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Devotion	By : BlackberryPatch Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 12488 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter List
- 14
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15
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Dreams and Mirrors

Sesshomaru woke to the rough sound of seabirds calling above him. He stirred, a hand reaching
out automatically for Inuyasha and finding his brother sitting beside him. He sat up himself to find the half demon watching the roll of the waves down on the beach below them with thoughtful eyes and he touched his brother's shoulder.
Inuyasha turned to smile at him warmly. "Hello lover," he murmured, leaning over to kiss the
demon.
Sesshomaru responded willingly to the kiss, rising to take hold of his brother's shoulder and pull the
slighter body against his. The half demon murmured approval against his lips, but something deep and uneasy stirred within him and Sesshomaru broke off to reach a hand up to caress his brother's cheek as he murmured, as if seeking affirmation, "Inuyasha."
His brother smiled warmly, leaning in again to nuzzle against the demon as he returned in a warm
murmur, "Sesshomaru."
His brother's lips were warm on his skin, and the slight reminder of the half demon's teeth as Inuyasha nipped at his neck sent a thrill of desire running through him, but Sesshomaru pulled away again, tangling his hands in his brother's hair as he pulled the face up to gaze into familiar eyes.
Those eyes were bright and warm, slightly questioning, and completely as they should be.
"What it is?" Inuyasha asked him. "What's wrong?"
Sesshomaru released him; looking around at the rock strewn beach he felt the uneasiness rising in
him despite the pleasant, salt water breeze. "This place..."
Inuyasha glanced around as well, flicking an ear in curiosity. He grinned. "It's very nice
here." He turned back to Sesshomaru.
Sesshomaru looked deep in the half demon's eyes. "Inuyasha... something is wrong." He leaned back, his eyes glancing around again in apprehension. "I remember this place, but... We left
here. We went south. I... I do not remember doing this in this place."
His brother frowned at him. "Did you have a strange dream?" He looked out over the gulf water.
"We have been here for awhile. Did you dream we had left it?" He turned back to Sesshomaru and the demon found himself falling into warm golden eyes.
"I..." Sesshomaru found it hard to concentrate on the thought that was tickling at the
back of his mind. "You were gone. I went into the desert, to find you..."
Inuyasha reached out to stroke long hair back from Sesshomaru's face. "I am here." He
kissed the demon's lips softly. "I will not leave you. It was a dream." He kissed Sesshomaru again and the demon found himself responding, reaching out to take his brother's face in his hands and hold him close as Sesshomaru kissed him fiercely. Inuyasha smiled, chuckling softly as he leaned in close again to Sesshomaru to whisper in his ear, "Come, down on the beach. I want to taste you and sand and water all at the same time." He pulled at Sesshomaru's arm as he stood, and Sesshomaru found himself standing with his brother, eager to follow to the promise of the beach.
But... He hesitated, looking around himself again. "I... it seemed so real," he murmured to himself. He was quite sure that it had been real... But he looked up at Inuyasha then, as the half demon stood watching him, and he marveled at the lean strength of his brother's body under the bright sun, and he wondered why he should care what was real, when this beauty was before him.
Sesshomaru frowned; it was unlike him to have such a thought. The uneasiness filled him
sharply now, and he reached again for his brother, to run his nose along the half demon's throat as he sought the scent that would give him truth.
There was no scent. Just the heat, and the feel of sand, all around him, and he pulled away to level eyes narrowed in appraisal at this appearance of his brother. "You are not Inuyasha."
Inuyasha was frowning at him now, his expression black. "I had thought to give you what you wanted, to keep you out of my way," he said, his voice oddly not his own, "but if you will not
take it, then I will be less kind." He reached out and took Sesshomaru's face in his hands, his grip suddenly painful. "Now your desire will become the mirror to show you what you fear."
Sesshomaru snarled, reaching up to grasp the hands that held him and trying to pull them away, but they held him fast and he could do nothing as a strange blackness overtook him.
--
Inuyasha gazed into the smooth surface of the polished piece of silver.
It shimmered like the moon as he tried to let his thoughts flow around it, as Afzal had said. Honestly, he wasn't sure he understood what the other half demon was on about with his whole one-self idea, but the lure of the power it promised was tempting. The power... and the peace of mind.
