InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Fugue ❯ Fugue II ( Chapter 2 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Standing on a precipice again, Kagome thought of how much Sesshoumaru reminded her of the past, of the things she had lost, and thought she could explain him the same way. "Why do you stay here?" she wondered out loud, desperate to distract herself from the discomfort he was inspiring in her. "Is it because I remind you of her?"

"Of who?" Sesshoumaru wanted to know.

Kagome looked down at her hands, twisted up on themselves. "Rin. Do I remind you of her?"

His long fingers reached down and stilled her furious fumblings, her nervous cracking of her knuckles, and it felt so strange to have his skin against hers. Involuntarily she sucked air through her teeth, suddenly lightheaded.

"You remind me of no one," he said quietly, drawing his hand back, letting his palm slide over the backs of her fingers.

Kagome turned her face away so that he wouldn't see her shock. She closed her eyes and swallowed. "Ah," she replied, mouth suddenly dry.

Sesshoumaru shifted in his seat.

"Miko," he said, the word sounding dark on his lips, "why did you awaken me?"

It was the first real question he'd posed, seemingly without agenda, genuine and true, and suddenly she felt small and helpless, lost inside his gaze, lost inside her own body. She wondered if he was all in her imagination.

She thought of her friends who fluttered around her, did their silly things and left her standing alone after she had given them the help they wanted. She thought of Yoshi and his endless womanizing. She thought of Miroku, who had grinned to hide his fear, of Sango, who had spoken little but meant a lot, of Shippou who cuddled up to her at night, of Inuyasha who never knew what she wanted him to be. She thought of all the little things that never meant anything, and all the big things that meant less, and all the things she had lost and could never regain.

She wanted to think up some excuse. She opened her mouth, meaning to lie.

"I..." her breath caught. She tried again. "I... I was lonely."

The words hung in the air between them, and as soon as she had spoken she knew it was the truth.

Her eyelids fluttered, and high in her nose she felt the sting of tears.

She wasn't going to cry in front of him. "Excuse me," she said quickly and grabbed her dirty glass from in front of her, jumping up and whirling away from the weight of his gaze that made her feel so naked, but she could feel it sliding over her even as she walked away.

Staring down into the sink, Kagome rinsed the glass and tried to ignore the demon sitting at the table and watching her. He made her squirm uncomfortably, made her cold and hot and nervous. For the hundredth time since she had led him down the mountainside, in the deep and silent part of her mind that she hardly let herself examine, she wished that she had left him there to grow old beneath a layer of dust and time.

He was poor company, all silent stares and cryptic thoughts and strange touches that she didn't understand but wished for anyway, and he only compounded her desire for the past rather than quenching it. All the people she had loved or hated had died, leaving all her pained fury and stunted friendships and strangled love flapping free and unfinished behind her.. Now, the only one who remained stayed obscured and wrapped in enigma, and she didn't know whether to love or hate or pity him.

Truth be told, she had never known what to feel about him. He'd been cruel and ruthless, someone to fear or despise, and then there was a little girl, and a sword that healed, and tiny things that didn't make sense in her own home, like the way he looked at her with shadows and hunger on his face, like she reminded him of something he wanted.

He didn't fit into the world the way she wanted him to. She didn't have the people she wanted with her, wasn't doing what she wanted, and nothing was the way she wanted, except that he was there, keeping her sane or driving her crazy and she couldn't tell which.

Sighing, she pressed a damp hand to her forehead, trying to shut out the things in her skull that she didn't want to know.

Even now his eyes were on her, heavy and intense, and she wondered if he liked what he saw. In her back, she felt her muscles contract a little. Her body felt heavy and strange.

She just... she wanted...

Slowly, Kagome ran a finger around the inside of the glass, slick and wet from cleaning, and licked her lips, wanting.

Her breath caught in her throat as she heard him rise from the table in a rustle of light fabric.

She kept her eyes straight forward, felt her breath come in shallow, silent pants, and she stared at the tarnished chrome of the faucet.

He was behind her.

"Miko," he said, voice low and slightly ragged around the edges. Kagome closed her eyes.

Then his hands were on her waist, pulling her backward into his body, one snaking up to cup her breast and the other sliding down to the space between her legs, fingers curling there and pressing down gently. Kagome whimpered in shock and sudden revelation. On her neck, his breath brushed across her skin as Sesshoumaru placed burning lips against her throat, swirled his tongue over her pulse.

For them, in that moment, time lay down and was still.

Inevitable. Fate. They had been an accident waiting to happen, and now that the universe had funneled down to the point of impact, Kagome didn't care. Desire pooled between her legs where his long fingers moved in sweet friction, shooting out across her like white hot blades.

His body was like a furnace, heat seeping through the layers of clothing that separated them. She felt his erection, hard and pressing, seeking her, desiring her, wanting her.

Her mouth went dry.

" - oh - " she whispered.

The glass tumbled from heavy, limp fingers and shattered on the floor.

Her bones had turned to water, and only his arms around her like iron bands kept her from sinking to the ground.

"Um," she breathed, head falling back to rest on his shoulder. She felt a fang run up her throat.

Bad idea, bad idea, she chanted in her mind, trying to be sensible. His palm against her nipple, rubbing the rough fabric of her clothes over raw nerves, caused her to arch, hard, straight into him. She was in a fog, unable to see. Bad idea, bad idea, oh god oh god, bad idea bad bad bad -

"Kagome," Sesshoumaru rumbled against her ear, and she was lost.

Then she was facing him, propped up on the counter and head against the cupboards, and his hands were parting her legs as he bent his mouth to the swell of her breasts. He was breathing hard, panting against her flesh, and her own fingers were fumbling greedily at the obi at his waist.

Too many clothes, she thought muzzily. Impatiently she parted the kimono, wanting to feel him against her, and where her fingertips met his chest he burned. He was scalding hot, so hot, so good, and she slid her hands up to his shoulders and shoved the fabric away, revealing searing satin skin stretched over muscles of steel.

He was frantically working at the buttons on her blouse, his mouth devouring the flesh beneath as he parted the cloth, and as cool air hit her fevered body she shivered beneath him, dragging fingers over his exposed chest, feeling his muscles jump and quiver beneath heated skin.

The bra presented an obstacle.

Sesshoumaru growled - low, feral - and at the dark angry sound quaking through her bones, Kagome moaned, feeling her thighs grow slick. She wanted to squeeze her legs together, press her own hands to herself, relieve some of the suddenly building pressure. Desperately she raked her fingernails down Sesshoumaru's stomach. With deep, drugged satisfaction she noted that he jerked convulsively beneath the sharp strokes, hips thrusting forward of their own accord. She liked it so much that she did it again. He made a strangled noise in his throat that sent a stab of need straight through her core, and his back bowed so violently that his erection, covered in heavy fabric, brushed against her.

Suddenly Kagome wasn't satisfied at all. He was so hard...

"More," she mumbled as his measured, eager claws unhooked her bra and scraped lightly down the hypersensitive skin of her stomach. She felt his lips move, smiling against the underside of her breast, and to her infinite dismay he deliberately moved back, just a little.

Kagome groaned. "No." She needed friction there. She was so achingly empty. Desperately she pulled at the tie at his waist, loosening it, tossing it aside, and he was in her palm, burning velvet over iron.

"Please." Gently, she squeezed, running her thumb over the soft head, spreading the moisture gathered at the tip, and in her arms Sesshoumaru made a noise of pure want, and his hips bucked against her hand.

She felt long fingers fumbling beneath her skirt, brushing against the dampness between her legs, and she cried out softly as he hooked her panties with one hand and lifted her into the air with the other. She struggled, divesting herself of the flimsy offending garment, and then he was kissing her, parting her lips with his own, rough liquid tongue delving inside, tasting her in their first kiss even as the head of his erection nudged her slick folds.

Crazy. She was going crazy, mindless, eyes rolling. Her hands stroked his shaft, and he groaned into her mouth. The blood in her ears nearly drowned out her own muffled cries, and then he was parting her, moving forward, filling her up in a slow, aching spread.

Kagome broke the kiss, gasping as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, and she groaned helplessly as he slid inside, stretching her out, filling her to the brim. Her hands fastened in his hair, fingers curling, and over her legs the heavy open kimono glided, drawing her into his clothing as she drew him into her body. Roughly she dragged his mouth back to hers and kissed him hard, running her tongue over his, feeling the points of his fangs, tasting him even as he invaded her body in a slow, silken slide.

He was trembling beneath her hands, or she was trembling. She couldn't tell any longer, and she took a shuddering breath, tried to press her entire body to his. The muscles of his neck worked in a hard swallow, and he shifted slightly.

The spiraling pleasure turned dark and bright as he angled himself against her. Breath dampened her cheek, and flames licked up her body, all-consuming.

This is what it feels to stand in fire, she thought dimly, eyes drooping, and not be burned. This is so wrong, this isn't right, this isn't what I want -

Except that it was. She wanted it so badly, wanted to reach through him, draw his heart out and crawl inside it. She remembered him. She knew him.

She wanted him, and for some reason he wanted her back. It was enough, in that bright, eternal moment, just to know that.

And then he was fully inside, resting against her, and she was dying. Kagome opened her eyes - when had she closed them? - and looked into Sesshoumaru's face, at the slightly jagged stripes on his cheeks, at the lowered eyelids, at the drugged amber eyes that softened and focused and devoured her.

Staring into her eyes, gaze tugging at her soul, he pulled out swiftly, and then thrust inside, hard and deep.

Kagome cried out, feeling his hard length, drawing his soft lower lip into her mouth and biting gently. He thrust again, and then again, and again, picking up a quick, gliding rhythm.

She closed around him, clenched around him like a fist, drawing him in as he moved inside her, hard and angry and filled with longing, over and over, driving away the emptiness, illuminating the shadows with incandescent need. The sick, strange darkness inside her burned away beneath his movements, beneath his fingers and mouth and eyes and he stroked her until she cried out and came hard, toes curling, opening before him. Pleasure spiraled through her limbs and she collapsed backward as he lowered his mouth to her breasts and consumed her whole.

And he didn't stop but kept going, kept plumbing her body, drawing out her pleasure as it became so intense it was almost pain, making her sob into his neck until he grunted in the back of his throat and spilled into her, and his entire frame jerked and shuddered beneath the impact of his orgasm.

Time restarted.

Outside it had begun to rain, and slowly Kagome realized the world had changed.

He was still inside her, brow to her shoulder as their breathing slowed, and she suddenly felt very, very stupid.

"Um," she said.

Sesshoumaru, hair in a mess, clothing akimbo, lifted his face from the crook of her neck and snaked his arms down and around beneath her hips and picked her up, keeping her molded to his body.

"Eep!" she squeaked, falling against his shoulders and finding herself with a good view of the kitchen as he moved her to the edge of the living room. With little ceremony, he slid out and deposited her on the carpet.

Kagome suddenly found whole new reserves of shame and looked away from him so she wouldn't... well, see something embarrassing. Her legs were wobbly, and there was a slick stickiness working its way down the inside of her thigh. Dimly, she was wondering where her underwear had gone when her eyes fell on the kitchen floor.

"Oh my god!" she said suddenly, crazily distracted. "You're bleeding!"

Sesshoumaru just snorted, contorted his body quickly, and plucked something from his sole, and it took Kagome a moment to realize that it was glass from the one she dropped.

Semen dripping down the inside of her leg and trembling from aftershocks, Kagome suddenly wanted to forget what had just happened, wanted to forget the fact that she had just fucked Sesshoumaru in her tiny kitchen. "Let me get something to bandage that," she said, sounding inane to her own ears.

"No need," he said. "It's already healed." He gave her a cool look, as though he had never dragged his skin against hers, as though they were suddenly back to where they started. "I will clean it up," he told her.

"You don't need - " she started to say.

He pinned her with his eyes again. "You should clean up as well, miko. Before you make a mess."

Kagome's face burned, and she fled.



There once was a hanyou.

"How many days?" Inuyasha screeched, baring his teeth in an angry feral grin. Kagome shifted uncomfortably at the sight of sharp fangs in his otherwise human mouth, but tried not to show how much it bothered her - it would be rude.

"Only two!" she said. "I have to go back today and take an exam tomorrow! I'll be back tomorrow night or at the latest the morning of the day after." Her hands tightened around the straps of her backpack in defiance, and she felt her chin lift of its own accord. She was so sick of Inuyasha trying to push her around, and she really did have an English exam to take.

Inuyasha didn't seem to be buying it. "How can you think of going back when we still have so much work to do!" he yelled at the top of his lungs. "It's your fault the jewel was shattered, and I'm sick of waiting around for it!"

Kagome huffed and tried to size up the situation. Inuyasha was standing directly between herself and the well with his arms crossed and his sword at his hip. Not that she thought he would use the sword on her - wasn't it meant to protect humans rather than kill them? it was doubtful the thing would even transform - but there were barbed claws on the ends of those hands.

She didn't really want to use that word. It was too much power, too new, too cruel to use on him. She had no doubt that he might try to hurt her, but she wasn't a violent girl. She feared that if she used the word too often she would get used to it.

She cocked a hip and tried to find the words to placate him.

Clasping her hands in front of her face, she begged him. "Inuyasha, please?"

"No!" he shouted. "You can't! You need to be here!"

Kagome lost the tenuous grasp she had on her temper. "Inuyasha, OSUWARI!" she shrieked.

The boy went crashing to the ground even as she ran past him. "Don't follow me!" she commanded. "I have to do this, so just leave me alone!" Blood boiling, she placed a hand on the edge of the well and vaulted over, falling into the endless stream of time as Inuyasha's curses faded behind her.

"Stupid Inuyasha," she muttered to cover up the guilt of having to subdue him.

Gently she was laid to rest at the bottom of the well, and Kagome sighed and began the annoying climb to the top again. Each step upward seemed to remove a little of the stress on her heart, and when she finally crested the top of the well she inhaled deeply, happy to finally be home.

Home. She hadn't known how much she valued it until she thought she could never return, hadn't really known how scared she was in the past until she was home in the present again. With a contented sigh Kagome crossed the small courtyard and entered her family home, removing her shoes as soon as she entered the door. It was such a relief to take them off, to shake the dust from her feet and go somewhere where the past couldn't touch her.

"Mama! Jii-chan! Souta! I'm home!" she called out, sliding the door open and stepping into the living room. Her mother stuck her head out of the kitchen.

"Kagome!" she exclaimed. "We didn't know you were coming home. I thought your test wasn't until tomorrow?"

Kagome shook her head. "Sorry, Mama, but I needed to come home. Inuyasha was driving me crazy and I need a good night's sleep."

Her mother gave her a bright smile. "That's okay," she said sweetly. "You don't have to apologize, we like it when you come home. Dinner's ready anyway."

"Oden?" Kagome chirped.

Her mother laughed. "Sorry, only curry tonight."

Kagome shrugged as she walked into the kitchen. "After being in the Sengoku Jidai, I'm not picky," she announced. Her grandfather smiled and Souta piped a greeting as she tossed her backpack to the side and ruffled Souta's hair.

"Hey!" he protested.

"You like it," she teased. "Take it like a man."

Her little brother stuck out his lower lip and sat up straighter, endeavoring to be more grown up. With a twinge, Kagome realized she hadn't seen him in almost a week. She shoved the feeling away and sat down at the table, folding her legs beneath her while her mother bustled around and brought out an extra bowl and spoon.

Setting the dishes down in front of her daughter, Kagome's mother smiled sweetly as she settled into her seat at the table. "Now," she said kindly, "tell us all about what you've been doing in the past!"

Kagome opened her mouth -

- and found she couldn't speak. There were no adequate words to describe what she had been experiencing. Fear? Excitement? Horror? Life-threatening situations? Severe annoyance at a certain hanyou? Kagome bit her lip, unable to articulate her feelings or experiences. They wouldn't understand the horror of being pawed at by a frog who wanted to devour your soul, or being buried underneath the poison of ruthless, heartless taiyoukai, or caught up in sharp, deadly hair. There was no way to impress upon them the world she knew.

There was nothing for it but to deflect the attention. Her mother always understood when she didn't want to talk, so she would help.

Kagome grinned. "I don't want to talk about that!" she blurted out, laughing a little to hide her sudden inability to communicate. "I want to hear about you guys! Souta, how are you doing in school?"

Her little brother blinked for a second before launching into a detailed account of how he and his friend Hiro had invented a new card game, and her grandfather interrupted to grill him on the rules. The familiar sound of their discussion flowed over Kagome, and in her neck she felt the tension of the past, of always being under attack, of having to deal with Inuyasha, unwind and melt away.

