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And You, My Brother	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 15027 -:- Recommendations : 3 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
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Chapter XII: There's hope in't yet
It was purely by chance that Jaken came to be of use to Miroku and Kaede. He had been so disheartened at being left by his lord in the company of humans and the despised kitsune that he had not only been of no help at first, but an unsightly distraction too as he hunched in a corner of the hut, muttering to himself things that would surely have been found to be extremely rude had the others been able to make the words out.
It was only when Shippo startled him with a childish fox trick, and he very nearly set fire to the hut by half-activating the staff of two heads, that Miroku thought of something, and called his wife aside.
"Sango, do you remember what Kagome told us long ago about how Sesshomaru first gained access to his father's grave through the black pearl from Inuyasha's eye?" he asked.
"Yes, I think so," Sango murmured, trying to recall what their time-travelling friend had said to them about the incident. "Jaken had a lot to do with it – I remember that for sure, because the deceit behind that whole episode didn't sound at all like Sesshomaru's style.
"And did she not say that it was the kappa's staff which broke the seal on the pearl? That very staff propping up Ugly-sama right now?"
"I think she did."
"Ah-ha. That gives me an idea. Thank you, my love."
Since the day Sesshomaru had taken Rin and Shippo out, Miroku and Kaede had been working on adapting existing spells and sutras that could capture and hold shikigami that were controlled by other people. As they did not know to what degree the apparition they were concerned with differed from shikigami, they considered several adaptations to the spells, and also worked on new ones altogether. Kaede had the experience, while Miroku had the stronger spiritual powers, and between them, they had hoped that they would come up with something usable.
Then Sesshomaru had left Jaken with them, and just before he and Inuyasha got onto the dragon's back, Miroku had had the presence of mind to run after them into the forest and ask if he could see the kuma oni's corpse. "I know I do not have your superior sense of smell, Sesshomaru-sama, or that of Inuyasha's, but I may be able to detect something off the corpse that could give me useful information."
Miroku had examined the body, and underneath the overpowering scents of forest odours and animal youkai had been a hint of the traces of magic, which he did not smell so much as he sensed. There was nothing holy or pure about that magic. It was dark, although it did not have the same brand of evil that Naraku had given off in waves – it was foulness of an equal but different sort.
"Thank you," the monk had said. "If only we were able to revive this oni, we could get answers from him."
"You are thinking of Tenseiga," Sesshomaru had acknowledged. "I considered that. However, Tenseiga can only revive a body but not a mind that has already gone mad. If it returned him to life, he would only attack us all over again, and I would have to kill him once more. Besides, the sword does not work in all cases, for its own reasons."
As he had walked away from the forest back to the village, Miroku had known that the taiyoukai had been thinking of Kagura with that last comment.
Now, as the monk recollected the magical aura he had detected, and remembered the story about the staff of two heads and the black pearl, he approached the kappa squatting in a corner like a toad. "Jaken-sama, the staff you hold has the power to break seals, am I right?"
"What if it does?" the kappa croaked defensively.
"Those magical auras from the oni's wounds gave me a sense that they were pulling towards something, as if they would naturally seek to be drawn back to a particular source when released – not through the air or land, but through magical portals. It makes me wonder if the sorcerer uses a kind of binding power between himself and the apparition, or between himself and the emotions collected, so that he can easily pull the apparition and the essences back to him."
"So?" the kappa blinked resentfully up at him.
"If your staff could impart some of its seal-breaking powers to our sutras, perhaps we will have an added ingredient that could break the bond between the apparition and the sorcerer, making it more possible for us to detain it."
"How would I know how to impart such a power to your sutras?"
"I am sure we can create a spell that can do the trick."
"And how do I know this isn't just a trick to steal all the power away from my staff?" Jaken demanded, clutching his prop protectively.
"You're just going to have to trust me on that, Jaken-sama," Miroku said politely.
"And if I don't?"
He sighed theatrically. "I shall have to respect your decision, of course. But I wonder what Sesshomaru-sama would say if we failed to find a solution, and he discovered that you refused to cooperate with us."
The kappa turned a paler shade of green and gulped, and Miroku knew that they were about to get somewhere fast.
True enough, by that evening, they had found a way to infuse some seal-breaking powers from the staff into the sutra-based spells they had crafted.
"It's not quite perfect, houshi-sama, but I think we may be able to do something with this," Kaede said to the monk.