He gazed into his reflection; meeting the soft shine of his own gaze, he regarded himself with mock gravity. Afzal said it had been extremely difficult for him, to fully apprehend his half demon self, but... Really, why should it be so hard? He was what he was. He was a mixture of his father and his mother and Inuyasha had never really thought that they were separate things.
His eyes were burning gold in the hazy silver, reflected with such mock precision. Was that what he
was supposed to see? That even as the mirror could not reflect him truly, neither could he truly be reflected by either human or demon? Afzal had said that there were imperfections in both sides of his parentage. He'd heard often enough from those who cursed his mixed blood that there was something wrong with him, but Afzal was the first who had said that the imperfections lied in his parents rather than in his parentage. It seemed strange to consider that his parents were imperfect. He'd loved his mother, so deeply, and for so long she had been the only thing there was to love. He knew so little of his father, but imagined he must have been much like Sesshomaru- without the icy exterior perhaps, but strong, and utterly devoted once committed to a course of action. They had both died and left him, but he couldn't fault them for that. It was the way of the world that people died, and as he had told Sesshomaru before, he regretted little of his past. It had made him strong, being without so much, but he wondered- as he gazed into that gold and silver swirl- how much of that strength had been in him before the trials life had given him. Afzal said there were magnificent things in both sides of his ancestry, and Inuyasha thought that it was the strength his parents had given him that had allowed him to bend and snap back under the weight of life
rather than break beneath it.
He reached out with a sudden impulse and touched the silver surface; the phantom he thought he saw there fled under the touch and the metal was cool under the flesh of his thumb. He looked at it, the curve of his claw reflected against the disc, his eyes still warm and golden reflected above it. For so long he had sought the Jewel of Four Souls. Initially, he had thought to use its power to become human. To live with Kikyou; both of them released from the odd lives duty and parentage had pressed down upon them, they could have been content together. Far more than normal-
their lives would have been unremarkable. He had never felt about her the way he felt about Sesshomaru, and he had never disillusioned himself that she loved him any more deeply than any other person she might have cared for in her calling as priestess, but at that time in his life he had been content to find what he could. They would have grown to love each other perhaps... But Naraku had taken all that from him. Believing in Kikyou's treachery, and more wounded by that treachery than he would have admitted, he had sought the Jewel then to become full demon. Still wishing to be something other than himself.... Kagome was the first person in his life, after his
mother, who had loved him for himself and had not wanted him to change. Still he'd sought the Jewel; still he'd known that the demon would devour his human self if he let it.
The golden eyes in the mirror widened. Was that it? Was he still fighting himself?
He'd thought that he'd made his peace with being half blood, when he'd given up the Jewel wholeheartedly to Kagome's discretion to dispose of how she felt seemed fit. But obviously, something still weighed on him, if Afzal was correct in saying that a full acceptance would remove both his decent into demonic madness- and he remembered the cliff with a shudder, and felt a pang of desire for Sesshomaru's presence- as well as his human night. He was routinely rejected by both human and demon for being what he was; what was he holding on to that prevented him from realizing that he was neither of these things but both?
--
Sesshomaru snarled at the burning sun above him as he trudged through the desert. Inuyasha
was here somewhere, and he would find his brother. It didn't matter that there was no track to follow in the formlessness of the rolling dunes and broken sand flats. His hand fell to his side to find that Tenseiga was gone; and he gave a small cry of mingled frustration and despair. The sword was his last connection to his father, to his brother, and without it he felt he would never find
Inuyasha.
The sand was endless but he came upon an oasis, finally. It seemed he'd been searching for weeks- months, endless years- and still he found nothing, and there was nothing to fill the emptiness within him. He'd almost forgotten that it had been filled at one time, that there had been someone who completed him. It seemed like a distant part of his life, a dream, having known Inuyasha... Inuyasha....
He knelt beside the pool of the oasis and reached for the water when he was startled by soft laughter. He looked up to see a pair of lovers lying across from him, tangled together in passion. They did not notice him at first, and he watched with growing dread as he recognized them. "Inuyasha," he called, his voice a low rasp.
