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Through The Well	By : TheKaytla Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 25850 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 9
Disclaimer: I do not own the series Inuyasha, nor its characters.They are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-One
- 2-Two
- 3-Three
- 4-Four
- 5-Five
- 6-Six
- 7-Seven
- 8-Eight
- 9-Nine
- 10-Ten
- 11-Eleven
- 12-Twelve
- 13-Thirteen
- 14-Fourteen
- 15-Fifteen
- 16-Sixteen
- 17-Seventeen
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter Eight

Inuyasha nearly fell off the branch, he was so startled. Sesshomaru... apologising? Never in almost three hundred years had he heard his brother apologise. He'd never even heard of an instance where the daiyoukai had said he was sorry for anything. It simply didn't happen.

"After you left earlier, I began to realise my actions were questionable," Sesshomaru explained, his voice sincere and his face open.

He was. He was really apologising. Inuyasha found himself leaning over the side of the branch to get a better look at him. He couldn't help it. So strange was it to think of Sesshomaru being sorry that he felt he had to check it was really him.

"No doubt, given how little you seem to remember, it was shocking to you. And rather overwhelming."

That was a fucking understatement if he ever heard one. Last thing he'd ever expected after running into Sesshomaru was... what happened. He didn't want to think about it. But it was strange again for Sesshomaru to care about how he felt.

"I acted under false assumptions, and for that, I am sorry. It was never my intention to startle or otherwise distress you." Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed on his. "Even though you're annoying," the daiyoukai finished, reaching up to wrap his hand around the dangling ends of Inuyasha's hair befrore the hanyou could pull back. With a simple yank, Inuyasha toppled to the ground with a startled squawk.

He landed on his back, winded, with his hair splayed over his face and puffing upwards as he coughed. Slender fingers reached over to gently pull it aside, and he batted them away absently. It was then that he noticed Sesshomaru was sitting beside him and he sighed. Hadn't the daiyoukai said he was going to leave after he said his piece? Or implied it, at least?

"You didn't take my apology seriously." Sesshomaru's voice was calm, but the undertone of accusation was there.

Still lying on his back staring up at the Goshinboku's leaves, Inuyasha shrugged awkwardly. "I guess I did. I'm just... not used to you taking the blame for something."

"When fault is clearly mine, I won't hide from it. You... should know this."

"Yeah, well, I don't, do I? I keep saying that. Nothing's how I expect it to be."

Sesshomaru fell silent while Inuyasha lapsed into brooding. He still didn't know if the fault was with himself or his surroundings. How was he meant to know what to trust?

Finally, the daiyoukai spoke up again. "Why did you come to this tree?"

Inuyasha propped himself up on his elbows, eyes settling once again on the patch of bark that should look so very different and frowned. "Why isn't there a scar?" he asked, mostly of himself.

"A scar?"

"Yeah... Should be a scar about a third of the way up the trunk from a sacred arrow. Kikyo sealed me to that tree over fifty years ago, remember? So why isn't the scar there now? If a priestess' spiritual power marked a tree, the mark shouldn't fade, right?"

"That is correct," Sesshomaru said slowly. "But the miko did not seal you to this tree."

Inuyasha sat up all the way and turned to face his brother. "Did you meet her?" He'd been wondering about that, among other things, ever since his talk with Kaede.

"No."

"Then how do you know that? You weren't there."

"No, I wasn't, but after her death at the hands of Naraku, you came to find me for the Tenseiga. Yet it was unable to bring her back."

It matched up exactly with what Kaede had told him, he thought, with a sinking feeling in his stomach. And that meant the worst for him, didn't it?

"Why don't I remember it that way? Why am I the only one who remembers it happening differently? What does that mean?"

Sesshomaru's arm twitched, as though he planned to reach out, but he restrained it and kept his hands in his lap. "What do you remember?"

