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And You, My Brother	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 15030 -:- 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 V: Like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief
Inuyasha sat cross-legged on the floor of the Bone Eater's well that had once been the link between Kagome's time and his. The dirt was now unyielding beneath him whereas it had once unfailingly dissolved in a burst of light, expanding into a passage through which he and Kagome would free-fall before its solid walls reassembled about them as they emerged into her time, or his, depending on which way they travelled.
It had been a good while since he had jumped in just to sit at the bottom, staring alternately up at the square patch of sky above or the rough walls before him. It was not that he didn't want to do this more often – he would have sat right here every day and night of these past months, if he could have – but his friends had worried endlessly about him, and he did not want to waste breath or tax his brain in arguments with them.
He thought back to the weeks after Kagome had made that last unselfish wish on the Shikon no Tama, and he had simply been swept back into his world and she left in hers, leaving behind them a portal that no longer worked and a half-demon whose heart felt it would shatter into as many pieces as the Shikon jewel had once been.
He had leapt into the well every day, several times a day, hoping against hope that maybe this time – no, this time – it would work. He had to get to her. He couldn't just let her go like that. He had to try, and keep trying, over and over again.
Eventually, he had taken to sitting inside the well. It made him feel better to think that perhaps Kagome was doing the very same in her own time, and they were side by side now in the very same spot, only half a millennium apart, and he was glad for her sake that in her world, she had the wellhouse to keep her dry and safe.
As the days passed and he remained there, all his friends – Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Kaede, even Hachi and Myoga – had come by turns and together to keep him company, to try and talk him into looking after himself better, to shelter him when it rained, and bring him food and water. Kirara would snuggle in his lap when she was not away with Kohaku, little Rin who was now living with Kaede would tag along with the miko to give him flowers, and once, old Totosai had come by to lament that Tetsusaiga deserved a better fate than to grow rusty lying down there in all that mud.
It had gone on like that for weeks, until one particularly stormy afternoon, Shippo had flung the food he had brought for him upon his head and yelled at him with tears filling his enormous green eyes.
"Inuyasha! Stop it! Stop doing this!" the kitsune had cried at him from the mouth of the well, where he had perched his little body on the wooden casing. "How long are you going to just sit there like that? I miss Kagome too – I miss her so much – but I can't stand to think how she would feel if she knew you were torturing yourself like this. Inuyasha, please come out and come back to us – we need you too, you know?"
He had been able to scent the child-fox's scalding tears in the air, mingling with the raindrops that fell through the well shaft, splattering into the dirt that wouldn't yield for them, for him, for Kagome.
Almost immediately repenting of his outburst, Shippo had jumped into the well to throw his tiny arms round Inuyasha's neck, saying he was sorry, and to confess that he too would be sitting here like this if he had ever had the power to travel through the portal.
"I know you'll sense it even from miles away if the portal opens again, Inuyasha," Shippo had mumbled, his voice muffled by the half-demon's thick mane of hair, in which he had buried his face. "You'll feel it, I know you will. And if Kagome comes back, you'll know it too – you'll sense her presence, from wherever you are. You will."
The kitsune's emotions had moved Inuyasha, and as he tried to comfort the child, he began to accept the necessity of getting on with life for the sake of his friends, even then knowing that he would still sneak back out to the well once in a while when everyone stopped worrying so much about him. The fact that he was actually consoling Shippo instead of punching his bushy little head into a crop of lumps as he usually did whenever the kitsune upset him was insight enough for Inuyasha that he really was a mess, and that he did need his friends.
So he had pulled himself together and returned to the village, to the warmth of Kaede's hut and his circle of companions. In the weeks that followed, they had celebrated Miroku's and Sango's wedding, reinforced the spells and barriers around the village that would keep out the odd rampaging demon, and just got on with everyday life.
But in the deep of night, or when he had a legitimate reason to be away from the village, Inuyasha would return to the well, sitting with his back to the wooden casing, or leaning over the timber to stare into its depths, willing Kagome's face to appear, and for her cheerful voice to ring out that she needed help climbing out of there.
That was how he had come to be alone and attacked by that beastly youkai on the night of the new moon three days ago. When Kaede had earlier announced her intention to visit Miroku and Sango at the slayers' village and stay for a few days, he had declined to go, saying he could see the couple by himself later instead of making such a crowd with her and Rin and Shippo.
