A Rickety Bridge

A/N: Portions of this chapter draw from part 356 of vol. 36 of the Inuyasha manga. Though I have altered character dialogue to adapt the story to this medium and this fiction, it is not mine but Rumiko Takahashi’s. It also references heavily the battle in parts 353-355 of vol. 36; I skipped over that battle because I didn’t want to adapt it to this story—I felt it would break the pacing and take the focus away from where I wanted it in the story. Just know that a big-deal battle happened between the last chapter and this one.

Chapter Seven: Bedside Manner

Sango clenched her knees to her chest against the chill of the evening. Kaede’s hut was well heated for the most part, but she was huddled in the corner next to the window. Miroku was asleep beside her. Kagome was leaning against the far wall. Kaede and Shippou were just outside preparing medicinal herbs quietly as they could seem to manage with Shippou’s clumsiness so as not to wake the wounded houshi, but Sango was ignoring them.

She was in that half-conscious state of shock she was becoming all too familiar with. She felt it when her home was destroyed and her parents were killed, when she discovered her brother Kohaku possessed and manipulated for purposes that made her insides ache with disgust. And now, Miroku nearly dying to save them all—taking the Saimyoushou’s poison and holding up the barrier until he passed out in stomach acid, just like the chivalrous ass he could be.

They had been so foolish. Naraku had lead them into an obvious trap, but they had been too eager to actualize their revenge and complete their quest to see it coming. Inside the belly of a gigantic stone oni, she and her friends had very nearly been digested. Inuyasha and Kagome had braved the acid to use their sole remaining Shikon fragment and blast through the wall of the stomach. Sango had never felt as useless and impotent in her entire life as she had holding the unconscious houshi in her arms while the disintegrating steam swirled around them. She had taken off her gas mask, placed it over his mouth, and shaken him bodily, begging him to breathe. For one unrelentingly long moment, she’d thought he was gone. Dead.

But he wasn’t. She should be happy, relieved that he had pulled through. But she couldn’t bring herself to be. He was breathing beside her, but it felt like he had died. It wasn’t as though he had never come close to death before—it wasn’t even as though she didn’t understand the curse he bore. But it was different to be holding him in her arms, feeling him slip away in her limbs. Miroku’s life was fragile. So very fragile in a way she’d never allowed herself to acknowledge, even if she could say the words “he has less than a year to live”. She wasn’t playing a game of if she lost him, but rather when she lost him. Sango felt tears in her throat but they did not reach her eyes. She was too anesthetized and too motionless. That surprised her, the numbness.

She was sick of this—the whirlwind of it. The heft of it. Her feelings for Miroku had especially been a trial. She didn’t know if it was because he was right there, every day, but it took effort for the emotions he brought out in her blur and fade. Each moment with him took on a defined and weighty significance that stood in sharp relief to everything else that passed through her. It was painful and it was draining. But she was finally beginning to master it.

She was a woman now, in the most basic sense of the word—Miroku had seen to that. He had taken her virginity, but that was the catalyst, not the change. The needs of a child, to be nurtured, cared for, were slipping away. Sango had always worried that giving herself to Miroku would leave her a heap of emotions at his mercy. But her fears, it seemed were based in naiveté. In letting go of her childhood, she was able to see her relationship with Miroku clearly. They would fight together. He would die one way or another at Naraku’s hand. Should she survive, she would marry someone else. This man lying next to her was her lover, not her husband. It was very simple. Miroku was not for her.

She could sense her romantic ideals hardening inside her and felt almost like a third party looking on—as though this disillusionment were happening to someone else. She felt an odd and cold fascination at the realization.

What surprised her most, however, was the freedom she felt. It was a process that began the moment she decided to go to Miroku’s room and was completed when he was revived from the Saimyoushou in her arms. Accepting the world as it was, Miroku as he was, and their circumstances as they were, left her free to love him with an abandon she had previously thought impossible. She didn’t have to worry over what sort of husband or father he would make, or the fact that he couldn’t seem to stay in one place long enough to claim it “home”, or even that he couldn’t keep his hands off any pretty girl that happened to wander within arm’s length. All of that was trivial if she only had months left to spend with him. The only thing that mattered was that she loved him. The simplicity of it was lovely and despairing at once.

“I’ve boiled the herbs,” Kaede announced entering the hut. “They should help mitigate the pain caused by the acid.”

Kagome stepped forward and took the bowl from the older woman. “Thank you Kaede-baa-chan.” She sat down on the floor and slowly lowered her burned and blistered feet into the mixture, wincing slightly at the first touch.

Kaede turned to Sango, “How is houshi-dono fairing?”

Sango looked at Miroku for the first time in hours. “I don’t think he’s completely shaken off the poison of the Saimyoushou yet.”

