//OLD// Never Alone

A/N: Whoo! My first official fanfic. Any comments/criticism would be greatly appreciated; I'm always looking to improve my writing. Well... have fun!

Chapter I- Losing Everything

“NO!” Inuyasha cried out again as he pulled at his hair and collapsed onto the ground. His face was damp with tears that reflected the moonlight. His ragged breaths were made visible by the crisp, cold air. His body stung with the pain of hunger and solitude. ‘No’ was all that he had been saying for the past few days, hoping that denial would make things better. It didn’t matter, he could say the word a thousand times, something which he may have already accomplished, and it wouldn’t bring his friends back. Whimpering, he pulled his knees up to his chest and buried his face in them, soaking his hakama in tears. All of his attempts to move on with life were thwarted by his own thoughts. All track of time was lost; minutes seemed like days and the last few days seemed like weeks. His memories, on the other hand, seemed to be more recent. Visions of what happened days ago replayed in his head as if they had just happened ten seconds ago. He cried out as the memories tortured him and pained his whole body as if he was being continuously stabbed all over. Crying was something that the hanyou very rarely did; however, he didn’t care anymore. He stopped caring about everything the moment he realized that he had nobody. He lost the only friends he had ever had and there was no stopping the onslaught of tears that were cascading from his amber eyes.

*They’re gone.* the words ran through his mind just as they had every night since the final battle with Naraku; as if they were visible and outlined in fire. The flicker of the nonexistent flames taunted him, teased him, constantly reminded him that he would never get his friends back. Inuyasha let out another whimper as his mind continued to wander. *I couldn’t save them, It’s my fault they’re dead.* A heavier stream of guilt-ridden tears flowed from the hanyou’s eyes; every word like an emotional slice to his heart. *Shippou... Sango... Miroku...* pictures of their deaths flew through his mind. The way Naraku had killed them in front of his eyes. How he had sat there, weak and pathetic, and watched one by one as his friends were murdered. How they had yelled for him to save them and he wasn’t strong enough to fight his own injuries and rescue them. He had failed in protecting his friends; the ones who would have given, and in the end, did give their lives for him. And Naraku had let Inuyasha live. Naraku let him experience life without his best friends. Before Naraku died, he took Sango, Miroku, and Shippou with him. He could’ve taken the inu with him but instead he smiled mockingly at the dog-boy and accepted his own death. Naraku allowed him to continue feeling the pain of never having her by his side again.

*Kagome... why did you leave me? You gave your life to help kill Naraku... but now I have nothing...* He had remembered how Kikyo had said that the only way to kill Naraku was for her and Kagome to give up their bodies and souls, and by doing so, destroy Naraku and the Shikon Jewel as well. The process itself was confusing for the inu, he didn’t care much for the details, only the results. Yes, Naraku was dead, but the damage to Inuyasha’s emotions had been done. Now he was left alone in the world, the only people he knew were a wolf demon who would hate him for letting Kagome die, and a half-brother who would kill him in a heartbeat.

Inuyasha shut his eyes, squeezing out more tears. He felt their wetness soaking through his pants. The visions stopped for a while, giving the hanyou time to think clearly. He needed to find a place to stay tonight, he was tired of sleeping in the cold and out in the open. Although, sleeping in the forest would increase the chances that a demon would kill him and end his pain, the natural fighting spirit that still lived deep inside Inuyasha wouldn’t allow him to give up that easily. He smiled faintly as he thought of the one person who would give him a nice place to stay and warm meals; someone who hadn’t even crossed his mind since the fight. The hanyou dried his golden eyes and lifted himself to his feet. He fixed himself to not look as pathetic as he thought he looked, and then headed towards Kaede’s village.

~*~

For the first time in a while, the silver-haired hanyou felt hope for starting a new life. But upon arriving at Kaede’s village, Inuyasha was greeted by a group of angry villagers holding weapons. For some reason, the men seemed hostile and very threatening. Usually, he would be willing to fight; however, he desperately needed help and didn’t want to ruin his chances by starting a confrontation. “Why are you here half-breed?” of the men shouted.

“I came to see Kaede.” Inuyasha said with a nervous and confused look on his face. Was it possible that Kaede found out that he had let her sister, Kikyo, die? Was Kaede seeking revenge on him?

“Kaede’s dead thanks to you!” Another man shouted, advancing towards Inuyasha with his weapon ready.

The inu took a step backwards, feeling both threatened and shocked. He shook his head out of disbelief. “What?”

An old man stepped out of the crowd and got face to face with Inuyasha. “You struck down Kaede just like you did to her sister 50 years ago!”

