Dark Horizons

CHAPTER FIVE: FIRST SIGHT

Inuyasha felt the grin from Sesshoumaru’s unexpected laughter leave his face as he approached the tight knot of people in the woods: his friends. ‘Maybe they aren’t my friends anymore.’ He realized that from where they were hiding, they could have seen, and probably did see, everything that happened between him and Sesshoumaru in the clearing. ‘The kisses. The heat. So hot I thought I’d explode.’

He shook his head as if to clear it, but his thoughts were just as confused. ‘No, not confused, not really, just dreading this meeting. Kagome’s hurt. Everyone’s disgust.’ His earlier fragile confidence that maybe loving his brother this way wasn’t bad, wasn’t wrong was shattered when he saw Miroku’s shuttered expression and then immediately after Kagome’s teary one. Shippou stared with a vengeance at the ground. Sango gave him a weak smile, but somehow that didn’t make up for the rest.

“Hi,” Inuyasha said and felt his ears twitch in apprehension for what he felt they were going to say back to him: ‘Get away, you freak. Gods, you’re disgusting. Inuyasha, don’t come near us anymore.’ “Kagome … are you all right?”

Inuyasha found himself moving over to her as he had always done even though this time he expected her to flinch away from him, but she didn’t. She flew into his arms and he held her. “Kagome, I’m so … so sorry. Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

She shook her head against his chest, her face pressed against his neck. She seemed incapable of speech at that moment, but at least she wasn’t saying how hateful, evil and perverse he must be to want his brother and to do those things he already had with Sesshoumaru. ‘Gods, if she only knew how much I wanted to do more and more and more until there’s no part of Sesshoumaru I haven’t touched and tasted and made … mine. And I want him to do the same to me. To finally … conquer me.’ Sweat broke out across Inuyasha’s forehead and upper lip. He quickly moved his groin away from Kagome as he felt his sudden hardness, though he still held her close against his chest.

“Inuyasha … are you okay?” Miroku asked quietly as he walked over and actually placed one of his hands on Inuyasha’s forehead.

“Miroku! What the hell are you doing that for? I don’t have a fever!” Inuyasha batted the monk’s hand away and went back to holding Kagome who had stiffened when he moved, but relaxed when his arms were around her again.

“I’m trying to determine if something has been done to you,” Miroku explained. “The joining … well, it was sort of sudden, wasn’t it? From pure hate to true love in seconds? And that pulse from your and Sesshoumaru’s swords … it just seems, well, suspicious.”

Inuyasha didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. They thought he was under a spell? A spell that could be broken and he could go back to being … safe. Not walking the edge of this precipice that was desire and longing and soul-burning love every second where he knew the response to that love from those he cared for more than himself, these people who surrounded him now, would be condemnation. But Inuyasha knew he wasn’t under a spell and he cursed his own foolish weakness for entertaining the thought. ‘Sesshoumaru deserves better than me, a weak hanyou, a half-human idiotic fool!’

“I don’t know what happened with the swords, but … the feelings were there before that,” Inuyasha said. “So this is no spell. It’s real. It’s the most real thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Kagome gasped against his chest. He pulled her back so he could look at her face. He looked long and hard at her, knowing she was his best friend and that what he was about to say would shatter her. ‘And I lead her on all this time, even if I didn’t exactly realize that was what I was doing, but I should have realized it … I should have been more careful with someone so kind.’ Her eyes were so wide and her lips trembled, but she didn’t look away.

“Kagome… oh, hell, I’m terrible at this. I … we have to talk … alone, but we need to camp first and … we’ve got to get all of us together to do that.”

“But we are all together,” Shippou said softly, his fox tail trembling slightly.

“No, I mean with … Sesshoumaru, Rin and Jaken. We … we need to camp with them … I mean, I want us to, if that’s okay with all of you.”

Sango surprised them all when she spoke first, “Of course, we’ll camp together, Inuyasha. C’mon Shippou, Miroku, let’s take Kirara to Sesshoumaru.”

Miroku opened his mouth to protest, but Sango silenced him with one cocked eyebrow and a tightened mouth. “I’m sure Inuyasha can walk Kagome to the camp … without our help,” she said through gritted teeth.

