InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ The Sweetest Escape ❯ The Sweetest Escape (Ending 2) ( Chapter 25 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, Rumiko Takahashi does.

Author's Notes:

I'm sorry, everyone! I knew it was a risk to post a sad ending, but like I said before, it's how I first imagined the ending to The Sweetest Escape. I didn't wanna just let it go. I'm sorry if I really upset some of you.

I'm also sorry it took so darn long! But I was kinda having a hard time with it—not like with what I wanted to happen, but just how to write it.

But here's the happy ending! I promise it's lighter, hopefully you'll enjoy a smile or two.

Some of the beginning is the same as the first ending, but only some, so I suggest reading it all anyway.

Enjoy. Seriously this time.

Chapter 25: The Sweetest Escape

The clothes flattened momentarily before fluffing back up—again. A hand splayed widely on the stack of shirts that had seen better days, pulling the canvas of the bag up forcefully. Two claws pushed through the bag's edge with a dull rip.

“Shit,” he whispered, pulling his nails out of the sizeable holes they'd made. He sighed softly, exasperatedly, blowing a wayward wisp of hair out of his face before giving up and zippering the bulging backpack shut with finality. The black bag bulged, making the zipper pucker, and Inuyasha wondered if it would pop open—most likely at the most inopportune moment.

He glanced around the sparse room—now even more bare with the lack of the odd article of clothing floating about. He wouldn't miss it. He probably would not even think about it ever again, save for the wayward thought or two. He would never think about this house again, or its lack of furnishings, and warmth, and love. If it ever did happen across his mind, it would be accompanied with nothing but nausea, a grimace, and a shudder.

His internal clock sounded, alerting him to leave the paltry sanctity of his room and head downstairs to cook his father's last meal.

Inuyasha skirted around the wall adjacent to the living room, wary eyes glued to the silent demon on the couch before him. The television, muted, flicked an array of colors over the pale man's face and hair, and bathed the room in a bluish glow. `Why is he watching the TV on mute?' Inuyasha thought edgily. The man stared straight ahead at the images that flittered across the screen, unmoving, unblinking. Inuyasha pulled his gaze away and edged his way into the kitchen, practically tiptoeing. There was no sense in upsetting his father before his departure.

He set to steaming some vegetables in a wok, working with methodically, yet with hands that trembled uncontrollably. Under his breath, he murmured directions to himself that he'd followed silently countless times before; somehow he couldn't seem to stem his need for verbal direction, now.

The rice boiled, the sound of the roiling water, and his knife hitting the cutting board with every slice through the chicken breasts, the only sounds throughout the house. His ears twitched wildly, wishing for only the tiniest hint of noise—the dead calm was unnerving. He inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth to prevent hyperventilating and focused intently on placing the cubes of raw chicken formulaically into the pan to keep his mind from wandering to places unsavory. A sharp clicking broke the near-silence as the fire under the skillet ignited, the pungent tang of gas polluting the air.

“Where the hell are you goin'?”

The slurred query startled Inuyasha, and he whirled around to see his father staggered heavily against the doorjamb, a glazed, murderous look in his glassy eyes.

“What?” Inuyasha asked needlessly.

“I said, where the hell are you goin'?” he shouted, loud and sloppy. Spittle flew from his lips.

“Nowhere,” Inuyasha said, clearing his throat. His jaw clenched tightly.

“You damn right you're not goin' nowhere,” the man spat. “What do you take me for? Stupid?”

“No, Sir,” he answered.

“You think I don't know what's up? You think I'm blind? What the fuck is this?” he yelled, tossing Inuyasha's bookbag towards him, the pack skittering across the linoleum to Inuyasha's feet. His gut turned cold. “Where you plannin' on goin', boy?”

Inuyasha stared at the overturned and bulging bag, looked at his staggeringly drunk father, looked at the doorway to his freedom, visible and tempting across the feet of wooden floor he had to cross. He could lie. He could tell his father once more that he was planning on going nowhere, and later attempt his escape as planned. But why? He was sick of the runaround. He gulped, braced, and straightened himself.

“I…I'm leaving.” The man before him stared blankly at him for a long stretch of time, slowly absorbing the information he'd just been dealt.

“Leaving…” he echoed. “Leaving. Where you leavin' to?”

“I'm going…I'm going someplace better,” Inuyasha said finally. “Someplace better, and safe, and…and someplace away from you.”

“Oh, is that so?” the man asked skeptically, leaning heavily on the table to his side. His right hand trembled as he pointed to himself. “You're runnin' from me?”

“Yes,” Inuyasha said, his voice shaking only slightly as he answered.

“And why is that?”

“Because…because I deserve better. I…I deserve better than what you do to me—”

“You're an ungrateful little bitch!” his father seethed, taking three large and staggering steps toward the boy. “I didn't have to take you! I didn't have to take your half-breed ass in, you know that?” He was now frighteningly close, and Inuyasha could practically taste the enormous amount of alcohol on the older demon's breath. He shrank back, grasping frantically for the chopping knife he'd just set down.

“So now what? You wanna leave? Huh? You wanna leave? You wanna run to that little…little whore you been fucking around with behind my back? Huh? Is that what you wanna do, you fucking useless half-wit?” Inutaishou roared. Inuyasha was silent, his trembling fingers clutched tightly around the smooth handle of the knife. “Didn't think I knew about the girl, did ya? You just think you can run the fuck around after I leave the damned house and do whatever the fuck you want to do?”

“I didn't mean to upset you!” Inuyasha said lowly. His chest heaved, and his heart knocked against his ribs so hard that it hurt. “I wasn't trying to make you upset. I only want—”

The man's face split into an even more horrid mask, his nostrils flared and brows meeting lowly.

“I don't give a damn what you want,” he sneered. “You ain't goin' nowhere.”

Inuyasha felt a torrential wave of panic crash over him at the finality of his father's words.

“I deserve better!” he blurted desperately. “I…I don't deserve what you do to me! I don't deserve to get hit every day…I don't deserve you calling me every horrible name in the book every chance you get! I deserve more than tha—”

A broad, rough palm connected sharply with Inuyasha's cheek, sending his head snapping to the side, then the other, when he was backhanded. A hand fisted the front of his shirt tightly, pulling the boy close, and swinging him around.

“You listen here,” the man began slowly, a finger tipped with a dangerously sharp claw a scant few millimeters away from his son's eye. “Don't you ever get in into your empty little head that you don't deserve the punishments you get. You hear that? Ever.”

He pushed the boy away roughly, sending him crashing into the cool face of the refrigerator. Papers stuck to the surface fluttered from the disturbed rush of air, glass containers inside rattled and fell, and Inuyasha gasped at the force with which his back hit the appliance. The older demon looked upon him with drunken and dark disdain.

“I dunno what the hell that little bitch has been tellin' you,” he started, “but you can forget it all. You're a waste of space, and nothin' else, you got that? You're worthless, and stupid, and you need to remember your place.”

Inutaishou sneered at the boy leaning against the fridge, his face set in a grimace. The demon snorted with contempt and turned to leave the kitchen.

Inuyasha shook, his eyes stinging painfully with tears of frustration, fury, and hurt. He dug the knife hard into the floor, the point piercing the linoleum underneath it. He stared contemptuously at the back of the retreating demon, and made the conscious decision to let his mouth run free.

“I hate you,” he whispered shakily. The abrupt jerk that shook the older man as he stopped suddenly told Inuyasha that his statement had been heard. “I fucking…hate you,” he continued. He lifted himself from the floor, away from the fridge, his eyes glaring piercingly at the ground before him. “I'm…I'm more than that,” he hissed. “I am more than just…a half-breed. I…I am not…stupid. And I am not worthless.”

“I…h-h-hate you… s-so much. You…you tell me…you scream at me that I am not…worth anything…but I am…” Of its own accord, a hot, frustrated tear splashed down Inuyasha's cheek, and called its friends to join. Inuyasha gritted his teeth as the salty drops left their tracks against his flushed and burning face; he wanted them to stop. Inutaishou turned slowly to face the boy, the slants of shadows in the hallway hiding the greater part of his face. His malicious eyes, however, winked brightly through the darkness at Inuyasha, belying their intent.

“I have a scholarship to go to Tokyo University this fall,” he told him. “A full scholarship…it's paying for everything…And…and I earned that! All on my own, I earned it, Dad…” The man did not react; he merely stood, taking in everything Inuyasha was saying, his obscured face seeming not to move at all. Inuyasha screamed in frustration internally. Was it so much to ask for a reaction? For a small break in that vicious mask? For a tiny spark of something even remotely akin to pride in those impenetrable eyes that so closely mirrored his own? The impassioned tone of his words surprised even himself, and he willed for it to be catching. He willed the man to, at the very least, grace him with an approving smile. He barreled on.