"Yes, I think we might," Miroku agreed. "I don't know that it will work strongly on an apparition of this sort, but it may just be able to hold it for a while. It would work much better on shikigami, actually, as those are far more physically substantial than this being seems to be."
Sango looked relieved to hear that they were done, as she had been seeing to the preparation of their meals for two days, while her monk-husband and Kaede were occupied, and cooking was not her forte. That job had always been much better done, with far more palatable results, by Kagome or Kaede.
"Does that mean you can both take a break now?" she asked.
"Yes, and I know what I'd love to do during that break," Miroku murmured, gazing longingly at his wife's firm, supple body.
Jaken groaned, Kaede huffed, Shippo gagged and Rin giggled, as Sango glared at her husband and marched back to the cooking pot.

** *** **
When Sesshomaru and Inuyasha returned to the village the day after the staff of heads had proven useful at last, Miroku and Kaede had been pleased to report on their progress with the spells.
"We can't be sure that it will work as well as we would like it to, but I think this is as close as we are going to get with the resources and time we've had," Miroku said.
"Excellent," Sesshomaru remarked crisply. "I hope that someone will now be able to trap this thing."
Inuyasha, however, appeared distracted and spoke little. It took just one glance and a few minutes' further observation for Miroku to know that something had happened between the brothers. He sensed that it was nothing particularly bad, but not particularly good either. Inuyasha looked as if he felt guilty, somehow, and while Sesshomaru had never had a face that anyone could easily scrutinise, simply by comparing the similarity of the expressions in their eyes, Miroku guessed that the taiyoukai too was troubled by a feeling of guilt.
It was not the kind of pleasurable guilt he often saw in two people who were sharing a delicious secret. In this case, it was as if each felt that he had wronged the other in some way, and Miroku's mind was in knots trying to imagine what could have happened to produce such a result. He did, however, spare enough of his brain for the present to remember to mention the kappa's contribution: "Jaken-sama was of great help to us in making the spells stronger."
"Oh?" Sesshomaru asked, casting a somewhat doubtful sideway glance at the kappa, who had brightened so much since his lord and master had returned, that he looked as if he would burst into green flames if he lit up any further. "As you have made good progress, I shall leave with Jaken now. I will continue my investigations along the eastern coast, and return in a few days. If anything urgent occurs before then, Inuyasha should be able to track me down."
Given permission to leave at last, Jaken almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to get out of the hut while Sesshomaru spoke briefly to Rin before heading for the exit. Inuyasha stood near the door, but said nothing, and could barely look for long at Sesshomaru. His brother paused near him, as if he wished to speak, but he did not. Of all the people in the hut, only Miroku observed the minuscule movement of Sesshomaru's left hand towards Inuyasha, as if he had been about to reach out and touch him, but remembered himself just in time, before his fingers were able to do more than twitch in the hanyou's direction.
Then he stepped out through the doorway, and was gone.
Once their little group was left to itself again, Shippo grew relaxed enough to hop up onto Inuyasha's shoulder and ask excitedly: "So what were the kuma oni like?"
"Big, mean, smelly," Inuyasha answered, looking around at his friends and hoping that his face and tone of voice were communicating to them that he was fine, that he was happy to see them, that everything was perfect, and –
"Did you fight them?"
"Yeah."
When Shippo took a sniff at Inuyasha, Miroku immediately knew what was coming, and he was by their side in a second, lifting the kitsune off the hanyou even as the child fox demon began to utter the words: "Hey, you really smell of –"
"Shippo, Inuyasha is obviously exhausted from the long flight to the south and back, and having to fight the kuma oni as well. Why don't we let him alone so he can rest?" Miroku suggested.
Inuyasha gave him a half-grateful, half-suspicious look, wondering just how much the monk knew, but seizing that opportunity anyway to pat Shippo quickly on the head and leave the hut.
Shippo watched him go and protested: "I was going to say that he –" But the monk shushed him and carried him out of the hut, in a different direction from the way Inuyasha had gone. Once outside, and far away enough not to be heard by the female humans still indoors, Shippo continued: "I was going to say that he really smelt of Sesshomaru. He did too when we first got back from your village, but he said they'd been fighting. Now Sesshomaru's scent is even stronger – and it's all over him – could they have fought again?"
"Uh, no, Shippo, I don't think they fought again. It must be… all that flying – you do have to sit quite close on those beasts, as I'm sure you know. I always used to press right up against Sango on Kirara."
