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Through The Well	By : TheKaytla Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 25850 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 9
Disclaimer: I do not own the series Inuyasha, nor its characters.They are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-One
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 8-Eight
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Eleven
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 12
- 13
- 14
Chapter Thirteen

Later that night, when he was sure Kaede was asleep, Inuyasha opened his eyes and sat up. The day had given him a lot to think about and he was finding it difficult to sleep. Settling Tetsusaiga across his lap, he leaned back against the wall of the hut and gazed idly at the moon through the window.

The most prominent in his mind was, of course, Sesshomaru. No matter how many times he told himself this version of his brother was different, it continued to surprise him. He kept waiting for a betrayal somewhere down the line; he couldn't help it. But all this easy, even comfortable interaction between the two of them did make him wonder if he should try for... something more between them.

He didn't mean the more that Sesshomaru wanted. Hell, no; that was all kinds of weird and he did his best not to think about it. Yet perhaps they could be friends for the time he was stuck here. Maybe even brothers. He would admit, to himself only, that a little part of him, deep down, had always wanted that.

It wasn't like he'd wanted Sesshomaru, specifically, to be his big brother. He certainly had at first; when Sesshomaru had first sought him out, he'd thought he'd finally have a family again after too long spent scrounging for human food and cowering from youkai who wanted to turn him into food. He'd wanted someone to be there for him, to care for him and, yes, to protect him. The fact that he escaped the encounter with the taste of his own blood in the back of his throat disabused him of the notion that that someone would be Sesshomaru.

He'd given up on ever having family after his mother died. He hadn't known about Sesshomaru at the time. Seeking him out and rekindling that hope had hurt him far more than the attack, in the end. He hadn't trusted anyone for a very long time after that. Not until Kikyo... and that had ultimately ended badly as well.

Yet people were surprised when he didn't immediately open up and let them into his world. He sighed.

Well, it was no use dwelling on all that when he had to wake up at dawn to avoid being attacked in his sleep. Shifting back to his furs, Inuyasha settled down and willed himself to sleep.

---

Early the next morning, before the sun had even cleared the treetops, Inuyasha snuck out of Kaede's hut and began his daily trek to the well. He paused to frown for a while at the Goshinboku, still unable to feel any attachment to it whatsoever, before continuing on. He also frowned at the well for a moment, not expecting it to work, before jumping in, holding his breath on reflex.

Nothing. Of course.

He couldn't help but feel the same disappointment. He'd probably feel it every time he came here and jumped in. And he wasn't ever going to stop. He wanted to go home to the friends he knew, the life he'd had. He had no business being here and he wished the well would stop fucking with his life. He kicked it for good measure, as though that would somehow get his point across, and then climbed out, stretching in the early morning sunlight.

What to do with himself for today? It was amazing how easy it was to become bored. With nothing to fight, what was he meant to do with himself? He'd spent pretty much all his life roaming without a home, constantly on guard and waiting for trouble, spending more days than not fighting for the right to live, so this peaceful, settled life was very alien to him. It had only been a few days and he was already looking for something to kill to pass the time. He'd been the same when travelling the countryside with his friends, hunting down Jewel shards. If too many quiet days passed, he got restless.

Maybe he'd go patrol for a few days. Some travel might do him good. A change of scenery, some time to himself, a chance to really think things through and decide properly, once and for all, how he wanted to handle all this. At the moment, he was pretty much taking it day by day, blow by blow, and seeing how it went. Trying to be considerate of everyone's feelings was a real pain in the ass, too.

He supposed he'd better tell everyone, though, before they all lost their shit and went crazy looking for him. He could only imagine the crap he'd get if he ran off without saying anything.

With a course of action decided, Inuyasha took to the trees in favour of walking along the dirt path, hopping quickly from branch to branch as he made his way back to the village. He stopped dead, however, just at the perimeter, ears straining.

He could hear laughter, and excited cries of mum and dad, and he knew Miroku and Sango were back. What was he supposed to do? With Kagome gone, they were the most important people in his life, though like hell he'd tell them that. What would he do if they were different? He could handle the trip that was the new Sesshomaru, and even Koga was tolerable, but he didn't know if he could handle viewing his friends as strangers.

He considered just leaving on his patrol. He didn't care if it was the coward's way out and ultimately just delaying the inevitable; he felt suddenly very worried and uncertain, and he couldn't help wanting to avoid the situation altogether. It was, after all, how he'd faced the problems he couldn't kill in the past.

But he couldn't do that, could he? Even now, someone could be telling Miroku and Sango that he was here. How would they feel if today was the day he disappeared without even seeing them? He couldn't do that. Not without tearing himself to shreds with guilt, anyway. Inuyasha sighed; this caring for people bullshit was forever a pain.

