Title: If Not For You

By: Aina Song

Fandom(s): Yu Yu Hakusho/ Danny Phantom

Genre: Yaoi

Rating: NC-17

Warning(s): Language; Angst; Suffering; Death; Attempted NCS; Necrophilia (sort of… depending on how you look at it…)

Pairing(s): Surprise!

Reviews: Yes, please.

Author's Note: Standard Disclaimer. This story was not written for money.

Teaser: "Like a mural, life is pieced stroke by stroke with the light and dark elements living together… One is never found without the other." - Thomas Kinkade

Epilogue - Mate

(One week later…)

Yusuke swore under his breath, shifting his back more comfortably against the wall of the building. "Don't know why I'm so nervous. Not like I'm the one in there."

Kurama offered a patient smile. "Perhaps it is because he is now one of us, the newest member of our odd little team. Talented as he is, one can't help but feel a bit protective for a time. Much like you were with Kuwabara."

Turning his head away, he crossed his arms over his chest. "Don't remind me…"

A gentle hand suddenly caught his jaw, and he followed its pull with a start to find the demon fox's emerald green eyes gazing down at him with a quiet intensity that somehow pierced him like a shock of electricity. "Personally," the red-haired youko murmured, "I don't understand how Keiko could've chosen someone so disproportioned and uncoordinated, over something so… delectable." He then lowered his head, passing his lips over Yusuke's in the briefest touch before claiming the dark youth's mouth in a truer kiss. He pulled away after just a moment, his smile softening at the slight haze that warred with the surprise still lingering in those dark brown eyes. "Don't let one misfortune close you off from the rest of the world, Yusuke," he huskily advised. "Not when the world has so much to offer."

The young Mazoku swallowed thickly but, with only the barest hesitation, nodded.

"Am I interrupting something?"

They turned. A young dark-haired teen was approaching them, a hint of mischief in his icy blue eyes.

Kurama discreetly stepped back, the epitome of politeness as he assured, "Nothing that can't be continued in due course. But tell us, how did it go?"

Daniel's mouth tugged in a slow smirk, and it was clear that he knew exactly what he had walked in on. "If anything Ukai says should be taken seriously, then I'll be the most missed prodigy that school will never know it had. And that's saying something, considering they still have the great Minamino to pick up my slack."

Kurama arched a slim red eyebrow. "You imply that, had you stayed, my studies would eventually have become second-best to your own?"

Yusuke snickered, finding the very idea ridiculous.

"Well, no," Daniel allowed, still smirking. "But it would've been a close enough competition to keep the rest of the student body on their toes." He cocked his head, mimicking Kurama's expression by arching a dark eyebrow of his own. "Why else would they have deemed their best student as the only candidate worthy to tutor me?"

The demon fox let a slow smile tug at his lips. "Touché." He lifted one arm level with his gaze, pushing back his sleeve to check his watch. "Exciting a challenge as you provide, Daniel, I'm afraid I'm expected elsewhere. Congratulations, of course. Excuse me."

Daniel watched him go, and then smirked at Yusuke. "So how long has that been going on?"

"That was the first time it happened, actually," the dark youth admitted. "Dunno what brought it on, but I've got a feeling I won't have to wait long to find out." He shrugged, shaking his head and changing the subject. "We gotta celebrate your new freedom. How long we got?"

"This human body's only temporary," Daniel reminded, laughing. "Koenma gave me until sunset, but I promised to meet Hiei with a few minutes to spare."

Yusuke grinned, "Plenty of time."

~o~

The door to the shop swung open, causing a small bell overhead to ring with welcome. An elderly man behind the main counter looked up, and his aged face came alive with a smile. "Ah, Mister Minamino."

The redhead gave the elderly man a patient smile as he approached the counter. "I apologize for my tardiness. Has my friend already come in to pick up the item?"

"Yes, actually," the man nodded, adjusting his spectacles as he checked his logbook. "Unusually quiet, that lad. Didn't strike me as the social type, but he was polite enough as he received his purchase."

"Do forgive him," the red-haired teen softly pleaded. "That one is the type whose trust must be earned, and not given. A combination of past and current circumstances have etched that lesson into him, and I care not to challenge him in his ways."

"Of course," the man nodded kindly, making a mental note show that other boy every kindness should he visit again. Finding the information he had recorded some days ago, he sighed. "Even minus the down payment you covered when last you were here, I'm afraid the tally is still somewhat substantial. It was handcrafted, after all, and a rush order at that."

"I don't mind," the redhead smiled again. "The reason behind this favor is of great importance, and I'm quite pleased to have been volunteered."