He gave a pithy summary of the events of that fateful day as he recalled them, only leaving out that he'd desired the Shikon no Tama for himself in order to become a full youkai. After all that he'd been through, learning that humans were not weak and that even a hanyou could be accepted just for who he was, he felt... almost embarrassed by it. Certainly it wasn't something Sesshomaru needed to know.

"Is something wrong with me?" he asked at the end, all but forgetting he was having a civil conversation with, and asking advice from, his brother, whom yesterday he'd considered a hated enemy. "My memories?"

Sesshomaru gave him a considering look, evidently still thinking over the story Inuyasha had told him. Finally, the daiyoukai let out a long breath. "I have never heard of anything that could alter the memories, especially not to such an extent. I had originally thought of that myself, but..."

Inuyasha's brows furrowed. "But what?"

"Something you have been saying has given me another idea," the daiyoukai continued. "You say that "this world" is different. Not your memories. Deep down, you believe that what you recall is correct, and the problem is external from you. I've begun to wonder if you might be right."

Inuyasha stared, his mouth hanging slightly open. Finally, someone was seeing his side of things, but of all people, it had to be Sesshomaru. Yes, this world was certainly different.

"So what are you saying?" the hanyou asked. "Are you actually suggesting this world is somehow... wrong? You, Kaede, everyone else?"

The daiyoukai shook his head. "Not exactly. We both know there are forces in this world capable of creating doorways to other times and places. The Meidou Zangetsuha is one of them; the doorway it creates is one to the netherworld. The monk's kazaana could also have been considered one, though we know not where it led." Sesshomaru's gaze had wandered away, but now it returned to Inuyasha and sharpened. "And, of course, the Bone Eater's Well is the most obvious of them all. You did say you journeyed here through it, correct?"

The simplicity of it, the obviousness, stunned Inuyasha. How he hadn't thought of it before now, he had no idea. Despite how strange a thing the well was, it was the logical choice. After all, what did they really know about the Bone Eater's Well? For many years, it had been a source of mystery, devouring the bones of slain youkai. And then it had brought a girl five hundred years into the past to destroy a jewel of near limitless power.

They had been naive to think it could only connect the present and the future. Perhaps the real truth was that it had simply taken them where they needed to go and could have, at any time, dropped them somewhere completely different. Really, he and Kagome might have been lucky it brought them safely back and forth all the many times they'd travelled through it.

If this was what had really happened, it meant he wasn't somehow defective. His memories were real. And so was this strange reality he'd been spewed into. Thinking of it that way, he could begin to accept that things had happened differently here without worrying what it meant. There was no crisis he had to avert because this wasn't his world to change.

Sure, it was still strange to think of a world the same as his own except really different, but it was easier to swallow than thinking everything had suddenly tilted somehow.

He closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath as the oppressive weight he'd carried since he'd climbed out of the well seemed to lift from his shoulders; the tension flowed out of him as the relief swept in like a cleansing wave. If all this was to be believed, Kagome was alive. His Kagome, at least. Somewhere, in her time, she was safe with her family, just where he'd left her.

Emotion swamped him. Something surged up his throat, desperate to get out. His eyes stung, and he pressed his fingers against them as he rested his forehead against his knees. He couldn't tell if he was about to laugh, or cry, or both; he only knew that he wasn't quite ready to let even this world's Sesshomaru see him break down like that.

Fighting for control of himself, he barely felt the hand that ran gently, soothingly down the length of his hair.

~*~

Twent minutes later, he was feeling a lot better. He'd managed to avoid crying like a big girl in front of his brother, and he was starting to come to terms with his current situation. He'd been forced to shove Sesshomaru's hand away to get him to stop stroking his damn hair, but he could deal wth that. It was better than the kissing thing.

He was finally able to wrap his head around some of the strange things he'd seen and heard; instead of trying to understand it all, he was just shoving it all in an "Other World Shit" box in his mind and leaving it at that. There was no need for him to try and string it all together neatly so that it made sense when he wasn't going to be staying here. He had his own world to be getting back to.

At least, that was the plan. So far, it wasn't going so well.