“Gamyuo Oichi wants to hang my art in his home. In his mansion, Dad! He likes my work! I…I got talent…and I'm…I'm gonna…I'm gonna be somebody. I'm gonna go to college…and I'm gonna get an education, and I'm gonna graduate, and get a good job, and make good money! And…and I'm gonna be somebody important!” he yelled, the hand that didn't hold the knife gesturing wildly to his person. “And…all I have wanted…for years…is for you to…to see something else in me…for you to see something else…besides just `half-breed'.”

“There's nothing more to see!” the man snapped.

“There is!” Inuyasha shouted frantically. The laboriousness of his breathing shook his frame, and he tried to slow down before he began to hyperventilate. “There is…so much more. And you…” Inuyasha closed his eyes, taking the time to allow himself a deep breath. “And I hate…that you will never see that,” he said finally, almost to quiet to hear. “Is it…is it so much to ask that you'd be proud of me?” he whispered.

“Shut up! Just shut the fuck up!” Inutaishou roared, rushing forward at a breakneck speed and wrapping a large hand around the surprised boy's throat. “I don't want to hear one more word out of you.” While his grip was firm, it was not cutting off Inuyasha's air supply enough to have him choking. His eyes clenched shut and he struggled, quite aware of the razor-like claws that had grown a few millimeters in the preceding seconds; his father's eyes bled at the edges into a frighteningly bright shade of tanager red, the graceful blue lines that crested his cheekbones growing jagged and sharp.

“Please…please…” Inuyasha whimpered almost silently. He would appeal to his father's sense of selfishness; perhaps he could reason with the unreasonable—perhaps he could catch a break, a tiny break. “You…you could let me g-go—you could t-t-turn your b-back for five seconds and I'd be gone!” he cried desperately. “You'd never have to see me again—Never! I promise…I know how m-much you hate me—if you'd just l-let me go, I'd be gone—o-out of your life forever, I swear,” he said earnestly. The grip around his throat increased to the strength of vice, and he struggled to draw in air.

“Drop the knife, boy,” the man snarled. Inuyasha's vision began to waver, the edges growing dark with the pressure still on his windpipe.

“L-let…me go,” he choked out. “Pl-please…let…me go.”

“Drop. The fucking. Knife,” his father repeated slowly. `Not a chance,' Inuyasha thought determinedly.

Putting as much force as he could muster into it, Inuyasha swung his arm in a wide arc, and slashed the knife, sticky and gummy with chicken residue, across his father's face, from his right temple, and down to the left side of his chin.

An animalistic and enraged howl erupted from the gouged demon as blood poured hotly from the wound, spilling down into his open mouth. Both of his hands jerked up to his face, catching gushes of blood that proceeded to seep through his fingers.

“You little bastard!” he raged. “I'll kill you!”

Inuyasha was frozen for a moment, euphorically entranced by the sight of his father's face—bloody for once instead of his own, made that way by his own hands. His eye was gouged, that much he could see, and Inuyasha hoped the eye would never see again. He longed to take another stab at him, two more times, three more times, unstopping until he felt sated. But there was no time for that.

Sidestepping away from the enraged man, Inuyasha bolted through the house, the bouncing vision of the front door, all he could see, all he could focus on.

His fingers clumsily fumbled with the locks, slipping off of the metal and clattering against his claws. The bloodied blade of the knife he still held knocked against the wood with every attempt he made at opening the door. His breath had been reduced to shallow pants, hyperventilation fully setting in. He knew he only had a few more precious seconds before his father recovered enough to come for him again, and they ticked away with every slip of his fingers. He finally managed to rip the chain from its bolt and turn the lever-lock, twisting the knob with adrenaline-induced force and flinging the door open.

Cold air hit him in the face, and he was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was in his pajamas, a thin, worn t-shirt and shabby cotton pants. He wore no shoes, and no socks, and he was likely to get frostbite running through the frozen, snow-covered streets. But all he could focus on was the fact that Kagome was sitting in her car not even seven blocks away, waiting for him, waiting to take him home.

He'd bolted two steps down the porch. The quickest two steps of his life. The feeling of overwhelming relief had just started to trickle over him.

A horrible burning sensation shot through his entire scalp, and he couldn't stifle the agony-filled shriek he emitted as his entire length of hair was forcefully ripped back, and his body was jerked to an abrupt halt, his back hitting hard upon the cement. The breath was knocked out of him, and he had to blink hard to clear the dancing spots from his vision.

Heat enveloped him as he was yanked up by the collar of his t-shirt and literally thrown back into the house, colliding soundly with the arm of the couch. His ears flattened quickly with the thunderous slam of the door, and he could feel the floor vibrate with the plodding of heavy footsteps. He scrambled to his feet, bumping into the arm of the couch and stumbling to the side, providing his father with the opportunity to grip his jaw tightly and lift him into the air, slamming him into the wall beside the television.

“You didn't really think you'd get away from me, did you?” the demon sneered viciously, looking up at the boy he held in his trembling grip. “Then again…you don't exactly think things through.”

“No! NO!” he cried, kicking wildly.

“You think you…can get the best of me? You think you can just run out on me? After all the shit you've caused?”

“I wouldn't be around to cause any more shit if you just let me go!” Inuyasha screamed. He was still afraid. But his trembling fear had taken a backseat to the pure adrenaline-fueled terror he was pumped full of now. He struggled wildly, his head thrashing from side to side. “Let me go you bastard! Let me go, I fucking hate you! I hate you, let me go!” he cried.

“You insignificant little fuck!” Inutaishou roared back. The far recesses of his mind whispered to him. Inuyasha's eyes darted to the closed door, its locks already undone. Ten feet, he guessed. It wasn't that far. And yet, it was a world away. Could he make it?

He had to.

Kagome was scared. She didn't think she'd ever felt so afraid in her life as she did right then. She'd decided right away against parking in the lot of the grocery store. The light of day was fading, and the parking lot was growing dark and shadowy and intimidating. She opted for the well-lit gas station across the street with the kindly-looking attendant standing at the register. At least that place had a steady flow of traffic coming in and out of it. And she could see the parking lot from where she was, so when Inuyasha arrived, she'd know.

She wanted her mother. She'd wanted the woman to come with her, but understood the tumult of preparations that she had to take care of at home. She'd wanted anyone, really, to be there with her in the car.

She'd thought about asking Miroku or Sango to accompany her. If it hadn't been a school night, she might have called one or both of them. But then, she reasoned, she'd have to give a reason as to why they were hanging about a gas station at night, waiting for Inuyasha. He didn't want them to know. He hadn't wanted her to know. And in no way was she about to betray his confidence. She knew how embarrassed he was about the whole situation already.

“You're sure…” he'd begun, mumbling unintelligibly and ashamed.

“Sure what?” she'd pushed. Her mother leaned forward on her elbows across the table to catch his murmured response.

“You're sure I won't be…a burden?” he mumbled.

“Honey,” Mrs. Higurashi soothed, placing her hand atop his. “It's no trouble, I promise you. The only trouble is in you staying where you are. Don't you worry about anything,” she assured him.

One look at his face had told Kagome he wasn't all that assured. He'd insisted on going back to get his clothes and other belongings, against Kagome's adamant protests that he go straight home with them. He didn't want to `burden them any further', as he'd said. It was enough that they'd opened up their home, he'd said. He absolutely refused to allow them to purchase clothes for him.

What could she do? It wasn't as though she could pick him up and place him in her car. All she could do was to give him what was probably useless advice.

Kagome shivered, and burrowed deeper into her coat, up to her nose. Despite the car's heat being cranked up to full blast, she was still freezing, and she knew it had little to do with the frigid weather. She looked at the clock on her car radio again. He'd told her that it might be a while. But he'd also told her that he would try his hardest to meet her at ten. It was already ten thirty-two. She was worried.

Another glance across the road at the parking lot told her what she already knew; he wasn't there.

“Where are you, love?” she asked his absent person. “Please turn up soon. You're scaring me.”

Inutaishou's hand tightened dangerously around the boy's jaw, threatening to crack it with the force. He smiled sickly at the struggling teen, his glazed eyes hungry and malicious. The demon yanked the boy forward, smashing his already bruised back against the unyielding wall again and again and again.

Inuyasha's eyes fluttered, his head lolling to the side with the force it was taking from the wall. He felt his jaw throbbing, and strangely, loose. He struggled to find his equilibrium, and gave a mighty heave, pushing against his assailant, sending the drunken demon staggering backwards. The boy was stumbling over himself, panicked and trembling, as he seized the opportunity and neared the door. His fingers stretched to their limits, reaching for the knob.