~o~

Danny entered the house for the last time. It had been emptied over the course of the past few days, all of its furnishings anonymously donated to a local shelter. The demon wards had all been taken down, and the portal to the Ghost Zone had been removed from the hallway closet. Its interior was now spacious and would seem inviting to its future tenants, but Danny only gave a slow smile at how small it appeared to him at that moment.

A flicker of black blinded him for an instant, and something cool was looped over his head to settle around his neck. Danny blinked, his smile tugging into a welcome smirk to find Hiei standing before him. The demon's fiery red eyes met his gaze, a dark eyebrow quirked in teasing expectation.

Looking down, Danny stared at the slim silver chain dangling from the base of his neck which gleamed in the late sunlight streaming from the bare windows. Its pendant rested comfortably against his chest - a small silver dragon's claw, its talons gripping an ice-blue bauble which gave the illusion of emitting its own thin film of frost. Danny curiously touched it to find that it was indeed a bit chilled, and he lifted his eyes to stare at his demon lover just as the last of the sun's light faded and his human guise melted away to reveal the ivory paleness of his true form.

A brief saddened light flashed over Hiei's eyes, but was gone again as he calmly stepped closer. "I was born to an ice maiden," he quietly spoke. "Like those of her people, her tears hardened into gems both rare and valuable. Though the blood of my veins is dominated by that of my nameless father, whom I suspect was a fire demon like myself, I did inherit a few qualities from my mother." He lifted a hand, seizing the dragon's claw in his fingers as he revealed, "I myself shed this gem. My mate had used the last of his dwindling strength to promise his love to me in a kiss, and in the next instant his human shell had finally failed him. For one brief minute, he died. And I shed this tear - this one, singular gem that perfectly catches the color his eyes had been."

He lifted his gaze to Danny's permanently luminescent green eyes, which were now staring at him as though they might shed tears of their own. Letting the gem drop from his fingers, he moved his hand to instead snatch the back of his young lover's neck. "Kurama has a number of useful connections in this otherwise useless human city. He helped me acquire the aid of a jeweler, who crafted the gem into a pendant of my specifications. I was determined to bestow my newly resurrected mate with physical proof that I am his in every way. That a part of me mourns the loss of his human shell, as it was also the loss of a part of him as a whole. And that, should he accept me, I intend to spend every moment of his ethereal existence returning the love he had sacrificed the last instant of his human life to give me."

Danny stared, unblinking, for a long minute. When at last he recovered, his mouth tugged in a shadow of his usual smirk, and he fisted a hand around the front of Hiei's jacket, pulling him closer. "Before he answers, I hear your new mate wonders what convinced you to stake your claim on him in the first place."

"Been talking to Kurama, has he?"

A slim white eyebrow arched; "No, but now you've made him especially curious."

Hiei growled deep in his throat in mock annoyance, slipping his head cloth from around his brow. His Jagan eye cautiously blinked open, and he could feel its power hum in quiet curiosity at having been exposed. Hiei strictly reigned it in, slowly tugging at the back of Danny's neck until the pale youth's face was mere inches from his own. Though he did not fear damaging his young lover's mind - that risk had already been conquered long ago - he still hesitated for the very briefest moment before pinning Danny's eyes with his own and releasing just a tendril of the Jagan's power.

Danny sucked in a hiss of breath, the muscles in the back of his neck bunching together beneath Hiei's touch, but the boy did not jerk away. Together, they plunged into the pale youth's past, to a memory that the Jagan had etched forever into Hiei's mind.

~o~

(An undetermined amount of time ago…)

Daniel Fenton glared weakly at Plasmeus, sucking in quick breaths through clenched teeth as he watched his enemy from across the clearing. The older hybrid was drawing closer, but slowly, tauntingly, as though he knew he had all the time in the world. Danny narrowed his eyes in self-loathing - he had lost too much energy already; he doubted he would survive another attack. What little energy he had left was currently shielding him in a half-bubble, and even that was flickering uncertainly.

Plasmeus' eyes raked over him hungrily, and Danny cringed in disgust. He had long ago discovered just exactly why the man was still obsessed with him, even after Vlad Masters had finally given up pursuing Danny's mother. Not that anyone would believe such a thing of the "respectable" billionaire. No, he was all alone to fend off the older hybrid's unwarranted and unwanted attention.

Danny kept his eyes on his enemy, holding his ground as Plasmeus drew nearer, though in truth he was swiftly losing even the strength to stand. His human form was battered and bruised, and he could taste the blood of a cut lip. His arms were wrapped around his middle, cradling his stomach as it had suffered the worst blow. Yet he was not afraid, huddled there in that clearing, alone and virtually defenseless as his most persistent enemy took yet another step closer.

