Title: My Brother's Keeper
Character(s): Sesshomaru
Rating: T - just to be safe
Genre: Family/Hurt/Comfort
Summary: A psychoanalysis of Sesshomaru's relationship with his brother.
Disclaimer: I do not own Inuyasha, Sesshomaru, or even the concepts of psychoanalysis. They belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Rumiko Takahashi, and Sigmund Freud/mental health professionals respectively. Only the actual analysis of Sesshomaru's brain-musings can be even slightly accredited to me. In addition, I am not a licensed psychoanalyst/mental health professional.
Author's Notes/Warnings: I am not expecting to follow a consecutive timeline in this story. Time shall remain liquid and temporal chaos may or may not ensue. Kindly consider yourselves warned.
Chapter One: In the Beginning
Smoke filters through the air, filling my nose and wrinkling it in mild disgust. It is a sickly sweet scent, one only the depraved enjoyed. I, however, do not and am thankful for the distance that dilutes it; lesser senses than mine would not have noticed. I could have left and placed more space and air between myself and the damned smell but I need to stay…this was the farthest away I could go and still know.
Blood flavors the smoky perfume, sharply spiked by scents I recognize. My father's, both old and new. His wounds from Ryukotsusei had left him vulnerable for new injuries to appear while he fought his new foe. I feel a twitch move across my face as another familiar, unwelcome smell greets me. No. She had left my father vulnerable. The human woman he had given his heart to. It was the way of her kind to guile others into danger and death. Her scent angers my blood, moving closer to me, away from the hateful smoke and my dying father. Dying for her. She lacks even the loyalty to remain by his side as he gives up his life, fool that he is.
The woman's aroma continues to gain strength and I can now smell sorrow and fear around her. Loss clings to her as well, but it is masked by the steadfast happiness that seems to be attached to the foreign scent that mingles with hers. I close my eyes, focusing on this new smell, separating it from the woman's until it stands alone. I probe at it with my senses, patient as it takes a form that is imprinted on my mind, never to be forgotten. This one scent that will consume my life from this point until either I am dead, or this young life is.
Brother.
I hate the word that fills my mind. There are so many more fitting ones. Thief, murderer, burden. I cringe at them all, pained at some deep, hidden level at this bitterness I feel towards the infant moving farther away from the father he would never know, the father I would never see again. The father I hate for leaving me this lifelong task.
No, he never asked me. No, he had no intention of leaving me the weapon capable of completing it. His impending death had brought the order down with more force than his voice could ever hope to muster. For he would die; he and I both knew that before he went to her. Even now, as I open my eyes, allowing the world's scent to mingle back in with the infant who shared half my blood, I could hear my father's words. Words he had spoken and the words hidden beneath them. "Sesshomaru, have someone to protect?" Sesshomaru, you are your brother's keeper.
A wind rustles the grass, the ends of my hair, the sleeves on my kimono. I turn into it, welcoming the fresher aromas it carries, blowing the smoke back to its source. My cheek brushes against the thick fur that pads my shoulder, stirring up buried scents that both soothe and annoy me. I force my face to remain still, to keep the surge of emotion locked beneath my skin where it cannot cause me any harm. "Curse you, Father." I do not spare a backwards glance, a simmering anger guiding my path. "You and your bastard son."
Author's Note: I'm sorry this is painfully short, but it is, after all, an introduction to both Sesshomaru's inner workings and the Inuyasha/Sesshomaru sibling dynamic. Also, bear in mind that Sesshomaru is not physically present during the events surrounding Inuyasha's birth/Inu no Taisho's death, and since this is told as a first-person narrative from Sesshomaru's point of view, his information will be limited and he can't react to something he does not know. Anyway, winding down the two-in-the-morning spiel, please read and review and don't feel disinclined to review if you have something horribly demoralizing to say, just so long as it aids in the development of my writing.
~Kagirinai-Eternal