The Pain In My Heart

Title: The Pain In My Heart
Author: Saraste
Fandom: Inuyasha
Pairing: Miroku/Inuyasha
Rating: NC-17 (for subject matter and dark!)
Word Count: 5491
Warnings: disfiguration, mpreg, angst, dark, slight Sesshy ooc
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters depicted herein who belong to Rumiko Takahashi and the publishers of the series and the company who made the anime, I only borrow them in this work of fiction which I do for no monetary profit.
Summary: Inuyasha is unlucky enough to accidentally cross paths with Naraku while alone, Naraku beats him near to death and rapes him. Will Miroku be able to pick up the pieces of Inuyasha's shattered heart and make him whole? And once the unecpected consequences of Inuyasha's rape come to light, will his and Miroku's love be able to bring them together again and pull Inuyasha away from a sinister fate?
A/N: I think chapter 13 came out in 2008... This is becoming so so dark. I have begun the following chapter, just need to adjust a few things now as this one turned out not how I'd planned initially at all. I'm also hoping it won't take such a long while to write as this one did. My health has just been so unpredictable these past few years and with other RL issues like studying and becoming an aunt in 2009 to the most previous niece ever have taken time from fanfic. I've also been somewhat discouraged in the fandom as the interest in this pair seems to be fading and being among a select few authors who even do inumir mpreg (even when this isn't a pure example of that as it isn't Miroku's baby Inuyasha is pregnant with) and cos of that all my chapter fics have somehow ended up not getting written. That and I've been doing original stuff and lots of one shots. Anyway...

~ ~ ~ ~

“Niisan... I miss Miroku,” Inuyasha said, sighing desolately.


He leaned on one of the wooden beams which held the roof up over the porch, his legs quietly swinging over the edge. His rooms gave into a lovely part of the garden, pruned to perfection by Sesshoumaru's gardeners, being blind, it was all lost to him now. All the beauty before him might as well have been barren land, dotted with burnt tree-stumps, devoid of vegetation. The beauty of the warm summer giving away to fall was quite lost to him. His bandaged eyes, damaged beyond healing by Naraku's shoki, which continued to linger in the still healing wounds, did not see the beauty before him. Inuyasha was only able to hear the wind rustling among the leaves, the flowing of the water in the small stream, the singing of birds on the branches, but did not see. Inuyasha sighed again. “I miss him so much...,” he sighed again, his head leaning on the wooden beam, his heart heavy and mind troubled beyond belief.


Now that Inuyasha had had time to think about what his decision over the life growing inside of him entailed, he was confused and indecisive. And he missed Miroku terribly. The monk had been his friend for such a long time, someone he had always been able to trust. And after they had returned their mutual attraction after his attack, Miroku had helped him to heal, in both body and mind. Inuyasha had gained what he'd thought had been lost to him, the man he loved had dragged him up from his misery, had brought him comfort and acceptance, had made him feel worthy again. Not worthless, violated beyond repair and so dirty that he thought he'd never wash the feeling off. Miroku had made him feel loved. And he had recoiled. Recoiled from him, from his child. And a part of Inuyasha had begun to see his reasoning, believe it himself.


Believe that he would´be better off without the tangible sign of his shame, his degradation. Better off if he did not carry Naraku's off-spring. A child of the dark hanyou's hatred and malice. A part of him wanted even now to dig his claws into his belly and rip it open, hurt the innocence which lay inside and snuff out the fragile flame. It ignored the fact that such a thing would surely kill him. He was far too weak still to withstand such bloodloss. He could almost hear the dark hanyou's laughter surging through his veins as the poison his body still held coursed through him, never completely diluted. It waited for the opportune moment.


He missed Miroku. He missed him so much it made his insides churn. Miroku had accepted him, despite everything, despite his shame. Even when the man's words over the child within him had hurt him it hadn't shattered all the trust between them. After all they had stood side by side in battle and had saved each others life more than once. That kind of trust wasn't easily swept away, not by a terrible choice of words, even if they were true. Not by an action that had shattered something deep inside Inuyasha's heart.


