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
- 5
- 6
- 7
Chapter VI: To arms
Hemmed in between Sesshomaru and the Bone Eater's well, Inuyasha locked eyes with his half-brother. He planted his feet firmly and held his head high, but he was still reeling from reopening the wounds in his heart and mind over Kagome, and this was not a good time to have to face the taiyoukai.
The raw emotions that had just shot through him left him feeling exposed now, and slightly cowed by Sesshomaru's imposing proximity – although he would die before ever admitting that. So he assumed an air of boldness he did not own right there and then, and held his eyes steady through sheer force of obstinacy.
He waited for Sesshomaru to say why he was here. But the taiyoukai remained silent and still, plumbing the depths of the hanyou's soul with his unwavering golden gaze.
Under the surface, Inuyasha frantically tried to drain the pool of naked vulnerability that had collected in his heart, smothering his courage, and to replace it with a flow of bravery which was, unfortunately for him, trickling into the gap at a miserable pace.
To shore up his confidence, he cleared his throat audibly, strongarmed his tongue into service and said with mock seriousness: "You know, Sesshomaru, most people don't stand quite this close and stare into each other's eyes for this long without deciding whether they're going to kiss or kill each other. So which will it be?"
A small growl of annoyance issued from Sesshomaru's throat, but it was accompanied by a fractional turning aside of his body, a minuscule gesture which communicated to Inuyasha that it was safe to move out of that tight space into which he had been sandwiched for the past few minutes.
He took several steps from the well, faced his brother again at a more comfortable distance, and asked: "Why are you here?"
Sesshomaru ignored his query and posed a question of his own: "Is this what you were doing on the night you were human? Wallowing here in self-pity?"
Inuyasha gave no answer, which was as good as an answer for Sesshomaru, who promptly pronounced his verdict: "You idiot."
"Have you come here to insult me?" Inuyasha snapped.
"No. I came to see if your life was still worth preserving. Apparently, it is not. "
"So you'll appoint yourself to the task of putting me out of my misery?"
"Look at yourself, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru snarled. "Grovelling inside a filthy well like a worm, pining after some lost female."
"You know nothing about what I'm doing here, you jackass!" Inuyasha stormed, the heat intensifying in his blood, his mind spinning furiously to try and remember exactly how much Sesshomaru knew about the workings of the well.
"You're pathetic," Sesshomaru spat. "If Father knew this was what his hanyou son would come to, he would think it more honourable for me to end your existence than to let you drag yourself through the dirt like prey, inviting every passing beast to feed on you."
Inuyasha's rising pride and rage drove him to yell at Sesshomaru: "Fine! Then try and end it, you son of a bitch!"
Even as he shouted out that challenge and drew the Tetsusaiga, which flared into the mighty fang it truly was, a tiny voice sounded through the rush of blood in his head: Oh, kami, I'm supposed to live for Kagome – I'm not supposed to die yet – what the hell am I doing?
And he knew that his heart simply wasn't in it – he really didn't want to fight right here, right now.
He stood poised for Sesshomaru's attack, but he sneered instead of flying at him, and said: "I'm not going to let you die that quickly, Inuyasha. Let's see how long you'll keep crawling on through your miserable existence after I destroy all hope for recovering what you had."
Then Sesshomaru launched an assault on the well.
Inuyasha cried out in fury, terror surging through every pore as he realised that even if he or Kagome found some way to reopen the portal, it might no longer work if the physical structure was wrecked. What if Kagome came through only to be crushed by the weight of the earth because the well had crumbled into nothing? What if its destruction here meant that the well of the future would abruptly vanish, because it would have ceased to exist five hundred years back in its past?
He could not risk using the Tetsusaiga's powers, because his target was right there beside the thing he had to preserve, and a blast of the wind scar or a shower of diamond shards might do worse damage to the well and its surroundings than to Sesshomaru.
Dipping his claws into his chest, he hurled a frantic barrage of his own blood at his brother, only to see him deflect every one of the crimson blades with ease.
In desperation, Inuyasha dived into the blaze and swirl of the lightning-like whip that issued from Sesshomaru's claws, with which the demon had already slashed the well casing thrice, making the surprisingly resilient timber split and groan. Wielding Tetsusaiga like a regular sword, he parried the path of the whip away from the well, then blocked off the lash again on its return as Sesshomaru swung a backhand blow at the casing.