“Ah, right, of course. See you at the camp then,” Miroku said as he mounted Kirara behind Sango. He was tempted to cop a feel, but thought better of it when Sango was already seething at him. Kirara took flight and soon he lost sight of Inuyasha and Kagome.

Inuyasha took at deep breath to steady himself then burst out, “Kagome, I--”

“Wait!” Kagome threw up a warning hand. “Wait, first … first I have to apologize for something.”

“What?”

She stepped out of his embrace so that she could face Inuyasha squarely. ‘Oh, moving away from him is the last thing I want to do, but this is the right way to go about it.’

“I shouldn’t have … commanded you when I did. I … I … did it, because … for the wrong reason. And I’m sorry, Inuyasha.”

Inuyasha gave her one of those quirky half-smiles and his ears twitched. “Well … I’m sure I’ve done something recently that probably deserved that. Just maybe not at that moment … exactly. But you’re … forgiven. I mean not that you need forgiveness … gods, I wish I could say what I want to say and not all the extra … crap.”

Kagome laughed. Just a giggle at first. She covered her mouth with her hand to try and stifle it.

“What now? Making fun of my verbal handicap, are you, Kagome?”

She laughed harder, but managed to squeak out in between giggles, “No … no, you just looked so … cute and the way you said crap and batted yourself on the head … it was … I guess you had to see it!”

Inuyasha didn’t care that she was laughing at him. He wanted something other than that pained look on her face. So he did the obligatory growl, but he was smiling. Finally, she got herself under control and the silence of the night fell over them.

Kagome was the first one to break the quiet, “What … what do you feel for Sesshoumaru exactly?”

Inuyasha scratched the side of his head to buy time, knowing that some of the things he felt he could never say to Kagome without swallowing his tongue first or coming all over myself. “It’s sort of hard to explain.” He fought the urge to hang his head.

“Please try,” Kagome whispered. “I need to understand what I’m up against.”

Inuyasha took in a deep breath and expelled it like a hiss. He stole a look at Kagome. She stood tall and proud before him, her eyes fixed on his face, no sign of tears or weakness now. Like a priestess facing a demon.

“What do you mean?” He asked her.

“He expects me … you expect me … to back down, to let you go, because of this … joining, don’t you? But Inuyasha, even before when I knew that you loved Kikyou I didn’t go away, did I? I didn’t give up on you … on us. So why should now be any different?”

Inuyasha tried to put his eyes back in his head. ‘She could still want me even knowing that I want him, my brother?’

“I didn’t think … Kagome … I refuse to lead you on any more. You have to understand that--”

“That you believe you’re in love with Sesshoumaru now, right? But that could change. Inuyasha, you hated your brother until a few hours ago, would never have contemplated … being with him. Until a few hours ago, you loved Kikyou. So why can’t your feelings change again? Maybe tomorrow or the next day or the day after that you’ll realize that you love someone else, not Sesshoumaru, not Kikyou, but … maybe … me.”

Her eyes were wide and pleading, but there was a steely glint of determination there too that Inuyasha and several now non-existent demons had discovered was not to be underestimated. She clasped her hands in front of her as if in prayer, but she was holding them together so tight, he swore he could hear her tendons creak in protest.

“Kagome, this feeling I have for Sesshoumaru … isn’t going to change. I’ve felt it all my life … no, wait, don’t interrupt. I know that doesn’t seem to mesh with how I’ve acted around him up until recently, but there’s a reason for that.”

Even as Kagome felt her heart being wrenched from her chest with each of Inuyasha’s words, she couldn’t help but notice and admire how he was handling himself with her. It was so different from his usual, impulsive nature. ‘He’s changed. In just a few hours, he’s become … more.’

Inuyasha ran his hands through his hair, pulling it tight back from his skull, hoping the pain would give him clarity to say the right thing to Kagome, the most truthful thing and in the kindest way something like this could be said. “When I was little … my mother and father took me to the castle in the Western Lands where father and Sesshoumaru lived. I was so excited to meet my big brother. You know … in my human village, well, I was … not liked, because of my demon half so … I hoped that maybe my brother would be my … friend.”

