Confessions Under the Influence

I do not own Inu-yasha nor any of its characters. I do suppose that is a good thing because if I did, most of the characters would be too tired to even think of saving the world ::drool::

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Wai! The rating has been uped! Hold your tongues any yaoi naysayers out there, someone's about to score, aheheh. This chapter was a little difficult to write for me . . .

Creepy Voice: Excuse me, Soul~chan, I think you should rephrase that last statement.

Soul~chan: ::jumps ten feet in the air:: Kuruijini! Where the hell did you come from?

Kuru-chan: Baka, we're inside your mind right now ::gestures to empty space:: and, sadly, I'm a creation of yours.

Soul~chan: ::laughs nervously:: That's great, Kuru-chan! Um, bai bai now!

Kuru-chan: ::narrows eyes:: I'm not going anywhere. I'm the one who wrote this chapter, remember? And since we wanted the story to be good, my talents were enlisted.

Soul~chan: Ecchi!! I'm not letting you turn this into a smut-fest!

Kuru-chan: Look who's talking, you're the one who made it a yaoi.

Soul~chan: ::gets googly eyes:: Because Miroku is cute when he's uke!

Kuru-chan: He'll be even cuter once he's dead ::evil laughter::

Soul~chan: Kuruijini, you're joking, right?
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Chapter Three: Love Thy Enemy

They had been traveling since dusk. Miroku was nestled comfortably in Inu-yasha's arms as the countryside raced by; the entire trip he had been intent on keeping his heart rate steady, lest his own blood betray him by rushing to his cheeks. The moon had just risen, it's last quarter shinning coldler ter the little group. The monk could see the girls and Shippou on Kirara high above them; he sighed indignantly.

"Inu-yasha, I can walk you know."

The hanyou snorted, "Yeah right bouzou. You were too weak to stand when we left; besides, you'd just slow us down."

"I don't see what you're so concerned about. I'm not dying; I could've easily ridden on Kirara with Sango. Honestly, I'd much rather be snuggling with her right now." He mentally slapped himself; that had come out harsher than he had intended.

Inu-yasha muttered something Miroku couldn't quite catch, so the boy turned his attention back to the night sky. The stars were dim behind the filmy slime trails the clouds left behind as they were pulled along by the wind, the b emp empty space the brightest pof tof the night. That blackness made him think of the hell hole in his hand and he held it before his face, frowning slightly.

"Is it hurting you?" The question was soft and thick with concern.

Miroku looked coldly up into his friend's gold eyes, "Of course not, it's a hole. Why are you doing this anyway? If Sesshoumaru wants to find us he will."

Inu-yasha's heart tore from the human's icy glare. Had his words from the night before really just been the alcohol talking? The thought hit him like a blow and filled him with confusion. Where had these feelings come from? Why did it hurt when the monk dismissed him like that? Burying the mean-spirited comment that first surfaced in his mind, he shrugged.

"As annoying as you guys are, you and the others are my pack. It's my responsibility to protect you from anyone and everything," his face was set with determination and Miroku felt his heart skip a beat as the hanyou's arms tightened on him, "No one will lay a hand on you as long as I'm alive, Miroku, not even my brother. I swear to you."

It was late by this time, early in the morning of the next day, and Inu-yasha stopped suddenly, sniffing around the small clearing they had just halted in. He set the monk down gently on the ground and stalked around the edge of the clearing; he walked back to Miroku, nodding in satisfaction. The older boy had by this time stood up and was dusting himself off; he stretched gratefully, feeling his spine pop back into its normal shape.

"We'll be safe here for now; you ningens need to get some sleep before we can continue on."

"And you don't?" Miroku scoffed, "What about the girls?"

"I told Kagome to check back every now and then. They'll figure I found a safe place to sleep and Kirara'll find us, but forget about them. Miroku, we need to talk."

Inu-yasha plopped down at the base of a tree looking at Miroku expectantly. The monk sighed and sat next to him, looking up into the shadowy branches, wondering nervously what the hanyou could possibly want to talk about.