Inuyasha turned to him, expression quizzical as he slowly recognized the demon. He smiled
absently before turning back to his partner, taking the other's face in his hands to kiss him deeply. The body beneath his rose to press against Sesshomaru's brother, and the demon could only watch in abject horror as they parted and the other's face was revealed to be that of Afzal, smirking. The other half demon caressed Inuyasha who looked down at him with warm eyes.
Rage filled Sesshomaru, as never before, but a slow despair as well. "Inuyasha," he called again, asking, and his brother turned away from him. It cut him down to his soul- that for all he remembered worrying that Inuyasha's demon, or some other force equally beyond his control, would remove Inuyasha from his life, it was Inuyasha himself that he had not given enough thought to; that it was Inuyasha's choice, to stay with him, or to go.
But... No. Inuyasha would not act so. Inuyasha was not so careless, so hurtful- Inuyasha was
not like him. It seemed a great revelation that reached beyond what he saw and filtered deep into Sesshomaru's mind; that, for all their similarities, Inuyasha was not like him. It seemed also a
strange thing to give him comfort- along with the constant smell of the sand- but it was in this sudden and certain knowledge that Inuyasha would never have acted in such a way to deliberately hurt him, that he raised his eyes again to the doppelganger lying across the pool of water from
him.
Inuyasha smirked, his expression matching that of the other half demon lying beside him.
"Which is greater, do you think?" He turned to his partner and kissed Afzal deeply again. "The pain of having something taken, or the pain of never having known it?" He turned to Sesshomaru and his eyes flashed with dark light. "We shall see."
--
A feeling washed over him- it was a vague sense of familiarity more than a real recognition of anything, but Tetsusaiga hummed softly beside him and Inuyasha was on his feet in a heartbeat. He tucked the silver disc into his haori and went out the window; climbing up over the roof,
his eyes scanned over the broad-leafed trees of the oasis to the edge where the desert stretched away to the edge of the visible world. Sesshomaru... He had the feeling his brother was close.
Seeing dust kicked up, near the edge of the desert, Inuyasha didn't even wait to see if he could learn more before he was running toward the commotion.
He found a demon crouched in the sand, and snarling at the ring of three of the residents of the oasis who watched the demon with distrust, but Inuyasha sighed with disappointment. "Kunya," he
growled upon recognizing the demon, but hope stirred in him as well; Kunya had been beyond obsessed with following with his brother around- shouldn't Sesshomaru be near as well?
Kunya turned eyes mad and red with bloodlust upon him and hissed back, "Inuyasha." He continued, but Inuyasha growled in frustration, not understanding a word of the mad demon's babbling.
The murmuring half demons behind him quieted and Inuyasha looked up from Kunya to see Afzal approaching. The powerful half demon was scowling deeply and dragging another half demon along with him, gripping the other by the arm. "What is going on here?" Afzal demanded. Inuyasha
assumed Afzal was talking to him, since the other half demon had spoke Japanese and was currently glaring at him. "You brought these things here!"
Inuyasha bristled. "I didn't bring this anywhere!" he snarled back and gestured to Kunya imperiously. "I can't fucking get rid of him!" Kunya hissed at him, speaking more babbled words, which Afzal seemed to understand and, strangely, was quieted to hear, despite the demon's obviously acerbic tone.
He released the half demon he'd towed along with him and made a soft, half-appeasing gesture. "Ah, I am sorry." He turned to Inuyasha, and did look sincerely apologetic. "I was... angry,
to find a demon within my sanctuary."
Inuyasha scowled, still riled, and only mumbled, "Whatever." He filtered through the worlds his host had said and cocked his head at Afzal in sudden, penetrating interest. "You said...'these'- 'these things.' There is another demon here?"
Afzal shrugged dismissingly, his attention on Kunya now as he leveled a dark glare at the demon that was just as darkly returned. The dismissive gesture was so similar to the way Afzal had dismissed Inuyasha's concerns before about the poisoned arrow, that Inuyasha felt uncontrollable irritation rising in him; he knew- had known, on a deep level- that his host here wasn't the most
trustworthy of creatures, and he was done, done trying to hide his own feelings in an effort to draw the other out. He reached out and grabbed Afzal by the arm to catch his attention and pulled him close; Inuyasha could see the surprise on Afzal's face slowly overtaken with displeasure as Inuyasha growled, "Is there another demon here?"