She stole a quick glance at her mother from the corner of her eye, expecting to see that knowing look on her face, so understanding of her reluctance and need to be normal.

But her mother was looking at her, an expression of incomprehension on her features, and Kagome suddenly felt at a loss.

Around her in the warmth of the kitchen, her family laughed and giggled and argued back and forth, but Kagome suddenly felt as though she had moved on beyond them, only able to look at them over her shoulder as they chattered on in their little lives, or as though she was staying still while they flowed past.

Looking down at her hands, she felt a high, stinging sensation in her nose, the harbinger of tears. I've been gone a week, she thought, and deep in her mind she felt both herself and her family shift and move around each other, suddenly no longer one, but two, and she didn't know how to fix it.

Kagome ate her curry, and felt the universe close over her head, like waves, shutting out the air.



The water in the tub was so hot that sweat was dripping down from her hairline and covering the outer edges of her cheeks in angry, itchy tracks, but Kagome didn't care because the heat made her feel cleaner. Sitting in the middle of the tub, she was curled up, arms folded in the hollow between her stomach and her thighs, tender breasts touching the top of her legs, forehead resting on her knees. She had to lock her ankles around themselves to keep them from sliding across the slippery surface of the tub floor. Well aware that she was assuming an approximation of the fetal position, she stared into the dark cave made by the hollow of her body and tried to make her mind blank.

It was all in vain. Despite her efforts, her mind kept replaying, catching her up in an endless loop. Over and over, she remembered his body on hers, and each time she did her cheeks flamed anew and she let her face fall against the hard bones of her knees. Each time she thought of him, the way the skin of his hips slid against the insides of her thighs, the way his chest brushed, hard and hot against her own, the way his stomach clenched beneath her fingers, she flared again with shame and desire. She was a pervert, she thought. No sooner had she finished fucking him - she felt slightly dirty even thinking that word, but that was what it was - and she wanted to do it again. She was a degenerate. She should have never done it in the first place.

But, oh, he had felt so amazing, his tongue against hers...

After about ten minutes in the nearly scalding water, Kagome finally unfurled, letting her legs stretch out and moving to the back of the tub. Slowly she opened her legs and brushed her hands over herself, feeling oddly detached from her own body, even when she felt her finger catch a fold of still-hypersensitive skin and her back bowed in a slight convulsion from the sensation. In the back of her throat, she made a small, strangled noise.

It was so strange to think about herself this way; as though her body had been dormant, she was suddenly painfully awake, full of awareness and frightening sensual knowledge. It had been years since she had thought of herself in a sexual context; Kagome had been in the final months of college when she had lost her virginity, and hadn't felt any sort of need since then, until Sesshoumaru had opened his eyes and awoken in her life, and the knowledge of him and herself burned bright across her mind. Shifting in the water, she bit her lip, feeling strange and alien inside this new body.

Long fingers tipped in claws now blotted out her first fumbling memory of sex. Yoshi. It was so strange that she never thought of it now, but then she had thought she loved him, and when they had broken up only a week after their clothed, three minute encounter, she couldn't tear her mind from it. But now it was just a memory, eclipsed by golden eyes and pale skin, faded in the heat of immolation.

Fingers still crowded at the apex of her thighs, Kagome pressed down and felt a soft shudder of pleasure echo through the backs of her legs. Lightly, she scraped her fingernails over the sensitive skin, feeling the water-resistant slickness of arousal and semen still collected inside her, and her cheeks flared with another touch of shame at the evidence of their transgression.

Taking a deep breath, Kagome dipped finger inside, and felt her body react. Immediately she withdrew.

Biting her lip, emotional discomfort excruciating, she reached for a washcloth and began to sponge away the evidence, steadfastly ignoring the tingling sensations her own ministrations inspired.

By the time she was done, her body had calmed itself enough for her to focus on washing the rest of her and, uncomfortably hot, she let a little cool water run into the tub and splashed it over her face, trying to get clean and wash away the slight sheen of sweat that had accumulated during and after the encounter. Deftly and vigorously she scrubbed her skin clean, nearly taking a layer off when she could.

When she was done she stepped out of the tub, toweled away the moisture still clinging to her skin, and decided firmly that she was going to go home. She needed the money, but most of all she needed to feel normal. Really normal, not the false sort of normal she had tried to achieve with Sesshoumaru - and look where that had landed her - but like she could talk to someone and they would listen and understand.

She would pretend that Sesshoumaru was just a man, and that she was having man problems. No one would ever have to know who he really was. She would laugh with Souta. Grandpa would smile, old and senile, and tell her a story. And she would ask her mother's advice, and then her mother would hug her and hold her and make her feel safe again, all right again, mold her back to herself.

At least, that was the plan.

Screw it, she thought. I want my Mama.

Kagome heaved herself out of the tub and hit the plug, letting the water drain out as she grabbed her towel from the towel rack and dried her skin, avoiding her own eyes in the mirror. Grabbing her blouse - it was still presentable - and a clean skirt and underwear, Kagome dressed quickly and headed to the door.

Where she paused.

He would be out there.

In her mind, he was still standing in her kitchen, disheveled and beautiful, kimono gaping open, but he couldn't still be there. He would have mopped up the blood - god, the blood - from the floor, tied the obi, would have smoothed his clawed hands - hot, frantic, fumbling clawed hands - through his silky hair. He might be at the table, or on the living room floor, or on the sofa, or he might have left -

He got what he wanted, she thought, and now he might be gone.

Kagome opened the door.

Sesshoumaru was sitting peacefully against the side of the sofa, arms folded into his sleeves, eyes closed. She was glad. She suddenly didn't want him to see her, suddenly wanting nothing more than to erase nearly everything she had done since he had woken up. He didn't move an inch as she edged around him.

"I'm going out," she choked, face burning, staring at the floor.

He was silent and still as she ducked out the door.

Once outside in the drizzling rain, Kagome took a slight breath, trying to calm her nerves. Stupid, she chided herself mentally. Stupid. She wasn't entirely certain as to why she was stupid, but she certainly felt the part. She had many reasons, of course, so in the end it probably didn't matter whether it was because she was regretting her actions, wishing to repeat her actions, or merely concerned that she would never be able to look him in the eyes - heavy, soft, honeyed eyes - again; it just mattered that she was the biggest idiot to walk the face of the earth.

Her mouth still tasted like his tongue.

Kagome sat down in her car in a flood of desire, rammed the vehicle into gear, and fled.



The courtyard was warm and wet and beautiful - the perfect holy shrine - and Kagome felt her entire body melting into the warm air and the cool shadows of the trees as she passed over the stones. Her shoes moved grittily on the ground, which now had damp dust and detritus from the streets strewn about since her grandfather was getting a little too old to do the sweeping every day.

Souta is probably supposed to do it, she thought to herself with a small smile, but I bet he's busy with his job. Souta had opted not to go to any further schooling and instead work full-time, and he was most likely tired when he arrived home. Kagome idly wondered how often her mother snuck downstairs and did his chores for him when he fell asleep at the dinner table, or dozed in front of the television, and felt a pang of longing for home hit her.

The trees and foliage were a brilliant green against the light grey of the sky and the blackened grey of the stones, and slowly she came to a complete stop in the middle of the courtyard and stared at the house.

I could stay here, in my old room, she thought. I could stay here, and Sesshoumaru could stay at my apartment until he's ready to leave! That might work...

She started to walk again, letting her mind clear and taking her worries, folding them up, and storing them away, into a crevice in her mind. She was home, and she wasn't going to show her family a troubled face.

Kagome walked in the front door and felt like she had returned from the past again, to find everything so surreally normal and perfectly in place. Shaking herself, she opened her mouth. "Mama!" she called out.

Off to her right, there was a rustling sound, and her mother leaned out of the kitchen door, looking surprised. "Kagome!" she said, sounding delighted. "I wasn't expecting you! Come in, come in! I'm making onigiri."

Kagome removed her shoes and stepped inside, feeling the comfort of the hardwood floor beneath her feet. It always felt so solid beneath her. "Sorry," she said automatically, padding into the kitchen, "but I just needed to pop by for a bit. I just forgot to call, I guess."

Her mother gave her a knowing smile, the one that had made her feel so safe once upon a time. "Are you getting enough sleep, dear?" she asked as she moved to the sink to run her hands beneath the water from the faucet. "How are you doing? How is school?"

Questions, questions, and how to answer? Kagome bought herself some time as she moved to the table and took a seat.

"Oh, don't sit down just yet!" her mother cried. Confused she stood again, only to be subjected to a warm hug that smelled of flowers.

"Sorry," she said, mentally scolding herself for not hugging her mother when she immediately came in. "Sorry, Mama."

"Nothing to worry about!" her mother sang, pulling away. "You seem tired! Have you been eating well?"

Kagome pounced on the subject. "Yes, I have. I had steak a few days ago," she half-lied. Well, I cooked steak a few days ago. I think that counts.

Her mother, already piling rice in her hand, turned and pinned her only daughter with a glare. "Steak?" she demanded. "What are you talking about? Do you need money? Have you spent it all? You know if you need any you just have to ask!"

Kagome watched as her mother absent-mindedly shaped a little triangle of rice in her hands, and in the hallway she could hear a clock ticking.

"Let's not talk about that now," she said quietly. "Where are grandpa and Souta?"

"Oh!" Her mother waved a hand, flinging rice across the counter top.

The counter top. Kagome had to suppress the brief vision of herself and Sesshoumaru rutting on its surface, and she dipped her head and let her hair fall over her flushed face as her mother replied. "Souta's out with friends, and Grandpa is at his chess club!"

Pressing a cooling hand to her cheek, Kagome grabbed the passing lifeline of conversation. "Grandpa plays chess?" she said, somewhat dumbfounded. "I didn't know that."

"Well," her mother said sweetly, "he doesn't really play chess. He's better at telling other people how to play."

Kagome blinked. "So... he teaches chess?"

A laugh escaped from her mother. "Not exactly," she giggled, dipping her hands into some water and scooping up more rice.

A little shot of annoyance surfaced. "He sits behind other people and tells them what move to make next," Kagome said flatly.

Her mother just nodded and laughed. "They're all old men," she said, "so they tend to do that to other people."

"Ah, yes," Kagome replied, well aware of the way her grandfather always tried to tell her what was best to do, even though he had little to no experience in the things for which she needed help. She missed him. Why couldn't he be here?

Her mother set another perfectly formed rice ball on the plate. "So what brings you here, Kagome?" her mother questioned, gently.

"I need money," Kagome said quickly, because it was true.

Her mother gave her a look over her shoulder. "And..." she prompted, plumping the rice in her hands.

Clenching her teeth, Kagome looked down at her clasped hands and was quiet. She reflected that Sesshoumaru might be rubbing off on her, and then scolded her brain for the poor choice of words as her cheeks flared again.

This table, she thought, is really very interesting.

"Kagome?"

And I am not at all going to think about Sesshoumaru. At all.

"Kagome?"

Kagome looked up, wishing she didn't show her shame so clearly on her face. "Yes?"

There was a smile across her mother's face, smug and knowing, as though she had peered inside her daughter's skull and seen the memories living there. A soft, loving hand was on her shoulder, the thumb slowly massaging the knotted muscles beneath her skin. "Is it boy problems?"

Kagome looked away. "Sort of," she said, because the last thing she thought of when she thought of 'boy problems' was her particular situation.

To her surprise, her mother gave a sigh of what seemed to be relief. "Ah," she breathed as she sat down across from her daughter. "I'm... glad."

Kagome blinked. "What?" she asked. "You're glad I'm having - er, boy problems?"

Her mother nodded as she touched Kagome's clasped hands. "I'm glad," she said softly, "that you seem to be finally moving past Inuyasha."

Kagome opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

"I know, I know," her mother said softly, "you loved him. But we both know that he's in the past."

Dead of infection, Kagome thought distantly, and she wanted to scream.

"And you can't live in the past your whole life, you know. It's difficult enough to live in the present, with the people that are around us now."

Platitudes. Little, silly clichés that were just so wrong. Tell me something, mama, Kagome thought. Tell me something real and true, like you used to tell me.

"So... who is this boy?" her mother asked, looking soft and impenetrable all at once. Her mother's hands on her own felt strange and papery, as though the skin was thin and fragile compared to hers. Kagome blinked, and slowly, oddly, she realized her mother was growing old. But there was a question she had to answer, right?

This boy? she thought distantly, and the memory of Sesshoumaru's hot, questing mouth on the swell of her breasts flashed across her mind, clawed fingers skimming over her ribs and hips arching in to meet her own -

Snatching her hands back, Kagome shook her head violently. "He's no one," she said shrilly. "He's just this guy that I like!"

And her mother nodded sagely, as though she understood everything, the guilt and the shame and the need and the loneliness and the strange, irrational gratitude that made her want to run home and kiss Sesshoumaru up and down, and at the same time seal him away so they would never touch again. "I see," her mother said, "I see. You like him, but he doesn't like you, correct?"

"That is probably true," Kagome replied. Yes. She was painfully aware of how true it might be.

Her mother nodded knowingly. "Well, Kagome," she said gently, as though reading from a script, "you are a very special, sweet girl. If he doesn't see how worthy you are, then he is not worthy of you." Her mother grabbed her hands again and held them tight. "Just be who you are, and the right boy will find you."

Wearily, Kagome closed her eyes and nodded, suddenly wishing that she had never come, that she had just stayed at her flat and pretended nothing had changed. To Sesshoumaru, that was probably true - he had wanted her and she had wanted him, so they had fucked and that was that. Nothing would change between them, with the exception of everything. Something had happened in her little bleached white life, her tiny orderly home and her tiny orderly mind, and now she didn't know how to put it back the way it had been.

Her mother was still talking, still telling her that she would find the right boy someday, that he would sweep her off her feet and she would know from the moment he walked in the door that they were meant to be.

She nodded and smiled and thanked her mother for the advice. As she rose from the table her mother pressed a wad of cash into her hands, urging her to buy something nice for herself. Kagome agreed, something nice would be nice, and she fled the shrine much in the same way as she had fled her apartment. With nowhere else to go, she headed back, back towards the disorder and chaos and the golden eyes and shining skin and silver hair and the guilt that pressed down on her so heavily she thought she would never be able to breathe again.

Pulling into the parking lot, Kagome took a deep breath and assured herself that she was going to be fine. "Just act like nothing happened," she told herself. "You can buy clothes for him tomorrow, and just act like things are normal until he leaves." Ignoring the clenching in her chest, Kagome ascended the stairs to her flat, and walked into the entryway.

Sesshoumaru was nowhere to be found inside the doorway.

Which, Kagome reflected, was unsurprising; he probably regretted his indiscretions this morning just as much as she did. Kicking off her shoes, she decided that things might not be as difficult as she had anticipated. If they both acted normally, they should be able to get through the awkward period easily.

Padding back to her bedroom door, she opened it and stepped inside.

Sesshoumaru was sitting on the edge of the bed with nothing on but a towel around his waist and the heavy, sopping weight of his hair piled loosely beneath another towel atop his head and dripping into his face. Tiny drying water droplets were drying on his skin and his head was bowed. He seemed to be fascinated by the claws that hung limply between his knees, or perhaps the floor was simply captivating. Kagome wanted to die of embarrassment.

"S-sorry," she stammered, backing out quickly and nearly slamming the door.

Staring at the wood, unable to cope, she decided to feed the cat.

After a very deliberate five minutes of selecting the right can of cat food, grabbing the correct plate, locating the can opener, and opening the cat food, Kagome heard her bedroom door open and felt Sesshoumaru walk into the room. She was uncomfortably aware that she was more sensitive to his youki than ever before, and could feel the small ebbing and cresting of it with his movements. Breathing in air as though it were courage, she turned to find him clad once more in kimono and loose hakama that made his hips look simply delicious -

Kagome decided she should probably die before she thought about him ever again. It was one thing to think about him when he was out of sight, but another thing entirely to think about him when he was right in front of her. She was just ogling him, as if she owned him, as if he were just a piece of meat. A pleasurable piece of meat, to be sure, but all the same...

Blinking in confusion, Kagome was suddenly shocked at herself. She didn't think this way, she didn't think about people as things. Something was wrong with her, and it was standing in this room, looking at her and heating her blood.

"That can never happen again," she blurted suddenly.