Kagome looked up from the bowl. “Have you seen Inuyasha?”

The old woman gestured with an inclination with her head. “Last I saw he was sitting out on the fence sulking.”

Shippou made a rude noise. “He’s probably just ticked about losing out to the Shikon fragment’s evil.”

“He used the fragment?” Kaede was alarmed.

“Yes,” Kagome said, an undercurrent of firmness in her voice indicating her defense of Inuyasha. “Thanks to his bravery we were all saved.”

“And thanks to your powers of purification, Inuyasha didn’t completely youkai on us,” the kitsune put in. He didn’t see Inuyasha entering the hut behind him. “The big hanyou bastard has a ways to go.”

Inuyasha clipped him across the head absently, and stepped toward Kagome. He glanced around briefly, then commanded, “Come with me.”

Kagome paused, a bit wide-eyed, and slowly lifted her feet out of the bowl. She took the hand Inuyasha held out to her and, rising to her feet, followed him out of the hut.

Shippou waited until he knew the pair was out of hearing range before saying, “That bastard better be taking her to apologize.”

“Now Shippou,” Kaede admonished. “Their business is not ours.”

“Sure it is,” he disagreed.

Sango hid a smile behind her hand, meeting eyes with the older woman.

Kaede held her hand out to Shippou, “Come.”

“Why?”

“So that you can help me gather more herbs and finish the laundry.”

Shippou groaned but got to his feet.

Kaede turned to the taiji-ya. “I’ll watch the fire and tend to houshi-sama,” Sango answered the question before she could ask it.

The old priestess and the kitsune cub lifted the flap and exited the hut, Shippou’s mouth already pouring out a story about an encounter he once had with a kappa.

“They’re gone?”

Sango started when she heard Miroku’s voice. Her gaze swung to the ailing young man at her side. His eyes were open. He seemed pale to her and he was still very handsome—though she wasn’t entirely assured of her judgment. Since they met he had grown more beautiful in her eyes almost daily and she knew that her feelings had distorted her perception devastatingly. She could feel her pulse ticking in her throat.

“Yes,” she whispered. “They’re gone.”

His gaze was steadily and slightly unnerving. “Good.”

Sango found herself smiling girlishly, the heavy graveness of the past hours evaporating away. She knew if it weren’t for the effects of his presence she would be disconcerted by that fact, but as it was, the butterflies in her stomach were zinging this way and that.

“Yes,” she replied absently, her skin humming too loudly for coherent thought to form. “It’s good.”

He smiled tiredly. “Good,” he repeated.

“Are you feeling better?” she asked taking his hand.

He closed his eyes and she knew he was going to lie even before he spoke, “Of course. Those herbs of Kaede’s are starting to kick in.”

“What can I do to make the pain less?”

All he did was open his eyes, but Sango felt a hot shiver shake her. Was there really suggestion in his gaze, or did she just want there to be?

Her thoughts, much to her shame, had turned prurient without so much as a nudge. It was a phenomenon with which she was becoming more and more familiar. Parts of her body that had before seemed extraneous and inconvenient developed sudden purpose under Miroku’s practiced touch. Stretches of skin that had never seemed to have much feeling were veritable hot-zones. Her body had always been a tool, had always been utilitarian. She was a warrior after all, and her body was a weapon. But Miroku had awakened her to an even more basic functionality of her physical form—one for which it seemed she was specifically designed.

Miroku identified the gleam in her eyes with a satisfied smirk. “Is my virtue in danger, young miss?”

Sango looked down, her face growing hot. She was very much in favor of violating his virtue, but she was still too modest to play his games. They were just a bit too casual and practiced for her tastes, and she wasn’t quite so jaded as yet to make light of her fall from maidenhood.

Instead she lifted a tentative but purposeful hand and placed it on his chest. There was a moment before she raised her eyes back to his. Her face flushed with excitement and nervousness at what they were contemplating doing, Sango asked him, her voice serious, “Are you feeling up to it?”

“I am always up to that.”

Sango glanced at the entrance. “What if...?”

“They won’t be back for a while yet,” he reassured. Part of her knew that there was no way he could know that for certain, but his fingers had snaked up to the knot of her yukata and the heat of them was distracting to her common sense. She shuddered as her clothes became loose, and it was too easy to give in.

His eyes were like sinkholes, an ambuscade lying in wait to envelop her, and without realizing it, Sango had bent to kiss him. His lips tasted like medicinal tea, but she didn’t mind. They were too soft and moved too beguilingly for her to mind. His hand lifted to caress the back of her neck and she found herself moving. She didn’t know how he did it, but with just a hint or suggestion in the way he held her he could guide her to move in any way he wished. She swung a leg over him and settled on top of him.

