Dabbles in Drabbles

True Love





Sweaty and exhausted, Inuyasha collapsed back onto the plump pillows, panting with the exertion.  Beside him, Sesshomaru settled down more gracefully, but the older youkai's chest was rising and falling just as rapidly and his skin glistened with sweat just as much, for all he tried to seem composed.



A while back, that would have annoyed him. Sometimes, it could really get under his skin the way Sesshomaru would never let his guard down totally and always had to seem unflappable, even when it was just the two of them. Even when they'd just fucked each other's brains out, like right now. If he got that close to the prissy bastard, wasn't he allowed to see underneath the mask a bit? Would it really hurt to just give it up? He was such an uptight jackass.



Ok, so maybe it still annoyed him a bit. But he no longer felt like he wanted to smack the mask off his face, and that was an improvement. He just didn't know when it had happened. Nothing significant had happened, and he didn't feel any different. Maybe that meant it was gradual, but he didn't know. He didn't remember feeling different, either.



Had his feelings changed in some way without him realising? He couldn't tell, and that bugged him. Certainly he no longer hated Sesshomaru, and he was almost certain his brother felt the same, but as for more...?



Beside him, Sesshomaru started to sit up. Well aware of the routine, that meant the older youkai was getting ready to get up and go about his business. There was no post-coital pillow talk in their relationship. But Inuyasha felt the need to share his thoughts, and so blurted out: "I think... maybe I love you."



Then he froze. Where the hell had that come from? He hadn't meant to say that. He hadn't even been thinking that. But he had said it, so didn't that mean it was true? Some subconscious thing? He wouldn't have said it otherwise, right?



Inuyasha looked back at Sesshomaru and realised his brother was frozen in the middle of putting on his shirt, staring at him with an expression that approached horror. The hanyou sat up, suddenly possessed by the pressing need to explain (to himself, too) how he'd reached that unexpected epiphany.



"It's just... well... Look, you're an asshole, you're annoying, a control freak, a neat freak, a bastard, stuck-up, arrogant, really the last person I should ever want to be near, let alone shack up with," he said, gaining more steam the further he pushed ahead. "But despite all that, here I am, time after time, with you instead of someone else... and before you get a big head, it's not because you're all that in the sack. So... yeah... it's possibly love. Maybe."



He could almost see Sesshomaru slowly swallowing all that information. Then his hands gradually let go of the buttons on his shirt and moved to his lap. "Then I suppose," Sesshomaru said slowly, "by that criteria, I feel the same."



A long, uncomfortable silence followed.



Inuyasha cleared his throat. "I just made this weird, didn't I?"



Sesshomaru nodded once. "Very."



"So I'm gonna take off for a few days," the hanyou said as lightly as possible, sliding out of the bed to grab his clothes off the floor.



"I think that would be wise."



With embarrassment setting in, Inuyasha felt his cheeks and the tips of his ears beginning to warm up. Muttering a gruff goodbye, he sailed out of the door as fast as he could and didn't look back.



---



And that is how they do romantic confessions.



Inspired by the awesome song True Love by Pink.