Sesshoumaru just looked at her, his expression icy and guarded.

She shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. "No offense to you, but it was just wrong and shouldn't happen again." She bit her lip. "Not that... you... would want to..." she added before he could cut her down for her presumption. What if she'd been bad at it? What if he was disgusted with her? His reactions to her had spoken very loudly that he'd liked it, but there was still the niggling doubt - what if he hadn't?

On the other hand, what did it matter? They weren't going to do it again, and that was final! She couldn't believe she was worried about what he was thinking of her. It wasn't like she valued his high and mighty opinion, even though he'd been inside her a scant few hours ago -

Kagome clenched her teeth tightly.

Sesshoumaru surprised her by speaking. "Scared, miko?" he said, mockingly.

She bristled. "I am not scared. Let's just forget about it, okay? It was wrong and we shouldn't do it again."

The demon made a noncommittal sound in his throat and glided across the carpet, very evenly, toward her. "And why was it wrong, miko?"

Clenching her fists, Kagome lifted her chin. "It just was," she informed him, praying he wouldn't come any nearer, sudden visions flashing across her brain - if he touched her, would she resist?

Sesshoumaru stopped only a half a foot away and stared down at her. He was silent for a long, long time, and Kagome grew more and more nervous beneath his heavy regard.

"Very well," he said finally. "Unless you wish it, there will be no repeat of this morning."

Momentary relief and disappointment flooded down, almost immediately displaced by uncomfortable confusion - did he want to have sex with her again? Did he care? Did he feel rejected, or relieved? Unless I wish it? she repeated in her mind. What does he mean?

She narrowed her eyes and studied his face, but Sesshoumaru, taiyoukai, Lord of the West, and some-time ruthless killer, gazed back at her, as pretty and as opaque as always, and still as a statue in her living room. Kagome turned her thoughts on their heads and wondered, If I touched him, would he resist?

And suddenly the fearless miko was too scared to try, and looked away, trying to find the strength to breathe in the suddenly thick, stifling atmosphere.

He was close, but not close enough, and Kagome fought the almost overwhelming urge to tangle her hands in his clothes and pull him against her, trail her tongue up his jaw, really taste him -

From the corner of her eye, she watched as in slow motion, Sesshoumaru reached across the void between them and caught a lock of her hair between his claws. Slowly, slowly, he slid it through his fingers and drew it across the space between them, linking them together, and she couldn't tear her eyes away from the delicate strands in his hand. Kagome swallowed hard as he brought it to his lips, knowing what those lips felt like on the tender swell of her breasts, on her neck, on her skin, how those lips felt on her own.

Sesshoumaru quirked the corner of his mouth upward.

"Still so wrong, miko?" he whispered, and her knees buckled.

Kagome steadied herself immediately against the half wall, refusing to fall against him. She opened her mouth and tried to tell him yes.

"I don't know," she replied instead.

Her hair fluttered from his hand. "I think you do," he murmured, and he turned away.

She was so ashamed, and so angry, and so hot all over, so suddenly aroused and needy. And so angry. "Don't," she said, surprisingly evenly through her teeth, considering how hard her heart was pounding, "manipulate me."

"Apologies," he said, moving to the small window and gazing out, letting the grey light of the sullen afternoon fall on his face. "It will not happen again."

Kagome debated skewering herself on one of the kitchen knives. "Apology accepted," she choked out around the desire that had gathered in her throat and made her voice husky and deep. On shaking legs she made a wide berth around him and escaped into the bedroom, shutting the door behind her.

Not bothering to lock the door she stumbled across the room to the small dresser and pulled out the top drawer, sticking her hand in the back and rummaging around, on the verge of tears, though in anger or in loss she couldn't say. When her fingers found what she was looking for, she closed her fist around it and pulled it out.

Clenched in her suddenly sweating fist was the rosary that had bound Inuyasha to her.

She didn't know what strange impulse had caused her to seek it out, but having it in her hands after so many years suddenly seemed both stupid and ridiculous. Why did she keep it, and why was it in her hands now?

She wanted to put it on. She wanted to rip it into little pieces, let the beads bounce unnoticed into the corners of the room, never to be retrieved, to be covered in dust and forgotten over time. When a new tenant moved in, they would find the strange beads along the baseboard and throw them out, never knowing their value.

Outside her door, she knew Sesshoumaru floated through her living room, through her tiny world, beautiful and untouchable and sexy as hell. It was so wrong to want him the way she did. It had been wrong to give into him in the first place, and it was no less wrong now that the deed was done.

She wished he would knock on her door, come inside, kiss her sweetly and make love to her, block out all her loss and longing - she wanted that. She wished for it.

Kagome looped the rosary around her hand, as though she were sealing her own void. "I'm sorry, Inuyasha," she whispered, very softly. "I'm so sorry."

And Inuyasha said nothing, because he was dead.



She was still painfully awake when Sesshoumaru opened her door and stepped into her room in the middle of the night.

Kagome had been waiting for him, curled on her side and facing away from the door, watching the sky through her tiny window. She'd been thinking of him, replaying that morning over and over in her head, and the sound of him entering her room, entering her inner sanctum caused her skin to flush with embarrassment. Dimly, she wondered if he could smell the arousal between her thighs.

It didn't matter. Still awake, the sheets clutched in her fingers, Kagome moved beneath the covers very slightly, letting the cloth move on her naked body.

She didn't know how she knew he would come to her, but it was almost comforting to hear his soft footfalls against the carpet and the closing of the door behind him. She'd said it was wrong though. She'd wanted him to come, even though it was wrong.

"I know," she said around her dry tongue, "that you didn't just enter my room uninvited."

Her voice sounded full of annoyance and bravado, but she was certain he could hear the tremulous note beneath it all.

"All right," he said, quietly.

In the darkness of the room, she heard silken cloth whisper over silken cloth.

"I know you are not undressing," she said, voice strangling in her throat. Tell him to leave, her mind screamed at her, but her mouth wouldn't work.

"All right," he murmured again, mockingly comforting.

The sound of clothing whispering over skin to rest on the floor met her ears. Goose bumps sprang up and down her arms, and she curled around herself just a little more.

The time between when he stepped out of his clothing - god, she wanted to turn and look at him, wanted to shove him out of her home for being so presumptuous - and when he slid across the bed was interminable. When she finally felt his weight settle heavily behind her she let out the breath she hadn't even known she was holding.

"I know you did not just get into bed with me, because I don't wish it."

He chuckled, and his voice felt like fingers dancing up her stomach. "All right," he whispered, and then his hands were snaking their way around her naked waist, pulling her back into the cradle of his body. She plucked ineffectually at his fingers.

"So you do not wish it," he said quietly as she settled back against him, the hard planes of his chest against her back, his nearly full erection pressed at the cleft of her legs. He felt like heated satin against her, and Kagome felt a curl of fire spiral outwards through her limbs.

"Do you still not wish it?" he asked, and against her stomach his hand splayed wide, hips arching inwards toward hers.

Tell him to leave. He's not who you're really looking for.

"This is wrong," she whispered.

Against her back, she felt rather than heard the rumble of his laugh. "Why is that?" he asked her. His breath brushed the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.

Kagome squirmed.

"The others - " she began.

"You loved them, yes?" he interrupted. On her side, just below her ribs, his hand danced and played, tracing shivery patterns into her skin. Kagome pressed her thighs together, trying to block out the sudden rush of heat, but that only made it worse. Impossibly ready, dying for completion, humiliatingly susceptible to him, she groaned and buried her burning face in her hands.

She struggled to think. "I still love them," she managed to choke out.

Claws skated up her belly to her breast, and he covered the soft mound there with the palm of his hand, pressing down, massaging ever so slightly. Ripples of lightning radiated out from where he touched her, ricocheting inside her skin, electrifying her, and against her backside she felt him harden further.

Gasping, she barely heard him. "But they are gone, and we are here," he murmured against her ear.

And then he was sliding strong, tapered fingers between her thighs, lifting her leg. His body curled around, under and beneath, pressing against her slick entrance, and then he was inside her, moving slowly. Kagome gasped, hot and needy, arching backwards as he held her to him and let his hungry mouth play on her throat. Hand splayed across her stomach, hips thrusting achingly slow, and then his body twisted, light and deft, and she cried out, no longer caring.

"Ah..." she breathed. How did this happen? In her veins, her blood pumped hard and fast, and she felt a fluttering between her legs where Sesshoumaru glided against her.

"Don't stop." Her hands were on his now, she could feel the hard, delicate bones beneath his satin skin, and together their fingers moved roughly over her breasts. Gently he plucked a nipple, and Kagome jerked against him.

Stars pinwheeled across her vision.

Their rhythm picked up, endless and long, time obliterated from her mind. They moved and sighed and Kagome sucked his fingertips. Hands moving down her body, Sesshoumaru moaned softly and pulled away, still moving inside her - she thought she could feel every inch of him, sliding through her body - and then he was pressing a hot, needy kiss between her shoulder blades, mouth open as though he was about to swallow her.

Her hand was on his thigh, feeling his muscles slide beneath his skin, and against the pillow she pressed her burning face, stuffing her other wrist into her mouth and biting down hard as soft lips and the tip of his nose and his silken hair brushed against her. His tongue, his teeth, his mouth worked their way up her spine, straight up the back and into her hair, sending shivers down to her toes.

"Sesshou-"

Over the shell of her ear, he flicked his tongue.

"-maru-"

What could she say? What did she want to say, other than his name, sliding against the insides of her mouth, tasting like something sweet and dark and forbidden? It was the first time she had said his name in years - before, her tongue had tripped and frozen, and she'd never directly called out to him since he'd shuffled off the dust of centuries and slipped into her life.

Now his name slipped and whispered against her teeth, sibilant and soft, full of death and beauty, like wine and chocolate. She said it again, because it tasted so good.

"Sesshoumaru."

He rumbled something unintelligible into her skin, and then his strong fingers were on her chin, pulling her face towards his own, and she was gone, spiraling open beneath him, thighs and veins and lips blooming under his touch, and his lips, soft and hot and damp, brushed against the plane of her cheek. Her body shuddered, and she was falling, slipping and electrified, over the edge of the cliff. And in the midst of the firestorm, Sesshoumaru slipped his arm beneath her neck, pried her hand from her burning cheek, and twined his fingers with hers, pressing their palms together.

He held her hand as she came, and above her own cries, Kagome could hear the crystalline sound of her heart breaking.

He held on as he came hard, pulling her into him so violently she thought she would have bruises where he touched her, and his fingers were like iron on hers.

Sesshoumaru didn't let go even as he drifted to sleep, still locked to her.

Kagome wished she could disappear.



There once was a nothing girl.

Kanna was a void, a hole cut out of the world, drifting between here and there, the eldest of Naraku's horrible, cold children. Whenever Kagome caught a glimpse of her bland white form she felt as though someone was walking across her grave.

A little girl, pale and ghostly, had stood in front of her with a mirror held loosely in her hands and large, empty eyes that seemed to consider nothing to be of interest. The complete, unadulterated boredom that had been painted on the girl's face had given her pause, even as Sango had charged forward, Hiraikotsu swinging over her head with practiced ease and a ferocity borne of the desire to protect her friends.

Calmly, the little white girl moved the mirror through her hands, and then Hiraikotsu stopped - and beneath her arm, she felt the village girl Koharu shudder just a little bit. And then the boomerang was hurtling back through the air, knocking into Sango with a sickening thud.

Above the roar of panic in her ears, Kagome heard Shippou shout something as he leapt forward, but both he and the demon huntress caught a glancing blow from the boomerang. Kagome watched with vague horror as together they tumbled backwards and Hiraikotsu slammed into the wall behind her. Bow clutched in her hands, Kagome took a step forward, calling out their names.

"Sango-chan! Shippou-chan!"

The debris from the boomerang's impact was flying through the air, but she could still see that neither of them was moving.

Kagome darted forward, heart in her throat. Sango lay limp, like a broken matchstick doll, on the hard wood floor. Her jaw was slack, and the strands of her hair were caught against her skin, as though she had been thrown there by a petulant child. Irrationally, Kagome thought that she must be uncomfortable in that position, and her fingers twitched with the desire to move her head into a more satisfying position, except there was no time. Only she and Koharu were conscious, and the little girl was taking slow, measured steps toward her, face devoid of malice or benevolence. Slowly, inexorably, she advanced, and Kagome's heart clenched as though clutched in a spiny fist. Cold terror seeped through her chest.

The bow was slippery in her sweaty fist, and she couldn't decide what to do. Youkai took on many forms, but she'd never had to take on the form of a young girl before, and something was rebelling in her. The form of a child, usually so innocent and pure, took on a particularly malevolent shade when coupled with cruel intent, and one only had to look at the empty, soulless eyes of the little girl to know that she harbored no kindness in her heart.

"Kagome," she whispered, and it was like wind in a desert.

"Soul."

Fingers tightening, Kagome straightened -

- and arms snaked around her, held her fast.

"What-?" she mumbled half-coherently, not comprehending. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the face of Koharu, twisted and determined, but in front of her the pale, ghostly girl shifted slightly, and the mirror in her hands flashed brightly in the dark of the room.

In the polished surface, Kagome saw her own reflection, and it was like opening the door of the world and stepping out.

No, it was more than that. To look at Kanna and her pretty little mirror was to feel as though she were floating in the air and staring down into a deep abyss that had no bottom, just an endless blackness. All around was air, but beneath her there was nothing, only a yawning emptiness that would never be filled.

In those moments as she wheeled over an empty eternity, Kagome was more afraid than she'd ever been in her life - more afraid of the endlessness than she was of Naraku, of losing Inuyasha, of living her life alone. Terror, blind and cold, wrapped around her, and if she could have opened her mouth to scream against the void, she would have.

She could feel her soul spilling out.

And then her perspective shifted and changed, and the void grew deeper and deeper, drawing inward, narrowing, focusing.

Kagome looked into eternity, and eternity looked back -

At the edge of her hearing, someone took a step, and then there was wood beneath her, buoying her up through the emptiness.

Kagome gasped, blinked, and found the girl in front of her again. With great effort, she pulled herself into a sitting position, nocked her arrow, and aimed it at the girl.

In those empty eyes, the ghost of surprise echoed.

Her heavy panting breaths sounded loud in the room, but weak though she was Kagome feared the void more than injury.

And that was Kanna's power.



They had turned away from each other in the night. Cracking open one eye, the first thing Kagome saw was the textured wall next to her bed, the shadows from its myriad of bumps and lines turning it into an off-white color despite the glare of the sun through her lacy curtains. The warm weight of Sesshoumaru at her back was gone.

For a moment, she thought he'd already arisen and moved to his proper place in the living room, but after carefully turning over and catching a glimpse of his bare shoulder swelling from beneath the sheets Kagome flushed bright red and lay very still, hoping he wouldn't wake up.

She'd never really woken up in the same bed as anyone else before. Sure, there were all the times in the past when she and Shippou had shared a bedroll, but that was not nearly the same thing. For one, Shippou was like a teddy bear and was easily moved or dealt with. Two, there were no mattresses in the Sengoku Jidai, so movement did not have the same sort of breathless peril attached. Three, she and Shippou had also never shared carnal knowledge.

Kagome felt dirty, spiritually as well as physically. There was dried sweat on her skin this morning, and she was still sticky and warm in her nether regions - Kagome silently gave a prayer of thanks to the gods of Birth Control - and neither sensation was helping her shuffle off the guilt that was creeping over her. She hoped feverishly that he wouldn't turn over and look at her, or make any advances. She was feeling extremely unsexy this morning.

He wasn't moving. In the light of the morning sun, his pale skin seemed to glow. His damn skin always seemed to glow, Kagome groused silently, trying to distract herself from her dark, guilty mood.

The curve of his shoulder beckoned her to touch it, and his beautiful silver hair cascaded over his skin and pooled coolly on the sheets behind him. Kagome frowned, wondering if he was ever subjected to bed-head. Probably not, she decided. Truly, the universe was an unfair place.

Kagome shifted experimentally, but Sesshoumaru seemed completely insensate to the world outside his head, and slept on. Taking great care, she slid out from beneath the sheets and off the side of the bed, trying as hard as she could to be weightless. Easing to her feet, she let her hair fall into her eyes so she wouldn't look at him and accidentally... wake him up, or perhaps accidentally have sex with him again, or maybe she would accidentally tackle him and kill him. As quietly as possible, she edged around the bed and escaped into the bathroom.