Inuyasha sighed, battling with his thoughts.


The Lord of the West sighed too, this had become a familiar mantra repeated daily by his younger brother. His wayward younger sibling, with whom he'd so long been at odds and whom he'd now found a new connection with. A connection they never should have lost in the first place but which they had, mostly due to his own selfish arrogance. Inuyasha was family and both had finally accepted it, after all the years of squabbling and denial. And Sesshoumaru had now given Inuyasha the home he so sorely needed, still recuperating from his assault, pregnant with his first-born and at odds with the man who claimed to love him.


Blood took care of blood.


“He does not deserve you, otoutou, not with the way he thinks of you.” Sesshoumaru replied, as he always did, now. The answer felt so familiar, but only because he had been repeating it daily, dozens of times, for the past month. His tone was kind for his brothers sake but it was still hard, hard for his dislike of the man who had treated his family so. The man did love Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru had sensed it and it had been obvious from looks and words, the monk's body language, but his behaviour in regards to the child was not acceptable. He should have taken Inuyasha's feelings into consideration, seen that the child was his younger brothers flesh and blood as it was their enemy's. Seen how much Inuyasha had sacrificed already. Realize that no matter how the child had been conceived, it was innocent. It did not deserve to be hated just because it had been conceived amidst hate and pain, humiliation, the utter degradation of Inuyasha's body and self. Wrongly begun it might be, but it was a spark amidst the darkness his brother's soul would eagerly succumb into. And yet even that was complicated. Things rarely seemed to go smoothly in either of their lives.


“You should not forgive him so easily and wish him back after the way in which he treated you,” Sesshoumaru chided his ailing brother, knowing it was futile.


Inuyasha simply sat there, listless, fighting back tears again as he so often was. Even the unconscious swing of his legs stopping as he fought to stop the tears he knew would soon stain his already soiled bandages. He wanted Sesshoumaru to lie. To tell him that it would all be okay. Not voice the all too aching truth that he always said, now. Inuyasha needed him to lie, spew false words which would make the pain go away. Even for a moment. Tell him that Miroku loved him and would come for him. Would love the frail life within him, the heartbeat which he even now felt flutter under his own. To disperse the doubts he felt, quiet the part of him which would rather see that small flame... Inuyasha shook his head.


How could Miroku ever love his child and look past it's conception when even he himself had doubts which resurfaced more and more the longer he and the man he loved and trusted were apart?


But how could he? The monk would never love the child. His child, not... Not as long as he still had his kazaana. Miroku utterly failed to see the child's other parent, the man he loved, him, Inuaysha. Until he did, they couldn't be together. No matter how much they loved each other still, no matter how much this separation hurt them both. Inuyasha was aching to be apart from Miroku, he had to believe that the monk felt the same, otherwise he didn't know what to believe any more. And he, he had left in the dark of night with no farewell to his beloved. Inuaysha hated himself for that. He was as much of a coward as Miroku in that respect. But he had had to leave when he had. Couldn't stay. Stay another day longer. He hadn't seen the way the monk looked at him but could sense his unease, had heard his careless words at him. Inuyasha had felt Miroku flinch.


Just a single flinch. A flinch which had shattered almost all that they'd built, the trust. Had fractured his shaky sense of self, his mind again a shadowy place where nightmares dwelt and past horrors roamed free. A flinch had undone what the monk had begun, had made a crack into their love. And whether it could be mended once again, neither knew. Inuyasha dare not even think that it couldn't be mended. For if he did, it would be his end. The living nightmare of his rape would consume him whole and he'd let it. He'd forget his child and let his mind fall on itself. And even his brother would more than likely not be able to pull him out of it.


And what was most frightening of all: he didn't think that he'd want to be pulled out, once he was too far gone. It was a dark thought, flitting through his mind quickly, being gone almost as soon as it had surfaced. A momentary panic to confuse his thoughts.