The hanyou backed up more, eyes wide, shaking his head frantically. “No...” He whispered. Panicking, he turned and ran. He ran until he reached the clearing where he had been living since the battle. He slowed and came to a stop, grabbing at his hair as his mind began to race again. Now, he was truly alone in the world. The one person who he had any hope of getting help from was now dead, and to top it all off, he was the one being blamed for her death. He knew that he hadn’t killed Kaede, just as he didn’t harm Kikyo 50 years before. It had been Naraku who attacked Kikyo 50 years ago. Inuyasha gasped at the thought. *Naraku? Did he kill Kaede? No, he can’t be alive... it’s just a coincidence...* He shook his head, trying to force the thought away. His attempts deteriorated and was replaced by pain pounding at his heart. *If he’s alive, then they all died for nothing.* Inuyasha groaned as a flood of tears invaded his eyes before he cried out sharply as an arrow pierced his back. The hanyou fell to his knees and he heard the shouts of the villagers. He winced out of pain, unable to defend himself as one of the villagers came near him and bashed him in the skull with a stone club, causing a very audible *crack*. Images of his friends’ deaths flashed before his eyes as his vision became darker. Less than a second later, he lost all consciousness.

~*~

Inuyasha groaned as consciousness returned to him along with the physical pain he was feeling. He kept his eyes shut, half wishing that he wouldn’t wake up and would be able to join his friends in death. He figured that he wouldn’t have such luck. What he didn’t expect was the slight comfort he felt on his back, aside from the pain caused by the villager’s arrow. It was then that he realized that he was lying in a bed. Questions filled his mind like: where was he? How did he get there? Inuyasha’s eyes slowly blinked open, taking in the view of a dark room. He sniffed the air, trying to recognize the smell. It was a mix of forest, human scent, and his own blood. The hanyou sat up and winced in the pain tearing at his back where the arrow had pierced him. He reached around to feel the injured area, gasping as he realized that the arrow was gone and was replaced with bandages. It boggled the hanyou’s mind that somebody had taken care of him and the scent told him that it was a human; however, the incident in Kaede’s village made it hard for Inuyasha to trust anyone right now. He had to escape from this place soon.

Groaning softly, Inuyasha got out of the bed and walked out of the room as quietly as he could. The next room he went in was lit by a dim lantern. The half-demon briefly looked around seeing a stove surrounded by cabinets with a window on the far side of the room and a door nearby. He slowly walked to the door, jumping as he heard a voice. “What are you doing up?” Inuyasha spun around to face a boy who was laying on a couch which he obviously overlooked while he was scanning the room. The boy sat up on the couch and glared at Inuyasha. “I know you couldn’t have healed that quickly.” Cautiously, he looked the boy up and down, trying to determine if he was a threat to the hanyou. He took in the boy’s appearance. His brown hair seemed to be messed up from sleeping. He was wearing clothes commonly worn by many villagers that Inuyasha had met before. He had a slim figure and seemed to be in his late teens. For a second, Inuyasha wondered whether or not the boy was living here alone. With the way humans lived, it was possible that he was old enough to live on his own.

Snapping out of his thoughts, the hanyou remembered what he was about to do. “I’m leaving.” Inuyasha stated. Gasping, the boy stood up and approached the silver-haired man. The hanyou took a step back and growled. If the other male started to pose a threat, Inuyasha wouldn’t hesitate to eliminate him.

“Don’t growl at me,” the boy ordered, apparently not intimidated. “You need to stay in bed until you heal.” he pleaded.

Inuyasha shook his head and looked at his feet. “I don’t belong here, you know what I am right?” He paused to take a deep breath before continuing. “I’m a half-demon.” Inuyasha lowered his ears in shame. He slowly looked up at the boy to make sure he wasn’t getting ready to attack him. Being attacked or shunned were usually what happened when humans or demons found out that Inuyasha was a hanyou. His recent isolation brought back those memories of being outcast by others, and he half expected it to happen again. To Inuyasha’s surprise, the boy just stood there and shrugged.

“I don’t care who you are, there’s no way you can already leave and be able to defend yourself.” The boy walked over to Inuyasha and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to lead him back to the bedroom. “Come on, you need to rest.” The inu looked down at the boy, noticing the slight height difference between the two; Inuyasha was a couple inches taller than him. Brown eyes looked back up at the hanyou, pleading him to stay and take time to heal.

“Why?” Inuyasha shook his head in disbelief that the boy really wanted him to stay. “Why would you want to keep me here?”

“Well...” the brown-haired boy shrugged again, “because I care about people I guess.” He looked up and saw uncertainty in Inuyasha’s golden orbs. He sighed “If it were anyone else in this village, they would have left you in the forest to bleed to death. There was this one time when a half-demon wandered into this village and the men ended up burning him to death.” He saw the sudden look of fear in the eyes of the hanyou and sighed again. “Sorry, I’m sure that didn’t help to calm you. But I’m just trying to make a point that I’m not going to hurt you or anything just because you’re a half-demon. You can trust me... uh, I never got your name.” The boy smiled innocently.