He had seized the opportunity to spend those days at the well without being nagged by anyone – after all, the other villagers knew better than to try and talk a hot-tempered half-demon out of anything. And on the night of the new moon, he had still been there, alone and vulnerable instead of returning before dusk to the safety of the village proper as he should have in his state, full of the scent of humanity and isolation that must have called like a dinner bell to that stupid youkai.
Not wanting to draw the monster back to the village with him, he had taken off in the opposite direction, through the deepest woods, and completely run out of breath and strength by the time the beast got in its first hit. Inuyasha was honest enough to know that he had been an idiot to have put himself in that position in the first place, and that he would undoubtedly have been youkai food if Sesshomaru hadn't swooped in.
Now, back inside the well, he fingered the spot on his shoulder into which the creature had sunk its mandible. In the moments after Sesshomaru had killed the beast, Inuyasha had been more concerned about the bits of leg stuck in his chest, but it occurred to him at this point that the mandible had perhaps posed a bigger threat. The saliva of that class of youkai sometimes contained substances that had a sedative effect, so that prey could be rendered less troublesome.
That, and not the injuries he had sustained, must have been the main reason he had been unconscious right through Sesshomaru's… erm… ministrations, for want of a better word.
The wounds were completely healed, not a single mark remaining thanks to his hanyou strength, and only a mild numbness lingered under the spot where he had been bitten. Even that was fading fast, but it was a reminder of his stupidity – and of Sesshomaru's protection.
He had nothing to fear tonight, now that he possessed his usual abilities and strength. With his half-demon vibes, most moronic beasts would think twice – if they could think at all – before coming for him. If they were still dumb enough to, well, he could take them on, no problem.
Fingering the dirt of the well floor once more and finding it as impassable as it had been five minutes previously, Inuyasha sighed and leaped out of the well into the starlit night. He leaned over one side of the wooden casing and stared down into the place he had just occupied, again willing Kagome to come back.
He should have loved her better. He should never have given her cause to feel that she was only a stopgap for the times he could not be with Kikyo. What a fool he had been. Kagome had represented life for him whereas Kikyo had symbolised death; Kagome had meant hope and happiness while the reanimated Kikyo had pointed him only towards pain and hellfire; even at the end, when Kikyo had passed on at last in peace, he had known that although he had truly loved her, they could never have built an untarnished future together, not when their togetherness meant excising half of what made him Inuyasha.
Kagome had never wanted him to be anything other than fully himself, even though she had always been perfectly aware from the start that she would grow old and die long before he even began to show signs of age.
And yet, she had loved him with a purity of heart he could never begin to deserve.
"Kagome," he whispered into the well. "I'm so sorry, Kagome. I should have told you how much I loved you. Can you hear me over there?"
What if the well never reopened? What if she was never able to come back, and he could never go to her? Could he live on for the next five hundred years, waiting for her to be born in the future? Could he wait and watch from the shadows five hundred years from now, until she turned fifteen and fell into the well? Could he wait and watch and yearn some more for months and months while she travelled back and forth, until the well closed for the final time and he could run to her at last, to tell her that he was hers, body and soul? Would she accept an older version of him, or would she weep for the young hanyou she had just left behind in the past? Would he even live that long? What was a hanyou's lifespan, anyway? He had no idea – he didn't exactly have a plethora of older, wiser half-demons to check with.
He then wondered what it would mean if that plan came to pass: would it mean that while his five-hundred-years-from-now self would be reuniting with Kagome, his old self would be back here, still pining for her? It boggled the mind, and started his temples throbbing.
He shook his head to clear it from the tangled web it had been weaving. Perhaps he could think better if he jumped back in. In and out, in and out, like in those first few weeks. He might just leap back in and refuse to ever re-emerge. But no, if he was going to keep himself alive for the next five hundred years, he had better stay in good shape, and that meant no more sitting for days on end inside damp holes deep in the ground.
Then again, what would it hurt to check one more time, just one more time, if the portal would reopen? His hands gripped the timber casing, and he readied himself to leap back into the well, when a familiar wash of power and vibes and scent broke around him like a wave sweeping over a stone, and a firm, cool voice reached his ears from the darkness behind him, saying: "Inuyasha. Enough."
Inuyasha gripped the wood a little harder, his claws almost digging into the casing, wanting to ignore that presence and jump into the well anyway in defiance of that order.
He decided to go for it. So he bunched his muscles to jump, but a strong hand grasped his shoulder and forced him to stay right where he was.
The voice, very close now, said again: "Enough."
The hand released his shoulder as it felt his muscles relax in a sign that he would not jump at this point in time, and he turned around on the spot to look up into Sesshomaru's calm, beautiful face.
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And You, My Brother