Inuyasha leaned on the supporting beam, his body ailing and mind buried in dark thoughts. Darkness flowed in his veins once again, his heart poisoned by doubt, the bitter sting of quilt-riddled agony, self-loathing. His thoughts too sinister to say aloud, his desire for Miroku the only thing among them which made any sense at all. He needed his lover, he needed for the monk to realize that he'd been hurt. He needed to forgive Miroku so the man could help him through this. Inuaysha was scared and lost and didn't know how long he'd stand it. His mind whispered such things when he slept...


Sesshoumaru looked his brother with pity in his eyes, a glance that went unnoticed due to his brothers blindness. He was truly sorry for him. Inuyasha was a shadow of his former self. Shaky and moody, dejected. His bony frailty only enhanced by his growing belly, heavy with child. A child Sesshoumaru was unsure if his brother thought about all the time. He had become more morose by the day, ever since he'd come. He may not speak of the child, however, but Sesshoumaru still saw. Saw a bony hand caress over swollen flesh and run soothing circles over it. Lips whisper meaningless words as his brother lay wrapped inside his own thoughts, still unconsciously boding with his unborn child.


He knew nothing of the dark thoughts swirling inside his brothers head but he still felt as if there was something... A sense of foreboding seemed to be enveloping his brother, it worried Sesshoumaru. Inuaysha was too... something. Most of the time the lord of the West felt like his brother was mending slowly, although his health was still in tatters despite the best efforts of his healers, but then there were moments when he thought he sensed it. And it frustrated him that he couldn't say what 'it' was. Darkness, inconsolable darkness, whispering to his brother. He might end up having to protect Inuyasha from himself.


“I could always know, sense him there even if I couldn't see him,” Inuyasha said, his voice a bit hoarse, shaking. “Have him there, feel his cool hand on my forehead when the fever burned.” His fingers went over and over in a circle, sliding over the smooth silk over his belly.


Sesshoumaru was unsure whether his hanyou brother even knew what his hands were doing. He sat beside his brother on the porch a few feet away, unsure if he should do more than sit there. Inuyasha usually didn't require much. He wanted someone to just listen. But only when he talked.


“I was so out of it but knowing he was there, knowing he didn't care about...” Inuyasha raised a scarred hand to touch his bandaged eyes, dirty tears streaking from beneath. “Didn't care about this... That he loved me even after I'd been ... forced...” his voice drowned in sobs. His body shook as he sat there beside his brother, facing the gardens which opened before them, the beauty of which was lost to him. He couldn't utter the words to voice his experience, months after the violence he'd endured was still too fresh on his mind.


“I know...” Sesshoumaru murmured. He reached out with his hand, laying it on his brothers arm and expecting Inuyasha to flinch, as he had begun to do the longer he'd been at the castle. When Inuyasha didn't, Sesshoumaru embraced his brother tightly, letting Inuyasha cry against his shoulder. “But you know he doesn't...” Always the voice of reason, almost to the point of being cruel, he was. Even now, with their connection as brothers still questionable, tentative and fragile in regards to certain things.


And yet, his brother did not flinch away even when embraced by the brother he'd so long been at odds with.


“I know,” Inuyasha sniffed, a hand curled protectively over his stomach. He could feel the fluttering movements of his baby against his palm, calming him. Reminding him of his decision and its reasons. Knowing of it all so late, he was a bit apprehensive but fiercely protective of his child when he was pulled up from his moods. He loved the small life budding inside of him, the steadily fluttering heartbeat a comfort as it beat in time of his own broken heart.


Sesshoumaru stroked his back. “The child is family,” he stated. “As much as you may love him, the monk isn't.” Even if he might defend the monk in regards to some things he would not lie. He would state things to his brother the way they were, not gloss over them, make them seem other than what they were.


