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The Tale of the Demon Lord	By : Arianawray Category: InuYasha > Yaoi - Male/Male > InuYasha/Sessh?maru > InuYasha/Sessh?maru Views: 56279 -:- Recommendations : 4 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha or any of its characters, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
- 8
- 9
- 10
IX: Lessons to Learn
Lord Sesshomaru had lived far too long without a soul near him who had the authority to tell him what to do – his father had been dead these two hundred years, and his mother had visited his kingdom only twice in that time. As one both powerful and arrogant, he was rarely in the habit of looking deeply within his self-centred demon heart, or trying to comprehend the aspects of his character that he preferred to ignore.
So he did not understand why he caught Inuyasha in his arms to stop him from falling onto the seed he had spilled. He had dropped countless slaves and lovers into the messy aftermath of bedroom and bathroom activity, after which he would casually or coldly order them to clean themselves up, depending on his mood – sometimes making them change the sheets too – before ejecting them from his room, occasionally with instructions to carry the soiled bed linen to the laundry wing on their way back to their own quarters.
He had intended to take Inuyasha tonight after carefully preparing him, but all he wanted now was to caress him and try to soothe him, once he saw that the boy was drained and distressed by his own capitulation.
Although he had brought his half-brother home with the intention of educating him, and giving him the resources and upbringing proper for a prince who shared his blood, he had also known that the first and main thing he wanted was to have him in his bedchamber to do with as he pleased. He had thought to use him as he liked, but from the moment he had heard him crying in his own room, a host of disturbing memories from their past had risen to trouble his heart and modify the full extent of his intended actions. And when Inuyasha had started to take his own clothes off briskly as if he were a prostitute to be paid for his time and services, Sesshomaru had felt that pain in his heart again, and he'd had to stop the boy because what he wanted was pleasure and seduction, not businesslike coldness.
Here he was now, embracing the half-demon and revelling in his wonderful scent. He smelt like sex and warmth, intimacy and family, and something gloriously like the demon lord himself while being quite unlike him, which made him seem both comfortingly known and excitingly exotic. Dog demons are largely influenced by their noses, and to Lord Sesshomaru, this half-demon had a maddeningly appealing scent that he could not get enough of. He wanted to push his nose more deeply into his hair, his skin and everywhere on his body, but restrained those impulses because, to his surprise, he felt he had done quite enough to the boy on this night.
As Inuyasha emerged from his state of sleepiness to find himself still clasped against his brother's body, he tried to pull away. Sesshomaru tightened his hold to impart the message that he was not going anywhere, relaxing his arms only when Inuyasha started turning around in his embrace rather than trying to get away.
The boy's countenance was stoic by the time he faced him, the anger he had displayed earlier now concealed, as if he had decided that he had best go through whatever unpleasantness he seemed to think he would have to put up with, as quickly as possible.
Calmly, but with not the least hint of eagerness, he moved a hand down and began to touch Sesshomaru's groin through his clothes, while his other hand started drawing loose the ties of the demon lord's garments. Sesshomaru stopped him, grasping his wrists and returning them to chest level, getting in response a querying look from the half-demon.
"Don't you want me to…?" Inuyasha asked. "That is what you were waiting for me to come round for, isn't it?"
The inner discomfort that Sesshomaru had been aware of like the pain of a glassy shard needling his heart for two days reared up once more as he saw the dull, weary look in his brother's golden eyes. Something in those eyes bordered on self-disgust. Sesshomaru wanted to kill that contaminating dullness and revive the flashing sparks of life that had first seized his attention.
"No," he told Inuyasha. "I was not waiting for you recover sufficiently to pleasure me."
"So what do you want? Are you going to take me now, is that it?"
"No," Sesshomaru said firmly, although the erection in his trousers demanded otherwise. "Not yet, not now."
"What then?"
"I want to lie here with you for a while, is that all right?"
A curious warmth arose in the demon lord's heart when he saw that those molten-gold eyes widened a shade and a tiny spark flared.
"Mmm," was the little murmur that issued from the lad's throat – it might have been a sound of agreement, or a hint of a question – but it was a contented enough sound that accompanied the cessation of attempted action, which Sesshomaru found satisfactory enough.
After some moments of stillness and silence, Inuyasha closed his eyes and slept again, which gave Sesshomaru the opportunity to study his face as he had last night, when he entered the young prince's room prepared to be angry with him for keeping him waiting, only to discover that his childlike look when in the world of dreams of was so very worth gazing upon for its beauty and peacefulness.