No, he wasn't afraid. Far from it… He was pissed.

He was stronger now than Plasmeus - defending himself against the older hybrid so often had provided a crash course in upgrading his power and abilities. He knew this. And yet here he was, the proverbial sitting duck, waiting for Plasmeus to stop taunting him and make his move.

He barely finished that thought, when the older hybrid suddenly launched himself, breaking through Danny's tenuous shield and colliding with the boy with enough force to send them both to the ground. Danny spat out a breathless profanity, immediately struggling to free himself, but Plasmeus had already pinned his hands to either side of his head.

"Now now, Daniel," the man warned in a sickeningly sweet murmur. "How many times must I say this before you finally understand: As the only two ghost hybrids in existence, we are only compatible with each other. In point of fact, dear Daniel, you were - essentially - made for me."

Danny paused in his struggling to spit in the man's eye.

Plasmeus barely flinched, having received such a response from him more than one time in the past already. Instead, he lowered his head, nuzzling against the collar of Danny's shirt to wipe his face. Danny cursed again, kicking his heels into the dirt in an attempt to get enough leverage to push the man off of him. His struggles only seemed to amuse Plasmeus, who sneered triumphantly before lowering his head again, presumably to steal a kiss.

Danny swung his head forward, hard, and was chillingly pleased to hear the otherwise stomach-churning crack that confirmed he had hit his target. Plasmeus jerked away and leapt to his feet, his silken façade gone at last as he cupped both hands to his bleeding nose. Danny used the distraction to his advantage, scuttling away from the older hybrid before pushing unsteadily to his own feet.

He wrapped one arm again around his stomach, his other hand tightening into a fist at his side. He glared as the older hybrid tried to staunch his broken nose, and he could feel his eyes burn in that familiar way that let him know they must be glowing green again. A slow smirk tugged at his mouth…

~o~

Hiei blinked, finally breaking contact with his pale lover's eyes. Danny sucked in another breath as the Jagan's spell was broken, and Hiei held him steady as the boy reasserted himself in the present. When he was certain his young mate's legs would not give out, he immediately let go and knotted his head cloth around his brow once more.

When finally Danny had recovered enough breath to speak, he gasped, "T-that was…"

"Yes," Hiei solemnly nodded. "One example of many depicting your martyred defiance in the face of adversity. In your heart, you are unwavering - and at the same time cautiously confident. Your very soul is that of a strong demon; I might once have thought it a pity you were born a human, had I not already fallen in love with that part of you as well." He lifted one hand to again gently cup the back of the pale youth's neck, "That particular example may not be remarkable in itself to you, but in that last instant when your eyes burned and you realized your energy was returning… The Jagan passed me through your heart's core again and again, until I was thoroughly awash in the defiant purity of your soul."

The pale youth looked somewhat abashed, "Hiei… I'm not always like that. I mean, you were there, last week - even after all my preparing, I was still afraid to die."

The dark demon patiently nodded, "I remember." He gently tugged the boy down, capturing Danny's mouth with his own in a slow, torturing kiss that ended with a tender lovebite at the boy's bottom lip. His fiery eyes shone fiercely as he pulled away; "But rational fear of the immediately inevitable is not cowardice. Even afraid, you never wavered in your plan. That is who you are - Daniel Fenton, the Phantom… Danny. You are who I am proud to have taken as my mate."

A slow smirk finally returned to his pale lover's lips. "I'm kinda proud of you, too." Then his expression turned thoughtful, "Though you have me a disadvantage…"

Hiei caught the hint and, because it came from his mate, did not feel angered or annoyed by the request. "Would you like me to share my memories with you?"

Luminescent green eyes widened just a fraction as Danny realized his request was not being thrown in his face as he had likely expected. "S-sure. I mean, if you wouldn't mind…"

Lightly grabbing the boy by the arm, Hiei led the boy to a corner of the room and sat him down on the floor. A single memory had subtly threatened Danny's sense of balance; if that was any indicator, then an entire lifetime of them was going to be an understandably bigger rush. Dropping to a crouch before his young lover, he lifted both hands to hover them to either side of the boy's head.

Danny gave a suddenly nervous smile, "Aren't you going to uncover your third eye again?"

"Heh," the dark demon smirked in return. "The Jagan only enhances my power. This, I can do on my own." And closing his eyes in mild concentration, he proceeded to fulfill the promise he had made to give everything of himself to his pale and perfect mate.

The End