Progression

“How long?”

He was so angry and agitated, that those were the only words he was capable of speaking. They covered a wide range of questions, everything from how long had they been hiding the nature of their relationship to how long they intended on keeping it from him. Never mind the one about how long Kagome and his brother had been sleeping together…and how they had managed to hide it from him in the first place.

It had taken Inuyasha much longer than he would care to admit to, to gain even a semblance of self control. Watching the pair of them amongst so many others, observing their uninhibited sensuality and the absence of surprise in his long time friends had given him the impression that he was most likely one of the last to know about their relationship. The knowledge had not helped his temper in the slightest, nor had the almost debilitating pain in his chest as he wondered if a heart could literally break from loss. He’d had to remove himself from the sight in self-defense, because he could not bear to see her touch his brother so intimately.

So now he stood in condemnation over the pair, as if to shame them into confession.

Yet Sesshomaru had always been shameless. He did not care what others thought, did not care for propriety or society’s rules. He always did as he damned well pleased. The starkly black shaded lips curved in wicked mockery, emphasizing their lushly sensuous contours as the golden chill of his eyes glowed in the shadows from behind rogue strands of silver. No…he cared nothing at all about his little brother’s heartbreak.

He did not even pretend to misunderstand the roughly voiced inquiry.

“Five years.”

No hesitation. A marked lack of embarrassment in either tone or wording as he bluntly announced that he’d taken a fifteen year old girl into his bed at an age when he should not have.

It was not at all what Inuyasha had anticipated.

Not months…but years. And to have initiated a girl so innocent into the rough and heady world of youkai sexuality? It was enough to make his head spin. His belly tightened in dismay at the thought, and he was unable to block the images his traitorous mind provided of the delicate girl she had been, locked under the powerful form of his full youkai brother. He could so very easily have hurt her in ways he cringed to imagine.

But at the same time, he couldn’t help that darker part of himself that taunted him with images of what it could have been like if it had been himself. Him pinning her down and forcing her to submit, because the first time was always about dominance.

He remembered his first time with Kikyo…barely able to hold himself back from the demands of his Inu nature. The first time with Suri, his next lover, had been much the same, though he’d gained just a modicum more control with his human partners as time had passed. Sesshomaru would not have made the attempt…

The elder Inu caught the tang of his brother’s reluctant arousal and his eyes burned, even as he bent to run the small silver stud piercing his tongue up the line of her throat and over the fang marks that Inuyasha only just now took note of. That she openly shivered under his touch made the act all the more arousing to his baser animal nature.

See what I have…? Want it…desire it…never touch it…

Inuyasha growled at the unspoken provocation, a gesture that fell short when his brother returned it in a tone that rolled like the deepest and most threatening thunder. He felt it reverberate through his bones, and wisely chose to control himself because he had terrible memories of the results those few times he’d ignored the given warning.

He’d known that his brother was strangely partial to Kagome, even managing to ignore it when her scent was heavy with his brother’s because he’d written it off to a strange sort of friendship and an Inu’s instinctive need to touch those they protected. It had thoroughly pissed him off the first few times, even with that understanding. But his more practical nature had then placed a more pleasing appearance over the discovery.

Kagome had once been the victim of an attack while walking home from dance class one night during her fifteenth year. A group of Youkai had decided the little untrained Miko, whom they had observed for quite some time, would make good sport and the young males, all having recently crossed into the bounds of adulthood, had given chase to her, slowing down just enough to let her think that she might escape them only to laugh at her when she realized her mistake. All sons of minor noble families, each of them secure in their race’s superiority and the need to prove themselves…against a small human girl. Bruised from her many falls and bloody from where they had cornered her against the razor wire fencing of an overly paranoid neighbor’s yard, she still attempted to escape them. It amused them that the fencing had been intended to keep out youkai and they had thought it a humorous irony to bleed her on it.

But it was their mistake when she suddenly rounded a corner onto a street that they knew very well she did not live on. They had almost reached her for the last time, when something had roared so viciously that they had been struck stupid with alarm and unable to move…the instinct of every would-be predator when confronted with something that proved in no uncertain terms that they were at the very bottom of the food chain they had thought they ruled.

He had come stalking over the immense front lawns of the home the girl had bolted towards, drawn by the scent of blood belonging to the one person no one should have dared touch. Beautiful and all the more terrible to behold as his face twisted with his rage, they had the sudden and dreadful thought that Satan’s own archangel had ascended to punish them for their transgression and they had shuddered with a fear they had never even known they could feel. His eyes had bled with hellfire and fury and he seemed to draw what was left of the light away from the surrounding night as he moved into the unnatural darkness that had trembled with the force of his unleashed power.

Inuyasha had witnessed his brother’s transformation from his bedroom window, stunned into immobility, from a heartless and emotionally vacant creature into something he had to admit, even if only to himself, that he was afraid of.