Inutaishou threw himself forward, the bulk of his body weight crashing into the already unsteady boy, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Inuyasha yelped in surprise as his father landed on top of him, causing his knee to twist the entirely wrong way as he fell. The sharp pain that shot through his entire leg distracted him momentarily from the larger demon pinning his knees heavily into his chest. Terror overriding any remaining logic he may have had, Inuyasha flailed wildly, the knife he was somehow still grasping flashing dangerously through the air. He managed to land one blow, the blade sinking cleanly into the meat of his father's thigh.

The drunken demon barely reacted to that, only growling gutturally, and ripping the boy's wrist from the plunged weapon, snapping it without interlude, the raucous cry that followed piercing through the air. He slapped him soundly across the cheek, his head flying to one side. “Shut up. All your noise… `s givin' me a headache.” He grabbed the knife and the scruff of the boy's bangs, holding his head still. He pulled the knife from his own flesh, and held the blade against the thin skin of his son's throat, glaring at him through a bloody eye and a blood-red eye.

“Now what are you going to do, huh? You got any more little tricks? Any more moves?”

“I…I—I—p-p-please,” he begged. “Please…” Tears stung his eyes and pooled over, splashing down his temples. “Please, I just wanna go, please—” A crippling blow to the belly cut off any further entreaty.

“Shut. Up,” Inutaishou ordered in a slurred voice that booked no argument. `No, no, no, no,' Inuyasha thought. He was so close to giving up—so close to just accepting whatever was coming. `I can't just…' He had so much to look forward to…`Kagome!' he cried out in his mind. He silently called out to her over and over and over again.

Fighting the paralysis that had momentarily overtaken him, he jerked his good arm upwards, and sunk his claws deep into the flesh of his father's hand, making him recoil and hiss in pain, the knife falling once more. He tried to scramble away, his broken wrist and wrenched knee killing him. He vaguely heard the knife clatter away somewhere as his flesh tore from behind, the claws of a partly transformed and enraged dog demon ripping shallowly into him.

He couldn't even cry out, he was too overwhelmed by pain, and so, only a small grunt escaped him when he was pulled back onto the ground, the back of his skull connecting the corner of a small end table. A jolt of fierce tingling shot through him, and he felt weak, and strangely languid.

He succumbed to the devastating feeling of helplessness that had been hovering over him, unable to make himself care that tears fell from his eyes unchecked, or that his vision was wavering dangerously, fading in and out from oppressive black, or that his hearing was strangely muted.

He was vaguely aware that there was a long gap of time from which he could remember nothing, only that his father was waging a horribly unmatched war with his limp body, fists and claws pummeling his trunk and face, and he was powerless to stop him.

After what seemed like forever, he only became fully aware again when he heard the creaking of the door on its old hinges, and the protesting rumble of an engine. He mentally felt out to every extremity of his body, nauseous from the throbbing pain that was present everywhere, the metallic tang of blood in the air, and the pungent odor of something burning. To his disgust and chagrin, the nausea overcame him all at once, and he fought to turn his head to the side as vomit choked him up. He coughed violently, emptying the paltry contents of his stomach onto the floor, surprised at the massive pain in his throat as he did so.

His body relaxed after his choking spell, and the muscles in his neck went limp.

He was sleepy.

The little green display flicked. `10:47,' it read. `Okay. Give him one more minute,' Kagome told herself. She'd been playing the `One More Minute' game for the past ten, and she was getting sick of it.

“Screw this,” she muttered, turning the key into the ignition. It wasn't like Inuyasha was a shining example of punctuality. He wasn't. He never had been. But the fact of the matter was that it was late, she was scared, and she wanted him there with her. Now. She knew Inuyasha's position on this; he wanted out of that house. There was no way he'd stay any longer than necessary. And that was what scared her most.

As she pulled out of the gas station in the direction of his house, she worked out her plan. She'd just drive toward his house, hoping to run into him on the way. If she didn't, she'd drive past his house, around the block once, maybe twice. Just to see if there was any activity. Anything.

Trepidation filled her gut as she drove the few blocks, not seeing a tall huddled figure on the sidewalk. She'd been hoping so much to find him somewhere along these streets…

She turned down his street, praying that at any moment, she would see him, black hoodie coated with the soft white snowflakes that fell into the quiet road, already graced with a covering. It was so silent. It made her shake.

Her stomach bottomed out as she passed his house. The door was open, a black rectangle perhaps about a foot wide boasted entry inside. `Oh, no…' she thought. `No. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong…' she murmured to herself over and over. `He's fine. He's just fine, Kagome.'

She parked a few houses down, shutting her lights off and waiting, her gloved fingers crossed. She whispered a prayer. `Come on, Inuyasha…come on, please.'

The stillness amplified the thunderous beating of her heart, and the dark rectangle left by the open door tempted her.

“Please be okay. Please, please be okay,” she whispered desperately, the tiniest hint of a sob working its way into her voice. He had to be okay. He just had to be…

She couldn't wait any longer. She got out of the car. She knew it was stupid, dangerous, reckless, and Inuyasha would probably scream her ear off for doing it, but she felt she had to. She couldn't help it. Some deeply rooted instinct was telling her…was screaming at her that something wasn't right—that he needed her…

There was no car in the driveway. The house had no garage, that much she knew from her previous visit. `There shouldn't be anyone home,' she reasoned as she haltingly approached the property. Her own breathing was deafening to her, and she tried breathing through her nose.

Her hand was trembling with all the force of an epileptic seizure when she pushed the door open, the tremendous groan it gave scaring her out of her skin. The house was dark and marred with shadows from the pale glow of the moon shining through a few windows. Despite the darkness, it seemed foggy, and her eyes stung. There was an insistent beeping echoing from somewhere deep in the house.

The noxious smell of vomit and blood hit her senses, and she grappled desperately along the wall for a light. Finally hitting upon a switch, a single, bare light bulb blinked on above her head, casting tawny shadows across the slats of wood.

She screamed. She regretted it immediately. She was sure it didn't help. Quicker than ever before, her cell phone was ripped from her pocket, and her fingers flew across the keys, dialing the number for emergency.

She wasn't even sure of what she'd said, or even if it was coherent. She didn't know if her voice was even enough for the operator to understand what she'd said, or if she'd given the street address numbers in the right order. She prayed she did; but she wasn't sure. She was fairly certain that she'd managed to communicate all of the important information: there was a boy bleeding very badly on the living room floor of his own home—he was very badly injured. Was he moving? Yes…yes, she thought she saw his hand move a tiny bit… Was there anything else wrong? The operator wanted to know. Would she need anything other than an ambulance? The operator could hear the beeping. Kagome rushed a bit deeper into the house—flames leaped at her from the doorjamb to the kitchen. She screamed and jumped back, flames licking viciously against the varnished wood on the walls. “The house is on fire!” she yelled. The fire alarm continued to beep insistently. Please, please bring help soon. She was terrified. Please don't let him die, she begged. Please. He means the world to me, she cried.

She coughed, the stinging in her eyes intensifying. The crackling of fire was growing louder, she realized, and she could see the tips of intermittent flames leaping out closer to where she stood. The fire was growing. She had to get him out.

She pushed aside the revulsion she felt upon looking at the puddle of vomit and blood near his head, and rushed towards the body sprawled on the floor. Bending over, she hooked her hands under his arms and whispered an apology to him as she dragged him away from the source of the fire. He was heavy and unmoving, and it was slow work. She strained against his weight, her own lungs seizing from the lack of fresh air.

She finally managed to pull him from the sweltering house, the sweat on her face instantly chilling her as she entered the cold night air. She was dizzy from the smoke inhalation, and she cringed to think of how bad off Inuyasha was; how long had he been unconscious in the burning house?

She dropped to the stoop beside him, pulling him into her lap as gently as she could. She shrugged out of her coat, tucking it around his mostly naked upper half. His body was limp and heavy in her arms, sticky with blood and plastered with his own hair. She cried, cradling him against her closely, still working at keeping the coat securely over his chilled flesh.

“Inuyasha?” she whispered, her voice shaking uncontrollably. “Inuyasha? Inuyasha, can you hear me?”

He was almost unrecognizable, his face swollen, red, and streaked with blood. His head lolled back, and she reached under it to support it with her forearm. She almost vomited herself when her fingers came back coated with thick blood. She trembled all over, wiping her fingers on her jeans and tenderly brushing his matted bangs from his pale face.

“Help is coming,” she whispered tremulously. “Please just hold on for a little longer. Help is coming.”

A raucous cough tore from his throat, his chest almost going through spasms. Her stomach bottomed out when she saw the flecks of blood that splattered his dry lips, a trickle of it running from the corner of his mouth when the coughing spell ceased. He was bleeding internally. Blinking through blinding tears, she pulled the cuff of her shirt down over her palm and gently blotted away the blood that dribbled from his mouth.

Kagome gasped, relief flooding her like a tidal wave when his eyelids twitched, slowly cracking at intermittent periods. He looked up at her for a moment as though he had no idea who she was, through bleary golden eyes.