“Inuyasha.” he replied, feeling a little more comfortable after seeing the boy’s smile. Very rarely did random villagers show sympathy for a hanyou like him. Usually he had to save them from other demons or something first. What was unusual was that the boy had been the one to save Inuyasha. He couldn’t help but to feel some sense of ease with the other guy around.

“I’m Abotto. So now that we know each other, will you stay here?” The hanyou looked at his feet again and slowly nodded. He figured that it would be nice to have someone around him again. He needed somebody to be able to talk to and, so far, it seemed as though Abotto could be trusted.

Abotto led Inuyasha back into the bedroom and watched him get into bed. The hanyou sat up against the headboard, staring at the wall. Abotto lit an old lamp that was sitting on a dresser next to the bed. “Do you always sleep sitting up Inuyasha?” the human smiled at the hanyou.

Inuyasha returned the smile and shook his head. “I’m not that tired right now, I just woke up.” Abotto nodded in understanding and yawned loudly.

“Okay, well I am tired, so I’ll be on the couch if you need anything. Goodnight.” The boy waved his hand before turning to leave.

Inuyasha felt a little guilty that Abotto was forced to sleep on the couch. It was then that he realized that there was only one bed and there were no signs of anyone else residing in this house. Even though it was a possibility that Abotto could’ve been old enough to live on his own, something in Inuyasha told him that there was another reason; he felt some sort of familiarity around the boy. The hanyou’s curiosity got the best of him and he decided to find out. “Abotto?” Brown eyes turned to look at Inuyasha. “Why do you stay here... alone?” He had paused at the word ‘alone.’ Inuyasha had hated that word ever since he was little. When his mother had died, he had to live off of himself. He had nobody to take care of him; nobody wanted to associate with a half breed. He spent many years of his life running from demons and being shunned by humans. Inuyasha’s past could easily be summed up with just one word: Hell. The hanyou was more concerned about Abotto, though. When he said the word ‘alone,’ he noticed Abotto blink, almost wince at the word. He wondered if something had happened to the boy to make him hate the word as well.

“What do you mean?” Abotto asked, puzzled at the randomness of the question.

“I mean... you said yourself that you’re a caring person. So why don’t you have anyone here to care for?” Inuyasha explained, the question drawing a somewhat saddened look in Abotto’s eyes. The boy knelt down beside the bed, resting his arms on it. Inuyasha’s ears flattened against his head in fear that he had offended or hurt the boy. “Sorry,” he whispered. Abotto looked up at Inuyasha and smiled, drawing a smile out of the hanyou. He hadn’t realized until now how much the death of his friends had changed him. Usually he would never show his emotions to anyone, much less a total stranger; however, Inuyasha was desperate to have someone to be around and it seemed almost natural for him to smile.

“I don’t know...” Abotto started. “I guess nobody in this village trusts me enough or anything. I never really talk to them. When I came to this village I found this house abandoned and just took it. I don’t really know anybody here.”

Inuyasha looked at the boy, confused. He could sense that there was more to the story and something inside him wanted to know more about Abotto. “Why did you come to this village? Where’s your family?” Inuyasha noticed the pained look return to Abotto’s eyes. The hanyou reached over and squeezed the boy’s hand gently, expecting it to help ease the pain but the sadness remained in Abotto’s features. Again, Inuyasha began to see himself as a completely different person. Not only was he expressing his own feelings, he was now caring about someone else’s feelings and touching them. The only person he ever did that to was Kagome. Before painful memories could return to the hanyou, Abotto began to answer.

“I came here because I had no other place to go. And... I never knew my parents.” Abotto chuckled softly. “You would think that relying on myself for safety would have made me stronger, but I still find myself putting my trust in others which is kinda dumb considering everything that has happened to me.” A few minutes of silence passed as Inuyasha contemplated what Abotto had said. Before the hanyou could ask another question, Abotto stood up and yawned again. “Look, I’m tired. You should try to rest a little bit.” He patted Inuyasha on the shoulder before leaving the room.

Inuyasha sighed and turned off the lamp. He lay back down on the bed and covered up. The hanyou stared up into the darkness of the room, filled with concern and curiosity about Abotto. Something about the boy made him feel safe. Apparently Abotto felt that he could open up to the hanyou, could Inuyasha do the same? He yawned and decided that he would ask Abotto about his past some other time. Before then, he would attempt to express his own feelings of guilt and sorrow to Abotto in hopes that the boy would somehow heal his pain. It turned out that Inuyasha was more fatigued than he thought because he soon fell asleep.


A/N: So I'm not much of a PWP kind of guy. Which means that I like to build up to the hot scenes- so... there's still a couple more chappies before any sex stuff, sorry? lol. Anywayz, again, let me know what you thought and where I can improve and stuff.