Long, silvery strands ripped through the air in his wake as if riding an imagined wind as he advanced on the group, the graceful sway of the big Inu’s stride further emphasized by a deliberate loosening of his muscles that always spelled bloodshed. Inuyasha was never certain what was said, because his brother’s voice had degenerated into little more than a feral snarl. And he’d never before seen Kumayoukai cowed in such a fashion, their faces resembling the white of a ghost’s. It was as if they could sense the sheer, overwhelming size of the beast that had taken control of the young Taiyoukai and knew what it hungered for.

Then, red had spilled over the ground as if to wash away the hideous trail marking Kagome’s previous path, the scent of their blood reaching him from where he stood as The Killing Perfection demonstrated the aptness of his title and the merciless heart behind his flawless face. Even Inuyasha felt a touch of pity for the broken things that littered the grass in the wake of his brother’s vengeance.

Luckily for the parents of such foolish young males, all had made a full recovery. But there was not a one who would ever go near the girl again. Their fathers had demanded justice for what they viewed as an unprovoked attack on their sons, because they did not see how their assault on one simple mortal girl could be considered provocation. She was human…she did not matter.

Such were the thoughts of too many even in these modern times, because racism was not limited to the color of one’s skin.

But no youkai court would rule in the favor of six grown youkai battering a schoolgirl as being ‘unprovoked’.

Sesshomaru had callously wiped his claws clean on the clothing of his prey before he’d turned and followed the path Kagome had taken before him. It had pleased him that they would understand their place and fear him…a much more fitting end in his mind then if he simply killed them and released them to the underworld to forget the lesson he had so enjoyed inflicting. Blood had streaked his perfect face as he absently licked traces of it from his lips before he’d smiled…and the Hanyou could not repress the shudder of dread as the other male passed from his view.

Now, Inuyasha was left to wonder if that night had been the catalyst for their relationship in regards to changing its parameters. Driven by the need to establish his possession of the girl, would he then have tracked the scent of her blood across the grounds only to give way to the need prove it by sexually dominating her? It was a tactic well-known to those males of the canine persuasion, though never incited by those whom the youkai cared casually for. The reason Inuyasha himself had been conceived. He’d just never imagined that his brother, cold and callous as he had always been, could be driven to such an end.

And at the back of his mind was the startling realization...that she hadn't run to him...

But…looking back, he now remembered that he had not seen Kagome for days after the incident. Not until the following Monday, when she had appeared, looking tired though strangely contented as she drifted through the halls. And much healthier than she had any reason to be. He could not have known that she had never left his home that night or that Sango had covered for her and told her mother that Kagome was staying with her for the weekend. He’d not been in the house that night or the following days, and so had written off the howling his neighbors had complained of as the continuing annoyance of the neighbor’s dogs, no matter that they had claimed it had sounded like some huge, feral beast. His father had been out of the country, along with his mother on a trip to the States, while he had stayed over with Miroku, and so there had been absolutely nothing to prevent Sesshomaru from taking what had been tossed so conveniently in his lap. A tasty little bit of femininity that he had apparently savored with gusto. He could pin it to his own cowardice that he’d not gone to make certain of her wellbeing after what he had witnessed, because he’d waited until he was certain that he would not be encountering his brother along the way, before hastily shouldering his weekend bag and escaping with a sense of relief.

Faced with his own culpability, Inuyasha could only close his eyes and curse himself for his spinelessness. It had cost him much more than he would ever have anticipated. It had cost him the girl…and she would never be recovered. He sighed, before he turned on his heel and stepped from the room. The door sounded no more than a muffled click as it shut behind him.

Kagome’s eyes were sad as she watched him leave the room. She still felt a deep affection for him, despite his sometimes careless treatment of her. It was just who he was, and she wouldn’t have changed him even if she could have. She hadn’t wanted to hurt him, but now she saw that her mate had been correct, no matter his seemingly cruel amusement over the revelation. It could not have been helped. She had always known that they did not get along, and had accepted it. Just as she had accepted that he could not help but rub Inuyasha’s face in his loss, because he had sat with her the nights that his little brother had callously forgotten her as he pursued his fleeting relationships (really little more than casual flings), or shut her out of activities with the group. She would later find out that he had simply forgotten to mention them, and had covered his lapses with what he considered to be little white lies when the others would ask her if she was feeling better. She’d not known she was ill…

Naraku had taken it the hardest when he had finally discovered the discrepancies in the Hanyou’s words and the Miko’s reality. At first, he had confronted the girl, almost offended that she had failed to confront Inuyasha for his behavior. He had been oddly quiet in his tone before he realized that she hadn’t said a word because she simply didn’t know what to say…she’d never been the confrontational type. Then he’d taken it personally, and proceeded to take out his frustrations on his fellow Hanyou’s face with a well-placed fist to the jaw.

Inuyasha had been so stunned, that he’d just stood there, gingerly touching his swollen jaw and watching with wide eyes as Naraku let him know in no uncertain terms that he was never to treat Kagome in such a fashion again…or he would regret it. He never mentioned that it would have been Sesshomaru that he would have gone to, because by then, the elder brother had taken Kagome under his protection as the truly Alpha of his species were prone to do with very few. He wouldn’t even have to lift a hand to have Inuyasha learn the lesson he deserved for his lies, though he had not minded in the least throwing that first punch. So yeah, it was devious, but he was who he was, and he knew damned well that Inuyasha held a strange fear of his brother that he would never admit to anyone else. He wasn’t blind; he could practically feel Inuyasha cringe whenever he saw his brother smile in a certain way.