"I suppose."
Oh dear heavens, Miroku thought to himself, even as he felt relieved that Shippo seemed to be buying his explanation. It can't have gone that far already, can it? Could they have – was that why – the guilty looks… no, not that, it wasn't that kind of guilt, it must be something else....
His thoughts were interrupted by Sango appearing outdoors and giving him a querying look.
"Go on and play with Rin until dinner time, Shippo," Miroku told the fox-child. "And leave Inuyasha alone until he's ready to come back indoors."
"What is going on, Miroku?" Sango asked, after Shippo left.
"I honestly don't know, my dear."
"Come on."
"No, I really mean that I don't know. I have my suspicions, but I have no proof, and frankly, I'm baffled."
"Baffled about what?" she asked, more puzzled than before.
"I suspect that our dog demon friends have been bonding with each other like they never have before, but I don't know how far it's gone, and I truly do not know what just happened to make them both look so uncomfortable in each other's presence."
Sango's eyes widened. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"
"Sango," Miroku said, massaging his temples, for he truly was starting a headache after all his work on the spells and contorting his imagination into more twists than were to be found in Sanskrit script. "I no longer know what I am suggesting."
She reached out in concern and began massaging the back of his neck, to help relieve the stress. "All right, all right – you've been working too hard and thinking too much. Time to stop and get some proper rest."
"Hmm… you know what would really help me relax?" he asked, turning to gaze into her eyes.
"Miroku, you're impossible," she said, as she felt his hand glide down her back towards her bottom.
"That's why you love me, right?"

** *** **
Inuyasha walked away from the village in the direction of the well – not because he planned to jump into it and mope for another few weeks or anything like that, but because the area around it was a good, quiet spot for him to be alone and hear himself think.
His head was ringing with thoughts of Sesshomaru, and he could barely end one idea before he jumped to another, unable to sort through the tangle of images and scents and sensations that piled one upon the other into his skull. Thinking deeply and with clarity about things that confused him had never been his strength – he preferred to just pick up his sword and swing it about to let it do the talking – but as there was no one around he could reasonably take a swing at now, he simply had to get down to thinking.
When he reached the well, he leaned on the timber, peered into its depths, and sighed: "Hey, Kagome, if you're over there and listening, you'll never believe what's been going on with me and Sesshomaru. Yeah, you heard me – Sesshomaru. I know – you're gonna kill me, right? First I can't decide between you and Kikyo, and now I'm kissing my brother once your back is turned…. ohhh, Kagome, I don't know what to do."
With a groan, he turned about so his back was to the well casing, and sank down till he was sitting on the ground, leaning against the timber. He deliberately banged the back of his head against the wood once, as if that would help knock all the emotions and thoughts into perfect order in his head. But then he calmed himself to try and process what he had felt, what he had done, what he had felt Sesshomaru feel, and everything else crowding into his mind.
The very first thought that he attempted to process, however, made him bang his head on the timber again, because he was asking himself why the hell he had tensed up like that when Sesshomaru grabbed him. "I'm an idiot!" he muttered to himself. "What's wrong with me? Why didn't I just… argh!"
He kept going over it again and again: the hand on the bare skin of his back pulling him so close that his belly was pressed against the growing hardness he could feel through Sesshomaru's silk hakama; the hand in his hair that seemed ready at any second to pull his head back and expose his throat, make his lips accessible; the hot breath against his ear and then his neck. Sesshomaru had actually been breathing hard – he who never so much as raised his heart rate in the most exacting battles – he had breathed hard and fast and his heartbeat had sped up when he held Inuyasha. Sesshomaru had all but panted for him, but he had frozen up. Why couldn't he have just melted into him, gone with the flow, instead of reacting as he had? Or rather, so patently not reacting that even someone with the sensitivity of a corpse would have noticed that he wasn't getting into it?
It was his fault. It had to be his fault. He had flirted with Sesshomaru, or at least allowed Sesshomaru to flirt with him – all because it warmed him inside to have a loving, caring sibling after all these years – until he had made himself quite besotted. His infatuation must have communicated itself to his brother – who had for the longest time never considered him a brother, only as a worthless younger male who deserved nothing until the night he had literally picked him up – and he must have perceived Inuyasha's obvious infatuation as permission to make a move on him.