“Sango,” he whispered between kisses, “I seem to be lacking in my usual strength. Rather than asserting my usual manly charge, I think it would be best for you to take me.”

Blushing warmly she pulled back and look at him. “Me...? T-take you?” she chewed her lip. “How?”

His eyes laughed at her. “I think you know, Sango.”

She wasn’t so sure she did, but she had an idea. She would follow what he did to her and hope that the process was similar in reverse. Sango bent to kiss him and reveled in her open yukata allowing her bare skin to rub against his robe-clad body. Only one thin layer separated them as most of his clothes had been stripped during the fever. She reached down between her straddled knees to grasp the coarse fabric and, pulling away from his mouth briefly, lifted the garment over his head. His warm, athletic arms slid inside her open clothes to stroke her bare back and pull her down to him.

She indulged him, giving his lips a bit more attention before moving to his jaw and neck. After undressing her, Miroku would take his mouth down her body and she rather discomposedly mimicked that. She would never have the audacity to tell him, but she was very near obsessed with look and feel of his chest. He was harder than she beneath his skin, and that aroused her. There was nothing but muscle and heat, and there was something almost feral about that, as though she were mating with a predator. His perfectly defined shoulders, pectorals and abs were as exciting to taste as they were to touch and the gratified noises in his throat encouraged her. She moved down even lower, finding her tongue at the crease where his torso and leg met, and she froze.

Her mind was racing. She knew what he did next, but was it something she could reciprocate? She studied his manhood, swollen and purple, jutting toward her. She weighed the embarrassment of experimenting only to find out it was improper or unpleasant with the embarrassment of asking him aloud.

“Houshi-sama?”

“Yes?” his voice was taut.

“That…that thing you do when you…kiss me?” she almost couldn’t say the words.

There was a heavy pause of silence before he spoke, “Yes.”

“D-do you...would you like me to...kiss you?”

He swallowed so hard it was visible, “Sweet Buddha yes.”

Sango smiled through her blushing, and a shiver that went through her at the coarse hunger in his reply. She didn’t let herself think about what she was about to, but rather simply lowered her head and kissed the tip very softly. It was just a shy peck, but the strained groan she was given in response slightly emboldened her. Her lips still closed, she pressed her lips to his skin once more, this time for a bit longer. She curiously studied the shaft and experimented kissing the entire length, knowing that she was putting off the slightly inevitable. Swallowing and licking her lips she went back to the head, kissing hesitantly, she slowly opened her mouth. She didn’t know quite how to do any of this, but she tried to emulate the way she kissed his mouth. She took the tip into her mouth as if it were his tongue. It was large and the fit was tight, but she stroked with her own tongue the way his did when it made her knees dizzy. Of course, she was not nearly as skilled as Miroku and she was also quite nervous, but she closed her eyes and tried to focus on the memory of the way his mouth moved with hers.

The growl that ripped his throat in response startled her and she pulled back a bit wide-eyed. He had never made a noise like that before.

Searching his face, she watched as his eyes opened. He took in her expression and she got the feeling that he was holding back no small amount of mirth. “Sorry to frighten you love, but if you had remained even a few moments longer, you would have been much more alarmed.”

Her brows furrowed and she started to ask him what he meant, but he cut her off. “We’ll have that discussion later.” He grasped her wrist and pulled her toward him, “Come here.”

She thought he just meant to pull her up to kiss him again, but was surprised when took hold of her waist instead and urged her to move up even further. She reached a point where she was on her knees, the wall of the wooden hut inches from her face, and her pelvis hovering over his face. Bashfulness bloomed in her cheeks as she realized what he meant to do.

Miroku pulled her down to his face and she whimpered before his tongue even touched her. When it did she nearly collapsed against the wall before her, her arms coming up to brace herself. He had, of course, done this before. But not from this angle. As usual, this particular act embarrassed her with its entwined intimacy and vulgarity—but it also aroused her so thoroughly her limbs shook, vibrating against the wall beneath her palms. But this...this position, it allowed him access to parts of her she never knew existed. And she felt so wanton, so wicked, crouching over his face this way.

His tongue slid up inside her and she bit her lip hard, whimpering, “Houshi-sama...”

Miroku’s fingers clutched her hips even tighter, and pulled her down harder onto his face. She gasped and then groaned—how was he getting his tongue so deep into her? How was he moving it in and out so quickly? She collapsed against the wall, her nails periodically trying to dig into the wood.

When he slipped his tongue out of her just as slickly as he had slid it in and took her throbbing nub into his mouth for a suck, she knew she needed to come. So she cried out and ground her pelvis down on his face.

Sango had long since caught onto his game. Miroku was proficient enough that he could control not only when she came, but also under what stimulation and how hard. And he always sped things up when she was vocal; she could only conclude that he enjoyed listening to her squeal.

