Seven Days of Falling

epilogue

For several moments, they quietly reveled in the tenderness of the embrace, the rain pounding down upon them, until finally Mukuro pulled back slightly. "Let's go inside," she murmured.

Together they returned to her private quarters, and she led him through a small door and into a room he had never seen before. He was not entirely dense, though he was unable to control himself as he set eyes upon the large cubicle-like device against one wall.

"And just what is that thing?" he asked.

"A shower."

"It looks like a piece of shit."

Mukuro shot him a warning glance, but it was half-hearted, as was the sneer he gave her in return. She reached into the contraption and twisted some sort of valve, and as a result, a stream of water from a device on the wall sprayed into the large basin below.

"We're going to clean ourselves off," Mukuro said decidedly, and Hiei was about to protest that idea when, without any warning whatsoever, she lifted her ragged shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor, leaving her entirely naked in front of him.

She stuck her hand under the stream, and Hiei finally followed her example and removed his own clothing while she stepped in.

Mukuro slicked her hair away from her face and allowed Hiei to join her, half-smirking as the hot water pelted him. "Feels good?"

"Hn," he answered.

She picked up the soap resting on a ledge nearby and coated herself with a layer of the stuff, then set it down and delicately rubbed it into her skin with both hands.

Bearing witness to her bathing ritual struck some strange chord inside Hiei. He had never made a habit of bathing indoors—usually he just found a river somewhere. A part of him felt confused at Mukuro's behavior—that she might regularly indulge in such a luxury—and even though they had washed together before, the knowledge that she was now actively inviting him to participate in this with her filled him with wonderment.

As she meticulously washed the dirt and blood away from each part of her body, Hiei found himself unable to do anything at all besides watch her in quiet curiosity, a heady anticipation filling his senses.

She rinsed, then turned to him expectantly. "It isn't hard," she said.

And then she began to touch him.

Her hands glided over his skin, and Hiei quivered. She lathered the soap over his chest and shoulders, then pulled him close and massaged his back. No one had ever touched him in such a way before, and as her lips skirted across his cheek, he gave a soft sigh, wondering if now she expected him to take over.

Hiei placed his hands on her hips, gently squeezing her in his grasp, and touched the tip of his nose to her jaw in a lazy sort of way.

He didn't want to wash himself. He didn't want her to stop.

After a moment, Mukuro pulled her head back, but just when Hiei thought the experience had ended, her hands were in his hair, and he uttered a curious grunt. "What are you doing?"

"Washing you," she replied.

He closed his eyes as her fingers worked in firm, circular motions across his scalp. The smell of the soap wasn't what he would describe as pleasant, but Hiei tolerated it for the singular experience of feeling her hands on him. When Mukuro eased him a few steps back so that he could rinse off in the warm water, he did not let go of her hips, desiring above all else to maintain this intimacy they now shared.

Hiei blinked water away from his eyes and pulled her more closely against him. "Make no mistake," he said, pressing his lips to the damp, delicate skin of her neck. "If you had let yourself die, I would have killed you."

Mukuro smiled. "I'll try to avoid dying from now on," she said, reaching behind him to turn the shower off.

She pulled her arms away and wrung out her hair, moving to step out of the shower, but Hiei's grip on her waist did not falter, and he turned them toward each other, this time stealing a kiss from her.

She gave in.

She simply had to.

Their entire journey back home had been riddled with anxiety and stress, and now that they were, for the most part, safe again, Mukuro was able to feel again. The two of them had not so much as touched one another in days, and with everything painful and confusing—and amazing—that had happened between them, the distance that they had during that time was unsettling. She had no idea what to do with it. She had never needed so much to feel reassured, to embrace that warm feeling. She was terrified it was gone, leaving only the pain, a hole in all that the two of them had tried to build together.

But that could not be so. Mukuro couldn't let that prove true. She had to know, somehow, that all of it wasn't just a happy dream.

And now, it wasn't.

It was real.

She knew it when she felt his warm body beside her in her bed, his arms wrapping her up in a firm and comforting embrace and his fingers buried in her damp hair, reminding her how grateful she was to be alive.