“Inuyasha,” she murmured tearfully. He continued to stare at her, his brow wrinkling slightly.

“H-h…help…m-me…” he croaked, chapped lips twitching. “K…K'gome…” She nodded vigorously through her tears, her fingers stroking his face comfortingly.

“Help is coming, Inuyasha, I promise you. There's an ambulance on its way right now, okay? You just hold on, alright?”

“H…hurts…” he choked softly.

“I know. I know it hurts. You just wait. Just wait. They're coming,” she whispered, repeating it again and again. “I love you, okay? Just wait…just wait…”

Her back was killing her. Her neck was awfully sore, her hindquarters were numb, and she felt disgusting. Mrs. Higurashi shifted painfully in the rock-hard chair, finally deciding that she would take a walk around the floor instead. She checked her watch. `2:28', it read. Kagome would be getting out of school shortly, and she had no doubt that her daughter would rush there immediately after.

“I'll have to tell her to bring me another pair of shoes,” she murmured softly to herself, standing. She raised her arms high above her head, wincing as her bones popped in protest. Starting towards the door of the room, she glanced back, saddening yet again at the pale youth that lay prone on the bed. Suddenly a walk didn't seem all that important anymore.

She approached his bedside slowly, her fingers reaching out to graze gently against the back of his hand. The flesh was bruised. The nurse that had affixed his IV was nervous, and missed many times…

His face was lax, seeming to have no muscle at all. The breathing tube that disappeared between twin chapped lips fogged and cleared in time with the rise and fall of his chest, which all moved to the steady beeping of his heart monitor. Taking as much care as she could, she gently lifted his head, peeling back the large mound of gauze that covered what had been the entrance for the surgeon's tools. The bandage was spotted with blood, but she'd been told that a bit of drainage was to be expected…with all the times they'd had to drain his skull of the excess fluid, she was surprised he wasn't bleeding a bit more, the incision had been reopened so many times…

“Can you even hear me in there, Inuyasha?” she murmured uselessly. It was only out of habit now, that she asked him. She'd asked him the same question every morning for the past fifteen days. It wasn't that he responded when she asked; there was no response at all. It was only in the small hope that perhaps, by some miracle, her voice would reach him through the thick blanket of his sleep and perhaps rouse him… “We're all waiting for you, Sweetheart,” she whispered. “We'll keep waiting for you.”

She checked her watch again, deciding that she would at least wait until Kagome arrived to take her walk and stretch her legs. She opened her bag and took out a novel, opening it to the place her bookmark held. She lifted the half-rimmed spectacles from her bosom and perched them on the bridge of her nose, settling into the uncomfortable chair to read.

A faint twitch caught her eye. Her eyes snapped to the prone figure on the bed. He wasn't moving at all. She watched him for a long moment, but there was still nothing. Shaking her head and brushing it off as simply her imagination, she turned her attention back to her book.

There it was again. A small, barely noticeable, but hardly mistakable twitch. Allowing a small spark of hope to infuse her, Mrs. Higurashi determinedly set her book face-down on the chair, and crossed to the bed, leaning over the guardrails to peer down at the gaunt face. It was motionless, still slack and blank…but then, just when she was about to turn away, a small flicker…his right ear perked ever so slightly.

“Inuyasha?” she called gently. She passed a hand over his eyes, and was delighted to see movement under the lids, responding to the change in light. “Can you open your eyes, Honey?” She watched as he tried, the lids tugging at one another. Matter from his long sleep caked the lids, and she rushed for a cloth and warm water.

After gently wiping the matter from his eyes, she gently urged him to try again, patting his cheek soothingly, whispering soothing reassurances and words of encouragement.

It took him a long time. He struggled against his own flesh, at times needing to rest, he was so weak. Mrs. Higurashi didn't leave, continuing to murmur reassuringly to him, until finally, he was able to open his eyes to half mast, and tenuously keep them there. His golden eyes, dulled and watery, lolled unfocusedly about, finally flicking to her face after awhile.

“Hello, Sweetheart,” she said tearfully, smiling weakly. “Welcome back…”

She snapped to her senses, pulling herself out of the initial, knee-weakening joy she felt at his long awaited awakening, and fumbled for the call button.

The hands were cold. Frigidly cold, and rough, and his skin, over-sensitized for some reason that he couldn't readily identify, screamed at every place she touched him. But he couldn't cry out; he could barely even grunt in pain.

“His vitals look relatively normal,” the doctor announced, much too loud for his liking; her voice throttled his head, and he felt as though he would pass out from the sheer pain the volume caused. “Honestly, with all the fluid build-up he had, and with the severity of the fracture, I'm surprised he woke as quickly as he has. Fifteen days is by no means a short time, but considering the extent of the trauma, I have to say I'm impressed with his recovery so far. He still has a ways to go, keep in mind…”

`Fifteen days?' he thought groggily. `What is going on?'

“I know he's just woken and everything, but how long do you think it will be before he can come home?” asked another voice, this one much gentler. `Mrs. Higurashi!' he thought with relief. At least someone he knew and trusted was nearby.

“Oh, I can't answer that. It'll really depend on him. It shouldn't be too long, though. He seems to be made of tough stuff, and now that he's awake, his body can focus more on its own rehabilitation than just keeping him alive.”

“I see…well. At the very least, he's awake. I'm relieved for that,” Mrs. Higurashi said tiredly. He was confused. Where was Kagome? If her mother was near, surely she couldn't be far away…

He tried to open his mouth to voice his confusion, and found that he couldn't. All he could do was continue the choked gurgles he'd been emitting the entire time she checked his vitals. He grunted louder, trying to get anyone's attention.

“Don't try talking just yet, young man,” she instructed. “You shouldn't strain yourself so soon after waking up. You took quite the beating and…” she prattled on and on about his condition while he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening He could feel it; the metal chunks on his teeth, the wires and pins. His jaw was firmly wired shut, his teeth pressed around the breathing tube shoved intrusively down his throat. He wanted to yank it out, breath on his own. He wanted to get up, run away from this smelly place with its harsh lighting, annoying beeping sounds, scratchy bedding and cold, rough-handed doctors. He was severely annoyed, and to add to his discomfort, he was horribly in pain. He absolutely ached everywhere.

He suddenly felt very closed in, and became hyperaware of every foreign object that was touching him at that moment; the bounty of metal in his mouth, the restricting bandages on his head, the excessive padding around his knee, and the constricting plaster on his wrist…the pace of his breathing increased, and the annoyingly insistent beeping in the background increased its frequency.

“Inuyasha, I have to change the dressing on your head,” the doctor said slowly. Now calm down, okay? Just calm down,” she eased, her wrinkly hands inching toward his face. It didn't calm him, and he strained to sit up, groaning loudly as his entire body protested with vigor.

“Oh, Kami…Inuyasha…” came the sound of a disbelieving voice, followed by the heavy thud of something hitting the floor. He stopped his struggle, shaking and confused, upset at being unable to open his mouth or exert as much energy as he wanted, his head feeling as though it were on the brink of exploding.

`That voice…' he thought. He knew that voice…he loved that voice. `Kagome!'

Despite knowing that he couldn't open his mouth, and knowing that he wasn't truly strong enough to exercise his vocal cords, he still tried to call out her name, a garbled, wheezing sound coming from him instead.

“I'm here,” she whispered, suddenly at his side. He relaxed, stopped straining against his body's limitations, and sighed. A lock of her hair slipped from behind her shoulders and tickled the tip of his nose as she leaned over him. “Hi, love,” she said, her voice cracking as she pressed a soft palm to his cheek. Her eyes pooled with tears, and he wanted desperately to tell her to stop it. But he was suddenly so tired, and his head hurt so badly…perhaps if he went to sleep, the pain would be gone when he woke up?

“I'm so glad to have you back,” came her choked whisper. He closed his eyes slowly, tried to smile. He didn't know if it worked. He didn't care anymore…Kagome was here, and he was so, so sleepy…

He drifted off, just as she leaned further down to gently kiss his forehead.

The quiet sounds of a sleepy household came drifting through the thin wooden door to his ears. He breathed deeply, in an out, in and out, in time with the soft rooting snores Souta emitted just above his head. He had to concentrate on that these days, breathing. It wasn't that he couldn't do it—it just required him to think about it a bit more consciously. The doctor had warned him that it would be that way, at least for a little while, as his body was still working very hard to repair itself.

“You need rest,” the old woman had said, squinting hard at him through her one good eye. “Sleep is your best friend.”

He didn't want to sleep. He was exhausted, and he ached, and he knew that he needed to sleep, but he couldn't, and didn't particularly want to. He'd slept for fifteen days straight in a deep coma, and then on an off in bursts of deep unconsciousness. His naps had been the stuff of legends as of late. He felt he'd had enough.