Inuyasha began to pace. The scalding feelings from being hit with stones, spit upon, chased with swords and pitchforks by the people in his mother’s village rose to the top of his mind. ‘It feels like yesterday. Before Kagome … Miroku … Sango … Shippou I had really nothing. I’m so afraid to lose them, but I will if they can’t stomach the thought of Sesshoumaru and me. That’s why I know that what I feel for him is so much more than anything I’ve felt for anyone in the past, because I’m willing to risk everything to be with him.’

Inuyasha continued, his voice low and rushed, pain underlying it like a river rushing under ice, “Father was the only demon I knew at that time and since he loved me I just thought it was humans that had a problem with half-demons. So I never … never suspected … never thought that Sesshoumaru would … would reject me because of it. I was stupid. But I was so … lonely and maybe that made me shove common sense out of the way to just hope that he would love me.”

Inuyasha squeezed shut his eyes, remembering his first glimpse of his beautiful older brother, “He was like a dream, Kagome. I saw him practicing katas in the courtyard, cherry blossoms fell all around him like pink snow. He was grace itself and strength and beauty. I couldn’t imagine anyone more … soul-wrenchingly amazing than he was. I stopped breathing as I watched his sword move though the air like it was an extension of his being. I thought: this is my brother, this is my other half. That’s exactly what I thought … and I felt so … complete. Finally, all the pain and insults that every person had ever hurled at me were forgotten, because I would be loved by my brother, the most wonderful person in the world, and that would be more than enough.”

Kagome felt tears falling for Inuyasha instead of for herself. Pain radiated off of him in waves. He was holding himself so still, trying not to shake with the memory of Sesshoumaru, the most wonderful person in the world, who she was sure he was about to tell her, rejected him and scarred him for life.

“I think I must have moved towards him without realizing it. He heard me or maybe he just turned to where I was standing to look at the cherry trees … I don’t know. But when he saw me,” Inuyasha swallowed hard. “I was smiling at him, but I felt the smile drain out of me when he … when he just stood there. He gave me one of those patented Sesshoumaru stares, you know, one where its like he’s looked right inside you and dismisses what he sees as … trash or unimportant or … it doesn’t matter. He wasn’t smiling, wasn’t welcoming.”

Kagome wrapped her arms around herself even though she wanted to hold Inuyasha, but understood he would not accept her comfort at this moment.

“I opened my mouth to introduce myself, but nothing came out. Then he began to walk towards me and … gods, help me, even with that look on his face and no greeting from his lips … I still hoped. He walked so that we were standing side-by-side, so close I felt the whisper of his robes against my skin. Then he spoke to me, finally, and his voice … it was beautiful, too, like a memory so close to my soul … but what he said was … ‘Hanyou, if you ever approach me again, alone, I will slice you open and bathe in your blood. Consider this warning as a gift for the love I feel for Father. But it will not stay my hand next time.’”

Kagome gasped and covered her mouth with her hands.

“I … I ran away. I hid the entire day. Finally … finally, Father found me in the orchard … pressed up against the castle wall underneath a thicket … still shaking and crying. So weak.”

Inuyasha’ voice crawled with self-loathing and anguish. Kagome wanted to cover her ears to not hear more.

“I asked him what a ‘hanyou’ was. Father got all quiet. He wanted to know who had called me that. I wouldn’t tell him. I wouldn’t tell him what happened with Sesshoumaru. Even then … I could be stubborn. And I was afraid. What if Sesshoumaru’s hatred of me affected how Father felt about me? Sesshoumaru was so amazing and I was so … not. Wouldn’t Father realize that if Sesshoumaru felt such disgust towards me that there was a valid reason for it? I know now that was … well, that wouldn’t happen. But back then I had no faith in anyone any more. Even mother. She wasn’t strong enough to protect me against the villagers. Everything human was weak … so I decided that I would not be human any more.”

“And then you met Kikyou?”

“Yes. Some time after that I met Kikyou. I sought her out because of the promise of the Shikon jewel. I could become a full demon and I would never feel weak or … lonely ever again. I shoved down any hope I had of being close to anyone, of needing anyone. I blocked my thoughts of Sesshoumaru. Tenderness and admiration for him became hate and blood and anger. I buried that day and the pain I felt at his rejection so deep in my mind that … I forgot the reason for the pain I was feeling, just that it was there. It’s colored everything I’ve felt and done since then. When Sesshoumaru looks at me now and it’s … so different … with love … I … it’s like that day being done over. Like the pain I feel from that day can finally … fade, because he loves me like I always hoped he would.”