"Damn you, Sesshomaru! Fight me! I'm your target!" he yelled, positioning his body between the well and the powerful being bent on reducing it to rubble.
Sesshomaru hung fire, arcs of light leaping between the claws of his hand, ready for the next round of battle, and asked in a voice brimming with contempt: "Is this what you want to die for, little brother? This?"
"No, you bastard, it's what I want to live for!" Inuyasha roared and charged at him, fending off with his sword the cracks of the whip that now came crashing down upon him.
He drove Sesshomaru back, away from the well, and took aim at him with the Tetsusaiga, ready to blow him to smithereens with a hailstorm of adamant shards before he could pull his usual lightning-swift trick of taking flight and reappearing somewhere else totally unexpected.
But Sesshomaru was lightning-swift in more ways than one, and he unfurled his whip directly at Inuyasha, gashing his wrist so deeply that the hanyou dropped the Tetsusaiga. Another flick, and Inuyasha's face was slashed all the way down the right, from forehead to jawbone, narrowly missing his eye, which had been protected only by its socket.
Before he could lunge for the Tetsusaiga, stuck in the grass a body-length away from him, Sesshomaru flew at him, slammed the palm of his right hand into his body and sent him reeling backwards, all the breath driven out of his lungs from that single blow directly below his ribcage.
Inuyasha staggered on his feet for another moment or two, then dropped to his knees, dazed, bleeding and completely winded. The seconds passed and he thought that was how he was going to die – simply from being unable to breathe, for his lungs were paralysed.
Inhaling toxic miasma and all the rest of that shit was one thing, but not being able to draw breath at all was another.
His hands sought the ground before him, and he could not keep his head from drooping even as Sesshomaru walked towards him.
The taiyoukai seized a handful of Inuyasha's hair and jerked his head up so he could look into his face.
"You fool," he heard Sesshomaru snarl, and knew this was it – this was how it would end, on his knees in the dirt at his brother's hands.
But the blow that struck him between his shoulder blades in the very next moment was not from poison claws or steel or fangs, but a smart thump on his back that snapped his lungs into action so that the life-giving air rushed into his body, and he gulped it all in greedily like a creature saved from drowning.
Sesshomaru released the fistful of hair he had grabbed, leaving both hands free to take hold of his brother under his arms and haul him across the grass to a fallen tree, upon whose thick trunk he sat him as if he were a misbehaving child in for a stern lecture.
Inuyasha, light-headed from hyperventilating, stared blankly from his perch as Sesshomaru, not a hair out of place, lowered himself to his level and sat on his haunches before him to push back his messed-up hair with his fingers so that he could peer into his face. He's not looking into my eyes, though, Inuyasha thought numbly. He's looking at the slash he just made all the way down my pretty little cheek. The jackass.
But now the jackass was examining his wrist, scrutinising the deep gash that had made him drop Tetsusaiga, and muttering something. It took a moment for Inuyasha's ears to register that what he had said was: "You'll live."
Sesshomaru moved to rise, but Inuyasha clutched at the right sleeve of his haori with his good hand and held him back as he forced out these words with effort: "Touch the well again… and I swear I'll haunt you from hell… for the next three thousand years of your sorry life."
"Inuyasha, you are an idiot," the taiyoukai said, snatching his sleeve back from the fingers that gripped it, and drawing himself up to his full height.
"You told me that already, you jerk."
Ignoring him, Sesshomaru continued: "If I had truly wished to destroy the well, do you think I couldn't have reduced it to nothing with a single blow?"
Still woolly-headed, Inuyasha tried but could not process at normal mental speed what Sesshomaru was saying. He was starting to feel like the idiot his brother declared him to be when it clicked.
"Are you telling me that you were just testing me, you scumbag?"
"Inuyasha, I do not know when or if that miko will return. But until she does, or until you determine that she never will, I want to know that you will live fully or die honourably, not waste away through the remainder of your existence. The girl may be gone, but there are other things worth living and dying for."
"Like what?" Inuyasha inquired.
"Do I have to teach you everything?" Sesshomaru countered rhetorically.