Trembling fingers tugged weakly on the tiny chain, clicking on the desk lamp, and bathing his work surface in a small oval of osage orange light. His project from before dinner greeted him, and he scanned it critically.

He'd mastered his name. In a matter of sixty minutes, he'd managed to relearn how to form the proper characters, spelling out each character. It wasn't how it used to be, he thought. The shapes that swam on the blank paper were much tighter, much more precise and rigid than he'd made them before. But that could have been entirely due to the amount of concentration he'd put into forming them. It hadn't been easy, what with the tremors running through his fingers. And though it was ambitious, and most definitely too soon, he'd started a sketch.

His fingers gripped the pencil as tightly as he could manage, still a feeble hold all the same. In all the time he'd put into it, before he'd been called to dinner, he'd still only managed to replicate the first segment of his pinky finger to his liking. It was even more painstakingly slow than he liked to spend on his most involved painting projects. And it was only a simple sketch.

His brow creased in his concentration as he moved the pencil carefully over the page, trying his hardest not to allow the shakes to show in graphite. The faint line he left behind was the only testament to how hard he was working, and it angered him.

A soft rapping on the door made him jump, his already-skittish heart giving a great start at the noise.

“Yes?” he called softly.

“It's me,” answered the just as soft female voice. “May I come in?” It was a strange thing, being asked for entry into his room. He liked it. A tiny grin quirked his lips as he answered.

“Yes.”

The door swung slowly open.

“Hello,” she smiled, shutting the door gently behind her. “Cocoa?” she offered, holding up a large mug full of the steaming liquid. Inuyasha smiled weakly at her familiar offer. He did want some, however he was positive that he'd be unable to drink unaided, and so, he refused. “What are you still doing up? It's really late,” she pointed out with a frown. She crossed the room to stand beside him at the desk, peering over his shoulder at his work.

“Don't wanna sleep,” he mumbled.

“You need sleep, Inuyasha,” she murmured.

“I know. I am tired…” he admitted. “But I…” he trailed off, embarrassed. Her hand rested gently on his shoulder.

“Can you get up?” she asked softly. He shrugged, flushing hotly. It was enough that his hearing was still muffled at times, or that his jaw was still wired shut, or that his coordination as of late, was a thing of the past. It was enough that he'd needed to be wheeled onto the shrine via a steep ramp, and then carted about the house like an invalid. He was embarrassed, and he didn't want to need her for even the most basic of tasks. He didn't want to need her simply to get into bed.

“It's okay, Inuyasha. You've only been out of the hospital for one day. Not an entire day, even,” she soothed, as though reading his mind. “You can't expect to be able to do it all at once.” She slid an arm just under his shoulder blades and urged him on. “Come on, Sweetheart. Let's get to bed. No need to be embarrassed.”

It hurt. His body screamed with every small movement he made, and his legs protested more than they ever had in his life. The wheelchair just outside the door was not an option in the small yet comfortable room he'd been given, and so, slowly, he shuffled along, mortified that he had to depend on the middle-aged woman at his side to help him into bed.

She pulled back the plush blankets, steadied him as he sat on the edge of the mattress, and helped him to swing both stiff legs onto the bed, his eyes pricking in humiliation and pain.

“There we are,” Mrs. Higurashi said with finality as she helped him to shift a bit more fully into the bed. “All settled?” she asked him. He nodded wordlessly, biting his lip. He was angry with himself. Yet another intense wave of emotion crashed over him, as had been the norm since his freedom from his unconscious prison. He'd been unable to stem the flow of emotion that seemed to ram through him every so often lately, and he hoped that with the healing of his body would also come his ability to restrain this emotional incontinence. He was quite tired of crying in Kagome's arms now, no matter how lovely it could turn out.

“Honey, what's the matter?” the woman asked, suddenly concerned and pressing a tender hand on his shoulder in comfort. “Are you in pain?”

“N-no,” he choked. “I mean…yes. But…that's not…” he trailed off, clenching his eyes shut, willing his tear ducts to reabsorb the tears they'd stupidly leaked. “That's not it,” he finished. He felt the mattress dip as Mrs. Higurashi sat beside him on the bed.

“Then what is it, Hon'?” she pressed. “Come on, you can talk to me, you know that.”

“I can't…I just can't…” He struggled against his own lack of censure. “I can't…do anything…” he whispered finally. “I can't do anything.”

“Inuyasha,” she said with a slight chuckle. “Honey, you just got out of the hospital this afternoon. You were in a coma for half a month. You're doing quite well for where you are. Rome wasn't built in a day, you know,” she said with a wink.

“No…” he argued faintly. Of course that was what upset him. Seventeen years old, half demon, standing at the very least nine inches above this slight human woman's head, he felt he ought to be able to help himself. He was horrified at the prospect of the next morning when he was sure he'd have to use the facilities. But now that she'd repeated his status as far as his health went for the umpteenth time, he felt stupid about complaining about it, crying about it even. But it wasn't the only thing weighing heavily on his heavily taxed mind.

“I can't…thank you,” he mumbled. “You…and Kagome. Everything…everything you've done f-for me. You and her…you…s-saved my life. But you….you've done everything for me…let me stay with your daughter, even when you knew about my dad. You treat me like one of your own…gave me a home…” he murmured, staring at the kindly older woman. “I…I really don't know how I could…how I could ever repay you. For everything you've done for me…I'll always be in your debt…”

“Inuyasha, Sweetie,” she cooed soothingly. Her arm slipped around his sore shoulders and embraced him gently, the fingers of her opposite hand brushing away the moisture that had made its way down his cheeks. “You don't have to feel indebted to anyone.”

“But…I have to do something. All the court stuff, and the legal stuff, and everything—you're dealing with that because of me! And you don't know how much you're risking…everything you have, it's at risk because of me, and if it weren't for you two, I'd be—”

“Shh,” she shushed him, shaking her head. “No need to dwell on things like that, now is there?” She brushed his bangs out of his eyes and gently patted the side of his face. “You're safe. That's all that's important. Forget about the rest. Forget about the court dates, and danger, and all of the mess. You're safe. You're home. You're where you're supposed to be, and that's all that matters. That's all I need as payment. I know that's all Kagome needs.” She graced him with a tender smile, giving him that special, soft, comforting look that only mothers knew how to give. She kissed his temple and he shook with the amount of peace that slipped over him like a silken shroud.

“It's high time that you, Inuyasha, started living for you. And no one else.”

The smell of new leather was pleasant, as was the blessed heat that drifted out of the vents in the dashboard. The company however, Inuyasha felt, was not even near passable.

Arms crossed and sunken low in his seat, he stared pointedly out of the passenger window, watching the flashy buildings of downtown Tokyo whizz by, watching the people huddled in winter dress push against the whipping wind and stinging snow. Flakes zinged down from the sky, hitting the gray streets and immediately turning to slush.

“Where do you want to eat?” the deep voice beside him inquired lowly. He rolled his eyes, sighing, the breath fogging the glass.

“I'm not hungry, I already ate,” he mumbled. “I told you that before we left.”

“Is it truly that difficult for you to simply choose a restaurant?” the disembodied voice asked tiredly.

“I don't care. I don't wanna be here,” he said flippantly. The exasperated sigh that followed lifted the corners of his mouth in a tiny satisfactory smile. The car ride persisted for a few more extensive moments until finally a location was chosen by the driver. He smoothly parked the car in the somewhat full parking lot. Cutting the engine, he sat still for a moment, gloved fingers still on the keys dangling from the ignition. Inuyasha could feel the stare boring into the back of his averted head, and so, he finally turned to face his brother, if only to cut the confinement in the car short. Sesshomaru stared intensely at him as Inuyasha stared back with a bored expression.

“I do not want to hear any complaints,” he warned sternly, in reference to the restaurant choice.

“Neither do I,” Inuyasha shot back, in reference to everything else. Still holding the older demon's gaze, he opened the car door, cold air rushing abruptly in as he got out, slamming the door behind him. He waited until Sesshomaru had exited the vehicle, and was a good forty feet ahead of him before he started forward.

The waiter was already leading Sesshomaru to a secluded table on the far side of the restaurant when Inuyasha walked in. He knew it pissed Sesshomaru off when he did things like that—taking forever to get someplace. Sesshomaru felt that it made a scene. And if it pissed Sesshomaru off, well. It was something to shoot for.

Inuyasha slid into the chair opposite Sesshomaru as the older demon slid out of his tailed coat. He slouched in his seat and propped his chin up with the heel of his hand as Sesshomaru sat down and genteelly peeled off his soft black leather gloves. His eyes snapped up as soon as he'd tucked the accessories into his coat pocket, and narrowed.

“Inuyasha, take off that hat. It is unacceptable for indoors. You look like a hoodlum,” he instructed snobbishly.