But it would not do to be caught staring devotedly at him as if he were one of those silly, besotted monarchs easily swayed by his subjects, so when the boy stirred after some time and showed signs of waking more fully, Sesshomaru drew an expressionless shutter over his eyes while keeping his voice gentle, and told him that if he wished to, he could bathe before turning in for the night.
Inuyasha went to the bathroom, but Sesshomaru did not follow, leaving him to use the bath in private while giving himself a moment alone. For perhaps the first time since his father had still been around to guide him in the matter of how to live his life, he took a searching look inwards, and after much probing and opening of the long-closed doors of the soul, he discovered a tiny voice that told him he would derive no satisfaction from taking his brother until he was sure that Inuyasha wanted him to.
He had never needed nor wanted permission to take whomever he chose within his own castle, in any way he chose, desiring only to fulfil his urges whenever they made themselves known – and they had frequently made themselves known, encouraging him to lead a life of cold, calculated debauchery that he disguised as a manner of expressing his absolute power over his people.
The truth was that from the time he had understood that his father could not love him as he hoped he would, a painful ache had opened up like a wound in his soul, and grown into a gaping hole of need and anger after the former demon lord had perished. It was a weakness, Sessshomaru thought, one that must be concealed and patched up so that it would not conquer him.
Every satisfaction he desired that could numb the ache for a while and fill the gaping hole with a little more dirt seemed to help. Thus, for years, he had proudly and obsessively quelled that pain and emptiness through dominance, sex and game-playing in his personal life – although he had the sense to keep such behaviour out of the principles with which he governed his kingdom. Within his own castle, he had never cared to pay attention to others' feelings, save where it was useful for the purposes of gaining greater power over them or amusing himself with how easily he could read others when he chose, and thus control them by knowing them.
But he discovered now that forcing himself on Inuyasha would give him no pleasure beyond the immediate and, as past experience had taught him, temporary gratification of the act of sex. From this delicious half-demon, whose wide golden eyes and emotional character were so very like his father's, he desired more than immediate satisfaction.
Something scratching at his heart seemed to hint that if he could only find the right way to bind his brother to himself, the aching chasm in his soul could begin to heal. He had believed that keeping him here by force would do the trick; then that idea had quickly been discarded, and he had turned to behaving kindly to him while compelling his delectable little body to learn pleasure at his hands and teach it to need his touch; but that too was beginning to feel less than right.
He couldn't take Inuyasha tonight.
As he meditated on these things, he absent-mindedly rose from the bed and stripped off the soiled, topmost layer of the covers before realising that he was performing a servant's task, for perhaps the third time in his life since the half-demon came home. But never mind – the layer was off and balled up into a bundle, which he dropped onto the floor – it meant that he wouldn't need to summon a menial whose presence would doubtless make his brother self-conscious.
He ceased his introspective thoughts when Inuyasha came out of the bathroom looking and smelling clean and warm and sleepy again, wrapped in his bathrobe and pausing for a moment by the bed, uncertain whether Sesshomaru wanted him to remain in this room or return to his own.
He steered him towards the bed before removing himself to the bathroom, where he cleaned his jade implements and steeped his body in the hot water. He liked knowing that Inuyasha had been here before him, whereas in the past, from the time he was no longer a child, he had been spoilt enough never to have to use a bath that anyone else had used before he stepped into it.
He spent a good hour soaking in the water, relieving the tension that had accumulated from bringing Inuyasha to his shattering climax while not giving his own arousal an outlet. He briefly debated the wisdom of satisfying himself while in the bath, before concluding that he could restrain himself a little longer.
When he returned to the bedroom, he found Inuyasha fast asleep, curled into a ball under the covers on the side of the bed nearer the door. As he slipped in beside him, he lifted the covers a little to see if he was wearing anything. When he found that he was not, Sesshomaru wondered whether he should feel pleased to have easy access to his body if he should want it, or irked that it would now be so much harder to keep a lid on his instinct to pin the boy down and fuck him right into the bedframe.
Worse, he did not require sleep on this night, so he could not escape into oblivion by closing his eyes and drifting off.
In the end, he got out of bed, pulled on a light dressing gown, and sat at his desk for the rest of the night crafting letters to every head of state, diplomat, tribe leader, minister and casual contact to whom he owed a reply of any kind. He even wrote to his mother, penning a formally worded, stiff account of an unimportant matter involving some of her clothes and belongings, which she had left behind after her last visit, and which he wanted to know if he should send to her kingdom or discard, as some of them seemed to be attracting pests after fifty years in storage.