The silver-haired teen was desperately trying to organize his thoughts into some semblance of order. Giving up, he just grasped at a thought and started in, "Miroku, do you remember anything from last night? Anything at all?"

The older boy shook his head slowly. He thought he might be remembering something, but it was so fuzzy and indistinct.

'Great,' Inu-yasha thought to himself, 'I'm going to have to drag this out of him.' He cleared his throat, "Last night, you said some things and you, anou, you kissed me."

Miroku's face paled. The human boy was suddenly filled with the urge to tunnel into the earth and sleep away the winter, escaping to obscurity when the spring came.

"I'm sorry," he sighed, "I'd never intended to let you know like that, if I had ever gotten up the courage to tell you at all."

Inu-yasha blinked in surprise at Miroku, the boy's cheeks slightly pink and contrasting oddly with the solemn expression on his face, "I suppose everyone knows now. Remind me never to drink again. Can't have all of my secrets leaking out, ne?" He wearily ran a hand through his bangs, "Why Inu-yasha?"

The hanyou looked beyond confused, "Why what?"

"If you knew . . . I mean, aren't you disgusted with me?"

"Feh, no. It doesn't bug me; but, how long have you felt this way?"

"Inu-yasha," Miroku looked down at his lap and then back up into the tree, "Do you remember when we first met and I kidnapped Kagome-sama?"

"Yeah."

"As I was riding away on her bi-cycle, I was wishing that you had been the one with jewel shards. That you were the one sitting on my lap blushing like a maiden. I didn't know where it had come from, all I knew was that I wanted you so intensely the instant I saw you I found it difficult to breathe. I tried to supress that feeling for several reasons. First of all, wer were a youkai--or hanyou anyway--and I was supposed to hate them. Second of all, you were a male and that would be at cross-purposes with my mission. That's why I was so hesitant to join up with you and Kagome-sama: I was afraid I would lose sight of my destiny."

"That long?" The golden-eyed hanyou was having trouble processing all this, "I had no idea."

"Hai, I'm just better at concealing things than most. I don't wear my heart on my sleeve like you and Kagome-sama do; it's far too dangerous when people know what you're feeling."

Inu-yasha nodded quietly in response, chuckling inwardly, 'We're more alike than we realized.'

"Inu-yasha? Are you sure you're okay with this? If you want me to leave, I understand."

"Feh, you're dumber than I thought. I told you before you're part of my pack so you're staying, end of story."

He bowed his head, his violet eyes tightly closed to keep his emotions in check, "Thank you, Inu-yasha."

"Course, I can't really blame you," he laughed at Miroku's look of confusion, "How could anyone not want a piece of this?" He stood and posed triumphantly with a silly grin on his face, "Just no groping, all right?"

Miroku was smiling now; the joke had served to significantly lighten his mood, "Please, Inu-yasha, I am a monk."

"Right. What's taking the girls so lo--"

"Inu-yasha! Miroku-sama! We brought firewood!" Kagome's perky voice beat her to the clearing. She appeared with a smile and dropped her bundle of wood near the center of their little camp. Sango and Shippou appeared an instant later, Kirara perched on the kitsune's head. Sango held her own pile of wood as did Shippou, but his pile was the kindling.

"Gah! Don't sneak up on me like that woman!"

"I wasn't sneaking. Honestly, Inu-yasha, you need to be more alert. What if something had happened to Miroku-sama?"

The hanyou growled, but Miroku cut in, rising to start the fire, "It was my fault, Kagome-sama, we were talking. You girls shouldn't have troubled yourselves with the wood: that's my job after all."

"Not tonight it's not," Kagome shook her head firmly, "We can't have you wandering off from camp."

He laughed in embarrassment, stepping back from the dancing heat, "No, I suppose not."

Inu-yasha had gone up into the branches of the big tree and fallen silent, clearly stating that he would take the watch. Kagome dug around in her pack a bit as Sango sat down protectively next to Miroku; she finally pulled out some quick-cooking future food.

"Inu-yasha? Are you hungry?"