Inuyasha twitched. “But why can't I have both?” he asked sadly. He didn't want to think that Miroku wouldn't be a part of his life, he couldn't go back to being merely a friend. Even when their relationship hadn't gotten too physical yet, such things still shadowed by Inuyasha's assault, prevented by his ill health, the hanyou still missed being in Miroku's warm embrace, the warmth and love of his kisses making him overjoyed every time. Inuyasha's hand lay over the swell of his abdomen, stroking it gently.“He could be my mate!” His head whipped around to face Sesshoumaru, even when he couldn't see the expression his brother wore. His body still clung to habitual movements like that even when blind. Tears stained his cheeks and his stomach churned as his nose was assaulted by the tell tale smell of the poison. He'd tried deny it was still there but it seemed his nightmare would never end.


Inuyasha cried as his brother merely sat by him, unable to offer his brother the kind of comfort he sorely needed. His hand soothing as it lay over his brother's back but inadequate still. Yet it was all the comfort Inuyasha had to cling to.


The hanyou loved both so much. Miroku had helped him escape the nightmares of his torture in Naraku's hands. But there was a bleeding wound in Inuyasha's heart. The knowledge that Miroku didn't understand why he had wanted to keep this child. His child. That the man who loved him couldn't love his child too. Or realize that Inuyasha, too sometimes doubted the sagacity of his decision and desperately needed Miroku's support to be able to live with it, get over the horror of his assault and try and piece back together the shards of his shattered life.


They sat there on the outside of Inuyasha's rooms for a long time, the older brother gently stroking his hanyou brother's long silvery hair. Giving him the comfort in the embrace he could not give in words, unaccustomed to such things where his brother was concerned. Listening for the nature twittering and buzzing among the flowers and bushes and trees. Staying for as long as it took for Inuyasha's tears to subside and for the hanyou to start fretting and shuffling again. There had been a knock on his door which echoed through the rooms out into the garden. Both knew who it was.


“Please, niisan...” The hanyou's hand fisted in the back of Sesshoumaru's kimono. “Can't...”


The elder brother patted his back.


“Hai, otoutou, I will try and keep the miko away,” he promised, leaving his brother to his dark thoughts, thinking he'd helped him disperse them at least a little. “Get some rest.”


* * * *


Night fell and his nightmares returned. The screen was open to let in a gentle night breeze, the soothing sound of nature outside, just as he'd grown accustomed to. But those things did not bring him peace that night. His mind falling deep, buried memories dredged up by his morose thoughts of his waking hours. His brow was sweaty as he twisted on the bed, mouth open to elicit no scream, eyes crying futile tears, a river of blood and poison. Unseeing eyes seeing, reliving, what they had last. And even when he'd given anything to see even a single glimpse of things while he was awake, Inuyasha would have given anything to be spared his vivid nightmares during the night.


“Like it, slut? Like it deep inside?” The voice was venom in his ears, the words sliding over his skin along with the sickening feel of something... other. Cold, slimy. His body was broken in half, filled with something which made him scream. Would have, if he'd have had the will to scream any more. He didn't. It had died hours past. Yet being unable to do nothing but sob brokenly did not lessen the pain. It was excruciating.


His claws dug into the bedding, ripping, seeking solace in the softness under him. The contrast stark in comparison to his memories of hard earth, dirt in his wounds, an unyielding weight upon him, pinning him down. Touches ghosted on his skin and he ripped at his clothes in his sleep, anxious to rid of them. Letting go of the solace of letting them sink into his bed.


Slithering, slithering all around him... Pain, excruciating pain, debilitating, filling his mind, bending his body beyond breaking. Slimy things, bad things that should not have been there wound around him, pinning him down, touching him in ways that were so disgusting he felt sick. Threw up, felt the bile in his throat. Wanted to scream as his mouth was filled with their vileness. His body demeaned and used, his spirit broken, self crushed as his face pressed against the dirt. His sight ruined never to see anything, never to see his beloved monk again. His heart burned as he knew, realized that after this, he'd be worse than dead. Yet wishing ardently he was dead, unconscious, for the pain to just stop, for it all to end...