By the time he was done, the merest hint of morning light was creeping over the horizon. The demon lord dressed himself quietly, sent word to his personal attendants that they should not bother coming to his chambers as he was going to his office earlier than usual, and took one more look at the cherubic features of his still-sleeping brother and unwilling lover before leaving his room for the day.
~ - ~
Inuyasha awoke alone in his brother's room, surprised to find that he had been left unmolested in his sleep. He was quite sure Sesshomaru had not touched him after his bath – he would have woken up if he had.
He wanted to believe that it was because he was already getting tired of him after three days of amusing himself with him. But it hadn't felt like that. Sesshomaru still hadn't taken him, and he was quite sure the demon lord had wanted to last night, but had been holding back for some unfathomable reason of his own.
It was strange also that he had simply wished to hold him – it had felt quite soothing to be embraced and stroked and whispered to that way, after the humiliation of having his body exposed and toyed with as if it were the playing field of an elaborate game. It confused him. He did not know how long this could go on before he could either escape or be discarded, but he hoped that he would still retain his sanity and some small measure of self-respect by the time that came.
He pulled on his clothes and went back to his own room, where he tinkered about, wide awake, after sleeping so well the night before. When Natsumi came in, it was to find the prince playing a game of marbles with himself, sprawled on his tummy on the woven silk-and-wool carpet, scattering the colourful glass spheres in every direction by aiming and throwing other marbles at them.
He looked up sheepishly at her, for it was a child's game; but since his mother's death, he had had very little opportunity to be a child, and this took him back to his early years. He started to pick up the marbles, but Natsumi hurried over and tried to do the work for him.
"Your Highness, you shouldn't be doing this yourself," she said anxiously. "Please either leave it to me, or let me call one of the cleaning servants to do it later."
"It's not a problem, Natsumi," he said, continuing to gather them. "I'm the one who made this mess. Besides, I've been picking up after myself all my life. No one other than my mother ever picked up after me!"
"But you're living here now, and you mustn't think that I, or any of the others who are allowed to serve you directly, would hesitate to do anything for you. We wouldn't be doing our jobs otherwise, and wouldn't earn our pay."
"Does Sesshomaru pay you well?" Inuyasha asked curiously.
"He pays fair wages," Natsumi replied as she took the marbles from him and put them away in the inlaid wooden box they belonged to before heading for the wardrobe to choose the clothes the prince would wear for the day. "Those who carry out better work for him, or serve him more closely, are paid more. We who save carefully and don't squander our money have a good amount left over after meeting our own needs to send back to our families at home – and since all our meals and basic clothing are provided for, we do have more than enough to spare. Lord Sesshomaru hasn't kept any slaves here for about a hundred years either, from what I understand – everyone who works here is employed, not owned. I used to be a slave to a terrifying spider-demon ruler, but one day I was sold, and eventually given as a gift to Lord Sesshomaru's household. He freed me and employed me."
"So he's not a mean old monster," Inuyasha muttered, although he had already gathered from Jaken and from seeing the way Sesshomaru interacted with his staff and officers that his brother was a good leader to his own people, and a terror to everyone who went against him.
"He's rather cold, and he does use his servants and guests very intimately, but he isn't a monster except to traitors, and those who break castle rules by stealing or brawling, or being rude to important guests – the head staff know very well that servants who behave that way are to be punished harshly and dismissed at once. Lord Sesshomaru does not tolerate indiscipline."
"I have no doubt of that," the half-demon remarked.
He could be as good a leader as he pleased, thought Inuyasha, but to his younger brother, he was still the uncaring, intimidating presence of his childhood who had turned into a perverted tyrant in the bedchambers of his present life.
~ - ~
They had a quiet breakfast together, during which neither spoke much, the air awkward with the tension of Inuyasha trying to figure out why his brother had not touched him again during the night, and Sesshomaru wondering how best to seduce the boy. Then Inuyasha had gone for his lessons, and Sesshomaru had headed to his office as usual.
However, clearing all his correspondence the night before – even that which he had not intended to respond to because he thought the recipients unworthy of a formal reply – left the demon lord with much less to do during the day than he might otherwise have had on his plate.
So in the middle of the morning, he strolled over to the library where Inuyasha and Jaken were. He did not make his presence known, choosing to stand in the open-sided passageway-cum-balcony near the door and listen to what was going on within. His scent and demon spirit-energy were all over this castle, so Inuyasha would not immediately pick up the fact that he was nearby, while Jaken had too poor a sense of smell to detect his presence even when they were beyond the castle walls.
