Adult-FanFiction.org : Inuyasha / Yashahime

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 III: Heart upon my sleeve
The sky was still pitch black and the sun a good way from rising, when Inuyasha stirred with something more than mere semi-consciousness, and groaned as the stiffness from his battered body registered with his brain.
"What the hell?" he muttered hoarsely, as he opened his eyes at last to find himself bare-bodied in the darkness, but with his fire-rat suikan draped over him like a blanket. The white under-layers of his clothing hung, damp, from a low branch nearby, their outlines only just visible to mortal eyes on this night of the new moon.
Sesshomaru eyed him from the rock he sat on, watching the wheels turn in his half-brother's head as he tried to fit the pieces together. He had not bothered to wash the suikan, as it was spun from youkai fur and had the ability to repair and clean itself to a certain extent, so he had covered Inuyasha with it, to shield that frail human body from the cold.
His own clothes had dried on him some time ago, and their brilliant whiteness glowed softly in the dark along with the pallor of his fur and the sweep of his silver hair, so that he was the next thing Inuyasha's human eyes spotted.
The brothers had maintained a distant peace since Naraku's destruction several months ago, and had not crossed weapons in a fair while, but disorientation and the old instincts took sway, and Inuyasha unthinkingly groped for his sword, found it beside him, and grasped the hilt.
"Sesshomaru?" he growled, squinting at the pale figure a stone's throw away as he staggered to his feet. "What's going on? What the hell did you do to me?"
Sesshomaru regarded him impassively in complete silence, not moving a hair.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Inuyasha yelled, shifting into a more stable stance. "'You going deaf in your old age or something?"
Sesshomaru held three more seconds of silence before asking coldly in response: "What do you suppose I did to you?"
"I'm asking you, asshole! Did you undress me? What's the big idea?"
"It was necessary in order to clean you up. The stench was intolerable."
Inuyasha drew breath to make a retort, but his brain suddenly caught up with his mouth, and he shut his trap again as he twigged that he did in fact seem unharmed apart from what the beast had done to him earlier, still had his sword in his possession, and was actually quite clean for someone who had been rolling about in mud and monster drool not two hours ago.
He relaxed his grip on the Tetsusaiga's hilt and asked with a mix of suspicion and curiosity: "So what'd you do? Throw me in that pool?"
Sesshomaru did not condescend to reply.
Being unable to see his brother's features as clearly as his brother could see his should have given Inuyasha further cause for feeling unnerved, but as his fuzzy-headedness gradually cleared, he grew calmer, for his surroundings – and his companion – radiated no threatening vibes (not that he could be absolutely certain until his hanyou senses returned to him), but instead stilled him with an unfamiliar sense of security.
Deciding that he wasn't about to get an answer from Sesshomaru any time soon, but reassured by that strange feeling that he wasn't about to get stabbed in the back either, Inuyasha huffed and stalked over to the water, following the sound of the bubbling spring.
He squatted at the pool's edge and splashed the warm water onto his face and over his hair, although there wasn't much left to clean off, for Sesshomaru had done a good job. But from the waist down, he still felt grimy and sticky, and in need of a thorough soak.
"Any monster eels in there or anything else I should know about before I jump in?" he asked sardonically, throwing the question over his shoulder at the pale figure still on the rock under a tree.
"No," came the short reply.
"Okay, don't mind me then."
Inuyasha unabashedly stripped off the remainder of his clothing and waded into the water, taking his white, pyjama-like, lower undergarments with him to wash them. The water was soothing, but his wounds stung, especially the puncture marks where he remembered that the youkai had stabbed him with its spindly legs. He was clear-headed enough by now to realise that someone – obviously Sesshomaru – had thoroughly cleaned out the hairy bits of leg which he knew had been left jammed in his flesh after he had hacked the rest of them off.
Now, that was freaky. Saving his ass from an ugly beast was one thing – but tenderly cleaning him up? Seriously, that was weird.
Inuyasha suddenly felt self-conscious about standing naked in a spring pool not twenty feet from where Sesshomaru sat, knowing that the taiyoukai could see him as clear as day while he himself, damn his human vision, couldn't even tell if Sesshomaru's head was turned this way or not.
So what if he was completely submerged in the water from his chest down? For all he knew, Sesshomaru could see right through deep pools in the dark as well.
He turned his back to his half-brother and hastily scrubbed roughly at the hakama underlayers in his hands, although he could barely see what he was doing and couldn't tell if he was getting any spots out or not.
He then tied the trouser legs about his waist to keep the garments from floating away, and soaked himself some more to ease the kinks out of his sore muscles. Ouch, ouch, and ouch again. He couldn't wait for the sunrise so that his hanyou powers would help knit everything back together quick – and so that he could take a good look at Sesshomaru to see if he could spot any clues in his face about what had gone on while he'd been knocked out.
Who was he kidding? No amount of staring at Sesshomaru's face had ever given him any clues as to what was going on behind that impassive mask, and that probably hadn't changed overnight.
