InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Second Skin ❯ Second Skin ( Chapter 1 )

Because it is a second skin, and he is hidden beneath the surface.

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- Second Skin -

He washes.

Dried and crusted, it coats him like rust, staining the armour in darkened patches, brittle in his hair and on his hands.

His fingers are numb in the cold water of the stream, stiff, unbending, like the fingers of an overstuffed doll, they scratch at the skin, rubbing, scouring, nails in the stead of bristles, stream in the place of bath.

He wades, shivering in the icy frigidness that swirls around his knees.

When at his thighs, he goes under, painful shocks of bitter cold lancing through his nose, in his temples.

The air is worse, stinging and pricking his skin, raising it in tiny bumps that race along beneath his clothes.

In his hair, it is sticky.

Scratching again, his nails come away rusted beneath the tips, stained and trembling.

His head hurts, and he tastes warm mucus on his lips, but he smears it along his arm, teetering from the movement.

He falls under, water rushing into his open mouth, freezing in his throat, burning down his chest when he surfaces and swallows, gasping.

The armour clings, heavy and chilling in its wet grip, fastening along his body like the second skin it is - the skin he wears to hide the pale, bumpy blue one underneath, the cold, weak one underneath.

The water burns; an icy fire that lights along his skin and blazes in his fingertips, smolders in his nose and dances in his temples.

On the bank, he drags himself out, slick and squeaking in his sodden skin, freezing beneath and rigid outside.

Numb and barely registering, his fingers find the cold handle of the blade, its chains clinking as he drags it along the grass, the metal almost sticking to his hand.

In his hair, the rust hangs caught in its strands, drip, drip, dripping in tinged water to the ground.

On his body, the rust stays close, clutching to his second skin - tarnished, flawed and tainted.

And he is coated in its grief, corroded by its guilt, and stained with shame.

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And he washes, scrubbing at hissecond skin, wishing forever to make it clean.