Afzal stared at him for a long moment before breaking free of Inuyasha's grasp without apparent effort. "There are no demons within my oasis," he said finally. His eyes returned to Kunya and the sheer hatred in his gaze startled Inuyasha into taking a step back. "There are none of pure blood allowed within my oasis."
His frustration boiled over completely then; it was beyond all forms of bullshit that the only person
here he could talk to was going to pretend that the world existed only in his own warped image of it. Inuyasha turned away and started walking away, toward the desert. "I can't fucking talk to you. I'm leaving. Thanks for your help or whatever, but I have something I need to look for." He saw Afzal turn toward him but it was the other half demon who stopped him.
The young man had dark skin and wild black hair, his pointed, furry ears a dark echo of Inuyasha's own. He reached out and touched Inuyasha's arm to catch his attention, then captured a few strands of the half demon's hair between his fingers. He looked at it as he touched it then his eyes returned to Inuyasha's golden ones. "Sesshomaru," he said clearly, and Inuyasha felt something throb within him in response.
"Where?" he asked, demanded, uncaring if there was no shared language.
"Badr," Afzal sighed in remonstration, but the young half demon ignored him, nodding to Inuyasha and pointing back behind him, back in the direction from which he and Afzal had first come.
Inuyasha's heart was beating in his throat as he started toward where the other half demon had pointed, everything else in the world forgotten, but he was pulled up short as a hand close over his arm. He tried to pull away but he was caught fast and he turned back to glare coldly at Afzal. "Let me go."
Afzal did so, making a small placating gesture. "Inuyasha, please listen to me. I am sorry, I did not mean for you to have to face this. I have taken care of it for now." He stepped closer and placed a tentative hand on Inuyasha's shoulder, smiling encouragingly. "I promise, you don't have to worry."
Inuyasha started at him, not sure if the other man was even speaking Japanese anymore; he words didn't make any sense. "Sesshomaru is here, now."
I had hoped you were able to forget." Afzal sighed, an expression of annoyance rather than any regret. "You have never spoken of it in the time that you have been here."
Inuyasha snarled and shrugged off the hand on his shoulder at he stared at Afzal. "And you thought
that meant I'd forgotten him?" He needed to get away from here. "Apparently I was right in thinking you had deliberately tried to separate us."
Afzal nodded, somber. "I saw you. The demon, the way he played with you, and..." he stopped,
but realized that no one around around them understood the language they were speaking, and continued quietly, "The way he forced you to see to his pleasure... I'm just sorry I was not able to save you sooner."
Inuyasha felt like the world was reeling beneath him. "What?" He stared at Afzal, trying to
make sense of the conversation that was apparently going on over his head. "You... you think Sesshomaru was forcing me? No," he could only shake his head in denial, Afzal's assumptions so far beyond reality and Inuyasha's own thoughts that they were almost incomprehensible. "I love him; he loves me. He wouldn't, can't, force me to do anything."
"I have seen it before; those like us enslaved to another's desires." Afzal's smile was calm, which
only served to annoy Inuyasha further. "Inuyasha, he is a demon. You do know they are incapable of love?"
--
Sesshomaru raised his face to the sunlight. The day was quiet and their journeying peaceful; he
could hear Rin singing softly to herself as she wove flowers into a chain, Aa-Un rumbling a deep counterpoint as the creature turned one head back to regard with interested eyes the girl seated on its back. Jaken led the beast forward, though his grip on the halter was lax; the dragon would follow his master without complaint or difficulty.
They passed under trees, the sun's presence becoming more intermittent and a slight breeze stirring the demon's long, silver hair. He paused suddenly, looking up at one huge, old tree. There was something about this tree that seemed familiar... The roots under his feet pushed up from the earth, thick and gnarled with age. The branches were heavy with age as well but at the same time the wind that rippled through the leaves spoke of ages yet to come. What is this place? he wondered.
"Oh, Lord Sesshomaru! Look!" Rin slipped down from the dragon's back and ran, light and surefooted, to a place near the tree where she paused and looked down at what appeared to be a grave marker. Jaken rolled his eyes in exasperation at the child but stayed silent as Sesshomaru moved up behind her to see what she had found.