He shifted with a voiceless scream, body twisting, tears spilling and the poison going it's way. His body shuddering, the whimpers escaping partially closed lips, turning into wails. Echoes of a nightmare, echoes of a memory. Shadowed reflections of things past, bleeding into the present.


His body reeling. His lips open in a wordless scream, unheard by the violation to his body. His mind slipping into darkness, no way out. A face, violet eyes, fading and out of reach. A seed of destruction sown within. Poison. Poison so deep it never came out, no potion to relinquish it's hold on his body.


A clawed hand was gripping over the swell of a formerly flat abdomen, the life pulsing within, innocent. Skin bare, covered in scraps of torn cloth. The sharp tips of claws barely sinking into now faintly scarred skin at first, pricking, making it bleed, small droplets of crimson. Then digging deeper, his nightmares making the edge of reality fade into darkness. The pain of his body in the waking world nothing compared to that of his nightmares.



“Feel it now?” The voice sank deep into his head, slithering like a snake, writhing, like he was. Bleeding, raw, he was violated. His eyes fading, the image fading. His self dissipating into welcoming darkness. Sad that he could not be with the one he loved, his mind going blank as his body felt like exploding with the blinding pain. Sinking into blessed nothingness, hoping to never wake again.


Yet he had.


He rolled over, gasping, barely half-conscious but enough to realize what he was doing. Claws still within his body, he yanked them out with a scream, a heart wrenching sob. The bandages bloomed with new blood, brimmed with green, mixing with his tears. The poison still slumbered in his blood, waiting, malicious and unpredictable. It stank, kami did it stink, even in his dreams the putrid stench assaulted his senses and he was violently ill, staining his bed, soiling his clothes. But it was more than the poison. He felt the desperate flutter inside, knew he'd nearly undone the thing which had kept him clinging to life, which had ruined it at the same time.


He screamed.


Screamed so his voice echoed in the rooms of the castle, waking the household with it's insistent terror. Gagged as he tasted the lingering taste of sick in his mouth, nothing came up any more, nothing could. His emaciated form had nothing to gag up any more. He screamed. Claws dripping blood and his body shaking, he screamed. The border of nightmare and reality tumbled down and he knew which was which any more, instinct alone keeping his claws where they were, stopping them from killing his precious child.


And he screamed.


* * *


The lord of the West woke in the dead of night. The castle should have been silent, free of the sounds of the buzz of life which filled it during the day. Yet it had not been silent for a month now. Not since Sesshoumaru had brought his estranged and ailing brother home at last, under the roof of their ancestral home. After that, the stillness of the night was a thing long past. It had started with incessant broken murmurs and barely stifled sobbing, building up into screaming and loud wails which broke all peace and quiet.

Still, Sesshoumaru had never heard his brother's crying to sound like this. So urgent, desperate, heart-wrenching. Inuyasha sounded like he was dying. And he'd never smelt blood. The way it's iron tang mixed with the now almost ever-present stench of Naraku's poison almost made him gag. Rising up in his luxurious bed, the lord noticed he had to cover his nose with a delicate yet deadly hand. Yet the scent of the blood spurred him into action. Combined with the terror he felt in his brother's cry, it made his insides churn, his body to move with unrivalled speed.

Sesshoumaru burst into his brother's room, his robes flowing around him, frowning as he saw his brother trash in his bed and screaming at the top of his lungs. The scent of flesh burned by sizzling poison filled the room's air, the irony scent of blood was fainter but it was even more ominous. His brothers night terrors, the waking nightmare of his memories haunting him as Inuyasha's heart ached for the loss of his beloveds daily company, they had never been this severe. His brother's back arched off the bed as he cried out, wailed out with the bandages on his face stained a mix of green and black. His body was barely covered with his tattered torn clothing and the skin of his abdomen was marred by deep crimson gashes.