"What the hell is the point of learning how to word a proper thank-you note?" Inuyasha's voice was easily picked up by Sesshomaru's sharp ears. "If you've gotta say thanks, just say it – what do you mean there's a form and style to follow?"
"Your Highness," Jaken said in that forced, extra-quavery voice he used when he was trying to remain patient long after he had lost his patience. "I did not say that you had to follow a fixed format for every letter; I said that certain elements must be in a letter of thanks if it is to mean something to its recipient. Regardless of whether you wish to thank someone for a small gift, or a useful service rendered, or for something immense they have done for you, and regardless of how long or short your actual note is to be, it must achieve the following: it must at the very start thank the addressee specifically for what it is you wish to express your appreciation for…"
"What if your addressee has done something highly secret for you, and putting anything in writing would be incriminating? You know, like, 'Dear Black-faced Cook with the Singed Hair Whatever Your Name Is, I am writing to express my thanks for adding those large doses of laxative herbs to my tutor's soup at my request, because it meant that I got to skip lessons three mornings in a row. Your Great Half-demon Prince, Inuyasha'."
In spite of his dignity being at stake, Jaken chuckled for a second before he remembered to squawk with outrage. "Your Highness, please be serious! Being foolish enough to ask someone else to do something you wish to keep hidden is most unwise, for it leaves you open to those who may wish to take advantage of such secret knowledge at your expense!"
"Hey, you were just talking yesterday about how you may need to send out secret spies and assassins against your enemies if you can't finish them off on the field of battle! What about that, then?"
"Your Highness, one obviously does not send letters of thanks to spies and assassins. One sends only those spies and assassins that one can either trust, or who do not know whom they have been sent by, or whom one can tidily get rid off after the deed is done. As for black-faced cooks with singed hair, one certainly should not ask them to do anything at all other than cook what they are supposed to cook. They sound most untrustworthy for doing anything else!"
"Yeah, they sure are, especially if they're the one I saw stepping on you 'by accident' near the kitchens yesterday afternoon!"
"Back to what I was saying before I was interrupted..." the kappa tutor growled indignantly – if such a high-pitched sound could be termed a growl. "The next element that a letter of thanks must contain is a personal expression of appreciation relevant to what you are thanking the addressee for, to say how much you like what has been given to you, how useful you find it, or how much it has helped you. The details of this element will naturally vary with the nature of what has been given to or done for you."
"You mean something like: 'Dear King of That Useless Kingdom in the North That We Should Have Squished Had We Found It Worth Our While To Do So, Thank you so much for the pair of furry and bejewelled bedroom slippers that obviously used to belong to your housekeeper. The silver pig hair really matches my gorgeous tresses, the cheap resin stones totally match my sparkling gold eyes, and they keep my beautiful toes so warm when I need to get up at night to pee'?"
"Something like that, but without the sarcasm, vulgarities, colloquialisms or the self-praise," Jaken grumbled, before continuing with this most trying etiquette lesson. "The final required element in a letter of thanks is an acknowledgement of the person's thoughtfulness, or sacrifice, whichever is relevant, and how such thoughtfulness or sacrifice reflects the person's good character, or compassion, or reliability, whichever is most appropriate – no further amusing examples from you, please, Your Highness."
"Aww…" Inuyasha said in mock-disappointment.
Sesshomaru listened to that much before the appearance of a housekeeping servant along the open corridor leading to the balcony forced him to move on, to appear as if he had merely been strolling along the passageway, and not doing just what he had been doing – eavesdropping on his brother's lessons.
The demon lord walked away from the library, astonished by Inuyasha's mischievousness and ease when alone with his tutor. He had never known his half-brother to be so playful, or to have so much to say. He had only known the intimidated child who had crept silently around the castle for ten years, glimpses of the wild warrior who had lived a hard life alone for so long, and now the subdued, erotically beautiful youth who coped with whatever Sesshomaru did to him.
He did not know this cheeky creature with the lively voice and disdain for etiquette, who had almost made him, Sesshomaru, the demon lord, chuckle as he heard him annoying his tutor. He suddenly wished to know that individual, to hold a proper conversation with him, to see him smile and listen to his laughter, and even to have him telling his awful jokes as he lay beside him in bed. He realised that what he needed, much more than yet another lover, was a true companion – and that Inuyasha might well be his best hope for one.
Sesshomaru had not the least idea at this point in time how he was to meet this side of his half-brother that he had never been introduced to. But he had a most uncomfortable suspicion that forcing his attentions on him in the bedroom was not the right way to go about it.
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The Tale of the Demon Lord