She was spending a lot of time in here lately, she mused as she hopped into the shower and scrubbed her body down with alternately cold and hot water, as if she could clean away her embarrassment or her shame or her past beneath the spray of the water. Working the shampoo into her hair, Kagome closed her eyes and tried to order her mind around the mess of her life.

This time yesterday, she and Sesshoumaru were still in their separate rooms, sequestered away from each other, and they hadn't touched yet. Today, they... well, they weren't exactly lovers, more like casual sexual partners. Today, she was a loose woman.

Kagome raked her fingers through her hair and clenched her jaw. Today she was going to go out and buy clothes for him and hope that he would leave her house in as expedient a manner as possible. The sooner he was acclimated to the world as it existed today, the sooner he would step out of her life and quit tempting her with his beautiful face and the strange promise of things remembered, and she could go back to being the good girl that she had always been. And that was how it should be.

Swirling her wash cloth over her skin, Kagome nodded, a renewed sense of purpose filling her. He needed clothes and he needed her to guide him into the world again, but once she had fulfilled that purpose he would definitely have to leave. It wasn't like she was expecting him to stick around, anyway.

Shutting off the water, Kagome shoved away the thought of Sesshoumaru and her ambiguous place in his life with a determined lift of her head. Swiftly she dried her body and toweled her long, wet locks into an acceptable state of dampness. Opting for the quieter option of air-drying, she quickly wove her hair into a braid down her back before pulling her thin dressing gown over her shoulders and opening the door as quietly as possible. She hissed silently through her teeth at the sight that greeted her.

Sesshoumaru was still sleeping, or at the very least he was pretending to sleep. It didn't really matter. He was lying on his side, facing her, with one hand draped over the hard planes of his hip and the other tucked up beneath the pillow. He was covered by the sheet from the waist down, but above the sheet she could see the sharp, solid lines of muscle in his stomach and across his chest. The arm he had propped beneath his head bulged gently against his sleeping face, and over all of it spilled little trickles of silver hair. He seemed to be pouting, very slightly, in his sleep.

She remembered the second time she'd seen him, and he'd tried to steal away Inuyasha's sword. She'd fought him, let her arrows fly through the air, one to strike the blade of the Tessaiga and one to strike, his armor and then another to melt away in his poisoned fingertips. And she remembered when he'd nearly killed Kohaku, but had let him go, and walked off with a little girl who shone like the sun trailing in his wake. And she remembered him towering over her in a mist of poison, the most unlikely savior. And she remembered the sweep of his blade of life at the end of the road.

He was so beautiful, asleep in her bed, and she didn't want to leave.

Kagome stood there for a long time as her hair dried, watching him sleep.



"Okay!" Kagome announced in a loud voice when she arrived home that afternoon to find Sesshoumaru lounging on the floor, stretched out with his head propped on the sofa. He was wearing his customary kimono and hakama.

Well, she thought, I guess that's going to change. She felt a little bit of falling sadness, but pushed it away. "I bought clothes for you. And tonight we're going on the roof."

The demon looked up from the manga he was reading. "The roof?" he asked, one eyebrow arching into his hair. "Why would we do that?" He seemed genuinely puzzled.

Kagome huffed in slight exasperation. "We're going to the roof so you can start to acclimate yourself to the smells of the city. If you can't stand the smell of the cars and the pollution, you'll never be able to leave," she informed him as she set her bags down next to her feet and began to rifle through them. Her fingers caught a few articles of modern clothes. "Here," she said, drawing them out, "here are a couple of shirts. I thought white would be best - they button up the front and at the wrists, and I have a couple of pairs of pants, too, and some socks, and I even bought shoes - "

"Have you read this?" Sesshoumaru said abruptly, cutting her off. Kagome looked up at him, caught slightly off guard.

"What?" she asked. Mentally she cursed herself; it seemed like every other word out of her mouth these days was what, and it was tiring to hear herself become so boring. Still, there was nothing else to say.

"This boy and his father were cursed in China," Sesshoumaru was saying, "and now when they get splashed with cold water, he becomes a girl, and his father becomes a panda bear." He seemed bemused. Kagome was certainly bemused. She blinked very rapidly before regaining the upper hand in her brain.

"Yes, I've read it," she informed him, "but that's not important right now. Right now, could you try these on, so I can return them if they don't - "

"I always thought the Chinese were a bit strange..." he ignored her.

She thought about saying his name, but that thought was quickly quieted. It would be almost blasphemous somehow, now that she'd avoided saying out loud for so long; it was as though his name was meant for other things than just getting his attention.

"Hey!" she exclaimed instead. "Are you listening to me?"

He let the manga volume fall against his chest and looked her in the eye. "So eager to be rid of me, miko?" he asked softly, a strange little smile quirking the corners of his lips. There was no humor in it.

Kagome felt herself deflate a little. "I..." she began, then stopped. No, she wanted to say. No, no, no. But she didn't say that. "Don't you get tired?" she asked.

"Of what?" he wanted to know.

"Of..." - me - "...sitting around my apartment, reading books, watching TV." She shrugged helplessly. "Petting my cat."

Sesshoumaru appeared to think about this. "Hm," he said, tilting his head as if to say, not yet, but thanks for the suggestion.

Kagome sighed and closed her eyes. "Sorry," she said. "I don't mean to be presumptuous. I just thought you might be bored, and might want to... get out and about. Do something."

She opened her eyes to find him still looking at her. Slowly he rose from the floor and stood. "Thank you for the clothes," he said in that same low tone, paced towards her, and held out a clawed hand. Silently she passed the shirts to him and he unfolded a white button down that she had picked out.

"Oh, here," she said suddenly, digging again. "I got you some undershirts, too. You put one of them on first, and then the over-shirt."

He took the undershirts without a word and went back to the couch where he tossed them carelessly on the cushions and began to shrug out of his clothes.

"Eep!" Kagome squeaked, habit overtaking her, a blush flooding to her cheeks. "Not in front of me!" she said shrilly, covering her eyes with her hands. She took a step back, and her heel hit the second shopping bag and knocked it over, sending the well-folded pants and the box of shoes spilling onto the floor.

Over the pounding of embarrassment in her ears, she heard him laugh. She peeked at him from between her fingers.

He was standing in the middle of the room, kimono hanging around his waist and skin bare. The white undershirt hung from his fingers, and on his face was that same smile. This time it reached his eyes. "Still so shy, miko?" he asked.

"Sorry," she told him, and then she laughed. It seemed so ridiculous, all of a sudden. "Sorry." She dropped her hands and looked at him, and he at her. They were silent for a moment, neither seeming to know what to say.

"Well," he said finally.

Kagome laughed and stepped forward, taking the shirt from his fingers and demonstrating on herself. "Just put your arms through here," she said, slipping her hands into the sleeves, "and put it over your head," - here she slipped her head through the neck - "and you just pull it down." She pulled the shirt the rest of the way down and swept her hair free.

He looked at her with amusement, and then repeated her actions with another shirt. His hair proved a small obstacle, but he overcame it, eventually.

And then she showed him how to button the shirt, and demonstrated the workings of the pants and new - undergarments, she still blushed at the thought - and then left him to finish disrobing and reclothing himself as she tucked his extra clothes away on a few hangers in her closet.

The thing that struck her the most was how remarkably natural it suddenly seemed to do this, and how easily he had submitted to her instruction. It was... odd, she reflected as she smoothed a pair of pants against her body, keeping the creases sharp, but also far from unpleasant. With a sigh of near-contentment, she hooked the hanger over the rod and smiled. His new garments seemed small and paltry next to her wide collection of outfits, but still - it was nice to have them there, as though he had crawled into her room, settled down and melted into the corners of her life that had been left long bare by absence. Carefully, she smoothed the cloth hanging down, as she'd seen her mother do so many times, before stepping away and keeping her eyes down as she walked to the door of her room.

"Are you decent?" she asked, studying a small loose thread by her big toe.

"Yes," he said.

Kagome looked up.

Sesshoumaru, now in casual, modern clothes, looked at her with inscrutable eyes from the middle of the living room.

The pants he wore weren't the best quality, but they fit him well, slightly snug through the hips and falling against the outline of his thighs down to the floor, falling over his bare feet. The sharp creases down the front emphasized the shape of his legs. The shirt seemed thin in comparison to his normal clothing, and he hadn't tucked it in, so the tails fell loose over his waistband. The shirt was unbuttoned at his throat, gaping open slightly. He'd rolled his sleeves up, revealing the stripes that graced his wrists, and that was the only part she liked.

Kagome's chest hurt. He looked almost naked, even more bare than when he was actually nude, and without the thick clothing of his own era he appeared small and vulnerable. His long, beautiful hair seemed ridiculous, and the stripes and crest on his face were queer, alien.

She was finding it hard to breathe.

"I do not look pleasing?" Sesshoumaru asked quietly, expression not changing.

Sucking her lower lip between her teeth, Kagome stepped forward, shaking her head. She stopped directly in front of him, unable to look him in the eye, and didn't say anything for a moment. It was so difficult for her to breathe around the heavy weight that squatted behind her sternum, but finally she was able to force air into her throat. "You look good," she said, voice strangled. "You look great." And he did. He wore the clothes beautifully, as he did everything beautifully. Sesshoumaru wrapped the universe around himself and wore it beautifully, but that was not the problem.

At the edge of her vision, she saw him tip his head gently, and a long strand of shining hair fell over his shoulder, brushed his chest. "Then it does not please you," he said.

She blinked, and was shocked to find tears welling in her eyes. When did that happen? Kagome fluttered her eyelids, willing them away, staring at the front of his shirt.

"No." Her head was shaking back and forth, and her fingers were working their way down his chest, slowly maneuvering the buttons through their holes, loosening the fabric, pushing it away from him. "No."

Sesshoumaru said nothing as Kagome smoothed her hands over his chest, still covered in the undershirt she'd helped him with, worked her hands up underneath his collar and pushed the shirt down. The demon didn't move as she pulled the fabric over his back, and her face was so close to his shoulder that she could have leaned in - just an inch, just the space of a heartbeat - and planted a kiss on the swell of muscle there if she had been brave enough. She stared, fascinated, at the fall of silken hair draped softly over his shoulder, at the pale, perfect skin of his neck, disappearing beneath the white cotton collar of the undershirt, at the swell and ebb of muscle beneath the fabric. From the corner of her eye, she could make out the hard line of his jaw, the flat plane of his cheek.

Her hands were still moving over the warmth of his back. At his wrists, the shirt gathered loosely, and then he bowed his head slightly, lips drawing close to her ear.

Kagome could hear him breathing, just ever so slightly picking up pace beneath her touch. She could see his chest rise and fall.

Gritting her teeth, she tried to block him out of her mind and concentrated on the task at hand. She swept her fingers down his arms and felt the muscles jerk beneath his skin as she removed the shirt entirely. Still not looking directly at him, she let it fall to the floor as she forced her hands to her sides.

"You don't have to wear these when you are just with me," she told him, and she didn't know if she was demanding or pleading.

"You like the other clothes better?" he murmured, as though he were speaking to a child.

She nodded. "Yes," she said.

"Hm." He gave that short, sharp laugh that wasn't really a laugh at all, and Kagome shivered at the vibration of his voice in her bones. They were so close that if she took a deep breath, her breasts would brush against him, but instead she fought to keep her breathing shallow, her hands at her sides, mimicking his posture. She stayed still, even though he was right in front of her and she ached, bone deep, to touch him.

Sesshoumaru moved his mouth to her ear.

Kagome felt her skin dissolve into shivers, crawling over her bones as he moved his warm, soft lips against the shell of her ear, planting gentle, hungry kisses over the flesh of her ear lobe, moving down to her throat and brushing sweetly over her pulse. His nose brushed against the small hairs at her nape, sending a shot of electricity through her. Mouth dry, eyes fluttering closed, she suddenly found herself listing into him, nose and chin resting gently against his shoulder, hot breath escaping through parted lips as his tongue darted out and tasted her.

Wasn't this supposed to not happen again? The sudden thought flashed across her brain, drawing her up short, and without thinking she took a heavy step back, away from him.

Sesshoumaru did not follow her, merely straightened and gave her a blank look, and a hollow pang of loss stabbed her through the heart as the warmth faded from her body.

She was suddenly so, so tired. Sighing, Kagome closed her eyes, once, idly wishing that she could just fall asleep there on her feet. Opening them again, she looked at Sesshoumaru, who hadn't moved.

"I'm going to take a nap, and tonight we'll go on the roof so you can start to get used to the smell of the city," she informed him.

Sesshoumaru nodded. As though the past few minutes had been pinched out of existence, extinguished like a candle flame, Kagome nodded politely back before she turned and went to her room. Not bothering to close the door, she laid down, fully clothed, atop the bed covers and let her eyes slide shut.

If I ignore it, it will go away, she thought, and it sounded facetious even inside the confines of her own mind. Lips quirking, Kagome let her breathing slow as she shuffled off her turbulent heart and descended into slumber.



Staring at her feet as she climbed the outside fire-escape at the back of her building, Kagome was acutely, humiliatingly aware of the proximity of Sesshoumaru's face to her behind. Granted, she was wearing a skirt, but that didn't make her feel better - it just meant he would have better access should he decide to pull a Miroku on her.

The journey up the stairs was horribly long. Kagome's apartment building was fairly tall, and they'd had to make their way down to the street before scurrying around the back and climbing to the top as furtively as possible. The long silver hair and facial markings distinguished the demon far more than she was comfortable with, and it was best to avoid prying eyes. She had debated instructing him to carry her in one long leap to the top, but decided against it. Expediency was not nearly as important as avoidance of notice.

Sesshoumaru had stayed dressed in his new clothes for this adventure. Kagome supposed that it made sense for him to not wear his more traditional garb, but it stung a little to see him, especially since she had made her preference embarrassingly clear. Bygones, I suppose, she mentally sighed, staring at her sensible shoes as she labored ever upward. Behind her, Sesshoumaru ascended, silent as a ghost.

When they crested the edge of the roof, Kagome didn't bother looking back at him but instead strode across the asphalt. She'd never been there before. It looked as though another fellow tenant, similarly devoid of a balcony, had laid claim to a small area of the available space for a little garden of ferns and a few flowers. Kagome gave the garden a cursory glance, but reluctantly moved away from it. As much as she simply wanted to sit in the flowers and clear her mind, the scent would defeat the purpose of making the short trip to the top in the first place, so instead she walked to the other end of the roof.

It was a nice night. The waning moon was high above, oddly bright in the sky, and only a few wispy clouds scuttled across the darkness. In the past - the real past, not just her own - the stars would have glittered like carelessly scattered glass, but now the sky looked dim and smoky, and only a few little pinpricks shone through.

Kagome looked away from the sky and cast about for a place to spread out her blanket. Uncertain as to the surface of the roof, she had bundled beneath her arm a fairly faded yet comfortably squashy bedspread that her mother had bought for her when she was first moving out of the house, back when she was still studying premed.

"My little girl, moving out," her mother had announced proudly to no one in particular as Kagome had weeded through the clothes - all of them seemed so childish now - that she had decided to toss out. The guilt she had felt had been crushing. Her mother seemed so happy to know that she was making friends and didn't want to upset things at home, but Kagome had just wanted to escape. She'd never considered it to be a possibility, but it seemed there was such a thing as too much love.

Too much love smothered. Too much love strangled her. She'd fled the shrine with the new bedspread, vowing to not use it in her new place - her own place - yet the loneliness was oppressive, and she'd often pulled it down from the top shelf of her closet and wrapped herself up as she sat at the kitchen table and let silent tears fall into her tea.

Funny how she was whipping it out now. How is it possible, she thought now, vaguely, in the darker corners of her mind as she shook the bedspread and set it out on a random patch of asphalt near the edge, for both love and loneliness to be so horrible, and yet neither ever seems to alleviate the other? One of life's stupid ironies, she supposed. She glanced over at Sesshoumaru, who stood silent and shining a few feet away, staring at the moon.

He was so pale that his features seemed to melt beneath the silvery light, and only a gentle, warm summer breeze stirred his hair. She wondered how any living thing in the world could be so utterly still, so mute and unmoving that it seemed he had stopped the blood in his veins. Giving a little sigh, Kagome looked at the moon as well, and wondered what he saw there before giving him a calculating look from the corner of her eye.