“…Does it annoy you?” Inuyasha asked, feigning innocence and sincerity. Sesshomaru let out a short huff, shutting his eyes.

“If you must know, yes, it is somewhat perturbing—”

“Mission accomplished, then,” Inuyasha said smugly, and leaned back into his chair with a satisfied smirk and a cross of his arms. His smirk only increased when Sesshomaru yet again pinched the bridge of his nose with deep exasperation.

“You're such a child,” Sesshomaru mumbled, shaking his head.

“And you're such a prick,” Inuyasha shot back without hesitation. Two sets of golden eyes that so closely mirrored each other locked, one pair full of hot disdain and spitting anger, the other holding a cool annoyance and barely bridled frustration. Inuyasha tore his stare away forcefully, setting his haw. “Are we almost done yet?” he mumbled under his breath. He knew Sesshomaru heard it, because he immediately snapped his menu open and held it in front of his face.

Surely Sesshomaru despised these court-issued weekly meetings as much as he did. Inuyasha had come to dread Sunday afternoons. The whole thing was awkward and boring, and always left him angry. It had been even worse before he'd been able to leave the house. He and Sesshomaru would be given the living room for the appointed three hours, and so, for three hours, Inuyasha would sit in his wheelchair, listening to the ticking of the grandfather clock, while Sesshomaru sat on the couch, every now and then attempting a question to which he never received and answer.

At least now they could get outside of the house, and have their awkward, silent meetings elsewhere. This way the car ride to and from their destination would eat up some of the time.

The waiter came with water glasses and asked them their order. Sesshomaru made his order, and both men waited for Inuyasha's request. He eyed Sesshomaru evilly.

“I told you I'm not hungry, and my fucking jaw is still wired shut,” he hissed. The waiter gasped a bit at his word choice and tone, and Sesshomaru, to cover his embarrassment, glared at Inuyasha murderously.

“I'm so sorry for his behavior,” he told the waiter quickly, and ordered a second of his own meal. “There's no call for you to speak so uncouthly,” he spat venomously when the man had left.

“Then stop acting like you don't hear me, you asshole.”

“You are impossible!” Sesshomaru growled.

“Well what the hell were you expecting, Sesshomaru!” Inuyasha exclaimed angrily, throwing up his hands. “Were you expecting me to just forget everything? Were you expecting everything to just fucking be okay, just because of some stupid court order? It's not!”

“Keep your voice down,” Sesshomaru ordered testily.

“Don't fucking tell me what to do! You're in no position to order me around!”

“Inuyasha, control yourself,” he demanded through gritted teeth, struggling to keep his temper.

“Control myself? Fine then.” He pushed away from the table with a tremendous screech against the hardwood floor. “I don't wanna be here anyway. About time I got to control something around here.” Inuyasha stood and forcefully shoved the chair back under the table. The back of the chair hit the table, causing the flatware to clatter, and upsetting the water glasses, water splashing all over the table cloth and Sesshomaru. He stomped off, turning quite a few heads on his noisy exit.

Sesshomaru almost bit through his tongue in his restraint. He'd had the desperate urge to leap over the table and box the impudent teen about the ears until he was unconscious. He almost immediately regretting even thinking that so soon after the boy had been released from the hospital for serious injuries incurred from their own father.

He watched the choppy shock of white hair whip out of the door as its owner stormed angrily out of the restaurant, and sighed heavily. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes until colors danced across the lids. Standing, he slipped into his coat and slipped his gloves out of their inner pocket.

“Oh! Sir, I'm so terribly sorry! I'll clean this right away!” exclaimed the waiter upon seeing the spilled water all over. He whipped out a towel from his black waist-apron and began to dab.

“It is of no consequence…” Sesshomaru began. “Listen…the meals…I've had something terribly important come up. Please cancel them, thank you.”

“Well…Sir, I'm afraid—”

“Nevermind,” Sesshomaru waved him off, flipping his wallet open. “Here. Have your dinner on me then,” he said with a clipped tone, shoving bills at the flustered waiter. He left the man stammering his thanks at the table, and pushed through the restaurant's glass doors, looking for the angered hanyou.

He sniffed the cold, sharp air discreetly, picking out the scent of his younger brother from the throng of other odors. He rolled his eyes; Inuyasha had basically fled. Sesshomaru knew he hated these meetings. But it was the first time he'd ever run away from one.

`Probably because it's the first one where he can,' he thought darkly as he trudged to the car. He cracked the window on the passenger side, allowing a small amount of air to spill through the opening, and followed the direction that the air told him.

The boy hadn't gotten too far. He still, Sesshomaru noticed, had a significant limp. He vaguely remembered the human woman whose care he was in shouting after him that he'd forgotten his cane as they'd walked down the shrine steps. He'd acted like he hadn't heard.

“Your cane,” he prompted quietly, right as Inuyasha stumbled, a grimace twisting his lips.

“Don't need it,” he ground out stiffly. Sesshomaru hadn't pressed the issue.

He watched the tall figure moving amongst the humans, perhaps twenty feet ahead of him, and slowed the car to a creep along the curb. Traffic flowed angrily around his car as it impeded their way. For as severe as the gimp was, he was moving at quite a clip. `Eager to get away from me, I suppose,' Sesshomaru mused grimly. Inuyasha paused for a moment, leaning against a light post for a rest, grabbing at his knee. He certainly still needed that cane. The boy seemed to take a deep breath, and resumed his way, shoving balled fists into his jacket pockets.

He supposed he couldn't be too upset with the boy. He'd certainly been through a lot lately. It wasn't entirely his fault that he was so on edge and out of control. All things considered, he was handling himself quite well, given the circumstances, Sesshomaru begrudgingly supposed.

And Sesshomaru supposed that he himself hadn't exactly been much help in the healing process. But then he'd never really taken much of a role in the boy's life before now, sans that of a source of torment. He couldn't say that he'd been instrumental in the boy's recovery. He'd scarcely visited for that month while he was in the hospital, only showing his face now and then to dictate legal matters and finally, to inform the boy and his surrogate family of their father's death.

Inuyasha's reaction to such news was a surprise to him.

“He's…he….he's….dead?” he'd asked softly, staring away from him, away from the young girl at his side, away from everyone.

“Yes,” Sesshomaru said shortly, having detached himself from such petty things like emotions for the time being. It was not the time, nor the place to grieve for the dead drunkard, and so, he would resign himself to his own type of woe on his own terms.

Inuyasha's empty eyes, ringed with purple and swollen had trained themselves on him, his gaunt face hanging in an odd way.

“How?” he whispered through chapped lips.

“You should know,” he snapped, putting more venom in that statement than he'd intended. He was not to display his grief now, nor was he to show the biting contempt he felt at this moment for the wraith of a boy sitting in bed before him. Inuyasha's wounded face schooled him back into his trenches of stoicism, and he cleared his throat. “He was drunk and impaired. And he drove off of bridge that crossed a river. He died, most likely, instantly from the impact, but it's supposed that he could have drowned also,” he explained, more bluntly than necessary. The girl gasped, a hand covering her mouth. The mother looked away, her hands clutching tissues in her lap. Inuyasha continued to stare at him.

“It was…that night…wasn't it?” he croaked.

“Would you think it was any other?” Neither needed clarification from the other. Inuyasha's eyes finally fell to the bed. “The body was found last week. With the amount decomposition from the water, it took a while to identify who—”

“Okay!” he exclaimed, his voice cracking. “I get it! That's enough.” Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed. He resented being cut off.

“You asked to be informed. I am informing you,” he hissed. Inuyasha looked back up at him, and Sesshomaru was shocked to find a light sheen over the bruised eyes, the scent of salt not even hitting him until that exact moment.

“Are you mad at me?” he whispered, a question that completely bowled Sesshomaru over.

“Come again?” Inuyasha swallowed audibly, letting out a shaky breath.

“Do you blame me?” he rephrased. “Do you blame me?”

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed even further. `More than you could ever know,' he thought immediately, the dark thought no doubt telegraphing loud and clear in his eyes, for the boy shrunk back.

“I blame me, too,” he murmured, and Sesshomaru only just barely caught it. He couldn't believe his ears.

He took in the sight before him. There in a hard hospital bed sat his younger half-brother, his arms full of needles connected to tubes, connected to IVs, delivering fluids to him. His leg encased in plaster, inside the plaster, pins, screws and rods, holding the pieces of his kneecap and tibia together. His face, swollen and discolored, mottled with blue and purple, and green and yellow: bruises in various stages of healing. A trio of scars, extending from just under his eye to the bottom of his lower lip. His head, bare of hair, save for the few centimeters of recent growth, and wrapped with gauze, hiding what he knew was a deep gash at the base of his skull, evidence of a blow that had left him temporarily paralyzed.