She expected him to finish her off, but instead he stopped rather abruptly and pushed her back slightly. Sango was ready to she scream—her core was too hot and ached too painfully. She looked down between her legs to see him looking up at her.

“Sango, I think it is time for you to take me.”

Had she been even slightly less aroused, she may have shyly asked for instructions one last time, but as it was she didn’t care if she got it wrong so long as she reached her climax. She pushed away from the wall and crawled backwards down his body. She gasped loudly when she felt his fully erect and scorching hot appendage brush against first her thigh and then her slick heat. Sitting up, she took the rod in her hand and held it in place so that she could lower herself down onto it. Her wanton sigh was met with his groan of what could only be called relief.

It was different like this, she thought to herself, eyes closed. He was...deeper, filling her almost too fully. She had to move. Carefully lifting herself up and then down again, she knew that she would never shy from a chance to take him again. This was heady, being able to control the pace, the pressure. She was just getting the hang of it when Miroku stopped her.

A bit dazed, her eyes drifted open. “What?” she managed in a pant.

“Sango,” his voice didn’t sound much better, “I need to see your breasts.”

A bit startled, she looked down at her body. Her yukata was on but wide open, leaving her entire body on display save her breasts. Sango’s hand rose to pluck at the fastenings of her breast bindings, but they were just a little to shaky to be of much use. His hands rose to help hers and she was surprised when he opted to simply loosen the wrappings rather than remove them. They slid down her chest deliciously and pooled at her hips. The combined sensation of the fabric trailing over her skin and his calloused hands was too much—she had to move.

She rose and fell on his beautiful cock again, and couldn’t help but continue. If she closed her eyes she could feel his heartbeat pounding in his cock, which was not only unbelievably erotic, but also vaguely comforting, reassuring. He was alive, alive and making love to her. He wasn’t dead, not yet.

His skillful fingers stroked her breasts and he began to move his hips to meet hers. It had just dawned on her that he was close when she felt him erupt inside her. Her nails dug into the skin of his chest and she gave herself to the moment. Her climax started before his had finished and she collapsed atop him and into the comfort of his arms.

She lay there quietly while she waited for her pulse to go from racing to lazy. Sango loved this part—the laying in his arms after the fact part. There was a feeling of wholeness, of both of them having served their most basic purpose. But there was also a tender comfort. She knew it was irrational, even untrue, and that she wasn’t some simpering farmer’s daughter who hadn’t the slightest idea how to defend herself, but in the afterglow she could swear that Miroku’s arms were the safest place in the world. That they were the happiest place most certainly. These were the times when she thought most kindly of him—everything became very clear and she saw his flaws for what they were: at once irrelevant and part and parcel to the man she loved.

The man she loved.

“I love you.”

She felt him stiffen beneath her and was jolted right out of her post-coital haze. It had seemed like the most appropriate and natural thing to say just moments ago, but her rational mind had just kicked in and was telling her it was anything but. She dug her face into crook of his neck even deeper to avoid pulling back and looking up at him.

The moment seemed to stretch and stretch before he spoke. “Sango, say that again.”

She swallowed hard and summoned her courage. “I...”

“No, look at me when you say it.”

Sango chewed her lip and braced herself. She told herself it was silly—she had already said it and there was nothing she could do to erase the damage now. She slowly raised her head so that she could look him in the eye. “I...love you.”

“You really mean it, don’t you.” There was something near wonder in his voice.

She raised her chin almost defiantly. “Of course I do—and it’s not like you didn’t know. You’ve known for a long time.”

He looked away. “Yes,” he whispered, “I have.” It was a long moment before he looked back at her. “Are you telling me now because I almost died?”

“No.”

“Are you telling me now because I will die?”

That was just a little too close for comfort and she pulled back and away from him. His eyes were so accusatory she felt her nakedness. She reached for her breast bindings and began to straighten them hurriedly, both to eliminate her exposure and to have an excuse to look away.

As she firmly retied the knot, he grabbed one of her wrists. “Did you agree to marry me because you knew that I would die?”

Her eyes narrowed, “No, but I know you asked me because you knew you would.”

Miroku pulled himself up into a half-sitting position, “You think you can read me now, do you?”

She closed her yukata, “I hope not.”

Sango felt a chill when she saw his jaw clench. “I see. So I’m your tumble till I die, then you plan to rope in someone else.”

Sango rose to her feet, “Would you even care if that were the case? Really? I thought this was what you wanted.”

She wasn’t certain, but for a moment she thought perhaps that she had actually hurt him. “If I’m such a bastard, why do you love me?”

“You tell me,” she affected her coldest shrug and turned toward the door. She hoped he would ask her to stop even though she didn’t want him to see the tears that had already started to run down her face. But he didn’t call out to her as she left the hut, and maybe that was worse.