All that did not trouble him even half as much as what had happened after he froze, when Sesshomaru had not only not been angry, and not lashed out at him for the unspoken rejection, but instead blamed himself, and with heartbreaking magnanimity assured him of his continued protection and love.
He should have just gone along with it. Would it have been so difficult? Well, it would have been a betrayal and deception in that he would only have been doing what Sesshomaru wanted, rather than what they both wanted, wouldn't it? Or would it?
Would it, really?
Another set of emotions poured into his head for analysis as he remembered a whole bunch of other things: his knee-weakening gut response to the intimate look Sesshomaru had shot him two days ago in the village; his instinct to get as physically close to Sesshomaru as possible, not just emotionally close; how much he had liked feeling Sesshomaru's tongue on his wrist and face after he had kicked his butt all over this very spot he was in right now.
Yes, he had been pretty woozy through all that licking. But he had been pretty woozy as well ages ago when old Totosai had flicked out his insanely long tongue and covered his face from chin to forehead in saliva as a salve for the injuries he had sustained after Tetsusaiga had taken the powers of the Dakki blade, and he had certainly not liked that one bit. He had so not liked it that he had stamped Totosai into the ground, calling him a sick old demon, even though the saliva-salve had in fact worked.
Then there was that vivid image Sesshomaru had used to emphasise what he wouldn't do – push his face into the dirt and take him right there by the spring. Oh kami, but if he was honest with himself, he had to admit he'd actually felt a bit aroused by the idea of it, if the throb from inside his own hakama was anything to go by. Completely unlike the sick feeling of disgust he'd had crawling over his skin while Jakotsu talked dirty to him whenever they encountered each other, right up until Inuyasha got him good and proper with the wind scar. Sesshomaru's words hadn't made his skin crawl. Rather the opposite.
So what was with his frigid response? Was it the thought of the act of sex that bothered him? Granted, he had no real experience to speak of with males or females (hugging Kikyo and Kagome hardly counted), save for some self-groping on nights when no one was around to see, but that didn't feel like the problem here. Was it some strong revulsion he felt against incest? Perhaps, but not necessarily – in those few moments, he had not thought of Sesshomaru as his brother but as a terrifyingly beautiful, very powerful youkai whose hands were all over him. Besides, a good number of full youkai were blasé about incest – something about their blood being too pure for them to be concerned about the result of sexual relations between close relatives – and he being half-youkai, well, perhaps some of that had rubbed off on him? Anyway, between two males, it was not as if there were going to be any offspring whose mental capacities one would need to worry about.
Was it his love for Kagome that stopped him from responding to another's advances? It couldn't be, not when he had been quite comfortable thinking of both her and Sesshomaru. He didn't think Kagome would really feel betrayed by this; he had a suspicion she would be rather intrigued. Hey, maybe she wouldn't mind a bit of Sesshomaru herself – maybe they could all… Aaaarrgh! No! What was he thinking? Had he just contemplated offering the girl he loved – his intended mate – to his brother as an alternative lover?
He jumped to his feet and called into the well in a panic: "Kagome, you did not hear what I just thought, okay? You did not hear that or sense that!"
What on earth made him think that Kagome wouldn't mind sharing him with another lover – or being shared with another partner – after putting up with his vacillations between herself and Kikyo for so long? But maybe as Sesshomaru was male, and his brother, she wouldn't regard him as direct competition…?
"Oh, no, no, no!" he yelled into the well again. "Who am I kidding? You'd kill me! You'd sit me till we had a hole in the ground so big we'd all tumble straight into hell!"
He sat down again on the grass and tried to still his emotions, but unbidden into his head came the memory of that growl in Sesshomaru's voice as he'd taken hold of him, the hoarseness with which he'd spoken after he pulled back from him. He realised now that he wanted to hear that growl again, the sound of his voice thick with desire. He didn't need Sesshomaru to be only his brother, did he? Maybe the relationship they were forging had space for more than that.
So perhaps he had frozen for nothing, after all – over what he thought he did not want when he probably did want it. And maybe he was also getting all worked up over Kagome's possible reaction for nothing too. He wouldn't know how she would take it until he spoke to her about it, right? If she ever came back, that was.
Clearer-headed and more collected now, Inuyasha got back to his feet and leaned his elbows on the well-edge. He took a deep breath and spoke into the well again, a little nervously but with reasonable steadiness in his voice this time: "Okay, let me try that again, Kagome – everything you might have just heard me say and think – how's it grab you?"
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And You, My Brother