Inuyasha was out of control, out of reach, almost out of mind.

Only when he got closer did Sesshoumaru smell the acrid stench of sick and saw it stain the bed, some on Inuyasha's face still. His brother writhed on the bed, claws sunk into the futon beneath him, keeping hold there, clinging on for dear life. Words scampered off his stained lips, ran in the air scared and confused. Utterly mortified at what he'd done. Lost. Even more confused since it wasn't clear to the youkai lord if his brother was awake or still on the verge of waking and nightmares.

As the youkai lord knelt on the bed, reaching out his hands to stop his brother from flailing he quickly thought over the situation at hand. How it was such a cruel joke that the thing which had brought upon his brothers current state and his need for the man whose absence had unleashed the nightmares, was the very reason to it at the same time. As his golden eyes looked down at Inuyasha's bloodied abdomen he could sense the life within fluttering but still alive. The child was strong and he was amazed at how much more it could take before it would either die and take it's mother with it or kill Inuyasha, weakening his ailing body too much and die along him?

“Fetch the healer, right away!” he ordered to whomever it was that he felt hovering in the doorway behind him. Judging by the terrified gasp it was the miko. The stench of Inuyasha's bed overrode her human scent so he only had to rely on hearing alone. His brother's screams had now died and given away to anguished sobbing and broken murmurs. Sesshoumaru heard her steps only moments after, running along the corridor. Sesshoumaru had to be careful of his brother's trashing form, holding him down gently but decisively. Without seeing his eyes it was difficult to tell if he was wake or not. The murmurs really told nothing.

“Inuyasha!” he raised his voice over his brother's trashing and vocal crying. No answer, no reaction but a violent trash which almost made both tumble off the bed. Sesshoumaru flinched as his robes were soiled, he really didn't want to see what with. Just the cold sensation was enough to made him shudder. “Inuyasha...,” he repeated in what was his version of a soothing voice. But the shudder had ruined it all. Inuaysha was recoiling from him even more. His trashing making his situation all the worse, his body was healing so slowly, as it now did due to the poison, if Inuyasha lost more blood he'd surely miscarry. Sesshoumaru could already feel the fragile heartbeat falter.

He sighed, there was nothing he could do now to soothe his baby brother in the hopes to at least slow the bleeding, but one thing.

As the youkai lord gathered his brothers crying form in his arms, his robes torn under the assault of tightly gripping talons, unflinching of the pain as blood ran down his arms and back, he felt that it should have been his brothers intended, not him. That man who had been yet another sterling example of the weakness of the human race, letting his emotions dissuade him from what was important, his lover. Whose rejection had made the nightmares assault the broken hanyou once more. Inuyasha had admitted that they had gone away mostly after he and the monk had admitted their mutual feelings. Rejection had undone what love had begun to mend, having tasted a hopeful future, Inuyasha might even be more frail now than what he had been before. All the monk's fault.

And so it was Inuyasha's brother who was left to pick up the pieces.

As his arms held his brother close, pinned his arms down on his sides and held them there, gently removing them from his own back where they'd clawed at him, the lord of the West frowned. Poison. The scent was even more disgusting this up close. A dampness pressed to his chest, seeping through his clothes into his skin. Blood. Inuyasha had trashed so much that his wounds had indeed opened, too, and his abdomen bled from where he'd clawed at it. But he didn't cringe away, merely sighed and started to plot Naraku's slow and torturous demise.

He'd make the dark hanyou pay for what he'd done. Killing Naraku off had been in his mind for a long time now, especially because of her, but the bastard seemed to have vanished and could not be traced anywhere. And his absence during Inuyasha's illness made it rather clear that Naraku believed he'd killed Inuyasha. Or if not killed him at the time of his assault when Inyasha had been left for dead, bleeding from grievous injuries and violated in the worst of ways, then it was clear that the poison still lingering in Sesshoumaru's brothers veins should have finished him off already.

