't want either thing. Kurama had tried to warn him of what was coming but he had to do it the hard way and find out on his own.

There had been none of the glory he had envisioned in ruling. The power and control only came through hard, tedious and boring work full of 'allies' that smiled as they sharpened the knife they were planning to stick in your back. Literally. He had taken two that had been meant for Mukuro. And even though Mukuro had been an interesting bedmate, it had been Kurama he thought of when he had been with her. It was Kurama he had dreamed of. It was Kurama that he missed enough to be willing to accept what amounted to a banishment into the Ningenkai.

Also, Kurama had never, ever done what Mukuro had attempted, which was control him. His lover never tried to put any restraints on his coming and going, never asked or demanded explanations for where he had been or what he had been up to unless Kurama discovered it on his own, like he had with the flower sellers. His Fox understood and valued his own freedom and granted that same respect to his lover and friend. Hiei had learned it was a very rare gift indeed.

*You are very lucky to have a father like him. He's going to spoil you rotten. Just like he does me,* he smiled as he put his hand over the babies, still now that they were all stuffed and contented.

He schooled his features back into their normal mask as he leaned forwards to kiss Kurama's cheek with cold lips.

"Kurama, you are going to get a crick in your back if you stay like that."

Kurama opened his eyes a crack and grumbled something back at him.

"Come on," Hiei pulled and tugged and coaxed until Kurama got to his feet, then half guided, half supported him into the bedroom.

Kurama collapsed onto the bedding with a grateful sigh and mumbled, "Love you, Hiei," as he let Hiei get him undressed.

Hiei didn't bother to answer, but got undressed quickly and wiggled into the curl Kurama had made of himself against the cool breeze from the fan. Kurama cuddled against him, his arm going as far as it could around his waist and within four beats of his human heart was taking the deep even breaths of sleep. He yawned as the babies shifted against his new position, then settled. He drifted off trying to envision what his children were going to look like once they were out of him.

Kurama listened to Shiori babble happily as they ate. She was happy with her 'new' family and he was happy that she could find so much fulfillment with them. He smiled gently and poured them both some more tea and went over the lie he was preparing to tell her as she started in on her questioning of himself. Why did he look so tired, was he getting enough sleep? Was he eating? How was school? Did he know how proud of him she was?

He took a deep, mental breath as he answered her questions and noted again that she avoided the subject of his love life. She hadn't mentioned a thing about it for over two years. That had also been the last time she had visited his apartment. He knew she didn't come because Hiei was there. It was her way of telling him she did not approve of his relationship with his lover. She had been anxious and nervous on her last visit and had asked very leading questions about his relationship with Hiei. He hadn't said that Hiei was his lover, but hadn't refuted it either as he had tried to turn the veiled accusations aside, knowing the answer would upset her.

He knew that her questions had been brought on by his step-father, who had 'teased' her about her 'beautiful' son constantly when he had been living with them. She had defended him unhesitantly then and he knew that she still did, even though she now knew the truth. Thankfully, it seemed that once he had removed himself from the house his stepfather had stopped tormenting her about it. But he had planted the seed and it had taken root and germinated for a year until Shiori had finally had to confront him about it. Especially once Hiei came back and started to live with him.

Hiei had been the one thing he would not give up to make his mother happy. He had seriously considered it when the problem first arose but could not do it. He had been waiting for Hiei for far too long, had been searching for such a soulmate for over three hundred years. It didn't matter to him that Hiei was male. He loved Hiei for what he was inside, not for the body he wore. Though it was a very nice body...he blinked and put a firm lid on those thoughts for the moment as he waited for his human mother to run through her queue of questions.

"So, tell me what's been going on with you?" was his cue.

"Hiei's pregnant. You're going to be a grandmother soon."

Shiori froze and stared at him. "What did you say?"

He smiled, his Youko self terribly amused as he repeated his statement.

"Hiei's pregnant. You're going to be a grandmother soon."

He caught the cup that slid out of her nerveless fingers and was suddenly concerned that she might faint as she turned very pale.

"Mother?" he took her hands into his as she took a few gulping breaths. "Are you all right?"

She shook her head no and got out, "How?" in a high squeak.

"I think you are the one who explained to me how the birds and the bees worked not so long ago, Mother," he said in a gentle voice, hoping to tease her out of her shock.