And even in such a state, even with all of the pain he felt, even with the long road of difficult recovery that lay ahead of him, even with the years of isolation and abuse, physical, emotional, and mental that such a man had caused him…

He blamed himself for his death. He understood Sesshomaru's anger directed at his person, even as Sesshomaru himself fell into the realization that such a feeling was horribly misplaced.

`He's a better person than I am,' blinked the thought across his mind, hitting him with all the intensity of the quintessential epiphany. This boy, this child, this half-breed, was wiser than him, was better than him. After that, the only thing he could think was to get away as fast as he could. To experience and subsequently analyze the most galling emotion he'd ever happened across in front of his younger brother and his new family was one thing he did not need.

He turned away abruptly, picking up the briefcase he'd set on an empty chair, and turned to leave.

“Sesshomaru, wait!” came the muffled, hoarse voice that now, evoked so much guilt from him. But he didn't wait. He turned the handle and exited the room without so much as a backward glance.

`Hindsight is always twenty-twenty,' the old adage came unbidden to the forefront of his mind as he left the hospital that day. Images of his own faults and shortcomings flitted across his mind. He saw how cruel he'd truly been to his bedridden younger brother, callously brushing his injuries off as mere scratches and bruises, telling him to grow up; telling him to be a man.

`In truth,' he realized, `you must be a man yourself in order to instruct someone else to do the same.'

Inuyasha had stopped again. This time, he sat on a bench, bending to massage the area round his pieced-together kneecap. Sesshomaru slowed the car to a stop right in front of his post and lowered the window.

Inuyasha looked up, curious at first, then annoyed as he recognized the vehicle. He turned his head away and crossed his arms over his chest.

“Inuyasha, get in the car,” Sesshomaru told him.

“No.”

“I'm being serious, Inuyasha. Get in the car now.”

“No. Go away, leave me alone, and don't tell me what to do,” he argued stubbornly. Sesshomaru sighed. It was never easy with Inuyasha.

“How will you get home if I do go away?”

“I'll walk,” he drawled, as though Sesshomaru were an idiot.

“You've got a terrible limp, you're sitting there massaging your knee, because you're obviously in pain, and we're about thirty minutes away from the shrine in a car. You won't make it. And before you say it, the bus doesn't run on Sundays. You know that.”

Inuyasha pouted, knowing that he was right, yet not wanting to give in just yet.

“It has not even been three hours, but I will take you right back to the shrine. Right now,” Sesshomaru offered. Inuyasha eyed him suspiciously from the bench. “I promise, alright?”

Seeing that he had no plausible other choice, Inuyasha rose stiffly from the bench, limping the few steps to the car and getting in with a huff.

“This isn't the way to the shrine,” Inuyasha said as they merged onto the expressway.

“I have a stop to make.”

“You said you'd take me back to the shrine! You promised!”

“And I will. After I make this stop.”

“You said you'd take me right away.”

“Well, I changed my mind.” He could feel Inuyasha glaring at the side of his face. He didn't indulge him.

“Leave it to you to lie. Of course you'd break a promise,” he muttered, settling back down into his seat. “Dunno what I was expecting. Sesshomaru? Truthful? Yeah right. What a load of bullshit—”

“Enough!” Sesshomaru bellowed, his hand flying off of the steering wheel, cutting off Inuyasha's words. He instantly regretted the automatic gesture when, out of his peripheral vision, he saw the boy recoil, and heard his sharp intake of breath. The sour tang of fear briefly tainted his scent, and Sesshomaru immediately knew what had gone on in his mind. “That's enough,” he muttered weakly, dropping his hand, knowing that this would not help him in his somewhat feeble efforts towards a relationship with the boy.

He could feel the boy's eyes on him for a few more long moments before he slowly faced forward, opting not to say anything at all. His silence however, spoke volumes.

“I'm…sorry,” Sesshomaru finally muttered as he parallel parked in front of the building he'd been aiming for. “I was not actually going to…It was a reflex. I was not about to…” he trailed off uselessly. He cut the ignition. “Inuyasha, it was not—”

“How did you find out about this place?” Inuyasha interrupted darkly, completely ignoring his dredged up apology. Sesshomaru swallowed the slight annoyance he felt. It was not easy for him to apologize, and it certainly did not sit well with him that it went ignored. `Swallow your pride,' he schooled himself.

“Does it matter?”

“Yeah it matters! It's an invasion of privacy!”

“I've never gone in,” he said simply. He waited.

“So why are we here?” Inuyasha finally asked sulkily.

“I want you to take me in. Show me what you do.” Inuyasha stared at him incredulously, eyes wide.

“No way.”

“Why not?”

“Why should I? You never cared about it before! You never wanted to—”

“Dammit, Inuyasha, I am trying here!” Sesshomaru finally exclaimed, frustrated. “I am trying. But there is only so far that I can go before you have to meet me halfway.”

He wasn't looking at him. But he was tensed, and agitated, and Sesshomaru knew he was listening, weighing his options, comparing the pros and cons of the situation. He abruptly shoved the door open, cold air rushing in.

“I know I'm gonna fucking regret this,” he muttered under his breath. Sesshomaru didn't feel the need to argue. He followed silently behind the boy as he limped up the icy path to the doorstep of the ratty building. Sesshomaru waited as he punched in his code and was buzzed in, his nose wrinkling at the damp smell of the place as he entered.

“Inuyasha! You knuckle-headed brat! I'll have you know, I was about ready to close out your lease and throw your stuff out into the street!” A old, knobby demon ranted upon seeing Inuyasha. “It's been over a month and a half! Who do you think you are—”

“Totosai…please,” Inuyasha said tiredly. “Not now.”

“Not now? Not now? Yes, now! Where the hell have you been? Do you honestly think—hey….what the hell happened to your face, eh?” he queried, interrupting his own tirade. “And your hair! It's all gone! What in blue blazes—”

“Later,” Inuyasha said briefly, sighing. “Okay? I'll explain everything later.”

“Uh-huh,” he wheezed, his bulbous eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You damn right you will.” He nodded in Sesshomaru's direction. “Who's the suit?” he asked. Inuyasha looked up at him, as if wondering how he ought to be introduced.

“Sesshomaru,” he said finally with a shrug. “I'm going up.” And without another word, Inuyasha turned to the large staircase that filled the damp foyer, and began to ascend. Sesshomaru wordlessly followed. He didn't need to ask why he hadn't been introduced as “older brother”.

The smell of rotting wood and mold somewhat lessened as they climbed the stairs, and when they reached the top floor, it was almost nonexistent. `Which is not to say that the décor has improved,' Sesshomaru noted as he was led down a long dark corridor of warehouse-type doors. A squat, odd-looking human waddled from one of the rolling doors, carrying an armful of what appeared to be wooden tubes. His bulbous eyes followed the two brothers as they passed him, his fat body frozen. Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow at him, and he looked away.

Ahead, Inuyasha was squatting to a lock, and pushed the door up with a loud clatter. He stepped to the side to allow Sesshomaru entrance, and then stepped in himself, rolling the door shut.

“Here it is,” he muttered. The room was musty, not having been aired out in over a month and a half. Dust covered everything in a thin layer. Sesshomaru crossed the space to the mound covered by a blue tarp.

“Is this it?” he asked. Inuyasha's eyebrow ticked marginally, a silent affirmative. Sesshomaru peeled his gloves from his fingers, tucking them into the pocket of his coat, and gingerly picked the tarp away, dropping it to the ground.

He picked up canvas after canvas, eyeing them briefly before carefully laying them back in their rack. All was silent in the studio, save for the rub of canvas on canvas and their breathing.

“How long have you been doing this?” Sesshomaru asked, turning to the boy. He was seated on the small pallet of sheets on the opposite side of the room, leaning against the wall. He'd taken his hat off, exposing the short wispy locks that fell into his eyes messily.

“Started taking real art classes in the 6th grade. Found this place when I was 13.” Sesshomaru nodded his understanding, his eyes falling back to the painting in his hands. Three sets of angry eyes stared back at him from the faces of three young wolf demons.

“You have an incredible talent,” he said quietly. He glanced at the boy to see his skeptical face, eyes narrowed, disbelief and anger obvious in them.

“I didn't let you come up here so you could mock me,” he snapped.

“I am not mocking you.”

“Shut up. Go fuck yourself, Sesshomaru,” he muttered darkly. Sesshomaru bit his tongue against a retort and picked up another painting. He'd just freed it from the row when Inuyasha shouted at him

“No! Leave that one alone! You can't touch this one!” he yelled angrily. He was suddenly beside him, snatching the portrait from him and hugging it to his chest protectively. Sesshomaru stared at him in surprise as he retreated, taking the canvas and propping it up on an easel in the corner with great care. Sesshomaru watched as he did this, finally catching a glimpse of the highly-prized work. He saw the face that swam up form a murky background of purple and suddenly understood.