Tonight, she determined, watching him as he continued to gaze into the night sky, I'm not going to let him get the better of me. We're going to hang out here, on this rooftop, and have a grand old time sniffing the air. In truth, she was a little nervous, but that sort of thing had never seemed to stop her before, way back when. She wasn't going to be shy or reticent like she always was around him. She was going to be herself. She would talk to him, and he to her, so the sharpness of the silence between them, the gulf between their words and actions, wouldn't seem so huge and empty.

No time like the present, as her mother always told her. "Would you like to sit?" she asked him, her voice sounding muted in the heavy, warm air.

With deliberate care, he turned his head toward her and nodded.

Kagome lowered herself to the blanket, tucking her legs to the side in the most ladylike position possible and propping herself on a hand braced against the ground, not watching as Sesshoumaru settled in beside her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him cross his legs and arms, back stiff and straight as she had seen Inuyasha do so many times. The posture should have tickled her mind, made her sad with remembering. However, lacking any voluminous sleeves into which he could tuck his hands, or thick hakama to hide the contours of his legs, he looked awkward and strange. His knees stuck out too far beneath the cheap cloth of his trousers, and his arms were crossed across his chest at an odd angle, narrowing his shoulders. Instead of looking dignified, he looked almost... well, goofy.

Goofy. The word floated across her mind, and she tried to attach it to him, but it kept slipping away. She'd never seen him look goofy before.

She tried to ignore it and stare at the sky in silence, pursing her lips.

Goofy.

A little snigger escaped her before she could stifle it.

"Something funny, miko?" Sesshoumaru asked, not looking at her.

Was there any point in lying? "Yes," she replied, biting the inside of her cheek to keep the smile from spreading as she turned toward him. "Here, unfold your arms."

The youkai gave her a blank look. Underneath his opaque yellow eyes, she thought she saw a tendril of confusion snake up and grab him, and the impression made her bite her cheek harder. It's not polite to laugh at the indignities of others, she scolded herself even as her lips twitched slightly and another unkind snicker welled up in her chest.

"Here, here," she said, looking away from his face so she wouldn't laugh at him. Intensely aware that she usually didn't touch him, Kagome reached out and took his hands from his forearms and laid them on his knees. "There," she said, sitting back and removing her fingers from his wrists. "That looks better."

Sesshoumaru was still staring at her.

Annoyed, Kagome shrugged at him and turned away. Fine. Look silly. See if I care. Sighing, she tucked her knees up behind an arm, and propped an elbow on top, jamming her fist into her cheek and turning her attention to the sky again.

"How is your nose holding up?" she asked him. It seemed as good as anything to say, and was the purpose of this exercise after all.

He tilted his head in his little elegant shrug. "It is not entirely unpleasant," he told her. He sounded odd and distant, as though his answer was just a throwaway thing, something he hadn't thought about deliberately. It was the first time she'd ever heard him sound nonchalant.

Amused by this sudden, newfound ability for small-talk, Kagome pulled out an old favorite. "It's a beautiful night, tonight, isn't it?" she said.

"Mm," he replied. Kagome smiled.

It really was a beautiful night, warm and clear, and Kagome imagined that she could almost shut out the hum of the city around her. In many ways, it was just like one of the myriad of nights she'd spent in the open air in the Sengoku Jidai, Miroku and Inuyasha propped against trees, Sango curled against Kirara, and Shippou sawing logs next to her in her bedroll. Briefly, she wished for a little fire there on the roof, just to make it seem like the old days again. She wondered if Sesshoumaru remembered those times the way she did.

Slanting another look at him, Kagome frowned lightly, and forced her reservations aside.

"Tell me," she said, "what was it like for you?"

For a moment, the demon didn't say anything and Kagome was on the verge of repeating the question when he turned his face away from the moon and towards her. Instead of speaking, he merely cocked his head, blinking, puzzlement moving beneath his stoic face.

Kagome grinned at him, realizing that she had asked the question with no preamble. "Sorry," she said, searching for the right words to make him understand. "I mean, tonight is just so much like... back then."

Sesshoumaru quirked an eyebrow. "The past," he said. It wasn't a question or a statement, merely a supplement. Kagome wondered if he ever thought she was crazy or stupid, telling him that she traveled through time.

She nodded. "It just reminds me of that time."

"Ten years ago," he replied, then added, "for you."

Sighing, she nodded again, smile fading. "Yes," she told him. "Over four hundred years for you." She looked away again, toward the stars. "What was it like, back then?"

He was quiet for a long while, and twice she almost asked him again, but instead she kept her mouth shut, feeling the fluttering of her blood in her veins. Finally he spoke.

"Back then," he said, then stopped. She heard him sigh gently. "Once, I slept beneath the summer sky. But," he added, voice low and cool, "all summer nights are the same."

Kagome shivered at something in his voice, something that extended one icy claw and dragged it through her middle and she whipped her head around to face him, and saw that he was staring into the distance. It wasn't an intense stare, but rather unfocused, veiled. Weirdly, he looked almost wistful. "What do you mean?" she demanded, feeling the sharp edge in her voice. "What are you talking about?"

"I meant what I said."

"But what about then?" she said. "What about when we were looking for Naraku?"

Sesshoumaru snorted softly. "That," he murmured, "is a name I have not heard in a long, long time." Beneath the skin of his throat, the muscles worked in a swallow.

Kagome thought she understood. "I know," she said. "Brings back memories, doesn't it?"

The demon finally turned to look at her. "Not really," he replied. The breeze lifted his hair gently, swelling and falling.

Lips thinning, Kagome dropped her eyes. "I haven't spoken his name in years," she said. "Nights like this, I remember what it was like, falling asleep, wondering if he would come out of the woods."

"That was not his way."

"I know," she answered. "But it was like chasing a ghost. He could have come out of nowhere. He wouldn't, but he could have."

Down on the street below, someone honked a horn. Sesshoumaru seemed to take no notice. "You still think of him," he said, oblivious to everything but the conversation.

A little uncomfortable, Kagome let a small laugh escape her. "Well," she said, "I think of everybody, almost every day. Don't you?"

"No."

The night was warm and sweet, but in her stomach Kagome felt a hollow blackness open, like a trapdoor, unexpected and unknown until too late.

"How is that possible?" she asked. Inuyasha - his name was still painful, uttered only in the silence of her mind. "I think of them always. They are always with me. What about you, what about Jaken, and Rin?"

"What about them?" he replied. "They are dead."

"But - "

Sesshoumaru stood abruptly, moving to his feet in a fluid movement before stepping in front of her. Before her eyes, the youkai extended a clawed, striped hand. The motion seemed so peculiar that it took her a moment to realize that he was waiting for her to take his hand so he could help her to her feet.

Confused, unable to refuse the polite gesture, Kagome placed her hand in his, and he pulled her up effortlessly. She let her hand relax, but he didn't let go then. Instead, he led her to the side of the roof, where a little half-wall ran around the perimeter before releasing her.

It was funny how just a brush of his palm against hers sent sharp, dark desire through her veins when they'd done so much more than just hold hands. Self-consciously she drew her hand to her chest and held it close, trying to quell the frisson of desire that made her mouth water. Sesshoumaru took no notice. Instead, he placed his own hands on the ledge, and gazed down over the street. Not knowing what else to do, Kagome mimicked his posture.

They said nothing for a while, and Kagome let her mind wander from thought to thought. Simple, idle things that she brushed by, forgotten as soon as she had touched them, and all of them skirting the black hole inside her.

It was strange, like déjà vu. "You know," she finally said, conversationally, "Inuyasha and I used to watch the stars toge - "

"Do not think of that."

His voice was sharp, though only sharp as a dull blade, warning her, but he didn't move. He stayed still, looking out upon city with his strange eyes.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded again, but his lips were already moving.

"You live too much in memory, miko," he said, voice soft against the dull roar of the city night.

No, she thought. No, that isn't right. That's all I have. She shook her head. "What? How can that be? My memories are what make me." Beneath the darkness of her heart, anger kindled.

"They do?" he asked. He sounded amused, but there was a bitter taste to it. "And do they make you anything other than sad and lost?"

Her jaw moved, but her words were silent, caught somewhere between her chest and her tongue, between her heart and the dull, warm night.

"Memory," he murmured, "is not for you and me. Our memories always have endings." He was staring over the street now, golden eyes dark with recollection and ghosts. "Time steals it all away."

Kagome felt something blister and peel away at his words. Sesshoumaru turned and looked at her.

"You remember too much. Remember only the beginning, not the end."

"I - "

"Once," he cut her off, voice like red velvet and blue glass. "Once. Once I killed a dragon with only my teeth."

He flashed a feral grin.

"Once, I met an old woman on a snow covered bridge. Once I hunted with my father. Once I fell from a great height."

Across her mind, Sesshoumaru ran through a snow storm, teeth bared. Howling at the moon, he plummeted from the edge of a cliff, an ancient woman with the bright eyes of a child clutched in his arms. Kagome reeled.

In the dark, he blinked, very slowly. "Once I fell in love on a mountainside."

Jealousy sparked in her heart then, and hope, but his perfect face killed her question in her throat, strangled it on the vine. With who, with who - ?

Kagome opened her mouth. "Once," she replied, "I fell down a well. Once I pulled an arrow from the heart of a hanyou boy."

His eyes flickered, briefly.

She licked her lips. "Once I lay with a youkai lord," she said, and the words were like dark wings beating against her heart.

He regarded her, his face cold but his eyes smouldering. "Once," he said softly, "I had a miko."

Was she beautiful? Was she good? Did you want to love her? her mind chanted. She opened her mouth. "Was she - ?"

"Ah," he breathed, and his cool fingertips were resting against her heated mouth. Kagome blinked, confused, wanting.

"We are not made for memory," he said, and he sounded as though he was far, far away, "and our memories are not made for others."

Through her teeth, Kagome sucked her breath, and then he had closed the gap, face buried in her hair.

"These are things the world never needs to know," he whispered, and then her trembling hands were on his chest and he was already running greedy fingers over her body.

Kagome moaned, arching into him, one leg hooked over his thigh, pressing his hips to hers. "Don't," she pleaded, head falling back as he worked his way down her body with his hungry mouth, "don't." Don't tell me these things. Don't tell me these things, make me forget, burn them away, but don't ask me to do it myself -

She melted into him, plucking at him as though she were trying to pull him around her. He was kissing her now, across her brow, over her ear and down her throat, fastening his hands in her hair, pulling her down with him as they sank together to their knees, and Kagome whimpered when her bare skin hit the pavement.

"Ow - " she mumbled, incoherently, at the sting of asphalt on her knees, biting into the bone. She shifted uncomfortably, seeking a better purchase on the roof.

"Shhh," she thought she heard him say, and suddenly the world tipped and turned and he was lifting her in the air as he lowered himself, like a slow fall backwards, onto the blanket.

"Oh!" she said, startled, straddling him, Sesshoumaru beautifully spread out beneath her. The demon ran his hands over the swell of her thighs, across the softness of her stomach before curling upwards and looping an arm around her neck. He was so strong, and she didn't want to fight him as he snaked a hand beneath her skirt, ran his tongue down her throat, and all the while his hips arched rhythmically, helplessly, into her.

"I've never done this before," she mumbled as he worked her panties down over her hips, making a frustrated sound when he hit the obstacle of her spread thighs. "I've never - "

"Be quiet," he murmured before drawing a nipple into his mouth through the rough cotton fabric of her blouse, working the buttons with one hand.

Biting her lip, hot and needy, Kagome wiggled out of her panties as he pulled her bra down and then undid the fastenings at his waist, freeing himself to the night air before guiding her hand to him. She drew a shuddering breath as he tugged her back to straddle him again, erection nudging against her as he did something amazing to the outside swell of her breast. Oh god oh god oh god -

Her need almost painful now, Kagome reached down and wrapped her fingers around him, guided him inside her, an aching, stinging glide. Sesshoumaru groaned softly and sank his teeth ever so slightly into her chest before sliding to a stop, deep inside her. He leaned back, running his hands down to her waist, slowing to a stop on her hips.

Not good, this is bad - "I've never been on top," she forced out, trying to keep her eyes open. Another memory, she thought. This is just another memory.

Inside her, Sesshoumaru shifted. Kagome gasped, toes curling.

"It doesn't matter," he murmured, his breathing so heavy he spoke in strangled whispers. "Just move."

She did.

On her hip, his hand clenched reflexively, the tips of his claws pricking her through the thick fabric of her skirt, and he pulled her against him.

"Kagome," he groaned into her ear.

Kagome lifted her eyes to the moon, and she moved with him, helpless, hopeless, in the summer night.

Later, curled against him in her bed, Kagome bit her lip.

Once, she thought, I lay with a youkai lord beneath the Tokyo moon.



There once was a broken boy.

Kohaku, Sango always said, was a good boy. Kind and gentle and never meant to be a killer, Kohaku moved among them, always a ghost, always someone that none of them had seen.

Kohaku was Sango's cherished burden. He was just a young boy on the cusp of adolescence when he had been pierced through with arrows and buried in the earth, and it might have ended there if Naraku hadn't intervened and dragged him back into the world of the living. With his memories banished and his sad, forgotten love wiped from his heart he was just a machine that wore the body of Sango's beloved little brother.

There was still something there, though. When they found him without his murderous intent or the blank slate of his mind, he was scared and young again. It was astonishing to Kagome that he could still be the person he truly was when all the things that had made him that way were locked away from him, sequestered in some inaccessible part of his head where he couldn't reach them. She marveled that Sango found Kohaku, despite the fact that Kohaku was shut away from even himself.

Fear, and no more arrows. That had been the biggest problem that had been facing them. Impulsively, she'd grabbed his hand, and linked together they had fled from the fight that Sango held, but there had been danger all around. Behind each turn in the forest, there had been a horde of youkai looking for them, seeking to take the precious shard embedded in the boy's back. With gritted teeth, she had whipped arrows from the quiver strapped to her back and purified them all, but the problem with arrows was that they ran out eventually. Kagome supposed that it was not a good idea to engage in combat when one could run out of ammunition, but there had never been any time to learn anything else.

As her fingers closed on the empty air at the back of her neck, she wished fervently for a sword, or a jo, or anything, but as always she had nothing to fall back on.

Her heart beat in a frantic rhythm as Kagome cast about, searching for somewhere to hide. Mercifully, her eyes lit on a small cave.

"There!" she'd said, trying to keep her voice below a shriek for Kohaku's sake. "Let's hide in that cave!"

Not waiting for his answer, she grabbed his fragile fingers and ran for the entrance. Swiftly she shoved him in front of her and let him slither through the narrow opening before following him, scraping a number of ribs in the process and jarring her knees as she hit the floor.

Panting, and momentarily safe, she looked around, taking in the hard earthen walls and the scared, white face of Kohaku. A stab of guilt went through her - she was supposed to be taking care of him, but wasn't doing such a hot job - and she turned away. They couldn't go outside, so the only thing she could do was wait with him in silence.

So they waited.

It was cramped inside, and the only light came from the small entrance. The proximity of the ceiling made her shift uncomfortably where she sat, trying not to think about structural integrity and landslides and mummified remains found hundreds of thousands of years after drowning in peat bogs.

Don't think about it, she told herself. Don't think about heavy things falling on your head and smashing up your brains into brain goo. Don't think about that. Don't do it. Just... don't... think... about...

Kagome squirmed and moved toward the fresh air outside, just as a few of Naraku's horrible bees flew past.

Nevermind! she thought gaily as she hastily retreated into the cool darkness. We'll just wait here until Inuyasha and the others come back. She ground her teeth, striving to make her mind blank and peaceful...

"That woman," Kohaku said behind her.

Distracted, Kagome turned toward him, relieved to be able to focus on something other than the imminent danger of ending up either squished or stuck between youkai teeth. "Eh?" she queried.

"Will she be okay?" the boy asked. His shoulders were hunched slightly, and he was looking into the middle distance, a pensive sadness etched into his face.

"Oh!" she hastened to assure him. "Sango-chan is strong, so don't worry!"

Kohaku had said nothing, merely thinned his lips, looking anxious.

What is he feeling? she wondered. What does it feel like to care for someone, and not know why?

He looked so sad.

"Say, Kohaku-kun," she said before she could stop herself, "you still don't remember that Sango-chan is your sister?"

Kohaku nodded. "But somehow... I like her very much," he said, and he sounded as though he felt a little lighter than before.

Kagome scooted a little closer. "You should know that Sango-chan worries about you all the time. She always stays strong, but she gets sad, too. So I'm glad you're here."