No answer.

"I've got ramen."

Silence.

"That's odd," Sango remarked, "Passing up his favorite food. He must be expecting Sesshoumaru to attack any second."

A growl was heard from the tree, "That's not it! I'm just not hungry; mind your own business!"

Miroku felt empty inside. He couldn't help but feel that Inu-yasha's refusal to eat with them had something to do with his feelings for the hanyou. He had seemed to take it in stride, but it really must bother him, despite his assurance. The monk accepted his food when it was done and ate it silently. Finished, he sat on his sleeping pallet, meditatively.

Sango noticed the unusual look on his face and scooted closer, the remains of her ramen in her hands, "Do you want to talk about it, houshi-sama?"

"No, I'm all right. Only, would you mind sleeping near me? I could use some company tonight."

"Of course."

She moved her mat next to his as he lay back with a sigh. The exterminator layed down as well, turning onto her side and searching for Miroku's hand in the shadows cast by the flickering fire. She found it and gripped it firmly, glad he could not see her blush in the darkness when he smiled back. Kirara nestled in between them, glad of the extra warmth, and began purring up against the monk's side as the trio drifted off to sleep. Kagome snuggled into Shippou and smiled at the heart-warming scene, thoughts of her and Inu-yasha dancing in her head as she followed them to the land of Nod. None were awake to hear the low growl coming from the darkness of the tree.

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"Hentai!"

The scream woke the little group and startled the nearby-birds into sudden flight. Kagome looked around groggily and saw Sango looming furiously over a dizzy Miroku. She smiled at the pair's antics as the youkai exterminator began to berate the somewhat-recovered boy and patted Shippou's copper hair absently as the morning slowly filled her mind.

"A shard!"

"What?" Sango, Miroku, and Shippou turned to her with identical looks on their faces.

Inu-yasha had dropped to the ground and walked over to Kagome's pallet, "What did you say?"

She stood up, hurriedly folding her pallet, inwardly glad they had cleaned up the dinner mess the night before, "A shard! I sense a shard nearby!"

There was instant activity. Everyone was rushing to get the bag re-packed and wake themselves up. They hadn't found a shard in ages and they were eager to get this one; Kagome had been worried that all had been found and claimed by either them or Naraku, excepting the one in Kohaku's back and the two in Kouga's legs. Thinking of the pitiful amount of shards they had compared to Naraku's almost completed jewel she pointed northward as she clambered onto Inu-yasha's back and the group was off.

Miroku found himself in the rear, Shippou perched on his shoulder, following some distance behind Sango. He ran as fast as he could, still not feeling quite himself from all the mental and physical stress he had succumbed to in the past week, and lost sight of the group as they turned a corner on the faint forest path.

"Miroku-sama! Hurry up! We don't want to get left behind!"

"I realize that, Shippou," he replied through gritted teeth, "They can't be far--Shippou?"

The slight weight of the kit was no longer on his shoulder and he stopped, thinking he had fallen off. He caught sight of the vibrant red hair curled into a bundle at the base of a tree. Before he had time to blink, white hot pain bloomed from the base of his skull and with a muffled cry, the world went black.

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"It's just up ahead! Right around this next corner!" "A "Are you sure? I don't smell anything." Inu-yasha sprinted around the bend and halted at the foot of eep eep hill.

A shard of the Shikon no Tama was rolling down the slope and came to a stop right in front of the group as Sango came up beside them. Inu-yasha picked it up and they looked at it in disbelief for a second untiflasflash of brown caught Kagome's eye.

"Inu-yasha!" Kagome warned.

But he had already smelled the creature. "Jakken," he growled, then his eyes widened in realization, "Sesshoumaru!"

He charged at top speed back the way they had come cursing himself for forgetting Miroku. Before long, he came around a bend to find Miroku's staff lying discarded on the path and his brother's smell clinging to the dew-laden leaves. Kagome had jumped off and was now cradling an unconscious Shippou in her arms as the crack of twigs announced Sango's presence. The future girl looked at her friend with sadness in her eyes.