“Izayoi?” he asked needlessly. As though he needed affirmation. His own mother had spat that name with more venom than he'd ever heard a word uttered.

“Don't you dare say her name. You keep her name out of your mouth,” Inuyasha hissed, glaring at him over his shoulder contemptuously. “You have no right to say her name.”

“Excuse me,” he coughed sincerely. “You're right. I shouldn't have taken so much liberty.” Inuyasha whipped around so fast, the few inches of new grown atop his head swung. His eyes were wide with disbelief and mistrust, full of trepidation and anxiety.

“What…what are you playing at?” he asked, his voice shaking with doubt.

“I am not playing at anything, Inuyasha. I mean it. I apologize. You're right. I have no right to address her in such a casual manner. I should not—”

“So what? You expect me to believe that all of a sudden, you think my mother deserves respect? After what? Almost eight years of you talking shit about her? After almost eight years of you calling her a whore? After you've always thought of her as dirty? Bullshit, Sesshomaru!” he shouted.

“You can believe it if you choose. I am apologizing. For me to speak of her in such a manner…it was very dishonorable of me. And dishonorable to you as well. None too fitting of the person I ought to be.” Inuyasha's expression of utter shock and bewilderment was priceless. Sesshomaru smirked inwardly. The little hanyou was most assuredly confused beyond all belief, he thought grimly.

Such a shame, Sesshomaru mused, that he'd confused his brother to the point of being shocked when he apologized for such heinous offenses. When he thought of all the jabs he'd taken at the woman, Inuyasha's mother, a dead woman, for kami's sake, he almost could not believe that that person was him. That he, a man of such stature, respected by his peers and employees, thought to be one of the utmost poise and dignity, had disrespected, repeatedly, his younger brother's dead mother.

Sesshomaru's eyes fell to a plastic tub beside the rack of portraits. There were scraps of canvas, splintered wood, chunks of paint. He crouched, picking up a fairly large strip from the jumble. His own face, along with that of his wife's were depicted there, and he frowned.

“What is all this?” he asked. Inuyasha took a while to answer, still, undoubtedly, speechless from Sesshomaru's unexpected apology, the second that day.

“It's…it was you and Kagura. It was stupid. For your wedding,” he muttered embarrassedly. Why had he kept that junk again?

Sesshomaru froze, clutching the scrap into his fist. His lips pressed together tightly.

“Was this…was this what you…” He didn't need to finish the question. Inuyasha nodded wordlessly, yes.

“I ripped it up,” he offered needlessly. Sesshomaru's brow wrinkled, and he sighed.

“Why?”

“I dunno,” Inuyasha muttered. Sesshomaru fixed him with a knowing look.

“Yes you do. Why did you destroy it, Inuyasha?” The teen eyed him distrustfully, as though he were picking him apart, bit by bit, trying to figure him out.

“I…I hated you…for hating me,” he answered finally, red tingeing the bridge of his nose. “So I ripped it up.”

“I don't…” Sesshomaru sighed heavily, resigned. He knew what he had to do. No amount of subtlety or beating around the bush would fix what he'd done. Nothing other than directness would fix the mess he'd made of things, the pain he'd caused for the past eight years. “…I don't…I don't hate you, Inuyasha.”

“Yes, you do,” Inuyasha insisted bitterly. He didn't even sound angry. Just…bitter. And hurt. His voice was filled with pain. `Old pain,' Sesshomaru thought grimly. `Old pain from me. It wasn't just Father that was abusing him.'

“No, I don't.”

“You act like it. You've always acted like it.”

“But I don't,” Sesshomaru maintained. “I don't.” Inuyasha pinned him from across the room with one of the most intense looks he'd ever received, his eyes at half mast, looking tired and wary.

“I don't believe you.”

“I…I know you don't. And…I don't blame you for not believing me,” Sesshomaru said. He rose to his feet, nodding resolutely. “Inuyasha…I'm going to…” He cleared his throat, and swallowed his pride, swallowed the instinct that welled in him to be callous and cold. The time had come for his humility. The time had come for him to be the man he'd instructed Inuyasha to be. He tried again.

“I'm going to try to…to make things…better,” he got out finally. Inuyasha closed his eyes and gave a world-weary sigh, running a hand though his cropped, disheveled hair.

“Shit can't get better, Sesshomaru.”

“Inuyasha, listen—”

“No, you listen. Listen to me,” he bit out desperately. “You…you were horrible to me. You can't possibly begin to understand…how awful you treated me. You made fun of me. You hated me. You never wanted to be near me.” He shoved his fists forcefully into his jean pockets, staring at the older demon with eyes almost begging him to understand. “You think I'm an idiot? You think I don't know what you think of me? I know, Sesshomaru. I know. I'm a burden. I'm a disgrace to you, to the family. I ripped your family apart. I'm disgusting. I'm not your brother. I know, Sesshomaru.”

He walked towards the small, smeared window and leaned his shoulder on the wall by it, staring out into the desolate lot below. “And I know you abandoned me. Because I know that you knew. I know that you've always known. There's no way you couldn't have know what was happening.” Inuyasha looked at him, looked through him, another one of those haunting, piercing looks that burned his very soul and made that gnawing guilt increase its appetite. “You knew, and you didn't do a damn thing.”

Sesshomaru buckled first and ashamedly looked away. He'd resented the boy for so much then. For being born, firstly. For being the reason that other children at his prestigious high school had looked down upon him. `Brother of a half-breed'. He'd refused to accept it. And what had he done? He'd turned his anger and resentment at that ridicule onto the young boy from the moment he'd stepped foot in the house. It had helped. Students from school would see him shun the boy, see him refuse to claim him as family. As long as he'd resisted it, his peers knew that he was as disapproving of the situation as they were. He'd made every attempt for them to know that it was his father that had made the mistake, not him. That it was the young hanyou that was the invalid and blight to society. Not him. Not perfect him.

Who did he think he was?

`Much more than I actually am,' Sesshomaru mused wistfully. There had been so much potential. Inuyasha had adored him in those days. Had followed him around like the moon follows the earth. And he'd spat in the child's face.

“I can't erase the past,” he said finally. He couldn't. The damage he'd done to the child's psyche was irreparable, and they both knew it.

“No shit,” Inuyasha spat, affirming his knowledge of this fact.

“But…I can try to…make the future better. I can only try.”

“Do you know? Do you know what you did to me? Do you know how much…” Inuyasha looked down, shook his head, ran a hand agitatedly though his hair again and again. “Do you know how much your…rejection…hurt? Do you even know?”

“I know. Believe me…I know. I'd intended it that way,” Sesshomaru admitted stiffly.

“I had…I had admired you. I looked up to you. I…I'd wanted to be just like you,” Inuyasha admitted, his cheeks flushing. “There…wasn't anybody cooler than you. Not to me, anyway,” he mumbled. Sesshomaru was embarrassed to know how that flattered him. He cleared his throat to cover himself.

“I…I am so sorry….that I betrayed that feeling,” Sesshomaru mumbled, and Inuyasha nodded. He smiled weakly, “Actually…there's really no one cooler than you. Your paintings…they're incredible.” He laughed weakly. He sighed heavily with relief when Inuyasha offered a tiny smile in response to his weak attempt at a so-called joke.

“Thanks,” he said softly.

“It's true,” Sesshomaru insisted. The two relaxed the tiniest bit in the tentative, ever-shaky peace they'd established. Inuyasha was the first to break the silence.

“…you mean that?”

“Come again?”

“About trying,” he mumbled embarrassedly. “…you mean that?”

“I mean it more than I've ever meant anything else,” Sesshomaru said in earnest. “I'll try, Inuyasha. If you choose to give me the chance to do so.” Inuyasha eyed him calculatingly, and Sesshomaru got the distinct feeling that he was being sized up, measured, analyzed.

“…`kay.”

Sesshomaru smiled a close-lipped smile, which Inuyasha returned. He stepped forward, offering his hand.

“Promise, it's a deal. Brother.” Inuyasha stared at the hand as though it intended him harm, before looking back up at Sesshomaru.

“Deal. Brother.” He shook his hand firmly.

Sesshomaru stared at the boy before him, knowing the amount of trust he was putting into him again, someone who'd failed him before. Someone he was trusting to not go back on his word. He stared at the faint scar that ran from the boy's eye to his lip, and made him a silent promise to be all the brother he deserved. After all…he was all the blood-family the boy had left.

As they stood there, shaking hands, Sesshomaru felt his heavy load of guilt somewhat lightened.

The future looked bright.

Author's Note:

WOOT!! Happy ending!

I'm sorry sorry SORRY it took so long. Don't kill me!!!

So…I've got two other one-shot's I'm thinking on. So hopefully I wont be gone for two long ;)

Love you guys! See ya soon!

Wowzer313