Inuyasha’s voice is raspy at the end. He stares at the moon. He can’t look at Kagome with the rawness of his soul exposed. But she deserved to know everything. All the feelings he’d kept locked down inside of him that would explode in fury only during battle. It felt strange to feel when blood wasn’t covering him.

“Oh, Inuyasha … I have no words … I’m just so sorry, but that doesn’t touch on how sorry I truly am.”

Inuyasha covered the hand she placed on his forearm with one of his own. “I know Kagome and I am so grateful that … that you would be sorry for someone like me. You saved me in so many ways. I love you, Kagome, but not …”

“Not like you love Sesshoumaru,” she finished.

Sesshoumaru clutched his robes over his heart to stop it from bursting out of his chest after hearing the wounds he’d caused Inuyasha. He had gone to see what was taking his brother so long to return to camp. ‘I was jealous. Fearful that she was abusing him again and afraid that he might … deny he loved me.’

Sesshoumaru’s face still wore the mask of calm, but inside he was shattering with each breath. He, too, remembered the day he first saw his little brother, but there were some major differences. Things Inuyasha did not know, could not have known. ‘One of them being that I admired him as much as he admired me. Even so young … a mere pup … and he was breathtaking. So soft and ephemeral with those wide eyes, white skin and flowing silvery mane, so like my own but different … an exotic difference that made my heart thunder in my throat.’

Father had spoken so lovingly of his younger brother. Told Sesshoumaru of Inuyasha’s strength and courage in the face of all the hatred the humans heaped upon him every day. ‘He’s stubborn, Sesshoumaru, just like me, I think.’ Father had laughed. ‘But I don’t want him to have to endure all the venom he does. I want him to come here and live with us. We’ll be a full family again, Sesshoumaru. You’ll love him, I know you will once you’ve seen him.’

Jealousy had raged in Sesshoumaru’s heart. His father speaking with such pride of another child, not him, not Sessshoumaru who would have given anything to make his father proud. A replacement. That’s what the hanyou was. He and his human mother would come to the castle and Father would forget about Sesshoumaru as fast as he’d forgotten about Sesshoumaru’s mother. It was not to be born so he’d said what he did to Inuyasha that day even as he believed himself beaten. ‘Inuyasha was as Father said he would be: wonderful. And I knew that I had lost everything. Father would send me away or worse … I would be a ghost in my own life. But I was so wrong, about everything, and I damaged Inuyasha. Can something like that be made up for? I will try. That’s all I can do.’

Sesshoumaru stepped out from behind the tree downwind that had hid him from his brother both in sight and scent. “Inuyasha,” he said, surprised his voice only cracked a little.

Inuyasha and Kagome jerked around at the sound of his voice.

“Sesshoumaru!” Inuyasha’s voice was unsteady, too. He pushed Kagome behind him, still worried that Sesshoumaru would attack the priestess.

‘Fear in his eyes … of rejection, undoubtedly. That I’ll turn on him like I did that day. A day I would give my other arm to undo.’

“I was … worried about you, little brother. There is something foul on the wind and I don’t think we should be separated,” I explained, hoping he wouldn’t scent the half-truth.

“Oh, of course.” Inuyasha sniffed the air and a low growl came from the back of his throat. “What is that? It’s … not Naraku … it smells older or something.”

“Let’s return to camp together and get something to eat. And … talk about what our plans are.”

Inuyasha nodded and Sesshoumaru turned and began walking back to the campsite, knowing that they would follow after me. The youkai started when Inuyasha was suddenly at his side, looking up at his older brother’s face with a small smile on his lips. Sesshoumaru thought, ‘There’s hope in his eyes. Hope. I won’t destroy it this time.’ The youkai reached down and threaded his fingers with Inuyasha’s and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. The hanyou’s smile flared brighter and Sesshoumaru longed to kiss his lips, but he caught sight of Kagome out of the corner of his eye. She was keeping pace with the brothers, just a foot of space between her and Inuyasha. She was suffering, but she kept her head up and no tears. And somehow Sesshoumaru knew that she still had hope, too, hope that Inuyasha would leave him … for her. ‘I will never allow that, priestess. Never. Inuyasha is mine.’