"Huh. Well, you could try teaching me how slicing my face open and almost taking my hand off counts as 'testing' me. You call this testing?" Inuyasha asked, wide-eyed, indicating the deep gash on his right wrist that went all the way down to the bone.
"It will heal in half a day, you spoilt brat," Sesshomaru growled.
Wading through the haze in his brain, and conveniently forgetting that he had always fully recovered from taiyoukai-arm-sized holes right through his abdomen, punctured eyeballs courtesy of the very same being and worse, Inuyasha stared dazedly at the gash and murmured: "I don't know, it looks pretty serious to me."
He heard Sesshomaru inhale deeply and release the breath in a sigh. That was followed by his stooping down in front of him again, this time looking into his eyes. Then he took Inuyasha's hand and re-examined the exposed flesh and bone of his wrist.
"If it makes you feel better…" Sesshomaru said, letting his words trail off as he lifted the injured wrist to his mouth, pressed his lips to the gash and probed the wound with his tongue. As he tended to the gash, he locked his eyes on Inuyasha's again, holding his gaze and reading his reaction on his face.
Oh dear heaven, was the first thought that floated through Inuyasha's head. Sesshomaru's tongue is in my wrist.
The second series of thoughts that came to Inuyasha was: Doesn't he have toxic breath or drool or something? Maybe he's trying to kill me in a whole new way – Death by Dog Breath Delivered Directly to Wrist. Maybe he can control when it's poisonous or not. Or maybe it happens only when he's a giant dog.
The third thought that drifted into his mind was: Hell, that hurts, but it somehow feels pretty damn good. Oh kami, what am I thinking?
His thoughts were interrupted by Sesshomaru saying: "It should heal faster now." He released his hand but still looked directly into Inuyasha's eyes.
"You're really not trying to kill me any more, are you?" the hanyou asked, somewhat stupidly.
"You really are an idiot, aren't you? I'm trying to protect you," Sesshomaru replied.
The declaration caught Inuyasha off-guard, hitting a tender spot in his psyche. He fought the tears that suddenly threatened to well up in his eyes for Kagome, for Kikyo, for his mother's death so long ago, for everyone he had ever cared about and lost, and most of all, for wondering if he might not possibly be completely safe for the first time in his life.
To wrest back control of his emotions and keep his demeanour calm, he forced himself to speak in a small but steady voice, saying to Sesshomaru: "Well then, finish the job, why don't you? You've missed a spot."
He pointed to the long, bloodied line on his face, cut open by Sesshomaru's whip.
The taiyoukai scanned his eyes for a moment longer, to be certain that the hanyou wasn't babbling from pure brain damage. Seemingly satisfied by what he saw, he drew his head towards him and kissed the cut on his brow. His lips traced the line downwards to his eyelid, where he planted another kiss and a warm lick as Inuyasha closed his eyes, slowly working his way down over his cheek till he reached his jawbone, where the wound ended.
"Better?" he asked, drawing back, but keeping one hand on the back of the half-demon's head.
Inuyasha opened his eyes and nodded.
"Hmm. You said earlier that I should either kiss you or kill you. I seem to have gone with the kissing option."
Mutely, Inuyasha nodded again. The tears kept threatening, and he felt like a brittle vessel about to crack. This was ridiculous. He couldn't cry in front of anyone, especially not Sesshomaru.
But he was right there scrutinising his features and penetrating him with those golden eyes that missed nothing, and all it took was for him to say in gentler tones than usual: "Just let it out before you choke and drown," for Inuyasha to fold into his brother's arms, prompting the taiyoukai to ease into a sitting position on the grass with one leg folded under him and the other drawn up.
Inuyasha still refused to let the tears flow, however. It was horrible enough that he was clinging to Sesshomaru's left arm – the one he had once hacked off with the Tetsusaiga – like a traumatised child holding tight to everything that represented security; he didn't need to go the whole hog and cry like a baby as well, did he? As it was, he would never live this down. Ever.
Then he felt Sesshomaru undoing his breastplate with his free hand and setting the armour aside on the ground so that he could pull him closer without crushing him against sharp spikes and unyielding plates. He felt him stroke his hair and his ears and heard him say: "I've got you."
And that was when the tears came.
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And You, My Brother