It was indeed a grave marker; a smooth stone with names and devotions cut into it. The place was
obviously well cared for but it just as obvious that it was old- the edges of the cuts in the stone were worn with age. Having discovered what it was Rin had found, Sesshomaru turned his attention
back to the tree, bored with whatever human contrivance lay here. This tree seemed important... He remembered it, somehow, and there was another memory attached to it, he thought, but he couldn't quite place it...
Rin, however, studied the stone carefully and she read aloud, in a smooth and almost unworldly voice, "Here under the Goshinboku where she loved to lay in the shade while I combed her hair and whispered to her words of my love, I bury my adored Kikyou."
The name was familiar somehow and Sesshomaru turned his attention to Rin, but the girl was still reading and did not look at him. "It will be my fate to lie beside her soon, and I bless the Jewel of Four Souls that I, Inuyasha, have been given the opportunity to enjoy a human life, spending the span of my years with the one who is dearest to me."
Sesshomaru felt the breath seize in his chest. What? No... He blinked, his hands going to hold his head. No, Inuyasha... The name burned through him, seizing every part of him and twisting it, and he wondered that he did not fall to the ground so complete was his unbalance. Inuyasha... and he remembered a thousand touches of his brother's lips, a thousand brushes of his brother's skin
to his, a thousand glimpses of pale shrouded strength in the moonlight, that in this hallucination had been stolen away from him.
He looked up at Rin, his eyes wild, and the girl met his gaze. "You are dreaming," she said matter-of-factly.
"I remember," he murmured, shaking his head in an attempt to clear it, remembering also the
previous evil visions that had pulled at him and that now all flowed into his mind at once. He did fall to his knees, he thought, his hands touching his face. It was a dream- it all had to be a dream,
some horrible dream- but it couldn't be, because he could smell her...
"Lord Sesshomaru," Rin said again patiently. "You are dreaming. Please wake up."
He blinked, shaking himself all over, and looked up to find a young woman standing on the sand before him regarding him with serious eyes. "Rin," he named her, though the woman who
stood there was not the child he'd left behind. She smiled beatifically at her name, much as he remembered, and he frowned. "I told you to remain in Japan."
Her expression was serious again as she knelt before him, her deep brown eyes warm on him. "I
know," she said simply. "But Lord Sesshomaru needed me. So, Rin came."
He reached out to her with a hand that he noticed with a vague detachment was trembling, and pulled her closer, resting his head against the top of hers and taking in her scent. She sighed happily and sat still under his hands until he pulled her away again to see her face. He was filled with a strange weakness and he let his forehead rest against hers again as he murmured,
"Inuyasha."
She smiled. "Let us go find him."
He pulled away again and looked at her, running his fingers through her hair; it had been cut, unevenly and recently, probably by her own knife as it grew too long for her tastes, but she looked
well otherwise. Her yukata was threadbare but clean and she wore a long knife at her side. Behind her, Aa-Un blinked with a slow recognition at his master with one pair of reptilian eyes while the other head was lowered slightly and the eyes fixed on the girl he'd been charged to watch.
Whatever dark power of Afzal's had caused his strange dreams, he could feel it leaving him as Rin's warm scent filled him. Dreams offered visions of things, but were always poorly supplied when it came to scents. "Rin," he said and he watched her blossom like a flower under the sound of his voice. "How long have you been following me?"
She had the grace to look down, but her voice was not at all abashed. "It has been just over a
year, since Rin came searching after Lord Sesshomaru."
He sighed but the reprimand she expected did not come. "You were correct Rin," he admitted.
"I needed you."
She smiled again and stood, brushing sand from her yukata. "Shall we find Inuyasha?"
He smirked but said sternly, "No," before he also stood. "I will find Inuyasha. You will stay
here." She pouted, but he reached out and touched her shoulder, drawing her full attention immediately. "Rin," he spoke her name again, "there are powerful demons around. Perhaps, more powerful than myself."
Her eyes were steady and serious as they regarded him and she spoke with a faith that did not allow room for doubt. "Lord Sesshomaru will protect me. I will stay with Aa-Un while Lord Sesshomaru finds Inuyasha." She stepped back to lean against the dragon's side as it curled a sinuous head around her.
Sesshomaru nodded, turned, and without looking back, stalked back to Afzal's oasis.
--
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