"Sesshoumaru . . . " was all she could say.

"I'll kill him."

It wasn't until later, when the group was racing back across the same country they had covered the night before, that Kagome realized Inu-yasha and Sango had spoken together.

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Miroku awoke to a chill breeze cutting right through his skin and he cuddled into the nearby source of warmth instinctively.

"I see you have finally awakened. Humans are such fragile creatures."

Miroku turned his head so quickly the blackness threatened to suck him in again, "Sess-Sesshoumaru!" He began to undo the knot the held back his kazaana until he was crushed brutally up against the demon lord's armour, his face pressed into the boa over his left shoulder.

"You can try that later: we are hundreds of feet above the ground right now. You would make such a lovely crater."

The houshi turned his head slowly, realizing the truth of his words even as the energy cloud they were currently riding on began its rapid decent. He gasped in surpise, fearing they had accidently fallen off, and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, expecting any second to hear the wind whistling in his ears. Instantly, he was set on his feet and his cursed hand was clasped in a vice-like grip.

"Araid of heights, ningen?" the youkai sneered sardonically as he forcefully led the boy through an imposing stone gateway and into a spacious courtyard.

Miroku struggled uselessly, trying to pry his dangerous hand free from the demon's grasp, until he was tucked under Sesshoumaru's prosthetic arm. The monk could no longer move much and his hand was still tightly held so he glanced about him as he continued to struggle. He was being held by an arm with long clawed nails and tan skin; it eerily reminded him of Kouga and he wondered if it had once belonged to a wolf demon. A flash of pink went by as they left the courtyard and entered the mansion that had been but a pin-prick in the air, but at closer inspection was large and very grand.

He didn't see much of the interior as Sesshoumaru ran lightly up a steep flight of stairs that would've given even Inu-yasha pause and he was suddenly dumped onto the large futon of a large room he hadn't even realized they'd entered. As the world slowly came to a stop he was aware of the click of a lock and looked up to find the dangerously beautiful youkai looming over him.

"Why do you struggle? This is what you want, is it not?"

He had been fumbling with the sheath on his arm again but the words halted his movements. Why was he fighting this? Someone wanted him--someone incredibly attractive no less--even if only for an instant, even if he would die immediately afterwards. What did it matter that he was an enemy?

His hands fell to his sides and Sesshoumaru nodded almost imperceptibly, "I thought so."

He vaguely heard a dull thunk as of metal hitting a hard-wood floor and the demon lord was upon him. Clawed hands were in his hair and soft lips upon his own; any lingering thoughts of resistance fled as he melted into the strong embrace, hands hesitantly gripping the fine silk yukata. Suddenly, the warmth disappeared and Miroku was left with a pleasantly fuzzy feeling. A rich laugh caused him to open his eyes and his cheeks tinted slightly as he gazed directly into golden pools.

"You're blushing like a virgin," Sesshoumaru's voice was filled with amusement, "Am I to assume you are one?"

"Of course not," Miroku scoffed.

"But you are a monk," as he said this, he trailed one claw down the side of the boy's neck and just underneath the edge of his robes.

He shivered under the delicate touch, "Y--yes, I am; can I ask you a question?" The impassive face quirked into an odd half-smile that unsettled the monk almost as much as the thought of the poisoned claws tracing along his chest, "Why now? Why not the other night? Certainly it would've been much easier."

"You were drunk. It makes things so much more enjoyable when the prize is coherent . . . and willing," with a quick movement, Sesshoumaru undid the small bow, sliding the dark material down the boy's fair shoulders.

Miroku was pushed back as the robe fell free of his arms. It was quickly pulled free and he was left in only his leggings and the sheath of the air rip as it fell to the floor. The leggings soon followed. The dark-haired teen was suddenly painfully aware of just how vulnerable he was: completely naked and with little hope of escape. The whole situation was turning him on.