His eyes widened slightly and he drew back, as though surprised he could bring someone joy, as though shocked someone wanted to be with him. "Then... it would be okay for me to stay?"

"Of course!" she replied quickly, wanting to reassure him, to soothe him. "And eventually, you will remember Sango-chan."

He still looked worried, but nodded. "Okay."

Her momentary relief was short-lived though, and Kagome turned away and stared out the entrance, fear curdling in her stomach. A few minutes passed, but there was no movement outside, which was both good and bad. Good, because nothing bad had found them yet, and bad because nothing good had happened across them, either.

"Inuyasha," she muttered, fighting the worry in her throat, "you're late."

Behind her, there was the clink of metal on metal, and she heard a small intake of breath. Later, much later, she would remember the sounds in her darker dreams.

"You say you're out of those arrows?" said the boy, and he didn't even sound like himself.

Alarm bells kicking into high gear, Kagome turned around, fear rushing up to wrap around her and weigh her down.

The moment she knew he was gone again took an eternity to play out.

He was standing above her, his eyes dark and empty, the shadow of his bangs falling against his cheeks. Around the handle of his weapon she saw his fingers tighten, whiteness spreading against his skin as he pulled his arm behind his head, bracing his feet firmly on the ground as he wound up to strike the killing blow. Devoid of any passion, or fear, or love, he prepared to make a clean cut.

She knew he was going to kill her.

She would never see her family again, or her friends. She was going to die in a little cave, at the hand of someone who was so far gone he couldn't care if she lived or died. To him, in that moment, she was nothing but an obstacle. She was just an order he had to carry out.

And yet, even as he prepared to kill her, he looked unbearably vulnerable, as though the slightest wind would blow him away, whisk him off into the tiny darkness of the cave.

In her mind, Kagome could imagine his limbs bending beneath a great weight, young and supple, but not supple enough - in her mind, his bones snapped and his heart broke from the things he couldn't remember. Even as he threatened her life, she choked on her compassion. So many memories, hidden away, and if he could but reach them he would be himself again.

As the blade came down, Kagome closed her eyes.

A flash of purple pain and her throat released a scream as her eyes flew open again -

- to see sweat on Kohaku's brow, the blade off to the side, a misfire.

Kagome didn't even wait as terror drove her out of the cave, and down the path, Kohaku following behind, both of them unsure if he could stop himself once again.



Today, they were going out.

"What are we doing again?" Sesshoumaru asked, very calmly.

Kagome sighed. She'd planned a very short excursion, just to get him used to the streets and the cars and the stench of human beings. "We're going to go buy some food," she informed him again. "So you can go out and about, and become accustomed to the way things are now.

It was all very simple in her head. They would go out, she dressed normally and he with his eyes hidden behind sunglasses and his markings covered, and they would splurge on a few bentos at a grocery store, and maybe she would pick up something special for herself, to make her feel a little more beautiful. She was feeling less and less attractive the more time she spent around Sesshoumaru; despite his fairly clear approval of her appearance, looking at him day in and day out was enough to bring anyone down.

Still, it should be simple. Unfortunately, her companion did not seem to want to cooperate.

"I see. And what is this concoction again?" Sesshoumaru asked, brow arching high into his hair.

Kagome watched as he brought the small pot of stage makeup to his nose and sniffed delicately, like a wine connoisseur inspecting a particularly imperfect vintage, and appearing to find it not only lacking, but insulting. She sighed.

"It's stage makeup," she repeated for the fourth time. "I think this stuff will be thick enough to cover up your... uh... facial markings."

"Hmm," he replied, still staring at the pale, thick cake of paint inside the little tub. He appeared to be in deep thought, as though the secret of the universe would be revealed to him if only he contemplated it just a while longer. Kagome waited almost thirty seconds, and was about to hit her head against a wall when he opened his mouth to bestow his wisdom upon her.

"It isn't white," he said.

In her mind, she gave a long, silent cry of despair. "I know," she ground out, feeling not a little bit exasperated at this second repetition of his unspoken assertion - in his experience, makeup meant for the face was white, and worn by women getting married. With eyes closed so he wouldn't see the roll of annoyance, Kagome hooked a hand underneath the back of one of the kitchen chairs and carried it through the flat and into her bathroom. "But that doesn't matter. Now come in here. I don't know how long this is going to take, and I want to actually take you out of the damn house today."

Plunking the chair down in front of the mirror with as little ceremony as possible, she stomped back out into the living room, brushing her hair away from her face to find him once again delicately sniffing the cosmetics in his hand.

She was tired. Every night she went to bed alone, and every morning she woke up to find that Sesshoumaru had crawled in beside her for reasons he refused to enumerate despite pointed queries. Perhaps he was lonely, or perhaps he liked her, or perhaps he just found the bed more comfortable than the couch. Either way, sleeping in the same - rather small - bed with another person was not as restful as she would have hoped. Whenever he shifted or brushed against her, she would surface briefly in the world of the waking before nudging him gently back to his side of the mattress. She'd never thought she would be such a fussy sleeper, but somewhere between sleeping with Shippou in her bedroll and Sesshoumaru invading her bedroom she had become very particular about how she wanted to sleep, and it didn't include being touched.

Of course, there were other factors that contributed to her sleeplessness. For one thing, he snored. Gently and quietly, with soft snuffling noises every so often, but he snored nonetheless. Kagome secretly postulated that he lost some of his control over his human form when he lost consciousness and assumed the characteristics of a dog as he slept, but she admitted to herself that she was probably just making excuses, since she'd never imagined he'd do something so horribly crass as snoring.

It didn't matter, though. She would have to get used to it, or kick him out of bed, and the latter didn't seem very appealing, despite the hogging and the snoring, because it was still weirdly comforting to have him next to her in the middle of the night. This, she imagined, was what Miyu meant when she talked about friends-with-benefits, though her own situation held a notable lack of the first part of the phrase and a heavy curl of guilt added in, just for good measure.

It had been several days since she and Sesshoumaru had first gone to the rooftop, but they'd returned each night under cover of darkness so he could acclimate himself to the smells of the city and of so many human beings. They spent their days in mostly companionable silence - both of them reading or studying, and each night they would venture to the top of her building. She would spread the blanket on the ground, and they would sit side by side as Sesshoumaru lifted his beautiful face to the sky and breathed deeply.

There had been no repeat of the first night. Instead, they would sit in marginally companionable silence while he sniffed the air, and after a period of anywhere from half an hour to ninety minutes he would slowly stand and move to the stairs, leaving her behind to bundle up the blanket and tuck whatever other effects she had brought underneath her arm and chase after him. He hadn't even touched her again, and that knowledge kept her awake, thinking about it, over and over, well past the time when she should have fallen asleep. She wondered if that had been the last time he would kiss her or run his fingers down her spine and make her tremble. She wondered if their couplings were now a memory, and was both disappointed and relieved. The thought turned her heart to ashes, compounded by the pang of guilt and the hope that she wouldn't have to make her choice again, by the shame of wanting him when she'd loved his brother. She didn't confuse the two, but he reminded her of when she had been happy. He made her into such a sham, and at the back of her mind was the constant, heavy desire to atone for it, as if she could wipe away their sins somehow.

Ignore it, she thought firmly. Ignore the fact you slept with him, and you can get along with him - not to mention live with yourself - just fine. This does not have to be complicated. Lies, of course, but they made living from minute to minute with his heavy presence bearing down on her just a little bit easier.

"Come on," she said out loud, reaching out to pluck the jar from his fingers before she lost her nerve. "Time to make you pretty."

With a sardonic quirk of his eyebrow, Sesshoumaru walked past her and into the bathroom. Kagome watched as he lowered himself elegantly into the ratty chair, executing a complicated maneuver with his head so that his hair fell behind the back, and looked at her with guarded eyes. The glance made her melancholy.

Kagome tried to stare back with the same wary distrust, so he would know what it felt like.

"Yes?" Sesshoumaru said, eventually.

She shook her head. "Nothing," she replied. "Tilt your chin up."

He did so, not taking his eyes from her.

"All right," she said, and approached him. It always felt awkward to move toward him, since he almost always seemed to exude a certain air that said, very clearly, "do not touch me," but it was necessary.

There was still the problem of covering the tips of his elvish ears, but that, she supposed, would be a bridge to burn when she came to it. All in all, she was just happy she had stage makeup left over from high school.

She uncapped the little jar again and set the lid on the counter. Dipping a finger inside, she worked her fingertip against the hard, pale, flesh-colored cake, gathering as much as possible before drawing it out again and taking a step right up to his seat and running into a slight inconvenience.

"Er," she said.

Sesshoumaru tilted his head very slightly, saying nothing though the corner of his lips twitched very slightly as though he were taunting her. What are you waiting for?

Wow, this is going to be awkward, she thought. She had not, up until this moment, really considered the mechanics of the situation.

He was sitting in typical, stiff-necked Sesshoumaru fashion, his hands resting lightly on his thighs and his back straight. The bathtub flanked his right, and to his left the counter nudged his arm. In the horribly narrow bathroom, there was no way she could move around to his side to smear on the cosmetics; instead, she would have to lean over him, in close. Which was just not something she did. They could sleep in the same bed and he could invade her space as they slept, but gratuitously touching him had always seemed out of the question. Nevertheless, she thought, this makeup isn't gonna smear itself on.

"Sit still," she commanded, and leaned forward.

His skin was cool and smooth, and she held her breath at the feel of it beneath her fingers, her lips thinning with the conscious effort to control her reaction to him. With careful deliberation that belied her nervousness, Kagome slowly stroked her fingertip down one stripe.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough - it covered a bit of the base, but faded as she drew it down the full length. Biting her lip, she layered more on her finger and swirled it over the tip of the stripe, trying to blend it in with his skin, trying to keep her mind from the fact that she was unbalanced, her face less than a foot away from his, and his demurely lowered eyes were probably looking straight down her shirt.

It was very quiet in the room; she was once again awkward around him, and her bones felt cold. Kagome clenched her teeth to prevent them from chattering as she concentrated on his face.

Methodically, she finished covering the stripes that graced his cheeks and stood back.

"Right," she said, "if you could lean forward just a - "

So quickly that she didn't even see him move, his hands shot out and grasped her hips, and then she was weightless, tipping into him as he easily scooped her up to straddle his lap before running a burning trail of kisses along her collarbone.

Kagome made a strangled noise, shocked and instantly aroused, noticing crazily that the jar was still clenched in her left hand and her right was held at an odd angle, trying to keep her caked fingers out of his hair even as he dipped his lips hotly into the hollow of her throat.

"Um," she mumbled, struggling to remember all the things that dragged her down, always after, never during.

He'd already slipped beneath her blouse - his hands were sliding up her bare ribs, thumbs lightly skimming over her belly, steadily smoothing his way upwards.

Between her legs, he shifted slightly, the cloth of his trousers rough against the inside of her thighs, and Kagome suddenly remembered.

"No," she said around the heavy thickness of her tongue, "no. Please, don't." It was so hard to say that. How was it possible for it to be so difficult?

With Herculean strength, she rocked backwards, away from the aching sweetness of his mouth, squirming away from the madness of his fingers.

In his chest, she heard a growl rumble darkly as she tried to work her way off his lap, intensely aware that every movement she made only exacerbated her predicament. She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "No."

Sesshoumaru drew back, and for a heart-stopping moment she thought he looked angry, would force her, but he merely frowned slightly and pursed his lips, an action that only reminded her of what she was missing. They look dry, she thought distractedly. For a dizzying moment she almost leaned in and licked them for him, but something told her he would probably not appreciate it. Besides, they hadn't kissed since that first time -

He was still staring at her. Insanely, Kagome felt a flutter of guilt in her stomach for denying him, and then a quick flash of anger at herself. Don't give into him, she thought, and waited for his assessment.

After a moment he tightened his grip on her. "All right," he said quietly, "but stay. It will be easier."

It will be, she thought, yes, it will be. She swallowed, nodding curtly, accepting this perfectly reasonable idea. "Tilt your head back and close your eyes," she commanded.

He did so, and with care, definitely not thinking about the insistent pressure of his body against hers, she smoothed her fingertips over the half-moon on his brow, covering it up, obscuring it from her sight.

"All right, let me stand up," she said when she was finished. She was surprised to find her throat dry, and she swallowed, trying to wet it.

On her hips, she felt his fingers twitch, almost imperceptibly, before he let her go and opened his eyes to watch her clamber off his lap and reach for a compact of powder. "I'm going to put this on - it'll help blend everything with your skin - and then I'll do your hair," she said, her mouth working on autopilot.

"My hair?" he asked.

She gave a half-shrug as she flipped open the compact and ran a brush around the packed powder inside. "It'll help cover your ears," she said. "You'll attract enough attention as it is, I don't want to have to explain to people why your ears are shaped differently. Almost anything else can be explained, but not that."

He arched an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. Kagome smiled as she leaned in again. "Close your eyes," she told him. "Anyway, we didn't have to cover up your face, but it helps. I'm sorry about this."

"This is not something you should regret," he replied as his eyelids slid shut once more.

Kagome froze for a tense moment before blinking rapidly to dispel the strange, creeping sensation that he could read the things she kept hidden in the darker corners of her mind. It wouldn't have been the first time that he said something eerily on the mark, she thought to herself as she smoothed the powder over the delicate arch of his cheeks. As though he could sniff out the secrets she kept, Sesshoumaru seemed to have an uncanny ability to know what she was thinking.

"You don't have some kind of mind-reading ability, do you?" she asked him suddenly, drawing away to pin him with a frown. It was wasted on him, of course, since his eyes were still closed.

She watched as he snorted silently. "If I did, miko, do you truly think it would be wise to announce that fact?" he asked, the corner of his lip curling upwards. His lips parted, and one fang slipped out.

With his markings covered, the sharpness of his tooth looked unnatural and a little disturbing. He suddenly reminded her of the old, truly atrocious vampire movies she'd seen when she was younger, with the young women in gauzy nighties and the slick, suave vampire who'd lived for hundreds of years and still retained his first pair of fake fangs.

"You'll have to keep your mouth mostly closed," she told him, ignoring his rhetorical question, rolling her worry and newfound discomfort with his fangs around in her mind, trying to get a grip on them both.

His little smirk immediately vanished. "Very well," he acquiesced, and Kagome noted with a vague relief that she couldn't see the barbs of his teeth when he spoke unless she was deliberately looking for the pointed gleam.

"That's good," she said, briskly dusting his face with powder and feeling like a personal consultant at a salon. "Good."

Sesshoumaru said nothing.

Loath to ask him to turn around, Kagome finished her powdering and set it aside before picking up the length of black cord - origin indeterminate - that she'd found beneath the sink. She couldn't imagine what she'd bought it for or why she'd kept it, but she was glad it had been tucked underneath an old make up case and only slightly dusty. Stepping into the bathtub, Kagome circled the demon in the chair before arriving behind him.

His hair brushed the ground. When he had cut it in the cave, he'd apparently chosen his knees as an appropriate length for it, rather than his hips or the middle of his back, despite the fact that either option would have been more practical.

Her fingers found their way to the long shining strands with hesitation - he had not invited her to do so, but neither had he forbidden her - before she crooked the tips and combed downwards.

He had incredible hair. It was cool and fine, yet very heavy. It seemed to order itself, as though it had a mind of its own, rather than fall where it may and become tangled or disheveled. Kagome wondered if he had ever put a brush or comb to it in his entire life, or if it had fallen into perfect order from day one. The prospect didn't seem very fair, but it didn't matter much. All it meant was that she needed only to scoop it out from behind his ears and let it fall over the tips before tying it back.

With as much deftness as she could muster, Kagome turned her fingers toward herself and placed the tips of her nails at his temples.

"I'm just going to pull your hair out from behind your ears," she said, although she couldn't say why she felt the need to tell him so. Perhaps it just seemed too much like fixing something that wasn't broken - trying to improve something that was as perfect as it was going to get - for her to do anything to it without telling him first. Sesshoumaru made no move to answer her, so Kagome worked her fingers up beneath his hair, rubbing against his scalp, and pulled it out, letting it fall where it may to cover the tips of his elvish ears.

Gathering the heavy mass into her hands, Kagome combed it slightly with her fingers, more out of habit than out of any particular need to straighten it out, and pulled it into a low queue at the base of his skull before taking the black cord and wrapping it around the ponytail several times and tying it tightly into place.

"There!" she said, proud of her handiwork. "All done!"