As his brother cried, still trashing but seeming to come to his senses slolwy, Sesshoumaru wondered why Inuyasha's affliction was so fixed into his eyes. Overall, his body had gotten better, but his eyes hadn't. And Sesshoumaru knew why all too well. He'd been present when the dressings had been changed last. His brother's face bore scars but the ones around his eyes were horrible. His eyes would never fully heal because they had been, to all intents and purposes, been gouged out. There was nothing left there anymore to heal. And now poisoned blood was seeping through his bandages onto Sesshoumaru's clothes.

And he let it.

Feeding his youki to his brother, keeping the flutter within alive, disallowing his brother to succumb to this darkness, Sesshoumaru held him. Hoping the healer would hurry.

“Do not let this be the end of you, do not let them win...” he murmured into his brothers ear as he held him, like he should have been held by him, his brother, many a time in the past. This was Sesshoumaru's repentance, he just wished deep down that he didn't have so much to repent for. That he could have, in some way, prevented his brother from becoming such a wretched, broken thing.

“Miroku...”

That Inuyasha would still say that name, sob it out brokenly, it made Sesshoumaru growl low in his throat. It was the only sensible thing passing his brothers lips and it grated at his nerves. The reason for all of this, the reason of his brother's broken heart, that his brother would still sob out his name. He shouldn't have had to. If the human man hadn't been such a coward Inuyasha wouldn't have to be here now, sobbing and bleeding all over his robes.

The name mocked him.

Sesshoumaru wasn't so full of himself that he'd think that Inuyasha would ever say his name in such a manner, seek solace in it like he did in the monk's name. And neither did the lord of the West wish to be anything other to his brother than just that. A brother. Even when such things as siblings in a relationship, far beyond just being family, wasn't so uncommon among youkai. No, Sesshoumaru did not seek that with his brother. He already had his sights set on a particular woman. Yet even that was complicated. He felt her touch on the night wind which slithered in from the open windows. He took comfort from it, holding his brother closer. The years he'd spent belittling and emotionally shunning his brother to the point of violence were not easy to erase. He let the love he felt for her give his brother the comfort he did not yet fully feel. This was as much about him becoming who he should have been all these years as it was about comforting his brother and trying to help him find some semblance of normalcy. Stability in the chaos which was his life. And at that given moment, keep him clinging to reality and stave off lingering death.

“Otoutou...”

That was all he could say as Inuyasha clung to him in panic, anguished sobs still shaking his all too emaciated frame against Sesshoumaru. The lord of the West could feel blood seeping into his robes still from his brothers horrid wounds, he could feel the blood touch his skin, cling into his very pores. And the stench. His nose was too sensitive to ignore the disgusting smell of the poison which dribbled from Inuyasha's worst wounds. It was horrid. It was pushing him past his endurance, the vicinity of such an odour was almost too much for him. He cursed his weakness as he sank a fang into his bottom lip. He had to be there for Inuyasha now, to not let him sink into his nightmares. Into nothingness. To die as he held him. And it chilled him to hear what passed his brothers lips in a mantra, a broken litany of a mind crumbling, trying in vain to hold onto sanity.

“Miroku... Miroku... Miroku...”

If his brother would hold onto life with thoughts of the man who'd abandoned him, who was he, Sesshoumaru, to stand in his way? If it made the lingering clouds of nightmares easier to bear then so be it. He stroked his brothers hair, held him tight as he waited for the healer, feeling his brothers life fluctuating, mind reeling on the precipice of madness. Body shaking with sobs which were now more automation than anything. Heart beating like it would burst and the little life within fluttering in such a panic. There was something sinister afoot. Something... Sesshoumaru could feel the change in the air, his brothers sobbing becoming less frantic, his hands gripping him tighter and head burrowing against the soiled front of his silky yukata. His brother was calming. Yet it felt wrong. And as his brother next spoke, Sesshoumaru knew exactly why.

“Miroku... I knew you'd come back for me...”