The icy youkai noticed the monks predicament with a smirk as he rose and removed his own garments, folding them carefully and setting them aside. He moved with a grace and delicacy that could scarcely be copied by any human, but Miroku knew that he was doing it on purpose, to show the anxious human just who was in control. The demon was mind-numbingly beautiful. This was obvious with clothes on, but his present nakedness only added to it and Miroku couldn't keep his gaze from wandering lecherously over the chiseled form. Taking in Sesshoumaru's aroused state, he blushed brightly as he realized something that should've been obvious from the beginning.

"Shit, I'm the uke in this situation, aren't I?"

"Of course, ningen."

Sesshoumaru slid languidly onto the futon and parted Miroku's thighs. His hands were at either side of the boy's head and his white hair fell across his chest, sending shivers of pleasure up his spine. The demon leaned in for another kiss, this one deeper and full of need, and Miroku's head spun at the sensation, parting his lips instinctively to give him better access. Letting his dominance be known, Sesshoumaru pulled away again, nipping at the boy's nose with a growl.

He trailed his tongue down his neck, stopping at the pulse to nibble the sensitive flesh. Miroku snaked his arms around the strong neck with a moan, silently begging for more; Sesshoumaru complied, grazing his teeth over a nipple as he ground their erections together. He gasped at the double sensation, tangling his fingers in the soft hair, his own black locks spread about him as he quivered beneath the skillful ministrations. The demon then pulled away again, lightly grazing his nails against the monk's painfully aroused member before sitting back with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

"Stop . . . teasing," Miroku panted.

He propped himself up on his elbows and fithe the youkai with a baleful glare. There was no way he was going to beg anyone for release, least of all Sesshoumaru, beautiful bastard though he was.

"Are you going to finish what you started or are you going to kill me like this?"

Golden eyes flickered and a delicate mouth curved in an almost invisible frown, "It's your move, monk."

Blinking in confusion at the strange expression that had just crossed his captor's face, he sat up and tucked his legs underneath him as he regarded the demon. He knelt at the foot of the bed, snowy hair spilling around him not a strand out of place, skin almost glowing with it's creamy perfection. He looked like the Nirvana Miroku had been trying to attain all his life. Of course, he reasoned, the original meaning had nothing to do with demons, but this whole experience felt exactly as he had imagined enlightenment would feel: fear, joy, confusion, weightlessness and a million other emotions mixed into an incomprehensible mass of tingling sensations that surged through his consciousness.

Sesshoumaru looked at the monk impassively as he inched towards the motionless youkai. The boy was unsure of what to do, but the demon lord seemed to be temporarily giving him control; he smirked inwardly at his luck, losing himself in the moment. Pressing his lips to the older man's, Miroku lay his palms lightly on his chest, relishing the satiny-smoothness of it. He pressed himself closer, keeping the kiss light and sweet as his hands glided to the muscular sides of the demon.

The impassive youkai didn't make any sound, but Miroku felt him sigh under the gentle touch. His lips wandering to the supple throat, Miroku grinned bringing his hands to knead at Sesshoumaru's lower back. It had been quite a long time since he had been with anyone and even longer since he had been with another man. This encounter was definately nearing the top of his list, but the whole situation was odd even so. It seemed as if Sesshoumaru was letting him get comfortable, taking the reins for a bit before reasserting his dominance. Miroku had always been the dominant one, whether it had been with men or women, so he was grateful for this, but it was odd. Since when did Sesshoumaru try to make people comfortable? And another thing, since when did he get over his disgust of humans? Being in heat must've gotten to his brain.

Miroku traced along a collarbone with his tongue and found himself pinned beneath the demon faster than he could blink. It seemed Sesshoumaru had had enough playing.

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Grr! Even I have to admit that that was a horrible place to stop, but my word processor freaked cause it was too long! Sorry it took so long, Kuru was gleefully preparing marshmellows for the fires--I live in California--and then she kept throwing plotbunnies at me and refused to finish this chapter! Thanks to Jade Phoenix, Ionay, and Miklusca for reviewing. ::throws sparkles:: I seem to be doing that a lot lately . . . . Anyway, love it? Hate it? Let me know!
Soul~chan