Inuyasha glared at the well and fought the urge to kick it. Only not knowing whether or not the thing had to be fully intact to work kept his foot in check; the wolf had already broken a piece off when he'd had a tantrum earlier, and the hanyou didn't want to risk anymore damage.

He'd just climbed out of it after it failed to work. Again. Why? What was wrong with it? Could it be like Sesshomaru said, that the well wasn't active here anymore?

No, it couldn't be that. If the damn thing was active enough to bring him here, it was active enough to take him back. So that meant something was stopping it working. Or there was a reason why it wasn't showing its powers now. He just had no idea what the cause could be.

"Why won't it take me back?" he muttered to himself. "It always takes me where I need to go."

"Have you considered that this might be where you are needed?" Sesshomaru asked quietly behind him.

Inuyasha turned to face him. He hadn't told Sesshomaru to buzz off yet, despite being tempted. Even if he knew this Sesshomaru was different and apparently not an asshole, it still creeped him out a bit to have the daiyoukai following him around like a shadow. But it was because of him that Inuyasha had finally understood what was going on, so he'd resolved to be nice (to an extent) until his tolerance was used up completely.

"What do you mean?" he asked. "Naraku's dead here, right? You said so. There's nothing for me to fight... nothing to do. I'm not needed."

Sesshomaru shook his head slightly. "The Inuyasha of this world passed away. Perhaps that is why you were brought here."

"What... to fill the gap?" He considered it. It was as plausible as any explanation, he supposed. If he was honest, he knew he wouldn't really be mourned back in his world. When he didn't come back out of the well, he'd bet his friends assumed he'd made it to Kagome and had either chosen to stay or was unable to come back. They'd be pleased for him and probably wouldn't ever know otherwise. They'd miss him, he supposed, but they wouldn't be unhappy. But here... here, people grieved.

But he found himself shaking his head. "Even if that's completely true, it's fucking unfair," he argued. "Shouldn't I get a choice in this? Fate or whatever the hell's behind all this can't just pick me up, dump me somewhere new and expect me to get on with it. I should have a damn choice about whether I stay or whether I go. I don't want to be here. I don't belong here."

Sesshomaru held his gaze a moment, then turned away from him in a way that had Inuyasha's ears lowering insinctively and he hated him for it. No one should be able to make him feel guilty about this, least of all Sesshomaru. Not even a different, apparently nicer Sesshomaru. It was his life, wasn't it? He got to choose where he went and where he didn't. He really didn't want to upset anyone, but this wasn't his home. Didn't they get that?

"Look," he said, voice sullen and ears still flat against his skull. "I can't be your Inuyasha. I'm not him. I don't remember the things he would have remembered and I didn't do the things he did. I'm a different person and I lived a different life. I have different relationships with everyone. I don't really know any of you, and you don't really know me. I can't just... slot in like the missing piece. I won't fit here."

For long moments, Sesshomaru said nothing. The heavy silence made Inuyasha feel extremely uncomfortable; despite knowing he made a good point, he still felt like he was somehow in the wrong and he really didn't like it. But finally, the daiyoukai sighed.

"I understand all of that," he finally said, but didn't turn around. "It's simply difficult to accept." Yeah, Inuyasha could relate to that all too well. "At any rate, until the well becomes active again, if it does, we all have to make the best of the situation. For now, we should return to the village. It's getting late."

With his ears still pressed into his hair, Inuyasha nodded, tucking his hands into his sleeves. If the well wasn't going to take him back, there was nothing he could do about it. He didn't even know what made the well work, let alone how to make it do as he wanted. He didn't know the rules. He just had to wait until it decided it was ready to let him go back.

Echoing his older brother's sigh, Inuyasha followed him back toward the village as the sunlight began to disappear entirely from the sky.

---

...oops. Kinda forgot to update this. XD I was planning to update when I got home from my uncle's... which was over a week ago. Oh, well. Better late than never, right?

Anyway. Time for the plot to begin! Or what's better known as the "loosely planned out idea in my head", anyway.
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Through The Well