He dropped to the ground on the edge of the village, but didn't walk in immediately. He wanted to get a feel for the situation first, decide how he was supposed to handle it, try to figure out how much Miroku and Sango had been told. Hopefully someone would make the full situation clear to them and save him having to explain himself yet again.

Carefully and quietly, he skirted around the edges of the village, ducking behind one hut after another as he weaved his way closer to where his friends clearly were. He peeked around the corner of a hut close enough to see the gathered crowd, but not quite hear the conversation... and found himself looking straight into Sesshomaru's eyes. The daiyoukai had a brow raised in question.

Inuyasha shook his head quickly. Sesshomaru seemed to sigh, but he inclined his head before turning back, and the hanyou let out a quick sigh of his own in relief. Safe and hidden for the moment, Inuyasha took the opportunity to look at his friends and the differences that were already apparent.

Sango, while still looking young, looked more... mature, he supposed. There was something... fuller about her, though he was far from an expert in such matters and couldn't quite put his finger on what it was he was seeing, but she still appeared to be strong and fit as ever. Hiraikotsu was dangling over her shoulder from two of her fingers like always, despite the weapon's formidable weight. He didn't understand it in the slightest, but maybe these subtle changes were just what happened to women after they became mothers.

Miroku, on the other hand, he understood perfectly well. The lecher had developed a bit more muscle mass, fully growing into an adult body, though he still remained smooth-cheeked and with a youthfully mischievous twinkle in his eyes that told Inuyasha right away he'd yet to give up that side of his personality (which he'd never admit was a bit of a relief). He'd also grown his hair out a bit; bangs fell into his eyes, and the tail of his hair fell past his shoulders now.

The twins and their younger brother were shouting and cheering as they clambered all over Miroku, who had gone down on his knees to greet them, voices mixing together into a din that was incomprehensible, and even Rin, standing with a handful of Sesshomaru's haori, was joining in the noise. Laughter was filling the air, and Inuyasha's eyes bugged a little as his brother bent slightly to receive a one-armed hug from Sango and an affectionate kiss on the cheek. But despite how jarring it was to see, for once, it didn't leave him feeling unsettled. It actually seemed... nice. Like family, perhaps.

He let it go on for a few minutes. For perhaps the first time, he fully realised and appreciated that these people - so familiar, so different - truly had bonded in ways he'd never expected. And hell, after seeing what looked like a genuinely pleasant exchange of greetings between Miroku and Jaken, nothing he saw here should ever surprise him ever again.

The shift in mood, when it came, was obvious. He saw Rin speak up just once, and then a quiet descended. The smiles disappeared off Miroku and Sango's faces, replaced with near identical looks of surprise, disbelief, and just a sliver of hope. Sesshomaru's gaze flickered over to him, and this time, it was Inuyasha's turn to sigh and nod. They knew now, so there was little point in hiding. Since that was what he could now hear Rin telling Miroku and Sango he was doing, there was even more reason to come out.

He stepped out from behind the hut, arms folded across his chest and a half-hearted scowl on his face. "I'm not hidin', ya damn brat," he lied. "I was just waiting until you lot settled down and stopped making so much noise."

He had planned to say, before anything else happened, that he wasn't the Inuyasha they knew, that he came from another world and was just dumped here by the clearly sentient and spiteful well, but the words and the wind were both knocked out of him by Sango, who collided with him so hard he was knocked back a few steps and clamped her arms around him so tight he started to feel a little sorry for Miroku.

She sobbed into his shoulder, and Inuyasha, whose first, instinctive thought had been one of escape, relented and put his arms around her. It was strange to him (the only women he'd ever hugged were Kikyo and Kagome, and they, on some level, were like the same person), but it wasn't unpleasant. It was actually bringing a lump to his throat, being confronted like this with how much they'd missed their Inuyasha, and so he didn't protest when Miroku's arms came around them as well. He went with the momentand leaned his head against Sango's, his ears low on his skull and his eyes closed, and let himself enjoy a rare moment of closeness.

---

Hey, look at that. I did a thing you wanted me to do. :D

This chapter is shorter than I originally intended. There was meant to be a fair amount of dialogue in this chapter, but when it finally came down to writing it, I realised there would be a lot of repetition involved as Inuyasha explained, yet again, that he wasn't who they thought he was, and the shock and confusion that followed... so I decided to cut that for the sake of not being boring. From there, I just sort of... let it write itself, really. I came to the chapter ending at random and I liked it enough that I cut it there. I did fill out a little bit more to add a bit of length, but I think that's a nice place to end it with an emotional reunion. ^^

Hope you enjoyed.
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Through The Well