Sesshomaru pulled his eyes from the space his brother had just recently vacated, to turn a playful smirk on his mate…remembering when everything had begun…

*}----(past)

His nights were no longer peaceful.

His younger brother and friends had begun a habit of a study session three nights a week long before Sesshomaru had met Kagome. He’d made it a practice to avoid the youngsters for the most part, taking to his room or simply staying out to keep himself from encountering the annoying group. The older teens would sleep over after cramming, with the promise of a ride to school the next morning. The Western Lord had cheerfully been reduced to a taxi-driver for the half-aware adolescents, whistling show-tunes to himself as he zipped through traffic with the perfect precision of a formula-1 driver.

Kagome had come to be invited to join in with the group a few months after her thirteenth birthday, but by then everyone had their own assigned rooms, and it completely missed the Hanyou that the newest girl would need a place to sleep. So…the young Taiyoukai had offered her his own room. Sesshomaru was rarely in the house on those evenings in the first months after her inclusion, though that had changed a short time later and it wasn’t much longer after that before she’d become so comfortable with his night prowling nature that she’d ceased to be embarrassed when she went to sleep alone and awoke with him curled up around her.

It had been an easy transition from her first stammering weeks in his company in which she could do little more than blush and smile at him, but he’d pursued her company with infinite patience and an almost gentle determination. It was a heady thing, to be wanted by something so untouchable to any other. And if at first she had been a bit wary (who could blame her, he was almost frighteningly overwhelming), he’d soothed away all doubts with his quiet insistence on her presence. He’d often appeared when she sat on the sofa in his family room as she waited for Inuyasha and the others to appear after school. The males were involved in the school sports teams, the girls in volleyball and cheerleading. Kagome had had no interest in those pursuits, and had chosen to use the extra time to study for advanced classes. He’d occasionally assist her, but most afternoons were spent with him sitting at her feet and leaning against her legs with his head in her lap until she lost interest in her work in favor of running her fingers through silver locks.

At first, he’d been uncertain about protocol when faced with the prospect of a bedmate, having never really intended to share the bed with her. Strangely hyper-aware and restless, he’d spent the first few nights sitting in the chair beside his bed watching her sleep…when he wasn’t crawling under the bedding after her, driven by an instinctive craving for contact that he’d no more understood than he did the reasons he did not resist. Just like he hadn’t understood how he would fall asleep on his back on one side of the bed only to awaken a few hours later with her tucked into his body, his thighs cradling her hips and her face pressed against his throat. It had startled him that he’d already bared his throat to her when it first started to happen, though he knew that it had all been his own doing. She wouldn’t have understood the significance at that point in time, but it wasn’t lost on him.

Yet it became even worse when she wasn’t with him.

He’d never been far from the beast in terms of temperament, never one to deny himself anything his more instinctual nature desired, so her absence from his bed threw him off. Bare months had passed before he didn’t sleep for want of her company, the thin veneer of civility he maintained submerging as his more feral nature rode the edge of his control and became easily provoked. He was unsure as to when exactly it happened…when exactly he discovered that he could not ascertain just what it was that he needed from the little Miko, what it was that caused him to desire her presence more than any other, and he’d been astounded to feel himself becoming frustrated and all the more determined to discover whatever it was that called to him.

From that point, he’d begun crawling through her bedroom window on some nights for a few hours at a time. He was always long gone by first light, but it sated the need for contact. She always welcomed him in with a sleepy smile as she tugged him down on the bed and under the bedclothes. He would discover that he could finally relax for the first time that day as he lay there, listening to the quiet of her shrine home. And through all of it, he never lost his desire to stay gentle for her. His desire to allow her to take comfort in him, inexplicable and foreign to him as that need was.

It was a year down from the time he’d begun spending time with the girl. Six months after he finally admitted that he knew he had a problem on his hands.

He’d allowed it to come to this…had no one to blame but himself.

Because he had found himself becoming physically attracted to a female who was little more than a child.

Some youkai were known to display little to no sex drive until they reached the year of their full maturity. Until then he had assumed he was one of them, but the truth had figuratively smacked him upside the head. The only thing that gave him comfort was the fact that he wasn’t attracted to her because of her age, but in spite of it. He wasn’t a pedophile. And he could wait.

Strangely, her presence soothed the beast’s demands and he found that his libido downshifted as if in reaction to her immaturity. He’d never before had patience…and was vaguely surprised to find that he had it in abundance when it came to Kagome. He could afford to take his time in capturing her heart, because he knew she wasn’t going anywhere. Even if she hadn’t been as attracted to him as she was, high demon’s held a lure all their own and so he would bide his time…and deny even to himself what it cost him.

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<>an.n - and there you have it...a whole chapter and four words of dialogue O.o

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