Sesshoumaru rose from the chair and looked at himself in the mirror while Kagome watched. With great delicacy he brought a hand to his now pale, powdered face, and placed his fingers against the arch of his cheekbones, as though seeking the real visage beneath the false one.

"Hmm," was all he said after a moment's perusal.

Kagome felt her mouth twist in discomfort and displeasure. He looked more human now, but he would never pass for someone normal. She was darkly reminded of Inuyasha with his ears tucked beneath a baseball cap or a scarf, his bright red outfit and white hair drawing attention to himself even without his brash, bold attitude and occasional propensity to fall to his knees and sniff out the proper direction he should take. It didn't seem quite fair, really.

A warning to keep his clawed hands mostly out of sight died in her throat. It seemed cruel to tell him to cover up the things that he had been so proud of for so long.

He always disliked humans, was proud of being a youkai. He was in love with his own abilities, with himself, and though he seemed less arrogant now that didn't mean it wouldn't wound him to be forced to make himself into something he was not.

How many times had she tried to stuff his pigheaded brother into the role she wanted? Demanding, angry, pleading, needy...

The bitter irony - that he looked half-human, and half-youkai - struck her full force, like a slap across the mouth. Hanyou, she thought sourly, and wondered what he thought of his new look, if he had made the same connection she had.

Kagome met his inhuman eyes in the mirror, and was ashamed of all the things she had and had not done.

"Come on," she said, her voice echoing with a hollow tone in the tiny tiled bathroom, leeched of color and texture. "We should get going - I'm starting to get hungry." She pushed by him, not caring that she probably jostled him just a little bit, and gathered her purse from her desk.

Sesshoumaru, silent as ever, trailed in her wake.



Secretly Kagome marveled at Sesshoumaru's seemingly amazing ability to take everything in the world in stride. He'd seen her Honda, so he at least knew of the existence of cars and such things, but she was deeply impressed with the way he seemed to ignore everything around him and stroll down the street as though he'd done it every single day of his life. It was as though he had expected Tokyo, had predicted it when he'd sealed himself away so long ago. She imagined that he hadn't known what would happen, but perhaps with extreme age came the jaded attitude that allowed one to adapt to the world around them without a glitch. That, and he'd been watching television for the past two weeks. That probably had something to do with it, she thought glumly.

She could tell that people were staring at them surreptitiously from the corner of their eyes. She had made the choice to eschew the dark glasses for him, so his golden eyes were still quite visible, but that had not turned out to be as much of a problem as she had thought it would be.

As it turned out, she had also vastly underestimated his icy demeanor; despite the fact that he had kept the arrogance and the cutting looks to an absolute minimum while staying with her in her flat, the moment someone looked at him with anything less than respect Sesshoumaru had let his hair down, as it were.

The moment they'd stepped onto the sidewalk, two middle-aged women had slowed the pace of their strolling to goggle at him, their mouths pinching just a tad, indicating severe disapproval of his hair and his coloring. They probably thought he was some punk who dyed his hair just to look different.

"Freak," one of them had whispered to the other in tones loud enough to be heard in Kyoto.

Mortification crashed over Kagome, but the youkai at her side had been unfazed. It only took the slightest narrowing of his eyes and the displeased twitch of an eyebrow to send the two women packing, both of them clearly a tad unnerved and possibly scandalized. Kagome had been suitably awed.

There was definitely something to be said for Sesshoumaru's charisma. The sheer arrogance that compelled one to look at him also kept one from making a spectacle of oneself while doing so, and they were able to walk the streets without being completely conspicuous and making a scene.

They were walking toward the grocery store now, and Kagome watched Sesshoumaru from the corner of her eye, noting that his nose was twitching slightly. She was intensely curious as to what scent he was seeking amongst the smog and the odor of human beings. She'd never asked Inuyasha what it was like to have such a powerful sense of smell, but now that she had studied more biology it was beginning to dawn on her that Sesshoumaru knew what it was like to see the world in scent as well as color and form. She made a mental note to ask him when the got home just as they arrived at the grocery store.

"In here," she said lightly, pointing across him with her finger. He gave no indication that he had heard her, merely pivoted swiftly and walked toward the entrance, and Kagome was in the process of turning to follow him when the sliding doors opened. Sesshoumaru stopped in his tracks, still as a statue. Kagome wasn't quick enough.

"Ow!" she exclaimed, stepping back and rubbing a hand over her nose where it had met his shoulder. Damn, she thought. He could be hard as stone when he wanted to be. "What's wrong?" she asked, looking up into his stoic face.

He didn't answer for a moment, but then he jerked his head in a curt dismissal of the question. Kagome supposed that he was just dubious about the doors rather than disturbed by anything significant. Sesshoumaru tossed his head back a little bit and stepped forward again, moving through the doors stiffly before coming to a gentle stop inside the store.

Kagome was worried for a moment until she realized that he was waiting for her to take the lead.

"Here," she said, picking up a little basket. "Let's go find something to eat." He didn't answer, merely trailed silently in her wake as she passed into the produce section.

Pears, she thought. I would die for some pears. No, I'd do more than die for pears, I'd kill someone else for some good pears. Briskly, Kagome walked among the little aisles, passing a critical eye across the rows upon rows of fruits and vegetables arrayed before her before spotting what she wanted near the end of the section. "There!" she said brightly, turning toward Sesshoumaru, who cocked his head. She grinned, shuffled off her reservations, and grabbed his wrist, pulling him along with her to come to a stop in front of the pears.

With practiced hands, Kagome plucked from the pile six ripe, juicy pears, and put them in a plastic bag and twisting the neck together, sealing them in. She could feel Sesshoumaru's interested eyes watching her, learning the subtleties of the supermarket. It made her feel strangely powerful and benevolent, knowing that he was looking to her for the correct way to do things, when before he had always been so confident, so sure of himself.

Just like Inuyasha, she thought idly. Neither of them ever seemed to consider that defeat was an option. She finished tying the bag and set it in her basket.

"Do you want anything in particular?" Kagome asked lightly, looking over her shoulder at him and smiling.

"No," he replied.

She nodded and glanced around for a moment before spying the store-made bentos half an aisle away. "Over here," she told him, jerking her head in the direction. "We'll pick up something for lunch. And," she announced turning and looking him straight in the eye while he stared back, clearly slightly bemused, "you are definitely going to get one, too. I don't care if you tell me you don't need to eat, you should eat at some point. It's only healthy."

The youkai lifted one shoulder and let it fall back nonchalantly, as if saying that it was of no matter to him, but Kagome was determined. "Come on," she said, turning and walking away from him with a spring in her step. "You have to try them. I love their chicken."

"Very well," he said from behind her, voice heavy and weary, making it abundantly clear that he was merely humoring her, but Kagome was finding herself lighter than she had felt in days, or months, or years. In her head, she pretended that they were the best of friends, or lovers, two people who cared about each other just doing a bit of shopping together. Something completely mundane and normal that friends and lovers did together all the time. Happily, she showed him the different kinds of food they could get and recommended the chicken, to which he grudgingly acquiesced and she put them in her basket.

Together they walked down the aisles, Kagome picking out potato chips and little boxes of instant ramen and soup, things she remembered that Inuyasha and Shippou had loved, and grabbing some candy on an impulse, tossing it all in her little basket until the metal handles bit into her fingers and she had to shift it to both hands lest she drop it. Through it all, Sesshoumaru watched her with a bemused expression on his face, his hands shoved into his pockets and his beautiful mouth tilted in a smirk. Kagome wondered if he knew how tempting he looked.

The only thing that was at all distracting was the number of people peeking at them from behind displays, and she could hear slight whispers skittering back and forth, too soft for her to pick up, though she had no doubt that Sesshoumaru could hear every word spoken. She tried to take his lead and ignore them.

It didn't matter that people were staring at them, she decided as she tucked a large package of tea into the overflowing basket. It had been so long since she stood out so much, simply by association with someone else, but she found that she was slipping back into the role of guide through modern Tokyo with surprising ease. She chattered, Sesshoumaru answered with long looks, curt gestures, or monosyllabic utterances, and people could stare all they liked. It wasn't like she was doing anything wrong.

Finally Kagome glanced down into the basket and decided that she was definitely going to regret her purchases later, but for some reason just couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. She'd worry about rent when it came.

"I think it's probably time to check out," she announced, as though bringing an end to their excursion was a grave matter. "I'm starving."

Sesshoumaru didn't answer, and Kagome glanced in his direction.

Instead of staring at her with a vague, amused smirk and puzzled face, he suddenly looked alert and suspicious, narrowed eyes glancing off to his right, as though he could see over his shoulder. Concerned, Kagome brushed her fingers against his arm. Sesshoumaru jerked his head toward her sharply.

"Is everything all right?" she asked, mildly alarmed.

He gave another curt shake of the head. "It is nothing with which you need concern yourself," he retorted, straightening his posture slightly, shedding the subconsciously assumed defensive position. Then, to her utter surprise, he extended a hand and lightly touched her back in a weirdly possessive gesture, as though ushering her through a door as any chivalrous gentleman would do. It was so out of character for him that Kagome almost stepped away from him, only controlling the impulse at the last second. Instead of demanding to know what he was talking about, she just frowned slightly and walked toward the check out line, the demon at her back like a flanking army.

She had meant to show him how to pay for things, but to her chagrin he seemed distracted, eyes constantly fluttering to the side, in the direction of the back of the store. He looked as though he was struggling to keep his mind on the task at hand as she handed her items to the cashier, but something kept dragging his attention away from her. Kagome found that she didn't like that.

"Miss?"

Startled, she jerked her attention away from Sesshoumaru and refocused on the smiling, elderly woman in front of her. "What? Oh," she said, hastily bowing her head and digging in her purse for her money. A little twang went through her, just a touch of shame for her extravagance, as she passed over a handful of cash. The elderly woman beamed and bowed, passing back her change, and Kagome gathered her bags over her arm.

"Hey," she said softly, reaching out and tugging on Sesshoumaru's sleeve. The youkai quickly refocused on her, a slightly startled look on his face, before starting forward and falling into step behind her as they exited the store. This time, Kagome was relieved to see that he didn't react adversely to the automatic doors, merely strode through them, mind a million miles away, and turned in the direction of home.

He wasn't hurrying as such, but she was suddenly finding it difficult to catch up to him. "Hey!" she exclaimed after a minute of working her feet like crazy, annoyed to find herself out of breath. "Is there something wrong? Where's the fire?"

Casting her a look of annoyance, the demon slowed in his pace, but kept his strides even and long as she drew up alongside him. "There is no fire," he said.

"I wasn't being literal," she snapped breathlessly. "I just wanted to know why you're suddenly walking so quickly. And don't - " she frowned, " - give me that crap about how its not my concern." Her brow was drawn down in a thunderous frown. There was nothing she hated more than being left in the dark.

Sesshoumaru slowed even more as he gave her a calculating look down the length of his patrician nose, as though adding up her merits and subtracting her flaws in his mind, and the answer would tell him whether or not she was worthy of hearing his concern. Finally his lips twisted.

"We are being followed," he told her quietly.

Kagome felt cold. "Human or youkai?" she asked automatically.

Sesshoumaru gave her a withering glare. "Human," he said, and she could hear the sharp rebuke in his tone. She bit her lip with the effort it took to not snap back.

"Male or female?" she demanded.

She heard him take an experimental whiff of the air. "Male," he said.

"Hmm," Kagome replied and looked at the ground as it passed beneath her feet. Who is it? What could they want? If it's a friend of mine, why don't they approach me? Visions of underground government youkai study facilities flashed through her mind before she shoved the thought away with a flash of annoyance at her wild imagination. You watch too many stupid movies, she told herself. Still, she had no idea why anyone would follow them, unless they were either intensely interested in either herself or the demon with her.

A shudder of nervous energy skittered its tiny paws up her spine, and Kagome shivered a little bit, not out of any concrete concerns, but simply because of the knowledge that she was being followed. Anything dogging her footsteps was enough to make her wary. She bit her lip.

And then a hand was sliding across her shoulders as Sesshoumaru pulled her into his body in a gesture even more intensely possessive than the one he had executed in the store. Kagome nearly bit through her tongue in surprise.

"What - ?"

"Do not worry," he said, voice low and rich, his body warm and his breath across her ear even warmer. "He will not touch you."

In her veins, Kagome felt her blood slow to a stop. Beneath her feet, the world opened up and she fell through.

"Shut up! I'm saying I'll protect you!" Inuyasha shouted.

In that strange half-world, perched on the towering bones of Inuyasha's father, Kagome was suddenly shocked into silence. High above, the huge white shape of Sesshoumaru's true form towered over them, his footsteps shaking the skeleton on which they stood.

Seemingly unperturbed by poisonous death just a few feet away, Inuyasha turned away from her, exasperated by her tears. "Just stay there," he snapped, shouldering the rusty katana. "I'll handle this."

Sesshoumaru was guiding her toward the stairs to her flat, his touch stealing her breath, the warmth of his body slowing her blood. He was killing her.

Memory is not for you and me, he'd said, and it was true. She was choking on it. It filled her throat, clogged her lungs like mud, killing her so slowly she wasn't entirely certain she was still alive.

I'm dreaming this, she thought as her fingers fumbled with the keys when she opened the door. Sesshoumaru was towering over her, shielding her from the sight of their invisible follower.

Once they were both inside she closed it and locked it behind them.

Why would anyone follow me? Wearily, Kagome slumped, letting her forehead come to rest against the cool wood of the door, trying to order her thoughts. Are we in danger?

Behind her, Kagome heard a rustling noise, and she turned to see Sesshoumaru sloughing off his shirt and tossing it carelessly on the sofa. He was looking at her with his inscrutable face.

"I told you there was no need to worry," he said. "There is no one who can stand against me."

Kagome shook her head, feeling tired. "That's not it," she replied. "You just reminded me of something - "

Her words dried up.

Of what? she thought. His brother that he didn't like? The past? Things that mean nothing to him? He was staring at her, waiting for her to continue.

Kagome forced a half-smile. " - of something I would rather forget."

Sesshoumaru nodded before turning away and selecting a book from the small pile he'd stacked next to the couch and settling in. Kagome went into the kitchen and began to put away her purchases, but she found no joy in them now. She felt like she was on a roller coaster, constantly swooping between highs and lows, peaking and crashing with depressing frequency, and she couldn't tell if it was better or worse than the grey plateau she had wandered before she had freed the youkai lord from his mountain cave.

Would I rather forget? she wondered, hands running on automatic as she put away the ramen and the potato chips - things bought on a nostalgic whim, things on which she now wished she had not wasted her time or her thoughts - into ordered piles in the cupboards. Would I rather not have these memories?

What would it be like to live her life, free of the things that weighed heavy? What if she could date a boy and not constantly remember the first boy she had loved, the first one she had cared about, who had been stolen from her? What if the memory of a little kitsune didn't pluck at her heart each time she saw a little boy with light brown hair? What if the ghosts of a huntress and a monk didn't haunt her, didn't remind her of all the love and understanding she'd once had?

There had been a time, once, long ago, when she didn't wake up in the morning haunted by things past. There had been a time when she hadn't been ruined for love, or friendship, or purpose. There had been a time when she had been bright, brave Kagome, doing the right thing because good things happened to good people. Once, she had been, if not happy, then at least capable of being happy.

But that was a long time ago, and she could no longer remember who she had been.



It had been so long since someone had called her that Kagome almost loosed her bladder when her phone rang that evening, and she spent a frantic twenty seconds trying to locate in which corner of her flat she'd plugged it in, a display Sesshoumaru seemed to find highly amusing. She heard him snort as she picked it up at the last second in the kitchen and sent him a glare.

He just smirked back.

"Kagome?"

Startled, Kagome recognized the voice of Kayoko, sounding scratchy over the cellular airwaves. "Kayoko? Yeah, it's me? What's up?"

There was silence at the other end of the line. It dragged out so long that Kagome thought her phone had cut out. "Kayoko?" she said again.

"Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, I was just, um..."

Kagome pulled the charging cord out of her phone and let it fall onto the kitchen counter top. "What's wrong?" she asked, suddenly worried as she walked into the living room. Sesshoumaru was looking at her curiously from his perch on the couch, the book he was currently reading - bizarrely, on modern kenjutsu - lying limp and forgotten in his hands. Kagome settled in beside him as Kayoko laughed on the other end of the line.