He hadn't quite expected this reaction as she continued to blink at him with very wide and glassy eyes.

"But...but...Hiei's a boy!"

That was the launching point he had been waiting for. He took a deep breath and started to spin his tale.

"No, Hiei's not. His family desperately needed a son. The last set of children born were twins. They raised one as a boy."

"Hiei?" Shiori stated.

Kurama nodded. "Hiei thinks of himself as male. For all intents and purposes, he is, in everything but the plumbing."

"Why didn't you tell me?!" Shiori all but wailed and made him wince with guilt at his deception. But if this worked as he hoped it was going to, then Shiori wouldn't have any more cause to be displeased with her son in any way.

"I couldn't! I swore I wouldn't! But now, with the pregnancy, the situation has changed drastically. Hiei's family has disowned him. Everyone but his twin sister refuses to acknowledge that he even exists. He's all alone now except for Yukina and me. I love Hiei, Mother. More that I love my life. And now he's carrying my babies and your grand-children and I hope you might be able to accept him."

Shiori cocked her head at him as her eyebrows raised while he studied her, hoping.

"Grand...children?" she asked hesitantly.

He nodded. "Twins. A boy and a girl, we think."

Her hands tightened on his own.

"Grand-children...oh, Shuiichi!" she lifted his hands in her own and pressed them against her eyes. "I'm so sorry...I should have known better than to think..." she trailed off and he felt the hot moisture of her tears on the backs of his hands.

"Mother, it's all right," he freed his hands and put them on her cheeks and brushed away her tears with his thumbs.

"And in a way it 'is' true. Like I said, Hiei thinks of himself as 'he'. Please don't call him 'her', it would offend him terribly and he's acting strange enough as it is..." he let that hang with a smile.

She looked confused and he knew it would take a while for her to settle the whole thing in her mind. But he had held out the lure which he knew she wouldn't be able to resist.

"Grand-children...I'm going to be a grandmother..." he watched with a grin as she explored the word with her voice, tried it on for size... "Grandmother!" and decided she liked it.

"When is Hiei due? Does he have a good doctor? Twins can be tricky," she asked/said in a rush.

"Yes, we have a very good doctor and she thinks about four more weeks."

"Four weeks? You waited eight months to tell me I'm going to be a Grandmother? Shuiichi!"

"Hiei's had some problems with the pregnancy. We didn't want to get our hopes up until we were sure that everything was going to be O.K."

"Is it O.K.?"

Kurama nodded and gave her a reassuring smile. "Our doctor says that everything is going well now. Though Hiei thinks he's going to explode like and over-inflated balloon any day."

Shiori laughed. "Every pregnant woman in her eighth," she paused for a moment and gave him a very meaningful look, "in his eighth month feels that way. And I can imagine with twins it's even worse!"

Kurama moved around the table so he could give his mother a relieved hug. "Thank you, Mother. You don't know how much this means to me."

She hugged him back. "Thank you, Son. For such a wonderful gift. Do you think I could come by the apartment sometime soon? I would like to speak with Hiei, it you think he'll talk to me."

Kurama hugged his mother tighter. "You are welcome at our home anytime you choose to come by, Mother. You always have been."

Kurama laid on his stomach, his chin supported on his crossed hands and watched the bower with amusement as another pillow flew out of the small entrance. Hiei had wandered in after dinner to stand in front of the pile of pillows and blankets stacked against the wall while Kurama worked on putting up the laundry, then had crawled into the dome of plants dragging some of the bedding after him. He had now been lining his nest for the last forty minutes. He seemed to have settled on what blankets were acceptable, though Kurama wasn't going to fold the rejects until he was certain Hiei was done. It was dangerous to get too close to the mouth of the bower since there was a steady stream of pillows being tossed out and then dragged back in and then tossed back out. Though it seemed like they were going through the final cull. Two of the pillows had come out and not been retrieved.

Yukina had advised him to make the bower last Friday for two reasons. One was to give Hiei time to get used to the idea of using it for his 'nest' and the second was to give his rei plenty of time to re-charge for this up-coming week. He had woven it while Hiei was napping and Yukina had sat quietly next to him, watching. He smiled softly. Yukina had grown as protective of him as she was of her twin. He knew that she had been observing his rei, still unsure that he had recovered enough to let Hiei feed off of him. She had been delighted with the results of his effort and demanded that he make one for her the next time she conceived. Hiei had inspected the interior of the small dome of tightly intertwined vines and flowers when he woke up and had pronounced it acceptable with a shrug and a "Hn," and had totally ignored it up until now.