Inuyasha thought he would be quite content to stay right there for the rest of the night, steeped in that pool like one of those meaty ribs Kaede occasionally simmered in her cooking pot to make soup. Not because he really needed the warmth of the spring much longer – he felt a lot better already – but because, well, because he felt nervous about coming back out of the water in front of Sesshomaru.
He must have stood there for several more minutes after that self-awareness dawned on him, when Sesshomaru's voice glided through the darkness like a warm knife through those slabs of butter Kagome had sometimes brought over to them through the well.
"Are you attempting to cook yourself into soup?" he heard him say, with a certain tone in his voice that – if he hadn't known better – almost sounded like amusement.
Inuyasha flushed as he wondered if he had read his mind when he had thought of Kaede's broths. He hoped, on all the powers that were in the universe, that the water was concealing the scent of his unease from his brother's sensitive nose.
"Wh-what?" was all he managed to stammer out, to cover up his discomfort.
"If you stay in there much longer, you'll probably dissolve."
What? So he really was having a laugh at his expense? Feeling ridiculous for being as nervous as he was, Inuyasha gathered courage from his growing annoyance with himself and with the taiyoukai and waded out of the pool, hoping that Sesshomaru was well-bred enough to avert his eyes.
On the shore, he hastily pulled on his fire-rat hakama, the only dry thing he had within reach, and knotted its sash about his waist more tightly than was absolutely necessary.
"Why so shy all of a sudden?" the voice came at him evenly again. "You had no hesitation about disrobing in front of me earlier."
Oh, kami, had he not averted his eyes after all?
"What the hell is wrong with you, Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha flared up. He hoped his display of anger masked the flaming of his cheeks.
And that thought really made him mad now, for indeed, what was he so abashed about? Surely there was nothing here Sesshomaru hadn't seen before… was there?
The realisation broke on Inuyasha anew that he had so many gaps in his knowledge about his past, so many things he had been far too young to know about what his half-brother knew about him. Perhaps he had seen him naked as the day he was born when he was a child. Perhaps. Perhaps not. He didn't know, and wasn't about to ask.
He stomped back to where he had left his suikan and sword, and sat down on the grass in a pique.
The silence lasted all of five minutes before Inuyasha, feeling a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, hissed out in distinctly staccato syllables: "Stop. Staring. At. Me."
To his considerable alarm, Sesshomaru's reaction to that order was to rise to his feet and walk slowly over to him. Inuyasha froze in panic as the booted feet padded across the grass, the pale figure in them coming to a stop before him, towering over him.
Should he scramble away and run for it? Grab the Tetsusaiga and stick it in Sesshomaru's groin? Kick him? What?
While he dithered in mental and emotional disorder, the taiyoukai leaned down and reached a pale hand towards the side of his head. He should have reacted – in fact, he always overreacted to Sesshomaru – but tonight, he felt bolted to the spot where he sat, immobile and incapable of defending himself.
The long, claw-tipped fingers stirred the hair that fell against his cheek, then lightly pressed against his scalp and withdrew again with a light tug on the lock beside his ear.
As he did all that in one calm movement, he said to Inuyasha: "You have a water bug in your hair."
Oh.
Inuyasha's racing heart steadied itself to wind down its furious pace as Sesshomaru flicked the bug between his fingers back in the direction of the pool, turned away and resumed his almost meditative position on the rock.
Inuyasha spoke not another word for the rest of the night, and did not even turn his head when Sesshomaru, at some point, moved from his rock to put on his armour and sash before taking his seat once more.
Nothing else happened after that, and they sat in their respective spots, in silence, until the dawn broke.
As he felt the welcome transformation come upon him – fangs extending in his mouth, hanyou claws growing back out from human nails, mane of hair filling out with silver, muscles gathering greater strength and definition – he also felt his brother's eyes on him, watching the change, and scented on the air Sesshomaru's interest in what he was witnessing.
When the transformation was complete, Inuyasha stood up and turned to face his brother, who was regarding him with unreadable golden eyes and a mien that gave nothing away.
"What are you looking at?" he growled, but with less aggressiveness than he would have liked.
He did not really expect a reply, but to his surprise, he got one: "You."
Then Sesshomaru got up and walked away.
What was all that about? Inuyasha wondered as he himself rose to snatch his nagajuban and hadajuban off the branch where they had hung all night to dry. Was he just sitting around waiting for my transformation? Just to see it up close? Or was he… no… surely he couldn't have been… um… watching over me until I was in hanyou form again and able to look after myself?
Surely not.
But the possibility of it lingered, and Inuyasha felt almost – almost – warm and fuzzy towards the demon until his fingers reached for the left sleeve of his hadajuban and found it ripped right off.
Instantly, he flared up again, yelling at the figure of Sesshomaru rapidly growing smaller in the distance: "Hey! What'd you do to my undershirt, you jerk?"
No response, of course. Of course.
Then another thought occurred to Inuyasha as he looked around him and sniffed the air, only to find his surroundings completely unfamiliar.
"And where the hell am I, anyway?" he hollered.
No response. Of course.
Inuyasha grabbed the rest of his clothes and his sword and scrambled after Sesshomaru.
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And You, My Brother