"This sounds so stupid now that I'm talking to you," she said. "But Miyu-chan called me up this morning and said she had a fight with Yoshi-kun because he wanted to kick your new boyfriend's ass, and I said, 'there's no way Kagome has a new boyfriend and didn't tell us,' but she said one of Yoshi-kun's friends saw you in a store with some punk-looking guy with white hair, and that he went home with you!"

So this is what a train wreck feels like, Kagome thought distantly to herself. She was beginning to become acquainted with the phrase "bitter irony," with rather more familiarity than she had ever wanted.

Great, I try to keep my life and my past separate, and now it's all crashing down because I just couldn't leave well enough alone.

Kayoko was still chattering on. " - so I told her that if his friend thought the guy looked scary there was no way Yoshi-kun was going to be able to take him since he's such a wimp anyway, and she got mad at me! Can you believe that?"

Kagome forced herself to respond. "Not at all," she said.

"Plus she's mad at you, because Yoshi-kun's jealous, but that doesn't make any sense at all. So I told her to buy some ice cream and take a bath and call me back when she was in a better frame of mind. So if she calls you or shows up, don't be surprised."

"Shows up?" Kagome blurted suddenly, panic raising the volume of her voice.

Kayoko laughed. "What, she shows up at your door all the time! What makes now any different..." Her voice trailed off, and Kagome had to force her self to refrain from hanging up right then before she gave away anything else.

"Kagome? You don't actually have a new boyfriend, do you?"

"No!" she answered, too forcefully. She was never very good at lying.

"Oh my god, you do have a new boyfriend! How exciting! Is he the guy Yoshi-kun's friend saw, or is he different? Is he there right now? When do we get to meet him?"

"Kayoko - "

"Come on, Kagome! We've all had a standing bet for years as to when you'd get a new boyfriend," her friend replied. "And I think I won."

"Wait, you guys have had a pool going?"

There was a pause at the other end of the line. Kayoko coughed.

"Just a little one."

Kagome almost did hang up right then. "What the hell?" she nearly shouted.

"Oh relax. It was all in good fun. Why do you think we kept trying to set you up with the available guys in our classes?"

"I thought you were trying to distract me so I wouldn't break the curve," Kagome retorted. She was pissed off now. Some friends, she thought.

"Yeah, well, that would have been a bonus," Kayoko said flippantly.

Kagome gritted her teeth. "And I don't have a boyfriend," she stated flatly. "So no, you didn't win your bet."

"Oh," Kayoko said, disappointment palpable even over the phone. "So who was that guy that went into your flat with you?"

Kagome thought fast. "He's the brother of a guy I used to know back in high school. He needed a place to stay, so I said yes." That's at least partially true, she thought, hoping the grain of truth would be enough to keep the lie from her voice.

"Half-brother," Sesshoumaru cut in. Kagome shot him a look full of daggers.

"Was that him?" Kayoko demanded from the other end of the line. "He sounds cute. Is he single?"

Kagome choked.

It was amazing, really. Kayoko couldn't have hurt her more if she had tried.

For some reason, the thought of sharing Sesshoumaru with someone else, of him touching someone else after her - there had to be those before her, but they were in the past, the past that he didn't think of - made her see red. It was like a knife through her belly.

"No." The word felt forced out between her teeth, like it had come from somewhere dark and deep. Don't touch him, she thought with a ferocity that scared her, that made her hate herself even more, but she couldn't stop her thoughts. She might as well have tried to stop an earthquake.

Stay away, don't come near him, leave us alone, don't come near him, this is for me, this is mine, mine, all mine, this is mine -

She felt like she was going to cry. There was a knot in her throat so large it was a wonder she could even breathe around it, and in her chest was a chain pulled so tight she could feel it constrict with every pump of her heart.

Sesshoumaru was prying her hand away from her face - when had she placed it on her cheek? - and weaving his fingers through her hair, drawing close to her.

"Kagome?" Kayoko said, sounding tinny on the other end of the line. "Is everything okay? Are you feeling well?"

And suddenly Sesshoumaru's long, clawed fingers were moving smoothly and slowly over her other hand, gently pulling the phone from her grasp, and she couldn't breathe so she let him take it from her and bring it to his face. He held the phone perfectly, as though he were familiar with it, as though he belonged in an era of such things.

"She is well," he said coolly into the mouthpiece. "Leave her alone."

Through the dull roar in her ears, Kagome could hear Kayoko squawking, demanding something - to talk to her, for Sesshoumaru to be more polite, for his phone number, it didn't really matter - and he handed the little cell phone back to her. She understood, then, that he didn't know what to do with it now, and in truth, she didn't know either.

With trembling fingers, Kagome closed it, and set it deliberately on the floor.

For a moment the silence between them grew palpable and thick, and the only thing she could hear was her frantic breath. Fearing what she would see, she looked up.

Sesshoumaru was standing in front of her, staring at her. "What is a boyfriend?" he asked.

As though the words were a tether, she was anchored again. Kagome swallowed thickly, as her panic subsided and she cast about for an answer. "A boyfriend is..." She tried to think of a term he would know, found one.

"If you were... courting me... you would be my boyfriend."

She couldn't tell what he made of this. He only said, "Hm," as though the information had no bearing on him, as though he were only an interested bystander. Suddenly, horribly, Kagome wondered if he was courting her, but just didn't know how to go about it, or if he was following some strange youkai courting rules about which she had no clue. The thought mortified her.

She had to know. The need was pressing, immediate. "You're not... you're not courting me, are you?" she asked, afraid he would say yes, afraid he would say no.

He was still as stone for a long moment. Then he moved.

Before her, Sesshoumaru sank down, never taking his eyes from hers, and placed his hands on her legs, trailing long fingers up the back of her calves, over the tender flesh on the underside of her knees. Just the caress of his fingertips sent a frisson of desire bolting straight down her spine, burning through her belly to come to a smoldering stop between her legs, as though his mere touch were connected directly to her brain.

Her eyes fluttered and she let out a shuddering breath as her hands clenched convulsively.

Sesshoumaru leaned in, fingers moving upward, coming to rest on the lowest button of her blouse. As though he had all the time in the world, he leaned forward, face filling her field of vision, lips drawing near to hers.

She was positive that he was going to kiss her, soothe her, but at the last possible second, when his lips were only a hair's breadth away, he slid to the side, bringing the flat, high planes of his cheek so close to hers that she could feel the pressure of the air between them.

His breath curled across her ear.

How can this be? she thought, head fuzzy, heart fluttering between her ribs like a bird caged. How can I feel like this?

He had undone the first button, and she felt his hands brush against the fabric of her shirt, moving slowly to the next, parting her clothing with agonizing slowness as he kept his face just mere millimeters from hers.

Kagome sat, very still, legs clamped together, fingers clenched around the edge of the sofa cushion, and silently begged him to touch her. She didn't think she had the courage to do it herself.

He would live for so long, and she would be a memory after he left. He would take her and lock her away in his mind, never to think of her again, unless she were blurred, aborted, unless he could erase her ending.

He would touch others after she, and she couldn't tell if she meant everything or nothing to him in this moment.

In her mind, Kagome nocked an arrow, screamed his name, and pinned him to a tree, never to wake again. He would be forever frozen, asleep and dreaming, never to leave.

Another button popped out of its hole.

He moved to the next.

Kagome was dying.

She could hear his soft exhalations. His breath was picking up pace, unraveling at the edges, his clothing - but not his body, not the hard muscles and fiery skin she wanted - skimmed against her knees, and she could feel, so slightly, almost imperceptibly, his fingers shaking.

His fingers were shaking.

Kagome's mouth watered.

He was holding back, but he wanted her so badly he was trembling.

Why? she thought. Oh, god, why me?

He freed another button.

She thought of him, in his slumber of the ages, sealed in a cave, never to see the light of day again. Who really sealed him? - but it didn't matter, that was the past, and she longed to close his eyes and quench his breath and live on behind his moonkissed brow, in his sleep of eternity.

Her shirt was half-way undone, and as she imagined his still form he moved onto the next, nestled in the little valley between her breasts, and, almost by accident, the backs of his fingers brushed against her.

Kagome ignited.

With a soft cry, she launched herself off the couch, sliding her legs around his hips, seeking him through the layers of fabric that separated them, hands fastening themselves in his hair.

Her lips found his throat, mouth open as though she were going to consume him, swallow him alive.

Beneath her lips, she felt the vibration of his throat before she even heard him moan, and then he was flipping her over, bringing her to rest on the carpet beneath his heavy weight, but Kagome didn't care because he was pressed darkly into the space between her legs. She groaned and lifted her hips, desperate, aching for him, rubbing herself against him.

Her hands were still tangled in his long, silver hair, falling down around them like waters. He flexed his hips and disengaged her hand from the base of his skull, pushing her down with his other hand. Staring into her eyes, Sesshoumaru dipped his head and planted a kiss in the center of her palm, then opened his mouth and swirled his tongue over the skin there.

Kagome gave a strangled sigh as he lowered himself over her and then to her right, curling around her on his side as one hand unbuttoned his trousers, the other guiding her hand to his erection.

In her hand, he was so hot and hard she thought she would die if she didn't draw him into her in that moment, but as her fingers wrapped around him, moving the burning skin over his hard length, she looked down.

Beneath her gaze, Sesshoumaru quivered. She watched in fascination as his hips thrust into her hand, the muscles of his stomach barely visible but just visible enough that she could see them clench beneath his skin, beneath the weight of his need. She could see the moisture at the tip.

I wonder... she thought muzzily.

Without stopping to reconsider, Kagome slipped down his body, extended an eager tongue, and tasted him.

Sweet.

Sesshoumaru gasped and jerked away.

Fear gripped her. "I'm sorry, I've never - " she babbled sitting up, drawing away from him, humiliated. "I didn't mean - did I hurt you?" She turned her eyes from him, suddenly embarrassed and shy, hands flying to her blouse and pulling it shut, tugging down on her skirt.

And then claws on her shoulders were bearing her down, pushing her skirt over her hips, freeing her of her panties.

"No, that was fine," he murmured, panting into her hair, and then his erection, slick with precum and her own saliva, was pressing against her entrance, and then he was sliding into her - funny, it seemed so easy now, so quick as he spiraled in to rest against her - fingers dancing on her stomach, and her hands found his hips and pressed him to her.

He began to move, and Kagome, drunk with him, with his scent, with his body, with promises of eternity, didn't even bother to repeat her question.

Sesshoumaru pinned her to the ground, and never answered.



There once was a wolf prince.

Kouga had black hair and sky blue eyes and even though Kagome knew he had killed many human beings - the scent of their blood clung to him and his pack like the sickly sweet smell of decay on a corpse - she still found him sweet and endearing. He seemed strangely sincere in his affections for her, even though he didn't even know anything about her much beyond the fact that she was a human being with extraordinary powers - the powers to see the shards of the Shikon no Tama.

Those damn powers made her a premium commodity, it seemed. Not even Kikyou could tell where the fragments had fallen, but Kagome had always been able to tell; that was how she met Kouga in the first place, after all. She'd rashly shouted out to Inuyasha that the wolf demon's incredible speed stemmed from the fragments in his legs, and his strength from the one in his arm, and so the wolf had stolen her away to his cave to help him root out his enemies and destroy them.

But he'd always been, if not gentle, then at least not rough with her. He'd handled her like the important prize she was, both fragile and resilient, both human and something ever so slightly more, and when he ran across their path he always grabbed her hands warmly, declared his love, and pissed Inuyasha off something awful.

High above her, the sun had shone down through the trees, dappling the ground and her companions with light and shadow. Kagome was grateful for the shade. It was a particularly warm and humid late summer day, and pushing her bike was becoming more of a chore than she'd thought possible. In her basket, Shippou snoozed gently, oblivious to the labor it required to ferry him around.

Lip curling, Kagome tried to be mad at the little kitsune.

It didn't work. Shippou muttered something about candy and "stupid Inuyasha", swatted at the air with a tiny little hand, and turned over, obviously deeply embroiled in some fantastic dream wherein he finally bested the hanyou without her help.

It was adorable really.

Kagome was toying with the idea of leaning down and tickling him awake so she would have someone to talk to when something unscrewed her brain and sent her falling.

"Oh!" she exclaimed.

Ahead of her, Miroku and Sango stopped and turned back to look at her, while Inuyasha kept on walking, oblivious.

"What is it, Kagome-chan?" Sango inquired, eyebrows raised.

Kagome opened her mouth. "Two shikon - " was as far as she got before a wind whipped through her hair and her fingers were warmly trapped by two rough, brown hands.

Blue eyes beamed down at her.

"Yo!" Kouga exclaimed jovially.

"Kouga-kun!" was all she could think to say. At her side, her bike, no longer supported, slowly tipped over in slow motion and tipped the sleeping kitsune out onto the ground. Shippou woke up with a squeal of outrage.

"Kagomeeee!" he yelled. "Inuyasha's picking on me!"

Always a little slow on the uptake, Inuyasha was stalking back toward them. "No I didn't, and get away from her you stupid wolf!"

"It's okay, Shippou-chan!" Kagome turned, trying to tug her hands from Kouga's to no avail. "It was my fault, I'm sorry!"

She turned back to Kouga to see him assessing the damage to Shippou with a critical eye. Apparently finding nothing amiss, he turned back to her with a grin that flashed his feral teeth.

"Ne, Kagome, how have you been?" Kouga asked, tugging her closer, ignoring Shippou's whimpering with an airy disregard that Kagome found she envied, just a little bit.

On the early autumn air, she caught his odor drifting toward her, and Her nose tickled with his scent - he always smelled strongly of some heavy, animalistic musk that reminded her just how wolfish he really was whenever, despite his strange eyes and sharp teeth and pointed ears, she was in grave danger of forgetting.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Inuyasha advancing like a vengeful red ghost. "Hey, wimpy wolf, what the hell are you doing? Get the fuck away from her!"

Why does he always act possessive around Kouga? she thought despairingly. What a jerk! As if the only time he feels like he should hang onto me is when he's threatened! Boys. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed unfair.

Don't I deserve someone who'll treat me like Kouga-kun does all the time? she speculated. The obvious answer of defecting to Kouga's little tribe considered crossing her mind, but something kept her from entertaining the possibility.

Inuyasha was still yelling. Kagome was feeling tired.

"Osuwari," she said authoritatively.

Inuyasha went crashing to the ground in a bone crushing lunge that normally would have made Kagome cringe in sympathy. Unfortunately for Inuyasha she was not in the most forgiving of moods.

"I'm doing well, Kouga-kun," she said brightly, and was rewarded with the widening of his happy grin and the tightening of his hands on her own.

"Good to hear, Kagome," he replied. "Good to know this weak little puppy isn't letting you get hurt. Don't worry, Kagome. Once I've defeated Naraku, you'll never have to listen to him howling ever again."

And that was it.

Inuyasha climbed to his feet and made a disoriented swipe at the wolf prince, who immediately leapt out of the way and off to the side, away from her, allowing Inuyasha to place himself between the two in a protective stance. He always did that, as though he were afraid that Inuyasha would accidentally misfire, and wanted to get as far away from her as possible.

She wasn't an idiot. She could see his moves, knew that he trusted Inuyasha to care enough about her to refrain from injuring her deliberately, but didn't trust him enough to put faith in his moves.

He always dashed away from her in order to protect her.

Kagome shifted uncomfortably, painfully aware that even as she took comfort in Kouga's advances, even as she felt beautiful and wanted, she was leading him on.

She didn't care about him the way he cared about her, as shallow and whimsical as the feeling he held for her was. She felt ashamed, and sad, less worthy of him, which was stupid, since she couldn't control how he felt about her, and vice versa. If he could, she would have left her friends long ago and joined with Kouga and his pack, seeking shards for them, and them alone.

It was funny how fragile the fate of the Shikon no Tama really was. The only thing that really stood between its completion for nefarious purposes and its purification was her sense of right and wrong. If she had become infatuated with the wrong person, had fallen haphazardly into the wrong story, she would have become the instrument of something less than pure.

How strange that it should be like this, her with the hanyou, balanced between the two choices when the choice was obvious, rather than caught with a good youkai or an evil human. How strange that she should be trapped inside this story in this way.

How strange that she should be herself, when all around conspired to bend her to something else.

But she was making the right choice. Inuyasha could heal the rift caused by the Shikon's creation and shattering. He could become human, could purify it because she could help him. Because of her, the jewel would disappear, never to plague the world again.

How funny that its fate was so fragile, but she would make the right choice.

Kouga loved her without reason, of that she had no doubt.

But he still wasn't enough, and that was enough to break her heart.