He watched Hiei emerge and crawl over to him, his belly so big it was almost dragging on the ground. He frowned a little at the tiredness that was apparent in his lovers face, knowing that Hiei was crawling because it was too much work to get up to his feet. Hiei arranged himself so he sat cross-legged with his back to his lover.

"My back hurts," he grumbled.

Kurama sat up and obediently began to rub.

"What brought that on?"

"Just wanted to get it out of the way," Hiei answered with a one shouldered shrug.

"Shiori's going to drop by on Sunday," he informed Hiei as his lover relaxed and leaned back into his hands.

"Fine. I'll go see Yukina."

"Hiei, she's coming to see you!"

"Why?" Hiei suddenly stiffened under his hands. "You told her, didn't you?"

"Of course I told her," he said with a little smile, remembering Shiori's delight in the news.

Hiei turned himself around and glared at him. "Why?"

Kurama rolled his eyes and sighed patiently. "She's my mother, Hiei."

Hiei gritted his teeth as a wave of annoyance swept over him. His lover's insistence on that fact had always bothered him. He had held his tongue on his thoughts about the subject so far, but suddenly he decided it was time to let Kurama know just how he felt about it.

"No. She's not. She's just a human you used to survive."

"I owe her my life, Hiei. I owe her..."

"You owe her nothing! She's just a human. And one who you have let trap you here. Don't you realize that? How do you think she would react if she knew what you really were? If she knew what you did to her real child? I should tell her. If I'm lucky, she'll just drop dead from shock. No matter what, it would solve this insanity that is keeping you here!"

Kurama's expression went from gentle tolerance to cold fury in an instant and Hiei actually leaned backwards, startled, as he realized exactly what he had blurted out. It might be the truth, but it was a truth that Kurama did not want to hear or accept. And he had threatened the human woman Kurama was so attached to. For a moment he saw the promise of violence and pain in Kurama's eyes and tense stillness, then his lover rose in one fast, graceful movement and was running for the door. He realized he had crossed the line of what Kurama would accept from him. Shit. He needed to fix this, fast!

"Kurama! Wait!"

It took forever to struggle to his feet and it started the pain stabbing up in his lower back again. By the time he waddled to the door, cursing his ungainly body and stupidity the whole way, Kurama was out of sight.

*Fuck!* He started out the door anyway, but as soon as he stepped out onto the walkway the night sky and open space beyond the railing seemed to focus on him and pressed down. He couldn't stand it and retreated back into the apartment. He slammed the door shut against the outside that was trying to follow him in and glared at the barrier, panting. What the hell was that all about?

*BE STILL!* he willed the babies as he clutched at the pain that radiated across his belly and then went to shoot up his back. They were so big now they couldn't move much, but they were kicking like crazy and it hurt. He took a few deep breaths as he headed back for the bedroom, trying to relax. He knew that if he calmed down, they would. It was impossible to do as the normal, confining space of the apartment seemed to expand around him as it pressed in at the same time. He had to get into someplace small and safe. He crawled into the nest Kurama had made for him and curled up as much as he could around his belly and waited for the pain to pass.

It hadn't and now Hiei wandered in and out of a haze of agony. As soon as he had realized something was seriously wrong, he'd been in too much pain to crawl out of his nest for the phone thing to call Yukina. He didn't know anything could survive hurting this much, and he'd been through a whole lot of hurting. He was sure he wasn't going to survive as the hot iron band clamped around his middle again and squeezed until he couldn't breathe. As much as that hurt, he dreaded the next part more. It let up and fire radiated in searing waves across his lower back, then erupted up his spine.

He worked on breathing knowing the next pain was coming soon. Too soon. How could he be so stupid? Kurama was gone. Probably for good. He had finally managed to do it, found something that his Fox wouldn't forgive him for. No matter what he thought, Shiori was taboo. He knew that! Shit. He knew that her life span was short, only a blink by youkai standards and she was old already. Why couldn't he just have let it pass? He had driven Kurama away forever over a human who would be dead in a few years anyway...stupid, stupid...he swallowed the scream as the next pain hit him without warning.